Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers Volume I Part 12

"Dolce color d'oriental zaffiro Che s'accoglieva nel serenoaspetto De l'aer puro infino al primo giro, A gli occhi miei ricomincio diletto, Tosto ch'io usci' fuor de l'aura morta Che m'avea contristati gli occhi e 'l petto.

Lo bel pianeta, ch'ad amar conforta, Faceva tutto rider l'oriente, Velando i Pesci, ch'erano in sua scorta.

Io mi volsi a man destra, e posi mente All'altro polo, e vidi quattro stelle Non viste mai, fuor ch'a la prima gente;

G.o.der pareva 'l ciel di lor fiammelle.

O settentrional vedovo sito, Poi che privato sei di mirar quelle!"

The sweetest oriental sapphire blue, Which the whole air in its pure bosom had, Greeted mine eyes, far as the heavens withdrew;

So that again they felt a.s.sured and glad, Soon as they issued forth from the dead air, Where every sight and thought had made them sad.

The beauteous star, which lets no love despair, Made all the orient laugh with loveliness, Veiling the Fish that glimmered in its hair.

I turned me to the right to gaze and bless, And saw four more, never of living wight Beheld, since Adam brought us our distress;

Heaven seemed rejoicing in their happy light.

O widowed northern pole, bereaved indeed, Since thou hast had no power to see that sight!

Readers who may have gone thus far with the "Italian Pilgrim's Progress," will allow me to congratulate them on arriving at this lovely scene, one of the most admired in the poem.

This is one of the pa.s.sages which make the religious admirers of Dante inclined to p.r.o.nounce him divinely inspired; for how could he otherwise have seen stars, they ask us, which were not discovered till after his time, and which compose the constellation of the Cross? But other commentators are of opinion, that the Cross, though not so named till subsequently (and Dante, we see, gives no prophetic hint about the name), _had_ been seen, probably by stray navigators. An Arabian globe is even mentioned by M. Artaud (see Cary), in which the Southern Cross is set down. Mr. Cary, in his note on the pa.s.sage, refers to Seneca's prediction of the discovery of America; most likely suggested by similar information. "But whatever," he adds, "may be thought of this, it is certain that the four stars are here symbolical of the four cardinal virtues;" and he refers to canto x.x.xi, where those virtues are retrospectively a.s.sociated with these stars. The symbol, however, is not, necessary. Dante was a very curious inquirer on all subjects, and evidently acquainted with ships and seamen as well as geography; and his imagination would eagerly have seized a magnificent novelty like this, and used it the first opportunity. Columbus's discovery, as the reader will see, was antic.i.p.ated by Pulci.]

[Footnote 2: Generous and disinterested!--Cato, the republican enemy of Caesar, and committer of suicide, is not luckily chosen for his present office by the poet who has put Brutus into the devil's mouth in spite of his agreeing with Cato, and the suicide Piero delle Vigne into h.e.l.l in spite of his virtues. But Dante thought Cato's austere manners like his own.]

[Footnote 3: The girding with the rush (_giunco schietto_) is_ supposed by the commentators to be an injunction of simplicity and patience.

Perhaps it is to enjoin sincerity; especially as the region of expiation has now been entered, and sincerity is the first step to repentance.

It will be recollected that Dante's former girdle, the cord of the Franciscan friars, has been left in the hands of Fraud.]

[Footnote 4:

"L'alba vinceva l'ora mattutina Che fuggia 'nnanzi, s che di lontano Con.o.bbi il tremolar de la marina."

The lingering shadows now began to flee Before the whitening dawn, so that mine eyes Discerned far off the trembling of the sea.

"Con.o.bbi il tremolar de la marina"

is a beautiful verse, both for the picture and the sound.]

[Footnote 5: This evidence of humility and grat.i.tude on the part of Dante would be very affecting, if we could forget all the pride and pa.s.sion he has been shewing elsewhere, and the torments in which he has left his fellow-creatures. With these recollections upon us, it looks like an overweening piece of self-congratulation at other people's expense.]

[Footnote 6:

"Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona De la mia donna disiosamente,"

is the beginning of the ode sung by Dante's friend. The incident is beautifully introduced; and Casella's being made to select a production from the pen of the man who asks him to sing, very delicately implies a graceful cordiality in the musician's character.

Milton alludes to the pa.s.sage in his sonnet to Henry Lawes:

"Thou honour'st verse, and verse must lend her wing To honour thee, the priest of Phoebus' quire, That tun'st their happiest lines in hymn or story.

