Renaissance in Italy Volume VI Part 36

On April 25, Ta.s.so expired at midnight, with the words _In ma.n.u.s tuas, Domine_, upon his lips. Had Costantini, his sincerest friend, been there, he might have said like Kent:

O, let him pa.s.s! he hates him much That would upon the rack of this tough world Stretch him out longer.

But Costantini was in Mantua; and this sonnet, which he had written for his master, remains Ta.s.so's truest epitaph, the pithiest summary of a life pathetically tragic in its adverse fate--

Friends, this is Ta.s.so, not the sire but son; For he of human offspring had no heed, Begetting for himself immortal seed Of art, style, genius and instruction.

In exile long he lived and utmost need; In palace, temple, school, he dwelt alone; He fled, and wandered through wild woods unknown; On earth, on sea, suffered in thought and deed.

He knocked at death's door; yet he vanquished him With lofty prose and with undying rhyme; But fortune not, who laid him where he lies.

Guerdon for singing loves and arms sublime, And showing truth whose light makes vices dim, Is one green wreath; yet this the world denies.

The wreath of laurel which the world grudged was placed upon his bier; and a simple stone, engraved with the words _Hic jacet Torquatus Ta.s.sus_, marked the spot where he was buried.

The foregoing sketch of Ta.s.so's life and character differs in some points from the prevalent conceptions of the poet. There is a legendary Ta.s.so, the victim of malevolent persecution by pedants, the mysterious lover condemned to misery in prison by a tyrannous duke. There is also a Ta.s.so formed by men of learning upon ingeniously constructed systems; Rosini's Ta.s.so, condemned to feign madness in punishment for courting Leonora d'Este with lascivious verses; Capponi's Ta.s.so, punished for seeking to exchange the service of the House of Este for that of the House of Medici; a Ta.s.so who was wholly mad; a Ta.s.so who remained through life the victim of Jesuitical influences. In short, there are as many Ta.s.sos as there are Hamlets. Yet these Ta.s.sos of the legend and of erudition do not reproduce his self-revealed lineaments. Ta.s.so's letters furnish doc.u.ments of sufficient extent to make the real man visible, though something yet remains perhaps not wholly explicable in his tragedy.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE GERUSALEMME LIBERATA.

Problem of Creating Heroic Poetry--The Preface to Ta.s.so's _Rinaldo_--Subject of _Rinaldo_--Blending of Romantic Motives with Heroic Style--Imitation of Virgil--Melody and Sentiment--Choice of Theme for the _Gerusalemme_--It becomes a Romantic Poem after all--Tancredi the real Hero--n.o.bility of Tone--Virgilian Imitation--Borrowings from Dante--Involved Diction--Employment of Sonorous Polysyllabic Words--Quality of Religious Emotion in this Poem--Rhetoric--Similes--The Grand Style of Pathos--Verbal Music--The Chant d'Amour--Armida--Ta.s.so's Favorite Phrase, _Un non so che_--His Power over Melody and Tender Feeling--Critique of Ta.s.so's Later Poems--General Survey of his Character.

In a previous portion of this work, I attempted to define the Italian Romantic Epic, and traced the tale of Orlando from Pulci through Boiardo and Ariosto to the burlesque of Folengo. There is an element of humor more or less predominant in the _Morgante Maggiore_, the _Orlando Innamorato_, and the _Orlando Furioso_. This element might almost be regarded as inseparable from the species. Yet two circ.u.mstances contributed to alter the character of Italian Romance after the publication of the _Furioso_. One of these was the unapproachable perfection of that poem. No one could hope to surpa.s.s Ariosto in his own style, or to give a fresh turn to his humor without pa.s.sing into broad burlesque. The romantic poet had therefore to choose between sinking into parody with Folengo and Aretino, or soaring into the sublimities of solemn art. Another circ.u.mstance was the keen interest aroused in academic circles by Trissino's unsuccessful epic, and by the discussion of heroic poetry which it stimulated. The Italian nation was becoming critical, and this critical spirit lent itself readily to experiments in hybrid styles of composition which aimed at combining the graces of the Romantic with the dignity of the Heroic poem. The most meritorious of these hybrids was Bernardo Ta.s.so's _Amadigi_, a long romance in octave stanzas, sustained upon a grave tone throughout, and distinguished from the earlier romantic epics by a more obvious unity of subject. Bernardo Ta.s.so possessed qualities of genius and temper which suited his proposed task. Deficient in humor, he had no difficulty in eliminating that element from the _Amadigi_. Chivalrous sentiment took the place of irony; scholarly method supplied the want of wayward fancy.

It was just at this point that the young Torquato Ta.s.so made his first essay in poetry. He had inherited his father's temperament, its want of humor, its melancholy, its aristocratic sensitiveness. At the age of seventeen he was already a ripe scholar, versed in the critical questions which then agitated learned coteries in Italy. The wilding graces and the freshness of the Romantic Epic, as conceived by Boiardo and perfected by Ariosto, had forever disappeared. To 'recapture that first fine careless rapture' was impossible. Contemporary conditions of society and thought rendered any attempt to do so futile. Italy had pa.s.sed into a different stage of culture; and the representative poem of Ta.s.so's epoch was imperatively forced to a.s.sume a different character.

Its type already existed in the _Amadigi_, though Bernardo Ta.s.so had not the genius to disengage it clearly, or to render it attractive. How Torquato, while still a student in his teens at Padua, attacked the problem of narrative poetry, appears distinctly in his preface to _Rinaldo_. 'I believe,' he says, 'that you, my gentle readers, will not take it amiss if I have diverged from the path of modern poets, and have sought to approach the best among the ancients. You shall not, however, find that I am bound by the precise rules of Aristotle, which often render those poems irksome which might otherwise have yielded you much pleasure. I have only followed such of his precepts as do not limit your delight: for instance, in the frequent use of episodes, making the characters talk in their own persons, introducing recognitions and peripeties by necessary or plausible motives, and withdrawing the poet as far as possible from the narration. I have also endeavored to construct my poem with unity of interest and action, not, indeed, in any strict sense, but so that the subordinate portions should be seen to have their due relation to the whole.' He then proceeds to explain why he has abandoned the discourses on moral and general topics with which Ariosto opened his Cantos, and hints that he has taken Virgil, the 'Prince of Poets,' for his model. Thus the Romantic Epic, as conceived by Ta.s.so, was to break with the tradition of the Cantastorie, who told the tale in his own person and introduced reflections on its incidents.

It was to aim at unity of subject and to observe cla.s.sical rules of art, without, however, sacrificing the charm of variety and those delights which episodes and marvelous adventures yielded to a modern audience.

The youthful poet begs that his _Rinaldo_ should not be censured on the one hand by severely Aristotelian critics who exclude pleasure from their ideal, or on the other by amateurs who regard the _Orlando Furioso_ as the perfection of poetic art. In a word, he hopes to produce something midway between the strict heroic epic, which had failed in Trissino's _Italia Liberata_ through dullness, and the genuine romantic epic, which in Ariosto's masterpiece diverged too widely from the rules of cla.s.sical pure taste. This new species, combining the attractions of romance with the simplicity of epic poetry, was the gift which Ta.s.so at the age of eighteen sought to present in his _Rinaldo_ to Italy. The _Rinaldo_ fulfilled fairly well the conditions propounded by its author.

It had a single hero and a single subject--

Canto i felici affanni, e i primi ardori, Che giovinetto ancor soffr Rinaldo, E come il tra.s.se in perigliosi errori Desir di gloria ed amoroso caldo.

The perilous achievements and the pa.s.sion of Rinaldo in his youth form the theme of a poem which is systematically evolved from the first meeting of the son of Amon with Clarice to their marriage under the auspices of Malagigi. There are interesting episodes like those of young Florindo and Olinda, unhappy Clizia and abandoned Floriana. Rinaldo's combat with Orlando in the Christian camp furnishes an anagnorisis; while the plot is brought to its conclusion by the peripeteia of Clarice's jealousy and the accidents which restore her to her lover's arms. Yet though observant of his own cla.s.sical rules, Ta.s.so remained in all essential points beneath the spell of the Romantic Epic. The changes which he introduced were obvious to none but professional critics. In warp and woof the _Rinaldo_ is similar to Boiardo's and Ariosto's tale of chivalry; only the loom is narrower, and the pattern of the web less intricate. The air of artlessness which lent its charm to Romance in Italy has disappeared, yielding place to sustained elaboration of Latinizing style. Otherwise the fabric remains substantially unaltered--like a Gothic dwelling furnished with Palladian window-frames. We move in the old familiar sphere of Paladins and Paynims, knights errant and Oriental damsels, magicians and distressed maidens. The action is impelled by the same series of marvelous adventures and felicitous mishaps. There are the same encounters in war and rivalries in love between Christian and Pagan champions; journeys through undiscovered lands and over untracked oceans; fantastic hyperboles of desire, ambition, jealousy, and rage, employed as motive pa.s.sions. Enchanted forests; fairy s.h.i.+ps that skim the waves without helm or pilot; lances endowed with supernatural virtues; charmed gardens of perpetual spring; dismal dungeons and glittering palaces, supply the furniture of this romance no less than of its predecessors. Rinaldo, like any other hero of the Renaissance, is agitated by burning thirst for fame and blind devotion to a woman's beauty. We first behold him pining in inglorious leisure[64]:--

Poi, ch'oprar non poss'io che di me s'oda Con mia gloria ed onor novella alcuna, O cosa, ond' io pregio n'acquisti e loda, E mia fama rischiari oscura e bruna.

The vision of Clarice, appearing like Virgil's Camilla, stirs him from this lethargy. He falls in love at first sight, as Ta.s.so's heroes always do, and vows to prove himself her worthy knight by deeds of unexampled daring. Thus the plot is put in motion; and we read in well-appointed order how the hero acquired his horse, Baiardo, Tristram's magic lance, his sword Fusberta from Atlante, his armor from Orlando, the trappings of his charger from the House of Courtesy, the ensign of the lion rampant on his s.h.i.+eld from Chiarello, and the hand of his lady after some delays from Malagigi.

[Footnote 64: Canto i. 17.]

No new principle is introduced into the romance. As in earlier poems of this species, the religious motive of Christendom at war with Islam becomes a mere machine; the chivalrous environment affords a vehicle for fanciful adventures. Humor, indeed, is conspicuous by its absence.

Charles the Great a.s.sumes the sobriety of empire; and his camp, in its well-ordered gravity, prefigures that of Goffredo in the _Gerusalemme_.[65] Thus Ta.s.so's originality must not be sought in the material of his work, which is precisely that of the Italian romantic school in general, nor yet in its form, which departs from the romantic tradition in details so insignificant as to be inessential. We find it rather in his touch upon the old material, in his handling of the familiar form. The qualities of style, sympathy, sentiment, selection in the use of phrase and image, which determined his individuality as a poet, rendered the _Rinaldo_ a novelty in literature. It will be therefore well to concentrate attention for a while upon those subjective peculiarities by right of which the _Rinaldo_ ranks as a precursor of the _Gerusalemme_.

The first and the most salient of these is a p.r.o.nounced effort to heighten style by imitation of Latin poets. The presiding genius of the work is Virgil. Pulci's racy Florentine idiom; Boiardo's frank and natural Lombard manner; Ariosto's transparent and unfettered modern phrase, have been supplanted by a pompous intricacy of construction.

[Footnote 65: Canto vi. 64-9.]

The effort to impose Latin rules of syntax on Italian is obvious in such lines as the following:[66]

Torre ei l'immagin volle, che sospesa Era presso l'altar gemmato e sacro, Ove in chiaro cristal lampade accesa Fea lume di Ciprigna al simulacro:

or in these:

Umida i gigli e le vermiglie rose Del volto, e gli occhi bei conversa al piano, Gli occhi, onde in perle accolto il pianto uscia, La giovinetta il cavalier seguia.

Virgil is directly imitated, where he is least worthy of imitation, in the details of his battle-pieces. Thus:[67]

Si riversa Isolier tremando al piano, Privo di senso e di vigore ignudo, Ed a lui gli occhi oscura notte involve, Ed ogni membro ancor se gli dissolve.

Quel col braccio sospeso in aria stando, Ne lo movendo a questa o a quella parte, Che dalla spada ci gli era conteso, Voto sembrava in sacro tempio appeso.

Mentre ignaro di ci che 'l ciel destine, Cos diceva ancor, la lancia ultrice Rinaldo per la bocca entro gli mise, E la lingua e 'l parlar per mezzo incise.

This Virgilian imitation yields some glowing flowers of poetry in longer pa.s.sages of description. Among these may be cited the conquest of Baiardo in the second canto, the s.h.i.+pwreck in the tenth, the chariot of Pluto in the fourth, and the supper with queen Floriana in the ninth.

[Footnote 66: Canto iii. 40, 45.]

[Footnote 67: Canto ii. 22, iv. 28, 33.]

The episode of Floriana, while closely studied upon the Aeneid, is also a first sketch for that of Armida. Indeed, it should be said in pa.s.sing that Ta.s.so antic.i.p.ates the _Gerusalemme_ throughout the _Rinaldo_. The murder of Anselmo by Rinaldo (Canto XI.) forecasts the murder of Gernando by his namesake, and leads to the same result of the hero's banishment. The s.h.i.+pwreck, the garden of courtesy, the enchanted boat, and the charmed forest, are motives which reappear improved and elaborated in Ta.s.so's masterpiece.[68]

While Ta.s.so thus sought to heighten diction by Latinisms, he revealed another specific quality of his manner in _Rinaldo_. This is the inability to sustain heroic style at its ambitious level. He frequently drops at the close of the octave stanza into a prosaic couplet, which has all the effect of bathos. Instances are not far to seek:[69]

Gia tal insegna acquist l'avo, e poi La portar molti de'nipoti suoi.

E a questi segni ed al crin raro e bianco Monstrava esser dagli anni oppresses e stanco.

Fu qui vicin dal saggio Alchiso il Mago, Di far qualch'opra memorabil vago.

Io son Rinaldo, Solo di servir voi bramoso e caldo.

[Footnote 68: _Rinaldo_, cantos x. vii.]

[Footnote 69: Canto i. 25, 31, 41, 64.]

The reduplication of epithets, and the occasional use of long sonorous Latin words, which characterize Ta.s.so's later manner, are also noticeable in these couplets. Side by side with such weak endings should be placed some specimens, no less characteristic, of vigorous and n.o.ble lines:[70]

Nel cor consiston l'armi, Onde il forte non e chi mai disarmi.

Si sta placido e cheto, Ma serba dell'altiero nel mansueto.