by David Young
Caesar and Jove were never so much moved
Casting your eyes upon my strange new pallor
Charlemagne’s inheritor, who wears
Clear waters, fresh and sweet
Could I portray the gentle breeze of sighs
Cruel star (if heavens have indeed the power
Death has no way to make her sweet face bitter
Death has put out the sun that dazzled me;
Death, you have left this poor world cold and dark
Desire spurs me on, Love guides and escorts
Diana’s form did not delight her lover
Each day seems longer than a thousand years
Father of Heaven, after days now lost
Flame of my soul, lovely beyond all beauty
For any animal who dwells on earth
For seventeen long years the heavens have rolled
Fountain of sorrow, dwelling place of anger
From ice that’s clear, alive, and smooth and shining
From the most lovely eyes, the brightest face
From thought to thought, from peak to mountain peak
From time to time it seems her form and smile
From wicked Babylon, that’s lost all shame
Full of one longing thought that sends me far
Full of that sweet ineffable delight
“Gaze on that hill, my tired, yearning heart:
Gentle, my lady, I can see
Geri, when my sweet enemy gets angry
Give me my peace, oh, all you cruel thoughts!
Glorious Column, raising up our hope
Go, doleful rhymes, and visit the hard stone
Go forth, hot sighs, and reach to her cold heart
“Go on and weep, my eyes: accompany
Gorging and sleep and lounging on pillows
Graces that bounteous Heaven grants to few
Green garments, blood red, black, or purple
Hannibal won but later did not know
“Happy and pensive, in company, alone
Here where I half exist, my dear Sennuccio
Her golden hair was loosened to the breeze
Her lovely paleness made a cloud of love
He who decides to entrust his life
He who showed endless providence and art
However many lovely, graceful ladies
How many times, in flight and seeking refuge
How many times Love has instructed me:
How many times, using my faithful guides
How much I envy you, you greedy earth
How this world goes! For what upset me once
I am so weary from my ancient bundle
I can’t be silent, yet I fear my tongue
I’d like to take revenge on her, whose gaze
I do not tire, Lady, of my love
I don’t see anymore how to escape;
I’d sing of Love in such a novel fashion
I fear their fierce attack, those lovely eyes
I feed my mind upon a food so noble
I feel the ancient aura, and I see
If fair desire’s still alive, Apollo
If faithfulness in love, a heart sincere
If fire never puts a fire out
If Homer and then Virgil had but seen
If I could get my thoughts down in these verses
If I could hope by death to free myself
If I do not deceive myself too much
If I’d remained within that selfsame cave
If I had known that sighs turned into rhyme
If I hear birds lamenting, or green leaves
I find no peace, and yet I am not warlike;
If I said that, then may the one whose love
If it’s not love, what is it then I feel?
I fled the prison in which Love had held me
If Love and Death don’t manage to cut short
If Love does not come up with some new counsel
I fly so often on the wings of thought
If my life can withstand this bitter torment
If that much-honored branch that shelters us
If that sweet glance of hers can murder me
If the rock mainly shuts this valley
If the thoughts that hurt me
If virtuous love is worthy, still, of mercy
If you got free by any strange behavior—
I go around in tears about my past
I knew (since Heaven cleared my eyes so much
I know quite well that natural advice
I listen still, and still I hear no news
I lived quite well contented with my fate
I’ll always hate the window from which Love
I make my plaint before the queen who rules
I’m never going to look with tranquil mind
I’m so defeated by this endless wait
I’m weary now of thinking how my thoughts
In doubt about my state I weep, I sing
I never saw the sun come up so fair
I never wish to sing the way I used to
In just a single day I have been shown
In noble blood a quiet, humble life
Inside my heart I felt my spirits dying
In that direction where I’m spurred by Love
In the age of her lovely flowering
In the sweet season of my early youth
I sang and now I weep; and from my weeping
I saw a maiden underneath a laurel
I saw, among a thousand ladies, one
I saw on earth angelic attributes
I seem to hear, each hour, in my ear
Italy, my Italy, though speech cannot
I thought by now perhaps that I could live
I thought I had the skill to soar in flight
It is so weak, the thread by which it hangs
It was the day the sun himself grew pale
It was the time to find a peace or truce
I used to leave the fountain of my life
I’ve always loved, I go on loving still
I’ve always sought a solitary life—
I’ve begged Love before, and beg him again
I’ve filled the whole surrounding air with sighs
I’ve never been where I could see more clearly
I’ve never seen you put aside your veil
I’ve now passed through my sixteenth year of sighs
I walk in thought, and in my thoughts I am
I wanted once to shape such just laments
I wept and now I sing, because that sun
Just as eternal life means seeing God
Lady, now living in our Maker’s presence
Latona’s son had looked nine times already
Life-giving sun, you loved that branch at first
—“Life is most precious, so it seems to me
Life runs on by and does not pause an hour
Love, Fortune, and my mind—which now avoids
Love fires up my heart with ardent zeal
Love helped me sail into a tranquil harbor
Love, I do wrong and see that I do wrong
Love, let us pause to contemplate our glory
Love opened my left side with his right hand
Love sends me that sweet thought, the one which is
Love sets me up, a target for his arrows
Love spreads out in the grass a graceful net
Love spurs me on and reins me in at once
Love’s put me in the grasp of fair, cruel arms
Love that lives and reigns in all my thoughts
Love took me in with all his promises
Love used to cry, and I would cry with him
Love, you who can see clearly all my thoughts
Lucky, happy flowers, and well-born grass
Maybe Love makes her drop her lovely eyes
May fire from Heaven rain down on your tresses
Mind, you foresaw your pains and injuries
More fortunate than any ot
her earth
My enemy, in whom you watch your eyes
My eyes, intense and heavy with desire
My eyes, our sun’s gone dark; or rather say
My face and hair are changing, day by day
My faithful mirror tells me very often
My flowering green age was passing by
My fortune kindly and my life so joyful
My fourteenth year of sighs: if its beginning
My galley, loaded with forgetfulness
My good luck is both late and very sluggish;
My ills oppress me; I’m terrified by worse
My lady used to visit me in sleep
My luck, along with Love, had blessed me so
My mad desire has gone so far astray
My sacred aura breathes so often, in
My soft and gentle comforter arrives
My sweet and dear and greatly cherished pledge
My thoughts would once chat softly to themselves
My thought transported me to where she was
My weary eyes, when I direct you toward
Nature, and Love, and that sweet, humble soul
Never did tender mother her dear son
New song and weeping by the birds at daybreak
Noble spirit, you who rule those limbs
No matter where I turn my weary eyes
No ship that ever landed, weather-racked
No sparrow on a roof was as alone
Not from the Spanish river Ebro to
No tired helmsman ever fled to port
Not just that single naked hand
Not lovely stars that wander through clear skies
Not Tesin, Po, Varo, Arno, Adige, Tiber
Now look at this, Love: how a youthful woman
Now that the heavens, earth, and winds are silent
Now when I listen to you speak, so sweetly
Now you have done the worst you can accomplish
Now Zephyrus returns, bringing fine weather
Oh, blessed and lovely soul, which Heaven waits for
Oh day, oh hour, oh, the final moment
Oh, Death, you have stained the loveliest face
Oh, Envy, you old enemy of virtue
Oh, fresh and shady, flowering green hill
Oh, glances sweet and little words of wisdom
Oh, happy spirit that so sweetly governed
Oh, little room that used to be a haven
Oh, lovely hand that grasps my heart, enclosing
Oh, noble spirit warm with burning virtue
Oh, put me where the sun kills flowers and grass
Oh, scattered steps, oh, ardent, craving thoughts
Oh, time, oh, fickle heavens, wheeling past
Oh, valley echoing with my laments
Oh, woe, Love takes me where I do not wish
Oh, wretched vision, horrid likelihood!
