Petrarch (78 page)

Weak negatives alternate in this sonnet with the fierce reality of his love.

3.
I may take a chance:
He still, unwisely, seeks out her eyes, from which Love launched his first assault.

5.
I fear no longer:
He is now defended, whereas before Love caught him unawares.

7.
nor break:
Literally, “nor open.” He has hardened his heart. Cf. 23.73.

8.
pitiless and poisoned:
Love is still able to invade him in a more generalized sense.

9.
tears escape my heart:
Find their way from Love’s wounds to his eyes.

10.
they may know the way:
Through pain distilled.

11.
and barely:
He is just able to restrain his tears.

12.
the fierce ray:
The light of her eyes, to which he is reluctantly drawn throughout the sonnet.

13.
cruel, harsh image:
His primal vision of her.

This sonnet is a dialogue between his heart and his eyes, which seem to sit in judgment
on who is to blame for the poet’s unhappiness. The idea may have come from Guido Guinizelli’s
sonnet “Dolente, lasso.”

1.
Eyes, come now:
Resolute eyes that held back his tears in sonnet 83.

2.
suffer death because of you:
Consume itself bit by bit. His eyes permitted the arrows of Love to penetrate that
first time.

4.
more for another’s fault:
The heart’s.

5.
as if to his own home:
Settling in as a bird would to its nest, giving power and seniority not only to Love
but to the heart.

7.
We showed him in:
The eyes protest. Because of the desire stirred in the heart, they were moved to
turn out of pity for it.

9.
The claims are not:
One cannot counter the first argument with the second, says the heart.

10.
in your first sight:
The heart’s argument relies on the first motion of the eyes, establishing their culpability.

11.
most greedy:
Devouring her beauties.

12–14.
Now this is what makes us … :
The defense of the heart is, perhaps, less than judicious.

This sonnet is interesting as a sequel to poem 84: final judgment has been postponed—guilt
having been distributed among mind, heart, and eyes—and the poet, released, bursts
forth in gratitude for the gifts of life.

3.
that place so sweet:
Where he first saw Laura.

4.
when Love saddens my heart:
On Good Friday.

9.
see them all together:
That harmony of joy, sadness, virtue, and beauty that characterizes the singular
time, place, and circumstances of his falling in love.

10.
from every side:
Or quindi or quinci,
literally, “now here, now there.” Cf. 73.53.

12.
with what force:
As if time, place, circumstance, and the lady were Love’s troops.

14.
yearn to live:
If he did not believe in the miraculous power of their encounter, he would cease
to be.

Having blessed the day in which all good converged for him he contradicts himself.

1.
detest the window:
Laura’s eyes. “Io avrò sempre in odio” responds to “Io amai sempre” in 85.1.

2.
thousands of arrows:
Cf. poem 2.

3.
none of them:
None demanded that he martyr himself in this way.

4.
death would be lovely:
To die in a state of defendedness against love.

5.
But staying longer:
Literally “surviving,” living just above death.

7.
that they will be immortal:
That his woes will accompany him into death.

8.
cannot be disentangled:
The errors of the heart threaten the soul’s salvation.

11.
turn back time:
He cannot reverse his fate as easily as he reversed his words.

Carducci admired this sonnet for the way it “presents, with such a high degree of
elegance,” Laura’s “cold and cruel flirtatiousness with his passion.”

1–4.
let the bowstring go:
Cf. the massacre of poem 2. The sound of the lines imitates the action, ending with
line four’s “tocchi,” a light but decisive touch.

2.
an expert archer:
Sagittario,
one of the attributes of Christ.

5.
you felt the shot:
She observed his reaction and knew in herself that her glance had reached its mark.
Cf. the “graceful revenge” of 2.1

8.
eternal tears:
Of the eternal lover.

9.
I am sure:
The certainty of faith. Cf. line 3.

13.
my two enemies:
Laura and Love.

14.
not to kill me:
Cf. 86.3

Half-horse, half-man, lame from combat, he flees Love’s war. The sonnet ends with
the news that his enemy has also been wounded, a bit of intriguing detail.

1–4.
Since what I hope for …:
He should have retreated when his soul was still unbloodied.

4.
than a gallop:
The word
galoppo
is used only once in the
Canzoniere.

5.
now I do flee:
As an animal limps off to show his unwillingness to fight.

6.
twisted me:
Wounded on the left side, whereby “dead is reason now” (see 73.25).

8.
the scars:
The signs of struggle in the very verse he writes. Cf. poem 76.

11.
burns to extremes:
Causes you to lose your will to return.

12.
not one in a thousand:
Cf. 2.2.

13–14.
And certainly … :
Leopardi interpreted these lines to mean that Laura fell in love with the poet, departing
from myth. Daphne was wounded with the leaden arrow, causing her to spurn Apollo.

13.
my enemy was strong:
He, “safe now,” and she, wounded, survive to fight another day.

He is freed from the prison of Love to pursue a lesser love—a liberty paradoxically
more confining than before. The sonnet’s figurative vocabulary suggests the metamorphoses
of the silkworm, whose triple life the lover applies to his own.

1.
Escaping from the prison:
Cf. poems 67, 69.9, 76.1–4.

3.
would take too long:
Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
XV, 419–20: “Before I have the time I need to tell you / All of the things that take
new forms.”

4.
my new-found liberty displeased me:
Liberty from Laura (cf. poems 47 and 48) caused him to lose his purpose. He plays
on the word
increscere,
an inversion of the verb “to grow,” as well as on the figurative meaning of the silkworm,
which is hidden desire.

