“For I, a maiden of thy maiden train,
Am fitter far, with quiver and with bow,
To roam the forest, than 'neath love’s soft reign
To do a husband’s will; and if thou go
In memory back, thou must in mind retain
How harder face than granite did we show
’Gainst headlong Venus’ law, based not on reason,
But headlong passion, to its promptings treason.
“And if it be my better fate to stay
A little maid amid thy vestal throng,
The fierce and burning fumes do thou allay
Sprung from desires so passionate and strong
Of both the enamoured youths my love who pray,
And both for joy of love from me do long,
Let peace supplant between them war’s contention,
Since grief to me, thou know’st, is their dissension.
“And if it be reserved for me by fate
To Juno’s law subjected now to be,
Ah, pardon thou my lapse from maiden state,
Nor therefore be my prayer refused by thee;
On others’ will, thou seest, condemned to wait,
My actions must conform to their decree:
Then help me, Goddess, hear my prayer thus lowly,
Who still deserve thy favour high and holy.”
Boccaccio thought little of his own poetry, would have destroyed his sonnets but for the remonstrances of Petrarch, and laments that even the incitement of Fiammetta is unavailing to spur him on to the Temple of Fame. Yet in another place he says that he has spared no pains to excel:
Study I have not spared, or scanted time:
Now rest unto my labour I permit,
Lamenting this so tittle could avail
To raise me to that eminence sublime.
This judgment was unreasonably severe. It is true, nevertheless, that Boccaccio would have gained more renown as a poet if the taste of his time had permitted him to seek inspiration among the people for his verses, as he did for his stories. How exquisite he could sometimes be is shown by two of the sonnets translated by Rossetti—versions, it must be owned, which surpass the originals:
Love steered my course, while yet the sun rode high,
On Scylla’s waters to a myrtle-grove:
The heaven was still and the sea did not move;
Yet now and then a little breeze went by,
Stirring the tops of trees against the sky:
And then I heard a song as glad as love,
So sweet that never yet the like thereof
Was heard in any mortal company.
“A nymph, a goddess, or an angel sings
Unto herself, within this chosen place
Of ancient loves,” so said I at that sound.
And there my lady, 'mid the shadowings
Of myrtle-trees, 'mid flowers and grassy space,
Singing I saw, with others who sat round.
By a clear well, within a little field
Full of green grass and flowers of every hue,
Sat three young girls, relating (as I knew)
Their loves; and each had twined a bough to shield
Her lovely face; and the green leaves did yield
The golden hair their shadow; while the two
Sweet colours mingled, both blown lightly through
With a soft wind for ever stirred and stilled.
After a little while one of them said
(I heard her), “Think! if ere the next hour struck,
Each of our lovers should come here to-day,
Think you that we should fly or feel afraid?”
To whom the others answered, “From such luck
A girl would be a fool to run away.”
Apart from the merits of his writings, Boccaccio might rest a claim to no ordinary renown as the creator of classic Italian prose; and even if he had found this instrument ready to his hand, his work with it might alone have assured him immortality. Perhaps he has a still higher title to fame in his quality as a great originator, achieving, indeed, no consummate work except the Decameron, but reconnoitring the unknown world through which the human spirit travels, and opening out new paths on every side as he steers “bound upon beating wing to golden bough.” As the first effective exemplar of the heroic and pastoral romance and of the epic in octave stanza, as the principal populariser of classical lore, his influence will be felt to the end of time. The books which gave him this power are, indeed, comparatively forgotten. On the other hand, the great marvel of hisDecameron is its undying freshness. The language is as terse and bright, the tale as readable as ever: the commentator may exercise his research in detecting the sources of the stories, but has little to do in explaining obsolete diction or obsolete manners.
In morals and conduct, until his latter days, Boccaccio seems to have been a perfect type of the gay and easy class of Florentine citizens, and as remote as possible from the wary and penurious burghers depicted in his tale of the Pot of Basil. Apart from the fair and courteous presence revealed in theDecameron, his principal titles to moral esteem are his disinterested love of culture, his enthusiasm for his master Dante, and his obsequious yet graceful demeanour towards Petrarch, embodying sentiments which could have found no entrance into an ungenerous breast.