Part 28
Let us lament, O lyre disconsolate! Our wonted music is in tune no more. Lament we while the heavens revolve, and let The nightingale be conquered on Love's shore! O heaven, O earth, O sea, O cruel fate! How shall I bear a pang so passing sore? Eurydice, my love! O life of mine! On earth I will no more without thee pine! I will go down unto the doors of Hell, And see if mercy may be found below: Perchance we shall reverse fate's spoken spell With tearful songs and words of honeyed woe: Perchance will Death be pitiful; for well With singing have we turned the streams that flow; Moved stones, together hind and tiger drawn, And made trees dance upon the forest lawn.
[_Passes from sight on his way to Hades._
MNESILLUS.
The staff of Fate is strong And will not lightly bend, Nor yet the stubborn gates of steely Hell. Nay, I can see full well His life will not be long: Those downward feet no more will earthward wend. What marvel if they lose the light, Who make blind Love their guide by day and night!
## SCENE IV
ORPHEUS, _at the gate of Hell._
Pity, nay pity for a lover's moan! Ye Powers of Hell, let pity reign in you! To your dark regions led me Love alone: Downward upon his wings of light I flew. Hush, Cerberus! Howl not by Pluto's throne! For when you hear my tale of misery, you, Nor you alone, but all who here abide In this blind world, will weep by Lethe's tide. There is no need, ye Furies, thus to rage; To dart those snakes that in your tresses twine: Knew ye the cause of this my pilgrimage, Ye would lie down and join your moans with mine. Let this poor wretch but pass, who war doth wage With heaven, the elements, the powers divine! I beg for pity or for death. No more! But open, ope Hell's adamantine door!
[ORPHEUS _enters Hell._
PLUTO.
What man is he who with his golden lyre Hath moved the gates that never move, While the dead folk repeat his dirge of love? The rolling stone no more doth tire Swart Sisyphus on yonder hill; And Tantalus with water slakes his fire; The groans of mangled Tityos are still; Ixion's wheel forgets to fly; The Danaids their urns can fill: I hear no more the tortured spirits cry; But all find rest in that sweet harmony.
PROSERPINE.
Dear consort, since, compelled by love of thee, I left the light of heaven serene, And came to reign in hell, a sombre queen; The charm of tenderest sympathy Hath never yet had power to turn My stubborn heart, or draw forth tears from me. Now with desire for yon sweet voice I yearn; Nor is there aught so dear As that delight. Nay, be not stern To this one prayer! Relax thy brows severe, And rest awhile with me that song to hear!
[ORPHEUS _stands before the throne._
ORPHEUS.
Ye rulers of the people lost in gloom, Who see no more the jocund light of day! Ye who inherit all things that the womb Of Nature and the elements display! Hear ye the grief that draws me to the tomb! Love, cruel Love, hath led me on this way: Not to chain Cerberus I hither come, But to bring back my mistress to her home. A serpent hidden among flowers and leaves Stole my fair mistress--nay, my heart--from me: Wherefore my wounded life for ever grieves, Nor can I stand against this agony. Still, if some fragrance lingers yet and cleaves Of your famed love unto your memory, If of that ancient rape you think at all, Give back Eurydice!--On you I call. All things ere long unto this bourne descend: All mortal lives to you return at last: Whate'er the moon hath circled, in the end Must fade and perish in your empire vast: Some sooner and some later hither wend; Yet all upon this pathway shall have passed: This of our footsteps is the final goal; And then we dwell for aye in your control. Therefore the nymph I love is left for you When nature leads her deathward in due time: But now you've cropped the tendrils as they grew, The grapes unripe, while yet the sap did climb: Who reaps the young blades wet with April dew, Nor waits till summer hath o'erpassed her prime? Give back, give back my hope one little day!-- Not for a gift, but for a loan I pray. I pray not to you by the waves forlorn Of marshy Styx or dismal Acheron, By Chaos where the mighty world was born, Or by the sounding flames of Phlegethon; But by the fruit which charmed thee on that morn When thou didst leave our world for this dread throne! O queen! if thou reject this pleading breath, I will no more return, but ask for death!
PROSERPINE.
Husband, I never guessed That in our realm oppressed Pity could find a home to dwell: But now I know that mercy teems in Hell. I see Death weep; her breast Is shaken by those tears that faultless fell. Let then thy laws severe for him be swayed By love, by song, by the just prayers he prayed!
PLUTO.
She's thine, but at this price: Bend not on her thine eyes, Till mid the souls that live she stay. See that thou turn not back upon the way! Check all fond thoughts that rise! Else will thy love be torn from thee away. I am well pleased that song so rare as thine The might of my dread sceptre should incline.
## SCENE V
ORPHEUS, _sings._
_Ite tritumphales circum mea tempora lauri. Vicimus Eurydicen: reddita vita mihi est, Haec mea praecipue victoria digna coronâ. Oredimus? an lateri juncta puella meo?_
EURYDICE.
All me! Thy love too great Hath lost not thee alone! I am torn from thee by strong Fate. No more I am thine own. In vain I stretch these arms. Back, back to Hell I'm drawn, I'm drawn. My Orpheus, fare thee well!
[EURYDICE _disappears._
ORPHEUS.
Who hath laid laws on Love? Will pity not be given For one short look so full thereof? Since I am robbed of heaven, Since all my joy so great is turned to pain, I will go back and plead with Death again!
[TISIPHONE _blocks his way._
TISIPHONE.
Nay, seek not back to turn! Vain is thy weeping, all thy words are vain. Eurydice may not complain Of aught but thee--albeit her grief is great. Vain are thy verses 'gainst the voice of Fate! How vain thy song! For Death is stern! Try not the backward path: thy feet refrain! The laws of the abyss are fixed and firm remain.
## SCENE VI
ORPHEUS.
What sorrow-laden song shall e'er be found To match the burden of my matchless woe? How shall I make the fount of tears abound, To weep apace with grief's unmeasured flow? Salt tears I'll waste upon the barren ground, So long as life delays me here below; And since my fate hath wrought me wrong so sore, I swear I'll never love a woman more! Henceforth I'll pluck the buds of opening spring, The bloom of youth when life is loveliest, Ere years have spoiled the beauty which they bring: This love, I swear, is sweetest, softest, best! Of female charms let no one speak or sing; Since she is slain who ruled within my breast. He who would seek my converse, let him see That ne'er he talk of woman's love to me! How pitiful is he who changes mind For woman! for her love laments or grieves! Who suffers her in chains his will to bind, Or trusts her words lighter than withered leaves, Her loving looks more treacherous than the wind! A thousand times she veers; to nothing cleaves: Follows who flies; from him who follows, flees; And comes and goes like waves on stormy seas! High Jove confirms the truth of what I said, Who, caught and bound in love's delightful snare, Enjoys in heaven his own bright Ganymed: Phoebus on earth had Hyacinth the fair: Hercules, conqueror of the world, was led Captive to Hylas by this love so rare.-- Advice for husbands! Seek divorce, and fly Far, far away from female company!
[_Enter a_ MAENAD _leading a train of_ BACCHANTES.
A MAENAD.
Ho! Sisters! Up! Alive! See him who doth our sex deride! Hunt him to death, the slave! Thou snatch the thyrsus! Thou this oak-tree rive! Cast down this doeskin and that hide! We'll wreak our fury on the knave! Yea, he shall feel our wrath, the knave! He shall yield up his hide Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive! No power his life can save; Since women he hath dared deride! Ho! To him, sisters! Ho! Alive!
[ORPHEUS _is chased off the scene and slain: the_ MAENADS _then return._
A MAENAD.
Ho! Bacchus! Ho! I yield thee thanks for this! Through all the woodland we the wretch have borne: So that each root is slaked with blood of his: Yea, limb from limb his body have we torn Through the wild forest with a fearful bliss: His gore hath bathed the earth by ash and thorn!-- Go then! thy blame on lawful wedlock fling! Ho! Bacchus! take the victim that we bring!
CHORUS OF MAENADS.
Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!
With ivy coronals, bunch and berry, Crown we our heads to worship thee! Thou hast bidden us to make merry Day and night with jollity! Drink then! Bacchus is here! Drink free, And hand ye the drinking-cup to me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!
See, I have emptied my horn already: Stretch hither your beaker to me, I pray: Are the hills and the lawns where we roam unsteady? Or is it my brain that reels away? Let every one run to and fro through the hay, As ye see me run! Ho! after me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!
Methinks I am dropping in swoon or slumber: Am I drunken or sober, yes or no? What are these weights my feet encumber? You too are tipsy, well I know! Let every one do as ye see me do, Let every one drink and quaff like me! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!
Cry Bacchus! Cry Bacchus! Be blithe and merry, Tossing wine down your throats away! Let sleep then come and our gladness bury: Drink you, and you, and you, while ye may! Dancing is over for me to-day. Let every one cry aloud Evohé! Bacchus! we all must follow thee! Bacchus! Bacchus! Ohé! Ohé!
Though an English translation can do little toward rendering the facile graces of Poliziano's style, that 'roseate fluency' for which it has been praised by his Italian admirers, the main qualities of the 'Orfeo' as a composition may be traced in this rough copy. Of dramatic power, of that mastery over the deeper springs of human nature which distinguished the first effort of the English muse in Marlowe's plays, there is but little. A certain adaptation of the language to the characters, as in the rudeness of Thyrsis when contrasted with the rustic elegance of Aristæus, a touch of simple feeling in Eurydice's lyrical outcry of farewell, a discrimination between the tender sympathy of Proserpine and Pluto's stern relenting, a spirited presentation of the Bacchanalian _furore_ in the Mænads, an attempt to model the Satyr Mnesillus as apart from human nature and yet sympathetic to its anguish, these points constitute the chief dramatic features of the melodrama. Orpheus himself is a purely lyrical personage. Of character, he can scarcely be said to have anything marked; and his part rises to its height precisely in that passage where the lyrist has to be displayed. Before the gates of Hades and the throne of Proserpine he sings, and his singing is the right outpouring of a poet's soul; each octave resumes the theme of the last stanza with a swell of utterance, a crescendo of intonation that recalls the passionate and unpremeditated descant of a bird upon the boughs alone. To this true quality of music is added the persuasiveness of pleading. That the violin melody of his incomparable song is lost, must be reckoned a great misfortune. We have good reason to believe that the part of Orpheus was taken by Messer Baccio Ugolini, singing to the viol. Here too it may be mentioned that a _tondo_ in monochrome, painted by Signorelli among the arabesques at Orvieto, shows Orpheus at the throne of Plato, habited as a poet with the laurel crown and playing on a violin of antique form. It would be interesting to know whether a rumour of the Mantuan pageant had reached the ears of the Cortonese painter.
If the whole of the 'Orfeo' had been conceived and executed with the same artistic feeling as the chief act, it would have been a really fine poem independently of its historical interest. But we have only to turn the page and read the lament uttered for the loss of Eurydice, in order to perceive Poliziano's incapacity for dealing with his hero in a situation of greater difficulty. The pathos which might have made us sympathise with Orpheus in his misery, the passion, approaching to madness, which might have justified his misogyny, are absent. It is difficult not to feel that in this climax of his anguish he was a poor creature, and that the Mænads served him right. Nothing illustrates the defect of real dramatic imagination better than this failure to dignify the catastrophe. Gifted with a fine lyrical inspiration, Poliziano seems to have already felt the Bacchic chorus which forms so brilliant a termination to his play, and to have forgotten his duty to the unfortunate Orpheus, whose sorrow for Eurydice is stultified and made unmeaning by the prosaic expression of a base resolve. It may indeed be said in general that the 'Orfeo' is a good poem only where the situation is not so much dramatic as lyrical, and that its finest passage--the scene in Hades--was fortunately for its author one in which the dramatic motive had to be lyrically expressed. In this respect, as in many others, the 'Orfeo' combines the faults and merits of the Italian attempts at melo-tragedy. To break a butterfly upon the wheel is, however, no fit function of criticism: and probably no one would have smiled more than the author of this improvisation, at the thought of its being gravely dissected just four hundred years after the occasion it was meant to serve had long been given over to oblivion.
