The Works of Lord Byron Volume IV Part 46

OF PULCI.

INTRODUCTION TO THE _MORGANTE MAGGIORE_.

It is possible that Byron began his translation of the First Canto of Pulci's _Morgante Maggiore_ (so called to distinguish the entire poem of twenty-eight cantos from the lesser _Morgante_ [or, to coin a t.i.tle, "_Morganid_"] which was published separately) in the late autumn of 1819, before he had left Venice (see his letter to Bankes, February 19, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 403). It is certain that it was finished at Ravenna during the first week of his "domestication" in the Palazzo Guiccioli (Letters to Murray, February 7, February 21, 1820). He took a deal of pains with his self-imposed task, "servilely translating stanza from stanza, and line from line, two octaves every night;" and when the first canto was finished he was naturally and reasonably proud of his achievement. More than two years had elapsed since Frere's _Whistlecraft_ had begotten _Beppo_, and in the interval he had written four cantos of _Don Juan_, outstripping his "immediate model," and equalling if not surpa.s.sing his model's parents and precursors, the masters of "narrative romantic poetry among the Italians."

In attempting this translation--something, as he once said of his Armenian studies, "craggy for his mind to break upon" (Letter to Moore, December 5, 1816, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 10)--Byron believed that he was working upon virgin soil. He had read, as he admits in his "Advertis.e.m.e.nt," John Herman Merivale's poem, _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, which is founded upon the _Morgante Maggiore_; but he does not seem to have been aware that many years before (1806, 1807) the same writer (one of the "a.s.sociate bards") had published in the _Monthly Magazine_ (May, July, 1806, etc., _vide ante_ Introduction to _Beppo_, p. 156) a series of translations of selected pa.s.sages of the poem. There is no resemblance whatever between Byron's laboured and faithful rendering of the text, and Merivale's far more readable paraphrase, and it is evident that if these selections ever pa.s.sed before his eyes, they had left no impression on his memory. He was drawn to the task partly on account of its difficulty, but chiefly because in Pulci he recognized a kindred spirit who suggested and compelled a fresh and final dedication of his genius to the humorous epopee. The translation was an act of devotion, the offering of a disciple to a master.

"The apparent contradictions of the _Morgante Maggiore_ ... the brusque transition from piety to ribaldry, from pathos to satire," the paradoxical union of persiflage with gravity, a confession of faith alternating with a profession of mockery and profanity, have puzzled and confounded more than one student and interpreter. An intimate knowledge of the history, the literature, the art, the manners and pa.s.sions of the times has enabled one of his latest critics and translators, John Addington Symonds, to come as near as may be to explaining the contradictions; but the essential quality of Pulci's humour eludes a.n.a.lysis.

We know that the poem itself, as Pio Rajna has shown, "the _rifacimento_ of two earlier popular poems," was written to amuse Lucrezia Tornabuoni, the mother of Lorenzo de' Medici, and that it was recited, canto by canto, in the presence of such guests as Poliziano, Ficino, and Michelangelo Buonarotti; but how "it struck these contemporaries," and whether a subtler instinct permitted them to untwist the strands and to appraise the component parts at their precise ethical and spiritual value, are questions for the exercise of the critical imagination. That which attracted Byron to Pulci's writings was, no doubt, the co-presence of faith, a certain _simplicity_ of faith, with an audacious and even outrageous handling of the objects of faith, combined with a facile and wanton alternation of romantic pa.s.sion with a cynical mockery of whatsoever things are sober and venerable. _Don Juan_ and the _Vision of Judgment_ owe their existence to the _Morgante Maggiore_.

The MS. of the translation of Canto I. was despatched to England, February 28, 1820. It is evident (see Letters, March 29, April 23, May 18, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 425, 1901, v. 17, 21) that Murray looked coldly on Byron's "masterpiece" from the first. It was certain that any new work by the author of _Don Juan_ would be subjected to the severest and most hostile scrutiny, and it was doubtful if a translation of part of an obscure and difficult poem, vaguely supposed to be coa.r.s.e and irreligious, would meet with even a tolerable measure of success. At any rate, in spite of many inquiries and much vaunting of its excellence (see Letters, June 29, September 12, 1821, _Letters_, 1901, v. 314, 362), the MS. remained for more than two years in Murray's hands, and it was not until other arrangements came into force that the translation of the First Canto of the _Morgante Maggiore_ appeared in the fourth and last number of _The Liberal_, which was issued (by John Hunt) July 30, 1823.

For critical estimates of Luigi Pulci and the _Morgante Maggiore_, see an article (_Quarterly Review_, April, 1819, vol. xxi. pp. 486-556), by Ugo Foscolo, ent.i.tled "Narrative and Romantic Poems of the Italians;"

_Preface_ to the _Orlando Innamorato of Boiardo_, by A. Panizzi, 1830, i. 190-302; _Poems Original and Translated_, by J. H. Merivale, 1838, ii. 1-43; _Stories of the Italian Poets_, by J. H. Leigh Hunt, 1846, i.

283-314; _Renaissance in Italy_, by J. A. Symonds, 1881, iv. 431, 456, and for translations of the _Morgante Maggiore_, _vide ibid_., Appendix V. pp. 543-560; and _Italian Literature_, by R. Garnett, C.B., LL.D., 1898, pp. 128-131.

ADVERTIs.e.m.e.nT.

The Morgante Maggiore, of the first canto of which this translation is offered, divides with the Orlando Innamorato the honour of having formed and suggested the style and story of Ariosto.[332] The great defects of Boiardo were his treating too seriously the narratives of chivalry, and his harsh style. Ariosto, in his continuation, by a judicious mixture of the gaiety of Pulci, has avoided the one; and Berni, in his reformation of Boiardo's poem, has corrected the other. Pulci may be considered as the precursor and model of Berni altogether, as he has partly been to Ariosto, however inferior to both his copyists. He is no less the founder of a new style of poetry very lately sprung up in England. I allude to that of the ingenious Whistlecraft. The serious poems on Roncesvalles in the same language, and more particularly the excellent one of Mr. Merivale, are to be traced to the same source.[333] It has never yet been decided entirely whether Pulci's intention was or was not to deride the religion which is one of his favourite topics. It appears to me, that such an intention would have been no less hazardous to the poet than to the priest, particularly in that age and country; and the permission to publish the poem, and its reception among the cla.s.sics of Italy, prove that it neither was nor is so interpreted. That he intended to ridicule the monastic life, and suffered his imagination to play with the simple dulness of his converted giant, seems evident enough; but surely it were as unjust to accuse him of irreligion on this account, as to denounce Fielding for his Parson Adams, Barnabas,[334]

Thwack.u.m, Supple, and the Ordinary in Jonathan Wild,--or Scott, for the exquisite use of his Covenanters in the "Tales of my Landlord."

In the following translation I have used the liberty of the original with the proper names, as Pulci uses Gan, Ganellon, or Ganellone; Carlo, Carlomagno, or Carlornano; Rondel, or Rondello, etc., as it suits his convenience; so has the translator. In other respects the version is faithful to the best of the translator's ability in combining his interpretation of the one language with the not very easy task of reducing it to the same versification in the other. The reader, on comparing it with the original, is requested to remember that the antiquated language of Pulci, however pure, is not easy to the generality of Italians themselves, from its great mixture of Tuscan proverbs; and he may therefore be more indulgent to the present attempt.

How far the translator has succeeded, and whether or no he shall continue the work, are questions which the public will decide. He was induced to make the experiment partly by his love for, and partial intercourse with, the Italian language, of which it is so easy to acquire a slight knowledge, and with which it is so nearly impossible for a foreigner to become accurately conversant. The Italian language is like a capricious beauty, who accords her smiles to all, her favours to few, and sometimes least to those who have courted her longest. The translator wished also to present in an English dress a part at least of a poem never yet rendered into a northern language; at the same time that it has been the original of some of the most celebrated productions on this side of the Alps, as well of those recent experiments in poetry in England which have been already mentioned.

THE MORGANTE MAGGIORE.[335]

CANTO THE FIRST.

I.

