Читать книгу How Lisa Loved the King - Джордж Элиот, Richard Cameron J. - Страница 1

Six hundred years ago, in Dante’s time,

Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;

When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,

Was like a garden tangled with the glory

Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown,

Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown,

Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars,

And springing blades, green troops in innocent wars,

Crowd every shady spot of teeming earth,

Making invisible motion visible birth,—

Six hundred years ago, Palermo town

Kept holiday.  A deed of great renown,

A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke

Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe’s rock

To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun,

’Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon,

Was welcomed master of all Sicily,—

A royal knight, supreme as kings should be

In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry.

Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace,

Where generous men rode steeds of generous race;

Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired

By mutual spirit, that each motion fired

With beauteous response, like minstrelsy

Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy.

So, when Palermo made high festival,

The joy of matrons and of maidens all

Was the mock terror of the tournament,

Where safety, with the glimpse of danger blent,

Took exaltation as from epic song,

Which greatly tells the pains that to great life belong.

And in all eyes King Pedro was the king

Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring

The largest ruby, or as that bright star

Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are.

His the best genet, and he sat it best;

His weapon, whether tilting or in rest,

Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen,

Gave to the promise of his royal mien

Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes

Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise

Of vernal day, whose joy o’er stream and meadow flies.

But of the maiden forms that thick enwreathed

The broad piazza, and sweet witchery breathed,

With innocent faces budding all arow,

From balconies and windows high and low,

Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow,

The impregnation with supernal fire

Of young ideal love, transformed desire,

Whose passion is but worship of that Best

Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast?

’Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line,

Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine,

Who from his merchant-city hither came

To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame,

And had the virtue not to try and sell

Drugs that had none.  He loved his riches well,

But loved them chiefly for his Lisa’s sake,

Whom with a father’s care he sought to make

The bride of some true honorable man,—

Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran),

Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were,

For still your trader likes a mixture fair

Of blood that hurries to some higher strain

Than reckoning money’s loss and money’s gain.

And of such mixture good may surely come:

Lord’s scions so may learn to cast a sum,

A trader’s grandson bear a well-set head,

And have less conscious manners, better bred;

Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead.

’Twas Perdicone’s friends made overtures

To good Bernardo; so one dame assures

Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth

Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth,

Eyes that could see her on this summer day

Might find it hard to turn another way.

She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad;

Rather like minor cadences that glad

The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs:

And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse

Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow,

Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow

By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought,

Then quickened by him with the passionate thought,

The soul that trembled in the lustrous night

Of slow long eyes.  Her body was so slight,

It seemed she could have floated in the sky,

And with the angelic choir made symphony;

But in her cheek’s rich tinge, and in the dark

Of darkest hair and eyes, she bore a mark

Of kinship to her generous mother-earth,

The fervid land that gives the plumy palm-trees birth.

She saw not Perdicone; her young mind

Dreamed not that any man had ever pined

For such a little simple maid as she:

She had but dreamed how heavenly it would be

To love some hero noble, beauteous, great,

Who would live stories worthy to narrate,

Like Roland, or the warriors of Troy,

The Cid, or Amadis, or that fair boy

Who conquered every thing beneath the sun,

And somehow, some time, died at Babylon

Fighting the Moors.  For heroes all were good

And fair as that archangel who withstood

The Evil One, the author of all wrong,—

That Evil One who made the French so strong;

And now the flower of heroes must he be

Who drove those tyrants from dear Sicily,

So that her maids might walk to vespers tranquilly.

Young Lisa saw this hero in the king;

And as wood-lilies that sweet odors bring

Might dream the light that opes their modest eyne

Was lily-odored; and as rites divine,

Round turf-laid altars, or ’neath roofs of stone,

Draw sanctity from out the heart alone

That loves and worships: so the miniature

Perplexed of her soul’s world, all virgin pure,

Filled with heroic virtues that bright form,

Raona’s royalty, the finished norm

Of horsemanship, the half of chivalry;

For how could generous men avengers be,

Save as God’s messengers on coursers fleet?—

These, scouring earth, made Spain with Syria meet

In one self-world where the same right had sway,

And good must grow as grew the blessed day.

No more: great Love his essence had endued

With Pedro’s form, and, entering, subdued

The soul of Lisa, fervid and intense,

Proud in its choice of proud obedience

To hardship glorified by perfect reverence.

Sweet Lisa homeward carried that dire guest,

And in her chamber, through the hours of rest,

The darkness was alight for her with sheen

Of arms, and plumèd helm; and bright between

Their commoner gloss, like the pure living spring

’Twixt porphyry lips, or living bird’s bright wing

’Twixt golden wires, the glances of the king

Flashed on her soul, and waked vibrations there

Of known delights love-mixed to new and rare:

The impalpable dream was turned to breathing flesh,

Chill thought of summer to the warm close mesh

Of sunbeams held between the citron-leaves,

Clothing her life of life.  Oh! she believes

That she could be content if he but knew

(Her poor small self could claim no other due)

How Lisa’s lowly love had highest reach

Of wingèd passion, whereto wingèd speech

Would be scorched remnants left by mounting flame.

Though, had she such lame message, were it blame

To tell what greatness dwelt in her, what rank

She held in loving?  Modest maidens shrank

From telling love that fed on selfish hope;

But love, as hopeless as the shattering song,

Wailed for loved beings who have joined the throng

Of mighty dead ones. . . .  Nay, but she was weak,

Knew only prayers and ballads, could not speak

With eloquence, save what dumb creatures have,

That with small cries and touches small boons crave.

She watched all day that she might see him pass

With knights and ladies; but she said, “Alas!

Though he should see me, it were all as one

He saw a pigeon sitting on the stone

Of wall or balcony: some colored spot