Mourning Laura in the Canzoniere : Lessons from Lamentations

Abstract

Readers now recognize that the first words of Petrarch's Canzoniere— "Voi ch'ascoltate in rime sparse . . ."—are modelled in part on Lamentations 1.12, which is spoken by a personified Jerusalem lamenting her captivity and abjection: "O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, adtendite et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus." 1 Beginning a sonnet with the citation of this verse was domesticated for Italian vernacular lyric especially by Cavalcanti and Dante; 2 Dante in particular [End Page 1] begins the second sonnet of the Vita nuova "O voi che per la via d'amor passate." 3 And as Giovanni Pozzi has recently pointed out, the beginning of the sestet of Petrarch's proemial sonnet, "Ma ben veggio or sì come al popol tutto / favola fui gran tempo," also draws on Lamentations, in this case 3.14: "factus sum in derisum omni populo meo, canticum eorum tota die" [I am made a derision to all my people, their song all day long]: 4 in this way, allusion to the book of laments attributed to Jeremiah articulates the principal parts of the poem. 5 [End Page 2]

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