[264] Even in this Sidney tried to follow him, with an effect the clumsiness of which can only be conceived by those who have read his triple rhyming English terza rima.
[265] Egloga vii.
[266] From my chapter on Latin poetry in the Revival of Learning I purposely omitted more than a general notice of Pontano's erotic verses, intending to treat of them thereafter, when it should be necessary to discuss the Neapolitan contribution in Italian literature. The lyrics and elegies I shall now refer to, are found in two volumes of Pontani Opera, published by Aldus, 1513 and 1518. These volumes I shall quote together, using the minor titles of Amorum, Hendecasyllabi, and so forth, and mentioning the page. I am sorry that I have not a uniform edition of his Latin poetry (if that, indeed, exists, of which I doubt) before me.
[267] Fannia is the most attractive of these women. See Amorum, lib. i. pp. 4, 5, 13. Stella, the heroine of the Eridani, is touched with greater delicacy. Cinnama seems to have been a girl of the people. Pontano borrows for her the language of popular poetry (Amorum, i. 19).
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Ipsa tibi dicat, mea lux, mea vita, meus flos, Liliolumque meum, basiolumque meum. Carior et gemmis, et caro carior auro, Tu rosa, tu violæ, tu mihi lævis onyx. |
[268] Among the most touching of his elegiac verses is the lament addressed to his dead wife upon the death of their son Lucius, Eridanorum, lib. ii. p. 134. The collection of epitaphs called Tumuli bears witness to the depth and sincerity of his sorrow for the dead, to the all-embracing sympathy he felt for human grief. The very original series of lullabies, entitled Næniæ, illustrate the warmth of his paternal feeling. The nursery has never before or since been celebrated with such exuberance of fancy—and in the purest Ovidian elegiacs! It may, however, be objected that there is too much about wet-nurses in these songs.
[269] Pontano revels in Epithalamials and pictures of the joys of wedlock. See the series of elegies on Stella, Eridanorum, lib. i. pp. 108, 111, 113, 115; the congratulation addressed to Alfonso, Duke of Calabria, Hendecasyllaborum, lib. i. p. 194; and two among the many Epithalamial hymns, Hendec. lib. i. p. 195; Lepidina Pompa 7, p. 172, with its reiterated "Dicimus o hymenæe Io hymen hymenæe." The sensuality of these compositions will be too frank and fulsome for a chastened taste; but there is nothing in them extra or infra-human.
[270] Hendecasyllaborum, lib. i. and ii. pp. 186-218. If one of these lyrics should be chosen from the rest, I should point to "Invitantur pueri et puellæ ad audiendum Charitas," p. 209. It begins "Ad myrtum juvenes venite, myrti."
[271] For such glimpses into actual life, see Lepidina, pp. 160-174, in which a man and woman of Naples discourse of their first loves and wedlock. The Eclogues abound in similar material.
[272] Lepidina, p. 168. Capimontius is easily recognized as Capo di Monte.