The Poetry of Petrarch

by David Young

  old Vulcan sets to work: he sweats and pants,

  his forge producing bitter bolts for Jove,

  who throws them down; it snows and then it rains,

  without respecting Caesar more than Janus;

  earth weeps, the sun stays far away

  because he sees that his dear friend is elsewhere.

  Now Mars and Saturn, evil stars, grow bolder;

  Orion, armed, begins to shatter tackle,

  the tillers and the shrouds of seamen break.

  Aeolus vents his anger: Neptune, Juno

  learn how it hurts us when that lovely face,

  the one the angels wish for, isn’t here.

  42

  But now that her sweet smile, soft and humble,

  no longer hides away its novel beauties,

  the ancient blacksmith who’s Sicilian

  flexes his arms in vain at his old forge;

  for Jove has dropped his weapons from his hands

  (tempered in Mongibello though they were);

  his sister earth is bit by bit renewing

  herself beneath Apollo’s friendly gaze.

  And from the shore there comes a western wind

  so mariners can sail without precautions, while

  it wakes the flowers in the grassy meadows;

  the harmful planets flee in all directions

  dispersed before that lovely face of hers

  on whose account I’ve shed so many tears.

  43

  Latona’s son had looked nine times already

  from his high balcony, in search of her,

  who made him sigh in vain in times gone by

  and now moves sighs of like kind from another;

  he tired of searching when he couldn’t find

  where she was living, near or far, and seemed

  like one gone mad with grief who hunts around

  to find a much-loved thing that he has lost.

  And thus it was that, staying to himself,

  he did not see that face return which I

  will praise, if I live, on a thousand pages;

  it’s true as well, that pity had transformed her:

  her brilliant eyes were just then shedding tears—

  and thus the air retained its former state.

  44

  The man whose hands were ready to turn Thessaly

  crimson with civil blood sat down and wept

  to mourn his daughter’s husband’s death; he knew

  that severed head by its familiar features;

  the shepherd too, who broke Goliath’s brow,

  wept for the rebel son from his own family,

  and losing all control in grief for Saul,

  took out his anger on a wild mountain.

  But you who never blanch because of pity,

  you’re well defended from Love’s deadly bow,

  he draws and shoots his arrows all in vain;

  you see me torn to death a thousand times

  and no tears issue from your lovely eyes;

  instead they flash annoyance and disdain.

  45

  My enemy, in whom you watch your eyes

  gazing on that which Love and Heaven honor,

  enamors you with beauties not his own

  happy and sweet beyond all mortal limits.

  By listening to him, Lady, you have run me

  out of the place where I desired to be—

  miserable exile!—even if I’m not worthy

  to occupy the place where you now dwell.

  But had I been nailed firmly in its place,

  the mirror would not then have so defined you

  and made you harsh, pleased with yourself, and cold.

  You’ve heard the tale, remember, of Narcissus?

  The vanity you practice has one outcome—

  though grass does not deserve a flower so fair.

  46

  The gold, the pearls, the flowers red and white

  that winter should have withered and made languid,

  are thorns that prick, both poisonous and sharp,

  I feel along my breast and in my sides.

  Therefore my tearful days are clearly numbered,

  since sorrows of this size do not grow old;

  but most I blame those mirrors, murderous—

  they’ve worn you out with gazing at yourself.

  My lord they’ve silenced, he who pled my case;

  he gave up and grew still because he saw

  that your desires ended in yourself;

  those mirrors come from waters deep in Hell,

  that tinged them with forgetfulness forever,

  and they gave birth to my incipient death.

  47

  Inside my heart I felt my spirits dying,

  those spirits that receive their life from you;

  and since all earthly creatures have an instinct

  to fight off death whenever it approaches,

  I let desire, now reined tight, go loose,

  and off it went: the path was all grown over,

  the path it wants to travel, night and day,

  the one from which I try to pull it back,

  and there it brought me, tardy and confused,

  into the very sight of your bright eyes,

  eyes I avoid in order not to pain them.

  I cannot live much longer, since your glance

  has much to do with whether I survive;

  I’ll die, unless I follow my desire.

  48

  If fire never puts a fire out,

  nor river can grow dry receiving rain,

  but things increase by contact with their ilk,

  and even oppositions spur each other;

  then you who rule our thinking, oh, great Love,

  you who have made me one soul in two bodies,

  why do you come in an outmoded shape

  and make desire shrink by its own surplus?

  Perhaps the way the Nile, thundering down,

  makes deaf all those who live too near its noise,

  the way the sun blinds those who stare into it,

  the way desire, with no sense of limits,

  is lost when its objective’s too immense,

  flies fast, flies hard, and is by that made slow.

