"Alles Vergängliche ist nur ein Gleichniss"
It is in order to give others the pleasure of reading or re-reading a small masterpiece, that I mention the likelihood of the catastrophe of my Ariadne having been suggested by the late Mr. Shorthouse's Little Schoolmaster Mark; but I must ask forgiveness of my dear old friend, Madame Emile Duclaux (Mary Robinson), for unwarranted use of one of the songs of her Italian Garden.
Readers of my own little volume Genius Loci may meanwhile recognise that I have been guilty of plagiarism towards myself also.[1]
For a couple of years after writing those pages, the image of the Palace of Mantua and the lakes it steeps in, haunted my fancy with that peculiar insistency, as of the half-lapsed recollection of a name or date, which tells us that we know (if we could only remember!) what happened in a place. I let the matter rest. But, looking into my mind one day, I found that a certain song of the early seventeenth century—(not Monteverde's Lamento d'Arianna but an air, Amarilli, by Caccini, printed alongside in Parisotti's collection)—had entered that Palace of Mantua, and was, in some manner not easy to define, the musical shape of what must have happened there. And that, translated back into human personages, was the story I have set forth in the following little Drama.
So much for the origin of Ariadne in Mantua, supposing any friend to be curious about it. What seems more interesting is my feeling, which grew upon me as I worked over and over the piece and its French translation, that these personages had an importance greater than that of their life and adventures, a meaning, if I may say so, a little sub specie aeternitatis. For, besides the real figures, there appeared to me vague shadows cast by them, as it were, on the vast spaces of life, and magnified far beyond those little puppets that I twitched. And I seem to feel here the struggle, eternal, necessary, between mere impulse, unreasoning and violent, but absolutely true to its aim; and all the moderating, the weighing and restraining influences of civilisation, with their idealism, their vacillation, but their final triumph over the mere forces of nature. These well-born people of Mantua, privileged beings wanting little because they have much, and able therefore to spend themselves in quite harmonious effort, must necessarily get the better of the poor gutter-born creature without whom, after all, one of them would have been dead and the others would have had no opening in life. Poor Diego acts magnanimously, being cornered; but he (or she) has not the delicacy, the dignity to melt into thin air with a mere lyric Metastasian "Piangendo partè", and leave them to their untroubled conscience. He must needs assert himself, violently wrench at their heart-strings, give them a final stab, hand them over to endless remorse; briefly, commit that public and theatrical deed of suicide, splashing the murderous waters into the eyes of well-behaved wedding guests.
Certainly neither the Duke, nor the Duchess Dowager, nor Hippolyta would have done this. But, on the other hand, they could calmly, coldly, kindly accept the self-sacrifice culminating in that suicide: well-bred people, faithful to their standards and forcing others, however unwilling, into their own conformity. Of course without them the world would be a den of thieves, a wilderness of wolves; for they are,—if I may call them by their less personal names,—Tradition, Discipline, Civilisation.
On the other hand, but for such as Diego the world would come to an end within twenty years: mere sense of duty and fitness not being sufficient for the killing and cooking of victuals, let alone the begetting and suckling of children. The descendants of Ferdinand and Hippolyta, unless they intermarried with some bastard of Diego's family, would dwindle, die out; who knows, perhaps supplement the impulses they lacked by silly newfangled evil.
These are the contending forces of history and life: Impulse and Discipline, creating and keeping; love such as Diego's, blind, selfish, magnanimous; and detachment, noble, a little bloodless and cruel, like that of the Duke of Mantua.
And it seems to me that the conflicts which I set forth on my improbable little stage, are but the trifling realities shadowing those great abstractions which we seek all through the history of man, and everywhere in man's own heart.
VERNON LEE.
Maiano, near Florence,
June, 1903.
[1] See Appendix where the article referred to is given entire.
VIOLA. ....I'll serve this Duke:
....for I can sing
And speak to him in many sorts of music.
TWELFTH NIGHT, 1, 2.
FERDINAND, Duke of Mantua.
THE CARDINAL, his Uncle.
THE DUCHESS DOWAGER.
HIPPOLYTA, Princess of Mirandola.
MAGDALEN, known as DIEGO.
THE MARCHIONESS OF GUASTALLA.
THE BISHOP OF CREMONA.
THE DOGE'S WIFE.
THE VENETIAN AMBASSADOR.
THE DUKE OF FERRARA'S POET.
THE VICEROY OF NAPLES' JESTER.
A TENOR as BACCHUS.
The CARDINAL'S CHAPLAIN.
THE DUCHESS'S GENTLEWOMAN.
THE PRINCESS'S TUTOR.
Singers as Maenads and Satyrs; Courtiers,
Pages, Wedding Guests and Musicians.
The action takes place in the Palace of Mantua through a period of a year, during the reign of Prospero I, of Milan, and shortly before the Venetian expedition to Cyprus under Othello.
The CARDINAL'S Study in the Palace at Mantua. The CARDINAL is seated at a table covered with Persian embroidery, rose-colour picked out with blue, on which lies open a volume of Machiavelli's works, and in it a manuscript of Catullus; alongside thereof are a bell and a magnifying-glass. Under his feet a red cushion with long tassels, and an oriental carpet of pale lavender and crimson. The CARDINAL is dressed in scarlet, a crimson fur-lined cape upon his shoulders. He is old, but beautiful and majestic, his face furrowed like the marble bust of Seneca among the books opposite.
Through the open Renaissance window, with candelabra and birds carved on the copings, one sees the lake, pale blue, faintly rippled, with a rose-coloured brick bridge and bridge-tower at its narrowest point. DIEGO (in reality MAGDALEN) has just been admitted into the CARDINAL'S presence, and after kissing his ring, has remained standing, awaiting his pleasure.
DIEGO is fantastically habited as a youth in russet and violet tunic reaching below the knees in Moorish fashion, as we see it in the frescoes of Pinturicchio; with silver buttons down the seams, and plaited linen at the throat and in the unbuttoned purfles of the sleeves. His hair, dark but red where it catches the light, is cut over the forehead and touches his shoulders. He is not very tall in his boy's clothes, and very sparely built. He is pale, almost sallow; the face, dogged, sullen, rather expressive than beautiful, save for the perfection of the brows and of the flower-like singer's mouth. He stands ceremoniously before the CARDINAL, one hand on his dagger, nervously, while the other holds a large travelling hat, looped up, with a long drooping plume.
The CARDINAL raises his eyes, slightly bows his head, closes the manuscript and the volume, and puts both aside deliberately. He is, meanwhile, examining the appearance of DIEGO.
CARDINAL
We are glad to see you at Mantua, Signor Diego. And from what our worthy Venetian friend informs us in the letter which he gave you for our hands, we shall without a doubt be wholly satisfied with your singing, which is said to be both sweet and learned. Prythee, Brother Matthias (turning to his