Page:Petrach, the first modern scholar and man of letters.djvu/294

the valleys, and the ascent from the valleys into the mountains again, which Silvius refers to in speaking of himself, are the transition from the heights of theory to the low and level ground of practice, and, conversely, the movement in the opposite direction, when our attitude changes. The fountain which praises the singer is the chorus of scholars. The dry and barren crags are the ignorant and illiterate, who, like the rocks where echo dwells, possess mere voice and power of agreement, without any power of discrimination. The nymphs, the goddesses of the fountains, are the divine minds of scholars. The threshold over which Monicus invites Silvius to pass is that of the Carthusian order, into which assuredly no one has ever been lured by deception, or against his will, as many persons have been into other religious bodies. The shepherd whose singing Monicus prefers to Homer and Virgil is no other than David. The mention of singing to the psaltery is peculiarly appropriate in his case, because of the psalms, which are his work. In the middle of the night, on account of the singing of the psalms in your churches at early dawn. The two rivers from a single source, as Monicus puts it first by mistake, are the Tigris and the Euphrates, well-known streams of Armenia. Then the single river from a double source is the Jordan, in Judaea. For this fact we have many authorities, among them Jerome, who was a diligent student of those regions and lived there for a long time. The names of the two sources are Jor and Dan. By their union both the stream and its name are formed. The Jordan