Petrarch (109 page)

7.
had no equal:
Her glory was so great that it killed desire for a successor. Cf. 180.5–8 and 338.8
ff.

9.
all that I can do:
Love has no jurisdiction, for her model and successor cannot be found in this world.

10.
all good counsel:
Cf. poems 279, 285, 286, 330, and 342.

13.
let this suffice:
The memory of her form. Biagioli commented: “Now he touches on the beauty of her
body; and however limited the space and innumerable the things to be described, Love
hints at them, so that the desiring mind, through a thousand seductive images, arrives
at the source of the one greatest beauty.”

This poem was originally numbered 338. The time is past for him to achieve the kind
of glory in which merely breathing the sound of her name caused the soul to soar.

2.
deceive us… mortals:
Conceive us in a state of hope and innocence, and then take it away.

4.
ab experto:
A Tuscan folk expression meaning, “learned from experience,” adapted from ecclesiastical
Latin.

your frauds:
Cf. 253.7: “O closed betrayal and loving kind of fraud.”

5.
I accuse myself:
Who might have chosen differently. Cf. 296.1.

7.
eyes which I fixed:
He remained earthbound. Cf. 325.46–53.

10.
in a more secure direction:
Toward a higher goal.

12.
Not from your yoke, Love:
The pursuit and love of virtue and beauty.

13.
from my harms:
The weakness of his body.

you know with what effort:
Spoken ironically,
ab experto.

14.
virtues no accident:
Words taken from Seneca,
Epistles
XXIX: “Non est ars quae ad effectum casu venit.”

This poem was orignially numbered 352. Love and memories of Laura’s divine compassion
return to gnaw at his consciousness.

1.
Into my weary sleep:
His deserved rest. In poem 355 he proposed an end to the struggle.

my sacred aura:
The spirit of Laura reaching him in dream.

2.
I become courageous:
Daring, as in 351.10.

3.
tell her of the ills:
The “harms” of poem 355.

4.
were she still living:
When such intimacy was forbidden. Cf. 351.1: “Sweet sternness and repulses calmly
dealt.”

7.
I follow then:
A droll echo of Dante, who used this technique of carefully mapping out the story
line in
Vita nuova.
He will tell the whole story, leaving nothing out.

8.
Love gnawed at me:
How he suffered from a pain that wouldn’t go away—his desire.

9.
She is silent:
Mute, as she has been throughout, save for those words she has spoken in his imaginings.

colored with pity:
Identical words were used in 26.3 where Dante was echoed.

10.
her look fixed all on me:
Laura existed for him alone, as Beatrice did for Dante. Cf. 355.7–8.

11.
tears, sincere:
Cf. 343.14: “her eyes and both her cheeks bathed in her tears.”

12–14.
and then
… :
The entire history of his love since their first exchange of glances in poem 3 is
compressed into these lines.

This poem was originally numbered 353. Laura’s tears of poem 356 are forgotten in
the light of day, which finds the poet strengthened for the journey ahead.

1.
Each day:
Tassoni noted the humble tone of this colloquialism, which raises again the subject
of last days.

4.
by better roads:
Cf. 355.10: “in a more secure direction.”

life without a care:
That is, death.

7.
shines down into my heart:
In poem 277 this light was blocked by a veil of sorrow.

8.
count my time and losses:
He makes a balance sheet of his life.

10.
the King:
Cf. Rev. 19:16, “Rex regum et dominus dominantium.”

12.
entered each vein:
Threats of death strengthened her because of belief in the transubstantiation of
the blood of Christ. The phrasing echoes Dante,
Purgatorio
XXIII, 74–75.

14.
did not seem to trouble her clear brow:
If Laura died fearless, in the manner of Christ, why not he?

This poem was originally numbered 354. The final sonnet in a series of twenty-six,
this sonnet finds him ready to welcome the coming of death as Laura did before him.

3.
To die:
Literally, to die well (
morir ben
), the subject of numerous poems; cf. 59.15, 86.4, 152.14, 171.4, 135.81, 207.65–91,
and 331.43–44.

what need:
A clear grammatical error here echoes Boccaccio,
Decameron
IX, 3: “Ci bisogna … tre paia di buoni capponi,” the tale of Calandrino buying the
farm (Carducci).

5.
not stingy:
What might be called a back-handed compliment. Cf. 353.11.

6.
broke the gates of Tartar:
Referring to the Harrowing of Hell, in pseudoepigraphical works Christ’s act of delivering
the blessed from the Underworld and blocking the dead from their sight. Dante worked
this event into the narrative structure of his
Inferno.

7.
it seems I take my strength:
He is not sure, but he hopes.

8.
So come Death:
Cf.
Vita nuova
XXIII.

10.
were it not:
Corresponding to “it seems” in line 7, a note of doubt.

13.
with her I lived:
In his imaginings of Heaven.

14.
ended my day:
His moment in the sun.

This poem was originally numbered 355. Laura descends to his bedside to comfort him
one more time. Carducci and Chiari dated this poem “molti anni dopo 1348.” It was
added to Vat. Lat. 3195 in the last year of Petrarch’s life.

1.
faithful comforter:
Laura, because she has never deserted him. Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XVIII, 16.

3.
on my left side:
The side of his heart. Such a sign augured well in ancient Roman times (Chiari).

5.
in my anguish, and in fear:
In reaction to her appearance, fear that he must ready himself for death.

7–8.
little branch of palm / and a laurel one:
See lines 48 ff.

8.
from her fair bosom:
She appears in the flesh as she was in life.

10.
Empyrean:
The highest heaven where God dwells. Petrarch no longer speaks of Venus, the Third
Heaven.

10–11.
from those holy parts /I came:
His personal angel, moved by divine concern.

12.
With words and gestures:
Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
III, 94.

13.
humbly and then I ask:
He strikes a tone of one eager to be instructed.

14–17.
The doleful waves:
Not even Heaven, seat of eternal happiness, is out of reach of his verse. Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
XLI, 1–4.

17.
disturb my peace:
Cf. Statius,
Sylvae
VI, 96: “Quid caram crucias tarn saevis luctibus umbram?”

26.
a thing he sees up close:
Knows by intense study.

30.
had not been preordained:
Laura alive, so obviously one of the elect, was reason enough to believe in the existence
of Heaven. Cf. Rom. 8:30, “Quos assumpsit, hos praedestinavit, hos et vocavit; et
quos vocavit, hos et justificavit; quos autem justificavit, illos et glorificavit.”

36.
an infant in my crib:
He would stop history before it took a turn for the worse. Cf. Propertius II, 13:
“Arque utinam primis animan me ponere cunis lussisset quaevis de tribus una soror.”

37.
love’s tempering:
The icy fire of desire.

38.
Why do you struggle:
Distempre
renders impotent the effect of love’s tempering. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XXX, 91–97.

41.
vain chattering:
His discourses on love and death.

44.
gathering one of these branches:
The palm and the laurel that she holds out to him.

46.
what implications:
What weight of meaning is carried by these words?

47.
You can answer for yourself:
She chides him for playing dumb.

48.
one of them:
The laurel.

49.
The palm is victory:
The palm, a symbol of reconciliation, was the Tree of Life in Babylonian times. Christ’s
followers went out to meet him carrying palm boughs when he entered Jerusalem victorious,
riding on a donkey. Cf. John 12:12 and 16:33.

50–51.
laurel means/ triumph:
Castelvetro noted, “enjoyment of the victory, then, that another has won.” Her virtue
was a blessing which he then used to advantage in his verse. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
VII, 4: “ossaque nomen Hesperia in magna, si qua est ea gloria, signat.”

52.
who gave me strength enough:
Whose life was not “distempered” by love.

53.
if you’re being forced:
Sforza,
like
distempre
(line 38), undoes the effect of
forza
in the preceding line. Earthly love dissipates energy, heavenly love concentrates
it.

56.
blond hair and the golden knot:
His own words, arousing his desire. Cf. poem 90.

58.
Do not err:
Laura scolds. In
Purgatorio
XXXIII, 28–33, Dante the pilgrim exhibits a similar inappropriate response when Beatrice
comes near, and she admonishes him.

60.
I’m naked spirit:
To paraphrase 23.83, what he sees before him, then, is not what she is, perhaps.

63.
I am allowed to seem so:
Divine pity moved Laura to his bedside in the guise of her mortal form.

64.
shall be, still lovelier:
When her body is restored at the Resurrection.

65.
once so harsh and kind:
She was once the instrument of divine love’s tempering, strengthening him through
pity and fear.

70.
shattered stone to pieces:
Cf. 304.14 and 341.44.

71.
as does my sleep:
He awakens from his dream. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
XV, 25: “Post ea discedunt pariter somnusque deusque.”

This poem was originally numbered 356. Petrarch’s most openly humorous canzone, it
is an ingenious defense of a life spent pursuing the whole truth in the service of
his lady. The lover defends himself against Love before the Court of Justice; Reason
listens to both sides and having heard, smiles and withholds her final opinion. A
model for this form has been found in the Book of Job.

1.
old… sweet… cruel:
Petrarch begins in a lawyerly manner with this elaborate bow toward his adversary.

2.
I had called to the justice:
Summoned Love to court in order to weigh his life in a more accurate balance.

4.
sitting at its summit:
Reason. Cf. Cicero,
Tusculum I
, 10: “Plato triplicem finxit animum, cuius principatum, idest rationem, in capite,
sicut in arce, posuit.” The other two cognitive faculties in the Platonic scheme are
Sense and the Imagination. When the “queen” sees all three aspects of an argument
simultaneously, she speaks from insight.

5.
gold… refined in flames:
The worth of the poet’s soul will be measured by the truth scavenged from his painful
experience of life. Cf. Wisdom of Solomon 3:6, speaking of the souls of the just:
“Tamquam aurum in fornace probavit illos.”

8.
begs for justice:
For a true understanding of the nature of his guilt.

9.
my left foot:
Cf. poem 67 and Dante,
Inferno
I, 30. The traditional ecclesiastical reading for
manco piede
is sexual deviation, although Petrarch’s wanderings off the safe track have taken
the classical form of philosophical inquiry, ironic in nature.

11.
scorn and anger:
Her honest love turned to disdain when base desire took control of him.

15.
then I hated life:
Cf. poems 323 and 332.

17–18.
good and useful/paths:
In normal human pursuit of peace and safety.

20.
what wit has the words:
A variation on 339.12.

21.
all my unhappiness:
To tell his entire life history, the whole story.

24.
honey scarce:
Too few joys, in sum, expressed in poems of praise that might bring about his redemption.

vinegar and aloe:
Too much bitterness expressed in his poems of suffering and righteous blame that
might lead to his purgation.

31–32.
made me love my God/less:
Because he invested all his thoughts in her.

34.
I care for nothing.
He has become neutral in this war.

35.
In that… counselor:
Love of truth often obliged him to seek a variety of advice: for example, that of
Glory in poem 119, of Love himself in poem 268, of Fortune in poem 325, and of Laura
in poem 359.