Collected Poetical Works of Francesco Petrarch

by Francesco Petrarch

  Further proof is offered by the marginal notes which Petrarch made to the text of Pilato’s translation which Boccaccio sent him. Frequently he states that elsewhere a different rendering is made of the original, and even gives the variant. From a study of these P. de Nolhac concludes (II, p-74) that the variants derive from the translation made by Pilato at Padua in the winter of 1358-59; and that this earlier translation included, perhaps, only the first five books of the Iliad. This last fact serves to explain completely the expression used by Petrarch in the present letter, “praeter enim aliquot tuorum principia librorum” (Vol. III, ).

  113. Before Leonzio completed his translation (which was neither poetical nor Latin: Voigt, II, ), Petrarch and other mediaeval students were obliged to content themselves with the Periochae of the Iliad and the Odyssey which are attributed to Ausonius, and with a poor Epitome of the Iliad which was known as the Homerus Latinus or Pindarus Thebanus (P. de Nolhac, II, ). It is because of the existence of this that some maintain that Leonzio’s was not the first Latin translation of modern times. A mere glance, however, will convince anyone that this Homerus (published in 1881 by Baehrens under the title “Italici Ilias Latina,” in Poetae latini minores, Vol. III, p-59 inclusive), is not a real translation and does not correspond to the real Homer.

  The poem consists of 1,070 hexameters, which were written while Nero was still ruling. It was quoted as early as Lactantius (died 325 A. D.), and was at first referred to by the simple designation Homerus or Homerus Latinus. The worthy monks of the Middle Ages, having read that Homer was a Greek, later felt it incumbent upon them to assign an author to this Latin version, and by some mysterious process they hit upon the “philosopher” Pindarus of Thebes. From the thirteenth century on, the name Pindarus prevailed.

  In 1880 Fr. Buecheler observed that ll. 1-8 and 1063-70 of the Ilias Latina formed acrostics, reading respectively “Italicus” and “Scripsit” (Rh.M., XXXV, ). Hence he deduced that the Epitome was composed by Silius Italicus, the author of the Punica, who died in 101 A. D. This conclusion is practically accepted by Teuffel, who says (par. 320, nn. 7 and 8) that the Ilias is probably an early work of Silius Italicus. Baehrens (op. cit.) is more guarded, saying that it was written by a “certain Italicus” (“confecit . . . Italicus quidam”), adding farther down on the same page () that Buecheler’s conclusion is not quite right (“minus recte”), simply because it has been proved that the Ilias was written under Nero, if not earlier. But since Nero died in 68 A. D., and Italicus in 101 A. D. (at the age of 75), it does not seem improbable that the Ilias does after all represent an early work, perhaps even exercise, of Silius Italicus.

  It is a sign of keen and clear judgment on the part of Petrarch, to call into question both here and elsewhere (cf. Fam., X, 4), in spite of his ignorance of the original, the real merits and the authenticity of the Homerus Latinus, in an age when it was universally accepted as a good and faithful translation from the Greek.

  114. It seems à propos briefly to relate here Leonzio’s career subsequent to the professorship at Florence and to the translation of Homer. Upon invitation of Niccoló Acciaiuoli, a Florentine who then held the post of grand seneschal at the court of Naples, Boccaccio had paid a visit to that city in 1361 (Koerting, Bocc., ), taking Leonzio as his traveling companion. Leaving in the beginning of the summer of 1363, the two paid Petrarch a visit at Venice; and it is from this visit that some would date the beginning of Leonzio’s personal acquaintance with Petrarch (Frac., 4, ). Boccaccio spent the months of June, July, and August, 1363, at Venice with his dearly beloved friend, but was then obliged to return to the city on the Arno. He wished Leonzio to accompany him as before; but such was the inconstancy of that gloomy Calabrian that he absolutely refused to do so, declaring his intention of returning to Constantinople.

  In a letter to Boccaccio dated at Venice, March 1, 1365 (Sen., III, 6), Petrarch acquaints him with Leonzio’s departure from Venice in the spring of 1364 (Koerting, Petrarca, ), saying that he had presented the departing guest with a copy of Terence (in whose comedies Leonzio seemed to take such great delight) and had begged him to purchase for him in the East the works of Sophocles, Euripides, and of other classic Greek authors (Sen., VI, 1). Petrarch adds that, prior to leaving, Leonzio had heaped vile abuse upon Italy and the Italians, but that he had no sooner touched the eastern shores of the Adriatic than, with characteristic fickleness, he had sent a long letter casting imprecations upon Greece and Constantinople. In Seniles V, 3 (of December 10, 1366, Koerting, Bocc., , n. 2) Petrarch declares his firm resolve of never recalling Leonzio and of disregarding entirely all his prayers and entreaties. This letter shows bitter feeling against Leonzio, wherein Petrarch is goaded by the thought of the former’s unfeeling and uncalled-for departure. The last letter pertaining to Leonzio’s life (Sen., VI, 1, of January 25 or 27, 1367, P. de Nolhac II, p, 165, and Koerting, Bocc., , n. 2) is one full of compassion, for it gives an account of his death toward the end of 1366 — how, during a storm at sea, Leonzio, like Ulysses, had strapped himself to the mast, and had been struck dead by a thunderbolt.

  115. See above, n. 112.

  116. Sen., Contr., iii, praef., 8: “Ciceronem eloquentia sua in carminibus destituit; Vergilium illa felicitas ingenii [sui] oratione soluta reliquit.” Comparing with Frac., Vol. III, p, 294, it will be seen that Petrarch has adapted the above words to his construction.

  117. For the poetical efforts of Cicero consult C. F. W. Mueller (Teubner, 1898), Vol. III, Pt. IV, p-405, “Fragmenta Poematum.” As to Vergil, we gather that he must have written letters to Augustus from the words of Donatus (Vita Verg., XII, 46, R). Macrobius (I, 24, 11) gives a five-line quotation from a letter of the poet to the emperor. In fact, comparing the contents of this quotation with the statement in Donatus, it seems that the five lines are from the very letter referred to by the biographer.

  118. St. Jerome, Chron., II, praef. 2, end, in Migne, Vol. XXVII, coll. 223, 224. Petrarch quotes the same passage, and à propos of the same subject, in Var. 25. Consult n. 111 above, in which a lengthy extract from that letter is given. The present letter to Homer (Fam., XXIV, 12) is dated October 9, 1360; Var. 25 to Boccaccio is dated August 18, 1360. If, then, the aliquando of the present letter alludes to Var. 25, it will be evident that the interval elapsed was but a short one.

  119. The translation by Leonzio Pilato was made into Latin prose. The reference here, however, must be to the preliminary translation made at Padua in the winter of 1358-59 (cf. nn. 111 and 112). In Var. 25 Petrarch employs the same figure.

  120. Fam., XXIV, 10 (to Horace) and XXIV, 11 (to Vergil) are in the form of poetic epistles. In 1359 (cf. Fam., XX, 7, note) Petrarch separated all those letters which he did not destroy into two groups: the prose epistles, which he dedicated to Socrates (Fam., praefatio, I, p, 16, and Fam., XXIV, 13), and the poetic epistles, which he dedicated to Barbato da Sulmona (praef., loc. cit., and Fam., XXII, 3). The appearance in this collection, therefore, of the poetic epistles to Horace and to Vergil, must be due to their subject-matter, for they very naturally fall among those letters written “veteribus illustribus viris” (Vol. III, ).

  121. Apparently, Petrarch had received a letter purporting to be from the shade of Homer. The author of it is unknown. If it came from Florence, then of course it must have emanated from the circle of his Florentine friends. However, in Vol. 5, p, 198, Fracassetti, commenting upon the words, “Tua illa Bononia quam suspiras . . . unum habet” (Vol. III, ), but reading “qua suspiras,” translates, “That Bologna of yours whence you send such laments,” and hazards the suggestion that the letter to which this of Petrarch is a reply came from Bologna and not from Florence. We may go a step farther. Since Homeric scholars in Italy were so scarce at the time, and since Petrarch states that Bologna could boast of but one — Pietro di Muglio or de Muglo (cf. n. 139) — it would seem (if Fracassetti be right) that Pietro di Bologna was responsible for the pseudo-Homer letter. As Messrs. Robinson and Rolfe perhaps justly remark of that
letter (Petrarch, , n. 2): “It must have been even more interesting than this reply, in its unconscious revelation of mediaeval limitations.”

  122. In this instance Petrarch is carried away by his subject, and addresses his (to us unknown) correspondent as if he were the real Homer and a Greek. Compare what has been said on this subject in the preceding note.

  123. The reference is to Rem. utr. fort., I, 64, entitled De aviariis avibusque loquacibus — a most ridiculous place in which to find mention of the bard of Smyrna. On one of the interlocutors says, “I own a most eloquent magpie.” To which the other replies that it is absurd to apply such a term to a magpie, adding, “But if the magpie forthwith forget a word, either because the word is a difficult one or because of its own weak memory, it may even die of grief. Hence we must now consider less marvelous the death of the poet Homer, if indeed the current report be true”— “si tamen illa (mors) etiam vera est.” The De remediis was begun in 1358 (Frac., I, , n. 1) and finished in 1366 (Torraca, I, Pt. II, ). Since the date of the Homer letter is October 9, 1360, it results that at least the first sixty-four chapters of Book I of the De remediis were written before this date. We see, too, that by this slight reference to Homer, Petrarch did give some currency to the report that Homer died of grief, and did add to it a note of uncertainty.

  The story of Homer’s death, as Petrarch and other mediaeval men knew it, must have been the one they found in Valerius Maximus; and though Petrarch does not actually cite him as his source, this clearly results from the references to Sophocles and to Philemon shortly following. Valerius, then, says (ix, 12, ext. 3):

  The cause of Homer’s death too is said to have been an uncommon one. Having landed at the island of Ios, certain fishermen asked him a riddle which he was unable to read, in consequence of which Homer is believed to have died of grief.

  The legend in its more complete form (unknown to Petrarch) is derived from the so-called Lives compiled from the minor poems falsely attributed to Homer. It runs as follows. On his way to Thebes, Homer landed at Ios, where he saw some young fishermen on the shore with their nets. In answer to his question as to what they had caught, the young fishermen propounded to him this riddle: “What we caught we left, what we caught not we bring.” Homer was unable to read this riddle; and remembering an oracle which had foretold that he would die “through chagrin at his inability to read the riddle of the fishermen,” he wrote an epitaph for himself and died of vexation and grief on the third day thereafter (cf. New International Encycl., and the Brit.).

  If Petrarch questioned the credibility of the shorter and simpler version of Valerius, what would he have said of this fuller legend, elaborated as it was with so many undignified frills?

  124. Val. Max., ix, 12, ext. 5:

  When Sophocles was already in extreme old age, he submitted one of his tragedies in competition at the games. For a long time he was very anxious concerning (as he thought) the doubtful decision of the judges. But his great joy when he was at last unanimously declared victor, brought about his death.

  Cf. Pliny, N. H., VII, 53, 180.

  125. Fully to realize Petrarch’s state of mind, it is necessary to quote substantial portions of his two sources for these statements. The first statement is again founded on Val. Max., ix, 12, ext. 6:

  The strain of excessive laughter took off Philemon. Some figs had been prepared for him, but had been left in open view. Seeing a young ass eating them, Philemon summoned a boy to drive him away. The boy, however, answered the summons leisurely, arriving when all the figs had already been devoured. Whereupon Philemon said, “Since you have been so slow in coming, now give the ass some wine.” And forthwith he began to roar at his own witty remark, panting hard until the irregular breathing in his aged throat choked him.

  The second version, which Petrarch considers “more serious and more credible,” is that of Apuleius, Florida, xvi:

  For these praiseworthy qualities he (Philemon) was for a long time well known as a writer of comedies. It happened one day that he was giving a public reading of part of a play which he had recently written. When he had reached the third act . . . a sudden rainstorm arose . . . which compelled the gathering and the reading to be postponed. Upon being urgently pressed by several, Philemon promised that he would finish the reading on the very next day. And so on the following day a large throng of very eager men gathered in the theater. . . . But when they had sat waiting longer than seemed reasonable, and when Philemon did not put in an appearance, several of the more eager were sent to summon him, and found him dead in his bed. . . . Returning thence they reported to the expectant audience that the poet Philemon, whom they were so eagerly attending, to hear him complete the reading of his latest play, had already, and at his own home, brought a real drama to a close.

  In his manuscript of the Florida, Petrarch wrote the following marginal note to this passage: “This version of the death of Philemon is somewhat nobler than the one related by Valerius and, indeed, by myself; for in a certain letter of mine I followed both him and the current opinion.” P. de Nolhac says that he has not been able to find the letter referred to by Petrarch (II, , and n. 4). The present epistle to Homer was written in 1360; and it may well be that the letter referred to was destroyed in the general holocaust of 1359, when Petrarch sorted his correspondence into the two collections (cf. above, n. 120). Moreover, it was just like the careful Petrarch to destroy a wrong version when he had once learned the true one.

