Kitabı oku: «The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862», sayfa 11

 
'Can cheeks where living roses blow,
Where nature spreads her richest dyes,
Require the borrowed gloss of Art?'
 

The deepest and most solemn mystery which the Nature-love of the earliest times attached to every object, was that it reflected its very opposite, and must always be regarded as identified with it in a primitive origin, in which both existed undeveloped. So we have seen that the rose, while female as the expanding flower, was yet male as the contracted bud. As a symbol of joyousness, youth, light, beauty, and the blushing dawn, it was eminently the floral type of life—a simile which has been employed by the poets of every land, Spenser among others:

 
'The whiles some one did chant this lovely lay:
Ah see, who so fair thing dost fain to see,
In springing flower the image of thy day;
All see thy virgin ROSE, how sweetly she
Doth first peep forth with bashful modesty,
That fairer seems the less you see her may;
Lo! see soon after, how more bold and free
Her bared bosom she doth broad display;
Lo! see soon after, how she fades and falls away.
 
 
'So passeth, in the passing of a day
Of mortal life, the leaf, the bud, the flower,
Nor more doth flourish after first decay,
That erst was sought to deck both bed and bower
Of many a lady, many a paramour:
Gather the rose of love while yet in time,
Whilst loving thou may'st loved be with equal crime.'
 

But, as implying Life, the Rose also reflected Death, and this seemed to ray from the cruel thorns, which, as the German couplet says, remain after the leaves have vanished:

 
'The rose falls away,
But the thorns ever stay.'
 

And a far older Hindu proverb solemnly exclaims: 'Hast thou obtained thy wish; exult not: canst thou not see how the thorn pierces the finger at the same instant when the rose is gathered?'

Birth and Death, as typified in the Rose, and their mutual production, are beautifully expressed by Ausonius in the remainder of the poem already cited:

 
'I saw a moment's interval divide
The rose that blossomed from the rose that died.
This with its cap of tufted moss looked green;
That, tipped with reddening purple, peeped between;
One reared its obelisk with opening swell,
The bud unsheathed its crimson pinnacle;
Another, gathering every purpled fold,
Its foliage multiplied; its blooms unrolled,
The teeming chives shot forth; the petals spread;
The bow-pot's glory reared its smiling head;
While this, that ere the passing moment flew
Flamed forth one blaze of scarlet on the view,
Now shook from withering stalk the waste perfume,
Its verdure stript, and pale its faded bloom,
I marvelled at the spoiling flight of time,
That roses thus grew old in earliest prime.
E'en while I speak, the crimson leaves drop round,
And a red brightness veils the blushing ground.
These forms, these births, these changes, bloom, decay,
Appear and vanish in the self-same day.
The flower's brief grace, O Nature! moves my sighs,
Thy gifts, just shown, are ravished from our eyes.
One day the rose's age; and while it blows
In dawn of youth, it withers to its close.
The rose the glittering sun beheld at morn,
Spread to the light its blossoms newly born,
When in his round he looks from evening skies
Already droops in age, and fades, and dies.
Yet blest that, soon to fade, the numerous flower
Succeeds herself, and still prolongs her hour.
O virgins! roses cull, while yet ye may;
So bloom your hours, and so shall haste away.'
 

A Jewish legend declares that a famed cabalist was vainly pursued by Death through many forms. But at last the grim enemy changed himself into the perfume of a rose, which the magician—his suspicion lulled for the instant—inhaled, and died. In many German cities—Hildesheim, Bremen, and Lübeck among others—it is said that the death of a prebend is heralded by the discovery of a white rose under his seat in the cathedral. 'And,' as J. B. Friederich states (Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, p. 225), 'in the Tyrol the rose has a deathly meaning, since it is there believed that whoever wears an Alpine rose in his hat during a thunderstorm will be struck by the lightning; for which reason it is called the thunder-rose—a name probably derived from the consecration of that flower to Donar, the god of thunder.'

The fantastic symbolism of the middle ages twined the Rose into innumerable capricious forms, few of which, however, have any direct derivation from Nature. Thus the Rose, from being typical of literal love, became that of Christ; from symbolizing the light of Aurora, it was made significant as the rose-window bearing the cross. The five-leaved rose indicated the love of God for Man, as set forth by His five wounds; while the eight-leaved typified that of the believer for the Lord. The Rose also emblemed the Virgin Mary, and from her was reflected through countless works of art and many legends, all of which are 'tenderly beautiful,' and, it may be added, generally rather silly—as, for instance, that of the holy friar Josbert of Doel, who sang daily five hymns in honor of the Virgin; in reward of which, immediately after his death, there grew from his mouth, ears, and nostrils, five roses, each marked with the words of a hymn. It has been usual to say much, of late years, of the 'child-like and earnest,' 'tender and trusting' spirit which inspired these saintly legends, and to praise with them the morbid delicacy of a Fra Angelico. Believe me, reader, when I say that no vigorous and healthy mind ever passed through a period of adoration for and cultivation of mediæval Roman Catholic Art, who did not eventually see that this naïve and innocent art-expression of the foulest, darkest, and most oppressive stage of history, had precisely the same foundation in truth as the love of the French court during the days of the Regency for a shepherd's life and child-like rural pleasures. A wicked and degraded age seeks for relief in contemplating its opposite; a healthy one—like the Greek—glories in itself, and strives to raise self to the highest standard of truth and beauty. None of the symbolisms of the middle ages grew directly from Nature—it was based on second-hand reveries, and on emblems from which all juice and life had been drained ages before in the East.

Yes—look at the beautiful Rose, radiant with dewdrops, ruddy in the morning light, or dreamily lovely, with the moonbeams melting through her moon-shaped petals. Unchanged since that primeval age when she was a living idol—a visible and blest presence of the Great Goddess of beauty and love—whether as Astarte or Ma Nerf Baaltis, Ashtaroth or Venus. Let her breathe in her fragrance of the far times when millions in a strange and busy age now forgotten thronged rose-garlanded to the temples; when, bearing roses, they gathered to wild worship at the Feast of the New Moon, under shady groves or in picturesque high places among the ancient rocks. Rose-breathing, rose-perfumed, amid sweetest music and black Assyrian eyes, in the gliding dance under thousands of brazen serpent lamps, or far in dusky fragrant forests, they adored the Rose Queen—the very visible spirit and incarnation of nature in her loveliest form. Over many a shining sea passed the barks, rose-wreathed, to the far isles of the South: she—the Rose—was there! From many a steep crag looked out on the blue ocean the temple of the Star Queen, the Heaven and Sea-born sister of the Rose: and she was there. Through beautiful temples the lover strayed to meet his love, and, taking the rose from her brow, won her in worship of the Serpent-light of Loveliness: for she, the Rose—the Mystery of all Rapture—was ever there! On coin and jewel, in prayer and song they bore the Rose-Venus to every land in a living, ever-thrilling romaunt—far goldener, more thrilling with poetry than was in later times the dull lay of De Loris and Clopinel: for wherever man found joy and beauty in life, feast, and song, she—the Rose Incarnate—was there. In the Rose was the twin sister of all the mysteries: we may read them as clearly in her, if we will, as ever did rapt Sidonian, or priest, or daughter of the Aryan, or whatever the early unknown burning race may have been, which built fire-towers in melting Lesbos, and names Cor-on, the crowned Corinthos, ere yet a syllable of Greek had ever rung on earth. She is the Cup; her calyx and dew reflect the goblet of life, and the nectar-wine of life, typical in early times of endless generation, in later days of re-generation. Born of the sea, she recalls the Cor-olla Cup-Ark in which Hercules—Arech El Es—crossed the sea between the rosy dawn and ruddy sundown, 'strength upborne by love and life.' She is the Morning Star which hovered over Aphrodite when the Queen rose from the sea, since each was either in that Trinity; as in later days the star shone on him who rose from Maria the sea, accompanied by Iona, the dove. She is the Shell and the Ark of so many ancient legends—that Ark into which life enters, and from which it is born—the Ark of Earth, in which Adon and the flowers sleep till Spring—the Ark of maternal Being, from which man is born—the exquisite and beautiful Rose. She is the Door or Gate of the Transition or Passing Through from death to life: wherever man enters, there is the Rose, and with her all the twin-symbols;—and when, bearing a rose, you chance to pass through some antique rock-gap, far inland, near a running stream, start not, reader, should a strange thrill, as of a solemn vanished life, sweep over you; for so surely as you live, know that in ancient days the footsteps of the rose-bearing worshipper went before you through that narrow pass, performing, by so doing, the rite typical of new birth, revival, and the Covenant. She is the cavern, the secret lair of life and the casket in which that one great arcanum and impenetrable secret of motherhood is forever concealed—forever and forever. They found it hidden—those priests of old—in Woman and in the Rose, in fruits, and in all that lives or grows; they traced the mystery up to godhood; they found it reflected in every object of reception and transit—in the temple, and house, and vase, and moon-like horns; they saw it in the woodland path, winding away in darkness among the trees; it lurked in seeds and nuts: man could crush the grape and burn the flower, but he could not solve the inscrutable mystery of generation and life; and so he hallowed it. Hail to thee, thou, its fairest earthly form, O Rose of sunlight and luxury and love!

In a 'Floral Dictionary' at hand, I find the rose means, 'genteel, pretty.' In another, twenty-four very different interpretations are ascribed to as many varieties of this flower. It is almost needless to say that the modern 'Language of Flowers' is, for the greater part, merely the arbitrary invention of writers entirely ignorant of the signification anciently attached to natural objects. The primary meaning of the rose is love; and it is a rose-garland, and not a tulip, which should stand for a 'declaration of passion,' and, at the same time, for a pledge of secrecy. Many of these modern fancies are, however, very beautiful; as, for instance, in that German lyric in which the Angel of the Flowers confers a fresh grace on the rose by veiling it in moss:

 
'And, robed in Nature's simplest weed,
Could there a flower that rose exceed?'
 

But our task is to investigate those antique meanings of flowers, that secret language of life and love consecrated to them for thousands of years, and now buried under forgotten lays, legends, and strange relics of art.

MACCARONI AND CANVAS.
IX

ROMAN FIRESIDES

It was a warm day in October when Caper engaged rooms in the Babuino; the sun shone cheerfully, and he took no heed of the cold weather to come: in fact he entertained the popular idea that the land half-way between the tropics and paradise, called Italy, stood in no need of pokers and coal hods: he was mistaken. Awaking one morning to the fact that it was cold, he began an examination of his rooms for a fireplace: there was none. He searched for a chimney—in vain. He went to see his landlady about it: she was standing on a balcony, superintending the engineering of a bucket in its downward search for water. The house was five stories high, and from each story what appeared to be a lightning rod ran down into what seemed to be a well, in a small garden. Up and down these rods, tin buckets, fastened to ropes, were continually running, rattling, clanking down, or being drawn splashing, dripping up; and as they were worked assiduously, it made lively music for those dwelling in the back part of the house.

Having mentioned to the landlady that he wanted a fire, the good woman reflected a moment, and then directed the servant to haul out a sheet iron vessel mounted on legs: this was next filled with charcoal, on which was thrown live coals, and the entire arrangement being placed outside the door on the balcony, the servant bent over and fanned it with a turkey feather fan. Caper looked on in astonishment.

'Are you going to embark in the roast chestnut trade?' he asked.

'Ma che!' answered madame; 'that is your fire.'

'It will bring on asphyxia.'

'We are never asphyxied in Rome with it. You see, the girl fans all the venom out of it; and when she takes it into your room it will be just as harmless as—let me see—as a baby without teeth.'

This comparison settled the question, for it proved it wouldn't bite. Caper managed to worry through the cold weather with this poor consoler: it gave him headaches, but it kept his head otherwise cool, and his feet warm; and, as he lived mostly in his studio, where he had a good wood stove, he was no great loser.

'But,' said he, descanting on this subject to Rocjean, 'how can the Romans fight for their firesides, when they haven't any?'

'They will fight for their scaldine, especially the old women and the young women,' answered Rocjean, 'to the last gasp. There is nothing they stick to like these: even their husbands and lovers are not so near and dear to them.'

'What are they? and, how much do they cost?' asked Caper, artistically.

'Crockery baskets with handles; ten baiocchi,' replied Rocjean, 'You must have noticed them; why, look out of that window: do you see that girl in the house opposite. She has one on the window sill, under her nose, while her hands are both held over the charcoal fire that is burning in it. If there were any proof needed that the idea of a future punishment by fire did not originate in Rome, the best reply would be the bitter hatred the Romans have of cold. I can fancy the income of the church twice as large if they had only thought to have filled purgatory with icebergs and a corresponding state of the thermometer. A Roman, in winter time, would pay twice as many baiocchi for prayers to get a deceased friend out of the cold, as he could otherwise be induced to. The English and other foreigners have, little by little, induced hotel and boarding house keepers to introduce grates and stoves, with good coal and wood fires, wherever they may hire lodgings; but the old Romans still stand by braseras and scaldinas.'

