A Daily Countdown to 700 Years with the “colpi d’Amor”
“Benedetto sia ‘l giorno, et ‘l mese, et l’anno, / et la stagione, e’l tempo, et l’ora, e ‘l punto…” — Rvf 61
“Blessed be the day, and the month, and the year, and the season, and the time, and the hour, and the moment…”(Kline).
Se l’onorata fronde che prescrive
l’ira del ciel, quando ‘l gran Giove tona,
non m’avesse disdetta la corona
che suole ornar chi poetando scrive,
i’era amico a queste vostre dive
le qua’ vilmente il secolo abandona;
ma quella ingiuria già lunge mi sprona
da l’inventrice de le prime olive:
ché non bolle la polver d’Ethïopia
sotto ‘l più ardente sol, com’io sfavillo,
perdendo tanto amata cosa propia.
Cercate dunque fonte piú tranquillo,
ché ‘l mio d’ogni liquor sostene inopia,
salvo di quel che lagrimando stillo.
If the honoured branch that wards off
heaven’s anger when great Jupiter thunders
had not refused me its laurel crown
which usually wreathes those who write poetry,
I would be a friend of those Muses of yours
that this unworthy age has abandoned:
but that injustice keeps me far from
Minerva who first gave us olive trees:
for the sands of Ethiopia could not burn
hotter under the burning sun than I blaze
at losing a thing so beloved, as my own.
Search out a steadier fount than mine,
which only wells in an impoverished stream,
except for that which distils from my tears.