章节正文
And a handsome word or two give help,
Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns
And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.
What, not a word for Stefano there,
Of brow once prominent and starry,
Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair
For his peerlesspainting? (See Vasari.)
X.
There stands the Master. Study, my friends,
What a man's work comes to! So he plans it,
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends
For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit!_
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labour,
With upturned eye while the hand is busy,
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbour!
'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy.
XI.
``If you knew their work you would deal your dole.''
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,
Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_---
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.
XII.
So, you saw yourself as you wished you were,
As you might have been, as you cannot be;
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:
And grew content in your poor degree
With your little power, by those statues' godhead,
And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway,
And your little grace, by their grace embodied,
And your little date, by their forms that stay.
XIII.
You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?
Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.
You would prove a model? The Son of Priam
Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use.
You're wroth---can you slay your snake like Apollo?
You're grieved---still Niobe's the grander!
You live---there's the Racers' frieze to follow:
You die---there's the dying Alexander.
XIV.
So, testing your weakness by their strength,
Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty,
Measured by Art in your breadth and length,
You learned---to submit is a mortal's duty.
---When I say ``you'' 'tis the common soul,
The collective, I mean: the race of Man
That receives life in parts to live in a whole,
And grow here according to God's clear plan.
XV.
Growth came when, looking your last on them all,
You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day
And cried with a start---What if we so small
Be greater and grander the while than they?
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?
In both, of such lower types are we
Precisely because of our wider nature;
For time, theirs---ours, for eternity.
XVI.
To-day's brief passion limits their range;
It seethes with the morrow for us and more.
They are perfect---how else? they shall never change:
We are faulty---why not? we have time in store.
The Artificer's hand is not arrested
With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished:
They stand for our copy, and, once invested
With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.
XVII.
'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven---
The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven:
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!
Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish,
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) ``O!''
Thy great Campanile is still to finish.
XVIII.
it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter,
But what and where depend on life's minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter
Our first step out of the gulf or in it?
Shall Man, such step within his endeavour,
Man's face, have no more play and action
Than joy which is crystallized for ever,
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?
XIX.
On which I conclude, that the early painters,
To cries of ``Greek Art and what more wish you?''---
Replied, ``To become now self-acquainters,
``And paint man man, whatever the issue!
``Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
``New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:
``To bring the visible" target="_blank" title="a.看不见的；无形的">invisible full into play!
``Let the visible go to the dogs---what matters?''
XX.
Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much, before they well did it.
The first of the new, in our race's story,
Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit.
The worthies began a revolution,
Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge,
Why, honour them now! (ends my allocution)
Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college.
XXI.
There's a fancy some lean to and others hate---
That, when this life is ended, begins
New work for the soul in another state,
Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins:
Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries,
Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series;
Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
XXII.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene,---
When our faith in the same has stood the test---
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,
The uses of labour are surely done;
There remaineth a rest for the people of God:
And I have had troubles enough, for one.
XXIII.
But at any rate I have loved the season
Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy;
My sculptor is Nicolo<*1> the Pisan,
My painter---who but Cimabue?
Nor ever was man of them all indeed,
From these to Ghiberti<*2> and Ghirlandaio,<*3>
Could say that he missed my critic-meed.
So, now to my special grievance---heigh ho!
XXIV.
Their ghosts still stand, as I said before,
Watching each fresco flaked and rasped,
Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er:
---No getting again what the church has grasped!
The works on the wall must take their chance;
``Works never conceded to England's thick clime!''
(I hope they prefer their inheritance
Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.)
XXV.
When they go at length, with such a shaking
Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly
Each master his way through the black streets taking,
Where many a lost work breathes though badly---
Why don't they bethink them of who has merited?
Why not reveal, while their pictures dree
Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted?
Why is it they never remember me?
XXVI.
Not that I expect the great Bigordi,
Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose;
Nor the wronged Lippino;<*4> and not a word I
Say of a scrap of Fr Angelico's:
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi,<*5>
To grant me a taste of your intonaco,<*6>
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye?
Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?
XXVII.
Could not the ghost with the close red cap,
My Pollajolo,<*7> the twice a craftsman,
Save me asample, give me the hap
Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman?
