PETRARCH'S SECRET
OR
THE SOUL'S CONFLICT WITH
PASSION
THREE DIALOGUES BETWEEN HIMSELF
AND S. AUGUSTINE
TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN BY
WILLIAM H. DRAPER
WITH TWO ILLUSTRATIONS
LONDON
CHATTO & WINDUS
MDCCCCXI
FRANCIS PETRARCH
EMILIAE AUGUSTAE
PER ANNUS XXII
COLLABORANTI MECUM, COMPATIENTI, COLLAETANTI
PETRARCAE HOC COLLOQUIUM
MEMORABILE
AMORIS DULCEDINE LACRIMISQUE TINCTUM
IAM DEMUM ANGLICE REDDITUM
GRATUS DEDICO
A. S. MDCCCCXI
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
DIALOGUE THE FIRST
DIALOGUE THE SECOND
DIALOGUE THE THIRD
INTRODUCTION
Most modern writers on Petrarch agree in stating that of all his works
the Dialogues which he calls _Secretum meum_ are the one which throws
most light upon the man himself.
Yet no English translation has hitherto been published. A French
version by M. Victor Develay was issued a few years ago, and received
the recognition of the French Academy; and, considering the great
importance of Petrarch in the history of the Renaissance, not merely in
Italy but in Europe, it is time that a similar opportunity of knowing
him more fully was offered to English readers; for there are signs on
both sides of the Atlantic that the number of those interested in him
is steadily growing. The reason for this is undoubtedly the fact that,
as the whole work of Petrarch comes to be better known, interest in him
as a man increases. Mr. Sidney Lee has lately reminded us of his wide
range and predominating influence in the matter of the sonnet in France
and in Elizabethan England, as well as in his own country; and yet that
influence was very far indeed from revealing all that Petrarch was.
It was largely an influence of style, a triumph of the perfection of
form, and his imitators did not trouble much about the precise nature
of the sentiment and spirit informing the style. When this came to
be weighed in the balances of a later day, the tendency of English
feeling was to regard his sentiment as a trifle too serious and weak.
The love-making of the Cavaliers brought in a robuster tone. When once
the question was raised, "Why so pale and wan, fond lover?" there was
really no good answer to it on Petrarchan lines, and the consequence
was that his name and fame suffered something of eclipse among us. But
eclipses are transient events, and when literary England felt once more
the attraction of Italy in the end of the eighteenth century it was not
only Dante who began to resume his sway and to provoke translation, but
Petrarch also. Then attention was turned chiefly to his Italian poetry,
but also in some degree to the general body of his Latin works and to
his Letters, of which it is reported that Fox was among the first to
perceive the high value. In England the pioneers in this direction were
Mrs. Susannah Dobson, who published first a Life of Petrarch in two
volumes in 1775, which had by 1805 reached a sixth edition, and, soon
after, another volume called _Petrarch's View of Life_, purporting to
be a translation, but in fact a very loose and attenuated abstract
of the treatise _De remediis utriusque Fortunæ,_ which nevertheless
reached a new edition in 1797. Then came a volume of Essays on Petrarch
(Murray 1823) by the Italian exile Ugo Foscolo, and a little later a
second Life of the Poet by no less a person than Thomas Campbell, also
in two volumes.
Testifying to the re-awakened interest in Petrarch, numerous
translations also of his poetry were published by Lady Dacre, Hugh
Boyd, Leigh Hunt, Capel Lofft, and many others, who took up after a
long interval the tradition begun by Chaucer and handed on by Surrey,
Wyatt, Sir Philip Sidney, Spenser, Drummond of Hawthornden, and George
Chapman.
Then for a while there was a pause, and the main drift of such
attention in England as could be spared for things Italian in
mid-Victorian days was concentrated on the greater luminary of the
_Divine Comedy_ and the exciting political events of the sixties;
though some attention was drawn to things connected with Petrarch by
Lytton's novel of _Rienzi_, which was first published in 1835 and had a
considerable vogue.
Meanwhile in Italy itself his fame was well served by the excellent
collection and reprint of his Latin letters by Fracasetti in three
vols. (1859-63), and since that time there have appeared several
important works dealing with the larger aspects of his life and
work, most notable among them being Koerting's _Petrarka's Leben und
Werke_ (Leipsig 1878), and in France M. P. de Nolhac's _Pétrarque et
l'Humanisme_ (two vols., 1907, new edition), with other subsidiary
works, and four small volumes by M. Henri Cochin, elucidating what is
known of Petrarch's brother Gherardo and some of his many friends.
Amongst ourselves in late years, following the labours of J. A. Symonds
in his history of the Renaissance, we have Henry Reeve's small but
well-planned volume in the "Foreign Classics for English Readers," and,
more recently still, Mr. Hollway Calthrop's _Petrarch: his Life, Work
and Times_ (1907), and Mrs. Maud Jerrold's _Francesco Petrarca: Poet
and Humanist_ (1909).
It is significant that both the last writers single out the _Secretum_
for its psychological interest, the former stating that "to those who
feel the charm of Petrarch's nature and the intense humanity of his
character, these three Dialogues are the most fascinating of all his
writings"; and the latter "that this conflict of the dual self is of
quite peculiar interest."
Mrs. Jerrold indeed goes so far as to say that Petrarch "plunges into
the most scathing self-examination that any man ever made. Whether
the book was intended for the public we may well doubt, both from the
words of the preface and from the fact that it does not appear to have
been published till after the author's death. But however this may
be, it remains one of the world's great monuments of self-revelation
and ranks with the _Confessions of S. Augustine_"--a verdict which to
some critics will seem to have a touch of overstatement, though hardly
beyond the opinion of Petrarch's French students, and not altogether
unpardonable in so enthusiastic an admirer of her subject, and a
verdict which at least would not have been displeasing to Petrarch
himself.
Among the many points of human interest to be found in the Dialogues
not the least is the one connected with Accidie, a theme which has
of itself attracted special study in the present day, particularly
since attention was called to it by the late Bishop of Oxford in his
well-known introduction to the _Spirit of Discipline._ Observers of
mental life incline to the view that the form of depression denoted
by the mediæval word was not confined to those times or met with only
in monasteries, and it is curious that he who is sometimes called
the "first of the moderns" should take us into his confidence as to
his sufferings from this trouble, and exemplify the truth of the
observation to which reference has been made. M. P. de Nolhac, in his
interesting work entitled _Le Frère de Pétrarque,_ calls particular
attention to this trait in Petrarch's character, and in an appendix on
the subject writes, "Mais il faut surtout lire l'émouvante discussion
que Pétrarque, dans le second dialogue du _Secretum_, suppose entre
Saint Augustin et lui-meme, les aveux entrecoupés de sanglots qu'il
laisse échapper. Cette torture, dit-il, où il passe des jours et des
nuits, a pourtant en elle je ne sais quelle atroce volupté tellement
que parfois il en conte de s'y arracher" (p. 220). It is the remarking
on this note of self-will, this _voluptas dolendi,_ that M. de Nolhac
considers is Petrarch's special contribution to the subject and
furnishes a new point beyond what is in previous definitions.
The fundamental question raised by these Dialogues is the question
of what was the real nature and character of Petrarch, and wherein
lay the secret of his extraordinary charm and influence among his
contemporaries, and especially among contemporary men? It is difficult
to convey in few words how great an impression the study of his
Latin works makes in regard to this influence in his own lifetime.
Of course, a reader is soon aware of the trait of personal vanity in
Petrarch and of certain unconscious littlenesses, as in the matter of
his appreciation of Dante; but the strange thing is how little this
interfered with the regard and admiration extended to him by many
sorts and conditions of men. In the ordinary intercourse of life one
is apt to think such a trait fatal to anything like respect, and it
must always detract somewhat from the full stature of any mind, but in
the case of Petrarch it seems evident that he was one to whom much
was forgiven, and that the reason is to be found in the presence in
him of so rich an assemblage of other and better qualities that this
one hardly counted at all, or was looked on with kindly amusement by
friends large-hearted enough to think it nothing compared with what was
good and admirable in his mind. We may take it for granted that, as he
hints in his "Letter to Posterity," he started with the advantage of a
good presence and a sufficient care of his own person and appearance
in younger days; and it is evident that he had by nature a certain
engaging frankness and impulsiveness, which nevertheless were not
inconsistent with the contrasted qualities of gravity and dignity,
learned at first from his father and mother and their friends, and
cultivated by his study of the Law and afterwards by his attendance on
the Papal court at Avignon. One can discern this in his Letters and
see it reflected in those that were written to him or about him. But
beyond these introductory qualities, as they may be called, there were
other deeper traits, of rarer kind, that must be noted before one can
understand the position he attained and has held so long. Studying
his work from the cool distance of six centuries, one is inclined to
judge that the most fundamental quality of his nature was his love of
literature, and that every other trait took a subordinate place to
this.
It is perhaps doubtful whether this or the life of personal affection,
or even of devotion in a monastery, would have gained the upper hand if
the circumstances of his life had been different in the matter of his
love for Laura; but taking into consideration that she was separated
from him apparently by temperament and circumstance, the one course
that remained open to him without let or hindrance was the life of
literature in the sense of devotion to the great writers of the Past
and the practice of the art of writing for himself. He loved this for
its own sake, and at the same time he was quickened by the sense of a
new learning, which, since his time and largely by the impetus he gave
it, has taken form and outline in a wonderful way, but was then only
like the first streak of dawn upon the sky.
Petrarch was not the first man to find a certain contradiction between
his desires and the possibilities of life around him, and to pass
many years under the pain of contrary attractions that could not all
be followed to fulfilment This conflict is what gives interest to the
_Secretum._ Some have thought, and the idea was expressed by one of his
correspondents, that his love for Laura was very much of a literary
pose. Yet that such a view is an insufficient account of it seems
pretty clearly established by the work here translated. It is, indeed,
plain that his feelings ran a course, and not a smooth one, and did
not continue in one stay; he came to see the whole matter in a changed
light, and yet not wholly changed; his relation was transfigured, not
abandoned, and after the death of Laura, which took place when he was
forty-four, it continued as a memory from which the pain had faded away
and only what was uplifting remained.
That which persisted unchanged all through his life and seems most to
have had the colour and substance of a passion was the love of Letters.
To this his friendship, his very real patriotism, and (must we not
add?) his religion also were in a sense second. But the mention of this
last factor in the life of Petrarch leads one to express the opinion
that this has not yet been quite sufficiently reckoned with. That it
should not have been thought worthy of such reckoning has probably
arisen from the one ugly fact in his life which he himself does not
conceal, and indeed expressly refers to in his "Letter to Posterity,"
in the following words:--
"As for the looser indulgences of appetite, would indeed I could
say I was a stranger to them altogether; but if I should so say, I
should lie. This I can safely affirm that, although I was hurried away
to them by the fervour of my age and temperament, their vileness I
have always inwardly execrated. As soon as I approached my fortieth
year I repelled these weaknesses entirely from _my_ thoughts and my
remembrance, as if I had never known them. And this I count among my
earliest happy recollections, thanking God, who has freed me, while
yet my powers were unimpaired and strong, from this so vile and always
hateful servitude."[1]
Now, although Petrarch did not, as some other men have done, including
his own brother, express his repentance by retiring to a monastery, yet
there is evidence enough that the change of will here referred to, and
professed in the _Secretum_, was real, and that the older he grew the
more he lifted up his heart. Among other signs of this there is the
curious little group of what he calls _Penitential Psalms,_ which were
translated into English by George Chapman, into whose translation of
Homer Keats looked and was inspired
In his Will also there are not a few passages through which one hears
a note of genuine penitence. Among other curious points in it is the
mention of the exact spot in which he would wish to be laid to rest
in some one of seven different places where he might happen to die,
the last being the city of Parma, of which he says, "At si Parmæ, in
ecclesiâ majori, ubi per multos annos archidiaconus fui inutilis et
semper fere absens."
Petrarch must have fully weighed in his own case the pros and cons
for such retirement. His treatise _De Otio Religiosorum_ shows that
he understood what good side that kind of life has, and his whole
attitude towards his brother--generous, and attached, almost to the
point of romance--reveals how he could admire it. But in his own case
he felt that it would cramp his faculties too much to be endurable, and
hinder more than it would help the kind of work to which he had put
his hand. There was also another influence that told strongly on this
father of Humanism. He whose nature was so full of unsatisfied natural
affection had begun in his latter years to find some rest and blessing
in the love and tendance of a daughter, the light of whose care and
companionship for him shines through his declining days like the rays
of the sun in the evening after a dark and troubled day.
But if we are right in judging that the love of Letters was the
dominant factor in the life of Petrarch, it was but the main thread in
a singularly complex nature. Not much less in substance and strength
was his genius for friendship. Indeed, his study of the writers of
past ages partook of the nature of friendship, just as his friendship
with living men had a deep literary tinge. He loved books and he loved
men, and he loved them in the same way. This is by no means a frequent
combination in the degree in which it was shown in Petrarch. More
often the book-lover becomes a recluse, and the lover of his fellow-men
loses his ardour for study.
But not even the love of books and of men took up all the activities
of this rich nature. He was also a keen traveller and among the first
to write of natural scenery in the modern spirit. He had that in him
which, in spite of his love for reading and writing, sent him forth
into other lands and made him eager to see men and cities. Yet the
love of the country in him prevailed over the love of cities. His many
references to his life at Vaucluse, though to readers of to-day they
may seem sometimes affected, yet show only a superficial affectation, a
mere mode, which does not seriously lessen the impression of his simple
taste and his genuine delight in his garden and his fishing, and his
talk with the charming old farmer-man and that sun-burnt wife for whom
he had such an unbounded respect.
In the two recent lives of Petrarch in English a reader may make closer
acquaintance with this side of his character, and will find much that
falls in with modern feeling as to simplicity of living and the joys of
escaping from "the man-stifled town." But what is still a desideratum
is a good English translation of his Letters to his friends, which will
add many glimpses of his daily interests and thoughts, and fill up the
picture of his interior life as it is disclosed to us in the Dialogues
here presented.
What the _Secretum gives_ us is the picture of Petrarch as he was
in the crisis of his middle years. It was written in or about the
year 1342 when he was thirty-eight, and in these Dialogues we find
him looking back over his youth and early life--the sap and vigour
of his mind as strong as ever, the recollection of many sensations
green and still powerful--but finding that the sheer march of time
and experience of manhood are forcing him now to see things with more
mature vision. Five years later he will be seen suddenly kindled into
surprising excitement in that strange Rienzi episode, but in one of
his letters to that unhappy politician there is a sentence which might
have been penned by Bishop Butler, and has in it the accent of grave
experience:[2] _"Ibunt res quâ sempiterna lex statuit: mutare ista non
possum, fugere possum"_ (Things will go as the law eternal has decided:
to alter their course is out of our power; what we can do is to get out
of their way).
The interest of the _Secretum_ is heightened by remembering the time
of life in which it was composed.[3] Some will find most pleasure in
reading what men have written _De Senectute_, and others prefer the
charm that belongs to youth; but is there not much to be said for the
interest of what men write from that high tableland that lies between
the two, in the full strength of their mind when they have lived long
enough to know what is hidden from the eyes of youth and not long
enough to be wearied and broken with the greatness of the way? Such is
the tone that seems to pervade the Dialogues between S. Augustine and
Petrarch. In the preface he looks forward to cherishing the little book
himself in future years, like some flower that keeps alive remembrance
of past days and yet is not cherished for memory only, but to guard the
resolution which has been taken to go forward and not back, and, as his
French translator suggests, "Is it to be wondered at that these pages,
written with such _abandon_, in which he has laid bare his whole soul,
should have been his own favourite work? It was the book he kept at his
bedside, his faithful counsellor and friend, and to which he turned
ever and again with pleasure in the hours of remembering the time past."
It is not necessary to tell over again the story of Petrarch's lifelong
devotion to the study of S. Augustine's _Confessions,_ or to dwell on
the obvious reasons for that devotion. Every man loves the book which
tells the history of conflicts like his own, and which has helped to
give him courage in his warfare and its sorrows and joys.
"That loss is common would not make
My own less bitter, rather more;"
sings the poet, but if one reads the experience of those who have
suffered and contended and conquered, and is sure that their load was
as heavy as his own, then there is a spirit which is breathed over
from one life to another, and which even though it tells us how great
is the burden of sorrow in the world, yet also tells us that a man
is not alone, but that there are companions in patience who a little
strengthen each other and give the sense of fellowship from age to age,
_donec aspiret dies et inclinentur umbrae._
Many of the letters of Petrarch's later years show how wistfully he
waited for that day. But they also show how gallant a heart he kept,
and how faithful to those friends that remained, including the one so
lovable and generous and true, Giovanni Boccaccio, who survived him
little more than a year.
Petrarch passed the end of his life in a modest house which he built in
one of the loveliest parts of Italy, that to English readers will be
for ever dear because of the haunting music that Shelley wove around
its name.
It was in the Euganæan Hills at Arqua where Petrarch chose to wait for
the dawn, and, till it came, to go on working among the books he loved
as his own soul.
"Many a green isle needs must be
In the deep wide sea of misery,"
and to read the story of his last years there is to think of one of
those green isles. These were days of calm, and the book of the Secret
ends with the expression of hope for a deeper calm still. In due time
it came, but, as the English Poet sang, after more than six centuries--
The love from Petrarch's urn
Yet amid yon hills doth burn,
[1] Translation by H. Reeve.
[2] _De rebus fam.,_ vii. 7.
[3] The profile portrait, reproduced by kind permission of Mr. T.
Fisher Unwin, publisher of Mr. E. J. Mills' book on Petrarch, is from
Lombardo's copy of the _De viris illustribus,_ finished about five
years after the death of Petrarch, and is believed to be an authentic
picture of him in later life.
A QUENCHLESS LAMP.
[Illustration]
[Illustration: S. AUGUSTINE GREETING A FRIEND _From a picture by
Benozzo Gozzoli at San Gimignano_]
PETRARCH'S SECRET
AUTHOR'S PREFACE
Often have I wondered with much curiosity as to our coming into this
world and what will follow our departure. When I was ruminating lately
on this matter, not in any dream as one in sickness and slumber, but
wide awake and with all my wits about me, I was greatly astonished to
behold a very beautiful Lady, shining with an indescribable light about
her. She seemed as one whose beauty is not known, as it might be, to
mankind. I could not tell how she came there, but from her raiment and
appearance I judged her a fair Virgin, and her eyes, like the sun,
seemed to send forth rays of such light that they made me lower my own
before her, so that I was afraid to look up. When she saw this she
said, Fear not; and let not the strangeness of my presence affright you
in any wise. I saw your steps had gone astray; and I had compassion on
you and have come down from above to bring you timely succour. Hitherto
your eyes have been darkened and you have looked too much, yes, far
too much, upon the things of earth. If these so much delight you, what
shall be your rapture when you lift your gaze to things eternal!
When I heard her thus speak, though my fear still clung about me with
trembling voice I made reply in Virgil's words--
"What name to call thee by, O Virgin fair,
I know not, for thy looks are not of earth
And more than mortal seems thy countenance."[1]
I am that Lady, she answered, whom you have depicted in your poem
_Africa_ with rare art and skill, and for whom, like another Amphion of
Thebes, you have with poetic hands built a fair and glorious Palace in
the far West on Atlas's lofty peak.
Be not afraid, then, to listen and to look upon the face of her who, as
your finely-wrought allegory proves, has been well-known to you from of
old.
Scarcely had she uttered these words when, as I pondered all these
things in my mind, it occurred to me this could be none other than
Truth herself who thus spoke. I remembered how I had described her
abode on the heights of Atlas; yet was I ignorant from what region
she had come, save only that I felt assured she could have come from
none other place than Heaven. Therefore I turned my gaze towards her,
eagerly desiring to look upon her face; but lo, the eye of man is
unable to gaze on that ethereal Form, wherefore again was I forced
to turn them towards the ground. When she took note of this, after a
short silence, she spoke once more; and, questioning me many times, she
led me to engage with her in long discourse. From this converse I was
sensible of gaining a twofold benefit for I won knowledge, and the very
act of talking with her gave me confidence. I found myself by degrees
becoming able to look upon the face which at first dismayed me by its
splendour, and as soon as I was able to bear it without dread, and gaze
fixedly on her wondrous beauty, I looked to see if she were accompanied
with any other, or had come upon the retirement of my solitude alone;
and as I did so I discerned at her side the figure of an aged man, of
aspect venerable and full of majesty. There was no need to inquire his
name. His religious bearing, modest brow, his eyes full of dignity, his
measured step, his African look, but Roman speech, plainly declared
him to be that most illustrious Father, Augustine. Moreover, he had
so gracious a mien, and withal so noble, that one could not possibly
imagine it to belong to any other than to him. Even so I was on the
point of opening my lips to ask, when at that moment I heard the name
so dear to me uttered from the lips of Truth herself. Turning herself
to him, as if to intervene upon his deep meditation, she addressed
him in these words: "Augustine, dear to me above a thousand others,
you know how devoted to yourself this man is, and you are aware also
with how dangerous and long a malady he is stricken, and that he is so
much nearer to Death as he knows not the gravity of his disease. It is
needful, then, that one take thought for this man's life forthwith,
and who so fit to undertake the pious work as yourself? He has ever
been deeply attached to your name and person; and all good doctrine
is wont more easily to enter the mind of the disciple when he already
starts with loving the Master from whom he is to learn. Unless your
present happiness has made you quite forget your former sorrow, you
will remember that when you were shut in the prison of the mortal body
you also were subject to like temptation as his. And if that were so,
most excellent Physician of those passions yourself experienced, even
though your silent meditation be full of sweetness to your mind, I beg
that your sacred voice, which to me is ever a delight, shall break its
silence, and try whether you are able by some means to bring calm to
one so deeply distressed."
Augustine answered her: "You are my guide, my Counsellor, my Sovereign,
my Ruler; what is it, then, you would have me say in your presence?"
"I would," she replied, "that some human voice speak to the ears of
this mortal man. He will better bear to hear truth so. But seeing that
whatever you shall say to him he will take as said by me, I also will
be present in person during your discourse."
Augustine answered her, "The love I bear to this sick man, as well
as the authority of her who speaks, make it my duty to obey." Then,
looking kindly at me and pressing me to his heart in fatherly embrace,
he led me away to the most retired corner he could find, and Truth
herself went on a few steps in front. There we all three sat down.
Then while Truth listened as the silent Judge, none other beside her
being present, we held long converse on one side and the other; and
because of the greatness of the theme, the discourse between us lasted
over three days. Though we talked of many things much against the
manners of this age, and on faults and failings common to mankind, in
such wise that the reproaches of the Master seemed in a sense more
directed against men in general than against myself, yet those which
to me came closest home I have graven with more especial vividness on
the tablet of my memory. That this discourse, so intimate and deep,
might not be lost, I have sot it down in writing and made this book;
not that I wish to class it with my other works, or desire from it any
credit. My thoughts aim higher. What I desire is that I may be able
by reading to renew as often as I wish the pleasure I felt from the
discourse itself. So, little Book, I bid you flee the haunts of men and
be content to stay with me, true to the title I have given you of "My
Secret": and when I would think upon deep matters, all that you keep
in remembrance that was spoken in secret you in secret will tell to me
over again.
To avoid the too frequent iteration of the words "said I," "said he,"
and to bring the personages of the Dialogue, as it were, before one's
very eyes, I have acted on Cicero's method and merely placed the name
of each interlocutor before each paragraph.[2] My dear Master learned
this mode himself from Plato. But to cut short all further digression,
this is how Augustine opened the discourse.
[1] _Æneid,_ i. 327-28.
[2] _De Amicitiâ_, i.
DIALOGUE THE FIRST
S. AUGUSTINE--PETRARCH
_S. Augustine._ What have you to say, O man of little strength? Of what
are you dreaming? For what are you looking? Remember you not you are
mortal?
_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember it right well, and a shudder comes upon me
every time that remembrance rises in my breast.
_S. Augustine._ May you, indeed, remember as you say, and take heed for
yourself. You will spare me much trouble by so doing. For there con
be no doubt that to recollect one's misery and to practise frequent
meditation on death is the surest aid in scorning the seductions of
this world, and in ordering the soul amid its storms and tempests, if
only such meditation be not superficial, but sink into the bones and
marrow of the heart. Yet am I greatly afraid lest that happen in your
case which I have seen in so many others, and you be found deceiving
your own self.
_Petrarch_. In what way do you mean? For I do not clearly understand
the drift of your remarks.
_S. Augustine._ O race of mortal men, this it is that above all makes
me astonished and fearful for you, when I behold you, of your own will
clinging to your miseries; pretending that you do not know the peril
hanging over your heads and if one bring it under your very eyes, you
try to thrust it from your sight and put it afar off.
_Petrarch._ In what way are we so mad?
_S. Augustine._ Do you suppose there is any living man so unreasonable
that if he found himself stricken with a dangerous ailment he would not
anxiously desire to regain the blessing of health?
_Petrarch._ I do not suppose such a case has ever been heard of.
_S. Augustine._ And do you think if one wished for a thing with all
one's soul one would be so idle and careless as not to use all possible
means to obtain what one desired?
_Petrarch._ No one, I think, would be so foolish.
_S. Augustine._ If we are agreed on these two points, so we ought also
to agree on a third.
_Petrarch._ What is this third point?
_S. Augustine._ It is this: that just as he who by deep meditation has
discovered he is miserable will ardently wish to be so no more; and as
he who has formed this wish will seek to have it realised, so he who
seeks will be able to reach what he wishes. It is clear that the third
step depends on the second as the second on the first. And therefore
the first should be, as it were, a root of salvation in man's heart.
Now you mortal men, and you yourself with all your power of mind, keep
doing your best by all the pleasures of the world to pull up this
saving root out of your hearts, which, as I said, fills me with horror
and wonder. With justice, therefore, you are punished by the loss of
this root of salvation and the consequent loss of all the rest.
_Petrarch_. I foresee this complaint you bring is likely to be
lengthy, and take many words to develop it. Would you mind, therefore,
postponing it to another occasion? And that I may travel more surely to
your conclusion, may we send a little more time over the premisses?
_S. Augustine_. I must concede something to, your slowness of mind; so
please stop me at any point where you wish.
_Petrarch_. Well, if I must speak for myself, I do not follow your
chain of reasoning.
_S. Augustine_. What possible obscurity is there in it? What are you in
doubt about now?
_Petrarch_. I believe there is a multitude of things for which we
ardently long, which we seek for with all our energy, but which
nevertheless, however diligent we are, we never have obtained and never
shall.
_S. Augustine_. That may be true of other desires, but in regard to
that we have now under discussion the case is wholly different.
_Petrarch._ What makes you say that?
_S. Augustine._ Because every man who desires to be delivered from his
misery, provided only he desires sincerely and with all his heart,
cannot fail to obtain that which he desires.
_Petrarch_. O father, what is this I hear? There are few men indeed who
do not feel they lack many things and who would not confess they were
so far unhappy. Every one who questions his own heart will acknowledge
it is so. By natural consequence if the fulness of blessing makes man
happy, all things he lacks will so far make him unhappy. This burden
of unhappiness all men would fain lay down, as every one is aware; but
every one is aware also that very few have been able. How many there
are who have felt the crushing weight of grief, through bodily disease,
or the loss of those they loved, or imprisonment, or exile, or hard
poverty, or other misfortunes it would take too long to tell over; and
yet they who suffer these things have only too often to lament that it
is not permitted them, as you suggest, to be set free. To me, then,
it seems quite beyond dispute that a multitude of men are unhappy by
compulsion and in spite of themselves.
_S. Augustine_. I must take you a long way back, and as one does with
the very young whose wits are slight and slow, I must ask you to
follow out the thread of my discourse from its very simplest elements.
I thought your mind was more advanced, and I had no idea you still
needed lessons so childish. Ah, if only you had kept in mind those true
and saving maxims of the wise which you have so often read and re-read
with me; if, I must take leave to say, you had but wrought for yourself
instead of others; if you had but applied your study of so many volumes
to the ruling of your own conduct, instead of to vanity and gaining the
empty praise of men, you would not want to retail such low and absurd
follies.
_Petrarch._ I know not where you want to take me, but already I am
aware of the blush mounting to my brow, and I feel like schoolboys in
presence of an angry master. Before they know what they are accused of
they think of many offences of which they are guilty, and at the very
first word from the master's lips they are filled with confusion. In
like case I too am conscious of my ignorance and of many other faults,
and though I perceive not the drift of your admonition, yet as I know
almost everything bad may be brought against me, I blush even before
you have done speaking. So pray state more clearly what is this biting
accusation that you have made.
_S. Augustine_. I shall have many things to lay to your charge
presently. Just now what makes me so indignant is to hear you suppose
that any one can become or can be unhappy against his will.
_Petrarch_. I might as well spare my blushes. For what more obvious
truth than this can possibly be imagined? What man exists so ignorant
or so far removed from all contact with the world as not to know that
penury, grief, disgrace, illness, death, and other evils too that are
reckoned among the greatest, often befall us in spite of ourselves,
and never with our own consent? From which it follows that it is easy
enough to know and to detest one's own misery, but not to remove it;
so that if the two first steps depend on ourselves, the third is
nevertheless in Fortune's hand.
_S. Augustine._ When I saw you ashamed I was ready to give you pardon,
but brazen impudence angers me more than error itself. How is it you
have forgotten all those wise precepts of Philosophy, which declare
that no man can be made unhappy by those things you rattle off by name?
Now if it is Virtue only that makes the happiness of man, which is
demonstrated by Cicero and a whole multitude of weighty reasons, it
follows of necessity that nothing is opposed to true happiness except
what is also opposed to Virtue. This truth you can yourself call to
mind even without a word from me, at least unless your wits are very
dull.
_Petrarch._ I remember it quite well. You would have me bear in mind
the precepts of the Stoics, which contradict the opinions of the crowd
and are nearer truth than common custom is.
