De planctu naturae

The arrival of Hymen. While Nature's speech was proceeding along this particular path of instruction, behold, a man appeared as if by the miracle of a sudden apparition, with no advance banner of our anticipation, and presented his presence to our sight. He seemed bound by the law of no single age, for now he was truly ripening into youth, now a grave face spoke of more mature years, now his countenance seemed furrowed by the wrinkles of old age. And just as he wavered under the changing face of manifold age, so too his uncertain stature: now a lesser measure brought him humbly toward the ground, now the balances of an even middling height enlarged the poverty of his stature, now with a bold loftiness of size he vied with the excesses of giants. In his face no traces of feminine softness appeared, but only the authority of manly dignity reigned. His face was neither drenched by showers of weeping nor made bright by wanton laughter, but, free of both, aspired more modestly toward tears alone. His hair, having won a truce from disorder, confessed the industry of a skillful comb, yet lay adorned with the balance of a moderate arrangement, lest, wandering into irregular styling, it should seem to pass over into feminine softness. And lest a little cloud of hair should bury the open space of his forehead, the ends of his locks felt the bite of the scissors. His face, as manly dignity required, strayed from no grace of beauty. His chin now put forth its first down, now a longer growth fringed it there, now it seemed to grow wild with the fleece of a luxuriant beard. Now the severity of the razor chastised the beard's excess. His rings, meanwhile, jeweled with gems that shone like stars, made the sun itself seem new again, so brilliantly did his hand flash.

On the garments of Hymen. His garments, meanwhile, you would believe now grew common by the ordinary craft of coarser material, now grew proud by the most skillful weaving of finer material. On them, painted tales dreamed of nuptial events. Yet the grime of age had nearly compelled the painted images to fade from view. There the sacramental tablet of witness, the purpose of matrimony, the peaceful unity of marriage, the inseparable yoke of weddings, the indissoluble bond of those wedded, was confessed woven in, in the language of painting. For in that painted book one could read, as if in shadow, what solemn celebration applauds the exultation of weddings, what sweetness solemnizes the melodies at weddings, what special universal goodwill smiles upon the guests at marriages, what general delight of the lyre brings marriages to their close. A troop of instrumental musicians, gathered in companies, also adorned the approach of this man. Yet the musicians themselves, mirroring in themselves the sorrow of their master, had commanded silence to their instruments. And so the workshops of instruments, made voiceless by the numbness of silence, seemed to aspire instead to groaning. Then, after a local nearness brought him close to Nature, she, addressing him by name, along with a greeting of welcome, added to it the offering of a kiss. And from the seal of that very name, and from the other circumstances speaking their own signs, I recognized that the one who had come was Hymen, whom Nature, placing at her right hand, honored with the dignity of her right side.

The arrival of Chastity. While a certain festive conversation was being celebrated between Nature and Hymen, behold, a maiden, whose beauty charmed all like the dawn, seemed by the sudden presence of her arrival and the direction of her path to be approaching our presence. In her beauty there shone forth such solemnity of skillful craft that the finger of Nature, polishing her, faltered in nothing. Her face begged for no hypocrisy of borrowed color, but the right hand of the Almighty, by a wondrous mingling of nature, had planted in her face the rose contending with the lily. Her eyes, disciplined with the modesty of simplicity, indulged in no wanton excursions of impertinence. Her lips, retaining their own natural vigor, seemed to have felt neither the exhaustion of kisses nor the preludes of Venus's embraces. Yet you would believe her face, sweating with tears, to be shipwrecked in a very flood of weeping. A garland, woven materially of lilies fastened together in crossed insertion, smiled upon the ornament of her head. Yet the whiteness of her swan-like hair, disdaining to plead before the whiteness of the lilies, boasted a contrary paleness of its own. Her garments, too, would have rivaled the snows in truer proofs of whiteness, had not painting, devising various colors, betrayed their whiteness. For in them, beneath the device of painting, one could see woven how the chastity of Hippolytus, walled about by the fortress of constancy, stood firm in refuting the assaults of his stepmother's lust. There, Daphne, lest she suffer the loss of her virgin wildness, put to flight, by her own flight, the enticements of Phoebus. There, Lucretia excluded the loss of broken honor by the brief cost of death. There, in the mirror of the painting, I could behold Penelope, that mirror of chastity. And, to gather up in a brief course of narration the many-tongued details of the painting that must otherwise be passed by, the industry of that depiction cheated no daughter of noble birth of her due course of commendation. The nobility of a golden seal, which shone starlike as if with a multitude of jaspers, gleamed like daybreak upon the right hand of the aforesaid maiden. And on her left, a turtledove perched, fitting the lyre of its voice, in the manner of an elegiac song, to sorrowful lamentations. A company of young maidens clung to her footsteps, for the comfort of her journey and for dutiful attendance. When Nature caught sight of her drawing near through the nearness of place, coming to meet her with a solemn greeting, she painted her inward affection outwardly through the prelude of a greeting, the prelude of a kiss, the embrace of welcome; and while the maiden's name shone forth in the preface of that greeting, I recognized the actual arrival of Chastity.

