146
ARNE NOVÁK
suade you that you may give the young and tractable nations to drink of the spirit of the South, and sate them with our new faith, our new hopes.
CHARLES IV.: You are a wondrous dreamer, poet! You, who are fain to be called an old and weary man, rave like a youth. For what is that but raving, when you desire to transform live and fervid nations into mere bondsmen of shadows, with which the pagan bard has quickened your brain.
PETRARCH: Ah, they are not shadows, they are not phantoms. The certainty that life and not death, courageous action and not penitent prayer shall deserve our whole love, draws closer to us those ancestors of old, from the army of Aeneas and Turnus, from the pastoral throng of Euryalus and Menaleus. Not alone do they clasp our hands and speak our language, but they are brothers and friends. Do you not know, Sire, that all the youth in Italy and France, all who were born to witness your wise and heroic deeds as a ruler, feel equally with me. To-day I am no longer alone. My pride is becoming the pride of joy. A new youth is casting anchor on the shores of Latium and is girding itself for the taking of Rome. All their songs are resounding, on all sides their hopes are hovering. Only a leader do we yet lack.
