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  • Sonnet not found in Laura`s tomb
    by michwo at 15:40 on 04 September 2016
    Easter's meaning after you was hidden/ In the Cross's shadow, Akeldama...
    James Graham has asked me to clarify if possible for members of the Poetry Writing Group in general what I mean by these lines in the poem recently re-posted by me on this site,  'Sonnet not found in Laura's tomb'.
    This is more revealing of me than anything else really.  I was brought up a Catholic and taught to regard 'impure thoughts' as a sin to be confessed and then discovered Matthew 5:28 - But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has committed adultery with her in his heart.  If you know the husband, which I think in this case Petrarch did, for adultery read betrayal, which is where Akeldama or the field of blood comes in as it's the field Judas bought with his thirty pieces of silver spilling his guts into it literally.  For Petrarch spilling his guts over Laura was a metaphorical act, but perhaps there would have been an element of guilty pleasure in those sonnets he wrote that together make up the Canzoniere or Songbook and ample time to reflect on wasted emotion after Laura's death.  But then again it may well be, of course, he just wasn't given to that kind of thing and I'm foisting my own somewhat fractious mentality on a pure-minded scholar.
    If this doesn't at least make things slightly clearer, I can only apologize for my lack of ability to write comprehensibly.  Finally, I hope I can move on from this as it's really quite a morbid poem in the cold light of day and some of you, if not all of you, may prefer to read an 18th century translation of 'Sonetto ritrovato nel sepulcro di Madonna Laura' ['Sonnet found in Laura's tomb'] which is far more complimentary to Laura than this one.