In the beginning was the Word next G.o.d; G.o.d was the Word, the Word no less was He: This was in the beginning, to my mode Of thinking, and without Him nought could be: Therefore, just Lord! from out thy high abode, Benign and pious, bid an angel flee, One only, to be my companion, who Shall help my famous, worthy, old song through.

II.

And thou, oh Virgin! daughter, mother, bride, Of the same Lord, who gave to you each key Of Heaven, and h.e.l.l, and every thing beside, The day thy Gabriel said "All hail!" to thee, Since to thy servants Pity's ne'er denied, With flowing rhymes, a pleasant style and free, Be to my verses then benignly kind, And to the end illuminate my mind.

III.

'Twas in the season when sad Philomel[336]

Weeps with her sister, who remembers and Deplores the ancient woes which both befel, And makes the nymphs enamoured, to the hand Of Phaeton, by Phoebus loved so well, His car (but tempered by his sire's command) Was given, and on the horizon's verge just now Appeared, so that t.i.thonus scratched his brow:

IV.

When I prepared my bark first to obey, As it should still obey, the helm, my mind, And carry prose or rhyme, and this my lay Of Charles the Emperor, whom you will find By several pens already praised; but they Who to diffuse his glory were inclined, For all that I can see in prose or verse, Have understood Charles badly, and wrote worse.

V.

Leonardo Aretino said already,[337]

That if, like Pepin, Charles had had a writer Of genius quick, and diligently steady, No hero would in history look brighter; He in the cabinet being always ready, And in the field a most victorious fighter, Who for the church and Christian faith had wrought, Certes, far more than yet is said or thought.

VI.

You still may see at Saint Liberatore,[338]

The abbey, no great way from Manopell, Erected in the Abruzzi to his glory, Because of the great battle in which fell A pagan king, according to the story, And felon people whom Charles sent to h.e.l.l: And there are bones so many, and so many, Near them Giusaffa's[339] would seem few, if any.

VII.

But the world, blind and ignorant, don't prize His virtues as I wish to see them: thou, Florence, by his great bounty don't arise,[340]

And hast, and may have, if thou wilt allow, All proper customs and true courtesies: Whate'er thou hast acquired from then till now, With knightly courage, treasure, or the lance, Is sprung from out the n.o.ble blood of France.

VIII.

Twelve Paladins had Charles in court, of whom The wisest and most famous was Orlando; Him traitor Gan[341] conducted to the tomb In Roncesvalles, as the villain planned too, While the horn rang so loud, and knelled the doom Of their sad rout, though he did all knight can do: And Dante in his comedy has given To him a happy seat with Charles in Heaven.[342]

IX.

'Twas Christmas-day; in Paris all his court Charles held; the Chief, I say, Orlando was, The Dane; Astolfo there too did resort, Also Ansuigi, the gay time to pa.s.s In festival and in triumphal sport, The much-renowned St. Dennis being the cause; Angiolin of Bayonne, and Oliver, And gentle Belinghieri too came there:

X.

Avolio, and Arino, and Othone Of Normandy, and Richard Paladin, Wise Hamo, and the ancient Salamone, Walter of Lion's Mount, and Baldovin, Who was the son of the sad Ganellone, Were there, exciting too much gladness in The son of Pepin:--when his knights came hither, He groaned with joy to see them altogether.

XI.

But watchful Fortune, lurking, takes good heed Ever some bar 'gainst our intents to bring.

While Charles reposed him thus, in word and deed, Orlando ruled court, Charles, and every thing; Curst Gan, with envy bursting, had such need To vent his spite, that thus with Charles the king One day he openly began to say, "Orlando must we always then obey?

XII.

"A thousand times I've been about to say, Orlando too presumptuously goes on; Here are we, counts, kings, dukes, to own thy sway, Hamo, and Otho, Ogier, Solomon, Each have to honour thee and to obey; But he has too much credit near the throne, Which we won't suffer, but are quite decided By such a boy to be no longer guided.

XIII.

"And even at Aspramont thou didst begin To let him know he was a gallant knight, And by the fount did much the day to win; But I know _who_ that day had won the fight If it had not for good Gherardo been; The victory was Almonte's else; his sight He kept upon the standard--and the laurels, In fact and fairness, are his earning, Charles!