Produced by David Widger
MEMOIRS OF JACQUES CASANOVA de SEINGALT 1725-1798
TO PARIS AND PRISON, Volume 2b—VENICE
THE RARE UNABRIDGED LONDON EDITION OF 1894 TRANSLATED BY ARTHUR MACHEN TOWHICH HAS BEEN ADDED THE CHAPTERS DISCOVERED BY ARTHUR SYMONS.
VENICE
CHAPTER X
My Stay in Vienna—Joseph II—My Departure for Venice
Arrived, for the first time, in the capital of Austria, at the age ofeight-and-twenty, well provided with clothes, but rather short ofmoney—a circumstance which made it necessary for me to curtail myexpenses until the arrival of the proceeds of a letter of exchange whichI had drawn upon M. de Bragadin. The only letter of recommendation I hadwas from the poet Migliavacca, of Dresden, addressed to the illustriousAbbe Metastasio, whom I wished ardently to know. I delivered the letterthe day after my arrival, and in one hour of conversation I found himmore learned than I should have supposed from his works. Besides,Metastasio was so modest that at first I did not think that modestynatural, but it was not long before I discovered that it was genuine, forwhen he recited something of his own composition, he was the first tocall the attention of his hearers to the important parts or to the finepassages with as much simplicity as he would remark the weak ones. Ispoke to him of his tutor Gravina, and as we were on that subject herecited to me five or six stanzas which he had written on his death, andwhich had not been printed. Moved by the remembrance of his friend, andby the sad beauty of his own poetry, his eyes were filled with tears, andwhen he had done reciting the stanzas he said, in a tone of touchingsimplicity,'Ditemi il vero, si puo air meglio'?
I answered that he alone had the right to believe it impossible. I thenasked him whether he had to work a great deal to compose his beautifulpoetry; he shewed me four or five pages which he had covered witherasures and words crossed and scratched out only because he had wishedto bring fourteen lines to perfection, and he assured me that he hadnever been able to compose more than that number in one day. He confirmedmy knowledge of a truth which I had found out before, namely, that thevery lines which most readers believe to have flowed easily from thepoet's pen are generally those which he has had the greatest difficultyin composing.
"Which of your operas," I enquired, "do you like best?"
"'Attilio Regolo; ma questo non vuol gia dire che sia il megliore'."
"All your works have been translated in Paris into French prose, but thepublisher was ruined, for it is not possible to read them, and it provesthe elevation and the power of your poetry."
"Several years ago, another foolish publisher ruined himself by atranslation into French prose of the splendid poetry of Ariosto. I laughat those who maintain that poetry can be translated into prose."
"I am of your opinion."
"And you are right."
He told me that he had never written an arietta without composing themusic of it himself, but that as a general rule he never shewed his musicto anyone.
"The French," he added, "entertain the very strange belief that it ispossible to adapt poetry to music already composed."
And he made on that subject this very philosophical remark:
"You might just as well say to a sculptor, 'Here is a piece of marble,make a Venus, and let her expression be shewn before the features arechiselled.'"
I went to the Imper