7.
along the way that traitor so disguised:
Cf. the circumstances of
Vita nuova
IX, where Dante meets Love in pilgrim’s garb along a river. See also Dante,
Paradiso
XX, 91.

13.
to free myself:
Mi spetro,
“unrock myself,” recalls 23.80–85. To free himself from this chrysalis, to emerge
as the butterfly, is emblematic of the soul liberating itself from the body.

Laura, perhaps less lovely now, is remembered at the peak of her beauty.

1.
flow free:
So Daphne appeared in Ovid,
Metamorphoses
I, 529: “Et levis impexos retro dabat aura capillos”; and Venus in Virgil,
Aeneid I,
319: “Dederatque comas diffundere ventis.”

4.
whose light is dimmer now:
With the passage of time, as if the sun of a kinder civilization were sinking into
the west. Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
XV, the teaching of Pythagoras.

5.
the color pity wears:
Of pearl, balanced between paling and blushing.

6.
I did not know:
On that first day.

7.
with all Love’s tinder:
With all his potential as a poet.

9.
was not the way:
He speaks of the past.

12.
a godly spirit and a living sun:
Christlike qualities were invested in her form, acts, and movements. Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
I, 328: “dea certe, an Phoebi soror an nympharum sanguinis una.”

13.
and if she is not now:
If Lauras beauty and virtue, and his ability to evoke them, have faded.

14.
my wound still bleeds:
This famous line, “piaga per allentar d’arco non sana,” was taken as an emblem by
King Rénard d’Anjou after the death of his wife Isabel of Lorraine. Chiari paraphrases:
“I cannot help but continue to love her, just as the wound is not healed if the arrow
in the bowstring is no longer poised to strike.”

To his brother Gherardo, or to a poet friend, as consolation for the death of his
beloved.

2.
has suddenly departed:
She has died at a young age.

5.
recover both the keys:
Cf. 37.35 and 63.11. The keys to will or not to will, say some; or the keys to pleasure
or to pain.

7.
straight, clear path:
By her virtuous example she shows him the way.

9.
your greatest burden:
Salma
is synonymous with the body.

10.
all the others:
Other worldly goods.

11.
rise up:
To go forth unencumbered. Petrarch uses the spelling
saliendo,
following the Provencal
saillir,
meaning to stand out, project, jut out. Zingarelli (and others) changed it to the
conventional
salendo
because the other was “too jarring.” I have kept the Provençal derivative as does
the manuscript and Contini in his edition.

14.
the dangerous pass:
Judgment.

Petrarch’s affinity for the older poet Cino da Pistoia was strong. This sonnet mourns
the occasion of Cino’s death in 1337.

1–4.
Now weep … :
The lines echo Cino and Dante (see
Vita nuova
III), also Catullus III: “Lugete, Veneres, Cupidinesque.”

3.
whose mind was fixed:
Whose verse in honor of the beloved lady consumed his entire attention.

6.
stopping up my tears:
Heavy grief that did not permit tears pooled and petrified in the heart. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXXIII, 49.

7.
be so courteous:
Although Cino suffered because of the premature death of his lady, his style remained
gracious, and Petrarch would ask this favor of his own pain.

9.
let every verse:
Petrarch exhorts all to honor Cino as his Latin and Italian works honored all poets.

10.
messer Cino:
Cino was “master” of the form, teacher as well as practitioner.

11.
just now:
The word
novellamente
speaks of a vacancy only now turning up in the highest rank of love poets.

12.
Pistoia, weep:
In a much more moderate (courteous?) way than Dante, Petrarch inveighs against Cino’s
native city. Cf. Dante,
Inferno
XXIV, 126, and XXV, 10.

and all her wicked folk:
The party of the Blacks, which exiled Cino in 1303. Blacks and Whites, the factions
that threw into exile the families of Cino, Dante, and Petrarch, were given their
names in Pistoia.

13.
lost a neighbor:
He laments political disunity that would drive away a loyal compatriot. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XI, 139–41.

14.
Heaven, celebrate:
Only there can neighbor be reunited with neighbor, great poet with great poet.

In this sonnet Love exhorts the poet to return to the golden subject from “other work”
that has distracted him. In the next, Petrarch will attempt to work out a response
to Love based on empirical evidence. The two sonnets are distinguished by their unusual
rhyme schemes:
abba/abba/cde/edc
and
abba /abba /cdd /dee.

3.
change … in color:
Render them pale as death. Cf. Ovid,
Ars amatoria
I, 729: “Paleat omnis amans, hic est color aptus amanti.”

6.
famous example:
Cf. poems 1 and 23.9.

7.
other work:
Poetry on subjects other than Laura.

8.
while you were fleeing:
Cf. 39.3, 68.6, 69.9, 89.1.

9.
you saw me in:
He once saw love in Lauras eyes. Cf. 71.8, and 88.

12–14.
give back to me … :
“Turn in your weapon; you are discharged for failure to execute your duty to weep.”
Cf. 90.14.

14.
how I can feed on tears:
Cf. Virgil,
Eclogues
X, 29–30: “Nec lachrymis crudelis Amor, nec gramina rivis nec cythiso saturantur
apes nec fronde capellae.”

Petrarch uses this rhyme scheme only two other times, in poems 13 and 326. The equivocal
rhyme
parte
appears in lines 2, 6, and 7.