XLII. Mar gante said, "Oh, gentle cavalier! The Saracen rejoin'd in humble tone, And Macon would not pity my condition; Orlando answer'd, "Baron just and pious, XLV. "The Lord descended to the virgin breast Your renegado god, and worship mine,Baptize yourself with zeal, since you repent." To which Morgante answer'd, "I'm content." XLVI. And then Orlando to embrace him flew, And made much of his convert, as he cried, "To the abbey I will gladly marshal you." To whom Morgante, "Let us go," replied; "I to the friars have for peace to sue." Which thing Orlando heard with inward pride, Saying, "My brother, so devout and good, Ask the Abbot pardon, as I wish you would: XLVII. "Since God has granted your illumination, Accepting you in mercy for his own, XLIX. And by the way about the giants dead "Because his love of justice unto all Is such, he wills his judgment should devour All who have sin, however great or small; But good he well remembers to restore. Nor without justice holy could we call Him, whom I now require you to adore. All men must make his will their wishes sway, And quickly and spontaneously obey. LI. "And here our doctors are of one accord Coming on this point to the same conclusion,That in their thoughts who praise in heaven the Lord If pity e'er was guilty of intrusion For their unfortunate relations stored In hell below, and damn'd in great confusion, Their happiness would be reduced to nought, And thus unjust the Almighty's self be thought. LII. "But they in Christ have firmest hope, and all If sire or mother suffer endless thrall, They don't disturb themselves for him or her; What pleases God to them must joy inspire;Such is the observance of the eternal choir." LIII. "A word unto the wise," Morgante said, "Is wont to be enough, and you shall see How much I grieve about my brethren dead; And if the will of God seem good to me, Just, as you tell me, 'tis in heaven obey'dAshes to ashes-merry let us be! I will cut off the hands from both their trunks, And carry them unto the holy monks. LIV. "So that all persons may be sure and certain That they are dead, and have no further fear Humility should be your first oblation." [known-To wander solitary this desert in, Morgante said, "For goodness' sake, make XLVIII. "Then," quoth the giant, "blessed be Jesu I wish, for your great gallantry always.". Thus reasoning, they continued much to say, And onwards to the abbey went their way. And that they may perceive my spirit clear By the Lord's grace, who hath withdrawn the curtain Of darkness, making his bright realm appear." He cut his brethren's hands off at these words, And left them to the savage beasts and birds. LV. Then to the abbey they went on together, Where waited them the abbot in great doubt. The monks who knew not yet the fact, ran thither To their superior, all in breathless rout, Saying with tremor, "Please to tell us whether You wish to have this person in or out?" The abbot, looking through upon the giant, Too greatly fear'd, at first, to be compliant LXIX. But finally he thought fit to dismount, LXX. "When there shall be occasion, you will see How I approve my courage in the fight." Orlando said, "I really think you'll be, If it should prove God's will, a goodly knight; Nor will you napping there discover me. But never mind your horse, though out of sight "Twere best to carry, him into some wood, If but the means or way I understood." LXXI. The giant said, "Then carry him I will, May weigh, Morgante, do not undertake LXXII. LXXVI. The honors they continued to receive Perhaps exceeded what his merits claim'd LXXVII. LXXVIII. Now when the abbot Count Orlando heard, His heart grew soft with inner tenderness I know I've done too little in this case; LXXIX. "Take care he don't revenge himself, though dead," We can indeed but honor you with masses, I don't know if the fact you've heard or read ; LXXIII. The abbot said, "The steeple may do well, The penalty who lie dead in yon grot; " He said, "Now look if I the gout have got, Orlando, in the legs-or if I have force; "-And then he made two gambols with the horse. LXXIV Morgante was like any mountain framed; LXXV. He did; and stow'd him in some nook away, And sermons, thanksgivings, and pater-nosters, In verity much rather than the cloisters ;) LXXX. "This may involve a seeming contradiction; LXXXI. "You saved at once our life and soul: such fear In search of Jesus and the saintly host; LXXXII. "But to bear arms, and wield the lance; indeed, Your state and name I seek not to unroll; DEDICATION. LADY! if for the cold and cloudy clime I dare to build the imitative rhyme, PREFACE. "On this hint I spake," and the result has been the following four cantos, in terza rima, now offered to the reader. If they are understood and approved, it is my purpose to continue the poem in various other cantos to its natural conclusion in the present age. The reader is requested to suppose that Dante addresses him in the interval between the conclusion of his Divina Commedia and his death, and shortly before the latter event, foretelling the fortunes of Italy in general in the ensuing centuries. In adopting this plan I have had in my mind the Cassandra of Lycophron, and the Prophecy of Nereus by Horace, as well as the Prophecies of Holy Writ. The measure adopted is the terza rima of Dante, which I am not aware to have seen hitherto tried in our language, except it may be by Mr. Hayley, of whose translation I never saw but one extract, quoted in the notes to Caliph Vathek; so that-if I do not err-this poem may be considered as a metrical experiment. The cantos are short, and about the same length of those of the poet whose name I have borrowed, and most probably taken in vain. Among the inconveniences of authors in the IN the course of a visit to the city of Ravenna in present day, it is difficult for any who have a name, the summer of 1819, it was suggested to the author good or bad, to escape translation. I have had the that having composed something on the subject of fortune to see the fourth canto of Childe Harold Tasso's confinement, he should do the same on translated into Italian versi sciolti that is, a poem Dante's exile-the tomb of the poet forming one of written in Spenserean stanza into blank verse, withhe principal objects of interest in that city, both to out regard to the natural divisions of the stanza, or the native and to the strange". of the sense. If the present poem, being on a national topic should chance to undergo the same fate, I would request the Italian reader to remember that when I have failed in the imitation of his great "Padre Alighier," I have failed in imitating that which all study and few understand, since to this very day it is not yet settled what was the meaning of the allegory in the first canto of the Inferno, unless Count Marchetti's ingenious and probable conjecture may be considered as having decided the question. He may also pardon my failure the more, as I am not quite sure that he would be pleased with my success, since the Italians, with a pardonable nationality, are particularly jealous of all that is left them as a nation-their literature; and in the present bitterness of the classic and romantic war, are but ill disposed to permit a foreigner even to approve or imitate them without finding fault with his ultramontane presumption. I can easily enter into all this, knowing what would be thought in England of an Italian imitator of Milton, or if a translation of Monti, or Pindemonte, or Arici, should be held up to the rising generation as a model for their future poetical essays. But I perceive that I am deviating into an address to the Italian reader, when my business is with the English one, and be they few or many, I must take my leave of both. CANTO I. ONCE more in man's frail world! which I had left My earthly sorrows, and to God's own skies From star to star to reach the almighty throne. Oh Beatrice! whose sweet limbs the sod So long hath prest, and the cold marble stone, Thou sole pure seraph of my earliest love, Love so ineffable, and so alone, That nought on earth could more my bosom move, And meeting thee in heaven was but to meet That without which my soul, like the arkless dove, Had wander'd still in search of, nor her feet Relieved her wing till found; without thy light My paradise had still been incomplete.2 Since my tenth sun gave summer to my sight Thou wert my life, the essence of my thought, Loved ere I knew the name of love, and bright Still in these dim old eyes, now overwrought With the world's war, and years, and banishment, And tears for thee, by other woes untaught; For mine is not a nature to be bent By tyrannous faction, and the brawling crowd; And though the long, long conflict hath been spent In vain, and never more, save when the cloud Which overhangs the Apennine, my mind's eye Pierces to fancy Florence, once so proud Of me, can I return, though but to die, Unto my native soil, they have not yet Quench'd the old exile's spirit, stern and high But the sun, though not overcast, must set, And the night cometh; I am old in days, And deeds, and contemplation, and have met Destruction face to face in all his ways. The world hath left me, what it found me, pure, And if I have not gather'd yet its praise, I sought it not by any baser lure; Man wrongs, and Time avenges, and my name May form a monument not all obscure, Though such was not my ambition's end or aim, To add to the vain-glorious list of those Who dabble in the pettiness of fame, And make men's fickle breath the wind that blows Their sail, and deem it glory to be class'd With conquerors, and virtue's other foes, In bloody chronicles of ages past. I would have had my Florence great and free; a Oh Florence! Florence! unto me thou wast Like that Jerusalem which the Almighty He Wept over, "but thou would'st not; " as the bird Gathers its young, I would have gather'd thee Beneath a parent pinion, hadst thou heard My voice; but as the adder, deaf and fierce, Against the breast that cherished thee was stirr'd Thy venom, and my state thou didst amerce, And doom this body forfeit to the fire. Alas! how bitter is his country's curse To him who for that country would expire, But did not merit to expire by her, And loves her, loves her even in her ire. The day may come when she will cease to err, The day may come she would be proud to have The dust she dooms to scatter, and transfer Of him whom she denied a home, the grave. But this shall not be granted; let my dust Lie where it falls; nor shall the soil which gave Me breath, but in her sudden fury thrust Me forth to breathe elsewhere, so reassume My indignant bones, because her angry gust Forsooth is over, and repeal'd her doom; No, she denied me what was mine-my roof, And shall not have, what is not hers-my tomb. Too long her armed wrath hath kept aloof The breast which would have bled for her, the heart That beat, the mind that was temptation procf, The man who fought, toil'd, travelled, and each part Of a true citizen fulfill'd, and saw For his reward the Guelf's ascendant art Pass his destruction even into a law. These things are not made for forgetfulness Florence shall be forgotten first; too raw The wound, too deep the wrong, and the distress Of such endurance too prolong'd to make My pardon greater, her injustice less, Though late repented; yet-yet for her sake I feel some fonder yearnings, and for thine My own Beatrice, I would hardly take Vengeance upon the land which once was mine, And still is hallow'd by thy dust's return, Which would protect the murderess like a shrine And save ten thousand foes by thy sole urn, |