sharp and slender heads made purposely and peculiarly for creeping
into the crevices of our nature. While we contemplate the magnificence
of the universe, and mensurate the fitness and adaptation of one part
to another, the small philosopher hangs upon a hair or creeps within a
wrinkle, and cries out shrilly from his elevation that we are blind
and superficial. He discovers a wart, he pries into a pore; and he
calls it knowledge of man. Poetry and criticism, and all the fine
arts, have generated such living things, which not only will be
co-existent with them but will (I fear) survive them. Hence history
takes alternately the form of reproval and of panegyric; and science
in its pulverized state, in its shapeless and colourless atoms,
assumes the name of metaphysics. We find no longer the rich succulence
of Herodotus, no longer the strong filament of Thucydides, but
thoughts fit only for the slave, and language for the rustic and the
robber. These writings can never reach posterity, nor serve better
authors near us; for who would receive as documents the perversions of
venality and party? Alexander we know was intemperate, and Philip both
intemperate and perfidious: we require not a volume of dissertation on
the thread of history, to demonstrate that one or other left a
tailor's bill unpaid, and the immorality of doing so; nor a supplement
to ascertain on the best authorities which of the two it was. History
should explain to us how nations rose and fell, what nurtured them in
their growth, what sustained them in their maturity; not which orator
ran swiftest through the crowd from the right hand to the left, which
assassin was too strong for manacles, or which felon too opulent for
crucifixion.
_Leontion._ It is better, I own it, that such writers should amuse our
idleness than excite our spleen.
_Ternissa._ What is spleen?
_Epicurus._ Do not ask her; she cannot tell you. The spleen, Ternissa,
is to the heart what Arimanes is to Oromazes.
_Ternissa._ I am little the wiser yet. Does he ever use such hard
words with you?
_Leontion._ He means the evil Genius and the good Genius, in the
theogony of the Persians: and would perhaps tell you, as he hath told
me, that the heart in itself is free from evil, but very capable of
receiving and too tenacious of holding it.
_Epicurus._ In our moral system, the spleen hangs about the heart and
renders it sad and sorrowful, unless we continually keep it in
exercise by kind offices, or in its proper place by serious
investigation and solitary questionings. Otherwise, it is apt to
adhere and to accumulate, until it deadens the principles of sound
action, and obscures the sight.
_Ternissa._ It must make us very ugly when we grow old.
_Leontion._ In youth it makes us uglier, as not appertaining to it: a
little more or less ugliness in decrepitude is hardly worth
considering, there being quite enough of it from other quarters: I
would stop it here, however.
_Ternissa._ Oh, what a thing is age!
_Leontion._ Death without death's quiet.
_Ternissa._ Leontion said that even bad writers may amuse our idle
hours: alas! even good ones do not much amuse mine, unless they record
an action of love or generosity. As for the graver, why cannot they
come among us and teach us, just as you do?
_Epicurus._ Would you wish it?
_Ternissa._ No, no! I do not want them: only I was imagining how
pleasant it is to converse as we are doing, and how sorry I should be
to pore over a book instead of it. Books always make me sigh, and
think about other things. Why do you laugh, Leontion?
_Epicurus._ She was mistaken in saying bad authors may amuse our
idleness. Leontion knows not then how sweet and sacred idleness is.
_Leontion._ To render it sweet and sacred, the heart must have a
little garden of its own, with its umbrage and fountains and
perennial flowers--a careless company! Sleep is called sacred as well
as sweet by Homer; and idleness is but a step from it. The idleness of
the wise and virtuous should be both, it being the repose and
refreshment necessary for past exertions and for future; it punishes
the bad man, it rewards the good; the deities enjoy it, and Epicurus
praises it. I was indeed wrong in my remark; for we should never seek
amusement in the foibles of another, never in coarse language, never
in low thoughts. When the mind loses its feeling for elegance, it
grows corrupt and grovelling, and seeks in the crowd what ought to be
found at home.
_Epicurus._ Aspasia believed so, and bequeathed to Leontion, with
every other gift that Nature had bestowed upon her, the power of
delivering her oracles from diviner lips.
_Leontion._ Fie! Epicurus! It is well you hide my face for me with
your hand. Now take it away; we cannot walk in this manner.
_Epicurus._ No word could ever fall from you without its weight; no
breath from you ought to lose itself in the common air.
_Leontion._ For shame! What would you have?
_Ternissa._ He knows not what he would have nor what he would say. I
must sit down again. I declare I scarcely understand a single
syllable. Well, he is very good, to tease you no longer. Epicurus has
an excellent heart; he would give pain to no one; least of all to you.
