against me as to prevent the order of Nature by hastening her death
like that. First came I into this world and I shall be first to depart.
_S. Augustine._ I think you will not have forgotten that time when you
feared the contrary event, and made a song of your beloved as if she
were presently to die, a song full of moving sorrow.
_Petrarch._ Certainly I remember very well, but the thought that filled
me then with grief, and the memory of which makes me shiver, was a
jealous indignation at the bare possibility of my outliving her who is
the best part of my life and whose presence makes all its sweetness.
For that is the motive of that song; I remember it well, and how I was
overcome with tears. Its spirit is still with me, if with you perchance
are the words.
_S. Augustine._ I was not complaining how many tears the fear of
her death made you shed, nor of how much grief you felt. I was only
concerned that you should realise how this fear of yours in the past
may certainly return; and more easily, in that every day is a step
nearer to death, and that that fair form, worn by sicknesses and the
bearing of many children, has already lost much of its first strength.
_Petrarch._ I also am borne down with cares and am worn with age, and
in that onward path towards death I have outrun her whom I love.
_S. Augustine._ What folly it is to calculate the order of death by
that of birth! For what are those sad lamentations of the old but
because of the early deaths of their young children? What is it that
yonder aged nurse is grieving over but that she sees the loss of her
little nursling--
"Whom some dark day
Has stripped of his sweet life; and cruel fate
Snatched from his mother's breast and covered him
In a too early grave."[2]
In your own case the small number of years by which you have preceded
her gives you a very uncertain hope that you will be gone before the
fire of your passion shall be extinguished; and yet you indulge the
fiction that this order of Nature is unchangeable.
_Petrarch_. Not exactly unchangeable, but I pray without ceasing that
it may not be changed, and whenever I think of death I remember Ovid's
line--
"Late may her time arrive, and after mine."[3]
_S. Augustine._ I can listen to these trifles no more; but since you
now admit that she may possibly die before you, I ask what should you
say if she really were dead?
_Petrarch_. What should I say but that such a calamity would be the
climax of all my miseries? Yet I should try and comfort myself with
what was past. But may the winds bear away the words from our lips and
the hurricane scatter such an omen to the ends of the earth!
_S. Augustine._ Ah, blindfold one! you see not yet what foolishness
it is so to subject your soul to things of earth, that kindle in it
the flames of desire, that have no power to give it rest, that cannot
endure; and, while promising to charm you with their sweetness, torment
you with perpetual agitations.
_Petrarch_. If you have any more effectual remedy, I beg you will point
it out. You will never frighten me with talk like this; for I am not,
as you suppose, infatuated with any creature that is mortal. You might
have known that I have loved her physical charm loss than her soul,
that what has captivated me has been a life above that of ordinary
lives, the witnessing of which has shown me how the blessed live above.
Therefore, since you inquire of me (and the mere question is a torture
to listen to) what I should do supposing she were to leave me and be
the first to die--well, I should try and console myself in sorrow with
Lælius, the wisest of the Romans. With him I should say, "It is her
goodness that I loved and that is not dead;" and I would say to myself
those other words that he pronounced after the death of him for whom he
had conceived an affection surpassing all common affection.[4]
_S. Augustine._ You retire to Error's inaccessible fastness, and it
will not be easy to dislodge you. But as I notice you are inclined
to listen much more patiently to the truth about yourself and her,
sing the praises of your darling lady as much as you will, and I will
gainsay nothing. Were she a queen, a saint--
"A very goddess, or to Apollo's self
Own sister, or a mother of the nymphs,"[5]
yet all her excellence will in nowise excuse your error.
_Petrarch_. Let us see what fresh quarrel you seek with me?
_S. Augustine._ It is unquestionably true that oftentimes the loveliest
things are loved in a shameful way.
_Petrarch._ I have already met that insinuation on a previous occasion.
If any one could see the image of the love that reigns in my heart, he
would recognise that there is no difference between it and that face
that I have praised indeed much, but less by far than it deserves to be
praised. I call to witness the spirit of Truth in whose presence we are
speaking when I assert that in my love there has never been anything
dishonourable, never anything of the flesh, never anything that any
man could blame unless it were its mere intensity. And if you add that
even so it never passed the line of right, I think a fairer thing could
never be conceived.
