If one kiss-reward how rare! Many laborers but not long; I could never more go wrong. Translation of H. W. P. F RAIMON DE MIRAVAL (1190-1200) AIR summer-time doth me delight, And song of birds delights no less; Delight the trees in verdure bright; And far, far more delights thy graciousness, Lady, and I to do thy will, delight. Yet be not this delight my final boon, Or I of my desire shall perish soon! For that desire most exquisite Of all desires, I live in stress- Oh, come, and my desire requite! Is my desire not single in thy sight? Let me not then, desiring sink undone; To love's high joys, desire be rather prone! But joy in thee, to all excess: Joy in thy grace, nor e'en confess So deep my joy, my lady, no distress That joy shall master; for thy beauty's light Such joy hath shed, for each day it hath shone, Joyless I cannot be while I live on. Translation of H. W. P. ALBA-AUTHOR UNKNOWN (TWELFTH CENTURY) INDER the hawthorns of an orchard lawn, UN She laid her head her lover's breast upon, Silent, until the guard should cry the dawn;Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon? I would the night might never have passed by! So wouldst thou not have left me, at the cry Of yonder warder to the whitening sky;— Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon? One kiss more, sweetheart, ere the melodies And yet one more, under the garden wall, Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon? 'Tis o'er! O dearest, noblest, knightliest, Ah God! ah God! Why comes the day so soon? Fair was the lady, and her fame was wide; Translation of H. W. P. A ALBA-GUIRAUT DE BORNEIL (1175-1230) LL-GLORIOUS King! True light of all below! Thou who canst all! If it may please thee so, The comrade of my soul from danger screen; Whom all the darkling hours I have not seen, And now the dawn is near. Dear comrade, wakest thou, or sleepest yet? The herald signal in the brightening east, Dear comrade, hark my summons, I implore! For now the dawn is near. Dear comrade, rouse thee! Throw thy window wide! See writ in heaven the harm that may betide: A trusty guardian in thy comrade own, Or else, alas, the woe will be thine own; For now the dawn is near. Dear comrade, since at nightfall we did part, My loyal fellow to my side once more: And now the day is near. Dear comrade, yonder by the frowning keep, Now have I watched all night. Thou doest me wrong Sweet comrade mine, I am so rich in bliss, Translation of H. W. P. A ALBA- BERTRAND D'AAMANON (END OF TWELFTH CENTURY) KNIGHT was sitting by her side He loved more than aught else beside; Ah, dearest, now am I forlorn, Night is away-alas, 'tis morn! Ah, woe! Already has the warder cried, "Up and begone, 'tis now bright day- Ah, dearest love! it were a thing If naught could day or dawning bring Hark! what must end our communing! Dearest, whate'er you hear, believe Ah, woe! The warder's cry gives no reprieve: I go! Farewell, sweet love, to thee, Oh, I beseech you think on me! For here will dwell my heart of hearts, Ah, woe! The warder cries impatiently, "Up and begone! 'tis now bright dayThe dawn has passed away." Unless I soon to you can fly, Dearest, I'll lay me down and die; So soon will love my heart's springs dry. Ah! soon will I return again Life without you is only pain. Ah, woe! Hark to the warder's louder cry! "Up and begone! 'tis now bright day The dawn is passed away." Blackwood's Magazine, February 1836. LUIGI PULCI (1431-1486) ITTLE creative work was done in Italian literature in the fifteenth century. Students loved rather to revive the ancient classics; and the Italian language came to be regarded as a tongue too plebeian for the expression of lofty conceptions. Luigi Pulci is one of the few poets of that century who held in honor the Tuscan dialect. Pulci was born in 1431, and died (according to most authorities) in 1486. His life seems to have had no importance in the political history of his times; but in literature he prepared the way for Berni and for Ariosto, and established for himself a firm position as the author of Il Morgante Maggiore' (Morgante the Giant), a burlesque epic in twenty-eight cantos. He was a warm friend of Lorenzo de' Medici, the Magnificent, whose mother, Lucrezia Tornabuoni, he says, urged and inspired him in the composition of this work. The romances of Carlovingian chivalry had acquired at the time wonderful popularity in Italy; by which popularity Pulci was half maddened, half amused. With infinite delight he gave his mocking imagination free play; and in 'Il Morgante Maggiore' he turns into good-natured ridicule the combats and exploits which form the scheme of the mediæval epic. The poem has three heroes,- Roland, Rinaldo, and Charlemagne; and a dramatis persona of such proportions that adventures become as numerous as are the sands of the sea. Time and space are here more successfully annihilated than in these days of steam and of electricity. The journey to France from Persia or Babylon is accomplished with a speed which staggers the modern world. 'Il Morgante Maggiore' treats of the time when Roland, enraged by the relations which have sprung up between Charlemagne and Gano di Maganza, leaves the court of the Emperor, to which he is bound as a paladin, and journeys in foreign lands. At the outset of his trip he comes to a monastery assaulted by three giants of fabulous proportions: Roland confronts two of these and kills them; the third, Morgante, he converts to Christianity, and carries with him as a companion. Though not its principal personage, this giant, Morgante, gives his name to the epic. He and Roland proceed together; |