C.D. Warner, et al., comp. The Library of the World’s Best Literature.
An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
Clorinda’s Eunuch Narrates her History
By Torquato Tasso (1544–1595)
I
Haply perchance reigns still—Senapo brave;
Who with his dusky people still maintained
The laws which Jesus to the nations gave:
’Twas in his court, a pagan and a slave,
I lived, o’er thousand maids advanced to guard,
And wait with authorized assumption grave
On her whose beauteous brows the crown instarred;
True, she was brown, but naught the brown her beauty marred.
Equaled the fervors of his love; the smart
At length of sharp suspicion by degrees
Gained such ascendance in his troubled heart,
That from all men in closest bowers apart
He mewed her, where e’en heaven’s chaste eyes, the bright
Stars, were but half allowed their looks to dart:
Whilst she, meek, wise, and pure as virgin light,
Made her unkind lord’s will her rule and chief delight.
Of martyrs and of saints: a virgin here,
On whose fair cheeks the rose’s sweetest dyes
Glowed, was depicted in distress; and near,
A monstrous dragon, which with poignant spear
An errant knight transfixing, prostrate laid:
The gentle lady oft with many a tear
Before this painting meek confession made
Of secret faults, and mourned, and heaven’s forgiveness prayed.
A daughter white as snow: th’ unusual hue,
With wonder, fear, and strange perplexity
Disturbed her, as though something monstrous too;
But as by sad experience well she knew
His jealous temper and suspicious haste,
She cast to hide thee from thy father’s view;
For in his mind (perversion most misplaced!)
Thy snowy chasteness else had argued her unchaste.
A negro’s new-born infant for her own;
And as the tower wherein she lived inclosed
Was kept by me and by her maids alone,—
To me whose firm fidelity was known,
Who loved and served her with a soul sincere,—
She gave thee, beauteous as a rose unblown,
Yet unbaptized; for there, it would appear,
Baptized thou couldst not be in that thy natal year.
To some far spot: what tongue can tell the rest!
The plaints she used; and with what wild despair
She clasped thee to her fond maternal breast;
How many times ’twixt sighs, ’twixt tears caressed;
How oft, how very oft, her vain adieu
Sealed on thy cheek; with what sweet passion pressed
Thy little lips! At length a glance she threw
To heaven, and cried:—“Great God, that look’st all spirits through!
And naught did e’er my nuptial bed defile,
(I pray not for myself; I stand arraigned
Of thousand sins, and in thy sight am vile,)
Preserve this guiltless infant, to whose smile
The tenderest mother must refuse her breast,
And from her eyes their sweetest bliss exile!
May she with chastity like mine be blessed;
But stars of happier rule have influence o’er the rest!
Of the grim dragon freed’st that holy maid,
Lit by my hands if ever odorous wreath
Rose from thy altars; if I e’er have laid
Thereon gold, cinnamon, or myrrh, and prayed
For help,—through every chance of life display,
In guardianship of her, thy powerful aid!”
Convulsions choked her words; she swooned away,
And the pale hues of death on her chill temples lay.
So hid by flowers and leaves that none could guess
The secret; brought thee forth ’twixt light and dark,
And unsuspected, in a Moorish dress,
Passed the town walls. As through a wilderness
Of forests horrid with brown glooms I took
My pensive way, I saw, to my distress,
A tigress issuing from a bosky nook,
Rage in her scowling brows, and lightning in her look.
Cast thee, and instant climbed a tree close by:
The savage brute came up, and glancing round
In haughty menace, saw where thou didst lie;
And softening to a mild humanity
Her stern regard, with placid gestures meek,
As by thy beauty smit, came courteous nigh;
In amorous pastime fawning licked thy cheek;
And thou on her didst smile, and stroke her mantle sleek.
Thy little hands did innocently play;
She offered thee her teats, as is the wont
With nurses, and adapted them, as they,
To thy young lips; nor didst thou turn away:
She suckled thee! a prodigy so new
Filled me with fresh confusion and dismay.
She, when she saw thee satisfied, withdrew
Into the shady wood, and vanished from my view.
Through woods, and vales, and wildernesses dun:
Till in a little village making stay,
I gave thee secretly in charge to one
Who fondly nursed thee till the circling sun,
With sixteen months of equatorial heat,
Had tinged thy face; till thou too hadst begun
To prattle of thy joys in murmurs sweet,
And print her cottage floor with indecisive feet.