The last phrase, S'ei piace, ei lice, might be written on the frontispiece of both dramas, together with Dafne's sigh: Il mondo invecchia, E invecchiando intristisce. Of what use is life unless we love?
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Amiam, che 'l sol si muore, e poi rinasce; A noi sua breve luce S'asconde, e 'l sonno eterna notte adduce. |
The girl who wastes her youth in proud virginity, prepares a sad old age of vain regret:
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Cangia, cangia consiglio, Pazzarella che sei; Che 'l pentirsi da sezzo nulla giova. |
It is the old cry of the Florentine Canti and Ballate, "Gather ye rose-buds while ye may!" Di doman non c'è certezza. And the stories of Aminta and Pastor Fido teach the same lesson, that nature's laws cannot be violated, that even fate and the most stubborn bosoms bow to love.
Of the music and beauty of these two dramas, I find it difficult to speak. Before some masterpieces criticism bends in silence. We cannot describe what must be felt. All the melodies that had been growing through two centuries in Italy, are concentrated in their songs. The idyllic voluptuousness, which permeated literature and art, steeps their pictures in a golden glow. It is easy enough to object that their apparent simplicity conceals seduction, that their sentimentalism is unmanly, and their suggestions of physical beauty effeminating:—
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Ma come Silvia il ricconobbe, e vide Le belle guance tenere d'Aminta Iscolorite in sì leggiadri modi, Che viola non è che impallidisca Sì dolcemente, e lui languir sì fatto, Che parea già ultimi sospiri Esalar l'alma; in guisa di Baccante, Gridando e percotendosi il bel petto, Lasciò cadersi in sul giacente corpo; E giunse viso a viso, e bocca a bocca. |
This passage warns us that an age of cicisbei and castrati has begun, and that the Italian sensuousness has reached its final dissolution. Silvia's kisses in Aminta, Mirtillo's kisses in Pastor Fido, introduce a new refinement of enervation. Marino with his Adone is not distant. But, while we recognize in both these poems—the one perfumed and delicate like flowers of spring, the other sculptured in pure forms of classic grace—evident signs of a civilization sinking to decay; though we almost loathe the beauty which relaxes every chord of manhood in the soul that feels it; we are bound to confess that to this goal the Italian genius had been steadily advancing since the publication of the Filocopo. The negation of chivalry, mysticism, asceticism, is accomplished. After traversing the cycle of comedy, romance, satire, burlesque poetry, the plastic arts, and invading every province of human thought, the Italian reaction against the middle ages assumes a final shape of hitherto unapprehended loveliness in the Aminta and the Pastor Fido. They complete and close the Renaissance, bequeathing in a new species of art its form and pressure to succeeding generations.