Читать книгу Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie – Studienausgabe - Erich Auerbach - Страница 28

The figurative eulogies are a new type of an old form. They present historical events (for our purpose it does not matter whether some of these events pertain to legend rather than to history); they do not, however, present historical sequences. They do not tell, in an orderly succession, the history of Christ or the Virgin, but they give a great number of earlier events which are considered as prefiguring what happened through Christ or the Virgin. Every one of these past events is presented independently of the preceding and the following events; their historical interrelations and their temporal order are neglected; but in each of them, the same future event is embodied; for the figures are not mere comparisons, they are genuine symbols, and symbolism sometimes approaches complete identification, as in several passages analysed above, e.g.:

Super vellus ros descendens

Et in rubo flamma spendens

Fuit Christus …

or:

Matris risus te signavit

Matrem ducis qui salvavit

In Aegypto populum.

Thus, the impression given by the figurative eulogy is that of a harmony of world history before Christ: all its events prefigure the same future fulfillment, the incarnation of Christ; they do not form a chain of horizontal evolution, but a series of vertical lines, originating from different points, all converging upon Christ: a converging adoration executed by world history. Biblical history, for this mediaeval approach, was world history; non-Biblical facts were admitted only in so far as they fitted into the figurative system.64

During the thirteenth century, in connection with the Franciscan movement and other similar trends, a new style of religious eulogy developed, based on a new approach to the history of salvation: an approach less figurative, less dogmatic, much more emotional, direct, and lyrical. The events of the incarnation and especially of the Passion appear once again as historical events, not veiled by figurative paraphrase, with a direct appeal to human pity and compassion. This style developed mostly in the vernacular languages, especially in Italian; still, there are a few very famous Latin examples such as the ‘Stabat Mater’.65 The figurative style meanwhile did not disappear; it continued to be cultivated, and there are frequent allusions to figurative motifs even in the popular and lyrical eulogies.

Most of these are too long to be quoted here in full; yet, I may give some Italian passages as specimens. There is a praise of the Virgin in the Laudi cortonesi del secolo XIII,66 beginning with the words

Ave, vergene gaudente,

madre de l’onnipotente,

and continuing with a rather loose and haphazard enumeration of traditional elements, dogmatic, figurative, and metaphoricalMetapher. There are, moreover, enumerations of the virtues of Mary which recall some of DanteDante’s verses:

Tu sei fede, tu sperança;

and later:

Tu thesauro, tu riccheçça,

tu virtude, tu largheçça,

tu se’mperial forteçça.

These all are traditional themes; there are, however, a few lines which touch a note not only more popular, but also more emotional:

– Quel te fo dolor de parto

Ke’l videre conficto’n quarto,

tutto’l sangue li era sparto

de la gran piaga repente.

– Quel dolor participasti,

giamai no l’abandonasti …

The great master of this emotional style in Italian religious poetry is Jacopone da TodiJacopone da Todi. His dramatic ‘laudaLauden’ describing the Virgin at the Passion (Donna del Paradiso) is almost as famous as the ‘Stabat mater’; but it does not contain a eulogy in the specific sense. There is another lauda, ‘De la beata Vergine Maria,’67 beginning with the words: O Vergen piu che femina … In its eulogy, Jacopone subordinates the dogmatic motifs (which are, nevertheless, very important and interesting for the history of dogma) to the chronological and historical order of the events; and after the description of Christ’s birth, he breaks through the normal frame of a eulogy with an outburst of highest emotion:

O Maria co facivi – quando tu lo vidivi?

or co non te morivi – de l’amore afocata?

Co non te consumavi – quando tu lo guardavi,

chè Dio ce contemplavi – en quella came velata?

Quand’esso te sugea – l’amor co te facea,

la smesuranza sea – esser da te lattata?

Quand’esso te chiamava – et mate te vocava,

co non te consumava – mate di Dio vocata?

