Part 2
All larger meanings involved in the action are to be inferred as they are in life. Each may behold for himself. Yet Ornella stands behind the play, as the angel stood behind Mila. For any, if any there be, who would question the bearing of its conclusion, Ornella is the rectification of any possible doubt or misjudgment. Through the eyes of her vision appears the transcendent loving of Mila.
No other works of D'Annunzio, not even the beautiful "Francesca," reach such heights. They have artistry, power, concrete truth to life in common with "The Daughter of Jorio"; but they do not approach it in that inner truth to life which unveils the purity and aspiration of the power of supreme love in life and in art. That inner life of the power of love hallows this tragedy. Hence the poet's art gains an unerring potency of touch, and it makes the loving of Mila worthy of a younger brother of the Dante of the "Vita Nuova" and the "Paradiso."
Inseparable from the power of this tragedy to cause the deep things within to be heard--"The deep things within that come from afar"--are the incomparably beautiful rhythms in which they are chanted.
They are the rhythms belonging to the land of the Abruzzi and to "many years ago." There, says the poet:
"Mystery and rhythm, these two essential elements of every cult, were everywhere scattered. Men and women constantly expressed their souls in song, accompanied by song all their labors under the roof or under the sky, celebrated by song life and death. Over cradles and winding-sheets undulated melodies slow and prolonged, very ancient,--as ancient, perhaps, as the race whose profound sadness they revealed.... Fixed in unalterable rhythm they seemed fragments of hymns belonging to immemorial liturgies, surviving the destruction of some great primordial mythus."
The poet seems to have loosed the pent-up sources of these immemorial rhythms. He has dared in part to invent a free dramatico-lyric verse, in part to recur to archaic forms of verse of like freedom. In this way he has clothed every motion and gesture, every quiver of the body of his drama, in a beauty begotten of "the antique blood."
Such music, sensitive to each catch of the living breath of emotion, must seek a form more flexible than the iambic pentameters of English usage or the hexameters or Alexandrines of French. The beauty belonging to these in their perfection has yet led to a dull monotony of always-anticipated stress in the perpetuity of their dramatic use by modern dramatists. The artifice side of verse has been so over-emphasized, by limitation to a form shut out from the thrill of an unexpected cadence, that audiences instinctively flee the infliction of sitting out a modern poetic drama, despite the general superstition, because of its past glory, that it ought to be forever and only liked.
Since the only alternative offered by conventional usage is bald prose, even this has been gladly accepted in preference, and the penalty paid of a totally commonplace effect, usually as bare of the uplift and melody of art as a trolley car.
D'Annunzio has devised a better way. Heeding the secret of the manifold effects,--now of the ancient _laudi dramatiche_ of his own Abruzzi, now of the austerely simple plain-song of the mediæval hymn, now of some strongly four-stressed Tuscan lyric of the twelfth century, or even the two-stressed line of the rustic charm,--he has varied his verse to suit every phase of emotion. He has used iambic ascending rhythms, in hendecasyllabic lines, generally, for the serener utterances, such as Candia's blessing in the espousal rites of Act I; strongly marked trochaic rhythms, in octosyllabic lines, for intense lyrical outpourings of spirit, such as Mila's song at the opening of Act II, and swiftly descending dactyllic rhythms, giving jets of voice to sharp seizures of feeling, such as the fierce outcry of the Chorus of the Kindred in Act III--_Tempia e tempia, i denti le sgrani_--"Temple to temple and shell out her teeth." Not only, moreover, by the frequent employment of a strong initial syllable, along with iambic or anapestic verse, and other such allowed liberties, but also by the intercalation of extra syllables or the omission of others within the normal foot, he has slowed or raced the pace of the line, in obedience to some push of thought or beat of purpose. So varied is the effect that the verse is as flexible as prose speech. Yet the impression is never lawless, for the verse never escapes the _ictus_ of a pervading inward shapeliness. The artistic comeliness is felt along with the impetus each variation pours into the sway of the line.
Internal rhyme, assonance, and thrice repeated double rhymes still further prolong or break up the normal effects, so that to the fluency of the wave of speech is added some momentary shimmering of its surface, like the fleeting touches of the wind of the spirit otherwise viewless.
