Chapter VII: Petrarch's Confessions

Est autem aliqua propositi mei ratio. Earn enim quam his
sperare licet gloriam, his quoque manenti quaerendam
esse persuadeo ipse mihi. Illa maiore in coelo fruendum
erit, quo qui pervenerit hanc terrenam ne cogitare quidem
velit. Itaque istum esse ordinem ut mortalium rerum inter
mortales prima sit cura: transitoriis aeterna succedant:
quod ex his ad illa sit ordinatissimus progressus.
_Secretum_, in Ed. of 1496, _Colloquium tertii diei_, k
(the pages are unnumbered).

The art of self-revelation is no easy one to acquire and when acquired it must be practiced with circumspection. It is however possible to talk of oneself with good grace and to get others to listen. Indeed a man's opinion of himself--if only we can come at it--is rarely indifferent to us. We have an almost morbid anxiety to know what others think of themselves, if only they can and will tell us. We all like to take our turn behind the grating of the confessional. Artistic confessing is essentially a very modern accomplishment. While the nineteenth century furnishes us many charming examples, the instances of satisfactory self-exposure before Rousseau's unblushing success are really rare. Probably Augustine is the first name that will occur to us. Job's case and that of the far more ancient Egyptian who has left his weary reflection on life are hardly in point. The Greek and Roman writers have left us plenty of comments on the inner life, but no one tells us his own individual intimate story, unless it be Marcus Aurelius. In the Middle Ages Peter Damianus, Abelard and Héloïse, and others shed abundant tears over their evil thoughts, without however giving us any complete pictures of their varied emotions and ambitions. Nor does Dante succeed in doing this; although he may be dimly seen through a mist of allegory. Petrarch's _Secret_ is the earliest unmistakable example of cool, fair, honest and comprehensive self-analysis that we possess.

Few have suffered more keenly than Petrarch from a troublesome form of self-consciousness. He was, as we have seen, ever concerned with his conduct, ever fearful lest his high pursuits were vain, if not unequivocally wicked. He was half-ashamed of his noblest sentiments; even his popularity disturbed him.

. . . . . . . . onde sovente
Di me medesmo meco mi vergogno.

His love for Laura long tormented his conscience: he even doubted whether his craving for literary fame were not a fatal propensity which might endanger his eternal welfare.

With a view of getting clearly before himself all the questions which were constantly harassing him he prepared an imaginary dialogue, suggesting somewhat Boethius's _Consolation of Philosophy_, in order to do full justice to the claims of each and all of his conflicting desires and emotions.

One day, he tells us, as he was meditating upon the confused mysteries of life, there appeared before him a wondrous Lady, whom, after his eyes had recovered from the dazzling light about her, he recognised as Truth. With her came a venerable person of profoundly religious mien, in whom Petrarch immediately discovered his favorite ghostly comforter, Saint Augustine. The Lady, having perceived the straits in which the poet was, had taken pity on him in his moral illness and had brought with her her cherished devotee, to whom she now commends him.

Having all retired to a secluded spot, they join in a consultation, which was prolonged during three days. Much was said of the evils of the age and of mortal perversity in general, but the discussion of his own sins made the deepest impression upon Petrarch. "And lest this friendly conference should fade from my mind," he says, "I resolved to write it down and have filled this little book with it. Not that I would wish it to be reckoned with my other works, nor do I write it for fame's sake (I am now dealing with higher matters), but solely in order that I may revive at will the delight which I then derived from our converse. Therefore, little book, thou wilt avoid the intercourse of men and wilt contentedly abide with me, not forgetful of thy name: for thou art 'My Secret' and so thou shalt be called."

* * * * *

The Confessions are, as their author tells us, not very voluminous--less than 30,000 words. They consist of the three dialogues that took place upon the three successive days; the conversation is spirited and natural throughout and infinitely superior to the pseudo-dialogues of the better known _Remedies for both Good and Evil Fortune_ by the same author. We have no means of determining exactly when the Confessions were written. As Petrarch was accustomed to revise his work over and over again, it is probable that several years elapsed after the plan was once conceived before the little book received the finishing touches. There is, however, sufficient internal and external evidence to indicate that the work was written between the years 1342 and 1353; that is, at a time when its author's literary powers may be assumed to have been at their height. He must have been about thirty-eight years old when he began it, and had perhaps reached his fiftieth birthday before he laid it aside in the form that it has come down to us. In the printed editions the Confessions are called _De Contemptu Mundi_, a title that is at once misleading and unsupported by Petrarch's own authority. A much more pertinent heading is found in most of the manuscripts, namely, _De secreto Conflictu curarum suarum_,--the inward struggle between the monastic and secular ideals of life.[1]

It would be a grave misapprehension to suppose that the dialogue does not reflect a very real contradiction in the soul of the writer. No careful reader can fail to see in it the bitterness of a spirit at odds with itself. Indeed its whole significance lies in the sturdy and heartfelt defence of the intrinsic virtue of the more noble temporal ambitions, especially those of a man of letters, against the deadening suggestions of monasticism. The dialogues were written after Petrarch had outgrown his youthful unquestioning exuberance and before he had reached the philosophic calm of his later years. Even if he gives way, often reluctantly indeed and doubtfully, before Augustine's reasoning, his habitual conduct and his attitude of mind in old age prove that he was not vanquished. In the long run, the modern, or, if you will, the classical, spirit was destined to prevail, as we shall later see.

