"In principio era il Verbo appresso a Dio; Ed era Iddio il Verbo, e "l Verbo lui: Quest" era nel principio, al parer mio; E nulla si pu far sanza costui: Per, giusto Signor benigno e pio, Mandami solo un de gli angeli tui, Che m"accompagni, e rechimi a memoria Una famosa antica e degna storia.
II.
"E tu, Vergine, figlia, e madre, e sposa, Di quel Signor, che ti dette le chiave Del cielo e dell" abisso, e d" ogni cosa, Quel di che Gabriel tuo ti disse Ave!
Perche tu se" de" tuo" servi pietosa, Con dolce rime, e stil grato e soave, Ajuta i versi miei benignamente, E"nsino al fine allumina la mente.
III.
"Era nel tempo, quando Filomena Colla sorella si lamenta e plora, Che si ricorda di sua antica pena, E pe" boschetti le ninfe innamora, E Febo il carro temperato mena, Che "l suo Fetonte l"ammaestra ancora; Ed appariva appunto all" orizzonte, Tal che t.i.ton si graffiava la fronte:
IV.
"Quand"io varai la mia barchetta, prima Per ubbidir chi sempre ubbidir debbe La mente, e faticarsi in prosa e in rima, E del mio Carlo Imperador m"increbbe; Che so quanti la penna ha posto in cima, Che tutti la sua gloria prevarrebbe: E stata quella istoria, a quel ch"i" veggio, Di Carlo male intesa, e scritta peggio."]
[336] {287}[Philomela and Procne were daughters of Pandion, King of Attica. Tereus, son of Ares, wedded Procne, and, after the birth of her son Itys, concealed his wife in the country, with a view to dishonouring Philomela, on the plea of her sister"s death. Procne discovered the plot, killed her babe, and served up his flesh in a dish for her husband"s dinner. The sisters fled, and when Tereus pursued them with an axe they besought the G.o.ds to change them into birds. Thereupon Procne became a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. So Hyginus, _Fabulae_, xlv.; but there are other versions of Philomela"s woes.]
[337] [In the first edition of the _Morgante Maggiore_ (Firenze, 1482 [_B. M._ G. 10834]), which is said (_vide_ the _colophon_) to have been issued "under the correction of the author, line 2 of this stanza runs thus: "_comegliebbe u armano el suo turpino_;" and, apparently, it was not till 1518 (Milano, by Zarotti) that _Pipino_ was subst.i.tuted for _Turpino_. Leonardo Bruni, surnamed Aretino (1369-1444), in his _Istoria Fiorentina_ (1861, pp. 43, 47), commemorates the imperial magnificence of _Carlo Magno_, and speaks of his benefactions to the Church, but does not--in that work, at any rate--mention his biographers. It is possible that if Pulci or Bruni had read Eginhard, they thought that his chronicle was derogatory to Charlemagne. (See Gibbon"s _Decline and Fall_, 1825, iii. 376, note 1, and Hallam"s _Europe during the Middle Ages_, 1868, p. 16, note 3; _et vide post_, p. 309.)]
[338] {288}[For an account of the Benedictine Monastery of San Liberatore alla Majella, which lies to the south of Manoppello (eight miles southwest of Chieto, in the Abruzzi), see _Monumenti Storici ed.
Artistici degli Abruzzi_, by V. Bindi, Naples, 1889, Part I. (Testo), pp. 655, _sq_. The abbey is in a ruinous condition, but on the walls of "_un ampio porticato_," there is still to be seen a fresco of Charlemagne, holding in his hands the deed of gift of the Abbey lands.]
[339] [That is, the valley of Jehoshaphat, the "valley where Jehovah judges" (see Joel iii. 2-12); and, hence, a favourite burial-ground of Jews and Moslems.]
[340] [The text as it stands is meaningless. Probably Byron wrote "dost arise." The reference is no doubt to the supposed restoration of Florence by Charlemagne.]
[341] {289}["The _Morgante_ is in truth the epic of treason, and the character of Gano, as an accomplished but not utterly abandoned Judas, is admirably sustained throughout."--_Renaissance in Italy_, 1881, iv.
444.]
[342]
["Cos per Carlo Magno e per Orlando, Due ne segui lo mio attento sguardo, Com" occhio segue suo falcon volando."
_Del Paradiso_, Canto XVIII. lines 43-45.]
[343] {296}["Macon" is another form of "Mahomet." Compare--
"O Macon! break in twain the steeled lance."
Fairfax"s Ta.s.so, _Gerusalemme Liberata_, book ix. stanza x.x.x. line i.]
[344] [Pulci seems to have been the originator of the humorous understatement. Compare--
"And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more."
Bret Harte"s Poems, _The Society upon the Stanislaus_, line 26.]
[345] {303} "Gli dette in su la testa un gran punzone." It is strange that Pulci should have literally antic.i.p.ated the technical terms of my old friend and master, Jackson, and the art which he has carried to its highest pitch. "_A punch on the head_" or "_a punch in the head_"--"un punzone in su la testa,"--is the exact and frequent phrase of our best pugilists, who little dream that they are talking the purest Tuscan.
[346] {304}["Half a dozen invectives against tyranny confiscate C^d.^ H^d.^ in a month; and eight and twenty cantos of quizzing Monks, Knights, and Church Government, are let loose for centuries."--Letter to Murray, May 8, 1820, _Letters_, 1901, v. 21.]
