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The following sonnet, addressed to the new Magistrate, by the elegant and learned Abbé Bettolini, will entertain such of my readers as understand Italian: No, Brenne, il popol tuo non è spietato, Colpa non è di clima, o fuol nemico: Ma gli inulti delitti, e'l vezzo antico D'impune andar coi ferro e fuoco a lato,
"Che s'io non erro al calcolar de' punti, Par ch' Asinina Stella a noi predomini, E'l Somaro e'l Castron si sian congiunti. Il tempo d'Apuleio piu non si nomini: Che se allora un sol huom sembrava un Asino, Mille Asini a' miei di rassembran huomini!"
This was the troubadour whom Petrarch has made famous Jaufre Rudel che usò la vela e'l remo A cercar la sua morte.
In questa nostra navigatione fatta per ordine du V. S. M., oltre i gradi 92 che dal detto meridiano verso lo occidente della prima terra trovamo gradi 34 navigando leghe 300 infra oriente e settentrione leghe 400, quasi allo oriente continuo el lito della terra siamo pervenuti per infino a gradi 50, lasciando la terra che piu tempe fa trovorno li Lusitani, quali seguirno piu al septentrione, pervenendo sino al circulo artico e'l fine lasciendo incognito.
I knew all about it, "e'l chi, e'l quale"; I was privy to its intricacy; I caught without instruction the alternating beat in the second line, and savoured all the good words, gilded car, glowing axle, Star that bids the shepherd fold. Allay ravished me, young as I was. I knew why he had called the Atlantic stream steep, and remembered Homer's "Στυγὸς ὔδατος αἰπὰ ῥέεθρα."
The procurator Tron was at Padua, it seems, and had a fancy to drive forward to Vicenza that afternoon, but being particularly fond of a favourite pair of horses which drew his chariot that day, would by no means venture if it happened to rain; and took the trouble to enquire of Abate Toaldo, "Whether he thought such a thing likely to happen, from the appearance of the sky?" The professor, not knowing why the question was asked, said, "he rather thought it would not rain for four hours at most." In consequence of this information our senator ordered his equipage directly, got into it, and bid the driver make haste to Vicenza: but before he was half-way on his journey, such torrents came down from a black cloud that burst directly over their heads, that his horses were drenched in wet, and their mortified master turned immediately back to Padua, that they might suffer no further inconvenience. To pass away the evening, which he did not mean to have spent there, and to quiet his agitated spirits by thinking on something else, he walked under the Portico to a neighbouring coffee-house, where fate the Abate Toaldo in company of a few friends; wholly unconscious that he had been the cause of vexing the Procuratore; who, after a short pause, cried out, in a true Venetian spirit of anger and humour oddly blended together, "Mi dica Signor Professore Toaldo, chi è il più gran minchion di tutti i fanti in Paradiso?" Pray tell me Doctor (we should say), who is the greatest blockhead among all the saints of Heaven? The Abbé looked astonished, but hearing the question repeated in a more peevish accent still, replied gravely, "Eccelenza non fon fatto io per rispondere a tale dimande" My lord, I have no answer ready for such extraordinary questions. Why then, replies the Procuratore Tron, I will answer this question myself. St. Marco ved'ella "e'l vero minchion: mentre mantiene tanti professori per studiare (che so to mi) delle stelle; roba astronomica che non vale un fico; è loro non sanno dirli nemmeno s'h
"Chiama Tamburo, Pezuolo e Martello, La Foglia, la Castagna e la Guerrina, Fagiano, Fagianin, Rocca e Capello, E Friza, e Biondo, Bamboccio e Rossina, Ghiotto, la Torta, Viola e Pestello, E Serchio e Fuse e'l mio Buontempo vecchio, Zambraco, Buratel, Scaccio e Pennecchio...." Every muscle of the keen old hunter was now quivering; his eyes were bright, his smile open and that of a child.
It cannot be denied, however, that he often reached a high plane; perhaps the following lines show him at his best: "Quale sopra i nevosi ed alti monti Apollo spande il suo bel lume adorno, Tal' i crin suoi sopra la bianca gonna! Il tempo e'l luogo non ch'io conti, Che dov'è si bel sole è sempre giorno; E Paradiso, ov'è si bella Donna!" While still preoccupied with what Mrs.
By the port of the Lido many a royal pageant had entered into Venice, but never before had such a procession started from the shores of Murano; it made one feel fête-like only to see the bissoni, those great boats with twelve oars, each from a stabilimento of Murano, wreathed for the fête, each merchant master at its head, robed in his long, black, fur-trimmed gown and wearing his heavy golden chain, the workmen tossing blossoms back over the water to greet the bride, the rowers chanting in cadence to their motion: "Belina sei, e'l ciel te benedissa, Che in dove che ti passi l'erba nasse!"
For the sake not merely of authority, but the distinction of historical truth, we put our idea into realistic form in taking for the theme of our musical poem the motive with which we have heard the gondoliers of Venice sing over the waters the lines of Tasso, and utter them three centuries after the poet: "'Canto l'armi pietose e'l Capitano Che'l gran Sepolcro liberò di Christo!
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