I. Line 1: the Italian words which I have translated _God's Wisdom_ and
_Philosophy_ are _Senno_ and _Sofia_. Campanella held that the divine
_Senno_ penetrated the whole universe, and, meeting with created
_Sofia_, gave birth to Science. This sonnet is therefore a sort of
Mythopoem, figuring the process whereby true knowledge, as
distinguished from sophistry, is derived by the human reason
interrogating God in Nature and within the soul. Line 5: Sofia has for
her husband Senno; the human intellect is married to the divine. Line
9: it was the doctrine of Campanella and the school to which he
belonged, that no advance in knowledge could be made except by the
direct exploration of the universe, and that the authority of
schoolmen, Aristotelians, and the like, must be broken down before a
step could be made in the right direction. This germ of modern science
is sufficiently familiar to us in the exposition of Bacon. Line 12:
repeats the same idea. Facts presented by Nature are of more value than
any _Ipse dixit_. Line 14: he compares himself not without reason to
Prometheus; for twenty-five years spent in prison were his reward for
the revelation which has added a new sphere to human thought.
II. The bitter words of this sonnet will not seem unmerited to those
who have studied Italian poetry in the Cinque Cento--the refined
playthings of verse, the romances, and the burlesque nonsense, which
amused a corrupt though highly cultivated age.
III. Campanella held the doctrine of an Anima Mundi in the fullest and
deepest sense of the term. The larger and more complex the organism,
the more it held, in his opinion, of thought and sentient life. Thus
the stars, in the language of Aristotle, are [Greek: thiotera aemon].
Compare Sonnets VIII., XIX.
IV. Though the material seat of the mind is so insignificant, the mind
itself is infinite, analogous to God in its capacity. Aristarchus and
Metrodorus symbolise, perhaps, the spheres of literature and
mathematics. This infinitude of the intellect is our real proof of God,
our inner witness of the Deity. We may arrive at God by reasoning; we
may trust authority; but it is only by impregnating our minds with God
in Nature that we come into immediate contact with Him. Cp. Sonnet VI.,
last line.
V. The theme of this sonnet is the well-known Baconian principle of the
interrogation of Nature. The true philosopher must go straight to the
universe, and not confine himself to books. Cp. Sonnets I., LV., LVI.
VI. A further development of the same thought. Tyrants, hypocrites,
sophists are the three plagues of humanity, standing between our
intellect and God, who is the source of freedom, goodness, and true
wisdom. In the last line Campanella expresses his opinion that God is
knowable by an immediate act of perception analogous to the sense of
taste: _Se tutti al Senno non rendiamo il gusto_. Compare Sonnet IV.,
last line.
VII. Ignorance is the parent of tyranny, sophistry, hypocrisy; and the
arms against this trinity of error are power, wisdom, love, the three
main attributes of God.
VIII. Human egotism inclines men to deny the spiritual life of the
universe, to favour their own nation, to love their individual selves
exclusively, to eliminate the true God from the world, to worship false
gods fashioned from them selves, and at last to fancy themselves
central and creative in the Cosmos. Adami calls this sonnet
_scoprimento stupendo_.
IX. The quatrains set forth the condition of the soul besotted with
self love. We may see in this picture a critique of Machiavelli's
_Principe_, which was for Campanella the very ideal portrait of a
tyrant. The love of God, rightly understood, places man _en rapport_
with all created things. S. Francis, for example, loved not only his
fellow men, but recognised the brotherhood of birds and fishes.
X. Ignorance, the source of all our miseries, blinds us to celestial
beauty and makes us follow carnal lust. Yet what is best in sexual love
is the radiance of heavenly beauty shining through the form of flesh.
This sonnet receives abundant illustration in Michael Angelo's poems.
XI, XII. Two sonnets on the condition of the philosopher in a world
that understands him not. The first expresses that sense of inborn
royalty which sustained Campanella through his long martyrdom. The
second expands the picture drawn of the philosopher in Plato's
_Republic_ after his return to the cave from the region of truth.
XIII. Campanella frequently expressed his theological fatalism by this
metaphor of a comedy. God wrote the drama which men have to play. In
this life we cannot understand our parts. We act what is appointed for
us, and it is only when the comedy is finished, that we shall see how
good and evil, happiness and misery, were all needed by the great life
of the universe. The following stanza from one of his Canzoni may be
cited in illustration:
War, ignorance, fraud, tyranny,
Death, homicide, abortion, woe--
These to the world are fair, as we
Reckon the chase or gladiatorial show
To pile our hearth we fell the tree,
Kill bird or beast our strength to stay,
The vines, the hives our wants obey--
Like spiders spreading nets, we take and slay
As tragedy gives men delight,
So the exchange of death and strife
Still yields a pleasure infinite
To the great world's triumphant life
Nay seeming ugliness and pain
Avert returning Chaos' reign--
Thus the whole world's a comedy,
And they who by philosophy
Unite themselves to God, will see
In ugliness and evil nought
But beauteous masks--oh, mirthful thought!
XIV. The same theme is continued with a further development. Men among
themselves play their own comedy, but do not rightly assign the parts.
They make kings of slavish souls, and elevate the impious to the rank
of saints. They ignore their true and natural leaders, and stone the
real prophets.
XV. Between the false kings of men, who owe their thrones to accident,
and the really royal, who by chance of birth or station are a prey to
tyrants, there is everlasting war. Yet the spirit of the martyrs
survives, and long after their death they rule.
XVI. True kinghood is independent of royal birth or power or ensigns.
High moral and intellectual qualities make the natural kings of men,
and these are so rarely found in sceptred families that a republic is
the safest form of government. See Sonnets XXXI., XXXVII.
XVII. As men mistake their kings, so they mistake the saints. The true
spirit of Christ is ignored, and if Christ were to return to earth,
they would persecute him, even as they persecute those who follow him
most closely in their lives and doctrines.
XVIII. Christ symbolises and includes all saintly truth-seeking souls.
Compare the three last lines of this sonnet with the three last lines
of No. XV. and No. XX.
XIX., XX., XXI. Expanding the same themes, Campanella contrasts the
ignorance of self-love with the divine illumination of the true
philosopher, and insists that, in spite of persecution and martyrdom,
saintly and truth-seeking souls will triumph.
XXII. Resumes the thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite
in its capacity, could be enamoured of God, it would at once work
miracles and attain to Deity.
XXIII. A bitter satire on love in the seventeenth century. Lines 9-11:
as Adami sometimes says, _qui legit intelligat_. Line 12: _la squilla
mia_ is a pun on Campanella's name. He means that he has shown the
world a more excellent way of love. Cp. No. XXII.
XXIV. The essence of nobility is subjected to the same critique as
kinghood in No. XVI. Line 11: the Turk is Europe's foe. Campanella
praises the Turks because they had no hereditary nobility, and
conferred honours on men according to their actions.
XXV. That this sonnet should have been written by a Dominican monk in a
Neapolitan prison in the first half of the seventeenth century, is
truly note-worthy. It expresses the essence of democracy in a critique
of the then existing social order.
XXVI. A very obscure piece of writing. The first quatrain lays down the
principle that ill-doing brings its own inevitable punishment. The
second distinguishes between the unblessed suffering which plagues the
soul, and that which we welcome as a process of purgation. The first
terzet makes heaven and hell respectively consist of a clean and a
burdened conscience. The second, referring to a legend of S. Peter's
controversy with Simon Magus, finds a proof of immortality in this
condition of conscience.
XXVII. A bold and perilous image of the Machiavellian Prince, who
drains the commonwealth for his own selfish pleasures. The play upon
the words _mentola_ and _mente_ in the first line is hardly capable of
reproduction.
XXVIII. Adami says in a note: _Questo sonetto è fatto perchè
l'intendano pochi; nè io voglio dichiararlo_. Under these circumstances
it is dangerous to attempt an explanation. Yet something may be
hazarded. Line 1: the lady is Italy. Line 3: the stranger races are
Rome's vassals. Line 7: Dinah is again Italy(?). Line 8: Simeon and
Levi are the Princes of Italy and the Papacy. Line 9: Jerusalem
probably stands for Rome. Line 10: Nazareth is the Gospel of Christ,
and Athens is philosophy. Here again Adami warns us: _qui legit
intelligat_. Line 13: a critique of the ruinous policy of calling
strangers in to interfere in Italian affairs.
XXIX. Line 2: Attila is meant. The Venetian Lagoons were the refuge of
the last and best Italians of the Roman age, when the incursions of the
barbarians destroyed the classical civility. Line 12: alludes to the
fixity of the Venetian Constitution and the deliberate caution of
Venetian policy.
XXX. The quatrains describe the old power of Genoa, who conquered Pisa,
abased Venice, planted colonies in the East, and discovered America.
Line 10: throws the blame of Genoese decrepitude upon the nobles.
XXXI. Campanella praises the Poles for their elective monarchy, but
blames them for choosing the scions of royal houses, instead of seeking
out the real kings of men, such as he described in No. XVI.
XXXII. A similar criticism of the Swiss, who played so important and
yet so contemptible a part in the Italian wars of the sixteenth
century. With the terzets compare No. XXV. Line 11: stands thus in the
original--_La croce bianca e'l prato si contende_.
XXXIII. A clever adaptation of the parable of the Samaritan, conceived
and executed in the spirit of a modern poet like A.H. Clough.
XXXIV. Line 4: the hypocritical priest makes profit by preaching for
holiness what is really hurtful to the soul. Lines 5-11 contrast the
acknowledged sinners with the covert and crafty pretenders to virtue.
Line 8: I have ventured to correct the punctuation. D'Ancona reads:
_E poco è il male in cui poco è l'inganno. Ti puoi guardar:_
but I am not sure that I am justified in the sense I put upon the verb
_guardarsi._
XXXV. A similar arraignment of impostors, comparing perfidious priests
with the foulest literary scoundrel of the age, Pietro Aretino. The
first terzet in the original is obscure.
XXXVI. I do not understand the allusion in the last line. The whole
sonnet is directed against hypocritical priests.
XXXVII., XXXVIII., XXXIX. A commentary on the first clauses of the
Lord's Prayer. Campanella tells the Italians they have no right to call
themselves men, the children of God in heaven, while they bow to
tyrants worse than beasts, and believe the lying priests who call that
adulation loyalty. If they free their souls from this vile servitude,
they may then pray with hopeful heart for the coming upon earth of
God's kingdom, which shall satisfy poets, philosophers, and prophets
with more than they had dreamed. It will be noticed that the rhymes are
carried from sonnet to sonnet; so that the three form one poem,
described by Adami as _sonetto trigemino_. In XXXVII., 13, I have
corrected _cenno_ into _senno_. In XXXIX., 1, I have ventured to render
_con ogni istanza_ by _with every hour that flies_, though _istanza_ is
not _istante_.
XL., XLL, XLII. These three sonnets, though not linked by rhymes, form
a series, predicting the speedy overthrow of tyrants, sophists,
hypocrites--Campanella's natural enemies--and the coming of a better
age for human society. They were probably written early, when his heart
was still hot with the hopes of a new reign of right and reason, which
even he might help to inaugurate. The eagle, bear, lion, crow, fox,
wolf, etc., are the evil principalities and powers of earth. No. XL.,
line 9: the giants are, I think, those lawless, selfish, anti-social
forces idealised by Machiavelli in his _Principe_, as Campanella read
that treatise--the strong men and mighty ones of an impious and godless
world. No. XLL, line 4: concerning _Taida, Sinon, Giuda, ed Omero_,
Adami says: 'These are the four evangelists of the dark age of
Abaddon.' Thais is a symbol of lechery; Sinon of fraud; Judas of
treason; Homer of lying fiction. So at least I read the allegory. No.
XLII., lines 9-14 are noticeable, since they set forth Campanella's
philosophical or evangelical communism, for a detailed exposition of
which see the _Civitas Solis_.
XLIII. Invited to write a comedy--and it will be here remembered that
Giordano Bruno had composed _Il Candelaio_--Campanella replied with
this impassioned outburst of belief in the approaching end of the
world. It belongs probably to his early manhood.
XLIV., XLV. Adami heads these two sonnets with this title: _Sopra i
colori delle vesti_. It is a fact that under the Spanish tyranny black
clothes were almost universally adopted by the Italians, as may be seen
in the picture galleries of Florence and Genoa. Campanella uses this
fashion as a symbol of the internal gloom and melancholy in which the
nation was sunk by vice upon the eve of the new age he confidently
looked for.
XLVI. The year 1603, made up of centuries _seven_ and _nine_ and years
_three_, was expected by the astrologers to bring a great mutation in
the order of our planet. The celestial signs were supposed to reassume
the position they had occupied at Christ's nativity. Campanella, who
believed in astrology, looked forward with intense anxiety to this
turning-point in modern history. It is clear from the termination of
the sonnet that he wrote it some time before the great date; and we are
hence perhaps justified in referring the rest of his prophetic poetry
to the same early period of his career.
XLVII. _Qui legit intelligat_, says Adami. Line 7: refers to the
outlying vassals of the Roman Empire, who destroyed it, ruled Rome, and
afterwards fell under the yoke of the Roman See. Lines 9-14 are an
invective against the Papacy.
XLVIII. A sonnet on his own prison. The prison or worse was the doom of
all truth-seekers in Campanella's age.
XLIX. For the understanding of this strange composition Adami offers
nothing more satisfactory than _mira quante contraposizioni sono in
questo sonetto_. The contrast is maintained throughout between the
philosopher in the freedom of his spirit and the same man in the
limitations of his prisoned life. Line 12 I do not rightly understand.
Line 14 refers to Paradise.
