Volume I Part 11 (2/2)
”O would to Heaven, lady, that marriage had made us one! ah, why didst thou not come into this world a little sooner?--or I a little later? Yet why these vain thoughts? since I am doomed to see thee the bride of another, and am myself fettered in these marriage bonds!
”Thou knowest, Madonna, that these sighs, these burning words, are not feigned; for even as Love dictates does my hand write.
”My life and death are with thee;--grant me but a few words, and I am content to live;--if not, let me die! and let my poor remains be laid in some forlorn and sequestered spot. Let none whisper the cause of my death, lest it should grieve thee! enough if some kind hand engrave upon my tomb,--'_He perished through too much love and too much cruelty._'”
I have given, literally, the leading sentiments of this little poem, but have left untranslated many of the stanzas. There are one or two concetti; but as Ginguen truly observes on a different occasion, ”Dans les potes Italiens, souvent la pa.s.sion est vraie, mme quand l'expression ne l'est pas.”
The style is so natural, the transitions so abrupt, the expressions so energetic, and there are so few of those descriptive ornaments which are plentifully scattered through Lorenzo's other poems, that I should p.r.o.nounce it the real effusion of a heart, touched,--and deeply touched.
It is to be regretted that we know nothing of the name or real character of an object who, deserving or not, could call forth such strong lines as these; and in the plenitude of his power and fame, and in the midst of his great and serious avocations, deeply, though secretly, tyrannise over the peace of Lorenzo.
He is accused,--I regret that I must allude to it,--of considerable licence of manners with regard to women;--a reproach from which Roscoe has fairly vindicated him. United, at the age of twenty-one, to a woman he had never seen; residing in a dissipated capital, surrounded by temptation, and from disposition peculiarly sensible to the influence of women, it is not matter of astonishment if Lorenzo's conjugal faith was not preserved immaculate,--if he occasionally became the thrall of beauty, and--(since he was not likely to be caught by vulgar charms,)--if he sighed, _par hazard_, for one who was not to be tempted by power or gold: such a one as his Elegy indicates. Two points are certain,--that his uniform respect and kindness to his wife Clarice, left her no reason to complain; while his discretion was such, that though historians have hazarded a general accusation against him in this one particular, there exists not in any contemporary writer one scandalous anecdote of his private life, nor the name of any woman to whom he was attached, except that of his poetical love, Lucretia Donati.
Lorenzo de' Medici was not handsome in face, nor graceful in form; but he was captivating in his manners, and excelled in all manly exercises.
The engraving prefixed to Roscoe's life of him, does not do justice to his countenance. I remember the original picture in the gallery of Florence, on which I have looked day after day for many minutes together, with an interest that can only be felt on the very spot where the memory of Lorenzo is ”wherever we look, wherever we move.” In spite of the stoop in the shoulders, the unbecoming dress, and the harsh features, I was struck by the grand simplicity of the head, and the mingled expression of acuteness, benevolence, and earnest thought in the countenance; the imagination filled with the splendid character of the man, might possibly have perceived more than the eye,--but such was my impression.
Lorenzo died in his forty-fourth year, in 1492. He is not interred in that celebrated chapel of his family, rich with the sublimest productions of Michael Angelo's chisel: he lies at the opposite side of the church, in a magnificent sarcophagus of bronze, which contains also the ashes of his murdered brother, Giuliano.--Among the recollections, sweet and bitter, which I brought from Florence, is the remembrance of a day when retiring, from the glare of an Italian noontide, I stood in the church of San Lorenzo, sketching the tomb of Lorenzo and Giuliano de'
Medici. The spot whence I viewed it was so obscure, that I could scarce see the lines traced by my pencil; but immediately behind the sarcophagus, there flowed from above a stream of strong light, relieving with added effect the dark outline of the sculptured ornaments. Through the grating which formed the background, I could see the figures of shaven monks and stoled priests gliding to and fro, like apparitions; and while I thought more,--O much more,--of the still and cold repose which wrapped the dead, than of their high deeds and far-spread fame, the plaintive music of a distant choir, chanting the _Via crucis_, floated through the pillared aisles, receding or approaching as the singers changed their station; swelling, sinking, and at length dying away on the ear.
FOOTNOTES:
[61] Lorenzo tells us in the original, that the ladies who rendered themselves thus insupportable, were called (_vulgarly_) _Saccenti_:--query--_vulgarly, Blue-stockings_?
[62] Lorenzo de' Medici to his wife Clarice:--
”I arrived here in safety, and am in good health: this, I believe, will please thee better than any thing else, except my return, at least so I judge from my own desire to be once more with thee. a.s.sociate as much as possible with my father and sisters. I shall make all possible speed to return to thee, for it appears a thousand years till I see thee again.
Pray to G.o.d for me--if thou want any thing from this place write in time. From Milan, 22d July, 1469. THY LORENZO.”
CHAPTER XII.
THE FAIR GERALDINE.
In the reign of the second Grand Duke of Tuscany, of Lorenzo's family, (Cosmo I.) Florence, it is said, beheld a novel and extraordinary spectacle: a young traveller, from a court and a country which the Italians of that day seemed to regard much as we now do the Esquimaux,[63] combining the learning of the scholar and the amiable bearing of the courtier, with all the rash bravery of youthful romance, astonished the inhabitants of that queenly city, first, by rivalling her polished n.o.bles in the splendour of his state, and gallantry of his manners, and next, by boldly proclaiming that his ”lady love” was superior to all that Italy could vaunt of beauty, that she was ”oltre le belle, bella,” fair beyond the fairest,--and maintaining his boast in a solemn tourney held in her honour, to the overthrow of all his opponents.
This was our English Surrey; one of the earliest and most elegant of our amatory poets, and the lover of the Fair Geraldine.
It must be admitted that the fame of the Earl of Surrey does not rest merely on t.i.tle, and that if the fair Geraldine had never existed, he would still have lived in history as an accomplished scholar, soldier, courtier, and been lamented as the n.o.ble victim of a suspicious tyrant.
But if some fair object of romantic gallantry had not given the impulse to his genius, and excited him to try his powers in a style of which no models yet existed in his native language,[64]--it may be doubted whether his name would have descended to us with all those poetical and chivalrous a.s.sociations which give a charm and an interest to his memory, far beyond that of a mere historical character. As for the fair-haired, blue-eyed Geraldine, the mistress of his fancy and affections, and the subject of his verse, her ident.i.ty long lay _entombed_, as it were, in a poetical name; but Surrey had loved her, had maintained her beauty at the point of his lance--had made her ”famous by his pen, and glorious by his sword.” This was more than enough to excite the interest and the inquiries of posterity, and lo!
antiquaries and commentators fell to work, archives were searched, genealogies were traced, and at length the substance of this beautiful poetical shadow was detected: she was proved to have been the Lady Elizabeth Fitzgerald, afterwards the wife of a certain Earl of Lincoln, of whom little is known--but that he married the woman Surrey had loved.
Surrey has ingeniously contrived to compress, within the compa.s.s of a sonnet, some of the most interesting particulars of the personal and family history of his mistress. The Fitzgeralds derive their origin from the Geraldi of Tuscany,--hence
From Tuscan came my ladye's worthy race, Fair Florence was sometime their ancient seat.
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