247. ‘Parrà forse ad alcun che ’n lodar quella’

Perhaps it might seem to some that in praising

her whom I love on earth, my style’s too high,

setting her above all other nobleness,

sacred, wise, graceful, chaste and beautiful.

To me it seems otherwise: and I fear

she’s offended that my speech is over humble,

worthy of something nobler and more subtle:

and whoever doubts that let him come and see:

he’ll truly say: ‘This man here must aspire

to things that exhausted Athens and Arpinum,

Mantua and Smyrna, the Greek and Roman lyre.

Mortal tongue cannot express her divinity:

Love drives him and draws him on,

not by his choice, but by his destiny.’

Note: Athens, Arpinum, Mantua, and Smyrna, the birthplaces respectively of Demosthenes, Cicero, Virgil, and according to one tradition Homer.

‘Bust of Demosthenes’ - Hans Witdoeck (Dutch, 1638), The Rijksmuseum