Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 44

Thou s.n.a.t.c.h the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive!

Cast down this doeskin and that hide!

We'll wreak our fury on the knave!

Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave!

He shall yield up his hide Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive!

No power his life can save; Since women he hath dared deride!

Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!

[ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS _then return._

A MAENAD.

Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this!

Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: So that each root is slaked with blood of his: Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling!

Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!

CHORUS OF MAENADS.

Bacchus! we all must follow thee!

Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!

With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, Crown we our heads to wors.h.i.+p thee!

Thou hast bidden us to make merry Day and night with jollity!

Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, And hand ye the drinking-cup to me!

Bacchus! we all must follow thee!

Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!

See, I have emptied my horn already: Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady?

Or is it my brain that reels away?

Let every one run to and fro through the hay, As ye see me run! Ho! after me!

Bacchus! we all must follow thee!

Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!

Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: Am I drunken or sober, yes or no?

What are these weights my feet enc.u.mber?

You too are tipsy, well I know!

Let every one do as ye see me do, Let every one drink and quaff like me!

Bacchus! we all must follow thee!

Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!

Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, Tossing wine down your throats away!

Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may!

Dancing is over for me to-day.

Let every one cry aloud Evohe!

Bacchus! we all must follow thee!

Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohe! Ohe!

Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the 'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the rustic elegance of Aristaeus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited presentation of the Baccha.n.a.lian _furore_ in the Maenads, an attempt to model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet sympathetic to its anguish, these points const.i.tute the chief dramatic features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that pa.s.sage where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the pa.s.sionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a _tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the Cortonese painter.

If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the pa.s.sion, approaching to madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor creature, and that the Maenads served him right. Nothing ill.u.s.trates the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest pa.s.sage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a b.u.t.terfly upon the wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to oblivion.

_NOTE_

Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Ca.n.a.le, the husband of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time to time up to the year 1776, it carried the t.i.tle of 'La Favola di Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the 'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Maenads are either omitted or represented by pa.s.sages in _ottava rima_. In the year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Aff printed at Venice a new version of 'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally ent.i.tled 'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Herocus,' 'Necromanticus,' and 'Baccha.n.a.lis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the second version, first given to the press by the Padre Aff, was Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 (part of the first lyric of the Maenads) the Italian gives us:--

Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.

This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I have, however, preferred to translate thus:--

Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,

instead of giving:--

Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,

because I thought that the second and faithful version would be unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.

_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_

ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON

Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire!

Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies!

Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, That maddenest men with fears and fell desire!

O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase!

Thou living h.e.l.l! Wonders will never cease If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire.

Founded in chaste and humble poverty, Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride?

Even from foul and loathed adultery, The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return!

Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.

TO STEFANO COLONNA

WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE

Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, Where musing oft I climb by fancy led.

These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI