I swallowed not even a
spoonful
of soup the whole
day.
day.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v19 - Oli to Phi
Our wanderers re-
turned joyfully to their forest dominion, being thus relieved from
the vicinity of any more formidable belligerent than their old
bruised and beaten enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
## p. 11258 (#478) ##########################################
11258
―――
EORGE PEELE's life is shrouded in mystery; but enough is
known of him to say that he was a man of education, who,
like so many of his fellow Elizabethan playwrights, lived fast
and died young.
He formed one of the group of pre-Shakespearean
dramatists, who stand for the transitional period between the older
moralities those crude attempts at stage allegory-and the crafts-
manship of the master-poet. Neither the birthday nor the death-day
of Peele is known. He is believed to have been born in Devonshire
in or about 1553; and he was dead by 1598. His father was a Lon-
don merchant, who had the distinction of writing a work on book-
keeping said to have introduced the Italian system to England. The
son was an Oxford man, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in
1577, and his degree of Master of Arts two years later. Before he
left the University he was recognized as a poet, and was marked for
his tendencies to social gayety; a trait that became still more pro-
nounced when he went up to London, where he was ejected from his
father's house, and joined the roystering set of blades known as the
University wits, who wrote plays and poems and burned life's candle
at both ends. He was reputed a sad wag, as the untrustworthy vol-
ume The Jests of George Peele' testifies. He foregathered with
Nash, Marlowe, and Greene, and by tradition haunted the tavern and
the green-room,- a dissolute scribbler in whom was a spark of gen-
ius, and who, however irregular his habits, dying in mid-manhood left
literary work which declares him, after all, an industrious author. He
made five dramas, and besides published a number of volumes of
poems and pageants. The first drama, 'The Arraignment of Paris,'
probably presented in 1581, is a pastoral treatment, mostly in heroic
couplets, of the myth of the awarding of the golden apple, with a
naïve patriotic application,-making Venus, who wins the prize of
beauty, yield it in turn to Queen Elizabeth. The Famous Chronicle
of Edward I. ' (1593) shows the writer struggling towards the true
historical tragedy. It has some effective scenes but little poetry, and
as a whole is confused and ill-welded. The Battle of Alcazar'
(1592) is a vigorous play, but lacks construction. The Old Wives'
Tales' (1595) is a rollicking farce, stuffed with nonsense, and one of
those inchoate dramatic performances very characteristic of the earlier
-
GEORGE PEELE
(1553 ? -1598? )
## p. 11259 (#479) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11259
Its
English playwrights, but far removed from a serious art purpose.
main significance lies in its having supplied Milton with Comus. ' It
is in his last play, 'David and Bethsabe,' printed in 1599, that Peele
reached his high-water mark of imaginative poetry. It deals with the
Bible story in a spirit of sensuous romanticism, and contains lovely
passages of blank verse of the amatory and descriptive sort, handling
that measure with a skill such as only Marlowe of the forerunners
of Shakespeare has surpassed. The piece lacks dramatic force, being
idyllic in motive and manner. A pastoral drama, 'The Hunting of
Cupid,' known to have been written by Peele, has been lost. This
author's miscellaneous writings include three pageants or court spec-
tacles, and half a dozen volumes of poems,—the most elaborate of
which is 'The Honor of the Garter,' a blank-verse gratulatory address
to several noblemen, and containing in its dedication a fine tribute to
his dead friend Marlowe. Some of Peele's lyrics, found in his plays
or in his various volumes of verse, are among the most beautiful in
the whole range of Elizabethan song; and no representation of his
work can omit them. They became popular at once, and were printed
in various song collections of the time. A man of considerable cult-
ure, he shows both classic and Italian influence in his writing; but
his occasional rich, smooth, fanciful utterance was his by birthright,
and merits forgiveness for his dramatic shortcomings. As a play-
maker he did not do so much in preparing the way for Shakespeare
as other contemporaries like Lyly or Greene. But he surpassed them
in his occasional lyric touch and tone.
OLD AGE
Is golden locks time hath to silver turned;
HTS
Oh time too swift, oh swiftness never ceasing:
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain,-youth waneth by increasing,
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song:-
## p. 11260 (#480) ##########################################
11260
GEORGE PEELE
"Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,
Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.
Goddess, allow this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. "
DAVID AND BETHSABE
From Dyce's Edition of Peele's Works, Vol. II.
He draws a curtain and discovers Bethsabe with her maid bathing over a
spring; she sings, and David sits above viewing her.
Bethsabe-
-----
THE SONG
OT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
H
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me;
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,-
Make not my glad cause, cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Inflame unstayed desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.
Come, gentle Zephyr, trickt with those perfumes
That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:
This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce.
Thou and thy sister, soft and sacred air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbor sweet;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath:
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton with us through the leaves.
David What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce
My soul, incensèd with a sudden fire?
What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise,
Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame?
## p. 11261 (#481) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11261
Fair Eva, placed in perfect happiness,
Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,
Strook with the accents of archangels' tunes,
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts
Than this fair woman's words and notes to mine.
May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant weight
Be still enameled with discolored flowers;
That precious fount bear sand of purest gold;
And for the pebble, let the silver streams
That pierce earth's bowels to maintain the source,
Play upon rubies, sapphires, chrysolites;
The brims let be embraced with golden curls
Of moss, that sleeps with sound the waters make,
For joy to feed the fount with their recourse;
Let all the grass that beautifies her bower
Bear manna every morn instead of dew;
Or let the dew be sweeter far than that
That hangs, like chains of pearl, on Hermon's hill,
Or balm which trickled from old Aaron's beard.
Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To joy her love I'll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys,
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests
In oblique turnings, wind the nimble waves
About the circles of her curious walks;
And with their murmur summon easeful sleep,
To lay his golden sceptre on her brows.
Open the doors, and entertain my love;
Open, I say, and as you open, sing,
Welcome fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
FROM A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS
DRAKE'
AVE done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
H
With stretching sails to plow the swelling waves;
Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
Farewell; bid stately Troynovant adieu,
Where pleasant Thames from Isis's silver head
Begins her quiet glide, and runs along
## p. 11262 (#482) ##########################################
11262
GEORGE PEELE
To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her course,
Near neighbor to the ancient stony tower,
The glorious hold that Julius Cæsar built.
Change love for arms, girt to your blades, my boys!
Your rests and muskets take, take helm and targe,
And let god Mars his consort make you mirth,—
The roaring cannon, and the brazen trump,
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife,
The shrieks of men, the princely courser's neigh.
Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home;
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu,
That under many a standard well advanced
Have hid the sweet alarms and braves of love;
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukely, and the rest,
Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms!
With noble Norris and victorious Drake,
Under the sanguine cross, brave England's badge,
To propagate religious piety
And hew a passage with your conquering swords
By land and sea, wherever Phoebus's eye,
Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light;
By golden Tagus, or the western Ind,
Or through the spacious bay of Portugal,
The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea,
From great Alcides's pillars branching forth,
Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome;
There to deface the pride of Antichrist,
And pull his paper walls and popery down,-
A famous enterprise for England's strength,
To steel your swords on Avarice's triple crown,
And cleanse Augeas's stall in Italy.
To arms, my fellow-soldiers! Sea and land
Lie open to the voyage you intend:
And sea or land, bold Britons, far or near,
Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes,
Whether to Europe's bounds or Asian plains,
To Afric's shore, or rich America,
Down to the shades of deep Avernus's crags,
Sail on; pursue your honors to your graves.
Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
And every climate virtue's tabernacle.
To arms, to arms, to honorable arms!
## p. 11263 (#483) ##########################################
11263
•
SILVIO PELLICO
(1789-1854)
BY J. F. BINGHAM
N THE little curious old capital of Savoy, some thirty miles
southwest of Turin, stands an elegant but unobtrusive mon-
ument which is a centre of pilgrimage from all quarters of
the literary world. Around this monument, in the year of our Lord
1889, were gathered the most distinguished representatives of liter-
ature, learning, and patriotism from all parts of Italy and of Europe,
to celebrate with eloquence and song the
hundredth anniversary of the birth there of
Saluzzo's most illustrious son, a name now
as familiar as that of Dante throughout the
civilized world,-Silvio Pellico.
Here he and a twin sister of extraordi-
nary beauty (who exercised an important
influence over his whole life) were born
on the 21st of June, 1789. The mother was
a Tournier (a name famous in the manu-
facture of silk) of Chambéry, the ancient
capital of Savoy; then as now, after sev-
eral alternations, a province of France, and
always an important intellectual centre,
as well as a leader in silk manufactures.
Mademoiselle Tournier had relations also in the silk trade in Lyons.
So prized or so important was the name regarded, that she retained
it after marriage, and is always spoken of as La Signora Pellico
Tournier.
SILVIO PELLICO
The fact that his family was not noble, like that of Alfieri and
Manzoni and so many others in the front rank of Italian literature,
with whom Pellico is of necessity brought into literary comparison,
but was of the prosperous mercantile class; and further, that his
mother, a woman as it appears of a strong character, was of the warm
blood of the bourgeoisie of southern France, -is a matter of interest
and importance in many ways to the critical historian of literature,
but one on which it is beyond the scope of this work to dwell. It
is only necessary here to point out that it naturally set him nearer
to the heart of the common people; led him into those associations,
## p. 11264 (#484) ##########################################
11264
SILVIO PELLICO
and brought him to breathe in that atmosphere of heated patriotism,
so called, which cost him many years of dreadful suffering, and cost
the world, perhaps, the loss of some peculiar and precious things
which would otherwise have flowed from his gentle, sympathetic
pen.
The father and mother of Pellico, however, were cultivated and
religious people. The father was also a poet of some fame, and
formerly held an important civil office in the government. During
the political overturnings of the stormy times which ushered in this
century in Europe, he lost his civil function, and engaged in the
manufacture of silk.
The children, of whom there were six,-three boys and three girls,
alternating with one another in the order of their birth,- were edu-
cated at home with the aid of tutors; which home was changed
first to Turin, and finally to Milan, where the father had been restored
to a place in the civil government. This education of the children
under the devoted care of these excellent people, in an atmosphere
of religion, learning, and the purest domestic love, told with beauti-
ful effect on both the mind and heart of Silvio, and left a distinct
impress on his whole life and work.
His adored twin sister he always speaks of as beautiful and lovely
beyond description; and to her he was inseparably attached. In
their eighteenth year this sister was married to a silk merchant of
Lyons. Silvio went with her on the bridal journey to her home, and
remained in her house four studious years. It was the time of the
swiftly ascending glory of the First Empire in France. Napoleon I.
was already the wonder and terror of Europe. Italy was feeling,
with mingled and conflicting emotions, his irresistible hand.
The passionate yet ingenuous, patriotic youth felt his heart burn
and his blood boil at the changes and crimes that were transpiring
in Italy, especially in his own Savoy and Lombardy; and in 1811 he
returned to Milan, with the purpose of doing what he could for his
country. He lived there in great intimacy with Ugo Foscolo and
Vincenzo Monti, and many of the leading liberal poets and littérateurs
of the day.
When in 1815 Napoleon had disappeared, and the Congress of
Vienna had remapped Western Europe, and the iron hand of Aus-
tria clenched his fatherland with a tenfold crueler grip, his patriot-
ism overstepped the limits of prudence. He not only set himself to
writing articles offensive to the government, but actually connected
himself with the Carbonari (or Coalmen, on account of holding their
meetings in a coal cellar), a treasonable secret society of the lower
orders. He was arrested, and languished two years in the prison
of the Piombi in Venice. He was at length tried for constructive
1
## p. 11265 (#485) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11265
treason, and condemned to die. By the clemency of the Emperor the
sentence was commuted to hard labor for fifteen years in the sub-
terranean dungeons of the Spielberg.
How could he be so imprudent? Yes, how could he? Perhaps
the incredible brutality of that Austrian tyranny is forgotten. Let
me quote from the Martyrs of Italy,' by Bocci and Zaccaria, certainly
authentic history, only one of hundreds of similar or worse examples,
some of which cannot be quoted:-
"In Milan a Florentine girl of eighteen, and her companion, a girl of
twenty, from Cremona, were condemned to fifteen stripes each, for having
reproached a renegade Italian woman, who had made an obtrusive display
from one of her windows of the colors black and yellow,- the colors of the
Austrian flag! And when the wretched girls were led out stripped for punish-
ment into the public square, and the edifying sentence was being executed in
the sight of thousands, all the élite of Austrian society from their carriages
and palace windows looked on and laughed at the fright and frantic cries and
agony and shame of the poor girls! »
And remember that Pellico had sisters whom he loved more than
life.
The Francesca da Rimini' had been produced. It had caught
the ear of the people. Fame seemed to be coming. But he was still
in the dew of youth. His name was new in the world of letters.
Suddenly, in this first blossoming of youthful promise, he was with-
drawn from view, as entirely as if he were in his grave. He was
virtually in the chambers of the dead-even in hell itself.
Had his story ended here, the world would have heard no more
of Silvio Pellico. But he lived to come forth from his long entomb-
ment, to mingle again in the activities of this living world, and
to recount the tremendous and refined tortures undergone by the
wretched human beings who moved and breathed and suffered in
these infernal abodes, still this side the river of death. No sooner
was that story uttered upon the free air of heaven, than it was evi-
dent to all the world that the star of Pellico had not set. It had
emerged from the black cloud which ten years before had seemed to
quench it, now like a comet blazing in the face of the universe.
The book 'Le Mie Prigioni (My Imprisonment) was first published
in Turin in 1832. It was written in a style of unpretending sim-
plicity, with an almost superhuman gentleness and sincerity (consider-
ing the subjects of which it treats), and with an angelic pathos all
his own, without one blast of malediction, one growling thunder of
the coming storm; but in the event it made the Austrian powers
turn pale, and shook that old iron throne. It was quickly translated
into every language of modern Europe, carried the civilized world off
its feet with admiration and astonishment, and made all Christendom
XIX-705
## p. 11266 (#486) ##########################################
11266
SILVIO PELLICO
blush with sympathy and anger; and as was remarked by an eminent
statesman of the time, "it struck a heavier blow upon. the tyranny of
Austria, and for Italian liberty, than would have been the loss of an
army in battle. "
With a constitution broken by suffering, he lingered on in a cer-
tain literary activity till 1854; but left no other results comparable to
the productions of his youth.
F. Bingham
FROM LE MIE PRIGIONI
HIS PURPOSE IN WRITING THE Book
IT
N WRITING these memories, my motive has been that of con-
tributing to the comfort of the unhappy, by making known.
the evils I have borne and the consolations I have found
attainable under the greatest misfortunes; that of bearing wit-
ness that in the midst of my long sufferings I have not found
human nature so degraded, so unworthy of indulgence, so defi-
cient in excellent characters, as it is commonly represented; that
of inviting noble hearts to love much, to hate no human being,
to feel irreconcilable hatred only towards mean deceit, pusilla-
nimity, perfidy, and all moral degradation; that of repeating a
truth well known, but often forgotten,- that both religion and
philosophy require an energetic will and calm judgment; and
that without the union of these qualities there can be neither
justice, nor dignity, nor strength of principle.
ARREST AND FIRST DAY IN PRISON
ON FRIDAY the 13th of October, 1820, I was arrested at Milan,
and carried to the prison of Santa Margherita. It was three
o'clock in the afternoon. I was immediately subjected to a long
examination, which was continued through several days. But of
this I shall say nothing. Like a lover ill-treated of his mistress,
and manfully resolved to keep himself aloof from her, I shall
leave politics where they are, and speak of other things.
At nine in the evening of that miserable Friday, the no-
tary consigned me to the jailer, who conducted me to the room
## p. 11267 (#487) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11267
destined for me. He civilly requested me to give up to him (to
be restored in due time) my watch, my money, and everything
else that I had in my pockets, and respectfully wished me a
good-night.
"Stop, dear sir," said I to him, "I have not dined to-day: let
something be brought me. "
"Immediately; the eating-house is near, and you will find the
wine good, sir. "
"I do not drink wine. "
At this answer Signor Angiolino looked alarmed, and hoped
I was jesting. Jailers who sell wine have a horror of an abste-
mious prisoner.
"Indeed I do not drink it. "
"I am sorry for you: you will suffer doubly from solitude. "
He went out, and in less than half an hour I had my
dinner. I ate a few mouthfuls, swallowed a glass of water, and
was left alone.
·
My room was on the lower floor, and looked out upon the
court. There were cells on each side, above, and opposite. I
leaned on the window, and listened for some time to the passing
and repassing of the jailers, and to the wild singing of some of
the prisoners.
I reflected:
"A century ago this was a monastery; the holy and penitent
virgins who dwelt here never imagined that at this day their
cells would resound no more with the sighs of women and with
pious hymns, but with blasphemies and indecent songs, and
would contain men of all kinds,- the greater part destined to
hard labor, or to the gallows.
"Yesterday I was one of the happiest of men: to-day I no
longer possess any of the joys which gladdened my life; liberty,
intercourse with my friends, hope itself is gone. I shall go hence
only to be thrown into some horrible den, or to be consigned to
the executioner. Well, the day after my death, it will be the
same as if I had expired in a palace and had been borne to the
tomb with the greatest honors. "
――――――――――
But my thoughts turned to my father, my mother, my two
brothers, my two sisters, and another family which I loved as
if it were my own; and my philosophical reasoning was of no
avail,—I was overcome, and wept like a child.
## p. 11268 (#488) ##########################################
11268
SILVIO PELLICO
THE ROMANCE WITH MADDALENA
FROM the gallery that was under my window there was a
passage through an arch to another court, where were the prisons
and hospitals for females. A single wall, and that very thin,
divided me from one of the rooms of the women. Often these
poor creatures almost stunned me with their songs, sometimes
with their quarrels.
Late in the evening, when all was still, I heard them talk.
Some of those female voices were sweet, and those why
should I not say it? were dear to me. One sweeter than the
others was heard less often, and never uttered vulgar thoughts.
She sung little, and for the most part only these two pathetic
lines:-
"Chi rende alla meschina
La sua felicità ? "
- -
Sometimes she sang the Litanies; and her companions accom-
panied her, but I could always distinguish the voice of Maddalena
amidst all the power of louder and rougher voices. Her compan-
ions called her Maddalena, and related their troubles to her, and
she pitied them and sighed and said, "Take courage, my dear:
the Lord never forsakes any one. "
What could prevent me from imagining her beautiful, and
more unfortunate than culpable; born for virtue, and capable of
returning to it if she had swerved from it? Who could blame
me if I were affected by the sound of her voice? if I listened
to her with respectful interest, if I prayed for her with peculiar
fervor? Who will restore to the wretched (female) her happi-
ness?
Innocence is to be honored; but how much is repentance to
be honored also! Did the best of men, the God-man, disdain
to cast his compassionate looks upon sinful women, to regard
their confusion, and to associate them with the souls whom he
most honored? Why then should we so much despise a woman
who has fallen into ignominy? I was a hundred times tempted
to raise my voice and make a declaration of fraternal love to
Maddalena. Once I began the first syllable of her name:
"Mad-! " My heart beat as if I were a boy of fifteen in love.
I could go no further. I began again: "Mad-! Mad-! " but
it was useless. I felt myself ridiculous, and exclaimed angrily,
## p. 11269 (#489) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11269
"Matto! * and not Mad! " Thus ended my romance with this
poor woman.
Mayst thou, O unknown sinner, not have been condemned
to a heavy punishment! Or, to whatever punishment thou hast
been condemned, mayst thou profit by it, to recover thy worth
and live and die dear to the Lord! Mayst thou be compassion-
ated and respected by all who know thee, as thou hast been by
me, who know thee not! Mayst thou inspire in every one who
sees thee patience, gentleness, the desire of virtue and trust in
God, as thou hast in him who loves thee without having seen
thee! My fancy may err when it paints thee beautiful in body,
but I cannot doubt the beauty of thy soul. Thy companions
spoke with coarseness, thou with modesty and courtesy; they
blasphemed and thou didst bless God; they quarreled and thou
wert the composer of their strife. If any one has taken thee by
the hand to withdraw thee from the career of dishonor; if he
has conferred benefits on thee with delicacy; if he has dried thy
tears, may all blessings be showered upon him, upon his children
and his children's children!
Two VISITS FROM HIS FATHER
THE notary who had examined me came one morning and
announced to me with an air of mystery a visit which would
give me pleasure; and when he thought he had sufficiently pre-
pared me for it, he said, "In short, it is your father: follow me,
if you please. "
I followed him below into the public offices, agitated with
pleasure and tenderness, forcing myself to appear with a serene
aspect, which might tranquillize my poor father. When he heard
of my arrest, he hoped it was upon some unfounded suspicion,
and that I should soon be released. But finding that my deten-
tion continued, he had come to solicit my liberation of the Aus-
trian government. Sad illusion of paternal love! He could not
believe that I had been so rash as to expose myself to the rigor
of the laws; and the studied cheerfulness with which I spoke to
him persuaded him that I had no misfortune to apprehend.
In the circumstances in which Italy then was, I felt certain
that Austria would give some extraordinary examples of rigor,
* Insane.
## p. 11270 (#490) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11270
and that I should be condemned to death, or to many years
of imprisonment. To hide this belief from a father! to flatter
him with the hope of my speedy liberation! to restrain my fears
when I embraced him, when I spoke to him of my mother, of
my brothers and my sisters, whom I thought never to behold
again upon earth! to beg him with an unfaltering voice to come
and see me again, if he were able! Nothing ever cost me so
much effort.
He went away greatly comforted, and I returned to my cell
with a tortured heart. I broke out into sobs, yet could not shed
a tear. A burning fever attacked me, accompanied by a violent
headache.
I swallowed not even a spoonful of soup the whole
day. "Would this were a mortal illness," I said: "that would
shorten my sufferings. "
Two days afterward my father returned. I had slept well
during the night, and was free from fever.
I resumed my easy
and cheerful deportment, and no one suspected what my heart
had suffered and was yet to suffer. "I trust," said my father,
"that in a few days you will be sent to Turin. We have already
prepared your room, and shall expect you with great anxiety.
My official duties oblige me to return. Endeavor, I pray you, to
join me soon. ”
My heart was torn by his tender and melancholy expressions
of affection. It seemed to me that filial piety required dissimu-
lation, yet I dissembled with a kind of remorse. Would it not
have been more worthy of my father and of myself if I had said
to him: Probably we shall see each other no more in this world!
Let us part like men, without murmuring, without tears; and let
me hear a father's blessing pronounced on my head! "
This language would have been a thousand times more agree-
able to me than disguise. But I looked upon the eyes of that
venerable old man, his features and his gray hairs, and he did
not appear to me to have the strength to hear me speak thus.
And what if, through my unwillingness to deceive him, I had
seen him abandon himself to despair, perhaps fall into a swoon,
perhaps (horrible idea! ) be struck with death in my arms!
could neither tell him the truth nor suffer him to perceive it.
We parted without tears. I returned to my cell tortured as
before, or more fiercely still.
## p. 11271 (#491) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11271
HIS SUFFERINGS FROM HEAT AND GNATS IN THE PIOMBI
THE winter had been mild; and after some windy weather in
March, the hot season came on. The heat of the air in the den
that I inhabited is indescribable. It faced directly south under
a leaden roof, and with the window opening on the roof of St.
Mark's, also of lead, the reflection from which was tremendous.
I was suffocated. In addition to this suffering, there was such
a multitude of gnats that however I labored to destroy them, I
was covered with them; the bed, the table, the chair, the floor,
the walls, the ceiling,- everything was covered with them; and
the surrounding air contained an infinite number, always going
and coming through the window, and making an infernal buzz-
ing. The stings of these creatures are painful; and being
pierced by them from morning till night, and from night till
morning, with the everlasting vexation of striving to diminish
their number, I suffered frightfully both in body and mind: and
when I was unable to obtain a change of my prison, the thought
of suicide entered my mind, and at times I feared I should be-
come mad.
THE ROMANCE WITH ZANZE
I HAD begged that la Siora Zanze would make my coffee.
This was the daughter of the jailer, who, if she could do it with-
out the knowledge of her mother, made it very strong. More
than once it happened that the coffee was not made by the com-
passionate Zanze, and it was wretched stuff. One day when I
reproved her harshly, as if she had deceived me, the poor girl
wept and said to me:-
"Signore, I have never deceived anybody; and yet every one
calls me a deceiver. "
"Every one? Oh! then I am not the only one who is angry
about this wretched coffee? "
"I do not mean that, signore. Ah, if you only knew! - if I
could pour out my wretched heart into yours! "
"But do not weep so! I ask your pardon. I believe it is
not your fault that I had such bad coffee. "
"I do not weep for that, signore. "
"The cause is something different, then? "
"Yes, truly. "
## p. 11272 (#492) ##########################################
11272
SILVIO PELLICO
"Who calls you a deceiver? »
"My lover. "
Her face was covered with blushes; and in her ingenuous
confidence she related to me a serio-comic idyl which affected
From that day I became the confidant of the girl, and she
was disposed to talk with me a great deal.
me.
"Signore, you are so good," she said to me, "that I look up
to you as a daughter to her father. "
"You pay me a poor compliment," I replied: "I am hardly
thirty-two. "
"Well, then, signore, I will say as a brother. " She seized my
hand, and held it affectionately; and all this was in perfect inno-
cence.
I said to myself afterwards: "It is fortunate she is not a
beauty; otherwise this innocent familiarity might disconcert
me. »
At other times I said: "It is fortunate she is so young! There
can be no danger of my being in love with such a child. ”
At other times I was a little uneasy, from its seeming to me
that I had deceived myself in considering her plain; and I was
obliged to acknowledge that the outlines of her figure were good,
and her features not irregular.
"If she were not so pale," I said, "and had not those few
freckles on her face, she might pass for handsome. "
It is impossible not to find some charm in the presence, looks,
and conversation of a lively and affectionate girl. I had done
nothing to win her kindness; and yet I was dear to her, as
a father or a brother, as I might prefer. Why? Because she
had read the 'Francesca da Rimini,' and the 'Eufemio,' and my
verses made her weep so much! and then I was a prisoner with-
out having, as she said, either robbed or murdered! Now was it
possible that I, who had been attached to the Maddalena without
seeing her, should be indifferent to the sisterly attentions, to the
agreeable flattery, to the excellent coffee of the lively young
Venetian police-girl?
I was not in love with her. But if the sentiment she awoke
in me was not what is called love, I confess that it was some-
thing like it. I desired that she should be happy, that she should
succeed in marrying him who pleased her. I had no jealousy
towards the object of her affection. But when I heard the door
open, my heart beat with the hope that it was Zanze: if it were
## p. 11273 (#493) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11273
not, I was dissatisfied; if it were, my heart beat yet more strongly,
and I was delighted.
She had a simplicity and lovableness which was seducing.
"I am
so much in love with another man," she said to me,
"yet I love so to stay with you! When I do not see my lover,
I am uneasy everywhere but here; and it seems to me that it is
because I esteem you so very much. " Poor girl! she had the
blessed fault of continually taking my hand and pressing it, and
did not perceive that this pleased and disturbed me at the same
time. Now was I to blame if I wished for her visits with ten-
der solicitude, if I appreciated their sweetness, if I was pleased
to be pitied by her, and requited sympathy with sympathy, since
our thoughts relating to each other were as pure as the purest
thoughts of infancy? since even her taking my hand, and her
most affectionate looks, while they disturbed me, filled me with
a saving reverence?
One evening, while she poured into my heart a great affliction
that she had experienced, the unhappy girl threw her arms upon
my neck, and covered my face with her tears. In this embrace
there was not the shadow of a profane thought. A daughter
could not embrace her father with more respect. Another time,
when she abandoned herself to a similar burst of filial confi-
dence, I quickly unbound myself from her dear arms, and without
pressing her upon my bosom, without kissing her, said stammer-
ing: "Pray do not ever embrace me, Zanze: it is not right. '
She looked into my face, looked down, blushed, and it was the
first time that she read in my soul the possibility of any weak-
ness in relation to her. She did not cease to be familiar with me,
but from that time her familiarity became more respectful, more
in accordance with my wishes; and I was grateful to her for it.
Zanze fell sick. During the first days of her illness she came
to see me, and complained of great pain in her head. She wept,
but did not and would not explain the cause of her tears. She
only stammered of her lover, "He is a bad man; but may God
forgive him! "
"I shall return to-morrow morning," she said one evening.
But my coffee was brought by a prison attendant. He said some
ambiguous things about this girl's love affair, which made my
hair stand on end. A month later she was carried into the
country, and I saw her no more, and my prison became again
like a tomb.
## p. 11274 (#494) ##########################################
11274
SILVIO PELLICO
HIS SUFFERINGS FROM COLD
THE summer being ended, during the last half of September
the heat diminished. October came, and I then rejoiced in hav-
ing a room which would be comfortable in winter. But one
morning the jailer told me that he had orders to change my cell.
"And where am I to go? "
"A few steps from this into a cooler room. »
"And why did you not think of it when I was dying with
heat; when the air was all gnats and the bed all bugs? "
"The order did not come before. "
"Well, patience! let us go. "
Although I had suffered so much in that room, it pained
me to leave it; not only because it would have been best in the
cold season, but for many other reasons. Had not this sad prison
been cheered by the compassion of Zanze? How often she rested
on that window! There she used to sit; in that place she told
me one story, in this another; there she bent over my table, and
her tears dropped upon it.
It [the new room] was in the Piombi, but on the north and
west; an abode of perpetual cold, and of horrible ice in the
severe months.
THE RECEPTION OF THE FINAL SENTENCE
ON THE 21st of February, 1822, the jailer came for me about
ten o'clock in the forenoon. He conducted me to the hall of
the commission, and withdrew. The president, the inquisitor, and
the two assistant judges were seated. They rose. The president,
with an expression of generous commiseration, told me that my
sentence had arrived, and that the judgment had been terrible,
but that the Emperor had mitigated its severity. The inquisi-
tor read the sentence, "Condemned to death. " He then read the
imperial rescript: "The punishment is commuted to fifteen years'
severe imprisonment in the fortress of Spielberg. "
I answered, The will of God be done! " It was truly my
intention to receive this terrible blow as a Christian, and neither
to show nor to indulge resentment against any one.
"We regret," said the inquisitor, "that to-morrow the sentence
must be announced to you in public; but the formality cannot be
dispensed with. "
## p. 11275 (#495) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11275
"Be it so, then," I said. God had put me to a severe proof.
My duty was to sustain it with fortitude. I could not! I would
not! I had rather hate than forgive. I passed an infernal night.
At nine in the forenoon Maroncelli and I were put into a
gondola. We landed at the palace of the Doge and ascended to
the prisons. We were put into a cell and waited long. It was
not till noon that the inquisitor appeared and announced to us
that it was time to go. The physician was present and proposed
to us to drink a glass of mint-water. We did so, and were
grateful for his kindness. The chief of the guard then put
handcuffs on us. We descended, and between two files of Ger-
man soldiers, passed through the gateway into the Piazzetta, in the
centre of which was the scaffold we were to ascend.
Having mounted the scaffold, we looked around and saw the
immense crowd of people filled with consternation. In several
places at a distance other soldiers were drawn up, and we were
told that cannon with lighted matches were stationed on every
side. The German captain called out to us to turn toward the
palace and look up. We obeyed, and saw upon the open gallery
an officer of the court with a paper in his hand. It was the
sentence. He read it in a loud voice. Profound silence reigned
until he came to the words, "Condemned to death. " Then a
general murmur of compassion arose. Silence again succeeded,
that the reading might be finished. New murmurs arose at
the words "Condemned to severe imprisonment; Maroncelli for
twenty years, and Pellico for fifteen. "
The captain then made a sign for us to descend.
We did so,
again entering the court, reascending the great stairs, and return-
ing to the room from which we had been taken. Our handcuffs
were remov
oved, and we were taken back to San Michele.
―――――
HIS JOURNEY TO THE FINAL PRISON OF THe Spielberg
AFTER the delay of a month and four days, we set out for
the Spielberg in the night between the 25th and 26th of March.
A police servant chained us transversely, the right hand to the
left foot, to render our escape impossible. Six or seven guards,
armed with muskets and sabres, part within the carriage and
part on the box with the driver, completed the convoy of the
commissary.
In passing through the Illyrian and German provinces, the
exclamation was universal, "Poor gentlemen! " In a village of
## p. 11276 (#496) ##########################################
11276
SILVIO PELLICO
Styria, a young girl followed us in the midst of a crowd, and
when our carriage stopped for a few minutes, saluted us with
both hands, then went away with a handkerchief at her eyes,
leaning on the arm of a melancholy-looking young man.
On the 10th of April we arrived at the place of our destina-
tion. About three hundred convicts, for the most part robbers
and assassins, are here confined. Those condemned to severe im-
prisonment (carcere duro) are obliged to labor, to wear chains on
their feet, to sleep on bare planks, and to eat the poorest food
imaginable. Those condemned to very severe imprisonment (car-
cere durissimo) are chained more horribly, with a band of iron
around the waist, and the chain fastened in the wall in such a
way that they can only walk by the side of the planks which
serve them for a bed; their food is the same, although the law
says bread and water. We, prisoners of State, were condemned
to severe imprisonment.
THE FIRST DAY IN THE PRISON OF SPIELBERG
WE WERE Consigned to the superintendent of the prison. Our
names were registered among those of the robbers.
We were
then conducted to a subterranean corridor. A dark room was
opened for each of us, and each was shut up there.
When I found myself alone in this horrible den, and heard
the bolts fastened, and distinguished, by the dim light which fell
from the small high window, the bare planks given me for a
bed, and an enormous chain in the wall, I seated myself on that
bed shuddering; and took up the chain and measured its length,
thinking it was intended for me.
Half an hour after, I heard the keys grate; the door was
opened, and the head jailer brought me a pitcher of water.
"This is to drink," he said, "and to-morrow morning I will
bring the bread, " He turned back asking me how long I had
coughed so badly; and hurled a great curse against the physician
for not coming the same evening to visit me.
"You have a galloping fever," he added: "I can perceive
that you need at least a sack of straw; but till the physician has
ordered it we cannot give it to you. " He went away and closed
the door, and I laid myself on the hard plank, burning with
fever and with strong pain in the breast.
In the evening the superintendent came, accompanied by
the jailer, a corporal, and two soldiers, to make an examination.
## p. 11277 (#497) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11277
Three daily examinations were prescribed, one in the morning,
one in the evening, and one at midnight. The prisoner is
stripped naked, every corner of the cell and every article of
clothing are strictly examined.
The first time I saw this troop, being then ignorant of those
vexatious usages, and delirious from the fever, I fancied they
had started to kill me, and grasped the long chain that was near
me to break the head of the first who should approach me.
"What are you doing? " said the superintendent: "we are not
come to do you any harm. This is a visit of formality to all
the cells, to assure ourselves that there is no irregularity there. "
The jailer stretched out his hand; I let go the chain and took
his hand between mine.
"How it burns! " said he to the superintendent.
HIS FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE DIET OF THE SPIELBERG PRISON
ON THURSDAY morning, two hours after the visitation had
been made. the jailer brought me a piece of brown bread, saying:
"This is your portion for two days. "
At eleven my dinner was brought by a convict, accompanied
by Schiller the jailer. It consisted of two iron pots, one contain-
ing very bad broth, the other beans seasoned with such a sauce
that the mere smell brought disgust. I attempted to swallow
some spoonfuls of broth, but it was not possible for me. Schiller
kept saying, over and over again, "Have courage: get yourself
accustomed to this food; otherwise it will happen to you as it
has to others, to eat nothing but a little bread, and then die of
weakness. "
HE ASSUMES THE PRISON UNIFORM
FIVE days after this, my prison dress was brought me. It
consisted of a pair of pantaloons of coarse cloth, the right side
gray, the left of capuchin color [chocolate]; a waistcoat of the two
colors disposed in the same way; and a roundabout coat of the
same colors, but arranged in the opposite way. The stockings
were of coarse wool, the shirt of tow-cloth full of shives, a real
hair-cloth; and round the neck was a piece of cloth like the shirt.
The brogans were of uncolored leather, laced. The hat was
white. This livery was completed by a chain from one leg to
the other, the cuffs of which were closed by rivets headed down
on an anvil.
## p. 11278 (#498) ##########################################
11278
SILVIO PELLICO
HE TRIES TO LIVE ON THE "QUARTER-PORTION"
THE physician, seeing that none of us could eat the kind of
food that had been given us, put us upon what was called the
quarter-portion; that is, the diet of the hospital. This was some
very thin soup three times a day, a small piece of roast lamb
that might be swallowed at a mouthful, and perhaps three ounces
of white bread. As my health improved, that quarter was too
little. I tried to return to the food of the well, but it was so
disgusting that I could not eat it. It was absolutely necessary
that I should keep to the quarter; and for more than a year I
knew what are the torments of hunger.
Our barber, a young man who came to us every Saturday,
said to me one day, "It is reported in the city that they give
you gentlemen but little to eat. "
"It is very true," I replied. The next Saturday he brought
and offered me secretly a large loaf of white bread. Schiller pre-
tended not to see him offer it. If I had listened to my stomach,
I should have accepted it; but I stood firm in refusing, lest the
poor young man should be tempted to repeat his gift, which some
day might be a heavy mischief to him.
THE COMFORT AND THE PANG OF SYMPATHY
f us
"A
as
IT WAS from the first an established rule that each
should be permitted to walk for an hour twice a week.
pleasant walk to you!
turned joyfully to their forest dominion, being thus relieved from
the vicinity of any more formidable belligerent than their old
bruised and beaten enemy, the Sheriff of Nottingham.
## p. 11258 (#478) ##########################################
11258
―――
EORGE PEELE's life is shrouded in mystery; but enough is
known of him to say that he was a man of education, who,
like so many of his fellow Elizabethan playwrights, lived fast
and died young.
He formed one of the group of pre-Shakespearean
dramatists, who stand for the transitional period between the older
moralities those crude attempts at stage allegory-and the crafts-
manship of the master-poet. Neither the birthday nor the death-day
of Peele is known. He is believed to have been born in Devonshire
in or about 1553; and he was dead by 1598. His father was a Lon-
don merchant, who had the distinction of writing a work on book-
keeping said to have introduced the Italian system to England. The
son was an Oxford man, and took his degree of Bachelor of Arts in
1577, and his degree of Master of Arts two years later. Before he
left the University he was recognized as a poet, and was marked for
his tendencies to social gayety; a trait that became still more pro-
nounced when he went up to London, where he was ejected from his
father's house, and joined the roystering set of blades known as the
University wits, who wrote plays and poems and burned life's candle
at both ends. He was reputed a sad wag, as the untrustworthy vol-
ume The Jests of George Peele' testifies. He foregathered with
Nash, Marlowe, and Greene, and by tradition haunted the tavern and
the green-room,- a dissolute scribbler in whom was a spark of gen-
ius, and who, however irregular his habits, dying in mid-manhood left
literary work which declares him, after all, an industrious author. He
made five dramas, and besides published a number of volumes of
poems and pageants. The first drama, 'The Arraignment of Paris,'
probably presented in 1581, is a pastoral treatment, mostly in heroic
couplets, of the myth of the awarding of the golden apple, with a
naïve patriotic application,-making Venus, who wins the prize of
beauty, yield it in turn to Queen Elizabeth. The Famous Chronicle
of Edward I. ' (1593) shows the writer struggling towards the true
historical tragedy. It has some effective scenes but little poetry, and
as a whole is confused and ill-welded. The Battle of Alcazar'
(1592) is a vigorous play, but lacks construction. The Old Wives'
Tales' (1595) is a rollicking farce, stuffed with nonsense, and one of
those inchoate dramatic performances very characteristic of the earlier
-
GEORGE PEELE
(1553 ? -1598? )
## p. 11259 (#479) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11259
Its
English playwrights, but far removed from a serious art purpose.
main significance lies in its having supplied Milton with Comus. ' It
is in his last play, 'David and Bethsabe,' printed in 1599, that Peele
reached his high-water mark of imaginative poetry. It deals with the
Bible story in a spirit of sensuous romanticism, and contains lovely
passages of blank verse of the amatory and descriptive sort, handling
that measure with a skill such as only Marlowe of the forerunners
of Shakespeare has surpassed. The piece lacks dramatic force, being
idyllic in motive and manner. A pastoral drama, 'The Hunting of
Cupid,' known to have been written by Peele, has been lost. This
author's miscellaneous writings include three pageants or court spec-
tacles, and half a dozen volumes of poems,—the most elaborate of
which is 'The Honor of the Garter,' a blank-verse gratulatory address
to several noblemen, and containing in its dedication a fine tribute to
his dead friend Marlowe. Some of Peele's lyrics, found in his plays
or in his various volumes of verse, are among the most beautiful in
the whole range of Elizabethan song; and no representation of his
work can omit them. They became popular at once, and were printed
in various song collections of the time. A man of considerable cult-
ure, he shows both classic and Italian influence in his writing; but
his occasional rich, smooth, fanciful utterance was his by birthright,
and merits forgiveness for his dramatic shortcomings. As a play-
maker he did not do so much in preparing the way for Shakespeare
as other contemporaries like Lyly or Greene. But he surpassed them
in his occasional lyric touch and tone.
OLD AGE
Is golden locks time hath to silver turned;
HTS
Oh time too swift, oh swiftness never ceasing:
His youth 'gainst time and age hath ever spurned,
But spurned in vain,-youth waneth by increasing,
Beauty, strength, youth, are flowers but fading seen;
Duty, faith, love, are roots, and ever green.
His helmet now shall make a hive for bees,
And lovers' songs be turned to holy psalms;
A man-at-arms must now serve on his knees,
And feed on prayers, which are old age's alms:
But though from court to cottage he depart,
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart.
And when he saddest sits in homely cell,
He'll teach his swains this carol for a song:-
## p. 11260 (#480) ##########################################
11260
GEORGE PEELE
"Blessed be the hearts that wish my Sovereign well,
Cursed be the souls that think her any wrong.
Goddess, allow this aged man his right,
To be your beadsman now that was your knight. "
DAVID AND BETHSABE
From Dyce's Edition of Peele's Works, Vol. II.
He draws a curtain and discovers Bethsabe with her maid bathing over a
spring; she sings, and David sits above viewing her.
Bethsabe-
-----
THE SONG
OT sun, cool fire, tempered with sweet air,
H
Black shade, fair nurse, shadow my white hair:
Shine, sun; burn, fire; breathe, air, and ease me;
Black shade, fair nurse, shroud me and please me;
Shadow, my sweet nurse, keep me from burning,-
Make not my glad cause, cause of mourning.
Let not my beauty's fire
Inflame unstayed desire,
Nor pierce any bright eye
That wandereth lightly.
Come, gentle Zephyr, trickt with those perfumes
That erst in Eden sweetened Adam's love,
And stroke my bosom with thy silken fan:
This shade, sun-proof, is yet no proof for thee;
Thy body, smoother than this waveless spring,
And purer than the substance of the same,
Can creep through that his lances cannot pierce.
Thou and thy sister, soft and sacred air,
Goddess of life, and governess of health,
Keep every fountain fresh and arbor sweet;
No brazen gate her passage can repulse,
Nor bushy thicket bar thy subtle breath:
Then deck thee with thy loose delightsome robes,
And on thy wings bring delicate perfumes,
To play the wanton with us through the leaves.
David What tunes, what words, what looks, what wonders pierce
My soul, incensèd with a sudden fire?
What tree, what shade, what spring, what paradise,
Enjoys the beauty of so fair a dame?
## p. 11261 (#481) ##########################################
GEORGE PEELE
11261
Fair Eva, placed in perfect happiness,
Lending her praise-notes to the liberal heavens,
Strook with the accents of archangels' tunes,
Wrought not more pleasure to her husband's thoughts
Than this fair woman's words and notes to mine.
May that sweet plain that bears her pleasant weight
Be still enameled with discolored flowers;
That precious fount bear sand of purest gold;
And for the pebble, let the silver streams
That pierce earth's bowels to maintain the source,
Play upon rubies, sapphires, chrysolites;
The brims let be embraced with golden curls
Of moss, that sleeps with sound the waters make,
For joy to feed the fount with their recourse;
Let all the grass that beautifies her bower
Bear manna every morn instead of dew;
Or let the dew be sweeter far than that
That hangs, like chains of pearl, on Hermon's hill,
Or balm which trickled from old Aaron's beard.
Now comes my lover tripping like the roe,
And brings my longings tangled in her hair.
To joy her love I'll build a kingly bower,
Seated in hearing of a hundred streams,
That, for their homage to her sovereign joys,
Shall, as the serpents fold into their nests
In oblique turnings, wind the nimble waves
About the circles of her curious walks;
And with their murmur summon easeful sleep,
To lay his golden sceptre on her brows.
Open the doors, and entertain my love;
Open, I say, and as you open, sing,
Welcome fair Bethsabe, King David's darling.
FROM A FAREWELL TO SIR JOHN NORRIS AND SIR FRANCIS
DRAKE'
AVE done with care, my hearts! aboard amain,
H
With stretching sails to plow the swelling waves;
Bid England's shore and Albion's chalky cliffs
Farewell; bid stately Troynovant adieu,
Where pleasant Thames from Isis's silver head
Begins her quiet glide, and runs along
## p. 11262 (#482) ##########################################
11262
GEORGE PEELE
To that brave bridge, the bar that thwarts her course,
Near neighbor to the ancient stony tower,
The glorious hold that Julius Cæsar built.
Change love for arms, girt to your blades, my boys!
Your rests and muskets take, take helm and targe,
And let god Mars his consort make you mirth,—
The roaring cannon, and the brazen trump,
The angry-sounding drum, the whistling fife,
The shrieks of men, the princely courser's neigh.
Now vail your bonnets to your friends at home;
Bid all the lovely British dames adieu,
That under many a standard well advanced
Have hid the sweet alarms and braves of love;
Bid theatres and proud tragedians,
Bid Mahomet, Scipio, and mighty Tamburlaine,
King Charlemagne, Tom Stukely, and the rest,
Adieu. To arms, to arms, to glorious arms!
With noble Norris and victorious Drake,
Under the sanguine cross, brave England's badge,
To propagate religious piety
And hew a passage with your conquering swords
By land and sea, wherever Phoebus's eye,
Th' eternal lamp of heaven, lends us light;
By golden Tagus, or the western Ind,
Or through the spacious bay of Portugal,
The wealthy ocean-main, the Tyrrhene sea,
From great Alcides's pillars branching forth,
Even to the gulf that leads to lofty Rome;
There to deface the pride of Antichrist,
And pull his paper walls and popery down,-
A famous enterprise for England's strength,
To steel your swords on Avarice's triple crown,
And cleanse Augeas's stall in Italy.
To arms, my fellow-soldiers! Sea and land
Lie open to the voyage you intend:
And sea or land, bold Britons, far or near,
Whatever course your matchless virtue shapes,
Whether to Europe's bounds or Asian plains,
To Afric's shore, or rich America,
Down to the shades of deep Avernus's crags,
Sail on; pursue your honors to your graves.
Heaven is a sacred covering for your heads,
And every climate virtue's tabernacle.
To arms, to arms, to honorable arms!
## p. 11263 (#483) ##########################################
11263
•
SILVIO PELLICO
(1789-1854)
BY J. F. BINGHAM
N THE little curious old capital of Savoy, some thirty miles
southwest of Turin, stands an elegant but unobtrusive mon-
ument which is a centre of pilgrimage from all quarters of
the literary world. Around this monument, in the year of our Lord
1889, were gathered the most distinguished representatives of liter-
ature, learning, and patriotism from all parts of Italy and of Europe,
to celebrate with eloquence and song the
hundredth anniversary of the birth there of
Saluzzo's most illustrious son, a name now
as familiar as that of Dante throughout the
civilized world,-Silvio Pellico.
Here he and a twin sister of extraordi-
nary beauty (who exercised an important
influence over his whole life) were born
on the 21st of June, 1789. The mother was
a Tournier (a name famous in the manu-
facture of silk) of Chambéry, the ancient
capital of Savoy; then as now, after sev-
eral alternations, a province of France, and
always an important intellectual centre,
as well as a leader in silk manufactures.
Mademoiselle Tournier had relations also in the silk trade in Lyons.
So prized or so important was the name regarded, that she retained
it after marriage, and is always spoken of as La Signora Pellico
Tournier.
SILVIO PELLICO
The fact that his family was not noble, like that of Alfieri and
Manzoni and so many others in the front rank of Italian literature,
with whom Pellico is of necessity brought into literary comparison,
but was of the prosperous mercantile class; and further, that his
mother, a woman as it appears of a strong character, was of the warm
blood of the bourgeoisie of southern France, -is a matter of interest
and importance in many ways to the critical historian of literature,
but one on which it is beyond the scope of this work to dwell. It
is only necessary here to point out that it naturally set him nearer
to the heart of the common people; led him into those associations,
## p. 11264 (#484) ##########################################
11264
SILVIO PELLICO
and brought him to breathe in that atmosphere of heated patriotism,
so called, which cost him many years of dreadful suffering, and cost
the world, perhaps, the loss of some peculiar and precious things
which would otherwise have flowed from his gentle, sympathetic
pen.
The father and mother of Pellico, however, were cultivated and
religious people. The father was also a poet of some fame, and
formerly held an important civil office in the government. During
the political overturnings of the stormy times which ushered in this
century in Europe, he lost his civil function, and engaged in the
manufacture of silk.
The children, of whom there were six,-three boys and three girls,
alternating with one another in the order of their birth,- were edu-
cated at home with the aid of tutors; which home was changed
first to Turin, and finally to Milan, where the father had been restored
to a place in the civil government. This education of the children
under the devoted care of these excellent people, in an atmosphere
of religion, learning, and the purest domestic love, told with beauti-
ful effect on both the mind and heart of Silvio, and left a distinct
impress on his whole life and work.
His adored twin sister he always speaks of as beautiful and lovely
beyond description; and to her he was inseparably attached. In
their eighteenth year this sister was married to a silk merchant of
Lyons. Silvio went with her on the bridal journey to her home, and
remained in her house four studious years. It was the time of the
swiftly ascending glory of the First Empire in France. Napoleon I.
was already the wonder and terror of Europe. Italy was feeling,
with mingled and conflicting emotions, his irresistible hand.
The passionate yet ingenuous, patriotic youth felt his heart burn
and his blood boil at the changes and crimes that were transpiring
in Italy, especially in his own Savoy and Lombardy; and in 1811 he
returned to Milan, with the purpose of doing what he could for his
country. He lived there in great intimacy with Ugo Foscolo and
Vincenzo Monti, and many of the leading liberal poets and littérateurs
of the day.
When in 1815 Napoleon had disappeared, and the Congress of
Vienna had remapped Western Europe, and the iron hand of Aus-
tria clenched his fatherland with a tenfold crueler grip, his patriot-
ism overstepped the limits of prudence. He not only set himself to
writing articles offensive to the government, but actually connected
himself with the Carbonari (or Coalmen, on account of holding their
meetings in a coal cellar), a treasonable secret society of the lower
orders. He was arrested, and languished two years in the prison
of the Piombi in Venice. He was at length tried for constructive
1
## p. 11265 (#485) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11265
treason, and condemned to die. By the clemency of the Emperor the
sentence was commuted to hard labor for fifteen years in the sub-
terranean dungeons of the Spielberg.
How could he be so imprudent? Yes, how could he? Perhaps
the incredible brutality of that Austrian tyranny is forgotten. Let
me quote from the Martyrs of Italy,' by Bocci and Zaccaria, certainly
authentic history, only one of hundreds of similar or worse examples,
some of which cannot be quoted:-
"In Milan a Florentine girl of eighteen, and her companion, a girl of
twenty, from Cremona, were condemned to fifteen stripes each, for having
reproached a renegade Italian woman, who had made an obtrusive display
from one of her windows of the colors black and yellow,- the colors of the
Austrian flag! And when the wretched girls were led out stripped for punish-
ment into the public square, and the edifying sentence was being executed in
the sight of thousands, all the élite of Austrian society from their carriages
and palace windows looked on and laughed at the fright and frantic cries and
agony and shame of the poor girls! »
And remember that Pellico had sisters whom he loved more than
life.
The Francesca da Rimini' had been produced. It had caught
the ear of the people. Fame seemed to be coming. But he was still
in the dew of youth. His name was new in the world of letters.
Suddenly, in this first blossoming of youthful promise, he was with-
drawn from view, as entirely as if he were in his grave. He was
virtually in the chambers of the dead-even in hell itself.
Had his story ended here, the world would have heard no more
of Silvio Pellico. But he lived to come forth from his long entomb-
ment, to mingle again in the activities of this living world, and
to recount the tremendous and refined tortures undergone by the
wretched human beings who moved and breathed and suffered in
these infernal abodes, still this side the river of death. No sooner
was that story uttered upon the free air of heaven, than it was evi-
dent to all the world that the star of Pellico had not set. It had
emerged from the black cloud which ten years before had seemed to
quench it, now like a comet blazing in the face of the universe.
The book 'Le Mie Prigioni (My Imprisonment) was first published
in Turin in 1832. It was written in a style of unpretending sim-
plicity, with an almost superhuman gentleness and sincerity (consider-
ing the subjects of which it treats), and with an angelic pathos all
his own, without one blast of malediction, one growling thunder of
the coming storm; but in the event it made the Austrian powers
turn pale, and shook that old iron throne. It was quickly translated
into every language of modern Europe, carried the civilized world off
its feet with admiration and astonishment, and made all Christendom
XIX-705
## p. 11266 (#486) ##########################################
11266
SILVIO PELLICO
blush with sympathy and anger; and as was remarked by an eminent
statesman of the time, "it struck a heavier blow upon. the tyranny of
Austria, and for Italian liberty, than would have been the loss of an
army in battle. "
With a constitution broken by suffering, he lingered on in a cer-
tain literary activity till 1854; but left no other results comparable to
the productions of his youth.
F. Bingham
FROM LE MIE PRIGIONI
HIS PURPOSE IN WRITING THE Book
IT
N WRITING these memories, my motive has been that of con-
tributing to the comfort of the unhappy, by making known.
the evils I have borne and the consolations I have found
attainable under the greatest misfortunes; that of bearing wit-
ness that in the midst of my long sufferings I have not found
human nature so degraded, so unworthy of indulgence, so defi-
cient in excellent characters, as it is commonly represented; that
of inviting noble hearts to love much, to hate no human being,
to feel irreconcilable hatred only towards mean deceit, pusilla-
nimity, perfidy, and all moral degradation; that of repeating a
truth well known, but often forgotten,- that both religion and
philosophy require an energetic will and calm judgment; and
that without the union of these qualities there can be neither
justice, nor dignity, nor strength of principle.
ARREST AND FIRST DAY IN PRISON
ON FRIDAY the 13th of October, 1820, I was arrested at Milan,
and carried to the prison of Santa Margherita. It was three
o'clock in the afternoon. I was immediately subjected to a long
examination, which was continued through several days. But of
this I shall say nothing. Like a lover ill-treated of his mistress,
and manfully resolved to keep himself aloof from her, I shall
leave politics where they are, and speak of other things.
At nine in the evening of that miserable Friday, the no-
tary consigned me to the jailer, who conducted me to the room
## p. 11267 (#487) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11267
destined for me. He civilly requested me to give up to him (to
be restored in due time) my watch, my money, and everything
else that I had in my pockets, and respectfully wished me a
good-night.
"Stop, dear sir," said I to him, "I have not dined to-day: let
something be brought me. "
"Immediately; the eating-house is near, and you will find the
wine good, sir. "
"I do not drink wine. "
At this answer Signor Angiolino looked alarmed, and hoped
I was jesting. Jailers who sell wine have a horror of an abste-
mious prisoner.
"Indeed I do not drink it. "
"I am sorry for you: you will suffer doubly from solitude. "
He went out, and in less than half an hour I had my
dinner. I ate a few mouthfuls, swallowed a glass of water, and
was left alone.
·
My room was on the lower floor, and looked out upon the
court. There were cells on each side, above, and opposite. I
leaned on the window, and listened for some time to the passing
and repassing of the jailers, and to the wild singing of some of
the prisoners.
I reflected:
"A century ago this was a monastery; the holy and penitent
virgins who dwelt here never imagined that at this day their
cells would resound no more with the sighs of women and with
pious hymns, but with blasphemies and indecent songs, and
would contain men of all kinds,- the greater part destined to
hard labor, or to the gallows.
"Yesterday I was one of the happiest of men: to-day I no
longer possess any of the joys which gladdened my life; liberty,
intercourse with my friends, hope itself is gone. I shall go hence
only to be thrown into some horrible den, or to be consigned to
the executioner. Well, the day after my death, it will be the
same as if I had expired in a palace and had been borne to the
tomb with the greatest honors. "
――――――――――
But my thoughts turned to my father, my mother, my two
brothers, my two sisters, and another family which I loved as
if it were my own; and my philosophical reasoning was of no
avail,—I was overcome, and wept like a child.
## p. 11268 (#488) ##########################################
11268
SILVIO PELLICO
THE ROMANCE WITH MADDALENA
FROM the gallery that was under my window there was a
passage through an arch to another court, where were the prisons
and hospitals for females. A single wall, and that very thin,
divided me from one of the rooms of the women. Often these
poor creatures almost stunned me with their songs, sometimes
with their quarrels.
Late in the evening, when all was still, I heard them talk.
Some of those female voices were sweet, and those why
should I not say it? were dear to me. One sweeter than the
others was heard less often, and never uttered vulgar thoughts.
