The Story of Rimini

Front matter

THE

STORY OF RIMINI.

THE

Dedication

ΤΟ THE RIGHT HONOURABLE

LORD BYRON.

My Dear Byron, You see what you have brought yourself to by liking my verses. It is taking you unawares, I allow; but you yourself have set example now-a-days of poet's dedicating to poet; and it is under that nobler title, as well as the still nobler one of friend, that I now address you.

Preface

PREFACE.

The following story is founded on a passage in Dante, the substance of which is contained in the concluding paragraph of the second canto. For the rest of the incidents, generally speaking, the praise or blame remains with myself. The passage in question—the episode of Paulo and Francesca—has long been admired by the readers of Italian poetry, and is indeed the most cordial and refreshing one in the whole of that singular poem the Inferno, which some call a satire, and some an epic, and which, I confess, has always appeared to me a kind of sublime night-mare. We even lose sight of the place, in which the saturnine poet, according to his summary way of disposing both of friends and enemies, has thought proper to put the sufferers; and see the whole melancholy absurdity of his theology, in spite of itself, falling to nothing before one genuine impulse of the affections.

The interest of the passage is greatly increased by its being founded on acknowledged matter of fact. Even the particular circumstance which Dante describes as having hastened the fall of the lovers,—the perusal of Launcelot of the Lake,—is most likely a true anecdote; for he himself, not long after the event, was living at the court of Guido Novello da Polenta, the heroine's father; and indeed the very circumstance of his having related it at all, considering its nature, is a warrant of its authenticity.

The commentators differ in their accounts of the rest of the story; but all agree that the lady was in some measure beguiled into the match with the elder Malatesta,—Boccaccio says, by being shewn the younger brother once, as he passed over a square, and told that that was her intended husband. I have accordingly turned this artifice to account, though in a different manner. I have also omitted the lameness attributed to the husband; and of two different names by which he is called, Giovanni and Launcelot, have chosen the former, as not interfering with the hero's appellation, whose story the lovers were reading.

The Italians have been very fond of this little piece of private history, and I used to wonder that I could meet with it in none of the books of novels, for which they have been so famous; till I reflected, that it was perhaps owing to the nature of the books themselves, which such a story might have been no means of recommending. The historians of Ravenna, however, have taken care to record it; and besides Dante's episode, it is alluded to by Petrarch and by . The former mentions the lovers among his examples of calamitous passion, in the Trionfo d'Amore, cap. 3. Tassoni, in his tragi-comic war, introduces Paulo Malatesta, as leading the troops of Rimini, and paints him in a very lively manner, as contemplating, while he rides, a golden sword-chain, which Francesca had given him, and which he addresses with melancholy enthusiasm as he goes. See the Secchia Rapita: canto 5. st. 43. &c. and canto 7. st. 29. &c.

The romance of Launcelot of the Lake, upon the perusal of which the principal incident turns, is little known at present, but was a great favorite all over Europe, up to a late period. Chaucer, no long time after the event itself, mentions it, in his significant way, as a work held in great estimation by the ladies. The Nun's Priest, speaking of the tale of the Cock and the Fox, which he is relating, says to his hearers,

"This story is al so trewe, I undertake, "As is the book of Launcelot du Lake, "That women holde in ful gret reverence." >>Canterbury Tales: V. 15147.

The great father of our poetry, by the way, is a little ungrateful with his jokes upon chivalrous stories, of which he has left such noble specimens in the Palamon and Arcite, and in the unfinished story of Cambuscan, which Milton delighted to remember; but both he and the Italian poets appear to have laughed at them occasionally, as lovers affect to do at their mistresses. I have in my possession an imperfect copy of Launcelot of the Lake in Italian, and have taken occasion of my story, to give an abstract of the beginning of it, which appears to me as fine as any thing in Amadis de Gaul or Tristan de Leonois.

