‘Constant sighing doesn’t help’
PETRARCH

      My honest Gino, I was wrong: wrong for years
and wildly wrong. I thought life wretched
and empty, and the age that now unfolds
the most stupid of all. The language I used
seemed, and was, intolerant of this blessed
mortal race, if men ought to call themselves
mortal, or dare do so. Noble people laughed
at me in wonder and scorn from that fragrant
Eden they inhabit, and I ought to call myself
lonely, unfortunate, incapable of pleasure,
and ignorant of it, to believe my own fate
universal, and the human species a partner
in my ills. At last there shone, vivid,
to my eyes, through the cigar smoke
of honour, murmurs of crackling pastries,
military cries, commanders
of ices and drinks, among the clash
of cups, and brandished
spoons, the flash of the daily
papers. I realised then, I saw
public happiness, and the sweetness
of mortal destiny. I saw the excellence
and the value of earthly things,
a human path all flowers, and saw
how nothing here can last or displease.
Nor did I fail to see the studies, the mighty
works, the sense, virtues, and noble wisdom
of my century. And indeed I saw kingdoms,
duchies and empires, from Morocco to Cathay,
from the Pole to the Nile, and Boston to Goa,
rushing in fierce competition on the track
of soul’s Happiness: seizing her by her
streaming hair, or at least by the tail
of her boa. Seeing all this and reflecting
deeply on the huge spread-out pages,
I was ashamed of my grave, long-standing
error, and indeed ashamed of myself.

      Oh, Gino, the thread of the Fates is spinning
a golden age today. Every newspaper
born of so many languages and columns,
promises it to the world from every shore,
simultaneously. Universal love, railways,
the multiplicity of commerce, steam,
the printing press, and cholera unite,
the widely scattered peoples and climates:
it’s no real wonder if oaks and pines
exude milk and honey, or dance
to the sound of a waltz. So has the
power of alembics and retorts increased,
of machines that challenge the heavens,
and so it will increase in the ages
that follow: the seed of Shem, Ham,
and Japheth flies, and will fly,
to greater and greater things forever.

       True, the earth won’t live on acorns,
unless hunger forces it to: nor end
the use of iron. But often it will
scorn silver and gold, content
with paper money. Nor will
the generous race hold back its hand
from blood, the blood of its own: Europe
indeed, and the far side of the Atlantic
the fresh nurse of true community,
will be full of strife, whenever this crowd
of brothers take the field against each other,
for pepper, or cinnamon, or some
other fatal spice, or for sugar canes,
or anything else they can turn to gold.
Courage and virtue, faith and modesty,
love of justice, will always,
in whatever political system, be wholly
and utterly alien, wholly unhappy,
oppressed, defeated: since nature
has always placed them down below,
in every age. Bold impudence,
deceit, and mediocrity will always rule,
fated to rise to the surface. Authority and power,
concentrated or devolved, however you wish,
will be abused by those who have it,
in whatever name. Nature and fate
engraved this primal law in adamant:
and Volta and Davy can’t cancel it
with electricity, nor England with all
her machines, nor this new century
with all its river of political tracts.
The good will always grieve, the bad
rejoice in mockery: the world will always
take up arms against noble spirits,
forever. Slander, envy and hate will pursue
true honour: the weak will feed the strong,
the indigent beggar must cultivate and serve
the rich, whatever the form
of communal order, however near
or far the equator or pole, eternally,
unless the day arrives when our race
no longer knows its home or daylight.

These slight remains and traces
of past ages must still impress
themselves on this age of gold:
since the human race has a thousand
conflicting, discordant parts and principles,
in its nature: and human intellect and power
has never served to make peace
our of hatred, from the day our glorious
race was born, and never will,
however wise or potent our century’s
newspapers or treaties. Yet human happiness
will be found in weightier things, wholesome,
not seen before. Our clothes
of wool or silk will become softer
day by day. Farmers and craftsmen
hastening to throw off rough garments,
will hide their coarse skin in cotton,
and clothe their backs in beaver-furs.
Carpets, blankets, chairs, settees,
stools and dining tables, beds and other
kinds of furnishings will be more usable,
or at least easier on the eye, adorning
apartments with this month’s beauty:
the wondrous kitchen will be ablaze
with new forms of pots and pans.
Journeys or rather flights will be
swifter than anyone dare imagine,
Paris to Calais, and London: London
to Liverpool: and under the Thames’
broad flood the tunnel will be open,
bold, immortal work that should have
been opened years ago. The less
frequented streets will be lit better
than now, yet just as safe, in sovereign
cities, and perhaps, in lesser towns,
the major roads, sometimes.
Such the delights and blessed destiny
that heaven ordains for future peoples.

      How fortunate those the midwife
holds mewling in her arms,
as I write, whom the vision awaits
of the days, sighed-for, when lengthy
study will reveal, and every infant
will absorb with its milk, what weight
of salt, of meat, how many tons of flour,
its native town consumes: how many
births and deaths, the old priest notes
every year: when hill and plain, I think,
and even the vast tracts of ocean,
will be covered by magazines,
the work of steam-driven presses
printing thousands of copies a second,
as if by a flight of cranes that suddenly
steals daylight from the broad landscape:
magazines, journals, the life and spirit
of the universe, sole fount of wisdom
for this age and all those to come!

      As a child, with great care,
raises a structure, out of twigs
and bits of paper, shaped
like a church, tower, or palace,
and, when it’s done, levels it,
because the paper and twigs
are needed for another effort,
so, no sooner does nature find
that any work of hers, however
artistically noble to contemplate,
is perfect, she starts to undo it,
allotting the parts to something else.
And so to preserve themselves from
this foolish game, whose meaning
is eternally hidden, human beings
employ their talents a thousand ways
with skilful hands: since for all their efforts
cruel Nature, like a persistent child,
indulges her caprice, amuses herself,
without cease, creating and destroying.
So an infinite, varied family
of incurable ills and troubles
oppresses the frail mortal, irremediably
fated to die: so a hostile, destructive force
strikes him from within and from
all sides, intense and relentless,
from his day of birth: indefatigably
tires him, wearies him, till he lies
crushed and spent beside his cruel mother.
These final miseries of our mortal state,
O gentle spirit, old age and death,
whose origin is when the infant’s mouth
sucks at the tender breast that gives it life,
are things the happy nineteenth century
can no more end than the ninth or tenth
could, I think, and no more than future
ages will have the power to do.
So, if we’re entitled sometimes to call
the truth by its proper name, all who are
born will never be anything but wretched,
not only in civic realms and ways,
but in every other aspect of life,
incurably, and by a universal law,
that embraces earth and heaven.
But the greatest minds of my century
have discovered a new, almost divine
programme: lacking the power
to make a single person happy,
they’ve ignored the one, to search for
the happiness of many: finding it easily
among the sad and wretched, they make
one happy smiling people: and the mob
will marvel at this miracle, not yet announced
in newspapers, pamphlets or magazines.

      Oh minds, oh judgement, oh superhuman acumen
of the age that unfolds! Oh, Gino,
what solid philosophy, what wisdom,
in the most sublime and most abstruse
subjects, my century and yours will teach
the future ages! With what constancy
it admires today what it mocked the day
before, and will destroy tomorrow,
gathering the fragments together,
to set them among incense the day after!
How we should treasure, what faith it inspires,
the harmony of feeling of this century,
rather this year, that unfolds! When we
compare our feelings with this year’s feelings,
which are bound to be different to next year’s
feelings, with what care we should avoid
the slightest sign of divergence! And how far
our wisdom has travelled in philosophy
when we contrast modern times with ancient!

      Dear Gino, a friend of yours, a true
master of poetry, learned in all the arts,
and sciences and human disciplines,
and critic of those minds that have been
and are and will be, said to me: ‘Forget
your own feelings. This virile age
no longer cares for them, it’s dedicated
to the harsh study of economics, its gaze
is fixed on public things. What’s the point
of exploring your own soul? Don’t search
inside yourself for poetic subjects. Sing
the needs of this century, mature hope,
memorable sentences!’ That raised a solemn
smile, when the word ‘hope’ was mentioned,
a ridiculous word to my profane ear,
like the babbling of an infant’s tongue
not long after it’s been weaned. Now
I’ve reversed my course, taken a track
opposite to that before, seeing clearly
at last from unmistakable signs that I
shouldn’t contradict, oppose my own century,
if I want praise and fame, but conform to it,
with faithful flattery: ‘so by a short
and easy path we travel to the stars’.
Though desirous of the stars, I doubt
I’ll ever have the matter to make
a song about our century’s needs,
since the ever-increasing markets
and production provide so generously
for them: but I’ll certainly sing of hope,
of which the gods now grant us
a visible sign: now young men’s lips
and cheeks display, as a token of fresh
felicity, liberal lengths of hair.

      O hail, O signs of salvation, O first
lights of the glorious age that rises.
See how heaven and earth laugh
before you, and the girls’ glances
sparkle, and, through feasts and gatherings,
your fame, you bearded heroes, already flies.
Flourish, for our country’s sake, flourish
O modern race of true men. Italy will
flourish: all of Europe, from the mouth
of Tagus to Hellespont, will flourish in your
woolly shade, and earth rest, secure.
And you, begin by greeting your bristly
fathers with laughter, O infant race,
destined for golden days: and do not fear
the innocuous gloom on those dear faces.
Laugh, O tender race: the fruit of so much
talk has been preserved for you: to see
joy rule, to see cities and towns, and age
and youth, all happy in equal contentment,
with flowing beards, beards two foot long.