| |
| Another’s a half-cracked fellow—John Heydon, | |
| Worker of miracles, dealer in levitation, | |
| In thoughts upon pure form, in alchemy, | |
| Seer of pretty visions (“servant of God and secretary of nature”); | |
| Full of a plaintive charm, like Botticelli’s, | 5 |
| With half-transparent forms, lacking the vigor of gods. | |
| Thus Heydon, in a trance, at Bulverton, | |
| Had such a sight: | |
| Decked all in green, with sleeves of yellow silk | |
| Slit to the elbow, slashed with various purples. | 10 |
| Her eyes were green as glass, her foot was leaf-like. | |
| She was adorned with choicest emeralds, | |
| And promised him the way of holy wisdom. | |
| “Pretty green bank,” began the half-lost poem. | |
| Take the old way, say I met John Heydon, | 15 |
| Sought out the place, | |
| Lay on the bank, was “plungèd deep in swevyn;” | |
| And saw the company—Layamon, Chaucer— | |
| Pass each in his appropriate robes; | |
| Conversed with each, observed the varying fashion. | 20 |
And then comes Heydon.
“I have seen John Heydon.” | |
Let us hear John Heydon!
“Omniformis | |
| Omnis intellectus est”—thus he begins, by spouting half of Psellus. | |
| (Then comes a note, my assiduous commentator: | |
| Not Psellus De Daemonibus, but Porphyry’s Chances, | 25 |
| In the thirteenth chapter, that “every intellect is omniform.”) | |
| Magnifico Lorenzo used the dodge, | |
| Says that he met Ficino | |
| In some Wordsworthian, false-pastoral manner, | |
| And that they walked along, stopped at a well-head, | 30 |
| And heard deep platitudes about contentment | |
| From some old codger with an endless beard. | |
| “A daemon is not a particular intellect, | |
| But is a substance differed from intellect,” | |
| Breaks in Ficino, | 35 |
| “Placed in the latitude or locus of souls”— | |
| That’s out of Proclus, take your pick of them. | |
| Valla, more earth and sounder rhetoric— | |
| Prefacing praise to his Pope Nicholas: | |
| “A man of parts, skilled in the subtlest sciences; | 40 |
| A patron of the arts, of poetry; and of a fine discernment.” | |
| Then comes a catalogue, his jewels of conversation. | |
| No, you’ve not read your Elegantiae— | |
| A dull book?—shook the church. | |
| The prefaces, cut clear and hard: | 45 |
| “Know then the Roman speech, a sacrament,” | |
| Spread for the nations, eucharist of wisdom, | |
Bread of the liberal arts.
Ha! Sir Blancatz, | |
| Sordello would have your heart to give to all the princes; | |
| Valla, the heart of Rome, | 50 |
| Sustaining speech, set out before the people. | |
“Nec bonus Christianus ac bonus
Tullianus.” | |
| Marius, Du Bellay, wept for the buildings, | |
| Baldassar Castiglione saw Raphael | |
| “Lead back the soul into its dead, waste dwelling,” | 55 |
| Corpore laniato; and Lorenzo Valla, | |
| “Broken in middle life? bent to submission?— | |
| Took a fat living from the Papacy” | |
| (That’s in Villari, but Burckhardt’s statement is different)— | |
| “More than the Roman city, the Roman speech” | 60 |
| (Holds fast its part among the ever-living). | |
| “Not by the eagles only was Rome measured.” | |
| “Wherever the Roman speech was, there was Rome,” | |
| Wherever the speech crept, there was mastery | |
| Spoke with the law’s voice while your Greek logicians … | 65 |
| More Greeks than one! Doughty’s “divine Homeros” | |
| Came before sophistry. Justinopolitan | |
| Uncatalogued Andreas Divus, | |
| Gave him in Latin, 1538 in my edition, the rest uncertain, | |
| Caught up his cadence, word and syllable: | 70 |
| “Down to the ships we went, set mast and sail, | |
| Black keel and beasts for bloody sacrifice, | |
| Weeping we went.” | |
| I’ve strained my ear for -ensa, -ombra, and -ensa | |
| And cracked my wit on delicate canzoni— | 75 |
| Here’s but rough meaning: | |
| “And then went down to the ship, set keel to breakers, | |
| Forth on the godly sea; | |
| We set up mast and sail on the swarthy ship, | |
| Sheep bore we aboard her, and our bodies also | 80 |
| Heavy with weeping. And winds from sternward | |
| Bore us out onward with bellying canvas— | |
| Circe’s this craft, the trim-coifed goddess. | |
| Then sat we amidships, wind jamming the tiller. | |
| Thus with stretched sail | 85 |
| We went over sea till day’s end: | |
| Sun to his slumber, shadows o’er all the ocean. | |
| Came we then to the bounds of deepest water, | |
| To the Kimmerian lands and peopled cities | |
| Covered with close-webbed mist, unpiercèd ever | 90 |
| With glitter of sun-rays, | |
| Nor with stars stretched, nor looking back from heaven, | |
| Swartest night stretched over wretched men there. | |
| Thither we in that ship, unladed sheep there, | |
| The ocean flowing backward, came we through to the place | 95 |
| Aforesaid by Circe. | |
| Here did they rites, Perimedes and Eurylochus, | |
| And drawing sword from my hip | |
| I dug the ell-square pitkin, poured we libations unto each the dead, | |
| First mead and then sweet wine, | 100 |
| Water mixed with white flour. | |
| Then prayed I many a prayer to the sickly death’s-heads | |
| As set in Ithaca, sterile bulls of the best, | |
| For sacrifice, heaping the pyre with goods. | |
| Sheep, to Tiresias only, | 105 |
| Black, and a bell sheep; | |
| Dark blood flowed in the fosse. | |
| Souls out of Erebus, cadaverous dead | |
| Of brides, of youths, and of many passing old, | |
| Virgins tender, souls stained with recent tears, | 110 |
| Many men mauled with bronze lance-heads, | |
| Battle spoil, bearing yet dreary arms: | |
| These many crowded about me, | |
| With shouting, pallor upon me, cried to my men for more beasts; | |
| Slaughtered the herds—sheep slain of bronze, | 115 |
| Poured ointment, cried to the gods, | |
| To Pluto the strong, and praised Proserpine. | |
| Unsheathed the narrow steel, | |
| I sat to keep off the impetuous, impotent dead | |
| Till I should hear Tiresias. | 120 |
| But first Elpenor came, our friend Elpenor, | |
| Unburied, cast on the wide earth— | |
| Limbs that we left in the house of Circe, | |
| Unwept, unwrapped in sepulchre, since toils urged other, | |
| Pitiful spirit—and I cried in hurried speech: | 125 |
| ‘Elpenor, how art thou come to this dark coast? | |
| Cam’st thou afoot, outstripping seamen?’ And he in heavy speech: | |
| ‘Ill fate and abundant wine! I slept in Circe’s ingle, | |
| Going down the long ladder unguarded, I fell against the buttress, | |
| Shattered the nape-nerve, the soul sought Avernus. | 130 |
| But thou, O King, I bid remember me, unwept, unburied! | |
| Heap up mine arms, be tomb by the sea-board, and inscribed, | |
| A man of no fortune and with a name to come; | |
| And set my oar up, that I swung ’mid fellows.’ | |
| Came then another ghost, whom I beat off, Anticlea, | 135 |
| And then Tiresias, Theban, | |
| Holding his golden wand, knew me and spoke first: | |
| ‘Man of ill hour, why come a second time, | |
| Leaving the sunlight, facing the sunless dead and this joyless region? | |
| Stand from the fosse, move back, leave me my bloody bever, | 140 |
And I will speak you true speeches.’
“And I stepped back, | |
| Sheathing the yellow sword. Dark blood he drank then | |
| And spoke: ‘Lustrous Odysseus, shalt | |
| Return through spiteful Neptune, over dark seas, | |
| Lose all companions.’ Foretold me the ways and the signs. | 145 |
| Came then Anticlea, to whom I answered: | |
| ‘Fate drives me on through these deeps; I sought Tiresias.’ | |
| I told her news of Troy, and thrice her shadow | |
| Faded in my embrace. | |
| Then had I news of many faded women— | 150 |
| Tyro, Alcmena, Chloris— | |
| Heard out their tales by that dark fosse, and sailed | |
| By sirens and thence outward and away, | |
| And unto Circe buried Elpenor’s corpse.” | |
| |
Lie quiet, Divus.
In Officina Wechli, Paris, | 155 |
| M. D. three X’s, Eight, with Aldus on the Frogs, | |
And a certain Cretan’s
Hymni Deorum: | |
| (The thin clear Tuscan stuff | |
| Gives way before the florid mellow phrase.) | |
Take we the Goddess, Venus:
Venerandam, | 160 |
| Aurean coronam habentem, pulchram, | |
| Cypri munimenta sortita est, maritime, | |
| Light on the foam, breathed on by zephyrs, | |
| And air-tending hours. Mirthful, orichalci, with golden | |
Girdles and breast bands.
Thou with dark eye-lids, | 165 |
| Bearing the golden bough of Argicida. | |
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