The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4

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IX.

I once was quick in feeling--that is o'er;--
My scars are callous, or I should have dashed
My brain against these bars, as the sun flashed 210
In mockery through them;--- If I bear and bore
The much I have recounted, and the more
Which hath no words,--'t is that I would not die
And sanction with self-slaughter the dull lie
Which snared me here, and with the brand of shame
Stamp Madness deep into my memory,
And woo Compassion to a blighted name,
Sealing the sentence which my foes proclaim.
No--it shall be immortal!--and I make
A future temple of my present cell, 220
Which nations yet shall visit for my sake.[bi]
While thou, Ferrara! when no longer dwell
The ducal chiefs within thee, shall fall down,
And crumbling piecemeal view thy hearthless halls,
A Poet's wreath shall be thine only crown,--
A Poet's dungeon thy most far renown,
While strangers wonder o'er thy unpeopled walls!
And thou, Leonora!--thou--who wert ashamed
That such as I could love--who blushed to hear
To less than monarchs that thou couldst be dear, 230
Go! tell thy brother, that my heart, untamed
By grief--years--weariness--and it may be
A taint of that he would impute to me--
From long infection of a den like this,
Where the mind rots congenial with the abyss,--
Adores thee still;--and add--that when the towers
And battlements which guard his joyous hours
Of banquet, dance, and revel, are forgot,
Or left untended in a dull repose,
This--this--shall be a consecrated spot! 240
But _Thou_--when all that Birth and Beauty throws
Of magic round thee is extinct--shalt have
One half the laurel which o'ershades my grave.[188]
No power in death can tear our names apart,
As none in life could rend thee from my heart.[bj]
Yes, Leonora! it shall be our fate
To be entwined[189] for ever--but too late![190]

FOOTNOTES:

[173] {141}[A MS. of the _Gerusalemme_ is preserved and exhibited at Sir
John Soane's Museum in Lincoln's Inn Fields.]

[174] [The original MS. of this poem is dated, "The Apennines, April 20,
1817."]

[175] {143}[The MS. of the _Lament of Tasso_ corresponds, save in three
lines where alternate readings are superscribed, _verbatim et literatim_
with the text. A letter dated August 21, 1817, from G. Polidori to John
Murray, with reference to the translation of the _Lament_ into Italian,
and a dedicatory letter (in Polidori's handwriting) to the Earl of
Guilford, dated August 3, 1817, form part of the same volume.]

[176] [In a letter written to his friend Scipio Gonzaga ("Di prizione in
Sant' Anna, questo mese di mezzio l'anno 1579"), Tasso exclaims, "Ah,
wretched me! I had designed to write, besides two epic poems of most
noble argument, four tragedies, of which I had formed the plan. I had
schemed, too, many works in prose, on subjects the most lofty, and most
useful to human life; I had designed to unite philosophy with eloquence,
in such a manner that there might remain of me an eternal memory in the
world. Alas! I had expected to close my life with glory and renown; but
now, oppressed by the burden of so many calamities, I have lost every
prospect of reputation and of honour. The fear of perpetual imprisonment
increases my melancholy; the indignities which I suffer augment it; and
the squalor of my beard, my hair, and habit, the sordidness and filth,
exceedingly annoy me. Sure am I, that, if she who so little has
corresponded to my attachment--if she saw me in such a state, and in
such affliction--she would have some compassion on me."--_Lettere di
Torouato Tasso_, 1853, ii. 60.]

[177] {144}[Compare--

"The second of a tenderer sadder mood,
Shall pour his soul out o'er Jerusalem."

_Prophecy of Dante_, Canto IV. lines 136, 137.]

[178] [Tasso's imprisonment in the Hospital of Sant' Anna lasted from
March, 1579, to July, 1586. The _Gerusalemme_ had been finished many
years before. He sent the first four cantos to his friend Scipio
Gonzaga, February 17, and the last three on October 4, 1575 (_Lettere di
Torquato Tasso_, 1852, i. 55-117). A mutilated first edition was
published in 1580 by "Orazio _alias_ Celio de' Malespini, avventuriere
intrigante" (Solerti's _Vita, etc._, 1895, i. 329).]

[179] [So, too, Gibbon was overtaken by a "sober melancholy" when he had
finished the last line of the last page of the _Decline and Fall_ on the
night of June 27, 1787.]

[180] {145}[Not long after his imprisonment, Tasso appealed to the mercy
of Alfonso, in a canzone of great beauty, ... and ... in another ode to
the princesses, whose pity he invoked in the name of their own mother,
who had herself known, if not the like horrors, the like solitude of
imprisonment, and bitterness of soul, made a similar appeal. (See _Life
of Tasso_, by John Black, 1810, ii. 64, 408.) Black prints the canzone
in full; Solerti (_Vita, etc._, i. 316-318) gives selections.]

[181] {146}["For nearly the first year of his confinement Tasso endured
all the horrors of a solitary sordid cell, and was under the care of a
gaoler whose chief virtue, although he was a poet and a man of letters,
was a cruel obedience to the commands of his prince.... His name was
Agostino Mosti.... Tasso says of him, in a letter to his sister, 'ed usa
meco ogni sorte di rigore ed inumanita.'"--Hobhouse, _Historical
Illustrations, etc_., 1818, pp. 20, 21, note 1.

Tasso, in a letter to Angelo Grillo, dated June 16, 1584 (Letter 288,
_Le Lettere, etc_., ii. 276), complains that Mosti did not interfere to
prevent him being molested by the other inmates, disturbed in his
studies, and treated disrespectfully by the governor's subordinates. In
the letter to his sister Cornelia, from which Hobhouse quotes, the
allusion is not to Mosti, but, according to Solerti, to the Cardinal
Luigi d'Este. Elsewhere (Letter 133, _Lettere_, ii. 88, 89) Tasso
describes Agostino Mosti as a rigorous and zealous Churchman, but far
too cultivated and courteous a gentleman to have exercised any severity
towards him _proprio motu_, or otherwise than in obedience to orders.]

[182] {147}[It is highly improbable that Tasso openly indulged, or
secretly nourished, a consuming passion for Leonora d'Este, and it is
certain that the "Sister of his Sovereign" had nothing to do with his
being shut up in the Hospital of Sant' Anna. That poet and princess had
known each other for over thirteen years, that the princess was seven
years older than the poet, and, in March, 1579, close upon forty-two
years of age, are points to be considered; but the fact that she died in
February, 1581, and that Tasso remained in confinement for five years
longer, is a stronger argument against the truth of the legend. She was
a beautiful woman, his patroness and benefactress, and the theme of
sonnets and canzoni; but it was not for her "sweet sake" that Tasso lost
either his wits or his liberty.]

[183] Compare--

"I speak not, I trace not, I breathe not thy name."

[184] {148}[Compare the following lines from the canzone entitled, "La
Prima di Tre Sorelle Scritte a Madaroa Leonora d'Este ... 1567:"--

"E certo il primo di che'l bel sereno
Delia tua fronte agli occhi miei s'offerse
E vidi armato spaziarvi Amore,
Se non che riverenza allor converse,
E Meraviglia in fredda selce il seno,
Ivi peria con doppia morte il core;
Ma parte degli strali, e dell' ardore
Sentii pur anco entro 'l gelato marmo."]

[185] {149}[Ariosto (_Sat._ 7, Terz. 53) complains that his father
chased him "not with spurs only, but with darts and lances, to turn over
old texts," etc.; but Tasso was a studious and dutiful boy, and, though
he finally deserted the law for poetry, and "crossed" his father's
wishes and intentions, he took his own course reluctantly, and without
any breach of decorum. But, perhaps, the following translations from the
_Rinaldo,_ which Black supplies in his footnotes (i. 41. 97), suggested
this picture of a "poetic child" at variance with the authorities:--

"Now hasting thence a verdant mead he found,
Where flowers of fragrant smell adorned the ground;
Sweet was the scene, and here from human eyes
Apart he sits, and thus he speaks mid sighs."

Canto I. stanza xviii.

"Thus have I sung in youth's aspiring days
Rinaldo's pleasing plains and martial praise:
While other studies slowly I pursued
Ere twice revolved nine annual suns I viewed;
Ungrateful studies, whence oppressed I groaned,
A burden to myself and to the world unknown.

* * * * *

But this first-fruit of new awakened powers!
Dear offspring of a few short studious hours!
Thou infant volume child of fancy born
Where Brenta's waves the sunny meads adorn."

Canto XII. stanza xc.]

[bh] {150}_My mind like theirs adapted to its grave_.--[MS.]

[186] ["Nor do I lament," wrote Tasso, shortly after his confinement,
"that my heart is deluged with almost constant misery, that my head is
always heavy and often painful, that my sight and hearing are much
impaired, and that all my frame is become spare and meagre; but, passing
all this with a short sigh, what I would bewail is the infirmity of my
mind.... My mind sleeps, not thinks; my fancy is chill, and forms no
pictures; my negligent senses will no longer furnish the images of
things; my hand is sluggish in writing, and my pen seems as if it shrunk
from the office. I feel as if I were chained in all my operations, and
as if I were overcome by an unwonted numbness and oppressive
stupor."--_Opere_, Venice, 1738, viii. 258, 263.]

[187] [In a letter to Maurizio Cataneo, dated December 25, 1585, Tasso
gives an account of his sprite (_folletto_): "The little thief has
stolen from me many crowns.... He puts all my books topsy-turvy (_mi
mette tutti i libri sottosopra_), opens my chest and steals my keys, so
that I can keep nothing." Again, December 30, with regard to his
hallucinations he says, "Know then that in addition to the wonders of
the Folletto ... I have many nocturnal alarms. For even when awake I
have seemed to behold small flames in the air, and sometimes my eyes
sparkle in such a manner, that I dread the loss of sight, and I have ...
seen sparks issue from them."--Letters 454, 456, _Le Lettere_, 1853, ii.
475, 479.]

[bi] {151}

/ _nations yet_ \
_Which_ < > _shall visit for my sake_.--[MS.]
\ _after days_ /

[188] {152}["Tasso, notwithstanding the criticisms of the Cruscanti,
would have been crowned in the Capitol, but for his death," Reply to
_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_ (Ravenna, March 15, 1820), _Letters_,
1900, iv. Appendix IX. p. 487.]

[bj]

/ _wrench_ \
_As none in life could_ < > _thee from my heart_.--[MS.]
\ _wring_ /

[189] [Compare--

"From Life's commencement to its slow decline
We are entwined."

_Epistle to Augusta_, stanza xvi. lines 6, 7, _vide ante_, p. 62.]

[190] [The Apennines, April 20, 1817.]

BEPPO:

A VENETIAN STORY.

_Rosalind_. Farewell, Monsieur Traveller; Look, you lisp,
and wear strange suits: disable all the benefits of your own
country; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide
God for making you that countenance you are; or I will
scarce think you have swam in a _Gondola_.

_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. I, lines 33-35.

_Annotation of the Commentators_.
That is, _been at Venice_, which was much visited by the young English
gentlemen of those times, and was _then_ what _Paris_ is _now_--the seat
of all dissoluteness.--S. A.[191]

[The initials S. A. (Samuel Ayscough) are not attached to this note, but
to another note on the same page (see _Dramatic Works_ of William
Shakspeare, 1807, i. 242).]

INTRODUCTION TO _BEPPO_

_BEPPO_ was written in the autumn (September 6--October 12, _Letters_,
1900, iv. 172) of 1817, whilst Byron was still engaged on the additional
stanzas of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. His new poem, as he
admitted from the first, was "after the excellent manner" of John
Hookham Frere's _jeu d'esprit_, known as _Whistlecraft_ (_Prospectus and
Specimen of an intended National Work_ by William and Robert
Whistlecraft, London, 1818[192]), which must have reached him in the
summer of 1817. Whether he divined the identity of "Whistlecraft" from
the first, or whether his guess was an after-thought, he did not
hesitate to take the water and shoot ahead of his unsuspecting rival. It
was a case of plagiarism _in excelsis_, and the superiority of the
imitation to the original must be set down to the genius of the
plagiary, unaided by any profound study of Italian literature, or an
acquaintance at first hand with the parents and inspirers of
_Whistlecraft_.

It is possible that he had read and forgotten some specimens of Pulci's
_Morgante Maggiore_, which J. H. Merivale had printed in the _Monthly
Magazine_ for 1806-1807, vol. xxi. pp. 304, 510, etc., and it is certain
that he was familiar with his _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, published in
1814. He distinctly states that he had not seen W. S. Rose's[193]
translation of Casti's _Animali Parlanti_ (first edition [anonymous],
1816), but, according to Pryse Gordon (_Personal Memoirs_, ii. 328), he
had read the original. If we may trust Ugo Foscolo (see "Narrative and
Romantic Poems of the Italians" in the _Quart. Rev_., April, 1819, vol.
xxi. pp. 486-526), there is some evidence that Byron had read
Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_ (translated in 1819 by Sylvester (Douglas)
Lord Glenbervie, and again, by John Herman Merivale, under the title of
_The Two First Cantos of Richardetto_, 1820), but the parallel which he
adduces (_vide post_, p. 166) is not very striking or convincing.

