Petrarch
Page 51
tu vedi il tutto, et quel che non potea
far altri è nulla a la tua gran vertute:
por fine al mio dolore
ch’ a te onore et a me fia salute.
Vergine in cui ò tutta mia speranza,
che possi et vogli al gran bisogno aitarme:
non mi lasciare in su l’estremo passo;
non guardar me, ma chi degnò crearme,
no ’l mio valor, ma l’alta sua sembianza
ch’ è in me ti mova a curar d’uom si basso.
Medusa et l’error mio m’àn fatto un sasso
d’umor vano stillante.
Vergine, tu di sante
lagrime et pie adempi ’l meo cor lasso,
ch’ almen l’ultimo pianto sia devoto,
senza terrestro limo,
come fu ’l primo non d’insania voto.
Virgin, how many tears I’ve shed already,
how many flattering words and prayers in vain
for nothing but my pain and grievous loss!
Since I was born upon the Arno’s banks,
then wandering from one place to another,
my life has always been nothing but trouble.
Mortal beauty, actions, and words are what
have burdened all my soul.
Virgin holy, bountiful,
do not delay, this could be my last year;
my days more swift than arrows have sped off
through wretchedness and sin,
and there is only Death awaiting me.
Virgin, that one is dust and holds in grief
my heart, who while alive kept it in tears
and of my thousand sufferings knew not one;
and even had she known them then, what happened
would still have happened—had she wished otherwise,
it would have meant my death and her dishonor.
Now you, Lady of Heaven, you our Goddess,
(if such a term be fitting),
Virgin of superb senses,
you can see all, and what could not be done
by others is no match for your great power:
end now my suffering
and bring honor to you, to me salvation.
Virgin, in whom I place all of my hope
you can and will help me in my great need:
do not abandon me at the last pass,
not for my sake but His who made me man,
let not my own worth but His own high likeness
in me move you to care for one so low.
Medusa and my sin turned me to stone
dripping useless moisture.
Virgin, now with repentant
and holy tears fill up my weary heart;
at least let my last weeping be devout,
without the mud of earth,
as was the first and insane vow of mine.
Vergine umana et nemica d’orgoglio:
del comune principio amor t’induca
miserere d’un cor contrito umile;
ché se poca mortal terra caduca
amar con sì mirabil fede soglio,
che devrò far di te, cosa gentile?
Se dal mio stato assai misero et vile
per le tue man resurgo,
Vergine, i’ sacro et purgo
al tuo nome et pensieri e ’ngegno et stile,
la lingua e ’l cor, le lagrime e i sospiri.
Scorgimi al miglior guado
et prendi in grado i cangiati desiri.
Il di s’appressa et non pote esser lunge,
si corre il tempo et vola,
Vergine unica et sola,
e ’l cor or conscienzia or morte punge:
raccomandami al tuo Figliuol, verace
omo et verace Dio,
ch’ accolga ’l mio spirto ultimo in pace.
Virgin so kind, the enemy of pride,
let love of our same origin move you,
have pity on a sorry, humble heart;
for if a bit of mortal, fleeting dust
can make me love with faith so marvelous,
how then will I love you, a noble thing?
If from my state so wretched and so vile
I rise up at your hands,
Virgin, then in your name
I cleanse and give my thoughts and wit and style,
my tongue and heart, my tears and sighs to you.
Show me a better crossing
and please look kindly on my changed desires.
The day draws near, it cannot be far off;
time runs and flies so fast,
Virgin, the one and only one,
and death and conscience now stab at my heart;
commend me to your Son who is the true
man and the truth of God,
that He accept my final breath in peace.
NOTES AND COMMENTARY
NOTES AND COMMENTARY
1 SONNET
In this introductory sonnet, Petrarch speaks, from outside the narrative he is about to begin, of a time completed, as if he stands on an overlook observing his own history unfolding below. The poem was probably written around 1347 when he decided to put his poems in order for publication (and before the death of Laura, according to Wilkins and others).
1. these scattered verses: Poems written over a long period of time, gathered and collected in this book. Rime sparse is the Italian version of Petrarch’s Latin title Rerum vulgarium fragmenta.
2. sighs with which I fed my heart: In the language of medieval love poetry, the heart receives a mortal wound and is kept alive with the help of lamentations.
3. errant youthful days: Errant (errore) signifies in Petrarch the behavior of one deluded, bewildered, and impassioned.
4. in part: He has changed his outlook since first taking up his pen, recalling his youthful self as a distinct part of the whole person he wishes to reconstruct.
5. for all the ways: All the various and often contradictory moods of the poems which follow.
7. anyone who knows love through its trials: More than knowing about love with the intellect, the compassionate person will know it from painful experience. Cf. Dante’s sonnet, “O you who travel on the road of Love,” in Vita nuova VII.
9. become the talk: The object of wonder and speculation. The line has sources in Horace and Ovid.
11. shame: Petrarch makes triple reference to himself as object here, heaping blame on his errors. See Dante, Inferno II, 3-4, for a triple reference to self as subject. See also Vita nuova III, where Dante introduces his maiden sonnet.
14. fleeting dream: Corresponding to his “errant youthful days.”
2 SONNET
Always before impervious to love, he gazed with new eyes for a moment, with instant, fatal results.
Love (Amor) is given a variety of guises in the Canzoniere. Often he has the character of the feudal lord in whose traces the lover labors. At times he is indistinguishable from Laura, especially in his capacity as winged archer or advisor. In poem 360, he appears to be satanic, but at times he is just a step away from a Christ figure when he is addressed fervently as “Lord.” Always formidable, he is rarely described as a pretty Cupid. In this sonnet, Love resembles the Greek Eros, whose failure to overwhelm the poet in the past has made him vengeful. According to Hesiod, Eros was not only the god of sensual love but a power which forms the world by inner union of separate elements.
1. graceful revenge: Love’s skill with the bow was elegant, playful, and targeted with perfect accuracy at him.
2. a thousand wrongs: So many earlier rebuffs of Love’s power.
3. secretly: Love’s assault came from a new and unexpected direction.
5. concentrated in my heart: His heart was fertile ground at the moment Love struck.
6. raised its defense: Meeting the gaze of the lady, his eyes formed a path for love to and from his heart.
7. struck the mortal blow: He received her glance.
8. had been blunted: From the hardness of his he
art up until that moment.
12. lead me cleverly: Accortamente, literally, “with expertise.”
13. high, hard mountain: His former citadel of detachment, reason.
3 SONNET
The exact time of his falling in love is established.
1. It was the day the sun’s ray had turned pale: The day of the Passion of Christ, 6 April 1327, according to poem 211 and the Triumph of Death, 133–134. There is general agreement that Petrarch was not referring to the variable date of Good Friday but to the date fixed by the death of Christ in absolute time, the feria sexta aprilis, which in 1327 fell on Monday.
According to the Vulgate version of the Gospels (Matt. 27:45, Mark 15:33, and Luke 23:44), the sun darkened from the hours of six to nine as Christ was dying.
4. lovely eyes had bound me: The “assault” of poem 2.9 was coincidental with the lady’s glance, which is now shown to have imprisoned him.
5. It seemed no time: On a day of mourning of the faithful, Good Friday. The mention of inappropriateness applies in several senses, one of which is that war has intruded in the holy place where Petrarch first saw Laura, reportedly the church of St. Clare in Avignon.
8. universal woe: Grief of all Christians over the Crucifixion.
10. to reach my heart: The eyes, undefended by reason, took in love upon meeting her glance.
11. halls and doors: Later we learn that Laura’s eyes as well as his were tearful.
13. in my state: Unarmed.
14. and to you, armed: And she firm against the assaults of love.
4 SONNET
By miraculous providence divine Laura, a sun, is born in a humble unnamed town.
1. That one: God.
4. created Jove more mild than Mars: Made the benign influence of the planet Jupiter greater than the malign influence of Mars.
5. Who coming: Christ in his coming revealed the prophesied truths of the Old Testament.
7. from the nets: Christ chose his disciples from among humble fishermen.
9–11. who with His birth did…/… exalt humility: God chose this place for Laura’s birth, just as he chose Judea rather than Rome for the birth of Christ—an ironic reference to Avignon, chosen over Rome as the seat of the papacy.
12. He’s given us: Comparing the birth of Laura with the coming of Christ has seemed to some the epitome of pride, even a sacrilege. For whatever reason, Petrarch here yokes pride and humility together in somewhat the same way that he imposed love and war on the compassion of Good Friday in 3.5–6.
13. we thank Nature and place: God provided the idea for her, Nature fashioned her with “marvelous workmanship,” and destiny marked the place of her birth. Cf. Dante, Convivio III, 4.
5 SONNET
The poem is a play on Laura’s name in the latinized version of the French Laurette—LAURETA. Such naming of the beloved has many precedents. Petrarch’s Laureta also contains multiple allusions expanded upon throughout the collection. Its airiness, color, and music are particularly emphasized here as well as its connection with poetic tradition in the form lauro (laurel). The name Laura itself appears in the Canzoniere only twice: in 291.4 and 332.50, but an alternate version occurs often. The Etymology of Isidore of Seville defined laurus as laudes, the principal panegyrical topos of Greek antiquity—very much the topic of this sonnet. However, another sense is alluded to here in the etymological link between laurel, a Dionysian intoxicant, and the labyrinth (with its source in lavr–laur–labyr, cave or stone), both subtexts in the poems that connect delirium, forgetfulness, and infernal researches with poetic process.
1. call for you: To utter her name aloud, releasing its power.
3. the sound at the beginning: The first syllable of the name connotes worship: He who utters it praises his lady from the very beginning.
4. sweet accents: The Italian gerund laudando is a notably soft, drawn-out word, like a sigh.
5. REgal state: The Italian real is an abbreviation of regale, “queenly.” Laura possesses a majesty that sets her apart from all other women. But she is also “real” flesh and blood.
6. doubles my strength: The syllable RE has a double sense that reinforces the evocative power of her name.
high enterprise: The poet’s task of revering and praising Laura. Cf. Dante, Vita nuova XVIII.
7. but “TAcitly,” the end cries: The final syllable of LAURETA hints of the end of life. A frequent theme of the poems is that he must strive to do honor to her and himself by keeping the whole of his life in mind while judging carefully its particulars.
8. better shoulders: A nod to the poetic tradition, and to Apollo, god of poetry.
9. to LAUd and to REvere: He calls attention again to the deeper meanings of the precious syllables. One has only to call her name to pay homage to her truth.
12. Apollo be offended: This is the first of many allusions to the myth of Apollo and Daphne as found in Ovid’s Metamorphoses I. In that legend, Apollo, not immune to love, became enamored of the beautiful maiden Daphne, who spurned him. Pursued by the passionate prideful god, Daphne fled through the forests until, on appeal for rescue to the river that engendered her, she was turned into the laurel tree. Apollo claimed this tree for his own.
13. morTAl: The syllable “TA” within the word “mortal” links love with the silence of death. The Provençal poet Pierre Milon broke down excessive amore to al morl—ah, death!—in his “En amor trob pietat gran” (Carducci).
14. eternally green boughs: The laurel is an evergreen. Cf. Apollo in Metamorphoses I, 559 ff: “Let the laurel / Adorn, henceforth, my hair, my lyre, my quiver: / Let Roman victors, in the long procession, / Wear laurel wreaths for triumph and ovation. / Beside Augustus’ portals let the laurel / Guard and watch over the oak, and as my head / Is always youthful, let the laurel always / Be green and shining!”
6 SONNET
The first of many branchings in the Canzoniere, this sonnet tells of the scattering of his forces now that he has fallen in love. In the Phaedrus (246 sq., 253 c sq.), Plato described the human soul in pursuit of the beloved as a charioteer (reason) struggling to guide two winged horses—one black (the irrational appetite) and the other white (the spirit or will toward good). Here irrational desire has gained control of the soul.
2. turned in flight: Like Daphne she turns away from his loving glance and his desire follows. Reason, weighted down, strives to keep up.
3. light and liberated: A freed soul.
4. my slow run for her: His will, obedient to the rein of reason, strives to hold the more stable course.
6. safe path: The known, charted course.
8. makes him restive: Resisting the bridle and bit. The irrational appetite of Plato strives only to seize the beloved for his own.
9. takes the reins himself: His soul is taken hostage by desire.
10. harness of his lordship: She has possession of his soul’s imagination while he remains strapped to the restraints of an ordinary physical human love.
11. rides me to death: To his ruin in pursuit of Laura.
13–14. bitter fruit… afflicts/someone else’s wounds: Unrequited love keeps wounds ever fresh.
7 SONNET
The poet writes to a friend who shares his desire to restore poetry’s former glory.
1. Gluttony, sleep, pillows of idleness: This language has been traced to Livy and his description of Hannibal’s troops after the battle of Cannae.
3–4. our nature … : Words meant to sting the Italian in his pride.
5–6. so spent is every good light: The influence of the heavens to bend human nature toward the good has been exhausted.
8. make water flow from Helicon: Bring divine poetry back to life. The Helicon is a mountain in Boetia sacred to the Muses.
9. laurel… myrtle: Laurel was sacred to Apollo, myrtle to Mercury and Venus.
10. Philosophy: Pallas Minerva, guide to the highest level of poetry.
11. making money: Venal poets who mock those whose aims are higher.
The poem accompanies a gift of small animals taken by trap and sent to an unidentified friend. Petrarch pretends to speak in the voice of the creatures. The trap is a snare which he reproduces here in his syntax, knotting up meaning so the reader must struggle to untangle it.
1. Beneath those hills: The region where Laura was born, the humble village of 4.12.
2. lovely clothes: Playing on the idea that the body of Laura clothes her soul in mortal life.
4. the one: The weeping and sleepless poet-hunter.
7. without the fear of finding: As the poet was unsuspecting when felled by Love’s arrow in poem 2, so too the animals trusted in their safety.
10. other life that was serene: Cf. Dante, Inferno XV, 49.
12–14. revenge is taken …/… by greater chains: The creatures speak of the hunter’s falling prey to another, the lady of line 3 who endangers his soul.
14. near his end: Literally, a l’extremo. Several critics have heard echoes of Inferno V (Paolo and Francesca) in these lines.
9 SONNET
Another occasional poem, perhaps accompanying a gift of truffles (and probably a group of poems) sent to a friend.
1. when the planet: When the sun returns to the constellation Taurus around the middle of April. Cf. Virgil, Georgics I, 218.
7. hidden things: Those which live or grow underground.
8. pregnant with his earthly moisture: The sun’s. According to Plutarch, a night with a full moon (the lamp of the sun) impregnates the earth with moisture, promoting generation and fruitfulness.
9. this fruit and the like: Presumably the truffles that accompany the poem. “And the like” refers to the poems themselves, serving notice that hidden meanings may be deduced from them.
10. a sun among all ladies: Laura, from whose spirit he receives heaven’s light.
13. how she controls or turns: He turns as she bids, like a plant toward the sun’s warmth.
14. springtime… will never come: His love will never “decorate the world with fresh-made color” (1. 4). Turned around, this suggests that his poems, although undecorative, are fruit of a sort, worth digging for.