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A different phase of Amalfitan life now greets us, for here are to be found the hard-working bees of this human hive, and it must be confessed their ways make an agreeable change from the habits of the pestering drones that infest the beach and the neighbourhood of the hotels.
As the veneration of this Saint still exists so deep-seated that his Hellenic name is frequently bestowed on children at baptism, it may not be deemed amiss to give a very brief account of this eastern Martyr, who is so closely associated with Amalfitan, and later with Venetian life. Pantaleone was born at Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the son of a Pagan father and a Christian mother.
For we were wont to pass the whole day, even the short December day, in basking on the warm sheltered terrace and peering over the busy beach and the dazzling waters below, whereon the tale of Amalfitan fisher-life could be read as it were from the pages of a book. Somehow the old monastic buildings appear marvellously well adapted to modern needs.
We had the most beautiful grapes at breakfast at Leo Cairngorm's the other day, so of course they must have them here. Brook! Do tell the man not to be absurd!" "Man!" said the member of the party she had last addressed. "Do not be absurd!" "Sì, Signore," replied the black-whiskered Amalfitan servant with alacrity. "You see!" cried the little lady triumphantly. "I told you so!
Gibbon found the first suggestion for his Roman History whilst musing upon the ruins of the Capitol, and he finished his great work in a Swiss garden amidst the scent of acacia bloom; might not the annals of the Amalfitan Republic likewise spring from reflections made upon this terrace, where the memories of a former greatness still beautiful in its decay must operate so powerfully?
Only one sailor over these seas proved himself a match for the wiles of the cruel goddesses of the Amalfitan coast; for Ulysses, as we know, stopped the ears of his companions with wax on their approach towards this dangerous spot, whilst he himself, always eager to hear and see everything yet perfectly well aware of the Sirens’ magnetic power, had himself tightly bound by cords to the mast.
Turning aside from Sigilgaita’s steady gaze and making the round of the bleak white-washed building, our eyes are suddenly attracted by a fine picture, in the manner of Domenichino, representing the martyrdom of Pantaleone, the popular Amalfitan Saint to whom this church was dedicated by the Rufolo family.
From the point of view of history the chief interest of Positano centres in the time-honoured tradition that Flavio Gioja, the original inventor of the compass, was a native of this town, once a flourishing and important member of the group of cities which comprised the Amalfitan Republic in its palmy days.
Lemons, which are far more delicate than oranges and require to be kept protected by screens and matting during the sharp winter nights, are less common at Sorrento than on the warmer shores of the Bay of Baia or the sunny terraced slopes of the Amalfitan coast.
But here we seem to be under the very eyes of the Sun-God, who stares fixedly from rising to setting upon the Amalfitan coast. Welcome enough is this continuous basking in his smiles during the short winter days; but oh! the long, long summer hours wherein King Helios relentlessly pours down his burning glances upon the shallow soil that covers the rocky face of the Costiera!
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