BROWNING'S ITALY (6 page)

With the renowned Sordello's: you decide

A course for me. Romano may abide

Romano, — Bacchus! After all, what dearth

Of Ecelins and Alberics on earth ?

Say there's a prize in prospect, must disgrace

Betide competitors, unless they style

Themselves Romano ? Were it worth my while

To try my own luck! But an obscure place

Suits me — there wants a youth to bustle, stalk

And attitudinize — some fight, more talk,

Most flaunting badges — how, I might make clear

Since Friedrich's very purposes lie here

— Here, pity they are like to lie! For me,

With Station fixed unceremoniously

Long since, small nse contesting; I am but

The liegeman — you are born the lieges — shut

That gentle mouth now! or resume your kin

In your sweet seif; were Palma Ecelin

For me to work with! Could that neck endure

This bauble for a cumbrous garniture,

She should . . . or might one bear it for her ? Stay —

I have not been so flattered many a day

As by your pale friend — Bacchus! The least help

Would lick the hind's fawn to a lion's whelp:

His neck is broad enough — a ready tongue

Beside — too writhled — but, the main thing, young —

I could . . . why, look ye!'

And the badge was thrown Across Sordello's neck: 'This badge alone Makes you Romano's Head — becomes süperb On your bare neck, which would, on mine, disturb The pauldron,' said Taurello. A mad act, Nor even dreamed about before — in fact, Not when his sportive arm rose for the nonce —

DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 49

But he had dallied overmuch, this once

With power: the thing was done, and he, aware

The thing was done, proceeded to declare —

(So like a nature made to serve, excel

In serving, only feel by service well!)

— That he would make Sordello that and more.

'As good a scheine as any. What's to pore

At in my face ?' he asked — 'ponder instead

This piece of news; you are Romano's Head!

One cannot slacken pace so near the goal,

Suff er my Azzo to'escape heart-whole

This time! For you there's Palma to espouse —

For me, one crowning trouble ere I house

like my compeer.'

On which ensued a stränge And solemn Visitation; there came change O'er every one of them; each looked on each: Up in the midst a truth grew, without speech. And when the giddiness sank and the haze Subsided, they were sitting, no amaze, Sordello with the baldric on, his sire Silent, though his proportions seemed aspire Momently; and, interpreting the thrill, — Right at its ebb, — Palma was found there still Relating somewhat Adelaide confessed A year ago, while dying on her breast, — Of a contrirance that Vicenza night When Ecelin had birth. 'Their convoy's flight, Cut off a moment, coiled inside the flame That wallowed like a dragon at his game The toppling city through — San Biagio rocks! And wounded lies in her delicious locks Retrude, the frail mother, on her face, None of her wasted, just in one embrace

Covering her child: when, as they lifted her,

Clearing the tumult, mighty, mightier

And mightiest Taurello's cry outbroke,

Leapt like a tongue of fire that cleaves the smoke,

Midmost to cheer his Mantuans onward — drown

His colleague Ecelin's clamor, up and down

The disarray: failed Adelaide see then

Who was the natural chief, the man of men ?

Outstripping time, her infant there burst swathe,

Stood up with eyes haggard beyond the scathe

From wandering after his heritage

Lost once and lost for aye — and why that rage,

That deprecating glance ? A new shape leant

On a familiär shape — gloatingly bent

O'er his discomfiture; 'mid wreaths it wore,

Still one outflamed the rest — her child's before

'Twas Salinguerra's for his child: scorn, hate,

Hage now might startle her when all too late!

Then was the moment! — rival's foot had spurned

Never that House to earth eise! Sense returned —

The act conceived, adventured and complete,

They bore away to an obscure retreat

Mother and child — Retrude's seif not slain'

(Nor even here Taurello moved) 'though pain

Was fled: and what assured them most 'twas fled,

All pain, was, if they raised the pale hushed head

'Twould turn this way and that, waver awhile,

And only settle into its old smile —

(Graceful as the disquieted water-flag

Steadying itself, remarked they, in the quag

On either side their path) — when suffered look

Down on her child. They marched: no sign once shook

The Company's close litter of crossed spears

Till, as they reached Goito, a few tears

DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 51

Slipped in the sunset from her long black lash,

And she was gone. So far the action rash;

No crime. They laid Retrude in the fönt,

Taurello's very gift, her child was wont

To sit beneath — constant as eve he came

To sit by its attendant girls the same

As one of them. For Palma, she would blend

With this magnific spirit to the end,

That mied her first; but scarcely had she dared

To disobey the Adelaide who scared

Her into vowing never to disclose

A secret to her husband, which so froze

His blood at half-recital, she contrived

To hide from him Taurello's infant lived,

Lest, by revealing that, himself should mar

Romano's fortunes. And, a crime so far,

Palma received that action: she was told

Of Salinguerra's nature, of his cold

Calm acquiescence in his lot! But free

To impart the secret to Romano, she

Engaged to repossess Sordello of

His heritage, and hers, and that way doff

The mask, but after years, long years: while now,

Was not Romano's sign-mark on that brow?'

Across Taurello's heart his arms were locked:

And when he did speak 'twas as if he mocked

The minstrel, 'who had not to move,' he said,

'Nor stir — should fate defraud him of a shred

Of his son's infancy? much less his youth!'

(Laughingly all this) — 'which to aid, in truth,

Himself, reserved on purpose, had not grown

Old, not too old — 'twas best they kept alone

Till now, and never idly met tili now;'

— Then, in the same breath, told Sordello how

All intimations of this eve's event

Were lies, for Friedrich must advance to Trent,

Thence to Verona, then to Rome, there stop,

Tumble the Church down, institute a-top

The Alps a Prefecture of Lombardy:

— 'That's now! — no prophesying what may be

Anon, with a new monarch of the clime,

Native of Gesi, passing his youth's prime

At Naples. Tito bids my choice decide

On whom' . . .

'Embrace him, madman!' Palma cried, Who through the laugh saw sweat-drops burst apace, And his Ups blanching: he did not embrace Sordello, but he laid Sordello's hand On his own eyes, mouth, forehead."

Sordello's struggle over the decision thus forced upon him causes his sudden death, which is wonderfully touched upon in these lines:

"What has Sordello found ? Or can his spirit go the mighty round, End where poor Eglamor begun ? So, says Old fable, the two eagles went two ways About the world: where, in the midst, they met, Though on a shifting waste of sand, men set Jove's temple. Quick, what has Sordello found ? For they approach — approach — that foot's rebound Palma? No, Salinguerra though in mail; They mount, have reached the threshold, dash the veil Aside — and you divine who sat there dead, Under his foot the badge: still, Palma said, A triumph lingering in the wide eyes,

DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 53

Wider than some spent swimmer's if he spies

Help from above in his extreme despair,

And, head far back on Shoulder thrust, turns there

With short quick passionate cry: as Palma pressed

In one great kiss, her lips upon his breast,

It beat.

By this, the hermit-bee has stopped His day's toil at Goito: the new-cropped Dead vine-leaf answers, now 'tis eve, he bit, Twirled so, and filed all day: the mansion's fit, God counselled for. As easy guess the word That passed betwixt them, and become the third To the soft small unfrighted bee, as tax Hirn with one fault — so, no remembrance racks Of the stone maidens and the fönt of stone He, creeping through the crevice, leaves alone. Alas, my friend, alas Sordello, whom Anon they laid within that old font-tomb, And, yet again, alas!"

The poet in expressing his own opinion of Sordello refers to the fame which was accorded him by the Chroniclers of Mantua, among them Aliprandi, who is responsible for the legend that he belonged to the Visconti family. To Browning's mind, however, the best that can be said of him is that he wrote poetry in the Tuscan dialect, which he has heard a little barefoot child in Asolo sing.

"Is there no more to say ? He of the rhymes — Many a tale, of this retreat betimes, Was born: Sordello die at once for men?

