  Any thing approaching to an elaborate criticism of the Torquato Tasso of Goethe we do not, in this place, intend to attempt; our object is merely to translate some of the more striking and characteristic passages, and accompany these extracts with such explanatory remarks as may be necessary to render them quite intelligible. There is, we cannot help remarking, a peculiar awkwardness in introducing a veritable poet amongst the personages of a drama. We cannot dissociate his name from the remembrance of the works he has written, and the heroes whom he has celebrated. Tasso—is it not another name for the Jerusalem Delivered? and can he be summoned up in our memory without bringing with him the shades of Godfrey and Tancred? We expect to hear him singing of these champions of the cross; this was his life, and we have a difficulty in according to him any other. It is only after some effort that we separate the man from the poet—that we can view him standing alone, on the dry earth, unaccompanied by the creations of his fancy, his imaginative existence suspended, acting and suffering in the same personal manner as the rest of us. The poet brought into the ranks of the dramatis personÆ!—the creator of fictions converted himself into a fictitious personage!—there seems some strange confusion here. It is as if the magic wand were waved over the magician himself—a thing not unheard of in the annals of the black art. But then the second magician should be manifestly more powerful than the first. The second poet should be capable of overlooking and controlling the spirit of the first; capable, at all events, of animating him with an eloquence and a poetry not inferior to his own. For there is certainly this disadvantage in bringing before us a well-known and celebrated poet—we expect that he should speak in poetry of the first order—in such as he might have written himself. It is long before we can admit him to be neither more nor less poetical than the other speakers; it is long before we can believe him to talk for any other purpose than to say beautiful and tender things. Knowing, as we do, the trick of poets, and what is indeed their office as spokesmen of humanity, we suspect even when he is relating his own sufferings, and complaining of his own wrongs, that he is still only making a poem; that he is still busied first of all with the sweet expression of a feeling which he is bent on infusing, like an electric fluid, through the hearts of others. Altogether, he is manifestly a very inconvenient personage for the dramatist to have to deal with. These impressions wear off, however, as the poem proceeds—just as, in real life, familiar intercourse with the greatest of bards teaches us to forget the author in the companion, and the man of genius in the agreeable or disagreeable neighbour. In the drama of Goethe, we become quite reconciled to the new position in which the poet of the Holy Sepulchre is placed. Torquato Tasso is what in this country would be called a dramatic poem, in opposition to the tragedy composed for the stage, or quasi for the stage. The dramatis personÆ are few, the conduct of the piece is on the classic model—the model, we mean, of Racine; the plot is scanty, and keeps very close to history; there is little action, and much reflection. The dramatis personÆ are— Alphonso, Duke of Ferrara. In Tasso we have portrayed to us the poetic temperament, with some overcharge in the tendency to distrust and suspicion, which belongs, as we learn from his biography, to the character of Tasso, and which again was but the symptom and precursor of that insanity to which he fell a prey. Both to relieve and develope this poetic character, we have its opposite (the representative of the practical understanding) in Antonio Montecatino, the secretary of state, the accomplished man of the world, the "Act. I.—Scene I. A garden in the country palace of Belriguardo, adorned with busts of the epic poets. To the right, that of Virgil—to the left, that of Ariosto. Princess, Leonora. "Princess.—My Leonora, first you look at me And smile, then at yourself, and smile again. What is it? Let your friend partake. You seem Very considerate, and much amused. "Leonora.—My Princess, I but smiled to see ourselves Decked in these pastoral habiliments. We look right happy shepherdesses both, And what we do is still pure innocence. We weave these wreaths. Mine, gay with many flowers, Still swells and blushes underneath my hand; Thou, moved with higher thought and greater heart, Hast only wove the slender laurel bough. "Princess.—The bough which I, while wreathing thoughts, have wreathed, Soon finds a worthy resting-place. I lay it Upon my Virgil's forehead. [Crowns the bust of Virgil. "Leonora. And I mine, My jocund garland, on the noble brow Of Master Ludovico. [Crowns the bust of Ariosto. Well may he, Whose sportive verse shall never fade, demand His tribute of the spring! "Princess. 'Twas amiable In the duke, my brother, to conduct us, So early in the year, to this retreat. Here we possess ourselves, here we may dream Uninterrupted hours—dream ourselves back Into the golden age which poets sing. I love this Belriguardo; I have here Pass'd many youthful, many happy days; And the fresh green, and this bright sun, recall The feelings of those times. "Leonora. Yes, a new world Surrounds us here. How it delights—the shade Of leaves for ever green! how it revives— The rushing of that brook! with giddy joy The young boughs swing them in the morning air; And from their beds the little friendly flowers Look with the eye of childhood up to us. The trustful gardener gives to the broad day His winter store of oranges and citrons; One wide blue sky rests over all; the snow On the horizon, from the distant hills, In light dissolving vapour steals away." The conversation winds gracefully towards poetry and Tasso. We will answer at once the interesting question, whether the poet has represented Leonora d'Este, the princess, as being in love with Tasso. He has; and very delicately has he made her express this sentiment. From the moment when, doubtless thinking of the living poet, she twined the laurel wreath which she afterwards deposited on the brow of Virgil, to the last scene where she leads the unhappy Tasso to a fatal declaration of his "Leonora.—Your mind embraces wider regions; mine Lingers content within the little isle, And 'midst the laurel grove of poesy. "Princess.—In which fair isle, in which sweet grove, they say, The myrtle also flourishes. And though There wander many muses there, we choose Our friend and playmate not alone from them, We rather greet the poet there himself, Who seems indeed to shun us, seems to fly, Seeking we know not what, and he himself Perhaps as little knows. 'Tis pretty when, In some propitious hour, the enraptured youth Looking with better eyes, detects in us The treasure he had been so far to seek. "Leonora.—The jest is pleasant—touches, but not near. I honour each man's merit; and to Tasso Am barely just. His eye, that covets nothing, Light ranges over all; his ear is fill'd With the rich harmony great nature makes; What ancient records, what the living scene, Disclose, his open bosom takes it all; What beams of truth stray scattered o'er this world, His mind collects, converges. How his heart Has animated the inanimate! How oft ennobled what we little prize, And shown how poor the treasures of the great! In this enchanted circle of his own Proceeds the wondrous man; and us he draws Within, to follow and participate. He seems to near us, yet he stays remote— Seems to regard us, and regards instead Some spirit that assumes our place the while. "Princess.—Finely and delicately hast thou limn'd The poet, moving in his world of thought. And yet, methinks, some fair reality Has wrought upon him here. Those charming verses Found hanging here and there upon our trees, Like golden fruit, that to the finer sense Breathes of a new Hesperides: think you These are not tokens of a genuine love? And when he gives a name to the fair object Of all this praise, he calls it Leonora! "Leonora.—Thy name, as well as mine. I, for my part, Should take it ill were he to choose another. Here is no question of a narrow love, That would engross its solitary prize, And guards it jealously from every eye That also would admire. When contemplation Is deeply busy with thy graver worth, My lighter being haply flits across, It is not us—forgive me if I say it— Not us he loves; but down from all the spheres He draws the matter of his strong affection, And gives it to the name we bear. And we— We seem to love the man, yet love in him That only which we highest know to love. "Princess.—You have become an adept in this science, And put forth, Leonora, such profundities As something more than penetrate the ear, yet hardly touch the thought. "Leonora. —Thou, Plato's scholar! Not apprehend what I, a neophyte, Venture to prattle of"— Alphonso enters, and enquires after Tasso. Leonora answers, that she had seen him at a distance, with his book and tablets, writing and walking, and adds that, from some hint he had let fall, she gathered that his great work was near its completion; and, in fact, the princess soon after descries him coming towards them:— "Slowly he comes, Stands still awhile as unresolved, then hastes, With quicken'd step, towards us; then again Slackens his pace, and pauses." Tasso enters, and presents his Jerusalem Delivered to his patron, the Duke of Ferrara. Alphonso, seeing the laurel wreath on the bust of Virgil, makes a sign to his sister; and the princess, after some remonstrance on the part of Tasso, transfers it from the statue to the head of the living poet. As she crowns him, she says— "Thou givest me, Tasso, here the rare delight, With silent act, to tell thee what I think." But the poet is no sooner crowned than he entreats that the wreath should be removed. It weighs on him, it is a burden, a pressure, it sinks and abashes him. Besides, he feels, as the man of genius must always feel, that not to wear the crown but to earn it, is the real joy as well as task of his life. The laurel is indeed for the bust, not for the living head. "Take it away! Oh take, ye gods, this glory from my brow! Hide it again in clouds! Bear it aloft To heights all unattainable, that still My whole of life for this great recompense, Be one eternal course." He obeys, however, the will of the princess, who bids him retain it. We are now introduced to the antagonist, in every sense of the word, of Tasso,—Antonio, secretary of state. In addition to the causes of repugnance springing from their opposite characters, Antonio is jealous of the favour which the young poet has won at the court of Ferrara, both with his patron and the ladies. This representative of the practical understanding speaks with admiration of the court of Rome, and the ability of the ruling pontiff. He says— "No nobler object is there in the world Than this—a prince who ably rules his people, A people where the proudest heart obeys, Where each man thinks he serves himself alone, Because what fits him is alone commanded. Alphonso speaks of the poem which Tasso has just completed, and points to the crown which he wears. Then follow some of the unkindest words which a secretary of state could possibly bestow on the occasion. I saw to my surprise two crowned. [Looking towards the bust of Ariosto. "Tasso. I wish Thou could'st as plainly as thou see'st my honours, Behold the oppress'd and downcast spirit within. "Antonio—I have long known that in his recompenses Alphonso is immoderate; 'tis thine To prove to-day what all who serve the prince Have learn'd, or will." Antonio then launches into an eloquent eulogium upon the other crowned one—upon Ariosto—which has for its object as well to dash the pride of the living, as to do homage to the dead. He adds, with a most cruel ambiguity, "Who ventures near this man to place himself, Even for his boldness may deserve a crown." The seeds of enmity, it is manifest, are plentifully sown between Antonio and Tasso. Here ends the 1st Act. At the commencement of the 2d Act, the princess is endeavouring to heal the wound that has been inflicted on the just pride of the poet, and she alludes, in particular, to the eulogy which Antonio had so invidiously passed upon Ariosto. The answer of Tasso deserves attention. It is peculiar to the poetic genius to estimate very differently at different times the value of its own labours. Sometimes do but grant to the poet his claim to the possession of genius, and his head strikes the stars. At other times, when contemplating the lives of those men whose actions he has been content to celebrate in song, he doubts whether he should not rank himself as the very prince of idlers. He is sometimes tempted to think that to have given one good stroke with the sword, were worth all the delicate touches of his pen. This feeling Tasso has finely expressed. "Princess.—When Antonio knows what thou hast done To honour these our times, then will he place thee On the same level, side by side, with him He now depicts in so gigantic stature. "Tasso.—Believe me, lady, Ariosto's praise Heard from his lips, was likely more to please Than wound me. It confirms us, it consoles, To hear the man extoll'd whom we have placed Before us as a model: we can say In secret to ourselves—gain thou a share Of his acknowledged merit, and thou gain'st As certainly a portion of his fame. No—that which to its depths has stirr'd my spirit, What still I feel through all my sinking soul, It was the picture of that living world, Which restless, vast, enormous, yet revolves In measured circle round the one great man, Fulfils the course which he, the demi-god, Dares to prescribe to it. With eager ear I listen'd to the experienced man, whose speech Gave faithful transcript of a real scene. Alas! the more I listen'd, still the more I sank within myself: it seem'd my being Would vanish like an echo of the hills, Resolved to a mere sound—a word—a nothing. "Princess.—Poets and heroes for each other live, Poets and heroes seek each other out, And envy not each other: this thyself, Few minutes past, did vividly portray. True, it is glorious to perform the deed That merits noble song; yet glorious too With noble song the once accomplish'd deed Through all the after-world to memorize." When she continues to urge Tasso to make the friendship of Antonio, and assures him that the return of the minister has only procured him a friend the more, he answers:— "Tasso.—I hoped it once, I doubt it now. Instructive were to me his intercourse, Useful his counsel in a thousand ways: This man possesses all in which I fail. And yet—though at his birth flock'd every god, To hang his cradle with some special gift— The graces came not there, they stood aloof: And he whom these sweet sisters visit not, May possess much, may in bestowing be Most bountiful, but never will a friend, Or loved disciple, on his bosom rest." The tendency of this scene is to lull Tasso into the belief that he is beloved of the princess. Of course he is ardent to obey the latest injunctions he has received from her, and when Antonio next makes his appearance, he offers him immediately "his hand and heart." The secretary of state receives such a sudden offer (as it might be expected a secretary of state would do) with great coolness; he will wait till he knows whether he can return the like offer of friendship. He discourses on the excellence of moderation, and in a somewhat magisterial tone, little justified by the relative intellectual position of the speakers. Here, again, we have a true insight into the character of the man of genius. He is modest—very—till you become too overbearing; he exaggerates the superiority in practical wisdom of men who have mingled extensively with the world, and so invites a tone of dictation; and yet withal he has a sly consciousness, that this same superiority of the man of the world consists much more in a certain fortunate limitation of thought than in any peculiar extension. The wisdom of such a man has passed through the mind of the poet, with this difference, that in his mind there is much beside this wisdom, much that is higher than this wisdom; and so it does not maintain a very prominent position, but gets obscured and neglected. "Tasso.—Thou hast good title to advise, to warn, For sage experience, like a long-tried friend, Stands at thy side. Yet be assured of this, The solitary heart hears every day, Hears every hour, a warning; cons and proves, And puts in practice secretly that lore Which in harsh lessons you would teach as new, As something widely out of reach." Yet, spurred on by the injunction of the princess, he still makes an attempt to grasp at the friendship of Antonio. "Tasso.—Once more! here is my hand! clasp it in thine! Nay, step not back, nor, noble sir, deny me The happiness, the greatest of good men, To yield me, trustful, to superior worth, Without reserve, without a pause or halt. "Antonio.—You come full sail upon me. Plain it is You are accustomed to make easy conquests, To walk broad paths, to find an open door. Thy merit—and thy fortune—I admit, But fear we stand asunder wide apart. "Tasso.—In years and in tried worth I still am wanting; In zeal and will, I yield to none. "Antonio. The will Draws the deed after by no magic charm, And zeal grows weary where the way is long: Who reach the goal, they only wear the crown. And yet, crowns are there, or say garlands rather, Of many sorts, some gather'd as we go, "Tasso. But a gift Freely bestow'd on this mind, and to that As utterly denied—this not each man, Stretching his hand, can gather if he will. "Antonio.—Ascribe the gift to fortune—it is well. The fortunate, with reason good, extol The goddess Fortune—give her titles high— Call her Minerva—call her what they will— Take her blind gifts for just reward, and wear Her wind-blown favour as a badge of merit. "Tasso.—No need to speak more plainly. 'Tis enough. I see into thy soul—I know thee now, And all thy life I know. Oh, that the princess Had sounded thee as I! But never waste Thy shafts of malice of the eye and tongue Against this laurel-wreath that crowns my brow, The imperishable garland. 'Tis in vain. First be so great as not to envy it, Then perhaps thou may'st dispute. "Antonio. Thyself art prompt To justify my slight esteem of thee. The impetuous boy with violence demands The confidence and friendship of the man. Why, what unmannerly deportment this! "Tasso.—Better what you unmannerly may deem, Than what I call ignoble. "Antonio. There remains One hope for thee. Thou still art young enough To be corrected by strict discipline. "Tasso.—Not young enough to bow myself to idols That courtiers make and worship; old enough Defiance with defiance to encounter. "Antonio.—Ay, where the tinkling lute and tinkling speech Decide the combat, Tasso is a hero. "Tasso.—I were to blame to boast a sword unknown As yet to war, but I can trust to it. "Antonio.—Trust rather to indulgence." We are in the high way, it is plain, to a duel. Tasso insists upon an appeal to the sword. The secretary of state contents himself with objecting the privilege or sanctity of the place, they being within the precincts of the royal residence. At the height of this debate, Alphonso enters. Here, again, the minister has a most palpable advantage over the poet. He insists upon the one point of view in which he has the clear right, and will not diverge from it; Tasso has challenged him, has done his utmost to provoke a duel within the walls of the palace; and is, therefore, amenable to the law. The Duke can do no other than decide against the poet, whom he dismisses to his apartment with the injunction that he is there to consider himself, for the present, a prisoner. In the three subsequent acts, there is still less of action; and we may as well relate at once what there remains of plot to be told, and then proceed with our extracts. Through the mediation of the princess and her friend, this quarrel is in part adjusted, and Tasso is released from imprisonment. But his spirit is wounded, and he determines to quit the court of Ferrara. He obtains permission to travel to Rome. At this juncture he meets with the princess. His impression has been that she also is alienated from him; her conversation removes and quite reverses this impression; in a moment of ungovernable tenderness he is about to embrace her; she repulses him and retires. The duke, who makes his appearance just at this moment, and who has been a witness to the conclusion of this interview, orders Tasso into confinement, expressing at the same time his conviction Glancing back over the three last acts, whose action we have summed up so briefly, we might select many beautiful passages for translation; we content ourselves with the following. The princess and Leonora Sanvitale are conversing. There has been question of the departure of Tasso. "Princess.—Each day was then itself a little life; No care was clamorous, and the future slept. Me and my happy bark the flowing stream, Without an oar, drew with light ripple down. Now—in the turmoil of the present hour, The future wakes, and fills the startled ear With whisper'd terrors. "Leonora. But the future brings New joys, new friendships. "Princess. Let me keep the old. Change may amuse, it scarce can profit us. I never thrust, with youthful eagerness, A curious hand into the shaken urn Of life's great lottery, with hope to find Some object for a restless, untried heart. I honour'd him, and therefore have I loved; It was necessity to love the man With whom my being grew into a life Such as I had not known, or dream'd before. At first, I laid injunctions on myself To keep aloof; I yielded, yielded still, Still nearer drew—enticed how pleasantly To be how hardly punish'd! "Leonora. If a friend Fail with her weak consolatory speech, Let the still powers of this beautiful world, With silent healing, renovate thy spirit. "Princess.—The world is beautiful! In its wide circuit, How much of good is stirring here and there! Alas! that it should ever seem removed Just one step off! Throughout the whole of life Step after step, it leads our sick desire E'en to the grave. So rarely do men find What yet seem'd destined them—so rarely hold What once the hand had fortunately clasp'd; What has been giv'n us, rends itself away, And what we clutch'd, we let it loose again; There is a happiness—we know it not, We know it—and we know not how to prize." Tasso says, when he thought himself happy in the love of Leonora d'Este— "I have often dream'd of this great happiness— 'Tis here!—and oh, how far beyond the dream! A blind man, let him reason upon light, And on the charm of colour, how he will, If once the new-born day reveal itself, It is a new-born sense." And again on this same felicity, "Not on the wide sands of the rushing ocean, 'Tis in the quiet shell, shut up, conceal'd, We find the pearl." It is in another strain that the poet speaks when Leonora Sanvitale attempts to persuade him that Antonio entertains in reality no hostility towards him. In what follows, we see the anger and hatred of a meditative man. It is a hatred which supports and exhausts itself in reasoning; which we might predict would never go forth into any act of enmity. It is "And if I err, I err resolvedly. I think of him as of my bitter foe; To think him less than this would now distract, Discomfort me. It were a sort of folly To be with all men reasonable; 'twere The abandonment of all distinctive self. Are all mankind to us so reasonable? No, no! Man in his narrow being needs Both feelings, love, and hate. Needs he not night As well as day? and sleep as well as waking? No! I will hold this man for evermore As precious object of my deepest hate, And nothing shall disturb the joy I have In thinking of him daily worse and worse." Act. 4, Scene 2. We conclude with a passage in which Tasso speaks of the irresistible passion he feels for his own art. He has sought permission of the Duke to retire to Rome, on the plea that he will there, by the assistance of learned men, better complete his great work, which he regards as still imperfect. Alphonso grants his request, but advises him rather to suspend his labour for the present, and partake, for a season, of the distractions of the world. He would be wise, he tells him, to seek the restoration of his health. "Tasso.—It should seem so; yet have I health enow If only I can labour, and this labour Again bestows the only health I know. It is not well with me, as thou hast seen, In this luxuriant peace. In rest I find Rest least of all. I was not framed, My spirit was not destined to be borne On the soft element of flowing days, And so in Time's great ocean lose itself Uncheck'd, unbroken. "Alphonso.—All feelings, and all impulses, my Tasso, Drive thee for ever back into thyself. There lies about us many an abyss Which Fate has dug; the deepest yet of all Is here, in our own heart, and very strong Is the temptation to plunge headlong in. I pray thee snatch thyself away in time. Divorce thee, for a season, from thyself. The man will gain whate'er the poet lose. "Tasso.—One impulse all in vein I should resist, Which day and night within my bosom stirs. Life is not life if I must cease to think, Or, thinking, cease to poetize. Forbid the silk-worm any more to spin, Because its own life lies upon the thread. Still it uncoils the precious golden web, And ceases not till, dying, it has closed Its own tomb o'er it. May the good God grant We, one day, share the fate of that same worm!— That we, too, in some valley bright with heaven, Surprised with sudden joy, may spread our wing. I feel—I feel it well—this highest art Which should have fed the mind, which to the strong Adds strength and ever new vitality,— It is destroying me, it hunts me forth, Where'er I rove, an exile amongst men." Act V. Scene 2. |
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