325. ‘Tacer non posso, et temo non adopre’

I can’t be silent, yet I fear to use

my tongue lest it contradicts my heart,

though it wishes to do honour

to its lady listening from heaven.

How can I, unless you teach me, Love,

how to match mortal words to things

divine, that high humility

conceals, and gathers to itself?

Her gentle soul had only been, a little while

within that prison she’s now freed from,

at that time when I first saw her:

so that I suddenly ran,

since it was spring of the year and my life,

to gather flowers in the fields around,

hoping, so adorned, to please her eyes.

The walls were alabaster, the roof of gold,

the entrance ivory, the windows sapphires,

from which the first sigh

came to my heart, and the last shall come:

from there Love’s armed messengers issued

with fire and arrows, so that I,

crowned with laurel,

tremble to recall it, as if it were today,.

Made from cut diamond, never flawed,

a noble throne was seen within,

where the lovely lady sat alone:

in front a crystal

column, and all her thoughts there

written, and shining from it so clearly,

it made me joyful, and often full of sighs.

I found myself met with piercing, eager, bright

weapons, with the victorious green banner,

against which in the field

Jove, Apollo, Polyphemus, Mars, were lost,

whose tears are always fresh and green,

and no hope of aid for me, and taken,

I let myself be led

where I know no way or art to free myself.

But like a man who sometimes weeps, and yet

sees something that delights his eyes and heart,

so I began to gaze with like desire

at her, for whom I am in prison,

she standing on a balcony,

and the sole perfect creature of her age,

so that I and my ills were lost in oblivion.

I was on earth, and my heart in paradise,

sweetly forgetting every other care,

and felt my living form

become a statue petrified by wonder,

when a lady, swift and confident,

of mature years, and youthful face,

seeing me so intent,

by the action of my brow and eyes, said:

‘Take counsel from me, I say, take counsel,

for I have greater powers than you know:

and create joy or sadness in a moment,

more swiftly than the wind,

and rule and watch while the world turns.

Hold your eyes steady like an eagle on the sun:

while you listen to my words.

The day that she was born, the planets

that produce happy effects among you

were in a special and noble array,

turned to each other in love:

Venus, and Jupiter of benign aspect,

took a lovely and auspicious place,

and the evil, harmful lights

were scattered over almost all the sky.

The sun had never shone on so fair a day:

the air and earth rejoiced, and the waves

in the seas and rivers were at rest.

Among so many friendly stars,

one distant cloud displeased me:

which I fear will melt away in tears

if Pity does not nobly change heaven’s course.

When she entered this low earthly life,

which, to tell the truth, was not worthy of her,

a new sight to see,

already saintly, and sweet yet bitter,

she seemed a fine white pearl enclosed in gold:

then as she crawled, then took faltering steps,

wood, water, earth, and stone

grew green, clear, soft, and the grass

proud and new under her hands and feet,

and made the fields flower with her lovely eyes,

and quietened the winds and the storm

with a voice still not formed,

with a tongue still wet with her mother’s milk:

showing clearly to the deaf, blind world

how much of heaven’s light was already in her.

When she grew in age and virtue,

in her youth’s later flowering,

such grace and beauty

was never seen, I think, under the sun:

her eyes filled with joy and virtue,

her speech with sweetness and welcome.

All tongues are mute,

to say of her what you alone know.

So bright is her face with celestial rays,

your gaze cannot stay fixed on her:

and your heart is so full of fire

with her lovely earthly prison,

that no one ever burned so sweetly:

but it seems to me her swift departing

will soon be a cause of bitter days for you.’

This said, she turned to her fickle wheel

with which she spins the thread of our life,

the sad and certain prophetess of my doom:

for, my Song, after not many years,

she through whom I hunger so for death,

cruel and bitter Death extinguished,

who could not find a lovelier one to kill.