But it is in vain that he endeavours to engage our sympathy. In spite of all the interest which he tries to throw over their attachment, it bears the appearance of a mere intrigue. The lady Mary was a wife, and, in all probability, a mother. Her lover makes her relate, in one of his works[67], that she was married to a noble of equal age; that until she saw Boccaccio, they were happy in each other; her husband adoring her, and she affectionately attached to him. A passion which could disturb such an union appears a phrensy as well as a crime. That the lovers suffered great misery, may serve as a warning, as well as an example, of how such attachments, from their very nature, from the separations, suspicions, and violations of delicacy and truth entailed upon them, must, under the most favourable auspices, be fruitful of solicitude and wretchedness. An adherence to truth is the noblest attribute of human nature. The perpetual infringement which results from a secret intrigue degrades in their own eyes those who practise the falsehood. In the details which Boccaccio has given of his passion, we perceive the violation of the most beautiful of social ties; while deceit is substituted for sincerity, and mystery for frankness. The lover perceived a perpetual lie on the lips of her he loved; and, had his attachment been of an ennobling nature, he would rather have given up its gratification, than have sought it in the humiliation and error of its object.
The lady Mary was eminently beautiful. Her hair, of the palest gold, shaded a forehead remarkable for its ample proportion; her brows were black and delicately marked; her eyes bright and expressive; her beautiful mouth was terminated by a small, round, and dimpled chin; her complexion was brilliant, her person well formed and elegant. She excelled in the dance and song, and, above all, in the vivacious, airy spirit of conversation. Her disposition was generous and magnificent. Boccaccio himself was handsome: his good looks were too early injured by plumpness; but, at this time, being only twenty-eight years of age, he was in the pride of life. His eyes were full of vivacity; his features regular; he was peculiarly agreeable and lively in society; his manners were polite and noble; he was proud, taking his origin from a republic where equality of rank prevailed; but, frequenting the society of the Neapolitan nobility, he preserved a dignified independence and courteous reserve, which commanded respect.
Hitherto Boccaccio had been collecting materials, by study, for future composition; but he had written nothing. According to his own declaration, his mind had become sluggish and debased through frivolity and indolence, when his love for the lady Mary awoke him to exertion[68], and incited him to pursue that career which has caused his name to be numbered among the illustrious writers of his country. His first work, written at the request of his fair mistress, in the early days of their passion, was the "Filocopo." The foundation of this tale resembles St. John's tales—those of "The Seven Wise Masters," &c., which were adopted from Arabia, and coloured, in their details, by descriptions of Eastern manners, with which the conquest of Granada by the Moors, and the expeditions of the crusaders, varied the rude chivalry of the North. A Roman noble and his wife make a pilgrimage to Spain. The husband dies fighting against the Mahometan Felix, king of Marmorina. His wife fell into the hands of the victor, and died at the court of Felix, on giving birth to her daughter Biancafiore, on the very day on which Florio, the son of Felix, was born. The children were educated together. The parentage of Biancafiore was unknown, her parents having died without declaring their names and descent from the Scipios and Cæsars; but, despite her obscure origin. Florio becomes enamoured of his lovely companion; and his father, enraged by this ill-assorted attachment, separates them; and, after cruelly persecuting the unfortunate girl, at last sells her to a merchant, who takes her to Alexandria, where she is bought by a noble, who shuts her up in a tower. Florio wanders into various countries to seek her; they go through a variety of disasters, which end in their happy marriage; and, the birth of Biancafiore being discovered, they are converted to the Christian faith. The story is long drawn out and very unreadable; though interspersed by traits of genius peculiar to Boccaccio, natural touches of genuine feeling, and charming descriptions. Florio, during his erratic travels in search of Biancafiore, arrives at Naples: the author introduces him into the company of his lady and himself, under the names of Fiammetta and Caleone.
Having once engaged in writing, Boccaccio became very diligent: his next work was a poem, entitled the "Teseide," or the "Thesiad." The subject is familiar to the English reader, as the "Knight's Tale" in Chaucer, modernised by Dryden, under the title of "Palamon and Arcite." Boccaccio was, if not the inventor of the ottava rima, or octave stanza (some Sicilian and French poets are supposed to have preceded him in the use of it), yet the first to render it familiar to the Italians. It has been duly appreciated by them, and used, as peculiarly adapted to narrative poetry. The ease with which the Italian language lends itself to rhythm and to rhyme, enabled Boccaccio to dress his thoughts in the guise of poetry; but he was, essentially, not a poet. It were too long to enter here into the distinction between the power of the imagination which creates fable and character, and even produces ideal imagery, and the peculiar attributes of poetry, which consists in a greater force and concentration of language, and an ear for the framing poetic numbers. The sublimity, yet delicacy, of Dante, the grace and harmony of Petrarch, are quite unapproached by Boccaccio: nor, indeed, can he compete with even the second and third rate of Italian poets. His style is diffuse and incult, and altogether wanting in the higher graces of poetic diction. Still, there is nature, pathos, and beauty in the narration. The story of the "Thesiad," if unborrowed,—and there is no previous trace of it,—is worthy of the author of the "Decameron:" it is full of passion and variety. He had the merit, also, of discarding the machinery of dreams and visions, then so much in vogue among his countrymen, which took from their compositions all reality and truth of feeling—giving us empty personifications, instead of fellow-creatures, formed of flesh and blood.
1342.
Ætat.
29.
Boccaccio had not long enjoyed the favour of his lady, when he was obliged to return to Florence. His father had lost his wife and children, and recalled his son, to be the companion of his declining years. He separated himself from the lady Mary with infinite regret; a feeling which she so fully shared, that he afterwards wrote a work, entitled "La Fiammetta," in which she, as the narratress, gives the history of their attachment, and complains bitterly of the misery they suffered during their separation. There is less of redundancy, and more unaffected nature in this work than in his former; and the commencement calls up forcibly the author of the "Decameron," from the vividness and strength of the language. In one respect, his visit to Florence, at this time, was evidently beneficial: it familiarised him with the pure and elegant language of Tuscany: he does not allude to it; but the barbarous dialect of Naples must have injured his style; and we cannot doubt that he recognised at once, and adopted, the expressive idiom of his native town. The "Decameron" is a model of the Tuscan dialect, if such a name can be given to a tongue differing from the Italian spoken in every other portion of the peninsula, and infinitely superior to all in grace, energy, and conciseness.
He found his home, with his father, sufficiently disagreeable.[69] The house was gloomy and silent; nor was the sound of gaiety ever heard within its walls. His father was far advanced in years, and had grown, if he had not always been, avaricious and discourteous, discontented and reproachful; so that the necessity of seeing him every day, of each evening returning to his melancholy abode, cast a shadow over Boccaccio's life. "Ah!" he exclaims, "how happy are the independent, who possess themselves in freedom!" To add to his dissatisfaction, Florence was suffering under the oppression of Walter de Brienne, duke of Athens; whom the people had, in a moment of despondency, set over themselves, and who proved a cruel and gloomy tyrant; till, unable to endure any longer his sanguinary despotism, the citizens rose against him, and regained their liberty.
Boccaccio's chief amusement was derived from his pen. He wrote the "Ameto," a composition of mingled prose and verse, the first of a kind, since adopted by Sannazaro and sir Philip Sidney. The "Ameto" is a story somewhat resembling "Cymon and Iphigenia," in which he again introduces himself and his lady, as he informs the reader, bidding those attend who have a clear understanding, and they will find a hidden truth disclosed in his verses. But a more agreeable change was at hand, to relieve him from his painful position. His father married again, and he was permitted to return to Naples.
1344.
Ætat.
31.
He found great alterations in this city. King Robert was dead. His daughter Jane succeeded to him: her dissentions with her husband produced a violent party spirit among the courtiers, while the pursuit of pleasure was the order of the day. A Court of Love, in imitation of those held in Provence, was instituted, over which the lady Mary presided. The lovers continued fondly attached to each other, though jealousies and trifling quarrels somewhat diversified the otherwise even course of their loves. The lady passed several months each summer at Baiæ, amidst a society given up to amusement, and to the indulgence of the greatest libertinism. From some unknown cause, Boccaccio did not accompany her on these occasions, and he was tormented by a thousand doubts, fearing that the dissolute manners of the court would corrupt her, whom he calls a mirror of chaste love, and injure her faith towards him. During one of these absences he wrote his poem of "Filostrato," on the subject of Troilus and Cressida, which he dedicated as a kind of peace-offering to his lady. He wrote also the "Amorosa Fiammetta," which is her fancied complaint, while he was at Florence, and the "Amorosa Visione," or Vision of Love; which is more poetic in its diction than any of his previous works in verse, though it labours under the disadvantage of being an acrostic; the initial letters of each verse forming a series of sonnets and canzoni, addressed in the same initials to "Madonna Maria."