259. ‘Cercato ò sempre solitaria vita’

I’ve often sought the solitary life

(river-banks know it, and fields and woods)

to escape these dull and clouded minds,

who have lost the road to heaven:

and if my wish in this were granted,

beyond the sweet air of Tuscan country,

I’d still be among those misted hills

where the Sorgue aids my tears and song.

But my fortune, always my enemy,

returns me to this place where I hate

to see my lovely treasure in the dust.

Fate was a friend to the hand that wrote,

at that time, and perhaps not unworthily:

Love saw it, and I know, and my lady.