Petrarch (79 page)

1–8.
When through my eyes …:
He describes the psychophysiological effects of seeing his beloved, well known from
Cavalcanti and given new spiritual depth by Dante in
Vita nuova
XX and XXI.

2.
the master image:
Of the ideal woman, transformed into this dominating image by his desiring mind.

all the rest depart:
She fills his entire being.

3.
all the powers:
The vital spirits.

4.
like dead weight:
The body is left sweetly immobilized (the word
pondo
in Latin means a measure of weight in gold).

5.
this first miracle:
Miraculous for its transfiguring effects.

a second one:
Somewhere between an exchange of glances, “the powers that the soul distributes”
leave the lover’s body and are received by the beloved.

8.
vengeance:
The exchange of love sometimes is reciprocal, and the game begins happily, although
each lover is reduced by having sold his or her power to the other for the sweet golden
words of Love (Love’s vendetta).

13.
I saw two lovers:
Said to refer to an occasion when Petrarch observed his close friend Sennuccio del
Bene (see poem 108 and notes) become enamored of Laura’s female companion in Avignon
(Daniello).

14.
mine often does:
Only his is transformed.

The weighty physicality of falling in love, even when written about in words of gold,
is compared with the lightness of his most deeply felt faith in Laura. The sonnet’s
irony lies in his transparency as a man before her gaze, when he desires to be most
visible as a reflection of her splendor and piety.

7.
you see me naked:
Without defensive arms, entirely revealed. Cf. 71.74.

8.
although my pain:
He knows two kinds of pain, one which he expresses as his suffering—cries about—and
the other the grief he experiences inwardly. Cf. 87.2–14.

11.
without words suffice:
This tercet speaks to her directly through her angelic intelligence.

12–14.
Alas, Mary or Peter were not harmed … :
Mary Magdalene and Peter were understood and beloved by Christ in spite of their
shortcomings and humble origins. In Petrarch’s continuing war with Love, however,
even his own faith is an enemy. Cf. poem 87, where Laura the archer aimed at him with
faith that the arrow would strike its target.

This sonnet echoes others preceding it, combining and itensifying the contributing
factors of his martyrdom.

1.
I am so tired:
Cf. 57.1–4 and 81.1. He is vanquished by waiting.

2.
the battle:
The continual tension between affirmation and denial in his poetry.

4.
every noose:
The tightening cord (
laccio
) recalls Laura’s loveliness, which enslaves him.

5.
I bear painted:
The master image. Cf. 94.2.

7.
cruel tortures:
The word
martiri
appears for the first time since poem 55.

9.
I first went wrong:
His first youthful turning toward the elusive Laura.

11.
it’s bad to follow:
A mildly ironic aside.

12.
unbound to its harm:
After subjects other than Love.

13.
do another’s pleasure:
Then, turning back to Laura, whose lovely image compels him to suffer.

14.
sinned but only once:
The first time, when he chose to love (Carducci).

He speaks again of his brief liberation, which revealed to him the falseness of any
life apart from Laura.

1.
lovely liberty:
Cf. 23.112–120, 76, 89, and 96; see also Virgil,
Aeneid VI,
821: “pulcra pro libertate.”

2–3.
what my state/ was like:
The state of carefree innocence he enjoyed before he fell in love.

4.
the wound… cured:
He uses the word
guerrò
for “cured,” close in spelling to
guerra,
“war.” Cf. 75.2.

5.
My eyes … woes:
He took up his former work again, total absorption in love poetry.

9–10.
does not speak /about my death:
Does not regard him as a lost soul.

12.
in other directions:
He has touched on all the tools of the poet: eyes, ears, tongue, feet, and hands
are in her service.

Here Petrarch consoles his friend Orso dell’Anguillara (to whom he addressed poems
27 and 38) for circumstances that prevent Orso from joining in a noble combat.

1.
your charger:
Orso’s desire is compared with a warhorse, well under the control of its master.

6.
stopped from going:
To the battlefield, which may be only a figurative expression for Orso’s goal.

7.
everyone already knows:
By his reputation for bravery and readiness to fight.

8.
quicker:
In the past he had always been the first to respond to a call to arms.

9.
will be on the field:
His heart, in a pathetic fallacy that Carducci notes, will enter the battle somehow
through the operation of Orso’s good will, his affiliation by marriage with the Colonnas,
his bravery, and his noble blood.

12.
shouting:
The heart calls out on behalf of his absent master.

Also written to a friend—perhaps a member of the Colonna family—this sonnet has the
poet standing aside from active life, wryly giving advice as the blind would lead
the blind.

3.
never fails:
They had, perhaps, followed an idea of good as pleasure only. Cf. 13.10. True good
cannot be false.

4.
that happier state:
Heavenly peace.

5–6.
like a meadow /… lies the serpent:
A common classical metaphor for life’s pleasures.

8.
soul more tangled up:
Caught in the knots and complexities of life.

9.
So you, then:
A peremptory tone, in spite of the
voi
which he uses as a sign of respect.

13.
showing others the way:
Cf. poem 60.

Although written at different periods, this and the next sonnet have the same rhymes
and rhyme schemes and together mark the anniversary of the fourteenth year of his
love, the year of his coronation as poet laureate (commemorated in poem 79).

1.
That window:
The eyes of the mind.

2.
one sun … the other:
Dante’s
Monarchia
is a defense of empire as one sun and the papacy as the other. Petrarch here may
disparage the papacy with his reference to its capriciousness (“any time it likes”),
while putting empire at its zenith (“at noon”).

3.
and that one:
The other window, the ear of the mind, which hears the north wind blow. In
fiede,
the Boreas “wounds” the ear, recalling the cruelty of the god who carried off Oriethyia
to his wintry abode.

5.
the stone: Sasso,
elsewhere a term for the labyrinth that was the Avignon papacy.
on long days:
Signifying summer, the season of harvest.

6.
talking to herself alone:
Laura unnoticed by others.

9.
and the fierce pass:
His unique moment in time.

11.
renews my ancient wounds:
As every year he mourns the death of Christ.

13.
deep:
Literally, “nailed high in the center of my heart,” relating Laura’s face and words
to Christ crucified.

Written some years later than poem 100 but linked to it in its rhymes, this sonnet
turns attention away from the cherished scene toward the sound of that north wind
portending death.

1–2.
she who pardons / no man:
Death.

2.
anguished prey:
Victims of premature loss.

4.
keeps faith with us:
Listens.

5.
little reward:
A response to his appeals has not been forthcoming.

10.
not deceived:
By the passing of time in a relative sense. He refers to the apocalypse.

11.
by forces:
Angelic forces.

12.
Passion and reason:
These are matched with seven and seven in the next line.

13.
better one will win:
Reason, man’s access to the better state.

14.
see the good to come:
Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
XV, 878–79: “If prophecies of bards are ever truthful, / I shall be living, always.”

If Caesar can feign grief when he rejoices, Hannibal laugh when he grieves, and great
historians mask men’s true motives in their writings, why can’t this love poet do
the same?

1–4.
Caesar … :
See poem 44, which mentions this incident recounted by Lucan.

1.
traitor:
Ptolemy betrayed Pompey, who had sought refuge from Caesar in Egypt.

3.
clearly felt:
Manifesta,
that is, his real feelings were known to God.

5–7.
Hannibal… laughed loud:
When the vanquished city of Carthage could not raise the money to pay tribute to
Rome, as recounted in Livy’s history of Rome XL, 35, Hannibal laughed—he himself said—as
a man driven insane by calamity.

8.
bitter disdain:
For his fellow Carthaginians, who did not rally to his cause.

11.
a cloak that is different:
The face is veiled with the contrary emotion. In
Africa,
Petrarch wrote that poetry covers the naked truth with new garments, “making truth
at times clear, at times hidden” (Bernardo).

12.
I laugh or sing:
Each suggesting its opposite. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XXI, 106–108.

14.
of hiding:
The contrary “dark” face is implied. So if at any time he weeps in anguish, he may
do so because he has no other way of hiding his bitter laughter.

Apparently written to Stefano Colonna the younger, who killed in combat two members
of the Orsini family who attacked him near San Cesario in May 1333. Stefano’s death
during the brief tribuneship of Cola di Rienzo signaled the collapse of Petrarch’s
hopes for a unified Italy under the Church of Rome.

1.
did not know how:
Hannibal was criticized for failing to follow up on his victories, particularly in
Cannae in 216
B.C.

2.
victorious fortune:
Cf. Livy’s history of Rome XXXII, 28: “vincere Scis, Hannibal, victoria uti necis.”

5.
The bear:
The Orsini family.

cubs of hers:
Bertoldo and Francesco Orsini, killed by Stefano.

7.
hardens teeth and claws:
Becomes stronger and more ferocious in vengeance. Cf. Statius,
Thebais
II, 130: “Bella cupit, laxatque geenas et temperat unques.”

8.
on us:
On all followers of the Colonnas.

10.
do not… rest:
This note of bellicosity is rare for Petrarch.

11–12.
where your fortune / is calling to you:
Expressing his faith in the Colonnas and his belief that theirs was a noble and just
cause.

This sonnet is addressed to Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini, who at the time of writing
was an up-and-coming captain of the cavalry. His valor against German mercenaries
in Romagna had impressed Petrarch. They became friends in 1356, and Petrarch made
him a gift of a collection of his rhymes in 1372.

1.
hoped-for virtue:
The valor the poet had hoped to find in a worthy subject. Cf. 28.1.

flowering in you:
Pandolfo may have been as young as eighteen at the time.

2.
when Love started:
Love of the right cause.

6.
far greater still:
Cf. poem 40. He may have had in mind a major work he hoped Malatesta would support.

7.
in no way can sculpture be:
Cf. poem 77, another comparison of sculpture with poetry.

so solid:
For all its beauty and integrity, marble does not flower or produce fruit.

9–10.
Caesar or Marcellus, Paulus or Africanas:
Roman generals. Do the works of these heroes act on the minds of men because of the
sculptor’s art?

12.
are frail:
Like the human body that is their model, even solid marble and bronze crumble in
time.

13.
our work:
Which seeds itself in the minds of good men, linking valor to valor through a passion
for good.

This work has been compared to a
frottola
(tall tale) or
descort
(dissent), two Provençal forms that were common vehicles in the period for political
and moral ideas. In spite of its seeming incoherence, Petrarch’s canzone is distinguished
by the integrity of its form. The six stanzas are rigorously constructed, with rhymes
interwoven so that they link not only eleven-beat lines but five- and seven-beat divisions
within those lines, forming a careful network of ideas. While the sounds, even the
thoughts, seem discordant in the beginning stanzas, they are connected on an abstract
level by the events of the poems that came before. At line 52, discord seems to be
overwhelmed by a runner coming up from behind, who cuts short the poet’s irritable
grumbling so that he gives in laughing once more to his love.