Petrarch (98 page)

8.
final shrieks:
Those of the Trojan women grieving as Troy burned.

9.
not the lovely Roman who with iron:
More beautiful than Lucretia, raped by the tyrant Tarquinius. Lucretia committed
suicide in the presence of her husband and father rather than endure the loss of her
honor. Terquinius was later expelled and the Roman Repubic established.

11.
Polyxena:
Betrothed of Achilles, sacrificed on his funeral pyre after the hero was slain by
Paris.

Hypsipyle:
Queen of Lemnos, seduced and abandoned by Jason during the voyage of the Argonauts.

Argeia:
Wife of Polynices, son of Oedipus and Jocasta. Argeia wore the necklace of Harmonia,
a guarantee for misfortune.

12.
This excellence:
This beauty and nobility in misfortune.

14.
long in coming:
Urgently awaited.

Women with high aspirations may learn from her manners and conduct, but her true beauty
can be found only in her eyes.

4.
my enemy:
Because her ideal beauty attracts him while her perfection pushes him away as unworthy.

called by the world my lady:
So described by those who do not see the whole significance of her being. He cannot
exclude himself from their number, being, as he is, in love.

6.
wed to charming ways:
Zingarelli calls these qualities of charm (
leggiadria
) and chastity (
onestà
) irreconcilable. Nonetheless, Petrarch seeks to reconcile them throughout the
Canzoniere.

9–14.
and there the speech
… :
He sets up a triad of beauty, honesty, and the medium of speech, speech being the
bond that holds the two extremes together. These tercets may be a gloss on Dante,
Paradiso
XXXIII, where language is denied the power to capture more than a spark of the supreme
light.

10.
the lovely silences:
The truth of her nature is withheld or is too deep for understanding.

13.
sweet rays:
Her inner light—intelligence. Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XXXIII, 85.

In this dialogue between a stern young maiden and her mother, the topic of womanly
honor is pursued further, with the poet praising the uncompromising stance of the
maiden.

1.
“Precious is life… “:
This voice has been identified as that of an older respected woman friend of Laura’s,
as her real mother, or as Mother Nature speaking on behalf of the life of her creation.

4.
not without virtue:
Onestà
is understood to be all-inclusive, not a division.

5.
allows her honor to be taken:
Chooses dishonor in order to preserve her life.

6.
not a lady:
Cf. 261.4. A true lady will somehow maintain her spiritual integrity.

or alive:
This line seems to respond to questions he has raised since 250.14.

7.
appear to be:
The appearance of integrity suggests its opposite, fraud and deceit.

8.
more than death:
A living death, perhaps like the life of an honorable person brought low among evil
men.

11.
Lucretia’s story
… :
Cf. 260.9 and note. Lucretia’s beauty also derived from the truth of her harsh and
grim example, by which she was delivered from life.

12.
Let all philosophers:
The poet is speaking.

13.
their ways will all be low:
That Petrarch is disparaging the Scholastics has been suggested by some.

14.
hers alone:
This maiden’s tragic path to glory.

The concluding sonnet of this series of twenty-four is the first in the
Canzoniere
in which Petrarch uses the familiar
tu
form with his lady. She is the “triumphant tree,” the laurel, whose integrity mimics
the divine.

In Vatican manuscript 3195 this sonnet is followed by several blank pages. The great
canzone, poem 264, follows, its initial letter large and shaped by Petrarch in the
same manner as that of poem 1, indicating that it marked the beginning of Part Two
of a two-part work. Whether Part One actually concludes with this sonnet or was meant
to be followed by other works has never been established. The presence of blank pages
in Vat. Lat. 3195 was cited by Wilkins as evidence that Petrarch had in mind other
poems for inclusion. However, blank pages appeared in earlier manuscripts also, increasing
in number with time from 11/2 (Chigi), to 3, to 5, to 7 in the final form. (See Wilkins
1951 on the Chigi, Malatesta, Quiriniano, and final forms.) As for whether the sonnet
can be regarded as conclusive, this poem and several preceding it seem to make an
ironic statement about living at the cusp of disaster, culminating with the image
of the solitary poet still defending the virtue of the laurel tree.

2.
the honor:
Cf. 161.5–8.

5.
cares for nothing but:
Cf. poems 260–262, where honor and integrity have restored Laura to the highest state,
a context in which all her other qualities may be savored.

8.
nor can deceit avail:
Cf. 262.6–8: “if some appear to be ….”

9.
Gentility of blood:
This tercet and the next demonstrate lines 5–6. Such a dismissal of noble origins
is a significant departure from poetic tradition. Cf. poem 4.

11.
you equally despise:
This departs from Petrarch’s own earlier efforts to adorn his humble Laura with precious
materials. Cf. poem 220 for one example.

13.
bores you:
Her mortal existence wears on her, as do pearls and gold.

The year before Laura’s death in 1348, Petrarch began to assemble a new collection
of his love poems that fell into two parts, with this canzone as the opening poem
of
Part II. Through subsequent collections, and in the final manuscript, Vat. Lat. 3195,
he maintained this division in spite of the fact that Lauras death, not announced
until poem 267, seemed to mark a plausible dividing point. Some editors (such as Carducci
and Ferrari) have separated the
Canzoniere
into the “life” and “death” of Madonna Laura at poem 267, although Petrarch himself
did not do so at any point. What makes this canzone unique, however, is the very disappearance
of a realized Laura from its lines. She is evoked neither as natural beauty nor as
a moral vision but prevails rather as an ineradicable factor, an inborn trait with
which the poet suddenly finds himself alone. The vision of self-sacrifice that concludes
Part I
had created, it seems, the need for a complete reappraisal: hence he makes his confession
here, like St. Augustine before him, “not in words and sounds made by the tongue alone,
but with the voice of my soul and in my thoughts which cry aloud to you, O Lord”
(Confessiones
X, 2).

