: Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece Complete Series I II and III by Symonds John Addington - Italy Description and travel; Greece Description and travel

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with woe! Thy gloomy snares the world ensphere: Where no man calls, thou lov'st to go; But when we call, thou wilt not hear. Fell death, false death of treachery, Thou makest all content but me.

Another is less reproachful, but scarcely less sad :--

Strew me with blossoms when I die, Nor lay me 'neath the earth below; Beyond those walls, there let me lie, Where oftentimes we used to go. There lay me to the wind and rain; Dying for you, I feel no pain: There lay me to the sun above; Dying for you, I die of love.

Yet another of these pitiful love-wailings displays much poetry of expression :--

I dug the sea, and delved the barren sand: I wrote with dust and gave it to the wind: Of melting snow, false Love, was made thy band, Which suddenly the day's bright beams unbind. Now am I ware, and know my own mistake-- How false are all the promises you make; Now am I ware, and know the fact, ah me! That who confides in you, deceived will be.

It would scarcely be well to pause upon these very doleful ditties. Take, then, the following little serenade, in which the lover on his way to visit his mistress has unconsciously fallen on the same thought as Bion :--

Enough has been quoted to illustrate the character of the Tuscan popular poetry. These village rispetti bear the same relation to the canzoniere of Petrarch as the 'savage drupe' to the 'suave plum.' They are, as it were, the wild stock of that highly artificial flower of art. Herein lies, perhaps, 304their chief importance. As in our ballad literature we may discern the stuff of the Elizabethan drama undeveloped, so in the Tuscan people's songs we can trace the crude form of that poetic instinct which produced the sonnets to Laura. It is also very probable that some such rustic minstrelsy preceded the Idylls of Theocritus and the Bucolics of Virgil; for coincidences of thought and imagery, which can scarcely be referred to any conscious study of the ancients, are not a few. Popular poetry has this great value for the student of literature: it enables him to trace those forms of fancy and of feeling which are native to the people, and which must ultimately determine the character of national art, however much that may be modified by culture.

POPULAR ITALIAN POETRY OF THE RENAISSANCE

The semi-popular poetry of the Italians in the fifteenth century formed an important branch of their national literature, and flourished independently of the courtly and scholastic studies which gave a special character to the golden age of the revival. While the latter tended to separate the people from the cultivated classes, the former established a new link of connection between them, different indeed from that which existed when smiths and carters repeated the Canzoni of Dante by heart in the fourteenth century, but still sufficiently real to exercise a weighty influence over the national development. Scholars like Angelo Poliziano, princes like Lorenzo de' Medici, men of letters like Feo Belcari and Benivieni, borrowed from the people forms of poetry, which they handled with refined taste, and appropriated to the uses of polite literature. The most important of these forms, native to the people but assimilated by the learned classes, were the Miracle Play or 'Sacra Rappresentazione;' the 'Ballata' or lyric to be sung while dancing; the 'Canto Carnascialesco' or Carnival Chorus; the 'Rispetto' or short love-ditty; the 'Lauda' or hymn; the 'Maggio' or May-song; and the 'Madrigale' or little part-song.

At Florence, where even under the despotism of the Medici a show of republican life still lingered, all classes joined in the amusements of carnival and spring time; and 306this poetry of the dance, the pageant, and the villa flourished side by side with the more serious efforts of the humanistic muse. It is not my purpose in this place to inquire into the origins of each lyrical type, to discuss the alterations they may have undergone at the hands of educated versifiers, or to define their several characteristics; but only to offer translations of such as seem to me best suited to represent the genius of the people and the age.

I went a roaming, maidens, one bright day, In a green garden in mid month of May.

Violets and lilies grew on every side Mid the green grass, and young flowers wonderful, Golden and white and red and azure-eyed; 307 Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful, To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.

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