The arrival of Temperance. And while Nature was applauding her with the same festive conversation, behold, a matron, disciplining her step with regular modesty, seemed to be tracing the path of her journey toward us. Her stature was bounded within the limits of a middling measure. Her age, meanwhile, was tending toward the noonday hour of life, yet the noon of her life in no way stood opposed to the love of beauty; even the ruin of old age was attempting to sprinkle her hair with its snows, hair which the maiden herself had not allowed to spread youthfully in disorderly flow across the breadth of her shoulders, but forced its excess under her own discipline. Her garments seemed to boast neither the glory of costly material, nor to lament the loss of cheapness; but, obedient to the rules of moderation, neither cut short by excessive brevity, they had escaped grazing along the surface of the earth, nor did they clothe the face of the earth with superfluous folds, but touched it with the brief taste of a kiss: for the belt of her tunic, moderating its flow, called its excess back into rule. A necklace, meanwhile, keeping watch at the threshold of her breast, forbade the hand entry. On her garments, painting, with the faithfulness of its own lettering, taught what restraint ought to be in men's words, what circumspection in deeds, what moderation in dress, what severity in bearing, what curbing of the mouth in food, what chastening of the throat in drink. Nature, then, receiving this maiden, hedged about by a small company of attendants, with the applause of a hastening welcome, shaped the abundance of her own affection through a manifold repetition of kisses and the auspicious beginning of a particular greeting; and the express utterance of her own name proclaimed the welcome arrival of Temperance.

The arrival of Largesse. And while Nature was honoring the presence of Temperance with the gift of a friendly greeting, behold, a woman whose beauty, aided by the brightness of the material day, boasted the appearance of a still more serene countenance, hastening and quickening her journey, seemed to be directing the lines of her steps toward us. Her stature, disdaining lowliness, surpassed the ordinary rule of human height. Her head was not bowed humbly down toward the earth, making her face inclined downward, but, suspending her gaze toward the heights with neck held erect, her sight read its course toward loftier things. Nature had carved her beauty with a most polished refinement, so that in her one might admire the very industry of Nature's own craft. Her diadem, meanwhile, neither redeeming the poverty of its material by the distinction of its workmanship, nor recovering the cheapness of that workmanship by the nobility of its material, but presenting in each a singular sovereignty, blazed upon her head without the sting of any exclusive claim to either. Yet her golden hair, blazing with a still more gracious fire, seemed, in disdain, to grant the golden diadem but a lower seat: hair neither clipped short by the industry of scissors, nor gathered into bound tresses, but flowing in a more leisurely course, overflowing the bounds of her shoulders, seemed to stoop down to the poverty of the earth. Her arms, not condemned to the poverty of shortness, but flowing in a graceful length, you would believe were not folding backward but passing forward; her hands, drawn out in the unfolding of a generous openness rather than bound by any reciprocal clasping, seemed to aspire to the office of giving freely. Her garments, too, drawn from material formed by the kissing union of golden and silken threads, so that the fineness of the workmanship, commended by the nobility of the material, rejoiced in such marks of skillful craft that you would believe not a material but even a heavenly hand had labored over the work. In them, the persuasive likeness of imagined painting, by the deceptive skill of its own contrivance, condemned with the reproach of a curse men laboring under the notorious crime of avarice; while it rewarded, with the grace of blessing, the sons of largesse, titled with the praises of good fame. This woman, then, hedged about by a mere handful of three attendants, while she pressed on in the quickening of her step, behold, Nature, befriending her approach with a celebrated meeting, halved her greeting with a kiss, and cut short her kiss with a greeting. The special distinction of her beauty, the courtliness of her particular bearing, the individuality of her gesture, while they proclaimed the arrival of Largesse, her name, resounding in the greeting, removed from the cloud of doubt my certainty of the matter.

The arrival of Humility. While Nature was paying to Largesse the dues of a first greeting and friendly applause, behold, a girl, more deliberate in the slowness of her lingering step, more serene in the placidity of her dove-like countenance, more humble in the chastened smallness of her stature, seemed to turn aside toward us with the modesty of a tortoise-like pace. Yet to the humility of her stature, the grace of beauty had come as its patron: a beauty not usurped by the mechanical deceits of human artifice, but, welling from the living spring of nature, had breathed the ornament of comeliness over her whole body. Her hair had been cut back by such a biting of the scissors that the very shape of its cropping nearly passed over into a fault. Her locks, indeed, wandering in a certain crisscrossing disarray, tangled in an inexplicable intricacy, you would believe were quarreling among themselves. Her head, cast down in deep dejection, humbly bowed toward the earth. Her garments, defended by the aid of skillful workmanship against the commonness of their homespun material, were not corrupted from the native color of that material by any adulteration of an added dye. There, in the fanciful devices of the painting, one could read inscribed how, in the catalogue of the virtues, Humility shone forth with the banner of distinction; while Pride, suspended under the mark of excommunication by the sacred synod of the virtues, was condemned to the ruin of final banishment. To her, then, as she approached, Nature, coming to meet her with an even more eager haste, seasoning the offering of her greeting with the sweetness of kisses, showed a countenance of deep-hearted affection. And in the particular traits proper to that person, the arrival of Humility became clear to me.

Nature's sorrowful conversation with Hymen and the aforesaid maidens. While Hymen and the aforementioned maidens were mirroring, in Nature's face, the very image of their inward complaint, and striving to bring forth the shapes of their inward grief into outward images of weeping, behold, Nature, forestalling words with words, said: "O sole luminaries of humanity's darkness, morning stars of the world's sunset, special tablets of the shipwrecked, singular harbors amid the world's floods! By the maturity of deep-rooted knowledge I know what is the reason for your gathering, what the occasion of your arrival, what the cause of your lamentation, what the origin of your grief. For men, shaped in the mere appearance of humanity, yet inwardly cast down by the deformity of beastly excess, men whom I grieve to have clothed in the mantle of humanity, are attempting to disinherit you from the patrimony of earthly dwelling, usurping for themselves entire dominion over the earth, and forcing you to return to your home in the heavens. Since, then, this matter is my own concern, for when the shared wall of a house catches fire, it burns for the whole household, sharing in your compassion, grieving with your grief, I read my own groaning in yours, I find my own loss in your adversity. Omitting nothing, then, of what is at issue, having pursued my proper end in myself, insofar as I am able to extend the arm of my power, I will strike them with a vengeance answering to their vice. But since I cannot overstep the limit of my own power, nor is it within my capacity to uproot the poison of this plague in every way, following the rule of what is within my ability, I will brand with the mark of a curse those men entangled in the coils of the aforesaid vices. As for Genius, who serves me in the office of priest, it is fitting that he be roused, that he, with the assisting presence of my judicial power and with your fitting assent and favor, may cast them out, by the pastoral staff of excommunication, from the roster of natural things, from the bounds of my jurisdiction. Of this embassy Hymen shall be the most trusted executor; in him shine the stars of eloquent speech, in him is stored the armory of examining counsel."

The embassy of Hymen, bearing Nature's letter, to Genius. Then those standing by, ceasing from the tears of their complaint, with heads bowed low, humbly rendered abundant thanks to Nature; and Hymen, humbling himself on bended knee in Nature's very presence, professed himself bound to the appointed embassy. Then she marked a papyrus scroll with an inscription of the following verse: "Nature, by the grace of God, first vicarious creator of the worldly city, to Genius, another self like her, wishes friendship through all the serene blandishments of fortune. Since like things rejoice in the sprinkling of unlike things, and in the social bond of like with like, finding in you, as in a mirror, another self through Nature's shining likeness, I am bound by the knot of heartfelt affection, whether prospering in your prospering, or, by an equal balance, failing in your failing; wherefore love ought to be circular, so that you may answer love with love in kind. The plain evidence of the crime committed, bearing the very image of an outcry, plainly tells you of the shipwreck of the human race. For you see how men dishonor the honesty of their original nature with beastly enticements, stripping off the privileged nature of humanity, and, through a degeneration of their conduct, pass over into beasts, pursuing their own passions in the wake of Venus's example, shipwrecked in the whirlpools of gluttony, seething in the vapors of greed, flying off on the counterfeit wings of pride, indulging in the bites of envy, gilding others with the hypocrisy of flattery. For these diseases of vice no one presses on with healing remedies; this torrent of crimes no one checks with the barrier of defense; these floods of wickedness no one restrains with the stability of a harbor. The virtues, too, unable to bear so great an onset of hostile conflict, flee to us alone as their asylum of defense and remedy of life. Since, then, our common cause is troubled by this shared assault, both sweetening my words with entreaty and, by the force of obedience, commanding you, I both admonish by commanding and command by admonishing, that, setting aside every sophism of excuse, you hasten your approach to us, so that, with the assisting presence of myself and my maidens, separating the sons of abomination from the sacramental communion of our Church, you may strike them, with the due solemnity of your office, with the severe rod of excommunication." After this, she handed to the messenger, to be delivered, the letter sealed with a seal on which artful skill had carved the name and image of Nature. Then Hymen, closing with a more solemn countenance of joy his rendering of thanks, and setting out upon the appointed embassy, and rousing his companions from the slumber of sloth, ordered that they, keeping watch over their instruments, should rouse them from the sleep of silence, and summon them to the measures of harmonious melody. Then they, coaxing their instruments with certain preludes, painted forth a voice deformedly uniform, like in its unlikeness, in a manifold measure: