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POET AND PAINTER.
Lucretius and Leonardo da Vinci.
If there be none, 'tis sorrowful to live.”
Words spoken in dying by a French Princess.
A stern, sad face, that question or reply
Flung back upon the gazer with rebuke;
And, near it, one that smiled half absently,
Content with what the moment gave or took:
But upon each, e'en like a cyphered book
Left open wide as if to court the eye
It cheats, methought was written “Mystery.”
On either brow I read a high disdain
Of all that is or may be, joy or pain;
And in each aspect scorn that doth not chide
The thing it looketh on, nor yet deride.
I found to heart's content and soul's desire
Each one of them in his bright youth had been
Beloved and favoured by a mighty queen;
Had felt upon his brow, cheek, lip, her kiss;
Had known the moments linger now, now fly
Winged with delight, and weighted down with bliss.
Then had each felt a chill, and seen the sky
Grow dark at noon, and sadden o'er the grass,
Had seen a trembling shadow flit and pass,
Had marked a flash of white escaping feet,
Had heard a low, light, distant laughter sweet,
And known her fled! Yet oft would she return
And o'er the hearts that she had broken yearn.
Each knew a momentary, soft caress,
A touch that wounded yet had power to bless,
And each of these, when summer suns burned low,
Would mark from out the pine-wood's heart a glow
As of a dark love-lighted face, and know
That she was near! Each won a mastery
And empire, nurtured at that queenly knee.
To Earth's chief people: “While I yet was young
Within her dark, deep caverns! What I hived
Of gall or honey lingers on my tongue;
I speak it ever in that song I sung,
So bitter sweet it lives eternally
In human hearts. I knew thee, Life, and flung
Thy chain aside in seeking out the fair,
Calm garden for my solace. I would ask,
What lurks beneath this smooth and tranquil mask
The days and nights weave round us? Far behind,
A prisoned giant, lies our life's true Lord,
Who ofttimes strives to break the mesh abhorred
That fate, chance, circumstance, still bind and wrap
About his mighty limbs, till in their lap
He lies ensnared; and when he wakens, blind
Is he, and fettered! now the slave, now sport
Of these five senses that within his court
Have served obsequious, swift to run, speed, fly,
And work his bidding, till at length in scorn
They turn and rend him—him, their king forlorn.
What is it then, this day, this little hour?
(The gloomy Poet questioned,) What fierce power
Of chemic force thrusts up this lovely flower
Of life from earth's dark bosom; fondly nursed
Cast forth to wither? Was it at the first
In very deed a flower, or but a weed?
Did he that framed it, love it, or take heed
Of its fair blossom? Was it blest, or cursed?
Oh! Mother Nature! in thy lullabies
So softly sung, erewhile didst thou inweave
Some after-charm to madden or to grieve!
Who knoweth thy deep secrets, or can guess
Thy subtle spell? What hidest thou within
Thy deep, dark eyes unfathomable? Sin
To snare to death, or beauty to allure
To heights of love serene? Thou insecure
Unfaithful guide through paths perplexed, thou friend
Untender, leaving us before the end.
Yet were there moments when thy heart was kind,
Or seemed! What meant the mighty scroll unsigned,
Thou didst unroll? As in a heavy dream
I walk at eve across a battle-plain,
Where at each step the dead and wounded seem
To wake unto a life of separate pain,
And on me turn a look of anguish, vain
And fixed, appealing.”
Italian answered, “Who can understand
The soft enchantress? She from me withdrew
Not in the day so early, but I knew
The woman by her smile; and in the dull,
Hard-outlined picture of the Master, drew
The angel's in the corner, whose fair face
Looks forth, and makes for loveliness a space.
