VI
The scene following first upon this chorus also strikes me with the grand spirit in which it is wrought; and in its revelations of the motives and ideas of the old professional soldier-life, it reminds me of Schiller's Wallenstein's Camp. Manzoni's canvas has not the breadth of that of the other master, but he paints with as free and bold a hand, and his figures have an equal heroism of attitude and motive. The generous soldierly pride of Carmagnola, and the strange esprit du corps of the mercenaries, who now stood side by side, and now front to front in battle; who sold themselves to any buyer that wanted killing done, and whose noblest usage was in violation of the letter of their bargains, are the qualities on which the poet touches, in order to waken our pity for what has already raised our horror. It is humanity in either case that inspires him—a humanity characteristic of many Italians of this century, who have studied so long in the school of suffering that they know how to abhor a system of wrong, and yet excuse its agents.
The scene I am to give is in the tent of the great condottiere. Carmagnola is speaking with one of the Commissioners of the Venetian Republic, when the other suddenly enters:
Commissioner. My lord, if instantly
You haste not to prevent it, treachery
Shameless and bold will be accomplished, making
Our victory vain, as't partly hath already.
Count. How now?
Com. The prisoners leave the camp in troops!
The leaders and the soldiers vie together
To set them free; and nothing can restrain them
Saving command of yours.
Count. Command of mine?
Com. You hesitate to give it?
Count. 'T is a use,
This, of the war, you know. It is so sweet
To pardon when we conquer; and their hate
Is quickly turned to friendship in the hearts
That throb beneath the steel. Ah, do not seek
To take this noble privilege from those
Who risked their lives for your sake, and to-day
Are generous because valiant yesterday.
Com. Let him be generous who fights for himself,
My lord! But these—and it rests upon their honor—
Have fought at our expense, and unto us
Belong the prisoners.
Count. You may well think so,
Doubtless, but those who met them front to front,
Who felt their blows, and fought so hard to lay
Their bleeding hands upon them, they will not
So easily believe it.
Com. And is this
A joust for pleasure then? And doth not Venice
Conquer to keep? And shall her victory
Be all in vain?
Count. Already I have heard it,
And I must hear that word again? 'Tis bitter;
Importunate it comes upon me, like an insect
That, driven once away, returns to buzz
About my face.... The victory is in vain!
The field is heaped with corpses; scattered wide,
And broken, are the rest—a most flourishing
Army, with which, if it were still united,
And it were mine, mine truly, I'd engage
To overrun all Italy! Every design
Of the enemy baffled; even the hope of harm
Taken away from him; and from my hand
Hardly escaped, and glad of their escape,
Four captains against whom but yesterday
It were a boast to show resistance; vanished
Half of the dread of those great names; in us
Doubled the daring that the foe has lost;
The whole choice of the war now in our hands;
And ours the lands they've left—is't nothing?
Think you that they will go back to the Duke,
Those prisoners; and that they love him, or
Care more for him than you? that they have fought
In his behalf? Nay, they have combatted
Because a sovereign voice within the heart
Of men that follow any banner cries,
“Combat and conquer!” they have lost and so
Are set at liberty; they'll sell themselves—
O, such is now the soldier!—to the first
That seeks to buy them—Buy them; they are yours!
1st Com. When we paid those that were to fight with
them,
We then believed ourselves to have purchased them.
2d Com. My lord, Venice confides in you; in you
She sees a son; and all that to her good
And to her glory can redound, expects
Shall be done by you.
Count. Everything I can.
2d Com. And what can you not do upon this field?
Count. The thing you ask. An ancient use, a use
Dear to the soldier, I can not violate.
2d Com. You, whom no one resists, on whom so
promptly
Every will follows, so that none can say,
Whether for love or fear it yield itself;
You, in this camp, you are not able, you,
To make a law, and to enforce it?
Count. I said
I could not; now I rather say, I will not!
No further words; with friends this hath been ever
My ancient custom; satisfy at once
And gladly all just prayers, and for all other
Refuse them openly and promptly. Soldier!
Com. Nay—what is your purpose?
Count. You will see anon.
{To a soldier who enters How many prisoners still remain?
Soldier. I think,
My lord, four hundred.
Count. Call them hither—call
The bravest of them—those you meet the first;
Send them here quickly. {Exit soldier.
Surely, I might do it—
If I gave such a sign, there were not heard
A murmur in the camp. But these, my children,
My comrades amid peril, and in joy,
Those who confide in me, believe they follow
A leader ever ready to defend
The honor and advantage of the soldier;
I play them false, and make more slavish yet,
More vile and base their calling, than 'tis now?
