Torquato Tasso--His insanity--Theories of Dr. Verga and Mr.
Wilde--His connection with Urbino--His intercourse with the
Princess of Este--His portraits--His letter to the Duke of
Urbino--His confinement--His death--His poetry--Battista
Guarini.
Our passing notice of Italian song would be incomplete without the
name of Italy's favourite bard, even had TASSO[*178] found
no hospitality at Urbino, no sympathy from its Duchess Lucrezia.
Yet what shall we say of one whose loves and woes have filled
many volumes,--whose life, character, and motives, after baffling
biographers, and puzzling moralists, are still matter rather of
controversy than of history, of speculation than of fact. That he was
imbued with true genius, with its failings as well as its powers, is
fixed by the unanimous verdict of posterity. That his misfortunes
have tended greatly to enhance the sympathising veneration which
hangs around his name, may be quoted in proof of the eternal justice
of Providence. The rolls of Parnassus may exhibit names more gifted,
the annals of human suffering are inscribed with greater calamities
and deeper griefs, but in no other case, perhaps, have talents and
trials been more mingled together on an equally prominent stage.
His supposed persecutor was elevated enough to command the world's
gaze, and upon him there accordingly has been heaped the blame
of a wretchedness in a great measure self-imposed, and inseparable
from a morbid and diseased temperament. The complaints of the poet
have been embodied in notes alternately of wailing and of fire, by a
poet of a nation whom he would have deemed barbarous.[179] The charge
which history has recorded against Tasso is to this purpose. That,
whilst a retainer of Alfonso II. of Ferrara, his heart was enslaved
by that Duke's sister, Princess Leonora d'Este, and that his passion
was ill-concealed in the verses it inspired. That Alfonso having
suspected the audacious fault, harshly visited it with a series of
persecutions, and finally shut him up for seven years in bedlam as a
lunatic.
[Footnote *178: For the life of Torquato Tasso, see SOLERTI, in
three volumes (Torino, 1895). The first contains the _Vita_; the
second, _Lettere inedite e disperse di T.T. e di diversi_; the third,
_Documenti e appendici_. See D'ANCONA'S review in _Rass. Bibl. Lett.
Ital._, vol. IV., p. 7 _et seq._ The most complete modern edition of
his works is Rosini's, in 33 vols., 8vo. (Pisa), and of the _Rime_,
that of SOLERTI, in 3 vols. (Bologna, 1898-99).]
[Footnote 179: BYRON'S _Lament of Tasso_.]
[Illustration: TORQUATO TASSO
_From a picture once in the possession of James Dennistoun_]
From infancy he manifested decided symptoms of "a genius to madness
near allied." Indifferent to toys, he seemed exempt from the emotions
and the tastes of childhood. Precocious in all mental powers, he
spoke intelligibly at six months, knew Greek and wrote verses at
seven years, and at eighteen published the _Rinaldo_, a sustained
and applauded epic.[*180] The reverses of his early days on which we
have already dwelt in our notice of his father, the premature loss
of his mother, the injudicious liberty of thought and action allowed
him by Bernardo, and the rough criticisms to which his writings
were subjected ere his character and knowledge of mankind were
developed--all these tinged deeper the gloom of his constitutional
sadness, and formed a training the most fatal to one of innately
morbid sensibilities. The results were obvious. Bald before his
time, his digestion enervated, subject to faintings and fevers
intermittent or delirious, his health at thirty was ruined, his
nerves and brain shattered. The natural consequence of his precocity
was an overweening pride in his accomplishments, which rendered him
jealous, touchy, and quarrelsome; and though destined from youth
to wander in search of given bread, nature had neither granted him
the humble resignation required for such a lot, nor imbued him with
a daring spirit to rise above it. Men who live in courts must be
prepared to encounter intrigues; those who publish poetry should lay
their account with unsparing strictures; and the smaller the court,
or the more prominent their poetic merits, so much the greater need
have they of forbearance and philosophy. But Tasso possessed neither;
and the jealousies of Pigna and Guarini, the malice of the della
Crusca critics, stung him to the quick.[*181] A slight or fancied
affront, which he met with from one of the courtiers of Ferrara,
though avenged by a duel, brought his symptoms to a head.[*182] From
that moment, when in his thirty-third year, we find him a victim to
the restlessness, suspicions, fears, sad forebodings, and hopeless
misery, which afflict lipemaniacs.
[Footnote *180: See on the _Rinaldo_, PROTO, _Sul Rinaldo di T.T._
(Napoli, 1895).]
[Footnote *181: Cf. D'OVIDIO, _Di una antica testimonianza circa la
controversia della Crusca con Tasso_ (Napoli, 1894) and VIVALDI, _La
più grande polemica del Cinquecento_ (Catanzaro Caliò, 1895). SOLERTI
reviewed this last in _Giornale Stor. d. Lett. Ital._, vol. XXVII.,
p. 426.]
[Footnote *182: It was in September, 1576. Tasso had in July thought
himself insulted by Ercole Fucci and his brother Maddalò; he boxed
Ercole's ears. Then, in September, they met him and assaulted him.
There was no duel. Only Solerti has found out the truth.]
Under such sinister influences the crisis speedily arrived. Whilst
seated in the Duchess of Urbino's apartment, in her mother's palace,
he rushed with his dagger on an attendant who chanced to enter.
This, whether a premeditated assault, or an idle hallucination,
seems to have been the ground on which he was, by order of Alfonso,
placed under restraint; but when the paroxysm was passed, he was
reconducted to the Duke's presence with ample assurances of pardon.
The iron had, however, entered into his soul, and the idea that he
was in disgrace, owing to the malicious backbiting of foes real
or imaginary, could not be driven from his mind. He retired from
their supposed persecutions to a Franciscan convent,[*183] but,
finding in its quiet no peace for his troubled spirit, he fled in
disguise from these illusions, and, led perhaps by the bright memory
of his early days, arrived on the sunny shores of Sorrento, where
he sought a refuge with his married sister. But alas! the charms of
that radiant land shed no gladsome influence on his soul. Ere a few
months passed, he returned to Ferrara, in hopes of proving to the
Duke that the crimes and the frenzy, of which he believed himself
accused, were equally calumnies. In the festive and kindly reception
with which he was greeted, the wayward poet found new grounds for
jealousy, imagining a plot to be formed against his literary fame,
by plunging him in a round of dissipation, whilst "others" (meaning
his patron) should reap the glory and profits due to his creative
genius. That conduct so provoking should have brought upon him real
slights, in addition to his imagined wrongs, can scarcely be doubted;
and, wounded at heart, he again had recourse to flight, wandering
aimlessly by Mantua, Padua, and Venice, to Pesaro, the refuge of
his happier youth. We shall elsewhere introduce the letter which
he there addressed to the Duke of Urbino; though it obtained him a
compassionate welcome, his new host naturally counselled his return
to the home of his adoption, as the place where he was most certain
to be cared for. But in a fresh access of disease, he escaped from
such suggestions, and obeyed them not until after he had visited
Turin, disguised by poverty and filth.
[Footnote *183: He was placed under restraint in S. Francesco, in
Ferrara, in fact.]
If these views of Tasso's malady[*184] are as conformable to truth
as they appear to be with the representations of his biographers,
the time seems to have been now fully arrived for his seclusion,
as a measure of justice to himself and of security to others. It is
quite another question how far the treatment he met with at Sant'Anna
was that best suited to his symptoms. Had he lived in times when the
pathology of mind was more fully understood, and more ably managed,
his genius might, by timely care, have been saved from a miserable
wreck; but his brain surely then required such aid as medical science
could afford. If this be granted, the defence of Duke Alfonso is
complete, whatever might have been the discipline resorted to in the
hospital. Yet it may be well to remember, from the testimony of the
poor maniac, as well as of others, that the delusions which for years
had haunted him, regarding wrongs supposed to have been received
from that sovereign and his courtiers, had given bitterness to his
words, and pungency to his pen, little in accordance with the fulsome
language of his age, or the haughty temper of his patron; that if
the poet was a victim of imaginary affronts, the Duke had met at his
hands with real insults. But even were Alfonso's motives not those
of unmixed kindness, the necessity of seclusion for Tasso cannot be
affected by any such consideration, nor by the consequent aggravation
of his malady from defective skill.
[Footnote *184: On the whole subject of Tasso's madness, see CORRADI,
_Le Infermità di T.T._ in _Memorie dell'Istit. Lombardo_ (1880),
vol. XIV.; RONCORONI, _Genio e Pazzia in T.T._ (Torino, 1896); and
GAUDENZI, _Studio Psicopatol. sopra T.T._ (Vercelli, 1898); and
SOLERTI, _op. cit._, _supra_.]
An admission of Tasso's mental alienation was made by his intimate
friend Manso, and has been repeated by various writers; yet other
biographers, anxious to relieve their hero from the reproach of
madness, have essayed to screen him by charges of cruelty against the
Duke of Ferrara. Whilst Verga's theory appears to place the poet's
malady upon its proper footing, and, by implication, to absolve his
patron, that author goes a step further, and maintains that the
oldest and best informed authorities bear out a belief in the uniform
and considerate kindness of Alfonso towards his wayward laureate, and
prove that the allegations of Torquato's insanity having been but
the pretext of a stern tyrant, bent on punishing the presumption of
an unworthy aspirant to his sister's love, were piquant additions of
after writers. We shall presently have a few words to add in regard
to this entanglement; meanwhile, let us see the conclusion drawn by
Dr. Verga, from his able argument. "We may, therefore, infer that
the Duke shut up Tasso in Sant'Anna, neither as a punishment for
ambitious love, or unguarded and offensive expressions, nor as an
obstacle to his conferring the illustration of his genius on rival
courts, but simply because he saw that the poet's melancholy rendered
him beside himself, dependent upon skilful treatment, and perhaps
dangerous to others. I repeat, in the name of common sense, that his
madness was the sole cause of his seclusion, not the effect of it, as
some would persuade us."
[Illustration: _Neurdein Frères_
LAURA DE' DIANTI AND ALFONSO OF FERRARA
_After the Picture by Titian in the Louvre_]
