Preface…

Preface

In the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author that having composed something on the subject of Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on Dante's exile,--the tomb of the poet forming one of the principal objects[279] of interest in that city, both to the native and to the stranger.

"On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of the Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron,[280] and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley,[281] of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that--if I do not err--this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet, whose name I have borrowed and most likely taken in vain.

Amongst the inconveniences of authors in the present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold[282] translated into Italian versi sciolti,--that is, a poem written in the Spenserean stanza into blank verse, without regard to the natural divisions of the stanza or the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic, should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great "Padre Alighier,"[283] I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory[284] in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question.

He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation--their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them, without finding some fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, Pindemonte, or Arici,[285] should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, where my business is with the English one; and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both.

THE PROPHECY OF DANTE.

CANTO THE FIRST.

Once more in Man's frail world! which I had left So long that 'twas forgotten; and I feel The weight of clay again,--too soon bereft Of the Immortal Vision which could heal My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies Lift me from that deep Gulf without repeal, Where late my ears rung with the damned cries Of Souls in hopeless bale; and from that place Of lesser torment, whence men may arise Pure from the fire to join the Angelic race; 10 Midst whom my own bright Beatricē[286] blessed My spirit with her light; and to the base Of the Eternal Triad! first, last, best,[287] Mysterious, three, sole, infinite, great God! Soul universal! led the mortal guest, Unblasted by the Glory, though he trod From star to star to reach the almighty throne.[bw] Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod So long hath pressed, and the cold marble stone, Thou sole pure Seraph of my earliest love, 20 Love so ineffable, and so alone, That nought on earth could more my bosom move, And meeting thee in Heaven was but to meet That without which my Soul, like the arkless dove, Had wandered still in search of, nor her feet Relieved her wing till found; without thy light My Paradise had still been incomplete.[288] Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my Life, the Essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of Love,[289] and bright 30 Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the World's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd, And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain,--and never more, save when the cloud Which overhangs the Apennine my mind's eye Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me, can I return, though but to die, 40 Unto my native soil,--they have not yet Quenched the old exile's spirit, stern and high. But the Sun, though not overcast, must set And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have met Destruction face to face in all his ways. The World hath left me, what it found me, pure, And if I have not gathered yet its praise, I sought it not by any baser lure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name 50 May form a monument not all obscure, Though such was not my Ambition's end or aim, To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows Their sail, and deem it glory to be classed With conquerors, and Virtue's other foes, In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free;[290] Oh Florence! Florence![291] unto me thou wast 60 Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over, "but thou wouldst not;" as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gathered thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherished thee was stirred Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire.[292] Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire, 70 But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer[bx] Of him, whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume 80 My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repealed her doom; No,--she denied me what was mine--my roof, And shall not have what is not hers--my tomb. Too long her arméd wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation proof, The man who fought, toiled, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfilled, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art 90 Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness, Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolonged to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented; yet--yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine, My own Beatricē, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, 100 And still is hallowed by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine, And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn. Though, like old Marius from Minturnæ's marsh And Carthage ruins, my lone breast may burn At times with evil feelings hot and harsh,[293] And sometimes the last pangs of a vile foe Writhe in a dream before me, and o'erarch My brow with hopes of triumph,--let them go! Such are the last infirmities of those 110 Who long have suffered more than mortal woe, And yet being mortal still, have no repose But on the pillow of Revenge--Revenge, Who sleeps to dream of blood, and waking glows With the oft-baffled, slakeless thirst of change, When we shall mount again, and they that trod Be trampled on, while Death and Até range O'er humbled heads and severed necks----Great God! Take these thoughts from me--to thy hands I yield My many wrongs, and thine Almighty rod 120 Will fall on those who smote me,--be my Shield! As thou hast been in peril, and in pain, In turbulent cities, and the tented field-- In toil, and many troubles borne in vain For Florence,--I appeal from her to Thee! Thee, whom I late saw in thy loftiest reign, Even in that glorious Vision, which to see And live was never granted until now, And yet thou hast permitted this to me. Alas! with what a weight upon my brow 130 The sense of earth and earthly things come back, Corrosive passions, feelings dull and low, The heart's quick throb upon the mental rack, Long day, and dreary night; the retrospect Of half a century bloody and black, And the frail few years I may yet expect Hoary and hopeless, but less hard to bear, For I have been too long and deeply wrecked On the lone rock of desolate Despair, To lift my eyes more to the passing sail 140 Which shuns that reef so horrible and bare; Nor raise my voice--for who would heed my wail? I am not of this people, nor this age, And yet my harpings will unfold a tale Which shall preserve these times when not a page Of their perturbéd annals could attract An eye to gaze upon their civil rage,[by] Did not my verse embalm full many an act Worthless as they who wrought it: 'tis the doom Of spirits of my order to be racked 150 In life, to wear their hearts out, and consume Their days in endless strife, and die alone; Then future thousands crowd around their tomb, And pilgrims come from climes where they have known The name of him--who now is but a name, And wasting homage o'er the sullen stone, Spread his--by him unheard, unheeded--fame; And mine at least hath cost me dear: to die Is nothing; but to wither thus--to tame My mind down from its own infinity-- 160 To live in narrow ways with little men, A common sight to every common eye, A wanderer, while even wolves can find a den, Ripped from all kindred, from all home, all things That make communion sweet, and soften pain-- To feel me in the solitude of kings Without the power that makes them bear a crown-- To envy every dove his nest and wings Which waft him where the Apennine looks down On Arno, till he perches, it may be, 170 Within my all inexorable town, Where yet my boys are, and that fatal She,[294] Their mother, the cold partner who hath brought Destruction for a dowry--this to see And feel, and know without repair, hath taught A bitter lesson; but it leaves me free: I have not vilely found, nor basely sought, They made an Exile--not a Slave of me.

CANTO THE SECOND.

The Spirit of the fervent days of Old, When words were things that came to pass, and Thought Flashed o'er the future, bidding men behold Their children's children's doom already brought Forth from the abyss of Time which is to be, The Chaos of events, where lie half-wrought Shapes that must undergo mortality; What the great Seers of Israel wore within, That Spirit was on them, and is on me, And if, Cassandra-like, amidst the din 10 Of conflict none will hear, or hearing heed This voice from out the Wilderness, the sin Be theirs, and my own feelings be my meed, The only guerdon I have ever known. Hast thou not bled? and hast thou still to bleed, Italia? Ah! to me such things, foreshown With dim sepulchral light, bid me forget In thine irreparable wrongs my own; We can have but one Country, and even yet Thou'rt mine--my bones shall be within thy breast, 20 My Soul within thy language, which once set With our old Roman sway in the wide West; But I will make another tongue arise As lofty and more sweet, in which expressed The hero's ardour, or the lover's sighs, Shall find alike such sounds for every theme That every word, as brilliant as thy skies, Shall realise a Poet's proudest dream, And make thee Europe's Nightingale of Song;[295] So that all present speech to thine shall seem 30 The note of meaner birds, and every tongue Confess its barbarism when compared with thine.[bz] This shalt thou owe to him thou didst so wrong, Thy Tuscan bard, the banished Ghibelline. Woe! woe! the veil of coming centuries Is rent,--a thousand years which yet supine Lie like the ocean waves ere winds arise, Heaving in dark and sullen undulation, Float from Eternity into these eyes; The storms yet sleep, the clouds still keep their station, 40 The unborn Earthquake yet is in the womb, The bloody Chaos yet expects Creation, But all things are disposing for thy doom; The Elements await but for the Word, "Let there be darkness!" and thou grow'st a tomb! Yes! thou, so beautiful, shalt feel the sword,[296] Thou, Italy! so fair that Paradise, Revived in thee, blooms forth to man restored: Ah! must the sons of Adam lose it twice? Thou, Italy! whose ever golden fields, 50 Ploughed by the sunbeams solely, would suffice For the world's granary; thou, whose sky Heaven gilds[ca] With brighter stars, and robes with deeper blue; Thou, in whose pleasant places Summer builds Her palace, in whose cradle Empire grew, And formed the Eternal City's ornaments From spoils of Kings whom freemen overthrew; Birthplace of heroes, sanctuary of Saints, Where earthly first, then heavenly glory made[cb] Her home; thou, all which fondest Fancy paints, 60 And finds her prior vision but portrayed In feeble colours, when the eye--from the Alp Of horrid snow, and rock, and shaggy shade Of desert-loving pine, whose emerald scalp Nods to the storm--dilates and dotes o'er thee, And wistfully implores, as 'twere, for help To see thy sunny fields, my Italy, Nearer and nearer yet, and dearer still The more approached, and dearest were they free, Thou--Thou must wither to each tyrant's will: 70 The Goth hath been,--the German, Frank, and Hun[297] Are yet to come,--and on the imperial hill Ruin, already proud of the deeds done By the old barbarians, there awaits the new, Throned on the Palatine, while lost and won Rome at her feet lies bleeding; and the hue Of human sacrifice and Roman slaughter Troubles the clotted air, of late so blue, And deepens into red the saffron water Of Tiber, thick with dead; the helpless priest, 80 And still more helpless nor less holy daughter, Vowed to their God, have shrieking fled, and ceased Their ministry: the nations take their prey, Iberian, Almain, Lombard, and the beast And bird, wolf, vulture, more humane than they Are; these but gorge the flesh, and lap the gore Of the departed, and then go their way; But those, the human savages, explore All paths of torture, and insatiate yet, With Ugolino hunger prowl for more. 90 Nine moons shall rise o'er scenes like this and set;[298] The chiefless army of the dead, which late Beneath the traitor Prince's banner met, Hath left its leader's ashes at the gate; Had but the royal Rebel lived, perchance Thou hadst been spared, but his involved thy fate. Oh! Rome, the Spoiler or the spoil of France, From Brennus to the Bourbon, never, never Shall foreign standard to thy walls advance, But Tiber shall become a mournful river. 100 Oh! when the strangers pass the Alps and Po, Crush them, ye Rocks! Floods whelm them, and for ever! Why sleep the idle Avalanches so, To topple on the lonely pilgrim's head? Why doth Eridanus but overflow The peasant's harvest from his turbid bed? Were not each barbarous horde a nobler prey? Over Cambyses' host[299] the desert spread Her sandy ocean, and the Sea-waves' sway Rolled over Pharaoh and his thousands,--why,[cc] 110 Mountains and waters, do ye not as they? And you, ye Men! Romans, who dare not die, Sons of the conquerors who overthrew Those who overthrew proud Xerxes, where yet lie The dead whose tomb Oblivion never knew, Are the Alps weaker than Thermopylæ? Their passes more alluring to the view Of an invader? is it they, or ye, That to each host the mountain-gate unbar, And leave the march in peace, the passage free? 120 Why, Nature's self detains the Victor's car, And makes your land impregnable, if earth Could be so; but alone she will not war, Yet aids the warrior worthy of his birth In a soil where the mothers bring forth men: Not so with those whose souls are little worth; For them no fortress can avail,--the den Of the poor reptile which preserves its sting Is more secure than walls of adamant, when The hearts of those within are quivering. 130 Are ye not brave? Yes, yet the Ausonian soil Hath hearts, and hands, and arms, and hosts to bring Against Oppression; but how vain the toil, While still Division sows the seeds of woe And weakness, till the Stranger reaps the spoil.[300] Oh! my own beauteous land! so long laid low, So long the grave of thy own children's hopes, When there is but required a single blow To break the chain, yet--yet the Avenger stops, And Doubt and Discord step 'twixt thine and thee, 140 And join their strength to that which with thee copes; What is there wanting then to set thee free, And show thy beauty in its fullest light? To make the Alps impassable; and we, Her Sons, may do this with one deed--Unite.

CANTO THE THIRD.

From out the mass of never-dying ill,[cd] The Plague, the Prince, the Stranger, and the Sword, Vials of wrath but emptied to refill And flow again, I cannot all record That crowds on my prophetic eye: the Earth And Ocean written o'er would not afford Space for the annal, yet it shall go forth; Yes, all, though not by human pen, is graven, There where the farthest suns and stars have birth, Spread like a banner at the gate of Heaven, 10 The bloody scroll of our millennial wrongs Waves, and the echo of our groans is driven Athwart the sound of archangelic songs, And Italy, the martyred nation's gore, Will not in vain arise to where belongs[ce] Omnipotence and Mercy evermore: Like to a harpstring stricken by the wind, The sound of her lament shall, rising o'er The Seraph voices, touch the Almighty Mind. Meantime I, humblest of thy sons, and of 20 Earth's dust by immortality refined To Sense and Suffering, though the vain may scoff, And tyrants threat, and meeker victims bow Before the storm because its breath is rough, To thee, my Country! whom before, as now, I loved and love, devote the mournful lyre And melancholy gift high Powers allow To read the future: and if now my fire Is not as once it shone o'er thee, forgive! I but foretell thy fortunes--then expire; 30 Think not that I would look on them and live. A Spirit forces me to see and speak, And for my guerdon grants not to survive; My Heart shall be poured over thee and break: Yet for a moment, ere I must resume Thy sable web of Sorrow, let me take Over the gleams that flash athwart thy gloom A softer glimpse; some stars shine through thy night, And many meteors, and above thy tomb Leans sculptured Beauty, which Death cannot blight: 40 And from thine ashes boundless Spirits rise To give thee honour, and the earth delight; Thy soil shall still be pregnant with the wise, The gay, the learned, the generous, and the brave, Native to thee as Summer to thy skies, Conquerors on foreign shores, and the far wave,[301] Discoverers of new worlds, which take their name;[302] For thee alone they have no arm to save, And all thy recompense is in their fame, A noble one to them, but not to thee-- 50 Shall they be glorious, and thou still the same? Oh! more than these illustrious far shall be The Being--and even yet he may be born-- The mortal Saviour who shall set thee free, And see thy diadem, so changed and worn By fresh barbarians, on thy brow replaced; And the sweet Sun replenishing thy morn, Thy moral morn, too long with clouds defaced, And noxious vapours from Avernus risen, Such as all they must breathe who are debased 60 By Servitude, and have the mind in prison.[303] Yet through this centuried eclipse of woe[cf] Some voices shall be heard, and Earth shall listen; Poets shall follow in the path I show, And make it broader: the same brilliant sky Which cheers the birds to song shall bid them glow,[cg] And raise their notes as natural and high; Tuneful shall be their numbers; they shall sing Many of Love, and some of Liberty, But few shall soar upon that Eagle's wing, 70 And look in the Sun's face, with Eagle's gaze, All free and fearless as the feathered King, But fly more near the earth; how many a phrase Sublime shall lavished be on some small prince In all the prodigality of Praise! And language, eloquently false, evince[ch] The harlotry of Genius, which, like Beauty,[ci] Too oft forgets its own self-reverence, And looks on prostitution as a duty.[304] He who once enters in a Tyrant's hall[cj][305] 80 As guest is slave--his thoughts become a booty, And the first day which sees the chain enthral A captive, sees his half of Manhood gone[306]-- The Soul's emasculation saddens all His spirit; thus the Bard too near the throne Quails from his inspiration, bound to please,-- How servile is the task to please alone! To smooth the verse to suit his Sovereign's ease And royal leisure, nor too much prolong Aught save his eulogy, and find, and seize, 90 Or force, or forge fit argument of Song! Thus trammelled, thus condemned to Flattery's trebles, He toils through all, still trembling to be wrong: For fear some noble thoughts, like heavenly rebels, Should rise up in high treason to his brain, He sings, as the Athenian spoke, with pebbles In's mouth, lest Truth should stammer through his strain. But out of the long file of sonneteers There shall be some who will not sing in vain, And he, their Prince, shall rank among my peers,[307] And Love shall be his torment; but his grief Shall make an immortality of tears, And Italy shall hail him as the Chief Of Poet-lovers, and his higher song Of Freedom wreathe him with as green a leaf. But in a farther age shall rise along The banks of Po two greater still than he; The World which smiled on him shall do them wrong Till they are ashes, and repose with me. The first will make an epoch with his lyre, 110 And fill the earth with feats of Chivalry:[308] His Fancy like a rainbow, and his Fire, Like that of Heaven, immortal, and his Thought Borne onward with a wing that cannot tire; Pleasure shall, like a butterfly new caught, Flutter her lovely pinions o'er his theme, And Art itself seem into Nature wrought By the transparency of his bright dream.-- The second, of a tenderer, sadder mood, Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem; 120 He, too, shall sing of Arms, and Christian blood Shed where Christ bled for man; and his high harp Shall, by the willow over Jordan's flood, Revive a song of Sion, and the sharp Conflict, and final triumph of the brave And pious, and the strife of Hell to warp Their hearts from their great purpose, until wave The red-cross banners where the first red Cross Was crimsoned from His veins who died to save,[ck] Shall be his sacred argument; the loss 130 Of years, of favour, freedom, even of fame Contested for a time, while the smooth gloss Of Courts would slide o'er his forgotten name And call Captivity a kindness--meant To shield him from insanity or shame-- Such shall be his meek guerdon! who was sent To be Christ's Laureate--they reward him well! Florence dooms me but death or banishment, Ferrara him a pittance and a cell,[309] Harder to bear and less deserved, for I 140 Had stung the factions which I strove to quell; But this meek man who with a lover's eye Will look on Earth and Heaven, and who will deign To embalm with his celestial flattery, As poor a thing as e'er was spawned to reign,[310] What will he do to merit such a doom? Perhaps he'll love,--and is not Love in vain Torture enough without a living tomb? Yet it will be so--he and his compeer, The Bard of Chivalry, will both consume[311] 150 In penury and pain too many a year, And, dying in despondency, bequeath To the kind World, which scarce will yield a tear, A heritage enriching all who breathe With the wealth of a genuine Poet's soul, And to their country a redoubled wreath, Unmatched by time; not Hellas can unroll Through her Olympiads two such names, though one[312] Of hers be mighty;--and is this the whole Of such men's destiny beneath the Sun?[313] 160 Must all the finer thoughts, the thrilling sense, The electric blood with which their arteries run,[cl] Their body's self turned soul with the intense Feeling of that which is, and fancy of That which should be, to such a recompense Conduct? shall their bright plumage on the rough Storm be still scattered? Yes, and it must be; For, formed of far too penetrable stuff, These birds of Paradise[314] but long to flee Back to their native mansion, soon they find 170 Earth's mist with their pure pinions not agree, And die or are degraded; for the mind Succumbs to long infection, and despair, And vulture Passions flying close behind, Await the moment to assail and tear;[315] And when, at length, the wingéd wanderers stoop, Then is the Prey-birds' triumph, then they share The spoil, o'erpowered at length by one fell swoop. Yet some have been untouched who learned to bear, Some whom no Power could ever force to droop, 180 Who could resist themselves even, hardest care! And task most hopeless; but some such have been, And if my name amongst the number were, That Destiny austere, and yet serene, Were prouder than more dazzling fame unblessed; The Alp's snow summit nearer heaven is seen Than the Volcano's fierce eruptive crest, Whose splendour from the black abyss is flung, While the scorched mountain, from whose burning breast A temporary torturing flame is wrung, 190 Shines for a night of terror, then repels Its fire back to the Hell from whence it sprung, The Hell which in its entrails ever dwells.

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--Return to passage

"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.]Return to passage

[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."Return to passage

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).]Return to passage

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

"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).Return to passage

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.)]Return to passage

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

[287] [Compare--Return to passage

"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).Return to passage

"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}Return to passage

"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--Return to passage

"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.]Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[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."Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[bz] ----when matched with thine.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

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

[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--Return to passage

"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.Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[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.Return to passage

[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.Return to passage

[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--Return to passage

"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.]Return to passage

[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--Return to passage

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.Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

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

[311] [Compare the opening lines of the Orlando Furioso--Return to passage

"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?"]Return to passage

[313] [Compare Churchill's Grave, lines 15-19--Return to passage

"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--Return to passage

"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--Return to passage

"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."]Return to passage

[317] [Compare--Return to passage

"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.]Return to passage

[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.Return to passage

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.]Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

"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.Return to passage

["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.Return to passage

[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.]Return to passage

[325] [Compare Merchant of Venice, act iv. sc. 1, lines 191, 192.]Return to passage

[326] {274}[Compare--Return to passage

"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.]Return to passage

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

[cn]--and the Horizon for bars.--[MS. Alternative reading.]

[329] [Compare--Return to passage

"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.Return to passage

[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.Return to passage

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.]

THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE

OF PULCI.

INTRODUCTION TO THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

It is possible that Byron began his translation of the First Canto of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore (so called to distinguish the entire poem of twenty-eight cantos from the lesser Morgante [or, to coin a title, "Morganid"] which was published separately) in the late autumn of 1819, before he had left Venice (see his letter to Bankes, February 19, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 403). It is certain that it was finished at Ravenna during the first week of his "domestication" in the Palazzo Guiccioli (Letters to Murray, February 7, February 21, 1820). He took a deal of pains with his self-imposed task, "servilely translating stanza from stanza, and line from line, two octaves every night;" and when the first canto was finished he was naturally and reasonably proud of his achievement. More than two years had elapsed since Frere's Whistlecraft had begotten Beppo, and in the interval he had written four cantos of Don Juan, outstripping his "immediate model," and equalling if not surpassing his model's parents and precursors, the masters of "narrative romantic poetry among the Italians."

In attempting this translation--something, as he once said of his Armenian studies, "craggy for his mind to break upon" (Letter to Moore, December 5, 1816, Letters, 1900, iv. 10)--Byron believed that he was working upon virgin soil. He had read, as he admits in his "Advertisement," John Herman Merivale's poem, Orlando in Roncesvalles, which is founded upon the Morgante Maggiore; but he does not seem to have been aware that many years before (1806, 1807) the same writer (one of the "associate bards") had published in the Monthly Magazine (May, July, 1806, etc., vide ante Introduction to Beppo, p. 156) a series of translations of selected passages of the poem. There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's laboured and faithful rendering of the text, and Merivale's far more readable paraphrase, and it is evident that if these selections ever passed before his eyes, they had left no impression on his memory. He was drawn to the task partly on account of its difficulty, but chiefly because in Pulci he recognized a kindred spirit who suggested and compelled a fresh and final dedication of his genius to the humorous epopee. The translation was an act of devotion, the offering of a disciple to a master.

"The apparent contradictions of the Morgante Maggiore ... the brusque transition from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire," the paradoxical union of persiflage with gravity, a confession of faith alternating with a profession of mockery and profanity, have puzzled and confounded more than one student and interpreter. An intimate knowledge of the history, the literature, the art, the manners and passions of the times has enabled one of his latest critics and translators, John Addington Symonds, to come as near as may be to explaining the contradictions; but the essential quality of Pulci's humour eludes analysis.

We know that the poem itself, as Pio Rajna has shown, "the rifacimento of two earlier popular poems," was written to amuse Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo de' Medici, and that it was recited, canto by canto, in the presence of such guests as Poliziano, Ficino, and Michelangelo Buonarotti; but how "it struck these contemporaries," and whether a subtler instinct permitted them to untwist the strands and to appraise the component parts at their precise ethical and spiritual value, are questions for the exercise of the critical imagination. That which attracted Byron to Pulci's writings was, no doubt, the co-presence of faith, a certain simplicity of faith, with an audacious and even outrageous handling of the objects of faith, combined with a facile and wanton alternation of romantic passion with a cynical mockery of whatsoever things are sober and venerable. Don Juan and the Vision of Judgment owe their existence to the Morgante Maggiore.

The MS. of the translation of Canto I. was despatched to England, February 28, 1820. It is evident (see Letters, March 29, April 23, May 18, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 425, 1901, v. 17, 21) that Murray looked coldly on Byron's "masterpiece" from the first. It was certain that any new work by the author of Don Juan would be subjected to the severest and most hostile scrutiny, and it was doubtful if a translation of part of an obscure and difficult poem, vaguely supposed to be coarse and irreligious, would meet with even a tolerable measure of success. At any rate, in spite of many inquiries and much vaunting of its excellence (see Letters, June 29, September 12, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 314, 362), the MS. remained for more than two years in Murray's hands, and it was not until other arrangements came into force that the translation of the First Canto of the Morgante Maggiore appeared in the fourth and last number of The Liberal, which was issued (by John Hunt) July 30, 1823.

For critical estimates of Luigi Pulci and the Morgante Maggiore, see an article (Quarterly Review, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556), by Ugo Foscolo, entitled "Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians;" Preface to the Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo, by A. Panizzi, 1830, i. 190-302; Poems Original and Translated, by J. H. Merivale, 1838, ii. 1-43; Stories of the Italian Poets, by J. H. Leigh Hunt, 1846, i. 283-314; Renaissance in Italy, by J. A. Symonds, 1881, iv. 431, 456, and for translations of the Morgante Maggiore, vide ibid., Appendix V. pp. 543-560; and Italian Literature, by R. Garnett, C.B., LL.D., 1898, pp. 128-131.

ADVERTISEMENT.

The Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto.[332] The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one; and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source.[333] It has never yet been decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the classics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas,[334] Thwackum, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,--or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord."

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names, as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlornano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt. How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned.

THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.[335]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

In the beginning was the Word next God; God was the Word, the Word no less was He: This was in the beginning, to my mode Of thinking, and without Him nought could be: Therefore, just Lord! from out thy high abode, Benign and pious, bid an angel flee, One only, to be my companion, who Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through.

II.

And thou, oh Virgin! daughter, mother, bride, Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key Of Heaven, and Hell, and every thing beside, The day thy Gabriel said "All hail!" to thee, Since to thy servants Pity's ne'er denied, With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free, Be to my verses then benignly kind, And to the end illuminate my mind.

III.

'Twas in the season when sad Philomel[336] Weeps with her sister, who remembers and Deplores the ancient woes which both befel, And makes the nymphs enamoured, to the hand Of Phaëton, by Phoebus loved so well, His car (but tempered by his sire's command) Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now Appeared, so that Tithonus scratched his brow:

IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey, As it should still obey, the helm, my mind, And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find By several pens already praised; but they Who to diffuse his glory were inclined, For all that I can see in prose or verse, Have understood Charles badly, and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,[337] That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer Of genius quick, and diligently steady, No hero would in history look brighter; He in the cabinet being always ready, And in the field a most victorious fighter, Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought, Certes, far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,[338] The abbey, no great way from Manopell, Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory, Because of the great battle in which fell A pagan king, according to the story, And felon people whom Charles sent to Hell: And there are bones so many, and so many, Near them Giusaffa's[339] would seem few, if any.

VII.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize His virtues as I wish to see them: thou, Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,[340] And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow, All proper customs and true courtesies: Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now, With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance, Is sprung from out the noble blood of France.

VIII.

Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, of whom The wisest and most famous was Orlando; Him traitor Gan[341] conducted to the tomb In Roncesvalles, as the villain planned too, While the horn rang so loud, and knelled the doom Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do: And Dante in his comedy has given To him a happy seat with Charles in Heaven.[342]

IX.

'Twas Christmas-day; in Paris all his court Charles held; the Chief, I say, Orlando was, The Dane; Astolfo there too did resort, Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pass In festival and in triumphal sport, The much-renowned St. Dennis being the cause; Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver, And gentle Belinghieri too came there:

X.

Avolio, and Arino, and Othone Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin, Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salamone, Walter of Lion's Mount, and Baldovin, Who was the son of the sad Ganellone, Were there, exciting too much gladness in The son of Pepin:--when his knights came hither, He groaned with joy to see them altogether.

XI.

But watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring. While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed, Orlando ruled court, Charles, and every thing; Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the king One day he openly began to say, "Orlando must we always then obey?

XII.

"A thousand times I've been about to say, Orlando too presumptuously goes on; Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway, Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon, Each have to honour thee and to obey; But he has too much credit near the throne, Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided By such a boy to be no longer guided.

XIII.

"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin To let him know he was a gallant knight, And by the fount did much the day to win; But I know who that day had won the fight If it had not for good Gherardo been; The victory was Almonte's else; his sight He kept upon the standard--and the laurels, In fact and fairness, are his earning, Charles!

XIV.

"If thou rememberest being in Gascony, When there advanced the nations out of Spain The Christian cause had suffered shamefully, Had not his valour driven them back again. Best speak the truth when there's a reason why: Know then, oh Emperor! that all complain: As for myself, I shall repass the mounts O'er which I crossed with two and sixty counts.

XV.

"'Tis fit thy grandeur should dispense relief, So that each here may have his proper part, For the whole court is more or less in grief: Perhaps thou deem'st this lad a Mars in heart?" Orlando one day heard this speech in brief, As by himself it chanced he sate apart: Displeased he was with Gan because he said it, But much more still that Charles should give him credit.

XVI.

And with the sword he would have murdered Gan, But Oliver thrust in between the pair, And from his hand extracted Durlindan, And thus at length they separated were. Orlando angry too with Carloman, Wanted but little to have slain him there; Then forth alone from Paris went the Chief, And burst and maddened with disdain and grief.

XVII.

From Ermellina, consort of the Dane, He took Cortana, and then took Rondell, And on towards Brara pricked him o'er the plain; And when she saw him coming, Aldabelle Stretched forth her arms to clasp her lord again: Orlando, in whose brain all was not well, As "Welcome, my Orlando, home," she said, Raised up his sword to smite her on the head.

XVIII.

Like him a Fury counsels, his revenge On Gan in that rash act he seemed to take, Which Aldabella thought extremely strange; But soon Orlando found himself awake; And his spouse took his bridle on this change, And he dismounted from his horse, and spake Of every thing which passed without demur, And then reposed himself some days with her.

XIX.

Then full of wrath departed from the place, As far as pagan countries roamed astray, And while he rode, yet still at every pace The traitor Gan remembered by the way; And wandering on in error a long space, An abbey which in a lone desert lay, 'Midst glens obscure, and distant lands, he found, Which formed the Christian's and the Pagan's bound.

XX.

The Abbot was called Clermont, and by blood Descended from Angrante: under cover Of a great mountain's brow the abbey stood, But certain savage giants looked him over; One Passamont was foremost of the brood, And Alabaster and Morgante hover Second and third, with certain slings, and throw In daily jeopardy the place below.

XXI.

The monks could pass the convent gate no more, Nor leave their cells for water or for wood; Orlando knocked, but none would ope, before Unto the Prior it at length seemed good; Entered, he said that he was taught to adore Him who was born of Mary's holiest blood, And was baptized a Christian; and then showed How to the abbey he had found his road.

XXII.

Said the Abbot, "You are welcome; what is mine We give you freely, since that you believe With us in Mary Mother's Son divine; And that you may not, Cavalier, conceive The cause of our delay to let you in To be rusticity, you shall receive The reason why our gate was barred to you: Thus those who in suspicion live must do.

XXIII.

"When hither to inhabit first we came These mountains, albeit that they are obscure, As you perceive, yet without fear or blame They seemed to promise an asylum sure: From savage brutes alone, too fierce to tame, 'Twas fit our quiet dwelling to secure; But now, if here we'd stay, we needs must guard Against domestic beasts with watch and ward.

XXIV.

"These make us stand, in fact, upon the watch; For late there have appeared three giants rough, What nation or what kingdom bore the batch I know not, but they are all of savage stuff; When Force and Malice with some genius match, You know, they can do all--we are not enough: And these so much our orisons derange, I know not what to do, till matters change.

XXV.

"Our ancient fathers, living the desert in, For just and holy works were duly fed; Think not they lived on locusts sole, 'tis certain That manna was rained down from heaven instead; But here 'tis fit we keep on the alert in Our bounds, or taste the stones showered down for bread, From off yon mountain daily raining faster, And flung by Passamont and Alabaster.

XXVI.

"The third, Morgante, 's savagest by far; he Plucks up pines, beeches, poplar-trees, and oaks, And flings them, our community to bury; And all that I can do but more provokes." While thus they parley in the cemetery, A stone from one of their gigantic strokes, Which nearly crushed Rondell, came tumbling over, So that he took a long leap under cover.

XXVII.

"For God-sake, Cavalier, come in with speed; The manna's falling now," the Abbot cried. "This fellow does not wish my horse should feed, Dear Abbot," Roland unto him replied, "Of restiveness he'd cure him had he need; That stone seems with good will and aim applied." The holy father said, "I don't deceive; They'll one day fling the mountain, I believe."

XXVIII.

Orlando bade them take care of Rondello, And also made a breakfast of his own; "Abbot," he said, "I want to find that fellow Who flung at my good horse yon corner-stone." Said the abbot, "Let not my advice seem shallow; As to a brother dear I speak alone; I would dissuade you, Baron, from this strife, As knowing sure that you will lose your life.

XXIX.

"That Passamont has in his hand three darts-- Such slings, clubs, ballast-stones, that yield you must: You know that giants have much stouter hearts Than us, with reason, in proportion just: If go you will, guard well against their arts, For these are very barbarous and robust." Orlando answered," This I'll see, be sure, And walk the wild on foot to be secure."

XXX.

The Abbot signed the great cross on his front, "Then go you with God's benison and mine." Orlando, after he had scaled the mount, As the Abbot had directed, kept the line Right to the usual haunt of Passamont; Who, seeing him alone in this design, Surveyed him fore and aft with eyes observant, Then asked him, "If he wished to stay as servant?"

XXXI.

And promised him an office of great ease. But, said Orlando, "Saracen insane! I come to kill you, if it shall so please God, not to serve as footboy in your train; You with his monks so oft have broke the peace-- Vile dog! 'tis past his patience to sustain." The Giant ran to fetch his arms, quite furious, When he received an answer so injurious.

XXXII.

And being returned to where Orlando stood, Who had not moved him from the spot, and swinging The cord, he hurled a stone with strength so rude, As showed a sample of his skill in slinging; It rolled on Count Orlando's helmet good And head, and set both head and helmet ringing, So that he swooned with pain as if he died, But more than dead, he seemed so stupified.

XXXIII.

Then Passamont, who thought him slain outright, Said, "I will go, and while he lies along, Disarm me: why such craven did I fight?" But Christ his servants ne'er abandons long, Especially Orlando, such a knight, As to desert would almost be a wrong. While the giant goes to put off his defences, Orlando has recalled his force and senses:

XXXIV.

And loud he shouted, "Giant, where dost go? Thou thought'st me doubtless for the bier outlaid; To the right about--without wings thou'rt too slow To fly my vengeance--currish renegade! 'Twas but by treachery thou laid'st me low." The giant his astonishment betrayed, And turned about, and stopped his journey on, And then he stooped to pick up a great stone.

XXXV.

Orlando had Cortana bare in hand; To split the head in twain was what he schemed: Cortana clave the skull like a true brand, And pagan Passamont died unredeemed; Yet harsh and haughty, as he lay he banned, And most devoutly Macon still blasphemed[343]; But while his crude, rude blasphemies he heard, Orlando thanked the Father and the Word,--

XXXVI.

Saying, "What grace to me thou'st this day given! And I to thee, O Lord! am ever bound; I know my life was saved by thee from Heaven, Since by the Giant I was fairly downed. All things by thee are measured just and even; Our power without thine aid would nought be found: I pray thee take heed of me, till I can At least return once more to Carloman."

XXXVII.

And having said thus much, he went his way; And Alabaster he found out below, Doing the very best that in him lay To root from out a bank a rock or two. Orlando, when he reached him, loud 'gan say, "How think'st thou, glutton, such a stone to throw?" When Alabaster heard his deep voice ring, He suddenly betook him to his sling,

XXXVIII.

And hurled a fragment of a size so large That if it had in fact fulfilled its mission, And Roland not availed him of his targe, There would have been no need of a physician[344]. Orlando set himself in turn to charge, And in his bulky bosom made incision With all his sword. The lout fell; but o'erthrown, he However by no means forgot Macone.

XXXIX.

Morgante had a palace in his mode, Composed of branches, logs of wood, and earth, And stretched himself at ease in this abode, And shut himself at night within his berth. Orlando knocked, and knocked again, to goad The giant from his sleep; and he came forth, The door to open, like a crazy thing, For a rough dream had shook him slumbering.

XL.

He thought that a fierce serpent had attacked him, And Mahomet he called; but Mahomet Is nothing worth, and, not an instant backed him; But praying blessed Jesu, he was set At liberty from all the fears which racked him; And to the gate he came with great regret-- "Who knocks here?" grumbling all the while, said he. "That," said Orlando, "you will quickly see:

XLI.

"I come to preach to you, as to your brothers,-- Sent by the miserable monks--repentance; For Providence divine, in you and others, Condemns the evil done, my new acquaintance! 'Tis writ on high--your wrong must pay another's: From Heaven itself is issued out this sentence. Know then, that colder now than a pilaster I left your Passamont and Alabaster."

XLII.

Morgante said, "Oh gentle Cavalier! Now by thy God say me no villany; The favour of your name I fain would hear, And if a Christian, speak for courtesy." Replied Orlando, "So much to your ear I by my faith disclose contentedly; Christ I adore, who is the genuine Lord, And, if you please, by you may be adored."

XLIII.

The Saracen rejoined in humble tone, "I have had an extraordinary vision; A savage serpent fell on me alone, And Macon would not pity my condition; Hence to thy God, who for ye did atone Upon the cross, preferred I my petition; His timely succour set me safe and free, And I a Christian am disposed to be."

XLIV.

Orlando answered, "Baron just and pious, If this good wish your heart can really move To the true God, who will not then deny us Eternal honour, you will go above, And, if you please, as friends we will ally us, And I will love you with a perfect love. Your idols are vain liars, full of fraud: The only true God is the Christian's God.

XLV.

"The Lord descended to the virgin breast Of Mary Mother, sinless and divine; If you acknowledge the Redeemer blest, Without whom neither sun nor star can shine, Abjure bad Macon's false and felon test, Your renegado god, and worship mine, Baptize yourself with zeal, since you repent." To which Morgante answered, "I'm content."

XLVI.

And then Orlando to embrace him flew, And made much of his convert, as he cried, "To the abbey I will gladly marshal you." To whom Morgante, "Let us go," replied: "I to the friars have for peace to sue." Which thing Orlando heard with inward pride, Saying, "My brother, so devout and good, Ask the Abbot pardon, as I wish you would:

XLVII.

"Since God has granted your illumination, Accepting you in mercy for his own, Humility should be your first oblation." Morgante said, "For goodness' sake, make known,-- Since that your God is to be mine--your station, And let your name in verity be shown; Then will I everything at your command do." On which the other said, he was Orlando.

XLVIII.

"Then," quoth the Giant, "blessed be Jesu A thousand times with gratitude and praise! Oft, perfect Baron! have I heard of you Through all the different periods of my days: And, as I said, to be your vassal too I wish, for your great gallantry always." Thus reasoning, they continued much to say, And onwards to the abbey went their way.

XLIX.

And by the way about the giants dead Orlando with Morgante reasoned: "Be, For their decease, I pray you, comforted, And, since it is God's pleasure, pardon me; A thousand wrongs unto the monks they bred; And our true Scripture soundeth openly, Good is rewarded, and chastised the ill, Which the Lord never faileth to fulfil:

L.

"Because His love of justice unto all Is such, He wills His judgment should devour All who have sin, however great or small; But good He well remembers to restore. Nor without justice holy could we call Him, whom I now require you to adore. All men must make His will their wishes sway, And quickly and spontaneously obey.

LI.

"And here our doctors are of one accord, Coming on this point to the same conclusion,-- That in their thoughts, who praise in Heaven the Lord, If Pity e'er was guilty of intrusion For their unfortunate relations stored In Hell below, and damned in great confusion, Their happiness would be reduced to nought,-- And thus unjust the Almighty's self be thought.

LII.

"But they in Christ have firmest hope, and all Which seems to Him, to them too must appear Well done; nor could it otherwise befall; He never can in any purpose err. If sire or mother suffer endless thrall, They don't disturb themselves for him or her: What pleases God to them must joy inspire;-- Such is the observance of the eternal choir."

LIII.

"A word unto the wise," Morgante said, "Is wont to be enough, and you shall see How much I grieve about my brethren dead; And if the will of God seem good to me, Just, as you tell me, 'tis in Heaven obeyed-- Ashes to ashes,--merry let us be! I will cut off the hands from both their trunks, And carry them unto the holy monks.

LIV.

"So that all persons may be sure and certain That they are dead, and have no further fear To wander solitary this desert in, And that they may perceive my spirit clear By the Lord's grace, who hath withdrawn the curtain Of darkness, making His bright realm appear." He cut his brethren's hands off at these words, And left them to the savage beasts and birds.

LV.

Then to the abbey they went on together, Where waited them the Abbot in great doubt. The monks, who knew not yet the fact, ran thither To their superior, all in breathless rout, Saying with tremor, "Please to tell us whether You wish to have this person in or out?" The Abbot, looking through upon the Giant, Too greatly feared, at first, to be compliant.

LVI.

Orlando seeing him thus agitated, Said quickly, "Abbot, be thou of good cheer; He Christ believes, as Christian must be rated, And hath renounced his Macon false;" which here Morgante with the hands corroborated, A proof of both the giants' fate quite clear: Thence, with due thanks, the Abbot God adored, Saying, "Thou hast contented me, O Lord!"

LVII.

He gazed; Morgante's height he calculated, And more than once contemplated his size; And then he said, "O Giant celebrated! Know, that no more my wonder will arise, How you could tear and fling the trees you late did, When I behold your form with my own eyes. You now a true and perfect friend will show Yourself to Christ, as once you were a foe.

LVIII.

"And one of our apostles, Saul once named, Long persecuted sore the faith of Christ, Till, one day, by the Spirit being inflamed, 'Why dost thou persecute me thus?' said Christ; And then from his offence he was reclaimed, And went for ever after preaching Christ, And of the faith became a trump, whose sounding O'er the whole earth is echoing and rebounding.

LIX.

"So, my Morgante, you may do likewise: He who repents--thus writes the Evangelist-- Occasions more rejoicing in the skies Than ninety-nine of the celestial list. You may be sure, should each desire arise With just zeal for the Lord, that you'll exist Among the happy saints for evermore; But you were lost and damned to Hell before!"

LX.

And thus great honour to Morgante paid The Abbot: many days they did repose. One day, as with Orlando they both strayed, And sauntered here and there, where'er they chose, The Abbot showed a chamber, where arrayed Much armour was, and hung up certain bows; And one of these Morgante for a whim Girt on, though useless, he believed, to him.

LXI.

There being a want of water in the place, Orlando, like a worthy brother, said, "Morgante, I could wish you in this case To go for water." "You shall be obeyed In all commands," was the reply, "straight ways." Upon his shoulder a great tub he laid, And went out on his way unto a fountain, Where he was wont to drink, below the mountain.

LXII.

Arrived there, a prodigious noise he hears, Which suddenly along the forest spread; Whereat from out his quiver he prepares An arrow for his bow, and lifts his head; And lo! a monstrous herd of swine appears, And onward rushes with tempestuous tread, And to the fountain's brink precisely pours; So that the Giant's joined by all the boars.

LXIII.

Morgante at a venture shot an arrow, Which pierced a pig precisely in the ear, And passed unto the other side quite through; So that the boar, defunct, lay tripped up near. Another, to revenge his fellow farrow, Against the Giant rushed in fierce career, And reached the passage with so swift a foot, Morgante was not now in time to shoot.

LXIV.

Perceiving that the pig was on him close, He gave him such a punch upon the head[345], As floored him so that he no more arose, Smashing the very bone; and he fell dead Next to the other. Having seen such blows, The other pigs along the valley fled; Morgante on his neck the bucket took, Full from the spring, which neither swerved nor shook.

LXV.

The tub was on one shoulder, and there were The hogs on t'other, and he brushed apace On to the abbey, though by no means near, Nor spilt one drop of water in his race. Orlando, seeing him so soon appear With the dead boars, and with that brimful vase, Marvelled to see his strength so very great; So did the Abbot, and set wide the gate.

LXVI.

The monks, who saw the water fresh and good[346], Rejoiced, but much more to perceive the pork; All animals are glad at sight of food: They lay their breviaries to sleep, and work With greedy pleasure, and in such a mood, That the flesh needs no salt beneath their fork. Of rankness and of rot there is no fear, For all the fasts are now left in arrear.

LXVII.

As though they wished to burst at once, they ate; And gorged so that, as if the bones had been In water, sorely grieved the dog and cat, Perceiving that they all were picked too clean. The Abbot, who to all did honour great, A few days after this convivial scene, Gave to Morgante a fine horse, well trained, Which he long time had for himself maintained.

LXVIII.

The horse Morgante to a meadow led, To gallop, and to put him to the proof, Thinking that he a back of iron had, Or to skim eggs unbroke was light enough; But the horse, sinking with the pain, fell dead, And burst, while cold on earth lay head and hoof. Morgante said, "Get up, thou sulky cur!" And still continued pricking with the spur.

LXIX.

But finally he thought fit to dismount, And said, "I am as light as any feather, And he has burst;--to this what say you, Count?" Orlando answered, "Like a ship's mast rather You seem to me, and with the truck for front: Let him go! Fortune wills that we together Should march, but you on foot Morgante still." To which the Giant answered," So I will.

LXX.

"When there shall be occasion, you will see How I approve my courage in the fight." Orlando said, "I really think you'll be, If it should prove God's will, a goodly knight; Nor will you napping there discover me. But never mind your horse, though out of sight 'Twere best to carry him into some wood, If but the means or way I understood."

LXXI.

The Giant said, "Then carry him I will, Since that to carry me he was so slack-- To render, as the gods do, good for ill; But lend a hand to place him on my back." Orlando answered, "If my counsel still May weigh, Morgante, do not undertake To lift or carry this dead courser, who, As you have done to him, will do to you.

LXXII.

"Take care he don't revenge himself, though dead, As Nessus did of old beyond all cure. I don't know if the fact you've heard or read; But he will make you burst, you may be sure." "But help him on my back," Morgante said, "And you shall see what weight I can endure. In place, my gentle Roland, of this palfrey, With all the bells, I'd carry yonder belfry."

LXXIII.

The Abbot said, "The steeple may do well, But for the bells, you've broken them, I wot." Morgante answered, "Let them pay in Hell The penalty who lie dead in yon grot;" And hoisting up the horse from where he fell, He said, "Now look if I the gout have got, Orlando, in the legs,--or if I have force;"-- And then he made two gambols with the horse.

LXXIV.

Morgante was like any mountain framed; So if he did this 'tis no prodigy; But secretly himself Orlando blamed, Because he was one of his family; And fearing that he might be hurt or maimed, Once more he bade him lay his burden by: "Put down, nor bear him further the desert in." Morgante said, "I'll carry him for certain."

LXXV.

He did; and stowed him in some nook away, And to the abbey then returned with speed. Orlando said, "Why longer do we stay? Morgante, here is nought to do indeed." The Abbot by the hand he took one day, And said, with great respect, he had agreed To leave his reverence; but for this decision He wished to have his pardon and permission.

LXXVI.

The honours they continued to receive Perhaps exceeded what his merits claimed: He said, "I mean, and quickly, to retrieve The lost days of time past, which may be blamed; Some days ago I should have asked your leave, Kind father, but I really was ashamed, And know not how to show my sentiment, So much I see you with our stay content.

LXXVII.

"But in my heart I bear through every clime The Abbot, abbey, and this solitude-- So much I love you in so short a time; For me, from Heaven reward you with all good The God so true, the eternal Lord sublime! Whose kingdom at the last hath open stood. Meantime we stand expectant of your blessing. And recommend us to your prayers with pressing."

LXXVIII.

Now when the Abbot Count Orlando heard, His heart grew soft with inner tenderness, Such fervour in his bosom bred each word; And, "Cavalier," he said, "if I have less Courteous and kind to your great worth appeared, Than fits me for such gentle blood to express, I know I have done too little in this case; But blame our ignorance, and this poor place.

