46. ‘L’oro et le perle e i fior’ vermigli e i bianchi,’

The gold and pearls and flowers, crimson and white,

that winter should have made dry and withered,

are cruel and venomous thorns to me,

that sting me fiercely in the chest and side.

So my life will be tearful and short,

since great grief rarely withers or grows old:

but I blame those fatal mirrors more,

that you have wearied gazing at yourself.

They imposed their silence on my lord,

who prayed to you for me, so he was mute,

seeing you sate your passion with yourself:

they were created beneath the watery

depths, and tinted with eternal oblivion,

where the cause of my death was born.