Ladies Need (Petrarchan Sonnet). A poem for smart ladies in love

Oil painting by Eugenio Zampighi (no title or date) - Image in the Public Domain

Last Friday I found on the Web an oil painting (above) by the Italian painter and photographer Eugenio Zampighi (1859-1944), which features two elderlies laughing at each other with this peculiar connivance you see in a consolidated couple, and which rarely comes if not only with old age. I have not been able to find the date or the title; I guess it was painted at some point either near the end of the XIX century or the beginning of the XX century (logically). This painting made me remember how much I love the topic.

I started searching out, and I found another painting (below) by the author which had me contemplating it by a good while. This time it did have a title (although it did not have a date either): Sharing Their Pleausres. Fortunately, both images were available for commercial use, and so I decided to use them to illustrate a Petrarchan sonnet I wrote thanks to the thoughts and feelings evoked by both paintings.

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Ladies Need

                                 Ladies should fall for finest jewels and care.
                                 Young and naïve they shun the working hand.
                                 They've often seen the type and know its brand;
                                 diamonds and gems won't find in this an heir.
                                 Nothing like love a spring bud gets from flare,
                                 but often tender hearts miscomprehend.
                                 The keener flower’s learned to understand,
                                 perhaps too late for their mistake to spare.

                                 But treasures do tell of the mates who offer
                                 his riches to the partners they have chosen,
                                 when by his honest art he’s filled the chest,
                                 when his good heart is safe within this coffer.
                                 So when the buds of spring have died or frozen,
                                 girls keep among the finest jewels the best.

Sharing Their Pleasures, oil painting by Eugenio Zampighi (n.d.) - Image in the Public Domain

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About the Form and Meaning of this sonnet

As you may know, and as I have told you previously in some of my posts, a Petrarchan sonnet has fourteen lines: an octave and a sestet (or two tercets). Its rhythm is iambic pentameter, and it follows a rhyme scheme ABBABBA CDECDE (which can vary). The iambic rhythm sounds ta-TA, a detail which is important to know if you plan to read a sonnet aloud, although you ought to remember not to exaggerate your stressing on the long syllables (TA) or it will sound unnatural instead of euphonic.

“Ladies Need” speaks about what a woman really wants; and how she might miss the point when being too young to understand the meaning of love, she gives in for a pretty face or luxuries. The former having no particular interest for physical beauty is not an asset you earn, and the latter only valuable when earned and praiseworthy.

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