FOOTNOTE:
[4] The language which is felt in the depth of the soul.
Chapter iii.
Corinne arose when the Prince Castel-Forte had ceased speaking; she thanked him by an inclination of the head so dignified yet so gentle, that it expressed at once the modesty and joy so natural at having received praise according to her heart's desire. It was the custom that every poet crowned at the Capitol should recite or extemporise some piece of poetry, before the destined laurel was placed on his head. Corinne ordered her lyre to be brought to her—the instrument of her choice—which greatly resembled the harp, but was however more antique in form and more simple in its sounds. In tuning it she was seized with uncommon timidity, and it was with a trembling voice that she asked to know the subject imposed on her. "The glory and happiness of Italy!" cried all around her with a unanimous voice. "Very well," replied she already fired with enthusiasm, already supported by her genius, "the glory and happiness of Italy;" and feeling herself animated by the love of her country she commenced the most charming strains, of which prose can give but a very imperfect idea.
The Improvisation of Corinne, at the Capitol.
"Italy, empire of the sun! Italy, mistress of the world! Italy, the cradle of letters, I salute thee! How often has the human race been subjected to thee, tributary to thy arms, to thy art and to thy sky.
"A deity quitted Olympus to take refuge in Ausonia; the aspect of this country recalled the virtues of the golden age;—man appeared there too happy to be supposed guilty.
"Rome conquered the universe by her genius, and became sovereign by liberty. The Roman character was imprinted everywhere, and the invasion of the Barbarians, in destroying Italy obscured the whole world.
"Italy appeared again with the divine treasures which the fugitive Greeks brought back to her bosom; heaven revealed its laws to her; the daring of her children discovered a new hemisphere; she again became sovereign by the sceptre of thought, but this laurelled sceptre only produced ingratitude.
"Imagination restored to her the universe which she had lost. The painters and the poets created for her an earth, an Olympus, a hell, and a heaven; and her native fire, better guarded by her genius than by the Pagan deity, found not in Europe a Prometheus to ravish it from her.
"Why am I at the Capitol? Why is my humble forehead about to receive the crown which Petrarch, has worn, and which remained suspended on the gloomy cypress that weeps over the tomb of Tasso?—Why, if you were not so enamoured of glory, my fellow-countrymen, that you recompense its worship as much as its success?
"Well, if you so love this glory which too often chooses its victims among the conquerors which it has crowned, reflect with pride upon those ages which beheld the new birth of the arts. Dante, the modern Homer, the hero of thought, the sacred poet of our religious mysteries, plunged his genius into the Styx to land in the infernal regions, and his mind was profound as the abyss which he has described.
"Italy in the days of her power was wholly revived in Dante. Animated by a republican spirit, warrior as well as poet, he breathed the flame of action among the dead; and his shadows have a more vivid existence than the living here below.
"Terrestrial remembrances pursue them still; their aimless passions devour one another in the heart; they are moved at the past which seems to them less irrevocable than their eternal future.
"One would say that Dante, banished from his country, has transported into imaginary regions the pangs which devoured him. His shades incessantly demand news from the scene of mortal existence, as the poet himself eagerly enquires after his native country; and hell presents itself to him in the form of exile.
"All, in his eyes, are clothed in the costume of Florence. The ancient dead whom he invokes, seem to be born again as completely Tuscan as himself. It was not that his mind was limited—it was the energy of his soul, that embraced the whole universe within the circle of his thoughts.
"A mystical chain of circles and of spheres conducts him from hell to purgatory, from purgatory to paradise. Faithful historian of his vision, he pours a flood of light upon the most obscure regions, and the world which he creates in his triple poem is as complete, as animated and as brilliant as a planet newly-discovered in the firmament.
"At his voice the whole earth assumes a poetical form, its objects, ideas, laws and phenomena, seem a new Olympus of new deities; but this mythology of the imagination is annihilated, like paganism, at the aspect of paradise, of that ocean of light, sparkling with rays and with stars, with virtues and with love.
