Of Pacchiarotto, And How He Worked In Distemper

I     Query: was ever a quainter     Crotchet than this of the painter     Giacomo Pacchiarotto     Who took Reform for his motto? II     He, pupil of old Fungaio,     Is always confounded (heigho!)     With Pacchia, contemporaneous     No question, but how extraneous     In the grace of soul, the power     Of hand, undoubted dower     Of Pacchia who decked (as we know,     My Kirkup!) San Bernardino,     Turning the small dark Oratory     To Sienas Art-laboratory,     As he made its straitness roomy     And glorified its gloomy,     With Bazzi and Beccafumi.     (Another heigho for Bazzi:     How people miscall him Razzi!) III     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 Gods 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! IV     But Man, he perceived, was stubborn,     Grew regular brute, once cub born;     And it struck him as expedient,     Ere he tried to make obedient;     The wolf, fox, bear, and monkey     By piping advice in one key,     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 necromancy     He would conjure up ghosts, a circle     Deprived of the means to work ill     Should 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 oer the mazard. V     So, the painter Pacchiarotto     Constructed himself a grotto     In the quarter of Stalloreggi,     As authors of note allege ye.     And on each of the whitewashed sides of it     He painted, (none far and wide so fit     As he to perform in fresco),     He painted nor cried quiesco     Till he peopled its every square foot     With Man, from the Beggar barefoot     To the Noble in cap and feather;     All sorts and conditions together.     The Soldier in breastplate and helmet     Stood 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 Labor and paid Ease,     With as mixed an assemblage of Ladies. VI     Which work done, dry, he rested him,     Cleaned palette, 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 oration     His folk of each name and nation,     Taught its duty to every station.     The Pope was declared an arrant     Impostor at once, I warrant.     The Emperor, truth might tax him     With 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 schooling     On their knavery and their fooling.     As for Art, wheres decorum? Pooh-poohed it is     By Poets that plague us with lewd ditties,     And Painters that pester with nudities! VII     Now, your rater and debater     Is balked 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! VIII     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, hes along with     Those weak ones he late proved so strong with!     Pope, Emperor, lo, hes 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 urges     In accents how gentled and gingered     Its word in defence of the injured!     Oh, call him not culprit, this Pontiff!     Be hard on this Kaiser ye wont if     Ye take into con-si-der-ation     What dangers attend elevation!     The Priest who expects him to descant     On duty with more zeal and less cant?     He preaches but rubbish hes reared in.     The Soldier, grown deaf (by the mere din     Of battle) to mercy, learned tippling     And what not of vice while a stripling.     The Lawyer,his lies are conventional.     And as for the Poor Sort, why mention all     Obstructions that leave barred and bolted     Access to the brains of each dolt-head? IX     He ended, you wager? Not half! A bet?     Precedence to males in the alphabet!     Still, disposed of Mans A B C, theres X     Y Z want assistance, the Fair Sex I     How much may be said in excuse of     Those vanities, males see no use of,     From silk shoe on heel to laced polls-hood!     Whats 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,     Qu nemo dixisset in toto     Nisi (depol) ore illoto,     He dismissed every charge with an A page! X     Then, cocking (in Scotch phrase) his cap a-gee,     Right hand disengaged from the doublet     Like landlord, in house he had sublet     Resuming of guardianship gestion,     To call tenants conduct in question,     Hop, skip, jump, to inside from outside     Of chamber, he lords, ladies, louts eyed     With such transformation of visage     As fitted the censor of this age.     No longer an advocate tepid     Of frailty, but champion intrepid     Of strength, not of falsehood but verity,     He, one after one, with asperity     Stripped 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! XI     True, Man bred of paint-pot and mortar!     But why suppose folks of this sort are     More likely to hear and be tractable     Than folks all alive and, in fact, able     To testify promptly by action     Their ardor, and make satisfaction     For misdeeds non verbis sed factis?     