I have sketched the subject of the 'Syphilis' in outline because of its importance not only for the neo-Latin literature of the Renaissance, but also for the history of medical opinion. As a didactic poem, it is constructed with considerable art; the style, though prosaic, is forcible, and the meaning is always precise. Falling short of classic elegance, Fracastoro may still be said to have fulfilled the requirements of Vida, and to have added something male and vigorous peculiar to himself. His adulatory verses to Alessandro Farnese, Paul III., and Julius III. might be quoted as curious examples of fulsome flattery conveyed in a barocco style. They combine Papal cant with Pagan mannerism, Virgilian and Biblical phraseology, masculine gravity of diction and far-fetched conceits, in a strange amalgam, as awkward as it is ridiculous.[456]
Another group of Latin versifiers, with Bembo at their head, cultivated the elegy, the idyll, and the ode. The authors of their predilection were Catullus, Propertius, and Tibullus. Abandoning the attempt to mould Christian or modern material into classic form, they frankly selected Pagan motives, and adhered in spirit as well as style to their models. Two elegiac poems of Bembo's, the 'Priapus' and the 'Faunus ad Nympeum Flumen,' may be cited as flagrant specimens of sixteenth-century licentiousness.[457] Polished language and almost faultless versification are wasted upon themes of rank obscenity. The 'Priapus,' translated and amplified in Italian ottava rima, gained a popular celebrity beyond the learned circles for whom it was originally written. We may trace its influence in many infamous Capitoli of the burlesque poets. Bembo excelled in elegiac verse. In a poem entitled 'De Amicâ a Viro Servatâ,' he treated a characteristically Italian subject with something of Ovid's graceful humour.[458] A lover complains of living near his mistress, closely watched by her jealous husband. Here, as elsewhere, the morality is less to be admired than the versification; and that the latter, in spite of Bembo's scrupulous attention to metre, is not perfect, may be gathered from this line:—
Tunc quos nunc habeo et quos sum olim habiturus amicos.
After reading hexameters so constructed we are tempted to shut the book with a groan, wondering how it was that a Pope's secretary and a prince of the Church should have thought it worth his while to compose a poem so injurious to his reputation as a moralist, or to preserve in it a verse so little favourable to his fame as a Latinist. More beautiful, because more true to classic inspiration, is the elegy of 'Galatea.'[459] The idyllic incidents suggest a series of pretty pictures for bas-reliefs or decorative frescoes in the manner of Albano. Bembo's masterpiece, however, in the elegiac metre, is a poem with 'De Galeso et Maximo' for its title.[460] It was composed, as the epigraph informs us, at the command of a great man at Rome; but whether that great man was also the greatest in Rome, and whether Maximus was another name for Leo, is matter of conjecture. The boy Galesus had wronged Maximus, his master. When reproved, he offered no excuses, called no witnesses, uttered no prayers to Heaven, indulged in no asseverations of innocence, shed no tears:—
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Nil horum aggreditur; sed tantum ingrata loquentis Implicitus collo dulce pependit onus. Nec mora, cunctanti roseis tot pressa labellis Oscula cœlitibus invidiosa dedit, Arida quot levibus florescit messis aristis, Excita quot vernis floribus halat humus. Maxime, quid dubitas? Si te piget, ipse tuo me Pone loco: hæc dubitem non ego ferre mala.[461] |
Bembo's talent lay in compositions of this kind. His verses, to quote the phrase of Gyraldus, were uniformly 'sweet, soft, and delicate.' When he attempted work involving more sustained effort of the intellect and greater variety of treatment, he was not so successful. His hexameter poem 'Benacus,' a description of the Lago di Garda, dedicated to Gian Matteo Giberti, reads like an imitation of Catullus without the Roman poet's grace of style or wealth of fancy.[462] Among Bembo's most perfect compositions may be reckoned his epitaphs on celebrated contemporaries. The following written for Poliziano, deserves quotation.[463] Not only is the death of the scholar, following close upon that of his patron, happily touched, but the last line pays a proper tribute to Poliziano as an Italian poet:—
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Duceret extincto cum mors Laurente triumphum, Lætaque pullatis inveheretur equis, Respicit insano ferientem pollice chordas, Viscera singultu concutiente, virum. Mirata est, tenuitque jugum; furit ipse, pioque Laurentem cunctos flagitat ore Deos: Miscebat precibus lacrymas, lacrymisque dolorem; Verba ministrabat liberiora dolor. Risit, et antiquæ non immemor illa querelæ, Orphei Tartareæ cum patuere viæ, Hic etiam infernas tentat rescindere leges, Fertque suas, dixit, in mea jura manus. Protinus et flentem percussit dura poetam, Rupit et in medio pectora docta sono. Heu sic tu raptus, sic te mala fata tulerunt, Arbiter Ausoniæ, Politiane, lyræ.[464] |
More richly endowed for poetry than Bembo was his fellow-countryman Andrea Navagero. Few Latin versifiers of the Renaissance combined so much true feeling and fancy with a style more pure and natural. Some of his little compositions, half elegy, half idyll, have the grace and freedom of the Greek Anthology.[465] There is a simple beauty in their motives, while the workmanship reminds us of chiselling in smooth waxy marble; unlike the Roman epigrammatists, Navagero avoided pointed terminations.[466] The picture of Narcissus dead and transformed to a flower, in the elegy of 'Acon,' might be quoted as a fair specimen of his manner:—
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Magna Parens, quæ cuncta leves producis in auras, Totaque diverso germine picta nites; Quæ passim arboribus, passim surgentibus herbis, Sufficis omnifero larga alimenta sinu; Excipe languentem puerum, moribundaque membra, Æternumque tuâ fac, Dea, vivat ope. Vivet, et ille vetus Zephyro redeunte quotannis In niveo candor flore perennis erit.[467] |