* * * * *
Although we have passed rapidly over those circumstances that impart
to Tasso's life its romantic and mysterious interest, we must detail
somewhat more fully the various links connecting the thread of his
chequered existence with the ducal house of Urbino. The arrival of
his father, Bernardo, at the court of Pesaro, in 1556, has been
already mentioned[185]; and six months later he was joined by
Torquato, then completing his thirteenth year, who was permitted
to share the education of the hereditary Prince, and to mingle
occasionally with the accomplished circle at the Imperiale, until
Bernardo carried him to Venice, in 1559. On a mind of such premature
powers these opportunities were not wasted, and the remembrance of
them cheered many an after hour of despondency. The homeless position
and unsettled habits of his father, whose wanderings he generally
accompanied, interfered somewhat with his education, which was then
directed to the law, as his future profession. But whilst supposed
to be engrossed by canonists and civilians, the youth was secretly
devoting his hours of study to the muses. Fearing to avow these
derelictions to his father, he imparted his boyish efforts to Duke
Guidobaldo, who showed them to Bernardo in 1562, when the latter
came to offer him a printed copy of his _Amadigi_. It was not,
however, for two years more that the paternal sanction was obtained
for publishing the _Rinaldo_, a dedication of which is said to have
been declined by the Duke, perhaps from a fastidiousness which ere
long he had to regret. Encouraged by the unlooked-for success of
this poem, written by him in ten months at the university of Padua,
Torquato began his great epic, of which he had already selected
the theme. Whilst pursuing his studies at Bologna, in 1563, he is
believed to have transcribed the first sketch of it, under the title
of "_Il Gierusalem_," which is now No. 413 of the Urbino Library at
the Vatican. It is preceded by a short notice of the subject, and
consists of a hundred and sixteen stanzas, eventually incorporated
into the three opening cantos of the poem; but its variations from
the printed version are so extensive, that it has been given entire
in the collected works, published at Venice, in twelve vols. 4to,
1735. The dedication was this time accepted by Guidobaldo.
[Footnote 185: At p. 303 above.]
At twenty-one, he first saw the court of Ferrara,[*186] which, in
honour of his marriage with the Archduchess Barbara, the magnificent
Alfonso was then rendering
"The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy."
[Footnote *186: On the Court of Ferrara, cf. CAMPORI e SOLERTI,
_Luigi, Lucrezia e Leonora d'Este_ (Torino, 1888), and SOLERTI,
_Ferrara e la Corte estense nella secunda meta del sec. XVI._ (Città
di Castello, 1899).]
It was in these festive scenes that the bard made acquaintance with
the Princess Lucrezia. Among the portraits in the Palace of Courtesy,
whither _Rinaldo_ was conducted, and which, by an ingenious turn of
flattery, are made to represent those personages whom Tasso was most
disposed to conciliate, were those of Duke Guidobaldo and his son,
with their respective consorts. The passage may be thus literally
rendered:--
"He of expression stern and brow severe,
His mien ennobled by a royal state,
The great Francesco Maria's son, is here,
In peace superior, in the field his mate;
Beneath whose prudent sway, no peril ere
Urbino's favoured duchy shall await,
While o'er her happy vales, and golden plains,
A joyous and enduring summer reigns.
"Such is the sire to whom our planet owes
Yon youthful gallant, with expression bright,
Second to none, a terror to his foes,
A wary leader though a dauntless knight:
On him the weight of thousand wars repose,
A thousand armies guiding to the fight.
Whoe'er is doomed to immortality
Shrined in men's hearts and mouths, HE may not die.
"Turn your admiring gaze to yonder side
On all that heaven of loveliness can yield,
Elsewhere unmatched within Sol's circuit wide,
From whose bright beams no beauty lies concealed;
The ducal crown and robe can scarcely hide
The regal bearing on that brow revealed:
Vittoria she, from great Farnese traced,
Courteous and gentle, generous and chaste.
"Lucrezia d'Este is yon other fair,
Whose dazzling tresses seem a treasure given
For guileless love therewith to weave a snare
And toils, purveyed by Him who rules in heaven.
Say, do Minerva and the Muses share
Praise and disparagement in portions even,--
Praise, since she them to imitate is fain;
Blame, that their rivalry with her is vain?
"These dames, in charms and chastity compeers,
And proudly rich in every virtue rare"--
Such compliments from a poet of promising fame could not be
indifferent to one taught to prize genius as almost the equal of
rank; nor were they the less acceptable to a lady of thirty-one,
that their author had barely attained manhood. She received him with
her sweetest smile, and presented him to her father the Duke, and
to her sister Leonora, in terms which secured him a most flattering
reception. Love and chivalry were fashions of the day, cultivated
in common by all who strove to shine in the brilliant atmosphere
of Ferrara, and the genius of Torquato lent itself gracefully to
both. In many phases of Italian literature, it has been difficult
for posterity to decide whether the fervour of amorous poetry was
kindled by successful passion, or fanned by affected sentiment. The
like mystery overhangs the love-notes which Tasso warbled in these
palace-bowers. That his aspirations were not free from pedantry is
proved by their, on one occasion, selecting the form of a public
disputation, after the most approved scholastic models, wherein,
during three days, he maintained against all comers, a series of
abstract propositions regarding love and its developments. And though
such singular exhibitions may sometimes have been suggested by
deeper feelings, or accepted as the incense of the heart, they were
doubtless in other cases but tournaments of gallantry, in which the
name of some fair lady was adopted, to inspire the combatants to a
victory extending not beyond the lists. Equally platonic might have
been such love-tissued lyrics as our minstrel ever and anon dedicated
to the sister Princesses, without any scandal, and probably without
compromise of their purity. One of these, in supposed allusion to the
favoured sister, having been specially excepted from the sentence of
posthumous destruction pronounced upon many of his fugitive pieces by
the poet when about to take a journey, must have ranked high in his
estimation, and is thus translated by Glassford:--
"Now that my charmer breathes another air
In woods and fields, how barbarous to remain
In this deserted place, where grief, and pain,
And darkness dwell, a region of despair!
Nothing is joyful here, and nothing fair:
Love grows a boor, and with the rustic train
Now feeds his flock, and now in sultry plain
Handles the scythe, or guides the pondrous share.
O, happy wood! O smiling banks and gay,
Where every beast, and every plant and stone,
Have learned the use of generous customs mild.
What shall not yield to her whose eyes alone
Can, as they lend or take their light away,
Polish the groves, and make the town a wild."
During the four years which glided by in this charmed existence, the
youthful bard appears to have remained faithful to his first friend
Lucrezia; and it was not until her marriage to the Prince of Urbino
in 1571, that the superior charms of her younger and more sedate
sister effected for her that alleged conquest of his heart, which
long-continued assertions have almost established as a truth.
