Part 8

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 classical civility. Line 12: alludes to the fixity of the Venetian Constitution and the deliberate caution of Venetian policy.

XXX. 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 nobles.

XXXI. 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.

XXXII. 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_.

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

XXXIV. 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 è il male in cui poco è l'inganno. Ti puoi guardar:_

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

XXXV. 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.

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

XXXVII., XXXVIII., XXXIX. 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 God 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 God'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 XXXVII., 13, I have corrected _cenno_ into _senno_. In XXXIX., 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 principalities 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 godless 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_.

XLIII. Invited to write a comedy--and it will be here remembered that Giordano Bruno had composed _Il Candelaio_--Campanella replied with this impassioned outburst of belief in the approaching end of the world. It belongs probably to his early manhood.

XLIV., XLV. Adami heads these two sonnets with this title: _Sopra i colori delle vesti_. It is a fact that under the Spanish tyranny black clothes were almost universally adopted by the Italians, as may be seen in the picture galleries of Florence and Genoa. Campanella uses this fashion as a symbol of the internal gloom and melancholy in which the nation was sunk by vice upon the eve of the new age he confidently looked for.

XLVI. The year 1603, made up of centuries _seven_ and _nine_ and years _three_, was expected by the astrologers to bring a great mutation in the order of our planet. The celestial signs were supposed to reassume the position they had occupied at Christ's nativity. Campanella, who believed in astrology, looked forward with intense anxiety to this turning-point in modern history. It is clear from the termination of the sonnet that he wrote it some time before the great date; and we are hence perhaps justified in referring the rest of his prophetic poetry to the same early period of his career.

XLVII. _Qui legit intelligat_, says Adami. Line 7: refers to the outlying vassals of the Roman Empire, who destroyed it, ruled Rome, and afterwards fell under the yoke of the Roman See. Lines 9-14 are an invective against the Papacy.

XLVIII. A sonnet on his own prison. The prison or worse was the doom of all truth-seekers in Campanella's age.

XLIX. For the understanding of this strange composition Adami offers nothing more satisfactory than _mira quante contraposizioni sono in questo sonetto_. The contrast is maintained throughout between the philosopher in the freedom of his spirit and the same man in the limitations of his prisoned life. Line 12 I do not rightly understand. Line 14 refers to Paradise.

L. There is an allusion in this sonnet to an obscure passage in Campanella's life. It seems he was condemned to the galleys (see line 12); and this sentence was remitted on account of his real or feigned madness. We should infer from the poem itself that his madness was simulated; but Adami, who ought to have known the facts from his own lips, writes: _quando bruciò il letto, e divenne pazzo o vero o finto_. Line 12: I have translated _l'astratto_ by _the mystic_; _astratto_ is _assorto_, or _lost in ecstatic contemplation_.

LI. To this incomprehensible string of proverbs Adami adds, ironically perhaps: _questo è assai noto ed arguto e vero_. It is an answer to certain friends, officers and barons, who accused him of not being able to manage his affairs. He answers that they might as well bring the same accusation against Christ and all the sages. Line 3: I have ventured to read _è_ for _e_ as the only chance of getting a meaning. Line 8: seems to mean that he would not accept life and freedom at the price of concealing his opinions.

LII. The same theme is rehandled. Lines 1-4: Campanella argued that a man's mental life extends over all that he grasps of the world's history. Line 5: the Italian for _mite_ is _marmeggio_, which means, I think, a cheese-worm. The eclipse of Campanella's sun is his imprisonment. Lines 7 and 8 I do not well understand in the Italian. Line 11: 'Ye build the tombs of the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the righteous,' Lines 12-14: saints and sages are made perfect by suffering.

LIII. A singular argument concerning prayer. Campanella says it is impious to hope to change the order and facts of the world, arranged by God, except in the single category of time. He therefore thinks it lawful for him to ask, and for God to grant, a shortening of the season of his suffering. See the Canzone translated by me, forming Appendix I.

LIV. Another sonnet referring to his life in prison. He asks God how he can prosper if his friends all fail him for various reasons. Lines 9-11 refer to the visit of a foe in disguise who came to him in prison and promised him liberty, probably with a view to extracting from him admissions of state-treason or of heresy. See the Canzone translated in Appendix I. The last three lines seem to express his unalterable courage, and his readiness to act if only God will give him trustworthy instruments and fill him with His own spirit. The Dantesque language of the last line is almost incapable of reproduction:

Ch' io m' intuassi come tu t' immii.

LV. Campanella tells his friend that such trivial things as pastoral poems will not immortalise him. He bids him seek, not outside in worn out fictions, but within his own soul, for the spirit of true beauty, turn to God for praise, instead of to a human audience, and go with the _tabula rasa_ of childlike intelligence into God's school of Nature. Compare Nos I., V.

LVI. Campanella recognised in Telesio the founder of the new philosophy, which discarded the ancients and the schoolmen. Line 3: the tyrant is Aristotle. Lines 5 and 6: Bombino and Montano are the poets. Lines 7-9: Cavalcante and Gaieta were disciples of the Cosentine Academy founded by Telesio. Line 9: our saint, _la gran donna_, is the new philosophy. Line 12: my tocsin, _mia squilla_, is a pun on Campanella's name.

LVII. Rudolph von Bunau set himself at the age of sixteen to philosophise, travelled with Adami, and with him visited Campanella in prison at Naples. Campanella cast his horoscope and predicted for him a splendid career, exhorting him to make war upon the pernicious school of philosophers, who encumbered the human reason with frauds and figments, and prevented the free growth of a better method.

LVIII. Adami, to whom we owe the first edition of these sonnets, visited Campanella in the Castle of S. Elmo, having wandered through many lands, like Diogenes, in search of a man. Line 5: this, says Adami, 'refers to a dream or vision of a sword, great and marvellous, with three triple joints, and arms, and other things, discovered by Tobia Adami, which the author interpreted by his primalities'--that is, I suppose, by the trinity of power, love, wisdom, mentioned in No. VII. Line 6: Abaddon is the opposite of Christ, the lord of the evil of the age. Cp. note to No. XLI.

LIX. This is in some respects the most sublime and most pathetic of Campanella's sonnets. He is the Prometheus (see last line of No. I.) who will not slay himself, because he cannot help men by his death, and because his belief in the permanency of sense and thought makes him fear lest he should carry his sufferings into another life. God's will with regard to him is hidden. He does not even know what sort of life he lived before he came into his present form of flesh. Philip, King of Spain, has increased the discomforts of his dungeon, but Philip can do nothing which God has not decreed, and God never by any possibility can err.

LX. Arguments from design make us infer an all wise, all good Maker of the world. The misery and violence and sin of animate beings make us infer an evil and ignorant Ruler of the world. But this discord between the Maker and Ruler of the world is only apparent, and the grounds of the contradiction will in due time be revealed. See No. XIII. and note.

APPENDIX I

I have translated one Canzone out of Campanella's collection, partly as a specimen of his style in this kind of composition, partly because it illustrates his personal history and throws light on many of the sonnets. It is the first of three prayers to God from his prison, entitled by Adami _Orazioni tre in Salmodia Metafisicale congiunte insieme_.

I.

Almighty God! what though the laws of Fate Invincible, and this long misery, Proving my prayers not merely spent in vain But heard and granted crosswise, banish me Far from Thy sight,--still humbly obstinate I turn to Thee. No other hopes remain. Were there another God with vows to gain, To Him for succour I would surely go: Nor could I be called impious, if I turned In this great agony from one who spurned, To one who bade me come and cured my woe. Nay, Lord! I babble vainly. Help! I cry, Before the temple where Thy reason burned, Become a mosque of imbecility!

II.

