places enormously celebrated, like Mantua, Verona, and Rome, to witness the offering. Surely time so spent will not be lost! Rather is it a good thing that, before trying to act them out, he should form his estimate of distinguished human qualities, gathered from all those, far and near, that displayed them--that he should sift them and keep the best-and that he should compress the most brilliant into one great excelling star, even his glorious self! 809. 6 more entirely.' This seems to belong to the words 'be men.' While blending with them, he must excel them; otherwise there would be little self-display. 818. 'can I, too, foil.' Before Otho IV., in 1209, Ecelin II. declared that, while they were walking together on the square of St Mark's, Azzo VI. had him basely attacked by assassins, and held up his arm to prevent him from defending himself, and that he would certainly have been killed had he not violently torn himself away from the traitor. (Sismondi, Hist. des Rép. Ital., ch. xiii.) 841. 'Malek.' A general name for a Saracen chief. The word is the same as the Hebrew for 'king.' Ll. 855-927. Sordello's imagination 'heightens him up' till he becomes Apollo, the god of many attributes. 855-864. Sordello makes a res a careful selection of attributes Accordingly the pageant of characters Sordello's imagination had called into his presence became gradually smaller. Like wind, his spirit went through their ranks to winnow them. The less brilliant phantasms he is to falling away, none but the strong, the wise, the beautiful display. remained; and so the process of sifting went on till two or three gathered up in themselves all that most beseems men, and at last gave all their grace and strength to build up a single shape, even himself, under whose potency every creature would be brought. Will he be 865-878. such as Frederick, of whom the bowman talk so much? The Emperor Straightway his imagination turns him into the Emperor. Frederick Is improved upon. 878-893. And Eglamor is wrought in. the minstrel 893-927. His imagina tion at last 'heightens him up' into Apollo. Grape-juice he happens to look at becomes Saracenic wine which he drinks with the Miramoline, and clusters of filberts near him become dates plucked from the bough which John Brienne has sent to remind the sluggish imperial army of Canaan. It is exactly Frederick's pomp and fierce demeanour that Sordello exhibits in his imagined position. But he excels the Kaiser, whose authority must be supported by threats and violence. Rarely will anything harsh be seen or heard where Sordello sits serene; for his look or his lightest word will irresistibly draw the most stubborn into obedience. His right arm is indeed clothed with thunder, but where is the need of his using his awful power? The angriest mood of the multitude is quieted by the lovely songs he sings -songs that rise up in strength, then float over it hither and thither, like an escape of angels. And in this idea about singing he is working another figure into himself. The tune, and most of the words, by which his imagination holds the multitude spellbound, he has heard crooned by the old serving-women of Goito, the face of each as she sang lighting with a smile, as lights the face of a worn-out queen when some remind her of the love - tales of her girlhood. "Eglamor made that!" they tell him. So he was minstrel-emperor. As he sat head over all, nothing but outrageously ugly characters could vex him, and these he killed out of hand. Other men he easily subdued by his look so divine and his tones so sweet, and graciously promoted to thrones beneath his own. But why should we labour the matter in attempting to give a new name to an old idea of bliss, instead of saying that Sordello, like many before him, had discovered Apollo, had concluded that he was the being of perfect attributes, and set above all others? And bid me not continue to explain, as I began to do when telling how he built on Frederick and Eglamor, what attributes of different characters he pieced together wherewith to clothe himself-what thefts from all lands and ages contributed to deck out the array in which his fancy clothed him when, in the depth of June, as he climbed some narrow ravine amid the clatter made by its millions of bright pebbles, over which the swollen water slipped with a singing noise, he dipped his foot into the stream, yet, as one might have imagined from his look, went along dry-shod though his feet really trod on the runnel's very bed. The vines were his roof, the lime-trees were his wall, while some short-lived damsel-fly flittered before and over him. And, coming forth from the ravine, he spied great slopes of forest, where the myrtle-trees multiplied tuft on tuft and the maples grew at their ease. As if proud of him who looked upon it, the wood tried to work surprises upon him as it had worked them in earlier days. it stood up like a dead, black barrier (because a cloud was over it), so thick that the smallest animal could not creep through; yet in a moment (the cloud passing away) each shapeless clump was changed into a clearly outlined shrub, and what had seemed oak-boles diminished to ilex-stems. For hours Sordello was pleased to make believe that the wood was consciously performing for his amusement; and when at last white summerlightning hung aloft, and the whole palpitating breast of heaven sank and rose in well-timed measure, it was nature pressing to the worship of him, Apollo. Now 868. Miramoline.' The Mahometan ruler of Morocco. Certain friars who went there to convert his people were at first treated with forbearance, but they insisted on becoming martyrs. (Life of St Francis, by Paul Sabatier, ch. xiii.) 871. 'the bough.' Is it in history? 881. 'while songs go up.' Cp. Bk. ш., 1. 593. 900. 'purfle.' Embroider. Robert Henryson (Preaching of the Swallow) speaks of flowers which "Phoebus, with his golden bemis gent, Has purfellit, and painted pleasandlie." 907. 'crenelled.' Fr. créneler, from Low Latin crena, 'a notch.' It seems impossible to take the word as here meaning 'embrasured.' C 909. 'damsel-fly.' "The slender dragon-fly Agrion Virgo, and kindred species, called in French demoiselle." (Oxford New English Dictionary.) 927-936. Sordello has 936-948. Palma becomes his Daphne. 948-962. He sees her rising from her forestcouch. Ll. 927-962. Palma, daughter of Ecelin II., becomes Sordello's Daphne. As time goes on, all that is unpleasant perishes from Sordello's realms of imagination, and the notables from whom he gathered his attributes sink down, while celebrated more and more faintly in his songs, to an attitude of becoming reverence. Only the maidens of his dream-world are slow to leave him in unapproachable majesty. He has won their hearts in turn, some of them loving him passionately at once, others having first to tear away earlier affections or to overcome a feeling of reserve, and even of disdain, but coming sooner or later to adore him. But he must have one whom he chiefly loves-his Daphne. Who will this be? "Count Richard of Verona," the faded old serving-women tell him, "seeks to wed our Palma. If we grant her to him, we secure in return Richard's voice on our side in the counsels of Azzo of Este, and that will help us as much as Taurello's fighting." The Palma they speak of is the only child of Agnes of Este, of whom Ecelin II. was enamoured years ago, before this Tuscan Adelaide wedded him and made him wicked. "But Palma will not have Count Richard," the sleepy old servants proudly add. Here, surely, is Sordello's Daphne! The maid who despises all other suitors will be most deserving of Apollo's love. So Palma became conspicuous in his world of dreams. His imagination would picture her rising from her forest-couch. How the glory of her golden hair winds itself about her, the very ground bright, as with spilt sunbeams, with the reflection of its tresses ! One leg, doubled underneath, has its small foot buried in her dimpled, snowy flesh, while she remains poised, but the other swings listlessly below, feeling for cool air, the vein-streaks swelling to a richer violet where the languid blood lies heavily-her body yet resting calm on the slight support of her outspread palms as though suspended in the act of rising by her consciousness of beauty-a consciousness that makes her turn with a look so frankly triumphant, because she knows that Apollo watches her from the pine-trees' gloom. 928. 'the Pythons.' The story of the birth of the monster Python, and of his slaughter by Apollo beside the 'fair-flowing spring' at the foot of Mount Parnassus, is told in the 'Homeric' Hymn to Apollo. 932. 'Delians.' The maidens of Delos, where Apollo was born. Their wonderful singing in praise of him and Leto and Artemis, in which all their voices rose as the voice of one, is recorded in the Hymn. They were a great wonder, the fame of which will never die." 938. 'Daphne.' The nymph beloved of Apollo, and, at her own request, changed into a bay-tree to escape his pursuit. 939. as good for Este's ends.' Ironical. 940. 'as our Taurello.' Who hated the House of Este, and was always aiming at its overthrow. 942. of Agnes Este.' Historically, Palma was the daughter of Ecelin II. and Adelaide. (Rolandini Chronicon in Muratori's Scriptores Rerum Italicarum.) Ll. 962-1000. Time is slow to give Sordello opportunities of translating his imaginations into real life. 962-969. to wait long The worst of it is that time passes quickly; for Sordello has reached the age for action is he not Sordello has now grown up?—and fate is slow in giving him the for his stage hoped-for stage of real life whereon to perform, and of real life. the hoped-for crowd of real admirers to witness his performance. He grows lean and pale, not doing anything, but ever busy with his fancies. These are scarcely suffi |