We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid. The merits of the translator, adapter, and combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot deny him the title of a great poet. It is always in picture-painting more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels. Here is a basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam:—
STANZAS 99-107.
In Thetis' lap, upon the vexed Egean,
The seed deific from Olympus sown,
Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean
Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown;
Thence, born at last by movements hymenean,
Rises a maid more fair than man hath known;
Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her;
She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter
Seeing the carved work you would cry that real
Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow;
The lightning of the goddess' eyes you feel,
The smiling heavens, the elemental glow:
White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal,
With loosened curls that to the breezes flow;
Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces,
E'en as befits a choir of sister Graces.
Well might you swear that on those waves were riding
The goddess with her right hand on her hair,
And with the other the sweet apple hiding;
And that beneath her feet, divinely fair,
Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing;
Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare,
The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her,
Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.
The one, with hands above her head upraised,
Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath,
With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed;
The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath;
The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed
Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe
Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing
Among the gods with dance and carolling.
Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres,
Seated upon a cloud of silvery white;
The trembling of the cloven air appears
Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright;
The gods drink in with open eyes and ears
Her beauty, and desire her bed's delight;
Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze—
Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze.
The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by Cupid:—
STANZAS 122—124.
Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid,
Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars' embrace;
He, lying back within her bosom, fed
His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;
Roses above them like a cloud were shed,
To reinforce them in the amorous chace;
While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,
A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.
Above, around, young Loves on every side
Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;
And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,
Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;
One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied
To pour them on the couch that lay below;
Another, poised upon his pinions, through
The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew:
For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,
The wandering roses in their drift were stayed;—
Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;
Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,
Breathless; and round his mother's neck did fling
His languid arms, and with his winnowing made
Her heart burn:—very glad and bright of face,
But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.
These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting. Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape. Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it. Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the vehemence of Giulio Romano's pencil. To the last class belong the two next extracts:—
STANZAS 104—107.
In the last square the great artificer
Had wrought himself crowned with Love's perfect palm;
Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,
Leaving all labour for her bosom's calm:
Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,
Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;
Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly
Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.
Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,
Goodly and white, at Love's behest, and rears
His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful:
She turns toward the shore that disappears,
With frightened gesture; and the wonderful
Gold curls about her bosom and her ears
Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;
This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.
With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,
She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise:
So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,
In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;
They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less
For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes:
Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss
But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.
Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower,
Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain,
To work his amorous will in secret hour;
Here, like an eagle, soars he o'er the plain,
Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower
Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign;
The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned,
Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.
STANZAS 110—112.