May God the
Almighty
hear me!
Warner - World's Best Literature - v17 - Mai to Mom
What
then can be credited to Sir John? While learned men are waxing hot
over conjectures the answers to which seem bey ond the search-light
of exact investigation, the unsophisticated reader holds fast by the
testimony of the knight himself as to his own identity, accepting it
along with the marvels narrated in the book:-
« 1 John Maundevile, Knight, all be it I be not worthy, that was born in
England, in the town of St. Albans, passed the sea in the year of our Lord
Jesu Christ, 1322, in the day of St. Michaelmas; and hitherto have been long
time over the Sea, and have seen and gone through many diverse Lands, and
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
many Provinces and Kingdoms and Isles, and have passed through Tartary,
Persia, Ermony (Armenia] the Little and the Great; through Lybia, Chaldea,
and a great part of Ethiopia; through Amazonia, Ind the Less and the More, a
great Part; and throughout many other Isles, that be about Ind: where dwell
many diverse Folks, and of diverse Manners and Laws, and of diverse Shapes
of Men. Of which Lands and Isles I shall speak more plainly hereafter.
«And I shall advise you of some Part of things that there be, when Time
shall be hereafter, as it may best come to my Mind; and especially for them
that will and are in Purpose to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem and the
Holy Places that are thereabout. And I shall tell the way that they shall
hold hither. For I have often times passed and ridden the Way, with good
company of many Lords. God be thanked. »
And again in the epilogue:-
«And ye shall understand, if it like you, that at mine Home-coming, I
came to Rome, and showed my Life to our Holy Father the Pope,
and amongst all I showed him this treatise, that I had made after information
of Men that knew of things that I had not seen myself, and also of Marvels
and Customs that I had seen myself, as far as God would give me grace;
and besought his Holy Father-hood, that my Book might be examined and
corrected by Advice of his wise and discreet Council. And our Holy Father,
of his special Grace, remitted my Book to be examined and proved by the
Advice of his said Council. By the which my Book was proved true.
And I John Maundevile, Knight, above said, although I be unworthy, that
departed from our Countries and passed the Sea the Year of Grace 1322, that
have passed many Lands and many Isles and Countries, and searched many
full strange Places, and have been in many a full good honorable Company,
and at many a fair Deed of Arms, albeit that I did none myself, for mine
incapable Insufficiency, now am come Home, maugre myself, to Rest. For
Gouts and Rheumatics, that distress me -- those define the End of my Labor
against my Will, God knoweth.
«And thus, taking solace in my wretched rest, recording the Time passed,
I have fulfilled these Things, and put them written in this Book, as it would
come into my Mind, the Year of Grace 1356, in the 34th year that I departed
from our countries. »
The book professes, then, to be primarily a guide for pilgrims to
Jerusalem by four routes, with a handbook of the holy places. But
Sir John's love of the picturesque and the marvelous, and his delight
in a good story, lead him to linger along the way: nay, to go out of
his way in order to pick up a legend or a tale wherewith to enliven
the dry facts of the route; as if his pilgrims, weary and footsore with
long day journeys, needed a bit of diversion to cheer them along the
way. When, after many a detour, he is finally brought into Pales-
tine, the pilgrim is made to feel that every inch is holy ground.
The guide scrupulously locates even the smallest details of Bible
history. He takes it all on faith. He knows nothing of nineteenth-
## p. 9657 (#65) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
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century “higher criticism," nor does he believe in spiritual interpre-
tation. He will point you out the
.
.
«rock where Jacob was sleeping when he saw the angels go up and down a
ladder.
And upon that rock sat our Lady, and learned her psalter.
Also at the right side of that Dead Sea dwelleth yet the Wife of Lot
in Likeness of a Salt Stone.
And in that Plain is the Tomb of Job.
And there is the Cistern where Joseph, which they sold, was cast in
of by his Brethren.
There nigh is Gabriel's Well where our Lord
was wont to bathe him, when He was young, and from that Well bare the
Water often-time to His Mother. And in that Well she washed often-time
the Clothes of her Son Jesu Christ.
On that Hill, and in that same
Place, at the Day of Doom, 4 Angels with 4 Trumpets shall blow and raise
all Men that have suffered Death. ”
»
He touches on whatever would appeal to the pious imagination
of the pilgrims, and helps them to visualize the truths of their reli-
gion. When he leaves Palestine,--a country he knew perhaps better
than ever man before or since his day,- and goes into the more
mythical regions of Ind the Little and More, Cathay and Persia, his
imagination fairly runs riot. With an Oriental love of the gorgeous
he describes the “Royalty of the Palace of the Great Chan,” or
of Prester John's abode,- splendors not to be outdone even by the
genie of Aladdin's wonderful lamp. He takes us into regions lustrous
with gold and silver, diamonds and other precious stones. We have
indeed in the latter half of the book whole chapters rivaling the
Arabian Nights in their weird luxurious imaginings, and again in
their grotesque creations of men and beasts and plant life. What
matter where Sir John got his material for his marvels,— his rich,
monster-teeming Eastern world, with its Amazons and pigmies; its
people with hound's heads, that “be great folk and well-fighting ”; its
wild geese with two heads, and lions all white and great as oxen;
men with eyes in their shoulders, and men without heads; «folk that
have the Face all flat, all plain, without Nose and without Mouth”;
« folk that have great Ears and long that hang down to their Knees”;
and «folk that run marvelously swift with one foot so large that it
serves them as umbrella against the sun when they lie down to rest”;
the Hippotaynes, half man and half horse; griffins that have the
Body upwards as an Eagle and beneath as a Lion, and truly they
say truth, that they be of that shape. ” We find hints of many old
acquaintances of the wonder-world of story-books, and fables from
classic soil. The giants with one eye in the middle of the forehead
are close brothers to the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom Ulysses outwit-
ted. The adamant rocks were surely washed by the same seas that
swirled around the magnetic mountain whereon Sindbad the Sailor
was wrecked. Sir John was in truth a masterful borrower, levying
## p. 9658 (#66) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
tribute on all the superstitions, the legends, the stories, and the
fables current in his time; a time when the distinction between meum
and tuum, in literature as well as in other matters, was not as finely
drawn as it is now. Whatever a man could use, he plagiarized and
considered as his own. Where the robber-baron filched by means of
the sword, Sir John filched by means of the pen.
He took his mon-
sters out of Pliny, his miracles out of legends, his strange stories out
of romances. He meant to leave no rumor or invention unchronicled;
and he prefaces his most amazing assertions with «They say ” or
"Men say, but I have not seen it. ” He fed the gullibility of his age
to the top of its bent, and compiled a book so popular that more
copies from the fourteenth-century editions remain than of any other
book except the Bible.
»
THE MARVELOUS RICHES OF PRESTER JOHN
From (The Adventures)
N
I
The Land of Prester John be many divers Things and
many precious Stones, so great and so large, that Men make
of them Vessels, as Platters, Dishes, and Cups. And many
other Marvels be there, that it were too cumbrous and too long
to put in Writing of Books; but of the principal Isles and of his
Estate and of his Law, I shall tell you some Part.
And he hath under him 72 Provinces, and in every Province
is a King. And these Kings have Kings under them, and all
be Tributaries to Prester John. And he hath in his Lordships
many great Marvels.
For in his Country is the Sea that Men call the Gravelly
Sea, that is all Gravel and Sand, without any Drop of Water, and
it ebbeth and floweth in great Waves as other Seas do, and it is
never still nor at Peace in any manner of Season. And no Man
may pass that Sea by Ship, nor by any manner of Craft, and
therefore may no Man know what Land is beyond that Sea.
And albeit that it have no Water, yet Men find therein and on
the Banks full good Fishes of other manner of Nature and shape
than Men find in any other Sea, and they be of right good
Taste and delicious for Man's Meat.
And a 3 Days' Journey long from that Sea be great Mount-
ains, out of the which goeth out a great River that cometh out
of Paradise. And it is full of precious Stones, without any Drop
of Water, and it runneth through the Desert on the one side,
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so that it maketh the Sea gravelly; and it runneth into that Sea,
and there it endeth. And that River runneth, also, 3 Days in
the Week and bringeth with him great Stones and the Rocks
also therewith, and that great Plenty. And anon, as they be
entered into the Gravelly Sea, they be seen no more, but lost
for evermore. And in those 3. Days that that River runneth, no
Man dare enter into it; but on other Days Men dare enter well
enough.
Also beyond that River, more upward to the Deserts, is a
great Plain all gravelly, between the Mountains. And in that
Plain, every Day at the Sun-rising, begin to grow small Trees,
and they grow till Midday, bearing Fruit; but no Man dare take
of that Fruit, for it is a Thing of Faerie. And after Midday
they decrease and enter again into the Earth, so that at the
going down of the Sun they appear no more. And so they do,
every Day. . And that is a great Marvel.
In that Desert be many Wild Men, that be hideous to look
on; for they be horned, and they speak naught, but they grunt,
as Pigs. And there is also great Plenty of wild Hounds. And
there be many Popinjays (or Parrots] that they call Psittakes in
their Language. And they speak of their own Nature, and say
Salve! ' [God save you! ) to Men that go through the Deserts,
and speak to them as freely as though it were a Man that spoke.
And they that speak well have a large Tongue, and have 5 Toes
upon a Foot.
And there be also some of another Manner, that
have but 3 Toes upon a Foot; and they speak not, or but little,
for they cannot but cry.
This Emperor Prester John when he goeth into Battle against
any other Lord, he hath no Banners borne before him; but he
hath 3 Crosses of Gold, fine, great, and high, full of precious
Stones, and every one of the Crosses be set in a Chariot, full
richly arrayed. And to keep every Cross, be ordained 10,000
Men of Arms and more than 100,000 Men on Foot, in manner as
when Men would keep a Standard in our Countries, when that
we be in a Land of War.
He dwelleth commonly in the City of Susa. And there is
his principal Palace, that is so rich and noble that no Man will
believe it by Estimation, but he had seen it. And above the
chief Tower of the Palace be 2 round Pommels or Balls of
Gold, and in each of them be 2 Carbuncles great and large, that
shine full bright upon the Night. And the principal gates of
## p. 9660 (#68) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
his Palace be of precious Stone that Men call Sardonyx, and the
Border and the Bars be of Ivory. And the Windows of the Halls
and Chambers be of Crystal. And the Tables whereon Men eat,
some be of Emeralds, some of Amethyst, and some of Gold, full
of precious Stones; and the Pillars that bear up the Tables be
of the same precious Stones. And of the Steps to go up to
his Throne, where he sitteth at Neat, one is of Onyx, another is
of Crystal, and another of green Jasper, another of Amethyst,
another of Sardine, another of Cornelian, and the 7th, that he
setteth his Feet on, is of Chrysolite. And all these Steps be
bordered with fine Gold, with the other precious Stones, set with
great orient Pearls. And the Sides of the Seat of his Throne
be of Emeralds, and bordered with Gold full nobly, and dubbed
with other precious Stones and great Pearls. And all the Pillars
in his Chamber be of fine Gold with Precious Stones, and with
many Carbuncles, that give Light upon the Night to all People.
And albeit that the Carbuncles give Light right enough, never-
theless, at all Times burneth a Vessel of Crystal full of Balm, to
give good Smell and Odor to the Emperor, and to void away all
wicked Eyes and Corruptions. ”
FROM HEBRON TO BETHLEHEM
From the Adventures)
ND in Hebron be all the Sepultures of the Patriarchs, -
A , ; ,
Eve, Sarah and Rebecca and of Leah; the which Sepul-
tures the Saracens keep full carefully, and have the Place in
great Reverence for the holy Fathers, the Patriarchs that lie
there. And they suffer no Christian Man to enter into the
Place, but if it be of special Grace of the Sultan; for they hold
Christian Men and Jews as Dogs, and they say, that they should
not enter into so holy a Place. And Men call that Place, where
they lie, Double Splunk (Spelunca Duplex), or Double Cave, or
Double Ditch, forasmuch as one lieth above another. And the
Saracens call that Place in their Language, "Karicarba,” that
is to say “The Place of Patriarchs. ” And the Jews call that
Place "Arboth. ” And in that same Place was Abraham's House,
and there he sat and saw 3 Persons, and worshiped but one; as
Holy Writ saith, “Tres vidit et unum adoravit;” that is to say,
»
C
>>
(
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
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»
.
"He saw 3 and worshiped one:” and those same were the Angels
that Abraham received into his House.
And right fast by that Place is a Cave in the Rock, where
Adam and Eve dwelled when they were put out of Paradise;
and there got they their Children. And in that same Place was
Adam formed and made, after that, that some Men say (for Men
were wont to call that Place the Field of Damascus, because that
it was in the Lordship of Damascus), and from thence was he
translated into the Paradise of Delights, as they say; and after
he was driven out of Paradise he was left there. And the same
Day that he was put in Paradise, the same Day he was put out,
for anon, he sinned. There beginneth the Vale of Hebron, that
endureth nigh to Jerusalem. There the Angel commanded Adam
that he should dwell with his Wife Eve, of the which he begat
Seth; of the which Tribe, that is to say Kindred, Jesu Christ
was born.
In that Valley is a Field, where Men draw out of the Earth
a Thing that Men call Cambile, and they eat it instead of Spice,
and they bear it away to sell. And Men may not make the
Hole or the Cave, where it is taken out of the Earth, so deep or
so wide, but that it is, at the Year's End, full again up to the
Sides, through the Grace of God.
From Hebron Men go to Bethlehem in half a Day, for it is
but 5 Mile; and it is a full fair Way, by Plains and Woods full
delectable. Bethlehem is a little City, long and narrow and well
walled, and on each side enclosed with good Ditches: and it was
wont to be clept Ephrata, as Holy Writ saith, “Ecce, audimus
eum in Ephrata,” that is to say, “Lo, we heard it in Ephrata. ”
And toward the East End of the City is a full fair Church and
a gracious, and it hath many Towers, Pinnacles and Corners, full
strong and curiously made; and within that Church be 44 Pillars
of Marble, great and fair.
Also besides the Choir of the Church, at the right Side, as
Men come downward 16 Steps, is the place where our Lord was
born, that is full well adorned with Marble, and full richly
painted with Gold, Silver, Azure and other Colours.
Paces beyond is the Crib of the Ox and the Ass. And beside
that is the Place where the Star fell, that led the 3 Kings, Jas-
per, Melchior and Balthazar (but Men of Greece call them thus,
“Galgalathe, Malgalathe, and Seraphie,” and the Jews call them
in this manner, in Hebrew, “Appelius, Amerrius, and Damasus”).
>
And 3
## p. 9662 (#70) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
These 3 Kings offered to our Lord, Gold, Incense and Myrrh,
and they met together through Miracle of God; for they met
together in a City in Ind, that Men call Cassak, that is a 53
Days' Journey from Bethlehem; and they were at Bethlehem
the 13th Day; and that was the 4th Day after that they had
seen the Star, when they met in that City, and thus they were
in 9 days from that City at Bethlehem, and that was a great
Miracle.
Also, under the Cloister of the Church, by 18 Steps at the
right Side, is the Charnel-house of the Innocents, where their
Bodies lie. And before the place where our Lord was born is
the Tomb of St. Jerome, that was a Priest and a Cardinal, that
translated the Bible and the Psalter from Hebrew into Latin:
and without the Minster is the Chair that he sat in when he
translated it. And fast beside that Church, at 60 Fathom, is a
Church of St. Nicholas, where our Lady rested her after she was
delivered of our Lord; and forasmuch as she had too much Milk
in her Paps, that grieved her, she milked them on the red Stones
of Marble, so that the Traces may yet be seen, in the Stones, all
white.
And ye shall understand, that all that dwell in Bethlehem be
Christian Men.
And there be fair Vines about the City, and great plenty of
Wine, that the Christian Men have made. But the Saracens till
not the Vines, neither drink they any Wine: for their Books of
their Law, that Mohammet gave them, which they call their "Al
Koran” (and some call it "Mesaph," and in another language it
is clept “Harme,”) — the same Book forbiddeth them to drink
Wine. For in that Book, Mohammet cursed all those that drink
Wine and all them that sell it: for some Men say, that he slew
once an Hermit in his Drunkenness, that he loved full well; and
therefore he cursed Wine and them that drink it. But his Curse
be turned onto his own Head, as Holy Writ saith, "Et in verticem
ipsius iniquitas ejus descendet;" that is to say, “His Wickedness
;
shall turn and fall onto his own Head. ”
And also the Saracens breed no Pigs, nor eat they any
Swine's Flesh, for they say it is Brother to Man, and it was for-
bidden by the old Law; and they hold him accursed that eateth
thereof. Also in the Land of Palestine and in the Land of
Egypt, they eat but little or none of Flesh of Veal or of Beef,
but if the Beast be so old, that he may no more work for old
## p. 9663 (#71) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
9663
Age; for it is forbidden, because they have but few of them;
therefore they nourish them to till their Lands.
In this City of Bethlehem was David the King born; and he
had 60 Wives, and the first wife was called Michal; and also he
had 300 Lemans.
And from Bethlehem unto Jerusalem is but 2 Mile; and in
the Way to Jerusalem half a Mile from Bethlehem is a Church,
where the Angel said to the Shepherds of the Birth of Christ.
And in that Way is the Tomb of Rachel, that was the Mother
of Joseph the Patriarch; and she died anon after that she was
delivered of her Son Benjamin. And there she was buried by
Jacob her Husband; and he made set 12 great Stones on her, in
Token that she had born 12 Children. In the same Way, half a
Mile from Jerusalem, appeared the Star to the 3 Kings. In that
Way also be many Churches of Christian Men, by the which Men
go towards the City of Jerusalem.
## p. 9664 (#72) ############################################
9664
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
1803-1849
N THE summer of 1894 some workmen engaged in removing a
mass of rubbish, to make room for a new building in one of
the poorer quarters of Dublin, came upon the ruins of an
old cellar. A casual passer-by happened to notice the old wall, with
its low window looking out upon a level with the narrow and squalid
alley. Moved by some bookish recollection, he realized that he was
standing at the corner of Bride Street and Myler’s Alley, known in
the older days as Glendalough Lane; and that the miserable vestige
of human habitation into which the rough navvies were driving their
pickaxes had once been the poor shelter of him who,-
«Worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
Had fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song. ”
>
From this spot James Clarence Mangan, wasted with famine and
already delirious, was carried by the Overseers of the Poor to the
sheds of Meath Hospital in June 1849; too late, alas! to save the
dying man, who in the years of his young manhood had sung and
suffered for Ireland. A few friends gathered about him to comfort
his patient and gentle soul, and to lay his bones in the cool clay of
Glasnevin.
The life of Mangan is a convincing proof that differences of time
and place have no influence upon the poet's power. Poverty and
Want were the foster-brothers of this most wonderful of Ireland's
gifted children. His patient body was chained to daily labor for the
sordid needs of an unappreciating kindred, and none of the pleasant
joys of travel and of diversified nature were his. He was born in
Fishamble Street, Dublin, in 1803, and never passed beyond the con-
fines of his native city; but his spirit was not jailed by the misery
which oppressed his body His wondrous fancy swept with a con-
queror's march through all the fair broad universe.
Like Poe and Chatterton, Mangan impaired his powers by the use
of intoxicants. He was very sensitive about the squalor of his sur-
roundings, and was reticent and shy in the company of more fortu-
nate men and women: but with admirable unselfishness he devoted
his days, his toil, and the meagre rewards which came to him from
his work, to the care and sustenance of his mean-spirited kindred.
## p. 9665 (#73) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9665
For years he labored in the hopeless position of a scrivener's clerk,
from which he was rescued by the interest of Dr. Todd, and was
made an assistant librarian of Trinity College. There it was his
habit to spend hours of rapt and speechless labor amid the dusty
shelves, to earn his pittance. Dr. Petrie subsequently found him a
place in the office of the Irish Ordnance Survey; but Mangan was
his own enemy and foredoomed to defeat. He wielded a vigorous
pen in Ireland's cause, and under various names communicated his
own glowing spirit to his countrymen through the columns of several
periodicals. He published also two volumes of translations from the
German poets, which are full of his own lyric fire but have no claim
to fidelity. It was in his gloomy cellar-home that he poured out the
music of his heart. When he died, a volume of German poetry was
found in his pocket, and there were loose papers on which he had
feebly traced his last thoughts in verse. Mangan will forever remain
a cherished comrade of all gentle lovers of the Beautiful and True.
THE DAWNING OF THE DAY
"T"
WAS a balmy summer morning,
Warm and early,
Such as only June bestows;
Everywhere the earth adorning,
Dews lay pearly
In the lily-bell and rose.
Up from each green-leafy bosk and hollow
Rose the blackbird's pleasant lay;
And the soft cuckoo was sure to follow:
'Twas the dawning of the day!
Through the perfumed air the golden
Bees flew round me;
Bright fish dazzled from the sea,
Till medreamt some fairy olden-
World spell bound me
In a trance of witcherie.
Steeds pranced round anon with stateliest housings,
Bearing riders prankt in rich array,
Like flushed revelers after wine-carousings:
'Twas the dawning of the day!
Then a strain of song was chanted,
And the lightly
Floating sea-nymphs drew anear.
XVII-605
## p. 9666 (#74) ############################################
9666
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
Then again the shore seemed haunted
By hosts brightly
Clad, and wielding shield and spear!
Then came battle shouts — an onward rushing -
Swords, and chariots, and a phantom fray.
Then all vanished: the warm skies were blushing
In the dawning of the day!
Cities girt with glorious gardens,
Whose immortal
Habitants in robes of light
Stood, methought, as angel-wardens
Nigh each portal,
Now arose to daze my sight.
Eden spread around, revived and blooming;
When - lo! as I gazed, all passed away:
I saw but black rocks and billows looming
In the dim chill dawn of day!
THE NAMELESS ONE
R:
OLL forth, my song, like the rushing river
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!
Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That there was once one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.
Tell how his boyhood was one drear night hour;
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.
Roll on, my song, and to after ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,
The way to live.
And tell how, trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song -
## p. 9667 (#75) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9667
With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
Flowed like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid -
A mountain stream.
Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.
Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
With spirit shipwrecked, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove.
Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,
And some whose hands should have wrought for him
(If children live not for sires and mothers),
His mind grew dim.
And he fell far through that pit abysmal,-
The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,-
And pawned his soul for the devil's dismal
Stock of returns.
But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,
And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
Stood on his path.
And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
That no ray lights.
And lives he still, then ? Yes: old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives, enduring what future story
Will never know.
Him grant a grave too, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!
He too had tears for all souls in trouble
Here and in hell.
## p. 9668 (#76) ############################################
9668
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
ST. PATRICK'S HYMN BEFORE TARAH
A"
T TARAH to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the holy Trinity:
Glory to him who reigneth in power,
The God of the elements, Father and Son
And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,
The ever-existing Divinity!
At Tarah to-day I call on the Lord,
On Christ, the omnipotent Word,
Who came to redeem from death and sin
Our fallen race;
And I put and I place
The virtue that lieth and liveth in
His incarnation lowly,
His baptism pure and holy,
His life of toil and tears and affliction,
His dolorous death — his crucifixion,
His burial, sacred and sad and lone,
His resurrection to life again,
His glorious ascension to Heaven's high throne,
And, lastly, his future dread
And terrible coming to judge all men
Both the living and dead.
At Tarah to-day I put and I place
The virtue that dwells in the seraphim's love.
And the virtue and grace
That are in the obedience
And unshaken allegiance
Of all the archangels and angels above,
And in the hope of the resurrection
To everlasting reward and election,
And in the prayers of the fathers of old,
And in the truths the prophets foretold,
And in the Apostles' manifold preachings,
And in the confessors' faith and teachings;
And in the purity ever dwelling
Within the immaculate Virgin's breast,
And in the actions bright and excelling
Of all good men, the just and the blest.
At Tarah to-day, in this fateful hour,
I place all heaven with its power,
## p. 9669 (#77) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9669
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness, -
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.
At Tarah to-day
May God be my stay!
May the strength of God now nerve me!
May the power of God preserve me!
May God the Almighty be near me!
May God the Almighty espy me!
May God the Almighty hear me!
May God give me eloquent speech!
May the arm of God protect me!
May the wisdom of God direct me!
May God give me power to teach and to preach!
May the shield of God defend me!
May the host of God attend me,
And ward me,
And guard me
Against the wiles of demons and devils,
Against the temptations of vices and evils,
Against the bad passions and wrathful will
Of the reckless mind and the wicked heart,
Against every man who designs me ill,
Whether leagued with others or plotting apart!
In this hour of hours,
I place all those powers
Between myself and every foe
Who threaten my body and soul
With danger or dole,
To protect me against the evils that flow
From lying soothsayers' incantations,
From the gloomy laws of the Gentile nations,
From heresy's hateful innovations,
From idolatry's rites and invocations.
## p. 9670 (#78) ############################################
9670
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
-
Be those my defenders,
My guards against every ban -
And spell of smiths, and Druids, and women;
In fine, against every knowledge that renders
The light Heaven sends us dim in
The spirit and soul of man!
May Christ, I pray,
Protect me to-day
Against poison and fire,
Against drowning and wounding:
That so, in His grace abounding,
I may earn the preacher's hire!
Christ as a light
Illumine and guide me!
Christ as a shield o'ershadow and cover me!
Christ be under me! - Christ be over me!
Christ be beside me,
On left hand and right!
Christ be before me, behind me, about me;
Christ this day be within and without me!
Christ, the lowly and meek.
Christ the All-Powerful be
In the heart of each to whom I speak,
In the mouth of each who speaks to me!
In all who draw near me,
Or see me or hear me!
At Tarah to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the Holy Trinity!
Glory to Him who reigneth in power,
The God of the elements, Father and Son
And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,
The ever-existing Divinity!
Salvation dwells with the Lord,
With Christ, the omnipotent Word.
From generation to generation
Grant us, O Lord, thy grace and salvation !
## p. 9671 (#79) ############################################
9671
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(1785-1873)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
LESSANDRO MANZONI was looked upon during his life as a man
who had deserved well of Heaven. «He gazed,” as one of
his countrymen said, “at Fortune straight in the eyes, and
Fortune smiled. ” And Manzoni might well have looked with clear
eyes, for there was nothing in his heart — if a man's heart may be
judged from his constant utterances — that was base.
He lived in a time best suited to his genius and his temperament.
And his genius and his time made an epoch in Italian history worthy
of most serious study. In 1815 Italy was
inarticulate; she had to speak by signs.
She dared only dream of a future which
she read in a glorious past. The Austrians
ruled the present, the future was veiled,
the past was real and golden. Manzoni,
Pellico, and Grossi were romanticists be-
cause they were filled with aspiration; and
their aspiration, clothing itself in the form
which Goethe's Götz) and Sir Walter Scott's
(Marmion' had given to the world, tried to
obliterate the present and find relief at the
foot of the cross in the shadow of old Gothic
cathedrals. The Comte de Mun, Vicomte ALESSANDRO MANZONI
de Vogüe, Sienkiewicz, and others of the
modern neo-Catholic school, represent reaction rather than aspiration.
Manzoni, Châteaubriand, Montalembert, Overbeck in art, Lamartine
and Lamennais, were not only fiercely reactionary, but fiercely senti-
mental, hopeful, and romantic.
With Austrian bayonets at the throat of Italy, it was not easy
to emit loud war-cries for liberty. The desire of the people must
therefore be heard through the voice of the poet. And the desire of
the Italians is manifest in the poetry and the prose of the author of
"The Betrothed' (I Promessi Sposi), and the Sacred Hymns. Only
two reproaches were made against Manzoni: he was praised by Goe-
the,- which, “says a sneer turned proverb,” as Mr. Howells puts it,
“is a brevet of mediocrity,” — and he was not persecuted. «Goethe,”
-
)
-
## p. 9672 (#80) ############################################
9672
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
>
Mr. Howells continues, “could not laud Manzoni's tragedies too highly;
he did not find one word too much or too little in them; the style
was free, noble, full, and rich. As to the religious lyrics, the manner
of their treatment was fresh and individual although the matter and
the significance were not new, and the poet was 'a Christian without
fanaticism, a Roman Catholic without bigotry, a zealot without hard-
ness.
In 1815 the Continental revolt against the doctrines of Rousseau
and Voltaire was at its highest. The period that produced Cesare
Cantù was likewise the period when Ossian and Byron had become
the favorite poets of the younger men. Classicism and infidelity were
both detested. The last king was not, after all, to be strangled with
the entrails of the last priest. God might rest, as a writer on the
time remarks with naïveté. It was the fashion to be respectful to
him. Italy was willing to disown the paganism of the Renaissance
for the moral teaching of the ages that preceded it. Manzoni and
his school held that true patriotism must be accompanied by virtue ;
and in a country where Machiavelli's Prince) had become a classic,
this seemed a new doctrine. The movement which Manzoni repre-
sented was above all religious; the pope was again transfigured, and
in his case by a man who had begun life with the most liberal tenden-
cies. As it was, he never accepted the belief that the pope must
necessarily be a ruler of great temporalities; but of the sincerity
and fervor of his faith in the Catholic Church one finds ample proof
in his (Sacred Hymns. '
Born at Milan in 1785, he married Mademoiselle Blondel in 1808.
Her father was a banker of Geneva; and tradition says that he was
of that cultivated group of financiers to whom the Neckers belonged,
and that his daughter was of a most dazzling blonde beauty. The
Blondels, like the Neckers, were Protestants; but at Milan, Louise
Blondel entered the Catholic Church and confirmed the wavering
faith of her young husband, who began at once the (Sacred Hymns. '
In these Mr. Howells praises “the irreproachable taste and unaffected
poetic appreciation of the grandeur of Christianity. ” One may go
even further; for they have the fervor, the exultation, the knowledge
that the Redeemer liveth, in a fullness which we do not find in sacred
song outside the Psalms of David, the Dies Iræ,' and the Stabat
Mater. )
Manzoni's poems were not many, but they all have the element of
greatness in them. We can understand why the invading Austrians
desired to honor him, when we read his ode (The Fifth of May) (on
the death of Napoleon), or his two noble tragedies (The Count of
Carmagnola) and Adelchi,' or that pride of all Italians, his master-
piece, The Betrothed” (I Promessi Sposi'). We can understand too
## p. 9673 (#81) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9673
the lofty haughtiness that induced him to refuse these honors, and
to relinquish his hereditary title of Count, rather than submit to the
order that he must register himself as an Austrian subject. The gov-
ernment, however, did not cease to offer honors to him; all of which,
except the Italian senatorship proffered him in 1860, he declined.
Great tragedies, like Shelley's Cenci,' Sir Henry Taylor's “Philip van
Artevelde,' and Sir Aubrey De Vere's Mary Tudor,' may be unact-
able; they may speak best to the heart and mind only through the
written word. Manzoni's are of this class. They have elevation,
dramatic feeling, the power of making emotion vital and of inspiring
passionate sympathy with the intention of the author; but even Sal-
vini, Rossi, or Ristori could not make them possible for the stage.
In the Count of Carmagnola,' which celebrated the physical ruin but
moral success of a noble man, Manzoni in 1820 shocked the classicists
and won their hatred. They loved Aristotle and his rules; Manzoni
broke every rule as thoroughly as Shakespeare and as consciously as
Victor Hugo. He was looked upon as a literary, artistic apostate. In
his explanation of his reasons for this assault on an old world, he
makes an audacious apologia which Alfred de Musset might have read
with profit before despairing of a definition of romanticism. Adelchi?
followed in 1822, still further exasperating the fury of the classicists,
who hated Manzoni and romance; foreseeing perhaps by intuition that
the romantic school was to be the ancestor of the realistic school,
whose horrors were only dimly dreamed of.
The Sacred Hymns,' The Count of Carmagnola,' Adelchi, The
Betrothed, and the great :' Fifth of May) ode on the death of Napo-
leon, are the works by which Manzoni's fame was established. The
tragedies - Carmagnola' of the fifteenth century, Adelchi? of the
eighth — would live for their strong lyrical element, even were the
quality of eloquence and the fire that must underlie eloquence lack-
ing Pathos is exquisite in both these plays; the marble hearts
of the Italian classic tragedy are replaced here by vital, palpitating
flesh. When Carmagnola dies for his act of humanity in releasing
his prisoners of war, and Ermengarda, whose loveliness is portrayed
with the delicacy of the hand that drew Elaine, passes away in her
convent, one feels that the world may indeed mourn. And when a
poet can force us to take the shades of the Middle Ages for real
human beings, no man may deny his gift.
(The Fifth of May,' the noblest ode in the Italian language,
almost defies translation. Mr. Howells has made the best possible
version of it. Napoleon had wronged Italy, but Italy speaking
through its poet forgave him.
« Beautiful, deathless, beneficent,
Faith! used to triumphs even
## p. 9674 (#82) ############################################
9674
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
This also writes exultingly;
No loftier pride 'neath heaven
Unto the shame of Calvary
Stooped ever yet its crest.
Thou from his weary mortality
Disperse all bitter passions;
The God that humbleth and hearteneth,
That comforts and that chastens,
Upon the pillow else desolate
To his pale lips lay pressed!
(The Betrothed' is one of the classics of fiction. It appeared in
1825. Since that time it has been translated into every language in
the civilized world. It deserves the verdict which time has passed
upon it. Don Abbondio and Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, Renzo and
Lucia, and Don Rodrigo, go on from year to year seeming to gain
new vitality. It will bear the test of a reading in youth and a re-
reading in old age; and there are few books of fiction of which this
can be said, - it is a standard of their greatness.
Manzoni died in 1873. His patriotic dreams had not been entirely
realized; but he passed away content, in faith and hope. His career
was on the whole happy and serene. He loved the simple things of
life, and looked on life itself as only a vestibule — to be nobly
adorned, however -- to a place of absolute peace.
Arnaud's I Poetti Patriottica' (1862); (Storia della Litteratura
Italiana,' by De Sanctis (1879); and William Dean Howells's Modern
Italian Poets' (Harper & Brothers: 1887), -- are valuable books of ref-
erence on the romantic movement in Italy, and on the position of
Manzoni in that movement. The best translation of The Betrothed
is included in the Bohn Library.
n
Jrancis
Egan
AN UNWILLING PRIEST
From The Betrothed
[ The following amusing scene occurs in the earlier portion of Manzoni's
novel. Don Abbondio, a cowardly village curate, has been warned by Don
Rodrigo, his lord of the manor, that if he dares to unite in marriage two
young peasants, Renzo and Lucia (the “betrothed ” of the story), vengeance
will follow. The priest accordingly shirks his duty; and cruelly refusing to
set any marriage date, shuts himself up in his house and even barricades him-
self against Renzo's entreaties. Donna Agnese, the mother of Lucia, bears
that if a betrothed pair can but reach the presence of their parish priest and
## p. 9675 (#83) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9675
announce that they take each other as man and wife, the marriage is as bind-
ing as if celebrated with all formality. Accordingly Agnese devises a sort of
attack on the priest by stratagem, to be managed by the parties to the con-
tract and two witnesses (the brothers Tonio and Gervase); which device is con.
siderably endangered by the wariness of the curate's housekeeper, Perpetua. ]
I
N FRONT of Don Abbondio's door, a narrow street ran between
two cottages; but only continued straight the length of the
buildings, and then turned into the fields. Agnese went for-
ward along this street, as if she would go a little aside to speak
more freely, and Perpetua followed. When they had turned the
corner, and reached a spot whence they could no longer see what
happened before Don Abbondio's house, Agnese coughed loudly.
This was the signal; Renzo heard it, and re-animating Lucia
by pressing her arm, they turned the corner together on tiptoe,
crept very softly close along the wall, reached the door, and
gently pushed it open: quiet, and stooping low, they were quickly
in the passage; and here the two brothers were waiting for them.
Renzo very gently let down the latch of the door, and they all
four ascended the stairs, making scarcely noise enough for two.
On reaching the landing, the two brothers advanced towards
the door of the room at the side of the staircase, and the lovers
stood close against the wall.
Deo gratias," said Tonio in an explanatory tone.
Eh, Tonio! is it you ? Come in! ” replied the voice within.
Tonio opened the door, scarcely wide enough to admit himself
and his brother one at a time. The ray of light that suddenly
shone through the opening and crossed the dark floor of the
landing made Lucia tremble, as if she were discovered. When
the brothers had entered, Tonio closed the door inside: the lov-
ers stood motionless in the dark, their ears intently on the alert,
and holding their breath; the loudest noise was the beating of
poor Lucia's heart.
Don Abbondio was seated, as we have said, in an old arm-
chair, enveloped in an antiquated dressing-gown, and his head
buried in a shabby cap of the shape of a tiara, which by the
faint light of a small lamp formed a sort of cornice all around
his face. Two thick locks which escaped from beneath his head-
dress, two thick eyebrows, two thick mustachios, and a thick tuft
on the chin, all of them gray and scattered over his dark and
wrinkled visage, might be compared to bushes covered with snow,
projecting from the face of a cliff, as seen by moonlight.
## p. 9676 (#84) ############################################
9676
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
"Aha! ” was his salutation, as he took off his spectacles and
laid them on his book.
“The Signor Curate will say I am come very late," said Tonio
with a low bow, which Gervase awkwardly imitated.
“Certainly, it is late — late every way. Don't you know I
am ill? ”
"I'm very sorry for it. ”
“You must have heard I was ill, and didn't know when I
should be able to see anybody.
But why have you
brought this — this boy with you ? »
"For company, Signor Curate. ”
“Very well, let us see. ”
“Here are twenty-five new berlinghe, with the figure of Saint
Ambrose on horseback," said Tonio, drawing a little parcel out
of his pocket.
“Let us see,” said Don Abbondio; and he took the parcel, put
on his spectacles again, opened it, took out the berlinghe, turned
them over and over, counted them, and found them irreprehen-
sible.
“Now, Signor Curate, you will give me Tecla's necklace. ”
“ You are right,” replied Don Abbondio; and going to a
cupboard, he took out a key, looking around as if to see that all
prying spectators were at a proper distance, opened one of the
doors, and filling up the aperture with his person, introduced his
head to see and his arm to reach the pledge; then drawing it
out, he shut the cupboard, unwrapped the paper, and saying,
“Is that right ? ” folded it up again and handed it to Tonio.
“Now,” said Tonio, "will you please to put it in black and
white? ”
"Not satisfied yet! ” said Don Abbondio. «I declare they
know everything. Eh! how suspicious the world has become!
Don't you trust me ? ”
"What, Signor Curate! Don't I trust you ?
You do me
wrong. But as my name is in your black books, on the debtor's
side- Then, since you have had the trouble of writing once,
From life to death - "
“Well, well,” interrupted Don Abbondio; and muttering be-
tween his teeth, he drew out one of the table drawers, took thence
pen, ink, and paper, and began to write, repeating the words
aloud as they proceeded from his pen. In the mean time Tonio,
and at his side Gervase, placed themselves standing before the
SO -
## p. 9677 (#85) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9677
>>
table in such a manner as to conceal the door from the view of
the writer, and began to shuffle their feet about on the floor, as
if in mere idleness, but in reality as a signal to those without
to enter, and at the same time to drown the noise of their foot-
steps. Don Abbondio, intent upon his writing, noticed nothing
else. At the noise of their feet, Renzo took Lucia's arm, pressing
it in an encouraging manner, and went forward, almost dragging
her along; for she trembled to such a degree that without his
help she must have sunk to the ground. Entering very softly,
on tiptoe, and holding their breath, they placed themselves be-
hind the two brothers. In the mean time, Don Abbondio, having
finished writing, read over the paper attentively, without raising
his eyes; he then folded it up, saying, "Are you content now? ”
and taking off his spectacles with one hand, handed the paper to
Tonio with the other, and looked up. Tonio, extending his right
hand to receive it, retired on one side, and Gervase, at a sign
from him, on the other; and behold! as at the shifting of a scene,
Renzo and Lucia stood between them. Don Abbondio saw indis-
tinctly — saw clearly — was terrified, astonished, enraged, buried in
thought, came to a resolution; and all this while Renzo uttered
the words, "Signor Curate, in the presence of these witnesses,
this is my wife. ” Before, however, Lucia's lips could form the
reply, Don Abbondio dropped the receipt, seized the lamp with
his left hand and raised it in the air, caught hold of the cloth
with his right, and dragged it furiously off the table, bringing
to the ground in its fall, book, paper, inkstand, and sand-box;
and springing between the chair and the table, advanced towards
Lucia. The poor girl, with her sweet gentle voice, trembling
violently, had scarcely uttered the words, “And this when
Don Abbondio threw the cloth rudely over her head and face, to
prevent her pronouncing the entire formula. Then, letting the
light fall from his other hand, he employed both to wrap the
cloth round her face, till she was well-nigh smothered, shouting
in the mean while, at the stretch of his voice, like a wounded
bull, “Perpetua! Perpetua! — treachery! — help! ” The light, just
glimmering on the ground, threw a dim and flickering ray upon
Lucia, who, in utter consternation, made no attempt to disengage
herself, and might be compared to a statue sculptured in chalk,
over which the artificer had thrown a wet cloth. When the light
died away, Don Abbondio quitted the poor girl, and went grop-
ing about to find the door that opened into an inner room: and
## p. 9678 (#86) ############################################
9678
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
>
having reached it, he entered and shut himself in, unceasingly
exclaiming, “Perpetua! treachery! help! Out of the house! Out
of the house!
In the other room all was confusion: Renzo, seeking to lay
hold of the Curate, and feeling with his hands, as if playing at
blindman's buff, had reached the door, and kicking against it,
was crying, “Open, open; don't make such a noise ! » Lucia,
calling to Renzo in a feeble voice, said beseechingly, “Let us go,
let us go, for God's sake. ” Tonio was crawling on his knees,
and feeling with his hands on the ground to recover his lost
receipt. The terrified Gervase was crying and jumping about,
and seeking for the door of the stairs, so as to make his escape
in safety.
In the midst of this uproar, we cannot but stop a moment to
make a reflection. Renzo, who was causing disturbance at night
in another person's house, who had effected an entrance by
stealth, and who had blockaded the master himself in one of his
own rooms, has all the appearance of an oppressor; while in fact
he was the oppressed. Don Abbondio, taken by surprise, terrified
and put to flight, while peaceably engaged in his own affairs,
appears the victim; when in reality it was he who did the wrong.
Thus frequently goes the world; - or rather, we should say, thus
it went in the seventeenth century.
The besieged, finding that the enemy gave no signs of aban-
doning the enterprise, opened a window that looked into the
church-yard, and shouted out, “Help! help! ” There was a most
lovely moon; the shadow of the church, and a little farther on
the long sharp shadow of the bell-tower, lay dark, still, and well
defined, on the bright grassy level of the sacred inclosure: all
objects were visible, almost as by day. But look which way you
would, there appeared no sign of living person. Adjoining the
lateral wall of the church, on the side next the parsonage, was a
small dwelling where the sexton slept. Aroused by this unusual
cry, he sprang up in his bed, jumped out in great haste, threw
open the sash of his little window, put his head out with his
eyelids glued together all the while, and cried out, «What's the
matter? )
“Run, Ambrogio! help! people in the house! » answered Don
Abbondio. "Coming directly,” replied he, as he drew in his
head and shut the window; and although half asleep and more
than half terrified, an expedient quickly occurred to him that
## p. 9679 (#87) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9679
would bring more aid than had been asked, without dragging him
into the affray, whatever it might be. Seizing his breeches that
lay upon the bed, he tucked them under his arm like a gala hat,
and bounding down-stairs by a little wooden ladder, ran to the
belfry, caught hold of the rope that was attached to the larger
of the two bells, and pulled vigorously.
Ton, ton, ton, ton: the peasant sprang up in his bed; the
boy stretched in the hay-loft listened eagerly, and leapt upon
his feet. « What's the matter? what's the matter ? The bell 's
ringing! Fire ? Thieves ? Banditti ?
then can be credited to Sir John? While learned men are waxing hot
over conjectures the answers to which seem bey ond the search-light
of exact investigation, the unsophisticated reader holds fast by the
testimony of the knight himself as to his own identity, accepting it
along with the marvels narrated in the book:-
« 1 John Maundevile, Knight, all be it I be not worthy, that was born in
England, in the town of St. Albans, passed the sea in the year of our Lord
Jesu Christ, 1322, in the day of St. Michaelmas; and hitherto have been long
time over the Sea, and have seen and gone through many diverse Lands, and
## p. 9656 (#64) ############################################
9656
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
many Provinces and Kingdoms and Isles, and have passed through Tartary,
Persia, Ermony (Armenia] the Little and the Great; through Lybia, Chaldea,
and a great part of Ethiopia; through Amazonia, Ind the Less and the More, a
great Part; and throughout many other Isles, that be about Ind: where dwell
many diverse Folks, and of diverse Manners and Laws, and of diverse Shapes
of Men. Of which Lands and Isles I shall speak more plainly hereafter.
