Good Reading: "Crudele, Acerbo e Dispietato Core" by Michelangelo Buonarroti (in Italian)

   Crudele, acerbo e dispietato core,
vestito di dolcezza e d’amar pieno,
tuo fede al tempo nasce, e dura meno
c’al dolce verno non fa ciascun fiore.
  Muovesi ’l tempo, e compartisce l’ore
al viver nostr’un pessimo veneno;
lu’ come falce e no’ siàn come fieno,
.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
  La fede è corta e la beltà non dura,
ma di par seco par che si consumi,
come ’l peccato tuo vuol de’ mie danni.
  .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
.     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .     .
sempre fra noi fare’ con tutti gli anni.

Tuesday's Serials: "The Epic of Hades" by Lewis Morris (in English) - IV

BOOK II - HADES.

 

MARSYAS

                                                   Then from those dark

And dreadful precincts passing, ghostly fields

And voiceless took me. A faint twilight veiled

The leafless, shadowy trees and herbless plains.

There stirred no breath of air to wake to life

The slumbers of the world. The sky above

Was one gray, changeless cloud. There looked no eye

Of Life from the veiled heavens; but Sleep and Death

Were round me everywhere. And yet no fear

Nor horror took me here, where was no pain

Nor dread, save that strange tremor which assails[80]

One who in life's hot noontide looks on death

And knows he too shall die. The ghosts which rose

From every darkling copse showed thin and pale—

Thinner and paler far than those I left

In agony; even as Pity seems to wear

A thinner form than Fear.

                                                 Not caged alone

Like those the avenging Furies purged were these,

Nor that dim land as those black cavernous depths

Where no hope comes. Fair souls were they and white

Whom there I saw, waiting as we shall wait,

The Beatific End, but thin and pale

As the young faith which made them; touched a little

By the sad memories of the earth; made glad

A little by past joys: no more; and wrapt

In musing on the brief play played by them

Upon the lively earth, yet ignorant

Of the long lapse of years, and what had been[81]

Since they too breathed Life's air, or if they knew,

Keeping some echo only; but their pain

Was fainter than their joy, and a great hope

Like ours possessed them dimly.

 

                                                             First I saw

A youth who pensive leaned against the trunk

Of a dark cypress, and an idle flute

Hung at his side. A sorrowful sad soul,

Such as sometimes he knows, who meets the gaze,

Mute, uncomplaining yet most pitiful,[82]

Of one whom nature, by some secret spite,

Has maimed and left imperfect; or the pain

Which fills a poet's eyes. Beneath his robe

I seemed to see the scar of cruel stripes,

Too hastily concealed. Yet was he not

Wholly unhappy, but from out the core

Of suffering flowed a secret spring of joy,

Which mocked the droughts of Fate, and left him glad

And glorying in his sorrow. As I gazed

He raised his silent flute, and, half ashamed,

Blew a soft note; and as I stayed awhile

I heard him thus discourse—

                                                        "The flute is sweet

To gods and men, but sweeter far the lyre

And voice of a true singer. Shall I fear

To tell of that great trial, when I strove

And Phœbus conquered? Nay, no shame it is

To bow to an immortal melody;

But glory.

                   Once among the Phrygian hills

I lay a-musing,—while the silly sheep

Wandered among the thyme—upon the bank

Of a clear mountain stream, beneath the pines,

Safe hidden from the noon. A dreamy haze

Played on the uplands, but the hills were clear

In sunlight, and no cloud was on the sky.

It was the time when a deep silence comes

Upon the summer earth, and all the birds

Have ceased from singing, and the world is still

As midnight, and if any live thing move—

Some fur-clad creature, or cool gliding snake—

Within the pipy overgrowth of weeds,

The ear can catch the rustle, and the trees

And earth and air are listening. As I lay,

Faintly, as in a dream, I seemed to hear

A tender music, like the Æolian chords,

Sound low within the woodland, whence the stream,

Flowed full, yet silent. Long, with ear to ground,

I hearkened; and the sweet strain, fuller grown,

Rounder and clearer came, and danced along

In mirthful measure now, and now grown grave

In dying falls, and sweeter and more clear,

Tripping at nuptials and high revelry,

Wailing at burials, rapt in soaring thoughts,

Chanting strange sea-tales full of mystery,

Touching all chords of being, and life and death,

Now rose, now sank, and always was divine,

So strange the music came.

