And at these last verses Jesus enters the temple; and having gone up into the pulpit, he begins to preach and to say with a loud voice, "Homo quidam peregre proficiscens vocavit servos suos et tradidit illis bona sua." Now comes Magdalen with her company, and her young men prepare for her a seat before the pulpit, and she in all her pomp takes her place upon it, regarding her own pleasure, nor paying heed as yet to Jesus. Afterward, Jesus looks at her and goes on preaching, always keeping his most holy gaze bent upon her; and she, after the first stanza of the sermon, looks at him, and her eyes meet those of Jesus. Then he goes on preaching, and says as follows:

A certain lord who on a journey went,
Called unto him each of his serving men,
And of his goods gave them arbitrament:
To one he dealt five talents, to one ten,
To another two, to try their heart's intent,
And see how far they should be careless; then
Unto the last he left but one alone:
According to their powers, he charged each one.
And when he had departed, instantly
That servant unto whom he gave the five,
Went forth, and laboring with much industry,
Increased them, and therewith so well did thrive
That other five he gained immediately,
To render when his master should arrive;
He who received but twain, did even so,
And added to his sum another two.
But he on whom one talent was bestowed,
Went forthwith and concealed it in the soil:
Careless, unthankful for the debt he owed,
While he hath peace, he seeks but strife and toil:
Called like his fellows in that lord's abode,
He answers not, but doth himself despoil;
And, as a worthless steward, hides away
The money of his master day by day.
Woe to thee, slothful servant and remiss,
That hast thy talent buried in the ground!
When reckoning comes, thou'lt yield account for this
Nay, think how stern and rigorous he'll be found!
Weep, then, in time for what thou'st done amiss,
Before the trumpets of the judgment sound:
O soul, I tell thee thou hast gone astray,
Hiding thy talent in the earth away!
He who on earth sets his affections still,
Forgetful of the promised heavenly treasure;
He who loves self more than his Maker's will,
And in ill-doing finds continual pleasure;
He who remembers not that sin must kill,
Nor thinks how Hell will plague him above measure;
He who against himself makes fast heaven's gate;
Hideth in earth his talent till too late.
He who loves father, mother, more than God,
Not reckoning His great gifts bestowed on man;
He who the path of worldly gain hath trod,
Publishes for himself damnation's ban:
Woe, woe to that bad servant sunk in fraud,
Who leaves the good and doth what ill he can!
He who on this world seeks his joy to find,
His talent hides in earth, perversely blind.
He who is grasping, proud, discourteous, base,
Who dreameth not that he may come to want,
Who seeks for flattery, praise, and pride of place,
Lording it with high airs and arrogant;
Who to the world gives all, and still doth chase
Delight in songs and pomps exorbitant;
Who in this life is fain to rest and sleep—
His talent in the earth lies hidden deep.
Woe for that servant who through negligence
Hath hearkened not to the command divine!
Yea, he shall hear the dreadful doom: Go hence!
Go forth, accursed, in endless fire to pine!
There shall be then no time for penitence:
Bound hand and foot with punishment condign,
He shall abide among lost souls beneath,
Where is great weeping and great gnashing of teeth.
O soul, so full of sins, what shalt thou do?
Of all thy countless crimes abominable,
Look to the end! Look to it! Hell for you
Lies open, with damned folk innumerable!
Whence thou shalt never issue, ever rue
In vain remorse and pangs intolerable!
Weep, soul, ah weep for thy most vile estate,
Now that repentance need not come too late!
Seek in this life to feel sincere contrition,
Before the judge so just and so severe
Summons thee to his throne, for inquisition
Into each sin, each thought that wandered here;
There shalt thou find no merciful remission,
But justice shall be dealt with truth austere;
And he who fails shall go to burn with shame
For ever, ever, in eternal flame.
Quis ex vobis centum oves habens,
Si forte unam ex illis perdiderit,
Nonne nonagintas novem dimittens
Et illam querit, donec ipsam invenerit?
Et cum invenerit, in humeros ponens,
Gaudens, in domum suam cito venerit,
And calls his kinsfolk and his friends to make
Festival for the new-found wanderer's sake?
The soul, she is that lost and wandering sheep;
Eternal God is the true shepherd: He
Seeks her, lest on his lamb the wolf should leap,
The fiend, who slays with guile and treachery.
He spends his life, her safe to seek and keep,
And leaves those ninety-nine in bliss to be;
And when he finds her, makes great joy in heaven,
With all the angelic host, o'er one forgiven.
There was a father who had children twain;
The younger son began to speak and pray
That he might take his share, for he was fain,
Furnished therewith, from home to wend his way:
The father gently urged him to remain,
But at the last was bounden to obey:
Far, far away he roamed, and spent his all,
Sad wretch, on carnal joys and prodigal.
But when he came to want, repenting sore,
Unto his father, all ashamed, he knelt;
His father clothed him with new robes, and bore
Even more tender love than first he felt:
So doth high God, who lives for evermore,
Unto the souls that with repentance melt;
Let them but seek his love with contrite will,
He is most merciful, and pardons still.
Soul, thou hast wounded many hearts, I wis,
Dwelling in delicate and vain delight;
With many a lover thou wouldst toy and kiss
And art o'erfull of evil appetite;
Thy heart is big with strifes and jealousies:
Turn unto me; I wait to wash thee white;
That with the rest thy talent thou mayst double,
And dwell with them in heaven secure from trouble.

