 Section 38 of Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leonard Wilson. Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Volume 1. Section 38. Selected poems by Aliardo Aliardi. Aliardo Aliardi, 1812 to 1878. The Italian patriot and poet Aliardo Aliardi was born in the village of San Giorgio near Verona on November 4th, 1812. He passed his boyhood on his father's farm amid the grand scenery of the valley of the Adige, which deeply impressed itself on his youthful imagination and left its traces in all his verse. He went to school at Verona, where for his dullness he was nicknamed the Mole, and afterwards he passed on to the University of Padua to study law, apparently to please his father, for in the charming autobiography prefix to his collected poems, he quotes his father as saying, My son be not enamored of this coquette poetry, for with all her heirs of a great lady she will play thee some trick of a faithless grisette. Choose a good companion, as one might say. For instance, the law, and thou wilt found a family, will partake of God's bounties, wilt be content in life and die quietly and happily. In addition to satisfying his father, the young poet also wrote at Padua his first political poems, and this brought him into slight conflict with the authorities. He practiced law for a short time at Verona and wrote his first long poem, Arnaldo, published in 1842, which was very favorably received. When six years later the new Venetian Republic came into being, Alliardi was sent to represent its interests at Paris. The speedy overthrow of the new state brought the young ambassador home again, and for the next ten years he worked for Italian unity and freedom. He was twice imprisoned at Manteau in 1852, and again in 1859 at Verona, where he died April 17, 1878. Like most of the Italian poets of this century, Alliardi found his cheap inspiration in the exciting events that marked the struggle of Italy for independence, and his best work antedated the piece of Vira Franca. His first serious effort was L'Prime Sortie, the Primal Histories, written in 1845. In this he traces the story of the human race from the creation through the scriptural, classical, and feudal periods down to the present century, and closes with foreshadowings of a peaceful and happy future. It is picturesque, full of lofty imagery and brilliant descriptive passages. Una ora della mia giovinezza, an hour of my youth, 1858, recounts many of his youthful trials and disappointments as a patriot. Like the Primal Histories, this poem is largely contemplative and philosophical, and shines by the same splendid diction and luxurious imagery. But it is less wide-reaching in its interests and more specific in its appeal to his own countrymen. And from this time onward, the patriotic qualities in Aliardi's poetry predominate, and his themes become more and more exclusively Italian. The Monte Cicello sings the glories and events of the Italian land and history, and successfully presents many facts of science in poetic form, while the singer passionately laments the present condition of Italy. In Lecita Italiane Marinore e commercianti, the marine and commercial cities of Italy, the story of the rise, flourishing, and fall of Venice, Florence, Pisa, and Genoa is recounted. His other noteworthy poems are Raffaello e la fornarina, Le Tre Fiume, The Three Rivers, Le Tre Vanchule, The Three Maidens, 1858, Isete Soldati, The Seven Soldiers, 1859, and Canto Politico, Political Songs, 1862. A slender volume of 500 pages contains all that Aliardi has written. Yet he is one of the chief minor Italian poets of this century because of his loftiness of purpose and felicity of expression, his tenderness of feeling, and his deep sympathies with his struggling country. He has, observes Howells and his modern Italian poets, in greater degree than any other Italian poet of this or perhaps of any age, those merits which our English taste of this time demands, quickness of feeling and brilliancy of expression. He lacks simplicity of idea, and his style is an opal which takes all lights and hues rather than the crystal which lets the daylight colorlessly through. He is distinguished no less by the themes he selects than by the expression he gives them. In his poetry there is passion, but his subjects are usually those to which love is accessory rather than essential. And he cares better to sing of universal and national destinies as they concern individuals than the raptures and anguishes of youthful individuals as they concern mankind. End of quote. He was original in his way. His attitude toward both the classic and the romantic schools is shown in the following passage from his autobiography, which at the same time brings out his patriotism. He says, It seemed to me strange on the one hand that people who in their serious moments and in the recesses of their hearts invoke Christ should in the recesses of their minds in the deep excitement of poetry persist in invoking Apollo and Palos Manerva. It seemed to me strange on the other hand that people born in Italy with this sun, with these nights with so many glories, so many griefs, so many hopes at home should have the mania of singing the mists of Scandinavia and the Sabbaths of witches and should go mad for a gloomy and dead feudalism which had come from the north, the highway of our misfortunes. It seemed to me moreover that every art of poetry was marvelously useless and that certain rules were mummies embalmed by the hand of pedants. In fine it seemed to me that there were two kinds of art, the one serene with an Olympic serenity, the art of all ages that belongs to no country, the other more impassioned that has its roots in one's native soil, the first that of Homer, of Phineas, of Virgil, of Tassel, the other that of the prophets of Dante, of Shakespeare, of Byron. And I have tried to cling to this last because I was pleased to see how these great men take the clay of their own land and their own time and model from it a living statue which resembles their contemporaries. In another interesting passage he explains that his old drawing master had in vain pleaded with the father to make his son a painter, and he continues, Not being allowed to use the pencil, I have used the pen. And precisely on this account my pen resembles too much a pencil. Precisely on this account I am often too much of a naturalist and am too fond of losing myself in minute details. I am as one who in walking goes leisurely along and stops every minute to observe the dash of light that breaks through the trees of the woods, the insect that lights on his hand, the leaf that falls on his head, a cloud, a wave, a streak of smoke, in fine the thousand accidents that make creation so rich, so various, so poetical, and beyond which we evermore catch glimpses of that grand, mysterious something, eternal, immense, benign, and never inhuman or cruel, as some would have us believe, which is called God, cowards, from the primal histories. In the deep circle of Siddham hast thou seen under the shining skies of Palestine the sinister glitter of the lake of Asphalt, those coasts strewn thick with ashes of damnation, forever foe to every living thing, there rings the cry of the lost wandering bird that on the shore of the perfidious sea a thirsting dies, that watery sepulchre of the five cities of iniquity where even the tempest, when its clouds hang low, passes in silence and the lightning dies. If thou hast seen them, bitterly hath been thy heart rung with the misery and despair of that dread vision. Yet there is on earth a woe more desperate and miserable, a spectacle wherein the wrath of God avenges him more terribly. It is a vain, weak people of faint-heart old men that for three hundred years of dull repose hast lain perpetual dreamer folded in the ragged purple of its ancestors, stretching its limbs wide in its country's sun to warn them, drinking the soft dares of autumn forgetful on the fields where its forefathers like lions fought, from overflowing hands, strew we with hellebore and poppies thick the way. The Harvesters from Montaiccio Cello What time in summer, sad with so much light, the sun beats ceaselessly upon the fields. The Harvesters, as famine urges them, draw hitherward in thousands, and they wear the look of those that dolerously go in exile, and already their brown eyes are heavy with the poison of the air. Here never note of amorous bird consoles their drooping hearts. Here never the gay songs of their ubertsy sound to gladden these pathetic hands. But taciturn they toil, swelling the harvests for their unknown lords, and when the weary labor is performed, taciturn they retire, and not till then their bagpipes crown the joys of the return, swelling the heart with their familiar strain. Alas, not all return, for there is one that dying in the furrow sits, and seeks with his last look forthful kinsman out to give his life's wage that he carry it unto his trembling mother with the last words of her son that comes no more. And dying, deserted and alone, far off he hears his comrades going with their pipes in time, joyfully measuring their homeward steps. And when in after years an orphan comes to reap the harvest here and feels his blade go quivering through the swaths of falling grain, he weeps and thanks, happily these heavy stalks ripened on his unburied father's bones. The death of the year from an hour of my youth, ere yet upon the unhappy Arctic lands and dying autumn, Erebus descends with the night's thousand hours along the verge of the horizon, like a fugitive, through the long days wanders the weary sun. And when at last under the wave is quench the last gleam of its golden countenance, interminable twilight land and sea discolors, and the north wind covers deep all things in snow, as in their sepulchres the dead are buried. In the distances the shock of warring cyclities of ice makes music as of wild and strange lament. And up in heaven now tardily are lit the solitary polar star and seven lamps of the bear. And now the warlike race of swans gather their hosts upon the breast of some far gulf, embedding their farewell to the white cliffs and slender junipers and seaweed bridal beds, in tone the song of parting and a sad metallic clang send through the mists. Upon their southward way they greet the barrel-tented icebergs, greet flamey volcanoes and the seething founts of geysers and the melancholy yellow of the Icelandic fields, and wearying their lily wings amid the boreal lights journey away unto the joyous shores of mourning. Recorded by J. C. Gohan Library of the World's Best Literature Ancient and Modern, Volume 1 Section 39 Selected Essay by Jean-Lauron d'Alembert Jean-Lauron d'Alembert, 1717-1783 Jean-Lauron d'Alembert, one of the most noted of the encyclopedists, a mathematician of the First Order and an eminent man of letters, was born at Paris in 1717. The unacknowledged son of the Chevalier des Touche and of Madame de Tancin, he had been exposed on the steps of the chapel Saint-Jean-Lauron, near Notre-Dame. He was named after the place where he was found, the surname of d'Alembert being added by himself in later years. He was given into the care of the wife of a glasier who brought him up tenderly and whom he never ceased to venerate as his true mother. His anonymous father, however, partly supported him by an annual income of 1200 francs. He was educated at the College Mazarin and surprised his Jensenist teachers by his brilliance and precocity. They believed him to be a second Pascal and doubtless to complete the analogy, drew his attention away from his theological studies to geometry, but they calculated without their host. For the young student suddenly found out his genius and mathematics and the exact sciences henceforth became his absorbing interest. He studied successively law and medicine, but finding no satisfaction in either of these professions of the scholar, he chose poverty with liberty to pursue the studies he loved. He astonished the scientific world by his first published works, memoir on the integral calculus, 1739, and on the refraction of solid bodies, 1741. And while not yet 24 years old, the brilliant young mathematician was made a member of the French Academy of Sciences. In 1754 he entered the Académie Française and 18 years later became its perpetual secretary. D'Alembert wrote many and important works on physics and mathematics. One of these, memoir on the general cause of winds carried away a prize from the Academy of Sciences of Berlin in 1746 and its dedication to Frederick II of Prussia, won him the friendship of that monarch. But his claims to a place in French literature, leaving aside his eulogies on members of the French Academy, deceased between 1700 and 1772, are based chiefly on his writings in connection with the Encyclopédie. Associated with Diderot in his vast enterprise, he was at first because of his eminent position its director and official head. He contributed a large number of scientific and philosophic articles and took entire charge of the revising of the mathematical division. His most noteworthy contribution, however, is the preliminary discourse prefixed as a general introduction and explanation of the work. In this he traced with wonderful clearness and logical precision the successive steps of the human mind in its search after knowledge and basing his conclusion on the historical evolution of the race, he sketched in broad outlines the development of the sciences and arts. In 1758 he withdrew from the active direction of the Encyclopédie that he might free himself from the annoyance of governmental interference which the work was constantly subjected because of the skeptical tendencies it evinced. But he continued to contribute mathematical articles with a few on other topics. One of these on Geneva involved him in his celebrated dispute with Rousseau and other radicals in regard to Calvinism and the suppression of theatrical performances in the hold of Swiss orthodoxy. His fame was spreading over Europe. Frederick the Great of Prussia repeatedly offered him the presidency of the Academy of Sciences of Berlin. But he refused as he also declined the magnificent offer of Catherine of Russia to become tutor to her son at a yearly salary of 100,000 francs. Pope Benedict XIV honored him by recommending him to the membership of the Institute of Berlin and the highest team in which he was held in England is shown by the legacy of 200 pounds left him by David Hume. All these honors and distinctions did not affect the simplicity of his life. For during 30 years he continued to reside in the poor and incommodous quarters of his foster mother whom he partly supported out of his small income. Ill health at last drove him to seek better accommodations. He had formed a romantic attachment for Mademoiselle de les Pinas and lived with her in the same house for years unscandled. Her death in 1776 plunged him into profound grief. He died nine years later on the 9th of October 1783. His manner was plain and at times almost rude. He had great independence of character but also much simplicity and benevolence. With the other French deist, Delonbert has been attacked for his religious opinions but with injustice. He was prudent in the public expression of them as the time necessitated but he makes the free a statement of them in his correspondence with Voltaire. His literary and philosophic works were edited by Bassange Paris, 1891. Condorcet in his eulogy gives the best account of his life and writings. Montesquieu from the eulogy published in the Encyclopédie The interest which good citizens are pleased to take in the Encyclopédie and the great number of men of letters who consecrate their labours to it authorise us to regard this work as the most proper monument to preserve the grateful sentiments of our country and that respect which is due to the memory of those celebrated men who have done it honour. Persuaded however Monsieur de Montesquieu had a title to expect other penetrics and that the public grief deserved to be described by more eloquent pens. We should have paid his great memory the homage of silence had not gratitude compelled us to speak. A benefactor to mankind by his writings he was not less a benefactor to this work and at least we may place a few lines at the base of his statue as it were. Charles de Seconda Baron of Labrède and of Montesquieu late life president of the parliament of Bordeaux member of the French Academy of Sciences of the Royal Academy of Belle Lettre of Prussia and of the Royal Society of London was born at the castle of Labrède the 18th of January 1689 of a noble family of Guyane his great-great-grandfather John de Seconda steward of the household to Henry II king of Navarre and afterward to Jane daughter of that king who married Anthony of Bourbon purchased the estate of Montesquieu for the sum of 10,000 livres which this princess gave him by an authentic deed as a reward for his property and services Henry III king of Navarre after Henry IV king of France erected the lands of Montesquieu into a barony in favour of Jacob de Seconda son of John first a gentleman in ordinary of the bed chamber to this prince and afterward Colonel of the regiment of Châtillon John Gaston de Seconda his second son having married a daughter of the first president of the parliament of Bordeaux purchased the office of perpetual president in this society he had several children one of whom entered the service distinguished himself and quit it very early in life this was the father of Charles de Seconda author of the spirit of laws these particulars may seem superfluous in the eulogy of a philosopher who stands so little in need of ancestors but at least we may adorn their memory with that looster which his name reflects upon it the early promise of his genius was fulfilled in Charles de Seconda he discovered very soon what he desired to be and his father cultivated this rising genius the object of his hope and of his tenderness at the age of 20 young Montesquieu had already prepared materials for the spirit of laws by a well digested extract from the immense body of the civil law as Newton had laid in early youth the foundation of his immortal works the study of jurisprudence however though less dry to Monsieur de Montesquieu than to most who attempted because he studied it as a philosopher did not content him he inquired deeply into the subjects which pertain to religion and considered them with that wisdom decency and equity which characterize his work a brother of his father perpetual president of the parliament of wardrobe and able judge and virtuous citizen the oracle of his own society and of his province having lost an only son left his fortune and his office to Monsieur de Montesquieu some years after in 1722 during the king's minority his society employed him to present remonstrances upon occasion of a new in post placed between the throne and the people like a respectful subject and courageous magistrate he brought the cry of the wretched to the ears of the sovereign a cry which, being heard obtained justice unfortunately the success was momentary scars was the popular voice silenced before the suppressed tax was replaced by another the good citizen had done his duty he was received the 3rd of April 1716 into the new academy of bourgeois a taste for music and entertainment had at first assembled its members Monsieur de Montesquieu believed that the talents of his friends might be better employed in physical subjects he was persuaded that nature worthy of being beheld everywhere could find everywhere eyes worthy to behold her while it was impossible to gather together at a distance from the metropolis distinguished writers on works of taste he looked upon our provincial societies for belle lettre as a shadow of literature which obscures the reality the duke de la force by a prize which he founded at Bordeaux seconded these rational views it was decided that a good physical experiment would be better than a weak discourse or a bad poem and Bordeaux got an academy of sciences Monsieur de Montesquieu careless of reputation wrote little it was not till 1721 that is to say at 32 years of age that he published the Persian letters the description of oriental menors real or supposed is the least important thing in these letters it serves merely as a pretense for a delicate satire upon our own customs and for the concealment of a serious intention in this moving picture Uspec chiefly exposes as much ease as energy whatever among us most struck his penetrating eyes our way of treating the silliest things seriously and of laughing at the most important our way of talking which is at once so blustering and so frivolous our impatience even in the midst of pleasure itself our prejudices and our actions simply contradict our understandings our great love of glory and respect for the idol of court favor our little real pride our courtiers so mean and vain our exterior politeness too and our real contempt of strangers our fanatical tastes than which there is nothing lower but the eagerness of all Europe our barbarous disdain for the two most respectable occupations of a citizen commerce and majesty our literary disputes so keen and so useless our rage for writing before we think and for judging before we understand to this picture he opposes in the analog of the troglodytes the description of a virtuous people become wise by Miss Fortran's a peace worthy of the portico in another place he represents philosophy long silenced suddenly reappearing regaining rapidly the time which she had lost penetrating even among the Russians at the voice of a genius which invites her while among other people of Europe superstition like a thick atmosphere the old surrounding light from reaching them finally by his review of ancient and modern government he presents us with the bud of those bright ideas sensibly developed in his great work these different subjects no longer novel as when the Persian letters first appeared will forever remain original a merit the more real that it proceeds alone from the genius of the writer for Uzbek acquired during his abode in France so perfect a knowledge of our morals and so strong a tincture of our manners that his style makes us forget his country this small solicism was perhaps not unintentional while exposing our follies and vices no doubt to do justice to our merits avoiding the insipidity of a direct panageric he has more delicately praised us by assuming our own air in professed satire notwithstanding the success of his work Mesudomotescu did not acknowledge it perhaps he wished to escape criticism perhaps he wished to avoid a contrast with the quality of the Persian letters with the gravity of his office a sort of reproach which critics never fail to make because it requires no sort of effort but his secret was discovered and the public suggested his name for the academy the event justified Mesudomotescu's silence Uzbek expresses himself freely not concerning the fundamentals of Christianity but about matters which people affect to confound with Christianity itself about the spirit of persecution which has animated so many Christians about the temporary usurpation of ecclesiastical power about the excessive multiplication of monasteries which deprived the state of subjects without giving worshippers to God about some opinions that can be established as principles about our religious disputes always violent and often fatal if he appears anywhere to totropound questions more vital to Christianity itself his reflections are in fact favourable to revelation because he shows how little human reason left to itself knows among the genuine letters of Mesudomotescu the foreign printer had inserted some by another hand before the author was condemned these should have been thrown out regardless of these considerations hatred masquerading as zeal and zeal without understanding rose and united themselves against the Persian letters informers a species of men dangerous in space alarmed the piety of the ministry Mesudomotescu urged by his friends supported by the public boys having offered himself for the vacant place of Mesudosesi in the French academy the minister wrote the 40 that his majesty would never accept the election of the author of the Persian letters that he had not indeed read the book when he placed confidence had informed him of its poisonous tendency Mesudomotescu saw what a blow such an accusation might proved to his person his family and his tranquility he neither sought literary honors nor affected to disdain them when they came in his way nor did he regard the lack of them as a misfortune but a perpetual exclusion and the motives of that exclusion appeared to him to be an injury he saw the minister and explained that though he did not acknowledge the Persian letters he would not disown a work for which he had no reason to blush and that he ought to be judged upon its content and not upon mere hearsay at last the minister read the book and left the author and learned wisdom as to his advisers the French Academy obtained one of its greatest ornaments and France had the happiness to keep a subject whom superstition or calamity had nearly deprived her of for Mesudomotescu had declared to the government that after the affront they proposed he would go among foreigners in quest of that safety and repose and perhaps those rewards which he might reasonably have expected in his own country the nation would really have deployed his loss while yet the disgrace of it must have fallen upon her Mesudomotescu was received the 24th of January 1728 his oration is one of the best ever pronounced here among many admirable passages which shine out in its pages is the deep-thinking writer's characterization of Cardinal Richelieu who taught France the secret of its strength and Spain that of its weakness who freed Germany from her chains and gave her new ones the new academician was the worthier of this title that he had renounced all other employment and gave himself entirely up to his genius and his taste however important was his place he perceived that a different work must employ his talents that the citizen is accountable to his country and to mankind for all the good he may do and that he could be more useful by his writings than by settling up cure legal disputes he was no longer a magistrate but only a man of letters but that his work should serve other nations it was necessary that he should travel his aim being to examine the natural and moral world to study the laws and constitution of every country to visit scholars writers, artists and everywhere to seek for those where men whose conversation sometimes supplies the place of reservation Monsieur de Montesquieu might have said, like democratures I have forgot nothing to instruct myself I have quitted my country and travelled over the universe the better to know truth I have seen all the illustrious personages of my time but there was this difference between the French democratures and him of Abdera that the first traveled to instruct men and the second to laugh at them he went first to Vienna where he often saw the celebrated Prince Eugene this hero so fatal to France to which he might have been so useful after having checked the advance of Louis XIV and humbled the Ottoman pride lived without pump cultivating letters in a court where they are little honoured and showing his masters how to protect them leaving Vienna the traveller visited Hungary an opulent and fertile country inhabited by a haughty and generous nation the scourge of its tyrant and the support of its sovereign as few persons know this country well and with care this part of his travels from Germany he went to Italy at Venice he met the famous Mr. Law of whose former grandeur nothing remained but projects fortunately destined to die away unorganised and the diamond which he pawned to play at games of hazard one day the conversation turned on the famous system which law had invented the source of so many calamities so many colossal fortunes and so remarkable a corruption in our morals as the parliament of Paris had made some resistance to the scotch minister on this occasion Mr. de Montesquieu asked him why he had never tried to overcome this resistance by a method almost always infallible in England by the grand mover of human actions in a word by money these are not answered law geniuses so ardent and so generous at my countrymen but they are much more incorruptible it is certainly true that the society which is free for a limited time ought to resist corruption more than one which is always free the first when it sells its liberty loses it the second so to speak only lends it and exercises it even when it is thus parting with it thus the circumstances and nature of government give rise to devices and virtues of nations another person no less famous whom Mr. de Montesquieu saw still oftener at Venice was Count de Bonneval this man so well known for his adventures which were not yet at an end delighted to converse with so good a judge and so excellent a hero often related to him the military actions in which he had been engaged and the remarkable circumstances of his life and drew the characters of generals and ministers whom he had known he went from Venice to Rome in this ancient capital of the world he studied the works of Raphael of Titian and of Michelangelo accustomed to study nature he knew her when she was translated as a faithful portrait appeals to all who are familiar with the original after having traveled over Italy Mr. de Montesquieu came to Switzerland and studied those vast countries which are watered by the Rhine there was the less for him to see in Germany that Frederick did not yet reign in the united provinces he beheld an admirable monument of what human industry animated by a love of liberty can do in England he stayed three years welcomed by the greatest men he had nothing to regret save that he had not made his journey sooner Newton and Locke were dead but he had often the honour of paying his respects to their patroness the celebrated queen of England who cultivated philosophy upon a throne and who properly esteemed and valued Mr. de Montesquieu nor was he less well received by the nation at London he formed intimate friendships with the great thinkers with them he studied the nature of the government attaining profound knowledge of it as he had set out neither as an enthusiast nor as cynic he brought back neither the stain for foreigners nor a contempt for his own country it was the result of his observations that Germany was made to travel in Italy to sojourn in England to think in and France to live in after returning to his own country Mr. de Montesquieu retired for two years to his estate of Labrette showing that solitude which alive in the tumult and hurry of the world but makes the more agreeable he lived with himself after having so long lived with others and finished his work on the causes of the grandeur and decline of the remands which appeared in 1734 empires like men must increase, decay and be extinguished but this necessary revolution may have hidden causes which the veil of time conceals from us nothing in this respect more resembles modern history than ancient history that of the remands must however be accepted it presents us with a rational policy a connected system of a grandest mint which will not permit us to substitute the great fortune of this people to obscure and inferior sources the causes of the Gromen grandeur may then be found in history and it is the business of the philosopher to discover them besides there are no systems in this study as in that of physics which are easily overthrown because one new and unforeseen experiment can upset them in an instant and in the next century when we carefully collect the facts if we do not always gather together all the desired materials we may at least hope one day to obtain more a great historian combines in the most perfect manner these defective materials his merit is like that of an architect who from a few remains traces the plan of an ancient edifice supplying by genius and happy conjectures what was wanting in fact it is from this point of view that we ought to consider the work of Monsieur de Montesquieu he finds the causes of the grandeur of the Romans in that love of liberty of labour and of country which was instilled into them during their infancy in those intestine divisions which gave an activity to their genius and which ceased immediately the appearance of an enemy in that constancy after misfortunes which never disappeared of the Republic in that principle they adhered to of never making peace but after victories in the honour of a triumph which was a subject of emulation among the generals in that protection which de-granted to those peoples who rebelled against their kings in the excellent policy of permitting the concrete to preserve their religion and customs and the equally excellent determination never to have two enemies upon their hands at once but to bear everything from the one till they had destroyed the other he finds the causes of their declension in the aggrandizement of the state itself in those distant wars which, obliging the citizens to long absent, made them insensibly lose their republican spirit in the too easily granted privilege of being citizens of Rome which made the Roman people at last become a sort of many-headed monster in the corruption introduced by the luxury of Asia in the prescriptions of Silla which debased the genius of the nation and prepared it for slavery in the necessity of having a master while their liberty was become burdensome to them in the necessity of changing their maxims when they changed their government in that series of monsters who reigned almost without interruption from Tiberius to Nerva and from Commodus to Constantine lastly, in the translation and division of the empire which perished first in the west the power of barbarians and after having languished in the east under weak or cruel emperors insensibly died away like those rivers which disappear in the sands in a very small volume Monsieur de Montesquieu explained and unfolded his picture avoiding detail and seizing only essentials he has included in a very small space a vast number of objects distinctly perceived and rapidly presented without fatiguing the reader while he points out much he leaves us still more to reflect upon and he might have entitled his book A Roman History for the Use of Statesmen and Philosophers whatever reputation Monsieur de Montesquieu had thus far acquired he had but cleared the way for far grander undertaking for that which ought to immortalize his name and commend it to the admiration of future ages he had meditated for twenty years upon its execution or to speak more exactly his whole life had been a perpetual meditation upon it he had made himself in some sort a stranger in his own country the better to understand it he had studied profoundly the different peoples of Europe the famous island which so glories in her laws and which makes so bad a use of them proved to him what Crete had been to Lycurgus a school where he learned much without proving everything thus he attained by degrees the noblest title a wise man can deserve that of legislature of nations if he was animated by the importance of his subject he was at the same time terrified by its extent he abandoned it and returned to it again and again more than once as he himself owns he felt his paternal hands fail him at last encouraged by his friends he resolved to publish The Spirit of Laws in this important work he was insecure without insisting like his predecessors upon metaphysical discussions without confining himself like them to consider certain people in certain particular relations or circumstances takes a view of the actual inhabitants of the world in all their conceivable relations to each other most other writers in this way are either simple moralists or simple lawyers as for him a citizen of all nations he cares less what duty requires of us than what means may constrain us to do it about the metaphysical perfection of laws than about what man is capable of about laws which have been made than about those which ought to have been made about the laws of a particular people than about those of all peoples thus when comparing himself to those who have run before him in this noble and grand career he might say with corrigio when he had seen the works of his rivals and I too am a painter filled with his subject the author of The Spirit of Laws comprehends so many materials and treats them with such depth that a situous reading alone discloses its merit this study will make that pretended want of method of which some readers have accused Monsieur de Montesquieu disappear real want of order should be distinguished from what is apparent only real disorder confuses the analogy and connection of ideas or sets up conclusions as principles so that the reader after innumerable windings finds himself at the point when he set out apparent disorder is when the author putting his ideas in their true place leaves it to the readers to supply intermediate ones Monsieur de Montesquieu's book is designed for men who think for men capable of supplying voluntary and reasonable emissions the order perceivable in the grand divisions of The Spirit of Laws pervades the smaller details also by his method of arrangement we easily perceive the influence of the different parts upon each other as in a system of human knowledge we understood we may perceive the mutual relation of sciences and arts there most always remain something arbitrary in every comprehensive scheme and all that can be required of an author is that he follows strictly his own system for an allowable obscurity the same defence exists what may be obscure to the ignorant is not so for those whom the author had in mind besides, voluntary obscurity is not properly obscurity obliged to present truth of great importance the direct avowal of which might have shocked without doing good Monsieur de Montesquieu has had the prudence to conceal them whom they might have hurt without hiding them from the wise he has especially profited from the two most thoughtful historians Tacitus and Plutarch but they were philosopher familiar with these authors might have dispensed with many others he neglected nothing that could be of use the reading necessary for The Spirit of Laws is immense and the author's ingenuity is the more wonderful because he was almost blind and obliged to depend on other men's eyes this prodigious reading contributes not only to the utility but to the agreeableness of the work without sacrificing dignity Monsieur de Montesquieu entertains the reader by unfamiliar facts or by delicate illusions or by those strong and brilliant touches which paint by one stroke men in a word Monsieur de Montesquieu stands for the study of laws as Descartes stood for that of philosophy he often instructs us and is sometimes mistaken and even when he mistakes he instructs those who know how to read him the last edition of his works demonstrates by its many corrections and additions that when he has made a slip he has been able to rise again but what is within the reach of all the world is the spirit of The Spirit of Laws which ought to endear the author to all nations to cover far greater faults than are his the love of the public good a desire to see men happy reveals itself everywhere and had it no other merit it would be worthy on this account alone and kings already we may perceive that the fruits of this work are ripe though Monsieur de Montesquieu scarcely survived the publication of The Spirit of Laws he had the satisfaction to foresee its effects among us the natural love of Frenchmen for their country turned towards its true object that taste for commerce for agriculture and for useful arts which insensibly spread itself in our nation that general knowledge of the principles of government which renders people more attached to that which they ought to love even the men who have indecently attacked this work perhaps owe more to it than they imagine in gratitude besides is their least fault it is not without regret and mortification that we expose them because of too much consequence to Monsieur de Montesquieu and to philosophy to be passed over in silence may that reproach which at last covers his enemy profit them The Spirit of Laws was at once eagerly sought after on account of the reputation of its author but though Monsieur de Montesquieu had written for thinkers he had the vulgar for his judge and passages scattered up and down the work admitted only because they illustrated the subject made the ignorant believe that it was written for them looking for an entertaining book they found a useful one whose scheme and details they could not comprehend without attention The Spirit of Laws was treated with a deal of cheap wit even the title of it was made the subject of pleasantry in a word one of the finest literary monuments which our nation ever produced was received almost with scurrility it was requisite that competent judges should have time to read it that they might correct the errors of the fickle multitude that small public which teaches dictated to that large public which listens to hear how it ought to think and speak and the suffrages of men of abilities formed only one voice over all Europe the open and secret amnemies of letters and philosophy now united their darts against this work hence that multitude of pamphlets discharged against the author weapons which we shall not draw from oblivion if those authors were not forgotten it might be believed that the spirit of laws was written amid the nation of barbarians Monsieur de Montesquieu despised the obscure criticisms of the curious he ranked them with those weekly newspapers whose incomiums have no authority and their darts no effect which indolent readers run over without believing and in which sovereigns are insulted without knowing it but he was not equally indifferent about those principles of irreligion which they accused him of having propagated by ignoring such reproaches he would have seemed to deserve them and the importance of the object made him shut his eyes to the meanness of his adversaries the ultra zealots afraid of that light which letters diffuse not to the prejudice of religion but to their own disadvantage in ways of attacking him some by a trick as plural as cowardly wrote fictitious letters to themselves others attacking him anonymously had afterwards fallen by the ears among themselves Monsieur de Montesquieu contented himself with making an example of the most extravagant this was the author of an anonymous periodical paper who accused Monsieur de Montesquieu of spinotism and deism two imputations which are incompatible of having followed the system of pope of which there is not a word in his works of having quoted Plutarch who is not a Christian author of not having spoken of original sin and of grace in a word he pretended that the spirit of laws was a production of the constitution un ingenitus a preposterous idea those who understand Monsieur de Montesquieu and Clement XI may judge by this accusation of the rest this enemy procured the philosopher an addition of glory as a man of letters the defense of the spirit of laws appeared this work for its moderation truth, delicacy of ridicule is a model Monsieur de Montesquieu might easily have made his adversary odious he did better he made him ridiculous we owe the aggressor eternal thanks for having procured us this masterpiece for here without intending it the author has drawn a picture of himself those who knew him think they hear him and posterity when reading this defense will decide that his conversation equaled his writings and in Comium which few great men have deserved another circumstance gave him the advantage the critic loudly accused the clergy of France and especially the faculty of theology of indifference to the cause of God because they did not prescribe the spirit of laws the faculty resolved to examine the spirit of laws though several years have passed it has not yet pronounced a decision it knows the grounds of reason and of faith it knows that the work of a man of letters ought not to be examined like that of a theologian that's a bad interpretation does not condemn a proposition that it may injure the weak to see an ill-timed suspicion of heresy thrown upon geniuses of the first rank in spite of this unjust accusation Monsieur de Montesquieu was always esteemed, visited and well received by the greatest and most respectable dignitaries of the church would he have preserved this esteem among men of worth if they had regarded him as a dangerous writer Monsieur de Montesquieu's death was not unworthy of his life suffering greatly far from a family that was dear to him surrounded by a few friends in a great crowd of spectators he preserved to the last his calmness and serenity of soul after performing with decency every duty full of confidence in the eternal being he died with the tranquility of a man of worth who had ever consecrated his talents to virtue and humanity France and Europe lost him February 10th 1755 aged 66 all the newspapers published this event as a misfortune we may apply to Monsieur de Montesquieu what was formally said of an illustrious raiment that nobody, when told of his death showed any joy or forgot him when he was no more foreigners were eager to demonstrate their regrets my lord Chesterfield whom it is enough to name but an article to his honour an article worthy of both it is the portrait of an exegorus drawn by Pericles the Royal Academy of Science and the Letters of Prussia though it is not its custom to pronounce the eulogy on foreign members paid him an honour which only the illustrious John Bernoulli had hitherto received Monsieur de Montesquieu though ill performed himself the last duty to his friend and would not permit so sacred an office to fall to the share of any other duties honourable suffrages were added those praises given him in presence of one of us by that very monarch to whom the celebrated academy owes its looster a prince who feels the losses which philosophy sustains and at the same time confids her the 17th of February the French Academy according to custom performed a solemn service for him at which all the learned men of this body assisted they ought to have placed the spirit of laws upon his coffin and there to fore they exposed opposite to that of Raphael his transfiguration this simple decoration would have been a fit funeral oration Monsieur de Montesquieu had in company an on varying sweetness and gaiety of temper his conversation was spirited agreeable and instructive because he had known so many great men it was like his style concise full of wit and sallies without gall and without satire nobody told a story more brilliantly more readily, more gracefully or with less affectation his frequent absence of minds only made him more amusing he always rouse himself to reanimate the conversation the fire of his genius his projectality of ideas gave rise to flashes of speech but he never interrupted an interesting conversation and he was attentive without any hesitation and without constraint his conversation not only resembled his character and his genius but had the method which he observed in his study though capable of long continued meditation he never exhausted his strength he always left off application before he felt the least symptom of fatigue he was sensible to glory but wished only to deserve it but he never tried to augment his own fame by underhand practices worthy of all distinctions he asked none and he was not surprised that he was forgot but he has protected at court men of letters who were persecuted, celebrated and unfortunate and has obtained favors for them though he lived with the great the company was not necessary he retired whenever he could to the country there again was joy to welcome his philosophy his books and his repose after having studied man in the commerce of the world and in the history of nations he studied him also among those simple people whom nature alone has instructed from them he could learn something he endeavored like socrates to find out their genius he appeared as happy thus as in the most brilliant assemblies especially when he made up their differences and comforted them by his beneficence nothing does greater honor to his memory than the economy with which he lived and which has been blamed as excessive in a proud and a veracious age he would not encroach on the provision for his family even by his generosity to the unfortunate or by those expenses which he travels the weakness of his sight and the printing of his works made necessary he transmitted to his children without diminution or augmentation the estate which he received from his ancestors adding nothing to it but the glory of his name and the example of his life he had married in 1715 daughter of peter de l'artigue lieutenant colonel of the regiment of molévrier and had by her two daughters and one son those who love truth and their country will not be displeased to find some of his maxims here he thought that every part of the state ought to be equally subject to the laws but that the privileges of every part of the state ought to be respected when they do not oppose the natural right which obliges every citizen equally to contribute to the public good that ancient possession was in this kind the first of titles and the most inviolable of rights which it was always unjust and sometimes dangerous to shake that magistrates in all circumstances and notwithstanding their own advantage to be magistrates without partiality and without passion like the laws which absolve and punish without love or hatred he said upon occasion of those ecclesiastical dispute which so much employed the Greek emperors and Christians that theological disputes when they are not confined to the schools infallibly dishonor a nation in the eyes of its neighbors in fact the contempt in which wise men hold those crawls does not vindicate the character of their country because sages making everywhere the least noise and being the smallest number it is never from them that the nation is judged we look upon that special interest which Mr. de Montesquieu took in the encyclopedic as one of the most honourable rewards of our labour the opposition which the work has met with reminding him of his own experience interested him the more in our favour perhaps he was sensible without perceiving it of that justice which we dared to do him in first volume of the encyclopedic when nobody as yet had ventured to say a word in his defence he prepared for us an article upon a taste which has been found unfinished in the papers we shall give it to the public in that condition and treated with the same respect that antiquity formally showed to the last words of Seneca that prevented his giving us any further mocks of his approval and joining our own griefs with those of all Europe we might write on his tomb finisuita eius nobis luctuosus patriae trites paraneis etiam ignostiquen non sinecura fuit end of section 39 recording by JC Guan Montreal May 2010 section 40 of library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern volume 1 section 40 selections from Agamemnon by Vittorio Alfieri translated by Edgar Alfred Bowring Vittorio Alfieri 1749-1803 by L. Oscar Coons Italian literature during the 18th century although it could boast of no names in any way comparable with those of Dante, Petrarch, Arriosto and Tasso showed still a vast improvement on the degradation of the preceding century among the most famous writers of the times Galdoni, Parini, Metastasio non is so great or so famous as Vittorio Alfieri the founder of Italian tragedy the story of his life and of his literary activity as told by himself in his memoirs is one of extreme interest born at Asti on January 17th 1749 of a wealthy and noble family he grew up to manhood singularly deficient in knowledge and culture and without the slightest interest in literature he was uneducated to use his own phrase in the Academy of Turin it was only after a long tour in Italy France, Holland and England that recognizing his own ignorance he went to Florence to begin serious work at the age of 27 a sudden revelation of his dramatic power came to him and with passionate energy he spent the rest of his life in laborious study and in efforts to make himself worthy of a place among the poets of his native land practically he had to learn everything for he himself tells us that he had an almost total ignorance of the rules of dramatic composition and an unskillfulness almost total in the divine and most necessary art of writing well and handling his own language his private life was eventful chiefly through his many sentimental attachments its deepest experience being his profound love and friendship for the countess of Albany, Louise Stolberg mistress and afterward wife of the young pretender who passed under the title of the count of Albany and from whom she was finally divorced the production of Alfieri's tragedies began with the sketch called Cleopatra in 1775 and lasted till 1789 when a complete edition by D. Dool appeared in Paris his only important prose work is his autobiography begun in 1790 and ended in the year of his death, 1803 although he wrote several comedies and a number of sonnets and satires which do not often rise above mediocrity it is as a tragic poet that he is known to fame before him though Galdoni had successfully imitated Molière in comedy and Metastasio had become enormously popular as the poet of love and the opera no tragedies had been written in Italy which deserved to be compared with the great dramas of France, Spain and England indeed it had been said that tragedy was not adapted to the Italian tongue or character it remained for Alfieri to prove the falsity of this theory always sensitive to the charge of plagiarism Alfieri declared that whether his tragedies were good or bad they