Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Part 38

This is Bacchus and the bright Ariadne, lovers true!

They, in flying time's despite, Each with each find pleasure new; These their Nymphs, and all their crew Keep perpetual holiday.-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed, Of the Nymphs are paramours: Through the caves and forests wide They have snared them mid the flowers; Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers, Now they dance and leap alway.-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

These fair Nymphs, they are not loth To entice their lovers' wiles.

None but thankless folk and rough Can resist when Love beguiles.

Now enlaced, with wreathed smiles, All together dance and play.-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

See this load behind them plodding On the a.s.s! Silenus he, Old and drunken, merry, nodding, Full of years and jollity; Though he goes so swayingly, Yet he laughs and quaffs alway.-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

Midas treads a wearier measure: All he touches turns to gold: If there be no taste of pleasure, What's the use of wealth untold?

What's the joy his fingers hold, When he's forced to thirst for aye?-- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

Listen well to what we're saying; Of to-morrow have no care!

Young and old together playing, Boys and girls, be blithe as air!

Every sorry thought forswear!

Keep perpetual holiday.--- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day; Nought ye know about to-morrow.

Ladies and gay lovers young!

Long live Bacchus, live Desire!

Dance and play; let songs be sung; Let sweet love your bosoms fire; In the future come what may!--- Youths and maids, enjoy to-day!

Nought ye know about to-morrow.

Fair is youth and void of sorrow; But it hourly flies away.

The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo's death and the ominous pa.s.sage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as skeletons. The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy. If in the jovial days of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless refrain, 'Nought ye know about to-morrow,' they now re-echoed with a cry of 'Penitence;' for times had strangely altered, and the heedless past had brought forth a doleful present. The last stanza of Alamanni's chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival.

Sorrow, tears, and penitence Are our doom of pain for aye; This dead concourse riding by Hath no cry but penitence!

E'en as you are, once were we: You shall be as now we are: We are dead men, as you see: We shall see you dead men, where Nought avails to take great care, After sins, of penitence.

We too in the Carnival Sang our love-songs through the town; Thus from sin to sin we all Headlong, heedless, tumbled down:-- Now we cry, the world around, Penitence! oh, Penitence!

Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools!

Time steals all things as he rides: Honours, glories, states, and schools, Pa.s.s away, and nought abides; Till the tomb our carcase hides, And compels this penitence.

This sharp scythe you see us bear, Brings the world at length to woe: But from life to life we fare; And that life is joy or woe: All heaven's bliss on him doth flow Who on earth does penitence.

Living here, we all must die; Dying, every soul shall live: For the King of kings on high This fixed ordinance doth give: Lo, you all are fugitive!

Penitence! Cry Penitence!

Torment great and grievous dole Hath the thankless heart mid you; But the man of piteous soul Finds much honour in our crew: Love for loving is the due That prevents this penitence.

Sorrow, tears, and penitence Are our doom of pain for aye: This dead concourse riding by Hath no cry but Penitence!

One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in ill.u.s.tration of the varied forms a.s.sumed by this style of poetry, but also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life. This poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de' Medici, but probably without due reason. It describes the manners and customs of female street gossips.

Since you beg with such a grace, How can I refuse a song, Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, On the follies of the place?

Courteously on you I call; Listen well to what I sing: For my roundelay to all May perchance instruction bring, And of life good lessoning.-- When in company you meet, Or sit spinning, all the street Clamours like a market-place.

Thirty of you there may be; Twenty-nine are sure to buzz, And the single silent she Racks her brains about her coz:-- Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz, Mind your work, my ditty saith; Do not gossip till your breath Fails and leaves you black of face!

Governments go out and in:-- You the truth must needs discover.

Is a girl about to win A brave husband in her lover?-- Straight you set to talk him over: 'Is he wealthy?' 'Does his coat Fit?' 'And has he got a vote?'

'Who's his father?' 'What's his race?'

Out of window one head pokes; Twenty others do the same:-- Chatter, clatter!--creaks and croaks All the year the same old game!-- 'See my spinning!' cries one dame, 'Five long ells of cloth, I trow!'

Cries another, 'Mine must go, Drat it, to the bleaching base!'

'Devil take the fowl!' says one: 'Mine are all bewitched, I guess; c.o.c.ks and hens with vermin run, Mangy, filthy, featherless.'

Says another: 'I confess Every hair I drop, I keep-- Plague upon it, in a heap Falling off to my disgrace!'

If you see a fellow walk Up or down the street and back, How you nod and wink and talk, Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack!-- 'What, I wonder, does he lack Here about?'--'There's something wrong!'

Till the poor man's made a song For the female populace.

It were well you gave no thought To such idle company; Shun these gossips, care for nought But the business that you ply.

You who chatter, you who cry, Heed my words; be wise, I pray: Fewer, shorter stories say: Bide at home, and mind your place.

Since you beg with such a grace, How can I refuse a song, Wholesome, honest, void of wrong, On the follies of the place?

The _Madrigale_, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers. Without seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Ta.s.so, who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and more immediately intended for music.[32] The similarity both of manner and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious.

There is the same affectation of rusticity in both.

_Cogliendo per un prato._

Plucking white lilies in a field I saw Fair women, laden with young Love's delight: Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright.

Then by the margin of a fount they leaned, And of those flowers made garlands for their hair-- Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare.

Forth from the field I pa.s.sed, and gazed upon Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one.

_Togliendo l' una all' altra._

One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers, I saw fair maidens 'neath the summer trees, Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties.

Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, 'Take!'

Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake.

My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: Therefore I am her servant to the grave.

_Appress' un fiume chiaro_.

Hard by a crystal stream Girls and maids were dancing round A lilac with fair blossoms crowned.

Mid these I spied out one So tender-sweet, so love-laden, She stole my heart with singing then: Love in her face so lovely-kind And eyes and hands my soul did bind.

_Di riva in riva_.

From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley, Seeking my hawk, where 'neath a pleasant hill I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill.

Lina was there all loveliness excelling; The pleasure of her beauty made me sad, And yet at sight of her my soul was glad.

Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming, And all a tremble from the fountain fled: For each was naked as her maidenhead.

Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain, Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!