Part 34 (1/2)

Down into h.e.l.l I went and thence returned: Ah me! alas! the people that were there!

I found a room where many candles burned, And saw within my love that languished there.

When as she saw me, she was glad of cheer, And at the last she said: Sweet soul of mine; Dost thou recall the time long past, so dear, When thou didst say to me, Sweet soul of mine?

Now kiss me on the mouth, my dearest, here; Kiss me that I for once may cease to pine!

So sweet, ah me, is thy dear mouth, so dear, That of thy mercy prithee sweeten mine!

Now, love, that thou hast kissed me, now, I say, Look not to leave this place again for aye.

Or again in this (p. 232):--

Methinks I hear, I hear a voice that cries: Beyond the hill it floats upon the air.

It is my lover come to bid me rise, If I am fain forthwith toward heaven to fare.

But I have answered him, and said him No!

I've given my paradise, my heaven, for you: Till we together go to paradise, I'll stay on earth and love your beauteous eyes.

But it is not with such remote and eerie thoughts that the rustic muse of Italy can deal successfully. Far better is the following half-playful description of love-sadness (p. 71):--

Ah me, alas! who know not how to sigh!

Of sighs I now full well have learned the art: Sighing at table when to eat I try, Sighing within my little room apart, Sighing when jests and laughter round me fly, Sighing with her and her who know my heart: I sigh at first, and then I go on sighing; 'Tis for your eyes that I am ever sighing: I sigh at first, and sigh the whole year through; And 'tis your eyes that keep me sighing so.

The next two rispetti, delicious in their navete, might seem to have been extracted from the libretto of an opera, but that they lack the sympathising chorus, who should have stood at hand, ready to chime in with 'he,' 'she,' and 'they,' to the 'I,' 'you,' and 'we' of the lovers (p. 123):--

Ah, when will dawn that glorious day When you will softly mount my stair?

My kin shall bring you on the way; I shall be first to greet you there.

Ah, when will dawn that day of bliss When we before the priest say Yes?

Ah, when will dawn that blissful day When I shall softly mount your stair, Your brothers meet me on the way, And one by one I greet them there?

When comes the day, my staff, my strength, To call your mother mine at length?

When will the day come, love of mine, I shall be yours and you be mine?

Hitherto the songs have told only of happy love, or of love returned.

Some of the best, however, are unhappy. Here is one, for instance, steeped in gloom (p. 142):--

They have this custom in fair Naples town; They never mourn a man when he is dead: The mother weeps when she has reared a son To be a serf and slave by love misled; The mother weeps when she a son hath born To be the serf and slave of galley scorn; The mother weeps when she a son gives suck To be the serf and slave of city luck.

The following contains a fine wild image, wrought out with strange pa.s.sion in detail (p. 300):--

I'll spread a table brave for revelry, And to the feast will bid sad lovers all.

For meat I'll give them my heart's misery; For drink I'll give these briny tears that fall.

Sorrows and sighs shall be the varletry, To serve the lovers at this festival: The table shall be death, black death profound; Weep, stones, and utter sighs, ye walls around!

The table shall be death, yea, sacred death; Weep, stones, and sigh as one that sorroweth!

Nor is the next a whit less in the vein of mad Jeronimo (p. 304):--

High up, high up, a house I'll rear, High up, high up, on yonder height; At every window set a snare, With treason, to betray the night; With treason, to betray the stars, Since I'm betrayed by my false feres; With treason, to betray the day, Since Love betrayed me, well away!

The vengeance of an Italian reveals itself in the energetic song which I quote next (p. 303):--

I have a sword; 'twould cut a brazen bell, Tough steel 'twould cut, if there were any need: I've had it tempered in the streams of h.e.l.l By masters mighty in the mystic rede: I've had it tempered by the light of stars; Then let him come whose skin is stout as Mars; I've had it tempered to a trenchant blade; Then let him come who stole from me my maid.

More mild, but brimful of the bitterness of a soul to whom the whole world has become but ashes in the death of love, is the following lament (p. 143):--