Man in his
youthful
state is the slave of love.
Petrarch
No!
I love not less--the slackening of the bow
Assuages not the wound its shaft has given.
The following sonnet is remarkable for its last four lines having
puzzled all the poet's commentators to explain what he meant by the
words "Al man ond' io scrivo e fatta arnica, a questo volta. " I agree
with De Sade in conjecturing that Laura in receiving some of his verses
had touched the hand that presented them, in token of her gratitude. [O]
In solitudes I've ever loved to abide
By woods and streams, and shunn'd the evil-hearted,
Who from the path of heaven are foully parted;
Sweet Tuscany has been to me denied,
Whose sunny realms I would have gladly haunted,
Yet still the Sorgue his beauteous hills among
Has lent auxiliar murmurs to my song,
And echoed to the plaints my love has chanted.
Here triumph'd, too, the poet's hand that wrote
These lines--the power of love has witness'd this.
Delicious victory! I know my bliss,
She knows it too--the saint on whom I dote.
Of Petrarch's poetry that is not amatory, Ugo Foscolo says with justice,
that his three political canzoni, exquisite as they are in versification
and style, do not breathe that enthusiasm which opened to Pindar's grasp
all the wealth of imagination, all the treasures of historic lore and
moral truth, to illustrate and dignify his strain. Yet the vigour, the
arrangement, and the perspicuity of the ideas in these canzoni of
Petrarch, the tone of conviction and melancholy in which the patriot
upbraids and mourns over his country, strike the heart with such force,
as to atone for the absence of grand and exuberant imagery, and of the
irresistible impetus which peculiarly belongs to the ode.
Petrarch's principal Italian poem that is not thrown into the shape of
the sonnet is his Trionfi, or Triumphs, in five parts. Though not
consisting of sonnets, however, it has the same amatory and constant
allusions to Laura as the greater part of his poetry. Here, as
elsewhere, he recurs from time to time to the history of his passion,
its rise, its progress, and its end. For this purpose, he describes
human life in its successive stages, omitting no opportunity of
introducing his mistress and himself.
1.
Man in his youthful state is the slave of love. 2. As he advances in
age, he feels the inconveniences of his amatory propensities, and
endeavours to conquer them by chastity. 3. Amidst the victory which he
obtains over himself, Death steps in, and levels alike the victor and
the vanquished. 4. But Fame arrives after death, and makes man as it
were live again after death, and survive it for ages by his fame. 5. But
man even by fame cannot live for ever, if God has not granted him a
happy existence throughout eternity. Thus Love triumphs over Man;
Chastity triumphs over Love; Death triumphs over both; Fame triumphs
over Death; Time triumphs over Fame; and Eternity triumphs over Time.
The subordinate parts and imagery of the Trionfi have a beauty rather
arabesque than classical, and resembling the florid tracery of the later
oriental Gothic architecture. But the whole effect of the poem is
pleasing, from the general grandeur of its design.
In summing up Petrarch's character, moral, political, and poetical, I
should not stint myself to the equivocal phrase used by Tacitus
respecting Agricola: _Bonum virum facile dixeris, magnum libenter_, but
should at once claim for his memory the title both of great and good. A
restorer of ancient learning, a rescuer of its treasures from oblivion,
a despiser of many contemporary superstitions, a man, who, though no
reformer himself, certainly contributed to the Reformation, an Italian
patriot who was above provincial partialities, a poet who still lives in
the hearts of his country, and who is shielded from oblivion by more
generations than there were hides in the sevenfold shield of Ajax--if
this was not a great man, many who are so called must bear the title
unworthily. He was a faithful friend, and a devoted lover, and appears
to have been one of the most fascinating beings that ever existed. Even
when his failings were admitted, it must still be said that _even his
failings leaned to virtue's side_, and, altogether we may pronounce that
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!
I love not less--the slackening of the bow
Assuages not the wound its shaft has given.
The following sonnet is remarkable for its last four lines having
puzzled all the poet's commentators to explain what he meant by the
words "Al man ond' io scrivo e fatta arnica, a questo volta. " I agree
with De Sade in conjecturing that Laura in receiving some of his verses
had touched the hand that presented them, in token of her gratitude. [O]
In solitudes I've ever loved to abide
By woods and streams, and shunn'd the evil-hearted,
Who from the path of heaven are foully parted;
Sweet Tuscany has been to me denied,
Whose sunny realms I would have gladly haunted,
Yet still the Sorgue his beauteous hills among
Has lent auxiliar murmurs to my song,
And echoed to the plaints my love has chanted.
Here triumph'd, too, the poet's hand that wrote
These lines--the power of love has witness'd this.
Delicious victory! I know my bliss,
She knows it too--the saint on whom I dote.
Of Petrarch's poetry that is not amatory, Ugo Foscolo says with justice,
that his three political canzoni, exquisite as they are in versification
and style, do not breathe that enthusiasm which opened to Pindar's grasp
all the wealth of imagination, all the treasures of historic lore and
moral truth, to illustrate and dignify his strain. Yet the vigour, the
arrangement, and the perspicuity of the ideas in these canzoni of
Petrarch, the tone of conviction and melancholy in which the patriot
upbraids and mourns over his country, strike the heart with such force,
as to atone for the absence of grand and exuberant imagery, and of the
irresistible impetus which peculiarly belongs to the ode.
Petrarch's principal Italian poem that is not thrown into the shape of
the sonnet is his Trionfi, or Triumphs, in five parts. Though not
consisting of sonnets, however, it has the same amatory and constant
allusions to Laura as the greater part of his poetry. Here, as
elsewhere, he recurs from time to time to the history of his passion,
its rise, its progress, and its end. For this purpose, he describes
human life in its successive stages, omitting no opportunity of
introducing his mistress and himself.
1.
Man in his youthful state is the slave of love. 2. As he advances in
age, he feels the inconveniences of his amatory propensities, and
endeavours to conquer them by chastity. 3. Amidst the victory which he
obtains over himself, Death steps in, and levels alike the victor and
the vanquished. 4. But Fame arrives after death, and makes man as it
were live again after death, and survive it for ages by his fame. 5. But
man even by fame cannot live for ever, if God has not granted him a
happy existence throughout eternity. Thus Love triumphs over Man;
Chastity triumphs over Love; Death triumphs over both; Fame triumphs
over Death; Time triumphs over Fame; and Eternity triumphs over Time.
The subordinate parts and imagery of the Trionfi have a beauty rather
arabesque than classical, and resembling the florid tracery of the later
oriental Gothic architecture. But the whole effect of the poem is
pleasing, from the general grandeur of its design.
In summing up Petrarch's character, moral, political, and poetical, I
should not stint myself to the equivocal phrase used by Tacitus
respecting Agricola: _Bonum virum facile dixeris, magnum libenter_, but
should at once claim for his memory the title both of great and good. A
restorer of ancient learning, a rescuer of its treasures from oblivion,
a despiser of many contemporary superstitions, a man, who, though no
reformer himself, certainly contributed to the Reformation, an Italian
patriot who was above provincial partialities, a poet who still lives in
the hearts of his country, and who is shielded from oblivion by more
generations than there were hides in the sevenfold shield of Ajax--if
this was not a great man, many who are so called must bear the title
unworthily. He was a faithful friend, and a devoted lover, and appears
to have been one of the most fascinating beings that ever existed. Even
when his failings were admitted, it must still be said that _even his
failings leaned to virtue's side_, and, altogether we may pronounce that
His life was gentle, and the elements
So mix'd in him that Nature might stand up
And say to all the world, "This was a man!