Well know I that there are no words which can Move Thee to favour him for whom Thy grace Was not reserved from all eternity. Repentance in Thy counsel finds no place: Nor can the eloquence of mortal man Bend Thee to mercy, when Thy sure decree Hath stablished that this frame of mine should be Rent by these pangs that flesh and spirit tire. Nay if the whole world knows my martyrdom-- Heaven, earth, and all that in them have their home-- Why tell the tale to Thee, their Lord and Sire? And if all change is death or some such state, Thou deathless God, to whom for help I come, How shall I make Thee change, to change my fate?

III.

Nathless for grace I once more sue to Thee, Spurred on by anguish sore and deep distress:-- Yet have I neither art nor voice to plead Before Thy judgment-seat of righteousness. It is not faith, it is not charity, Nor hope that fails me in my hour of need; And if, as some men teach, the soul is freed From sin and quickened to deserve Thy grace By torments suffered on this earth below, The Alps have neither ice, I ween, nor snow To match my purity before Thy face! For prisons fifty, tortures seven, twelve years Of want and injury and woe-- These have I borne, and still I stand ringed round with fears.

IV.

We lay all wrapped with darkness: for some slept The sleep of ignorance, and players played Music to sweeten that vile sleep for gold: While others waked, and hands of rapine laid On honours, wealth, and blood; or sexless crept Into the place of harlots, basely bold.-- I lit a light:--like swarming bees, behold! Stripped of their sheltering gloom, on me Sleepers and wakers rush to wreak their spite: Their wounds, their brutal joys disturbed by light, Their broken bestial sleep fill them with jealousy.-- Thus with the wolves the silly sheep agreed Against the valiant dogs to fight; Then fell the prey of their false friends' insatiate greed.

V.

Help, mighty Shepherd! Save Thy lamp, Thy hound, From wolves that ravin and from thieves that prey! Make known the whole truth to the witless crowd! For if my light, my voice, are cast away-- If sinfulness in these Thy gifts be found-- The sun that rules in heaven is disallowed. Thou knowest without wings I cannot fly: Give me the wings of grace to speed my flight! Mine eyes are always turned to greet Thy light: Is it my crime if still it pass me by? Thou didst free Bocca and Gilardo; these, Worthless, are made the angels of Thy might.-- Hast Thou lost counsel? Shall Thine empire cease?

VI.

With Thee I speak: Lord, thou dost understand! Nor mind I how mad tongues my life reprove. Full well I know the world is 'neath Thine eye. And to each part thereof belongs Thy love: But for the general welfare wisely planned The parts must suffer change;--they do not die, For nature ebbs and flows eternally;-- But to such change we give the name of Death Or Evil, whensoe'er we feel the strife Which for the universe is joy and life, Though for each part it seems mere lack of breath.-- So in my body every part I see With lives and deaths alternate rife, All tending to its vital unity.

VII.

Thus then the Universe grieves not, and I Mid woes innumerable languish still To cheer the whole and every happier part.-- Yet, if each part is suffered by Thy will To call for aid--as Thou art God most High, Who to all beings wilt Thy strength impart; Who smoothest every change by secret art, With fond care tempering the force of fate, Necessity and concord, power and thought, And love divine through all things subtly wrought-- I am persuaded, when I iterate My prayers to Thee, some comfort I must find For these pangs poison-fraught, Or leave the sweet sharp lust of life behind.

VIII.

The Universe hath nought that changes not, Nor in its change feels not the pangs of pain, Nor prays not unto God to ease that woe. Mid these are many who the grace obtain Of aid from Thee:--thus Thou didst rule their lot: And many who without Thy help must go. How shall I tell toward whom Thy favours flow, Seeing I sat not at Thy council-board? One argument at least doth hearten me To hope those prayers may not unanswered be, Which reason and pure thoughts to me afford: Since often, if not always, Thou dost will In Thy deep wisdom, Lord, Best laboured soil with fairest fruits to fill.

IX.

The tilth of this my field by plough and hoe Yields me good hope--but more the fostering sun Of Sense divine that quickens me within, Whose rays those many minor stars outshone-- That it is destined in high heaven to show Mercy, and grant my prayer; so I may win The end Thy gifts betoken, enter in The realm reserved for me from earliest time. Christ prayed but 'If it may be,' knowing well He might not shun that cup so terrible: His angel answered, that the law sublime Ordained his death. I prayed not thus, and mine-- Was mine then sent from Hell?-- Made answer diverse from that voice divine.

