LVIII.

LOVE AND DEATH.

Ognor che l' idol mio.

Whene'er the idol of these eyes appears Unto my musing heart so weak and strong, Death comes between her and my soul ere long Chasing her thence with troops of gathering fears. Nathless this violence my spirit cheers With better hope than if she had no wrong; While Love invincible arrays the throng Of dauntless thoughts, and thus harangues his peers: But once, he argues, can a mortal die; But once be born: and he who dies afire, What shall he gain if erst he dwelt with me? That burning love whereby the soul flies free, Doth lure each fervent spirit to aspire Like gold refined in flame to God on high.



LIX.

LOVE IS A REFINER'S FIRE.

Non piu ch' 'l foco il fabbro.

It is with fire that blacksmiths iron subdue Unto fair form, the image of their thought: Nor without fire hath any artist wrought Gold to its utmost purity of hue. Nay, nor the unmatched phoenix lives anew, Unless she burn: if then I am distraught By fire, I may to better life be brought Like those whom death restores nor years undo. The fire whereof I speak, is my great cheer; Such power it hath to renovate and raise Me who was almost numbered with the dead; And since by nature fire doth find its sphere Soaring aloft, and I am all ablaze, Heavenward with it my flight must needs be sped.



LX.

FIRST READING.

LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION.

Ben puo talor col mio.

Sometimes my love I dare to entertain With soaring hope not over-credulous; Since if all human loves were impious, Unto what end did God the world ordain? For loving thee what license is more plain Than that I praise thereby the glorious Source of all joys divine, that comfort us In thee, and with chaste fires our soul sustain? False hope belongs unto that love alone Which with declining beauty wanes and dies, And, like the face it worships, fades away. That hope is true which the pure heart hath known, Which alters not with time or death's decay, Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.



LX.

SECOND READING.

LOVE'S JUSTIFICATION.

Ben puo talor col casto.

It must be right sometimes to entertain Chaste love with hope not over-credulous; Since if all human loves were impious, Unto what end did God the world ordain? If I love thee and bend beneath thy reign, 'Tis for the sake of beauty glorious Which in thine eyes divine is stored for us, And drives all evil thought from its domain. That is not love whose tyranny we own In loveliness that every moment dies; Which, like the face it worships, fades away: True love is that which the pure heart hath known, Which alters not with time or death's decay, Yielding on earth earnest of Paradise.



LXI.

AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.

IRREPARABLE LOSS.

Se 'l mie rozzo martello.

When my rude hammer to the stubborn stone Gives human shape, now that, now this, at will, Following his hand who wields and guides it still, It moves upon another's feet alone: But that which dwells in heaven, the world doth fill With beauty by pure motions of its own; And since tools fashion tools which else were none, Its life makes all that lives with living skill. Now, for that every stroke excels the more The higher at the forge it doth ascend, Her soul that fashioned mine hath sought the skies: Wherefore unfinished I must meet my end, If God, the great artificer, denies That aid which was unique on earth before.



LXII.

AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.

LOVE'S TRIUMPH OVER DEATH.

Quand' el ministro de' sospir.

When she who was the source of all my sighs, Fled from the world, herself, my straining sight, Nature who gave us that unique delight, Was sunk in shame, and we had weeping eyes. Yet shall not vauntful Death enjoy this prize, This sun of suns which then he veiled in night; For Love hath triumphed, lifting up her light On earth and mid the saints in Paradise. What though remorseless and impiteous doom Deemed that the music of her deeds would die, And that her splendour would be sunk in gloom, The poet's page exalts her to the sky With life more living in the lifeless tomb, And death translates her soul to reign on high.



LXIII.

AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.

AFTER SUNSET.

Be' mi dove'.

Well might I in those days so fortunate, What time the sun lightened my path above, Have soared from earth to heaven, raised by her love Who winged my labouring soul and sweetened fate.

That sun hath set; and I with hope elate Who deemed that those bright days would never move, Find that my thankless soul, deprived thereof, Declines to death, while heaven still bars the gate.

Love lent me wings; my path was like a stair; A lamp unto my feet, that sun was given; And death was safety and great joy to find.

But dying now, I shall not climb to heaven; Nor can mere memory cheer my heart's despair:— What help remains when hope is left behind?



LXIV.

AFTER THE DEATH OF VITTORIA COLONNA.

A WASTED BRAND.

Qual maraviglia e.

If being near the fire I burned with it, Now that its flame is quenched and doth not show, What wonder if I waste within and glow, Dwindling away to cinders bit by bit?

While still it burned, I saw so brightly lit That splendour whence I drew my grievous woe, That from its sight alone could pleasure flow, And death and torment both seemed exquisite.

But now that heaven hath robbed me of the blaze Of that great fire which burned and nourished me, A coal that smoulders 'neath the ash am I.

Unless Love furnish wood fresh flames to raise, I shall expire with not one spark to see, So quickly into embers do I die!



LXV.

TO GIORGIO VASARI.

ON THE BRINK OF DEATH.

Giunto e gia.

Now hath my life across a stormy sea Like a frail bark reached that wide port where all Are bidden, ere the final reckoning fall Of good and evil for eternity.

Now know I well how that fond phantasy Which made my soul the worshipper and thrall Of earthly art, is vain; how criminal Is that which all men seek unwillingly.

Those amorous thoughts which were so lightly dressed, What are they when the double death is nigh? The one I know for sure, the other dread.

Painting nor sculpture now can lull to rest My soul that turns to His great love on high, Whose arms to clasp us on the cross were spread.



LXVI.

TO GIORGIO VASARI.

VANITY OF VANITIES.

Le favole del mondo.

The fables of the world have filched away The time I had for thinking upon God; His grace lies buried 'neath oblivion's sod, Whence springs an evil crop of sins alway.

What makes another wise, leads me astray, Slow to discern the bad path I have trod: Hope fades; but still desire ascends that God May free me from self-love, my sure decay.

Shorten half-way my road to heaven from earth! Dear Lord, I cannot even half-way rise, Unless Thou help me on this pilgrimage.

Teach me to hate the world so little worth, And all the lovely things I clasp and prize; That endless life, ere death, may be my wage.



LXVII.

A PRAYER FOR FAITH.

Non e piu bassa.

There's not on earth a thing more vile and base Than, lacking Thee, I feel myself to be: For pardon prays my own debility, Yearning in vain to lift me to Thy face.

Stretch to me, Lord, that chain whose links enlace All heavenly gifts and all felicity— Faith, whereunto I strive perpetually, Yet cannot find (my fault) her perfect grace.

That gift of gifts, the rarer 'tis, the more I count it great; more great, because to earth Without it neither peace nor joy is given.

If Thou Thy blood so lovingly didst pour, Let not that bounty fail or suffer dearth, Withholding Faith that opes the doors of heaven.



LXVIII.

TO MONSIGNOR LODOVICO BECCADELLI.

URBINO.

Per croce e grazia.

God's grace, the cross, our troubles multiplied, Will make us meet in heaven, full well I know: Yet ere we yield our breath, on earth below Why need a little solace be denied?

Though seas and mountains and rough ways divide Our feet asunder, neither frost nor snow Can make the soul her ancient love forgo; Nor chains nor bonds the wings of thought have tied.

Borne by these wings with thee I dwell for aye, And weep, and of my dead Urbino talk, Who, were he living, now perchance would be,

For so 'twas planned, thy guest as well as I: Warned by his death another way I walk To meet him where he waits to live with me.



LXIX.

WAITING FOR DEATH.

Di morte certo.

My death must come; but when, I do not know: Life's short, and little life remains for me: Fain would my flesh abide; my soul would flee Heavenward, for still she calls on me to go.

Blind is the world; and evil here below O'erwhelms and triumphs over honesty: The light is quenched; quenched too is bravery: Lies reign, and truth hath ceased her face to show.

When will that day dawn, Lord, for which he waits Who trusts in Thee? Lo, this prolonged delay Destroys all hope and robs the soul of life.

Why streams the light from those celestial gates, If death prevent the day of grace, and stay Our souls for ever in the toils of strife?



LXX.

A PRAYER FOR STRENGTH.

Carico d'anni.

Burdened with years and full of sinfulness, With evil custom grown inveterate, Both deaths I dread that close before me wait, Yet feed my heart on poisonous thoughts no less.

No strength I find in mine own feebleness To change or life or love or use or fate, Unless Thy heavenly guidance come, though late, Which only helps and stays our nothingness.

'Tis not enough, dear Lord, to make me yearn For that celestial home, where yet my soul May be new made, and not, as erst, of nought:

Nay, ere Thou strip her mortal vestment, turn My steps toward the steep ascent, that whole And pure before Thy face she may be brought.



LXXI.

