Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 15

Il mondo invecchia E invecchiando intristisce.

Words of profound melancholy these, uttered in the days of the burnt-out fires of the renaissance. But all this moves not Silvia, nymph of the woods and of the chase, and, if she is indeed as fancy-free as she would have us believe, her lover may even console himself with the reflection that

If of herself she will not love, Nothing will make her-- The devil take her!

She has, after all, every right to the position. The next scene introduces Aminta and his friend Tirsi, to whom he reveals the object and the history of his love. Translated into bald prose, his confession has no very great interest, but it opens with one of those exquisitely pencilled sketches that lie scattered throughout the play.

All' ombra d' un bel f.a.ggio Silvia e Filli Sedean un giorno, ed io con loro insieme; Quando un' ape ingegnosa, che cogliendo Sen giva il mel per que' prati fioriti, Alle guance di Fillide volando, Alle guance vermiglie come rosa, Le morse e le rimorse avidamente; Ch' alla similitudine ingannata Forse un fior le credette.

Silvia heals the hurt by whispering over it a charm; and the whole description is instinct with that delicate, soft sentiment of Ta.s.so's which almost, though never quite, sinks into sentimentality. Aminta feigns to have been stung on the lip, and begs Silvia to heal the hurt.

La semplicetta Silvia, Pietosa del mio male, S' offr di dar aita Alla finta ferita, ahi la.s.so! e fece Piu cupa e piu mortale La mia piaga verace, Quando le labbra sue Giunse alle labbra mie.

It is easy to argue that this is childish, that it mattered no whit though they kissed from now to doomsday. But only the reader who cannot feel its beauty is safe from the enervating narcotic of Ta.s.so's style.

The first scene of the second act introduces a new character, the satyr, type of brute nature in the artificially polished Arcadia of courtly shepherds. He inherits no savoury character from his literary predecessors, and he is content to play to the role. His monologue may be pa.s.sed over; it and still more the next scene serve to measure the cynical indelicacy of feeling which was tolerated in the Italian courts. It is a quality wholly different from the mere coa.r.s.eness exhibited in the English drama under Elizabeth and James, but it is one which will astonish no one who has looked on the dramatic reflection of Italian society in the scenes of the _Mandragola_. The satyr is succeeded on the stage by the confidants Dafne and Tirsi in consultation as to the means of bringing about an understanding between Aminta and Silvia. The scene is characterized by those caustic reflections on women which serve to balance the extravagant iciness of the 'careless' nymphs and became a commonplace of the pastoral drama.

Or, non sai tu com' e fatta la donna?

Fugge, e fuggendo vuol ch' altri la giunga; Niega, e negando vuol ch' altri si toglia; Pugna, e pugnando vuol ch' altri la vinca.

Listening to the deliberations of these two, it cannot but strike us that in spite of their polished speech the straightforward London stage would have hesitated but little to bestow on them the names they deserve, and which it were yet scarce honest to have here set down. We pa.s.s on, and, whatever may be said regarding the moral atmosphere of the rest of the play, we shall not again have to make complaint of the corruption of manners a.s.sumed in the situation. In the following scene Tirsi undertakes the difficult task of inducing Aminta to intrude upon Silvia, where she is said to be alone at the spring preparing for the chase. It is only by hinting that Silvia has secretly instructed Dafne to arrange the tryst that he in the end succeeds in persuading the bashful lover to risk the displeasure of his mistress.

At the opening of Act III Tirsi enters lamenting in bitter terms the cruelty of Silvia. Interrogated by the chorus, he relates how, as he and Aminta approached the spring where Silvia was bathing, they heard a cry and, hastening to the spot, found the nymph bound hand and foot to a tree, and confronting her the satyr. At their approach the monster fled, and Aminta released the nymph, who _ignuda come nacque_ at once took flight, leaving her lover in despair. In the meanwhile Aminta has sought to kill himself with his own spear, but has been prevented by Dafne, and the two now enter. At this moment too comes Nerina, one of the 'messengers' of the piece, with the news that Silvia has been slain while pursuing a wolf in the forest. Thereupon Aminta, with a last reproach to Dafne for having prevented him from putting an end to his miserable life before being the recipient of such direful news, rushes off the scene at a pace to mock pursuit. In the next act, however, Silvia reappears and narrates her escape. Here we arrive at the dramatic climax of the play. Dafne expresses her fear that the false report of Silvia's death may indeed prove the death of Aminta. The nymph at first shows herself incredulous, but on learning that he had already once sought death on her account she wavers and owns to pity if not to love--

Oh potess' io Con l' amor mio comprar la vita sua, Anzi pur con la mia la vita sua, S' egli e pur morto!

