by Mark Musa
PETRARCH’S Canzoníere
Publication of this work was assisted by a grant from the Publications Program of the National Endowment for the Humanities, an independent federal agency.
PETRARCH
THE Canzoníere
OR
Rerum bulgaríum
fragmenta
TRANSLATED INTO VERSE WITH NOTES AND COMMENTARY BY
Mark Musa
INTRODUCTION BY
Mark Musa
WITH Barbara Manfredi
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© 1996 BY MARK MUSA
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MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
PETRARCA, FRANCESCO, 1304-1374.
[RIME. ENGLISH & ITALIAN]
PETRARCH: THE CANZONIERE, OR, RERUM VULGARIUM FRAGMENTA /
[FRANCESCO PETRARCA]; TRANSLATED WITH NOTES AND COMMENTARY BY MARK MUSA;
INTRODUCTION BY MARK MUSA WITH BARBARA MANFREDI.
P. CM.
INCLUDES BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES AND INDEX.
ISBN 0-253-33944-8 (CLOTH : ALK. PAPER)
I. MUSA, MARK.
PQU496.E23M8 1996
851′.I-DC20 95-35943
ISBN 0-253-21317-7 (PAPER : ALK. PAPER)
3 4 5 6 7 05 04 03 02 01
for Isabella
My quick-winged one, my Love,
sacred-profane-profound,
you know how Love has bound
your lovely image to my heart,
and deep in me it dwells,
most marvelous of angels,
forever bathing in the secrets
of my heart’s naked art,
splashing the chilly waters of my words,
wetting my soul most softly with your light,
burning my mind in showers of your sound,
you streak my body with supreme delight.
O you who are intelligent in Love,
you are the one who makes my world go round.
(from Almost Sonnets)
… non far idolo un nome
vano, senza soggetto
(128. 76–77)
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
THE Canzoníere
Notes and Commentary
Works Cited
Index of First Lines
Index
PREFACE
Petrarch took no chances. He left us an autographed copy of his Canzoniere. How lucky we are!
The Italian text for this edition of the lyric poems is edited from the diplomatic edition of the Vatican Library’s codex Vat. Lat. 3195 by Ettore Modigliani (Rome, 1904), part of which was written by Petrarch himself and includes the final revisions of individual poems and their ordering. I have not, however, reproduced all of Petrarch’s spellings from that manuscript as did Gianfranco Contini in his edition, nor have I modernized Vat. Lat. 3195 in an inconsistent fashion as do most of the editions I have consulted. While I do not retain all of the Latinisms of orthography, I always keep Petrarch’s different spellings of the conjunction and: e, ed, and et. Since the punctuation of Vat. Lat. 3195 is not consistent and seems to be overdone, I have adopted modern conventions of punctuation, at times introducing quotation marks and parentheses when I thought the sense of the verse would be better served, particularly when complicated syntax is involved. I have not, however, altered the manuscript by using variations of indentation to indicate the parts of a ballata (the ritornello) or a canzone (fronte, sirma, and piedi).
The notes to the poems were undertaken with the aim of highlighting Petrarch’s special effects (both in language and logic) and of revealing the interconnectedness of image, metaphor, and structure among the individual poems; the notes do not attempt to provide an exhaustive listing of his sources and allusions, material which may be found, for example, in editions of the lyrics by Giosuè Carducci and Severino Ferrari, or by Nicola Zingarelli. The hope has been, first, to open up access to each poem’s complexities and, ultimately, to show the Canzoniere’s value as an integrated work—as a lyrical drama to be read consecutively from beginning to end.
Latin and Provençal sources are generally cited in the original to indicate the manner in which Petrarch borrowed from them. Biblical sources are from the New English Bible, except in cases where the Latin Vulgate more nearly translates the Italian. The dating of individual poems, unless otherwise indicated, is based on Ernest Hatch Wilkins’s commentary in The Making of the Canzoniere and Other Petrarchan Studies, as well as on the Chronological Conspectus in that volume. References to Vat. Lat. 3196 derive from Wilkins’s examination of Petrarch’s working manuscript, in which the poet composed and conserved, then revised and edited poems for his final autograph manuscript, Vat. Lat. 3195. Some of the citations from classical authors and from early commentators on Petrarch come from the editions of Alberto Chiari, Nicola Zingarelli, and Giosuè Carducci and Severino Ferrari. The chronology given on pages xxxv–xxxvi of the Introduction was selected from that outlined in Chiari’s edition of the Canzoniere.