_S. Augustine._ I might reply to you with a word of Cicero and tell
you, "You are talking of putting boundary lines in vice itself."[6]
_Petrarch_. Not in vice, but in love.
_S. Augustine_. But in that very passage he was speaking of love. Do
you remember where it occurs?
_Petrarch._ Do I remember indeed? Of course I have read it in the
_Tusculans_. But he was speaking of men's common love; mine is one by
itself.
_S. Augustine._ Other people, I fancy, might say the same of theirs;
for true it is that in all the passions, and most of all in this, every
man interprets his own case favourably, and there is point in the verse
though from a common poet--
"To every man his lady,
Then one to me assign;
To every man his love affairs,
And so let me have mine!"[7]
_Petrarch._ Would you like, if you have time, to hear me tell you a few
of those many charms of hers that would strike you with astonishment
and admiration?
_S. Augustine._ Do you think I am ignorant of all
"Those pleasant dreams that lovers use to weave"?
Every schoolboy knows the line, but I confess I am ashamed to hear such
silliness from the lips of one whose words and thoughts should seek a
higher range.
_Petrarch._ One thing I will not keep silence on,--call it silliness,
call it gratitude, as you please,--namely, that to her I owe whatever I
am, and I should never have attained such little renown and glory as I
have unless she by the power of this love had quickened into life the
feeble germ of virtue that Nature had sown in my heart. It was she who
turned my youthful soul away from all that was base, who drew me as it
were by a grappling chain, and forced me to look upwards. Why should
you not believe it? It is a sure truth that by love we grow like what
we love. Now there is no backbiter alive, let his tongue be as sharp
as it may, that has ventured to touch her good name, or dared to say
he had seen a single fault, I will not say in her conduct, but even in
any one of her gestures or words. Moreover, those whisperers who leave
no one's reputation untouched if they can help it, have been obliged in
her, case to utter only reverence and respect.
It is no wonder, then, if such a glory as hers should have fostered
in my heart the longing for more conspicuous glory, and should have
sweetened those hard toils which I had to endure if I would attain
that which I desired. What were all the wishes of my youth but solely
to please her who above all others had pleased me? And you are not
ignorant that to gain my end I scorned delights a thousand times, I
gave myself before my time to labour and to cares without number; and
now you bid me forget or diminish somewhat of my love for her who first
taught me how to escape the vulgar crowd, who guided all my steps,
spurred on my lagging mind, and wakened into life my drowsy spirit.
_S. Augustine._ Poor man! you would have done better to be silent than
to speak, although even if you had been silent I should have discerned
what you are within. But such stout words as these stir my indignation
and anger.
_Petrarch._ I wonder why?
_S. Augustine._ To have a false opinion shows ignorance, but to keep on
boldly proclaiming it shows pride as well as ignorance.
_Petrarch_. Suppose you try and prove that what I think and say is
false.
_S. Augustine._ It is all false; and, first, what you say as to owing
all you are to her. If you mean that she has made you what you are,
there you certainly lie; but if you were to say that it is she. who
has prevented you being any more than you are, you would speak the
truth. O what long contention would you have been spared if by the
charm of her beauty she had not held you back. What you are you owe to
the bounty of Nature; what you might have been she has quite cut off,
or rather let me say you yourself have cut it off, for she indeed is
innocent. That beauty which seemed so charming and so sweet, through
the burning flame of your desire, through the continual rain of your
tears, has done away all that harvest that should have grown from the
seeds of virtue in your soul. It is a false boast of yours that she has
held you back from base things; from some perhaps she may, but only
to plunge you into evils worse still. For if one leads you from some
miry path to bring you to a precipice, or in lancing some small abscess
cuts your throat, he deserves not the name of deliverer but assassin.
Likewise she whom you hold up as your guide, though she drew you away
from some base courses, has none the less overwhelmed you in a deep
gulf of splendid ruin. As for her having taught you to look upwards and
separate yourself from the vulgar crowd, what else is it than to say
by sitting at her feet you became so infatuated with the charm of her
above as to studiously neglect everything else?
