Petrarch

  9–12. You, with that heart…: Laura. Cf. line 2, appo voi. In these lines he gives an example of the skill required to put such complicated thoughts all in one place by ordering his clauses appositionally, enhancing them with epithets, as he did in lines 2 and 3. Cf. 239.25–28.

  13–14. What choice: Cf. 87.9–11 and 123.14 for other imagined opinions of Laura.

  14. lovely: Cf. Ovid, Heroides XX: “Aut esses formosa minus, peterere modeste; audaces facie cogimur esse tua.” For numerous antecedents, in earlier Italian and Provençal verse, of this theme of the lady’s irresistible beauty, see Zingarelli.

  241 SONNET

  In tones of utmost courtesy he describes to her how she might alter her present harsh stance toward him.

  1. That lofty lord: Love.

  6. advance his case: To make its outcome sure.

  7. made of mercy: The sight of her tearful eyes. Cf. Dante, Inferno XXIX, 43: “like arrow-shafts whose tips are barbed with pity.”

  8. from both sides: “Here and there.” Love balances amorous passion with compassion, ardor with restraint.

  assails and stabs: Ardor wounds and pity overwhelms him.

  9. flame and fire: All his unbridled desire.

  10. tears that misery distills: When he reflects, pity makes his response more civil. Petrarch echoes a passage in Dante, Purgatorio (XV, 94 ff.) where Pisistratus turns away his wife’s wrath by giving her a soft answer.

  11. your sad state: Laura’s grief. Cf. 3.9–11.

  12. two fountains: His eyes.

  14. my desire grows: The one reinforcing the other.

  242 SONNET

  In a variation on the dialogue form, he speaks to his heart with a divided mind. This sonnet refers to a significant event in the Canzoniere, one to which he often returns in his thoughts: his desertion of Laura.

  1. Look at that hill: Traditionally believed to be a midpoint between Avignon and Vaucluse—Caumont—where Laura was born.

  4. into a lake: Pooling with tears.

  5. glad to be alone: To be relieved of his heart’s pain.

  6. if it is not time: The unique phrasing of this line was noted by Carducci; Zingarelli and Leopardi read it to say, “se fosse ancor tempo.” Cf. Dante, Purgatorio XI, 89–90.

  8. prescient: his heart knows before his mind how their love is faring.

  10. talk to your heart: The voice of his conscience speaks.

  12. highest wish: His original high enterprise of praising Laura.

  14. hid inside: His essential core hidden from his own sight.

  243 SONNET

  Cut off from her and his heart, he falls into despondency for his lost powers.

  1. Green hill: Cf.242.1.

  2. where she sits now: Cf. poems 100, 111, 125.22, 126.32, and 129.5 for descriptions of Laura seated.

  4. outdoes all fame: Cf. Dante, Purgatorio XI, 94–96.

  6. showed good sense: Cf. 242.12–14.

  7. goes counting now: In its beating it numbers the golden days of his early love.

  8. the wetness of my eyes: Cf. Purgatorio XI, 115, where Dante echoes Isa. 40:6–7, “What shall I cry? That all mankind is grass. The grass withers, the flower fades.”

  11. so worn out: So limp. In the seventeenth century Tassoni saw in this image a man on all fours, unable to stand upright (Carducci).

  12. She smiles: It has been a long time since Laura smiled, even in his imagination. Cf. 172.9–11.

  13. I’m stone: Unable to speak out, like one of Medusa’s victims.

  you’re paradise: The verdant hill of line 1.

  244 SONNET

  This sonnet responds to one by Giovanni Dondi of Padua (b. 1318), with whom Petrarch corresponded beginning in 1370. A physician and mathematician, Dondi invented and erected on the tower of Padua a clock that traced more than 200 rotations of the stars. Dondi’s sonnet asks for the master’s advice in matters of love. Petrarch responds using the same rhymes.

  1. terrified by worse: Afraid of the future, like a horse shying at shadows. Cf. 227.8.

  2. so broad and smooth a way: They are both being pushed from behind by events into a frightening future.

  3. your same frenzied road: Petrarch plays on the word frenesia, whose Latin root means bridle (Greek phreno, mind). They are like reluctant animals spurred and restrained by their thoughts at the same time.

  4. with hard thoughts: Like the bit in the mouth—painful.

  ramble: The word vaneggio can apply to the raving of a seer.

  5. for peace or war: That he means this in a political sense is suggested by his echoing poem 128 in the next line.

  6. heavy is the loss: Corresponding to war.

  cruel the shame: Corresponding to peace. Cf. 128.68.

  9. of that great honor: Dondi had appealed to Petrarch to speak out as Petrarch himself had appealed to another in poem 28.

  11. healthy eye see wrong: Dondi had complained of an inability to see, hear, or otherwise trust his senses and the world around him.

  245 SONNET

  After his wry admission of artistic and political impasse in the preceding sonnet, this seems to describe the passing on of a sacred legacy to a younger generation. The traditional interpretation is that the two lovers here are Petrarch and Laura, the donor undertermined. Zingarelli suggested Dante or Cino da Pistoia.

  1. Two roses: Red for the lover, signifying courage and sacrifice; perhaps white for the maiden, as in poem 246, signifying purity.

  picked in paradise: The green hill of 243.12–14.

  2. the other day: Only a short time ago. Cf. 214.1–12.

  first of May: May was the Virgin’s month in the Christian calendar.

  3. a sweet gift: The words stand free and clear syntactically, like an offering.

  lover old and wise: One who has kept his prescient heart in the paradise of his youth. Cf. poem 243.

  4. shared equally: One to each, a portion.

  7. stream of light: Of understanding.

  sparkles lovingly: Trembling on the verge of joy or pity.

  10. and sighing: Star-crossed as they are.

  11. he then turned round: He retired.

  13. weary heart still fears: The poet in the present still remembers how he felt on that occasion.

  14. Oh happy eloquence: Of both words and roses.

  246 SONNET

  Inspiration once more flows. The next three sonnets celebrate another and different flowering of his adoration, pure and candid.

  1–2. The aura …/…laurel… golden: Variants of the name of Laura.

  2. hair: Crine appears just this once in the Canzoniere.

  3. its aspects new and delicate: Cf. 239.1–6, his most recent point of new beginnings.

  3–4. turns…/ souls into pilgrims: Stealing them away into exile.

  5. Whiteness of rose … thorns: The simplicity of Laura’s beauty is created out of a wasteland of suffering.

  6. when: Cf. poem 220, where similar questions are asked: where, what, and whence?

  7. O living Jove: Christ.

  9. public loss: To all the world.

  10. without sun: Since poem 237 he has foreshadowed her loss.

  12–13. and my soul … : His soul and all his senses are caught up in her perfection, like “pilgrims wandering from their bodies.”

  14. sweet perfection: He starts anew with his single white rose.

  247 SONNET

  To praise her is a task for stylists on the level of the greatest orators and poets, not just one humble lover like himself.

  1. Someone: Some skeptic who has not seen her.

  2. my style is wrong: Castelvetro amended this to say “deceitful” (bugiardo).

  5. I think the opposite: The terms of this sonnet are just subtle enough to make one doubt him, beginning with “perhaps” in line 1.

  6. disdains the humble words: Considers them, notwithstanding their apparent hyperbole, too slight for her notice.

  7. higher, finer ones: A style even more sophisticated than he
has shown so far.

  8. come and gaze on her: Come see her in person, but also, “look closely at my words.”

  10–11. all Arpinum and Athens, / Mantua, Smyrna: Birthplaces of Cicero, Demosthenes, Virgil, and Homer, respectively.

  11. one lyre and the other: The Latin and Greek languages.

  12. A mortal tongue: The one in which he is presently writing—vernacular Italian.

  13–14. draws and drives / his tongue: Forces his words into a style so “wrong” that it appears to say the opposite.

  14. but destiny: Along with the pushing and pulling of Love, the force of circumstance determines the forward thrust of his language.

  248 SONNET

  If he cannot entice the blind world to come gaze on her virtue, then perhaps some seeker of highest truth might want to see her before it is too late. Petrarch seems almost to be hawking his wares in this sonnet.

  3. sole sun: Laura unique, apart, and the only one who matters to him.

  4. the blind world: Cf. 119.46–53. Although the world gives lip service to virtue, its real motive is to seek pleasure.

  5. come quickly now: To gaze on her in her passing.

  7. kingdom of the gods: Amongst the angels, the souls of the greatest mortals.

  10. all regal-mannered ways: Of one first among women.

  11. joined in one body: Modeled by the divine fabricator.

  12. verse is dumb: Responding to 247.2–3, “my style is wrong / in making her beyond all others gracious.”

  13. talent overcome: Of total absence of his sun.

  14. weep forever: For her disappearance from this world.

  249 SONNET

  Certain aspects of his beloved Laura at his last sight of her, when remembered together, assail him with dark thoughts. Chiari dates this sonnet 1347–48, Black Death years in Europe.

  2. the day I left: Cf. 242.2: “there yesterday we left her.”

  sad and pensive: “Sighing gently” in 246.1.

  6. like a rose: Cf. poems 245 and 246.

  7. neither gay nor sad: In a kind of limbo of emotion. Cf. the “new and delicate aspects” of poem 246.

  8. like one who fears: Has a presentiment of an unhappy future. Zingarelli cites Dante, Inferno IV, 84.

  9. all her elegance: Corresponding to “humble presence” in line 5.

  10. her pearls: Her charming youthful qualities and worldly adornments.

  11. her laughing: Cf. 245.10.

  13. and now sad omens: Signs that the soverchio lume of 248.13 has indeed gone out.

  blackest thoughts: Of total absence of light.

  250 SONNET

  The cause of his anxiety is revealed in a dream in which Laura speaks to him, making undeniable what he only sensed before.

  3. now: Three states of mind are evoked: dreaming then, remembering now, and a middle ground in which that dream is reinterpreted.

  scares and saddens me: Cf. the premonitions of poem 249.

  4. I have no defense: Because fear has been added to grief, usurping the place of joy.

  6. mixed with serious pain: Grave dolor, an expression of hers he has not mentioned before.

  10. left… your eyes in tears: Reflecting her pity and pain.

  12. I could not tell you then: Cf. 119.99–100: “And now I’ve told you / as much as you can understand in brief.’”

  nor did I want to: Because he wasn’t ready to know.

  13. tried and true: Proven by his own experience. He is ready to know now what she did not tell him then.

  14. Don’t ever hope: The absence of the word “again” is puzzling, suggesting that Laura always was a figment of his imagination. However, in 253.2, it is provided. Cf. also 328.14.

  251 SONNET

  Disbelief is his reaction to the dream of the last sonnet. Can his mind have deceived him? And why has no one else noted her passing?

  1. Oh miserable… vision: The dream of poem 250.

  2. holy light is out: Her bountiful grace spent.

  3. before her time: At a young age, before fulfilling her promise.

  6. than hearing it from her: He speaks ironically of talking to himself, of his prophecies not having been taken seriously. Dante made a similar comment in Purgatorio IX, 25–27: ’”Could this be the only place / the eagle strikes? Perhaps he does not deign / to snatch his prey from anywhere but here.”

  7. not consent: As they conspired in her birth, let them not in her dissolution. Cf. 159.1–4.

  8. my sad opinion: A truth not yet demonstrated, only dreamed of by the poet.

  11. gives me life: Sustains him, as in poem 207.

  honor to the world: Making the world worthy of and by her presence.

  13. lovely home: Her beautiful body.

  252 SONNET

  The threat of Laura’s loss, as yet unconfirmed, acts as an incentive for self-criticism.

  3. release my burden: He vents the pain spilling over into his dreams.

  with all his tools: Literally “files,” the tormenting thoughts that assail him.

  6. their primal light: What he saw at the “first assault.”

  7. ah, what am I to think: Against what standard will he measure himself?

  8. endless weeping: Through eternity.

  9. taking what belongs to it: Laura was only lent to the world.

  11. whose sun it is: If not illuminated by that fair, holy face.

  12. perpetual war: With his presentiments and his hopes.

  13. what I used to be: Cf. 1.4.

  253 SONNET

  Whatever little genuine sweetness he has been granted has always been cut short by Fortune.

  2. ever… again: Fear of her disappearance from the world still lingers. Cf. 250.14.

  5. harsh fate: Her face is a white rose gathered from thorns. Cf. 220.2 and 246.5.

  7. O closed betrayal…fraud: Those locks of gold and Love’s deceptions, now seen in another light.

  8. brings me only pain: The darkness and doubt plaguing him in recent sonnets.

  11. honest sweetness: A pure, candid expression of love rather than a habitual betrayal and fraud.

  12. to scatter any good: To disperse his amorous forces.

  13. horses or ships: Offensive means, here the defenders of Laura’s virtue.

  14. by Fortune: Ready to carry him away from her aginst his will.

  254 SONNET

  Hope that she lives continues to pierce him.

  1. hear no news: He seeks some sign that the frightening vision of poem 250 is false.

  2. my sweet enemy: An epithet that has not appeared since poem 206.

  3. don’t know what to think: Cf. 252.7.

  4. is pierced: Mi puntella, not quite killing him; that is, alternately delivering the wound and then resurrecting him.

  5. Such beauty harmed another: He refers to the myth of Callisto, “the most beautiful,” a nymph Jove ravished and then turned into a bear to protect her from Juno’s wrath. Later killed by Diana, Callisto was set among the constellations as the She-Bear. Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses II, 381 ff.

  9. rather a sun: He corrects himself. Cf. 255.5.

  if this be so: If Laura has been taken from earth.

  12. from my harm: From his “sweet enemy.”

  13. My little fable has … been told: Favola is meant in the classical sense of “little drama.” Cf. 1.10.

  14. my time is filled: Prematurely, like Laura’s.

  255 SONNET

  The hour of dawn is more fitting to his love now than the passionate nights of ordinary lovers.

  3. night redoubles: He plays on the coupling of happy lovers.

  woes and weeping: The sequel to his dreams.

  5. those two suns: The rising sun and the memory of Laura’s beauty fixed like the morning star in his mind.

  6. will open: As lovers open to each other.

  two Orients: Levanti, two dawnings.

  7–8. so similar … : The one reflecting that of the other. In a political sense, he may envision a just ruler em
erging beside a reborn Church. Cf. poem 100 and notes.

  9. first boughs: Laura during his first transformation.

  10. in my heart their roots were sunk: Love of poetry was born in him simultaneously with his faith. Cf. 23.31–40, and 214.7–12.

  12. opposing hours: Evening and morning.

  256 SONNET

  Perhaps his sweet enemy is only hiding.

  1. take my vengeance: Force her to listen.

  2. with glances and with words: Her expression of pity and predictions of death. Cf. 250.5–8.

  7. like a lion: Cf. 56.7–8 and 202.6. The roar of a lion is a warning to mankind to prepare for the coming of Christ. Cf. Gen. 49:9, “ut leo, et quasi leaena: quis suscitabit eum?”

  10. such a knot: The soul’s ties with the body.

  12. if some time: In the far future, when he is dead. He speaks to posterity.

  13. speaking: His soul in the form of his poetry being read and understood.

  14. break her sleep: Corresponding to “take my vengeance,” that is, his warnings might make a difference.

  257 SONNET

  He remembers how he experienced within himself a strange transport when Love—Laura—held out her hand.

  2. were fixed: On the beauty of his first love, her face.

  4. that honored hand: Blocking the sight of her face (Leopardi), or held out as a sign of peace (Zingarelli). For other references to the hand, see 72.55, the series 199–201, and 208.12.

  5. fish on hook: Fixed on her beauty. Petrarch plays on the homonyms a mo (hook) and amo (I love).

  6. living as example: Laura’s mortal self. The original “vivo esempio” is Christ.

  7. a young bird: Cf. 207.33–39.

  8. turn to truth: The meaning of his life to be found deep in those eyes.

  10. cleared its own way: His mind made an intuitive leap toward understanding. Cf. Boethius, Consolatione Philosophiae III, poem 11.