Monday 9 September 2019

France: Odes




STC wrote ‘France: an Ode’ early in 1798. It was published in the Morning Post, April 16th 1798, and later reprinted, in slightly revised form, in the Courier in 1804. It traces Coleridge's initial passionate enthusiasm for the revolution, and his later disillusionment when the French army invaded neutral Switzerland.

There were plenty of patriotic or servile odes published under the title ‘To France’ in the eighteenth-century. For instance, ‘Ad Galliam’ (1723) by Nicholas Piat, which (dedicated as it is to Louis XV) opens:
Non id supremus scilicet Arbiter,
Vis unde terris regia profluit,
Intendat, ut celso verendi
De solio sine laude Reges
Ignava molli Sceptra gerant manu;
Sed fata praestent Civibus ut suis
Beata, tranquillamque servent
Incolumi Patriae salutem.

[‘It is, of course, not that the supreme Ruler need pay attention to the wave that flows through the land addessed to the high glories of his throne, unlike those soft and lazy kings who grip the scepter; but citizens should nonetheless offer praise for their happy fate, and most peacefully should serve: so may I offer thanks to you for the health and safety of the nation’]
This ode traces Louis' royal glory and prestige back to Clovis, the legendary bringer of Christianity to France (‘Hâc arte sueti Franciadum Duces/Intaminatis fulgere honoribus:/Qui primus erexit perennes,/Christe, Tibi Clodovaus aras!’ ‘In such art the Rulers of France are entitled to untarnishable bright honours ever since Clovis first raised your everlasting altars, O Christ!’). Of course Coleridge's ode was written not in praise of French monarchy but French revolutionary liberty, and in condemning the tyranny of France's invasion of Switzerland, Coleridge is, very obviously, turning this sycophantic mode on its head.

I've no evidence that Coleridge read Piat; although he was surely aware of this broader kind of writing. But I'm sure he read another, much more famous Latin poem written in praise of France: George Buchanan's ‘Desiderium Lutetiae’ (written 1552; first published as the third of Buchanan's Silvae, 1567), in which the poet, miserable in Portugal, addresses Paris, the city he loved best, as ‘Amaryllis’, styling her a pastoral maid and himself a lovelorn pastoral swain, Daphnis. It was one of Buchanan's most famous poems, at least in terms of his secular output (his Latin paraphrases of the Psalms may have had wider and deeper reach).

We know that Coleridge was reading Buchanan in the 1790s because he took Buchanan's collected poems out of Jesus library in 1794. J C C Mays [‘Coleridge's Borrowings from Jesus College Library 1791-1794’, Transactions of the Cambridge Bibliographical Society 8:5 (1985), 557-581] notes the borrowing (‘1794 11th May; in Coleridge's hand, George Buchanan, Poemata quae extant (Leyden, 1628) 12mo’) and thinks ‘the borrowing is probably connected with Coleridge's plans to publish Imitations from the Modern Latin Poets, which he advertised in the Cambridge Intelligencer for 14 June. He was the only person to borrow the book at Jesus between 1783 and 1805.’

In the event, and although STC published a few English versions of shorter Latin epigrams by Buchanan (for instance: ‘Epigram on Zoilus’ (1799), which also appeared in the Morning Post; Poetical Works 326) he didn't understake a translation of Buchanan's most famous poem, perhaps because he came upon the 1742 version by the blind Scottish poem Thomas Blacklock. Blacklock's poems had been republished in a new edition in 1793 (Coleridge makes reference to Blacklock in a notebook entry of 1803: Notebooks 1:1692). You can find the Blacklock's imitation here, though it's not a very close translation