And in the common intercourse of human life what can be more injurious
than that? when you say she has involved you in toils without number,
there indeed you speak truth. But what great gain is there in that?
When there are such varied labours that a man is perforce obliged to
engage in, what madness is it of one's own accord to go after fresh
ones! As for your boasting that it is she who has made you thirst for
glory, I pity your delusion, for I will prove to you that of all the
burdens of your soul there is none more fatal than this. But the time
for this is not yet come.
_Petrarch_. I believe the readiest of warriors first threatens and
then strikes. I seem, however, to find threat and wound together. And
already I begin to stagger.
_S. Augustine_. How much more will you stagger when I deliver my
sharpest thrust of all? Forsooth that woman to whom you profess you owe
everything, she, even she, has been your ruin.
_Petrarch._ Good Heavens! How do you think you will persuade me of that?
_S. Augustine._ She has detached your mind from the love of heavenly
things and has inclined your heart to love the creature more than the
Creator: and that one path alone leads, sooner than any other, to death.
_Petrarch._ I pray you make no rash judgment. The love which I feel for
her has most certainly led me to love God.
_S. Augustine._ But it has inverted the true order.
_Petrarch._ How so?
_S. Augustine._ Because 'every creature' should be dear to us because
of our love for the Creator. But in your case, on the contrary, held
captive by the charm of the creature, you have not loved the Creator as
you ought. You have admired the Divine Artificer as though in all His
works He had made nothing fairer than the object of your love, although
in truth the beauty of the body should be reckoned last of all.
_Petrarch._ I call Truth to witness as she stands here between us,
and I take my conscience to witness also, as I said before, that the
body. of my lady has been less dear to me than her soul. The proof
of it is here, that the further she has advanced in age (which for
the beauty of the body is a fatal thunderstroke) the more firm has
been my admiration; for albeit the flower of her youth has withered
visibly with time, the beauty of her soul has grown with the years, and
as it was the beginning of my love for her, even so has it been its
sustainer. Otherwise if it had been her bodily form which attracted me,
it was, ere this, time to make a change.
_S. Augustine._ Are you mocking me? Do you mean to assert that if the
same soul had been lodged in a body ill-formed and poor to look upon,
you would have taken equal delight therein?
_Petrarch._ I dare not say that. For the soul itself cannot be
discerned, and the image of a body like that would have given no
indication of such a soul. But were it possible for the soul to be
visible to my gaze, I should most certainly have loved its beauty even
though its dwelling-place were poor.
_S. Augustine._ You are relying on mere words; for if you are only able
to love that which is visible to your gaze, then what you love is the
bodily form. However, I deny not that her soul and her character have
helped to feed your flame, for (as I will show you before long) her
name alone has both little and much kindled your mad passion; for, as
in all the affections of the soul, it happens most of all in this one
that oftentimes a very little spark will light a great fire.
_Petrarch._ I see where you would drive me. You want to make me say
with Ovid--
"I love at once her body and her soul."[8]
_S. Augustine._ Yes, and you ought to confess this also, that neither
in one or the other case has your love been temperate or what it should
be.
_Petrarch._ You will have to put me to the torture ere I will make any
such confession.
_S. Augustine._ And you will allow that this love has also cast you
into great miseries.
_Petrarch._ Though you place me on the block itself, I will not
acknowledge any such thing.
_S. Augustine._ If you do not ignore my questions and conclusions, you
will soon make both those confessions. Tell me, then, can you recall
the years when you were a little child, or have the crowding cares of
your present life blotted all that time out?
_Petrarch._ My childhood and youth are as vividly before my eyes as if
they were yesterday.
_S. Augustine._ Do you remember, then, how in those times you had
the fear of God, how you thought about Death, what love you had for
Religion, how dear goodness and virtue were to you?
_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember it all, and I am sorry when I see that as
my years increased these virtues grew less and less in me.
