by Mark Musa
3. sole place: Albergo, normally home of the soul, can also carry the sense of brothel, one of the Latin meanings of lustrum at the root of “trilustral” in 145.14. Cf. 138.1.
chastity lives: The Latin onestate is a condition in which honor, reason, and justice prevail. Its antonym is “decorum” or “adornment” (the ornata of line 1). When applied to a woman, its value changes because she is an adornment to the man, and her incorruptibility (chastity) must be guaranteed.
5. O flame, O roses: Apocalyptic language. (Alfieri noted here Petrarch’s “oriental style.”)
6. living snow: Unyielding hardness, burnished into gold. Cf. 30.37–39.
looking makes me pure: Specchio (looking, as if in a mirror) continues the theme of examining the self honestly. But compare poems 45, 46, and 136.11, where he speaks of the devil’s mirrors.
7. joy raising my wings: Joy is, perhaps, the single least corruptible word in the sonnet. With the wings of imagination he soars beyond idolatry.
9. my poems understood: If her name, and his carefully polished words, were familiar to the people in these lands.
13–14. that fair land…/ring out: Italy, through her vernacular language.
147 SONNET
A sonnet reminiscent of poem 140, in which Petrarch assumes a submissive attitude to a stern but loving Laura.
1. my desire: His unruly will to be heard, to let his voice ring out.
two burning spurs: Laura’s eyes.
2. hard bit: Her disdain of him.
3. trangresses: Oversteps the bounds of propriety in its exuberance.
4. gives a bit of joy: Such as he derived from the preceding sonnet.
5. the one: Laura, who knows his deepest thoughts and motives.
7. whose actions he corrects: True Love is self-correcting. Cf. Eccles. 18:13, “Qui misericordiam habet, docet, et erudit quasi pastor gregem suum.”
8. that flashes: The loving anger of Laura in turn pricks him like a lightning flash.
10. angry Jove: Challenged by his boldness.
11. hold back great desire: Temper and shape it, as in metallurgy or the firing of glass.
13. transparent as is glass: An image of pure spirit.
14. bring back peace: Revealing the purity of his motives.
148 SONNET
The many sources that flow into and feed his language—the rivers and trees of many cultures—cannot dilute the intensity of his love.
1–4. Not Tessin, Tiber … : Twenty-three river names are listed, some with atypical spellings: six in Italy, six in Asia Minor and Africa, and eleven in various parts of Europe.
3–4. sea-breaker/ Rhône: The mouth of the powerful Rhône flows out not far from Avignon and Vaucluse. Figuratively, its waters penetrate the mother sea.
5. ivy, fir, pine … : All with religious as well as literary significance. Cf. poem 10 and note. The ivy, like the laurel, is an evergreen plant, and juniper (retem in the Old Testament) bears fruit that purifies.
7. fair stream: The Sorgue.
8. slim tree: The laurel.
10. where I in armor: Guarding against error.
11. leaps and bounds: Exuberantly.
13. he who planted it: Legend has it that Petrarch himself planted a laurel on the banks of the Sorgue.
149 BALLATA
This sixth of seven ballatas in the Canzoniere (not until poem 324 will there be another) precedes a cycle of fifty-six sonnets, the longest in the collection. Petrarch’s broad hint of laughter in aria (1. 3) and in the “leaps” of the preceding sonnet carries over effectively into the ballata form, a song meant to be danced to.
1. From time to time: Times when the divine Laura has smiled upon him, brightening the face of his verse.
3. the tone: The music he hears in her visible beauty.
4. appears less dark: Less inscrutable.
5–8. Then why … : If her attitude is softening, why does he continue to express himself in the old way with the language of pain and desperation?
9–12. If I should turn … : His loving glance now seems to speak well for him, while before it availed him nothing.
13. war is still not over: She has given him fresh fuel for his fire.
150 SONNET
The preceding ballata changed the rules of the game, putting Love in the service of his desire. This debate between the soul and the rational faculty also turns familiar themes around so craftily that it is difficult to discern whose voice is speaking.
2. war that’s everlasting: Eternal torment.
4. our suffering: The soul speaks with the authority of inner vision.
7. Not she, but he: Love has control of Lauras eyes and is, therefore, responsible for their effects.
8. sees and is silent: If her pity is not palpable.
10. and happy: Reflecting verse of his that appeared to be full of cheerful optimism (lieta), such as poem 148.
13. stagnates there: The painful thoughts he suppressed while he made the face of his verse “dry and happy.”
14. hopes so grand: That she would deign to interest herself in his suffering.
151 SONNET
In a reversal of the old pattern of fleeing from Avignon to the green shore of Vaucluse, new hope draws him back to her and a different style of love.
3. dark and turbid trouble: His inner spiritual conflict. Cf. poem 150.
5–8. divine light …: The sky clears suddenly in a quatrain that flows with acerbic sweetness.
6. that high ray: Like the morning star before dawn.
7. black and white: Her compassionate eyes. Cf. 29.23 and 72.50.
8. dips in gold: Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses I, 468. Love has spoken for him, changing vitriol to honey.
9. He is not blind: In allegorical paintings Love was often portrayed blindfolded, aiming his arrows randomly.
I see him: His vision of Love, here graphically presented, has changed from that of the mature Lord to Cupid, suggesting merry game-playing.
11. but alive: Not a figment of the imagination but a force independent of artifice.
13. word by word: Reducing the message to its simplest elements, as truth is revealed.
152 SONNET
He struggles with Laura as if she were an angelic beast whose pleasure is to toy with him.
1. kind, wild beast: The gentle Laura, even as her heart is fierce.
4. spins me around: As if on the wheel of fortune, or on the rack of torture.
my state uncertain: His fortunes can go either way.
6. between the two: Between yes and no, life and death.
7. that sweet poison: The arrows of Cupid were dipped in the venom of sexual desire.
9–11. My frail … : He summons up a picture of the wheel spinning with him gripped to it, through summer, winter, spring and fall. Line 11 in the Italian appears extraordinarily long and drawn out, like suffering.
12. hopes by fleeing: To take his wounded self away from love’s war, to die in peace.
14. This is a truncated version of the conceit of 140.14: “Who loves well dying comes to a good end.” Cf. Seneca, De dementia II: “Quicquam non potest qui mori non potest.”
153 SONNET
Still courting his angel with the heart of a beast, he sends his verse forth to her sweetened with flattery.
1. sighs of warmth, to her cold heart: Full of spring thoughts, melting winter.
2. her pity: Her naturally receptive female nature.
6. her fair gaze cannot reach: This is a disputed line because it suggests Laura’s limited vision. Perhaps Petrarch’s pilgrim has wandered too far into the mondo tristo for Laura’s influence to penetrate. Cf. Dante, Inferno II, 52.
7. her harshness strikes us, or my star: If his descent fails to redeem him or his art.
9. perhaps not fully: Modesty (the veil of Cupid) will prevent his describing in too great detail his suffering.
10. dark and as unquiet: Like the turbid sea in poem 151.
11. peace and clarity: On a higher level.
12. Love comes with you: His verse is suitably garbed for an audience with her, “nude” but veiled in the proper places.
14. my own sun’s signs: She is receptive to these sweet, veiled thoughts.
151 SONNET
This sonnet seems to clear the air of turbid darkness.
3. which Nature mirrors: Cf. Aristotle, De generatione animalium I, 3: “Spiritus qui in semine continentur, et natura quae in eo spiritu est, proportione respondens elemento stellarum.” Dante expands on this philosophical point in Convivio IV, 21.
4. its equal: Laura’s unique beauty must have been modeled on a divine image.
6. cannot feel safe: Cannot resist surrendering to her beauty.
8. raining grace: Descending into his heart like a golden shower.
9. The air that’s struck: A neutral air that takes her sudden and illuminating impression.
11. our own thought… surpasses: The concept of chastity (honesty) here is beyond mortal understanding, or at least beyond expression in language.
12. no base desire: Any less honest or virtuous response.
13–14. Now when … : The question begs comparison with Dante’s Beatrice. Petrarch combines in Laura’s somma beltà both her physical and spiritual beauty, as if he were reducing Dante’s canzone “Donna ch’avete intelletto d’amore” to fourteen lines, maintaining all its elements. Dante did his own thematic reducing in the Vita nuova in the sonnet “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare,” eliminating any mention of “vile desire.”
155 SONNET
The next four sonnets have as their common theme the weeping of Laura on the first day, Good Friday 1327.
2. the one … the other: Caesar, emperor, quick to wound, Jove, temporal deity, inclined to thunder in rage against enemies.
5–8. My lady wept … : Cf. Dante, Inferno II, 133–38.
5. my lord wanted me: The sight of Laura weeping struck the fatal blow of Love. The identification of the weeping lady with Mary Magdalene was common in Petrarch’s day.
6. her sorrow: Laura gave audible expression to her grief.
8. marrow of my bones: Transformed him into living stone.
12. skillful keys: So that his memory of her, as durable and pure as diamond, may be retrieved by grief and desire at the urging of Love.
13–14. draws forth/… sighs: A mournful music.
14. precious tears: Lagrime rare, similar to the sparingly chosen words of 144.7.
156 SONNET
The sight of Laura weeping and the sound of her grief brought heaven and earth to a standstill.
3. pains and pleases: Her sorrow and pity pain him; their justness pleases him.
4. Shadow, smoke, and dreams: The weather has altered from the sunrise of poem 154.
5. lights in tears: The sorrow of Laura was that of an angel grieving for mankind.
8. mountains move: A reference to Orpheus, whose music enchanted and transformed the Underworld. Cf. Horace, Odes I ,12.9–12: “Arte materna rapidos morantem fluminum lapsus celerisque ventos, blandum et auritas fidibus canoris ducere quercus.”
13. dared move: They were immobilized. Cf. Dante, Purgatorio II, 115–17, where the musician Casella puts the words of the poet Dante to song.
157 SONNET
This sonnet (added to Petrarch’s final manuscript in 1366) again demonstrates the spell of nature’s art. Laura may be real, but her beautiful qualities are perceived as a veil drawn over her essential self.
1. so cruel: The day of the crucifixion; secondarily, the day he was wounded by Love.
3. no wit or style: Cf. 154.11.
5. Her attitude: The words l’atto and costumi (qualities) of 156.1 both have a special function in these two poems, l’atto only “adorned” with pity, costumi a set of virtues translating into grief rather than action.
9. Her head fine gold: Her hair is purified gold fashioned into the finest threads, like that of an icon.
10. eyebrows ebony: Black as the polished heart-wood of this mysterious tree.
12. pearls and red roses: Her teeth and lips.
the gathered grief: The holy words expressing a collective grief.
14. her sighs a flame: Of consuming intensity.
crystal: Cf. 30.37, 51.10, and Dante, Inferno XXIII, 97–99.
158 SONNET
The final sonnet of the four on the subject of Lauras weeping responds to the question asked in 154.14 and 155.1. Base desire was once and only once conquered by highest beauty, bringing peace to heaven and earth on the strength of compassion.
1. rest or turn: These verbs make a distinction between gazing fixedly at Laura and scanning the entire scene that reality presents. Cf. 156.1–4.
3. I find there one: Love, the artist; or the imagination.
7. more than sight: Beyond what he apparently sees.
seem to imagine: “Seem” appears also in line 5. Cf. 156.4
8. her living voice: His imagination is able to recreate her beautiful image by hearing again her words and their music.
holy sighs: Verses expressing profound faith.
9–11. Love and the truth … : Leopardi paraphrased: “I judged, and Love also judged, in a judgment conforming to the truth, that those beauties that I saw in my lady weeping were beauties unique in the world, never again seen on earth.”
10. unique: Only he saw them. His heart alone was wrung.
159 SONNET
He poses another question, in a philosophical context, to seek an explanation for Lauras qualities.
1. from what Idea: A reference to Plato’s theory of the One Idea in the mind of God from which creation springs. Cf. Dante, Paradiso XIII, 49–87.
2. take the model: Matter takes the stamp of the Idea from which the creature is formed.
4. her power up above: To reach the highest part of the heavens for her model. At Nature’s highest power, “the brilliance of the seal would shine forth full” (Dante, Paradiso XIII, 75).
5. What fountain nymph … woodland goddess: What naiad, what dryad.
7–8. How did a heart … : Foseolo refers to “un inimitabile chiaroscuro,” the “pennellata da maestro” of these lines.
9–11. Who seeks … : Without a knowledge of her effects, which cause any man who sees her to love her, the Idea of her cannot be grasped. Cf. Dante, Paradiso XIII, 79–81: “But if the Fervent Love moves the Clear Vision / of the First Power and makes of that its seal, / the thing it stamps is perfect in all ways.”
13. the sweetness: Cf. Horace, Odes I, 22, 23–24: “Dulce ridentem Lalagen amabo, dulce loquentem.”
160 SONNET
The One Idea shaped by Nature into a particular creature quickly breaks down into her several parts under the admiring eye of the lover. Laura here is a vision who walks and talks.
1. full of wonderment: Her singularity, her very existence, fills him with awe.
5. fair heaven: He begins in the highest regions, that part of Heaven where Nature modeled her out of God’s design.
tranquil brows: Of a soul at peace with herself and the world.
6. I trust in: That he follows, as he would a guide.
7. no light’s left: No other beloved created from God’s image can compare with or succeed her. God has thrown away the mold.
her white breast: The vocabulary of this sonnet is unusually suggestive with its preme, seno, cespo, cerchio, terso, and crespo.
12. unripened season: Spring.
14. weaving a wreath: A garland of flowers for her hair.
161 SONNET
A lament for the eye as well as the ear (with the visually suggestive O’s predominating), addressed to whatever love poets may still be listening and to those already dead and gone.
1. O useless steps: Seeking Laura.
2. O binding memory: Of the first day, written in his heart by her hand. Cf. 155.11.
4. O my eyes: Oi, emphasizing pain.
5. O leafy bough: The laurel.
6. dual values: Glory and virtue. Cf. poem 119.
/> 10. both spurs and rein: The form and sense of love poetry both bind and loosen him.
11. kicking back is useless: The language echoes Acts 9:5, “Saule, Saule,… durum est tibi contra stimulum calcitrare.”
14. stay awhile: Cf. Dante, Vita nuova VII: “O ye who travel on the road of Love, pause here and look about for any man whose grief surpasses mine.” Dante was himself paraphrasing Lam. 1:12.
162 SONNET
The language of this sonnet derives from Virgil and is notable for its bucolic style, contrasting with the preceding sonnet.
1. joyful and glad: Two kinds of happiness, subtly shaded (lieti and felici). Laura brings out their highest beauty.
2. walk in thought: Cf. 160.9–14.
3. shore: Like the fresh green shore of poem 106, yielding to her beauty and taking her impress.
4. conserving traces: Cf. 125.60. Rather than scattered, hidden tracks, these are securely recorded.
5. straight and slender: The laurel.
6. delicately lovely: The second diminutive in two lines (amorosette), suggesting that these flowers were allowed to grow in innocence and safety.
11. from her live light: Cf. Dante, Paradiso XIII, 52–57.
12. I envy you: The eternal countryside, which once was witness to her presence.
163 SONNET
He appeals to Love to adjust his pace, for he is weary and the path is steep.
1. Love: Love, like Laura when she is at peace, understands him completely. Cf. 71.23, 95.5, and 147.13.
3. heart’s deepest part: Where his virtu (his soul) resides. Cf. 2.5–8.
4. clear to you: His soul is “transparent as glass,” according to 147.13–14.