LXXIX.

"We can indeed but honour you with masses, And sermons, thanksgivings, and pater-nosters, Hot suppers, dinners (fitting other places In verity much rather than the cloisters); But such a love for you my heart embraces, For thousand virtues which your bosom fosters, That wheresoe'er you go I too shall be, And, on the other part, you rest with me.

LXXX.

"This may involve a seeming contradiction; But you I know are sage, and feel, and taste, And understand my speech with full conviction. For your just pious deeds may you be graced With the Lord's great reward and benediction, By whom you were directed to this waste: To His high mercy is our freedom due, For which we render thanks to Him and you.

LXXXI.

"You saved at once our life and soul: such fear The Giants caused us, that the way was lost By which we could pursue a fit career In search of Jesus and the saintly Host; And your departure breeds such sorrow here, That comfortless we all are to our cost; But months and years you would not stay in sloth, Nor are you formed to wear our sober cloth,

LXXXII.

"But to bear arms, and wield the lance; indeed, With these as much is done as with this cowl; In proof of which the Scripture you may read, This Giant up to Heaven may bear his soul By your compassion: now in peace proceed. Your state and name I seek not to unroll; But, if I'm asked, this answer shall be given, That here an angel was sent down from Heaven.

LXXXIII.

"If you want armour or aught else, go in, Look o'er the wardrobe, and take what you choose, And cover with it o'er this Giant's skin." Orlando answered, "If there should lie loose Some armour, ere our journey we begin, Which might be turned to my companion's use, The gift would be acceptable to me." The Abbot said to him, "Come in and see."

LXXXIV.

And in a certain closet, where the wall Was covered with old armour like a crust, The Abbot said to them, "I give you all." Morgante rummaged piecemeal from the dust The whole, which, save one cuirass[347], was too small, And that too had the mail inlaid with rust. They wondered how it fitted him exactly, Which ne'er had suited others so compactly.

LXXXV.

'Twas an immeasurable Giant's, who By the great Milo of Agrante fell Before the abbey many years ago. The story on the wall was figured well; In the last moment of the abbey's foe, Who long had waged a war implacable: Precisely as the war occurred they drew him, And there was Milo as he overthrew him.

LXXXVI.

Seeing this history, Count Orlando said In his own heart, "O God who in the sky Know'st all things! how was Milo hither led? Who caused the Giant in this place to die?" And certain letters, weeping, then he read, So that he could not keep his visage dry,-- As I will tell in the ensuing story: From evil keep you the high King of Glory!

[Note to Stanza v. Lines 1, 2.--In an Edition of the Morgante Maggiore issued at Florence by G. Pulci, in 1900, line 2 of stanza v. runs thus--

"Com' egli ebbe un Ormanno e 'l suo Turpino."

The allusion to "Ormanno," who has been identified with a mythical chronicler, "Urmano from Paris" (see Rajna's Ricerche sui Reali di Francia, 1872, p. 51), and the appeal to the authority of Leonardo Aretino, must not be taken au pied de la lettre. At the same time, the opinion attributed to Leonardo is in accordance with contemporary sentiment and phraseology. Compare "Horum res gestas si qui auctores digni celebrassent, quam magnæ, quam admirabiles, quam veteribus illis similes viderentur."--B. Accolti Aretini (ob. 1466) Dialogus de Præstantiâ Virorum sui Ævi. P. Villani, Liber de Florentiæ Famosis Civibus, 1847, p. 112. From information kindly supplied by Professor V. Rossi, of the University of Pavia.]

FOOTNOTES:

[332] {283}[Matteo Maria Bojardo (1434-1494) published his Orlando Innamorato in 1486; Lodovico Ariosto (1474-1533) published the Orlando Furioso in 1516. A first edition of Cantos I.-XXV. of Luigi Pulci's (1431-1487) Il Morgante Maggiore was printed surreptitiously by Luca Veneziano in 1481. Francesco Berni, who recast the Orlando Innamorato, was born circ. 1490, and died in 1536.]Return to passage

[333] [John Hermann Merivale (1779-1844), the father of Charles Merivale, the historian (Dean of Ely, 1869), and of Herman, Under-Secretary for India, published his Orlando in Roncesvalles in 1814.]Return to passage

[334] {284}[Parson Adams and Barnabas are characters in _Joseph Andrews_; Thwackum and Supple, in _The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling_.]Return to passage

[335] {285}[Byron insisted, in the first place with Murray (February 7, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 402), and afterwards, no doubt, with the Hunts, that his translation of the Morgante Maggiore should be "put by the original, stanza for stanza, and verse for verse." In the present issue a few stanzas are inserted for purposes of comparison, but it has not been thought necessary to reprint the whole of the Canto.Return to passage

"IL MORGANTE MAGGIORE.

ARGOMENTO.

"Vivendo Carlo Magno Imperadore Co' Paladini in festa e in allegria, Orlando contra Gano traditore S'adira, e parte verso Pagania: Giunge a un deserto, e del bestial furore Di tre giganti salva una badia, Che due n'uccide, e con Morgante elegge, Di buon sozio e d'amico usar la legge."

CANTO PRIMO.

I.

"In principio era il Verbo appresso a Dio; Ed era Iddio il Verbo, e 'l Verbo lui: Quest' era nel principio, al parer mio; E nulla si può far sanza costui: Però, giusto Signor benigno e pio, Mandami solo un de gli angeli tui, Che m'accompagni, e rechimi a memoria Una famosa antica e degna storia.

II.

"E tu, Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa, Di quel Signor, che ti dette le chiave Del cielo e dell' abisso, e d' ogni cosa, Quel di che Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave! Perchè tu se' de' tuo' servi pietosa, Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave, Ajuta i versi miei benignamente, E'nsino al fine allumina la mente.

III.

"Era nel tempo, quando Filomena Colla sorella si lamenta e plora, Che si ricorda di sua antica pena, E pe' boschetti le ninfe innamora, E Febo il carro temperato mena, Che 'l suo Fetonte l'ammaestra ancora; Ed appariva appunto all' orizzonte, Tal che Titon si graffiava la fronte:

IV.

"Quand'io varai la mia barchetta, prima Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima, E del mio Carlo Imperador m'increbbe; Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima, Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe: E stata quella istoria, a quel ch'i' veggio, Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio."]

[336] {287}[Philomela and Procne were daughters of Pandion, King of Attica. Tereus, son of Ares, wedded Procne, and, after the birth of her son Itys, concealed his wife in the country, with a view to dishonouring Philomela, on the plea of her sister's death. Procne discovered the plot, killed her babe, and served up his flesh in a dish for her husband's dinner. The sisters fled, and when Tereus pursued them with an axe they besought the gods to change them into birds. Thereupon Procne became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. So Hyginus, Fabulæ, xlv.; but there are other versions of Philomela's woes.]Return to passage

[337] [In the first edition of the Morgante Maggiore (Firenze, 1482 [B. M. G. 10834]), which is said (vide the colophon) to have been issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "comegliebbe u armano el suo turpino;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that Pipino was substituted for Turpino. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his Istoria Fiorentina (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of Carlo Magno, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not--in that work, at any rate--mention his biographers. It is possible that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon's Decline and Fall, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam's Europe during the Middle Ages, 1868, p. 16, note 3; et vide post, p. 309.)]Return to passage

[338] {288}[For an account of the Benedictine Monastery of San Liberatore alla Majella, which lies to the south of Manoppello (eight miles southwest of Chieto, in the Abruzzi), see Monumenti Storici ed. Artistici degli Abruzzi, by V. Bindi, Naples, 1889, Part I. (Testo), pp. 655, sq. The abbey is in a ruinous condition, but on the walls of "un ampio porticato," there is still to be seen a fresco of Charlemagne, holding in his hands the deed of gift of the Abbey lands.]Return to passage

[339] [That is, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the "valley where Jehovah judges" (see Joel iii. 2-12); and, hence, a favourite burial-ground of Jews and Moslems.]Return to passage

[340] [The text as it stands is meaningless. Probably Byron wrote "dost arise." The reference is no doubt to the supposed restoration of Florence by Charlemagne.]Return to passage

[341] {289}["The Morgante is in truth the epic of treason, and the character of Gano, as an accomplished but not utterly abandoned Judas, is admirably sustained throughout."--Renaissance in Italy, 1881, iv. 444.]Return to passage

[342]

["Così per Carlo Magno e per Orlando, Due ne segui lo mio attento sguardo, Com' occhio segue suo falcon volando."

Del Paradiso, Canto XVIII. lines 43-45.]

[343] {296}["Macon" is another form of "Mahomet." Compare--Return to passage

"O Macon! break in twain the steeléd lance."

Fairfax's Tasso, Gerusalemme Liberata, book ix. stanza xxx. line i.]

[344] [Pulci seems to have been the originator of the humorous understatement. Compare--Return to passage

"And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more."

Bret Harte's Poems, The Society upon the Stanislaus, line 26.]

[345] {303} "Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone." It is strange that Pulci should have literally anticipated the technical terms of my old friend and master, Jackson, and the art which he has carried to its highest pitch. "A punch on the head" or "a punch in the head"--"un punzone in su la testa,"--is the exact and frequent phrase of our best pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest Tuscan.Return to passage

[346] {304}["Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate C^d.^ H^d.^ in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing Monks, Knights, and Church Government, are let loose for centuries."--Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, Letters, 1901, v. 21.]Return to passage

[347] {308}[Byron could not make up his mind with regard to the translation of the Italian sbergo, which he had, correctly, rendered "cuirass." He was under the impression that the word "meant helmet also" (see his letters to Murray, March 1, 5, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 413-417). Sbergo or usbergo, as Moore points out (Life, p. 438, note 2), "is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, etc., all from the German halsberg, or covering for the neck." An old dictionary which Byron might have consulted, Vocabolario Italiano-Latino, Venice, 1794, gives thorax, lorica, as the Latin equivalent of "Usbergo = armadura del busto, corazza." (See, too, for an authority quoted in the Dizzionario Universale (1797-1805) of Alberti di Villanuova, Letters, 1900, iv. 417, note 2.)]Return to passage

FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

INTRODUCTION TO FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

The MS. of "a literal translation, word for word (versed like the original), of the episode of Francesca of Rimini" (Letter March 23, 1820, Letters, 1900, iv. 421), was sent to Murray from Ravenna, March 20, 1820 (ibid., p. 419), a week after Byron had forwarded the MS. of the Prophecy of Dante. Presumably the translation had been made in the interval by way of illustrating and justifying the unfamiliar metre of the "Dante Imitation." In the letter which accompanied the translation he writes, "Enclosed you will find, line for line, in third rhyme (terza rima,) of which your British Blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, Fanny of Rimini. You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from Cary, Boyd, and such people already. I have done it into cramp English, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. You had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts."

In the matter of the "British Blackguard," that is, the general reader, Byron spoke by the card. Hayley's excellent translation of the three first cantos of the Inferno (vide ante, "Introduction to the Prophecy of Dante," p. 237), which must have been known to a previous generation, was forgotten, and with earlier experiments in terza rima, by Chaucer and the sixteenth and seventeenth century poets, neither Byron nor the British public had any familiar or definite acquaintance. But of late some interest had been awakened or revived in Dante and the Divina Commedia.

Cary's translation--begun in 1796, but not published as a whole till 1814--had met with a sudden and remarkable success. "The work, which had been published four years, but had remained in utter obscurity, was at once eagerly sought after. About a thousand copies of the first edition, that remained on hand, were immediately disposed of; in less than three months a new edition was called for." Moreover, the Quarterly and Edinburgh Reviews were loud in its praises (Memoir of H. F. Cary, 1847, ii. 28). Byron seems to have thought that a fragment of the Inferno, "versed like the original," would challenge comparison with Cary's rendering in blank verse, and would lend an additional interest to the "Pulci Translations, and the Dante Imitation." Dîs aliter visum, and Byron's translation of the episode of Francesca of Rimini, remained unpublished till it appeared in the pages of The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron, 1830, ii. 309-311. (For separate translations of the episode, see Stories of the Italian Poets, by Leigh Hunt, 1846, i. 393-395, and for a rendering in blank verse by Lord [John] Russell, see Literary Souvenir, 1830, pp. 285-287.)

FRANCESCA DA RIMINI.

FRANCESCA OF RIMINI[348]

FROM THE INFERNO OF DANTE.

CANTO THE FIFTH.

"The Land where I was born[349] sits by the Seas Upon that shore to which the Po descends, With all his followers, in search of peace. Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, Seized him for the fair person which was ta'en From me[350], and me even yet the mode offends. Love, who to none beloved to love again Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong[351], That, as thou see'st, yet, yet it doth remain. Love to one death conducted us along, 10 But Caina[352] waits for him our life who ended:" These were the accents uttered by her tongue.-- Since I first listened to these Souls offended, I bowed my visage, and so kept it till-- 'What think'st thou?' said the bard[353]; when I unbended, And recommenced: 'Alas! unto such ill How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstacies, Led these their evil fortune to fulfill!' And then I turned unto their side my eyes, And said, 'Francesca, thy sad destinies 20 Have made me sorrow till the tears arise. But tell me, in the Season of sweet sighs, By what and how thy Love to Passion rose, So as his dim desires to recognize?' Then she to me: 'The greatest of all woes Is to remind us of our happy days[co][354] In misery, and that thy teacher knows. But if to learn our Passion's first root preys Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy, I will do even as he who weeps and says.[cp][355] 30 We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, Of Lancilot, how Love enchained him too. We were alone, quite unsuspiciously. But oft our eyes met, and our Cheeks in hue All o'er discoloured by that reading were; But one point only wholly us o'erthrew;[cq] When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,[cr] To be thus kissed by such devoted lover,[cs] He, who from me can be divided ne'er, Kissed my mouth, trembling in the act all over: 40 Accurséd was the book and he who wrote![356] That day no further leaf we did uncover.' While thus one Spirit told us of their lot, The other wept, so that with Pity's thralls I swooned, as if by Death I had been smote,[357] And fell down even as a dead body falls."[358]

March 20, 1820.

FRANCESCA DA RIMINI.

DANTE, L'INFERNO.

CANTO QUINTO.

'Siede la terra dove nata fui Sulla marina, dove il Po discende Per aver pace co' seguaci sui. Amor, che al cor gentil ratto s'apprende, Prese costui della bella persona Che mi fu tolta, e il modo ancor m' offende. Amor, che a nullo amato amar perdona, Mi prese del costui piacer si forte, Che, come vedi, ancor non mi abbandona. Amor condusse noi ad una morte: 10 Caino attende chi vita ci spense.' Queste parole da lor ci fur porte. Da che io intesi quelle anime offense Chinai 'l viso, e tanto il tenni basso, Finchè il Poeta mi disse: 'Che pense?' Quando risposi, cominciai: 'O lasso! Quanti dolci pensier, quanto disio Menò costoro al doloroso passo!' Poi mi rivolsi a loro, e parla' io, E cominciai: 'Francesca, i tuoi martiri 20 A lagrimar mi fanno tristo e pio. Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri A che e come concedette Amore, Che conoscesti i dubbiosi desiri?' Ed ella a me: 'Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria; e ciò sa il tuo dottore. Ma se a conoscer la prima radice Del nostro amor tu hai cotanto affetto Farò come colui che piange e dice. 30 Noi leggevamo un giorno per diletto Di Lancelotto, come Amor lo strinse: Soli eravamo, e senza alcun sospetto. Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura, e scolorocci il viso: Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse. Quando leggemmo il disiato riso Esser baciato da cotanto amante, Questi, che mai da me non fia diviso, La bocca mi baciò tutto tremante: 40 Galeotto fu il libro, e chi lo scrisse-- Quel giorno più non vi leggemmo avante Mentre che l'uno spirto questo disse, L'altro piangeva sì che di pietade Io venni meno cos com' io morisse; E caddi, come corpo morto cade.

FOOTNOTES:

[348] {317}[Dante, in his Inferno (Canto V. lines 97-142), places Francesca and her lover Paolo among the lustful in the second circle of Hell. Francesca, daughter of Guido Vecchio da Polenta, Lord of Ravenna, married (circ. 1275) Gianciotto, second son of Malatesta da Verrucchio, Lord of Rimini. According to Boccaccio (Il Comento sopra la Commedia, 1863, i. 476, sq.), Gianciotto was "hideously deformed in countenance and figure," and determined to woo and marry Francesca by proxy. He accordingly "sent, as his representative, his younger brother Paolo, the handsomest and most accomplished man in all Italy. Francesca saw Paolo arrive, and imagined she beheld her future husband. That mistake was the commencement of her passion." A day came when the lovers were surprised together, and Gianciotto slew both his brother and his wife.]Return to passage

[349] ["On arrive à Ravenne en longeant une forèt de pins qui a sept lieues de long, et qui me semblait un immense bois funèbre servant d'avenue au sépulcre commun de ces deux grandes puissances. A peine y a-t-il place pour d'autres souvenirs à côté de leur mémoire. Cependant d'autres noms poétiques sont attachés à la Pineta de Ravenne. Naguère lord Byron y évoquait les fantastiques récits empruntés par Dryden à Boccace, et lui-même est maintenant une figure du passé, errante dans ce lieu mélancolique. Je songeais, en le traversant, que le chantre du désespoir avait chevauché sur cette plage lugubre, foulée avant lui par le pas grave et lent du poëte de l'Enfer....Return to passage

"Il suffit de jeter les yeux sur une carte pour reconnaitre l'exactitude topographique de cette dernière expression. En effet, dans toute la partie supérieure de son cours, le Po reçoit une foule d'affluents qui convergent vers son lit; ce sont le Tésin, l'Adda, l'Olio, le Mincio, la Trebbia, la Bormida, le Taro...."--La Grèce, Rome, et Dante ("Voyage Dantesque"), par M. J. J. Ampère, 1850, pp. 311-313.]

[350] [The meaning is that she was despoiled of her beauty by death, and that the manner of her death excites her indignation still. "Among Lord Byron's unpublished letters we find the following varied readings of the translation from Dante:--Return to passage

Seized him for the fair person, which in its Bloom was ta'en from me, yet the mode offends. or, Seized him for the fair form, of which in its Bloom I was reft, and yet the mode offends.

Love, which to none beloved to love remits, / with mutual wish to please \ Seized me < with wish of pleasing him > so strong, \ with the desire to please / That, as thou see'st, not yet that passion quits, etc.

You will find these readings vary from the MS. I sent you. They are closer, but rougher: take which is liked best; or, if you like, print them as variations. They are all close to the text."--Works of Lord Byron, 1832, xii. 5, note 2.]

[351] {319}["The man's desire is for the woman; but the woman's desire is rarely other than for the desire of the man."--S. T. Coleridge, Table Talk, July 23, 1827.]Return to passage

[352] [Caïna is the first belt of Cocytus, that is, circle ix. of the Inferno, in which fratricides and betrayers of their kindred are immersed up to the neck.]Return to passage

[353] [Virgil.]Return to passage

[co] {319}

Is to recall to mind our happy days. In misery, and this thy teacher knows.--[MS.]

[354] [The sentiment is derived from Boethius: "In omni adversitate fortunæ infelicissimum genus est infortunii, fuisse felicem."--De Consolat. Philos. Lib. II. Prosa 4. The earlier commentators (e.g. Venturi and Biagioli), relying on a passage in the Convito (ii. 16), assume that the "teacher" (line 27) is the author of the sentence, but later authorities point out that "mio dottore" can only apply to Virgil (v. 70), who then and there in the world of shades was suffering the bitter experience of having "known better days." Compare--Return to passage

"For of fortunes sharp adversitee The worst kinde of infortune is this, A man to have ben in prosperitee, And it remembren whan it passéd is."

Troilus and Criseyde, Bk. III. stanza ccxxxiii. lines 1-4.

"E perché rimembrare il ben perduto Fa più meschino lo stato presente."

Fortiguerra's Ricciardetto, Canto XI. stanza lxxxiii.

Compare, too--

"A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things."

Tennyson's Locksley Hall.]

[cp] I will relate as he who weeps and says.--[MS.] (The sense is, I will do even as one who relates while weeping.)

[355] [Byron affixed the following note to line 126 of the Italian: "In some of the editions it is 'dirò,' in others 'faro;'--an essential difference between 'saying' and 'doing' which I know not how to decide--Ask Foscolo--the damned editions drive me mad." In La Divina Commedia, Firenze, 1892, and the Opere de Dante, Oxford, 1897, the reading is faro.]Return to passage

[cq] {321} ----wholly overthrew.--[MS.]

[cr] When we read the desired-for smile of her. [MS, Alternative reading.]

[cs]--by such a fervent lover.--[MS.]

[356] ["A Gallehault was the book and he who wrote it" (A. J. Butler). "Writer and book were Gallehault to our will" (E. J. Plumptre). The book which the lovers were reading is entitled L'Illustre et Famosa Historia di Lancilotto del Lago. The "one point" of the original runs thus: "Et la reina ... lo piglia per il mento, et lo bacia davanti a Gallehault, assai lungamente."--Venice, 1558, Lib. Prim. cap. lxvi. vol. i. p. 229. The Gallehault of the Lancilotto, the shameless "purveyor," must not be confounded with the stainless Galahad of the Morte d'Arthur.']Return to passage

[357] [Dante was in his twentieth, or twenty-first year when the tragedy of Francesca and Paolo was enacted, not at Rimini, but at Pesaro. Some acquaintance he may have had with her, through his friend Guido (not her father, but probably her nephew), enough to account for the peculiar emotion caused by her sanguinary doom.]Return to passage

[358]

Alternative Versions Transcribed by Mrs. Shelley.

March 20, 1820.

line 4: Love, which too soon the soft heart apprehends, Seized him for the fair form, the which was there Torn from me, and even yet the mode offends.

line 8: Remits, seized him for me with joy so strong--

line 12: These were the words then uttered-- Since I had first perceived these souls offended, I bowed my visage and so kept it till-- "What think'st thou?" said the bard, whom I (sic) And then commenced--"Alas unto such ill--

line 18: Led these? "and then I turned me to them still And spoke, "Francesca, thy sad destinies Have made me sad and tender even to tears, But tell me, in the season of sweet sighs, By what and how Love overcame your fears, So ye might recognize his dim desires?" Then she to me, "No greater grief appears Than, when the time of happiness expires, To recollect, and this your teacher knows. But if to find the first root of our-- Thou seek'st with such a sympathy in woes, I will do even as he who weeps and speaks. We read one day for pleasure, sitting close, Of Launcelot, where forth his passion breaks. We were alone and we suspected nought, But oft our eyes exchanged, and changed our cheeks. When we read the desiring smile of her Who to be kissed by such true lover sought, He who from me can be divided ne'er All tremulously kissed my trembling mouth. Accursed the book and he who wrote it were-- That day no further did we read in sooth." While the one spirit in this manner spoke The other wept, so that, for very ruth, I felt as if my trembling heart had broke, To see the misery which both enthralls: So that I swooned as dying with the stroke,-- And fell down even as a dead body falls.

Another version of the same. line 21: Have made me sad even until the tears arise--

line 27: In wretchedness, and that your teacher knows.

line 31: We read one day for pleasure-- Of Launcelot, how passion shook his frame. We were alone all unsuspiciously. But oft our eyes met and our cheeks the same, Pale and discoloured by that reading were; But one part only wholly overcame; When we read the desiring smile of her Who sought the kiss of such devoted lover; He who from me can be divided ne'er Kissed my mouth, trembling to that kiss all over! Accurséd was that book and he who wrote-- That day we did no further page uncover." While thus--etc.

line 45: I swooned to death with sympathetic thought--

[Another version.] line 33: We were alone, and we suspected nought. But oft our meeting eyes made pale our cheeks, Urged by that reading for our ruin wrought; But one point only wholly overcame: When we read the desiring smile which sought By such true lover to be kissed--the same Who from my side can be divided ne'er Kissed my mouth, trembling o'er all his frame! Accurst the book, etc., etc.

