Petrarch (104 page)

10.
she triumphs:
Cf. 263.1

11.
unconquered chastity:
The sum of all her blessed qualities.

13.
by force:
By destiny.

So much importance did the last sight of Laura have for him that he reached the zenith
of his life at that moment.

1.
Oh my mind that, foreseeing:
He refers back to the last poems of Part I, beginning at poem 242 where he began
to worry about her dying. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
X, 843: “praesaga mali mens.”

4.
coming troubles:
The unhappy truth about the future that his mind was able to foresee.

6.
strange pity… mixed with pain:
Cf. the “double pity” of 285.8.

7.
were you fully aware:
If his mind had listened to its own promptings. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
II, 54: “Si mens non laeva fuisset.”

9.
in that moment:
When he took leave from her.

10.
How much we burned:
His heart and soul together.

11.
never see again:
Cf. 250.14.

14.
my noblest part:
His love.

That period just before she died, now that he recollects, was like a truce broken
by the treacherous blow of death.

1–2.
green age
… :
Note the use of
etade
(age),
securtade
(confidence),
onestade
(honesty),
Castitate
(chastity), leading up to
felice stato
(state of bliss) in line 12. They comprise a basis on which to “sit and talk” (l.11).

3.
the fire in my heart:
His fighting spirit.

4.
the point where life declines:
The midpoint changes with hindsight; in 124.11 he had “already run half of [his]
course” at a probable 35 years of age. Petrarch was 44 when Laura died.

5.
my dear enemy:
Laura.

7.
her fears:
That she could not trust him.

turn to joy:
To arouse new hope in him with her candor. Cf. 243.12.

9.
reconciled:
When the enemy smiles and war is reduced to harmless games.

10.
with Chastity:
Her minister of defense.

11.
sit and talk:
Cf. 285.14: “and only while she speaks I’ve peace, a truce.”

13.
rather the hope:
A correction, since he is still not sure.

This poem remembers, like the preceding sonnet, a time just before she died when passions
cooled.

1.
my peace or truce:
When Laura turned a more trusting eye on him. Cf. 285.14 and 315.6.

3.
those glad steps:
His steps toward reconciliation.

3.
turned back by the one:
Death. Cf. 315.12–14.

9.
She hadn’t long to wait:
He was already shortening the distance between them.

10.
were changing me:
As his desire waned, his habits indeed changed. Cf. 122.5 and 195.1.

11.
about my troubles:
Falsely try to sway her with his eloquence.

12.
virtuous sighs:
Assuming a style more in keeping with his age and hair color.

13.
of my long labors:
All the good he has done.

14.
she sees… and grieves:
Able to “see both poles at the same time” from her home in heaven (287.5). The image
of Laura in Heaven observing him in his travail recalls Beatrice and the Virgin grieving
for Dante in
Inferno
II, 58–72.

The last of four in a series, this poem describes how Love showed him the way to reach
the fruit of wisdom before Death tore her away.

1.
a port of peacefulness:
He speaks of a time just before Laura died. Cf. poems 314–316.

2.
storming turbulence:
The years of his confused youth.

3.
chaste maturity:
Cf. 315.9–12.

4.
strips off vice:
Like animals that shed their old skin (Zingarelli).

5.
heart and…faithfulness now shone:
No longer obscured by mutual suspicion and angry feelings.

7–8.
spoil/the fruit:
Split hope from the branch before it had come to fruition.

10.
entrusted her chaste ears:
Cf. 315.9–11 and 316.9–11.

11.
all the ancient weight:
A wisdom of love crossing the ages.

13.
chosen words:
Cf. the pitying words in poem 285.

14.
our faces:
These events, their growing old together in peace, were anticipated in poem 12.

Laura’s physical death marks the beginning here, rather than their first romantic
encounter. Notable in this sonnet are its assonance, ingenious rhymes (including
rime riche),
and classical and biblical allusions.

1.
At a tree’s crash:
Cf. 269.1.

2.
by the wind or iron:
Symbolic of circumstance and war. Cf. Horace,
Odes
IV, 6, 9–10.

3.
scattering… noble spoil:
Laura’s beloved mortal self.

4.
its wretched root:
Parched.

5.
I saw another Love chose:
The soul of Laura, or the memory of her name.

6.
Euterpe and Calliope:
Muses of lyric and epic song, according to Hesiod’s
Theogony.

as my subject:
This new plant. Cf. Ezek. 15:1–8, where the vine is compared with the tree, historically
Jerusalem.

7.
bound my heart:
The laurel sprouted anew out of the deepest roots of his living heart.

8.
as ivy winds:
Serpentine, rerooting itself on the ruins of fallen walls and cities.

11.
never stirred a leaf:
Never gained a response.

12.
risen:
For
translato
), cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XIV, 83.

14.
keeps calling out:
like the voice of the murdered Polydorus calling out to Aeneas from the Thracian
shore. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
III, 40 ff.

From the cataclysm described in poem 318 and its mythic reverberations, he turns again
to his familiar lament.

1–2.
My days … /like shadows:
Cf. Ps. 101:12, “Dies mei sicut umbra declinaverunt.”

3.
more than a wink:
Those times when she smiled on him were so rare. Cf. 73.75.

few were those calm hours:
Of truce.

4.
I keep in my mind:
Use as a guide.

5.
O wretched world:
Miserly for the few joys it yields, arrogant for its brazenness.

7.
my heart was torn:
From worldly things by his love for Laura.

