Modern Italian Poets; Essays and Versions Part 18

"What have you known here!" he asks, and his soldiers reply in chorus:

The pride of old names, the caprices of fate, In vast desert s.p.a.ces the silence of death, Or in mist-hidden lowlands, his wandering fires; No sweet song of birds, no heart-cheering sound, But eternal memorials of ancient despair, And ruins and tombs that waken dismay At the moan of the pines that are stirred by the wind.

Full of dark and mysterious peril the woods; No life-giving fountains, but only bare sands, Or some deep-bedded river that silently moves, With a wave that is livid and stagnant, between Its margins ungladdened by gra.s.s or by flowers, And in sterile sands vanishes wholly away.

Out of huts that by turns have been shambles and tombs, All pallid and naked, and burned by their fevers, The peasant folk suddenly stare as you pa.s.s, With visages ghastly, and eyes full of hate, Aroused by the accent that's strange to their ears.

Oh, heavily hang the clouds here on the head!

Wan and sick is the earth, and the sun is a tyrant.

Then one of the Swiss soldiers speaks alone:

The unconquerable love of our own land Draws us away till we behold again The eternal walls the Almighty builded there.

Upon the arid ways of faithless lands I am tormented by a tender dream Of that sweet rill which runs before my cot.

Oh, let me rest beside the smiling lake, And hear the music of familiar words, And on its lonely margin, wild and fair, Lie down and think of my beloved ones.

There is no page of this tragedy which does not present some terrible or touching picture, which is not full of brave and robust thought, which has not also great dramatic power. But I am obliged to curtail the proof of this, and I feel that, after all, I shall not give a complete idea of the tragedy's grandeur, its subtlety, its vast scope and meaning.

There is a striking dialogue between a Roman partisan of Arnaldo, who, with his fancy oppressed by the heresy of his cause, is wavering in his allegiance, and a Brescian, whom the outrages of the priests have forever emanc.i.p.ated from faith in their power to bless or ban in the world to come. Then ensues a vivid scene, in which a fanatical and insolent monk of Arnaldo's order, leading a number of soldiers, arrests him by command of Adrian. Ostasio's soldiers approaching to rescue him, the monk orders him to be slain, but he is saved, and the act closes with the triumphal chorus of his friends. Here is fine occasion for the play of different pa.s.sions, and the occasion is not lost.

With the fourth act is introduced the new interest of the German oppression; and as we have had hitherto almost wholly a study of the effect of the papal tyranny upon Italy, we are now confronted with the shame and woe which the empire has wrought her. Exiles from the different Lombard cities destroyed by Barbarossa meet on their way to seek redress from the Pope, and they pour out their sorrows in pathetic and pa.s.sionate lyrics. To read these pa.s.sages gives one a favorable notion of the liberality or the stupidity of the government which permitted the publication of the tragedy. The events alluded to were many centuries past, the empire had long ceased to be; but the Italian hatred of the Germans was one and indivisible for every moment of all times, and we may be sure that to each of Niccolini's readers these mediaeval horrors were but masks for cruelties exercised by the Austrians in his own day, and that in those lyrical bursts of rage and grief there was full utterance for his smothered sense of present wrong. There is a great charm in these strophes; they add unspeakable pathos to a drama which is so largely concerned with political interests; and they make us feel that it is a beautiful and n.o.ble work of art, as well as grand appeal to the patriotism of the Italians and the justice of mankind.

When we are brought into the presence of Barbarossa, we find him awaiting the arrival of Adrian, who is to accompany him to Rome and crown him emperor, in return for the aid that Barbarossa shall give in reducing the rebellious citizens and delivering Arnaldo into the power of the papacy. Heralds come to announce Adrian's approach, and riding forth a little way, Frederick dismounts in order to go forward on foot and meet the Pope, who advances, preceded by his clergy, and attended by a mult.i.tude of his partisans. As Frederick perceives the Pope and quits his horse, he muses:

I leave thee, O faithful comrade mine in many perils, Thou generous steed! and now, upon the ground That should have thundered under thine advance, With humble foot I silent steps must trace.

But what do I behold? Toward us comes, With tranquil pride, the servant of the lowly, Upon a white horse docile to the rein As he would kings were; all about the path That Adrian moves on, warriors and people Of either s.e.x, all ages, in blind homage, Mingle, press near and fall upon the ground, Or one upon another; and man, whom G.o.d Made to look up to heaven, becomes as dust Under the feet of pride; and they believe The gates of Paradise would be set wide To any one whom his steed crushed to death.

With me thou never hast thine empire shared; Thou alone hold'st the world! He will not turn On me in sign of greeting that proud head, Encircled by the tiara; and he sees, Like G.o.d, all under him in murmured prayer Or silence, blesses them, and pa.s.ses on.

What wonder if he will not deign to touch The earth I tread on with his haughty foot!

He gives it to be kissed of kings; I too Must stoop to the vile act.

Since the time of Henry II. it had been the custom of the emperors to lead the Pope's horse by the bridle, and to hold his stirrup while he descended. Adrian waits in vain for this homage from Frederick, and then alights with the help of his ministers, and seats himself in his episcopal chair, while Frederick draws near, saying aside:

I read there in his face his insolent pride Veiled by humility.

He bows before Adrian and kisses his foot, and then offers him the kiss of peace, which Adrian refuses, and haughtily reminds him of the fate of Henry. Frederick answers furiously that the thought of this fate has always filled him with hatred of the papacy; and Adrian, perceiving that he has pressed too far in this direction, turns and soothes the Emperor:

I am truth, And thou art force, and if thou part'st from me, Blind thou becomest, helpless I remain.

We are but one at last....

Caesar and Peter, They are the heights of G.o.d; man from the earth Contemplates them with awe, and never questions Which thrusts its peak the higher into heaven.

Therefore be wise, and learn from the example Of impious Arnaldo. He's the foe Of thrones who wars upon the altar.

But he strives in vain to persuade Frederick to the despised act of homage, and it is only at the intercession of the Emperor's kinsmen and the German princes that he consents to it. When it is done in the presence of all the army and the clerical retinue, Adrian mounts, and says to Frederick, with scarcely hidden irony:

In truth thou art An apt and ready squire, and thou hast held My stirrup firmly. Take, then, O my son, The kiss of peace, for thou hast well fulfilled All of thy duties.

But Frederick, crying aloud, and fixing the sense of the mult.i.tude upon him, answers:

Nay, not all, O Father!-- Princes and soldiers, hear! I have done homage To Peter, not to him.

The Church and the Empire being now reconciled, Frederick receives the amba.s.sadors of the Roman republic with scorn; he outrages all their pretensions to restore Rome to her old freedom and renown; insults their prayer that he will make her his capital, and heaps contempt upon the weakness and vileness of the people they represent. Giordano replies for them:

When will you dream, You Germans, in your thousand stolid dreams,-- The fume of drunkenness,--a future greater Than our Rome's memories? Never be her banner Usurped by you! In prison and in darkness Was born your eagle, that did but descend Upon the helpless prey of Roman dead, But never dared to try the ways of heaven, With its weak vision wounded by the sun.

Ye prate of Germany. The whole world conspired, And even more in vain, to work us harm, Before that day when, the world being conquered, Rome slew herself.

... Of man's great brotherhood Unworthy still, ye change not with the skies.

In Italy the German's fate was ever To grow luxurious and continue cruel.

The soldiers of Barbarossa press upon Giordano to kill him, and Frederick saves the amba.s.sadors with difficulty, and hurries them away.

In the first part of the fifth act, Niccolini deals again with the _role_ which woman has played in the tragedy of Italian history, the hopes she has defeated, and the plans she has marred through those religious instincts which should have blest her country, but which through their perversion by priestcraft have been one of its greatest curses. Adrian is in the Vatican, after his triumphant return to Rome, when Adelasia, the wife of that Ostasio, Count of the Campagna, in whose castle Arnaldo is concealed, and who shares his excommunication, is ushered into the Pope's presence. She is half mad with terror at the penalties under which her husband has fallen, in days when the excommunicated were shunned like lepers, and to shelter them, or to eat and drink with them, even to salute them, was to incur privation of the sacraments; when a bier was placed at their door, and their houses were stoned; when King Robert of France, who fell under the anathema, was abandoned by all his courtiers and servants, and the beggars refused the meat that was left from his table--and she comes into Adrian's presence accusing herself as the greatest of sinners.

The Pope asks:

Hast thou betrayed Thy husband, or from some yet greater crime Cometh the terror that oppresses thee?

Hast slain him?

_Adelasia._ Haply I ought to slay him.

_Adrian._ What?

_Adelasia._ I fain would hate him and I cannot.

_Adrian._ What Hath his fault been?

_Ad._ Oh, the most horrible Of all.

_Adr._ And yet is he dear unto thee?

_Ad._ I love him, yes, I love him, though he's changed From that he was. Some gloomy cloud involves That face one day so fair, and 'neath the feet, Now grown deformed, the flowers wither away.

I know not if I sleep or if I wake, If what I see be a vision or a dream.

But all is dreadful, and I cannot tell The falsehood from the truth; for if I reason, I fear to sin. I fly the happy bed Where I became a mother, but return In midnight's horror, where my husband lies Wrapt in a sleep so deep it frightens me, And question with my trembling hand his heart, The fountain of his life, if it still beat.

Then a cold kiss I give him, then embrace him With shuddering joy, and then I fly again,-- For I do fear his love,--and to the place Where sleep my little ones I hurl myself, And wake them with my moans, and drag them forth Before an old miraculous shrine of her, The Queen of Heaven, to whom I've consecrated, With never-ceasing vigils, burning lamps.

There naked, stretched upon the hard earth, weep My pretty babes, and each of them repeats The name of Mary whom I call upon; And I would swear that she looks down and weeps.

Then I cry out, "Have pity on my children!

Thou wast a mother, and the good obtain Forgiveness for the guilty."

Adrian has little trouble to draw from the distracted woman the fact that her husband is a heretic--that heretic, indeed, in whose castle Arnaldo is concealed. On his promise that he will save her husband, she tells him the name of the castle. He summons Frederick, who claims Ostasio as his va.s.sal, and declares that he shall die, and his children shall be carried to Germany. Adrian, after coldly asking the Emperor to spare him, feigns himself helpless, and Adelasia too late awakens to a knowledge of his perfidy. She falls at his feet:

I clasp thy knees once more, and I do hope Thou hast not cheated me!... Ah, now I see Thy wicked arts! Because thou knewest well My husband was a va.s.sal of the empire, That pardon which it was not thine to give Thou didst pretend to promise me. O priest, Is this thy pity? Sorrow gives me back My wandering reason, and I waken on The brink of an abyss; and from this wretch The mask that did so hide his face drops down And shows it in its naked hideousness Unto the light of truth.

Frederick sends his soldiers to secure Arnaldo, but as to Ostasio and his children he relents somewhat, being touched by the anguish of Adelasia. Adrian rebukes his weakness, saying that he learned in the cloister to subdue these compa.s.sionate impulses. In the next scene, which is on the Capitoline Hill, the Roman Senate resolves to defend the city against the Germans to the last, and then we have Arnaldo a prisoner in a cell of the Castle of St. Angelo. The Prefect of Rome vainly entreats him to recant his heresy, and then leaves him with the announcement that he is to die before the following day. As to the soliloquy which follows, Niccolini says: "I have feigned in Arnaldo in the solemn hour of death these doubts, and I believe them exceedingly probable in a disciple of Abelard. This struggle between reason and faith is found more or less in the intellect of every one, and const.i.tutes a sublime torment in the life of those who, like the Brescian monk, have devoted themselves from an early age to the study of philosophy and religion. None of the ideas which I attribute to Arnaldo were unknown to him, and, according to Muller, he believed that G.o.d was all, and that the whole creation was but one of his thoughts. His other conceptions in regard to divinity are found in one of his contemporaries." The soliloquy is as follows:

Aforetime thou hast said, O King of heaven, That in the world thou wilt not power or riches.

And can he be divided from the Church Who keeps his faith in thine immortal word, The light of souls? To remain in the truth It only needs that I confess to thee All sins of mine. O thou eternal priest, Thou read'st my heart, and that which I can scarce Express thou seest. A great mystery Is man unto himself, conscience a deep Which only thou canst sound. What storm is there Of guilty thoughts! Oh, pardon my rebellion!

Evil springs up within the mind of man, As in its native soil, since that day Adam Abused thy great gift, and created guilt.

And if each thought of ours became a deed, Who would be innocent? I did once defend The cause of Abelard, and at the decree Imposing silence on him I, too, ceased.

What fault in me? Bernard in vain inspired The potentates of Europe to defend The sepulcher of G.o.d. Mankind, his temple, I sought to liberate, and upon the earth Desired the triumph of the love divine, And life, and liberty, and progress. This, This was my doctrine, and G.o.d only knows How reason struggles with the faith in me For the supremacy of my spirit. Oh, Forgive me, Lord. These in their war are like The rivers twain of heaven, till they return To their eternal origin, and the truth Is seen in thee, and G.o.d denies not G.o.d.

I ought to pray. Thinking on thee, I pray.

Yet how thy substance by three persons shared, Each equal with the other, one remains, I cannot comprehend, nor give in thee Bounds to the infinite and human names.

Father of the world, that which thou here revealest Perchance is but a thought of thine; or this Movable veil that covers here below All thy creation is eternal illusion That hides G.o.d from us. Where to rest itself The mind hath not. It palpitates uncertain In infinite darkness, and denies more wisely Than it affirms. O G.o.d omnipotent!

I know not what thou art, or, if I know, How can I utter thee? The tongue has not Words for thee, and it falters with my thought That wrongs thee by its effort. Soon I go Out of the last doubt unto the first truth.

What did I say? The intellect is soothed To faith in Christ, and therein it reposes As in the bosom of a tender mother Her son. Arnaldo, that which thou art seeking With sterile torment, thy great teacher sought Long time in vain, and at the cross's foot His weary reason cast itself at last.

Follow his great example, and with tears Wash out thy sins.