Was she or I the subtler? Oft she threw
Some
We may observe in the whole character of Leonardo da Vinci's genius a love for the bizarre and exceptional, which showed itself at a very early period of life in his love for quaint devices and curious toys. Vasari tells us that when he was quite young he betrayed an attraction towards that which in nature is repellant, the fascination belonging to death and corruption, which culminated in the famous Medusa, by painting a shield on which he drew together, from studies made from life, bats, serpents, lizards, and even grasshoppers and crickets, so arranged upon it as to form a fearful fire-breathing monster issuing from the cleft of a dark and jagged rock. At a later time he is represented as playing before Ludovico Sforza (Il Moro) on a silver harp fashioned by himself in the form of a horse's skull (see his Life by Arsène Houssaye). Vasari seems to add to the moral indifference with which Leonardo is justly chargeable a strange hint of cruelty. One day, he tells us, the vine-dresser of the Belvedere found a very curious lizard, and for this creature Leonardo constructed wings made from the skins of other lizards flayed for the purpose; into these wings he put quicksilver, so that when the animal walked the wings moved with a tremulous motion. He then made horns, eyes, and a beard for the creature, which he tamed and kept in a case; he would then show it to the friends who came to visit him, and all who saw it ran away terrified. He would sometimes, we are told, attend the execution of criminals, in order that he might watch their dying agonies, and study the muscular contractions of their limbs. These facts, when added to his known attraction to the study of whatever in the human countenance was remarkable for ugliness and even deformity—witness his numerous sketches of grotesque heads—and the pleasure he is said to have had in watching the buffoonery of clowns, seem to involve a deep contradiction with his love for ideal beauty, and with the tenderness of nature implied in what Vasari tells us, “that he could not pass the places where caged birds were sold without buying some for the purpose of setting them at liberty.”
But still I gained upon her, till she knew
Her Master! When I bound her to me fast,
And through her mountains clave my path, and cast
Across her rapid streams a bridge, and fair
Aërial gardens hung in sunny air.
But first I drew from out a thousand hours
The sunshine,—drew from out a thousand flowers
Their white souls innocent! So early free
Of all thy secrets, it was one to me
And bind thee to me,—as I bent the thin
Firm iron to my bidding! Beautiful
Yet deadly-hearted Mother! Even then
I felt thy terrors on me when I chose
Some flower elect! preferred!—the Cyclamen,
The Iris, opal-radiant like a tear;
The star-sweet Jessamine, the summer Rose!
I knew thee other than thou dost appear;
I saw beneath thy loveliness the skull,
And met the wild eyes, ever looking through
The tangles of thy free and flowing hair
In anguish of self-pity, that I drew
In Florence later. Yet, great Mother Eve,
Fair wert thou! Kind, although thou couldst deceive—
And wiser than we think of! Not in vain
Thou spakest with the serpent: of thy plain
Calm counsel I took heed; thy smile was sweet,
And I obeyed thee gladly; let the snake
Curl up the tree, I could contented take
Its goodly fruitage, though beneath its thin
Smooth rind gleamed crimson seeds of death and sin.
Fair too the snake as well as full of wit,
(Or Raphael erred, methinks, who painted it,)
And were it false, for once it did not lie
In saying “Eat, ye shall not surely die.”
Oh Snake! oh woman! what a subtle pair
Were ye, and simple he who stood between,
The while ye gave him of that fruitage rare,
Of scent, taste, touch desired, to eyesight fair,
And making wise the heart.”
Grew dark the while he added, “What if now,
Man, piercing to its core should find it dry?
If, climbing boldly to the topmost bough
Its fruit dropped off, and that fair tree twice dead—
A leafy hall of ruin! Oh! thou fond,
Vague, haunting sweetness of the Far Beyond,
Which ever near me, still eluding, yet
I could not grasp, nor banish, nor forget.
Which was thy real aspect, Life! the face
Blank of all charm, in street and market-place,
That filled the day's long vacancy of grace,
Or hers I dreamed of long before I found
And fixed for ever to the spell, and sound
Of waters lapsing, falling, circling, bound
Entranced, and still entrancing!”
