Petrarch

  4. swift and frisky beasts: Graceful objects of the chase, delight of hunters.

  5. long-awaited joy: Of new beginnings.

  6. poems of love: A flowering of verse that follows on good news.

  8. ladies: The loveliest and most lofty subject matter of all.

  10. buried it: When she died. Lines 9–11 are among the most alliterative in the Canzoniere.

  12. pain of living: Noia, as in Provençal and Old Italian.

  14. I should have never seen: The ultimate negativity, contradicting 309.14: “God blessed those eyes that saw her still alive!” To see her was to lose her.

  313 SONNET

  Another lyrical enumeration of lost joys, this rises from the decrescendo of the last sonnet to the wish that he might join her in Heaven.

  2. refreshed within …flames: A faint echo of the icy fire of times gone by, suggesting here a purgatorial fire.

  6. that going: Playing on the word passando, so that he brings forth the living Laura as she passed, making her coming almost simultaneous with her leaving.

  pierced my heart: When she exchanged glances with him that very first day.

  8. wrapped it in her lovely cloak: The veil of her mortality. According to Zingarelli, Petrarch alludes to the Virgin Mary.

  9. She took it: In part underground with her body, in part to Heaven with her soul. Petrarch pursues this puzzling line of thought in sonnets to follow.

  10. she triumphs: Cf. 263.1

  11. unconquered chastity: The sum of all her blessed qualities.

  13. by force: By destiny.

  314 SONNET

  So much importance did the last sight of Laura have for him that he reached the zenith of his life at that moment.

  1. Oh my mind that, foreseeing: He refers back to the last poems of Part I, beginning at poem 242 where he began to worry about her dying. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid X, 843: “praesaga mali mens.”

  4. coming troubles: The unhappy truth about the future that his mind was able to foresee.

  6. strange pity… mixed with pain: Cf. the “double pity” of 285.8.

  7. were you fully aware: If his mind had listened to its own promptings. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid II, 54: “Si mens non laeva fuisset.”

  9. in that moment: When he took leave from her.

  10. How much we burned: His heart and soul together.

  11. never see again: Cf. 250.14.

  14. my noblest part: His love.

  315 SONNET

  That period just before she died, now that he recollects, was like a truce broken by the treacherous blow of death.

  1–2. green age … : Note the use of etade (age), securtade (confidence), onestade (honesty), Castitate (chastity), leading up to felice stato (state of bliss) in line 12. They comprise a basis on which to “sit and talk” (l.11).

  3. the fire in my heart: His fighting spirit.

  4. the point where life declines: The midpoint changes with hindsight; in 124.11 he had “already run half of [his] course” at a probable 35 years of age. Petrarch was 44 when Laura died.

  5. my dear enemy: Laura.

  7. her fears: That she could not trust him.

  turn to joy: To arouse new hope in him with her candor. Cf. 243.12.

  9. reconciled: When the enemy smiles and war is reduced to harmless games.

  10. with Chastity: Her minister of defense.

  11. sit and talk: Cf. 285.14: “and only while she speaks I’ve peace, a truce.”

  13. rather the hope: A correction, since he is still not sure.

  316 SONNET

  This poem remembers, like the preceding sonnet, a time just before she died when passions cooled.

  1. my peace or truce: When Laura turned a more trusting eye on him. Cf. 285.14 and 315.6.

  3. those glad steps: His steps toward reconciliation.

  3. turned back by the one: Death. Cf. 315.12–14.

  9. She hadn’t long to wait: He was already shortening the distance between them.

  10. were changing me: As his desire waned, his habits indeed changed. Cf. 122.5 and 195.1.

  11. about my troubles: Falsely try to sway her with his eloquence.

  12. virtuous sighs: Assuming a style more in keeping with his age and hair color.

  13. of my long labors: All the good he has done.

  14. she sees… and grieves: Able to “see both poles at the same time” from her home in heaven (287.5). The image of Laura in Heaven observing him in his travail recalls Beatrice and the Virgin grieving for Dante in Inferno II, 58–72.

  317 SONNET

  The last of four in a series, this poem describes how Love showed him the way to reach the fruit of wisdom before Death tore her away.

  1. a port of peacefulness: He speaks of a time just before Laura died. Cf. poems 314–316.

  2. storming turbulence: The years of his confused youth.

  3. chaste maturity: Cf. 315.9–12.

  4. strips off vice: Like animals that shed their old skin (Zingarelli).

  5. heart and…faithfulness now shone: No longer obscured by mutual suspicion and angry feelings.

  7–8. spoil/the fruit: Split hope from the branch before it had come to fruition.

  10. entrusted her chaste ears: Cf. 315.9–11 and 316.9–11.

  11. all the ancient weight: A wisdom of love crossing the ages.

  13. chosen words: Cf. the pitying words in poem 285.

  14. our faces: These events, their growing old together in peace, were anticipated in poem 12.

  318 SONNET

  Laura’s physical death marks the beginning here, rather than their first romantic encounter. Notable in this sonnet are its assonance, ingenious rhymes (including rime riche), and classical and biblical allusions.

  1. At a tree’s crash: Cf. 269.1.

  2. by the wind or iron: Symbolic of circumstance and war. Cf. Horace, Odes IV, 6, 9–10.

  3. scattering… noble spoil: Laura’s beloved mortal self.

  4. its wretched root: Parched.

  5. I saw another Love chose: The soul of Laura, or the memory of her name.

  6. Euterpe and Calliope: Muses of lyric and epic song, according to Hesiod’s Theogony.

  as my subject: This new plant. Cf. Ezek. 15:1–8, where the vine is compared with the tree, historically Jerusalem.

  7. bound my heart: The laurel sprouted anew out of the deepest roots of his living heart.

  8. as ivy winds: Serpentine, rerooting itself on the ruins of fallen walls and cities.

  11. never stirred a leaf: Never gained a response.

  12. risen: For translato), cf. Dante, Paradiso XIV, 83.

  14. keeps calling out: like the voice of the murdered Polydorus calling out to Aeneas from the Thracian shore. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid III, 40 ff.

  319 SONNET

  From the cataclysm described in poem 318 and its mythic reverberations, he turns again to his familiar lament.

  1–2. My days … /like shadows: Cf. Ps. 101:12, “Dies mei sicut umbra declinaverunt.”

  3. more than a wink: Those times when she smiled on him were so rare. Cf. 73.75.

  few were those calm hours: Of truce.

  4. I keep in my mind: Use as a guide.

  5. O wretched world: Miserly for the few joys it yields, arrogant for its brazenness.

  7. my heart was torn: From worldly things by his love for Laura.

  9. her best form: Lauras soul.

  11. makes me fall more in love: Cf. 318.5.

  14. what it was like: Before she became a skeleton, her flesh “already putrefied underground” (Albertini, 1835). There is a bit of play in lines 13–14 that contributes to the grisliness.

  320 SONNET

  That source of peace which he enjoyed so briefly has vanished from the hills of Vaucluse.

  1. aura of old times: The Laura of his youth. There is an emphasis on the remote past in the verbs of this sonnet.

  4. forlorn and wet: Softened, that is, weakened by tears.

  6. The grass is widowed: Dark
ened with grief.

  7. the nest in which she lay: The cold earth where, living, she once reclined. Cf. 126.1–6.

  8. I live… liked to die: Petrarch, who had been accused of necromancy by one contemporary churchman, may be playing with his subject matter.

  12. cruel and stingy: Love.

  13. see my fire: Laura.

  14. scattered ashes: His verse, now just the dead remains of his love.

  321 SONNET

  From the ashes of poem 320 the memory arises of his one true phoenix, a bitter loss to him now.

  1. that phoenix of mine: Cf. poems 135.1–15,185, 210. Laura was the hope of the age.

  2. gold and purple feathers: Like the plumage of the phoenix that invites the suns fire.

  3. under her wing: She shielded him, that he might burn with her. Cf. Ps. 16:8, “Sub umbra alarum tuarum protege me.”

  4. still elicits: The verbs elicere and colere (adore) in line 11 appear just once in the Canzoniere. They perform double duty in their alternate senses of “extract spirally” and “filter” or “purge.”

