ARIOSTO.
Ancestry and Birth of Ariosto--His Education--His Father's
Death--Life at Reggio--Enters Ippolito d'Este's
Service--Character of the Cardinal--Court Life--Composition
and Publication of the _Furioso_--Quiet Life at
Ferrara--Comedies--Governorship of Garfagnana--His Son
Virginio--Last Eight Years--Death--Character and Habits--The
Satires--Latin Elegies and Lyrics--Analysis of the
Satires--Ippolito's Service--Choice of a Wife--Life at Court
and Place-hunting--Miseries at Garfagnana--Virginio's
Education--Autobiographical and Satirical Elements--Ariosto's
Philosophy of Life--Minor Poems--Alessandra Benucci--Ovidian
Elegies--Madrigals and Sonnets--Ariosto's Conception of Love.
Ariosto's family was ancient and of honorable station in the Duchy of
Ferrara. His father, Nicolo, held offices of trust under Ercole I., and
in the year 1472 was made Governor of Reggio, where he acquired property
and married. His wife, Daria Maleguzzi, gave birth at Reggio in 1474 to
their first-born, Lodovico, the poet. At Reggio the boy spent seven
years of childhood, removing with his father in 1481 to Rovigo. His
education appears to have been carried on at Ferrara, where he learned
Latin but no Greek. This ignorance of Greek literature placed him, like
Machiavelli, somewhat at a disadvantage among men of culture in an age
that set great store upon the knowledge of both ancient languages. He
was destined for a legal career; but, like Petrarch and Boccaccio, after
spending some useless years in uncongenial studies, Ariosto prevailed
upon his father to allow him to follow his strong bent for literature.
In 1500 Nicolo Ariosto died, leaving a family of five sons and five
daughters, with property sufficient for the honor of his house but
scarcely adequate to the needs of his numerous children. Lodovico was
the eldest. He therefore found himself at the age of twenty-six in the
position of father to nine brothers and sisters, for whose education,
start in life, and suitable settlement, he was called on to arrange. The
administration of his father's estate, and the cares thus early thrust
upon him, made the poet an exact man of business, and brought him
acquainted with real life under its most serious aspects. He discharged
his duties with prudence and fidelity; managing by economy to provide
portions for his sisters and honorable maintenance for his brothers out
of their joint patrimony.
The first three years after his father's death were spent by Ariosto in
the neighborhood of Reggio, and to this period of his life we may
perhaps refer some of the love-affairs celebrated in his Latin poems. He
held the Captaincy of Canossa, a small sinecure involving no important
duties, since the Castle of Canossa was even in those days a ruin. In
1503 he entered the service of Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, with whom he
remained until 1517. He was placed upon the list of the Cardinal's
extraordinary servants, to be employed in matters of confidence and
delicacy, involving frequent journeys to all parts of Italy and
ceremonial embassies. His pay seems to have been fixed at 240 _lire
marchesane_, corresponding to about 1200 francs, charged upon the
Archiepiscopal Chancery of Milan.[597] This salary, had it been
regularly paid, would have suffered to maintain the poet in decent
comfort; but he had considerable difficulty from time to time in
realizing the sums due to him. Ippolito urged him to take orders, no
doubt with a view of securing better emoluments from benefices that
could only be conferred upon a member of the priesthood. But Ariosto
refused to enter a state of life for which he felt no vocation.[598] The
Cardinal Deacon of S. Lucia in Silice was one of those secular princes
of the Church, addicted to worldly pleasures, profuse in personal
expenditure, with more inclination for the camp and the hunting-field
than for the duties of his station, who since the days of Sixtus IV. had
played a prominent part in the society of the Italian Courts. He was of
distinguished beauty; and his military courage, like that of the
Cardinal Ippolito de' Medici, was displayed in the Hungarian campaign
against the Turks. With regard to his character and temper, it may
suffice to remind the reader how, in a fit of jealous passion, he hired
assassins to put out his natural brother Giulio's eyes. That Ippolito
d'Este did not share the prevailing enthusiasm of his age for literary
culture, seems pretty clear; and he failed to discern the unique genius
of the man whom he had chosen for his confidential agent. Ariosto
complains that he was turned into a common courier and forced to spend
his days and nights upon the road by the master upon whom, at the
expense of truth and reason, he conferred an immortality of fame in his
great poem. Yet it would not be fair to echo the commonplace invectives
against the Cardinal for illiberality and ingratitude. Ariosto knew the
nature of his patron when he entered his service, and Ippolito did not
hire a student but an active man of business for his work. It was an
arrangement of convenience on both sides, to which the poet would never
have stooped had his private means sufficed, or had the conditions of
Italian society offered any decent career for a gentleman outside the
circle of the Court. Moreover, it was not until after their final
rupture, caused by Ariosto's refusal to undertake the Hungarian
expedition in his master's train, that the true greatness of the author
of the _Furioso_ was revealed. How should a dissolute and
ill-conditioned Cardinal have discerned that a dreamy poem in MS. on the
madness of Orlando would live as long as the _AEneid_, or that the
flattering lies invented by his courier would in after ages turn the
fierce glare of criticism and celebrity upon the darkest corners of his
own history? The old legend about his brutal reception of the _Orlando
Furioso_ has been now in part disproved.[599] We know that he defrayed
the expenses of its publication, and secured the right and profits of
its sale to Ariosto.[600] There is even an entry in his memoranda of
expenditure proving that he bought a copy for the sum of one _lira
marchesana_.[601] While deploring the waste of Ariosto's time and
strength in the uncongenial service of this patron, we must acknowledge
that his choice of Ippolito was a mistake for which he alone was
responsible, and that the panegyrics showered on such a man are wholly
inexcusable.[602] When all the circumstances of their connection are
taken into account, there is nothing but the extreme irritation caused
by incompatibility of temper, and divergence of aims and interests, to
condone the poet's private censure of the master whom publicly he loaded
with praises.[603] The whole unhappy story illustrates the real
conditions of that Court-life, so glowingly described by Castiglione,
which proved the ruin of Tasso and the disgrace of Guarini. Could
anything justify the brigandlike brutalities of Pietro Aretino, _il
flagello de' Principi_, we might base his apology upon the dreary
histories of these Italian poets, soured, impoverished, and broken
because they had been forced to put their trust in princes. When there
lay no choice between levying blackmail by menaces and coaxing crumbs by
flatteries, it accorded better with the Italian ideal _virtu_ to fatten
upon the former kind of infamy than to starve upon the latter.
The _Orlando Furioso_ was conceived and begun in the year 1505. It was
sent to press in 1515. Giovanni Mazzocchi del Bondeno published it in
April, 1516. A large portion of the poet's life was subsequently spent
in correcting and improving it. In 1518, having freed himself from
Ippolito's bondage, Ariosto entered the service of Duke Alfonso I. He
was termed _cameriere_ or _famigliare_, and his stipend was fixed at
eighty-four golden crowns per annum, with maintenance for three servants
and two horses, paid in kind.[604] He occupied his own house in Ferrara;
and the Duke, who recognized his great literary qualities and
appreciated the new luster conferred upon his family by the publication
of the _Furioso_, left him in the undisturbed possession of his
leisure.[605] The next four years were probably the happiest of
Ariosto's life; for he had now at last secured independence and had
entered upon the enjoyment of his fame. The Medici of Florence and Rome,
and the ducal families of Urbino and Mantua, were pleased to number him
among their intimate friends, and he received flattering acknowledgments
of his poem from the most illustrious men of Italy. The few journeys he
made at the request of Alfonso carried him to Florence, the
head-quarters of literary and artistic activity. At home the time he
spared from the revision of the _Furioso_, was partly devoted to the
love-affairs he carried on with jealous secrecy, and partly to the
superintendence of the ducal theater. The criticism of Ariosto's
comedies must be reserved for another chapter. It is enough to remark
here that their composition amused him from his boyhood to his latest
years. So early as 1493 he had accompanied Ercole I. to Pavia in order
to play before Lodovico Sforza, and in the same year he witnessed the
famous representation of the _Menaechmi_ at Ferrara. Some of his earliest
essays in literature were translations of Latin comedies, now
unfortunately lost. They were intended for representation; and, as
exercises in the playwright's art, they strongly influenced his style.
His own _Cassaria_ appeared for the first time at Ferrara in 1508; the
_Suppositi_ followed in 1509, and was reproduced at the Vatican in 1519.
It took Leo's fancy so much that he besought the author for another
comedy. Ariosto, in compliance with this request, completed the
_Negromante_, which he had already had in hand during the previous ten
years. The _Lena_ was first represented at Ferrara in 1528, and the
_Scolastica_ was left unfinished at the poet's death. What part Ariosto
took in the presentation of his comedies, is uncertain; but it is
probable that he helped in their performance, besides directing the
stage and reciting the prologue. He thus acquired a practical
acquaintance with theatrical management, and it was by his advice, and
on plans furnished by him, that Alfonso built the first permanent stage
at Ferrara in 1532. On the last day of that year, not long after its
erection, the theater was burned down. These dates are important; since
they prove that Ariosto's connection with the stage, as actor,
playwright, and manager, was continuous throughout his lifetime.
Ariosto's peaceful occupations at Ferrara were interrupted early in 1522
by what must be reckoned the strangest episode of his career. On
February 7 in that year, he was nominated Ducal Commissary for the
government of Garfagnana, a wild upland district stretching under Monte
Pellegrino almost across the Apennines from the Lucchese to the
Modenese frontiers. We find that the salary allowed him by Alfonso had
never been very regularly paid, and that in 1521 the Duke, straitened in
means by his warfare with the Papacy, was compelled to suspend it
altogether.[606] At the same period the Communes forming what is known
as Garfagnana (who had placed themselves beneath the Marquises of
Ferrara in the first half of the fifteenth century, but had lately
suffered from Florentine and Papal incursions) besought Alfonso to
assert his suzerainty of their district and to take measures for
securing its internal quiet. The emoluments of the Commissary amounted
to about 930 _lire marchesane_, estimated at something like 2,300 francs
of present value; and it was undoubtedly the pecuniary profits of the
office which induced the Duke to offer it, and the poet to accept it.
We may think it strange that so acute a judge of men as Alfonso should
have selected the author of the _Furioso_, a confirmed student, almost a
recluse in his habits, and already broken in health, for the
governorship of a district half-ruined by foreign raids and domestic
feuds, which had become the haunt of brigands and the asylum of bandits
from surrounding provinces. Yet we must remember that Ariosto had
already given ample proof of his good sense and business-like qualities,
not only in the administration of his own affairs, but in numerous
embassies undertaken for the Cardinal and Duke, his masters. At that
epoch of Italian history the name and fame of an illustrious writer were
themselves a power in politics: and it is said that during Ariosto's
first journey into Garfagnana, he owed his liberation from the hands of
brigands to the celebrity of the _Orlando Furioso_.[607] Alfonso knew,
moreover, that the poet was well qualified for negotiating with princes;
and what was of grave practical importance, he stood in excellent
personal relations to the Medici, from whom as the rulers of Florence
the Garfagnana was menaced with invasion. These considerations are
sufficient to explain Alfonso's choice. Nothing but necessity would
probably have induced Ariosto to quit Ferrara for the intolerable
seclusion of those barbarous mountains; where it was his duty to issue
edicts against brigands, to hunt outlaws, to punish murderers and
robbers, to exact fines for rape and infamous offenses, to see that the
hangman did his duty, and to sit in judgment daily upon suits that
proved the savage immorality of the entire population. The hopelessness
of the task might have been enough to break a sterner heart than
Ariosto's, and his loathing of his life at Castelnovo found vent in the
most powerful of his satires. He managed to endure this uncongenial
existence for three years, from February 20, 1522, till June, 1525,
sustaining his spirits with correspondence and composition, and varying
the monotony of his life by visits to Ferrara. It was during his
Garfagnana residence in all probability that he composed the _Cinque
Canti_. The society of his dearly-loved son, Virginio--whose education
he superintended and for whom he wrote the charming seventh Satire to
Pietro Bembo--also served to diminish the dreariness of his exile from
love, leisure, and the society of friends.
