S. Augustine. If only the conditions laid down are observed, I will prove to you that you are misusing words.
Petrarch. What conditions do you mean, and how would you have me use words differently?
S. Augustine. Our conditions were to lay aside all juggling with terms and to seek truth in all plain simplicity, and the words I would have you use are these: instead of saying you cannot, you ought to say you will not.
Petrarch. There will be no end then to our discussion, for that is what I never shall confess. I tell you I know, and you yourself are witness, how often I have wished to and yet could not rise. What floods of tears have I shed, and all to no purpose?
S. Augustine. O yes, I have witnessed many tears, but very little will.
Petrarch. Heaven is witness (for indeed I think no man on this earth knows) what I have suffered, and how I have longed earnestly to rise, if only I might.
S. Augustine. Hush, hush. Heaven and earth will crash in ruin, the stars themselves will fall to hell, and all harmonious Nature be divided against itself, sooner than Truth, who is our Judge, can be deceived.
Petrarch. And what do you mean by that?
S. Augustine. I mean that your tears have often stung your conscience but not changed your will.
Petrarch. I wonder how many times I must tell you that it is just this impossibility of change which I bewail.
S. Augustine. And I wonder how many times I must reply that it is want of will, not want of power, which is the trouble.
And yet I wonder not that now you find yourself involved in these perplexities; in which in time past I too was tossed about, when I was beginning to contemplate entering upon a new way of life. I tore my hair; I beat my brow; my fingers I twisted nervously; I bent double and held my knees; I filled the air of heaven with most bitter sighs; I poured out tears like water on every side: yet nevertheless I remained what I was and no other, until a deep meditation at last showed me the root of all my misery and made it plain before my eyes. And then my will after that became fully changed, and my weakness also was changed in that same moment to power, and by a marvellous and most blessed alteration I was transformed instantly and made another man, another Augustine altogether. The full history of that transformation is known, if I mistake not, to you already in my Confessions.
Petrarch. Yes, in truth I know it well, and never can I forget the story of that health-bringing fig-tree, beneath whose shade the miracle took place.
S. Augustine. Well indeed may you remember it. And no tree to you should be more dear: no, not the myrtle, nor the ivy, nor the laurel beloved of Apollo and ever afterwards favoured by all the band of Poets, favoured too by you, above all, who alone in your age have been counted worthy to be crowned with its leaves; yet dearer than these should be to you the memory of that fig-tree, for it greets you like some mariner coming into haven after many storms; it holds out to you the path of righteousness, and a sure hope which fadeth not away, that presently the divine Forgiveness shall be yours.
Petrarch. I would not say one word in contradiction. Go on, I beseech you, with what you have begun.
S. Augustine. This is what I undertook and will go on with, to prove to you that so far you are like those many others of whom it may be said in the words of Virgil —
“Unchanged their mind while vainly flow their tears.”
Though I might multiply examples, yet I will rather content myself with this alone, that we might almost reckon as belonging to ourselves, and so all the more likely to come home.
Petrarch. How wisely you have made choice; for indeed it were useless to add more, and no other could be so deeply graven in my heart. Great as the gulf which parts us may be — I mean between you in your safe haven and me in peril of shipwreck, you in felicity, me in distress — still amid my winds and tempests I can recognise from time to time the traces of, your own storm-tossed passions. So that as often as I read the book of your Confessions, and am made partaker of your conflict between two contrary emotions, between hope and fear, (and weep as I read), I seem to be hearing the story of my own self, the story not of another’s wandering, but of my own. Therefore, since now I have put away every inclination to mere dispute, go on, I beg, as you desire. For all my heart wishes now is not to hinder but only to follow where you lead.
S. Augustine. I make no such demand on you as that. For though a certain very wise man has laid it down that “Through overmuch contention truth is lost,” yet often it happens that a well-ordered discussion leads to truth. It is not then expedient to accept everything advanced, which is the token of a slack and sleepy mind, any more than it is expedient to set oneself to oppose a plain and open truth, which indicates only the mind of one who likes fighting for fighting’s sake.
