"Ah, tu non sai
Qual guerra di pensieri
Agita l'alma mia.
* * * *
Trovo per tutto
Qualche scoglio a temer. Scelgo, mi pento;
Poi d' essermi pentito
Mi ritorno a pentir. Mi stanco intanto
Nel lungo dubitar, tal che dal male
Il ben non distinguo: alfin mi veggio
Stetto dal tempo, e mi risolvo al peggio."
"Ah, thou knowest not the war of struggling thoughts
That agitates my soul. I find in all
Some peril still to dread. I choose; and then,
My choice repent—and then again regret
Having repented; while protracted doubt
Wearies my mind, so that the ill from good
No longer I distinguish; till at length
The flight of time impels me to the worst."
[48]We have made no remark on the nature of this kind-hearted and generous woman's attachment. In Italy it is customary to look on such as formed by friendship only, and to consider that they are rendered respectable by constancy. The Italians lavish the greatest praise on Marianna Bulgarelli for her perception of the poet's merits, her zeal in persuading him to, and assisting him in, his arduous career; and the disinterested affection which caused her at once to make a sacrifice of her own feelings, and to advise his journey to Vienna. Her errors are those of her country. Any one who has visited Italy must at once censure, and deeply deplore, the social system there carried on—a system which blights the affections, degrades the moral feeling, and causes almost universal unhappiness. But it is unjust to heap the censure of a system belonging to a whole country, and carried on for centuries, on the head of an individual, whose virtues, we may presume to say, redeemed an error, the very existence of which is, after all, uncertain.
[49]Baretti.
[50]There is a curious instance in Metastasio of a poet using the same image adopted by a preceding writer, which yet, it is probable, that the later one had not read. The explanation may be, that both drew it from an ancient writer; but we have been unable to find it. The passages are subjoined as, if both are unborrowed, it forms a curious though natural coincidence of thought.
And as goodly cedars,
Rent from Oeta by a sweeping tempest,
Jointed again, and made tall masts, defy
Those angry winds that split 'em, so will I
New pieced again,
And made more perfect far,
Stand and defy bad fortunes.
FLETCHER, Tragedy of "Valentinian."
Spezza il furor del vento
Robusta quercia, avezza
Di cento verni, e cento
L' ingurie a tollerar.
E se pur cade al suolo
Spiega per l' onde il volo,
E con quel vento istesso
Va contrastando il mar