Poetry In Translation

On April 6, 1327, the Italian poet Petrarch first set eyes on his beloved Laura. From the article:

"Laura, famous for her own virtues, and so long celebrated in my verses, was first seen by me in my early youth, in the year of our Lord 1327, on the sixth of April, in the Church of Saint Clare at Avignon, in the morning hour: and that light was taken from daylight in the same city, in the same month, on the same sixth day, in the same first morning hour, but in the year 1348, when I chanced to be in Verona, sadly unaware of my fate.

Added by Petrarch to his copy of Virgil."

Here is a poem by Petrarch describing that meeting:

"It was on that day when the sun's ray
was darkened in pity for its Maker,
that I was captured, and did not defend myself,
because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady.

It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself
against Love's blows: so I went on
confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles
started, amongst the public sorrows.

Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:

so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed" - Petrarch