The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch

SONNET C

Poi che 'l cammin m' è chiuso di mercede

THOUGH FAR FROM LAURA, SOLITARY AND UNHAPPY, ENVY STILL PURSUES HIM

 
Since mercy's door is closed, alas! to me,
And hopeless paths my poor life separate
From her in whom, I know not by what fate,
The guerdon lay of all my constancy,
My heart that lacks not other food, on sighs
I feed: to sorrow born, I live on tears:
Nor therefore mourn I: sweeter far appears
My present grief than others can surmise.
On thy dear portrait rests alone my view,
Which nor Praxiteles nor Xeuxis drew,
But a more bold and cunning pencil framed.
What shore can hide me, or what distance shield,
If by my cruel exile yet untamed
Insatiate Envy finds me here concealed?
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CI

Io canterei d' Amor sì novamente

REPLY TO A SONNET OF JACOPO DA LENTINO

 
Ways apt and new to sing of love I'd find,
Forcing from her hard heart full many a sigh,
And re-enkindle in her frozen mind
Desires a thousand, passionate and high;
O'er her fair face would see each swift change pass,
See her fond eyes at length where pity reigns,
As one who sorrows when too late, alas!
For his own error and another's pains;
See the fresh roses edging that fair snow
Move with her breath, that ivory descried,
Which turns to marble him who sees it near;
See all, for which in this brief life below
Myself I weary not but rather pride
That Heaven for later times has kept me here.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CII

S' Amor non è, che dunque è quel ch' i' sento?

THE CONTRADICTIONS OF LOVE

 
If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be gode, from whence cometh my woe?
If it be wicke, a wonder thinketh me
When every torment and adversite
That cometh of him may to me savory thinke:
For aye more thurst I the more that I drinke.
And if that at my owne lust I brenne,
From whence cometh my wailing and my pleinte?
If harme agre me whereto pleine I thenne?
I not nere why unwery that I feinte.
O quickè deth, O surelè harme so quainte,
How may I see in me such quantite,
But if that I consent that so it be?
 

Chaucer.

 
If 'tis not love, what is it feel I then?
If 'tis, how strange a thing, sweet powers above!
If love be kind, why does it fatal prove?
If cruel, why so pleasing is the pain?
If 'tis my will to love, why weep, why plain?
If not my will, tears cannot love remove.
O living death! O rapturous pang!—why, love!
If I consent not, canst thou o'er me reign?
If I consent, 'tis wrongfully I mourn:
Thus on a stormy sea my bark is borne
By adverse winds, and with rough tempest tost;
Thus unenlightened, lost in error's maze,
My blind opinion ever dubious strays;
I'm froze by summer, scorched by winter's frost.
 

Anon. 1777.

SONNET CIII

Amor m' ha posto come segno a strale

LOVE'S ARMOURY

 
Love makes me as the target for his dart,
As snow in sunshine, or as wax in flame,
Or gale-driven cloud; and, Laura, on thy name
I call, but thou no pity wilt impart.
Thy radiant eyes first caused my bosom's smart;
No time, no place can shield me from their beam;
From thee (but, ah, thou treat'st it as a dream!)
Proceed the torments of my suff'ring heart.
Each thought's an arrow, and thy face a sun,
My passion's flame: and these doth Love employ
To wound my breast, to dazzle, and destroy.
Thy heavenly song, thy speech with which I'm won,
All thy sweet breathings of such strong controul,
Form the dear gale that bears away my soul.
 

Nott.

 
Me Love has placed as mark before the dart,
As to the sun the snow, as wax to fire,
As clouds to wind: Lady, e'en now I tire,
Craving the mercy which never warms thy heart.
From those bright eyes was aim'd the mortal blow,
'Gainst which nor time nor place avail'd me aught;
From thee alone—nor let it strange be thought—
The sun, the fire, the wind whence I am so.
The darts are thoughts of thee, thy face the sun,
The fire my passion; such the weapons be
With which at will Love dazzles yet destroys.
Thy fragrant breath and angel voice—which won
My heart that from its thrall shall ne'er be free—
The wind which vapour-like my frail life flies.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CIV

Pace non trovo, e non ho da far guerra

LOVE'S INCONSISTENCY

 
I fynde no peace and all my warre is done,
I feare and hope, I bourne and freese lyke yse;
I flye above the wynde, yet cannot ryse;
And nought I have, yet all the worlde I season,
That looseth, nor lacketh, holdes me in pryson,
And holdes me not, yet can I escape no wyse.
Nor lets me leeve, nor die at my devyce,
And yet of death it giveth none occasion.
Without eye I see, and without tongue I playne;
I desyre to perishe, yet aske I health;
I love another, and yet I hate my self;
I feede in sorrow and laughe in all my payne,
Lykewyse pleaseth me both death and lyf,
And my delight is cawser of my greif.
 

Wyatt.¹⁹

 
Warfare I cannot wage, yet know not peace;
I fear, I hope, I burn, I freeze again;
Mount to the skies, then bow to earth my face;
Grasp the whole world, yet nothing can obtain.
His prisoner Love nor frees, nor will detain;
In toils he holds me not, nor will release;
He slays me not, nor yet will he unchain;
Nor joy allows, nor lets my sorrow cease.
Sightless I see my fair; though mute, I mourn;
I scorn existence, and yet court its stay;
Detest myself, and for another burn;
By grief I'm nurtured; and, though tearful, gay;
Death I despise, and life alike I hate:
Such, lady, dost thou make my wayward state!
 

Nott.

CANZONE XVIII

Qual più diversa e nova

HE COMPARES HIMSELF TO ALL THAT IS MOST STRANGE IN CREATION

 
Whate'er most wild and new
Was ever found in any foreign land,
If viewed and valued true,
Most likens me 'neath Love's transforming hand.
Whence the bright day breaks through,
Alone and consortless, a bird there flies,
Who voluntary dies,
To live again regenerate and entire:
So ever my desire,
Alone, itself repairs, and on the crest
Of its own lofty thoughts turns to our sun,
There melts and is undone,
And sinking to its first state of unrest,
So burns and dies, yet still its strength resumes,
And, Phœnix-like, afresh in force and beauty blooms.
 
 
Where Indian billows sweep,
A wondrous stone there is, before whose strength
Stout navies, weak to keep
Their binding iron, sink engulf'd at length:
So prove I, in this deep
Of bitter grief, whom, with her own hard pride,
That fair rock knew to guide
Where now my life in wreck and ruin drives:
Thus too the soul deprives,
By theft, my heart, which once so stonelike was,
It kept my senses whole, now far dispersed:
For mine, O fate accurst!
A rock that lifeblood and not iron draws,
Whom still i' the flesh a magnet living, sweet,
Drags to the fatal shore a certain doom to meet.
 
 
Neath the far Ethiop skies
A beast is found, most mild and meek of air,
Which seems, yet in her eyes
Danger and dool and death she still does bear:
Much needs he to be wise
To look on hers whoever turns his mien:
Although her eyes unseen,
All else securely may be viewed at will
But I to mine own ill
Run ever in rash grief, though well I know
My sufferings past and future, still my mind
Its eager, deaf and blind
Desire o'ermasters and unhinges so,
That in her fine eyes and sweet sainted face,
Fatal, angelic, pure, my cause of death I trace.
 
 
In the rich South there flows
A fountain from the sun its name that wins,
This marvel still that shows,
Boiling at night, but chill when day begins;
Cold, yet more cold it grows
As the sun's mounting car we nearer see:
So happens it with me
(Who am, alas! of tears the source and seat),
When the bright light and sweet,
My only sun retires, and lone and drear
My eyes are left, in night's obscurest reign,
I burn, but if again
The gold rays of the living sun appear,
My slow blood stiffens, instantaneous, strange;
Within me and without I feel the frozen change!
 
 
Another fount of fame
Springs in Epirus, which, as bards have told,
Kindles the lurking flame,
And the live quenches, while itself is cold.
My soul, that, uncontroll'd,
And scathless from love's fire till now had pass'd,
Carelessly left at last
Near the cold fair for whom I ceaseless sigh,
Was kindled instantly:
Like martyrdom, ne'er known by day or night,
A heart of marble had to mercy shamed.
Which first her charms inflamed
Her fair and frozen virtue quenched the light;
That thus she crushed and kindled my heart's fire,
Well know I who have felt in long and useless ire.
 
 
Beyond our earth's known brinks,
In the famed Islands of the Blest, there be
Two founts: of this who drinks
Dies smiling: who of that to live is free.
A kindred fate Heaven links
To my sad life, who, smilingly, could die
For like o'erflowing joy,
But soon such bliss new cries of anguish stay.
Love! still who guidest my way,
Where, dim and dark, the shade of fame invites,
Not of that fount we speak, which, full each hour,
Ever with larger power
O'erflows, when Taurus with the Sun unites;
So are my eyes with constant sorrow wet,
But in that season most when I my Lady met.
 
 
Should any ask, my Song!
Or how or where I am, to such reply:
Where the tall mountain throws
Its shade, in the lone vale, whence Sorga flows,
He roams, where never eye
Save Love's, who leaves him not a step, is by,
And one dear image who his peace destroys,
Alone with whom to muse all else in life he flies.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CV

Fiamma dal ciel su le tue treccie piova

HE INVEIGHS AGAINST THE COURT OF ROME

 
Vengeaunce must fall on thee, thow filthie whore
Of Babilon, thow breaker of Christ's fold,
That from achorns, and from the water colde,
Art riche become with making many poore.
Thow treason's neste that in thie harte dost holde
Of cankard malice, and of myschief more
Than pen can wryte, or may with tongue be tolde,
Slave to delights that chastitie hath solde;
For wyne and ease which settith all thie store
Uppon whoredome and none other lore,
In thye pallais of strompetts yonge and olde
Theare walks Plentie, and Belzebub thye Lorde:
Guydes thee and them, and doth thye raigne upholde:
It is but late, as wryting will recorde,
That poore thow weart withouten lande or goolde;
Yet now hathe golde and pryde, by one accorde,
In wickednesse so spreadd thie lyf abrode,
That it dothe stincke before the face of God.
 

(?) Wyatt.²⁰

 
May fire from heaven rain down upon thy head,
Thou most accurst; who simple fare casts by,
Made rich and great by others' poverty;
How dost thou glory in thy vile misdeed!
Nest of all treachery, in which is bred
Whate'er of sin now through the world doth fly;
Of wine the slave, of sloth, of gluttony;
With sensuality's excesses fed!
Old men and harlots through thy chambers dance;
Then in the midst see Belzebub advance
With mirrors and provocatives obscene.
Erewhile thou wert not shelter'd, nursed on down;
But naked, barefoot on the straw wert thrown:
Now rank to heaven ascends thy life unclean.
 

Nott.

SONNET CVI

L' avara Babilonia ha colmo 'l sacco

HE PREDICTS TO ROME THE ARRIVAL OF SOME GREAT PERSONAGE WHO WILL BRING HER BACK TO HER OLD VIRTUE

 
Covetous Babylon of wrath divine
By its worst crimes has drain'd the full cup now,
And for its future Gods to whom to bow
Not Pow'r nor Wisdom ta'en, but Love and Wine.
Though hoping reason, I consume and pine,
Yet shall her crown deck some new Soldan's brow,
Who shall again build up, and we avow
One faith in God, in Rome one head and shrine.
Her idols shall be shatter'd, in the dust
Her proud towers, enemies of Heaven, be hurl'd,
Her wardens into flames and exile thrust,
Fair souls and friends of virtue shall the world
Possess in peace; and we shall see it made
All gold, and fully its old works display'd.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CVII

Fontana di dolore, albergo d' ira

HE ATTRIBUTES THE WICKEDNESS OF THE COURT OF ROME TO ITS GREAT WEALTH

 
Spring of all woe, O den of curssed ire,
Scoole of errour, temple of heresye;
Thow Pope, I meane, head of hypocrasye,
Thow and thie churche, unsaciat of desyre,
Have all the world filled full of myserye;
Well of disceate, thow dungeon full of fyre,
That hydes all truthe to breed idolatrie.
Thow wicked wretche, Chryste cannot be a lyer,
Behold, therefore, thie judgment hastelye;
Thye first founder was gentill povertie,
But there against is all thow dost requyre.
Thow shameless beaste wheare hast thow thie trust,
In thie whoredome, or in thie riche attyre?
Loe! Constantyne, that is turned into dust,
Shall not retourne for to mayntaine thie lust;
But now his heires, that might not sett thee higher,
For thie greate pryde shall teare thye seate asonder,
And scourdge thee so that all the world shall wonder.
 

(?) Wyatt.²¹

 
Fountain of sorrows, centre of mad ire,
Rank error's school and fane of heresy,
Once Rome, now Babylon, the false and free,
Whom fondly we lament and long desire.
O furnace of deceits, O prison dire,
Where good roots die and the ill-weed grows a tree
Hell upon earth, great marvel will it be
If Christ reject thee not in endless fire.
Founded in humble poverty and chaste,
Against thy founders lift'st thou now thy horn,
Impudent harlot! Is thy hope then placed
In thine adult'ries and thy wealth ill-born?
Since comes no Constantine his own to claim,
The vext world must endure, or end its shame.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CVIII

Quanto più desiose l' ali spando

FAR FROM HIS FRIENDS, HE FLIES TO THEM IN THOUGHT

 
The more my own fond wishes would impel
My steps to you, sweet company of friends!
Fortune with their free course the more contends,
And elsewhere bids me roam, by snare and spell
The heart, sent forth by me though it rebel,
Is still with you where that fair vale extends,
In whose green windings most our sea ascends,
From which but yesterday I wept farewell.
It took the right-hand way, the left I tried,
I dragg'd by force in slavery to remain,
It left at liberty with Love its guide;
But patience is great comfort amid pain:
Long habits mutually form'd declare
That our communion must be brief and rare.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CIX

Amor che nel pensier mio vive e regna

THE COURAGE AND TIMIDITY OF LOVE

 
The long Love that in my thought I harbour,
And in my heart doth keep his residence,
Into my face pressèth with bold pretence,
And there campèth displaying his bannèr.
She that me learns to love and to suffèr,
And wills that my trust, and lust's negligence
Be rein'd by reason, shame, and reverence,
With his hardiness takes displeasure.
Wherewith Love to the heart's forest he fleeth,
Leaving his enterprise with pain and cry,
And there him hideth, and not appearèth.
What may I do, when my master fearèth,
But in the field with him to live and die?
For good is the life, ending faithfully.
 

Wyatt.

 
Love, that liveth and reigneth in my thought,
That built its seat within my captive breast;
Clad in the arms wherein with me he fought,
Oft in my face he doth his banner rest.
She, that me taught to love, and suffer pain;
My doubtful hope, and eke my hot desire
With shamefaced cloak to shadow and restrain,
Her smiling grace converteth straight to ire.
And coward love then to the heart apace
Taketh his flight; whereas he lurks, and plains
His purpose lost, and dare not show his face.
For my lord's guilt thus faultless bide I pains.
Yet from my lord shall not my foot remove:
Sweet is his death, that takes his end by love.
 

Surrey.

 
Love in my thought who ever lives and reigns,
And in my heart still holds the upper place,
At times come forward boldly in my face,
There plants his ensign and his post maintains:
She, who in love instructs us and its pains,
Would fain that reason, shame, respect should chase
Presumptuous hope and high desire abase,
And at our daring scarce herself restrains,
Love thereon to my heart retires dismay'd,
Abandons his attempt, and weeps and fears,
And hiding there, no more my friend appears.
What can the liege whose lord is thus afraid,
More than with him, till life's last gasp, to dwell?
For who well loving dies at least dies well.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CX

Come talora al caldo tempo suole

HE LIKENS HIMSELF TO THE INSECT WHICH, FLYING INTO ONE'S EYES, MEETS ITS DEATH

 
As when at times in summer's scorching heats.
Lured by the light, the simple insect flies,
As a charm'd thing, into the passer's eyes,
Whence death the one and pain the other meets,
Thus ever I, my fatal sun to greet,
Rush to those eyes where so much sweetness lies
That reason's guiding hand fierce Love defies,
And by strong will is better judgment beat.
I clearly see they value me but ill,
And, for against their torture fails my strength.
That I am doom'd my life to lose at length:
But Love so dazzles and deludes me still,
My heart their pain and not my loss laments,
And blind, to its own death my soul consents.
 

Macgregor.

SESTINA V

Alia dolce ombra de le belle frondi

HE TELLS THE STORY OF HIS LOVE, RESOLVING HENCEFORTH TO DEVOTE HIMSELF TO GOD

 
Beneath the pleasant shade of beauteous leaves
I ran for shelter from a cruel light,
E'en here below that burnt me from high heaven,
When the last snow had ceased upon the hills,
And amorous airs renew'd the sweet spring time,
And on the upland flourish'd herbs and boughs.
 
 
Ne'er did the world behold such graceful boughs,
Nor ever wind rustled so verdant leaves,
As were by me beheld in that young time:
So that, though fearful of the ardent light,
I sought not refuge from the shadowing hills,
But of the plant accepted most in heaven.
 
 
A laurel then protected from that heaven:
Whence, oft enamour'd with its lovely boughs,
A roamer I have been through woods, o'er hills,
But never found I other trunk, nor leaves
Like these, so honour'd with supernal light,
Which changed not qualities with changing time.
 
 
Wherefore each hour more firm, from time to time
Following where I heard my call from heaven,
And guided ever by a soft clear light,
I turn'd, devoted still, to those first boughs,
Or when on earth are scatter'd the sere leaves,
Or when the sun restored makes green the hills.
 
 
The woods, the rocks, the fields, the floods, and hills,
All that is made, are conquer'd, changed by time:
And therefore ask I pardon of those leaves,
If after many years, revolving heaven
Sway'd me to flee from those entangling boughs,
When I begun to see its better light.
 
 
So dear to me at first was the sweet light,
That willingly I pass'd o'er difficult hills,
But to be nearer those beloved boughs;
Now shortening life, the apt place and full time
Show me another path to mount to heaven,
And to make fruit not merely flowers and leaves.
 
 
Other love, other leaves, and other light,
Other ascent to heaven by other hills
I seek—in sooth 'tis time—and other boughs.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CXI

Quand' io v' odo parlar si dolcemente

TO ONE WHO SPOKE TO HIM OF LAURA

 
Whene'er you speak of her in that soft tone
Which Love himself his votaries surely taught,
My ardent passion to such fire is wrought,
That e'en the dead reviving warmth might own:
Where'er to me she, dear or kind, was known
There the bright lady is to mind now brought,
In the same bearing which, to waken thought,
Needed no sound but of my sighs alone.
Half-turn'd I see her looking, on the breeze
Her light hair flung; so true her memories roll
On my fond heart of which she keeps the keys;
But the surpassing bliss which floods my soul
So checks my tongue, to tell how, queen-like, there,
She sits as on her throne, I never dare.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CXII

Nè così bello il sol giammai levarsi

THE CHARMS OF LAURA WHEN SHE FIRST MET HIS SIGHT

 
Ne'er can the sun such radiance soft display,
Piercing some cloud that would its light impair;
Ne'er tinged some showery arch the humid air,
With variegated lustre half so gay,
As when, sweet-smiling my fond heart away,
All-beauteous shone my captivating fair;
For charms what mortal can with her compare!
But truth, impartial truth! much more might say.
I saw young Cupid, saw his laughing eyes
With such bewitching, am'rous sweetness roll,
That every human glance I since despise.
Believe, dear friend! I saw the wanton boy;
Bent was his bow to wound my tender soul;
Yet, ah! once more I'd view the dang'rous joy.
 

Anon. 1777.

 
Sun never rose so beautiful and bright
When skies above most clear and cloudless show'd,
Nor, after rain, the bow of heaven e'er glow'd
With tints so varied, delicate, and light,
As in rare beauty flash'd upon my sight,
The day I first took up this am'rous load,
That face whose fellow ne'er on earth abode—
Even my praise to paint it seems a slight!
Then saw I Love, who did her fine eyes bend
So sweetly, every other face obscure
Has from that hour till now appear'd to me.
The boy-god and his bow, I saw them, friend,
From whom life since has never been secure,
Whom still I madly yearn again to see.
 

Macgregor.

SONNET CXIII

Pommi ove 'l sol occide i fiori e l' erba

HIS INVINCIBLE CONSTANCY

 
Place me where herb and flower the sun has dried,
Or where numb winter's grasp holds sterner sway:
Place me where Phœbus sheds a temperate ray,
Where first he glows, where rests at eventide.
Place me in lowly state, in power and pride,
Where lour the skies, or where bland zephyrs play
Place me where blind night rules, or lengthened day,
In age mature, or in youth's boiling tide:
Place me in heaven, or in the abyss profound,
On lofty height, or in low vale obscure,
A spirit freed, or to the body bound;
Bank'd with the great, or all unknown to fame,
I still the same will be! the same endure!
And my trilustral sighs still breathe the same!
 

Dacre.

 
Place me where Phœbus burns each herb, each flower;
Or where cold snows, and frost o'ercome his rays:
Place me where rolls his car with temp'rate blaze;
In climes that feel not, or that feel his power.
Place me where fortune may look bright, or lour;
Mid murky airs, or where soft zephyr plays:
Place me in night, in long or short-lived days,
Where age makes sad, or youth gilds ev'ry hour:
Place me on mountains high, in vallies drear,
In heaven, on earth, in depths unknown to-day;
Whether life fosters still, or flies this clay:
Place me where fame is distant, where she's near:
Still will I love; nor shall those sighs yet cease,
Which thrice five years have robb'd this breast of peace.
 

Anon. 1777.

 
Place me where angry Titan burns the Moor,
And thirsty Afric fiery monsters brings,
Or where the new-born phœnix spreads her wings,
And troops of wond'ring birds her flight adore:
Place me by Gange, or Ind's empamper'd shore,
Where smiling heavens on earth cause double springs:
Place me where Neptune's quire of Syrens sings,
Or where, made hoarse through cold, he leaves to roar:
Me place where Fortune doth her darlings crown,
A wonder or a spark in Envy's eye,
Or late outrageous fates upon me frown,
And pity wailing, see disaster'd me.
Affection's print my mind so deep doth prove,
I may forget myself, but not my love.
 

Drummond.