Pastoral Poetry & Pastoral Drama Part 17

a comparison which at once reveals the gulf fixed between the clairvoyant dramatist and the mere pedantic scholar.

And yet the subsequent history of pastoral reminds us that it is quite possible to underestimate Guarini's merits as a playwright. In the construction of a complicated plot, apart from the dramatic presentation thereof, he achieved a success not to be paralleled by any previous work in Italy, for the difference in the t.i.tles of the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_, the one styled _favola_ and the other _tragi-commedia_, indicates a real distinction; and Guarini's proud claim to have invented a new dramatic kind was not wholly unfounded[189]. It was this that caused Symonds to speak of his play as 'sculptured in pure forms of cla.s.sic grace,' while describing the _Aminta_ as 'perfumed and delicate like flowers of spring.' And lastly, it was this more elaborately dramatic quality that was responsible for the far greater influence exercised by Guarini than by Ta.s.so, both on the subsequent drama of Italy and still more on the fortunes of the pastoral in England.

Moreover, in Amarilli, Guarini created one really dramatic character and devoted to it one really dramatic scene. His heroine is probably the best character to be found in the whole of the pastoral drama, and this simply because there is a reason for her coldness towards the lover, upon her love to whom the plot depends. Unless love is to be mutual the motive force of the drama fails, and consequently, when nymphs insist on parading their inhuman superiority to the dictates of natural affection, they are simply refusing to fulfil their dramatic _raison d'etre_. With Amarilli it is otherwise. She has the right to say:

Ama l' onesta mia, s' amante sei; (III. iii.)

and there is a pathos in the words which the author may not have himself fully understood; whereas the similar expression of Ta.s.so's Silvia quoted on a previous page is insufferable in its smug self-conceit.

Of this quality of extravagant virginity noticed as a characteristic of Ta.s.so's play there is on the whole less in the _Pastor fido_. It is also freer from the tone of cynical corruption and from improper suggestion.

These merits are, however, more than counterbalanced in the ethical scale by the elaboration of the spirit of sentimental sensualism, which becomes as it were an enveloping atmosphere, and lends an enervating seduction to the piece. This spirit, already present in the _Aminta_, reappeared in an emphasized form in the _Pastor fido_, and attained its height in the following century in Marino's epic of _Adone_. We find it infusing the scene of Mirtillo's first meeting with Amarilli, which may be said to set the tone of the rest of the poem. Happening to see the nymph at the Olympian games, Mirtillo at once fell in love and contrived to introduce himself in female attire into the company of maidens to which she belonged. Here, the proposal being made to hold a kissing match among themselves, Amarilli was unanimously chosen judge, and, the contest over, she awarded the prize to the disguised youth. The incident owes its origin, as Guarini's notes point out, to the twelfth Idyl of Theocritus, and the suggestion of the kissing match is aptly put into the mouth of a girl from Megara, where an annual contest of kisses among the Greek youths was actually held. Guarini, however, most probably borrowed the episode from the fifth canto of Ta.s.so's _Rinaldo_.

The sentimental seductiveness of this and other scenes did not escape sharp comment in some quarters within a few years of the publication of the play. In 1605 Cardinal Bellarmino, meeting Guarini at Rome, told him plainly that he had done as much harm to morals by his _Pastor fido_ as by their heresies Luther and Calvin had done to religion. Later Ja.n.u.s Nicius Erythraeus, that is Giovanni Vittorio Rossi, in his _Pinacoteca_, compared the play to a rock-infested sea full of seductive sirens, in which no small number of girls and wives were said to have made s.h.i.+pwreck. It is at first sight ratifier a severe indictment to bring against Guarini's play, especially when we remember that a work of art is more often an index than a cause of social corruption. After what has been said, however, of the nature of the sentiment both in the _Pastor fido_ and the _Aminta_, the charge can hardly be dismissed as altogether unfounded. It is only fair to add that very different views have been held with regard to the moral aspect of the play, the theory of its essential healthiness finding an eloquent advocate in Ugo Angelo Canello[190].