There are no notes to the present poem. I have done my best, as every writer should, to be true to costume and manners, to time and place; and if the reader understands me as he goes, and feels touched where I am most ambitious he should be, I can be content that he shall miss an occasional nicety or so in other matters, and not be quite sensible of the mighty extent of my information. If the poem reach posterity, curiosity may find commentators enough for it, and the sanction of time give interest to whatever they may trace after me. If the case be otherwise, to write notes is only to shew to how little purpose has been one's reading. I shall merely observe, that of the direct obligations, of which I am conscious, and which perhaps, after all, I have not handled well enough to make worth the acknow- ledgment,—the simile of the patches of moss to sunshine, in the second canto, was borrowed from Gilpin's Forest Scenery;—that of unfortunate poets to crushed perfumes, in the fourth, from one about good men in adversity in Bacon's Apophthegms;—Giovanni's praise of his dead brother, from the panegyric pronounced over Launcelot of the Lake, which the reader may find in Ellis's Specimens of Early Romances;—and part of the description of the nymphs, in the third canto, from Poussin's exquisite picture of Polyphemus piping on the mountain.

For the same reason, I suppress a good deal which I had intended to say on the versification of the poem,—or of that part of it, at least, where, in coming upon household matters calculated to touch us nearest, it takes leave, as it were, of a more visible march and accompaniment. I do not hesitate to say however, that Pope and the French school of versification have known the least on the subject, of any poets perhaps that ever wrote. They have mistaken mere smoothness for har mony; and, in fact, wrote as they did, because their ears were only sensible of a marked and uniform regularity. One of the most successful of Pope's imitators, Dr. Johnson, was confessedly insensible to music. In speaking of such men, I allude, of course, only to their style in poetry, and not to their undisputed excellence in other matters. The great masters of modern versification are, Dryden for common narrative, though he wanted sentiment, and his style in some respects was apt to be artificial,—Spenser, who was musical from pure taste,—Milton, who was learnedly so,—Ariosto, whose fine ear and animal spirits gave so frank and exquisite a tone to all he said,—Shakspeare, whose versification escapes us, only because he over-informed it with knowledge and sentiment;—and, though the name may appear singular to those who have not read him with due attention to the nature of the language then existing,—Chaucer,—to whom it sometimes appears to me, that I can trace Dryden himself, though the latter spoke on the subject without much relish, or, in fact, knowledge of it. All these are about as different from Pope, as the church organ is from the bell in the steeple, or, to give him a more decorous comparison, the song of the nightingale, from that of the cuckoo.

With the endeavour to recur to a freer spirit of versification, I have joined one of still greater importance, that of having a free and idiomatic cast of language. There is a cant of art as well as of nature, though the former is not so unpleasant as the latter, which affects non-affectation. But the proper language of poetry is in fact nothing different from that of real life, and de- pends for its dignity upon the strength and sentiment of what it speaks. It is only adding musical modulation to what a fine understanding might actually utter in the midst of its griefs or enjoyments. The poet therefore should do as Chaucer or Shakspeare did,—not copy what is obsolete or peculiar in either, any more than they copied from their predecessors,—but use as much as possible an actual, existing language,—omitting of course mere vulgarisms and fugitive phrases, which are the cant of ordinary discourse, just as tragedy phrases, dead idioms, and exaggerations of dignity, are of the artificial style, and yeas, verilys, and exaggerations of simplicity, are of the natural. The artificial style, it is true, has its beauties, as some great poets have proved; but I am here speaking of the style that is most beautiful; and those poets, it is to be observed, were not the greatest. Of the style, to which I allude, exquisite specimens, making allowances for what is obsolete, are to be found in the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer, and his Troilus and Cressida; and you have only to open the first books of and Ariosto to meet with two charming ones, the interview of Orlando with the Abbot, in the (canto 1. towards the conclusion), and the flight of Angelica, her meeting with Rinaldo's horse, &c. in the Orlando Furioso. Homer abounds with them, though, by the way, not in the translation; and I need not, of course, warn any reader of taste against trusting Mr. Hoole for a proper representation of the delightful Italian. Such versions, more or less, resemble bad engravings, in which all the substances, whether flesh, wood, or cloth, are made of one texture, and that a bad one. With the Greek dramatists I am ashamed to say I am unacquainted; and of the Latin writers, though Horace, for his delightful companionship, is my favourite, Catullus appears to me to have the truest taste for nature. But an Englishman need go no farther than Shakspeare. Take a single speech of Lear's, such for instance as that heart-rending one,

I am a very foolish fond old man, Fourscore and upward, &c.

and you have all that criticism can say, or poetry can do.

