The Re Giovanni, now unknown to fame,
So many monarchs since have borne the name,
Had a great bell hung in the market-place,
Beneath a roof, projecting some small space 10
By way of shelter from the sun and rain.
Then role he through the streets with all his train,
And, with the blast of trumpets loud and long,
Made proclamation, that whenever wrong
Was done to any man, he should but ring 15
The great bell in the square, and he, the King,
Would cause the Syndic to decide thereon.
Such was the proclamation of King John.
How swift the happy days in Atri sped,
What wrongs were righted, need not here be said. 20
Suffice it that, as all things must decay,
The hempen rope at length was worn away,
Unravelled at the end, and, strand by strand,
Loosened and wasted in the ringer’s hand,
Till one, who noted this in passing by, 25
Mended the rope with braids of briony,
So that the leaves and tendrils of the vine
Hung like a votive garland at a shrine.
By chance it happened that in Atri dwelt
A knight, with spur on heel and sword in belt, 30
Who loved to hunt the wild-boar in the woods,
Who loved his falcons with their crimson hoods,
Who loved his hounds and horses, and all sports
And prodigalities of camps and courts; —
Loved, or had loved them; for at last, grown old, 35
His only passion was the love of gold.
He sold his horses, sold his hawks and hounds,
Rented his vineyards and his garden-grounds,
Kept but one steed, his favorite steed of all,
To starve and shiver in a naked stall, 40
And day by day sat brooding in his chair,
Devising plans how best to hoard and spare.
At length he said: “What is the use of need
To keep at my own cost this lazy steed,
Eating his head off in my stables here, 45
When rents are low and provender is dear?
Let him go feed upon the public ways;
I want him only for the holidays.”
So the old steed was turned into the heat
Of the long, lonely, silent, shadeless street; 50
And wandered in suburban lanes forlorn,
Barked at by dogs, and torn by brier and thorn.
One afternoon, as in that sultry clime
It is the custom in the summer time,
With bolted doors and window-shutters closed, 55
The inhabitants of Atri slept or dozed;
When suddenly upon their senses fell
The loud alarm of the accusing bell!
The Syndic started from his deep repose,
Turned on his couch, and listened, and then rose 60
And donned his robes, and with reluctant pace
Went panting forth into the market-place,
Where the great bell upon its cross-beams swung,
Reiterating with persistent tongue,
In half-articulate jargon, the old song: 65
“Some one hath done a wrong, hath done a wrong!”
But ere he reached the belfry’s light arcade
He saw, or thought he saw, beneath its shade,
No shape of human form of woman born,
But a poor steed dejected and forlorn, 70
Who with uplifted head and eager eye
Was tugging at the vines of briony.
“Domeneddio!” cried the Syndic straight,
“This is the Knight of Atri’s steed of state!
He calls for justice, being sore distressed, 75
And pleads his cause as loudly as the best.”
Meanwhile from street and lane a noisy crowd
Had rolled together like a summer cloud,
And told the story of the wretched beast
In five-and-twenty different ways at least, 80
With much gesticulation and appeal
To heathen gods, in their excessive zeal.
The Knight was called and questioned; in reply
Did not confess the fact, did not deny;
Treated the matter as a pleasant jest, 85
And set at naught the Syndic and the rest,
Maintaining, in an angry undertone,
That he should do what pleased him with his own.
And thereupon the Syndic gravely read
The proclamation of the King; then said: 90
“Pride goeth forth on horseback grand and gay,
But cometh back on foot, and begs its way;
Fame is the fragrance of heroic deeds,
Of flowers of chivalry and not of weeds!
These are familiar proverbs; but I fear 95
They never yet have reached your knightly ear.
What fair renown, what honor, what repute
Can come to you from starving this poor brute?
He who serves well and speaks not, merits more
Than they who clamor loudest at the door. 100
Therefore the law decrees that as this steed
Served you in youth, henceforth you shall take heed
To comfort his old age, and to provide
Shelter in stall, and food and field beside.”
The Knight withdrew abashed; the people all 105
Led home the steed in triumph to his stall.
The King heard and approved, and laughed in glee,
And cried aloud: “Right well it pleaseth me!
Church-bells at best but ring us to the door;
But go not in to mass; my bell doth more: 110
It cometh into court and pleads the cause
Of creatures dumb and unknown to the laws;
And this shall make, in every Christian clime,
The Bell of Atri famous for all time.”