_NOTE_
Poliziano's 'Orfeo' was dedicated to Messer Carlo Canale, the husband of that famous Vannozza who bore Lucrezia and Cesare Borgia to Alexander VI. As first published in 1494, and as republished from time to time up to the year 1776, it carried the title of 'La Favola di Orfeo,' and was not divided into acts. Frequent stage-directions sufficed, as in the case of Florentine 'Sacre Rappresentazioni,' for the indication of the scenes. In this earliest redaction of the 'Orfeo' the chorus of the Dryads, the part of Mnesillus, the lyrical speeches of Proserpine and Pluto, and the first lyric of the Mænads are either omitted or represented by passages in _ottava rima_. In the year 1776 the Padre Ireneo Affò printed at Venice a new version of 'Orfeo, Tragedia di Messer Angelo Poliziano,' collated by him from two MSS. This play is divided into five acts, severally entitled 'Pastoricus,' 'Nymphas Habet,' 'Heroïcus,' 'Necromanticus,' and 'Bacchanalis.' The stage-directions are given partly in Latin, partly in Italian; and instead of the 'Announcement of the Feast' by Mercury, a prologue consisting of two octave stanzas is appended. A Latin Sapphic ode in praise of the Cardinal Gonzaga, which was interpolated in the first version, is omitted, and certain changes are made in the last soliloquy of Orpheus. There is little doubt, I think, that the second version, first given to the press by the Padre Affò, was Poliziano's own recension of his earlier composition. I have therefore followed it in the main, except that I have not thought it necessary to observe the somewhat pedantic division into acts, and have preferred to use the original 'Announcement of the Feast,' which proves the integral connection between this ancient secular play and the Florentine Mystery or 'Sacra Rappresentazione.' The last soliloquy of Orpheus, again, has been freely translated by me from both versions for reasons which will be obvious to students of the original. I have yet to make a remark upon one detail of my translation. In line 390 (part of the first lyric of the Mænads) the Italian gives us:--
Spezzata come il fabbro il cribro spezza.
This means literally: 'Riven as a blacksmith rives a sieve or boulter.' Now sieves are made in Tuscany of a plate of iron, pierced with holes; and the image would therefore be familiar to an Italian. I have, however, preferred to translate thus:--
Riven as woodmen fir-trees rive,
instead of giving:--
Riven as blacksmiths boulters rive,
because I thought that the second and faithful version would be unintelligible as well as unpoetical for English readers.
* * * * *
_EIGHT SONNETS OF PETRARCH_
ON THE PAPAL COURT AT AVIGNON
Fountain of woe! Harbour of endless ire! Thou school of errors, haunt of heresies! Once Rome, now Babylon, the world's disease, That maddenest men with fears and fell desire! O forge of fraud! O prison dark and dire, Where dies the good, where evil breeds increase! Thou living Hell! Wonders will never cease If Christ rise not to purge thy sins with fire. Founded in chaste and humble poverty, Against thy founders thou dost raise thy horn, Thou shameless harlot! And whence flows this pride? Even from foul and loathed adultery, The wage of lewdness. Constantine, return! Not so: the felon world its fate must bide.
* * * * *
TO STEFANO COLONNA
WRITTEN FROM VAUCLUSE
Glorius Colonna, thou on whose high head Rest all our hopes and the great Latin name, Whom from the narrow path of truth and fame The wrath of Jove turned not with stormful dread: Here are no palace-courts, no stage to tread; But pines and oaks the shadowy valleys fill Between the green fields and the neighbouring hill, Where musing oft I climb by fancy led. These lift from earth to heaven our soaring soul, While the sweet nightingale, that in thick bowers Through darkness pours her wail of tuneful woe, Doth bend our charmed breast to love's control; But thou alone hast marred this bliss of ours, Since from our side, dear lord, thou needs must go.
IN VITA DI MADONNA LAURA. XI
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 assails 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 passed 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 surpassing 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 crispèd curls of pure gold beautiful, And those angelic smiles which once did shine 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. XXXIV
In thought I raised me to the place where she Whom still on earth I seek and find not, shines; 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 Hellenic city of Sybaris. Sybaris and Ravenna were the Greek and Roman Venice of antiquity.]