[347] {308}[Byron could not make up his mind with regard to the translation of the Italian _sbergo_, which he had, correctly, rendered "cuira.s.s." He was under the impression that the word "meant _helmet_ also" (see his letters to Murray, March 1, 5, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv.
413-417). _Sbergo_ or _usbergo_, as Moore points out (_Life_, p. 438, note 2), "is obviously the same as hauberk, habergeon, etc., all from the German _halsberg_, or covering for the neck." An old dictionary which Byron might have consulted, _Vocabolario Italiano-Latino_, Venice, 1794, gives _thorax_, _lorica_, as the Latin equivalent of "Usbergo = armadura del busto, corazza." (See, too, for an authority quoted in the _Dizzionario Universale_ (1797-1805) of Alberti di Villanuova, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 417, note 2.)]
FRANCESCA OF RIMINI.
INTRODUCTION TO _FRANCESCA OF RIMINI_.
The MS. of "a _literal_ translation, word for word (versed like the original), of the episode of Francesca of Rimini" (Letter March 23, 1820, _Letters_, 1900, iv. 421), was sent to Murray from Ravenna, March 20, 1820 (_ibid_., p. 419), a week after Byron had forwarded the MS. of the _Prophecy of Dante_. Presumably the translation had been made in the interval by way of ill.u.s.trating and justifying the unfamiliar metre of the "Dante Imitation." In the letter which accompanied the translation he writes, "Enclosed you will find, _line for line_, in _third rhyme_ (_terza rima_,) of which your British Blackguard reader as yet understands nothing, f.a.n.n.y of Rimini. You know that she was born here, and married, and slain, from Cary, Boyd, and such people already. I have done it into _cramp_ English, line for line, and rhyme for rhyme, to try the possibility. You had best append it to the poems already sent by last three posts."
In the matter of the "British Blackguard," that is, the general reader, Byron spoke by the card. Hayley"s excellent translation of the three first cantos of the _Inferno_ (_vide ante_, "Introduction to the _Prophecy of Dante_," p. 237), which must have been known to a previous generation, was forgotten, and with earlier experiments in _terza rima_, by Chaucer and the sixteenth and seventeenth century poets, neither Byron nor the British public had any familiar or definite acquaintance.
But of late some interest had been awakened or revived in Dante and the _Divina Commedia_.
Cary"s translation--begun in 1796, but not published as a whole till 1814--had met with a sudden and remarkable success. "The work, which had been published four years, but had remained in utter obscurity, was at once eagerly sought after. About a thousand copies of the first edition, that remained on hand, were immediately disposed of; in less than three months a new edition was called for." Moreover, the _Quarterly_ and _Edinburgh Reviews_ were loud in its praises (_Memoir of H. F. Cary_, 1847, ii. 28). Byron seems to have thought that a fragment of the _Inferno_, "versed like the original," would challenge comparison with Cary"s rendering in blank verse, and would lend an additional interest to the "Pulci Translations, and the Dante Imitation." _Dis aliter visum_, and Byron"s translation of the episode of _Francesca of Rimini_, remained unpublished till it appeared in the pages of _The Letters and Journals of Lord Byron_, 1830, ii. 309-311. (For separate translations of the episode, see _Stories of the Italian Poets_, by Leigh Hunt, 1846, i. 393-395, and for a rendering in blank verse by Lord [John] Russell, see _Literary Souvenir_, 1830, pp. 285-287.)
FRANCESCA DA RIMINI.
FRANCESCA OF RIMINI[348]
FROM THE INFERNO OF DANTE.
CANTO THE FIFTH.
"The Land where I was born[349] sits by the Seas Upon that sh.o.r.e to which the Po descends, With all his followers, in search of peace.
Love, which the gentle heart soon apprehends, Seized him for the fair person which was ta"en From me[350], and me even yet the mode offends.
Love, who to none beloved to love again Remits, seized me with wish to please, so strong[351], That, as thou see"st, yet, yet it doth remain.
Love to one death conducted us along, 10 But Caina[352] waits for him our life who ended:"
These were the accents uttered by her tongue.-- Since I first listened to these Souls offended, I bowed my visage, and so kept it till-- "What think"st thou?" said the bard[353]; when I unbended, And recommenced: "Alas! unto such ill How many sweet thoughts, what strong ecstacies, Led these their evil fortune to fulfill!"
And then I turned unto their side my eyes, And said, "Francesca, thy sad destinies 20 Have made me sorrow till the tears arise.
But tell me, in the Season of sweet sighs, By what and how thy Love to Pa.s.sion rose, So as his dim desires to recognize?"
Then she to me: "The greatest of all woes Is to remind us of our happy days[co][354]
In misery, and that thy teacher knows.
But if to learn our Pa.s.sion"s first root preys Upon thy spirit with such Sympathy, I will do even as he who weeps and says.[cp][355] 30 We read one day for pastime, seated nigh, Of Lancilot, how Love enchained him too.
We were alone, quite unsuspiciously.
But oft our eyes met, and our Cheeks in hue All o"er discoloured by that reading were; But one point only wholly us o"erthrew;[cq]
When we read the long-sighed-for smile of her,[cr]