In making these observations, I do not demand the reader to conclude that I have succeeded in my object, whatever may be my own opinion of the matter. All the merit I claim is that of having made an attempt to describe natural things in a language becoming them, and to do something towards the revival of what appears to me a proper English versification. There are narrative poets now living who have fine eyes for the truth of things, and it remains with them perhaps to perfect what I may suggest. If I have succeeded at all, the lovers of nature have still to judge in what proportion the success may be;—but let me take them with me a while, whether in doors or out of doors, whether in the room or the green fields,—let my verses, in short, come under the perusal of ingenuous eyes, and be felt a little by the hearts that look out of them, and I am satisfied.

Canto I.

THE

STORY OF RIMINI.

CANTO I.

The coming to fetch the Bride from Ravenna.

The Sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May Round old Ravenna's clear-shewn towers and bay, A morn, the loveliest which the year has seen, Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green; For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night, Have left a sparkling welcome for the light, And there's a crystal clearness all about; The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out; A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze; The smoke goes dancing from the cottage trees;

And when you listen, you may hear a coil Of bubbling springs about the grassy soil; And all the scene, in short—sky, earth, and sea, Breathes like a bright-eyed face, that laughs out openly.

'Tis nature, full of spirits, waked and springing:— The birds to the delicious time are singing, Darting with freaks and snatches up and down, Where the light woods go seaward from the town; While happy faces, striking through the green Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen; And the far ships, lifting their sails of white Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light, Come gleaming up, true to the wished-for day, And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay.

And well may all who can, come crowding there, If peace returning, and processions rare,

And to crown all, a marriage in May weather, Have aught to bring enjoying hearts together; For on this sparkling day, Ravenna's pride, The daughter of their prince, becomes a bride, A bride, to crown the comfort of the land: And he, whose victories have obtained her hand, Has taken with the dawn, so flies report, His promised journey to the expecting court With hasting pomp, and squires of high degree, The bold Giovanni, lord of Rimini.

Already in the streets the stir grows loud Of expectation and a bustling crowd. With feet and voice the gathering hum contends, The deep talk heaves, the ready laugh ascends; Callings, and clapping doors, and curs unite, And shouts from mere exuberance of delight, And armed bands, making important way, Gallant and grave, the lords of holiday,

And nodding neighbours, greeting as they run, And pilgrims, chanting in the morning sun. With heaved-out tapestry the windows glow, By lovely faces brought, that come and go; Till, the work smoothed, and all the street attired, They take their seats, with upward gaze admired; Some looking down, some forwards or aside, As suits the conscious charm in which they pride; Some turning a trim waist, or o'er the flow Of crimson cloths hanging a hand of snow; But all with smiles prepared, and garlands green, And all in fluttering talk, impatient for the scene.

And hark! the approaching trumpets, with a start, On the smooth wind come dancing to the heart. A moment's hush succeeds; and from the walls, Firm and at once, a silver answer calls. Then heave the crowd; and all, who best can strive In shuffling struggle, tow'rd the palace drive,

Where balconied and broad, of marble fair, On pillars it o'erlooks the public square; For there Duke Guido is to hold his state With his fair daughter, seated o'er the gate:— But the full place rejects the invading tide; And after a rude heave from side to side, With angry faces turned, and feet regained, The peaceful press with order is maintained, Leaving the door-ways only for the crowd, The space within for the procession proud.

For in this manner is the square set out:— The sides, path-deep, are crowded round about, And faced with guards, who keep the road entire; And opposite to these, a brilliant quire Of knights and ladies hold the central spot, Seated in groups upon a grassy plot; The seats with boughs are shaded from above Of early trees transplanted from a grove,

And in the midst, fresh whistling through the scene, A lightsome fountain starts from out the green, Clear and compact, till, at its height o'er-run, It shakes its loosening silver in the sun.

