v / 7 
 
 REESE LIBRARY 
 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 
 
 Accessions No. ^3 j shelf No.. " 
 
BORDELLO S STORY 
 
 RETOLD IN PROSE 
 
 BY 
 
 ANNIE WALL 
 
 jSjUFQRB!^ 
 
 3If AND NEW YO1 
 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 $rej 
 
 1886 
 
Copyright, 1886, 
 Br ANNIE WALL. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Cambridge : 
 Hectrotyped and Printed by II. 0. Houghton & Co. 
 
n 7 
 
 To 
 MY FRIENDS OF THE "SORDELLO CLUB" 
 
 <$W Hitrte SSooft 
 
 IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 THE PLEASANT HOURS WHEN WE. HEARD 
 
 BORDELLO S STORY 
 TOLD. 
 
Ma vedi la un anima, ch a posta 
 
 Sola soletta verso noi riguarda ; 
 
 Quella ne insegnera la via piu tosta. 
 Veniraino a lei, O anima lombarda, 
 
 Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa, 
 
 E nel muover degli occhi onesta e tarda ? 
 Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa ; 
 
 Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, 
 
 A guisa di leon, quando, si posa. 
 Pur Virgilio si trasse a lei pregando 
 
 Che ne mostrasse la miglior salita ; 
 
 E quella non rispose al suo dimando ; 
 Ma di nostro paese, e della vita 
 
 Ci chiese. E 1 dolce Duca ineominciava ; 
 
 Mantova. E 1 ombra, tutta in se romita, 
 Surse ver lui del luogo ove pria stava, 
 
 Dicendo ; O Mantovano, io son Sordello, 
 
 Delia tua terra. E 1 un 1 altro abbraciava. 
 DANTE, Purgatorio, Canto vi., verses 58-76. 
 
HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
Soleva Roma, che ? 1 buon mondo feo, 
 
 Due Soli aver ; che 1 una e 1 altra strada 
 Facean vedere e del Mondo, e del Dio. 
 
 L un 1 altro ha spento, ed e giunta la spada 
 Col pastorale ; e 1 un col altro insieme 
 Per viva forza mal convien che vada ; 
 
 Perocche, giunti 1 un 1 altro non teme. 
 
 DANTE, Purgatorio, Canto 17, Verses 106-112. 
 
/TV" Of TH 
 
 fflJl VERSITY 
 
 HISTOKICAL INTRODUCTION. 
 
 |HE scene of " Bordello " is laid in 
 Lombardy, in the early part of the 
 thirteenth century, when Freder 
 ick II. is Emperor, and Honorius III. Pope. 
 It is needful that we should have some 
 knowledge of the political and social condi 
 tion of Italy at that period, if we wish to 
 enter into the spirit of the poem, to enjoy 
 its historical allusions or be able in any way 
 to comprehend the problems that vexed Sor- 
 dello s soul. 
 
 The empire of Charles the Great, which 
 he ruled, as he believed, by divine commis 
 sion, had included nearly all of western 
 Christendom, but the revived empire of Otto 
 the Great, established early in the tenth 
 century, consisted of Germany and Lorn- 
 
io Historical Introduction. 
 
 bardy, with the Romagna, and to this Bur 
 gundy was afterwards added; and it was 
 Otto who fixed the principle that to the 
 German king belonged the Roman crown. 
 
 The friend and protector of the church, 
 Charles had always held himself the Pope s 
 superior, and Otto and his immediate suc 
 cessors gained many privileges in respect to 
 papal elections. 
 
 The crown of Germany was elective, al 
 though often passing in one family for sev 
 eral generations, and to the elected King of 
 the Franks, as he was called, came of right, 
 it was understood, the crowns of Burgundy, 
 Lombardy and the Roman Empire, the lat 
 ter bestowed by the Pope at Rome. 
 
 Pope and Emperor were supposed to be 
 the vicars of God on earth in spiritual and 
 temporal affairs, equal and coordinate. But 
 the theory was rarely observed in practice, 
 and the culmination of the struggle for su 
 premacy between the two powers took place 
 in the reign of the Emperor Henry IV. of 
 Fraiiconia, and the papacy of Gregory VII., 
 the famous Hildebrand. 
 
Historical Introduction. n 
 
 It was the struggle between church and 
 state, which had already occurred on a 
 smaller scale in various cases, and which 
 shortly after broke out in England in the 
 dispute between Henry II. and Becket. 
 
 The quarrel ended in a compromise, in 
 which most of the gains were on the side of 
 the papacy, and it was renewed with great 
 fierceness in the reign of Frederick I. of Ho- 
 henstaufen, called the Red Beard, who came 
 to the throne in 1152, and who, desiring to 
 vindicate the claims of his office to equal 
 sanctity with that of his opponent, bestowed 
 upon the Empire the title of The Holy. 
 
 The cities of Lombardy, commonwealths 
 somewhat after the fashion of those of an 
 cient Greece, had grown to be very rich and 
 strong, and although ready to admit the 
 Emperor s authority in theory, were strik 
 ingly averse to submitting to any manifesta- 
 tion of it in practice. The city of Milan, 
 by her attacks upon a weaker neighbor, who 
 appealed to Frederick for aid, began a war 
 which resulted in the Peace of Constance in 
 
12 Historical Introduction. 
 
 1183, by which the Caesar abandoned all 
 but a nominal authority over the Lombard 
 League, which in the long contest had re 
 ceived aid from the Pope, and hence, al 
 though some of the cities were strongly im 
 perialist, was mainly papal in its sympathies. 
 The son and successor of Frederick, Henry 
 VI., married Constance, the heiress of the 
 Norman kingdom of Sicily, which was a 
 fief of the papal crown, and thenceforth a 
 new point of quarrel between Pope and Em 
 peror. 
 
 On the death of Henry came his brother, 
 Philip, who, being shortly afterwards mur 
 dered, made way for Otto of Saxony, a 
 nephew of John of England. But trouble 
 arising between Otto and the Pope, he was 
 finally deposed, and his place filled by Fred 
 erick, the son of Henry VI. and Constance 
 of Sicily, who had been chosen, during his 
 father s lifetime, King of the Romans, but 
 was set aside, as too young to govern, in 
 behalf of his uncle, Philip, and, curiously 
 enough, considering his future relations to 
 
Historical Introduction. 13 
 
 the papacy, was, in his early years, the ward 
 of Innocent III. 
 
 Frederick, stupor mundi et immutator 
 mirabilisi as Matthew Paris calls him, re 
 ceived the German crown at Aachen in 
 1215, the imperial crown at Rome in 1230, 
 and died in 1250 at Florentine, worn out 
 with perpetual struggles and under the ban 
 of the Pope. When young he had assumed 
 the cross, and the Church thereby acquired 
 a hold over him which was never aban 
 doned, while disputes in reference to Sicily 
 soon arose between him and Honorius. 
 
 When tidings came of the misfortunes 
 which had befallen the French crusaders in 
 Egypt and the loss of Damietta, mishaps 
 really due to the bad conduct of the cru 
 saders themselves, the Pope attributed 
 them to Frederick s failure to fulfil his 
 vow. The exigencies of the time, however, 
 seemed to require the Emperor s presence 
 at home, nor was the crusading spirit then 
 especially prevalent in Europe. 
 
 John of Brienne, the dethroned king of 
 
14 Historical Introduction. 
 
 Jerusalem, wandered from court to court, 
 vainly seeking aid to recover his crown, and 
 in 1235, Frederick, who had married his 
 daughter, Jolande, declared her claims to be 
 better than her father s, which were asserted 
 only in right of his late wife. He then as 
 sumed for himself, in virtue of Jolande s 
 heirship, the title of king, and soon after 
 began to fit out an expedition for the re 
 covery of the kingdom. 
 
 In the midst of all these disturbances 
 Honorius died, and his place was filled by a 
 man of great ability, the aged Cardinal 
 Ugolino, who assumed the title of Gregory 
 IX., and issued a mandate to the princes of 
 Christendom for an immediate crusade. 
 
 Frederick assembled a fleet at Brindisi, 
 where the plague fell upon his army, cutting 
 off many, among others the Landgrave of 
 Thuringia, the husband of St. Elizabeth of 
 Hungary. 
 
 The squadron set sail, but the Emperor 
 falling ill himself, his return was unavoid 
 able, though it brought down a speedy ex- 
 
Historical Introduction. 15 
 
 communication upon his head ; he issued, in 
 reply, an address to the sovereigns of Eu 
 rope, in which he stated his reasons for re 
 turning, and called upon all to resist the 
 intolerable assumptions of the papacy. 
 " Your own houses," wrote he, " are in dan 
 ger, when your neighbor s is in flames ! " 
 
 Again excommunicated, Frederick set 
 forth at last, with a fleet of some twenty 
 sail, " more like a pirate than a prince," 
 said Gregory, and landed at Ptolemais, 
 where he was coldly received by the various 
 parties, who, for the moment, hushed their 
 constant bickerings to insult the temporal 
 head of Christendom. 
 
 The Sultan of Babylon (Cairo), Malek 
 Kameel, was engaged at that moment in a 
 quarrel with Malek Moadhim, the Sultan of 
 Damascus, and was disposed to give some 
 privileges to the Christians if he could 
 thereby weaken his enemy. He accordingly 
 treated with Frederick for Jerusalem and 
 the surrounding territory, which were to 
 pass into the hands of the Christians, while 
 
1 6 Historical Introduction. 
 
 civil rights and the exclusive possession of 
 the Mosque of Omar were secured to the 
 Moslems. But the Holy City itself was 
 placed under the ban of the Church, and 
 the Patriarch refusing to perform the coro 
 nation ceremony, Frederick set the crown 
 upon his head with his own hand, after 
 wards placing a second diadem upon the 
 brow of his wife. 
 
 It was a bloodless triumph, but it drew 
 down upon the victor a storm of reproach, 
 as if never before had treaties been made be 
 tween Christian and Mohammedan princes ; 
 papal intrigues hastened his return, nor did 
 the quarrel end until the death of Gregory. 
 
 In an evil hour for Frederick the choice 
 of a new Pope fell upon a Genoese cardinal, 
 upon whom he had conferred many favors, 
 and who, up to this time, had been one of 
 his staunch supporters. " In the Cardinal," 
 said Frederick, to some one who congratu 
 lated him on the election, " I have lost my 
 best friend ; in the Pope I shall find my 
 worst enemy. No Pope can be a Ghibel- 
 line." 
 
Historical Introduction. 77 
 
 In a council summoned in 1245 at Lyons, 
 the Pope, Innocent IV., who found the gen 
 eral sentiment of Europe among princes and 
 people, and even largely among Church 
 men, to be opposed to him, proposed to try 
 his case against Frederick. 
 
 But the Emperor s lawyer found that no 
 justice was to be looked for, and in an able 
 speech he appealed from that to a future 
 tribunal, from the Pope, who was his sover 
 eign s enemy, to one more just hereafter. 
 Vainly did French and English envoys re 
 monstrate, for even the pious St. Louis and 
 the priest-ridden Henry III. disapproved of 
 Innocent s conduct, the Pope was resolved 
 upon his course. 
 
 Without taking the vote of the Council 
 he rose from his seat in the midst of the 
 panic-stricken Churchmen, and declared the 
 Emperor to be excommunicated and de 
 posed, and his "subjects absolved from their 
 allegiance, the sentence being accompanied 
 by the extinction of torches and other cere 
 monial, " while the general awe was height- 
 
1 8 Historical Introduction. 
 
 ened by the appearance of a meteor, which, 
 as the words were spoken, shot across the 
 sky." 
 
 At this juncture Frederick made the mis 
 take of confounding the cause of the Pope, 
 then everywhere unpopular, with that of the 
 clergy at large ; he lost his self-control and 
 indulged in vituperations of the whole body, 
 which caused many of his strongest sup 
 porters, the German prelates, to fall away 
 from him, and rendered his cause less gen 
 erally favored. 
 
 Five years of warfare ensued, and in 1250 
 Frederick expired, in the arms of his son 
 Manfred, who succeeded him in Sicily, 
 leaving behind him a fame which not even 
 papal hatred could destroy. 
 
 In Germany, the great Churchmen were 
 long on his side, and when they fell away, 
 his barons, many of them old enemies, 
 rallied about him. His legislation was far 
 in advance of any other of his time, and in 
 some respects, in regard to agriculture and 
 commerce, appears to have anticipated tho 
 
Historical Introduction. /p 
 
 most advanced thought of to-day ; in Sicily 
 he liberated the Commons from the tyranny 
 of feudal lords and ecclesiastical rule, freed 
 the serfs upon his own estates, and legalized 
 ownership of property by that class ; made 
 justice easily accessible to all, established 
 semi-annual parliaments where the cities 
 appeared by their delegates, entered into 
 commercial treaties with the great sea-faring 
 nations of the day, and, like Elizabeth of 
 England, engaged in many ventures on his 
 own account. 
 
 He founded schools and universities, and 
 Greek being then the spoken language of a 
 large part of his people, its literature was 
 carefully preserved, and might never have 
 passed from the knowledge of Europe, had 
 the rule of his house continued in Sicily. 
 
 His knowledge of Arabic opened to him 
 many famous w r orks, and he ordered many 
 translations to be made from that language 
 and the Greek for the use of his subjects, 
 that of Aristotle being intrusted to one of 
 his chief advisers, a scholar from a far-off 
 
2O Historical Introduction. 
 
 northern land, " the wizard," Michael Scott. 
 Literature and Art could not fail to flourish 
 under a prince who was himself philosopher 
 and poet ; Greek and Arabian writers 
 thronged his court, the Minnesaenger of 
 Germany, the Troubadours of Provence and 
 Guienne, and the French Trouveres wan 
 dered over the Alps to join their brethren 
 in minstrelsy, and the Italian Muse sang her 
 first songs in the sweet Sicilian tongue. 
 
 Spite of a professed acceptance of the 
 doctrines current in his time, Frederick II. 
 was accounted as being far from orthodox 
 in his religious opinions. His sarcastic wit 
 often shocked an age peculiarly reverential 
 of forms, and his tolerance of the beliefs of 
 others could then be explained only on the 
 supposition that he had lost his own. More 
 over, the irregularities of his private life and 
 his occasional outbursts of cruelty laid him 
 open to deserved censure. It is not strange 
 that his faith in church doctrines should have 
 been weakened by the cruel injustice which 
 he suffered from the Church s head, and we 
 
Historical Introduction. 21 
 
 can easily believe that a man of his intel 
 lectual powers might have glimpses of some 
 thing better than the average theology of 
 the day ; it is quite certain also that most 
 rulers of that period resembled him far 
 more in his defects than in his excellences, 
 and that his ruined life was an irreparable 
 misfortune to Europe. 
 
 The strife in the reign of Frederick II. 
 was not, says Dean Milman, " for any spe 
 cific point in dispute, like the right of inves 
 titure, but avowedly for supremacy on one 
 side, which hardly deigned to call itself in 
 dependence ; for independence on the other, 
 which, remotely at least, aspired after su 
 premacy. Caesar would bear no superior, 
 the successor of St. Peter no equal." 1 
 
 Too far in advance of his age to be in 
 sympathy with it, prevented by force of 
 circumstances from pursuing a consistent 
 imperial policy, Frederick, the wonder of 
 the world though he was, failed to produce 
 
 1 It was a saying- in Rome that Caesar would brook no 
 superior, Pompey no equal. 
 
22 Historical Introduction. 
 
 upon his time any impression commensurate 
 with his vast abilities ; yet he did much, and 
 the fruits of his legislation in Germany were 
 reaped in a later reign, while untold pros 
 perity might have been the result in Sicily, 
 but for the French invasion and the ensuing 
 wars. 
 
 As for Frederick himself, he remains for 
 us one of the most brilliant and interesting 
 actors upon the stage of the world s history, 
 the most splendid figure in the most splendid 
 of imperial houses, a man whose faults were 
 largely due to his position and the time ir* 
 which he lived, whose virtues and transcen 
 dent powers were all his own. 
 
 Nothing could well have been more stormy 
 than life in a mediaeval Italian city, where 
 an hundred questions complicated politics in 
 a most perplexing fashion. There were 
 Ghibelline cities, or those that sided with 
 the Emperor in his perennial quarrel with 
 the Pope, and Guclfic cities, or those which 
 supported the Papal cause, but in each was 
 
Historical Introduction. 2} 
 
 to be found a minority of the opposite party. 
 Every city, moreover, had her ever-recurring 
 disputes with the baron most influential in 
 her territory, while the great burgher-fami 
 lies mingled party politics with private 
 feuds. The strife was waged with horrible 
 cruelty ; burning houses, murdered men, wo 
 men and children were no rare sights in 
 those days ; good faith was rare, and treaties 
 seemed made but to be broken. The cities, 
 which were commonwealths much after the 
 old Greek type, had grown rapidly in wealth 
 and power, due largely to the development 
 of the industrial arts, but their literature 
 was, as yet, of foreign growth, and the fine 
 arts were awaiting that full glory that was 
 to come from the flood of Hellenic light 
 that was to waken them to new and diviner 
 life and splendors. 
 
 In the eleventh and twelfth centuries 
 there had been developed a rich and bril 
 liant literature, that of the Langue d Oc. 
 
 The name of Romance has been applied 
 
24 Historical Introduction. 
 
 to those languages which were spoken in 
 Italy, Gaul, and Spain, and which were 
 formed from a mixture of the common 
 speech of Roman colonists and soldiers with 
 the language of conquered Gauls and con 
 quering Germans. Distinct from the classic 
 Latin of the Schools, the Law, and the 
 Church, they were despised as bad Latin 
 for a long time, but gradually formed them 
 selves into groups, which we recognize to-day 
 as Italian, French, Provencal, Spanish, etc. 
 The ProvenQal or Langue d Oc was 
 spoken in Guienne and Poitou, Toulouse 
 and Provence : the first three principalities 
 acknowledged the suzerainty of the French 
 king, although their allegiance sat but lightly 
 upon them ; the latter was a portion of the 
 Holy Roman Empire. One very marked 
 characteristic of their civilization was the 
 power and civil freedom of their great cities, 
 whose institutions dated from the period of 
 Roman occupation, and which were centres 
 of wealth, learning, and refinement. Their 
 exquisite language had here become highly 
 
Historical Introduction. 25 
 
 developed and polished by their poets, who 
 sang in melodious strains of love and war, 
 of the spring-tide with its flowers and birds, 
 the running streams that sparkled in the 
 sunshine, the blue sky that bent so tenderly 
 above them. 
 
 The Troubadours, as their poets were 
 called, from the word troubar, to invent, 
 were for the most part gay gentlemen and 
 gallant warriors, who", like William of Ac- 
 quitaine and Richard the Lion-Heart, were 
 equally skillful with lance and lute, or 
 stately dames, like Eleanor of Guienne and 
 Eleanor of Provence, who practiced the art 
 upon which they smiled. 
 
 Moreover, the Troubadours were ardent 
 in devotion to some ladye-fair, in honor of 
 whom they were always ready to indulge, 
 not only in high-flown praise, but in ex 
 traordinary and fantastic adventures, worthy 
 of Don Quixote himself, although they were 
 far less constant in affairs of the heart than 
 that chivalrous hero. 
 
 The Jongleurs, or professional minstrels, 
 
26 Historical Introduction. 
 
 were often attached to the personal service 
 of a great baron or lady, and sang the songs 
 of the Troubadours more commonly than 
 their own, while they frequently added to 
 their musical attainments great proficiency 
 in sleight-of-hand performances. They also 
 sometimes became strolling glee-men, wan 
 dering from place to place, and present on 
 fair and market-days, accompanied, it might 
 be, by an ape, who was trained to the per 
 formance of amusing tricks. 
 
 Life was rich and charming in Southern 
 Gaul; democratic institutions flourished in 
 her cities, her fertile soil, 
 
 " Where new pollen on the lily-petal grows 
 And still more labyrinthine buds the rose," 
 
 gave abundantly of its fruits, and man, na 
 ture, and art rejoiced together. 
 
 But freedom of thought grew up in thig 
 free atmosphere ; the famous heresy of the 
 Albigenses, so called from the city of Alby, 
 in the county of Toulouse, spread over the 
 country, and was supported by Count Ray- 
 
Historical Introduction. 27 
 
 mond himself, while it provoked the wrath 
 of the Pope Innocent III., who found in the 
 zeal of Montfort and the cupidity of Philip 
 Augustus implements ready to his hand, and 
 the thirty-years horror of the Albigensian 
 war trampled out the fair civilization of 
 Toulouse in fire and blood. 
 
 But the Langue d Oc not only obtained in 
 those lands where it was the speech of the 
 people ; its literary precedence made it the 
 court language of the kings of Aragon and 
 Navarre, whose sway extended at that time 
 north of the Pyrenees, and also of the 
 princely courts of northern Italy, whose 
 poets neglected the yet rude dialects of their 
 own land in favor of their more polished 
 sister. 
 
 About this time, also, is the period of the 
 Trouveres, the poets of the old French, or 
 Langue d Oil, who give us the chansons de 
 gestes, among which stands first the noble 
 " Song of Roland ; " while Germany, like 
 the England of Elizabeth, was " a nest of 
 singing birds." The Minnesaenger were 
 
28 Historical Introduction. 
 
 the contemporaries of the Troubadours and 
 the TrouvSres, and Barbarossa and his son 
 Henry wrote verses in German and Proven 
 cal, as well as governed empires, and led 
 armies into battle. 
 
 The first poets, in any Italian dialect, 
 whose works remain, were the poets of 
 Sicily, who, at the court of their all-accom 
 plished master, King Frederick, essayed to 
 sing in native strains. It was but a short 
 lived poetry, however, perishing when the 
 promise of its lovely birth-place was de 
 stroyed, as that of Toulouse had been, by 
 the united forces of the papacy and the 
 French, and it was reserved for the Tuscan 
 to become, through the genius of Dante, the 
 mistress of the dialects of Italy. 
 
 THE GUELFS AND THE GHIBELLINES. 
 
 At the beginning of the reign of Conrad 
 III. the first Hohenstaufen Emperor, the 
 imperial crown was contested by Henry the 
 Proud, Duke of Saxony. In a battle be- 
 
Historical Introduction. 29 
 
 tween the opposing parties the Saxons used 
 as their war-cry the name of their leader, 
 Duke Henry s brother, Welf, while the 
 Swabian army responded with shouts of 
 " Waibling ! " a name derived from that of 
 the village where their leader, Conrad s 
 brother, had been born. 
 
 The names, transplanted into Italy, be 
 came Guelf and Ghibelline, and long sur 
 vived as the titles of two hostile political 
 parties, that of the Popes and that of the 
 Emperors. 
 
 DANTE S IMPERIALISM. 
 
 Dante s ardent imperialism is well known 
 to all who have read the story of " the ban 
 ished Ghibelline ; " but it is quite possible 
 that all may not understand in precisely 
 what that imperialism consisted. 
 
 He accepted absolutely the mediaeval the 
 ory of the two divinely-appointed heads of 
 the world, the spiritual and the temporal, 
 the Pope and the Emperor. He lived dur 
 ing the pontificate of Boniface VIII., who 
 
}O Historical Introduction. 
 
 arrogated to himself temporal as well as 
 spiritual supremacy, showing himself to the 
 multitudes who thronged the streets of 
 Rome during the Great Jubilee of the year 
 1300, seated upon a throne, and holding in 
 his hands two swords, while he cried with a 
 loud voice, " I am Ca3sar ! " 
 
 In the year 1312 that wise and powerful 
 sovereign, Henry of Luxemburg, came to 
 Rome, where he received the golden crown 
 of the empire. He died soon after, unhap 
 pily, and with him perished all the hopes of 
 the Ghibellines, but he was the ideal ruler 
 to whom the Florentine patriot looked for 
 the regeneration of the world. 
 
 Dante s doctrinal orthodoxy is testified to 
 by the fact that, although he praises Fred 
 erick II. for good laws and wise government, 
 he has plunged him, for free-thinking, into 
 the flames of hell ; but he greatly reprobated 
 the Popes assumption of temporal sway, 
 which he believed contrary to their duty as 
 spiritual chiefs. 
 
 To Dante, moreover, who had witnessed 
 
Historical Introduction. 31 
 
 the horrors of perpetual civil warfare, who 
 had eaten the bitter bread of exile and toil 
 somely climbed "the stairs of others," it 
 seemed, not unnaturally, that the one earthly 
 good most to be desired is peace. This 
 blessing he held to be attainable only under 
 the sway of a monarch, the divinely ap 
 pointed Emperor, who was placed so far 
 above the strifes and jealousies of parties 
 that he could deal impartial justice, and 
 preserve peace and orderly rule for man 
 kind. 
 
 But this monarch, all-powerful though he 
 be, " is," says Dean Milman, " no arbitrary 
 despot, but a constitutional sovereign ; he is 
 the Roman Law impersonated in the Em 
 peror ; a monarch who should leave all the 
 nations, all the free Italian cities, in posses 
 sion of their rights and old municipal insti 
 tutions." 
 
}2 Historical Introduction. 
 
 CHIEF PERSONS OF THE POEM. 
 GHIBELLINES. 
 
 Frederick II. of Hohenstaufen, fourth 
 King and Emperor of the Swabian House ; 
 King of Germany, Burgundy, Lombardy, 
 Sicily, and Jerusalem, Emperor of the Ro 
 mans. 
 
 Ecelin of Romano, called the Monk ; a 
 great Ghibelline baron of Northern Italy, 
 the most powerful noble in the Trevisan 
 March. He rose to power under previous 
 emperors, and was much favored by Freder 
 ick, but was now desirous of retiring from 
 the world. He was one of the Paterini 
 (the sufferers, or the resigned), a sect akin 
 to the Albigenses of southern Gaul, to the 
 Italian Cathari and the Armenian Pauli- 
 cians. They included in their number not 
 only many of the townsfolk, but of the 
 barons of Lombardy. Like their Northern 
 brethren they were proceeded against with 
 great cruelty by the Popes. A crusade was 
 inaugurated against them under the lead of 
 
Historical Introduction. 33 
 
 the Preaching Friars, and many hundreds 
 were put to death. Ecelin s first wife, repre 
 sented in the poem as the mother of Palma, 
 was Agnes, the sister of Azzo of Este ; his 
 last was Adelaide, a Tuscan lady ; she was 
 the mother of his two sons, Ecelin III., 
 called the Tyrant, and Alberic, who suc 
 ceeded to their father s lands and power in 
 Lombardy. They were both cruel and op 
 pressive in their rule, and both were finally 
 slain by their wretched subjects. 
 
 Taurdlo Salinguerra, a great warrior 
 and a skillful politician, with all the accom 
 plishments of his day. He is devoted to 
 the service of his over-lord Ecelin of Ro 
 mano, in whose interests he is completely 
 absorbed. He married for his first wife 
 Retrude, of the family of the Hohenstaufen, 
 who perished at Vicenza in a midnight in 
 surrection; her son was supposed to have 
 perished with her, but was saved, and is the 
 Sordello of our story. He is hidden by 
 Adelaide, who by her magic arts sees in 
 Taurello those signs of greatness which 
 
34 Historical Introduction. 
 
 show him destined to accomplish much if he 
 have an end to work for. She hopes by de 
 priving Taurello of his child to secure his 
 entire service for her husband. Salin- 
 guerra s subsequent history is told us in the 
 poem. 
 
 Palma, otherwise Cunizza, is the daugh 
 ter of Ecelin the Monk. She became the 
 wife of St. Boniface, and the heroine of 
 many adventures. Legend says that she 
 fell in love with Sordello, for whom she de 
 serted her husband ; she was afterwards 
 twice married. Dante places her in Para 
 dise, in the Heaven of Venus. She is rep 
 resented in the poem as desiring to marry 
 Sordello, whom she would inspire with her 
 own Ghibelline sentiments, and raise to a 
 prominent post under the Emperor. 
 
 Adelaide, wife of Ecelin the Monk. She 
 is said to have practiced magic arts, to fore 
 see the future, to learn what was going on 
 at a distance, and to restore her own failing 
 strength. 
 
 Tito, a Tyrolese, envoy of the Emperor 
 to Taurello Salinguerra. 
 
Historical Introduction. 35 
 
 GUELFS. 
 
 Honorius III., Pope. He died in 1227. 
 He was a man of great ability, and bent 
 upon enforcing the theory of the papal su 
 premacy. He sanctioned the establishment 
 of the Dominican and Franciscan Friars. 
 The quarrel with Frederick in regard to the 
 Crusade began in his reign, but it did not 
 come to extremities until the pontificate of 
 his successor, Gregory IX. 
 Azzo, Marquis of Este, ) Lombard 
 
 Count Richard of St. Boniface, ) barons. 
 The Papal Legate. 
 
 Bordello. The Sordello of the poem is 
 represented as the supposed son of an 
 archer, El Corte by name, who has been 
 brought up by Adelaide, wife of Ecelin of 
 Romano, at her castle of Goito. His father 
 had saved the life of Adelaide and her son 
 in the same midnight fray in which the wife 
 and child of Salinguerra were said to haye 
 
j6 Historical Introduction. 
 
 perished, and as he had been killed in the 
 fight his son has been cared for out of grati 
 tude for the father s service. The youth be 
 comes at last the favored minstrel of Ro 
 mano s daughter, Palma, who gives him her 
 love, and having learned his true parentage 
 from the dying Adelaide, proclaims Sordello 
 to be, not the archer s child, but the son of 
 Taurello Saiinguerra. 
 
 As for the Sordello of history the stories 
 are many and various that are told of him, 
 some writers thinking that there were two 
 persons of the same name, whose deeds have 
 been confounded, the one the Trouba 
 dour, the other, an able and just Podesta 1 of 
 Mantua. One writer would have us believe 
 that the latter, who is said to have been a 
 Ghibelline, is the Sordello whom Dante and 
 Virgil meet in Purgatory, and to whom Ben- 
 venuto da Imola alluded as nolilis et pru- 
 dens miles et curialis. 
 
 Raynouard, in his " Poetry of the Trou- 
 
 1 Head of the city government ; generally appointed 
 by the Emperor. 
 
Historical Introduction. 37 
 
 badours," declares him to have been a Man- 
 tuan, the son of a poor knight, named El 
 Corte ; he says, that being fond of verse- 
 making, Sordello came to the court of Count 
 Richard of St. Boniface at Mantua, where 
 he was much honored. Here, " for the 
 sake of pastime," he made love to the 
 Count s wife, Cunizza, and finally ran away 
 with the lady, being urged thereto by her 
 brothers, who had quarreled with Richard. 
 He afterwards came to the court of Ray 
 mond Berenger, Count of Provence, who, 
 like his wife, was a great friend of poets, 
 and here he won, not only great renown, but 
 a fine castle and a gentlewoman for his 
 wife. 
 
 The Mantuan Chroniclers assert that he 
 was of the Visconti family, that he married 
 the daughter of Romano, and governed well 
 and wisely as the Emperor s Podesta and 
 Vicar-General of Northern Italy. 
 
 A Troubadour, according to yet another 
 writer, who wrote much in the Provencal 
 language, not of love, but of philosophy. 
 
$8 Historical Introduction. 
 
 Although this statement seems hardly borne 
 out by the poems that remain, it may have 
 reference to some of those of which 
 " Naddo " speaks with such disapproval. 
 One of his most famous productions is a 
 funeral song for Blancasso, a distinguished 
 knight and troubadour. 
 
 According to still another biographer he 
 was born at Goito, a village near Mantua, 
 being the son of a poor knight, El Corte, 
 and became St. Boniface s minstrel, falling 
 in love with his wife and taking refuge in 
 Provence, where he came to great advance 
 ment ; returning thence he was made gov 
 ernor of Mantua, and died full of years and 
 honors. 
 
 He is reported to have received the prize 
 of bravery in a tourney from St. Lewis of 
 France. 
 
 He wrote not only in the fashionable Pro 
 ven cal, but also in his native Italian, al 
 though none of his poems in the latter lan 
 guage remain. 
 
 For this Dante, in his treatise De Volgarl 
 
Historical Introduction. 39 
 
 Eloquio, bestows upon him great praise. 
 He says that there was at that time a city- 
 speech, which was understood by all culti 
 vated people in all parts of Italy, and com 
 mends Bordello that he made use of this 
 rather than of a country dialect, which must 
 be comprehensible to but few. This, also, 
 is the reason why Browning speaks of him 
 as the precursor of Dante. 
 
 It has been said that like most of the 
 Troubadours, Sordello was a Ghibelline ; in 
 that case he would hardly have been at 
 tached to the household of St. Boniface, or 
 on such terms with that bitter foe of the 
 Hohenstaufen, the cruel Charles of Anjou, 
 as to have been invited by the latter to ac 
 company him on a crusade. The minstrel s 
 answer reminds us of the passage in Brown 
 ing s poem, in which our hero wishes for 
 "firmer arm and fleeter foot, but no mad 
 wings." 
 
 " My Lord Count," he says, " you ought 
 not thus to ask one to face death. Every 
 one is seeking his salvation by sea ; but for 
 
4O Historical Introduction. 
 
 my own part I am not eager to obtain it. 
 My wish is to be transported to another life 
 as late as possible." In fact it would seem 
 as if Bordello must have gradually risen to 
 a place among the Troubadours, who were 
 for the most part gentlemen of rank ; his 
 original position in the household of St. 
 Boniface being, perhaps, more clearly indi 
 cated by the term Jongleur. Still we do 
 find Jongleurs who were knights as well; 
 for example the famous Taillefer, the favor 
 ite minstrel of William of Normandy, who 
 rode in front of the invading army at the 
 battle of Senlac, tossing his sword into the 
 air, and catching it as it fell, while he sang 
 gayly the " Song of Roland." 
 
 In a long teuson, or poetical debate, be 
 tween Sordello and a brother Troubadour, 
 we find the question under discussion to be, 
 which is preferable, love or glory, and the 
 Mantuan pronounces without qualification 
 in favor of the former. 
 
 Still another tradition seems to point to 
 him as a son of Salinguerra, and this Brown- 
 
Historical Introduction. 41 
 
 ing has adopted, and from the many varying 
 characteristics has shaped his hero, whom 
 we must accept as the poet has given him 
 to us, holding him, for the time at least, to 
 be the Bordello, not only of the poem, but 
 of history as well. 
 
 Unless we do this we shall miss the whole 
 force of the comparison and contrast with 
 Dante, and so one of the most striking feat 
 ures of the poem. 
 
THE STOEY OF THE POEM. 
 
SAY not the struggle naught availeth, 
 The labor and the wounds are vain, 
 
 The enemy faints not, nor faileth, 
 
 And as things have been, they remain. 
 
 If hopes were dupes, fears may be liars, 
 It may be, hi the smoke concealed ; 
 
 Your comrades chase even now the fliers, 
 And, but for you, possess the field. 
 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 
 
THE STORY OF THE POEM. 
 BOOK I. 
 
 [O will," says Browning, " may 
 hear Bordello s story told." 
 
 As from the mountain-top Don 
 Quixote beheld, amid the dust and din of 
 multitudes, the great king, Pentapolin of 
 the Iron Arm, struggling bravely in the 
 press, so the poet has singled out a fellow- 
 singer, seen dimly through the gloom of 
 " six long sad hundred years," and presents 
 him to us. 
 
 The poem opens in Verona, a city of 
 Lombardy, in the early part of the thnv 
 teenth century, when Frederick II. is Em 
 peror, and Honorius III. 1 is Pope. The old 
 
 1 If Sordello, u born with the new century," is thirty 
 years old when the story opens, it might seem that the 
 Pope should be Gregory IX. Honorius died in 1227 ; an 
 interregnum of two years followed, when Gregory was 
 chosen. 
 
46 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 strife of the Guelfs and Ghibellines is go 
 ing on as usual ; Count Richard of St. 
 Boniface, the Lord of Mantua, has allied 
 himself with Azzo, Marquis of Este, to over 
 turn the power of Taurello Salinguerra, the 
 right hand of Ecelin of Romano, who is the 
 most powerful Ghibelline baron of Northern 
 Italy and much trusted by the Emperor. 
 
 The news has just reached Verona that, 
 caught in their own toils, the Guelfic chiefs 
 have been taken captive at Ferrara, and the 
 citizens are gathered together in the market 
 place, eagerly discussing the event. 
 
 " Ah," says one, " Taurello s power did 
 certainly seem to be on the wane ; Ecelin 
 has withdrawn into a monastery, where he 
 is slowly dying of a wasting sickness ; the 
 Caesar delays his coming, looked for long 
 since, and the papal party has been gaining 
 strength. The Guelfs in Ferrara rebuilt 
 their ruined houses, believing themselves se 
 cure ; it has even been asserted that two 
 chiefs of the rival parties, meeting in a nar 
 row street, crowded full of Ghibellines, act- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 47 
 
 ually passed without a fight. Such a state 
 of things is too unnatural to last. Then 
 Taurello, assuming his presence to be the 
 sole obstacle to a permanent peace, left Fer- 
 rara for Padua. But no sooner was he gone 
 than there was a Guelfic rising, rioting be 
 gan, lo ! in an instant Taurello was in 
 their midst and took a signal vengeance. 
 Azzo fled, and, returning with St. Boniface, 
 laid siege to the city ; at length a parley 
 was called, and the two Guelfs entered the 
 town, over whose deserted streets rested an 
 ominous silence ; suddenly they were seized 
 with all their train, and thrown into prison, 
 and Salinguerra triumphed." 
 
 Such are the tidings that have reached 
 Verona, and all are agog for battle ! 
 
 The Emperor, delaying for the moment 
 his projected crusade, proposes to come to 
 Lombardy ; he is very unwilling that the 
 Pope should succeed in regaining any of the 
 privileges which have been won in the past 
 by Otto the Great and Barbarossa, and so 
 defers his Syrian expedition until matters 
 
48 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 are more settled at home ; an act for which 
 he is excommunicated by Honorius. " Ece- 
 lin s father," say the Veronese, " was Ecelo, 
 who came into power under Conrad III., re 
 ceiving large fiefs in Northern Italy, which 
 he has transmitted to his son, the present 
 lord, who received additional favors from 
 Frederick I. Ecelin is Lord of Romano, 
 high in imperial favor, and the father of 
 many sons and daughters, and, despite his 
 hard heart and sickly person, has thriven 
 greatly in the world, which he has now so 
 inexplicably resolved to abandon. His prime 
 support is Salinguerra, a superb, easy-going 
 chieftain, whose life has, however, been a 
 lonely one. Years ago wife and child per 
 ished in a party fray, and careless of him 
 self, he has bent all his energies to prop 
 the House of Romano." " Are these," ask 
 the Veronese burghers, " the leaders to com 
 pare with Azzo of Este, the Guelfic Lion ? " 
 All night long the people talk and listen; 
 all night long the Twenty-Four, the magis 
 trates of Verona, sit in solemn debate to- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 49 
 
 gether ; and in a small inner chamber of the 
 palace are Palma, the daughter of Romano, 
 and Bordello, the hero of our tale, the pre 
 cursor of Dante, as a singer in the native 
 tongue of Italy. Who is Sordello, and why 
 is he here in the secret room, with the great 
 baron s daughter ? This is the story which 
 the poet proceeds to tell us. 
 
 About the city of Mantua the land is half 
 slough half pine forest, with water-courses 
 fringed with scarlet-oaks and maples ; in 
 summer even the Mincio is dry ; but in win 
 ter it is one broad morass, but half redeemed 
 by human toil to human uses. Some thirty 
 years before the scene we have described, 
 the castle of Goito stood almost alone in 
 such a recovered spot, surrounded by low 
 mountains, whose main defiles were hidden 
 by firs and birches and bound about with 
 vineyards. 
 
 A castle full of winding corridors and 
 noble rooms, one of which, maple-paneled, 
 and ornamented with Arabic inscriptions 
 
50 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 in burnished gold, was hung with arras, 
 on which were pictured the proud barons 
 and fair dames of the House of Romano, 
 while yet beyond, in a vaulted chamber, 
 stood a font of stone, encircled by a group 
 of marble maidens, by whom, for many a 
 year, Sordello was wont to sit at eventide, 
 and pray that they might win pardon for 
 the sins for which he fancied them to be 
 doing penance in stone. 
 
 Sordello is a slender boy, in page s dress, 
 who watches the birds in the autumn days, 
 and spends his hours in winter in gazing at 
 the forms depicted on the arras. 
 
 He is a princely boy, whom nature seems 
 to have formed for pleasure, one of the 
 regal class, separated from the mass of men 
 who are doomed to toil, and placed among 
 that smaller company whose birthright is to 
 enjoy. As some lands, like his own Italy, 
 are framed for rich fertility, lands where all 
 nature rejoices in production. 
 
 They absorb at eye and ear the loveliness 
 of nature, while to those less favored she 
 
The Story of the Poem. 57 
 
 holds her beauty but half revealed, as if she 
 could not trust them with her world. 
 
 How can this regal class love? Like 
 souls brooding upon each richly-laden dis 
 covery, blind at first to anything beyond its 
 beauty, until such great love becomes op 
 pressive, and could they realize, as some 
 times befalls such natures, how little they 
 can do of good, how little they can bring of 
 blessing to the object which they worship, 
 their love would become to them not a bless 
 ing, but a curse. Hence it is given them to 
 be capable of investing lifeless things with 
 life from their own souls, while one by one 
 their idols are discrowned as they are able 
 to behold things more and more beautiful, 
 until they gaze upon the Highest. One 
 characteristic is always theirs, the need to 
 blend themselves with external things, and 
 to belong to what they worship, until that 
 which they adore holds them forever in 
 its grasp, past hope of escape. They lay 
 aside their individuality, and abdicate their 
 throne ; the creator yields to the creature ; 
 
52 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 they give life to others, but they lose their 
 bwn. 
 
 There is another class of natures that, 
 looking at beauty no less eagerly, refer 
 each form of outward loveliness to some 
 related loveliness within their own souls, 
 believing it but the outward manifestation 
 of an inner consciousness, the physical reali 
 zation of an intellectual dream. 
 
 The homage that others direct outward 
 they turn inward, and wonder that external 
 circumstances can depress the soul, which 
 can laugh at fate, and, stamped with individ 
 uality and unfettered by the elemental life 
 of earth, can soar to Heaven s complexest 
 essence, equal to being all. 
 
 Can this indeed be true, and is our race 
 really vindicated by the ascent of these lofty 
 souls whom we, one day, may follow even 
 with our more bounded wills ? 
 
 But how sad it is to find that minds of 
 the first order may be enervated by certain 
 moods that counsel them to slumber and in 
 action, instead of bidding them stoop to 
 
The Story of the Poem. 53 
 
 task themselves for the good of mankind 
 when life and time are in accord for action, 
 because, forsooth, the occasion is not suited 
 to display all their powers. " Why do so 
 small a deed ? Wait till the grand adven 
 ture offer I " 
 
 And there is something yet worse that may 
 happen, for the soul may be filled with a 
 desire to put forth all its powers at once, to 
 reach beyond mortal limits, and to force into 
 time the work of eternity ; to be Caesar or 
 nothing ; to refuse a part if the whole be 
 not placed within its grasp. 1 
 
 Such is Bordello ; but who sees the plague- 
 spot on him as he loiters here ? 
 
 Born with the new century, in the midst 
 of the glow and flowering beauty that are 
 spreading from the barbarism of the past, 
 as witnessed to by a stray Greek, now and 
 then wandering through Florence, the pre- 
 
 1 The effort to realize the impossible, the search for 
 new excitement, became incessant, till thought and ca 
 price, judgment and fantasy, became indistinguishable. 
 "King Louis of Bavaria," London Spectator. 
 
54 TJje Story of the Poem. 
 
 cursor of a glory that a later age shall 
 bring ; fortunate should be Bordello, and 
 who sees now the plague-spot ? And yet it 
 is there, and though for a while we may 
 cover it from view, it shall some day work 
 woe to one for whom there is yet much of 
 pleasantness in his daily life. 
 
 He can never remember when he has not 
 dwelt at Goito, that castle set in the marsh 
 land, which belongs to Adelaide, Ecelin s 
 Tuscan wife. He has known no other 
 world, but this has been his own, to wander 
 through and loiter in at will, so he do not 
 enter the northern rooms, where Adelaide s 
 apartments are. Here he is attended by 
 foreign serving-women, who have been kind 
 to the lonely boy. 
 
 And for a time the day s life was enough 
 for Bordello, who sucked the sweets of 
 earthly pleasures and wreathed each new dis 
 covery with childish fantasies, seeking to 
 put something of his own rich life into life 
 less things, that they might become in some 
 sense his fellows. They appear with aspects 
 
The Story of the Poem. 55 
 
 never quite the same, depicted as his fancy 
 wills, which sometimes bestows upon famil 
 iar things grotesque shapes, though keeping 
 a grave regard through all. Each was re 
 lated to each; the house-leek on the roof 
 had some bond that allied it with the proud 
 chieftain, who came one day with his archer- 
 train to the lodge, and strode clanking up 
 the stair to those chambers that were closed 
 to Bordello. 
 
 Like a spider he spun the web of his fan 
 cies over all, and swung gayly upon the 
 threads that were produced from his own 
 fertile imagination. And if he were selfish 
 in his pleasures, who had ever taught him 
 that others might gladly share his joy ? And 
 when chance destroyed his pretty fancies, as 
 must heeds happen since the world is always 
 ready to sweep away such webs ; if the 
 March winds beat down a heron s nest, or a 
 fawn fell from a crag to die, could such 
 things break the charm that held the boy 
 enthralled ? 
 
 Time brought at last to Sordello what the 
 
56 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 world should have taught him, namely, the 
 true relationship between himself and his 
 companions, whom, although the glamour 
 has departed, he cannot yet wholly renounce, 
 since they have once afforded him delight. 
 If, however, he now try to recall the poppy s 
 gifts, he sees that it is but a poppy after all ; 
 no longer some enchanted creature, which 
 felt with him, as he with it. Why should 
 he distrust the evidence of sense ? Tis but 
 a poppy. Then speaks the new-born judg 
 ment, declaring it to be of little use to dis 
 cern the attributes of others, if destitute of 
 attributes one s self. Or even if it were of 
 use, if one could only possess some special 
 office that was one s very own ! Or if not 
 that, at least his soul craved some justifica 
 tion for the wish to circumscribe and con 
 centrate, rather than increase, the sum of 
 actual pleasure, and prove, beyond a doubt, 
 that mere sympathy suffices, and that one 
 can enjoy delights by proxy. 
 
 Alas for Sordello, if he reason thus ! For 
 from the beginning love is whole and true, 
 
The Story of the Poem. . 57 
 
 and is sure of its own truth, if of nothing 
 else ; it will not endure to have its face 
 gazed upon by a crowd that cannot know 
 the deep pulses of its heart. Its very inabil 
 ity to minister worthily to what it worships 
 only increases its strength of feeling, and 
 exalts the idol it adores far above itself, and 
 exalts it gladly. But souls like Sordello s, if 
 they are coerced and shamed, yet still retain 
 their power of will, care but little, and com 
 fort themselves in some mysterious fashion, 
 although they are constantly peering forth 
 to see if others approve of their claims, and 
 will utter for them the thoughts they can 
 not themselves express. Such minds as 
 this must always be in the presence of a 
 crowd. 
 
 " Vanity," says Naddo, who is the person 
 ification of general common-sense and aver 
 age public opinion. 
 
 But how shall the lonely Sordello find a 
 public ? Forth comes, not only every painted 
 warrior from the arras, every stone girl from 
 the fountain, not only Adelaide, whom once, 
 
$8 . The Story of the Poem. 
 
 being astray in the castle, he had surprised, 
 as she sat reading, a fair maiden at her 
 knee ; not only these, but the whole outside 
 world as he had imaged it from song and 
 story and, perhaps, from dreams ; its char 
 acteristics, such as he had fancied them and 
 transferred them to tree and flower, not 
 thinking any of them sufficient to bestow 
 upon a man, these now stood forth inde 
 pendent and alone. Strength, wisdom, 
 grace disengaged themselves, and he began 
 dimly to conceive of a sort of human life, 
 or at least his brain teemed with life-like 
 figures. But on what shall his attention be 
 fixed ? Are these figures merely to testify 
 to the movements of Sordello s soul, terrible 
 or sweet? Each one lives his own life, 
 boasts of his own share of happiness, and 
 stands alone somewhere, where his desires 
 are easiest attained. But these are no 
 longer desires which are easy to be realized, 
 as were those of his forest-creatures ; con 
 trasts and combinations are presented by this 
 company so suddenly evoked, combina- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 59 
 
 tions which are prized by them who are, per 
 haps, to become judges of his own desires. 
 Shall he suffer this crowd of his own crea 
 tions to win control, to arbitrarily give value 
 to what he has lived without, and never felt 
 the lack of ? What matters it ? A deeper 
 power has rendered Bordello discontented 
 with the woodland sights which lately so en 
 wrapped him, and he is absorbed in studying 
 the characters and purposes of the human 
 fancies which he has called into being, and 
 whose artificial joys he accepts, not as he 
 views them, but that, employing each shape 
 to estimate the value of the others, he may 
 be enabled to enter into a multitude of 
 authorized pleasures, as once he blent him 
 self with tree and flower, and even more 
 completely, surely, than with them. Each 
 of these creatures, who is, in a fashion, 
 Bordello himself, is capable of great deeds ; 
 one day he will accomplish such, though 
 now he must dwell with dreams ; yet by their 
 aid he will find self-expression, an instru 
 ment serviceable in the future. Why should 
 
60 The Story of fbe Poem. 
 
 he not be the peer of Ecelin, who, he hears, 
 is become the Emperor s viceroy ? Surely 
 he can wield a brand as well. He makes 
 the trial, but failing, returns to those easier 
 dreams of future triumphs, which fancy can 
 portray at will. 
 
