66. ‘L’aere gravato, et l’importuna nebbia’ (sestina)

The heavy air, and the oppressive cloud,

compressed on all sides by the raging winds,

will quickly be converted into rain:

and already part-crystal are the rivers,

and where there was grass in the valleys

there’s nothing to be seen but frost and ice.

And on my heart that grows colder than ice

my heavy thoughts form such a cloud,

as sometimes rises from these valleys,

closed off from the more kindly winds,

surrounded by the slow-moving rivers,

when there falls from heaven a gentler rain.

In a little while it passes, all that heavy rain,

and the warmth disperses snow and ice,

giving a swollen surface to the rivers:

never was the sky hidden by such dense cloud

that, meeting with the fury of the winds,

it did not fly from off the hills and valleys.

But, alas, for me there are no flowering valleys,

rather I weep in clear skies or in rain,

and in the chill and in the gentle winds:

when that day comes my lady’s without ice

inside, and outside is without the usual cloud,

dry ocean will be seen, and lakes and rivers.

As long as the sea receives the rivers

and the wild creatures love the shady valleys,

her lovely eyes will be concealed by cloud

that makes in mine one continuous rain,

and in her heart the unyielding ice

which draws from mine such sighing winds.

I should be able to excuse the winds,

for love of that one, that between two rivers

confined me among sweet green and lovely ice,

so that I pictured through a thousand valleys

that shade where I was, so that no heat or rain

troubled me there nor any breaking cloud.

But never did cloud fly before the winds

as on that day, nor rivers ever with rain,

nor ice when the sun unlocks the valleys.