Petrarch (102 page)

His world has stopped, and he finds himself on the underside deep in shadow, envying
Tithonus his Aurora.

1.
coming down the sky Aurora:
The dawn descending now rather than rising. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
XIII, the late myth of Aurora and Memnon, after Aurora is brought to her knees at
the death of her son. Cf. also Dante,
Purgatorio
X, 1–3.

2.
roses… gold:
Aurora resembles Lauras loving aspect, radiating now from Venus. In a sonnet to Sennuccio
del Bene excluded from the manuscript, Petrarch spoke of loving this “beautiful Aurora”
as if she were a new inspiration.

4.
Laura is there:
A play on the word
l’aurora.
Cf. 219.5–8 and notes.

5.
you know when its time:
At night when Aurora rejoins Tithonus.

7.
with my sweet laurel:
She who flourished in the day and now rests at night, unlike Tithonus.

9.
aren’t so difficult to take:
Do not last an eternity.

11.
despise your head of white:
Reject you for your reputed loss of ardor.

12.
she darkens:
“Discoloring,” as if the sun had withdrawn.

14.
only her name:
Like a puzzle, this sonnet hides the treasure of her name among its many images.

Laura is dead but he lives on, like a verse line he cannot finish.

4.
made me different:
Set him apart, somewhere between Laura and the rest of the world.

6.
lightning flash:
Cf. 181.10.

9.
And I still live:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
X, 855: “Nunc vivo, neque adhuc homines lucemque relinquo” (Mezentius after the death
of his son).

13.
dry is the vein:
Unnourished by her living presence. Cf. 230.9 and 288.9–14.

14.
my lyre … playing tears:
La cetera mia,
his song an echoing refrain of grief. Cf. Job 30:31, “Versa est in luctum cithara
mea.”

This sonnet, cited as evidence that Petrarch disparaged his love poems, continues
the theme of redundancy and irrelevancy taken up in poems 290–292.

2.
so dear:
So valued, that is, profitable. Cf. 360.81.

6.
summit of my thoughts:
Laura ruled his imagination.

7.
no longer sweet:
Polished.

8.
rough and dark:
His true feelings now.

10.
somehow:
Spontaneously, because his love was fresh and fervent.

11.
not to win myself some fame:
Not to please with their sweetness.

12.
not honor:
He did not think of his love songs as earning him a place in Heaven.

13.
I would gladly please:
Resume the writing of polished love songs, if he could.

14.
silent:
With nothing more that’s pleasing to say.

This and the next two sonnets are similarly constructed, taking the form of a review
of his work.

1.
would fill my heart:
In his young life she and his heart were one.

2.
a great lady in a poor and humble home:
Cf. poem 4.

4.
but dead, and she a goddess:
Now the two are radically split (the word
diva
making her more divided from him than ever).

7.
out of pity:
Cf. 286.14.

8.
no one can explain or write:
Cf. 283.12 and 286.5.

9.
they lament within:
Love and his soul silenced by her death and the passing of time.

12–14.
In truth
… :
He declares three harsh truths in this tercet, illustrating how “stripped bare” of
hope he is.

nothing but dust and shadow:
An expression found in the Psalms, Genesis, and Job. Cf. also Horace,
Odes
IV, 7,16: “Pulvis et umbra sumus.”

He turns another side to the light, making Laura the object of his thoughts rather
than the subject. The rhyme scheme
abab, baab
appears one other time, in poem 210.

2.
softly sweet converse:
Remembering the good that she inspired and his “bit of happiness.”

their object:
Separate from himself.

4.
perhaps:
He sought explanations for her disappearance, remaining, in the main, hopeful.

7.
sees and hears andfeels:
As if she were still fully alive, existing in time.

9–11.
Oh gracious miracle:
Laura alive was proof to him of Providence.

12.
crown and palm:
The laurel crown is the symbol of poetic triumph, the palm, of victory over self.
Cf. 359.49.

13.
famous in the world:
Because of her example.

14.
my own mad passion:
His
furor.
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
IV, 101: “Ardet amans Dido, traxitque per ossa furorem.”

This sonnet, the third in this series, returns to the old theme of love’s prison.

1.
I often would accuse:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXI, 76, speaking of Nimrod: “His words accuse him.”

4.
blow … enclosed:
The original wound dealt his heart by Love, hidden from the world.

6–8.
bright thread/… golden arrow:
An underlying conceit of this sonnet is its interconnection of root words, in
fuso, troncaste, attorcea, stame, laccio, morte.
Together they create a dense layering of metaphors, as if he were using all the arrows
in his quiver at once.

6.
spindle:
Clotho spins the thread of life, Lachesis determines the length of it, and Atropos
cuts it off.

6–7.
soft, bright thread/ around my bonds:
Laura’s insinuating beauty around the chains of his love.

7.
rare golden arrow:
Laura’s glance that enamored him and set his unique love in motion.

8.
beyond all limits:
Referring to the connection between love and death, in which the poet finds metaphoric
freedom.

12.
choosing rather to moan:
Literally, “to draw moans” from himself and perhaps from others.

14.
such a knot:
All the curbs he must put on himself in order to serve her.

Although the lovely form of Laura is “scattered and disjoined” from her blessed soul
by death, he follows the advice of Love in poem 268 and consecrates her name.

1.
Two formidable rivals:
Cf. Ovid,
Heroides XVI,
288; and Juvenal,
Satires
X, 297.

2.
in such concordance:
Reconciled. Cf. 112.7.

3.
conflict in her holy soul:
Of Beauty against Chastity (
onestà
). The joining of the words
anima santa
has not occurred before.

5.
scattered and disjoined:
Cf. poems 261 and 262, where he combined these qualities first in Laura and then
in Lucretia.

6.
one is in Heaven:
Chastity.

7.
one under ground:
Beauty, her body
sotterra.

8.
darts of love:
Reproving glances. Cf. 229.8 for another use of
punta.

10.
came from a high place:
From high intellect (Leopardi).

11.
it still shows signs:
She still excites his desire.

To demonstrate what happens when mind is sundered from body, he finds only harsh disparities
as far back as the first day.

2.
scattered all my thoughts:
In verses sent out to the world one by one.

3.
in which I, freezing, burned:
The line intentionally weakens the impact of his well-known image, the icy fire,
by being once-removed from feeling in its syntax (“e spento ’l foce ove agghiacciando
io arsi”).

4.
ended my repose:
The conflicts of youth were heaven compared to experiences he has now.

so full of woes:
For a more felicitous use of this antithesis, see 61.5.

5.
broken the faith of amorous deceptions:
Gone is the hope that his faith will ultimately be read in these love poems.

8.
painful gains:
Purgatorial.

9.
so very naked:
Without the beauty and wholeness of her body to give force to his words.

10.
that I envy:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
III, 48.

11.
fear and suffer:
That his life may end in this low state.

13.
O Day:
6 April.

He concludes his retrospective with a lament rising out of his extreme misery, yet
with some of the old music of desire.

1.
Where is:
The word
ov’è
repeated four times at the beginning of each stanza corresponds to the repetition
of
quanta
in the next sonnet. On the page together the two sonnets create an intriguing graphic
effect.

the brow:
The high source of his inspiration, like that of a god or goddess.

slightest movement:
Change of expression.

3.
lovely lashes and two stars:
He moves downward over the contours of her face. Cf. poem 157.

5.
valor:
Of Lauras courageous words. Cf. poem 156.

9.
gracious image of a face:
Her human face beneath the divine brow.

12.
had me in her hand:
Held his heart. Cf. 23.72–74.

13–14.
How much …/… miss her now:
As if weighing his lack of worth, as well as the loss of her worth, in that hand.

Seeking signs of her in his visible surroundings and unyielding Heaven, he feels death
beckoning to him through the memory of her eyes. This sonnet appears in Vat. Lat.
3196 with an inscription dated 9 April 1359 that refers to sending it, along with
poem 305, to a friend the following 8 October.

1.
How much:
Cf. note to 299.1.

the greedy earth:
That hides away her beauty.

3.
begrudging me the air:
Holding hostage the “aria” that once surrounded her person.

4.
settled for peace:
Cf. 285.14.

5.
Heaven, that holds and locks:
Cf. “begrudging me the air.”

6.
greedily has gathered:
As if coveting her.

8.
rarely unlocks itself:
The souls admitted to Heaven are elected by birth, according to a late doctrine of
St. Augustine. He fears he is not one of them.

13.
my very life:
The breath of Laura.

14.
lives in her lovely eyes:
He envies her the power to die.

He turns once again to Vaucluse for serenity, beauty, and joy, although he cannot
share in it.

1.
so filled:
Echoing back and forth unheeded.

4.
contained between green shores:
Free to feed within limits.

5.
warmed and cleared:
By his harsh passion. This sonnet has struck commentators as being more fit for the
commedia dell’arte
because of its vulgarity (Carducci).

6.
sweet path:
To Avignon.

7.
hill… now displeases me:
Reversing 290.1–2: “Now I’m charmed and pleased / by what displeased me most.”

9.
usual traces:
The lovely shapes of Laura.

11.
home of endless grief:
Emptied of sweet desire.

12.
with these steps:
Following the sweet path backward.

14.
lovely spoils:
Her body.

One of the most admired of Petrarch’s sonnets, this “ecstatic vision” concludes with
a question that draws the spirit downward to ground level.

3.
in the third sphere:
Among the elite of virtuous lovers. Cf. poem 287.

4.
more lovely, less proud:
Lovelier for being blessed, less proud because she bent to extend this courtesy to
him.

6.
desire unerring:
When he so chooses to redirect his steps.

be with me again:
Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XXXII, 101.

7.
fight so hard:
Made him war within himself with errant desire.

8.
before night came:
Before she declined into old age.

11.
my lovely veil:
Her body, awaiting the Resurrection. Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XIV, 61 ff.

12.
drop my hand:
As if he were no longer worthy.

14.
never leaving Heaven:
Dying, his desire spent and his dream dissipated.

Summoning thoughts of Vaucluse from a time when he ranked higher in Love’s estimation,
he blames destiny for the impoverished state he is in.

3.
settle all our old accounts:
Love owed him something for having sold him short.

5.
blooms
…
Petrarch squeezes sixteen syllables into eleven beats here by ingenious use of elision,
similar to this line by Arnaut Daniel: “Er vei vermeills, vertz, blaus, blancs, gruocs
Vergiers, plaus, plais, tertres e vaus.”