Renaissance in Italy Volume II Part 21

Poetry being thus regarded as a necessary branch of scholarship, it followed that few men distinguished for their learning abstained from versification. Pedants who could do no more than make prosaic elegiacs scan, and scholars respectable for their acquirements, but dest.i.tute of inspiration, were reckoned among the _sacri vates_. It would be a weariful--nay, hopeless--task to pa.s.s all the Latin versifiers of the Renaissance in review. Their name is legion; even to count them would be the same as to number the stars--_ad una ad una annoverar le stelle_. It may be considered fortunate that perhaps the larger ma.s.ses of their productions still remain in ma.n.u.script, partly because they preceded the age of printing, and partly, no doubt, because the good sense of the age rejected them. What has been printed, however, exceeds in bulk the 'Corpus Poetarum Latinorum,' and presents so many varieties that to deal with more than a selection is impossible.[413]

[Footnote 413: I purpose in this chapter to use the _Delitiae Poetarum Italorum_, two parts divided into 4 vols., 1608; _Carmina Quinque Ill.u.s.trium Poetarum_, Bergomi, 1753; _Poemata Selecta Italorum_, Oxonii, 1808; and _Selecta Poemata Italorum_, accurante A. Pope, Londini, 1740.]

The poetasters of the first two periods need not be taken into account. Struggling with a language imperfectly a.s.similated, and with the rules of a prosody as yet but little understood, it was as much as they could do to express themselves at all in metre. Elegance of composition was out of the question when a writer could neither set forth modern thoughts with ease nor imitate the cla.s.sic style with accuracy. What he lost in force by the use of a dead language, he did not gain in polish; nor was the taste of the age schooled to appreciate the niceties of antique diction. Beccadelli alone, by a certain limpid fluency, attained to a degree of moderate excellence; and how much he owed to his choice of subject may be questioned. The obscenity of his themes, and the impudence required for their expression, may have acted as a stimulus to his not otherwise distinguished genius. There is, moreover, no stern conflict to be fought with phrases when the author's topic is mere animalism. The rest of his contemporaries, Filelfo included, did no more than smooth the way for their successors by practising the technicalities of verse and exciting emulation. To surpa.s.s their rude achievements was not difficult, while the fame they enjoyed aroused the ambition of younger rivals. Exception to this sweeping verdict may be made in favour of Alberti, whose Latin play, called 'Philodoxus,' was a brilliant piece of literary workmanship.[414] Not only did it impose on contemporaries as a genuine cla.s.sic, but, even when judged by modern standards, it shows real familiarity with the language of Latin comedy and rare skill in its employment.

[Footnote 414: Bonucci's edition of Alberti's works, vol. i. Alberti's own preface, in the form of a dedicatory letter to Lionello d'Este, describes how he came to write this comedy, and how it was pa.s.sed off upon contemporaries as an original play by Lepidus Comicus. _Ib._ pp.

cxxi.-cxxiii.]

Poliziano is the first Latin poet who compels attention in the fifteenth century; nor was he surpa.s.sed, in fertility of conception and mastery of metre, by any of his numerous successors. With all his faults of style and crudities of diction, Poliziano, in my opinion, deserves the chief place among original poets of revived Latin literature. Bembo wrote more elegantly, Navagero more cla.s.sically, Amalteo with a grace more winning. Yet these versifiers owe their celebrity to excellence of imitation. Poliziano possessed a manner of his own, and made a dead language utter thoughts familiar to the age in which he lived. He did not merely traverse the old ground of the elegy, the epigram, the satire, and the idyll. Striking out a new path for himself, and aiming at instruction, he poured forth torrents of hexameters, rough perhaps and over-fluent, yet marked by intellectual energy and copious fancy, in ill.u.s.tration of a modern student's learning. This freedom of handling is shown to best advantage in his 'Sylvae.'[415]

[Footnote 415: See above, p. 254, for the purpose fulfilled by the _Sylvae_.]

The 'Nutricia' forms an introduction to the history of poetry in general, and carries on its vigorous stream the weight of universal erudition. From it we learn how the most accomplished scholar of his century judged and distinguished the whole body of fine literature possessed by his contemporaries. On the emergence of humanity from barbarism, writes Poliziano, poetry was given to men as a consolation for the miseries of life and as an instrument of culture; their first nurse in the cradle of civilisation was the Muse:--

Musa quies hominum, divomque aeterna voluptas.[416]

[Footnote 416: 'Of men the solace, and of G.o.ds the everlasting joy.']

After characterising the Pagan oracles, the mythical bards of h.e.l.las, and the poet-prophets of the Jewish race, with brief but telling touches, Poliziano addresses himself in the following lines to the delineation of the two chief epic-singers:--

... etenim ut stellas fugere undique caelo, Aurea c.u.m radios Hyperionis exeruit fax, Cernimus, et tenuem velut evanescere lunam; Sic veterum ill.u.s.tres flagranti obscurat honores Lampade Maeonides: unum quem dia canentem Facta virum, et saevas aequantem pectine pugnas, Obstupuit, prorsusque parem confessus Apollo est.

Proximus huic autem, vel ni veneranda senectus Obst.i.terit, forta.s.se prior, canit arma virumque Vergilius, cui rure sacro, cui gramine pastor Ascraeus, Siculusque simul cessere volentes.[417]

[Footnote 417: 'As from the heavens we see the stars on all sides fleeing, when the golden torch of the sun-G.o.d rises, and the diminished moon appears to fade; so with his burning lamp Maeonides obscures the honours of the earlier bards. Him alone, while he sang the divine deeds of heroes, and with his lyre arrayed fierce wars, Apollo, wonder-struck, confessed his equal. Close at his side, or higher even, but for the veneration due to age, Vergil entones the song of arms and the hero--Vergil, to whom from holy tilth and pasture land both Ascra's and Sicilia's shepherds yield their sway with willing homage.'--_Quinque Ill.u.s.trium Poetarum Carmina_, p. 167.]

Then follows the enumeration of lesser Greek and Roman epopoeists.

After them the lyrists and elegiac poets, among whom Pindar is celebrated in the following magniloquent paragraph:--

Aerios procul in tractus, et nubila supra Pindarus it Dircaeus olor, cui nectare blandae Os tenerum libastis apes, dum fessa levaret Membra quiete puer mollem spirantia somnum; Sed Tanagraea suo mox jure poetria risit, Irrita qui toto sereret figmenta canistro; Tum certare auso palmam intercepit opimam aeoliis praelata modis atque illice forma.

Ille Agathoclea subnisus voce coronas Dixit Olympiacas, et qua victoribus Isthmos Fronde comam, Delphique tegant, Nemeaeaque tesqua Lunigenam ment.i.ta feram; tum numina divum Virtutesque, virosque undanti pectore torrens Provexit, sparsitque pios ad funera questus.

Frugibus hunc libisque virum Cirrhaeus ab ara Phoebus, et accubitu mensae dignatus honoro est: Panaque pastores solis videre sub antris Pindarico tacitas mulcentem carmine silvas.

Inde senem pueri gremio cervice reposta Infusum, et dulci laxantem corda sopore, Protinus ad manes, et odoro gramine pictum Elysium tacita rapuit Proserpina dextra.

Quin etiam hostiles longo post tempore flammae, Quae septemgeminas populabant undique Thebas, Expavere domum tanti tamen urere vatis, Et sua posteritas medios quoque tuta per enses Sensit inexhausta cinerem juvenescere fama.[418]

[Footnote 418: 'Far off into the tracts of air and high above the clouds soars Pindar, the Dircaean swan, whose tender mouth ye gentle bees with nectar fed, while the boy gave rest to weary limbs that breathed soft slumber. But him the maid of Tanagra derided, what time she told him that he sowed his myths from the whole sack to waste; and when he dared contend with her in song, she bore away the victor's palm, triumphant by aeolian moods, and by her seductive beauty too. He with his mighty voice, trained in the school of Agathocles, sang the crowns of Olympia and the garlands wherewith the Isthmus and Delphi, and the Nemean wastes that falsely claimed the moon-born monster, shade the athlete's brows. Then, like a torrent, with swelling soul, he pa.s.sed to celebrate the powers and virtues of the G.o.ds and heroes, and poured forth pious lamentations for the dead. Him Phoebus, lord of Cirrha, honoured with food and drink from his altar, and made him guest-fellow at his own board: shepherds too saw Pan in lonely caverns charming the woods with a Pindaric song. At last, when he was old, and lay with his neck reclined upon the bosom of the boy he loved, soothing his soul in sleep, Proserpina with still right hand approached and took him straight to join the shades and pace Elysium's fragrant meads. Nay, more: long afterwards, the foeman's flames, which laid seven-gated Thebes in ruins far and wide, these names dared not to burn so great a poet's house; and his descendants, safe 'mid a thousand swords, learned that his ashes still were young through fame that lives for aye.'--_Carmina_, &c. p. 173.]

