The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 5

LAURA AND PETRARCH CONTINUED.

Much power of lively ridicule, much coa.r.s.e wit,--princ.i.p.ally French wit,--has been expended on the subject of Laura's virtue; by those, I presume, who under similar circ.u.mstances would have found such virtue "too painful an endeavour."[29] Much depraved ingenuity has been exerted to twist certain lines and pa.s.sages in the Canzonire into a sense which shall blot with frailty the memory of this beautiful and far-famed being: once believe these interpretations, and all the peculiar and graceful charm which now hangs round her intercourse with Petrarch vanishes,--the reverential delicacy of the poet's homage becomes a mockery, and all his exalted praises of her unequalled virtue, and her invincible chast.i.ty, are turned to satire, and insult our moral feeling.

But the question, I believe, is finally set at rest, and it were idle to war with epigrams. All the evidence that has been collected, external and internal, prose and poetry, critical and traditional, tends to prove, first, that Laura preserved her virtue to the last; and, secondly, that she did not preserve it una.s.sailed; that Petrarch, true to his s.e.x,--a very man, (as Laura has been called a _very woman_,) used at first every art, every effort, every advantage, which his diversified accomplishments of mind and person lent him, to destroy the very virtue he adored. He only _hints_ this in his poetry, just sufficiently to enhance the glory which he has thrown round his divinity; but he speaks more plainly in prose.

"Untouched by my prayers, unvanquished by my arguments, unmoved by my flattery, she remained faithful to her s.e.x's honour; she resisted her own young heart, and mine, and a thousand, thousand, thousand things, which must have conquered any other. She remained unshaken. A woman taught me the duty of a man! to persuade me to keep the path of virtue, her conduct was at once an example and a reproach; and when she beheld me break through all bounds, and rush blindly to the precipice, she had the courage to abandon me, rather than follow me."[30]

But whether, in this long conflict, Laura preserved her heart untouched, as well as her virtue immaculate; whether she shared the love she inspired; or whether she escaped from the captivating a.s.siduities and intoxicating homage of her lover, "_fancy-free_;"--whether coldness, or prudence, or pride, or virtue, or the mere heartless love of admiration, or a mixture of all together, dictated her conduct, is at least as well worth inquiry, as the exact colour of her eyes, or the form of her nose, upon which we have pages of grave discussion. She might have been _coquette par instinct_, if not _par calcul_; she might have felt, with feminine _tacte_, that to preserve her influence over Petrarch, it was necessary to preserve his respect. She was evidently proud of her conquest: she had else been more or less than woman; and at every hazard, but that of self-respect, she was resolved to retain him. If Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better treated on his return.[31] If he avoided her, then her eye followed him with a softer expression. When he looked pale from sickness of heart and agitation of spirits, Laura would address him with a few words of pitying tenderness. He thanks her in those exquisite lines, which seem to glow with all the renovation of hope,

Volgendo gli occhi al mio novo colore Che fa di morte rimembrar le gente Piet vi mosse, onde benignamente Salutando teneste in vita il core.

La frale vita ch'ancor meco alberga, Fu de' begli occhi vostri aperto dono, E della voce angelica soave![32]

He presumes upon this benignity, and is again dashed back with frowns.

He flies to solitude,--solitude!--Never let the proud and torn heart, wrung with the sense of injury, and sick with unrequited pa.s.sion, seek that worst resource against pain, for there grief grows by contemplation of itself, and every feeling is sharpened by collision. Petrarch sought to "mitigate the fever of his heart" amid the shades of Vaucluse, a spot so gloomy and so solitary, that his very servants forsook him; and Vaucluse, its fountains, its forests, and its hanging cliffs, reflected only the image of Laura.

L'acque parlan d'amore, e l'aura, e i rami E gli augeletti, e i pesci e i fiori e l'erba; Tutti insieme pregando ch' io sempr'ami![33]

He is driven again to her feet by his own insupportable thoughts--and in terror of himself;--

Tal paura ho di ritrovarmi solo!

He endeavours to maintain in her presence that self-constraint she had enjoined. He a.s.sumes a cold and calm deportment, and Laura, as she pa.s.ses him, whispers in a tone of gentle reproach, "Petrarch! are you so soon weary of loving me?" (ten or eleven years of adoration were, in truth, nothing--_to signify_!) At length, he resolved to leave Laura and Avignon for ever; and instead of plunging into solitude, to seek the wiser resource of travel and society. He announced this intention to Laura, and bade her a long farewell; either through surprise, or grief, or the fear of losing her glorious captive, she turned exceedingly pale, a cloud overspread her beautiful countenance, and she fixed her eyes on the ground. This was to her lover an intoxicating moment; in the exultation of sudden delight, he interpreted these symptoms of relenting, this "vago impallidir," too favourably to himself. "She bent those gentle eyes upon the earth, which in their sweet silence said,--to me at least they seemed to say,--'who takes my faithful friend so far from me?'"

Chinava a terra il bel guardo gentile, E tacendo dicea, com' a me parve-- "Chi m'allontana il mio fedele amico?"

On his return to Avignon, a few months afterwards, Laura received him with evident pleasure; but he is not, therefore, more _avan_; all this was probably the refined coquetterie of a woman of calm pa.s.sions; but not heartless, not really indifferent to the devotion she inspired, nor ungrateful for it.

Petrarch has himself left us a most minute and interesting description of the whole course of Laura's conduct towards him, which by a beautiful figure of poetry he has placed in her own mouth. The pa.s.sage occurs in the TRIONFO DI MORTE, beginning, "La notte che segui l'orribil caso."

The apparition of Laura descending on the morning dew, bright as the opening dawn, and crowned with Oriental gems,

Di gemme orientali incoronata,

appears before her lover, and addresses him with compa.s.sionate tenderness. After a short dialogue, full of poetic beauty and n.o.ble thoughts,[34] Petrarch conjures her, in the name of heaven and of truth, to tell him whether the pity she sometimes expressed for him was allied to love? for that the sweetness she mingled with her disdain and reserve--the soft looks with which she tempered her anger, had left him for long years in doubt of her real sentiments, still doating, still suspecting, still hoping without end:

Creovvi amor pensier mai nella testa, D' aver piet del mio lungo martire Non lasciando vostr' alta impresa onest?

Che vostri dolci sdegni e le dolc' ire-- Le dolci paci ne' begli occhi scritte-- Tenner molt' anni in dubbio il mio desire.

She replies evasively, with a smile and a sigh, that her heart was ever with him, but that to preserve her own fair fame, and the virtue of both, it was necessary to a.s.sume the guise of severity and disdain. She describes the arts with which she kept alive his pa.s.sion, now checking his presumption with the most frigid reserve, and when she saw him drooping, as a man ready to die, "all fancy-sick and pale of cheer,"

gently restoring him with soft looks and kind words:

"Salvando la tua vita e'l nostro onore."

She confesses the delight she felt in being beloved, and the pride she took in being sung by so great a poet. She reminds him of one particular occasion, when seated by her side, and they were left alone, he sang to his lute a song composed to her praise, beginning, "Dir pi non osa il nostro amore;" and she asks him whether he did not perceive that the veil had then nearly fallen from her heart?[35]

She laments, in some exquisite lines, that she had not the happiness to be born in Italy, the native country of her lover, and yet allows that the land must needs be fair in which she first won his affection.

Duolmi ancor veramente, ch'io non nacqui Almen pi presso al tuo fiorito nido!-- Ma a.s.sai fu bel pese ov'io ti piacqui.

In another pa.s.sage we have a sentiment evidently taken from nature, and exquisitely graceful and feminine. "You," says Laura, "proclaimed to all men the pa.s.sion you felt for me: you called aloud for pity: you kept not the tender secret for me alone, but took a pride and a pleasure in publis.h.i.+ng it forth to the world; thus constraining me, by all a woman's fear and modesty, to be silent."--"But not less is the pain because we conceal it in the depths of the heart, nor the greater because we lament aloud: fiction and poetry can add nothing to truth, nor yet take from it."

Tu eri di merc chiamar gi roco Quand'io tacea; perch vergogna e tema Facean molto desir, parer si poco; Non minor il duol perch' altri 'l prema, Ne maggior per andarsi lamentando: Per fizon non cresce il ver, n scema.

Petrarch, then all trembling and in tears, exclaims, "that could he but believe he had been dear to her eyes as to her heart, he were sufficiently recompensed for all his sufferings;" and she replies, "that will I never reveal!" ('_quello mi taccio._') By this coquettish and characteristic answer, we are still left in the dark. Such was the sacred respect in which Petrarch held her he so loved, that though he evidently wishes to believe--perhaps _did_ believe, that he had touched her heart, he would not presume to insinuate what Laura had never avowed. The whole scene, though less polished in the versification than some of his sonnets, is written throughout with all the flow and fervour of real feeling. It received the poet's last corrections twenty-six years after Laura's death, and but a few weeks previous to his own.

When at Milan, I was taken, as a matter of course, to visit the Ambrosian library. At the time I was ill in health, dejected and indifferent; and I only remember being led in pa.s.sive resignation from room to room, and called upon to admire a vast variety of objects, at the moment when I was pining for rest; when to look, think, speak, or move, was pain,--when to sit motionless and gaze out upon the suns.h.i.+ne, seemed to me the only supreme blessedness. In such moments as these, we can have sympathies with nature, but not with old books and antiquities.

I have a most confused recollection both of the locality and the contents of this famous collection; but there were two objects which roused me from this sullen stupor, and indelibly impressed my imagination and my memory; and one of these was the celebrated copy of Virgil, which had been the favourite companion and constant study of Petrarch, containing that memorandum of the death of Laura, in his own handwriting, which, after much expenditure of paper, and argument, and critical abuse, is at length admitted to be genuine. I knew little of the controversy this famous inscription had occasioned in Italy,--though I was aware that its authenticity had been disputed: but as a homely proverb saith, _seeing is believing_; to look upon the handwriting with my own eyes, would have made a.s.surance double sure, if in that moment I needed such a.s.surance. I do not remember reasoning or doubting on the subject;--but gus.h.i.+ng up like the waters of an intermitting fountain, there was a sudden flow of feeling and memory came over my heart:--I stood for some moments silently contemplating the name of LAURA, in the pale, half-effaced characters traced by the hand of her lover; that name with which his genius and his love have filled the earth: confused thoughts of the mingling of vanity and glory,--of the "poco polvere che nulla sente," and the immortality of deified beauty, were crowded in my mind. When all were gone, I turned back, and gave the guide a small gratuity to be allowed to do homage to the name of Laura, by pressing my lips upon it. The reader smiles at this sentimental enthusiasm; so would I, if time had not taught me to respect, as well as regret, what it has taken from me, and never can restore.

The memorandum has often been quoted; but this account of the love of Petrarch would not be complete were it omitted here. It runs literally thus:--

"Laura, ill.u.s.trious by her own virtues, and long celebrated by my verses, I beheld for the first time, in my early youth, on the 6th of April, 1327, about the first hour of the day, in the church of Saint Claire in Avignon: and in the same city, in the same month of April, the same day and hour, in the year 1348, this light of my life was withdrawn from the world while I was at Verona, ignorant, alas! of what had befallen me. The terrible intelligence was conveyed in a letter from Louis, and reached me at Parma the 19th of May, early in the morning.

"Her chaste and beautiful remains were deposited the same day after vespers, in the Church of the Fratri Minori (Cordeliers). Her spirit, as Seneca said of Scipio Africa.n.u.s,[36] has returned, doubtless, to that heaven whence it came.

"To preserve the memory of this afflicting loss, it is with a bitter pleasure I record it here, in this book which is ever before my eyes, that nothing in this world may hereafter delight me: and that the chief tie which bound me to life being broken, I may, by frequently looking on these words, and thinking on this transitory existence, be prepared to quit this earthly Babylon, which, with the help of the divine grace, and the constant and manly recollection of those fruitless desires, and vain hopes, and sad vicissitudes which have so long agitated me, will be an easy task."

Laura died of the plague, which then desolated Avignon, and terminated the life of the sufferer on the third day. The moment she was seized with the fatal symptoms, she dictated her will; and notwithstanding the pestilential nature of her disorder, she was surrounded to the last by her numerous relations and friends, who braved death rather than forsake her.

Her tomb was discovered and opened in 1533, in the presence of Francis the First, whose celebrated stanzas on the occasion are well known.

Of the fame, which even in her lifetime, the love and poetical adoration of Petrarch had thrown round his Laura, a curious instance is given which will characterise the manners of the age. When Charles of Luxemburgh (afterwards Emperor) was at Avignon, a grand fte was given, in his honour, at which all the n.o.blesse were present. He desired that Petrarch's Laura should be pointed out to him; and when she was introduced, he made a sign with his hand that the other ladies present should fall back; then going up to Laura, and for a moment contemplating her with interest, he kissed her respectfully on the forehead and on the eyelids. Petrarch alludes to this incident in the 201st sonnet, the last line of which shows that this royal salutation was considered singular.

"M'empia d'invidia l'atto dolce e strano."

Petrarch survived her twenty-six years, dying in 1374. He was found lifeless one morning in his study, his hand resting on a book.

The inferences I draw from this rapid sketch are, first, that Laura was virtuous, but not insensible;--for had she been facile, she would not have preserved her lover's respect; had she been a heartless trifler, she could not have retained his love, nor deserved his undying regrets: and secondly, that if Petrarch had not attached himself fervently to this beautiful and pure-hearted woman, he would have employed his splendid talents like other men of his time. He might then have left us theological treatises and Latin epics, which the worms would have eaten; he might have risen high in the church or state; have become a bold, intriguing priest; a politic archbishop,--a cardinal,--a pope;--most worthless and empty t.i.tles all, compared with that by which he has descended to us, as Petrarch, the poet and the lover of Laura![37]

FOOTNOTES:

[29] Madame Deshoulires speaks "avec connaissance de fait," and even points out the very spot in which Laura, "de l'amoureux Petrarque adoucit le martyre."--Another French lady, who piqued herself on being a descendant of the family of Laura, was extremely affronted and scandalised when the Chevalier Ramsay a.s.serted that Petrarch's pa.s.sion was purely poetical and platonic, and regarded it heresy to suppose that Laura could have been "_ungrateful_,"--such was her idea of feminine _grat.i.tude_!--(Spence's Anecdotes.) Then comes another French woman, with the most anti-poetical soul that G.o.d ever placed within the form of a woman--"Le fade personage que votre Petrarque! que sa Laure tait sotte et precieuse! que la Cour d'Amour tait fastidieuse!" &c. exclaims the acute, amusing, profligate, heartless Madame du Deffand. It must be allowed that Petrarch and Laura would have been extremely _desplaes_ in the Court of the Regent,--the only _Court of Love_ with which Madame du Deffand was acquainted, and which a.s.suredly was not _fastidieuse_.

[30] From the Dialogues with St. Augustin, as quoted in the "Pieces Justificatives," and by Ginguen (Hist. Litt. vol. iii. notes.) These imaginary dialogues are a series of Confessions not intended for publication by Petrarch, but now printed with his prose works.

[31] Sonnet 39.

[32] Ballata 5.

[33] Petrarch withdrew to Vaucluse in 1337, and spent three years in entire solitude. He commenced his journey to Rome in 1341, about fourteen years after his first interview with Laura.

[34] Petrarch asks her whether it was "pain to die?" she replies in those fine lines which have been quoted a thousand times: