Sonnets, Songs, and Triumphs

Before.

...oppressed: so that they do not act in such a way that it is covered: so that they are not seen by everyone in their practices. He says, furthermore, that they are blind because lovers are so overcome by passion that they have almost entirely lost their intellect. The commentator explains that passion blinds the lover's rational mind, a common theme in Renaissance love theory.

Francesco Da Buti

IT WAS the day the sun. The author demonstrates how it was Good Friday original: "venere sancto" when he fell in love with M. L. Madonna Laura. TIME did not seem to me: he says this because M. F. Messer Francesco (Petrarch) being [in church] on such a day, namely Good Friday, did not believe he could be struck [by Love] because of the devotion of the season; therefore he adds: THUS Love found me completely disarmed: that is, through confession and a little contrition of the heart, empty of every other thought; and he adds: THEREFORE in my opinion: as if to say it brought Love little honor to strike him, finding him disarmed, while you, Lady, were armed: that is, with good character and conscience, so that he did not even show his bow; and he directs this .S. Sonnet to Madonna Laura.

SONNET III.

To take a graceful revenge of his,
And to punish in a single day a good thousand offenses,
Secretly Love took up his bow again,
Like a man who waits for the right time and place to do harm.
My virtue was restricted to my heart
To make its defense there and in my eyes,
When the mortal blow descended there,
Where every arrow was usually blunted.
Therefore, troubled in that first assault,
It had neither enough strength nor space
That it could take up arms in that hour of need;
Or rather, to the high and weary hill
Cunningly withdraw me from the slaughter;
From which today it would like to help me, but cannot.

TO TAKE ONE: This third sonnet is found by many written in the second place of this first book, that is, immediately after the preface; but to me it seems, according to the order of love, to belong better in the third place, because it is a continuation of the things said above concerning his falling in love on Good Friday. Continuing then, our poet demonstrates that it was no marvel if he fell in love. For this did not proceed from a defect in himself, who had always most constantly resisted love. But it came solely through the deceit and snares of Love; by whom, out of respect for Good Friday and also because he was in the church The Church of Saint Claire in Avignon with singular affliction for the passion of our Lord, he was secretly struck while not on his guard because he was unprepared; thus he shows it to have been of such great danger that no remedy could be found. Because he says thus: LOVE took up his bow secretly like a man who WAITS to do harm in a [specific] place: which was the church; AND time: which was Good Friday. Wherefore, out of respect for the place and likewise the time, I was not on my guard. And Love waited for this precisely TO make a graceful and elegant REVENGE: and to punish in one day a good [many]: which was Good Friday, which out of respect for human redemption must be considered most beautiful. A THOUSAND offenses: which Love estimated he had received from me insofar as he had never been able to strike me before; some texts say "well" original: "ben"—as if to say, AND to punish well a thousand offenses in one day. This meaning original: "sñia," abbreviation for "sententia" can also be tolerated, but still the first seems more pleasing to me; and so that the vice of negligence or a personal defect is not imputed to him for not having made any defense against the blows of Love, he adds as his excuse: MY virtue was restricted to the heart: as if to say that he was entirely given over to displeasure and affliction; which does not delight the heart as pleasure and joy do, whereby a man is usually negligent; but rather it is a tightening and a gathering of all his forces into that [grief]. FOR there, he said: against every concupiscence of love. THERE in the heart: as to the internal feeling of the soul, thinking of some such thing, even if he did not see it. AND IN the eyes: as to the external feeling, because in looking and gazing at some graceful and rare creature, some are usually easily moved to amorous appetites. He means to say that neither with the imagination of reason nor with the gaze of the eyes was he disposed to love.

WHEN the mortal blow of love DESCENDED down there into the heart WHERE every amorous arrow used to be blunted. How Love [acted], and why he drew the bow, is declared in the preceding sonnet. THEREFORE my virtue, troubled in the first assault made upon me by Love, HAD neither so much strength nor so much space that it could take up the arms of reason and continence AT THE NEED of resisting the amorous arrow; or, after the blows were received, to withdraw myself cunningly with good dexterity and diligence.