_S. Augustine._ You would indeed be of all men the most miserable were
you to try to arrive at the truth through the absurdities of the crowd,
or to suppose that under the leadership of blind guides you would
reach the light. You must avoid the common beaten track and set your
aspirations higher; take the way marked by the steps of very few who
have gone before, if you would be counted worthy to hear the Poet's
word--
"On, brave lad, on! your courage leading you,
So only Heaven is scaled."[1]
_Petrarch._ Heaven grant I may hear it ere I die! But I pray you to
proceed. For I assure you I have by no means become shameless. I do not
doubt the Stoics' rules are wiser far than the blunders of the crowd. I
await therefore your further counsel.
_S. Augustine_. Since we are agreed on this, that no one can become or
be unhappy except through his own fault, what need of more words is
there?
_Petrarch._ Just this need, that I think I have seen very many people,
and I am one of them, to whom nothing is more distressful than the
inability to break the yoke of their faults, though all their life long
they make the greatest efforts so to do. Wherefore, even allowing that
the maxim of the Stoics holds good, one may yet admit that many people
are very unhappy in spite of themselves, yes, and although they lament
it and wish they were not, with their whole heart.
_S. Augustine_. We have wandered somewhat from our course, but we are
slowly working back to our starting-point. Or have you quite forgotten
whence we set out?
_Petrarch._ I had begun to lose sight of it, but it is coming back to
me now.
_S. Augustine._ What I had set out to do with you was to make clear
that the first step in avoiding the distresses of this mortal life and
raising the soul to higher things is to practise meditation on death
and on man's misery; and that the second is to have a vehement desire
and purpose to rise. When these two things were present, I promised a
comparatively easy ascent to the goal of our desire. Unless haply to
you it seems otherwise?
_Petrarch_. I should certainly never venture to affirm this, for from
my youth upwards I have had the increasing conviction that if in any
matter I was inclined to think differently from yourself I was certain
to be wrong.
_S. Augustine._ We will please waive all compliments. And as I observe
you are inclined to admit the truth of my words more out of deference
than conviction, pray feel at liberty to say whatever your real
judgment suggests.
_Petrarch._ I am still afraid to be found differing, but nevertheless
I will make use of the liberty you grant. Not to speak of other men, I
call to witness Her who has ever been the ruling spirit of my life; you
yourself also I call to witness how many times I have pondered over my
own misery and over the subject of Death; with what floods of tears I
have sought to wash away my stains, so that I can scarce speak of it
without weeping; yet hitherto, as you see, all is in vain. This alone
leads me to doubt the truth of that proposition you seek to establish,
that no man has ever fallen into misery but of his own free will, or
remained, miserable except of his own accord; the exact opposite of
which I have proved in my own sad experience.
_S. Augustine_. That complaint is an old one and seems likely to prove
unending. Though I have already several times stated the truth in
vain, I shall not cease to maintain it yet. No man can become or can
be unhappy unless he so chooses; but as I said at the beginning, there
is in men a certain perverse and dangerous inclination to deceive
themselves, which is the most deadly thing in life. For if it is true
that we rightly fear being taken in by those with whom we live, because
our natural habit of trusting them tends to make us unsuspicious, and
the pleasantly familiar sound of their voice is apt to put us off our
guard,--how much rather ought you to fear the deceptions you practise
on yourself, where love, influence, familiarity play so large a part,
a case wherein every one esteems himself more than he deserves, loves
himself more than he ought, and where Deceiver and Deceived are one and
the same person?
_Petrarch._ You have said this kind of thing pretty often to-day
already. But I do not recollect ever practising such deception on
myself; and I hope other people have not deceived me either.
_S. Augustine._ Now at this very moment you are notably deceiving
yourself when you boast never to have done such a thing at all; and I
have a good enough hope of your own wit and talent to make me think
that if you pay close attention you will see for yourself that no man
can fall into misery of his own will. For on this point our whole
discussion rests. I pray you to think well before answering, and
give your closest attention, and be jealous for truth more than for
disputation, but then tell me what man in the world was ever forced to
sin? For the Seers and Wise Men require that sin must be a voluntary
action, and so rigid is their definition that if this voluntariness is
absent then the sin also is not there. But without sin no man is made
unhappy, as you agreed to admit a few minutes ago.
_Petrarch._ I perceive that by degrees I am getting away from my
proposition and am being compelled to acknowledge that the beginning
of my misery did arise from my own will. I feel it is true in myself,
and I conjecture the same to be true of others. Now I beg you on your
part to acknowledge a certain truth also.
_S. Augustine._ What is it you wish me to acknowledge?
_Petrarch_. That as it is true no man ever fell involuntarily, so this
also is true that countless numbers of those who thus are voluntarily
fallen, nevertheless do not voluntarily remain so. I affirm this
confidently of my own self. And I believe that I have received this for
my punishment, as I would not stand when I might, so now I cannot rise
when I would.
_S. Augustine._ That is indeed a wise and true view to take. Still as
you now confess you were wrong in your first proposition, so I think
you should own you are wrong in your second.
_Petrarch._ Then you would say there is no distinction between falling
and remaining fallen?
_S. Augustine._ No, they are indeed different things; that is to say,
different in time, but in the nature of the action and in the mind of
the person concerned they are one and the same.
