CHAPTER V THE MERCHANTS' EXCHANGE AND THE MEETING TH WITH PHILANDER HE young travellers now began to think that they ought to write home, and get their letters conveyed by the merchants. So when they had them ready, Joseph conducted them to the merchants' Exchange in the marketplace. Their Public Hall, which stood among private houses, was a square building, but its two gangways, one on each side, took off from its width inside. In front a square tower rose from the roof, having on each of its four sides a clock face to draw attention to the passing hours, while the clock within ever and anon sounded forth the time for all to hear. Above was a little silverytoned bell only used on the more important occasions of convening or dismissing meetings. The central space within was open to the sky, and paved with roughish stones closely laid. There was a slight slope from the centre to the sides, where stone gutters drained off the rain and slush. Skirting this open space were marble pillars supporting the upper storeys of the buildings, and so forming a colonnade for promenaders, with a heavy timbered vaulted ceiling. The floor was a tesselated pavement in various colours, and continuous seats were provided along the walls. Below this were little stores filled with merchandise and necessaries of all kinds, while on a higher level there was what might be called the Ladies' Bazaar, an emporium of all articles of feminine adornment, a "tiring house" of which they never tired; for here those fancy articles which the fair sex ever delights in, as aids to elegance and fashion, were on sale and view. The buildings were roofed with lead, and the walls that faced the central area were all blank.2 When they had arranged for their letters and were walking about the place, a young lad was seen to be constantly following them at some little distance. His face was a handsome one, but bronzed as if by constant exposure to the sun. When at length he was somewhat nearer, the two lads, struck by his appearance, looked steadily at him, but he, directing his glances only at Joseph, at first did nought but tremble and blush, but presently, by his miserable, beseeching looks, showed that he desired something of them. Noticing this, Joseph went up to him and asked who he was, and of what country, and how he was faring. He replied that he was an Italian named Philander, driven by a stepmother's ill-treatment from his father's house, and that he had fled to Solyma, as he had heard it was a town devoted to liberal studies and honest pursuits, where he might gain a livelihood by honourable work. He had, he said, learnt Hebrew at home, among other things, and gave a specimen in a most delicious foreign accent; but that, since he was destitute As there is a pun, or play on words, in the original, I have attempted to follow suit. I have no doubt Milton was of the opinion that ladies who devoted too much time to "tiring their heads" were more like Jezebel than Martha. As I think Latin scholars would like to see some of the original of this elaborate description of the Merchants' Exchange, I place it here. It is the work of a practised Latinist: "Subdialis area rudioribus lapillis constipata sensim a medio umbilico vergebat in saxeos canales, qui confluentem pluviarum vim in se receptam sub terram demitterent. Ambulacra undique sub aedibus extructa, marmoreis columnis arcuatam tignorum molem inter se sustinentibus in aream patebant. Pavimentum omne discoloribus saxis tessellatum erat, et continua per parietes sedilia defessos ambulandi excipiebant. Infrà cellulae publicis mercibus confertae. Suprà cedes plumbeo tecto et integris parietibus inclusae; quas muliebre mercatorium diceres, et omnium mundorum mundum, quippe hic vaeneunt leviora mercimonia, quaecunque ad cultum et ornatum faciunt," Ch. V] THE STRANGER'S TALE 203 and a stranger, he had no chance of teaching or even of finding lodgings as yet. He ended by saying how glad he would be for any help. The eloquence of his pleadings and tears greatly disposed them all in his favour, especially as they judged from his manner and speech that he was of gentle breeding, and besides, Eugenius and Politianus thought of their own case, which made them all the more eagerly enquire about his parents, his education, and his adventures. As he showed no unwillingness to answer, and it seemed likely to be a rather long recital, they all betook themselves to the seats close at hand.' As soon as they were settled, the boy began to relate his troubles in due order. "Fortune," he said, "gave me at first more gifts than blows. My father was a Neapolitan of noble birth, with plenty of money, and I was his only child, but by a former marriage. He was kind to excess, and my stepmother for a long time seemed to vie with him in affection to She had an only daughter by her first husband, who was nearly of a marriageable age already, good-looking, and well dowered from her late father. Each parent me. looked forward to our future union. But often the most careful plans are easily upset by the simple course of events. I was staying at our country place, and it happened one day that I went hunting, and