CHAPTER VII. LAURA AND PETRARCH, CONTINUED. MUCH power of lively ridicule, much coarse wit,—principally French wit, has been expended on the subject of Laura's virtue; by those, I presume, who under similar circumstances would have found such virtue "too painful an endeavour."* Much depraved ingenuity has been exerted to twist certain lines and passages in the Canzonière 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 chastity, 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 poe * Madame Deshoulières speaks "avec connaissance de fait," and even points out the very spot in which Laura, "de l'amoreux Patrarque adoucit le martyre."-Another French lady, who piqued herself on being a descendant of the family of Laura, was extremely affronted and scandalized when the Chevalier Ramsay asserted that Petrarch's passion was purely poetical and platonic, and regarded it heresy to suppose that Laura could have been "ungrateful,”—such was her idea of feminine gratitude!— (Spence's Anecdotes.) Then comes another French woman, with the most anti-poetical soul that God ever placed within the form of a woman -"Le fade personage que votre Petrarque! que sa Laure était sotte et precieuse! que la Cour d'Amour était fastidieuse!" &c., exclaims the acute, amusing, profligate, heartless Madame du Deffand. It must be allowed that Petrarch and Laura would have been extremely displaçes in the Court of the Regent,-the only Court of Love with which Madame du Deffand was acquainted, and which assuredly was not fastidieuse, try, critical and traditional, tends to prove, first, that Laura preserved her virtue to the last; and, secondly, that she did not preserve it unassailed; that Petrarch, true to his sex, 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 sex'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. 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 assiduities 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 * From the Dialogues with St. Augustin, as quoted in the "Pieces Justificatives," and by Ginguené (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. Petrarch absented himself for a few days, he was generally better treated on his return. 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 La frale vita ch' ancor meco alberga, 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 passion, 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 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 assumes a cold and calm deportment, and Laura, as she passes him, whispers in a tone of gentle reproach, "Petrarch! are you so soon * Sonnet 39. + Ballata 5. Petrarch withdrew to Vauclause 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. 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 avançé; all this was probably the refined coquetterie of a woman of calm passions; 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 passage 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 compassionate tenderness. After a short dialogue, full of poetic beauty and noble thoughts,* Petrarch conjures her, * Petrarch asks her whether it was "pain to die?" she replies in those fine lines which have been quoted a thousand times: 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, Che vostri dolci sdegni e le dolc' ire- 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 assume the guise of severity and disdain. She describes the arts with which she kept alive his passion, 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 più non osa il nostro amore ;" and she asks him whether he did not perceive that the veil had then nearly fallen from her heart?* She laments, in some exquisite lines, that she had not the happiness to be born in Italy, the native country of her La Morte è fin d'una prigion oscura * Ma non si ruppe almen ogni vel quando Sola i tuoi detti, te presente accolsi "Dir più non osa il nostro amor," cantando. (The song here alluded to is not preserved in Petrarch's works, and the expression "il nostro amore," is very remarkable.) |