From The Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti

Translated by Ezra Pound

From the Introduction by Ezra Pound

...I have in my translations tried to bring over the qualities of Guido's rhythm, not line for line, but to embody in the whole of my English some trace of that power which implies the man. The science of the music of words and the knowledge of their magical powers has fallen away since men invoked Mithra by a sequence of pure vowel sounds. That there might be less interposed between the reader and Guido, it was my first intention to print only his poems and an unrhymed gloze. This has not been practicable. I can not trust the reader to read teh Italian for the music after he has read the English for the sense.

These are no sonnets for an idle hour. It is only when the emotions illumine the perceptive powers that we see the reality. It is in the light born of this double current that we look upon the face of the mystery unveiled. I have lived with these sonnets and ballate daily month in and month out, and have been daily drawn deeper into them and daily into contemplation of things that are not of an hour. And I deem, for this, that voi altri pochi who understand, will love me better for my labor in proportion as you read more carefully.

Sonnet I

YOU, who do breach mine eyes and touch the heart,

And start the mind from her brief reveries,

Might pluck my life and agony apart,

Saw you how love assaileth her with sighs,

And lays about him with so brute a might

That all my wounded senses turn to flight.

There's a new face upon the seigniory,

And new is the voice that maketh loud my grief.

Love, who hath drawn me down through devious ways,

Hath from your noble eyes so swiftly come!

'T is he hath hurled the dart, wherefrom my pain,

First shot's resultant! and in flanked amaze

See how my affrighted soul recoileth from

That sinister side wherein the heart lies slain.

Sonnet II

I SAW the eyes, where Amor took his place

When love's might bound me with the fear thereof,

Look out at me as they were weary of love.

I say: The heart rent him as he looked on this.

And were't not that my Lady lit her grace,

Smiling upon me with her eyes grown glad,

Then were my speech so dolorously clad

That Love should mourn amid his victories.

The instant that she deigned to bend her eyes

Toward me, a spirit from high heaven rode

And chose my thought the place of love's verities

That all Love's powers did my sight accost

As though I'd won unto his heart's mid-most.

Sonnet III

O LADY mine, doth not thy sight allege

Him who hath set his hand upon my heart,

When parched responses from my faint throat start

And shudder for the terror of his edge?

He was Amor, who since he found you, dwells

Ever with me, and he was come from far;

An archer is he as the Scythians are

Whose only joy is killing someone else.

My sobbing eyes are drawn upon his wrack,

And such harsh sighs upon my heart he casteth

That I depart from that sad me he wasteth,

With Death drawn close upon my wavering track,

Leading such tortures in his sombre train

As, by all custom, wear out other men.

Sonnet IV

IF I should pray this lady pitiless
That Mercy to her heart be no more foeman,
You'd call me clownish, vile, and say that no man
Was so past hope and filled with vanities.

Where find you now these novel cruelties?
For still you seem humility's true leaven.
Wise and adorned, alert and subtile even,
And fashioned out in ways of gentleness.

My soul weeps through her sighs for grievous fear
And all those sighs, which in the heart were found,
Deep drenched with tears do sobbing thence depart,
Then seems that on my mind there rains a clear
Image of a lady, thoughtful, bound
Hither to keep death-watch upon that heart.

Sonnet IV (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)
To a Friend who does not pity his Love

IF I entreat this lady that all grace
Seem not unto her heart an enemy,
Foolish and evil thou declarest me,
And desperate in idle stubbornness.
Whence is such cruel judgement thine, whose face,
To him that looks thereon, professeth thee
Faithful, and wise, and of all courtesy,
And made after the way of gentleness?
Alas! my soul within my heart doth find
Sighs, and its grief by weeping doth enhance,
That, drowned in bitter tears, those sighs depart:
And then there seems a presence in the mind,
As of a lady's thoughtful countenance
Come to behold the death of the poor heart.

Sonnet V

LADY, my most rash eyes, the first who used

To look upon thy face, the power-fraught,

Were, Lady, those by whom I was accused

In that harsh place where Amor holdeth court.

And there before him was their proof adduced,

And judgment wrote me down: "Bondslave" to thee,

Though still I stay Grief's prisoner, unloosed,

And Fear hath lien upon the heart of me.

For the which charges, and without respite,

They dragged me to a place where a sad horde

Of such as love and whom Love Tortureth

Cried out, all pitying as I met their sight,

"Now art thou servant unto such a Lord

Thou'lt have none other one save only Death."

Sonnet VI

THOU fill'st my mind with griefs so populous

That my soul irks him to be on the road.

Mine eyes cry out, "We cannot bear the load

Of sighs the grievous heart sends upon us."

Love, sensitive to thy nobility,

Saith, "Sorrow is mine that thou must take thy death

From this fair lady who will hear no breath

In argument for aught save pitying thee."

And I, as one beyond life's compass thrown,

Seem but a thing that's fashioned to design,

Melted of bronze or carven in tree or stone.

A wound I bear within this heart of mine

Which by its mastering quality is grown

To be of that heart's death an open sign.

Sonnet VII

Who is she coming, drawing all men's gaze,

Who makes the air one trembling clarity

Till none can speak but each sighs piteously

Where she leads Love adown her trodden ways?

Ah God! The thing she's like when her glance strays,

Let Amor tell. "T is no fit speech for me.

Mistress she seems of such great modesty

That every other woman were called "Wrath."

No one could ever tell the charm she hath

For toward her all the noble Powers incline,

She being beauty's godhead manifest.

Our daring ne'er before held such high quest;

Be ye! There is not in you so much grace

That we can understand her rightfully.

Sonnet VIII

AH why! why were mine eyes not quenched for me,
Or stricken so that from their vision none
Had ever come within my mind to say
"Listen, dost thou not hear me in thine heart?"
Fear of new torments was then so displayed
To me, so cruel and so sharp of edge
That my soul cried, "Ah mistress, bring us aid,
Lest th' eyes and I remain in grief always."

But thou hast left them so that Amor cometh
And weepeth over them so piteously
That there's a deep voice heard whose sound in part
Turned unto words, is this: "Whoever knoweth
Pain's depth, let him look on this man whose heart
Death beareth in his hand cut cruciform."

Sonnet VIII (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)
Of his Pain from a new Love

WHY from the danger did mine eyes not start,--
Why not become even blind,--ere through my sight
Within my soul thou ever couldst alight
To say: "Dost thou not hear me in thy heart?"
New torment then, the old torment's counterpart,
Filled me at once with such a sore affright,
That, Lady, lady, (I said,) destroy not quite
Mine eyes and me! O help us where thou art!
Thou hast so left mine eyes, that Love is fain--
Even Love himself--with pity uncontroll'd
To bend above them, weeping for their loss:
Saying: "If any man feel heavy pain,
This man's more painful heart let him behold:
Death has it in her hand, cut like a cross."

Sonnet IX

I AM reduced at last to self compassion,

For the sore anguish that I see me in;

At my great weakness; that my soul hath been

Concealed beneath her wounds in such a fashion:

Such mine oppression that I know, in brief,

That to my life ill's worst starred ills befall;

And this strange lady on whose grace I call

Maintains continuous my stour of grief,

For when I look in her direction,

She turns upon me her disdeigning eyen

So harshly that my waiting heart is rent

And all my powers and properties are spent,

Till that heart lieth for a sign ill-seen,

Where Amor's cruelty hath hurled him down.

Sonnet X

ALAS, my spirits, that ye come to find me

So painful, poor, waylaid in wretchedness,

Yet send no words adorned with deep distress

Forth from my mind to say what sorrows bind me.

Alas, ye see how sore my heart is wounded

By glance, by fair delight and by her meekness;

'Las! Must I pray ye that ye aid his weakness,

Seeing him power-stripped, naked, confounded.

And now a spirit that is noble and haut

Appeareth to that heart with so great might

That all th' heart's virtues turn in sudden flight.

Woe! and I pray you greet my soul as friend,

Who tells through all her grief what things were wrought

On her by Love, and will be to the end.

Sonnet XI

IF Mercy were the friend of my desires,

Or Mercy's source of movement were the heart,

Then, by this fair, would Mercy show such art

And power of healing as my pain requires.

From torturing delight my sighs commence,

Born of the mind where Love is situate,

Go errant forth and naught save grief relate

And find no one to give them audience.

They would return to the eyes in galliard mode,

With all harsh tears and their deep bitterness

Transmuted into revelry and joy;

Were't not unto the sad heart such annoy,

And to the mournful soul such rathe distress

That none doth deign salute them on the road.

Sonnet XII

THE grace of youth in Toulouse ventureth;
She's noble and fair, with quaint sincerities,
Direct she is and is about her eyes
Most like to our Lady of sweet memories.
So that within my heart desirous
She hath clad the soul in fashions peregrine.
Pilgrim to her he hath too great chagrin
To say what Lady is lord over us.
This soul looks deep into that look of hers,
Wherein he rouseth Love to festival,
For deep therein his rightful lady resteth.
Then with sad sighing in the heart he stirs,
Feeling his death-wound as that dart doth fall
Which this Tolosan by departure casteth.
Concerning the source, the affects and the progeny of the little spirit of pure love:
Born of the perception of beauty, he arouseth that power of the mind whence is born that quality of love which ennobleth every sense and every desire; misunderstanded of base minds who comprehend not his power, he is the cause of that love in woman which teacheth modesty. Thus from him is born that love in woman whence is born Mercy, and from Mercy "as a gentle rain from heaven" descend those spirits which are the keys of every spirit, perforce of the one spirit which seeth.

Sonnet XII (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)

Of the Eyes of a certain Mandetta, of Thoulouse, which resemble those of his Lady Joan, of Florence

A CERTAIN youthful lady in Thoulouse,
Gentle and fair, of cheerful modesty,
Is in her eyes, with such exact degree,
Of likeness unto mine own lady, whose
I am, that through the heart she doth abuse
The soul to sweet desire. It goes from me
To her; yet, fearing, saith not who is she
That of a truth its essence thus subdues.
This lady looks on it with the sweet eyes
Whose glance did erst the wounds of Love anoint
Through its true lady's eyes which are as they.
Then to the heart returns it, full of sighs,
Wounded to death by a sharp arrow's point
Wherewith this lady speeds it on its way.

Sonnet XIII

SUBTLE the spririt striking through the eyes

Which rouseth up a sprit in the mind

Whence moves a spirit unto love inclined

Which breeds in other sprites nobilities.

No turbid spirit hath the sense which sees

How greatly empowered a spirit he appeareth;

He is the little breath which that breath feareth,

Which breedeth virginal humilities.

Yet from this spirit doth another move

Wherein such tempered sweetness rightly dwells

That Mercy's spirit followeth his ways,

And Mercy's spirit as it moves above

Rains down those spirits that ope all things else,

Perforce of One who seeth all of these.

Sonnet XIV

SURELY thine intellect gives no embrace

To him who hath bred this day's dishonesty;

How art thou shown for beggared suddenly

By that red spirit showing in thy face!

Perhaps it is some love within thee breedeth

For her who's folly's circumspection,

Perhaps some baser light doth call thee on

To make thee glad where mine own grief exceedeth.

Thou art my grief, my grief to such extent

That I trust not myself to meet Milady,

Starving myself of what Love sweetest lent me

So that before my face that key's forbent

Which her disdeign turned in my heart and made me

Suitor to wrath and sadness and lamenting.

Sonnet XV

THOU hast in thee the flower and the green

And that which gleameth and is fair of sight,

Thy form is more resplendent than sun's sheen;

Who sees thee not, can ne'er know worth aright.

Nay, in this world there is no creature seen

So fashioned fair and full of all delight;

Who fears Amor, and fearing meets thy mien,

Thereby assured, he solveth him his fright.

The ladies of whom thy cortèconsisteth

Please me in this, that they've thy favour won;

I bid them now, as courtesy existeth,

Holding most dear thy lordship of their state,

To honour thee with powers commensurate,

Sith thou art thou, that art sans paragon.

Sonnet XVI

To Guido Orlando

THIS most lief lady, where doth Love display him
So full of valour and so vestured bright,
Bids thy heart "Out!" He goes and none gainsay him;
And he takes life with her in long delight.
Her cloister's guard is such that should you journey
To Ind you'd see each unicorn obey it;
Its armed might against thee in sweet tourney
Cruel riposteth, thou canst not withstay it.
Though she be surely in her valliancies
Such that she lacks not now worth's anything,
Still I believe her to be mortal creature;
Whence seems it, that (and here some foresight is)
If thou wert made aware of this, thou'ldst bring
Her to partake somewhat of some such nature.
Concerning Pinella, he replies to a sonnet by Bernardo da Bologna and explains why they have sweet waters in Galicia (Liscian).

