Chapter 24 of 29 · 3960 words · ~20 min read

Part 24

I see and see, yet see not what I would: I see the leaves atremble on the tree: I saw my love where on the hill he stood, Yet see him not drop downward to the lea. O traitor hill, what will you do? I ask him, live or dead, from you. O traitor hill, what shall it be? I ask him, live or dead, from thee.

All the songs of love in absence are very quaint. Here is one which calls our nursery rhymes to mind (p. 119):--

I would I were a bird so free, That I had wings to fly away: Unto that window I would flee, Where stands my love and grinds all day. Grind, miller, grind; the water's deep! I cannot grind; love makes me weep. Grind, miller, grind; the waters flow! I cannot grind; love wastes me so.

The next begins after the same fashion, but breaks into a very shower of benedictions (p. 118):--

Would God I were a swallow free, That I had wings to fly away: Upon the miller's door I'd be, Where stands my love and grinds all day: Upon the door, upon the sill, Where stays my love;--God bless him still! God bless my love, and blessed be His house, and bless my house for me; Yea, blest be both, and ever blest My lover's house, and all the rest!

The girl alone at home in her garden sees a wood-dove flying by and calls to it (p. 179):--

O dove, who fliest far to yonder hill, Dear dove, who in the rock hast made thy nest, Let me a feather from thy pinion pull, For I will write to him who loves me best. And when I've written it and made it clear, I'll give thee back thy feather, dove so dear: And when I've written it and sealed it, then I'll give thee back thy feather love-laden.

A swallow is asked to lend the same kind service (p. 179):--

O swallow, swallow, flying through the air, Turn, turn, I prithee, from thy flight above! Give me one feather from thy wing so fair, For I will write a letter to my love. When I have written it and made it clear, I'll give thee back thy feather, swallow dear; When I have written it on paper white, I'll make, I swear, thy missing feather right; When once 'tis written on fair leaves of gold, I'll give thee back thy wing and flight so bold.

Long before Tennyson's song in the 'Princess,' it would seem that swallows were favourite messengers of love. In the next song which I translate, the repetition of one thought with delicate variation is full of character (p. 178):--

O swallow, flying over hill and plain, If thou shouldst find my love, oh bid him come! And tell him, on these mountains I remain Even as a lamb who cannot find her home: And tell him, I am left all, all alone, Even as a tree whose flowers are overblown: And tell him, I am left without a mate Even as a tree whose boughs are desolate: And tell him, I am left uncomforted Even as the grass upon the meadows dead.

The following is spoken by a girl who has been watching the lads of the village returning from their autumn service in the plain, and whose damo comes the last of all (p. 240):--

O dear my love, you come too late! What found you by the way to do? I saw your comrades pass the gate, But yet not you, dear heart, not you! If but a little more you'd stayed, With sighs you would have found me dead; If but a while you'd keep me crying, With sighs you would have found me dying.

The _amantium irae_ find a place too in these rustic ditties. A girl explains to her sweetheart (p. 240):--

'Twas told me and vouchsafed for true, Your kin are wroth as wroth can be; For loving me they swear at you, They swear at you because of me; Your father, mother, all your folk, Because you love me, chafe and choke! Then set your kith and kin at ease; Set them at ease and let me die: Set the whole clan of them at ease; Set them at ease and see me die!

Another suspects that her damo has paid his suit to a rival (p. 200):--

On Sunday morning well I knew Where gaily dressed you turned your feet; And there were many saw it too, And came to tell me through the street: And when they spoke, I smiled, ah me! But in my room wept privately; And when they spoke, I sang for pride, But in my room alone I sighed.

Then come reconciliations (p. 223):--

Let us make peace, my love, my bliss! For cruel strife can last no more. If you say nay, yet I say yes: 'Twixt me and you there is no war. Princes and mighty lords make peace; And so may lovers twain, I wis: Princes and soldiers sign a truce; And so may two sweethearts like us: Princes and potentates agree; And so may friends like you and me.

There is much character about the following, which is spoken by the damo (p. 223):--

As yonder mountain height I trod, I chanced to think of your dear name; I knelt with clasped hands on the sod, And thought of my neglect with shame: I knelt upon the stone, and swore Our love should bloom as heretofore.

Sometimes the language of affection takes a more imaginative tone, as in the following (p. 232):--

Dearest, what time you mount to heaven above, I'll meet you holding in my hand my heart: You to your breast shall clasp me full of love, And I will lead you to our Lord apart.

Our Lord, when he our love so true hath known, Shall make of our two hearts one heart alone; One heart shall make of our two hearts, to rest In heaven amid the splendours of the blest.

This was the woman's. Here is the man's (p. 113):--

If I were master of all loveliness, I'd make thee still more lovely than thou art: If I were master of all wealthiness, Much gold and silver should be thine, sweetheart: If I were master of the house of hell, I'd bar the brazen gates in thy sweet face; Or ruled the place where purging spirits dwell, I'd free thee from that punishment apace. Were I in paradise and thou shouldst come, I'd stand aside, my love, to make thee room; Were I in paradise, well seated there, I'd quit my place to give it thee, my fair!

Sometimes, but very rarely, weird images are sought to clothe passion, as in the following (p. 136):--

Down into hell I went and thence returned: Ah me! alas! the people that were there! I found a room where many candles burned, And saw within my love that languished there. When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine? Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine! So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine! Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, Look not to leave this place again for aye.

Or again in this (p. 232):--

Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: Beyond the hill it floats upon the air. It is my lover come to bid me rise, If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare. But I have answered him, and said him No! I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: Till we together go to paradise, I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes.

But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):--

Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh! Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: Sighing at table when to eat I try, Sighing within my little room apart, Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, Sighing with her and her who know my heart: I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so.

The next two rispetti, delicious in their naïveté, might seem to have been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the lovers (p. 123):--

Ah, when will dawn that glorious day When you will softly mount my stair? My kin shall bring you on the way; I shall be first to greet you there. Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss When we before the priest say Yes?

Ah, when will dawn that blissful day When I shall softly mount your stair, Your brothers meet me on the way, And one by one I greet them there? When comes the day, my staff, my strength, To call your mother mine at length? When will the day come, love of mine, I shall be yours and you be mine?

Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned. Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, steeped in gloom (p. 142):--

They have this custom in fair Naples town; They never mourn a man when he is dead: The mother weeps when she has reared a son To be a serf and slave by love misled; The mother weeps when she a son hath born To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; The mother weeps when she a son gives suck To be the serf and slave of city luck.

The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange passion in detail (p. 300):--

I'll spread a table brave for revelry, And to the feast will bid sad lovers all. For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall. Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, To serve the lovers at this festival: The table shall be death, black death profound; Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around! The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!

Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):--

High up, high up, a house I'll rear, High up, high up, on yonder height; At every window set a snare, With treason, to betray the night; With treason, to betray the stars, Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; With treason, to betray the day, Since Love betrayed me, well away!

The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which I quote next (p. 303):--

I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: I've had it tempered in the streams of hell By masters mighty in the mystic rede: I've had it tempered by the light of stars; Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; Then let him come who stole from me my maid.

More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following lament (p. 143):--

Call me the lovely Golden Locks no more, But call me Sad Maid of the golden hair. If there be wretched women, sure I think I too may rank among the most forlorn. I fling a palm into the sea; 'twill sink: Others throw lead, and it is lightly borne. What have I done, dear Lord, the world to cross? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to dross. How have I made, dear Lord, dame Fortune wroth? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to froth. What have I done, dear Lord, to fret the folk? Gold in my hand forthwith is turned to smoke.

Here is pathos (p. 172):--

The wood-dove who hath lost her mate, She lives a dolorous life, I ween; She seeks a stream and bathes in it, And drinks that water foul and green: With other birds she will not mate, Nor haunt, I wis, the flowery treen; She bathes her wings and strikes her breast; Her mate is lost: oh, sore unrest!

And here is fanciful despair (p. 168):--

I'll build a house of sobs and sighs, With tears the lime I'll slack; And there I'll dwell with weeping eyes Until my love come back: And there I'll stay with eyes that burn Until I see my love return.

The house of love has been deserted, and the lover comes to moan beneath its silent eaves (p. 171):--

Dark house and window desolate! Where is the sun which shone so fair? 'Twas here we danced and laughed at fate: Now the stones weep; I see them there. They weep, and feel a grievous chill: Dark house and widowed window-sill!

And what can be more piteous than this prayer? (p. 809):--

Love, if you love me, delve a tomb, And lay me there the earth beneath; After a year, come see my bones, And make them dice to play therewith. But when you're tired of that game, Then throw those dice into the flame; But when you're tired of gaming free, Then throw those dice into the sea.

The simpler expression of sorrow to the death is, as usual, more impressive. A girl speaks thus within sight of the grave (p. 808):--

Yes, I shall die: what wilt thou gain? The cross before my bier will go; And thou wilt hear the bells complain, The _Misereres_ loud and low. Midmost the church thou'lt see me lie With folded hands and frozen eye; Then say at last, I do repent!-- Nought else remains when fires are spent.

Here is a rustic Oenone (p. 307):--

Fell death, that fliest fraught with woe! Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; But when we call, thou wilt not hear. Fell death, false death of treachery, Thou makest all content but me.

Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad (p. 308):--

Strew me with blossoms when I die, Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; Beyond those walls, there let me lie, Where oftentimes we used to go. There lay me to the wind and rain; Dying for you, I feel no pain: There lay me to the sun above; Dying for you, I die of love.

Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of expression (p. 271):--

I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- How false are all the promises you make; Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! That who confides in you, deceived will be.

It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought as Bion (p. 85):--

Yestreen I went my love to greet, By yonder village path below: Night in a coppice found my feet; I called the moon her light to show-- O moon, who needs no flame to fire thy face, Look forth and lend me light a little space!

Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of art. Herein lies, perhaps, their chief importance. As in our ballad literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however much that may be modified by culture.

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_POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE_

The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century formed an important branch of their national literature, and flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the former established a new link of connection between them, different indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the 'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the 'Madrigale' or little part-song.

At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements of carnival and spring time; and this poetry of the dance, the pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the genius of the people and the age.

In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was indubitably the most successful. This giant of learning, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people. Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor's mantle, and to improvise 'Ballate' for the girls to sing as they danced their 'Carola' upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings. The peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza. The stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the couplet in the place of the seventh line. The form is in itself so graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot content myself with fewer than four of his _Ballate_.[30] The first is written on the world-old theme of 'Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.'