Kitabı oku: «The Life of Lord Byron», sayfa 16
CHAPTER XXXVI
The Tragedy of “Sardanapalus” considered, with Reference to Lord Byron’s own Circumstances—“Cain”
Among the mental enjoyments which endeared Ravenna to Lord Byron, the composition of Sardanapalus may be reckoned the chief. It seems to have been conceived in a happier mood than any of all his other works; for, even while it inculcates the dangers of voluptuous indulgence, it breathes the very essence of benevolence and philosophy. Pleasure takes so much of the character of virtue in it, that but for the moral taught by the consequences, enjoyment might be mistaken for duty. I have never been able to satisfy myself in what the resemblance consists, but from the first reading it has always appeared to me that there was some elegant similarity between the characters of Sardanapalus and Hamlet, and my inclination has sometimes led me to imagine that the former was the nobler conception of the two.
The Assyrian monarch, like the Prince of Denmark, is highly endowed, capable of the greatest undertakings; he is yet softened by a philosophic indolence of nature that makes him undervalue the enterprises of ambition, and all those objects in the attainment of which so much of glory is supposed to consist. They are both alike incapable of rousing themselves from the fond reveries of moral theory, even when the strongest motives are presented to them. Hamlet hesitates to act, though his father’s spirit hath come from death to incite him; and Sardanapalus derides the achievements that had raised his ancestors to an equality with the gods.
Thou wouldst have me go
Forth as a conqueror. – By all the stars
Which the Chaldeans read! the restless slaves
Deserve that I should curse them with their wishes
And lead them forth to glory.
Again:
The ungrateful and ungracious slaves! they murmur
Because I have not shed their blood, nor led them
To dry into the deserts’ dust by myriads,
Or whiten with their bones the banks of Ganges,
Nor decimated them with savage laws,
Nor sweated them to build up pyramids
Or Babylonian walls.
The nothingness of kingly greatness and national pride were never before so finely contemned as by the voluptuous Assyrian, and were the scorn not mitigated by the skilful intermixture of mercifulness and philanthropy, the character would not be endurable. But when the same voice which pronounced contempt on the toils of honour says,
Enough
For me if I can make my subjects feel
The weight of human misery less,
it is impossible to repress the liking which the humane spirit of that thought is calculated to inspire. Nor is there any want of dignity in Sardanapalus, even when lolling softest in his luxury.
Must I consume my life – this little life —
In guarding against all may make it less!
It is not worth so much – It were to die
Before my hour to live in dread of death..
Till now no drop of an Assyrian vein
Hath flow’d for me, nor hath the smallest coin
Of Nineveh’s vast treasure e’er been lavish’d
On objects which could cost her sons a tear.
If then they hate me ’tis because I hate not,
If they rebel ’tis because I oppress not.
This is imagined in the true tone of Epicurean virtue, and it rises to magnanimity when he adds in compassionate scorn,
Oh, men! ye must be ruled with scythes, not sceptres,
And mow’d down like the grass, else all we reap
Is rank abundance and a rotten harvest
Of discontents infecting the fair soil,
Making a desert of fertility.
But the graciousness in the conception of the character of Sardanapalus, is not to be found only in these sentiments of his meditations, but in all and every situation in which the character is placed. When Salamenes bids him not sheath his sword —
’Tis the sole sceptre left you now with safety,
the king replies —
“A heavy one;” and subjoins, as if to conceal his distaste for war, by ascribing a dislike to the sword itself,
The hilt, too, hurts my hand.
It may be asked why I dwell so particularly on the character of Sardanapalus. It is admitted that he is the most heroic of voluptuaries, the most philosophical of the licentious. The first he is undoubtedly, but he is not licentious; and in omitting to make him so, the poet has prevented his readers from disliking his character upon principle. It was a skilful stroke of art to do this; had it been otherwise, and had there been no affection shown for the Ionian slave, Sardanapalus would have engaged no sympathy. It is not, however, with respect to the ability with which the character has been imagined, nor to the poetry with which it is invested, that I have so particularly made it a subject of criticism; it was to point out how much in it Lord Byron has interwoven of his own best nature.
At the time when he was occupied with this great work, he was confessedly in the enjoyment of the happiest portion of his life. The Guiccioli was to him a Myrrha, but the Carbonari were around, and in the controversy, in which Sardanapalus is engaged, between the obligations of his royalty and his inclinations for pleasure, we have a vivid insight of the cogitation of the poet, whether to take a part in the hazardous activity which they were preparing, or to remain in the seclusion and festal repose of which he was then in possession. The Assyrian is as much Lord Byron as Childe Harold was, and bears his lineaments in as clear a likeness, as a voluptuary unsated could do those of the emaciated victim of satiety. Over the whole drama, and especially in some of the speeches of Sardanapalus, a great deal of fine but irrelevant poetry and moral reflection has been profusely spread; but were the piece adapted to the stage, these portions would of course be omitted, and the character denuded of them would then more fully justify the idea which I have formed of it, than it may perhaps to many readers do at present, hidden as it is, both in shape and contour, under an excess of ornament.
That the character of Myrrha was also drawn from life, and that the Guiccioli was the model, I have no doubt. She had, when most enchanted by her passion for Byron – at the very time when the drama was written – many sources of regret; and he was too keen an observer, and of too jealous a nature, not to have marked every shade of change in her appearance, and her every moment of melancholy reminiscence; so that, even though she might never have given expression to her sentiments, still such was her situation, that it could not but furnish him with fit suggestions from which to fill up the moral being of the Ionian slave. Were the character of Myrrha scanned with this reference, while nothing could be discovered to detract from the value of the composition, a great deal would be found to lessen the merit of the poet’s invention. He had with him the very being in person whom he has depicted in the drama, of dispositions and endowments greatly similar, and in circumstances in which she could not but feel as Myrrha is supposed to have felt – and it must be admitted, that he has applied the good fortune of that incident to a beautiful purpose.
This, however, is not all that the tragedy possesses of the author. The character of Zarina is, perhaps, even still more strikingly drawn from life. There are many touches in the scene with her which he could not have imagined, without thinking of his own domestic disasters. The first sentiment she utters is truly conceived in the very frame and temper in which Byron must have wished his lady to think of himself, and he could not embody it without feeling that—
How many a year has pass’d,
Though we are still so young, since we have met
Which I have borne in widowhood of heart.
The following delicate expression has reference to his having left his daughter with her mother, and unfolds more of his secret feelings on the subject than anything he has expressed more ostentatiously elsewhere:
I wish’d to thank you, that you have not divided
My heart from all that’s left it now to love.
And what Sardanapalus says of his children is not less applicable to Byron, and is true:
Deem not
I have not done you justice: rather make them
Resemble your own line, than their own sire;
I trust them with you – to you.
And when Zarina says,
They ne’er
Shall know from me aught but what may honour
Their father’s memory,
he puts in her mouth only a sentiment which he knew, if his wife never expressed to him, she profoundly acknowledged in resolution to herself. The whole of this scene is full of the most penetrating pathos; and did the drama not contain, in every page, indubitable evidence to me, that he has shadowed out in it himself his wife, and his mistress, this little interview would prove a vast deal in confirmation of the opinion so often expressed, that where his genius was most in its element, it was when it dealt with his own sensibilities and circumstances. It is impossible to read the following speech, without a conviction that it was written at Lady Byron:
My gentle, wrong’d Zarina!
I am the very slave of circumstance
And impulse – borne away with every breath!
Misplaced upon the throne – misplaced in life.
I know not what I could have been, but feel
I am not what I should be – let it end.
But take this with thee: if I was not form’d
To prize a love like thine – a mind like thine —
Nor dote even on thy beauty – as I’ve doted
On lesser charms, for no cause save that such
Devotion was a duty, and I hated
All that look’d like a chain for me or others
(This even rebellion must avouch); yet hear
These words, perhaps among my last – that none
E’er valued more thy virtues, though he knew not
To profit by them.
At Ravenna Cain was also written; a dramatic poem, in some degree, chiefly in its boldness, resembling the ancient mysteries of the monasteries before the secular stage was established. This performance, in point of conception, is of a sublime order. The object of the poem is to illustrate the energy and the art of Lucifer in accomplishing the ruin of the first-born. By an unfair misconception, the arguments of Lucifer have been represented as the sentiments of the author upon some imaginary warranty derived from the exaggerated freedom of his life; and yet the moral tendency of the reflections are framed in a mood of reverence as awful towards Omnipotence as the austere divinity of Milton. It would be presumption in me, however, to undertake the defence of any question in theology; but I have not been sensible to the imputed impiety, while I have felt in many passages influences that have their being amid the shadows and twilights of “old religion”;
“Stupendous spirits
That mock the pride of man, and people space
With life and mystical predominance.”
The morning hymns and worship with which the mystery opens are grave, solemn, and scriptural, and the dialogue which follows with Cain is no less so: his opinion of the tree of life is, I believe, orthodox; but it is daringly expressed: indeed, all the sentiments ascribed to Cain are but the questions of the sceptics. His description of the approach of Lucifer would have shone in the Paradise Lost.
A shape like to the angels,
Yet of a sterner and a sadder aspect,
Of spiritual essence. Why do I quake?
