The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 3

[18] Percy's Reliques.

[19] _Root_, i. e. example or beginner.

[20] See the notes to Chaucer, the works of Froissart, and Mmoires sur les Troubadours.

CHAPTER V.

GUIDO CAVALCANTI AND MANDETTA,

CINO DA PISTOJA AND SELVAGGIA.

Amatory poetry was transmitted from the Provenals to the Italians and Sicilians, among whom the language of the Troubadours had long been cultivated, and their songs imitated, but in style yet more affected and _recherch_. Few of the Italian poets who preceded Dante, are interesting even in a mere literary point of view: of these only one or two have shed a reflected splendour round the object of their adoration.

Guido Cavalcanti, the Florentine, was the early and favourite friend of Dante: being engaged in the factions of his native city, he was forced on some emergency to quit it; and to escape the vengeance of the prevailing party, he undertook a pilgrimage to Sant Jago. Pa.s.sing through Tolosa, he fell in love with a beautiful Spanish girl, whom he has celebrated under the name of _Mandetta_:

In un boschetto trovai pastorella Pi che la stella bella al mio parere, Capegli avea biondetti e ricciutelli.

Some of his songs and ballads have considerable grace and nature; but they were considered by himself as mere trifles. His grand work on which his fame long rested, is a "Canzone sopra l'Amore," in which the subject is so profoundly and so philosophically treated, that seven voluminous commentaries in Latin and Italian have not yet enabled the world to understand it.

The following Sonnet is deservedly celebrated for the consummate beauty of the picture it resents, and will give a fair idea of the platonic extravagance of the time.

Chi questa che vien ch' ogni uom la mira!

Che fa tremar di caritate l' a're?

E mena seco amor, s che parlare Null' uom ne puote; ma ciascun sospira?

Ahi dio! che sembra quando gli occhi gira!

Dicalo Amor, ch'io nol saprei contare; Cotanto d' umilt donna mi pare Che ciascun' altra inver di lei chiam' ira.

Non si porria contar la sua piacenza; Che a lei s'inchina ogni gentil virtute, E la beltate per sua Dea la mostra.

Non si alta gi la mente nostra E non s' posta in noi tanta salute Che propriamente n' abbian conoscenza!

LITERAL TRANSLATION.

"Who is this, on whom all men gaze as she approacheth!--who causeth the very air to tremble around her with tenderness?--who leadeth Love by her side--in whose presence men are dumb; and can only sigh? Ah! Heaven! what power in every glance of those eyes! Love alone can tell; for I have neither words nor skill! She alone is the Lady of gentleness--beside her, all others seem ungracious and unkind. Who can describe her sweetness, her loveliness? to her every virtue bows, and beauty points to her as her own divinity. The mind of man cannot soar so high, nor is it sufficiently purified by divine grace to understand and appreciate all her perfections!"

The vagueness of this portrait is a part of its beauty:--it is like a lovely dream--and probably never had any existence, but in the fancy of the Poet.

Cino da Pistoia enjoyed the double reputation of being the greatest doctor and teacher of the civil law, and most famous poet of his time.

He was also remarkable for his personal accomplishments and his love of pleasure. There is a sonnet which Dante addressed to Cino, reproaching him with being inconstant and volatile in love.[21] Apparently, this was after the death of the beautiful Ricciarda dei Selvaggi; or, as he calls her, his Selvaggia: she was of a n.o.ble family of Pistoia, her father having been gonfaliere, and leader of the faction of the Bianchi; and she was also celebrated for her poetical talents. It appears from a little madrigal of hers, which has been preserved, that though she tenderly returned the affection of her lover, it was without the knowledge of her haughty family. It is not distinguished for poetic power, but has at least the charm of perfect frankness and simplicity, and a kind of _abandon_ that is quite bewitching.

A MESSER CINO DA PISTOJA.

Gentil mio sir, lo parlare amoroso Di voi s in allegranza mi mantene, Che dirvel non poria, ben lo sacciate; Perch del mio amor sete giojoso, Di ci grand' allegria e gio' mi vene, Ed altro mai non haggio in volontate, Fuor del vostro piacere; Tutt' hora fate la vostra voglienza: Haggiate previdenza Voi, di celar la nostra desienza.

"My gentle love and lord! those tender words Of thine so fill my conscious heart with joy, --I cannot speak it--but thou know'st it well; Wherefore do thou rejoice in that deep love I bear thee, knowing that I have no thought But to fulfil thy will and crown thy wish: --Watch thou--and hide our mutual hope from all!"

