Or in forma di Ninfa or d'altra Diva Or l'ho veduta su per l'erba fresca In tante parti e sì bella la veggio Che se l'error durasse altro non chieggio But the night dissipated these visions : When night has closed around, Yet has the wanderer found A short but deep forgetfulness at last But ah! my grief, that with each moment grows, As fast and yet more fast Day urges on, is heaviest at its close*. As soon as his imagination was surrounded by silence and darkness, the very object which it had delighted to decorate and adorn during the day, was clothed with terror, and he frequently saw Laura during the night, and his limbs were chilled with fear. "I arose, trembling, with the earliest dawn to quit a house where every thing inspired me with terror. climbed the heights, I trod the woods, looking I * MERIVALE's translation of a Canzone of Petrarch, the whole of which is a description of his habitual melancholy after sunset.—Part 1. Can. 5.-See Lady DACRE's translation in the APPEndix. on every side to see if the image which had disturbed my repose followed my steps: I could feel myself no where in safety*."-This is a passage from one of his Latin works; and when he expresses the same in Italian, a single line is sufficient to touch the feelings of every reader, who has experienced violent passions in solitude, Tal paura ho di ritrovarmi solo! XIII. THE need of consolation forced him to seek refuge even among those persons whom he despised, Il vulgo à me nemico, ed odïoso, Chi 'l crederia? per mio refugio chero! and love carried him away to Avignon only that he might go back again suddenly to Vaucluse. He left France and returned after a few months. He undertook distant journeys, and endeavoured to forget Laura by long absence; and during these fits of indignation and shame, he thought that a less platonic attachment might put an end to the servitude in which his mind was held. "It was no more * Carminum Lib. 2. Epist. 7. * to be hoped that I could be delivered by mere chance*." He had then a natural son, and, after some years, a daughter; but he protested, that in spite of these irregularities, he never loved any one but Laura. "I always felt," says he, "the unworthiness of my inclinations, and at my fortieth year, retain them no more than if I had never seen any other woman; sane and robust, in the warmth and vigour of life, I have subdued so shameful a necessity." Even towards this period, which was nearly that of the death of Laura, neither the example of her virtue, nor his strong doubts of her being a heartless prude, were sufficient to heal his wound; and he opened his bleeding breast to his most intimate friends: The day may perhaps come, when I shall have calmness enough to contemplate all the misery of my soul, to examine my passion, not however that I may continue to love her, but that I may love thee alone, O my God! But at this day, how many dangers have I yet to surmount, how many efforts have I yet to make; I no longer love as I did love, but still I love; I love in # Durum opus eventu dominam pepulisse decenni. Carm. Lib. 1. Ep. 12. + Epist. ad Post. D spite of myself, but I love in lamentations and in tears: I will hate her, no, I must still love her* " Seven years after the date of this letter the conflict had not yet ceased. "My love," he says, "is vehement, extreme, but exclusive and virtuous.-No, this disquietude, these suspicions, these transports, this watchfulness, this delirium, this weariness of every thing, are not the signs of a virtuous love." XIV. PETRARCH was in Italy when the plague, which in 1348 laid Europe waste, snatched away some of his dearest friends, and appalled him with the presage of a still greater calamity. "Formerly," says he, "when I quitted Laura, I saw her often in my dreams. It was a heavenly vision which consoled me, but now it affrights me. I think I hear her say-dost thou remember the evening when, forced to quit thee, I left thee bathed in tears? I then foresaw-but I could not-would not tell thee. I tell thee now, and thou mayest believe me-thou wilt see me no more on this earth :" Non sperar di vedermi in terra mai. * Famil. Lib. 4. Ep. 1. + Liber de Secreto Conflictu Curarum suarum. An. 1343. Two months afterwards Laura died in her fortieth year, and Petrarch wrote in a copy of Virgil this memorandum: "It was in the early days of my youth, on the 6th of April, in the morning, and in the year 1327, that Laura, distinguished by her own virtues, and celebrated in my verses, first blessed my eyes in the church of Santa Clara, at Avignon; and it was in the same city, on the 6th of the very same month of April, at the very same hour in the morning, in the year 1348, that this bright luminary was withdrawn from our sight, when I was at Verona, alas! ignorant of my calamity. The remains of her chaste and beautiful body were deposited in the church of the Cordeliers, on the evening of the same day. To preserve the afflicting remembrance, I have taker a bitter pleasure in recording it particularly in this book which is most frequently before my eyes, in order that nothing in this world may have any farther attraction for me; that this great attachment to life being dissolved, I may by frequent reflection, and a proper estimation of our transitory existence, be admonished that it is high time for me to think of quitting this earthly Babylon, which I trust it will not be difficult for me, with a strong and manly courage, to accomplish." |