Sappho is described in the following lines:--

lyricis jam nona poetis aeolis accedit Sappho, quae flumina propter Pierias legit ungue rosas, unde implicet audax Serta Cupido sibi, niveam quae pectine blando Cyrinnem, Megaramque simul, c.u.mque Atthide pulchram Cantat Anactorien, et crinigeram Telesippen; Et te conspicuum recidivo flore juventae Miratur revocatque, Phaon, seu munera vectae Puppe tua Veneris, seu sic facit herba potentem: Sed tandem Ambracias temeraria saltat in undas.[419]

[Footnote 419: 'Ninth among lyric bards, aeolian Sappho joins the crew; she who by flowing water plucks Pieria's rose for venturous Love to twine in wreaths for his own brow; who with her dulcet lyre sings fair Cyrinna's charms, and Megara, and Atthis and sweet Anactoria, and Telesippa of the flowing hair. And thee, too, Phaon, beautiful in youth's rathe flower, on thee she gazes, thee she calls again; such power to thee gave Venus for her freightage in thy skiff, or else the herb of love. Yet at the last, not wisely bold, she leaps into the Ambracian waves.' _Ib._ &c. p. 175.]

Having disposed of the lyrists, Poliziano proceeds to the dramatic poets. His brief notice of the three Attic tragedians is worthy of quotation, if only because it proves what we should suspect from other indications, that the best scholars of the earlier Renaissance paid them little attention. The facts mentioned in the following lines seem to be derived from the gossip of Athenaeus:--

aeschylus aeriae casu testudinis ictus, Quemque senem meritae rapuerunt gaudia palmae, Quemque tegit rabidis lacerum pia Pella molossis.[420]

[Footnote 420: 'aeschylus, smitten by a tortoise falling from the air above his head, and he whose triumph, justly won in old age, killed him with excess of joy, and he whose body, torn by raging hounds, the reverent earth of Pella hides.'--_Carmina_, &c. p. 176.]

Nor are his observations on the comic dramatists less meagre.[421] The Roman poets having been pa.s.sed in the same rapid review, Poliziano salutes the founders of Italian literature in the following fine pa.s.sage:--

Nec tamen aligerum fraudarim hoc munere Dantem, Per Styga, per stellas, mediique per ardua montis Pulchra Beatricis sub virginis ora volantem: Quique Cupidineum repet.i.t Petrarcha triumphum: Et qui bis quinis centum argumenta diebus Pingit, et obscuri qui semina monstrat amoris: Unde tibi immensae veniunt praeconia laudis, Ingeniis opibusque potens Florentia mater.[422]

[Footnote 421: _Ib._ p. 177.]

[Footnote 422: 'Nor yet of this meed of honour would I cheat wing-bearing Dante, who flew through h.e.l.l, through the starry heavens, and o'er the intermediate hill of purgatory beneath the beauteous brows of Beatrice; and Petrarch too, who tells again the tale of Cupid's triumph; or him who in ten days portrays a hundred stories, and lays bare the seeds of hidden love: from whom unmeasured fame and name are thine, by wit and wealth twice potent, Florence, mother of great sons!'--_Ib._ p. 178.]

The transition to Lorenzo at this point is natural. A solemn peroration in praise of the Medicean prince, himself a poet, whose studies formed the recreation of severer labours, ends the composition. This is written in Poliziano's best style, and, though it is too long to quote, six lines may be selected as indicating the theme of the argument:--

Quodque alii studiumque vocant durumque laborem, Hic tibi ludus erit; fessus civilibus actis Huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires: Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas.[423]

[Footnote 423: 'What other men call study and hard toil, that for thee shall be pastime; wearied with deeds of state, to this thou hast recourse, and dost address the vigour of thy well-worn powers to song: blest in thy mental gifts, blest to be able thus to play so many parts, to vary thus the great cares of thy all-embracing mind, and weave so many divers duties into one.'--_Carmina_, &c. p. 179.]

We possess the whole of Poliziano in the 'Nutricia.' It displays the energy of intellect that carried him on bounding verse through the intricacies of a subject difficult by reason of its scope and magnitude. All his haste is here, his inability to polish or select, his lava-stream of language hurrying the dross of prose and scoriae of erudition along a burning tide of song. His memory held, as it were, in solution all the matter of antique literature; and when he wrote, he poured details forth in torrents, combining them with critical remarks, for the double purpose of instruction and panegyric. Taken at the lowest valuation by students to whom his copious stores of knowledge are familiar, the vivid and continuous melody of his leaping hexameters places the 'Nutricia' above the lucubrations of more fastidious Latinists. We must also remember that, when it was recited from the professorial Chair of Rhetoric at Florence, the magnetism of Poliziano's voice and manner supplied just that touch of charm the poem lacks for modern readers; nor was the matter so hackneyed at the end of the fifteenth century as it is now. Lilius Gyraldus, subjecting the 'Sylvae' to criticism at a time when Latin poetry had been artistically polished by the best wits of the age of Leo, pa.s.sed upon them a judgment which may even now be quoted as final.[424]

'Poliziano's learning was marvellous, his genius fervent and well-trained, his reading extensive and uninterrupted; yet he appears to have composed his verses with more heat than art, using too little judgment both in the selection of his materials and in the correction of his style. When, however, you read his 'Sylvae,' the impression left upon your mind will be such that for the moment you will lack nothing.'

[Footnote 424: 'Dialogus de Poetis nostri Temporis.' _Opp._ vol. ii.

p. 388. Edition of Basle, 1580.]

The second poem of the 'Sylvae,' ent.i.tled 'Rusticus,' forms an induction to the study of bucolic poets, princ.i.p.ally Hesiod and Virgil. It is distinguished by more originality and play of fancy than the 'Nutricia;' some of its delineations of landscape and sketches of country life compete not unfavourably with similar pa.s.sages in the author's 'Stanze.' To dwell upon these beauties in detail, and to compare Poliziano, the Latin poet, with Poliziano, the Italian, would be a pleasant task. Yet I must confine myself to quoting the last, and in some respects the least imaginative, lines, for the sake of their historical interest. Careggi and Florence, Lorenzo and his circle of literary friends, rise before us in these verses:--

Talia Fesuleo lentus meditabar in antro, Rure suburbano Medic.u.m, qua mons sacer urbem Maeoniam, longique volumina despicit Arni: Qua bonus hospitium felix placidamque quietem Indulget Laurens, Laurens haud ultima Phoebi Gloria, jactatis Laurens fida anchora Musis; Qui si certa magis permiserit otia n.o.bis, Afflabor majore Deo, nec jam ardua tantum Silva meas voces, montanaque saxa loquentur, Sed tu, si qua fides, tu nostrum forsitan olim, O mea blanda altrix, non aspernabere carmen, Quamvis magnorum genitrix Florentia vatum, Doctaque me triplici recinet facundia lingua.[425]

[Footnote 425: 'On themes like these I spent my hours of leisure in the grottoes of Fiesole, at the Medicean villa, where the holy hill looks down upon the Maeonian city, and surveys the windings of the distant Arno. There good Lorenzo gives his friends a happy home and rest from cares; Lorenzo, not the last of Phoebus' glorious band; Lorenzo, the firm anchor of the Muses tempest-tost. If only he but grant me greater ease, the inspiration of a mightier G.o.d will raise my soul; nor shall the lofty woods alone and mountain rocks resound my words; but thou--such faith have I--thou too shalt sometime hear, kind nurse of mine, nor haply scorn my song, thou, Florence, mother of imperial bards, and learned eloquence in three great tongues shall give me fame.' _Carmina_, &c. p. 196.]

