Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 39

_Nel chiaro fiume_.

Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant I went a fis.h.i.+ng all alone one day, And spied three maidens bathing there at play.

Of love they told each other honeyed stories, While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet.

Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leaf.a.ge, Till one who spied a rustling branch on high, Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry, And 'Go! Nay, prithee go!' she called to me: 'To stay were surely but scant courtesy.'

_Quel sole che nutrica._

The sun which makes a lily bloom, Leans down at times on her to gaze-- Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: Then, having looked a little while, He turns and tells the saints in bliss How marvellous her beauty is.

Thus up in heaven with flute and string Thy loveliness the angels sing.

_Di novo e giunt'._

Lo: here hath come an errant knight On a barbed charger clothed in mail: His archers scatter iron hail.

At brow and breast his mace he aims; Who therefore hath not arms of proof, Let him live locked by door and roof; Until Dame Summer on a day That grisly knight return to slay.

Poliziano's treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was comparatively popular. But in his poem of 'La Giostra,' written to commemorate the victory of Giuliano de' Medici in a tournament and to celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse. The slight and uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto's golden cantos, might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, beautiful with colours not their own. The mind of Poliziano held, as it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the riches of his native literature. In that vast reservoir of poems and mythologies and phrases, so patiently acc.u.mulated, so tenaciously preserved, so thoroughly a.s.similated, he plunged the trivial subject he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the _spolia opima_ of scholars.h.i.+p and taste. What mattered it that the theme was slight? The art was perfect, the result splendid. One canto of 125 stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pa.s.s his life among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be ensnared by Cupid. The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first Iliad. The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to be won by Giuliano in the tournament. But it stops abruptly. The tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano's panegyric by the murder of his hero. Meanwhile the poet had achieved his purpose. His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and the modern world. To render into worthy English the harmonies of Poliziano is a difficult task. Yet this must be attempted if an English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the Italian poet's art. In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it were, at the mid point between the 'Hippolytus' of Euripides and Shakspere's 'Venus and Adonis.' The cold hunter Giuliano is to see Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her. This is how he first discovers the triumphant beauty:[33]

White is the maid, and white the robe around her, With buds and roses and thin gra.s.ses pied; Enwreathed folds of golden tresses crowned her, Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride:

The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her, To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild, And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.

After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet's style is more apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture:--

Reclined he found her on the swarded gra.s.s In jocund mood; and garlands she had made Of every flower that in the meadow was, Or on her robe of many hues displayed; But when she saw the youth before her pa.s.s, Raising her timid head awhile she stayed; Then with her white hand gathered up her dress, And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness.

Then through the dewy field with footstep slow The lingering maid began to take her way, Leaving her lover in great fear and woe, For now he longs for nought but her alway: The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go, Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay; And thus at last, all trembling, all afire, In humble wise he breathes his soul's desire:

'Whoe'er thou art, maid among maidens queen, G.o.ddess, or nymph--nay, G.o.ddess seems most clear-- If G.o.ddess, sure my Dian I have seen; If mortal, let thy proper self appear!

Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien; I have no merit that I should be here!

What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?'

A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother's palace stands. In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say how much of Ariosto's Alcina and Ta.s.so's Armida is contained? Cupid arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano's conquest. From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are chiefly those of detail. They are, however, very great. How perfect, for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following description of a country life:--

BOOK I. STANZAS 17-21.

How far more safe it is, how far more fair, To chase the flying deer along the lea; Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair, Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air, The gra.s.s and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free; To hear the birds wake from their winter trance, The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance.

How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot, While in thick pleached shade the shepherd sung His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute; To mark, mid dewy gra.s.s, red apples flung, And every bough thick set with ripening fruit, The b.u.t.ting rams, kine lowing o'er the lea, And cornfields waving like the windy sea.

Lo! how the rugged master of the herd Before his flock unbars the wattled cote; Then with his rod and many a rustic word He rules their going: or 'tis sweet to note The delver, when his toothed rake hath stirred The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote; Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone, Spins, while she keeps her geese 'neath yonder stone.

After such happy wise, in ancient years, Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold; Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers' tears For sons in war's fell labour stark and cold; Nor trusted they to s.h.i.+ps the wild wind steers, Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold; Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore.

Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursed thirst Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: Joyous in liberty they lived at first; Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth; Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst The bond of law, and pity banned and worth; Within their b.r.e.a.s.t.s sprang luxury and that rage Which men call love in our degenerate age.

We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot deny him the t.i.tle of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:--

STANZAS 99-107.

In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean, The seed deific from Olympus sown, Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown; Thence, born at last by movements hymenean, Rises a maid more fair than man hath known; Upon her sh.e.l.l the wanton breezes waft her; She nears the sh.o.r.e, while heaven looks down with laughter

Seeing the carved work you would cry that real Were sh.e.l.l and sea, and real the winds that blow; The lightning of the G.o.ddess' eyes you feel, The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal, With loosened curls that to the breezes flow; Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces, E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces.

Well might you swear that on those waves were riding The G.o.ddess with her right hand on her hair, And with the other the sweet apple hiding; And that beneath her feet, divinely fair, Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing; Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare, The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her, Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.

The one, with hands above her head upraised, Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath, With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed; The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath; The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing Among the G.o.ds with dance and carolling.

Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres, Seated upon a cloud of silvery white; The trembling of the cloven air appears Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright; The G.o.ds drink in with open eyes and ears Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight; Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze-- Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze.

The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by Cupid:--

STANZAS 122--124.

Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid, Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace; He, lying back within her bosom, fed His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;

Roses above them like a cloud were shed, To reinforce them in the amorous chace; While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed, A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.

Above, around, young Loves on every side Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro; And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed, Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow; One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied To pour them on the couch that lay below; Another, poised upon his pinions, through The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:

For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing, The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;-- Thus none was weary of glad gambolling; Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed, Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling His languid arms, and with his winnowing made Her heart burn:--very glad and bright of face, But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.

These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting.

Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with bright tints and mult.i.tudinous small figures in a s.p.a.cious landscape.

Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became possessed of cla.s.sic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it.

Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last cla.s.s belong the two next extracts:--

STANZAS 104--107.

In the last square the great artificer Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm; Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her, Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm: Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir, Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm; Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.

Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull, Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: She turns toward the sh.o.r.e that disappears, With frightened gesture; and the wonderful Gold curls about her bosom and her ears Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne; This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.

With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress, She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: So, imaged in a shape of drear distress, In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries; They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: Europa, sounds the sh.o.r.e, bring back our bliss But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.

Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower, Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain, To work his amorous will in secret hour; Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain, Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign; The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned, Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.

STANZAS 110--112.

Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies, And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains.

And of the air and slumber's treacheries; Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain.

And quivers by the mere 'neath breezy skies: Her very speechless att.i.tude complains-- No beast there is so cruel as thou art, No beast less loyal to my broken heart.

Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine, Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven, Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements, Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements.