I'll have to make my blogging more than a once-in-two-month occurrence. Life's picked up the pace considerably and I find myself stealing moments like I was pocketing a candy bar at 7-eleven without paying for it. And though that seems convenient at the time (esp. when you don't get caught), it really isn't.

Lately I've been reading many of the older poets. And by older, I really mean thirteenth-seventeenth century old. Think Dante, Petrarch, Spenser, and Shakespeare old. And if I were a bit more discerning, I'd go back even farther. Think Greek and Roman poets. Perhaps I shall. And perhaps I should go back farther still. Well, maybe.

The reason for all this is that I want to see that progression of poetry's history (Occidental), its nascence of root and form, how we got from there to here, understand the use of allusion as it's been handed down and been made use of, what's still similar in poetry, and what's changed. Y'know. Stuff like that.

I recently bought a copy of Petrarch's sonnets that contains both the original Italian and translations of his verse by various poets. I'm hoping to pick up on some of the Italian.

Here's Chaucer's translation of one of Petrarch's sonnets:

"If no love is, O God, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and which is he?
If love be good, from whennes cometh my woo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thynketh me,
When every torment and adversite
That cometh of hym may to me savory thinke,
For ay thurst I, the more that ich it drynke.

"And if that at myn owen lust I brenne,
From whennes cometh my waillynge and my pleynte?
If harm agree me, wherto pleyne I thenne?
I noot, ne whi unwery that I feynte.
O quike deth, O swete harm so queynte,
How may of the in me swich quantite,
But if that I consente that it be?

"And if that I consente, I wrongfully
Compleyne, iwis. Thus possed to and fro,
Al sterelees withinne a boot am I
Amydde the see, bitwixen wyndes two,
That in contrarie stonden evere mo.
Allas, what is this wondre maladie?
For hote of cold, for cold of hote, I dye."

From Troilus and Criseyda (Bk I, 400-420)

The original:

S'amor non è, che dunque é què i' sénto?
Ma s'ègli é amór, per Dio, che cósa, e quale?
Se buòna, ond' é 'l èffettó aspro e mortale?
Se ria; ond' é sí dolce ògni tormènto?


S' a mia vóglia ardo; ónd' è 'l pianto e 'l lamènto!
S' a mal mio grado'; il lamentar che vale?
O viva mórte, o dilettòso male,
Còme puói tanto in mè, s'io nòl cónsénto?


E s'io 'l cònsénto; a gran tórto mi dóglio.
Fra sè contrári vénti in fragil barca
Mi tróve in alto mar senza govérno.

Sí liéve di savèr, d'erròr di carca,
Ch' i' medèsmo nòn só quèl ch' io mi vòglio;
E trémo a mézza state, ardéndo il vérno.

http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/~chaucer/special/authors/petrarch/pet-son1.html

G'night!