GUIDO GUINICELLI
I
Sonnet
Concerning Lucy
When Lucy draws her mantle round her face,
So sweeter than all else she is to see,
That hence unto the hills there lives not he
Whose whole soul would not love her for her grace.
Then seems she like a daughter of some race
That holds high rule in France or Germany:
And a snake's head stricken off suddenly
Throbs never as then throbs my heart to embrace
Her body in these arms, even were she loth;—
To kiss her lips, to kiss her cheeks, to kiss
The lids of her two eyes which are two flames.
Yet what my heart so longs for, my heart blames:
For surely sorrow might be bred from this
Where some man's patient love abides its growth.
II
Canzone
Of the Gentle Heart
Within the gentle heart Love shelters him
As birds within the green shade of the grove.
Before the gentle heart, in nature's scheme,
Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.
For with the sun, at once,
So sprang the light immediately; nor was
Its birth before the sun's.
And Love hath his effect in gentleness
Of very self; even as
Within the middle fire the heat's excess.
The fire of Love comes to the gentle heart
Like as its virtue to a precious stone;
To which no star its influence can impart
Till it is made a pure thing by the sun:
For when the sun hath smit
From out its essence that which there was vile,
The star endoweth it.
And so the heart created by God's breath
Pure, true, and clean from guile,
A woman, like a star, enamoureth.
In gentle heart Love for like reason is
For which the lamp's high flame is fanned and bow'd:
Clear, piercing bright, it shines for its own bliss;
Nor would it burn there else, it is so proud.
For evil natures meet
With Love as it were water met with fire,
As cold abhorring heat.
Through gentle heart Love doth a track divine,—
Like knowing like; the same
As diamond runs through iron in the mine.
The sun strikes full upon the mud all day:
It remains vile, nor the sun's worth is less.
“By race I am gentle,” the proud man doth say:
He is the mud, the sun is gentleness.
Let no man predicate
That aught the name of gentleness should have,
Even in a King's estate,
Except the heart there be a gentle man's.
The star-beam lights the wave,—
Heaven holds the star and the star's radiance.
God, in the understanding of high Heaven,
Burns more than in our sight the living sun:
There to behold His face unveiled is given;
And Heaven, whose will is homage paid to One
Fulfils the things which live
In God, from the beginning excellent.
So should my lady give
That truth which in her eyes is glorified,
On which her heart is bent,
To me whose service waiteth at her side.
My lady, God shall ask, “What daredst thou?”
(When my soul stands with all her acts review'd;)
“Thou passedst Heaven, into My sight, as now,
To make Me of vain love similitude.
To Me doth praise belong,
And to the Queen of all the realm of grace
Who slayeth fraud and wrong.”
Then may I plead: “As though from Thee he came,
Love wore an angel's face:
Lord, if I loved her, count it not my shame.”
III
Sonnet
He will praise his Lady
Yea, let me praise my lady whom I love:
Likening her unto the lily and rose:
Brighter than morning star her visage glows;
She is beneath even as her Saint above;
She is as the air in summer which God wove
Of purple and of vermilion glorious;
As gold and jewels richer than man knows.
Love's self, being love for her, must holier prove.
Ever as she walks she hath a sober grace,
Making bold men abashed and good men glad;
If she delight thee not, thy heart must err.
No man dare look on her, his thoughts being base:
Nay, let me say even more than I have said;—
No man could think base thoughts who looked on her.
IV
Canzone
He perceives his Rashness in Love, but has no choice
I hold him, verily, of mean emprise,
Whose rashness tempts a strength too great to bear;
As I have done, alas! who turned mine eyes
Upon those perilous eyes of the most fair.
Unto her eyes I bow'd;
No need her other beauties in that hour
Should aid them, cold and proud:
As when the vassals of a mighty lord,
What time he needs his power,
Are all girt round him to make strong his sword.
With such exceeding force the stroke was dealt
That by mine eyes its path might not be stay'd;
But deep into the heart it pierced, which felt
The pang of the sharp wound, and waxed afraid;
Then rested in strange wise,
As when some creature utterly outworn
Sinks into bed and lies.
And she the while doth in no manner care,
But goes her way in scorn,
Beholding herself alway proud and fair.
And she may be as proud as she shall please,
For she is still the fairest woman found:
A sun she seems among the rest; and these
Have all their beauties in her splendour drown'd.
In her is every grace,—
Simplicity of wisdom, noble speech,
Accomplished loveliness;
All earthly beauty is her diadem,
This truth my song would teach,—
My lady is of ladies chosen gem.
Love to my lady's service yieldeth me,—
Will I, or will I not, the thing is so,—
Nor other reason can I say or see,
Except that where it lists the wind doth blow.
He rules and gives no sign;
Nor once from her did show of love upbuoy
This passion which is mine.
It is because her virtue's strength and stir
So fill her full of joy
That I am glad to die for love of her.
V
Sonnet
Of Moderation and Tolerance
He that has grown to wisdom hurries not,
But thinks and weighs what Reason bids him do;
And after thinking he retains his thought
Until as he conceived the fact ensue.
Let no man to o'erweening pride be wrought,
But count his state as Fortune's gift and due.
He is a fool who deems that none has sought
The truth, save he alone, or knows it true.
Many strange birds are on the air abroad,
Nor all are of one flight or of one force,
But each after his kind dissimilar:
To each was portioned of the breath of God,
Who gave them divers instincts from one source.
Then judge not thou thy fellows what they are.
VI
Sonnet
Of Human Presumption
Among my thoughts I count it wonderful,
How foolishness in man should be so rife
That masterly he takes the world to wife
As though no end were set unto his rule:
In labour alway that his ease be full,
As though there never were another life;
Till Death throws all his order into strife,
And round his head his purposes doth pull.
And evermore one sees the other die,
And sees how all conditions turn to change,
Yet in no wise may the blind wretch be heal'd.
I therefore say, that sin can even estrange
Man's very sight, and his heart satisfy
To live as lives a sheep upon the field.