So: here's the ‘Desiderium Lutetiae’:
O formosa Amarylli, tuo jam septima bruma
Me procul aspectu, jam septima detinet aestas:
Sed neque septima bruma nivalibus horrida nimbis,
Septima nec rapidis candens fervoribus aestas
Extinxit vigiles nostro sub pectore curas.
Tu mihi mane novo carmen, dum roscida tondet
Arva pecus, medio tu carmen solis in aestu,
Et cum jam longas praeceps nox porrigit umbras:
Nec mihi quae tenebris condit nox omnia vultus
Est potis occultare tuos, te nocte sub atra                [10]
Alloquor, amplector, falsaque in imagine somni
Gaudia sollicitam palpant evanida mentem.
At cum somnus abit, curis cum luce renatis
Tecta miser fugio, tanquam mihi tecta doloris
Semina subjiciant, et solid moestus in agris
Qua vagus error agit feror, & deserta querelis
Antra meis, silvasque & conscia faxa fatigo.
Sola meos planctus Echo miserata gementi
Adgemit, & quoties suspiria pectore duco,
Hæc quoque vicino toties suspirat ab antro.              [20]
Sæpe super celsæ prærupta cacumina rupis
In mare prospiciens, spumantia cœrula demens
Alloquor, & surdis jacto irrita vota procellis:

O mare! quæque maris vitreas, Nereides, undas
Finditis, in vestros placidæ me admittite portus:
Aut hoc si nimium est, nec naufragus ire recuso,
Dummodo dilectas teneam vel naufragus oras.
O quoties dixi Zephyris properantibus illuc,
Felices pulchram visuri Amaryllida venti,
Sic neque Pyrene duris in cotibus alas                     [30]
Atterat, & vestros non rumpant nubila cursus,
Dicite vesanos Amaryllidi Daphnidos ignes.
O quoties Euro levibus cum raderet alis
AEquora, dicebam, Felix Amaryllide visa,
Dic mihi, Num meminit nostri? num mutua sentit
Vulnera? num veteris vivunt vestigia flammæ?
Ille ferox contra rauco cum murmure stridens
Avolat irato similis, mihi frigore pectus
Congelat, exanimes torpor gravis alligat artus.
Nec me pastorum recreant solamina, nec me            [40]
Fistula, Nympharumque leves per prata choreæ,
Nec quæ capripedes modulantur carmina Panes:
Una meos sic est prædata Amaryllis amores.

Et me tympana docta ciere canora Lycisca,
Et me blanda Melænis amavit, Iberides ambæ,
Ambæ florentes annis, opibusque superbæ:
Et mihi dotales centum cum matribus agnos
Ipsi promisere patres, mihi munera matres
Spondebant clam multa: meum nec munera pectus,
Nec nivei movere suis cum matribus agni,                [50]
Nec quas blanditias teneræ dixere puellæ,
Nec quas delicias teneræ fecere puellæ.
Quantum ver hyemem, vietum puer integer ævi,
Ter viduam thalamis virgo matura parentem,
Quam superat Durium Rhodanus, quam Sequana Mundam,
Lenis Arar Sycorim, Ligeris formosus Iberum,
Francigenas inter Ligeris pulcherrimus amnes:
Tantum omnes vincit Nymphas Amaryllis lberas.
Sæpe suos vultus speculata Melænis in unda,
Composuit, pinxitque oculos, finxitque capillum,        [60]
Et voluit, simul & meruit formosa videri.
Sæpe mihi dixit, Animi male perdite Daphni,
Cur tibi longinquos libet insanire furores?
Et quod ames dare nostra potest tibi terra, racemos
Collige purpureos, & spes ne concipe lentas.
Sæpe choros festos me prætereunte, Lycisca
Cernere dissimulans, vultusque aversa canebat
Hæc, pedibus terram, & manibus cava tympana pulsans;
Et Nemesis gravis ira, atque irritabile numen,
Et Nemesis laesos etiam punitur amores.                      [70]
Vidi ego dum leporem venator captat, echinum
Spernere, post vanos redeuntem deinde labores,
Vespere nec retulisse domum leporem nec echinum.
Vidi ego qui mullum peteret piscator, & arctis
Retibus implicitam tincam sprevisset opimam,
Vespere nec retulisse domum mullum neque tincam.
Vidi ego qui calamos crescentes ordine risit
Pastor arundineos, dum torno rasile buxum
Frustra amat, (interea calamos quos riserat, alter
Pastor habet,) fragiles contentum inflare cicutas.         [80]
Sic solet immodicos Nemesis contundere fastus.

