BROWNING'S ITALY (19 page)

"Ah, Sir, none the less, contain you, nor wax irate!

You so lofty, I so lowly, — vast the space which yawns be-

tween us! Still, methinks, you — more than ever — at a high rate

Needs must prize poor Peter's secret since it lifts you thus.

Grant me now the boon whereat before you boggled!

Ten long years yonr march has moved — one triumph —

— (though e's short) — hactenus, While I down and down disastrously have Joggled Till I pitch against Death's door, the true Nee Ultra Plus.

"Years ago — some ten 'tis— since I sought for shelter, Craved in your whole house a closet, out of all your means

a comfort. Now you soar above these: as is gold to spelter So is power — you urged with reason — paramount to

wealth. Power you boast in plenty: let it grant me refuge! House-room now is out of question: find for me some strong-

hold — some fort — Privacy wherein, immured, shall this blind deaf huge Monster of a mob let stay the soul I'd save by stealth!

"Ay, for all too much with magic have I tampered!

— Lost the world, and gained, I fear, a certain place I'm to

describe loth! Still, if prayer and fasting tarne the pride long pampered, Mercy may be mine: amendment never comes too late. How can I amend beset by curses, kickers ? Pluck this brand from out the burning! Once away, I take

my Bible-oath, Never more — so long as life's weak lamp-flame flickers — No, not once 111 tease you, but in silence bear my fate!"

"Gently, good my Genius, Oracle unerring!

Strange now! can you guess on what — as in you peeped —•

it was I pondered ? You and I are both of one mind in preferring

THE ITALIAN SCHOLAR 191

Power to wealth, but — here's the point — what sort of

power, I ask ? Ruling men is vulgär, easy, and ignoble: Rid yourself of conscience, quick you have at beck and call

the fond herd. But who wields the crozier, down may fling the crow-bill: That's the power I covet now; soul's sway o'er souls — my

task!

"'Well but,' you object, 'you have it, who by glamour Dress up lies to look like truths, mask folly in the garb of

reason: Your soul acts on theirs, sure, when the people clamor, Hold their peace, now fight now fondle, — ear-wigged through

the Drains.' Fossibly! but still the Operation 's mundane, Grosser than a taste demands which — craving manna —

kecks at peason — Power o'er men by wants material: why should one deign Rule by sordid hopes and fears — a grünt for all one's pains ?

"No, if men must praise me, let them praise to purpose! Would we move the world, not earth but heaven must be our

fulcrum — pou stol Thus I seek to move it: Master, why interpose — Balk my climbing close on what's the ladder's topmost round ? Statecraft 'tis I step from: when by priestcraft hoisted Up to where my foot may touch the highest rung which fate

allows toe, Then indeed ask favor. On you shall be foisted No excuse: 111 pay my debt, each penny of the pound!

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Ho, my knaves without there! Lead this worthy down-stairsl

No farewell, good Paul — nay, Peter .. What's your name

remembered rightly? Come, he's humble: out another would have flounced — airs Suitors often give themselves when our sort bow them forth. Did I touch his rags? He surely kept his distance: Yet, there somehow passed to me from him — where'er the

virtue might lie — Something that inspires my soul — Oh, by assistance Doubtlessly of Peter! — still, he's worth just what he's worth!

" Tis my own soul soars now: soaring — how ? By crawling! 111 to Rome, before Rome's feet the temporal-supreme lay

prostrate! 'Hands' (TU say) 'proficient once in pulling, hauling This and that way men as I was minded — feet now clasp!' Ay, the Kaiser's seif has wrung them in his fervor! Now — they only sue to slave f or Rome, nor at one doit the

cost rate. Rome's adopted child — no bone, no muscle, nerve or Sinew of me but I'll strain, thoughout my life I gasp!"

As he stood one evening proudly — (he had traversed Rome on horseback — peerless pageant! — claimed the

Lateran as new Pope) — Thinking "All's attained now! Pontiff! Who could have erst Dreamed of my advance so far when, some ten years ago, I embraced devotion, grew from priest to bishop, Gained the Purple, bribed the Conclave, got the Two-thirds,

saw my coop ope, Came out — what Rome hails me! O were there a wish-shop, Not one wish more would I purchase — Lord of all below!

"Ha! — who dares intrude now — puts aside the arras ? What, old Peter, here again, at such a time, in such a presence ?

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Satan sends this plague back merely to embarrass

Me who enter on my office — little needing you!

'Faith, I'm touched myself by age, but you look Tithon!

Were it vain to seek of you the sole prize left — rejuvenes-

cence? Well, since flesh is grass which time must lay his scythe on, Say your say, and so depart and make no more ado!"

Peter faltered — coughing first by way of prologue — "Holiness, your help comes late: a death at ninety little matters. Padua, build poor Peter's pyre now, on log roll log, Bura away — Fve lived my day! Yet here's the sting in

death — Fve an author's pride: I want my Book's survival: See, IVe hid it in my breast to warm me 'mid the rags and

tatters! Save it — teil next age your Master had no rival! Scholar's debt discharged in füll, be "Thanks' my latest breath!"

"Faugh, the frowsy bündle — scribbling harum-scarum Scattered o'er a dozen sheepskins! What's the name of this

farrago? Ha —' Concüiator Differerdiarum* —

Man and book may bura together, cause the world no loss! Stop — what eise ? A tractate — eh, 'De Speciebus Ceremonialis McMji-ae?' I dream sure! Hence, away, go, Wizard, — quick avoid me! Vain you clasp my knee, buss Hand that bears the Fisher's ring or foot that boasts the Cross!

"Help! The old magician clings like an octopus! Ah, you rise now — fuming, f retting, f rowning, if I read your features!

Frown, who cares? We're Pope — once Pope, you can't

unpope ns! Good — you muster up a smile: that's better! Still so brisk ? All at once grown youthful ? But the case is piain! Ass — Here I dally with the fiend, yet know the Word — compels

all creatures Earthly, heavenly, hellish. Apage, Sathanas Dieam verbum Salomonis —" "dicitel" When — whisk!-^

What was changed ? The stranger gave his eyes a rubbing: There smiled Peter's face turned back a moment at him o'er

the Shoulder, As the black door shut, bang! "So he 'scapes a drubbing!" (Quoth a boy who, unespied, had stopped to hear the talk.) "That's the way to thank these wizards when they bid men Benedidte! What ails you ? You, a man, and yet no bolder ? Foreign Sir, you look but foolish!" "Idmen, Urnen!" Groaned the Greek. " O Peter, cheese at last I know from

chalk!"

Peter lived his life out, menaced yet no martyr,

Knew himself the mighty man he was — such knowledge all

his guerdon, Left the world a big book — people but in part err When they style a true Scieniiae Com-pen-di-um: " Admirationem incutit" they sourly Smile, as fast they shut the folio which myself was somehow

spurred on Once to ope: but love — life's milk which daily, hourly, Blockheads lap — O Peter, still thy taste of love's to come!

Greek, was your ambition likewise doomed to failure ? True, I find no record you wore purple, walked with axe and

fasces, Played some antipope's part: still, friend,don't turn tail,you're Certain, with but these two gifts, to gain earth's prize in time!

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Cleverness uncurbed by conscience — if you ransacked Peter's book you'd find no potent spell like these to rule the

masses; Nor should want example, had I not to transact Other business. Goyourways,you'll thrive! So ends myrhyme.

When these parts Tiberius — not yet Caesar — travelled, Passing Padua, he consulted Padua's Oracle of Geryon (God three-headed, thrice wise) just to get unravelled Certain tangles of his future. "Fling at Abano Golden dice," it answered; "dropt within the fount there, Note what sum the pips present!" And still we see each die,

the very one, Turn up, through the crystal, — read the whole account there Where 'tis told by Suetonius, — each its highest throw

Scarce the sportive fancy-dice I fling show "Venus:"

Still — for love of that dear land which I so oft in dreams

revisit — I have — oh, not sung! but lilted (as — between us — Grows my lazy custom) this its legend. What the lilt ?

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The Grammarian belongs to a later stage of development in Italian culture. Browning dates the poem "Shortly after the Revival of Learning," so we may consider that this learned man belongs to the rising or flood tide of humanism, before the appearance of those degenerate tendencies that self-seeking later brought upon it. The talks by Gemis-tos Plethon in Florence, already mentioned, are by some given as the date of the begin-ning of the Revival of Learning.

He certainly exerted a tremendous influence through Cosimo de' Medici, whom he con-vinced of the importance of the study of Plato, and who thereupon founded the famous Florentine Academy. Cosimo also appointed young Marsilio Ficino to the important office of translating and explaining the Piatonic writings. This Academy exerted a pro-found influence over the thought not only of Italy but of Germany, and so persistent was the influence of Gemistos that, as Symonds remarks, "Piatonic studies in Italy never recovered from the impress of Neoplatonic mysticism which proceeded from his mind."

But it must not be forgotten that there was already a Greek professorship in Florence, held by Manuel Chrysoloras, a Byzantine of noble birth. He came first to Venice on an

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important church mission, was visited there by the Florentines, Roberto di Rossi and Giacomo d'Angelo Scarparia. The latter went back to Byzantium with him, and Rossi, returning to Florence, enlarged so upon the erudite qualities of the learned Greek that the Signory sent him an invitation to fill the Greek chair in the university, which he accepted in 1396. Thus it was that Greeks came to Italy and Italians went to Constan-tinople to learn Greek. As Sedgwick puts it "The humanists played a part analogous to that which men of science play to-day. They devoted themselves heart and soul to the classics, as men of science do to nature. For some time they had had access to the Latin past through Italy, and now they also found their way to the far greater classic world of Greece. The one uninterrupted communication with that world was through Constantinople, which, like a long, ill-lighted and ill-repaired corridor, led back to the great pleasure domes of Plato and Homer, and all the wonderland of Greek literature and thought."

Although in the fourteenth Century great and general enthusiasm for classical antiquity burst forth, it was not until the fifteenth that new discoveries of manuscripts were made,

and the systematic creation of libraries begun by means of copies and the rapid multiplica-tion of translations from the Greek. Burck-hard declares that if it had not been for the "enthusiasm of a few collectors of the age,who shrank from no effort or privation in their researches, we should certainly possess only a small part of the literature, especially that of the Greeks, which is now in our hands." Many are the stories told of for-tunes spent and time devoted to the collec-tion of manuscripts. Pope Nicholas V, whom we have already mentioned, when only a simple monk, ran deeply into debt through buying manuscripts or having them copied, and when he became Pope he gave enormous sums for translations of Polybius, Strabo, and others.

A Florentine, Niccoto Niccoli, spent his whole fortune in buying books and at last when his money gave out, the Medici allowed him to draw upon them to any amount.

Following upon the collection of manuscripts came the study of them, which was carried on to some extent in the Universities, but more especially in monasteries and by private individuals singly or in groups. The Latin schools, too, which existed in every town of any importance, attained under dis-