  49

  Although I’ve tried to hinder you from lying

  and honored your achievement, tongue (you ingrate),

  you haven’t won me honor back; so far

  it’s mostly been a share of wrath and shame;

  the more I call on you to help me out,

  entreating mercy, the colder you become,

  and if you speak, the words are jumbled up

  like someone who is mumbling in his sleep!

  You doleful tears, you stay with me all night,

  just when I feel the need to be alone,

  and then you flee the presence of my peace.

  You sighs, who bring me anguish, you as well,

  you limp along, so crippled and so slow!

  My eyes alone can speak about my heart.

  50

  At that time when the sky goes slanting quickly

  off to the West, and when our day flies off

  to people who are likely waiting for it,

  a good old woman maybe finds herself

  alone and far from home; she’s tired, but

  her steps redouble on her pilgrimage;

  and then, although alone

  and at her twilight hour,

  she may well be consoled

  by brief repose and by forgetfulness

  of all her labor all along the way.

  But I, alas, what pain I have by day

  seems to grow greater still

  when light eternal takes its leave of us.

  And when the sun rotates his flaming wheels

  to make way for the night, and there descend

  a host of shadows from the highest mountains,

  the ti
ller of the fields collects his tools,

  and with some simple tunes he hums or sings,

  alleviates the burdens of his mind;

  and then he sets his table

  with poor and simple food

  (the acorns people praise

  while studiously still avoiding them).

  Let those who can, be merry when they like,

  but I have never had a restful hour,

  much less a happy one,

  for all the changing of the skies and planets.

  And when the shepherd sees the gorgeous rays

  of that great planet sinking toward its nest

  and all the eastern pastures growing dark,

  he rises to his feet and leaves the grass

  and leaves the springs and beech trees, takes his crook

  and gently uses it to move his flock;

  then far from other people

  he finds a hut or cave

  and strews its floor with greens

  and stretches out to sleep without a care.

  Oh, cruel Love! It’s then you urge me most

  to hunt the wild creature who destroys me

  her voice, her spoor, her tracks;

  but you don’t help me catch her as she flees.

  And mariners will shelter in a cove

  when sun is gone, they’ll stretch their tired limbs

  and rest upon hard wood and under canvas.

  But I, though sun may go beneath the waves,

  and manage to leave Spain behind his back,

  Granada and Morocco and the Pillars,

  while men, and women too,

  the world and all its creatures,

  find rest and calm their ills,

  I find I cannot shed my mounting grief:

  I mourn because each day extends my losses,

  and my desire, nearly ten years old,

  just keeps on growing greater,

  and I don’t see who’s going to free me from it.

  And (since it eases me to speak of this)

  I see the oxen coming home at evening

  unyoked, returning from the fields they plowed.

  My sighs—why aren’t they ever taken from me,

  why am I not unyoked at any time?

  Why must my eyes be wet both night and day?

  Oh, miserable me!

  What was I doing when

  I fixed my eyes at first

  upon her lovely face as if to sculpt it

  and place it in imagination where

  it could not be removed except by Death,

  who takes away all things?

  I’m not sure I believe that Death can do it.

  Song, if being with me

  from morning until evening

  has made you of my party,

  you won’t go round and show yourself too much;

  and you’ll pay little heed to those who praise you;

  consider as you move from hill to hill

  how fire burns me down

  all from this living stone on which I lean.

  51

  That light that blinds, even when far away,

  had it come any closer to my eyes,

  then just the way that Thessaly transformed,

  I would have changed my kind and shape completely.

  And since I can’t take on her form and look

  more than I have so far, face marked with care

  (not that it wins me any grace or mercy),

  I’d sooner I became the hardest stone,

  diamond, perhaps, or maybe lovely marble,

  all white with fear, or maybe jasper crystal,

  which would enchant the stupid, greedy rabble;

  and then I would be free of this harsh yoke

  that makes me envy that old man, so tired,

  whose shoulders make a shade for all Morocco.

  52

  Diana’s form did not delight her lover,

  when just by chance he got a look at her

  bathing all naked in the cooling waters,

  more than the cruel mountain shepherdess

  delighted me while rinsing out the veil

  that keeps her golden curls from the wind;

  she made me then, despite the sun’s hot rays,

  shiver a little with the chill of love.

  53

  Noble spirit, you who rule those limbs

  within which dwell a lord who’s wise and brave

  and unappeasable and peregrine:

  now that you’ve grasped the honored staff of office

  with which you can both chastise Rome and teach

  her citizens to seek the one true path,

  I speak to you because I don’t see else

  a ray of virtue in this darkened world,

  or anyone ashamed of doing evil.

  What Italy expects or yearns for, I

  don’t know; she doesn’t seem to feel her woes;

  she’s idle, old, and slow;

  will no one wake her, will she sleep forever?

  I wish that I could grab her by her hair!

  I have no hope that from her slothful sleep

  she’ll raise her head, however much men shout,

  she’s so oppressed, so sorely burdened now;

  but Rome, our chief, perhaps by destiny,

  is now entrusted to your arms, and you

  can use them to awake her, shake her up.

  So thrust your hand into those unkempt locks,

  those tangled, ancient tresses, and help raise

  this poor and slothful creature from the mud.

  I who by day and night bewail her torment

  entrust my hopes to you, the greater part,

  for if the race of Mars

  is ever going to see its ancient worth

  it seems to me it’ll do it in your era.

  Those ancient walls the world still fears and loves

  and trembles at when it remembers times

  now past and gone, turning to look at them;

  the stones that once enclosed remains of men

  who will be well remembered in the future

  unless the universe itself dissolves,

  and everything is swallowed up in ruin,

  all hope, through you, to renovate themselves.

  Oh, faithful Brutus, oh, great Scipios,

  how pleasing to you must be these events,

  if news of them has come to you down there,

  how suitably your office has been filled!

  How glad Fabricius is,

  to have some word of it, so that he says:

  “My Rome will once again be beautiful!”

  If Heaven cares at all for earthly things,

  the souls who are the citizens up there

  and who have left their bodies on this earth

  all beg you to conclude the civil strife

  because of which the people are not safe,

  and pilgrims cannot visit holy sites,

  sites that were once well tended, but in war

  have actually become the dens of thieves,

  and only goodness finds the doors barred there

  where every sort of evil act is practiced

  among the statues and denuded altars

  (how sharp the contrast is!),

  they even signal their attacks and fights

  by using bells hung up to worship God.

  The weeping women, the defenseless crowd

  of callow youths and old exhausted men

  who hate themselves and their protracted lives,

  the friars, robed in black or gray or white,

  and all the other legions of the sick

  and the unfortunate, who call “God! Help!”

  and all the poor and destitute, exposing

  their sores and wounds, by thousands and by thousands,

  enough to bring a Hannibal to tears.

  If you look closely at the house of God

  that’s all in flames today and y
ou put out

  some of those sparks you see,

  you’ll pacify those wills that are inflamed

  and earn some praises for your works in Heaven.

  The bears, the wolves, the lions, eagles, snakes

  give frequent trouble to a marble column

  and often to themselves do harm as well;

  because of them that noble lady weeps

  who’s called on you to pull up by the roots

  the evil weeds that are not going to flower.

  A thousand years and more have passed since she

  was first established in that place by those

  souls of nobility who’ve long since died.

  Ah, new inhabitants, all much too proud,

  Lacking in reverence to so great a mother!

  Espouse her, father her:

  all kinds of help is looked for at your hand;

  the greater Father’s bent on other works.

  It rarely happens that injurious Fortune

  fails to oppose high deeds and undertakings,

  for she agrees unwillingly to glory.

  Now smoothing out the way for you to come

  she makes me overlook her past offenses

  because for once she’s acting in support;

  because, within the memory of the world,

  no mortal man has ever had a path

  as clear and open as this is to you

  to make yourself the benefit of fame;

  for you can raise her up, if I’m correct,

  restore this noble monarchy at last.

  Such glory for you when

  they say: “Some helped her in her youth and strength:

  He rescued her from death in her old age.”

  Above the rock Tarpeian, Song, you’ll see

  a mounted knight whom all Italia honors,

  who cares for others more than for himself.

  Tell him: “One who has yet to see you close,

  who loves you from a distance, through your fame,

  says Rome forever will

  with eyes of sorrow, brimming with her tears,

  beg you for help from all her seven hills.”

  54

  Because she bore Love’s ensign in her face

  a foreign beauty moved my foolish heart

  and made all others seem to me less worthy;

  but as I followed her across green grass

  I heard a voice say loudly, from far off:

  “How many steps you’re wasting in that wood!”

  I stood then in the shadow of a beech,

  all pensive, and began to gaze around me,

  and realized that this path was full of peril;

  and just as it struck noon I came back home.

  55

  That fire which I thought had spent itself

  —the season cold, my age no longer fresh—

  now flares back up, with anguish to my soul.

  They had not been extinguished, I see now,

  those embers: they were simply covered over;