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).
L’arbor gentil che forte amai molt’anni,
mentre i bei rami non m’ebber a sdegno
fiorir faceva il mio debile ingegno
e la sua ombra, et crescer negli affanni.
Poi che, securo me di tali inganni,
fece di dolce sé spietato legno,
i’ rivolsi i pensier’ tutti ad un segno,
che parlan sempre de’ lor tristi danni.
Che porà dir chi per amor sospira,
s’altra speranza le mie rime nove
gli avessir data, et per costei la perde?
Né poeta ne colga mai, né Giove
la privilegi, et al Sol venga in ira,
tal che si secchi ogni sua foglia verde.
The gentle tree that I’ve loved many years,
while it’s lovely branches did not disdain me
made my feeble intellect flower beneath
its shade, and all my anxieties increase.
When, while I suspected no such deceit,
from sweetness it turned itself to pitiless wood,
I turned all my thoughts to one purpose,
to speak endlessly of that sad harm.
What can he say who sighs because of love,
if my new rhymes have given him fresh hope,
hope that now, because of her, he loses?
Let no poet gather it now, nor Jupiter
favour it, and let Apollo’s sun blaze in anger,
so that it withers all those green leaves.