Chapter XXIV: Canto THE FOURTH

Many are Poets who have never penned
Their inspiration, and perchance the best:
They felt, and loved, and died, but would not lend
Their thoughts to meaner beings; they compressed
The God within them, and rejoined the stars
Unlaurelled upon earth, but far more blessed
Than those who are degraded by the jars
Of Passion, and their frailties linked to fame,
Conquerors of high renown, but full of scars.
Many are Poets but without the name; 10
For what is Poesy but to create
From overfeeling Good or Ill; and aim[316]
At an external life beyond our fate,
And be the new Prometheus of new men,[317]
Bestowing fire from Heaven, and then, too late,
Finding the pleasure given repaid with pain,
And vultures to the heart of the bestower,
Who, having lavished his high gift in vain,
Lies to his lone rock by the sea-shore?
So be it: we can bear.--But thus all they 20
Whose Intellect is an o'ermastering Power
Which still recoils from its encumbering clay
Or lightens it to spirit, whatsoe'er
The form which their creations may essay,
Are bards; the kindled Marble's bust may wear
More poesy upon its speaking brow
Than aught less than the Homeric page may bear;
One noble stroke with a whole life may glow,
Or deify the canvass till it shine
With beauty so surpassing all below, 30
That they who kneel to Idols so divine
Break no commandment, for high Heaven is there
Transfused, transfigurated:[318] and the line
Of Poesy, which peoples but the air
With Thought and Beings of our thought reflected,
Can do no more: then let the artist share
The palm, he shares the peril, and dejected
Faints o'er the labour unapproved--Alas!
Despair and Genius are too oft connected.
Within the ages which before me pass 40
Art shall resume and equal even the sway
Which with Apelles and old Phidias
She held in Hellas' unforgotten day.
Ye shall be taught by Ruin to revive
The Grecian forms at least from their decay,
And Roman souls at last again shall live
In Roman works wrought by Italian hands,
And temples, loftier than the old temples, give
New wonders to the World; and while still stands
The austere Pantheon, into heaven shall soar 50
A Dome,[319] its image, while the base expands
Into a fane surpassing all before,
Such as all flesh shall flock to kneel in: ne'er
Such sight hath been unfolded by a door
As this, to which all nations shall repair,
And lay their sins at this huge gate of Heaven.
And the bold Architect[320] unto whose care
The daring charge to raise it shall be given,
Whom all Arts shall acknowledge as their Lord,
Whether into the marble chaos driven 60
His chisel bid the Hebrew,[321] at whose word
Israel left Egypt, stop the waves in stone,[cm]
Or hues of Hell be by his pencil poured
Over the damned before the Judgement-throne,[322]
Such as I saw them, such as all shall see,
Or fanes be built of grandeur yet unknown--
The Stream of his great thoughts shall spring from me[323]
The Ghibelline, who traversed the three realms
Which form the Empire of Eternity.
Amidst the clash of swords, and clang of helms, 70
The age which I anticipate, no less
Shall be the Age of Beauty, and while whelms
Calamity the nations with distress,
The Genius of my Country shall arise,
A Cedar towering o'er the Wilderness,
Lovely in all its branches to all eyes,
Fragrant as fair, and recognised afar,
Wafting its native incense through the skies.
Sovereigns shall pause amidst their sport of war,
Weaned for an hour from blood, to turn and gaze 80
On canvass or on stone; and they who mar
All beauty upon earth, compelled to praise,
Shall feel the power of that which they destroy;
And Art's mistaken gratitude shall raise
To tyrants, who but take her for a toy,
Emblems and monuments, and prostitute
Her charms to Pontiffs proud,[324] who but employ
The man of Genius as the meanest brute
To bear a burthen, and to serve a need,
To sell his labours, and his soul to boot. 90
Who toils for nations may be poor indeed,
But free; who sweats for Monarchs is no more
Than the gilt Chamberlain, who, clothed and feed,
Stands sleek and slavish, bowing at his door.
Oh, Power that rulest and inspirest! how
Is it that they on earth, whose earthly power[325]
Is likest thine in heaven in outward show,
Least like to thee in attributes divine,
Tread on the universal necks that bow,
And then assure us that their rights are thine? 100
And how is it that they, the Sons of Fame,
Whose inspiration seems to them to shine
From high, they whom the nations oftest name,
Must pass their days in penury or pain,
Or step to grandeur through the paths of shame,
And wear a deeper brand and gaudier chain?
Or if their Destiny be born aloof
From lowliness, or tempted thence in vain,
In their own souls sustain a harder proof,
The inner war of Passions deep and fierce? 110
Florence! when thy harsh sentence razed my roof,
I loved thee; but the vengeance of my verse,
The hate of injuries which every year
Makes greater, and accumulates my curse,
Shall live, outliving all thou holdest dear--
Thy pride, thy wealth, thy freedom, and even _that_,
The most infernal of all evils here,
The sway of petty tyrants in a state;
For such sway is not limited to Kings,
And Demagogues yield to them but in date, 120
As swept off sooner; in all deadly things,
Which make men hate themselves, and one another,
In discord, cowardice, cruelty, all that springs
From Death the Sin-born's incest with his mother,[326]
In rank oppression in its rudest shape,
The faction Chief is but the Sultan's brother,
And the worst Despot's far less human ape.
Florence! when this lone spirit, which so long
Yearned, as the captive toiling at escape,
To fly back to thee in despite of wrong, 130
An exile, saddest of all prisoners,[327]
Who has the whole world for a dungeon strong,
Seas, mountains, and the horizon's[328] verge for bars,[cn]
Which shut him from the sole small spot of earth
Where--whatsoe'er his fate--he still were hers,
His Country's, and might die where he had birth--
Florence! when this lone Spirit shall return
To kindred Spirits, thou wilt feel my worth,
And seek to honour with an empty urn[329]
The ashes thou shalt ne'er obtain--Alas! 140
"What have I done to thee, my People?"[330] Stern
Are all thy dealings, but in this they pass
The limits of Man's common malice, for
All that a citizen could be I was--
Raised by thy will, all thine in peace or war--
And for this thou hast warred with me.--'Tis done:
I may not overleap the eternal bar[331]
Built up between us, and will die alone,
Beholding with the dark eye of a Seer
The evil days to gifted souls foreshown, 150
Foretelling them to those who will not hear;
As in the old time, till the hour be come
When Truth shall strike their eyes through many a tear,
And make them own the Prophet in his tomb.

