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lyricis jam nona poetis Æolis accedit Sappho, quæ flumina propter Pierias legit ungue rosas, unde implicet audax Serta Cupido sibi, niveam quæ pectine blando Cyrinnem, Megaramque simul, cumque Atthide pulchram Cantat Anactorien, et crinigeram Telesippen; Et te conspicuum recidivo flore juventæ Miratur revocatque, Phaon, seu munera vectæ Puppe tuâ Veneris, seu sic facit herba potentem: Sed tandem Ambracias temeraria saltat in undas.[419] |
Having disposed of the lyrists, Poliziano proceeds to the dramatic poets. His brief notice of the three Attic tragedians is worthy of quotation, if only because it proves what we should suspect from other indications, that the best scholars of the earlier Renaissance paid them little attention. The facts mentioned in the following lines seem to be derived from the gossip of Athenæus:—
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Æschylus aëriæ casu testudinis ictus, Quemque senem meritæ rapuerunt gaudia palmæ, Quemque tegit rabidis lacerum pia Pella molossis.[420] |
Nor are his observations on the comic dramatists less meagre.[421] The Roman poets having been passed in the same rapid review, Poliziano salutes the founders of Italian literature in the following fine passage:—
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Nec tamen aligerum fraudarim hoc munere Dantem, Per Styga, per stellas, mediique per ardua montis Pulchra Beatricis sub virginis ora volantem: Quique Cupidineum repetit Petrarcha triumphum: Et qui bis quinis centum argumenta diebus Pingit, et obscuri qui semina monstrat amoris: Unde tibi immensæ veniunt præconia laudis, Ingeniis opibusque potens Florentia mater.[422] |
The transition to Lorenzo at this point is natural. A solemn peroration in praise of the Medicean prince, himself a poet, whose studies formed the recreation of severer labours, ends the composition. This is written in Poliziano's best style, and, though it is too long to quote, six lines may be selected as indicating the theme of the argument:—
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Quodque alii studiumque vocant durumque laborem, Hic tibi ludus erit; fessus civilibus actis Huc is emeritas acuens ad carmina vires: Felix ingenio, felix cui pectore tantas Instaurare vices, cui fas tam magna capaci Alternare animo, et varias ita nectere curas.[423] |
We possess the whole of Poliziano in the 'Nutricia.' It displays the energy of intellect that carried him on bounding verse through the intricacies of a subject difficult by reason of its scope and magnitude. All his haste is here, his inability to polish or select, his lava-stream of language hurrying the dross of prose and scoriæ of erudition along a burning tide of song. His memory held, as it were, in solution all the matter of antique literature; and when he wrote, he poured details forth in torrents, combining them with critical remarks, for the double purpose of instruction and panegyric. Taken at the lowest valuation by students to whom his copious stores of knowledge are familiar, the vivid and continuous melody of his leaping hexameters places the 'Nutricia' above the lucubrations of more fastidious Latinists. We must also remember that, when it was recited from the professorial Chair of Rhetoric at Florence, the magnetism of Poliziano's voice and manner supplied just that touch of charm the poem lacks for modern readers; nor was the matter so hackneyed at the end of the fifteenth century as it is now. Lilius Gyraldus, subjecting the 'Sylvæ' to criticism at a time when Latin poetry had been artistically polished by the best wits of the age of Leo, passed upon them a judgment which may even now be quoted as final.[424] 'Poliziano's learning was marvellous, his genius fervent and well-trained, his reading extensive and uninterrupted; yet he appears to have composed his verses with more heat than art, using too little judgment both in the selection of his materials and in the correction of his style. When, however, you read his 'Sylvæ,' the impression left upon your mind will be such that for the moment you will lack nothing.'
The second poem of the 'Sylvæ,' entitled 'Rusticus,' forms an induction to the study of bucolic poets, principally Hesiod and Virgil. It is distinguished by more originality and play of fancy than the 'Nutricia;' some of its delineations of landscape and sketches of country life compete not unfavourably with similar passages in the author's 'Stanze.' To dwell upon these beauties in detail, and to compare Poliziano, the Latin poet, with Poliziano, the Italian, would be a pleasant task. Yet I must confine myself to quoting the last, and in some respects the least imaginative, lines, for the sake of their historical interest. Careggi and Florence, Lorenzo and his circle of literary friends, rise before us in these verses:—