Part 24 (2/2)

XVIII. Christ symbolises and includes all saintly truth-seeking souls.

Compare the three last lines of this sonnet with the three last lines of No. XV. and No. XX.

XIX., XX., XXI. Expanding the same themes, Campanella contrasts the ignorance of self-love with the divine illumination of the true philosopher, and insists that, in spite of persecution and martyrdom, saintly and truth-seeking souls will triumph.

XXII. Resumes the thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite in its capacity, could be enamoured of G.o.d, it would at once work miracles and attain to Deity.

XXIII. A bitter satire on love in the seventeenth century. Lines 9-11: as Adami sometimes says, _qui legit intelligat_. Line 12: _la squilla mia_ is a pun on Campanella's name. He means that he has shown the world a more excellent way of love. Cp. No. XXII.

XXIV. The essence of n.o.bility is subjected to the same critique as kinghood in No. XVI. Line 11: the Turk is Europe's foe. Campanella praises the Turks because they had no hereditary n.o.bility, and conferred honours on men according to their actions.

XXV. That this sonnet should have been written by a Dominican monk in a Neapolitan prison in the first half of the seventeenth century, is truly note-worthy. It expresses the essence of democracy in a critique of the then existing social order.

XXVI. A very obscure piece of writing. The first quatrain lays down the principle that ill-doing brings its own inevitable punishment. The second distinguishes between the unblessed suffering which plagues the soul, and that which we welcome as a process of purgation. The first terzet makes heaven and h.e.l.l respectively consist of a clean and a burdened conscience. The second, referring to a legend of S. Peter's controversy with Simon Magus, finds a proof of immortality in this condition of conscience.

XXVII. A bold and perilous image of the Machiavellian Prince, who drains the commonwealth for his own selfish pleasures. The play upon the words _mentola_ and _mente_ in the first line is hardly capable of reproduction.

XXVIII. Adami says in a note: _Questo sonetto e fatto perche l'intendano pochi; ne io voglio dichiararlo_. Under these circ.u.mstances it is dangerous to attempt an explanation. Yet something may be hazarded. Line 1: the lady is Italy. Line 3: the stranger races are Rome's va.s.sals. Line 7: Dinah is again Italy(?). Line 8: Simeon and Levi are the Princes of Italy and the Papacy. Line 9: Jerusalem probably stands for Rome. Line 10: Nazareth is the Gospel of Christ, and Athens is philosophy. Here again Adami warns us: _qui legit intelligat_. Line 13: a critique of the ruinous policy of calling strangers in to interfere in Italian affairs.

XXIX. Line 2: Attila is meant. The Venetian Lagoons were the refuge of the last and best Italians of the Roman age, when the incursions of the barbarians destroyed the cla.s.sical civility. Line 12: alludes to the fixity of the Venetian Const.i.tution and the deliberate caution of Venetian policy.

x.x.x. The quatrains describe the old power of Genoa, who conquered Pisa, abased Venice, planted colonies in the East, and discovered America.

Line 10: throws the blame of Genoese decrepitude upon the n.o.bles.

x.x.xI. Campanella praises the Poles for their elective monarchy, but blames them for choosing the scions of royal houses, instead of seeking out the real kings of men, such as he described in No. XVI.

x.x.xII. A similar criticism of the Swiss, who played so important and yet so contemptible a part in the Italian wars of the sixteenth century. With the terzets compare No. XXV. Line 11: stands thus in the original--_La croce bianca e'l prato si contende_.

x.x.xIII. A clever adaptation of the parable of the Samaritan, conceived and executed in the spirit of a modern poet like A.H. Clough.

x.x.xIV. Line 4: the hypocritical priest makes profit by preaching for holiness what is really hurtful to the soul. Lines 5-11 contrast the acknowledged sinners with the covert and crafty pretenders to virtue.

Line 8: I have ventured to correct the punctuation. D'Ancona reads:

_E poco e il male in cui poco e l'inganno. Ti puoi guardar:_

but I am not sure that I am justified in the sense I put upon the verb _guardarsi._

x.x.xV. A similar arraignment of impostors, comparing perfidious priests with the foulest literary scoundrel of the age, Pietro Aretino. The first terzet in the original is obscure.

x.x.xVI. I do not understand the allusion in the last line. The whole sonnet is directed against hypocritical priests.

x.x.xVII., x.x.xVIII., x.x.xIX. A commentary on the first clauses of the Lord's Prayer. Campanella tells the Italians they have no right to call themselves men, the children of G.o.d in heaven, while they bow to tyrants worse than beasts, and believe the lying priests who call that adulation loyalty. If they free their souls from this vile servitude, they may then pray with hopeful heart for the coming upon earth of G.o.d's kingdom, which shall satisfy poets, philosophers, and prophets with more than they had dreamed. It will be noticed that the rhymes are carried from sonnet to sonnet; so that the three form one poem, described by Adami as _sonetto trigemino_. In x.x.xVII., 13, I have corrected _cenno_ into _senno_. In x.x.xIX., 1, I have ventured to render _con ogni istanza_ by _with every hour that flies_, though _istanza_ is not _istante_.

XL., XLL, XLII. These three sonnets, though not linked by rhymes, form a series, predicting the speedy overthrow of tyrants, sophists, hypocrites--Campanella's natural enemies--and the coming of a better age for human society. They were probably written early, when his heart was still hot with the hopes of a new reign of right and reason, which even he might help to inaugurate. The eagle, bear, lion, crow, fox, wolf, etc., are the evil princ.i.p.alities and powers of earth. No. XL., line 9: the giants are, I think, those lawless, selfish, anti-social forces idealised by Machiavelli in his _Principe_, as Campanella read that treatise--the strong men and mighty ones of an impious and G.o.dless world. No. XLL, line 4: concerning _Taida, Sinon, Giuda, ed Omero_, Adami says: 'These are the four evangelists of the dark age of Abaddon.' Thais is a symbol of lechery; Sinon of fraud; Judas of treason; Homer of lying fiction. So at least I read the allegory. No.

XLII., lines 9-14 are noticeable, since they set forth Campanella's philosophical or evangelical communism, for a detailed exposition of which see the _Civitas Solis_.

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