Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

The blade: each herb is judged of by its seed.
That land', through which Adice and the Po
Their waters roll, was once the residence
Of courtesy and valour, ere the day 2

That frown'd on Frederick; now secure may pass
Those limits, whosoe'er hath left, for shame,

To talk with good men, or come near their haunts.
Three aged ones are still found there, in whom
The old time3 chides the new: these deem it long
Ere God restore them to a better world:

The good Gherardo1; of Palazzo he,
Conrad; and Guido of Castello", named

In Gallic phrase more fitly the plain Lombard.
On this at last conclude. The church of Rome,
Mixing two governments that ill assort,
Hath miss'd her footing, fallen into the mire7,
And there herself and burden much defiled."

"O Marco!" I replied, "thine arguments
Convince me and the cause I now discern,
Why of the heritage no portion came
To Levi's offspring. But resolve me this:

1 That land.] Lombardy.

2 Ere the day.] Before the Emperor Frederick II. was defeated before Parma, in 1248. G. Villani, lib. vi. cap. 35. 3 The old time.] L'antica età.

It is silly sooth,

And dallies with the innocence of love,
Like the old age.

Shakspeare, Twelfth Night, act ii. sc. 4. 4 The good Gherardo.] Gherardo di Camino, of Trevigi. He is honourably mentioned in our Poet's Convito, p. 173. "Let us suppose that Gherardo da Camino had been the grandson of the meanest hind that ever drank of the Sile or the Cagnano, and that his grandfather was not yet forgotten; who will dare to say that Gherardo da Camino was a mean man, and who will not agree with me in calling him noble? Certainly no one, however presumptuous, will deny this; for such he was, and as such let him ever be remembered." Tiraboschi supposes him to have been the same Gherardo with whom the Provençal poets were used to meet a hospitable reception. "This is probably that same Gherardo, who, together with his sons, so early as before the year 1254, gave a kind and hospitable reception to the Provençal poets." Mr. Mathias's edition, tom. i. p. 137.

5 Conrad.] Currado da Palazzo, a gentleman of Brescia. 6 Guido of Castello.] Of Reggio. All the Italians were called Lombards by the French.

7 Fallen into the mire.] There is a passage resembling this in the De Vulg. Eloq. lib. ii. cap. 4. "Ante omnia ergo dicimus unumquemque debere materiæ pondus propriis humeris excipere æquale, ne forte humerorum nimio gravatam virtutem in cænum cespitare necesse sit."

[ocr errors]

Who that Gherardo is, that as thou sayst
Is left a sample of the perish'd race,
And for rebuke to this untoward age?"
"Either thy words," said he, deceive, or else
Are meant to try me; that thou, speaking Tuscan,
Appear'st not to have heard of good Gherardo ;
The sole addition that, by which I know him;
Unless I borrow'd from his daughter Gaïa1
Another name to grace him. God be with you.
I bear you company no more.

Behold

The dawn with white ray glimmering through the mist.

I must away-the angel comes-ere he

Appear." He said, and would not hear me more.

[ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

The Poet issues from that thick vapour; and soon after his fancy represents to him in lively portraiture some noted examples of anger. This imagination is dissipated by the appearance of an angel, who marshals them onward to the fourth cornice, on which the sin of gloominess or indifference is purged; and here Virgil shows him that this vice proceeds from a defect of love, and that all love can be only of two sorts, either natural, or of the soul; of which sorts the former is always right, but the latter may err either in respect of object or of degree. CALL to remembrance, reader, if thou e'er Hast on an Alpine height2 been ta'en by cloud,

1 His daughter Gaïa.] A lady equally admired for her modesty, the beauty of her person, and the excellency of her talents. Gaïa, says Tiraboschi, may perhaps lay claim to the praise of having been the first among the Italian ladies, by whom the vernacular poetry was cultivated. This appears (although no one has yet named her as a poetess) from the MS. Commentary on the Commedia of Dante, by Giovanni da Serravalle, afterwards bishop of Fermo, where, commenting on Canto xvi. of the Purgatory, he says: istâ Gajâ filiâ dicti boni Gerardi, possent dici multæ landes, quia fuit prudens domina, literata, magni consilii, et magnæ prudentiæ, maximæ pulchritudinis, quæ scivit bene loqui rhytmatice in vulgari."

"De

2 On an Alpine height.] "Nell' alpe." Although the Alps, as Landino remarks, are properly those mountains which divide Italy from France, yet from them all high mountains are in the Tuscan language, though not in the Latin, termed Alps. Milton uses the word thus generally in the Samson Agonistes:

Nor breath of vernal air from snowy Alp. And this is a sufficient answer to the charge of impropriety, which is brought by Doctor Johnson, on the introduction of it into that drama. See the Rambler, No. 140.

Through which thou saw'st no better than the mole
Doth through opacous membrane; then, whene'er
The watery vapours dense began to melt
Into thin air, how faintly the sun's sphere
Seem'd wading through them: so thy nimble thought
May image, how at first I rebeheld

The sun, that bedward now his couch o'erhung.
Thus, with my leader's feet still equaling pace,
From forth that cloud I came, when now expired
The parting beams from off the nether shores.

O quick and forgetive power! that sometimes dost
So rob us of ourselves, we take no mark
Though round about us thousand trumpets clang;
What moves thee, if the senses stir not? Light
Moves thee from heaven, spontaneous, self-inform'd;
Or, likelier, gliding down with swift illapse
By will divine. Portray'd before me came
The traces of her dire impiety,

Whose form was changed into the bird, that most
Delights itself in song1: and here my mind
Was inwardly so wrapt, it gave no place

To aught that ask'd admittance from without.

[blocks in formation]

Delights itself in song.] I cannot think with Vellutello, that the swallow is here meant. Dante probably alludes to the story of Philomela, as it is found in Homer's Odyssey, b. xix. 518. rather than as later poets have told it. "She intended to slay the son of her husband's brother Amphion, incited to it by the envy of his wife, who had six children, while herself had only two, but through mistake slew her own son Itylus, and for her punishment was transformed by Jupiter into a nightingale." Cowper's note on this passage. În speaking of the nightingale, let me observe, that while some have considered its song as a melancholy, and others as a cheerful one, Chiabrera appears to have come nearest the truth, when he says, in the Alcippo, act i. sc. 1.

Non mai si stanca d'iterar le note,

O gioconde o dogliose,

Al sentir dilettose.

Unwearied still reiterates her lays,

Jocund or sad, delightful to the ear.

See a very pleasing letter on this subject by a late illustrious statesman. Address to the reader prefixed to For's History of James II. Edit. 1808, p. xii.; and a beautiful poem by Mr. Coleridge. I know not whether the following lines by a neglected poet have yet been noticed, as showing the diversity of opinions that have prevailed respecting the song of this bird. The cheerful birds

With sweetest notes to sing their Maker's praise,
Among the which, the merrie nightingale

With swete and swete, her breast against a thorn,

Ringes out all night. Vallans, Tale of Two Swannes.

Next shower'd into my fantasy a shape
As of one crucified', whose visage spake
Fell rancour, malice deep, wherein he died;
And round him Ahasuerus the great king;
Esther his bride; and Mordecai the just,
Blameless in word and deed. As of itself
That unsubstantial coinage of the brain
Burst, like a bubble2, when the water fails
That fed it; in my vision straight uprose
A damsel weeping loud, and cried, "O queen!
O mother! wherefore has intemperate ire
Driven thee to loathe thy being? Not to lose
Lavinia, desperate thou hast slain thyself.
Now hast thou lost me. I am she, whose tears
Mourn, ere I fall, a mother's timeless end."
E'en as a sleep breaks off, if suddenly
New radiance strike upon the closed lids,
The broken slumber quivering ere it dies1;
Thus, from before me, sunk that imagery,
Vanishing, soon as on my face there struck
The light, outshining far our earthly beam.
As round I turn'd me to survey what place
I had arrived at, "Here ye mount:" exclaim'd
A voice, that other purpose left me none
Save will so eager to behold who spake,

I could not chuse but gaze. As 'fore the sun,
That weighs our vision down, and veils his form
In light transcendent, thus my virtue fail'd
Unequal. "This is Spirit from above,
Who marshals us our upward way, unsought;
And in his own light shrouds him. As a man
Doth for himself, so now is done for us.

1 One crucified.] Haman. See the book of Esther, c. vii. "In the Lunetta of Haman, we owe the sublime conception of his figure (by Michael Angelo) to this passage." Fuseli, Lecture iii. note.

2 Like a bubble.]

The earth hath bubbles, as the water has,
And these are of them.

Shakspeare, Macbeth, act i. sc. iii. 3 A damsel.] Lavinia, mourning for her mother Amata, who, impelled by grief and indignation for the supposed death of Turnus, destroyed herself. En. lib. xii. 595.

4 The broken slumber quivering ere it dies.] Venturi suggests that this bold and unusual metaphor may have been formed on that in Virgil.

Tempus erat quo prima quies mortalibus ægris
Incipit, et dono divum gratissima serpit.

En. lib. ii. 268.

For whoso waits imploring, yet sees need
Of his prompt aidance, sets himself prepared
For blunt denial, ere the suit be made.
Refuse we not to lend a ready foot
At such inviting: haste we to ascend,
Before it darken: for we may not then,
Till morn again return." So spake my guide;
And to one ladder both address'd our steps;
And the first stair approaching, I perceived
Near me as 't were the waving of a wing,
That fann'd my face, and whisper'd: "Blessed they,
The peace-makers': they know not evil wrath.'
Now to such height above our heads were raised
The last beams, follow'd close by hooded night,
That many a star on all sides through the gloom
Shone out. "Why partest from me, O my strength?"
So with myself I communed; for I felt

My o'ertoil'd sinews slacken. We had reach'd
The summit, and were fix'd like to a bark
Arrived at land. And waiting a short space,
If aught should meet mine ear in that new round,
Then to my guide I turn'd, and said: "Loved sire!
Declare what guilt is on this circle purged.
If our feet rest, no need thy speech should pause."
He thus to me: "The love of good, whate'er
Wanted of just proportion, here fulfils.
Here plies afresh the oar, that loiter'd ill.
But that thou mayst yet clearlier understand,
Give ear unto my words; and thou shalt cull
Some fruit may please thee well, from this delay.
Creator, nor created being, e'er,

66

66

My son," he thus began, was without love,

Or natural3, or the free spirit's growth.
Thou hast not that to learn. The natural still
Is without error: but the other swerves,

If on ill object bent, or through excess

Of vigour, or defect.

1 The peace-makers.]

While e'er it seeks1

"Blessed are the peace-makers; for they shall be called the children of God." Matt. v. 9. 2 The love.] "A defect in our love towards God, or lukewarmness in piety, is here removed."

3 Or natural.] Lombardi refers to the Convito, Canz. i. Tratt. 2. cap. 3. where this subject is diffusely treated by our Poet.

4 While e'er it seeks.] So Frezzi:

E s'egli è ben, che d'altro ben dipenda,
Non s'ami quasi per se esistente,

Se vuoi, che quando è tolto, non t'offenda.

X

Il Quadrir. lib. ii. cap. 14.

« AnteriorContinuar »