Petrarch (90 page)

1.
Po, you may:
He begins with a pun on the river’s name, “Po, ben puo’ tu,” unintentional, Carducci
believed.

my outer shell:
His body (the rind).

2.
rapid waves:
The river swollen at flood time.

5.
without tacking:
Without having to trim his sails. The body, meantime, must ply the waves like an
expert navigator.

6.
straight to the breeze:
Into the west wind in the direction of Laura.

golden leaves:
Of the laurel, golden like her hair.

7.
favor his desire:
Lift him in love.

9.
King over others:
Sovereign like the spirit that guides the ship. Virgil wrote that all other rivers
are but tributaries to the Po.

10.
meets the sun:
Flows toward the east and morning.

11.
a light more lovely:
The setting sun, or Laura in the west.

12.
on your horn:
Corno
is a term applied to one of the Po’s branchings, here an analogy for the poet’s passion.
Cf. Virgil,
Georgics
IV, 370: “Et gemina auratus taurino cornua voltu Eridanus, quo non alius per pinguia
culta In mare purpureum violentior effluit amnis.”

13.
the rest of me:
His eternal spirit.

14.
dwelling place:
Avignon.

Following on the heroic image of the poet at the foredeck of a plunging ship, this
sonnet seems to float down into beauty on the wings of the spirit.

1–2.
pretty net/of gold and pearls:
Laura’s beauties remembered. Cf. 52.1–3.

3.
that tree, ever green:
The laurel.

5.
The bait:
Her glances and sweet manner that first day.

9.
And the bright light:
Of Laura’s eyes, but by analogy with Adam, the divine glory.

10.
the rope:
Of the bird-catcher, Love.

11.
the hand:
Of Laura, but by analogy, the divine gift of spirit.

snow and ivory:
Her hand creates a new definition of whiteness, giving warmth to snow and movement
to ivory.

13–14.
by charming gestures … :
The irreducible elements of the trap that the bird-hunter sets for him.

A new voice intervenes, questioning whether reticence or daring furthers the cause
of love.

1.
flaming zeal:
The word
zelo
appears just once in the
Canzoniere.

2.
icy fear:
Of her superiority. Cf. Dante in the presence of St. Benedict in
Paradiso
XXII, 25–27: “I stood there like the anxious man restrained, / forced to hold back
the thrust of his desire, / longing to ask while fearing to offend.”

6.
full of fear:
The one preventing the thrust of the other by holding it in doubt (
sospetto
).

7.
as if a lady:
Desire being male, timidity female: an absurd example of jealousy. Cf. Propertius,
Elegies
II, VI, 13–14: “Omnia me laedent, timidus sum, ignosce timori; et miser in tunica
suspicor esse virum.”

8.
little veil:
Of modesty.

9.
Of these two pains:
Flaming zeal and icy fear.

11.
my sweet sickness:
This perpetual burning of zealous love.

12.
the other not:
Not fear.

13.
all men alike:
She is beyond rivalry.

14.
above her light:
Competing with it.

He describes his own worst nightmare—his cause for fear, that hope for mercy will
be withdrawn altogether. This sonnet marks the halfway point in the
Canzoniere.

1.
can make me die:
Cf. 164.13: “I’m born and die a thousand times a day.”

2.
pointed words:
Full of intelligence.

6–7.
to cut / the pity:
To turn her eyes from him forever.

8.
with death:
A final death.

reassures me:
Keeps his hope alive by not exercising her option to kill him.

9.
a heart of ice:
If he seems timid.

11.
from long experience:
From everything he has known or read.

12.
a woman … changeable:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
IV, 569: “Varium et mutabile semper Foemina.”

13.
love’s condition:
Compassion.

14.
lasts little time:
The space of a day or night.

Not only the variability of Laura frightens him but her fragility. She too is subject
to illness and death.

3.
conspired against me:
Cf. Ovid,
Heroides
X, 117: “In me jurarunt somnus, ventusque, fidesque.”

4.
truly make me die:
To spur him but fail to rein him in.

5.
thread so tender:
A metaphor for pity.

6.
cannot sustain:
So fastidious is her spirit.

7–8.
so shy …/… and vile:
She loses interest in life (“comes less often”). Laura is at once the poem, the writing
poet, and the attention of his audience in this sonnet.

10.
lovely limbs:
As her senses begin to flee upward in a path toward heaven.

11.
mirror of true graciousness:
Reflecting God’s grace. He uses the past tense here, speaking of an earlier age.

12.
if Pity does not stop:
If there is no divine intervention. Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
XIX,
Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore:
“Sola Pietà nostra parte difende.”

14.
vain hopes:
Of restoring life to her limbs.

Laura’s unique beauty is compared once again with the Arabian phoenix, immortal bird
of the East. The early Church Father Lactantius compared the phoenix to the Christian
soul.

3.
forms naturally:
Without sophisticated art.

a necklace:
A golden ornament of her curls.

5.
she forms a natural diadem:
With the light of her eyes. Cf. 135.1–15 and note for the preparations the phoenix
makes for her death and resurrection.

6.
silent flint:
The unspoken poetic idea.

7–8.
subtle liquid/fire:
Like purified gold. Cf. Lucretius
De rerum natura
VI, 203: “liquidi calor aureus ignis”; and Virgil,
Eclogues
VI, 33: “et liquidi simul ignis.”

8.
when it is coldest:
When he must pass through the worst of times.

9.
purple gown:
The color of the Virgin.

11.
that stands alone:
The phoenix lives and dies without a mate, coupling only with the sun.

12.
rich and fragrant:
She dies and is reborn in an odor of frankincense and myrrh.

14.
flies through our skies:
She has resurrected herself in Laura. See note to 129.70.

He celebrates Laura, immortal beauty of the Christian era, as a subject worthy of
the genius of Homer and Virgil.

2.
with my own eyes:
He teases.

4.
mixing their two styles:
Strengthening the art of the Greek with the Latin.

5.
Aeneas sad, and troubled:
Because their heroism would pale in comparison with the Christian figure.

7.
and him who ruled:
Augustus Caesar, to whom Virgil dedicated the
Aeneid.

8.
him Aegisthus killed:
Agamemnon, at the instigation of Clytemnestra, as recounted in the
Iliad.

9.
ancient flower of virtue:
Cornelius Scipio Africanus, a great Roman statesman and conqueror of Hannibal. Petrarch
admired him throughout his life and made him the subject of his Latin epic
Africa.

11.
new flower:
The subject of his verse, Laura—Petrarch’s hope for a new golden age of peace.

all honesty and beauty:
Laura’s arms.

12.
Ennius… rough:
Roman poet and contemporary of Scipio Africanus, wrote a long epic poem on the Punic
Wars, noted by Ovid and Statius for its rude style. Ennius predicted that each age
would be distinguished by its ability to produce another Homer.

13–14.
I hope my wit … :
A modest disclaimer about his style, as well as an ironic comment on an age that
produces not epics but love poetry.

He himself cannot do her justice.

1–4.
When Alexander reached … :
In Plutarch’s
Lives,
a naked Alexander crowned the tomb of Achilles for two reasons, to celebrate Achilles’
love for Patrocles and be
cause of his celebration by Homer. According to Cicero, Alexander sighed because he
himself was never so celebrated.

3.
so clear a trumpet:
Homer.

5.
pure white dove:
Laura, symbol of peace, the antithesis of Achilles and Alexander.

6.
whose equal, I think:
“Non so se” injects an element of doubt.

7.
resounds too little:
Without the clarion call of a trumpet, rather with sighs.

9.
Orpheus:
Who lost his wife, Eurydice, for having loved too well.

10.
shepherd Mantua still honors:
Virgil, whose
Eclogues
explored the mystic origins of pastoral life.

12.
star deformed:
Petrarch’s birth into this age.

13.
loves her lovely name:
This devout phrase conflicts with his conclusion in the words to follow.

14.
mars, perhaps, her praise:
The
hesitation of “perhaps” echoes the “I think” of line 6 and the “resounds too little”
of line 7, linking the end of the poem with the beginning.

He asks the sun to stay its course. Dated 1366, this sonnet calls up an Eden cut off
from his sight by ever-deepening shadows.

2.
alone in her sweet home:
Exiled in the new world.
Soggiorno
refers to her brief stay in this, his life.

4.
our fair fall:
Eve, who succumbed to temptation and fell into the sin that condemned the race.

5.
Let’s stay:
Stop the flow of time.

7.
on every hillside:
Shining on every promontory equally, not pausing at the unrivaled branch flourishing
in line 3.

8.
what I most yearn for:
The sweet light of her eyes, life, time.

11.
little sapling:
Verga,
that is, Laura as a child.

12.
takes from my eyes:
Obscuring the vision he had of her in the beginning.

Seeking a return to the “blessed place” where he might find peace, he likens himself
to a mariner passing through the Strait of Messina, threatened by the rock and the
whirlpool, with only Love as his guide.

1.
My ship:
His soul in his body on the sea of life.

2.
through rough seas:
During the worst possible historical time and season.

3.
Charybdis and the Scylla reef:
Legendary test of spiritual endurance in the
Odyssey, Metamorphoses,
and the
Aeneid.

4.
master…foe:
Love, who has him at Laura’s mercy.

5.
quick and insane thought:
Each rowing in a different direction.

7–8.
the sail… /blowing breaks:
These lines show how deceptively Love navigates by steering clear of both subject
and object. One can read them (and perhaps the whole sonnet) two ways, as a threat
to his soul, or as a rebellious joke.

9.
mist of my disdain:
For his own verse.

10.
washes and frees:
As with a purifying love.

12.
two trusty signs:
Her eyes, like stars obscured by the stormy darkness.

13.
is reason as is skill:
The sail responds to reason and the ropes to skill.

The white doe of this sonnet recalls the famous legend of deer appearing, 300 years
after the death of Caesar, with collars around their necks warning, “Noli me tangere,
Caesaris sum.” Boccaccio also spoke of a white doe in
Decameron
(IV, 6) in an episode where a melancholy dream comes true.

1.
A doe of purest white:
A beast sacred to Diana, here representing Laura.

2.
two horns of gold:
The braids of her hair.

3.
between two streams:
The Sorgue and the Rhône (Zingarelli), the one flowing by Vaucluse and the other
by Avignon. Other commentators say the Sorgue and Durance. Or the rivers may be allegorical
for the two branches of his love, one twisted, one straight.

4.
season not yet ripe:
April.

7.
just like a miser:
Like one greedy for her. A play on words (
lavoro–l’avaro
) has him turning from one obsession to another.