"The magic words of our great poet are the prism of the universe; all its wonders are there reflected, divided, and recomposed; sounds imitate colours, and colours are blended in harmony; rhyme, sonorous or bizarre, rapid or prolonged, is inspired by this poetical divination; supreme beauty of art! triumph of genius! which discovers in nature every secret in affinity with the heart of man.
"Dante hoped from his poem the termination of his exile; he reckoned on Fame as his mediator; but he died too soon to receive the palm of his country. Often is the fleeting life of man worn out in adversity! and if glory triumph, if at length he land upon a happier shore, he no sooner enters the port than the grave yawns before him, and destiny, in a thousand shapes, often announces the end of life by the return of happiness.
"Thus unfortunate Tasso, whom your homage, Romans, was to console for all the injustice he had suffered; Tasso, the handsome, the gentle, the heroic, dreaming of exploits, feeling the love which he sang, approached these walls as his heroes did those of Jerusalem—with respect and gratitude. But on the eve of the day chosen for his coronation, Death claimed him for its terrible festival: Heaven is jealous of earth, and recalls her favourites from the treacherous shores of Time!
"In an age more proud and more free than that of Tasso, Petrarch was, like Dante, the valorous poet of Italian independence. In other climes he is only known by his amours,—here, more severe recollections encircle his name with never-fading honour; for it is known that he was inspired by his country more than by Laura herself.
"He re-animated antiquity by his vigils; and, far from his imagination raising any obstacle to the most profound studies, its creative power, in submitting the future to his will, revealed to him the secrets of past ages. He discovered how greatly knowledge assists invention; and his genius was so much the more original, since, like the eternal forces, he could be present at all periods of time.
"Ariosto derived inspiration from our serene atmosphere, and our delicious climate. He is the rainbow which appeared after our long wars; brilliant and many-hued, like that herald of fine weather, he seems to sport familiarly with life; his light and gentle gaiety is the smile of nature and not the irony of man.
"Michael Angelo, Raphael, Pergolese, Galileo, and you, intrepid travellers, greedy of new countries, though nature could offer nothing finer than your own, join your glory also to that of the poets. Artists, scholars, philosophers! you are, like them, the children of that sun which by turns developes the imagination, animates thought, excites courage, lulls us into a happy slumber, and seems to promise everything, or cause it to be forgotten.
"Do you know that land where the Orange-trees bloom, which the rays of heaven make fertile with love? Have you heard those melodious sounds which celebrate the mildness of the nights? Have you breathed those perfumes which are the luxury of that air, already so pure and so mild? Answer, strangers; is nature in your countries so beautiful and so beneficent?
"In other regions, when social calamities afflict a country, the people must believe themselves abandoned by the Deity; but here we ever feel the protection of heaven; we see that he interests himself for man, that he has deigned to treat him as a noble being.
"It is not only with vine branches, and with ears of corn, that Nature is here adorned; she prodigally strews beneath the feet of man, as on the birthday of a sovereign, an abundance of useless plants and flowers, which, destined to please, will not stoop to serve.
"The most delicate pleasures nourished by nature are enjoyed by a nation worthy of them—a nation who are satisfied with the most simple dishes; who do not become intoxicated at the fountains of wine which plenty prepares for them;—a nation who love their sun, their arts, their monuments, their country, at once antique and in the spring of youth;—a nation that stand equally aloof from the refined pleasures of luxury, as from the gross and sordid pleasures of a mercenary people."
"Here sensations are confounded with ideas; life is drawn in all its fulness from the same spring, and the soul, like the air, inhabits the confines of earth, and of heaven. Genius is untrammelled because here reverie is sweet: its holy calm soothes the soul when perturbed, lavishes upon it a thousand illusions when it regrets a lost purpose, and when oppressed by man nature is ready to welcome it."
"Thus is our country ever beneficent, and her succouring hand heals every wound. Here, even the pangs of the heart receive consolation, in admiring a God of kindness, and penetrating the secrets of his love; the passing troubles of our ephemeral life are lost in the fertile and majestic bosom of the immortal universe."
Corinne was interrupted, for some moments, by a torrent of applause. Oswald alone took no share in the noisy transports that surrounded him. He had leaned his head upon his hand, when Corinne said: "Here, even the pangs of the heart receive consolation;" and had not raised it since. Corinne remarked it, and soon, from his features, the colour of his hair, his costume, his lofty figure, from his whole manner in short, she knew him for an Englishman: she was struck with his mourning habit, and the melancholy pictured in his countenance. His look, at that moment fixed upon her, seemed full of gentle reproaches; she guessed the thoughts that occupied his mind, and felt the necessity of satisfying him, by speaking of happiness with less confidence, by consecrating some verses to death in the midst of a festival. She then resumed her lyre, with this design, and having produced silence in the assembly, by the moving and prolonged sounds which she drew from her instrument, began thus:
"There are griefs however which our consoling sky cannot efface, but in what retreat can sorrow make a more sweet and more noble impression upon the soul than here?
"In other countries hardly do the living find space sufficient for their rapid motions and their ardent desires; here, ruins, deserts and uninhabited palaces, afford an asylum for the shades of the departed. Is not Rome now the land of tombs?
"The Coliseum, the obelisks, all the wonders which from Egypt and from Greece, from the extremity of ages, from Romulus to Leo X. are assembled here, as if grandeur attracted grandeur, and as if the same spot was to enclose all that man could secure from the ravages of time; all these wonders are consecrated to the monuments of the dead. Our indolent life is scarcely perceived, the silence of the living is homage paid to the dead; they endure and we pass away.
"They only are honoured, they are still celebrated: our obscure destinies serve only to heighten the lustre of our ancestors: our present existence leaves nothing standing but the past; it will exact no tribute from future recollections! All our masterpieces are the work of those who are no more, and genius itself is numbered among the illustrious dead.
"Perhaps one of the secret charms of Rome, is to reconcile the imagination with the sleep of death. Here we learn resignation, and suffer less pangs of regret for the objects of our love. The people of the south picture to themselves the end of life in colours less gloomy than the inhabitants of the north. The sun, like glory, warms even the tomb.
"The cold and isolation of the sepulchre beneath our lovely sky, by the side of so many funereal urns, have less terrors for the human mind. We believe a crowd of spirits is waiting for our company; and from our solitary city to the subterranean one the transition seems easy and gentle.
"Thus the edge of grief is taken off; not that the heart becomes indifferent, or the soul dried up; but a more perfect harmony, a more odoriferous air, mingles with existence. We abandon ourselves to nature with less fear—to nature, of whom the Creator has said: 'Consider the lilies of the field; they toil not neither do they spin: yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'"
Oswald was so ravished with these last strains, that he gave the most lively testimonies of his admiration; and, upon this occasion, the transports of the Italians themselves did not equal his. In fact, it was to him more than to the Romans, that the second improvisation of Corinne was directed.
The greater part of the Italians have, in reading poetry, a kind of singing monotony, called cantilene, which destroys all emotion[5]. It is in vain that the words vary—the impression remains the same; since the accent, more essential than even the words, hardly varies at all. But Corinne recited with a variety of tone, which did not destroy the sustained charm of the harmony;—it was like several different airs played on some celestial instrument.
The tones of Corinne's voice, full of sensibility and emotion, giving, effect to the Italian language, so pompous and so sonorous, produced upon Oswald an impression entirely novel. The English prosody is uniform and veiled, its natural beauties are all of a sombre cast; its colouring has been formed by clouds, and its modulation by the roaring of the sea; but when Italian words, brilliant as an Italian festival, resonant like those instruments of victory, which have been compared to scarlet among colours; when these words, bearing the stamp of that joy which a fine climate spreads through every heart, are pronounced in a moving voice, their lustre softened, their strength concentrated, the soul is affected in a manner as acute as unforeseen. The intention of nature seems baffled, her benefits of no use, her offers rejected, and the expression of pain, in the midst of so many enjoyments, astonishes and affects us more deeply than the grief which is sung in those northern languages which it seems to inspire.