Petrarch (77 page)

that holds and makes one love:
Holds in harmony.

70.
Could I but see fixedly:
Were he able to gaze on the sight of her eyes without being overwhelmed by light.

72.
for just one day:
Cf. 22.31–33, where he wishes for one night with her in the amorous wood. “One day”
is eternity.

75.
without blinking:
Without being hindered by the body.

76–78.
Alas … :
But none of these wishes is fulfillable. He seems to fall back in exhaustion.

81.
when too much light:
When he is overwhelmed by her splendor.

82.
were loosened:
The sense of loosening is contrasted with binding in, “I would gather up the courage.”

85.
those wounds deeply pressed:
The ancient wounds he suffered in Love’s first assault.

88.
my blood runs to hide:
Those wounds unmanned him, and even now his courage fails him.

89.
nor am I what I was:
When he walked free of love, in his youth.

90.
this is the blow:
Deep fear of unworthiness.

93.
that speak to me:
His canzone has been speaking to his lady. He now returns to counseling with himself
to prepare for the sonnet that follows.

In spite of its self-justifying conclusion, this sonnet succeeds in breathing scant
life into the subject of her power.

5–6.
face and hair /and… eyes:
Three disembodied beauties.

9.
my feet are not worn out:
“Feet” also has the sense of poetic meter, still holding together.

10.
following your footprints:
Up and back down the mountain, as in the preceding canzoni.

11.
wasting uselessly:
This redundancy sums up the several images of emptiness he weaves into this sonnet,
such as weary thoughts, burden of sighs, losing his tongue, and filling paper.

13.
fill with you:
Pages covered wtih script recall, in the word “fill,” the experience he evoked in
72.43 of sweetness descending into his heart, melting him.

if I am wrong:
If his love is in some way inappropriate to his subject matter.

14.
the fault:
Colpa
refers back to the wound dealt him by Love.

not the lack of art:
His natural talent lacks only the gracious gift of worthiness. Petrarch pursues the
theme of art’s power in the sonnets to follow.

This sonnet expresses the perfect tension of his love.

2.
can heal the wound:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXI, 4; Pliny,
Historia naturalis
XXXV, 25 and XXXIV, 15; Ovid,
Remedia amoris
44 and
Tristia I
, 1; Bernard de Ventadorn, “Ab joi mon” for references to the sword of Achilles.

3–4.
herbs or magic art … :
He cannot find the cure in folklore, the wisdom of the Magi, or in the philosopher’s
stone.

5.
have blocked my road:
Filled all space.

6.
one sweet thought:
The “amoroso pensiero.”

7.
and if the tongue:
She has locked him into this impasse, and if he has been inveigled, it is her doing.
Cf. 74.13–14.

9.
These are those lovely eyes:
He repeats the epithet three times in this sonnet.

9–10.
make the banners / of my lord:
The insignia of his lord, Love, an image of chivalry. Zingarelli notes that “everywhere”
makes the poet’s body a battlefield upon which love is victorious over heart, eyes,
thoughts, tongue, voice, and feet.

13.
with flaming sparks:
Cf. 72.37–39.

He notifies a friend that he is temporarily free of his burden; but out of the prison
of love, he is a man marked by his chains, pale as death.

1.
Love, by alluring me:
Cf. 69.3; Love flattered him with sweet words and benevolent signs.

2.
my ancient prison:
His martyrdom to Laura.

7.
who would believe it:
Of one who had complained so much.

8.
return to freedom:
A hiatus between one poetic effort and another. His sighs express his desire for
a new labor of love.

11.
my heart is signed:
His love is visible throughout.

14.
little time before he’s dead:
Cf. Dante,
Vita nuova
XXIII.

Simone Martini, a well-known painter who was called to Avignon by Pope Benedict XII
in 1339 to serve the papal court, illuminated a miniature portrait of Laura on parchment,
which Petrarch praises in this sonnet. It was believed to have been painted when Petrarch
was working on the
Secretum,
where Augustinus chides Franciscus for being enamored of a painting.

1.
Polyclitus:
Greek sculptor, d. 450
B.C.
Pliny wrote about his bronze sculpture of an Amazon in
Historia naturalis
XXXIV, 55. Cf. also Dante,
Purgatorio
X, 32.

4.
part of the beauty:
He refers again to the sovereign eyes whose beauty has conquered his heart, filling
it with divine sparks.

5.
Simon was in Heaven:
To be absorbed in rendering the beauty of Laura would be heaven enough.

6.
gracious lady comes:
From the divine idea.

8.
as proof down here:
As testimony.

13.
he came down:
Simones act of creating her elevated him above all worldly cares.

Since Simone Martini conceived his idea in Heaven (see 77.5), the poet fantasizes
that Providence might have been even more generous, giving a voice and thoughts to
Lauras lips and eyes.

5.
he would have freed:
He would have confirmed the poet’s deepest wishes.

9–10.
begin to speak to her, / most kindly:
Pygmalion spoke to his statue, and she appeared to respond to his voice and touch.

12.
Pygmalion:
Pygmalion fell in love with his life-size statue of ivory, prayed to Venus for her
life, and was granted his wish. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
X, 212–97.

13.
a thousand times:
Pygmalion’s statue, made living woman, returned his love with passion.

14.
yearn for just once:
Cf. the “one night” of 22.32, and the “one day” of 73.72.
Una volta
cannot be other than an event in time, an “audacious” wish according to one commentator,
who excuses Petrarch on the grounds that he yearns for an image, not the real Laura.

This observance of the beginning of the fourteenth year of his love dates the sonnet
around April 1340. The rhymes alternate
abab
in the quatrains; this is only the second time he has departed from his customary
abba
form in a sonnet.

1.
answer to the start:
He visualizes the entire year, which has begun in travail.

3.
cool shade or aura:
Cf. 75.3–4, where neither herbs, magic art, nor exotic stone could heal his wound;
here he cannot retreat to the laurel.

5.
with whom I’m undivided:
He refers to his thoughts, always consumed by Love. (Carducci suggests the meaning
of “overripe” for
non amezzo,
allowed to hang too long on the vine.)

6.
never breathe with ease:
Because of the suffocating effects of his desire.

7.
so that I’m less than half:
Having passed his thirty-fifth year.

8.
too much looking:
Seeking signs of her love.

11.
she who looking at me:
The line suggests that she appeals to him for help, but he is silent (
chiusamente
, 1 .10).

Poem 79 signaled a change in mood from a sense of accomplishment to one of despair.
This sestina gives form to the conflicts the unhappy soul encounters in seeking understanding.

1.
made up his mind:
Became firm in his desire for his high idea.

2.
upon deceiving waves:
The many contradictions that life reveals in pursuit of that idea.

3.
detached from death:
Scervro,
recklessly not fearing death, as one who sacrifices himself. Cf. Beatrice in Dante,
Paradiso
XVI, 13. Vellutello cites Juvenal,
Satires XII,
57.

in a little bark:
Legno,
signifying the mortal life of the soul.

4.
from his own end:
From danger of shipwreck.

7.
The gentle aura:
Laura.

8.
I gave on entering:
Entrusting to her superiority the guidance of his soul through the perilous sea of
life.

9.
to a better port:
To a higher truth and the salvation of his soul.

10.
more than a thousand rocks:
A long history of potential shipwrecks.

12.
than is the bark:
His soul’s desire to know, driving him toward those rocks.

13.
in this blind bark:
The mind or soul in its mortal body.

14.
wandered never looking:
He lost his bearings. Cf. Cicero.
Somnium Scipionis.

16.
pleased the one:
God.

18.
to see the port:
Literally, “the port might appear to me.” He was too close to danger even to see
it.

19–22.
Just as a light … :
It is a clear, calm night, when the lights on the shore are visible from the sea.
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXVI, 16–33.

23.
I saw the ensigns:
He charted his course from those stars above the inflated sail of his ambition.

24.
I sighed for my end:
For death into “that other” life of blessedness.

25.
not because I’m sure yet:
The words could be humble or they could be caviling. In 73.85–90, he shrank from
his high enterprise, pleading wounds suffered long ago.

26.
with the daylight:
When the rocks will not be hidden in darkness and some of the day will be left to
him.

28.
fragile is my bark:
He fears the perishability of his art.

31.
perilous rocks:
Perilous in the sense of
dubbiosi,
a reference to his uncertainty of mind in the last stanza.

36.
change my way of life:
Like Dante’s Ulysses, he cannot end his journey until he knows how it will end.

Among Carducci’s favorites but criticized by those who seek signs of religious resolve
in Petrarch, this sonnet borrows from Psalm 54 and the Gospel of Matthew. Because
of the frankly political nature of the Psalm, this poem may contain complex messages.
It begins a series of twenty-four sonnets.

1.
the old bundle:
For the burden of his sins, Petrarch chooses the word
fascio,
deeds both good and bad.

2.
of all my sins:
At various times in the
Canzoniere,
he names the sins contained in the bundle: sloth, anger, gluttony, envy, pride.

my bad habit:
Of seeking Laura. He makes a semantic distinction between sin and his love for Laura.

3.
fear much to fail:
To be inadequate to the task of seeking her without becoming trapped in error.

4.
my great foe:
Since the next quatrain speaks of Christ as his friend, this “great foe” is Satan.

5.
once came to free me:
Christ.

10.
O you:
Petrarch paraphrases the words of Christ from Matt. 11:28: “Venite ad me, omnes….”
His temerity has caused comment, especially since he adds his own clause to Christ’s
words, “if no one blocks the way.” Cf. Dante,
Inferno
V, 80–81, and
Purgatorio
XI, 1–24.

12–14.
What grace …:
The relevant passage from Ps. 54 is: Quis dabit mihi pennas sicut columbae; et volabo,
et requiescam?” Carducci noted how he links the Old and the New Testament with these
citations.

13.
those of doves:
Of peace.

14.
that I may rest:
That he may regain his strength for the hard climb.

If poem 80 was penitential and 81 was a prayer for a sign from God, this sonnet puts
religious feeling aside to speak again of his “bad habit.”

3.
at the end of my self-hate:
His exile from himself.

6.
written to my loss:
For example, “Here lies Petrarch, who died unloved by Laura.”

10.
without your breaking it:
That he not be undone by her merciful glance, losing full battle strength as a consequence.

12–13.
your disdain seeks/ to fill itself:
To satisfy itself with proofs of his inadequacy.

13.
it errs, and won’t succeed:
She has not looked beyond appearances and seen his worth.

14.
thanks to Love and me:
And to his constancy.