The limbs are finely moulded,
though the waist, as usual in Mycenaean fashions, is tightly drawn
in by a silver-mounted girdle, giving great relief to the hips.
The profile of the face is pure and almost classically Greek....
The lips are somewhat full, but the physiognomy has certainly no
Semitic cast.... There was something very impressive in this vision
of brilliant youth and of male beauty, recalled after so long an
interval to our upper air from what had been, till yesterday, a
forgotten world. Even our untutored Cretan workmen felt the spell
and fascination. They, indeed, regarded the discovery of such a
painting in the bosom of the earth as nothing less than miraculous,
and saw in it the icon of a Saint! The removal of the fresco required
a delicate and laborious piece of under-plastering, which necessitated
its being watched at night, and old Manolis, one of the most trustworthy
of our gang, was told off for the purpose. Somehow or other he
fell asleep, but the wrathful saint appeared to him in a dream.
Waking with a start, he was conscious of a mysterious presence;
the animals round began to low and neigh, and "there were visions
about"; "[Greek: phautazei]," he said, in summing up his experiences
next morning, "the whole place spooks!"'[*]
[Footnote *: _Monthly Review_, March, 1901, pp.
Pages:
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86