‘Amor, tu vedi ben che questa donna’ – Dante Sestina Love you may see how truly this lady disregards your power all of the time, deeming herself the only lovely lady; and since she realised she was my lady, when your ray filled my face with light, she made herself of every cruelty lady; so her heart seemed not that of a lady but of some fierce thing, loveless, cold; for in the warmest weather or in cold I only see the semblance of a lady which seems as if made of lovely stone by the most skilful hand that carves in stone. And I, who am more enduring than stone in serving you, for the beauty of a lady, carry the hidden mark of this stone, since you strike me as you would a stone that had annoyed you some length of time. your blow landing on my heart of stone. Yet no one could ever find a stone that from splendour of sun or inner light had such power or such shining light to help defend me against this stone, so it might not strike me with its cold whereby of death I would feel the cold. Lord, you know how the freezing cold changes the water into crystal stone there in the north where it’s truly cold, and the air becomes elemental cold so that the water seems to be the lady of all those parts by reason of the cold: so that with her face that breathes out cold she freezes the blood within me all the time, and my every thought cut off by time becomes inside me a body of cold, that issues from me in the midst of light there at the entry point of pitiless light. In her there gathers every lovely light; just as of every cruelty the cold runs to her heart, devoid of your light: so beautiful to my eyes is the light when I see her, that I see it in stone, or anything I gaze on in the light. From her eyes issues the sweet light that makes me care for no other lady: would she were a more merciful lady to me, who call her name in dark and light, simply to serve her in each place and time! For none else I live and occupy my time. Therefore, Power who are beyond all time, beyond all motion and all sense of light, have pity on me, in an evil time, enter into her heart, for it is time that you should dispel all the cold that grants to me and others no time: for if it finds me, your endless time, in this state, then that gentle stone will see me, in a while, laid in stone, never to rise, unless there comes a time when I shall see, if ever, there lives lady as lovely in this world as that harsh lady. Song, I have in my mind a lady who though she’s hard to me as any stone, makes me bold, where other men seem cold: so that I dare to make from that cold, this new form that from you takes its light, one not conceived by any other time.
Posted on: Wed, 29 Jan 2014 10:08:39 +0000
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