                                                   Till, as I lay

Enraptured, swift a sudden discord rang,

And all the sound grew still. A sudden flash,

As from a sunlit jewel, fired the wood.

A noise of water smitten, and on the hills

A fair white fleece of cloud, which swiftly climbed

Into the farthest heaven. Then, as I mused,

Knowing a parting goddess, straight I saw

A sudden splendour float upon the stream,

And knew it for this jewelled flute, which paused

Before me on an eddy. It I snatched

Eager, and to my ardent lips I bore

The wonder, and behold, with the first breath—

The first warm human breath, the silent strains.

The half-drowned notes which late the goddess blew,

Revived, and sounded clearer, sweeter far

Than mortal skill could make. So with delight

I left my flocks to wander o'er the wastes

Untended, and the wolves and eagles seized

The tender lambs, but I was for my art—

Nought else; and though the high-pitched notes divine

Grew faint, yet something lingered, and at last

So sweet a note I sounded of my skill,

That all the Phrygian highlands, all the white

Hill villages, were fain to hear the strain,

Which the mad shepherd made.

                                                             So, overbold,

And rapt in my new art, at last I dared

To challenge Phœbus' self.

                                                   'Twas a fair day

When sudden, on the mountain side, I saw

A train of fleecy clouds in a white band

Descending. Down the gleaming pinnacles

And difficult crags they floated, and the arch,

Drawn with its thousand rays against the sun,

Hung like a glory o'er them. Midst the pines

They clothed themselves with form, and straight I knew

The immortals. Young Apollo, with his lyre,

Kissed by the sun, and all the Muses clad

In robes of gleaming white; then a great fear,

Yet mixed with joy, assailed me, for I knew

Myself a mortal equalled with the gods.

 

      Ah me! how fair they were! how fair and dread

In face and form, they showed, when now they came

Upon the thymy slope, and the young god

Lay with his choir around him, beautiful

And bold as Youth and Dawn! There was no cloud

Upon the sky, nor any sound at all

When I began my strain. No coward fear

Of what might come restrained me; but an awe

Of those immortal eyes and ears divine

Looking and listening. All the earth seemed full

Of ears for me alone—the woods, the fields,

The hills, the skies were listening. Scarce a sound

My flute might make; such subtle harmonies

The silence seemed to weave round me and flout

The half unuttered thought. Till last I blew,

As now, a hesitating note, and lo!

The breath divine, lingering on mortal lips,

Hurried my soul along to such fair rhymes,

Sweeter than wont, that swift I knew my life

Rise up within me, and expand, and all

The human, which so nearly is divine,

Was glorified, and on the Muses' lips,

And in their lovely eyes, I saw a fair

Approval, and my soul in me was glad.

 

      For all the strains I blew were strains of love—

Love striving, love triumphant, love that lies

Within belovèd arms, and wreathes his locks

With flowers, and lets the world go by and sings

Unheeding; and I saw a kindly gleam

Within the Muses' eyes, who were indeed,

Women, though god-like.

                                                But upon the face

Of the young Sun-god only haughty scorn

Sate and he swiftly struck his golden lyre,[89]

And played the Song of Life; and lo, I knew

My strain, how earthy! Oh, to hear the young

Apollo playing! and the hidden cells

And chambers of the universe displayed

Before the charmèd sound! I seemed to float

In some enchanted cave, where the wave dips

In from the sunlit sea, and floods its depths

With reflex hues of heaven. My soul was rapt

By that I heard, and dared to wish no more

For victory; and yet because the sound

Of music that is born of human breath

Comes straighter from the soul than any strain

The hand alone can make; therefore I knew,

With a mixed thrill of pity and delight,

The nine immortal Sisters hardly touched

By this fine strain of music, as by mine,

And when the high lay trembled to its close,

Still doubting.

                            Then upon the Sun-god's face

There passed a cold proud smile. He swept his lyre

Once more, then laid it down, and with clear voice,

The voice of godhead, sang. Oh, ecstasy,

Oh happiness of him who once has heard

Apollo singing! For his ears the sound

Of grosser music dies, and all the earth

Is full of subtle undertones, which change

The listener and transform him. As he sang—

Of what I know not, but the music touched

Each chord of being—I felt my secret life

Stand open to it, as the parched earth yawns

To drink the summer rain; and at the call

Of those refreshing waters, all my thought

Stir from its dark and secret depths, and burst

Into sweet, odorous flowers, and from their wells

Deep call to deep, and all the mystery

Of all that is, laid open. As he sang,

I saw the Nine, with lovely pitying eyes,

Sign 'He has conquered.' Yet I felt no pang

Of fear, only deep joy that I had heard

Such music while I lived, even though it brought

Torture and death. For what were it to lie

Sleek, crowned with roses, drinking vulgar praise,

And surfeited with offerings, the dull gift

Of ignorant hands—all which I might have known—

To this diviner failure? Godlike 'tis

To climb upon the icy ledge, and fall

Where other footsteps dare not. So I knew

My fate, and it was near.

                                               For to a pine

They bound me willing, and with cruel stripes

Tore me, and took my life.

                                               But from my blood

Was born the stream of song, and on its flow

My poor flute, to the cool swift river borne,

Floated, and thence adown a lordlier tide

Into the deep, wide sea. I do not blame

Phœbus, or Nature which has set this bar

Betwixt success and failure, for I know

How far high failure overleaps the bound

Of low successes. Only suffering draws

The inner heart of song and can elicit

The perfumes of the soul. 'Twere not enough

To fail, for that were happiness to him

Who ever upward looks with reverent eye

And seeks but to admire. So, since the race

Of bards soars highest; as who seek to show

Our lives as in a glass; therefore it comes

That suffering weds with song, from him of old,

Who solaced his blank darkness with his verse;

Through all the story of neglect and scorn,

Necessity, sheer hunger, early death,

Which smite the singer still. Not only those

Who keep clear accents of the voice divine

Are honourable—they are happy, indeed,

Whate'er the world has held—but those who hear

Some fair faint echoes, though the crowd be deaf,

And see the white gods' garments on the hills,

Which the crowd sees not, though they may not find

Fit music for their thought; they too are blest,

Not pitiable. Not from arrogant pride

Nor over-boldness fail they who have striven

To tell what they have heard, with voice too weak

For such high message. More it is than ease,

Palace and pomp, honours and luxuries,

To have seen white Presences upon the hills,

To have heard the voices of the Eternal Gods."

 

      So spake he, and I seemed to look on him,

Whose sad young eyes grow on us from the page

Of his own verse: who did himself to death:

Or whom the dullard slew: or whom the sea

Rapt from us: and I passed without a word,

Slow, grave, with many musings.

 

 

ANDROMEDA

                                                               Then I came

On one a maiden, meek with folded hands,

Seated against a rugged face of cliff,

In silent thought. Anon she raised her arms,

Her gleaming arms, above her on the rock,

With hands which clasped each other, till she showed

As in a statue, and her white robe fell

Down from her maiden shoulders, and I knew

The fair form as it seemed chained to the stone

By some invisible gyves, and named her name:

And then she raised her frightened eyes to mine

As one who, long expecting some great fear,

Scarce sees deliverance come. But when she saw

Only a kindly glance, a softer look

Came in them, and she answered to my thought

With a sweet voice and low.

                                                     "I did but muse

Upon the painful past, long dead and done,

Forgetting I was saved.

                                           The angry clouds

Burst always on the low flat plains, and swept

The harvest to the ocean; all the land

Was wasted. A great serpent from the deep,

Lifting his horrible head above their homes,

Devoured the children. And the people prayed

In vain to careless gods.

                                              On that dear land,

Which now was turned into a sullen sea,

Gazing in safety from the stately towers

Of my sire's palace, I, a princess, saw,

Lapt in soft luxury, within my bower

The wreck of humble homes come whirling by,

The drowning, bleating flocks, the bellowing herds,

The grain scarce husbanded by toiling hands

Upon the sunlit plain, rush to the sea,

With floating corpses. On the rain-swept hills

The remnant of the people huddled close,

Homeless and starving. All my being was filled

With pity for them, and I joyed to give

What food and shelter and compassionate hands

Of woman might. I took the little ones

And clasped them shivering to the virgin breast

Which knew no other touch but theirs, and gave

Raiment and food. My sire, not stern to me,

Smiled on me as he saw. My gentle mother,

Who loved me with a closer love than binds

A mother to her son; and sunned herself

In my fresh beauty, seeing in my young eyes

Her own fair vanished youth; doted on me,

And fain had kept my eyes from the sad sights

That pained them. But my heart was sad in me,

Seeing the ineffable miseries of life,

And that mysterious anger of the gods,

And helpless to allay them. All in vain

Were prayer and supplication, all in vain

The costly victims steamed. The vengeful clouds

Hid the fierce sky, and still the ruin came.

And wallowing his grim length within the flood,

Over the ravaged fields and homeless homes,

The fell sea-monster raged, sating his jaws

With blood and rapine.

                                            Then to the dread shrine

Of Ammon went the priests, and reverend chiefs

Of all the nation. White robed, at their head,

Went slow my royal sire. The oracle

Spoke clear, not as ofttimes in words obscure,

Ambiguous. And as we stood to meet

The suppliants—she who bare me, with her head

Upon my neck—we cheerful and with song

Welcomed their swift return; auguring well

From such a quick-sped mission.

                                                               But my sire

Hid his face from me, and the crowd of priests

And nobles looked not at us. And no word

Was spoken till at last one drew a scroll

And gave it to the queen, who straightway swooned,

Having read it, on my breast, and then I saw,

I the young girl whose soft life scarcely knew

Shadow of sorrow, I whose heart was full

Of pity for the rest, what doom was mine.

 

      I think I hardly knew in that dread hour

The fear that came anon; I was transformed

Into a champion of my race, made strong

With a new courage, glorying to meet,

In all the ecstasy of sacrifice,

Death face to face. Some god, I know not who,

O'erspread me, and despite my mother's tears

And my stern father's grief, I met my fate

Unshrinking.

                        When the moon rose clear from cloud

Once more again over the midnight sea,

And that vast watery plain, where were before

Hundreds of happy homes, and well-tilled fields,

And purple vineyards; from my father's towers

The white procession went along the paths,

The high cliff paths, which well I loved of old,

Among the myrtles. Priests with censers went

And offerings, robed in white, and round their brows

The sacred fillet. With his nobles walked

My sire with breaking heart. My mother clung

To me the victim, and the young girls went

With wailing and with tears. A solemn strain

The soft flutes sounded, as we went by night

To a wild headland, rock-based in the sea.

 

      There on a sea-worn rock, upon the verge,

To some rude stanchions, high above my head,

They bound me. Out at sea, a black reef rose,

Washed by the constant surge, wherein a cave

Sheltered deep down the monster. The sad queen

Would scarcely leave me, though the priests shrunk back

In terror. Last, torn from my endless kiss,

Swooning they bore her upwards. All my robe

Fell from my lifted arms, and left displayed

The virgin treasure of my breasts; and then

The white procession through the moonlight streamed

Upwards, and soon their soft flutes sounded low

Upon the high lawns, leaving me alone.

 

      There stood I in the moonlight, left alone

Against the sea-worn rock. Hardly I knew,

Seeing only the bright moon and summer sea,

Which gently heaved and surged, and kissed the ledge

With smooth warm tides, what fate was mine. I seemed,

Soothed by the quiet, to be resting still

Within my maiden chamber, and to watch

The moonlight thro' my lattice. Then again

Fear came, and then the pride of sacrifice

Filled me, as on the high cliff lawns I heard

The wailing cries, the chanted liturgies,

And knew me bound forsaken to the rock,

And saw the monster-haunted depths of sea.

 

      So all night long upon the sandy shores

I heard the hollow murmur of the wave,

And all night long the hidden sea caves made

A ghostly echo; and the sea birds mewed

Around me; once I heard a mocking laugh,

As of some scornful Nereid; once the waters

Broke louder on the scarpèd reefs, and ebbed

As if the monster coming; but again

He came not, and the dead moon sank, and still

Only upon the cliffs the wails, the chants,

And I forsaken on my sea-worn rock,

And lo, the monster-haunted depths of sea.

 

      Till at the dead dark hour before the dawn,

When sick men die, and scarcely fear itself

Bore up my weary eyelids, a great surge

Burst on the rock, and slowly, as it seemed,

The sea sucked downward to its depths, laid bare

The hidden reefs, and then before my eyes —

Oh, horrible! a huge and loathsome snake

Lifted his dreadful crest and scaly side

Above the wave, in bulk and length so large,

Coil after hideous coil, that scarce the eye

Could measure its full horror; the great jaws

Dropped as with gore; the large and furious eyes

Were fired with blood and lust. Nearer he came,

And slowly, with a devilish glare, more near,

Till his hot fœtor choked me, and his tongue,

Forked horribly within his poisonous jaws,

Played lightning-like around me. For awhile

I swooned, and when I knew my life again,

Death's bitterness was past.

                                                    Then with a bound

Leaped up the broad red sun above the sea,

And lit the horrid fulgour of his scales,

And struck upon the rock; and as I turned

My head in the last agony of death,

I knew a brilliant sunbeam swiftly leaping

Downward from crag to crag, and felt new hope

Where all was hopeless. On the hills a shout

Of joy, and on the rocks the ring of mail;

And while the hungry serpent's gloating eyes

Were fixed on me, a knight in casque of gold

And blazing shield, who with his flashing blade

Fell on the monster. Long the conflict raged,

Till all the rocks were red with blood and slime,

And yet my champion from those horrible jaws

And dreadful coils was scatheless. Zeus his sire

Protected, and the awful shield he bore

Withered the monster's life and left him cold,

Dragging his helpless length and grovelling crest:

And o'er his glaring eyes the films of death

Crept, and his writhing flank and hiss of hate

The great deep swallowed down, and blood and spume

Rose on the waves; and a strange wailing cry

Resounded o'er the waters, and the sea

Bellowed within its hollow-sounding caves.

 

      Then knew I, I was saved, and with me all

The people. From my wrists he loosed the gyves,

My hero; and within his godlike arms

Bore me by slippery rock and difficult path,

To where my mother prayed. There was no need

To ask my love. Without a spoken word

Love lit his fires within me. My young heart

Went forth, Love calling, and I gave him all.

 

      Dost thou then wonder that the memory

Of this supreme brief moment lingers still,

While all the happy uneventful years

Of wedded life, and all the fair young growth

Of offspring, and the tranquil later joys,

Nay, even the fierce eventful fight which raged

When we were wedded, fade and are deceased,

Lost in the irrecoverable past?

Nay, 'tis not strange. Always the memory

Of overwhelming perils or great joys,

Avoided or enjoyed, writes its own trace

With such deep characters upon our lives,

That all the rest are blotted. In this place,

Where is not action, thought, or count of time,

It is not weary as it were on earth,

To dwell on these old memories. Time is born

Of dawns and sunsets, days that wax and wane

And stamp themselves upon the yielding face

Of fleeting human life; but here there is

Morning nor evening, act nor suffering,

But only one unchanging Present holds

Our being suspended. One blest day indeed,

Or centuries ago or yesterday,

There came among us one who was Divine,

Not as our gods, joyous and breathing strength

And careless life, but crowned with a new crown

Of suffering, and a great light came with him,

And with him he brought Time and a new sense

Of dim, long-vanished years; and since he passed

I seem to see new meaning in my fate,

And all the deeds I tell of. Evermore

The young life comes, bound to the cruel rocks

Alone. Before it the unfathomed sea

Smiles, filled with monstrous growths that wait to take

Its innocence. Far off the voice and hand

Of love kneel by in agony, and entreat

The seeming careless gods. Still when the deep

Is smoothest, lo, the deadly fangs and coils

Lurk near, to smite with death. And o'er the crags

Of duty, like a sudden sunbeam, springs

Some golden soul half mortal, half divine,

Heaven-sent, and breaks the chain; and evermore

For sacrifice they die, through sacrifice

They live, and are for others, and no grief

Which smites the humblest but reverberates

Thro' all the close-set files of life, and takes

The princely soul that from its royal towers

Looks down and sees the sorrow.

                                                              Sir, farewell!

If thou shouldst meet my children on the earth

Or here, for maybe it is long ago

Since I and they were living, say to them

I only muse a little here, and wait

The waking."

                         And her lifted arms sank down

Upon her knees, and as I passed I saw her

Gazing with soft rapt eyes, and on her lips

A smile as of a saint.