In fact, his
place seems to have been as fully acknowledged and honored, if not by
the Church, then by all the other competent authorities, as that of
the husband. Like other things, his relation to his lady was subject
to complication and abuse; no doubt, ladies of fickle minds changed
their cavaliers rather often; and in those days following the
disorder of the French invasions, the relation suffered deplorable
exaggerations and perversions. But when Giuseppe Parini so minutely
and graphically depicted the day of a noble Lombard youth, the
cavaliere servente was in his most prosperous and illustrious state;
and some who have studied Italian social conditions in the past bid
us not too virtuously condemn him, since, preposterous as he was, his
existence was an amelioration of disorders at which we shall find it
better not even to look askance.
Parini's poem is written in the form of instructions to the hero for
the politest disposal of his time; and in a strain of polished irony
allots the follies of his day to their proper hours. The poet's
apparent seriousness never fails him, but he does not suffer his
irony to become a burden to the reader, relieving it constantly with
pictures, episodes, and excursions, and now and then breaking into a
strain of solemn poetry which is fine enough.
Pages:
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46