On the other hand, after the poem was completed (March 25, 1818), he was
under the impression that "Berni was the original of _all_ ... the
father of that kind [i.e. the mock-heroic] of writing;" but there is
nothing to show whether he had or had not read the _rifacimento_ of
Orlando's _Innamorato_, or the more distinctively Bernesque _Capitoli_.
Two years later (see Letter to Murray, February 21, 1820, _Letters_,
1900, iv. 407; and "Advertisement" to _Morgante Maggiore_) he had
discovered that "Pulci was the parent of _Whistlecraft_, and the
precursor and model of Berni," but, in 1817, he was only at the
commencement of his studies. A time came long before the "year or two"
of his promise (March 25, 1818) when he had learned to simulate the
_vera imago_ of the Italian Muse, and was able not only to surpass his
"immediate model," but to rival his model's forerunners and inspirers.
In the meanwhile a tale based on a "Venetian anecdote" (perhaps an
"episode" in the history of Colonel Fitzgerald and the Marchesa
Castiglione,--see Letter to Moore, December 26, 1816, _Letters_, 1900,
iv. 26) lent itself to "the excellent manner of Mr. Whistlecraft," and
would show "the knowing ones," that is, Murray's advisers, Gifford,
Croker, Frere, etc., that "he could write cheerfully," and "would repel
the charge of monotony and mannerism."

Eckermann, mindful of Goethe's hint that Byron had too much _empeiria_
(an excess of _mondanite_--a _this_-worldliness), found it hard to read
_Beppo_ after _Macbeth_. "I felt," he says, "the predominance of a
nefarious, empirical world, with which the mind which introduced it to
us has in a certain measure associated itself" (_Conversations of
Goethe, etc._, 1874, p. 175). But _Beppo_ must be taken at its own
valuation. It is _A Venetian Story_, and the action takes place behind
the scenes of "a comedy of Goldoni." A less subtle but a more apposite
criticism may be borrowed from "Lord Byron's Combolio" (_sic_),
_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1822, xi. 162-165.

"The story that's in it
May be told in a minute;
But _par parenthese_ chatting,
On this thing and that thing,
Keeps the shuttlecock flying,
And attention from dying."

_Beppo, a Venetian Story_ (xcv. stanzas) was published February 28,
1818; and a fifth edition, consisting of xcix. stanzas, was issued May
4, 1818.

Jeffrey, writing in the _Edinburgh Review_ (February, 1818, vol. xxix.
pp. 302-310), is unconcerned with regard to _Whistlecraft_, or any
earlier model, but observes "that the nearest approach to it [_Beppo_]
is to be found in some of the tales and lighter pieces of Prior--a few
stanzas here and there among the trash and burlesque of Peter Pindar,
and in several passages of Mr. Moore, and the author of the facetious
miscellany entitled the _Twopenny Post Bag_."

Other notices, of a less appreciative kind, appeared in the _Monthly
Review_, March, 1818, vol. 85, pp. 285-290; and in the _Eclectic
Review_, N.S., June, 1818, vol. ix. pp. 555-557.

BEPPO.[194]

I.

'Tis known, at least it should be, that throughout
All countries of the Catholic persuasion,[195]
Some weeks before Shrove Tuesday comes about,
The People take their fill of recreation,
And buy repentance, ere they grow devout,
However high their rank, or low their station,
With fiddling, feasting, dancing, drinking, masquing,
And other things which may be had for asking.

II.

The moment night with dusky mantle covers
The skies (and the more duskily the better),
The Time less liked by husbands than by lovers
Begins, and Prudery flings aside her fetter;
And Gaiety on restless tiptoe hovers,
Giggling with all the gallants who beset her;
And there are songs and quavers, roaring, humming,
Guitars, and every other sort of strumming.[196]

III.

And there are dresses splendid, but fantastical,
Masks of all times and nations, Turks and Jews,
And harlequins and clowns, with feats gymnastical,
Greeks, Romans, Yankee-doodles, and Hindoos;
All kinds of dress, except the ecclesiastical,
All people, as their fancies hit, may choose,
But no one in these parts may quiz the Clergy,--
Therefore take heed, ye Freethinkers! I charge ye.

IV.

You'd better walk about begirt with briars,
Instead of coat and smallclothes, than put on
A single stitch reflecting upon friars,
Although you swore it only was in fun;
They'd haul you o'er the coals, and stir the fires
Of Phlegethon with every mother's son,
Nor say one mass to cool the cauldron's bubble
That boiled your bones, unless you paid them double.

V.

But saving this, you may put on whate'er
You like by way of doublet, cape, or cloak,
Such as in Monmouth-street, or in Rag Fair,
Would rig you out in seriousness or joke;
And even in Italy such places are,
With prettier name in softer accents spoke,
For, bating Covent Garden, I can hit on
No place that's called "Piazza" in Great Britain.[197]

VI.

This feast is named the Carnival, which being
Interpreted, implies "farewell to flesh:"
So called, because the name and thing agreeing,
Through Lent they live on fish both salt and fresh.
But why they usher Lent with so much glee in,
Is more than I can tell, although I guess
'Tis as we take a glass with friends at parting,
In the Stage-Coach or Packet, just at starting.

