Nelson's Castle through Sharp's eyes & words

"...look beyond the castellated walls on to the lonely hill-pastures, and see a Daphnis of to-day "following his kine," and a Menalcas of to-day "shepherding his flock"--and one at any rate will have "a pipe with nine stops, fitted with white wax, and smoothed evenly." - excerpt from poet Sharp's travelog as he gazed from a window here at Nelson's castle.



"...And among the almonds yonder, round the first steading beyond the water-course, "the birds that cry beautifully among the thick leaves" may, if it be spring, be heard now, as in the days of Moschus' lament for Bion; or the cry of the quail or omnipresent magpie may be heard from the lentisk bushes, then as now "a plant of this land," as Theocritus wrote in his idyl of Pentheus, though then he had the Theban groves in his mind rather than these Sicilian highlands..."