to say; the witnesses are not to be relied on. We perhaps consider it as originating in feelings comme all, and gradually etherialised into a sentiment su Dante and Petrarch have celebrated at greater le but scarcely in a sweeter strain. Her identity Nerina is disputed, but the circumstances set fort the two cases are so nearly alike that they can h refer to different people. Teresa Fattorini is cert Silvia; she also appears as the nameless girl-figu 'Il Sogno,' written shortly after her death; and change of name to Nerina may be accounted f many ways, even by the exigencies of verse. The is an acknowledged masterpiece, and to find an of equal beauty on a similar theme we must go to Ayrshire hills. wa This ode was written in 1828, ten years after death of the young girl whom love of music, sad dest and the chance circumstance of nearness to the Leop household unite for ever with one so much her superio rank and culture. As this is the first example we giv the 'free verse' Leopardi evolved from the form of classical ode in which his earlier compositions w written, it may be well to say that, in the version, order of the rhymes and exact length of each line are preserved. These are matters which depend on circ stances that differ in different languages, and the tra lator requires equal freedom with his original. invention of Leopardi's has, in his hands, much of dignity of blank verse, and avoids the occasional ove sweetness of rhyme, also the recurrence of too famili endings. The Ode to Silvia' is the first in which b departs, in rhyme, from a regular stanza formation, an reveals his later manner. Concerning it he wrote to b sister Paolina, May 2, 1828: After two years I have ma some verses this April; verses such as I used to writ with all my old heart in them.' It is indeed wit becoming pride that Italians dilate upon the beauty! the picture here presented in the contrast between th girl at her cottage door, singing while she weaves spins, and the studious youth stirred to the depths of hi being by the fresh young voice, which his parents ha failed to exclude, entering through the heavy casement of old Monaldo's library. 'To Silvia. via, rememberest thou still thy glad time on earth When beauty dwelt with thee, and thy glad eyes, shyly, in meditation or in mirth, Turned t'ward the flowery verge Where youth in womanhood would merge? The while thou, on some female labour bent, In dreamful thought of happy hours to come. my loved studies Leaving at times, and the o'erlaboured page Stole near the casement in my father's home The sunny lanes, our garden, and the hills What thoughts then stirred in me. What radiant dreams were ours; How high our hearts, our hopes, O Silvia mine! Life, and man's destiny, How fair they seemed to us! When I bethink me thus Of all we then believed My spirits droop and pine; disconsolate, In bitterness, I sorrow o'er my fate. O Nature, Nature, why Didst thou the promise of that Spring belie? Why are thy children ever thus deceived? Ere Winter seared each leaf, Disease, insidious, met thee on thy way, Sweet maid, and brought thee death. To thee not shown The flower of life; unknown The homage lovers pay Vol. 218.-No. 434. с To sable tress and eyes that shyly gaze; Beguile thine ear With sweet discourse of love on festal days. So even for me ere long The tender hope I cherished waned and died; Is this the world, this our expected doom, Truth her face Unveiling, hope fell down; and with her hand Death and an empty tomb.' Shortly after composing the 'Ode to Silvia,' and under dire stress of poverty, Leopardi, who had been supporting himself by literary work at Florence and Pisa, returned for the last time to his father's house at Recanati-the 'Borgo Selvaggio' where none could understand him, and where he seems to have felt himself more in sympathy with the peasants, for whom he always shows a kindly regard, than with those of his own class. The deadening influences of the place were so strong that he conceived an active dislike of his native town, declaring at times that his patriotism related only to Italy. But in this as in other matters, inconsistencies abound in the poems. While expressing horror and detestation of Recanati as a place to dwell in, he paints it in most delightful colours and associates it with his tenderest emotions; while asserting with constantly renewed vehemence that he has found life fruitless and barren, he shows a capacity for refined enjoyment and exquisite sensation that can only excite our envy. But, as one of his ablest commentators truly says, the high poetic value of the verse is frequently evolved in great measure from this very inconsistency-from the ceaseless battle raging within him between his convictions and his sentiments, between the philosopher and the poet, between his mental energy and his physical weakness. Although, in any circumstances, one so constituted was foredoomed to suffer acutely, the accidents of his early life intensified this suffering almost to an unendurable degree. For this doubtless his parents must be held chiefly responsible, particularly the Countess Adelaide, her husband Monaldo being much under her direction. She seems to have been cold to her children, careless (it is said) even of their continued existence; and it remains on record that she paid no regard to her brother's powerfully worded protest* against the unremitting course of study which her son was encouraged to pursue, and which debilitated and deformed his naturally delicate frame. Possibly she may have considered robust health hardly desirable in an ecclesiastic-Giacomo having originally been intended for the priesthood-as likely to divert his mind to more attractive prospects. With so stern and harsh a parent it is little surprising that an imaginative youth should have transferred the maternal physiognomy to Nature, the universal mother, and have come to consider that a certain malignity reigned in the world as well as in the household at Recanati. Seeing also that those responsible for much of his suffering were very scrupulous in all religious exercises, it may have occurred to him that the Power they worshipped shared their indifference to human sorrow. At any rate irreconcilable divergence of opinion on religious matters soon manifested itself between Giacomo and his parents. He declined to pursue an ecclesiastical career, and, finding himself completely miserable at home, made shortly after his twenty-first birthday an abortive attempt at flight. It was not however until three years later (November 1822) that he succeeded in quitting Recanati; after which, with his father's consent, he passed the winter in Rome. During the next few years he lived alternately at Recanati and Bologna, and later for about a year in Florence, and Pisa, where the Risorgimento' and the lines to Silvia were composed. In November 1828 he was compelled, as we have said, to return to Recanati, and probably the sixteen months that followed, before his final escape from paternal domination, were the saddest in his life. His health suffered so * Chiarini, 'Vita,' cap. ii, p. 43. Letter from Carlo Antici. severely that a report of his death was at one time generally believed, and the letters written by him during these months are pitiful in the extreme, reminding one of Tasso's lamentations, addressed to all quarters of Italy from his prison in Ferrara. But there is evident relief that the cloud mentioned in 'Il Risorgimento' had passed away; and the poems which belong to this period are second to none in the 'Canti.' The poem that follows, Memories,' as the name implies, is a record of Leopardi's previous life, the greater part of which had been passed at home. It savours of the soil of Recanati, and little imagination is required to conjure up the scenes pictured to us in the verse. Heard in the original, each successive mood of the poet is so melodiously conveyed that one seems to be listening to a symphony by some famous composer; and, although less violent, the successive moods and emotions played on with such admirable taste and feeling change as frequently, yet far more artfully, than those awakened in the breast of Alexander by the rival of St Cecilia. Blank verse, always handled by Leopardi with great skill, though weakened in Italian by the addition of an eleventh syllable, is the medium employed, reducing the difficulty of transference to our idiom to a minimum. The selfportraiture is more complete here than in any other of the odes. Lovers of Pope will recognise an old friend towards the close of 'Le Ricordanze' (see below, p. 24), a jewel three words long to which a splendid setting is accorded (eterno sospiro mio). And indeed it is an eternal sigh that comes from the soul of this delicate Ariel' imprisoned in a body which he must have found as much a thing of torment as the pine tree, chosen by Caliban for the abode of Shakespeare's most ethereal creation. 'Le Ricordanze * (Memories). 'Stars of the radiant Bear, I little thought, *First published in the Florentine edition of 1831; composed at Recanati between Aug. 26 and Sept. 12, some months after Leopardi's return in 1829. |