88. ‘Poi che mia speme è lunga a venir troppo’

Because my hope takes too long to mature,

and what is left of life is so fleeting,

I wish I’d realised it in time

and fled away, faster than at a gallop:

and I do flee, though weak and wracked

from side to side, as desire twists me:

safe now, but bearing in my face

the marks received in love’s struggle.

So my advice is: ‘You who are on your way,

retrace your steps: and you Love sets alight

don’t wait there, among extremes of heat:

though I live, not one in a thousand escapes:

she was strong, that enemy of mine,

and yet I saw her wounded in the heart.’