Petrarch (94 page)

1.
new song sung:
The present sonnet.

weeping of the birds:
Laments of poets. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
VI, the myth of Procne and Philomela.

2.
echoed in the valleys:
Among the people.

4.
fresh, rapid streams:
Spring torrents.

5.
The one:
The goddess of the dawn, Aurora. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
VII.

6.
contained no failings or deceit:
He may allude to Cephalus and Procris in Ovid,
Metamorphoses
VII, each of whom succumbed to weakness.

7.
loving dance:
The activities of Aurora trying to reawaken her lover.

8.
fleece of white:
Of the aged Tithonos, Aurora’s impotent lover shut by her in a chamber, where he
remained forever chirping like a circket.

10.
that other sun:
Laura. The word for dawn,
l’aurora,
contains a pun, “Laura now.”

As if to answer some unspoken doubt about fidelity that he may have planted in poem
219, this sonnet asks a series of rhetorical questions that should lay that thought
to rest.

1.
the gold and from what mine:
A series of “oriental” images follows. Cf. 200.9–11.

2.
What thorns:
What painful emotion colored the roses of her cheeks?

3.
gave its frost:
Chilled her fire with virtue.

4.
and breath:
Lena,
unique in the collection, suggesting enticement.

5–6.
pearls … / sweet words:
Her words of pity withheld.

8.
more tranquil:
Her brows now cleared of anger and disdain.

12.
high, kind light:
That he saw at his first encounter with her.

13.
declaring war and peace:
Either loving or angry in their expression.

14.
burn my heart:
Literally “cook” (
cuocono
).

in fire and in ice:
Corresponding to war and peace.

A final rhetorical question completes the series begun in poem 220. This sonnet marks
for the second time the twentieth year of his love, 1347, recapitulating the melancholy
truths of poem 212.

1.
what deceit:
What strategy of Love.

2.
unarmed:
Without any rational defenses.

3.
always conquered:
By her loveliness.

5.
but gain:
By dying.

9–11.
I feel …/ if she turns them:
At a distance, Laura’s eyes remind him that he will someday die and must think of
his salvation. But when they seek him out, reasonableness flees.

12.
Love with such sweetness:
He dies and yet is held in life by her presence. For this image of wounding and curing,
compare Dante’s
Paradiso
XXXII, 4–6: “The wound which Mary was to close and heal / she [Eve] there, who sits
so lovely at her feet, / would open wider then and prick the flesh.”

Petrarch echoes Dante (
Vita nuova
XXII) in this dialogue on the subject of Laura’s sudden absence from the company
of her friends.

1.
Happy yet sad:
This motif is repeated in lines 5 and 6 and again in 7 and 8.
in company yet alone:
Incomplete without Laura.

2.
walk along in conversation:
Talking about Laura, their point of comparison.

3.
life … death:
Laura’s double aspect was the focus of poems 220 and 221.

7.
her lovely company from us:
Petrarch seems to play with the idea that his poems have been suppressed, by him
or by others.

9.
Who can:
He defends himself. Cf. Boethius,
Consolatione Philosophiae
III: “Quis legem dat amantibus? Maior lex amor est sibi.”

10.
The soul:
The chorus responds.

wrath and rigor:
The righteously indignant female in Laura.

11.
sometimes in us:
When they too disdain him.

14.
watery with dew:
Softened by pity.

Without her guidance he is fated to sleepless, solitary nights and mornings that never
dawn.

1.
the sun bathes:
Cf. Virgil,
Georgics
III, 359.

2.
my mind too:
Cf. 222.13: “her lofty beauty darkened.”

5.
to one:
To Laura, silent as death.

8.
I quarrel:
Trying to win some advantage.

9.
rest is nullified:
There is no hope for peace. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
IX, 57: “there would be no returning to the world.”

11.
tears sent by the soul:
Lyrical distillations of pain.

12.
dark air:
L’aura fosca,
a malign emanation.

not me:
Corresponding to “rest is nullified.”

14.
torment sweet:
All this darkness would be lifted by the return of Laura as he once knew her.

He bargains with his lady, making a summary defense of himself.

1.
If loving faithfulness:
Beginning a deposition on his own behalf that weighs the human and the divine.

unfeigning heart:
Free of deceit and stratagems.

2.
sweet languishing:
Cf. 206.54 and 212.1.

courteous desire:
Harnessing the noblest of virtues with love.

4.
blind labyrinth:
Cf. 211.14 and note.

5.
painted on my brow:
Cf. 222.12, where Lauras face darkened, and 220.5, where her words were cut short
by painful emotion.

8.
violet’s pallor, tint of love:
Love mixed with fear. Cf. Horace,
Odes
III, 10,14: “Nec tinctus viola pallor amantium.”

9.
more than oneself:
He is one who heeds the commandment more than required.

13.
that undo me:
Upset the harmony of his verse.

14.
the blame is yours:
The fault of her having stolen his heart, making half a man of him.

The sight of Laura triumphant in a cart or singing in a little boat with her friends
recalls some of the most notable of Greek figures.

1–2.
Twelve ladies:
Like a latter-day Christ figure with her disciples. Cf. Rev. 12:1.

5.
carried Jason:
The antihero in the legend of the Argonauts, recounted by Apollonius of Rhodes and
Catullus.

6.
to the fleece:
The golden hide of a murdered ram, nailed to a tree, which Jason and his band suffered
every hardship to procure. Petrarch contrasts a secular church and nobility bent on
enriching themselves with the humble example of Laura and her crew of twelve.

7.
or like the shepherd’s:
The vessel of Paris, whose abduction of Helen set off the Trojan wars.

10.
my Laurel:
Laurëa,
symbol of triumph as well as great knowledge.

holy, modest manner:
The joining of the little boat image (
barchettd
) and this word “modest” (
schifi
) recalls poem 177, the sonnet from the Ardennes.

11.
sitting to one side:
The sole member of her category.

13.
Happy Automedon:
Achilles’ charioteer.

happy Tiphys:
The helmsman of the Argo. They appear together in Ovid,
Ars amatoria
I, 5. Cf. also Virgil,
Eclogues
IV, 34 ff.

14.
who steered:
And by extension, those poets who wrote about them.

Yesterday’s triumphant vision, humble as it was, is remembered glory. Today he returns
to his lamentations, addressing them to another country that possesses his treasure.

1.
sparrow … so alone:
Cf. Ps. 101:7–8, “Vigilavi, et factus sum sicut passer solitarius in tecto.”

6.
food is gall and poison:
Cf. Ps. 101:10, “Quia cinerem tamquam panem manducaban!, et potum meum cum fletum
miscebam.”

10.
akin to death:
A state of forgetfulness. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
VI, 278: “Turn consanguineus Lethi sopor.”

11.
that sweet thought:
His
amoroso pensiero.

12.
Rich, happy country:
He turns like a solitary bird toward the place where Laura is.

13.
green … meadows:
Bucolic scenes of his amorous youth.

14.
my treasure:
The young Laura.

From that same countryside that possesses his treasure comes an aura that stings and
overwhelms him. Odd departures from his habitual language of sorrow seem showy on
the surface but barely conceal a scatological subtext.

1.
Breeze that surrounds:
Aura,
this one time, does not spell Laura’s name, appearing here without the definite article.

blond and curling locks:
Suggestive of forgetfulness and voluptuousness. Cf. 126.56–60.

5.
wasps of love:
One of several unusual expressions in the sonnet. Others are
vacillando
(staggering),
adombre e ’ncespe
(shies and stumbles), and
gorgo
(stream).

6.
feel it… and weep:
Experiencing still the effects of the venom of love.

8.
shies and stumbles:
Like a horse that rears at shadows. Cf. Plato’s
Phaedo:
“the soul… wanders and is confused; the world spins around her, and she is like a
drunkard, when she touches change” (trans. Jowett).

12.
O happy air:
Aer,
without the article, corresponding to
aura
in line 1.

13.
clear running stream:
Gorgo
(stream) describes a place where quantities of falling water create a whirlpool.

14.
exchange my course:
Purify himself in its motion, perhaps die.

Written in the earthy style of the preceding sonnet, this poem portrays him as resigned
to the nature of things, kneeling before his idol.

4.
tire out… every emerald:
Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
VII, 75 ff.: “Think of… fresh emerald the instant it is split—/ the brilliant color
of the grass and flowers / within that dale would out-shine all of these, / as nature
naturally surpasses art.”

5.
plowing of my pen:
He cultivates the heart’s soil with the probing tip of his pen. The expression
vomer di penna
is not original with Petrarch; it appears in the
Etymologies
of Isidore of Seville (Curtius).

7.
fragrance reached the heavens:
Cf. 136.14 for similar language in a different context.

8.
no other leaf:
No other divine symbol. Petrarch seems to use the laurel in its Dionysian sense in
this and the preceding poem, that is, as a hallucinogen. Cf. Dante, whose poet’s crown
was composed of myrtle, and in particular Virgil,
Eclogues
II, 54 ff.: “Et vos, o lauri, carpam, et te, proxima myrte; sic positae quoniam suavis
miscetis odores.”

13.
a happy burden:
His task of cultivating the laurel.

13.
In chaste prayer:
Oneste,
in language that attempts to match the pure idea of the thing.

14.
something that is holy:
Rather than as the earthly thing itself.

This sonnet and the next play with the nature of Love’s effects in order to reveal
the universality of its cause.

1.
I sang once:
He praised her.

now I weep:
Expressing the common grief. Cf. 230.10.

3.
not the effect:
The war that followed his falling in love.

4.
only in love with heights:
With the ideal flower in heaven. The roots of his love are so deep they reach the
highest.

7.
I suffer equally:
With humility or harshness, depending on whether this sonnet’s language is judged
to be fine or not so fine.

8.
point of disdain … armor:
Even her anger cannot wound him, so relieved is he now of his worldly burden.

9–10.
Let them
… :
Cf. 207.85–91. Their style is to torment him.

11.
only being happy:
Responding to line 4.

13.
beneath the moon:
The followers of Diana.

14.
so sweet the root:
Cf. 228.9–11.

what for me is bitter:
The “effects” of line 3.

The situation is quickly reversed from what it was in the preceding poem. She has
appeared, and he is able to sing.

1.
I wept and now I sing:
Cf. 229.1: “I sang once, now I weep.”

2–4.
does not hide …/… holy ways:
Laura has shown pity to him.

3.
virtuous Love clearly reveals:
An honest and unambiguous exercise of his power to restore.