Redondilla 87 [1]

My wish, Feliciana, is to

sing your celebrated beauty;

and since it is to be sung,

you will be the instrument

About your ornamented head

my love says, with no misgiving,

that the high notes of your tresses

are in a harmony so fair

that with some audacity

love proclaims in a gentle voice

that he knows how to arrange them,

and his touch alone will strum them.

You must allow love to attempt

to configure the clefs and notes

from the expanse of your forehead

to the ruling lines of your brows.

At the music stand that occupies

your countenance, your eyes since

re, me, fa, sol to the rhythmic

tempo and measure of your nose.

The harmonious carnation

on your face is not discordant,

because along with the lily

it tempers and tunes your fair hue.

Your miraculous discretion

harmonizes with your beauty,

but the wisest, most prudent word

stammers if it touches your lip.

Your throat is the part that provides

the singing with inventions,

because of the diatonic

sequences that it crowds in.

You conquer the hearts of all

with your own sovereign command

for in your hand you sustain

the signs and the inclinations.

I shall not play the slenderness

of your fine, exquisite torso

for the bend of your waist is as

troubling as a trill in the song.

Upon your foot my hope places

all its pleasures and delights,

for since it does not go higher

it never makes a mutation.

And although it does not dare

to rise in plainsong, on pitch,

when counterpoint is adjoined

it emblazons the whole note.

Your body, its rhythm framed

from proportion to persistence,

creates a divine harmony,

it is so finely composed.

I shall be silent, for my love

does not interpret you well

in crude songs; to your perfections

you alone know the notation.