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Quotes from Il Canzoniere — Petrarch

1304–1374 Italy

← All quotes by Petrarch

49 quotes

If it is not love, what then is it that I feel? But if it is love, before God, what kind of thing is it? If it is good, whence comes this bitter mortal effect? If it is evil, why is each torment so sweet?

Il Canzoniere (1351)

The blond tresses loosened on her neck.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

One goes many miles to be at ease.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

Song, if you find a man at peace with love,
say: 'Die while you're happy,
since early death is no grief, but a refuge:
and he who can die well, should not delay.'

Il Canzoniere (1351)

Resembles herself and no other.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

Un bel morir tutta la vita honora.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

[From] two lovely eyes that have bound me.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

The waters speak of love and the breeze and the branches and the little birds and the fish and the flowers and the grass, all together begging me always to love. But you, born in a happy hour, who call me from Heaven: by the memory of your untimely death you beg me to scorn the world and its sweet hooks.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

Blessed in sleep and satisfied to languish, to embrace shadows, and to pursue the summer breeze, I swim through a sea that has no floor or shore, I plow the waves and found my house on sand and write on the wind.

Il Canzoniere (1351)

Attribution

Quotes and notes from Wikiquote: Petrarch (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0.