Petrarch. I understand and agree with you and will act on your advice. Now, pray go on.
S. Augustine. You admit, therefore, that the argument is just and the chain of reasoning valid, when we say that a perfect knowledge of one’s misery will beget a perfect desire to be rid of it, if only the power to be rid may follow the desire.
Petrarch. I have professed that I will believe you in everything.
S. Augustine. I feel there is still something you would like to urge, even now. Do, please, confess it, no matter what it may be.
Petrarch. Nothing, only that I am much amazed I to think I should never yet have wished what I have believed I always wished.
S. Augustine. You still stick at that point. O well, to put an end to this kind of talk I will agree that you have wished sometimes.
Petrarch. What then?
S. Augustine. Do you not remember the phrase of Ovid —
“To wish for what you want is not enough;
With ardent longing you must strive for it.”
Petrarch. I understand, but thought that was just what I had been doing.
S. Augustine. You were mistaken.
Petrarch. Well, I will believe so.
S. Augustine. To make your belief certain, examine your own conscience. Conscience is the best judge of virtue. It is a guide, true and unerring, that weighs every thought and deed. It will tell you that you have never longed for spiritual health as you ought, but that, considering what great dangers beset you, your wishes were but feeble and ineffective.
Petrarch. I have been examining my conscience, as you suggested.
S. Augustine. What do you find?
Petrarch. That what you say is true.
S. Augustine. We have made a little progress, if you are beginning to be awake. It will soon be better with you now you acknowledge it was not well hitherto.
Petrarch. If it is enough to acknowledge, I hope to be able to be not only well but quite well, for never have I understood more clearly that my wishes for liberty and for an end to my misery have been too lukewarm. But can it be enough to desire only?
S. Augustine. Why do you ask?
Petrarch. I mean, to desire without doing anything.
S. Augustine. What you propose is an impossibility. No one desires ardently and goes to sleep.
Petrarch. Of what use is desire, then?
S. Augustine. Doubtless the path leads through many difficulties, but the desire of virtue is itself a great part of virtue.
Petrarch. There you give me ground for good hope.
S. Augustine. All my discourse is just to teach you how to hope and to fear.
Petrarch. Why to fear?
S. Augustine. Then tell me why to hope?
Petrarch. Because whereas so far I have striven, and with much tribulation, merely not to become worse, you now open a way to me whereby I may become better and better, even to perfection.
S. Augustine. But maybe you do not think how toilsome that way is.
Petrarch. Have you some now terror in store for me?
S. Augustine. To desire is but one word, but how many things go to make it up!
Petrarch. Your words make me tremble.
S. Augustine. Not to mention the positive elements in
desire, it involves the destruction of many other objects.
Petrarch. I do not quite take in your meaning.
S. Augustine. The desire of all good cannot exist without thrusting out every lower wish. You know how many different objects one longs for in life. All these you must first learn to count as nothing before you can rise to the desire for the chief good; which a man loves less when along with it he loves something else that does not minister to it.
Petrarch. I recognise the thought.
S. Augustine. How many men are there who have extinguished all their passions, or, not to speak of extinguishing, tell me how many are there who have subdued their spirit to the control of Reason, and will dare to say, “I have no more in common with my body; all that once seemed so pleasing to me is become poor in my sight. I aspire now to joys of nobler nature”?
Petrarch. Such men are rare indeed. And now I understand what those difficulties are with which you threatened me.
S. Augustine. When all these passions are extinguished, then, and not till then, will desire be full and free. For when the soul is uplifted on one side to heaven by its own nobility, and on the other dragged down to earth by the weight of the flesh and the seductions of the world, so that it both desires to rise and also to sink at one and the same time, then, drawn contrary ways, you find you arrive nowhither.
Petrarch. What, then, would you say a man must do for his soul to break the fetters of the world, and mount up perfect and entire to the realms above?
S. Augustine. What leads to this goal is, as I said in the first instance, the practice of meditation on death and the perpetual recollection of our mortal nature.
Petrarch. Unless I am deceived, there is no man alive who is more often revolving this thought in his heart than I.
S. Augustine. Ah, here is another delusion, a fresh obstacle in your way!
Petrarch. What! Do you mean to say I am once more lying?
Augustine. I would sooner hear you use more civil language.
Petrarch. But to say the same thing?
S. Augustine. Yes, to say nothing else.
Petrarch. So then you mean I care nothing at all about death?
S. Augustine. To tell the truth you think very seldom of it, and in so feeble a way that your thought never touches the root of your trouble.
Petrarch. I supposed just the opposite.
S. Augustine. I am not concerned with what you suppose, but with what you ought to suppose.
Petrarch. Well, I may tell you that in spite of that I will suppose it no more, if you prove to me that my supposition was a false one.
S. Augustine. That I will do easily enough, provided you are willing to admit the truth in good faith. For this end I will call in a witness who is not far away.
Petrarch. And who may that be, pray?
S. Augustine. Your conscience.
Petrarch. She testifies just the contrary.
S. Augustine. When you make an obscure, confused demand no witness can give precise or clear answers.
Petrarch. What has that to do with the subject, I would like to know?
S. Augustine. Much, every way. To see dearly, listen well. No man is so senseless (unless he be altogether out of his mind) as never once to remember his own weak nature, or who, if asked the question whether he were mortal and dwelt in a frail body, would not answer that he was. The pains of the body, the onsets of fever, attest the fact; and whom has the favour of Heaven made exempt? Moreover, your friends are carried out to their burial before your eyes; and this fills the soul with dread. When one goes to the graveside of some friend of one’s own age one is forced to tremble at another’s fall and to begin feeling uneasy for oneself; just as when you see your neighbour’s roof on fire, you cannot fool quite happy for your own, because, as Horace puts it —
“On your own head you see the stroke will fall.”
The impression will be more strong in case you see some sudden death carry off one younger, more vigorous, finer looking than yourself. In such an event a man will say, “This one seemed to live secure, and yet he is snatched off. His youth, his beauty, his strength have brought him no help. What God or what magician has promised me any surer warrant of security? Verily, I too am mortal.”
When the like fate befalls kings and rulers of the earth, people of great might and such as are regarded with awe, those who see it are struck with more dread, are more shaken with alarm; they are amazed when they behold a sudden terror, or perchance hours of intense agony seize on one who was wont to strike terror into others. From what other cause proceed the doings of people who seem beside themselves upon the death of men in highest place, such as, to take an instance from history, the many things of this kind that, as you have related, were done at the funeral of Julius Cæsar? A public spectacle like this strikes the attention and touches the heart of mortal men; and what then they see in the case of another is brought home as pertaining also to themselves. Beside all these, are there not the rage of savage boasts, and of men, and the furious madness of war? Are there not the falls of those great buildings which, as some one neatly says, are first the safeguards, then the sepulchres of men? Are there not malignant motions of the air beneath some evil star and pestilential sky? And so many perils on sea and land that, look wheresoever you will, you cannot turn your gaze anywhither but you will meet the visible image and memento of your own mortality.
Petrarch. I beg your pardon, but I cannot wait any longer, for, as for having my reason fortified, I do not think any more powerful aid can be brought than the many arguments you have adduced. As I listened I wondered what end you were aiming at, and when your discourse would finish.
S. Augustine. As a matter of fact, you have interrupted me, and it has not yet reached its end. However, here is the conclusion — although a host of little pin-pricks play upon the surface of your mind, nothing yet has penetrated the centre. The miserable heart is hardened by long habit, and becomes like some indurated stone; impervious to warnings, however salutary, you will find few people considering with any seriousness the fact that they will die.
