Chapter X: To Homer (2)

[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, pp. 15, 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, p. 306).

[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, pp. 197, 198, Fracassetti, commenting upon the words, “Tua illa Bononia quam suspiras ... unum habet” (Vol. III, p. 301), 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_, p. 253, 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 p. 193 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, p. 1, n. 1) and finished in 1366 (Torraca, I, Pt. II, p. 231). 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, p. 102, 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,” p. 456):

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,” p. 413:

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,
p. 161]:

“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, p. 298. 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, p. 66R) 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.

[129]. Lucan, _Pharsalia_, ix, 980-86 (tr. by Edw. Ridley, p. 299, vss. 1157-66):

O sacred task of poets, toil supreme,
Which rescuing all things from allotted fate
Dost give eternity to mortal men!
Grudge not the glory, Caesar, of such fame.
For if the Latian Muse may promise aught,
Long as the heroes of the Trojan time
Shall live upon the page of Smyrna’s bard,
So long shall future races read of thee
In this my poem; and Pharsalia’s song
Live unforgotten in the age to come.

[130]. Horace, _Ars Poetica_, 396-401, and _Carm._, iv. 9, vss. 5, 6.

[131]. Theocritus in _Ecl._, iv, 1, and vi, 1; Hesiod in _Georg._, ii, 176.

[132]. Statius, _Theb._, xii, 816, 817.

[133]. In Petrarch’s days the _Appendix Vergiliana_ was known as the _Ludi Iuveniles_, and included what is now published by Baehrens in the _Poetae latini minores_, Vol. II. Judging from the statement of the present letter, Petrarch was acquainted with these _Ludi_, or with some of them at least. Boccaccio was the first to add the eighty _Priapea_ to his codex of the _Ludi_ (Sabbadini, p. 32). Sabbadini, p. 24 and n. 5, gives proof that Petrarch knew the _Culex_ and the _Rosae_, and on p. 31 adds that he was furthermore acquainted with some of the _Catalecta_, without giving proof.

In this letter to Homer, Petrarch states that the former’s name is mentioned in the _Ludi_. The total number of references to Homer in the _Appendix Vergiliana_ is four: _Ciris_, 65; in the epigram closing the _Catalecta_, vs. 2; _Priapea_, 68, 4, and 80, 5. In the _Rendiconti del R. Ist. Lomb._ (1906, p. 386), Sabbadini remarks at this point: “A quali e a quanti dei tre componimenti alludesse il Petrarca, non ci é dato indovinare, ma ciascuno dei tre era a quei tempi una cospicua novitá.” Personally we should be inclined to favor the _Ciris_ and the _Catalecta_, and, indeed, to give the latter reference in support of the statement of Sabbadini on p. 31. But until further proof is found, all discussion on this point is merely idle speculation.

[134]. Donatus, in speaking of Vergil, says (p. 65R): “Vergil never lacked detractors; and no wonder: even Homer had his.”

[135]. This, of course, is a reference to some statement occurring in the pseudo-Homer letter which Petrarch had received.

[136]. See above, n. [130].

[137]. Petrarch’s words are: “cum verissime dicat hebraeus Sapiens quod ‘_stultorum infinitus est numerus_’” (III, p. 301). From the manner of Petrarch’s quoting, and from the fact that Fracassetti italicizes the words in single quotation marks, it would be inferred that the citation is from the Bible. But an exhaustive search through the Concordances of both Cruden and Young has failed to reveal such a passage, though sentiments on the subject of folly and fools are quite numerous. It may be, of course, that Petrarch epitomized, or rather formulated a deduction of his own from the books of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes.

[138]. Concerning the nationality of Leonzio Pilato consult what has been said above in n. 3, par. 1.

[139]. It is generally agreed that of the three scholars said to be at Florence, Boccaccio must be one. The other two cannot be identified with certainty, but they are to be chosen from among Nelli, Salutati, and Bruni; of no one of whom, however, do we know as a fact that he was acquainted with Greek. It is for this reason that Tedaldo della Casa, who studied Greek under Leonzio Pilato, has, with greater probability, been suggested as one of the three Florentines (Baldelli). Petrarch himself has been thought of by De Sade as the fourth, but (it seems) on insufficient grounds. The fifth Florentine is without doubt Zanobi de Strada, who in 1359 was appointed apostolic secretary by Innocent VI, and who in consequence abandoned Naples and Italy for Avignon, the Babylon across the Alps.

The scholar at Bologna, too, can be named: Pietro di Muglio or de Muglo (cf. n. [121]). The Veronese humanists are Guglielmo da Pastrengo and Rinaldo da Villafranca. The Mantuan, according to De Sade and Tiraboschi, is Andrea (surnamed) Mantovano; and the one from Perugia, finally, has been variously identified with Paolo Perugino (Baldelli) and Muzio da Perugia (De Sade and Tiraboschi). Fracassetti (Vol. 5, p. 197) has omitted all mention of the humanist at Sulmona, who very probably is to be identified with Marco Barbato da Sulmona. (Consult Frac., _loc. cit._, who gives some cross-references to his own notes; and Voigt.)

[140]. Cf. n. [109].

[141]. This note of despair was wrung from Petrarch by his dismay at the existent state of affairs and by his own high ideals of scholarship. That it eventually proved to be an utterly false prophecy was due mainly to the vigorous impulse which he himself gave to the cause of humanism.

[142]. Cf. n. [123].

[143]. The famous words from the epitaph of Ennius (Cic., _Tusc._, i, 34), which Petrarch has here adapted to his purpose by the insertion of the bracketed words, “(Nam) volito vivus (docta) per ora virum” (Frac., III, p. 303).

[144]. Petrarch had owned a Greek Homer as early as 1354, when his friend Niccoló Sigero sent him a copy from Constantinople (cf. n. [111], par. 2). _Fam._, XVIII, 2, describes Petrarch’s joy at its reception, and also his sorrow at not being able to understand a word of it, which clearly proves that the first modern scholar had not made much progress after a summer’s instruction from the first teacher of Greek in the western world (see n. [109]). In Latin, Petrarch had the _Periochae_ which are attributed to Ausonius and the _Homerus Latinus_ or _Pindarus Thebanus_ (for which see n. [113]).

[145]. Fond hopes was Petrarch nourishing, and vain! We must remember that when Leonzio Pilato finished his translation of Homer in 1363, there was but one copy of it, and that that copy remained at Florence. We can well imagine Petrarch’s eagerness to peruse it. His first inquiry is made in _Seniles_, III, 6 (of March 1, 1365), by which letter he requests that some portion at least of the _Odyssey_ be forwarded to him, continuing that he is quite content to wait for the rest. From _Seniles_ V, 1 (Padua, December 14, 1365, Koerting, _Bocc._, p. 263, n. 2), we learn that when Boccaccio received this pressing note, the _Iliad_ had already been transcribed; and so he hastened to make with his own hand a transcription of that passage in the _Odyssey_ describing the descent of Ulysses to Hades. In the same letter Petrarch expresses satisfaction at hearing that this is at last on its way to him. Through some mishap, however, the precious package had not yet reached its destination at Venice by the 25th or 27th of January, 1367 (_Sen._, VI, 1; Koerting, _op. cit._; P. de Nolhac, II, p. 165). The joy of Petrarch, when he at last grasped the translation of Homer with his own hands and beheld it among the books on his own shelves, is simply expressed in the closing words of _Seniles_ VI, 2 (undated, but later than VI, 1). To conclude, the translation, which was begun by Leonzio in the latter half of 1360 (the date of _Fam._, XXIV, 12), did not reach him who was the most eager for it till seven years later.

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