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## p. 11346 (#570) ##########################################
PETOFI
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## p. 11347 (#571) ##########################################
11347
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
(1823-1849)
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
IKE most of the Continental poets who rose to fame during
the first half of the nineteenth century, Petöfi brought to
the work of poetic creation the glow of a passionate pat-
riotism. As Leopardi put into song the dreams of a united Italy,
as Mickiewicz strengthened the proud heart of vanquished Poland,
and as Körner sang and died for the liberation of his fatherland, so
Petöfi fired the patriotism of Hungary, and found an unmarked grave
upon the battle-field of her liberties. No other singer of any land
has ever become in so intimate a sense the universal poet of his peo-
ple as this greatest of Hungarian bards. Burns holds in the hearts of
Scotchmen approximately the place that Petöfi has won in the affec-
tions of his ardent countrymen. But Petöfi means more to Hungary
than Burns to Scotland. He was not the poet only, but the popular
hero as well. His brilliant successes, his romantic career, his fascinat-
ing character, and his mysterious disappearance on the field of bat-
tle, before he had completed his twenty-seventh year, have thrown a
mystic glamour over his name. His career was meteoric though his
glory is permanent. He himself vanished like a wandering star, and
the spot where he fell no man knows. For years it was believed
that he still went up and down the land in disguise, and many false
Petöfis put forth poems under that charmed name. The report that
he had been captured by the Russians and exiled to Siberia caused
intense excitement, not in Hungary alone, but throughout Germany
and Austria. There can be little doubt, however, that he was buried
in the general trench with fellow patriots unnumbered and unknown.
Alexander Petöfi was born in the small village of Kis-Körös in
the early New Year's morning of 1823. In the veins of this intensely
national poet of Hungary there flowed not a drop of Hungarian
blood. His father, a well-to-do butcher, was a Serbian named Pe-
trovics; his mother was a Slovenian. His temperament and char-
acter, however, were entirely Hungarian. He was ashamed of the
Slavic sound of his family name, and both as actor and as poet
he assumed various appellations. His growing fame decided him to
adopt the name which he has immortalized, of Petöfi. His nature
## p. 11348 (#572) ##########################################
11348
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
was wild and wayward. He led a wanderer's life, and played many
rôles. He was student, actor, soldier, vagabond. It was the persist-
ent mistake of his life that, like Wilhelm Meister, he believed him-
self to be an actor, and through the most humiliating experiences he
clung to this error. In the midst, however, of his most sordid trials,
his efforts to attain self-culture were put forth with an unremitting
energy almost pathetic. In his knapsack he carried Shakespeare,
Schiller, and Homer. At the age of nineteen he had mastered the
most difficult metres of the ancients, and acquired a good knowledge
of the chief modern languages. In Paza, he formed with Jókai the
statesman and novelist, and Orlai the artist, an interesting circle.
Jókai gives an amusing account of the hallucinations which blinded
each of the three as to his special capability. Orlai, who has won
fame as a painter, believed himself a poet; the actor Petöfi de-
claimed his lines; while Jókai, believing himself an artist, furnished
the illustrations.
It was Vörösmarty, the senior poet of Hungary, who first recog-
nized Petöfi's genius and set it right. He was one of the editors
of the chief Hungarian magazine, the Athenæum, and here in 1842
appeared Petöfi's first poem. In 1844 a collection of the poems was
brought out in book form, and their instant and wide-spread success
justified Vörösmarty's judgment. The new poet was received with
universal acclaim, and developed a lyric productivity little less than
marvelous. He wrote several excellent village tales, a novel called
'The Hangman's Rope,' and two dramas which were failures. His
studies in foreign literatures bore fruit in numerous translations.
His version of Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus' has become a part of the
regular repertoire of the Hungarian stage. But it was in the 1775
lyric poems that Petöfi's true genius appeared. He was a poet in
the simplest purest sense, and thousands to whom his name was yet
unknown sang his songs at fair and festival. They seemed like the
spontaneous expression of the people themselves, who had waited for
their appointed mouthpiece. Faithfulness and naturalness distinguish
his poetry.
He was the first to free himself from the scholastic
formalism which had theretofore dominated Hungarian literature, and
so incurred at the hands of conservative criticism the charge of vul-
garity. What he did was to show that the simple, the childlike, and
the natural were compatible with the genuinely poetical. A shadow
of the spirit of Heine and Byron fell upon Petöfi's verse, but does
not characterize it; and to his personality attached the same fasci-
nating charm that they excited. His love adventures were manifold,
and many a fair maiden has been celebrated by exquisite poems, in
which no impure note is ever struck. Every poem bears the stamp
of actual experience and genuine feeling. In the simple language of
## p. 11349 (#573) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
11349
every-day life Petöfi has sung of the sorrows, the aspirations, the
loves, and the gayety of the Hungarian people; in his verse is the
passionate glow, the melancholy, and the humor of the race; it is
the purest expression of the national temperament and character.
Herman Grimm has not hesitated to declare that Petöfi ranks
"among the very greatest poets of all times and tongues. " It is a
singular fact that with all his superb lyric quality and musical lilt,
Petöfi had no ear or taste for music.
The year 1847 marked the culmination of the poet's happiness
and success. A richly printed edition of his collected poems ap-
peared, and their beauty in the mass silenced forever the voice of
adverse criticism. In that year he married, and in that year he
found the best friend of his life, the epic poet Arany. About the
laurel crown of the national poet were soon to be twined the oak
wreaths also of a national hero. The ideas which inspired the revo-
lution of 1849 were dimly foreshadowed in some of Petöfi's earlier
poems. To his efforts and to those of Jókai it was chiefly due that
the celebrated reform programme, with the twelve demands of the
Hungarian nation, was drawn up and adopted. On March 15th, 1848,
was published the first work that appeared under the new laws estab-
lishing the freedom of the press. This was Petöfi's famous song
"Talpra Magyar' (Up, Magyar), the Hungarian Marseillaise. It was
the beginning of a series of impassioned revolutionary lyrics. The
articles which Petöfi contributed to the newspapers at that time are
valuable historical documents of the revolution. In September 1848
he entered the army, and served under General Bem, whose ad-
jutant he became. He had no qualifications for a soldier's career
except a passionate patriotism and unshrinking courage. His erratic
nature would not conform to the strictness of military discipline; but
to the poet whom the nation idolized, large liberties were accorded,
and in hours of peril he displayed heroic qualities. He fought at
the great battle of Szegesvár on July 31st, 1849, in which the Hunga-
rians were defeated; and he has never been seen since. His grave
is with the unknown; and the wish which he uttered in song, that
flowers should be scattered where he rests, must remain forever un-
fulfilled. A fairer and more enduring tribute is the love his people
bear him. His poetry is a national treasure, which Hungary cher-
ishes as a sacred possession.
Chart Gruning
вни
## p. 11350 (#574) ##########################################
11350
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
M
MASTER PAUL
ASTER Paul was angry: in his ire
Threw his hat,
Like a log, into the blazing fire
What of that?
Talked about his wife till he was hoarse:
"Curse her I'll apply for a divorce!
No! I'll chase her out of doors instead;
And he did exactly what he said.
Master Paul got cooler after that -
Very cool!
"What a fool to throw away my hat-
What a fool!
What a fool to drive her from the door!
Now I shall be poorer than before;
For she kept the house, and earned her bread;»
And it was exactly as he said.
Master Paul got angrier, angrier yet:
Took his hat,
Flung it from him in his passionate pet-
What of that?
"Toil and trouble is man's wretched lot,
And one more misfortune matters not:
Let it go unsheltered be my head;"
And he did exactly as he said.
――――――――
Freed from all this world's anxieties,
Master Paul
Pulled his hat indignant o'er his eyes-
"All, yes! all,
All is gone, my partner and my pelf:
Naught is left me but to hang myself,
So of all my troubling cares get rid;".
And exactly as he said, he did.
## p. 11351 (#575) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11351
SONG OF LAMENT
O
H, WITH what fascinating bursts and swells
Breaks out the music of the village bells,
Upon the ear of the roused peasant falling,
And to the church devotions gently calling!
What sweet remembrances that music brings
Of early thoughts and half-forgotten things:
Things half forgotten, yet on these past dreams
Distinct, as living life, one figure beams
In brightness and in youthful beauty-she
Sleeps her long sleep beneath the willow-tree;
There I my never-wearied vigils keep,
And there I weep, and cannot cease to weep.
MAY-NIGHT
NIGH
IGHT of May! thou night of peace and silence,
When the moonlight silvers the starred vault;
Tell me then, blonde maiden! blue-eyed floweret,
Shining pearl! what thoughts thy heart assault.
Mine are misty dreamings, passing shadows;
But they keep me sleepless-crowning me
Like the monarch of a mighty kingdom,
And the crown is held, dear maid! is held by thee.
What a theft it were, and what a contrast
With the trashy purse that thieves purloin,
Could I steal these dreams, and then convert them
Into solid and substantial coin!
DREAMING
I
IS IT a dream that shows me
Yonder vision airy?
Is she a mortal maiden?
Is she a spirit fairy?
Whether maiden or fairy,
Little indeed I care,
Would she only love me,
Smiling sweetly there.
## p. 11352 (#576) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11352
FAITHFULNESS
TH
HERE on the mountain a rose-blossom blows;
Bend o'er my bosom thy forehead which glows;
Whisper, O whisper sweet words in mine ear,
Say that thou lovest me, what rapture to hear!
-
Down on the Danube the evening sun sinks,
Gilding the wavelets that dance on its brinks;
As the sweet river has cradled the sun,
Cradled I rest upon thee, lovely one!
I have been slandered, the slanderers declare;
Let God forgive them,-I utter no prayer;
Now let them listen, while prayerful I pour
All my heart's offerings on her I adore.
A VOW
I
'LL be a tree, if thou wilt be its blossom;
I'll be a flower, if thou wilt be its dew;
I'll be the dew, if thou wilt be the sunbeam;
Where'er thou art, let me be near thee too.
Wert thou the heaven of blue, beloved maiden,
I a fixed star in that blue heaven would be;
And wert thou doomed to hell itself, dear woman,
I'd seek perdition to be near to thee.
SORROW AND JOY
Α
ND what is sorrow? 'Tis a boundless sea.
And what is joy?
A little pearl in that deep ocean's bed;
I sought it-found it—held it o'er my head,
And to my soul's annoy,
It fell into the ocean's depth again,
And now I look and long for it in vain.
## p. 11353 (#577) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
11353
A
WIFE AND SWORD
DOVE upon the house-roof,
Above in heaven a star;
Thou on my bosom sleeping —
How sweet thy breathings are!
Soft as the morning dewdrops
Upon the rose leaves fall,
Thou in my arms reposest,
My love, my wife, my all!
Why should I not embrace thee
With kisses manifold?
My lips are rich with kisses,
So gushing, so untold.
We talk, we toy, we trifle,
We revel in love's bliss;
And snatch at every breathing
A kiss another kiss.
But who that bliss can measure,
Sparkling in every glance?
It crests thy lips with beauty,
It lights thy countenance.
I look upon my sabre,
'Tis idly hung above;
And does it not reproach me-
"Why so absorbed in love? »
Thou old
thou young companion!
So wildly looking down;
I hear thy voice of anger,
――――――
I see thy threatening frown.
"Shame-shame on thee, deserter!
Thus trifling with a wife;
Awake! thy country calls thee
For liberty, for life. "
And I "She is so lovely,
So witching, so divine,-
The gift of heavenly beauty,
This angel-love of mine!
## p. 11354 (#578) ##########################################
11354
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
"Oh, recognize the mission,
Intrusted from the sky,
To this celestial envoy,
And hail her embassy. "
She heard the word; she echoed
That word-"The Fatherland! '
I buckle on the sabre,
With mine own plighted hand.
"I charge thee, save thy country-
'Tis mine, 'tis thine-for both;
Off to the field of victory,
And there redeem thy troth. "
OUR COUNTRY
TH
HE sun went down, but not a starlet
Appeared in heaven,- all dark above;
No light around, except the taper
Dim glimmering, and my homely love.
That homely love's a star in heaven
That shines around both near and far,
A home of sadness-sad Hungaria!
Where wilt thou find that lovely star?
And now my taper flickers faintly,
And midnight comes; but in the gleam,
Faint as it is, I see a shadow
Which half reveals a future dream.
It brightens as the daybreak brightens
Each flame brings forth a mightier flame;
There stand two figures in the nimbus,—
Old Magyar honor, Magyar fame.
O Magyars! look not on your fathers,
But bid them hide their brows in night;
Your eyes are weak, those suns are dazzling,
Ye cannot bear that blasting light.
Time was those ancient, honored fathers
Could speak the threatening, thundering word;
'Twas like the bursting of the storm-wind,
And Europe, all responsive, heard!
## p. 11355 (#579) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11355
Great was the Magyar then: his country
Honored, his name a history
Of glory, now a star extinguished,
A fallen star in Magyar sea.
――――――
'Twas long ago the laurel garland
Was round the Magyar forehead bound;
Shall fancy, eagle-pinioned, ever
See Magyar hero-brow recrowned?
That laurel crown so long has faded,
So long thy light has ceased to gleam,
Thy greatness seems a myth, thy story
A fable of the past a dream!
-
Long have mine eyes been dry and tearless,
But now I weep; and can it be
That these are dews of spring - the dawning
Of brighter days for Hungary?
And can it can it be a meteor,
That for a moment burst and blazed,
Lighted with brightness all the heavens,
And sunk in darkness while we gazed?
No! 'tis a comet, whose returning
Is sure as is the march of doom;
Hungary shall hail it, blazing, burning. -
It cannot, will not fail to come.
ONE ONLY THOUGHT
Ο
NE thought torments me sorely-'tis that I
Pillowed on a soft bed of down may die;
Fade slowly, like a flower, and pass away
Under the gentle pressure of decay;
Paling as pales a fading, flickering light
In the dark, lonesome solitude of night.
O God! let not my Magyar name
Be linked with such a death of shame;
No! rather let it be
A lightning-struck, uprooted tree-
A rock, which, torn from mountain-brow,
Comes rattling, thundering down below.
## p. 11356 (#580) ##########################################
11356
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
Where every fettered race, tired with their chains,
Muster their ranks and seek the battle plains,
And with red flushes the red flag unfold,
The sacred signal there inscribed in gold,—
"For the world's liberty! "
And far and wide the summons to be free
Fills east and west, and to the glorious fight
Heroes press forward, battling for the right,—
There will I die!
There drowned in mine own heart's blood lie,
Poured out so willingly; th' expiring voice,
Even in its own extinction shall rejoice.
While the sword's clashing, and the trumpet's sound.
And rifles and artillery thunder round;
Then may the trampling horse
Gallop upon my corse,
When o'er the battle-field the warriors fly.
There let me rest till glorious victory
Shall crown the right; my bones upgathered be
At the sublime interment of the free!
When million voices shout their elegy
Under the unfurled banners waving high;
On the gigantic grave which covers all
The heroes, who for freedom fall,
And welcome death because they die for thee,
All holy world-delivering liberty!
INDIFFERENCE
"WITH
calm indifference good and evil bear: "
So saith the sage, and so the world replies;
But not too wisely-'tis not my device;
Pleasures and pains, my comfort and my care,
Must leave their impress, both of ill and good:
My soul is not a flood
Equally moved, when a sweet infant throws
O'er me a scattered rose,
As when the whirlwind brings
Down from the forest a torn trunk, and flings
It furiously upon my wanderings.
The above translations are all by Sir John Bowring.
|
## p. 11357 (#581) ##########################################
11357
PETRARCH
(1304-1374)
BY J. F. BINGHAM
HE second of the "Great Four" poets of Italy occupied with
his life more than two-thirds of the fourteenth century;
being at once widely influential in its affairs of State, as
well as its leading man of letters, and by far its most illustrious poet.
He was for his first seventeen years a contemporary with the first
and greatest of the four, and like him, by inheritance, of the party
of the Bianchi and an exile from Florence; and affected, though in
a milder measure, by political vicissitudes, which to a large extent
determined, as in the case of his great predecessor, the direction of
his activities and the destiny and happiness of his life.
The times, of which both were in an important sense the product,
were fast changing, and already much changed from those which had
shaped Dante's career. Clement V. in 1305 transferred the seat of
the popes to Avignon. The Empire, the shadow of a great name,
had begun its decline in Italy. It made its last struggles in the chiv-
alrous enterprises of Henry VII. of Luxemburg; failed in 1313 by the
successful resistance of the Florentines; and the coming of Louis of
Bavaria in 1323 did not avail to raise it up. The Guelfs were strong
again by the power of Florence, and of Robert, King of Naples. The
national arms were declining; and the volunteer "companies" (le
compagnie di ventura) were getting a greater footing in Italy-com-
posed at first of foreigners, later also of Italians, affecting and wor-
rying Petrarch to the last degree. They were mercenary bands, to
whom warfare was a trade to live by, and who hired themselves out
to various princes, dukes, etc. ; and many cities by their aid were
setting out to become independent dominions, lordships, marquisates,
dukedoms, etc. The Visconti, victorious over the Torriani, were
coming to the front in Milan; at Verona, the Scaligers, the family of
Este with whom, two hundred years later, the destiny of Tasso is
to be so tragically commingled — were establishing their splendid mar-
quisate at Ferrara. At Florence, the Duke of Athens, attempting to
secure the lordship there, was put down; and with him the nobles
went under, the common people and the merchants came uppermost,
and the supremacy of the Medici was gradually prepared. The
republics of Genoa and Venice contended in bitter warfare, and the
latter rose to supremacy upon the land as well as by sea.
FOR
-
## p. 11358 (#582) ##########################################
11358
PETRARCH
In these troublous times of transition and tumult, though an exile
and wanderer like Dante before him (with less suffering indeed from
external causes), his remarkable personal beauty, his natural bonhomie,
his enormous learning, his vast general knowledge, his intense patri-
otism, and his marvelous industry, brought him to exert an astonish-
ing influence over the great and powerful, and to live in the veneration
and friendship of the noblest and most exalted in the world. He
could count among personal friends several popes; the Correggios,
lords of Parma, the Colonnas of Rome, the Visconti of Milan, the Car-
raras of Padua, the Gonzagas of Mantua; Robert, King of Naples; the
Emperor Charles IV. He was invited in turn by them all, was con-
sulted by them, was employed by them on important matters of State.
He was sent by the nobles and people of Rome to Clement VI.
on the great endeavor to persuade him to remove his residence from
Avignon to Rome. Although this effort was unsuccessful, he after-
ward wrote a letter in Latin to Clement's successor, Urban V. , urging
the same request; and he soon after removed to Rome. In short, his
opportunities in the character of the age, and his own qualifications
in respect of statesmanship, learning, and the poetic gift, were so
extraordinary, and were improved by him with such tireless activity,
that his influence upon his contemporaries in each direction was pro-
digious and unique, and his contemporary reputation almost or quite
unparalleled.
The family of Petrarch came from Incisa nel Valdarno, a little
hamlet some twenty-five miles southeast of Florence; and was of
the gente nuovo (new folk) of Florence. Francesco's father was Master
Petracco or Petraccolo (Peter), son of Garzo, of whom our Petrarch
speaks reverently.
Petracco, whose name the son afterwards Latinized as his own cog-
nomen into Petrarca, was "cancelliere delle riformagione"; an officer
of the law somewhat corresponding to the modern English clerk
of court," but with larger duties.
As a
"Guelfo Bianco" (White
Guelph), or moderate partisan of the Pope, he had been banished in
1302, and had fled for refuge to Arezzo, some thirty-five miles beyond
Incisa in the same direction; and here on the 20th of July, 1304, was
born to him the son Francesco,- it is uncertain whether by Nicco-
losa Sigoli or by Eletta Canigiani, or whether in either case the nup-
tials were ever blessed by the Church. In those days of confusion
there was much irregularity in such matters even among fairly good
people. Francesco passed the first seven years with the mother at
Incisa; afterward he followed the father and the family to Pisa.
Here he began his first studies, which were to tower to such
a marvelous height, under the famous grammarian Convonevole da
Prato; then, so happily for him, living in Pisa. Whether from choice,
or being still too near to Florence for safety, the exiled father and
«<
## p. 11359 (#583) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11359
partisan churchman removed, and established his family, consisting
of the mother and certainly one brother of Francesco, in Avignon in
France, the then home of the wandering popes. Happily again for
Francesco, now between twelve and fifteen years of age, Convonevole
had come into France, and settled at Carpentras, some fifteen miles
northeast of Avignon. Here he was sent by the father to pursue his
studies under his old preceptor.
In 1319 he was sent to Montpellier,
to begin the study of jurisprudence, which he afterward carried for-
ward in Bologna. He had never felt any inclination toward legal
science, but was to the highest degree fond of the study of literature.
Absorbed in this, his legal studies naturally suffered. By abstemious
living and denying himself many comforts, he had also acquired a
considerable number of valuable manuscripts of the Greek and Latin
authors, which were rare and costly in that age. His father, how-
ever, was not pleased that for the sake of these classics he should
neglect the legal studies, which were then the principal road to pre-
ferment and wealth: and during a visit to his father in 1325 (as the
poet himself relates in his 'Old Man's Memories'), the father burned
many of these precious books, and only left, through the prayers and
tears of the son, Cicero's 'De Oratore' and the works of Virgil; which
books became, from that moment to his dying day, those which he
loved above all others. After the death of his father, which hap-
pened in 1326 while he was still a student at Bologna, he returned
to make his home at Avignon; and soon entered into the ecclesias-
tical state. Although he was never in any but minor orders, he
obtained during his life many benefices. The indispensable require-
ments of this condition were, the tonsure, the clerical dress, and the
daily recitation of the "Divine office. " His breviary is still preserved
in the library of the Vatican. He continued his favorite studies in
Avignon; solacing himself in a youthful way, he regretfully tells us,
in the gallant and licentious life of that city.
During the first year of his settled residence here occurred the
event which was destined, more than any other through the rest of
his life, to influence his thoughts, his writings, and his happiness.
He himself tells us that on Good Friday, in the year 1327, being in
the church of the convent of St. Claire, in Avignon, he was struck
by the beauty of a young lady near him, younger than himself,
in a green mantle sprinkled with violets, on which her golden hair
fell in plaited tresses. She was distinguished from all others by her
proud and delicate carriage. From this moment was conceived in his
heart an infinite admiration and love for her. He says her name
was Laura, but her family name he never mentions. There has been
much discussion and controversy as to who this lady was, or even
whether she ever had any other reality than the fervid allegorical
idea in the poet's brain. But he tells us that she was ni
teen years
## p. 11360 (#584) ##########################################
11360
PETRARCH
old and had been two years married; and from many allusions of his
own and the words of contemporaries, it seems almost certain that
she was in fact the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and the wife of
Hugues de Sade, and became the mother of fully eleven children.
She died in 1348, a victim of the plague.
When the news of her death reached Petrarch, at the time travel-
ing in Italy, he wrote in Latin the following notice of her as a mar-
ginal note in his own favorite copy of Virgil, still preserved in the
Ambrosian Library at Milan :
-
"It was in the prime of my youth, on the 6th of April, at the first hour of
the day [the variable ecclesiastical day] in the year 1327, that Laura, distin-
guished by her virtues, and celebrated in my verses, in the Church of St.
Clara at Avignon first appeared to my eyes. In the same city and at the
same hour, in the year 1348, this bright luminary disappeared from the world.
Alas, I was then at Verona, ignorant of my wretchedness! Her chaste and
beautiful body was laid, the same day, after vespers, in the Church of the
Cordeliers. Her soul returned to its home in heaven. I have written this
with mingled pleasure and pain, retracing in this book, so often before my
eyes, the sad memory of my great loss; that I may constantly remember that
there is nothing more left me to live for, since my strongest tie to life has been
broken, and may easily renounce this empty and transitory world, and con-
sider, being freed from my bonds, that it is time for me to flee from Babylon. "
He had endeavored from the first to stifle his passion, or at least
to restrain it within the limits of peaceful admiration and friendship,
by a prodigious intensity of serious studies, and at the same time by
giving vent to it through a continual stream of sonnets, in which her
beauty and worth constituted the supporting thread, around which
was Woven an ever new and incredible variety of elegant poetic
conceits. Unappeased by these means, he sought relief from the tem-
pestuous disquiet of his soul in gathering an extensive library of clas-
sical manuscripts, traveling abroad in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, in
search of such especially as were accounted lost. He discovered in
these journeys the 'Institutions' of Quintilian at Arezzo; Cicero's
'Familiar Letters' at Verona; his 'Letters to Atticus' somewhere
else, and some lost Orations' at Liège; and he speaks of having
seen, though they have not come down to us, Cicero's treatise 'On
Fame,' and Varro's 'On Divine and Human Things,' and the 'Letters
of Augustus. '
In these prodigious and useful and beautiful activities he became
everywhere known, and was the wonder and admiration of his age.
But the wound of his heart was not to be cured by the ecstasies of
poetry, nor the refinements of literature, nor the curiosities of learn-
ing, nor the admiration of men. The beautiful magnet at Avignon
drew him always back; and that he might be near her, and at the
same time be relieved of the presence of the revelry and vice of that
## p. 11361 (#585) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11361
shameful court, he built a home in the beautiful and romantic neigh-
boring valley of Vaucluse. This home, which he called such for fully
eleven years, became to him the dearest of all, and excited his best
inspirations.
However strange to us to-day (especially us of northern blood), it
was and is beyond doubt that the external relations of these cele-
brated lovers to one another were unimpeachable. Moreover, there
are the strongest reasons to believe, from recorded facts and from
what we know of his external life and of the intimate workings of
his heart, that after some possible weaknesses in the ebullitions of
youth,- particularly at Avignon, before his first sight of Laura,-
he lived ever afterward with conscientious jealousy against all the
excesses of luxury of every sort.
As an ecclesiastic, he was debarred from matrimony accompanied
with the lawful benediction of the Church. But it is well known,
from his writings, that Petrarch did not in his heart accept all the
teachings of the Church in his day, especially in matters of disci-
pline; and this was only a matter of discipline, not of faith. At all
events, among his other struggles for external innocence and heart
rest he formed a permanent connection with another woman, who
bore him a son and a daughter, whom he publicly recognized and
treated with the greatest tenderness. The son, whom he placed
under the most celebrated teachers, and from whom he hoped great
things but realized only regrets, died in early manhood. The daugh-
ter Tullia, characteristically named after Cicero's famous daughter,
who became a great comfort to him in his old age, was well married
in Milan; and by his will he made her husband, Francesco da Bros-
sano, his principal heir.
For the next ten years, though always in motion, he called Vau-
cluse his home; and from thence poured forth many of his most
noted productions. Among these was the Latin heroic poem 'Africa,'
which shook with applause the learned world, and gained for him
the most highly prized honor of his life, - his coronation, on the
Campidoglio at Rome, laureate of the Christian world. On the Ist
of September, 1340, this honor was offered him by the University of
Paris; and a vote of the Roman Senate invited him to receive it on
the Capitol Hill. It filled his heart most of all with infinite joy that
it came in Laura's lifetime, and that she sweetly and proudly sym-
pathized in this his unparalleled glory. He went by way of Naples,
where his royal friend Robert added a sort of ad eundem; and then
he passed on to the capital of the world. On the 8th of April, Easter
Day, 1341, in the square in front of the remains of the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus, the crown of laurel, with great solemnity, was
placed upon his head by the hands of a Senator of Rome, in the
XIX-711
## p. 11362 (#586) ##########################################
11362
PETRARCH
presence and amid the tremendous acclamations of a vast and dis-
tinguished assembly, the braying of trumpets, and strains of martial
music. Petrarch then pronounced an oration on 'Poetry and Fame. '
When all was over, he carried the crown to St. Peter's and set it
upon the altar, an offering of pious gratitude and joy.
The remainder of his external life is mostly a record of jour-
neys and removals and brief sojourns in France and Northern Italy.
Besides Vaucluse, he had houses at Parma, at Modena, at Bologna,
at Verona, at Milan, at Venice, at Padua; whence he made his last
removal in 1370 to Arquà del Monte, a most romantic little village
among the Euganean Hills. In the outskirts even of this sequestered
hamlet, he set an orchard, planted a garden, and built a modest
house, which, with some reminiscences of its illustrious owner, such
as faded frescoes in allusion to his poems, is still accessible to vis-
itors, the only one of all his residences which can to-day be iden-
tified. Here, on the 20th day of July, 1374, his seventieth birthday.
he was found by his friend Lombardo da Serico dead in his study,
with his head reclined on a book. He had a grand funeral, and was
buried in front of the village church. His monument is a sarcopha-
gus on short columns of red marble. Upon it is a more recent bust
of the poet. Beneath is the following rhymed hexameter triplet:-
"Frigida Francisci lapis hic tegit ossa Petrarci.
Suscipe Virgo parens animam! Sate virgine, parce!
Fessaque nam terris celi requiescat in arce. »
The substance of which is:
This stone covers the mortal remains of Francis Petrarch;
O Virgin mother, receive his soul! Son of the Virgin, have mercy on it!
His earthly life was weary; let him have rest in the heavenly temple.
In enormous and almost incredible learning, as well as in con-
temporary and succeeding poetical fame, Petrarch was and is only
second to Dante. He differed greatly from him, however, in several
capital qualities. The temper of Dante was pre-eminently democratic;
and the spirit of all his writings aimed at instructing and elevating
the people, and in particular at building up the vulgar tongue. Pe-
trarch was a literary aristocrat, and despised the vulgar tongue; but
his labors in behalf of the Latin classics-in which he was no doubt
even more deeply learned than his great predecessor—were unparal-
leled and invaluable; and so great, indeed, was the encouragement
which he gave to the studies in Latin, that he may fairly be regarded
as the father of the revival of the vulgar literature, and of the classic
art which became transfused into it.
1
## p. 11363 (#587) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11363
Judged by the cold blood of later times, Petrarch was an over-
enthusiastic admirer of ancient Rome and her glories. It was an
exaggerated picture, perhaps (if that were possible), which he drew
of her grandeur in his 'Africa,' written in Latin hexameters, where
he paints with superb eloquence Scipio, Lælius, Masinissa, Ennius,
and other great characters; ornamenting his poem with splendid
descriptions and artificial orations. But by it he won his laureateship;
and it was through the possession of this "exaggerated» zeal that he
became the admirer and friend of Cola di Rienzo, and was inspired
to write that immortal canzone which still kindles every true Italian
heart, 'Spirto Gentil,' given at the end of this article in Major Mac-
gregor's very good translation. That this sentiment was founded in
loyal patriotism, as he understood it, would be sufficiently evinced,
if we had nothing more, by the celebrated canzone 'Italia Mia,'
which is here given in the almost perfect translation of Lady Dacre.
Surely never has patriotic affection been clothed in warmer or more
exquisite numbers.
Without deciding whether it was a cause or a consequence of his
"exaggerated" love and admiration of Roman antiquity, it is a fact
that in familiarity with, and in abundance and elegance of writing
in, the Latin tongue, he has not even been approached by any other
modern. He left a very great number of works in Latin, both prose
and verse, upon a very great variety of subjects, religious, political,
philosophical; for the most part of no inherent interest to-day, and
far too numerous to be even named here. Some of the more famous
and curious will show their drift by their titles: 'De Remediis Utrius-
que Fortunæ (Concerning the Remedies for Either Fortune), develop-
ing the doctrine of the Stoics, that "Not the good things of life are
truly good, nor the ills truly bad, but that the good consists in sub-
duing the passions"; "De Vita Solitaria' (On Solitude); 'De Ocio Reli-
giosorum' (On the Soul-Rest of the Religious), written after his visit
to his brother, who was a monk; 'Secretum' (Private), a confession
to St. Augustine in the presence of personified Truth,—an important
work for understanding the mind of Petrarch, and the true nature of
his love for the lady Laura. There are many volumes of letters in
Latin, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, often really a short
treatise or oration: the 'Familiari' (To a Friend); Senili' (To an
Old Man), one of which is really a Latin translation of the story of
Griselda in the 'Decameron'; 'Variæ' (Miscellanies); one, 'Ad Pos-
teros' (To Posterity), brings his autobiography up to the year 1351.
He says he had burned more than he preserved.
Petrarch differed from Dante in another aspect, which is twofold.
Dante is often rough and sometimes imperfect in his numbers; but
his invention is Homeric, and never sleeps. Petrarch's invention is
## p. 11364 (#588) ##########################################
11364
PETRARCH
often dull; but the utmost refinement and perfection of poetic style,
and the extreme finish of every line, are never absent.
Still another distinction between them, though each was marvelous
in his own way, is that Dante is a universal poet, embracing in his
matter the whole sphere of theology, science, and politics, as well as
all places from the centre of the earth to the zenith of the highest
heaven, and all times from the creation of the world to the final
Judgment Day; whereas the only matter of Petrarch in his Italian
poetry is the passion of human love, and this all centred about one
beautiful woman. The Canzoniere,' on which his immortal fame
depends, consist of more than three hundred sonnets, canzoni, ses-
tine, dancing-songs, and pastorals, and with a half-dozen exceptions,
chiefly patriotic. There is not one in which his love for Laura is not
wrought in, either as foundation or ornament.