In this three-days' conference the first two days are devoted to the nature and cause of man's earthly misery, and its cure. "You remember," Augustine inquires, "that you are mortal?" Francesco replies that he not only remembers it but that the thought never fails to fill him with a certain horror. "If this be so it is well," his Confessor rejoins, "it will much lighten my duties; for it is certainly true that nothing is so efficacious against the seductions of this life and so potent to strengthen the soul amid the tempests of the world as the recollection of our own misery and meditation upon death; but this thought should produce no light and fleeting impression; it must sink into our very bones and marrow. I very much fear that in this respect, as in many other ways that I have observed, you deceive yourself."

Francesco replies that he does not think the remedy for human misery so simple as that suggested by Augustine, but admits that he does not altogether understand his reasoning. "I thought you had a better-developed mind," Augustine sharply rejoins; "it had not occurred to me that we should have to go back to first principles. Had you committed to memory the truths and salutary injunctions of the philosophers which you have often encountered in my works, and (if you will permit me to say it) had you laboured for yourself rather than for others and made the result of so much reading the rule of your life instead of an idle boast to gain the empty plaudits of the common herd, you would not be guilty of such crude and silly utterances."

No one is unhappy or can become so except voluntarily, Augustine continues. Cicero and the other philosophers amply prove that only that which is opposed to virtue can make us truly unhappy. "I remember," Francesco replies, "that these are the doctrines of the Stoics, but they are opposed to popular belief, and are better in theory than in practice (_veritati propinquiora quam usui_)." All vice begins voluntarily, he admits, yet he has seen many a man, himself included, who would gladly throw off the yoke of sin but who tries to do so in vain. In spite of the Stoics' cold comfort they remain the miserable victims of evil their lives long. He does not deceive himself as to the serious nature of his condition; on the contrary, he sheds many a bitter tear but finds no relief. Augustine replies that he himself experienced the same trials at the time of his own conversion, his account of which is doubtless familiar to Petrarch. The fundamental difficulty lies in our indifference to spiritual liberty. We do not, as Petrarch readily agrees, really desire to be free from our sins.

"No one can be dominated absolutely by this desire unless he puts an end to all other desires; for you well know how many and various are the objects of our wishes in life, all of which must come to be reckoned of no value if one would rise to the true yearning for the highest happiness.... Who is there indeed who could succeed in extinguishing all his desires,--it would be a long task even to enumerate them, to say nothing of conquering them,--in order that he might some day hope to guide his soul by the reins of reason, and dare to say 'I have nothing in common with the body; all that once seemed pleasing has become vile in my sight: I aspire to higher things,'" Such an one is rare enough, Francesco concedes. "But what in your opinion," he asks, "must we do in order that we may cast off our earthly shackles and rise to heaven?"

The problem has now been enunciated. Let us see what is the solution which the "First Modern" accepts in the heyday of his life and success. He admits the inefficacy of Cicero's admonitions. Of the Bible he says little or nothing. Virgil's words, not David's or Paul's, come to his mind in the depths of his perplexity. The dialogue continues as follows:

_Augustine_. We have now reached the point toward which I
have been guiding you. It is that form of meditation (on
Death) that we mentioned at the beginning, coupled with
an ever-present consciousness of our mortality, which
produces the desired result.

_Francesco_. Unless I am again misled, no one has oftener
been preoccupied by these thoughts than I.

_Augustine_. Alas, here is a new task for me.

_Francesco_. What? I am not lying?

_Augustine_. I prefer to express myself more politely.

_Francesco_. But that is your meaning.

_Augustine_. Assuredly.

_Francesco_. Then I do not think of death?

_Augustine_. Very rarely, and then so indolently that
the thought cannot penetrate into the depths of your
perversity.

_Francesco_. I had thought otherwise.

_Augustine_. You should look not to what you thought but
to what you should have thought.

The Confessor explains that he does not refer to the general recognition of the possibility of death as a distant contingency or even of its imminence as illustrated by the death of those who fall about us. We can hope for no advantage except we vividly reproduce its physical and spiritual horrors. He then enters upon a concise description of the physical accompaniments of dissolution in its most distressing forms, with the painful minuteness which we might expect in a treatise upon epilepsy. He dwells upon the advantage of exposing the bodies of the dead to the view of those earnestly struggling toward spiritual enfranchisement, and upon the salutary and permanent impressions that come from witnessing the preparation of the corpse for burial. In this way the trite idea of our mortality may become vivid and life-giving.

Francesco readily assents to Augustine's reasoning, for he recognises in it much that he habitually turns over in his own mind. He asks, however, for some sure sign by which he can determine whether his ascetic meditations are doing their work, or whether he is deceiving himself by false appearances instead of walking in the path of virtue. Augustine explains accordingly that so long as we do not become literally pale and rigid with the very thought of death our labours are vain.

The soul must leave the members and stand before the judgment seat of eternity about to render an exact account of the words and deeds of its whole past life. It places no hope in bodily beauty or the applause of the world, in eloquence, riches, or power; the judge cannot be corrupted or deceived. Death may not be placated, nor is it the end of torments but only a step toward worse things. "Let the soul sink to Hell itself, _inter mille suppliciorum, mille tortorum genera, et stridor et gemitus Averni et sulphurei amnes et tenebrae et ultrices furiae_." If you can bring all these before your eyes at once, not as mere imaginings, but as necessary, inevitable, nay as already upon you, and yet not yield to despair but abide strong in the faith that God can reach out his hand to snatch you from these horrors, you show yourself curable. Anxious to rise and tenacious of purpose you will go forth with confidence and may know that you have not meditated in vain.

This spiritual exercise appears to have been an habitual one with Petrarch, but, as is not unnatural, he was disappointed in its results.

When I dispose my body like that of a dying person, and bring vividly before me the hour of death and all the attendant terrors that the mind can conjure up, so that I seem to be in the very agony of dissolution, I sometimes behold Tartarus and all the terrors you depict and am so afflicted by the vision that I arise terrified and trembling, and to the horror of those about me I break forth in the words, "Alas how shall I escape these sufferings? What is to be the end of my woes? Jesus, help me!..."

I rave like a madman and talk to myself, as my distracted and terrified intellect is driven this way and that. I address my friends, and my own tears force tears from them. Yet I return to my old ways when my burst of weeping is once past. What holds me back in spite of these experiences? What hidden impediment has rendered these meditations up to the present only a source of pain and terror? I am still exactly what I was before, and what those are to whom nothing of this kind perhaps ever happened in their life. I am indeed more miserable than they in one respect, for whatever may be the outcome, they at least rejoice in the pleasure of the present while I, uncertain of the end, experience no joy that is not embittered by the reflections of which I have spoken.

Against such a sentiment Augustine naturally protests, but somewhat weakly; and Petrarch firmly maintains that the worldly man is the better off.

At the close of this first dialogue Petrarch gives a brief analysis of his character which displays his profound self-knowledge. Augustine declares that Francesco's spiritual welfare is threatened by his want of concentration and by the multitude and variety of conflicting purposes which oppress his weak mind. He has not the strength or time to accomplish half of what he lightly undertakes. "So it comes to pass," Augustine continues," "that, as many things brought into a narrow space are sure to interfere with one another, so your mind is too choked up for anything useful to take root or grow. You have no settled plan, but are turned hither and thither in an amazing whirl; your energies are never concentrated: you are never wholly yourself."

The dialogue on the second day opens with a critical examination by Augustine of the main sources of Francesco's pride and self-complacency. This is, at bottom, as we shall see, a confession of Petrarch's own misgivings that his literary ambitions are vain and hopeless. Augustine declares that Francesco is distracted by the phantoms and idle anxieties of ambition, which are especially likely to drag down the more noble spirits to their ruin; and that it is high time to endeavour to save him from such a fate. It is easy to prove how trivial are the advantages that have aroused his pride.

You trust to your intellectual powers and your reading
of many books; you glory in the beauty of your language
and take delight in the comeliness of your mortal frame.
But do you not perceive in how many respects your powers
have disappointed you, in how many ways your skill does
not equal that of the obscurest of mankind, not to speak
of weak and lowly animals whose works no effort on your
part could possibly imitate? Exult then if you can in your
abilities! And your reading, what does it profit you? From
the mass that you have read how much sticks in your mind,
how much takes root and brings forth fruit in its season?
Examine your mind carefully and you will find that all
you know, if compared with your ignorance, would bear to
it the same relation as that borne to the ocean by a tiny
brook, shrunk by the summer heats.

Man may know much of heaven and earth, of the courses of the stars, the virtues of herbs and stones and the secrets of nature, and still be ignorant of himself. He may be familiar with all the deeds of illustrious men in the past, but not heed his own conduct.

What shall I say of your eloquence [Augustine continues],
except what you yourself confess? Has not your reliance
on it often proved vain? Your hearers may perhaps have
applauded what you said, but what advantage is that, if
you yourself condemn your words? Although the applause of
the auditors seems the natural fruit of eloquence, not
to be despised, yet if the inward applause of the orator
himself be wanting, how little gratification can the
cheers of the crowd afford!

Then follows a very interesting digression upon the poverty of language. Words are often wanting worthily to express the commonest of our daily experiences. How many things about us have no names at all! How many that have names can never be adequately described by human speech! "How often have I heard you bitterly complain and seen you silent and dejected, because thoughts that were perfectly clear and easily understood in the mind, could not be fully expressed by tongue or pen." This leads to a discussion of the asserted superiority of Greek over Latin in respect to the richness of its vocabulary, and of the opinions of Cicero and Seneca. Augustine concludes with his own conviction that both languages are poor.

Petrarch was far too gifted a scholar not to recognise the limitations of language. In the little guide-book which he once prepared for a friend who was planning to visit the Holy Land, he speaks again of his inability to describe the beauties of nature. He felt the same discouragements that the conscientious student feels to-day, although his field of knowledge seems to us hopefully limited and well-defined.

Francesco refutes Augustine's accusations with some warmth:

You say that I rely upon my abilities, although I
certainly discover no indication of genius in myself,
unless it be the fact that I place no faith in possessing
it. My reading of books, moreover, is not a source of
pride, since it has brought me little knowledge and new
causes of anxiety. I strive, you say, to gain fame by my
style, and yet, as you yourself mentioned, nothing so
vexes me as that my words are inadequate to reproduce
my conceptions. You know, unless you are merely aiming
to try me, that I have always been conscious of my
insignificance; and if I have sometimes thought otherwise,
it was due to a consideration of the ignorance of others.
It has happened to me, as I am accustomed often to repeat,
that according to the well-known saying of Cicero, we
shine rather by the obscurity of others than by our own
brightness.

Augustine sees in this the most noxious kind of pride, and says that he would prefer that Francesco should frankly overrate himself rather than that he should assume a haughty humility through despising everyone else.

Augustine charges Petrarch with worldliness and avarice, which will be sure to grow stronger as he gets older. He once delighted in the country and its simplicity, but the life in the city has made him sordid and grasping. Francesco admits that he dreads the thought of poverty during his declining years. His demands are modest and legitimate; his daily bread and a book or two are all he asks. Like Horace, his only object is _nec turpem senectam degere, nec cythera carentem_. Augustine acquits Francesco at least of any tendency to over-indulgence in food and drink, and approves of his friends, who, he has observed, are both sober and dignified in their deportment.

Purity is then spoken of. Francesco admits that he has sometimes wished himself a senseless stone. He has made a desperate struggle to free himself from the bonds of sensuality, but he has not been wholly successful.

Augustine now startles Francesco by the abrupt statement that the worst is still to come. The most serious spiritual disease has not yet been mentioned.

_Augustine_. You suffer from a certain dismal malady of
the mind that the moderns call _acedia_ and which the
ancients termed _aegritudo._

_Francesco_. The very name of the disease fills me with
horror.

_Augustine_. No wonder, for you have long been grievously
vexed by it.

_Francesco_. I admit it; and it is because there is after
all a certain admixture of sweetness, however false,
in almost all the other things that torment me. When I
am in this sad state everything is bitter, wretched,
terrible, the road to desperation opens before me and
I behold all those things which may drive an unhappy
soul to destruction. The attacks of my other passions,
if frequent, are short and fleeting, but this plague
sometimes holds me with such persistence that it binds
and tortures me for days and nights together. Light and
life are blotted out and I seem plunged in Tartarean gloom
and the bitterness of death. But nevertheless, as the
culmination of my miseries, I feast upon the very pangs
and throes of my anguish with a certain confined pleasure,
so that I am reluctant to be torn from them.

_Augustine_. You seem to know your disease well; We will
now look to the cause. Say on; what is it that so saddens
you--some adversity in your worldly affairs, bodily pain,
or some stroke of ill fortune?

_Francesco_. Not any one of these. If I were engaged in
single combat I should certainly hold my own. But as it is
I am overwhelmed by an army.

Affliction after affliction has attacked him in rapid succession. He has finally been forced to take refuge in the stronghold of reason. There his ills lay siege to him and receiving constant reënforcements they set up their battering-rams and mine the walls. The turrets tremble and the scaling ladders are in place, and he sees the glittering swords and the threatening visages of his enemies appearing above the wall. "Who would not be filled with terror and bewail his fate, even if the enemy withdrew for the moment? Liberty is gone, the saddest of losses to the stout-hearted." Augustine finds this figurative language a little vague and confused but thinks that he understands Petrarch's case. He accuses him of mourning over misfortunes long past. "No," Francesco exclaims; "on the contrary, none of my wounds are old enough to be forgotten; those that afflict me are all recent, and lest perchance any one of them might be healed by time, Fortune takes care to strike me often in the same spot, so that the gaping wound may never cicatrise. Add to these troubles a hate and contempt for the human estate itself and I can not be otherwise than sad and dejected when oppressed by all these woes. I by no means exaggerate this _acedia_, or _aegritudo_, or whatever you choose to call it; my description exactly corresponds to the facts."

We must not allow ourselves to be misled by Petrarch's use of the word _acedia_, which is really quite inapplicable to his trouble. The term is a common one among mediæval writers and appears in the catalogue of the seven mortal sins. It is sometimes inadequately rendered as "sloth," but it appears to have been loosely applied to all varieties of depression and inertia, whether physical or moral. In the case of monks it might take the form of a natural reaction which followed the first enthusiasm of leaving the world and beginning a religious life. Even the most earnest, Saint Jerome says, were sometimes plunged into melancholy by the dampness of their cells, the loneliness and excessive fasts that made up their lives. For such troubles, he dryly adds, the fomentations of Hippocrates would be more in place than our admonitions. A twelfth century theologian says, "_Acedia_ fears to undertake anything great, and soon wearies of what it once begins. Everything seems a burden and an obstacle to it, and nothing is light or easy." Dante found those guilty of _acedia_ fixed in the slime of the sixth circle of hell, and they said to him: "Sullen were we in the sweet air that by the sun is gladdened, bearing within ourselves the sluggish fume."

But this surely was not Petrarch's trouble. No one was ever more prone to conceive new and noble enterprises, or more patient and conscientious in their execution. He was as far removed from such intellectual apathy as from the vulgar physical laziness which the monkish chroniclers sometimes comprehend under the name _acedia_, and which took the form of a notable reluctance to leave a warm bed for the chilly morning service. We may then assume that Petrarch uses the word in the very general sense of bodily depression, discouragement, and intellectual misgiving, without any reference to its usage among theologians and monks.[2]

The Confessor pronounces the case to be one demanding radical treatment. "What," he asks, "seems to you the worst of all these troubles?"

_Francesco_. What I happen first to see, hear or think of.

_Augustine_. There is then almost nothing which gives you
any satisfaction?

_Francesco_. Little or nothing.

_Augustine_. Would that you enjoyed at least the more
salutary things of life. But what displeases you most?
Tell me, I beg of you.

_Francesco_. I've already answered you.

_Augustine_. This _acedia_ then, as I call it, affects
everything; everything connected with yourself disgusts
you?

_Francesco_. And not less everything that has to do with
others.

Fortune has not been simply niggardly in her treatment of him but bitterly unjust, disdainful, and cruel. He rejects any comfort which might come from considering the destitution that he sees among the still less fortunate. He claims that he is not unreasonable in his demands.

I take it hard that no one with whom I am acquainted among
my contemporaries has been more modest in his claims than
I, and yet no one has found it more difficult to reach
his end. I never have longed for the highest place. I
call to witness Him who knows my thoughts as He knows all
things else, that I have never supposed that the peace and
tranquillity of mind, which I believe are to be esteemed
above all other things, are to be found in acme of
fortune. Hence, as I have always abhorred a life filled
with care and anxiety, a middle station has, in my sober
judgment, ever seemed the best, ... and yet, to my sorrow,
I have never been able to gratify so moderate a desire. I
am always in doubt as to the future, always in suspense.
I find no pleasure in the favours of fortune, for, as you
see, up to the present I live dependent on others, which
is the worst of all. God grant that it may come about,
even in the extreme of old age, that one who has all his
life been tossed about on a stormy sea, shall at least die
in port.

Petrarch has often been criticised for his subserviency to the princes of his time, upon whom he seems to have depended for support, so far as his revenue from several minor preferments in the Church failed to satisfy his needs. He loved independence, however, and the concessions that were necessary in order to maintain the favour of his patrons evidently galled him, as is shown by the passage just cited. Augustine comforts him with the assurance that it is given to very few indeed to be absolutely independent. Philosophical resignation can alone bring freedom and true wealth.

In answer to Augustine's question whether he suffered from bodily weakness, Francesco admits that his body, if a bit troublesome at times, is very tractable as compared with many of those he sees about him. He refuses with propriety to enumerate his physical disabilities.

The life in a city was a constant source of irritation to the sensitive man of letters. "Who could adequately express my weariness of life," he exclaims, "and the daily loathing for this sad distracted world and for the low, degraded dregs of humanity, given over to all manner of uncleanness, that fill it! Who can find words to describe the sickening disgust aroused by the stinking alleys full of howling curs and filthy hogs, the din of the passing wheels which shake the very walls, the crooked ways blocked by carts, the confused mass of passers-by, the revolting crowd of beggars and cut-purses!" "Add to these distractions," Petrarch characteristically continues, "the conflicting aims, the bewildering variety of occupations, the confused clamour of voices, and the bitter rivalry of interests among the people; these combine to wear out a spirit accustomed to happier surroundings, destroy the peace of generous minds, and prevent attention to higher things."

His Confessor reminds him, however, that he has chosen of his own free will to live in town and may easily retire to the country if he wishes. On the other hand he may so accustom himself in time to the sounds of the city that, far from distracting him, they may become as grateful to his ears as the roar of a waterfall. "If," Augustine continues, "you could but succeed in quieting the inward tumult of your mind, the uproar about you might indeed strike your senses, but could not affect the soul."

He farther recommends the careful perusal of Seneca, and especially of Cicero's _Tusculan Disputations:_

_Francesco_. You should be aware that I have already read
these carefully.

_Augustine_. And have they not profited you?

_Francesco_. Nay, when one reads a great deal, no sooner
is a book laid down than its effect ceases.

_Augustine_. The common fate of readers, which produces
those accursed monstrosities, able to read indeed, but
forming a disgraceful, unstable band who dispute much in
the schools on the art of living but put few of their
principles to the test.

Petrarch was urged to make notes, as was indeed his invariable habit, at those passages in his reading which were likely to prove most useful for moral support and stimulus. These notes served as hooks by which the memory might cling to thoughts that would otherwise escape it. With such reënforcement he might face with complacency all his ills, even the heaviness of heart that he describes.

Petrarch, it may be added, believed that he derived a double benefit from the classical authors, upon whom he depended for moral strength and solace. There were, of course, the numerous precepts to be found in the writings of Cicero, Horace, and Seneca, which might be taken quite literally. In Virgil, however, as is well known, he espied a deeper, allegorical, meaning below the surface. In the famous description of a storm in the first book of the _Æneid_ he sees in Æolus, for example, reason controlling the unruly passions that are ready to carry away heaven and earth if their master relaxes his vigilance. Petrarch was, however, a scholar of too great insight not to suspect that Virgil perhaps had no such moral end in view. Augustine, in a passage that ought to be considered in any discussion of Petrarch's view of allegory, says: "I commend these secrets of poetical narration in which I see you abound, whether Virgil himself thought of them when he wrote, or whether, far removed from such considerations, he simply intended in these verses to describe a storm at sea and nothing more."

Important as are the first two dialogues for the light they shed upon the poet's inner life, his motives and doubts, the interest of the Confessions culminates perhaps in the conversation of the third and last day, during which Petrarch's love for Laura and his longing for fame are considered.

Of the woman who is the theme of nearly all of Petrarch's Italian lyrics we know almost nothing. There is the memorable record of her death on the fly-leaf of her lovers favourite copy of Virgil, and two or three more or less vague references to his passion for her in his voluminous prose correspondence. In a Latin metrical epistle he has something to say of the matter to his friend Giacomo Colonna. The Confessions, however, afford us the clearest picture of the lover turned philosopher, and no one can read them without understanding the Italian sonnets better and grasping more clearly a fundamental contrast between the mediæval and modern theory of life.[3]

One of the most serious of Petrarch's earlier moral conflicts was that waged in his bosom between the monk and the lover. He was forced, if he would find rest, to reconcile, or decide between, the mediæval ecclesiastical and the modern secular conception of man's love for woman. By the ecclesiastical or monkish view of love is meant, of course, the belief in its essential depravity and inherent sinfulness, quite regardless of the particular relations between the lover and his beloved. Petrarch, although quite averse to theology, held some of the great Church Fathers, especially Augustine, in high esteem, and their doctrines of the close association of sexual love and original sin were familiar to him. He was, moreover, a priest himself and a devout adherent of the traditional faith of his Church. On the other hand he knew his classics well, and loved and revered the authors of antiquity to whom love was no sin. He revolted by nature against the theory that the deep and permanent fascination which woman exercises over man is devilish in its origin, as was taught by the mediæval preachers and illustrated by many a coarse and licentious tale; and in the dialogue, to which we now turn, he hotly defends the higher and purer conception of his affection. His veneration for Augustine, who consistently maintains the debasing nature of earthly love is, however, too profound to permit him in the end to repudiate altogether the teachings of asceticism.

To return to the dialogue. Augustine would finally strike off two golden manacles, love and fame, whose specious glitter so dazzles the poor captive that he reckons them his most precious possessions. None of his aspirations have ever seemed to him more noble than the very ones Augustine now reproaches him for. "What have I done to you," Francesco indignantly asks, "that you should seek to deprive me of my most glorious preoccupations and condemn to perpetual night the brightest portions of my soul?" It seems to him that his Confessor is indiscriminately condemning two quite different things when he declares love to be the maddest of all forms of madness. If love is sometimes the lowest form of passion it may also be the noblest activity of the soul. He can imagine nothing happier than the attraction which a truly noble woman has exercised over him. He has never loved aught but the beautiful, and if he is mistaken in his conception of love he prefers to remain so. To Augustine's ready objection that one may love even the beautiful shamefully, he replies, with ill-timed levity, that he has sinned neither in noun nor adverb and that Augustine must prove him to be ill before he tries his remedies, since physic has often undone a well man.

Augustine expresses his frank astonishment that a person of such parts should have allowed himself to be deceived by false blandishments during no less than sixteen years past. His lady's eyes will, however, one day be closed by death, then the lover will recall with shame his infatuation for the poor perishable body. Sickness and successive trials have already told upon her, and her lovely person has lost much of its pristine vigour. He does not question her virtues. He will grant that she is a queen, a saint, a goddess,--Phoebus's own sister, if her lover will have it so. Her supreme qualities, however, furnish no excuse for Francesco's errors. Obviously the most virtuous may be the object of an unworthy passion.

One thing at least I will say [Francesco exclaims],
whatever I have achieved is due to her. I should never
have been what I am, if there be any distinction or glory
in that, had not the scattered seeds of virtue, which
nature implanted in this breast, been cultivated by her
through my noble attachment. She restrained my youthful
spirit from every shameful act;... she led me to look
toward higher things. Is it wonderful [he continues], that
her noble fame has provoked in me a longing for a like
reputation and has lightened the strenuous effort with
which I pursued my object? How could I have done better
in my youthful days than to please her who alone pleased
me? For I cast aside a thousand seductions of pleasure in
order to take up the serious tasks of life before my time.
You know this well and yet you command me to forget, or
love in only a half-hearted fashion, her who separated me
from the vulgar company and guided me in all my chosen
paths, stimulating my sluggish nature and rousing my dull
intellect.[4]

To all this Augustine has two objections. In the first place, although Francesco's love may have saved him from minor errors, his anxiety for fame, which he attributes to it, has put him on the shortest road to spiritual death. In the second place, it is vain for him to maintain that he loves chiefly the soul; that he would have loved her spirit in even "a foul and knotty body (_in squalido et nodoso corpore_)," for he has but to interrogate the past to see that he has steadily degenerated since first he met his lady. She, indeed, has done all she could to keep him right. In spite of his prayers and allurements she maintained her womanly integrity, and although their ages and circumstances would have shaken the stoutest resolutions, she remained firm and unapproachable. In his effort to absolve and exalt her Petrarch of course condemns himself, and so justifies Augustine's contention. Love, in spite of our illusions about it, is but a passion for temporal things, and nothing so surely separates man from God. Let Francesco consider its pestiferous effects in his own case; how, suddenly, his life was dissolved in tears and sighs, how he spent sleepless nights with the name of the beloved ever on his lips; how he despised his usual pursuits, hated life, fled his fellow-beings and longed for sad death. Wasted and pale and restless, his eyes ever moist, his mind confused, his voice weak and hoarse,--no more miserable and distracted creature could be imagined.

Not contented with her living face [Augustine continues],
you must forsooth seek out a famous painter,[5] in order
that you might carry about her image, fearful lest your
tears might otherwise cease. And to cap your follies
you showed yourself as completely captivated with the
splendour of her name as with that of her person, and
cherished with incredible levity everything that sounded
like it. And this is the reason you so ardently desired
the Imperial or poet's laurel [_laurea_], for that was her
name, and from the moment you first met her hardly a song
has escaped you without mention of the laurel. Finally,
since you could not hope for the Imperial you set your
heart upon the poet's crown, of which the distinction
of your learning held out a promise. And you loved and
longed for that with as little modesty as you had longed
for Lady Laura herself.

Francesco would object that he began his poetical studies before he knew Laura, and had coveted the laurel chaplet from boyhood, and that without the inspiration of her name he would scarcely have overcome the many obstacles which stood between him and his coronation at Rome. This, his Confessor declares, is but one of the excuses which passion always finds; it is unworthy of a serious answer. The miserable results of love have been sufficiently illustrated, of which the chief is that it separates us from God and things divine, for how can a soul bent under the burden of such evils drag itself to the one pure fountain of true good?

"I am worsted," Francesco exclaims,--_Victus sum fateor_--"all these ills which you have depicted are, I perceive, but excerpts from my own book of experience. What am I to do?"

It is needless for Augustine to say that the subject of the remedies of love has been treated by famous philosophers and poets; there are whole books on the question. It would, too, be an insult to one who professes himself a master of ancient literature to indicate to him where these works may be found.

Cicero's suggestion, and Ovid's, that an old passion may be driven out by a new one, _tanquam clavum clavo_, is not without its dangers, and, moreover, Francesco asserts that he can never love another than Laura. Then let him seek distraction in travel. Francesco replies that he has tried this resource repeatedly; while he has assigned various motives for his endless wanderings and his frequent sojourns in the country, liberty was always his real object. He had sought it far and wide but in vain, for he always carried his trouble with him. Augustine admits that a previous change of heart is after all indispensable. He would, nevertheless better leave Avignon at least and betake himself to his Italy, whose skies and hills exercise over him an unrivalled fascination. He has too long been an exile from his country and himself.

"Have you looked into your mirror lately?" Augustine abruptly asks. "Does not your face change from day to day? Are there not already scattered grey hairs about your temples?" Francesco has noted these, but he sees the same thing when he looks at those of the same age about him. He does not know why people grow old sooner than they once did. Here Petrarch characteristically mentions a few instances of early grey hairs among the ancients. Augustine regards these examples as worse than irrelevant and as tending to lead one to disregard the signs of approaching death. He says impatiently that if he had referred to baldness, doubtless Francesco would have instanced Julius Cæsar. Of course he would have mentioned Cæsar, Petrarch replies; and if he had but one eye, he would take pleasure in recalling Hannibal and Philip of Macedon. He uses these examples, like his household furniture, to afford him simple daily comfort. "Had you upbraided me for being afraid of thunder, since I could not deny that I was, I should have replied that Augustus Cæsar suffered from the same trouble. Indeed, herein lies by no means the least important reason for my cherishing the laurel, which they say is never struck by lightning."

Consider, Augustine urges in conclusion, not only the uncertainty of life and the imminence of death.

Think shame to yourself that you are pointed at and have
become a subject of gossip with the common herd. Think
how ill your morals harmonise with your profession. Think
how your mistress has injured you in soul, body, and
estate. Consider how much you have needlessly suffered
for her sake. Think how often you have been deluded,
despised, and neglected; what blandishments, tears, and
lamentations you have poured out, and of the haughty,
ungrateful arrogance with which she received them. If
there was the least indication of humanity in her conduct,
how trifling it was, more fleeting than the summer
breeze. Consider how you have added to her fame and what
she has taken from your life; how anxious you have been
for her good name, how careless of your welfare she has
always shown herself. Think how through her you have been
alienated from the love of God.... Consider the useful
and honourable tasks which you have so long neglected,
the many incomplete works which lie before you and which
demand your whole energy, not merely the odd moments which
your passion leaves free.... If the honour of true glory
does not attract you nor ignominy deter you, let the shame
of others induce you to make a change in your life. You
should guard your good name, if for no other reason, at
least to save your friends the disgrace of telling lies
for your sake.

Lastly, what is it that you long for so ardently? Consider
it intently, practically. Few there be who when once they
have imbibed the sweet poison of desire, really manfully,
I will not say consistently, dwell upon the foulness of
woman's person. Their minds consequently easily relapse,
under the pressure of nature, into the old habits. Forget
the past. Importune heaven with your prayers and permit
no day or night to pass without tearful supplication, for
perchance Omnipotence may take compassion upon you and
bring your trial to an end.[6]

Augustine now turns to Francesco's longing for fame, which, with his passion for Laura, is the most inveterate and uncontrollable of his moral disorders. This yearning beyond measure for glory among men and an undying name may block his way to true immortality. He has no more grievous fault, although he may have uglier ones. What is fame? Nothing whatever but the general talk of the multitude about one; it is but a breath and, what is worse, the breath of the crowd. "I know whom I am addressing," Augustine continues.

You ordinarily regard nothing as more disgusting than
the manners and doings of the common herd. What a want
of consistency that you should habitually condemn the
conduct of those whose chattering so delights you, nay
more, to whom you look for the very consummation of your
happiness! To what end are your unceasing labours, your
tireless vigils, and excessive attention to study? You may
answer that you are learning what will help you to live
better. But you long ago learned all that was necessary
for both life and death. You would, therefore, better
put the knowledge you have acquired into practice; better
try experience rather than laborious ratiocination, which
ever opens up new and inaccessible vistas; for there is
no end to vain research. Recollect farther that you have
given your attention to those things first and foremost
which might be expected to gratify the public, and have
sought to please them by a means especially distasteful to
yourself, namely, by picking out from this poet and that
historian such choice bits as might tickle the ears of
your listeners.

This accusation naturally irritates the scholar, who has from boyhood scorned anthologies and favourite quotations. He cannot deny, however, that he does sometimes store up for the benefit of his friends and associates choice passages which he meets with. Augustine proceeds:

Not content with this daily occupation, which, although it
took a great deal of time, promised you only a reputation
among your contemporaries, you conceived of a fame which
should reach posterity. Hence you undertook an historical
work, covering the period from King Romulus to the Emperor
Titus, a tremendous task requiring infinite patience
and labour. Then, before this was done, infatuated by
this craving for fame you set off on the wings of the
poet for Africa. Now you diligently devote yourself to
the several cantos of your poem by that name, without,
however, giving up the other tasks, and so your life is
divided into two great streams at least, not to speak of
innumerable undercurrents. Prodigal of your most precious
and irretrievable time, you write of others and forget
yourself. Who knows but death may snatch the weary pen
from your hand before either work is done?

The last source of apprehension is by no means new to Francesco.--He cannot bear to think of another laying hand to his _Africa_, and he confesses that in periods of bitter discouragement he has been on the point of burning the uncompleted manuscript. Augustine naturally recalls to him the melancholy truth that even if, granting the most favourable circumstances, he should succeed in producing a "rare and distinguished work," its fame could not reach far in time or space. Francesco impatiently asks to be spared the old trite reflections of the philosophers. "If you have anything better to urge, pray produce it; all this sounds very fine but I have never found that it helped me. I do not ask to be God and possess eternity and fill heaven and earth. Human glory is enough for me. I do long for that. I am a mortal and I desire only the mortal." To Augustine's horrified deprecation of such doctrine and his condemnation of the rashness of those who recklessly postpone their supreme interests to their last failing years, Francesco sturdily replies:

There is a certain justification for my plan of life.
It may be only glory that we seek here, but I persuade
myself that, so long as we remain here, that is right.
Another glory awaits us in heaven and he who reaches there
will not wish even to think of earthly fame. So this is
the natural order, that among mortals the care of things
mortal should come first; to the transitory will then
succeed the eternal; from the first to the second is the
natural progression.[7]

After this audacious and historically remarkable statement of the Humanists' creed, Francesco humbly asks if Augustine would have him forsake his studies altogether and lead an inglorious existence, or shall he pursue some middle course. His Confessor replies that we do not live inglorious lives although we follow, not fame but virtue; for true fame is but the shadow of virtue. "Throw off the burden of your proposed _Roman History_," Augustine exclaims, "lay aside your _Africa_, which cannot increase the fame of your Scipio or yourself.... Turn your thoughts upon Death! Let everything about you recall your pending fate. The heavens, the earth, and the sea all change; what chance that man, the weakest of creatures, should hold his own? Let the setting sun and the waning moon teach their lesson of mortality. Contemplate the graves of your friends. _Hoc iter est in patriam_."

Petrarch does not deny that this is wholesome advice, but he firmly refuses to give up his literary tasks, which he cannot with equanimity leave half done. He promises sedulously to die unto himself, and will hasten to complete his books in order to devote himself exclusively to religious contemplation. It will be seen that he found little to urge against Augustine's views, but that he nevertheless refused to follow his advice, except so far as he might do so without interfering with what he rightly considered his life's work.

So, without ability to defend completely the modern belief that earnest toil is presumably a far more rational preparation for death, than is a paralysing contemplation of its horrors, Petrarch still worked bravely on until the pen dropped from his hand. There is something noble and pathetic in this sturdy, unflagging industry in the face of the discomforting suggestions of monasticism. His life transcended and belied those ideals of his age from which in his less exuberant moments he was unable entirely to free himself.

1: The following analysis of the Confessions was published in the _Romanic Review_, vol. i., Nos. 3-4, 1910. Since its appearance a complete English version of the little work has appeared, _Petrarch's Secret_, translated by William H. Draper, London, 1911.

2: The classical term _aegritudo_ is scarcely more to the point than the mediæval expression. It is often used by Cicero in one of his _Tusculan Disputations_, but it is not the bitterness of spirit with which Petrarch suffered. Seneca's little work upon _Peace of Mind_ may, as Voigt has suggested, have influenced this portion of the Confessions. But while Petrarch resembled Seneca in more than one respect and was drawn to his writings by an obvious spiritual affinity, his personal experiences were far too genuine and spontaneous to require the example of another to bring them to light. No one can compare the Roman's treatise with the Confessions without quickly absolving Petrarch from any attempt consciously or unconsciously to imitate Seneca. Our conception of the nature of the poet's mental disquiet must be sought in the dialogue itself.

3: See above, p. 87 _sqq_. (...the horror of darkness...)

4: The same idea is expressed in the canzone beginning, Perchè la vita.

5: _I.e._ Simone Memrai. _Cf._ sonnet Per mirar.

6: See above, page 96, for reflections on Petrarch's attitude in this matter. (It is only by remembering...)

7: The original words of this paragraph are given above, p. 412. (Est autem aliqua propositi mei ratio...)