Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
intermediate state, in that serenity which breathes about the
transported soul, enjoying its pure and perfect rest, a span below the
feet of the Immortal.
_Cornelia._ She has not left you; do not disturb her peace by these
repinings.
_Tasso._ She will bear with them. Thou knowest not what she was,
Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In
my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice
bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how
pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches!
what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the
metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season
preserved one temperature. But it was when she could and did love me!
Unchanged must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond security
on the unchangeable. The purifying flame shoots upward, and is the
glory that encircles their brows when they meet above.
_Cornelia._ Indulge in these delightful thoughts, my Torquato! and
believe that your love is and ought to be imperishable as your glory.
Generations of men move forward in endless procession to consecrate
and commemorate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year,
are bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and tarnished
decorations of rude, unregarded royalty, and to fasten the nails that
cramp the crown upon its head. Meanwhile, in the laurels of my
Torquato there will always be one leaf above man's reach, above time's
wrath and injury, inscribed with the name of Leonora.
_Tasso._ O Jerusalem! I have not then sung in vain the Holy Sepulchre.
_Cornelia._ After such devotion of your genius, you have undergone too
many misfortunes.
_Tasso._ Congratulate the man who has had many, and may have more. I
have had, I have, I can have, one only.
_Cornelia._ Life runs not smoothly at all seasons, even with the
happiest; but after a long course, the rocks subside, the views widen,
and it flows on more equably at the end.
_Tasso._ Have the stars smooth surfaces? No, no; but how they shine!
_Cornelia._ Capable of thoughts so exalted, so far above the earth we
dwell on, why suffer any to depress and anguish you?
_Tasso._ Cornelia, Cornelia! the mind has within its temples and
porticoes and palaces and towers: the mind has under it, ready for the
course, steeds brighter than the sun and stronger than the storm; and
beside them stand winged chariots, more in number than the Psalmist
hath attributed to the Almighty. The mind, I tell thee again, hath its
hundred gates, compared whereto the Theban are but willow wickets; and
all those hundred gates can genius throw open. But there are some that
groan heavily on their hinges, and the hand of God alone can close
them.
_Cornelia._ Torquato has thrown open those of His holy temple;
Torquato hath stood, another angel, at His tomb; and am I the sister
of Torquato? Kiss me, my brother, and let my tears run only from my
pride and joy! Princes have bestowed knighthood on the worthy and
unworthy; thou hast called forth those princes from their ranks,
pushing back the arrogant and presumptuous of them like intrusive
varlets, and conferring on the bettermost crowns and robes,
imperishable and unfading.
_Tasso._ I seem to live back into those days. I feel the helmet on my
head; I wave the standard over it: brave men smile upon me; beautiful
maidens pull them gently back by the scarf, and will not let them
break my slumber, nor undraw the curtain. Corneliolina!...
_Cornelia._ Well, my dear brother! why do you stop so suddenly in the
midst of them? They are the pleasantest and best company, and they
make you look quite happy and joyous.
_Tasso._ Corneliolina, dost thou remember Bergamo? What city was ever
so celebrated for honest and valiant men, in all classes, or for
beautiful girls! There is but one class of those: Beauty is above all
ranks; the true Madonna, the patroness and bestower of felicity, the
queen of heaven.
_Cornelia._ Hush, Torquato, hush! talk not so.
_Tasso._ What rivers, how sunshiny and revelling, are the Brembo and
the Serio! What a country the Valtellina! I went back to our father's
house, thinking to find thee again, my little sister; thinking to kick
away thy ball of yellow silk as thou wast stooping for it, to make
thee run after me and beat me. I woke early in the morning; thou wert
grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento: I knew the road: a few strides
brought me back: here I am. To-morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk
together, as we used to do, into the cool and quiet caves on the
shore; and we will catch the little breezes as they come in and go out
again on the backs of the jocund waves.
_Cornelia._ We will indeed to-morrow; but before we set out we must
take a few hours' rest, that we may enjoy our ramble the better.
_Tasso._ Our Sorrentines, I see, are grown rich and avaricious. They
have uprooted the old pomegranate hedges, and have built high walls to
prohibit the wayfarer from their vineyards.
_Cornelia._ I have a basket of grapes for you in the book-room that
overlooks our garden.
_Tasso._ Does the old twisted sage-tree grow still against the window?
_Cornelia._ It harboured too many insects at last, and there was
always a nest of scorpions in the crevice.
_Tasso._ Oh! what a prince of a sage-tree! And the well, too, with its
bucket of shining metal, large enough for the largest cocomero to cool
in it for dinner.
_Cornelia._ The well, I assure you, is as cool as ever.
_Tasso._ Delicious! delicious! And the stone-work round it, bearing no
other marks of waste than my pruning-hook and dagger left behind?
_Cornelia._ None whatever.
_Tasso._ White in that place no longer; there has been time enough for
it to become all of one colour: grey, mossy, half-decayed.
_Cornelia._ No, no; not even the rope has wanted repair.
_Tasso._ Who sings yonder?
_Cornelia._ Enchanter! No sooner did you say the word cocomero than
here comes a boy carrying one upon his head.
_Tasso._ Listen! listen! I have read in some book or other those
verses long ago. They are not unlike my _Aminta_. The very words!
_Cornelia._ Purifier of love, and humanizer of ferocity, how many, my
Torquato, will your gentle thoughts make happy!
_Tasso._ At this moment I almost think I am one among them.[10]
_Cornelia._ Be quite persuaded of it. Come, brother, come with me. You
shall bathe your heated brow and weary limbs in the chamber of your
childhood. It is there we are always the most certain of repose. The
boy shall sing to you those sweet verses; and we will reward him with
a slice of his own fruit.
_Tasso._ He deserves it; cut it thick.
_Cornelia._ Come then, my truant! Come along, my sweet smiling
Torquato!
_Tasso._ The passage is darker than ever. Is this the way to the
little court? Surely those are not the steps that lead down toward the
bath? Oh yes! we are right; I smell the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the
old wilding that bears them; it may catch your veil; it may scratch
your fingers! Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now,
Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a little toward
me; for I must repeat them softly under this low archway, else others
may hear them too. Ah! you press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it!
or the verses will sink into my breast again, and lie there silent!
Good girl!
Many, well I know, there are
Ready in your joys to share,
And (I never blame it) you
Are almost as ready too.
But when comes the darker day,
And those friends have dropt away,
Which is there among them all
You should, if you could, recall?
One who wisely loves and well
Hears and shares the griefs you tell;
Him you ever call apart
When the springs o'erflow the heart;
For you know that he alone
Wishes they were _but_ his own.
Give, while these he may divide,
Smiles to all the world beside.
_Cornelia._ We are now in the full light of the chamber; cannot you
remember it, having looked so intently all around?
_Tasso._ O sister! I could have slept another hour. You thought I
wanted rest: why did you waken me so early? I could have slept another
hour or longer. What a dream! But I am calm and happy.
_Cornelia._ May you never more be otherwise! Indeed, he cannot be
whose last verses are such as those.
_Tasso._ Have you written any since that morning?
_Cornelia._ What morning?
_Tasso._ When you caught the swallow in my curtains, and trod upon my
knees in catching it, luckily with naked feet. The little girl of
thirteen laughed at the outcry of her brother Torquatino, and sang
without a blush her earliest lay.
_Cornelia._ I do not recollect it.
_Tasso._ I do.
Rondinello! rondinello!
Tu sei nero, ma sei bello.
Cosa fa se tu sei nero?
Rondinello! sei il primiero
De' volanti, palpitanti,
(E vi sono quanti quanti!)
Mai tenuto a questo petto,
E percio sei il mio diletto.[11]
_Cornelia._ Here is the cocomero; it cannot be more insipid. Try it.
_Tasso._ Where is the boy who brought it? where is the boy who sang my
_Aminta_? Serve him first; give him largely. Cut deeper; the knife is
too short: deeper; mia brava Corneliolina! quite through all the red,
and into the middle of the seeds. Well done!
FOOTNOTES:
[10] The miseries of Tasso arose not only from the imagination and the
heart. In the metropolis of the Christian world, with many admirers
and many patrons, bishops, cardinals, princes, he was left destitute,
and almost famished. These are his own words: '_Appena_ in questo
stato ho comprato _due meloni_: e benche io sia stato _quasi sempre
infermo_, molte volte mi sono contentato del manzo: e la ministra di
latte o di zucca, _quando ho potuto averne_, mi e stata in vece di
delizie.' In another part he says that he was unable to pay the
carriage of a parcel. No wonder; if he had not wherewithal to buy
enough of zucca for a meal. Even had he been in health and appetite,
he might have satisfied his hunger with it for about five farthings,
and have left half for supper. And now a word on his insanity. Having
been so imprudent not only as to make it too evident in his poetry
that he was the lover of Leonora, but also to signify (not very
obscurely) that his love was returned, he much perplexed the Duke of
Ferrara, who, with great discretion, suggested to him the necessity of
feigning madness. The lady's honour required it from a brother; and a
true lover, to convince the world, would embrace the project with
alacrity. But there was no reason why the seclusion should be in a
dungeon, or why exercise and air should be interdicted. This cruelty,
and perhaps his uncertainty of Leonora's compassion, may well be
imagined to have produced at last the malady he had feigned. But did
Leonora love Tasso as a man would be loved? If we wish to do her
honour, let us hope it: for what greater glory can there be, than to
have estimated at the full value so exalted a genius, so affectionate
and so generous a heart!
[11] The author wrote the verses first in English, but he found it
easy to write them better in Italian: they stood in the text as below:
they only do for a girl of thirteen:
'Swallow! swallow! though so jetty
Are your pinions, you are pretty:
And what matter were it though
You were blacker than a crow?
Of the many birds that fly
(And how many pass me by!)
You 're the first I ever prest,
Of the many, to my breast:
Therefore it is very right
You should be my own delight.'
LA FONTAINE AND DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULT
_La Fontaine._ I am truly sensible of the honour I receive, M. de la