_S. Augustine._ For my part I have ever been afraid lest the wind of
Spring should cut that early blossom off, which, if only it might be
left whole and unhurt, would have produced a wondrous fruitage.
_Petrarch._ Pray do not wander from the subject; for what has this to
do with the question we were discussing?
_S. Augustine._ I will tell you. Recall each step in your life, since
your remembrance is so complete and fresh; recall all the course of
your life, and recollect at what period this great change you speak of
began.
_Petrarch._ I have run over in my mind all the course and number of my
years.
_S. Augustine._ And what do you find?
_Petrarch._ I see that the doctrine in the treatise of Pythagoras, of
which I have heard tell and have read, is by no means void of truth.
For when travelling the right road, still temperate and modest, I had
reached the parting of the ways and had been bidden to turn to the
right hand, whether from carelessness or perversity I know not, behold
I turned to the left; and what I had read in my boyhood was of no
profit to me--
"Here the ways part: the right will thee conduct
To the walled palace of the mighty King
And to Elysium, but the left will lead
Where sin is punished and the malefactor
Goes to his dreaded doom."[9]
Although I had read of all this before, yet I understood it not until
I found it by experience. Afterwards I went wrong, in this foul and
crooked pathway, and often in mind went back with tears and sorrow, yet
could not keep the right way; and it was when I left that way, yes,
that was certainly the time when all this confusion in my life began.
_S. Augustine_. And in what period of your age did this take place?
_Petrarch._ About the middle of my growing youth. But if you give me a
minute or two, I think I can recall the exact year when it took place.
_S. Augustine_. I do not ask for the precise date, but tell me about
when was it that you saw the form and feature of this woman for the
first time?
_Petrarch._ Never assuredly shall I forget that day.
_S. Augustine._ Well now, put two and two together; compare the two
dates.
_Petrarch._ I must confess in truth they coincide. I first saw her and
I turned from my right course at one and the same time.
_S. Augustine._ That is all I wanted. You became infatuated. The
unwonted dazzle blinded your eyes, so I believe. For they say the first
effect of love is blindness. So one reads in the poet most conversant
with Nature--
"At the first sight was that Sidonian dame
Blinded,"
and then he adds presently--
"With love was Dido burning."[10]
And though, as you well know, the story is but on ancient fable, yet
did the Poet in making it follow the order of Nature.
And when you had been struck blind by this meeting, if you chose the
left-hand path it was because to you it seemed more broad and easy;
for that to the right is steep and narrow, and of its hardship you
were afraid. But that woman so renowned, whom you imagine as your most
safe guide, wherefore did not she direct you upward, hesitating and
trembling as you were? Why did she not take you by the hand as one does
the blind, and set you in the way where you should walk?
_Petrarch_. She certainly did so, as far as it was in her power. What
but this was in her heart when, unmoved by my entreaties, unyielding
to my caress, she safeguarded her woman's honour, and in spite of her
youth and mine, in spite of a thousand circumstances that would have
bent a heart of adamant, she stood her ground, resolute and unsubdued?
Yes, this womanly soul taught me what should be the honour and duty of
a man; and to preserve her chastity she did, as Seneca expresses it--
"What was to me at once an example and a reproach."[11]
And at last, when she saw the reins of my chariot were broken and that
I was rushing to the abyss, she chose rather to part from me than
follow where I went.
_S. Augustine_. Base desires, then, sometimes you felt, though not long
since you denied it? But it is the common folly of lovers, let me say
of mad folk. One may say of them all alike--
"I would not, yet I would; I would, yet would not."[12]
You know not, any of you, what you want or what you want not.
_Petrarch_. Without seeing, I fell into the snare. But if in past
days my feelings were other than they are now, love and youth were
the cause. Now I know what I wish and what I desire, and I have at
last made firm my staggering soul. She for her part has ever been firm
in her mind and always the same. The more I understand this woman's
constancy, the more I admire it; and if sometimes I regretted her
resolution, now I rejoice in it and give her thanks.
_S. Augustine._ It is not easy to believe a man who has once taken you
in. You may have changed the outside fashion of your life, but have not
yet persuaded me that your soul is also changed.