were at least his own this is true to a certain extent and yet he was influenced more than he was willing to acknowledge by the French dramatists of the 17th century in common with Cornet and Racine he observed strictly the three unities of time, place and action but the courtliness of language the grace and poetry of the French dramas and especially the tender love of Racine are all together lacking with him Alfieri had a certain definite theory of tragedy which he followed with unswerving fidelity he aimed at the simplicity and directness of the Greek drama he sought to give one clear definite action which should advance in a straight line from beginning to end without deviation and carry along the characters who are for the most part helplessly entangled in the toils of relentless fate to an inevitable destruction for this reason the well-known confidence of the French stage were discarded no secondary action or episodes were admitted and the whole play was shortened to a little more than two thirds of the average French classic drama whatever originality Alfieri possessed did not show itself in the choice of subjects which were nearly all well known and had often been used before from Racine he took Pallanisse Maripay had been treated by Mafé and Voltaire and Shakespeare had immortalized the story of Brutus the situations and events are often conventional the passions are those familiar to the stage jealousy, revenge, hatred and unhappy love and yet Alfieri has treated these subjects in a way which differs from all others and which stamps them in a certain sense as his own with him all is somber and melancholy the scene is utterly unrelieved by humor by the flowers of poetry or by that deep-hearted sympathy the pity of it all which softens the tragic effect of Shakespeare's plays Alfieri seemed to be attracted toward the most horrible phases of human life and the most terrible events of history and tradition the passions he describes are those of unnatural love of jealousy between father and son of fratricidal hatred or those in which a sense of duty and love for liberty triumphs over the ties of filial and preventive love in treating the story of the second Brutus it was not enough for his purpose to have Caesar murdered by his friend but availing himself of an unproven tradition he makes Brutus the son of Caesar and thus a parasite it is interesting to notice his vocabulary to see how constantly he uses such words as atrocious, horror terrible, incest rivers, streams, lakes and seas of blood the exclamation occurs on almost every page death, murder, suicide is the outcome of every tragedy the actors are few in many plays only four and each represents a certain passion they never change but remain true to their characters from beginning to end the villains are monsters of cruelty and vice and the innocent and virtuous are invariably their victims and succumb at last Alfieri's purpose in producing these plays was not to amuse an idle public but to promulgate throughout his native land then under Spanish domination the great and lofty principle of liberty which inspired his whole life a deep, uncompromising hatred of kings is seen in every drama where invariably a tyrant figures as the villain there is a constant declamation against tyranny and slavery liberty is portrayed as something dearer than life itself the struggle for freedom forms the subjects of five of his plays Virginia, the conspiracy of the Pazzi Timolian, the first Brutus and the second Brutus one of these is dedicated to George Washington Liberator dell'America the warmth of feeling with which in the conspiracy of the Pazzi the degradation and slavery of Florence under the Medici is depicted betrays clearly Alfieri's sense of the political state of Italy in his own day and the poet undoubtedly has gained the gratitude of his countrymen for his voicing of that love for liberty which has always existed in their hearts just as Alfieri sought to condense the action of his plays so he strove for brevity and condensation in language his method of composing was peculiar he first sketched his play in prose then worked it over in poetry often spending years in the process of rewriting and polishing in his indomitable energy his persistence in labor and his determination to acquire a fitting style he reminds us of Balzac his brevity of language which shows itself most strikingly in the omission of articles and in the enumber of broken exclamations gives his pages a certain sententiousness almost like proverbs he purposely renounced all attempts at the graces and flowers of poetry it is hard for the lover of a Shakespearean tragedy to be just to the merits of Alfieri there is a uniformity or even a monotony in these nineteen plays those characters are more or less alike whose method of procedure is the same whose sentiments are analogous and in which an activity devoid of incident hurries the reader to an inevitable conclusion foreseen from the first act and yet the student cannot fail to detect great tragic power somber and often unnatural but never producing that sense of the ridiculous which sometimes marrs the effect of Victor Hugo's dramas the plots are never obscure the language is never trivial it ends with the climax which leaves a profound impression the very nature of Alfieri's tragedies makes it difficult to represent him without giving a complete play the following extracts however illustrate admirably the horror and power of the climaxes Agamemnon during the absence of Agamemnon at the siege of Troy a guestess, son of Thaestes and the relentless enemy of the house of Atreus wins the love of Clytemnestra and with devilish ingenuity persuades her that the only way to save her life and his is to slay her husband Act 4, Scene 1 Agisthes Clytemnestra Agisthes to be a banished man to fly to die these are the only means that I have left thou far from me deprived of every hope of seeing me again wilt from thy heart have quickly chased my image great Atreides will wake a far superior passion there thou in his presence many happy days wilt thou enjoy these auspices may heaven confirm I cannot now in vince thee to assure proof of love than by my flight a dreadful, hard irrevocable proof Clytemnestra if there be need of death we both will die but is there nothing left to try ere this? Agisthes another plan perchance he now remains but little worthy Clytemnestra and it is? Agisthes too cruel Clytemnestra but certain? Agisthes certain ah too much so Clytemnestra how can thou hide it from me? Agisthes how can thou of me demand it? Clytemnestra what then may it be? no not speak I am too far advanced I cannot now retract perchance already I am suspected by Atreides maybe he has the right already to despise me hence do I feel constrained in now to hate him I cannot longer in his presence live I neither will nor dare do thou Agisthes teach me a means whatever it may be a means by which I may withdraw myself from him forever Agisthes thou withdraw thyself from him I have already said to thee that now it is utterly impossible Clytemnestra what other step remains for me to take? Agisthes none Clytemnestra now I understand thee what a flash what a deadly instantaneous flash of criminal conviction rushes through my obtuse mind what throbbing turbulence in every vein I feel I understand thee the cruel remedy the only one is Agamemnon's life blood Agisthes I am silent Clytemnestra yet by thy silence thou dost ask that of blood Agisthes nay rather I forbid it to our love and to thy life of mine I do not speak his living is the only obstacle but yet thou knowest that his life is sacred to love, respect, defend it thou art bound and I to tremble at it let us cease the hour advances now my long discourse might give occasion to suspicious thoughts at length receive I guess this is last farewell Clytemnestra ah hear me Agamemnon to our love and to thy life ah yes there are besides him no other obstacles too certainly his life is death to us Agisthes ah do not heed my words they spring from too much love Clytemnestra and love revealed to me their meaning Agisthes has thou not thy mind overwhelmed with horror Clytemnestra horror yes but then depart from thee Agisthes wouldst thou have the courage Clytemnestra so vast my love it puts an end to fear Agisthes but the king lives surrounded by his friends what sword would find a passage to his heart Clytemnestra what sword Agisthes hear open violence or vain Clytemnestra yet treachery Agisthes tis true he merits not to be betrayed at tradis he who loves his wife so well he who in chains from Troy and semblance of a slave in fetters brought Cassandra whom he loves to whom he is himself a slave Clytemnestra what do I hear Agisthes meanwhile expect that when of thee his love is wearied he will divide with her his throne and bed expect that to thy many other wrongs shame will be added and do thou alone not be exasperated at a deed that rouses every Argyve Clytemnestra what sits thou? Cassandra chosen as my rival Agisthes so a tradis will Clytemnestra then let a tradis perish Agisthes how by what hand Clytemnestra by mine this very night within that bed which he expects to share with this abhorred slave Agisthes oh heavens but think Clytemnestra I am resolved Agisthes should thou repent Clytemnestra I do that I so long delayed Agisthes and yet Clytemnestra I'll do it I even if thou wilt not shall I let thee who only dost reserve my love be dragged to cruel death and shall I let him live who cares not for my love I swear to thee tomorrow thou shalt be the king in Argos nor shall my hand nor shall my bosom tremble but who approaches Agisthes tis Electra Clytemnestra heavens let us avoid her do thou trust in me Scene two Electra Agisthes flies for me and he does well but I behold that likewise from my sight my mother seeks to fly infatuated and wretched mother she could not resist the guilty eagerness for the last time to see Agisthes they have here at length conferred together but Agisthes seems too much elated and too confident for when condemned to exile she appeared like one disturbed in thought but more possessed with anger and resentment than with grief oh heavens who knows to what that miscreant base with all his infernal arts may have impelled her to what extremities have wrought her up now now indeed I tremble what misdeeds how black and kind how manifold in number do I behold yet if I speak I kill my mother if I'm silent Act five Scene two Agisthes Clytemnestra Agisthes has thou performed the deed Clytemnestra Agisthes Agisthes what do I behold a woman what dost thou here as dissolved in useless tears tears are unprofitable, late and vain and they may cost us dear Clytemnestra thou here but how wretched that I am what have I promised thee what impious counsel Agisthes was not thine the counsel love gave it thee and fear recants it now since thou art repentant I am satisfied soothed by reflecting that thou art not guilty I shall at least expire to thee I said how difficult the enterprise would be but thou depending more than it became thee on that which is not in thee virile courage daredstink thy own unwarlike hand for such a blow select may heaven permit that the mere project of a deed like this may not be fatal to thee I by stealth protected by the darkness hither came and unobserved I hope to bring the news myself that now my life is irrecoverably forfeited to the king's vengeance Clytemnestra what is this I hear whence did thou learn it Agisthes more than he would wish a trities has discovered our love and I already from him have received a strict command not to depart from Argos and further I am summoned to his presence soon as tomorrow dawns thou seeest well that such a conference to me is death why not for I will all means employ to bear myself the undivided blame Clytemnestra what do I hear a trities knows it all Agisthes he knows too much I have but one choice left it will be best for me to escape by death by self inflicted death this dangerous inquest I save my honor thus and free myself from an approbious end I hither came to give thee my last warning farewell oh live and may thy fame live with thee unimpeached all thoughts of pity for me now lay aside if I'm allowed by my own hand for thy sake to expire I am supremely blessed Clytemnestra alas Agisthes what a tumultuous passion rages now within my bosom when I hear they speak and is it true thy death Agisthes is more than certain Clytemnestra and I'm thy murderer Agisthes I seek thy safety Clytemnestra what wicked fury from avernus' shore Agisthes guides thy steps oh I had died of grief if I had never seen thee more but guiltless I had died spite of myself now by the presence I am already again impelled to this tremendous crime an anguish and unutterable anguish invades my bones invades by every fiber save thee but who revealed our love Agisthes to speak of thee who but electra to her father dare who to the monarch breath thy name but she thy impious daughter in thy bosom thrusts the fatal sword and ere she takes thy life would rob thee of thy honour Clytemnestra and ought I this to believe alas Agisthes believe it then on the authority of this fatal sword if thou believe it said not on mine at least I'll die in time Clytemnestra oh heavens what what's thou do she thy command thee she'd that fatal sword oh night of horrors hear me perhaps the treatise has not resolved Agisthes what boots this hesitation a treatise injured and a treatise king meditates nothing in his haughty mind but blood and vengeance certain is my death thine is uncertain selecto queen to what thou art destined if he spare thy life and were I seen to enter here alone and it's so late an hour alas what fear hos harrow my bosom when I think of thee soon will the dawn of day deliver thee from wracking doubt that dawn I nair shall see I am resolved to die farewell forever Clytemnestra stay stay thou shalt not die I guess this by no man's hand no or thine if so thou wilt perpetrate the deed kill me and drag me palpitating yet before that I judge austere my blood will be a proud acquittance for thee Clytemnestra maddening thought wretch that I am shall I be thy assassin I guess this shame on thy hand that cannot either kill who most adores thee or who most detests thee mine then must serve Clytemnestra I guess this dost thou desire me or a trity's dead Clytemnestra oh what a choice I guess this thou art compelled to choose Clytemnestra I death inflict I guess this or death receive when thou hast witnessed mine Clytemnestra oh then the crime is too inevitable I guess this the time now presses Clytemnestra but the courage the strength I guess this strength courage all will love impart to thee Clytemnestra must I then with this trembling hand of mine plunge in my husband's heart the sword I guess this the blows thou wilt redouble with its steady hand in the hard heart of him who slew thy daughter Clytemnestra far from my hand I hurled the sword in anguish I guess this behold a steel and of another temper the clotted blood drops of Thaiste's son's still stiffen on its frame do not delay to fervish it once more in the vile blood of Atreus go be quick there now remain but a few moments go if awkwardly the blow thou aimest or if thou shouldst be again repentant or to struck do not thou any more toward these apartments thy footsteps turn by my own hands destroyed here wits thou find me at a sea of blood immersed now go and tremble not be bold enter and save us by his death scene three I guess this come forth Thaiste's from profound avernus come now is the time within this palace now display the dreadful shade a copious banquet is now prepared for thee enjoy it already or the heart of thy foe's son hangs the suspended sword now now he feels it an impious consort grasps it it was fitting that she not I did this so much more sweet to thee will be the vengeance as the crime is more atrocious an attentive ear lend to the dire catastrophe with me doubt not that she will accomplish it disdain love terror to the necessary crime compel the impious woman agamemnon within treason ah my wife oh heavens I die oh traitorous deed I guess this die thou yes die and thou redouble woman the blows redouble all the weapon hide within his heart shed to the last drop the blood of that fell miscrant in our blood he would have bathed his hands seen for Clytemnestra what have I done where am I I guess this thou hast slain the tyrant now at length thou art worthy of me Clytemnestra see with blood the jagger drips my hands my face my garments all all are blood oh for a deed like this what vengeance will be wreaked I see already already to my breast that very steel I see hurled back and by what hand I freeze I faint I shudder I dissolve with horror my strength my utterance fail me where am I what have I done alas I guess this tremendous cries resound on every side throughout the palace it is time to show the argives what I am and reap the harvest of my long endurance scene 5 Electra it still remains for thee to murder me thou impious vile assassin of my father but what do I behold oh heavens my mother fluggishest woman dost outgrasp the sword didst thou commit the murder I guess this hold thy peace stop not my path thus quickly I return tremble for now that I am king of argos far more important is it that I kill orestes than Electra scene 6 Clytemnestra heavens orestes I guess this now I know thee Electra give it me give me that seal Clytemnestra I guess this stop will thou murder my son thou first shall murder me scene 7 Electra oh night oh father I was your deed ye gods this thought of mine to place orestes in safety first thou wilt not find him traitor oh live orestes live and I will keep this impious steel for thy adult right hand the day I hope will come when I in argos shall see the avenger of my father end of section 40 section 41 of library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Leni library of the world's best literature ancient and modern volume 1 section 41 selected works by Alfonso the Wise 1221 1284 King Alfonso records the Jesuit historian Mariana was a man of great sense but more fit to be a scholar than a king for whilst he studied the heavens and the stars he lost the earth and his kingdom certainly it is for his services to ladders and not for political or military successes that the meditative son of the valorous Ferdinand the saint and the beautiful Beatrice of Swabia will be remembered the father conquered Seville and displaced the enterprising and infidel moors with orthodox and indolent Christians the son could not keep what his sire had grasped born in 1221 the fortunate young prince at the age of 25 was proclaimed king of the newly conquered and united Castile and Leon he was very young and everywhere admired and honored for skill and war, for learning and for piety he was everywhere loved for his heritage of a great name and his kindly and gracious manners in the first year of his reign however he began debasing the coinage a favorite device of needy monarchs in his day and his people never forgave the injury he coveted naturally enough the throne of the empire was long a favorite candidate and for twenty years he wasted time, money and purpose hard and hope in pursuit of the vain bubble his kingdom fell into confusion his eldest son died his second son Sancho rebelled against him and finally deposed him courageous and determined to the last defying the league of church and state against him he appealed to the king of Morocco for men and money during state has fortunes in Tichner's history of Spanish literature may be found his touching letter to de Guzmán at the Moorish court he is, like Lear poor in this crown but not like him weak his prelates have stirred up strife, his nobles have betrayed him if heaven wills he's ready to pay generously for help not, says the royal philosopher still generosity and loyalty exalt the soul that cherishes them therefore my cousin Alonso Pérez de Guzmán so treat with your master and my friend the king of Morocco that he may lend me on my richest crown and on the jewels in it as much as shall seem good to him and if you should be able to obtain his help for me do not deprive me of it I think you will not do rather I hope that all the good offices which my master may do me by your hand they will come and may the hand of God be with you given in my only loyal city of Seville the thirtieth year of my reign and the first of my misfortunes the king in his only loyal city the broken men remained until the pope excommunicated Sancho until neighboring towns began to capitulate but he had been wounded past healing there was no medicine for a mind diseased no charm to raise out the written troubles of the brain he fell ill in Seville so that he drew nigh unto death and when the sickness had run its course he said before them all that he pardoned the infante Don Sancho, his heir all that out of malice he had done against him and to his subjects the wrong they had brought towards him ordering that letters confirming the same should be written sealed with his golden seal so that all his subjects should be certain that he had put away his quarrel with them and desired that no blame whatever should rest upon them and when he had said this he received the body of God with great devotion and in a little while gave up his soul to God this was in 1284 when he was 58 years old at this age had a private lot been his that of a statesman jurist, men of science analyst, philosopher troubadour, mathematician historian, poet he would but have entered his golden prime rich in promise fruitful in performance yet Alfonso uniting in himself all these vocations seemed at his death to have left behind him a wide waste of opportunities a dreary dearth of accomplishment looking back however it is seen that the balance swings even while his kingdom was slipping away he was conquering a wider domain he was creating Spanish law protecting the followers of learning cherishing the universities restricting privilege breaking up time-honored abuses he prohibited the use of Latin in public acts he adopted the native tongue in all his own works and thus gave to Spanish and honorable eminence while French and German struggled long for a learning from scholars and English was to wait a hundred years for the advent of Dan Chaucer greatest achievement of all he codified the common law of Spain in the seven parts still accepted as a legal authoriting the kingdom the work is much more valuable as a compendium of general knowledge than as an exposition of law the studious king with astonishing catholicity examined alike both Christian and Arabic traditions customs and codes paying a scholarly respect to the greatness of a hostile language in literature a meditative monarch recognized that public office is a public trust and road Vickers of God are the kings each one in his kingdom placed over the people to maintain them in justice and in truth they have been called the heart and soul of the people for as the soul lies in the heart of men and by it the body lives and is maintained so in the king lies justice which is the life and maintenance of the people of his lordship and let the king guard the thoughts of his heart in three manners firstly let him not desire nor greatly care to have superfluous and worthless honors superfluous and worthless honors the king ought not to desire for that which is beyond necessity cannot last and being lost and come short of turns to dishonor moreover the wise men said that it is no less a virtue for a man to keep that which he has then to gain that which he has not because keeping comes of judgment but gain of good fortune and the king who keeps his honor in such a manner that every day and by all means it is increased lacking nothing and does not lose that which he has for that which he desires to have he is held for a man of right judgment he loves his own people and desires to lead them to all good and god will keep him in this world from the dishonoring of men and in the next from the dishonor of the wicked in hell besides the siete partidas the royal philosopher was the author or compiler of a book of hunting a treatise on chess a system of law the fuero castellano an attempt to check the monstrous irregularities of municipal privilege la gran conquista d'ultramar the great conquest beyond the sea an account of the wars of the crusades which is the earliest known specimen of castellan prose and several smaller works now collected under the general title of opuscules legales minor legal writings it was long supposed that he wrote the tesoro tesoro's a curious medley of ignorance and superstition much of it's silly and all of it curiously inconsistent with the acknowledged character of the enlightened king modern scholarship however discards this petty treatise from the list of his productions his tablas alfonsinas often signed tables to which Chaucer refers in the frankling stale though curiously mystical and purely scientific and rank among the most famous of medieval books Alfonso had the courage and the wisdom to recall to Toledo the heirs and successors of the great Arabian philosophers and the learned rabbis who had been banished by religious fanaticism and there to establish a permanent council a medieval academy of sciences which devoted itself to the study of the heavens and the making of astronomical calculations this was the first time says the Spanish historian that in barbarous times the Republic of Letters was invited to contemplate a great school of learning men occupied through many years in rectifying the old planetary observations and disputing about the most abstruse details of the science in constructing new instruments and observing by means of them the courses of the stars their declensions their ascensions, eclipses longitudes and latitudes it was the vision of Roger Bacon fulfilled at his own expense for years together the king entertained in his palace at Burgos that their knowledge might enrich the nation not only certain free-thinking followers of Everose and Avicibran but infidel disciples of the Quran and learned rabbis who deny the true faith that creed must not interfere with deed was an astonishing mental attitude for the 13th century and invited a general suspicion of the king's orthodoxy his religious sense was really strong however and appears most impressively in the Cantigas a la Vergen Maria songs to the Virgin which were sung over his grave by priests and acolytes for hundreds of years they are sometimes melancholy and sometimes joyous always simple and genuine and written in Galician reflect the trustful piety and happiness of his youth in remote hill provinces where the thought of empire had not penetrated it was his keen intelligence that expressed itself in the saying popularly attributed to him had I been present at the creation I might have offered some useful suggestions it was his reverent spirit that made mention in his will of the sacred songs as the testimony to his faith so lived and died Alfonso the 10th the father of Spanish literature and the reviver of Spanish learning what meaneth a tyrant and how he uses his power in a kingdom when he have obtained it a tyrant says this law I try a cruel lord who by force or by craft or by treachery have obtained power over any realm or country and such men be of such nature that when once they have grown strong in the land they love rather to work their own profit though it be in harm of the land than the common profit of all for they always live in an ill fear of losing it and that they may be able to fulfill this unencumbered the wise of old have said that they use their power against the people in three manners the first is that they strive that those under their mastery be ever ignorant and timorous because when they be such they may not be bold to rise against them nor to resist their wills and the second is that they be not kindly and united among themselves for while they live in disagreement they shall not dare to make any discourse against their lord for fear, faith and secrecy should not be kept among themselves and the third way is that they strive to make them poor and to put them upon great undertakings which they never can finish whereby they may have so much harm that it may never come into their hearts to devise anything against their ruler and above all this have tyrants ever striven to make spoil of the strong and to destroy the wise and have forbidden fellowship in assemblies of men in their land and striven always to know what men said or did and do trust their counsel and the guard of their person rather to foreigners who will serve at their will than to them of the land who serve from oppression and moreover men may have gained mastery of a kingdom by any of the lawful means whereof we have spoken in the laws going before this yet if he use his power ill in the ways whereof we speak in this law him may the people still call tyrant for he turneth his mastery which was rightful into wrongful as Aristotle have said in the book which treated of the rule and government of kingdoms from las 7 partidas quoted in tyknur's spanish literature on the turks and why they are so called the ancient histories which describe the early inhabitants of the east and their various languages show the origin of each tribe or nation or whence they came and for what reason they waged war and how they were enabled to conquer the former lords of the land now in these histories it is told that the turks and also the light rays called turco men's were all of one land originally and that these names were taken from true rivers which flow through the territory whence these people came which lies in the direction of the rising of the sun a little toward the north and that one of these rivers bore the name of turco and the other mani and finally that for this reason the two tribes which dwelt on the banks of these two rivers came to be commonly known as turco manos or turco men's on the other hand there are those who assert that because a portion of the turks lived among the comanos comans they accordingly in course of time received the name of turco manos but the majority adhered to the reason already given however this may be turco men's belong both to the same family and follow no other life than that of wandering over the country driving their herds from one good pasture to another and taking with them their wives and their children and all their property including money as well as flocks the turks did not dwell then in houses but in tents made of skins as do in these days the comanos and tartars and when they had to move from one another they divided themselves into companies according to their different dialects and chose a cabrillo judge who settled their disputes and rendered justice to those who deserved it and this nomadic race cultivated no fields nor vineyards nor orchards nor arable lands of any kind neither did they buy or sell for money but traded their flocks among one another and also their milk and seeds and pitched their tents in the places where they found the best pastridge and when the grass was exhausted they sought fresh herbage elsewhere and whenever they reached the border of a strange land they sent before them special envoys the most worthy and honorable of their men to the kings or lords of such countries to ask of them the privilege of pastridge on their lands for a space for which they were willing to pay their tax as might be agreed upon after this manner they lived among each nation in whose territory they happened to be from La Gran Conquista d'Ultramar chapter 13 to the month of Mary from the Cantigas welcome, oh May yet once again we grate thee so always praise we her the holy mother who prays to God that he shall aid us against our foes and to us ever listen welcome, oh May loyally art thou welcome so always praise we her the mother of kindness mother who always on us take pity mother who guarded us from woes unnumbered welcome, oh May welcome, oh month well-favored so let us ever pray and offer praises to her who seizes not for us but to God that we from woes be guarded welcome, oh May oh joyous month and stainless so will we ever pray to her who gaineth grace from her son for us and gives each morning force that by us the moors from Spain are driven welcome, oh May of bread and wine the giver pray then to her for in her arms and infant she bore the Lord she points us on our journey that to her will bear us quickly End of section 41