just as the sport was becoming exciting, I caught sight of the stag far in front of the hounds. As I judged that he was sure to make for a well-known place of refuge in the woods, I urged my horse swiftly in that direction, leaving the rest of the company entirely; but when at full speed he stumbled over a stone, and flung me headlong to the ground. Terrified and dazed by the sudden shock of the fall, I lost consciousness, and fell into a dead faint. This was quite the correct thing to do, as the favourite heroic novels of the period show us. Their characters were always telling long-winded tales, and the listeners at once began to look for chairs. An amusing instance occurs in Calprenède's Cassandre. We find there that when Tireus had a story to tell to Prince Oroöntades, the Prince at once went to bed and had seats put round him for the company, and so composed himself to hear the recital, Just then, as it happened, there was a girl, a foreigner, taking a walk not far from the spot, who lodged with our steward. Seeing the accident, she came with all speed to my help, and bending over me with every attention, somehow at last brought me back from my Lethean sleep. "The sight of her seemed to quicken me with the breath of life, and yet at the same time to withdraw it. Indeed, when my opening eyes first gazed upturned upon that face, I thought it could be none of mortal kind I saw, but some one of those woodland nymphs who, as men say, guard hunters in their peril. In fact, I was preparing to make her due obeisance. The sudden love that then took possession of my heart it is impossible to express; it came as a Divine afflatus, it made my heart glow as with fire from heaven. Perhaps my semiconsciousness made me an easy prey, or it maybe that my heart knew at once its fate and joyfully accepted it, as new-born babes when first they see the light.' "Besides her beauty, the great service she had done for me drew me to her, and all the more because she spoke so modestly of the help she had been able to give. It was not long before the others came up, and carried me, still rather faint, to the steward's abode, till a carriage was got ready to take me home. My parents had heard nothing of the accident till they saw me back again safe and sound, and when I told them, they were horrified at the thought of my narrow escape. I told them I owed my life to an unknown young girl who was living with our steward's family. My father said she deserved a handsome reward; and next day my mother and her daughter went to see her, and found that she was not in service there, but a guest who had come from Syria, named Crescentia,2 so they invited her to stay with us. To me, of course, nothing could have happened better, and my father and mother, not yet suspecting any love affair, joined me in paying her every attention. Her 1 Does not this incident recall the "foreign" fair ones who bent over Milton in admiration when he was asleep near Cambridge? ' Joseph (Heb. "He shall add or increase "). 2 Ch. V] THE STRANGER'S TALE 205 manners were so pleasant that all were charmed with her noble disposition and varied accomplishments. As she was very clever at needlework, my mother asked her to depict the scene of the accident in that way. She soon began it, and when finished you could almost fancy that the figures which she had worked in with her needle were real and moving. In the foreground was the youth. lying, deadly pale, and with drooping head, which the maiden was holding in her tender and skilful hands. Close by was his horse, still struggling on the ground, and vigorously kicking out those limbs that had so recently failed him. At some little distance the rest of the party, with the hounds, were following the stag, engrossed with their sport. All who saw it said it was a splendid work of art. I carefully preserved it, more to remind me of my love than of my escape. "All things passed like a happy dream till my parents began to urge forward the expected wedding, and to constantly speak of it as a second betrothal and the reunion of themselves in their children, to praise it as the best possible family bond of unity, the remover of all jealousies, a partnership which happily brought together and indeed doubled the family possessions, and to declare that further delay was positively wrong. Least of all did they think of consulting me in the matter, so unsuspicious were they and so jubilant. For before I saw Crescentia I paid my stepsister the ordinary attentions of a lover, and afterwards, when my feelings changed, I concealed my true love as well as I could, and invented from time to time plausible reasons for delaying the marriage. But there are hardly any secrets which do not somehow leak out in time, and so it came to pass that my parents were told the real truth, but by whom I never heard. My father began now to play his reticence against mine, and, without saying a word to me, he ordered the steward to take Crescentia into his household again, and to keep her as a prisoner there, and meanwhile had a report spread that she had gone back to her own country As soon as she was gone, my father urged my marriage |