 Thus he lives, no longer free from care, 
 but comforted for his deprivations, fitting 
 himself by anticipation to play his part 
 nobly in the future, when great barons shall 
 do him reverence, and great cities witness 
 his triumph. 
 
 Who grudges time spent for such ends ? 
 Rather labor to concentrate qualities, se 
 lected from far and near, and testing them, 
 compress the finest into one perfection, and 
 grasp the whole at once. 
 
 And thus he treated his phantasms ; set 
 ting aside the simpler, and combining traits, 
 he formed one or two characters that took 
 up into themselves the virtues of humanity, 
 and these in turn were reduced to one all- 
 powerful and all -noble. Whose is this 
 transcendent figure ? Can it be Frederick, 
 
The Story of the Poem. 61 
 
 of whom the bowmen talked ? Is the juice 
 which he knows is bubbling in the stalk of 
 yonder grape-vine some Saracenic wine 
 which the Caesar is drinking with the Mira- 
 moline ? 1 Are those hazel nuts, perchance, 
 the dates upon the bough that John of 
 Brienne sent to hasten the sailing of the 
 crusading squadron, as of old Cato held up 
 the ripe figs in the Roman Senate House to 
 show how near Kome s rival, Carthage, lay ? 
 Is it in truth the Caesar ? But how difficult 
 for harsh sights and sounds to come from 
 the sad world to one who must dwell in per 
 fect serenity, since his least look or word is 
 mighty to control, and his right hand wields 
 the thunderbolt ! But thunder would be 
 needless if the multitude would but listen to 
 the song of the minstrel ; why should not 
 this all-perfect being be the Poet ? And so, 
 half emperor, half minstrel, he lived his life ; 
 only vile things troubled him, and these in 
 
 1 A Moslem prince, whose territory was situated in 
 Northern Africa. Miramoline is another form of the 
 name, which is a Spanish corruption of a Moorish title. 
 
62 Tbe Story of the Poem. 
 
 thought he slew ; while other fancies he con 
 trolled, and others yet he placed in seats of 
 honor, enthroned a little lower than him 
 self. 
 
 Like many before and after him, Sor- 
 dello had found Apollo ! He would be a 
 poet, although as yet he was forced to steal 
 from others, and to appear in a poetic array 
 that was but a sad patchwork. In the rare 
 June days he climbed the ravines, where the 
 sparkling runnels slipped over clattering 
 pebbles, through the green walls of lindens 
 roofed with vines, whence emerging, he be 
 held long lines of trees which closed into a 
 magic forest, still, as of old, full of sweet 
 surprises. 
 
 Gradually he sees the Pythons perish b& 
 fore him ; obstacles are overcome ; but the 
 maids, his Delian priestesses, linger still ; 
 more or less loving or disdainful, they join 
 in adoring Apollo. But where is the 
 Daphne, the beloved of the God ? 
 
 He hears the serving-women gossip of the 
 probable marriage of Ecelin s daughter, 
 
The Story of the Poem. 6} 
 
 Palma, with Richard of St. Boniface, the 
 Guelfic prince, that thus political feuds may 
 be appeased. " But," they add, " Palma 
 will have none of him ! " 
 
 And so the lady who scorns other mates 
 seems most worthy of Sordello, and becomes 
 the Daphne of his dreams. 
 
 Time wears on, though Fate delays to 
 provide the stage and the audience Sordello 
 desires. He grows pale and restless in his 
 enforced quiet, weary of inaction. Time 
 flies, but he remains the same. None come 
 to him. Adelaide is in Mantua, whence 
 Taurello has departed. Oh, let but Freder 
 ick come, and let matter be found for that 
 minstrelsy which has been lured from Sicily 
 and the young Emperor s court, and which, 
 like the double outflow of a drinking-cup, 
 sparkles over the thirsty land, to Provence 
 on the north and thus far to the south ! 
 
 Ah, what a way this is to tell men of 
 what is going on about them, recording it in 
 the very tongue which they speak daily, as 
 the Troubadours do, while in their turn the 
 
64 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 Trouveres proclaim the wonder, and explain 
 it to their hearers, until the House of Ro 
 mano is famed throughout the world ! Such 
 was Taurello s purpose when he introduced 
 the poetic games, the Courts of Love and 
 Song, into Lombardy ; and Adelaide, in her 
 turn, now summons one at Mantua, when a 
 sudden accident, like a flash of light, opens 
 Sordello s eyes to the true work of life. 
 
BOOK II. 
 
 IT is a pleasant spring morning, 
 and Sordello is sure that the day 
 will bring him to the lady of his 
 dreams. She is there in the whispering pine 
 woods, and he has but to seek her. Gayly 
 he sets forth; the great morass sparkles 
 wide around him in the sunshine, and 
 Palma s form floats vaguely before his eyes ; 
 the marshy ground yields beneath his tread, 
 lakes spreading as he moves ; Palma enters 
 the wood ; she will emerge on the other side, 
 and crowds, and St. Boniface also, will see 
 that she loves him. One more screen of 
 pines is passed, and lo ! Mantua lies before 
 him, and upon the green plain without the 
 walls cluster real men and women about a 
 gorgeous pavilion. But do they all rush to 
 adore Sordello? Not so; and yet his fan 
 cies were not wholly vain, for there sits 
 
66 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 Palma, seen in the pavilion as the curtains 
 fall aside. Now he believes that his hour 
 had come ; yet not so ; for Eglamor, 
 the best minstrel of St. Boniface, steps for 
 ward to conclude with his song the Court of 
 Love. He sings the praise of Elys, the 
 lady of his love, in whose honor they name 
 the new string just fastened to his lute, and 
 all the hearers burst forth into applause. 
 But spite of the beauty of the song, Sordello 
 believes himself capable of surpassing it, of 
 giving it a more fitting ending ; and scarcely 
 have the shouts died away when he seizes a 
 lute, and filling up the outline Eglamor had 
 drawn, makes it living with the glow of his 
 own ardent imagination. On flies the song, 
 barely able to keep pace with the rushing 
 action, until Naddo is aghast. He is like 
 some Egyptian, who, goading a bull with 
 his sharp prong, suddenly sees him turn his 
 head, and beholds beneath his tongue the 
 scarabaeus, the mystic sign that marks the 
 sacred apis. The people shout for joy; 
 Sordello shrinks, but is sustained by the 
 
The Story of the Poem. 6j 
 
 sight of Adelaide, at her side the maid of 
 the north chamber, the Palma and Daphne 
 of his dreams. How fair she is with her 
 blue eyes and locks of gold ! and as she 
 unwinds a scarf from her neck, and lays 
 it upon his shoulders, Bordello s senses fail, 
 and he knows no more, until he awakens in 
 his old home, his forehead crowned, and 
 Palma s gift about him, while on the floor 
 beside him lies a splendid vesture, the prize 
 of victory. The kindly serving - women 
 gather around him, and praise him for a 
 youth so spent as to fit him for such deeds, 
 and they tell him how Eglamor, over 
 whelmed by defeat, has died, and that he 
 has been chosen to be Palma s minstrel, and 
 has been brought home by the Jongleurs in 
 a body. 
 
 Bordello, who hitherto had only perceived, 
 now rose up to think ; he passed a week in 
 living over again in memory all the delight 
 ful event. What wonderful thing had he 
 then done ? Blind was the other not to see, 
 as quickly as he had done, the relative im- 
 
68 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 portance of each part. But would he, Sor- 
 dello, have ever turned from Elys, to sing 
 of her for the pleasure of song itself ? 
 True, the bits of verse did help him to find a 
 new beauty in himself, leading his thought 
 up to many a hoard of fancies. Why 
 should such a performance win applause 
 from men if they, too, had fancies ? Was it 
 possible that they found a beauty in the 
 song itself? "If," he thinks, "they can 
 find in the poem any such beauty as I can, 
 who in my fancy have lived what then I 
 sang, who, in my dreams, have enjoyed 
 what now I praise ; if they can do that, they 
 must hold me, who could make them do it, 
 for a very god indeed ! Or it may be that 
 some one like Eglamor, who, if beneath me, 
 is above them, may have set a stamp upon 
 our work, so that men believe and worship 
 what they neither truly know nor delight in. 
 They may, too, have fancies of their own, 
 which will not come at their beck, but are 
 undefined until song links them together, 
 and renders them distinct and palpable." 
 
The Story of the Poem. 69 
 
 Suddenly the wind is hushed, the noon 
 day sky is clouded, and Bordello hears the 
 tramp of footsteps through the pine wood, 
 as the minstrel company bear the body of 
 Eglamor to his last resting-place, calm in 
 death, a few flowers in his hand. He was 
 Bordello s opposite ; for him verse was a 
 temple-worship, a ceremony that unveiled 
 the sanctuary, nor did he ever repine at the 
 effort needed to stand therein, or at finding 
 much that was blank and uncertain at the 
 shrine before which he was wont to kneel, 
 until the power responded, vouchsafing him 
 some sight or sound which he made his own, 
 and fixed, beautiful forever, in poetic form. 
 And these were a part of his life, unloosed 
 at pleasure, to soothe pain or care, while he 
 faltered like Perseus when he set free An 
 dromeda, so far these fancies seemed beyond 
 himself. Yet he was no rare genius, trans 
 figuring in every element at will, but rather 
 some patient gnome, who, shut up in some 
 cavern with his agate cup, his seed-pearl and 
 his topaz rod, finds enough to do in making 
 the best disposal that he can of them. 
 
70 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 And he had loved his art, and possessing 
 little of the world s wealth, had cared not 
 for the world s coldness, since he had that 
 sweet gift that makes all others poor, the 
 gift of song. None yet had equaled him, 
 and the coming triumph had seemed to him 
 so certain, his lay so fervid, unsurpassed as 
 yet. 
 
 We know the sequel, how he lost the vic 
 tory, and rank and life. Yet envy had 
 sunken within him when he had listened to 
 Bordello, and he tried to shout like the 
 others, though not like the common sort, to 
 show his pleasure, and, bending down, he 
 placed his own crown beneath Bordello s, 
 and kissed his successor s hand, leaving a 
 tear upon it. And then he joined his band, 
 who bade him sing his rival s song ; he 
 obeyed them, and went home. There was 
 no crowd, as of yore, to welcome him at his 
 coming; all were gone to escort the new 
 minstrel, his rival. And so he lay down to 
 sleep, well knowing that in the morning he 
 must rise to confront the problem of his 
 
The Story of the Poem. 77 
 
 changed estate ; and death, less cruel than 
 his friends, took him before the dawning. 
 
 Then the minstrels, who had heard of 
 Bordello s romantic home, and believed, 
 with Naddo, that one would willingly rest 
 far from the scene of one s defeat, had borne 
 the dead poet to Goito, and Bordello, rising 
 a degree higher yet in soul, laid his own 
 crown upon the breast of the dead, and 
 committed the charge of the minstrel s dust 
 and of his fame to the ferns and pines. 
 Nor was his prayer fruitless ; for a trefoil 
 floweret, that whitens ere noontide and is 
 swept away by the breeze of evening, bears 
 still the name of Eglamor. 
 
 It was a month of May, and Sordello, 
 robed and filleted, lay with his lute upon 
 the flowery turf; spite of the glow of his 
 poet-life, something within him seemed to 
 whisper that this fortune could not endure. 
 He had sought to learn something of his 
 birth and station, and he had been told this. 
 Years before, Ecelin, engaged in a feud at 
 Vicenza, had fired the quarter of the town in 
 
72 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 which his enemies dwelt, although that very 
 night his son Ecelin had been born there. 
 The latter, with his mother, was with diffi 
 culty rescued by Elcorte, an archer. The 
 wrath of those who missed the greater prey 
 vented itself yet more fiercely upon that 
 within their grasp, and it was said that 
 among those who perished were the wife and 
 only son of Taurello Salinguerra. Then 
 the archer s deed seemed daring enough to 
 merit large reward, and since he himself 
 had fallen, his son had been carefully nur 
 tured at Goito, to which place Adelaide had 
 escaped. And this archer s son was Sor- 
 dello ! Apollo vanishes, and there remains 
 a low-born youth, who has just been named 
 his lady s minstrel. Is this he who, as our 
 poet wildly fancies, is to be proclaimed the 
 monarch of the world? 
 
 For Sordello, who had been a slave to 
 longings, suppressed save in his dreams, not 
 daring to claim his desired mastery until he 
 had decked himself with strength, grace, 
 and wisdom to fit him for his throne, has 
 
The Story of the Poem. 75 
 
 now resolved to claim his kingdom. He 
 has determined, relying upon his will 1 
 alone, to do his best with what he has, and 
 let the rest go by. The die is cast ; never 
 again can Bordello be to himself one of the 
 many, nor feel that for him and for the 
 many there is a common law, since Apollo s 
 presence has exempted him from that. Men 
 now are no more his equals than were bud 
 and flower in the olden time ; although in 
 active himself, he is greater than those who 
 act, since each stoops to his star, to acquire 
 from it his function ; he has gained the 
 same result with meaner mortals, who are 
 trained to express their one ruling thought, 
 since he is capable of comprehending all 
 ideas, and can take power from Eichard, or 
 grace from Palma, and mix these qualities, 
 or enjoy them separately, as best pleases 
 him ; so he is never cramped or restricted by 
 
 1 In this, as in other places in the poem, Mr. Brown 
 ing seems to use the word will, as equivalent to imagi 
 nation, and the capacity to realize in himself all his 
 images. 
 
74 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 any specialty ; never stamped strong, and 
 so compelled to turn all his energies to 
 strength, or wise, and forced to give evi-. 
 dence of wisdom. Which means that there 
 is no one Idea, which floats star-like above 
 and before him, luring him on to its reali 
 zation. " Fortunate," he cries, " that my 
 flesh never strove to emulate so various a 
 soul! Took no casual mould of the first 
 fancy, and lay, clogged by it, averse to 
 change ; but has left her free to range, and, 
 cast into the shade, hinders but little, if it 
 cannot help ! Let my soul range freely, ex 
 pressing the quintessence of all beauty by 
 being conscious of it itself ; but surely the 
 World, which can wonder at men who may 
 themselves be filled with wonder, the World 
 which loves at second-hand, and makes idols 
 of those who bow in their turn before some 
 idol, surely this World, when it shall behold 
 me, must bow in unexampled worship ! " 
 
 (Dear Monarch, notice how wide the 
 breach here. Look down upon all men if 
 you will, but why tell them your opinion of 
 them?) 
 
The Story of the Poem. 75 
 
 " Ah," thinks Sordello, " the world shall 
 bow to me, who from afar see all the joys of 
 man, or great or small, nor taste of them 
 myself. I have no machine for exercising 
 my will ; mere consciousness be mine. Let 
 them perceive what I could do, and believe 
 in a mastery proven by my song, which shall 
 show that all they are or would be, I am. I 
 take no pains to change anything, vex them 
 with no new forms, but give them just what 
 they desire, that and no more ; so that in 
 me each shall behold and love that love 
 which leads his own soul to perfection." 
 
 Thus Sordello chose, for his life s portion, 
 song, not deeds. He put aside the emperor 
 and remained the poet alone. Verse only 
 for him! Strength should not seek to ex 
 press itself in effort, nor grace in outward 
 beauty, nor uttered wisdom control unseemly 
 moods. It should be song alone. The 
 blood and fire of the year, which so concern 
 the world, are to him but a pastime, to wile 
 away the hours until he shall step forth 
 upon the stage. 
 
76 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 And now that all is outlined, Sordello 
 takes his ease, until there comes a letter 
 from Naddo, who entreats him to return to 
 Mantua to feed a famishing world. His 
 fame has gone before him, and all bid him 
 welcome, while all seem to Sordello angels, 
 who are to be made supremely happy by his 
 song. 
 
 Then he finds the task of singing an an 
 noyance, since he had never cared for song 
 itself, but only for its effect ; of what use 
 had song been in his past life, when all he 
 had wished for had been praise, not the la 
 bor that earned the praise? His rhymes 
 were Eglamor s; but Naddo upholds him 
 before the people, and he determines to go 
 on, remembering that if failure come he can 
 betake himself once more to Goito. 
 