There, talking with the ladies, you may see, Standing about, or seated, frank and free, Some of the finest warriors of the court,— Baptist, and Hugo of the princely port, And Azo, and Obizo, and the grace Of frank Esmeriald with his open face, And Felix the Fine Arm, and him who well Repays his lavish honours, Lionel, Besides a host of spirits, nursed in glory, Fit for sweet woman's love and for the poet's story.

There too, in thickest of the bright-eyed throng, Stands the young father of Italian song,

Guy Cavalcanti, of a knightly race; The poet looks out in his earnest face; He with the pheasant's plume—there—bending now, Something he speaks around him with a bow, And all the listening looks, with nods and flushes, Break round him into smiles and sparkling blushes.

Another start of trumpets, with reply; And o'er the gate a sudden canopy Raises, on ivory shafts, a crimson shade, And Guido issues with the princely maid, And sits;—the courtiers fall on either side; But every look is fixed upon the bride, Who pensive comes at first, and hardly hears The enormous shout that springs as she appears, Till, as she views the countless gaze below, And faces that with grateful homage glow, A home to leave, and husband yet to see, Fade in the warmth of that great charity;

And hard it is, she thinks, to have no will; But not to bless these thousands, harder still: With that, a keen and quivering glance of tears Scarce moves her patient mouth, and disappears; A smile is underneath, and breaks away, And round she looks and breathes, as best befits the day.

What need I tell of lovely lips and eyes, A clipsome waist, and bosom's balmy rise, The dress of bridal white, and the dark curls Bedding an airy coronet of pearls? There's not in all that crowd one gallant being, Whom if his heart were whole, and rank agreeing, It would not fire to twice of what he is, To clasp her to his heart, and call her his.

While thus with tip-toe looks the people gaze, Another shout the neighb'ring quarters raise:

The train are in the town, and gathering near, With noise of cavalry, and trumpets clear; A princely music, unbedinned with drums: The mighty brass seems opening as it comes, And now it fills, and now it shakes the air, And now it bursts into the sounding square; At which the crowd with such a shout rejoice, Each thinks he's deafened with his neighbour's voice. Then, with a long-drawn breath, the clangours die; The palace trumpets give a last reply, And clattering hoofs succeed, with stately stir Of snortings proud and clinking furniture: It seems as if the harnessed war were near; But in their garb of peace the train appear, Their swords alone reserved, but idly hung, And the chains freed by which their shields were slung.

First come the trumpeters, clad all in white Except the breast, which wears a scutcheon bright.

By four and four they ride, on horses grey; And as they sit along their easy way, Stately, and heaving to the sway below, Each plants his trumpet on his saddle-bow.

The heralds next appear, in vests attired Of stiffening gold with radiant colours fired; And then the pursuivants, who wait on these, All dressed in painted richness to the knees: Each rides a dappled horse, and bears a shield, Charged with three heads upon a golden field.

Twelve ranks of squires come after, twelve in one, With forked pennons lifted in the sun, Which tell, as they look backward in the wind, The bearings of the knights that ride behind. Their steeds are ruddy bay; and every squire His master's colour shews in his attire.

These past, and at a lordly distance, come The knights themselves, and fill the quickening hum, The flower of Rimini. Apart they ride, Six in a row, and with a various pride; But all as fresh as fancy could desire, All shapes of gallantry on steeds of fire.

Differing in colours is the knights' array, The horses, black and chesnut, roan and bay;— The horsemen, crimson vested, purple, and white,— All but the scarlet cloak for every knight, Which thrown apart, and hanging loose behind, Rests on his steed, and ruffles in the wind. Their caps of velvet have a lightsome fit, Each with a dancing feather sweeping it, Tumbling its white against their short dark hair; But what is of the most accomplished air, All wear memorials of their lady's love, A ribbon, or a scarf, or silken glove,

Some tied about their arm, some at the breast, Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest.