This might well enough be expected to produce an intolerable
monotony; and theoretically, the more familiar one should become
with them the more sensibly the monotony would be felt. Except in
the work of an extraordinary genius, equipped with superlative art,
this must undoubtedly hold good. But in fact, in the case of Petrarch
the opposite is true. The character of monotony is not really there;
and the more often one reads the "Rhymes," the less of monotony
is felt, and the more particular and individual each sonnet and can-
zone is perceived to be. Of this curious paradox the poet Campbell
has given a very ingenious and pretty explanation, as follows:-
"This monotony," he says, "impresses the reader exactly in proportion to
the slenderness of his acquaintance with the poet. Approaching the sonnets
for the first time, they may probably appear to him as like to each other as
the sheep of a flock; but when he has become familiar with them, he will
perceive an interesting individuality in every sonnet, and will discriminate
their individual character as precisely as the shepherd can distinguish every
single sheep of his flock by its voice and its face. "
Yet again, Dante wrote his great poem in all the panoply of
the poetic art, precisely anticipating immortality for himself and his
work, with posterity distinctly in his view, -as he tells us over and
over again in the Vita Nuova': while Petrarch calls his Italian
poems 'Nuga' (Trifles), which he threw off, in the fugitive transports
of his soul, for the eye of one dear lady, according to the varying
moods of passion and the changing circumstances of life; of necessity
leaving, under all their glittering poetic armor, here and there a vul-
nerable spot, through which the critics could shoot their querulous
shafts, and have often done so. Among these the poet Campbell —
whom we have just quoted, and who is as querulous as any-closes
his criticisms on what he calls Petrarch's "affected refinements" and
## p. 11365 (#589) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11365
"unnatural conceits" with refreshing frankness, saying: "If I could
make out the strongest critical case against him, I should still have
to answer this question,- How comes it that Petrarch's poetry, in
spite of all these faults, has been the favorite of the world for five
hundred years? So strong a regard for Petrarch is rooted in the
mind of Italy, that his renown has grown up like an oak which has
reached maturity amidst the storms of ages, and fears not decay from
revolving centuries. »
This answer is very true. But the question returns, "From what
extraordinary particulars has arisen this overtopping regard for Pe-
trarch's poetry in the mind of Italy? " We confidently answer, first,
from the "melting melody" of his verse; in which, taking into
account the quantity he has left, he easily surpasses all others who
have used that harmonious speech. Secondly, that he has treated
the tenderest sentiment of universal humanity not only far more
copiously, in the mere number of touching lines, than any other Ital-
ian poet, but with a marvelous absence of repetition he goes ever on
and on with his delicious numbers, drawing ever new similitudes
and pictures, which are continually bringing silent thoughts of sweet-
ness to the reader's mind. Finally, there is in his handiwork a tone
all his own, an unwonted and peculiar way of expressing the senti-
ment of love; not sensual, not conventional, not over-metaphysical,
but natural and truly human: in still other words, while clothed with
a purity fit for the most virtuous and modest lady's ear, his lines,
radiant with beauty and of bewitching melody, yet breathe a tender-
ness, a sincerity, a manliness, not surpassed by Tibullus, or any of the
most objectionable of the famous old classic pagans.
It is this quality, so bewitching in the original, of Petrarch's Ital-
ian poetry,- subtle and evanescent as the fragrance of a rose,-in
which perhaps lies the greatest difference of all between the two
supreme poets of Italy, and renders the stanzas of Petrarch the
despair of every translator into a foreign tongue. Not only are the
unparalleled melodies of his delicious numbers impossible to be car-
ried over into other measures and other sounds, but the sweet images,
as ethereal as the fleecy clouds of June, are shy of another zone.
No English poet has attempted a complete translation of Petrarch's
Italian poetry. Such translations as exist are fragmentary, by differ-
ent hands, and of very unequal merit. We have selected the most
celebrated morsels, and in the translations which seemed to bring to
us the most successfully that which Petrarch has given to those who
are native to the language and the scenery of Italy.
JF. Bingha
## p. 11366 (#590) ##########################################
11366
PETRARCH
«ITALIA MIA, BENCHÈ 'L PARLAR SIA INDARNO»
TO THE PRINCES OF ITALY, EXHORTING THEM TO SET HER FREE
My Own Italy! though words are vain
The mortal wounds to close,
Unnumbered, that thy beauteous bosom stain,
Yet may it soothe my pain
To sigh forth Tiber's woes,
And Arno's wrongs, as on Po's saddened shore
Sorrowing I wander, and my numbers pour.
Ruler of heaven! By the all-pitying love
That could thy Godhead move
To dwell a lowly sojourner on earth,
Turn, Lord! on this thy chosen land thine eye:
See, God of Charity!
From what light cause this cruel war has birth;
And the hard hearts by savage discord steeled,
Thou, Father! from on high,
Touch by my humble voice, that stubborn wrath may yield!
O
Ye, to whose sovereign hands the fates confide
Of this fair land the reins,-
(This land for which no pity wrings your breast,).
Why does the stranger's sword her plains invest?
That her green fields be dyed,
Hope ye, with blood from the Barbarians' veins ?
Beguiled by error weak,
Ye see not, though to pierce so deep ye boast,
Who love or faith in venal bosoms seek:
When thronged your standards most,
Ye are encompassed most by hostile bands.
Oh, hideous deluge gathered in strange lands,
That rushing down amain
-
O'erwhelms our every native lovely plain!
Alas! if our own hands
Have thus our weal betrayed, who shall our cause sustain ?
Well did kind Nature, guardian of our State,
Rear her rude Alpine heights,
A lofty rampart against German hate:
But blind ambition, seeking his own ill,
With ever restless will,
To the pure gales contagion foul invites;
Within the same strait fold
## p. 11367 (#591) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11367
The gentle flocks and wolves relentless throng,
Where still meek innocence must suffer wrong:
And these-oh, shame avowed! -
Are of the lawless hordes no tie can hold;
Fame tells how Marius's sword
Erewhile their bosoms gored,-
Nor has Time's hand aught blurred the record proud!
When they who, thirsting, stooped to quaff the flood,
With the cool waters mixed, drank of a comrade's blood!
Great Cæsar's name I pass, who o'er our plains
Poured forth the ensanguined tide,
Drawn by our own good swords from out their veins;
But now-nor know I what ill stars preside —
Heaven holds this land in hate!
To you the thanks, whose hands control her helm!
You, whose rash feuds despoil
Of all the beauteous earth the fairest realm!
Are ye impelled by judgment, crime, or fate,
To oppress the desolate?
From broken fortunes and from humble toil
The hard-earned dole to wring,
While from afar ye bring
Dealers in blood, bartering their souls for hire?
In truth's great cause I sing,
Nor hatred nor disdain my earnest lay inspire.
Nor mark ye yet, confirmed by proof on proof,
Bavaria's perfidy,
Who strikes in mockery, keeping death aloof?
(Shame, worse than aught of loss, in honor's eye! )
While ye, with honest rage, devoted pour
Your inmost bosom's gore! -
Yet give one hour to thought,
And ye shall own how little he can hold
Another's glory dear, who sets his own at naught.
O Latin blood of old!
Arise, and wrest from obloquy thy fame,
Nor bow before a name
Of hollow sound, whose power no laws enforce!
For if barbarians rude
Have higher minds subdued,
Ours! ours the crime! - Not such wise Nature's course.
Ah! is not this the soil my foot first pressed?
And here, in cradled rest,
## p. 11368 (#592) ##########################################
11368
PETRARCH
Was I not softly hushed? here fondly reared?
Ah! is not this my country? so endeared
By every filial tie!
In whose lap shrouded both my parents lie!
Oh! by this tender thought,
Your torpid bosoms to compassion wrought,
Look on the people's grief!
Who, after God, of you expect relief;
And if ye but relent,
Virtue shall rouse her in embattled might,
Against blind fury bent,
Nor long shall doubtful hang the unequal fight;
For no-the ancient flame
Is not extinguished yet, that raised the Italian name!
Mark, sovereign lords! how Time, with pinion strong,
Swift hurries life along!
E'en now, behold! Death presses on the rear.
We sojourn here a day-the next, are gone!
The soul disrobed, alone,
Must shuddering seek the doubtful pass we fear.
Oh! at the dreaded bourne,
Abase the lofty brow of wrath and scorn,-
Storms adverse to the eternal calm on high!
And yet, whose cruelty
Has sought another's harm, by fairer deed
Of heart, or hand, or intellect, aspire
To win the honest meed
Of just renown- the noble mind's desire!
Thus sweet on earth the stay!
Thus to the spirit pure, unbarred is Heaven's way!
My song! with courtesy, and numbers sooth,
Thy daring reasons grace;
For thou the mighty, in their pride of place,
Must woo to gentle ruth,
Whose haughty will long evil customs nurse,
Ever to truth averse!
Thee better fortunes wait,
Among the virtues few, the truly great!
Tell them- but who shall bid my terrors cease?
Peace! Peace! on thee I call!
Return, O heaven-born Peace!
Translation of Lady Dacre.
## p. 11369 (#593) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11369
"SPIRTO GENTIL CHE QUELLE MEMBRA REGGI»
TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT
LIBERTY
PIRIT heroic! who with fire divine
SPIR
Kindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim hold
On earth a chieftain gracious, wise, and bold;
Since rightly now the rod of State is thine,
Rome and her wandering children to confine,
And yet reclaim her to the old good way;
To thee I speak, for elsewhere not a ray
Of virtue can I find, extinct below,
Nor one who feels of evil deeds the shame.
Why Italy still waits, and what her aim,
I know not: callous to her proper woe,
Indolent, aged, slow,
Still will she sleep? Is none to rouse her found?
Oh that my wakening hands were through her tresses wound!
So grievous is the spell, the trance so deep,
Loud though we call, my hope is faint that e'er
She yet will waken from her heavy sleep;
But not, methinks, without some better end
Was this our Rome intrusted to thy care,
Who surest may revive and best defend.
Fearlessly then upon that reverend head,
'Mid her disheveled locks, thy fingers spread,
And lift at length the sluggard from the dust;
I, day and night, who her prostration mourn,
For this in thee have fixed my certain trust,-
That if her sons yet turn,
And their eyes ever true to honor raise,
The glory is reserved for thy illustrious days!
Her ancient walls, which still with fear and love
The world admires, whene'er it calls to mind
The days of eld, and turns to look behind;
Her hoar and caverned monuments above
The dust of men, whose fame, until the world
In dissolution sink, can never fail;
Her all, that in one ruin now lies hurled,
Hopes to have healed by thee its every ail.
## p. 11370 (#594) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11370
O faithful Brutus, noble Scipios, dead!
To you what triumph, where ye now are blest,
If of our worthy choice the fame have spread:
And how his laureled crest
Will old Fabricius rear, with joy elate,
That his own Rome again shall beauteous be and great!
And if for things of earth its care Heaven show,
The souls who dwell above in joy and peace,
And their mere mortal frames have left below,
Implore thee this long civil strife may cease,
Which kills all confidence, nips every good,
Which bars the way to many a roof where men
Once holy, hospitable lived, the den
Of fearless rapine now and frequent blood,
Whose doors to virtue only are denied.
While beneath plundered saints, in outraged fanes
Plots faction, and revenge the altar stains;
And contrast sad and wide-
-
―――――
The very bells which sweetly wont to fling
Summons to prayer and praise, now battle's tocsin ring!
Pale weeping women, and a friendless crowd
Of tender years, infirm and desolate Age,
Which hates itself and its superfluous days,
With each blest order to religion vowed,
Whom works of love through lives of want engage.
To thee for help their hands and voices raise;
While our poor panic-stricken land displays
The thousand wounds which now so mar her frame
That e'en from foes compassion they command;
Or more if Christendom thy care may claim,
Lo! God's own house on fire, while not a hand
Moves to subdue the flame:
Heal thou these wounds, this feverish tumult end,
And on the holy work Heaven's blessing shall descend!
Often against our marble column high,
Wolf, Lion, Bear, proud Eagle, and base Snake
Even to their own injury insult shower;
Lifts against thee and theirs her mournful cry
The noble Dame who calls thee here to break
Away the evil weeds which will not flower.
A thousand years and more! and gallant men
There fixed her seat in beauty and in power;
## p. 11371 (#595) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11371
The breed of patriot hearts has failed since then!
And in their stead, upstart and haughty now,
A race which ne'er to her in reverence bends,
Her husband, father thou!
Like care from thee and counsel she attends,
As o'er his other works the Sire of all extends.
'Tis seldom e'en that with our fairest schemes
Some adverse fortune will not mix, and mar
With instant ill, ambition's noblest dreams;
But thou, once ta'en thy path, so walk that I
May pardon her past faults, great as they are,
If now at least she give herself the lie.
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## p. 11346 (#570) ##########################################
PETOFI
1
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## p. 11347 (#571) ##########################################
11347
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
(1823-1849)
BY CHARLES HARVEY GENUNG
IKE most of the Continental poets who rose to fame during
the first half of the nineteenth century, Petöfi brought to
the work of poetic creation the glow of a passionate pat-
riotism. As Leopardi put into song the dreams of a united Italy,
as Mickiewicz strengthened the proud heart of vanquished Poland,
and as Körner sang and died for the liberation of his fatherland, so
Petöfi fired the patriotism of Hungary, and found an unmarked grave
upon the battle-field of her liberties. No other singer of any land
has ever become in so intimate a sense the universal poet of his peo-
ple as this greatest of Hungarian bards. Burns holds in the hearts of
Scotchmen approximately the place that Petöfi has won in the affec-
tions of his ardent countrymen. But Petöfi means more to Hungary
than Burns to Scotland. He was not the poet only, but the popular
hero as well. His brilliant successes, his romantic career, his fascinat-
ing character, and his mysterious disappearance on the field of bat-
tle, before he had completed his twenty-seventh year, have thrown a
mystic glamour over his name. His career was meteoric though his
glory is permanent. He himself vanished like a wandering star, and
the spot where he fell no man knows. For years it was believed
that he still went up and down the land in disguise, and many false
Petöfis put forth poems under that charmed name. The report that
he had been captured by the Russians and exiled to Siberia caused
intense excitement, not in Hungary alone, but throughout Germany
and Austria. There can be little doubt, however, that he was buried
in the general trench with fellow patriots unnumbered and unknown.
Alexander Petöfi was born in the small village of Kis-Körös in
the early New Year's morning of 1823. In the veins of this intensely
national poet of Hungary there flowed not a drop of Hungarian
blood. His father, a well-to-do butcher, was a Serbian named Pe-
trovics; his mother was a Slovenian. His temperament and char-
acter, however, were entirely Hungarian. He was ashamed of the
Slavic sound of his family name, and both as actor and as poet
he assumed various appellations. His growing fame decided him to
adopt the name which he has immortalized, of Petöfi. His nature
## p. 11348 (#572) ##########################################
11348
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
was wild and wayward. He led a wanderer's life, and played many
rôles. He was student, actor, soldier, vagabond. It was the persist-
ent mistake of his life that, like Wilhelm Meister, he believed him-
self to be an actor, and through the most humiliating experiences he
clung to this error. In the midst, however, of his most sordid trials,
his efforts to attain self-culture were put forth with an unremitting
energy almost pathetic. In his knapsack he carried Shakespeare,
Schiller, and Homer. At the age of nineteen he had mastered the
most difficult metres of the ancients, and acquired a good knowledge
of the chief modern languages. In Paza, he formed with Jókai the
statesman and novelist, and Orlai the artist, an interesting circle.
Jókai gives an amusing account of the hallucinations which blinded
each of the three as to his special capability. Orlai, who has won
fame as a painter, believed himself a poet; the actor Petöfi de-
claimed his lines; while Jókai, believing himself an artist, furnished
the illustrations.
It was Vörösmarty, the senior poet of Hungary, who first recog-
nized Petöfi's genius and set it right. He was one of the editors
of the chief Hungarian magazine, the Athenæum, and here in 1842
appeared Petöfi's first poem. In 1844 a collection of the poems was
brought out in book form, and their instant and wide-spread success
justified Vörösmarty's judgment. The new poet was received with
universal acclaim, and developed a lyric productivity little less than
marvelous. He wrote several excellent village tales, a novel called
'The Hangman's Rope,' and two dramas which were failures. His
studies in foreign literatures bore fruit in numerous translations.
His version of Shakespeare's 'Coriolanus' has become a part of the
regular repertoire of the Hungarian stage. But it was in the 1775
lyric poems that Petöfi's true genius appeared. He was a poet in
the simplest purest sense, and thousands to whom his name was yet
unknown sang his songs at fair and festival. They seemed like the
spontaneous expression of the people themselves, who had waited for
their appointed mouthpiece. Faithfulness and naturalness distinguish
his poetry.
He was the first to free himself from the scholastic
formalism which had theretofore dominated Hungarian literature, and
so incurred at the hands of conservative criticism the charge of vul-
garity. What he did was to show that the simple, the childlike, and
the natural were compatible with the genuinely poetical. A shadow
of the spirit of Heine and Byron fell upon Petöfi's verse, but does
not characterize it; and to his personality attached the same fasci-
nating charm that they excited. His love adventures were manifold,
and many a fair maiden has been celebrated by exquisite poems, in
which no impure note is ever struck. Every poem bears the stamp
of actual experience and genuine feeling. In the simple language of
## p. 11349 (#573) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
11349
every-day life Petöfi has sung of the sorrows, the aspirations, the
loves, and the gayety of the Hungarian people; in his verse is the
passionate glow, the melancholy, and the humor of the race; it is
the purest expression of the national temperament and character.
Herman Grimm has not hesitated to declare that Petöfi ranks
"among the very greatest poets of all times and tongues. " It is a
singular fact that with all his superb lyric quality and musical lilt,
Petöfi had no ear or taste for music.
The year 1847 marked the culmination of the poet's happiness
and success. A richly printed edition of his collected poems ap-
peared, and their beauty in the mass silenced forever the voice of
adverse criticism. In that year he married, and in that year he
found the best friend of his life, the epic poet Arany. About the
laurel crown of the national poet were soon to be twined the oak
wreaths also of a national hero. The ideas which inspired the revo-
lution of 1849 were dimly foreshadowed in some of Petöfi's earlier
poems. To his efforts and to those of Jókai it was chiefly due that
the celebrated reform programme, with the twelve demands of the
Hungarian nation, was drawn up and adopted. On March 15th, 1848,
was published the first work that appeared under the new laws estab-
lishing the freedom of the press. This was Petöfi's famous song
"Talpra Magyar' (Up, Magyar), the Hungarian Marseillaise. It was
the beginning of a series of impassioned revolutionary lyrics. The
articles which Petöfi contributed to the newspapers at that time are
valuable historical documents of the revolution. In September 1848
he entered the army, and served under General Bem, whose ad-
jutant he became. He had no qualifications for a soldier's career
except a passionate patriotism and unshrinking courage. His erratic
nature would not conform to the strictness of military discipline; but
to the poet whom the nation idolized, large liberties were accorded,
and in hours of peril he displayed heroic qualities. He fought at
the great battle of Szegesvár on July 31st, 1849, in which the Hunga-
rians were defeated; and he has never been seen since. His grave
is with the unknown; and the wish which he uttered in song, that
flowers should be scattered where he rests, must remain forever un-
fulfilled. A fairer and more enduring tribute is the love his people
bear him. His poetry is a national treasure, which Hungary cher-
ishes as a sacred possession.
Chart Gruning
вни
## p. 11350 (#574) ##########################################
11350
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
M
MASTER PAUL
ASTER Paul was angry: in his ire
Threw his hat,
Like a log, into the blazing fire
What of that?
Talked about his wife till he was hoarse:
"Curse her I'll apply for a divorce!
No! I'll chase her out of doors instead;
And he did exactly what he said.
Master Paul got cooler after that -
Very cool!
"What a fool to throw away my hat-
What a fool!
What a fool to drive her from the door!
Now I shall be poorer than before;
For she kept the house, and earned her bread;»
And it was exactly as he said.
Master Paul got angrier, angrier yet:
Took his hat,
Flung it from him in his passionate pet-
What of that?
"Toil and trouble is man's wretched lot,
And one more misfortune matters not:
Let it go unsheltered be my head;"
And he did exactly as he said.
――――――――
Freed from all this world's anxieties,
Master Paul
Pulled his hat indignant o'er his eyes-
"All, yes! all,
All is gone, my partner and my pelf:
Naught is left me but to hang myself,
So of all my troubling cares get rid;".
And exactly as he said, he did.
## p. 11351 (#575) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11351
SONG OF LAMENT
O
H, WITH what fascinating bursts and swells
Breaks out the music of the village bells,
Upon the ear of the roused peasant falling,
And to the church devotions gently calling!
What sweet remembrances that music brings
Of early thoughts and half-forgotten things:
Things half forgotten, yet on these past dreams
Distinct, as living life, one figure beams
In brightness and in youthful beauty-she
Sleeps her long sleep beneath the willow-tree;
There I my never-wearied vigils keep,
And there I weep, and cannot cease to weep.
MAY-NIGHT
NIGH
IGHT of May! thou night of peace and silence,
When the moonlight silvers the starred vault;
Tell me then, blonde maiden! blue-eyed floweret,
Shining pearl! what thoughts thy heart assault.
Mine are misty dreamings, passing shadows;
But they keep me sleepless-crowning me
Like the monarch of a mighty kingdom,
And the crown is held, dear maid! is held by thee.
What a theft it were, and what a contrast
With the trashy purse that thieves purloin,
Could I steal these dreams, and then convert them
Into solid and substantial coin!
DREAMING
I
IS IT a dream that shows me
Yonder vision airy?
Is she a mortal maiden?
Is she a spirit fairy?
Whether maiden or fairy,
Little indeed I care,
Would she only love me,
Smiling sweetly there.
## p. 11352 (#576) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11352
FAITHFULNESS
TH
HERE on the mountain a rose-blossom blows;
Bend o'er my bosom thy forehead which glows;
Whisper, O whisper sweet words in mine ear,
Say that thou lovest me, what rapture to hear!
-
Down on the Danube the evening sun sinks,
Gilding the wavelets that dance on its brinks;
As the sweet river has cradled the sun,
Cradled I rest upon thee, lovely one!
I have been slandered, the slanderers declare;
Let God forgive them,-I utter no prayer;
Now let them listen, while prayerful I pour
All my heart's offerings on her I adore.
A VOW
I
'LL be a tree, if thou wilt be its blossom;
I'll be a flower, if thou wilt be its dew;
I'll be the dew, if thou wilt be the sunbeam;
Where'er thou art, let me be near thee too.
Wert thou the heaven of blue, beloved maiden,
I a fixed star in that blue heaven would be;
And wert thou doomed to hell itself, dear woman,
I'd seek perdition to be near to thee.
SORROW AND JOY
Α
ND what is sorrow? 'Tis a boundless sea.
And what is joy?
A little pearl in that deep ocean's bed;
I sought it-found it—held it o'er my head,
And to my soul's annoy,
It fell into the ocean's depth again,
And now I look and long for it in vain.
## p. 11353 (#577) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETŐFI
11353
A
WIFE AND SWORD
DOVE upon the house-roof,
Above in heaven a star;
Thou on my bosom sleeping —
How sweet thy breathings are!
Soft as the morning dewdrops
Upon the rose leaves fall,
Thou in my arms reposest,
My love, my wife, my all!
Why should I not embrace thee
With kisses manifold?
My lips are rich with kisses,
So gushing, so untold.
We talk, we toy, we trifle,
We revel in love's bliss;
And snatch at every breathing
A kiss another kiss.
But who that bliss can measure,
Sparkling in every glance?
It crests thy lips with beauty,
It lights thy countenance.
I look upon my sabre,
'Tis idly hung above;
And does it not reproach me-
"Why so absorbed in love? »
Thou old
thou young companion!
So wildly looking down;
I hear thy voice of anger,
――――――
I see thy threatening frown.
"Shame-shame on thee, deserter!
Thus trifling with a wife;
Awake! thy country calls thee
For liberty, for life. "
And I "She is so lovely,
So witching, so divine,-
The gift of heavenly beauty,
This angel-love of mine!
## p. 11354 (#578) ##########################################
11354
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
"Oh, recognize the mission,
Intrusted from the sky,
To this celestial envoy,
And hail her embassy. "
She heard the word; she echoed
That word-"The Fatherland! '
I buckle on the sabre,
With mine own plighted hand.
"I charge thee, save thy country-
'Tis mine, 'tis thine-for both;
Off to the field of victory,
And there redeem thy troth. "
OUR COUNTRY
TH
HE sun went down, but not a starlet
Appeared in heaven,- all dark above;
No light around, except the taper
Dim glimmering, and my homely love.
That homely love's a star in heaven
That shines around both near and far,
A home of sadness-sad Hungaria!
Where wilt thou find that lovely star?
And now my taper flickers faintly,
And midnight comes; but in the gleam,
Faint as it is, I see a shadow
Which half reveals a future dream.
It brightens as the daybreak brightens
Each flame brings forth a mightier flame;
There stand two figures in the nimbus,—
Old Magyar honor, Magyar fame.
O Magyars! look not on your fathers,
But bid them hide their brows in night;
Your eyes are weak, those suns are dazzling,
Ye cannot bear that blasting light.
Time was those ancient, honored fathers
Could speak the threatening, thundering word;
'Twas like the bursting of the storm-wind,
And Europe, all responsive, heard!
## p. 11355 (#579) ##########################################
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
11355
Great was the Magyar then: his country
Honored, his name a history
Of glory, now a star extinguished,
A fallen star in Magyar sea.
――――――
'Twas long ago the laurel garland
Was round the Magyar forehead bound;
Shall fancy, eagle-pinioned, ever
See Magyar hero-brow recrowned?
That laurel crown so long has faded,
So long thy light has ceased to gleam,
Thy greatness seems a myth, thy story
A fable of the past a dream!
-
Long have mine eyes been dry and tearless,
But now I weep; and can it be
That these are dews of spring - the dawning
Of brighter days for Hungary?
And can it can it be a meteor,
That for a moment burst and blazed,
Lighted with brightness all the heavens,
And sunk in darkness while we gazed?
No! 'tis a comet, whose returning
Is sure as is the march of doom;
Hungary shall hail it, blazing, burning. -
It cannot, will not fail to come.
ONE ONLY THOUGHT
Ο
NE thought torments me sorely-'tis that I
Pillowed on a soft bed of down may die;
Fade slowly, like a flower, and pass away
Under the gentle pressure of decay;
Paling as pales a fading, flickering light
In the dark, lonesome solitude of night.
O God! let not my Magyar name
Be linked with such a death of shame;
No! rather let it be
A lightning-struck, uprooted tree-
A rock, which, torn from mountain-brow,
Comes rattling, thundering down below.
## p. 11356 (#580) ##########################################
11356
ALEXANDER PETÖFI
Where every fettered race, tired with their chains,
Muster their ranks and seek the battle plains,
And with red flushes the red flag unfold,
The sacred signal there inscribed in gold,—
"For the world's liberty! "
And far and wide the summons to be free
Fills east and west, and to the glorious fight
Heroes press forward, battling for the right,—
There will I die!
There drowned in mine own heart's blood lie,
Poured out so willingly; th' expiring voice,
Even in its own extinction shall rejoice.
While the sword's clashing, and the trumpet's sound.
And rifles and artillery thunder round;
Then may the trampling horse
Gallop upon my corse,
When o'er the battle-field the warriors fly.
There let me rest till glorious victory
Shall crown the right; my bones upgathered be
At the sublime interment of the free!
When million voices shout their elegy
Under the unfurled banners waving high;
On the gigantic grave which covers all
The heroes, who for freedom fall,
And welcome death because they die for thee,
All holy world-delivering liberty!
INDIFFERENCE
"WITH
calm indifference good and evil bear: "
So saith the sage, and so the world replies;
But not too wisely-'tis not my device;
Pleasures and pains, my comfort and my care,
Must leave their impress, both of ill and good:
My soul is not a flood
Equally moved, when a sweet infant throws
O'er me a scattered rose,
As when the whirlwind brings
Down from the forest a torn trunk, and flings
It furiously upon my wanderings.
The above translations are all by Sir John Bowring.
|
## p. 11357 (#581) ##########################################
11357
PETRARCH
(1304-1374)
BY J. F. BINGHAM
HE second of the "Great Four" poets of Italy occupied with
his life more than two-thirds of the fourteenth century;
being at once widely influential in its affairs of State, as
well as its leading man of letters, and by far its most illustrious poet.
He was for his first seventeen years a contemporary with the first
and greatest of the four, and like him, by inheritance, of the party
of the Bianchi and an exile from Florence; and affected, though in
a milder measure, by political vicissitudes, which to a large extent
determined, as in the case of his great predecessor, the direction of
his activities and the destiny and happiness of his life.
The times, of which both were in an important sense the product,
were fast changing, and already much changed from those which had
shaped Dante's career. Clement V. in 1305 transferred the seat of
the popes to Avignon. The Empire, the shadow of a great name,
had begun its decline in Italy. It made its last struggles in the chiv-
alrous enterprises of Henry VII. of Luxemburg; failed in 1313 by the
successful resistance of the Florentines; and the coming of Louis of
Bavaria in 1323 did not avail to raise it up. The Guelfs were strong
again by the power of Florence, and of Robert, King of Naples. The
national arms were declining; and the volunteer "companies" (le
compagnie di ventura) were getting a greater footing in Italy-com-
posed at first of foreigners, later also of Italians, affecting and wor-
rying Petrarch to the last degree. They were mercenary bands, to
whom warfare was a trade to live by, and who hired themselves out
to various princes, dukes, etc. ; and many cities by their aid were
setting out to become independent dominions, lordships, marquisates,
dukedoms, etc. The Visconti, victorious over the Torriani, were
coming to the front in Milan; at Verona, the Scaligers, the family of
Este with whom, two hundred years later, the destiny of Tasso is
to be so tragically commingled — were establishing their splendid mar-
quisate at Ferrara. At Florence, the Duke of Athens, attempting to
secure the lordship there, was put down; and with him the nobles
went under, the common people and the merchants came uppermost,
and the supremacy of the Medici was gradually prepared. The
republics of Genoa and Venice contended in bitter warfare, and the
latter rose to supremacy upon the land as well as by sea.
FOR
-
## p. 11358 (#582) ##########################################
11358
PETRARCH
In these troublous times of transition and tumult, though an exile
and wanderer like Dante before him (with less suffering indeed from
external causes), his remarkable personal beauty, his natural bonhomie,
his enormous learning, his vast general knowledge, his intense patri-
otism, and his marvelous industry, brought him to exert an astonish-
ing influence over the great and powerful, and to live in the veneration
and friendship of the noblest and most exalted in the world. He
could count among personal friends several popes; the Correggios,
lords of Parma, the Colonnas of Rome, the Visconti of Milan, the Car-
raras of Padua, the Gonzagas of Mantua; Robert, King of Naples; the
Emperor Charles IV. He was invited in turn by them all, was con-
sulted by them, was employed by them on important matters of State.
He was sent by the nobles and people of Rome to Clement VI.
on the great endeavor to persuade him to remove his residence from
Avignon to Rome. Although this effort was unsuccessful, he after-
ward wrote a letter in Latin to Clement's successor, Urban V. , urging
the same request; and he soon after removed to Rome. In short, his
opportunities in the character of the age, and his own qualifications
in respect of statesmanship, learning, and the poetic gift, were so
extraordinary, and were improved by him with such tireless activity,
that his influence upon his contemporaries in each direction was pro-
digious and unique, and his contemporary reputation almost or quite
unparalleled.
The family of Petrarch came from Incisa nel Valdarno, a little
hamlet some twenty-five miles southeast of Florence; and was of
the gente nuovo (new folk) of Florence. Francesco's father was Master
Petracco or Petraccolo (Peter), son of Garzo, of whom our Petrarch
speaks reverently.
Petracco, whose name the son afterwards Latinized as his own cog-
nomen into Petrarca, was "cancelliere delle riformagione"; an officer
of the law somewhat corresponding to the modern English clerk
of court," but with larger duties.
As a
"Guelfo Bianco" (White
Guelph), or moderate partisan of the Pope, he had been banished in
1302, and had fled for refuge to Arezzo, some thirty-five miles beyond
Incisa in the same direction; and here on the 20th of July, 1304, was
born to him the son Francesco,- it is uncertain whether by Nicco-
losa Sigoli or by Eletta Canigiani, or whether in either case the nup-
tials were ever blessed by the Church. In those days of confusion
there was much irregularity in such matters even among fairly good
people. Francesco passed the first seven years with the mother at
Incisa; afterward he followed the father and the family to Pisa.
Here he began his first studies, which were to tower to such
a marvelous height, under the famous grammarian Convonevole da
Prato; then, so happily for him, living in Pisa. Whether from choice,
or being still too near to Florence for safety, the exiled father and
«<
## p. 11359 (#583) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11359
partisan churchman removed, and established his family, consisting
of the mother and certainly one brother of Francesco, in Avignon in
France, the then home of the wandering popes. Happily again for
Francesco, now between twelve and fifteen years of age, Convonevole
had come into France, and settled at Carpentras, some fifteen miles
northeast of Avignon. Here he was sent by the father to pursue his
studies under his old preceptor.
In 1319 he was sent to Montpellier,
to begin the study of jurisprudence, which he afterward carried for-
ward in Bologna. He had never felt any inclination toward legal
science, but was to the highest degree fond of the study of literature.
Absorbed in this, his legal studies naturally suffered. By abstemious
living and denying himself many comforts, he had also acquired a
considerable number of valuable manuscripts of the Greek and Latin
authors, which were rare and costly in that age. His father, how-
ever, was not pleased that for the sake of these classics he should
neglect the legal studies, which were then the principal road to pre-
ferment and wealth: and during a visit to his father in 1325 (as the
poet himself relates in his 'Old Man's Memories'), the father burned
many of these precious books, and only left, through the prayers and
tears of the son, Cicero's 'De Oratore' and the works of Virgil; which
books became, from that moment to his dying day, those which he
loved above all others. After the death of his father, which hap-
pened in 1326 while he was still a student at Bologna, he returned
to make his home at Avignon; and soon entered into the ecclesias-
tical state. Although he was never in any but minor orders, he
obtained during his life many benefices. The indispensable require-
ments of this condition were, the tonsure, the clerical dress, and the
daily recitation of the "Divine office. " His breviary is still preserved
in the library of the Vatican. He continued his favorite studies in
Avignon; solacing himself in a youthful way, he regretfully tells us,
in the gallant and licentious life of that city.
During the first year of his settled residence here occurred the
event which was destined, more than any other through the rest of
his life, to influence his thoughts, his writings, and his happiness.
He himself tells us that on Good Friday, in the year 1327, being in
the church of the convent of St. Claire, in Avignon, he was struck
by the beauty of a young lady near him, younger than himself,
in a green mantle sprinkled with violets, on which her golden hair
fell in plaited tresses. She was distinguished from all others by her
proud and delicate carriage. From this moment was conceived in his
heart an infinite admiration and love for her. He says her name
was Laura, but her family name he never mentions. There has been
much discussion and controversy as to who this lady was, or even
whether she ever had any other reality than the fervid allegorical
idea in the poet's brain. But he tells us that she was ni
teen years
## p. 11360 (#584) ##########################################
11360
PETRARCH
old and had been two years married; and from many allusions of his
own and the words of contemporaries, it seems almost certain that
she was in fact the daughter of Audibert de Noves, and the wife of
Hugues de Sade, and became the mother of fully eleven children.
She died in 1348, a victim of the plague.
When the news of her death reached Petrarch, at the time travel-
ing in Italy, he wrote in Latin the following notice of her as a mar-
ginal note in his own favorite copy of Virgil, still preserved in the
Ambrosian Library at Milan :
-
"It was in the prime of my youth, on the 6th of April, at the first hour of
the day [the variable ecclesiastical day] in the year 1327, that Laura, distin-
guished by her virtues, and celebrated in my verses, in the Church of St.
Clara at Avignon first appeared to my eyes. In the same city and at the
same hour, in the year 1348, this bright luminary disappeared from the world.
Alas, I was then at Verona, ignorant of my wretchedness! Her chaste and
beautiful body was laid, the same day, after vespers, in the Church of the
Cordeliers. Her soul returned to its home in heaven. I have written this
with mingled pleasure and pain, retracing in this book, so often before my
eyes, the sad memory of my great loss; that I may constantly remember that
there is nothing more left me to live for, since my strongest tie to life has been
broken, and may easily renounce this empty and transitory world, and con-
sider, being freed from my bonds, that it is time for me to flee from Babylon. "
He had endeavored from the first to stifle his passion, or at least
to restrain it within the limits of peaceful admiration and friendship,
by a prodigious intensity of serious studies, and at the same time by
giving vent to it through a continual stream of sonnets, in which her
beauty and worth constituted the supporting thread, around which
was Woven an ever new and incredible variety of elegant poetic
conceits. Unappeased by these means, he sought relief from the tem-
pestuous disquiet of his soul in gathering an extensive library of clas-
sical manuscripts, traveling abroad in Italy, France, Germany, Spain, in
search of such especially as were accounted lost. He discovered in
these journeys the 'Institutions' of Quintilian at Arezzo; Cicero's
'Familiar Letters' at Verona; his 'Letters to Atticus' somewhere
else, and some lost Orations' at Liège; and he speaks of having
seen, though they have not come down to us, Cicero's treatise 'On
Fame,' and Varro's 'On Divine and Human Things,' and the 'Letters
of Augustus. '
In these prodigious and useful and beautiful activities he became
everywhere known, and was the wonder and admiration of his age.
But the wound of his heart was not to be cured by the ecstasies of
poetry, nor the refinements of literature, nor the curiosities of learn-
ing, nor the admiration of men. The beautiful magnet at Avignon
drew him always back; and that he might be near her, and at the
same time be relieved of the presence of the revelry and vice of that
## p. 11361 (#585) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11361
shameful court, he built a home in the beautiful and romantic neigh-
boring valley of Vaucluse. This home, which he called such for fully
eleven years, became to him the dearest of all, and excited his best
inspirations.
However strange to us to-day (especially us of northern blood), it
was and is beyond doubt that the external relations of these cele-
brated lovers to one another were unimpeachable. Moreover, there
are the strongest reasons to believe, from recorded facts and from
what we know of his external life and of the intimate workings of
his heart, that after some possible weaknesses in the ebullitions of
youth,- particularly at Avignon, before his first sight of Laura,-
he lived ever afterward with conscientious jealousy against all the
excesses of luxury of every sort.
As an ecclesiastic, he was debarred from matrimony accompanied
with the lawful benediction of the Church. But it is well known,
from his writings, that Petrarch did not in his heart accept all the
teachings of the Church in his day, especially in matters of disci-
pline; and this was only a matter of discipline, not of faith. At all
events, among his other struggles for external innocence and heart
rest he formed a permanent connection with another woman, who
bore him a son and a daughter, whom he publicly recognized and
treated with the greatest tenderness. The son, whom he placed
under the most celebrated teachers, and from whom he hoped great
things but realized only regrets, died in early manhood. The daugh-
ter Tullia, characteristically named after Cicero's famous daughter,
who became a great comfort to him in his old age, was well married
in Milan; and by his will he made her husband, Francesco da Bros-
sano, his principal heir.
For the next ten years, though always in motion, he called Vau-
cluse his home; and from thence poured forth many of his most
noted productions. Among these was the Latin heroic poem 'Africa,'
which shook with applause the learned world, and gained for him
the most highly prized honor of his life, - his coronation, on the
Campidoglio at Rome, laureate of the Christian world. On the Ist
of September, 1340, this honor was offered him by the University of
Paris; and a vote of the Roman Senate invited him to receive it on
the Capitol Hill. It filled his heart most of all with infinite joy that
it came in Laura's lifetime, and that she sweetly and proudly sym-
pathized in this his unparalleled glory. He went by way of Naples,
where his royal friend Robert added a sort of ad eundem; and then
he passed on to the capital of the world. On the 8th of April, Easter
Day, 1341, in the square in front of the remains of the temple of
Jupiter Capitolinus, the crown of laurel, with great solemnity, was
placed upon his head by the hands of a Senator of Rome, in the
XIX-711
## p. 11362 (#586) ##########################################
11362
PETRARCH
presence and amid the tremendous acclamations of a vast and dis-
tinguished assembly, the braying of trumpets, and strains of martial
music. Petrarch then pronounced an oration on 'Poetry and Fame. '
When all was over, he carried the crown to St. Peter's and set it
upon the altar, an offering of pious gratitude and joy.
The remainder of his external life is mostly a record of jour-
neys and removals and brief sojourns in France and Northern Italy.
Besides Vaucluse, he had houses at Parma, at Modena, at Bologna,
at Verona, at Milan, at Venice, at Padua; whence he made his last
removal in 1370 to Arquà del Monte, a most romantic little village
among the Euganean Hills. In the outskirts even of this sequestered
hamlet, he set an orchard, planted a garden, and built a modest
house, which, with some reminiscences of its illustrious owner, such
as faded frescoes in allusion to his poems, is still accessible to vis-
itors, the only one of all his residences which can to-day be iden-
tified. Here, on the 20th day of July, 1374, his seventieth birthday.
he was found by his friend Lombardo da Serico dead in his study,
with his head reclined on a book. He had a grand funeral, and was
buried in front of the village church. His monument is a sarcopha-
gus on short columns of red marble. Upon it is a more recent bust
of the poet. Beneath is the following rhymed hexameter triplet:-
"Frigida Francisci lapis hic tegit ossa Petrarci.
Suscipe Virgo parens animam! Sate virgine, parce!
Fessaque nam terris celi requiescat in arce. »
The substance of which is:
This stone covers the mortal remains of Francis Petrarch;
O Virgin mother, receive his soul! Son of the Virgin, have mercy on it!
His earthly life was weary; let him have rest in the heavenly temple.
In enormous and almost incredible learning, as well as in con-
temporary and succeeding poetical fame, Petrarch was and is only
second to Dante. He differed greatly from him, however, in several
capital qualities. The temper of Dante was pre-eminently democratic;
and the spirit of all his writings aimed at instructing and elevating
the people, and in particular at building up the vulgar tongue. Pe-
trarch was a literary aristocrat, and despised the vulgar tongue; but
his labors in behalf of the Latin classics-in which he was no doubt
even more deeply learned than his great predecessor—were unparal-
leled and invaluable; and so great, indeed, was the encouragement
which he gave to the studies in Latin, that he may fairly be regarded
as the father of the revival of the vulgar literature, and of the classic
art which became transfused into it.
1
## p. 11363 (#587) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11363
Judged by the cold blood of later times, Petrarch was an over-
enthusiastic admirer of ancient Rome and her glories. It was an
exaggerated picture, perhaps (if that were possible), which he drew
of her grandeur in his 'Africa,' written in Latin hexameters, where
he paints with superb eloquence Scipio, Lælius, Masinissa, Ennius,
and other great characters; ornamenting his poem with splendid
descriptions and artificial orations. But by it he won his laureateship;
and it was through the possession of this "exaggerated» zeal that he
became the admirer and friend of Cola di Rienzo, and was inspired
to write that immortal canzone which still kindles every true Italian
heart, 'Spirto Gentil,' given at the end of this article in Major Mac-
gregor's very good translation. That this sentiment was founded in
loyal patriotism, as he understood it, would be sufficiently evinced,
if we had nothing more, by the celebrated canzone 'Italia Mia,'
which is here given in the almost perfect translation of Lady Dacre.
Surely never has patriotic affection been clothed in warmer or more
exquisite numbers.
Without deciding whether it was a cause or a consequence of his
"exaggerated" love and admiration of Roman antiquity, it is a fact
that in familiarity with, and in abundance and elegance of writing
in, the Latin tongue, he has not even been approached by any other
modern. He left a very great number of works in Latin, both prose
and verse, upon a very great variety of subjects, religious, political,
philosophical; for the most part of no inherent interest to-day, and
far too numerous to be even named here. Some of the more famous
and curious will show their drift by their titles: 'De Remediis Utrius-
que Fortunæ (Concerning the Remedies for Either Fortune), develop-
ing the doctrine of the Stoics, that "Not the good things of life are
truly good, nor the ills truly bad, but that the good consists in sub-
duing the passions"; "De Vita Solitaria' (On Solitude); 'De Ocio Reli-
giosorum' (On the Soul-Rest of the Religious), written after his visit
to his brother, who was a monk; 'Secretum' (Private), a confession
to St. Augustine in the presence of personified Truth,—an important
work for understanding the mind of Petrarch, and the true nature of
his love for the lady Laura. There are many volumes of letters in
Latin, sometimes in prose, sometimes in verse, often really a short
treatise or oration: the 'Familiari' (To a Friend); Senili' (To an
Old Man), one of which is really a Latin translation of the story of
Griselda in the 'Decameron'; 'Variæ' (Miscellanies); one, 'Ad Pos-
teros' (To Posterity), brings his autobiography up to the year 1351.
He says he had burned more than he preserved.
Petrarch differed from Dante in another aspect, which is twofold.
Dante is often rough and sometimes imperfect in his numbers; but
his invention is Homeric, and never sleeps. Petrarch's invention is
## p. 11364 (#588) ##########################################
11364
PETRARCH
often dull; but the utmost refinement and perfection of poetic style,
and the extreme finish of every line, are never absent.
Still another distinction between them, though each was marvelous
in his own way, is that Dante is a universal poet, embracing in his
matter the whole sphere of theology, science, and politics, as well as
all places from the centre of the earth to the zenith of the highest
heaven, and all times from the creation of the world to the final
Judgment Day; whereas the only matter of Petrarch in his Italian
poetry is the passion of human love, and this all centred about one
beautiful woman. The Canzoniere,' on which his immortal fame
depends, consist of more than three hundred sonnets, canzoni, ses-
tine, dancing-songs, and pastorals, and with a half-dozen exceptions,
chiefly patriotic. There is not one in which his love for Laura is not
wrought in, either as foundation or ornament.
This might well enough be expected to produce an intolerable
monotony; and theoretically, the more familiar one should become
with them the more sensibly the monotony would be felt. Except in
the work of an extraordinary genius, equipped with superlative art,
this must undoubtedly hold good. But in fact, in the case of Petrarch
the opposite is true. The character of monotony is not really there;
and the more often one reads the "Rhymes," the less of monotony
is felt, and the more particular and individual each sonnet and can-
zone is perceived to be. Of this curious paradox the poet Campbell
has given a very ingenious and pretty explanation, as follows:-
"This monotony," he says, "impresses the reader exactly in proportion to
the slenderness of his acquaintance with the poet. Approaching the sonnets
for the first time, they may probably appear to him as like to each other as
the sheep of a flock; but when he has become familiar with them, he will
perceive an interesting individuality in every sonnet, and will discriminate
their individual character as precisely as the shepherd can distinguish every
single sheep of his flock by its voice and its face. "
Yet again, Dante wrote his great poem in all the panoply of
the poetic art, precisely anticipating immortality for himself and his
work, with posterity distinctly in his view, -as he tells us over and
over again in the Vita Nuova': while Petrarch calls his Italian
poems 'Nuga' (Trifles), which he threw off, in the fugitive transports
of his soul, for the eye of one dear lady, according to the varying
moods of passion and the changing circumstances of life; of necessity
leaving, under all their glittering poetic armor, here and there a vul-
nerable spot, through which the critics could shoot their querulous
shafts, and have often done so. Among these the poet Campbell —
whom we have just quoted, and who is as querulous as any-closes
his criticisms on what he calls Petrarch's "affected refinements" and
## p. 11365 (#589) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11365
"unnatural conceits" with refreshing frankness, saying: "If I could
make out the strongest critical case against him, I should still have
to answer this question,- How comes it that Petrarch's poetry, in
spite of all these faults, has been the favorite of the world for five
hundred years? So strong a regard for Petrarch is rooted in the
mind of Italy, that his renown has grown up like an oak which has
reached maturity amidst the storms of ages, and fears not decay from
revolving centuries. »
This answer is very true. But the question returns, "From what
extraordinary particulars has arisen this overtopping regard for Pe-
trarch's poetry in the mind of Italy? " We confidently answer, first,
from the "melting melody" of his verse; in which, taking into
account the quantity he has left, he easily surpasses all others who
have used that harmonious speech. Secondly, that he has treated
the tenderest sentiment of universal humanity not only far more
copiously, in the mere number of touching lines, than any other Ital-
ian poet, but with a marvelous absence of repetition he goes ever on
and on with his delicious numbers, drawing ever new similitudes
and pictures, which are continually bringing silent thoughts of sweet-
ness to the reader's mind. Finally, there is in his handiwork a tone
all his own, an unwonted and peculiar way of expressing the senti-
ment of love; not sensual, not conventional, not over-metaphysical,
but natural and truly human: in still other words, while clothed with
a purity fit for the most virtuous and modest lady's ear, his lines,
radiant with beauty and of bewitching melody, yet breathe a tender-
ness, a sincerity, a manliness, not surpassed by Tibullus, or any of the
most objectionable of the famous old classic pagans.
It is this quality, so bewitching in the original, of Petrarch's Ital-
ian poetry,- subtle and evanescent as the fragrance of a rose,-in
which perhaps lies the greatest difference of all between the two
supreme poets of Italy, and renders the stanzas of Petrarch the
despair of every translator into a foreign tongue. Not only are the
unparalleled melodies of his delicious numbers impossible to be car-
ried over into other measures and other sounds, but the sweet images,
as ethereal as the fleecy clouds of June, are shy of another zone.
No English poet has attempted a complete translation of Petrarch's
Italian poetry. Such translations as exist are fragmentary, by differ-
ent hands, and of very unequal merit. We have selected the most
celebrated morsels, and in the translations which seemed to bring to
us the most successfully that which Petrarch has given to those who
are native to the language and the scenery of Italy.
JF. Bingha
## p. 11366 (#590) ##########################################
11366
PETRARCH
«ITALIA MIA, BENCHÈ 'L PARLAR SIA INDARNO»
TO THE PRINCES OF ITALY, EXHORTING THEM TO SET HER FREE
My Own Italy! though words are vain
The mortal wounds to close,
Unnumbered, that thy beauteous bosom stain,
Yet may it soothe my pain
To sigh forth Tiber's woes,
And Arno's wrongs, as on Po's saddened shore
Sorrowing I wander, and my numbers pour.
Ruler of heaven! By the all-pitying love
That could thy Godhead move
To dwell a lowly sojourner on earth,
Turn, Lord! on this thy chosen land thine eye:
See, God of Charity!
From what light cause this cruel war has birth;
And the hard hearts by savage discord steeled,
Thou, Father! from on high,
Touch by my humble voice, that stubborn wrath may yield!
O
Ye, to whose sovereign hands the fates confide
Of this fair land the reins,-
(This land for which no pity wrings your breast,).
Why does the stranger's sword her plains invest?
That her green fields be dyed,
Hope ye, with blood from the Barbarians' veins ?
Beguiled by error weak,
Ye see not, though to pierce so deep ye boast,
Who love or faith in venal bosoms seek:
When thronged your standards most,
Ye are encompassed most by hostile bands.
Oh, hideous deluge gathered in strange lands,
That rushing down amain
-
O'erwhelms our every native lovely plain!
Alas! if our own hands
Have thus our weal betrayed, who shall our cause sustain ?
Well did kind Nature, guardian of our State,
Rear her rude Alpine heights,
A lofty rampart against German hate:
But blind ambition, seeking his own ill,
With ever restless will,
To the pure gales contagion foul invites;
Within the same strait fold
## p. 11367 (#591) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11367
The gentle flocks and wolves relentless throng,
Where still meek innocence must suffer wrong:
And these-oh, shame avowed! -
Are of the lawless hordes no tie can hold;
Fame tells how Marius's sword
Erewhile their bosoms gored,-
Nor has Time's hand aught blurred the record proud!
When they who, thirsting, stooped to quaff the flood,
With the cool waters mixed, drank of a comrade's blood!
Great Cæsar's name I pass, who o'er our plains
Poured forth the ensanguined tide,
Drawn by our own good swords from out their veins;
But now-nor know I what ill stars preside —
Heaven holds this land in hate!
To you the thanks, whose hands control her helm!
You, whose rash feuds despoil
Of all the beauteous earth the fairest realm!
Are ye impelled by judgment, crime, or fate,
To oppress the desolate?
From broken fortunes and from humble toil
The hard-earned dole to wring,
While from afar ye bring
Dealers in blood, bartering their souls for hire?
In truth's great cause I sing,
Nor hatred nor disdain my earnest lay inspire.
Nor mark ye yet, confirmed by proof on proof,
Bavaria's perfidy,
Who strikes in mockery, keeping death aloof?
(Shame, worse than aught of loss, in honor's eye! )
While ye, with honest rage, devoted pour
Your inmost bosom's gore! -
Yet give one hour to thought,
And ye shall own how little he can hold
Another's glory dear, who sets his own at naught.
O Latin blood of old!
Arise, and wrest from obloquy thy fame,
Nor bow before a name
Of hollow sound, whose power no laws enforce!
For if barbarians rude
Have higher minds subdued,
Ours! ours the crime! - Not such wise Nature's course.
Ah! is not this the soil my foot first pressed?
And here, in cradled rest,
## p. 11368 (#592) ##########################################
11368
PETRARCH
Was I not softly hushed? here fondly reared?
Ah! is not this my country? so endeared
By every filial tie!
In whose lap shrouded both my parents lie!
Oh! by this tender thought,
Your torpid bosoms to compassion wrought,
Look on the people's grief!
Who, after God, of you expect relief;
And if ye but relent,
Virtue shall rouse her in embattled might,
Against blind fury bent,
Nor long shall doubtful hang the unequal fight;
For no-the ancient flame
Is not extinguished yet, that raised the Italian name!
Mark, sovereign lords! how Time, with pinion strong,
Swift hurries life along!
E'en now, behold! Death presses on the rear.
We sojourn here a day-the next, are gone!
The soul disrobed, alone,
Must shuddering seek the doubtful pass we fear.
Oh! at the dreaded bourne,
Abase the lofty brow of wrath and scorn,-
Storms adverse to the eternal calm on high!
And yet, whose cruelty
Has sought another's harm, by fairer deed
Of heart, or hand, or intellect, aspire
To win the honest meed
Of just renown- the noble mind's desire!
Thus sweet on earth the stay!
Thus to the spirit pure, unbarred is Heaven's way!
My song! with courtesy, and numbers sooth,
Thy daring reasons grace;
For thou the mighty, in their pride of place,
Must woo to gentle ruth,
Whose haughty will long evil customs nurse,
Ever to truth averse!
Thee better fortunes wait,
Among the virtues few, the truly great!
Tell them- but who shall bid my terrors cease?
Peace! Peace! on thee I call!
Return, O heaven-born Peace!
Translation of Lady Dacre.
## p. 11369 (#593) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11369
"SPIRTO GENTIL CHE QUELLE MEMBRA REGGI»
TO RIENZI, BESEECHING HIM TO RESTORE TO ROME HER ANCIENT
LIBERTY
PIRIT heroic! who with fire divine
SPIR
Kindlest those limbs, awhile which pilgrim hold
On earth a chieftain gracious, wise, and bold;
Since rightly now the rod of State is thine,
Rome and her wandering children to confine,
And yet reclaim her to the old good way;
To thee I speak, for elsewhere not a ray
Of virtue can I find, extinct below,
Nor one who feels of evil deeds the shame.
Why Italy still waits, and what her aim,
I know not: callous to her proper woe,
Indolent, aged, slow,
Still will she sleep? Is none to rouse her found?
Oh that my wakening hands were through her tresses wound!
So grievous is the spell, the trance so deep,
Loud though we call, my hope is faint that e'er
She yet will waken from her heavy sleep;
But not, methinks, without some better end
Was this our Rome intrusted to thy care,
Who surest may revive and best defend.
Fearlessly then upon that reverend head,
'Mid her disheveled locks, thy fingers spread,
And lift at length the sluggard from the dust;
I, day and night, who her prostration mourn,
For this in thee have fixed my certain trust,-
That if her sons yet turn,
And their eyes ever true to honor raise,
The glory is reserved for thy illustrious days!
Her ancient walls, which still with fear and love
The world admires, whene'er it calls to mind
The days of eld, and turns to look behind;
Her hoar and caverned monuments above
The dust of men, whose fame, until the world
In dissolution sink, can never fail;
Her all, that in one ruin now lies hurled,
Hopes to have healed by thee its every ail.
## p. 11370 (#594) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11370
O faithful Brutus, noble Scipios, dead!
To you what triumph, where ye now are blest,
If of our worthy choice the fame have spread:
And how his laureled crest
Will old Fabricius rear, with joy elate,
That his own Rome again shall beauteous be and great!
And if for things of earth its care Heaven show,
The souls who dwell above in joy and peace,
And their mere mortal frames have left below,
Implore thee this long civil strife may cease,
Which kills all confidence, nips every good,
Which bars the way to many a roof where men
Once holy, hospitable lived, the den
Of fearless rapine now and frequent blood,
Whose doors to virtue only are denied.
While beneath plundered saints, in outraged fanes
Plots faction, and revenge the altar stains;
And contrast sad and wide-
-
―――――
The very bells which sweetly wont to fling
Summons to prayer and praise, now battle's tocsin ring!
Pale weeping women, and a friendless crowd
Of tender years, infirm and desolate Age,
Which hates itself and its superfluous days,
With each blest order to religion vowed,
Whom works of love through lives of want engage.
To thee for help their hands and voices raise;
While our poor panic-stricken land displays
The thousand wounds which now so mar her frame
That e'en from foes compassion they command;
Or more if Christendom thy care may claim,
Lo! God's own house on fire, while not a hand
Moves to subdue the flame:
Heal thou these wounds, this feverish tumult end,
And on the holy work Heaven's blessing shall descend!
Often against our marble column high,
Wolf, Lion, Bear, proud Eagle, and base Snake
Even to their own injury insult shower;
Lifts against thee and theirs her mournful cry
The noble Dame who calls thee here to break
Away the evil weeds which will not flower.
A thousand years and more! and gallant men
There fixed her seat in beauty and in power;
## p. 11371 (#595) ##########################################
PETRARCH
11371
The breed of patriot hearts has failed since then!
And in their stead, upstart and haughty now,
A race which ne'er to her in reverence bends,
Her husband, father thou!
Like care from thee and counsel she attends,
As o'er his other works the Sire of all extends.
'Tis seldom e'en that with our fairest schemes
Some adverse fortune will not mix, and mar
With instant ill, ambition's noblest dreams;
But thou, once ta'en thy path, so walk that I
May pardon her past faults, great as they are,
If now at least she give herself the lie.
