influence of a man of whom Cicero in his _Tusculan Orations_ made this
remark, which has remained graven in the bottom of my heart: "When
Plato vouchsafes not to bring forward any proof (you see what deference
I pay him), his mere authority would make me yield consent."[24]
Often in reflecting on this heavenly genius it has appeared to me an
injustice when the disciples of Pythagoras dispense their chief from
submitting proofs, that Plato should be supposed to have less liberty
than he. But, not to be carried away from our subject, authority,
reason and experience alike have for a long time so much commended this
axiom of Plato to me that I do not believe anything more true or more
truly holy could be said by any man. Every time I have raised myself
up, thanks to the hand of God stretched out to me, I have recognised
with infinite joy, beyond belief, who it was that then preserved me
and who had cast me down in times of old. Now that I am once more
fallen into my old misery, I feel with a keen sense of bitterness that
failing which again has undone me. And this I tell you, that you may
see nothing strange in my saying I had put Plato's maxim to the proof.
_S. Augustine._ Indeed, I think it not strange, for I have been witness
of your conflicts; I have seen you fall and then once again rise up,
and now that you are down once more I determined from pity to bring you
my succour.
_Petrarch._ I am grateful for your compassionate feeling, but of what
avail is any human succour?
_S. Augustine._ It avails nothing, but the succour of God is much every
way. None can be chaste except God give him the grace of chastity.[25]
You must therefore implore this grace from Him above all, with
humbleness, and often it may be with tears. He is wont never to deny
him who asks as he should.
_Petrarch_. So often have I done it that I fear I am as one too
importunate.
_S. Augustine_. But you have not asked with due humbleness or
singleness of heart. You have ever kept a corner for your passions
to creep in; you have always asked that your prayers may be granted
presently. I speak from experience, for I did likewise in my old life.
I said, "Give me chastity, but not now. Put it off a little while; the
time will soon come. My life is still in all its vigour; let it follow
its own course, obey its natural laws; it will feel it more of a shame
later, to return to its youthful folly. I will give up this failing
when the course of time itself shall have rendered me less inclined
that way, and when satiety will have delivered me from the fear of
going back."[26] In talking thus do you not perceive that you prayed
for one thing but wished another in your heart?
_Petrarch_. How so?
_S. Augustine._ Because to ask for a thing to-morrow is to put it aside
for to-day.
_Petrarch._ With tears have I often asked for it to-day. My hope was
that after breaking the chain of my passions and casting away the
misery of life, I should escape safe and sound, and after so many
storms of vain anxieties, I might swim ashore in some haven of safety;
but you see, alas, how many shipwrecks I have suffered among the same
rocks and shoals, and how I shall still suffer more if I am left to
myself.
_S. Augustine._ Trust me, there has always been something wanting in
your prayer; otherwise the Supreme Giver would have granted it or, as
in the case of the Apostle, would have only denied you to make you more
perfect in virtue and convince you entirely of your own frailty.[27]
_Petrarch._ That is my conviction also; and I will go on praying
constantly, unwearied, unashamed, undespairing. The Almighty, taking
pity on my sorrows, will perchance lend an ear to my prayer, sent up
daily to His throne, and even as He would not have denied His grace if
my prayers had been pure, so He will also purify them.
_S. Augustine._ You are quite right, but redouble your efforts; and, as
men wounded and fallen in battle raise themselves on their elbow, so do
you keep a look out on all sides for the dangers that beset you, for
fear that some foe; unseen come near and do you hurt yet more, where
you lie on the ground. In the mean time, pray instantly for the aid of
Him who is able to raise you up again. He will perchance be nearer to
you just then when you think Him furthest off. Keep ever in mind that
saying of Plato we were speaking of just now, "Nothing so much hinders
the knowledge of the Divine as lust and the burning desire of carnal
passion." Ponder well, therefore, this doctrine; it is the very basis
of our purpose that we have in hand.
_Petrarch._ To let you see how much I welcome this teaching, I have
treasured it with earnest care, not only when it dwells in the court of
Plato's royal demesne, but also where it lurks hidden in the forests
of other writers, and I have kept note in my memory of the very place
where it was first perceived by my mind.
_S. Augustine._ I wonder what is your meaning. Do you mind being more
explicit?