Such internal rhymes, repetitions, and assonances, for example, occur in the dialogue of Mila and Aligi in the second Act: _Pei monti coglierai le genzianellè Eper le spiagge le stelle marine_.--"To cull on the hilltop the blue gentian lonely, On the sea-shore only the star-fish flower." _Si cammina cammina lungo il mare_.--"I border the bordering stretches of sea-shore." Or such double rhymes appear as in Femo di Nerfa's: _Prima che la mano gli tàglino, Prima che nel sacco lo sèrrino, Col can mastino e lo gèttino, Al fiume in dove fa gorgo_.--"Before his right hand they shall sever, Before in the leathern sack they sew him With the savage mastiff and throw him Where the deep restless waters o'erflow him."
The tendency of English verse during the Elizabethan renaissance was toward a musical flexibility akin to D'Annunzio's. Shakespeare's verse, especially in his ripest work, showed the same tendency before it was regulated by Pope, who cut it into even lengths of ten syllables, with every even one stressed, as nearly as he could, by transposing, eliding, cutting off, or adding--a regulation still masking as well as marring the native wood-notes wild in all our modernized texts.
A similar flexibility belonged to Coleridge's "Christabel," wherein he recurred to the elder fashion of marking the rhythm sufficiently by stress to carry the voice as he willed it to go, instead of the dominant fashion of meting it into uniformly even lengths of counted syllables.
Each way should have its own uses for the modern poet according to the impressional effect he desires. The elder fashion is no more lawless than the one which has come to be so exclusively followed through the dominance of French influences at the English Court, in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, influences suiting the growing formalism of the English temperament. Indeed the elder fashion requires a more expert metrical handling, while the other is more open to mediocre poetic ability.
It would be well for the closer hold of poetic art on life, especially for dramatic use, if less automatically regulated verse should be revived and developed in England, above all in America,--such flexible verse as D'Annunzio has revived and developed in "The Daughter of Jorio."
To translate such verse into set metres of blank verse or Alexandrines, in no way corresponding to its peculiar variability, would be like prisoning a live creature. To do it violence by uniformly substituting strong endings for weak endings; to reiterate uniformly the metre arbitrarily chosen to begin with; to exclude all grace of internal rhyme would be like binding a mobile thing from any fluttering. Surely it would be to cage the bird whose sensitive wings the genius of D'Annunzio has freed.
It has fallen to my especial share in this joint translation to give to it a verse form. It has seemed to me hopeless,--and my colleagues are agreed with me in this view--to attempt to give any glimmering impression of the rhythmic beauty essential to the mystical soul of this tragedy, save by seeking to reproduce for English ears, by similarly free methods in freely stressed English verse, an audible impression corresponding to the impression which the stresses of the Italian verse have made on my ear as they were spoken. Hence the desire has been not to be led by the eye, nor to transliterate analytically the Italian effects in some recognized forms of imitative prosody, but merely to listen and echo in English some faint synthetic reflex of the flowing music.
CHARLOTTE PORTER.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Gabriele d'Annunzio ... _Frontispiece_
The Feast of Espousal. Act I.
"O give me peace for my offences." Act I.
Mila di Codra and Aligi. Act II.
The Parricide. Act II.
The Sacrifice of Mila di Codra. Act III.
DRAMATIS PERSONÆ
LAZARO Di Roio, _Father of Aligi_
CANDIA DELLA LEONESSA, _Mother of Aligi_
ALIGI, _The Shepherd-Artist_
SPLENDORE, FAVETTA, ORNELLA, _Aligi's Sisters_
VIENDA Di GIAVE, _Aligi's Bride_
MARIA Di GIAVE, _Mother of the Bride_
TEODULA DI CINZIO, LA CINERELLA, MONICA BELLA COGNA, ANNA Di BOVA, FELAVIA, LA CATALANA, MARIA CORA: _The Kindred_
MILA Di CODRA, _the Daughter of Jorio the Sorcerer dalle Farne_
FEMO Di NERFA
JENNE DELL' ETA
IONA DI MIDIA
THE OLD HERBWOMAN
THE SAINT OF THE MOUNTAIN
THE TREASURE DIVINER
THE DEVIL-POSSESSED YOUTH
A SHEPHERD
ANOTHER SHEPHERD
A REAPER
ANOTHER REAPER
THE CROWD OF PEOPLE
THE CHORUS OF THE KINDRED
THE CHORUS OF REAPERS
THE CHORUS OF WAILERS
SCENE: The Land of the Abruzzi
TIME: Many years ago. (Placed about the sixteenth century by the Painter Michetti, who designed the scenes and costumes for the initial production in Milan.)
THE DAUGHTER OF JORIO
ACT I.--SCENE I.
_A room on the ground floor of a rustic house. The large entrance door opens on a large sunlit yard. Across the door is stretched, to prevent entrance, a scarlet woollen scarf, held in place at each end by a forked hoe and a distaff. At one side of the door jamb is a waxen cross to keep off evil spirits. A smaller closed door, with its architrave adorned with boxwood green, is on the wall at the right, and close against the same wall are three ancient wooden chests. At the left, and set in the depth of the wall, is a chimney and fire-place with a prominent hood; and a little at one side a small door, and near this an ancient loom. In the room are to be seen such utensils and articles of furniture as tables, benches, hasps, a swift, and hanks of flax and wool hanging from light ropes drawn between nails or hooks. Also to be seen are jugs, dishes, plates, bottles and flasks of various sizes and materials, with many gourds, dried and emptied. Also an ancient bread and flour chest, the cover of it having a carved panel representing the image of the Madonna. Beside this the water basin and a rude old table. Suspended from the ceiling by ropes is a wide, broad board laden with cheeses. Two windows, iron-grated and high up from the ground, give light, one at each side of the large door, and in each of the gratings is stuck a bunch of red buckwheat to ward off evil._
SPLENDORE, FAVETTA, ORNELLA, _the three young sisters, are kneeling each in front of one of the three chests containing the wedding dresses. They are bending over them and picking out suitable dresses and ornaments for the bride. Their gay, fresh tones are like the chanting of morning songs._
SPLENDORE
What's your will, our own Vienda?
FAVETTA
What's your will, our dear new sister?
SPLENDORE
Will you choose the gown of woolen, Would you sooner have the silken, Sprayed with flowrets red and yellow?
ORNELLA [_singing_]
Only of green shall be my arraying. Only of green for Santo Giovanni, For mid the green meadows he came to seek me, Oili, Oili, Oila!
SPLENDORE
Look! Here is the bodice of wondrous embroidery, And the yoke with the gleaming thread of silver, Petticoat rich of a dozen breadths' fulness, Necklace strung with hundred-beaded coral,-- All these given you by your new mother.
ORNELLA [_singing_]
Only of green be or gown or bridal chamber! Oili, oili, oila!
FAVETTA
What's your will, our own Vienda?
SPLENDORE
What's your will, our dear new sister?
ORNELLA
Pendant earrings, clinging necklace, Blushing ribbons, cherry red? Hear the ringing bells of noonday, Hear the bells ring out high noon!
SPLENDORE
See the kindred hither coming, On their heads the hampers bearing, Hampers laden with wheat all golden, And you yet not dressed and ready!
ORNELLA
Bounding, rebounding, Sheep pass, the hills rounding. The wolf, through valleys winding, The nut he seeks is finding,-- The pistachio nut is finding. See, the Bride of the Morning! Matinal as the field-mouse Going forth at the dawning, As the woodchuck and squirrel. Hear, O hear, the bells' whirl!
[_All these words are spoken very swiftly, and at the close _ORNELLA_ laughs joyously, her two sisters joining with her._]
THE THREE SISTERS
Oh! Aligi, why then don't you come?
SPLENDORE
Oh! in velvet then must you dress?
FAVETTA
Seven centuries quite, must you rest With your beautiful, magical Spouse?
SPLENDORE
O your father stays at the harvesting, Brother mine, and the star of the dawning In his sickle-blade is showing,-- In his sickle, no rest knowing.
FAVETTA
And your mother has flavored the wine-cup And anise-seed mixed with the water, Sticking cloves in the roast meat And sweet thyme in the cheeses.
SPLENDORE
And a lamb of the flock we have slaughtered, Yea, a yearling, but fattened one season, With head markings and spottings of sable, For the Bride and the Bridegroom.
FAVETTA
And the mantle, long-sleeved, and cowl-hooded, For Astorgio we chose it and kept it,-- For the long-lived gray man of the mountain, So our fate upon that he foretell us.
