(1809-1850)
iuseppe Giusti, an Italian satirical poet, was born of an influential family, May 12th, 1809, in the little village of Monsummano, which lies between Pistoja and Pescia, and was in every fibre of his nature a Tuscan. As a child he imbibed the healthful, sunny atmosphere of that Campagna, and grew up loving the world and his comrades, but with a dislike of study which convinced himself and his friends that he was born to no purpose. He was early destined to the bar, and began his law studies in Pistoja and Lucca, completing them a number of years later at Pisa, where he obtained his degree of doctor.
Giuseppe Giusti
In 1834 he went to Florence, under pretence of practicing with the advocate Capoquadri; but here as elsewhere he spent his time in the world of gayety, whose fascination and whose absurdity he seems to have felt with equal keenness. His dislike of study found its exception in his love of Dante, of whom he was a reverent student. He was himself continually versifying, and his early romantic lyrics are inspired by lofty thought. His penetrating humor, however, and his instinctive sarcasm, whose expression was never unkind, led him soon to abandon idealism and to distinguish himself in the field of satire, which has no purer representative than he. His compositions are short and terse, and are seldom blemished by personalities. He was wont to say that absurd persons did not merit even the fame of infamy. He leveled his wit against the lethargy and immoralities of the times, and revealed them clear-cut in the light of his own stern principles and patriotism.
The admiration and confidence which he now began to receive from the public was to him a matter almost of consternation, wont as he was to consider himself a good-for-nothing. He confesses somewhat bashfully however that there was always within him, half afraid of itself, an instinct of power which led him to say in his heart, Who knows what I may be with time? His frail constitution and almost incessant physical suffering account for a natural indolence against which he constantly inveighs, but above which he was powerless to rise except at vehement intervals. No carelessness, however, marks his work. He was a tireless reviser, and possessed the rare power of cutting, polishing, and finishing his work with exquisite nicety, without robbing it of vigor. His writings exerted a distinct political and moral influence. His is not alone the voice of pitiless and mocking irony, but it is that of the humanitarian, who in overthrow and destruction sees only the first step toward the creation of something better. When war broke out he laid aside his pen, saying that this was no time for a poet to pull down, and that his was not the power to build up. His health forbade his entering the army, which was a cause of poignant sorrow to him. His faith in Italy and her people and in the final triumph of unity remained unshaken and sublime in the midst of every reverse.
His mastery of the Tuscan dialect and his elegance of idiom won him membership in the Accademia della Crusca; but his love for Tuscany was always subservient to his love for Italy. To those who favored the division of the peninsula, he used to reply that he had but one fatherland, and that was a unit. He died in Florence, March 31, 1850, at the home of his devoted friend the Marquis Gino Capponi. In the teeth of Austrian prohibition, a throng of grateful and loving citizens followed his body to the church of San Miniato al Monte, remembering that at a time when freedom of thought was deemed treason, this man had fearlessly raised the battle-cry and prepared the way for the insurrection of 1848. Besides his satires, Giusti has left us a life of the poet Giuseppe Parini, a collection of Tuscan proverbs, and an unedited essay on the 'Divine Comedy.'
LULLABY
From 'Gingillino'
[The poem of 'Gingillino,' one of Giusti's finest satires, is full of personal hits, greatly enjoyed by the author's countrymen. The 'Lullaby' is sung by a number of personified Vices round the cradle of the infant Gingillino, who, having come into the world naked and possessed of nothing, is admonished how to behave if he would go out of it well dressed and rich. A few verses only are given out of the many. The whole poem was one of the most popular of all Giusti's satires.]
Cry not, dear baby,
Of nothing possessed;
But if thou wouldst, dear,
Expire well dressed....
Let nothing vex thee,—
Love's silly story,
Ghosts of grand festivals
Spectres of glory;
Let naught annoy thee:
The burdens of fame,
The manifold perils
That wait on a name.
Content thyself, baby,
With learning to read:
Don't be vainglorious;
That's all thou canst need.
All promptings of genius
Confine in thy breast,
If thou wouldst, baby,
Expire well dressed....
Let not God nor Devil
Concern thy poor wits,
And tell no more truth
Than politeness permits.
With thy soul and thy body,
Still worship the Real;
Nor ever attempt
To pursue the Ideal.
As for thy scruples,
Let them be suppressed,
If thou wouldst, baby,
Expire well dressed.
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'
THE STEAM-GUILLOTINE
[The monarch satirized in this poem was Francesco IV., Duke of Modena, a petty Nero, who executed not a few of the Italian patriots of 1831.]
A most wonderful steam-machine,
One time set up in China-land,
Outdid the insatiate guillotine,
For in three hours, you understand,
It cut off a hundred thousand heads
In a row, like hospital beds.
This innovation stirred a breeze,
And some of the bonzes even thought
Their barbarous country by degrees
To civilization might be brought,
Leaving Europeans, with their schools,
Looking like fools.
The Emperor was an honest man—
A little stiff, and dull of pate;
Like other asses, hard and slow.
He loved his subjects and the State,
And patronized all clever men
Within his ken.
His people did not like to pay
Their taxes and their other dues,—
They cheated the revenue, sad to say:
So their good ruler thought he'd choose
As the best argument he'd seen,
This sweet machine.
The thing's achievements were so great,
They gained a pension for the man,—
The executioner of State,—
Who got a patent for his plan,
Besides becoming a Mandarin
Of great Pekin.
A courtier cried: "Good guillotine!
Let's up and christen it, I say!"
"Ah, why," cries to his counselor keen
A Nero of our present day,
"Why was not born within my State
A man so great?"
Translated for 'A Library of the World's Best Literature.'