 We struggle with our glossaries to gain 
 an idea of what the Troubadour would ex 
 press in his varied poems, but we never quite 
 comprehend what there was in them that so 
 moved the people, as he drew out from the 
 flood of the time its elements, and tracing 
 
The Story of the Poem. 77 
 
 actions backward to their source, added a 
 touch or two, and made qualities men and 
 women. Virtue and vice passed by in the 
 persons of saint and sinner, and all the pas 
 sions were incarnated by song. Praise was 
 showered upon him, his fictions were held 
 for realities, and he felt a desire to realize 
 something of what he sang ; to come down 
 from his pedestal and accept the petty joys 
 of actual life. By doing this, however, he 
 would abjure the right to enjoy the quint 
 essence of all, and thus would frustrate his 
 main design ; even for very love of it he 
 must abjure all pleasure. He laughed ; 
 what sage but perishes if he look up from 
 the pages of his magic book, because at the 
 very first line he finds that his art has effi 
 ciency ? 
 
 For a while our poet left his imaginings 
 to try the stuff that held his images, his 
 Language. No need to tell how he wrought 
 upon that language, until from the rough 
 speech of the men about him he had ham 
 mered out at last a rude armor, that should 
 
78 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 one day be more prized than the Koman 
 panoply that had been melted to make it. 
 And when it was complete he strove to use 
 it. Took up an action with its actors, lived 
 in each of his creatures, whom he equipped 
 in the harness he had so toilsomely wrought. 
 And then he bade the Mantuans listen. 
 Vain attempt ! The armor broke away 
 piece by piece, because perceptions, such as 
 he sought to clothe with it, are unfit for a 
 garb so intellectual as language. Thought 
 may replace perception, but can hardly co 
 exist with it, since it is but the latter s pre 
 sentment ; offering us the whole in a series 
 of parts, giving us by the successive and the 
 many that which is really one and simulta 
 neous. Does the crowd lack perception? 
 It painfully tacks together the thoughts into 
 which Sordello has torn perception, its office 
 being to reconstruct, as his is to diffuse. 
 
 Hopeless of success, he returns to the old 
 measures and sings the exploits of Montfort 
 over the Albigensians. Even now he is 
 not understood. His audience never guess 
 
The Story of the Poem. 79 
 
 that he depicts himself in his hero, and won 
 der how he comes to know so much about 
 Montfort. What, after all, does he care for 
 the Mantuans ? But was he not in a way 
 forced to help them, to treat them as if they 
 were peers of the images of the old Goito 
 days ? He strewed fairy gold upon the mul 
 titude, but all in vain. The years went by, 
 and Sordello disappeared from among men. 
 The man and the poet were hopelessly 
 at war within him ; the man refusing to be 
 any longer fooled with fancies, while the 
 poet would consecrate all his powers to 
 song ; and now one nature, now the other 
 had its way. But the complete Sordello, 
 man and poet, had gone forever. Now he re 
 solved to put aside all but his art and com 
 pel the age to recognize a master ; now to 
 forswear song, fling by his lethargy, and 
 play a man s part in life. Ere he could 
 decide the Mantuans interfered. Why not 
 settle down there among them ? Remember 
 that he was Palma s minstrel, and be glad 
 to submit to established rules, nor fall into 
 
8o TJ)e Story of the Poem. 
 
 extravagant absurdities like Vidal l and 
 others. But when he sought to answer their 
 questions, his speech had the largeness of 
 divine replies, too slow in condensing them 
 selves to satisfy the citizens, with their little 
 stock of opinions cut and dried, or questions 
 youthfully crude. To answer questions 
 asked would have been the work of a life 
 time; he resorted to ready-made responses 
 and often-repeated gestures. So his soul, 
 unable to compass the whole, began to see 
 less and less that was worth striving for in 
 the parts. As man and poet alike he failed, 
 and Naddo reproves him for not being able 
 to sing a straightforward song, and persist 
 ing in trying to work out problems which, 
 being no philosopher, he had better leave 
 untouched. " For poetry," says Naddo, 
 
 1 Pierre Vidal, a Troubadour, who followed Richard 
 the Lion-Heart on the third crusade. He was even 
 more renowned for his extravagant behavior than for hia 
 poetic gifts, and was involved in many remarkable ad 
 ventures. Dante introduces him into the 26th Canto of 
 the Purgatorio, putting into hia mouth some verses of 
 Provenal poetry. 
 
The Story of the Poem. 81 
 
 " must be based on common sense. If you 
 would have your songs endure, build upon 
 the human heart, the general, healthy one." 
 Many Naddos overwhelm him; he yields, 
 strives to conform, and fails once more. 
 
 Meanwhile Adelaide has died, and Ecelin 
 writes to Taurello that he shall never return 
 to the world ; that his two sons, Ecelin and 
 Alberic, are to marry the niece of Azzo and 
 the daughter of St. Boniface; that the 
 Count himself is to have Palma, and thus 
 peace will be made between the two con 
 tending factions. The news comes to Salin- 
 guerra at Naples, where he has lately joined 
 Frederick, who is to sail within the month 
 for Syria. Swiftly he rides to visit his lord, 
 and remonstrate with him on his course ; 
 but to no purpose ; these things, says Ecelin, 
 must be as he has planned. 
 
 The country rings with the news of how 
 Romano s great captain has withdrawn to 
 Mantua, whither, although it is his native 
 city, he never goes, unless dissatisfied with 
 Ecelin. The city prepares great shows to 
 
82 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 greet him, and Bordello is chosen to bid him 
 welcome ; but no thoughts will come to 
 him; he strolls out beyond the walls, and 
 wanders aimlessly through the fields, until 
 he finds himself unexpectedly at Goito, his 
 old home, looking smaller than of yore, but 
 more mysterious than ever. Palma, they 
 tell him, has left that very day. 
 
 Once more Sordello lay beside the foun 
 tain, and his life passed in review before 
 him. Body and Intellect both had failed ; 
 was it the fault of the Will ? And he flung 
 his crown into the fount, and laid aside the 
 scarf that all so envied him. There was no 
 poet the next day at Mantua, and Taurello, 
 when the Masque was over, asked vainly for 
 a song. None was forthcoming, and the 
 good-natured soldier accepted a bull-baiting 
 instead. 
 
BOOK III. 
 
 JNCE more Goito has Sordello. 
 The dream is over, and nature 
 effaces the print of the past ; the 
 world s stain leaves our poet, and the Man- 
 tuans fade from his memory. Better is it, 
 he feels, to be unrevealed than half revealed. 
 Of what further use, then, is will? Why 
 should he feel the need to become all na 
 tures, yet retain the law of his own ? Will 
 and the means of displaying it, he deter 
 mines to abjure, save any that are so dis 
 tinct that they may serve to amuse without 
 tempting one to become anything. As he 
 was at first, such will he now become. 
 
 A year passed with no great change in 
 Sordello, save that the eyes once bright with 
 questioning were now dulled by receiving. 
 He slept, but he knew that he slept. 
 
 One dull, gray autumn day he sauntered 
 
84 TJ}e Story of tbe Poem. 
 
 through the wood, his whole soul in har 
 mony with the aspect of nature. His youth 
 and nature s both were gone. And once 
 gone, youth is gone forever ; deeds passed 
 by can never be achieved ; nature may re 
 new herself, but we 
 
 " Alas ! " sighs Bordello, " are all my 
 chances forfeited? Have I not two lives 
 that I may spend the one in learning how to 
 live the other? Nature may retrieve her 
 losses ; my overthrow is final ! No thoughts 
 of love, meeting with Elys at the even-close ; 
 no hours of pleasure spent with Frederick 
 and his court in gay carouse ; no triumphant 
 going like the blind Doge, Dandolo, through 
 conquered Byzantium ! l No more of peace 
 or war ! Ah, these were the fragments of a 
 whole, the rounds of a ladder, which I mis 
 took for the broad platform it was meant to 
 
 1 In 1204 the Latin Conquest of Constantinople took 
 place. The leaders of the so-called crusade were the 
 Doge of Venice, Dandolo, and Baldwin of Flanders, with 
 others of less note. The first step was to conquer the 
 city in behalf of an exiled prince, the next to seize upon 
 it entirely and place Baldwin on the throne, 
 
The Story of the Poem. 85 
 
 lift me to. Happiness did await me ; life 
 should be used to acquire ; and such deeds 
 conduced to teach me by a self-revelation, 
 which was mistaken for the use itself. 
 What helped to that was pleasure, what de 
 layed was pain. I have laid down the lad 
 der ; I climb no more ; but the platform 
 stretches above me, and joys elude me of 
 which till now I never had a glimpse. The 
 multitude are endowed with some being, 
 however slight, distinct from what they see, 
 however limited ; happiness must consist in 
 feeding being by gleanings from things 
 seen, in attaining the qualities of the latter, 
 and thus becoming what one beholds. Such 
 transmutation, the making what has been 
 alien native to one s self, is the Use-of-Life. 
 Ere I begin to truly exist I must include 
 within myself a world I now know in spirit 
 only, and then what would be left to me to 
 blend with ? But already my will is master 
 of the world ; yet it becomes thereby more 
 alien to me, since my means are so unwor 
 thily suited to my will ; I was bound to 
 
86 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 tread down forever these tantalizing joys. 
 I die ; but will the rest die also ? Shall 
 some future Bordello catch the clue I miss, 
 which still seems at my hand, and still 
 eludes my grasp ? Have I wantonly aban 
 doned the chance of solving the problem, 
 and shall I, thrust aside, remain so, while 
 beyond there passes a pageant that Time 
 will never repeat ? Nay, rather, slake my 
 thirst at any spring ! " 
 
 And with the thought conies Naddo to 
 summon the poet to Verona. He tells him 
 that Ecelin has parted his wealth between 
 his two sons, Ecelin and Alberic, who are to 
 wed Guelfic ladies, and abides still in his 
 monastery; that Palma and St. Boniface 
 are betrothed ; how the Guelfs rose at Fer- 
 rara, and Salinguerra, having taken revenge, 
 is now besieged there by Este and St. Boni 
 face ; and how the latter, once victory is 
 gained, will marry Palma, absorb Romano, 
 and inaugurate better government. Sor- 
 dello is wanted by Palma, who doubtless 
 wishes him to prepare a song for her wed- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 8j 
 
 ding-feast. And now we have arrived at 
 the point where our story opens. The news 
 of the Guelfic discomfiture has reached Ve 
 rona, and while the square is alive with ex 
 cited burghers, Palina and her minstrel are 
 sitting, as lovers, in the secret chamber. 
 Palma strives to tell him her story. Sor- 
 dello s had not been the only want that 
 Goito had nurtured; Palma, destined to 
 serve, as he to be served, had grown up there 
 also. While Sordello had sought to lead 
 nature captive, she had dreamed of some out- 
 soul, for whose coming she pined, nor did 
 she dare let heart and mind expand, until 
 this mysterious power, for whom they grew, 
 should appear to direct them. Everything 
 in her life she felt must be determined by 
 one who is to be to her the incarnation of 
 a will, inscrutable save at one point, which 
 would shine that her own powers might flow 
 towards it. First whom to love, then how 
 to love him. And hoping thus, from day to 
 day she waited for his coming. 
 
 Then came the Love -Court, and one 
 
88 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 face burst upon her, uot seen for the first 
 time. She dared not speak of her feelings, 
 for, although Adelaide was silent, Palma 
 felt certain that any schemes she might form 
 would be frustrated by the wily Tuscan. 
 
 Then one night the Lady died, and none 
 but Palma there, to whom the dying woman 
 revealed many secrets of her life. Ecelin, 
 arriving just as all was over, refused to 
 carry out any of the wishes of his dead wife, 
 since he cared no longer for family glory, 
 and was only eager to return to his monas 
 tery. But Palma, alone at Goito, sought 
 how to bring herself and Bordello together, 
 and rejoiced to have Taurello teach her of 
 the greatness of her house, and show her 
 how Romano has become fixed in Italy. 
 Other families have depended upon the 
 Pope, Romano has relied upon the Emperor. 
 
 And as Adelaide 1 of Susa intrusted Pied- 
 
 1 Adelaide of Susa, a great baroness of Lombardy, 
 was a firm partisan of the Popes. Her daughter Bertha 
 was the wife of the Emperor Henry IV., opponent of 
 Hildebrand. 
 
The Story of the Poem. 89 
 
 mont, which left to the Popes an open pas 
 sage between France and Italy, to the great 
 Countess Matilda 1 of Tuscany, so should 
 Palma take into her charge the Trentine, 
 which the Tuscan wife of Romano had de 
 sired to hold, as affording a safe way for 
 Frederick between Germany and Italy, and 
 there maintain her power by Salinguerra s 
 help. 
 
 Taurello, meanwhile, had thought it expe 
 dient to temporize, and on the very day of 
 the outrage at Ferrara he betrothed Palma 
 to St. Boniface ; and as the latter quitted 
 Verona instantly for the siege, Palma came 
 directly to the latter city, and being thus 
 ready to confirm or annul the compact, put 
 Richard in the wrong. And now, what 
 glory may not come to Bordello through this 
 
 1 Matilda, Countess of Tuscany, was a firm friend of 
 Pope Gregory VII. It was at her castle of Canossa that 
 the famous meeting between the Emperor Henry IV. 
 and Pope Gregory took place. She bequeathed her do 
 minions to the Holy See, and the question as to the feu 
 dal homage due for them was a source of many quarrels 
 between the Popes and Emperors. 
 
go The Story of the Poem. 
 
 state of things ? A month since Ecelin has 
 taken monkish vows, but yet Salinguerra 
 cannot definitely abandon his liege lord. 
 He writes to ask i he shall still hold him 
 self, as he is ready to be held, at his old 
 master s orders, or if the sons of Romano are 
 now the head of the House. The letter has 
 been sent by Palma, and the answer is to 
 be given by her. Her father refuses, once 
 for all, to re-enter the world, and frees Tau- 
 rello from all allegiance to himself. Lest 
 Salinguerra be depressed by this, Palma has 
 determined to take the place left vacant by 
 her father and her brothers, and as the 
 Kaiser s representative sanction the steps 
 which Taurello wishes to take. She now 
 urges Sordello to accompany her to Ferrara, 
 whither she will go in minstrel s dress, and 
 anticipating the various envoys, seek the 
 presence of Salinguerra, whose brave words, 
 she trusts, will teach her lover, what she be 
 lieves the truth, that the Emperor s cause 
 is his own. 
 
 And so she leaves him. Ere the morning 
 
The Story of the Poem. 91 
 
 dawns he has resolved that he will indeed 
 be the gate-vein of Lombardy s heart s- 
 blood, the soul of this body. Thus will he 
 conquer fate though he be doomed to live 
 apart, the core of this outer crust which he 
 has vitalized. 
 
 And thus Bordello is brought to rejoice 
 in the crowd s applause because one round 
 of life has been achieved ; he has found that 
 a soul, however great, is insufficient to its 
 own happiness, both in bodily organs and 
 in the skill to manifest the imagination by 
 means of them ; and again to show to men 
 that imagination, and oblige them to recog 
 nize that which is hidden by what has been 
 revealed. He has learned also that, when 
 the last struggle was over, the will which 
 had been bidden to abdicate its throne and 
 would not, might yet be allowed to reign, 
 and would permit him to enjoy mankind. 
 He sees now uiat it is his true duty to in 
 spire the people to action, not merely to in 
 vite them to behold him acting the parts 
 which should be theirs to play. 
 
BOOK IV. 
 
 JEANTIME Ferrara is torn by the 
 struggles of contending factions. 
 Taurello has held a conference 
 with the Emperor s envoy, whom he dis 
 misses in apparent haste to make way for 
 the deputies of the Eastern League, who are 
 accompanied by the Papal Legate. The 
 carrochs l of the various cities are drawn up 
 in the square, which is filled with people 
 and gay with flaunting banners. The cit 
 izens have striven to put as good a face as 
 possible upon their disastrous condition, and 
 they have crowded together to discuss af 
 fairs: some rejoice that Ecelin s banner is 
 missing, but they are reminded that magic 
 
 1 The carroch, or carrocc/o, was a huge wagon in which 
 the standard of the city was carried into battle. It also 
 bore a cross and a great bell. It was placed in the centre 
 of the army, and zealously guarded from risk of capture. 
 
The Story of the Poem. 9} 
 
 arts may help him now, as they have done in 
 his wife s lifetime, to a knowledge of what 
 passes in his absence. We enter now a gar 
 den full of southern trees and blossoms, 
 and adorned with statues, brought by Salin- 
 guerra from Messina to please his Sicilian 
 bride, as was also the font at Goito, which 
 he gave to Adelaide. But these statues are, 
 like their owner, full of active life, able to 
 right themselves. Here he holds Boniface 
 imprisoned ; here the envoys must come to 
 sue for grace ; and here we find Sordello, 
 who has visited Este s camp and seen the en 
 voys march and the Papal train. Not now as 
 when he held himself aloof, save for the fan 
 tastic tie he was willing to acknowledge ; the 
 more he regarded them, the less satisfied he 
 now felt with the part he was playing. Was 
 this the humanity he had raved over, and 
 wished to become one with? Are all men 
 notable alike? As well expect to find all 
 Taurello s trees one pine. A pine does rise 
 here and there, the rest are lowly shrubs. 
 How few the chiefs of men I And yet the 
 
94 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 people grow, grow ever, until it seems as if 
 each leader lost his individuality and be 
 came merely the head of absent Paduans or 
 Tyrolese. While thus he meditated old 
 memories returned with new effect, and be 
 fore he was aware he and mankind were 
 one ; and yet the people seemed beneath 
 him. What cared he for a mind here and 
 there to repay him, if all the rest were base ? 
 Somehow he must establish an equilibrium, 
 and secure for the many the long-possessed 
 privileges of the few. He should think first 
 of men and of their wants : when these were 
 satisfied, then he should find room for the 
 finer qualities of his own soul to act. He 
 wondered now that when he had dreamed of 
 ruling mankind he had never thought that 
 he might benefit them also and thus swell 
 with theirs his sum of pleasure. His first 
 aim must be to render mankind happy ; and 
 now he began to have a dim idea of the im 
 port of warring parties which so abused 
 each other. This was the secret of the con 
 test, the master-spring ; which of the two 
 
The Story of the Poem. 95 
 
 could do most good to the people ; which 
 best knew how to do it ? He has an inter 
 view with Salinguerra, but leaves him more 
 perplexed than before. He strays about the 
 streets, looking at the misery that war has 
 wrought, " to serve," as he says, " Tau- 
 rello s ends." He forgets that it is equally 
 to serve Azzo s or St. Boniface s. He 
 stands among the throng about the Veronese 
 carroch, and being recognized as a minstrel, 
 is called upon to sing a song of Bordello s. 
 Then he rejoices that this noble gift is his, 
 and having sung, turns to a youth beside 
 him, to whom he declares his name. The 
 youth is Palma in disguise, and she leads 
 him away from the place. 
 
 Taurello has seen the envoys of Emperor 
 and Pope, and now he sits alone. On the 
 wall of the chamber the green and yellow 
 colors of Romano flank the two-headed 
 eagle of the Empire ; on the table lie the im 
 perial rescript and badge which may make 
 him the Vicar of Frederick in Northern 
 Italy. But his thoughts are strangely drawn 
 
g6 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 to Bordello, the last, as he is the first ser 
 vant of Romano. How great the contrast ! 
 The minstrel s thirty years spent in doing 
 nothing, this day s journey their greatest 
 event ; how lean and old they have left him, 
 how awkward and ill at ease he looks ; while 
 Salinguerra, sixty years old, after a life 
 spent in camp and court, with Popes and 
 Emperors, is quick, graceful, splendid. Be 
 side the Kaiser s rescript lies a letter from 
 Ecelin, emphasizing his withdrawal from ac 
 tive life. Shall he fill Romano s place, and 
 reign as the Emperor s Vicar ? 
 
 He recalls his past life; how, when yet 
 a boy, he had been robbed of his prom 
 ised bride by St. Boniface s father, who had 
 wedded her to Azzo of Este. He had then 
 betaken himself to Sicily and the court of 
 Henry of Swabia, whence he afterwards re 
 turned, bringing with him a fair southern 
 bride, Retrude, of the imperial Hohenstaufen 
 line, for whom he built a palace and pre 
 pared broad "gardens more noble than any 
 Ferrara could display; and when his son 
 
The Story of the Poem. 97 
 
 was born to him, men said that he would 
 visit Mantua and assert his power there also. 
 And now the Guelfs, fearful of losing place, 
 rise in arms, and the Ghibelline quarter of 
 the city was fired in a fray in which Ecelin 
 had endeavored to put down the insurrection. 
 Taurello then lost wife and child, and became 
 henceforth fully absorbed in the fortunes 
 of Romano, whom he supports, aided by 
 Adelaide. His course is quite incomprehen 
 sible to Henry, as to his brother Philip, for 
 they value Salinguerra far higher than his 
 lord. Otto IV., seeing Ecelin harsh and 
 unready, Taurello facile and sparkling, con 
 cludes that his predecessors judgments have 
 been influenced by outside show, and so 
 fixes his choice upon the former. 
 
 Such is Salinguerra, who, with no thought 
 of graces, took them as they came ; learned 
 to speak Greek, because Greeks are hard to 
 hold to contracts ; learned Arabic, because 
 that helped him to master astrology, in which 
 he assisted Adelaide, who relied for much of 
 her power on magic ; controlled Frederick ; 
 
p The Story of the Poem. 
 
 patronized art ; sang, played upon the lute, 
 and was a mighty warrior in battle. 
 
 Salinguerra, who wished to look into the 
 minds of men that he might learn their pur 
 poses and capabilities, displayed himself so 
 far as was needful to make men display 
 themselves. 
 
 Bordello cared to know men merely that 
 he might display himself, and valued them 
 only as they drew out or expressed that self 
 in him. 
 
 As time passed on, men noticed that 
 whenever Taurello was absent the power of 
 Romano waned, nor could he be prevailed 
 upon always to recall his adviser ; his wife 
 was his chief support, and when she died 
 destruction threatened. Then Taurello once 
 more assumed his old part, restored things 
 by a touch, and struck Este down. Men 
 remembered now the old hate he bore to 
 Azzo, which of late had been prudently con 
 cealed, for not only Azzo s fall, but the ruin 
 of the whole House of Este was what he 
 desired. 
 
The Story of the Poem. 99 
 
 He stands thoughtful in the window, and 
 there rises up before him that whole night of 
 fire and blood, when all he loved was lost, 
 and he determines that Ecelin, whose wife 
 and child were saved, shall help him to 
 revenge. He can be Vicar if he choose ; 
 but to what end? His life must wear 
 itself out in the roar and foam of adventure, 
 nor will any trace of him remain. Fate has 
 ordained that he shall make others power 
 ful, not himself, nor can he bear to thrust 
 Ecelin s children from their father s place. 
 
 Bordello and Palma stand together by an 
 extinguished watch-fire ; he entreats her to 
 tell him how to play a man s part in the 
 world ; to show him if somehow good may 
 be the final goal behind all the ill he sees ; 
 shall he believe in Salinguerra, who seems 
 to be all that Bordello should be ? But he 
 does so many deeds of violence ; do the 
 Guelfs commit such acts also ? And Palma 
 shows him that the Guelfs are indeed no 
 more just or gentle. Then he feels that 
 since both parties are so evil in what they 
 
ioo The Story of the Poem. 
 
 do, he is rather worthy of praise than 
 blame for having done nothing, since, if he 
 has accomplished no good, at least he has 
 wrought no ill. And he fancies that there 
 may be a third cause, which it is left to him 
 to discover. Here a bystander bids him 
 take as the subject of a ballad the famous 
 Crescentius. Bordello has never heard of 
 him, and the speaker, who was once a friar, 
 goes on to tell him how that man had defied 
 both Pope and Emperor, had been called 
 Roman Consul, had trusted the people, and 
 wished to restore the vanished Republic. 
 Pope and Emperor combined against him, 
 and he was crucified in the Forum. Sor- 
 dello is called upon to sing to the people a 
 song of Rome. 
 
 And in truth Rome seemed to him to be 
 the one point of light that was to illuminate 
 the world ; all other cities but strove to re 
 semble it ; Guelf and Ghibelline sought, 
 not to change, but to possess it ; then let 
 Rome advance! It was Rome as she 
 seemed to the ignorant Bordello, and Rome 
 
The Story of the Poem. 101 
 
 was the cause he longed to uphold : the 
 ancient Rome, the Rome of the Civil Law, 
 of the Capitol, of St. Angelo; where the 
 new is brought into harmony with the old, 
 the temporal with the spiritual ; law, order, 
 religion, all from the type of that power that 
 shall give its rights unto mankind. 
 
 " Let us have Rome again ! " cries Sor- 
 dello. " I am the one fated to rebuild it ; 
 such a future is the justification of such a 
 past ! " And full of this thought he rushes 
 out to make it living among the people, to 
 let their facts complete his dream. 
 
BOOK V. 
 
 UT the evening sees Sordello in 
 another mood. His dream of 
 Home without an Emperor has 
 faded. The people whom he has seen, 
 drunken, ignorant, brutal, are scarcely the 
 ideal citizens of his ideal city. Yet he should 
 remember how great of old was the labor of 
 building the Roman state ; how mankind 
 has toiled upward from the cave-dwellers to 
 the workers in brick and stone. How use 
 came first, and how art then followed. The 
 work moved on step by step ; there was no 
 possibility of overleaping details and gain 
 ing the full glory at a bound, when every 
 change in building - materials exacted an 
 architect and an age. The men to whom a 
 maple log was a luxury hardly cared for 
 priceless Mauritanian tables. 1 
 
 1 Citrus - wood tables sent from Northern Africa 
 brought fabulous prices in the luxurious days of Home. 
 
Tbe Story of the Poem. 103 
 
 " Better," you say, " to merge all common 
 workmen in the master, all epochs in one." 
 Then indeed the sudden city might bask in 
 the daylight, but its citizens would be quite 
 incapable of comprehending or enjoying the 
 privileges that had fallen to their lot. 
 
 " Enough of Rome," thinks Bordello. 
 " Fate has added another to the list of beau 
 tiful things that Bordello cannot do." 
 
 Thus sitting, lonely and despondent, he 
 hears within his heart a voice that speaks : 
 " God, Bordello, has given to man two 
 sights one of the perfected plan of time, 
 one of the moment s work ; what have you 
 lost save the hope of taking that supreme 
 step, the knowledge of which was vouchsafed 
 to you, that you might have courage to take 
 your own step, and to abide by that, leaving 
 the end to hope ? All that is gone is the 
 glory that crowns the labor, and which, 
 could you thus speedily compass, you were 
 God, not man. The first step is still yours 
 to take, and you are to learn this truth, that 
 mankind can accomplish more than any in- 
 
104 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 dividual man ; but there must be some one 
 to take the first step. There is no perfect 
 poet, for one excels in strength, and one in 
 grace. So it is in the world at large. Are 
 you the first to give a definite form to the 
 many ? Was there not, centuries ago, one 
 who devised an apparition in the midst of 
 that loose, perpetual unrest? A sudden, 
 splendid flower who drew all things to him 
 self, the child of joyous life, the embodi 
 ment of strength ; Charlemagne has lived. 
 So strong and grand and calm, he seems un 
 feeling in his superb confidence and content. 
 He formed of the multitude one magnificent 
 body ; is it the province of Hildebrand 1 to 
 vitalize that body with a soul ? Is the State 
 strength, and the Church knowledge ? For 
 three hundred years the two powers have 
 appeared to touch each other ; the great 
 
 1 Hildebrand, or Gregory VII., one of the most fa 
 mous of the Popes. He enforced the celibacy of the 
 clergy, and attempted to deprive laymen of all part in 
 investing the clergy with their offices. He lived in the 
 latter part of the eleventh century. Contemporary and 
 opponent of the Emperor Henry IV. 
 
The Story of the Poem. 705 
 
 Caesars bear up the Crowns, 1 the iron of 
 Aix, the silver of Milan, and the gold of 
 Eome ; the great Popes lift up the Keys. 
 But how do the great and small unite ? 
 The Crusaders seek to create strength by 
 other aid than strength alone ; a spiritual 
 force is behind them ; it is a safe plan ; as 
 also is that of the League, which opposes 
 force by force ; while from the preaching of 
 the clergy may come the possibility of super 
 seding strength. Who, strong in being 
 feeling yet unfeeling too, shall bring in 
 the next age ? No, Sordello believes Hil- 
 debrand s task is not yet accomplished ; 
 there is still work for him to do. In 
 thought he wrenches asunder the scaffold of 
 Charles ; but the work starts back, and he 
 feels that he can only confirm and better, 
 not destroy ; that strength and knowledge 
 
 1 The crown of the German kingdom taken at Aachen, 
 of Lombardy at Milan, of the Empire at Rome. They 
 were said to be respectively of silver, iron, and gold. 
 Not quite in the order of the text. The terms were prob 
 ably employed symbolically, as indicating the estimation 
 in which each was held at that time. 
 
io6 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 must work together; that the warrior and 
 the poet should no longer be dissevered in 
 him, and since he is ambitious of remodel 
 ing the world, let him go to Salinguerra, 
 and secure his aid to keep the Guelfs in 
 power." 
 
 He finds Taurello and Palma together ; 
 he has his chance at last, and he makes the 
 most of it. But after all his rhetoric avails 
 only to show that he would turn Salinguerra 
 to the papal side ; that the God of Goito 
 has dwindled into a Guelfic partisan ; and 
 his old fault recurs : he cannot help look 
 ing at himself while he is speaking, and 
 wondering how his hearers are impressed, as 
 he shows the great chief how necessary it is 
 that Lombardy should get rid of her barons. 
 Meanwhile Taurello, famed for tact, a man 
 who, careless of phrases, never lacked the 
 right one, looked as if all were as it should 
 be, and he were interested in every point. 
 His only answer is, " Does poetry turn hair 
 white sooner than politics ? " 
 
 Then the bitter truth flashes upon Sor- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 707 
 
 dello that fancies have so weakened his 
 power, that he no longer possesses earnest 
 ness, nor the wish to work, nor yet the 
 power to express how urgent is the need of 
 working. He sees the base years drag on 
 into the future, while he writes many poems, 
 no doubt, and will be mourned when dead as 
 one whose best survives him. Better tear out 
 the heart of the truth at once ! Once more 
 he begins to speak ; the bells of the car- 
 rochs sound from the square below ; Taurello 
 lifts the imperial badge, and smilingly asks 
 Palma if this will satisfy her ; if he shall 
 set Boniface free, submit their strength to 
 the Pope s knowledge, and bestow the Em 
 peror s badge upon Azzo. And, laughing, 
 he wonders who will hereafter censure the 
 minstrel for lack of wisdom ; surely this 
 speech would have been greatly preferable 
 to the bull-fight he had lately been forced to 
 witness. 
 
 But contempt saved what vanity had well- 
 nigh destroyed, and Sordello now found 
 words to speak out his thoughts ; and he 
 
io8 The Story of the Poem 
 
 closes with the bitter expression of his de 
 spair that he must not only resign to Tau- 
 rello the post he had longed to fill, but must 
 see the baron scorn to take the place. Then 
 the old Goito days return once more ; he is 
 Apollo and knows that the minstrel is in 
 deed a king, and that if he fail of asserting 
 his proper royalty, it is not because the roy 
 alty is lacking, but that he has been thrust 
 aside as inexpert to fill the poet s throne. 
 He has seen too late that kingship does not 
 lie in the forms he would imitate ; these he 
 could but copy. Include the multitude, and 
 let it include you in turn ; so shall you fill 
 your place, to make way in another age for 
 yet another sovereign. Before song, deeds 
 made up the world, but thought is the soul 
 of action, and the poet presents to us the 
 masque of life, and shows its varied forms, 
 and allots to each its praise or blame. The 
 poet turns ends attained to means, and from 
 the old structures he erects the new, as Ven 
 ice plunders every clime to make her Duomo 
 splendid. To the Guelfic cause, which he 
 
The Story of the Poem. /op 
 
 believes the People s, lie would win Salin- 
 guerra, who, long past surprise, turns to 
 Palma, and says briefly, "You love him, 
 and you know your father s will, who would, 
 by giving up much of his territory, procure 
 from the Pope peace for his two sons. And 
 so would end all my hopes ! Shall they so 
 end, or shall I try my fortune? Nay, the 
 place is for the young and not for me. If 
 you were Ecelin ! but stay this youth 
 has flattered me as I have not been flattered 
 this many a day. A little help might make 
 a leader of him." And turning he flings 
 upon Sordello s neck the Emperor s badge. 
 
 " You are Komano s head, and you shall 
 have Palma for your spouse ! " 
 
 Then as they gazed into each other s eyes 
 a truth grew up between them ; sire and son 
 sat by each other, while Palma recounted 
 the tale she had heard from Adelaide s 
 dying lips, and they learned that on that 
 awful night of fire and slaughter Ketrude, 
 Salinguerra s wife, had been rescued with 
 her infant, and borne to Goito, where she 
 
/ io The Story of the Poem. 
 
 shortly after died, and was buried beneath 
 the font where Sordello so oft had rested. 
 Her son was hidden away by Adelaide, and 
 feigned an archer s child, lest Taurello, hav 
 ing him to live for, should come into his 
 true place, and overtop her husband. 
 
