The Story of Rimini/Canto 1

by James Henry Leigh Hunt

THE

STORY OF RIMINI.

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CANTO I.

The coming to fetch the Bride from Ravenna.

The Sun is up, and 'tis a morn of May
Round old Ravenna's clear-shewn towers and bay,
A morn, the loveliest which the year has seen,
Last of the spring, yet fresh with all its green;
For a warm eve, and gentle rains at night,
Have left a sparkling welcome for the light,
And there's a crystal clearness all about;
The leaves are sharp, the distant hills look out;
A balmy briskness comes upon the breeze;
The smoke goes dancing from the cottage trees;
And when you listen, you may hear a coil
Of bubbling springs about the grassy soil;
And all the scene, in short—sky, earth, and sea,
Breathes like a bright-eyed face, that laughs out openly.

'Tis nature, full of spirits, waked and springing:—
The birds to the delicious time are singing,
Darting with freaks and snatches up and down,
Where the light woods go seaward from the town;
While happy faces, striking through the green
Of leafy roads, at every turn are seen;
And the far ships, lifting their sails of white
Like joyful hands, come up with scattery light,
Come gleaming up, true to the wished-for day,
And chase the whistling brine, and swirl into the bay.

And well may all who can, come crowding there,
If peace returning, and processions rare,
And to crown all, a marriage in May weather,
Have aught to bring enjoying hearts together;
For on this sparkling day, Ravenna's pride,
The daughter of their prince, becomes a bride,
A bride, to crown the comfort of the land:
And he, whose victories have obtained her hand,
Has taken with the dawn, so flies report,
His promised journey to the expecting court
With hasting pomp, and squires of high degree,
The bold Giovanni, lord of Rimini.

Already in the streets the stir grows loud
Of expectation and a bustling crowd.
With feet and voice the gathering hum contends,
The deep talk heaves, the ready laugh ascends;
Callings, and clapping doors, and curs unite,
And shouts from mere exuberance of delight,
And armed bands, making important way,
Gallant and grave, the lords of holiday,
And nodding neighbours, greeting as they run,
And pilgrims, chanting in the morning sun.
With heaved-out tapestry the windows glow,
By lovely faces brought, that come and go;
Till, the work smoothed, and all the street attired,
They take their seats, with upward gaze admired;
Some looking down, some forwards or aside,
As suits the conscious charm in which they pride;
Some turning a trim waist, or o'er the flow
Of crimson cloths hanging a hand of snow;
But all with smiles prepared, and garlands green,
And all in fluttering talk, impatient for the scene.

And hark! the approaching trumpets, with a start,
On the smooth wind come dancing to the heart.
A moment's hush succeeds; and from the walls,
Firm and at once, a silver answer calls.
Then heave the crowd; and all, who best can strive
In shuffling struggle, tow'rd the palace drive,
Where balconied and broad, of marble fair,
On pillars it o'erlooks the public square;
For there Duke Guido is to hold his state
With his fair daughter, seated o'er the gate:—
But the full place rejects the invading tide;
And after a rude heave from side to side,
With angry faces turned, and feet regained,
The peaceful press with order is maintained,
Leaving the door-ways only for the crowd,
The space within for the procession proud.

For in this manner is the square set out:—
The sides, path-deep, are crowded round about,
And faced with guards, who keep the road entire;
And opposite to these, a brilliant quire
Of knights and ladies hold the central spot,
Seated in groups upon a grassy plot;
The seats with boughs are shaded from above
Of early trees transplanted from a grove,
And in the midst, fresh whistling through the scene,
A lightsome fountain starts from out the green,
Clear and compact, till, at its height o'er-run,
It shakes its loosening silver in the sun.

There, talking with the ladies, you may see,
Standing about, or seated, frank and free,
Some of the finest warriors of the court,—
Baptist, and Hugo of the princely port,
And Azo, and Obizo, and the grace
Of frank Esmeriald with his open face,
And Felix the Fine Arm, and him who well
Repays his lavish honours, Lionel,
Besides a host of spirits, nursed in glory,
Fit for sweet woman's love and for the poet's story.

There too, in thickest of the bright-eyed throng,
Stands the young father of Italian song,
Guy Cavalcanti, of a knightly race;
The poet looks out in his earnest face;
He with the pheasant's plume—there—bending now,
Something he speaks around him with a bow,
And all the listening looks, with nods and flushes,
Break round him into smiles and sparkling blushes.

Another start of trumpets, with reply;
And o'er the gate a sudden canopy
Raises, on ivory shafts, a crimson shade,
And Guido issues with the princely maid,
And sits;—the courtiers fall on either side;
But every look is fixed upon the bride,
Who pensive comes at first, and hardly hears
The enormous shout that springs as she appears,
Till, as she views the countless gaze below,
And faces that with grateful homage glow,
A home to leave, and husband yet to see,
Fade in the warmth of that great charity;
And hard it is, she thinks, to have no will;
But not to bless these thousands, harder still:
With that, a keen and quivering glance of tears
Scarce moves her patient mouth, and disappears;
A smile is underneath, and breaks away,
And round she looks and breathes, as best befits the day.

What need I tell of lovely lips and eyes,
A clipsome waist, and bosom's balmy rise,
The dress of bridal white, and the dark curls
Bedding an airy coronet of pearls?
There's not in all that crowd one gallant being,
Whom if his heart were whole, and rank agreeing,
It would not fire to twice of what he is,
To clasp her to his heart, and call her his.

While thus with tip-toe looks the people gaze,
Another shout the neighb'ring quarters raise:
The train are in the town, and gathering near,
With noise of cavalry, and trumpets clear;
A princely music, unbedinned with drums:
The mighty brass seems opening as it comes,
And now it fills, and now it shakes the air,
And now it bursts into the sounding square;
At which the crowd with such a shout rejoice,
Each thinks he's deafened with his neighbour's voice.
Then, with a long-drawn breath, the clangours die;
The palace trumpets give a last reply,
And clattering hoofs succeed, with stately stir
Of snortings proud and clinking furniture:
It seems as if the harnessed war were near;
But in their garb of peace the train appear,
Their swords alone reserved, but idly hung,
And the chains freed by which their shields were slung.

First come the trumpeters, clad all in white
Except the breast, which wears a scutcheon bright.
By four and four they ride, on horses grey;
And as they sit along their easy way,
Stately, and heaving to the sway below,
Each plants his trumpet on his saddle-bow.

The heralds next appear, in vests attired
Of stiffening gold with radiant colours fired;
And then the pursuivants, who wait on these,
All dressed in painted richness to the knees:
Each rides a dappled horse, and bears a shield,
Charged with three heads upon a golden field.

Twelve ranks of squires come after, twelve in one,
With forked pennons lifted in the sun,
Which tell, as they look backward in the wind,
The bearings of the knights that ride behind.
Their steeds are ruddy bay; and every squire
His master's colour shews in his attire.

These past, and at a lordly distance, come
The knights themselves, and fill the quickening hum,
The flower of Rimini. Apart they ride,
Six in a row, and with a various pride;
But all as fresh as fancy could desire,
All shapes of gallantry on steeds of fire.

Differing in colours is the knights' array,
The horses, black and chesnut, roan and bay;—
The horsemen, crimson vested, purple, and white,—
All but the scarlet cloak for every knight,
Which thrown apart, and hanging loose behind,
Rests on his steed, and ruffles in the wind.
Their caps of velvet have a lightsome fit,
Each with a dancing feather sweeping it,
Tumbling its white against their short dark hair;
But what is of the most accomplished air,
All wear memorials of their lady's love,
A ribbon, or a scarf, or silken glove,
Some tied about their arm, some at the breast,
Some, with a drag, dangling from the cap's crest.

A suitable attire the horses shew;
Their golden bits keep wrangling as they go;
The bridles glance about with gold and gems;
And the rich housing-cloths, above the hems
Which comb along the ground with golden pegs,
Are half of net, to shew the hinder legs.
Some of the cloths themselves are golden thread
With silk enwoven, azure, green, or red;
Some spotted on a ground of different hue,
As burning stars upon a cloth of blue,—
Or purple smearings with a velvet light
Rich from the glary yellow thickening bright,—
Or a spring green, powdered with April posies,—
Or flush vermilion, set with silver roses:
But all are wide and large, and with the wind,
When it comes fresh, go sweeping out behind.
With various earnestness the crowd admire
Horsemen and horse, the motion and the attire.
Some watch, as they go by, the riders' faces
Looking composure, and their knightly graces;
The life, the carelessness, the sudden heed,
The body curving to the rearing steed,
The patting hand, that best persuades the check,
And makes the quarrel up with a proud neck,
The thigh broad pressed, the spanning palm upon it,
And the jerked feather swaling in the bonnet.

Others the horses and their pride explore,
Their jauntiness behind and strength before;
The flowing back, firm chest, and fetlocks clean,
The branching veins ridging the glossy lean,
The mane hung sleekly, the projecting eye
That to the stander near looks awfully,
The finished head, in its compactness free,
Small, and o'erarching to the lifted knee,
The start and snatch, as if they felt the comb,
With mouths that fling about the creamy foam,
The snorting turbulence, the nod, the champing,
The shift, the tossing, and the fiery tramping.

And now the Princess, pale and with fixed eye,
Perceives the last of those precursors nigh,
Each rank uncovering, as they pass in state,
Both to the courtly fountain and the gate.
And then a second interval succeeds
Of stately length, and then a troop of steeds
Milkwhite and unattired, Arabian bred,
Each by a blooming boy lightsomely led:
In every limb is seen their faultless race,
A fire well tempered, and a free left grace:
Slender their spotless shapes, and meet the sight
With freshness, after all those colours bright:
And as with quoit-like drop their steps they bear,
They lend their streaming tails to the fond air.
These for a princely present are divined,
And shew the giver is not far behind.
The talk increases now, and now advance,
Space after space, with many a sprightly prance,
The pages of the court, in rows of three;
Of white and crimson is their livery.
Space after space,—and yet the attendants come,—
And deeper goes about the impatient hum—
Ah—yes—no—'tis not he—but 'tis the squires
Who go before him when his pomp requires;
And now his huntsman shews the lessening train,
Now the squire-carver, and the chamberlain,—
And now his banner comes, and now his shield
Borne by the squire that waits him to the field,—
And then an interval,—a lordly space;—
A pin-drop silence strikes o'er all the place:
The princess, from a distance, scarcely knows
Which way to look; her colour comes and goes;
And with an impulse and affection free
She lays her hand upon her father's knee,
Who looks upon her with a laboured smile,
Gathering it up into his own the while,
When some one's voice, as if it knew not how
To check itself, exclaims, "the prince! now—now!"
And on a milk-white courser, like the air,
A glorious figure springs into the square;
Up, with a burst of thunder, goes the shout,
And rolls the trembling walls and peopled roofs about.

Never was nobler finish of fine sight;
'Twas like the coming of a shape of light;
And every lovely gazer, with a start,
Felt the quick pleasure smite across her heart:—
The princess, who at first could scarcely see,
Though looking still that way from dignity,
Gathers new courage as the praise goes round,
And bends her eyes to learn what they have found.
And see,—his horse obeys the check unseen;
And with an air 'twixt ardent and serene,
Letting a fall of curls about his brow,
He takes his cap off with a gallant bow;
Then for another and a deafening shout;
And scarfs are waved, and flowers come fluttering out;
And, shaken by the noise, the reeling air
Sweeps with a giddy whirl among the fair,
And whisks their garments, and their shining hair.

With busy interchange of wonder glows
The crowd, and loves his brilliance as he goes,—
The golden-fretted cap, the downward feather,—
The crimson vest fitting with pearls together,—
The rest in snowy white from the mid thigh:
These catch the extrinsic and the common eye:
But on his shape the gentler sight attends,
Moves as he passes,—as he bends him, bends,—
Watches his air, his gesture, and his face,
And thinks it never saw such manly grace,
So fine are his bare throat, and curls of black,—
So lightsomely dropt in, his lordly back—
His thigh so fitted for the tilt or dance,
So heaped with strength, and turned with elegance;
But above all, so meaning is his look,
Full, and as readable as open book;
And so much easy dignity there lies
In the frank lifting of his cordial eyes.

His haughty steed, who seems by turns to be
Vexed and made proud by that cool mastery,
Shakes at his bit, and rolls his eyes with care,
Reaching with stately step at the fine air;
And now and then, sideling his restless pace,
Drops with his hinder legs, and shifts his place,
And feels through all his frame a fiery thrill:
The princely rider on his back sits still,
And looks where'er he likes, and sways him at his will.

Surprise, relief, a joy scarce understood,
Something perhaps of very gratitude,
And fifty feelings, undefin'd and new,
Dance through the bride, and flush her faded hue.
"Could I but once," she thinks, "securely place
A trust for the contents on such a case,
And know the spirit that should fill that dwelling,
This chance of mine would hardly be compelling."
Just then, the stranger, coming slowly round
By the clear fountain and the brilliant ground,
And bending, as he goes, with frequent thanks,
Beckons a follower to him from the ranks,
And loosening, as he speaks, from its light hold
A dropping jewel with its chain of gold,
Sends it, in token he had loved him long,
To the young father of Italian song:
The youth smiles up, and with a lowly grace
Bending his lifted eyes and blushing face,
Looks after his new friend, who, scarcely gone
In the wide turning, nods and passes on.

This is sufficient for the destined bride;
She took an interest first, but now a pride;
And as the prince comes riding to the place,
Baring his head, and raising his fine face,
She meets his full obeisance with an eye
Of self-permission and sweet gravity;
He looks with touched respect, and gazes, and goes by.