Chapter IV: Conjugal Poetry

If it be generally true, that Love, to be poetical, must be wreathed with the willow and the cypress, as well as the laurel and the myrtle,--still it is not _always_ true. It is not, happily, a necessary condition, that a passion, to be constant, must be unfortunate; that faithful lovers must needs be wretched; that conjugal tenderness and "domestic doings" are ever dull and invariably prosaic. The witty invectives of some of our poets, whose domestic misery stung them into satirists, and blasphemers of a happiness denied to them, are familiar in the memory--ready on the lips of common-place scoffers. But of matrimonial poetics, in a far different style, we have instances sufficient to put to shame such heartless raillery; that there are not more, is owing to the reason which Klopstock has given, when writing of his angelic Meta. "A man," said he, "should speak of his wife as seldom and with as much modesty as of himself."

A woman is not under the same restraint in speaking of her husband; and this distinction arises from the relative position of the two sexes. It is a species of vain-glory to boast of a possession; but we may exult, unreproved, in the virtues of him who disposes of our fate. Our inferiority has here given to us, as women, so high and dear a privilege, that it is a pity we have been so seldom called on to exert it.

The first instance of conjugal poetry which occurs to me, will perhaps startle the female reader, for it is no other than the gallant Ovid himself. One of the epistles, written during his banishment to Pontus, is addressed to his wife Perilla, and very tenderly alludes to their mutual affection, and to the grief she must have suffered during his absence.

And thou, whom young I left when leaving Rome,
Thou, by my woes art haply old become:
Grant, heaven! that such I may behold thy face,
And thy changed cheek, with dear loved kisses trace;
Fold thy diminished person, and exclaim,
Regret for me has thinned this beauteous frame.

Here then we have the most abandoned libertine of his profligate times reduced at last in his old age, in disgrace and exile, to throw himself, for sympathy and consolation, into the arms of a tender and amiable wife; and this, after spending his life and talents in deluding the tenderness, corrupting the virtue, and reviling the characters of women. In truth, half a dozen volumes in praise of our sex could scarce say more than this.

Every one, I believe, recollects the striking story of Paulina, the wife of Seneca. When the order was brought from Nero that he should die, she insisted upon dying with him, and by the same operation. She accordingly prepared to be bled to death; but fainting away in the midst of her sufferings, Seneca commanded her wounds to be bound up, and conjured her to live. She lived therefore; but excessive weakness and loss of blood gave her, during the short remainder of her life, that spectral appearance which has caused her conjugal fidelity and her pallid hue to pass into a proverb,--"As pale as Seneca's Paulina;" and be it remembered, that Paulina was at this time young in comparison of her husband, who was old, and singularly ugly.

This picturesque story of Paulina affects us in our younger years; but at a later period we are more likely to sympathise with the wife of Lucan, Polla Argentaria, who beheld her husband perish by the same death as his uncle Seneca, and, through love for his fame, consented to survive him. She appears to have been the original after whom he drew his beautiful portrait of Cornelia, the wife of Pompey. Lucan had left the manuscript of the Pharsalia in an imperfect state; and his wife, who had been in its progress his amanuensis, his counsellor and confidant, and therefore best knew his wishes and intentions, undertook to revise and copy it with her own hand. During the rest of her life, which was devoted to this dear and pious task, she had the bust of Lucan always placed beside her couch, and his works lying before her: and in the form in which Polla Argentaria left it, his great poem has descended to our times.

I have read also, though I confess my acquaintance with the classics is but limited, of a certain Latin poetess Sulpicia, who celebrated her husband Calenas: and the poet Ausonius composed many fine verses in praise of a beautiful and virtuous wife, whose name I forget.[18]

But I feel I am treading unsafe ground, rendered so both by my ignorance, and by my prejudices as a woman. Generally speaking, the heroines of classical poetry and history are not much to my taste; in their best virtues they were a little masculine, and in their vices, so completely unsexed, that one would rather not think of them--speak of them--far less write of them.

* * * * *

The earliest instance I can recollect of modern conjugal poetry, is taken from a country, and a class, and a time where one would scarce look for high poetic excellence inspired by conjugal tenderness. It is that of a Frenchwoman of high rank, in the fifteenth century, when France was barbarised by the prevalence of misery, profligacy, and bloodshed, in every revolting form.

Marguerite-Eleonore-Clotilde de Surville, of the noble family of Vallon Chalys, was the wife of Berenger de Surville, and lived in those disastrous times which immediately succeeded the battle of Agincourt. She was born in 1405, and educated in the court of the Count de Foix, where she gave an early proof of literary and poetical talent, by translating, when eleven years old, one of Petrarch's Canzoni, with a harmony of style wonderful, not only for her age, but for the times in which she lived. At the age of sixteen she married the Chevalier de Surville, then, like herself, in the bloom of youth, and to whom she was passionately attached. In those days, no man of noble blood, who had a feeling for the misery of his country, or a hearth and home to defend, could avoid taking an active part in the scenes of barbarous strife around him; and De Surville, shortly after his marriage, followed his heroic sovereign, Charles the Seventh, to the field. During his absence, his wife addressed to him the most beautiful effusions of conjugal tenderness to be found, I think, in the compass of poetry. In the time of Clotilde, French verse was not bound down by those severe laws and artificial restraints by which it has since been shackled: we have none of the prettinesses, the epigrammatic turns, the sparkling points, and elaborate graces, which were the fashion in the days of Louis Quatorze. Boileau would have shrugged up his shoulders, and elevated his eyebrows, at the rudeness of the style; but Moliere, who preferred

J'aime mieux ma mie, oh gai!

to all the _fades galanteries_ of his contemporary _bels esprits_, would have been enchanted with the naive tenderness, the freshness and flow of youthful feeling which breathe through the poetry of Clotilde. The antique simplicity of the old French lends it such an additional charm, that though in making a few extracts, I have ventured to modernize the spelling, I have not attempted to alter a word of the original.

Clotilde has entitled her first epistle "Heroide a mon epoux Berenger;" and as it is dated in 1422, she could not have been more than seventeen when it was written. The commencement recalls the superscription of the first letter of Heloise to Abelard.

Clotilde, au sien ami, douce mande accolade!
A son epoux, salut, respect, amour!
Ah, tandis qu'eploree et de coeur si malade,
Te quier[19] la nuit, te redemande au jour--
Que deviens? ou cours tu? Loin de ta bien-aimee,
Ou les destins, entrainent donc tes pas?
'Faut que le dise, helas! s'en crois la renommee
De bien long temps ne te reverrai pas?

She then describes her lonely state, her grief for his absence, her pining for his return. She laments the horrors of war which have torn him from her; but in a strain of eloquent poetry, and in the spirit of a high-souled woman, to whom her husband's honour was dear as his life, she calls on him to perform all that his duty as a brave knight, and his loyalty to his sovereign require. She reminds him, with enthusiasm, of the motto of French chivalry, "mourir plutot que trahir son devoir;" then suddenly breaking off, with a graceful and wife-like modesty, she wonders at her own presumption thus to address her lord, her husband, the son of a race of heroes,--

Mais que dis! ah d'ou vient qu'orgueilleuse t'advise!
Toi, escolier! toi, l'enfant des heros
Pardonne maintes soucis a celle qui t'adore--
A tant d'amour, est permis quelque effroi.

She describes herself looking out from the tower of her castle to watch the return of his banner; she tells him how she again and again visits the scenes endeared by the remembrance of their mutual happiness. The most beautiful touches of description are here mingled with the fond expressions of feminine tenderness.

La, me dis-je, ai recu sa derniere caresse,
Et jusqu'aux os, soudain, me sens bruler.
Ici les ung ormeil, cercle par aubespine
Que doux printemps ja[20] courronnait de fleurs,
Me dit adieu--Sanglots suffoquent ma poctrine,
Et dans mes yeux roulent torrents de pleurs.

....*....*....*....*

D'autresfois, ecartant ces cruelles images,
Crois m'enfoncant au plus dense des bois,
Meler des rossignols aux amoureuse ramages,
Entre tes bras, mon amoureux voix:
Me semble ouir, echappant de ta bouche rosee,
Ces mots gentils, qui me font tressaillir,
Ainz[21] vois au meme instant que me suis abusee
Et soupirant, suis prete a defailler!

After indulging in other regrets, expressed with rather more naivete than suits the present taste, she bursts into an eloquent invective against the English invaders[22] and the factious nobles of France, whose crimes and violence detained her husband from her arms.

Quand reverrai, dis-moi, ton si duisant[23] visage?
Quand te pourrai face a face mirer?
T'enlacer tellement a mon frement[24] corsage,
Que toi, ni moi, n'en puissions respirer?

and she concludes with this tender _envoi_:

Ou que suives ton roi, ne mets ta douce amie
En tel oubli, qu'ignore ou git ce lieu:
Jusqu'alors en souci, de calme n'aura mie,--
Plus ne t'en dis--que t'en souvienne! adieu!

Clotilde became a mother before the return of her husband; and the delicious moment in which she first placed her infant in his father's arms, suggested the verses she has entitled "Ballade a mon epoux, lors, quand tournait apres un an d'absence, mis en ses bras notre fils enfancon."

The pretty burthen of this little ballad has often been quoted.

Faut etre deux pour avoir du plaisir,
Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage!

But, says the mother,

_Un tiers_ si doux ne fait tort a plaisir?

and should her husband be again torn from her, she will console herself in his absence, by teaching her boy to lisp his father's name.

Gentil epoux! si Mars et ton courage
Plus contraignaient ta Clotilde a gemir,
De lui montrer en son petit langage,
A t'appeller ferai tout mon plaisir--
Plaisir ne l'est qu'autant qu'on le partage!

Among some other little poems, which place the conjugal and maternal character of Clotilde in a most charming light, I must notice one more for its tender and heartfelt beauty. It is entitled "Ballade a mon premier ne," and is addressed to her child, apparently in the absence of its father.

