Petrarch (67 page)

12.
burdens every heart:
For the suffering of the people. The nightingale, Philomela, appears from time to
time in the
Canzoniere,
her song a refrain.

thoughts of love:
In this case, the “thoughts”
(amorosi pensieri)
are of spiritual love.

13.
cut short perfection:
By Colonna’s not joining them, the potential good of the forces gathered in lines
6–8 is hindered from fulfilling itself.

The
ballata antica,
popular in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, was meant to be sung during dance.
The six others in the collection are poems 14, 53, 59, 63, 149, and 324. This is a
ballata grande
because its refrain has four verses.

2.
that veil:
The veil is a complex symbol in Petrarch’s verse. Theologically it represents the
fallen form of nature, the body which will be swept away at the time of Revelation.
It can refer to writing itself, a less pure version of the Idea language is meant
to convey. In poem 52, a madrigal, Petrarch puts his own touch on the common image
of the veil, using it as a sign of allegory that both reveals and conceals truth.

3.
discovered:
She knew instantly the nature of his feelings when she looked into his eyes.

5.
in secret:
Before he had announced his love to the world.

6.
kill my heart:
Death of the heart is synonymous with the consuming intensity of desire.

10.
loving gaze withdrew:
She found his love unworthy. Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
X, where Beatrice denies Dante her greeting.

12.
the veil that rules me:
A power more temporal than eternal.

13.
in warmth or cooler weather:
Cf. “in sun or shade” in line 1.

14.
covers the sweet light:
Her truest beauty is hidden as are his thoughts of love in line 5.

He daydreams about old age when she will no longer be resistant to the idea of his
love, when his youthful passion will be spent.

1–2.
anguish … struggles:
The suffering caused by unconsummated love.

4.
dimmed by the force:
Laura’s power to arouse his desire will give way to Nature’s power to take it away.

6.
garlands and green clothes:
Like Persephone, a maiden in the spring of her life.

7.
face pale:
Giving way to compassion. Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
XXXVI.
in all my misfortunes:
Since the sweet pity in her face clouded over.

9.
make me bold:
After all fear of arousal is gone.

11.
the years, the days:
He anticipates. Cf. 343.11.

12.
should time work against my sweet desires:
Should one or the other die prematurely.

The rhyme scheme of this sonnet appears only twice more, in poems 94 and 326.

3.
as much as each:
The singularity of Laura is shown to be mathematical perfection by this conceit.
She is the sum of womanhood, the highest good of line 10. Cf. the rendering of Beatrice
in Dante,
Vita nuova
XXVI.

4.
the more the wish I love:
The more he desires to reach her perfection.

5.
I bless:
A benediction of his first encounter. For other expressions of the blessedness of
this hour, see poems 61, 85, 211, 284, and 336.

8.
that you were found worthy:
That the gods blessed him with the sight of her.

10.
highest good:
The way to God.

12.
all joyous honesty:
Free of imperfection. The word
leggiadria
is one that Petrarch develops over the course of the
Canzoniere.
A perfect harmony of noble characteristics, its emergent quality is that of grace.

14.
fly high:
With confidence and pride in his abilities.

He prepares for a journey which may challenge him grievously.

1.
weary eyes:
From weeping and studying her face.

2.
killed your sight:
By absorbing them completely. Petrarch uses
morire
(to die) transitively.

3.
careful:
Rely on what they already know of her virtue and beauty.

4.
Love defies you now:
Calls him into battle with himself.

6.
loving path:
Virtue.

8–10.
but your light can be hidden … :
Lesser beauties may obstruct the vision of his imperfect susceptible eyes.

11.
tearful hours:
Of parting.

14.
brief solace:
By fixing her face in his memory at the last moment.

He begins his journey buoyed by optimism but slowed to a standstill by fear of separation
and travail.

3.
air:
The word
aere,
distinct from
l’aura,
is used by Bernard de Ventadorn in a similar poem. The very air Laura breathes spurs
him on.

5.
Then thinking:
Although his thoughts want to stay behind.

7.
and pale:
Fear of the journey causes his fire to wane.

8.
at the ground, my eyes in tears:
Irresolute, he waters the earth with his tears.

9–10.
a doubt / assails me:
The enjambment here brings
un dubbio
(a doubt) to the beginning of the line with sudden force.

10.
all these parts:
Of his divided being, that is, the vital spirits and body that journey forward, and
the mind or soul that would remain with Laura.

12–14.
Love answers me …:
His love will bind together what doubt would split asunder.

The poet makes a comparison between the lover and an old pilgrim traveling to the
holy city of Rome.

3.
bewildered:
Fearing for the old man’s safety.

5–8.
from there … :
The sequence of response is similar to lines 1–4 of the preceding sonnet. Good will
buoys him, but the body lags behind.

wearied by the road:
The effect of a long life’s journey.

10.
the likeness of the One:
The impression of Christ’s face on the burial cloth, the Veronica, preserved in the
basilica of St. Peter. Cf. Dante,
Paradiso
XXXI, 103–108.

12–14.
Just so… :
He seeks in others a semblance of the ideal which is Laura. Their beauty compares
to hers as the cloth that covered Christ resembles his true desirable form. The poet
Foscolo thought this sonnet skirts on blasphemy.

Laura has disdained him.

3.
my eyes turn:
When he should chance to look at her.

4.
I am divided:
Because all his thoughts are about her.

5.
sweet and soothing smile:
Now withdrawn from him.

6—8.
does calm the ardor … :
Like the sun, her smile fills him with sweet warmth, tempering his emotions.

7.
burning martyrdom:
Petrarch uses “martyrdom” in the Greek sense of testimony, i.e., breaking the silence
with his poetry.

9.
turn cold:
Like the earth without its sun, turning in rotation.

11.
turning their gentle motion:
Torcere
has the primary meaning of twist or deviate from the normal path, making it seem
like a contradiction to “gentle motion.”

12.
Let loose:
The amorous keys, Lauras eyes, have double power to lock and unlock.

14.
deep in thought:
His soul is able to transcend his martyred heart through meditation.

Divided from the once-experienced source of light, he follows a blind course. This
sonnet is unique for its rhyme scheme which repeats the seminal words
parte
and
luce
in the quatrains and
morte, desio,
and
sole
in the tercets. The rhymes are equivocal since their meanings vary.

1.
in the direction:
Drawn toward that place and moment when he first saw her.

2.
my lady’s sweet face shines:
The light of her face had the double power of burning and clarifying. The term “Madonna”
is a lover’s endearment.

3.
lingering light:
The permanent impression on his heart made by her eyes, awakening his desire.

5.
breaks to pieces:
Love’s assault wounded him where his strength was concentrated, dividing him from
himself.

10.
I flee:
One of the paradoxes of Petrarch’s verse is this fleeing from that part of himself
that both ennobles and consumes him.

12.
I go in silence:
His
amoroso pensiero
cannot flower into verse.

deadly words:
Unspeakable thoughts that die aborning (Carducci).

The love poet’s predicament resembles the involuntary movement of the moth for the
flame. The sonnet anticipates the sestina soon to follow; see poem 22.

1–2.
courageous / sight:
That of the eagle, for example, symbol of apotheosis, associated with great kings.

2.
the sun:
The eagle’s ability to look directly into the sun was legendary.

3.
others … harmed:
Beasts of the night who shun light.

5.
and others:
The moth, for example.

6.
joy in fire:
Because of its promise of a greater peace. The image is apocalyptic.

8.
latter race:
Schera (schiera)
is a term Petrarch uses again in 139.2 and 287.11. Cf. Dante’s use of
schiera
in
Inferno
XV, 16, and
Purgatorio
XXIV, 64–69.

9.
to face … shield:
Corresponding to lines 1–4.

13.
my destiny:
He was marked for martyrdom by his encounter with Laura.

14.
what will burn me:
That is, “the other power” (1. 7), a consuming dark force behind the sunlight of
her face.

Wounded in their first encounter, he is daunted by the task of praising her high beauty.

1–2.
praised/your beauty:
This was the promised goal of poem 5.
Vergognando
already wounds his verse with its laxity.

3.
first time:
This moment held in the memory is the touchstone of the
Canzoniere.

4.
as no one was:
A thousand others failed to ignite his love.

5–6.
not for my arms … polished by my file:
Hers is not a beauty to be exalted in the usual way. Cf. poem 9.

8.
turns to ice:
From fear and shame at its inadequacy.

9–11.
Now more than once … :
Each part of the appartus put into motion for the creation of verse worthy of the
lady is enumerated and found wanting.

14.
were conquered:
From the first moment, love had the effect of scattering his creative forces, centered
in the heart where reason could not help him.

He devises a clever argument to show that his inability to praise her cannot be blamed
entirely on him.

1.
my sweet warrior:
Laura is his Diana, the beloved enemy who has possession of his heart.

4.
to gaze so low:
So great is the discrepancy between the ideal she symbolizes and the reality of his
being.

6.
fallacious hope:
Mirroring his own for Laura.

7.
spurn:
The lover spurns his wounded heart as he imagines she might spurn it.

9.
if I banish it:
Abandon hope of repossessing it, accepting her terms.

13.
grave guilt:
For the projection of his guilt onto Laura, see also poems 23, 82, 207, 216, 224,
236, and 240.

14.
loves you the more:
In loving her he desires to be filled with her worthiness, but if he must lose hope
for reciprocated love, his own unworthiness will be the stronger force, thereby wounding
her.

This is the first of the
Canzonieres,
nine sestinas, a complex form used by Arnaut Daniel and Dante and one that Petrarch
perfects in his final sestina, poem 332, by
doubling it. The sestina is made up of six stanzas of six hendecasyllabic lines, concluding
with a three-line
tomata
that repeats all of the rhymes of the poem. Each stanza uses six different words
in end-rhyme position, repeated in a different end position in all six stanzas, in
a sequence called
retrogradatio cruciformis:
abcdef/faebdc/ cfdabe/ecbfad/deacfb/bdfeca. Each stanza repeats the end-word of the
preceding stanza in the order of lines 615243. The stringent requirements of the form
have the effect of binding essential, potent elements together to compensate for a
spiritual falling-short.

1–2.
For any animal …:
Cf. poem 19.