 Hardly able to grasp the truth, Salin- 
 guerra talks wildly of all he will do for his 
 son, so late known to him, until Palina 
 takes his arms from Sordello s neck, and 
 leads him from the room. Still he talks on 
 of politics with Palma, when she turns him 
 from that subject to tell him how all men 
 love the poet, while Taurello drinks in every 
 word, and foretells great glory to Romano 
 when Palma and Sordello shall be united. 
 Strong they shall be, he declares, to over 
 throw Hildebrand and build up Charles, 
 but adding to strength knowledge. 
 
 Suddenly a sound comes to them, which 
 silences speech. " T is his own footstep, 
 his summons ! " and they stagger quickly 
 up the stair. 
 
BOOK VI. 
 
 was a thought of Eglamor s that 
 man shrinks into nothingness when 
 matched with the symbols of im 
 mensity, and must quail before a quiet sea 
 or sky. And as the evening sank low, and 
 only one spot of light gleamed upon the 
 opposite river, something in Bordello s mood 
 seemed to confirm its speciousness. So he 
 sat, until roused by the din of the city, 
 while memory brought all his own life in re 
 view before him, a life where each change 
 seemed to him to have been right, until, 
 viewing it in the light of present knowledge, 
 he could see how it had checked some other. 
 The true way seemed to be formed of all 
 ways, many moods of the one mind, tokens 
 of an existence which needed but some outer 
 influence, some soul above his soul to lift it, 
 as the moon stirs the depths of ocean. But 
 
H2 The Story of tie Poem. 
 
 no moon of love arose in his sky, and thus 
 his sensitiveness had grown or dwindled at 
 caprice, and was spilt in showers of foam, 
 never gathered up into one mighty wave en 
 compassing the earth. Others, less than he, 
 had yet some core within, that, yielding to 
 some moon, fulfilled a certain purpose in the 
 world. 
 
 To every one who lives there must be 
 some fruit of life, to each in his own de 
 gree ; to every one there must be some point 
 toward which he tends ; spirits, compressing 
 all they know of beauty into one star of 
 glory, dream that one day it will bestow 
 upon them some gleams of its own splendor. 
 Whether it be beauty that they crave, or 
 knowledge, whether it be love or hate, they 
 yet pursue something above them, some 
 thing beyond their present existence. Not 
 that love like Palina s or hate like Salin- 
 guerra s would be equal to swaying all Sor- 
 dello. Why doubt that there must be some 
 where love to match his strength, some 
 moon to be meet for his sea ? Why fear, 
 
The Story of the Poem. 
 
 
 
 since he has known the Good, that he shall 
 not some day know the Best ? Ah, but the 
 Best eludes us ; we had hoped for men far 
 beyond those we see about us, and we may 
 be foolish, seeing a good, to argue a best 
 beyond. Is an external power needed? 
 May he not be ordained a law unto himself ? 
 If laws are veiled in mercy to those who 
 cannot strive unless some embodied want 
 lure them on ! A stronger vision could en 
 dure the bodiless want, nor would it mistake 
 a bauble for a truth. The People were him 
 self, and was he less impelled by pity to 
 alter the discrepancies in their position 
 than if a sickly part were abstracted from a 
 sound whole, and palmed off upon him as 
 alien suffering ? Proud to forsake himself, 
 shall he aid the Guelf s ? No, all is himself, 
 and all service rates alike, not serving one 
 by destroying another, but all in time. 
 " Put by the picturesque achievements for 
 the present, and do the daily, common tasks." 
 The People urge their claims, and he now 
 realizes how much easier it is to do some 
 
H4 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 one great act, to soften signal horrors, than 
 by constant, vast and hidden toil to assuage 
 constant, vast and hidden suffering. Now 
 the People are in need of help, and how 
 small the service that he can render, ever 
 could have rendered ! Let youth be aware 
 that it has surprised one serviceable truth ; 
 can it use it, and turn to seize a fresh prey ? 
 Nay, it takes a lifetime to bring this within 
 the comprehension of the crowd, and ere 
 that is done the captor sees a crowd of other 
 truths yet nobler, which he might learn had 
 he as many lives. And he recalls the story 
 of many a bard who has sunken below man 
 hood in grasping at the divine. 
 
 " Yet to begin merits a crown ! Truth 
 must be casual truth, nor is it likely that 
 the whole truth, which, if rightly appre 
 hended, had sent the world upon its proper 
 pathway, has ever been at one time in the 
 world. One must be content with the 
 chance sparkles now and then struck out." 
 Now was the moment for Bordello s gleam, 
 wretched though it was. He would dash 
 
The Story of the Poem. 7/5 
 
 the Caesar s badge to the ground, perhaps 
 persuade Taurello to turn Frederick from 
 his purpose ; at least he can bear witness to 
 his own belief. But first let him consider ; 
 were that little truly service ? " In the end, 
 no doubt, but in the time between ? Would 
 that it were as easy to see what each day s 
 fraction of work should be, as to compre 
 hend what befits the sum of life ! " 
 
 Bordello never doubts that he should aid 
 the Guelfs, but to do this various natures 
 must be controlled, and moved with refer 
 ence to future ends ; old loves and hates, 
 the sympathy or aversion of the Present 
 must be put aside for the sake of so feeble a 
 Future. For slightest cause must men be 
 saved if they will aid the Papal party, for 
 slightest cause destroyed if they oppose it. 
 Shall he ruin many good purposes for the 
 sake of one ? Spoil a good work half done 
 for one just begun? Rise one step with the 
 People to sink one? Evil is everywhere 
 made beautiful ; shall Beauty then be thrust 
 aside that we may be rid of Evil ? Is not 
 Evil, after all, as natural a result as Good ? 
 
/ 1 6 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 Pass over the struggles of trees and flow 
 ers with the seasons, the miserable strife 
 among beasts, care only for man, and we 
 see that it is the sorrow caused by the ills 
 he suffers that charms one s sympathy ; were 
 he free from sorrow he were free from you. 
 Joy itself is but the overcoming of obstacles, 
 the making the privileges of the few the pos 
 session of the many. The quiet perfections 
 of Goito had wearied him, and it is by tri 
 umphing over difficulties that men win sal 
 vation ; the view of life is disclosed by 
 degrees, as we climb the mountain-sides ; 
 scaling height after height, and piercing veil 
 after misty veil, we take fresh courage ; in 
 the soul is formed the idea of that Whole, 
 which we must seek by Parts ; had the 
 Whole been ours at first what enjoyment 
 could have been ours of gradual gains? 
 The time that seems so short to include all 
 the Parts were more than enough to exhaust 
 the Whole were it once attained, and all that 
 we should have gained would be leave to 
 look, not leave to do. To look beneath is 
 
The Story of the Poem. nj 
 
 soon enjoyed, but to one who looks above, 
 death comes before a tithe of life has been 
 tasted. Live first, Sordello ! die then soon 
 enough ! Give to body and spirit their first 
 right, the right to life, and feel that you are 
 able to extort joy from sorrow, and gold 
 from clods, which to all but you are clods 
 only, and would have remained forever 
 such, had you not lighted for them your re 
 fining fires. 
 
 It had been better if you had but secured 
 an ampler treasure ! They crave, as it is, a 
 share that ruins you, and will not save them. 
 Why, for the sake of sympathy, should you 
 renounce what delights you, and cannot 
 benefit them? Would all reach joy? The 
 road is one for all, but the times of journey 
 ing are many ; hinder no soul that in the 
 general march has the earlier start ; all 
 come at length to the same point. Help 011 
 the crowd s Then, but remember how this 
 badge would make your Now more joyous. 
 
 As he mused, his capacity for action 
 seemed to grow to giant size compared with 
 
i 1 8 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 the impotence of the world at large to profit 
 by the sacrifice of his happiness. Shall he 
 make nothing of his life because it is so 
 brief? Nay, rather, for that very reason 
 make more of it ! Leave virtue untried, 
 and grasp the delights of sin, and if time 
 condemn, Sordello will have slipped away to 
 the quiet of Goito. 
 
 The active few can cope with the many ; 
 be active, then ! And even if the multitude 
 suffer somewhat, t is but one pang to the 
 brimming bowl of pleasure. Does Fate 
 really destine him to live in the Eternal 
 City ? To live ! It is the cry of Bordello s 
 heart, to live once before he dies ! Helps 
 and hinderances he disregards if only he 
 may live, live now, not wait for some tran 
 scendent future. Perhaps, after death, a 
 grander glory may await his soul, but how 
 to be enjoyed he cannot tell. Fate is ex- 
 haustless for him, but does she bid him 
 grasp what the present brings or wait for 
 future splendors? It were absurd to slight 
 the present for the hereafter. Here is the 
 
The Story of the Poem. 1 19 
 
 crowd which he is willing to spend his life 
 in serving, if only he may serve it. If not, 
 why require more of him ? 
 
 " I will take the gift," he cries, " nor will 
 I falter in my journey, nor decry life and its 
 delights. I will praise the World, though it 
 be, as you declare, but the anteroom to a pal 
 ace ; shall I assume the airs of a palace be 
 fore its doors are open to me ? Shall I, in 
 the enjoyment of future bliss, regret that I 
 disdained what the present offers ? 
 
 " Let me, then, have stronger hands and 
 feet, but for the present no wings. And yet 
 this cup, which I would drain even to the 
 dregs, has been so often dashed aside ; I have 
 so often had glimpses of a better life, hidden 
 by this, a life fearlessly sought by martyr, 
 champion, and sage. Let me but see that, 
 and I too am glad to die. Let that which 
 masters life but show itself ! But since 
 truth appears so various, and every circle 
 has its own law, how can one discern ab 
 stract right?" And so for the moment all 
 qualities of good and evil seemed to Sor- 
 
/20 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 dello but moods of this world, not made to 
 bind Eternity and Mind. 
 
 Then suddenly he felt himself alone, out 
 of time and the world. What had caused 
 all his past despair? Just this. Soul be 
 ing thrust upon matter, joy comes when so 
 much soul is wreaked in time on matter, 
 but if the soul raise matter beyond what 
 was intended, and so prevent the perform 
 ance of actions, sorrow is the result. The in 
 finite soul tries to instruct the body as to its 
 capabilities, and in yearning after perfection 
 it loses the opportunities it might enjoy ; 
 till, worn out with efforts to attain what is 
 beyond its grasp, leaving virtue and beauty 
 unattained, the soul seeks to show that these 
 qualities belong to time alone, and that the 
 body may turn ill to good, and reap joy 
 where sorrow was meant to grow. Then the 
 body perishes under what should have been 
 a blessing, leaving the soul in dismay. Can 
 one soul never behold all that is, the great 
 Before and After, and the small Now? 
 But where shall we find the supreme Love 
 
The Story of the Poem. 121 
 
 that shall show the course that soul must 
 travel ? Here is a soul upon which Nature 
 has exhausted all her resources, from tree 
 and flower to mankind at large. Shall he 
 save that or not ? 
 
 Ah, Sordello, what need there is of a 
 power so far above you that you cannot re 
 gard it as a rival ! Of a Power, the repre 
 sentative of nature, the same in authority 
 but different in communication, which should 
 claim a course clear as Human, though hid 
 den as Divine ! 
 
 What has Sordello found I Or can his 
 spirit go the mighty round to end where 
 Eglamor began ? As says the old fable, 
 that two eagles flew two different ways 
 about the earth, and where they met men 
 set the temple of Jove. 
 
 Whose step is first that rushes up the 
 stair? It is Salinguerra s, though sheathed 
 in mail. They enter, and behold Sordello 
 dead, beneath his feet the badge, and in his 
 eyes a look of triumph, like that of some 
 spent swimmer, who sees in his despair help 
 
/22 Tl)e Story of the Poem. 
 
 coming from above ; for he has trampled 
 upon what seemed to him a temptation to 
 evil, the temptation to accept a life lower 
 than his ideal, and has perished in the 
 struggle, but the prize of victory is his. 
 
 Alas, Bordello, whom they laid in the old 
 font-tomb at Goito at his mother s side ! 
 
 Time passes, and young Ecelin comes to 
 fill the first place in Lombardy. Strange 
 that Sordello s inability to shut out rivals 
 from the stage, an inability due to his fatal 
 disbelief in the possibility of accomplishing 
 anything, thrust the two sons of Romano 
 into Taurello s guardianship, and enabled 
 the wretched pair to demonstrate that 
 wherever there is the will to do, something 
 can always be done, whether for good or ill. 
 And so they plagued the world, till men 
 rose up and slew them. 
 
 The chronicles of Mantua tell how Sor- 
 dello, Prince Visconti, saved that city and 
 elsewhere distinguished himself greatly ; 
 that he was famous as a minstrel and fortu- 
 
The Story of the Poem. 123 
 
 nate as a lover ; he was praised for the 
 very things he never did and never could 
 have done. 
 
 For what he should have been, what he 
 might have been and would not, we suffer 
 to this day. The best chance that there 
 was for humanity Ecelin destroyed before 
 Dante could come, and for the sake of the 
 suffering world dared boldly to take the step 
 Bordello spurned. Dante did much, Sor- 
 dello s chance was lost forever. 
 
 Had he dared take that step alone, he 
 had compassed Apollo. It was a chance, he 
 would have come to him rather than go to it. 
 
 Like one who would gladly sleep at home, 
 while supposed to be fighting or singing 
 abroad, he valued the few real things he 
 had achieved mainly because he had thus 
 learned that they are valueless and need 
 never be done again. 
 
 Had Sordello but boldly embraced the 
 chance then offered to him, men would have 
 plucked the apples of Hesperides, and prais 
 ing the benefits that he bestowed, have 
 
124 The Story of the Poem. 
 
 given him all that he wished to appear, but 
 hardly desired to be. 
 
 After all a life such as his is but a sorry 
 farce. Can we say nothing better of him 
 than this ? 
 
 In the bright summer morning while the 
 lark sings, mounting heavenward, above the 
 castle-walls, a merry boy brushes the dew 
 from the grass as he passes, and glad at 
 heart he sings his song one fragment of 
 the old Goito lay, that spoke the praise of 
 Elys. Sleep and forget, Sordello I 
 
A STUDY OF THE CHARACTER 
 OF SORDELLO. 
 
You say, " Since so it is, good-bye, 
 Sweet life, high hope ; but whatsoe er 
 
 May be, or must, no tongue shall dare 
 To tell, The Lombard feared to die I " 
 ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH. 
 
A STUDY OF THE CHAKACTEE OF 
 BORDELLO. 
 
 ME. BROWNING tells us that the story of 
 Bordello is the history of the development of 
 a soul. 
 
 It would seem to be, in some respects, the 
 story of a soul whose complete and harmo 
 nious development has been thwarted by 
 the circumstances amid which it finds it 
 self ; cut off by a lonely life from the edu 
 cating influences of the outside world and 
 from that correction of individual views that 
 comes from contact with one s fellows. 
 
 His is a soul whose noblest aspirations 
 are hindered by a certain self-consciousness 
 from which it can never escape ; a soul too 
 weak and inexperienced to control circum 
 stances, too willful to follow, but not ardent 
 enough to lead ; too unformed in judgment 
 of men and of affairs, and too deficient in 
 
128 Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 political insight to discover the better way ; 
 too true and noble to accept what it believes 
 to be the worse. 
 
 He is the son of a brave and accom 
 plished mediaeval chieftain, who has been 
 nurtured in camps and courts, and who, like 
 so many of his contemporaries, is statesman, 
 courtier, warrior, and minstrel in one ; his 
 mother is of that wondrous Hohenstaufen 
 House, in which great mental gifts seem to 
 have been a birthright. But Sordello, with 
 a soul full of lofty ambitions, grows up in 
 the belief that he is an archer s son, who is 
 held to have attained high honor when he 
 has become his lady s chosen minstrel. 
 
 His boyhood and youth are passed in a 
 romantic castle, situated in a solitary spot, 
 among the mountains, surrounded by woods 
 and marshes, in the company of a few ob 
 jects of semi-classic art, and with trees and 
 flowers, animals and birds for his play-fel 
 lows, while over him bends the blue Italian 
 sky. 
 
 Human companionship he has none ; his 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 129 
 
 heart swells with longing to enter into the 
 life of everything about him ; plant and ani 
 mal gain a certain spiritual life from him, 
 but at the expense of too great self-efface 
 ment on his part. The figures that are 
 most like humanity are the painted warriors 
 on the arras, and these, too, in his fancies, 
 he bids live and act. 
 