Petrarch. Then few people are aware of the very definition of man, which nevertheless is so hackneyed in the schools, that it ought not merely to weary the ears of those who hear it, but is now long since scrawled upon the walls and pillars of every room. This prattling of the Dialecticians will never come to an end; it throws up summaries and definitions like bubbles, matter indeed for endless controversies, but for the most part they know nothing of the real truth of the things they talk about. So, if you ask one of this set of men for a definition of a man or of anything else, they have their answer quite pat, as the saying goes; if you press him further, he will lie low, or if by sheer practice in arguing he has acquired a certain boldness and power of speech, the very tone of the man will tell you he possesses no real knowledge of the thing he sets out to define. The best way of dealing with this brood, with their studied air of carelessness and empty curiosity, is to launch at their head some such invective as this, “You wretched creatures, why this everlasting labour for nothing; this expense of wit on silly subtleties? Why in total oblivion of the real basis of things will you grow old simply conversant with words, and with whitening hair and wrinkled brow, spend all your time in babyish babble? Heaven grant that your foolishness hurt no one but yourselves, and do as little harm as possible to the excellent minds and capacities of the young.”
S. Augustine. I agree that nothing half severe enough can be said of this monstrous perversion of learning. But let me remind you that your zeal of denunciation has so carried you away that you have omitted to finish your definition of man.
Petrarch. I thought I had explained sufficiently, but I will be more explicit still. Man is an animal, or rather the chief of all animals. The veriest rustic knows that much. Every schoolboy could tell you also, if you asked him, that man is, moreover, a rational animal and that he is mortal. This definition, then, is a matter of common knowledge.
S. Augustine.
No, it is not. Those who are acquainted with it are very few in number.
Petrarch. How so?
S. Augustine. When you can find a man so governed by Reason that all his conduct is regulated by her, all his appetites subject to her alone, a man who has so mastered every motion of his spirit by Reason’s curb that he knows it is she alone who distinguishes him from the savagery of the brute, and that it is only by submission to her guidance that he deserves the name of man at all; when you have found one so convinced of his own mortality as to have that always before his eyes, always to be ruling himself by it, and holding perishable things in such light esteem that he ever sighs after that life, which Reason always foresaw, wherein mortality shall be cast away; when you have found such a man, then you may say that he has some true and fruitful idea of what the definition of man is. This definition, of which we were speaking, I said it was given to few men to know, and to reflect upon as the nature of the truth requires.
Petrarch. Hitherto I had believed I was of that number.
S. Augustine. I have no doubt that when you turn over in your mind the many things you have learned, whether in the school of experience or in your reading of books, the thought of death has several times entered your head. But still it has not sunk down into your heart as deeply as it ought, nor is it lodged there as firmly as it should be.
Petrarch. What do you call sinking down into my heart? Though I think I understand, I would like you to explain more clearly.
S. Augustine. This is what I mean. Every one knows, and the greatest philosophers are of the same opinion, that of all tremendous realities Death is the most tremendous. So true is this, that from ever of old its very name is terrible and dreadful to hear. Yet though so it is, it will not do that we hear that name but lightly, or allow the remembrance of it to slip quickly from our mind. No, we must take time to realise it. We must meditate with attention thereon. We must picture to ourselves the effect of death on each several part of our bodily frame, the cold extremities, the breast in the sweat of fever, the side throbbing with pain, the vital spirits running slower and slower as death draws near, the eyes sunken and weeping, every look filled with tears, the forehead pale and drawn, the cheeks hanging and hollow, the teeth staring and discoloured, the nostrils shrunk and sharpened, the lips foaming, the tongue foul and motionless, the palate parched and dry, the languid head and panting breast, the hoarse murmur and sorrowful sigh, the evil smell of the whole body, the horror of seeing the face utterly unlike itself — all these things will come to mind and, so to speak, be ready to one’s hand, if one recalls what one has seen in any close observation of some deathbed where it has fallen to our lot to attend. For things seen cling closer to our remembrance than things heard.
Collected Poetical Works of Francesco Petrarch Page 68