Читать книгу: «The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 03, No. 17, March, 1859», страница 9

The Crow is one of the most unfortunate of the feathered tribe in his relations to man; for by almost all nations he is regarded with hatred, and every man's hand is against him. He is protected neither by custom nor superstition; the sentimentalist cares nothing for him as an object of poetical regard, and the utilitarian is blind to his services as a scavenger. The farmer considers him as the very ringleader of mischief, and uses all means he can invent for his destruction; the friend of the singing-birds bears him a grudge as the destroyer of their eggs and young; and even the moralist is disposed to condemn him for his cunning and dissimulation.

Hence he is everywhere hated and persecuted, and the expedients used for his destruction are numerous and revolting to the sensibilities. He is outlawed by acts of Parliament and other legislative bodies; he is hunted with the gun; he is caught in crow-nets; he is hoodwinked with bits of paper smeared with bird-lime, in which he is caught by means of a bait; he is poisoned with grain steeped in hellebore and strychnine; the reeds in which he roosts are treacherously set on fire; he is pinioned by his wings, on his back, and is made to grapple his sympathizing companions who come to his rescue; like an infidel, he is not allowed the benefit of truth to save his reputation; and children, after receiving lessons of humanity, are taught to regard the Crow as an unworthy subject when they carry their precepts into practice. Every government has set a price upon his head, and every people holds him up to public execration.

As an apology for these atrocities, might be enumerated a long catalogue of misdemeanors of which he is guilty. He pillages the cornfield, and pulls up the young shoots of maize to obtain the kernels attached to their roots; he destroys the eggs and the young of innocent birds which we should like to preserve; he purloins fruit from the garden and orchard, and carries off young ducks and chickens from the farmyard. Beside his mischievous propensities and his habits of thieving, he is accused of cunning, and of a depraved disposition. He who would plead for the Crow will not deny the general truth of these accusations, but, on the other hand, would enumerate certain special benefits which he confers upon man.

In the catalogue of the services of this bird we find many details which should lead us to pause before we consent to his destruction. He consumes, in the course of the year, vast quantities of grubs, worms, and noxious vermin; he is a valuable scavenger, and clears the land of offensive masses of decaying animal substances; he hunts the grass-fields, and pulls out and devours the underground caterpillars, wherever he perceives the signs of their operations, as evinced by the wilted stalks; he destroys mice, young rats, lizards, and the smaller serpents; lastly, he is a volunteer sentinel about the farm, and drives the Hawk from its inclosures, thus preventing greater mischief than that of which he himself is guilty. It is chiefly during seed-time and harvest that the depredations of the Crow are committed; during the remainder of the year we witness only his services; and so highly are these services appreciated by those who have written of birds, that I cannot name an ornithologist who does not plead in his behalf.

Let us turn our attention, for a moment, to his moral qualities. In vain is he accused of cunning, when without this quality he could not live. His wariness is really a virtue, and, under the circumstances in which he is placed, it is his principal means of self-preservation. He has no moral principles, no creed, to which he is under obligations to offer himself as a martyr. His cunning is his armor; and I am persuaded that the persecutions to which he has always been subjected have caused the development of an amount of intelligence that elevates him many degrees above the majority of the feathered race.

There are few birds that equal the Crow in sagacity. He observes many things that would seem to require the faculties of a rational being. He judges with accuracy, from the deportment of the person approaching him, if he is prepared to do him an injury; and seems to pay no regard to one who is strolling the fields in search of flowers or for recreation. On such occasions, one may get so near him as to observe his manners, and even to note the varying shades of his plumage. But in vain does the sportsman endeavor to approach him. So sure is he to fly at the right moment for his safety, that one might suppose he could measure the distance of gunshot.

The voice of the Crow is like no other sound uttered by the feathered race; it is harsh and unmelodious, and though he is capable, when domesticated, of imitating human speech, he cannot sing. But Aesop mistook the character of this bird when he represented him as the dupe of the fox, who gained the bit of cheese he carried in his mouth by inducing him to exhibit his musical powers. The Crow could not be fooled by any such appeals to his vanity.

The Crow is commonly regarded as a homely bird; yet he is not without beauty. His coat of glossy black with violet reflections, his dark eyes and sagacious expression of countenance, his stately and graceful gait, and his steady and equable flight, combine to give him a proud and dignified appearance. The Crow and the Raven have always been celebrated for their gravity, a character that seems to be the result of their black sacerdotal vesture, and of certain manifestations of intelligence in their ways and general deportment. Indeed, any one who should watch the motions of the Crow for the space of five minutes, either when he is stalking alone in the field, or when he is careering with his fellows around some tall tree in the forest, would acknowledge that he deserves to be called a grave bird.

Setting aside the services rendered by the Crow to agriculture, I esteem him for certain qualities which are agreeably associated with the charms of Nature. It is not the singing-birds alone that contribute by their voices to gladden the husbandman and cheer the solitary traveller. The crowing of the Cock at the break of day is as joyful a sound, though not so musical, as the voice of the Robin who chants his lays at the same early hour. To me the cawing of the Crow is cheering and delightful, and it is heard long before the majority of birds have left their perch. If not one of the melodies of morn, it is one of the most notable sounds that herald its approach. And how intimately is the voice of this bird associated with the sunshine of calm winter-days,—with our woodland excursions during this inclement season,—with the stroke of the woodman's axe,—with open doors in bright and pleasant weather, when the eaves are dripping with the melting snow,—and with all those cheerful sounds that enliven the groves during that period when every object is valuable that relieves the silence or softens the dreary aspect of Nature!

If we leave the open fields and woods, and ramble near the coast to some retired and solitary branch of the sea, our meditations may be suddenly startled by the harsh voice of the Kingfisher, like the sound of a watchman's rattle. This bird is seldom seen in winter in the interior; most of his species migrate southwardly and to the sea-coast, just so far as to be within reach of the open waters. As they subsist on the smaller kinds of fishes, they would perish with hunger, after the waters are frozen, if they did not migrate. But the Kingfisher often remains on the coast during open winters, and may therefore be considered one of our winter-birds.

This bird is the celebrated Alcedo, or Halcyon, of the ancients, who attributed to him many apparently supernatural powers. He was supposed to construct his nest upon the waves, on which it was made to float like a skiff. But as the turbulence of a storm would be likely to cause its destruction, Nature had gifted him with the extraordinary power of stilling the motions of the winds and waves, during the period of incubation. Hence the serene weather that accompanies the summer solstice was supposed to be occasioned by the benign influence of this bird, and the term "halcyon days" was applied to this period. It is remarkable that the fable should add to these supernatural gifts the power of song, as one of the accomplishments of the Kingfisher. These superstitions must have been very general among the ancients, and were not confined to the Greeks and Romans. Some of the Asiatic nations still wear the skin of the Kingfisher about their persons, as a protection against both moral and physical evils; the feathers are used as love-charms; and it is believed, that, if the body of the Kingfisher be evenly fixed upon a pivot, it will turn its head to the north, like the magnetic needle.

This bird is singularly grotesque in his appearance, though not without beauty of plumage. With his long, straight, and quadrangular bill, his short and diminutive feet and legs, and his immense head, his plumage of a handsome dusky blue, with a bluish band on the breast and a white collar around the neck,—when this mixture of the grotesque and the beautiful is considered in connection with the singularity of his habits, we need not marvel at the superstitions connected with his history. He sits patiently, like an angler, on a post at the head of a wharf, or on a branch of a tree that extends over the bank, and, leaning obliquely, with extended head and beak, he watches for his finny prey. There, with the light blue sky above him and the dark blue waves beneath, nothing on the surface of the water can escape his penetrating eyes. Quickly, with a sudden swoop, he seizes a single fish from an unsuspecting shoal, and announces his success by the peculiar sound of his rattle.

It may not have been observed by all that the most interesting periods or situations for rambling are not those which most abound with exciting scenes and objects. There must be a certain dearth of individual objects that draw the attention, intermingled with occasional remarkable or mysterious sights and sounds, to yield an excursion its greatest interest. The hunter (unless he be a purveyor for the market) understands this philosophy, and knows that there is more pleasure in chasing a single deer or a solitary fox over miles of pasture and moorland, than in hunting where these animals are abundant, and slaughtering them as fast as one can load his gun. The pleasures attending a rural excursion in the winter are founded on this fact, and may be explained by this principle. There, amid the general silence, every sound attracts attention and is accompanied by its echo; and since the trees and shrubs have lost their leafy garniture, every tree and other object has its own distinct shadow, and we fix our attention more easily upon anything that excites our interest than when it is distracted by the confusion of numbers.

Hence it is in the winter that the picturesque character of the flight of birds is particularly noticeable. In summer, and in autumn, before the fall of the leaf, birds are partially concealed by the foliage of trees, so that the manner of their flight does not become so readily apparent. But in winter, if we start a flock of birds from the ground, we can hardly avoid taking notice of all the peculiarities of their movements. I have alluded to the descent of Snow-Buntings upon the landscape as singularly picturesque; but the motions of a flock of Quails, when suddenly aroused from a thicket, are not less so. When a Pigeon, or any other bird with strong and large wings, takes flight, the motions of its wings are not vibratory, and its progress through the air is so rapid as to injure the pleasing effect of its motions, because we obtain no distinct perception of the bird during its flight. It is quite otherwise with the Quail. The body of this bird is plump and heavy, and his wings are short, and have a peculiar concavity of the under surface when expanded; their motions are very rapid, and, having but little sweep, the bird seems to sail on the air, carried along by a gentle but rapid vibration of the wings, which describe only a very small arc of a circle. Hence we observe the entire shape of the bird during its flight. The Partridge, and other gallinaceous birds, fly in a similar manner; but, on account of their larger size, their motions are less attractive.

The Humming-Bird has proportionally larger wings than the Quail, and, when flying, his wings describe almost a complete circle in their rapid vibrations. If we look upon one during his flight, he seems to have no wings, but rather to be encircled by a semi-transparent halo. There are other birds that seem to be wings only, their bodies being hardly perceptible, on account of their small proportional size; such are the Swallow, the Pigeon, the Cuckoo, and the Night-Hawk.

Birds of prey are remarkable for their steady and graceful flight; the motion of their wings is slow, while, like the Pigeon, they are capable of propelling themselves through the air with great rapidity. The circumgyrations of a Hawk, when reconnoitring far aloft in the air, are singularly graceful. The flight of the Crow and the Raven is slow and apparently difficult, and they are easily overtaken and annoyed by the King-Bird and other small birds. They are not formed, like the Falcon, to catch their prey upon the wing, and, though their wings are large and powerful, they are incapable of performing those graceful and difficult evolutions which we observe in the flight of birds of prey. The flight of Herons resembles that of the Raven.

Small birds, with the exception of a few species, move in an undulating course, alternately rising and sinking. Birds that move in this manner are, I believe, incapable of making a long journey on the wing without rest, and commonly perform their migrations by short daily stages.

The flight of the little Sand-Pipers, which frequent the salt marshes in numerous flocks, is particularly worthy of study. It is not unlike the flight of Quails, but more evenly sustained, on account of the greater length and power of their wings. These birds are capable of holding an even flight in a perfectly horizontal line, only a few inches above the surface of the ground. When they alight, they seldom make a curve or gyration, but descend in a straight and oblique course. Snow-Buntings usually turn about, just before they reach the ground; and I have seen them perform the most intricate changes, like the movements of a cotillon-party, executed with the rapidity of arrows, when suddenly checked in their flight by the discovery of a good tract of forage.

With these observations, which might be indefinitely extended, I take leave of the subject, simply remarking, that to the motions of birds, no less than to their beauty of plumage and the sounds of their voices, are we indebted for a great part of the picturesque attractions of landscape; and the more we study them, the more are we convinced, that, in whatever direction we turn our observations, we may extend them to infinity. There is no limit to any study of Nature, and even one so apparently insignificant as the flight of birds leads to an endless series of interesting facts, and opens the eyes to new beauties in the aspect of Nature and new sources of rational delight.