Why should I fear him more than other spirits
Whom I see daily wave their fiery swords
Before the gates round which I linger oft
In twilight’s hour, to catch a glimpse of those
Gardens which are my just inheritance,
Ere the night closes o’er the inhibited walls,
And the immortal trees which overtop
The cherubim-defended battlements?
I shrink not from these, the fire-arm’d angels;
Why should I quail from him who now approaches?
Yet he seems mightier far than them, nor less
Beauteous; and yet not all as beautiful
As he hath been, or might be: sorrow seems
Half of his immortality.
There is something spiritually fine in this conception of the terror or presentiment of coming evil. The poet rises to the sublime in making Lucifer first inspire Cain with the knowledge of his immortality – a portion of truth which hath the efficacy of falsehood upon the victim; for Cain, feeling himself already unhappy, knowing that his being cannot be abridged, has the less scruple to desire to be as Lucifer, “mighty.” The whole speech of Lucifer, beginning,
Souls who dare use their immortality,
is truly satanic; a daring and dreadful description given by everlasting despair of the Deity.
But, notwithstanding its manifold immeasurable imaginations, Cain is only a polemical controversy, the doctrines of which might have been better discussed in the pulpit of a college chapel. As a poem it is greatly unequal; many passages consist of mere metaphysical disquisition, but there are others of wonderful scope and energy. It is a thing of doubts and dreams and reveries – dim and beautiful, yet withal full of terrors. The understanding finds nothing tangible; but amid dread and solemnity, sees only a shapen darkness with eloquent gestures. It is an argument invested with the language of oracles and omens, conceived in some religious trance, and addressed to spirits.
CHAPTER XXXVII
Removal to Pisa—The Lanfranchi Palace—Affair with the Guard at Pisa—Removal to Monte Nero—Junction with Mr Hunt—Mr Shelley’s Letter
The unhappy distrusts and political jealousies of the times obliged Lord Byron, with the Gambas, the family of the Guiccioli, to remove from Ravenna to Pisa. In this compulsion he had no cause to complain; a foreigner meddling with the politics of the country in which he was only accidentally resident, could expect no deferential consideration from the government. It has nothing to do with the question whether his Lordship was right or wrong in his principles. The government was in the possession of the power, and in self-defence he could expect no other course towards him than what he did experience. He was admonished to retreat: he did so. Could he have done otherwise, he would not. He would have used the Austrian authority as ill as he was made to feel it did him.
In the autumn of 1821, Lord Byron removed from Ravenna to Pisa, where he hired the Lanfranchi palace for a year – one of those massy marble piles which appear
“So old, as if they had for ever stood —
So strong, as if they would for ever stand!”
Both in aspect and character it was interesting to the boding fancies of the noble tenant. It is said to have been constructed from a design of Michael Angelo; and in the grandeur of its features exhibits a bold and colossal style not unworthy of his genius.
The Lanfranchi family, in the time of Dante, were distinguished in the factions of those days, and one of them has received his meed of immortality from the poet, as the persecutor of Ugolino. They are now extinct, and their traditionary reputation is illustrated by the popular belief in the neighbourhood, that their ghosts are restless, and still haunt their former gloomy and gigantic habitation.
The building was too vast for the establishment of Lord Byron, and he occupied only the first floor.
The life he led at this period was dull and unvaried. Billiards, conversations, reading, and occasionally writing, constituted the regular business of the day. In the cool of the afternoon, he sometimes went out in his carriage, oftener on horseback, and generally amused himself with pistol practice at a five-paul piece. He dined at half an hour after sunset, and then drove to Count Gamba’s, where he passed several hours with the Countess Guiccioli, who at that time still resided with her father. On his return he read or wrote till the night was far spent, or rather till the morning was come again, sipping at intervals spirits diluted with water, as medicine to counteract some nephritic disorder to which he considered himself liable.
Notwithstanding the tranquillity of this course of life, he was accidentally engaged in a transaction which threatened unpleasant consequences, and had a material effect on his comfort. On the 21st of March, 1822, as he was returning from his usual ride, in company with several of his friends, a hussar officer, at full speed, dashed through the party, and violently jostled one of them. Lord Byron, with his characteristic impetuosity, instantly pushed forwards, and the rest followed, and overtook the hussar. His Lordship inquired what he meant by the insult; but for answer, received the grossest abuse: on which he and one of his companions gave their cards, and passed on. The officer followed, hallooing, and threatening with his hand on his sabre. They were now near the Paggia gate. During this altercation, a common artilleryman interfered, and called out to the hussar, “Why don’t you arrest them? – command us to arrest them.” Upon which the officer gave the word to the guard at the gate. His Lordship, hearing the order, spurred his horse, and one of his party doing the same, they succeeded in forcing their way through the soldiers, while the gate was closed on the rest of the party, with whom an outrageous scuffle ensued.
