love, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window;
long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladders
at the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming and
tearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with their
horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women
engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a manmonkey
on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs’ faces,
and lions’ tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully over
their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses,
colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end. Not many
actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering
the number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting
in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, and
flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour
of the time – an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, so
irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle
in flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, and
thinks of nothing else till half-past four o’clock, when he is
suddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the whole
business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, and
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Dickens, Charles – Pictures From Italy
seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street.
How it ever IS cleared for the race that takes place at five, or
how the horses ever go through the race, without going over the
people, is more than I can say. But the carriages get out into the
by-streets, or up into the Piazza del Popolo, and some people sit
in temporary galleries in the latter place, and tens of thousands
line the Corso on both sides, when the horses are brought out into
the Piazza – to the foot of that same column which, for centuries,
looked down upon the games and chariot-races in the Circus Maximus.
At a given signal they are started off. Down the live lane, the
whole length of the Corso, they fly like the wind: riderless, as
all the world knows: with shining ornaments upon their backs, and
twisted in their plaited manes: and with heavy little balls stuck
full of spikes, dangling at their sides, to goad them on. The
jingling of these trappings, and the rattling of their hoofs upon
the hard stones; the dash and fury of their speed along the echoing
street; nay, the very cannon that are fired – these noises are
nothing to the roaring of the multitude: their shouts: the
clapping of their hands. But it is soon over – almost
instantaneously. More cannon shake the town. The horses have
plunged into the carpets put across the street to stop them; the
goal is reached; the prizes are won (they are given, in part, by
the poor Jews, as a compromise for not running foot-races
themselves); and there is an end to that day’s sport.
But if the scene be bright, and gay, and crowded, on the last day
but one, it attains, on the concluding day, to such a height of
glittering colour, swarming life, and frolicsome uproar, that the
bare recollection of it makes me giddy at this moment. The same
diversions, greatly heightened and intensified in the ardour with
which they are pursued, go on until the same hour. The race is
repeated; the cannon are fired; the shouting and clapping of hands
are renewed; the cannon are fired again; the race is over; and the
prizes are won. But the carriages: ankle-deep with sugar-plums
within, and so be-flowered and dusty without, as to be hardly
recognisable for the same vehicles that they were, three hours ago:
instead of scampering off in all directions, throng into the Corso,
where they are soon wedged together in a scarcely moving mass. For
the diversion of the Moccoletti, the last gay madness of the
Carnival, is now at hand; and sellers of little tapers like what
are called Christmas candles in England, are shouting lustily on
every side, ‘Moccoli, Moccoli! Ecco Moccoli!’ – a new item in the
tumult; quite abolishing that other item of ‘ Ecco Fiori! Ecco