Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions Part 10

ALESSANDRO MANZONI was born at Milan in 1784, and inherited from his father the t.i.tle of Count, which he always refused to wear; from his mother, who was the daughter of Beccaria, the famous and humane writer on Crimes and Punishments, he may have received the n.o.bility which his whole life has shown.

{Ill.u.s.tration: Alessandro Manzoni.}

In his youth he was a liberal thinker in matters of religion; the stricter sort of Catholics used to cla.s.s him with the Voltaireans, and there seems to have been some ground for their distrust of his orthodoxy. But in 1808 he married Mlle. Louisa Henriette Blondel, the daughter of a banker of Geneva, who, having herself been converted from Protestantism to the Catholic faith on coming to Milan, converted her husband in turn, and thereafter there was no question concerning his religion. She was long remembered in her second country "for her fresh blond head, and her blue eyes, her lovely eyes", and she made her husband very happy while she lived. The young poet signalized his devotion to his young bride, and the faith to which she restored him, in his Sacred Hymns, published in this devout and joyous time. But Manzoni was never a Catholic of those Catholics who believed in the temporal power of the Pope. He said to Madam Colet, the author of "L'Italie des Italiens", a silly and gossiping but entertaining book, "I bow humbly to the Pope, and the Church has no more respectful son; but why confound the interests of earth and those of heaven? The Roman people are right in asking their freedom--there are hours for nations, as for governments, in which they must occupy themselves, not with what is convenient, but with what is just. Let us lay hands boldly upon the temporal power, but let us not touch the doctrine of the Church. The one is as distinct from the other as the immortal soul from the frail and mortal body. To believe that the Church is attacked in taking away its earthly possessions is a real heresy to every true Christian."

The Sacred Hymns were published in 1815, and in 1820 Manzoni gave the world his first tragedy, _Il Conte di Carmagnola_, a romantic drama written in the boldest defiance of the unities of time and place. He dispensed with these hitherto indispensable conditions of dramatic composition among the Italians eight years before Victor Hugo braved their tyranny in his Cromwell; and in an introduction to his tragedy he gave his reasons for this audacious innovation. Following the Carmagnola, in 1822, came his second and last tragedy, _Adelchi_.

In the mean time he had written his magnificent ode on the Death of Napoleon, "Il Cinque Maggio", which was at once translated by Goethe, and recognized by the French themselves as the last word on the subject. It placed him at the head of the whole continental Romantic School.

In 1825 he published his romance, "I Promessi Sposi", known to every one knowing anything of Italian, and translated into all modern languages. Besides these works, and some earlier poems, Manzoni wrote only a few essays upon historical and literary subjects, and he always led a very quiet and uneventful life. He was very fond of the country; early every spring he left the city for his farm, whose labors he directed and shared. His life was so quiet, indeed, and his fate so happy, in contrast with that of Pellico and other literary contemporaries at Milan, that he was accused of indifference in political matters by those who could not see the subtler tendency of his whole life and works. Marc Monnier says, "There are countries where it is a shame not to be persecuted," and this is the only disgrace which has ever fallen upon Manzoni.

When the Austrians took possession of Milan, after the retirement of the French, they invited the patricians to inscribe themselves in a book of n.o.bility, under pain of losing their t.i.tles, and Manzoni preferred to lose his. He constantly refused honors offered him by the Government, and he sent back the ribbon of a knightly order with the answer that he had made a vow never to wear any decoration. When Victor Emanuel in turn wished to do him a like honor, he held himself bound by his excuse to the Austrians, but accepted the honorary presidency of the Lombard Inst.i.tute of Sciences, Letters and Arts. In 1860 he was elected a Senator of the realm; he appeared in order to take the oath and then he retired to a privacy never afterwards broken.

IV

"Goethe's praise," says a sneer turned proverb, "is a brevet of mediocrity." Manzoni must rest under this damaging applause, which was not too freely bestowed upon other Italian poets of his time, or upon Italy at all, for that matter.

Goethe could not laud Manzoni's tragedies too highly; he did not find one word too much or too little in them; the style was free, n.o.ble, full and rich. As to the religious lyrics, the manner of their treatment was fresh and individual although the matter and the significance were not new; and the poet was "a Christian without fanaticism, a Roman Catholic without bigotry, a zealot without hardness."

The tragedies had no success upon the stage. The Carmagnola was given in Florence in 1828, but in spite of the favor of the court, and the open rancor of the friends of the Cla.s.sic School, it failed; at Turin, where the Adelchi was tried, Pellico regretted that the attempt to play it had been made, and deplored the "vile irreverence of the public."

Both tragedies deal with patriotic themes, but they are both concerned with occurrences of remote epochs. The time of the Carmagnola is the fifteenth century; that of the Adelchi the eighth century; and however strongly marked are the characters,--and they are very strongly marked, and differ widely from most persons of Italian cla.s.sic tragedy in this respect,--one still feels that they are subordinate to the great contests of elements and principles for which the tragedy furnishes a scene. In the Carmagnola the pathos is chiefly in the feeling embodied by the magnificent chorus lamenting the slaughter of Italians by Italians at the battle of Maclodio; in the Adelchi we are conscious of no emotion so strong as that we experience when we hear the wail of the Italian people, to whom the overthrow of their Longobard oppressors by the Franks is but the signal of a new enslavement. This chorus is almost as fine as the more famous one in the Carmagnola; both are incomparably finer than anything else in the tragedies and are much more dramatic than the dialogue. It is in the emotion of a spectator belonging to our own time rather than in that of an actor of those past times that the poet shows his dramatic strength; and whenever he speaks abstractly for country and humanity he moves us in a way that permits no doubt of his greatness.

After all, there is but one Shakespeare, and in the drama below him Manzoni holds a high place. The faults of his tragedies are those of most plays which are not acting plays, and their merits are much greater than the great number of such plays can boast. I have not meant to imply that you want sympathy with the persons of the drama, but only less sympathy than with the ideas embodied in them. There are many affecting scenes, and the whole of each tragedy is conceived in the highest and best ideal.

V

In the Carmagnola, the action extends from the moment when the Venetian Senate, at war with the Duke of Milan, places its armies under the command of the count, who is a soldier of fortune and has formerly been in the service of the Duke. The Senate sends two commissioners into his camp to represent the state there, and to be spies upon his conduct. This was a somewhat clumsy contrivance of the Republic to give a patriotic character to its armies, which were often recruited from mercenaries and generaled by them; and, of course, the hireling leaders must always have chafed under the surveillance. After the battle of Maclodio, in which the Venetian mercenaries defeated the Milanese, the victors, according to the custom of their trade, began to free their comrades of the other side whom they had taken prisoners. The commissioners protested against this waste of results, but Carmagnola answered that it was the usage of his soldiers, and he could not forbid it; he went further, and himself liberated some remaining prisoners. His action was duly reported to the Senate, and as he had formerly been in the service of the Duke of Milan, whose kinswoman he had married, he was suspected of treason. He was invited to Venice, and received with great honor, and conducted with every flattering ceremony to the hall of the Grand Council. After a brief delay, sufficient to exclude Carmagnola's followers, the Doge ordered him to be seized, and upon a summary trial he was put to death. From this tragedy I give first a translation of that famous chorus of which I have already spoken; I have kept the measure and the movement of the original at some loss of literality. The poem is introduced into the scene immediately succeeding the battle of Maclodio, where the two bands of those Italian _condottieri_ had met to butcher each other in the interests severally of the Duke of Milan and the Signory of Venice.

CHORUS.

On the right hand a trumpet is sounding, On the left hand a trumpet replying, The field upon all sides resounding With the trampling of foot and of horse.

Yonder flashes a flag; yonder flying Through the still air a bannerol glances; Here a squadron embattled advances, There another that threatens its course.

The s.p.a.ce 'twixt the foes now beneath them Is hid, and on swords the sword ringeth; In the hearts of each other they sheathe them; Blood runs, they redouble their blows.

Who are these? To our fair fields what bringeth To make war upon us, this stranger?

Which is he that hath sworn to avenge her, The land of his birth, on her foes?

They are all of one land and one nation, One speech; and the foreigner names them All brothers, of one generation; In each visage their kindred is seen; This land is the mother that claims them, This land that their life blood is steeping, That G.o.d, from all other lands keeping, Set the seas and the mountains between.

Ah, which drew the first blade among them To strike at the heart of his brother?

What wrong, or what insult hath stung them To wipe out what stain, or to die?

They know not; to slay one another They come in a cause none hath told them; A chief that was purchased hath sold them; They combat for him, nor ask why.

Ah, woe for the mothers that bare them, For the wives of these warriors maddened!

Why come not their loved ones to tear them Away from the infamous field?

Their sires, whom long years have saddened, And thoughts of the sepulcher chastened, In warning why have they not hastened To bid them to hold and to yield?

As under the vine that embowers His own happy threshold, the smiling Clown watches the tempest that lowers On the furrows his plow has not turned, So each waits in safety, beguiling The time with his count of those falling Afar in the fight, and the appalling Flames of towns and of villages burned.

