Part 2 (2/2)

For half a generation, it is said, his court was crowded with these poets, and he dwelt with them and they with him in brotherly affection.

With the terrible Albigensian Crusade, the voice of the singer was no longer heard in the land, and the poetic fire, which had burned with so fierce a blaze at times, smouldered for long years, until in the beginning of the fourteenth century the flames burst forth anew. At that time a company of poets, and they were of bourgeois origin and not of the n.o.bility, determined to take vigorous measures to restore the art of the troubadour to its former high position, and to this end they founded the College du Gay Scavoir, which was to support and maintain annually in Toulouse a poetic tournament called Les Jeux Floraux, wherein the prizes were to consist of flowers of gold and silver. With the definite establishment of these Floral Games the name of a woman has been intertwined in most curious fas.h.i.+on; and although many facts are recorded of her life and deeds, there are those who deny that she ever lived. This remarkable woman was called Clemence Isaure, and the story has grown up that some years after the founding of the Jeux Floraux she left a sum of money in trust which was to serve as a permanent endowment for this most ill.u.s.trious inst.i.tution of her native city. Then it was that the College du Gay Scavoir became a thing of permanence, and brilliant were the fetes which were celebrated under its auspices.

First, a golden violet was bestowed upon the victor in these poetic contests, and the winner was decreed a Bachelor of Poetry; then, two other flowers were added, the eglantine and the marigold, and he who won two prizes was given the degree of Master; while he who won all three became forthwith a Doctor.

To prove that Clemence Isaure really did exist in Toulouse a tomb was shown which seemed to bear her name; and so strongly rooted is this belief, that her statue is held in reverence, and every year in May, even to this day, when the date for the Jeux Floraux arrives, the first thing on the programme for that solemn occasion is a formal eulogy in honor of this distinguished patroness. More than that, in the garden of the Luxembourg Palace in Paris, in that semicircle of twenty marble statues grouped about the parterre and representing some of the most ill.u.s.trious women of France, Clemence Isaure has an honored place, and her counterfeit presentment by the sculptor Preault is considered one of the finest of the number.

In support of the claim that such a woman never existed, and in explanation of the tradition itself, the learned ones inform us that with the definite establishment of these Floral Games the good citizens of Toulouse thought it best to follow in the footsteps of their bold and plain-spoken troubadour ancestors in a somewhat timid manner, and the poems which were then written were not addressed to some fair lady in real life, but to the Holy Virgin, who was frequently addressed as Clemenza [pity], and from this word the story took its rise. After a certain lapse of time, Clemenza, personified so often in their impa.s.sioned strains, became a real person to their southern imaginations, and a tomb was conveniently found which seemed to settle the matter without question. It is even a.s.serted that the city of Toulouse is enjoying to-day other bequests which were made to it by Clemence Isaure, and that there is no more reason for doubting her existence than for doubting the existence of any other historical character of long ago. In any event, the Floral Games are still held yearly, the seven poets have become forty in number, and they compose a dignified Academy, which has some ten thousand francs a year to bestow in prizes. And the number of the prizes has been increased, as now five different flowers of gold and five of silver are bestowed each for poetry of a certain kind, and in addition there is a gold jasmine which is awarded to the most excellent prose article, and a silver pink which is a sort of prize at large, and which may be given for a composition of any character.

This belief in the actual existence of Clemence Isaure is still held by many, and, in fact, the legend seems stronger than the facts adduced against it; but whatever the truth may be, the story symbolizes in a most beautiful and fitting way the part which woman has played in this Provencal country in the encouragement given to song and poetry. It was the women who gave the real encouragement to the troubadours and inspired them to their greatest efforts, and it seems but poetic justice, at least, that in Toulouse the only existing inst.i.tution representative of those old troubadour days should claim a woman as its greatest patron.

CHAPTER V

INFLUENCE OF WOMEN IN EARLY LITERATURE

”Nine times now since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its own gyration, when the glorious Lady of my mind--who was called Beatrice by many who knew not what to call her--first appeared before my eyes. She had already been in this life so long, that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the region of the East one of the twelve parts of a degree; so that at about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most n.o.ble color, a modest and becoming crimson, and she was girt and adorned in such wise as befitted her very youthful age. At that instant, I can truly say that the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words: _Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi_ [Behold a G.o.d stronger than I, who, coming, shall rule over me]. At that instant the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high chamber to which all the spirits of the senses carry their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, speaking especially to the spirit of the sight, said these words: _Apparuit jam beat.i.tudo vestra_ [Now has appeared your bliss]. At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part where our nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said these words: _Heu miser!

quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps_ [Woe is me, wretched! Because often from this time forth shall I be hindered].”

Nowhere in all literature can be found a dearer statement of the spiritual evolution which was going on in the minds of men with respect to women, at the close of the Middle Ages, than that given in the foregoing pa.s.sage from Dante's _Vita Nuova_--taken from Professor Norton's finished translation. The spirit of the amatory poetry of the gay troubadours of Provence had found its way into Italy, but it was its more spiritual side which was to make the greater impression upon the national literature at this early stage of its development. The mystic marriage with the Church which had consoled so many women in distress, and which had removed them from the sin and confusion of the hurly-burly world to a life of quiet joy and peace, had slowly been exerting a more general and secular influence which first bore fruit in the notions of Platonic friends.h.i.+p which had been discussed; then came deference and respect and a truer understanding of woman's true position. But something was wanting in this profession of love and respect which came from the singers of Provence; their words were ready and their speech was smooth, but all their knightly grace of manner could not conceal the fact that Venus was their G.o.ddess. They were sincere, doubtless, but all that they sang was so lyric, subjective, and persona! in its essence that they failed to strike the deepest chords of human feeling or display that high seriousness which is indicative of real dignity of character. Love had been the despot whose slightest caprice was law.--in obeying his commands one could do no wrong. Woman became the arbiter of man's destiny in so far as, the fervent lover, in his ardor, was glad to do her bidding. The troubadour Miravel has told us that when a man made a failure of his life, all were p.r.o.ne to say: ”It is evident that he did not care for the ladies.” There is a worldly tone in this remark which grates upon the ear--it does not ring clear and true, although the Provencal poets had improved the manners of their time and had introduced a highbred courtesy into their dealings with women which was in itself a great step in advance. It is related that when William the Conqueror first saw Emma, his betrothed, he seized her roughly in his arms and threw her to the ground as an indication of affection; but the troubadour was wont to kneel before his lady and pray for grace and power to win her approbation. Yet, under the courtly form of manner and speech, it is too often the sensual conception of womankind which lurks in the background, and there is little evidence to show that there was any general belief in the chastening power of the love of a good woman--a power which might be of positive value in character building.

The spiritual possibilities latent in this higher conception seem, however, to have been grasped by some of the Italian poets of the early Renaissance, and here we find a devotion to women which comes not from the heart alone, but from the soul as well. Dante's ”natural spirit” was but the sensual nature, and well might it cry out when the ”spirit of life” began to feel the secret commotion of the ”spirit of the soul”: ”Woe is me, wretched! Because often from this time forth shall I be hindered in my work.” And so it was. With this first somewhat broad conception of the dignity of womanhood there was a new incentive to manly endeavor; and there came into the world, in the power and might of the great Florentine poet, a majesty of character which fair Provence could never have produced. Immediately before Dante's time we see glimmerings of this new sentiment in the work of Guido Cavalcanti and of Cino da Pistoja. Cavalcanti, being exiled from Florence, went on a visit to the shrine of Saint James of Compostella; and upon the way, pa.s.sing through Toulouse, he was captivated by a beautiful Spanish girl, whom he has made celebrated under the name of Mandetta:

”In un boschetto trovai pastorella, Piu che la stella bella al mio parere, Capegli avea biondetti e ricciutelli.”

It is true that in his work Cavalcanti shows many of the stilted mannerisms which were common to the troubadours; but such expressions as ”to her, every virtue bows,” and ”the mind of man cannot soar so high, nor is it sufficiently purified by divine grace to understand and appreciate all her perfections,” point the way toward a greater sincerity. His chief work was a long _Canzone sopra l'Amore_, which was so deep and philosophic that seven weighty commentaries in both Latin and Italian have as yet failed to sound all its depths. In the story of the early love of Cino da Pistoja for Ricciarda dei Selvaggi there is a genuine and homely charm which makes us feel that here indeed true love had found a place. Ricciarda--or Selvaggia, as Cino calls her--was the daughter of a n.o.ble family of Pistoja, her father having been _gonfaniere_ and leader of the Bianchi faction, and it appears that she also was famed for her poetic gifts. For a time she and Cino kept their love a secret from the world, but their poems to each other at this time show it to have been upon a high plane. Finally, the parents of Ricciarda were banished from Pistoja by the Neri, and in their flight they took refuge in a small fortress perched near the summit of the Apennines, where they were joined by Cino, who had determined to share their fortunes. There the spring turned into summer, and the summer into autumn, and the days sped happily--days which were later called the happiest of the poet's whole life. The two young people roamed the hills together, or took their share in the household duties, and the whole picture seems to breathe forth an air of reality and truth which far removes it from that atmosphere of comic-opera love and pa.s.sion which seemed to fill the Midi. When the winter came, the hards.h.i.+p of this mountain life commenced; the winds grew too keen, and the young girl soon began to show the effects of the want and misery to which she was exposed. Finally, the end came; and there Cino and the parents, grieving, laid her to her rest, in a sheltered valley. The pathos of this story needs no word of explanation, and Cino's grief is best shown by an act of his later years. Long afterward, when he was loaded with fame and honors, it happened that, being sent upon an emba.s.sy, he had occasion to cross the mountains near the spot where Selvaggia had been buried. Sending his suite around by another path, he went alone to her tomb and tarried for a time in prayer and sorrow. Later, in verse, he commemorates this visit, closing with the words:

”...pur chiamando, Selvaggia!

L'alpe pa.s.sai, con voce di dolore.”

[Then calling aloud in accents of despair, Selvaggia! I pa.s.sed the mountain tops.] Cino's loved one is distinguished in the history of Italian literature as the _bel numer'una_--”fair number one”--in that list of the famous women of the century where the names of Beatrice and Laura are to be found.

With Dante, the spiritual nature of his love for Beatrice a.s.sumed an almost mystical and religious character, betraying the marked influence of mediaeval philosophy and theology; and here it was--for the first time in modern literature--that woman as a symbol of goodness and light found herself raised upon a pedestal and glorified in the eyes of the world. Many a pink and rosy Venus had been evoked before, many a pale-faced nun had received the veneration of the mult.i.tude for her saintly life, but here we have neither Venus nor saint; for Beatrice is the type of the good woman in the world, human in her instincts and holy in her acts. The air of mysticism with which Dante has enveloped his love for the daughter of the Portinari family does not in any way detract from our interest in his point of view, for the princ.i.p.al fact for the modern world is that he had such thoughts about women. Legouve has said that spiritual love was always mingled with a respect for women, and that sensual admiration was rarely without secret scorn and hatred; and it is his further opinion that spiritual love was naturally allied to sentiments of austere patriotism in ill.u.s.trious men, while those who celebrated the joys of sensual pa.s.sion were indifferent to the cause of country and sometimes traitor to it. Dante and Petrarch, the two chaste poets, as they are sometimes called, were the most ardent patriots in all Italy. Midst the tortures of the _Inferno_ or the joys of the _Paradiso_, the image of the stricken fatherland is ever with Dante, and more than once does he cry out against her cruel oppressors.

With Petrarch, as it has well been said, his love for the Latin language was but the form of his love for his people, as in his great hope for the future the glory of the past was to return. Boccaccio was the most ill.u.s.trious of those in literature who represented the sensual conception of woman; and whatever his literary virtues may have been, no one has ever called attention to his patriotic fervor or to his dignity of character. Laura and Beatrice, though not of royal birth, have been made immortal by their poet lovers; Boccaccio loved the daughter of a king, but he has described her with such scant respect that what little renown she may have derived from her liaison with him is all to her discredit.