Virginio was Ariosto's natural son by a woman of Reggio. He collected
the Latin poems after his father's death, and prepared the _Cinque
Canti_ for Manuzio's press in 1545. He also helped his uncle Gabriele to
finish _La Scolastica_, and wrote a few brief recollections of his
father. Ariosto had a second illegitimate son, named Giovanni Battista,
who distinguished himself in a military career.
The last eight years of Ariosto's life were spent in great tranquillity
at Ferrara. Soon after his return from Garfagnana he built his house in
the Contrada Mirasol, and placed upon it the following characteristic
inscription[608]:
Parva sed apta mihi sed nulli obnoxia sed non
Sordida parta meo sed tamen aere domus.
About this time, too, he married the lady to whom for many years he had
been tenderly attached.[609] She was the Florentine Alessandra Benucci,
widow of Tito Strozzi, whom he first saw at Florence in the year 1513.
The marriage was kept strictly secret, probably because the poet did not
choose to relinquish the income he derived from certain minor benefices.
Nor did it prove fruitful of offspring, for Ariosto left no legitimate
heirs. His life of tranquil study was varied only by short journeys to
Venice, Abano, and Mantua. In 1531 he was sent to negotiate certain
matters for his master in the camp of the Marquis del Vasto at
Correggio. On this occasion he received from Alfonso Davalos a pension
of one hundred golden ducats, by a deed which sets forth in its preamble
the duty of princes to recompense poets who immortalize the acts of
heroes. This is the only instance of reward bestowed on Ariosto for his
purely literary merits. The poet repaid his benefactor by magnificent
eulogies inserted in the last edition of the _Furioso_.[610] Between the
year 1525, when he left Garfagnana, and 1532, when his poem issued from
the press, he devoted himself with unceasing labor to its revision and
improvement. The edition of 1516 consisted of forty cantos. That of 1532
contained forty-six, and the whole text had been subjected in the
interval to minute alterations.[611] Not long after the publication of
the revised edition Ariosto's health gave way. His constitution had
never been robust, for he suffered habitually from a catarrh of the
lungs which made his old life as Ippolito d'Este's courier not only
distasteful but dangerous.[612] Toward the close of 1532 this complaint
took the form of a consumption, which ended his days on the sixth of
June, 1533. Great pains have been bestowed by his biographers on proving
that he died a good Catholic; nor is there any reason to suppose that he
neglected the consolations of the Church in his last hours. He was by no
means a man to break abruptly with tradition or to make an indecorous
display of doubts that may have haunted him. Yet the best Latin verses
he ever penned were a half-humorous copy of hendecasyllables for his own
epitaph, which seem to prove that he applied Montaigne's _peut-etre_
even to the grave.[613]
Of Ariosto's personal habits and opinions we know unfortunately but
little, beyond what may be gathered from the incomparably transparent
self-revelation of his satires. His son, Virginio, who might have amply
satisfied our curiosity, confined himself to the fewest and briefest
details in the notes transcribed and published by Barotti. Some of
these, however, are so characteristic that it may not be inopportune to
translate them. With regard to his method of composition, Virginio
writes: "He was never satisfied with his verses, but altered them again
and again, so that he could not keep his lines in his memory, and
consequently lost many of his compositions.... In horticulture he
followed the same system as in composition, for he would not leave
anything he planted for more than three months in one place; and if he
sowed peaches or any kind of seed, he went so often to see if they were
sprouting, that at last he broke the shoots. He had but small knowledge
of herbs, and used to think that whatever grew near the things he had
sown, were the plants themselves, and watched them diligently till his
mistake was proved beyond all doubt. I remember once, when he had
planted capers, he went every day to see them and was greatly delighted
at their luxuriance. At last he discerned that they were but elders,
and that the capers had not come up at all.... He was not much given to
study, and cared to see but few books. Virgil gave him pleasure, and
Tibullus for his diction; but he greatly commended Horace and Catullus,
Propertius not much.... He ate fast and much, and made no distinction of
food. So soon as he came home, if he found the bread set out, he would
eat one piece walking, while the meats were being brought to table. When
he saw them spread, he had water poured upon his hands and then began to
eat whatever was nearest to him.... He was fond of turnips."
From the bare details of Ariosto's biography it is satisfactory to turn
to the living picture of the man himself revealed in his Satires. These
compositions rank next to the _Orlando Furioso_ in the literary canon of
his works, and have the highest value for the light they cast upon his
temperament and mode of feeling. Though they are commonly called
Satires, they rather deserve the name of Epistles; for while a satiric
element gives distinct flavor to each of the seven poems, this is
subordinated to personal and familiar topics of correspondence. We learn
from them what the great artist of the golden age thought and felt about
the times in which he lived; what moved his indignation or aroused his
sympathy; how he strove to meet the troubles of his checkered life; and
where, amid the carnival of that mad century, he laid his finger upon
hidden social maladies. Reading them, we come to know the man himself,
and are better able to understand how, while Italy was distracted with
wars and trampled on by foreign armies, he could withdraw himself from
the tumult, and spend his years in polishing the stanzas of _Orlando_.
The Satires do not reveal a hero or a sage, a poet passionate like Dante
with the sense of wrong, or like Petrarch aspiring after an impossible
ideal. It is rather the type of Boccaccio's character, refined and
purged of sensuality, with delicate touches of irony and a more
fastidious taste, that meets us in this portrait of Ariosto painted by
himself. His mental vision is more lucid, his judgment more acute, his
philosophy less indulgent, and his ideal of art more exacting; yet he,
too, might be nicknamed _Lodovico della Tranquillita_. With his head in
Philiroe's lap beside a limpid rivulet, he basks away the summer hours,
and cares not whether French or German get the upper hand in Italy.[614]
Does it greatly signify, he asks Ercole Strozzi in one of his Latin
poems, whether we serve a French or an Italian tyrant? Servitude is the
same, if the despot be a barbarian only in manners, like our
princelings, or in name too, like these foreigners.[615]
Left alone to study and to polish verses, Ariosto
is content. He is content to flatter and confer immortality on the
master he despises. He is content to rest in one place, turning his maps
over when he fain would take a journey into foreign lands. Only let him
be, and give him enough to live upon, and he will trouble no man,
dispute no pretender's claims, raise no inconvenient questions of right
and wrong, inflame the world with no far-reaching thoughts, but gild the
refined gold of his purest phrases and paint the lilies of his loveliest
thoughts in placid ease. Italy has grown old, and Ariosto is the genius
of a tired, world-weary, disillusioned age. What is there worth a
struggle? At the same time he preserves his independence as a private
gentleman. He passes free judgment upon society; and the patron he has
praised officially in his epic, receives hard justice in his Satires. He
is frank and honest, free from hypocrisy and guile, genial and loyal
toward his friends, upright in his dealings and manly in his instincts.
We respect his candor, his contempt for worldly honors, and his love of
liberty. We admire his intellectual sagacity, his deep and wise
philosophy of life, the knowledge of the world so easily communicated,
the irony so pungent yet so free from bitterness, which gives piquancy
to these familiar discourses. Still both respect and admiration are
tempered with some regret that the greatest poet of the sixteenth
century should have been so easy-going. Such is the Ariosto revealed to
us by the Satires--not a noble or sublime being: by no means the man to
save the State if safety had been possible. Throughout the tragedy of
Italy's last years of freedom he moves, an essentially comic character,
only redeemed by genius and by _Weltweisheit_ from the ridicule
attaching to a man whose aims are commonplace, and whose complaints
against the world are petty. He is not servile enough to accept the
humiliations of a courtier's lot without a murmur. He is not proud
enough to break his chains and live in haughty isolation. Hence in these
incomparable records of his private opinion, we find him at one moment
painting the discomforts of his position with a _naivete_ that provokes
our laughter, at another analyzing the vices of society with luminous
acumen, then shrugging his shoulders and summoning philosophy to his aid
with a final cry of _Pazienza!_
The motive of the first Epistle is a proposed journey to Rome.[616] The
second enumerates the reasons why the poet will not accompany Ippolito
d'Este to Hungary. The subject of the third is the choice of a wife.
The fourth discusses the vanity of honors and wealth in comparison with
a contented mind. The fifth describes the poet's isolation in the
Garfagnana, and contains a confession of his love. In the sixth he
explains why he does not wish to go to Rome and seek advancement from
Clement VII. The seventh is devoted to the education of youth in the
humanities, and contains a retrospect of his own early life. The satire
of the first is directed against the ambition and avarice of priests,
the pride of Roman prelates, and the nepotism of the Popes. The passage
describing an ecclesiastic's levee is justly famous for its humor; and
the diatribe on Papal vices for its force. The second shows how the
dependents upon princes are forced to flatter, and how they exchange
their freedom for the empty honor of sitting near great men at table.
Ariosto takes occasion to describe the character of Ippolito d'Este, who
cared for his hawks and hounds more than for the Muses, and who paid his
body-servants better than the poet of Orlando.[617] "I owe you nothing,
Phoebus, nor you, holy college of the Muses! From you I never got enough
to buy myself a cloak. 'Indeed? your lord has given you....' More than
the price of several cloaks, I grant. But not for your sake, Muses, I am
certain. He has told me, and I do not mind repeating it, that my verses
are just worth the price of their waste paper. He will not give a penny
for my praises, but pays me for courier's service. His followers in the
barge or villa, his _valet-de-chambre_ and butler, his lackeys who
outwatch the night, get paid. But when I set his name with honor in my
verse, he tells me I have whiled my time away in ease and pleasure--I
had pleased him better by attendance on his person. If you remind me
that I owe to him a third of the Chancery dues at Milan, I answer that
he gave me this because I ply both spur and whip, change beasts and
guides, and hurry over hills and precipices, risking my life upon his
business."
The third Epistle is a masterpiece of sound counsel and ripe knowledge
of the world. Better rules could not be given about the precautions to
be taken in selecting a wife, the qualities a man should seek in her,
and the conduct he should use toward her after marriage. The satire
consists in that poor opinion of female honesty which the author of the
_Furioso_ had conceived, not without much experience of women, and after
mature reflection upon social institutions. It is not envenomed like the
invectives of the _Corbaccio_, or exaggerated like the abuse in
Alberti's dialogues. Leaning back in his arm-chair with an amused and
quiet smile, the indulgent satirist enunciates truths that are biting
only because they condense the wisdom of an observant lifetime. He never
ceases to be kindly; and we feel, while listening to him, that his
epigrams are double-edged. The poet who has learned thus much of women,
gives the measure of his limited capacity for noble feeling; for while
he paints them as he finds them, he leaves an impression of his own
emotional banality. After making due allowance for this defect in
Ariosto's point of view, we may rank the third Epistle among the ripest
products of his intellect. The fourth resumes the theme of Court-life
and place-hunting. "You ask me, friend Annibale, how I fare with Duke
Alfonso, and whether I find his service lighter than the Cardinal's. To
tell the truth, I do not like one burden better than the other; and were
I rich enough, I certainly would be no man's servant. But I was not born
an only son, and Mercury was never generous to my race. So I am forced
to live at a patron's charge, and it is better to owe my maintenance to
the Duke than to beg bread from door to door. I know that most people
think it a grand thing to be a courtier, but I count Court-life as mere
slavery. A nightingale is ill at ease in a cage, and a swallow dies
after a day's imprisonment. If a man wants to be decorated with the
spurs or the red hat, let him serve kings or popes. For my part, I care
for neither; a turnip in my own house tastes sweeter to me than a
banquet in a master's.[618] I would rather stretch my lazy limbs in my
armchair than be able to boast that I had traveled over half the globe.
I have seen Tuscany, Lombardy, Romagna, the Apennines and Alps, the
Adriatic and the Mediterranean. That is enough for me. The rest of the
world I can visit at my leisure with Ptolemy for guide. The Duke's
service has this advantage, that it does not interrupt my studies, or
take me far from Ferrara, where my heart is always. I think I hear you
laughing at this point, and saying that neither love of study nor of
country, but a woman ties me to my home. Well: I will confess it
frankly. But suppose I had gone to Rome to fish for benefices, says some
one, I should certainly have netted more than one, especially as I was
Leo's friend before his merits or his luck raised him to the highest
earthly station. I knew him at Urbino when he cheered his exile with
Castiglione and Bembo; and afterwards when he returned to Florence, he
bade me count upon him like a brother. All this is true; but listen to a
fable I will tell you.[619] In time of drought, when there was no water
to be had in all the country, a shepherd found a scanty spring. He drank
of it first, and next his wife, and then his children, and afterwards
his servants and his cattle. Last of all there came a magpie he had
petted in old days; but the bird saw that she had no right to drink of
the fountain, for she was neither wife nor child nor hind, nor could she
bring wealth to the household.[620] It is just the same with me. Leo has
all the Medici, and all his friends in exile, who risked their lives and
fortunes for him, and all the priests who made him pope, to recompense.
