So weak the thread where pendulous does hang
My life so cumbrous lade,
If none shall give it aid
Most hot into its end it will arrive;
Since heinously when our farewells were bade
And sweets began to pang,
One hope alone upsprang
That soon became the cause I am alive,
Contending, `Though things may deprive
You of that visage glad,
Maintain yourself, O spirit sad;
Who knows but better times returned shall raise
Their well delighted days,
And goods once lost may never yet be had?'
This esperance sustained me for a while
But comes undone, and I delay meanwhile.
The time beats so, and hours hurry round
In furnishing their way,
I have not time to stay
Or think, but run to furnish death's report:
So soon the Orient reveals the ray
Of Sol, from mountains wound,
To diametric ground
You see it clear into its evening port.
And lives are very short;
So heavy is the frame, and frail,
When human lives must fail,
And I am tortured in a different place
From such a lovely face,
That when desire's wings can merely flail,
And little left of my accustomed strength,
I doubt if I shall live to any length.
A country grieves me if I miss in it
Those lovely eyes that please
To take away the keys
Of all my thoughts, so long should God desire;
It fans my banishment by worse degrees
That though I sleep, or go, or sit,
No others intromit,
And all sight's pleasures so expire.
Such crests, so broad a mire,
So much the sea, so many streams
Enshroud the lovely yoke of beams,
Which almost as the clarity of day
Allures my gloom away,
And so I burn to recollect my dreams.
How much my life was once suffused in joys
Instructs me harshly how the time annoys!
Alas, if all this reasoning could bate
That fiery desire
The detrimental day did sire
When from my lovely half I left to pass,
That in oblivion Love should retire--
Who leads me to this bait
That makes my woe inflate?
For I should be a silent, stony mass.
No doubt that crystal, glass,
Have never shown such essence
Of their hidden iridescence
As souls disconsolate reveal who show
More clearly in our pensive glow
The heart's most savage luminescence,
Seen through the eyes and ever vagrant sighs,
Out day and night for one who pacifies.
Strange pleasure, that our minds esurient
In love for something strange
Are often found to range
Where they can breed the thickest race of vapours.
In some, delight and weeping interchange,
As I am now esurient,
My eyes parturient
With tears to bear, for which my heart does labour.
Enticed thus to belabour
On the beauty of her eyes,
For nothing in these sighs
More touches me inside, or makes me yearn,
I often run and turn
In tears somewhere there to disgorge my cries,
And with my heart are punished both these lights
That down the road of Love had set their sights:
The golden tresses that turn round the sun
Made emulous to dance,
And then the cloudless glance
Wherein the rays of Love have thriven
Makes me away, confounding Time's advance;
The agile words that run
With few on earth, or none,
Alas, once courteously given,
Now wrenched away; forgiven
More lightly all offence
Once more that I may sense
That gentle and angelical address
Whose strength my heart would press
To wake it with a wish that flamed intense,
All make me think no thing that I shall hear
More armours me than drawing up a tear.
To weep again and more delight impart:
The fair and yielding palms
That draw the gentle arms,
Unfolding gestures high and calm in scope;
The sweet disdain; the modest, haughty qualms;
The firm and trusting heart,
The towering mind set all apart
Quite hidden by the savage Alpine slope:
I know not if I hope
If I shall see her ere I die,
But sometimes by and by
Hope clambers up, not knowing standing firm,
But drooping would affirm
Its space from her whom Heaven honours high,
In whom dwell Honesty and Courtesy
With whom as well I pray that I may be.
Canzone, sweetly at that place
Should you our lady meet,
I wit that you may weet
She shall porrect her lovely hand,
With me in such a distant land.
Then touch it not, but kneeling at her feet,
Do tell her I shall come, when come I can,
A spirit, else, in flesh and bones, a man.
~Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere 37
Note: The prickly reader of Dante will notice that stanza 6, line 16 is from Inferno xiii.22. The reader of Milton's Italian poems will observe a little and perhaps indirect echo of stanza 3, lines 10-11 in his own little Canzone, in addition to other similarities. This is not the first Canzone in the Canzoniere, but the fourth; I have not translated each of the first three for separate reasons. I am grateful for thoughts as this is my first attempt at an extended Petrarca translation.
Answer :
I am in awe at the challenge of attempting to translate this piece. It must have taken an incredible amount of work. You must be a very patient man and you deserve to be congratulated on your achievement. I am not at all familiar with the work of Francesco Petrarca and there are a few words contained in this translation that I need to look up. So, I'll go do my homework before I read this long piece of work for a second time
Answer :
I do like it.
I thought it very long, but it held me to the words.
I also enjoy the irregularity of the lines,
You do very well at this translating thing, cheers!
Answer :
This really really is a big accomplishment and to translate while yet preserving the allusions, the pun, wordplay and rhyme patterns is simply mission impossible. Giants are indeed walking among us.
Answer :
I regret that I will only be able to render some broad overview rather than an exhaustive analysis because this is truly a lovely piece of poetry. I am of course happy that you have attended to the fluctuating line lengths, because they are emblematic of the thread connecting poet and beloved, stretched as if by the action of a rotating spindle. The head of the second strophe captures the myth of Phoebus's chariot, and 'furnish death's report' is an eloquent translation reflecting back on the 33rd canto of Dante's Purgatorio (and do I also sense St. Augustine's De Civitate Dei XIII here?). L45, "Allures my gloom away," is reminiscent of Isaiah: "Et tenebrae tuae erunt sicut meridies." The first half of the sixth strophe is a famous passage extolling Laura's beauty and you have translated in a very tasteful and lovely way. The 'savage Alpine slope' is at once a reminder of the poet's separation from Laura (absent as he was from Avignon for months), be it literal or figurative for alienation... well chosen! L115 (L3 of the congedo) is lovely because of its striking similarity to Petrarca's 'credo ben che tu credi' and of course echoes the sense of Inferno XIII -- "I think perhaps he thought I may be thinking" -- in its sense of double distance from the truth. The concluding line resurrects the poet's fear, stated so purely in the second half of the seventh strophe, that he might never see Laura again in life, i.e "in flesh and bones, a man," but that he may reach her through his Canzone. Artfully done my friend; success is yours, delight our own. Bravo!
Answer :
Hmm,quite a bit of reading with this one. I have been following a lot of your translations,a lot of them very good, but today I finally felt as though it was time to respond. While this translation was very long to read (or at least it was long for me) it was a great translation. It takes a lot of thought to do this and especially something this long and with so many thoughts. I particularly like the last stanza, just because of the delicate wording of it,it's put so amazingly, yet very simply. Thank you for this bit of writing, I'm glad I was able to answer this one, though I just barely made it before you closed the question
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