Petrarch (110 page)

36.
my young desire:
Springing up even now in his suit before Reason.

37.
cruel whetstone:
On which he sharpened the blade of his political wit. Cf. Horace,
Odes
II, 8,14: “Ferus et Cupido semper ardentes acuens sagittas cote cruenta.”

38.
fierce, bitter yoke:
Laboring in Love’s service.

39.
high, bright intellect:
Altero
suggests that Petrarch speaks tongue in cheek.

40.
other gifts:
Eloquence, for example, and physical beauty. Cf. “Letter to Posterity.”

42.
I cannot turn:
He is intransigent, a living representation of the compulsive force of Love.

44.
I am despoiled:
Stripped bare, revealed.

45.
sweet habit:
To expose the ties, the chains, the knots and coils of Love in his verse.

46–55.
He made me search
…:
A brief summation of his sufferings described paradoxically as flights of seeking.

46.
wilderness:
Carducci thought he referred to Germany.

47.
rapacious thieves:
Identified elsewhere as Love, Death, and Time.

50.
the mountains
… :
The metaphorical paths he has taken through the lore and language of all these regions
“in exile” from Tuscany. The fact that Petrarch traveled through Europe all his life
adds another dimension to these lines.

52.
winter in strange months:
Despair following the death of Laura in April 1348, out of season because she died
in full bloom.

54.
this one or my other foe:
Neither Love nor Laura.

55.
a single moment:
Punto,
as in a sense of painful pleasure that is never absent.

66.
no bell has sounded:
Sonò … squilla
suggests both a tolling of the hours and a sharp summons. Cf. 53.55,109.6, and 143.7.

69.
worm gnaw at old wood:
Remorse and pity feed on an old man because he has softened.

74.
and others, too:
The real targets of his criticism who have been suffering his attacks for years.

76.
My adversary bitterly reproaching:
Love, the prosecutor.

79.
I shall tell you entirely:
Point for point, leaving nothing out. Cf. Job 21, where Job refutes his friends’
arguments one by one.

81.
selling little words, or rather lies:
Like an unscrupulous lawyer, in order to have his way with Laura. Petrarch studied
law until the death of his father in 1326, when he turned to ecclesiastical studies
and poetry.

83.
boredom … delights:
From the practice of “law” to love poetry.

84–85.
pure and clean:
Showed him his desire’s true goal—virtue—behind the veil of worldly entanglements.

87.
in a sweet life which he calls misery:
Reversing line 83, so that
dolce vita
becomes
noia
in the lover’s mind.

88.
risen to some fame:
Fame which so quickly changes to infamy.

90.
risen on its own:
Without a knowledge of Love’s action through all history. Cf. line 1.

91.
Achilles… Atrides:
Achilles’ favorite slave girl, Briseis, was stolen from him by Agamemnon (Atrides),
arousing Achilles’ vengeful wrath against the Greeks in the Trojan War.

92.
Hannibal:
Who took vengeance on the Romans.

93.
and another:
Scipio Africanus the Elder, hero of Petrarch’s
Africa.

96.
fall in base love:
Hannibal reputedly with a prostitute in Puglia, Scipio with a handmaiden.

97.
for this one:
The poet, whose similarity to these heroes lies in his vengeful anger.

100.
had Lucretia back:
The exemplary heroine of poems 260 and 263.

106.
wormwood:
Cf. the “vinegar and aloe” of line 24. This and Laura’s scorn had a salutary effect
on him. Cf. poem 351, where he acknowledges this himself.

107.
full joy of other women:
An allusion to the love of slave girls mentioned above.

108.
good seed rotten fruit:
Love seeded him with Laura’s example and was rewarded with ingratitude.

111.
knights and ladies:
An allusion to lines 17–18: “how many good and useful paths I disdained….” Love gave
him a choice; he could have remained in the safety of the orthodox, basking in fame,
rather than flying in the face of it as he did overtly and covertly in his numerous
attacks on “the world”—an expression for the court in Petrarch’s time.

113.
among the brilliant wits:
These are not unlike women who grant full joys in line 107, since they did not require
his self-sacrifice, as Laura did. Petrarch includes in his satire certain members
of the learned and cultured class, perhaps other poets.

115.
collect his poetry:
Conserve,
meaning literally “preserve for posterity.”

117.
murmurmer of the courts:
He might have been a lawyer or a flatterer of kings—a sycophant.

118.
make him famous:
For
divulgo,
see the notes of poem 168.

119.
in my own school:
The history of love, where one learns about thievery, wrath, revenge, and sacrifice,
and, on occasion, peace, pleasure, and joy. Cf. lines 91–105.

121.
To mention finally:
With words that both give and take away.

122.
a thousand vicious acts:
Disloyalties to Love.

125.
shy and modest:
By birth, before he became enamored.

127.
a deep impression:
The original wound taken from Love.

130.
from her, and me he criticizes:
The three personae are linked grammatically as one, even in their degree of culpability.

131.
Nocturnal ghosts:
Perhaps recalling the poet’s dreams in poems 339–358.

135.
regrets and grieves:
He rejected Love’s gifts as insufficient evidence of his worth.

142.
from one thing:
Sembianza
suggests that he could have sought in Laura one resemblance to the divine after the
other, as if climbing a spiritual ladder.

144.
in his own verse:
Cf. 72.1–30.

146.
I gave him as a column:
The Laura of 126.6—living, dynamic, sustaining.

147.
I scream out loud:
The lover’s cri de coeur. Cf. Job 19:7, “Ecce clamabo vim patiens, et nemo audiet:
vociferabor, et non est que judicet,” and Dante,
Purgatorio
XXVI, 39: “each one tries to outshout the other’s cry.”

153.
each one of us concludes:
Each expecting the lady’s sympathies to be with him.

155.
she with a smile:
Befitting the subject matter. Cf. Job 40:3, “Numquid irritum facies judicium meum.”

157.
I will need more time:
Carducci notes that this canzone inverts the arguments of the
Secretum,
putting St. Augustine’s words into the lover’s mouth and Francesco’s into Love’s.

This poem was originally numbered 357. The discord of poem 360 is calmed by a look
in the mirror. He is old.

1.
faithful mirror:
An advisor who doesn’t lie.

2.
changing skin:
Rough like the bark of a tree.

3.
diminished strength and liveliness:
In mind and body. Cf. the “old wood” of 360.69.

5.
obey whatever nature says:
Try to be like what you see. Cf. Cicero,
De senectute
II.

6.
takes power from us to oppose her:
Has her own way of snuffing out his desire.

7–8.
putting out a fire / I wake up:
A suddenness that recalls poem 323. Carducci cites St. Augustine: “Eleemosyna extinguit
peccatum, sicut aqua extinguit ignem.” See also Cicero,
De senectute
XIX: “ut cum aquae multitudine flammae vis opprimitun”

9.
life flies by:
“A quick passing dream” (1.14).

11–12.
single word / of her:
Some early commentators found this word in the next sonnet—
t’ amo
(I love you)—but he may simply refer to her name. For some of the many sayings of
Laura, see poems 23.83, 87, 123, 240, 250, 262, 279, 302, 330, 331.53–54, 341, 342,359.5
ff.

14.
she took fame from all the others:
Laura stole it away to heaven.

This poem was originally numbered 358. Now awakened from long sleep, his thoughts
automatically fly to heaven to seek her.

2.
I almost think I’m one:
This tone of hopeful reasonableness contrasts with that in poems 340–344 and 346–348.

3.
treasure with them there:
God and Laura.

5.
a sweet chill my heart will tremble:
Cf. 52.8.

7.
and honor you:
Cf. poem 5.

8.
you’ve changed your ways:
The word
variati
(changed) recalls the “lovely variation” of 351.13.

hair:
Varying from dark to light through the seasons.

9.
She takes me to her Lord:
Although his thoughts are winged, they still draw back from full kinship with “her
Lord.”

12–14.
He answers
… :
Zingarelli argues that it is Laura who speaks here. In either case, this response
mirrors the mind of the poet, hopeful of his rise to Heaven now that he has suddenly
changed his ways.

12.
destiny is firmly fixed:
Preordained, as was Laura’s in 359.30.

13.
twenty years or thirty:
The wry, equivocating way in which this tercet ends (“et non fia però molto”) suggests
that Petrarch is speaking tongue in cheek.

This poem was originally numbered 359. He still complains of a bitterness in the sweetness
of his new-found freedom.

1.
dazzled me:
Held him in thrall.

2.
in the dark:
Without his “sun.”

4.
turned oaks and elms:
Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
X, 78–90, where Orpheus turns from love of women to the teaching of youths, and the
trees gather around.

6.
boldness and fear:
No object to war against.

8.
to overflow with sorrow:
No one to pity.

9.
of him who stabs and soothes:
Love.
Molce
(soothes) appears only once in the
Canzoniere.

10.
long tortures:
Of his love life—a laboring, a ceaseless gnawing.

11.
in freedom bittersweet:
A state of involuntary truce.

12.
Lord whom I adore:
Cf. 362.9: “her Lord.”

13.
holds all Heaven:
Folce
(holds) also appears just once. It derives from Latin
fulcire,
“to sustain,” which may find a cognate in Middle English
folc
(folk).

14.
sick of it all:
Overflowing with it.

This poem was originally numbered 360. It commemorates twenty-one years plus ten of
suffering in “error” for love; he was destined barely to escape with his life. According
to Wilkins (1951, p. 287), 1358 was probably the year Petrarch released the first
incomplete collection of the
Canzoniere,
although this sonnet was not added until later, between 1367 and 1372.

2.
full of hope in sorrow:
Seeded with hope in a harvest of sorrow. Cf. 363.8.

5.
blame my life:
Take it to task.

6.
long error:
Cf. 361.8.

7.
the seed of virtue:
Similar to that bit of gold in the retort of 360.5.

my life’s last part:
The age of understanding and wonder.

8.
High God:
Higher, perhaps, than the deity of poems 362 and 363.

12.
Lord, you who have enclosed me:
Walled him in, like Job.

14.
I know my fault and do not justify it:
He is finished with his arguments. This and the next sonnet make up a final prayer
that he be pardoned for failure (
fallo
) to reach the sublime.

This poem was originally numbered 361. In verse reflecting some of his infirmities,
he prays to an invisible King of Heaven in repentance for his errors and impieties.

1.
I go my way lamenting:
He begins this sonnet loosely, like a bird trying to take flight. Dante used similar
language in the closing cantos of the
Paradiso,
for example, XXXII, 145–51.

those past times:
All his experience of life, recollected.

2.
I spent in loving something… mortal:
That he invested in a changing, ephemeral Laura.

3.
I had wings:
Of high intellect. Cf. 360.29 and 360.39–40.

5.
shameful, wicked:
Unworthy of his promise (but reflecting the real world).

6.
invisible, immortal:
Words that sum up his accumulated knowledge of God.

7.
soul… has strayed:
Has traveled the low road because of his weakness. Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XXXIII, 22–27.