It would be interesting could we fix the comparative encouragement
which the bard enjoyed from the sisters, and ascertain the amount
of favour severally vouchsafed him; on this much contested but
conjectural ground we shall not, however, enter.[*187] Love-making,
which is frequently a science rather than a passion, becomes
almost invariably so where its flame is habitually fed by poetry
or pedantry, and such were naturally the loves of Tasso in the
atmosphere of a court whose polish was heightened by these
accomplishments. The siren-notes of Italian song draw their melody
from epithets calculated to soothe the ear even when they reach not
the heart, and seldom afford evidence as to which of these organs
they are meant to fascinate. This uncertainty gives life to a tribe
of commentators, and has originated volumes of idle speculation as
to the material existence of Laura and Beatrice, the platonic or
passionate intercourse of Torquato with the Princesses of Este. The
language of sonnets and _canzoni_ is equally suited to express or to
feign, to indicate or to veil, heartfelt homage; and those of Tasso
thus are capable of whatever interpretation best accords with the
temperament or the theory of his critics. Such, for example, are the
tributes of his muse on the marriage of Lucrezia, wherein, however, a
suspicion of somewhat undue tenderness might attach to such lines as--
"Sad as a mourning convoy seems to me
Your merry dances, and your Hymen's torch
Will to my funeral pile a flame supply."[188]
[Footnote *187: Cf. D'OVIDIO, _Il carattere, gli amori e le sventure
di T.T._ in _Studi Critici_ (Napoli, 1879); see also CAMPORI e
SOLERTI, _op. cit._, _supra_, p. 229, note *1.]
[Footnote 188:
"Liete danze vegg'io, che per me sono
Funebri pompe ed un istessa face
Nell'altrui nozze, e nel mio rogo è accesa."]
In a _canzone_ of the same date, he makes that god descend from
Parnassus to preside at her nuptials[189]; but the deity seems to
have turned a deaf ear to this tuneful invocation, and we have
elsewhere seen that no favour of his crowned the inauspicious union.
[Footnote 189: "Lascia Imeneo Parnasso, e qui descende."]
On his return from France in 1572, Tasso was, by intercession of
the Princesses, received at Ferrara as a salaried courtier; and
in the following spring, his pastoral drama, the _Aminta_,[*190]
was performed at the palace. Anxious to witness a representation
elsewhere so universally applauded, the Princess of Urbino invited
him to Pesaro, where he recited his poem in presence of the old
Duke, who hailed in him the honoured son of his former protégé.
From thence he accompanied Francesco Maria and his consort to their
_villeggiatura_ at Castel Durante, and it was then, perhaps,
that their domestic peace was most endangered by the poet. The
field-sports and manly exercises which attracted the Prince to
that secluded spot had no charm for Lucrezia, long accustomed to a
life of artificial splendour; and whilst he passed his days in the
far-spreading forests, she was exposed to the temptations of ennui,
added to the perils of opportunity. It is, therefore, not surprising
that a warmer tone pervades the _componimenti_ addressed to the
Princess in this retirement. Two sonnets, in particular, sing, in
cadences of sweetest harmony, her hand imparting perfume to the
scented glove, that enviously veiled, from her minstrel's greedy
eyes, a whiteness before which the snow would blush, and her bosom,
the garden of love, the paradise of the poet, its ripened charms
surpassing the budding beauties of early spring.[191]
[Footnote *190: Cf. MAZZONI, preface to his edition of _Rinaldo e
l'Aminta_ (Firenze, Sansoni, 1884).]
[Footnote 191: "La man ch'avolta in odorate spoglie:" and--"Non son
sì vaghi i fiori onde la natura."]
To write amatory verses on a lady of appearance as matronly as her
years, required singular tact; but Tasso boldly met the difficulties
of his theme. In another sonnet, excelled by nothing in the whole
range of passionate song, after seeking for a parallel to her
"unripe" youth in the opening rosebud, or in the unearthly beauty of
the early dawn, that gilds the mountains and scatters pearls along
the plain, he avows the flower to be most attractive when its leaves
have unfolded their odours, just as the mid-day sun outshines its
morning lustre. The same delicacy of allusion was needful in regard
to both the princesses, of whom Leonora appears to have had the
advantage in looks more than in age, for she was but a year younger
than her married sister. We again avail ourselves of Mr. Glassford's
paraphrase, in order to present it to such readers as are not
acquainted with the charming original.
"We saw thee in thy yet unripened green,
Like folded rose, whose damask leaf unspread
To the warm sun, still in its virgin bed
Retires and blushes in the bud unseen.
Or rather--for such earthly type is mean--
Like to Aurora, who with earthly red
Pearls the plain and gilds the mountain head,
Kindling with smiles the dewy sky serene.
Nor is thy riper year in aught less fair;
No youthful beauty in her choice attire
Can so engage, or equal charms display.
Thus sweetest is the flower when to the air
Unbosomed; thus the sun's meridian fire
Exceeds the lustre of its morning ray."
But these seductions did not divert Torquato from the loftier theme
which engaged his muse. Far from the gaieties and the squabbles of
Ferrara, he drew a fresher inspiration from glorious nature, and
among the delightful descriptions suggested by the scenery around
Castel Durante are generally numbered those of the gardens of Armida.
Whatever may have been the true footing on which the poet's devotion
was received by the Princess, and whatever the secret cause of her
domestic misunderstandings, her husband never showed, on this or
any future occasion, jealousy of his early playmate; and in 1574
Tasso returned to Ferrara, laden with compliments and presents from
the august circle at Pesaro, including a jewel of price from the
Princess, which his necessities afterwards obliged him to dispose of.
Lucrezia had become Duchess of Urbino in 1574, and her separation
from the Duke took place three years later, in circumstances of which
we have elsewhere spoken.[192] Released from ties in which affection
had never any part, she sought in her brother's palace distractions
more suited to her lively temperament, and renewed her intimacy with
its silver-tongued laureate. Among the reasons which incline us to
believe that this connection was chiefly sought upon her side, is
the desire which Tasso about this time manifested of exchanging the
protection of the d'Este for a residence at Rome. His intention was
not realised, for his visit to the Eternal City did not extend
beyond a month, and before the close of 1575 he was at Florence.
[Footnote 192: At pp. 153, 154 above.]
On returning to Ferrara in January, 1576, a new tie was created to
the reigning family, by his appointment as its historiographer, on
the death of Pigna. This was the turning point of his existence,
whence the symptoms of mental disease gradually and fatally advanced
until June, 1577, when, after that outbreak of insanity in presence
of the Duchess of Urbino, to which we have already alluded, he was
interdicted by Alfonso from corresponding with her. This command
she observed, but Leonora occasionally consoled him by letters
during his flight to Naples, of which we have spoken in tracing the
progress of his lipemania. It was in the autumn of 1578 that he
arrived at Pesaro, after his second flight; and, in this melodious
but unfinished _canzone_, bespoke shelter under the mighty oak [della
Rovere] watered by the Metauro:--
"TO THE RIVER METAURO.
"O thou illustrious child
Of mighty Apennine, humble though you lie,
In story brighter than thy silver tide;
O stranger fleet and wild,
To this thy friendly and protecting side,
Well pleased, for safety and repose I fly.
The lofty OAK, with mantling branches wide,
Bathed by thy stream, and from thy cisterns fed,
Shadowing the mountains and the seas between,--
Embower me with its screen!
Inviolate screen, and hospitably spread,
Thy cool recesses undisturbed and sweet
Shroud me in deepest covert, thick entwined,
So hid from blind and cruel fortune; blind,
But not for me, whom still she sees to meet,
Though far by hill or valley I should stray,
Or in the lonely way
Have passed at midnight, and with noiseless feet;
And by this bleeding side well understood,
Her aim unerring, as her shaft is good.
"Since first I breathed this air,
Ah me! since first I met the glorious light,
Which never to these eyes unclouded shone,
I was her fatal care,
Chosen to be her mark and her despite;
Nor yet those early hurts by time outgrown.
Well to that spirit pure my words are known,
Beside whose sainted tomb my cradle stood.
Might they have laid me in the peaceful ground
When I received the wound!
Me from my mother's bosom fortune rude
Tore while a child: O yet I feel those last
Kisses and burning tears upon my cheek,
With sighs remembered; still I hear that weak
And ardent prayer, caught by the rising blast,
Then parted ever; no more face to face
Folded in strict embrace
And held by close and loving arms so fast,
Ah! but like Ilus or Camilla hied,
With steps unequal, by my father's side.
"In banishment I grew
And rigid want, instructed by our strange
Disastrous flight to shed untimely tears,
Nor childhood's pleasure knew;
But bitterness to me of chance and change
Brought immature the bitterness of years.
Despoiled and bare, his feeble age appears
Before me still. Alas! and is my store
Of griefs become so scanty, that my own
Are not enough to moan?
That others than myself I must deplore?
But seldom, though I bid, will come the sigh,
Or from these wells the gushing water spring,
In measure suited to my suffering.
Dear father; now my witness from the sky,
Whom sick thou knowest how I moaned, and dead
Poured on thy grave and bed
My ardent heart; thee, in thy mansions high
All bliss beseems, and unalloyed with pain;
Only for me the sighs and tears remain."[193]
[Footnote 193: GLASSFORD, p. 203.]
The morbid feeling and heart-stricken melancholy which, in the
language of Gibbon, "disordered his reason without clouding his
genius," and which thus exaggerated the trials of his early life,
gave way to another train of thought in the following letter,
addressed by him, about the same time, to Duke Francesco Maria, which
we insert as the most satisfactory record left us of the friendship
and protection bestowed on him by that Prince.
"TASSO TO THE DUKE OF URBINO.
"If any action of mine has tended to confirm the rumour
of my insanity, it surely was my directing my steps after
my flight otherwise than to the court of your Excellency.
For certainly I could not have repaired elsewhere without
some degree of danger, or at all events some indignity
and inconvenience; nor could I hope to find in any other
quarter more acquaintance with my real position, nor
greater courtesy, knowing no prince more generous, more
efficiently compassionate to my misfortunes, or more
prompt in the protection of my innocence. Hence, to pass
by an asylum near and secure, as well as suitable and
honourable, in order to make my way, without comfort, or,
at all events, with little credit, to a distant and less
safe place, was, if not a sign of folly, at least a proof
of impudence and stupidity. Notwithstanding all this,
unlike other men who blush and repent when made aware of
a blunder, I derive from my ill advised step pleasure
and comfort rather than shame and regret, because, being
conducted, not where I desired, but whither I ought to
go, and having there found the haven which I had supposed
far off, across the high seas, I clearly perceive that my
steps have been guided by wisdom from on high. And it must
be much more pleasing to me to have been brought hither
by divine Providence than by human prudence, seeing how
much the more infallible guide is the latter to the best
appointed end. And although, had I come here in reliance
on being received under your Excellency's protection, it
would have afforded me much satisfaction to find my hopes
realised, and your courtesy equal to my anticipations;
yet my gratification is certainly, and beyond comparison,
greater, seeing that you have not only anticipated, but
overmatched, my desires, and that you have at once equalled
and exceeded my expectations. I say exceeded them, because
upon the obliging demonstrations of affection and pity
which you have shown me, and on your promise to undertake
my protection, I found rather an assurance than a hope of
safety, peace, and honour. Enough, indeed more than enough,
for me, is that which you have promised. Were I to doubt
as to the rest, or look forward with such every-day hope
as one is apt to entertain regarding uncertain prospects,
I should discredit your Excellency's affection, judgment,
authority, and power, and I should prove myself unworthy,
not only of what you are about to perform, but of what you
have already done in my favour. Thus, be assured that I
live not only securely, but happily, under your protection.
On this account my regrets are less at being so fiercely
and iniquitously buffeted and beaten down by fortune, than
is my satisfaction at being raised again by the arm of your
Excellency; and were there no other way to lead me to you,
and to place me in the shadow of your favour, but this most
hard and rugged one, with its toils and persecutions, still
I should delight to arrive by it; and I account as not only
endurable, but as joyful and well-timed, those pangs which
brought me to be yours, as it was ever my wish to be, even
in my days of less adversity. It is for this reason I dare
to appropriate these famous words of Themistocles, 'I were
undone, did I not rush upon my ruin.'
"I shall now pass by the long and melancholy tale of
my wrongs as indeed superfluous, since the little that
your Excellency has heard of my mishaps has sufficed to
move your magnanimous heart to extend me aid. Nor shall
I try to awaken in your soul any compassion beyond what
it voluntarily fostered, without artifice of mine; for I
rejoice that in this noble and courteous act my exertions
have no part, all being your own, and springing from the
greatness and compassion of your individual mind. Most
gladly should I thank your Excellency for what you have
done, and will do, in my behalf, could I invent words and
terms fit for such thanks; but what can I, or what should
I say to you? To you I neither can nor ought to use such
phrases as servants employ to their masters, benefited
to their benefactors, favoured to those who confer
obligations, because, as my misery was incomparable and
unprecedented, so it would become me to invent expressions
signifying how much I owe to your Excellency who rescues
me from it. I shall, therefore, say, that since, thanks
to you, I emerge from a condition so low, so disgraced,
so wretched, and so reduced in reputation and in the
opinion of mankind, who looked upon me as virtually
dead, I seem to have received a new health from you, by
reason whereof I acknowledge your Excellency, not only as
a prince and benefactor to whom I owe much, but it may
almost be permitted me to add, as a creator, and I seem
to say but little in avowing myself your most obliged and
highly favoured servant, if I add not _creature_.[194]
Such, accordingly, I shall formally avow myself, and in
that light I pray you for the future to regard me, and
to contrive that I am regarded by others, taking entire
possession of me and of my free will, which I fully submit
to your sway. And this I should do with all my affairs,
were it in my power; but some of them are not at my own
disposal, or they should be placed at that of him to whom I
have surrendered myself. And herewith humbly I kiss your
hands, assuring you that these words have been engraven by
me on my heart, ere they were traced upon this sheet."
[Footnote 194: The letter is taken from an old transcript, No. 430,
of the Oliveriana MSS., p. 210, but it has been printed at vol. IX.,
p. 104, of the Venetian edition of Tasso's works.]
The expectations which dictated this touching letter were amply
realised. After a reception of singular kindness, the good Duke
recommended medical advice for Tasso's now obvious malady; and an
issue prescribed for his arm was dressed by the Princess Lavinia
della Rovere, whose sedulous care was rewarded in a madrigal. By such
solace his restlessness, however, prevented him from long profiting.
After reaching Ferrara some months later, his mania broke out in
more threatening symptoms, and, on the 21st February, 1579, he was
consigned to the hospital of Sant'Anna.
From the sadder scenes and secrets of his life it were useless to
raise the veil. Even the year after he entered it, Montaigne, a
shrewd and unbiased witness, whose testimony may countervail much
hearsay and conjecture, found him in "most pitiable state, surviving
himself, neglectful of his person and works." Seven years had worn
away in pitiable isolation, when a violent fever nearly closed his
darkened existence, after which, whether from an abatement of his
phrenetic symptoms, or in the hope of contributing to his physical
restoration, Alfonso sanctioned his liberation, at the request of
Prince Vincenzo of Mantua, the supposed assassin of our Admirable
Crichton, who undertook the watchful care which his case required.
Princess Leonora died in 1581, and, on various subsequent occasions,
Duchess Lucrezia interfered with little success in his behalf, but,
from the time of his leaving the hospital, his intercourse with her
family was at an end. He had written from thence several letters to
the Duke of Urbino, and, after his convalescence, addressed to him a
rambling discourse on his real and imaginary grievances, which shows
a mind still shaken, if not unhinged. But, though the kind feelings
of his early playmate underwent no change, Tasso returned not to
Urbino during many after wanderings, fearing perhaps to revisit, in
circumstances so altered, the scenes of his brighter days.[195] The
nine remaining years of his life were, on the whole, less afflicted;
for, though ever restless in body, and often haunted by imaginary
evils and visions, he enjoyed intervals of comparative serenity,
especially in his beloved Bay of Naples, and at the house of his kind
friend and biographer Manso, of which, half a century later, John
Milton was the honoured guest.
[Footnote 195: With that constitutional coldness we have seen in his
life, the Duke spares but one line of his Diary to notice Torquato's
death.]
His death partook of the melancholy shade that had overhung his
career. Declining a new invitation from Duke Francesco Maria, in
1594, he brought to Rome all that mental and bodily sufferings had
left him of broken health and blighted genius, to receive the honours
of a laurel crown; and, in the monastery of S. Onofrio, he awaited
the issue of arrangements which the warning voice of exhausted
nature told him were made in vain. From thence he addressed to his
friend Constantini[*196] the following touching farewell:--"What
shall my Antonio say, when he hears the death of his Tasso? Nor, in
my opinion, will the news be long delayed; for I feel my end to be
at hand, having found no remedy for this troublesome malady, which,
added to my many habitual ailments, is evidently sweeping me away
like an impetuous and irresistible torrent. To say nothing of the
world's ingratitude, which would prove its triumph by consigning
me in penury to the tomb, the time is now past for speaking of my
inveterate fortune; yet, when I think of the glory which this age
will derive from my writings, in despite of all opposition, I cannot
be left entirely unrequited. I have had myself brought to this
convent of S. Onofrio, not only because the air is commended by the
faculty more than that of any other part of Rome, but also, to begin
as it were from this elevated spot, and in the conversation of these
holy fathers, my celestial intercourse. Pray to God in my behalf, and
rest assured that, as I have ever loved and respected you in this
life, I shall do the like towards you in a better, as is the part of
true and unfeigned affection; and to the Divine grace I commend you
and myself. From Rome, at S. Onofrio."
[Footnote *196: Cf. D'ANCONA, _T.T. ed Ant. Costantini_ in _Varietà
Storiche e Letter._ (Milano, 1883), vol. I., p. 75 _et seq._]
Tasso's mind was habitually under devotional influences, which
grew upon him as he experienced the delusive results of his early
ambition, the emptiness of success, and the bitterness of failure.
Religion was in him a deeply rooted sentiment; it soothed long hours
of suffering, cheered the decline of life, and brightened those
hopes for which the laurel crown had lost its charm. Gazing from
the convent garden over a scene of all others the most inspiring to
the poet, the most solemn to the moralist, he caught the seeds of
malaria fever. His springs of life were already dried up by twenty
long years of suffering, and, after a few days of peaceful and
resigned preparation for a change that to him had no terrors, his
spirit was released from its shattered tenement. He died on the 25th
April, 1595, wept by many warmly attached and pitying friends, and
lamented by the citizens, who lost in his death the spectacle of his
coronation, to which they had long looked forward with an anxiety
unusual even among the fête-loving populace of Rome.
Tasso's was a life of painful contrasts and of blighted hopes. The
prospects of his childhood, bright as the sky which witnessed his
birth, were quickly shadowed by a storm of tropical violence. The
courtly favour that met his manhood proved baneful as a siren's
smiles. The greenest garland that Italy could offer to her favourite
minstrel was reserved until his brow was clammy with the dews of
death. The honours lavished on his funeral have been grudged to
his tomb. His resplendent genius was linked to the saddest and most
humbling of human afflictions. The fame for which he felt more than
a poet's thirst, and which he challenged as his due, was withheld
by envy until no trumpet-note could reach his dull cold ear. But
time, the avenger, has rendered him tardy justice, and Torquato is
the popular bard of Italy, whilst the cumbrous pedantry of his della
Crusca impugners is consigned to contemptuous oblivion.
Of works so universally known as those of Tasso it would be
presumptuous to offer new analyses, and superfluous to encumber our
pages with trite criticism. The edition of them by Rosini extends
to thirty quarto volumes, a startling testimony to the copiousness
of his commentators, as well as to his own wonderful fertility. His
pen ranged over a wide field both in prose and verse,--the former
including essays--moral, literary, and political,--dialogues, and
letters; the latter touching upon themes sacred, heroic, romantic,
sylvan, pastoral, and lyric. It is, however, as an epic poet that he
has gained a niche in Parnassus, and the admiration of posterity. No
rivalry could arise with Dante, in whose Vision the things of time
are strangely interwoven with revelations of eternity; and his muse
is of a nobler caste, though less touching character, than that of
the bard of Arqua. But it is otherwise with the fourth great name of
Italian minstrelsy, and no one discusses the merits of Tasso without
keeping those of Ariosto in view. This, however, arises from habit
rather than necessity. The latter name was dragged forward by the
della Crusca Academicians as a stalking-horse to mask the malice
of their attacks upon the later of Ferrara's two laureates, whose
successive appearance on that stage alone induced a contrast for
which their respective works were by no means adapted. The comparison
thus forced upon the world has been declined by Tiraboschi, who,
in the exercise of a sounder criticism, has assigned to each
his peculiar excellence. Bearing in mind that the Orlando is
intrinsically a romantic poem, whilst the Jerusalem is composed upon
the epic model, there can be but little technical analogy between
them, and the beauties of the one would become blemishes in the
other. The striking and unlooked-for episodes of the former, running
ever into extravagance and burlesque, must have outraged the grave
unities required in the latter, and have proved more serious faults
than any which the jaundiced optics of the academicians were able
to discover. But perhaps Tasso's greatest triumph over his jealous
detractors has been the continued preference of his earlier and
greater work to his continuation of the same theme, in which he
studied to profit by their criticisms. Many Italians, among whom the
romantic school took its origin and maintained its influence, have
preferred Ariosto, whilst transalpine critics have more generally
given their suffrages to the poem of Tasso, as more regular in its
plan, and better preserving the elevation and the unities observed by
the best classic models.
It has been the boast of some minstrels to mould the temper of the
age to the tone of their poetry. Tasso chose a less hazardous aim,
and, seizing in his great epic upon a theme at once the most fertile
and the most popular, gained the sympathies of all. The Crescent,
once more in the ascendant, had swept the Mediterranean, overrun
Greece, and threatened Vienna. The spirit of the crusades revived.
