Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions Part 11

_Commissioner._ My lord, if instantly You haste not to prevent it, treachery Shameless and bold will be accomplished, making Our victory vain, as't partly hath already.

_Count._ How now?

_Com._ The prisoners leave the camp in troops!

The leaders and the soldiers vie together To set them free; and nothing can restrain them Saving command of yours.

_Count._ Command of mine?

_Com._ You hesitate to give it?

_Count._ 'T is a use, This, of the war, you know. It is so sweet To pardon when we conquer; and their hate Is quickly turned to friends.h.i.+p in the hearts That throb beneath the steel. Ah, do not seek To take this n.o.ble privilege from those Who risked their lives for your sake, and to-day Are generous because valiant yesterday.

_Com._ Let him be generous who fights for himself, My lord! But these--and it rests upon their honor-- Have fought at our expense, and unto us Belong the prisoners.

_Count._ You may well think so, Doubtless, but those who met them front to front, Who felt their blows, and fought so hard to lay Their bleeding hands upon them, they will not So easily believe it.

_Com._ And is this A joust for pleasure then? And doth not Venice Conquer to keep? And shall her victory Be all in vain?

_Count._ Already I have heard it, And I must hear that word again? 'Tis bitter; Importunate it comes upon me, like an insect That, driven once away, returns to buzz About my face.... The victory is in vain!

The field is heaped with corpses; scattered wide, And broken, are the rest--a most flouris.h.i.+ng Army, with which, if it were still united, And it were mine, mine truly, I'd engage To overrun all Italy! Every design Of the enemy baffled; even the hope of harm Taken away from him; and from my hand Hardly escaped, and glad of their escape, Four captains against whom but yesterday It were a boast to show resistance; vanished Half of the dread of those great names; in us Doubled the daring that the foe has lost; The whole choice of the war now in our hands; And ours the lands they've left--is't nothing?

Think you that they will go back to the Duke, Those prisoners; and that they love him, or Care more for _him_ than _you_? that they have fought In _his_ behalf? Nay, they have combatted Because a sovereign voice within the heart Of men that follow any banner cries, "Combat and conquer!" they have lost and so Are set at liberty; they'll sell themselves-- O, such is now the soldier!--to the first That seeks to buy them--Buy them; they are yours!

_1st Com._ When we paid those that were to fight with them, We then believed ourselves to have purchased them.

_2d Com._ My lord, Venice confides in you; in you She sees a son; and all that to her good And to her glory can redound, expects Shall be done by you.

_Count._ Everything I can.

_2d Com._ And what can you not do upon this field?

_Count._ The thing you ask. An ancient use, a use Dear to the soldier, I can not violate.

_2d Com._ You, whom no one resists, on whom so promptly Every will follows, so that none can say, Whether for love or fear it yield itself; You, in this camp, you are not able, you, To make a law, and to enforce it?

_Count._ I said I could not; now I rather say, I _will_ not!

No further words; with friends this hath been ever My ancient custom; satisfy at once And gladly all just prayers, and for all other Refuse them openly and promptly. Soldier!

_Com._ Nay--what is your purpose?

_Count._ You will see anon.

{_To a soldier who enters_ How many prisoners still remain?

_Soldier._ I think, My lord, four hundred.

_Count._ Call them hither--call The bravest of them--those you meet the first; Send them here quickly. {Exit soldier.

Surely, I might do it-- If I gave such a sign, there were not heard A murmur in the camp. But these, my children, My comrades amid peril, and in joy, Those who confide in me, believe they follow A leader ever ready to defend The honor and advantage of the soldier; _I_ play them false, and make more slavish yet, More vile and base their calling, than 'tis now?

Lords, I am trustful, as the soldier is, But if you now insist on that from me Which shall deprive me of my comrades' love, If you desire to separate me from them, And so reduce me that I have no stay Saving yourselves--in spite of me I say it, You force me, you, to doubt--

_Com._ What do you say?

{_The prisoners, among them young Pergola, enter._

_Count (To the prisoners)._ O brave in vain! Unfortunate!

To you, Fortune is cruelest, then? And you alone Are to a sad captivity reserved?

_A prisoner._ Such, mighty lord, was never our belief.

When we were called into your presence, we Did seem to hear a messenger that gave Our freedom to us. Already, all of those That yielded them to captains less than you Have been released, and only we--

_Count._ Who was it, That made you prisoners?