Little as it became him, Guarini chose to adopt the att.i.tude of a guardian of morals, and Bellarmino's words clearly possessed a special sting. This pose was in truth but a part of the general att.i.tude he a.s.sumed towards the author of the _Aminta_. His superficial propriety authorized him, in his own eyes, to utter a formal censure upon the amorous dream of the ideal poet. He paid the price of his unwarranted conceit. Those pa.s.sages in which he was at most pains to contrast his ethical philosophy with Ta.s.so's imaginative Utopia are those in which he most clearly betrayed his own insufferable pedantry; while critics even in his own day saw through the unexceptionable morality of his frigid declamations and ruthlessly exposed the sentimental corruption that lay beneath. When we compare his parody in the fourth chorus of the _Pastor fido_ with Ta.s.so's great ode; his sententious 'Piaccia se lice' with Ta.s.so's 'S' ei piace, ei lice'; his utterly ba.n.a.l

Speriam: che 'l sol cadente anco rinasce; E 'l ciel, quando men luce, L' aspettato seren spesso n' adduce,

with Ta.s.so's superb, even though borrowed, paganism:

Amiam: che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; A noi sua breve luce S' asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce--

when we make this comparison we have the spiritual measure of the man. A similar comparison will give us his measure as a poet. Take the graceful but over-elaborated picture:

Quell' augellin che canta S dolcemente, e lascivetto vola Or dall' abete al f.a.ggio, Ed or dal f.a.ggio al mirto, S' avesse umano spirto Direbbe: 'Ardo d' amore, ardo d' amore!'

Compare with this the spontaneous sketch of Ta.s.so:

Odi quell' usignuolo Che va di ramo in ramo Cantando: 'Io amo, io amo!'[191]

Or again, with the irresistible slyness of the final chorus of the _Aminta_ already quoted compare the sententious lines with which Guarini closed his play:

O fortunata coppia, Che pianto ha seminato, e riso accoglie!

Con quante amare doglie Hai raddolciti tu gli affetti tuoi!

Quinci imparate voi, O ciechi e troppo teneri mortali, I sinceri diletti, e i veri mali.

Non e sana ogni gioia, Ne mal ci che v' annoia.

Quello e vero gioire, Che nasce da virtu dopo il soffrire.

It is impossible not to come to the conclusion that we are listening in the one case to a genuine poet of no common order, in the other to a poetaster of considerable learning and great ingenuity, who elected to don the outward habit of a somewhat hypocritical morality. The effect of the contrast is further heightened when we remember that Guarini never for a moment doubted that he had far surpa.s.sed the work of his predecessor.

Guarini's comment on the _Aminta_ in his letter to Speroni has been already quoted: it does little credit to the writer. Manso, the companion and biographer of Ta.s.so, records that, the poet being asked by some friends what he thought of the _Pastor fido_, a copy of which had lately found its way to him at Naples:

Et egli, 'Mi piace sopramodo, ma confesso di non saper la cagione perche mi piaccia.' Onde io rispondendogli, 'Vi piacera per avventura,'

soggiunsi, 'quel che vi riconoscete del vostro.' Et egli replic, 'Ne pu piacere il vedere il suo in man d' altri.'[192]

Guarini would hardly have acknowledged his indebtedness to Ta.s.so in the way of art, but he drew on all sources for the incidents of his plot, and, since he appears to have valued a reputation for scholars.h.i.+p above one for originality, he recorded a fair proportion of his borrowings in his notes.

The _Pastor fido_ was the talk of the Italian Courts even before it was completed. Early in 1584 the heir to the duchy of Mantua, Vincenzo Gonzaga, to whose intercession Ta.s.so later owed his liberty, entreated Guarini to let him have his already famous pastoral for the occasion of his marriage with Eleonora de' Medici. The poet, however, found it impossible to complete the work in time, and sent the _Idropica_ instead.

In the autumn a projected representation of the now completed play came to naught. The following year Guarini presented his play to the Duke of Savoy, and received a gold chain as an acknowledgement. The occasion was the entry into Turin of Carlo Emanuele and his bride, Catharine of Austria, the marriage having taken place at Saragossa some time previously. The dedication is recorded on the t.i.tle-page of the first edition in words that have not unnaturally been held to imply that the play was performed on that occasion.[193] It is clear, however, from contemporary doc.u.ments that this is an error, and, though preparations were made in view of a performance at the following carnival, these too were abandoned. After this we find mention of preparations made at a variety of places, but they never came to anything, and there is reason to believe that some at least were abandoned owing to the opposition of Alfonso d' Este, who never forgave a courtier who transferred his allegiance to another prince. In 1591 Vincenzo Gonzaga, now duke, summoned Guarini to Mantua, and matters advanced as far as a _prova generale_ or dress rehearsal. The project, however, had once more to be abandoned owing to the death of Cardinal Gianvincenzo Gonzaga at Rome. We possess the scheme for the four _intermezzi_ designed for this occasion, representing the _Musica della Terra, del Mare, dell' Aria_, and _Celeste_. They were scenic and musical only, without words. About this time too, that is after the appearance of the first edition dated 1590, we have notes of preparations for several private performances, the ultimate fate of which is uncertain. The first representation of which there is definite evidence, though even here details are lacking, took place at Crema in Lombardy in 1596, at the cost of Lodovico Zurla[194]. After this performances become frequent, and in 1598, after the death of Alfonso, the play was finally produced in state before Vincenzo Gonzaga at Mantua. On all these occasions we may suppose that other prologues were subst.i.tuted for that addressed to _gran Caterina_ and _magnanimo Carlo_[195].

In the meanwhile Guarini, fearing piracy, had turned his attention to the publication of his play. He first resolved to submit it to the criticism of Lionardo Salviati and Scipione Gonzaga, the latter of whom had been a member of the unlucky committee for the revision of the _Gerusalemme_.

Unfortunately little or nothing is known as to the criticisms and recommendations of these two men. The work finally appeared, as we learn from a letter of the author, at Venice in December, 1589. It is a handsome quarto from the press of Giovanbattista Bonfadino, and is dated the following year[196]. In 1602 a luxurious edition, said on the t.i.tle-page to be the twentieth, was issued at Venice by Giovanbattista Ciotti. This represents Guarini's final revision of the text, and contains, besides a portrait and engravings, elaborate notes by the author, and an essay on tragi-comedy[197].

The _Pastor fido_ was the object of a violent attack while as yet it circulated in ma.n.u.script only. As early as 1587 a certain Giasone de Nores or Denores, a Cypriot n.o.ble who held the chair of moral philosophy at the university of Padua, published a pamphlet on the relations existing between different forms of literature and the philosophy of government, in which, while refraining from any specific allusions, he denounced tragi-comedies and pastorals as 'monstrous and disproportionate compositions ... contrary to the principles of moral and civil philosophy.' Guarini argued that, as his play was the only one deserving to be called a tragi-comedy and was at the same time a pastoral, the reference was palpable. He proceeded therefore to compose a counterblast which he named _Il Verato_ (1588) after a well-known comic actor of the time, who, it may be remarked, had had the management of Argenti's _Sfortunato_ in 1567. In this pamphlet Guarini traversed the professor's propositions with a good deal of scholastic ergotism: 'As in compounds the hot accords with the cold, its mortal enemy, as the dry humour with the moist, so the elements of tragedy and comedy, though separately antagonistic, yet when united in a third form,' _et cetera et cetera_. De Nores replied in an _Apologia_ (1590), disclaiming all personal allusion, and the poet finally answered back in a _Verato secondo_, first published in 1593, after his antagonist's death, restating his arguments and seasoning them with a good deal of unmannerly abuse. These two treatises of Guarini's were reprinted with alterations as the _Compendio della poesia tragicommica_, in the 1602 edition of the play, and together with the notes to the same edition form Guarini's own share of the controversy[198]. But in 1600, before these had appeared, a Paduan, Faustino Summo, published a set attack on and dissection of the play; while a certain Giovan Pietro Malacreta of Vicenza ill.u.s.trated the att.i.tude of the age with regard to literature by putting forward a series of critical _dubbi_, that is, doubts as to the 'authority' of the form employed. Both works are distinguished by a spirit of puerile cavil, which would of itself almost suffice to reconcile us to the worst faults of the poet. Thus Malacreta is not even content to let the author choose his own t.i.tle, arguing that Mirtillo was faithful not in his quality of shepherd but of lover[199]. He goes on to complain of the tangle of laws and oracles which Guarini invents in order to motive the action of his play; and here, though taken individually his objections may be hypercritical, he has laid his finger on a very real weakness of the author's ingenious plot. It is, moreover, a weakness common to almost the whole tribe of the Arcadian, or rather Utopian, pastorals. Apologists soon appeared, and had little difficulty in disposing of most of the adverse criticisms. A specific _Risposta_ to Malacreta appeared at Padua in 1600 from the pen of Paolo Beni. Defences by Giovanni Savio and Orlando Pescetti were printed at Venice and Verona respectively in 1601, while one at least, written by Gauges de Gozze of Pesaro, under the pseudonym of Fileno di Isauro, circulated in ma.n.u.script. These writings, however, are marked either by futile endeavours to reconcile the _Pastor fido_ with the supposed teaching of Aristotle and Horace, or else by such extravagant laudation as that of Pescetti, who doubted not that had Aristotle known Guarini's play, it would have been to him the model of a new kind to rank with the epic of Homer and the tragedy of Sophocles[200]. Finally, Summo returned to the charge with a rejoinder to Pescetti and Beni printed at Vicenza in 1601[201]. But all this writing and counter-writing in no way affected the popularity of the _Pastor fido_ and its successors. Moreover, the critical position of the combatants on both sides was essentially false. It would be an easy task to fill a volume with strictures on the play touching its sentimental tone, its affected manners, its stiff development, its undramatic construction, the weak drawing of character, the lack of motive force to move the complex machinery, and many other points--strictures that should be unanswerable. But those who wish to understand the influence exercised by the play over subsequent literature in Europe will find their time better spent in a.n.a.lysing those qualities, whether emotional or artistic, which won for it the enthusiastic wors.h.i.+p of the civilized world.

Numerous translations bear witness to its popularity far beyond the sh.o.r.es of Italy. The earliest of these was into French, and appeared in 1595; it was followed by several others. The Spanish versions have already been mentioned, and the English will occupy our attention shortly. Besides these there are versions, often more than one, in German, Greek, Swedish, Dutch, and Polish. There are likewise versions in the Bergamasc and Neapolitan dialects, while the ma.n.u.script of a Latin translation is preserved in the University Library at Cambridge.

V

There were obvious advantages in treating the two masterpieces of pastoral drama in Italy in close connexion with one another. It must not, however, be supposed that they stood alone in the field of pastoral composition.

Both between the years 1573 when the _Aminta_ was composed and 1590 when the _Pastor fido_ was printed, and also after the latter year, the stream of plays continued unchecked, though, apart from a general tendency towards greater regularity of dramatic construction, they do not form any organic link in the chain of artistic development. Few deserve more than pa.s.sing notice. In the earlier ones, at least, we still find a tendency to introduce extraneous elements. Thus _Gl' Intricati_, printed in 1581, and acted a few years before at Zara, the work of Count Alvise, or, it would appear, more correctly Luigi, Pasqualigo, contains a farcical and magical part combined with some rather coa.r.s.e jesting between two rogues, one Spanish and one Bolognese, who speak in their respective dialects. Another play in which a comic element appears is Bartolommeo Rossi's _Fiammella_ (1584), which has the further peculiarity of introducing allegorical characters into the prologue, and mythological into the play. Another piece belonging to this period is the _Pentimento amoroso_ by Luigi Groto, which was printed as early as 1575. It is a wild tale of murder and intrigue, judgement and outrageous self-sacrifice, composed in _sdrucciolo_ verse and speeches of monstrous length. Another piece, Gabriele Zinano's _Caride_, surrept.i.tiously printed in 1582, and included in an authorized publication in 1590, has the peculiarity of placing the prologue in the mouth of Vergil. Lastly, I may mention Angelo Ingegneri's _Danza di Venere_, acted at Parma in 1583, and printed the following year.

It contains the incident of a mad shepherd's regaining his wits through gazing on the beauty of a sleeping nymph, thus borrowing the motive of Boccaccio's tale of Cymon and Iphigenia. Its chief interest for us, however, lies in the episode of the hero employing a gang of satyrs to carry off his beloved during a solemn dance in honour of Venus. This looks like a reminiscence of Giraldi Cintio's _Egle_, and through it of the old satyric drama[202].

These plays all belong to the period between the _Aminta_ and the _Pastor fido_. Ta.s.so's and Guarini's masterpieces mark the point of furthest development attained by the pastoral drama in Italy, or indeed in Europe.

With them the vitality which rendered evolution possible was spent, though the power of reproduction remained unimpaired for close on a century.

Signor Rossi, in the monograph of which I have already made such free use, mentions a number of plays, whose dependence on the _Pastor fido_ is evident from their t.i.tles, though Guarini's influence is, of course, far more widely spread than such eclectic treatment reveals. The most curious, perhaps, is a play, _I figliuoli di Aminta e Silvia e di Mirtillo ed Amarilli_, by Ercole Pelliciari, dealing with the fortunes of the children of the heroes and heroines of Ta.s.so and Guarini. We are on the way to a genealogical cycle of Arcadian drama, similar to the cycles of romance that centred round Roland and Launcelot. It would be a work of supererogation to demonstrate in detail the influence exercised by Ta.s.so and Guarini over their Italian followers, and a task of forbidding proportions to give the bare t.i.tles of the plays that witnessed to that influence. Sera.s.si reports that in 1614 Clementi Bartoli of Urbino possessed no less than eighty pastoral plays; while by 1700, the year of Fontanini's work on the _Aminta_, Giannantonio Moraldi is said to hsve brought together in Rome a collection of over two hundred.[203] Every device was resorted to that could lend novelty to the scenes; in Carlo Noci's _Cintia_ (1594) the heroine returns home disguised as a boy to find her lover courting another nymph; in Francesco Contarini's _Finta Fiammetta_ (1610), on the other hand, the plot turns on the courts.h.i.+p of Delfide by her lover Celindo in girl's attire; while in Orazio Serono's _Fida Armilla_ (1610) we have the annual human sacrifice to a monstrous serpent--all of which later became familiar themes in pastoral drama and romance. Two plays only call for closer attention, and this rather on account of a certain reputation they have gained than of any intrinsic merit. One of these, Antonio Ongaro's _Alceo_, which was printed in 1582 and is therefore earlier than the _Pastor fido_, has been happily nicknamed _Aminta bagnato_. It is a piscatorial adaptation of Ta.s.so's play, which it follows almost scene for scene. The satyr becomes a triton with as little change of character as the nymphs and shepherds undergo in their metamorphosis to fisher girls and boys. Alceo shows less resourcefulness than his prototype in that he twice tries to commit suicide by throwing himself into the sea. The last act is spun out to three scenes in accordance with the demand for greater regularity of dramatic construction, but gains nothing but tedium thereby. The other play to be considered connects itself in plot rather with the _Pastor fido_. It is the _Filli di Sciro_, the work of Guidubaldo Bonarelli della Rovere. The poet's father enjoyed the protection of the Duke Guidubaldo II of Urbino, but in after days he removed to the court of the Estensi at Ferrara. It was here that the play appeared in 1607, though it is dedicated to Francesco Maria della Rovere, who had by that time succeeded his father in the duchy of Urbino. The plot of the play is highly intricate, and shows a tendency towards the introduction of an adventurous element; it turns upon the tribute of youths and maidens exacted from the island of Scyros by the king of Thrace. The figure of the satyr is replaced by a centaur who carries off one of the nymphs. Her cries attract two youths who succeed in driving off the monster, but are severely wounded in the encounter. The nymph, Celia, thereupon falls in love with both her rescuers at once, and it is only when one of them proves to be her long-lost brother that she is able to make up her mind between them[204]. This brother had been carried off as a child by the Thracians together with his betrothed Filli, and having escaped was lately returned to his native land. From a dramatic point of view the _denoument_ is even more preposterous than usual. The princ.i.p.al characters leave the stage at the end of the fourth act, under sentence of death, and do not reappear, the whole of the last act being occupied with narratives of their subsequent fortunes. A point which is possibly worth notice is the introduction of that affected talk on the technicalities of sheepcraft which adds so greatly to the already intolerable artificiality of the later pastoral drama, but which is happily absent from the work of Ta.s.so and Guarini.

We have now reached the end of our survey of the Italian pastoral drama.

In spite of the s.p.a.ce it has been necessary to devote to the subject, it must be borne in mind that we have treated it from one point of view only.

Besides the interest which it possesses in connexion with the development of pastoral tradition, it also plays a very important part in the history of dramatic art, not in Italy alone, but over the whole of Europe. On this aspect of the subject we have hardly so much as touched. Nor is this all.

If it is true, as is commonly a.s.sumed, that the opera had its birth in the _Orfeo_ of Angelo Poliziano, it is not less true that it found its cradle in the Arcadian drama. A few isolated pieces may still be able to charm us by their poetic beauty. In dealing with the rest it must never be forgotten that without the costly scenery and elaborate musical setting that lent body and soul to them in their day, we have what is little better than the dry bones of these _ephemeridae_ of courtly art.

Chapter IV.

Dramatic Origins of the English Pastoral Drama

I

Having at length arrived at what must be regarded as the main subject of this work, it will be my task in the remaining chapters to follow the growth of the pastoral drama in England down to the middle of the seventeenth century, and in so doing to gather up and weave into a connected web the loose threads of my discourse.

Taking birth among the upland meadows of Sicily, the pastoral tradition first a.s.sumed its conventional garb in imperial Rome, and this it preserved among learned writers after its revival in the dawn of the Italian renaissance. With Arcadia for its local habitation it underwent a rebirth in the opening years of the sixteenth century in Sannazzaro's romance, and again towards the close in the drama of Ta.s.so. It became chivalric in Spain and courtly in France, and finally reached this country in three main streams, the eclogue borrowed by Spenser from Marot, the romance suggested to Sidney by Montemayor, and the drama imitated by Daniel from Ta.s.so and Guarini. Once here, it blended variously with other influences and with native tradition to produce a body of dramatic work, which, ill-defined, spasmodic and occasional, nevertheless reveals on inspection a certain character of its own, and one moreover not precisely to be paralleled from the literary annals of any other European nation.

The indications of a native pastoral impulse, manifesting itself in the burlesque of the religions drama and the romance of the popular ballads, we have already considered. The connexion which it is possible to trace between this undefined impulse and the later pastoral tradition is in no wise literary; in so far as it exists at all and is one of temperament alone, a bent of national character. In tracing the rise of the form in Italy upon the one hand, and in England upon the other, we are struck by certain curious contrasts and also by certain curious parallelisms. The closest a.n.a.logy to the ballad themes to be discovered in the literature of Italy is in certain of the songs of Sacchetti and his contemporaries, but it would be unwise to insist on the resemblance. The more suggestive parallel of the _novelle_ has to be ruled out on the score of form, and is further differentiated by the notable lack in them of romantic spirit.

Again, in the _sacre rappresentazioni_, the burlesque interpolations from actual life, which with us aided the genesis of the interlude, and through it of the romantic comedy, are as a rule so conspicuously absent that the rustic farce with which one nativity play opens can only be regarded as a direct and conscious imitation from the French. It is, on the other hand, a remarkable fact, and one which, in the absence of any evidence of direct imitation,[205] must be taken to indicate a real parallelism in the evolution of the tradition in the two countries, that in England as in Italy the way was paved for pastoral by the appearance of mythological plays, introducing incidentally pastoral scenes and characters, and antic.i.p.ating to some extent at any rate the peculiar atmosphere of the Arcadian drama.