Canzoniere

she who was only born to make me die,

If Virgil and Homer had but seen that sun
which I can see today with my own eyes,
they would have worked together to give praise
only to her, and blent their styles in one;

I hate myself, and yet I love someone.
I feed on grief, and as I weep I smile;
and death and life seem bad as one another.
And all this, lady, is what you have done

Now if not love, what is it that I feel?
If it is love, what kind of thing is that?
If it is good, why do I die of it?
If bad, why is the pain so pleasurable?
If I am willing, why do I lament?

Love treats me as the sunlight does the snow

She did not seem a mortal by her gait

That golden hair, enough to make the sun
move enviously away,
and that bright glance, sublime
and yet so blazing with the rays of Love
it makes me fade away before my time

I run away, but not so fast desire
does not go with me, as his custom is;

the name that Love has written in my heart,
once the LAUdation’s coming out we start
to hear the sound of its first syllable.
Your REgal state, the next thing that occurs,
adds to the boldness of the enterprise;
but the end is, ‘Do not TAlk in her praise –

I think it did not honour him at all
to hit me with an arrow in that state:
to you well armed not even flaunt his bow.