After the blessing of Jesus, Magdalen, weeping, and with her head covered, can have no rest for the great confusion that she felt; and all the people wept, and in great astonishment were waiting agaze to see what should ensue.

O alma peccatrice, che farai?—Christ's voice with its recurrences of gravely sweet persuasion melts Magdalen's heart. She may not speak one word, until her sister has led her home and comforted her a space. Then she answers:

Deh, priega Iddio che m'allumini il core!

After this, left alone with her own soul, awakened to the purer consciousness that Christ has stirred, she takes the box of ointment, and, despoiled of all her goodly raiment, with her hair disheveled, goes to the house of the Pharisee. There at last, with the breaking of the alabaster, she dissolves in tears, and her heart finds peace. In these scenes, if anywhere, we have the stuff from which the drama might have been evolved. Magdalen is a living woman, such as Palma might have painted; and Christ is a real man gifted with power to penetrate the soul.

The Figliuol Prodigo illustrates the same effort on the poet's part to steep an old-world story in the vivid colors of to-day.[427] In the Prodigal himself we find a coarse-hearted villain, like Hogarth's Idle Apprentice—vain, silly, lustful, gluttonous, careless of the honor and love that belong to him in his father's home. The scenes with the innkeeper, the gamblers, and the ruffians, among whom he runs to ruin, portray the vulgar dissipations of Florence, and justify the common identification of taverns with places of ill-fame.[428] There is a touch of true pathos at the end of the play in the grief of the father who has lost his son. The conflict of feelings in the heart of the elder brother, vexed at first with the prodigal's reception, but melting into love and pity at the fervor of his penitence, is also not without dramatic spirit. At the very end "a boy with the lyre" enters and "speaks the moral of the parable."[429]

The movement of these two plays is not impeded by the sanctity of the subject. When, however, the legend belongs more immediately to the narrative of Christ's life, the form of the Representation is more severe. This is especially true of Castellani's Cena e Passione, where the incidents of the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the trials before Pilate and Caiaphas, the Flagellation, and the Crucifixion are narrated with reverential brevity.[430] In reading these scenes, we must summon to our memory Luca della Robbia's bass-reliefs or the realistic groups of the Lombard Sacri Monti. The colored terra-cotta figures in those chapels among the chestnut trees above the Sesia are but Castellani's poetry conveyed in tableaux, while the Florentine actors undoubtedly aimed at presenting by their grouping, dresses and attitudes a living image of such plastic work. But the peculiar pathos of the Italians found finer expression in picture or fresco—in Luini's "Flagellation" at S. Maurizio or the pallid anguish of Tintoretto's women sunk beneath the Cross in the Scuola di San Rocco—than in the fluent stanzas of the sacred playwrights. On the walls of church or oratory the sweetness and languor of emotion became as dignified in beauty as the melodies of Pergolese, and its fervor touched at times the sublimity of tragic passion. Not words but plastic forms were ever the noblest vehicle of Italian feeling. Yet each kind of art may be profitably used to illustrate the other, and the simple phrases of the Rappresentazioni are often the best comments on finished works of painting. Here, for example, is Raphael's Lo Spasimo in words[431]:

Oimè, figliuol, è questo il viso
Ch'era tanto formoso e tanto bello?
Omè, dove si specchia el paradiso
Oggi è percosso in tanto gran flagello!
Io vengo a morte, figliuol mio diletto,
Se non ti tengo nelle braccia stretto.

Mary faints, and the Magdalen supports her, weeping[432]: