LAURA.
There are some who doubt the reality of Petrarch's love, because it is
expressed in numbers; and others, refining on this doubt, profess even
to question whether his Laura ever existed, except in the imagination
and the poetry of her lover. The first objection could only be made by
the most prosaic of commentators--some true "black-letter dog"[22]--who
had dustified and mistified his faculties among old parchments. The most
real and most fervent passion that ever fell under my own knowledge, was
revealed in verse, and very exquisite verse too, and has inspired many
an effusion, full of beauty, fancy, and poetry; but it has not,
therefore, been counted less sincere; and Heaven forbid it should prove
less lasting than if it had been told in the homeliest prose, and had
never inspired one beautiful idea or one rapturous verse!
To study Petrarch in his own works, and in his own delightful language;
to follow him line by line, through all the vicissitudes and
contradictions of passion; to listen to his self-reproaches, his
terrors, his regrets, his conflicts; to dwell on his exquisite
delineations of individual character and peculiar beauty, his simple
touches of profound pathos and melancholy tenderness:--and then believe
all to be mere invention,--the coinage of the brain,--a tissue of
visionary fancies, in which the heart had no share; to confound him with
the cold metaphysical rhymesters of a later age,--seems to argue not
only a strange want of judgment, but an extraordinary obtuseness of
feeling.[23]
The faults of taste of which Petrarch has been accused over and over
again, by those who seem to have studied him as Voltaire studied
Shakspeare,--his _concetti_--his fanciful adoration of the laurel, as
the emblem of Laura--his playing on the words _Laura_, _L'aura_, and
_Lauro_, his _freezing flames_ and _burning ice_,--I abandon to critics,
and let them make the best of them, as defects in what were else
perfection.
These were the fashion of the day: a great genius may outrun his times,
but not without bearing about him some ineffaceable impressions of the
manners and character of the age in which he lived. He is too witty--"Il
a trop d'esprit," to be sincere, say the critics,--"he has a conceit
left him in his misery,--a miserable conceit;" but we know--at least
_I_ know--how in the very extremity of passion the soul can mock at
itself--how the fancy can with a bitter and exaggerated gaiety sport
with the heart!--These are faults of composition in the writer, and
admitted to be such; but they prove nothing against the man, the poet,
or the lover. The reproach of monotony, I confess I never could
understand. It is rather matter of astonishment, how in a collection of
nearly four hundred poems, all, with one or two exceptions, turning upon
the same subject and sentiment, the poet has poured forth such an
endless and redundant variety both of thought and feeling--how from the
wide universe, the changeful face of all beautiful nature, the treasures
of antique learning, and, above all, from his own overflowing heart, he
has drawn those lovely pictures, allusions, situations, sentiments and
reflections, which have, indeed, been stolen, borrowed, imitated, worn
threadbare by succeeding poets, but in him were the fresh and
spontaneous effusions of profound feeling and luxuriant fancy. Schlegel
very justly observes, that the impression of monotony may arise from
our considering at one view, and bound up in one volume, a long series
of poems, which were written in the course of many years, at different
times, and on different occasions. Laura herself, he avers, would
certainly have been _ennuyee_ to death with her own praises, if she had
been obliged to read over, at one sitting, all the verses which her
lover composed on her charms; and I agree with him.
It appears to me that the very impression of Petrarch's individual
character, and the circumstances of his life, on the whole mass of his
poetry, are evidence of the truth of his attachment, and the reality of
its object. He was by nature a poet; his love was, therefore, poetical:
he loved "in numbers, for the numbers came." He was an accomplished
scholar in a pedantic age,--and his love is, therefore, illustrated by
such comparisons and turns of thought as were allied to his habitual
studies. He had a fertile and playful fancy, and his love is adorned by
all the luxuriance of his imagination. He had been educated for the
profession of the Civil Law, "per vender parole anzi mensogne,"--to
sell words and lies, as he disdainfully expressed it,--and his love is
mixed up with subtile reasonings on his own hapless state. He was a
philosopher, and it is tinged with the mystic reveries of Platonism, the
favourite and fashionable philosophy of the age. He was deeply
religious, and the strain of devotional and moral feeling which mingles
with that of passion, or of grief,--his fears lest the excess of his
earthly affections should interfere with his eternal salvation,--his
continual allusions to his faith, to a future existence, and the
nothingness and vanity of the world,--are not so many proofs of his
profaneness, but of his sincerity. He was suspicious, irritable, and
susceptible; subject to quick transitions of feeling; raised by a word
to hope--plunged by a glance into despair; just such a finely-toned
instrument as a woman loves to play on;--and all this we have set forth
in the contradictions, the self-reproaches, the little daily
vicissitudes which are events and revolutions in a life of passion; a
life, which when exhibited in the rich and softening tints of poetry,
has all the power of strong interest, united to the charm of harmony and
expression; but in the reality, and in plain prose, cannot be
contemplated without a painful compassion. "The day may perhaps come,"
says Petrarch in one of his familiar letters,[24] "when I shall have
calmness enough to contemplate all the misery of my soul, to examine my
passion, not however, that I may continue to love her--but that I may
love thee alone, O my God! But at this day, how many obstacles have I
yet to surmount, how many efforts have I yet to make! I no longer love
as I did love, but still I love; I love in spite of myself--in
lamentations and in tears. I will hate her--No!--I must still love her!"
Seven years afterwards he writes,--"my love is extreme, but it is
exclusive and virtuous--virtuous!--no!--this disquietude, these
suspicions, these transports, this watchfulness, this utter weariness of
every thing, are not signs of a virtuous love!" What a picture of an
impassioned and distracted heart!
* * * * *
And who was this Laura, the illustrious object of a passion which has
filled the wide universe from side to side with her name and fame? What
was her station, her birth, her lineage? What were her transcendant
qualities of person, heart, and mind, that she should have swayed, with
such despotic and distracting power, one of the sovereign spirits of the
age? Is it not enough that we acknowledge her to have been Petrarch's
love--as chaste as fair?
And whether coldness, pride, or virtue, dignify
A woman, so she is good, what does it signify?
In the present case, it signifies much:--we are not to be put off with a
witty or satirical couplet:--the insatiable curiosity which Laura has
excited from age to age--the volumes which have been written on the
subject--are a proof of the sincerity of her lover; for nothing but
truth could ever inspire this lasting and universal interest. But
without diving into these dry disputations, let us take Laura's portrait
from Petrarch himself, drawn, it will be said, by the partial hand of a
poetic lover:--true; but since Laura is interesting to us from the
charms she possessed in his eyes, it were unfair to seek her portraiture
elsewhere.
Laura was of high birth and station, though her life was spent in
retirement and domestic cares;
In nobil sangue, vita umile e quete.
Her father, Audibert de Noves, was of the _haute noblesse_ of Avignon,
and died in her infancy, leaving her a dowry of 1000 gold crowns, (about
10,000 pounds)--a magnificent portion for those times. She was married
at the age of eighteen to Hugh de Sade, a man of rank equal to her own,
and of corresponding age, but not distinguished by any advantages either
of person or mind. The marriage contract is dated in January, 1325, two
years before her first meeting with Petrarch: and in it, her mother, the
Lady Ermessende, and brother John de Noves, stipulate to pay the dower
left by her father; and also to bestow on the bride two magnificent
dresses for state occasions; one of green, embroidered with violets; the
other of crimson, trimmed with feathers. In all the portraits of Laura
now extant, she is represented in one of these two dresses, and they are
frequently alluded to by Petrarch. He tells us expressly, that when he
first met her at matins in the Church of St. Claire, she was habited in
a robe of green, spotted with violets.[25] Mention is also made of a
coronal of silver, with which she wreathed her hair; of her necklaces
and ornaments of pearl. Diamonds are not once alluded to, because the
art of cutting them had not then been invented. From all which, it
appears that Laura was opulent, and moved in the first class of society.
It was customary for the women of rank, in those times, to dress with
extreme simplicity on ordinary occasions, but with the most gorgeous
splendour when they appeared in public. There are some beautiful
descriptions of Laura surrounded by her young female companions,
divested of all her splendid apparel, in a simple white robe and a few
flowers in her hair; but still pre-eminent over all by her superior
loveliness. From the frequent allusions to her dress, and Petrarch's
angry apostrophes to her mirror, because it assisted to heighten charms
already too destructive,[26] we may infer that Laura was not unmindful
of the cares of the toilette.
She was in person a fair Madonna-like beauty with soft dark eyes, and a
profusion of pale golden hair parted on her brow, and falling in rich
curls over her neck. He dwells on the celestial grace of her figure and
movements, "l' andar celeste."
Non era l' andar suo cosa mortale
Ma d' angelica forma.
He describes the beauty of her hand in the 166th sonnet,--
O bella man che mi distringi il core.
And the loveliness of her mouth,--
La bella bocca angelica.
The general character of her beauty must have been pensive, soft,
unobtrusive, and even somewhat languid:
L' angelica sembianza umile e piana--
L' atto mansueto, umile e tardo--
the last line is exquisitely characteristic. This extreme softness and
repose must have been far removed from insipidity; for he dwells also on
the rare and varying expression of her loveliness, "Leggiadria singolare
e pellegrina;"--the lightning of her smile, "Il lampeggiar dell'
angelico riso;"--and the tender magic of her voice, which was felt in
the inmost heart, "Il cantar che nell' anima si sente." She had a habit
of veiling her eyes with her hand, and her looks were generally bent on
the earth, "o per umiltade o per orgoglio." In the portrait of Laura,
which I saw at the Laurentian Library at Florence, the eyes have this
characteristic downcast look. Her lover complains also of a veil, which
she was fond of wearing. Wandering in the country, one summer's day, he
sees a young peasant-girl washing a veil in the running stream; he
recognises the very texture which had so often intervened between him
and the heaven of Laura's beauty, and he trembles as if he had been in
the presence of Laura herself. This little incident is the subject of
the first Madrigal.
He describes her dignified humility, "l' umilta superba;"--her beautiful
silence, "il bel tacere;"--her frequent sighs, "i sospir soavemente
rotti;"--her sweet disdain and gentle repulses, "dolci sdegni, placide
repulse;"--the gesture which spoke without the aid of words, "l'atto che
parla con silenzio." The picture, it must be confessed, is most
finished, most delicate, most beautiful;--supposing only half to be
true, it is still beautiful. But far more flattering, and more
honourable to Laura, is her lover's confession of the influence which
her charming character possessed over him; for it is certain that we owe
to Laura's exquisite purity of mind and manners, the polished delicacy
of the homage addressed to her. Passing over, of course, the
circumstance of her being a married woman, and therefore not a proper
object of amorous verse,--there is not in all the poetry she inspired, a
line or sentiment which angels might not hear and approve. Petrarch
represents her as expressing neither surprise nor admiration at the
self-sacrifice of Lucretia, but only wondering that shame and grief had
not anticipated the dagger of the Roman matron. He describes her
conversation, "pien d'intelletti dolci ed alti," and her mind ever
serene, though her countenance was pensive, "in aspetto pensoso, anima
lieta." He tells us that she had raised him above all low-thoughted
cares, and purified his heart from all base desires. "I bless the place,
the time, the hour, when I presumed to lift my eyes upon her,--I say, O
my soul, thankful shouldst thou be that hast been deemed worthy of such
high honour--for from her spring those gentle thoughts which shall lead
thee to aspire to the highest good, and to disdain all that the vulgar
mind desires."
I' benedico il loco e 'l tempo e l'ora
Che si alti miraron gli occhi mici;
E dico: anima, assai ringraziar dei
Che fosti a tanto onor degnata allora.
....*....*....*....*
Da lei ti vien l' amoroso pensiero
Che, mentre 'l segui all' Sommo ben t'invia
Poco prezzando quel ch' ogni uom desia.
Every generous feeling, every noble and elevated sentiment, every desire
for improvement, he refers to her, and to her only:
S' alcun bel frutto
Nasce di me, da voi vien prima il seme.
Io per me son quasi un terreno asciutto
Colto da voi; e 'l pregio e vostro in tutto.
CANZONE 8.
He gives us in a single line the very _beau ideal_ of a female
character, when he tells us that Laura united the highest intellect with
the purest heart, "In alto intelletto un puro core." He dwells with
rapture on her angelic modesty, which excited at once his reverence and
his despair; but he confesses that he still hopes something from the
pitying tenderness of her disposition.--
Non e si duro cor, che lagrimando,
Pregando, amando, talor non si smova
Ne si freddo voler, che non si scalde.
The attachment inspired by such a woman was not likely to be lessened by
absence, or removed by death itself; and it is certain that the second
part of the Canzoniere of Petrarch, written after the death of Laura, is
more beautiful than the first part: in a more impassioned style, a
higher tone of feeling, with far fewer faults, both of taste and style.
* * * * *
It will be said perhaps that "the picture of such a mind as Petrarch's,
enslaved and distracted by a dreaming passion, employed even in his
declining years, in writing and polishing love verses, is a pitiable
subject of contemplation; that if he had not left us his Canzoniere, he
would probably have performed some other excelling work of genius, which
would have crowned him with equal or superior glory; and that if he had
never been the lover of Laura, he would have been no less that
master-spirit who gave the leading impulse to the age in which he
lived, by consecrating his life, his energies, all his splendid talents,
to the cultivation of philosophy and the fine arts, the extension of
learning and liberty, and the general improvement of mankind."
I doubt this, and I appeal to Petrarch himself.
I believe there is no version into English of the 48th Canzone. If Lady
Dacre had executed it--and in the same spirit as the "Chiare, fresche e
dolce acque," and the "Italia mia," the reader had been spared my
abortive prose sketch, which will give as just an idea of the original
as a hasty penciled outline of one of Titian's or Domenichino's
masterpieces would give us of all the magic colouring and effect of
their glorious and half-breathing creations.
In this Canzone, Petrarch, in a high strain of poetic imagery, which
takes nothing from the truth or pathos of the sentiment, allegorises his
own situation and feelings: he represents himself as citing the Lord of
Love, "Suo empio e dolce Signore," before the throne of Reason, and
accusing him as the cause of all his sufferings, sorrows, errors, and
misspent time. "Through _him_ (Love) I have endured, even from the
moment I was first beguiled into his power, such various and such
exquisite pain, that my patience has at length been exhausted, and I
have abhorred my existence. I have not only forsaken the path of
ambition and useful exertion, but even of pleasure and of happiness: I,
who was born, if I do not deceive myself, for far higher purposes than
to be a mere amorous slave! Through _him_ I have been careless of my
duty to Heaven,--negligent of myself:--for the sake of one woman I
forgot all else!--me miserable! What have availed me all the high and
precious gifts of Heaven, the talents, the genius which raised me above
other men? My hairs are changed to grey, but still my heart changeth
not. Hath he not sent me wandering over the earth in search of repose?
hath he not driven me from city to city, and through forests, and woods,
and wild solitudes?[27] hath he not deprived me of peace, and of that
sleep which no herbs nor chaunted spells have power to restore? Through
him, I have become a bye-word in the world, which I have filled with my
lamentations, till by their repetition I have wearied myself, and
perhaps all others."
To this long tirade, Love with indignation replies: "Hearest thou the
falsehood of this ungrateful man? This is he who in his youth devoted
himself to the despicable traffic of words and lies, and now he blushes
not to reproach me with having raised him from obscurity, to know the
delights of an honourable and virtuous life. I gave him power to attain
a height of fame and virtue to which of himself he had never dared to
aspire. If he has obtained a name among men, to me he owes it. Let him
remember the great heroes and poets of antiquity, whose evil stars
condemned them to lavish their love upon unworthy objects, whose
mistresses were courtezans and slaves; while for him, I chose from the
whole world one lovely woman, so gifted by Heaven with all female
excellence, that her likeness is not to be found beneath the moon,--one
whose melodious voice and gentle accents had power to banish from his
heart every vain, and dark, and vicious thought. These were the wrongs
of which he complains: such is my reward for all I have done for
him,--ungrateful man! Upon my wings hath he soared upwards, till his
name is placed among the greatest of the sons of song, and fair ladies
and gentle knights listen with delight to his strains:--had it not been
for me, what had he become before now? Perhaps a vain flatterer, seeking
preferment in a Court, confounded among the herd of vulgar men! I have
so chastened, so purified his heart through the heavenly image impressed
upon it, that even in his youth, and in the age of the passions, I
preserved him pure in thought and in action;[28] whatever of good or
great ever stirred within his breast, he derives from her and from me.
From the contemplation of virtue, sweetness, and beauty, in the
gracious countenance of her he loved, I led him upwards to the adoration
of the first Great Cause, the fountain of all that is beautiful and
excellent;--hath he not himself confessed it? And this fair creature,
whom I gave him to be the honour, and delight, and prop of his frail
life"--
Here the sense is suddenly broken off in the middle of a line. Petrarch
utters a cry of horror, and exclaims--"Yes, you gave her to me, but you
have also taken her from me!"
Love replies with sweet austerity--"Not I--but HE--the eternal One--who
hath willed it so!"
After this, it will be allowed, I think, that it is to Laura we owe
Petrarch; and that if the recompense she bestowed on him was not exactly
that which he sought,--yet in fame, in greatness, in virtue, and in
happiness, she well and richly repaid the adoration he lavished at her
feet, and the glorious wreath of song with which he has circled her
brows!
FOOTNOTES:
[22] See Pursuits of Literature.
[23] In a private letter of Petrarch to the Bishop of Lombes, occurs the
following passage--(the Bishop, it appears, had rallied him on the
subject of his attachment.) "Would to God that my Laura were indeed but
an imaginary person, and my passion for her but sport!--Alas! it is
rather a madness!--hard would it have been, and painful, to feign so
long a time--and what extravagance to play such a farce in the world!
No! we may counterfeit the action and voice of a sick man, but not the
paleness and wasted looks of the sufferer; and how often have you
witnessed both in me!"--SADE, vol. i. p. 281.
[24] Quoted by Foscolo.
[25] Canz. xv. Son. 10.
[26] See Son. 37, 38, &c.
[27] Foscolo remarks the restless spirit which all his life drove
Petrarch, like a perturbed spirit, from one residence to another.
[28] Here Petrarch seems to have forgotten himself; he was not _always_
immaculate.