Meantime the parents of Ricciarda were exiled from Pistoia, by the faction of the Neri. They took refuge from their enemies in a little fortress among the Appenines, whither Cino followed them, and was received as a comforter amid their distresses. Probably the days pa.s.sed in this dreary abode, among the wild and solitary hills, when he a.s.sisted Ricciarda in her household duties, and in aiding and consoling her parents, were among the happiest of his life; but the winter came, and with it many privations and many hards.h.i.+ps. Their mountain retreat was ill calculated to defend them against the fury of the elements: Ricciarda drooped under the pressure of misery and want, and her parents and her lover watched the gradual extinction of life--saw the rose-hue fade from her cheek, and the light from her eye, till she melted from their arms into death; then they buried her with tears, in a nook among the mountains.

Many years afterwards, when Cino had reached the height of his fame, and had been crowned with wealth and honours by his native city, he had occasion to cross the Appenines on an emba.s.sy, and causing his suite to travel by another road, he made a pilgrimage alone to the tomb of his lost Selvaggia. This incident gave rise to the most striking of all his compositions, which with great pathos and sweetness describes his feelings, when he flung himself down on her humble grave, to weep over the recollection of their past happiness:

Io fu' in sull'alto e in sul beato monte, Ove adorai baciando il santo sa.s.so, E caddi in su quella pietra, oim la.s.so!

Ove l' onest pose la sua fronte; E ch' ella chiuse d' ogni virt il fonte Quel giorno che di morte acerbo pa.s.so Fece la donna dello mio cor,--la.s.so!-- Gi piena tutta d' adornezze conte.

Quivi chiamai a questa guisa Amore: "Dolce mio Dio, fa che quinci mi traggia La morte a se, che qui giace il mio cor!"

Ma poi che non m'intese il mio signore, Mi disparti, pur chiamando, Selvaggia!

L'alpe pa.s.sai, con voce di dolore.

The circ.u.mstance in the last stanza, "I rose up and went on my way, and pa.s.sed the mountain summits, crying aloud 'Selvaggia!' in accents of despair," has a strong reality about it, and no doubt _was_ real. Her death took place about 1316.

In the history of Italian poetry, Selvaggia is distinguished as the "_bel numer' una_,"--"the fair number one"--of the four celebrated women of that century--The others were Dante's Beatrice, Petrarch's Laura, and Boccaccio's Fiammetta.

Every one who reads and admires Petrarch, will remember his beautiful Sonnet on the Death of Cino, beginning "Piangete Donne"

Perch 'l nostro amoroso messer Cino Novellamente s' da noi part.i.to.

In the venerable Cathedral at Pistoia, there is an ancient half-effaced bas-relief, representing Cino, surrounded by his disciples, to whom he is explaining the code of civil law: a little behind stands the figure of a female veiled, and in a pensive att.i.tude, which is supposed to represent Ricciarda de' Selvaggi.

All these are alluded to by Petrarch in the Trionfo d'Amore.

Ecco Selvaggia, Ecco Cin da Pistoja; Guitton d'Arezzo; Ecco i due Guidi che gi furo in prezzo.

The two Guidi are, Guido Guizzinello, and Guido Cavalcanti. Guitone was a famous monk, who is said to have invented the present form of the sonnet: to him also is attributed the discovery of counterpoint, and the present system of musical notation.

Of Conti's mistress nothing is known, but that she had the most beautiful hand in the world, whence the volume of poems written by her lover in her praise, is ent.i.tled, _La Bella Mano_, the fair hand. Conti lived some years later than Petrarch. I mention him merely to fill up the list of those ancient minor poets of Italy, whose names and loves are still celebrated.

FOOTNOTES:

[21]

Chi s' innamora, siccome voi fate Ed ad ogni piacer si lega e scioglie Mostra ch'amor leggermente il saetti--SON. 44.

CHAPTER VI.

LAURA.

There are some who doubt the reality of Petrarch's love, because it is expressed in numbers; and others, refining on this doubt, profess even to question whether his Laura ever existed, except in the imagination and the poetry of her lover. The first objection could only be made by the most prosaic of commentators--some true "black-letter dog"[22]--who had dustified and mistified his faculties among old parchments. The most real and most fervent pa.s.sion that ever fell under my own knowledge, was revealed in verse, and very exquisite verse too, and has inspired many an effusion, full of beauty, fancy, and poetry; but it has not, therefore, been counted less sincere; and Heaven forbid it should prove less lasting than if it had been told in the homeliest prose, and had never inspired one beautiful idea or one rapturous verse!