VII.

And thus they bid farewell to carnal dishes,
And solid meats, and highly spiced ragouts,
To live for forty days on ill-dressed fishes,
Because they have no sauces to their stews;
A thing which causes many "poohs" and "pishes,"
And several oaths (which would not suit the Muse),
From travellers accustomed from a boy
To eat their salmon, at the least, with soy;

VIII.

And therefore humbly I would recommend
"The curious in fish-sauce," before they cross
The sea, to bid their cook, or wife, or friend,
Walk or ride to the Strand, and buy in gross
(Or if set out beforehand, these may send
By any means least liable to loss),
Ketchup, Soy, Chili-vinegar, and Harvey,
Or, by the Lord! a Lent will well nigh starve ye;

IX.

That is to say, if your religion's Roman,
And you at Rome would do as Romans do,
According to the proverb,--although no man,
If foreign, is obliged to fast; and you,
If Protestant, or sickly, or a woman,
Would rather dine in sin on a ragout--
Dine and be d--d! I don't mean to be coarse,
But that's the penalty, to say no worse.

X.

Of all the places where the Carnival
Was most facetious in the days of yore,
For dance, and song, and serenade, and ball,
And Masque, and Mime, and Mystery, and more
Than I have time to tell now, or at all,
Venice the bell from every city bore,--
And at the moment when I fix my story,
That sea-born city was in all her glory.

XI.

They've pretty faces yet, those same Venetians,
Black eyes, arched brows, and sweet expressions still;
Such as of old were copied from the Grecians,
In ancient arts by moderns mimicked ill;
And like so many Venuses of Titian's[198]
(The best's at Florence--see it, if ye will,)
They look when leaning over the balcony,
Or stepped from out a picture by Giorgione,[199]

XII.

Whose tints are Truth and Beauty at their best;
And when you to Manfrini's palace go,[200]
That picture (howsoever fine the rest)
Is loveliest to my mind of all the show;
It may perhaps be also to _your_ zest,
And that's the cause I rhyme upon it so:
Tis but a portrait of his Son, and Wife,
And self; but _such_ a Woman! Love in life![201]

XIII.

Love in full life and length, not love ideal,
No, nor ideal beauty, that fine name,
But something better still, so very real,
That the sweet Model must have been the same;
A thing that you would purchase, beg, or steal,
Wer't not impossible, besides a shame:
The face recalls some face, as 'twere with pain,
You once have seen, but ne'er will see again;

XIV.

One of those forms which flit by us, when we
Are young, and fix our eyes on every face;
And, oh! the Loveliness at times we see
In momentary gliding, the soft grace,
The Youth, the Bloom, the Beauty which agree,
In many a nameless being we retrace,
Whose course and home we knew not, nor shall know,
Like the lost Pleiad[202] seen no more below.

XV.

I said that like a picture by Giorgione
Venetian women were, and so they _are_,
Particularly seen from a balcony,
(For beauty's sometimes best set off afar)
And there, just like a heroine of Goldoni,[202A]
They peep from out the blind, or o'er the bar;
And truth to say, they're mostly very pretty,
And rather like to show it, more's the pity!

XVI.

For glances beget ogles, ogles sighs,
Sighs wishes, wishes words, and words a letter,
Which flies on wings of light-heeled Mercuries,
Who do such things because they know no better;
And then, God knows what mischief may arise,
When Love links two young people in one fetter,
Vile assignations, and adulterous beds,
Elopements, broken vows, and hearts, and heads.

XVII.

Shakspeare described the sex in Desdemona
As very fair, but yet suspect in fame,[202B]
And to this day from Venice to Verona
Such matters may be probably the same,
Except that since those times was never known a
Husband whom mere suspicion could inflame
To suffocate a wife no more than twenty,
Because she had a "Cavalier Servente."[203]

XVIII.

Their jealousy (if they are ever jealous)
Is of a fair complexion altogether,
Not like that sooty devil of Othello's,
Which smothers women in a bed of feather,
But worthier of these much more jolly fellows,
When weary of the matrimonial tether
His head for such a wife no mortal bothers,
But takes at once another, or _another's_.

XIX.

Didst ever see a Gondola? For fear
You should not, I'll describe it you exactly:
'Tis a long covered boat that's common here,
Carved at the prow, built lightly, but compactly,
Rowed by two rowers, each call'd "Gondolier,"
It glides along the water looking blackly,
Just like a coffin clapt in a canoe,
Where none can make out what you say or do.