Читать книгу A Double-Edged Sword - Brenda E. Novack - Страница 6

The original play, consisting of Part One of this book, inspired by Shakespeare’s tragedies, was written in blank verse in Elizabethan English, many decades ago, during the author’s Junior Year at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon. It follows, like Shakespeare’s tragedies, the Classical Greek Tragedies in its thematic and structural elements, including ignorance and discovery, the climax and the denouement, as well as the tragic character’s Achilles’ heel—error of judgment (hamartia)—formalized by Aristotle in the Poetics, In 2012 a new version, in free verse, in modern English, was added for the benefit of readers unfamiliar with Elizabethan English.

The source of the Tragedy consists in a series of historical events in 1215 Florence that resulted in protracted internecine conflict involving a number of leading families. The following passages, culled from a long-lost history book, provided the works’ inspiration.

“In Florence, the city that prided itself on being founded under the protection and ascendant of Mars, and therefore doomed by fate to everlasting troubles. Hence Roccuzzo de Mozzi is made by Dante to say:

Io fui della citta, che nel Batista

Cangio iL primo Padrone, onde ei per questo

Sempre con L’arte sua la fara trista.

In the year 1215, Messer Mazzingo Tegrini invited many Florentines of high rank to dine at his villa near Campi about six miles from the capital; while at able the family jester snatched a trencher of meat from Messer Uberto degli Infangati who, nettled at this impertinence, expressed his displeasure in terms so offensive that Messer Oddo Arrighi as sharply and unceremoniously rebuked him; upon this Uberto gave him the lie and Oddo in return dashed a trencher of meat in his face.

Everything was immediately in confusion; weapons were soon out, and while the guests started up in disorder young Buondelmonte de’Buondelmonti, the friend and companion to Uberto, severely wounded Oddo Arrighi.

The party then separated and Oddo called a meeting of his friends to consider the offence; amongst them were the counts Gangalandi, the Ubverti, Amedidei, etc. who unanimously decided that the quarrel shoud be quietly settled by a marriage between Buondelmonte and Oddo’s niece, the daughter of Messer Lambertuccio di Capo di Ponte, of the Ameidei family. This proposition appears to have been unhesitatingly accepted by the offender’s family as a day was immediately nominated for the ceremony of plighting his troth to the destined bride.

During the interim, Madonna Aldruda Donati, sent privately for Buondelmonte and thus addressed him: “Unworthy knight! What! Hast thou accepted a wife through fear of the Fifanti and Uberti? Leave her that thou hast taken, choose this damsel in her place and be henceforth a brave and honoured gentleman.” In so saying she threw open the chamber door, and exposed her daughter to his view; the unexpected apparition of so much beauty, as it were soliciting his love, had its usual consequence; Buondelmonte’s better reason was overcome, yet he had resolution to answer, “Alas! it is now too late!” “No,” replied Aldruda; “thou canst even yet have her; dare but to take the step and let the consequences rest on my head.” “I do dare,” returned the fascinated youth, and stepping forward again plighted a faith no longer his to give.

Early on the 10th of February, the very day appointed for his original nuptials, Buondelmonte passed by the Porta Santa Maria amidst all the kinsfolk of his first betrothed, who had assembled near the dwellings of the Ameidei to assist at the expected marriage, yet not without certain misgivings of his faithlessness. With a haughty demeanour he rode forward through them all, bearing the marriage ring to the lady of his choice and leaving her of the Ameidei with the shame of an aggravated insult by choosing the same moment for the violation of one contract and the consummation of a second; for in those days, and for centuries after, the old Roman custom of presenting a ring long before the marriage ceremony took place was still in use.

Such insults were then impatiently borne; Oddo assembled his kindred in the no-longer existing church of Santa Maria sopra Porta to settle the mode of resenting this affront, and the moody aspect of each individual marked the character of the meeting and all the vindictive feeling of an injured family. There were, however, some of a more temperate spirit that suggested personal chastisement of at most the gashing of Buondelmonte’s face as the most reasonable and effectual retribution. The assembly paused, but Mosca de Lamberti starting suddenly forward exclaimed, “Beat or wound him as ye list but first prepare your own graves, for wounds bring equal consequences with death.” “No. Mete him out his deserts and let him pay the penalty; but no delay. Up and be doing.”

“This turned the scale and Buondelmonte was doomed. But according to the manners of that age, not in the field, which would have been hazardous, but by the sure though inglorious means of noonday murder; wherefore, at the very place where the insult was offered, beneath the battlements of the Ameidei, nay under the casement of the deserted maiden, and in his way to a happy expecting bride, vengeance was prepared by these fierce barons for the perjury.

On Easter morning, 1215, the murderers concealed themselves within the courts and towers of the Ameidei, which the young and heedless bridegroom was sure to pass, and he was soon after seen at a distance carelessly riding alone across the Ponte Vecchio on a milk-white palfrey, attired in a vest of fine woollen cloth, a white mantle thrown across his shoulders and the wedding garland on his head. The bridge was passed in thoughtless gaiety, but scarcely had he reached the time-worn image of the Roman Mars, the last relic of heathen worship then extant, when the mace of Schiatti degli Uberto felled him to the ground, and at the base of this grim idol the daggers of Oddo and his furious kinsmen finished the savage deed; they met him gay and adorned for the alter, and left him with the bridal wreath still dangling from his brow a bloody and ill-omened sacrifice. The tidings of this murder spread rapidly, and disordered the whole community of Florence; the people became more and more excited, because both law and custom had awarded due penalties for faithless men, and death was an unheard-of punishment. Buondelmonte’s corpse was placed on a bier, with its head resting in the lap of his affianced bride, the beautiful Donati, who hung like a lily over the pallid features of her husband; and thus united were they borne through the streets of Florence. It was the gloomy dawning of a tempestuous day, for in that bloody moment was unchained the demon of Florentine discord; the names of Guelf and Ghibelline were then for the first time assumed by noble and commoner as the cry of faction; and long after the original cause of enmity had ceased, they continued to steep all Italy in blood.”