Lord Byron, on reaching his palace, gave directions to inform the police, and, not seeing his companions coming up, rode back towards the gate. On his way the hussar met him, and said, “Are you satisfied?” – “No: tell me your name!” – “Serjeant-major Masi.” One of his Lordship’s servants, who at this moment joined them, seized the hussar’s horse by the bridle, but his master commanded him to let it go. The hussar then spurred his horse through the crowd, which by this time had collected in front of the Lanfranchi palace, and in the attempt was wounded by a pitchfork. Several of the servants were arrested, and imprisoned: and, during the investigation of the affair before the police, Lord Byron’s house was surrounded by the dragoons belonging to Serjeant-major Masi’s troop, who threatened to force the doors. The result upon these particulars was not just; all Lord Byron’s Italian servants were banished from Pisa; and with them the father and brother of the Guiccioli, who had no concern whatever in the affair. Lord Byron himself was also advised to quit the town, and, as the Countess accompanied her father, he soon after joined them at Leghorn, and passed six weeks at Monte Nero, a country house in the vicinity of that city.
It was during his Lordship’s residence at Monte Nero, that an event took place – his junction with Mr Leigh Hunt – which had some effect both on his literary and his moral reputation. Previous to his departure from England, there had been some intercourse between them – Byron had been introduced by Moore to Hunt, when the latter was suffering imprisonment for the indiscretion of his pen, and by his civility had encouraged him, perhaps, into some degree of forgetfulness as to their respective situations in society. – Mr Hunt at no period of their acquaintance appears to have been sufficiently sensible that a man of positive rank has it always in his power, without giving anything like such a degree of offence as may be resented otherwise than by estrangement, to inflict mortification, and, in consequence, presumed too much to an equality with his Lordship – at least this is the impression his conduct made upon me, from the familiarity of his dedicatory epistle prefixed to Rimini to their riding out at Pisa together dressed alike – “We had blue frock-coats, white waistcoats and trousers, and velvet caps, à la Raphael, and cut a gallant figure.” I do not discover on the part of Lord Byron, that his Lordship ever forgot his rank; nor was he a personage likely to do so; in saying, therefore, that Mr Hunt presumed upon his condescension, I judge entirely by his own statement of facts. I am not undertaking a defence of his lordship, for the manner in which he acted towards Mr Hunt, because it appears to me to have been, in many respects, mean; but I do think there was an original error, a misconception of himself on the part of Mr Hunt, that drew down about him a degree of humiliation that he might, by more self-respect, have avoided. However, I shall endeavour to give as correct a summary of the whole affair as the materials before me will justify.
The occasion of Hunt’s removal to Italy will be best explained by quoting the letter from his friend Shelley, by which he was induced to take that obviously imprudent step.
“Pisa, Aug. 26, 1821.
“MY DEAREST FRIEND, – Since I last wrote to you, I have been on a visit to Lord Byron at Ravenna. The result of this visit was a determination on his part to come and live at Pisa, and I have taken the finest palace on the Lung’ Arno for him. But the material part of my visit consists in a message which he desires me to give you, and which I think ought to add to your determination – for such a one I hope you have formed – of restoring your shattered health and spirits by a migration to these ‘regions mild, of calm and serene air.’
“He proposes that you should come, and go shares with him and me in a periodical work to be conducted here, in which each of the contracting parties should publish all their original compositions, and share the profits. He proposed it to Moore, but for some reason it was never brought to bear. There can be no doubt that the profits of any scheme in which you and Lord Byron engage must, for various yet co-operating reasons, be very great. As to myself, I am, for the present, only a sort of link between you and him, until you can know each other, and effectuate the arrangement; since (to intrust you with a secret, which for your sake I withhold from Lord Byron) nothing would induce me to share in the profits, and still less in the borrowed splendour of such a partnership. You and he, in different manners, would be equal, and would bring in a different manner, but in the same proportion, equal stocks of reputation and success. Do not let my frankness with you, nor my belief that you deserve it more than Lord Byron, have the effect of deterring you from assuming a station in modern literature, which the universal voice of my contemporaries forbids me either to stoop or aspire to. I am, and I desire to be, nothing.
“I did not ask Lord Byron to assist me in sending a remittance for your journey; because there are men, however excellent, from whom we would never receive an obligation in the worldly sense of the word; and I am as jealous for my friend as for myself. I, as you know, have it not; but I suppose that at last I shall make up an impudent face, and ask Horace Smith to add to the many obligations he has conferred on me. I know I need only ask.”.
Now, before proceeding farther, it seems from this epistle, and there is no reason to question Shelley’s veracity, that Lord Byron was the projector of The Liberal; that Hunt’s political notoriety was mistaken for literary reputation, and that there was a sad lack of common sense in the whole scheme.