_Prisoner._ We were the last To give our arms up. All the rest were taken Or put to flight, and for a few brief moments The evil fortune of the battle weighed On us alone. At last you made a sign That we should draw nigh to your banner,--we Alone not conquered, relics of the lost.

_Count._ You are those? I am very glad, my friends, To see you again, and I can testify That you fought bravely; and if so much valor Were not betrayed, and if a captain equal Unto yourselves had led you, it had been No pleasant thing to stand before you.

_Prisoner._ And now Shall it be our misfortune to have yielded Only to you, my lord? And they that found A conqueror less glorious, shall they find More courtesy in him? In vain, we asked Our freedom of your soldiers--no one durst Dispose of us without your own a.s.sent, But all did promise it. "O, if you can, Show yourselves to the Count," they said. "Be sure, He'll not embitter fortune to the vanquished; An ancient courtesy of war will never Be ta'en away by him; he would have been Rather the first to have invented it."

_Count._ (_To the Coms._) You hear them, lords? Well, then, what do you say?

What would you do, you? _(To the prisoners)_ Heaven forbid that any Should think more highly than myself of me!

You are all free, my friends; farewell! Go, follow Your fortune, and if e'er again it lead you Under a banner that's adverse to mine, Why, we shall see each other. _(The Count observes young Pergola and stops him.)_ Ho, young man, Thou art not of the vulgar! Dress, and face More clearly still, proclaims it; yet with the others Thou minglest and art silent?

_Pergola._ Vanquished men Have nought to say, O captain.

_Count._ This ill-fortune Thou bearest so, that thou dost show thyself Worthy a better. What's thy name?

_Pergola._ A name Whose fame 't were hard to greaten, and that lays On him who bears it a great obligation.

Pergola is my name.

_Count._ What! thou 'rt the son Of that brave man?

_Pergola._ I am he.

_Count._ Come, embrace Thy father's ancient friend! Such as thou art That I was when I knew him first. Thou bringest Happy days back to me! the happy days Of hope.

And take thou heart! Fortune did give A happier beginning unto me; But fortune's promises are for the brave.

And soon or late she keeps them. Greet for me Thy father, boy, and say to him that I Asked it not of thee, but that I was sure This battle was not of his choosing.

_Pergola._ Surely, He chose it not; but his words were as wind.

_Count._ Let it not grieve thee; 't is the leader's shame Who is defeated; he begins well ever Who like a brave man fights where he is placed.

Come with me, _(takes his hand)_ I would show thee to my comrades.

I'd give thee back thy sword. Adieu, my lords; (_To the Coms._) I never will be merciful to your foes Till I have conquered them.

A notable thing in this tragedy of Carmagnola is that the interest of love is entirely wanting to it, and herein it differs very widely from the play of Schiller. The soldiers are simply soldiers; and this singleness of motive is in harmony with the Italian conception of art.

Yet the Carmagnola of Manzoni is by no means like the heroes of the Alfierian tragedy. He is a man, not merely an embodied pa.s.sion or mood; his character is rounded, and has all the checks and counterpoises, the inconsistencies, in a word, without which nothing actually lives in literature, or usefully lives in the world. In his generous and magnificent illogicality, he comes the nearest being a woman of all the characters in the tragedy. There is no other personage in it equaling him in interest; but he also is subordinated to the author's purpose of teaching his countrymen an enlightened patriotism. I am loath to blame this didactic aim, which, I suppose, mars the aesthetic excellence ofthe piece.

Carmagnola's liberation of the prisoners was not forgiven him by Venice, who, indeed, never forgave anything; he was in due time entrapped in the hall of the Grand Council, and condemned to die. The tragedy ends with a scene in his prison, where he awaits his wife and daughter, who are coming with one of his old comrades, Gonzaga, to bid him a last farewell. These pa.s.sages present the poet in his sweeter and tenderer moods, and they have had a great charm for me.

SCENE--THE PRISON.

_Count_ (_speaking of his wife and daughter_). By this time they must know my fate. Ah! why Might I not die far from them? Dread, indeed, Would be the news that reached them, but, at least, The darkest hour of agony would be past, And now it stands before us. We must needs Drink the draft drop by drop. O open fields, O liberal suns.h.i.+ne, O uproar of arms, O joy of peril, O trumpets, and the cries Of combatants, O my true steed! 'midst you 'T were fair to die; but now I go rebellious To meet my destiny, driven to my doom Like some vile criminal, uttering on the way Impotent vows, and pitiful complaints.