Tuesday, February 04, 2014

According to my impression, the best of the other poetry


With a faithful heart and with a humble attitude
I come towards Love to show the grievous ills
I have suffered, great and extraordinary,
for the sweet smile and amorous semblance
my lady gave me when we first exchanged glances
when she took my heart and my faithful thoughts
and I put myself under her rich suzerainty.
 

To you, O Love, I want to show, by singing,
how my lady took me, and why, and with which aids
and where I, Love’s faithful and loyal servant, stand.
I have little good: captured and wretched,
I have been held, without any regards,
not merely a year but, in truth, believe me,
it will be seven years when the leaves sprout again.

Sweetly, Love, she came before me
displaying, in her eyes, joyous and perfect expressions
of mercy; for there is no man born of woman
who can sway my devotion
because of the smile she gave me, which was so sweet
that I believed she would soon have mercy on me:
but having believed that, I admit, was foolish.

For I chose her, according to my impression,
as the best of the other royals,
and she has held my heart among her possessions
with her rich virtue, which outshines the others':
just as the Sun, above all other radiance
gives us clarity, I can say equally
that she is clarity and gives radiance.
The sweet awareness of her beautiful shapely body
much worsens my pains and my ills,
which make my eyes used to weeping
for her beauty, which is before me all day:
and her looks thus kill me in my imagination,
for I know she has simply killed me
unless she gives me her heart in short order.

Well, then, Love, do this at least:
be my peer in good will
and force my lady, at the very least,
to approve, and show me she approves
that I love her more than any living being;
and you'll have made me joyous and happy
when I have been taken as her liege.

Go quickly, song, to My Desire,
and tell her, if she likes, through her choice,
to find it good that I love her with all my desire.

Cadenet, Canso 1, adapted


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