  5. O primal root: His tree of life. Cf. 214.8 and 318.13.

  6. while I burned: That face inflaming him in the same self-destructive way, perhaps, that the phoenix is set afire by the sun.

  10. return to that place grieving: Where he first saw her.

  11. adore and honor for your sake: Celebrate it in order to consecrate her name.

  12. the black of night: Referring to line 1, where he can barely recognize his surroundings. Cf. Ps. 16:9.

  322 SONNET

  Giacomo Colonna wrote a sonnet in 1341, the year of his death, praising Petrarch on the occasion of the poet’s coronation with the laurel. Twenty-five years later, on 5 December 1366, Petrarch transcribed this risposta along with Colonna’s proposta into Vat. Lat. 3196 with the notation, “Responsio mea, sera valde” (My response, a late conclusion). In this same time period he added the Latin title of the Canzoniere—Rerum vulgarium fragmenta (Fragments in the vernacular).

  3. Love appears to sparkle: Colonna’s opening quatrain “reduces” his own body, mind, and spirit into infinite sparks and atoms that speak in praise of the young poet. Petrarch makes use of both Colonna’s rhymes and metaphors.

  4. hand of Kindness: Referring to the bishop’s magnanimity.

  has composed: Put together again.

  5. Spirit unvanquished: In Colonna’s second quatrain he speaks of Hector and Achilles. Colonna himself had been proven a brave and invincible warrior for peace early in his life (Chiari).

  6. now distills such sweetness: Purified of strife by the intellect.

  7. gave back my wandering poetry / the style: Reminded him of his original purpose, from which he deviated after the death of Laura.

  8. before Death cut it off: Colonna’s words, evoked from the past, were finally understood by him just before Laura died.

  9. some other product of my tender leaves: Other verse worthy of the eyes of Giacomo that might have fulfilled his youthful promise.

  10–11. envied/ our union so: That it cut their collaboration so short.

  12. Who hides: Delays their reunion, but also prevents the fruition of his idea.

  14. In you, sweet sigh: This sonnet of reply that finally acknowledges his moral debt to Colonna.

  323 CANZONE

  Six visions of Laura’s death are dramatically rendered in this canzone, which has often been imitated. Its date of composition is unknown, but Petrarch transcribed it in 1368 with the note “Octobris. 13. veneris ante matutinum. ne labatur. contuli ad cedulam plusquam triennio hic inclusam. et eodem die inter primam facem et concumium transcripsi in alia papiro quibusdam etc.” Wilkins dates it 1362–67 in Venice.

  1. while at my window: As if gazing through a frame with the eyes of his mind.

  3. made me weary: Seeing them whole and all in one place.

  5. with human face: The beast is Laura in her mortal form.

  6. hounds, one black one white: The legendary dogs of the hunter Time, the black being night, the white day (Gesualdo). Cf. Boccaccio, Decameron V, 8; and Dante, Inferno XIII, 109–29.

  9. in no time: A suddenness that is repeated in some manner in each stanza.

  forced her to the pass: To the verge of death. Cf. 100.9.

  10. trapped within the stone: In a labyrinth (sasso) from which the only escape is death. The chase and the stone are purgatorial symbols.

  12. and I sighed from the sight: His detachment, like that of the protagonist in Boccaccio’s Decameron V, 8, and is germane to this vision. As the canzone progresses he enters the scene.

  harsh fate: Cf. the metamorphosis of Actaeon, 23.156–160.

  13. a boat: Laura’s form as his art.

  14–15. silken … gold/… ebony: “Oriental” beauties, wrought with Byzantine splendor.

  16. the sea was calm: Peace had come just before she died. Cf. poems 314–317.

  18. precious cargo: The word merce (cargo) has been used only once before, in 235.6.

  19. a sudden storm: Although Petrarch does not give the cause of Lauras death, it has been assumed since the fifteenth century that he refers here to the plague, which struck Europe in 1348, moving from the east.

  20. air and waters: A general cataclysm.

  22. what oppressing grief: Cordoglio, pain felt in the heart.

  23. little space now hides: The grave. Cf. 304.9: “covered by meager marble.”

  26. young, slender laurel tree: Nubile and ever green.

  29. different birds: The great poets.

  30. cut me off: The laurel shielded him. In this vision, the witness himself enters the scene.

  32–35. the sky … : He compresses Laura’s lifetime into the space of a moment.

  33. struck with lightning: To which the laurel had previously been impervious.

  36. shade like this: Ombra, her mortal self as it cast its impression on his soul.

  37. a sparkling fountain: Laura’s speech that was pure and free.

  38. sprang from a rock: From its source in the deep earth, referring perhaps to an original sacred language of love. (Zingarelli identifies the fountain as virtue.)

  39. gentle murmuring: That spoke words of silent truth to his heart.

  40. fair and shady: Cf. Ovid, Metamorphoses III, 407 ff, the pool of Narcissus.

  41. no shepherds and no boors: No rough sensibilities.

  42. muses and nymphs: Providing the music for the lyric poet.

  43. I sat down there: The witness enters the scene even more definitively.

  44. I took more sweetness: First from the sound of birds and other joys (1. 29), then from these deep waters.

  47. fountain and place: Obliterating all traces of that source.

  48. fills me with fear: With dread for the future. Cf. Dante, Inferno XIII, 45.

  49. A marvelous phoenix: Cf. 135.1–15 and, most recently in the poems, 321.

  50. adorned in purple … gold: The colors of her plumage.

  51. in the woods: In the darkest part of the forest, deeper than the grove of line 25.

  52. At first I thought: He could not believe what his eyes were seeing.

  53–54. torn-out laurel/… spring stolen away: The destruction of the last two visions.

  55. All things rush: Even the phoenix is subject to time.

  56. leaves strewn on the ground: Torn from the branches of the shattered laurel.

  57. living waters dry: The fountain swallowed up by the earth.

  59. and quickly vanished: Leaving no heir, no phoenix reborn.

  60. set my heart aflame: Awoke a new desire in him, moved by compassion.

  63. sets me aflame and shaking: With love and fear simultaneously. Cf. 313.2.

  64. humble… haughty: The incomparable Laura of old. Cf. 121.5–6.

  65. so very white: So pure.

  66. so woven: Cf. 127.44–45 and 49–51.

  67. the upper part: Her face and eyes hidden.

  69. stung upon her heel: Cf. the legend of
Orpheus and Eurydice in Ovid, Metamorphoses X, 8; and Virgil, Georgics IV, 454.

  small snake: Cf. Dante, Inferno VII, 84: Fortune’s “sentence hidden like a snake in grass.”

  70. as a cut flower withers: Quickly, as in the other five manifestations of her death. Cf. Virgil, Aeneid II, 435 (Euryalus), and XI, 68 (the death of Pallas).

  71. left in joy: Secure in her blessedness.

  74. given to my lord: To the poet.

  75. sweet wish to know death: To follow her.

  324 BALLATA

  The first ballata since poem 149 and the only one in Part II, this confirms that Laura still has dominion over his heart in spite of her sixfold death in poem 323. According to notations on Vat. Lat. 3196, the ballata was composed in 1348, corrected in 1356, and transcribed into Vat. Lat. 3195 in October of 1368 with further corrections. Chiari suggests Petrarch waited until 1368 to add it, deliberately holding it back for some reason.

  1. hope was blossoming: His new hope. Cf. poems 314–317.

  2. guerdon: Reward for his faithfulness, that is, the colors of his lady given to him when they sat together in truce just before she died. For an early use of guidardon, see 130.4.

  3. promised mercy: “A port of peacefulness” (317.1).

  4. Ah Death… Life: Merciless both. The rest of the ballata brings them into balance.

  6. kills my hopes: Took her before he could make good on her promise.

  10. But still: He suspends time.

  11. sits Madonna: Cf. 126.40–52.

  12. she sees for herself: So identified is she with his soul and body. Cf. Dante “Li occhi pietosi”: “Ma quel ch’io sia, la mia donna sel vede / E io ne spero ancor da lei merzede.”

  325 CANZONE

  Even in his young manhood Fortune had appeared before him in a vision and warned him of the sad turn his life would take. Now he would remember her wise advice. Much admired for its classical tone, this canzone does not break down into the usual conflicts but maintains a consistently high level of praise throughout. The imagery is that of St. Augustine.