Life of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 27

You must print it side by side with the original Italian, because I wish the reader to judge of the fidelity: it is stanza for stanza, and often line for line, if not word for word.

"You ask me for a volume of manners, &c. on Italy. Perhaps I am in the case to know more of them than most Englishmen, because I have lived among the natives, and in parts of the country where Englishmen never resided before (I speak of Romagna and this place particularly); but there are many reasons why I do not choose to treat in print on such a subject. I have lived in their houses and in the heart of their families, sometimes merely as 'amico di casa,' and sometimes as 'amico di cuore' of the Dama, and in neither case do I feel myself authorised in making a book of them.

Their moral is not your moral; their life is not your life; you would not understand it; it is not English, nor French, nor German, which you would all understand. The conventual education, the cavalier servitude, the habits of thought and living are so entirely different, and the difference becomes so much more striking the more you live intimately with them, that I know not how to make you comprehend a people who are at once temperate and profligate, serious in their characters and buffoons in their amus.e.m.e.nts, capable of impressions and pa.s.sions, which are at once _sudden_ and _durable_ (what you find in no other nation), and who actually have no society (what we would call so), as you may see by their comedies; they have no real comedy, not even in Goldoni, and that is because they have no society to draw it from.

"Their conversazioni are not society at all. They go to the theatre to talk, and into company to hold their tongues. The _women_ sit in a circle, and the men gather into groups, or they play at dreary faro, or 'lotto reale,' for small sums. Their academic are concerts like our own, with better music and more form. Their best things are the carnival b.a.l.l.s and masquerades, when every body runs mad for six weeks. After their dinners and suppers they make extempore verses and buffoon one another; but it is in a humour which you would not enter into, ye of the north.

"In their houses it is better. I should know something of the matter, having had a pretty general experience among their women, from the fisherman's wife up to the n.o.bil Dama, whom I serve. Their system has its rules, and its fitnesses, and its decorums, so as to be reduced to a kind of discipline or game at hearts, which admits few deviations, unless you wish to lose it. They are extremely tenacious, and jealous as furies, not permitting their lovers even to marry if they can help it, and keeping them always close to them in public as in private, whenever they can. In short, they transfer marriage to adultery, and strike the _not_ out of that commandment.

The reason is, that they marry for their parents, and love for themselves. They exact fidelity from a lover as a debt of honour, while they pay the husband as a tradesman, that is, not at all. You hear a person's character, male or female, canva.s.sed not as depending on their conduct to their husbands or wives, but to their mistress or lover. If I wrote a quarto, I don't know that I could do more than amplify what I have here noted. It is to be observed that while they do all this, the greatest outward respect is to be paid to the husbands, not only by the ladies, but by their Serventi--particularly if the husband serves no one himself (which is not often the case, however); so that you would often suppose them relations--the Servente making the figure of one adopted into the family. Sometimes the ladies run a little restive and elope, or divide, or make a scene: but this is at starting, generally, when they know no better, or when they fall in love with a foreigner, or some such anomaly,--and is always reckoned unnecessary and extravagant.

"You enquire after Dante's Prophecy: I have not done more than six hundred lines, but will vaticinate at leisure.

"Of the bust I know nothing. No cameos or seals are to be cut here or elsewhere that I know of, in any good style. Hobhouse should write himself to Thorwaldsen: the bust was made and paid for three years ago.

"Pray tell Mrs. Leigh to request Lady Byron to urge forward the transfer from the funds. I wrote to Lady Byron on business this post, addressed to the care of Mr. D. Kinnaird."

LETTER 358. TO MR. BANKES.

"Ravenna, February 26. 1820.

"Pulci and I are waiting for you with impatience; but I suppose we must give way to the attraction of the Bolognese galleries for a time. I know nothing of pictures myself, and care almost as little: but to me there are none like the Venetian--above all, Giorgione. I remember well his Judgment of Solomon in the Mariscalchi in Bologna. The real mother is beautiful, exquisitely beautiful. Buy her, by all means, if you can, and take her home with you: put her in safety: for be a.s.sured there are troublous times brewing for Italy; and as I never could keep out of a row in my life, it will be my fate, I dare say, to be over head and ears in it; but no matter, these are the stronger reasons for coming to see me soon.

"I have more of Scott's novels (for surely they are Scott's) since we met, and am more and more delighted. I think that I even prefer them to his poetry, which (by the way) I redde for the first time in my life in your rooms in Trinity College.

"There are some curious commentaries on Dante preserved here, which you should see. Believe me ever, faithfully and most affectionately, yours," &c.

LETTER 359. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 1. 1820.

"I sent you by last post the translation of the first Canto of the Morgante Maggiore, and wish you to ask Rose about the word 'sbergo,' _i.e._ 'usbergo,' which I have translated _cuira.s.s_. I suspect that it means _helmet_ also. Now, if so, which of the senses is best accordant with the text? I have adopted cuira.s.s, but will be amenable to reasons. Of the natives, some say one, and some t'other: but they are no great Tuscans in Romagna. However, I will ask Sgricci (the famous improvisatore) to-morrow, who is a native of Arezzo. The Countess Guiccioli who is reckoned a very cultivated young lady, and the dictionary, say _cuira.s.s_. I have written cuira.s.s, but _helmet_ runs in my head nevertheless--and will run in verse very well, whilk is the princ.i.p.al point. I will ask the Sposa Spina Spinelli, too, the Florentine bride of Count Gabriel Rusponi, just imported from Florence, and get the sense out of somebody.

"I have just been visiting the new Cardinal, who arrived the day before yesterday in his legation. He seems a good old gentleman, pious and simple, and not quite like his predecessor, who was a bon-vivant, in the worldly sense of the words.

"Enclosed is a letter which I received some time ago from Dallas.

It will explain itself. I have not answered it. This comes of doing people good. At one time or another (including copyrights) this person has had about fourteen hundred pounds of my money, and he writes what he calls a posthumous work about me, and a scrubby letter accusing me of treating him ill, when I never did any such thing. It is true that I left off letter-writing, as I have done with almost everybody else; but I can't see how that was misusing him.

"I look upon his epistle as the consequence of my not sending him another hundred pounds, which he wrote to me for about two years ago, and which I thought proper to withhold, he having had his share, methought, of what I could dispone upon others.

"In your last you ask me after my articles of domestic wants; I believe they are as usual: the bull-dogs, magnesia, soda-powders, tooth-powders, brushes, and every thing of the kind which are here unattainable. You still ask me to return to England: alas! to what purpose? You do not know what you are requiring. Return I must, probably, some day or other (if I live), sooner or later; but it will not be for pleasure, nor can it end in good. You enquire after my health and SPIRITS in large letters: my health can't be very bad, for I cured myself of a sharp tertian ague, in three weeks, with cold water, which had held my stoutest gondolier for months, notwithstanding all the bark of the apothecary,--a circ.u.mstance which surprised Dr. Aglietti, who said it was a proof of great stamina, particularly in so epidemic a season. I did it out of dislike to the taste of bark (which I can't bear), and succeeded, contrary to the prophecies of every body, by simply taking nothing at all. As to _spirits_, they are unequal, now high, now low, like other people's I suppose, and depending upon circ.u.mstances.

"Pray send me W. Scott's new novels. What are their names and characters? I read some of his former ones, at least once a day, for an hour or so. The last are too hurried: he forgets Ravenswood's name, and calls him _Edgar_ and then _Norman_; and Girder, the cooper, is styled now _Gilbert_, and now _John_; and he don't make enough of Montrose; but Dalgetty is excellent, and so is Lucy Ashton, and the b----h her mother. What is _Ivanhoe_? and what do you call his other? are there _two_? Pray make him write at least two a year: I like no reading so well.

"The editor of the Bologna Telegraph has sent me a paper with extracts from Mr. Mulock's (his name always reminds me of Muley Moloch of Morocco) 'Atheism answered,' in which there is a long eulogium of my poesy, and a great 'compatimento' for my misery. I never could understand what they mean by accusing me of irreligion.

However, they may have it their own way. This gentleman seems to be my great admirer, so I take what he says in good part, as he evidently intends kindness, to which I can't accuse myself of being invincible.

"Yours," &c.

LETTER 360. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 5. 1820.

"In case, in your country, you should not readily lay hands on the Morgante Maggiore, I send you the original text of the first Canto, to correspond with the translation which I sent you a few days ago.

It is from the Naples edition in quarto of 1732,--_dated Florence_, however, by a trick of _the trade_, which you, as one of the allied sovereigns of the profession, will perfectly understand without any further spiegazione.

"It is strange that here n.o.body understands the real precise meaning of 'sbergo,' or 'usbergo[68],' an old Tuscan word, which I have rendered _cuira.s.s_ (but am not sure it is not _helmet_). I have asked at least twenty people, learned and ignorant, male and female, including poets, and officers civil and military. The dictionary says _cuira.s.s_, but gives no authority; and a female friend of mine says _positively cuira.s.s_, which makes me doubt the fact still more than before. Ginguene says 'bonnet de fer,' with the usual superficial decision of a Frenchman, so that I can't believe him: and what between the dictionary, the Italian woman, and the Frenchman, there's no trusting to a word they say. The context, too, which should decide, admits equally of either meaning, as you will perceive. Ask Rose, Hobhouse, Merivale, and Foscolo, and vote with the majority. Is Frere a good Tuscan? if he be, bother him too. I have tried, you see, to be as accurate as I well could. This is my third or fourth letter, or packet, within the last twenty days."

[Footnote 68: It has been suggested to me that usbergo is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, &c. all from the German _halsberg_, or covering of the neck.]

LETTER 361. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 14. 1820.

"Enclosed is Dante's Prophecy--Vision--or what not.[69] Where I have left more than one reading (which I have done often), you may adopt that which Gifford, Frere, Rose, and Hobhouse, and others of your Utican Senate think the best or least bad. The preface will explain all that is explicable. These are but the four first cantos: if approved, I will go on.

"Pray mind in printing; and let some good Italian scholar correct the Italian quotations.

"Four days ago I was overturned in an open carriage between the river and a steep bank:--wheels dashed to pieces, slight bruises, narrow escape, and all that; but no harm done, though coachman, foot-man, horses, and vehicle, were all mixed together like macaroni. It was owing to bad driving, as I say; but the coachman swears to a start on the part of the horses. We went against a post on the verge of a steep bank, and capsized. I usually go out of the town in a carriage, and meet the saddle horses at the bridge; it was in going there that we boggled; but I got my ride, as usual, after the accident. They say here it was all owing to St. Antonio of Padua, (serious, I a.s.sure you,)--who does thirteen miracles a day,--that worse did not come of it. I have no objection to this being his fourteenth in the four-and-twenty-hours. He presides over overturns and all escapes therefrom, it seems: and they dedicate pictures, &c. to him, as the sailors once did to Neptune, after 'the high Roman fas.h.i.+on.'

"Yours, in haste."

[Footnote 69: There were in this Poem, originally, three lines of remarkable strength and severity, which, as the Italian poet against whom they were directed was then living, were omitted in the publication. I shall here give them from memory.

"The prost.i.tution of his Muse and wife, Both beautiful, and both by him debased, Shall salt his bread and give him means of life."

LETTER 362. TO MR. MURRAY.

"Ravenna, March 20. 1820.

"Last post I sent you 'The Vision of Dante,'--four first Cantos.

Enclosed you will find, _line for line_, in _third rhyme_ (_terza rima_), of which your British blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, f.a.n.n.y of Rimini. You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from Gary, Boyd, and such people. 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. I shall not allow you to play the tricks you did last year, with the prose you _post_-scribed to Mazeppa, which I sent to you _not_ to be published, if not in a periodical paper,--and there you tacked it, without a word of explanation. If this is published, publish it _with the original_, and _together_ with the _Pulci_ translation, _or_ the _Dante imitation_. I suppose you have both by now, and the _Juan_ long before.

"FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.

"_Translation from the Inferno of Dante, Canto 5th._

"'The land where I was born sits by the seas, Upon that sh.o.r.e 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, and me even yet the mode offends.

Love, who to none beloved to love again Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong, That, as thou seest, yet, yet it doth remain.