We're sorry to do it to you, but we'll need to have this discussion in Italian. While some translations work hard to keep the rhyme scheme, alliteration, assonance, and internal rhymes intact, it's mostly impossible to do. A lot really does get lost in translation.
Petrarch is terribly sensitive to the way words sound (he did, after all, change his family name so that it would sound better). Let's start with a simple case of alliteration, right in the first line (where both "ch" and the "c" in "acque" are hard C's, but the one in "dolci" is not): "Chiare, fresche et dolci acque."
But wait—there's more. Petrarch really likes to pile on the echoing sounds once he gets going. Check out line 24 ( "could never in a more secluded port"): "non poria mai in più riposato porto." You might also notice the internal slant rhymes in that line, of which our poet was so fond: "non poria mai in più riposato porto."
There is another visually attractive instance of alliteration a few lines past this (8-10):
[...] leggiadra ricoverse
co l'angelico seno;
aere sacro, sereno
And then, we get the motherlode—a set of nine alliterations in the space of three lines, again with the hard C sound (where you see "ch," "c," and the beginning sound in "qu"):
ch'Amor quest'occhi lagrimado chiuda,
qualche grazia il meschino
corpo fra voi ricopra. (16-18)
You might also—if you're very clever—notice the near rhyme in line 18, where "corpo" and "ricopra" are mirrored sounds. There's more alliteration to be had in Canzone126, but you get the general idea. Petrarch is clever with those consonant repetitions.
But he's also really good with vowels. For the sake of all the other things you have to do today, we'll give you just one example of assonance and internal rhyme. It's a really good one, though, from line 3: "pose colei che sola a me par donna."
Where do we even begin with this gem? The first two words give us the first internal rhyme of the poem, and sets up an assonance focusing on the O sound ("pose colei che sola a me par donna") and one on the final "e" sound (pronounced like a long A in English). Whew.
Okay, one last important item you need: enjambed near rhymes (with an internal rhyme on the side). Yes. It's so exciting that we're going to block quote only two lines:
[…] torni la fera bella et mansueta,
et là v'ella mi scorse. (29-30)
You've got to look and listen pretty closely to see that enjambed near rhyme, but we think it's worth it. It certainly highlights the melodic nature of Petrarch's work. But don't take our word for it. Hop over to Peter Sadlon's website and listen to the mp3 of the ever-suave Moro Silo narrate the poem in its original glory.