1.
I go on thinking:
Cf. 129.1–2: “From thought to thought… / Love leads me on.”

4.
different kind of grief:
Before he grieved because Laura disdained him; now he feels deprived of God’s grace
(Castelvetro).

6.
a thousand times:
In every love song.

9.
received no help:
No force strong enough has interceded for him.

11–13.
and it is only just:
Cf. 105.12–13; Dante,
Purgatorio
XIX, 118–26.

14.
Those arms stretched out:
Those of Christ crucified.

17.
how others ended:
Going to Hell.

19.
it declares:
Unequivocally, like the voice of his conscience.

22.
with what dishonor:
As he fails to act decisively.

24–25.
every last root/of pleasure:
Worldly good.

26.
let you breathe:
Free of greedy desire.

27.
have long been tired:
Demonstrated by his attacks on others in his verse.

29.
a gift:
Fame. This voice argues against a false sweetness (desire for fame) that leads nowhere
and for a different sweetness (desire for God), both generated by Laura.

treacherous world:
Which deceives with its promises.

40.
still to be born:
Into a less unworthy age. If she were to come later, a more peaceful world would
be better able to appreciate her.

42.
the image of her rushing down:
Cf. 72.43–45.

44.
could not enter:
Cf. 2.8.

45.
false flame:
The desire for fame lit simultaneously with the desire for good.

46–47.
the day …/ never comes:
Earthly fulfillment being only one part of the true good, false in the sense of incomplete.
Cf. Boethius,
Consolatione Philosophiae
III, 10.

49–54.
gazing on the heavens
… :
In contrast with partial mortal pleasures, the voice describes a complete eternal
joy.

53.
a mere glance, a word… a song:
Earthly love, poetry, and music being expressions of the eternal harmony of the spheres.

55.
another thought:
Inner, not spoken aloud. Cf. line 19.

bittersweet:
Desire for his verse to be read and understood.

56.
delightful weight:
His love of Laura that holds his soul in this life.

62.
grow back the stronger:
His love is strengthened by rejection and defeats. Cf. 241.12–14.

65.
share one grave:
That neither his love nor he will achieve lasting fame.

68–69.
Latin or Greek tongues / … all wind:
Vento,
rumor. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XI, 100.

71.
hoarding what in a moment scatters:
Words and memories of the meaning of words, ever changing.

72.
truth … lies:
Preserve the purity of the word, cleansing it of error.

73.
that other passion:
Love of her eyes. This begins another line of thought from an inner voice of experience.

79.
with reins:
The.
purity of her eyes acts as a restraint against excess of sophistication or crudeness.

81–82.
oil / my boat:
Try to make it seaworthy and steady on some more worthy course.

83.
tied… by those two knots:
Conflicting loves.

84.
from other knots:
Other wordly entanglements, such as power and riches.

87.
wipe from my face this shame:
This weakness of purpose and servitude to another. Cf. lines 12–13, 21–22, 45–47,
and 73–76.

90.
have no weapons:
“either wit nor might” (1. 80).

91–92.
I know myself …/… truth:
Ovid,
Metamorphoses
VII, 90–91: “I see what I am doing; I shall never / Be fooled by ignorance of the
truth, but love” (Medea speaking).

93.
blocks the path of honor:
Forces the lover to improvise by taking a less praiseworthy route.

95–98.
I feel enter my heart
… :
Although he is defenseless against his own weakness, he is able to disdain it in
his verse so that it becomes part of an integrated whole.

108.
she pleased me, and herself:
She narcissistic, he obsessed with her beauty. Cf. poems 45 and 125.46.

110.
When tenderly I came:
When his little amorous fable began.

112.
to start against myself:
Rebelling against his best interest.

113.
my body’s veil:
The senses.

119.
loss makes him wary and wise:
As one who has spent too much money and must now count every coin.

120.
I think back to the point:
As far back as poem 2.

124.
the other will not free me:
His twofold love came first from her eyes and second from her grieving appearance.
This refers to her eyes.

126.
it dares bargain:
Cf. Petrarch’s
Secretum
III; and St. Augustine,
Confessiones
VI, 12.

128.
snow that’s turned to ice:
Weighted down by so many changes of season as to be almost glacial.

130.
I’ve wound the spool:
His tapestry will be so long, so wide, and not more so, that is,
ordita.

131.
good length of my short thread:
Using up his materials.

132.
a weight:
Cf. lines 55–58.

134.
Death at my side:
Cf. line 126.

135.
I seek new rules:
Begin again in a wholly new context.

136.
cling to the worst:
Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphses
VII, 20–21: “I see, approving, / Things that are good, and yet I follow worse ones.”
With this image he returns to the beginning of the poem and the thoughts that seize
him.

As if all the self-abasement and desire for improvement of poem 264 were “wind,” this
sonnet surrenders itself once again to his tenacious craving. Noting that Arnaut Daniel
influenced this poetry, Petrarch himself dated it 21 September 1350, “the third hour
of Tuesday, St. Matthew’s Day.” Laura died in 1348, yet she seems very much alive
in these lines.

1.
a cruel will:
Cf. 264.62: “killing it makes it grow back the stronger.”