I marinai di Partenope is Italian for "the sailors of Parthenope". In Greek mythology, sirens were creatures whose singing no sailor could resist: men who heard it steered toward the sound and died on the rocks. Parthenope was one of them, and she lived in this bay. When the hero Odysseus sailed through and her song failed to hold him, she threw herself into the sea. The current left her body on the rock where Castel dell'Ovo, the oldest castle in the city, stands today.
The Greeks held that any ground where a divine being had died became sacred. So instead of sailing on, they settled on that spot. The town they founded grew into Naples. Nearly three thousand years later, its people are still called partenopei : Parthenope's.
Her bay, still. Engine off, an arm in the sea, feeling for her. Behind him, the volcano that buried a city and ended up on its postcards.
I marinai di Partenope is Italian for "the sailors of Parthenope". In Greek mythology, sirens were creatures whose singing no sailor could resist: men who heard it steered toward the sound and died on the rocks. Parthenope was one of them, and she lived in this bay. When the hero Odysseus sailed through and her song failed to hold him, she threw herself into the sea. The current left her body on the rock where Castel dell'Ovo, the oldest castle in the city, stands today.
The Greeks held that any ground where a divine being had died became sacred. So instead of sailing on, they settled on that spot. The town they founded grew into Naples. Nearly three thousand years later, its people are still called partenopei : Parthenope's.
Her bay, still. Engine off, an arm in the sea, feeling for her. Behind him, the volcano that buried a city and ended up on its postcards.
