The Pagans of old were of the same opinion, for they made Pluto break his inexorable laws at the sound of the harp of Orpheus, his eyes, in spite of themselves, being forced to shed “iron tears,” as Milton finely calls them. The notes, as the poet says,
Drew iron tears down Pluto’s cheek,
And made Hell grant what Love did seek.
“The grim king of the ghosts” would not have shed them if he could have helped it. So Moschus, in his Elegy on the Death of Bion, expresses his opinion that if his deceased friend would sing a pastoral to the Queen of Pluto, “something Sicilian” as he emphatically calls it (Σικὲλικόν τι), she could not have the heart to deny his return to earth. One should like to know the hymns which the Pagans actually sung to Proserpina and her mother Ceres, and how far they coincided, perhaps in some instances were identical, with strains now sung in the Catholic churches. Some of the oldest chants are supposed to be of Greek origin; and indeed it would be marvellous if all the ancient music had been swept away, considering how many ceremonies, vestments, odours, processions, churches themselves, and, to say the truth, opinions, were retained by the new creed from the old—wisely in many instances, most curiously in all. Very naturally, too; for the knees are the same knees with which all human beings kneel, Pagan or Christian; and the sky is the same to which they look up, whether inhabited by saints or goddesses. Nor is there anything “blasphemous” (as zealous Protestants are too quick to assert) in the Roman Catholic tendency to use the same kind of language towards the one, as was held and hymned towards the other; for blasphemy signifies what is injurious to the character of the divinity, and nothing is injurious to it except the attribution of injustice and cruelty. If theological opinions, of whatever creed, offended in nothing worse than an excess of zeal towards the beauty of the maternal character, or in behalf of the supposition that the spirits of the good and pious interested themselves in our welfare, the human heart would be little disposed to quarrel with them, in times even more enlightened than the present. There is a couplet extant in Italy, remarkable for being both Italian and Latin. It might have been addressed by a Pagan of the Lower Roman Empire, to the goddess Proserpina, when she was the guardian angel of Sicily, or to the Virgin Mary, by a modern Roman Catholic; and we find nothing horrible in this. On the contrary, it seems to fuse the two eras gently and tenderly together, by the same affecting link of human want and natural devotion. This is the couplet:—
In mare irato, in subita procella,
Invoco te, nostra benigna stella.
In sudden storms, and when the billows blind,
Thee I invoke, star sweet to human kind!
When we spoke, in a former chapter, of the beautiful Sicilian story of Proserpina, we forgot (a very ungrateful piece of forgetfulness) to add, that one of the loveliest tributes ever paid to it by genius, is the Ratto di Proserpina—Winter’s opera so called. There is every charm of the subject in it,—the awfulness of the greater gods, the genial maternity of Ceres, the tender memory of her daughter, the cordial re-assurances given her by Mercury, the golden-age dances of the shepherds. What smile of encouragement ever surpassed that of the strain on the words Cerere tornerà, in the divine trio, Mi lasci, O madre amata? What passionate mixture of delight and melancholy, the world-famous duet of Vaghi colli? Why does not some publisher make an Elegant Extracts of such music from composers that will survive all fashion, and have comments written upon them, like those on poets? What would we not give to see such an edition of the finest airs of all the great inventive melodists, the Pergoleses and Paisiellos and their satellites, and all the inventive harmonists too, the Bachs, Corellis, and Beethovens, each with variorum notes from the best critics, and loving indications of the beauties of particular passages? Publications of this kind are yet wanting, to the honour, and glory, and thorough household companionship of the art of music: and it is a pity somebody does not take the opportunity of setting about them, when there are critics, both in and out of the profession, qualified to do them justice.[17]
We cannot close our Jar better than with a taste of “the modern Theocritus,” Giovanni Meli, who deserves his title, and whose very name, as we said before, signifies honey. Meli is honey, both in modern Sicilian and in ancient Greek; and the poet may be a descendant of the Greek possessors of the island; nay (to carry the fancy out), possibly of Theocritus himself! Who is to prove, on the beautiful negative principle, that he was not?
Meli was an abbate at Palermo, a doctor of medicine, public professor of chemistry in the University there, and member of several academies. So are his titles set forth in the edition of his poems in seven volumes, which we have had the pleasure, since these chapters were first written, of picking up at a book-stall in Holborn. They are not very pastoral-sounding titles; yet the more knowledge the better, even for the shepherd; and the shepherd-poet turns it all to account, just as chemistry itself improves the field and the flowers. One of the friends whom Theocritus himself has immortalised, was a physician. We have it on the authority of a gentleman who knew the Abbate Meli, that he was as good a man as he was a charming poet. He seemed to live only (he says) to do good and to give pleasure: and he was as much beloved by the poor, as his company was in request among the prosperous. To say that Meli was to be of the party, was to give an evening assembly of friends its highest zest. His virtues were anything but narrow. He was temperate, but not ascetic. He balked no genial inspiration; was a modern Anacreon as well as Theocritus; evinced a liberal turn of mind in every respect, without offence; and could write hymns full of natural piety, as well as drinking and love songs. He was also a deeply read man, and a solid thinker. One of his longest poems is a banter upon the various assumptions of philosophy respecting the system of the world. Heartily do we wish it were in our power to give as good an account of the poems as of their titles; but though they have a glossary for the benefit of “the Italians,” we cannot yet boast such a knowledge of them as qualifies us to say much in evidence, beyond their general merits. These we can discern well enough, like glimmerings of nymphs and flocks among the trees; and very like Theocritus indeed is his genius; very true to nature and to manners, impulsive in its style, not afraid of colloquialisms and homely traits, but with an air of grace over all, and the right happy aroma of the subtle and the suggestive. The moment you open his first eclogue, you meet with a picture truly Theocritan. A herdsman asks a shepherdess if she has seen a cow of his which is missing, and he thus accosts her:—
O Pasturedda, di li trizzi ad unna,
Chi fai pinnata di la manu manca,
Pri’ un t’ appighiari ssa facciuzza biunna.
“O shepherdess with the waving locks, who make a penthouse over your eyes with your left hand, for fear of embrowning your pretty face,” &c.
Meli was poor, till, doubtless, he thought himself rich on receiving a small pension from the late King Ferdinand; for which (says the author of an interesting article on the “Dialects and Literature of Southern Italy,” in the British Quarterly Review) “the poet expressed his gratitude in respectful, but not adulatory terms.”