9.
her best form:
Lauras soul.

11.
makes me fall more in love:
Cf. 318.5.

14.
what it was like:
Before she became a skeleton, her flesh “already putrefied underground” (Albertini,
1835). There is a bit of play in lines 13–14 that contributes to the grisliness.

That source of peace which he enjoyed so briefly has vanished from the hills of Vaucluse.

1.
aura of old times:
The Laura of his youth. There is an emphasis on the remote past in the verbs of this
sonnet.

4.
forlorn and wet:
Softened, that is, weakened by tears.

6.
The grass is widowed:
Darkened with grief.

7.
the nest in which she lay:
The cold earth where, living, she once reclined. Cf. 126.1–6.

8.
I live… liked to die:
Petrarch, who had been accused of necromancy by one contemporary churchman, may be
playing with his subject matter.

12.
cruel and stingy:
Love.

13.
see my fire:
Laura.

14.
scattered ashes:
His verse, now just the dead remains of his love.

From the ashes of poem 320 the memory arises of his one true phoenix, a bitter loss
to him now.

1.
that phoenix of mine:
Cf. poems 135.1–15,185, 210. Laura was the hope of the age.

2.
gold and purple feathers:
Like the plumage of the phoenix that invites the suns fire.

3.
under her wing:
She shielded him, that he might burn with her. Cf. Ps. 16:8, “Sub umbra alarum tuarum
protege me.”

4.
still elicits:
The verbs
elicere
and
colere
(adore) in line 11 appear just once in the
Canzoniere.
They perform double duty in their alternate senses of “extract spirally” and “filter”
or “purge.”

5.
O primal root:
His tree of life. Cf. 214.8 and 318.13.

6.
while I burned:
That face inflaming him in the same self-destructive way, perhaps, that the phoenix
is set afire by the sun.

10.
return to that place grieving:
Where he first saw her.

11.
adore and honor for your sake:
Celebrate it in order to consecrate her name.

12.
the black of night:
Referring to line 1, where he can barely recognize his surroundings. Cf. Ps. 16:9.

Giacomo Colonna wrote a sonnet in 1341, the year of his death, praising Petrarch on
the occasion of the poet’s coronation with the laurel. Twenty-five years later, on
5 December 1366, Petrarch transcribed this
risposta
along with Colonna’s
proposta
into Vat. Lat. 3196 with the notation, “Responsio mea, sera valde” (My response,
a late conclusion). In this same time period he added the Latin title of the
Canzoniere—Rerum vulgarium fragmenta
(Fragments in the vernacular).

3.
Love appears to sparkle:
Colonna’s opening quatrain “reduces” his own body, mind, and spirit into infinite
sparks and atoms that speak in praise of the young poet. Petrarch makes use of both
Colonna’s rhymes and metaphors.

4.
hand of Kindness:
Referring to the bishop’s magnanimity.

has composed:
Put together again.

5.
Spirit unvanquished:
In Colonna’s second quatrain he speaks of Hector and Achilles. Colonna himself had
been proven a brave and invincible warrior for peace early in his life (Chiari).

6.
now distills such sweetness:
Purified of strife by the intellect.

7.
gave back my wandering poetry / the style:
Reminded him of his original purpose, from which he deviated after the death of Laura.

8.
before Death cut it off:
Colonna’s words, evoked from the past, were finally understood by him just before
Laura died.

9.
some other product of my tender leaves:
Other verse worthy of the eyes of Giacomo that might have fulfilled his youthful
promise.

10–11.
envied/ our union so:
That it cut their collaboration so short.

12.
Who hides:
Delays their reunion, but also prevents the fruition of his idea.

14.
In you, sweet sigh:
This sonnet of reply that finally acknowledges his moral debt to Colonna.

Six visions of Laura’s death are dramatically rendered in this canzone, which has
often been imitated. Its date of composition is unknown, but Petrarch transcribed
it in 1368 with the note “Octobris. 13. veneris ante matutinum. ne labatur. contuli
ad cedulam plusquam triennio hic inclusam. et eodem die inter primam facem et concumium
transcripsi in alia papiro quibusdam etc.” Wilkins dates it 1362–67 in Venice.

1.
while at my window:
As if gazing through a frame with the eyes of his mind.

3.
made me weary:
Seeing them whole and all in one place.

5.
with human face:
The beast is Laura in her mortal form.

6.
hounds, one black one white:
The legendary dogs of the hunter Time, the black being night, the white day (Gesualdo).
Cf. Boccaccio,
Decameron
V, 8; and Dante,
Inferno
XIII, 109–29.

9.
in no time:
A suddenness that is repeated in some manner in each stanza.

forced her to the pass:
To the verge of death. Cf. 100.9.

10.
trapped within the stone:
In a labyrinth (
sasso
) from which the only escape is death. The chase and the stone are purgatorial symbols.

12.
and I sighed from the sight:
His detachment, like that of the protagonist in Boccaccio’s
Decameron
V, 8, and is germane to this vision. As the canzone progresses he enters the scene.

harsh fate:
Cf. the metamorphosis of Actaeon, 23.156–160.

13.
a boat:
Laura’s form as his art.

14–15.
silken … gold/… ebony:
“Oriental” beauties, wrought with Byzantine splendor.

16.
the sea was calm:
Peace had come just before she died. Cf. poems 314–317.

18.
precious cargo:
The word
merce
(cargo) has been used only once before, in 235.6.