fallen verses

Glorious pillar in whom rests
our hope and the great Latin name,
that Jupiter’s anger through wind and rain
still does not twist from the true way,

who raise our intellect from earth to heaven,
not in a palace, a theatre, or arcade,
but instead in fir, beech or pine,
on the green grass and the lovely nearby mountain,

from which poetry descends and rests;
and the nightingale that laments and weeps
all night long, sweetly, in the shadows,

fills the heart with thoughts of love:
but you by departing from us my lord,
only cut off such beauty, and make it imperfect.

trans. A.S. Kline

When the heavenly body that tells the hours
has returned to the constellation of Taurus,
power from the burning horns descends
that clothes the world with new colours:

and not only in that which lies before us,
banks and hills, adorned with flowers,
but within where already the earthly moisture
pregnant with itself, adds nothing further,

so that fruits and such are gathered:
as she, who is the sun among those ladies,
shining the rays of her lovely eyes on me

creates thoughts of love, actions and words;
but whether she governs them or turns away,
there is no longer any Spring for me.

trans. A.S. Kline

At the foot of the hill where beauty’s garment
first clothed that lady with earthly members,
who has often sent wakefulness to him,
who sends us to you, out of melancholy sleep,

we passed by freely in peace through this
mortal life, that all creatures yearn for,
without suspicion of finding, on the way,
anything that would trouble our going.

But in the miserable state where we are
driven from that other serene life
we have one solace only, that is death:

which is his retribution, who led him to this,
he who, in another’s power, near to the end,
remains bound with a heavier chain.

trans. A.S. Kline

Greed and sleep and slothful beds
have banished every virtue from the world,
so that, overcome by habit,
our nature has almost lost its way.

And all the benign lights of heaven,
that inform human life, are so spent,
that he who wishes to bring down a stream
from Helicon is pointed out as a wonder.

Such desire for laurel, and for myrtle?
‘Poor and naked goes philosophy’,
say the crowd intent on base profit.

You’ll have poor company on that other road:
So much the more I beg you, gentle spirit,
not to turn from your great undertaking.

trans. A.S. Kline

My passion’s folly is so led astray
by following what turns and flees,
and flies from Love’s light supple noose
in front of my slow pace,

that the more I recall its steps
to the safe road, the less it hears me:
nor does spurring on help me, or turning about,
resisting what Love does by nature.

And then if the bit gathers me to him by force,
I remain in his sovereign power,
so that my state carries me sadly towards death:

only to come to the laurel from which is culled
bitter fruit, whose taste is a worse wound
for others, whom it does not solace.

trans. A.S. Kline

When I utter sighs, in calling out to you,
with the name that Love wrote on my heart,
the sound of its first sweet accents begin
to be heard within the word LAUdable.

Your REgal state, that I next encounter,
doubles my power for the high attempt;
but: ‘TAcit’, the ending cries, ‘since to do her honour
is for other men’s shoulders, not for yours’.

So, whenever one calls out to you,
the voice itself teaches us to LAud, REvere,
you, O, lady worthy of all reverence and honour:

except perhaps that Apollo is disdainful
that morTAl tongue can be so presumptuous
as to speak of his eternally green branches.

trans. A.S. Kline

What infinite providence and art
He showed in his wonderful mastery,
who created this and the other hemisphere,
and Jupiter far gentler than Mars,

descending to earth to illuminate the page
which had for many years concealed the truth,
taking John from the nets, and Peter,
and making them part of heaven’s kingdom.

It did not please him to be born in Rome,
but in Judea: to exalt humility
to such a supreme state always pleases him;

and now from a little village a sun is given,
such that the place, and nature, praise themselves,
out of which so lovely a lady is born to the world.

trans. A.S. Kline

It was on that day when the sun’s ray
was darkened in pity for its Maker,
that I was captured, and did not defend myself,
because your lovely eyes had bound me, Lady.

It did not seem to me to be a time to guard myself
against Love’s blows: so I went on
confident, unsuspecting; from that, my troubles
started, amongst the public sorrows.

Love discovered me all weaponless,
and opened the way to the heart through the eyes,
which are made the passageways and doors of tears:

so that it seems to me it does him little honour
to wound me with his arrow, in that state,
he not showing his bow at all to you who are armed.

trans. A.S. Kline

To make a graceful act of revenge,
and punish a thousand wrongs in a single day,
Love secretly took up his bow again,
like a man who waits the time and place to strike.

My power was constricted in my heart,
making defence there, and in my eyes,
when the mortal blow descended there,
where all other arrows had been blunted.

So, confused by the first assault,
it had no opportunity or strength
to take up arms when they were needed,

or withdraw me shrewdly to the high,
steep hill, out of the torment,
from which it wishes to save me now but cannot.

trans. A.S. Kline

You who hear the sound, in scattered rhymes,
of those sighs on which I fed my heart,
in my first vagrant youthfulness,
when I was partly other than I am,

I hope to find pity, and forgiveness,
for all the modes in which I talk and weep,
between vain hope and vain sadness,
in those who understand love through its trials.

Yet I see clearly now I have become
an old tale amongst all these people, so that
it often makes me ashamed of myself;

and shame is the fruit of my vanities,
and remorse, and the clearest knowledge
of how the world’s delight is a brief dream.

trans. A.S. Kline