Petrarch's Letters to Classical Authors. Франческо Петрарка

the issue still undecided. But the last thing before separating for the evening, you exacted from me the promise to send to you a copy of those two letters the moment I should arrive at a more fixed abode—for there was no time that day. … I hereby send them to you.

[2]. Unfortunately for the commentator, Petrarch considered as authentic the letter ad Octavianum, which was included in the manuscript he discovered at Verona (see n. [1]). The letter is now generally considered apocryphal. In sec. 6 occurs the phrase referred to by Petrarch: “O meam calamitosam ac praecipitem senectutem!”

[3]. Rer. mem., i, 1, p. 393, “De ocio,” has the following paragraph on Cicero:

      But I am done with leaders in war. I shall now speak of M. Tullius Cicero. After countless hardships suffered in the course of his career, after such numerous dangers incurred during that most stormy consulship and in his immortal fight against unprincipled men, when the liberty of his fellow-citizens had at last been destroyed, Cicero escaped as if from a sinking ship, and, stripped of all his honors, retired into a life of seclusion. And now, in roving about from one country home to another, as he himself says (De off., iii, 1, 1), he found himself alone quite frequently. But what activity in public life, I ask, was comparable to his leisure? What crowded assemblies to his isolation? Although Cicero may be pardoned for weeping bitterly over the fate of his fatherland, still from out of that solitude there spread abroad to all nations monumental products of his divine genius. Indeed, as Cicero himself says (De off., iii, 1, 4), more works were struck off in that brief period than in the many years while the Republic was still standing. But his powers did not avail him in warding off his destiny. He was safe in the midst of dangers; but when at last in the haven he suffered shipwreck.

      (Consult the notes of H. A. Holden, in his edition of the De officiis.)

[4]. This story is given more fully in Rer. mem., iii, 3, p. 440, “De sapienter dictis vel factis, Q. Cicero”:

      The following proves clearly how much easier it is for a man to give good advice to others than to himself. Quintus Cicero once offered advice to Marcus Cicero, his brother, and if Marcus had accepted it, he would perhaps have died in his own bed, and his body might have been laid to rest unmutilated. The advice was that Marcus should consider carefully the wretched end of his illustrious contemporaries, and should examine closely the dangers by which he himself was beset; after which he should beware of becoming involved in strifes and conflicts which could bring no relief to the State, but which would, in the end, bring destruction upon him. Most prudent counsel indeed! For what is more fatuous than to become entangled in unending quarrels, especially when one already despairs of attaining the desired goal? Tullius himself somewhere admits that this brotherly advice was both sensible and wise. But we all know how wisely he followed it! Perchance it was the force of destiny which urged him on—a compelling force which I know not whether it was possible to resist. At any rate, such resistance must have proved very difficult. And this fact is impressed upon my mind by the subject of the following sketch.

[5]. Dante, Purg., XXII, 64–70 (tr. by Longfellow):

      And he to him: “Thou first directedst me

      Towards Parnassus, in its grots to drink,

      And first concerning God didst me enlighten.

      Thou didst as he who walketh in the night,

      Who bears his light behind, which helps him not,

      But wary makes the persons after him,

      When thou didst say,”. …

[6]. In Fam., XXIV, 2 (a letter from which we have already quoted in n. 1) there are some passages fairly parallel to this one. The first is (Vol. III, p. 258):

      You may remember that Cicero’s name chanced to be mentioned among us, as so often happens among learned men. This put a stop to the desultory conversation in which we had been engaged up to that time. We all became engrossed with this one topic, and nothing else but Cicero was talked of thereafter. We gathered round and each in turn sang the praises of Cicero as seemed best to him. But nothing in this world is perfect (as everyone knows), and there is no one in whom even a gentle critic cannot find just cause for censure. And so it happened that though nearly everything pleases me in Cicero—a man whom I cherish beyond all my other friends—and though I expressed admiration for his golden eloquence and divine intellect, I could not praise the fickleness of his character and his inconstancy, which I had detected in many instances.

      And again, at the end of the same letter (Vol. III, p. 261), Petrarch says:

      As regards Cicero, I have known him as the best of consuls, vigilantly providing for the welfare of the State, and as a citizen who always evinced the highest love of country. But what more? I cannot bestow praise upon the instability of his friendships, nor upon the serious disagreements arising from slight causes and bringing destruction upon him and benefit to none, nor upon a judgment which, when brought to bear upon questions of private and public affairs, did not well accord with his remarkable acumen in other directions. Above all, I cannot praise, in a philosopher weighed down with years, an inclination for wrangling which is proper to youths and utterly of no avail. Of all this, however, remember that neither you nor anyone else can be in a fit position to judge, until you will have read, and carefully, all the letters of Cicero; for it is these which gave rise to the whole discussion.

[7]. Petrarch has here paraphrased the words of Cicero, who employs such expressions as “maximo in discrimine res publica versatur” (ad Br., i, 12, 1); “ferre praesidium labenti et inclinatae paene rei publicae” (op. cit., i, 18, 2); “res existimabatur in extremum adducta discrimen” (ibid., ii, 1, 1, and ii, 2, 2); “desperatam et afflictam rem publicam” (pseudo-Cic., ad Octavianum, 4); and “mortua re publica” (ibid., 7).

[8]. Cic., ad Brutum, i, 16 (written by Brutus at Athens, May, 43 BC):

      I have read an extract (sent to me by Atticus) of the letter which you wrote to Octavius. … I am most deeply afflicted by that portion of your letter to Octavius which concerns us. You give him thanks for the welfare of the State, and—what shall I say? The conditions imposed by my present lot bring shame upon me, but still the words must be written—you suppliantly and submissively commend our safety to his mercy. … For my part I do not believe that all the gods have abandoned their protection of the Roman people to such an extent that Octavius is to be implored for the safety of any citizen whatsoever, much less, then, for that of the liberators of the entire world. … And can you, Cicero, who confess that Octavius has this power, can you still remain his friend? … For if you are pleased with Octavius, of whom our safety is to be implored, you will seem, not to have rid yourself of a master, but rather to have sought a kindlier lord.

[9]. Cic., ad Brutum, i, 17, 5 (Brutus to Atticus, 43 BC): “I, in truth, attach no importance to that knowledge with which I know that Cicero was so thoroughly imbued. For what profited him to discourse, and at such great length, on his country’s freedom, on dignity, on death, on exile, and on poverty?”

[10]. The reference is very indefinite: “in tranquillo rure senuisse, de perpetua illa, ut ipse quodam loco ais, non de hac iam exigua vita cogitantem” (Vol. III, p. 263). The passages which Petrarch had in mind may have been De sen., 49: “If, however, we have something that may serve as food (so to speak)