Page images
PDF
EPUB
[ocr errors]

The Early French Poets.

REMY BELLEAU, AND JAN ANTOINE DE BAÏF.

THE Painter of Nature was the appellation which distinguished Remy Belleau among the poets of his time; and it is enough to obtain for him no ordinary share of regard from those who know how much is implied in that title, and how rare that merit is of which it may be considered as a pledge. I have not yet had the good fortune to meet with an edition containing the whole of his works: That which I have seen was printed during his life-time, with the following title: Les Amours et nouveaux Eschanges des Pierres precieuses; Vertus et Proprietez d'icelles. Discours de la Vanité, Pris de l'Ecclesiaste. Eclogues Sacrees, Prises du Cantique des Cantiques. Par Remy Belleau. A Paris par Mamert Patisson, au logis de Rob. Estienne, 1576, avec privilege du Roy. "The Loves and new Transformations of the Precious Stones; their Virtues and Properties. Discourse on Vanity, taken from Ecclesiastes. Sacred Eclogues, taken from the Song of Songs, &c." There is in these sufficient to prove that Belleau was not in the habit of looking at nature through the eyes of other men; that he did not content himself with

making copies of copies; but that he drew from the life, whenever he had such objects to describe as the visible world could supply him with. Nor is this the whole of his praise; for he has also some fancy, and a flow of numbers unusually melodious.

In the above collection, the first poem, on the Loves and Transformations of the Precious Stones, dedicated to Henry III., is on a plan not much more happy than that of Darwin's Loves of the Plants. Several of them are supposed to have been youths or maidens, who, in conse→ quence of adventures similar to those invented by the poet of the Metamorphoses, were changed into their present shape. Thus, in the first of these tales, the nymph Amethyste, of whom Bacchus is enamoured, prays to Diana for succour, and by her is transformed into a stone which the god dyes purple with the juice of the grape. A description, which he has here introduced of the jolly god with the Bacchantes in different attitudes about his chariot, is exe cuted with a luxuriance of pencil that reminds one of Rubens.

D'un pié prompt et legier, ces folles Bassarides
Environnent le char, l'une se pend aux brides
Des onces mouchettez d'estoiles sur le dos,
Onces à l'oeil subtil, au pié souple et dispos,
Au muffle herissé de deux longues-moustaches:
L'autre met dextrement les tigres aux attaches
Tizonnez sur la peau, les couple deux-à-deux,
Ils ronflent de colere, et vont rouillant les yeux :
D'un fin drap d'or frisé semé de perles fines
Les couvre jusqu'au flanc, les houpes à crepines
Flottent sur le genou; plus humbles devenus
On agence leur queue en tortillons menus. (F. 4.),
A train of Mænads wanton'd round the car
With light and frolic step: one on the reins
Hung of the ounces speckled o'er with stars,
Of eye quick-glancing, and free supple foot,
The long mustaches bristling from their maws:
Another with quick hand the traces flung
Across the tygers of the streaky skin:
They yoked in pairs went snorting, and with ire
Their restless eye-balls roll'd. Fine cloth of gold,

Sown o'er with pearls, hung mantling to their side,,
And at the knee the tassel'd fringes danced.
Then, as their pride abated, in quaint curls
They braid their wavy tails.

As a companion to this, I would place the fine picture of Cybele's chariot drawn by lions, as Keats has painted it.

Forth from a rugged arch, in the dusk below,
Came mother Cybele; alone, alone,
In sombre chariot; dark foldings thrown
About her majesty, and front death-pale,
With turrets crown'd. Four maned lions hale
The sluggish wheels; solemn their toothed maws,
Their surly eyes brow-hidden, heavy paws
Uplifted drowsily, and nervy tails

Cowering their tawny brushes. (Endymion, p. 83.)

In this pictorial manner, there is

-" on the pearl'd sands

locks."

an anonymous poem of extraordinary Of tawny Indus with the crisped merit, which, I believe, appeared first in the New Monthly Magazine. It is called the Indian Circian. The writer of it, whoever he may be, may well aspire to the title of the Painter of Nature.

To return to Belleau. Another of these little stories is built on the fable of Hyacinthus, whose blood, when he is killed by Apollo, forms the jacinth; at the same time, that the nymph Chrysolithe, who had requited his offered love with scorn, poisons herself, and is changed into the stone bearing her name. The spot, in which the boy meets his fate, when he is playing at quoits with Phoebus, is a piece of landscape-painting, sweetly touched.

Iris being sent on one of her mistress's errands, stays to refresh herself by the river Indus, where she sees and becomes enamoured of Opalle;

Opalle, grand Berger des troupeaux de

Neptune. (F. 27.) "Great Shepherd that on Neptune's flocks did tend."

He is dazzled and overpowered by the advances of the wind-footed goddess, and falls into a swoon; but is recovered out of it. Juno, meantime, being enraged at the delay of her handmaid, goes in search of her, and discovers them together. He is changed into a stone, of which Iris makes the opal.

While Venus lies asleep, Love, fluttering about her, sees his own image reflected on the polished surface of her nails. He sets himself to carve out these mirrors with the point of one of his darts, while she continues in her slumber; and then flying off with them, he lets them fall

-sur le sable perleux De l'Indois basané sous ses crespes che

veux;

where they are changed into onyxstones.

To these fanciful Tales, are appended directions for distinguishing artificial stones from the true, together with some remarks on their medical properties, and their uses against incantations and sorceries. It scarcely need be told how bad an effect so incongruous a mixture produces. When Belleau made this addition, it is probable that the Greek poem on Precious Stones, which goes under the name of Orpheus, was in his view.

