by Mark Musa
7. your boat: His life course is seen as a pilgrimage of the soul over a turbulent sea.
8. already turned: Colonna having taken high holy orders.
10. western wind: A new breath of religious spirit coming from France, inspired by the king’s proclamation. See notes to poem 27.
12. for ours and others’ wrongs: For the disobedience of Adam.
13. free of ancient bonds: Of original sin. He who redeems the Holy Sepulcher is himself redeemed, according to church doctrine.
14. straightest course: The narrow one, pursued with only one purpose in mind.
20. by their merit: Men’s prayers perhaps not being sufficient, God has turned his gaze through divine compassion alone toward the land where His Son was born.
25. new Charles: Philip VI, “successor” to Charlemagne.
26. that vengeance: Against the Saracens for their occupation of the Holy Land.
brought us harm: Because of Christian tolerance for the fact that the Holy Sepulcher remains in the hands of dogs” (Tassoni), the church has been shamed.
28. much loved bride: The Holy Roman Church.
29. that One: Jesus Christ.
33. the Christianest: An honorific name for the king of France (Sa Majesté très Crétienne).
34. cared about true worth: Who followed in the advance footsteps of those most Christian standard-bearers.
36. leave Spain empty: The willing participation of all Spain’s provinces is not doubted by Petrarch.
38. from the Wain to Columns: All the off-shore islands from Iceland to the Straits of Gibralter.
40. most sacred Helicon: From whatever place sprang the immortal poetry and philosophy of the sons of Apollo. Petrarch refers to the role of Greek in the development of religious ideas.
41. language, arms, and customs: However diverse the cultures. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid VIII, 723: “Quam variae linguis, habitu, tam vestis et armis” (Vellutello).
42–45. charity spurs … : Summing up the double force of this religious war, motivated by love of God and vengeance against persecution.
44–45. ever / were subject: According to a number of commentators, Petrarch refers to Minos’s revenge against the Athenians for the death of his son and the Greeks’ against Troy for the seizure of Helen.
47–48. resting / … under ice and frozen snow: The northern regions of Germany and Scandinavia. Unwarmed by the sun, the emotional natures of the inhabitants seem frozen in impassivity.
50. enemies by nature: Lacking fire and warmth, they are ungifted by love and intellect (Zingarelli). Such prejudices have their roots in the writings of Cicero, Virgil, and Lucan.
51. dying does not hurt: Because they have so little to live for, they do not feel the sting of death. Petrarch’s violent opinions here derive also from Italy’s long history of invasions from the north. Cf. poem 128.
52. more devout than in the past: If the warlike nature of the Teutons could be utilized toward Christian ends after a past history of warring only against them.
53. Teutonic rage: Cf. Lucan Pharsalia I, 255: “furor teutonicus,” a kind of brute madness.
54. Arabs, Turks… gods: Muslims and therefore monotheists are lumped together with polytheists in this comparison of fierce armor-clad northerners ranked against burnoosed desert archers.
56. sea of bloody waves: The Red Sea. He includes also the armies of Egypt, Libya, and Morocco.
58. naked, slow, and cowardly: Arabs were commonly believed by Europeans to be effeminate, running from close battle encounters.
60. trust the wind: Avoiding the sword and depending on cavalry troops armed with bow and arrow. Cf. Lucan Pharsalia VIII, 381.
62. that old yoke: Petrarch appeals to his contemporaries to put aside narrow concerns of personal salvation and devote themselves to a greater cause.
63. around our eyes: Of Italians.
65. immortal God Apollo: God the poet, turning his compassionate eye to his living representative.
66. display the power: Reveal the vertù rather than veiling it. Petrarch speaks as one poet to another.
67. praised writings: Those written on sacred subjects.
69. does not amaze: If Colonna the Christian is immune to these pagan allegories, that is, that Amphion could move stones with the music of his lyre and Orpheus the pity of Hell and the trees of the forest with his song.
71. clear voice: His preaching at least can gain force from this insight into the responsive hearts of his countrymen.
73. ancient mother: Italy.
75. cause so fair, so glorious: So distinguished by a true chivalry.
76. true treasure: Scripture.
77. the ancient and the modern: Petrarch also praised Colonna’s knowledge of history and literature in Familiares IV, 12.
78. with your earthly weight: Cf. line 3. Colonna’s being desired by Heaven empowers him to experience such a transcendence.
79–80. Mars’ own son … Augustus: From the reign of Romulus in pre-Christian times to the Golden Age.
81. three times triumphing: Cf. Virgil, Aeneid VIII, 714: “Caesar, triplici invectus romana triumpho moenia, dis italis votum immortale sacrabat.”
83. in the defense of others: Other peoples than Roman.
85. pious and most grateful: For basic Christian reasons rather than personal glory.
87. glorious son: Cf. line 79: “Mars’ own son.” Christ is the true father and son of Italy.
90. Christ is part: The line sums up an argument begun with the legends of Orpheus and Amphion that links the veil of allegory with the real presence of the Holy Spirit.
91–93. rashness of a Xerxes: Xerxes I of Persia, described here as an inflamed and savage lover because he breached Italian soil, bridging the Hellespont with ships and doing unnatural violence to the mother sea.
94. and you will see: History will repeat itself.
95. tainted red: The troops of Xerxes were routed in their flight from battle.
99. vouchsafe your victory: By this example and the ones to follow, Petrarch claims the favor of God for the cause of western peoples against the invading Muslims.
100. Marathon: Where the Persian king Darius I and his troops were defeated in 490 B.C. by ten thousand Athenians led by Miltiades.
101. defended by the Lion: By the heroic Spartan king Leonidas at Thermopylae, where 300 of his troops died impeding the crossing of the Persians under Xerxes in 480 B.C.
105. so much good: Contributing to the liberation of the Holy Land.
106. the honored shore: Rome and the Tiber, where Colonna was residing at the time.
109. but only Love: For Laura, a love that exiles him from “the honored shore.”
noble light: Full of majesty and pomp, referring to Avignon.
110. attracts me more: Holds him in its spell, disqualifying him for the bold enterprise he seems to be turning over to Colonna, the better man.
111. not strong enough: According to the terms of the canzone the “natural” thing to do is join the Crusade. He, addicted to the vice of love, however, returns to his other war. In a sense he compares himself with the “lazy” Saracens, or at least with folk who merely dream and burn with a little flame for justice.
112. don’t separate: Don’t wander from the true subject matter, which carries it to Rome.
113. not only beneath a veil: Bende, a word that can mean blindfolds as well as the face-obscuring veils of nuns and noblewomen. When Love plays games he is known to wear a blindfold; but Petrarch perhaps recalls that justice does too.
114. joy and tears: Causing laughter as well as pain. These words leave a little tag-end, appearing to trivialize Petrarch’s intent for the poems to follow, which is the serious one of continuing his war on a different front, in the new Babylon, Avignon.
29 CANZONE
This canzone makes a spectacular display of Provençal stanza construction, its form and first line resembling a poem by Arnaut Daniel, “Arvei vermeills, vertz, blans e blancs.” The lines rhyme from stanza to stanza wi
th the same internal rhymes appearing throughout in the fourth and sixth lines; the congedo echoes the last two lines of each stanza and ends on a septenary, which sets the stage for the sestina to follow. The canzone’s use of rhyme words, especially internal rhyme, echoes through a number of the later poems, in particular the enigmatic 206.
1. Green clothes: Colors of the garments of noblewomen that range symbolically from the color of hope (green) to blood (red) to the color of Christ’s passion and sacrifice (purple). Dante noted in the Convivio that this purple (perso) was “un colore misto di purpureo e di nero, ma vince il nero.” Recent studies have identified perso as violet, also the color of the Virgin.
3. hair of gold … twisted in blond braid: Gold is added, as are black and white in line 23. Yellow is also added. The braid figure contrasts with the light and free locks of poem 90, for example, or with the locks of poem 30.
5. and from the path of freedom: From his defended state before he saw Laura, before his transfiguration.
13. all mad desire: Petrarch uses a word close in meaning to the raving he confesses to in poems 1 and 6, delira. Since Laura “strips” him of this desire, figuratively undressing or unveiling his verse, he speaks of the complex effect of her qualities on his style.
all of my disdain: That he exhibited toward love when he was in his green age.
14. makes sweet: He is disarmed of bitterness by the pleasure of seeing her.
17. will cure it: Cf. Dante, Inferno XXXI, 6. The image appeared in Virgil, Ovid, and in the Provençal poetry of Bernard de Ventadorn. The sword of Achilles had the power to heal the one it wounded.
18. rebel of mercy: This endearment (rubella di mercé) derives from the Latin word for pale blushing.
19. shall be revenged: The vendetta of Love in 2.1 is recalled. Leopardi understood this to mean that she would ultimately turn in pity toward him.
20. does not lock shut: In poem 23, anger at his telling the humble truth resulted in her shutting him in stone so that he became mute.
21. my lovely way to reach her: Through the eyes or ears.
22. The hour and the day: He refers to Good Friday, 6 April 1327, the hour of terce. Cf. poem 3.1–4.
23. to lovely black and whiteness: Compassionate eyes, turned to him in a glance, into which he became absorbed after Love took possession of his heart.
24. Love ran to take: Cf. 2.3–4.
25. first root… my life of pain: The hour and the day continue to pierce him with the pain of love. Cf. Francesca da Rimini in Dante’s Inferno V, 124–25: “But if your great desire is to learn / the very root of such a love as ours.”
26. our century marvels: Admires without fully understanding a strange and new phenomenon.
31. in my left side: The side of the heart.
33. for on the right place the just sentence falls: God alone is the judge of her meaning.
34. my soul sighs: Because the soul resides in his wounded heart.
37–38. one driven …/ had plunged: The reference is to Dido, who killed herself with the sword given her by Cupid when Aeneas rejected her. For antecedents to this allusion, see Carducci.
39. to set me free: To let him die for love as Dido did.
44. of that fortunate womb: He blesses the mother who bore Laura as well as the stars that ruled at the time. Cf. Dante, Inferno VIII, 45, “blessèd is she in whose womb you were conceived.”
46–48. as the laurel leaf: Laura immortalized in poetry. and lightning never strikes it: According to legend.
48–49. unworthy / wind ever makes it bend: Unworthy passion cannot subdue her.
51. would vanquish: Would exhaust the resources.
58. a dearer pledge: Cf. poem 341. The Latin pignora figuratively meant something you loved more than life that you gave up as security.
30 SESTINA
Several factors lend a unique quality to this first of the so-called anniversary poems of the Canzoniere. Written in 1334 to commemorate the seventh year of his love, it follows by a year Petrarch’s acquiring a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessiones, an event of great importance in his life. Petrarch was 30 when he wrote the poem. Christ’s ministry began when he was 30. The books of the Bible number 30. In medieval numerology, the number represented the active life, and as the product of 6 times 5, it was a marriage (thus a potent and creative) number. In the Hebrew and Greek alphabets, the value of 30 was given to the letter L, whose name in Hebrew translates as the spit upon which the sacrificial lamb was roasted. Last but not least, L is the first letter of Laura’s name.
1. A young maiden: The line echoes one of Dante’s rime petrose, “Al poco giorno e al gran cerchio d’ombra.” Line 38 in Dante reads: “Sotto un bel verde la giovane donna.” The imagery of this sestina closely resembles Dante’s.
2. I saw: Referring always to his first encounter with Laura.
3. unstruck by sun: As if on the north flank of an alpine peak. The first stanza makes a comparison between this frozen mountain and the young woman under the laurel tree.
5. I keep her in my eyes: A vision or memory that perpetually sustains him.
7. reach the shore: Figuratively, the end of life, the plain of Revelation. Petrarch exploits the several literal and figurative meanings of the word riva (shore).
8. when no green leaf: He speaks of the impossible, since the green of the laurel is immortal. Cf. Rev. 7 and 8, in which the destruction of the tree, the drying of the eyes, and the promise of peace all figure.
10. the fire freeze and blazing snow: The quintessential Petrarchan conceit to which he returns again and again.
11–12. upon my head…/… await the longed-for day: If his hair is sparse, the Day of Judgment is imminent; if thick, his willingness to wait is prodigious.
15. with dark or with white hair: Petrarch makes frequent reference to his hair or “pelt” changing color. This suggests he is undergoing a period of celibacy. Cf. 23.60.
16. I’ll chase the shadow: The shadow signifies nature as creation imitating ideal form.
20. in the world’s first years: He compares Laura with Eve and all her descendants, finding her superior. Such praise is traditional and obligatory.
21. that melt me: The melting snow continues the alpine metaphor, an April thaw bringing floodlike waters to the plain. Cf. 23.117.
22. tearful shore: Spring draws lamentations from the lover.
24. diamond branches and golden hair: Diamonds convey strength, hardness, coldness; but they also produce prismatic effects, and along with gold hair, recall the apocalyptic vision of Ezekiel.
25–26. I fear that I will change … : The lines are ambivalent and imply that true repentance will come very late for him.
27. my idol who is carved: Scolpito (carved) has a root sense of “restored to wholeness.”
28. seven years: The span of years since his first encounter with Laura.
35. of someone born: Posterity, which will heed him. Cf. poem 1.
36. cared–for laurel: One that is cultivated, pruned, and fertilized.
37. All gold and topaz: The Italian l’auro is a quasi-pun on the name Laura. Like the prismatic diamond the topaz was considered a most precious stone, noted for reflecting colors across the spectrum, as snow does, seen in the reflected light of the sun.
31 SONNET
In 1334 a drought and epidemic threatened the population of Avignon, and in this sonnet Laura has been ill. Petrarch’s imagery recalls Dante’s vision in Paradiso, taken from Plato’s Timaeus, where souls are assigned in Heaven according to a degree of blessedness.
4. heaven’s most blessèd part: The Empyrean, beyond the stars, where the most blessed dwell.
5–14. Should she dwell … : He imagines the soul of Laura hesitating among the stars or planets.
6. would lose its color: Would pale at her splendor, herself a sun.
7. in admiration of her: All their combined light will vie with that of the sun. Cf. Dante, Paradiso I, 64–65 and 92–93.
9. under the fo
urth nest: Under the sun, in the region of Venus. Cf. poems 287 and 302, where Petrarch places Laura in Venus’s domain.
10. each of the three: Venus, Mercury, and the Moon, those astral bodies closer to Earth upon which she would shed her light.
11. she alone would have fame and renown: Those qualities for which he vaunts her, honest love and wisdom, would surpass in the world’s mind even these heavenly bodies.
12. fifth sphere: Mars, antithetical to Laura.
13. should she fly up higher: Completing the oblique journeys through the sixth and seventh planets, Jupiter and Saturn, and all the stars beyond, to the Empyrean.
32 SONNET
This interior dialogue between his soul and his thoughts detaches them from a frail mortal body, like Laura, threatened with illness.
1. the last day: Laura’s illness brings him close to the possibility of his own premature death.
3. running swift and light: Cf. 6.2–4.
4. my hope in him: In time.
5. We won’t talk much of love: His days of writing poetry are limited.
9. falls that hope: In earthly fulfillment.
12. then clearly we shall see: At the end of life he will be able to judge that life, as he indicated in 23.31.
33 SONNET
This is the first of many poems in which Laura appears to the poet in a dream.
1. star of love: Venus has risen, with a simultaneous clearing of the sky at dawn.
3–4. was the other / … Juno with jealousy: Referring to Ursa Major, the star into which Callisto was transformed by Jove after Juno turned her into a bear (Ovid, Metamorphoses II, 405).
5. the poor old woman: An old housekeeper, going about her duties without regard for herself.
7. piercing lovers: Separating at dawn. Cf. Dante, Purgatorio VIII, 4, and Paradiso XXVIII, 45, for the image, “love that pierces.”
9. by now cut to the quick: His hope nearly burnt out, like a candle stump.
10–11. not by the usual way: Not by his eyes but in a dream. He cried himself to sleep.
12. How changed: From the severity of her illness.