Part 18 (1/2)

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: