Translations of Sonnets from Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta
2/April 7: Ephesians 2:8
To engineer revenge replete with grace
and punish in one day fully a thousand slights,
Love retrieved his bow, keeping from sight,
the way a villain awaits time and place.
Virtue had made of my cramped heart a base
from which to guard my eyes, fight the good fight,
when the kill shot penetrated where all past flights
of arrows had been blunted. Thus, dazed
in the first salvo, at close quarters, my will
couldn’t employ arms as circumstance
required, nor withdraw strategically
up that high, exhausting little hill,
out of the torment from which she now wants,
and isn’t able, to deliver me.
Per fare una leggiadra sua vendetta et punire in un di ben mille offese,
celatamente Amor l’arco riprese, come uom ch’ a nocer luogo e tempo aspetta.
Era la mia virtute al cor ristretta per far ivi et negli occhi sue difese
quando ‘l colpo mortal là giù discese ove solea spuntarsi ogni saetta;
però turbata nel primiero assalto non ebbe tanto né vigor né spazio
che potesse al bisogno prender l’arme, o vero al poggio faticoso et alto
ritrarmi accortamente da lo strazio del quale oggi vorrebbe, et non po aitarme.
9/April 14: Sniffles sent with truffles, and a nod to Alicia’s owl
When that time-telling heavenly body has
re-entered the constellation of the Bull,
his fiery horn spills power to apparel
earth in hitherto unwitnessed hues,
and makes not just what lies in front of us,
green banks and slopes which small flowers decorate,
but places daylight doesn’t penetrate
pregnant as the moist, black soil where this
species of fungus and like fruits are gathered.
Thus she, who’s a sun among women, plumbs
me, engendering fantasies, deeds, and words
of love: but I, no matter if she aims
her radiant eyes or rotates all directions,
purely never will be where spring quickens.
Quando ‘l pianeta che distingue l’ore ad albergar col Tauro si ritorna,
cade vertù da l’infiammate corna che veste il mondo di novel colore.
Et non pur quel che s’apre a noi di fore, le rive e i colli, di fioretti adorna,
ma dentro, dove giamai non s’aggiorna, gravido fa di sé il terrestro umore,
onde tal frutto et simile si colga. Così costei, ch’ è tra le donne un sole,
in me movendo de’ begli occhi i rai cria d’amor penseri atti et parole:
ma come ch’ ella gli governi o volga, primavera per me pur non è mai.
12/April 17: With a Nod to Mantel’s Wolf Hall on PBS
If in the face of unrelenting torment
my life’s defenses hold up, can withstand
being out of breath, my lady, I’ll find,
by virtue of old age, the brilliance absent
from your fair eyes, and in your gold hair the glint
of silver, garlands and green clothes left behind,
and your face void of color so my wounds
make me fear and not quick to lament:
then Love will give me nerve enough to come
clean with you about my suffering,
the years and days and hours I agonized,
and if the time is at odds with exquisite longings,
at least my pain won’t not have gotten some
alleviation from delinquent sighs.
Se la mia vita da l’aspro tormento si può tanto schermire, et dagli affanni,
ch’ i’ veggia per virtù degli ultimi anni, Donna, de’ be’ vostr’ occhi il lume spento,
e i cape’ d’oro fin farsi d’argento, et lassar le ghirlande e i verdi panni,
e ‘l viso scolorir che ne’ miei danni al lamentar mi fa pauroso et lento,
pur mi darà tanta baldanza Amore ch’ i’ vi discovrirò de’ miei martiri
qua’ sono stati gli anni, e i giorni, et l’ore; et se ‘l tempo è contrario ai be’ desiri,
non fia ch’ almen non giunga al mio dolore alcun soccorso di tardi sospiri.
26/May 1: Luke 15:4-7, Gaither, Alford
No ship ridden down and thrashed by waves
ever was gladder to see dry land, the crew
on their knees, faces pale with fear and awe,
offering gratitude to Him who saves,
nor was a prisoner ever gladder to have
the victor’s rope off his neck than I was to
see the weapon sheathed which for no few
years made war on milord without reprieve.
As well as praise Love, all you troubadours
should honor the good weaver of romantic
verse, who was confused and lost before;
since greater glory fills the Realm of the Chosen,
and more joy, upon a single soul’s repentance
than over the ninety-nine safely gathered in.
Più di me lieta non si vede a terra nave da l’onde combattuta et vinta,
quando la gente di pietà depinta su per la riva a ringraziar s’atterra;
né lieto più del carcer si diserra chi ‘ntorno al collo ebbe la corda avvinta,
di me veggendo quella spada scinta che fece al segnor mio sì lunga guerra.
Et tutti voi ch’ Amor laudate in rima, al buon testor degli amorosi detti
rendete onor ch’ era smarrito in prima; ché più gloria è nel regno degli eletti
d’un spirito converso, et più s’estima, che di novantanove altri perfetti.
109/July 23: Every little one doesn’t whisper, “Louise,” but puns on the beloved’s name
By now Love seizes me so frequently
that at least a thousand times a day I seem
to be back where I saw sparks become the flames
warming my heart throughout eternity.
I rest there, and simultaneously
am moved, noon, dusk, dawn, and at the chimes
each quarter hour, to find a thought so calm
that nothing past or present troubles me.
Breeze just as the sun begins to rise
picks up with a lisped charm making sure
that the sky is cloudless where it whistles,
as if some kindly soul from Paradise
always were in this palliating air,
so that in time my heart beats nowhere else.
Lasso, quante fiate Amor m’assale (che fra notte e ‘l dì son più di mille)
torno dov’ arder vidi le faville che ‘l foco del mio cor fanno immortale.
Ivi m’acqueto, et son condotto a tale ch’ a nona a vespro a l’alba et a le squille
le trovo nel pensier tanto tranquille che di null’altro mi rimembra o cale.
L’aura soave che dal chiaro viso move, col suon de le parole accorte,
per far dolce sereno ovunque spira, quasi un spirto gentil di paradiso
sempre in quell’aere par che mi conforte, sì che ‘l cor lasso altrove non respira.
Lee Harlin Bahan earned her MFA at IU-Bloomington. She’s written two chapbooks, Migration Solo (Writers’ Center Press of Indianapolis, 1989) and Notes to Sing (Finishing Line Press, 2016), and two collections of her translations of Petrarch’s sonnets have been published: A Year of Mourning (Able Muse Press, 2017), named a special honoree for the 2016 Able Muse Book Award, and To Wrestle with the Angel: Sonnets from Petrarch’s “Chapbook” of 1337 (Finishing Line Press, 2018). A third collection, Advent and Lent, also has been accepted by Able Muse Press. Lee will join translator Daniel Bourne on a panel at the 2024 Youngstown Literary Festival in Ohio this October to discuss the art of conveying poetry across temporal and cultural divides.
Francesco Petrarca, anglicized Petrarch (1304-1374), was the son of Florentine refugees who settled near Avignon, France. There, Petrarch claims, he saw for the first time a beautiful, devout, and married woman named Laura at Good Friday mass in 1327. By the end of 1337, he had assembled his first collection of lyric poems in Italian, and in 1341was crowned poet laureate in Rome. Petrarch spent the rest of his life completing his masterpiece in the language of Italy’s common people, ironically titled in Latin, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. The 366 poems of this work, also known as Canzoniere and Rime Sparse, chronicle the speaker’s frustrated love for Laura during her earthly life and long after she died of bubonic plague, the pandemic of Petrarch’s time.