The Strife of love in a dream
The Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (translatable as, "Poliphilo's strife of love in a dream") is a Renaissance incunabulum, famed for its beautiful typography and engravings, that tells the story of a young man's quest for his beloved in a dream. Believed to be the work of the Italian monk Colonna (on the evidence of the acrostic, "Brother Francesco Colonna dearly loved Polia" formed by the first letter of each chapter) the book is written in a kind of dream language, a complex compound of Italian and Latin, inaccessible to all but a few tenacious scholars. Only now, five hundred years after it was first printed, has the entire text been translated into English.
Joscelyn Godwin recreates the text in modern English for, as he explains, to approximate the style of the original language it would have been necessary to do in English what Colonna did in Italian: invent new words based on Latin and Greek ones. And he gives this rather Wakean example: "In the horrid and cuspidinous littoral site of the algent and fetorific lake stood saevious Tisiphone, efferal with her viperine capillament." Clearly, the reader owes Godwin his eternal gratitude for deciding against this approach, but we are not out of the woods yet. Before I come to the beautiful dream that amply justifies the effort of reading this strange book, it is necessary to say something of Poliphilo's obsession with architecture. One of H. G. Wells' characters observes, correctly, I think, that what you never seem to be able to do in dreams is focus on little, irrelevant details—the stitching on an armchair, for example, or the ornament of a book cover. Over half of Poliphilo's dream consists of such details. His descriptions of the structures he encounters, or even of a single detail of one of these structures, run on for pages. The language is turgid, mannered, and, before long, mercilessly dull. The superlatives and technical verbiage are trowelled on. As if his eye were a machine that can measure the dimensions of anything it glances at, Poliphilo even miraculously calculates the volume, mass and weight of buildings and then uses these calculations to extrapolate fussy geometrical theorems. It's punishing, but also at times kind of amusing. For instance, when at last in the company of his beloved Polia, the woman who has enslaved his heart and for whom his dream and his whole life are a quest, even then, Poliphilo is still constantly sauntering off on his own to drool over this or that architrave or statue, whereupon the reader must endure yet another onslaught of detail. What makes the book worth the effort is, as I have said, the dream narrative, which weaves through the hulking passages of architectural description like a delicate tendril through the columns of a portico. Poliphilo, sick with love for Polia, falls asleep at dawn and dreams himself in a forest. The trees are moving in the wind, but there is not a sound, and in the underwater silence, he swoons, lies down, and falls asleep, dreaming a dream within his dream. In this second dream he wanders a twilit world of classical ruins, pyramids, and colossi until, frightened by a wolf, he enters a marble portal, becomes lost in an underground labyrinth, and at length makes his way into a third world where the dream proper begins. Poliphilo now finds himself in a Renaissance Arcadia of endless hedonistic pleasure and classical beauty; among processions of amorous lovers, lascivious nymphs, satyrs, tigers, and elephants; in a garden of earthly delights, Bacchic rites, hedge mazes, fragrant pergolas, public baths, fountains and, of course, a great deal of architecture. Soon, Poliphilo falls in love with one of the nymphs and faces an erotic crisis that tests his fidelity—until she reveals herself to be his Polia. Stunned by her beauty, he had not recognized her. Poliphilo is overjoyed and with Polia he embarks on Cupid's boat for the island of Cytherea where, a priestess has told him, the goddess of love will help him to win Polia's heart forever. The island is a perfect circle with concentric rings of box hedge, colonnades and circular rivers. Poliphilo and Polia make their way to the centre, present themselves to Venus, and the ceremony is performed: Cupid pierces Poliphilo's heart and then uses the same arrow, now dripping with blood, to pierce Polia's; the fire of love courses through Polia's veins; she falls into Poliphilo's arms and gives him, "a biting kiss." His strife of love seems to be resolved—but when the nymphs ask to hear Polia's story, the dream becomes vertiginous, and Poliphilo's happiness uncertain. Polia takes us back to the time she first met Poliphilo. She tells how Poliphilo courted her, and how she jilted him again and again until he finally pined to death at her feet. Confused and frightened, she hid his body in a temple and suffered horrible visions and nightmares. It was then that she realized her love for the man who had died for love of her. She returned to the temple and kissed him and her kiss brought him back to life. The lovers then went to the priestess of the temple to confess their love for each other, and the priestess asked to hear Poliphilo's story. Part of this story includes his ascent to heaven, where he was able to, "contemplate in detail the divine and generous gift Cupid had wounded and graciously offered to me." For the reader, this is a moment of intense confusion. Poliphilo's story is enclosed in Polia's story which is enclosed in Poliphilo's dream. The vision Poliphilo describes predates the dream. But wasn't Poliphilo lovesick at the moment he fell asleep? And wasn't Polia's heart only a moment ago pierced with a love for Poliphilo by Cupid's arrow? We are given to understand that Polia's narrative does not refer to a lived past; we realize, we remember, that Poliphilo is dreaming Polia's narrative, Polia, the ceremony, his happiness—everything is a dream. That is the way with dreams; while they are happening, we believe them. The happy lovers leave the temple of Venus and enter a garden. The sun is shining. Someone is strumming a lute. They talk for the last time, embrace, and Polia dissolves. Back in the real world, Poliphilo awakes from his dream, alone, to the song of a nightingale. The "Epitaph in which Polia Speaks" (and only now, thanks to this epitaph and its sorrowful inscription, do we finally understand that Polia is dead and died even before the dream) begins,
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