_Petrarch._ I see in what knots you entangle me. But the wrestler who
wins his victory by a trick is not necessarily the stronger man, though
he may be the more practised.
_S. Augustine._ It is Truth herself in whose presence we are
discoursing. To her, plain simplicity is ever dear, and cunning is
hateful. That you may see this beyond all doubt I will go forward from
this point with all the plainness you can desire.
_Petrarch._ You could give me no more welcome news. Tell me, then, as
it is a question concerning myself, by what line of reasoning you mean
to prove I am unhappy. I do not deny that I am; but I deny that it is
with my own consent I remain so. For, on the contrary, I feel this to
be most hateful and the very opposite of what I wish. But yet I can do
nothing except wish.
_S. Augustine._ If only the conditions laid down are observed, I will
prove to you that you are misusing words.
_Petrarch._ What conditions do you mean, and how would you have me use
words differently?
_S. Augustine._ Our conditions were to lay aside all juggling with
terms and to seek truth in all plain simplicity, and the words I would
have you use are these: instead of saying you _can_not, you ought to
say you _will_ not.
_Petrarch._ There will be no end then to our discussion, for that is
what I never shall confess. I tell you I know, and you yourself are
witness, how often I have wished to and yet could not rise. What floods
of tears have I shed, and all to no purpose?
_S. Augustine._ O yes, I have witnessed many tears, but very little
will.
_Petrarch._ Heaven is witness (for indeed I think no man on this earth
knows) what I have suffered, and how I have longed earnestly to rise,
if only I might.
_S. Augustine_. Hush, hush. Heaven and earth will crash in ruin, the
stars themselves will fall to hell, and all harmonious Nature be
divided against itself, sooner than Truth, who is our Judge, can be
deceived.
_Petrarch._ And what do you mean by that?
_S. Augustine_. I mean that your tears have often stung your conscience
but not changed your will.
_Petrarch._ I wonder how many times I must tell you that it is just
this impossibility of change which I bewail.
_S. Augustine._ And I wonder how many times I must reply that it is
want of will, not want of power, which is the trouble.
And yet I wonder not that now you find yourself involved in these
perplexities; in which in time past I too was tossed about, when I was
beginning to contemplate entering upon a new way of life.[2] I tore my
hair; I beat my brow; my fingers I twisted nervously; I bent double and
held my knees; I filled the air of heaven with most bitter sighs; I
poured out tears like water on every side: yet nevertheless I remained
what I was and no other, until a deep meditation at last showed me the
root of all my misery and made it plain before my eyes. And then my
will after that became fully changed, and my weakness also was changed
in that same moment to power, and by a marvellous and most blessed
alteration I was transformed instantly and made another man, another
Augustine altogether. The full history of that transformation is known,
if I mistake not, to you already in my _Confessions._
_Petrarch._ Yes, in truth I know it well, and never can I forget the
story of that health-bringing fig-tree, beneath whose shade the miracle
took place.[3]
_S. Augustine._ Well indeed may you remember it. And no tree to you
should be more dear: no, not the myrtle, nor the ivy, nor the laurel
beloved of Apollo and ever afterwards favoured by all the band of
Poets, favoured too by you, above all, who alone in your age have been
counted worthy to be crowned with its leaves; yet dearer than these
should be to you the memory of that fig-tree, for it greets you like
some mariner coming into haven after many storms; it holds out to you
the path of righteousness, and a sure hope which fadeth not away, that
presently the divine Forgiveness shall be yours.
_Petrarch_. I would not say one word in contradiction. Go on, I beseech
you, with what you have begun.
_S. Augustine._ This is what I undertook and will go on with, to prove
to you that so far you are like those many others of whom it may be
said in the words of Virgil--
"Unchanged their mind while vainly flow their tears."[4]
Though I might multiply examples, yet I will rather content myself with
this alone, that we might almost reckon as belonging to ourselves, and
so all the more likely to come home.
_Petrarch_. How wisely you have made choice; for indeed it were
useless to add more, and no other could be so deeply graven in my
heart. Great as the gulf which parts us may be--I mean between you in
your safe haven and me in peril of shipwreck, you in felicity, me in
distress--still amid my winds and tempests I can recognise from time to
time the traces of, your own storm-tossed passions. So that as often
as I read the book of your _Confessions_, and am made partaker of your
conflict between two contrary emotions, between hope and fear, (and
weep as I read), I seem to be hearing the story of my own self, the
story not of another's wandering, but of my own. Therefore, since now I
have put away every inclination to mere dispute, go on, I beg, as you
desire. For all my heart wishes now is not to hinder but only to follow
where you lead.
_S. Augustine_. I make no such demand on you as that. For though a
certain very wise man[5] has laid it down that "Through overmuch
contention truth is lost," yet often it happens that a well-ordered
discussion leads to truth. It is not then expedient to accept
everything advanced, which is the token of a slack and sleepy mind, any
more than it is expedient to set oneself to oppose a plain and open
truth, which indicates only the mind of one who likes fighting for
fighting's sake.
_Petrarch_. I understand and agree with you and will act on your
advice. Now, pray go on.