Sonnet XVI (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)

To Guido Orlando
In Praise of Guido Orlandi's Lady

A LADY in whom love is manifest--
That love which perfect honour doth adorn--
Hath ta'en the living heart out of thy breast,
Which in her keeping to new life is born:
For there by such sweet power it is possest
As even is felt of Indian unicorn:[1]
And all its virtue now, with firce unrest,
Unto thy soul makes difficult return.
For this thy lady is virtue's minister
In suchwise that no fault there is to show,
Save that God made her mortal on this ground.
And even herein His wisdom shall be found:
For only thus our intellect could know
That heavenly beauty which resembles her.
[1] In old representations, the unicorn is seen often with his head in a virgin's lap.

Sonnet XVII

NOW every cool small spring that springeth sweetly

Takes clarity and virtue in Liscian climes,

Bernard my friend, from one sole source, discretely:

'T is she who answereth thy sharpened rimes.

For in that place where Love's reports are laid

Concerning all who to his sight are led,

He saith that this so gracious and fair maid

Hath to herself all graces gatherèd.

Whereas my grief in this is grown more grave

And sighs have turned me to one light and flame,

I send my burning heart, in her acclaim

Unto Pinella, upon a magic stream

Where fairies and their fair attendants gleam,

In this wrecked barque! where their show is so brave!

Sonnet XVIII

BEAUTY of woman, of the knowing heart,

And courtly knights in bright accoutrement

And loving speeches and the small birds' art,

Adorned swift ships which on high seas are sent,

And airs grown calm when white the dawn appeareth

And white snow falling where no wind is bent,

Brook-marge and mead where every flower flareth,

And gold and silver and azure and ornament:

Effective 'gainst all these think ye the fairness

And valour of my Lady's lordly daring?

Yea, she makes all seem base vain gathering,

And she were known above whome'er you'd bring

As much as heaven is past earth's comparing;

Good seeketh out its like with some address.

He suggests to his kinsman Nerone that there may be one among all the Buondelmonti of whom they might in time make a man.

Sonnet XIX

NEWS have I now for thee, so hear, Nerone,

How that the Buondelmonti shake with fear,

And all the Florentines can not assure them,

Seeing thou hast in thee the lion-heart.

They fear thee more than they would fear a dragon,

Seeing that face of thine, how set it is

That neither bridge nor walls could hold against it

Lest they were strong as is King Pharo's tomb.

Oh how dost of smoky sins the greatest

In that thou wouldst drive forth such haughty blood

Till all be gone, gone forth without retention.

But sooth it is, thou might'st extend the pawn

Of one whose soul thou mightest give salvation

Wert thou more patient in thine huckstering.

Sonnet XX

SO vilely is this soul of mine confounded

By strife grown audible within the heart

That is toward her some frail Love but start

With unaccustomed speed, she swoons astounded.

She is as one in whom no power aboundeth;

Lo, she forsakes my heart through fearfulness,

And any seeing her, how prone she is,

Would deem her one whom death's sure cloak surroundeth.

Through th' eyes, as through the breach in wall, her foes

Came first to attack and shattered all defense,

Then spoiled the mind with their down-rained blows.

Whoe'er he be who holdeth joy most close

Would, should he see my spirit going hence,

Weep for the pity and make no pretense.

(Cf. Sonnet I)

Sonnet XXI

THE DRED SPIRIT

THOU mayest see, who seest me face to face,

That most dred spirit whom Love summoneth

To meet with man when a man meets with Death;

One never seen in any other case.

So close upon me did this presence show

That I thought he would slay my heart his dolour

And my sad soul clad her in the dead colour

That most accords the will and ways of woe.

Then he restrained him, seeing in true faith

The piteous lights forth-issue from your eyes

The which bore to my heart their foreign sweetness,

While the perceptive sense with subtle fleetness

Rescued those others[1] who had considered death

The one sure ending for their miseries.

[1] The senses or the spirits of the senses.

Sonnet XXII

To Dante, in answer to the first sonnet of the Vita Nuova.

THOU sawest, it seems to me, all things availing,

And every joy that ever good man feeleth.

Thou wast in proof of that lord valorous

Who through sheer honour lords it o'er the world.

Thou livest in a place where baseness dieth,

And holdest reason in the piteous mind;

So gently move the people in this sleep

That the heart bears it 'thout the feel of grief.

Love bore away the heart, because in his sight

Was Death grown clamorous for one thou lovest,

Love fed her with thy heart in dread of this,

Then, when it seemed to thee he left in sadness,

A dear dream was it which was there completed

Seeing it contrary came conquering.

Note: Dante, Vita Nuova III. "The true significance of the dream was not then seen by anyone."

Sonnet XXIII

To Dante, rebuking him for his way of life after the death of Beatrice.

I DAILY come to thee uncounting times

And find thee ever thinking over vilely;

Much doth it grieve me that thy noble mind

And virtue's plenitude are stripped from thee;

Thou wast so careless in thy fine offending,

Who from the rabble alway held apart,

And spoke of me so straightly from the heart

That I gave welcome to thine every rime.

And now I care not, sith thy life is baseness

To give the sign that thy speech pleaseth me,

Nor come I to thee in guise visible,

Yet if thou'It read this Sonnet many a time,

That malign spirit which so hunteth thee

Will sound forloyn[1] and spare thy affrighted soul.

[1] The recall of the hounds.

Sonnet XXIV

DANTE, I pray thee, if thou Love discover
In any place where Lappo Gianni is,--
If't irk thee not to move thy mind in this,
Write me these answered: Doth he style him "Lover?";
And, "Doth the lady seem as one approving?"
And, "Makes he show of service with fair skill?";
For many a time folk made as he is, will
To assume importance, make a show of loving.

Thou know'st that in that court where Love puts on
His royal robes, no vile man can be servant
To any lady who were lost therin;
If servant's suff'ring doth assistance win,
Our style could show unto the least observant,
It beareth mercy for a gonfalon.

Sonnet XXIV (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)
He mistrusts the Love of Lapo Gianni

I PRAY thee, Dante, shouldst thou meet with Love
In any place where Lapo then may be,
That there thou fail not to mark heedfully
If Love with lover's name that man approve;
If to our Master's will his lady move
Aright, and if himself show fealty:
For ofttimes, by ill custom, ye may see
This sort profess the semblance of true love.
Thou know'st that in the court where Love holds sway
A law subsists, that no man who is vile
Can service yield to a lost woman there.
If suffering aught avail the sufferer,
Thou straightway shalt discern our lofty style
Which needs the badge of honour must display.

Sonnet XXV

"Hoot Zah!!!"

COME, come Manetto, look upon this scarecrow

And set your mind upon its deformations,

Compute th' extent of its sad abberrations,

Say what it looks like where she scarcely dare go!

Nay, were she in a cloak most well concealèd

And snugly hooded and most tightly veiled

If, by her, daylight should once be assailed

Though by some noble woman partly healèd,

Still you could not be so sin-laden or quite

So bound by anguish or by love's abstractions

Nor so enwrapped in naked melancholy

But you were brought to deathly danger, solely

By laughter, till your sturdy sides grew fractions,

'Struth you were dead, or sought your life in flight.

Sonnet XXVI

OF LOVE IN A DEAD VISION

Nay, when I would have sent my verses to thee

To say how harshly my heart is oppressed,

Love in an ashen vision manifest

Appeared and spake: "Say not that I foredo thee,

For though thy friend be he I understand

He will not yet have his mind so enured

But that to hear of all thou hast endured,

Of that blare flame that hath thee 'neath its hand,

Would blear his mind out. Verily before!

Yea, he were dead, heard, life, ere he should hear

To the last meaning of the portent wrought.

And thou; thou knowest well I am Amor

Who leave with thee mine ashen likeness here

And bear away from thee thine every thought."

Sonnet XXVII

WERE I that I once was worthy of Love
(Of whom I find naught now save the remembrance)
And if the lady had another semblance,
Then would this sort of sign please me enough.

Do thou, who art from Love's clear realm returned,
Where Mercy giveth birth to hopefulness,
Judge as thou canst from my dim mood's distress
What bowman and what target are concerned.

Straining his arc, behold Amor the bowman
Draweth so gaily that to see his face
You'd say he held his rule for merrriment,
Yet hear what's marvelous in all intent:
The smitten spirit pardoneth his foeman
Which pardon doth that foeman's power debase.
Anyone who can, from the text as it stands, discern
what happens to whom in the final lines of this
sonnet, is at liberty to emend my translation.

