GONDOLA AND GONDOLIER
The gondola is one of the great charms of Venice: it alone, without art, without the genius of artists which arrests one at every step, would be enough to fascinate the stranger. In that gentle swinging like the swinging of a hammock, that light plash of the oar which caresses the ear, that incredible sensibility of the boat itself, which seems to move like a living being, in these and in the surrounding silence there is from the first moment a charm which no one can escape.CHARLES YRIARTE.Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimmingOnward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).The gondolier in Venice is as fine to look at as his gondola; he has colour, too, in the ruddy dye of his face, the infinite variety of his amber shirts and blue trousers and scarlet sashes; and if you really know him, he is one of the most charming of people.ARTHUR SYMONS.‘Row, Zarzi!’The gondolier rowed with increased vigour; the rowlock now and then creaked under his effort. The Fondaco dei Truchi melted away like worn and marvellously discoloured ivory, like the surviving portico of a ruined mosque. The palace of the Cornaro and the palace of the Pesaro passed them, like two opaque giants blackened by time as by the smoke of a conflagration. The Ca’ d’Oro passed them like a divine play of stone and air; then the Rialto showed its ample back already noisy with popular life, laden with its encumbered shops, filled, ... like an enormous cornucopia pouring on the shore all around it an abundance of the fruits of the earth.GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.
The gondola is one of the great charms of Venice: it alone, without art, without the genius of artists which arrests one at every step, would be enough to fascinate the stranger. In that gentle swinging like the swinging of a hammock, that light plash of the oar which caresses the ear, that incredible sensibility of the boat itself, which seems to move like a living being, in these and in the surrounding silence there is from the first moment a charm which no one can escape.
CHARLES YRIARTE.
Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimmingOnward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimmingOnward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimmingOnward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
Let me this gondola boat compare to the slumberous cradle,
And to a spacious bier liken the cover demure;
Thus on the open canal through life we are swaying and swimming
Onward with never a care, coffin and cradle between.
RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES (FROM GOETHE).
The gondolier in Venice is as fine to look at as his gondola; he has colour, too, in the ruddy dye of his face, the infinite variety of his amber shirts and blue trousers and scarlet sashes; and if you really know him, he is one of the most charming of people.
ARTHUR SYMONS.
‘Row, Zarzi!’
The gondolier rowed with increased vigour; the rowlock now and then creaked under his effort. The Fondaco dei Truchi melted away like worn and marvellously discoloured ivory, like the surviving portico of a ruined mosque. The palace of the Cornaro and the palace of the Pesaro passed them, like two opaque giants blackened by time as by the smoke of a conflagration. The Ca’ d’Oro passed them like a divine play of stone and air; then the Rialto showed its ample back already noisy with popular life, laden with its encumbered shops, filled, ... like an enormous cornucopia pouring on the shore all around it an abundance of the fruits of the earth.
GABRIELE D’ANNUNZIO.