_Leontion,_ I have pained him by this foolish book, and he would only
assure me that he does not for a moment bear me malice. Take the
volume; take it, Epicurus! tear it in pieces.
_Epicurus._ No, Leontion! I shall often look with pleasure on this
trophy of brave humanity; let me kiss the hand that raises it!
_Ternissa._ I am tired of sitting: I am quite stiff: when shall we
walk homeward?
_Epicurus._ Take my arm, Ternissa!
_Ternissa._ Oh! I had forgotten that I proposed to myself a trip as
far up as the pinasters, to look at the precipice of Oreithyia. Come
along! come along! how alert does the sea air make us! I seem to feel
growing at my feet and shoulders the wings of Zethes or Caläis.
_Epicurus._ Leontion walks the nimblest to-day.
_Ternissa._ To display her activity and strength, she runs before us.
Sweet Leontion, how good she is! but she should have stayed for us: it
would be in vain to try to overtake her.
No, Epicurus! Mind! take care! you are crushing these little
oleanders--and now the strawberry plants--the whole heap. Not I,
indeed. What would my mother say, if she knew it? And Leontion! she
will certainly look back.
_Epicurus._ The fairest of the Eudaimones never look back: such are
the Hours and Love, Opportunity and Leontion.
_Ternissa._ How could you dare to treat me in this manner? I did not
say again I hated anything.
_Epicurus._ Forgive me!
_Ternissa._ Violent creature!
_Epicurus._ If tenderness is violence. Forgive me; and say you love
me.
_Ternissa._ All at once? could you endure such boldness?
_Epicurus._ Pronounce it! whisper it.
_Ternissa._ Go, go. Would it be proper?
_Epicurus._ Is that sweet voice asking its heart or me? let the
worthier give the answer.
_Ternissa._ O Epicurus! you are very, very dear to me; and are the
last in the world that would ever tell you were called so.
FOOTNOTES:
[7] The Attic month of Puanepsion had its commencement in the latter
days of October; its name is derived from +puana+, the legumes
which were offered in sacrifice to Apollo at that season.
[8] The thirteenth of Elaphebolion was the tenth of April.
DANTE AND BEATRICE
_Dante._ When you saw me profoundly pierced with love, and reddening
and trembling, did it become you, did it become you, you whom I have
always called _the most gentle Bice_, to join in the heartless
laughter of those girls around you? Answer me. Reply unhesitatingly.
Requires it so long a space for dissimulation and duplicity? Pardon!
pardon! pardon! My senses have left me; my heart being gone, they
follow.
_Beatrice._ Childish man! pursuing the impossible.
_Dante._ And was it this you laughed at? We cannot touch the hem of
God's garment; yet we fall at His feet and weep.
_Beatrice._ But weep not, gentle Dante! fall not before the weakest of
His creatures, willing to comfort, unable to relieve you. Consider a
little. Is laughter at all times the signal or the precursor of
derision? I smiled, let me avow it, from the pride I felt in your
preference of me; and if I laughed, it was to conceal my sentiments.
Did you never cover sweet fruit with worthless leaves? Come, do not
drop again so soon so faint a smile. I will not have you grave, nor
very serious. I pity you; I must not love you: if I might, I would.
_Dante._ Yet how much love is due to me, O Bice, who have loved you,
as you well remember, even from your tenth year. But it is reported,
and your words confirm it, that you are going to be married.
_Beatrice._ If so, and if I could have laughed at that, and if my
laughter could have estranged you from me, would you blame me?
_Dante._ Tell me the truth.
_Beatrice._ The report is general.
_Dante._ The truth! the truth! Tell me, Bice.
_Beatrice._ Marriages, it is said, are made in heaven.
_Dante._ Is heaven then under the paternal roof?
_Beatrice._ It has been to me hitherto.
_Dante._ And now you seek it elsewhere.
_Beatrice._ I seek it not. The wiser choose for the weaker. Nay, do
not sigh so. What would you have, my grave pensive Dante? What can I
do?
_Dante._ Love me.
_Beatrice._ I always did.
_Dante._ Love me? O bliss of heaven!
_Beatrice._ No, no, no! Forbear! Men's kisses are always mischievous
and hurtful; everybody says it. If you truly loved me, you would never
think of doing so.
_Dante._ Nor even this!
