O Happy People of the Future

Mi frater, mi frater, mi frater: novum epistolae principium: imo antiquum, et ante mille fere quadringentos annos a Marco Tullio usurpatum. Heu mihi! frater amantissime, quid dicam? Unde ordiar? Quonam vertar? Undique dolor, terror undique. In me uno videas quod de tanta urbe apud Virgilium legisti: nam crudelis ubique Luctus, ubique pavor, et plurima mortis imago.

My brother, my brother, my brother: a new beginning of a letter: rather an old one, and used by Marcus Tullius almost fourteen hundred years ago. Alas for me! most loving brother, what shall I say? Where shall I begin? Where shall I turn? Everywhere grief, terror everywhere. In me alone you may see what you read in Virgil about so great a city: for cruel grief everywhere, everywhere fear, and very many an image of death.

My brother, my brother, my brother! A new way to begin a letter, you will say. No, it is an old one: Marcus Tullius1 used it almost fourteen hundred years ago. Alas, my dearest brother, what can I say? Where shall I begin? Where shall I turn? Everywhere there is grief, everywhere terror. In me alone you can see what you read in Virgil about a great city: “Everywhere cruel grief, everywhere fear, and everywhere the many faces of death.”2

1. Marcus Tullius Cicero (106–43 BCE), the Roman orator and letter writer whose letters Petrarch admired and collected.
2. Virgil, Aeneid 2.368–369, on the night Troy fell.

Utinam, frater, aut nunquam natus, aut prius extinctus forem! Quod si nunc optare cogor, quid dicturum putas si ad extremam senectutem venero? Ad quam o utinam non venirem! Sed veniam, timeo, non ut diutius vivam, sed ut diu moriar.

Would that, brother, I had either never been born, or had died earlier! But if I am forced to wish this now, what do you think I will say if I come to extreme old age? To which O would that I might not come! But I will come, I fear, not that I may live longer, but that I may die for a long time.

I wish, brother, that I had never been born, or had died sooner! If I am driven to wish that now, what do you think I will say if I reach extreme old age? Oh, I hope I never reach it! But I fear I will, not to live longer, but to take longer dying.

Id pudori meo gravius insultat, quod iam annus integer, iamque alterius bona pars abiit, ex quo nihil viro dignum, non dicam facere, sed ne loqui quidem contigit, tonante undique ac fulminante ferociter fortuna. Qua in re benigno sub iudice forsan excuser, si ad examen venerit, illud quoque non leve aliquid, sed millesimum trecentesimum quadragesimum octavum sextae aetatis annum esse, quem lugeo, qui non solum nos amicis sed mundum omnem gentibus spoliavit. Cui si quid defuit, sequens ecce annus illius reliquias demetit, et quidquid illi procellae superfuerat, mortifera falce prosequitur.

This insults my shame more heavily, that already a whole year, and already a good part of another has gone, since it has befallen me to do, I will not say, but not even to say anything worthy of a man, fortune thundering and lightning fiercely on every side. In which matter I might perhaps be excused before a kind judge, if it comes to examination, [on the ground] that this too is no light thing, but that it is the one thousand three hundred forty-eighth year of the sixth age that I mourn, which robbed not only us of friends but the whole world of peoples. And if anything was lacking to it, see, the following year reaps its remains, and whatever had survived that storm, it pursues with its deadly sickle.

What wounds my pride most is this. A whole year has gone, and a good part of another, in which I have not managed to do anything worthy of a man, or even to say anything, while fortune thundered and struck like lightning on every side. A kind judge might perhaps excuse me, if it came to a hearing. For this is no small thing either: it is the year 1348 of the sixth age3 that I mourn. It robbed not only us of our friends but the whole world of its peoples. And if it left anything undone, look, the following year is reaping what was left. Whatever survived that storm, it hunts down with its deadly sickle.

3. In a scheme handed down from Augustine, history was divided into six ages; the sixth ran from the birth of Christ to the end of the world.

Quando hoc posteritas credet fuisse tempus, sine coeli aut telluris incendio, sine bellis aut alia clade visibili, quo non haec pars aut illa terrarum, sed universus fere orbis sine habitatore remanserit? Quando unquam tale aliquid visum aut fando auditum? Quibus hoc unquam annalibus lectum est, vacuas domos, derelictas urbes, squalida rura, arva cadaveribus angusta, horrendam vastamque toto orbe solitudinem? Consule historicos, silent; interroga physicos, obstupescunt; quaere a philosophis, humeros contrahunt, frontem rugant, et digitulo labiis impresso, silentium iubent.

When will posterity believe there was a time, without fire of the sky or of the earth, without wars or other visible disaster, in which not this part or that of the lands, but almost the whole world remained without inhabitant? When was anything such ever seen or heard by report? In what annals was this ever read, empty houses, abandoned cities, neglected countryside, fields too narrow for the corpses, a horrible and vast solitude in the whole world? Consult the historians, they are silent; ask the physicians, they are stunned; seek from the philosophers, they shrug their shoulders, wrinkle their brow, and with a finger pressed to their lips, order silence.

Will the people of the future ever believe that there was a time when, without fire from the sky or the earth, without wars or any other disaster that could be seen, not this part of the world or that, but nearly the whole earth was left without people? When was anything like it ever seen or heard of? In what annals has anyone ever read of empty houses, abandoned cities, neglected farms, fields too small for the dead, and a vast and dreadful loneliness over the whole world? Consult the historians, and they are silent. Ask the doctors, and they are dumbfounded. Ask the philosophers, and they shrug their shoulders, frown, and press a finger to their lips for silence.

Credet ista posteritas, cum ipsi qui vidimus vix credamus, somnia credituri, nisi experrecti apertis haec oculis cerneremus, et lustrata urbe funeribus suis plena, domum reversi, exoptatis pignoribus vacuam illam reperientes, sciremus utique vera esse quae gemimus? O felicem populum pronepotum, qui has miserias non agnovit, et fortassis testimonium nostrum inter fabulas numerabit!

Will posterity believe these things, when we ourselves who saw them hardly believe, [we who] would believe them dreams, unless awake we saw these things with open eyes, and, having gone round the city full of its funerals, returned home, finding it empty of our longed-for dear ones, we knew surely that what we lament is true? O happy people of the great-grandchildren, who have not known these miseries, and perhaps will count our testimony among fables!

Will the people of the future believe it, when we who saw it can hardly believe it ourselves? We would think it a dream, if we were not awake and seeing it with open eyes. We walk through a city full of funerals and come home to find it empty of the loved ones we longed for. Only then do we know that what we mourn is true. O happy people of the future, who have not known these miseries, and who will perhaps count our testimony among fables!

Meremur haec quidem et graviora, non inficior; sed et maiores nostri meriti sunt, atque utinam non et posteri mererentur. Quid est ergo, iudicum iustissime, quid est, quod insigniter adeo in nostrum tempus ultionis tuae fervor incubuit? Quid est, quod cum culpae non desint, desunt exempla supplicii? Cum omnibus peccavimus, flagellamur soli.

We deserve these things indeed and heavier ones, I do not deny; but our ancestors also deserved them, and would that our descendants would not deserve them too. What is it then, most just of judges, what is it, that the heat of your vengeance has fallen so remarkably on our time? What is it, that while faults are not lacking, examples of punishment are lacking? With all we have sinned; we alone are scourged.

We deserve all this, and worse; I do not deny it. But our ancestors deserved it too, and I wish our descendants did not. Then why, most just of judges, why has the heat of your vengeance fallen so heavily on our time? Why, when there has never been a lack of sins, has there been no punishment like this one? We have sinned with everyone, and we alone are flogged.