The Greek Islands Read Free Page B

exhorted to tread a measure – which you will find yourself timidly trying to do, overwhelmed by all the good humour and warmth. Coming from an island with an inexplicable, built-in xenophobia, you will have a pleasant initiatory shock of delight at finding yourself forcefully adopted. And when you see whole oxen or swine turning on their spits in a deep trench full of glowing charcoal, you will recall the Homeric sacrifices of old.
    There are astonishingly few harbours on the other side of the island – indeed only one really meriting the name. That is at the famous Paleocastrizza, now half ruined by the tourist-promoter , though the old monastery on its hillock is still a dream-place and the magnificent cliffs upon which Lakones stands offer stupendous views worthy of Taormina. One can imagine what Villefranche must have been like a hundred years ago. But though the whole of the south of France was laid waste by urbanism by about 1930, Paleocastrizza, then largely unknown except to travellers like myself (i.e. not too well off), only had two little taverns in the bay. It rejoiced in an enviable solitude and unapproachability until after the last war; and even now much is left to admire, despite the crowding and the noise. Yes, the sea is left, thank goodness, and if you take a boat ride down the coast a little way you will be rewarded by some of the most dramatic beaches, cliff-bound and majestic with an untamed tide running down on them at express speed frominvisible Cape Drasti to the north. But you will have to watch the weather: for once pulled down below Myrtiotissa, there is nothing for it but to continue due south and try to swing round the southern butt of the island and so into the relative calm of the great bay which is crowned by the town.
    Odysseus must have met Nausicaa at Paleocastrizza; it is not possible to believe otherwise. One of the many talking points among the scholars is that much discussed word, Polytropos . It means ‘many-sided’, ‘adaptable’, ‘resilient’, ‘up to any eventuality ’, ‘apt for everything’ … and a thousand other things. It is curious to read that Odysseus almost monopolizes the range of epithets beginning with poly . He is arch-everything, super-everything . Nor does his physical appearance seem constant. Sometimes he is blond with a black beard; at others he is broad-breasted , a little swart man, slightly bandy-legged and hairy. Yet it is amazing how clearly his total personality swarms out at once from the text: wise, adaptable, cunning, sage – all that, yes; but also with a sense of humour and a common touch. He was no courtier, did not try to charm. Perhaps that is why the grey-eyed Athena was so fond of him. Odysseus was, among other things, an imp.
    Another, not less speculative, line of mad reasoning has suggested that Corfu is the site which (perhaps by mere hearsay) Shakespeare chose for his last play The Tempest . You may groan as you read this. Is it not enough to have one’s brain criss-crossed and fuddled with the attributes of Greece’s great acepersonality ? Must the British shove their alchemical Prospero into the island? Again you can only look at these green glades, these crystal cliffs and coves, and the whole play enacts itself before your eyes. Is not ‘Sycorax’ an anagram for Corcyra – the ancient name of Corfu?
    What about the history of the island saint? His enormous prestige and influence in the island to this day would justifydiscussing him here. The relic – and he is a real mummy, a funny little old man like Father Christmas – lies in a chased silver casket in the church of his name which was built in 1589. His original provenance was not local, and for some centuries he belonged to the Bulgaris family. But finally the miracles he wrought proved him to be something more than the lares et penates of a single household. He belonged to the island, and the family was only too happy to accede to the request of the authorities to