69. ‘Ben sapeva io che natural consiglio’

are never of any value against you,

you’ve so many snares, so many false promises,

so many grasps of your fierce claws.

But recently, what was marvellous to me

(I tell it, as someone unaware of it,

and who noted it, on those salt waters

between Elba and Giglio and the Tuscan shore),

I fled your hand, and on the passage,

driven by the wind and sky and waves,

I went unknown and as a stranger: when

behold your ministers, from who knows where,

to show me how wrong is he who hides

from destiny, and how wrong he who fights it.

Notes