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 this 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.

In the composition of the poetry in question, Angelo Poliziano was indubitably the most successful.  This giant of learning, who filled the lecture-rooms of Florence with students of all nations, and whose critical and rhetorical labours marked an epoch in the history of scholarship, was by temperament a poet, and a poet of the people.  Nothing was easier for him than to throw aside his professor’s mantle, and to improvise ‘Ballate’ for the girls to sing as they danced their ‘Carola’ upon the Piazza di Santa Trinità in summer evenings.  The peculiarity of this lyric is that it starts with a couplet, which also serves as refrain, supplying the rhyme to each successive stanza.  The stanza itself is identical with our rime royal, if we count the couplet in the place of the seventh line.  The form is in itself so graceful and is so beautifully treated by Poliziano that I cannot content myself with fewer than four of his Ballate. The first is written on the world-old theme of ‘Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.’

  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;
    Toward which I stretched my hands, eager to pull
    Plenty to make my fair curls beautiful,
  To crown my rippling curls with garlands gay.

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

  But when my lap was full of flowers I spied
    Roses at last, roses of every hue;
  Therefore I ran to pluck their ruddy pride,
    Because their perfume was so sweet and true
    That all my soul went forth with pleasure new,
  With yearning and desire too soft to say.

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

  I gazed and gazed.  Hard task it were to tell
    How lovely were the roses in that hour: 
  One was but peeping from her verdant shell,
    And some were faded, some were scarce in flower: 
    Then Love said:  Go, pluck from the blooming bower
  Those that thou seest ripe upon the spray.

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

  For when the full rose quits her tender sheath,
    When she is sweetest and most fair to see,
  Then is the time to place her in thy wreath,
    Before her beauty and her freshness flee. 
    Gather ye therefore roses with great glee,
  Sweet girls, or ere their perfume pass away.

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

The next Ballata is less simple, but is composed with the same intention.  It may here be parenthetically mentioned that the courtly poet, when he applied himself to this species of composition, invented a certain rusticity of incident, scarcely in keeping with the spirit of his art.  It was in fact a conventional feature of this species of verse that the scene should be laid in the country, where the burgher, on a visit to his villa, is supposed to meet with a rustic beauty who captivates his eyes and heart.  Guido Cavalcanti, in his celebrated Ballata, ‘In un boschetto trovai pastorella,’ struck the keynote of this music, which, it may be reasonably conjectured, was imported into Italy through Provencal literature from the pastorals of Northern France.  The lady so quaintly imaged by a bird in the following Ballata of Poliziano is supposed to have been Monna Ippolita Leoncina of Prato, white-throated, golden-haired, and dressed in crimson silk.

  I found myself one day all, all alone,
  For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

  I do not think the world a field could show
    With herbs of perfume so surpassing rare;
  But when I passed beyond the green hedge-row,
    A thousand flowers around me flourished fair,
    White, pied and crimson, in the summer air;
  Among the which I heard a sweet bird’s tone.

  I found myself one day all, all alone,
  For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

  Her song it was so tender and so clear
    That all the world listened with love; then I
  With stealthy feet a-tiptoe drawing near,
    Her golden head and golden wings could spy,
    Her plumes that flashed like rubies ’neath the sky,
  Her crystal beak and throat and bosom’s zone.

  I found myself one day all, all alone,
  For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

  Fain would I snare her, smit with mighty love;
    But arrow-like she soared, and through the air
  Fled to her nest upon the boughs above;
    Wherefore to follow her is all my care,
    For haply I might lure her by some snare
  Forth from the woodland wild where she is flown.

  I found myself one day all, all alone,
  For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

  Yea, I might spread some net or woven wile;
    But since of singing she doth take such pleasure,
  Without or other art or other guile
    I seek to win her with a tuneful measure;
    Therefore in singing spend I all my leisure,
  To make by singing this sweet bird my own.

  I found myself one day all, all alone,
  For pastime in a field with blossoms strewn.

The same lady is more directly celebrated in the next Ballata, where Poliziano calls her by her name, Ippolita.  I have taken the liberty of substituting Myrrha for this somewhat unmanageable word.

  He who knows not what thing is Paradise,
  Let him look fixedly on Myrrha’s eyes.

  From Myrrha’s eyes there flieth, girt with fire,
    An angel of our lord, a laughing boy,
  Who lights in frozen hearts a flaming pyre,
    And with such sweetness doth the soul destroy,
    That while it dies, it murmurs forth its joy;
  Oh blessed am I to dwell in Paradise!

  He who knows not what thing is Paradise,
  Let him look fixedly on Myrrha’s eyes.

  From Myrrha’s eyes a virtue still doth move,
    So swift and with so fierce and strong a flight,
  That it is like the lightning of high Jove,
    Riving of iron and adamant the might;
    Nathless the wound doth carry such delight
  That he who suffers dwells in Paradise.

  He who knows not what thing is Paradise,
  Let him look fixedly on Myrrha’s eyes.

  From Myrrha’s eyes a lovely messenger
    Of joy so grave, so virtuous, doth flee,
  That all proud souls are bound to bend to her;
    So sweet her countenance, it turns the key
    Of hard hearts locked in cold security: 
  Forth flies the prisoned soul to Paradise.

  He who knows not what thing is Paradise,
  Let him look fixedly on Myrrha’s eyes.

  In Myrrha’s eyes beauty doth make her throne,
    And sweetly smile and sweetly speak her mind: 
  Such grace in her fair eyes a man hath known
    As in the whole wide world he scarce may find: 
    Yet if she slay him with a glance too kind,
  He lives again beneath her gazing eyes.

  He who knows not what thing is Paradise,
  Let him look fixedly on Myrrha’s eyes.

The fourth Ballata sets forth the fifteenth-century Italian code of love, the code of the Novelle, very different in its avowed laxity from the high ideal of the trecentisti poets.

  I ask no pardon if I follow Love;
  Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.

  From those who feel the fire I feel, what use
    Is there in asking pardon?  These are so
  Gentle, kind-hearted, tender, piteous,
    That they will have compassion, well I know. 
    From such as never felt that honeyed woe,
  I seek no pardon:  nought they know of Love.

  I ask no pardon if I follow Love;
  Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.

  Honour, pure love, and perfect gentleness,
    Weighed in the scales of equity refined,
  Are but one thing:  beauty is nought or less,
    Placed in a dame of proud and scornful mind. 
    Who can rebuke me then if I am kind
  So far as honesty comports and Love?

  I ask no pardon if I follow Love;
  Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.

  Let him rebuke me whose hard heart of stone
    Ne’er felt of Love the summer in his vein! 
  I pray to Love that who hath never known
    Love’s power, may ne’er be blessed with Love’s great gain;
    But he who serves our lord with might and main,
  May dwell for ever in the fire of Love!

  I ask no pardon if I follow Love;
  Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.

  Let him rebuke me without cause who will;
    For if he be not gentle, I fear nought: 
  My heart obedient to the same love still
    Hath little heed of light words envy-fraught: 
    So long as life remains, it is my thought
  To keep the laws of this so gentle Love.

  I ask no pardon if I follow Love;
  Since every gentle heart is thrall thereof.

This Ballata is put into a woman’s mouth.  Another, ascribed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, expresses the sadness of a man who has lost the favour of his lady.  It illustrates the well-known use of the word Signore for mistress in Florentine poetry.

  How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,
  When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

  Dances and songs and merry wakes I leave
    To lovers fair, more fortunate and gay;
  Since to my heart so many sorrows cleave
    That only doleful tears are mine for aye: 
    Who hath heart’s ease, may carol, dance, and play
  While I am fain to weep continually.

  How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,
  When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

  I too had heart’s ease once, for so Love willed,
    When my lord loved me with love strong and great: 
  But envious fortune my life’s music stilled,
    And turned to sadness all my gleeful state. 
    Ah me!  Death surely were less desolate
  Than thus to live and love-neglected be!

  How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,
  When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

  One only comfort soothes my heart’s despair,
    And mid this sorrow lends my soul some cheer;
  Unto my lord I ever yielded fair
    Service of faith untainted pure and clear;
    If then I die thus guiltless, on my bier
  It may be she will shed one tear for me.

  How can I sing light-souled and fancy-free,
  When my loved lord no longer smiles on me?

The Florentine Rispetto was written for the most part in octave stanzas, detached or continuous.  The octave stanza in Italian literature was an emphatically popular form; and it is still largely used in many parts of the peninsula for the lyrical expression of emotion. Poliziano did no more than treat it with his own facility, sacrificing the unstudied raciness of his popular models to literary elegance.

Here are a few of these detached stanzas or Rispetti Spicciolati: -

  Upon that day when first I saw thy face,
    I vowed with loyal love to worship thee. 
  Move, and I move; stay, and I keep my place: 
    Whate’er thou dost, will I do equally.

  In joy of thine I find most perfect grace,
    And in thy sadness dwells my misery: 
  Laugh, and I laugh; weep, and I too will weep. 
  Thus Love commands, whose laws I loving keep.

  Nay, be not over-proud of thy great grace,
    Lady! for brief time is thy thief and mine. 
  White will he turn those golden curls, that lace
    Thy forehead and thy neck so marble-fine. 
  Lo! while the flower still flourisheth apace,
    Pluck it:  for beauty but awhile doth shine. 
  Fair is the rose at dawn; but long ere night
    Her freshness fades, her pride hath vanished quite.

  Fire, fire!  Ho, water! for my heart’s afire! 
    Ho, neighbours! help me, or by God I die! 
  See, with his standard, that great lord, Desire! 
    He sets my heart aflame:  in vain I cry. 
  Too late, alas!  The flames mount high and higher. 
    Alack, good friends!  I faint, I fail, I die. 
  Ho! water, neighbours mine! no more delay I
  My heart’s a cinder if you do but stay.

  Lo, may I prove to Christ a renegade,
    And, dog-like, die in pagan Barbary;
  Nor may God’s mercy on my soul be laid,
    If ere for aught I shall abandon thee: 
  Before all-seeing God this prayer be made -
    When I desert thee, may death feed on me: 
  Now if thy hard heart scorn these vows, be sure
  That without faith none may abide secure.

  I ask not, Love, for any other pain
    To make thy cruel foe and mine repent,
  Only that thou shouldst yield her to the strain
    Of these my arms, alone, for chastisement;
  Then would I clasp her so with might and main,
    That she should learn to pity and relent,
  And, in revenge for scorn and proud despite,
  A thousand times I’d kiss her forehead white.

  Not always do fierce tempests vex the sea,
    Nor always clinging clouds offend the sky;
  Cold snows before the sunbeams haste to flee,
    Disclosing flowers that ’neath their whiteness lie;
  The saints each one doth wait his day to see,
    And time makes all things change; so, therefore, I
  Ween that ’tis wise to wait my turn, and say,
  That who subdues himself, deserves to sway.

It will be observed that the tone of these poems is not passionate nor elevated.  Love, as understood in Florence of the fifteenth century, was neither; nor was Poliziano the man to have revived Platonic mysteries or chivalrous enthusiasms.  When the octave stanzas, written with this amorous intention, were strung together into a continuous poem, this form of verse took the title of Rispetto Gontinuato.  In the collection of Poliziano’s poems there are several examples of the long Rispetto, carelessly enough composed, as may be gathered from the recurrence of the same stanzas in several poems.  All repeat the old arguments, the old enticements to a less than lawful love.  The one which I have chosen for translation, styled Serenata ovvero Lettera in Istrambotti, might be selected as an epitome of Florentine convention in the matter of love-making.

  O thou of fairest fairs the first and queen,
    Most courteous, kind, and honourable dame,
  Thine ear unto thy servant’s singing lean,
    Who loves thee more than health, or wealth, or fame;
  For thou his shining planet still hast been,
    And day and night he calls on thy fair name: 
  First wishing thee all good the world can give,
  Next praying in thy gentle thoughts to live.

  He humbly prayeth that thou shouldst be kind
    To think upon his pure and perfect faith,
  And that such mercy in thy heart and mind
    Should reign, as so much beauty argueth: 
  A thousand, thousand hints, or he were blind,
    Of thy great courtesy he reckoneth: 
  Wherefore thy loyal subject now doth sue
  Such guerdon only as shall prove them true.

  He knows himself unmeet for love from thee,
    Unmeet for merely gazing on thine eyes;
  Seeing thy comely squires so plenteous be,
    That there is none but ’neath thy beauty sighs: 
  Yet since thou seekest fame and bravery,
    Nor carest aught for gauds that others prize,
  And since he strives to honour thee alway,
  He still hath hope to gain thy heart one day.

  Virtue that dwells untold, unknown, unseen,
    Still findeth none to love or value it;
  Wherefore his faith, that hath so perfect been,
    Not being known, can profit him no whit: 
  He would find pity in thine eyes, I ween,
    If thou shouldst deign to make some proof of it;
  The rest may flatter, gape, and stand agaze;
  Him only faith above the crowd doth raise.

  Suppose that he might meet thee once alone,
    Face unto face, without or jealousy,
  Or doubt or fear from false misgiving grown,
    And tell his tale of grievous pain to thee,
  Sure from thy breast he’d draw full many a moan. 
    And make thy fair eyes weep right plenteously: 
  Yea, if he had but skill his heart to show,
  He scarce could fail to win thee by its woe.

  Now art thou in thy beauty’s blooming hour;
    Thy youth is yet in pure perfection’s prime: 
  Make it thy pride to yield thy fragile flower,
    Or look to find it paled by envious time: 
  For none to stay the flight of years hath power,
    And who culls roses caught by frosty rime? 
  Give therefore to thy lover, give, for they
  Too late repent who act not while they may.

  Time flies:  and lo! thou let’st it idly fly: 
    There is not in the world a thing more dear;
  And if thou wait to see sweet May pass by,
    Where find’st thou roses in the later year? 
  He never can, who lets occasion die: 
    Now that thou canst, stay not for doubt or fear;
  But by the forelock take the flying hour,
  Ere change begins, and clouds above thee lower.

