About this poem:

Translation from the Russian language edition of Petrarch’s “Song Book”, Song CCCXXIX

On April 6, 1327, after Petrarch gave up his vocation as a priest, the sight of a woman called Laura in the church of Sainte-Claire d’Avignon awoke in him a lasting passion, celebrated in the collection of 366 poems “Canzoniere” ("Song Book"). Laura may have been Laura de Noves the wife of Count Hugues de Sade (an ancestor of the Marquis de Sade). There is little definite information in Petrarch's work concerning Laura, except that she is lovely to look at, fair-haired, with a modest, dignified bearing. Laura and Petrarch had little or no personal contact. According to his "Secretum", she refused him for the very proper reason that she was already married to another man. He channeled his feelings into love poems. Upon her death in 1348, the poet found that his grief was as difficult to live with as was his former despair. Later in his "Letter to Posterity", Petrarch wrote: "In my younger days I struggled constantly with an overwhelming but pure love affair – my only one, and I would have struggled with it longer had not premature death, bitter but salutary for me, extinguished the cooling flames. I certainly wish I could say that I have always been entirely free from desires of the flesh, but I would be lying if I did".