Prospero's Cell: A Guide to the Landscape and Manners of the Island of Corfu by Lawrence Durrell Page B
Authors: Lawrence Durrell
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silences between our sentences we can hear the oranges dropping from the trees in the orchard—dullsingle thuds upon the mossy ground. The marble table is wet with dew. An owl cries, and the watchdogs at the lodge grumble and shake their chains.
The Count smokes his homemade cigarettes in a short bone holder, stained with nicotine. Relaxing, and spreading out his hands against the moonlight as if to warm them at its white fire, he begins to talk. I have wasted all these words on describing the Count in the hope of isolating that quality in him which is so admirable and original, and when he begins to talk I grasp at once what it is. He is the possessor of a literary mind completely uncontaminated by the struggle to achieve a technique; he lacks the artifice of presentation, the corrupting demon of form. It is a mind with the pollen still fresh upon it.
While we sit here Ourania the heavily made but beautiful peasant girl comes out in her bare feet, the corner of her blue headdress gripped modestly between her white teeth, and arranges glasses of Visino before us; “Would’st give me water with berries in’t?” says the Count reflectively—“have I never told you that Corcyra is Prospero’s island? This,” he indicates the glass in which Ourania has placed a spoonful of dark viscous raisin jam, “is one of the links in my chain of reasoning. I cannot think that the scholars would support me, but you, my friend,” turning to Zarian, “you would take a little pleasure in the knowledge that Shakespeare was thinking of Corfu when he wrote The Tempest. Who knows? Perhaps he even visited it.”
It is the kind of opening which Zarian loves so much. His silver hair gleams in the moonlight. Taking his spectacles from his pocket, as if the better to follow the Count’s reasoning, he places them on his nose and says: “Now then, Count. Defend this contention.”
The Count has taken a small silver-hiked pencil from the pocket of his cardigan and is busy tracing meaningless little shapes on the marble table. He dusts some specks of cigarette ash from his clothes, and writes the word SYCORAX before Zarian. “Look,” he says, “Caliban’s mother, the mysterious blue-eyed hag who owned the island upon which Prospero was cast—her name is almost too obvious an anagram for CORCYRA.” He pauses for an instant and raises his eyes to Zarian’s eager face. He is unable to resist smiling at his friend. “Shall I go on?”
You will remember the Principle of x of which I was speaking? It struck me that perhaps in the work of the great artists I might find this outpost of the sensibility charted. In the course of my reading I stumbled upon The Tempest. I found what I was looking for in Prospero, but while I was reading the play I was struck by a few elements in it of a peculiarly Ionian nature. If you lose patience with the idea please tell me and I will stop. First of all, the shipwreck. Prospero s Island it is abundantly clear is somewhere off the main route between Tunis and Naples. I propose todisregard the claims for Lampedusa and Malta; and I think that if you observe the coloring of the text you will see that it is peculiarly Greek. Think of Caliban’s imprecation. “A southwest blow on ye, And blister ye all o’er,” and reflect to yourself whether this south-wester is not the worst evil that could befall an Ionian—sirocco weather. Then, to go a little further with Caliban; he enumerates the qualities of the isle as “The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.” I ask myself here whether the Venetian salt pans in the south of the island might not have been in his mind.
The Count says this with a singular and deprecating sweetness; I can see that he anticipates Zarian’s protest.
Zante has also a claim under that head. There was a prodigious trade with Zante during Elizabethan times; Lithgow mentions the currants which the English used in their puddings; and even if you read mere teachers of
The Count smokes his homemade cigarettes in a short bone holder, stained with nicotine. Relaxing, and spreading out his hands against the moonlight as if to warm them at its white fire, he begins to talk. I have wasted all these words on describing the Count in the hope of isolating that quality in him which is so admirable and original, and when he begins to talk I grasp at once what it is. He is the possessor of a literary mind completely uncontaminated by the struggle to achieve a technique; he lacks the artifice of presentation, the corrupting demon of form. It is a mind with the pollen still fresh upon it.
While we sit here Ourania the heavily made but beautiful peasant girl comes out in her bare feet, the corner of her blue headdress gripped modestly between her white teeth, and arranges glasses of Visino before us; “Would’st give me water with berries in’t?” says the Count reflectively—“have I never told you that Corcyra is Prospero’s island? This,” he indicates the glass in which Ourania has placed a spoonful of dark viscous raisin jam, “is one of the links in my chain of reasoning. I cannot think that the scholars would support me, but you, my friend,” turning to Zarian, “you would take a little pleasure in the knowledge that Shakespeare was thinking of Corfu when he wrote The Tempest. Who knows? Perhaps he even visited it.”
It is the kind of opening which Zarian loves so much. His silver hair gleams in the moonlight. Taking his spectacles from his pocket, as if the better to follow the Count’s reasoning, he places them on his nose and says: “Now then, Count. Defend this contention.”
The Count has taken a small silver-hiked pencil from the pocket of his cardigan and is busy tracing meaningless little shapes on the marble table. He dusts some specks of cigarette ash from his clothes, and writes the word SYCORAX before Zarian. “Look,” he says, “Caliban’s mother, the mysterious blue-eyed hag who owned the island upon which Prospero was cast—her name is almost too obvious an anagram for CORCYRA.” He pauses for an instant and raises his eyes to Zarian’s eager face. He is unable to resist smiling at his friend. “Shall I go on?”
You will remember the Principle of x of which I was speaking? It struck me that perhaps in the work of the great artists I might find this outpost of the sensibility charted. In the course of my reading I stumbled upon The Tempest. I found what I was looking for in Prospero, but while I was reading the play I was struck by a few elements in it of a peculiarly Ionian nature. If you lose patience with the idea please tell me and I will stop. First of all, the shipwreck. Prospero s Island it is abundantly clear is somewhere off the main route between Tunis and Naples. I propose todisregard the claims for Lampedusa and Malta; and I think that if you observe the coloring of the text you will see that it is peculiarly Greek. Think of Caliban’s imprecation. “A southwest blow on ye, And blister ye all o’er,” and reflect to yourself whether this south-wester is not the worst evil that could befall an Ionian—sirocco weather. Then, to go a little further with Caliban; he enumerates the qualities of the isle as “The fresh springs, brine-pits, barren place and fertile.” I ask myself here whether the Venetian salt pans in the south of the island might not have been in his mind.
The Count says this with a singular and deprecating sweetness; I can see that he anticipates Zarian’s protest.
Zante has also a claim under that head. There was a prodigious trade with Zante during Elizabethan times; Lithgow mentions the currants which the English used in their puddings; and even if you read mere teachers of
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