Petrarch (100 page)

69.
so much bold pride:
Death usurped Love’s power by taking Laura.

70.
from which I feared escape:
Cf. 264.84–90. To be cut off from her would be death-dealing to his poetry.

72.
a second knot to tie:
Another love to take her place.

77.
invisible fires:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
IV, 2: “Volnus alit Venis, et coeco carpitur igni.”

80.
pensiveness and silence:
Moderating the words from which he learned “what love was all about” (line 53).

82.
words once understood:
After reappraisal.

84–88.
the look of angels …:
He transforms Laura from the fiery young maiden to a mature woman most noble in her
bearing.

84.
humble and submissive:
Moderating from the “artfully neglected” appearance of the young girl in line 62.

88.
which of the two:
Her youthful beauty or her attitude of majesty.

90.
I am safe:
Love cannot reproduce her.

91.
your domain:
That of Venus.

92.
one way or another:
With more than one object of affection.

94.
the heavens ordained no more:
He was destined for one love only.

95.
freedoms not my joy:
His security and freedom were gained at the expense of joy.

96.
Ah, noble pilgrim:
Laura, who passed through so quickly.

105.
its power failed:
Like the symbols myrtle and laurel, the bow and arrow of Love have lost their meaning.

106–108.
Death has freed me
… :
Rather than the customary
envoi,
these lines provide a period to his extended sentence.

Poem 270 could give the impression that the poet was tempted to love again, and this
sonnet seems to confirm it, for once more Death is said to have liberated him from
Love’s snare, taking away a potential love object. Numbered among the anniversary
poems, it begins a series of fifty-two sonnets, the second longest series in the collection.

1.
burning knot:
That point of concentration which was her divine presence in life.

2.
twenty-one entire years:
From the first encounter in 1327 to her death in 1348.

4.
now I know:
Cf. 262.9–11.

5.
let go of me:
Like the bird-hunter releasing a poor catch.

7.
new tinder:
A new enthusiasm.

9.
long trial:
Those twenty-one “entire years.”

11.
less green:
His being “unripe” in the beginning slowed the pace of his burning and created a
flame full of smoke and hissing. Now that he has aged, he will burn with a brighter,
swifter fire.

12.
another time:
Cf. 257.4 and note. Because he suggests that he was tempted to love another woman,
these lines are provocative. The matter is moot, however, because Laura’s death (and
Colonna’s) delivered him from a second and all possible succeeding loves.

The gap between life and death narrows as Death the runner gains on him from behind.

1–2.
Life runs away
… :
Cf. Virgil,
Georgics
III, 66; and Ovid,
Ars amatoria
I, 8.

3–4.
present things … past/…future:
His time in history is marked by confusion and discord, raging on without hope into
the future.

5.
anticipation, memory:
His old preoccupations, but in a new equation lacking hope.

6.
on either side:
Fill it on the left and on the right with equally depressing thoughts. Cf. 241.8.

8.
be free of all such thoughts:
Be dead to them.

11.
turbulent winds:
Of misfortune.

12.
storm in port:
Unhappy last days. Cf. Dante,
Convivio
IV, 28.

13.
my helmsman:
The guiding force of wisdom.

my masts and lines:
His mainstay, his line with Heaven, his Laura.

14.
fair stars:
Her eyes.

A more pragmatic voice responds to the despairing words of the last sonnet.

1.
What’s going on:
Cf. 150.1.

What thoughts are these:
The melancholy thoughts of poem 272.

2.
to times:
When he had felt some little sweetness, a bit of pleasure.

3.
Unhappy soul:
Reason speaks to his desiring soul.

3–4.
heaping/more wood upon the fire:
By returning again and again to the subject of love. Cf. 271.9–11.

6.
colored one by one:
As if he were a painter with words.

8.
too late:
Laura has returned to Heaven, and the golden season has passed.

9.
tortures us to death:
Causing him to die a thousand times a day.

10.
vague, deceptive thought:
Earthly and therefore illusory.

11.
pursue what’s fixed:
Eternal.

13.
for all too badly:
With little understanding.

Laid low by Love, Fortune, and Death, he finds enemies even in his innermost thoughts.
Castelvetro noted that in this sonnet Petrarch is like a city besieged by enemies
outside, disrupted by its citizens inside, and betrayed by one, his own heart.

1.
cruel thoughts of mine:
Those expressed in the preceding sonnet. Cf. Job 6:25, “Quare detraxistis sermonibus
veritatis.”

3.
at my very gates:
Through his eyes and ears, where he would most defend himself.

6.
Disloyal only to me:
A traitor who opens the gates to the enemy.

by giving shelter:
Harboring conflicting thoughts.

7.
to cruel spies:
The three enemies of lines 9–11.

8.
so quick and ready:
To entice him into error.

9–11.
In you
… :
The self-defeating desires his heart has played host to after letting them through
the gates of his senses.

9.
display his secret charms:
His hidden agenda of betrayal.

10.
every pomp:
All her power to woo him back into worldly pursuits by revealing the splendor of
her forces.

11.
that blow:
Laura’s death.

12.
break up:
Like a defensive system on the verge of rout.

14.
I blame my every ill:
He answers the question of line 5: no, his once resolute heart has faltered.

Not only do his thoughts war against him and his heart betray him, but his eyes, ears,
and feet give him no peace.

3.
and there it waits:
Repetition of the words “there” (
ivi
) and “where” (
ove
) in the quatrains is insistent.

4.
because of our delay:
The tardiness of one who has not been chosen to go ahead.

6.
those who understand them better:
Those more worthy of her.

7.
My feet:
Mortal, unworthy feet.

9.
wage war against me:
That same war of thoughts carried out in poems 272–274 when Love tempted him once
again.

10.
I’m not the reason:
Cf. 274.13–14.

12–13.
Who binds/and frees:
God united her soul with her body and then freed it in death. Cf. 271.1–4 and 12–14.

opens… closes:
Opened his heart to love and then closed it with her death.

Although inner voices have told him he should accept the will of God and cease to
inveigh against the injustice of Laura’s death, the question remains, how is he to
find his way without the light of her presence?

1.
serene, angelic sight of her:
Like Dante’s Beatrice, she appeared as mortal proof of Heaven.

2.
quick departure:
Laura came into the world too late and left it too soon.

3.
shade of horror:
Of his own life and death in a dark age.

5.
just grief:
Cf. 217.1 This time surely he can be excused for weeping.

9.
This one cure:
The cause of grief and the cure for grief are the same thing—the face of Laura alive.

11.
fortunate earth:
That contains her grave.

13.
sweet and amorous and mild:
Laura as he would like to remember her.

14.
light of my eyes:
Cf. Ps. 37:10, “Lumen oculorum meorum et ipsum non est mecum” (Vellutello).

In a sonnet whose style illustrates his bewilderment, he cannot find his bearings
or fix on a steady course without the star that once guided him.

1.
some new advice:
Love’s last advice to him in 268.67 ff. was to control his grief and seek a way to
praise Laura even in death.

3.
fear and grief:
Fear of the future, grief for the past and present (Chiari).

7.
stormy seas:
Mar che frange,
literally, “sea that breaks.” Cf. 148.3–4.

8.
true guide:
Such as the stars by which a helmsman charts his course.

10.
no, she’s in Heaven:
He corrects himself twice, here and in line 12.

12.
not through my eyes:
Not by sight but by memory.

13.
forbids them:
His mortality obscures his vision. Cf. 276.3.

14.
turns my hair to grey:
Cf. 122.5 and 195.1

Laura died three years ago and with her departed whatever was vital to him in this
world. The sonnet dates itself 6 April 1351.

1.
full bloom:
Cf. 268.39: “which shadowed here the flower of her years.”

5.
living, lovely, naked:
The soul free of the body, rising to eternal blessedness.

6.
drains my strength:
Keeps him laboring in her service by drawing his thoughts upward.

11.
trouble:
Affanno,
a word often used to describe his poetic labors.

13.
much heavier to carry:
A double burden because he is drained of strength.

14.
three years ago:
At the time of writing this in 1351, Petrarch was in Padua, where he met with Boccaccio,
who brought letters from the Commune of Florence recalling him from exile and restoring
his patrimony. Petrarch was also invited to return to Florence to lecture, but he
declined.

In the summer of 1351 Petrarch returned to Vaucluse and, comforted by the beauty of
his surroundings, seemed to hear the voice of Laura telling him not to grieve. An
earlier sonnet written from Vaucluse, poem 260, also used the rare rhyme scheme
abab, baba
in the quatrains, suggesting mirroring of purpose.

1.
birds complaining:
At widely separated times in the
Canzoniere,
Petrarch evokes the sound of birds. Cf. 10.9, 219, 311, and 353.

3.
faint murmuring:
Cf. Virgil,
Georgics
I, 109: “Ecce supercilio clivosi tramitis undam elicit: illa cadens raucum per levia
murmur saxa ciet” (Tassoni).

transparent waves:
Of the Sorgue, Vaucluse’s crystalline-clear spring waters.

7.
see and hear and feel:
The memory of Laura’s presence in this place so like Eden.

7.
still alive:
To his senses.

9.
waste away before your time:
Prematurely aging in his preoccupation with her death. Cf. 278.6.

13.
into internal light:
She opened the eyes of her intellect to a vision of God (Zingarelli). Some editors
altered this phrase in later editions to “eternal light,” but Petrarch used it consistently
through the various collections of his poems. Both Sapegno and Bosco discuss this
apparent departure from doctrine.

He heeds the words of the pitying voice in poem 279, but perhaps not in the way they
were intended.

1–2.
I’ve never
… :
These lines in the Italian are garbled. Muratori thought Petrarch left “in the pen”
some word necessary for understanding. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XIII, 25–27 for similarity of style.

3.
so much freedom:
To experiment in his verse free of distraction and to gain objectivity, as he says
in the next sonnet.

4.
cries of love:
Stridi
are shrill cries, and with
soavi nidi
in line 8, they carry a hint of the lustful.

6.
hidden, trusty places:
“Secret and closed” noted Gesualdo in 1540, alluding to the name Vaucluse but also
to the hermetic style of his verses.

7.
Love… in Cyprus:
Mythical home of Venus and her son Cupid.

8.
a sweeter nest:
Not even, for example, that which Venus shared with Adonis.

9.
the breeze:
Not
l’aura
but
l’òra.
Cf. 131.10 and 127.80.

14.
beg me … sweet hooks:
Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XIV, 145. It is a curious fact that Laura does not actually say this in poem 279,
nor elsewhere in the
Canzoniere.