Renaissance in Italy Volume IV Part 33

The love lamentations of Prasildo, the love-languors of Angelica, the frenzy of Marfisa, the wrath of Ferraguto, the truculency of Rodamonte, the impish craft of Brunello, Origille's cunning, Brandimarte's fervor, Ruggiero's impatience to try his strength in the tournament, and his sudden ecstasy of love for Brandiamante--these and a hundred other instances of vigorous dramatic presentation could be mentioned. In his pictures of scenery and descriptions Boiardo follows nature no less faithfully--and this, be it remembered, in an age which refined on nature and admitted into art only certain chosen phases of her loveliness. Of affectation and elaboration he has none. The freshness of authentic vision gives peculiar vividness to the storm that overtakes Rodamonte in mid-channel; to the garden of Falerina, where Orlando stuffs his cask with roses in order to stop his ears against a Siren's song; to the picture of Morgana combing Ziliante's hair in the midst of her enchanted meadows, and to the scene in which Angelica greets Orlando with a perfumed bath after the battle.[587] The charm of Boiardo's poetry consists in its firm grasp on truth and nature, the spontaneity and immediateness of its painting. He has none of Poliziano's richness, no Virgilian dignity or sweetness, no smooth and sparkling fluency like that of Ariosto. But all that he writes has in it the perfume of the soil, the freedom of the open air; the spirits of the woods and sea and stars are in it. Of his style the most striking merit is rapidity.

Almost always unpolished, sometimes even coa.r.s.e, but invariably spirited and masculine, his verse leaps onward like a grayhound in its swiftness.

Story succeeds story with extraordinary speed; and whether of love or arms, they are equally well told. The pathetic novel of Tisbina, Rinaldo's wondrous combat with the griffins and the giants, the lion-hunt at Biserta, the mustering of Agramante's lieges, and the flux and reflux of battle before Montalbano tax the vivid and elastic vigor of Boiardo in five distinct species of rapid narration; and in all of them he proves himself more than adequate to the strain. For ornaments he cared but little, nor did he wait to elaborate similes. A lion at bay, a furious bull, a river foaming to the sea, a swollen torrent, two battling winds, a storm of hail, the clash of thunderclouds, an earthquake, are the figures he is apt to use. The descriptions of Rinaldo, Marfisa and Orlando, may be cited as favorable specimens of his ill.u.s.trative metaphors.[588] Short phrases like _a guisa di leone_, _a guisa di colomba_, _a guisa di serpente_, _a guisa d'uno drago_, _a guisa di castello_, indicate in outline images that aid the poet's thought. But nothing like the polish or minuteness of Ariosto's highly-wrought comparisons can be found in the _Innamorato_. Boiardo's study of the cla.s.sics had not roused him to the emulation of their decorative beauties. Nor, again, did he attend to cadence in his versification. He would have wondered at the _limae labor_ of the poets who came after him. His own stanzas are forcible, swift, fiery, never pompous or voluptuous, liquid or sonorous. The changes wrought by Poliziano in the structure of _ottava rima_, his majesty and "linked sweetness long drawn out," were unknown to Boiardo. Yet those rugged octaves, in spite of their halting pauses at the end of the fifth line, in spite of their frequent repet.i.tions and inequalities of volume, are better adapted to the spirit of his medieval subject-matter than the sumptuous splendor of more polished versifiers. His diction, in like manner, judged by the standard of the _cinque cento_, is far from choice--loaded with Lombardisms, gaining energy and vividness at the expense of refinement and precision. Thus style and spirit alike removed him from the sympathies of the correct and cla.s.sic age that followed.

For the student of the earlier Renaissance Boiardo's art has one commanding point of interest. In the romantic treatment of antique motives he is unique. It was the aim of Italian poets after Boccaccio to effect a fusion between the cla.s.sical and modern styles, and to ingraft the beauties of antique literature upon their own language. Boiardo, far more a child of nature than either Boccaccio or Poliziano, with deeper sympathy for feudal traditions and chivalrous modes of feeling, attacked this problem from a point of view directly opposite to theirs. His comprehensive study of Greek and Roman authors had stored his mind with legends which gave an impulse to the freedom of his own imagination. He did not imitate the ancients; but used the myths with so much novelty and delicate perception of their charm, that beneath his touch they a.s.sumed a fresh and fascinating quality. There is nothing grotesque in his presentation of h.e.l.lenic fancy, nothing corresponding to the medieval transformation of deities into devils; and yet his spirit is not cla.s.sical. His Sphinx, his Cyclops, and his Circe-Dragontina, his Medusa, his Pegasus, his Centaur, his Atalanta, his Satyr, are living creatures of romantic wonderland, with just enough of cla.s.sic gracefulness to remove them from the murky atmosphere of medieval superst.i.tion into the serene ether of a neo-pagan mythology. Nothing can be more dissimilar from Ovid, more unlike the forms of Graeco-Roman sculpture. With his firm grasp upon reality, Boiardo succeeded in naturalizing these cla.s.sic fancies. They are not copied, but drawn from the life of the poet's imagination. A good instance of this creative faculty is the description of the Faun, who haunts the woodland in the shade of leaves, and lives on fruits and drinks the stream, and weeps when the sky is fair, because he then fears bad weather, but laughs when it rains, because he knows the sun will s.h.i.+ne again.[589] It is not easy to find an exact a.n.a.logue in the sister arts to this poetry, though some points in the work of Botticelli and Piero di Cosimo, some early engravings by Robeta and the Master of the Caduceus, some ba.s.s-reliefs of Amadeo or incrustations on the chapel-walls of S. Francesco at Rimini, a Circe by Dosso Dossi in the Borghese palace at Rome, an etching of Mantegna here or there, might be quoted in ill.u.s.tration of its spirit.[590] Better justice can be done to Boiardo's achievement by citation than by critical description. The following stanzas are a picture of Love attended by the Graces, punis.h.i.+ng Rinaldo for his rudeness near the Font of Merlin[591]:

When to the leafy wood his feet were brought, Towards Merlin's Font at once he took his way; Unto the font that changes amorous thought Journeyed the Paladin without delay; But a new sight, the which he had not sought, Caused him upon the path his feet to stay.

Within the wood there is a little close Full of pink flowers, and white, and various:

And in the midst thereof a naked boy, Singing, took solace with surpa.s.sing cheer; Three ladies round him, as around their joy, Danced naked in the light so soft and clear.

No sword, no s.h.i.+eld, hath been his wonted toy; Brown are his eyes; yellow his curls appear; His downy beard hath scarce begun to grow: One saith 'tis there, and one might answer, No!

With violets, roses, flowers of every dye, Baskets they filled and eke their beauteous hands: Then as they dance in joy and amity, The Lord of Montalbano near them stands: Whereat, "Behold the traitor!" loud they cry, Soon as they mark the foe within their bands; "Behold the thief, the scorner of delight, Caught in the trap at last in sorry plight!"

Then with their baskets all with one consent Upon Rinaldo like a tempest bore: One flings red roses, one with violets blent Showers lilies, hyacinths, fast as she can pour: Each flower in falling with strange pain hath rent His heart and p.r.i.c.ked his marrow to the core, Lighting a flame in every smitten part, As though the flowers concealed a fiery dart.

The boy who, naked, coursed along the sod, Emptied his basket first, and then began, Wielding a long-grown leafy lily rod, To scourge the helmet of the tortured man: No aid Rinaldo found against the G.o.d, But fell to earth as helpless children can; The youth who saw him fallen, by the feet Seized him, and dragged him through the meadow sweet.

And those three dames had each a garland rare Of roses; one was red and one was white: These from their snowy brows and foreheads fair They tore in haste, to beat the writhing knight: In vain he cried and raised his hands in prayer; For still they struck till they were tired quite: And round about him on the sward they went, Nor ceased from striking till the morn was spent.

Nor ma.s.sy cuira.s.s, nor stout plate of steel, Could yield defense against those bitter blows: His flesh was swollen with many a livid weal Beneath his mail, and with such fiery woes Inflamed as spirits d.a.m.ned in h.e.l.l may feel; Yet theirs, upon my troth, are fainter throes: Wherefore that Baron, sore, and scant of breath, For pain and fear was well-nigh brought to death.

Nor whether they were G.o.ds or men he knew; Nor prayer, nor courage, nor defense availed, Till suddenly upon their shoulders grew And budded wings with gleaming gold engrailed, Radiant with crimson, white, and azure blue; And with a living-eye each plume was tailed, Not like a peac.o.c.k's or a bird's, but bright And tender as a girl's with love's delight.

Then after small delay their flight they took, And one by one soared upward to the sky, Leaving Rinaldo sole beside the brook.

Full bitterly that Baron 'gan to cry, For grief and dole so great his bosom shook That still it seemed that he must surely die; And in the end so fiercely raged his pain That like a corpse he fell along the plain.

This is a fine painting in the style I have attempted to characterize--the imagery of the Greek mythology taking a new and natural form of fanciful romance. It is alien to anything in antique poetry or sculpture. Yet the poet's imagination had been touched to finest issues by the spirit of the Greeks before he wrote it. Incapable of transplanting the flowers of antiquity like delicate exotics into the conservatory of studied art, he acclimatized them to the air of thought and feeling in which his own romantic spirit breathed. This distinguishes him from Poliziano, whose stately poem, like the palm-house in Kew Gardens, contains specimens of all the fairest species gathered from the art of Greece and Rome. Even more exquisitely instinct with the first April freshness of Renaissance feeling is another episode, where Boiardo presents the old tale of Narcissus under a wholly new and original aspect. By what strange freak of fancy has he converted Echo into an Empress of the East and added the pathos of the fairy Silvanella, whose petulance amid her hopeless love throws magic on the well! We are far away indeed from the Pompeian frescoes here[592]:

Beyond the bridge there was a little close All round the marble of that fountain fair; And in the midst a sepulcher arose, Not made by mortal art, however rare: Above in golden letters ran the gloss, Which said, "That soul is vain beyond compare That falls a-doting on his own sweet eyes.

Here in the tomb the boy Narcissus lies."

Erewhile Narcissus was a damozel So graceful, and of beauty so complete, That no fair painted form adorable Might with his perfect loveliness compete; Yet not less fair than proud, as poets tell, Seeing that arrogance and beauty meet Most times, and thus full well with mickle woe The laity of love is taught to know.

So that the Empress of the Orient Doting upon Narcissus beyond measure, And finding him on love so little bent, So cruel and so careless of all pleasure, Poor wretch, her dolorous days in weeping spent, Craving from morn till eve of love the treasure, Praying vain prayers of power from Heaven to turn The very sun, and make him cease to burn.

Yet all these words she cast upon the wind; For he, heart-hardened, would not hear her moan, More than the asp, both deaf to charms and blind.

Wherefore by slow degrees more feeble grown, Toward death she daily dwindling sank and pined; But ere she died, to Love she cried alone, Pouring sad sighs forth with her latest breath, For vengeance for her undeserved death.

And this Love granted: for beside the stream Of which I spoke, Narcissus happed to stray While hunting, and perceived its silvery gleam; Then having chased the deer a weary way, He leaned to drink, and saw as though in dream, His face, ne'er seen by him until that day; And as he gazed, such madness round him floated, That with fond love on his fair self he doted.

Whoever heard so strange a story told?

Justice of Love! how true, how strong it is!

Now he stands sighing by the fountain cold For what he hath, yet never can be his!

He that was erst so hard as stone of old, Whom ladies like a G.o.d on bended knees Devoutly wooed, imploring him for grace, Now dies of vain desire for his own face.

Poring upon his perfect countenance, Which on this earth hath ne'er a paragon, He pined in deep desire's extravagance, Little by little, like a lily blown, Or like a cropped rose; till, poor boy, the glance, Of his black eyes, his cheek's vermilion, His snowy whiteness, and his gleeful mirth Death froze who freezes all things upon earth.

Then by sad misadventure through the glade The fairy Silvanella took her way; And on the spot where now this tomb is made, Mid flowers the dead youth very beauteous lay: She, marveling at his fair face, wept and stayed In sore discomfiture and cold dismay; Nor could she quit the place, but slowly came To pine and waste for him with amorous flame.

Yea, though the boy was dead, for him she burned: Pity and grief her gentle soul o'erspread: Beside him on the gra.s.s she lay and mourned, Kissing his clay-cold lips and mouth and head.

But at the last her madness she discerned, To love a corpse wherefrom the soul had fled: Yet knows she not, poor wretch, her doom to shun; She fain would love not, yet she must love on.

When all the night and all the following day Were wasted in the torrent of her woes, A comely tomb of marble fair the Fay Built by enchantment in the flowery close; Nor ever from that station would she stray, But wept and mourned; till worn by weary throes, Beside the font within a little s.p.a.ce Like snow before the sun she pined apace.

Yet for relief, or that she might not rue Alone the luckless doom which made her die, E'en mid the pangs of love such charms she threw Upon the font in her malignity, That all who pa.s.sing toward the water drew And gazed thereon, perchance with listless eye, Must in the depth see maiden faces fair, Graceful and soul-inthralling mirrored there.

They in their brows have beauty so entire That he who gazes cannot turn to fly, But in the end must fade of mere desire, And in that field lay himself down to die.

Now it so chanced that by misfortune dire A king, wise, gentle, ardent, pa.s.sed thereby, Together with his true and loving dame; Larbin and Calidora, such their name.

In these stanzas the old vain pa.s.sion of Narcissus for his own beauty lives again a new life of romantic poetry. That the enchantment of the boy's fascination, prolonged through Silvanella's mourning for his death, should linger for ever after in the font that was his tomb, is a peculiarly modern touch of mysterious fancy. This part of the romance has little in common with the cla.s.sic tale of Salmacis; it is far more fragile and refined. The Greeks did not carry their human sympathy with nature, deep and loyal as indeed it was, so far into the border-land of sensual and spiritual things. Haunted hills, like the Venusberg of Tannhauser's legend; haunted waters, like Morgana's lake in Boiardo's poem; the charmed rivers and fountains of naiads, where knights lose their memory and are inclosed in crystal prison-caves; these are essentially modern, the final flower and blossom of the medieval fancy, unfolding stores of old mythology and half-forgotten emblems to the light of day in art.[593] For their perfection it was needful that the G.o.ds of h.e.l.las should have died, and that the phantoms of old-world divinities should linger in dreams and reveries about the sh.o.r.es of young romance.

Boiardo's treatment of magic is complementary to his use of cla.s.sical mythology. He does not employ this important element of medieval art in its simplicity, but adapts it to the nature of his own imagination, adding, as it were, a new quality by the process of a.s.similation. Some of his machinery belongs, indeed, to the poems of his predecessors, or is framed in harmony with their spirit. The enchantment of Durlindana and Baiardo; the invulnerability of Orlando, Ferraguto, and other heroes; the wizardry of Malagise, Mambrino's helmet, Morgana's stag, the horse Rabicano, Argalia's lance, Angelica's ring, and the countless dragons and giants which Boiardo creates at pleasure, may be mentioned in this category. But it is otherwise with the gardens of Falerina and Dragontina, the sublacustrine domain of Fata Morgana, and the caverns of the Naiades. These, however much they may have once belonged to medieval tradition, have been alchemized by the imagination of the poet of the Renaissance. They are glimpses into ideal fairyland, which Ariosto and Ta.s.so could but refine upon and vary in their famous gardens of Alcina and Armida. Boiardo's use of the old tradition of Merlin's fountain, and the other well of Cupid feigned by him beside it, might again be chosen to ill.u.s.trate his free poetic treatment of magical motives. When he trespa.s.ses on these enchanted regions, then and then only does he approach allegory. The quest of the tree guarded by Medusa in Tisbina's story; the achievement by Orlando of Morgana's garden, where Penitence and Fortune play their parts; and Rinaldo's encounter with Cupid in the forest of Ardennes, have obviously allegorical elements. Yet the hidden meaning is in each case less important than the adventure; and the same may be said about the highly tragic symbolism of the monster in the Rocca Crudele.[594] Boiardo had too vivid a sympathy with nature and humanity to appreciate the mysteries which allured the Northern poets of _Parzival_, the _Sangraal_, and the _Faery Queen_. When he lapses into allegory, it is with him a sign of weakness. Akin, perhaps, to this disregard for parable is the freedom of his spirit from all superst.i.tion. The religion of his knights is bluff, simple, and sincere, in no sense savoring of the cloister and the cowl. A high sense of truth and personal honor, indifference to life for life's sake, profound humility in danger, charity impelling men of power to succor the oppressed and feeble, are the fruits of their piety. But of penance for sins of the flesh, of ceremonial observances, of visions and fasts, of ascetic discipline and wonder-working images, of all the ecclesiastical trumpery with which the pseudo-Turpin is filled, and which contaminates even the _Mort d'Arthur_ of our heroic Mallory, we read nothing.

In taking up the thread of Boiardo's narrative, Ariosto made use of all his predecessor had invented. He adopted the machinery of the two fountains, the lance of Argalia, Angelica's ring, Rabicane, and the magic arts of Atalante. The characters of the _Innamorato_ reappear with slight but subtle changes and with somewhat softened names in the _Furioso_.[595] Ariosto, again, followed Boiardo closely in his peculiar method of interweaving _novelle_ with the main narrative; of suspending one story to resume another at a critical moment; of prefacing his cantos with reflections, and of concluding them with a courteous license.[596] Lastly, Ariosto is at great pains, while connecting his poem with the _Innamorato_, to make it intelligible by giving short abstracts at intervals of the previous action. Yet throughout this long laborious work of continuation he preserves a studied silence respecting the poet to whom he owed so much. Was this due to the desire of burying Boiardo's fame beneath his own? Did he so contrive that the contemporary repute of the _Innamorato_ should serve to float his _Furioso_ and then be forgotten by posterity? If so, he calculated wisely; for this is what almost immediately happened. Though the _Orlando Innamorato_ was printed four times before 1513--once at Venice in 1486, once at Scandiano in 1495, and again at Venice in 1506, 1511, and 1513--and though it continued to be reprinted at Venice through the first half of the sixteenth century, yet the sudden silence of the press after this period shows that the _Furioso_ had eclipsed Boiardo's fame. Still the integral connection between the two poems could not be overlooked; and just about the period of Ariosto's death, Frances...o...b..rni conceived the notion of rewriting Boiardo's epic with the expressed intention of correcting its diction and rendering it more equal in style to the _Orlando Furioso_. This _rifacimento_ was published in 1541, after his death. The mysterious circ.u.mstances that attended its publication, and the nature of the changes introduced by Berni into the substance of Boiardo's poem, will be touched upon when we arrive at this ill.u.s.trious writer of burlesque verse. It is enough to mention here that Berni's version was printed twice between 1541 and 1545, and that then, like the original, it fell into comparative oblivion till the end of the last century. Meanwhile the second _rifacimento_ by Domenichi appeared in 1545; and though this new issue was a mere piece of impudent book-making, it superseded Berni's masterpiece during the next two hundred years. The critics of the last century rediscovered Berni's _rifacimento_, and began to quote Boiardo's poem under his name, treating the real author as an ignorant and uncouth writer of a barbarous dialect. Thus one of the most original poets of the fifteenth century, to whom Italy owes the form and substance of the _Furioso_, has been thrust aside and covered with contempt, by a curious irony of fortune, owing to the very qualities that ought to have insured his immortality. Used by Ariosto as the ladder for ascending to Parna.s.sus; by Berni as an exercising ground for the display of style; by Domenichi as the means of getting his name widely known, the _Orlando Innamorato_ served any purposes but that of its great author's fame. Panizzi, by reprinting the original poem along with the _Orlando Furioso_, restored Boiardo at length to his right place in Italian literature. From that time forward it has been impossible to overlook his merits or to underestimate Ariosto's obligations to so gifted and original a master.

FOOTNOTES:

[512] See p. 406.

[513] This poem relates the adventures of Ciriffo and Il Povero Avveduto, b.a.s.t.a.r.ds of two n.o.ble ladies, and gives the history of a crusade of Louis against the Soldan of Egypt. It was published as the work, as far as the first Book, of Luca Pulci, completed and restored by Bernardo Giambullari. "Il Ciriffo Calvaneo, diviso in iv. Canti, col primo Libro di Luca Pulci, ed il resto riformato per Bernardo Giambullari" (Roma, Mazzocchio, 1514). Luigi Pulci claims a share in it, if not the whole in the _Morgante_, xxviii. 118, 129.

[514] See _Lettere di Luigi Pulci a Lorenzo Il Magnifico_, Lucca, Giusti, 1868. _Sonetti di Matteo Franco e Luigi Pulci_, 1759. The sonnets are indescribably scurrilous, charged with Florentine slang, and loaded with the filthiest abuse. The point of humor is that Franco and Pulci undertook (it is said, for fun) to heap scandals on each other's heads, ransacking the language of the people for its vilest terms of invective. If they began in joke, they ended in earnest; and Lorenzo de' Medici, who had a taste for buffoonery, enjoyed the scuffle of his Court-fools. It was a combat of humanists transferred from the arena of the schools to the market-place, where two men of parts degraded themselves by a.s.suming the character of coal-heavers.

[515] The poetical talents of the Pulci family were hereditary.

Cellini tells us of a Luigi of that name who improvised upon the market-place of Florence.

[516] Turpin's Chronicle consists of thirty-two chapters, relating the wars of Charlemain with the Spanish Moors, the treason of Ganelon, and Roland's death in Roncesvalles. The pagan knight, Ferraguto, and the Christian peers are mentioned by name, proving that at the date of its compilation the whole Carolingian myth was tolerably perfect in the popular imagination.

[517] It has been conjectured by M. Genin, editor of the _Chant de Roland_, not without substantial grounds, that Gui de Bourgogne, bishop of Vienne, afterwards Pope Calixtus II., was himself the pseudo-Turpin.

[518] See _Chanson de Roland_, line 804, and compare _Morg. Magg._ xxvii. 79.

[519] See Ludlow's _Popular Epics of the Middle Ages_, vol. i. p. 412, and M. Genin's Introduction to the _Chanson de Roland_, Paris, 1851.

[520] See Genin (_op. cit._ pp. xxix., x.x.x.) for the traces of the Roland myth in the Pyrenees, at Rolandseck, in England, and at Verona; also for gigantic statues in Germany called Rolands (_ib._ pp. xxi.

xxii.). At Spello, a little town of Umbria between a.s.sisi and Foligno, the people of the place showed me a dint in their ancient town wall, about breast-high, which pa.s.ses for a mark made by Orlando's knee.

There is learned tradition of a phallic monument named after Roland in that place; but I could find no trace of it in local memory.

[521] The _Song of Roland_ does not give this portrait of Charlemagne's dotage. But it is an integral part of the Italian romances, a fixed point in all _rifacimenti_ of the pseudo-Turpin.

[522] Ludlow (_op. cit._ i. 358) translates the Basque Song of Atta-bicar, which relates to some destruction of chivalrous forces by the Pyrenean mountaineers.

[523] See Genin (_op. cit._ pp. xxv.-xxviii.).

[524] Introduction to Panizzi's edition of the _Orlando Innamorato_ and _Orlando Furioso_ (London, Pickering, 1830), vol. i. pp. 126-128.

[525] See Dante, _Inf._ x.x.xii. 61, v. 67, v. 128. Galeotto, Lancelot's go-between with Guinevere, gave his name to a pimp in Italy, as Pandarus to a pander in England. Boccaccio's _Novelliere_ was called _Il Principe Galeotto_. Petrarch in the _Trionfi_ and Boccaccio in the _Amoroso Visione_ make frequent references to the knights of the Round Table. The latter in his _Corbaccio_ mentions the tale of Tristram as a favorite book with idle women. The _Fiammetta_ might be quoted with the same object of proving its wide-spread popularity. The lyrics of Folgore da San Gemignano and other _trecentisti_ would furnish many ill.u.s.trative allusions.

[526] See above, p. 17.