Sonnets, Songs, and Triumphs

...praising the virtue of the most honest lady and even her name as a name worthy of royal praise and reverence, and well-corresponding to the excellence of such a lady. At present, following his subject regarding the torments of love, he demonstrates in this sixth sonnet the vehemence and impetus of his greatest desire and love toward her; desiring to obtain her according to the ultimate goal of lovers, he reveals how she, like another Daphne, always draws back and does not consent to him. Nor does he ever cease in his commendation of her honesty, finally censuring the act of lust original: luxuria as something that brings more affliction than comfort; and therefore he says:

THE MAD: the bad habit. MY desire: longing, and in such a manner. WANDERED: passed beyond the path of reason. To Follow: to go after. HER: Laura. WHO turns in flight: who turns from me to flee just as Daphne fled from Apollo; here he secretly continues the fable mentioned at the end of the previous sonnet. AND lightened: of the weight of such passion. AND Released: free from the snares of love, whose bond is indissoluble to those accustomed to it. Flies before my slow running: upon the smooth plain; this is drawn from the ongoing fable, as can be understood, in which the enamored Apollo used the air to pursue his beloved Daphne, daughter of Peneus A river god in Greek mythology, father of Daphne, about whom we wrote in the preceding sonnet. And thus he shows her to be most honest and entirely free of such passion, while he is inflamed by a marvelous love; and therefore he says: THAT the more calling back. HIM the more I call him back, the more I show him the way of reason—which lives enclosed without care and without such anguish—LESS: the less my said desire listens to me; by which he clearly signifies that he was already so habituated in love that he could not withdraw from it. And so he adds a simile taken from an unbridled steed, which, having taken the bit between its teeth, seems to care neither for the spurs given to it by its rider, nor for any turn given to it with the bridle. Wherefore he says: NOR DOES IT avail me to spur it with the stinging rebukes of reason, or to turn it with the bit of continence. And he gives the reason: because nothing avails against the impetus of such desire, saying that love makes it stubborn and disobedient by its nature. He says this to demonstrate that love, when considered, seems a natural thing, because all animals naturally crave the act of lust; from this it follows that man can only with the greatest difficulty avail himself against such concupiscence. And then he continues the begun metaphor of the unbridled horse. AND AFTER it gathers the bit and by force: that is, after my aforementioned desire and concupiscence has, as it were, overcome reason with its disobedience—reason being the bit and the rudder that contains unbridled and most impetuous passions. I REMAIN in its power; irrational desire is called cupidity, concupiscence, and lust. It is as if he says: I am entirely subjected to such desire in such a way THAT TO my own harm: to my own spite IT CARRIES me: to death. He rightly says "to death," because just as death is a separation of the soul from the body, so when a man separates himself from reason—by which alone man is man and not a brute animal—he can be said to be dead. Also, he says this because of the intolerable agonies of love, for which a man would at times wish to be dead. And he adds what that thing is that he so greatly desires. ONLY: I am only transported by my desire To reach: to attain in effect THE LAUREL: my beloved Lady Laura A play on the Italian Lauro (laurel tree) and the name Laura. FROM WHICH one gathers bitter fruit: that is, the fruit of love which is in the venereal act is as bitter and unpleasant as that of the laurel tree. And he assigns the cause of the "bitter sweetness" of that place where love hides its arrows. MORE it afflicts: than it comforts the wounds of others. He says this because the more a man follows love, the less rest he has; but he always goes from a lesser evil to a greater one; nor is lust ever satisfied, nor does it end where it begins.

SONNET VII.

G luttony, sleep, and idle feathers
Have banished every virtue from the world,
Wherefore our nature, conquered by custom,
Is almost wandered from its path,
And every benign light is so extinguished

Petrarch.