No Virgin by him the somewhat petty,
Of finical touch and tempera<*8> crumbly---
Could not Alesso Baldovinetti
Contribute so much, I ask him humbly?
XXVIII.
Margheritone of Arezzo,<*9>
With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so,
You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?)
Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion,
Where in the foreground kneels the donor?
If such remain, as is my conviction,
The hoarding it does you but little honour.
XXIX.
They pass; for them the panels may thrill,
The tempera grow alive and tinglish;
Their pictures are left to the mercies still
Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English,
Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize,
Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno
At naked High Art, and in ecstasies
Before some clay-cold vile Carlino!
XXX.
No matter for these! But Giotto, you,
Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it,---
Oh, never! it shall not be counted true---
That a certain precious little tablet
Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover,---
Was buried so long in oblivion's womb
And, left for another than I to discover,
Turns up at last! and to whom?---to whom?
XXXI.
I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito,
(Or was it rather the Ognissanti<*10>?)
Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe!
Nay, I shall have it yet! _Detur amanti!_
Here, after your kind, the mastiff girns
And the puppy pack of poodles yelp.
What, not a word for Stefano there,
Of brow once prominent and starry,
Called Nature's Ape and the world's despair
For his peerlesspainting? (See Vasari.)
X.
There stands the Master. Study, my friends,
What a man's work comes to! So he plans it,
Performs it, perfects it, makes amends
For the toiling and moiling, and then, _sic transit!_
Happier the thrifty blind-folk labour,
With upturned eye while the hand is busy,
Not sidling a glance at the coin of their neighbour!
'Tis looking downward that makes one dizzy.
XI.
``If you knew their work you would deal your dole.''
May I take upon me to instruct you?
When Greek Art ran and reached the goal,
Thus much had the world to boast _in fructu_---
The Truth of Man, as by God first spoken,
Which the actual generations garble,
Was re-uttered, and Soul (which Limbs betoken)
And Limbs (Soul informs) made new in marble.
XII.
So, you saw yourself as you wished you were,
As you might have been, as you cannot be;
Earth here, rebuked by Olympus there:
And grew content in your poor degree
With your little power, by those statues' godhead,
And your little scope, by their eyes' full sway,
And your little grace, by their grace embodied,
And your little date, by their forms that stay.
XIII.
You would fain be kinglier, say, than I am?
Even so, you will not sit like Theseus.
You would prove a model? The Son of Priam
Has yet the advantage in arms' and knees' use.
You're wroth---can you slay your snake like Apollo?
You're grieved---still Niobe's the grander!
You live---there's the Racers' frieze to follow:
You die---there's the dying Alexander.
XIV.
So, testing your weakness by their strength,
Your meagre charms by their rounded beauty,
Measured by Art in your breadth and length,
You learned---to submit is a mortal's duty.
---When I say ``you'' 'tis the common soul,
The collective, I mean: the race of Man
That receives life in parts to live in a whole,
And grow here according to God's clear plan.
XV.
Growth came when, looking your last on them all,
You turned your eyes inwardly one fine day
And cried with a start---What if we so small
Be greater and grander the while than they?
Are they perfect of lineament, perfect of stature?
In both, of such lower types are we
Precisely because of our wider nature;
For time, theirs---ours, for eternity.
XVI.
To-day's brief passion limits their range;
It seethes with the morrow for us and more.
They are perfect---how else? they shall never change:
We are faulty---why not? we have time in store.
The Artificer's hand is not arrested
With us; we are rough-hewn, nowise polished:
They stand for our copy, and, once invested
With all they can teach, we shall see them abolished.
XVII.
'Tis a life-long toil till our lump be leaven---
The better! What's come to perfection perishes.
Things learned on earth, we shall practise in heaven:
Works done least rapidly, Art most cherishes.
Thyself shalt afford the example, Giotto!
Thy one work, not to decrease or diminish,
Done at a stroke, was just (was it not?) ``O!''
Thy great Campanile is still to finish.
XVIII.
it true that we are now, and shall be hereafter,
But what and where depend on life's minute?
Hails heavenly cheer or infernal laughter
Our first step out of the gulf or in it?
Shall Man, such step within his endeavour,
Man's face, have no more play and action
Than joy which is crystallized for ever,
Or grief, an eternal petrifaction?
XIX.
On which I conclude, that the early painters,
To cries of ``Greek Art and what more wish you?''---
Replied, ``To become now self-acquainters,
``And paint man man, whatever the issue!
``Make new hopes shine through the flesh they fray,
``New fears aggrandize the rags and tatters:
``To bring the visible" target="_blank" title="a.看不见的；无形的">invisible full into play!
``Let the visible go to the dogs---what matters?''
XX.
Give these, I exhort you, their guerdon and glory
For daring so much, before they well did it.
The first of the new, in our race's story,
Beats the last of the old; 'tis no idle quiddit.
The worthies began a revolution,
Which if on earth you intend to acknowledge,
Why, honour them now! (ends my allocution)
Nor confer your degree when the folk leave college.
XXI.
There's a fancy some lean to and others hate---
That, when this life is ended, begins
New work for the soul in another state,
Where it strives and gets weary, loses and wins:
Where the strong and the weak, this world's congeries,
Repeat in large what they practised in small,
Through life after life in unlimited series;
Only the scale's to be changed, that's all.
XXII.
Yet I hardly know. When a soul has seen
By the means of Evil that Good is best,
And, through earth and its noise, what is heaven's serene,---
When our faith in the same has stood the test---
Why, the child grown man, you burn the rod,
The uses of labour are surely done;
There remaineth a rest for the people of God:
And I have had troubles enough, for one.
XXIII.
But at any rate I have loved the season
Of Art's spring-birth so dim and dewy;
My sculptor is Nicolo<*1> the Pisan,
My painter---who but Cimabue?
Nor ever was man of them all indeed,
From these to Ghiberti<*2> and Ghirlandaio,<*3>
Could say that he missed my critic-meed.
So, now to my special grievance---heigh ho!
XXIV.
Their ghosts still stand, as I said before,
Watching each fresco flaked and rasped,
Blocked up, knocked out, or whitewashed o'er:
---No getting again what the church has grasped!
The works on the wall must take their chance;
``Works never conceded to England's thick clime!''
(I hope they prefer their inheritance
Of a bucketful of Italian quick-lime.)
XXV.
When they go at length, with such a shaking
Of heads o'er the old delusion, sadly
Each master his way through the black streets taking,
Where many a lost work breathes though badly---
Why don't they bethink them of who has merited?
Why not reveal, while their pictures dree
Such doom, how a captive might be out-ferreted?
Why is it they never remember me?
XXVI.
Not that I expect the great Bigordi,
Nor Sandro to hear me, chivalric, bellicose;
Nor the wronged Lippino;<*4> and not a word I
Say of a scrap of Fr Angelico's:
But are you too fine, Taddeo Gaddi,<*5>
To grant me a taste of your intonaco,<*6>
Some Jerome that seeks the heaven with a sad eye?
Not a churlish saint, Lorenzo Monaco?
XXVII.
Could not the ghost with the close red cap,
My Pollajolo,<*7> the twice a craftsman,
Save me asample, give me the hap
Of a muscular Christ that shows the draughtsman?
No Virgin by him the somewhat petty,
Of finical touch and tempera<*8> crumbly---
Could not Alesso Baldovinetti
Contribute so much, I ask him humbly?
XXVIII.
Margheritone of Arezzo,<*9>
With the grave-clothes garb and swaddling barret
(Why purse up mouth and beak in a pet so,
You bald old saturnine poll-clawed parrot?)
Not a poor glimmering Crucifixion,
Where in the foreground kneels the donor?
If such remain, as is my conviction,
The hoarding it does you but little honour.
XXIX.
They pass; for them the panels may thrill,
The tempera grow alive and tinglish;
Their pictures are left to the mercies still
Of dealers and stealers, Jews and the English,
Who, seeing mere money's worth in their prize,
Will sell it to somebody calm as Zeno
At naked High Art, and in ecstasies
Before some clay-cold vile Carlino!
XXX.
No matter for these! But Giotto, you,
Have you allowed, as the town-tongues babble it,---
Oh, never! it shall not be counted true---
That a certain precious little tablet
Which Buonarroti eyed like a lover,---
Was buried so long in oblivion's womb
And, left for another than I to discover,
Turns up at last! and to whom?---to whom?
XXXI.
I, that have haunted the dim San Spirito,
(Or was it rather the Ognissanti<*10>?)
Patient on altar-step planting a weary toe!
Nay, I shall have it yet! _Detur amanti!_
- prominent [´prɔminənt]
a.突起的；凸出的 (初中英语单词) - painting [´peintiŋ] n.绘画；(油)画；着色 (初中英语单词)
- instruct [in´strʌkt] vt.教育；指导；通知 (初中英语单词)
- actual [´æktʃuəl] a.现实的；实际的 (初中英语单词)
- advantage [əd´vɑ:ntidʒ] n.优势；利益 (初中英语单词)
- weakness [´wi:knis] n.虚弱；弱点，缺点 (初中英语单词)
- submit [səb´mit] vt.使服从；使忍受 (初中英语单词)
- passion [´pæʃən] n.激情；激怒；恋爱 (初中英语单词)
- practise [´præktis] v.实践(行，施)；提倡 (初中英语单词)
- decrease [di´kri:s, ´di:kri:s] v.&n.减少；减退 (初中英语单词)
- eternal [i´tə:nəl] a.永远的；永恒的 (初中英语单词)
- whatever [wɔt´evə] pron.&a.无论什么 (初中英语单词)
- invisible [in´vizəbəl] a.看不见的；无形的 (初中英语单词)
- visible [´vizəbəl] a.可见的；明显的 (初中英语单词)
- italian [i´tæliən] a.意大利 n.意大利人 (初中英语单词)
- captive [´kæptiv] n.俘虏；捕获物 (初中英语单词)
- sample [´sæmpl, ´sɑ:mpəl] n.样品；试样 vt.尝试 (初中英语单词)
- christ [kraist] n.基督 int.天啊! (初中英语单词)
- haunted [´hɔ:tid] a.常出现鬼的，闹鬼的 (初中英语单词)
- downward [´daunwəd] a.下降的，向下的 (高中英语单词)
- breadth [bredθ] n.宽度，幅面，广度 (高中英语单词)
- perfection [pə´fekʃən] n.完美；极致；熟练 (高中英语单词)
- learned [´lə:nid] a.有学问的，博学的 (高中英语单词)
- heavenly [´hevənli] a.天的，天空的 (高中英语单词)
- muscular [´mʌskjulə] a.肌肉的；强有力的 (高中英语单词)
- virgin [´və:dʒin] a.处女(般)的 n.处女 (高中英语单词)
- seeing [si:iŋ] see的现在分词 n.视觉 (高中英语单词)
- morrow [´mɔrəu] n.翌日 (英语四级单词)
- daring [´deəriŋ] a.&n.勇敢(的) (英语四级单词)
- unlimited [ʌn´limitid] a.无限的；过渡的 (英语四级单词)
- sculptor [´skʌlptə] n.雕刻家，雕刻家 (英语四级单词)
- babble [´bæbəl] v.&n.唠叨；胡言乱语 (英语四级单词)
- peerless [´piələs] a.无比的；无匹敌的 (英语六级单词)
- thrifty [´θrifti] a.节俭的；兴旺的 (英语六级单词)
- olympus [əu´limpəs] n.(希腊)奥林匹斯山 (英语六级单词)
- frieze [fri:z] n.(墙上的)横饰带 (英语六级单词)
- collective [kə´lektiv] a.集体的 n.集体 (英语六级单词)
- inwardly [´inwədli] ad.内向；独自地 (英语六级单词)
- infernal [in´fə:nəl] a.地狱的，恶魔似的 (英语六级单词)
- delusion [di´lu:ʒən] n.欺骗；幻觉；迷惑 (英语六级单词)
- bethink [bi´θiŋk] vt.想起；思考 (英语六级单词)
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