Imaginary Conversations and Poems Part 35

[9] Little boys, wearing clerical habits, are often called _abbati_.

Ta.s.sO AND CORNELIA

_Ta.s.so._ She is dead, Cornelia! she is dead!

_Cornelia._ Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace?

_Ta.s.so._ She is dead!

_Cornelia._ Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven, so bewilders you?

_Ta.s.so._ Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her.

_Cornelia._ Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent.

_Ta.s.so._ How! What is this?

_Cornelia._ The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one of the oxen. And did you happen to be there at the moment?

_Ta.s.so._ So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted, else never would calamity have befallen her.

_Cornelia._ I wish you had not seen the accident.

_Ta.s.so._ I see it? I? I saw it not. No other is crushed where I am.

The little girl died for her kindness! Natural death!

_Cornelia._ Be calm, be composed, my brother!

_Ta.s.so._ You would not require me to be composed or calm if you comprehended a thousandth part of my sufferings.

_Cornelia._ Peace! peace! we know them all.

_Ta.s.so._ Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, derision, madness.

_Cornelia._ Hush! sweet Torquato! If ever these existed, they are past.

_Ta.s.so._ You do think they are sufferings? ay?

_Cornelia._ Too surely.

_Ta.s.so._ No, not too surely: I will not have that answer. They would have been; but Leonora was then living. Unmanly as I am! did I complain of them? and while she was left me?

_Cornelia._ My own Torquato! is there no comfort in a sister's love?

Is there no happiness but under the pa.s.sions? Think, O my brother, how many courts there are in Italy: are the princes more fortunate than you? Which among them all loves truly, deeply, and virtuously? Among them all is there any one, for his genius, for his generosity, for his gentleness, ay, for his mere humanity, worthy to be beloved?

_Ta.s.so._ Princes! talk to me of princes! How much cross-grained wood a little gypsum covers! a little carmine quite beautifies! Wet your forefinger with your spittle; stick a broken gold-leaf on the sinciput; clip off a beggar's beard to make it tresses; kiss it; fall down before it; worship it. Are you not irradiated by the light of its countenance? Princes! princes! Italian princes! Estes! What matters that costly carrion? Who thinks about it? [_After a pause._] She is dead! She is dead!

_Cornelia._ We have not heard it here.

_Ta.s.so._ At Sorrento you hear nothing but the light surges of the sea, and the sweet sprinkles of the guitar.

_Cornelia._ Suppose the worst to be true.

_Ta.s.so._ Always, always.

_Cornelia._ If she ceases, as then perhaps she must, to love and to lament you, think gratefully, contentedly, devoutly, that her arms had clasped your neck before they were crossed upon her bosom, in that long sleep which you have rendered placid, and from which your harmonious voice shall once more awaken her. Yes, Torquato! her bosom had throbbed to yours, often and often, before the organ peal shook the fringes round the catafalque. Is not this much, from one so high, so beautiful?

_Ta.s.so._ Much? yes; for abject me. But I did so love her! so love her!

_Cornelia._ Ah! let the tears flow: she sends you that balm from heaven.

_Ta.s.so._ So love her did poor Ta.s.so! Else, O Cornelia, it had indeed been much. I thought, in the simplicity of my heart, that G.o.d was as great as an emperor, and could bestow and had bestowed on me as much as the German had conferred or could confer on his va.s.sal. No part of my insanity was ever held in such ridicule as this. And yet the idea cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick to my shroud.

_Cornelia._ Woe betide the woman who bids you to forget that woman who has loved you: she sins against her s.e.x. Leonora was unblameable.

Never think ill of her for what you have suffered.

_Ta.s.so._ Think ill of her? I? I? I? No; those we love, we love for everything; even for the pain they have given us. But she gave me none; it was where she was not that pain was.

_Cornelia._ Surely, if love and sorrow are destined for companionship, there is no reason why the last comer of the two should supersede the first.

_Ta.s.so._ Argue with me, and you drive me into darkness. I am easily persuaded and led on while no reasons are thrown before me. With these you have made my temples throb again. Just heaven! dost thou grant us fairer fields, and wider, for the whirlwind to lay waste? Dost thou build us up habitations above the street, above the palace, above the citadel, for the plague to enter and carouse in? Has not my youth paid its dues, paid its penalties? Cannot our griefs come first, while we have strength to bear them? The fool! the fool! who thinks it a misfortune that his love is unrequited. Happier young man! look at the violets until thou drop asleep on them. Ah! but thou must awake!

_Cornelia._ O heavens! what must you have suffered! for a man's heart is sensitive in proportion to its greatness.

_Ta.s.so._ And a woman's?

_Cornelia._ Alas! I know not; but I think it can be no other. Comfort thee, comfort thee, dear Torquato!

_Ta.s.so._ Then do not rest thy face upon my arm; it so reminds me of her. And thy tears too! they melt me into her grave.

_Cornelia._ Hear you not her voice as it appeals to you, saying to you, as the priests around have been saying to _her_, Blessed soul!

rest in peace?

_Ta.s.so._ I heard it not; and yet I am sure she said it. A thousand times has she repeated it, laying her head on my heart to quiet it, simple girl! She told it to rest in peace ... and she went from me!

Insatiable love! ever self-torturer, never self-destroyer! the world, with all its weight of miseries, cannot crush thee, cannot keep thee down. Generally men's tears, like the droppings of certain springs, only harden and petrify what they fall on; but mine sank deep into a tender heart, and were its very blood. Never will I believe she has left me utterly. Oftentimes, and long before her departure, I fancied we were in heaven together. I fancied it in the fields, in the gardens, in the palace, in the prison. I fancied it in the broad daylight, when my eyes were open, when blessed spirits drew around me that golden circle which one only of earth's inhabitants could enter.

Oftentimes in my sleep also I fancied it; and sometimes in the intermediate state, in that serenity which breathes about the transported soul, enjoying its pure and perfect rest, a span below the feet of the Immortal.

_Cornelia._ She has not left you; do not disturb her peace by these repinings.

_Ta.s.so._ She will bear with them. Thou knowest not what she was, Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches!

what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season preserved one temperature. But it was when she could and did love me!

Unchanged must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond security on the unchangeable. The purifying flame shoots upward, and is the glory that encircles their brows when they meet above.

_Cornelia._ Indulge in these delightful thoughts, my Torquato! and believe that your love is and ought to be imperishable as your glory.

Generations of men move forward in endless procession to consecrate and commemorate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year, are bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and tarnished decorations of rude, unregarded royalty, and to fasten the nails that cramp the crown upon its head. Meanwhile, in the laurels of my Torquato there will always be one leaf above man's reach, above time's wrath and injury, inscribed with the name of Leonora.