In addressing the twelve chapters of his Discourse on Vanity, taken from Ecclesiastes, to Monseigneur (the Duke d'Alençon), he tells that prince that his brother (the late King, Charles IX.) being at Fontainebleau, had made him read over the first was so much pleased with it, that he four chapters several times; that the King's death, and a grievous malady under which he had himself laboured, had interrupted his design; " but now being recovered," says he, "I present this work to you." This was in July, 1576. Having tuned the verses well, he has done nearly all that could be expected of him in this task. Much the same may be said of the Sacred Eclogues, into which he has formed the Song of Songs. Profaner love employed his muse at another time; for he translated the poems attributed to Anacreon, which were then newly discovered, into French verse.

Among his other poems, is the following Song on April: having seen

it

much commended in the accounts given of this poet by French writers of the present day, I have obtained a transcript of it from a public library in this country. If we compare it with Spenser's Song in the Shepherd's Calendar, April, we shall find some slight resemblance in the measure, which would induce one to imagine that Colin, though he calls it a lay,

Which once he made as by a spring he lay, And tuned it unto the water's fall,

had yet some snatches of this melody floating in his ear, which mingled themselves with the wilder music.

Avril, l'honneur et des bois,

[blocks in formation]

Avril, la grace, et le ris
De Cypris,

Le flair et la douce haleine:
Avril, le parfum des Dieux,
Qui des Cieux

Sentent l'odeur de la plaine.
C'est toy courtois et gentil,
Qui d'exil

Retires ces passageres,
Ces arondelles qui vont,
Et qui sont

Du printemps les messageres.
L'aubespine et l'aiglantin,
Et le thym,

L'œillet, le lis, et les roses
En ceste belle saison,
A foison,

Monstrent leurs robes écloses.
Le gentil rossignolet
Doucelet,

Decoupe dessous l'ombrage,
Mille fredons babillars,

Fretillars,

[blocks in formation]

(Les Oeuvres Poetiques de Remy Belleau, 2 Tomes. Paris, 1585, La Premiere Journee de la Bergerie, p. 126.)

April, sweet month, the daintiest of all,

Fair thee befal:

[blocks in formation]

April, at whose glad coming Zephyrs rise
With whisper'd sighs,

Then on their light wing brush away,
And hang amid the woodlands fresh
Their aery mesh

To tangle Flora on her way.

April, it is thy hand that doth unlock,
From plain and rock,

Odours and hues, a balmy store,
That breathing Jie on Nature's breast,
Sa richly blest,

That earth or heaven ean ask no more.

April, thy blooms, amid the tresses laid
Of my sweet maid,

Adown her neck and bosom flow;
And in a wild profusion there,

Her shining hair

With them hath blent a golden glow.

April, the dimpled smiles, the playful grace,
That in the face

Of Cytherea haunt, are thine;

And thine the breath, that from their skies
The deities

Inhale, an offering at thy shrine.

[blocks in formation]

May shall with pomp his wavy wealth unfold,
His fruits of gold,

His fertilizing dews, that swell

In manna on each spike and stem,
And, like a gem,

Red honey in the waxen cell.

Who will may praise him; but my voice shall be,

Sweet month, for thee;

Thou that to her dost owe thy name,
Who saw the sea-wave's foamy tide
Swell and divide,

Whence forth to life and light she came.

Remy Belleau was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou, in le Perche, 1528. René de Lorraine, Marquis of Elbeuf, and General of the French Gallies, committed to him the education of his son. He died in Paris, 1577. Some one said of him, in allusion to the first of his poems a

bove-mentioned, that he was resolved to construct himself a monument of precious stones.

Besides the editions of his works which I have referred to, there is said to be one printed at Rouen, 1604. 2 Vols. 8vo.

JAN ANTOINE

BOTH those, of whom I have last spoken, Bellay and Belleau, belonged to that cluster of poets, to which was given the name of the French Pleiad. Iodelle, Thyard, Dorat, and Ronsard, were four others in this constellation; and Jan Antoine de Baïf made the seventh, whose lustre, if it were proportioned to the number of verses he has left, would outshine most of them. But as it is rather by the virtue than the bulk of such luminaries that we appreciate their excellence, he must be satisfied with an inferior place. The chief thing that can be said of him, I think, is that there is much ease in his manner. But this is not enough to carry us through so many books as I have to record the titles of under his name. It is said that no one has had the courage to read them all since his death.

Les Amours de Jan Antoine de Baïf. Paris. Pour Lucas Breyer,

1572. 2 vols. 8vo.

DE BAÏF.

There is what appears to be the same edition with his Passetems added.

In the prefatory address to the Duke of Ânjou, afterwards Henry III. he speaks of the French poets who have sung of love. They are Bellay, Thyard, Ronsard, Belleau, to whom he says,

Belleau gentil, qui d'esquise peinture
Soigneusement imites la nature,
Tu consacras de tes vers la plus part
De Cytheree au petit fils mignard.

'Gentle Belleau, who dost diligently copy nature with exquisite painting, thou hast consecrated the greater part of thy verses to the darling child of Venus.' To these he adds Desportes.

Of the four books of his Francine (the name of his mistress), and of his three other books, Des Diverses Amours, there is very little by which I could hope to please my readers. They will, I doubt not, think the following sonnet enough.

Un jour quand de l'yver l'ennuieuse froidure
S'attedist, faisant place au printemps gracieux,
Lors que tout rit aux champs, et que les prez joyeux,
Peignent de belles fleurs leur riante verdure:

Pres du Clain tortueux sous une roche obscure

Un doux somme ferma d'un doux fien mes yeux,

Voyci en mon dormant une clairté des cieux

Venir l'ombre emflamer d'une lumiere pure.

« PreviousContinue »