_Beatrice._ You forget that you are no longer a boy; and that it is
not thought proper at your time of life to continue the arm at all
about the waist. Beside, I think you would better not put your head
against my bosom; it beats too much to be pleasant to you. Why do you
wish it? why fancy it can do you any good? It grows no cooler; it
seems to grow even hotter. Oh, how it burns! Go, go; it hurts me too:
it struggles, it aches, it sobs. Thank you, my gentle friend, for
removing your brow away; your hair is very thick and long; and it
began to heat me more than you can imagine. While it was there, I
could not see your face so well, nor talk with you so quietly.
_Dante._ Oh, when shall we talk quietly in future?
_Beatrice._ When I am married. I shall often come to visit my father.
He has always been solitary since my mother's death, which happened in
my infancy, long before you knew me.
_Dante._ How can he endure the solitude of his house when you have
left it?
_Beatrice._ The very question I asked him.
_Dante._ You did not then wish to ... to ... go away?
_Beatrice._ Ah no! It is sad to be an outcast at fifteen.
_Dante._ An outcast?
_Beatrice._ Forced to leave a home.
_Dante._ For another?
_Beatrice._ Childhood can never have a second.
_Dante._ But childhood is now over.
_Beatrice._ I wonder who was so malicious as to tell my father that?
He wanted me to be married a whole year ago.
_Dante._ And, Bice, you hesitated?
_Beatrice._ No; I only wept. He is a dear good father. I never
disobeyed him but in those wicked tears; and they ran the faster the
more he reprehended them.
_Dante._ Say, who is the happy youth?
_Beatrice._ I know not who ought to be happy if you are not.
_Dante._ I?
_Beatrice._ Surely you deserve all happiness.
_Dante._ Happiness! any happiness is denied me. Ah, hours of
childhood! bright hours! what fragrant blossoms ye unfold! what bitter
fruits to ripen!
_Beatrice._ Now cannot you continue to sit under that old fig-tree at
the corner of the garden? It is always delightful to me to think of
it.
_Dante._ Again you smile: I wish I could smile too.
_Beatrice._ You were usually more grave than I, although very often,
two years ago, you told me I was the graver. Perhaps I _was_ then
indeed; and perhaps I ought to be now: but really I must smile at the
recollection, and make you smile with me.
_Dante._ Recollection of what in particular?
_Beatrice._ Of your ignorance that a fig-tree is the brittlest of
trees, especially when it is in leaf; and moreover of your tumble,
when your head was just above the wall, and your hand (with the verses
in it) on the very coping-stone. Nobody suspected that I went every
day to the bottom of our garden, to hear you repeat your poetry on the
other side; nobody but yourself; you soon found me out. But on that
occasion I thought you might have been hurt; and I clambered up our
high peach-tree in the grass plot nearest the place; and thence I saw
Messer Dante, with his white sleeve reddened by the fig-juice, and the
seeds sticking to it pertinaciously, and Messer blushing, and trying
to conceal his calamity, and still holding the verses. They were all
about me.
_Dante._ Never shall any verse of mine be uttered from my lips, or
from the lips of others, without the memorial of Bice.
_Beatrice._ Sweet Dante! in the purity of your soul shall Bice live;
as (we are told by the goatherds and foresters) poor creatures have
been found preserved in the serene and lofty regions of the Alps, many
years after the breath of life had left them. Already you rival Guido
Cavalcante and Cino da Pistoja: you must attempt, nor perhaps shall it
be vainly, to surpass them in celebrity.
_Dante._ If ever I am above them ... and I must be ... I know already
what angel's hand will have helped me up the ladder. Beatrice, I vow
to heaven, shall stand higher than Selvaggia, high and glorious and
immortal as that name will be. You have given me joy and sorrow; for
the worst of these (I will not say the least) I will confer on you all
the generations of our Italy, all the ages of our world. But first
(alas, from me you must not have it!) may happiness, long happiness,
attend you!
_Beatrice._ Ah, those words rend your bosom! why should they?
_Dante._ I could go away contented, or almost contented, were I sure
of it. Hope is nearly as strong as despair, and greatly more
pertinacious and enduring. You have made me see clearly that you never
can be mine in this world: but at the same time, O Beatrice, you have
made me see quite as clearly that you may and must be mine in another!
I am older than you: precedency is given to age, and not to
worthiness; I will pray for you when I am nearer to God, and purified
from the stains of earth and mortality. He will permit me to behold
you, lovely as when I left you. Angels in vain should call me onward.
_Beatrice._ Hush, sweetest Dante! hush!
_Dante._ It is there where I shall have caught the first glimpse of
you again, that I wish all my portion of Paradise to be assigned me;
and there, if far below you, yet within the sight of you, to establish
my perdurable abode.
_Beatrice._ Is this piety? Is this wisdom? O Dante! And may not I be
called away first?
_Dante._ Alas, alas, how many small feet have swept off the early dew
of life, leaving the path black behind them! But to think that you
should go before me! It almost sends me forward on my way, to receive
and welcome you. If indeed, O Beatrice, such should be God's immutable
will, sometimes look down on me when the song to Him is suspended.
Oh! look often on me with prayer and pity; for there all prayers are
accepted, and all pity is devoid of pain! Why are you silent?
_Beatrice._ It is very sinful not to love all creatures in the world.
But it is true, O Dante! that we always love those the most who make
us the most unhappy?
_Dante._ The remark, I fear, is just.
_Beatrice._ Then, unless the Virgin be pleased to change my
inclinations, I shall begin at last to love my betrothed; for already
the very idea of him renders me sad, wearisome, and comfortless.
Yesterday he sent me a bunch of violets. When I took them up,
delighted as I felt at that sweetest of odours, which you and I once
inhaled together....
_Dante._ And only once.
_Beatrice._ You know why. Be quiet now, and hear me. I dropped the
posy; for around it, hidden by various kinds of foliage, was twined
the bridal necklace of pearls. O Dante, how worthless are the finest
of them (and there are many fine ones) in comparison with those little
pebbles, some of which (for perhaps I may not have gathered up all)
may be still lying under the peach-tree, and some (do I blush to say
it?) under the fig! Tell me not who threw these, nor for what. But you
know you were always thoughtful, and sometimes reading, sometimes
writing, and sometimes forgetting me, while I waited to see the
crimson cap, and the two bay-leaves I fastened in it, rise above the
garden-wall. How silently you are listening, if you do listen!
_Dante._ Oh, could my thoughts incessantly and eternally dwell among
these recollections, undisturbed by any other voice ... undistracted
by any other presence! Soon must they abide with me alone, and be
repeated by none but me ... repeated in the accents of anguish and
despair! Why could you not have held in the sad home of your heart
that necklace and those violets?
_Beatrice._ My Dante! we must all obey ... I my father, you your God.
He will never abandon you.
_Dante._ I have ever sung, and will for ever sing, the most glorious
of His works: and yet, O Bice! He abandons me, He casts me off; and He
uses your hand for this infliction.
_Beatrice._ Men travel far and wide, and see many on whom to fix or
transfer their affections; but we maidens have neither the power nor
the will. Casting our eyes on the ground, we walk along the straight
and narrow road prescribed for us; and, doing this, we avoid in great
measure the thorns and entanglements of life. We know we are
performing our duty; and the fruit of this knowledge is contentment.
Season after season, day after day, you have made me serious, pensive,
meditative, and almost wise. Being so little a girl, I was proud that
you, so much taller, should lean on my shoulder to overlook my work.
And greatly more proud was I when in time you taught me several Latin
words, and then whole sentences, both in prose and verse, pasting a
strip of paper over, or obscuring with impenetrable ink, those
passages in the poets which were beyond my comprehension, and might
perplex me. But proudest of all was I when you began to reason with
me. What will now be my pride if you are convinced by the first
arguments I ever have opposed to you; or if you only take them up and
try if they are applicable. Certainly do I know (indeed, indeed I do)
that even the patience to consider them will make you happier. Will it
not then make me so? I entertain no other wish. Is not this true love?
_Dante._ Ah, yes! the truest, the purest, the least perishable, but
not the sweetest. Here are the rue and hyssop; but where the rose?
_Beatrice._ Wicked must be whatever torments you: and will you let
love do it? Love is the gentlest and kindest breath of God. Are you
willing that the tempter should intercept it, and respire it polluted
into your ear? Do not make me hesitate to pray to the Virgin for you,
nor tremble lest she look down on you with a reproachful pity. To her
alone, O Dante, dare I confide all my thoughts! Lessen not my
confidence in my only refuge.
_Dante._ God annihilate a power so criminal! Oh, could my love flow
into your breast with hers! It should flow with equal purity.
_Beatrice._ You have stored my little mind with many thoughts; dear
because they are yours, and because they are virtuous. May I not, O my
Dante! bring some of them back again to your bosom; as the _contadina_
lets down the string from the cottage-beam in winter, and culls a few
bunches of the soundest for the master of the vineyard? You have not
given me glory that the world should shudder at its eclipse. To prove
that I am worthy of the smallest part of it, I must obey God; and,
under God, my father. Surely the voice of Heaven comes to us audibly
from a parent's lips. You will be great, and, what is above, all
greatness, good.
