"Taedet animam meam vitae meae; vivere erubesco, mori pertimesco. Quid ergo restat tibi, o peccator, nisi ut in tota vita tua plores totam vitam tuam, ut ipsa tota se ploret totam? Sed est in hoc quoque anima mea miserabiliter mirabilis et mirabiliter miserabilis, quia non tantum dolet quantum se noscit; sed sic secura torpet, velut quid patiatur ignoret. O anima sterilis, quid agis? quid torpes, anima peccatrix? Dies judicii venit, juxta est dies Domini magnus, juxta et velox nimis, dies irae dies illa, dies tribulationis et angustiae, dies calamitatis et miseriae, dies tenebrarum et caliginis, dies nebulae et turbinis, dies tubae et clangoris. O vox diei Domini amara! Quid dormitas, anima tepida et digna evomi?"[1]
Damiani wrote in the middle of the eleventh century, Anselm in the latter part. The northern lands could as yet show no such characteristic styles,[2] although the classically educated German, Lambert of Hersfeld, wrote as correctly and perspicuously as either. His Annals have won admiration for their clear and correct Latinity, modelled upon the styles of Sallust and Livy. He died in 1077, the year of Canossa, his Annals covering the conflict between Henry IV. and Hildebrand up to that event. The narrative moves with spirit, as one may see by reading his description of King Henry and his consort struggling through Alpine ice and snow to reach that castle never to be forgotten, and gain absolution from the Pope before the ban should have completed Henry's ruin.[3]
For the North, the best period of mediaeval Latin,
- ↑ "Meditatio II." (Migne 158, col. 722).
"My soul is offended with my life. I blush to live; I fear to die. What then remains for thee, O sinner, save that all thy life thou weepest over all thy life, that it all may lament its whole self. But in this also is my soul miserably wonderful and wonderfully miserable, since it does not grieve as much as it knows itself (i.e. to the full extent of its self-knowledge) but secure, is listless as if it knew not what it may be suffering. O barren soul, what art thou doing? why art thou drowsing, sinner soul? The Day of Judgment is coming, near is the great day of the Lord, near and too swift the day of wrath, (that day!) day of tribulation and distress, day of calamity and misery, day of shades and darkness, day of cloud and whirlwind, day of the trump and the roar! O voice of the day of the Lord—harsh! Why sleepest thou, soul lukewarm and fit to be spewed out?"
- ↑ Perhaps it may seem questionable to treat Anselm as an Italian, since he left Lombardy when a young man. Undoubtedly his theological interests were affected by his northern environment. But his temperament and language, his diction, his style, seem to me more closely connected with native temperament.
- ↑ Annals for the year 1077 (Migne 146, col. 1234 sqq.); also in Mon. Germ. Script. iii.
