Petrarch (112 page)

Authors: Mark Musa

BOOK: Petrarch

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105.
Virgin, in whom:
Stanza 9 takes him into the sight of the goddess and back to his original error,
his “insane vow,” an act of pride for which he will ask forgiveness in the next stanza.

I place all of my hope:
Cf. line 3: “that inside you He chose to hide his light”; and Eccles. 24:25, “in
me omnis spes vitae et virtutis.”

107.
at the last pass:
From life to death and God’s final judgment. Cf. 333.12.

109.
His own high likeness:
Cf. Gen. 1:26, “creavit hominem ad imaginem suam”; and Wis. of Sol. 2:13.

110.
one so low:
He of inferior senses who now implores her.

111.
Medusa and my sin:
That of gazing with desire at the goddess Laura. Medusa’s image is in keeping with
this stanza’s extreme comparisons. In one mythic age she was supremely beautiful,
in another supremely ugly.

turned me to stone:
Cf. 179.9.

114.
tears fill up my weary heart:
Let not his tears be useless; let them be preserved.

115.
be devout:
Redeeming.

116.
mud of earth:
The flesh of Adam, the dross. Cf. the Easter hymn, “Imaginem vultus tui Tradens Adamo
nobilem Limo iugasti spiritum.”

117.
first and insane vow:
His idealistic vow to praise Laura, in a tumultuous mix with his need to tell the
whole truth about her. Cf. poems 5 and 6.

118.
Virgin so kind:
Benignly sensitive and forgiving
(umand).
The tenth stanza begins with a prayer and concludes with a vow.

enemy of pride:
Because no person who seeks her help is more deserving than another; each stands
equal before her.

119.
love of our same origin:
As a creature of God.

121.
a bit of mortal, fleeting dust:
Laura.

122.
marvelous faith:
Wholly invested in that one bit of dust whose origin was God.

123.
a noble thing:
Gentile,
in its extreme simplicity, humanizes Mary while casting Laura’s nobility in a new
light.

125.
I rise up at your hands:
If Mary accepts his plea and helps him.

126.
in your name:
Dedicating all that he will write in repentance to the Virgin.

130.
changed desires:
Put the good and the bad into perspective.

131.
The day draws near:
Cf. Ezek. 7:12, “Venit tempus, appropinquavit dies”; and Heb. 10:25, “tanto magis,
quanto videritis appropinquantem diem.”

134.
death and conscience now stab:
Cf. poem 363: “out of the hands of him (Love) who stabs and soothes.”

136.
man and the truth of God:
God
(Dio)
rhymes internally with
mio
in line 137; the word
verace
is repeated in lines 135 and 136, establishing a link between man, God, and spirit
in the final harmonic scheme.

137.
accept my final breath in peace:
This act reverses the act of God breathing life into Adam and brings an end to the
poet’s war against himself and his fate. Compare this with the closing words of St.
Augustine’s
Confessiones:
“Domine Deus, pacem da nobis.”

W
ORKS
C
ITED
I. I
TALIAN EDITIONS OF THE
Canzoniere

Carducci, Giosuè, and Severino Ferrari, eds.
Le rime di Francesco Petrarca.
Florence: Sansoni, 1899.

Chiari, Alberto, ed.
Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere.
Rome: Mondadori, 1985.

Chiòrboli, Ezio.
Le “Rime Sparse.”
Casa Editrice Trevisini, 1923.

Contini, Gianfranco, ed.
Canzoniere di Francesco Petrarca.
Includes “Preliminari sulla lingua del Petrarca” by Gianfranco Contini, and notes
by Daniele Ponchiroli. Turin: Einaudi, 1968.

Dotti, Ugo, ed.
Francesco Petrarca. Canzoniere.
Introduction by Ugo Foscolo, notes by Giacomo Leopardi. Milan: Feltrinelli, 1992.

Neri, F., G. Martellotti, E. Bianchi, and N. Sapegno, eds.
Rime, “Trionfi” e poesie latine di Francesco Petrarca.
Milan: Ricciardi, 1951.

Sapegno, Natalino.
La poesia del Petrarca.
Rome: Bulzoni, 1965.

Zingarelli, Nicola, ed.
Le Rime di Francesco Petrarca.
Bologna: Zanichelli, 1963.

II. E
NGLISH EDITIONS OF THE
Canzoniere

Armi, Anna Maria.
Petrarch Sonnets and Songs.
New York: Pantheon, 1946.

Auslander, Joseph.
The Sonnets of Petrarch.
London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1931.

Durling, Robert M.
Petrarch’s Lyric Poems.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976.

III. O
THER
W
ORKS OF
P
ETRARCH
C
ITED

Africa

Epistolae metricae

Familiares (Rerum familiarum libri)

Secretum

Seniles (Rerum senilium libri)

I trionfi

IV. E
ARLY
C
OMMENTATORS
C
ITED BY
C
ARDUCCI AND
Z
INGARELLI

Albertini, Carlo (1835)

Alfieri, Vittorio (1766)

Biagioli, G. (1823)

Castelvetro, Lodovico (1582)

Daniello, Bernardino (1549)

DeSanctis, Francesco (1883)

Foscolo, Ugo (1859)

Gesualdo, Andrea (1540)

Leopardi, Giacomo (1826)

Muratori, Lodovico (1711)

Salvini, Anton Maria (1473)

Tassoni, Alessandro (1609)

Ubaldini, Federigo (1642)

Vellutello, Alessandro (1538)

V. C
LASSICAL
, B
IBLICAL
, M
EDIEVAL
L
ATIN
, P
ROVENÇAL, AND
I
TALIAN
S
OURCES
C
ITED

Aquinas, St. Thomas,
Summa Theologica

Ariosto, Ludovico,
Orlando Furioso

Aristotle,
De generatione animalium

Augustine, St.,
Confessiones, De Civitate Dei, De doctrina Christiana, De ordine, De Trinitate, Sermones

Bernard de Ventadorn, Provençal lyrics

Bertran de Born, Provençal lyrics

Bible (English):
New English Bible
(with the Apocrypha). New York: Oxford University Press, 1976.

———(Vulgate):
Sacra Bibbia,
ed. Antonio Martini (“Vecchio Testamento secondo la volgate”). Naples: Giuseppe Marghieri,
1896.

Boccaccio, Giovanni,
The Decameron.
Trans. Mark Musa and Peter Bondanella. New York: Norton, 1982.

Boethius (Anicius Manlius Severinus),
De Consolatione Philosophiae

Catullus, Gaius Valerius, Latin lyrics

Cicero, Marcus Tullius,
De inventions; De senectute; Somnium Scipionis; Tusculum (Tusculanae disputationes);
Rhetorica ad Herennium

Daniel, Arnaut, Provençal lyrics

Dante Alighieri,
Convivio, De monarchia; Divina commedia
(trans. Mark Musa.
Inferno,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971;
Purgatory,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973;
Paradise,
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984);
Rime
(Italian lyrics);
Vita nuova
(trans, and with an essay by Mark Musa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1973)

Guinizelli, Guido, Italian lyrics

Hesiod,
Theogony

Horace (Quintus Horatius Flaccus),
Ars poetica, Epistles, Odes

Isidore of Seville,
Etymologies

Juvenal (Decimus Junius Juvenalis),
Satires

Latini, Brunetto,
Li Livres dou Trésor

Livy (Titus Livius), History of Rome
(Ab urbe condita libri)

Lucan (Marcus Annaeus Lucannus),
Pharsalia

Lucretius (Titus Lucretius Carus),
De rerum natura

Milon, Pierre, Provençal lyrics

Ovid (Publius Ovidius
Naso), Ars amatoria; Epistulae ex Ponto; Fasti; Heroides; Metamorphoses
(trans. Rolfe Humphries, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1955);
Remedia amoris

Plato,
Phaedo, Republic, Timaeus, Phaedrus

Pliny the Elder (Gaius Plinius Secundus),
Historia naturalis

Propertius, Sextus, Latin poetry

Seneca, Lucius Annaeus,
De clementia, De ira, Epistulae

Shakespeare, William,
Venus and Adonis

Solinus, Gaius Julius,
Collectanea rerum memorabilium

Statius, Publius Papinius,
Thebais, Silvae

Tasso, Torquato,
Gerusalemme Liberata

Virgil (Publius Vergilius Maro),
Aeneid, Eclogues, Georgics

VI. C
RITICAL
S
TUDIES
C
ITED

Bernardo, Aldo S.
Rerum familiarum libri,
I-VIII. Translated and with an Introduction. Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1975.

Bishop, Morris.
Letters from Petrarch.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1966.

Curtius, Ernst.
European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages.
Trans. Willard Trask. Princeton: Bollingen, 1973.

Derrida, Jacques.
The Margins of Philosophy.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.

DeSanctis, Francesco.
History of Italian Literature.
Trans. Joan Redfern. New York: Basic Books, 1931.

Gellrich, Jesse M.
The Idea of the Book in the Middle Ages.
Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985.

Graves, Robert.
The White Goddess.
New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966.

Huizinga, J.
The Waning of the Middle Ages.
New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1924.

Lanyi, Gabriel. “The 129th Poem in Petrarch’s
Canzoniere:
An Analysis.”
Forum Italicum
13, no. 2 (1979).

Mazzotta, Giuseppe. “The
Canzoniere
and the Language of Self.”
Studies in Philology 75,
no. 2 (Summer 1978).

Rawski, Conrad M.
Petrarch’s Remedies for Fortune Fair and Foul.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.

Vance, Eugene. “Augustine’s
Confessions
and the Grammar of Selfhood.”
Genre
6 (1973).

Waller, Marguerite R.
Petrarch’s Poetics and Literary History.
Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1980.

Wilkins, Ernest Hatch.
The Invention of the Sonnet and Other Studies in Italian Literature.
Rome: Edizione di storia e letteratura, 1959;
The Making of the Canzoniere and Other Petrarchan Studies.
Rome: Edizione di storia e letteratura, 1951.

I
NDEX OF
F
IRST
L
INES

A bitter rain of tears pours down my face

Across those savage and unfriendly woods

A doe of purest white upon green grass

A fierce, ungracious heart, a cruel will

Ahi bella libertà, come tu m’ài

Ah, lovely liberty, how you have shown me

Ah, now reach out and help my weary mind

A la dolce ombra de le belle frondi

A lady far more lovely than the sun

Alas, badly prepared I was at first

Alas, how well I know that she who pardons