'I caught a bad cold yesterday, thanks to this barbarous custom,' said Caper. 'I was in the Vatican, looking at a pretty girl copying a head of Raphael's, and depending on imagination and charcoal to warm me: the results were chills and the snuffles.'

'Let that be a warning to you against entering art galleries during cold weather. To visit the Borghese collection with the thermometer below freezing point, and see all those semi-nude paintings, whether of saints or sinners, chills the heart; not only that they have no clothes, but that the artists who made the pictures were so radically vulgar—because they were affected!'

'But,' spoke Caper,'they probably painted them in the merry spring time, when they had forgotten all about frozen fountains and oranges iced; or, it may be, in their day wood was cheaper than it is now, and money plentier.'

'Yes, in the days when three million pilgrims visited Rome in a year. But would you believe it? within thirty miles of this city I have seen enough timber lying rotting on the ground, to half warm the Eternal City? The country people, in the commune where I lived one summer, had the privilege of gathering wood in the forest that crowns the range of mountains backing up from the sea, and separating the Pontine Marshes from the higher lands of the Campagna: but the trunks of the hewn trees, after such light branches as the women could hack off were carried away, were left to rot; for there was no way to get them to Rome—an hour's distance by railroad. Cold? The Romans are numbed to the heart: wait until they are warmed up; wait until they have a chance to make money—there will be no poets like Casti in those days—Casti, who wrote two hundred sonnets against a man who dunned him for—thirty cents! Talk about knowing enough to go into the house when it rains! Why the Roman shopkeepers of the poorer class don't know enough to shut their shop doors when they are starved with cold: you will find this to be the fact. Look, too, at the poor little children! do they ever think of playing fire engine, and thus warming themselves in a wholesome manner? No! One day I was painting away, when I heard a poor, thin little voice, as of a small dinner bell with a croup, and hoping at last I might see the little ones having a good frolic, I went to the window and looked out. What did I see? A small boy with a large, tallow-colored head, carrying a large black cross in the pit of his stomach; another small boy ringing a bell; and five others following along, in a crushed, despondent manner—inviting other boys to hear the catechism explained in the parish church. Meat for babes! I don't wonder the Roman women all want to be men, when I see the men without half the spirit of the women, and, such as they are, loafing away the winter evenings for warmth in wine shops or cafes. Poor Roman women, huddled together in your dark rooms, feebly lighted with a poor lamp, and hugging scaldine for better comfort! Would that the American woman could see her Italian sister, and bless her stars that she did not live under the cap and cross keys.'

'The cold has one good effect,' interrupted Caper; 'the forcible gesticulation of the Italians, which we all admire so much, arises from the necessity they have to do so—in order to keep warm. I have, however, an idea to better the condition of the wood sawyers in the Papal States, by introducing a saw buck or saw horse: as it is, they hold the wood in their hands, putting the saw between their knees, and then fairly rubbing the wood through the saw, instead of the saw through the wood. How, too, the Romans manage to cut wood with such axes as they have is passing strange. It would be well to introduce an American axe here, handle and all.'

'We have an old, old saying in France,' spoke Rocjean:

 
'Jamais cheval n'y homme
S'amenda pour aller a Rome.'
 

'Never horse or man mended, that unto Rome wended.' Your American axe is useless without American energy, and would not, if introduced here, mend the present shiftless style of wood chopping: evidently the people will one day take it up and try it—when their minds and arms are free. As it is, the genuine Romans live through their winters without wood in a merry kind of humor; taking the charcoal sent them by chance for cooking with great good nature; and, without words, blessing God for giving them vigorous frames and sturdy bodies to withstand cold and heat. After all, the want of fixed firesides by no manner of means annoys the buxom Roman woman of the people: she picks up her moving stove, the scaldina, and trots out to see her nearest gossip, knowing that her reception will be warm, for she brings warmth with her. There is a copy of Galignani, a round of bull beef, and a dirty coal fire, even in Rome, for every Englishman who will pay for them; but why, oh why! forever hoist the banner of the Blues over the gay gardens of every earthly paradise? Why hide Psyche under a hogshead?'

'Are you asking me those hard questions? For if you are,' said Caper, 'I will answer you thus: A fishwoman passing along a street in Philadelphia one day, heard from an open window the silver-voiced Brignoli practising an aria, possibly from the Traviata: 'That voice,' quoth she, 'would be a fortune for a woman in shad time!''