Dante. An essay Part 7

But let no reader of fastidious taste disturb his temper by the study of Dante. Dante certainly opened that path of freedom and poetic conquest, in which the greatest efforts of modern poetry have followed him--opened it with a magnificence and power which have never been surpa.s.sed. But the greatest are but pioneers; they must be content to leave to a posterity, which knows more, if it cannot do as much, a keen and even growing sense of their defects. The _Commedia_ is open to all the attacks that can be made on grotesqueness and extravagance.

This is partly owing, doubtless, to the time, in itself quaint, quainter to us, by being remote and ill-understood; but even then, weaker and less daring writers than Dante do not equally offend or astonish us. So that an image or an expression will render forcibly a thought, there is no strangeness which checks him. Barbarous words are introduced, to express the cries of the demon or the confusion of Babel--even to represent the incomprehensible song of the blessed;[111] inarticulate syllables, to convey the impression of some natural sound--the cry of sorrowful surprise:

Alto sospir, che duolo strinse in _hui_;--_Purg._ 16.

or the noise of the cracking ice:

Se Tabernicch Vi fosse su caduto, o Pietra-pana Non avria pur da l'orlo fatto _cricch_;--_Inf._ 32.

even separate letters--to express an image, to spell a name, or as used in some popular proverb.[112] He employs without scruple, and often with marvellous force of description, any recollection that occurs to him, however homely, of everyday life;--the old tailor threading his needle with trouble (_Inf._ 15);--the cook's a.s.sistant watching over the boiling broth (_Inf._ 21);--the hurried or impatient horse-groom using his curry-comb (_Inf._ 29);--or the common sights of the street or the chamber--the wet wood sputtering on the hearth:

Come d'un stizzo verde che arso sia Dall'un de' capi, che dall'altro geme E cigola per vento che va via;--_Inf._ 13.[113]

the paper changing colour when about to catch fire:

Come procede innanzi dall'ardore Per lo papiro suso un color bruno Che non e nero ancora, e 'l bianco muore:--_Inf._ 25.[114]

the steaming of the hand when bathed, in winter:

Fuman come man bagnata il verno:--

or the ways and appearances of animals--ants meeting on their path:

L veggio d'ogni parte farsi presta Ciascun'ombra, e baciarsi una con una Senza restar, contente a breve festa: Cos per entro loro schiera bruna _S'ammusa l'una con l'altra formica_, Forse a spiar lor via e lor fortuna;--_Purg._ 26.[115]

the snail drawing in its horns (_Inf._ 25);--the hog shut out of its sty, and trying to gore with its tusks (_Inf._ 30);--the dogs' misery in summer (_Inf._ 17);--the frogs jumping on to the bank before the water-snake (_Inf._ 9);--or showing their heads above water:

Come al orlo dell'acqua d'un fosso Stan gli ranocchi _pur col muso fuori_, S che celano i piedi, e l'altro grosso.--_Inf._ 22.[116]

[Footnote 111: _Parad._ 7, 1-3.]

[Footnote 112: To describe the pinched face of famine;--

Parean l'occhiaje annella senza gemme.

Chi nel viso degli uomini legge OMO Ben avria quivi conosciuto l'_emme_ (M).--_Purg._ 23.

Again,

Quella reverenza che s'indonna Di tutto me, pur per B e per ICE.--_Parad._ 7.

Ne O s tosto mai, ne I si scrisse, Com'ei s'accese ed a.r.s.e.--_Inf._ 24.]

[Footnote 113:

Like to a sapling, lighted at one end, Which at the other hisses with the wind, And drops of sap doth from the outlet send: So from the broken twig, both words and blood flow'd forth.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 114:

Like burning paper, when there glides before The advancing flame a brown and dingy shade, Which is not black, and yet is white no more.--IBID.]

[Footnote 115:

On either hand I saw them haste their meeting, And kiss each one the other--pausing not-- Contented to enjoy so short a greeting.

Thus do the ants among their dingy band, Face one another--each their neighbour's lot Haply to scan, and how their fortunes stand.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 116:

As in a trench, frogs at the water side Sit squatting, with their noses raised on high, The while their feet, and all their bulk they hide-- Thus upon either hand the sinners stood.

But Barbariccia now approaching nigh, Quick they withdrew beneath the boiling flood.

I saw--and still my heart is thrill'd with fear-- One spirit linger; as beside a ditch, One frog remains, the others disappear.--IBID.]

It must be said, that most of these images, though by no means all, occur in the _Inferno_; and that the poet means to paint sin not merely in the greatness of its ruin and misery, but in characters which all understand, of strangeness, of vileness, of despicableness, blended with diversified and monstrous horror. Even he seems to despair of his power at times:

S'io avessi le rime e aspre, e chiocce, Come si converrebbe al tris...o...b..co, Sovra 'l qual pontan tutte l'altre rocce; Io premerrei di mio concetto il suco Piu pienamente; ma perch'io non l'abbo, Non senza tema a dicer mi conduco: Che non e 'mpresa da pigliare a gabbo Descriver fondo a tutto l'universo, Ne da lingua, che chiami mamma, o babbo.--_Inf._ 32.[117]

[Footnote 117:

Had I a rhyme so rugged, rough, and hoa.r.s.e As would become the sorrowful abyss, O'er which the rocky circles wind their course, Then with a more appropriate form I might Endow my vast conceptions; wanting this, Not without fear I bring myself to write.

For no light enterprise it is, I deem, To represent the lowest depth of all; Nor should a childish tongue attempt the theme.--WRIGHT.]

Feeling the difference between sins, in their elements and, as far as we see them, their baseness, he treats them variously. His ridicule is apportioned with a purpose. He pa.s.ses on from the doom of the sins of incontinence--the storm, the frost and hail, the crus.h.i.+ng weights--from the flaming minarets of the city of Dis, of the Furies and Proserpine, "Donna dell'eterno pianto," where the unbelievers lie, each in his burning tomb--from the river of boiling blood--the wood with the Harpies--the waste of barren sand with fiery snow, where the violent are punished--to the Malebolge, the manifold circles of Falsehood. And here scorn and ridicule in various degrees, according to the vileness of the fraud, begin to predominate, till they culminate in that grim comedy, with its _dramatis personae_ and battle of devils, Draghignazzo, and Graffiacane, and Malacoda, where the peculators and sellers of justice are fished up by the demons from the boiling pitch, but even there overreach and cheat their tormentors, and make them turn their fangs on each other. The diversified forms of falsehood seem to tempt the poet's imagination to cope with its changefulness and inventions, as well as its audacity. The transformations of the wildest dream do not daunt him. His power over language is nowhere more forcibly displayed than in those cantos, which describe the punishments of theft--men pa.s.sing gradually into serpents, and serpents into men:

Due e nessun l'imagine perversa Parea.--_Inf._ 25.

And when the traitor, who murdered his own kinsman, was still alive, and seemed safe from the infamy which it was the poet's rule to bestow only on the dead, Dante found a way to inflict his vengeance without an anachronism:--Branca D'Oria's body, though on earth, is only animated by a fiend, and his spirit has long since fled to the icy prison.[118]

[Footnote 118:

Ed egli a me: Come 'l mio corpo stea Nel mondo su, nulla scienzia porto.

Cotal vantaggio ha questa Tolommea, Che spesse volte l'anima ci cade Innanzi, ch'Atrops mossa le dea.

E perche tu piu volontier mi rade Le 'nvetriate lagrime dal volto, Sappi, che tosto che l'anima trade, Come fec'io, il corpo suo l'e tolto Da un Dimonio, che poscia il governa, Mentre che 'l tempo suo tutto sia volto.

Ella ruina in s fatta cisterna; E forse pare ancor lo corpo suso Dell'ombra, che di qua dietro mi verna.

Tu 'l dei saper, se tu vien pur mo giuso: Egli e ser Branca d'Oria, e son piu anni Poscia pa.s.sati, ch'ei fu s racchiuso.

Io credo, diss'io lui, che tu m'inganni, Che Branca d'Oria non mor unquanche, E mangia, e bee, e dorme, e veste panni.

Nel fosso su, diss'ei, di Malebranche, La dove bolle la tenace pece, Non era giunto ancora Michel Zanche; Che questi lasci 'l diavolo in sua vece Nel corpo suo, e d'un suo prossimano, Che 'l tradimento insieme con lui fece.--_Inf._ 33.]

These are strange experiments in poetry; their strangeness is exaggerated as detached pa.s.sages; but they are strange enough when they meet us in their place in the context, as parts of a scene, where the mind is strung and overawed by the sustained power, with which dreariness, horror, hideous absence of every form of good, is kept before the imagination and feelings, in the fearful picture of human sin. But they belong to the poet's system of direct and forcible representation. What his inward eye sees, what he feels, that he means us to see and feel as he does; to make us see and feel is his art.

Afterwards we may reflect and meditate; but first we must see--must see what he saw. Evil and deformity are in the world, as well as good and beauty; the eye cannot escape them, they are about our path, in our heart and memory. He has faced them without shrinking or dissembling, and extorted from them a voice of warning. In all poetry that is written for mere delight, in all poetry which regards but a part or an aspect of nature, they have no place--they disturb and mar; but he had conceived a poetry of the whole, which would be weak or false without them. Yet they stand in his poem as they stand in nature--subordinate and relieved. If the grotesque is allowed to intrude itself--if the horrible and the foul, undisguised and unsoftened, make us shudder and shrink, they are kept in strong check and in due subjection by other poetical influences; and the same power which exhibits them in their naked strength, renders its full grace and glory to beauty; its full force and delicacy to the most evanescent feeling.

Dante's eye was free and open to external nature in a degree new among poets; certainly in a far greater degree than among the Latins, even including Lucretius, whom he probably had never read. We have already spoken of his minute notice of the appearance of living creatures; but his eye was caught by the beautiful as well as by the grotesque.

Take the following beautiful picture of the bird looking out for dawn:

Come l'augello intra l'amate fronde, Posato al nido de' suoi dolci nati, La notte, che le cose ci nasconde, Che per veder gli aspetti desiati, E per trovar lo cibo, onde li pasca, In che i gravi labor gli sono aggrati, Previene 'l tempo in su l'aperta frasca, E con ardente affetto il sole aspetta, Fiso guardando, pur che l'alba nasca.--_Parad._ 23.[119]

[Footnote 119:

E'en as the bird that resting in the nest Of her sweet brood, the shelt'ring boughs among While all things are enwrapt in night's dark vest-- Now eager to behold the looks she loves, And to find food for her impatient young (Whence labour grateful to a mother proves), Forestalls the time, high perch'd upon the spray, And with impa.s.sion'd zeal the sun expecting, Anxiously waiteth the first break of day.--WRIGHT.]

Nothing indeed can be more true and original than his images of birds; they are varied and very numerous. We have the water-birds rising in clamorous and changing flocks: