182. ‘Amore, che ’ncende il cor d’ardente zelo,’

Love that lights burning eagerness in the heart,

constrains it also with an icy fear,

and leaves the mind unsure which is greater,

the hope or the fear, the flame or the ice.

Shivering with heat, burning with cold weather,

always filled with desires and sighs,

as though a woman in a simple gown

or under a little veil, hid a living man.

The first of these ills is properly mine,

to burn day and night: how sweet the labour

to catch the thought, let alone in verse or rhyme:

the other is not: since my lovely fire is such

she treats all equally: and he who thinks to fly

to that far light unfurls his wings in vain.