There, intent on the lips of their mothers, Thou shalt hear little children with scorning Learn to follow and flout at the brothers Whose blood they shall go forth to shed; Thou shalt see wives and maidens adorning Their bosoms and hair with the splendor Of gems but now torn from the tender, Hapless daughters and wives of the dead.

Oh, disaster, disaster, disaster!

With the slain the earth's hidden already; With blood reeks the whole plain, and vaster And fiercer the strife than before!

But along the ranks, rent and unsteady, Many waver--they yield, they are flying!

With the last hope of victory dying The love of life rises again.

As out of the fan, when it tosses The grain in its breath, the grain flashes, So over the field of their losses Fly the vanquished. But now in their course Starts a squadron that suddenly dashes Athwart their wild flight and that stays them, While hard on the hindmost dismays them The pursuit of the enemy's horse.

At the feet of the foe they fall trembling, And yield life and sword to his keeping; In the shouts of the victors a.s.sembling, The moans of the dying are drowned.

To the saddle a courier leaping, Takes a missive, and through all resistance, Spurs, lashes, devours the distance; Every hamlet awakes at the sound.

Ah, why from their rest and their labor To the hoof-beaten road do they gather?

Why turns every one to his neighbor The jubilant tidings to hear?

Thou know'st whence he comes, wretched father?

And thou long'st for his news, hapless mother?

In fight brother fell upon brother!

These terrible tidings _I_ bring.

All around I hear cries of rejoicing; The temples are decked; the song swelleth From the hearts of the fratricides, voicing Praise and thanks that are hateful to G.o.d.

Meantime from the Alps where he dwelleth The Stranger turns. .h.i.ther his vision, And numbers with cruel derision The brave that have bitten the sod.

Leave your games, leave your songs and exulting; Fill again your battalions and rally Again to your banners! Insulting The stranger descends, he is come!

Are ye feeble and few in your sally, Ye victors? For this he descendeth!

'Tis for this that his challenge he sendeth From the fields where your brothers lie dumb!

Thou that strait to thy children appearedst, Thou that knew'st not in peace how to tend them, Fatal land! now the stranger thou fearedst Receive, with the judgment he brings!

A foe unprovoked to offend them At thy board sitteth down, and derideth, The spoil of thy foolish divideth, Strips the sword from the hand of thy kings.

Foolish he, too! What people was ever For bloodshedding blest, or oppression?

To the vanquished alone comes harm never; To tears turns the wrong-doer's joy!

Though he 'scape through the years' long progression, Yet the vengeance eternal o'ertaketh Him surely; it waiteth and waketh; It seizes him at the last sigh!

We are all made in one Likeness holy, Ransomed all by one only redemption; Near or far, rich or poor, high or lowly, Wherever we breathe in life's air, We are brothers, by one great preemption Bound all; and accursed be its wronger, Who would ruin by right of the stronger, Wring the hearts of the weak with despair.

Here is the whole political history of Italy. In this poem the picture of the confronted hosts, the vivid scenes of the combat, the lamentations over the ferocity of the embattled brothers, and the indifference of those that behold their kinsmen's carnage, the strokes by which the victory, the rout, and the captivity are given, and then the apostrophe to Italy, and finally the appeal to conscience--are all masterly effects. I do not know just how to express my sense of near approach through that last stanza to the heart of a very great and good man, but I am certain that I have such a feeling.

The n.o.ble, sonorous music, the solemn movement of the poem are in great part lost by its version into English; yet, I hope that enough are left to suggest the original. I think it quite unsurpa.s.sed in its combination of great artistic and moral qualities, which I am sure my version has not wholly obscured, bad as it is.

VI

The scene following first upon this chorus also strikes me with the grand spirit in which it is wrought; and in its revelations of the motives and ideas of the old professional soldier-life, it reminds me of Schiller's Wallenstein's Camp. Manzoni's canvas has not the breadth of that of the other master, but he paints with as free and bold a hand, and his figures have an equal heroism of att.i.tude and motive.

The generous soldierly pride of Carmagnola, and the strange _esprit du corps_ of the mercenaries, who now stood side by side, and now front to front in battle; who sold themselves to any buyer that wanted killing done, and whose n.o.blest usage was in violation of the letter of their bargains, are the qualities on which the poet touches, in order to waken our pity for what has already raised our horror. It is humanity in either case that inspires him--a humanity characteristic of many Italians of this century, who have studied so long in the school of suffering that they know how to abhor a system of wrong, and yet excuse its agents.

The scene I am to give is in the tent of the great _condottiere_.

Carmagnola is speaking with one of the Commissioners of the Venetian Republic, when the other suddenly enters: