he bade his chamberlain deliver to
Ghismonda, with these cruel words: "Your father sends this present to
comfort you with what was most dear to you; even as he was comforted by
you in what was most dear to him." With a calm countenance and with a
gracious word of thanks, the Princess accepted the gift, and on removing
the cover and realising the contents of the cup, said with meaning to the
bearer of this gruesome present: "My father has done very wisely; such a
heart as this requires no worse a sepulchre than one of gold." Then after
lamenting for a while over her lover's fate, Ghismonda filled the goblet
with a draught of poison that she had already prepared in anticipation of
her father's vengeance, and quaffed its contents. After this she lay down
upon her bed, clasping the cup to her bosom, whereupon her maids, all
ignorant of the cause of their mistress' conduct, ran terrified to call
Prince Tancred, who arrived in time to witness his unhappy daughter's
death agony. Now that it was too late, the Prince was stricken with
remorse and began loudly to bewail the violence of his late anger. "Sire,"
said the dying Princess, "save those tears against worse fortune that may
happen, for I want them not. Who but yourself would mourn for a thing of
your own doing?" Then dropping her tone of irony, she made one last
request of her weeping and repentant father, that her own and Guiscard's
bodies might be honourably interred within the same tomb. Thus perished by
her own hand the beautiful Princess Ghismonda of Salerno, Duchess of
Capua, urged to the fell deed by a parent's inexorable cruelty. And it is
some slight consolation to the sad ending of the story to learn that
Tancred did at least carry out his daughter's dying entreaty, for the
bodies of Ghismonda and Guiscard were duly laid in one grave amidst the
pomp of religion and the cold comfort of a public mourning.(7)

* * * * * *

But the sun has long since sunk below the horizon, and the chill dews of
night are falling round us. Hastily we leave the old palace of the princes
of Salerno to the solitary occupation of the bats and owls, to seek warmth
and cheerfulness in our inn upon the Marina.

CHAPTER IX

PAESTUM AND THE GLORY THAT WAS GREECE

In these days of easy travelling there lies a choice of two routes to
Paestum and its temples: one by driving thither direct from L