But the cuckoos beat their brazen gongs,
Sounding, sounding so;
And the nightingales poured in starry songs
A galaxy below.
Slowly tolling the vesper bell
Ushered the stately night.
Down-a-down in a hawthorn dell
A boy and a girl and love's delight.
The Love-Story of Luigi Tansillo
By Richard Garnett
Now that my wings are spread to my desire,
The more vast height withdraws the dwindling land,
Wider to wind these pinions I expand,
And earth disdain, and higher mount and higher
Nor of the fate of Icarus inquire,
Or cautious droop, or sway to either hand;
Dead I shall fall, full well I understand;
But who lives gloriously as I expire?
Yet hear I my own heart that pleading cries,
Stay, madman! Whither art thou bound? Descend!
Ruin is ready Rashness to chastise.
But I, Fear not, though this indeed the end;
Cleave we the clouds, and praise our destinies,
If noble fall on noble flight attend.
The above sonnet, one of the finest in Italian literature, is already known to many English readers in another translation by the late Mr. J. Addington Symonds, which originally appeared in the Cornhill Magazine, and is prefixed to his translation of the sonnets of Michael Angelo and Campanella (London, 1878), under the title of “The Philosopher's Flight.” In his preface Mr. Symonds says: “The sonnet prefixed as a proem to the whole book is generally attributed to Giordano Bruno, in whose Dialogue in the ‘Eroici Furori’ it occurs. There seems, however, good reason to suppose that it was really written by Tansillo, who recites it in that dialogue. Whoever may have been its author, it expresses in noble and impassioned verse the sense of danger, the audacity, and the exultation of those pioneers of modern thought, for whom philosophy was a voyage of discovery into untravelled regions.” Mr. Symonds's knowledge of Italian literature was so extensive that he must have had ground for stating that the sonnet is generally attributed to Giordano Bruno; as it certainly is by De Sanctis, though it is printed as Tansillo's in all editions of his works, imperfect as these were before the appearance of Signor Fiorentino's in 1882. It is, nevertheless, remarkable that he should add: “There seems good reason to suppose that it was really written by Tansillo,” as if there could be a shadow of doubt on the matter. “Eroici Furori” is professedly a series of dialogues between Luigi Tansillo the Neapolitan poet, who had died about twenty years before their composition, and Cicero, but is in reality little more than a monologue, for Tansillo does nearly all the talking, and Cicero receives his instructions with singular docility. The reason of Tansillo's selection for so great an honour was undoubtedly that, although born at Venosa, he belonged by descent to Nola, Bruno's own city. In making such free use of Tansillo's poetry as he has done throughout these dialogues, Bruno was far from the least idea of pillaging his distinguished countryman. In introducing the four sonnets he has borrowed (for there are three besides that already quoted) he is always careful to make Tansillo speak of them as his own compositions, which he never does when Bruno's own verses are put into his mouth. If a particle of doubt could remain, it would be dispelled by the fact that this sonnet, with other poems by Tansillo, including the three other sonnets introduced into Bruno's dialogue, is published under his name in the “Rime di diversi illustri Signori Napoletani,” edited by Lodovico Dolce at Venice, in 1555, when Bruno was about seven years old!
Mr. Symonds's interpretation of the sonnet also is erroneous—in so far, at least, as that the meaning assigned by him never entered into the head of the author. It is certainly fully susceptible of such an exposition. But Tansillo, no philosopher, but a cavalier, the active part of whose life was mainly spent in naval expeditions against the Turks, no more thought with Mr. Symonds of “the pioneers of modern philosophy,” than he thought with Bruno of “arising and freeing himself from the body and sensual cognition.” On the contrary, the sonnet is a love-sonnet, and depicts with extraordinary grandeur the elation of spirit, combined with a sense of peril, consequent upon the poet having conceived a passion for a lady greatly his superior in rank. The proof of this is to be found in the fact that the sonnet is one of a series, unequivocally celebrating an earthly passion; and especially in the sonnet immediately preceding it in Dolce's collection, manifestly written at the same time and referring to the same circumstance, in which the poet ascribes his Icarian flight, not to the influence of Philosophy, but of Love:
Love fits me forth with wings, which so dilate,
Sped skyward at the call of daring thought,
I high and higher soar, with purpose fraught
Soon to lay smiting hand on Heaven's gate.
Yet altitude so vast might well abate
My confidence, if Love not succour brought,
Pledging my fame not jeopardised in aught,
And promising renown as ruin great.
If he whom like audacity inspired,
Falling gave name immortal to the flood,
As sunny flame his waxen pinion fired;
Then of thee too it shall be understood,
No meaner prize than Heaven thy soul required,
And firmer than thy life thy courage stood.
The meaning of the two sonnets is fully recognised by Muratori, who prints them together in his treatise, “Della perfetta poesia,” and adds: “volea dire costui che s'era imbarcato in un'amor troppo alto, e s'andava facendo coraggio.”