From Petrarch. Lib: I: Sonett: 170
You can add notes or queries to any part of the poetic text by simply clicking on the line in question and filling in the annotations form with your details. All contributions will be submitted to the editor in the first instance for review.
From Petrarch. Lib: I: Sonett: 170
Expanding the poem lines () shows notes and queries taken from various critical editions of Gray's works, as well as those contributed by users of the Archive. There are 0 textual and 1 explanatory notes/queries.
1 Explanatory Skip to next line
From Petrarch. Lib: I: Sonett: 170Title/Paratext] "[Prose translation by J. R. [...]" H.W. Starr/J.R. Hendrickson, 1966.
"[Prose translation by J. R. Hendrickson:]
"From Petrarch"
Ah, I am on fire! but no one has believed that the fires are real: rather,
everyone (else) believes, but she, cruel she, says they are not—she it is who will not believe, and yet she is the only one that I would
convince. Worse, she even sees them, and then, perverse wench, pretends that she hasn't seen them at all. Ah, lady most cruel to me! But, for all your cruelty, fairest of women! Can you not see my soul, Cynthia, in my downcast face?
Kind she is to all; and surely, if the Fates had not forbidden, she would ere this have softened her heart in response to the tears that have been flowing for so long.
But at least the future throng of lovers will not be ignorant of these tears, this fire that you scorn, and the songs ill suited to
their author; as for us two, when we shall some day each have become a handful of ashes—then, alas, the fires of my eyes will lie devoid of light and my cold tongue will forget how to speak: but the ill-fated Muse will still
breathe eternal loves, and many a spark will glow in my urn."
Works cited
- The Complete Poems of Thomas Gray: English, Latin and Greek. Edited by Herbert W. Starr and J. R. Hendrickson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1966.
Contractions, italics and initial capitalization have been largely eliminated, except where of real import. Initial letters of sentences have been capitalized, all accents have been removed. The editor would like to express his gratitude to library staff at Pembroke College, Cambridge, at the British Library, and at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, for their invaluable assistance.