ORNELLA
And to-morrow will be San Giovanni, Dear, my brother! with dawn, San Giovanni! Up the Plaia hill then shall I hie me, To behold once again the head severed-- In the sun's disc, the holy head severed, On the platter all gleaming and golden, Where again the blood runs, flows and babbles.
FAVETTA
Up, Vienda! head all golden, Keeping long vigil; O golden sweet tresses! Now they harvest in the grain-fields Wheat as golden as your tresses.
SPLENDORE
Our mother was saying: "Now heed me! Three olives I nurtured here with me; Unto these now a plum have I added. Ay! three daughters, and, also, a daughter."
ORNELLA
Come, Vienda, golden-plum girl! Why delay you? Are you writing To the sun a fair blue letter That to-night it know no setting?
[_She laughs and the other sisters join in with her. From the small door enters their mother, _CANDIA BELLA LEONESSA.]
CANDIA [_playfully chiding_]
Ah! you magpies, sweet cicales! Once for over-joy of singing One was burst upon the poplar. Now the cock's no longer crowing To awaken tardy sleepers. Only sing on these cicales,-- These cicales of high noonday. These three magpies take my roof-tree-- Take my door's wood for a tree-branch. Still the new child does not heed them. Oh! Aligi, Aligi, dear fellow!
[_The door opens. The beardless bridegroom appears. He greets them with a grave voice, fixed eyes, and in an almost religious manner._]
ALIGI
All praise to Jesus and to Mary! You, too, my mother, who this mortal Christian flesh to me have given, Be you blessed, my dear mother! Blessed be ye, also, sisters, Blossoms of my blood! For you, for me, I cross my forehead, That never there come before us to thwart us The enemy subtle, in death, in life, In heat of sun, or flame of fire, Or poison, or any enchantment, Or sweat unholy the forehead moist'ning. Father, and Saviour, and Holy Spirit!
[_The sisters cross themselves and go out by the small door, carrying the bridal dresses. _ALIGI_ approaches his mother as if in a dream._]
CANDIA
Flesh of my flesh, thus touch I your forehead With bread, with this fair wheaten loaf of white flour, Prepared in this bowl of a hundred years old, Born long before thee, born long before me, Kneaded long on the board of a hundred years old By these hands that have tended and held you. On the brow, thus, I touch: Be it sunny and clear! I touch thus the breast: Be it free from all sighing! I touch this shoulder, and that: Be it strong! Let them bear up your arms for long labor! Let her rest there her head gray or golden! And may Christ to you speak and you heed him!
[_With the loaf she makes the sign of the cross above her son, who has fallen on his knees before her._]
ALIGI
I lay down and meseemed of Jesus I dreamed. He came to me saying: "Be not fearful." San Giovanni said to me: "Rest in safety. Without holy candles thou shalt not die." Said he: "Thou shalt not die the death accursed." And you, you have cast my lot in life, mother, Allotted the bride you have chosen for me,-- Your son, and here, within your own house, mother, You have brought her to couple with me, That she slumber with me on my pillow, That she eat with me out of my platter. Then I was pasturing flocks on the mountain. Now back to the mountain I must be turning.
[_His mother touches his head with the palm of her hand as if to chase away evil thoughts._]
CANDIA
Rise up, my son! You are strangely talking. All your words are now changing in color, As the olive tree changes pressed by the breezes.
[_He rises, as if in a daze._]
ALIGI
But where is my father? Still nowhere I see him.
CANDIA
Gone to the harvesting, out with the reapers, The good grain reaping, by grace of our Saviour.
ALIGI
I reaped once, too, by his body shaded, Ere I was signed with the cross on my forehead, When my brow scarcely reached up to his haunches. But on my first day a vein here I severed,-- Here where the scar stays. Then with leaves he was bruising The while he stanched the red blood from flowing, "Son Aligi," said he unto me, "Son Aligi, Give up the sickle and take up the sheep-crook: Be you a shepherd and go to the mountain." This his command was kept in obedience.
CANDIA
Son of mine, what is this pain the heart of you hurting? What dream like an incubus over you hovers, That these your words are like a wayfarer, Sitting down on his road at night's coming, Who is halting his footsteps for knowing, Beyond attaining is his heart's desiring, Past his ears' hearing the Ave Maria.
ALIGI
Now to the mountain must I be returning. Mother, where is my stout shepherd's sheep-hook Used to the pasture paths, daily or nightly? Let me have that, so the kindred arriving, May see thereupon all the carving I've carved.
[_His mother takes the shepherd's crook from the corner of the fireplace._]
CANDIA
Lo! here it is, son of mine, take it: your sisters Have hung it with garlands for Santo Giovanni, With pinks red and fragrant festooned it.
ALIGI [_pointing out the carving on it._]
And I have them here on the bloodwood all with me, As if by the hand I were leading my sisters. So, along they go with me threading green pathways, Guarding them, mother,--these three virgin damsels,-- See! three bright angels here over them hover, And three starry comets, and three meek doves also. And a flower for each one I have carved here, The growing half-moon and the sun I have carved here; This is the priestly stole; and this is the cup sacramental; And this is the belfry of San Biagio. And this is the river, and this my own cabin;
[_with mystery, as if with second sight_]
But who, who is this one who stands in my doorway?
CANDIA
Aligi, why is it you set me to weeping!
ALIGI
And see at the end here that in the ground enters, Here are the sheep, and here also their shepherd, And here is the mountain where I must be going, Though you weep, though I weep, my mother!
[_He leans on the crook with both hands, resting his head upon them, lost in his thoughts._]
CANDIA
But where then is Hope? What have you made of her, son?
ALIGI
Her face has shone on me seldom; Carve her, I could not, sooth! mother.
[_From a distance a savage clamor rises._]
Mother, who shouts out so loud there?
CANDIA
The harvesters heated and frenzied, From the craze of their passions defend them, From sins of their blood San Giovanni restrain them!
ALIGI
Ah! Who then has drawn but that scarf there, Athwart the wide door of our dwelling, Leaning on it the forked hoe and distaff, That naught enter in that is evil? Ah! Lay there the ploughshare, the wain, and the oxen, Pile stones there against both the door-posts, With slaked lime from all of the lime-kilns, The bowlder with footprints of Samson, And Maella Hill with its snow-drifts!
CANDIA
What is coming to birth in your heart, son of mine? Did not Christ say to you, "Be not fearful"? Are you awake? Heed the waxen cross there, That was blessed on the Day of Ascension, The door-hinges, too, with holy water sprinkled, No evil spirit can enter our doorway, Your sisters have drawn the scarlet scarf 'cross it,-- The scarlet scarf you won in the field-match Long before you ever became a shepherd, In the match that you ran for the straightest furrow,-- (You still remember it, son of mine?) Thus have they stretched it So that the kindred who must pass through there Offer what gifts they choose when they enter. Why do you ask, for you well know our custom?
ALIGI
Mother! mother! I have slept years seven hundred-- Years seven hundred! I come from afar off. I remember no longer the days of my cradle.
CANDIA
What ails you, son? Like one in a dazement you answer. Black wine was it your bride poured out for you? And perhaps you drank it while yet you were fasting, So that your mind is far off on a journey? O Mary, blest Virgin! do thou grant me blessing!
[_The voice of _ORNELLA_ singing the nuptial song._]
Only of green shall be my arraying, Only of green for Santo Giovanni. Oili, oili, oila!
[_The _Bride_ appears dressed in green and is brought forward joyously by the sisters._]
SPLENDORE
Lo! the bride comes whom we have apparelled With all the joy of the spring-time season.
FAVETTA
Of gold and silver the yoke is fashioned, But all the rest like the quiet verdure.
ORNELLA
You, mother, take her! in your arms take her! O dear my mother, take and console her! SPLENDORE
Shedding tears at the bedside we found her, Thus lamenting for thinking so sorely Of the gray head at home left so lonely.
ORNELLA
Of the jar full of pinks in the window Her dear face not again shall lean over. You, mother, take her! in your arms take her!
CANDIA
Daughter, daughter, with this loaf in blessing I have touched my own son. Lo! now I divide it, And over your fair shining head I now break it. May our house have increase of abundance! Be thou unto the dough as good leaven That may swell it out over the bread-board! Bring unto me peace and ah! do not bring strife to me!
THE THREE SISTERS
So be it! We kiss the earth, mother!
[_They kiss the ground by leaning over and touching it with forefinger and middle finger, and then touching their lips. _ALIGI_ is kneeling on one side as if in deep prayer._]
CANDIA