POEMS OF LEOPARDI
Translated from the Italian
BY
FRANCIS HENRY CLIFFE.
REMINGTON AND CO., LIMITED,
LONDON AND SYDNEY.
MDCCCXCIII.
LIFE OF LEOPARDI.
Giacomo Leopardi, the greatest Italian poet of the NineteenthCentury, was, born at Recanati, a town of the March of Ancona, on thetwenty-ninth of June, 1798; the eldest son of Count Monaldo Leopardi,and Adelaide, his wife, daughter of the Marquis Antici. He had fourbrothers and one sister—Paolina. His father possessed a splendidlibrary, and was a man of learning and literary tastes, appearinghimself as an author in prose and verse.
Recanati is situated on an eminence in the Appenines, not far fromAncona and the celebrated shrine of Loreto; and as a biographer of ourpoet says: "Its natural beauties are superb, and the genius of itsgreat son has made them incomparable." Up to the age of twenty-fourLeopardi did not leave his native place. The constant sight ofso lovely a landscape, bordered in the distance by the Adriatic,contributed in no slight measure to give him that exquisite taste andsympathy for nature, for which he is unique among the poets of hiscountry.
He, very early, gave proofs of extraordinary ability. Of modernlanguages, he knew—besides his own—English, French, German, andSpanish. His knowledge of Greek and Latin is proved by his philologicalworks; and at the age of fourteen, his intimate acquaintance withRabbinical literature astonished some learned Jews[Pg 2] of Ancona. But hisindustry was fatal to himself. As a child he seems to have enjoyed goodhealth; but from the age of sixteen to twenty-one his form became bentand his constitution weaker and weaker; and from the latter date, hislife was one series of infirmities.
The deepest melancholy took possession of his mind. His imagination wasof intense strength, but it served only to conjure up the gloomiestvisions. He conceived a morbid hatred of Recanati, hatred uttered inimmortal verse in the "Ricordanze." Though surrounded by those heloved, and living in a handsome style in his father's house, lifebecame unendurable to him. He conceived a wild idea of flight, andactually wrote a letter to his father, explaining his motives for sodoing. But happily the scheme was abandoned, and the letter neverdelivered, although it was preserved by his brother Carlo and publishedsome years ago. This letter was written in July, 1819. He complains ofthe little liberty that was allowed him; of the dreadful monotony oflife at I Recanati, of the little opportunity he had of exercising hisN talents to his future advantage; and of the sufferings inflicted uponhim by his "strange imagination" in the absence of all pleasure andrecreation.
This last complaint was certainly well-founded. If ever man requireddistraction and amusement, it was Leopardi. With his self-harassingmind, his melancholy, his delicacy of health, solitude was to him theworst of evils. Change might have done him some good, but change wasnot to come for another three years, and when it came, it was too late.
In the course of 1819, to his other miseries was added that of failingsight, in consequence of overstudy. He was obliged to pass nearlytwelve months without reading or writing; and during this period hebegan to meditate on the problems of life, laying the foundation of thegloomy philosophy which was to inspire all his future productions.
Two years previously he had begun to correspond with the celebrated