The Flame by Gabrielle DAnnunzio

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Title: The Flame

Author: Gabriele D'Annunzio

Translator: Dora Ranous

Release Date: October 31, 2019 [EBook #60601]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FLAME ***

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cover

TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES:

A number of words in this book have both hyphenated and non-hyphenated variants. For the
words with both variants present the one more used has been kept.
Obvious punctuation and other printing errors have been corrected.
The book cover was modified by the Transcriber and has been put in the public domain.
The Transcriber would like to point out to what are considered a couple of translation
inaccuracies from the original Italian language version.
In page 59 the text reads:
"I know of no marsh capable of provoking in human pulses a fever more violent that that
which at times steals up to us from the shadows of a silent canal."
While in the Italian edition (Publisher: Milano Fratelli Treves; year: 1900), the text reads:
"Io non conosco palude capace di provocare in polsi umani una febbre più violenta di quella
che sentimmo talvolta venire verso di noi all'improvviso dall'ombra di un canale taciturno."
The Transcriber thinks a more adequate translation would be:
"I know of no marsh capable of causing a fever in human pulses more violent than the one we
sometimes hear coming towards us suddenly from the shadow of a taciturn channel."

In page 195 the text reads:
"He had astonished even himself by that sudden apparition, that unexpected discovery which
illumined the shadows of his mind, because exterior reality, and almost tangible."
While in the Italian edition the text reads:
"Si stupiva egli medessimo di quell'apparizione subitanea, di quella improvvisa scoperta che,
illuminandosi nell buio del suo spirito si esternava e quasi diveniva tangibile."
The Transcriber thinks a more adequate translation would be:
"He was surprised himself by that sudden appearance, of that sudden discovery that,
illuminating itself in the darkness of his spirit, it became external and almost became tangible."

THE LITERATURE

OF ITALY

consists of sixteen volumes,
of which this one forms a
part. For full particulars of
the edition see the Official
Certificate bound in the
volume entitled

"A HISTORY OF ITALIAN

LITERATURE."

statue

ilobox

Literature
of Italy
1265 1907.
Edited by Rossiter Johnson and
Dora Knowlton Ranous
With a General Introduction by William
Michael Rossetti and Special Introductions
by James, Cardinal Gibbons,
Charles Eliot Norton, S. G. W. Benjamin,
William S, Walsh, Maurice
Francis Egan, and others
New translations, and former renderings
compared and revised
Translators: James C. Brogan, Lord Charlemont,
Geoffrey Chaucer, Hartley Coleridge,
Florence Kendrick Cooper, Lady Dacre,
Theodore Dwight, Edward Fairfax, Ugo
Foscolo, G. A. Greene, Sir Thomas Hoby,
William Dean Howells, Luigi Monti, Evangeline
M. O'Connor, Thomas Okey, Dora
Knowlton Ranous, Thomas Roscoe, William
Stewart Rose, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, William
Michael Rossetti, John Addington
Symonds, William S. Walsh, William
Wordsworth, Sir Thomas Wyatt

ilofronti

THE FLAME

(IL FUOCO)

BY

GABRIELE D'ANNUNZIO

TRANSLATED BY DORA KNOWLTON RANOUS

.... fa come natura face in foco.

—DANTE

THE NATIONAL ALUMNI

COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY
THE NATIONAL ALUMNI

CONTENTS

PAGE

INTRODUCTION
ix

BOOK I

THE EPIPHANY OF THE FLAME.

CHAPTER I—The Bells of San Marco
1

CHAPTER II—The Face of Truth
30

CHAPTER III—The Nuptials of Autumn and Venice
40

CHAPTER IV—The Spirit of Melody
67

CHAPTER V—The Epiphany of the Flame
77

CHAPTER VI—The Poet's Dream
95

CHAPTER VII—The Promise
123

CHAPTER VIII—"To Create with Joy!"
134

BOOK II

THE EMPIRE OF SILENCE.

CHAPTER I—"In Time!"
147

CHAPTER II—After the Storm
156

CHAPTER III—A Fallen Giant
173

CHAPTER IV—The Master's Vision
181

CHAPTER V—Sofia
201

CHAPTER VI—A Brother to Orpheus
209

CHAPTER VII—Only One Condition
221

CHAPTER VIII—Illusions
231

CHAPTER IX—The Labyrinth
239

CHAPTER X—The Power of the Flame
262

CHAPTER XI—Reminiscence
270

CHAPTER XII—Cassandra's Reincarnation
291

CHAPTER XIII—The Story of the Archorgan
304

CHAPTER XIV—The World's Bereavement
319

CHAPTER XV—The Last Farewell
333

ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

"O espousals of Paris, fatal to the beloved!"—(Page 298) Frontispiece
He gazed deep into her eyes, and saw that she was as pale
as if her blood had been sapped to nourish the rich
fruits of the garden

130

He watched the woman turning and running like a mad
creature along the dark, delusive paths

259

INTRODUCTION

Gabriele D'Annunzio, poet, novelist, and dramatist, was born in 1864, on the yacht Irene near Pescara in the Abruzzi,
his mother being the Duchess Maria Galesse of Rome. His education was begun in the College of Prato, in Tuscany,
and finished in the University of Rome. His mind early showed signs of extraordinary power and brilliant versatility; he
studied art and produced very creditable work while a mere lad, and at the age of sixteen he published his first poem,
Primo Vere, which attracted flattering attention and caused him to be hailed as an infant prodigy. In 1880 he went to
Rome and became a contributor to the Cronaca Bizantina, a magazine of art and literature. He remained in Rome
three years, producing in that time Terra vergine ("Virgin Soil"), Canto novo ("New Song"), and Intermezzo di rime
("Intervals of Rhyme"), all of which were received with admiration and amazement, and with not a little criticism for their
unconventional boldness of expression.
D'Annunzio left Rome in 1884 and returned to his native hills, where he wrote Il libro delle vergine ("The Book of the
Virgins") in 1884; San Pantaleone (1886), and Isottèo Guttadauro. Then, abandoning his revolutionary and realistic
though splendid and intoxicating poetry for prose, the young genius next surprised his public with a novel, Giovanni
Episcopo, followed by Il Piacere ("The Child of Pleasure"), in 1889. The former is a strong yet repelling story of crude
brutalism, told by a victim of relentless fate; the latter is a kind of poem in prose, in which there is something above mere
facility of literary touch; he shows the power of the master poet or painter to see the world at a glance, and with a
dextrous hand to draw for eyes less keen that world in all its changeful aspects.
His next important novel, Il trionfo della morte ("The Triumph of Death") was produced in 1896. This brought upon
him a storm of mingled applause and criticism—admiration for its marvelous beauty of literary expression,
condemnation of the realistic study of a degenerate whose sins lead him to suicide. But, with a proud defiance of
criticism, with eyes fixed only on his art, he dared after this achievement to write the self-revelatory novel that is known
as his masterpiece—Il fuoco ("The Flame"). In this great novel, which may fairly be called unique, we recognize the
personification of a renascence of Latin genius. Under the thinnest veil of disguise, the author presents his own figure
and that of one of the world's greatest tragic actresses, revealing the most intimate details of their well known friendship.
On this picture of the most romantic of love-affairs, in Venice, the most romantic of cities, he has lavished his finest
strokes of genius, writing of feminine nature with rare truth and skill, and an exquisite intuition as to the workings of a
woman's mind and the throbbings of her heart.
Besides his poems and novels, D'Annunzio has written several plays, the best known being La Gioconda ("Joy"), La
Gloria ("Glory"), La morta città ("The City of the Dead"), and Francesca da Rimini. He is unquestionably the
greatest Italian writer of to-day, and few works of Italian fiction appear that do not show something of his influence. A
European critic of keen discernment says: "Read his works, all ye men and women for whom life has no secrets and
truth has no terror."

D. K. R.

BOOK I

THE EPIPHANY OF THE FLAME

TO TIME AND TO HOPE

Without hope, it is impossible to find
the unhoped-for.

—HERACLITUS OF EPHESUS.

He who sings to the god a song of
hope shall see his wish accomplished.

—ÆSCHYLUS OF ELEUSIS.

Time is the father of miracles.

—HARIRI DI BASRA.