Chapter XIII: Part 13

See, I have emptied my horn already:
Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray:
Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady?
Or is it my brain that reels away?
Let every one run to and fro through the hay,
As ye see me run! Ho! after me!
Bacchus! we all must follow thee!
Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber:
Am I drunken or sober, yes or no?
What are these weights my feet encumber?
You too are tipsy, well I know!
Let every one do as ye see me do,
Let every one drink and quaff like me!
Bacchus! we all must follow thee!
Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry,
Tossing wine down your throats away!
Let sleep then come and our gladness bury:
Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may!
Dancing is over for me to-day.
Let every one cry aloud Evohé!
Bacchus! we all must follow thee!
Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!

Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the 'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt to model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a _tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the Cortonese painter.

If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest passage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to oblivion.

_NOTE_

Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the 'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of 'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled 'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and 'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 (part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:--

Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.

This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I have, however, preferred to translate thus:--

Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,

instead of giving:--

Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,

because I thought that the second and faithful version would be unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.

* * * * *

_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_

ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON

Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!
Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!
Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease,
That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!
O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire,
Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!
Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease
If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.
Founded in chaste and humble poverty,
Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn,
Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?
Even from foul and loathed adultery,
The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!
Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.

* * * * *

TO STEFANO COLONNA

WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE

Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head
Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name,
Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame
The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread:
Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread;
But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill
Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill,
Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.
These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul,
While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers
Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe,
Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control;
But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours,
Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI

ON LEAVING AVIGNON

Backward at every weary step and slow
These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear;
Then take I comfort from the fragrant air
That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.
But when I think how joy is turned to woe,
Remembering my short life and whence I fare,
I stay my feet for anguish and despair,
And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.
At times amid the storm of misery
This doubt assails me: how frail limbs and poor
Can severed from their spirit hope to live.
Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory
How I to lovers this great guerdon give,
Free from all human bondage to endure?

* * * * *

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII

THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE

The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow
Leaves the beloved spot where he hath passed his years,
Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears,
To see their father's tottering steps and slow.
Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe,
In these last days of life he nothing fears,
But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers,
And spent and wayworn forward still doth go;
Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire,
To gaze upon the portraiture of Him
Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see:
Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire,
Lady, to find in other features dim
The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee.

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII

OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!

I am so tired beneath the ancient load
Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny,
That much I fear to fail upon the road
And yield my soul unto mine enemy.
'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed,
To save me came with matchless courtesy:
Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode,
So that I strive in vain his face to see.
Yet still his voice reverberates here below:
Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here;
Come unto me if none your going stay!
What grace, what love, what fate surpassing fear
Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow,
That I may rest and raise me from the clay?

* * * * *

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV

The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song,
The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign,
Which severed me from what was rightly mine,
And made me sole and strange amid the throng,
The crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful,
And those angelic smiles which once did shine
Imparadising earth with joy divine,
Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull.
And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail,
Left alone without the light I loved so long,
Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.
Then let me here give o'er my amorous song;
The fountains of old inspiration fail,
And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXXIV

In thought I raised me to the place where she
Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines;
There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines,
More fair I found her and less proud to me.
She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be
With me ensphered, unless desires mislead;
Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed,
Whose day ere eve was ended utterly:
My bliss no mortal heart can understand;
Thee only do I lack, and that which thou
So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.
Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?
For at the sound of that celestial tale
I all but stayed in paradise till now.

* * * * *

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV

The flower of angels and the spirits blest,
Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she
Who is my lady died, around her pressed
Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.
What light is this? What beauty manifest?
Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy
Of splendour in this age to our high rest
Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.
She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place,
Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed;
At times the while she backward turns her face
To see me follow--seems to wait and plead:
Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise,
Because I hear her praying me to speed.

* * * * *

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about
the ancient Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna
were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.]

[Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great
general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether
Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his
_Famiglie Illustri_, or whether he only repudiated her after
her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of
doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with
Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had
been some time his mistress before she became his wife.]

[Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of
Italian scholarship by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of
Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2.]

[Footnote 4: The account of this church given by Æneas
Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92)
deserves quotation: 'Ædificavit tamen nobile templum
Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus
operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium
dæmones adorantium templum esse videatur.']

[Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to
be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has
been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last
editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin
life was penned by Alberti himself.]

[Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about
this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the
Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of
her convent. Continual and impassioned meditation on the
Passion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of
His suffering which have been described above. I owe this
note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I
here thank.]

[Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against
Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the
Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini
was himself assassinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a
few years afterwards.]

[Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle
by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria
Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.]

[Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have
adhered to his use and spelling of names.]

[Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin
upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist,
Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was
removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at
the end of the long gallery of the library.]

[Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of
Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of
this view of artistic evolution.]

[Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the
country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A.
Ferretti in his monograph entitled _Canossa, Studi e
Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and
which will repay careful study.]

[Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of René of
Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II.]

[Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art
and literature, his collection of libraries, his great
buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of
Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_:
'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv.]

[Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in
like manner, on the same walls.]

[Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_.]

[Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a,
b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c,
d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth.]

[Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student
of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of
experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English
soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and
other classical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza
rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This
peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and
Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without
sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement
and marring the sense.]

[Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_
and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone.
His Eclogues, with their allegories, repeat the manner of
Petrarch's minor Latin poems.]

[Footnote 20: Marlowe makes Gaveston talk of 'Italian
masques.' At the same time, in the prologue to
_Tamburlaine_, he shows that he was conscious of the new and
nobler direction followed by the drama in England.]

[Footnote 21: This sentence requires some qualification. In
his _Poesia Popolare Italiana_, 1878, Professor d'Ancona
prints a Pisan, a Venetian, and two Lombard versions of our
Border ballad 'Where hae ye been, Lord Randal, my son,' so
close in general type and minor details to the English,
German, Swedish, and Finnish versions of this Volkslied as
to suggest a very ancient community of origin. It remains as
yet, however, an isolated fact in the history of Italian
popular poetry.]

[Footnote 22: _Canti Popolari Toscani_, raccolti e annotati
da Giuseppe Tigri. Volume unico. Firenze: G. Barbèra, 1869.]

[Footnote 23: This is a description of the Tuscan rispetto.
In Sicily the stanza generally consists of eight lines
rhyming alternately throughout, while in the North of Italy
it is normally a simple quatrain. The same poetical material
assumes in Northern, Central, and Southern Italy these
diverge but associated forms.]

[Footnote 24: This song, called Ciure (Sicilian for _fiore_)
in Sicily, is said by Signor Pitré to be in disrepute there.
He once asked an old dame of Palermo to repeat him some of
these ditties. Her answer was, 'You must get them from light
women; I do not know any. They sing them in bad houses and
prisons, where, God be praised, I have never been.' In
Tuscany there does not appear to be so marked a distinction
between the flower song and the rispetto.]

[Footnote 25: Much light has lately been thrown on the
popular poetry of Italy; and it appears that contemporary
improvisatori trust more to their richly stocked memories
and to their power of recombination than to original or
novel inspiration. It is in Sicily that the vein of truly
creative lyric utterance is said to flow most freely and
most copiously at the present time.]

[Footnote 26: 'Remember me, fair one, to the scrivener. I do
not know him or who he is, but he seems to me a sovereign
poet, so cunning is he in his use of verse.']

[Footnote 27: It must be remarked that Tigri draws a strong
contrast in this respect between the songs of the mountain
districts which he has printed and those of the towns, and
that Pitrè, in his edition of Sicilian _Volkslieder_,
expressly alludes to the coarseness of a whole class which
he had omitted. The MSS. of Sicilian and Tuscan songs,
dating from the fifteenth century and earlier, yield a fair
proportion of decidedly obscene compositions. Yet the fact
stated above is integrally correct. When acclimatised in the
large towns, the rustic Muse not unfrequently assumes a garb
of grossness. At home, among the fields and on the
mountains, she remains chaste and romantic.]

[Footnote 28: In a rispetto, of which I subjoin a
translation, sung by a poor lad to a mistress of higher
rank, love itself is pleaded as the sign of a gentle soul:--

My state is poor: I am not meet
To court so nobly born a love;
For poverty hath tied my feet,
Trying to climb too far above.
Yet am I gentle, loving thee;
Nor need thou shun my poverty.

[Footnote 29: When the Cherubina, of whom mention has been
made above, was asked by Signor Tigri to dictate some of her
rispetti, she answered, 'O signore! ne dico tanti quando li
canto! . . . ma ora . . . bisognerebbe averli tutti in
visione; se no, proprio non vengono.']

[Footnote 30: I need hardly guard myself against being
supposed to mean that the form of _Ballata_ in question was
the only one of its kind in Italy.]

[Footnote 31: See my _Sketches in Italy and Greece_, p.
114.]

[Footnote 32: The originals will be found in Carducci's
_Studi Letterari_, p. 273 _et seq._ I have preserved their
rhyming structure.]

[Footnote 33: Stanza XLIII. All references are made to
Carducci's excellent edition, _Le Stanze, l'Orfeo e le Rime
di Messer Angelo Ambrogini Poliziano._ Firenze: G. Barbéra.
1863.]