Delphi Complete Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Delphi Poets Series Book 13)

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

  I have before me one of these sublime effusions. It describes the square, — the crowd, — the rattling carriages, — the lake, — the fountain, raised by “the superhuman genius of Bernini,” — the lion, — the sea-horse, and the triton grasping the dolphin’s tail. “Half the grand square,” thus sings the poet, “where Rome with food is satiate, was changed into a lake, around whose margin stood the Roman people, pleased with soft idleness and merry holyday, like birds upon the margin of a limpid brook. Up and down drove car and chariot; and the women trembled for fear of the deep water; though merry were the young, and well I ween, had they been borne away to unknown shores by the bull that bore away Europa, they would neither have wept nor screamed!”

  ON the eastern slope of the Janiculum, now called, from its yellow sands, Montorio, or the Golden Mountain, stands the fountain of Acqua Paola, the largest and most abundant of the Roman fountains. It is a small Ionic temple, with six columns of reddish granite in front, a spacious hall and chambers within, and a garden with a terrace in the rear. Beneath the pavement, a torrent of water from the ancient aqueducts of Trajan, and from the lakes of Bracciano and Martignano, leaps forth in thrée beautiful cascades, and from the overflowing basin rushes down the hill-side to turn the busy wheels of a dozen mills.

  The key of this little fairy palace is in our hands, and as often as once a week we pass the day there, amid the odor of its flowers, the rushing sound of its waters, and the enchantments of poetry and music. How pleasantly the sultry hours steal by! Cool comes the summer wind from the Tiber’s mouth at Ostia. Above us is a sky without a cloud; beneath us the magnificent panorama of Rome and the Campagna, bounded by the Abruzzi and the sea. Glorious scene! one glance at thee would move the dullest soul, — one glance can melt the painter and the poet into tears!

  In the immediate neighbourhood of the fountain are many objects worthy of the stranger’s notice. A bowshot down the hill-side towards the city stands the convent of San Pietro in Montorio; and in the cloister of this convent is a small, round Doric temple, built upon the spot which an ancient tradition points out as the scene of St. Peter’s martyrdom. In the opposite direction the road leads you over the shoulder of the hill, and out through the city-gate to gardens and villas beyond. Passing beneath a lofty arch of Trajan’s aqueduct, an ornamented gateway on the left admits you to the Villa Pamfili-Doria, built on the western declivity of the hill. This is the largest and most magnificent of the numerous villas that crowd the immediate environs of Rome. Its spacious terraces, its marble statues, its woodlands and green alleys, its lake and waterfalls and fountains, give it an air of courtly splendor and of rural beauty, which realizes the beau ideal of a suburban villa.

  This is our favorite resort, when we have passed the day at the fountain, and the afternoon shadows begin to fall. There we sit on the broad marble steps of the terrace, gaze upon the varied landscape stretching to the misty sea, or ramble beneath the leafy dome of the woodland and along the margin of the lake,

  “And drop a pebble to see it sink

  Down in those depths so calm and cool.”

  O, did we but know when we are happy! Could the restless, feverish, ambitious heart be still, but for a moment still, and yield itself, without one farther-aspiring throb, to its enjoyment, — then were I happy, — yes, thrice happy! But no; this fluttering, struggling, and imprisoned spirit beats the bars of its golden cage, — disdains the silken fetter; it will not close its eye and fold its wings; as if time were not swift enough, its swifter thoughts outstrip his rapid flight, and onward, onward do they wing their way to the distant mountains, to the fleeting clouds of the future; and yet I know, that ere long, weary, and wayworn, and disappointed, they shall return to nestle in the bosom of the past!

  This day, also, I have passed at Acqua Paola. From the garden terrace I watched the setting sun, as, wrapt in golden vapor, he passed to other climes. A friend from my native land was with me; and as we spake of home, a liquid star stood trembling like a tear upon the closing eyelid of the day. Which of us sketched these lines with a pencil upon the cover of Julia’s Corinna?

  Bright star! whose soft, familiar ray,

  In colder climes and gloomier skies,

  I’ve watched so oft when closing day

  Had tinged the west with crimson dies;

  Perhaps to-night some friend I love,

  Beyond the deep, the distant sea,

  Will gaze upon thy path above,

  And give one lingering thought to me.

  TORQUATI TASSO OSSA HIC JACENT, — Here lie the bones of Torquato Tasso, — is the simple inscription upon the poet’s tomb, in the church of St. Onofrio. Many a pilgrimage is made to this grave. Many a bard from distant lands comes to visit the spot, — and, as he paces the secluded cloisters of the convent where the poet died, and where his ashes rest, muses on the sad vicissitudes of his life, and breathes a prayer for the peace of his soul. He sleeps midway between his cradle at Sorrento and his dungeon at Ferrara.

  The monastery of St. Onofrio stands on the Janiculum, overlooking the Tiber and the city of Rome; and in the distance rise the towers of the Roman Capitol, where, after long years of sickness, sorrow, and imprisonment, the laurel crown was prepared for the great epic poet of Italy. The chamber in which Tasso died is still shown to the curious traveller; and the tree in the garden, under whose shade he loved to sit. The feelings of the dying man, as he reposed in this retirement, are not the vague conjectures of poetic revery. He has himself recorded them in a letter which he wrote to his friend Antonio Constantini, a few days only before his dissolution. These are his melancholy words:— “What will my friend Antonio say, when he hears the death of Tasso? Ere long, I think, the news will reach him; for I feel that the end of my life is near; being able to find no remedy for this wearisome indisposition which is superadded to my customary infirmities, and by which, as by a rapid torrent, I see myself swept away, without a hand to save. It is no longer time to speak of my unyielding destiny, not to say the ingratitude of the world, which has longed even for the victory of driving me a beggar to my grave; while I thought that the glory which, in spite of those who will it not, this age shall receive from my writings was not to leave me thus without reward. I have come to this monastery of St. Onofrio, not only because the air is commended by physicians as more salubrious than in any other part of Rome, but that I may, as it were, commence, in this high place, and in the conversation of these devout fathers, my conversation in heaven. Pray God for me; and be assured that as I have loved and honored you in this present life, so in that other and more real life will I do for you all that belongs to charity unfeigned and true. And to the divine mercy I commend both you and myself.”

  THE modern Romans are a very devout people. The Princess Doria washes the pilgrims’ feet in Holy Week; every evening, foul or fair, the whole year round, there is a rosary Sung before an image of the Virgin, within a stone’s throw of my window; and the young ladies write letters to St. Louis Gonzaga, who in all paintings and sculpture is represented as young and angelically beautiful. I saw a large pile of these letters a few weeks ago in Gonzaga’s chapel, at the church of St. Ignatius. They were lying at the foot of the altar, prettily written on smooth paper, and tied with silken ribands of various colors. Leaning over the marble balustrade, I read the following superscription upon one of them:— “AW Angelico Giovane S. Luigi Gonzaga, Paradiso — To the angelic youth St. Louis Gonzaga, Paradise. A soldier, with a musket, kept guard over this treasure; and I had the audacity to ask him at what hour the mail went out; for which heretical impertinence he cocked his mustache at me with the most savage look imaginable, as much as to say,” Get thee gone “: —

  “Andate,

  Niente pigliate,

  E mai ritornate.”

  The modern Romans are likewise strongly given to amusements of every description. Panem et circenses, says the Latin satirist, when chiding the degraded propensities of his countrymen; Panem et circenses, — they are con
tent with bread and the sports of the circus. The same may be said at the present day. Even in this hot weather, when the shops are shut at noon, and the fat priests waddle about the streets with fans in their hands, the people crowd to the Mausoleum of Augustus, to be choked with the smoke of fireworks, and see deformed and humpback dwarfs tumbled into the dirt by the masked horns of young bullocks. What a refined amusement for the inhabitants of “pompous and holy Rome!”

  THE Sirocco prevails to-day, — a hot wind from the burning sands of Africa, that bathes its wings in the sea, and comes laden with fogs and vapors to the shores of Italy. It is oppressive and dispiriting, and quite unmans one, like the dog-days of the North. There is a scrap of an old English song running in my mind, in which the poet calls it a cool wind; though ten to one I misquote.

  “When the cool Sirocco blows,

  And daws and pies and rooks and crows

  Sit and curse the wintry snows,

  Then give me ale!”

  I should think that stark English beer might have a potent charm against the powers of the foul fiend that rides this steaming, reeking wind. A flask of Montefiascone, or a bottle of Lacrima Christi does very well.

  BEGGARS all, — beggars all! The Papal city is full of them; and they hold you by the button through the whole calendar of saints. You cannot choose but hear. I met an old woman yesterday, who pierced my ear with this alluring petition: —

  “Ah signore! Qualche piccola cosa, per carità! Vï diro la buona ventura! C’ è una bella signorina, che vi ama molto! Per il Sacro Sacramento! Per la Madonna /”

  Which being interpreted, is, “Ah, Sir, a trifle, for charity’s sake! I will tell your fortune for you! There is a beautiful young lady who loves you well! For the Holy Sacrament, — for the Madonna’s sake!”

  Who could resist such an appeal? I made a laughable mistake this morning in giving alms. A man stood on the shady side of the street with his hat in his hand, and as I passed he gave me a piteous look, though he said nothing. He had such a wobegone face, and such a threadbare coat, that I at once took him for one of those mendicants who bear the title of poveri vergognosi, — bashful beggars; persons whom pinching want compels to receive the stranger’s charity, though pride restrains them from asking it. Moved with compassion, I threw into the hat the little I had to give; when, instead of thanking me with a blessing, my man of the threadbare coat showered upon me the most sonorous maledictions of his native tongue, and, emptying his greasy hat upon the pavement, drew it down over his ears with both hands, and stalked away with all the dignity of a Roman senator in the best days of the republic, — to the infinite amusement of a green-grocer, who stood at his shop-door bursting with laughter. No time was given me for an apology; but I resolved to be for the future more discriminating in my charities, and not to take for a beggar every poor gentleman who chose to stand in the shade with his hat in his hand on a hot summer’s day.

  THERE is an old fellow who hawks pious legends and the lives of saints through the streets of Rome, with a sharp, cracked voice, that knows no pause nor division in the sentences it utters. I just heard him cry at a breath: —

  “La Vita di San Giuseppe quel fidel servitor di Dio santo e maraviglioso mezzo bajocco,” — The Life of St. Joseph that faithful servant of God holy and wonderful ha’penny!

  This is the way with some people; every thing helter-skelter, — heads and tails, — prices current and the lives of saints!

  IT has been a rainy day, — a day of gloom. The church-bells never rang in my ears with so melancholy a sound; and this afternoon I saw a mournful scene, which still haunts my imagination. It was the funeral of a monk. I was drawn to the window by the solemn chant, as the procession came from a neighbouring street and crossed the square. First came a long train of priests, clad in black, and bearing in their hands large waxen tapers, which flared in every gust of wind, and were now and then extinguished by the rain. The bier followed, borne on the shoulders of four bare-footed Carmelites; and upon it, ghastly and grim, lay the body of the dead monk, clad in his long gray kirtle, with the twisted cord about his waist. Not even a shroud was thrown over him. His head and feet were bare, and his hands were placed upon his bosom, palm to palm, in the attitude of prayer. His face was emaciated, and of a livid hue; his eyes unclosed; and at every movement of the bier, his head nodded to and fro, with an unearthly and hideous aspect. Behind walked the monastic brotherhood, a long and melancholy procession, with their cowls thrown back, and their eyes cast upon the ground; and last of all came a man with a rough, unpainted coffin upon his shoulders, closing the funeral train.

  MANY of the priests, monks, monsignori, and cardinals of Rome have a bad reputation, even after deducting a tithe or so from the tales of gossip. To some of them may be applied the rhyming Latin distich, written for the monks of old: —

  “O Monachi,

  Vestri stomachi

  Sunt amphora Bacchi;

  Vos estis,

  Deus est testis,

  Turpissima pestis.”

  The graphic description which Thomson gives in his “Castle of Indolence” would readily find an impersonation among the Roman priesthood: —

  “Full oft by holy feet our ground was trod, —

  Of clerks good plenty here you mote espy; —

  A little, round, fat, oily man of God

  Was one I chiefly marked among the fry;

  He had a roguish twinkle in his eye,

  Which shone all glittering with ungodly dew,

  When a tight damsel chanced to trippen by;

  But when observed, would shrink into his mew,

  And straight would recollect his piety anew.”

  YONDER across the square goes a Minente of Trastevere; a fellow who boasts the blood of the old Romans in his veins. He is a plebeian exquisite of the western bank of the Tiber, with a swarthy face and the step of an emperor. He wears a slouched hat, and blue velvet jacket and breeches, and has enormous silver, buckles in his shoes. As he marches along, he sings a ditty in his own vulgar dialect: —

  “Uno, due, e tre,

  E lo Papa non è Re.”

  Now he stops to talk with a woman with a pan of coals in her hand. What violent gestures! what expressive attitudes! Head, hands, and feet are all in motion, — not a muscle is still! It must be some interesting subject that excites him so much, and gives such energy to his gestures and his language. No; he only wants to light his pipe!

  IT is now past midnight. The moon is full and bright, and the shadows lie so dark and massive in the street that they seem a part of the walls that cast them. I have just returned from the Coliseum, whose ruins are so marvellously beautiful by moonlight. No stranger at Rome omits this midnight visit; for though there is something unpleasant in having one’s admiration forestalled, and being as it were romantic aforethought, yet the charm is so powerful, the scene so surpassingly beautiful and sublime, — the hour, the silence, and the colossal ruin have such a mastery over the soul, — that you are disarmed when most upon your guard, and betrayed into an enthusiasm which perhaps you had silently resolved you would not feel.

  On my way to the Coliseum, I crossed the Capitoline hill, and descended into the Roman Forum by the broad staircase that leads to the triumphal arch of Septimius Severus. Close upon my right hand stood the three remaining columns of the temple of the Thunderer, and the beautiful Ionic portico of the temple of Concord, — their base in shadow, and the bright moonbeam striking aslant upon the broken entablature above. Before me rose the Phocian Column, — an isolated shaft, like a thin vapor hanging in the air scarce visible; and far to the left, the ruins of the temple of Antonio and Faustina, and the three colossal arches of the temple of Peace, — dim, shadowy, indistinct, — seemed to melt away and mingle with the sky. I crossed the Forum to the foot of the Palatine, and, ascending the Via Sacra, passed beneath the Arch of Titus. From this point, I saw below me the gigantic outline of the Coliseum, like a cloud resting upon the earth. As I descended the hillsi
de, it grew more broad and high, — more definite in its form, and yet more grand in its dimensions, — till, from the vale in which it stands encompassed by three of the Seven Hills of Rome, — the Palatine, the Cœlian, and the Esquiline, — the majestic ruin in all its solitary grandeur “swelled vast to heaven.”

  A single sentinel was pacing to and fro beneath the arched gateway which leads to the interior, and his measured footsteps were the only sound that broke the breathless silence of the night. What a contrast with the scene which that same midnight hour presented, when, in Domitian’s time, the eager populace began to gather at the gates, impatient for the morning sports! Nor was the contrast within less striking. Silence, and the quiet moonbeams, and the broad, deep shadows of the ruined wall! Where were the senators of Rome, her matrons, and her virgins? where the ferocious populace that rent the air with shouts, when, in the hundred holydays that marked the dedication of this imperial slaughterhouse, five thousand wild beasts from the Libyan deserts and the forests of Anatolia made the arena sick with blood? Where were the Christian martyrs, that died with prayers upon their lips, amid the jeers and imprecations of their fellow-men? where the barbarian gladiators, brought forth to the festival of blood, and “butchered to make a Roman holy day”? The awful silence answered, “They are mine!” The dust beneath me answered, “They are mine!”

  I crossed to the opposite extremity of the amphitheatre. A lamp was burning in the little chapel, which has been formed from what was once a den for the wild beasts of the Roman festivals. Upon the steps sat the old beadsman, the only tenant of the Coliseum, who guides the stranger by night through the long galleries of this vast pile of ruins. I followed him up a narrow wooden staircase, and entered one of the long and majestic corridors, which in ancient times ran entirely round the amphitheatre. Huge columns of solid mason-work, that seem the labor of Titans, support the flattened arches above; and though the iron clamps are gone, which once fastened the hewn stones together, yet the columns stand majestic and unbroken, amid the ruin around them, and seem to defy “the iron tooth of time.” Through the arches at the right, I could faintly discern the ruins of the baths of Titus on the Esquiline; and from the left, through every chink and cranny of the wall, poured in the brilliant light of the full moon, casting gigantic shadows around me, and diffusing a soft, silvery twilight through the long arcades. At length I came to an open space, where the arches above had crumbled away, leaving the pavement an unroofed terrace high in air. From this point, I could see the whole interior of the amphitheatre spread out beneath me, half in shadow, half in light, with such a soft and indefinite outline that it seemed less an earthly reality than a reflection in the bosom of a lake. The figures of several persons below were just perceptible, mingling grotesquely with their fore-shortened shadows. The sound of their voices reached me in a whisper; and the cross that stands in the centre of the arena looked like a dagger thrust into the sand. I did not conjure up the past, for the past had already become identified with the present. It was before me in one of its visible and most majestic forms. The arbitrary distinctions of time, years, ages, centuries were annihilated. I was a citizen of Rome! This was the amphitheatre of Flavius Vespasian!