ADVENT OF SPRING IN THE SOUTH
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finds its God. The cold winds of the North set the bells swaying in the clouded town of my birth, that they may sing in the wondrously sweet language of my mother a penitent litany for a prodigal son. And haply already the chill and mournful snow is falling on the sad peaks that begird my native land.
PETRARCH: Wherefore, Sire, have you condemned the greatness of your spirit to such narrow confines of vain and austere allegiance? An allegiance which can but be a burden and a curse to you, who belong to the South, to Italy or Avignon, who might have been Augustus over the Tiber and the Arno, over rivers which sing to you in a wistful speech?
CHARLES IV.: It seems to me—if I understand your language aright—that the thought of home has marked me out somehow in the same way as your pagan poet did to you. But pray enlarge unto me, how could Virgil thus preserve and liberate you?
PETRARCH: I fear, Sire, that my words will not be a kindly entertainment for the shades of a November evening. It is chill, it is dark, and the fountain is lamenting piteously in the courtyard. At this moment the distant stars exhort us to slumber.
CHARLES IV.: Perhaps I must appeal to you as pressingly as the passionate and sinful queen of Africa appealed to Aeneas in Virgil? I am hearkening.