Lords, I am trustful, as the soldier is,
But if you now insist on that from me
Which shall deprive me of my comrades' love,
If you desire to separate me from them,
And so reduce me that I have no stay
Saving yourselves—in spite of me I say it,
You force me, you, to doubt—
Com. What do you say?
{The prisoners, among them young Pergola, enter.
Count (To the prisoners). O brave in vain! Unfortunate!
To you,
Fortune is cruelest, then? And you alone
Are to a sad captivity reserved?
A prisoner. Such, mighty lord, was never our belief.
When we were called into your presence, we
Did seem to hear a messenger that gave
Our freedom to us. Already, all of those
That yielded them to captains less than you
Have been released, and only we—
Count. Who was it,
That made you prisoners?
Prisoner. We were the last
To give our arms up. All the rest were taken
Or put to flight, and for a few brief moments
The evil fortune of the battle weighed
On us alone. At last you made a sign
That we should draw nigh to your banner,—we
Alone not conquered, relics of the lost.
Count. You are those? I am very glad, my friends,
To see you again, and I can testify
That you fought bravely; and if so much valor
Were not betrayed, and if a captain equal
Unto yourselves had led you, it had been
No pleasant thing to stand before you.
Prisoner. And now
Shall it be our misfortune to have yielded
Only to you, my lord? And they that found
A conqueror less glorious, shall they find
More courtesy in him? In vain, we asked
Our freedom of your soldiers—no one durst
Dispose of us without your own assent,
But all did promise it. “O, if you can,
Show yourselves to the Count,” they said. “Be sure,
He'll not embitter fortune to the vanquished;
An ancient courtesy of war will never
Be ta'en away by him; he would have been
Rather the first to have invented it.”
Count. (To the Coms.) You hear them, lords? Well,
then, what do you say?
What would you do, you? (To the prisoners) Heaven forbid that any
Should think more highly than myself of me!
You are all free, my friends; farewell! Go, follow
Your fortune, and if e'er again it lead you
Under a banner that's adverse to mine,
Why, we shall see each other. (The Count observes
young Pergola and stops him.) Ho, young man,
Thou art not of the vulgar! Dress, and face
More clearly still, proclaims it; yet with the others
Thou minglest and art silent?
Pergola. Vanquished men
Have nought to say, O captain.
Count. This ill-fortune
Thou bearest so, that thou dost show thyself
Worthy a better. What's thy name?
Pergola. A name
Whose fame 't were hard to greaten, and that lays
On him who bears it a great obligation.
Pergola is my name.
Count. What! thou 'rt the son
Of that brave man?
Pergola. I am he.
Count. Come, embrace
Thy father's ancient friend! Such as thou art
That I was when I knew him first. Thou bringest
Happy days back to me! the happy days Of hope.
And take thou heart! Fortune did give
A happier beginning unto me;
But fortune's promises are for the brave.
And soon or late she keeps them. Greet for me
Thy father, boy, and say to him that I
Asked it not of thee, but that I was sure
This battle was not of his choosing.
Pergola. Surely,
He chose it not; but his words were as wind.
Count. Let it not grieve thee; 't is the leader's shame
Who is defeated; he begins well ever
Who like a brave man fights where he is placed.
Come with me, (takes his hand) I would show thee to my comrades.
I'd give thee back thy sword. Adieu, my lords;
(To the Coms.)
I never will be merciful to your foes
Till I have conquered them.
A notable thing in this tragedy of Carmagnola is that the interest of love is entirely wanting to it, and herein it differs very widely from the play of Schiller. The soldiers are simply soldiers; and this singleness of motive is in harmony with the Italian conception of art. Yet the Carmagnola of Manzoni is by no means like the heroes of the Alfierian tragedy. He is a man, not merely an embodied passion or mood; his character is rounded, and has all the checks and counterpoises, the inconsistencies, in a word, without which nothing actually lives in literature, or usefully lives in the world. In his generous and magnificent illogicality, he comes the nearest being a woman of all the characters in the tragedy. There is no other personage in it equaling him in interest; but he also is subordinated to the author's purpose of teaching his countrymen an enlightened patriotism. I am loath to blame this didactic aim, which, I suppose, mars the aesthetic excellence ofthe piece.
Carmagnola's liberation of the prisoners was not forgiven him by Venice, who, indeed, never forgave anything; he was in due time entrapped in the hall of the Grand Council, and condemned to die. The tragedy ends with a scene in his prison, where he awaits his wife and daughter, who are coming with one of his old comrades, Gonzaga, to bid him a last farewell. These passages present the poet in his sweeter and tenderer moods, and they have had a great charm for me.