This popular and emotional style keeps much closer to the historical or literal sense of the Gospels than does the figurative; the events of Christ’s incarnation and passion are continuously kept present; there is a dominant interest in their emotional value which prevents dogmatic and figurative themes from veiling them. On the other hand, the emotional eulogies share with the figurative ones the lack of a strict composition; they have no tendency towards condensation and concentration. In the figurative eulogies, the unity of the whole is maintained, to a certain extent, by the motif of ‘convergent harmony’ which I have tried to describe above; in the popular ones, this motif, though not lacking, is, at least, expressed in a less consistent manner. In reading them, one has the impression that additions or suppressions are possible without detriment to the whole. Most mediaeval authors of hymns do not feel the ambition to condense the content into a stringent and unalterable form, where every member is a necessary and indispensable part of a synthetic conception; the all-embracing conception was present to each of these poets; repetitionsWiederholung (rhetorische), variants and accumulations seemed to be legitimate, and were sometimes fostered by the liturgical purpose.

It is obvious that DanteDante’s eulogy presents something entirely new and different. He uses all the material of the tradition, historical, dogmatic, and figurative, but he condenses and organizes it. However, the lucidity produced by what seems to be a more conscious and rigorous planning is not only rational perspicuity, but poetic irradiation; the mystery, in the full light of this illumination, remains mystery. Thus, the prayerLobrede which no other man but DanteDante could have written, preserves the true spirit of Saint Bernard.

The first three stanzas (vv. 1–9) deal with the Virgin’s earthly part in the history of human salvation; vv. 1–3, containing the invocation, summarize this historical aspect.

The last three stanzaStanzes (vv. 13–21) deal with the Virgin’s permanent aspect as mother of grace and mediatress; vv. 19–21, finishing the eulogy, summarize this permanent aspect.

The verses 10–13, with their distinction between what Mary is in Heaven and what she is on earth, form the transition from the first to the second part.68

We shall now give a more detailed analysis with some comments.

The cumulated vocatives of the first verses are an old form, well known in Greek and Latin classical poetry, revived by early Christian hymns.69 Yet, no other specimen may easily be found so packed with content and so powerfully condensed; it is as magnificent as an inscription on a monument of victory,70 and as sweet as a poem of love. All its oxymoraOxymoron are traditional formulas, and all of them refer to the first part of the eulogy. Even umile ed alta, in this passage, is not meant in a general sense (as is magnificenza in the second part), but refers to Mary’s attitude during the annunciation. According to tradition, the Virgin is humble, for she immediately submits to God’s will (LukeLukas (Evangelist) 1, 38; cf. p. 133); she is alta not only because she is benedicta inter mulieres, i. e. in an objective sense, but also through her own attitude, which I prefer to characterize not in my own words, but in those of Saint Bernard:71

Ineffabili siquidem artificio Spiritus supervenientis tantae humilitati magnificentia tanta in secretario virginei cordis accessit, ut … hae quoque … fiant stellae ex respectu mutuo clariores, quod videlicet nec humilitas tanta minuit magnanimitatem, nec magnanimitas tanta humilitatem: sed cum in sua aestimatione tam humilis esset, nihilominus in promissionis credulitate magnanimis, ut quae nihil aliud quam exiguam sese reputaret ancillam, ad incomprehensibile hoc mysterium, ad admirabile commercium, ad inscrutabile sacramentum nullatenus se dubitaret electam, et veram Dei et hominis genitricem crederet mox futuram.

For termine fisso …, see p. 134.

The following stanzasStanze give, in an interweaving of historical and dogmatic elements, the account of human salvation. The first, with a stylistic movement of twofold graduation (tu sei colei che …, and nobilitasti si, che …), describes the incarnation, using the traditional motif factor factus creatura. The second, starting again with the nativity, records the passion and the fruit of the passion, human salvation, the community of the beatified in Heaven. For the fervor of Christ’s love (l’amore per lo cui caldo) means his passion,72 and questo fiore, the white rose of the Empireo, is an old symbol of the resurrection, based on the interpretation of Biblical passages such as Cant. 2, 12: Flores apparuerunt in terra nostra, tempus putationis advenit.73

In the transition stanzaStanze, vv. 10–12, DanteDante changes from the historical aspect to the eternal, from Mary’s accomplishments to her virtues; he opposes what she is in Heaven (with regard to questo fiore, the result of the historical accomplishments) to what she is on earth. The images, especially meridiana face, are inspired by Saint Bernard’s interpretation of the Song of Songs.74

The two stanzas dealing with Mary’s actual and lasting function as mediatress and dispenser of grace (vv. 13–18) are introduced by a gradual movement (sei tanto grande e tanto vali che …) comparable to that of v. 4; it connects her power with its origin: invenisti gratiam (Luke 1, 30);75 she is, as Saint Bernard says, the aqueduct which conveys divine grace from its fountain to mankind.76 The second stanzaStanze, which emphasizes her benignity in frequently anticipating the entreaty of the distressed, contains probably an allusion to DanteDante’s own case (Inferno, II, 94–96).77

The enumeration of her virtues which ends the eulogy stresses misericordiamisericordia (towards mankind), pietaspietas (towards both God and mankind, see our note 74), and magnificenzamagnificenza: una virtù che fa compiere l’ardue e nobili cose.78 The final résumé repeats and comments upon the words più che creatura of v. 2; the Virgin is still a creature, but all goodness which may be contained in a creature is contained in her: Excellentissima quadam sublimitate prae ceteris omnibus excedit et supergreditur creaturis, says Saint Bernard.79

In the course of our investigation, which is far from complete, we have encountered several kinds of eulogies: the classical which presents mythical functions and deeds; the Jewish which paraphrases God’s essence and omnipotence; the early Christian which begins to combine the dogma with the history of Christ and develops more and more a kind of symbolic rhetoricRhetoriksymbolische R., based on both Greek tradition and figurative interpretation. We then examined the apogee of the figurative and witty style in the eulogies of the twelfth century, and the more popular style based upon an emotional approach to the history of Christ which developed in the thirteenth century, principally under the influence of the Franciscan movement.

All the elements of the earlier Christian forms of eulogies are fused in DanteDante’s text: dogmatic, historical, figurative, and emotional. Dogma and history prevail; there are no figures in DanteDante’s prayerLobrede, but the images recall figurative interpretations; the emotional element, in the sense of an emotional paraphrase of the events, is lacking; the fervor of emotion is expressed in an immanent fashion, by the order of themes, words, and sounds, not by explicit utterance of emotion. The leading motifs are, undoubtedly, dogmatic; it deserves to be emphasized, in view of the theories which still affirm that dogmatic and, in general, didactic matter is incompatible with true poetry, that this famous text, in its basic structure, is a rigid composition of dogmatic statements.

Precisely by this element of rigid composition, of powerful condensation, DanteDante’s text differs from the earlier mediaeval eulogies. Without this unique power which enabled him to concentrate in a few verses the history of mankind, he would never have been able to achieve the Commedia; this is borne out by our text as it is evident almost everywhere in the great poem. In the verses of his eulogy, the images and figures become actual reality, presenting, in one widely sweeping movement, the destiny of the world. Compared to the Commedia, all earlier mediaeval poetry seems to be loosely constructed; the tendency towards conciseness which began to appear in Provençal poetryTroubadourdichtung and in the Dolce Stil NuovoDolce stil nuovo is incomparably weaker, and these poets never tried to master such a content. Did DanteDante take his supremo constructio, his bello stile from the ancients, as he told us in a passage of De Vulgari Eloquentia and in the verses he addresses, with a beautiful tu anaphoraAnaphertu-Anapher, to VergilVergil?80 To a large extent, he did. He learned from his ancient models the harmony of the sentence, the variety of syntactic and stylistic devices, the understanding of the different levels of style, and, with all that, the capacity to coordinate the different parts of a vast aggregate into one coherent stylistic movement. Yet, the general impression produced by his manner of composition is entirely different from that of the ancient poets. Let us consider, once again, Lucretius’ prooemium, which DanteDante did not know, and which, in my opinion, is the most beautiful specimen of eulogy in classical Latin. It, too, contains a world in an image; the ‘appearance’ or ‘birth’ of Venus, to whom the universe presents all its fertility and all its living beauty, is a symbol of Lucretius’ philosophical doctrine. It is a mythical symbol of a philosophy; in spite of its traditional elements, it is a free play of human imagination. DanteDante’s image of Christ as the love enkindled in the body of the Virgin for the salvation of mankind is a symbol of an historical event: irreplaceable by another event, inseparable from the doctrine. The rigid coherence of history, symbol, and doctrine confers upon the composition of DanteDante’s eulogy a degree of rigidity which an ancient poet could neither have achieved nor have desired to achieve.