86. ‘Io avrò sempre in odio la fenestra’

I always hate that window from which Love

has already shot a thousand arrows at me,

though not a single one of them was mortal:

it’s good for death to come while life’s still happy.

And surviving in this earthly prison

causes me, infinite pain, alas:

and more because my grief will be immortal,

since the soul’s not separated from the heart.

Wretch, it should realise by now,

through long experience, that time

can never be turned back, or be restrained.

I often guide it with such words as these:

‘Go, sad one, he does not go before his time

who leaves the happiest of his days behind.