308. ‘Quella per cui con Sorga ò cangiato Arno,’

servile wealth for honest poverty,

turned into bitterness her sacred sweetness,

on which I lived, now it consumes and wastes me.

Since then I’ve many times tried in vain

to depict her in song for centuries that would see

her noble beauty, for those who’d prize her soul:

but her lovely face is beyond my pen.

Those things to praise in her that are none

but hers alone, scattered in her like stars in the sky

I even dare to outline, now, one or two:

but when I come to the divine part of her,

that was a clear, brief sun to the world,

there I lack the courage, wit and art.

Notes