Come with me, _(takes his hand)_
I would show thee to my comrades.
I'd give thee back thy sword. Adieu, my lords;
(_To the Coms._)
I never will be merciful to your foes
Till I have conquered them.
A notable thing in this tragedy of Carmagnola is that the interest of
love is entirely wanting to it, and herein it differs very widely
from the play of Schiller. The soldiers are simply soldiers; and this
singleness of motive is in harmony with the Italian conception of art.
Yet the Carmagnola of Manzoni is by no means like the heroes of the
Alfierian tragedy. He is a man, not merely an embodied passion
or mood; his character is rounded, and has all the checks and
counterpoises, the inconsistencies, in a word, without which nothing
actually lives in literature, or usefully lives in the world. In his
generous and magnificent illogicality, he comes the nearest being
a woman of all the characters in the tragedy. There is no other
personage in it equaling him in interest; but he also is subordinated
to the author's purpose of teaching his countrymen an enlightened
patriotism. I am loath to blame this didactic aim, which, I suppose,
mars the aesthetic excellence ofthe piece.
Carmagnola's liberation of the prisoners was not forgiven him by
Venice, who, indeed, never forgave anything; he was in due time
entrapped in the hall of the Grand Council, and condemned to die.
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