A suitable attire the horses shew; Their golden bits keep wrangling as they go; The bridles glance about with gold and gems; And the rich housing-cloths, above the hems Which comb along the ground with golden pegs, Are half of net, to shew the hinder legs. Some of the cloths themselves are golden thread With silk enwoven, azure, green, or red; Some spotted on a ground of different hue, As burning stars upon a cloth of blue,— Or purple smearings with a velvet light Rich from the glary yellow thickening bright,— Or a spring green, powdered with April posies,— Or flush vermilion, set with silver roses: But all are wide and large, and with the wind, When it comes fresh, go sweeping out behind.

With various earnestness the crowd admire Horsemen and horse, the motion and the attire. Some watch, as they go by, the riders' faces Looking composure, and their knightly graces; The life, the carelessness, the sudden heed, The body curving to the rearing steed, The patting hand, that best persuades the check, And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck, The thigh broad pressed, the spanning palm upon it, And the jerked feather swaling in the bonnet.

Others the horses and their pride explore, Their jauntiness behind and strength before; The flowing back, firm chest, and fetlocks clean, The branching veins ridging the glossy lean, The mane hung sleekly, the projecting eye That to the stander near looks awfully, The finished head, in its compactness free, Small, and o'erarching to the lifted knee,

The start and snatch, as if they felt the comb, With mouths that fling about the creamy foam, The snorting turbulence, the nod, the champing, The shift, the tossing, and the fiery tramping.

And now the Princess, pale and with fixed eye, Perceives the last of those precursors nigh, Each rank uncovering, as they pass in state, Both to the courtly fountain and the gate. And then a second interval succeeds Of stately length, and then a troop of steeds Milkwhite and unattired, Arabian bred, Each by a blooming boy lightsomely led: In every limb is seen their faultless race, A fire well tempered, and a free left grace: Slender their spotless shapes, and meet the sight With freshness, after all those colours bright: And as with quoit-like drop their steps they bear, They lend their streaming tails to the fond air.

These for a princely present are divined, And shew the giver is not far behind. The talk increases now, and now advance, Space after space, with many a sprightly prance, The pages of the court, in rows of three; Of white and crimson is their livery. Space after space,—and yet the attendants come,— And deeper goes about the impatient hum— Ah—yes—no—'tis not he—but 'tis the squires Who go before him when his pomp requires; And now his huntsman shews the lessening train, Now the squire-carver, and the chamberlain,— And now his banner comes, and now his shield Borne by the squire that waits him to the field,— And then an interval,—a lordly space;— A pin-drop silence strikes o'er all the place: The princess, from a distance, scarcely knows Which way to look; her colour comes and goes;

And with an impulse and affection free She lays her hand upon her father's knee, Who looks upon her with a laboured smile, Gathering it up into his own the while, When some one's voice, as if it knew not how To check itself, exclaims, "the prince! now—now!" And on a milk-white courser, like the air, A glorious figure springs into the square; Up, with a burst of thunder, goes the shout, And rolls the trembling walls and peopled roofs about.

Never was nobler finish of fine sight; 'Twas like the coming of a shape of light; And every lovely gazer, with a start, Felt the quick pleasure smite across her heart:— The princess, who at first could scarcely see, Though looking still that way from dignity,

Gathers new courage as the praise goes round, And bends her eyes to learn what they have found. And see,—his horse obeys the check unseen; And with an air 'twixt ardent and serene, Letting a fall of curls about his brow, He takes his cap off with a gallant bow; Then for another and a deafening shout; And scarfs are waved, and flowers come fluttering out; And, shaken by the noise, the reeling air Sweeps with a giddy whirl among the fair, And whisks their garments, and their shining hair.

With busy interchange of wonder glows The crowd, and loves his brilliance as he goes,— The golden-fretted cap, the downward feather,— The crimson vest fitting with pearls together,— The rest in snowy white from the mid thigh: These catch the extrinsic and the common eye:

But on his shape the gentler sight attends, Moves as he passes,—as he bends him, bends,— Watches his air, his gesture, and his face, And thinks it never saw such manly grace, So fine are his bare throat, and curls of black,— So lightsomely dropt in, his lordly back— His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance, So heaped with strength, and turned with elegance; But above all, so meaning is his look, Full, and as readable as open book; And so much easy dignity there lies In the frank lifting of his cordial eyes.

