WILLIAM SPOONER, 377, STRAND; M. STAUNTON, 80, MARLBOROUGH STREET, DUBLIN, 1837. 19677 THE DUBLIN REVIEW. JULY 1837. ART. I.-La Mimica degli Antichi investigata nel Gestire Napolitano. The Gestures of the Ancients sought in the Gesticulations of the Neapolitans. By the Canon Andrea de Jorio. Naples. 1832. WHEN WHEN Italians converse, it is not the tongue alone that has full occupation; their words are sure to have an instrumental accompaniment, in the gestures of their bodies. You never see, among them, two gentlemen standing bolt upright, one with his hands behind his back, and the other leaning on his umbrella, while they resolve to oppose a bill in Parliament, or to file one in Chancery, or determine to protest one in the city. You never see an orator, sacred or profane, screwed down in the middle of his pulpit, or wedged between the benches of his court, or holding hard on the front of his hustings, as though afraid of being run away with by his honourable pillory, and pouring forth impassioned eloquence, with a statuelike stillness of limbs, unless the right arm escape, to move up and down with the regularity of a pump-handle, or inflict, from time to time, a clenching blow upon the subjacent boards. No, it is not so in Italy. Let two friends sit down to solace themselves at the door of a café, in the cool of a summer's evening, or let them walk together along the noisy street of Toledo, at Naples; let their conversation be upon the merest trifle, the present opera, the last festival, or the next marriage, and each speaker, as he utters his opinion in flowing musical sounds, will be seen to move his fingers, his hands, and his entire body, with a variety of gestures, attuned in perfect cadence to the emphasis of his words. See, one of them now is not actually speaking, though the other has ceased; but he has raised his right hand, keeping the points of the thumb and index joined, and the other fingers expanded, and has laid his left gently upon his companion's arm. Depend upon it, his reply is going to open with a sententious saw, some magnificent truism, from which he will draw marvellous consequences. His mouth will open slowly, VOL. III.NO. V. B ere.it yields a sound; and when at last Sir Oracle' speaks, the right hand will beat time, by rising and falling on each substantive and verb of the sentence; and at its close, the two wedded .fingers will fly apart, and the entire expanded hand waive with grace and dignity outwards, if the propositions be positive. If negative, the fore-finger alone will remain extended, and erect, and be slowly moved backwards and forwards between the interlocutors' faces. When the solemn sentence has been pronounced, and enforced by a dignified toss of the head, it is the other's turn. But the dictum was probably too vague and general to receive a specific reply; and, therefore, reserving his opinion till he has better felt his way, he shakes his head and hands, uttering, you may depend upon it, the monosyllabic but polysemous exclamation "Eh!" which, like a Chinese word, receives its meaning from its varying accent. The active speaker perceives that he has not carried the outworks of his friend's conviction, and addresses himself to a stronger attack. He now assumes the gesture of earnest remonstrance; his two hands are joined palm to palm, with the thumbs depressed, and the fingers closely glued together, (for were the former erect, and the little fingers detached, and especially were they moved up and down, the gesture would signify not to pray but to bray, being the hieroglyphic for a donkey;) and in this position they beat time, moving up and down, while the head is thrown back upon the right shoulder. We can hear the very words too here; they begin for certain with "abbie pazienze," a reproachful expostulation; after which follows a more energetic repetition, slightly varied of what had been previously urged; and, as the sentence closes, the hands are separated, and fly apart. If the point is not carried, the reasoning is enforced by a more personal appeal. All the fingers of the right hand are joined together with the thumb, and their united points are pressed upon the forehead, which bends forward towards the unconvinced and incredulous listener, while a new form is given to the argument. This gesture is a direct appeal to the common sense of the other party; it is like intimating, that, if he have brains he must understand the reasoning. Further obstinacy would lead to altercation, and assent is yielded by a slow shrug, with the head inclined, and the hands separately raised, the palms turned downwards. "Evero,' "ha ragione," or 66 non si può negare," are doubtless the accompanying words. All this is a quiet, friendly scene: and, indeed, there are one "Bear with me," literally-"have patience." |