166. ‘S’i’ fussi stato fermo a la spelunca’

If I had stayed firmly in the cave

where Apollo became a prophet,

Florence perhaps might have her poet today

not just Mantua, and Verona:

But since my ground no longer yields reeds,

with the moisture from that rock, I must follow

another star, and, from my native fields, reap

thorns and thistles with my curved sickle.

The olive-tree is dry, and the water

that springs from Parnassus, through which

at one time it flowered, flows elsewhere.

So fault or misfortune will deprive me

of all the finest fruits, unless eternal Jove

pours his grace on me from above.

Note: Petrarch would be Florence’s poet. Mantua was Virgil’s birthplace, and Verona Catullus’s. Petrarch, though born in Arezzo, identified himself with Florence.

‘Florentine Street Scene with Twelve Figures’ - Anonymous (ca. 1540 - 1560), The Rijksmuseum