大象传媒

Chapter 9

Back to School

My brother was still working in the printing firm and my mother decided to send me back to school, it was free and all the books were provided by the state because of our poor condition, it was good because I loved going to school and be able one day to say to myself I have done something in my life to be proud of. I was eleven and a half years old when my mother sent me to the Agricultural College hoping one day I could become a skilled scientific agricultural expert to help farmers to become more efficient. It was a five-year course and there I learned many things related to plants and other interesting matter about soil composition and farm management, I still put into practice nowadays some of what I learned then.
The lessons were the same as other normal secondary schools except that the main subject was agriculture. I became fond of many other interesting subjects like antique literatures and maths, one subject was for me of particular interest, Roman and Greek mythology, philosophy and the classical poems of the Greek poet Homer who wrote Iliad and Odyssey and of the Roman poet Virgil who wrote Aeneid later on. I was impressed by those powerful poems well-fed with actions, adventures and, of course, full of fantastic imaginative mythology.
The Odyssey poem was one that captivated me with its long chronicle of the Trojan War that lasted 10 years, also the trick of the Wooden Horse in order to enter and conquer the city by subterfuge. It was indeed very interesting. The poem tells the legend and the vicissitudes of Odysseus (Roman Ulysses), King of Ithaca, trying to return home after the fall of Troy; he paid the price for ignoring the Gods for not giving thanks to them for his triumph on the Trojans therefore they punished him in making his voyage back home almost impossible. He was the warrior who cogitated the device of the empty wooden horse left outside the defence walls full of a raiding party ready to come out after dark and surprise the guards protecting the big gates of the city, the Greek army outside pretended to leave the siege and that relaxed the defenders, bringing the horse inside the walls thinking it was an offer to the Gods. That was their fatal mistake making it possible for the hiding party inside the horse to come out and overpower the guards allowing the Greek invaders to enter sacking and destroying the city of Troy.
Afterwards Ulysses and his warriors tried in vain to make the voyage home to Ithaca with his ship. But after nine and more years Jove (Jupiter) and the other Gods and Goddesses of the house of Olympia decided he was punished enough allowing him to go home except Neptune King of the sea placed enormous obstacles on his way Neptune was enraged with Ulysses for having blinded his one eyed giant son Polyphemus the cyclops.

Quote: ....."Neptune is still furious with Ulysses for having blinded the only eye of Polyphemus king of the Cyclopes. Polyphemus is son to Neptune by the nymph Thoosa, daughter to the sea-king Phorcys; therefore though he will not kill Ulysses outright, he torments him by preventing him from getting home"...........the Odyssey, Homer 800 BC, World Greatest Classic Books 1995 CD, Corel Corporation, Ottawa, Canada. World Library Inc

After passing several years with the Goddess Calypso who kept him there as her lover Ulysses eventually managed to reach Ithaca where his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus waited for his return. His wife had to find a way to keep the nobles at bay until Ulysses returned home, they wanted to fill Ulysses' throne and couldn't wait for his return. Penelope found an expedient to keep them waiting, she promised the nobles she was going to marry one of them only when she finished a large tapestry, she was doing it during the day but undoing it during the night thus the tapestry was never finished and, according to the legend, she kept them waiting for as long as ten years
The Aeneid was written by the Roman poet Virgil (70-19 BC) many centuries after the Odyssey and is based on the legend of Aeneas, a member of the royal family ruling Troy in nowadays Anatolia, Asia Minor. He was a defender of Troy but after the fall of the city he managed to escape away carrying his old father with him.
The Aeneid was a poem based mostly on ancient Rome and the glory of Italy but it gives a brief account of the hardships Aeneas had to endure and the perils encountered during his wandering voyage in search of a land where he could not be found, he eventually reached Italy and, according to Virgil, his descendants became the founders of Rome. The famous Italian poet of the renaissance Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) who wrote the Divine Comedy.

Quote: "The first part of "The Divine Comedy" describes Dante's voyage through the Nine Circles of Hell with his guide, the Roman poet Virgil. "Purgatory" and "Paradise" complete the trilogy"..The Odyssey", Homer 19 BC, World Greatest Classic Books 1995 CD, Corel Corporation, Ottawa, Canada. World Library Inc.

It was good learning, I was in a class where many of my class mates were sons of rich or quasi rich farmers, when the time came to have lunch they used to eat white bread with salami or mortadella and other delicacies right in front of me, that made my mouth watering. I don't remember what I was eating but I remember that I was very hungry and I wasn't the only one, that was really making me very depressed. I used to eat tons of bread before the war, it was the food that kept me and my family going, every night we had bread and milk and we never got fed up to eat that humble meal. The war was raging and the people were hungry, food and tobacco together with other food was sent to Germany to pay for war material while the population had to live on meagre rations.
We couldn't afford food on the black market and I was missing the bread, indeed I was missing the bread that my mother used to make, the freshly cooked bread that only the thought of it kept me awake in the night. One night I woke up shouting "mamma, mamma, I am hungry", that night I dreamt I was biting a whole salami with a piece of bread, it was an agony that I still remember with horror today, even now after over 60 years I still eat a big amount of bread every day and when I eat salami that dream comes back haunting me filling my eyes with some tears (and the mouth with water).
Another very hard time was when my brother went to the bank to take out ten Lire from his saving account, it was a prize he won in his last year at school but kept it in the bank for a rainy day but for us it wasn't raining, it was pouring and ten lire was worth for us a lot of food. I remember the rain outside waiting with my mother in the house for him to return with some food. It was the time when the cupboard was completely bare, it was one of the worst moments I can vividly remember, it was in the afternoon and I was telling my mother I had tummy ache caused by hunger. It was a very bad time for the people like us who had to rely only on food coupons. I cannot forget when I and my mother went to the bakery to get our pasta and bread ration, the assistant was weighing even the crumbs, I can still see on the scale the very small portion that was supposed to last two days. I could have eaten all that bread in one gulp. I felt a sense of rebellion and anguish cursing the war and the adversities we were going through.
At college I did the first two years of the course. I was suffering for lack of food, my brother changed his job to go to work in a five star hotel in Bologna, he was earning decent money and I decided to join him and help the family therefore I went to work there for the week-ends. At least with my help and my brother working we could afford some food on the black market.
Eventually I left college to join him. I swore to myself then that one day I would better myself by going back to school and get a better education, no matter the age. When the college was informed of my decision the teacher came to our humble house outside Bologna asking my mother not to discontinue my studies because I had a promising career in front of me, she was crying but I decided that I couldn't study with an empty tummy and see other students eating white bread with sausages or salami.

See Part 5

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