Such was the man who struck the key-note of religious popular poetry in Italy, and whose Lauds may be regarded as the germ of a voluminous literature. Passing from his life to his writings, it will suffice to give a few specimens of those hymns which are most characteristic of his temper. We have already seen how he brought together the most repulsive details of disease, in order to express his desire to suffer with Christ.[364] Here is the beginning of a canticle in praise of the madness he embraced with a similar object[365]:
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Senno me pare e cortesia empazir per lo bel messia. Ello me fa sì gran sapere a chi per dio vol empazire en parige non se vidde ancor si gran phylosofia. |
These words found an echo after many years in Benivieni's even more hysterical hymn upon divine madness, which was substituted in Savonarola's Carnivals for the Trionfi of Lorenzo de' Medici.
A trace of the Franciscan worship of poverty gives some interest to a hymn on the advantages of pauperism. The theme, however, is supported with solid arguments after the fashion of Juvenal's vacuus viator[366]:
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Povertate muore en pace, nullo testamento face, lassa el mondo como jace e la gente concordate. Non a judice ne notaro a corte non porta salaro, ridese del omo avaro che sta en tanta anxietate. |
Truer to the inebriation of Jacopone's piety are the following stanzas, incoherent from excess of passion, which seem to be the ebullition of one of his most frenzied moments[367]:
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Amore amore che si mai ferito altro che amore non posso gridare, amore amore teco so unito altro non posso che te abbracciare, amore amore forte mai rapito lo cor sempre si spande per amore per te voglio pasmare: Amor ch'io teco sia amor per cortesia: Fammi morir d'amore. Amor amor Jesu so gionto aporto amor amor Jesu tu m'ai menato, amor amor Jesu damme conforto amor amor Jesu si m'ai enflammato, amor amor Jesu pensa lo porto fammete star amor sempre abracciato, con teco trasformato: En vera caritate en somma veritate: De trasformato amore. Amor amore grida tuttol mondo amor amore omne cosa clama, amore amore tanto se profondo chi piu t'abraccia sempre piu t'abrama, amor amor tu se' cerchio rotondo con tuttol cor chi c'entra sempre t'ama, che tu se' stame e trama: chi t'ama per vestire cusi dolce sentire: Che sempre grida amore. Amor amor Jesu desideroso amor voglio morire a te abracciando, amor amor Jesu dolce mio sposo amor amor la morte l'ademando, amor amor Jesu si delectoso tu me t'arendi en te transformando, pensa ch'io vo pasmando: Amor non so o me sia Jesu speranza mia: Abyssame en amore. |
A still more mysterious depth is sounded in another hymn in praise of self-annihilation—the Nirvana of asceticism[368]: