First Meeting of Petrarch and Laura in the Church of Santa Chiara at Avignon (1889, Marie Spartali Stillman)
Often identified as the father of humanism, Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374) is considered one of the greatest love poets. For a period of time, his light outshone that of Dante. His Canzoniere or Rime sparse (”scattered rhymes”), chronicles the ebb and flow of his unrequited love for Laura, whom he met in 1327. Even after her death, in 1348, Petrarch continued to write poems for her. Although written over a period of 40 years (1327-1368), the Rime continued to be revised until the poet’s death in 1374.
Petrarch wrote in the vernacular Italian and perfected the sonnet which bears his name. He was a friend of Giovanni Boccaccio, himself a fine love poet and author of one of my favorite works, The Decameron. Petrarch was crowned poet laureate in 1341.
Here are two poems from the Rime, (translation by Mark Musa).
1
O you who hear within these scattered verses
the sound of sighs with which I fed my heart
in my first errant youthful days when I
in part was not the man I am today;
for all the ways in which I weep and speak
between vain hopes, between vain suffering,
in anyone who knows love through its trials,
in them, may I find pity and forgiveness.
But now I see how I’ve become the talk
so long a time of people all around
(it often makes me feel so full of shame),
and from my vanities there comes shame’s fruit,
and my repentance, and the clear awareness
that worldly joy is just a fleeting dream.
211
Desire spurs me, Love sees and guides my way
Pleasure pulls me, Habit carries me away,
Hope teases me, gives me encouragement;
to my tired heart it offers its right hand,
and the poor thing accepts it unaware
of how disloyal and blind our guide can be.
The senses reign, and reason now is dead;
from one pleasing desire comes another.
Virtue, honor, beauty, gracious bearing,
sweet words have caught me in her lovely branches
in which my heart is tenderly entangled.
In thirteen twenty seven, and precisely
at the first hour of the sixth of April
I entered the labyrinth, and I see no way out.
Other Poetry Posts:
Poetry Corner: First Edition
Dante
Made in Japan
Walt Whitman
Rubaiyat of Omar Khyyam
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
John Donne
Edgar Allan Poe
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