To study Petrarch in his own works, and in his own delightful language; to follow him line by line, through all the vicissitudes and contradictions of pa.s.sion; to listen to his self-reproaches, his terrors, his regrets, his conflicts; to dwell on his exquisite delineations of individual character and peculiar beauty, his simple touches of profound pathos and melancholy tenderness:--and then believe all to be mere invention,--the coinage of the brain,--a tissue of visionary fancies, in which the heart had no share; to confound him with the cold metaphysical rhymesters of a later age,--seems to argue not only a strange want of judgment, but an extraordinary obtuseness of feeling.[23]

The faults of taste of which Petrarch has been accused over and over again, by those who seem to have studied him as Voltaire studied Shakspeare,--his _concetti_--his fanciful adoration of the laurel, as the emblem of Laura--his playing on the words _Laura_, _L'aura_, and _Lauro_, his _freezing flames_ and _burning ice_,--I abandon to critics, and let them make the best of them, as defects in what were else perfection.

These were the fas.h.i.+on of the day: a great genius may outrun his times, but not without bearing about him some ineffaceable impressions of the manners and character of the age in which he lived. He is too witty--"Il a trop d'esprit," to be sincere, say the critics,--"he has a conceit left him in his misery,--a miserable conceit;" but we know--at least _I_ know--how in the very extremity of pa.s.sion the soul can mock at itself--how the fancy can with a bitter and exaggerated gaiety sport with the heart!--These are faults of composition in the writer, and admitted to be such; but they prove nothing against the man, the poet, or the lover. The reproach of monotony, I confess I never could understand. It is rather matter of astonishment, how in a collection of nearly four hundred poems, all, with one or two exceptions, turning upon the same subject and sentiment, the poet has poured forth such an endless and redundant variety both of thought and feeling--how from the wide universe, the changeful face of all beautiful nature, the treasures of antique learning, and, above all, from his own overflowing heart, he has drawn those lovely pictures, allusions, situations, sentiments and reflections, which have, indeed, been stolen, borrowed, imitated, worn threadbare by succeeding poets, but in him were the fresh and spontaneous effusions of profound feeling and luxuriant fancy. Schlegel very justly observes, that the impression of monotony may arise from our considering at one view, and bound up in one volume, a long series of poems, which were written in the course of many years, at different times, and on different occasions. Laura herself, he avers, would certainly have been _ennuye_ to death with her own praises, if she had been obliged to read over, at one sitting, all the verses which her lover composed on her charms; and I agree with him.

It appears to me that the very impression of Petrarch's individual character, and the circ.u.mstances of his life, on the whole ma.s.s of his poetry, are evidence of the truth of his attachment, and the reality of its object. He was by nature a poet; his love was, therefore, poetical: he loved "in numbers, for the numbers came." He was an accomplished scholar in a pedantic age,--and his love is, therefore, ill.u.s.trated by such comparisons and turns of thought as were allied to his habitual studies. He had a fertile and playful fancy, and his love is adorned by all the luxuriance of his imagination. He had been educated for the profession of the Civil Law, "per vender parole anzi mensogne,"--to sell words and lies, as he disdainfully expressed it,--and his love is mixed up with subtile reasonings on his own hapless state. He was a philosopher, and it is tinged with the mystic reveries of Platonism, the favourite and fas.h.i.+onable philosophy of the age. He was deeply religious, and the strain of devotional and moral feeling which mingles with that of pa.s.sion, or of grief,--his fears lest the excess of his earthly affections should interfere with his eternal salvation,--his continual allusions to his faith, to a future existence, and the nothingness and vanity of the world,--are not so many proofs of his profaneness, but of his sincerity. He was suspicious, irritable, and susceptible; subject to quick transitions of feeling; raised by a word to hope--plunged by a glance into despair; just such a finely-toned instrument as a woman loves to play on;--and all this we have set forth in the contradictions, the self-reproaches, the little daily vicissitudes which are events and revolutions in a life of pa.s.sion; a life, which when exhibited in the rich and softening tints of poetry, has all the power of strong interest, united to the charm of harmony and expression; but in the reality, and in plain prose, cannot be contemplated without a painful compa.s.sion. "The day may perhaps come,"