"The ground, one summer, was so parch'd with drought,
It seem'd as though Apollo had resign'd
His horses' reins to Phaëton again:
Dry every well, and every fountain dry;
Lakes, streams, and rivers most renown'd, might then
Be forded without bridges.
"In that time,
There lived a pastor, rich I do not say,
Nor overstock'd with herds and woolly flocks,
Who, among others, press'd by want of water,
And having search'd in vain through every cave,
Turn'd to that Lord who never disappoints
The man that trusts in him;—and light was given,
And inspiration to his heart, that he,
Far thence, should in a valley's bottom find
The long-desired supply.
"Off, with his wife,
Children, and all that in the world he had,
He hasten'd thither, and with spade and mattock
Delved to the spring,—nor had he deep to dig.
But having nothing wherewithal to draw,
Save one scant narrow pitcher, thus he spake:
'Let none take dudgeon, if the earliest draught
Be for myself; the second for my dame;
And't is but right my children have the third,
The fourth, and on, till all have slaked their thirst;
Then, one by one, I will the rest should drink,
According to their work and labour done,
Who sunk the well; to flocks and cattle next
Refreshment must be forth distributed,
First to the feeblest and the nearest death.'
"According to this equitable rule,
All came to drink; while each, that he might not
Be last, made most of his small services.
This, a poor magpie, once his master's pet,
Seeing and hearing, cried, "Ah! well-a-day!
I'm no relation, I've not help'd to sink
The well, nor am of any further use
To be to him what I have been; 't is plain
That if I wait my turn, I'm in the lurch,
And must drop dead with thirst unless
I seek Relief elsewhere.'
"Cousin[102], with this example
I furnish you, to stop the mouths of those
Who think his holiness might have preferr'd
Me to the Neri, Vanni, Lotti, Bacci,
Nephews and kin so numerous, claiming right
To drink in the first year; then those that help'd
To robe him with the best of mantles, &c. &c. &c.
* * * *
If till all these have drunk their fill I wait,
I know not which will be the first dried up,
The well of water, or myself by thirst."
The poet, alluding in direct terms to his visit to Rome, and his specious reception by Leo, says, "I had better remain in my accustomed quiet, than try whether it be true, that whomsoever fortune exalts, she first dips in Lethe." The subtle irony that follows cannot be mistaken in the original, while the indignant satirist, with the most unaffected gravity, and in right good faith, seems to acquit his patron of forgetfulness and ingratitude,—the very things with which it is certain that he means to charge him. Ariosto can keep his countenance like the Spartan boy, who, having stolen a fox, and hidden it under his cloak, suffered the animal to worry its way into his heart, without betraying, by any contortion, the secret of his theft. "Nevertheless, if it be the fact that she (Fortune) does plunge others there (in Lethe), so that all remembrances of the past are washed out, I can testify that he (Leo) had not lost his memory when I first kissed his foot; he bowed himself towards me from the blessed seat, took me by the hand, and gave me a holy kiss on either cheek; he likewise granted me most graciously one half of that same bull of which my friend Bebiena lately remitted me the balance, at my own expense; wherefore, with skirts and bosom full of hopes, but splashed from head to foot with rain and mud, I returned to supper at my inn the same night. But even if it be true that the pope means to make good all his former promises, and now intends me to reap fruit of the seed which I have sown through so many years; if it be true that he will bestow upon me as many mitres and coronets as the master of his chapel ever saw assembled when his holiness says mass; if it be true that he will fill my sleeves, my pockets, and my lap with gold, and, lest that should not be enough, cram me bodily with it up to the chin (la gola, il ventre e le budella); would all this glut my enormous voracity for wealth? or would the fierce thirst of my cerastes[103] be appeased with this? From Morocco to China, from the Nile to the Danube, and not merely to Home, I must travel, if I would find means to satiate the unnatural cravings of avarice. Were I a cardinal, or even the great servant of servants, and yet could not find bounds to my inordinate desires, what good should I get by wearying myself with such huge leaps? I had better lie still, and tire myself less."
The fable which follows, typifies the mournful but ludicrous fact, that, while all who reach the heights they aim at are disappointed,—that for which they aim at these being as unapproachable at the top of the hill as from the bottom,—others are continually aspiring, through all the stages of the wearisome ascent, towards the very prize which the successful have not gained, though to those beneath it appears to be actually in their possession:—
"Once on a time,—'t was when the world was young,
And the first race of men were inexperienced,
For there were no such knaveries then as now,—
A certain people, whom I need not name,
Dwelt at the foot of an enormous hill,
Whose summit from the valley seem'd to touch
The sky itself.
"These simple folks, observing
How oft the inconstant moon, now with a horn,
And now without, now waxing, and now waning,
Held through the firmament her natural course,
Supposed that on the top they might find out
How she enlarged, then shrunk into herself.
One with a bag, another with a basket,
Began to scale the precipice amain,
Each eager in the strife to outclimb the rest;
But finding at the peak they were no nearer,
All fell down weary on the earth, and wish'd
Most heartily that they had stay'd below.
Their neighbours from the bottom seeing them
Aloof, believed that they had reach'd the moon,
And hurried breathless up to share the spoil.
—This mountain is the mighty wheel of Fortune,
Upon whose rim the stupid vulgar think
All is tranquillity, though ne'er a bit."[104]
With equal spleen and pleasantry, in the seventh Satire, the author, as an experienced hand, ridicules the favourite game of mankind,—climbing the wheel of Fortune, and never finding themselves complete fools till they are quite at the top. The allusion (scarcely intelligible in this country, where it is played in earnest only, and not for pastime) is to a game of cards, of which a pack is called tarrochi (trumps): these are painted expressly in the manner described below, namely, the transmigration, by instalments, of climbing men into asses; and they are used for the purpose of playing at minchiate (blockhead),—a common recreation at Florence, and—wherever else the reader pleases:—