Once I accused myself, now I excuse
One day as I stood gazing from my window
Out of what mine did Love extract the gold
Po, you can bear my outer shell along
Pursued by Love to my accustomed place
Rapacious Babylon has stuffed her sack
Right through the midst of savage, hostile woods
Sennuccio, just see how I am treated here
She comes to mind (or rather say that she
She sojourned in my heart, alive and fair
Should any lady look for lasting fame
Since it’s my destiny
Since Mercy’s road is closed to me, I’ve come
Since what I hope for is so long in coming
Since you and I have proved so frequently
Some animals there are with eyes so strong
Something that, both in color and in fragrance
Sometime near dawn there rises a sweet aura
Sometimes, ashamed that I have not been rhyming
Some will assume that in my praise of her
Sorrow and love propelled this tongue of mine
Sun bathes his golden chariot in the sea
Sweet angers, sweet disdains, sweet peace accords
Swifter than any deer my days have fled
Swift river, coming from your Alpine source
That always cruel and yet honored day
That burning knot which, hour after hour
That dreadful lord whom we can’t flee or hide from
That fire which I thought had spent itself
That light that blinds, even when far away
That nightingale who weeps so tenderly
That time a tree had fallen, seemingly
That window where one sun is visible
That yearning, sweet, dear, virtuous gaze of hers
The aura and the fragrance and the coolness
The breeze that softly sighs and moves among
The burdened air and unrelenting cloud
The chosen angels and the blessed souls
The closer that I come to the last day
The column’s broken, the green laurel’s down
The day, the month, the year, oh, bless them all
The golden feathers that surround her white
The gold, the pearls, the flowers red and white
The gracious lady whom you loved so much
The heavenly breeze that sighs in that green laurel
The high, new miracle that in our time
The lady whom my heart is always watching
The last, alas, of all my happy days
The longed-for virtue that was flowering in you
The man whose hands were ready to turn Thessaly
The more I spread my wings, filled with desire
The noble tree I’ve loved so many years
Then when my heart was eaten by love’s worms
The one for whom I traded Sorgue for Arno
There may have been a time when love was sweet
There never was a lake or river, Orso
The sacred prospect of your city makes
The sea has fewer fish among its waves
The soft breeze spreads and vibrates in the sunlight
The star of love was flaming in the East
The stars, the heavens, and the elements
The sun that showed me how to get to Heaven
The sweet hill country where I left myself
The time is gone, alas, when I could live
The time so short, the thought so swift that brings
The tranquil breeze that passes, murmuring
The way a simple butterfly, in summer
This frail and brittle goodness that we cherish
This humble wild thing, with tiger’s heart, or bear’s
This noble breeze that clears the hills again
This noble soul that starts to move away
Those eyes I spoke about so heatedly
Those lovely eyes that hurt me are the only
Those verses full of pity where I saw
Though you have left me, my Sennuccio
To make a graceful one his sweet vendetta
Toward the sweet shadow of those lovely leaves
To wish for evening and to hate the dawn
Tree of victorious triumph, crowning both
Twelve ladies chastely resting at their ease
Twenty-one years Love held me in the fire
Two great opponents were united once:
Two lovely eyes, brimming with virtue’s sweetness:
Two roses, freshly picked in Paradise
Use one of these to rest your cheek, my lord
Wandering bird that can continue singing
Weep, ladies, weep, and let Love weep as you do;
“What are you doing, soul? What do you think?
What are you doing? Thinking? Why look still
What destiny of mine, what force, what trick
What do I do? Can you advise me, Love?
Whatever’s strange and rare
What fear I feel when I recall that day
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What fortune was it that from those two eyes
What part of Heaven was it, what Idea
What pity, ah, what angel was so swift
When Alexander saw the famous tomb
When I am turned around to see the place
When I breathe out my sighs and call your name
When I recall the time and place where I
When I see dawn descending from the sky
When I think back upon that gentle glance
When I turn round to scan those recent years
When Love, alas, decides to reassault me
When my desire, which rides me hard and rules me
When now and then among the other ladies
When Simon came upon that high conceit
When sun, the planet marking off the hours
When the Egyptian traitor handed him
When through my eyes, down to my deepest heart
Where is that brow that with the smallest sign
White-haired and pale, the old man takes his leave
Whoever wants to see what Heaven and Nature
With food my lord always provides profusely—
You breezes that surround those curling tresses
You, Love, who stayed with me in happy times
Your charger, Orso, can be given reins
You seem to show me, Love, that you would like
You soul in bliss, who often come to me
You, Soul, who see so many different things
PRAISE FOR
The Poetry of Petrarch
“To read love poetry—to speak of the language of love—is to read Petrarch, who is largely responsible for inventing what W. B. Yeats called ‘the old high way of love.’ David Young has made the old way new again: his translation is limpid, uncluttered, rhythmically alive, and, above all, readable. Lovers of poetry will discover here the language they have spoken all their lives.”
—JAMES LONGENBACH
“David Young’s new version of Petrarch makes this great poet seem closer to us than before, both in language and as a living presence. His marginal comments and introduction help to convey a coherent sense of Petrarch the man, his life, and the myth he made of it.”
—W. S. MERWIN
“True love—or rather, the truest—is always obsessive and unrequited. No one has better dramatized how it scorches the heart and fires the imagination than Petrarch did, centuries ago. He dipped his pen in tears and wrote the poems that have shaped our sense of love—its extremes of longing and loss—ever since. Now in David Young’s elegant new versions, his songs are as soaring and searing as ever. Indeed, not only is this a vibrant translation for our day but, their immense range slowly savored, these poems will also sound anew the depths of each reader’s own heart.”