_Dante._ Rightly and wisely, my sweet Beatrice, have you spoken in
this estimate. Greatness is to goodness what gravel is to porphyry:
the one is a movable accumulation, swept along the surface of the
earth; the other stands fixed and solid and alone, above the violence
of war and of the tempest; above all that is residuous of a wasted
world. Little men build up great ones; but the snow colossus soon
melts: the good stand under the eye of God; and therefore stand.
_Beatrice._ Now you are calm and reasonable, listen to me, Bice. You
must marry.
_Dante._ Marry?
_Beatrice._ Unless you do, how can we meet again unreservedly? Worse,
worse than ever! I cannot bear to see those large heavy tears
following one another, heavy and slow as nuns at the funeral of a
sister. Come, I will kiss off one, if you will promise me faithfully
to shed no more. Be tranquil, be tranquil; only hear reason. There are
many who know you; and all who know you must love you. Don't you hear
me? Why turn aside? and why go farther off? I will have that hand. It
twists about as if it hated its confinement. Perverse and peevish
creature! you have no more reason to be sorry than I have; and you
have many to the contrary which I have not. Being a man, you are at
liberty to admire a variety, and to make a choice. Is that no comfort
to you?
_Dante._
Bid this bosom cease to grieve?
Bid these eyes fresh objects see?
Where's the comfort to believe
None might once have rivall'd me?
What! my freedom to receive?
Broken hearts, are they the free?
For another can I live
When I may not live for thee?
_Beatrice._ I will never be fond of you again if you are so violent.
We have been together too long, and we may be noticed.
_Dante._ Is this our last meeting? If it is ... and that it is, my
heart has told me ... you will not, surely you will not refuse....
_Beatrice._ Dante! Dante! they make the heart sad after: do not wish
it. But prayers ... oh, how much better are they, how much quieter and
lighter they render it! They carry it up to heaven with them; and
those we love are left behind no longer.
FRA FILIPPO LIPPI AND POPE EUGENIUS THE FOURTH
_Eugenius._ Filippo! I am informed by my son Cosimo de' Medici of many
things relating to thy life and actions, and among the rest, of thy
throwing off the habit of a friar. Speak to me as to a friend. Was
that well done?
_Filippo._ Holy Father! it was done most unadvisedly.
_Eugenius._ Continue to treat me with the same confidence and
ingenuousness; and, beside the remuneration I intend to bestow on thee
for the paintings wherewith thou hast adorned my palace, I will remove
with my own hand the heavy accumulation of thy sins, and ward off the
peril of fresh ones, placing within thy reach every worldly solace and
contentment.
_Filippo._ Infinite thanks, Holy Father! from the innermost heart of
your unworthy servant, whose duty and wishes bind him alike and
equally to a strict compliance with your paternal commands.
_Eugenius._ Was it a love of the world and its vanities that induced
thee to throw aside the frock?
_Filippo._ It was indeed, Holy Father! I never had the courage to
mention it in confession among my manifold offences.
_Eugenius._ Bad! bad! Repentance is of little use to the sinner,
unless he pour it from a full and overflowing heart into the capacious
ear of the confessor. Ye must not go straightforward and bluntly up to
your Maker, startling Him with the horrors of your guilty conscience.
Order, decency, time, place, opportunity, must be observed.
_Filippo._ I have observed the greater part of them: time, place, and
opportunity.
_Eugenius._ That is much. In consideration of it, I hereby absolve
thee.
_Filippo._ I feel quite easy, quite new-born.
_Eugenius._ I am desirous of hearing what sort of feelings thou
experiencest, when thou givest loose to thy intractable and unruly
wishes. Now, this love of the world, what can it mean? A love of
music, of dancing, of riding? What in short is it in thee?
_Filippo._ Holy Father! I was ever of a hot and amorous constitution.
_Eugenius._ Well, well! I can guess, within a trifle, what that leads
unto. I very much disapprove of it, whatever it may be. And then? and
then? Prithee go on: I am inflamed with a miraculous zeal to cleanse
thee.
_Filippo._ I have committed many follies, and some sins.
_Eugenius._ Let me hear the sins; I do not trouble my head about the
follies; the Church has no business with them. The State is founded on
follies, the Church on sins. Come then, unsack them.
_Filippo._ Concupiscence is both a folly and a sin. I felt more and
more of it when I ceased to be a monk, not having (for a time) so
ready means of allaying it.
_Eugenius._ No doubt. Thou shouldst have thought again and again
before thou strippedst off the cowl.
_Filippo._ Ah! Holy Father! I am sore at heart. I thought indeed how
often it had held two heads together under it, and that stripping it
off was double decapitation. But compensation and contentment came,
and we were warm enough without it.