The Chronclers of Mantua tired their pen

Telling how SordeUo Prince Visconti saved

Mantua, and elsewhere notably behaved —

Who thus, by fortune ordering events,

Passed with posterity, to all intents,

For just the god he never could become.

As Knight, Bard, Gallant, men were never dumb

In praise of him: while what he should have been,

Could be, and was not — the one step too mean

For him to take, — we suffer at this day

Because of: Ecelin had pushed away

Its chance ere Dante could arrive and take

That step Sordello spuraed, for the world's sake:

He did much — but Sordello's chance was gone.

Thus, had Sordello dared that step alone,

Apollo had been compassed — 'twas a fit

He wished should go to him, not he to it

— As one content to merely be supposed

Singing or fighting elsewhere, while he dozed

Really at home — one who was chiefly glad

To have achieved the few real deeds he had,

Because that way assured they were not worth

Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth —

A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes

Never itself, itself. Had he embraced

Their cause then, men had plucked Hesperian fruit

And, praising that, just thrown him in to boot

All he was anxious to appear, but scarce

Solicitous to be. A sorry farce

Such life is, after all! Cannot I say

He lived for some one better thing ? this way. —

Lo, on a heathy brown and nameless hill

By sparkling Asolo, in mist and chill,

Morning just up, higher and higher runs

A child barefoot and rosy. See! the sun's

On the square castle's inner-court's low wall

Like the chine of some extinct animal

Half turned to earth and flowers; and through the haze

(Save where some slender patches of gray maize

Are to be overleaped) that boy has crossed

The whole hill-side of dew and powder-frost

Matting the bahn and mountain camomile.

Up and up goes he, singing all the while

Some unintelligible words to beat

The lark, God's poet, swooning at his feet,

So worsted is he at 'the few fine locks

Stained like pale honey oozed from topmost rocks

Sun-blanched the livelong summer/ — all that's left

Of the Goito lay! "

For detailed analysis and criticism of the psychical developinent of Sordello, the de-scription of which fills up the greater part of the poem, the reader must go elsewhere. Our concern here is merely to show what use the poet has made of the historical conditions of that age in building up a setting for the poem. Historians usually dwell principally upon the fights between Pope and Emperor to gain the ascendancy, giving little or no attention to the third element in the evolving life of the time — namely the dawning per-ception of the people that their rights are really the divine rights; not those of Pope nor those of Emperor. Browning makes his Sordello see this by means of his own growth

from an individualist, bent upon obtaining power and glory for himself, to a socialist type, in its broad sense, desirous of helping the masses of the people to rise to better con-ditions. Sordello, in his own person, Stands as a symbol of this awakening tendency that constituted as much an element in the Renaissance movement as the outburst of a desire for learning or the blossoming of great artistic talents. The human race had been something like a tightly closed cauldron of seething metals, which, reaching the boiling point, burst off the lid, and the vapors escaped first in chaotic masses, but finally to take shape in forms both beautiful and hideous, some of them fixed, and some ever changing their aspects. Sordello's failure to grasp the truth he saw when put to the test — because his heart could not stand the strain, typifies the fact that the time was not yet ripe for the fruition of the wavering, ever changing, yet upward growing ideal of democracy. It is picturesque for Browning to declare that we suffer to this day for the step Sordello did not take — this step being that he should have had the courage to serve the cause of the people through Ghibelline means. But in spite of the opinion of Mr. Bryce that had the emperors seen their opportunity, and

DAWN OF THE RENAISSANCE 57

been strong enough to improve it they might have been in part, at least, the pioneers of the reformation, it is decidedly doubtful whether the impulse of the people themselves was strong enough in these chaotic times to give the needed support to any one single in-dividual for the building up of a more demo-cratic civilization. The truth which Sordello saw then has in all the centuries since been striving for füll recognition, and still there are thousands upon thousands unready for it, and still we have faith that this truth will finally come into its own. But that Sordello, or any other single arm, couid have Struck any very telling blows for the people at that time is to say the least, problematical, for like Sordello, nations and peoples are obliged to learn by bitter experience that iove is best, and democracy is only another name for social love.