  Too long ’twixt yea and nay he hath been wrung;
    Whether he sleep or wake he little knows,
  Or free or in the bands of bondage strung: 
    Nay, lady, strike, and let thy lover loose! 
  What joy hast thou to keep a captive hung? 
    Kill him at once, or cut the cruel noose: 
  No more, I prithee, stay; but take thy part: 
  Either relax the bow, or speed the dart.

  Thou feedest him on words and windiness,
    On smiles, and signs, and bladders light as air;
  Saying, thou fain wouldst comfort his distress,
    But dar’st not, canst not:  nay, dear lady fair,
  All things are possible beneath the stress
    Of will, that flames above the soul’s despair! 
  Dally no longer:  up, set to thy hand;
  Or see his love unclothed and naked stand.

  For he hath sworn, and by this oath will bide,
    E’en though his life be lost in the endeavour,
  To leave no way, nor art, nor wile untried,
    Until he pluck the fruit he sighs for ever: 
  And, though he still would spare thy honest pride,
    The knot that binds him he must loose or sever;
  Thou too, O lady, shouldst make sharp thy knife,
  If thou art fain to end this amorous strife.

  Lo! if thou lingerest still in dubious dread,
    Lest thou shouldst lose fair fame of honesty,
  Here hast thou need of wile and warihead,
    To test thy lover’s strength in screening thee;
  Indulge him, if thou find him well bestead,
    Knowing that smothered love flames outwardly: 
  Therefore, seek means, search out some privy way;
    Keep not the steed too long at idle play.

  Or if thou heedest what those friars teach,
    I cannot fail, lady, to call thee fool: 
  Well may they blame our private sins and preach;
    But ill their acts match with their spoken rule;
  The same pitch clings to all men, one and each. 
    There, I have spoken:  set the world to school
  With this true proverb, too, be well acquainted
  The devil’s ne’er so black as he is painted.

  Nor did our good Lord give such grace to thee
    That thou shouldst keep it buried in thy breast,
  But to reward thy servant’s constancy,
    Whose love and loyal faith thou hast repressed: 
  Think it no sin to be some trifle free,
    Because thou livest at a lord’s behest;
  For if he take enough to feed his fill,
  To cast the rest away were surely ill.

  They find most favour in the sight of heaven
    Who to the poor and hungry are most kind;
  A hundred-fold shall thus to thee be given
    By God, who loves the free and generous mind;
  Thrice strike thy breast, with pure contrition riven,
    Crying:  I sinned; my sin hath made me blind! -
  He wants not much:  enough if he be able
  To pick up crumbs that fall beneath thy table.

  Wherefore, O lady, break the ice at length;
    Make thou, too, trial of love’s fruits and flowers: 
  When in thine arms thou feel’st thy lover’s strength,
    Thou wilt repent of all these wasted hours;
  Husbands, they know not love, its breadth and length,
    Seeing their hearts are not on fire like ours: 
  Things longed for give most pleasure; this I tell thee: 
  If still thou doubtest let the proof compel thee.

  What I have spoken is pure gospel sooth;
   I have told all my mind, withholding nought: 
  And well, I ween, thou canst unhusk the truth,
   And through the riddle read the hidden thought: 
  Perchance if heaven still smile upon my youth,
   Some good effect for me may yet be wrought: 
  Then fare thee well; too many words offend: 
  She who is wise is quick to comprehend.

The levity of these love-declarations and the fluency of their vows show them to be ‘false as dicers’ oaths,’ mere verses of the moment, made to please a facile mistress.  One long poem, which cannot be styled a Rispetto, but is rather a Canzone of the legitimate type, stands out with distinctness from the rest of Poliziano’s love-verses.  It was written by him for Giuliano de’ Medici, in praise of the fair Simonetta.  The following version attempts to repeat its metrical effects in some measure: -

  My task it is, since thus Love wills, who strains
    And forces all the world beneath his sway,
    In lowly verse to say
  The great delight that in my bosom reigns. 
  For if perchance I took but little pains
    To tell some part of all the joy I find,
    I might be deem’d unkind
  By one who knew my heart’s deep happiness. 
  He feels but little bliss who hides his bliss;
    Small joy hath he whose joy is never sung;
    And he who curbs his tongue
  Through cowardice, knows but of love the name. 
  Wherefore to succour and augment the fame
    Of that pure, virtuous, wise, and lovely may,
    Who like the star of day
  Shines mid the stars, or like the rising sun,
  Forth from my burning heart the words shall run. 
    Far, far be envy, far be jealous fear,
    With discord dark and drear,
  And all the choir that is of love the foe. -
  The season had returned when soft winds blow,
    The season friendly to young lovers coy,
    Which bids them clothe their joy
  In divers garbs and many a masked disguise. 
  Then I to track the game ’neath April skies
    Went forth in raiment strange apparelled,
    And by kind fate was led
  Unto the spot where stayed my soul’s desire. 
  The beauteous nymph who feeds my soul with fire,
    I found in gentle, pure, and prudent mood,
    In graceful attitude,
  Loving and courteous, holy, wise, benign. 
  So sweet, so tender was her face divine,
    So gladsome, that in those celestial eyes
    Shone perfect paradise,
  Yea, all the good that we poor mortals crave. 
  Around her was a band so nobly brave
    Of beauteous dames, that as I gazed at these
    Methought heaven’s goddesses
  That day for once had deigned to visit earth. 
  But she who gives my soul sorrow and mirth,
    Seemed Pallas in her gait, and in her face
    Venus; for every grace
  And beauty of the world in her combined. 
  Merely to think, far more to tell my mind
    Of that most wondrous sight, confoundeth me,
    For mid the maidens she
  Who most resembled her was found most rare. 
  Call ye another first among the fair;
    Not first, but sole before my lady set: 
    Lily and violet
  And all the flowers below the rose must bow. 
  Down from her royal head and lustrous brow
    The golden curls fell sportively unpent,
    While through the choir she went
  With feet well lessoned to the rhythmic sound. 
  Her eyes, though scarcely raised above the ground,
    Sent me by stealth a ray divinely fair;
    But still her jealous hair
  Broke the bright beam, and veiled her from my gaze. 
  She, born and nursed in heaven for angels’ praise,
    No sooner saw this wrong, than back she drew,
    With hand of purest hue,
  Her truant curls with kind and gentle mien. 
  Then from her eyes a soul so fiery keen,
    So sweet a soul of love she cast on mine,
    That scarce can I divine
  How then I ’scaped from burning utterly. 
  These are the first fair signs of love to be,
    That bound my heart with adamant, and these
    The matchless courtesies
  Which, dreamlike, still before mine eyes must hover. 
  This is the honeyed food she gave her lover,
    To make him, so it pleased her, half-divine;
    Nectar is not so fine,
  Nor ambrosy, the fabled feast of Jove. 
  Then, yielding proofs more clear and strong of love,
    As though to show the faith within her heart,
    She moved, with subtle art,
  Her feet accordant to the amorous air. 
  But while I gaze and pray to God that ne’er
    Might cease that happy dance angelical,
    O harsh, unkind recall! 
  Back to the banquet was she beckoned. 
  She, with her face at first with pallor spread,
    Then tinted with a blush of coral dye,
    ‘The ball is best!’ did cry,
  Gentle in tone and smiling as she spake. 
  But from her eyes celestial forth did break
    Favour at parting; and I well could see
    Young love confusedly
  Enclosed within the furtive fervent gaze,
  Heating his arrows at their beauteous rays,
    For war with Pallas and with Dian cold. 
    Fairer than mortal mould,
  She moved majestic with celestial gait;
  And with her hand her robe in royal state
    Raised, as she went with pride ineffable. 
    Of me I cannot tell,
  Whether alive or dead I there was left. 
  Nay, dead, methinks! since I of thee was reft,
    Light of my life! and yet, perchance, alive -
    Such virtue to revive
  My lingering soul possessed thy beauteous face,
  But if that powerful charm of thy great grace
    Could then thy loyal lover so sustain,
    Why comes there not again
  More often or more soon the sweet delight? 
  Twice hath the wandering moon with borrowed light
    Stored from her brother’s rays her crescent horn,
    Nor yet hath fortune borne
  Me on the way to so much bliss again. 
  Earth smiles anew; fair spring renews her reign: 
    The grass and every shrub once more is green;
    The amorous birds begin,
  From winter loosed, to fill the field with song. 
  See how in loving pairs the cattle throng;
    The bull, the ram, their amorous jousts enjoy: 
    Thou maiden, I a boy,
  Shall we prove traitors to love’s law for aye? 
  Shall we these years that are so fair let fly? 
    Wilt thou not put thy flower of youth to use? 
    Or with thy beauty choose
  To make him blest who loves thee best of all? 
  Haply I am some hind who guards the stall,
    Or of vile lineage, or with years outworn,
    Poor, or a cripple born,
  Or faint of spirit that you spurn me so? 
  Nay, but my race is noble and doth grow
    With honour to our land, with pomp and power;
    My youth is yet in flower,
  And it may chance some maiden sighs for me. 
  My lot it is to deal right royally
    With all the goods that fortune spreads around,
    For still they more abound,
  Shaken from her full lap, the more I waste. 
  My strength is such as whoso tries shall taste;
    Circled with friends, with favours crowned am I: 
    Yet though I rank so high
  Among the blest, as men may reckon bliss,
  Still without thee, my hope, my happiness,
    It seems a sad, and bitter thing to live! 
    Then stint me not, but give
  That joy which holds all joys enclosed in one. 
  Let me pluck fruits at last, not flowers alone!

