Pacchiarotto/Of Pacchiarotto, and How He Worked in Distemper
OF PACCHIAROTTO, AND HOW HE
WORKED IN DISTEMPER.
I.Query: was ever a quainterCrotchet than this of the painterGiacomo PacchiarottoWho took "Reform" for his motto?
2.He, pupil of old Fungaio,Is always confounded (heigho!)With Pacchia, contemporaneousNo question, but how extraneous In the grace of soul, the powerOf hand,—undoubted dowerOf Pacchia who decked (as we know,My Kirkup!) San Bernardino,Turning the small dark OratoryTo Siena's Art-laboratory,As he made its straightness roomyAnd glorified its gloomy,With Bazzi and Beccafumi.(Another heigho for Bazzi:How people miscall him Razzi!)
3.This Painter was of opinion Our earth should be his dominion Whose Art could correct to pattern What Nature had slurred—the slattern!And since, beneath the heavens, Things lay now at sixes and sevens, Or, as he said, sopra-sotto— Thought the painter Pacchiarotto Things wanted reforming, therefore."Wanted it"—ay, but wherefore? When earth held one so ready As he to step forth, stand steady In the middle of God's creation And prove to demonstration What the dark is, what the light is, What the wrong is, what the right is, What the ugly, what the beautiful, What the restive, what the dutiful, In Mankind profuse around him? Man, devil as now he found him, Would presently soar up angel At the summons of such evangel, And owe—what would Man not owe To the painter Pacchiarotto? Ay, look to thy laurels, Giotto!
4. But Man, he perceived, was stubborn, Grew regular brute, once cub born; And it struck him as expedient— Ere he tried to make obedient, By piping advice in one key, The wolf, fox, bear and monkey— That his pipe should play a prelude To something heaven-tinged not hell-hued,Something not harsh but docile,Man-liquid, not Man-fossil—Not fact, in short, but fancy.By a laudable necromancyHe would conjure up ghosts—a circleDeprived of the means to work illShould his music prove distasteful,And pearls to the swine go wasteful.To be rent of swine—that was hard!With fancy he ran no hazard:Fact might knock him o'er the mazard.
5.So, the painter PacchiarottoConstructed himself a grottoIn the quarter of Stalloreggi—As authors of note allege ye.And on each of the whitewashed sides of itHe painted—(none far and wide so fitAs he to perform in fresco)—He painted nor cried quiescoTill he peopled its every square footWith Man—from the Beggar barefootTo the Noble in cap and feather:All sorts and conditions together.The Soldier in breastplate and helmetStood frowningly—hail fellow well met— By the Priest armed with bell, book and candle. Nor did he omit to handle The Fair Sex, our brave distemperer: Not merely King, Clown, Pope, Emperor— He diversified too his Hades Of all forms, pinched Labour and paid Ease, With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies.
6.Which work done, dry,—he rested him, Cleaned pallet, washed brush, divested him Of the apron that suits frescanti, And, bonnet on ear stuck jaunty, This hand upon hip well planted, That, free to wave as it wanted, He addressed in a choice orationHis folk of each name and nationOn the duties of every station.The Pope was declared an arrantImpostor at once, I warrant.The Emperor—truth might tax himWith ignorance of the maxim"Shear sheep but nowise flay them!"And the Vulgar that obey them,The Ruled, well-matched with the Ruling,They failed not of wholesome schoolingOn their knavery and their fooling.As for Art—where's decorum? Pooh-poohed it isBy Poets that plague us with lewd ditties,And Painters that pester with nudities!
7.Now, your rater and debater Is baulked by a mere spectator Who simply stares and listens Tongue-tied, while eye nor glistens Nor brow grows hot and twitchy, Nor mouth, for a combat itchy, Quivers with some convincing Reply—that sets him wincing? Nay, rather—reply that furnishes Your debater with just what burnishes The crest of him, all one triumph, As you see him rise, hear him cry "Humph! Convinced am I? This confutes me? Receive the rejoinder that suits me!Confutation of vassal for prince meet—Wherein all the powers that convince meet,And mash my opponent to mincemeat!"
8.So, off from his head flies the bonnet,His hip loses hand planted on it,While t' other hand, frequent in gesture,Slinks modestly back beneath vesture,As,—hop, skip and jump,—he 's along withThose weak ones he late proved so strong with!Pope, Emperor, lo he 's beside them,Friendly now, who late could not abide them, King, Clown, Soldier, Priest, Noble, Burgess;And his voice, that out-roared Boanerges,How minikin-mildly it urgesIn accents how gentled and gingeredIts word in defence of the injured!"O call him not culprit, this Pontiff!Be hard on this Kaiser ye won't ifYe take into con-si-der-ationWhat dangers attend elevation!The Priest—who expects him to descantOn duty with more zeal and less cant?He preaches but rubbish he's reared in.The Soldier, grown deaf (by the mere dinOf battle) to mercy, learned tipplingAnd what not of vice while a stripling. The Lawyer—his lies are conventional.And as for the Poor Sort—why mention allObstructions that leave barred and boltedAccess to the brains of each dolt-head?"
9.He ended, you wager? Not half! A bet?Precedence to males in the alphabet!Still, disposed of Man's A. B. C., there's X.Y. Z. want assistance,—the Fair Sex!How much may be said in excuse ofThose vanities—males see no use of—From silk shoe on heel to laced poll's-hood!What's their frailty beside our own falsehood? The boldest, most brazen of . . . trumpets,How kind can they be to their dumb pets!Of their charms—how are most frank, how few venal!While as for those charges of Juvenal—Quæ nemo dixisset in totoNisi (ædepol) ore illoto—He dismissed every charge with an 'Apage!'
10.Then, cocking (in Scotch phrase) his cap a-gee,Right hand disengaged from the doublet—Like landlord, in house he had subletResuming of guardianship gestion,To call tenants' conduct in question— Hop, skip, jump, to inside from outsideOf chamber, he lords, ladies, louts eyedWith such transformation of visageAs fitted the censor of this age.No longer an advocate tepidOf frailty, but champion intrepidOf strength,—not of falsehood but verity,—He, one after one, with asperityStripped bare all the cant-clothed abuses,Disposed of sophistic excuses,Forced folly each shift to abandon,And left vice with no leg to stand on.So crushing the force he exerted,That Man at his foot lay converted!
11.True—Man bred of paint-pot and mortar!But why suppose folks of this sort areMore likely to hear and be tractableThan folks all alive and, in fact, ableTo testify promptly by actionTheir ardour, and make satisfactionFor misdeeds non verbis sed factis?"With folks all alive be my practiceHenceforward! O mortar, paint-pot O,Farewell to ye!" cried Pacchiarotto,"Let only occasion intérpose!"
12.It did so: for, pat to the purposeThrough causes I need not examine, There fell upon Siena a famine.In vain did the magistrates busilySeek succour, fetch grain out of Sicily, Nay, throw mill and bakehouse wide open— Such misery followed as no penOf mine shall depict ye. Faint, fainter, Waxed hope of relief: so, our painter, Emboldened by triumph of recency, How could he do other with decency Than rush in this strait to the rescue,Play schoolmaster, point as with fescue To each and all slips in Man's spelling The law of the land?—slips now telling With monstrous effect on the city,Whose magistrates moved him to pity As, bound to read law to the letter,They minded their hornbook no better.
13.I ought to have told you, at starting,How certain, who itched to be cartingAbuses away clean and thoroughFrom Siena, both province and borough,Had formed themselves into a companyWhose swallow could bolt in a lump anyObstruction of scruple, provokingThe nicer throat's coughing and choking:Fit Club, by as fit a name dignifiedOf "Freed Ones"—"Bardotti"—which signified"Spare-Horses" that walk by the waggon The team has to drudge for and drag on.This notable Club PacchiarottoHad joined long since, paid scot and lot to,As free and accepted "Bardotto."The Bailiwick watched with no quiet eyeThe outrage thus done to society,And noted the advent especiallyOf Pacchiarotto their fresh ally.
14.These Spare-Horses forthwith assembled:Neighed words whereat citizens trembledAs oft as the chiefs, in the Square byThe Duomo, proposed a way wherebyThe city were cured of disaster. "Just substitute servant for master,Make Poverty Wealth and Wealth Poverty,Unloose Man from overt and covert tie,And straight out of social confusionTrue Order would spring!" Brave illusion—Aims heavenly attained by means earthly!
15.Off to these at full speed rushed our worthy,—Brain practised and tongue no less tutored,In argument's armour accoutred,—Sprang forth, mounted rostrum, and essayedProposals like those to which "Yes" saidSo glibly each personage paintedO' the wall-side wherewith you're acquainted. He harangued on the faults of the Bailiwick:"Red soon were our State-candle's paly wick,If wealth would become but interfluous;Fill voids up with just the superfluous;If ignorance gave way to knowledge—Not pedantry picked up at collegeFrom Doctors, Professors et cætera—(They say: 'kai to loipa'—like better aLong Greek string of kappas, taus, lambdas,Tacked on to the tail of each damned ass)—No knowledge we want of this quality,But knowledge indeed—practicalityThrough insight's fine universality!If you shout 'Bailiffs, out on ye all! Fie,Thou Chief of our forces, Amalfi, Who shieldest the rogue and the clot poll!'If you pounce on and poke out, with what poleI leave ye to fancy, our Siena'sBeast-litter of sloths and hyenas—"(Whoever to scan this is ill ableForgets the town's name's a dissyllable)"If, this done, ye did—as ye might—placeFor once the right man in the right place,If you listened to me . . ."
16.At which last "If"There flew at his throat like a mastiffOne Spare-Horse—another and another!Such outbreak of tumult and pother, Horse-faces a-laughing and fleering,Horse-voices a-mocking and jeering,Horse-hands raised to collar the caitiffWhose impudence ventured the late "If"—That, had not fear sent PacchiarottoOff tramping, as fast as could trot toe,Away from the scene of discomfiture—Had he stood there stock-still in a dumb fit—sureAm I he had paid in his personTill his mother might fail to know her son,Though she gazed on him never so wistful,In the figure so tattered and tristful.Each mouth full of curses, each fist fullOf cuffings—behold, Pacchiarotto,The pass which thy project has got to, Of trusting, nigh ashes still hot—tow!(The paraphrase—which I much need—isFrom Horace 'per ignes incedis.')
17.Right and left did he dash helter-skelterIn agonized search of a shelter.No purlieu so blocked and no alleySo blind as allowed him to rallyHis spirits and see—nothing hamperedHis steps if he trudged and not scamperedUp here and down there in a cityThat's all ups and downs, more the pityFor folks who would outrun the constable.At last he stopped short at the one stable And sure place of refuge that's offeredHumanity. Lately was cofferedA corpse in its sepulchre, situateBy St. John's Observance. "HabituateThyself to the strangest of bedfellows,And, kicked by the live, kiss the dead fellows!"So Misery counselled the craven.At once he crept safely to havenThrough a hole left unbricked in the structure.Ay, Misery, in have you tucked yourPoor client and left him conterminousWith—pah!—the thing fetid and verminous!(I gladly would spare you the detail,But History writes what I retail.)
18.Two days did he groan in his domicile:"Good Saints, set me free and I promise I'llAdjure all ambition of preachingChange, whether to minds touched by teaching—The smooth folk of fancy, mere figmentsCreated by plaster and pigments,—Or to minds that receive with such rudenessDissuasion from pride, greed and lewdness,—The rough folk of fact, life's true specimensOf mind—'haud in posse sed esse mens'As it was, is and shall be for everDespite of my utmost endeavour.O live foes I thought to illumine,Henceforth lie untroubled your gloom in! I need my own light, every spark, asI couch with this sole friend—a carcase!"
19.Two days thus he maundered and rambled;Then, starved back to sanity, scrambledFrom out his receptacle loathsome."A spectre!"—declared upon oath someWho saw him emerge and (appallingTo mention) his garments a-crawlingWith plagues far beyond the Egyptian.He gained, in a state past descriptionA convent of monks, the Observancy.
20.Thus far is a fact: I reserve fancyFor Fancy's more proper employment:And now she waves wing with enjoyment,To tell ye how preached the SuperiorWhen somewhat our painter's exteriorWas sweetened. He needed (no mincingThe matter) much soaking and rincing,Nay, rubbing with drugs odoriferous,Till, rid of his garments pestiferousAnd robed by the help of the BrotherhoodIn odds and ends,—this gown and t'other hood,—His empty inside first well-garnished,—He delivered a tale round, unvarnished.
