How Lisa Loved the King

Джордж Элиот

George Eliot

How Lisa Loved the King

How Lisa loved the King

Six hundred years ago, in Dante’s time,

Before his cheek was furrowed by deep rhyme;

When Europe, fed afresh from Eastern story,

Was like a garden tangled with the glory

Of flowers hand-planted and of flowers air-sown,

Climbing and trailing, budding and full-blown,

Where purple bells are tossed amid pink stars,

And springing blades, green troops in innocent wars,

Crowd every shady spot of teeming earth,

Making invisible motion visible birth,—

Six hundred years ago, Palermo town

Kept holiday.В  A deed of great renown,

A high revenge, had freed it from the yoke

Of hated Frenchmen; and from Calpe’s rock

To where the Bosporus caught the earlier sun,

’Twas told that Pedro, King of Aragon,

Was welcomed master of all Sicily,—

A royal knight, supreme as kings should be

In strength and gentleness that make high chivalry.

Spain was the favorite home of knightly grace,

Where generous men rode steeds of generous race;

Both Spanish, yet half Arab; both inspired

By mutual spirit, that each motion fired

With beauteous response, like minstrelsy

Afresh fulfilling fresh expectancy.

So, when Palermo made high festival,

The joy of matrons and of maidens all

Was the mock terror of the tournament,

Where safety, with the glimpse of danger blent,

Took exaltation as from epic song,

Which greatly tells the pains that to great life belong.

And in all eyes King Pedro was the king

Of cavaliers; as in a full-gemmed ring

The largest ruby, or as that bright star

Whose shining shows us where the Hyads are.

His the best genet, and he sat it best;

His weapon, whether tilting or in rest,

Was worthiest watching; and his face, once seen,

Gave to the promise of his royal mien

Such rich fulfilment as the opened eyes

Of a loved sleeper, or the long-watched rise

Of vernal day, whose joy o’er stream and meadow flies.

But of the maiden forms that thick enwreathed

The broad piazza, and sweet witchery breathed,

With innocent faces budding all arow,

From balconies and windows high and low,

Who was it felt the deep mysterious glow,

The impregnation with supernal fire

Of young ideal love, transformed desire,

Whose passion is but worship of that Best

Taught by the many-mingled creed of each young breast?

’Twas gentle Lisa, of no noble line,

Child of Bernardo, a rich Florentine,

Who from his merchant-city hither came

To trade in drugs; yet kept an honest fame,

And had the virtue not to try and sell

Drugs that had none.В  He loved his riches well,

But loved them chiefly for his Lisa’s sake,

Whom with a father’s care he sought to make

The bride of some true honorable man,—

Of Perdicone (so the rumor ran),

Whose birth was higher than his fortunes were,

For still your trader likes a mixture fair

Of blood that hurries to some higher strain

Than reckoning money’s loss and money’s gain.

And of such mixture good may surely come:

Lord’s scions so may learn to cast a sum,

A trader’s grandson bear a well-set head,

And have less conscious manners, better bred;

Nor, when he tries to be polite, be rude instead.

’Twas Perdicone’s friends made overtures

To good Bernardo; so one dame assures

Her neighbor dame, who notices the youth

Fixing his eyes on Lisa; and, in truth,

Eyes that could see her on this summer day

Might find it hard to turn another way.

She had a pensive beauty, yet not sad;

Rather like minor cadences that glad

The hearts of little birds amid spring boughs:

And oft the trumpet or the joust would rouse

Pulses that gave her cheek a finer glow,

Parting her lips that seemed a mimic bow

By chiselling Love for play in coral wrought,

Then quickened by him with the passionate thought,

The soul that trembled in the lustrous night

Of slow long eyes.В  H