Petrarch (68 page)

7–12.
And I … :
The poet who loves by day weeps by night in his verses.

8.
that shakes the shadows:
Dawn is the goddess Aurora performing her housewifely duties of clearing away the
night.

10–11.
sun … stars:
The sun was her loving face, the flaming stars her eyes that disdained him.

14.
is cause of others’ dawn:
The shadows over Europe force the way to dawn over the opposite hemisphere (
fanno alba
). In poem 27, these shadows portend a new Crusade.

15.
the cruel stars:
Lauras eyes can both give and take away life.

16.
sentient earth:
As God created Adam in his image, her eyes formed him at their first encounter.

17.
curse the first day I saw the sun:
Cf. Job 3:3, “Pereat dies in quanatus sum, et nox in qua dictum est: Conceptus est
homo.”

18.
raised in the wood:
As one who is bewildered by sudden light when emerging from darkness.

20.
so cruel a beast:
The fierce and proud warrior maiden, object of his desire.

24.
firm desire comes down from the stars:
His faith binds together cruel eyes, cruel beast, and the body of this earth in his
creative mind. Cf. Arnaut Daniel, “Lo ferm voler quel cor m’intra.”

25–28.
shining stars… amorous wood…pity:
He makes a triad of these images also. The amorous wood was a region of Virgil’s
Underworld assigned to those who die for love (
Aeneid VI,
442 ff.).

28.
for one day:
Cf. Job 14:13, where Job imagines God’s granting him a rest from His constant gaze
in one day’s descent into Sheol, the Hebrew underworld. Petrarch’s wish for a night
of sexual love with her is repeated in two other sestinas, 237.35 and 332.73, and
in canzone 73.72 with more spiritual intent. Cf. also 78.14.

29–30.
can restore many years … from the setting:
Cf. line 14, “our own dark is cause of others’ dawn.”

33.
to never see the dawn:
Because Petrarch seems to be speaking of a state between death (
si parte il sole)
and resurrection (
l’ alba
), he may be inviting judgment, wishing to be recognized as the fallible man he is
rather than aspiring to saintliness. Cf. Job 9:32–35.

34.
and she not be transformed:
As Daphne was changed into the laurel.

37.
But I’ll be under earth:
He will not live to see his vision realized.

in a dry wood:
Leopardi understood this to be a coffin, but here “wood” is
selva,
a forest, and it is “dry” because it yields a meager harvest. Figuratively
selva
means a multitude of thoughts, confusion.

38.
tiny stars:
Remote and weakened by distance.

This first canzone, half of which appeared in the First Reference Collection (1336–1338),
may have been composed as early as 1330 (Wilkins says 1333 or 1334), but it did not
receive its final form until 10 November 1356, when Petrarch made a notation on the
working manuscript, Vat. Lat. 3196, that “after many, many years” he was transcribing
it into finished form. In 1350, during a three-day period of work on the poem, he
had reshaped it to give it a final touch. In 1351, in the early hours of Thursday,
28 April, he made the notation
fine
at the end of it. Yet on 4 November 1356, he was still retouching his “trifle”
(nugarum);
and a few days later, after further corrections, he made his final inscriptions,
next to verse 156. It is evident that the canzone was no trifle in Petrarch’s mind,
since he labored so long and hard over it; indeed, in canzone 70, this “portrait”
of his young age numbers among the Provençal and Italian love poems he evokes to dedicate
his work to a strange new style.

The episodes described in this poem, amounting to six metamorphoses based on the Ovidian
model, may be chronologically arranged and are autobiographical in nature. Or the
metamorphoses may describe modes of emotional experience or shifting cognitive states
arranged in a continuum giving the appearance of being progressive but always leading
back to the primal moment or epiphany that is the subject of all the
Canzoniere.

1.
In the sweet season:
Adolescence.

3.
grew up against me:
A sexual passion hostile to the preservation of self.

4.
can unripen:
Expressing his pain in verse may sweeten it.

6.
in my home:
In his heart and soul.

7.
how this offended him:
Compare the offenses of poem 2.

12.
a thousand pens:
Pens of his own that have been used up telling of his pain.

13.
every valley:
Wherever love reigns in inhabited regions.

14.
painful way of life:
His martyrdom.

17.
that thought:
The loving thought (
amorosopensiero
) of 10.12. The ambiguity of this thought lies in its capacity for transormation,
demonstrated by the six metamorphoses.

20.
I merely the shell:
The body being the mere dress of the soul. According to Waller (p. 93)
scorza
means the narrating poet.

21.
I tell you:
The open declaration is a rhetorical device, used by St. Augustine, Dante, and others,
derived from the biblical psalms.

first thrust:
This “first assault” is believed to refer either to the shock of puberty or to the
kind of experience Dante described as taking place in his ninth year, growing into
a real adolescent passion that was suppressed. “Frozen thoughts” and “adamantine toughness”
(11. 24–25) are fear and grief engendered by this early awakening of desire.

23.
giving up my youthful looks:
Petrarch had reached his twenty-third year (1327) when he first saw Laura, the end
to the age of innocence.

29.
appeared miraculously:
The effects of love in others were merely surprising to him, so well defended was
he against it. Cf. poem 2.

30.
Oh, what am I? What was I?:
A pained exclamation occurs in each stanza where a metamorphosis is about to take
place.

31.
The end lauds life:
Just as the day can be judged or praised only in the evening, so life can be seen
as good or bad, happy or unhappy, only in conclusion. The line echoes Ovid (
Heroides
II, 85), “Exitus acta probat.”

34.
beyond the clothes I wore:
Had not penetrated to his heart.

38.
what I am:
A state of being in the present that answers the first of the questions of line 30,
“what am I?”

39.
from living man:
The first transformation draws on the legend of Apollo and Daphne in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses
(1,550).

to green laurel:
The image of the tree and its branches symbolizes the power of poetic language to
restrain as well as glorify the human spirit. “What was I?” (1. 30) speaks of the
time of freedom (1. 5), before recognition of this power struck him with full force.

41.
The way I felt:
He will tell also of this, as in line 21 he declared, “I tell you … that.”

44.
hoped to make into my crown:
The line is reminiscent of
Inferno
XVI, 106–108, in which Dante speaks of the cord he hoped to use as defense against
the leopard. In the
Inferno,
Virgil drops into the pit the cord binding the Pilgrim’s waist, attracting Geryon,
whose transport permits a release from the bounds of conventional language into new
realms. Petrarch’s youthful hope was that the language he fashioned might bring him
glory.

46.
every limb:
The metaphor flows backward from outward manifestations to the core of nature (and
language).

48.
not of Peneus:
Daphne was transformed into a laurel tree by the compassionate goddess on the bank
of the Peneus, to save her from the rape of Apollo.

a prouder river:
Said to refer to the Rhône, the river flowing through Avignon, allegorically to a
less simple, more prideful poetic environment.

50.
Nor do I feel:
The present tense, singling out emotion from event (“later on / when struck”) appears
whenever feelings are about to be transformed into myth.

51.
white feathers:
The second metamorphosis refers to the myth of Phaeton and Cygnus (Ovid,
Metamorphoses
II, 367). It dramatizes the psychological processes involved in hoping for his lady’s
favor, daring to reach for it, failing in the attempt, and ultimately losing courage
to mount another effort. White is the color of fear, grief, and piety, now become
the subject matter of his poetry.

57.
near and in the waters:
Whether he had lost his hope by immersing in the waters of life or standing back
from them.

59.
that evil fall:
The fall of Phaeton, whose flight symbolized that of his hope.

60.
I took on its color:
He became celibate.

61.
the shores I loved:
Those frequented by Laura.

63.
with a strange voice:
Perhaps he means in Italian, among Frenchmen, a sound harsh and bitter to their ears,
new and barbaric.

67.
What I felt then:
Virgil, Boethius, and Dante also speak of the memory that burns (literally “cooks”).

68–86.
But much more …:
This episode, believed by most critics to be loosely recounting the myth of Battus
and Mercury (Ovid,
Metamorphoses
II, 685), may have other sources, such as the transformation of Atlas into a mountain
when Perseus held up the head of Medusa. Cf. also St. Augustine’s account in
Confessiones
III of his
mother’s vision of Christ, and Dante’s dream in
Vita nuova
III, in which Beatrice feeds on his heart at the urging of a lordly figure.

71.
beyond… words:
Beyond human knowledge.

74.
“Say not a word”:
Cf. 5.7–8, and see 2 Cor. 12:4 and Mark 1:44.

75.
in other garb:
He recalls the first assault, when love of poetry was “green,” by making this comparison
with the second event, his meeting Laura.

77.
what the truth was:
Because she seemed receptive, and was alone, he revealed his passion to her.

79–80.
quickly turned me …:
The third metamorphosis, like his transformation to the swan, also describes fear,
this more grievous and immediate. Whereas Cygnus was able to move, Battus suffers
near paralysis, huddled like his cattle on the frozen tundra.

81.
so much anger:
Indignation at his failure to understand.

83.
Perhaps I am not what you think I am:
Rather than saying, “perhaps, sir, you misinterpret my kindness as acquiescence to
your base desire,” Laura may be chiding him for glorifying her falsely. Cf.
Inferno
XIX, 62.

84–86.
If she were …:
The “if” clause makes these lines ambiguous. In St. Augustine’s account (see above,
note 68–86), he is struck by his mother’s faith but fails to understand it, instead
continuing in his sinful ways for nine more years. Here, Petrarch’s protagonist would
rather return to his early period as a swan than endure his own thwarted passions.

88.
but myself:
This line begins a psychological process completed in line 100, when he blames her.

90.
my time is short:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XVI, 124–29.

92.
many things recorded in my mind:
He chooses to remain silent about certain events in his life. Instead, he will write
only of that which brings about amazement and reverence.

95.
Death had now wrapped itself:
“Denied” by Laura, he enters a period of despair of being understood.

98.
my spoken voice:
Cf. poem 18, where the “deadly words” in line 12 are unspoken.

99.
pen and paper:
Cf. Job 19:23–24. Advised to suffer in silence by his friends, Job declared in 7:11
that he would not hold his peace, but would argue with God in defense of his life.

100.
I’m not mine:
He is hers. Cf. Job 9:35.

your fault:
Laura, in possession of his heart and soul and having killed all hope in him, must
take responsibility for his very death. This will be his defense against unintelligibility.

101.
by doing this:
By writing down the details of his love.

105.
sometimes inflame it:
His meekness will succeed in arousing her disdain, because boldness instead will
be called for.

106.
I was wrapped in darkness:
Out of the sight of her eyes.

107.
with my prayers:
Cf. line 98, “my spoken voice had been denied me.”

112.
fugitive ray:
A sun in decline. The passage recalls Job 16:18–22, where Job’s prayers are unanswered
and he yearns for an intercessor.

114.
whenever they decided:
Cf. Dante’s
Vita nuova,
where the poet succumbs to self-pity (or takes the less arduous road to wisdom).

117.
turn to fountain:
The fourth metamorphosis, patterned on that of Byblis into a fountain (Ovid,
Metamorphoses
IX, 660). Byblis had confessed in writing her forbidden
love for her brother Caunus, who then repudiated and abandoned her. Seeking him and
not finding him anywhere she fell to the ground in despair, transformed by grief.