BOOKS.

TWO BOOKS OF ITALIAN VERSE.*

THE chief aim, we imagine, of such an anthology as The Ozford Book of Italian Verse is to show clearly the

historical development of a national poetry, and the various processes through which it continually perfects itself. Life is eternal only on the condition of change ; and poetry, the perfect expression of life, is equally mutable, seeking always

new modes of utterance, yet preserving through all its changing forms, even as life itself does, that elusive quality which is essential to its being. At times the divine fire dwindles among its ashes, but a breath will quicken it again.

It is spontaneous, secret, and comes suddenly upon a man, or upon a race, with the swift ecstasy of a religious illumination that seems to change in one moment the whole aspect of life. It passes as swiftly. We can only record its apparitions at divers times in divers places, its infinite variety and its essential unity, the light that was Homer, or Virgil, or Dante, Shakespeare or Milton, Sophocles or Lope de Vega, each with its own clear-cut, flawless individuality, complete in itself ; each a mode of perfection, a voice that is not for a season but for all time. We cannot define it ; we cannot analyse its beauty ; it eludes us ; and yet it persists.

In the volume of Italian verse selected by Mr. St. John Lucas we see the development, the fluctuations of the poetic genius among a single people. It has been said, upon what grounds we cannot imagine, that there is no distinctive type of Italian poetry. Our own poetry is intensely individual, yet it has been subjected to a constant Italian influence since Chaucer heard the story of Griselda, "lerned at Padowe of a worthy clerk Fraunceys Petrark, the laureat poete," and such an influence does not point to a lack of distinction. The readers that Mr. Lucas deserves, and we hope will have, may learn from his admirable selection the

unique quality of Italian verse. His book begins with Saint Francis, " Laudes Creaturarum," that poem fulfilled with

the spirit of animism, of "natural magic" :— " Laudatu si', mi signore, per sor acqua La quale è molto utile e humele e pretiosa e costa"; and ends with the closing lines of Carducci's " Nevicata " :— "In breve, o can, in breve—tu celmati, indomito cuore- Gia al silenzio verre, ne l'ombra riposere."

Narrower in its scope, being restricted to the poets of the thirteenth century, is the selection by the late A. J. Butler entitled The Forerunners of Dante. This volume was to have been supplemented, si vita suppeditet, the author wrote, by a volume of sonnets of the same period. Life has been denied to him, and we can only lament our loss. If in his selection the field of vision is limited, the light under which we see it is clearer; and the age itself is full of heralding voices, full of blithe morning song, which Dante himself will echo, weaving the aerial melody among his more opulent harmonies, his sterner speech, as in those lines :— " Quale allodetta, oho in aere si spazia Prima cantando, e poi tace contents. Dell' ultima dolcezza, che in sazia,"— which Mr. Butler finds to be reminiscent of Bernard de Ventadour's "Per in doussor qu'al cor li vat" It was in Provence that the stream of song gushed forth again after a long silence. The Provençal poets, we might almost say, re-created lyricism in the Western world. It came to them spontaneously, as it had come to the Greeks ; and they attained, almost at once, to an extraordinary degree of mastery, making their verse strophic, varying the rhythm with unequal length of line, and giving to their songs the new glittering effect of rhyme. They created song for France, Spain, and Italy ; and Walter von der Vogelweide and the Minnesingers show more than a trace of Provencal influence. This being so, it seems a little strange that both Mr. Butler

• (1) The Oxford Book of Italian Verse. By St. John Lucas. Oxford: at the Clarendon Press. [6s. net.]—(2) The Forerunners of Boats. By A. J. Butler. Same publishers and price.

and Mr. Lucas, while admitting fully the debt of Italy to Provence, should speak of Provençal poetry in terms some- what depreciatory. To the present writer at least Bertran de Born's planh "Si tuit ii dol elh plor elh marrimen " is as fine a thing as " Morte, perch e m'al fatta si gran guerra," the wonderful lament of Giacomino Pugliese; and Jaufre Ruders " L'amor de lonh " equals the beautiful complaint of Rinaldo d'Aquino. From this last we cannot resist the temptation to quote the first verse :— " Giammai non mi conforto ne me voglio rallegrare, le navi son giunte al porto e vogliono collars; vassene in pill gent.° in terra d'oltremare, ed is lassa dolente come deg' io fare,"— a piece of wonderful simplicity and sincerity. Mr. Butler compares an example of Fm a Guittone at his best, the poem beginning "Tonto sovente dett' agio altra fiada," with Bertran de Born's "Bern platz lo gais temps de pascor." A well- defined current of Provençal influence on the beginnings of Italian poetry may be traced from Bernard de Ventadour, through the Bolognese, Guido Guinizelli, to Dante, and we may remember the words Dante puts into the mouth of Guinizelli in the Purgatorio with reference to Arnaut Daniel.

In Guinizelli we first hear the doles stil nuovo, the absolutely mystic conception of love, the note of "Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore "; so high and pure is this note that even the finest canzoni of Dante, " Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute," or "Vol che intendo ii terzo ciel movete," barely sur- pass it. Of course in the selection of Mr. Lucas we have not the great Dante, the Dante of that wonderful passage which opens the ninth canto of the Purgatorio, those lines stained and glowing with colour, trembling with power, which close with "E che in mente nostra peregrina

Pill dalla carne, e men da' pensier presa Ale sue vision quasi 6 divina";

but the age, when measured by the standard of Dante's canzoni, scarcely falls short of perfection.

We may not linger over this golden time, and Mr. Butler's book. Mr. Lucas carries us forward into the new world,—to Petrarch, whose verse has that modernity of form character- istic of all great classical work ; to Lorenzo de' Medici, that amazingly many-sided man, the perfect type of the Renaissance, who touched the history of his time at many points, and who had the gift of true song. We can scarcely hope to do justice to that sure instinct which has guided Mr. Lucas through even the most barren periods. The great disenchanted soul of Leopardi, with its serene melancholy, its hopeless resignation, rises from the pages :— "E mi sovvien reterno, E le morto stagioni, e la presents E viva, e ii anon di lei. Cosi tra questa Iminensite s'annega ii pensier mio: E ii naufragar m'e doles in questo mare."

When we read these lines, or the more consolatory music of Carducci, we are able to understand some of the causes which make poetry a persistent factor in human progress. The

voices are singing eternally. They are singing even now, and among U8. We do not hear them very distinctly in the empty clamour of the market-place, but others will hear. To us

they seem to have sunken into a whisper, to be singing only to themselves.