But since you feel, and rightly so, that something still is wanting, I will try and unfold to you what it is, and, if God so please, remove it also; to the end that you may arise and with free, uplifted mind shake off that old bondage that so long has kept you down.
Petrarch. O would that indeed you may prove able so to help me, and I on my part be capable of receiving such a boon!
S. Augustine. It shall be yours if you wish. The thing is not impossible. But in the nature of man's actions two things are required, and if either be wanting, the action will come to nought. There must be will, and that will must be so strong and earnest that it can deserve the name of purpose.
Petrarch. So let it be.
S. Augustine. Do you know what stands in the way of your purpose of heart?
Petrarch. That is what I want to know; what for so long I have earnestly desired to understand.
S. Augustine. Then listen. It was from Heaven your soul came forth: never will I assert a lower origin than that. But in its contact with the flesh, wherein it is imprisoned, it has lost much of its first splendour. Have no doubt of this in your mind. And not only is it so, but by reason of the length of time it has in a manner fallen asleep; and, if one may so express it, forgotten its own beginning and its heavenly Creator.
And these passions that are born in the soul through its connection with the body, and that forgetfulness of its nobler nature, seem to me to have been touched by Virgil with pen almost inspired when he writes—
"The souls of men still shine with heavenly fire,
That tells from whence they come, save that the flesh
And limbs of earth breed dullness, hence spring fears,
Desire, and grief and pleasures of the world,
And so, in darkness prisoned, they no more
Look upward to heaven's face."[13]
Do you not in the poet's words discern that monster with four heads so deadly to the nature of man?