A PRAYER FOR PURIFICATION.

Forse perche d' altrui.

Perchance that I might learn what pity is, That I might laugh at erring men no more, Secure in my own strength as heretofore, My soul hath fallen from her state of bliss: Nor know I under any flag but this How fighting I may 'scape those perils sore, Or how survive the rout and horrid roar Of adverse hosts, if I Thy succour miss. O flesh! O blood! O cross! O pain extreme! By you may those foul sins be purified, Wherein my fathers were, and I was born! Lo, Thou alone art good: let Thy supreme Pity my state of evil cleanse and hide— So near to death, so far from God, forlorn.



LXXII.

A PRAYER FOR AID.

Deh fammiti vedere.

Oh, make me see Thee, Lord, where'er I go! If mortal beauty sets my soul on fire, That flame when near to Thine must needs expire, And I with love of only Thee shall glow. Dear Lord, Thy help I seek against this woe, These torments that my spirit vex and tire; Thou only with new strength canst re-inspire My will, my sense, my courage faint and low. Thou gavest me on earth this soul divine; And Thou within this body weak and frail Didst prison it—how sadly there to live! How can I make its lot less vile than mine? Without Thee, Lord, all goodness seems to fail. To alter fate is God's prerogative.



LXXIII.

AT THE FOOT OF THE CROSS.

Scarco d' un' importuna.

Freed from a burden sore and grievous band, Dear Lord, and from this wearying world untied, Like a frail bark I turn me to Thy side, As from a fierce storm to a tranquil land. Thy thorns, Thy nails, and either bleeding hand, With Thy mild gentle piteous face, provide Promise of help and mercies multiplied, And hope that yet my soul secure may stand. Let not Thy holy eyes be just to see My evil past, Thy chastened ears to hear And stretch the arm of judgment to my crime: Let Thy blood only lave and succour me, Yielding more perfect pardon, better cheer, As older still I grow with lengthening time.



LXXIV.

FIRST READING.

A PRAYER FOR GRACE IN DEATH.

S' avvien che spesso.

What though strong love of life doth flatter me With hope of yet more years on earth to stay, Death none the less draws nearer day by day, Who to sad souls alone comes lingeringly. Yet why desire long life and jollity, If in our griefs alone to God we pray? Glad fortune, length of days, and pleasure slay The soul that trusts to their felicity. Then if at any hour through grace divine The fiery shafts of love and faith that cheer And fortify the soul, my heart assail, Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine, Straight may I wing my way to heaven; for here With lengthening days good thoughts and wishes fail.



LXXIV.

SECOND READING.

A PRAYER FOR GRACE IN DEATH.

Parmi che spesso.

Ofttimes my great desire doth flatter me With hope on earth yet many years to stay: Still Death, the more I love it, day by day Takes from the life I love so tenderly. What better time for that dread change could be, If in our griefs alone to God we pray? Oh, lead me, Lord, oh, lead me far away From every thought that lures my soul from Thee! Yea, if at any hour, through grace of Thine, The fervent zeal of love and faith that cheer And fortify the soul, my heart assail. Since nought achieve these mortal powers of mine, Plant, like a saint in heaven, that virtue here; For, lacking Thee, all good must faint and fail.



LXXV.

HEART-COLDNESS.

Vorrei voler, Signior.

Fain would I wish what my heart cannot will: Between it and the fire a veil of ice Deadens the fire, so that I deal in lies; My words and actions are discordant still. I love Thee with my tongue, then mourn my fill; For love warms not my heart, nor can I rise, Or ope the doors of Grace, who from the skies Might flood my soul, and pride and passion kill. Rend Thou the veil, dear Lord! Break Thou that wall Which with its stubbornness retards the rays Of that bright sun this earth hath dulled for me! Send down Thy promised light to cheer and fall On Thy fair spouse, that I with love may blaze, And, free from doubt, my heart feel only Thee!



LXXVI.

THE DEATH OF CHRIST.

Non fur men lieti.

Not less elate than smitten with wild woe To see not them but Thee by death undone, Were those blest souls, when Thou above the sun Didst raise, by dying, men that lay so low: Elate, since freedom from all ills that flow From their first fault for Adam's race was won; Sore smitten, since in torment fierce God's son Served servants on the cruel cross below. Heaven showed she knew Thee, who Thou wert and whence, Veiling her eyes above the riven earth; The mountains trembled and the seas were troubled. He took the Fathers from hell's darkness dense: The torments of the damned fiends redoubled: Man only joyed, who gained baptismal birth.



LXXVII.

THE BLOOD OF CHRIST.

Mentre m' attrista.

Mid weariness and woe I find some cheer In thinking of the past, when I recall My weakness and my sins, and reckon all The vain expense of days that disappear: This cheers by making, ere I die, more clear The frailty of what men delight miscall; But saddens me to think how rarely fall God's grace and mercies in life's latest year. For though Thy promises our faith compel, Yet, Lord, what man shall venture to maintain That pity will condone our long neglect? Still from Thy blood poured forth we know full well How without measure was Thy martyr's pain, How measureless the gifts we dare expect.



THE SONNETS OF TOMMASO CAMPANELLA



I.

THE PROEM.

Io che nacqui dal Senno.

Born of God's Wisdom and Philosophy, Keen lover of true beauty and true good, I call the vain self-traitorous multitude Back to my mother's milk; for it is she, Faithful to God her spouse, who nourished me, Making me quick and active to intrude Within the inmost veil, where I have viewed And handled all things in eternity. If the whole world's our home where we may run, Up, friends, forsake those secondary schools Which give grains, units, inches for the whole! If facts surpass mere words, melt pride of soul, And pain, and ignorance that hardens fools, Here in the fire I've stolen from the Sun!



II.

TO THE POETS.

In superbia il valor.

Valour to pride hath turned; grave holiness To vile hypocrisy; all gentle ways To empty forms; sound sense to idle lays; Pure love to heat; beauty to paint and dress:— Thanks to you, Poets! you who sing the praise Of fabled knights, foul fires, lies, nullities; Not virtue, nor the wrapped sublimities Of God, as bards were wont in those old days. How far more wondrous than your phantasies Are Nature's works, how far more sweet to sing! Thus taught, the soul falsehood and truth descries. That tale alone is worth the pondering, Which hath not smothered history in lies, And arms the soul against each sinful thing.



III.

THE UNIVERSE.

Il mondo e un animal.

The world's a living creature, whole and great, God's image, praising God whose type it is; We are imperfect worms, vile families, That in its belly have our low estate. If we know not its love, its intellect, Neither the worm within my belly seeks To know me, but his petty mischief wreaks:— Thus it behoves us to be circumspect. Again, the earth is a great animal, Within the greatest; we are like the lice Upon its body, doing harm as they. Proud men, lift up your eyes; on you I call: Measure each being's worth; and thence be wise; Learning what part in the great scheme you play!



IV.

THE SOUL.

Dentro un pugno di cervel.

A handful of brain holds me: I consume So much that all the books the world contains, Cannot allay my furious famine-pains:— What feasts were mine! Yet hunger is my doom. With one world Aristarchus fed my greed; This finished, others Metrodorus gave; Yet, stirred by restless yearning, still I crave: The more I know, the more to learn I need. Thus I'm an image of that Sire in whom All beings are, like fishes in the sea; That one true object of the loving mind. Reasoning may reach Him, like a shaft shot home; The Church may guide; but only blest is he Who loses self in God, God's self to find.



V.

THE BOOK OF NATURE.

Il mondo e il libro.

The world's the book where the eternal Sense Wrote his own thoughts; the living temple where, Painting his very self, with figures fair He filled the whole immense circumference. Here then should each man read, and gazing find Both how to live and govern, and beware Of godlessness; and, seeing God all-where, Be bold to grasp the universal mind. But we tied down to books and temples dead, Copied with countless errors from the life,— These nobler than that school sublime we call. O may our senseless souls at length be led To truth by pain, grief, anguish, trouble, strife! Turn we to read the one original!



VI.

AN EXHORTATION TO MANKIND.

Abitator del mondo.

Ye dwellers on this world, to the first Mind Exalt your eyes; and ye shall see how low Vile Tyranny, wearing the glorious show Of nobleness and worth, keeps you confined. Then look at proud Hypocrisy, entwined With lies and snares, who once taught men to know The fear of God. Next to the Sophists go, Traitors to thought and reason, jugglers blind. Keen Socrates to quell the Sophists came: To quell the Tyrants, Cato just and rough: To quell the Hypocrites, Christ, heaven's own flame. But to unmask fraud, sacrilege, and lies, Or boldly rush on death, is not enough; Unless we all taste God, made inly wise.



VII.

THE BROOD OF IGNORANCE.

Io nacqui a debellar.

To quell three Titan evils I was made,— Tyranny, Sophistry, Hypocrisy; Whence I perceive with what wise harmony Themis on me Love, Power, and Wisdom laid. These are the basements firm whereon is stayed, Supreme and strong, our new philosophy; The antidotes against that trinal lie Wherewith the burdened world groaning is weighed. Famine, war, pestilence, fraud, envy, pride, Injustice, idleness, lust, fury, fear, Beneath these three great plagues securely hide. Grounded on blind self-love, the offspring dear Of Ignorance, they flourish and abide:— Wherefore to root up Ignorance I'm here!



VIII.

SELF-LOVE.

Credulo il proprio amor.

Self-love fools man with false opinion That earth, air, water, fire, the stars we see, Though stronger and more beautiful than we, Feel nought, love not, but move for us alone. Then all the tribes of earth except his own Seem to him senseless, rude—God lets them be: To kith and kin next shrinks his sympathy, Till in the end loves only self each one. Learning he shuns that he may live at ease; And since the world is little to his mind, God and God's ruling Forethought he denies. Craft he calls wisdom; and, perversely blind, Seeking to reign, erects new deities: At last 'I make the Universe!' he cries.



IX.

LOVE OF SELF AND GOD.

Questo amor singolar.

This love of self sinks man in sinful sloth: Yet, if he seek to live, he needs must feign Sense, goodness, courage. Thus he dwells in pain, A sphinx, twy-souled, a false self-stunted growth. Honours, applause, and wealth these torments soothe; Till jealousy, contrasting his foul stain With virtues eminent, by spur and rein Drives him to slay, steal, poison, break his oath. But he who loves our common Father, hath All men for brothers, and with God doth joy In whatsoever worketh for their bliss. Good Francis called the birds upon his path Brethren; to him the fishes were not coy.— Oh, blest is he who comprehendeth this!



X.

EARTHLY AND DIVINE LOVE.

Se Dio ci da la vita.

God gives us life, and God our life preserves; Nay, all our happiness on Him doth rest: Why then should love of God inflame man's breast Less than his lady and the lord he serves? Through mean and wanton ignorance he swerves, And worships a false Good, divinely dressed; Love cannot soar to what it never guessed, But stoops its flight, and the thralled soul unnerves. Here too is man deceived. He yields his own To spend on others. Yet in vile delight God's splendour still shines through love's earthliness. But we embrace the loss, the lure alone Love fools us with. That glimpse of heavenly light, That foretaste of eternal Good, we miss.



XI.

THE PHILOSOPHER.

Gran fortuna e 'l saper.

Wisdom is riches great and great estate, Far above wealth; nor are the wise unblest If born of lineage vile or race oppressed: These by their doom sublime they illustrate.

They have their griefs for guerdon, to dilate Their name and glory; nay, the cross, the sword Make them to be like saints or God adored; And gladness greets them in the frowns of fate:

For joys and sorrows are their dear delight; Even as a lover takes the weal and woe Felt for his lady. Such is wisdom's might.

But wealth still vexes fools; more vile they grow By being noble; and their luckless light With each new misadventure burns more low.



XII.

A PARABLE OF WISE MEN AND THE WORLD.

Gli astrologi antevista.

Once on a time the astronomers foresaw The coming of a star to madden men: Thus warned they fled the land, thinking that when The folk were crazed, they'd hold the reins of law

When they returned the realm to overawe, They prayed those maniacs to quit cave and den, And use their old good customs once again; But these made answer with fist, tooth, and claw:

So that the wise men were obliged to rule Themselves like lunatics to shun grim death, Seeing the biggest maniac now was king.

Stifling their sense, they lived, aping the fool, In public praising act and word and thing Just as the whims of madmen swayed their breath.



XIII.

THE WORLD'S A STAGE.

Nel teatro del mondo.

The world's a theatre: age after age, Souls masked and muffled in their fleshly gear Before the supreme audience appear, As Nature, God's own Art, appoints the stage.

Each plays the part that is his heritage; From choir to choir they pass, from sphere to sphere, And deck themselves with joy or sorry cheer, As Fate the comic playwright fills the page.

None do or suffer, be they cursed or blest, Aught otherwise than the great Wisdom wrote To gladden each and all who gave Him mirth,

When we at last to sea or air or earth Yielding these masks that weal or woe denote, In God shall see who spoke and acted best.



XIV.

THE HUMAN COMEDY.

Natura dal Signor.

Nature, by God directed, formed in space The universal comedy we see; Wherein each star, each man, each entity, Each living creature, hath its part and place:

And when the play is over, it shall be That God will judge with justice and with grace.— Aping this art divine, the human race Plans for itself on earth a comedy:

It makes kings, priests, slaves, heroes for the eyes Of vulgar folk; and gives them masks to play Their several parts—not wisely, as we see;

For impious men too oft we canonise, And kill the saints; while spurious lords array Their hosts against the real nobility.



XV.

THE TRUE KINGS.

Neron fu Re.

Nero was king by accident in show; But Socrates by nature in good sooth; By right of both Augustus; luck and truth Less perfectly were blent in Scipio.

The spurious prince still seeks to extirpate The seed of natures born imperial— Like Herod, Caiaphas, Meletus, all Who by bad acts sustain their stolen state.

Slaves whose souls tell them that they are but slaves, Strike those whose native kinghood all can see: Martyrdom is the stamp of royalty.

Dead though they be, these govern from their graves: The tyrants fall, nor can their laws remain; While Paul and Peter rise o'er Rome to reign.



XVI.

WHAT MAKES A KING.

Chi pennelli have e colori.

He who hath brush and colours, and chance-wise Doth daub, befouling walls and canvases, Is not a painter; but, unhelped by these, He who in art is masterful and wise. Cowls and the tonsure do not make a friar; Nor make a king wide realms and pompous wars; But he who is all Jesus, Pallas, Mars, Though he be slave or base-born, wears the tiar. Man is not born crowned like the natural king Of beasts, for beasts by this investiture Have need to know the head they must obey; Wherefore a commonwealth fits men, I say, Or else a prince whose worth is tried and sure, Not proved by sloth or false imagining.



XVII.

TO JESUS CHRIST.

I tuo' seguaci.

Thy followers to-day are less like Thee, The crucified, than those who made Thee die, Good Jesus, wandering all ways awry From rules prescribed in Thy wise charity. The saints now most esteemed love lying lips, Lust, strife, injustice; sweet to them the cry Drawn forth by monstrous pangs from men that die: So many plagues hath not the Apocalypse As these wherewith they smite Thy friends ignored— Even as I am; search my heart, and know; My life, my sufferings bear Thy stamp and sign. If Thou return to earth, come armed; for lo, Thy foes prepare fresh crosses for Thee, Lord! Not Turks, not Jews, but they who call them Thine.



XVIII.

TO DEATH.

Morte, stipendio della colpa.

O Death, the wage of our first father's blame, Daughter of envy and nonentity, Serf of the serpent, and his harlotry, Thou beast most arrogant and void of shame! Thy last great conquest dost thou dare proclaim, Crying that all things are subdued to thee, Against the Almighty raised almightily?— The proofs that prop thy pride of state are lame. Not to serve thee, but to make thee serve Him, He stoops to Hell. The choice of arms was thine; Yet art thou scoffed at by the crucified! He lives—thy loss. He dies—from every limb, Mangled by thee, lightnings of godhead shine, From which thy darkness hath not where to hide.



XIX.

ON THE SEPULCHRE OF CHRIST.

No. I.

O tu ch' ami la parte.

O you who love the part more than the whole, And love yourself more than all human kind, Who persecute good men with prudence blind Because they combat your malign control, See Scribes and Pharisees, each impious school, Each sect profane, o'erthrown by his great mind, Whose best our good to Deity refined, The while they thought Death triumphed o'er his soul. Deem you that only you have thought and sense, While heaven and all its wonders, sun and earth, Scorned in your dullness, lack intelligence? Fool! what produced you? These things gave you birth: So have they mind and God. Repent; be wise! Man fights but ill with Him who rules the skies.



XX.

ON THE SEPULCHRE OF CHRIST.

No. 2.

Quinci impara a stupirti.

Here bend in boundless wonder; bow your head: Think how God's deathless Mind, that men might be Robed in celestial immortality (O Love divine!), in flesh was raimented: How He was killed and buried; from the dead How He arose to life with victory, And reigned in heaven; how all of us shall be Glorious like Him whose hearts to His are wed: How they who die for love of reason, give Hypocrites, tyrants, sophists—all who sell Their neighbours ill for holiness—to hell: How the dead saint condemns the bad who live; How all he does becomes a law for men; How he at last to judge shall come again!



XXI.

THE RESURRECTION.

Se sol sei ore.

If Christ was only six hours crucified After few years of toil and misery, Which for mankind He suffered willingly, While heaven was won for ever when He died; Why should He still be shown on every side, Painted and preached, in nought but agony, Whose pains were light matched with His victory, When the world's power to harm Him was defied? Why rather speak and write not of the realm He rules in heaven, and soon will bring below Unto the praise and glory of His name? Ah foolish crowd! This world's thick vapours whelm Your eyes unworthy of that glorious show, Blind to His splendour, bent upon His shame.



XXII.

IDEAL LOVE.

Il vero amante.

He who loves truly, grows in force and might; For beauty and the image of his love Expand his spirit: whence he burns to prove Adventures high, and holds all perils light. If thus a lady's love dilate the knight, What glories and what joy all joys above Shall not the heavenly splendour, joined by love Unto our flesh-imprisoned soul, excite? Once freed, she would become one sphere immense Of love, power, wisdom, filled with Deity, Elate with wonders of the eternal Sense. But we like sheep and wolves war ceaselessly: That love we never seek, that light intense, Which would exalt us to infinity.



XXIII.

THE MODERN CUPID.

Son tremil' anni.

Through full three thousand years the world reveres Blind Love that bears the quiver and hath wings: Now too he's deaf, and to the sufferings Of folk in anguish turns impiteous ears. Of gold he's greedy, and dark raiment wears; A child no more, that naked sports and sings, But a sly greybeard; no gold shaft he flings, Now that fire-arms have cursed these latter years. Charcoal and sulphur, thunder, lead, and smoke, That leave the flesh with plagues of hell diseased, And drive the craving spirit deaf and blind, These are his weapons. But my bell hath broke Her silence. Yield, thou deaf, blind, tainted beast, To the wise fervour of a blameless mind!



XXIV.

TRUE AND FALSE NOBILITY.

In noi dal senno.

Valour and mind form real nobility, The which bears fruit and shows a fair increase By doughty actions: these and nought but these Confer true patents of gentility. Money is false and light unless it be Bought by a man's own worthy qualities; And blood is such that its corrupt disease And ignorant pretence are foul to see. Honours that ought to yield more true a type, Europe, thou measurest by fortune still, To thy great hurt; and this thy foe perceives: He rates the tree by fruits mature and ripe, Not by mere shadows, roots, and verdant leaves:— Why then neglect so grave a cause of ill?



XXV.

THE PEOPLE.

Il popolo e una bestia.

The people is a beast of muddy brain, That knows not its own force, and therefore stands Loaded with wood and stone; the powerless hands Of a mere child guide it with bit and rein: One kick would be enough to break the chain; But the beast fears, and what the child demands, It does; nor its own terror understands, Confused and stupefied by bugbears vain. Most wonderful! with its own hand it ties And gags itself—gives itself death and war For pence doled out by kings from its own store. Its own are all things between earth and heaven; But this it knows not; and if one arise To tell this truth, it kills him unforgiven.



XXVI.

CONSCIENCE.

Seco ogni coif a e doglia.

All crime is its own torment, bearing woe To mind or body or decrease of fame; If not at once, still step by step our name Or blood or friends or fortune it brings low. But if our will do not resent the blow, We have not sinned. That penance hath no blame Which Magdalen found sweet: purging our shame, Self-punishment is virtue, all men know. The consciousness of goodness pure and whole Makes a man fully blest; but misery Springs from false conscience, blinded in its pride. This Simon Peter meant when he replied To Simon Magus, that the prescient soul Hath her own proof of immortality.



XXVII.

THE BAD PRINCE.

Mentola al comun corpo.

Organ of rut, not reason, is the lord Who from the body politic doth drain Lust for himself, instead of toil and pain, Leaving us lean as crickets on dry sward. Well too if he like Love would filch our hoard With pleasure to ourselves, sluicing our vein And vigour to perpetuate the strain Of life by spilth of life within us stored! Love's cheat yields joy and profit. Kings, less kind, Harm those they hoodwink; sow bare rock with seed; Nor use our waste to propagate the breed. Heaven help that body which a little mind, Housed in a head, lacking ears, tongue, and eyes, And senseless but for smell, can tyrannise!



XXVIII.

ON ITALY.

La gran Donna.

That Lady who to Caesar came in state Upon the Rubicon, what time she feared Ruin from those strange races who appeared Erewhile to build her empire strong and great, Now stays with limbs dispersed and lacerate, A bondslave, shorn of all her pomp revered: Nor seems it now that Dinah's shame can gird Simeon or Levi to avenge her fate. If then Jerusalem doth not repair To Nazareth or Athens, where did reign Wisdom of God or man in days of yore, None shall arise her honours to restore: For Herods are all strangers; when they swear To save the Saviour's seed, their oath is vain.



XXIX.

TO VENICE.

Nuova arca di Noe.

New Ark of Noah! when the cruel scourge Of that barbarian tyrant like a wave Went over Italy, thou then didst save The seed of just men on the weltering surge. Here, still by discord and foul servitude Untainted, thou a hero brood dost raise, Powerful and prudent. Due to thee their praise Of maiden pure, of teeming motherhood! Thou wonder of the world, Rome's loyal heir, Thou pride and strong support of Italy, Dial of princes, school of all things wise! Thou like Arcturus steadfast in the skies, With tardy sense guidest thy kingdom fair, Bearing alone the load of liberty.



XXX.

TO GENOA.

Le Ninfe d'Arno.

The nymphs of Arno; Adria's goddess-queen; Greece, where the Latin banner floated free; The lands that border on the Syrian sea; The Euxine, and fair Naples; these have been Thine, by the right of conquest; these should be Still thine by empire: Asia's broad demesne, Afric, America—realms never seen But by thy venture—all belong to thee. But thou, thyself not knowing, leavest all For a poor price to strangers; since thy head Is weak, albeit thy limbs are stout and good. Genoa, mistress of the world, recall Thy soul magnanimous! Nay, be not led Slave to base gold, thou and thy tameless brood!



XXXI.

TO POLAND.

Sopra i regni.

High o'er those realms that make blind chance the heir Of empire, Poland, dost thou lift thy head: For while thou mournest for thy monarch dead, Thou wilt not let his son the sceptre bear, Lest he prove weak perchance to do or dare. Yet art thou even more by luck misled, Choosing a prince of fortune, courtly-bred, Uncertain whether he will spend or spare. Oh, quit this pride! In hut or shepherd's pen Seek Cato, Minos, Numa! For of such God still makes kings in plenty: and these men Will squander little substance and gain much, Knowing that virtue and not blood shall be Their titles to true immortality.



XXXII.

TO THE SWISS.

Se voi piu innalza.

Ye Alpine rocks! If less your peaks elate To heaven exalt you than that gift divine, Freedom; why do your children still combine To keep the despots in their stolen state? Lo, for a piece of bread from windows wide You fling your blood, taking no thought what cause, Righteous or wrong, your strength to battle draws; So is your valour spurned and vilified. All things belong to free men; but the slave Clothes and feeds poorly. Even so from you Broad lands and Malta's knighthood men withhold. Up, free yourselves, and act as heroes do! Go, take your own from tyrants, which you gave So recklessly, and they so dear have sold!



XXXIII.

THE SAMARITAN.

Da Roma ad Ostia.

From Rome to Ostia a poor man went; Thieves robbed and wounded him upon the way; Some monks, great saints, observed him where he lay, And left him, on their breviaries intent. A Bishop passed thereby, and careless bent To sign the cross, a blessing brief to say; But a great Cardinal, to clutch their prey, Followed the thieves, falsely benevolent. At last there came a German Lutheran, Who builds on faith, merit of works withstands; He raised and clothed and healed the dying man. Now which of these was worthiest, most humane? The heart is better than the head, kind hands Than cold lip-service; faith without works is vain. Who understands What creed is good and true for self and others?— But none can doubt the good he doth his brothers.



XXXIV.

HYPOCRITES.

Nessun ti venne a dir.

Who comes and saith: 'A Tyrant, lo, am I!' And, 'I am Antichrist!' what man will swear? The crafty rogue, hiding his poisonous ware, Sells you what slays your soul, for sanctity. Cheats, brigands, prostitutes, and all that fry, Not having fashioned so devout a snare, Appear worse sinners than perhaps they are; For where the craft's small, small's the villainy; You're on your guard. The meek Samaritan Makes way before those guileful Pharisees, Though God assigned to him the higher place. Not words nor wonders prove a virtuous man, But deeds and acts. How many deities Hath this false standard given the human race!



XXXV.

SOPHISTS.

Nessun ti verra a dire.

'Behold, I am a Sophist!' no man saith. But the true sons of perfidy refined Forge theologic lies the soul to blind, Calling themselves evangels of the faith. Aretine with his scoundrels blew his breath, And in the cynic orgies boldly joined; His ribald jests had flowers and thorns combined— A frank fair list including life and death, For fun, not fraud. It shames him to be found Less vile than those who cannot bear to see Their sink of filth laid open to the ground: Wherefore they shut our mouths, our books impound, Garble with lies each sentence that may be Cited to prove their foul hypocrisy.



XXXVI.

AGAINST HYPOCRITES.

Gli affetti di Pluton.

Deep in their hearts they hide the lusts of Hell: Christ's name is written on their brow, that those Who only view the husk, may not suppose What guile and malice harbour in the shell. O God! O Wisdom! Holy Fervour! Well Of strength invincible to strike Thy foes! Give me the force—my spirit burns and glows— To strip those idols and to break their spell! The zeal I bear unto Thy name benign, The love I feel for truth sincere and pure, When such men triumph, make me rend my hair. How long shall folk this infamy endure— That he should be held sacred, he divine, Who strips e'en corpses in the graveyard bare?



XXXVII.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

No. I.

Vilissima progenie.

Ye vile offscourings! with unblushing face Dare ye claim sonship to our heavenly Sire, Who serve brute vices, crouching in the mire To hounds and conies, beasts that ape our race? Such truckling is called virtue by the base Hucksters of sophistry, the priest and friar,— Gilt claws of tyrant brutes,—who lie for hire, Preaching that God delights in this disgrace. Look well, ye brainless folk! Do fathers hold Their children slaves to serfs? Do sheep obey The witless ram? Why make a beast your king? If there are no archangels, let your fold Be governed by the sense of all: why stray From men to worship every filthy thing?



XXXVIII.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

No. 2.

Dov' e la liberta.

Where are the freedom and high feats that spring From fatherhood so fair as Deity? Fleas are no sons of men, although they be Flesh-born: brave thoughts and deeds this honour bring. If princes great or small seek anything Adverse to good and God's authority, Which of you dares refuse? Nay, who is he That doth not cringe to do their pleasuring? So then with soul and blood in verity You serve base gold, vices, and worthless men— God with lip-service only and with lies, Sunk in the slough of dire idolatry: If Ignorance begat these errors, then To Reason turn for sonship and be wise!



XXXIX.

ON THE LORD'S PRAYER.

No. 3.

Allor potrete orar.

Then shall ye pray with every hour that flies; Thy kingdom come, and let Thy will be done On earth as in the spheres above the sun, When all we hoped and wished shall bless our eyes. Poets shall see their Age of Gold arise, Fairer than feigned in hymn or orison; Yea, all the realm by Adam's sin undone Shall be restored in sinless Paradise. Philosophers shall govern for their own That perfect commonwealth whereof they write, The which on earth as yet was never known. Judah to Sion shall return with might Of greater wonders than shook Pharaoh's throne, From Babylon, to bless the prophets' sight.



XL.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

No. 1.

THE REIGN OF ANTICHRIST.

Mentre l'acquila invola.

While yet the eagle preys, and growls the bear; While roars the lion; while the crow defies The lamb who raised our race above the skies; While yet the dove laments to the deaf air; While, mixed with goodly wheat, darnel and tare Within the field of human nature rise;— Let that ungodly sect, profanely wise, That scorns our hope, feed, fatten, and beware! Soon comes the day when those grim giants fell, Famed through the world, dyed deep with sanguine hue, Whom with feigned flatteries you applaud, shall be Swept from the earth, and sunk in horrid Hell, Girt round with flames, to weep and wail with you, In doleful dungeons everlastingly.



XLI.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

No. 2.

THE DOOM OF THE IMPIOUS.

La scuola inimicissima.

You sect most adverse to the good and true, Degenerate from your origin divine, Pastured on lies and shadows by the line Of Thais, Sinon, Judas, Homer! You, Thus saith the Spirit, when the retinue Of saints with Christ returns on earth to shine, When the fifth angel's vial pours condign Vengeance with awful ire and torments due,— You shall be girt with gloom; your lips profane, Disloyal tongues, and savage teeth shall grind And gnash with fury fell and anger vain: In Malebolge your damned souls confined On fiery marle, for increment of pain, Shall see the saved rejoice with mirth of mind.



XLII.

A PROPHECY OF JUDGMENT.

No. 3.

THE GOLDEN AGE.

Se fu nel mondo.

If men were happy in that age of gold, We yet may hope to see mild Saturn's reign; For all things that were buried live again, By time's revolving cycle forward rolled. Yet this the fox, the wolf, the crow, made bold By fraud and perfidy, deny—in vain: For God that rules, the signs in heaven, the train Of prophets, and all hearts this faith uphold. If thine and mine were banished in good sooth From honour, pleasure, and utility, The world would turn, I ween, to Paradise; Blind love to modest love with open eyes; Cunning and ignorance to living truth; And foul oppression to fraternity.



XLIII.

THE MILLENNIUM.

Non piaccia a Dio.

Nay, God forbid that mid these tragic throes To idle comedy my thought should bend, When torments dire and warning woes portend Of this our world the instantaneous close! The day approaches which shall discompose All earthly sects, the elements shall blend In utter ruin, and with joy shall send Just spirits to their spheres in heaven's repose. The Highest comes in Holy Land to hold His sovran court and synod sanctified, As all the psalms and prophets have foretold: The riches of his grace He will spread wide Through his own realm, that seat and chosen fold Of worship and free mercies multiplied.



XLIV.

THE PRESENT.

Convien al secol nostro.

Black robes befit our age. Once they were white; Next many-hued; now dark as Afric's Moor, Night-black, infernal, traitorous, obscure, Horrid with ignorance and sick with fright. For very shame we shun all colours bright, Who mourn our end—the tyrants we endure, The chains, the noose, the lead, the snares, the lure— Our dismal heroes, our souls sunk in night. Black weeds again denote that extreme folly Which makes us blind, mournful, and woe-begone: For dusk is dear to doleful melancholy; Nathless fate's wheel still turns: this raiment dun We shall exchange hereafter for the holy Garments of white in which of yore we shone.



XLV.

THE FUTURE.

Veggo in candida robba.

Clothed in white robes I see the Holy Sire Descend to hold his court amid the band Of shining saints and elders: at his hand The white immortal Lamb commands their choir. John ends his long lament for torments dire, Now Judah's lion rises to expand The fatal book, and the first broken band Sends the white courier forth to work God's ire. The first fair spirits raimented in white Go out to meet him who on his white cloud Comes heralded by horsemen white as snow. Ye black-stoled folk, be dumb, who hate the loud Blare of God's lifted angel-trumpets! Lo, The pure white dove puts the black crows to flight!



XLVI.

THE YEAR 1603.

Gia sto mirando.

The first heaven-wandering lights I see ascend Upon the seventh and ninth centenary, When in the Archer's realm three years shall be Added, this aeon and our age to end. Thou too, Mercurius, like a scribe dost lend Thine aid to promulgate that dread decree, Stored in the archives of eternity, And signed and sealed by powers no prayers can bend. O'er Europe's full meridian on thy morn In the tenth house thy court I see thee hold: The Sun with thee consents in Capricorn. God grant that I may keep this mortal breath Until I too that glorious day behold Which shall at last confound the sons of death!



XLVII.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR'S IMAGE.

Babel disfatta.

The golden head was Babylon; she passed: Persia came next, the silvern breast: whereto Joined brazen flank and belly—these are you, Ye men of Macedon! Now Rome's the last. Rome on two iron legs towered tall and vast; But at her feet were toes of clay, that drew Downfall: those scattered tribes erewhile she knew For lords; now 'neath her fatal sway they're cast. Ah thirsty soil! From your parched fallow fumes A smoke of pride, vain-glory, cruelty, That blinds, infects, and blackens, and consumes! To Daniel, to the Bible you refuse Your rebel sense; for it is still your use To screen yourself with lies and sophistry.



XLVIII.

THE DUNGEON.

Come va al centro.

As to the centre all things that have weight Sink from the surface: as the silly mouse Runs at a venture, rash though timorous, Into the monster's jaws to meet her fate: Thus all who love high Science, from the strait Dead sea of Sophistry sailing like us Into Truth's ocean, bold and amorous, Must in our haven anchor soon or late. One calls this haunt a Cave of Polypheme, And one Atlante's Palace, one of Crete The Labyrinth, and one Hell's lowest pit. Knowledge, grace, mercy, are an idle dream In this dread place. Nought but fear dwells in it, Of stealthy Tyranny the sacred seat.



XLIX.

THE SAGE ON EARTH.

Sciolto e legato.

