Petrarch (85 page)

11.
he melts me:
Cf. Job 42:6.

13.
cannot resist:
Losing the sense of himself, giving himself up to her.

14.
compose the aura:
The aura concentrates the essence of all these effects.

This sonnet presents a series of contrary effects and paradoxes, like a riddle. The
rhyme scheme mirrors the antithetical syntax.

2.
fear and hope:
In opposition—fear with freezing, hope with burning.

3.
I fly above:
Cf. Ps. 139:8.

5.
One keeps me:
Laura, who does not care (133.4). Cf. Ps. 139.10.

7.
does not kill… chains:
Does not end his martyrdom. An alternate reading of
mi sferra
is to pull the arrow from the wound (Zingarelli).

8.
lifeless:
Cf. Ps. 139.11.

9.
I see with no eyes:
Like a creature not completely formed in God’s mind. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXI, 10–11.

without a tongue:
Without an intelligible language. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXI, 67–69.

11.
I hate myself:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXI, 76: “His words accuse him.” The last words of Psalm 139, echoed in this sonnet
and in Dante’s passage, deal with hatred.

This canzone takes the form of a confessional, the presence of sin sometimes stated,
sometimes revealed through metaphor. Its unique rhyme scheme does not break down into
the usual subdivision after the first part but strengthens the A and B rhymes at the
center, renewing itself at the end of the stanza with the beginning rhyme, in a cycle
like that of the phoenix (the canzone’s opening image). Zingarelli described this
stanza form as a set of manacles; the poet seems to free himself from each one until
the end of the poem when he reveals the extent of his submission to them. Whatever
atonement he achieves by way of his confession prepares the way for the sonnets to
follow.

1–2.
wondrous / thing:
Six wonders of nature appear in the poem, suggesting a correlation with poems 23
and 323.

2.
any foreign land:
Cf. 130.12. Here he searches the four corners of the earth, the sky, and the far
beyond for his metaphors—six points.

5.
where the day is born:
In the East. According to Ovid the phoenix sprang from Assyria (
Metamorphoses
XV, 392).

7–8.
that voluntarily / dies:
The phoenix nests in the highest branches of the palm, surrounds herself with fragrant
and combustible things, and invites the sun to ignite her. From the flames of this
pyre she is reborn every 509 years.

16.
a stone so bold:
Ptolemy, Albertus Magnus, and Pliny wrote about these magnet-stones (calamites),
warning of the danger of sailing close to them. A calamite is “fiery” because of its
reputedly rusty color but also because the poet puns on his own name Petrarca, the
audacious one, hoisted on his own petard.

19.
steals it from the wood:
The very nails of the ship are extracted.

20.
I prove this:
By washing against her cold harshness with the waves of his verse.

23.
life must sink:
Shipwrecked.

29.
drawn to the shore:
Close to death.

32.
there lives an animal more tame and gentle:
Said to be the catoblepas (from the Greek words meaning to “look downward”), a fabled
African beast resembling a buffalo whose head was so heavy it could not lift it and
whose glance was fatal. Pliny described it in
Historia naturalis.
Petrarch softens the savageness of the beast to make the comparison with Laura.

35.
turns his sight:
In order to meet the eyes of the catoblepas, he would have to bend down and gaze
up at her from below.

36.
with great care:
From a secure position, quick to avert one’s eyes.

38.
all other parts are safe:
Looking at her hunched-over, suffering body will not harm one, only gazing into her
weeping eyes.

45.
angelic beast of innocence:
Laura is made to suffer in this stanza for a crime she has not committed; as in poem
128 (“Italia mia”) the maiden is undefended.

47.
a fountain:
Cf. Pliny,
Historia naturalis
II, 106: “In Troglodytis fons solis appellatur, dulcis.”
Dal sole
is the name of the fountain.

48.
by its nature:
Without benefit of its own fire. He will compare this burning with the reflected
light of the moon in lines 52–60.

50.
grows cold depending:
The fountain’s cooling is a metaphor for the moon’s setting.

51.
grows more near:
In the evening as the sun sets.

56.
and night is dark for them:
A double darkness that anticipates death.

57.
I burn then:
As the moon seems to burn and consume itself in the night sky.

58.
rays from that live sun:
Whereas during the day, when his light is nearly eclipsed by Laura’s brilliance,
he becomes afraid. He describes the effects of envy and sloth in this passage.

61.
fount in Epirus:
Epirus in NW Greece was the site of a shrine to Zeus. Cf. Pliny,
Historia naturalis
II, 106: “In Dodone Iovis fons, quum sit gelidus et immersas faces extinguat, si
extinctae admoveantur accendit.”

65–66.
My soul … :
He likens his soul to an unlit torch at the time that he first saw Laura.

67.
by merely coming close:
According to the terms he has set out for this canzone, he’s not only approaching
Laura but the shrine of Zeus, a god quick to anger.

69.
caught fire:
The flames of love describe righteous indignation, the subject of line 75.

73.
virtue fair and frozen:
The condition of virtue unignited in the hearts of men, as well as the coldness of
Laura.

75.
I feel it:
His indignation comes from the heart rather than the head. Cf.
Inferno
VIII, 43–45, where Virgil praises Dante’s just anger.

76.
Far out beyond:
The sixth point, beyond the straits of Gibraltar to the legendary
Canary Islands. According to the
Voyage of St. Brendan
they were the site of Eden, but to Dante, a destination forbidden man to go. Cf.
Inferno
XXVI, 106–109.

79.
dies laughing:
Having drunk too deeply from the joys of love. Tasso in
Gerusalemme Liberata
made the Canary Islands the site of the enchantress Armida’s garden and the source
of laughter (XV, 57).

he revives:
One drinks from the first fountain, dies laughing, and then is brought back to life
by drinking from the second. Ariosto’s version of the second in
Orlando Furioso
was the mountain of reason.

83.
were it not tempered:
She gives him the power to unify and to make harmonious these contrary elements.

85.
shades of fame:
Now hidden, later revealed.

87.
fullest at the time:
On the day of Christ’s crucifixion.

92.
great stone:
The mountain that overlooks Vaucluse.

96.
the one destroying him:
The image of “virtue fair and frozen.”

97.
he flees:
Cf. 28.106–114. In his solitary refuge not far from Avignon he sifts out her harsh
meanings, her image always before him.
Sasso
(“stone,” line 92) is also a figurative expression for the tomb and in Provençal
can mean “filter” or “sieve,” a means of purification.

Having covertly confessed himself in poem 135, he emerges from his closed valley with
three sonnets attacking the corrupt papal court in the most overt terms. The precise
target of Petrarch’s attacks is disputed, but the general object of his scorn was
the French court in the period preceding his departure from Provence in 1353. Wilkins
dates the sonnets 1345–47. Poems 136, 137, and 138 reportedly were placed on the church’s
Index of Forbidden Books from 1564–1722.

1.
May Heaven’s fire:
Invoking divine wrath against the whore of Babylon of the Apocalypse, in this instance
the papal court at Avignon. Cf. Rev. 17:15; Dante,
Inferno
XIX, 107, and
Purgatorio
XXXII, 149.

tresses:
Cf. 29.3 and 121.4 for the word
treccie.

3.
streams and acorns:
Christ and the Apostles drank from the stream and ate what food lay at hand.

4.
got fat and rich by starving other people:
Having abandoned their vows of poverty, the papacy became enormously rich by skimming
the cream from the feudal system.

6.
all evil:
The pope and his cardinals dominated the social and political as well as the religious
affairs of the western world.

7.
slave of wine:
Petrarch wrote elsewhere that the court’s love for French wine was a major stumbling
block to returning the papacy to Rome.

9.
In all your rooms:
Not excepting even the pope’s chamber.

older men:
The cardinals, aging members of the Curia.

10.
romping round:
As in a rustic peasant dance (the tresca) with broadly suggestive movements. Cf.
Dante,
Purgatorio
X, 65.

11.
bellows:
As in the
Dance of Death
by Holbein (Carducci).

12.
raised on cushions:
Like sultans, that is, infidels.

13.
naked… in thorns:
Zingarelli recalls a fresco of Giotto showing Poverty in a shirt, walking among thorns.

He continues his attack on the papal court in less angry, more acid terms.

1.
so filled the sack:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
VI, 50, “La tua città ch’è piena / d’ invidia sì che già trabocca il sacco.”

4.
Venus and Bacchus:
Exclusive worship of whom leads to debauchery.

instead of Jove and Pallas:
Pallas is Minerva, goddess of wisdom, Jove the god of justice.

6–8.
but I see:
Lines that have not yet been deciphered, particularly the identity of the “new sultan.”
Carducci believed that Petrarch speaks figuratively of a complete takeover of the
papacy, with a new pope chosen from the Colonna family. Or Petrarch predicts half-seriously
a complete takeover of the papacy by infidel forces, beginning with a Muslim caliph
as pope.

8.
into one seat:
Uniting empire and papacy under one rule.

Baghdad:
Like Rome, Baghdad was brought low when the caliphate was moved to another city,
suggesting that Petrarch means, figuratively, back to Rome, a city presently in ruins.

9.
Her idols shall be scattered:
Cf. Isa. 21:9, “Cecidit, cecidit Babylon, et omnia sculptilia deorum eius contrita
sunt in terram.”

10.
towers, enemies of Heaven:
As was the tower of Babel. Petrarch refers to the luxurious buildings erected by
Pope Clement VI in Avignon.

12–14.
Beautiful souls … :
Once purified, “Baghdad” will be reborn as Rome, the new Jerusalem, founded on the
traditions of the Golden Age.

This sonnet calls down the wrath of God on the papacy’s heresies and fraudulent practices,
in particular simony, which Petrarch along with Dante considered the legacy of the
Donation of Constantine.

1.
Fountain … dwelling place:
Favorite images of Petrarch, normally evocative of Laura.

2.
heresy’s own temple:
Suggesting that the Church’s idea of heresy is that which threatens the temple’s
wealth and power. Carducci believed that Petrarch alludes to Pope John XXII’s doctrine
on the Beatific Vision, wherein the sight of God was denied to the souls of the Just
until the Day of Judgment and the resurrection of the body.

3.
once Rome:
Once the capital of the pagan world and hence its temple.

5.
foundry of deceit:
Cf. Boccaccio,
Decameron
I, 2.

6–8.
where the good dies … :
A new use of antithesis, against all reason and morality. Cf. poem 134.

9.
Founded in pure:
The early Church of the Apostles.

10.
founders … horns:
They defy the very principles of the original disciples with their devilish pride.

11.
brazen whore!:
This and the term “adulterers” in line 12 refer to the sins of simony, the selling
of favors of the Church. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XIX, 1–4.

13.
Constantine:
Cannot undo the damage he wrought. Emperor Constantine I supposedly granted the pope
and his successors spiritual and temporal supremacy over Rome, Italy, and the western
regions, thereby betraying his imperial trust. Dante placed him in Paradise (XX, 55-60),
separating the man from the consequences of his acts.

14.
for Hell has taken:
The exact meaning of the reference has eluded commentators because of its laconic
syntax and audacity. An alternate reading of folk origin is, “Voi non siete neppur
degni che la terra vi sostenga” (Carducci).