Petrarch (92 page)

1.
polished… living ice:
Impenetrable. The polished surface of the ice hints at a new sophistication.

4.
I am perishing:
Giving up his blood to the flame little by little, unreplenished by the water of
mercy.

6.
thundering skies or lion that roars:
Death is like vengeful Jupiter or an angry monarch about to snuff out his life.

8.
I in silence:
A sign of his obedience and humility.

10.
like double columns:
His defense. Cf. poem 40, where the doubling of love and pity on the part of the
benefactor would bring forth a doubling of the poet’s creative output.

13.
my enemy:
The living ice of line 1.

14.
but fate:
Unhappy chance. In this particular extremity, love cannot be held responsible for
the weakness of his verse.

This melancholy reproof addresses an indifferent Laura who will, nevertheless, continue
to live immortalized in his verse. The sonnet was translated into Latin by Thomas
Gray and seems to have served as a lesson for “Elegy Written in a Country Church-yard.”

4.
and yet she sees it:
Laura, and only Laura can see into his heart.

5.
of such little faith:
An extraordinary departure, which has its repercussions in later verse.

6.
my heart within my eyes:
Always before their shared secret.

7.
for my star:
His destiny to be born at this point in history. Cf. 187.12 and 202.14.

10.
diffused in all my verse:
Diluting to the point of quenching his fire.

11.
yet inflame perhaps a thousand others:
The uncertainty of “perhaps” corresponds to “diffused.” “Others” is a reference to
posterity.

12.
my sweet fire:
Zingarelli refers to this as a blandishment.

14.
still full of sparks:
The memory of her loving eyes inspiring new poets, but also his tongue giving off
incendiary bits in his verse, even after death.

He recollects himself after his bitter words in the last sonnet, addressing his heart,
soul, eyes, and ears about the choices that lie ahead.

1.
My soul:
The line echoes the beginning of poem 135, the canzone that began his winding travels
through recent history.

3.
my wishful eyes:
Open to the world and its glory.
you among the senses:
His hearing.

6.
so badly traveled:
Laura redeems him from an unenlightened present.

8.
footprints:
Immortal signs that she has come and that her beauty has been recorded.

11.
can prepare us:
Make us worthy.

13.
the cloud:
Shrouding his world in confusion. Cf. the
nebbia
of poem 66.

In this summation of the longest sonnet cycle in the
Canzoniere,
all that has come before, however painful, shares in the sweetness of the pleasure
she has given him.

1–4.
Sweet anger … :
These lines stand without benefit of verb.

4.
sweet breeze:
The aura of heaven which his life-in-time has granted him.

7.
sweet honor:
Cf. Dante,
Rime:
“Ch’ amor di tanto onor mi ha fatto degno.” See also Catullus XLVIII, 17: “non est
dea nescia nostri quae dulcem curis miscet amaritiam.”

8.
my only pleasure:
The last eight lines of the sonnet are ruled by this statement. Cf. Ovid,
Ars amatoria,
42: “Elige cui dicas: Tu mihi sola places.”

9–10.
someday, someone:
Cf. 203.11, “perhaps a thousand”; here, only one, perhaps a love poet who might follow
him.

10.
tinged with sweet envy:
Of one so intoxicated with sweetness.

12–14.
Others … :
Cf. 204.5–8. Others might think he enjoyed the best of all possible worlds, despite
the evidence of their senses.

Like poem 29, this canzone is modeled on a Provençal form. Bertran de Born lent a
name to it, the
escondig
or “defense,” in his canzone, “Eu m’escondisc, domna, que mal non mier.” The stanzas
rhyme by pairs, using
-ella, –ei, and –ia
throughout in a circular pattern of recurrence. The
-ella
words, used to rhyme interiorly in poem 29, are brought forth to the end of the line,
becoming once more interior in the last line of the poem.

The poet defends himself against the accusation that he has fallen short in his love
of her by something he has said. The if-clause-subjunctive-conditional sequence and
the sounds of words heavy with sibilants call his true meaning into question.

1.
If ever I said it
This phrase is repeated three times in each of the first four stanzas. The words
he has been accused of saying are never identified in the canzone but are hinted at
in a number of lines.

4.
vulgar lordship:
A lesser love, in which the body rules the soul.

5.
may all stars:
Not just the fateful star under which he was born.

7.
both fear and jealousy:
A cruel double punishment.

8.
my enemy:
Laura.

11.
the golden ones… the leaden:
Cf. Ovid,
Metamorphoses
I, 468 ff.

14.
with blind torch:
Facella,
a pauper’s candle that is too faint to light the way.

15.
straight to my death:
To his natural end, shortened by deprivation.

20.
full of my least desires:
A form of damnation in which only unworthy desire rises to combat her resistance.

24.
nor his sister:
The moon.

25.
nor damsel nor a lady:
Nor any mortal woman.

27.
Pharaoh saw:
Cf. Exod. 14–15.

36.
might just well do it:
Say it. He alludes to Virtue “alone and locked in darkness.”

37.
But if I did not:
He turns the premises around but without confirming or denying the charge against
him. In the next stanza, he will deny it.

39.
weary little bark:
His humanity.

40.
mercy at the tiller:
Cf. poem 189.

41–44.
may she not change … :
A very beautiful expression of wishful thinking that carries its own defense. To
return to the pure love of that first day has always constituted his greatest need.