The third canto of the 'Sylvae' is called 'Manto.' It relates the birth of Virgil, to whom the Muses gave their several gifts, while the Sibyl of Mantua foretold his future course of life and all the glories he should gain by song. The poem concludes with a rhetorical eulogy of Rome's chief bard, so characteristic of Renaissance enthusiasm for Virgil that to omit a portion of it from these pages would be to sacrifice one of the most striking examples of Italian taste in scholarship:--

At manet aeternum, et seros excurrit in annos Vatis opus, dumque in tacito vaga sidera mundo Fulgebunt, dum sol nigris orietur ab Indis, Praevia luciferis aderit dum curribus Eos, Dum ver tristis hiems, autumnum proferet aestas, Dumque fluet spirans refluetque reciproca Tethys, Dum mixta alternas capient elementa figuras, Semper erit magni decus immortale Maronis, Semper inexhaustis ibunt haec flumina venis, Semper ab his docti ducentur fontibus haustus, Semper odoratos fundent haec gramina flores, Unde piae libetis apes, unde inclyta nectat Serta comis triplici juvenalis Gratia dextra.[426]

[Footnote 426: 'Nay, but for everlasting lives our poet's work, abides, and goes forth toward the ages late in time. So long as in the silent firmament the stars shall shine; so long as day shall rise from sun-burned Ind; so long as Phosphor runs before the wheels of light; so long as gloomy winter leads to spring, and summer to autumn; while breathing ocean ebbs and flows by turns, and the mixed elements put on their changing shapes--so long, for ever, shall endure great Maro's fame, for ever shall flow these rivers from his unexhausted fount, for ever shall draughts of learning be drawn from these rills, for ever shall these meadows yield their perfumed flowers, to pasture holy bees, and give the youthful Graces garlands for their hair.'--_Carmina_, &c.

p. 207.]

Not less ingenious than the poem itself is the elegiac introduction.

Poliziano feigns that when the Minyae came to Cheiron's cave on Pelion, and supped with him, Orpheus sang a divine melody, and then the young Achilles took the lyre, and with rude fingers praised the poet's song. The Minyae smiled, but Orpheus was touched by the boy-hero's praises. Even so will Maro haply take delight in mine:--

Finis erat dapibus; citharam pius excitat Orpheus, Et movet ad doctas verba canora ma.n.u.s.

Conticuere viri, tenuere silentia venti, Vosque retro cursum mox tenuistis aquae.

Jam volucres fessis pendere sub aethera pennis, Jamque truces videas ora tenere feras.

Decurrunt scopulis auritae ad carmina quercus, Nudaque Peliacus culmina motat apex.

Et jam materno permulserat omnia cantu, c.u.m tacuit, querulam deposuitque fidem.

Occupat hanc audax, digitosque affringit Achilles, Indoctumque rudi personat ore puer.

Materiam quaeris? laudabat carmina blandi Hospitis, et tantae murmura magna lyrae.

Riserunt Minyae: sed enim tibi dicitur, Orpheu, Haec pueri pietas grata fuisse nimis.

Me quoque nunc magni nomen celebrare Maronis, Si qua fides vero est, gaudet et ipse Maro.[427]

[Footnote 427: 'Supper was over; Orpheus awakes the lyre, and sings a melody to suit the tune he plays. The men were silent; the winds hushed; the rivers held their waters back to hear; the birds hung motionless in air; and the wild beasts grew calm. From the cliffs the oaks run down with listening ears, and the top of Pelion nods his barren head. And now the bard had soothed the whole world with his mother's song; when he ceased from singing and put down the thrilling lyre. This bold Achilles seizes; he runs his fingers o'er the strings, and chaunts an untaught lay, the simple boy. What was his theme? you ask. He praised the singing of the gentle guest, the mighty murmurs of that lyre divine. The Minyae laughed; but yet, so runs the tale, even all too sweet, Orpheus, to thee was the boy's homage. Just so my praise of mighty Maro's name, if faith be not a dream, gives joy to Maro's self.'--_Carmina_, &c. p. 197.]

The fourth poem, bearing the name of 'Ambra,' forms a similar induction to the study of Homer. The youth of Homer is narrated, and how Achilles appeared to him, blinding him with the vision of his heroic beauty, and giving him the wand of Teiresias. Then follow descriptions of both 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey,' and a pa.s.sage of high-flown panegyric; the whole ending with these lines on Lorenzo's villa of Cajano:--