The often-mooted movement of all Christendom in the holy cause was
at length carried into effect, and victory crowned the Cross at the
great naval conflict of Lepanto. But alas! his was the last great
name in Italian poetry;[*197] and thenceforward genius fled from
the land of song, or bowed unresisting before an all-prevailing
mediocrity. Morbid repetition, redundant verbiage, far-fetched
figures,--all those faults for which its liquid language afforded
such fatal facilities, sprang up in rank deformity, and smothered
generous inspiration. The academies sent out their many songsters,
who poured forth notes artfully sweet, but rarely thrilling; and
already
"Their once-loved minstrels scarce may claim
The transient mention of a dubious name."
[Footnote *197: This, of course, is nonsense. Leopardi, at any rate,
was yet to come, and in our own day we have heard the eager and noble
voice of Carducci in verse that, it might seem, is not less great
than Tasso's and far more in touch with life.]
Nor did they merit a better fate; for their conceptions were
extravagant, their imagery redundant, their execution alternately
glaring and languid. Unnatural contrasts, startling conceits, ill
compensated in them for vigorous diction and the stamp of genius. Yet
the lyric muse was not utterly extinct, and from time to time its
warblings may yet be heard in the orange groves and laurel bosquets
of that bright land.
* * * * *
Guarini's is another name shared between Ferrara and Urbino.[*198] He
was born at the former city in 1537, of a family already possessing
claims upon literary distinction during three generations, his
great-grandfather having been Guarini of Verona. In conformity
with the custom of employing men of learning upon diplomatic
missions, he served Duke Alfonso II. at various courts, until, in
1575, he undeservedly lost his favour by the failure of a quixotic
negotiation, having for its object to place the crown of Poland upon
his brows. During the seclusion which followed, he wrote the _Pastor
Fido_, a pastoral drama of more complex incident than had been
hitherto produced, and whose refined polish and seductive strains,
though misapplied upon a factitious style, long retained their
popularity. It was composed in avowed emulation of Tasso's _Aminta_,
and he carried the rivalry into ducal saloons, and even ladies'
boudoirs, with the results naturally to be looked for among the
peppery tribe of poets. But when Torquato's hour of darkness arrived,
Guarini proved himself a generous opponent, and, in the edition of
1581, he did his utmost to rescue the cantos of _Gerusalemme_ from
the adulteration of unfriendly pens. When his country's subjugation
had followed upon his patron's death, he was fain to seek other
service with the Medici; and soon thereafter the Duke of Urbino wrote
to Abbé Brunetti, his envoy at Venice, in the following terms: "We
shall with much pleasure look over the pastoral which the Cavaliere
Guarino has reprinted with notes and engravings, for we greatly
esteem his meritorious works, and are aware how much we are indebted
to his affection and courtesy. You will therefore thank him in our
name for his remembrance of us."[199] This presentation copy procured
the author a substantial reward in the following letter to Brunetti,
dated some weeks later.
[Footnote *198: For Guarini, consult ROSSI, _B. Guarini ed il Pastor
Fido_ (Torino, 1886). See also CAMPORI, in _Giorn. St. d. Lett.
Ital._, vol. VIII., p. 425, etc.]
[Footnote 199: Oliveriana MSS. 375, vol. XV. 104. The poem was his
_Pastor Fido_, of which the twentieth edition, with the author's
note, appeared at Venice in 1602.]
"Most magnificent and most reverend,
"In consequence of deaths and other circumstances, we find
ourselves so ill provided with persons of such quality
as was Albergato, that we must find some one as soon as
may be. And recollecting the Cavaliere Guarino, who was
known and entertained by us many years ago, we should be
well pleased could we have him, provided his health be
equal to his duties, not indeed for long journeys, but for
attending upon our person, and accompanying us both in the
carriage and on horseback, advising and conversing with us
in all times and occasions. And we believe, if due means
be adopted, this affair might be arranged to our mutual
satisfaction, as we remember that, when lately quitting
Tuscany, he seemed, from what he wrote to us, not averse to
the idea of betaking himself hither, and in our answer we
in no way discouraged the plan. We have, however, chosen
to impart the matter to you, that you may manage it in
whatever way you consider most proper for appearances; and
should you think it well, we have no objection to your
even going in person to Padua, on some other pretext. As
to terms, we believe that the Cavaliere's modesty, and our
partiality towards him, would readily bring everything
to an issue; but you will give it all due consideration,
answering separately this our letter, with whatever occurs
to you on the subject. And so health to you. From Castel
Durante, the 10th of June, 1602. Yours,
"FRAN'co. M'a. DUCA D'URB."
The following letter, from Guarini to his sister, proves that the
arrangement was completed to the satisfaction of both parties; and
an entry in the Duke's Diary shows that, notwithstanding a desire to
return home, his departure from that court did not take place until
July, 1604.
"My Sister,
"I should like to get home, for I have great need and wish
to be there, but am so well treated here, and have so many
honours paid me, and so many caresses, that I cannot. I
must tell you that all my expenses and those of my servants
are paid, so that I have not a farthing in the world to
spend for anything I want, and orders given to let me have
all I ask; besides which, they give me 300 scudi of yearly
pension, which, with the expense of furnished house and
maintenance, amounts to above 600 scudi a year. See, then,
if I can leave this. Our Lord God give you every happiness.
From Pesaro, the 23rd of February, 1603.
"Your most loving brother,
"BATTISTA GUARINI."
A letter from him condoling with the Duchess of Urbino on the death
of her sister Leonora has been printed in Black's _Life of Tasso_,
II., 451, but this brief notice may suffice to close the literary
annals of our mountain principality.