205. ‘Dolci ire, dolci sdegni et dolci paci,’

Sweet anger, sweet disdain and sweet peace,

sweet ills, sweet troubles, and sweet burdens,

sweet speech, and sweetly understood,

now with sweet fire, now filled with sweet airs:

soul, don’t complain, but suffer in silence,

and temper the sweet bitterness that hurt you

with the sweet honour loving her has brought you

to whom I say: ‘You alone please me.’

Perhaps someone will one day say sighing,

blushing with sweet envy: ‘In his time

this man suffered for the greatest of loves.’

Another: ‘O fortune, inimical to my eyes,

why did I not see her? Why was she

not born later, or I, much earlier, in her time?’