A Sonnet by Petrarch

Quel rossignuol che si soave piagne,
forse suoi figli, o sua cara consorte,
di dolcezza empie'l ciel e le campagne
con tante note sì pietose e scorte;
e tutta notte par che m'accompagne,
e mi rammenti la mia dura sorte;
ch'altri che me non ho di cui mi lagne,
che'n dee non credev'io regnasse morte.
Oh, che lieve è ingannar chi s'assecura!
Que' duo bei lumi assai più che'l Sol chiari
chi pensò mai veder far terra oscura?
Hor conosch'io che mia fera ventura
vuol che vivendo e lagrimando impari
come nulla quaggiù diletta e dura.

Category:

Film & Animation

Tags:

• Petrarchan
• sonnet
• poem
• poetry
• reading
• Petrarch
• quel
• rossignuol
• che
• si
• soave
• piagne
• Laura
• death

[plongworth]

Has Laura died in this one?

[DClaudeKatz]

yes

[livingpassion]

Beautiful reading in Italian, I think that, when I listened without reading the words, you get the same emotion across with your voice as the words portray in translation. Of course, in poetry it isn't difficult to enjoy a poem in another language because the poet focuses so much on the SOUND of words that it becomes part of the meaning. Nice job!

[DClaudeKatz]

Thank you. (BTW it's actually from memory. I have a hobby of memorizing poetry, and it probably wouldn't sound as good if I read it.) I thought posting a Petrarch sonnet in response to your Petrarchan sonnet would complete the chiasmus that begins with your response to Urgelt.

[ilforilegge3]

leggi in italiano da schifo

[wainscottbl]

Lovely, sir. Thank you. It might be likened unto Pope's Eulogy to An Unforunate Lady or parts of his Eloisa to Abelard...all things return to dust, even the fair whom poets sing, nay even poets. A lesson to us all on the vanity of art--vanity of vanities, all is vanity. Remember man that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return.

[karrathe]

СМЕРТЬ ДАНТА

(Дант, изгнанный из отечества, скитаясь по всей Италии, нашел себе наконец

последнее убежище во владениях герцога Равенны, которого дочь, прелестную

Франческу, убитую ревнивым мужем, столь

[karrathe]

Rotta è l'alta colonna e 'l verde lauro

[DClaudeKatz]

Thanks. I will think about your ideas. It actually had occurred to me recently to make another video with a Petrarch poem, but going in a somewhat different direction. I was thinking of using a sonnet (possibly more than one) as sort of "background music" for a montage of photos, with the English translation appearing only in the video description.

[bobtassoni]

I hope you don't mind a further suggestion. Your background for the translation is a solid blue. I should think you run a background using renaissance paintings, perhaps with the "Ken Burns" effect. Perhaps Giotto or the art in the Town Hall of Siena by Simone Martini and Ambrogio Lorenzetti, especially the painting of The Good and The Bad Government.

[bobtassoni]

That was most excellent. Your voice, the italian audio and visual english translation is exactly how I like it. Petrarch's my favorite poet, I wish you'd do more of him. Might I suggest The Triumph of Time: "This morn I was a child, and now am old. What more is this our life than a single day, cloudy and cold and short and filled with grief, that hath no value, fair though it seem? Within this life men set their hope and joy and raise their heads in miserable pride..."

[Prepoceros]

That was lovely. I sometimes forget that Petrarch was Italian.