First the Dante Link:

http://www.online-literature.com/dante/inferno/26/



Petrarch

Rime sparse

#1

You who hear in scattered rhymes the sound

of those sighs with which I nourished my heart,

during my first youthful error

When I was in part another man from what I am now.

 

For the varied style in which I weep and speak

between vain hopes and vain sorrow,

where there is anyone who from experience understands love

I hope to find pity, not just pardon.

 

But now I see how well for a long time,

I was the talk of the crowd,

for which I am often ashamed of myself within.

 

And of my raving, shame is the fruit,

and repentance, and the clear knowledge,

that whatever pleases in the world is a brief dream.

 

#2

To take a graceful revenge and to punish

in one day a thousand offences,

Love took up his bow again secretly

like a man who waits for the time and place to hurt.

 

My life spirit was concentrated in my heart,

to make there and in my eyes a defense

when the fatal blow fell

where every prior arrow had been blunted.

 

Therefore, confused in the first assault,

my spirit lacked strength and time

to take up arms in his need.

 

Or to lead me up the weary mountain,

away from the slaughter

out of which he would wish to rescue me, but he cannot.

 

#3

It was the day when the sun’s rays turned pale

with grief for his maker when I was taken

and I did not defend myself against it,

for your lovely eyes, Lady, held me bound.

 

It did not seem to me to be a time to be

on guard against the blows of love, there I walked

confident and without fear, and so my griefs

began in the midst of universal woe.

 

Love found me all disarmed

and open the path from eyes to heart

which have become the passageway of tears.

 

Therefore, it seems to me that it gave Love no honor

To strike me with an arrow in that state,

and not even to show  his bow to you who are armed.

 

#4

He who showed infinite providence and art

in his marvelous workmanship

who created this and the other hemisphere,

and Jove more mild than Mars.

 

Who, coming to earth to illuminate the pages

that for many years had concealed the truth,

took John from the nets and Peter

and gave them a portion of the Kingdom of Heaven.

 

He, when He was born, did not grace Rome

but Judea instead, because it pleased him

always to exult humility.

 

And now from a small village he has given us a sun

so that both nature and that place are thanked

from whence came so beautiful a lady into the world.

 

 

#5

When I move my sighs to call you

and utter the name that love wrote on my heart

The sound of its first sweet syllable

is heard in praise (LAU).

 

Your RE-gal state, which next I meet

redoubles my strength for this high task

but “TA-lk no more’ cries the ending

“for to do her honor is the task for another.”

 

Thus the word itself teaches Praise and Re-verence

whenever anyone calls you.

O lady worth of all reverence and honor.

 

Except perhaps that Apollo is incensed

that any mor-TA-l tongue would dare to speak

of his eternally green boughs.

 

#6

So far astray is my mad desire

in pursuing her who has turned in flight

and, light, and free of the snares of love,

flies ahead of my slow running.

 

So that when calling him back, my desire, he least obeys

my effort to send him by the safer path

nor does it help to spur him on or try to turn his course,

for love makes him restive by nature.

 

And when he takes the bit forcefully to himself,

I remain in his power,

and against my will, he carries me off to death.

 

Only to come to the laurel tree, whence one gathers

bitter fruit that, once tasted,

afflicts those wounds I would comfort.

 

#7

Gluttony and sleep and the pillows of idleness

have driven from the world every virtue,

and even our natural powers, conquered by seeming

have all but ceased to function.

 

And so every caring light of heaven is spent

that might have guided human life

so that whoever wishes to make a river flow from Helicon

is drawn in another direction.

 

What desire for the Laurel is there or for the myrtle?

“Philosophy, you wander poor and naked”

cry all those who care for little.

 

You will have few companions on that other road

so all the greater is my plea, gentle spirit,

do not abandon you most worthy goal.

 

#8

At the foot of the hills where she first put on

the lovely garment of her earthly flesh

that lady who often awakens weeping

the one who sends us to you.

 

Free and in peace we were passing through this

mortal life, which every living thing desires

without fear that we might find in our path

some snares to trap us.

 

but for the miserable state to which we

have been brought from that untroubled life

and for our death, but one consolation.

 

which is vengeance on him who brings us death

for he remains in the power of another

near his end, bound with a greater chain.

 

#11

I have never seen you, Lady

put aside your veil for sun or shadow,

since you knew the great desire in me

that lightens my heart of all other wishes.

 

While I carried my lovely thoughts concealed

they and Desire bring death to my heart

I saw you adorn your face with pity

but since love has told you of my presence

your blond hair has been veiled

and your lovely gaze kept to itself.

 

What I desired most in you has been taken from me

and so that veil controls me

and to cause my death it shades the sweet light

of your lovely eyes in weather both warm and cold.

 

#12

If my life can withstand the bitter torment

and the struggles for so long so that finally I may see

the light of your lovely eyes, Lady,

dimmed by the power of your last years.

 

and your hair of fine gold made silver

and see you abandon garlands and clothes of green

and see your face lose its hue which in my misfortunes

makes me slow and reluctant to lament.

 

Then at least Love will give me such boldness

that I shall disclose to you my sufferings,

all the years and the days and the hours.

 

and if time is hostile to my sweet desires

at least it will not prevent my sorrow from receiving

some comfort from those tardy sighs.

 

 

#13

When among other ladies now and then

Love appears in her lovely face

just that much, as each is less beautiful than she,

by that grows my desire for her.

 

I bless the place and the time and the hour

that my eyes looked so high

and I say, “My soul, you must give thanks

that you were worthy of such an honor then.

 

“From her comes the amorous thought

that, while you follow it, sends you toward the highest good,

little prizing what other men desire.

 

“from her comes that spirited joy

that leads you to heaven by a straight path

so that I already go with high hope.”

 

#14

My weary Eyes, while I turn toward

the lovely face that has slain you,

I beg you, be cautious,

for you combat with Love, for which I sigh.

 

Death alone can prevent my thoughts from following

from the amorous path that leads them

to the sweet port of their healing

but your light can be hidden from you

by some lesser thing

for you are made less perfect

and of diminished power.

 

Therefore grieving, before the hours of weeping

have come, that now are near,

take now, as the need draws near

brief comfort for your long martyrdom.

 

#94

When through my eyes to my deepest heart

comes the images that masters me, every other one departs,

and the powers that the soul distributes

leave the member an almost immobile weight;

 

And from that first miracle is sometimes

born a second, that the part driven out,

fleeing from itself, comes to a place

that takes vengeance and makes exile sweet.

 

Thus in two faces one dead color appears,

for the vigor that revealed their life

no longer appears on either side of where it was.

 

and this I remembered on that day

when I saw two lovers transformed

to become in their faces what I often become.

 

#100

That window where one sun can be seen

whenever it pleases her and the other at noon,

and that window where the cold air rattles

in the short days when Boreas stikes it.

 

and the stone where on long days my lady

sits pensively, talking only with herself

with so many places her lovely body

his in shadow or traced with her foot,

 

and the cruel pass where love struck me,

and the new season that year after year

renews on that day my ancient wounds,

 

and the face and the words

driven deep in the middle of my heart,

these make my eyes wish to weep.

 

 

 

#189

My ship laden with forgetfulness

passes through a harsh sea at winter’s midnight,

between Scylla and Charybdis, and at the tiller

sits the captain, rather my enemy.

 

Each oar is manned by a ready and cruel thought

that seems to scorn the tempest and the end;

and the sail is broken by  a wet unchanging wind

of  sighs, of hopes, and of desires.

 

a rain of tears, a mist of disdain,

wet and loosen the already tired ropes

made of error wound with ignorance.

 

hidden away are my two usual sweet stars

reason and skill are dead among the waves,

so that I begin to despair of reaching port.

 

#190

“Una Candida Cerva”

Across the green meadow a white doe

appeared to me, with two horns of gold,

between the rivers, in the shade of the laurel,

when the sun was rising in that early season.

 

Her face so sweetly proud

that I left all things to follow her

like the miser who in seeking treasure

with dreams of delight eases his troubles.

 

“Let no one touch me,” was written around

her lovely neck in diamonds and topazes.

“It has pleased my caesar to make me free.’

 

And the sun had already passed midday,

and my eyes were tired from gazing but still unsatisfied

when I fell into the water and she disappeared.

 

#191

Just as it is eternal life to see God,

One can desire no more, no more should one desire,

So to me, Lady, seeing you makes me happy

in this short and frail life of mine.

 

Nor have I ever seen you as beautiful as you are

this hour, if my eyes tell my heart the truth,

sweet hour that blesses my thoughts

that surpasses every high hope, every desire!

 

And if the hour were not so swift to flee

I would ask no more, for if some live

only on aromas, and we trust those stories,

 

and some live on water or on fire, satisfying their taste

with things that lack all sweetness,

why should I not live on the life-giving sight of you.

 

 

 

 


Last modified: Friday, 7 February 2020, 1:40 PM