His haughty steed, who seems by turns to be Vexed and made proud by that cool mastery, Shakes at his bit, and rolls his eyes with care, Reaching with stately step at the fine air; And now and then, sideling his restless pace, Drops with his hinder legs, and shifts his place,

And feels through all his frame a fiery thrill: The princely rider on his back sits still, And looks where'er he likes, and sways him at his will.

Surprise, relief, a joy scarce understood, Something perhaps of very gratitude, And fifty feelings, undefin'd and new, Dance through the bride, and flush her faded hue. "Could I but once," she thinks, "securely place A trust for the contents on such a case, And know the spirit that should fill that dwelling, This chance of mine would hardly be compelling." Just then, the stranger, coming slowly round By the clear fountain and the brilliant ground, And bending, as he goes, with frequent thanks, Beckons a follower to him from the ranks, And loosening, as he speaks, from its light hold A dropping jewel with its chain of gold,

Sends it, in token he had loved him long, To the young father of Italian song: The youth smiles up, and with a lowly grace Bending his lifted eyes and blushing face, Looks after his new friend, who, scarcely gone In the wide turning, nods and passes on.

This is sufficient for the destined bride; She took an interest first, but now a pride; And as the prince comes riding to the place, Baring his head, and raising his fine face, She meets his full obeisance with an eye Of self-permission and sweet gravity; He looks with touched respect, and gazes, and goes by.

Canto II.

CANTO II.

CANTO II.

The Bride's Journey to Rimini.

We'll pass the followers, and their closing state; The court was entered by a hinder gate; The duke and princess had retired before, Joined by the knights and ladies at the door; But something seemed amiss, and there ensued Deep talk among the spreading multitude, Who got in clumps, or paced the measured street, Filling with earnest hum the noontide heat; Nor ceased the wonder, as the day increased, And brought no symptoms of a bridal feast,

No mass, no tilt, no largess for the crowd, Nothing to answer that procession proud; But a blank look, as if no court had been; Silence without, and secrecy within; And nothing heard by listening at the walls, But now and then a bustling through the halls, Or the dim organ roused at gathering intervals.

The truth was this:—The bridegroom had not come, But sent his brother, proxy in his room. A lofty spirit the former was, and proud, Little gallant, and had a sort of cloud Hanging for ever on his cold address, Which he mistook for proper manliness. But more of this hereafter. Guido knew The prince's character; and he knew too, That sweet as was his daughter, and prepared To do her duty, where appeal was barred,

She had stout notions on the marrying score, And where the match unequal prospect bore, Might pause with firmness, and refuse to strike A chord her own sweet music so unlike. The old man therefore, kind enough at heart, Yet fond from habit of intrigue and art, And little formed for sentiments like these, Which seemed to him mere maiden niceties, Had thought at once to gratify the pride Of his stern neighbour, and secure the bride, - By telling him, that if, as he had heard, Busy he was just then, ’twas but a word, And he might send and wed her by another,— Of course, no less a person than his brother. The bride meantime was told, and not unmoved, To look for one no sooner seen than loved; And when Giovanni, struck with what he thought Mere proof how his triumphant hand was sought,

Dispatched the wished for prince, who was a creature Formed in the very poetry of nature, The effect was perfect, and the future wife Caught in the elaborate snare, perhaps for life.

One shock there was, however, to sustain, Which nigh restored her to herself again. She saw, when all were housed, in Guido's face A look of leisurely surprise take place; A little whispering followed for a while, And then 'twas told her with an easy smile, That Prince Giovanni, to his great chagrin, Had been delayed by something unforeseen, But rather than defer his day of bliss (If his fair ruler took it not amiss) Had sent his brother Paulo in his stead; " Who," said old Guido, with a nodding head, "May well be said to represent his brother, For when you see the one, you know the other."