SECT

I.

Che se ben Philostrato havea fallito
Potevi risalvando el suo errore

Con vera scusa a lei farlo marito.
Satisfacendo in tanto al tuo honore:
De non haverla mai remaritata.
Farlo gran duca, principe, e signore.
Ma la mia figlia come inamorata
Involata ne le forze de cupido:
Veduta lira mia se disperata.
Che viva anchor sia poco me fido:
Ahyme che io la veggio chel cor piglia
Vedova stanza abandonato nido,

O mia sopra ogni altra amata figlia,
Qual pena dime così te importuna:
Far pur bon core, e meco ti consiglia.

PAMPHILA.

O padre a più desiata fortuna

Le tue lachryme serba, el tuo lamento,
Perche per me non ne desidero una.
Tu mostri di dolerti, e sei contento

Del caso occorso: e sei tu causa stato
Chio sia conducta a lultimo mio accento:
Ma se di quello amor, che mhai portato
Ti refta anchor, scintilla, habbi piacere
Chel mio corpo a lamante sia locato:

Poi

SECT

Poi che lassati tu non ci hai godere

Lamore in vita: dovunque el se sia
Posto sia seco el mio corpo a giacere
El fine, e giuncto de la morte mia
E tu misero cor meco rimanti:

A dio padre crudel lalma va via.

Valete donne; e voi gioveni amanti.

This drama, according to Quadrio, was represented on the wooden theatre, erected in the palace of Hercules II. duke of Ferrara, to whom it is dedicated. Of the author, so little is known, that Sig. Signorelli cannot determine whether he was of the family of Camelli, or of that of Vinci.

But this was only the dawn of the tragic art in modern Italy. Let us now turn our eyes to behold the splendour of day. "La SOPHONISBE du célèbre prélat Trissino, nonce du pape," says Voltaire, "est la premiere tragédie régulière que l'Europe ait vûe, après tant des siécles de barbarie." And Giraldi also, at the conclusion of his Orbecche, says,

E'l Trissino gentil, che col suo canto
Prima d'ognun dal Tebro, e dall' Illisso
Già trasse la Tragedia all' onde d' Arno.
Gentle Trissino too, whose potent strain,
From wand'ring Tiber and Illysus, drew
To Arno's hallow'd shade, the tragic muse
- Melpomene, to weep.

Nor

I.

SECT.

I.

Nor does this memorable event in the history of the modern drama, remain unsung by the English muse. Pope celebrates it in the prologue to Thomson's Sophonisba :

When learning, after the long gothic night,

Fair, o'er the western world, renew'd its light,
With arts arising, Sophonisba rose,

The tragic muse returning, wept her woes.
With her th' Italian scene first learn'd to glow;
And the first tears for her were taught to flow.

This tragedy was represented in Rome, 1515, with great magnificence, in the presence of Leo X. to whom it was dedicated, and under whose auspices it was written. And, in the year 1562, when a wooden model of the famous olympic the-atre of Palladio was erected, for trial, in the palazzo della ragione, or town-hall of Vicenza, the Sofonisba of Trissino was selected for representation. The historians of Vicenza dwell, with pride and pleasure, on the splendour of this spectacle, and on the great concourse of nobility, from even the most distant parts of Lombardy, who assisted.(g) This tra

(g) Either apprehensive of exhausting their funds, or despairing of equalling, in any future exhibition, the splendour of this spectacle, the members of the Olympic academy, immediately after the performance, resolved, that their dramatic representations should totally cease, or be, for awhile, suspended. But it appears from a volume of inedited minutes of this academy, in the possession of Pierfillippo Castelli, that at a meeting held on the 10th of August, 1579, it was determined to revive the dramatic exercises of the academy, and to begin with "una favola pastorale," which "sia recitata publicamente con quella minor spesa, che sia possibile."

gedy

I.

gedy is written in verso sciolto, and the author, following the SECT. Greek model, conducts his plot with great simplicity, only interrupting the course of the action with the odes, and occasional observations of a moralizing chorus. Amongst the many passages justly entitled to admiration in this drama, the scene between Sophonisba and Erminia, after the former drains the fatal bowl, stands pre-eminent. "Un cuore non indurito "da' pregiudizj, verserà pietose lagrime," says an Italian critic, "al racconto del veleno preso dalla regina, a' di lei discorsi, "alla compassionevole contesa con Erminia, ed al quadro delle "donne affolate intorno a Sofonisba che trapassa, di Erminia "che la sostiene e del figliuolino che bacia la madre la quale “inutilmente si sforza per vederlo l'ultima volta sul punto di

spirare." (b) But the reader shall have an opportunity of de

(b) Stor. de teat. tom. iii. p. 106. Jacope Castellini, a contemporary of Trissino, has also made Carthage the scene of a tragedy. But his Asdrubale is infinitely inferior to the Sofonisba, in every point of view. It is a feeble production,-a production in which we rarely discover a scintillation of genius. In order to produce his catastrophe, the author employs the agency of fire. The wife of Asdrubale,

Con quel pensier che venne al 'infelice
Sofonisba figliastra sua già morta,

Di non volere esser menata a Roma
Prigiona dietr' al trionfo,

precipitates herself and her child into the flames, which are preying on the city of Carthage, and both are supposed to be consumed in the presence of the audience. This tragedy, which was printed in Florence, 1562, appresso L. Torrent, is dedicated to Francesco de' Medici, and -embellished with a view of the city of Carthage.

SECT. ciding on the merits of this admired passage for himself; a

I.

passage to which it would be equally vain and presumptuous

to attempt to do justice in a translation.

Sof. A che piangete? non sapete ancora

Che ciò, che nasce, a morte si destina?

Cor. Ahimè! che questa è pur troppo per tempo;
Ch' ancor non siete nel vigesim' anno.
Sof. Il bene esser non può troppo per tempo.
Erm. Che duro bene è quel, che ci distrugge!
Sof. Accostatevi a me, voglio appoggiarmi;

Ch' io mi sento mancare, e già la notte
Tenebrosa ne vien negli occhi miei.
Erm. Appoggiatevi pur sopra' l mio petto.
Sof. O figlio mio, tu non avrai più madre;
Ella già se ne va, statti con Dio.
Erm. Oimè! che cosa dolorosa ascolto!

Non ci lasciate ancor, non ci lasciate.
Sof. I'non posso far altro; e sono in via.

Erm. Alzate il viso a questo, che vi bacia.

Cor. Riguardatelo un poco. Sof. Aimè! non posso.

Cor. Dio vi raccolga in pace. Sof. Io vado.... addio.

The reader whose tears would not be "taught to flow" on perusing this passage, must, indeed, have an heart "indurito da' pregiudizj." As a further specimen of this celebrated tragedy, I shall transcribe a beautiful ode to love, in the third

act⚫