Hæc & plura Melænis, & hæc & plura Lycisca
Cantabant surdas frustra mihi semper ad aures.
Sed canis ante lupas, & taurus diliget ursas,
Et vulpem lepores, & amabit dama leænas,
Quam vel tympana docta ciere canora Lycisca
Mutabit nostros vel blanda Melænis amores,
Et prius æquoribus pisces, & montibus umbræ,
Et volucres deerunt silvis, & murmura ventis,
Quam mihi discedent formosae Amaryllidos ignes:       [90]
Illa mihi rudibus succendit pectora flammis,
Finiet illa meos moriens morientis amores.
‘O lovely Amaryllis’, ‘O formosa Amarylli’ is Vergillian: Eclogue 1 line 5 praises formosam Amaryllida, echoing Vergil’s Theocritan original (both the 3rd and 4th of whose Idylls address ὦ χαρίεσσ᾽ ᾿Αμαρυλλί, in Latin O formosa Amarylli); but Buchanan allegorises his love-longing; the two lovely nymphs Melaenis and Lycisca, are the Portuguese towns of Coimbra and Evora, where Buchanan spent most of his time, and whose charms, though not negligible, are outshone by those of Paris. Likewise the generic pastoral rivers mentioned in the poem, Durius, Munda, Sycoris and Oberus are the Iberian rivers Douro, Mondego, Segre and Ebro.

Here's my line-by-line Englishing
Missing Paris

Lovely Amaryllis! Seven winters gone
and seven long summers since I saw your face,
though endless sevens, winter snowstorm clouds,
roasting blasts of summer passing, nothing
could ever quench the fervour in my breast.
You're the song I sing at dawn, as the flock returns
to crop the dew-wet grass; it's you in the hot noon
and when the night is long and shadow stretches
night embalms everything, but not for me
since you are there, hidden behind the darkness:           [10]
in dreams I talk to you, embrace you, share
the complex joys of my mind's idea of you.
When sleep is lost to day my cares are reborn
I leave the town—the houses blanks to me
units of subduing pain—and rush through fields,
sad-hearted fugitive, hopeless escapee:
through caves, through woods I haul my weary thoughts.
Grieving Echo hears me gasp my groans
and groans back as me to my chest's tempo,
the very caves sigh round me as I do.                            [20]
Sometimes I loiter on tall, rugged cliffs
watching a sky-blue sea thrash itself foam-mad
and yell my yearning at the deaf-eared storm:

“Carry me over waves of sea-coloured glass
Nereids, gently across to my safe harbour.
If safety's too much, I'm fine with shipwreck,
provided such dangers bring me to my love.”
How often I've addressed the quick winds, saying:
“You fortunate breeze, you will see Amaryllis;
I pray no Pyrenees crags bruise your wings                   [30]
no clouds chafe you as you go rushing on
to tell Amaryllis of Daphnis’s wild desires.
How often I've asked Euro, as his wings
scrape foam from wavetops: is Amaryllis well?
does she still remember me? does she feel
the pain I do? Does our flame still live in her?
But the wild wind recoiled with a rasping
angry rush, dashed off, chilled the soul in my breast
seizing up my veins, freezing my helpless limbs.
Nor can I take comfort now in rural thoughts:              [40]
meadow nymphs dancing to a shepherd’s pipe
nimble-footed, singing songs of feasting
all tainted now by thoughts of Amaryllis.”

Lycisca taught me rhythms from the drum,
and gorgeous Melaenis is crowned with love;
both rightly proud of their  youthful beauty.
And I've been promised a hundred fatted lambs
as dowry by their fathers, their mothers,
promising extra gifts. Pledges that don’t move me,
no matter that the lambs are white as snow;                  [50]
nor sensual words low-spoken by these girls,
such promises could never change my mind.
Wizened winter to the boyish blush of spring—
that, times three, is how they fall short of my girl;
As Durius trumps the Rhone, Seine the Munda,
as Sycoris is lovelier than Saone, Ebro than the Loire,
(though the Loire is France’s loveliest river!)
so Amaryllis bests Iberian nymphs.
Melaenis saw her face in the waters' mirror,
her colour, painted eyes, her fine dressed hair,             [60]
thought to herself she was the lovely one.
“Such agony” (she said), “in Daphnis’s soul!
Why waste your love on what is far away?
Why blank the attractions of our earth, our clustered
black-and-purple grapes—why yearn for what's not here?”

I've watched Lycisca at the festival
Pretending I'm not there, sly-glancing, beating
her foot, pounding the hollow drum, singing:
“Nemesis is cruel, my lad, a wild god,
Nemesis will punish your transgressions.                     [70]
I've seen the hunter chase the hare, and ignore
the easy hedgehog, only to return hungry
at dusk, bringing home neither hare nor hog;
seen fisherman lay nets for deep-sea mullet
ignoring rich schools of small tench; returning
home at last with neither tench nor mullet.
And I, I sneered at basic reeds, desiring
instead the polished lathe-turned shepherd's flute
vainly wanting what I could not have, ignoring
slender hemlock: though it's fine for playing!               [80]
So Nemesis works, crushing insolent pride.”

This (and more) Melaenis and Lycisca sang
to ears that were quite deaf to all their words.
Dogs shall love wolves and bulls shall yearn for bears
hares adore foxes and deers pair off with lions
before the rhythms of Lycisca’s music or
Melaenis’s smooth beauty change my love.
Fish will leave the sea and mountains lie down,
birds quit the woods, the winds give up their roar
before my fire for Amaryllis fades.                               [90]
It was she who lit these hot flames in my heart
Only when she dies will my death bring their end.

The question that interests me, my interests being of a desiccated nature, is whether there's anything of Buchanan in Coleridge's famous ode. Like Buchanan, Coleridge styles his panegyric to France (or at least to liberty) as a pastoral. ‘France: an Ode’ is divided into five, numbered and rhyming verse-paragraphs. The first and the last of these in particular inhabit the voice of a pastoral swain, roaming the wilderness and lamenting his lost love (2 and 3, with their references to giants and dragons and so on, are more Spenserian-allegorical). But bookending the plem with two chunks of solid pastoral inflect the poem in particular ways. For Coleridge this is not Letita but Liberty, not Paris but what Paris once, briefly, was for his imagination, during the revolution. That this ode to idyllic liberty (or this idyll to the odd liberty) takes the form of pastoral is not adventitious. Coleridge's thesis is that nature is ‘free’ because free from human tyranny: nobody tells the winds where to blow, the sea how to flow and so on, nobody, that is, except God, or Necessity, or whatever. But the more usual forms of the pastoral idyll are that of a lover's lament or dispossessed-peasant's misery (the ‘song contest’ and the ‘here comes the Golden Age!’ forms crop up far less frequently in the post-classical pastoral tradition), so Coleridge's ‘ode’ is not a celebratory hymn or considered meditation upon Liberty, but a lament that Liberty is far from him.

That the first stanza includes many of the features of Buchanan's poem (his ‘O mare!’ in STC's poem line 3's ‘ye ocean-waves!’, his panegyric to clouds and winds and waves as the forces that will reunite him with his loved one, the night-bird-singing solace of the night etc) probably reflects nothing beyond the fact that, this late in the day, pastoral conventions have worn their groove smooth in the European poetic tradition. But I genuinely wonder if Coleridge's last stanza/verse-paragraph:
Thou speedest on thy subtle pinions,
The guide of homeless winds, and playmate of the waves!
And there I felt thee!—on that sea-cliff's verge,
Whose pines, scarce travelled by the breeze above,
Had made one murmur with the distant surge!
Yes, while I stood and gazed, my temples bare,
And shot my being through earth, sea, and air,
Possessing all things with intensest love,
O Liberty! my spirit felt thee there. [lines 97-105]
... consciously or otherwise mimics Buchanan's
Sæpe super celsæ prærupta cacumina rupis
In mare prospiciens, spumantia cœrula demens
Alloquor, & surdis jacto irrita vota procellis:

O mare! quæque maris vitreas, Nereides, undas
Finditis, in vestros placidæ me admittite portus:
Aut hoc si nimium est, nec naufragus ire recuso,
Dummodo dilectas teneam vel naufragus oras. [Buchanan, lines 21-7]