"Mario." One of the surname-lacking poor. John felt in his pocket for a small coin. Mario thrust out his palms against the gift in horror, as again proffered violence. "Misiter Eliton he say a no. He say a Misiter Kettis molto povero."
"So it shows." John sighed. "Very poor, yes. Take this just the same." And then he had a remarkable vision. He saw this Mario as Marius, living by the Tiber while Rome was building, living through the growth and fall of the empire, always the same with his wine and bread and garlic, through two thousand years of the city's life. He gaped at the boy in awe. The boy said grazie, pulled a curl, ran. John leaned against the doorpost, trying to get breath back. The huge old book in his hands nearly slipped from them. Severn came out.
"Who was it? What is that? Are you well? You're pale. Is it bad news?"
"Not bad news, Severn. A present from Elton, that's all. Two presents from Elton, I think. I will lie down."
"Have you drunk your milk?"
"Some of it. I will drink the rest now. Lying down."
"But you're so pale."
"Not from weariness, Severn. Not that." And he went to lie down.
One thing at a time. He pushed from his head the vision of eternal Marius-Mario. He read Elton's note. "I take coach today. I woke well enough, though tired. No further you know what. I have taken much pleasure in our walks and talks together. Here is a farewell gift, a dictionary which I will no longer need since I am leaving Italy and am unlikely to return. It is very old, my great-grandfather had it. It is perhaps too old to be of use, but have it just the same. I will long remember the foul fustilugs and the business of the nose blowing, they will aid me when I am sad. A foul libel on the sex, sir, and the sex deserves it. Sincere good wishes from I. M. Elton, Lieut RE."
The book was intolerably heavy in his hands. He brought up his knees and made a lectern of them. LONDON, Printed by Melch. Bradwood, for Edw. Blount and William Barret. ANNO 1611.
Year of the King James Bible. Shakespeare was how old? Forty-seven. With five years of life yet to run, he might have held this book, this very copy, in his hands, also finding it heavy. John's lectern-knees became Shakespeare's. John Florio had been Shakespeare's friend. At least he had been secretary to Shakespeare's noble dearmylove and patron.
Cazzo, a man's priuie member. Also as Cazzica.
Cazzolata, a ladle-full. Also a musical instrument without strings.
Cazzo marino, a Pintle-fish.
Cazzo ritto, a stiffe standing pricke.
Cazzuto, a man that hath a pricke.
And a man that hath not? Incazzuto, perhaps. This is my dear friend, Signor Incazzuto. Apt for some play of Ben Jonson's, English humours in an Italian setting. Those worlds had been very close: the Italian realms and Elizabeth's own, or James's. No, with James they had begun to drift apart. Elizabeth or Elisabetta. She speaketh the Tuscan to perfection, my lord. Rightly is she named La Fiorentina.
He could not now, a minute after opening the book, recall whether he had opened at random or not. Cazzica, an Interjection of admiration, what! gods me! god forbid, tush. Tush, not to be superstitious, it was as though there might have been a sly Elizabethan guiding of his finger to cazzo and the rest that approval might in a manner thus be expressed from the shades of his translating that prick-naming sonnet. An interjection of admiration. He turned now to the back of the book, where Florio gave instructions as to the pronunciation of Italian:
For so much as the Italians have two very different sounds for the two vowels E and O which for distinctions sake, they name the one close and the other open… The close E… is pronounced as the English E or Ea, as in these words, Bell, Beane, Den, Deane, Fell, Flea, Meade, Quell, Sell, Tell amp;c and the open E… is ever pronounced as Ai in English, as in these words Baile, Baine, Daine, Faile, Flaile, Maide, Quaile, Saile, Taile, amp;c…
It began to sunrise upon him slowly what this meant. It meant that he was being granted a vision (not the just word. Audition?) of how Shakespeare spoke. He spoke like an Irishman, cazzica. He said not flea but flay. He pronounced reason as raisin. And now it flashed in where the joke was in Falstaff's words: "reasons are as plentiful as blackberries." Of course, raisins. With awe and something of fear, John felt as if he were being instructed by the dead in person, souls of poets dead and gone. Doors were being opened. Welcome to long life and further revelations. The gods were accepting the blood sacrifice of Lieutenant Elton. He, John Keats, was being reserved for, preserved for -
He was on his feet, hands behind him, pacing from wall to wall when Dr Clark came in. Clark said: "Good morning," tossed a coin in his head it seemed and decided on Scotch. "Ye seem – restless, restive, unrested. Ye luik to me to hae a fever, mon."
"I am well, I never felt better. There are so many things I have to do. Let me tell you my -"
"Ye may tell Signor Gulielmi, wha's waiting for ye ootside. I hae nae time the noo for poetical blatherings. Weel, the starvation diet is haeing its effects. Ye are thinner though, aye."
"Being thin I conform the better to your view of how a consumptive should look. You never liked the appearance of unsick normality. I am hungry all the time, and I cannot think that to be good, I am damnably hungry."
"That's subjective, mon. But, to be objective, nae bleeding."
"No, no blood comes up. Or down."
"Weel then, that is because of the licht diet. Persevere, and ye may weel soon be like Lieutenant Elton, the blood-spitting gone and he on his way hame."
"I shall end up here, sick or well, dead or living. I think Rome and I have things to say to each ither, other."
Clark waved that away as of no moment. "Gulielmi has a mind to take ye to see Roman things, meet Roman folk forbye. We'll gang doon together." He suddenly grew weary of Scotch, it seemed, as of a language it required concentration to speak, a sort of Italian. "It is not all that warm outside. The sun is a deceiver. Take your topcoat." John listened with interest to the patrician accent. He caught a flash of Clark in high places, a physician to the nobility perhaps, saw him in a gilded bedroom with a scutcheon over the bed, but heard comforting Scotch treacling out like a placebo: Aye, aye, ye rest yon heid the noo, yer grace.
"Aye," John said.
Gulielmi, raw northern bones and droll Roman eyes, drably dressed for the bright day, smiled faintly at a mother seated on the Spanish Steps, giving her great breast to a boy who was surely more than ready for weaning. Both wore costumes of the Campagna, artist's models both. The Steps were a lolling minced rainbow of artist's models, and there were also the flowersellers. The church bell sang once, and in some strange way it embraced the scene. John saw why, and his heart jumped. The whirring fragments of sound that splintered off from the bell's main note were those colours, and the fundamental bongggg was white. Colours whirred or whirled into God's white and away and back again. What did God have to do with anything? No, here in Rome you could not say that. There was room for Apollo and Venus and still some for God. He tasted the faint aloes of resentment at the hunched coughing narrow-chested God of the English.
"Mr Keats," Gulielmi greeted, "I see the rose of health on thy cheek."
"Master Kates, Shakespeare would call me. I have had the revelation this morning of hearing Shakespeare's voice. Florio's Dictionary. I have learned that Shakespeare said têle for tail and mêde for maid. Their sounds were not ours, they were European sounds. I wonder if Shakespeare was ever in Rome."