As the years pass and this dear aching wound

As the years pass and this dear aching wound
penetrates my heart ever more deeply,
my dream hurts less and less. Gone is my peace,
yet my cure is the damage inflicted.

Strange: an exhausting delight, a useful
delusion, a sweet terror I yearn for
wherever I am. I only feel gay
following a lie I am not fooled by.

Once reason restrained my sorrow, then checked
my sensual longing, now freed by these
idealizing reveries she flies from

the physical pain in my wretched womb,
so if this mortal hurt overwhelms me
the faster will I slip off beyond pain.
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition
Notes:
V XX:20. From B A1:52:29. See also R LXXXIIII:235. Comment: the modern tendency is to interpret this poem platonically (e.g, McAuliffe, 81-3); Ruscelli is more truthful, pp 235-8. Key

Home
Amaro Lagrimar
Contact Ellen Moody.
Pagemaster: Jim Moody.
Page Last Updated 6 January 2003