PETRARCH THE MAN 



gurgle in their throats, for they cannot speak in full 

 words." According to Boccaccio in his Commentary, 

 this sullenness is a result of unhappy conditions. The 

 sufferer feels a distaste to imdertake anything, or to 

 finish it if undertaken. He lets everything slip from 

 his grasp, becomes discontented, a recluse, hates him- 

 seK and all that is good. In the Middle Ages, accidie 

 was regarded as one of the especial curses of monastic 

 life. The monk, when not celebrating offices, when 

 alone in his cell, suffered from torpor and the im- 

 moderate bitterness of mind by which spiritual joyful- 

 ness is destroyed. Occasionally he was driven even to 

 suicide. One may find not a Httle of interest said about 

 the matter in the chronicle of Fra SaHmbeni, who was 

 himself such a robust, healthy character. The ailment 

 has been associated with "the noonday devil''; and 

 many of us are all too familiar with the feeling of de- 

 pression, indifference, and slothfulness, which comes 

 upon us in the hateful hours from noonday till three 

 or four in the afternoon. Voigt affirms that Petrarch, 

 not understanding what the word accidie meant, ap- 

 plied it to a mental trouble which he found described 

 in Seneca's work on Peace of Mind, a disturbance based 

 upon duahty of character; but, after all, accidie is 

 closely aUied to such a malady, if not a form of the 

 same thing. Surely this duahty existed in Petrarch. He 

 had a deep love for a quiet, retired life, which was in 

 accordance with philosophical and religious ideas; and, 

 at the same time, a keen desire to play an important 



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