Sonnets, Songs, and Triumphs

...not: but the irrational appetite: is extinguished, a metaphor drawn from artificial light. THAT WHO: that he who wishes to give birth to a new river—that is, a new learned man. FROM HELICON: from him who, being most learned as was Petrarch, can teach others and make them participants in his knowledge: so that the one taught by him can say he was born and proceeded in that knowledge as rivers do from their springs. Helicon is a mountain in Boeotia, Greece, sacred to the Muses and the site of the springs Hippocrene and Aganippe. Of the Helicon ridge of Parnassus, or the fountain consecrated to the Muses, we shall speak in another place. I say then, returning, that such a man who wants to make the said river be born from the fountain called Helicon. IS POINTED AT: Before. is shown by those standing around with a finger. AS SOMETHING ADMIRABLE: because doing good and attending to knowledge—or to any excellent virtue—is a thing in this age unused by the idle common people original: vulgus: and he himself declares how much he had said by adding: WHAT LONGING FOR LAUREL: that is, for wisdom, pertaining to the ridge of Helicon where Apollo, to whom the laurel belongs, was adored. WHAT OF MYRTLE: that is, of eloquence. This belongs to Dionysus, otherwise called Bacchus, who was adored on the other ridge of Parnassus called Cithaeron The commentator notes that the myrtle is also sacred to Venus, but here emphasizes the connection to Dionysus and the mountain of the poets. and properly has the ivy in his protection, because myrtle is attributed not only to him but also to Venus; however, here he intends only him from Mount Parnassus, and of such matters we shall narrate more opportunely in another place. Petrarch means in sum: what man delights in wisdom? And then he declares himself, stating also the reason why holy and eloquent men are not found. THE THRONG: that is, the ignorant and troublesome common people. INTENT ON VILE GAIN: on usury and mechanical and sordid arts. He says to his children and relatives and friends: PHILOSOPHERS: philosophers and likewise the eloquent: because eloquence is joined to philosophy no differently than the beginning and foot of Cithaeron is joined with that of Helicon in Boeotia. Nor is it possible for anyone to be well-spoken if he has not tasted philosophy. Nor will the philosopher know how to speak with any proper good order if he is stripped of eloquence. GOES POOR: and even worse, NAKED: it is no wonder, as Aristotle says: if philosophers are poor: because no one can reasonably have that thing which they do not care for. And finally, concluding, Petrarch directs his prudent speech to Orso Orso dell'Anguillara, to whom Sonnet VII is addressed. saying: O my Orso, it is true that you will have few companions, but they will be wise and good. BY THE OTHER PATH: where the liberal studies, enemies of the common people, reside. BUT O GENTLE SPIRIT: insofar as you do not attend to vile exercises, but to speculative and high things. I PRAY YOU THE MORE: as you will have few companions. DO NOT ABANDON YOUR MAGNANIMOUS ENTERPRISE: and he rightly calls it a magnanimous enterprise to attend to the studies of the liberal and noble arts: because the magnanimous man despises every vile and pecuniary exercise, giving himself entirely to true honor and immortal glory, which can inhabit no place alongside avarice, much less with the vice of gluttony and disordered sleep in an idle and filthy life.

Gluttony, sleep, and idle pillows. M.F. likely Messer Francesco Petrarch writes this to a young friend of his who had begun to study and afterwards was in doubt about leaving his studies. M.F. therefore comforts this young man, alleging what those things are that cause sleep and disturb virtue, and commemorates gluttony, sleep, and idle pillows as detestable vices. POINTED AT: i.e., noted: otherwise, pointed at as something admirable. He means that he who wants to give himself to virtue is pointed at as something admirable, i.e., honored and appreciated. He says it almost seems like a miracle to see a poet, such that seeing him, it seems the fountain of Helicon is born: which is taken as the habitation of poets and muses; and the laurel and the myrtle are trees from which the joy or the crown is taken to honor these poets.

SONNET VIII.

Fran. M.

At the foot of the hills: Since in the preceding sonnet four vices were described by Petrarch, through which the unmindful allow themselves to be ensnared by love: and they are the vice of the most dishonest venereal act, the vice of gluttony, immoderate sleep (from which descends the idleness of cowards), in the not...