With folks all alive be my practice     Henceforward! O mortar, paint-pot O,     Farewell to ye I cried Pacchiarotto,     Let only occasion intrpose! XII     It did so: for, pat to the purpose     Through causes I need not examine,     There fell upon Siena a famine.     In vain did the magistrates busily     Seek succor, fetch grain out of Sicily,     Nay, throw mill and bakehouse wide open,     Such misery followed as no pen     Of 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 Mans 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. XIII     I ought to have told you, at starting,     How certain, who itched to be carting     Abuses away clean and thorough     From Siena, both province and borough,     Had formed themselves into a company     Whose swallow could bolt in a lump any     Obstruction of scruple, provoking     The nicer throats coughing and choking:     Fit Club, by as fit a name dignified     Of Freed Ones, Bardotti, which signified     Spare-Horses that walk by the wagon     The team has to drudge for and drag on.     This notable Club Pacchiarotto     Had joined long since, paid scot and lot to,     As free and accepted Bardotto.     The Bailiwick watched with no quiet eye     The outrage thus done to society,     And noted the advent especially     Of Pacchiarotto their fresh ally. XIV     These Spare-Horses forthwith assembled:     Neighed words whereat citizens trembled     As oft as the chiefs, in the Square by     The Duomo, proposed a way whereby     The 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 confusion     True Order would spring! Brave illusion,     Aims heavenly attained by means earthly! XV     Off to these at full speed rushed our worthy,     Brain practised and tongue no less tutored,     In arguments armor accoutred,     Sprang forth, mounted rostrum, and essayed     Proposals like those to which Yes said     So glibly each personage painted     O the wall-side wherewith youre acquainted.     He harangued on the faults of the Bailiwick:     Red soon were our State-candles 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 college     From Doctors, Professors et ctera,     (They say: kai to loipa, like better a     Long 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, practicality     Through insights 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 pole     I leave ye to fancy, our Sienas     Beast-litter of sloths and hyenas,     (Whoever to scan this is ill able     Forgets the towns names a disyllable),     If, this done, ye did, as ye might, place     For once the right man in the right place,     If you listened to me . . . XVI     At which last I.     There flew at his throat like a mastiff     One 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 caitiff     Whose impudence ventured the late If,     That, had not fear sent Pacchiarotto     Off tramping, as fast as could trot toe,     Away from the scene of discomfiture,     Had he stood there stock-still in a dumbfit, sure     Am I he had paid in his peison     Till his mother might fail to know her son,     Though she gazed on him never so wistful,     do the figure so tattered and tristful.     Each mouth full of curses, each fist full     Of cuffings, behold, Pacchiarotto,     The pass which thy project has got to,     Of trusting, nigh ashes still hot, tow!     (The paraphrase, which I much need, is     From Horace per ignes incedis.) XVII     Right and left did he dash helter-skelter     In agonized search of a shelter.     No purlieu so blocked and no alley     So blind as allowed him to rally     His spirits and see, nothing hampered     His steps if he trudged and not scampered     Up here and down there in a city     Thats all ups and downs, more the pity     For folks who would outrun the constable.     At last he stopped short at the one stable     And sure place of refuge thats offered     Humanity. Lately was coffered     A corpse in its sepulchre, situate     By St. Johns Observance. Habituate     Thyself 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 haven     Through a hole left unbricked in the structure.     Ay, Misery, in have you tucked your     Poor client and left him conterminous     With, pah! the thing fetid and verminous!     (I gladly would spare you the detail,     But History writes what I retail.) XVIII     Two days did he groan in his domicile:     Good Saints, set me free and I promise Ill     Adjure all ambition of preaching     Change, whether to minds touched by teaching     The smooth folk of fancy, mere figments     Created by plaster and pigments,     Or to minds that receive with such rudeness     Dissuasion from pride, greed and lewdness,     The rough folk of fact, lifes true specimens     Of mind, haud in posse sed esse mens     As it was, is, and shall be forever     Despite of my utmost endeavor.     O live foes I thought to illumine,     Henceforth lie untroubled your gloom in!     I need my own light, every spark, as     I couch with this sole friend, a carcase! XIX     Two days thus he maundered and rambled;     Then, starved back to sanity, scrambled     From out his receptacle loathsome.     A spectre! declared upon oath some     Who saw him emerge and (appalling     To mention) his garments a-crawling     With plagues far beyond the Egyptian.     He gained, in a state past description,     A convent of months, the Observancy. XX     Thus far is a fact: I reserve fancy     For Fancys more proper employment:     And now she waves wing with enjoyment,     To tell ye how preached the Superior,     When somewhat our painters exterior     Was sweetened. He needed (no mincing     The matter) much soaking and rinsing,     Nay, rubbing with drugs odoriferous,     Till, rid of his garments pestiferous,     And, robed by the help of the Brotherhood     In odds and ends, this gown and t other hood,     His empty inside first well-garnished,     He delivered a tale round, unvarnished. XXI     Ah, Youth! ran the Abbots admonishment,     Thine error scarce moves my astonishment.     For why shall I shrink from asserting?     Myself have had hopes of converting     The foolish to wisdom, till, sober,     My life found its May grow October.     I talked and I wrote, but, one morning,     Lifes Autumn bore fruit in this warning:     Let tongue rest, and quiet thy quill be!     Earth is earth and not heaven, and neer will be.     Mans work is to labor and leaven,     As best he may, earth here with heaven;     Tis work for works sake that hes needing:     Let him work on and on as if speeding     Works 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, whats the plain truth, just a mill-horse!     Earths a mill where we grind and wear mufflers:     A whip awaits shirkers and shufflers     Who slacken their pace, sick of lugging     At what dont advance for their tugging.     Though round goes the mill, we must still post     On 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 linger     A pimple I fray with rough finger?     So soon could my homily transmute     Thy brass into gold? Why, the mans mute! XXII     Ay, Father, Im mute with admiring     How Natures indulgence untiring     Still bids us turn deaf ear to Reasons     Best rhetoric, clutch at all seasons     And hold fast to whats proved untenable!     Thy maxim is, Mans not amenable     To argument: whereof by consequence,     Thine arguments reach me: a non-sequence!     Yet blush not discouraged, O Father!     I stand unconverted, the rather     That nowise I need a conversion.     No live man (I cap thy assertion)     By argument ever could take hold     Of me. Twas the dead thing, the clay-cold,     Which grinned Art thou so in a hurry     That out of warm light thou must scurry     And join me down here in the dungeon     Because, above, ones Jack and one, John,     Ones swift in the race, one, a hobbler,     Ones a crowned king and one, a capped cobbler,     Rich and poor, sage and fool, virtuous, vicious?     Why complain? Art thou so unsuspicious     That alls for an hour of essaying     Whos fit and whos unfit for playing     His part in the after-construction     Heavens Piece whereof Earths 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 wise     Because in rehearsal thy cue be     To shine by the side of a booby?     No polishing garnet to ruby!     Alls well that ends well, through Arts 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 with     That folly: he tries men and gods with     No problem for weak wits to solve meant,     But one worth such Authors evolvement.     So, back nor disturb plays production     By giving thy brother instruction     To throw up his fools-part allotted!     Lest haply thyself prove besotted     When stript, for thy pains, of that costume     Of sage, which has bred the imposthume     I prick to relieve thee of, Vanity! XXIII     So, Father, behold me in sanity!     Im back to the palette and mahlstick:     And as for Man, let each and all stick     To what was prescribed them at starting!     Once planted as fools, no departing     From folly one inch, sculorum     In scula! Pass me the jorum,     And push me the platter, my stomach     Retains, through its fasting, still some ache,     And then, with your kind Benedicite.     Good-by! XXIV     I have told with simplicity     My 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, Heyday!     This Monday is, what else but May-day?     And these in the drabs, blues, and yellows.     Are surely the privileged fellows.     So, saltbox and bones, tongs and bellows!     (I threw up the window) Your pleasure? XXV     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 ant you, sir!     And neighbors complain its no joke, sir,     You ought to consume your own smoke, sir! XXVI     Ah, rogues, but my housemaid suspects you,     Is confident oft she detects you     In bringing more filth into my house     Than ever you found there! Im pious,     However: twas God made you dingy     And me, with no need to be stingy     Of soap, when tis sixpence the packet.     So, dance away, boys, dust my jacket,     Bang drum and blow fife, ay, and rattle     Your brushes, for thats half the battle!     Dont trample the grass, hocus-pocus     With grime my Spring snowdrop and crocus,     And, what with your rattling and tinkling,     Who knows but you give me an inkling     How music sounds, thanks to the jangle     Of regular drum and triangle?     Whereby, tap-tap, chink-chink, tis proven     I break rule as bad as Beethoven.     That chord now a groan or a grunt is t?     Schumanns self was no worse contrapuntist.     No ear! or if ear, so tough-gristled,     He thought that he sung while he whistled! XXVII     So, this time I whistle, not sing at all,     My story, the largess I fling at all     And every the rough there whose aubade     Did its best to amuse me, nor so bad!     Take my thanks, pick up largess, and scamper     Off free, ere your mirth gets a damper!     Youve Monday, your one day, your fun-day,     While mine is a year thats all Sunday.     Ive seen you, times who knows how many?     Dance in here, strike up, play the zany,     Make mouths at the Tenant, hoot warning     Youll find him decamped next May-morning;     Then scuttle away, glad to scape hence     With kicks? no, but laughter and hapence!     Mines freehold, by grace of the grand Lord     Who lets out the ground here, my landlord:     To him I pay quit-rent devotion;     Nor hence shall I budge, Ive a notion,     Nay, here shall my whistling and singing     Set all his streets echoes a-ringing     Long after the last of your number     Has ceased my front-court to encumber     While, 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 house-maid,     If once on your pates she a souse made     With what, pan or pot, bowl or skoramis,     First 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     Wont save a dry thread on your priggishness!     While as for Quilp-Hop-o-my-thumb there,     Banjo-Byron that twangs the strum-strum there,     Hell think as the pickle he curses,     Ive discharged on his pate his own verses!     Dwarfs are saucy, says Dickens: so, sauced in     Your own sauce,1 . . . XXVIII     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 studied     If it ends with crown cracked or nose bloodied.     Come, critics, not shake hands, excuse me!     But, say have you grudged to amuse me     This once in the forty-and-over     Long years since you trampled my clover     And scared from my house-eaves each sparrow     I never once harmed by that arrow     Of song, karterotaton belos,     (Which Pindar declares the true melos,)     I was forging and filing and finishing,     And no whit my labors diminishing     Because, though high up in a chamber     Where none of your kidney may clamber     Your hullabaloo would approach me?     Was it grammar wherein you would coach me,     You, pacing in even that paddock     Of language allotted you ad hoc,     With a clog at your fetlocks, you scorners     Of me free of all its four corners?     Was it clearness of words which convey thought?     Ay, if words never needed enswathe aught     But ignorance, impudence, envy     And malice, what word-swathe would then vie     With yours for a clearness crystalline?     But had you to put in one small line     Some thought big and bouncing, as noddle     Of goose, born to cackle and waddle     And bite at mans heel as goose-wont is,     Never felt plague its puny os frontis,     Youd know, as you hissed, spat and sputtered,     Clear cackle is easily uttered! XXIX     Lo, Ive laughed out my laugh on this mirth-day!     Beside, at weeks end, dawns my birthday,     That hebdome, hieron emar,     (More things in a day than you deem are!)     Tei gar Apollona chrusaora     Egeinato Leto. So, gray or ray     Betide me, six days hence, Im vexed here     By no sweep, thats certain, till next year!     Vexed? roused from what else were insipid ease!     Leave snoring abed to Pheidippides!     Well up and work! wont we, Euripides?