With much that is frigid, artificial, and tedious in this old-fashioned love-song, there is a curious monotony of sweetness which commends it to our ears; and he who reads it may remember the profile portrait of Simonetta from the hand of Piero della Francesca in the Pitti Palace at Florence.

It is worth comparing Poliziano’s treatment of popular or semi-popular verse-forms with his imitations of Petrarch’s manner.  For this purpose I have chosen a Canzone, clearly written in competition with the celebrated ‘Chiare, fresche e dolci acque,’ of Laura’s lover.  While closely modelled upon Petrarch’s form and similar in motive, this Canzone preserves Poliziano’s special qualities of fluency and emptiness of content.

  Hills, valleys, caves and fells,
    With flowers and leaves and herbage spread;
    Green meadows; shadowy groves where light is low;
    Lawns watered with the rills
    That cruel Love hath made me shed,
    Cast from these cloudy eyes so dark with woe;
    Thou stream that still dost know
    What fell pangs pierce my heart,
    So dost thou murmur back my moan;
    Lone bird that chauntest tone for tone,
    While in our descant drear Love sings his part: 
    Nymphs, woodland wanderers, wind and air;
    List to the sound out-poured from my despair! 
  Seven times and once more seven
    The roseate dawn her beauteous brow
    Enwreathed with orient jewels hath displayed;
    Cynthia once more in heaven
    Hath orbed her horns with silver now;
    While in sea waves her brother’s light was laid;
    Since this high mountain glade
    Felt the white footsteps fall
    Of that proud lady, who to spring
    Converts whatever woodland thing
    She may o’ershadow, touch, or heed at all. 
    Here bloom the flowers, the grasses spring
    From her bright eyes, and drink what mine must bring. 
  Yea, nourished with my tears
    Is every little leaf I see,
    And the stream rolls therewith a prouder wave. 
    Ah me! through what long years
    Will she withhold her face from me,
    Which stills the stormy skies howe’er they rave? 
    Speak! or in grove or cave
    If one hath seen her stray,
    Plucking amid those grasses green
    Wreaths for her royal brows serene,
    Flowers white and blue and red and golden gay! 
    Nay, prithee, speak, if pity dwell
    Among these woods, within this leafy dell! 
  O Love! ’twas here we saw,
    Beneath the new-fledged leaves that spring
    From this old beech, her fair form lowly laid: -
    The thought renews my awe! 
    How sweetly did her tresses fling
    Waves of wreathed gold unto the winds that strayed
    Fire, frost within me played,
    While I beheld the bloom
    Of laughing flowers - O day of bliss! -
    Around those tresses meet and kiss,
    And roses in her lap of Love the home! 
    Her grace, her port divinely fair,
    Describe it, Love! myself I do not dare. 
  In mute intent surprise
    I gazed, as when a hind is seen
    To dote upon its image in a rill;
    Drinking those love-lit eyes,
    Those hands, that face, those words serene,
    That song which with delight the heaven did fill,
    That smile which thralls me still,
    Which melteth stones unkind,
    Which in this woodland wilderness
    Tames every beast and stills the stress
    Of hurrying waters.  Would that I could find
    Her footprints upon field or grove! 
    I should not then be envious of Jove. 
  Thou cool stream rippling by,
    Where oft it pleased her to dip
    Her naked foot, how blest art thou! 
    Ye branching trees on high,
    That spread your gnarled roots on the lip
    Of yonder hanging rock to drink heaven’s dew! 
    She often leaned on you,
    She who is my life’s bliss! 
    Thou ancient beech with moss o’ergrown,
    How do I envy thee thy throne,
    Found worthy to receive such happiness! 
    Ye winds, how blissful must ye be,
    Since ye have borne to heaven her harmony! 
  The winds that music bore,
    And wafted it to God on high,
    That Paradise might have the joy thereof. 
    Flowers here she plucked, and wore
    Wild roses from the thorn hard by: 
    This air she lightened with her look of love: 
    This running stream above,
    She bent her face! - Ah me! 
    Where am I?  What sweet makes me swoon? 
    What calm is in the kiss of noon? 
    Who brought me here?  Who speaks?  What melody? 
    Whence came pure peace into my soul? 
    What joy hath rapt me from my own control?

Poliziano’s refrain is always:  ’Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.  It is spring-time now and youth.  Winter and old age are coming!’ A Maggio, or May-day song, describing the games, dances, and jousting matches of the Florentine lads upon the morning of the first of May, expresses this facile philosophy of life with a quaintness that recalls Herrick.  It will be noticed that the Maggio is built, so far as rhymes go, on the same system as Poliziano’s Ballata.  It has considerable historical interest, for the opening couplet is said to be Guido Cavalcanti’s, while the whole poem is claimed by Roscoe for Lorenzo de’ Medici, and by Carducci with better reason for Poliziano.

    Welcome in the May
    And the woodland garland gay!

  Welcome in the jocund spring
    Which bids all men lovers be! 
  Maidens, up with carolling,
    With your sweethearts stout and free,
    With roses and with blossoms ye
  Who deck yourselves this first of May!

  Up, and forth into the pure
    Meadows, mid the trees and flowers! 
  Every beauty is secure
    With so many bachelors: 
    Beasts and birds amid the bowers
  Burn with love this first of May.

  Maidens, who are young and fair,
    Be not harsh, I counsel you;
  For your youth cannot repair
    Her prime of spring, as meadows do: 
    None be proud, but all be true
  To men who love, this first of May.

  Dance and carol every one
    Of our band so bright and gay! 
  See your sweethearts how they run
    Through the jousts for you to-day! 
    She who saith her lover nay,
  Will deflower the sweets of May,

  Lads in love take sword and shield
    To make pretty girls their prize: 
  Yield ye, merry maidens, yield
    To your lovers’ vows and sighs: 
    Give his heart back ere it dies: 
  Wage not war this first of May.

  He who steals another’s heart,
    Let him give his own heart too: 
  Who’s the robber?  ’Tis the smart
    Little cherub Cupid, who
    Homage comes to pay with you,
  Damsels, to the first of May.

  Love comes smiling; round his head
    Lilies white and roses meet: 
  ’Tis for you his flight is sped. 
    Fair one, haste our king to greet: 
    Who will fling him blossoms sweet
  Soonest on this first of May?

  Welcome, stranger! welcome, king! 
    Love, what hast thou to command? 
  That each girl with wreaths should ring
    Her lover’s hair with loving hand,
    That girls small and great should band
  In Love’s ranks this first of May.

The Canto Carnascialesco, for the final development if not for the invention of which all credit must be given to Lorenzo de’ Medici, does not greatly differ from the Maggio in structure.  It admitted, however, of great varieties, and was generally more complex in its interweaving of rhymes.  Yet the essential principle of an exordium which should also serve for a refrain, was rarely, if ever, departed from.  Two specimens of the Carnival Song will serve to bring into close contrast two very different aspects of Florentine history.  The earlier was composed by Lorenzo de’ Medici at the height of his power and in the summer of Italian independence.  It was sung by masquers attired in classical costume, to represent Bacchus and his crew.

  Fair is youth and void of sorrow;
    But it hourly flies away. -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  This is Bacchus and the bright
    Ariadne, lovers true! 
  They, in flying time’s despite,
    Each with each find pleasure new;
  These their Nymphs, and all their crew
    Keep perpetual holiday. -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  These blithe Satyrs, wanton-eyed,
    Of the Nymphs are paramours: 
  Through the caves and forests wide
    They have snared them mid the flowers;
  Warmed with Bacchus, in his bowers,
    Now they dance and leap alway. -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  These fair Nymphs, they are not loth
    To entice their lovers’ wiles. 
  None but thankless folk and rough
    Can resist when Love beguiles. 
  Now enlaced, with wreathed smiles,
    All together dance and play. -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  See this load behind them plodding
    On the ass!  Silenus he,
  Old and drunken, merry, nodding,
    Full of years and jollity;
  Though he goes so swayingly,
    Yet he laughs and quaffs alway. -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  Midas treads a wearier measure: 
    All he touches turns to gold: 
  If there be no taste of pleasure,
    What’s the use of wealth untold? 
  What’s the joy his fingers hold,
    When he’s forced to thirst for aye? -
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  Listen well to what we’re saying;
    Of to-morrow have no care! 
  Young and old together playing,
    Boys and girls, be blithe as air! 
  Every sorry thought forswear! 
    Keep perpetual holiday. –­
    Youths and maids, enjoy to-day;
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  Ladies and gay lovers young! 
    Long live Bacchus, live Desire! 
  Dance and play; let songs be sung;
    Let sweet love your bosoms fire;
  In the future come what may! –­
  Youths and maids, enjoy to-day! 
  Nought ye know about to-morrow.

  Fair is youth and void of sorrow;
    But it hourly flies away.

The next, composed by Antonio Alamanni, after Lorenzo’s death and the ominous passage of Charles VIII., was sung by masquers habited as skeletons.  The car they rode on, was a Car of Death designed by Piero di Cosimo, and their music was purposely gloomy.  If in the jovial days of the Medici the streets of Florence had rung to the thoughtless refrain, ‘Nought ye know about to-morrow,’ they now re-echoed with a cry of ‘Penitence;’ for times had strangely altered, and the heedless past had brought forth a doleful present.  The last stanza of Alamanni’s chorus is a somewhat clumsy attempt to adapt the too real moral of his subject to the customary mood of the Carnival.

  Sorrow, tears, and penitence
  Are our doom of pain for aye;
  This dead concourse riding by
  Hath no cry but penitence!

  E’en as you are, once were we: 
  You shall be as now we are: 
  We are dead men, as you see: 
  We shall see you dead men, where
  Nought avails to take great care,
  After sins, of penitence.

  We too in the Carnival
  Sang our love-songs through the town;
  Thus from sin to sin we all
  Headlong, heedless, tumbled down: -
  Now we cry, the world around,
  Penitence! oh, Penitence!

  Senseless, blind, and stubborn fools! 
  Time steals all things as he rides: 
  Honours, glories, states, and schools,
  Pass away, and nought abides;
  Till the tomb our carcase hides,
  And compels this penitence.

  This sharp scythe you see us bear,
  Brings the world at length to woe: 
  But from life to life we fare;
  And that life is joy or woe: 
  All heaven’s bliss on him doth flow
  Who on earth does penitence.

  Living here, we all must die;
  Dying, every soul shall live: 
  For the King of kings on high
  This fixed ordinance doth give: 
  Lo, you all are fugitive! 
  Penitence!  Cry Penitence!

  Torment great and grievous dole
  Hath the thankless heart mid you;
  But the man of piteous soul
  Finds much honour in our crew: 
  Love for loving is the due
  That prevents this penitence.

  Sorrow, tears, and penitence
  Are our doom of pain for aye: 
  This dead concourse riding by
  Hath no cry but Penitence!

One song for dancing, composed less upon the type of the Ballata than on that of the Carnival Song, may here be introduced, not only in illustration of the varied forms assumed by this style of poetry, but also because it is highly characteristic of Tuscan town-life.  This poem in the vulgar style has been ascribed to Lorenzo de’ Medici, but probably without due reason.  It describes the manners and customs of female street gossips.

  Since you beg with such a grace,
      How can I refuse a song,
      Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,
      On the follies of the place?

  Courteously on you I call;
      Listen well to what I sing: 
      For my roundelay to all
      May perchance instruction bring,
      And of life good lessoning. -
      When in company you meet,
      Or sit spinning, all the street
      Clamours like a market-place.

  Thirty of you there may be;
      Twenty-nine are sure to buzz,
      And the single silent she
      Racks her brains about her coz: -
      Mrs. Buzz and Mrs. Huzz,
      Mind your work, my ditty saith;
      Do not gossip till your breath
      Fails and leaves you black of face!

  Governments go out and in: -
      You the truth must needs discover. 
      Is a girl about to win
      A brave husband in her lover? -
      Straight you set to talk him over: 
      ‘Is he wealthy?’ ’Does his coat
      Fit?’ ‘And has he got a vote?’
      ‘Who’s his father?’ ‘What’s his race?’

  Out of window one head pokes;
      Twenty others do the same: -
      Chatter, clatter! - creaks and croaks
      All the year the same old game! -
      ‘See my spinning!’ cries one dame,
      ‘Five long ells of cloth, I trow!’
      Cries another, ’Mine must go,
      Drat it, to the bleaching base!’

  ‘Devil take the fowl!’ says one: 
      ’Mine are all bewitched, I guess;
      Cocks and hens with vermin run,
      Mangy, filthy, featherless.’ 
      Says another:  ’I confess
      Every hair I drop, I keep -
      Plague upon it, in a heap
      Falling off to my disgrace!’

  If you see a fellow walk
      Up or down the street and back,
      How you nod and wink and talk,
      Hurry-skurry, cluck and clack! -
      ’What, I wonder, does he lack
      Here about?’ - ’There’s something wrong!’
      Till the poor man’s made a song
      For the female populace.

  It were well you gave no thought
      To such idle company;
      Shun these gossips, care for nought
      But the business that you ply. 
      You who chatter, you who cry,
      Heed my words; be wise, I pray: 
      Fewer, shorter stories say: 
      Bide at home, and mind your place.

  Since you beg with such a grace,
      How can I refuse a song,
      Wholesome, honest, void of wrong,
      On the follies of the place?

The Madrigale, intended to be sung in parts, was another species of popular poetry cultivated by the greatest of Italian writers.  Without seeking examples from such men as Petrarch, Michelangelo, or Tasso, who used it as a purely literary form, I will content myself with a few Madrigals by anonymous composers, more truly popular in style, and more immediately intended for music. The similarity both of manner and matter, between these little poems and the Ballate, is obvious.  There is the same affectation of rusticity in both.

  Cogliendo per un prato.

  Plucking white lilies in a field I saw
    Fair women, laden with young Love’s delight: 
    Some sang, some danced; but all were fresh and bright. 
  Then by the margin of a fount they leaned,
    And of those flowers made garlands for their hair -
    Wreaths for their golden tresses quaint and rare. 
  Forth from the field I passed, and gazed upon
  Their loveliness, and lost my heart to one.

  Togliendo l’ una all’ altra.

  One from the other borrowing leaves and flowers,
    I saw fair maidens ’neath the summer trees,
    Weaving bright garlands with low love-ditties. 
  Mid that sweet sisterhood the loveliest
    Turned her soft eyes to me, and whispered, ‘Take!’
    Love-lost I stood, and not a word I spake. 
  My heart she read, and her fair garland gave: 
  Therefore I am her servant to the grave.

  Appress’ un fiume chiaro.

  Hard by a crystal stream
    Girls and maids were dancing round
    A lilac with fair blossoms crowned. 
  Mid these I spied out one
    So tender-sweet, so love-laden,
    She stole my heart with singing then: 
  Love in her face so lovely-kind
  And eyes and hands my soul did bind.

  Di riva in riva.

  From lawn to lea Love led me down the valley,
    Seeking my hawk, where ’neath a pleasant hill
    I spied fair maidens bathing in a rill. 
  Lina was there all loveliness excelling;
    The pleasure of her beauty made me sad,
    And yet at sight of her my soul was glad. 
  Downward I cast mine eyes with modest seeming,
    And all a tremble from the fountain fled: 
    For each was naked as her maidenhead. 
  Thence singing fared I through a flowery plain,
  Where bye and bye I found my hawk again!

  Nel chiaro fiume.

  Down a fair streamlet crystal-clear and pleasant
    I went a fishing all alone one day,
    And spied three maidens bathing there at play. 
  Of love they told each other honeyed stories,
    While with white hands they smote the stream, to wet
    Their sunbright hair in the pure rivulet. 
  Gazing I crouched among thick flowering leafage,
    Till one who spied a rustling branch on high,
    Turned to her comrades with a sudden cry,
  And ‘Go!  Nay, prithee go!’ she called to me: 
    ‘To stay were surely but scant courtesy.’

  Quel sole che nutrica.

  The sun which makes a lily bloom,
    Leans down at times on her to gaze -
    Fairer, he deems, than his fair rays: 
  Then, having looked a little while,
    He turns and tells the saints in bliss
    How marvellous her beauty is. 
  Thus up in heaven with flute and string
  Thy loveliness the angels sing.

  Di novo e giunt’.

  Lo:  here hath come an errant knight
    On a barbed charger clothed in mail: 
  His archers scatter iron hail. 
  At brow and breast his mace he aims;
    Who therefore hath not arms of proof,
    Let him live locked by door and roof;
  Until Dame Summer on a day
  That grisly knight return to slay.

Poliziano’s treatment of the octave stanza for Rispetti was comparatively popular.  But in his poem of ‘La Giostra,’ written to commemorate the victory of Giuliano de’ Medici in a tournament and to celebrate his mistress, he gave a new and richer form to the metre which Boccaccio had already used for epic verse.  The slight and uninteresting framework of this poem, which opened a new sphere for Italian literature, and prepared the way for Ariosto’s golden cantos, might be compared to one of those wire baskets which children steep in alum water, and incrust with crystals, sparkling, artificial, beautiful with colours not their own.  The mind of Poliziano held, as it were, in solution all the images and thoughts of antiquity, all the riches of his native literature.  In that vast reservoir of poems and mythologies and phrases, so patiently accumulated, so tenaciously preserved, so thoroughly assimilated, he plunged the trivial subject he had chosen, and triumphantly presented to the world the spolia opima of scholarship and taste.  What mattered it that the theme was slight?  The art was perfect, the result splendid.  One canto of 125 stanzas describes the youth of Giuliano, who sought to pass his life among the woods, a hunter dead to love, but who was doomed to be ensnared by Cupid.  The chase, the beauty of Simonetta, the palace of Venus, these are the three subjects of a book as long as the first Iliad.  The second canto begins with dreams and prophecies of glory to be won by Giuliano in the tournament.  But it stops abruptly.  The tragic catastrophe of the Pazzi Conjuration cut short Poliziano’s panegyric by the murder of his hero.  Meanwhile the poet had achieved his purpose.  His torso presented to Italy a model of style, a piece of written art adequate to the great painting of the Renaissance period, a double star of poetry which blent the splendours of the ancient and the modern world.  To render into worthy English the harmonies of Poliziano is a difficult task.  Yet this must be attempted if an English reader is to gain any notion of the scope and substance of the Italian poet’s art.  In the first part of the poem we are placed, as it were, at the mid point between the ‘Hippolytus’ of Euripides and Shakspere’s ‘Venus and Adonis.’  The cold hunter Giuliano is to see Simonetta, and seeing, is to love her.  This is how he first discovers the triumphant beauty:

  White is the maid, and white the robe around her,
    With buds and roses and thin grasses pied;
  Enwreathed folds of golden tresses crowned her,
  Shadowing her forehead fair with modest pride: 

  The wild wood smiled; the thicket where he found her,
    To ease his anguish, bloomed on every side: 
  Serene she sits, with gesture queenly mild,
  And with her brow tempers the tempests wild.

After three stanzas of this sort, in which the poet’s style is more apparent than the object he describes, occurs this charming picture: -

  Reclined he found her on the swarded grass
    In jocund mood; and garlands she had made
  Of every flower that in the meadow was,
    Or on her robe of many hues displayed;
  But when she saw the youth before her pass,
    Raising her timid head awhile she stayed;
  Then with her white hand gathered up her dress,
    And stood, lap-full of flowers, in loveliness.

  Then through the dewy field with footstep slow
    The lingering maid began to take her way,
  Leaving her lover in great fear and woe,
    For now he longs for nought but her alway: 
  The wretch, who cannot bear that she should go,
    Strives with a whispered prayer her feet to stay;
  And thus at last, all trembling, all afire,
  In humble wise he breathes his soul’s desire: 

  ’Whoe’er thou art, maid among maidens queen,
    Goddess, or nymph - nay, goddess seems most clear -
  If goddess, sure my Dian I have seen;
    If mortal, let thy proper self appear! 
  Beyond terrestrial beauty is thy mien;
    I have no merit that I should be here! 
  What grace of heaven, what lucky star benign
  Yields me the sight of beauty so divine?’

A conversation ensues, after which Giuliano departs utterly lovesick, and Cupid takes wing exultingly for Cyprus, where his mother’s palace stands.  In the following picture of the house of Venus, who shall say how much of Ariosto’s Alcina and Tasso’s Armida is contained?  Cupid arrives, and the family of Love is filled with joy at Giuliano’s conquest.  From the plan of the poem it is clear that its beauties are chiefly those of detail.  They are, however, very great.  How perfect, for example, is the richness combined with delicacy of the following description of a country life: -

BOOK I.   STANZAS 17-21.

  How far more safe it is, how far more fair,
    To chase the flying deer along the lea;
  Through ancient woods to track their hidden lair,
    Far from the town, with long-drawn subtlety: 
  To scan the vales, the hills, the limpid air,
    The grass and flowers, clear ice, and streams so free;
  To hear the birds wake from their winter trance,
  The wind-stirred leaves and murmuring waters dance.

  How sweet it were to watch the young goats hung
    From toppling crags, cropping the tender shoot,
  While in thick pleached shade the shepherd sung
    His uncouth rural lay and woke his flute;
  To mark, mid dewy grass, red apples flung,
    And every bough thick set with ripening fruit,
  The butting rams, kine lowing o’er the lea,
  And cornfields waving like the windy sea.

  Lo! how the rugged master of the herd
    Before his flock unbars the wattled cote;
  Then with his rod and many a rustic word
    He rules their going:  or ’tis sweet to note
  The delver, when his toothed rake hath stirred
    The stubborn clod, his hoe the glebe hath smote;
  Barefoot the country girl, with loosened zone,
  Spins, while she keeps her geese ’neath yonder stone.

  After such happy wise, in ancient years,
    Dwelt the old nations in the age of gold;
  Nor had the fount been stirred of mothers’ tears
    For sons in war’s fell labour stark and cold;
  Nor trusted they to ships the wild wind steers,
    Nor yet had oxen groaning ploughed the wold;
  Their houses were huge oaks, whose trunks had store
  Of honey, and whose boughs thick acorns bore.

  Nor yet, in that glad time, the accursed thirst
    Of cruel gold had fallen on this fair earth: 
  Joyous in liberty they lived at first;
    Unploughed the fields sent forth their teeming birth;
  Till fortune, envious of such concord, burst
    The bond of law, and pity banned and worth;
  Within their breasts sprang luxury and that rage
  Which men call love in our degenerate age.

We need not be reminded that these stanzas are almost a cento from Virgil, Hesiod, and Ovid.  The merits of the translator, adapter, and combiner, who knew so well how to cull their beauties and adorn them with a perfect dress of modern diction, are so eminent that we cannot deny him the title of a great poet.  It is always in picture-painting more than in dramatic presentation that Poliziano excels.  Here is a basrelief of Venus rising from the Ocean foam: -

STANZAS 99-107.

  In Thetis’ lap, upon the vexed Egean,
    The seed deific from Olympus sown,
  Beneath dim stars and cycling empyrean
    Drifts like white foam across the salt waves blown;
  Thence, born at last by movements hymenean,
    Rises a maid more fair than man hath known;
  Upon her shell the wanton breezes waft her;
    She nears the shore, while heaven looks down with laughter

  Seeing the carved work you would cry that real
    Were shell and sea, and real the winds that blow;
  The lightning of the goddess’ eyes you feel,
    The smiling heavens, the elemental glow: 
  White-vested Hours across the smooth sands steal,
    With loosened curls that to the breezes flow;
  Like, yet unlike, are all their beauteous faces,
  E’en as befits a choir of sister Graces.

  Well might you swear that on those waves were riding
   The goddess with her right hand on her hair,
  And with the other the sweet apple hiding;
    And that beneath her feet, divinely fair,
  Fresh flowers sprang forth, the barren sands dividing;
    Then that, with glad smiles and enticements rare,
  The three nymphs round their queen, embosoming her,
  Threw the starred mantle soft as gossamer.

  The one, with hands above her head upraised,
    Upon her dewy tresses fits a wreath,
  With ruddy gold and orient gems emblazed;
    The second hangs pure pearls her ears beneath;
  The third round shoulders white and breast hath placed
    Such wealth of gleaming carcanets as sheathe
  Their own fair bosoms, when the Graces sing
  Among the gods with dance and carolling.

  Thence might you see them rising toward the spheres,
    Seated upon a cloud of silvery white;
  The trembling of the cloven air appears
    Wrought in the stone, and heaven serenely bright;
  The gods drink in with open eyes and ears
    Her beauty, and desire her bed’s delight;
  Each seems to marvel with a mute amaze -
  Their brows and foreheads wrinkle as they gaze.

The next quotation shows Venus in the lap of Mars, and Visited by
Cupid: -

  STANZAS 122 - 124.

  Stretched on a couch, outside the coverlid,
    Love found her, scarce unloosed from Mars’ embrace;
  He, lying back within her bosom, fed
    His eager eyes on nought but her fair face;

  Roses above them like a cloud were shed,
    To reinforce them in the amorous chace;
  While Venus, quick with longings unsuppressed,
    A thousand times his eyes and forehead kissed.

  Above, around, young Loves on every side
    Played naked, darting birdlike to and fro;
  And one, whose plumes a thousand colours dyed,
    Fanned the shed roses as they lay arow;
  One filled his quiver with fresh flowers, and hied
    To pour them on the couch that lay below;
  Another, poised upon his pinions, through
  The falling shower soared shaking rosy dew: 

  For, as he quivered with his tremulous wing,
    The wandering roses in their drift were stayed; -
  Thus none was weary of glad gambolling;
    Till Cupid came, with dazzling plumes displayed,
  Breathless; and round his mother’s neck did fling
    His languid arms, and with his winnowing made
  Her heart burn: - very glad and bright of face,
  But, with his flight, too tired to speak apace.

These pictures have in them the very glow of Italian painting.  Sometimes we seem to see a quaint design of Piero di Cosimo, with bright tints and multitudinous small figures in a spacious landscape.  Sometimes it is the languid grace of Botticelli, whose soul became possessed of classic inspiration as it were in dreams, and who has painted the birth of Venus almost exactly as Poliziano imagined it.  Again, we seize the broader beauties of the Venetian masters, or the vehemence of Giulio Romano’s pencil.  To the last class belong the two next extracts: -

  STANZAS 104 - 107.

  In the last square the great artificer
    Had wrought himself crowned with Love’s perfect palm;
  Black from his forge and rough, he runs to her,
    Leaving all labour for her bosom’s calm: 
  Lips joined to lips with deep love-longing stir,
    Fire in his heart, and in his spirit balm;
  Far fiercer flames through breast and marrow fly
    Than those which heat his forge in Sicily.

  Jove, on the other side, becomes a bull,
    Goodly and white, at Love’s behest, and rears
  His neck beneath his rich freight beautiful: 
    She turns toward the shore that disappears,
  With frightened gesture; and the wonderful
    Gold curls about her bosom and her ears
  Float in the wind; her veil waves, backward borne;
  This hand still clasps his back, and that his horn.

  With naked feet close-tucked beneath her dress,
    She seems to fear the sea that dares not rise: 
  So, imaged in a shape of drear distress,
    In vain unto her comrades sweet she cries;
  They left amid the meadow-flowers, no less
    For lost Europa wail with weeping eyes: 
  Europa, sounds the shore, bring back our bliss
  But the bull swims and turns her feet to kiss.

  Here Jove is made a swan, a golden shower,
    Or seems a serpent, or a shepherd-swain,
  To work his amorous will in secret hour;
    Here, like an eagle, soars he o’er the plain,
  Love-led, and bears his Ganymede, the flower
    Of beauty, mid celestial peers to reign;
  The boy with cypress hath his fair locks crowned,
  Naked, with ivy wreathed his waist around.

  STANZAS 110 - 112.

  Lo! here again fair Ariadne lies,
    And to the deaf winds of false Theseus plains. 
  And of the air and slumber’s treacheries;
    Trembling with fear even as a reed that strain. 
  And quivers by the mere ’neath breezy skies: 
    Her very speechless attitude complains -
  No beast there is so cruel as thou art,
  No beast less loyal to my broken heart.

  Throned on a car, with ivy crowned and vine,
    Rides Bacchus, by two champing tigers driven: 
  Around him on the sand deep-soaked with brine
    Satyrs and Bacchantes rush; the skies are riven
  With shouts and laughter; Fauns quaff bubbling wine
    From horns and cymbals; Nymphs, to madness driven,
  Trip, skip, and stumble; mixed in wild enlacements,
  Laughing they roll or meet for glad embracements.

  Upon his ass Silenus, never sated,
    With thick, black veins, wherethrough the must is soaking,
  Nods his dull forehead with deep sleep belated;
    His eyes are wine-inflamed, and red, and smoking: 
  Bold Maenads goad the ass so sorely weighted,
    With stinging thyrsi; he sways feebly poking
  The mane with bloated fingers; Fauns behind him,
  E’en as he falls, upon the crupper bind him.

We almost seem to be looking at the frescoes in some Trasteverine palace, or at the canvas of one of the sensual Genoese painters.  The description of the garden of Venus has the charm of somewhat artificial elegance, the exotic grace of style, which attracts us in the earlier Renaissance work: -

  The leafy tresses of that timeless garden
    Nor fragile brine nor fresh snow dares to whiten;
  Frore winter never comes the rills to harden,
    Nor winds the tender shrubs and herbs to frighten;
  Glad Spring is always here, a laughing warden;
    Nor do the seasons wane, but ever brighten;
  Here to the breeze young May, her curls unbinding,
  With thousand flowers her wreath is ever winding.

Indeed it may be said with truth that Poliziano’s most eminent faculty as a descriptive poet corresponded exactly to the genius of the painters of his day.  To produce pictures radiant with Renaissance colouring, and vigorous with Renaissance passion, was the function of his art, not to express profound thought or dramatic situations.  This remark might be extended with justice to Ariosto, and Tasso, and Boiardo.  The great narrative poets of the Renaissance in Italy were not dramatists; nor were their poems epics:  their forte lay in the inexhaustible variety and beauty of their pictures.

Of Poliziano’s plagiarism - if this be the right word to apply to the process of assimilation and selection, by means of which the poet-scholar of Florence taught the Italians how to use the riches of the ancient languages and their own literature - here are some specimens.  In stanza 42 of the ‘Giostra’ he says of Simonetta: -

  E ’n lei discerne un non so che divino.

Dante has the line: -

  Vostri risplendè un non so che divino.

In the 44th he speaks about the birds: -

  E canta ogni augelletto in suo latino.

This comes from Cavalcanti’s: -

  E cantinne gli augelli. 
  Ciascuno in suo latino.

Stanza 45 is taken bodily from Claudian, Dante, and Cavalcanti.  It would seem as though Poliziano wished to show that the classic and medieval literature of Italy was all one, and that a poet of the Renaissance could carry on the continuous tradition in his own style.  A, line in stanza 54 seems perfectly original: -

  E già dall’alte ville il fumo esala.

It comes straight from Virgil: -

  Et jam summa pocul villarum culmina fumant.

In the next stanza the line -

  Tal che ’l ciel tutto rassereno d’intorno,

is Petrarch’s.  So in the 56th, is the phrase ’il dolce andar céleste.’  In stanza 57 -

  Par che ’l cor del petto se gli schianti,

belongs to Boccaccio.  In stanza 60 the first line: -

  La notte che lé cose ci nasconde,

together with its rhyme, ‘sotto lé amate fronde,’ is borrowed from the 23rd canto of the ‘Paradiso.’  In the second line, ‘Stellato ammanto’ is Claudian’s ‘stellantes sinus’ applied to the heaven.  When we reach the garden of Venus we find whole passages translated from Claudian’s ‘Marriage of Honorius,’ and from the ‘Metamorphoses’ of Ovid.

Poliziano’s second poem of importance, which indeed may historically be said to take precedence of ‘La Giostra,’ was the so-called tragedy of ‘Orfeo.’  The English version of this lyrical drama must be reserved for a separate study:  yet it belongs to the subject of this, inasmuch as the ‘Orfeo’ is a classical legend treated in a form already familiar to the Italian people.  Nearly all the popular kinds of poetry of which specimens have been translated in this chapter, will be found combined in its six short scenes.