Ravenna, 1819.

FOOTNOTES:

[276] {241}[Compare--

"He knew
Himself to sing, and build the lofty rhime."

Milton, _Lycidas_, line 11.]

[277] [By "Runic" Byron means "Northern," "Anglo-Saxon."]

[278] [Compare "In that word, beautiful in all languages, but most so in yours--_Amor mio_--is comprised my existence here and hereafter."--Letter of Byron to the Countess Guiccioli, August 25, 1819, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 350. Compare, too, _Beppo_, stanza xliv.; _vide ante_, p. 173.]

[279] {243}[Compare--

"I pass each day where Dante's bones are laid:
A little cupola more neat than solemn,
Protects his dust."

_Don Juan_, Canto IV. stanza civ. lines 1-3.]

[280] [The _Cassandra_ or _Alexandra_ of Lycophron, one of the seven "Pleiades" who adorned the court of Ptolemy Philadelphus (third century B.C.), is "an iambic monologue of 1474 verses, in which Cassandra is made to prophesy the fall of Troy ... with numerous other historical events, ... ending with [the reign of] Alexandra the Great." Byron had probably read a translation of the _Cassandra_ by Philip Yorke, Viscount Royston (born 1784, wrecked in the _Agatha_ off Memel, April 7, 1808), which was issued at Cambridge in 1806. The _Alexandra_ forms part of the _Bibliotheca Teubneriana_ (ed. G. Kinkel, Lipsiæ, 1880). For the prophecy of Nereus, _vide_ Hor., _Odes_, lib. i. c. xv.]

[281] {244}[In the notes to his _Essay on Epic Poetry_, 1782 (Epistle iii. pp. 175-197), Hayley (see _English Bards, etc._, line 310, _Poetical Works_, 1898, i. 321, note 1) prints a translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_, which, he says (p. 172), was written "a few years ago to oblige a particular friend." "Of all Hayley's compositions," writes Southey (_Quart. Rev._, vol. xxxi. pp. 283, 284), "these specimens are the best ... in thus following his original Hayley was led into a sobriety and manliness of diction which ... approached ... to the manner of a better age."

In a note on the Hall of Eblis, S. Henley quotes with approbation Hayley's translation of lines 1-9 of this Third Canto of the _Inferno_. _Vathek_ ... by W. Beckford, 1868, p. 188.]

[282] [_L'Italia_: _Canto IV. del Pellegrinaggio di Childe Harold_ ... tradotto da Michele Leoni, Italia (London?), 1819, 8º. Leoni also translated the _Lament of Tasso_ (_Lamento di Tasso_ ... Recato in Italiano da M. Leoni, Pisa, 1818).]

[283] [Alfieri has a sonnet on the tomb of Dante, beginning--

"O gran padre Alighier, se dal ciel miri."

_Opere Scelle_, di Vittorio Alfieri, 1818, iii. 487.]

[284] [The Panther, the Lion, and the She-wolf, which Dante encountered on the "desert slope" (_Inferno_, Canto I. lines 31, _sq._), were no doubt suggested by Jer. v. 6: "Idcirco percussit eos leo de silva, lupus ad vesperam vastavit eos, pardus vigilans super civitates corum." Symbolically they have been from the earliest times understood as denoting--the panther, lust; the lion, pride; the wolf, avarice; the sins affecting youth, maturity, and old age. Later commentators have suggested that there may be an underlying political symbolism as well, and that the three beasts may stand for Florence with her "Black" and "White" parties, the power of France, and the Guelf party as typically representative of these vices (_The Hell of Dante_, by A. J. Butler, 1892, p. 5, note).