"THE NEW LIFE" OF DANTE

[Concluded.]

III

The year 1289 was one marked in the annals of Florence and of Italy by events which are still famous, scored by the genius of Dante upon the memory of the world. It was in this year that Count Ugolino and his sons and grandsons were starved by the Pisans in their tower prison. A few months later, Francesca da Rimini was murdered by her husband. Between the dates of these two terrible events the Florentines had won the great victory of Campaldino; and thus, in this short space, the materials had been given to the poet for the two best-known and most powerful stories and for one of the most striking episodes of the "Divina Commedia."

In the great and hard-fought battle of Campaldino Dante himself took part. "I was at first greatly afraid," he says, in a letter of which but a few sentences have been preserved,¹—"but at the end I felt the greatest joy,—according to the various chances of the battle." When the victorious army returned to Florence, a splendid procession, with the clergy at its head, with the arts of the city each under its banner, and with all manner of pomp, went out to meet it. There were long-continued feasts and rejoicings. The battle had been fought on the 11th of June, the day of St. Barnabas, and the Republic, though already engaged in magnificent works of church-building, decreed that a new church should be erected in honor of the Saint on whose day the victory had been won.

A little later in that summer, Dante was one of a troop of Florentines who joined the forces of Lucca in levying war upon the Pisan territory. The stronghold of Caprona was taken, and Dante was present at its capture; for he says, (Inferno, xxi. 94-96,) "I saw the foot-soldiers, who, having made terms, came out from Caprona, afraid when they beheld themselves among so many enemies."²

Thus, during a great part of the summer of 1289, Dante was in active service as a soldier. He was no lovesick idler, no mere home-keeping writer of verses, but was already taking his part in the affairs of the state which he was afterwards to be called on for a time to assist in governing, and he was laying up those stores of experience which were to serve as the material out of which his vivifying imagination was to form the great national poem of Italy. But of this active life, of these personal engagements, of these terrible events which took such strong possession of his soul, there is no word, no suggestion even, in the book of his "New Life." In it there is no echo, however faint, of those storms of public violence and private passion which broke dark over Italy. In the midst of the tumults which sprang from the jealousies of rival states, from the internal discords of cities, from the divisions of parties, from the bitterness of domestic quarrels,—this little book is full of tenderness and peace, and tells its story of love as if the world were the abode of tranquillity. No external excitements could break into the inner chambers of Dante's heart to displace the love that dwelt within them. The contrast between the purity and the serenity of the "Vita Nuova" and the coarseness and cruelty of the deeds that were going on while it was being written is complete. Every man in some sort leads a double life,—one real and his own, the other seeming and the world's,—but with few is the separation so entire as it was with Dante.

But in these troubled times the "New Life" was drawing to its close. The spring of 1290 had come, and the poet, now twenty-five years old, sixteen years having passed since he first beheld Beatrice, was engaged in writing a poem to tell what effect the virtue of his lady wrought upon him. He had written but the following portion when it was broken off, never to be resumed:—

 
  "So long hath Love retained me at his hest,
  And to his sway hath so accustomed me,
  That as at first he cruel used to be,
  So in my heart he now doth sweetly rest.
  Thus when by him my strength is dispossessed,
  So that the spirits seem away to flee,
  My frail soul feels such sweetness verily,
  That with it pallor doth my face invest.
  Then Love o'er me such mastery doth seize,
  He makes my sighs in words to take their way,
  And they unto my lady go to pray
  That she to give me further grace would please.
  Where'er she sees me, this to me occurs,
  Nor can it be believed what humbleness is hers."
 

