A history of Italian literature

by Richard Garnett

The eyes whose praise I penned with glowing thought,
And countenance and limbs and all fair worth
That sundered me from men of mortal birth,
From them dissevered, in myself distraught;
The clustering locks with golden glory fraught;
The sudden-shining smile, as angels’ mirth,
Wonted to make a paradise on earth;
Are now a little dust, that feels not aught.
Still have I life, who rail and rage at it,
Lorn of Love’s light that solely life endears;
Mastless before the hurricane I flit.
Be this my last of lays to mortal ears;
Dried is the ancient fountain of my wit,
And all my music melted into tears.

Exalted by my thought to regions where
I found whom earthly quest hath never shown,
Where Love hath rule ’twixt fourth and second zone;
More beautiful I found her, less austere.
Clasping my hand, she said, 'Behold the sphere
Where we shall dwell, if Wish hath truly known.
I am, who wrung from thee such bitter moan;
Whose sun went down ere evening did appear.
My bliss, too high for man to understand,
Yet needs thee, and the veil that so did please.
Now unto dust for briefest season given.’
Why ceased she speaking? why withdrew her hand?
For, rapt to ecstasy by words like these,
Little I wanted to have stayed in Heaven.

This latter mood is in general the more characteristic of Petrarch. Towards the end it prevails more and more, but the same falling-off is observable as in the former book. Petrarch’s religious sonnets are exquisite when they involve a direct vision of Laura, but otherwise they are apt to become tame and conventional. It is almost a pity that the most notable exception should ever have been written, though it ranks among his masterpieces:

Ever do I lament the days gone by,
When adoration of a mortal thing
Bound me to earth, though gifted with a wing
That haply had upraised me to the sky.
Thou, unto whom unveiled my errors lie,
Celestial, unbeheld, eternal King,
Help to the frail and straying spirit bring,
And lack of grace with grace of Thine supply.
So shall the life in storm and warfare spent
In peaceful haven close; if here in vain
Her tarrying, seemly her departure be.
Aid me to live the little life yet lent;
Expiring strength with Thy strong arm sustain:
Thou knowest I have hope in none but Thee.

Were this more than a passing mood, it would be painful indeed that Petrarch should have lived to deem his devotion to Laura misspent, and nothing short of ludicrous that he should have accused himself of missing by hisCanzoniere the renown which epics or tragedies might have ensured him. Such a passing mood it must have been, for it is contradicted by the succeeding pieces. The book concludes with an impassioned hymn to the Virgin, which may have suggested to Goethe the analogous conclusion ofFaust.

TheCanzoniere is completed by theTrionfi, allegorical shows entirely in the taste of the Middle Ages, which we shall find repeated in Francesco Colonna’sPolifilo. Petrarch successively sings the might of Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Eternity, set forth in the long processions of their captives or votaries. A certain circumscription is essential to the full display of Petrarch’s genius, andterza rima, a metre favourable to diffuseness, does not exhibit his powers to such advantage as the severe restriction of his sonnets and canzoni. The poem, nevertheless, if a little garrulous, charms by deep feeling and a succession of delightful if not transcendent beauties. The finest portion is the Triumph of Death, when Laura appears, and addresses the poet to much the same effect as in his sonnets written after her decease. “L’on est vraiment touché de voir que dans un âge avancé Pétrarque ne se consolait encore de l’avoir perdue qu’en se rappelant et se retraçant dans ses vers tout ce qui lui faisait croire que Laura en effet l’avait aimé” (Ginguené). It was begun in 1357, and is not entirely complete, though Petrarch continued to add and retouch until within a very short time of his death. The last lines relate to Laura, who, present or absent, is always the inspiration of the poem. Petrarch evidently wrote greatly under the influence of his reminiscences of Dante, and this may account for his unwillingness, frequently attributed to unworthy jealousy, to concern himself with his predecessor in his latter years. He knew that Dante’s spirit was more potent than his, and feared to be subjugated by it, as has happened to many. He has himself been imitated by Shelley in the Triumph of Life.

The odes with which theCanzoniere is interspersed are no less beautiful than the sonnets, but are less adapted for quotation, since it is impossible to give any one in its entirety, and they must greatly suffer by abridgement. There is, however, a certain completeness in the first three stanzas ofChiare, fresche, e dolci acque, excellently translated by Leigh Hunt:

Clear, fresh, and dulcet streams,
Which the fair shape who seems
To me sole woman, haunted at noon-tide;
Fair bough, so gently fit
(I sigh to think of it),
Which lent a pillow to her lovely side;
And turf, and flowers bright-eyed,
O’er which her folded gown
Flowed like an angel’s down;
And you, oh holy air and hushed,
Where first my heart at her sweet glances gushed;
Give ear, give ear with one consenting,
To my last words, my last, and my lamenting.

If’tis my fate below,
And Heaven will have it so,
That love must close these dying eyes in tears,
May my poor dust be laid
In middle of your shade,
While my soul naked mounts to its own spheres.
The thought would calm my fears,
When taking, out of breath,
The doubtful step of death;
For never could my spirit find
A stiller port after the stormy wind,
Nor in more calm, abstracted bourne
Slip from my travailed flesh, and from my bones outworn
Perhaps, some future hour,
To her accustomed bower
Might come the untamed, and yet the gentle she;
And where she saw me first,
Might turn with eyes athirst
And kinder joy to look again for me;
Then, oh, the charity!
Seeing amid the stones
The earth that held my bones,
A sigh for very love at last
Might ask of Heaven to pardon me the past;
And Heaven itself could not say nay,
As with her gentle veil she wiped the tears away.

Not much need be said of Petrarch’s character, whether as poet, scholar, or man. As a poet he deserves to be numbered among the few who have attained absolute perfection within a certain sphere; to whom within these limits nothing can be added, though much may be taken away. The subtraction of the trivial or fantastic from Petrarch’s verse leaves, nevertheless, a mass of love-poetry transcending in amount no less than in loveliness all poetry of the same class from the pen of any other man. If immortality is deservedly awarded to a single masterpiece like theBurial of Sir John Moore or thePervigilium Veneris, it should not be difficult to estimate his claims whose similar masterpieces are counted by scores. Perhaps the greatest of his beauties is the complete naturalness of his ceaseless succession of thoughts transcendently exquisite. If Petrarch has not the thrilling note or transparent spirituality of Dante, his perfect form represents a higher stage of artistic development—too high, indeed, to be maintained by his successors. A just parallel might be drawn between the three great sonnet-writers of the Latin peoples, Dante, Petrarch, Camoens; the three orders of architecture, Doric, Ionic, Corinthian; and the three great ancient dramatists.