Old Calabria

g dawn? And if you now glance down into this enclosure that once echoed with the song of minstrels and the soft laughter of women, with the discourse of wits, artists and philosophers, and the clang of arms--if you look, you will behold nothing but a green lake, a waving field of grass. No matter. The ambitions of these men are fairly realized, and every one of us may keep a body-guard of pagans, an't please him; and a harem likewise--to judge by the newspapers.

For he took his Orientalism seriously; he had a harem, with eunuchs, etc., all proper, and was pleased to give an Eastern colour to his entertainments. Matthew Paris relates how Frederick's brother-in-law, returning from the Holy Land, rested awhile at his Italian court, and saw, among other diversions, "duas puellas Saracenicas formosas, quae in pavimenti planitie binis globis insisterent, volutisque globis huo illucque ferrentur canentes, cymbala manibus collidentes, corporaque secundum modules motantes atque flectentes." I wish I had been th