45.
such faithfulness:
Cf. 203.5–6: “Unending beauty of such little faith, / can you not see my heart within
my eyes?”

46.
I never said it:
Whatever he said was never meant to impugn his pure faith in the young Laura.

47.
gold, cities, or castles:
With these images he brushes away abstraction, seizing real weapons of irony that
his enemies can understand.

48.
hold to the saddle:
Truth conquers through the strength of one man who downs the challenger on the battlefield.

53.
three, four, and six times:
Cf. Virgil,
Aeneid
I, 98: “O terque quaterque beati, quis … contigit oppetere!” Carducci cites Boccaccio,
Decameron
V, I, the tale of Cimone and Efigenis, in which the narrator tells of the “holy,
weighty and beneficent powers of Love.”

54.
who dies before:
Who dies at the peak of his powers.

55.
For Rachel:
Cf. Gen. 29:25. Dante (
Purgatorio
XXVII, 106–108) also distinguishes between the two sisters, having Leah say: “She
loves to contemplate her lovely eyes; / I love to use my hands to adorn myself: her
joy is in reflection, mine in act.”

56.
nor with another:
One more worldly and materialistic.

58.
if Heaven calls us back:
Cf. 29.11. Petrarch uses the word
rappella
to mean to snatch from the jaws of death.

59.
in Elijah’s chariot:
Cf. 2 Kings 2:11.

If poem 206 was an attempt to penetrate her hardness, its weapons have glanced off,
and here Petrarch finds himself regrouping at the edge of the battlefield. The canzone
was written in part in 1346, then revised and completed in 1368.

3.
new stratagems:
More clever methods of wooing her.

6.
teaching me such art:
The furtive art.

8–9.
thief / of that fair:
Cf. 199.12–14.

10.
in great pain:
His living in great pain is a given, the honor due him for having loved her. Cf.
205.5–8.

12.
the style I now must take:
A new tack. He last spoke of changing style in 142.35–39.

13.
there’s less shame:
Cf. Ovid.
Fasti
IV, 9: “Quae decuit primis sine crimine lusimus annis.” It is forgiveable in one’s
youth to steal glances from a forbidden love.

15.
beauty lofty and divine:
Laura at their first encounter.

18.
some hidden help that is external:
The divine spark that linked him to God, seen in her eyes.

22.
become annoying:
His youth no longer excuses him.

22.
a poor, starving wretch:
He must steal.

25.
by envy:
His own. Poem 206 seemed to teach that his sins are his own, not ever hers, even
though his syntax might give a different impression.

32.
a man of wax:
The first of several images that encompass the life-death-rebirth cycle. Others are
the hunted bird, the salamander, the spring lamb, and the seasons.

33–38.
I Look around … :
His efforts to woo her are those of the innocent bird seeking ever more nourishing
fruit just where the hunter is most likely to spread his net.

41.
wondrous salamander:
According to popular belief, an animal that both lives and feeds in flames.

42.
he wills it so:
The wondrous salamander is as natural as the will of Love. Cf. Mark 14:36.

44.
I rested for awhile:
Doomed like the feeding bird.

45.
as they do others:
First being fed and then sacrificed as food for others.

48.
here and there:
Like any creature seeking to sustain life.

52.
what she does not miss:
Since she possesses renewable wealth in such abundance.

53.
All know:
All but one, Laura.

57.
who knows:
He is one who has researched this inexhaustible subject.

58.
There’s one who:
Cf. 191.11

62.
such stinginess:
For the
word parco,
see 144.7.

64.
let me die by your hand:
He implores her to look upon him lovingly one last time.

65.
good death can honor:
Cf. 59.15 and 140.44.

66.
burns hottest:
Cf. 105.52: “a hidden beauty is the sweetest thing.”

70.
regret those cries:
When his anger burst out in recrimination.

72.
O thought in vain:
Telling the plain truth failed to change anything.

76.
knots and chokes it:
Forcing him to lie, steal, and to veil his meaning.

78.
The fault is yours:
All conspire: the world and Fortune, Love and Laura.

80.
another’s sin:
The world’s. Cf. poems 216 and 217.

82.
too much light:
That dazzled him.

84.
sweet poison:
Injected on the arrow tip of Love, causing delirium, cries, and annoyance.

87–90.
and it will be … :
This impending cure refers to the “style I now must take” of the first stanza.

91.
to die well:
A revision of line 65 that may be strategic, signaling his intention to make new
use of his “sweet poison.”

92.
I’ll hold the field:
His war continues, but with new weapons.

98.
equal to my bad:
A preview of the poems to follow.

However he may regret the necessity for his furtive style, he arms himself with it
again and turns toward Avignon. Wilkins dates this poem very early, to 1333.

1–2.
river…/… gnawing:
A pun on
Rodano-rodere
(Rhône-gnaw).

3.
descends in yearning:
To the valley and eventually to the sea.

4.
and you by Nature only:
The river’s path is swift and direct, his weak and diffuse.

5.
flow on ahead:
To Avignon, where Laura is.

6–7.
give the sea/its due:
Its rapid spring torrents. Cf. 148.3–4.

9.
that sun of ‘ours:
Laura.

10.
your left bank:
The side of Avignon.

11.
perhaps (oh what hope!):
This bit of phrasing was more than once imitated and caused fierce debate in 1654,
because one scholar said it required a question mark and another, an exclamation point
(Carducci).

slowness:
His failure to come, to cross over to the greener grass.