X.

Go song, go tell my Lord--'Lo! he who lies Tortured in chains within a pit for Thee, Cries, how can flight be free Wingless?--Send Thy word down, or Thou Show that fate's wheel turns not iniquity, And that in heaven there is no lip that lies.'-- Yet, song, too boldly flies Thy shaft; stay yet for this that follows now!

APPENDIX II.

The 'Rivista Europea' of June 1875 publishes an article by Signor V. de Tivoli concerning an inedited sonnet of Michael Angelo, which he deciphered from the Autograph, written upon the back of one of the original drawings in the Taylor Gallery at Oxford. This drawing formed part of the Ottley and Lawrence Collection. It represents horses in various attitudes, together with a skirmish between a mounted soldier and a group of men on foot. Signor de Tivoli not only prints the text with all its orthographical confusions, abbreviations, and alterations; but he also adds what he modestly terms a restoration of the sonnet. Of this restoration I have made the subjoined version in rhyme, though I frankly admit that the difficulties of the text, as given in the rough by Signor de Tivoli, seem to me insuperable, and that his readings, though ingenious, cannot in my opinion be accepted as absolutely certain. He himself describes the MS. as a palimpsest, deliberately defaced by Michael Angelo, from which the words originally written have to be recovered in many cases by a process of conjecture. That the style of the restoration is thoroughly Michael Angelesque, will be admitted by all students of Signor Guasti's edition. The only word I felt inclined to question, is _donne_ in line 13, where I should have expected _donna_. But I am informed that about this word there is no doubt. The sonnet itself ranks among the less interesting and the least finished compositions of the poet's old age.

Thrice blest was I what time thy piercing dart I could withstand and conquer in days past: But now my breast with grief is overcast; Against my will I weep, and suffer smart. And if those shafts, aimed with so fierce an art, The mark of my frail bosom over-passed, Now canst thou take revenge with blows at last From those fair eyes which must consume my heart. O Love, how many a net, how many a snare Shuns through long years the bird by fate malign, Only at last to die more piteously! Thus love hath let me run as free as air, Ladies, through many a year, to make me pine In sad old age, and a worse death to die.

APPENDIX III.

The following translations of a madrigal, a quatrain, and a stanza by Michael Angelo, may be worth insertion here for the additional light they throw upon some of the preceding sonnets--especially upon Sonnets I. and II. and Sonnets LXV.-LXXVII. In my version of the stanza I have followed Michelangelo the younger's readings.

_DIALOGUE OF FLORENCE AND HER EXILES._

_Per molti, donna._

'Lady, for joy of lovers numberless Thou wast created fair as angels are. Sure God hath fallen asleep in heaven afar, When one man calls the bliss of many his! Give back to streaming eyes The daylight of thy face that seems to shun Those who must live defrauded of their bliss!' 'Vex not your pure desire with tears and sighs: For he who robs you of my light, hath none. Dwelling in fear, sin hath no happiness; Since amid those who love, their joy is less, Whose great desire great plenty still curtails, Than theirs who, poor, have hope that never fails.'

_THE SPEECH OF NIGHT._

_Caro m' è'l sonno._

Sweet is my sleep, but more to be mere stone, So long as ruin and dishonour reign; To bear nought, to feel nought, is my great gain; Then wake me not, speak in an undertone!

LAMENT FOR LIFE WASTED.

_Ohimè, ohimè_!

Ah me! Ah me! whene'er I think Of my past years, I find that none Among those many years, alas, was mine; False hopes and longings vain have made me pine, With tears, sighs, passions, fires, upon life's brink. Of mortal loves I have known every one. Full well I feel it now; lost and undone, From truth and goodness banished far away, I dwindle day by day. Longer the shade, more short the sunbeams grow; While I am near to falling, faint and low.