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In nobil sangue vita umile e queta - Francesco Petrarch, Some Love Songs [1915]

Edition used:

Some Love Songs of Petrarch, translated and annotated with a Biographical Introduction by William Dudley Foulke (Oxford University Press, 1915).

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In nobil sangue vita umile e queta

  • Tranquil and meek her life, noble her blood;
  • A lofty mind; a pure heart filled with grace;
  • Mature the fruitage, tender still the bud;
  • A joyful spirit in a thoughtful face;
  • On one fair woman did her happy star—
  • Nay, King of all the stars—these gifts combine
  • With worth, true honour, fame from near and far;
  • To praise her well might weary bard divine!
  • For chastity in her is joined with love,
  • And gracious ways with nature’s comely guise;
  • With silent charm doth every gesture move,
  • And she hath that within her eloquent eyes
  • To darken day or bring night clear and calm,
  • Turn honey bitter or make wormwood balm.
  • ccxv

In spite of the transitory gleams of hope and consolation from the kindness of his beloved, there returns to Petrarch again and again the conviction of the essential hopelessness of his passion, as in the following sonnet, which, although it appears quite early in the manuscript collection, was apparently written in one of the calmer and more reflective moments of his maturer years.