Petrarch (93 page)

12.
kiss her foot:
A gesture of obeisance to the pope.

and lovely hand:
A sign of respect to the monarch.

13.
be like your words:
A reproach, in the spirit of the words to follow.

14.
The spirit’s ready:
The words of Christ on the Mount of Olives when he could not rouse the sleeping disciples.
They wound the poet’s conscience, or anyone else’s who cannot cross over—cannot “stand
the test,” in the words of Jesus.

The journey from Vaucluse is like a flight from love, futile for him who carries the
incurable wound.

1.
Those hills of sweetness:
Vaucluse.

3.
and there before me:
In his memory.

behind me still:
Literally, at his back.

6.
though I move:
Though he may shift his styles and even, apparently, his thinking.

9.
Just like a stag:
Cf. 23.157–160, Virgil,
Aeneid
IV, 67 ff.

10.
a poisoned piece of iron:
This arrow tip is lethal.

12.
that shaft piercing my left side:
The “iron” of his analogy turns to poison what is usually golden, creating a sickness.

13.
giving me delight:
Yet part of him feels pleasure. How this compares with the plight of the stag has
been questioned. See note to 23.159.

It seems that she has singled him out for suffering. The rhyme scheme
abab, baab
is used only one other time in the collection, in poem 295.

1.
Spain’s Ebro:
A river forming a perimeter on the west, part of a frame.

India’s Hydaspes:
A perimeter on the east.

2.
though searching every slope:
Every easy access to a spiritual port.

3.
Red shore:
The Red Sea, to the south.

Caspian waves:
Completing the frame on the north.

4.
another phoenix:
Cf. poems 135 and 185. The phoenix is Petrarch’s original vision of Laura, here put
in geopolitical perspective.

5–6.
What crow… what raven … / sings of my fate:
Classically, omens of good fortune. Both birds are also common European symbols for
the death-goddess, found perching over the body of the slain hero in ballads.

6.
What Sister Fate:
The fate who spins, the one who winds, or the one who cuts the thread of life?

7.
is a deaf asp:
The asp, in order not to hear the incantation, holds one ear to the ground and covers
the other with its tail.

8.
wretch that I am:
Cf. 150.14. Petrarch is speaking in the voice of ordinary mankind.

11.
she offers others:
Cf. 207.51–52.

14.
my temples flower white:
The image recalls Giacomo Colonna’s sonnet celebrating Petrarch’s coronation, in
which the laurel “sopra le tempie verdeggiava.” Cf. poems 166 and 322.

This sonnet, once marked for exclusion from the
Canzoniere,
dates precisely the moment his love began. It was revised and added to the collection
in 1369.

1.
Desire spurs:
Voglia,
willful desire. Petrarch makes a rout here of the Platonic scheme in which reason
holds the reins of the soul’s chariot. Cf. poem 6.

2.
Habit carries me away:
Mere custom, the law of nature, has him in its grip.

4.
its right hand:
Beckoning with false promises. Cf. the “feigning” of 210.13.

6.
disloyal and blind:
Love, because he has led him into a blind corner.

7.
reason now is dead:
Defeated in the struggle with sensual love.

9–10.
Virtue… /sweet words:
The attributes of Laura were mere entrapments, like the right hand of hope in line
4.

13.
sixth of April:
See note to 3.1. This precise date was also inscribed in Petrarch’s copy of Virgil’s
works, called the Ambrosiana.

14.
the labyrinth:
In classical myth a term synonymous with the Underworld, entered by heroes and wise
men as a test and as practice for death. In medieval times it symbolized purgatory,
as in the garden of love or
le chemin de Jerusalem
and
lacs d’amour,
designed in the shape of a knot, appearing in Gothic churches. In his
Epistles
III, 21, 22, and 23, Petrarch specifically referred to Avignon as his own labyrinth.
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
V, 588 ff.: “Ut quondam Creta fertur Labyrinthus in alta, parietibus textum caecis
inter, ancipitemque mille viis habuisse dolum: qua signa sequendi frangeret indeprensus,
et irremeabilis error,” See also Boethius,
Consolatione Philosophiae:
“inextricabilem labyrinthum rationibus texens.”

Subservient to the power she has over his senses, he compares his art to the labors
of a lame ox pursuing a fleeing doe. This sonnet marks the twentieth year of his service
to Love, dating itself Good Friday, 1347.

1.
Blest in my dreams:
His prophecy for a new day.

satisfied to languish:
Cf. 206.52–54.

2.
chase a summer breeze:
An enumeration of
impossibilia
in the style of Arnaut Daniel. Cf. Mark 13:28–30.

7.
a doe:
Cf. poem 190, the inviolate white doe of Caesar.

8.
with ox:
The connection of the ox with the doe was made by Arnaut Daniel, alluding to the
myth of Pasiphaë, the moongoddess who mated with Poseidon’s white bull and produced
the Minotaur (Carducci).

13.
have won me:
Merco,
referring to the idea that his worth has been assessed and found wanting.

14.
under this star:
Venus, the Third Heaven of love poets, whose rise in Taurus blessed the season when
Petrarch first saw her. The epicycle of Venus around the sun in summer creates a light
too bright to be seen safely with the naked eye. Cf. 142.2.

took the bait and hook:
When he entered the labyrinth on that first day.

For all his weariness he is still able to sing the praises of Laura, whose attributes
in this sonnet take on the coloration of the poet’s. Castelvetro read in this Petrarch’s
response to rumors that he had been bewitched.

3.
wisdom of gray age:
A common theme in love poetry, referring to the beloved’s contemplative life. Cf.
182.8 and 210.14.

4.
in modest lady:
One of the characteristics he has shared with her from time to time.

7.
a loving spirit glowing:
Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
XIX: “her eyes, wherever she may choose to look, / send forth their spirits radiant
with love / to strike the eyes of anyone they meet.”

8–11.
breaking all hardness …/… to stone, /… to give to others:
A sequence described in the metamorphoses of poem 23.

13.
tenderly are interrupted:
She smiles, weeps, and sighs in turn.

14.
I had been transformed:
He has taken on these qualities in his own life and verse.

He places his first encounter with Laura in a wholly new context in this intensely
religious and elegiac sestina, where he offers up his love of Laura to God as a sacrifice.

1.
Three days ago:
In his young manhood, Zingarelli believed that Petrarch’s mood in this sestina is
ruled by poem 212, in which he commemorated his first encounter in absolute, rather
than real time. See notes to poem 3.

2–3.
Where it could care … :
Describing how he committed himself to loving her.

4.
she, still uncertain:
His soul, unaware of its worth.

5.
alone…free:
The unsuspecting young poet. Cf. 23.1–40.

7.
A tender flower:
Laura.

8.
the day before:
In adolescence.

9.
and be free:
Remain aloof. Cf. 23.1–6.

10.
so new:
Her beauty was unique, revolutionary.

14.
quickly made me turn:
Cf. 6.1–8.

17.
verses, stones, or juice of herb:
Every art or science.

20.
from its own knot:
Its ties with the soul.

21.
all medicines:
All bitter remedies.

24.
to come out lame:
To emerge from the forest less than he was when he entered. Cf. 212.8.

26.
light foot that’s free:
Like the foot of Laura, free of worldly care.

29.
give me your right hand:
Restore faith in him.

30.
win my shadow:
Secure his salvation.

31.
Look at my state:
Of exile.

35.
my wandering consort:
His soul, and by extension, Laura.

let yours be the prize:
May he renounce any claims on her who belongs to God.

39.
held back in the wood:
Along with the flesh, still lame and tied to a mortal love.

Poem 214 provided the groundwork for a new idea, liberating in its naturalness. This
sonnet begins a series of twenty-two, culminating in poem 237, a sestina.

1.
In noble blood a quiet, humble life:
Cf. 214.7–9 and 4.12—14.

3.
wisdom of age:
Cf. 213.3 He alludes to the significance of the Old Testament for the New.

5.
this lady’s planet:
Venus.

6.
King of stars:
God.

11.
in its silence:
Love seeds itself in her ineffable being.

12.
something in her eyes:
That light collected by the King of stars.

14.
make honey bitter… wormwood sweet:
Make a heaven or hell of his life.

This sonnet is a study on the last line of the preceding sonnet.

1.
All day I weep:
He returns to the language of poems 22 and 66 (sestinas), 50 (a canzone), and 164
(a sonnet), describing his isolation.

5.
I wear out my eyes:
Consuming the light in them.

7.
I rank the worst:
Worse than the lowest animal.

those loving arrows:
Laura’s glances.

8.
exiled from my peace:
The sleep all other miserable mortals and living things enjoy.

9.
from one sun:
In doubling his pain he has halved his life.

11.
death which is called life:
Cf. 138.7.

12.
More for her fault:
For having chosen the wrong target.

13.
for living pity:
What he saw in her eyes.

Once he mustered his forces in fervid verse and flaming words; now he will be known
for her beauty alone.

1.
just complaint:
By standing out in his own defense with words that might evoke her pity.

4.
in midsummer:
That withholds pity from him at the height of manhood. Cf. 132.14.

5.
and break the cruel cloud:
His annoying style might exhaust her patience. Cf. 189.7–8.

6.
the aura of my flaming words:
His most scurrilous poems. He’s alluding to poems such as the Babylon series, 136–138.

7.
or make her hateful:
What he might have been accused of doing in 170.14, 183.14, and 203.5–6.

8.
those lovely eyes:
A break in the line between “lovely” and “eyes” illustrates the sense of lines 5
and 6.

9–11.
Not hate … :
He continues to split his meanings by mixing up his phrases so they could be understood
in their opposite sense. Carducci called this tercet “disorderly.”

12.
But I shall sing:
The purity of the phrase interrupts the mocking tone of lines 1–11.

godlike beauty:
He rescues her from crudeness.

13.
shaken:
Liberated.

To lose the incomparable Laura to death would be like returning to chaos.

1–4.
However many … :
Cf. 13.1–4.

3.
with her fair face:
Her beauty had the effect of clearing the atmosphere of shadow and bringing serenity
to the moment.

4.
daybreak makes:
Eclipsing the light of all other ladies.

5.
whispering in my ear:
A premonition.

7.
darkened:
Without its sun.

8.
virtues die:
Of which she is the unique example.

9–12.
If Nature took … :
Reversing the creation in Genesis.

13.
so much and more:
Corresponds to “however many” in line 1.

14.
close and hide her eyes:
If something were to shut off the source of love.

He returns to the double beauty of a new day dawning with this “esercitazione letteraria
… inconsistente e artificioso al tempo stesso” (Sapegno).