Brief speech the Roman, “This couldst thou discern,
Far wiser thou than I; such thick-wove screens
Come 'twixt us and the grandeur that o'erleans
Our life, what know we? Is man but the fool
Of his own sense bemocking, or the tool
Of Gods, who dwell secure where never snow
May fall, nor rain, nor wind have leave to blow
Too loud, and see him in the toils betrayed
Yet use no strength to succour him, nor aid,
Nor care for chances or for change below?
Who is the great Artificer? Doth hate
Or love impel his hand? Is he by fate
Yet mightier bound? I see a gentle child
Left in a house deserted, desolate,
Half-ruined, sunk within a forest wild,
Who strays from room to room, nor knoweth well,
Though all seem dight for pleasure or for state,
What step or stair may lead to prison cell
Or torture-chamber,—lead to sight of woe
Or sound appalling:—Not for me to know
The house's owner?”
To war,” the Italian answered, “or make straight
Life's crooked paths. In all, duality
I found like his, the Prince to whom in fee
I gave my life's best service. He loved well
His fair wise Beatrix, and lemans gay
Loved too, yet by her tomb would weep and pray;
Who oft to me, his Leonard, would say,
“Thy lyre is silver, gold thy speech” and knew
The worth of what he praised: then swift withdrew
To that dark citadel, his heart, to plan
Death, treason, murder! Not for me to scan
What gavest thou to live for, what to die
Defending? Country found I, king, or creed
To meet the soul's deep claim, the spirit's need?
Right pleasant things thou gavest; much to paint
Thou gavest still—dark sinner and fair saint.
So took I what I found, nor made complaint.
Deemed him the Roman worthier, who would fling
His life aside in a sublime despair
Of living well and wisely, than for fair
Take foul; or let a kind warm breath of spring,
Or flitting of an insect's purpled wing
Or bird's keen ravishment of song amerce
For blight and blot that stain a universe.
Less noble deemed I him who took for bread
And yet I judged not either—not for me
To judge another's servant. Yet being free
To choose, I seek a sphere more calm and vast
Than time's worn realm of present, future, past,
And cast my lot in with Eternity!
I take my spirit's portion in the things
Unseen! immortal! They that, having wings,
Flee not away nor, flowering, fade; whose fruits
Fall not from off the cluster, fed at roots
Nourished for ever at unfailing springs.
In allusion to the various grand architectural and engineering works undertaken by Leonardo for Cesar Borgia and other princes.
There is preserved at Venice a stray leaf from his portfolio, dotted with studies of violets and the wild rose; his favourite flowers are said to have been the cyclamen and the jessamine.
Wallace (see his “Indian Archipelago”) describes a fruit, poisonous to man (one of the Apocynocæ), as rivalling the golden apples of the Hesperides in beauty; its rind smooth, shiny, and of a golden-orange colour. When ripe it bursts, and shows seeds of a deep crimson, upon which the birds feed freely.
See also Wallace for a description of the great palm-tree (a species of Corypha) growing by thousands in the plains of the islands of the Archipelago, which appears in three different states—in leaf, in flower and fruit, and dead. It has a lofty, cylindrical stem, about a hundred feet high, and two or three feet in diameter; the leaves are large and fan-shaped, and fall off when the tree flowers, which it does only once in its life, in a huge spike, on which is produced a smooth round fruit. When these ripen and fall, the tree dies, and remains standing a year or two before it falls.
The Monna Lisa, La Gioconda of the Louvre, whose subtle and expressive charm seems to be the embodiment of what had at all times been Leonardo's ideal of beauty.
Ludovico Sforza, Grand Duke of Milan (surnamed “Il Moro,” whom Arsène Houssaye characterizes as “homme de bronze, tête Machiavélique, cœur d'amoureux, prince familier au poignard et au poison, fourbe et brave, barbare et raffiné, tyran de son peuple, esclave des femmes.”
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