Sonnet XXVII (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)

If I were still that man, worthy to love,
Of whom I have but the remembrance now,
Or if the lady bore another brow,
To hear this thing might bring me joy thereof.
But thou, who in Love's proper court dost move,
Even there where hope is born of grace,--see how
My very soul within me is brought low:
For a swift archer, whom his feats approve,
Now bends the bow, which Love to him did yield,
In such mere sport against me, it would seem
As though he held his lordship for a jest.
Then hear the marvel which is sorriest:--
My sorely wounded soul forgiveth him,
Yet knows that in his act her strenth is kill'd.

Sonnet XXVIII

A LOVE-LIT glance with living powers fraught

Renewed within me love's extreme delight,

So love assils me with unwonted might,

And cordially he driveth me in thought

Towards my lady with whom 'vaileth not

Mercy nor pity nor the suffering wrought,

So oft and great, her torments on me fall

That my heart scarce can feel his life at all.

But when I feel that her so sweet regard

Passeth mine eyes and to the heart attaineth

Setting to rest therein spirits of joy,

Then do I give her thanks and without retard;

Love asked her to do this, and that explaineth

Why this first pity doth no annoy.

Sonnet XXIX

DANTE, a sigh, that's the heart's messenger
Assailed me suddenly as I lay sleeping,
Aroused, I fell straightaway into fear's keeping,
For Love came with that sigh as curator.

And I turned straight and saw the servitor
Of Monna Lagia, who came there a-crying,
"Ah pity! Aid me!" and at this his sighing
I took from Pity this much power and more.

That I found Love a-filing javelins
And asked him of both torment and solution,
And in this fashion came that Lord's replies:
"Say to the servant that his service wins.
He holds the Lady to his pleasure won.
If he'd believe it, let him watch her eyes."

Sonnet XXIX (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)
He reports, in a feigned Vision, the successful Issue of Lapo Gianni's Love

DANTE, a sigh that rose from the heart's core
Assailed me, while I slumbered suddenly:
So that I woke o' the instant, fearing sore
Lest it came thither in Love's company:
Till, turning, I beheld the servitor
Of Lady Lagia: "Help me," so said he,
"O help me, Pity." Though he said no more,
So much of Pity's essence entered me,
That I was ware of Love, those shafts he wields
A-whetting, and preferred the mourner's quest
To him, who straightway answered on this wise:
"Go tell my servant that the lady yields,
And that I hold her now at his behest:
If he believe not, let him note her eyes."

Sonnet XXX

I FEAR me lest unfortune's counter thrust

Pierce through my throat and rip out my despair.

I feel my heart and that thought shaking there

Which shakes the aspen mind with his distrust,

Seeming to say, "Love doth not give thee ease

So that thou canst, as of a little thing,

Speak to thy Lady with full verities,

For fear Death set thee in his reckoning.

By the chagrin that here assails my soul

My heart's parturèd of a sigh so great

It cryeth to the spirits: "Get ye gone!"

And of all piteous folk I come on none

Who seeing me so in my grief's control

Will aid by saying e'en: "Nay, Spirits, wait!"

Sonnet XXXI

YOU, who within your eyes so often carry
That Love who holdeth in his hand three arrows,
Behold my spirit, by his far-brought sorrows,
Commends to you a soul whom hot griefs harry.

A mind thrice wounded she[1] already hath,
By this keen archer's Syrian shafts twice shot.
The third, less tautly drawn, hath reached me not,
Seeing your presence is my shield 'gainst wrath.

Yet this third shot had made more safe my soul,
Who almost dead beneath her members lies;
For these two arrows give three wounds in all:

The first: delight, which payeth pain his toll,
The second brings desire for the prize
Of that great joy which with the third doth fall.
[1] i.e. The Soul. I have kept the Italian gender in those few sonnets where there is no danger of confusing "her," the soul, with the subjects of other feminine pronouns.

Sonnet XXXI (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)
He speaks of a third love of his

O THOU that often hast within thine eyes
A Love who holds three shafts,--know thou from me
That this my sonnet would commend to thee
(Come from afar) a soul in heavy sighs,
Which even by Love's sharp arrow wounded lies.
Twice did the Syrian archer shoot, and he
Now bends his bow the third time, cunningly,
That, thou being here, he wound me in no wise.
Because the soul would quicken at the core
Thereby, which now is near to utter death,
From those two shafts, a triple wound that yield.
The first gives pleasure, yet disquieteth;
And with the second is the longing for
The mighty gladness by the third fulfill'd.

