Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 45

ON LEAVING AVIGNON

Backward at every weary step and slow These limbs I turn which with great pain I bear; Then take I comfort from the fragrant air That breathes from thee, and sighing onward go.

But when I think how joy is turned to woe, Remembering my short life and whence I fare, I stay my feet for anguish and despair, And cast my tearful eyes on earth below.

At times amid the storm of misery This doubt a.s.sails me: how frail limbs and poor Can severed from their spirit hope to live.

Then answers Love: Hast thou no memory How I to lovers this great guerdon give, Free from all human bondage to endure?

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XII

THOUGHTS IN ABSENCE

The wrinkled sire with hair like winter snow Leaves the beloved spot where he hath pa.s.sed his years, Leaves wife and children, dumb with bitter tears, To see their father's tottering steps and slow.

Dragging his aged limbs with weary woe, In these last days of life he nothing fears, But with stout heart his fainting spirit cheers, And spent and wayworn forward still doth go; Then comes to Rome, following his heart's desire, To gaze upon the portraiture of Him Whom yet he hopes in heaven above to see: Thus I, alas! my seeking spirit tire, Lady, to find in other features dim The longed for, loved, true lineaments of thee.

IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. LII

OH THAT I HAD WINGS LIKE A DOVE!

I am so tired beneath the ancient load Of my misdeeds and custom's tyranny, That much I fear to fail upon the road And yield my soul unto mine enemy.

'Tis true a friend from whom all splendour flowed, To save me came with matchless courtesy: Then flew far up from sight to heaven's abode, So that I strive in vain his face to see.

Yet still his voice reverberates here below: Oh ye who labour, lo! the path is here; Come unto me if none your going stay!

What grace, what love, what fate surpa.s.sing fear Shall give me wings like dove's wings soft as snow, That I may rest and raise me from the clay?

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. XXIV

The eyes whereof I sang my fervid song, The arms, the hands, the feet, the face benign, Which severed me from what was rightly mine, And made me sole and strange amid the throng, The crisped curls of pure gold beautiful, And those angelic smiles which once did s.h.i.+ne Imparadising earth with joy divine, Are now a little dust--dumb, deaf, and dull.

And yet I live! wherefore I weep and wail, Left alone without the light I loved so long, Storm-tossed upon a bark that hath no sail.

Then let me here give o'er my amorous song; The fountains of old inspiration fail, And nought but woe my dolorous chords prolong.

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. x.x.xIV

In thought I raised me to the place where she Whom still on earth I seek and find not, s.h.i.+nes; There 'mid the souls whom the third sphere confines, More fair I found her and less proud to me.

She took my hand and said: Here shalt thou be With me ensphered, unless desires mislead; Lo! I am she who made thy bosom bleed, Whose day ere eve was ended utterly: My bliss no mortal heart can understand; Thee only do I lack, and that which thou So loved, now left on earth, my beauteous veil.

Ah! wherefore did she cease and loose my hand?

For at the sound of that celestial tale I all but stayed in paradise till now.

IN MORTE DI MADONNA LAURA. LXXIV

The flower of angels and the spirits blest, Burghers of heaven, on that first day when she Who is my lady died, around her pressed Fulfilled with wonder and with piety.

What light is this? What beauty manifest?

Marvelling they cried: for such supremacy Of splendour in this age to our high rest Hath never soared from earth's obscurity.

She, glad to have exchanged her spirit's place, Consorts with those whose virtues most exceed; At times the while she backward turns her face To see me follow--seems to wait and plead: Therefore toward heaven my will and soul I raise, Because I hear her praying me to speed.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: We may compare with Venice what is known about the ancient h.e.l.lenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.]

[Footnote 2: His first wife was a daughter of the great general of the Venetians against Francesco Sforza. Whether Sigismondo murdered her, as Sansovino seems to imply in his _Famiglie Ill.u.s.tri_, or whether he only repudiated her after her father's execution on the Piazza di San Marco, admits of doubt. About the question of Sigismondo's marriage with Isotta there is also some uncertainty. At any rate she had been some time his mistress before she became his wife.]

[Footnote 3: For the place occupied in the evolution of Italian scholars.h.i.+p by this Greek sage, see my 'Revival of Learning,' _Renaissance in Italy_, part 2.]

[Footnote 4: The account of this church given by aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pii Secondi, Comment., ii. 92) deserves quotation: 'aedificavit tamen n.o.bile templum Arimini in honorem divi Francisci, verum ita gentilibus operibus implevit, ut non tam Christianorum quam infidelium daemones adorantium templum esse videatur.']

[Footnote 5: Almost all the facts of Alberti's life are to be found in the Latin biography included in Muratori. It has been conjectured, and not without plausibility, by the last editor of Alberti's complete works, Bonucci, that this Latin life was penned by Alberti himself.]

[Footnote 6: There is in reality no doubt or problem about this Saint Clair. She was born in 1275, and joined the Augustinian Sisterhood, dying young, in 1308, as Abbess of her convent. Continual and impa.s.sioned meditation on the Pa.s.sion of our Lord impressed her heart with the signs of His suffering which have been described above. I owe this note to the kindness of an anonymous correspondent, whom I here thank.]

[Footnote 7: The balance of probability leans against Isabella in this affair. At the licentious court of the Medici she lived with unpardonable freedom. Troilo Orsini was himself a.s.sa.s.sinated in Paris by Bracciano's orders a few years afterwards.]

[Footnote 8: I have amplified and corrected this chronicle by the light of Professor Gnoli's monograph, _Vittoria Accoramboni_, published by Le Monnier at Florence in 1870.]

[Footnote 9: In dealing with Webster's tragedy, I have adhered to his use and spelling of names.]

[Footnote 10: The fresco of the Coronation of the Virgin upon the semi-dome of S. Giovanni is the work of a copyist, Cesare Aretusi. But part of the original fresco, which was removed in 1684, exists in a good state of preservation at the end of the long gallery of the library.]

[Footnote 11: See the chapter on Euripides in my _Studies of Greek Poets_, First Series, for a further development of this view of artistic evolution.]

[Footnote 12: I find that this story is common in the country round Canossa. It is mentioned by Professor A.

Ferretti in his monograph ent.i.tled _Canossa, Studi e Ricerche_, Reggio, 1876, a work to which I am indebted, and which will repay careful study.]

[Footnote 13: Charles claimed under the will of Rene of Anjou, who in turn claimed under the will of Joan II.]

[Footnote 14: For an estimate of Cosimo's services to art and literature, his collection of libraries, his great buildings, his generosity to scholars, and his promotion of Greek studies, I may refer to my _Renaissance in Italy_: 'The Revival of Learning,' chap. iv.]

[Footnote 15: Giottino had painted the Duke of Athens, in like manner, on the same walls.]

[Footnote 16: See _Archivio Storico_.]

[Footnote 17: The order of rhymes runs thus: _a, b, b, a, a, b, b, a, c, d, c, d, c, d_; or in the terzets, _c, d, e, c, d, e_, or _c, d, e, d, c, e_, and so forth.]

[Footnote 18: It has extraordinary interest for the student of our literary development, inasmuch as it is full of experiments in metres, which have never thriven on English soil. Not to mention the attempt to write in asclepiads and other cla.s.sical rhythms, we might point to Sidney's _terza rima_, poems with _sdrucciolo_ or treble rhymes. This peculiar and painful form he borrowed from Ariosto and Sanazzaro; but even in Italian it cannot be handled without sacrifice of variety, without impeding the metrical movement and marring the sense.]

[Footnote 19: The stately structure of the _Prothalamion_ and _Epithalamion_ is a rebuilding of the Italian Canzone.