Translating Petrarch’s ‘Trionfo della Morte’

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Countess of Pembroke, English Renaissance, Petrarch

 

Petrarch

In Mary Sidney Herbert’s, Countess of Pembroke’s, 1595 translation of Petrarch’s Trionfo della Morte (1470), Sidney ‘presents Laura as a vibrant figure of joy and power’ (Hannay et al 265). In fact, Laura has so much joy that, despite her death, even a small amount of it will invigorate Petrarch: ‘Even this my [Laura’s] death, which yealds thee such annoye/would make in thee farre greater gladnesse ryse,/Couldst thow but taste least portion of my joye’ (II.37-39 translated by Herbert). The enjambment replaces the verb ‘annoye’ with the alliterating ‘greater gladnesse’, which through end-rhyme is also absorbed into the verb ‘joye’. The signification is that if Petrarch could ‘taste [the] least portion of my joye’, he would celebrate Laura’s death rather than mourn her. Therefore, Petrarch’s ‘greater gladnesse’ can be further sublimated into

Queen Elizabeth I’s Corruptive Womb

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Colin Clout, Edmund Spenser, English Renaissance, Niobe, Petrarch, Queen Elizabeth I, Sheep, Whitney

In 1595, Edmund Spenser published his long pastoral poem Colin Clouts Come Home Againe. It allegorically describes Spenser’s bitterness towards Queen Elizabeth I’s court as he sees himself as a literary exile in Ireland. Through his poetic persona as the shepherd Colin Clout, Spenser relates his experiences in Cynthia’s land that is a transparent allusion to Elizabethan England. His bitterness towards the queen’s court and her courtiers becomes apparent in the following lines describing Cynthia’s servants:

For either they be pufféd  up with pride,

Or fraught with envy that their galls do swell,

Or they their days to idleness divide,

Or drownded lie in Pleasure’s wastyeful well. (lines 759-62)

The verbs ‘pufféd’ and ‘swell’ are metonyms for the Elizabethan courtiers’ vanity. They are so narcissistic their gall bladders are almost bursting with bitterness. The courtiers are redolent of the sheep

Elizabethan Courtly Love

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courtly love, Elizabethan Court, Petrarch, Queen Elizabeth I, Ralegh, Sir Philip Sidney

In the classical and medieval traditions of the courtly love ideal, the male Lover pronounces his undying love to the Lady of his desires who is cruel and unobtainable. Writing about courtly love, Denis De Rougement argues that it is ‘the passion of the two lovers [that] creates obstruction‘ (De Rougemont 42). He implies that the Lover’s feelings for the Lady who feigns disinterest creates a playful discourse masking sexual interest. In the picture below, for instance, the courtly love couple are playing chess. No doubt, they’d rather be in bed together.

A Courtly Couple

Queen Elizabeth I revived the courtly love ideal to encourage courtiers to woo and flatter her. She maintained ‘control’ over a patriarchal society because