Sonnet XXXII

To Cecco

If Santalena does not come unto you

Down in the plow-lands where the clods are hard,

But falls into the hands of some hot clod-pole

Who'll wear her out and hardly then return her;

Then tell me if the fruit which this land beareth

Is born of draught or heat or from the dampness,

And say what wind it is doth blight and wither

And which doth bring the tempest and the mist.

Say if it please you when at break of morning

You hear the farmer's workman bawling out

And all his family meddling in the noise?

Egad! I think that if your sweet Bettina

Beareth a mellow spirit in her heart

She'll rescue you once more from your last choice.

Sonnet XXXIII

WITH DEATH

DEATH who art haught, the wretched's remedy,

Grace! Grace! hands joined I do beseech it thee,

Come, see and conquer for worse things on me

Are launched by love. My senses that did live,

Consumèd are and quenched, and e'en in this place

Where I was galliard, now I see that I am

Fallen away, and where my steps I misplace,

Fall pain and grief; to open tears I nigh am.

And greater ills He'd send if greater may be.

Sweet Death, now is the time thou may'st avail me

And snatch me from His hand's hosility.

Ah woe! how oft I cry "Love tell me now:

Why dost thou ill only unto thine own,

Like him of hell who maketh the damned groan?"

Sonnet XXXIV

AMORE and Mona Lagia and Guido and I
Can give true thanks unto Ser Such-a-one
Who hath now ridded us of Know-you-who?
I'll name no name for I'd have it forgotten.
And these three people have no wish for it
Though they were servants to him in such wise
That they, in sooth, could not have served him more
Had they mistaken him for God himself.

Let Love be thanked who was first made aware,
And then give thanks unto the prudent lady
Who at Love's instance hath called back her heart;
Then thanks to Guido[1] who's not here concerned
And to me too who drove him back to virtue,
If then he please me, think it not perchance.
[1] i.e. Guido Orlando.

Sonnet XXXIV (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's translation)

On the Detection of a false Friend[1]

LOVE and the Lady Lagia, Guido and I,
Unto a certain lord are bounded all,
Who has released us--know ye from whose thrall?
Yet I'll not speak, but let the matter die:
Since now these three no more are held thereby,
Who in homage at his feet did fall
That I myself was not more whimsical,
In him conceiving godship from on high.
Let Love be thanked the first, who first discern'd
The truth; and that wise lady afterward,
Who in fit time took back her heart again;
And Guido next, from worship wholly turn'd;
And I, as he. But if ye have not heard,
I shall not tell how much I loved him then.
[1] I should think, from the mention of Lady Lagia, that this might refer again to Lapo Gianni, who seems (one knows not why) to have fallen into disgrace with his friends. The Guido mentioned is probably Guido Orlandi.

Sonnet XXXV

To Guido Orlando

He explains the miracles of the madonna of Or San Michele, by telling whose image it is.

MY Lady's face it is they worship there.
At San Michele in Orto, Guido mine,
Near her fair semblance that is clear and holy
Sinners take refuge and get consolation.
Whoso before her kneeleth reverently
No longer wasteth but is comforted;
The sick are healed and devils driven forth,
And those with crooked eyes see straightway straight.
Great ills she cureth in an open place,
With reverence the folk all kneel unto her,
And two lamps shed the glow about her form.
Her voice is borne out through far-lying ways
'Till brothers minor cry: "Idolatry,"
For envy of her precious neighborhood.

Sonnet XXXV (Dante Gabriel Rossetti's traslation)

To Guido Orlandi

Of a consecrated image resembling his Lady

GUIDO, an image of my lady dwells
At San Michele in Orto, consecrate
And duly worshipped. Fair in holy state
She listens to the tale each sinner tells:
And among them that come to her, who ails
The most, on him the most doth blessing wait.
She bids the fiend men's bodies abdicate;
Over the curse of blindness she prevails,
And heals sick languors in the public squares.
A multitude adores her reverently:
Before her face two burning tapers are;
Her voice is uttered upon paths afar.
Yet through the Lesser Brethren's[1] jealousy
She is named idol; not being one of theirs.
[1] The Franciscans, in profession of deeper poverty and humility than belonged to other Orders, called themselves Fraires minores.