Petrarch (91 page)

9.
around her lovely neck:
On a golden collar, according to an account by Solinus, third century
A.D
.

11.
my Caesar:
Commentators identify Caesar as God, who created Laura free of sexual and worldly
desires. Cf.
Familiares
XVIII, 8: “Nemo me capiat, quern Julius Caesar liberum esse jussit.”

12.
climbed… midway:
When the sun reaches its zenith mankind is most prone to seek shade.

14.
fell in the water:
Took the wrong path.

Is it possible to live on the strength of his vision alone? This sonnet begins a section
of the
Canzoniere
(ending with poem 263) that was written into the manuscript late in life in Petrarch’s
own hand.

7.
sweet time of day:
In the morning.

8.
surpassing all high hope:
Che vince,
taking him hostage.

9.
were it not so quick:
Time.

10–11.
live / on smell alone:
He learned this bit of natural history from a legend recounted by Pliny (
Historia naturalis
) about an Indian sect on the Ganges: “nullius ad
escam opis indigent, odore vivunt pomorum silvestrium, longiusque pergentes, eadem
ilia in praesidio gerunt, ut olfactu alantur.”

11.
gained belief:
He learned this from a reputable source.

12.
on water or on fire:
Similar phenomena described by Pliny.

13.
every sweetness:
By extrapolation to his case, living on hope and desire alone. Petrarch uses the
Provençal word
dolzor
instead of his customary
dolcezza
(sweetness).

Laura walking through the hills is a miracle to make all Nature rejoice. The one sense
he failed to mention in poem 191, hearing, is given ample play by this poem.

1.
Let us stay:
Cf. 188.5

2.
surpassing Nature:
Approaching the divine. Cf. 191.1–2.

6.
never seen before:
Because uniquely experienced by him.

7.
puts in motion:
Cf. the transfiguration wrought by Beatrice in Dante’s canzone “Donne ch’avete” (“De
li occhi suoi, come ch’ella li mova”)
Vita nuova
XIX.

8.
through shady cloisters:
Bringing light to hidden meanings.

10.
oak ancient and black:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
IX, 381; and Ovid,
Metamorphoses
IX, 664. The black oak stands for the eternal despair of unfortunate lovers.

11.
or press them:
Make her mark on them.

12.
loving sparks:
That ignite the fires in all who behold her.

14.
made serene:
Brought to peace, as the sky clears when the sun has risen.

A sonnet that responds to the question asked in poem 191, can he live on sight alone?
Her visible beauty nourishes his mind and consumes his soul in forgetfulness, but
complete rapture comes when he hears the sound of her voice.

4.
all of Lethe:
Forgetting the burden of mortal life.

5.
When I hear things:
Words spoken to him alone.

7.
rapt by the hand:
Stolen by the bliss of Love. Cf. 181.11.

I know not where:
According to Plato, the soul once born into life forgets the source of the bliss
it knew in heaven.

8.
double sweetness:
The sight and the sound, divine and earthly, intellective and sensitive.

9–10.
that voice… / resounds:
With words of greatest wisdom and virtue.

11.
cannot understand:
Because he has experienced only a part of her sweetness.

12.
Then all together… span:
Suddenly seeing, hearing, and understanding the form, music, and meaning of something—all
within the spreading of a palm. What he describes is eurythmy.

13.
appears to sight:
The highest acts of creation consist of such experiences, in which the poet is seized
by divinity.

This is the first of a series of sonnets (poems 194, 196–198) added to the collection
in 1368, all beginning with the word
Laura.
Together with poem 197, they were completed not too long before transcription during
a period of intense editorial activity.

1.
The gracious breeze:
L’aura gentil,
coming from the west.

2.
awakening flowers:
By moving through the countryside, touching the sleeping land. Cf. poem 192.

4.
in labor and in fame:
Because of the notoriety of his love poetry.

5–8.
To find a place … :
Lines 5 and 6 refer to Vaucluse, lines 7 and 8 to Avignon.

8.
my sun today:
Laura.

9.
such a sweetness:
Tante et tali,
differing from the open sweetness of Tuscany.

11.
fleeing is slow:
Cf. Dante,
Inferno
II, 80.

12.
but wings:
To extricate himself from a paradoxical love that draws him back into the fatal center.

Although it interrupts the
Laura
sequence, this sonnet was retained in this place by Petrarch even after several editorial
changes in 1368. Emerging like a naked tree trunk around which he would cultivate
his vine, it states his determination to exhaust himself in the service of Laura.

1.
face and hair are changing:
Showing signs of age as well as a change in style.

2.
baited hook:
An image from bird-catching.

4.
the tree that has no care:
The laurel, evergreen and indestructible.

5.
lose its water, sky its stars:
All things impossible, as he indicates in line 12.

10.
until I am deboned:
Until he has turned himself inside out and opened to view every tissue of pain penetrated
by the arrow of love.

12.
All things that cannot be:
Referring to the events of Revelation, the end of the world.

Believed to have been written before the death of Laura (1348), this sonnet was extensively
revised in 1368. While working on it Petrarch went ahead and composed poems 194 and
197 and copied them all, along with poem 198, into the final manuscript at the same
time (Wilkins, pp. 171–72). This second in the
Laura
series adds the quality of gold (
l’auro–l’oro
) to the list of her name’s possibilities.

1–2.
The tranquil aura …/… strikes:
A breeze whose sound wounds at the same time that it calms. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XXVIII, 7.

6.
jealousy or anger:
According to Leopardi and Carducci, that which Laura harbors for his little good
fortune. Jealousy in old Latin was connected with fear of competition
(cf. 182.5–8). The link between jealousy and anger here recalls the proximity of wrath
and sloth in Dante,
Inferno
VII.

8.
furbished gold:
Terso,
perhaps with the alternate sense of “held in check.”

9.
wont to loosen:
Once a gesture of open lovingness.

11.
thinking of it:
Remembering the sound of
mormorando
(“murmuring”), with its hint of death (
mort
).

12.
tighter knots:
With greater control.

14.
free it from such ties:
Such stringent conditions.

As the tranquil and gracious aura of poem 196 threatened to suffocate him, so that
which is celestial turns him to stone.

3.
a yoke of sweetness:
The burden of testifying. Cf. Matt. 10:9, “Iugum meum suave est.

5.
has power like Medusa’s:
In Ovid (
Metamorphoses
IV, 630 ff.) Perseus turns the jealous Atlas into a rocky mountain by holding up
the severed head of Medusa.

8.
amber:
A fossil resin valued for its beauty and its property of attracting lighter objects
when polished.

9.
curly snare:
The conical shape of her curls.

11.
armed only with humility:
The desire to serve her. Humility is often called into service at a point of ambiguity.
Cf. 179.7.

12.
Her shadow:
Her temporal self.

13.
with whitened fear:
Made pallid and ineffectual.

14.
into marble:
Transformed like Atlas into hard rock.

The fear of judgment expressed in poem 197 is weighed in a balance with her fertile
aura and the inseminating effect of her eyes.

1.
spreads and waves:
Like the breeze over sunlit fields.

3–4.
binds/my weary heart:
Sustains it. “Binds” continues the grainfield metaphor, aluding to the tying of the
sheaves.

5.
blood’s own fiber:
His veins.

6.
all tremble:
Feel her force at their naked centers. Cf. Dante,
Purgatorio
XXX, 46 ff.; and Virgil,
Aeneid
II, 120.

9.
those lights:
The truth in her eyes.

10.
those locks:
Her gathered hair. Cf. 196.7 and 196.12.

11.
right shoulder… left:
Corresponding to his life and death in line 8.

12.
I cannot comprehend:
Cf. 193.11.

13.
my mind is struck:
Offeso,
literally “assailed.”

14.
wearied and oppressed:
Under the weight of his good fortune.

According to a note on his working manuscript, Petrarch found this sonnet among his
papers on 19 May 1368 during a sleepless night and was reminded of events twenty-five
years earlier. Wilkins (1951, pp. 171, 184) describes how Petrarch left a space for
it in the final version but delayed transcribing it until late in life, during crucial
revisions in 1373–74. The fiction of the sonnet is that Laura has removed her glove
so that he now gazes on the beauty of her unadorned hand. Two more sonnets follow
on the subject of the glove.

2.
enclosing in so little space:
His heart constricts like a bird caught in the hand (Da-niello). Cf. 23.73–74 and
127.85–90.

3.
all art and care:
Cf. poems 154,159,193.12–14. Nature and Heaven conspired in her creation.

5.
five pearls of oriental hue:
Her finger tips.

7.
naked now:
Revealed.

10.
polished ivory:
The ivory hand in French art is symbolic of the monarchy.
fresh roses:
Of her fingernails.

11.
such gracious spoils:
The glove. Cf. Virgil
, Aeneid IV,
651: “Dulces exuviae, dum fata deusque sinebat.”

12.
had as much of her fair veil:
He plays on the layering of meaning implicit in the lady removing her glove, in the
naked hand revealed by her act, and in the beauty of the glove itself.

13.
O the inconstancy:
The unpredictability.

14.
this is theft:
his seeing is a furtive act.

Another in the series of sonnets recounting the affair of the glove.

1.
Not only:
Line 1 lingers over the attributes of her hand.

2.
clothes itself again:
Concealing itself.

3.
the other, too:
The left hand may also enchant him.

5.
none in vain:
He is susceptible to all of them.

6.
new, and honest forms:
Her ungloved hands.

8.
cannot reach it:
Cannot comprehend the perfection of her being.

9.
her eyebrows lit by stars:
Cf. 157.10.

12.
in amazement:
Of her miraculous qualities, at which he can only marvel.

13–14.
which seen / in summer … put out the sun:
Conquering light at the peak of light.

Regret at having lost an opportunity pervades this sonnet. The affair of the glove
is long over.

2.
embroidery of silk:
Serico trapunto,
the glove Laura permitted him to take up in poem 199.

4.
Think who has worn this!:
He is able to infer the whole person from the glove.

5.
that day:
The first day.

9.
that I did not:
Cf. 199.14.

10–11.
firmer / against the strength:
More resistant to all the charms listed in poem 200.

12.
add wings to my feet:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
VIII, 224: “pedibus timor addidit alas.”

13.
take vengeance:
Redress the wrong she does him by withdrawing her favor. Cf. 72.55–58.

The cruel force of circumstance threatens to overwhelm his supine heart, still fearful
and humble.