Non à tanti animali il mar fra l'onde

Abstract

Non à tanti animali il mar fra l'onde Francesco Petrarca (bio) and Lee Harlin Bahan (bio) 237/November 28: Endymion, Arnold, Cicero, Eliot There aren't as many creatures in the wavesof the sea, never were seen beyond the moon'scircle as many stars on any night,as many birds inhabiting the woods,stalks of grass in a field or along a shore,as there are issues in my heart each evening. Day in and out I hope that my last eveningseparates this living sod from wavesand leaves me deeply asleep on any shore,because no man ever under the moonsuffered to get his breath as I have; the woodsknow this, where I hunt alone day and night. I haven't experienced a peaceful night,but gone heaving sighs morning and evening,since Love made me a citizen of the woods.Before I rest, the ocean won't make waves,the sun will reflect the brilliance of the moon,and flowers will die in April on every shore. Eating myself up, I go from shore to shore,thoughtful by day, then I cry all night;I'm never stable, no more than the moon.Hard on my detection of the evening'sfall, I sigh my lungs out and weep wavesto drench the grass and bring down the woods. Cities are enemies, unlike the woods,of my angst, which I vent on this cliffed shore,letting steam off with the grumbling waves,through the sweet stillness of the night; [End Page 127] so that I wait the entire day for eveningand sundown to accommodate the moon. Ah, would that I now lay beside the moon'sbeloved, fast asleep in summer woods,and she who prior to vespers darkens eveningwould come, with love and beaming, to that shore,only to remain a single night;and day and the sun would stay sunk in the waves. Above relentless waves, by light from the moon,Song, born of night in the middle of the woods,you'll spy a costly shore tomorrow evening. [End Page 128] Francesco Petrarca francesco petrarca (1304–1374), anglicized Petrarch, is remembered today for his lyric masterpiece in the language of Italy's common people, ironically titled in Latin, Rerum vulgarium fragmenta. Also called Canzoniere and Rime sparse, the work's 366 poems chronicle its speaker's frustrated love for Laura on earth and long after she died of bubonic plague, the pandemic of Petrarch's time. Lee Harlin Bahan lee harlin bahan is the author of A Year of Mourning (Able Muse Press, 2017) and To Wrestle with the Angel: Sonnets from Petrarch's "Chapbook" of 1337 (Finishing Line Press, 2018). Advent and Lent, her second book of Petrarch translations, has been accepted for publication by Able Muse Press. Copyright © 2023 Lee Harlin Bahan