Canzoniere Quotes

“How do you know, poor fool? Perhaps out there, somewhere, someone is sighing for your absence'; and with this thought, my soul begins to breathe.”
― Francesco Petrarch, Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta

“. . . The senses reign, and reason now is dead;
from one pleasing desire comes another.
Virtue, honor, beauty, gracious bearing,
sweet words have caught me in her lovely branches
in which my heart is tenderly entangled.
In thirteen twenty-seven, and precisely
at the first hour of the sixth of April
I entered the labyrinth, and I see no way out.”
― Petrarch, Petrarch: The Canzoniere, or Rerum vulgarium fragmenta

“Time is our delight and our prison. It binds all human beings together, since we all share the pleasures and burdens of memory, and we all know the anticipation of cherished goals and the dark prospect of personal mortality.”
― Francesco Petrarca, The Poetry of Petrarch

“Blessed be the eyes that saw her while she lived!” 310”
― Francesco Petrarca, The Poetry of Petrarch

“Sweet is the death that taketh end by love.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Rime Di Petrarca: Verses by Petrarca

“How much I envy you, you greedy earth, who get to clasp the one who’s taken from me, and keep me from the air of her sweet face in which I once found peace from all my war! How”
― Francesco Petrarca, The Poetry of Petrarch

“Pace non trovo e non ho da far guerra.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“...never would I trade for some new shape
that laurel I was first, in whose sweet shade
all other pleasures vanish in my heart.”
― Petrarch, The Poetry of Petrarch

“There cannot be a heart so hard that weeping,
praying and loving sometime will not move,
nor yet a will so cold it cannot burn.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“I stop, then, in my tracks, to recollect the awesome presence that I’ve left behind, the road ahead so long, my life so short, and bow my head and burst out into tears. While”
― Francesco Petrarca, The Poetry of Petrarch

“Súbito allor, com'acqua 'l foco amorza,
d'un lungo et grave sonno mi risveglio:
et veggio ben che 'l nostro viver vola
et ch'esser non si pò più d'una volta.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“uno spirto celeste, un vivo sole
fu quel ch’i’ vidi: e se non fosse or tale,
piaga per allentar d’arco non sana.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“Alma, calla y tus penas no rechaces, templa el dulce amargor que te ha ofendido, que un dulce honor amando has conseguido”
― Francesco Petrarca, Cancionero

“Si no es amor, ¿qué es esto que yo siento? Mas si es amor, por Dios, ¿qué cosa y cuál? Si es buena, ¿por qué es áspera y mortal? Si mala, ¿por qué es dulce su tormento?”
― Francesco Petrarca, Cancionero

“pero si alguna vez yo río o canto, lo hago porque no tengo sino una manera de ocultar mi triste llanto.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Cancionero

“«Mostrando vas la vía a otros, ¡oh, hermano!, y tú frecuentemente perdido andas, y más hoy todavía.»”
― Francesco Petrarca, Cancionero

“böyle kaçarım ölümün vuruşlarından;
ama hızlı değil kaçışım, arzumun
benimle gelemeyeceği kadar, hep geldiği gibi
sessiz yürürüm, yoksa ölü sözler
ağlatır insanları, oysa ben
yalnız aksın isterim gözyaşlarım.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“böyle kaçarım ölümün vuruşlarından;
ama hızlı değil kaçışım, arzumun benimle gelemeyeceği kadar,
hep geldiği gibi sessiz yürürüm,
yoksa ölü sözler ağlatır insanları,
oysa ben yalnız aksın isterim gözyaşlarım.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“Now that the time that calls me to depart
draws near, I think, or will not be too long,
like one whom losses make acute and wise,
I keep on wondering where I left the way
that leads to a safe haven on the right:
and on the one hand I am stung
by shame and sorrow making me turn back;
and on the other cannot break
the habit of a pleasure grown so strong
that now it dares to play for time with death.”
― Francesco Petrarca, Canzoniere

“And, to tell finally my greatest service,
I've kept him from a thousand vicious acts,
for low and vile things could never serve to give him satisfaction
(a young many shy and modest in his acts
and thoughts) once he'd become her slave and vassal;
she made so deep a mark
upon his heart, that he must emulate her...

"Again, and this is what I'll finish with,
I gave him wings to fly beyond the skies
by means of mortal things,
which make a ladder to our Maker, rightly used...”
― Petrarch, Canzoniere

“Eventually, through death and redefinition, his love and fidelity reward him, training the tormented poet to an understanding of heavenly love and heavenly beauty, values which Laura is able to represent fully only after she has left the earth.”
― David Young, Canzoniere