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ARNE NOVÁK
ARNE NOVÁK: THE ADVENT OF SPRING IN THE SOUTH.
AN IMAGINARY CONVERSATION.
(The scene is in the Corte Reale at Mantua on a late afternoon in November, 1354. Charles IV.[1] meets with Petrarch, who is reading a book as he passes across the court.)
CHARLES IV.: Poet, the evening is casting its cold and gloomy shadows upon your book.
PETRARCH: And yet I feel the spring and flowers. I hear the droning of bees and the measured tread of the grazing flocks. There is a strong fragrance of golden laburnum, and the dulcet cadence of the verses carries me away with the music of torrents drenched with the thawing ice of the Alps.
CHARLES IV.: Once more it is your beloved Virgil, herdsman and prophet, whom you have chosen as your teacher and friend. You do not surprise me; there was a time when I, too, was fond of him. I even confess that in this very spot, above the waters of the Mincio, I have more than once bethought me of him who
- ↑ Charles IV. as Emperor of Germany. Charles I., as King of Bohemia. One of the greatest Czechs in history.