  126. On the general similarity between the Odyssey and the Aeneid, Petrarch says (Rer. mem., III, 3, “De sapienter dictis vel factis,” ):

  Homer describes his Ulysses (in whom he means to give the type of a wise and brave man) as wandering over lands and seas, and in his poem makes him encircle nearly the entire world. Our poet has followed this example; he too carries his Aeneas over the different countries of the earth. Both poets have done so designedly; for wisdom can hardly be gained without experience nor can experience be had by one who does not see and observe many things. And, finally, it is hard to understand how one can see many things if he stirs not abroad, but sticks close to one little corner of this earth.

  Petrarch enters upon a more general discussion of the two poets, quoting from Macrobius and others, in Rer. mem., II, 2, “De ingenio,” :

  Among the Greeks Homer reigns supreme in the intellectual world. Of this dictum not I, but Pliny is the author, who ascribes to him a richer, broader, and boundless glory [cf. Pliny, N. H., ii, 6; xxv, 2 (5)]. It is perfectly clear that with the aid of his divine genius Homer has solved a large number of philosophical problems in a far better and more decisive fashion than the professed philosophers themselves. Macrobius with great assurance pronounces Homer the fountain-head and source of all divine inspiration [Comm. in Somn. Scip., ii, 10, 11]. And rightly so. For although tradition has it that Homer was physically blind, his soul was so clear and luminous that Tullius says of him in the Tusculans [v, 114]: “His verses are as a painting, not poetry. What country, what coast, what part of Greece, what manner of battle and array of soldiers, what army, what fleet, what motions of men and of beasts have not been depicted by him with such skill as to make it possible for us to see what he himself did not see?” But why should I discourse on his eloquence, since in the oft-cited books of the Saturnalia there is drawn an extensive and undecided parallel between our poet and the Greek [book v entire]? In the course of a thousand and one arguments, now this one is proved superior, now that one, and shortly they are shown to be equal [Sat., v, 12, 1]. In consequence these arguments leave the reader doubtful of the issue — an uncertainty admirably expressed by the satirist in these verses [Juvenal, xi, 180, 181, ed. Fried., translated by Gifford, II, ]:

  “Great Homer shall his deep-ton’d thunder roll,

  And mighty Maro elevate the soul;

  Maro, who, warm’d with all the poet’s fire,

  Disputes the palm of victory with his sire.”

  127. Horace, Sat., i, 5, 41, 42.

 
128. Macrobius gives us an example of the accusation generally made in antiquity against Vergil — Sat., v, 3, 16:

  Continue prithee, said Avienus, to trace all that he [Vergil] borrowed from Homer. For what can be sweeter than to hear two pre-eminent poets voicing the same thoughts? These three things are held to be equally impossible: to steal either the lightning of Jove, or the club of Hercules, or the verses of Homer, and for the reason that, even if it were possible, it would seem unbecoming for any other than Jove to hurl the lightning, any other than Hercules to excel in physical strength, any other than Homer to sing the verses he sang. Still, this author [Vergil] has opportunely embodied in his poem that which the earlier bard had sung, making it appear that it is his own.

  The retort referred to is not to be found in the Saturnalia (a slip on Petrarch’s part), but in St. Jerome, who says (Praefatio lib. hebr. quaest. in Genesim, Migne, Vol. XXIII, col. 983):

  Also the bard of Mantua was criticised by his rivals in this way [sc., as Terence by Luscius Lanuvinus]. For, having used, unchanged, certain verses of Homer, he was called a mere compiler of the earlier poets. To which he replied that it was a sign of great power to wrest the club from the hands of Hercules— “magnarum esse virium clavam Herculi extorquere de manu.”

  With this compare Frac., III, . St. Jerome himself, however, must have been quoting from the life by Donatus, and in so doing gave a different turn to the reply. Donatus says (Vita Verg., XVI, 64, R) that Vergil replied: “Why did not they too attempt the same thefts? They would discover that it is easier to steal the club of Hercules than to pilfer a verse from Homer.”

  Petrarch’s purpose is to emphasize how vigorous a poet Vergil is, and how worthy of following in Homer’s footsteps. Hence he does not have recourse to the more ancient defense which was ready to his hand in Macrobius, Sat., VI, 3, 1, to the effect that it was the earlier Roman poets who stole from Homer, and that Vergil borrowed from these earlier pilferers belonging to his own race. Such line of argument would have made Vergil the second thief, but it would not have made his verses the best stolen.