Hereupon Ergasto enters with the news that Aminta has thrown himself from a cliff, and Silvia, now completely overcome, goes off with the intention of dying on the body of her dead lover.

The shortness, as well as the dramatic weakness, of the fifth act is conspicuous even in proportion to the modest limits of the whole. It runs to less than one hundred and fifty lines, and merely relates how Aminta's fall was broken, how Silvia's love awoke, and all ended happily. The most significant pa.s.sage, that namely which describes Aminta being called back to life in Silvia's arms, has been already quoted. He revives unharmed, and the lovers,

Alike in age, in generous birth alike And mutual desires,

gather in love the fruits which they have sown in weeping.

It is worth while quoting the final chorus in witness of the spirit of half bantering humour in which the whole was conceived even by the serious Ta.s.so, a spirit we unfortunately too often seek in vain among his followers.

Non so se il molto amaro Che provato ha costui servendo, amando, Piangendo e disperando, Raddolcito esser puote pienamente D' alcun dolce presente: Ma, se piu caro viene E piu si gusta dopo 'l male il bene, Io non ti chieggio, Amore, Questa beat.i.tudine maggiore: Bea pur gli altri in tal guisa; Me la mia ninfa accoglia Dopo brevi preghiere e servir breve: E siano i condimenti Delle nostre dolcezze Non s gravi tormenti, Ma soavi disdegni, E soavi ripulse, Risse e guerre a cui segua, Reintegrando i cori, o pace o tregua.

It is with these words that the author leaves his graceful fantasy; and such, we have perhaps the right to a.s.sume, was the spirit in which the whole was composed. Were any one to object to our seeking to a.n.a.lyse the quality of the piece, arguing that to do so were to break a b.u.t.terfly upon the wheel, much might reasonably be said in support of his view.

Nevertheless, when a work of art, however delicate and slender, has received the homage of generations, and influenced cultivated taste for centuries, and in widely different countries, we have a right to inquire whereon its supremacy is based, and what the nature of its influence has been.

With the sources from which Ta.s.so drew the various elements of his plot we need have little to do. The child-love of Silvia and Aminta is of the stuff of _Daphnis and Chloe_; the ruse by which the kiss is obtained is borrowed from Achilles Tatius; the compliment to the court of the Estensi is after the manner of Vergil, or of Castiglione, or of Ariosto, or of any other of the allegorical eclogists of whom Vergil was the first; the germ of the golden-age chorus is to be found in the elegies of Tibullus (II.

iii); the character of the satyr belongs to tradition; the rent veil of Silvia reminds us of that of Ovid's Thisbe (_Met._ IV. 55). The language too is reminiscent. The finest lines in the play--

Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; A noi sua breve luce S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--(_Coro_ I.)

belong to Catullus:

Viuamus, mea Lesbia, atque amemus;...

soles occidere et redire possunt; n.o.bis c.u.m semel occidit breuis lux, nox est perpetua una dormienda. (_Carm._ V.)

The words in which Amore describes himself in the prologue--

non mica un dio Selvaggio, o della plebe degli dei, Ma tra' grandi celesti il piu possente--

recall Ovid's lines:

nec de plebe deo, sed qui caelestia magna sceptra manu teneo. (_Met._ I. 595.)

Again, the line:

Dove la costa face di se grembo;

which occurs alike in the play (V. i.) and in the _Purgatorio_ (VII. 68), supplies evidence, as do similar borrowings in the _Gerusalemme_, of Ta.s.so's study of Dante.

The prologue introduces Amore in pastoral disguise, escaped from the care of his mother, who would confine his activity to the Courts, and intent on loosing his shafts among the nymphs and shepherds of Arcadia. In the form of this prologue, which became the model for subsequent pastoral writers in Italy[173], and in the heavenly descent of the princ.i.p.al characters, we may see the influence of the mythological play; while the substance both of the prologue and of the epilogue, or _Amore fuggitivo_, in which Venus comes to seek her runaway among the ladies and gallants of the court, is of course borrowed from the famous first idyl of Moschus. Again the topical element is not absent, though it is less prominent than some of the earlier work might lead us to expect. In the poet Tirsi--

allor ch' ardendo Forsennato egli err per le foreste S, ch' insieme movea pietate e riso Nelle vezzose ninfe e ne' pastori; Ne gia cose scrivea digne di riso, Sebben cose facea digne di riso--(I. i.)

we may, of course, see the poet himself. In Batto too, mentioned together with Tirsi, it is not unreasonable to recognize Battisto Guarini, whom at that time Ta.s.so might still regard as his friend. Again, it is usual to identify Elpino with Giovanbattista Pigna, secretary of state at the Estense court, and one with whom, though no friend of the poet's, it was yet to his advantage to stand well. The flattery bestowed is not a little fulsome:

Or non rammenti Ci che l' altrieri Elpino raccontava, Il saggio Elpino a la bella Licori, Licori che in Elpin puote cogli occhi Quel ch' ei potere in lei dovria col canto, Se 'l dovere in amor si ritrova.s.se; E 'l raccontava udendo Batto e Tirsi, Gran maestri d' amore; e 'l raccontava Nell' antro dell' Aurora, ove sull' uscio e scritto: _Lungi, ah lungi ite, profani_?

Diceva egli, e diceva che gliel disse Quel grande che cant l' armi e gli amori, Ch' a lui lasci la fistola morendo; Che laggiu nello 'nferno e un nero speco, La dove esala un fumo pien di puzza Dalle tristi fornaci d' Acheronte; E che quivi punite eternamente In tormenti di tenebre e di pianto Son le femmine ingrate e sconoscenti. (I. i.)

He who sang of arms and love is of course Ariosto--

Le donne, i cavalier, l' arme, gli amori, Le cortesie, l' audaci imprese io canto--

from whom Ta.s.so borrows the above description of the reward awaiting ungrateful women, as also the fiction of the tell-tale walls and chairs in Mopso's account of the court (I. ii). And this Elpino, whose pipe elsewhere

correr fa di puro latte i fiumi E stillar melle dalle dure scorze, (III. i.)

later becomes the Alete of the _Gerusalemme_,

Gran fabbro di calunnie adorne in modi Novi che sono accuse e paion lodi. (II. 58.)

His flattery had not s.h.i.+elded the unhappy poet against the ill-will of the minister[174].

Again, the picture drawn by Tirsi of the ideal court (I. ii.) is a glowing compliment to that of the Estensi and to Duke Alfonso himself. It is contrasted with the usual pastoral denunciation of court and city put into the mouth of the pretended augur Mopso. In this character it has been customary to see Sperone Speroni, who later accused Ta.s.so of plagiarizing him in the _Gerusalemme_, and was the first to apply the ominous word 'madman' to the unfortunate poet. To Speroni's play _Canace_ Ta.s.so may have been indebted for the free measures with which he diversified his blank verse, as likewise for the line:

Pianti, sospiri e dimandar mercede;[175]

though it must not be supposed that there is any resemblance in style between the _Aminta_ and Speroni's revolting and frigid declamation of butchery and l.u.s.t. Nor did the debt pa.s.s unnoticed. In 1585 Guarini, who had long since parted with the sinking s.h.i.+p of the younger poet's friends.h.i.+p, was ready to flatter Speroni with the declaration 'che tanto di leggiadria e sempre paruto a me, che abbia nell' Aminta suo conseguito Torquato Ta.s.so, quant' egli fu imitatore della Canace[176].'

Lastly, in the hopeless suit of Aminta to Silvia, criticism has not failed to see a reference to the supposed relation between Ta.s.so and Leonora d'

Este. That Ta.s.so, who in his overwrought imagination no doubt harboured a sentimental regard for the princess, was conscious of the parallel is in some degree probable; that he should have identified his creation with himself is, in view of the solution of the dramatic situation, utterly impossible. Indeed, it would perhaps not be extravagant to suppose that his care to identify himself with Aminta's confidant may have been an unusual but not untimely piece of caution on his part, to prevent poisoned gossip connecting him too closely with his hero.