Count Giovanni Marchetti degli Angelini (1790-1852), in his _Discorso_ ... _della prima e principale Allegoria del Poema di Dante_, contributed to an edition of _La Divina Commedia_, published at Bologna, 1819-21, i. 17-44, and reissued in _La Biografia di Dante_ ... 1822, v. 397, _sq_., etc., argues in favour of a double symbolism. (According to a life of Marchetti, prefixed to his _Poesie_, 1878 [_Una notte di Dante, etc._], he met Byron at Bologna in 1819, and made his acquaintance.)]

[285] {245}[For Vincenzo Monti (1754-1828), see letter to Murray, October 15, 1816 (_Letters_, 1899, iii. 377, note 3); and for Ippolito Pindemonte (1753-1828), see letter to Murray, June 4, 1817, (_Letters_, 1900, iv. 127, note 4). In his _Essay on the Present Literature of Italy_, Hobhouse supplies critical notices of Pindemonte and Monti, _Historical Illustrations_, 1818, pp. 413-449. Cesare Arici, lawyer and poet, was born at Brescia, July 2, 1782. His works (Padua, 1858, 4 vols.) include his didactic poems, _La coltivazione degli Ulivi_ (1805), _Il Corallo_, 1810, _La Pastorizia_ (on sheep-farming), 1814, and a translation of the works of Virgil. He died in 1836. (See, for a long and sympathetic notice, Tipaldo's _Biografia degli Italiani Illustri_, iii. 491, _sq_.)]

[286] {247}The reader is requested to adopt the Italian pronunciation of Beatrice, sounding all the syllables.

[287] [Compare--

"Within the deep and luminous subsistence
Of the High Light appeared to me three circles,
Of threefold colour and of one dimension,
And by the second seemed the first reflected
As Iris is by Iris, and the third
Seemed fire that equally from both is breathed....
O Light Eterne, sole in thyself that dwellest."

_Paradiso,_ xxxiii. 115-120, 124 (_Longfellow's Translation_).]

[bw] {248}_Star over star_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[288]

"Ché sol per le belle opre
Che sono in cielo, il sole e l'altre stelle,
Dentro da lor _si crede il Paradiso:_
Così se guardi fiso
Pensar ben dei, che ogni terren piacere.
[Si trova in lei, ma tu nol puoi vedere."]

Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third.

[Byron was mistaken in attributing these lines, which form part of a Canzone beginning "Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli," to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence supports such an ascription. The Canzone is attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was not assigned to Dante before 1518 (_Canzoni di Dante, etc._ [Colophon]. Impresso in Milano per Augustino da Vimercato ... MCCCCCXVIII ...). See, too, _Il Canzoniere di Dante_ ... Fraticelli, Firenze, 1873, pp. 236-240 (from information kindly supplied by the Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed).]

[289] ["Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious Lady of my mind was made manifest to mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore."--_La Vita Nuova,_ § 2 (Translation by D. G. Rossetti, _Dante and his Circle,_ 1892, p. 30).

"In reference to the meaning of the name, '_she who confers blessing_,' we learn from Boccaccio that this first meeting took place at a May Feast, given in the year 1274, by Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice ... to which feast Dante accompanied his father, Alighiero Alighieri."--_Note_ by D. G. Rossetti, ibid., p. 30.]

[290] {249}

"L'Esilio che m' è dato onor mi tegno
* * * * *
Cader tra' buoni è pur di lode degno."

_Sonnet of Dante_ [Canzone xx. lines 76-80, _Opere_
di Dante, 1897, p. 171]

in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.

[291] [Compare--

"On the stone
Called Dante's,--a plain flat stone scarce discerned
From others in the pavement,--whereupon
He used to bring his quiet chair out, turned
To Brunelleschi's Church, and pour alone
The lava of his spirit when it burned:
It is not cold to-day. O passionate
Poor Dante, who, a banished Florentine,
Didst sit austere at banquets of the great
And muse upon this far-off stone of thine,
And think how oft some passer used to wait
A moment, in the golden day's decline,
With 'Good night, dearest Dante!' Well, good night!"

_Casa Guidi Windows_, by E. B. Browning, _Poetical Works_,
1866, iii. 259.]

[292] {250} "Ut si quis predictorum ullo tempore in fortiam dicti communis pervenerit, _talis perveniens igne comburatur, sic quod moriatur_." Second sentence of Florence against Dante, and the fourteen accused with him. The Latin is worthy of the sentence. [The decree (March 11, 1302) that he and his associates in exile should be burned, if they fell into the hands of their enemies, was first discovered in 1772 by the Conte Ludovico Savioli. Dante had been previously, January 27, fined eight thousand lire, and condemned to two years' banishment.]

[bx] _The ashes she would scatter_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[293] {251}[At the end of the Social War (B.C. 88), when Sulla marched to Rome at the head of his army, and Marius was compelled to take flight, he "stripped himself, plunged into the bog (_Paludes Minturnenses_, near the mouth of the Liris), amidst thick water and mud.... They hauled him out naked and covered with dirt, and carried him to Minturnæ." Afterwards, when he sailed for Carthage, he had no sooner landed than he was ordered by the governor (Sextilius) to quit Africa. On his once more gaining the ascendancy and re-entering Rome (B.C. 87), he justified the massacre of Sulla's adherents in a blood-thirsty oration. Past ignominy and present triumph seem to have turned his head ("ut erat inter iram toleratæ fortunæ, et lætitiam emendatæ, parum compos animi").--Plut., "Marius," _apud_ Langhorne, 1838, p. 304; Livii _Epit_., lxxx. 28.]

[by] {252}----_their civic rage_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[294] {253} This lady, whose name was _Gemma_, sprung from one of the most powerful Guelph families, named Donati. Corso Donati was the principal adversary of the Ghibellines. She is--described as being "_Admodum morosa, ut de Xantippe Socratis philosophi conjuge scriptum esse legimus,_" according to Giannozzo Manetti. But Lionardo Aretino is scandalised with Boccace, in his life of Dante, for saying that literary men should not marry. "Qui il Boccaccio non ha pazienza, e dice, le mogli esser contrarie agli studj; e non si ricorda che Socrate, il più nobile filosofo che mai fusse, ebbe moglie e figliuoli e ufici nella Repubblica nella sua Città; e Aristotile che, etc., etc., ebbe due moglie in varj tempi, ed ebbe figliuoli, e ricchezze assai.--E Marco Tullio--e Catone--e Varrone--e Seneca--ebbero moglie," etc., etc. [_Le Vite di Dante, etc._, Firenze, 1677, pp. 22, 23]. It is odd that honest Lionardo's examples, with the exception of Seneca, and, for anything I know, of Aristotle, are not the most felicitous. Tully's Terentia, and Socrates' Xantippe, by no means contributed to their husbands' happiness, whatever they might do to their philosophy--Cato gave away his wife--of Varro's we know nothing--and of Seneca's, only that she was disposed to die with him, but recovered and lived several years afterwards. But says Leonardo, "L'uomo è _animale civile_, secondo piace a tutti i filosofi." And thence concludes that the greatest proof of the _animal's civism_ is "la prima congiunzione, dalla quale multiplicata nasce la Città."

[There is nothing in the _Divina Commedia_, or elsewhere in his writings, to justify the common belief that Dante was unhappily married, unless silence may be taken to imply dislike and alienation. It has been supposed that he alludes to his wife, Gemma Donati, in the _Vita Nuova_, § 36, "as a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window, with a gaze full of pity," "who remembered me many times of my own most noble lady," whom he consented to serve "more because of her gentle goodness than from any choice" of his own (_Convito_, ii. 2. 7), but there are difficulties in the way of accepting this theory. There is, however, not the slightest reason for believing that the words which he put into the mouth of Jacopo Rusticucci, "La fiera moglie più ch'altro, mi nuoce" ["and truly, my savage wife, more than aught else, doth harm me"] (_Inferno_, xvi. 45), were winged with any personal reminiscence or animosity. But with Byron (see his letter to Lady Byron, dated April 3, 1820, in which he quotes these lines "with intention" [_Letters_, 1901, v. 2]), as with Boccaccio, "the wish was father to the thought," and both were glad to quote Dante as a victim to matrimony.

Seven children were born to Dante and Gemma. Of these "his son Pietro, who wrote a commentary on the _Divina Commedia_, settled as judge in Verona. His daughter Beatrice lived as a nun in Ravenna" (_Dante_, by Oscar Browning, 1891, p. 47).]

[295] {256}[In his defence of the "mother-tongue" as a fitting vehicle for a commentary on his poetry, Dante argues "that natural love moves the lover principally to three things: the one is to exalt the loved object, the second is to be jealous thereof, the third is to defend it ... and these three things made me adopt it, that is, our mother-tongue, which naturally and accidentally I love and have loved." Again, having laid down the premiss that "the magnanimous man always praises himself in his heart; and so the pusillanimous man always deems himself less than he is," he concludes, "Wherefore many on account of this vileness of mind, depreciate their native tongue, and applaud that of others; and all such as these are the abominable wicked men of Italy, who hold this precious mother-tongue in vile contempt, which, if it be vile in any case, is so only inasmuch as it sounds in the evil mouth of these adulterers."--_Il Convito_, caps. x., xi., translated by Elizabeth Price Sayer, 1887, pp. 34-40.]

[bz] ----_when matched with thine_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[296] [With the whole of this apostrophe to Italy, compare _Purgatorio_, vi. 76-127.]

[ca] _From the world's harvest_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[cb] {257}

_Where earthly Glory first then Heavenly made._--
[MS. Alternative reading.]
_Where Glory first, and then Religion made_.--[MS. erased.]

[297] [Compare--

"The Goth, the Christian--Time--War--Flood, and Fire,
Have dealt upon the seven-hilled City's pride."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lxxx. lines 1, 2,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 390, note 2.]

[298] {258}See "Sacco di Roma," generally attributed to Guicciardini [Francesco (1482-1540)]. There is another written by a Jacopo _Buonaparte_.

[The original MS. of the latter work is preserved in the Royal Library at Paris. It is entitled, "Ragguaglio Storico di tutto I'occorso, giorno per giorno, nel Sacco di Roma dell' anno mdxxvii., scritto da Jacopo Buonaparte, Gentiluomo Samminiatese, che vi si trovo' presente." An edition of it was printed at Cologne, in 1756, to which is prefixed a genealogy of the Buonaparte family.

The "traitor Prince" was Charles IV., Connétable de Bourbon, Comte de Montpensier, born 1490, who was killed at the capture of Rome, May 6, 1527. "His death, far from restraining the ardour of the assailants [the Imperial troops, consisting of Germans and Spanish foot], increased it; and with the loss of about 1000 men, they entered and sacked the city.... The disorders committed by the soldiers were dreadful, and the booty they made incredible. They added insults to cruelty, and scoffs to rapaciousness. Upon the news of Bourbon's death, His Holiness, imagining that his troops, no longer animated by his implacable spirit, might listen to an accommodation, demanded a parley; but ... neglected all means for defence.... Cardinals and bishops were ignominiously exposed upon asses with their legs and hands bound; and wealthy citizens ... suspected of having secreted their effects ... were tortured ... to oblige them to make discoveries, ... the booty ... is said to have amounted to about two millions and a half of ducats."--_Mod. Univ. History_, xxxvi. 512.]

[299] {259}[Cambyses, the second King of Persia, who reigned B.C. 529-532, sent an army against the Ammonians, which perished in the sands.]

[cc] ----_and his phalanx--why_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[300] [The _Prophecy of Dante_ was begun and finished before Byron took up the cause of Italian independence, or definitely threw in his lot with the Carbonari, but his intimacy with the Gambas, which dates from his migration to Ravenna in 1819, must from the first have brought him within the area of political upheaval and disturbance. A year after (April 16, 1820) he writes to Murray, "I have, besides, another reason for desiring you to be speedy, which is, that there is that brewing in Italy which will speedily cut off all security of communication.... I shall, if permitted by the natives, remain to see what will come of it, ... for I shall think it by far the most interesting spectacle and moment in existence, to see the Italians send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens. I have lived long enough among them to feel more for them as a nation than for any other people in existence: but they want Union [see line 145], and they want principle; and I doubt their success."--_Letters_, 1901, v. 8, note 1.]

[cd] {261} ----_of long-enduring ill._--[MS. erased.]

[ce]

----_the martyred country's gore_
_Will not in vain arise to whom belongs._--[MS. erased.]

[301] {262}Alexander of Parma, Spinola, Pescara, Eugene of Savoy, Montecuccoli.

[Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma (1546-1592), recovered the Southern Netherlands for Spain, 1578-79, made Henry IV. raise the siege of Paris, 1590, etc.

Ambrogio, Marchese di Spinola (1569-1630), a Maltese by birth, entered the Spanish service 1602, took Ostend 1604, invested Bergen-op-Zoom, etc.

Ferdinando Francesco dagli Avalos, Marquis of Pescara (1496-1525), took Milan November 19, 1521, fought at Lodi, etc., was wounded at the battle of Padua, February 24, 1525. He was the husband of Vittoria Colonna, and when he was in captivity at Ravenna wrote some verses in her honour.

François Eugene (1663-1736), Prince of Savoy-Carignan, defeated the French at Turin, 1706, and (with Marlborough) at Malplaquet, 1709; the Turks at Peterwardein, 1716, etc.

Raimondo Montecuccoli, a Modenese (1608-1680), defeated the Turks at St. Gothard in 1664, and in 1675-6 commanded on the Rhine, and out-generalled Turenne and the Prince de Condé]

[302] Columbus, Americus Vespusius, Sebastian Cabot.

[Christopher Columbus (circ. 1430-1506), a Genoese, discovered mainland of America, 1498; Amerigo Vespucci (1451-1512), a Florentine, explored coasts of America, 1497-1504; Sebastian Cabot (1477-1557), son of Giovanni Cabotto or Gavotto, a Venetian, discovered coasts of Labrador, etc., June, 1497.]

[303] {263}[Compare--

"Ah! servile Italy, griefs hostelry!
A ship without a pilot in great tempest!"

_Purgatorio_, vi. 76, 77.]

[cf]

_Yet through this many-yeared eclipse of Woe_.
--[MS. Alternative reading.]
_Yet through this murky interreign of Woe_.--[MS. erased.]

[cg] _Which choirs the birds to song_---.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ch] _And Pearls flung down to regal Swine evince_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[ci] _The whoredom of high Genius_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[304] {264}[Alfieri, in his _Autobiography_ ... (1845, _Period III_. chap. viii. p. 92) notes and deprecates the servile manner in which Metastasio went on his knees before Maria Theresa in the Imperial gardens of Schoenbrunnen.]

[cj] _And prides itself in prostituted duty_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[305] A verse from the Greek tragedians, with which Pompey took leave of Cornelia [daughter of Metellus Scipio, and widow of P. Crassus] on entering the boat in which he was slain. [The verse, or verses, are said to be by Sophocles, and are quoted by Plutarch, in his Life of Pompey, c. 78, _Vitæ_, 1814, vii. 159. They run thus--

Ὅστις γὰρ ὡς τύραννον ἐμπορεύεται,
Κείνου ἐστὶ δοῦλος, κἂν ἐλεύθερος μῃ.

("Seek'st thou a tyrant's door? then farewell, freedom!
Though _free_ as air before.")

_Vide Incert. Fab. Fragm_., No. 789, _Trag. Grec. Fragm_.,
A. Nauck, 1889, p. 316.]

[306] The verse and sentiment are taken from Homer.

[Ἥμισυ γάρ τ' ἀρετῆς ἀποαίνυται εὐρύοπα Ζεύς
᾿Ανέρος, εὗτ᾿ ἅν μιν κατὰ δούλιον ἦμαρἕλῃσιν.

_Odyssey_, xvii. 322, 323.]

[307] {265}Petrarch. [Dante died September 14, 1321, when Petrarch, born July 20, 1304, had entered his eighteenth year.]

[308] [Historical events may be thrown into the form of prophecy with some security, but not so the critical opinions of the _soi-disani_ prophet. If Byron had lived half a century later, he might have placed Ariosto and Tasso after and not before Petrarch.]

[ck]

_Was crimsoned with his veins who died to save,_
_Shall be his glorious argument,_----.--[MS, Alternative reading.]

[309] {266}[See the Introduction to the _Lament of Tasso_, _ante_, p. 139, and _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza xxxvi. line 2, _Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 355, note 1.]

[310] [Alfonso d'Este (II.), Duke of Ferrara, died 1597.]

[311] [Compare the opening lines of the _Orlando Furioso_--

"Le Donne, i Cavalier'! l'arme, gli amori,
Le Cortesie, l'audaci imprese io canto."

See _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanzas xl., xli.,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 359, 360, note 1.]

[312] [The sense is, "Ariosto may be matched with, perhaps excelled by, Homer; but where is the Greek poet to set on the same pedestal with Tasso?"]

[313] [Compare _Churchill's Grave_, lines 15-19--

"And is this all? I thought,--and do we rip
The veil of Immortality, and crave
I know not what of honour and of light
Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?
So soon, and so successless?"

_Vide ante_, p. 47.]

[cl] {267}

/ _winged_ \
_The_ < > _blood_----.--[MS. Alternative reading.]
\ _lightning_ /

[314] [Compare--

"For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

_Kubla Khan,_ lines 52, 53, _Poetical Works_. of
S. T. Coleridge, 1893, p. 94.]

[315] [Compare--

"By our own spirits are we deified:
We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;
But thereof come in the end despondency and madness."

_Resolution and Independence_, vii. lines 5-7,
Wordsworth's _Poetical Works_, 1889, p. 175.

Compare, too, Moore's fine apology for Byron's failure to submit to the yoke of matrimony, "and to live happily ever afterwards"--

"But it is the cultivation and exercise of the imaginative faculty that, more than anything, tend to wean the man of genius from actual life, and, by substituting the sensibilities of the imagination for those of the heart, to render, at last, the medium through which he feels no less unreal than that through which he thinks. Those images of ideal good and beauty that surround him in his musings soon accustom him to consider all that is beneath this high standard unworthy of his care; till, at length, the heart becoming chilled as the fancy warms, it too often happens that, in proportion as he has refined and elevated his theory of all the social affections, he has unfitted himself for the practice of them."--_Life_, p. 268.]

[316] {269}[So too Wordsworth, in his Preface to the _Lyrical Ballads_ (1800); "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings."]

[317] [Compare--

"Thy Godlike crime was to be kind,
To render with thy precepts less
The sum of human wretchedness ...
But baffled as thou wert from high ...
Thou art a symbol and a sign
To Mortals."

_Prometheus_, iii. lines 35, _seq_.; _vide ante_, p. 50.

