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 mai foco per foco non si spense,
né fiume fu già mai secco per pioggia,
ma sempre l’un per l’altro simil poggia,
et spesso l’un contrario l’altro accense,
Amor, tu che’ pensier’ nostri dispense,
al qual un’alma in duo corpi s’appoggia,
perché fai in lei con disusata foggia
men per molto voler le voglie intense?
Forse sí come ‘l Nil d’alto caggendo
col gran suono i vicin’ d’intorno assorda,
e ‘l sole abbaglia chi ben fiso ‘l guarda,
cosí ‘l desio che seco non s’accorda,
ne lo sfrenato obiecto vien perdendo,
et per troppo spronar la fuga è tarda.
Since fire is never quenched with fire,
nor rivers ever dried by the rain,
but a thing’s always increased by its like,
and sometimes its opposite makes it blaze higher,
Love, who have power over my thoughts,
and nourish one soul in two bodies,
why do you there obey a different rule,
making desire weaken by desire?
Perhaps like the great falls along the Nile
that deafen those around with their vast roar,
or the sun that dazzles those who gaze too hard,
so desire that is not in tune with itself,
unrestrained in its object, comes to grief,
and by spurring hard its speed is slowed.