He seems scarcely to notice whether she is fair or dark. Fortunately
it is not impossible to fill in the blank spaces in the picture. The
old Greek stamp has left a deep impression at home and abroad. Where
there were Greeks there are still men and women whose features are
cut, not moulded, and who have a peculiar symmetry of form, which is
not less characteristic though it has been less discussed. A friend
of mine, who accompanied the Expedition of the Thousand, was struck
by the conformity of the standard of proportion to be observed in the
women of certain country districts in Sicily with the rule followed in
Greek sculpture; it is a pity that the subject is not taken in hand
by some one who has more time to give to it than a volunteer on the
march. I have said "men _or_ women," for it is a strange fact that the
heritage of Greek beauty seems to fall to only one sex at a time. At
Athens and in Cyprus young men may be seen who would have done credit
to the gymnasia, but never a handsome girl; whilst at Arles, in
Sicily, and in Greek Calabria the women are easily first in the race.
The typical Graeco-Calabrian maiden has soft light hair, a fairness of
skin which no summer heats can stain, and the straight outline of a
statue. There is another pattern of beauty in Calabria: low forehead,
straight, strongly-marked eyebrows, dark, blue, serious eyes, lithe
figure, elastic step. Place beside the women of the last type a man
dyed copper-colour, with black, lank locks, and the startled look of
a wild animal. The Greeks have many dark faces, and many ugly faces,
too; for that matter, uncompromising plainness was always amongst the
possibilities of an Hellenic physiognomy. But the beautiful dark girl
and her lank-locked companion do not belong to them. Whom they do
belong to is an open question; perhaps to those early Brettians who
dwelt in the forest of the Syla, despised by the Greeks as savages,
and docketed by the Romans, without rhyme or reason, as the
descendants of escaped criminals. Calabria offers an inviting field
to the ethnologist. It is probable that the juxtaposition of various
races has not led in any commensurate degree to a mixture of
blood. Each commune is a unit perpetually reformed out of the same
constituents. Till lately intermarriage was carried to such a pitch
that it was rare to meet with a man in a village who was not closely
related to every other inhabitant of it.
The Greeks of Terra d'Otranto bear a strong physical resemblance to
the Greeks of Calabria Ultra. It is fifty or sixty years since the
Hon. R. Keppel Craven remarked a "striking regularity of feature and
beauty of complexion" in the women of Martano and Calimera. At Martano
they have a pretty song in praise of some incomparable maid:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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