60. ‘L’arbor gentil che forte amai molt’anni’

The gentle tree that I’ve loved many years,

while it’s lovely branches did not disdain me

made my feeble intellect flower beneath

its shade, and all my anxieties increase.

When, while I suspected no such deceit,

from sweetness it turned itself to pitiless wood,

I turned all my thoughts to one purpose,

to speak endlessly of that sad harm.

What can he say who sighs because of love,

if my new rhymes have given him fresh hope,

hope that now, because of her, he loses?

Let no poet gather it now, nor Jupiter

favour it, and let Apollo’s sun blaze in anger,

so that it withers all those green leaves.