Bound and yet free, companioned and alone, Loud mid my silence, I confound my foes: Men think me fool in this vile world of woes; God's wisdom greets me sage from heaven's high throne. With wings on earth oppressed aloft I bound; My gleeful soul sad bonds of flesh enclose: And though sometimes too great the burden grows, These pinions bear me upward from the ground. A doubtful combat proves the warrior's might: Short is all time matched with eternity: Nought than a pleasing burden is more light. My brows I bind with my love's effigy, Sure that my joyous flight will soon be sped Where without speech my thoughts shall all be read.



L.

THE PRICE OF FREEDOM.

D' Italia in Grecia.

From Rome to Greece, from Greece to Libya's sand, Yearning for liberty, just Cato went; Nor finding freedom to his heart's content, Sought it in death, and died by his own hand. Wise Hannibal, when neither sea nor land Could save him from the Roman eagles, rent His soul with poison from imprisonment; And a snake's tooth cut Cleopatra's band. In this way died one valiant Maccabee; Brutus feigned madness; prudent Solon hid His sense; and David, when he feared Gath's king. Thus when the Mystic found that Jonah's sea Was yawning to engulf him, what he did He gave to God—a wise man's offering.



LI.

APOLOGY BY PARADOX.

Non e brutto il Demon.

The Devil's not so ugly as they paint; He's well with all, compact of courtesy: Real heroism is real piety: Before small truth great falsehoods shrink and faint If pots stain worse than pipkins, it were quaint To charge the pipkins with impurity: Freedom I crave: who craves not to be free? Yet life that must be feigned for, leaves a taint. Ill conduct brings repentance?—If you prate This wise to me, why prate not thus to all Philosophers and prophets, and to Christ? Not too much learning, as some arrogate, But the small brains of dullards have sufficed To make us wretched and the world enthrall.



LII.

THE SOUL'S APOLOGY.

Ben sei mila anni.

Six thousand years or more on earth I've been: Witness those histories of nations dead, Which for our age I have illustrated In philosophic volumes, scene by scene. And thou, mere mite, seeing my sun serene Eclipsed, wilt argue that I had no head To live by.—Why not try the sun instead, If nought in fate unfathomed thou hast seen? If wise men, whom the world rebukes, combined With tyrant wolves, brute beasts we should become. The sage, once stoned for sin, you canonise. When rennet melts, much milk makes haste to bind. The more you blow the flames, the more they rise, Bloom into stars, and find in heaven their home.



LIII.

TO GOD ON PRAYER.

Tu che Forza ed Amor.

O Thou, who, mingling Force and Love, dost draw And guide the complex of all entities, Framed for that purpose; whence our reason sees In supreme Fate the synthesis of Law; Though prayers transgress which find defect or flaw In things foredoomed by Thy divine decrees, Yet wilt Thou modify, by slow degrees Or swift, good times or bad Thy mind foresaw: I therefore pray—I who through years have been The scorn of fools, the butt of impious men, Suffering new pains and torments day by day— Shorten this anguish, Lord, these griefs allay; For still Thou shalt not have changed counsel when I soar from hence to liberty foreseen.



LIV.

TO GOD FOR HELP.

Come vuoi, ch' a buon porto.

How wilt Thou I should gain a harbour fair, If after proof among my friends I find That some are faithless, some devoid of mind, Some short of sense, though stout to do and dare? If some, though wise and loyal, like the hare Hide in a hole, or fly in terror blind, While nerve with wisdom and with faith combined Through malice and through penury despair? Reason, Thy honour, and my weal eschewed That false ally who said he came from Thee, With promise vain of power and liberty. I trust:—I'll do. Change Thou the bad to good!— But ere I raise me to that altitude, Needs must I merge in Thee as Thou in me.



LV.

To Annibale Caraccioli,

A WRITER OF ECLOGUES.

Non Licida, ne Driope.

Lycoris, Lycidas, and Dryope Cannot, dear Niblo, save thy name from death; Shadows that fleet, and flowers that yield their breath, Match not the Love that craves infinity. The beauty thou dost worship dwells in thee: Within thy soul divine it harboureth: This also bids my spirit soar, and saith Words that unsphere for me heaven's harmony. Make then thine inborn lustre beam and shine With love of goodness; goodness cannot fail: From God alone let praise immense be thine. My soul is tired of telling o'er the tale With men: she calls on thine: she bids thee go Into God's school with tablets white as snow.



LVI.

TO TELESIUS OF COSENZA.

Telesio, il telo.

Telesius, the arrow from thy bow Midmost his band of sophists slays that high Tyrant of souls that think; he cannot fly: While Truth soars free, loosed by the self-same blow. Proud lyres with thine immortal praises glow, Smitten by bards elate with victory: Lo, thine own Cavalcante, stormfully Lightning, still strikes the fortress of the foe! Good Gaieta bedecks our saint serene With robes translucent, light-irradiate, Restoring her to all her natural sheen; The while my tocsin at the temple-gate Of the wide universe proclaims her queen, Pythia of first and last ordained by fate.



LVII.

TO RIDOLFO DI BINA.

Senno ed Amor.

Wisdom and love, O Bina, gave thee wings, Before the blossom of thy years had faded, To fly with Adam for thy guide, God-aided, Through many lands in divers journeyings. Pure virtue is thy guerdon: virtue brings Glory to thee, death to the foes degraded, Who through long years of darkness have invaded Thy Germany, mother of slaves not kings. Yet, gazing on heaven's book, heroic child, My soul discerns graces divine in thee:— Leave toys and playthings to the crowd of fools! Do thou with heart fervent and proudly mild Make war upon those fraud-engendering schools! I see thee victor, and in God I see.



LVIII.

TO TOBIA ADAMI.

Portando in man.

Holding the cynic lantern in your hand, Through Europe, Egypt, Asia, you have passed, Till at Ausonia's feet you find at last That Cyclops' cave, where I, to darkness banned, In light eternal forge for you the brand Against Abaddon, who hath overcast The truth and right, Adami, made full fast Unto God's glory by our steadfast band. Go, smite each sophist, tyrant, hypocrite! Girt with the arms of the first Wisdom, free Your country from the frauds that cumber it! Swerve not: 'twere sin. How good, how great the praise Of him who turns youth, strength, soul, energy, Unto the dayspring of the eternal rays!



LIX.

A SONNET ON CAUCASUS.

Temo che per morir.

I fear that by my death the human race Would gain no vantage. Thus I do not die. So wide is this vast cage of misery That flight and change lead to no happier place. Shifting our pains, we risk a sorrier case: All worlds, like ours, are sunk in agony: Go where we will, we feel; and this my cry I may forget like many an old disgrace. Who knows what doom is mine? The Omnipotent Keeps silence; nay, I know not whether strife Or peace was with me in some earlier life. Philip in a worse prison me hath pent These three days past—but not without God's will. Stay we as God decrees: God doth no ill.



LX.

GOD MADE AND GOD RULES.

La fabbrica del mondo.

The fabric of the world—earth, air, and skies— Each particle thereof and tiniest part Designed for special ends—proclaims the art Of an almighty Maker good and wise. Nathless the lawless brutes, our crimes and lies, The joys of vicious men, the good man's smart, All creatures swerving from their ends, impart Doubts that the Ruler is nor good nor wise. Can it then be that boundless Power, Love, Mind, Lets others reign, the while He takes repose? Hath He grown old, or hath He ceased to heed? Nay, one God made and rules: He shall unwind The tangled skein; the hidden law disclose, Whereby so many sinned in thought and deed.



NOTES ON MICHAEL ANGELO'S SONNETS.

I. Quoted by Donato Giannotti in his Dialogue De' giorni che Dante consumo nel cercare l'Inferno e 'l Purgatorio. The date of its composition is perhaps 1545.

II. Written probably for Donato Giannotti about the same date.

III. Belonging to the year 1506, when Michael Angelo quarrelled with Julius and left Rome in anger. The tree referred to in the last line is the oak of the Rovere family.

IV. Same date, and same circumstances. The autograph has these words at the foot of the sonnet: Vostro Miccelangniolo, in Turchia. Rome itself, the Sacred City, has become a land of infidels.

V. Ser Giovanni da Pistoja was Chancellor of the Florentine Academy. The date is probably 1509. The Sonetto a Coda is generally humorous or satiric.

VI. Written in one of those moments of affanno or stizzo to which the sculptor was subject. For the old bitterness of feeling between Florence and Pistoja, see Dante, Inferno.

VII. Michael Angelo was ill during the summer of 1544, and was nursed by Luigi del Riccio in his own house, Shortly after his recovery he quarrelled with his friend, and wrote him this sonnet as well as a very angry letter.

VIII. p. 38. Cecchino Bracci was a boy of rare and surpassing beauty who died at Rome, January 8, 1544, in his seventeenth year. Besides this sonnet, which refers to a portrait Luigi del Riccio had asked him to make of the dead youth, Michael Angelo composed a series of forty-eight quatrains upon the same subject, and sent them to his friend Luigi. Michelangelo the younger, thinking that 'l'ignoranzia degli uomini ha campo di mormorare,' suppressed the name Cecchino and changed lui into lei. Date about 1544.

IX. Line 4: 'The Archangel's scales alone can weigh my gratitude against your gift.' Lines 5-8: 'Your courtesy has taken away all my power of responding to it. I am as helpless as a ship becalmed, or a wisp of straw on a stormy sea.'

X. Michael Angelo, when asked to make a portrait of his friend's mistress, declares that he is unable to do justice to her beauty. The name Mancina is a pun upon the Italian word for the left arm, Mancino. This lady was a famous and venal beauty, mentioned among the loves of the poet Molsa.

XI. Date, 1550.

XII. This and the three next sonnets may with tolerable certainty be referred to the series written on various occasions for Vittoria Colonna.

XIII. Sent together with a letter, in which we read: l'aportatore di questa sara Urbino, che sta meco. Urbino was M. A.'s old servant, workman, and friend. See No. LXVIII. and note.

XIV. The thought is that, as the sculptor carves a statue from a rough model by addition and subtraction of the marble, so the lady of his heart refines and perfects his rude native character.

XV. This sonnet is the theme of Varchi's Lezione. There is nothing to prove that it was addressed to Vittoria Colonna. Varchi calls it 'un suo altissimo sonetto pieno di quella antica purezza e dantesca gravita.'

XVI. The thought of the fifteenth is repeated with some variations. His lady's heart holds for the lover good and evil things, according as he has the art to draw them forth.

XVIII. In the terzets he describes the temptations of the artist-nature, over-sensitive to beauty. Michelangelo the younger so altered these six lines as to destroy the autobiographical allusion.—Cp. No. XXVIII., note.

XIX. The lover's heart is like an intaglio, precious by being inscribed with his lady's image.

XX. An early composition, written on the back of a letter sent to the sculptor in Bologna by his brother Simone in 1507. M.A. was then working at the bronze statue of Julius II. Who the lady of his love was, we do not know. Notice the absence of Platonic concetti.

XXIII. It is hardly necessary to call attention to Michael Angelo's oft-recurring Platonism. The thought that the eye alone perceives the celestial beauty, veiled beneath the fleshly form of the beloved, is repeated in many sonnets—especially in XXV., XXVIII.

XXIV. Composed probably in the year 1529.

XXV. Written on the same sheet as the foregoing sonnet, and composed probably in the same year. The thought is this: beauty passing from the lady into the lover's soul, is there spiritualised and becomes the object of a spiritual love.

XXVII. To escape from his lady, either by interposing another image of beauty between the thought of her and his heart, or by flight, is impossible.

XXVIII. Compare Madrigal VII. in illustration of lines 5 to 8. By the analogy of that passage, I should venture to render lines 6 and 7 thus:

He made thee light, and me the eyes of art; Nor fails my soul to find God's counterpart.

XXX. Varchi, quoting this sonnet in his Lezione, conjectures that it was composed for Tommaso Cavalieri.

XXXI. Varchi asserts without qualification that this sonnet was addressed to Tommaso Cavalieri. The pun in the last line, Resto prigion d'un Cavalier armato, seems to me to decide the matter, though Signor Guasti and Signor Gotti both will have it that a woman must have been intended. Michelangelo the younger has only left one line, the second, untouched in his rifacimento. Instead of the last words he gives un cuor di virtu armato, being over-scrupulous for his great-uncle's reputation.

XXXII. Written at the foot of a letter addressed by Giuliano Bugiardini the painter, from Florence, to M.A. in Rome, August 5, 1532. This then is probably the date of the composition.

XXXIV. The metaphor of fire, flint, and mortar breaks down in the last line, where M.A. forgets that gold cannot strike a spark from stone.

XXXV. Line 9 has the word Signor. It is almost certain that where M.A. uses this word without further qualification in a love sonnet, he means his mistress. I have sometimes translated it 'heart's lord' or 'loved lord,' because I did not wish to merge the quaintness of this ancient Tuscan usage in the more commonplace 'lady.'

XXXVI. Line 3: the lord, etc. This again is the poet's mistress. The drift of the sonnet is this: his soul can find no expression but through speech, and speech is too gross to utter the purity of his feeling. His mistress again receives his tongue's message with her ears; and thus there is an element of sensuality, false and alien to his intention, both in his complaint and in her acceptation of it. The last line is a version of the proverb: chi e avvezzo a dir bugie, non crede a nessuno.

XXXVII. At the foot of the sonnet is written Mandato. The two last lines play on the words signor and signoria. To whom it was sent we do not know for certain; but we may conjecture Vittoria Colonna.

XXXIX. The paper on which this sonnet is written has a memorandum with the date January 6, 1529. 'On my return from Venice, I, Michelagniolo Buonarroti, found in the house about five loads of straw,' etc. It belongs therefore to the period of the siege of Florence, when M.A., as is well known, fled for a short space to Venice. In line 12, I have translated il mie signiore, my lady.

XL. No sonnet in the whole collection seems to have cost M.A. so much trouble as this. Besides the two completed versions, which I have rendered, there are several scores of rejected or various readings for single lines in the MSS. The Platonic doctrine of Anamnesis probably supplies the key to the thought which the poet attempted to work out.

XLI., XLII., XLIII., XLIV. There is nothing to prove that these four sonnets on Night were composed in sequence. On the contrary, the personal tone of XLI. seems to separate this from the other three. XLIV. may be accepted as a palinode for XLIII.

XLV., XLVI. Both sonnets deal half humorously with a thought very prominent in M.A.'s compositions—the effect of love on one who is old in years. Cp. XLVIII., L.

XLVII. The Platonic conception that the pure form of Beauty or of Truth, if seen, would be overwhelming in its brilliancy.

XLIX. The dolcie pianto and eterna pace are the tears and peace of piety. The doloroso riso and corta pace are the smiles and happiness of earthly love.

LII. Here is another version of this very beautiful sonnet.

No mortal thing enthralled these longing eyes When perfect peace in thy fair face I found; But far within, where all is holy ground, My soul felt Love, her comrade of the skies: For she was born with God in Paradise; Nor all the shows of beauty shed around This fair false world her wings to earth have bound; Unto the Love of Loves aloft she flies. Nay, things that suffer death, quench not the fire Of deathless spirits; nor eternity Serves sordid Time, that withers all things rare. Not love but lawless impulse is desire: That slays the soul; our love makes still more fair Our friends on earth, fairer in death on high.

LIII. This is the doctrine of the Symposium; the scorn of merely sexual love is also Platonic.

LIV. Another sonnet on the theme of the Uranian as distinguished from the Vulgar love. See below, LVL., for a parallel to the second terzet.

LV. The date maybe 1532. The play on words in the first quatrain and the first terzet is Shakespearian.

LIX. Two notes, appended to the two autographs of this sonnet, show that M.A. regarded it as a jeu d'esprit, 'Per carnovale par lecito far qualche pazzia a chi non va in maschera.' 'Questo non e fuoco da carnovale, pero vel mando di quaresima; e a voi mi rachomando. Vostro Michelagniolo.'

LXL. Date 1547. No sonnet presents more difficulties than this, in which M.A. has availed himself of a passage in the Cratylus of Plato. The divine hammer spoken of in the second couplet is the ideal pattern after which the souls of men are fashioned; and this in the first terzet seems to be identified with Vittoria Colonna. In the second terzet he regards his own soul as imperfect, lacking the final touches which it might have received from hers. See XIV. for a somewhat similar conceit.

LXIV. The image is that of a glowing wood coal smouldering away to embers amid its own ashes.

LXV. Date 1554. Addressed A messer Giorgio Vasari, amico e pittor singulare, with this letter: Messer Giorgio, amico caro, voi direte ben ch' io sie vecchio e pazzo a voler far sonetti; ma perche molti dicono ch' io son rimbambito, ho voluto far l'uficio mio, ec. A di 19 di settembre 1554. Vostro Michelagniolo Buonarroti in Roma.

LXVL, LXVII. These two sonnets were sent to Giorgio Vasari in 1555(?) with this letter: Messer Giorgio, io vi mando dua sonetti; e benche sieno cosa sciocca, il fo perche veggiate dove io tengo i mie' pensieri: e quando arete ottantuno anni, come o io, mi crederete. Pregovi gli diate a messer Giovan Francesco Fattucci, che me ne a chiesti. Vostro Michelagniolo Buonarroti in Roma. The first was also sent to Monsignor Beccadelli, Archbishop of Ragusa, who replied to it. For his sonnet, see Signor Guasti's edition, p. 233.

LXVIII. Date 1556. Written in reply to his friend's invitation that he should pay him a visit at Ragusa. Line 10: this Urbino was M.A.'s old and faithful servant, Francesco d'Amadore di Casteldurante, who lived with him twenty-six years, and died at Rome in 1556.

LXIX.-LXXVII. The dates of this series of penitential sonnets are not known. It is clear that they were written in old age. It will be remembered that the latest piece of marble on which Michael Angelo worked, was the unfinished Pieta now standing behind the choir of the Duomo at Florence. Many of his latest drawings are designs for a Crucifixion.



NOTES ON CAMPANELLA'S SONNETS.

I. Line 1: the Italian words which I have translated God's Wisdom and Philosophy are Senno and Sofia. Campanella held that the divine Senno penetrated the whole universe, and, meeting with created Sofia, gave birth to Science. This sonnet is therefore a sort of Mythopoem, figuring the process whereby true knowledge, as distinguished from sophistry, is derived by the human reason interrogating God in Nature and within the soul. Line 5: Sofia has for her husband Senno; the human intellect is married to the divine. Line 9: it was the doctrine of Campanella and the school to which he belonged, that no advance in knowledge could be made except by the direct exploration of the universe, and that the authority of schoolmen, Aristotelians, and the like, must be broken down before a step could be made in the right direction. This germ of modern science is sufficiently familiar to us in the exposition of Bacon. Line 12: repeats the same idea. Facts presented by Nature are of more value than any Ipse dixit. Line 14: he compares himself not without reason to Prometheus; for twenty-five years spent in prison were his reward for the revelation which has added a new sphere to human thought.

II. The bitter words of this sonnet will not seem unmerited to those who have studied Italian poetry in the Cinque Cento—the refined playthings of verse, the romances, and the burlesque nonsense, which amused a corrupt though highly cultivated age.

III. Campanella held the doctrine of an Anima Mundi in the fullest and deepest sense of the term. The larger and more complex the organism, the more it held, in his opinion, of thought and sentient life. Thus the stars, in the language of Aristotle, are [Greek: thiotera aemon]. Compare Sonnets VIII., XIX.

IV. Though the material seat of the mind is so insignificant, the mind itself is infinite, analogous to God in its capacity. Aristarchus and Metrodorus symbolise, perhaps, the spheres of literature and mathematics. This infinitude of the intellect is our real proof of God, our inner witness of the Deity. We may arrive at God by reasoning; we may trust authority; but it is only by impregnating our minds with God in Nature that we come into immediate contact with Him. Cp. Sonnet VI., last line.

V. The theme of this sonnet is the well-known Baconian principle of the interrogation of Nature. The true philosopher must go straight to the universe, and not confine himself to books. Cp. Sonnets I., LV., LVI.

VI. A further development of the same thought. Tyrants, hypocrites, sophists are the three plagues of humanity, standing between our intellect and God, who is the source of freedom, goodness, and true wisdom. In the last line Campanella expresses his opinion that God is knowable by an immediate act of perception analogous to the sense of taste: Se tutti al Senno non rendiamo il gusto. Compare Sonnet IV., last line.

VII. Ignorance is the parent of tyranny, sophistry, hypocrisy; and the arms against this trinity of error are power, wisdom, love, the three main attributes of God.

VIII. Human egotism inclines men to deny the spiritual life of the universe, to favour their own nation, to love their individual selves exclusively, to eliminate the true God from the world, to worship false gods fashioned from them selves, and at last to fancy themselves central and creative in the Cosmos. Adami calls this sonnet scoprimento stupendo.

IX. The quatrains set forth the condition of the soul besotted with self love. We may see in this picture a critique of Machiavelli's Principe, which was for Campanella the very ideal portrait of a tyrant. The love of God, rightly understood, places man en rapport with all created things. S. Francis, for example, loved not only his fellow men, but recognised the brotherhood of birds and fishes.

X. Ignorance, the source of all our miseries, blinds us to celestial beauty and makes us follow carnal lust. Yet what is best in sexual love is the radiance of heavenly beauty shining through the form of flesh. This sonnet receives abundant illustration in Michael Angelo's poems.

XI, XII. Two sonnets on the condition of the philosopher in a world that understands him not. The first expresses that sense of inborn royalty which sustained Campanella through his long martyrdom. The second expands the picture drawn of the philosopher in Plato's Republic after his return to the cave from the region of truth.

XIII. Campanella frequently expressed his theological fatalism by this metaphor of a comedy. God wrote the drama which men have to play. In this life we cannot understand our parts. We act what is appointed for us, and it is only when the comedy is finished, that we shall see how good and evil, happiness and misery, were all needed by the great life of the universe. The following stanza from one of his Canzoni may be cited in illustration:

War, ignorance, fraud, tyranny, Death, homicide, abortion, woe— These to the world are fair, as we Reckon the chase or gladiatorial show To pile our hearth we fell the tree, Kill bird or beast our strength to stay, The vines, the hives our wants obey— Like spiders spreading nets, we take and slay As tragedy gives men delight, So the exchange of death and strife Still yields a pleasure infinite To the great world's triumphant life Nay seeming ugliness and pain Avert returning Chaos' reign— Thus the whole world's a comedy, And they who by philosophy Unite themselves to God, will see In ugliness and evil nought But beauteous masks—oh, mirthful thought!

XIV. The same theme is continued with a further development. Men among themselves play their own comedy, but do not rightly assign the parts. They make kings of slavish souls, and elevate the impious to the rank of saints. They ignore their true and natural leaders, and stone the real prophets.

XV. Between the false kings of men, who owe their thrones to accident, and the really royal, who by chance of birth or station are a prey to tyrants, there is everlasting war. Yet the spirit of the martyrs survives, and long after their death they rule.

XVI. True kinghood is independent of royal birth or power or ensigns. High moral and intellectual qualities make the natural kings of men, and these are so rarely found in sceptred families that a republic is the safest form of government. See Sonnets XXXI., XXXVII.

XVII. As men mistake their kings, so they mistake the saints. The true spirit of Christ is ignored, and if Christ were to return to earth, they would persecute him, even as they persecute those who follow him most closely in their lives and doctrines.

XVIII. Christ symbolises and includes all saintly truth-seeking souls. Compare the three last lines of this sonnet with the three last lines of No. XV. and No. XX.

XIX., XX., XXI. Expanding the same themes, Campanella contrasts the ignorance of self-love with the divine illumination of the true philosopher, and insists that, in spite of persecution and martyrdom, saintly and truth-seeking souls will triumph.

XXII. Resumes the thought of No. X. If only the soul of man, infinite in its capacity, could be enamoured of God, it would at once work miracles and attain to Deity.

XXIII. A bitter satire on love in the seventeenth century. Lines 9-11: as Adami sometimes says, qui legit intelligat. Line 12: la squilla mia is a pun on Campanella's name. He means that he has shown the world a more excellent way of love. Cp. No. XXII.

XXIV. The essence of nobility is subjected to the same critique as kinghood in No. XVI. Line 11: the Turk is Europe's foe. Campanella praises the Turks because they had no hereditary nobility, and conferred honours on men according to their actions.

XXV. That this sonnet should have been written by a Dominican monk in a Neapolitan prison in the first half of the seventeenth century, is truly note-worthy. It expresses the essence of democracy in a critique of the then existing social order.

XXVI. A very obscure piece of writing. The first quatrain lays down the principle that ill-doing brings its own inevitable punishment. The second distinguishes between the unblessed suffering which plagues the soul, and that which we welcome as a process of purgation. The first terzet makes heaven and hell respectively consist of a clean and a burdened conscience. The second, referring to a legend of S. Peter's controversy with Simon Magus, finds a proof of immortality in this condition of conscience.

XXVII. A bold and perilous image of the Machiavellian Prince, who drains the commonwealth for his own selfish pleasures. The play upon the words mentola and mente in the first line is hardly capable of reproduction.

XXVIII. Adami says in a note: Questo sonetto e fatto perche l'intendano pochi; ne io voglio dichiararlo. Under these circumstances it is dangerous to attempt an explanation. Yet something may be hazarded. Line 1: the lady is Italy. Line 3: the stranger races are Rome's vassals. Line 7: Dinah is again Italy(?). Line 8: Simeon and Levi are the Princes of Italy and the Papacy. Line 9: Jerusalem probably stands for Rome. Line 10: Nazareth is the Gospel of Christ, and Athens is philosophy. Here again Adami warns us: qui legit intelligat. Line 13: a critique of the ruinous policy of calling strangers in to interfere in Italian affairs.

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 e il male in cui poco e 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 brucio 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 e 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 e 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.