Imaginary Conversations and Poems: A Selection
_Assunta._ I am ashamed to say it ... I covered my half-stocking with
them as quickly as I could, and ran after her, and presented it. Not
knowing what was under the flowers, and never minding the liberty I
had taken, being a stranger to her, she accepted it as graciously as
possible, and bade me be happy.
_Petrarca._ I hope you have always kept her command.
_Assunta._ Nobody is ever unhappy here, except Fra Biagio, who frets
sometimes: but that may be the walk; or he may fancy Ser Giovanni to
be worse than he really is.
... Having now performed her mission and concluded her narrative, she
bowed, and said:
'Excuse me, Riverenza! excuse me, Signor Padrone! my arm aches with
this great fish.'
Then, bowing again, and moving her eyes modestly toward each, she
added, 'with permission!' and left the chamber.
'About the sposina,' after a pause began Ser Francesco: 'about the
sposina, I do not see the matter clearly.'
'You have studied too much for seeing all things clearly,' answered
Ser Giovanni; 'you see only the greatest. In fine, the devil, on this
count, is acquitted by acclamation; and the paroco Snello eats lettuce
and chicory up yonder at Laverna. He has mendicant friars for his
society every day; and snails, as pure as water can wash and boil
them, for his repast on festivals. Under this discipline, if they keep
it up, surely one devil out of legion will depart from him.'
FOOTNOTES:
[15] Literally, _due fave_, the expression on such occasions to
signify a small quantity.
[16] Contraction of _signor_, customary in Tuscany.
FOURTH DAY'S INTERVIEW
_Petrarca._ Giovanni, you are unsuspicious, and would scarcely see a
monster in a minotaur. It is well, however, to draw good out of evil,
and it is the peculiar gift of an elevated mind. Nevertheless, you
must have observed, although with greater curiosity than concern, the
slipperiness and tortuousness of your detractors.
_Boccaccio._ Whatever they detract from me, they leave more than they
can carry away. Beside, they always are detected.
_Petrarca._ When they are detected, they raise themselves up fiercely,
as if their nature were erect and they could reach your height.
_Boccaccio._ Envy would conceal herself under the shadow and shelter
of contemptuousness, but she swells too huge for the den she creeps
into. Let her lie there and crack, and think no more about her. The
people you have been talking of can find no greater and no other
faults in my writings than I myself am willing to show them, and still
more willing to correct. There are many things, as you have just now
told me, very unworthy of their company.
_Petrarca._ He who has much gold is none the poorer for having much
silver too. When a king of old displayed his wealth and magnificence
before a philosopher, the philosopher's exclamation was:
'How many things are here which I do not want!'
Does not the same reflection come upon us, when we have laid aside our
compositions for a time, and look into them again more leisurely? Do
we not wonder at our own profusion, and say like the philosopher:
'How many things are here which I do not want!'
It may happen that we pull up flowers with weeds; but better this than
rankness. We must bear to see our first-born dispatched before our
eyes, and give them up quietly.
_Boccaccio._ The younger will be the most reluctant. There are poets
among us who mistake in themselves the freckles of the hay-fever for
beauty-spots. In another half-century their volumes will be inquired
after; but only for the sake of cutting out an illuminated letter from
the title-page, or of transplanting the willow at the end, that hangs
so prettily over the tomb of Amaryllis. If they wish to be healthy and
vigorous, let them open their bosoms to the breezes of Sunium; for the
air of Latium is heavy and overcharged. Above all, they must remember
two admonitions; first, that sweet things hurt digestion; secondly,
that great sails are ill adapted to small vessels. What is there
lovely in poetry unless there be moderation and composure? Are they
not better than the hot, uncontrollable harlotry of a flaunting,
dishevelled enthusiasm? Whoever has the power of creating, has
likewise the inferior power of keeping his creation in order. The best
poets are the most impressive, because their steps are regular; for
without regularity there is neither strength nor state. Look at
Sophocles, look at Aeschylus, look at Homer.
_Petrarca._ I agree with you entirely to the whole extent of your
observations; and, if you will continue, I am ready to lay aside my
Dante for the present.
_Boccaccio._ No, no; we must have him again between us: there is no
danger that he will sour our tempers.
_Petrarca._ In comparing his and yours, since you forbid me to declare
all I think of your genius, you will at least allow me to congratulate
you as being the happier of the two.
_Boccaccio._ Frequently, where there is great power in poetry, the
imagination makes encroachments on the heart, and uses it as her own.
I have shed tears on writings which never cost the writer a sigh, but
which occasioned him to rub the palms of his hands together, until
they were ready to strike fire, with satisfaction at having overcome
the difficulty of being tender.
_Petrarca._ Giovanni! are you not grown satirical?
_Boccaccio._ Not in this. It is a truth as broad and glaring as the
eye of the Cyclops. To make you amends for your shuddering, I will
express my doubt, on the other hand, whether Dante felt all the
indignation he threw into his poetry. We are immoderately fond of
warming ourselves; and we do not think, or care, what the fire is
composed of. Be sure it is not always of cedar, like Circe's. Our
Alighieri had slipped into the habit of vituperation; and he thought
it fitted him; so he never left it off.
_Petrarca._ Serener colours are pleasanter to our eyes and more
becoming to our character. The chief desire in every man of genius is
to be thought one; and no fear or apprehension lessens it. Alighieri,
who had certainly studied the gospel, must have been conscious that he
not only was inhumane, but that he betrayed a more vindictive spirit
than any pope or prelate who is enshrined within the fretwork of his
golden grating.
_Boccaccio._ Unhappily, his strong talon had grown into him, and it
would have pained him to suffer amputation. This eagle, unlike
Jupiter's, never loosened the thunderbolt from it under the influence
of harmony.
_Petrarca._ The only good thing we can expect in such minds and
tempers is good poetry: let us at least get that; and, having it, let
us keep and value it. If you had never written some wanton stories,
you would never have been able to show the world how much wiser and
better you grew afterward.
_Boccaccio._ Alas! if I live, I hope to show it. You have raised my
spirits: and now, dear Francesco! do say a couple of prayers for me,
while I lay together the materials of a tale; a right merry one, I
promise you. Faith! it shall amuse you, and pay decently for the
prayers; a good honest litany-worth. I hardly know whether I ought to
have a nun in it: do you think I may?
_Petrarca._ Cannot you do without one?
_Boccaccio._ No; a nun I must have: say nothing against her; I can
more easily let the abbess alone. Yet Frate Biagio ... that Frate
Biagio, who never came to visit me but when he thought I was at
extremities or asleep.... Assuntina! are you there?
_Petrarca._ No; do you want her?
_Boccaccio._ Not a bit. That Frate Biagio has heightened my pulse when
I could not lower it again. The very devil is that Frate for
heightening pulses. And with him I shall now make merry ... God
willing ... in God's good time ... should it be His divine will to
restore me! which I think He has begun to do miraculously. I seem to
be within a frog's leap of well again; and we will presently have some
rare fun in my _Tale of the Frate_.
_Petrarca._ Do not openly name him.
_Boccaccio._ He shall recognize himself by one single expression. He
said to me, when I was at the worst:
'Ser Giovanni! it would not be much amiss (with permission!) if you
begin to think (at any spare time), just a morsel, of eternity.'
'Ah! Fra Biagio!' answered I, contritely, 'I never heard a sermon of
yours but I thought of it seriously and uneasily, long before the
discourse was over.'
'So must all,' replied he, 'and yet few have the grace to own it.'
Now mind, Francesco! if it should please the Lord to call me unto Him,
I say, _The Nun and Fra Biagio_ will be found, after my decease, in
the closet cut out of the wall, behind yon Saint Zacharias in blue and
yellow.
Well done! well done! Francesco. I never heard any man repeat his
prayers so fast and fluently. Why! how many (at a guess) have you
repeated? Such is the power of friendship, and such the habit of
religion! They have done me good: I feel myself stronger already.
To-morrow I think I shall be able, by leaning on that stout maple
stick in the corner, to walk half over my podere.
Have you done? have you done?
_Petrarca._ Be quiet: you may talk too much.
_Boccaccio._ I cannot be quiet for another hour; so, if you have any
more prayers to get over, stick the spur into the other side of them:
they must verily speed, if they beat the last.
_Petrarca._ Be more serious, dear Giovanni.
_Boccaccio._ Never bid a convalescent be more serious: no, nor a sick
man neither. To health it may give that composure which it takes away
from sickness. Every man will have his hours of seriousness; but, like
the hours of rest, they often are ill-chosen and unwholesome. Be
assured, our heavenly Father is as well pleased to see His children in
the playground as in the schoolroom. He has provided both for us, and
has given us intimations when each should occupy us.
_Petrarca._ You are right, Giovanni! but we know which bell is heard
the most distinctly. We fold our arms at the one, try the cooler part
of the pillow, and turn again to slumber; at the first stroke of the
other, we are beyond our monitors. As for you, hardly Dante himself
could make you grave.
_Boccaccio._ I do not remember how it happened that we slipped away
from his side. One of us must have found him tedious.
_Petrarca._ If you were really and substantially at his side, he would
have no mercy on you.
_Boccaccio._ In sooth, our good Alighieri seems to have had the
appetite of a dogfish or shark, and to have bitten the harder the
warmer he was. I would not voluntarily be under his manifold rows of
dentals. He has an incisor to every saint in the calendar. I should
fare, methinks, like Brutus and the archbishop. He is forced to
stretch himself, out of sheer listlessness, in so idle a place as
Purgatory: he loses half his strength in Paradise: Hell alone makes
him alert and lively: there he moves about and threatens as
tremendously as the serpent that opposed the legions on their march
in Africa. He would not have been contented in Tuscany itself, even
had his enemies left him unmolested. Were I to write on his model a
tripartite poem, I think it should be entitled, _Earth, Italy, and
Heaven_.
_Petrarca._ You will never give yourself the trouble.
_Boccaccio._ I should not succeed.
_Petrarca._ Perhaps not: but you have done very much, and may be able
to do very much more.
_Boccaccio._ Wonderful is it to me, when I consider that an infirm and
helpless creature, as I am, should be capable of laying thoughts up in
their cabinets of words, which Time, as he rushes by, with the
revolutions of stormy and destructive years, can never move from their
places. On this coarse mattress, one among the homeliest in the fair
at Impruneta, is stretched an old burgess of Certaldo, of whom perhaps