«And I shall advise you of some Part of things that there be, when Time
shall be hereafter, as it may best come to my Mind; and especially for them
that will and are in Purpose to visit the Holy City of Jerusalem and the
Holy Places that are thereabout. And I shall tell the way that they shall
hold hither. For I have often times passed and ridden the Way, with good
company of many Lords. God be thanked. »
And again in the epilogue:-
«And ye shall understand, if it like you, that at mine Home-coming, I
came to Rome, and showed my Life to our Holy Father the Pope,
and amongst all I showed him this treatise, that I had made after information
of Men that knew of things that I had not seen myself, and also of Marvels
and Customs that I had seen myself, as far as God would give me grace;
and besought his Holy Father-hood, that my Book might be examined and
corrected by Advice of his wise and discreet Council. And our Holy Father,
of his special Grace, remitted my Book to be examined and proved by the
Advice of his said Council. By the which my Book was proved true.
And I John Maundevile, Knight, above said, although I be unworthy, that
departed from our Countries and passed the Sea the Year of Grace 1322, that
have passed many Lands and many Isles and Countries, and searched many
full strange Places, and have been in many a full good honorable Company,
and at many a fair Deed of Arms, albeit that I did none myself, for mine
incapable Insufficiency, now am come Home, maugre myself, to Rest. For
Gouts and Rheumatics, that distress me -- those define the End of my Labor
against my Will, God knoweth.
«And thus, taking solace in my wretched rest, recording the Time passed,
I have fulfilled these Things, and put them written in this Book, as it would
come into my Mind, the Year of Grace 1356, in the 34th year that I departed
from our countries. »
The book professes, then, to be primarily a guide for pilgrims to
Jerusalem by four routes, with a handbook of the holy places. But
Sir John's love of the picturesque and the marvelous, and his delight
in a good story, lead him to linger along the way: nay, to go out of
his way in order to pick up a legend or a tale wherewith to enliven
the dry facts of the route; as if his pilgrims, weary and footsore with
long day journeys, needed a bit of diversion to cheer them along the
way. When, after many a detour, he is finally brought into Pales-
tine, the pilgrim is made to feel that every inch is holy ground.
The guide scrupulously locates even the smallest details of Bible
history. He takes it all on faith. He knows nothing of nineteenth-
## p. 9657 (#65) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
9657
century “higher criticism," nor does he believe in spiritual interpre-
tation. He will point you out the
.
.
«rock where Jacob was sleeping when he saw the angels go up and down a
ladder.
And upon that rock sat our Lady, and learned her psalter.
Also at the right side of that Dead Sea dwelleth yet the Wife of Lot
in Likeness of a Salt Stone.
And in that Plain is the Tomb of Job.
And there is the Cistern where Joseph, which they sold, was cast in
of by his Brethren.
There nigh is Gabriel's Well where our Lord
was wont to bathe him, when He was young, and from that Well bare the
Water often-time to His Mother. And in that Well she washed often-time
the Clothes of her Son Jesu Christ.
On that Hill, and in that same
Place, at the Day of Doom, 4 Angels with 4 Trumpets shall blow and raise
all Men that have suffered Death. ”
»
He touches on whatever would appeal to the pious imagination
of the pilgrims, and helps them to visualize the truths of their reli-
gion. When he leaves Palestine,--a country he knew perhaps better
than ever man before or since his day,- and goes into the more
mythical regions of Ind the Little and More, Cathay and Persia, his
imagination fairly runs riot. With an Oriental love of the gorgeous
he describes the “Royalty of the Palace of the Great Chan,” or
of Prester John's abode,- splendors not to be outdone even by the
genie of Aladdin's wonderful lamp. He takes us into regions lustrous
with gold and silver, diamonds and other precious stones. We have
indeed in the latter half of the book whole chapters rivaling the
Arabian Nights in their weird luxurious imaginings, and again in
their grotesque creations of men and beasts and plant life. What
matter where Sir John got his material for his marvels,— his rich,
monster-teeming Eastern world, with its Amazons and pigmies; its
people with hound's heads, that “be great folk and well-fighting ”; its
wild geese with two heads, and lions all white and great as oxen;
men with eyes in their shoulders, and men without heads; «folk that
have the Face all flat, all plain, without Nose and without Mouth”;
« folk that have great Ears and long that hang down to their Knees”;
and «folk that run marvelously swift with one foot so large that it
serves them as umbrella against the sun when they lie down to rest”;
the Hippotaynes, half man and half horse; griffins that have the
Body upwards as an Eagle and beneath as a Lion, and truly they
say truth, that they be of that shape. ” We find hints of many old
acquaintances of the wonder-world of story-books, and fables from
classic soil. The giants with one eye in the middle of the forehead
are close brothers to the Cyclops Polyphemus, whom Ulysses outwit-
ted. The adamant rocks were surely washed by the same seas that
swirled around the magnetic mountain whereon Sindbad the Sailor
was wrecked. Sir John was in truth a masterful borrower, levying
## p. 9658 (#66) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
tribute on all the superstitions, the legends, the stories, and the
fables current in his time; a time when the distinction between meum
and tuum, in literature as well as in other matters, was not as finely
drawn as it is now. Whatever a man could use, he plagiarized and
considered as his own. Where the robber-baron filched by means of
the sword, Sir John filched by means of the pen.
He took his mon-
sters out of Pliny, his miracles out of legends, his strange stories out
of romances. He meant to leave no rumor or invention unchronicled;
and he prefaces his most amazing assertions with «They say ” or
"Men say, but I have not seen it. ” He fed the gullibility of his age
to the top of its bent, and compiled a book so popular that more
copies from the fourteenth-century editions remain than of any other
book except the Bible.
»
THE MARVELOUS RICHES OF PRESTER JOHN
From (The Adventures)
N
I
The Land of Prester John be many divers Things and
many precious Stones, so great and so large, that Men make
of them Vessels, as Platters, Dishes, and Cups. And many
other Marvels be there, that it were too cumbrous and too long
to put in Writing of Books; but of the principal Isles and of his
Estate and of his Law, I shall tell you some Part.
And he hath under him 72 Provinces, and in every Province
is a King. And these Kings have Kings under them, and all
be Tributaries to Prester John. And he hath in his Lordships
many great Marvels.
For in his Country is the Sea that Men call the Gravelly
Sea, that is all Gravel and Sand, without any Drop of Water, and
it ebbeth and floweth in great Waves as other Seas do, and it is
never still nor at Peace in any manner of Season. And no Man
may pass that Sea by Ship, nor by any manner of Craft, and
therefore may no Man know what Land is beyond that Sea.
And albeit that it have no Water, yet Men find therein and on
the Banks full good Fishes of other manner of Nature and shape
than Men find in any other Sea, and they be of right good
Taste and delicious for Man's Meat.
And a 3 Days' Journey long from that Sea be great Mount-
ains, out of the which goeth out a great River that cometh out
of Paradise. And it is full of precious Stones, without any Drop
of Water, and it runneth through the Desert on the one side,
## p. 9659 (#67) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
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so that it maketh the Sea gravelly; and it runneth into that Sea,
and there it endeth. And that River runneth, also, 3 Days in
the Week and bringeth with him great Stones and the Rocks
also therewith, and that great Plenty. And anon, as they be
entered into the Gravelly Sea, they be seen no more, but lost
for evermore. And in those 3. Days that that River runneth, no
Man dare enter into it; but on other Days Men dare enter well
enough.
Also beyond that River, more upward to the Deserts, is a
great Plain all gravelly, between the Mountains. And in that
Plain, every Day at the Sun-rising, begin to grow small Trees,
and they grow till Midday, bearing Fruit; but no Man dare take
of that Fruit, for it is a Thing of Faerie. And after Midday
they decrease and enter again into the Earth, so that at the
going down of the Sun they appear no more. And so they do,
every Day. . And that is a great Marvel.
In that Desert be many Wild Men, that be hideous to look
on; for they be horned, and they speak naught, but they grunt,
as Pigs. And there is also great Plenty of wild Hounds. And
there be many Popinjays (or Parrots] that they call Psittakes in
their Language. And they speak of their own Nature, and say
Salve! ' [God save you! ) to Men that go through the Deserts,
and speak to them as freely as though it were a Man that spoke.
And they that speak well have a large Tongue, and have 5 Toes
upon a Foot.
And there be also some of another Manner, that
have but 3 Toes upon a Foot; and they speak not, or but little,
for they cannot but cry.
This Emperor Prester John when he goeth into Battle against
any other Lord, he hath no Banners borne before him; but he
hath 3 Crosses of Gold, fine, great, and high, full of precious
Stones, and every one of the Crosses be set in a Chariot, full
richly arrayed. And to keep every Cross, be ordained 10,000
Men of Arms and more than 100,000 Men on Foot, in manner as
when Men would keep a Standard in our Countries, when that
we be in a Land of War.
He dwelleth commonly in the City of Susa. And there is
his principal Palace, that is so rich and noble that no Man will
believe it by Estimation, but he had seen it. And above the
chief Tower of the Palace be 2 round Pommels or Balls of
Gold, and in each of them be 2 Carbuncles great and large, that
shine full bright upon the Night. And the principal gates of
## p. 9660 (#68) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
his Palace be of precious Stone that Men call Sardonyx, and the
Border and the Bars be of Ivory. And the Windows of the Halls
and Chambers be of Crystal. And the Tables whereon Men eat,
some be of Emeralds, some of Amethyst, and some of Gold, full
of precious Stones; and the Pillars that bear up the Tables be
of the same precious Stones. And of the Steps to go up to
his Throne, where he sitteth at Neat, one is of Onyx, another is
of Crystal, and another of green Jasper, another of Amethyst,
another of Sardine, another of Cornelian, and the 7th, that he
setteth his Feet on, is of Chrysolite. And all these Steps be
bordered with fine Gold, with the other precious Stones, set with
great orient Pearls. And the Sides of the Seat of his Throne
be of Emeralds, and bordered with Gold full nobly, and dubbed
with other precious Stones and great Pearls. And all the Pillars
in his Chamber be of fine Gold with Precious Stones, and with
many Carbuncles, that give Light upon the Night to all People.
And albeit that the Carbuncles give Light right enough, never-
theless, at all Times burneth a Vessel of Crystal full of Balm, to
give good Smell and Odor to the Emperor, and to void away all
wicked Eyes and Corruptions. ”
FROM HEBRON TO BETHLEHEM
From the Adventures)
ND in Hebron be all the Sepultures of the Patriarchs, -
A , ; ,
Eve, Sarah and Rebecca and of Leah; the which Sepul-
tures the Saracens keep full carefully, and have the Place in
great Reverence for the holy Fathers, the Patriarchs that lie
there. And they suffer no Christian Man to enter into the
Place, but if it be of special Grace of the Sultan; for they hold
Christian Men and Jews as Dogs, and they say, that they should
not enter into so holy a Place. And Men call that Place, where
they lie, Double Splunk (Spelunca Duplex), or Double Cave, or
Double Ditch, forasmuch as one lieth above another. And the
Saracens call that Place in their Language, "Karicarba,” that
is to say “The Place of Patriarchs. ” And the Jews call that
Place "Arboth. ” And in that same Place was Abraham's House,
and there he sat and saw 3 Persons, and worshiped but one; as
Holy Writ saith, “Tres vidit et unum adoravit;” that is to say,
»
C
>>
(
## p. 9661 (#69) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
9661
»
.