Petrarch’s verse does not always flow freely and easily. At times, the syntax can be rather convoluted or distorted, depending, of course, on the special effect the poet is trying to achieve. His language always strives to imitate the mood and meaning of his poems. My goal in these translations has been to preserve this delicate element in Petrarch’s poetry and never to sacrifice the movement and meaning of the verse to the tyranny of rhyme. I am, however, concerned with the sounds of words and their position in my translation of each of the poems. When sound in the Italian text seems to be the dominant element in a particular poem, I am careful to imitate this sound by choosing words that play with and echo each other. I have strived to maintain the same rhythm and meter in English that Petrarch uses in each of his Italian poems. In short, I have tried to be faithful to the poem’s meaning without being too literal, and faithful to its sound and music without being archaic or restricting myself to a formal rhyme scheme. Nothing is as good as the original, and if any of my translations should tempt the reader to look at Petrarch’s original on the facing page, then part of my goal has been achieved. Petrarch’s poetry, I feel, is meant to be read aloud. And I hope my reader will do so both in the Italian and the English. For a translation, especially of lyric poetry, this is the decisive test.
INTRODUCTION
In the last months of Francesco Petrarca’s life, in 1373–1374, nearly all of the goals he had set his heart on in his young manhood had failed to materialize. Peace was remote as war raged not far from the little town of Arquà where he lived (an ongoing conflict betw
een Padua and Venice in which mercenary Turkish troops were engaged). Hope for a return of the papal court to its seat in Rome was postponed again with the departure of Pope Urban V for Avignon after a brief stay in the Holy City. Emperor Charles IV remained in Bohemia, unpersuaded to extend his rule over Rome and Italy. The established authorities continued to interpret Petrarch’s appeals for a new humanistic age with narrow chauvinism. His wish for fame had gained him as much notoriety as honor among people whose opinion he wanted to influence. There was a new outbreak of plague in Bologna. And not only were the roads to Rome too often dead ends, they were swarming with wild pigs and bandits in the absence of humane and intelligent governing. But Petrarch was not daunted. Although he was ill with tertian fever and attacks of dizziness, and weak in his legs from old injuries, he continued to rally after each disappointment and to work toward what he believed was the good of the community. His mind did not falter but became even sharper, judging from the last letters he was known to have written. With some of his old energy he made diplomatic journeys to restore peace, and when he could no longer travel, he sent his advice by courier. He wrote, edited, and revised with intense concentration during this period, bringing grand projects to a conclusion; his book of lyric poems, the Canzoniere, was the most important of them. The many voices speaking from these poems record Petrarch’s hopes, struggles, losses, and disappointments, his engagement with some of the most crucial issues of the turbulent fourteenth century.
Also called in Latin Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Fragments of vernacular poetry), or in Italian Rime sparse (Scattered rhymes), the Canzoniere was anything but casually put together. It came into being as a carefully wrought collection of lyric poems of varied form, style, and subject matter. The poems themselves had been written over many decades, then revised, polished, and gathered by Petrarch from time to time into manuscripts which he sent out to patrons and friends. These were brought together in one final form and recorded in his own hand during the last year of his life. The collection includes three hundred and seventeen sonnets, twenty-nine canzoni, nine sestinas (one double), seven ballads, and four madrigals.
TABLE 1. Cyclic Distribution of Poems
Early in its development the work was divided by Petrarch into two parts, which stand in the final collection as poems 1–263 and 264–366. This division was sometimes used by later editors to separate the poems into the “life” and “death” of Laura, since her departure from this world is announced in poem 267. Several blank pages, whose significance has been differently interpreted, follow the last sonnet of Part I. These pages may indicate that Petrarch intended to add more poems to the work, or that he might have wanted the first part to tally with the second in terms of total number of spiritual debits and credits, with this space supplied for a final accounting. In keeping with earlier medieval practice, such a two-part form provided a framework for spiritual rebirth, experience in the first providing cause for reflection and repentance in the second and reason for self-integration at the end.
The Canzoniere became one of the most influential books of poetry in Western literature, its metaphors and conceits absorbed into the language of love to such a degree that it would be difficult to calculate the limits of Petrarch’s influence. The sonnet, canzone, and sestina forms are redefined by it, and the mind that ruled their invention continues to shadow itself forth in Italian poetry today. The vernacular idiom he used echoes in our own language, both literary and musical; and his personification of the hapless lover as antihero has become one of our major models. Petrarch was a great lyric poet, but also a gifted psychologist whose researches into the literature of the ages and into his own psyche drew him deep into regions where true guilt and innocence are found. Humble sinner, aesthete, secretly tormented spirit, droll observer and advocate of life, the “I” in these poems possesses a personality as complex as his experience of his times. In a continual state of becoming, deterioration, or delicate balance (depending on the poem’s point of view), he is certain only of once having seen and fallen in love with a woman whose qualities and effects dominate his thoughts from that day forth.
For readers of the fourteenth century, Petrarch was best known as the Christian Cicero, a moral philosopher and author of such lengthy prose treatises in Latin as the popular De remediis utriusque fortunae (titled Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul in a recent translation by Conrad M. Rawski), as well as for his Latin poetry, very little of which has survived. But in later years it was Petrarch’s Canzoniere that took root and flowered in the literature. Picked over for its metaphoric and metrical riches, this enigmatic verse was transplanted into the many derivative styles known as Petrarchism—a fate which the Canzoniere itself prophesies by telling how his vision of Laura, in the beginning electrifying yet simple and refreshing in a chilling sort of way, is misinterpreted by a world hungry for love and is finally stripped of its relevance by Fortune toward the end. The pure dramaticity of the poems struck sensitive minds with such newness and aptness that Petrarch’s story became reality for poets and readers alike, its emotional peaks and depths everyday tests of a lover’s sincerity. The fact that the work examines, among other things, the peculiar interactions among poet, reader, and text, exposing the strongest and weakest points in each step of the creative and reading process, was obscured from view behind veils of mythicizing quite of Petrarch’s own making.
Petrarch was one of the great ironists, capable of standing back from himself with a sense of wonder and objectivity, amusement and pain; he was one who could regard life’s course with a reserved sense of its wholeness and inevitability while at the same time recording its moments as if each were happening for the first time. Out of this sense of himself as an actor in a drama being enacted in his times, he created step by step a fictional autobiography whose truths may be fully appreciated only at the completion of the work, as an experience shared by reader and poet. Yet the pleasure of reading the Canzoniere may also come suddenly, from its many small revelations. One in particular is the discovery that its satire is not limited to blatantly outright attacks on the political, religious, and cultural establishments of his day. Numerous other poems in the collection deliver their blows in covert ways, inviting us to rage, weep, or laugh over some perfidy or folly. And many of the poems which cause a modern reader to wince because of their extravagant style (their incessant weeping, egocentricity, and obsession with love and death) were intentionally designed to entertain and edify Petrarch’s contemporary audience. Anticipating these elements in the lyrics helps explain some of the anomalous aspects of the work and establish their place in the whole as expressions of a generally tragicomic view of things, designed to give discomfort as well as pleasure, with moral uplift as a hard-won bonus.
That the Canzoniere is a kind of fiction Petrarch tells us himself in the first poem, as if one day he fell asleep and dreamed a dream of pleasure from which he awakened some time later a sad but wiser man. Because such an admission of error could be dismissed as a bit of prevarication or literary convention or as an expression of the sexual impotence of an old man, readers may easily accept the poems that follow and their protagonist at face value, as laments of a poet-singer torn between good and bad impulses and struggling to deal with the pathos of unrequited, illicit love. But Petrarch was combining many threads of a complex poetic tradition in his Canzoniere, from a body of literature that he had read and absorbed from an early age and continued to interpolate into his work throughout his life. The writings of Varro, Catullus, Horace, Virgil at his most parodic, Ovid at his peak and in exile; of Cicero, Propertius, Juvenal, Seneca, Ausonius, Boethius, the St. Augustine of the Confessiones, and numerous others find expression in the Canzoniere, along with the lyrics of goliardic, the Sicilian, and Provençal poets, of Cavalcanti, Dante and the dolce stil nuovo (“sweet new style”), which Petrarch inherited by virtue of being born in 1304. The individuality of Catullus, the eminent rationalism and amused stoicism of Cicero, the cosmopolitanism and d
ramaticity of Seneca, the metaphoric fecundity of Ovid, the sharp-tongued literalness of Juvenal, and the literary playfulness of the Horace of Ars poetica, all inform the styles Petrarch reveals to us in these poems. Whatever their rich variety may communicate, they do not derive from a narrow view of love poetry
It is Dante, however, with whom Petrarch seems to carry on a running dialogue in the Canzoniere, rendering him the ultimate praise of imitating him from beginning to end. As Virgil came to Dante with the force of a completed text in Inferno I, offering himself as a guide out of the Pilgrim’s moral dilemma, Dante’s work may have provided the same kind of impetus for Petrarch. He may figure as the one to whom the early Apollonian poems of the Canzoniere are addressed, the precursor whose Beatrice is reconstituted in a nearly Christ-like Laura in poem 4 and many poems to follow. Both poets produced works that grew from certain ironies implicit in the form and style chosen; they aim, by incongruity and irresolution, at a core human truth. Although we are asked to believe, in both the Vita nuova and the Canzoniere, that each poet set out speaking in the voice of a reformed, pious, and celibate man who has conquered his weaknesses, the assumption is meant to be tested at every step of the way (even well into the Divina commedia, in the case of Dante). In such a dramatic structure, weakness of character is forged into strength not through windy good intentions and hyperbolic speech but through being brought up short by brute experience, Fortune, one’s fellow creatures, and oneself. Each of them, Dante’s Pilgrim and Petrarch’s Lover, is a man in the making; the creators of their fictional autobiography, on the other hand, stand distinctly and mysteriously outside it, having detached themselves judiciously from their own life.
Dante is summoned out of the near past in the Canzoniere in its very first poem, which echoes a sonnet from Vita nuova VII, “O ye who travel on the road of Love.” Both poets imagine themselves as supplicants at the side of the road of life, begging to be heard both through the sound and the sense of their songs. Each undertakes to describe a genesis, the origin of the poetic idea, which took the form of a lasting impression delivered through sense experience. At the point of perception (a triple knowing, as both describe it), the divisions begin that lead in their unfolding to the complexity of the poets’ metaphoric and cognitive structures.