Romance of Roman Villas Part 18

As one listens to the delirious nightingales in the dim, green-arched _allees_, one forgets the trysting trees in other Italian gardens and is sure that only here could Daphne have drawn her argument for love from their caresses.

"_Daphne:_

The gentle, jocund spring, Smiling and wantoning, Makes all things amorous.

Thou only thus, Untamed wild creature, wilder than the rest, Deniest love the harbourage of thy breast.

List to yon nightingale Singing within the vale 'I love, love, love.'

With what renewed embracement vine clasps vine, Fir blends its boughs with fir, and pine with pine.

Beneath the rugged bark May'st thou mute inward sighings mark, And wilt thou graceless be Less than a vine or tree-- To keep thyself unloving, loverless?

Bend, bend thy stubborn heart Fool that thou art."

But the physical peculiarity which actually identifies Villa d'Este as the locale of the poem is its cliff, the "sheer crag" from whence Amyntas leaps in his despair.

"Now did he lead me where the cloven steep Among the rocks and solitary crags Looms pathless and breaks sheer above a vale.

There paused we, and I, peering far below, Shuddered, drew from the brink.

'Sylvia, I come, I follow!' So he cried: Then headlong leaped,--and left me turned to stone."

There are other poems of Ta.s.so's which refer to his residence at Villa d'Este, and infer Leonora's presence at that time. We may cite in particular the canzone to Leonora at her uncle's villa, beginning "_Al n.o.bil colle ove in antichi marmi_":

"To the romantic hills where free To thine enchanted eyes Works of Greek art in statuary Of antique marbles rise, My thought, fair Leonora, roves, And with it to their gloomy groves Fast bears me as it flies.

For far from thee, in crowds unblest, My fluttering heart but ill can rest.

"There to the rock, cascade, and grove, On mosses dropt with dew, Like one who thinks and sighs of love The livelong summer through, Oft would I dictate glorious things Of heroes to the Tuscan strings On my sweet lyre anew, And to the brooks and trees around Ippolito's high name resound."

This poem would seem to imply that a part of the _Jerusalem_ was written here, possibly the episode of Sophronia and Olindo, so dear to Ta.s.so himself that though it was not an integral part of the epic he dared the Inquisition rather than comply with the demands of the censor that it should be stricken out. The description of Sophronia is admitted to have been intended to denote Leonora:

"Amongst them in the city lived a maid The flower of virgins in her perfect prime, Supremely beautiful! but that she made Never her care, or beauty only weighed In worth with virtue; and her worth acquired A deeper charm from blooming in the shade, Lovers she shunned, nor loved to be admired, But from their praises turned to live a life retired."

Equally applicable to Ta.s.so is that of Olindo, the lover who--

"Feared much, hoped little, and in nought presumed.

He could not or he durst not speak, but doomed To voiceless thought his pa.s.sion."

But during those "livelong summer days" the poet's pa.s.sion was not utterly voiceless. The _Amyntas_ is throughout a continual and unequivocal expression, and he daringly in the very prelude makes the G.o.d of love, who explains the scheme of the play, declare--

"For wheresoe'er I am, there I am Love, No less in shepherds' than in heroes' hearts, The _unequal lot grows equal_ at my will, My chiefest vaunt, my miracle is this."

Openly and repeatedly Ta.s.so a.s.serts that while he is not indifferent to literary distinction it is not the chief end which he has in view in writing the _Amyntas._

"Deem not" (he says) "that all Love's bliss At last is but a breath Of fame that followeth.

Love's meed is love, it wooeth, _winneth_ this.

Nathless the lover steadfast to his end Hath laud ofttimes and maketh Fame his friend."

Goethe makes Ta.s.so confide this double aim to Leonora and her reply shows that he did indeed win the meed he sought. "For what" the poet asks her "is more deserving to survive and silently to last for centuries than the confession of a n.o.ble love, confided modestly to gentle song?"

We follow step by step that wooing, finding it in the exquisite apostrophe to the golden age--which concludes:

"Then let us live as erst kind Nature's thralls And let us love--since hearts No truce of time may know, and youth departs: Ay! let us love: suns sink but sink to soar-- On us, our brief day o'er, Night falls and sleep descends for evermore."

Here again Goethe discovers the personal note, transcribing the poem unscrupulously from its setting in the _Amyntas_ and making Leonora reply with didactic coldness to Ta.s.so's appeal--

"_Ta.s.so:_

The golden age, ah! whither is it flown, For which in secret every heart repines?

When every bird winging the limpid air And every living thing o'er hill and dale Proclaimed to man, What pleases is allowed.

"_Princess_:

My friend, the golden age hath pa.s.sed away.

Shall I confess to thee my secret thoughts?

The golden age, wherewith the bard is wont Our spirits to beguile, that lovely prime, Existed in the past no more than now; Still meet congenial spirits and enhance Each other's pleasures in this beauteous world; But in the motto change one single word And say my friend,--What's fitting is allowed."

Perhaps Leonora did speak thus in the open discussion which followed the reading of the poem as in that at the Court of Urbino when Cardinal Bembo, distraught by his own rhapsody on love, stood silent as one transported, and the lady Emilia to recall him to himself shook him playfully, crying, "Have a care, Pietro, lest in this mood your soul should be separated from your body."

And the gay Cardinal replied: "Madam, this would not be the first miracle which Love hath wrought in me."

Certainly, Ta.s.so's wooing, even at Villa d'Este, was not always a happy one. In the following stanzas he tells of temporary despairs, but he hints also of a great hope at his darkest moment:

"By what dim ways at last Love leadeth man Unto his joy and sets him 'mid the bliss Of his heart's heaven of love--then when he most Thinketh him sunk in an abyss of bale; O blest Amyntas--from thy fate I augur for mine own, that so may she, That fair untender maid, who in a smile Of pity sheaths the steel of heartlessness, So may she with true pity heal the hurt Wherewith feigned pity pierced me to the heart."

In another beautiful pa.s.sage it is not hope which he sings but rapture:

"Let him who serveth Love Divine it in his heart, though scarce may he Divine or give it voice."

What was the boon which gave Ta.s.so so much bliss? Perchance no greater than the one he celebrates in the exquisite lines:

_Stava Madonna ad un balcon soletta._

"My lady at a balcony alone One day was standing, when I chanced to stretch My arm on hers; pardon I begged, if so I had offended her; she sweetly answered, 'Not by the placing of thy arm hast thou Displeased me aught, but by withdrawing it Do I remain offended!' O fond words!

Dear little love words, short but sweet, and courteous!

Courteous as sweet, affectionate as courteous!

If it were true and certain what I heard, I shall be always seeking not to offend thee, Repeating the great bliss: but my sweet life, By all my eagerness therein remember-- Where there is no offence, there must be No visiting of vengeance!"

It must have been early in their acquaintance that such grat.i.tude was poured forth for so slight a favour. There are balconies at Villa d'Este, bal.u.s.traded terraces where now the contorted stems of giant vines wrestle with the carved pillarets and rend them relentlessly from their copings where at intervals the bayonet-leaved aloes keep sentinel like the bravi of Cardinal Ippolito I., their long green knives unsheathed and ready for any deed of horror. Here, unconscious of spying eyes, Leonora may have leant apparently absorbed in that glorious view, and Ta.s.so's hand have stolen furtively to her own.

But was there no other guerdon for his long service than this shy avowal--no other bliss before that long horror of imprisonment and real or imputed madness which ended only after Leonora's death? Only the Duke Alphonso and those who so basely read the poet's private papers can reply.

Cardinal Ippolito must have guessed to what end the pastoral of Villa d'Este was tending; but whether his sympathy was real or feigned for his own uses we cannot know.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Alinari_

Villa d'Este--Terrace Staircase]

He never attained his ambition, for death suddenly claimed him before the aged Pope whom he had hoped to succeed. Ta.s.so's tragedy culminated, as Goethe tells us, at another villa, that of Belriguardo. The pastoral of Villa d'Este ends in a chorus or envoy expressive of that tremulous hope which flutters so deliciously in every line of the exquisite poem:

"I know not if the bitterness That, serving long, long yearning, one hath borne In tears and all forlorn, May wholly turn to sweet, and Love requite All sorrows with delight.