The view was impressive after the rocky climb. It was barren, and except for the well-worn paths leading to it, no one would suspect humans had been here. I examined the dolomite outcrop we stood on, rendered smooth by millennia of wind and rain, crevasses supporting wild fescue, roots pressing deep into available spaces. Further back, where soil had accumulated, stands of tamarind, with gnarled trunks and fern-like foliage, seemed protective.

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“What was here,” I asked, “for pathways to lead to it?”

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Enzo, my guide, glanced at the three—one on either side of the promontory and the third running through the tamarind trees, all converging here. “Trivia,” he smiled. “Her shrine was where we now stand, signorina.”

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“Trivia?” I asked. “I haven’t encountered her before.”

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“But you know the name Hecate, correct?

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“Of course. The Greek witch-goddess of spaces between life and death.” My memory stretched to my early Cambridge years.

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“Trivia is her Roman equivalent,” he said, eager to help me explore this. “I have Ovid in my library,” he said, “and Virgil and Bullfinch.” He bowed slightly. “You are welcome to peruse these volumes at the villa.”

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His villa, a few miles away in the Tuscan foothills, was a large family home. He and Marta, his wife, had lived here for thirty-some years. Probably fiftyish, he was a solicitous host. I had taken a two-week break from my folklore curriculum to regroup. When he learned this, he became my uninvited but welcome tutor. He insisted on showing me this ancient site. It was not on tourist maps for a reason: there was nothing here.

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I looked around for foundation stones or broken pillars or paving. Nothing. Just three crumbling stone-lined pathways, converging. “How do you know this was her shrine?” I asked, “or even an ancient site at all?”

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“I have an engraving,” Enzo said. “Dante’s time. It shows this place, with the same coastline in the background.” He moved to the center of the outcrop. “And right here was an aedicula—a small temple-like structure—with two columns supporting a pediment.” He gestured to his feet. “Where I stand was a small altar with a brazier for offerings.”

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I tried to imagine this as my eyes swept across the vacant space and out to the Mediterranean. Two sails moved on the water. The afternoon sea breeze pushed small cumulus puffs above us like cotton candy. It was serene. But beyond Trivia’s universe.

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“When I was younger,” Enzo said, “a few of us would come up here—at night under a full moon, as we will have tomorrow.” He looked around as if searching for a forgotten place. “We brought a grill, and roasted duck and drank wine.” He smiled at the recollection. “It was a sweet diversion, and when we finished, we poured a draught of Chianti on the stone. Per te, mia dea, we would say: ‘For you, my goddess’.” He laughed; though in his eyes I saw wistfulness.

 

❦

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That evening I curled up in the common room by the fireplace with texts from Enzo’s library. Homer’s Orphic Hymns recounts the tale of Hekate as guide to the underworld in Demeter’s search for her abducted daughter Persephone. Upon their reunion “with hearts as one,” he writes, “did they greatly cheer each the other’s soul and spirit with many an embrace…. and from that time the lady Hekate was minister and companion to Persephone.” Trivia is described in the same stories, and as companion to Proserpina guides her, annually, in then out of the underworld in repeating cycles.

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My interest was provoked. The following night I drove again to the site, parking above our rocky climb, at the entrance to the promontory from the east, through the tamarinds. The full moon was so bright I didn’t need my flashlight. The bare dolomite glistened as I came out from beneath the trees with their fairy-like leaves and stood on the stony surface, still warm from the sun. I spread a tablecloth on the rock, sitting cross-legged, taking small figs and pecorino from my backpack. It was relaxing, the crusty Tuscan bread and fiasco of Chianti good companions in the quiet moonlight. It’s not nearly as noisy as sunlight, I thought, its reflection shimmering on the distant Mediterranean. I was in a place that no longer existed.

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But most mythology is metaphor. The gods and goddesses of Olympus manifest human-like intrigue and so offer us moral lessons. I wonder if the darkness that Trivia leads Proserpina into and out of is ignorance, and enlightenment comes in cycles, like the full moon. I looked up at it as I packed. Then I poured a little Chianti on the stone where I had sat. A small offering. “Per te, mia dea,” I whispered, and left the way I had come.