_Petrarch._ You know Virgil: you remember through what dangers he makes
his hero pass in that last awful night of the sack of Troy?
_S. Augustine._ Yes, it is a topic repeated over and over again in all
the schools. He makes him recount his adventures thus--
"What tongue could tell the horrors of that night,
Paint all the forms of death, or who have tears
Enough to weep so many wretched wights?
Hath the great city that so long was queen
Fallen at last? Behold in all the streets
The bodies of the dead by thousands strewn,
And in their homes and on the temple's steps!
Yet is there other blood than that of Troy,
What time her vanquished heroes gathering up
Their quenchless courage smite anon their foes,
They, though triumphant, fall. Everywhere grief,
Dread everywhere, and in all places Death!"[28]
_Petrarch._ Now wherever he wandered accompanied by the goddess of
Love, through crowding foes, through burning fire, he could not
discern, though his eyes were open, the wrath of the angered gods,
and so long as Venus was speaking to him he only had understanding
for things of earth. But as soon as she left him you remember what
happened; he immediately beheld the frowning faces of the deities, and
recognised what dangers beset him round about.
"Then I beheld the awe-inspiring form
Of gods in anger for the fall of Troy."[29]
From which my conclusion is that commerce with Venus takes away the
vision of the Divine.
_S. Augustine._ Among the clouds themselves you have clearly discerned
the light of truth. It is in this way that truth abides in the fictions
of the poets, and one perceives it shining out through the crevices of
their thought. But, as we shall have to return to this question later
on, let us reserve what we have to say for the end of our discourse.
_Petrarch._ That I may not get lost in tracks unknown to me, may I ask
when you propose to return to this point?
_S. Augustine._ I have not yet probed the deepest wounds of your soul,
and I have purposely deferred to do so, in order that, coming at the
end, my counsels may be more deeply graven in your remembrance. In
another dialogue we will treat more fully of the subject of the desires
of the flesh, on which we have just now lightly touched.
_Petrarch._ Go on, then, now as you proposed.
_S. Augustine._ Yes, there need be nothing to hinder me, unless you are
obstinately bent on stopping me.
_Petrarch._ Indeed, nothing will please me better than to banish for
ever every cause of dispute from the earth. I have never engaged in
disputation, even on things perfectly familiar, without regretting it;
for the contentions that arise, even between friends, have a certain
character of sharpness and hostility contrary to the laws of friendship.
But pass on to those matters in which you think I shall welcome your
good counsel.
_S. Augustine._ You are the victim of a terrible plague of the
soul--melancholy; which the moderns call _accidie_, but which in old
days used to be called _ægritudo._
_Petrarch._ The very name of this complaint makes me shudder.
_S. Augustine._ Nor do I wonder, for you have endured its burden long
enough.
_Petrarch._ Yes, and though in almost all other diseases which torment
me there is mingled a certain false delight, in this wretched state
everything is harsh, gloomy, frightful. The way to despair is for ever
open, and everything goads one's miserable soul to self-destruction.
Moreover, while other passions attack me only in bouts, which, though
frequent, are but short and for a moment, this one usually has invested
me so closely that it clings to and tortures me for whole days and
nights together. In such times I take no pleasure in the light of day,
I see nothing, I am as one plunged in the darkness of hell itself, and
seem to endure death in its most cruel form. But what one may call the
climax of the misery is, that I so feed upon my tears and sufferings
with a morbid attraction that I can only be rescued from it by main
force and in despite of myself.
_S. Augustine._ So well do you know your symptoms, so familiar are you
become with their cause, that I beg you will tell me what is it that
depresses you most at the present hour? Is it the general course of
human affairs? Is it some physical trouble, or some disgrace of fortune
in men's eyes?
_Petrarch._ It is no one of these separately. Had I only been
challenged to single combat, I would certainly have come off
victorious; but now, as it is, I am besieged by a whole host of enemies.
_S. Augustine_. I pray you will tell me fully all that torments you.
_Petrarch._ Every time that fortune pushes me back one step, I stand
firm and courageous, recalling to myself that often before I have been
struck in the same way and yet have come off conqueror; if, after that,
she presently deals me a sterner blow, I begin to stagger somewhat;
if then she returns to the charge a third and fourth time, driven by
force, I retreat, not hurriedly but step by step, to the citadel of
Reason.
If fortune still lays siege to me there with all her troops, and if,
to reduce me to surrender, she piles up the sorrows of our human lot,
the remembrance of my old miseries and the dread of evils yet to come,
then, at lost, hemmed in on all sides, seized with terror at these
heaped-up calamities, I bemoan my wretched fate, and feel rising in my
very soul this bitter disdain of life. Picture to yourself some one
beset with countless enemies, with no hope of escape or of pity, with
no comfort anywhere, with every one and everything against him; his
foes bring up their batteries, they mine the very ground beneath his
feet, the towers are already falling, the ladders are at the gates, the
grappling-hooks are fastened to the walls, the fire is seen crackling
through the roofs, and, at sight of those gleaming swords on every
side, those fierce faces of his foes, and that utter ruin that is upon
him, how should he not be utterly dismayed and overwhelmed, since, even
if life itself should be left, yet to men not quite bereft of every
feeling the loss of liberty alone is a mortal stroke?
_S. Augustine._ Although your confession is a little confused, I
make out that your misfortunes all proceed from a single false
conception which has in the past claimed and in futuro will still claim
innumerable victims. You have a bad conceit of yourself.
_Petrarch._ Yes, truly, a very bad one.
_S. Augustine._ And why?
_Petrarch._ Not for one, but a thousand reasons.
_S. Augustine._ You are like people who on the slightest offence rake
up all the old grounds of quarrel they ever had.
_Petrarch._ In my case there is no wound old enough for it to have
been effaced and forgotten: my sufferings are all quite fresh, and if
anything by chance were made better through time, Fortune has so soon
redoubled her strokes that the open wound has never been perfectly
healed over. I cannot, moreover, rid myself of that hate and disdain of
our life which I spoke of. Oppressed with that, I cannot but be grieved
and sorrowful exceedingly. That you call this grief _accidie_ or
_ægritudo_ makes no difference; in substance we mean one and the same
thing.
_S. Augustine._ As from what I can understand the evil is so
deep-seated, it will do no good to heal it slightly, for it will soon
throw out more shoots. It must be entirely rooted up. Yet I know not
where to begin, so many complications alarm me. But to make the task of
dividing the matter easier, I will examine each point in detail. Tell
me, then, what is it that has hurt you most?
_Petrarch_. Whatever I see, or hear, or feel.
_S. Augustine._ Come, come, does nothing please you?
_Petrarch_. Nothing, or almost nothing.
_S. Augustine._ Would to God that at least the better things in your
life might be dear, to you. But tell me what is it that is to you the
most displeasing of all? I beg you give me an answer.
_Petrarch._ I have already answered.
_S. Augustine._ It is this melancholy I spoke of which is the true
cause of all your displeasure with yourself.
_Petrarch._ I am just as displeased with what I see in others as with
what I see in myself.
_S. Augustine._ That too comes from the same source. But to get a
little order into our discourse, does what you see in yourself truly
displease you as much as you say?
_Petrarch._ Stop worrying me with your petty questions, that are more
than I know how to reply to.
_S. Augustine._ I see, then, that those things which make many other
people envy you are nevertheless in your own eyes of no account at all?
_Petrarch._ Any one who envies a wretch like me must indeed himself be
wretched.
_S. Augustine._ But now please tell me what is it that most displeases
you?
_Petrarch._ I am sure I do not know.
_S. Augustine._ If I guess right will you acknowledge it?
_Petrarch._ Yes, I will, quite freely.
_S. Augustine._ You are vexed with Fortune.
_Petrarch._ And am I not right to hate her? Proud, violent, blind, she
makes a mock of mankind.
_S. Augustine._ It is an idle complaint. Let us look now at your own
troubles. If I prove you have complained unjustly, will you consent to
retract?
_Petrarch._ You will find it very hard to convince me. If, however, you
prove me in the wrong, I will give in.
_S. Augustine._ You find that Fortune is to you too unkind.
_Petrarch_. Not too unkind; too unjust, too proud, too cruel.
_S. Augustine_. The comic poets have more than one comedy called "The
Grumbler." There are scores of them. And now you are making yourself
one of the crowd. I should rather find you in more select company. But
as this subject is so very threadbare that no one can add anything
new on it, will you allow me to offer you an old remedy for an old
complaint?
_Petrarch_. As you wish.
_S. Augustine_. Well then, has poverty yet made you endure hunger and
thirst and cold?
_Petrarch_. No, Fortune has not yet brought me to this pass.
_S. Augustine._ Yet such is the hard lot of a great many people every
day of their lives. Is it not?
_Petrarch_. Use some other remedy than this if you can, for this brings
me no relief. I am not one of those who in their own misfortunes
rejoice to behold the crowd of other wretched ones who sob around them;
and not seldom I mourn as much for the griefs of others as for my own.
_S. Augustine_. I wish no man to rejoice in witnessing the misfortunes
of others, but they ought at any rate to give him some consolation,
and teach him not to complain of his own lot. All the world cannot
possibly occupy the first and best place. How could there be any first
unless there was also a second following after? Only be thankful, you
mortal men, if you are not reduced to the last of all; and that of so
many blows of outrageous Fortune you only bear her milder strokes. For
the rest, to those who are doomed to endure the extremes of misery,
one must offer more potent remedies than you have need of whom Fortune
has wounded but a little. That which casts men down into these doleful
moods is that each one, forgetting his own condition, dreams of the
highest place, and, like every one else, as I just now pointed out,
cannot possibly attain it; then when he fails he is discontented. If
they only knew the sorrows that attend on greatness they would recoil
from that which they now pursue. Let me call as witnesses those who by
dint of toil have reached the pinnacle, and who no sooner have arrived
than they forthwith bewail the too easy accomplishment of their wish.
This truth should be familiar to every one, and especially to you, to
whom long experience has shown that the summit of rank, surrounded as
it is with trouble and anxieties, is only deserving of pity. It follows
that no earthly lot of man is free from complaint, since those who have
attained what they desire and those who have missed it alike show some
reason for discontent. The first allege they have been cheated, and the
second that they have suffered neglect.
Take Seneca's advice then, "When you see how many people are in front
of you, think also how many are behind. If you would be reconciled
with Providence and your own lot in life, think of all those you have
surpassed;" and as the same wise man says in the same place, "Set a
goal to your desires such as you cannot overleap, even if you wish."
_Petrarch._ I have long ago set such a goal to my desires, and, unless
I am mistaken, a very modest one; but in the pushing and shameless
manners of my time, what place is left for modesty, which men now call
slackness or sloth?
_S. Augustine._ Can your peace of mind be disturbed by the opinion of
the crowd, whose judgment is never true, who never call anything by its
right name? But unless my recollection is at fault, you used to look
down on their opinion.
_Petrarch._ Never, believe me, did I despise it more than I do now.
I care as much for what the crowd thinks of me as I care what I am
thought of by the beasts of the field.
_S. Augustine._ Well, then?
_Petrarch._ What raises my spleen is that having, of all my
contemporaries whom I know, the least exalted ambitions, not one
of them has encountered so many difficulties as I have in the
accomplishment of my desires. Most assuredly I never aspired to the
highest place; I call the spirit of Truth as witness who judges us,
who sees all, and who has always read my most secret thoughts. She
knows very well that whenever after the manner of men I have gone over
in my mind all the degrees and conditions of our human lot. I have
never found in the highest place that tranquillity and serenity of soul
which I place above all other goods; and for that matter, having a
horror of a life full of disquiet and care, I have ever chosen, in my
modest judgment, some middle position, and given, not lip-service, but
the homage of my heart to that truth expressed by Horace--
"Whoso with little wealth will live content,
Easy and free his days shall all be spent;
His well-built house keeps out the winter wind,
Too modest to excite an envious mind."[30]
And I admire the reasons he gives in the same Ode not less than the
sentiment itself.
"The tallest trees most fear the tempest's might,
The highest towers come down with most affright,
The loftiest hills feel first the thunder smite."
Alas! it is just the middle place that it has never been my lot to
enjoy.
_S. Augustine._ And what if that which you think is a middle position
is in truth below you? What if as a matter of fact you have for a long
while enjoyed a really middle place, enjoyed it abundantly? Nay, what
if you have in truth left the middle far behind, and are become to a
great many people a man more to be envied than despised?
_Petrarch._ Well, if they think my lot one to be envied, I think the
contrary.
_S. Augustine._ Yes, your false opinion is precisely the cause of all
your miseries, and especially of this last. As Cicero puts it, "You
must flee Charybdis, with all hands to the oars, and sails as well!"[31]
_Petrarch._ Whither can I flee? where direct my ship? In a word, what
am I to think except what I see before my eyes?
_S. Augustine._ You only see from side to side where your view is
limited. If you look behind you will discover a countless throng coming
after, and that you are somewhat nearer to the front rank than to that
in the rear, but pride and stubbornness suffer you not to turn your
gaze behind you.
_Petrarch._ Nevertheless from time to time I have done so, and have
noticed many people coming along behind. I have no cause to blush at my
condition, but I complain of having so many cares. I deplore, if I may
yet again make use of a phrase of Horace, that I must live "only from
day to day."[32] As to this restlessness of which I have suffered more
than enough, I gladly subscribe to what the same poet says in the same
place.
"What prayers are mine? O may I yet possess
The goods I have, or, if heaven pleases, less!
Let the few years that Fate may grant me still
Be all my own, not held at others' will."[33]
Always in a state of suspense, always uncertain of the future,
Fortune's favours have no attraction for me. Up to now, as you see, I
have lived always in dependence on others; it is the bitterest cup of
all. May heaven grant me some peace in what is left of my old age, and
that the mariner who has lived so long amid the stormy waves may die in
port!
_S. Augustine._ So then in this great whirlpool of human affairs, amid
so many vicissitudes, with the future all dark before you; in a word,
placed as you are at the caprice of Fortune, you will be the only one
of so many millions of mankind who shall live a life exempt from care!
Look what you are asking for, O mortal man! look what you demand! As
for that complaint you have brought forward of never having lived a
life of your own, what it really amounts to is not that you have lived
in poverty, but more or less in subservience. I admit, as you say, that
it is a thing very troublesome. However, if you look around you will
find very few men who have lived a life of their own. Those whom one
counts most happy, and for whom numbers of others live their lives,
bear witness by the constancy of their vigils and their toils that they
themselves are living for others. To quote you a striking instance,
Julius Cæsar, of whom some one has reported this true but arrogant
saying, "The human race only lives for a small number,"[34] Julius
Cæsar, after he had subdued the human race to live for himself alone,
did himself live for other people. Perhaps you will ask me for whom did
he live? and I reply, for those who slew him--for Brutus, Cimber, and
other traitorous heads of that conspiracy, for whom his inexhaustible
munificence proved too small to satisfy their rapacity.
_Petrarch_. I must admit you have brought me to my senses, and I will
never any more complain either of my obligations to others or of my
poverty.
_S. Augustine._ Complain rather of your want of wisdom, for it is this
alone that can obtain for you liberty and true riches. For the rest,
the man who quietly endures to go without the cause of those good
effects, and then makes complaint of not having them, cannot truly be
said to have any intelligent understanding of either the cause or the
effects. But now tell me what is it that makes you suffer, apart from
what we have been speaking of? Is it any weakness of health or any
secret trouble?
_Petrarch_. I confess that my body has always been a burden every time
I think of myself; but when I cast my eyes on the unwieldiness of other
people's bodies, I acknowledge that I have a fairly obedient slave. I
would to Heaven I could say as much of my soul, but I am afraid that in
it there is what is more than a match for me.
_S. Augustine_. May it please God to bring that also under the rule of
reason. But to come back to your body, of what do you complain?
_Petrarch._ Of that of which most other people also complain. I charge
it with being mortal, with implicating me in its sufferings, loading
me with its burdens, asking me to sleep when my soul is awake, and
subjecting me to other human necessities which it would be tedious to
go through.
_S. Augustine._ Calm yourself, I entreat you, and remember you are a
man. Presently your agitation will cease. If any other thing troubles
you, tell me.
_Petrarch._ Have you never heard how cruelly Fortune used me? This
stepdame, who in a single day with her ruthless hand laid low all my
hopes, all my resources, my family and home?[35]
_S. Augustine._ I see your tears are running down, and I pass on. The
present is not the time for instruction, but only for giving warning;
let, then, this simple one suffice. If you consider, in truth, not the
disasters of private families only, but the ruins also of empires from
the beginning of history, with which; you are so well acquainted; and
if you call to mind the tragedies you have read, you will not perhaps
be so sorely offended when you see your own humble roof brought to
nought along with so many palaces of kings. Now pray go on, for these
few warning words will open to you a field for long meditation.