What is there left for me? It is true that he has not forgotten me. When
I went to Rome and kissed his foot, he bent down from the holy seat, and
took my hand and saluted me on both cheeks. Besides, he made me free of
half the stamp-dues I was bound to pay; and then, breast-full of hope
but soaked with rain and smirched with mud, I went and had my supper at
the Ram![621] But supposing the Pope kept all his promises and put as
many miters on my head as Michelangelo's Jonah sees beneath him in the
Sistine Chapel, what would this profit me? No amount of wealth can
satisfy desire. Honors and riches do not bring tranquillity of mind.
True honor is, to be esteemed an honest man, and to be this in good
earnest; for if you are not really one, you will be detected. What is
the advantage of wearing fine clothes and being bowed to in the
market-place, if people point you out behind your back as thief and
traitor? There are dignities which are notorious disgraces; and the
richer and greater a man is who has gained his rank dishonorably, the
more he calls attention to his shame."
Quante collane, quante cappe nove
Per dignita si comprano, che sono
Pubblici vituperi in Roma e altrove!
In the sixth Epistle written in the Garfagnana, Ariosto still further
develops the same theme. His friend, Pistofilo, had advised him to go to
Rome and seek preferment from Clement VII. "What would be the use?" he
argues. "I have as much of worldly honor as I care for; and if Leo did
not find it in his power to help me, I cannot expect anything from the
other Medici. Nay, my friend, bait your hook with more enticing
dainties: remind me of Bembo, Sadoleto, Giovio, Vida, Molza, Tibaldeo;
in whose company I might wander over the seven hills: or speak to me
about the libraries of Rome. Not even these allurements would move me;
for if I had to live away from Ferrara, I should not be happy in the lap
of Jove. Existence is only made endurable by occasional visits to the
town I love; and if the Duke wishes to fulfill my desires, he must
recall me to himself and make me stationary at Ferrara. Why do I cling
so to that place, you ask me? I would as lief tell you as confess my
worst crimes to a friar. I am forty-nine years of age, and too old to be
the slave of love." The conclusion of the sixth Epistle makes it clear
that his residence at Castelnovo was irksome to the poet because it
forced him to be absent from the woman he loved. But the fifth is even
more explicit. "This day completes the first year of my exile among
these barbarous mountains, dead to the Muses, divided by snows, fells,
forests, rivers, from the mistress of my soul![622] I am nearly fifty,
and yet love rules me like a beardless boy. Well: this weakness is at
least pardonable. I do not commit murder; I do not smite or stab, or vex
my neighbors. I am not consumed with avarice, ambition, prodigality, or
monstrous lust. But in this doleful place my heart fails me. I cannot
write poetry as I used to do at Reggio when life was young. Imprisoned
between the naked heights of Pania and Pellegrino's precipices, the wild
steeps of these woody Apennines inclose me in a living grave. Here in
the castle, or out there in the open air, my ears are deafened with
continual law-suits, accusations, brawls. Theft, murder, hatred,
vengeance, anger, furnish me with occupation day and night. My time is
spent in threatening, punishing, persuading, or acquitting. I write
dispatches daily to the Duke for counsel or for aid against the bandits
that encompass me. The whole province is disorganized with brigandage,
and its eighty-three villages are in a state of chronic discord. Is it
likely then that Phoebus, when I call him, will quit Delphi for this
den? You ask me why I left my mistress and my studies for so dolorous a
cave of care. I was never greedy of money, and my stipend at Ferrara
satisfied me, until the war stopped it altogether, as well as my profits
from the Chancery at Milan. When I asked the Duke for help, it so
happened that the Garfagnana wanted a Governor, and he sent me here with
more regard for my necessities than for the needs of the people under my
care. I am grateful to him for his good will; but though his gift is
costly, it is not to my mind. So I am like the cock who found a jewel on
his dungheap, or like the Venetian who had a fine horse given him and
could not ride it."
The satirical passages in this Epistle can be separated from its
autobiography, and furnish striking specimens of Ariosto's style. In
order to show how ill the world judges of the faults and follies of
great men, he draws a series of portraits with a few but telling
touches. Though furnished with fictitious names, they suit the persons
of the time to a nicety. This, for example, is Francesco Guicciardini,
as Pitti represented him:
Ermilian si del denajo ardente
Come di Alessio il Gianfa, e che lo brama
Ogn'ora, in ogni loco, da ogni gente,
Ne amico ne fratel ne se stesso ama;
Uomo d'industria, uomo di grande ingegno,
Di gran governo e gran valor si chiama.
And here, without doubt, is the elder Lorenzo de' Medici[623]:
Laurin si fa della sua patria capo,
Ed in privato il pubblico converte;
Tre ne confina, a sei ne taglia il capo;
Comincia volpe, indi con forze aperte
Esce leon, poi c'ha 'l popol sedutto
Con licenze, con doni e con offerte.
Gl'iniqui alzando, e deprimendo in lutto
Gli buoni, acquista titolo di saggio,
Di furti, stupri e d'omicidi brutto.
Autobiography and satire are mingled in the same unequal proportions in
the seventh Epistle, which is perhaps the most interesting poem of the
series. "Bembo," so begins the letter, "I want my son Virginio to be
well taught in the arts that elevate a man. You possess them all: I
therefore ask you to recommend me a good Greek tutor at Venice or Padua,
in whose house the youth may live and study. The Greek must be learned,
but also of sound principles, for erudition without morality is worse
than worthless. Unhappily, in these days it is difficult to find a
teacher of this sort. Few humanists are free from the most infamous of
vices, and intellectual vanity makes most of them skeptics also. Why is
it that learning and infidelity go hand in hand? Why do our scholars
Latinize their names of baptism, changing Peter into Pierius, and John
into Janus, or Jovianus? Plato was right when he expelled such poets
from his State. Little have they in common with Phoebus and Amphion who
taught civil life to barbarous races. For myself, it stings me to the
quick when men of my own profession are proved thus vain and vicious.
Find, then, an honest tutor to instruct Virginio in Greek. I have
already taught him Latin; but the difficulties of my early manhood
deprived me of Greek learning. My father drove me at the spear's point
into legal studies. I wasted five years in that trifling, and it was not
till I was twenty that I found a teacher in Gregorio da Spoleto. He
began by grounding me in Latin; but before we had advanced to Greek, the
good man was summoned to Milan. His pupil, Francesco Sforza, went with
Il Moro, a prisoner, into France. Gregorio followed him, and died there.
Then my father died and left me the charge of my younger brothers and
sisters. I had to neglect study and become a strict economist. Next my
dear relative Pandolfo Ariosto, the best and ablest of our house, died;
and, as if these losses were not enough, I found myself beneath the yoke
of Ippolito d'Este. All through the reign of Julius II. and for seven
years of Leo's pontificate he kept me on the move from place to place,
and made me courier instead of poet. Small chance had I of learning
Greek or Hebrew on those mountain roads."
These abstracts of Ariosto's so-called Satires will not be reckoned
superfluous when we consider the clear light they cast upon his personal
character and philosophy. The note of sincerity throughout is
unmistakable. No one can read the pure and simple language of the poet
without feeling that his mind was as transparent as his style, his
character as ingenuous as his diction was perspicuous. When he tells us,
for example, that he does not care for honors, that he prefers his study
to the halls of princes, and that a turnip in his own house tastes
better than the pheasants of a ducal table, we believe him. His
confession of unseasonable love, and his acknowledgment that he has none
of the qualities of judge or ruler, are a security for equal frankness
when he professes himself free from avarice and the common vices of his
age. His satire upon women, his picture of the Roman prelates, his
portraits of great men, and his condemnation of the humanists are
convincing by their very moderation. Like Horace, he plays about the
heart instead of wielding the whip of Lucilius. This parsimony of
expression adds weight to his censure, and renders these epistles more
decisive than the invectives in which contemporary authors indulged. We
doubt the calumnies of Poggio and Filelfo until we read the
well-considered passage of the seventh Epistle, which includes them
all.[624] In like manner the last lines of the fourth Epistle confirm
the Diaries of Burchard and Infessura, while the first contains an
epitome of all that could be said of Alexander's nepotism. These
familiar poems have, therefore, a singular value for the illustration of
the Italian Renaissance in general no less than for that of Ariosto's
own life. Furthermore, they are unique in the annals of Italian
literature. The _terza rima_ of Dante's vision has here become a
vehicle for poetry separated by the narrowest interval from prose. It no
longer lends itself to parody, as in the _Beoni_ of Lorenzo de' Medici.
It is not contaminated by the foul frivolities of the Bernesque
_Capitoli_. It takes with accuracy the impress of the writer's common
thought and feeling. The meter designed to express a sublime belief,
adapts itself to the discursive utterance of a man of sense and culture
in a disillusioned age; and thus we might use the varying fortunes of
_terza rima_ to symbolize the passage from the _trecento_ to the _cinque
cento_, from Dante to Ariosto, from faith and inspiration to art and
reflection.
Ariosto's minor poems, with but one or two exceptions, have direct
reference to the circumstances of his life. They consist of Elegies,
Capitoli, and an Eclogue composed in _terza rima_, with Canzoni,
Sonnets, and Madrigals of the type made obligatory by Petrarch. The poet
of the _Orlando_ was not great in lyric verse. These lesser compositions
show his mastery of simple and perspicuous style; but the specific
qualities of his best work, its color and imagery and pointed humor, are
absent. The language is sometimes pedestrian in directness, sometimes
encumbered with conceits that anticipate the taste of the seventeenth
century.[625] Where it is plainest, we lack the seasoning of epigram and
illustration which enlivens the Satires; and though the sincere feeling
and Ovidian fluency of the more ambitious lyrics render them delightful
reading, we acknowledge that a wider channel of description or
narrative or reflection was needed for the full tide of the poet's
eloquence. The purely subjective style was hardly suited to his genius.
Only three _Canzoni_ are admitted into the canon of Ariosto's works. The
first relates the origin of his love for Alessandra Benucci, wife of
Tito Strozzi, whom he admired as wife and married as widow. It was on S.
John's Day in the year 1513 that he saw her at Florence among the gay
crowd of the midsummer festival. She was dressed in black silk
embroidered with two vines, her golden hair twisted into heavy braids,
and her forehead overshadowed with a jeweled laurel-wreath. The
brightness of the scene was blotted out for the poet, and swallowed in
the intense luster of her beauty:
D'altro ch'io vidi, tenni
Poco ricordo, e poco me ne cale:
Sol mi resto immortale
Memoria, ch'io non vidi in tutta quella
Bella citta, di voi cosa piu bella.
How much he admired Florence, he tells us in the fourteenth elegy, where
this famous compliment occurs:
Se dentro un mur, sotto un medesmo nome
Fosser raccolti i tuoi palazzi sparsi,
Non ti sarian da pareggiar due Rome.
The second _Canzone_ is supposed to be spoken by the soul of Giuliano
de' Medici, Duke of Nemours, to his widow, Filiberta of Savoy. Elevation
of conception raises the language of this poem to occasional sublimity,
as in the passage where he speaks of immortality:
Di me t'incresca, ma non altrimente
Che, s'io vivessi ancor, t'incresceria
D'una partita mia
Che tu avessi a seguir fra pochi giorni:
E se qualche e qualch'anno anco soggiorni
Col tuo mortale a patir caldo e verno,
Lo dei stimar per un momento breve,
Verso quel altro, che mai non riceve
Ne termine ne fin, viver eterno.
The undulation of rhythm obeying the thought renders these lines in a
high sense musical.
Some of the Elegies have been already used in illustration of other
poems. There remain a group apart, which seem to have been directly
modeled upon Ovid. Of these the sixth, describing a night of love, and
the seventh, when the lover dares not enter his lady's door in moonlight
lest he should be seen, are among the finest. The ninth, upon fidelity
in love, contains these noble lines:
La fede mai non debbe esser corrotta,
O data a un sol o data ancor a cento,
Data in palese o data in una grotta.
Per la vil plebe e fatto il giuramento;
Ma tra gli spirti piu elevati sono
Le semplici promesse un sagramento.
The second is written on the famous black pen fringed with gold, which
Ariosto adopted for his device and wore embroidered on his clothes. He
declines to explain the meaning of this bearing; but it is commonly
believed to have referred in some way to his love for Alessandra
Strozzi. Baruffaldi conjectures that her black dress and golden hair
suggested the two colors. But since this elegy threatens curious
inquirers with Actaeon's fate, we may leave his device to the obscurity
he sought. Secrecy in respect to the great passion of his life was
jealously maintained by Ariosto. His ink-stand at Ferrara still bears a
Cupid with one finger on his lip, as though to bid posterity observe the
reticence adopted by the poet in his lifetime.
The Madrigals and Sonnets do not add much to our conception of Ariosto's
genius. It has been well remarked that while his Latin love-poems echo
the style of Horace, these are imitations of Petrarch's manner.[626] In
the former he celebrates the facile attractions of Lydia and Megilla, or
confesses that he is inconstant in every thing except in always varying
his loves.[627] In the latter he professes to admire a beautiful soul
and eloquent lips more than physical charms, praises the spiritual
excellences of his mistress, and writes complimentary sonnets on her
golden hair.[628] In neither case is there any insincerity. Ariosto
never pretended to be a platonic lover, nor did he credit women with
great nobility of nature. Yet on the other hand it is certain that he
was no less tenderly than passionately attached to Alessandra; and this
serious love, of which the Sonnets are perhaps the record, triumphed
over the volatility of his earlier affections.
It is enough in this chapter to have dealt with Ariosto's life and minor
writings. The _Orlando Furioso_, considered both as the masterpiece of
his genius and also as the representative poem of the Italian
Renaissance, must form the subject of a separate study.
FOOTNOTES:
[597] See _Satire_, i. 100-102; ii. 109-111.
[598] See _Satire_, i. 113-123, for his reasons. He seems chiefly to
have dreaded the loss of personal liberty, if he took orders.
[599] Ippolito is said to have asked the poet: "Dove avete trovato,
messer Lodovico, tante corbellerie?" That he did in effect say
something of the kind is proved by _Satire_, ii. 94-99.
[600] Campori, _Notizie per la Vita di L. Ariosto_ (Modena, Vincenzi,
1871), pp. 55-58.
[601] _Ibid._ p. 58.
[602] He penned the following couplet in 1503, when it is to be hoped
he had yet not learned to know his master's real qualities:
Quis patre invicto gerit Hercule fortius arma,
Mystica quis casto castius Hippolyto?
In another epigram, written on the death of the Cardinal, he pretends
that Ippolito, hearing of Alfonso's illness, vowed his own life for
his brother's and was accepted. See _Opere Minori_, i. 349.
[603] See _Satires_ ii. vii.; _Capitoli_ i. ii.
[604] Campori, _op. cit._ p. 59.
[605] See _Satire_ iv. 67-72.
[606] See _Satire_ v. 172-204.
[607] This is one of the pretty stories on which some doubt has lately
been cast. See Campori, pp. 105-110, for a full discussion of its
probable truth.
[608] "Small, but suited to my needs, freehold, not mean, the fruit of
my own earnings." His son Virginio substituted another inscription
which may still be seen upon the little house-front: _Sic domus haec
Areostea propitios habeat deos olim ut Pindarica_--"May this house of
Ariosto have gods propitious as of old the house of Pindar."
[609] The date is uncertain. It was not before 1522, perhaps even so
late as 1527.
[610] xv. 28; xxxiii. 24.
[611] See Panizzi, _op. cit._ vol. vi. p. cxix. for a description of
these verbal changes.
[612] See especially _Satire_ ii. 28-51, and _Capitolo_ i.
[613] "Ludovici Areosti humantur ossa," etc., _Op. Min._ i. 365.
[614] See the _Opere Minori_, vol. i. p. 336. Also Carducci's eloquent
defense of these Horatian verses in his essay, _Delle Poesie Latine di
L. Ariosto_ (Bologna, Zanichelli, 1876), p. 82. The latter treatise is
a learned criticism of Ariosto's Latin poetry from a point of view
somewhat too indulgent to Ariosto as a poet and a man. Carducci, for
example, calls the four Alcaic stanzas in question "una cosellina
quasi perfetta," though they contain three third lines like these:
Furore militis tremendo....
Jacentem aquae ad murmur cadentis....
Mecumque cespite hoc recumbens.
Ariosto was but second-rate among the Latin versifiers of his century.
It must, however, be added that his Latin poems were written in early
manhood and only published after his death by Giambattista Pigna, in
1553.
[615] _Op. Min._ vol. i. p. 333:
Quid nostra an Gallo regi an servire Latino,
Si sit idem hinc atque hinc non leve servitium?
Barbaricone esse est pejus sub nomine, quam sub
Moribus? At ducibus, Dii, date digna malis.
What Ariosto thought about the Italian despots finds full expression
in the _Cinque Canti_, ii. 5, 6, where he protests that Caligula,
Nero, Phalaris, Dionysius and Creon were surpassed by them in cruelty
and crime.
[616] I have followed the order of Lemonnier's edition, vol. i. of
_Opere Minori_, Florence, 1857. But the dates of composition are
uncertain, and it may be doubted whether Ariosto's own autograph can
be taken as the basis of a chronological arrangement. Much obscurity
rests upon these poems. We do not know, for instance, whether they
were sent to the friends addressed in them by name, or whether the
author intended them for publication. The student may profitably
consult upon these points the lithographed facsimile of the autograph,
published at Bologna by Zanichelli in 1875. Meanwhile it is enough to
mention that the first epistle was addressed to Messer Galasso
Ariosto, the poet's brother, the second to Messer Alessandro Ariosto
and Messer Lodovico da Bagno, the third and fourth to Messer Annibale
Maleguccio, the fifth to Messer Sismondo Maleguccio, the sixth to
Messer Buonaventura Pistofilo, and the seventh to Monsignore Pietro
Bembo.
[617] The first and second _Capitoli_, upon the irksome and exhausting
service of the Cardinal, as dangerous to Ariosto's health as it was
irritating to his temper, should be read side by side with this
Epistle.
[618] See above, p. 505, for Ariosto's liking for turnips. He ate them
with vinegar and wine sauce.
[619] Compare the apologue of the gourd and the pear-tree in the sixth
Satire (55-114). It is to the same effect, but even plainer.
[620] The word I have translated "magpie" is _gaza_ in the autograph.
This has been interpreted as a slip of the pen for _ganza_; but it may
be a Lombardism for _gazza_. In the latter case we should translate it
"magpie," in the former "sweetheart." I prefer to read _gazza_, as the
ironical analogy between a magpie and a poet is characteristic of
Ariosto.
[621] The irony of this passage is justly celebrated. After all his
hopes and all the pontiff's promises, the poet gets a kiss, a trifling
favor, and has to trudge down from the Vatican to his inn. The _mezza
bolla_ is supposed to refer to the fine for entrance on the little
benefice of Sant'Agata, half of which Leo remitted.
[622] The third elegy is a beautiful lamentation over his separation
from his mistress. Written to ease his heart in solitude, it is more
impassioned and less guarded than the epistle.
[623] It may be interesting to compare this scarcely disguised satire
with the official flatteries of _Canzone_ ii. and _Elegies_ i., xiv.,
where Ariosto praises the Medici, and especially Lorenzo, as the
saviours of Florence, the honor of Italy.
[624] 22-69.
[625] As when, for instance, he calls the sun in the first _Canzone_,
"l'omicida lucido d'Achille." Several of the sonnets are artificial in
their tropes.
[626] De Sanctis, ii.
[627] See especially the lines entitled _De sua ipsius mobilitate_.
[628] See Sonnets xii. xi. xxvi. xxiii.
APPENDICES.
APPENDIX I.
_Note on Italian Heroic Verse._
(See above, p. 24.)
The Italian hendecasyllable is an accentual iambic line of five feet
with one unaccented syllable over and included in the rhyme. Thus the
first line of the _Inferno_ may be divided:--
Nel mez|zo del | cammin | di nos|tra vita.
When the verse is so constructed, it is said to be _piano_, the rhyme
being what in English we call double. When the rhyme is single, the
verse is _tronco_, and the rhythm corresponds to that of our heroic, as
in the following instance (_Par._ xxv. 102):
Il ver|no avreb|be un me|se d'un | sol di.
When the rhyme is treble, the verse is _sdrucciolo_, of which form this
is a specimen (_Par._ xxvi. 78):
Che ri|fulge|va piu | di mil|le milia.
It is clear that the quality of the verse is not affected by the number
of syllables in the rhyme; and the line is called hendecasyllabic
because _versi piani_ are immeasurably more frequent and more agreeable
to the ear than either _versi tronchi_ or _sdruccioli_.
If we inquire into the origin of the meter, the first remark we have to
make is that lines of similar construction were used by poets of
Provence. Dante, for example, quotes (_De Vulg. Eloq._ ii. 2) from
Bertram:
Non puesc mudar q'un chantar non esparja.
This fact will seem to many minds conclusive on the point in question.
But, following the investigations of recent scholars, we find this form
of verse pretty generally referred to the watch-song of the Modenese
soldiers. Thus Professor Adolfo Bartoli, after quoting two lines of that
song,
O tu qui servas armis ista moenia,
Noli dormire, moneo, sed vigila,
adds: "qui apparisce per la prima volta il nostro verso endecasillabo,
regolarmente accentato." If this, which is the view accepted by Italian
critics, be right, he ought to have added that each line of the Modenese
watch-song is a _sdrucciolo_ verse. Otherwise, the rhythm bears the
appearance of a six-foot accentual iambic, an appearance which is
confirmed by the recurrence of a single rhyme or assonance in _a_
throughout the poem. Still the strong accent on the antepenultimate
syllable of every verse is sufficient to justify us in regarding the
meter as _endecasillabo sdrucciolo_.
Going further back than the Modenese watch-song (date about 924), the
next question is whether any of the classic meters supplied its
precedent. By reading either Horatian Sapphics or Catullian
hendecasyllables without attention to quantity, we may succeed in
marking the beat of the _endecasillabo piano_.[629] Thus:
Cui do|no lep|idum | novum | libellum?
and:
Serus | in coe|lum red|eas, | diuque
Laetus | inter|sis po|pulo | Quirini.
When these lines are translated into literal Italian, the metamorphosis
is complete. Thus:
Cui don|o il lep|ido | nuovo | libretto?
and:
Tardo in | ciel ried|i e di|utur|no serba
Fausto il | tuo aspet|to al pop|ol di | Quirino.
Even Alcaics, unceremoniously handled by a shifting of the accent, which
is violent disregard of quantity, yield like results. Thus:
Atqui | scie | bat quae | sibi | barbarus.
Or in Italian:
Eppur | conob|be cio | ch'il man|igoldo.
The accentual Sapphics of the middle ages throw some curious light upon
these transmutations of meter. In a lament for Aquileia (tenth century)
we find these lines:
Bella sublimis inclyta divitiis,
Olim fuisti celsa aedificiis.
Here, instead of the Latin Sapphic, we get a loose _sdrucciolo_ rhythm.
The meter of the Serventese seems built upon this medieval Sapphic
model. Here is an example[630]:
O Jeso Cristo, padre onipotente,
Aprestame lo core con la mente
Che rasonare possa certamente
Un servientese.
When the humanistic Italians tried to write Italian Sapphics, they
produced a meter not very dissimilar. Thus in the _Certamen
Coronarium_[631]:
Eccomi, i' son qui Dea degli amici,
Quella qual tutti li omini solete
Mordere, e falso fuggitiva dirli
Or la volete.
What seems tolerably certain is that the modern Italian hendecasyllable
was suggested by one of the Latin eleven-syllabled meters, but that, in
the decay of quantitative prosody, an iambic rhythm asserted itself. It
has no exact correspondence in any classic meter; but it was early
developed out of the accentual Latin measures which replaced
quantitative meter in the middle ages. Signor Rubieri points out that
there may be traces of it in the verses of Etruscan inscriptions.[632]
Nor is it impossible that the rhythm was indigenous, persisting through
a long period of Graeco-Roman culture, to reappear when the rustic
language threw out a modern idiom.
FOOTNOTES:
[629] See Ermolao Rubieri, _Storia della Poesia Popolare Italiana_, p.
45.
[630] Carducci, _Intorno ad Alcune Rime_, p. 107.
[631] _Opere Volgari di L.B. Alberti_, vol. i. p. ccxxv.
[632] See passage referred to above, p. 524, note.
APPENDIX II.
_Ten Sonnets translated from Folgore da San Gemignano._
(See Chapter I. p. 55.)
_ON THE ARMING OF A KNIGHT._
I.
This morn a young squire shall be made a knight;
Whereof he fain would be right worthy found,
And therefore pledgeth lands and castles round
To furnish all that fits a man of might.
Meat, bread and wine he gives to many a wight;
Capons and pheasants on his board abound,
Where serving men and pages march around;
Choice chambers, torches, and wax-candle light.
Barbed steeds, a multitude, are in his thought,
Mailed men at arms and noble company,
Spears, pennants, housing-cloths, bells richly wrought.
Musicians following with great barony
And jesters through the land his state have brought,
With dames and damsels whereso rideth he.
II.
Lo Prowess, who despoileth him straightway,
And saith: "Friend, now beseems it thee to strip;
For I will see men naked, thigh and hip,
And thou my will must know and eke obey;
And leave what was thy wont until this day,
And for new toil, new sweat, thy strength equip;
This do, and thou shalt join my fellowship,
If of fair deeds thou tire not nor cry nay."
And when she sees his comely body bare,
Forthwith within her arms she him doth take,
And saith: "These limbs thou yieldest to my prayer;
I do accept thee, and this gift thee make,
So that thy deeds may shine for ever fair,
My lips shall never more thy praise forsake."
III.
Humility to him doth gently go,
And saith: "I would in no wise weary thee;
Yet must I cleanse and wash thee thoroughly,
And I will make thee whiter than the snow.
Hear what I tell thee in few words, for so
Fain am I of thy heart to hold the key;
Now must thou sail henceforward after me;
And I will guide thee as myself do go.
But one thing would I have thee straightway leave:
Well knowest thou mine enemy is pride;
Let her no more unto thy spirit cleave:
So leal a friend with thee will I abide
That favor from all folk thou shalt receive;
This grace hath he who keepeth on my side."
IV.
Then did Discretion to the squire draw near,
And drieth him with a fair cloth and clean,
And straightway putteth him the sheets between,
Silk, linen, counterpane, and minevere.
Think now of this! Until the day was clear,
With songs and music and delight the queen,
And with new knights, fair fellows well-beseen,
To make him perfect, gave him goodly cheer.
Then saith she: "Rise forthwith, for now 'tis due,
Thou shouldst be born into the world again;
Keep well the order thou dost take in view."
Unfathomable thoughts with him remain
Of that great bond he may no more eschew;
Nor can he say, "I'll hide me from this chain."
V.
Comes Blithesomeness with mirth and merriment,
All decked in flowers she seemeth a rose-tree;
Of linen, silk, cloth, fur, now beareth she
To the new knight a rich habiliment;
Head-gear and cap and garland flower-besprent,
So brave they were, Maybloom he seemed to be;
With such a rout, so many and such glee,
That the floor shook. Then to her work she went;
And stood him on his feet in hose and shoon;
And purse and gilded girdle neath the fur
That drapes his goodly limbs, she buckles on;
Then bids the singers and sweet music stir,
And showeth him to ladies for a boon
And all who in that following went with her.
_THE CRY FOR COURTESY._
Courtesy! Courtesy! Courtesy! I call:
But from no quarter comes there a reply.
They who should show her, hide her; wherefore I
And whoso needs her, ill must us befall.
Greed with his hook hath ta'en men one and all,
And murdered every grace that dumb doth lie:
Whence, if I grieve, I know the reason why;
From you, great men, to God I make my call:
For you my mother Courtesy have cast
So low beneath your feet she there must bleed;
Your gold remains, but you're not made to last
Of Eve and Adam we are all the seed:
Able to give and spend, you hold wealth fast:
Ill is the nature that rears such a breed!
_ON THE GHIBELLINE VICTORIES._
I praise thee not, O God, nor give thee glory,
Nor yield thee any thanks, nor bow the knee,
Nor pay thee service; for this irketh me
More than the souls to stand in purgatory;
Since thou hast made us Guelphs a jest and story
Unto the Ghibellines for all to see:
And if Uguccion claimed tax of thee,
Thou'dst pay it without interrogatory.
Ah, well I wot they know thee! and have stolen
St. Martin from thee, Altopascio,
St. Michael, and the treasure thou hast lost;
And thou that rotten rabble so hast swollen
That pride now counts for tribute; even so
Thou'st made their heart stone-hard to thine own cost.
_TO THE PISANS._
Ye are more silky-sleek than ermines are,
Ye Pisan counts, knights, damozels, and squires,
Who think by combing out your hair like wires
To drive the men of Florence from their car.
Ye make the Ghibellines free near and far,
Here, there, in cities, castles, buts, and byres,
Seeing how gallant in your brave attires,
How bold you look, true paladins of war.
Stout-hearted are ye as a hare in chase,
To meet the sails of Genoa on the sea;
And men of Lucca never saw your face.
Dogs with a bone for courtesy are ye:
Could Folgore but gain a special grace,
He'd have you banded 'gainst all men that be.
_ON DISCRETION._
Dear friend, not every herb puts forth a flower;
Nor every flower that blossoms, fruit doth bear;
Nor hath each spoken word a virtue rare;
Nor every stone in earth its healing power:
This thing is good when mellow, that when sour;
One seems to grieve, within doth rest from care;
Not every torch is brave that flaunts in air;
There is what dead doth seem, yet flame doth shower.
Wherefore it ill behooveth a wise man
His truss of every grass that grows to bind,
Or pile his back with every stone he can,
Or counsel from each word to seek to find,
Or take his walks abroad with Dick and Dan:
Not without cause I'm moved to speak my mind.
_ON DISORDERED WILL._
What time desire hath o'er the soul such sway
That reason finds nor place nor puissance here,
Men oft do laugh at what should claim a tear,
And over grievous dole are seeming gay.
He sure would travel far from sense astray
Who should take frigid ice for fire; and near
Unto this plight are those who make glad cheer
For what should rather cause their soul dismay.
But more at heart might he feel heavy pain
Who made his reason subject to mere will,
And followed wandering impulse without rein;
Seeing no lordship is so rich as still
One's upright self unswerving to sustain,
To follow worth, to flee things vain and ill.
APPENDIX III.
_Translations from Alesso Donati._
(See Chapter III. p. 157.)
_THE NUN._
The knotted cord, dark veil and tunic gray,
I'll fling aside, and eke this scapulary,
Which keeps me here a nun immured alway:
And then with thee, dressed like a gallant gay,
With girded loins and limber gait and free,
I'll roam the world, where chance us twain may carry.
I am content slave, scullion-wench to be;
That will not irk me as this irketh me!
_THE LOVERS._
Nay, get thee gone now, but so quietly,
By God, so gently go, my love,
That yon damned villain may hear naught thereof!
He's quick of hearing: if he hears but me
Turn myself round in bed,
He clasps me tight for fear I may be sped.
God curse whoever joined me to this hind,
Or hopes in churls good merchandise to find!
_THE GIRL._
In dole I dree the days all lonely here,
A young girl by her mother shut from life,
Who guardeth me with jealousy and strife:
But by the cross of God I swear to her,
If still she keeps me pent up thus to pine,
I'll say: "Aroint thee, thou fell hag malign!"
And fling yon wheel and distaff to the wall,
And fly to thee, my love, who art mine all!
APPENDIX IV.
_Jacopone's Presepio, Corrotto, and Cantico dell'Amore Superardente,
Translated into English Verse._
(See Chapter V. pp. 291 _et seq._)
THREE POEMS ATTRIBUTED TO JACOPONE DA TODI.
Though judging it impossible to preserve the least part of Jacopone's
charm in a translation, I have made versions of the Christmas Carol, the
Passion Poem, and the Hymn of Divine Love, alluded to in chapter v., pp.
291-298. The metrical structure of the first is confused in the
original; but I have adopted a stanza which follows the scheme pretty
closely, and reproduces the exact number of the lines. In the second I
have forced myself to repeat the same rhyme at the close of each of the
thirty-four strophes, which in the Italian has a very fine effect--the
sound being _ato_. No English equivalent can do it justice. The third
poem I admit to be really untranslatable. The recurrences of strong
voweled endings in _ore_, _are_, _ezza_, _ate_ cannot be imitated.
_THE PRESEPIO._
By thy great and glorious merit,
Mary, Mother, Maid!
In thy firstling, new-born child
All our life is laid.
That sweet smiling infant child,
Born for us, I wis;
That majestic baby mild,
Yield him to our kiss!
Clasping and embracing him,
We shall drink of bliss.
Who could crave a deeper joy?--
Purer none was made.
For thy beauteous baby boy
We a-hungered burn;
Yea, with heart and soul of grace
Long for him and yearn.
Grant us then this prayer; his face
Toward our bosom turn:
Let him keep us in his care,
On his bosom stayed!
Mary, in the manger where
Thou hast strewn his nest,
With thy darling baby we
Fain would dwell at rest
Those who cannot take him, see,
Place him on their breast!
Who shall be so rude and wild
As to spurn thee, Maid?
Come and look upon her child
Nestling in the hay!
See his fair arms opened wide,
On her lap to play!
And she tucks him by her side,
Cloaks him as she may;
Gives her paps unto his mouth,
Where his lips are laid.
For the little babe had drouth,
Sucked the breast she gave;
All he sought was that sweet breast,
Broth he did not crave;
With his tiny mouth he pressed,
Tiny mouth that clave:
Ah, the tiny baby thing,
Mouth to bosom laid!
She with left hand cradling
Rocked and hushed her boy,
And with holy lullabies
Quieted her toy.
Who so churlish but would rise
To behold heaven's joy
Sleeping?--In what darkness drowned,
Dead and renegade?--
Little angels all around
Danced, and carols flung;
Making verselets sweet and true,
Still of love they sung;
Calling saints and sinners too
With love's tender tongue;
Now that heaven's high glory is
On this earth displayed.
Choose we gentle courtesies,
Churlish ways forswear;
Let us one and all behold
Jesus sleeping there.
Earth, air, heaven he will unfold,
Flowering, laughing fair;
Such a sweetness, such a grace
From his eyes hath rayed.
O poor humble human race,
How uplift art thou!
With the divine dignity
Re-united now!
Even the Virgin Mary, she
All amazed doth bow;
And to us who sin inherit,
Seems as though she prayed.
By thy great glorious merit,
Mary, Mother, Maid!
In thy firstling, new-born child
All our life is laid.
_THE CORROTTO._
_Messenger._ Lady of Paradise, woe's me,
Thy son is taken, even he,
Christ Jesus, that saint blessed!
Run, Lady, look amain
How the folk him constrain:
Methinks they him have slain,
Sore scourged, with rods opprest.
_Mary._ Nay, how could this thing be?
To folly ne'er turned he,
Jesus, the hope of me:
How did they him arrest?
_Messenger._ Lady, he was betrayed;
Judas sold him, and bade
Those thirty crowns be paid--
Poor gain, where bad is best.
_Mary._ Ho, succor! Magdalen!
The storm is on me: men
My own son, Christ, have ta'en!
This news hath pierced my breast.
_Messenger._ Aid, Lady! Up and run!
They spit upon thy son,
And hale him through the town;
To Pilate they him wrest.
_Mary._ O Pilate, do not let
My son to pain be set!
That he is guiltless, yet
With proofs I can protest.
_The Jews._ Crucify! Crucify!
Who would be King, must die.
He spurns the Senate by
Our laws, as these attest.
We'll see if, stanch of state,
He can abide this fate;
Die shall he at the gate,
And Barab be redressed.
_Mary._ I pray thee, hear my prayer!
Think on my pain and care!
Perchance thou then wilt bear
New thoughts and change thy quest.
_The Jews._ Bring forth the thieves, for they
Shall walk with him this day:
Crown him with thorns, and say
He was made king in jest.
_Mary._ Son, Son, Son, dear Son!
O Son, my lovely Son!
Son, who shall shed upon
My anguished bosom rest?
O jocund eyes, sweet Son!
Why art Thou silent? Son!
Son, wherefore dost Thou shun
This thy own mother's breast?
_Messenger._ Lady, behold the tree!
The people bring it, see,
Where the true Light must be
Lift up at man's behest!
_Mary._ O cross, what wilt thou do?
Wilt thou my Son undo?
Him will they fix on you,
Him who hath ne'er transgressed?
_Messenger._ Up, full of grief and bale!
They strip thy son, and rail;
The folk are fain to nail
Him on yon cross they've dressed.
_Mary._ If ye his raiment strip,
I'll see him, breast and hip!
Lo, how the cruel whip
Hath bloodied back and chest!
_Messenger._ Lady, his hand outspread
Unto the cross is laid:
'Tis pierced; the huge nail's head
Down to the wood they've pressed.
They seize his other hand,
And on the tree expand:
His pangs are doubled and
Too keen to be expressed!
Lady, his feet they take,
And pin them to the stake,
Rack every joint, and make
Each sinew manifest!
_Mary._ I now the dirge commence.
Son, my life's sole defense!
Son, who hath torn thee hence?
Sweet Son, my Son caressed!
Far better done had they
My heart to pluck away,
Than by thy cross to lay
Of thee thus dispossessed!
_Christ._ Mother, why weep'st thou so?
Thou dealest me death's blow.
To watch thy tears, thy woe
Unstinted, tears my breast.
_Mary._ Son, who hath twinned us two?
Son, father, husband true!
Son, who thy body slew?
Son, who hath thee suppressed?
_Christ._ Mother, why wail and chide?
I will thou shouldst abide,
And serve those comrades tried
I saved amid the rest.
_Mary._ Son, say not this to me!
Fain would I hang with thee
Pierced on the cross, and be
By thy side dying blessed!
One grave should hold us twain,
Son of thy mother's pain!
Mother and Son remain
By one same doom oppressed!
_Christ._ Mother, heart-full of woe,
I bid thee rise and go
To John, my chosen!--so
Is he thy son confessed.
John, this my mother see:
Take her in charity:
Cherish her piteously:
The sword hath pierced her breast.
_Mary._ Son! Ah, thy soul hath flown!
Son of the woman lone!
Son of the overthrown!
Son, poisoned by sin's pest!
Son of white ruddy cheer!
Son without mate or peer!
Son, who shall help me here,
Son, left by thee, distressed!
Son, white and fair of face!
Son of pure jocund grace!
Son, why did this wild place,
This world, Son, thee detest?
Son, sweet and pleasant Son!
Son of the sorrowing one!
Son, why hath thee undone
To death this folk unblessed?
John, my new son, behold
Thy brother he is cold!
I feel the sword foretold,
Which prophecies attest.
Lo, Son and mother slain!
Dour death hath seized the twain:
Mother and Son, they strain
Upon one cross embraced.
Here the miserable translation ends. But I would that I could summon
from the deeps of memory some echo of the voice I heard at Perugia, one
dark Good Friday evening, singing Penitential Psalms. This made me feel
of what sort was the _Corrotto_, chanted by the confraternities of
Umbria. The psalms were sung on that occasion to a monotonous rhythm of
melodiously simple outline by three solo voices in turn--soprano, tenor,
and bass. At the ending of each psalm a candle before the high-altar was
extinguished, until all light and hope and spiritual life went out for
the damned soul. The soprano, who sustained the part of pathos, had the
fullness of a powerful man's chest and larynx, with the pitch of a
woman's and the timbre of a boy's voice. He seemed able to do what he
chose in prolonging and sustaining notes, with wonderful effects of
_crescendo_ and _diminuendo_ passing from the wildest and most piercing
_forte_ to the tenderest _pianissimo_. He was hidden in the organ-loft;
and as he sang, the organist sustained his cry with long-drawn
shuddering chords and deep groans of the diapason. The whole church
throbbed with the vibrations of the rising, falling melody; and the
emotional thrill was as though Christ's or Mary's soul were speaking
through the darkness to our hearts. I never elsewhere heard a soprano of
this sort sing in tune so perfect or with so pure an intonation. The
dramatic effect produced by the contrast between this soprano and the
bass and tenor was simple but exceedingly striking. Englishmen, familiar
with cathedral music, may have derived a somewhat similar impression
from the more complex Motett of Mendelssohn upon Psalm xxii. I think
that when the Umbrian Laud began to be dramatic, the parts in such a
hymn as Jacopone's _Corrotto_ must have been distributed after the
manner of these Perugian Good Friday services. Mary's was undoubtedly
given to the soprano; that of the Jews, possibly, to the bass; Christ's,
and perhaps the messenger's also, to the tenor. And it is possible that
the rhythm was almost identical with what I heard; for that had every
mark of venerable antiquity and popular sincerity.
I now pass to the Hymn of Divine Love, which Tresatti entitles _Cantico
dell'Amore Superardente_ (Book vi. 16). It consists of three hundred and
seventy lines, all of which I have translated, though I content myself
here with some extracts:
O Love of Charity!
Why didst thou so wound me?
Why breaks my heart through thee,
My heart which burns with Love?
It burns and glows and finds no place to stay;
It cannot fly, for it is bound so tight;
It melts like wax before the flame away;
Living, it dies; swoons, faints, dissolves outright;
Prays for the force to fly some little way;
Finds itself in the furnace fiery-white;
Ah me, in this sore plight,
Who, what consumes my breath?
Ah, thus to live is death!
So swell the flames of Love.
Or ere I tasted Jesus, I besought
To love him, dreaming pure delights to prove,
And dwell at peace mid sweet things honey-fraught,
Far from all pain on those pure heights above:
Now find I torment other than I sought;
I knew not that my heart would break for love!
There is no image of
The semblance of my plight!
I die, drowned in delight,
And live heart-lost in Love!
Lost is my heart and all my reason gone,
My will, my liking, and all sentiment;
Beauty is mere vile mud for eyes to shun;
Soft cheer and wealth are naught but detriment;
One tree of love, laden with fruit, but one,
Fixed in my heart, supplies me nourishment:
Hourly therefrom are sent,
With force that never tires
But varies still, desires,
Strength, sense, the gifts of Love.
* * * * *
Let none rebuke me then, none reprehend,
If love so great to madness driveth me!
What heart from love her fortress shall defend?
So thralled, what heart from love shall hope to flee?
Think, how could any heart not break and rend,
Or bear this furnace-flame's intensity?--
Could I but only be
Blest with some soul that knows,
Pities and feels the woes
Which whelm my heart with Love!
Lo, heaven, lo, earth cries out, cries out for aye,
And all things cry that I must love even thus!
Each calls:--With all thy heart to that Love fly,
Loving, who strove to clasp thee, amorous;
That Love who for thy love did seek and sigh,
To draw thee up to him, He fashioned us!--
Such beauty luminous,
Such goodness, such delight,
Flows from that holy light,
Beams on my soul from Love!
* * * * *
For thee, O Love, I waste, swooning away!
I wander calling loud with thee to be!
When thou departest, I die day by day;
I groan and weep to have thee close to me:
When thou returnest, my heart swells; I pray
To be transmuted utterly in thee!
Delay not then!--Ah me!
Love deigns to bring me grace!
Binds me in his embrace,
Consumes my heart with Love!
* * * * *
Love, Love, thou hast me smitten, wounded sore!
No speech but Love, Love, Love! can I deliver!
Love, I am one with thee, to part no more!
Love, Love, thee only shall I clasp for ever!
Love, Love, strong Love, thou forcest me to soar
Heavenward! my heart expands; with love I quiver;
For thee I swoon and shiver,
Love, pant with thee to dwell!
Love, if thou lovest me well,
Oh, make me die of Love!
Love, Love, Love, Jesus, I have scaped the seas!
Love, Love, Love, Jesus, thou has guided me!
Love, Love, Love, Jesus, give me rest and peace!
Love, Love, Love, Jesus, I'm inflamed by thee!
Love, Love, Love, Jesus! From wild waves release!
Make me, Love, dwell for ever clasped with thee!
And be transformed in thee,
In truest charity,
In highest verity,
Of pure transmuted Love!
Love, Love, Love, Love, the world's exclaim and cry!
Love, Love, Love, Love, each thing this cry returns!
Love, Love, Love, Love, thou art so deep, so high:
Whoso clasps thee, for thee more madly yearns!
Love, Love, thou art a circle like the sky;
Who enters, with thy love for ever burns!
Web, woof, art thou; he learns,
Who clothes himself with thee,
Such sweetness, suavity,
That still he shouts, Love, Love!
Love, Love, Love, Love, thou giv'st me such strong pain!
Love, Love, Love, Love, how shall I bear this ache?
Love, Love, Love, Love, thou fill'st my heart amain!
Love, Love, Love, Love, I feel my heart must break!
Love, Love, Love, Love, thou dost me so constrain!
Love, Love, Love, Love, absorb me for Love's sake!
Love-languor, sweet to take!
Love, my Love amorous!
Love, my delicious!
Swallow my soul in Love!
Love, Love, Love, Love, my heart it is so riven!
Love, Love, Love, Love, what wounds I feel, what bliss!
Love, Love, Love, Love, I'm drawn and rapt to heaven!
Love, Love, I'm ravished by thy beauteousness!
Love, Love, life's naught, for less than nothing given!
Love, Love, the other life is one with this!
Thy love the soul's life is!
To leave thee were death's anguish!
Thou mak'st her swoon and languish,
Clasped, overwhelmed in Love!
Love, Love, Love, Love, O Jesus amorous!
Love, Love, fain would I die embracing Thee!
Love, Love, Love, Love, O Jesus my soul's Spouse!
Love, Love, Love, Love, death I demand of thee!
Love, Love, Love, Love, Jesus, my lover, thus
Resume me, let me be transformed in thee!
Where am I? Love! Ah me!
Jesus, my hope! in thee
Ingulf me, whelm in Love!
APPENDIX V.
_Passages translated from the Morgante Maggiore of Pulci._
(See Chapter VII. pp. 444 _et seq._) Morgante xviii. 115.
Answered Margutte: "Friend, I never boasted:
I don't believe in black more than in blue,
But in fat capons, boiled, or may be roasted;
And I believe sometimes in butter too,
In beer and must, where bobs a pippin toasted;
Sharp liquor more than sweet I reckon true;
But mostly to old wine my faith I pin,
And hold him saved who firmly trusts therein.
"I believe in the tartlet and the tart;
One is the mother, t'other is her son:
The perfect paternoster is a part
Of liver, fried in slips, three, two, or one;
Which also from the primal liver start:
And since I'm dry, and fain would swill a tun,
If Mahomet forbids the juice of grape,
I reckon him a nightmare, phantom, ape.
"Apollo's naught but a delirious vision,
And Trivigant perchance a midnight specter;
Faith, like the itch, is catching; what revision
This sentence needs, you'll make, nor ask the rector:
To waste no words, you may without misprision
Dub me as rank a heretic as Hector:
I don't disgrace my lineage, nor indeed
Am I the cabbage-ground for any creed.
"Faith's as man gets it, this, that, or another!
See then what sort of creed I'm bound to follow:
For you must know a Greek nun was my mother,
My sire at Brusa, mid the Turks, a mollah;
I played the rebeck first, and made a pother
About the Trojan war, flattered Apollo,
Praised up Achilles, Hector, Helen fair,
Not once, but twenty thousand times, I swear.
"Next, growing weary of my light guitar,
I donned a military bow and quiver;
One day within the mosque I went to war,
And shot my grave old daddy through the liver:
Then to my loins I girt this scimitar,
And journeyed forth o'er sea, land, town, and river
Taking for comrades in each holy work
The congregated sins of Greek and Turk.
"That's much the same as all the sins of hell!
I've seventy-seven at least about me, mortal;
Summer and winter in my breast they swell:
Guess now how many venial crowd the portal!
'Twere quite impossible, I know full well,
If the world never ended, to report all
The crimes I've done in this one life alone;
Each item too is catalogued and known.
"I pray you listen for one little minute;
The skein shall be unraveled in a trice:--
When I've got cash, I'm gay as any linnet,
Cast with who calls, cut cards, and fling the dice;
All times, all places, or the devil's in it,
Serve me for play; I've spent on this one vice
Fame, fortune--staked my coat, my shirt, my breeches;
I hope this specimen will meet your wishes.
"Don't ask what juggler's tricks I teach the boxes!
Or whether sixes serve me when I call,
Or jumps an ace up!--Foxes pair with foxes;
The same pitch tars our fingers, one and all!--
Perhaps I don't know how to fleece the doxies?
Perhaps I can't cheat, cozen, swindle, bawl?
Perhaps I never learned to patter slang?--
I know each trick, each turn, and lead the gang.
"Gluttony after gambling's my prime pleasure.
Here it behooves one to be learned and wise,
To gauge the merits and the virtues measure
Of pheasant, partridge, fowl; with practiced eyes
Noting each part, of every dish at leisure,
Seeking where tender slice or morsel lies;
And since I've touched upon this point, I'll tell ye
How best to grease your jaws and stuff your belly.
"If I could only show you how I baste,
If you could see me turn the spit and ladle,
You'd swear I had a most consummate taste!
Of what ingredients are black-puddings made all?
Not to be burned, and not to run to waste,
Not over-hot nor frozen in the cradle,
Done to a turn, juicy, not bathed in butter,
Smooth, plump and swelling!--Don't you hear 'em sputter?
"About fried liver now receive my say:
It wants five pieces--count them on your fingers;
It must be round--keep this in mind, I pray!--
Fire on this side or that the frying injures!
Be careful not to brush the fat away,
Which keeps the stew soft while it drops and lingers;
You must divide it in two parts, and see
That each part is apportioned equally.
"It should not be too large; but there's a saw--
Stint not your bag-pudding of hose and jacket:
Now mark me, for I'm laying down the law--
Don't overcook the morsel in the packet;
It ought to melt, midway twixt done and raw,
Like a ripe autumn fig, when you attack it:
Serve it up hissing, and then sound the tabors
With spice and orange peel, to end your labors!
"I've got a hundred hints to give the wary!
But take it on my word, ragouts and pies
Are the true test of science culinary:
A lamprey now--you'd scarce believe your eyes
To see its stews and salmis, how they vary!
Yet all are known and numbered by the wise.--
True gourmandize hath seventy-two divisions,
Besides a few that are my own additions:
"If one be missed, the cooking's spoiled, that's granted:
Not heaven itself can save a ruined platter!--
From now till noon I'd hold your sense enchanted
With secrets of my art, if I dared chatter!--
I kept an inn at Corinth once, and wanted
To argue publicly upon the matter.--
But we must leave this point, for 'twill divert you
To hear about another cardinal virtue.
"Only to F these confidences carry;
Just think what 'twill be when we come to R!
I plow (no nonsense) with ass, cassiowary,
Ox, camel--any other beast bizarre.
A thousand bonfires, prisons, by Lord Harry,
My tricks have earned, and something uglier far:
Where my head will not pass, I stick my tail in,
And what I like's to hear the good folk railing.
"Take me to balls, to banquets, for an airing;
I'll do my duty there with hands and feet:
I'm rude, importunate, a bore, and daring;
On friends no less than foes I'll take a seat:
To shame I've said farewell; nor am I sparing
Of fawning like a cur when kicks I meet,
But tell my tale and swagger up and down,
And with a thousand fibs each exploit crown.
"No need to ask if I've kept geese at grass,
Purveyed stewed prunes, taught kittens how to play.
Suppose a thousand--widow, wife, and lass:
That's just about my figure, I dare say.
When mid the women by mishap I pass,
Six out of every five become my prey;
I make the pretty dears so deuced cunning,
They beat nurse, maid, duenna out of running.
"Three of my moral qualities are these--
Gluttony, dicing, as I said, and drinking:
But, since we'll drain the barrel to the lees,
Hear now the fourth and foremost to my thinking.
No need of hooks or ladders, crows or keys,
I promise, where my hands are! Without blinking
I've worn the cross and miter on my forehead--
No pope's nor priest's, but something much more horrid!
"Screws, files and jemmies are my stock in trade,
Springs, picklocks, of more sorts than I could mention;
Rope and wood ladders, levers, slippers made
Of noiseless felt--my patented invention--
Drowsing all ears, where'er my feet are laid;
I fashioned them to take my mind's intention;
Fire too that by itself no light delivers,
But when I spit on it, springs up and quivers.
"See me but in a church alone and frisky!
I'm keener on the robbing of an altar
Than gaugers when they scent a keg of whiskey;
Then to the alms-box off I fly, nor falter:
Sacristies are my passion; though 'tis risky,
With cross and sacring cup I never palter,
But pull the crucifixes down and stow 'em--
Virgins and saints and effigies, you know 'em!
"I've swept, may-be, a hen-roost in my day
And if you'd seen me loot a lot of washing,
You'd swear that never maid or housewife gay
Could clear it in a style so smart and dashing!
If naught, Morgante, 's left but blooming May
To strip, I steal it--I can't keep from flashing!
I ne'er drew difference twixt thine and mine:
All things, to start with, were effects divine.
"But ere I learned to thieve thus on the sly,
I ran the highway rig as bold as any;
I would have robbed the biggest saint on high--
If there _are_ saints above us--for a penny;
But loving peace and fair tranquillity,
I left assassination to the many:
Not that my will was weak--I'd rather say,
Because theft mixed with murder does not pay.
"My virtues theological now smile on!
God knows if I can forge or falsify:
I'll turn an H into a Greek Upsilon--
You could not write a neater, prettier Y!
I gut the pages of a book, and pile on
New rubrics for new chapters, change the die,
Change title, cover, index, name--the poet
Who wrote the verse I counterfeit, won't know it.
"False oaths and perjuries come trickling down
Out of my mouth as smooth and sweet as honey,
Ripe figs, or macaroni nicely brown,
Or anything that's natural and funny:
Suppose they brain some guileless count or clown;
All's one; ware heads, I cry, and pouch my money!
I've set on foot full many a strife and wrangle,
And left 'em in inextricable tangle.
"With ready coin I always square a scandal:
Of oaths I've got a perfect stock in trade;
Each saint supplies my speech with some choice handle;
I run them off in rows from A to Z:
In lying no man holds to me a candle;
Truth's always the reverse of what I've said:--
I'd like to see more fire than land or water,
In heaven and earth naught but plague, famine, slaughter.
"Don't fancy that in fasting, prayer and prate,
Or charities my spare time I employ!
Not to seem stiff, I beg from gate to gate,
And always utter something to annoy:
Proud, envious, tiresome and importunate--
This character I've cherished from a boy;
For the seven deadly sins and all the other
Vices have brought me up to be their brother!
"So that I'd roam the world, cross ban and border,
Hood-winked, nor ever fear to miss my way;
As sweet and clean as any lump of ordure,
I leave my trail like slugs where'er I stray,
Nor seek to hide that slimy self-recorder:
Creeds, customs, friends I slough from day to day;
Change skin and climate, as it suits me best,
For I was evil even in the nest.
"I've left a whole long chapter undiscussed
Of countless peccadilloes in a jumble:
Were I to catalogue each crime and lust,
The medley of my sins might make you grumble:
'Twould take from now till June to lay the dust,
If in this mud heap we began to tumble;
One only point I'd have you still perpend--
I never in my life betrayed a friend."
MORGANTE XXV. 119.
There is a spirit, Astarotte height,
Wise, terrible, and fierce exceedingly;
In Hell's dark caves profound he hides from sight:
No goblin, but a fiend far blacker he.--
Malagigi summoned him one deep midnight,
And cried: "How fares Rinaldo, tell to me!
Then will I say what more I'd have thee work;
But look not on me with face so mirk!
"If thou wilt do this bidding, I declare
I'll never call nor conjure thee by force,
But burn upon my death yon book, I swear,
Which can alone compel thee in due course:
So shalt thou live thenceforward free as air."--
Thereat the fiend swaggered, and had recourse
To threatening wiles, and would not yield an inch,
If haply he could make the master flinch.
But when he saw Malagigi's blood was stirred,
In act to flash the ring of his dread art,
And hurl him to some tomb by book and word,
He threw his cards up with a sudden start,
And cried: "Of your will yet I've nothing heard."
Then Malagigi answered: "In what part
Are Ricciardetto and Rinaldo now?
Tell all the truth, or you'll repent, I vow!"
MORGANTE XXV. 135.
Said Astarotte: "This point remains obscure,
Unless I thought the whole night through thereon;
Nor would my best of judgments be secure;--
The paths of heaven for us are all undone,
Our sight of things to be is no more sure
Than that of sages gazing on the sun;
For neither man nor beast would 'scape from Hell,
Had not our wings been shortened when we fell.
"Of the Old Testament I've much to teach,
And of what happened in the days gone by;
But all things do not come within our reach:
One only Power there is, who sees on high,
As in a glass before him, all and each,
Past, present, and remote futurity:
He who made all that is, alone knows all,
Nor doth the Son well know what shall befall.
"Therefore I could not without thought intense
Tell thee the destined fate of Charlemain:--
Know that the air around us now is dense
With spirits; in their hands I see them strain
Astrolabe, almanac, and tablet, whence
To read yon signs in heaven of strife and bane--
The blood and treason, overthrow and war,
Menaced by Mars in Scorpio angular.
"And for thy better understanding, he
Is joined with Saturn in the ascendant, so
Charged with all-powerful malignity
That e'en the wars of Turnus had less woe.
Slaughters of many peoples we shall see,
With dire disasters in confusion flow,
And change of states and mighty realms; for I
Know that these signs were never wont to lie.
"I know not whether thou hast fixed thy thought
Upon those comets which appeared of late,
Veru and Dominus and Ascon, brought
Treasons and wars and strife to indicate,
With deaths of princes and great nobles fraught?
These, too, ne'er falsified the word of fate.
So that it seems from what I learn and see,
That what I say, and worse, is like to be.
"What Gano with Marsilio planned before,
I know not, since I did not think thereon:
But he's the same, methinks, he was of yore;
Wherefore this needs no divination:
A seat is waiting for him at hell's core;
And if his life's book I correctly con,
That evil soul will very shortly go
To weep his sins in everlasting woe."
Then spake Malagigi: "Something thou hast said
Which holds my sense and reason still in doubt,
That some things even from the Son are hid;
This thy dark saying I can fathom not."
Then Astarotte: "Thou, it seems, hast read
But ill thy Bible, or its words forgot;
For when the Son was asked of that great day,
Only the Father knows, He then did say.
"Mark my words, Malagigi! Thou shalt hear,
Now if thou wilt, the fiend's theology:
Then to thy churchmen go, and make it clear.
You say: Three Persons in one entity,
One substance; and to this we, too, adhere:
One flawless, pure, unmixed activity:--
Wherefore it follows from what went before,
That this alone is what you all adore.
"One mover, whence all movement is impelled:
One order, whence all order hath its rise;
One cause, whereby all causes are compelled;
One power, whence flow all powers and energies;
One fire, wherein all radiances are held;
One principle, which every truth implies;
One knowledge, whence all wisdom hath been given;
One Good, which made all good in earth and heaven.
"This is that Father and that ancient King,
Who hath made all things and can all things know,
But cannot change His own wise ordering,
Else heaven and earth to ruin both would go.
Having lost His friendship, I no more may wing
My flight unto the mirror, where our woe
Perchance e'en now is clearly shown to view;
Albeit futurity I never knew.
"If Lucifer had known the doom to be,
He had not brought those fruits of rashness forth;
Nor had he ruined for eternity,
Seeking his princely station in the North;
But being impotent all things to see,
He and we all were damned 'neath heaven and earth;
And since he was the first to sin, he first
Fell to Giudecca, and still fares the worst.
"Nor had we vainly tempted all the blest,
Who now sit crowned with stars in Paradise,
If, as I said, a veil by God's behest
Had not been drawn before our mental eyes;
Nor would that Saint, of Saints the first and best
Been tempted, as your Gospel testifies,
And borne by Satan to the pinnacle
Where at the last he saw His miracle.
