Petrarch in English

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Petrarch in English Page 28

by Thomas Roche (ed)


  see how art decks with scarlet, pearls and gold

  the chosen habit never seen elsewhere,

  giving the feet and eyes their motion rare

  through this dim cloister which the hills enfold.

  Blooms of a thousand colours, grasses green,

  10 under the ancient blackened oak now pray

  her foot may press or touch them where they rise;

  and the sky, radiant with a glittering sheen,

  kindles around, and visibly is gay

  to be made cloudless by such lovely eyes.

  P234: O cameretta che già fosti un porto

  O little room that once a haven seemed

  after the day when heavy tempests rave,

  now you provoke the nightly grief I prove,

  the tears that I by day must hide for shame.

  O humble bed whence rest and solace came,

  now are you bathed from grieving urns above

  and watered by those ivory hands of Love,

  that so unjustly mark me out for blame.

  Not only from my solitude and rest,

  but from myself I flee and from the thought

  that gave me once the wings on which I’ve flown;

  and now the crowd, the foe that I detest,

  (who would have thought it?) is my last resort:

  so much I fear to find myself alone.

  P250: Solea lontana in sonno consolarme

  In sleep my distant lady used to come,

  consoling me with that angelic air,

  but now she brings a sad foreboding there,

  nor can the grief and dread be overcome:

  for all too often in her face I seem

  to see true pity blent with heavy care,

  and hear those things that teach the heart despair,

  since of all joy and hope it must disarm.

  ‘Does our last evening not come back to you’,

  10 she says to me, ‘and how your eyes were wet,

  and how, compelled by time, I left you then?

  ‘I had no power nor wish to speak of it;

  now I can say as something tried and true:

  hope not to see me on this earth again.’

  P267: Oimè il bel viso, oimè il soave sguardo

  Alas, the lovely face, the sweet regard,

  alas, the gait where pride and grace combined;

  alas, the speech by which the rebel mind

  was humbled and the coward given heart!

  and O, alas, the smile that sent the dart

  which now makes death the only hope I find:

  most royal soul, worthy to rule mankind,

  if you had not descended here so late!

  Still must I breathe in you, still burn again,

  since I was yours; and, robbed of you, the less

  can any other sorrow grieve the mind.

  With hope you filled me and desire when

  I parted from the highest living bliss:

  but all your words were taken by the wind.

  P272: ha vita fugge e non s’arresta un’ora

  Life flees before, not stopping on the way,

  and death with daylong marches follows fast,

  and all things present join with all things past

  and with the future to make war on me;

  forethought and memory bring such dismay,

  now one and now the other, that at last,

  but for self-pity that still holds me fast,

  I would already from these thoughts be free.

  If any joy has lightened this sad heart,

  10 it now returns to mind; then all around

  I see the winds against my sailing bent:

  I see a storm in port, and, tired out,

  my pilot there, the mast and rigging down,

  and the bright stars I contemplated spent.

  P279: Se lamentar augelli, o verdi fronde

  If the lament of birds, or the green leaves

  in summer breezes softly quivering,

  or the hoarse murmur of translucent waves

  are heard on some fresh bank where flowers spring,

  there, where I sit and write the thought love brings,

  one shown by heaven, hidden by the grave,

  I see and hear, and know that ever-living

  she answers from afar the heart that grieves.

  ‘Ah why untimely wear away the years?’

  10 she says with pitying voice, ‘why shed

  from sorrowing eyes this bitter flood of tears?

  ‘Weep not for me, know that my days were made

  in death eternal; when I closed my eyes,

  towards the inner light they opened wide.’

  P293: S’io avesse pensato che sì care

  If I had ever reckoned that so dear

  would be the sighs that in these rhymes resound,

  from the first sigh I would have made them sound

  in greater numbers and in style more rare.

  Since she is dead who made me speak of her

  and who alone amid my thoughts stood crowned,

  I cannot hope, the file no more is found,

  to make the rough dark verses smooth and clear.

  Indeed, my only study at that time

  10 was all to give the sorrowing heart relief

  in some poor fashion; fame was not the spur.

  My grief sought tears, not honour for my grief:

  now would I wish to please; but she, sublime,

  beckons me, mute and weary, after her.

  P302: Levommi il mio penser in parte ov’era

  My thoughts had lifted me to where she stood

  whom I still seek, and find on earth no more:

  among the souls that the third circle bore,

  she came with greater beauty and less pride.

  She took my hand and said: ‘If hope can guide,

  you will again be with me in this sphere:

  for I am she who gave you so much war

  and closed my day before the eventide.

  ‘No human mind can understand my bliss:

  10 you I await and what you loved so much,

  the veil I left below where now it lies.’

  Why did she loose my hand? Why did she cease?

  for at such pitying and unsullied speech

  I almost could have stayed in Paradise.

  P346: Li angeli eletti e l’anime beate

  On my dear lady’s passing, that first day,

  the chosen angels and the spirits blest,

  the citizens of heaven, came and pressed

  with reverence and wonder round her way.

  ‘What light and what new loveliness?’, they say,

  ‘for never has a form so finely dressed

  mounted from errant earth to this high rest

  while all the present age has passed away.’

  And she, contented to have changed her state,

  10 among the perfect ones stands no less rare,

  and often, turning back, she seems to wait

  to see if I am following her there:

  so that to heaven I raise all hope and thought,

  hearing her bid me hasten in her prayer.

  P362: Volo con l’ali de’ pensieri al cielo

  I fly on wings of thought to paradise

  so often that I almost seem to enter

  the company that there keeps all its treasure,

  leaving on earth the veil that shattered lies.

  At times a trembling and sweet chill will rise

  within my heart as she who drains my colour

  says: ‘Now, my friend, I give you love and honour,

  for you have changed your fur and changed your ways.’

  She leads me to her Lord, and there I bow,

  10 humbly praying that he will let me stay

  to look on one and on the other face.

  And she replies: ‘Your fate is certain now,

  and though some twenty, thirty years’ de
lay

  seem long to you, it is a little space.’

  P363: Morte à spento quel sol ch’abbagliar suolmi

  Death has put out the sun that dazzled me,

  in darkness are those pure and constant eyes;

  my cause of cold and heat, earth where she lies;

  to oak and elm is turned my laurel-tree:

  in this, though I still grieve, my good I see.

  No-one compels my mind to fall and rise

  with fear and courage as I burn and freeze,

  nor fills with hope and loads with misery.

  Free of the hand that healed and wounded me,

  10 that once inflicted on me such long pain,

  I find a bitter and sweet liberty;

  and to the Lord, whose governing glance holds fast

  the heavens, whom I adore and thank, I turn

  tired of living, sated at the last.

  P364: Tennemi Amor anni ventuno ardendo

  For twenty-one long years Love made me burn,

  glad in the fire, hopeful in my pain;

  my lady took my heart to heaven’s domain,

  and so he gave me ten more years to mourn;

  Now I am weary, and my life I spurn

  for so much error that has almost slain

  the seed of virtue, and what years remain,

  high God, to you devoutly I return,

  contrite and sad for every misspent year,

  for time I should have put to better use

  in seeking peace and shunning passions here.

  Lord, having pent me in this prison close,

  from everlasting torment draw me clear:

  I know my fault and offer no excuse.

  P365: I’vo piangendo i miei passati tempi

  I keep lamenting over days gone by,

  the time I spent loving a mortal thing,

  with no attempt to soar, although my wing

  might give no mean example in the sky.

  You that my foul unworthy sins descry,

  unseen and everlasting, heavenly King,

  succour my soul, infirm and wandering,

  and what is lacking let your grace supply;

  so, if I lived in tempest and in war,

  10 I die in port and peace; however vain

  the stay, at least the parting may be fair.

  Now in the little life that still remains

  and at my dying may your hand be near:

  in others, you well know, my hope is gone.

  NICHOLAS KILMER (1941– )

  Kilmer is a painter, dramatist, novelist and translator of Ronsard, Petrarch and Dante. Three poems from Songs and Sonnets from Laura’s Lifetime (1980).

  P6: Sì traviato è’l folle mi’ desio

  I’ve come this far. My foolhardy desire

  Follows her escape. She is airborne,

  Careless. I can hear the four feet under me.

  The less he listens to me the more I call,

  Bawling directions, cautioning towards safe highways.

  Neither spurring, nor yanking the reins, makes any difference.

  Love, the need of it, makes his nature restive.

  His rage keeps the bit and the rein.

  I am become already a dead rider,

  Bucketing about in the saddle, out of control.

  He paws, stamps at the foot of the laurel.

  I take its bitter fruit in my mouth. Tasting it

  Makes my wounds more desperately known.

  P13: Quando fra l’altre donne ad ora ad ora

  Now and then she stands among other ladies.

  Love comes into her face, and desire

  Is as alive in me, as she is more beautiful than they.

  There is honor in the distance my soul has travelled

  Since the place, moment – they are in my mind –

  When I looked upward for the first time.

  What little I know of love is her gift:

  My glimpse of perfect grace, and my ability

  To follow it are hers; my knowledge

  That what men want mostly is worthless.

  I am proud of what she allows me to hope,

  Her beckoning me to some distance from sin:

  Light, love, air – my own soul’s future.

  P188: Almo sol, quella fronde ch’io sola amo

  You were this tree’s first lover, sun;

  Tree whom I love now; and kept her loveliness

  Green always, unequalled since Adam’s sin

  Stood out clearly before us.

  We will look at it together.

  Yet you leave my prayer in the shadow of hills

  Lengthening; take daylight and my vision.

  The shadow falling from the low hill

  Where my bright flare gleams,

  10 Where the great laurel was a frail sapling,

  Growing while I speak, invades my eyes,

  Darkens the dwelling where her brightness was,

  Takes my heart’s shelter.

  MARION SHORE (1952– )

  Shore is a poet and translator. Two poems from For Love of Laura: Poetry of Petrarch (1987).

  P2: Per fare una leggiadra sua vendetta

  To take his sweet revenge on me at last

  and right a thousand wrongs with one swift blow,

  in secret Love took up his deadly bow

  and lay in ambush for me as I passed.

  All my old resistance was amassed

  about my heart to guard against the foe,

  when the mortal arrow chanced to go

  where every dart was blunted in the past;

  thus shattered in the first attack, my will

  10 had neither time nor vigor to remain

  and arm itself against the coming darts,

  nor strength to climb the steep and lofty hill

  wherein it might escape the grievous pain

  from which it would, but cannot shield my heart.

  P20: Vergognando talor ch’ancor si taccia

  Ashamed sometimes, my lady, that I still

  cannot express your beauty in my rhyme,

  I wander to that sweet and distant time

  when you alone gained power of my will.

  But even there I find no guiding skill,

  no strength to scale a height I cannot climb,

  for such a task demands a force sublime,

  at whose attempt I fall back, mute and still.

  How often do I move my lips to speak,

  10 and find my voice lies buried in my breast –

  but then, what sound could ever rise so high?

  How often in my verses do I seek

  to find the words my tongue cannot express,

  but pen and hand are vanquished with each try.

  CODA: PARODIES AND REPLAYS

  We are reminded by Katherine M. Wilson that Taken seriously sonnet talk would be blasphemous’,1 and she, of course, is right. Blasphemy is quite simply parody of the deity, and from the invention of the sonnet by Giacomo da Lentino (thirteenth century), long before Petrarch saw the light of day, the love-talk of the sonnet played with other, conflicting meanings of love that gave a space to the outcries of human desire within a larger intellectual world, epitomized by Barnabe Barnes’s ‘My god, my god, how much I love my goddess’. St Augustine, very early on in the Christian tradition, had outlined in De doctrina cristiana the human confusion of caritas and cupiditas. The opposition is not our modern opposition between love and lust. Caritas is first of all the love of God and second the love of his created things because he created them (‘Thou shalt love the Lord with thy whole soul, thy whole mind, and thy whole heart – and thy neighbour as thyself’). Cupiditas is the love of any created thing for itself alone. The confusion between the two is evident in one of Giacomo’s earliest sonnets, which I quote in Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s charming translation:2

  I have it in my heart to serve God so

  That into Paradise I shall repair,

  The holy place
through the which everywhere

  I have heard say that joy and solace flow.

  Without my lady I were loath to go, –

  She who has the bright face and the bright hair;

  Because if she were absent, I being there,

  My pleasure would be less than nought, I know.

  Look you, I say not this to such intent

  As that I there would deal in any sin:

  I only would behold her gracious mien,

  And beautiful soft eyes, and lovely face,

  That so it should be my complete content

  To see my lady joyful in her place.

  So much for the beatific vision! The absurdity of the poet-lover’s decency and decorum turns the poem into a parody of itself. Neither Dante nor Petrarch resorts to such naked blasphemy, but the threat of blasphemy and parody inheres in their works, especially when they have conveniently killed off their Ladies, and therefore it is important for us as readers to be careful about what we call ‘Petrarchan parody’.

  The most famous example of putative Petrarchan parody is Shakespeare’s sonnet 130, which, in spite of Helen Vendler’s most skilful efforts to domesticate it as a nice poem, is nonetheless in the mainline of Petrarchan imitation because it still idolizes the lady, although its choice of laudable physical desiderata is lower than anything that Petrarch would have chosen:

  My Mistress eyes are nothing like the Sunne;

  Currall is farre more red, then her lips red,

  If snow be white, why then her brests are dun;

  If hairs be wiers, black wiers grow on her head.

  I haue seene Roses damaskt, red and white,

  But no such Roses see I in her cheeks,

  And in some perfumes is there more delight

  Then in the breath that from my Mistres reekes.

  I loue to heare her speake; yet well I know,

  That Musicke hath a farre more pleasing sound:

  I graunt I neuer saw a goddesse goe,

  My Mistres, when shee walkes, treads on the ground.

  And yet, by heauen, I thinke my loue as rare

  As any she beli’d with false compare.3

  After the initial denial of her eyes as the sun, a definite Petrarchan metaphor, we learn that her lips are not particularly red, that her breasts are not white, that her hairs are kinky, that her cheeks are not rosy, that she has halitosis and that her voice is not pleasant. It is enough to turn one off, except for the poet-lover’s assertion that she is ‘as rare / As any she beli’d with false compare’. She is rarified only by the poet’s desire, and this places the Dark Lady as much in the Petrarchan tradition as any she who is belied by any other form of idolatry.

 

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