Poscia che 'l mio destin fermo e fatale

Since this lethal unmovable destiny	Poscia che 'l mio destin fermo e fatale
Since my lethal unmovable destiny willed me to love, long, sigh for you, and willed Eros inspire you with kindness towards my sorrowful and aching needs, and made your impulse towards pleasure match the strength of my loving burning eager desires, by so much my pains and my torments grow, so sweeter than anything else is this pain. And if I entreat, my Phaeton, such grace from you, it's that not Love, not Chance ever gives to life anything more splendid or happy, yet however much the past hurts and twists the heart, whatever its wounds, grief, suffering yet it calls this state blessed sweet happiness.	Poscia che 'l mio destin fermo e fatale vuol ch'io pur v'ami, e che per voi sospiri, quella pietà nel petto amor v'inspiri che conviene al mio duol grave e mortale, e faccia che 'l voler vostro sia uguale agli amorosi ardenti miei desiri; poi cresca quanto vuol doglia e martiri, che più d'ogni altro ben dolce fia il male. E se tal grazia impetro, almo mio sole, nessun più lieto o glorïoso stato diede Amor e Fortuna al mondo mai; e quanti per adietro affanni e guai patito ha il cor, ond'ei si dolse e duole, chiamerà dolci, e lui sempre beato.

Since this lethal unmovable destiny

Since my lethal unmovable destiny
willed me to love, long, sigh for you,
and willed Eros inspire you with kindness
towards my sorrowful and aching needs,

and made your impulse towards pleasure match
the strength of my loving burning eager desires,
by so much my pains and my torments grow,
so sweeter than anything else is this pain.

And if I entreat, my Phaeton, such grace
from you, it's that not Love, not Chance ever
gives to life anything more splendid or happy,

yet however much the past hurts and twists
the heart, whatever its wounds, grief, suffering
yet it calls this state blessed sweet happiness.

Poscia che 'l mio destin fermo e fatale
vuol ch'io pur v'ami, e che per voi sospiri,
quella pietà nel petto amor v'inspiri
che conviene al mio duol grave e mortale,

e faccia che 'l voler vostro sia uguale
agli amorosi ardenti miei desiri;
poi cresca quanto vuol doglia e martiri,
che più d'ogni altro ben dolce fia il male.

E se tal grazia impetro, almo mio sole,
nessun più lieto o glorïoso stato
diede Amor e Fortuna al mondo mai;

e quanti per adietro affanni e guai
patito ha il cor, ond'ei si dolse e duole,
chiamerà dolci, e lui sempre beato.

Sources:

Ruscelli-VG 11:6; Rizzardi 17:17; Chiapetti 16:19; 1995 Bullock 19:76-7. For Key see A Note on the Italian texts

Comments:

This sonnet was interpreted as to Giberto either just before or after he and Gambara married. See 1995 Bullock p. 77n, for commentary, variants and paraphrase as well as the suggestion (taken from an editor of 1880 edition of Gambara's poems) that the poem was written after Giberto's death and to a real or imagined lover.

A not so strictly autobiographical interpretation of the above and other erotic poems by Gambara is offered by Giorgio Dilemmi in his "Ne Videatur Strepere Answer Iner Olores", Veronica Gambara e la Poesia del Suo Tempo (see particularly, pp. 25-31). Dilemmi points to strikingly close parallels between verses in Bembo's Asolani and many of Gambara's more distraught and erotic poems; he suggests the above poems alludes specifically to Bembo's "Poscia che 'l mio destin fallace et empio," see Prose e Rime di Pietro Bembo, ed. Carlo Dionisotti (Unione Tipografico-Editrice-Tornese, 1966), pp. 369-70.

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