The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch

by Francesco Petrarca

[O] Cercato ho sempre solitaria vita.—Sonnet 221, De Sade, vol. ii. p. 8.

[P] Charlemagne.

[Q] Orsa. A play on the word Orsim.

[R] This, the only known version, is included simply from a wish to represent the original completely, the poem being almost untranslateable into English verse. Italian critics are much divided as to its object. One of the most eminent (Bembo) considers it to be nothing more than an unconnected string of proverbs.

[S] Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ.

[T] Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ.

[U] Harrington's Nugæ Antiquæ.

[V] Deriving it from rodere, to gnaw.