"He saw 3 and worshiped one:” and those same were the Angels
that Abraham received into his House.
And right fast by that Place is a Cave in the Rock, where
Adam and Eve dwelled when they were put out of Paradise;
and there got they their Children. And in that same Place was
Adam formed and made, after that, that some Men say (for Men
were wont to call that Place the Field of Damascus, because that
it was in the Lordship of Damascus), and from thence was he
translated into the Paradise of Delights, as they say; and after
he was driven out of Paradise he was left there. And the same
Day that he was put in Paradise, the same Day he was put out,
for anon, he sinned. There beginneth the Vale of Hebron, that
endureth nigh to Jerusalem. There the Angel commanded Adam
that he should dwell with his Wife Eve, of the which he begat
Seth; of the which Tribe, that is to say Kindred, Jesu Christ
was born.
In that Valley is a Field, where Men draw out of the Earth
a Thing that Men call Cambile, and they eat it instead of Spice,
and they bear it away to sell. And Men may not make the
Hole or the Cave, where it is taken out of the Earth, so deep or
so wide, but that it is, at the Year's End, full again up to the
Sides, through the Grace of God.
From Hebron Men go to Bethlehem in half a Day, for it is
but 5 Mile; and it is a full fair Way, by Plains and Woods full
delectable. Bethlehem is a little City, long and narrow and well
walled, and on each side enclosed with good Ditches: and it was
wont to be clept Ephrata, as Holy Writ saith, “Ecce, audimus
eum in Ephrata,” that is to say, “Lo, we heard it in Ephrata. ”
And toward the East End of the City is a full fair Church and
a gracious, and it hath many Towers, Pinnacles and Corners, full
strong and curiously made; and within that Church be 44 Pillars
of Marble, great and fair.
Also besides the Choir of the Church, at the right Side, as
Men come downward 16 Steps, is the place where our Lord was
born, that is full well adorned with Marble, and full richly
painted with Gold, Silver, Azure and other Colours.
Paces beyond is the Crib of the Ox and the Ass. And beside
that is the Place where the Star fell, that led the 3 Kings, Jas-
per, Melchior and Balthazar (but Men of Greece call them thus,
“Galgalathe, Malgalathe, and Seraphie,” and the Jews call them
in this manner, in Hebrew, “Appelius, Amerrius, and Damasus”).
>
And 3
## p. 9662 (#70) ############################################
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SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
These 3 Kings offered to our Lord, Gold, Incense and Myrrh,
and they met together through Miracle of God; for they met
together in a City in Ind, that Men call Cassak, that is a 53
Days' Journey from Bethlehem; and they were at Bethlehem
the 13th Day; and that was the 4th Day after that they had
seen the Star, when they met in that City, and thus they were
in 9 days from that City at Bethlehem, and that was a great
Miracle.
Also, under the Cloister of the Church, by 18 Steps at the
right Side, is the Charnel-house of the Innocents, where their
Bodies lie. And before the place where our Lord was born is
the Tomb of St. Jerome, that was a Priest and a Cardinal, that
translated the Bible and the Psalter from Hebrew into Latin:
and without the Minster is the Chair that he sat in when he
translated it. And fast beside that Church, at 60 Fathom, is a
Church of St. Nicholas, where our Lady rested her after she was
delivered of our Lord; and forasmuch as she had too much Milk
in her Paps, that grieved her, she milked them on the red Stones
of Marble, so that the Traces may yet be seen, in the Stones, all
white.
And ye shall understand, that all that dwell in Bethlehem be
Christian Men.
And there be fair Vines about the City, and great plenty of
Wine, that the Christian Men have made. But the Saracens till
not the Vines, neither drink they any Wine: for their Books of
their Law, that Mohammet gave them, which they call their "Al
Koran” (and some call it "Mesaph," and in another language it
is clept “Harme,”) — the same Book forbiddeth them to drink
Wine. For in that Book, Mohammet cursed all those that drink
Wine and all them that sell it: for some Men say, that he slew
once an Hermit in his Drunkenness, that he loved full well; and
therefore he cursed Wine and them that drink it. But his Curse
be turned onto his own Head, as Holy Writ saith, "Et in verticem
ipsius iniquitas ejus descendet;" that is to say, “His Wickedness
;
shall turn and fall onto his own Head. ”
And also the Saracens breed no Pigs, nor eat they any
Swine's Flesh, for they say it is Brother to Man, and it was for-
bidden by the old Law; and they hold him accursed that eateth
thereof. Also in the Land of Palestine and in the Land of
Egypt, they eat but little or none of Flesh of Veal or of Beef,
but if the Beast be so old, that he may no more work for old
## p. 9663 (#71) ############################################
SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE
9663
Age; for it is forbidden, because they have but few of them;
therefore they nourish them to till their Lands.
In this City of Bethlehem was David the King born; and he
had 60 Wives, and the first wife was called Michal; and also he
had 300 Lemans.
And from Bethlehem unto Jerusalem is but 2 Mile; and in
the Way to Jerusalem half a Mile from Bethlehem is a Church,
where the Angel said to the Shepherds of the Birth of Christ.
And in that Way is the Tomb of Rachel, that was the Mother
of Joseph the Patriarch; and she died anon after that she was
delivered of her Son Benjamin. And there she was buried by
Jacob her Husband; and he made set 12 great Stones on her, in
Token that she had born 12 Children. In the same Way, half a
Mile from Jerusalem, appeared the Star to the 3 Kings. In that
Way also be many Churches of Christian Men, by the which Men
go towards the City of Jerusalem.
## p. 9664 (#72) ############################################
9664
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
1803-1849
N THE summer of 1894 some workmen engaged in removing a
mass of rubbish, to make room for a new building in one of
the poorer quarters of Dublin, came upon the ruins of an
old cellar. A casual passer-by happened to notice the old wall, with
its low window looking out upon a level with the narrow and squalid
alley. Moved by some bookish recollection, he realized that he was
standing at the corner of Bride Street and Myler’s Alley, known in
the older days as Glendalough Lane; and that the miserable vestige
of human habitation into which the rough navvies were driving their
pickaxes had once been the poor shelter of him who,-
«Worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
Had fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song. ”
>
From this spot James Clarence Mangan, wasted with famine and
already delirious, was carried by the Overseers of the Poor to the
sheds of Meath Hospital in June 1849; too late, alas! to save the
dying man, who in the years of his young manhood had sung and
suffered for Ireland. A few friends gathered about him to comfort
his patient and gentle soul, and to lay his bones in the cool clay of
Glasnevin.
The life of Mangan is a convincing proof that differences of time
and place have no influence upon the poet's power. Poverty and
Want were the foster-brothers of this most wonderful of Ireland's
gifted children. His patient body was chained to daily labor for the
sordid needs of an unappreciating kindred, and none of the pleasant
joys of travel and of diversified nature were his. He was born in
Fishamble Street, Dublin, in 1803, and never passed beyond the con-
fines of his native city; but his spirit was not jailed by the misery
which oppressed his body His wondrous fancy swept with a con-
queror's march through all the fair broad universe.
Like Poe and Chatterton, Mangan impaired his powers by the use
of intoxicants. He was very sensitive about the squalor of his sur-
roundings, and was reticent and shy in the company of more fortu-
nate men and women: but with admirable unselfishness he devoted
his days, his toil, and the meagre rewards which came to him from
his work, to the care and sustenance of his mean-spirited kindred.
## p. 9665 (#73) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9665
For years he labored in the hopeless position of a scrivener's clerk,
from which he was rescued by the interest of Dr. Todd, and was
made an assistant librarian of Trinity College. There it was his
habit to spend hours of rapt and speechless labor amid the dusty
shelves, to earn his pittance. Dr. Petrie subsequently found him a
place in the office of the Irish Ordnance Survey; but Mangan was
his own enemy and foredoomed to defeat. He wielded a vigorous
pen in Ireland's cause, and under various names communicated his
own glowing spirit to his countrymen through the columns of several
periodicals. He published also two volumes of translations from the
German poets, which are full of his own lyric fire but have no claim
to fidelity. It was in his gloomy cellar-home that he poured out the
music of his heart. When he died, a volume of German poetry was
found in his pocket, and there were loose papers on which he had
feebly traced his last thoughts in verse. Mangan will forever remain
a cherished comrade of all gentle lovers of the Beautiful and True.
THE DAWNING OF THE DAY
"T"
WAS a balmy summer morning,
Warm and early,
Such as only June bestows;
Everywhere the earth adorning,
Dews lay pearly
In the lily-bell and rose.
Up from each green-leafy bosk and hollow
Rose the blackbird's pleasant lay;
And the soft cuckoo was sure to follow:
'Twas the dawning of the day!
Through the perfumed air the golden
Bees flew round me;
Bright fish dazzled from the sea,
Till medreamt some fairy olden-
World spell bound me
In a trance of witcherie.
Steeds pranced round anon with stateliest housings,
Bearing riders prankt in rich array,
Like flushed revelers after wine-carousings:
'Twas the dawning of the day!
Then a strain of song was chanted,
And the lightly
Floating sea-nymphs drew anear.
XVII-605
## p. 9666 (#74) ############################################
9666
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
Then again the shore seemed haunted
By hosts brightly
Clad, and wielding shield and spear!
Then came battle shouts — an onward rushing -
Swords, and chariots, and a phantom fray.
Then all vanished: the warm skies were blushing
In the dawning of the day!
Cities girt with glorious gardens,
Whose immortal
Habitants in robes of light
Stood, methought, as angel-wardens
Nigh each portal,
Now arose to daze my sight.
Eden spread around, revived and blooming;
When - lo! as I gazed, all passed away:
I saw but black rocks and billows looming
In the dim chill dawn of day!
THE NAMELESS ONE
R:
OLL forth, my song, like the rushing river
That sweeps along to the mighty sea;
God will inspire me while I deliver
My soul of thee!
Tell thou the world, when my bones lie whitening
Amid the last homes of youth and eld,
That there was once one whose veins ran lightning
No eye beheld.
Tell how his boyhood was one drear night hour;
How shone for him, through his griefs and gloom,
No star of all heaven sends to light our
Path to the tomb.
Roll on, my song, and to after ages
Tell how, disdaining all earth can give,
He would have taught men, from wisdom's pages,
The way to live.
And tell how, trampled, derided, hated,
And worn by weakness, disease, and wrong,
He fled for shelter to God, who mated
His soul with song -
## p. 9667 (#75) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9667
With song which alway, sublime or vapid,
Flowed like a rill in the morning beam,
Perchance not deep, but intense and rapid -
A mountain stream.
Tell how this Nameless, condemned for years long
To herd with demons from hell beneath,
Saw things that made him, with groans and tears, long
For even death.
Go on to tell how, with genius wasted,
Betrayed in friendship, befooled in love,
With spirit shipwrecked, and young hopes blasted,
He still, still strove.
Till, spent with toil, dreeing death for others,
And some whose hands should have wrought for him
(If children live not for sires and mothers),
His mind grew dim.
And he fell far through that pit abysmal,-
The gulf and grave of Maginn and Burns,-
And pawned his soul for the devil's dismal
Stock of returns.
But yet redeemed it in days of darkness,
And shapes and signs of the final wrath,
When death, in hideous and ghastly starkness,
Stood on his path.
