Part 18 (2/2)
”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.
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