Book I

of the _De remediis_ were written before this date. We see, too, that by this slight reference to Homer, Petrarch did give some currency to the report that Homer died of grief, and did add to it a note of uncertainty.

The story of Homer’s death, as Petrarch and other mediaeval men knew it, must have been the one they found in Valerius Maximus; and though Petrarch does not actually cite him as his source, this clearly results from the references to Sophocles and to Philemon shortly following. Valerius, then, says (ix, 12, _ext._ 3):

The cause of Homer’s death too is said to have been an uncommon one. Having landed at the island of Ios, certain fishermen asked him a riddle which he was unable to read, in consequence of which Homer is believed to have died of grief.

The legend in its more complete form (unknown to Petrarch) is derived from the so-called _Lives_ compiled from the minor poems falsely attributed to Homer. It runs as follows. On his way to Thebes, Homer landed at Ios, where he saw some young fishermen on the shore with their nets. In answer to his question as to what they had caught, the young fishermen propounded to him this riddle: “What we caught we left, what we caught not we bring.” Homer was unable to read this riddle; and remembering an oracle which had foretold that he would die “through chagrin at his inability to read the riddle of the fishermen,” he wrote an epitaph for himself and died of vexation and grief on the third day thereafter (cf. _New International Encycl._, and the _Brit._).

If Petrarch questioned the credibility of the shorter and simpler version of Valerius, what would he have said of this fuller legend, elaborated as it was with so many undignified frills?

[124]. Val. Max., ix, 12, _ext._ 5:

When Sophocles was already in extreme old age, he submitted one of his tragedies in competition at the games. For a long time he was very anxious concerning (as he thought) the doubtful decision of the judges. But his great joy when he was at last unanimously declared victor, brought about his death.

Cf. Pliny, _N. H._, VII, 53, 180.

[125]. Fully to realize Petrarch’s state of mind, it is necessary to quote substantial portions of his two sources for these statements. The first statement is again founded on Val. Max., ix, 12, _ext._ 6:

The strain of excessive laughter took off Philemon. Some figs had been prepared for him, but had been left in open view. Seeing a young ass eating them, Philemon summoned a boy to drive him away. The boy, however, answered the summons leisurely, arriving when all the figs had already been devoured. Whereupon Philemon said, “Since you have been so slow in coming, now give the ass some wine.” And forthwith he began to roar at his own witty remark, panting hard until the irregular breathing in his aged throat choked him.

The second version, which Petrarch considers “more serious and more credible,” is that of Apuleius, _Florida_, xvi:

For these praiseworthy qualities he (Philemon) was for a long time well known as a writer of comedies. It happened one day that he was giving a public reading of part of a play which he had recently written. When he had reached the third act ... a sudden rainstorm arose ... which compelled the gathering and the reading to be postponed. Upon being urgently pressed by several, Philemon promised that he would finish the reading on the very next day. And so on the following day a large throng of very eager men gathered in the theater.... But when they had sat waiting longer than seemed reasonable, and when Philemon did not put in an appearance, several of the more eager were sent to summon him, and found him dead in his bed.... Returning thence they reported to the expectant audience that the poet Philemon, whom they were so eagerly attending, to hear him complete the reading of his latest play, had already, and at his own home, brought a real drama to a close.

In his manuscript of the _Florida_, Petrarch wrote the following marginal note to this passage: “This version of the death of Philemon is somewhat nobler than the one related by Valerius and, indeed, by myself; for in a certain letter of mine I followed both him and the current opinion.” P. de Nolhac says that he has not been able to find the letter referred to by Petrarch (II, p. 102, and n. 4). The present epistle to Homer was written in 1360; and it may well be that the letter referred to was destroyed in the general holocaust of 1359, when Petrarch sorted his correspondence into the two collections (cf. above, n. [120]). Moreover, it was just like the careful Petrarch to destroy a wrong version when he had once learned the true one.

[126]. On the general similarity between the _Odyssey_ and the _Aeneid_, Petrarch says (_Rer. mem._, III, 3, “De sapienter dictis vel factis,” p. 456):

Homer describes his Ulysses (in whom he means to give the type of a wise and brave man) as wandering over lands and seas, and in his poem makes him encircle nearly the entire world. Our poet has followed this example; he too carries his Aeneas over the different countries of the earth. Both poets have done so designedly; for wisdom can hardly be gained without experience nor can experience be had by one who does not see and observe many things. And, finally, it is hard to understand how one can see many things if he stirs not abroad, but sticks close to one little corner of this earth.

Petrarch enters upon a more general discussion of the two poets, quoting from Macrobius and others, in _Rer. mem._, II, 2, “De ingenio,” p. 413:

Among the Greeks Homer reigns supreme in the intellectual world. Of this dictum not I, but Pliny is the author, who ascribes to him a richer, broader, and boundless glory [cf. Pliny, _N. H._, ii, 6; xxv, 2 (5)]. It is perfectly clear that with the aid of his divine genius Homer has solved a large number of philosophical problems in a far better and more decisive fashion than the professed philosophers themselves. Macrobius with great assurance pronounces Homer the fountain-head and source of all divine inspiration [Comm. in Somn. Scip., ii, 10, 11]. And rightly so. For although tradition has it that Homer was physically blind, his soul was so clear and luminous that Tullius says of him in the Tusculans [v, 114]: “His verses are as a painting, not poetry. What country, what coast, what part of Greece, what manner of battle and array of soldiers, what army, what fleet, what motions of men and of beasts have not been depicted by him with such skill as to make it possible for us to see what he himself did not see?” But why should I discourse on his eloquence, since in the oft-cited books of the _Saturnalia_ there is drawn an extensive and undecided parallel between our poet and the Greek [