"'Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo! facta est quasi vidua domina gentium!' [How doth the city sit solitary that was full of people! how is she become as a widow, she that was great among the nations!]³

"I was yet engaged upon this Canzone, and had finished the above stanza, when the Lord of justice called this most gentle one unto glory under the banner of that holy Queen Mary whose name was ever spoken with greatest reverence by this blessed Beatrice.⁴

"And although it might give pleasure, were I now to tell somewhat of her departure from us, it is not my intention to treat of it here for three reasons. The first is, that it is no part of the present design, as may be seen in the proem of this little book. The second is, that, supposing it were so, my pen would not be sufficient to treat of it in a fitting manner. The third is, that, supposing both the one and the other, it would not be becoming in me to treat of it, since, in doing so, I should be obliged to praise myself,—a thing altogether blameworthy in whosoever does it,—and therefore I leave this subject to some other narrator.

"Nevertheless, since in what precedes there has been occasion to make frequent mention of the number nine,⁵ and apparently not without reason, and since in her departure this number appeared to have a large place, it is fitting to say something on this point, seeing that it seems to belong to our design. Wherefore I will first tell how it had place in her departure, and then I will assign some reason why this number was so friendly to her. I say, that, according to the mode of reckoning in Italy, her most noble soul departed in the first hour of the ninth day of the month; and according to the reckoning, in Syria, she departed in the ninth month of the year, since the first month there is Tismim, which with us is October; and according to our reckoning, she departed in that year of our indiction, that is, of the years of the Lord, in which the perfect number⁶ was completed for the ninth time in that century in which she had been set in the world; and she was of the Christians of the thirteenth century.⁷

"One reason why this number was so friendly to her may be this: since, according to Ptolemy and the Christian truth, there are nine heavens which move, and, according to the common astrological opinion, these heavens work effects here below according to their relative positions, this number was her friend, to the end that it might be understood that at her generation all the nine movable heavens were in most perfect conjunction.⁸ This is one reason; but considering more subtilely and according to infallible truth, this number was she herself,—I speak in a similitude, and I mean as follows. The number three is the root of nine, since, without any other number, multiplied by itself, it makes nine,—as we see plainly that three times three are nine. Then, if three is the factor by itself of nine, and the Author of Miracles⁹ by himself is three,—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, who are three and one,—this lady was accompanied by the number nine that it might be understood that she was a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the marvellous Trinity. Perhaps a more subtle person might discover some more subtile reason for this; but this is the one that I see for it, and which pleases me the best."

After thus treating of the number nine in its connection with Beatrice, Dante goes on to say, that, when this most gentle lady had gone from this world, the city appeared widowed and despoiled of every dignity; whereupon he wrote to the princes of the earth an account of its condition, beginning with the words of Jeremiah which he quoted at the entrance of this new matter. The remainder of this letter he does not give, because it was in Latin, and in this work it was his intention, from the beginning, to write only in the vulgar tongue; and such was the understanding of the friend for whom he writes,—that friend being, as we may suppose, Guido Cavalcanti, whom Dante, it may be remembered, has already spoken of as the chief among his friends. Then succeeds a Canzone lamenting the death of Beatrice, which, instead of being followed by a verbal exposition, as is the case with all that have gone before, is preceded by one, in order that it may seem, as it were, desolate and like a widow at its end. And this arrangement is preserved in regard to all the remaining poems in the little volume. In this poem he says that the Eternal Sire called Beatrice to himself, because he saw that this world was not worthy of such a gentle thing; and he says of his own life, that no tongue could tell what it has been since his lady went away to heaven.

Among the sonnets ascribed to Dante is one which, if it be his, must have been written about this time, and which, although not included in the "Vita Nuova," seems not unworthy to find a place here. Its imagery, at least, connects it with some of the sonnets in the earlier portion of the book.

 
  "One day came Melancholy unto me,
    And said, 'With thee I will awhile abide';
    And, as it seemed, attending at her side,
    Anger and Grief did bear her company.
 
 
  "'Depart! Away!' I cried out eagerly.
    Then like a Greek she unto me replied;
    And while she stood discoursing in her pride,
    I looked, and Love approaching us I see.
 
 
  "In cloth of black full strangely was he clad,
    A little hood he wore upon his head,
    And down his face tears flowing fast he had.
 
 
  "'Poor little wretch! what ails thee?' then I said.
    And he replied, 'I woful am, and sad,
    Sweet brother, for our lady who is dead.'"
 

About this time, Dante tells us, a person who stood to him in friendship next to his first friend, and who was of the closest relationship to his glorious lady, so that we may believe it was her brother, came to him and prayed him to write something on a lady who was dead. Dante, believing that he meant the blessed Beatrice, accordingly wrote for him a sonnet; and then, reflecting that so short a poem appeared but a poor and bare service for one who was so nearly connected with her, added to it a Canzone, and gave both to him.

As the months passed on, his grief still continued fresh, and the memory of his lady dwelt continually with him. It happened, that, "on that day which completed a year since this lady was made one of the citizens of eternal life, I was seated in a place where, remembering her, I drew an Angel upon certain tablets. And while I was drawing it, I turned my eyes, and saw at my side certain men to whom it was becoming to do honor, and who were looking at what I did; and, as was afterward told me, they had been there now some time before I perceived them. When I saw them, I rose, and, saluting them, said, 'Another was just now with me, and on that account I was in thought.' When these persons had gone, I returned to my work, that is, to drawing figures of Angels; and while doing this, a thought came to me of saying words in rhyme, as for an anniversary poem for her, and of addressing them to those who had come to me. Then I said this sonnet, which has two beginnings:—

FIRST BEGINNING

 
  "Unto my mind remembering had come
    The gentle lady, with such pure worth graced,
    That by the Lord Most High she had been placed
    Within the heaven of peace, where Mary hath her home."
 

SECOND BEGINNING

 
  "Unto my mind had come, indeed, in thought,
    That gentle one for whom Love's tears are shed,
    Just at the time when, by his power led,
    To see what I was doing you were brought.
 
 
  "Love, who within my mind did her perceive,
    Was roused awake within my wasted heart,
    And said unto my sighs, 'Go forth! depart!'
    Whereon each one in grief did take its leave.
 
 
  "Lamenting they from out my breast did go,
    And uttering a voice that often led
    The grievous tears unto my saddened eyes.
 
 
  "But those which issued with the greatest woe,
    'O noble soul,' they in departing said,
    'To-day makes up the year since thou to heaven didst rise.'"
 

The preceding passage is one of the many in the "Vita Nuova" which are of peculiar interest, as illustrating the personal tastes of Dante, and the common modes of his life. "I was drawing," he says, "the figure of an Angel"; and this statement is the more noticeable, because Giotto, the man who set painting on its modern course, was not yet old enough to have exercised any influence upon Dante.¹⁰ The friendship which afterwards existed between them had its beginning at a later period. At this time Cimabue still held the field. He often painted angels around the figures of the Virgin and her Child; and in his most famous picture, in the Church of Sta. Maria Novella, there are certain angels of which Vasari says, with truth, that, though painted in the Greek manner, they show an approach toward the modern style of drawing. These angels may well have seemed beautiful to eyes accustomed to the hard unnaturalness of earlier works. The love of Art pervaded Florence, and a nature so sensitive and so sympathetic as Dante's could not but partake of it in the fullest measure. Art was then no adjunct of sentimentalism, no encourager of idleness. It was connected with all that was most serious and all that was most delightful in life. It is difficult, indeed, to realize the delight which it gave, and the earnestness with which it was followed at this period, when it seemed, as by a miracle, to fling off the winding-sheet which had long wrapped its stiffened limbs, and to come forth with new and unexampled life.

The strength and the intelligence of Dante's love of Art are shown in many beautiful passages and allusions in the "Divina Commedia." There was something of universality, not only in his imagination, but also in his acquisitions. Of the sources of learning which were then open, there was not one which he had not visited; of the fountains of inspiration, not one out of which he had not drunk. All the arts—poetry, painting, sculpture, and music—were alike dear to him. His Canzoni were written to be sung; and one of the most charming scenes in the great poem is that in which is described his meeting with his friend Casella, the musician, who sang to him one of his own Canzoni so sweetly, that "the sweetness still within me sounds."¹¹