Life of St. Francis of Assisi
for flying, and all that is needful for you. He has made you the noblest
of his creatures; he permits you to live in the pure air; you have
neither to sow nor to reap, and yet he takes care of you, watches over
you and guides you." Then the birds began to arch their necks, to spread
out their wings, to open their beaks, to look at him, as if to thank
him, while he went up and down in their midst stroking them with the
border of his tunic, sending them away at last with his blessing.[15]
In this same evangelizing tour, passing through Alviano,[16] he spoke a
few exhortations to the people, but the swallows so filled the air with
their chirping that he could not make himself heard. "It is my turn to
speak," he said to them; "little sister swallows, hearken to the word of
God; keep silent and be very quiet until I have finished."[17]
We see how Francis's love extended to all creation, how the diffused
life shed abroad upon all things inspired and moved him. From the sun to
the earthworm which we trample under foot, everything breathed in his
ear the ineffable sigh of beings that live and suffer and die, and in
their life as in their death have a part in the divine work.
"Praised be thou, Lord, with all thy creatures, especially for my
brother Sun which gives us the day and by him thou showest thy light. He
is beautiful and radiant with great splendor; of thee, Most High, he is
the symbol."
Here again, Francis revives the Hebrew inspiration, the simple and
grandiose view of the prophets of Israel. "Praise the Lord!" the royal
Psalmist had sung, "praise the Lord, fire and frost, snow and mists,
stormy winds that do his will, mountains and all hills, fruit-trees and
all cedars, beasts and all cattle, creeping things and fowls with wings,
kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all judges of the earth,
young men and maidens, old men and children, praise the Lord, praise ye
the Lord!"
The day of the birds of Bevagna remained in his memory as one of the
most beautiful of his whole life, and though usually so reserved he
always loved to tell of it;[18] it was because he owed to Clara these
pure ardors which brought him into a secret and delicious communion with
all beings; it was she who had revived him from sadness and hesitation;
in his heart he bore an immense gratitude to her who, just when he
needed it, had known how to return to him love for love, inspiration for
inspiration.
Francis's sympathy for animals, as we see it shining forth here, has
none of that sentimentalism, so often artificial and exclusive of all
other love, which certain associations of his time noisily displayed; in
him it is only a manifestation of his feeling for nature, a deeply
mystical, one might say pantheistic, sentiment, if the word had not a
too definitely philosophical sense, quite opposite to the Franciscan
thought.
This sentiment, which in the poets of the thirteenth century is so often
false and affected, was in him not only true, but had in it something
alive, healthy, robust.[19] It is this vein of poetry which awoke
Italy to self-consciousness, made her in a few years forget the
nightmare of Catharist ideas, and rescued her from pessimism. By it
Francis became the forerunner of the artistic movement which preceded
the Renaissance, the inspirer of that group of Pre-Raphaelites, awkward,
grotesque in drawing though at times they were, to whom we turn to-day
with a sort of piety, finding in their ungraceful saints an inner life,
a moral feeling which we seek for elsewhere in vain.
If the voice of the Poverello of Assisi was so well understood it was
because in this matter, as in all others, it was entirely
unconventional. How far we are, with him, from the fierce or Pharisaic
piety of those monks which forbids even the females of animals to enter
their convent! His notion of chastity in no sense resembles this
excessive prudery. One day at Sienna he asked for some turtle-doves, and
holding them in the skirt of his tunic, he said: "Little sisters
turtle-doves, you are simple, innocent, and chaste; why did you let
yourselves be caught? I shall save you from death, and have nests made
for you, so that you may bring forth young and multiply according to the
commandment of our Creator."
And he went and made nests for them all, and the turtle-doves began to
lay eggs and bring up their broods under the eyes of the Brothers.[20]
At Rieti a family of red-breasts were the guests of the monastery, and
the young birds made marauding expeditions on the very table where the
Brothers were eating.[21] Not far from there, at Greccio,[22] they
brought to Francis a leveret that had been taken alive in a trap. "Come
to me, brother leveret," he said to it. And as the poor creature, being
set free, ran to him for refuge, he took it up, caressed it, and finally
put it on the ground that it might run away; but it returned to him
again and again, so that he was obliged to send it to the neighboring
forest before it would consent to return to freedom.[23]
One day he was crossing the Lake of Rieti. The boatman in whose bark he
was making the passage offered him a tench of uncommon size. Francis
accepted it with joy, but to the great amazement of the fisherman put it
back into the water, bidding it bless God.[24]
We should never have done if we were to relate all the incidents of this
kind,[25] for the sentiment of nature was innate with him; it was a
perpetual communion which made him love the whole creation.[26] He is
ravished with the witchery of great forests; he has the terrors of a
child when he is alone at prayer in a deserted chapel, but he tastes
ineffable joy merely in inhaling the perfume of a flower, or gazing into
the limpid water of a brook.[27]
This perfect lover of poverty permitted one luxury--he even commanded it
at Portiuncula--that of flowers; the Brother was bidden not to sow
vegetables and useful plants only; he must reserve one corner of good
ground for our sisters, the flowers of the fields. Francis talked with
them also, or rather he replied to them, for their mysterious and gentle
language crept into the very depth of his heart.[28]
The thirteenth century was prepared to understand the voice of the
Umbrian poet; the sermon to the birds[29] closed the reign of Byzantine
art and of the thought of which it was the image. It is the end of
dogmatism and authority; it is the coming in of individualism and
inspiration; very uncertain, no doubt, and to be followed by obstinate
reactions, but none the less marking a date in the history of the human
conscience.[30] Many among the companions of Francis were too much the
children of their century, too thoroughly imbued with its theological
and metaphysical methods, to quite understand a sentiment so simple and
profound.[31] But each in his degree felt its charm. Here Thomas of
Celano's language rises to an elevation which we find in no other part
of his works, closing with a picture of Francis which makes one think of
the Song of Songs.[32]
Of more than middle height, Francis had a delicate and kindly face,
black eyes, a soft and sonorous voice. There was in his whole person a
delicacy and grace which made him infinitely lovely. All these
characteristics are found in the most ancient portraits.[33]
FOOTNOTES:
[1] 3 Soc., 57; cf. _An. Perus._, A. SS., p. 599.
[2] Rev. xxi.; 1 Cel., 46; 3 Soc., 57-59; _An. Perus._, A. SS.,
p. 600.
[3] 1 Cel., 55 and 56; Bon., 129-132.
[4] _Fior._, 7; _Spec._, 96; _Conform._, 223a, 2. The fact of
Francis's sojourn on an island in this lake is made certain by 1
Cel., 60.
[5] Vide below, p. 400. Cf. A. SS., pp. 823 f.
[6] At present Sasso-Feltrio, between Conca and Marecchio, south
of and about two hours' walk from San Marino.
[7] The happiness that I expect is so great that all pain is
joyful to me. All the documents give Francis's text in Italian,
which is enough to prove that it was the language not only of
his poems but also of his sermons. _Spec._ 92a ff. _Conform._
113a, 2; 231a, 1; _Fior., Prima consid._
[8] See p. 400.
[9] 2 Cel., 3, 85; Bon., 82.
[10] 1 Cel., 56; Bon., 132.
[11] Vide Wadding, _ann. 1213-1215_. Cf. A. SS., pp. 602, 603,
825-831. Mark of Lisbon, _lib._ i., _cap._ 45, pp. 78-80;
Papini, _Storia di S. Francesco_, i., p. 79 ff. (Foligno, 1825,
2 vols., 4to). It is surprising to see Father Suysken giving so
much weight to the _argumentum a silentio_.
[12] From Pentecost, 1213, to that of 1214.--_Post non multum
vero temporis versus Marochium iter arripuit_, says Thomas of
Celano (1 Cel., 56), after having mentioned the return from
Slavonia. Taking into account the author's _usus loquendi_ the
phrase appears to establish a certain interval between the two
missions.
[13] _Conform._, 110b, 1; _Spec._, 62b; _Fior._, 16; Bon.,
170-174.
[14] Village about two leagues S. W. from Assisi. The time is
indirectly fixed by Bon., 173, and 1 Cel., 58.
[15] 1 Cel. 58; Bon., 109 and 174; _Fior._, 16; _Spec._, 62b;
_Conform._, 114b, 2.
[16] About halfway between Orvieto and Narni.
[17] 1 Cel., 59; Bon., 175.
[18] _Ad haec, ut ipse dicebat_ ... 1 Cel., 58.
[19] Francis has been compared in this regard to certain of his
contemporaries, but the similarity of the words only makes more
evident the diversity of inspiration. Honorius III. may say:
_Forma rosae est inferius angusta, superius ampla et significat
quod Christus pauper fuit in mundo, sed est Dominus super omnia
et implet universa. Nam sicut forma rosae_, etc. (Horoy, t. i.,
col. xxiv. and 804), and make a whole sermon on the symbolism of
the rose; these overstrained dissertations have nothing to do
with the feeling for nature. It is the arsenal of mediaeval
rhetoric used to dissect a word. It is an intellectual effort,
not a song of love. The Imitation would say: _If thy heart were
right all creatures would be for thee a mirror of life and a
volume of holy doctrine_, lib. ii., cap. 2. The simple sentiment
of the beauty of creation is absent here also; the passage is a
pedagogue in disguise.
[20] _Spec._, 157. _Fior._; 22.
[21] 2 Cel., 2, 16; _Conform._, 148a, 1, 183b, 2. Cf. the story
of the sheep of Portiuncula: Bon., 111.
[22] Village in the valley of Rieti, two hours' walk from that
town, on the road to Terni.
[23] 1 Cel., 60; Bon., 113.
[24] 1 Cel., 61; Bon., 114.
[25] 2 Cel., 3, 54; Bon., 109; 2 Cel., 3; 103 ff.; Bon., 116
ff.; Bon., 110; 1 Cel., 61; Bon., 114, 113, 115; 1 Cel., 79;
_Fior._, 13, etc.
[26] 2 Cel., 3, 101 ff.; Bon., 123.
[27] 2 Cel., 3, 59; 1 Cel., 80 and 81.
[28] 2 Cel., 3, 101; _Spec._, 136a; 1 Cel., 81.
[29] This is the scene in his life most often reproduced by the
predecessors of Giotto. The unknown artist who (before 1236)
decorated the nave of the Lower Church of Assisi gives five
frescos to the history of Jesus and five to the life of St.
Francis. Upon the latter he represents: 1, the renunciation of
the paternal inheritance; 2, Francis upholding the Lateran
church; 3, the sermon to the birds; 4, the stigmata; 5, the
funeral. This work, unhappily very badly lighted, and about half
of it destroyed at the time of the construction of the chapels
of the nave, ought to be engraved before it completely
disappears. The history of art in the time of Giunta Pisano is
still too much enveloped in obscurity for us to neglect such a