[The English translation by Meredith Russo and Thomas H. Luxon.]

Introduction. Here the narrator finally confesses to a condition of melancholy. In fact, if not for Sonnet V, Milton's portrayal of the lover in his Italian sonnets would have excluded any mention of the agony of such love. The poet-narrator sighs and cries at night, as Milton hones the common Petrarchan art of portraying a lover's "pathetic pathological condition" (Variorum 2(2): 384).

must be my sun. Such radiant eyes are a common trope in Italian sonnets. See Petrarch's Quando il soave 6.2-3.

that side (Da quel lato). The left side of the body contains the speaker's pained heart.

Line 12. The 1673 edition has "e" instead of "a".