The Sicilian’s Tale: Interlude
“YES, well your story pleads the cause
Of those dumb mouths that have no speech,
Only a cry from each to each
In its own kind, with its own laws;
Something that is beyond the reach 5
Of human power to learn or teach, —
An inarticulate moan of pain,
Like the immeasurable main
Breaking upon an unknown beach.”
Thus spake the Poet with a sigh; 10
Then added, with impassioned cry,
As one who feels the words he speaks,
The color flushing in his cheeks,
The fervor burning in his eye:
“Among the noblest in the land, 15
Though he may count himself the least,
That man I honor and revere
Who without favor, without fear,
In the great city dares to stand
The friend of every friendless beast, 20
And tames with his unflinching hand
The brutes that wear our form and face,
The were-wolves of the human race!”
Then paused, and waited with a frown,
Like some old champion of romance, 25
Who, having thrown his gauntlet down,
Expectant leans upon his lance;
But neither Knight nor Squire is found
To raise the gauntlet from the ground,
And try with him the battle’s chance. 30
“Wake from your dreams, O Edrehi!
Or dreaming speak to us, and make
A feint of being half awake,
And tell us what your dreams may be.
Out of the hazy atmosphere 35
Of cloud-land deign to reappear
Among us in this Wayside Inn;
Tell us what visions and what scenes
Illuminate the dark ravines
In which you grope your way. Begin!
” 40
Thus the Sicilian spake. The Jew
Made no reply, but only smiled,
As men unto a wayward child,
Not knowing what to answer, do.
As from a cavern’s mouth, o’ergrown 45
With moss and intertangled vines,
A streamlet leaps into the light
And murmurs over root and stone
In a melodious undertone;
Or as amid the noonday night 50
Of sombre and wind-haunted pines
There runs a sound as of the sea;
So from his bearded lips there came
A melody without a name,
A song, a tale, a history, 55
Or whatsoever it may be,
Writ and recorded in these lines.
The Spanish Jew’s Tale
Kambalu
INTO the city of Kambalu,
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan,
At the head of his dusty caravan,
Laden with treasure from realms afar,
Baldacca and Kelat and Kandahar, 5
Rode the great captain Alau.
The Khan from his palace-window gazed,
And saw in the thronging street beneath,
In the light of the setting sun, that blazed
Through the clouds of dust by the caravan raised, 10
The flash of harness and jewelled sheath,
And the shining scimitars of the guard,
And the weary camels that bared their teeth,
As they passed and passed through the gates unbarred
Into the shade of the palace-yard. 15
Thus into the city of Kambalu
Rode the great captain Alau;
And he stood before the Khan, and said:
“The enemies of my lord are dead;
All the Kalifs of all the West 20
Bow and obey thy least behest;
The plains are dark with the mulberry-trees,
The weavers are busy in Samarcand,
The miners are sifting the golden sand,
The divers plunging for pearls in the seas, 25
And peace and plenty are in the land.
“Baldacca’s Kalif, and he alone,
Rose in revolt against thy throne:
His treasures are at thy palace-door,
With the swords and the shawls and the jewels he wore; 30
His body is dust o’er the desert blown.
“A mile outside of Baldacca’s gate
I left my forces to lie in wait,
Concealed by forests and hillocks of sand,
And forward dashed with a handful of men, 35
To lure the old tiger from his den
Into the ambush I had planned.
Ere we reached the town the alarm was spread,
For we heard the sound of gongs from within;
And with clash of cymbals and warlike din 40
The gates swung wide; and we turned and fled;
And the garrison sallied forth and pursued,
With the gray old Kalif at their head,
And above them the banner of Mohammed:
So we snared them all, and the town was subdued. 45
“As in at the gate we rode, behold,
A tower that is called the Tower of Gold!
For there the Kalif had hidden his wealth,
Heaped and hoarded and piled on high,
Like sacks of wheat in a granary; 50
And thither the miser crept by stealth
To feel of the gold that gave him health,
And to gaze and gloat with his hungry eye
On jewels that gleamed like a glow-worm’s spark,
Or the eyes of a panther in the dark. 55
“I said to the Kalif: ‘Thou art old,
Thou hast no need of so much gold.
Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,
Till the breath of battle was hot and near,
But have sown through the land these useless hoards 60
To spring into shining blades of swords,
And keep thine honor sweet and clear.
These grains of gold are not grains of wheat;
These bars of silver thou canst not eat;
These jewels and pearls and precious stones 65
Cannot cure the aches in thy bones,
Nor keep the feet of Death one hour
From climbing the stairways of thy tower!
“Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,
And left him to feed there all alone 70
In the honey-cells of his golden hive;
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan
Was heard from those massive walls of stone,
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive!
“When at last we unlocked the door, 75
We found him dead upon the floor;
The rings had dropped from his withered hands,
His teeth were like bones in the desert sands:
Still clutching his treasure he had died;
And as he lay there, he appeared 80
A statue of gold with a silver beard,
His arms outstretched as if crucified.”
This is the story, strange and true,
That the great captain Alau
Told to his brother the Tartar Khan, 85
When he rode that day into Kambalu
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan.
The Spanish Jew’s Tale: Interlude
“I THOUGHT before your tale began,”
The Student murmured, “we should have
Some legend written by Judah Rav
In his Gemara of Babylon;
Or something from the Gulistan, — 5
The tale of the Cazy of Hamadan,
Or of that King of Khorasan
Who saw in dreams the eyes of one
That had a hundred years been dead
Still moving restless in his head, 10
Undimmed, and gleaming with the lust
Of power, though all the rest was dust.
“But lo! your glittering caravan
On the road that leadeth to Ispahan
Hath led us farther to the East 15
Into the regions of Cathay.
Spite of your Kalif and his gold,
Pleasant has been the tale you told,
And full of color; that at least
No one will question or gainsay. 20
And yet on such a dismal day
We need a merrier tale to clear
The dark and heavy atmosphere.
So listen, Lordlings, while I tell,
Without a preface, what befell 25
A simple cobbler, in the year —
No matter; it was long ago;
And that is all we need to know.”
The Student’s Tale
The Cobbler of Hagenau
I TRUST that somewhere and somehow
You all have heard of Hagenau,
A quiet, quaint, and ancient town
Among the green Alsatian hills,
A place of valleys, streams, and mills, 5
Where Barbarossa’s castle, brown
With rust of centuries, still looks down
On the broad, drowsy land below, —
On shadowy forests filled with game,
And the blue river winding slow 10
Through meadows, where the hedges grow
That give this little town its name.
It happened in the good old times,
While yet the Master-singers filled
The noisy workshop and the guild 15
With various melodies and rhymes,
That here in Hagenau there dwelt
A cobbler, — one who loved debate,
And, arguing from a postulate,
Would say what others only felt; 20
A man of forecast and of thrift,
And of a shrewd and careful mind
In this world’s business, but inclined
&nbs
p; Somewhat to let the next world drift.
Hans Sachs with vast delight he read, 25
And Regenbogen’s rhymes of love,
For their poetic fame had spread
Even to the town of Hagenau;
And some Quick Melody of the Plough,
Or Double Harmony of the Dove 30
Was always running in his head.
He kept, moreover, at his side,
Among his leathers and his tools,
Reynard the Fox, the Ship of Fools,
Or Eulenspiegel, open wide; 35
With these he was much edified:
He thought them wiser than the Schools.
His good wife, full of godly fear,
Liked not these worldly themes to hear;
The Psalter was her book of songs; 40
The only music to her ear
Was that which to the Church belongs,
When the loud choir on Sunday chanted,
And the two angels carved in wood,
That by the windy organ stood, 45
Blew on their trumpets loud and clear,
And all the echoes, far and near,
Gibbered as if the church were haunted.
Outside his door, one afternoon,
This humble votary of the muse 50
Sat in the narrow strip of shade
By a projecting cornice made,
Mending the Burgomaster’s shoes,
And singing a familiar tune: —
“Our ingress into the world 55
Was naked and bare;
Our progress through the world
Is trouble and care;
Our egress from the world
Will be nobody knows where: 60
But if we do well here
We shall do well there;
And I could tell you no more,
Should I preach a whole year!”
Thus sang the cobbler at his work; 65
And with his gestures marked the time,
Closing together with a jerk
Of his waxed thread the stitch and rhyme.
Meanwhile his quiet little dame
Was leaning o’er the window-sill, 70
Eager, excited, but mouse-still,
Gazing impatiently to see
What the great throng of folk might be
That onward in procession came,
Along the unfrequented street, 75
With horns that blew, and drums that beat,
Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13) Page 62