The story of Dante and Beatrice is now an old one, but ever fresh with the rare charm which it possesses even after the lapse of these many years. The _New Life_, Dante's earliest work, which is devoted to a description of his first meeting with Beatrice and his subsequent all-powerful love for her, has been regarded sceptically by some critics, who are inclined to see in it but an allegory, and there are others who go so far as to say that Beatrice never existed. What uncertainty can there be regarding her life, when Cino da Pistoja wrote his most celebrated poem, a _canzone_ to Dante, consoling him for her loss? The following stanza from Rossetti's matchless version is proof enough for all who care to read:

”Why now do pangs of torment clutch thy heart, Which with thy love should make thee overjoyed, As him whose intellect has pa.s.sed the skies?

Behold, the spirits of thy life depart Daily to Heaven with her, they so are buoyed With thy desire, and Love so bids them rise.

O G.o.d I and thou, a man whom G.o.d made wise, To nurse a charge of care, and love the same!

I tell thee, in His name, From sin of sighing grief to hold thy breath, Nor let thy heart to death, Nor harbour death's resemblance in thine eyes.

G.o.d hath her with Himself eternally, Yet she inhabits every hour with thee.”

Beatrice certainly lived; and no matter in what veil of mysticism the poet may choose to envelop her in his later writings, and in spite of the imagery of his phrases, even in the _New Life_, she never fails to appear to us as a real woman. We know that Dante first saw her on Mayday, in the year 1274, when neither had reached the age of ten, and the thrill he felt at this first vision has been described in his own words on the first page of this chapter. From that time forth it seems that, boy as he was, he was continually haunted by this apparition, which had at once a.s.sumed such domination over him. Often he went seeking her, and all that he saw of her was so n.o.ble and praiseworthy that he is moved to apply to her the words of Homer: ”She seems not the daughter of mortal man, but of G.o.d.” And he further says: ”Though her image, which stayed constantly with me, gave a.s.surance to Love to hold lords.h.i.+p over me, yet it was of such n.o.ble virtue that it never suffered Love to rule me without the faithful counsel of the reason in those matters in which it was useful to hear such counsel.” So began his pure and high ideal of love, which is most remarkable in that it stands in striking contrast, not only to the usual amatory declarations of the time to be found in literature, but also to the very life and temper of the day and generation in which he was so soon to play a conspicuous part. It was a day of almost unbridled pa.s.sions and lack of self-restraint, and none before had thought to couple reason with the thought of love. For nine years his boyish dreams were filled with this maiden, Beatrice, and not once in all that time did he have word with her. Finally, he says: ”On the last of these days, it happened that this most admirable lady appeared before me, clad in s.h.i.+ning white, between two ladies older than herself; and as she pa.s.sed along, she turned her eyes toward that spot where I stood in all timidity, and then, through her great courtesy, which now has its reward in the eternal world, she saluted me with such virtue that I knew all the depth of bliss.” But never did Dante come to know her well, though she was ever in his thoughts, and though he must have watched for her presence in the street. Once she went upon a journey, and he was sore distraught until she came back into his existence; once he was taken to a company of young people, where he was so affected by sudden and unexpected sight of her that he grew pale and trembled, and showed such signs of mortal illness that his friend grew much alarmed and led him quickly away. The cause of his confusion was not apparent to all the company; but the ladies mocked him, to his great dismay, and even Beatrice was tempted to a smile, not understanding all, yet feeling some annoyance that she should be the occasion for such strange demeanor on his part. Later, when her father dies, Dante grieves for her, waits at the corner to pick up fragments of conversation from those who have just come from consoling her, and, in truth, makes such a spectacle of himself, that these ladies pa.s.sing say: ”Why should he feel such grief, when he has not seen her?” He constantly feels the moral force of her influence, and recounts in the following lines--from the Norton translation--her n.o.ble influence on others:

”...for when she goes her way Love casts a blight upon all caitiff hearts, So that their every thought doth freeze and perish.

And who can bear to stay on her to look, Will n.o.ble thing become or else will die.

And when one finds that he may worthy be To look on her, he doth his virtue prove.”

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