Dante shall give Fame leave to set thee higher Than his Casella, whom he wooed to sing, Met in the milder shades of Purgatory." ]

[Footnote 7: Manfredi was the natural son of the Emperor Frederick the Second. "He was lively and agreeable in his manners," observes Mr. Cary, "and delighted in poetry, music, and dancing. But he was luxurious and ambitious, void of religion, and in his philosophy an epicurean."

_Translation of Dante_, Smith's edition, p. 77. Thus King Manfredi ought to have been in a red-hot tomb, roasting for ever with Epicurus himself, and with the father of the poet's beloved friend, Guido Cavalcante: but he was the son of an emperor, and a foe to the house of Anjou; so Dante gives him a pa.s.sport to heaven. There is no ground whatever for the repentance a.s.sumed in the text.]

[Footnote 8: The unexpected bit of comedy here ensuing is very remarkable and pleasant. Belacqua, according to an old commentator, was a musician.]

[Footnote 9: Buonconte was the son of that Guido da Montefeltro, whose soul we have seen carried off from St. Francis by a devil, for having violated the conditions of penitence. It is curious that both father and son should have been contested for in this manner.]

[Footnote 10: This is the most affecting and comprehensive of all brief stories.

"Deh quando to sarai tornato al mondo, E riposato de la lunga via, Seguit 'l terzo spirito al secondo,

Ricorditi di me che son la Pia: Siena mi fe; disfecemi Maremma; Salsi colui che 'nnanellata pria

Disposando m' avea con la sua gemma."

Ah, when thou findest thee again on earth (Said then a female soul), remember me,-- Pia. Sienna was my place of birth,

The Marshes of my death. This knoweth he, Who placed upon my hand the spousal ring.

"Nello della Pietra," says M. Beyle, in his work ent.i.tled _De l'Amour,_ "obtained in marriage the hand of Madonna Pia, sole heiress of the Ptolomei, the richest and most n.o.ble family of Sienna. Her beauty, which was the admiration of all Tuscany, gave rise to a jealousy in the breast of her husband, that, envenomed by wrong reports and suspicions continually reviving, led to a frightful catastrophe. It is not easy to determine at this day if his wife was altogether innocent; but Dante has represented her as such. Her husband carried her with him into the marshes of Volterra, celebrated then, as now, for the pestiferous effects of the air. Never would he tell his wife the reason of her banishment into so dangerous a place. His pride did not deign to p.r.o.nounce either complaint or accusation. He lived with her alone, in a deserted tower, of which I have been to see the ruins on the seash.o.r.e; he never broke his disdainful silence, never replied to the questions of his youthful bride, never listened to her entreaties. He waited, unmoved by her, for the air to produce its fatal effects. The vapours of this unwholesome swamp were not long in tarnishing features the most beautiful, they say, that in that age had appeared upon earth. In a few months she died. Some chroniclers of these remote times report that Nello employed the dagger to hasten her end: she died in the marshes in some horrible manner; but the mode of her death remained a mystery, even to her contemporaries. Nello della Pietra survived, to pa.s.s the rest of his days in a silence which was never broken." Hazlitt's _Journey through France and Italy_, p. 315.]

[Footnote 11: Sordello was a famous Provencal poet; with whose writings the world has but lately been made acquainted through the researches of M. Raynouard, in his _Choix des Poesies des Troubadours_, &c.]

[Footnote 12: "Fresco smeraldo in l'ora che si fiacca." An exquisite image of newness and brilliancy.]

[Footnote 13: "Salve, Regina:" the beginning of a Roman-Catholic chant to the Virgin.]

[Footnote 14: "With nose deprest," says Mr. Cary. But Dante says, literally, "small nose,"--_nasetto_. So, further on, he says, "masculine nose,"--_maschio naso_. He meant to imply the greater or less determination of character, which the size of that feature is supposed to indicate.]

[Footnote 15: An English reader is surprised to find here a sovereign for whom he has been taught to entertain little respect. But Henry was a devout servant of the Church.]

[Footnote 16:

"Era gia l'ora che volge 'l desio A' naviganti, e intenerisce 'l cuore Lo d ch' an detto a' dolci amici a Dio;

E che lo nuovo peregrin d'amore Punge, se ode squilla di lontano Che paia 'l giorno pianger che si muore."

A famous pa.s.sage, untiring in the repet.i.tion. It is, indeed, worthy to be the voice of Evening herself.

'Twas now the hour, when love of home melts through Men's hearts at sea, and longing thoughts portray The moment when they bade sweet friends adieu; And the new pilgrim now, on his lone way, Thrills, if he hears the distant vesper-bell, That seems to mourn for the expiring day.

Every body knows the line in Gray's Elegy, not unworthily echoed from Dante's--

"The curfew tolls the knell of parting day."

Nothing can equal, however, the _tone_ in the Italian original,--the