Saturday Rave: Sonnet 227 by Petrarch.

What's English like? 

It's a difficult question, and in early mediaeval English it was even harder because there were several quite different forms of English all jostling for position.

We ended up with something which was based on the dialect used in London known as Chancery Standard. 

In Italy, the same sort of problem led to the language of Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio being established as standard Italian.

The poem below is Petrarch's Sonnet 227, and that tells you all you need to know about the man's output. He didn't only write Italian verse, either: he wrote a lot in Latin, too, and his rediscovery of the letters of Cicero have been credited with starting the Renaissance.

Petrarch worked for the Catholic church and for a long time wasn't allowed to marry, but later in life he fell profoundly in love with a woman he called Laura. She was married, and there was never, it seems, any real relationship. 

But there was a lot of poetry:


Aura che quelle chiome bionde et crespe
cercondi et movi, et se’ mossa da loro,
soavemente, et spargi quel dolce oro,
et poi ’l raccogli, e ’n bei nodi il rincrespe,

tu stai nelli occhi ond’amorose vespe
mi pungon sí, che ’nfin qua il sento et ploro,
et vacillando cerco il mio tesoro,
come animal che spesso adombre e ’ncespe:

ch’or me ’l par ritrovar, et or m’accorgo
ch’i’ ne son lunge, or mi sollievo or caggio,
ch’or quel ch’i’ bramo, or quel ch’è vero scorgo.

Aër felice, col bel vivo raggio
rimanti; et tu corrente et chiaro gorgo, ché non poss’io cangiar teco vïaggio? 



Breeze, blowing that blonde curling hair,
stirring it, and being softly stirred in turn,
scattering that sweet gold about, then
gathering it, in a lovely knot of curls again,

you linger around bright eyes whose loving sting
pierces me so, till I feel it and weep,
and I wander searching for my treasure,
like a creature that often shies and kicks:

now I seem to find her, now I realise
she’s far away, now I’m comforted, now despair,
now longing for her, now truly seeing her.

Happy air, remain here with your
living rays: and you, clear running stream,
why can’t I exchange my path for yours? 

Translated by A S Kline.

Word To Use Today: sting. This word was stingan in Old English. The Old Norse stinga meant to pierce and the Greek stakhus means ear of corn.