O cher enfantelet, vrai portrait de ton pere!
Dors sur le sein que ta bouche a presse!
Dors petit!--clos, ami, sur le sein de ta mere,
Tien doux oeillet, par le somme oppresse.

Bel ami--cher petit! que ta pupille tendre,
Goute un sommeil que plus n'est fait pour moi:
Je veille pour te voir, te nourir, te defendre,
Ainz qu'il est doux ne veiller que pour toi!

Contemplating him asleep, she says,

N'etait ce teint fleuri des couleurs de la pomme,
Ne le diriez vous dans les bras de la mort?

Then, shuddering at the idea she had conjured up, she breaks forth into a passionate apostrophe to her sleeping child,

Arrete, cher enfant! j'en fremis toute entiere--
Reveille toi! chasse un fatal propos!
Mon fils .... pour un moment--ah revois la lumiere!
Au prix du tien, rends-moi tout mon repos!
Douce erreur! il dormait .... c'est assez, je respire.
Songes legers, flattez son doux sommeil;
Ah! quand verrai celui pour qui mon coeur soupire,
Au miens cotes jouir de son reveil?

....*....*....*....*

Quand reverrai celui dont as recu la vie?
Mon jeune epoux, le plus beau des humains
Oui--deja crois voir ta mere, aux cieux ravie,
Que tends vers lui tes innocentes mains.
Comme ira se duisant a ta premiere caresse!
Au miens baisers com' t'ira disputant!
Ainz ne compte, a toi seul, d'epuiser sa tendresse,--
A sa Clotilde en garde bien autant!

Along the margin of the original MS. of this poem, was written an additional stanza, in the same hand, and quite worthy of the rest.

Voila ses traits ... son air ... voila tout ce que j'aime!
Feu de son oeil, et roses de son teint....
D'ou vient m'en ebahir? _autre qu'en tout lui meme,
Put-il jamais eclore de mon sein?_

This is beautiful and true; beautiful, because it is true. There is nothing of fancy nor of art, the intense feeling gushes, warm and strong, from the heart of the writer, and it comes home to the heart of the reader, filling it with sweetness.--Am I wrong in supposing that the occasional obscurity of the old French will not disguise the beauty of the sentiment from the young wife or mother, whose eye may glance over this page?

It is painful, it is pitiful, to draw the veil of death and sorrow over this sweet picture.

What is this world? what asken men to have?
Now with his love--now in his cold grave,
Alone, withouten any companie![25]

De Surville closed his brief career of happiness and glory (and what more than these could he have asked of heaven?) at the seige of Orleans, where he fought under the banner of Joan of Arc.[26] He was a gallant and a loyal knight; so were hundreds of others who then strewed the desolated fields of France: and De Surville had fallen undistinguished amid the general havoc of all that was noble and brave, if the love and genius of his wife had not immortalised him.

Clotilde, after her loss, resided in the chateau of her husband, in the Lyonnois, devoting herself to literature and the education of her son: and it is very remarkable, considering the times in which she lived, that she neither married again, nor entered a religious house. The fame of her poetical talents, which she continued to cultivate in her retirement, rendered her, at length, an object of celebrity and interest. The Duke of Orleans happened one day to repeat some of her verses to Margaret of Scotland, the first wife of Louis the Eleventh; and that accomplished patroness of poetry and poets wrote her an invitation to attend her at court, which Clotilde modestly declined. The Queen then sent her, as a token of her admiration and friendship, a wreath of laurel, surmounted with a bouquet of daisies, (Marguerites, in allusion to the name of both,) the leaves of which were wrought in silver and the flowers in gold, with this inscription: "Marguerite d'Ecosse a Marguerite d'Helicon." We are told that Alain Chartier, envious perhaps of these distinctions, wrote a satirical _quatrain_, in which he accused Clotilde of being deficient in _l'air de cour_, and that she replied to him, and defended herself in a very spirited _rondeau_. Nothing more is known of the life of this interesting woman, but that she had the misfortune to survive her son as well as her husband; and dying at the advanced age of ninety, in 1495, she was buried with them in the same tomb.[27]

FOOTNOTES:

[18] Elton's Specimens.

[19] Querir.

[20] Ja--jadis (the old French _ja_ is the Italian _gia_).

[21] Ainz:--cependant (the Italian _anzi_).

[22] She calls them "the Vultures of Albion."

[23] Duisant, _seduisant_.

[24] Fremissant.

[25] Chaucer.

[26] He perished in 1429, leaving his widow in her twenty-fourth year.

[27] Les Poetes Francais jusqu'a Malherbes, par Augin. A good edition of the works of Clotilde de Surville was published at Paris in 1802, and another in 1804. I believe both have become scarce. Her _Poesies_ consist of pastorals, ballads, songs, epistles, and the fragment of an epic poem, of which the MS. is lost. Of her merit there is but one opinion. She is confessedly the greatest poetical genius which France could boast in a period of two hundred years; that is, from the decline of the Provencal poetry, till about 1500.