L. There is an allusion in this sonnet to an obscure passage in
Campanella's life. It seems he was condemned to the galleys (see line
12); and this sentence was remitted on account of his real or feigned
madness. We should infer from the poem itself that his madness was
simulated; but Adami, who ought to have known the facts from his own
lips, writes: _quando bruciò il letto, e divenne pazzo o vero o finto_.
Line 12: I have translated _l'astratto_ by _the mystic_; _astratto_ is
_assorto_, or _lost in ecstatic contemplation_.
LI. To this incomprehensible string of proverbs Adami adds, ironically
perhaps: _questo è assai noto ed arguto e vero_. It is an answer to
certain friends, officers and barons, who accused him of not being able
to manage his affairs. He answers that they might as well bring the
same accusation against Christ and all the sages. Line 3: I have
ventured to read _è_ for _e_ as the only chance of getting a meaning.
Line 8: seems to mean that he would not accept life and freedom at the
price of concealing his opinions.
LII. The same theme is rehandled. Lines 1-4: Campanella argued that a
man's mental life extends over all that he grasps of the world's
history. Line 5: the Italian for _mite_ is _marmeggio_, which means, I
think, a cheese-worm. The eclipse of Campanella's sun is his
imprisonment. Lines 7 and 8 I do not well understand in the Italian.
Line 11: 'Ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres
of the righteous,' Lines 12-14: saints and sages are made perfect by
suffering.
LIII. A singular argument concerning prayer. Campanella says it is
impious to hope to change the order and facts of the world, arranged by
God, except in the single category of time. He therefore thinks it
lawful for him to ask, and for God to grant, a shortening of the season
of his suffering. See the Canzone translated by me, forming Appendix I.
LIV. Another sonnet referring to his life in prison. He asks God how he
can prosper if his friends all fail him for various reasons. Lines 9-11
refer to the visit of a foe in disguise who came to him in prison and
promised him liberty, probably with a view to extracting from him
admissions of state-treason or of heresy. See the Canzone translated in
Appendix I. The last three lines seem to express his unalterable
courage, and his readiness to act if only God will give him trustworthy
instruments and fill him with His own spirit. The Dantesque language of
the last line is almost incapable of reproduction:
Ch' io m' intuassi come tu t' immii.
LV. Campanella tells his friend that such trivial things as pastoral
poems will not immortalise him. He bids him seek, not outside in worn
out fictions, but within his own soul, for the spirit of true beauty,
turn to God for praise, instead of to a human audience, and go with the
_tabula rasa_ of childlike intelligence into God's school of Nature.
Compare Nos I., V.
LVI. Campanella recognised in Telesio the founder of the new
philosophy, which discarded the ancients and the schoolmen. Line 3: the
tyrant is Aristotle. Lines 5 and 6: Bombino and Montano are the poets.
Lines 7-9: Cavalcante and Gaieta were disciples of the Cosentine
Academy founded by Telesio. Line 9: our saint, _la gran donna_, is the
new philosophy. Line 12: my tocsin, _mia squilla_, is a pun on
Campanella's name.
LVII. Rudolph von Bunau set himself at the age of sixteen to
philosophise, travelled with Adami, and with him visited Campanella in
prison at Naples. Campanella cast his horoscope and predicted for him a
splendid career, exhorting him to make war upon the pernicious school
of philosophers, who encumbered the human reason with frauds and
figments, and prevented the free growth of a better method.
LVIII. Adami, to whom we owe the first edition of these sonnets,
visited Campanella in the Castle of S. Elmo, having wandered through
many lands, like Diogenes, in search of a man. Line 5: this, says
Adami, 'refers to a dream or vision of a sword, great and marvellous,
with three triple joints, and arms, and other things, discovered by
Tobia Adami, which the author interpreted by his primalities'--that is,
I suppose, by the trinity of power, love, wisdom, mentioned in No. VII.
Line 6: Abaddon is the opposite of Christ, the lord of the evil of the
age. Cp. note to No. XLI.
LIX. This is in some respects the most sublime and most pathetic of
Campanella's sonnets. He is the Prometheus (see last line of No. I.)
who will not slay himself, because he cannot help men by his death, and
because his belief in the permanency of sense and thought makes him
fear lest he should carry his sufferings into another life. God's will
with regard to him is hidden. He does not even know what sort of life
he lived before he came into his present form of flesh. Philip, King of
Spain, has increased the discomforts of his dungeon, but Philip can do
nothing which God has not decreed, and God never by any possibility can
err.
LX. Arguments from design make us infer an all wise, all good Maker of
the world. The misery and violence and sin of animate beings make us
infer an evil and ignorant Ruler of the world. But this discord between
the Maker and Ruler of the world is only apparent, and the grounds of
the contradiction will in due time be revealed. See No. XIII. and note.