The Poetry of Petrarch

by David Young

I fear my second error may be worse!

  The tears I shed, by thousands and more thousands

  run from my eyes, their source within my heart,

  and that’s where all the sparks and tinder are:

  not just the former fire, something fiercer!

  Shouldn’t a fire reasonably be quenched

  by all the water that my eyes pour forth?

  Love—and I clearly should have sensed this sooner—

  wants me distempered by a paradox,

  and uses snares of such variety

  that when I most believe my heart is free

  he most entraps it with that lovely face.

  56

  If I do not deceive myself too much,

  counting the hours with my blind desire

  that still torments my heart, now is the time

  mercy and I were promised—and it’s passing.

  What shadow is so cruel it withers seed

  just when the longed-for fruit is right at hand?

  What beast is loose, and roaring in my sheepfold?

  What wall is raised between the hand and harvest?

  Alas, I do not know. But I do know

  that Love has led me into joyous hope

  so he could make my life more sorrowful;

  and now I recollect what I have read:

  no one deserves to be considered happy

  until his day of final parting comes.

  57

  My good luck is both late and very sluggish;

  my hope’s uncertain, passion swells and rises,

  so leaving’s painful, waiting’s painful too;

  and then they vanish, swift as running tigers.

  The snow, oh misery, will be black and warm,

  the sea without its waves, Alps full of fish,

  the sun will go away and lie down there

  where Tigris and Euphrates share a source,

  before I find my peace or truce in this,

  or Love and Lady change their well-known ways,

  who plot, conspire, and are cruel to me;

  and if I chance to come to any sweetness,

  my taste will not enjoy it, trained to bitter;

  that’s how their favors promise to reward me.

  58

  Use one of these to rest your cheek, my lord,

  made weary by your weeping, it’s my gift;

  take care in time to come, protect yourself:

  that god you follow leaves you pale and wan;

  the second helps to block that left-hand road

  where Love’s own couriers ply their cunning trade;

  be your same self, August and January,

  since time for that long path is running short;

  the third will help you mix a drink of herbs

  to purge your heart of all its sore afflictions;

  the taste is sweet, though sour at the first.

  And put me there where pleasures are stored up,

  that I need not fear Styx’s ferryman—

  if that is not a hope that’s too immodest.

  59

  Although another’s fault removes from me

  what drew me first to love,

  it doesn’t take away my firm desire.

  Among the golden tresses hid the noose

  by which Love caught and bound me,

  and from those lovely eyes came freezing ice

  that passed into my heart,

  and with the power of such sudden splendor

  that just the memory of it

  empties my heart of all but that desire.

  The lovely sight of that blond hair is gone,

  alas, quite taken from me,

  the gaze of those two chaste and lovely lights

  has fled and left me saddened,

  but since by dying well I gain some honor,

  neither my suffering nor my death

  can make me wish that I were free again.

  60

  The noble tree I’ve loved so many years

  (times when its lovely branches gave me shelter)

  helped my weak wit to flower in its shade

  and added that way to my store of troubles.

  For when I’d come to feel a total trust,

  it turned its very wood from sweet to bitter;

  my thoughts began to gather round one subject

  and now can only prate of their misfortunes.

  What might some lover say, who’d gotten hope

  from reading youthful rhymes of mine and then

  lost everything he had because of her?

  “Then let no poet gather from it, nor

  Jove give it favor! Let the sun’s anger

  beat down and shrivel all of its green leaves!”

  61

  The day, the month, the year, oh, bless them all,

  the season and the time, the hour and moment,

  the gorgeous countryside, the very spot

  where two eyes struck me first and bound me fast;

  and bless the first sweet palpitation that

  swept over me as I grew one with Love,

  and bless the bow that shot, arrows that pierced,

  and wounds so deep they went down to my heart.

  And bless the flock of words I’ve scattered round

  as I pronounced my lady’s name again,

  the sighs and all the tears and the desire;

  and bless the pages, too, pages where I

  have gained some fame for her, with all my thoughts

  which are of her alone, excluding others.

  62

  Father of Heaven, after days now lost,

  after the nights spent raving with desire

  that burned incessantly within my heart

  when I saw graceful gestures that destroyed me,

  be pleased that finally, by your great light,

  I may embrace a different way of life,

  my bitter adversary now disarmed,

  his nets at last all spread for me in vain.

  It’s now eleven years, my gracious Lord,

  that I’ve been subject to this ruthless yoke

  that is most fierce, always, to the submissive:

  on my unworthy misery, please have mercy,

  and lead my thoughts back to a better place,

  remind them: this day you were on the cross.

  63

  Casting your eyes upon my strange new pallor

  which makes most people cognizant of death,

  you felt a twinge of pity, and from that,

  spoke to me kindly, keeping me alive.

  The fragile life that dwells inside of me

  was freely given, gift of your bright eyes

  and your soft voice, the accents of an angel;

  I recognize my being stems from them,

  for they woke up my soul, the selfsame way

  you rouse a lazy creature with a stick.

  You hold the keys, dear lady, of my heart

  there in your hand, a fact that makes me happy,

  prepared to launch my boat in any wind,

  because what comes from you is my sweet honor.

  64

  If you got free by any strange behavior—

  your eyes downcast, a bending of your head,

  or flight more swift than anybody else’s,

  frowning the while at my honest prayers—

  if by that means, or any other way,

  you could escape and get out of my breast,

  where Love goes right on grafting laurel branches,

  I’d say disdain on your part would be just;

  because no noble plant should have to grow

  in arid soil like mine; it’s natural

  that you’d desire to live somewhere else:

  but since it’s fate and since it seems you can’t

  be somewhere else, have care, my dear,

  not to despise your present habitation.

  65

  Alas, I was not carefu
l at the first,

  the day Love came to wound me, he who has

  controlled my life and step by step climbed up

  to seat himself upon its very summit.

  I didn’t understand his file’s power

  would work to take away the strength and firmness

  that I’d built up in my well-hardened heart,

  but that’s just what my excess pride has brought me.

  Defense of any kind is too late now,

  except to measure how much or how little

  Love pays attention to our mortal prayers:

  and I don’t pray, since it’s impossible,

  that my poor heart might burn less furiously;

  I simply pray that she should share the fire!

  66

  The burdened air and unrelenting cloud

  compressed from without by the rabid winds

  must soon transform themselves into a rain;

  following that we’ll have crystalline rivers

  and instead of lush grass in the valleys

  there’ll be nothing to see but frost and ice.

  Down in my heart, which is colder than ice,

  lie heavy thoughts, the looming kind of cloud

  that rises sometimes from these hollow valleys,

  closed off all around from the loving winds,

  surrounded at times by stagnating rivers,

  while there falls from the sky the gentlest rain.

  It passes in almost no time, hard rain;

  and warmth takes care of the snow and the ice,

  which gives a proud appearance to the rivers;

  and no sky ever had so thick a cloud

  that when it encountered the fury of winds

  it didn’t flee from the hills and valleys.

  But I am not helped by the flowering valleys;

  I weep when it’s clear, I weep in the rain,

  and in freezing winds and in warming winds;

  on the day that my lady melts her ice

  and comes out of her veil, that usual cloud,

  the sea will be dry, and the lakes and rivers.

  As long as the sea receives the rivers

  and beasts still favor the shady valleys,

  she’ll have before her lovely eyes a cloud

  that makes my eyes give birth to constant rain,

  and her breast will be full of that hard ice

  that genders in mine such sorrowful winds.

  Well may I pardon each one of those winds

  for the love of one between two rivers,

  who shut me in green, and in the sweet ice,

  so that I’ve drawn, in a thousand valleys,

  the shade where I’ve been; neither heat nor rain

  can alarm me, nor sound of shattered cloud.

  But cloud never fled from the driving winds

  as on that day, or rivers from the rain,

  or ice when the sun opens the valleys.

  67

  By the Tyrrhenian Sea, on its left bank,

  where waves are shattered, crying in the wind,

  I suddenly caught sight of that high branch

  of which I have to write on many pages.

  And Love, that boiled within my breast just from

  the memory of her hair, was urging me

  ahead when suddenly I tumbled into

  a stream concealed by grass, like some dead body.

  Alone between the forest and the hills,

  I winced with shame; it doesn’t take much, really,

  to act upon a tender heart like mine.

  At least I’ve switched from wet eyes to wet feet:

  a change of style might prove to be useful

  if I can go dry-eyed through gracious April.

  68

  The sacred prospect of your city makes

  my evil past a matter for complaint,

  exclaiming: “Get up, wretch, what’s going on?”

  and shows the way that I could mount to Heaven.

  Another thought, however, jousts with this one,

  and says to me, “Why are you fleeing?

  Don’t you recall that this is near the time

  we should return and gaze upon our lady?”

  I hear his reasoning and turn to ice

  like one who suddenly has heard bad news

  and felt the shock run down and wring his heart.

  The first thought comes again, the second flees.

  I don’t know which will win, but I do know

  that’s how they fight, and not just this one time.

  69

  I know quite well that natural advice

  has never been much good against you, Love,

  so many little traps and phony promises,

  so often the fierce nip of your sharp claw.

  But lately, and I marvel at this fact

  (I speak of it as one who was involved,

  it happened to me on the salty seas

  between the rugged Tuscan coast and Elba),

  I got free of your hands and took a journey,

  a stranger and a pilgrim, incognito,

  whirled round by winds, among the waves and skies,

  when suddenly your ministers appeared

  as if to show me I can’t fight my fate

  and it’s no good to hide or run away.

  70

  Alas, I don’t know where to put the hope

  that now has been betrayed so many times!

  For if there are no listeners with pity,

  why crowd the heavens with such frequent prayers?

  But if it happens I don’t lose the chance

  to finish up these songs

  before my death comes round,

  may it not make my lord displeased to hear

  me say one day, among the grass and flowers:

  “It’s just and right that I rejoice and sing.”

  It stands to reason I should sing sometimes

  since I have sighed so often and so long,

  and it would take forever to make up

  smiles equivalent to all my sorrows.

  But if some verse of mine could give delight

  to those amazing eyes,

  some sweet thing I composed,

  oh, then I’d be above all other lovers!

  And further blessed when I might say sincerely:

  “A lady bids me, so I wish to speak.”

  My yearning thoughts, you’ve led me, step by step,

  to muse in such an elevated fashion:

  but look, my lady has a heart of stone

  so hard that I can never penetrate it.

  She doesn’t even deign to glance so low

  as to take note or heed

  our words; Heaven’s opposed,

  and I am worn out from opposing it,

  so hard and bitter I am well prepared to say:

  “I’m ready to be harsh now in my speech.”

  What am I saying? And where am I now?

  And who deceives me but myself and my

  inordinate desire? Scan the skies

  from sphere to sphere: no planet makes me weep.

  And if a mortal veil obscures my sight

  why blame that on the stars

  or any lovely thing?

  There’s one who lives in me both night and day

  and pains me, having weighed me down with pleasure:

  “Her presence sweet, her soft and lovely gaze.”

  All lovely things that help adorn our world

  came forth in goodness from the Maker’s hand:

  but I, who cannot see beyond the surface,

  am dazzled by the beauty right at hand,

  and if I ever manage to return

  to the true, first splendor

  I cannot keep it fixed

  because my eye is weakened by my guilt,

  not by the day it saw angelic beauty:

  “In the sweet season of my early youth.”

  71

  Because o
ur life is brief

  and my wit quails at this high enterprise,

  I do not have much confidence in either;

  but my pain will be known, I hope,

  there where I wish it understood, and where

  it must be heard, a pain cried out in silence.

  Amazing eyes, where Love has made his nest,

  I turn to you again: my feeble style,

  sluggish in itself, is driven by great joy;

  for anyone who speaks of you

  acquires noble habits from his subject,

  and lifts on wings of love,

  leaving ill thoughts behind him as he goes.

  Raised by such wings, I’ve come to you to say

  things I have carried hidden in my heart.

  Not that I do not see

  how much my praise does injury to you;

  but I cannot resist the great desire

  I’ve carried in me since

  I saw you first, saw what no thought can match,

  let alone speech, my speech or any other’s.

  First cause of my sweet bitter state,

  I know you are the one who understands me.

  When in your burning rays I melt like snow,

  your noble scorn, perhaps,

  finds my unworthiness to be offensive.

  Oh, if my prudent fear did not

  temper the burning fire that consumes me

  how much I’d welcome death! Under those rays,

  I’d rather die than have to live without them.

  That I am not undone,

  so frail an object in a fire so mighty,

  is not perhaps from any worth of mine;

  but just a little fear I have

  which chills the hot blood raging in my veins

  strengthens my heart that it may flame on longer.

  Oh hills, oh valleys, rivers, forests, fields,

  oh, you who’ve witnessed my unhappy life,

  how many times you’ve heard me call for death!

  Ah, destiny of sorrow,

  staying destroys me, fleeing does not help!

  But if a greater fear

  did not constrain, some short and speedy means

  would find a way to end this bitter anguish,

  the fault of someone totally indifferent.

  Sorrow, why do you lead me

  off of my path, to say what I don’t wish to?

  Please let me go where pleasure wants to take me.

  Oh, eyes serene beyond

  the mortal race, I don’t complain of you,

  nor yet of him whose knots have bound me fast.

  You can see clearly all the different colors

  that Love paints in my face from time to time

  and you can guess how he treats me, within,

  where day and night he stands

  with all the power he’s amassed from you,

  you lights both blessed and joyous

  except that you can never see yourselves,

  though when you turn my way you get some sense