She sung little, and for the most part only these two pathetic
lines:-
"Chi rende alla meschina
La sua felicità ? "
- -
Sometimes she sang the Litanies; and her companions accom-
panied her, but I could always distinguish the voice of Maddalena
amidst all the power of louder and rougher voices. Her compan-
ions called her Maddalena, and related their troubles to her, and
she pitied them and sighed and said, "Take courage, my dear:
the Lord never forsakes any one. "
What could prevent me from imagining her beautiful, and
more unfortunate than culpable; born for virtue, and capable of
returning to it if she had swerved from it? Who could blame
me if I were affected by the sound of her voice? if I listened
to her with respectful interest, if I prayed for her with peculiar
fervor? Who will restore to the wretched (female) her happi-
ness?
Innocence is to be honored; but how much is repentance to
be honored also! Did the best of men, the God-man, disdain
to cast his compassionate looks upon sinful women, to regard
their confusion, and to associate them with the souls whom he
most honored? Why then should we so much despise a woman
who has fallen into ignominy? I was a hundred times tempted
to raise my voice and make a declaration of fraternal love to
Maddalena. Once I began the first syllable of her name:
"Mad-! " My heart beat as if I were a boy of fifteen in love.
I could go no further. I began again: "Mad-! Mad-! " but
it was useless. I felt myself ridiculous, and exclaimed angrily,
## p. 11269 (#489) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11269
"Matto! * and not Mad! " Thus ended my romance with this
poor woman.
Mayst thou, O unknown sinner, not have been condemned
to a heavy punishment! Or, to whatever punishment thou hast
been condemned, mayst thou profit by it, to recover thy worth
and live and die dear to the Lord! Mayst thou be compassion-
ated and respected by all who know thee, as thou hast been by
me, who know thee not! Mayst thou inspire in every one who
sees thee patience, gentleness, the desire of virtue and trust in
God, as thou hast in him who loves thee without having seen
thee! My fancy may err when it paints thee beautiful in body,
but I cannot doubt the beauty of thy soul. Thy companions
spoke with coarseness, thou with modesty and courtesy; they
blasphemed and thou didst bless God; they quarreled and thou
wert the composer of their strife. If any one has taken thee by
the hand to withdraw thee from the career of dishonor; if he
has conferred benefits on thee with delicacy; if he has dried thy
tears, may all blessings be showered upon him, upon his children
and his children's children!
Two VISITS FROM HIS FATHER
THE notary who had examined me came one morning and
announced to me with an air of mystery a visit which would
give me pleasure; and when he thought he had sufficiently pre-
pared me for it, he said, "In short, it is your father: follow me,
if you please. "
I followed him below into the public offices, agitated with
pleasure and tenderness, forcing myself to appear with a serene
aspect, which might tranquillize my poor father. When he heard
of my arrest, he hoped it was upon some unfounded suspicion,
and that I should soon be released. But finding that my deten-
tion continued, he had come to solicit my liberation of the Aus-
trian government. Sad illusion of paternal love! He could not
believe that I had been so rash as to expose myself to the rigor
of the laws; and the studied cheerfulness with which I spoke to
him persuaded him that I had no misfortune to apprehend.
In the circumstances in which Italy then was, I felt certain
that Austria would give some extraordinary examples of rigor,
* Insane.
## p. 11270 (#490) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11270
and that I should be condemned to death, or to many years
of imprisonment. To hide this belief from a father! to flatter
him with the hope of my speedy liberation! to restrain my fears
when I embraced him, when I spoke to him of my mother, of
my brothers and my sisters, whom I thought never to behold
again upon earth! to beg him with an unfaltering voice to come
and see me again, if he were able! Nothing ever cost me so
much effort.
He went away greatly comforted, and I returned to my cell
with a tortured heart. I broke out into sobs, yet could not shed
a tear. A burning fever attacked me, accompanied by a violent
headache.
I swallowed not even a spoonful of soup the whole
day. "Would this were a mortal illness," I said: "that would
shorten my sufferings. "
Two days afterward my father returned. I had slept well
during the night, and was free from fever.
I resumed my easy
and cheerful deportment, and no one suspected what my heart
had suffered and was yet to suffer. "I trust," said my father,
"that in a few days you will be sent to Turin. We have already
prepared your room, and shall expect you with great anxiety.
My official duties oblige me to return. Endeavor, I pray you, to
join me soon. ”
My heart was torn by his tender and melancholy expressions
of affection. It seemed to me that filial piety required dissimu-
lation, yet I dissembled with a kind of remorse. Would it not
have been more worthy of my father and of myself if I had said
to him: Probably we shall see each other no more in this world!
Let us part like men, without murmuring, without tears; and let
me hear a father's blessing pronounced on my head! "
This language would have been a thousand times more agree-
able to me than disguise. But I looked upon the eyes of that
venerable old man, his features and his gray hairs, and he did
not appear to me to have the strength to hear me speak thus.
And what if, through my unwillingness to deceive him, I had
seen him abandon himself to despair, perhaps fall into a swoon,
perhaps (horrible idea! ) be struck with death in my arms!
could neither tell him the truth nor suffer him to perceive it.
We parted without tears. I returned to my cell tortured as
before, or more fiercely still.
## p. 11271 (#491) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11271
HIS SUFFERINGS FROM HEAT AND GNATS IN THE PIOMBI
THE winter had been mild; and after some windy weather in
March, the hot season came on. The heat of the air in the den
that I inhabited is indescribable. It faced directly south under
a leaden roof, and with the window opening on the roof of St.
Mark's, also of lead, the reflection from which was tremendous.
I was suffocated. In addition to this suffering, there was such
a multitude of gnats that however I labored to destroy them, I
was covered with them; the bed, the table, the chair, the floor,
the walls, the ceiling,- everything was covered with them; and
the surrounding air contained an infinite number, always going
and coming through the window, and making an infernal buzz-
ing. The stings of these creatures are painful; and being
pierced by them from morning till night, and from night till
morning, with the everlasting vexation of striving to diminish
their number, I suffered frightfully both in body and mind: and
when I was unable to obtain a change of my prison, the thought
of suicide entered my mind, and at times I feared I should be-
come mad.
THE ROMANCE WITH ZANZE
I HAD begged that la Siora Zanze would make my coffee.
This was the daughter of the jailer, who, if she could do it with-
out the knowledge of her mother, made it very strong. More
than once it happened that the coffee was not made by the com-
passionate Zanze, and it was wretched stuff. One day when I
reproved her harshly, as if she had deceived me, the poor girl
wept and said to me:-
"Signore, I have never deceived anybody; and yet every one
calls me a deceiver. "
"Every one? Oh! then I am not the only one who is angry
about this wretched coffee? "
"I do not mean that, signore. Ah, if you only knew! - if I
could pour out my wretched heart into yours! "
"But do not weep so! I ask your pardon. I believe it is
not your fault that I had such bad coffee. "
"I do not weep for that, signore. "
"The cause is something different, then? "
"Yes, truly. "
## p. 11272 (#492) ##########################################
11272
SILVIO PELLICO
"Who calls you a deceiver? »
"My lover. "
Her face was covered with blushes; and in her ingenuous
confidence she related to me a serio-comic idyl which affected
From that day I became the confidant of the girl, and she
was disposed to talk with me a great deal.
me.
"Signore, you are so good," she said to me, "that I look up
to you as a daughter to her father. "
"You pay me a poor compliment," I replied: "I am hardly
thirty-two. "
"Well, then, signore, I will say as a brother. " She seized my
hand, and held it affectionately; and all this was in perfect inno-
cence.
I said to myself afterwards: "It is fortunate she is not a
beauty; otherwise this innocent familiarity might disconcert
me. »
At other times I said: "It is fortunate she is so young! There
can be no danger of my being in love with such a child. ”
At other times I was a little uneasy, from its seeming to me
that I had deceived myself in considering her plain; and I was
obliged to acknowledge that the outlines of her figure were good,
and her features not irregular.
"If she were not so pale," I said, "and had not those few
freckles on her face, she might pass for handsome. "
It is impossible not to find some charm in the presence, looks,
and conversation of a lively and affectionate girl. I had done
nothing to win her kindness; and yet I was dear to her, as
a father or a brother, as I might prefer. Why? Because she
had read the 'Francesca da Rimini,' and the 'Eufemio,' and my
verses made her weep so much! and then I was a prisoner with-
out having, as she said, either robbed or murdered! Now was it
possible that I, who had been attached to the Maddalena without
seeing her, should be indifferent to the sisterly attentions, to the
agreeable flattery, to the excellent coffee of the lively young
Venetian police-girl?
I was not in love with her. But if the sentiment she awoke
in me was not what is called love, I confess that it was some-
thing like it. I desired that she should be happy, that she should
succeed in marrying him who pleased her. I had no jealousy
towards the object of her affection. But when I heard the door
open, my heart beat with the hope that it was Zanze: if it were
## p. 11273 (#493) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11273
not, I was dissatisfied; if it were, my heart beat yet more strongly,
and I was delighted.
She had a simplicity and lovableness which was seducing.
"I am
so much in love with another man," she said to me,
"yet I love so to stay with you! When I do not see my lover,
I am uneasy everywhere but here; and it seems to me that it is
because I esteem you so very much. " Poor girl! she had the
blessed fault of continually taking my hand and pressing it, and
did not perceive that this pleased and disturbed me at the same
time. Now was I to blame if I wished for her visits with ten-
der solicitude, if I appreciated their sweetness, if I was pleased
to be pitied by her, and requited sympathy with sympathy, since
our thoughts relating to each other were as pure as the purest
thoughts of infancy? since even her taking my hand, and her
most affectionate looks, while they disturbed me, filled me with
a saving reverence?
One evening, while she poured into my heart a great affliction
that she had experienced, the unhappy girl threw her arms upon
my neck, and covered my face with her tears. In this embrace
there was not the shadow of a profane thought. A daughter
could not embrace her father with more respect. Another time,
when she abandoned herself to a similar burst of filial confi-
dence, I quickly unbound myself from her dear arms, and without
pressing her upon my bosom, without kissing her, said stammer-
ing: "Pray do not ever embrace me, Zanze: it is not right. '
She looked into my face, looked down, blushed, and it was the
first time that she read in my soul the possibility of any weak-
ness in relation to her. She did not cease to be familiar with me,
but from that time her familiarity became more respectful, more
in accordance with my wishes; and I was grateful to her for it.
Zanze fell sick. During the first days of her illness she came
to see me, and complained of great pain in her head. She wept,
but did not and would not explain the cause of her tears. She
only stammered of her lover, "He is a bad man; but may God
forgive him! "
"I shall return to-morrow morning," she said one evening.
But my coffee was brought by a prison attendant. He said some
ambiguous things about this girl's love affair, which made my
hair stand on end. A month later she was carried into the
country, and I saw her no more, and my prison became again
like a tomb.
## p. 11274 (#494) ##########################################
11274
SILVIO PELLICO
HIS SUFFERINGS FROM COLD
THE summer being ended, during the last half of September
the heat diminished. October came, and I then rejoiced in hav-
ing a room which would be comfortable in winter. But one
morning the jailer told me that he had orders to change my cell.
"And where am I to go? "
"A few steps from this into a cooler room. »
"And why did you not think of it when I was dying with
heat; when the air was all gnats and the bed all bugs? "
"The order did not come before. "
"Well, patience! let us go. "
Although I had suffered so much in that room, it pained
me to leave it; not only because it would have been best in the
cold season, but for many other reasons. Had not this sad prison
been cheered by the compassion of Zanze? How often she rested
on that window! There she used to sit; in that place she told
me one story, in this another; there she bent over my table, and
her tears dropped upon it.
It [the new room] was in the Piombi, but on the north and
west; an abode of perpetual cold, and of horrible ice in the
severe months.
THE RECEPTION OF THE FINAL SENTENCE
ON THE 21st of February, 1822, the jailer came for me about
ten o'clock in the forenoon. He conducted me to the hall of
the commission, and withdrew. The president, the inquisitor, and
the two assistant judges were seated. They rose. The president,
with an expression of generous commiseration, told me that my
sentence had arrived, and that the judgment had been terrible,
but that the Emperor had mitigated its severity. The inquisi-
tor read the sentence, "Condemned to death. " He then read the
imperial rescript: "The punishment is commuted to fifteen years'
severe imprisonment in the fortress of Spielberg. "
I answered, The will of God be done! " It was truly my
intention to receive this terrible blow as a Christian, and neither
to show nor to indulge resentment against any one.
"We regret," said the inquisitor, "that to-morrow the sentence
must be announced to you in public; but the formality cannot be
dispensed with. "
## p. 11275 (#495) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11275
"Be it so, then," I said. God had put me to a severe proof.
My duty was to sustain it with fortitude. I could not! I would
not! I had rather hate than forgive. I passed an infernal night.
At nine in the forenoon Maroncelli and I were put into a
gondola. We landed at the palace of the Doge and ascended to
the prisons. We were put into a cell and waited long. It was
not till noon that the inquisitor appeared and announced to us
that it was time to go. The physician was present and proposed
to us to drink a glass of mint-water. We did so, and were
grateful for his kindness. The chief of the guard then put
handcuffs on us. We descended, and between two files of Ger-
man soldiers, passed through the gateway into the Piazzetta, in the
centre of which was the scaffold we were to ascend.
Having mounted the scaffold, we looked around and saw the
immense crowd of people filled with consternation. In several
places at a distance other soldiers were drawn up, and we were
told that cannon with lighted matches were stationed on every
side. The German captain called out to us to turn toward the
palace and look up. We obeyed, and saw upon the open gallery
an officer of the court with a paper in his hand. It was the
sentence. He read it in a loud voice. Profound silence reigned
until he came to the words, "Condemned to death. " Then a
general murmur of compassion arose. Silence again succeeded,
that the reading might be finished. New murmurs arose at
the words "Condemned to severe imprisonment; Maroncelli for
twenty years, and Pellico for fifteen. "
The captain then made a sign for us to descend.
We did so,
again entering the court, reascending the great stairs, and return-
ing to the room from which we had been taken. Our handcuffs
were remov
oved, and we were taken back to San Michele.
―――――
HIS JOURNEY TO THE FINAL PRISON OF THe Spielberg
AFTER the delay of a month and four days, we set out for
the Spielberg in the night between the 25th and 26th of March.
A police servant chained us transversely, the right hand to the
left foot, to render our escape impossible. Six or seven guards,
armed with muskets and sabres, part within the carriage and
part on the box with the driver, completed the convoy of the
commissary.
In passing through the Illyrian and German provinces, the
exclamation was universal, "Poor gentlemen! " In a village of
## p. 11276 (#496) ##########################################
11276
SILVIO PELLICO
Styria, a young girl followed us in the midst of a crowd, and
when our carriage stopped for a few minutes, saluted us with
both hands, then went away with a handkerchief at her eyes,
leaning on the arm of a melancholy-looking young man.
On the 10th of April we arrived at the place of our destina-
tion. About three hundred convicts, for the most part robbers
and assassins, are here confined. Those condemned to severe im-
prisonment (carcere duro) are obliged to labor, to wear chains on
their feet, to sleep on bare planks, and to eat the poorest food
imaginable. Those condemned to very severe imprisonment (car-
cere durissimo) are chained more horribly, with a band of iron
around the waist, and the chain fastened in the wall in such a
way that they can only walk by the side of the planks which
serve them for a bed; their food is the same, although the law
says bread and water. We, prisoners of State, were condemned
to severe imprisonment.
THE FIRST DAY IN THE PRISON OF SPIELBERG
WE WERE Consigned to the superintendent of the prison. Our
names were registered among those of the robbers.
We were
then conducted to a subterranean corridor. A dark room was
opened for each of us, and each was shut up there.
When I found myself alone in this horrible den, and heard
the bolts fastened, and distinguished, by the dim light which fell
from the small high window, the bare planks given me for a
bed, and an enormous chain in the wall, I seated myself on that
bed shuddering; and took up the chain and measured its length,
thinking it was intended for me.
Half an hour after, I heard the keys grate; the door was
opened, and the head jailer brought me a pitcher of water.
"This is to drink," he said, "and to-morrow morning I will
bring the bread, " He turned back asking me how long I had
coughed so badly; and hurled a great curse against the physician
for not coming the same evening to visit me.
"You have a galloping fever," he added: "I can perceive
that you need at least a sack of straw; but till the physician has
ordered it we cannot give it to you. " He went away and closed
the door, and I laid myself on the hard plank, burning with
fever and with strong pain in the breast.
In the evening the superintendent came, accompanied by
the jailer, a corporal, and two soldiers, to make an examination.
## p. 11277 (#497) ##########################################
SILVIO PELLICO
11277
Three daily examinations were prescribed, one in the morning,
one in the evening, and one at midnight. The prisoner is
stripped naked, every corner of the cell and every article of
clothing are strictly examined.
The first time I saw this troop, being then ignorant of those
vexatious usages, and delirious from the fever, I fancied they
had started to kill me, and grasped the long chain that was near
me to break the head of the first who should approach me.
"What are you doing? " said the superintendent: "we are not
come to do you any harm. This is a visit of formality to all
the cells, to assure ourselves that there is no irregularity there. "
The jailer stretched out his hand; I let go the chain and took
his hand between mine.
"How it burns! " said he to the superintendent.
HIS FIRST EXPERIENCE OF THE DIET OF THE SPIELBERG PRISON
ON THURSDAY morning, two hours after the visitation had
been made. the jailer brought me a piece of brown bread, saying:
"This is your portion for two days. "
At eleven my dinner was brought by a convict, accompanied
by Schiller the jailer. It consisted of two iron pots, one contain-
ing very bad broth, the other beans seasoned with such a sauce
that the mere smell brought disgust. I attempted to swallow
some spoonfuls of broth, but it was not possible for me. Schiller
kept saying, over and over again, "Have courage: get yourself
accustomed to this food; otherwise it will happen to you as it
has to others, to eat nothing but a little bread, and then die of
weakness. "
HE ASSUMES THE PRISON UNIFORM
FIVE days after this, my prison dress was brought me. It
consisted of a pair of pantaloons of coarse cloth, the right side
gray, the left of capuchin color [chocolate]; a waistcoat of the two
colors disposed in the same way; and a roundabout coat of the
same colors, but arranged in the opposite way. The stockings
were of coarse wool, the shirt of tow-cloth full of shives, a real
hair-cloth; and round the neck was a piece of cloth like the shirt.
The brogans were of uncolored leather, laced. The hat was
white. This livery was completed by a chain from one leg to
the other, the cuffs of which were closed by rivets headed down
on an anvil.
## p. 11278 (#498) ##########################################
11278
SILVIO PELLICO
HE TRIES TO LIVE ON THE "QUARTER-PORTION"
THE physician, seeing that none of us could eat the kind of
food that had been given us, put us upon what was called the
quarter-portion; that is, the diet of the hospital. This was some
very thin soup three times a day, a small piece of roast lamb
that might be swallowed at a mouthful, and perhaps three ounces
of white bread. As my health improved, that quarter was too
little. I tried to return to the food of the well, but it was so
disgusting that I could not eat it. It was absolutely necessary
that I should keep to the quarter; and for more than a year I
knew what are the torments of hunger.
Our barber, a young man who came to us every Saturday,
said to me one day, "It is reported in the city that they give
you gentlemen but little to eat. "
"It is very true," I replied. The next Saturday he brought
and offered me secretly a large loaf of white bread. Schiller pre-
tended not to see him offer it. If I had listened to my stomach,
I should have accepted it; but I stood firm in refusing, lest the
poor young man should be tempted to repeat his gift, which some
day might be a heavy mischief to him.
THE COMFORT AND THE PANG OF SYMPATHY
f us
"A
as
IT WAS from the first an established rule that each
should be permitted to walk for an hour twice a week.
pleasant walk to you!
