Siena/Ithaka

yes I know it is a little late... but nevertheless, let's  celebrate the victory of LEOCORNO with Tittia on the lovely (and only) mare in the race: Violenta da Clodia. I managed to see the race, which was postponed from  the night before. Afterwards I just had time for a celebration drink with Hettie, my new Texan  pal:

                                                

before leaving Siena, fighting my way  through the throng of merry makers along the Via Pantaneto, Via Montnini; Via Camollia- rolling my suitcase towards the train station and my night bus for the journey towards Rome, the flight to Paris and  finally to Mali, where I now find myself, but more about that later....

I was moved to discover, once safely on the bus and reading the messages from many neglected days that my dear friend Nicholas, the father of Theo who just stayed with his friend Will, had taken some inspiration from the poem Ithaka by C.P. Cavafy 

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/51296/ithaka-56d22eef917ec

and made up a lovely new version, which belongs to Siena:

As you set out for Siena

hope your stay will be a long one,

full of adventure, full of discovery.

Crowned caterpillars, Waves,

Crested Porcupines—don’t be afraid of them:

Their forces will be kept in check by the Contrada capitanas

as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,

as long as a rare excitement

stirs your spirit and your body.

Ondas, Brucos,

and Istrices—your contradaioli will keep you safe

unless you hear the March of the Palio in the square,

and then the Corteo Storico will have begun.

 

Hope your visit will be a long one.

May there be many summer mornings when,

with what pleasure, what joy,

you enter cafes you’re seeing for the first time;

may you stop at market stalls

to buy fine things,

first-pressing of olive oil, hand-worked leather,

fine wines of every kind—

as many sensual perfumes as you can;

and may you visit many Tuscan villages

to learn and go on learning from passing pilgrims.

 

Keep Siena always in your mind.

Arriving there is what you’re destined for.

But don’t hurry the stay at all.

Better if it lasts for years,

so you bring your story to the city,

wealthy with all you’ve gained on the way,

not expecting Siena to make you rich.

 

Siena gave you the marvellous destination.

Without her you wouldn't have set out.

She has her piazzas, her people and her palio.

 

And if you find no longer the renaissance city she once was,

Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,

you’ll have understood by then what these Sienas symbolize.