[Another version.] line 33: We were alone and--etc. But one point only 'twas our ruin wrought. When we read the desiring smile of her Who to be kissed of such true lover sought; He who for me, etc., etc.

MARINO FALIERO,

DOGE OF VENICE;

AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY,

IN FIVE ACTS.

"Dux inquieti turbidus Adria." Horace, [Od. III. c. iii. line 5]

[Marino Faliero was produced for the first time at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, April 25, 1821. Mr. Cooper played "The Doge;" Mrs. W. West, "Angiolina, wife of the Doge." The piece was repeated on April 30, May 1, 2, 3, 4, and 14, 1821.

A revival was attempted at Drury Lane, May 20, 21, 1842, when Macready appeared as "The Doge," and Helen Faucit as "Angiolina" (see Life and Remains of E. L. Blanchard, 1891, i. 346-348).

An adaptation of Byron's play, by W. Bayle Bernard, was produced at Drury Lane, November 2, 1867. It was played till December 17, 1867. Phelps took the part of "The Doge," and Mrs. Hermann of "Angiolina." In Germany an adaptation by Arthur Fitger was performed nineteen times by the "Meiningers," circ. 1887 (see Englische Studien, 1899, xxvii. 146).]

INTRODUCTION TO MARINO FALIERO.

Byron had no sooner finished the first draft of Manfred than he began (February 25, 1817) to lay the foundation of another tragedy. Venice was new to him, and, on visiting the Doge's Palace, the veiled space intended for the portrait of Marin Falier, and the "Giants' Staircase," where, as he believed, "he was once crowned and afterwards decapitated," had laid hold of his imagination, while the legend of the Congiura, "an old man jealous and conspiring against the state of which he was ... Chief," promised a subject which the "devil himself" might have dramatized con amore.

But other interests and ideas claimed his attention, and for more than three years the project slept. At length he slips into the postscript of a letter to Murray, dated, "Ravenna, April 9, 1820" (Letters, 1901, v. 7), an intimation that he had begun "a tragedy on the subject of Marino Faliero, the Doge of Venice." The "Imitation of Dante, the Translation of Pulci, the Danticles," etc., were worked off, and, in prospecting for a new vein, a fresh lode of literary ore, he passed, by a natural transition, from Italian literature to Italian history, from the romantic and humorous epopee of Pulci and Berni, to the pseudo-classic drama of Alfieri and Monti.

Jealousy, as "Monk" Lewis had advised him (August, 1817), was an "exhausted passion" in the drama, and to lay the scene in Venice was to provoke comparison with Shakespeare and Otway; but the man himself, the fiery Doge, passionate but not jealous, a noble turned democrat pro hac vice, an old man "greatly" finding "quarrel in a straw," afforded a theme historically time-honoured, and yet unappropriated by tragic art.

There was, too, a living interest in the story. For history was repeating itself, and "politics were savage and uncertain." "Mischief was afoot," and the tradition of a conspiracy which failed might find an historic parallel in a conspiracy which would succeed. There was "that brewing in Italy" which might, perhaps, inspire "a people to redress itself," "and with a cry of, 'Up with the Republic!' 'Down with the Nobility!' send the Barbarians of all nations back to their own dens!" (Letters, 1901, v. 10, 12, 19.)

In taking the field as a dramatist, Byron sought to win distinction for himself--in the first place by historical accuracy, and, secondly, by artistic regularity--by a stricter attention to the dramatic "unities." "History is closely followed," he tells Murray, in a letter dated July 17, 1820; and, again, in the Preface (vide post, pp. 332-337), which is an expansion of the letter, he gives a list of the authorities which he had consulted, and claims to have "transferred into our language an historical fact worthy of commemoration." More than once in his letters to Murray he reverts to this profession of accuracy, and encloses some additional note, in which he points out and rectifies an occasional deviation from the historical record. In this respect, at any rate, he could contend on more than equal terms "with established writers," that is, with Shakespeare and Otway, and could present to his countrymen an exacter and, so, more lifelike picture of the Venetian Republic. It is plain, too, that he was bitten with the love of study for its own sake, with a premature passion for erudition, and that he sought and found relief from physical and intellectual excitement in the intricacies of research. If his history is at fault, it was not from any lack of diligence on his part, but because the materials at his disposal or within his cognizance were inaccurate and misleading. He makes no mention of the huge collection of Venetian archives which had recently been deposited in the Convent of the Frari, or of Doria's transcript of Sanudo's Diaries, bequeathed in 1816 to the Library of St. Mark; but he quotes as his authorities the Vitæ Ducum Venetorum, of Marin Sanudo (1466-1535), the Storia, etc., of Andrea Navagero (1483-1529), and the Principj di Storia, etc., of Vettor Sandi, which belongs to the latter half of the eighteenth century. Byron's chroniclers were ancient, but not ancient enough; and, though they "handed down the story" (see Medwin, Conversations, p. 173), they depart in numerous particulars from the facts recorded in contemporary documents. Unquestionably the legend, as it appears in Sanudo's perplexing and uncritical narrative (see, for the translation of an original version of the Italian, Appendix, pp. 462-467), is more dramatic than the "low beginnings" of the myth, which may be traced to the annalists of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but, like other legends, it is insusceptible of proof. Byron's Doge is almost, if not quite, as unhistorical as his Bonivard or his Mazeppa. (See Nuovo Archivio Veneto, 1893, vol. v. pt. i. pp. 95-197; 1897, vol. xiii. pt. i. pp. 5-107; pt. ii. pp. 277-374; Les Archives de Venise, par Armand Baschet, 1870; Storia della Repubblica di Venizia, Giuseppe Cappelletti, 1849, iv. pp. 262-317.)

At the close of the Preface, by way of an afterthought, Byron announces his determination to escape "the reproach of the English theatrical compositions" "by preserving a nearer approach to unity," by substituting the regularity of French and Italian models for the barbarities of the Elizabethan dramatists and their successors. Goethe (Conversations, 1874, p. 114) is said to have "laughed to think that Byron, who, in practical life, could never adapt himself, and never even asked about a law, finally subjected himself to the stupidest of laws--that of the three unities." It was, perhaps, in part with this object in view, to make his readers smile, to provoke their astonishment, that he affected a severity foreign to his genius and at variance with his record. It was an agreeable thought that he could so easily pass from one extreme to another, from Manfred to Marino Faliero, and, at the same time, indulge "in a little sally of gratuitous sauciness" (Quarterly Review, July, 1822, vol. xxvii, p. 480) at the expense of his own countrymen. But there were other influences at work. He had been powerfully impressed by the energy and directness of Alfieri's work, and he was eager to emulate the gravity and simplicity, if not the terseness and conciseness, of his style and language. The drama was a new world to conquer, and so far as "his own literature" was concerned it appeared that success might be attainable by "a severer approach to the rules" (Letter to Murray, February 16, 1821)--that by taking Alfieri as his model he might step into the first rank of English dramatists.

Goethe thought that Byron failed "to understand the purpose" of the "three unities," that he regarded the law as an end in itself, and did not perceive that if a play was comprehensible the unities might be neglected and disregarded. It is possible that his "blind obedience to the law" may have been dictated by the fervour of a convert; but it is equally possible that he looked beyond the law or its fulfilment to an ulterior object, the discomfiture of the romantic school, with its contempt for regularity, its passionate appeal from art to nature. If he was minded to raise a "Grecian temple of the purest architecture" (Letters, 1901, v. Appendix III. p. 559), it was not without some thought and hope of shaming, by force of contrast, the "mosque," the "grotesque edifice" of barbarian contemporaries and rivals. Byron was "ever a fighter," and his claim to regularity, to a closer preservation of the "unities," was of the nature of a challenge.

Marino Faliero was dedicated to "Baron Goethe," but the letter which should have contained the dedication was delayed in transit. Goethe never saw the dedication till it was placed in his hands by John Murray the Third, in 1831, but he read the play, and after Byron's death bore testimony to its peculiar characteristics and essential worth. "Lord Byron, notwithstanding his predominant personality, has sometimes had the power of renouncing himself altogether, as may be seen in some of his dramatic pieces, particularly in his Marino Faliero. In this piece one quite forgets that Lord Byron, or even an Englishman, wrote it. We live entirely in Venice, and entirely in the time in which the action takes place. The personages speak quite from themselves and their own condition, without having any of the subjective feelings, thoughts, and opinions of the poet" (Conversations, 1874, p. 453).

Byron spent three months over the composition of Marino Faliero. The tragedy was completed July 17 (Letters, 1901, v. 52), and the copying (vide post, p. 461, note 2) a month later (August 16, 17, 1820). The final draft of "all the acts corrected" was despatched to England some days before October 6, 1820.

Early in January, 1821 (see Letters to Murray, January 11, 20, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 221-228), an announcement reached Byron that his play was to be brought out at Drury Lane Theatre, by Elliston. Against this he protested by every means in his power, and finally, on Wednesday, April 25, four days after the publication of the first edition (April 21, 1821), an injunction was obtained from Lord Chancellor Eldon, prohibiting a performance announced for that evening. Elliston pursued the Chancellor to the steps of his own house, and at the last moment persuaded him to allow the play to be acted on that night only. Legal proceeedings were taken, but, in the end, the injunction was withdrawn, with the consent of Byron's solicitors, and the play was represented again on April 30, and on five nights in the following May. As Byron had foreseen, Marino Faliero was coldly received by the playgoing public, and proved a loss to the "speculating buffoons," who had not realized that it was "unfit for their Fair or their booth" (Letter to Murray, January 20, 1821, Letters, 1901, v. 228, and p. 226, note 2. See, too, Memoirs of Robert W. Elliston, 1845, pp. 268-271).

Byron was the first to perceive that the story of Marino Faliero was a drama "ready to hand;" but he has had many followers, if not imitators or rivals.

"Marino Faliero, tragédie en cinq actes," by Casimir Jean François Delavigne, was played for the first time at the Theatre of Porte Saint Martin, May 31, 1829.

In Germany tragedies based on the same theme have been published by Otto Ludwig, Leipzig, 1874; Martin Grief, Vienna, 1879; Murad Effendi (Franz von Werner), 1881, and others (Englische Studien, vol. xxvii. pp. 146, 147).

Marino Faliero, a Tragedy, by A. C. Swinburne, was published in 1885.

Marino Faliero was reviewed by Jeffrey, in the Edinburgh Review, July 21, 1821, vol. 35, pp. 271-285; by Heber, in the Quarterly Review, July, 1822, vol. xxvii. pp. 476-492; and by John Wilson, in Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, April, 1821, vol. 9, pp. 93-103. For other notices, vide ante ("Introduction to The Prophecy of Dante"), p. 240.

Preface

The conspiracy of the Doge Marino Faliero is one of the most remarkable events in the annals of the most singular government, city, and people of modern history. It occurred in the year 1355. Every thing about Venice is, or was, extraordinary--her aspect is like a dream, and her history is like a romance. The story of this Doge is to be found in all her Chronicles, and particularly detailed in the "Lives of the Doges," by Marin Sanuto, which is given in the Appendix. It is simply and clearly related, and is perhaps more dramatic in itself than any scenes which can be founded upon the subject.

Marino Faliero appears to have been a man of talents and of courage. I find him commander-in-chief of the land forces at the siege of Zara,[359] where he beat the King of Hungary and his army of eighty thousand men, killing eight thousand men, and keeping the besieged at the same time in check; an exploit to which I know none similar in history, except that of Cæsar at Alesia,[360] and of Prince Eugene at Belgrade. He was afterwards commander of the fleet in the same war. He took Capo d'Istria. He was ambassador at Genoa and Rome,--at which last he received the news of his election to the dukedom; his absence being a proof that he sought it by no intrigue, since he was apprised of his predecessor's death and his own succession at the same moment. But he appears to have been of an ungovernable temper. A story is told by Sanuto, of his having, many years before, when podesta and captain at Treviso, boxed the ears of the bishop, who was somewhat tardy in bringing the Host.[361] For this, honest Sanuto "saddles him with a judgment," as Thwackum did Square;[362] but he does not tell us whether he was punished or rebuked by the Senate for this outrage at the time of its commission. He seems, indeed, to have been afterwards at peace with the church, for we find him ambassador at Rome, and invested with the fief of Val di Marino, in the march of Treviso, and with the title of count, by Lorenzo, Count-bishop of Ceneda. For these facts my authorities are Sanuto, Vettor Sandi,[363] Andrea Navagero,[364] and the account of the siege of Zara, first published by the indefatigable Abate Morelli, in his Monumenti Veneziani di varia Letteratura, printed in 1796,[365] all of which I have looked over in the original language. The moderns, Darù, Sismondi, and Laugier, nearly agree with the ancient chroniclers. Sismondi attributes the conspiracy to his jealousy; but I find this nowhere asserted by the national historians. Vettor Sandi, indeed, says that "Altri scrissero che....dalla gelosa suspizion di esso Doge siasi fatto (Michel Steno) staccar con violenza," etc., etc.; but this appears to have been by no means the general opinion, nor is it alluded to by Sanuto, or by Navagero; and Sandi himself adds, a moment after, that "per altre Veneziane memorie traspiri, che non il solo desiderio di vendetta lo dispose alla congiura ma anche la innata abituale ambizion sua, per cui aneleva a farsi principe independente." The first motive appears to have been excited by the gross affront of the words written by Michel Steno on the ducal chair, and by the light and inadequate sentence of the Forty on the offender, who was one of their "tre Capi."[366] The attentions of Steno himself appear to have been directed towards one of her damsels, and not to the "Dogaressa"[367] herself, against whose fame not the slightest insinuation appears, while she is praised for her beauty, and remarked for her youth. Neither do I find it asserted (unless the hint of Sandi be an assertion) that the Doge was actuated by jealousy of his wife; but rather by respect for her, and for his own honour, warranted by his past services and present dignity.

I know not that the historical facts are alluded to in English, unless by Dr. Moore in his View of Italy[368]. His account is false and flippant, full of stale jests about old men and young wives, and wondering at so great an effect from so slight a cause. How so acute and severe an observer of mankind as the author of Zeluco could wonder at this is inconceivable. He knew that a basin of water spilt on Mrs. Masham's gown deprived the Duke of Marlborough of his command, and led to the inglorious peace of Utrecht--that Louis XIV. was plunged into the most desolating wars, because his minister was nettled at his finding fault with a window, and wished to give him another occupation--that Helen lost Troy--that Lucretia expelled the Tarquins from Rome--and that Cava brought the Moors to Spain--that an insulted husband led the Gauls to Clusium, and thence to Rome--that a single verse of Frederick II.[369] of Prussia on the Abbé de Bernis, and a jest on Madame de Pompadour, led to the battle of Rosbach--that the elopement of Dearbhorgil[370] with Mac Murchad conducted the English to the slavery of Ireland that a personal pique between Maria Antoinette and the Duke of Orleans precipitated the first expulsion of the Bourbons--and, not to multiply instances of the teterrima causa, that Commodus, Domitian, and Caligula fell victims not to their public tyranny, but to private vengeance--and that an order to make Cromwell disembark from the ship in which he would have sailed to America destroyed both King and Commonwealth. After these instances, on the least reflection it is indeed extraordinary in Dr. Moore to seem surprised that a man used to command, who had served and swayed in the most important offices, should fiercely resent, in a fierce age, an unpunished affront, the grossest that can be offered to a man, be he prince or peasant. The age of Faliero is little to the purpose, unless to favour it--

"The young man's wrath is like [light] straw on fire, But like red hot steel is the old man's ire."

[Davie Gellatley's song in Waverley, chap. xiv.]

"Young men soon give and soon forget affronts, Old age is slow at both."

Laugier's reflections are more philosophical:--"Tale fù il fine ignominioso di un' uomo, che la sua nascità, la sua età, il suo carattere dovevano tener lontano dalle passioni produttrici di grandi delitti. I suoi talenti per lungo tempo esercitati ne' maggiori impieghi, la sua capacità sperimentata ne' governi e nelle ambasciate, gli avevano acquistato la stima e la fiducia de' cittadini, ed avevano uniti i suffragj per collocarlo alla testa della repubblica. Innalzato ad un grado che terminava gloriosamente la sua vita, il risentimento di un' ingiuria leggiera insinuò nel suo cuore tal veleno che bastò a corrompere le antiche sue qualità, e a condurlo al termine dei scellerati; serio esempio, che prova non esservi età, in cui la prudenza umana sia sicura, e che nell' uomo restano sempre passioni capaci a disonorarlo, quando non invigili sopra se stesso."[371]

Where did Dr. Moore find that Marino Faliero begged his life? I have searched the chroniclers, and find nothing of the kind: it is true that he avowed all. He was conducted to the place of torture, but there is no mention made of any application for mercy on his part; and the very circumstance of their having taken him to the rack seems to argue any thing but his having shown a want of firmness, which would doubtless have been also mentioned by those minute historians, who by no means favour him: such, indeed, would be contrary to his character as a soldier, to the age in which he lived, and at which he died, as it is to the truth of history. I know no justification, at any distance of time, for calumniating an historical character: surely truth belongs to the dead, and to the unfortunate: and they who have died upon a scaffold have generally had faults enough of their own, without attributing to them that which the very incurring of the perils which conducted them to their violent death renders, of all others, the most improbable. The black veil which is painted over the place of Marino Faliero amongst the Doges, and the Giants' Staircase[372], where he was crowned, and discrowned, and decapitated, struck forcibly upon my imagination; as did his fiery character and strange story. I went, in 1819, in search of his tomb more than once to the church San Giovanni e San Paolo; and, as I was standing before the monument of another family, a priest came up to me and said, "I can show you finer monuments than that." I told him that I was in search of that of the Faliero family, and particularly of the Doge Marino's. "Oh," said he, "I will show it you;" and, conducting me to the outside, pointed out a sarcophagus in the wall with an illegible inscription[373]. He said that it had been in a convent adjoining, but was removed after the French came, and placed in its present situation; that he had seen the tomb opened at its removal; there were still some bones remaining, but no positive vestige of the decapitation. The equestrian statue[374] of which I have made mention in the third act as before that church is not, however, of a Faliero, but of some other now obsolete warrior, although of a later date. There were two other Doges of this family prior to Marino; Ordelafo, who fell in battle at Zara, in 1117 (where his descendant afterwards conquered the Huns), and Vital Faliero, who reigned in 1082. The family, originally from Fano, was of the most illustrious in blood and wealth in the city of once the most wealthy and still the most ancient families in Europe. The length I have gone into on this subject will show the interest I have taken in it. Whether I have succeeded or not in the tragedy, I have at least transferred into our language an historical fact worthy of commemoration.

It is now four years that I have meditated this work; and before I had sufficiently examined the records, I was rather disposed to have made it turn on a jealousy in Faliero. But, perceiving no foundation for this in historical truth, and aware that jealousy is an exhausted passion in the drama, I have given it a more historical form. I was, besides, well advised by the late Matthew Lewis[375] on that point, in talking with him of my intention at Venice in 1817. "If you make him jealous," said he, "recollect that you have to contend with established writers, to say nothing of Shakespeare, and an exhausted subject:--stick to the old fiery Doge's natural character, which will bear you out, if properly drawn; and make your plot as regular as you can." Sir William Drummond[376] gave me nearly the same counsel. How far I have followed these instructions, or whether they have availed me, is not for me to decide. I have had no view to the stage; in its present state it is, perhaps, not a very exalted object of ambition; besides, I have been too much behind the scenes to have thought it so at any time.[ct] And I cannot conceive any man of irritable feeling[cu] putting himself at the mercies of an audience. The sneering reader, and the loud critic, and the tart review, are scattered and distant calamities; but the trampling of an intelligent or of an ignorant audience on a production which, be it good or bad, has been a mental labour to the writer, is a palpable and immediate grievance, heightened by a man's doubt of their competency to judge, and his certainty of his own imprudence in electing them his judges. Were I capable of writing a play which could be deemed stage-worthy, success would give me no pleasure, and failure great pain. It is for this reason that, even during the time of being one of the committee of one of the theatres, I never made the attempt, and never will[377]. But I wish that others would, for surely there is dramatic power somewhere, where Joanna Baillie, and Milman, and John Wilson exist. The City of the Plague[1816] and the Fall of Jerusalem [1820] are full of the best "matériel" for tragedy that has been seen since Horace Walpole, except passages of Ethwald[1802] and De Montfort[1798]. It is the fashion to underrate Horace Walpole; firstly, because he was a nobleman, and secondly, because he was a gentleman; but, to say nothing of the composition of his incomparable letters, and of the Castle of Otranto[1765], he is the "Ultimus Romanorum," the author of the Mysterious Mother[1768], a tragedy of the highest order, and not a puling love-play. He is the father of the first romance and of the last tragedy in our language, and surely worthy of a higher place than any living writer, be he who he may.[378]

In speaking of the drama of Marino Faliero, I forgot to mention that the desire of preserving, though still too remote, a nearer approach to unity than the irregularity, which is the reproach of the English theatrical compositions, permits, has induced me to represent the conspiracy as already formed, and the Doge acceding to it; whereas, in fact, it was of his own preparation and that of Israel Bertuccio. The other characters (except that of the Duchess), incidents, and almost the time, which was wonderfully short for such a design in real life, are strictly historical, except that all the consultations took place in the palace. Had I followed this, the unity would have been better preserved; but I wished to produce the Doge in the full assembly of the conspirators, instead of monotonously placing him always in dialogue with the same individuals. For the real facts, I refer to the Appendix.[379]

Dramatis Personæ

MEN.

Marino Faliero, Doge of Venice. Bertuccio Faliero, Nephew of the Doge. Lioni, a Patrician and Senator. Benintende, Chief of the Council of Ten. Michel Steno, One of the three Capi of the Forty. Israel Bertuccio, Chief of the Arsenal, } Philip Calendaro, } Conspirators. Dagolino, } Bertram, }

Signor of the Night, "_Signore di Notte," one of the Officers belonging to the Republic_. First Citizen. Second Citizen. Third Citizen.

Vincenzo, } Pietro, } Officers belonging to the Ducal Palace. Battista, }

Secretary of the Council of Ten.

Guards, Conspirators, Citizens, The Council of Ten, the Giunta, etc., etc.

WOMEN.

Angiolina, Wife to the Doge. Marianna, her Friend. Female Attendants, etc.

Scene Venice--in the year 1355.

MARINO FALIERO, DOGE OF VENICE.

(AN HISTORICAL TRAGEDY IN FIVE ACTS.)

Act I, Scene I — An Antechamber in the Ducal Palace

PIETRO speaks, in entering, to BATTISTA.

Pie. Is not the messenger returned?[cv]

Bat. Not yet; I have sent frequently, as you commanded, But still the Signory[380] is deep in council, And long debate on Steno's accusation.

Pie. Too long--at least so thinks the Doge.

Bat. How bears he These moments of suspense?

Pie. With struggling patience.[cw] Placed at the Ducal table, covered o'er With all the apparel of the state--petitions, Despatches, judgments, acts, reprieves, reports,-- He sits as rapt in duty; but whene'er[cx] 10 He hears the jarring of a distant door, Or aught that intimates a coming step,[cy] Or murmur of a voice, his quick eye wanders, And he will start up from his chair, then pause, And seat himself again, and fix his gaze Upon some edict; but I have observed For the last hour he has not turned a leaf.

Bat. 'Tis said he is much moved,--and doubtless 'twas Foul scorn in Steno to offend so grossly.

Pie. Aye, if a poor man: Steno's a patrician, 20 Young, galliard, gay, and haughty.[cz]

Bat. Then you think He will not be judged hardly?

Pie. 'Twere enough He be judged justly; but 'tis not for us To anticipate the sentence of the Forty.

Bat. And here it comes.--What news, Vincenzo?

Enter VINCENZO.

Vin. 'Tis Decided; but as yet his doom's unknown: I saw the President in act to seal The parchment which will bear the Forty's judgment Unto the Doge, and hasten to inform him. [Exeunt.