Compare, too, the _Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte_, stanza xvi. _var_ ii.--

"He suffered for kind acts to men."

_Poetical Works_, 1900, iii. 312.]

[318] {270}["Transfigurate," whence "transfiguration," is derived from the Latin _transfiguro,_ found in Suetonius and Quintilian. Byron may have thought to anglicize the Italian _trasfigurarsi._]

[319] The Cupola of St. Peter's. [Michel Angelo, then in his seventy-second year, received the appointment of architect of St. Peter's from Pope Paul III. He began the dome on a different plan from that of the first architect, Bramante, "declaring that he would raise the Pantheon in the air." The drum of the dome was constructed in his life-time, but for more than twenty-four years after his death (1563), the cupola remained untouched, and it was not till 1590, in the pontificate of Sixtus V., that the dome itself was completed. The ball and cross were placed on the summit in November, 1593.--_Handbook of Rome_, p. 239.

Compare _Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza cliii. line i, _Poetical Works_, 1892, ii. 440, 441, note 2.]

[320] {271}["Yet, however unequal I feel myself to that attempt, were I now to begin the world again, I would tread in the steps of that great master [Michel Angelo]. To kiss the hem of his garment, to catch the slightest of his perfections, would be glory and distinction enough for an ambitious man."--_Discourses_ of Sir Joshua Reynolds, 1884, p. 289.]

[321] The statue of Moses on the monument of Julius II. [Michel Angelo's Moses is near the end of the right aisle of the Church of S. Pietro-in-Vincoli.]

"SONETTO

"_Di Giovanni Battista Zappi_.

"Chi é costui, che in si gran pietra scolto,
Siede gigante, e le più illustri, e conte
Opre dell' arte avanza, e ha vive, e pronte
Le labbra si, che le parole ascolto?
Quest' è Mosè; ben me 'l diceva il folto
Onor del mento, e 'l doppio raggio in fronte;
Quest' è Mosè, quando scendea dal monte,
E gran parte del Nume avea nel volto.
Tal' era allor, che le sonanti, e vaste
Acque ei sospese, a se d' intorno; e tale
Quando il Mar chiuse, e ne fè tomba altrui.
E voi, sue turbe, un rio vitello alzaste?
Alzata aveste immago a questa eguale!
Ch' era men fallo i' adorar costui."

[_Scelta di Sonetti ... del Gobbi_, 1709, iii. 216.]

["And who is he that, shaped in sculptured stone
Sits giant-like? stern monument of art
Unparalleled, while language seems to start
From his prompt lips, and we his precepts own?
--'Tis Moses; by his beard's thick honours known,
And the twin beams that from his temples dart;
'Tis Moses; seated on the mount apart,
Whilst yet the Godhead o'er his features shone.
Such once he looked, when Ocean's sounding wave
Suspended hung, and such amidst the storm,
When o'er his foes the refluent waters roared.
An idol calf his followers did engrave:
But had they raised this awe-commanding form,
Then had they with less guilt their work adored."

Rogers.]

[cm] {272}

----_from whose word_
{_Israel took God, pronounce the law in stone._
{_Israel left Egypt, cleave the sea in stone_.--

[MS. Alternative readings.]

[322] The Last Judgment, in the Sistine Chapel.

["It is obvious, throughout his [Michel Angelo's] works, that the poetical mind of the latter [Dante] influenced his feelings. The Demons in the Last Judgment ... may find a prototype in _La Divina Comedia_. The figures rising from the grave mark his study of _L'Inferno_, e _Il Purgatorio_; and the subject of the Brazen Serpent, in the Sistine Chapel, must remind every reader of Canto XXV. dell' _Inferno_."--_Life of Michael Angelo_ by R. Duppa, 1856, p. 120.]

[323] I have read somewhere (if I do not err, for I cannot recollect where,) that Dante was so great a favourite of Michael Angelo's, that he had designed the whole of the Divina Commedia: but that the volume containing these studies was lost by sea.

[Michel Angelo's copy of Dante, says Duppa (_ibid_., and note 1), "was a large folio, with Landino's commentary; and upon the broad margin of the leaves he designed with a pen and ink, all the interesting subjects. This book was possessed by Antonio Montanti, a sculptor and architect in Florence, who, being appointed architect to St. Peter's, removed to Rome, and shipped his ... effects at Leghorn for Cività Vecchia, among which was this edition of Dante. In the voyage the vessel foundered at sea, and it was unfortunately lost in the wreck."]

[324] {273} See the treatment of Michel Angelo by Julius II., and his neglect by Leo X. [Julius II. encouraged his attendance at the Vatican, but one morning he was stopped by the chamberlain in waiting, who said, "I have an order not to let you enter." Michel Angelo, indignant at the insult, left Rome that very evening. Though Julius despatched five couriers to bring him back, it was some months before he returned. Even a letter (July 8, 1506), in which the Pope promised his "dearly beloved Michel Angelo" that he should not be touched nor offended, but be "reinstated in the apostolic grace," met with no response. It was this quarrel with Julius II. which prevented the completion of the sepulchral monument. The "Moses" and the figures supposed to represent the Active and the Contemplative Life, and three Caryatides (since removed) represent the whole of the original design, "a parallelogram surmounted with forty statues, and covered with reliefs and other ornaments."--See Duppa's _Life, etc_., 1856, pp. 33, 34, and _Handbook of Rome_, p. 133.]

[325] [Compare _Merchant of Venice_, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.]

[326] {274}[Compare--

"I fled, and cried out Death ...
I fled, but he pursued, (though more, it seems,
Inflamed with lust than rage), and swifter far,
Me overtook, his mother, all dismayed,
And in embraces forcible and foul,
Ingendering with me, of that rape begot
These yelling monsters, that with ceaseless cry
Surround me."

_Paradise Lost_, book ii. lines 787-796.]

[327] [In his _Convito_, Dante speaks of his banishment, and the poverty and distress which attended it, in very affecting terms. "Ah! would it had pleased the Dispenser of all things that this excuse had never been needed; that neither others had done me wrong, nor myself undergone penalty undeservedly,--the penalty, I say, of exile and of poverty. For it pleased the citizens of the fairest and most renowned daughter of Rome--Florence--to cast me out of her most sweet bosom, where I was born and bred, and passed half of the life of man, and in which, with her good leave, I still desire with all my heart to repose my weary spirit, and finish the days allotted me; and so I have wandered in almost every place to which our language extends, a stranger, almost a beggar, exposing against my will the wounds given me by fortune, too often unjustly imputed to the sufferer's fault. Truly I have been a vessel without sail and without rudder, driven about upon different ports and shores by the dry wind that springs out of dolorous poverty; and hence have I appeared vile in the eyes of many, who, perhaps, by some better report, had conceived of me a different impression, and in whose sight not only has my person become thus debased, but an unworthy opinion created of everything which I did, or which I had to do."--_Il Convito_, book i. chap. iii., translated by Leigh Hunt, _Stories from the Italian Poets_, 1846, i. 22, 23.]

[328] {275} What is Horizon's quantity? Horīzon, or Horĭzon? adopt accordingly.--[B.]

[cn]--_and the Horizon for bars_.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[329] [Compare--

"Ungrateful Florence! Dante sleeps afar."

_Childe Harold_, Canto IV. stanza lvii.,
_Poetical Works_, 1899, ii. 371, note 1.

"Between the second and third chapels [in the nave of Santa Croce at Florence] is the colossal monument to Dante, by Ricci ... raised by subscription in 1829. The inscription, '_A majoribus ter frustra decretum_,' refers to the successive efforts of the Florentines to recover his remains, and raise a monument to their great countryman."--_Handbook, Central Italy_, p. 32.]

[330] "E scrisse più volte non solamente a' particolari Cittadini del Reggimento, ma ancora al Popolo; e intra l' altre un' Epistola assai lunga che incomincia: '_Popule mee_ (sic), _quid feci tibi?_"--_Le vite di Dante, etc._, _scritte da Lionardo Aretino_, 1672, p. 47.

[331] {276}[About the year 1316 his friends obtained his restoration to his country and his possessions, on condition that he should pay a certain sum of money, and, entering a church, avow himself guilty, and ask pardon of the republic.

The following was his answer to a religious, who appears to have been one of his kinsmen: "From your letter, which I received with due respect and affection, I observe how much you have at heart my restoration to my country. I am bound to you the more gratefully inasmuch as an exile rarely finds a friend. But, after mature consideration, I must, by my answer, disappoint the writers of some little minds ... Your nephew and mine has written to me ... that ... I am allowed to return to Florence, provided I pay a certain sum of money, and submit to the humiliation of asking and receiving absolution.... Is such an invitation then to return to his country glorious to d. all. after suffering in exile almost fifteen years? Is it thus, then, they would recompense innocence which all the world knows, and the labour and fatigue of unremitting study? Far from the man who is familiar with philosophy, be the senseless baseness of a heart of earth, that could imitate the infamy of some others, by offering himself up as it were in chains. Far from the man who cries aloud for justice, this compromise, by his money, with his persecutors! No, my Father, this is not the way that shall lead me back to my country. I will return with hasty steps, if you or any other can open to me a way that shall not derogate from the fame and honour of d.; but if by no such way Florence can be entered, then Florence I shall never enter. What! shall I not every where enjoy the light of the sun and the stars? and may I not seek and contemplate, in every corner of the earth, under the canopy of heaven, consoling and delightful truth, without first rendering myself inglorious, nay infamous, to the people and republic of Florence? Bread, I hope, will not fail me."--_Epistola, IX. Amico Florentino: Opere di Dante_, 1897, p. 413.]

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