21."Ah, Youth!" ran the admonishment,"Thine error scarce moves my astonishment.For—why shall I shrink from asserting?—Myself have had hopes of convertingThe foolish to wisdom, till, sober,My life found its May grow October.I talked and I wrote, but, one morning,Life's Autumn bore fruit in this warning:'Let tongue rest, and quiet thy quill be!Earth is earth and not heaven, and ne'er will be.'Man's work is to labour and leaven—As best he may—earth here with heaven;'Tis work for work's sake that he's needing:Let him work on and on as if speeding Work's end, but not dream of succeeding!Because if success were intended,Why, heaven would begin ere earth ended.A Spare-Horse? Be rather a thill-horse,Or—what's the plain truth—just a mill-horse!Earth's a mill where we grind and wear mufflers:A whip awaits shirkers and shufflersWho slacken their pace, sick of luggingAt what don't advance for their tugging.Though round goes the mill, we must still postOn and on as if moving the mill-post.So, grind away, mouth-wise and pen-wise,Do all that we can to make men wise!And if men prefer to be foolish,Ourselves have proved horse-like not mulish: Sent grist, a good sackful, to hopper,And worked as the Master thought proper.Tongue I wag, pen I ply, who am Abbot;Stick, thou, Son, to daub-brush and dab-pot!But, soft! I scratch hard on the scab hot?Though cured of thy plague, there may lingerA pimple I fray with rough finger?So soon could my homily transmuteThy brass into gold? Why, the man's mute!"
22."Ay, Father, I'm mute with admiringHow Nature's indulgence untiringStill bids us turn deaf ear to Reason'sBest rhetoric—clutch at all seasons And hold fast to what's proved untenable!Thy maxim is—Man's not amenableTo argument: whereof by consequence—Thine arguments reach me: a non-sequence!Yet blush not discouraged, O Father!I stand unconverted, the ratherThat nowise I need a conversion.No live man (I cap thy assertion)By argument ever could take holdOf me. 'T was the dead thing, the clay-cold,Which grinned 'Art thou so in a hurryThat out of warm light thou must scurryAnd join me down here in the dungeonBecause, above, one's Jack and one—John,One's swift in the race, one—a hobbler, One's a crowned king and one—a capped cobbler,Rich and poor, sage and fool, virtuous, vicious?Why complain? Art thou so unsuspiciousThat all's for an hour of essayingWho's fit and who's unfit for playingHis part in the after-construction—Heaven's Piece whereof Earth's the Induction?Things rarely go smooth at Rehearsal.Wait patient the change universal,And act, and let act, in existence!For, as thou art clapped hence or hissed hence,Thou host thy promotion or otherwise.And why must wise thou have thy brother wiseBecause in rehearsal thy cue beTo shine by the side of a booby? No polishing garnet to ruby!All's well that ends well—through Art's magic.Some end, whether comic or tragic,The Artist has purposed, be certain!Explained at the fall of the curtain—In showing thy wisdom at odds withThat folly: he tries men and gods withNo problem for weak wits to solve meant,But one worth such Author's evolvement.So, back nor disturb play's productionBy giving thy brother instructionTo throw up his fool's-part allotted!Lest haply thyself prove besottedWhen stript, for thy pains, of that costumeOf sage, which has bred the imposthumeI prick to relieve thee of,—Vanity!'
23."So, Father, behold me in sanity!I'm back to the palette and mahlstick:And as for Man—let each and all stickTo what was prescribed them at starting!Once planted as fools—no departingFrom folly one inch, sæculorumIn sæcula! Pass me the jorum,And push me the platter—my stomachRetains, through its fasting, still some ache—And then, with your kind Benedicite,Good-bye!"
24.I have told with simplicityMy tale, dropped those harsh analytics, And tried to content you, my critics,Who greeted my early uprising!I knew you through all the disguising,Droll dogs, as I jumped up, cried, "HeydayThis Monday is—what else but May-dayAnd these in the drabs, blues, and yellows.Are surely the privileged fellowsSo, saltbox and bones, tongs and bellows!"(I threw up the window) "Your pleasure?"
25.Then he who directed the measure—An old friend—put leg forward nimbly,"We critics as sweeps out your chimbly!Much soot to remove from your flue, sir! Who spares coal in kitchen an't you, sir!And neighbours complain it's no joke, sir,—You ought to consume your own smoke, sir!"
26.Ah, rogues, but my housemaid suspects you—Is confident oft she detects youIn bringing more filth into my houseThan ever you found there! I'm piousHowever: 't was God made you dingyAnd me—with no need to be stingyOf soap, when 't is sixpence the packet.So, dance away, boys, dust my jacket,Bang drum and blow fife—ay, and rattleYour brushes, for that's half the battle! Don't trample the grass,—hocus-pocusWith grime my Spring snowdrop and crocus,—And, what with your rattling and tinkling,Who knows but you give me an inklingHow music sounds, thanks to the jangleOf regular drum and triangle?Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, 't is provenI break rule as bad as Beethoven."That chord now—a groan or a grunt is 't?Schumann's self was no worse contrapuntist.No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled—He thought that he sung while he whistled!"
27.So, this time I whistle, not sing at all,My story, the largess I fling at all And every the rough there whose aubadeDid its best to amuse me,—nor so bad!Take my thanks, pick up largess, and scamperOff free, ere your mirth gets a damper!You 've Monday, your one day, your fun-day,While mine is a year that's all Sunday.I've seen you, times—who knows how many?—Dance in here, strike up, play the zany,Make mouths at the Tenant, hoot warningYou'll find him decamped next May-morning;Then scuttle away, glad to 'scape henceWith—kicks? no, but laughter and ha'pence!Mine's freehold, by grace of the grand LordWho lets out the ground here,—my landlord:To him I pay quit-rent—devotion; Nor hence shall I budge, I've a notion,Nay, here shall my whistling and singingSet all his street's echoes a-ringingLong after the last of your numberHas ceased my front-court to encumberWhile, treading down rose and ranunculus,You Tommy-make-room-for-your-Uncle us!Troop, all of you—man or homunculus,Quick march! for Xanthippe, my housemaid,If once on your pates she a souse madeWith what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramisFirst comes to her hand—things were more amiss!I would not for worlds be your place in—Recipient of slops from the basin!You, jack-in-the-Green, leaf-and-twiggishness Won't save a dry thread on your priggishness!While as for Quilp-Hop-o'-my-thumb there,Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum there—He'll think, as the pickle he curses,I've discharged on his pate his own verses!"Dwarfs are saucy," says Dickens: so, sauced inYour own sauce, . . .[1]
28.But, back to my Knight of the Pencil,Dismissed to his fresco and stencil!Whose story—begun with a chuckle,And throughout timed by raps of the knuckle,— To small enough purpose were studiedIf it ends with crown cracked or nose bloodied.Come, critics,—not shake hands, excuse me!But—say have you grudged to amuse meThis once in the forty-and-overLong years since you trampled my cloverAnd scared from my house-eaves each sparrowI never once harmed by that arrowOf song, karterotaton belos,(Which Pindar declares the true melos,)I was forging and filing and finishing,And no whit my labours diminishingBecause, though high up in a chamberWhere none of your kidney may clamberYour hullabaloo would approach me? Was it "grammar" wherein you would "coach" me—You,—pacing in even that paddockOf language allotted you ad hoc,With a clog at your fetlocks,—you—scornersOf me free of all its four corners?Was it "clearness of words which convey thought"?Ay, if words never needed enswathe aughtBut ignorance, impudence, envyAnd malice—what word-swathe would then vieWith yours for a clearness crystalline?But had you to put in one small lineSome thought big and bouncing—as noddleOf goose, born to cackle and waddleAnd bite at man's heel as goose-wont is,Never felt plague its puny os frontis— You'd know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered,Clear "quack-quack" is easily uttered!
29.Lo, I've laughed out my laugh on this mirth-day!Beside, at week's end, dawns my birth-day,That hebdome, hieron emar—(More things in a day than you deem are!)—Tei gar Apollona chrusaoraEgeinato Leto. So, gray or rayBetide me, six days hence, I'm vexed hereBy no sweep, that's certain, till next year!"Vexed?"—roused from what else were insipid ease!Leave snoring a-bed to Pheidippides!We'll up and work! won't we, Euripides?
- ↑ No, please! For"Who would be satiricalOn a thing so very small?"—Printer's Devil.