 All the castle is free to him, save the 
 northern chambers, and so, too, are the 
 woods and fields about it; of anything of 
 the outer world he has but two brief 
 glimpses: one, when accidentally penetrat 
 ing into the forbidden apartments, he en 
 counters the Ladye of the castle and a fair 
 maiden, who sits beside her; one, when 
 Ecelin, the master of the house, comes to 
 visit his wife and daughter, and Sordello 
 watches his archer train wind slowly in and 
 out among the vines, and recognizes even 
 then that there may be a tie of kinship be 
 tween the humble house-leek on the roof 
 and the proud baron in his ringing mail. 
 
 A few chance words spoken by the bow- 
 
i jo Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 men, a hint now and then from the foreign 
 serving-women about him, are all the reports 
 that come to him from the outside life of 
 the world. 
 
 Time passes in vague dreams and aimless 
 fantasies ; unconscious himself of the want, 
 he stands in need of some power outside of 
 and beyond himself, some overmastering 
 purpose that shall show to him some goal 
 towards which to strive. As he grows older 
 he ceases to make trees and flowers his com 
 rades, their places are filled by human im 
 ages, or rather by certain personified essen 
 tial qualities of humanity, as strength, 
 grace, wisdom ; these qualities are gradually 
 combined in his mind until they are reduced 
 to a few, which are in their turn resolved 
 into one grand personality, to which he longs 
 to give a name. 
 
 Who is this type of all wise and heroic 
 qualities? Is it the Caesar? Or does he 
 dwell in such ineffable greatness, so remote 
 from the life of the multitude, that no touch 
 of emotion can come to him from the crowd 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 131 
 
 of unhappy men and women who are perish 
 ing for lack of help ? 
 
 Or is it perhaps the minstrel, who rules 
 the world by song ? 
 
 Is it possible that it may one day be his 
 destiny to combine the two, to act and to 
 sing, to be both Caesar and Apollo ? 
 
 But there is in Bordello s spiritual life 
 one fatal defect, a certain self-consciousness, 
 that will one day be his ruin; he never 
 ceases to question what men will think 
 about him, how his deeds and words are re 
 garded by the world. Even when, in his 
 dreams, he has trampled all his foes beneath 
 his feet and only admiring worshipers re 
 main ; when in his heart he has taken the 
 proud resolve that only his lord s fair daugh 
 ter, who has hitherto disdained all suitors, 
 shall be his future bride, the Daphne to his 
 Apollo ; even then he cannot refrain from 
 looking forward to the time when the whole 
 world shall see and envy him her love, and 
 when great cities shall bow down before him 
 in reverence for his fame. 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 That world with which he has never 
 measured himself, whose stern criticism he 
 has never felt, for conflict with which he has 
 never yet braced heart and soul, is waiting, 
 he believes, but for his coming to hail him 
 for its king ! 
 
 Then comes the day which brings him be 
 fore his wished-for public, the day which 
 makes him Palma s minstrel. His triumph 
 for the moment is complete, but he soon 
 ceases to be content with his position. He 
 cares more for the effect his song produces, 
 than he does for the song itself, and he be 
 comes weary of the labor which the work 
 requires. He falls into conventional ways, 
 and is satisfied with laurels too lightly won. 
 At length he sickens of popular applause, 
 and withdraws for a time from public view, 
 that he may devote himself to the task of 
 elaborating a more perfect instrument of ex 
 pression. He desires to make the Italian as 
 suitable for poetic use as the more polished 
 Langue d Oc ; he would sing in the speech 
 of the people, and so become more fully the 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 133 
 
 people s poet. And lie has a momentary 
 success. But he fails to thoroughly embody 
 in words the fervid perceptions which offer 
 themselves, they are too subtle and evanes 
 cent to be intellectually apprehended, or ex 
 pressed. Up to this moment he has felt 
 only, he has not yet thought. The Man- 
 tuans care little for his efforts ; they prefer 
 to walk in trodden paths, and he abandons 
 his language, wrought with so much care, 
 takes up the old measures and the common 
 themes, and sings the exploits of a crusad 
 ing hero. Even now his full meaning is 
 missed, and weary of being perpetually mis 
 understood, Sordello once more withdraws 
 from public life. 
 
 He feels two natures struggling within 
 him, man and poet : the man craves action 
 and life in the world ; the poet longs for 
 solitude and song ; he cannot reconcile the 
 two. 
 
 " Take things as they are," say the Man- 
 tuans ; " suit yourself to the ordinary ways 
 of life." He tries and fails again. 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 Then Taurello comes to Mantua, and as 
 Palma s minstrel it is Bordello s duty to bid 
 him welcome ; but inspiration fails him, and 
 he flees to Goito, where nature soothes his 
 grief, and calms his troubled soul. His 
 mind sleeps, and he knows that it does so. 
 
 Is it really true that his youth can never 
 return, that he has forfeited all hopes of 
 love and power and fame ? Must all aspi 
 rations be abandoned forever? He feels 
 that even the crowd of common men have 
 this advantage over him, that they are en 
 dowed with a personality distinct from what 
 they see, while he is perpetually driven to 
 blend himself with all that he beholds. Is 
 it his fate to be forever thrust aside, the 
 spectator of joys to which he can never at 
 tain? Eather seize any happiness that 
 offers ! and with the thought comes a 
 message bidding him return to Mantua. 
 And here love greets him while Palma 
 smiles, and whispers at once of her love for 
 him for whom she has so long waited, and of 
 the political schemes in which she seeks his 
 aid. 
 
Study of the Character of Bordello. 
 
 Of late Bordello s soul has been inspired 
 with a new and more unselfish purpose, the 
 wish to help mankind. He pities the suffer 
 ings of the multitude, and longs to aid. He 
 knows not by what means his ends are to be 
 attained, whether political or social. He 
 sees the horrors of the conflict between 
 Guelf and Ghibelline, but he feels sure that 
 there must be some choice between them, 
 that the great question is, which can most 
 effectually help the people. He talks with 
 Salinguerra, he listens to Palma, and im 
 plores her to teach him to play a man s part 
 in the world, and, wandering through the 
 streets ravaged by war, he hears from a by 
 stander in the market-place the story of 
 Crescentius, as it appears encircled with the 
 mythic glories of the past ; the legend of 
 the Tribune, who would have built up a 
 Rome without a Pope and without an Em 
 peror. 
 
 This, Bordello fancies, may be his des 
 tined work. To rebuild Rome ! But it 
 must be the Rome of the People, and he 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 finds that the people as they are, down-trod 
 den, brutal, ignorant, are not fit to be the 
 denizens of his ideal city. It behooves him 
 now to remember how great was the work 
 to found the Rome of old ; to remember how 
 men have worked their way upward from 
 the cave-dwellers to the architects of palaces 
 and temples ; that every succeeding step has 
 been taken with weariness and toil; that 
 the many can accomplish more than any 
 one, but that there must always be the one 
 man to take the first step, to lead the way, 
 it may be to perish in so doing. That the 
 work moves on by slow degrees, helped by 
 many hands. If all coidd be instantly 
 caught up to the standpoint of one greatest 
 soul, if all epochs could be merged in one, 
 the sudden city would glitter in splendor in 
 the noonday sun, but its citizens would be 
 unable either to comprehend or enjoy its 
 delights. 
 
 And so he puts that dream by. Then he 
 seems to hear a voice within him saying that 
 God has vouchsafed to man two sights : one 
 
Study of tbe Character of Sordello. 
 
 of the future with its completed work, that 
 perfect ideal which is to be one day the 
 actual ; one of the daily tasks that must be 
 wrought to make that work complete ; the 
 glimpse of the first should encourage us to 
 undertake the second, to compass both is be 
 yond the lot of mortal. Each must work 
 for all ; each has his share, however small, 
 to contribute ; the step that each man takes 
 helps on the universal march. 
 
 But Sordello is not the first who has 
 sought to form mankind into a definite 
 shape to make of Humanity an organic 
 whole. Centuries before there had blos 
 somed a splendid flower that had drawn all 
 things into itself ; Charles the Great had 
 lived, an embodiment of joyous, active, fruit 
 ful life, incarnate strength. Was it the part 
 of Hildebrand to spiritualize this body? 
 Does the Empire represent strength and the 
 Church knowledge? Has either accom 
 plished all that it might have done ? The 
 League opposes force by force ; were it not 
 better to listen to the voice of the gentle 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 friar who is preaching of peace? Can 
 knowledge render strength needless? Is 
 the work of Hildebrand to supersede the 
 work of Charles ? Sordello believes so, and 
 determines to overthrow the latter. He 
 ponders long, and sees that the task is be 
 yond his power, the work is too strong to be 
 destroyed, the State is needful to man ; 
 strength must be combined with knowledge, 
 Caesar and Apollo, knight and minstrel, 
 must strive together to the same end. 
 
 He seeks Salinguerra to convert him to 
 Guelfic politics, and entreat his aid to bene 
 fit the world. There is a strange mixture 
 of tragedy and comedy in the scene between 
 Taurello and his unknown son, between the 
 all-accomplished cavalier to whom all graces 
 come unsought, and the poet, old before his 
 time, ignorant of the world, without tact, 
 and possessed by an idea, which yet does 
 not so thoroughly possess him as to render 
 him oblivious of self and careless of what 
 others may think or say of him. 
 
 He tells the fiery Ghibelline, whose life 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 1 39 
 
 has been blasted by Guelfic hate, that the 
 Pope s cause is the cause of humanity; he 
 tells the haughty noble that the one thing 
 that Lombardy most needs is to be rid of 
 her barons ! 
 
 Suddenly he realizes the absurdity of the 
 situation ; the god of Goito sunken into 
 a partisan of the Guelf s ! But the touch of 
 playful sarcasm which Taurello cannot re 
 sist rouses Sordello at last to something 
 really living, and he bursts forth into a 
 splendid eulogium of the rank and functions 
 of the poet, and the scene ends with the con 
 ferring of the viceroyalty upon him by Sa- 
 linguerra, and the disclosure by Palma of 
 the true relations in which the two stand to 
 each other. Then she withdraws the bewil 
 dered father from the room, and Sordello is 
 left to meditate upon his position, and de 
 termine upon his future course. 
 
 If he accept the viceroyalty he will have 
 all of its best that life can give him, and he 
 longs for the joys of life. Why should he 
 put off the enjoyment of happiness to an- 
 
140 Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 other world, to a future state in which he 
 may reproach himself that he had under 
 valued the gifts of the present ? If this world 
 be indeed but the ante-chamber of a palace, 
 so be it ; but why assume, as yet, the airs of 
 the palace ? Never for the sake of his own 
 pleasure will he deprive any man of his 
 rights ; all paths lead to the same goal, the 
 road is free to all, and all men shall cer 
 tainly arrive at last at the longed-for desti 
 nation. 
 
 But it may well be that some shall reach 
 the end toward which they toil earlier than 
 others because they have the advantage in 
 the start. 
 
 But is there, after all, as some have said, 
 anything nobler to be attained than earthly 
 
 joy? 
 
 If that indeed be so, for that supreme 
 happiness he will gladly forego all present 
 delights. 
 
 But what is the true path into which the 
 loftiest aspirations should lead his steps? 
 What is the cause of truth and duty and 
 God? 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 141 
 
 He had believed it possible for him to 
 find a third cause to which to consecrate his 
 powers, the cause of the people, but it seems 
 to him now that from the people themselves 
 he can look for but little assistance ; the 
 third cause is not yet, at least, self-support 
 ing, it cannot stand alone. He believes 
 that it must be committed to the guardian 
 ship of one of the two parties which seem to 
 divide the world between them, that he 
 must range himself with either Guelf or 
 Ghibelline. 
 
 And he believes, too, that the choice lies 
 with the Guelf s. Without experience, prone 
 to theorize with but a slight comprehension 
 of facts as a basis, he decides that the world 
 must be saved through knowledge, and that 
 this knowledge is to be found in the Church 
 alone. 
 
 He makes, as he thinks, the choice be 
 tween Charles and Hildebrand; had he 
 comprehended the work of the first Teutonic 
 Emperor, he had not so believed; had he 
 known anything of the Hohenstaufen in 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 whose reign he lived, he would never have 
 so fatally misjudged. 
 
 But in his frame of mind the imperial 
 viceroyalty comes to him in the guise of a 
 temptation to abandon his convictions of 
 right, and for once in his life Sordello gath 
 ers up all his forces for one mighty effort, 
 one great struggle to overcome. And the 
 effort is in itself a triumph. He flings the 
 Caesar s badge upon the ground, and tram 
 ples beneath his feet its glittering lure. 
 Action is forbidden him ; his only privilege 
 is to renounce, and when he resolutely 
 thrusts behind him all the joys of earth, 
 death opens to him in mercy the gates of 
 Heaven. He has won a spiritual victory 
 and the reward of all efforts to overcome 
 self, and to grasp a noble ideal is his. 
 
 " T is better to have fought, and lost, 
 Than never to have fought at all ! " 
 
 But for his failures in courage, in faith and 
 judgment, the world, alas ! must suffer. 
 
 He could not see that, for good or for 
 evil, something can always be done, if the 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 143 
 
 fixed will to do exist; that his own judg 
 ment in political affairs was too devoid of 
 experience to be of any value, and that in 
 taking up the work which was placed at his 
 disposal he would have secured an unri 
 valed opportunity to aid the suffering, and 
 relieve the oppressed. 
 
 His inexperience of the world, his inca 
 pacity to forget himself, his scorn of gradual 
 progress toward the desired end, joined to 
 Palma s inability to inspire him with her 
 own spirit, all led him astray. 
 
 As it seemed to him, the viceroyalty was 
 a temptation, and he justly spurned it, but 
 then came in his place the sons of Romano, 
 and made the land a hell. 
 
 The language he had abandoned, Dante, a 
 century later, made an unsurpassed vehicle, 
 not only of the most fervid perception, but 
 of the profoundest thought. The political 
 views he rejected were the life of Dante s 
 soul, as deeply felt and as sincerely cher 
 ished as his religion. But he combined 
 strength and knowledge ; he was Caesar and 
 
144 Study of the Character of Sordello. 
 
 Apollo, Man and Poet in one. And he did 
 much. " Sordello s chance," says Mr. 
 Browning, " was gone." 
 
 But Dante never forgot that Sordello had 
 taken one of those first steps which cost, 
 albeit he had not the faith or persistence to 
 continue in the path upon which he had en 
 tered. The future generations gave to the 
 Sordello of legend all the worldly success 
 which he had so vainly longed for, and fan 
 cied him triumphant as warrior, statesman, 
 and lover ; but his truest glory is, that, first 
 of northern Italians, he strove to sing to the 
 people in their own tongue, that he took the 
 first step upon that Sacred Way over which 
 Dante marched in triumph. 
 
 On the Mount of Purgatory, gracious and 
 calm, but lonely as on earth, the Mantuan 
 Sordello greets the Mantuan Virgil, his im 
 mortal countryman, and gives a kindly wel 
 come to the mighty Tuscan, who is destined 
 so grandly to fulfill what had been to the 
 Troubadour aspirations only. 
 
 And on the sunny slopes of Mount Par- 
 
Study of the Character of Sordello. 145 
 
 nassus, where the divine Apollo sits, sur 
 rounded by his disciples, there, among the 
 greatest poets of the world, has Raphael 
 placed Sordello. 
 
 The lofty poet, whose vision penetrated 
 into the darkest abysses and the most ra 
 diant splendors of the other world, a sorrow 
 ful exile from his native city, unites with 
 the gentle, happy painter in rendering im 
 mortal the name of one whose earthly life 
 had seemed to himself a failure, whose one 
 supreme success was the renunciation of all 
 the joys of earth and even of life itself. 
 
Robert Browning s Works. 
 
 That Mr. Browning is the strongest man who 
 now writes English poetry the strongest who 
 has written since Milton died no sane man 
 will deny. F. J. FURNIVALL. 
 
 Poems and Dramas. In two volumes. 
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 Sordello, Strafford, Christmas Eve, and 
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 and Second Series). i6mo, $1.50. 
 
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 In the case of Robert Browning we find an originality 
 which, of itself, is one of the strongest imaginable claims 
 upon respect, and one of the greatest imaginable attrac 
 tions. We rejoice in the vigor and self-reliance of such 
 a minstrel : we honor the manliness of his muse. Write 
 what he will, and how he will, no lover of poetry, or stu 
 dent of language, can fail to enjoy and profit by his verse. 
 New York Times. 
 
 Whilst he stands among the foremost of living poets, 
 his wealth of thought, his bold and strong imagination, 
 his quaint fancy and subtle humor, are clothed in a rich 
 diction, so involved, and at times so obscure, that to read 
 him is working a mine to obtain treasures such as he alone 
 has to bestow, and that fully reward the toil, however 
 great. Boston Transcript. 
 
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