The poet who really set the fashion of fantastic ingenuity, was Giambattista Marino (or Marini, for both forms of the name seem to have been used by his contemporaries), a Neapolitan, born in 1569, died in 1625. His chief work is the Adone an epic poem in twenty enormous cantos on the loves of Venus and Adonis. If it were not for its appalling length, the poem would have much to recommend it. He also wrote other epics, not quite so voluminous: La Gerusalemme Distrutta, La Strage degl' Innocenti, on the Massacre of the Innocents, and numerous lyric effusions. When he was at Turin, he had a vulgar dispute with a rival poet of the name of Murtola, and numerous satires and pasquinades were the result. Murtola was so incensed at the biting sarcasms of Marino, that he waylaid him one evening and fired a pistol. The shot killed, not Marino, but a favourite courtier of the Duke of Savoy, who was walking with the poet. Murtola was thrown into a dungeon, but Marino interceded for his fallen rival, and it is a curious illustration of the absolute power of the Princes of those days, that all proceedings against Murtola were stopped, and he was granted a free pardon. Marino had reason to regret his intercession for so unworthy an object. Murtola accidentally discovered a copy of verses written by Marino many years previously, reflecting on the Duke. He lost no time in forwarding them to the Duke, who was so incensed that he would doubtless have inflicted upon Marino the punishment from which he had saved the treacherous Murtola, had not Marino prudently taken refuge in flight.
He repaired to Paris, where he was enthusiastically received, and Marie de Medici, the second wife of Henry IV, and Regent during the minority of Louis XIII, gave him a large pension and many other tokens of Royal favour. He enjoyed full leisure to complete his Adone, and when it was published in 1623, it fully satisfied the expectations of his admirers. He returned to his native city of Naples, where a magnificent ovation awaited him. He did not, however, live long to enjoy his triumph, and Italy had to mourn his loss in 1625.
Marino exactly hit the taste of his contemporaries, and the praises lavished upon him are almost incredible in their exaggeration. The poet Claudio Achillini wrote to him from Bologna: "There is not a doubt in my mind that you are the greatest poet the world has ever seen." Cardinal Bentivoglio, one of the most brilliant intellects of the age, addressed him in terms hardly less rapturous.
There must assuredly have been something remarkable in Marino's works to produce such a dazzling effect on his contemporaries.
In early youth Marino formed a theory that a poet in order to succeed ought to astonish his readers. In every line he wrote, it was his object to excite astonishment. He fully succeeded. The most ingenious thoughts, the most dazzling metaphors, the most vivid descriptions, are crowded together in his pages to such an extent that it is impossible to deny that he was prodigally gifted by Nature with some of the rarest attributes of thought and imagination. But his works present no human interest, no patriotic fire, and no religious inspiration. They are fantastic and unreal, but then they do not pretend to be anything else. His imagination presented him with an inexhaustible succession of brilliant and striking images, and provided they glittered and sparkled in his verse, he was careless whether they were true to nature or consistent with each other. He is a delightful poet to read in detached passages when the mind wants to indulge in the refreshing vagaries of fancy. He is very even in his style; possessing consummate mastery over his language, the most elaborate difficulties of rhyme and metre present no obstacles to him. I do not think that he is in any respect inferior to Spenser in strength of poetical inspiration, and he is certainly less heavy and slow. But the subject of his principal work is frivolous, and it is, in truth, a mere bubble of the imagination, made to expand, glitter, and burst. But for that purpose it is much too long. Heroic thoughts alone should assume heroic proportions. Even in Ariosto, we have the same effect too often. Much more so in the Adone. Marino had nothing of the classical simplicity of Ariosto. He probably disdained it as insipid. But high seasoning involves rapid satiety, and the mind derives no nourishment from condiments so artificial. This circumstance alone solves the problem why Marino has fallen into such neglect. Take each stanza of his poems and consider it separately, and it appears a marvel of fancy, ingenuity, and musical diction. But take his productions as a whole, and it cannot be denied that they are wanting in sustained interest, in human pathos, and in philosophic intention. Indeed, he had nothing of a philosopher. No great problems occupy his mind; no sublime aspirations raise him above sublunary things. He spends the wealth of his intellect, not on noble monuments, but on filigree trinkets. Hence, probably, his popularity. His contemporaries did not want to be shaken with tempestuous sublimity, or led to an abyss of profound meditation. They wanted to be lulled into voluptuous repose by a singer skilful enough to delight their fancy with strains sufficiently beautiful to compensate the absence of higher qualities, and yet not too elevated to soar beyond the range of the limited horizon to which they confined themselves. Hence Marino's brilliant success. But he sacrificed to immediate popularity the admiration and gratitude of future ages, which with his prodigal gifts of song and imagination he might possibly have acquired.
As a sample of Marino's style, I subjoin the beautiful opening stanza of the seventh canto of the Adone.
"Musica e Poesia son due sorelle,
Ristoratrici delle afflitte genti,
De' rei pensier le torbide procelle
Con liete rime a serenar possenti.
Non ha di queste il mondo arti più belle,
O più salubri all' affannate menti,
Nè cor la Scizia ha barbaro cotanto,
Se non è tigre, a cui non piaccia il canto."
As Marino aspired to be the first epic poet of his age, Gabriello Chiabrera, of Savona, aspired to be its first lyric poet, and he took Pindar for his model. He obtained much applause, but it may be doubted whether he was quite so successful as his contemporary. He has nothing like Marino's teeming wealth of imagination, and his more ambitious Odes are often turgid and heavy. On the other hand, it must be allowed that his most successful passages are splendid and sonorous. The Adone is the best of the long-winded Italian epics with the exception of the two unapproachable masterpieces, the Orlando Furioso and the Gerusalemme Liberata. But it cannot be said that Chiabrera comes as near to Petrarch as Marino does to his two illustrious predecessors. He is full of those hackneyed mythological allusions which encumbered poetry up to the end of the Eighteenth Century, nor has he the excuse of indulging in them for the purpose of conjuring up gorgeous and romantic visions. His powers of description are but slight, a remarkable circumstance, as his powers of versification were beyond doubt very extensive. Some of his lighter poems are gay and vivacious, and he wrote a series of epitaphs known to English readers by Wordsworth's noble translation. Not often did Chiabrera indulge in a strain so natural and impassioned as the following:
"Not without heavy grief of heart did he
On whom the duty fell (for at that time
The father sojourned in a distant land)
Deposit in the hollow of this tomb
A brother's child most tenderly beloved!
Francesco was the name the youth had borne,
Pozzobonelli his illustrious house;
And when beneath this stone the corse was laid,
The eyes of all Savona streamed with tears.
Alas! the twentieth April of his life
Had scarcely flowered; and at this early time
By genuine virtue he inspired a hope
That greatly cheered his country; to his kin
He promised comfort; and the flattering thoughts
His friends had in their fondness entertained,
He suffered not to languish or decay.
Now is there not great reason to break forth
Into a passionate lament? O Soul!
Short while a Pilgrim in our nether world,
Do thou enjoy the calm empyreal air;
And round this earthly tomb let roses rise,
An everlasting spring! in memory
Of that delightful fragrance which was once
From thy mild manners quietly exhaled."
The following epitaph on an Admiral is also fine: