dans la Dalmatie, la Bosnie, la Croatie et l'Herzegowine. Paris.
1827.
2. La Jaquerie; Feudal Scenes; followed by
the family of Carvajal, a Drama. Paris. By the Author of Le Theatre de Clara
Gazul. 1828.1
SEVERAL years ago, the "Comedies de Clara Gazul"
appeared in Paris, and excited a great deal of attention. They were hardly less known
and praised in England. It was[Page 72]soon understood that they were imitations
of the Spanish drama, the production of a very young Frenchman, (M. Merimée) and that "Clara Gazul" was
altogether a fictitious personage. They were, in every way, striking and interesting
productions, possessing at once the faults and beauties of their models, full of
spirit, originality, and fire. They were introduced by an account of their feigned
authoress, which, as well as the dramas themselves, is remarkable for its utter
freedom from affectation. There are to be found in them none of those defects, too
generally attributed with justice to French imaginative works: there is no
circumlocution, no parade, and their very hyperbole, as being common to the Spanish
drama, is natural and in its place. The first of these comedies is founded on a
circumstance that occurred during the last war; when a woman, brought up in infamy,
was bribed to spy and betray, through their officers, a Spanish detachment to the
French authorities in Finland. The gradual softening and repentance of the girl, when
she discovers the worth, and learns to love the man she is about to lead to the
scaffold, contrasted with the obduracy of her mother, is finely drawn; and the scene
in which she confesses her guilt to her lover is touching from its simplicity and
truth. Energy is the characteristic of these pieces, mingled with a display of
knowledge in the lighter touches of humanity; such as the sweet gracefulness of Iñez,
and the struggles between a Catholic woman's religion and her love in "Le Ciel et
l'Enfer." This drama is one of the best in the book; it is founded on the stormy
passion of jealousy, the most terrible and selfish of human emotions, and the most
interesting, from its being the most universal. As Clara Gazul was a Liberal,
inquisitors and priests are attacked in her productions, and there reigns through
all
of them the spirit of freedom from political and religious servitude.
The author's next work was in a very
different style, resembling the first in one particular only, that it is an
imitation. It is entitled the "Guzla," and imports to be a translation of a
collection of Illyrian national poems. We have in the preface some account of the
players on the Guzla (a single-stringed guitar) and their mode of reciting to music,
much in the manner of the Italian improvisatori.
2 We are introduced
also to an imaginary person, Hyacinth Maglanovich, who is supposed to be the author
of the greater number of the poems in the volume before us. They are warlike,
pathetic, and amatory—and, above all, whatever is their theme, they are characterized
by the utmost simplicity, while a vein of sweetness runs throughout, that lends to
each a particular charm. By a strong effort[Page 73]of the imagination, the young
Parisian writes as if the mountains of Illyria had been the home of his childhood;
the rustic and barbarous manners are not softened, nor the wild energy of the people
tamed; and, if we trace any vestige of civilization, it merely arises from the
absence of all that would shock our tastes or prejudices. We are induced to give a
few specimens from this extraordinary production, glad of an opportunity to introduce
it to the lovers of poetry in this country.
We select, in the first place, a love poem, entitled, "The Beloved of Dannisich."
To
render it intelligible, we are informed in a note, that the Illyrian girl is in the
habit of receiving gifts from her various suitors, and that after she has collected
a
sufficient number, her chosen lover requests permission to carry her off; and she
consenting, always names the place and hour for flight.
THE BELOVED OF DANNISICH.
1.
Eusebius has given me a ring of chased gold; I have received from Vladimir a red
toque adorned with coins; but I love thee, Dannisich, better than both.
2.
Eusebius has dark and curled hair: Vladimir has a complexion fair as that of a
young woman from the mountains; but Dannisich, thou art to me more beautiful than
either.
3.
Eusebius kissed me and I smiled: Vladimir kissed me, and his breath was sweet as
violets; but when Dannisich kissed me, my heart thrilled with pleasure.
4.
Eusebius knows many old songs. Vladimir can play upon the guzla; I love songs and
the guzla, but they must be the songs and guzla of Dannisich.
5.
Eusebius has commissioned his godfather to ask me in marriage. Vladimir will send
to morrow the priest to my father; but come thou under my window, Dannisich, and I
will fly with thee.'
Another of the poems is founded on the oaths of friendship which it is usual for the
Illyrian warriors to take one with the other. Two men thus united are called Pobratimi,3
or half brothers; they often sacrifice their lives for each other, and any quarrel
between them is as scandalous as if, among us, a son ill-treated his father.
[Page 74]
THE FLAME OF PERRUSSICH.
1.
Why is the bey Janco Marnavich never seen in his own country? Why does he wander
among the rugged mountains of Vergoraz, never sleeping two nights under the same
roof? Do his enemies pursue him, and have they sworn that the price of blood shall
never be received?
2.
No. The bey Janco is rich and powerful. No one dares call himself his enemy, for
at his voice two hundred swords will leap from their scabbards. But he seeks
solitary spots, and hides himself in the caverns which the Heydukes inhabit, for
his heart is a prey to sorrow, since the death of his pobratim.
3.
Cyril Pervan died in the midst of feasting. Brandy flowed in torrents, and men
became mad. A dispute arose between two renowned beys, and the bey Janco Marnavich
shot at his enemy; but drinking caused his hand to tremble, and he killed his pobratim, Cyril Pervan.
4.
They swore to live and die together in the church of Perrussich; but two months
after they had interchanged this vow, one of the pobratimi died by the hand of his brother. Since that day the bey Janco
drinks neither spirits nor wine; he eats roots only, he wanders hither and
thither, like an ox pursued by a gadfly.
5.
At length he returned to his own country, and he entered the church of Perrussich:
there, during one whole day, he prayed lying on the pavement with outspread arms,
shedding bitter tears. But when the night came, he returned home, he appeared
calmer, and he supped, waited on by his wife and children.
6.
When he was in bed, he called his wife and said, "Can'st thou see the church of
Perrussich from the mountain of Pristeg?" she looked from the window, and replied,
"The Morpolatza is covered with mist, and I can see nothing beyond it." The bey
Janco said, "Good; rest again beside me;" and he prayed in his bed for the soul of
Cyril Pervan.
7.
And when he had prayed, he said to his wife, "Open the window and look again
towards Perrussich." His wife immediately arose and said, "Beyond the Morpolatza,
in the midst of the mist, I see a pale and flickering light." Then the bey smiled
and said, "Good; lie down again;" and he took his rosary and continued to pray.
[Page 75]
8.
When he had told his beads, he called his wife, saying, "Pascorra, once again open
the window and look." She rose and said, "My lord, I see a brilliant light in the
middle of the river, which is advancing rapidly hither." Then she heard a deep
sigh, and something fell on the floor. The bey Janco was dead.
Another poem is founded on the superstition attached to an evil eye, which,
whomsoever it looks on, it kills. There are various kinds of evil eyes, one consists
in having two pupils in each eye.
MAXIMUS AND ZOE.
1.
O Maximus Duban! O Zoe, daughter of Jellavich! May the holy Mother of God reward
your love! May you be happy in heaven!
2.
When the sun had set in the sea, and the vaivode4 had gone to
rest, a sweet guzla was heard beneath the windows of the fair Zoe, the eldest
daughter of Jellavich.
3.
And quickly fair Zoe rose on tiptoe, she opens the window, and a tall youth is
seated on the ground, who sighs and sings his love on the guzla.
4.
He prefers the darkest nights; when the moon is at its full, he hides himself in
the shade, and the eye of Zoe only could discern him under his mantle of black
lamb's skin.
5.
Who is this youth with so sweet a voice? Who can tell? He is come from a distance,
but he speaks our language; no one knows him, Zoe alone is acquainted with his
name.
6.
But neither Zoe, nor any other person has seen his face; for when morning dawns,
he raises his gun on his shoulders, and he penetrates the woods in pursuit of
game.
7.
He always brings back the horns of the little goat of the mountains, and he says
to Zoe: "Carry these horns with thee, and may Mary preserve thee from the evil
eye!"
[Page 76]
8.
He binds his head in a shawl like an Arnaut, and the wandering traveller who meets
him in the woods has never beheld his face beneath the many folds of the
gold-enwoven muslin.
9.
But one night Zoe said: "Approach, that my hand may touch thee"—She felt his
features with her white hand; and when she touched herself, she felt not a more
lovely face.
10.
Then she said: "The young men of this village tire me; they all court me, but I
love only thee: come to-morrow at noon, while they are all at mass.
11.
"I will mount behind thee on thy horse, and thou shalt carry me as thy wife to thy
own country—I have long worn the opunke5 —I wish to wear embroidered slippers."
12.
The young player on the guzla sighed and said: "What dost thou ask? I cannot see
thee in the day time, but descend to-night, and I will carry thee to the beautiful
valley of Knin: and there we will marry."
13.
She replied:—"No, I wish thee to take me to-morrow, for I will carry with me my
richest dresses; my father has the key which keeps them. I will steal it
to-morrow, and then I will come with thee."
14.
Then once again he sighed and said:—"As thou desirest, so it shall be." Then he
embraced her; but the cocks crew, and the sky reddened, and the stranger departed.
15.
When the hour of noon came, he was at the vaivode's
door, mounted on a courser white as milk, and on the crupper there was a velvet
cushion, that the soft Zoe might ride more gently.
16.
The stranger had his face covered with a thick veil—his mouth and his moustachios
were hardly seen. His dress glittered with gold, and his girdle was embroidered
with pearls.
17.
The fair Zoe leapt lightly on the crupper, the courser white as milk neighed,
proud of his burthen, and he galloped off, leaving whirlwinds of dust behind him.
[Page 77]
18.
"Zoe, tell me, have you brought with you the beauteous horn I gave thee"—"No," she
replied, "what have I to do with such trifles? I have brought my gold embroidered
garments, my neck-laces and my coins."
19.
"Tell me, Zoe, hast thou brought the fair relic I gave thee"—"No," she replied, "I
hung it round the neck of my little brother, who is ill, to cure him of his
sickness."
20.
The stranger sighed sorrowfully. "Now that we are far from my home," said the
lovely Zoe, "rein in thy horse, remove that veil, and permit me to embrace thee,
dear Maximus.
21.
But he replied:—"We shall be more at our ease to-night at my home; there are satin
cushions there, and we shall repose to-night under damask curtains."
22.
"How," exclaimed fair Zoe, "is this thy love for me? Why turn your head from me?
Why treat me with disdain? Am I not the fairest girl in our village?"—
23.
"Ah Zoe, "said he, "some one passing might see us, and thy brothers pursuing us,
might take thee back to thy father." And speaking thus he spurred on his courser.
24.
"Stop, stop, O Maximus," cried she, "I see that thou lovest me not; if thou turns
not thy face towards me, I will throw myself from the horse, should I die from my
fall. "
25.
Then with one hand the stranger reined in his horse, and with the other he threw
his veil on the ground, and then he turned to embrace Zoe. Holy Virgin, he had two
pupils in each eye!
26.
Deathly, deathly was his look! Before his lips touched those of fair Zoe, the
young girl leant her head on her shoulder, and she fell from the horse pale and
lifeless.
27.
"Cursed be my father," cried Maximus Duban, "who gave me this fatal eye. It shall
be the cause of no more ill!" And he tore out his eyes with his hanzar.6
[Page 78]
28.
He caused the fair Zoe to be interred with pomp, and for himself, he entered a
cloister: but he survived not long, for soon they opened the grave of Zoe, and
placed her Maximus beside her."
One of the most interesting parts of this book is an account of Vampyrism, and a
detail of the death of a girl, the victim of a vampire. But the above specimens are
sufficient to recommend it to the reader; and every lover of nature in its wildness
and its freedom, will find pleasure in these emanations of a mind, imbued with grand
and unsophisticated imagery, true as the echo in giving back the voice of the
imaginative and simple mountaineer.
The last production of this author,
recently published, is now before us. It is ushered in as no imitative attempt. "La
Jaquerie" consists of a series of dramatic scenes, developing the history of an
insurrection in France, almost contemporary with those in our own country which
occurred under Richard II. The author
observes in his short preface, that similar tumults broke out almost at the same time
in France, Flanders, England, and the north of Germany. They all arose from the same
cause:—the peasantry, long trampled on by the iron heel of feudal tyranny, endured
such matchless privations and cruelties, that in spite of the prejudices that
degraded them in their own eyes, beneath the rank of their fellow men; in spite of
the arms and strongholds of their adversaries, they rose against them, and loosened,
though they could not break, their feudal chains. The plan of the author of "La Jaquerie" is, to give a
faithful picture of the manners of those times, bringing together under one point
of
view the many and successive scenes and personages that formed the then state of
society. A history written with this view would develop a new and terrible page of
human experience. To present this to us in the form of dialogue merely is a difficult
undertaking; individual character is lost in the infinite variety of persons made
to
pass before us, and we have the ideal instead of the real being presented to us. We
are introduced to the factious priest, murmuring because, in the choice of an abbot,
the monks prefer the noble blood of another to his learning. We have the knights of
France, whose very names awaken all the delusive associations of romance; the English
captains of adventurers, whose trade was war; the burgess grasping and cowardly; the
robber driven to outlawry by the cruelty of his superiors, and nourishing vengeance
as a duty; the peasant first sinking beneath, and then rising to throw off
oppression; and finally the lord of the castle, the feudal[Page 79]chief, the
suzerain of the surrounding country, his daughter and her betrothed lover, and the
baron's men at arms, who though, in the language of the day, a villain, joins the
gifts of poetry to those of valour.
These scenes may be divided into three parts. The first consisting of a development
of the causes that led to rebellion. The picture of arbitrary power, unsoftened by
any tinge of humanity, is frightful and true; ingratitude, pride, and cruelty
exercised over the poor and unarmed, produce at last hatred and desire of vengeance:
the peasantry, incited to open rebellion by a priest, rise in arms: they take a band
of English adventurers into their pay, they besiege the castle of their lord, march
to Beauvais, which, admitted by the lower orders, they take and sack, defeat the
regular forces sent against them, and spread terror and devastation around. The lord
of Apremont defends himself long, and is willing to endure any extremity, rather than
submit to his rebellious vassals. Among these is one, late a favourite in the castle,
Pierre, the minstrel and the man at arms. He had saved the life of the lady Isabel,
and her father bestowed him on her as her page. Her beauty awakens, her gracious
kindness fosters, his love, and he dared hope. Called on by her in an hour of ennui,
to recite a tale for her amusement, he feigns to read one in which a noble girl
becomes the bride of a serf. She discovers the deceit and guesses the cause—she
dismisses him from the castle with blighting disdain, while his temerity even
degrades her in her own eyes. Pierre is seized on by the grand mover of the plot,
the
monk, who gives him hope of triumph, and a chance of winning his lady, if he should
join the insurgents, and he is now the chief of those who besiege the castle. Poor
Isabel, her father wounded, every hope lost, asks her betrothed to give her back her
faith, and then offers herself a sacrifice to Pierre, if he will save her parent.
The
end is tragical—he is too generous to accept the victim, and endeavours to provide
for the escape of her and her family; but the miseries of civil discord in all its
most hideous results, envelope the fugitives in one mighty ruin. The peasantry are
victorious, and now begins the third part of the drama, their downfall—schism among
themselves, a wish to return to their native fields and humble homes, a confidence
in
the word of their enemies, an incapacity to submit to discipline, joined to the
treachery of their English allies, bring on the catastrophe. Such is a slight sketch
of the progress of these scenes. We feel the want of one prominent character to
concentrate the interest, without which a dramatic composition is never perfect. But
the author has not aimed at a regular tragedy, and he has succeeded in giving us
in[Page 80]a series of interesting scenes, a forcible picture of the manners of
our ancestors, and of the crimes and misfortunes resulting from the feudal system,
from which our state of civilization preserves us.
To the "Jaquerie" is added a drama, entitled the "Family of Carvajal." This is a
tremendous domestic tragedy, founded on the same story as the Cenci.7 In this production the author is no longer a painter of manners
only, but he becomes a depict of passion, an observer and a narrator of the secret
motives that influence our nature, and the dread events that are the result of
unlawful indulgence. It is a question whether certain combinations of circumstances,
though it is allowed that they have existence, should be recalled to our memory and
represented to our imaginations. But it is difficult for the author, whose impulse is a gift of his
nature, whose talent is spontaneous, who can no more repress the yearning of his mind
to trace the boundaries of the unknown intellectual world, than he can rule the
pulsations of his heart; it is difficult for him to submit to rules imposed by those
whose tamer thoughts never emerge from the narrow bounds of their personal
experience; who repose in a windless atmosphere, and who fear to have their downy
slumbers broken by the war of elements. Columbus, anticipating the discovery of the
unknown shores that pale our western progress over the wild and distant waves of the
Atlantic, felt the old world, extended in latitude and longitude so far and wide,
a
narrow prison—and thus the imaginative writer, who deems that beyond the usual track
he may find a fresh and untried ground, courageously launches forth, leaving the dull
every-day earth behind him. If his discoveries do not interest us, do not let us
vituperate his adventurous spirit, and thus degrade ourselves to the level of all
detractors from the fame attendant on intellectual enterprise. Let us remember that
the poets of Greece, whose names are as a part of our religion, and the highly-gifted
dramatists of our own country, have been prone to select as subjects for their
tragedies, events grounded on the direst passions and the worst impulses.
The Family of Carvajal has given rise to these reflections: they may be received as
applying to every similar production which seeks to interest by new and strange
combinations, and which are vivid in their conception and strong in their delineation
of what they only know through the innate force of the imagination. The author before us has shewn no lack of
boldness in his treatment of the subject, while he has never overstepped those
boundaries which must be observed for our tastes not to be shocked, instead of our
interest excited. He has made the[Page 81]father and daughter equally impetuous
and resolute, but one is the oppressor, the other the victim. The scene is laid in
an
unpopulated province of New Granada, and the father is represented as a despot over
his wife, a cruel tyrant to his slaves, a man grown old in crime. His hapless
daughter was brought up in a rustic semi-barbarous convent, and she returns home to
find herself an associate of guilt, to which her proud heart refuses to yield, while
love for another adds to her vehemence and misery. This meeting of two fierce natures
in unnatural discord presents a new and terrible source for dramatic interest. Each
scene transcends the one before in its appalling horror; and the last, in which the
miserable girl poignards her father, completes the dark picture, spreading over the
canvas the lurid hues of whirlwind and volcano. We turn trembling from the
contemplation, while we confess the force of the genius that presents it to our
eyes.