"And forasmuch as He makes nothing ill,
And all hath circumscribed by fixed decrees,
And what He made is present with Him still,
Being established on just premises,
Know that this Lord repents not of His will;
Nay, if one saith that change hath been, he sees
Falsehood for truth, in sense and judgment blind
For what is now, was in the primal mind."
"Tell me," then answered Malagigi, "more,
Since thou'rt an angel sage and rational!
If that first Mover, whom we all adore,
Within His secret soul foreknew your fell,
If time and hour were both foreseen before,
His sentence must be found tyrannical,
Lacking both justice and true charity;
Since, while creating, and while damning, He
"Foreknew you to be frail and formed in sin;
Nathless you call Him just and piteous,
Nor was there room, you say, pardon to win:--
This makes our God the partisan of those
Angels who stayed the gates of heaven within,
Who knew the true from false, discerning thus
Which side would prosper, which would lose the day,
Nor went, like you, with Lucifer astray."
Astarotte, like the devil, raged with pain;
Then cried: "That just Sabaoth loved no more
Michael than Lucifer; nor made he Cain
More apt than Abel to shed brother's gore:
If one than Nimrod was more proud and vain,
If the other, all unlike to Gabriel, swore
He'd not repent nor bellow psalms to heaven,
It was free-will condemned both unforgiven.
"That was the single cause that damned us all:
His clemency, moreover, gave full time,
Wherein 'twas granted us to shun the fall,
And by repentance to compound our crime;
But now we've fallen from grace beyond recall:
Just was our sentence from that Judge sublime;
His foresight shortened not our day of grace,
For timely penitence aye finds a place.
"Just is the Father, Son, and just the Word!
His justice with great mercy was combined:
Through pride no more than thanklessness we erred;
That was our sin malignant and unkind:
Nor hath remorse our stubborn purpose stirred,
Seeing that evil nourished in the mind
And will of those who knew the good, and were
Untempted, never yet was changed to fair.
"Adam knew not the nature of his sin;
Therefore his primal error was forgiven,
Because the tempter took him in a gin:
Only his disobedience angered heaven;
Therefore, though cast from Eden, he might win
Grace, when repentance from his heart had driven
The wicked will, with peace to end his strife,
And mercy also in eternal life.
"But the angelic nature, once debased,
Can never more to purity return:
It sinned with science and corrupted taste:
Whence in despair incurable we burn.
Now, if that wise one answered not, nor raised
His voice, when Pilate asked of him to learn
What was the truth, the truth was at his side;
This ignorance was therefore justified.
"Pilate was lost, because in doing well
He persevered not when he washed his hand;
And Judas, too, beyond redemption fell,
Because, though penitent at last, he banned
Hope, without which no soul escapes from hell:
His doom no Origen shall countermand,
Nor who to Judas give what's meant for Judah--
_In diebus illis salvabitur Juda._
"Thus there is one first Power in heaven who knew
All things, by whom all things were also made:
Making and damning us, He still was true;
On Truth and Justice all His work is laid:
Future and past are present to his view;
For it must follow, as I elsewhere said,
That the whole world before His face should lie,
From whom proceeds force, virtue, energy.
"But now that thou hast bound me to relate,
My master thou, the cause of our mischance,
Thou fain would'st hear why He who rules o'er fate,
And of our fall foresaw each circumstance,
Labored in vain, and made us reprobate?--
Sealed is that rubric, closed from every glance,
Reserved for Him, the Lord victorious:
I know not, I can only answer thus!
"Nor speak I this to put thy mind to proof;
But forasmuch as I discern that men
Weave on this warp of doubts a misty woof,
Seeking to learn; albeit they cannot ken
Whence flows the Nile--the Danube's not enough!
Assure thy soul, nor ask the how and when,
That heaven's high Master, as the Psalmist taught,
Is just and true in all that he hath wrought.
"The things whereof I speak are known not by
Poet or prophet, moralist or sage:
Yet mortal men in their presumption try
To rank the hierarchies, stage over stage!
A chieftain among Seraphim was I;
Yet knew not what in many a learned page
Denys and Gregory wrote!--Full surely they
Who paint heaven after earth will go astray!
"But above all things see thou art not led
By elves and wandering sprites, a tricksy kind,
Who never speak one word of truth, but shed
Doubt and suspicion on the hearer's mind;
Their aim is injury toward fools ill-sped:
And, mark this well, they ne'er have been confined
To glass or water, but reside in air,
Playing their pranks here, there, and everywhere.
"From ear to ear they pass, and 'tis their vaunt
Ever to make things seem that are not so:
For one delights in horseplay, jeer and jaunt;
One deals in science; one pretends to show
Where treasures lurk in some forgotten haunt:
Others, more grave, futurity foreknow:--
But now I've given thee hints enough, to tell
That courtesy can even be found in Hell!"
MORGANTE XXV. 282.
And when Rinaldo had learned all his need,
"Astarotte," he cried, "thou art a perfect friend,
And I am bound to thee henceforth indeed!
This I say truly: if God's will should bend,
If grace divine should e'er so much concede
As to reverse heaven's ordinance, amend
Its statutes, sentences, or high decrees,
I will remember these thy services.
"More at the present time I cannot give:
The soul returns to Him from whom it flew:
The rest of us, thou knowest, will not live!
O love supreme, rare courtesy and new."--
I have no doubt that all my friends believe
This verse belongs to Petrarch; yet 'tis true
Rinaldo spoke it very long ago:
But who robs not, is called a rogue, you know.--
Said Astarotte: "Thanks for your good will!
Yet shall those keys be lost for us for ever:
High treason was our crime, measureless ill.
Thrice happy Christians! One small tear can sever
_Your_ bonds!--One sigh, sent from the contrite will:
Lord, to Thee only did I sin!--But never
Shall _we_ find grace: we sinned once; now we lie
Sentenced to hell for all eternity.
"If after, say, some thousand million ages
We might have hope yet once to see again
The least spark of that Love, this pang that rages
Here at the core, could scarce be reckoned pain!--
But wherefore annotate such dreary pages?
To wish for what can never be, is vain.
Therefore I mean with your kind approbation
To change the subject of our conversation."
MORGANTE XXV. 73.
What God ordains is no chance miracle.
Next prodigies and signs in heaven were seen;
For the sun suddenly turned ghastly pale,
And clouds with rain o'erladen flew between,
Muttering low prelude to their thunder-knell,
As when Jove shakes the world with awful spleen:
Next wind and fury, hail and tempest, hiss
O'er earth and skies--Good God, what doom is this?
Then while they cowered together dumb with dread,
Lightning flashed forth and hurtled at their side,
Which struck a laurel's leaf-embowered head,
And burned it; cleft unto the earth, it died.
O Phoebus! yon fair curls of gold outspread!
How could'st thou bear to see thy love, thy pride,
Thus thunder-smitten? Hath thy sacred bay
Lost her inviolable rights to-day?
Marsilio cries: "Mahound! What can it mean!
What doleful mystery lies hid beneath?
O Bianciardino, to our State, I ween,
This omen brings some threat of change or death!"
But, while he spoke, an earthquake shook the scene,
Nay, shook both hemispheres with blustering breath:
Falseron's face changed hue, grew cold and hot,
And even Bianciardino liked it not.
Yet none for very fear dared move a limb,
The while above their heads a sudden flush
Spread like live fire, that made the daylight dim;
And from the font they saw the water gush
In gouts and crimson eddies from the brim;
And what it sprinkled, with a livid flush
Burned: yea, the grass flared up on every side;
For the well boiled, a fierce and sanguine tide.
Above the fountain rose a locust-tree,
The tree where Judas hanged himself, 'tis said;
This turned the heart of Gano sick to see,
For now it ran with ruddy sweat and bled,
Then dried both trunk and branches suddenly,
Moulting its scattered leaves by hundreds dead;
And on his pate a bean came tumbling down,
Which made the hairs all bristle on his crown.
The beasts who roamed at will within the park,
Set up a dismal howl and wail of woe;
Then turned and rushed amuck with yelp and bark,
Butting their horns and charging to and fro:
Marsilio and his comrades in the dark
Watched all dismayed to see how things would go;
And none knew well what he should say or do,
So dreadful was heaven's wrath upon the crew.
MORGANTE XXV. 115.
I had it in my mind once to curtail
This story, knowing not how I should bring
Rinaldo all that way to Roncesvale,
Until an angel straight from heaven did wing,
And showed me Arnald to recruit my tale:
He cries, "Hold, Louis! Wherefore cease to sing?
Perchance Rinaldo will turn up in time!"
So, just as he narrates, I'll trim my rhyme.
I must ride straight as any arrow flies,
Nor mix a fib with all the truths I say;
This is no story to be stuffed with lies!
If I diverge a hand's breadth from the way,
One croaks, one scolds, while everybody cries,
"Ware madman!" when he sees me trip or stray.
I've made my mind up to a hermit's life,
So irksome are the crowd and all their strife.
Erewhile my Academe and my Gymnasia
Were in the solitary woods I love,
Whence I can see at will Afric or Asia;
There nymphs with baskets tripping through the grove,
Shower jonquils at my feet or colocasia:
Far from the town's vexations there I'd rove,
Haunting no more your Areopagi,
Where folk delight in calumny and lie.
MORGANTE XXVII. 6.
Then answered Baldwin: "If my sire in sooth
Hath brought us here by treason, as you say,
Should I survive this battle, by God's truth,
With this good sword I will my father slay!--
But, Roland, I'm no traitor--I forsooth,
Who followed thee with love as clear as day!--
How could'st thou fling worse insult on thy friend?"
Then with fierce force the mantle he did rend,
And cried: "I will return into the fight,
Since thou hast branded me with treason, thou!
I am no traitor! May God give me might,
As living thou shalt see me ne'er from now!"
Straight toward the Paynim battle spurs the knight,
Still shouting, "Thou hast done me wrong, I vow!"
Roland repents him of the words he spake,
When the youth, mad with passion, from him brake.
MORGANTE XXVIII. 138.
I ask not for that wreath of bay or laurel
Which on Greek brows or Roman proudly shone:
With this plain quill and style I do not quarrel,
Nor have I sought to sing of Helicon:
My Pegasus is but a rustic sorrel;
Untutored mid the graves I still pipe on:
Leave me to chat with Corydon and Thyrsis;
I'm no good shepherd, and can't mend my verses.
Indeed I'm not a rash intrusive claimant,
Like the mad piper of those ancient days,
From whom Apollo stripped his living raiment,
Nor quite the Satyr that my face bewrays.
A nobler bard shall rise and win the payment
Fame showers on loftier style and worthier lays:
While I mid beech-woods and plain herdsmen dwell,
Who love the rural muse of Pulci well.
I'll tempt the waters in my little wherry,
Seeking safe shallows where a skiff may swim:
My only care is how to make men merry
With these thick-crowding thoughts that take my whim:
'Tis right that all things in this world should vary;--
Various are wits and faces, stout and slim,
One dotes on white, while one dubs black sublime,
And subjects vary both in prose and rhyme.
APPENDIX VI.
_Translations of Elegiac Verses by Girolamo Benivieni and Michelangelo
Buonarroti._
(See page 321).
The heavenly sound is hushed, from earth is riven
The harmony of that delighted lyre,
Which leaves the world in grief, to gladden heaven.
Yea, even as our sobs from earth aspire,
Mourning his loss, so ring the jocund skies
With those new songs, and dance the angelic choir.
Ah happy he, who from this vale of sighs,
Poisonous and dark, heavenward hath flown, and lost
Only the vesture, frail and weak, that dies!
Freed from the world, freed from the tempest-tossed
Warfare of sin, his splendor now doth gaze
Full on the face of God through endless days.
* * * * *
Thou'rt dead of dying, and art made divine;
Nor need'st thou fear to change or life or will;
Wherefore my soul well-nigh doth envy thine.
Fortune and time across thy threshold still
Shall dare not pass, the which mid us below
Bring doubtful joyance blent with certain ill.
Clouds are there none to dim for thee heaven's glow;
The measured hours compel not thee at all;
Chance or necessity thou canst not know.
Thy splendor wanes not when our night doth fall,
Nor waxes with day's light however clear,
Nor when our suns the season's warmth recall.
END OF THE FIRST PART.