The Banquet | Page 4

no man who can
be a true and just judge of himself, so much will self-love deceive him.
Hence it happens that every man has in his own judgment the measures
of the false merchant, who sells with the one, and buys with the other.
Every man weights the scales against his own wrong-doing, and adds
weight to his good deeds; so that the number and the quantity and the
weight of the good deeds appear to him to be greater than if they were
tried in a just balance; and in like manner the evil appears less.

Wherefore speaking of himself with praise or with blame, either he
speaks falsely with regard to the thing of which he speaks, or he speaks
falsely by the fault of his judgment; and as the one is untruth, so is the
other. And therefore, since to acquiesce is to admit, he is wrong who
praises or who blames before the face of any man; because the man
thus appraised can neither acquiesce nor deny without falling into the
error of either praising or blaming himself. Reserve the way of due
correction, which cannot be taken without reproof of error, and which
corrects if understood. Reserve also the way of due honour and glory,
which cannot be taken without mention of virtuous works, or of
dignities that have been worthily acquired.
And in truth, returning to the main argument, I say, as before, that it is
permitted to a man for requisite reasons to speak of himself. And
amongst the several requisite reasons two are most evident: the one is
when a man cannot avoid great danger and infamy, unless he discourse
of himself; and then it is conceded for the reason, that to take the less
objectionable of the only two paths, is to take as it were a good one.
And this necessity moved Boethius to speak of himself, in order that
under pretext of Consolation he might excuse the perpetual shame of
his imprisonment, by showing that imprisonment to be unjust; since no
other man arose to justify him. And this reason moved St. Augustine to
speak of himself in his Confessions; that, by the progress of his life,
which was from bad to good, and from good to better, and from better
to best, he might give example and instruction, which, from truer
testimony, no one could receive. Therefore, if either of these reasons
excuse me, the bread of my moulding is sufficiently cleared from its
first impurity.
The fear of shame moves me; and I am moved by the desire to give
instruction which others truly are unable to give. I fear shame for
having followed passion so ardently, as he may conceive who reads the
afore-named Songs, and sees how greatly I was ruled by it; which
shame ceases entirely by the present speech of myself, which proves
that not passion but virtue may have been the moving cause.
I intend also to demonstrate the true meaning of those Poems, which

some could not perceive unless I relate it, because it is concealed under
the veil of Allegory; and this it not only will give pleasure to hear, but
subtle instruction, both as to the diction and as to the intention of the
other writings.


CHAPTER III.
Much fault is in that thing which is appointed to remove some grave
evil, and yet encourages it; even as in the man who might be sent to
quell a tumult, and, before he had quelled it, should begin another.
And forasmuch as my bread is made clean on one side, it behoves me
to cleanse it on the other, in order to shun this reproof: that my writing,
which one may term, as it were, a Commentary, is appointed to remove
obscurity from the before-mentioned Songs, and is, in fact, itself at
times a little hard to understand. This obscurity is here intended, in
order to avoid a greater defect, and does not occur through ignorance.
Alas! would that it might have pleased the Dispenser of the Universe
that the cause of my excuse might never have been; that others might
neither have sinned against me, nor I have suffered punishment
unjustly; the punishment, I say, of exile and poverty! Since it was the
pleasure of the citizens of the most beautiful and the most famous
daughter of Rome, Florence, to cast me out from her most sweet bosom
(wherein I was born and nourished even to the height of my life, and in
which, with her goodwill, I desire with all my heart to repose my weary
soul, and to end the time which is given to me), I have gone through
almost all the land in which this language lives--a pilgrim, almost a
mendicant--showing forth against my