The universal preference for a contemplative
life encouraged the tendency, and the extreme charitableness of the
Middle Ages made its realisation possible. Work was frequently looked
upon as a punishment--a view which could easily be upheld by reference
to Adam's expulsion from Paradise--and inflicted upon the monks for
offences against the rules. Dante's friend, Guido Cavalcanti, expressed
the natural sentiment that poverty is a distressing condition, in a
canzone which bristles with insults hurled at the Queen of the
Franciscans:
Yea, rightly art thou hated worse than death,
For he, at length, is longed for in the breast.
But not with thee, wild beast,
Was ever aught found beautiful or good;
For life is all that man can lose by death,
Not fame and the fair summits of applause;
His glory shall not pause
But live in men's perpetual gratitude.
While he who on thy naked sill has stood
He shall be counted low, etc.
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