And tell how now, amid wreck and sorrow,
And want, and sickness, and houseless nights,
He bides in calmness the silent morrow,
That no ray lights.
And lives he still, then ? Yes: old and hoary
At thirty-nine, from despair and woe,
He lives, enduring what future story
Will never know.
Him grant a grave too, ye pitying noble,
Deep in your bosoms! There let him dwell!
He too had tears for all souls in trouble
Here and in hell.
## p. 9668 (#76) ############################################
9668
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
ST. PATRICK'S HYMN BEFORE TARAH
A"
T TARAH to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the holy Trinity:
Glory to him who reigneth in power,
The God of the elements, Father and Son
And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,
The ever-existing Divinity!
At Tarah to-day I call on the Lord,
On Christ, the omnipotent Word,
Who came to redeem from death and sin
Our fallen race;
And I put and I place
The virtue that lieth and liveth in
His incarnation lowly,
His baptism pure and holy,
His life of toil and tears and affliction,
His dolorous death — his crucifixion,
His burial, sacred and sad and lone,
His resurrection to life again,
His glorious ascension to Heaven's high throne,
And, lastly, his future dread
And terrible coming to judge all men
Both the living and dead.
At Tarah to-day I put and I place
The virtue that dwells in the seraphim's love.
And the virtue and grace
That are in the obedience
And unshaken allegiance
Of all the archangels and angels above,
And in the hope of the resurrection
To everlasting reward and election,
And in the prayers of the fathers of old,
And in the truths the prophets foretold,
And in the Apostles' manifold preachings,
And in the confessors' faith and teachings;
And in the purity ever dwelling
Within the immaculate Virgin's breast,
And in the actions bright and excelling
Of all good men, the just and the blest.
At Tarah to-day, in this fateful hour,
I place all heaven with its power,
## p. 9669 (#77) ############################################
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
9669
And the sun with its brightness,
And the snow with its whiteness,
And fire with all the strength it hath,
And lightning with its rapid wrath,
And the winds with their swiftness along their path,
And the sea with its deepness,
And the rocks with their steepness,
And the earth with its starkness, -
All these I place,
By God's almighty help and grace,
Between myself and the powers of darkness.
At Tarah to-day
May God be my stay!
May the strength of God now nerve me!
May the power of God preserve me!
May God the Almighty be near me!
May God the Almighty espy me!
May God the Almighty hear me!
May God give me eloquent speech!
May the arm of God protect me!
May the wisdom of God direct me!
May God give me power to teach and to preach!
May the shield of God defend me!
May the host of God attend me,
And ward me,
And guard me
Against the wiles of demons and devils,
Against the temptations of vices and evils,
Against the bad passions and wrathful will
Of the reckless mind and the wicked heart,
Against every man who designs me ill,
Whether leagued with others or plotting apart!
In this hour of hours,
I place all those powers
Between myself and every foe
Who threaten my body and soul
With danger or dole,
To protect me against the evils that flow
From lying soothsayers' incantations,
From the gloomy laws of the Gentile nations,
From heresy's hateful innovations,
From idolatry's rites and invocations.
## p. 9670 (#78) ############################################
9670
JAMES CLARENCE MANGAN
-
Be those my defenders,
My guards against every ban -
And spell of smiths, and Druids, and women;
In fine, against every knowledge that renders
The light Heaven sends us dim in
The spirit and soul of man!
May Christ, I pray,
Protect me to-day
Against poison and fire,
Against drowning and wounding:
That so, in His grace abounding,
I may earn the preacher's hire!
Christ as a light
Illumine and guide me!
Christ as a shield o'ershadow and cover me!
Christ be under me! - Christ be over me!
Christ be beside me,
On left hand and right!
Christ be before me, behind me, about me;
Christ this day be within and without me!
Christ, the lowly and meek.
Christ the All-Powerful be
In the heart of each to whom I speak,
In the mouth of each who speaks to me!
In all who draw near me,
Or see me or hear me!
At Tarah to-day, in this awful hour,
I call on the Holy Trinity!
Glory to Him who reigneth in power,
The God of the elements, Father and Son
And Paraclete Spirit, which Three are the One,
The ever-existing Divinity!
Salvation dwells with the Lord,
With Christ, the omnipotent Word.
From generation to generation
Grant us, O Lord, thy grace and salvation !
## p. 9671 (#79) ############################################
9671
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
(1785-1873)
BY MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN
LESSANDRO MANZONI was looked upon during his life as a man
who had deserved well of Heaven. «He gazed,” as one of
his countrymen said, “at Fortune straight in the eyes, and
Fortune smiled. ” And Manzoni might well have looked with clear
eyes, for there was nothing in his heart — if a man's heart may be
judged from his constant utterances — that was base.
He lived in a time best suited to his genius and his temperament.
And his genius and his time made an epoch in Italian history worthy
of most serious study. In 1815 Italy was
inarticulate; she had to speak by signs.
She dared only dream of a future which
she read in a glorious past. The Austrians
ruled the present, the future was veiled,
the past was real and golden. Manzoni,
Pellico, and Grossi were romanticists be-
cause they were filled with aspiration; and
their aspiration, clothing itself in the form
which Goethe's Götz) and Sir Walter Scott's
(Marmion' had given to the world, tried to
obliterate the present and find relief at the
foot of the cross in the shadow of old Gothic
cathedrals. The Comte de Mun, Vicomte ALESSANDRO MANZONI
de Vogüe, Sienkiewicz, and others of the
modern neo-Catholic school, represent reaction rather than aspiration.
Manzoni, Châteaubriand, Montalembert, Overbeck in art, Lamartine
and Lamennais, were not only fiercely reactionary, but fiercely senti-
mental, hopeful, and romantic.
With Austrian bayonets at the throat of Italy, it was not easy
to emit loud war-cries for liberty. The desire of the people must
therefore be heard through the voice of the poet. And the desire of
the Italians is manifest in the poetry and the prose of the author of
"The Betrothed' (I Promessi Sposi), and the Sacred Hymns. Only
two reproaches were made against Manzoni: he was praised by Goe-
the,- which, “says a sneer turned proverb,” as Mr. Howells puts it,
“is a brevet of mediocrity,” — and he was not persecuted. «Goethe,”
-
)
-
## p. 9672 (#80) ############################################
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ALESSANDRO MANZONI
>
Mr. Howells continues, “could not laud Manzoni's tragedies too highly;
he did not find one word too much or too little in them; the style
was free, noble, full, and rich. As to the religious lyrics, the manner
of their treatment was fresh and individual although the matter and
the significance were not new, and the poet was 'a Christian without
fanaticism, a Roman Catholic without bigotry, a zealot without hard-
ness.
In 1815 the Continental revolt against the doctrines of Rousseau
and Voltaire was at its highest. The period that produced Cesare
Cantù was likewise the period when Ossian and Byron had become
the favorite poets of the younger men. Classicism and infidelity were
both detested. The last king was not, after all, to be strangled with
the entrails of the last priest. God might rest, as a writer on the
time remarks with naïveté. It was the fashion to be respectful to
him. Italy was willing to disown the paganism of the Renaissance
for the moral teaching of the ages that preceded it. Manzoni and
his school held that true patriotism must be accompanied by virtue ;
and in a country where Machiavelli's Prince) had become a classic,
this seemed a new doctrine. The movement which Manzoni repre-
sented was above all religious; the pope was again transfigured, and
in his case by a man who had begun life with the most liberal tenden-
cies. As it was, he never accepted the belief that the pope must
necessarily be a ruler of great temporalities; but of the sincerity
and fervor of his faith in the Catholic Church one finds ample proof
in his (Sacred Hymns. '
Born at Milan in 1785, he married Mademoiselle Blondel in 1808.
Her father was a banker of Geneva; and tradition says that he was
of that cultivated group of financiers to whom the Neckers belonged,
and that his daughter was of a most dazzling blonde beauty. The
Blondels, like the Neckers, were Protestants; but at Milan, Louise
Blondel entered the Catholic Church and confirmed the wavering
faith of her young husband, who began at once the (Sacred Hymns. '
In these Mr. Howells praises “the irreproachable taste and unaffected
poetic appreciation of the grandeur of Christianity. ” One may go
even further; for they have the fervor, the exultation, the knowledge
that the Redeemer liveth, in a fullness which we do not find in sacred
song outside the Psalms of David, the Dies Iræ,' and the Stabat
Mater. )
Manzoni's poems were not many, but they all have the element of
greatness in them. We can understand why the invading Austrians
desired to honor him, when we read his ode (The Fifth of May) (on
the death of Napoleon), or his two noble tragedies (The Count of
Carmagnola) and Adelchi,' or that pride of all Italians, his master-
piece, The Betrothed” (I Promessi Sposi'). We can understand too
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ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9673
the lofty haughtiness that induced him to refuse these honors, and
to relinquish his hereditary title of Count, rather than submit to the
order that he must register himself as an Austrian subject. The gov-
ernment, however, did not cease to offer honors to him; all of which,
except the Italian senatorship proffered him in 1860, he declined.
Great tragedies, like Shelley's Cenci,' Sir Henry Taylor's “Philip van
Artevelde,' and Sir Aubrey De Vere's Mary Tudor,' may be unact-
able; they may speak best to the heart and mind only through the
written word. Manzoni's are of this class. They have elevation,
dramatic feeling, the power of making emotion vital and of inspiring
passionate sympathy with the intention of the author; but even Sal-
vini, Rossi, or Ristori could not make them possible for the stage.
In the Count of Carmagnola,' which celebrated the physical ruin but
moral success of a noble man, Manzoni in 1820 shocked the classicists
and won their hatred. They loved Aristotle and his rules; Manzoni
broke every rule as thoroughly as Shakespeare and as consciously as
Victor Hugo. He was looked upon as a literary, artistic apostate. In
his explanation of his reasons for this assault on an old world, he
makes an audacious apologia which Alfred de Musset might have read
with profit before despairing of a definition of romanticism. Adelchi?
followed in 1822, still further exasperating the fury of the classicists,
who hated Manzoni and romance; foreseeing perhaps by intuition that
the romantic school was to be the ancestor of the realistic school,
whose horrors were only dimly dreamed of.
The Sacred Hymns,' The Count of Carmagnola,' Adelchi, The
Betrothed, and the great :' Fifth of May) ode on the death of Napo-
leon, are the works by which Manzoni's fame was established. The
tragedies - Carmagnola' of the fifteenth century, Adelchi? of the
eighth — would live for their strong lyrical element, even were the
quality of eloquence and the fire that must underlie eloquence lack-
ing Pathos is exquisite in both these plays; the marble hearts
of the Italian classic tragedy are replaced here by vital, palpitating
flesh. When Carmagnola dies for his act of humanity in releasing
his prisoners of war, and Ermengarda, whose loveliness is portrayed
with the delicacy of the hand that drew Elaine, passes away in her
convent, one feels that the world may indeed mourn. And when a
poet can force us to take the shades of the Middle Ages for real
human beings, no man may deny his gift.
(The Fifth of May,' the noblest ode in the Italian language,
almost defies translation. Mr. Howells has made the best possible
version of it. Napoleon had wronged Italy, but Italy speaking
through its poet forgave him.
« Beautiful, deathless, beneficent,
Faith! used to triumphs even
## p. 9674 (#82) ############################################
9674
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
This also writes exultingly;
No loftier pride 'neath heaven
Unto the shame of Calvary
Stooped ever yet its crest.
Thou from his weary mortality
Disperse all bitter passions;
The God that humbleth and hearteneth,
That comforts and that chastens,
Upon the pillow else desolate
To his pale lips lay pressed!
(The Betrothed' is one of the classics of fiction. It appeared in
1825. Since that time it has been translated into every language in
the civilized world. It deserves the verdict which time has passed
upon it. Don Abbondio and Cardinal Federigo Borromeo, Renzo and
Lucia, and Don Rodrigo, go on from year to year seeming to gain
new vitality. It will bear the test of a reading in youth and a re-
reading in old age; and there are few books of fiction of which this
can be said, - it is a standard of their greatness.
Manzoni died in 1873. His patriotic dreams had not been entirely
realized; but he passed away content, in faith and hope. His career
was on the whole happy and serene. He loved the simple things of
life, and looked on life itself as only a vestibule — to be nobly
adorned, however -- to a place of absolute peace.
Arnaud's I Poetti Patriottica' (1862); (Storia della Litteratura
Italiana,' by De Sanctis (1879); and William Dean Howells's Modern
Italian Poets' (Harper & Brothers: 1887), -- are valuable books of ref-
erence on the romantic movement in Italy, and on the position of
Manzoni in that movement. The best translation of The Betrothed
is included in the Bohn Library.
n
Jrancis
Egan
AN UNWILLING PRIEST
From The Betrothed
[ The following amusing scene occurs in the earlier portion of Manzoni's
novel. Don Abbondio, a cowardly village curate, has been warned by Don
Rodrigo, his lord of the manor, that if he dares to unite in marriage two
young peasants, Renzo and Lucia (the “betrothed ” of the story), vengeance
will follow. The priest accordingly shirks his duty; and cruelly refusing to
set any marriage date, shuts himself up in his house and even barricades him-
self against Renzo's entreaties. Donna Agnese, the mother of Lucia, bears
that if a betrothed pair can but reach the presence of their parish priest and
## p. 9675 (#83) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9675
announce that they take each other as man and wife, the marriage is as bind-
ing as if celebrated with all formality. Accordingly Agnese devises a sort of
attack on the priest by stratagem, to be managed by the parties to the con-
tract and two witnesses (the brothers Tonio and Gervase); which device is con.
siderably endangered by the wariness of the curate's housekeeper, Perpetua. ]
I
N FRONT of Don Abbondio's door, a narrow street ran between
two cottages; but only continued straight the length of the
buildings, and then turned into the fields. Agnese went for-
ward along this street, as if she would go a little aside to speak
more freely, and Perpetua followed. When they had turned the
corner, and reached a spot whence they could no longer see what
happened before Don Abbondio's house, Agnese coughed loudly.
This was the signal; Renzo heard it, and re-animating Lucia
by pressing her arm, they turned the corner together on tiptoe,
crept very softly close along the wall, reached the door, and
gently pushed it open: quiet, and stooping low, they were quickly
in the passage; and here the two brothers were waiting for them.
Renzo very gently let down the latch of the door, and they all
four ascended the stairs, making scarcely noise enough for two.
On reaching the landing, the two brothers advanced towards
the door of the room at the side of the staircase, and the lovers
stood close against the wall.
Deo gratias," said Tonio in an explanatory tone.
Eh, Tonio! is it you ? Come in! ” replied the voice within.
Tonio opened the door, scarcely wide enough to admit himself
and his brother one at a time. The ray of light that suddenly
shone through the opening and crossed the dark floor of the
landing made Lucia tremble, as if she were discovered. When
the brothers had entered, Tonio closed the door inside: the lov-
ers stood motionless in the dark, their ears intently on the alert,
and holding their breath; the loudest noise was the beating of
poor Lucia's heart.
Don Abbondio was seated, as we have said, in an old arm-
chair, enveloped in an antiquated dressing-gown, and his head
buried in a shabby cap of the shape of a tiara, which by the
faint light of a small lamp formed a sort of cornice all around
his face. Two thick locks which escaped from beneath his head-
dress, two thick eyebrows, two thick mustachios, and a thick tuft
on the chin, all of them gray and scattered over his dark and
wrinkled visage, might be compared to bushes covered with snow,
projecting from the face of a cliff, as seen by moonlight.
## p. 9676 (#84) ############################################
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ALESSANDRO MANZONI
"Aha! ” was his salutation, as he took off his spectacles and
laid them on his book.
“The Signor Curate will say I am come very late," said Tonio
with a low bow, which Gervase awkwardly imitated.
“Certainly, it is late — late every way. Don't you know I
am ill? ”
"I'm very sorry for it. ”
“You must have heard I was ill, and didn't know when I
should be able to see anybody.
But why have you
brought this — this boy with you ? »
"For company, Signor Curate. ”
“Very well, let us see. ”
“Here are twenty-five new berlinghe, with the figure of Saint
Ambrose on horseback," said Tonio, drawing a little parcel out
of his pocket.
“Let us see,” said Don Abbondio; and he took the parcel, put
on his spectacles again, opened it, took out the berlinghe, turned
them over and over, counted them, and found them irreprehen-
sible.
“Now, Signor Curate, you will give me Tecla's necklace. ”
“ You are right,” replied Don Abbondio; and going to a
cupboard, he took out a key, looking around as if to see that all
prying spectators were at a proper distance, opened one of the
doors, and filling up the aperture with his person, introduced his
head to see and his arm to reach the pledge; then drawing it
out, he shut the cupboard, unwrapped the paper, and saying,
“Is that right ? ” folded it up again and handed it to Tonio.
“Now,” said Tonio, "will you please to put it in black and
white? ”
"Not satisfied yet! ” said Don Abbondio. «I declare they
know everything. Eh! how suspicious the world has become!
Don't you trust me ? ”
"What, Signor Curate! Don't I trust you ?
You do me
wrong. But as my name is in your black books, on the debtor's
side- Then, since you have had the trouble of writing once,
From life to death - "
“Well, well,” interrupted Don Abbondio; and muttering be-
tween his teeth, he drew out one of the table drawers, took thence
pen, ink, and paper, and began to write, repeating the words
aloud as they proceeded from his pen. In the mean time Tonio,
and at his side Gervase, placed themselves standing before the
SO -
## p. 9677 (#85) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
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>>
table in such a manner as to conceal the door from the view of
the writer, and began to shuffle their feet about on the floor, as
if in mere idleness, but in reality as a signal to those without
to enter, and at the same time to drown the noise of their foot-
steps. Don Abbondio, intent upon his writing, noticed nothing
else. At the noise of their feet, Renzo took Lucia's arm, pressing
it in an encouraging manner, and went forward, almost dragging
her along; for she trembled to such a degree that without his
help she must have sunk to the ground. Entering very softly,
on tiptoe, and holding their breath, they placed themselves be-
hind the two brothers. In the mean time, Don Abbondio, having
finished writing, read over the paper attentively, without raising
his eyes; he then folded it up, saying, "Are you content now? ”
and taking off his spectacles with one hand, handed the paper to
Tonio with the other, and looked up. Tonio, extending his right
hand to receive it, retired on one side, and Gervase, at a sign
from him, on the other; and behold! as at the shifting of a scene,
Renzo and Lucia stood between them. Don Abbondio saw indis-
tinctly — saw clearly — was terrified, astonished, enraged, buried in
thought, came to a resolution; and all this while Renzo uttered
the words, "Signor Curate, in the presence of these witnesses,
this is my wife. ” Before, however, Lucia's lips could form the
reply, Don Abbondio dropped the receipt, seized the lamp with
his left hand and raised it in the air, caught hold of the cloth
with his right, and dragged it furiously off the table, bringing
to the ground in its fall, book, paper, inkstand, and sand-box;
and springing between the chair and the table, advanced towards
Lucia. The poor girl, with her sweet gentle voice, trembling
violently, had scarcely uttered the words, “And this when
Don Abbondio threw the cloth rudely over her head and face, to
prevent her pronouncing the entire formula. Then, letting the
light fall from his other hand, he employed both to wrap the
cloth round her face, till she was well-nigh smothered, shouting
in the mean while, at the stretch of his voice, like a wounded
bull, “Perpetua! Perpetua! — treachery! — help! ” The light, just
glimmering on the ground, threw a dim and flickering ray upon
Lucia, who, in utter consternation, made no attempt to disengage
herself, and might be compared to a statue sculptured in chalk,
over which the artificer had thrown a wet cloth. When the light
died away, Don Abbondio quitted the poor girl, and went grop-
ing about to find the door that opened into an inner room: and
## p. 9678 (#86) ############################################
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ALESSANDRO MANZONI
>
having reached it, he entered and shut himself in, unceasingly
exclaiming, “Perpetua! treachery! help! Out of the house! Out
of the house!
In the other room all was confusion: Renzo, seeking to lay
hold of the Curate, and feeling with his hands, as if playing at
blindman's buff, had reached the door, and kicking against it,
was crying, “Open, open; don't make such a noise ! » Lucia,
calling to Renzo in a feeble voice, said beseechingly, “Let us go,
let us go, for God's sake. ” Tonio was crawling on his knees,
and feeling with his hands on the ground to recover his lost
receipt. The terrified Gervase was crying and jumping about,
and seeking for the door of the stairs, so as to make his escape
in safety.
In the midst of this uproar, we cannot but stop a moment to
make a reflection. Renzo, who was causing disturbance at night
in another person's house, who had effected an entrance by
stealth, and who had blockaded the master himself in one of his
own rooms, has all the appearance of an oppressor; while in fact
he was the oppressed. Don Abbondio, taken by surprise, terrified
and put to flight, while peaceably engaged in his own affairs,
appears the victim; when in reality it was he who did the wrong.
Thus frequently goes the world; - or rather, we should say, thus
it went in the seventeenth century.
The besieged, finding that the enemy gave no signs of aban-
doning the enterprise, opened a window that looked into the
church-yard, and shouted out, “Help! help! ” There was a most
lovely moon; the shadow of the church, and a little farther on
the long sharp shadow of the bell-tower, lay dark, still, and well
defined, on the bright grassy level of the sacred inclosure: all
objects were visible, almost as by day. But look which way you
would, there appeared no sign of living person. Adjoining the
lateral wall of the church, on the side next the parsonage, was a
small dwelling where the sexton slept. Aroused by this unusual
cry, he sprang up in his bed, jumped out in great haste, threw
open the sash of his little window, put his head out with his
eyelids glued together all the while, and cried out, «What's the
matter? )
“Run, Ambrogio! help! people in the house! » answered Don
Abbondio. "Coming directly,” replied he, as he drew in his
head and shut the window; and although half asleep and more
than half terrified, an expedient quickly occurred to him that
## p. 9679 (#87) ############################################
ALESSANDRO MANZONI
9679
would bring more aid than had been asked, without dragging him
into the affray, whatever it might be. Seizing his breeches that
lay upon the bed, he tucked them under his arm like a gala hat,
and bounding down-stairs by a little wooden ladder, ran to the
belfry, caught hold of the rope that was attached to the larger
of the two bells, and pulled vigorously.
Ton, ton, ton, ton: the peasant sprang up in his bed; the
boy stretched in the hay-loft listened eagerly, and leapt upon
his feet. « What's the matter? what's the matter ? The bell 's
ringing! Fire ? Thieves ? Banditti ?