If your flame is calmed and softened somewhat, yet it is not for
certain quite put out. But you who set such price on her you love,
do you not see how deeply by absolving her you condemn yourself? You
delight in seeing in her the model of purity, and you avow yourself to
be without any feeling and a criminal; and you protest that she is the
most happy of women, while her love has made you the most unhappy of
men. If you remember, it is just what I said at the beginning.
_Petrarch._ Yes, I remember. I cannot deny that what you say is true,
and I see whither you are gradually leading me.
_S. Augustine._ To see it better still, lend me all your attention.
Nothing so much leads a man to forget or despise God as the love of
things temporal, and most of all this passion that we call love; and
to which, by the greatest of all desecrations, we even gave the name
of God, without doubt only that we may throw a heavenly veil over our
human follies and make a pretext of divine inspiration when we want to
commit an enormous transgression. In the case of the other passions,
the sight of the object, the hope of enjoying it, and the ardour of
the will take us captive. Love also demands all that, but in addition
it asks also a reciprocal passion, without which it will be forced to
die away. So, whereas in the other cases one loves singly and alone,
in this case we must give love for love, and thus man's heart is stung
and stung again. Therefore, Cicero was right when he wrote that "Of
all the passions of the soul, assuredly the most violent is love,"[13]
and he must have been very certain of his ground when he added that
"assuredly"--he who in four books shows he was aware how Plato's
Academy doubted everything.[14]
_Petrarch_. I have often noticed that reference, and wondered that of
the passions he should call this the most violent of all.
_S. Augustine._ Your surprise would have vanished if you had not lost
your powers of memory. But I must recall you by a short admonition to a
recollection of its many evils. Think what you were when that plague
seized upon your soul; how suddenly you fell to bemoaning, and came to
such a pitch of wretchedness that you felt a morbid pleasure in feeding
on tears and sighs. Passing sleepless nights, and murmuring ever the
name of your beloved, scorning everything, hating life, desiring death,
with a melancholy love for being alone, avoiding all your fellow-men,
one might well apply to you, for they exactly fit your case, the lines
in which Homer describes Bellerophon--
"There in the pleasant fields he wandered sad,
Eating his heart, far from the ways of men."[15]
What meant that pale face and wasted figure? that flower of your age
withering before its time, those heavy eyes, ever bathed in tears, your
mind in a state of agitation, your broken rest and troubled moans,
even when you were asleep? Why was your voice weak and altered through
your sorrow of heart, and the very sound of your words, indistinct
and broken, with whatever other token can be imagined, of a heart
distressed and in disorder? Do you call these the signs of one in good
health? Was it not this lady with whom for you every day, whether feast
or fast, began and ended? Was it not at her coming the sun shone forth,
and when she left you, night returned? Every change of her countenance
brought a change in your heart; and if she were sad, you forthwith were
filled with sadness. In a word, your life became wholly dependent upon
hers. You know that I say but what is true and what is in every one's
mouth.
And what could be more senseless than that, not content with the
presence of her living face, the cause of all your woes, you must
needs obtain a painted picture by an artist[16] of high repute, that
you might carry it everywhere with you, to have an everlasting spring
of tears, fearing, I suppose, lest otherwise their fountain might dry
up? Of all such things you were only too vigilant, and you neglected
everything else. But to come to that which is the very crowning
instance of your folly, and of which I gave you warning a little while
ago, who could sufficiently utter his indignation and amazement at this
sign of a distempered mind, that, infatuated as much by the beauty of
her name as of her person, you have with perfectly incredible silliness
paid honour to anything that has the remotest connection with that name
itself? Had you any liking for the laurel of empire or of poetry, it
was forsooth because the name they bore was hers; and from this time
onwards there is hardly a verse from your pen but in it you have made
mention of the laurel, as if indeed you were a denizen of Peneus'
stream,[17] or some priest on Cirrha's[18] Mount.
And finally, discovering that the laurel of empire was beyond your
reach, you have, with as little self-restraint as you showed in the
case of your beloved herself, now coveted the laurel of Poetry of which
the merit of your works seemed to give more promise.