Written by
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz |
My Divine Lysis
Divina Lysi mía:
perdona si me atrevo
a llamarte así, cuando
aun de ser tuya el nombre no merezco.
A esto, no osadía
es llamarte así, puesto
que a ti te sobran rayos,
si en mí pudiera haber atrevimientos.
Error es de la lengua,
que lo que dice imperio
del dueño, en el dominio,
parezcan posesiones en el siervo.
Mi rey, dice el vasallo;
mi cárcel, dice el preso;
y el más humilde esclavo,
sin agraviarlo, llama suyo al dueño.
Así, cuando yo mía
te llamo, no pretendo
que juzguen que eres mía,
sino sólo que yo ser tuya quiero.
Yo te vi; pero basta:
que a publicar incendios
basta apuntar la causa,
sin añadir la culpa del efecto.
Que mirarte tan alta,
no impide a mi denuedo;
que no hay deidad segura
al altivo volar del pensamiento.
Y aunque otras más merezcan,
en distancia del cielo
lo mismo dista el valle
más humilde que el monte más soberbio,
En fin, yo de adorarte
el delito confieso;
si quieres castigarme,
este mismo castigo será premio.
Top of page
My Divine Lysis (English)
My divine Lysis:
do forgive my daring,
if so I address you,
unworthy though I am to be known as yours.
I cannot think it bold
to call you so, well knowing
you've ample thunderbolts
to shatter any overweening of mine.
It's the tongue that misspeaks
when what is called dominion--
I mean, the master's rule--
is made to seem possession by the slave.
The vassal says: my king;
my prison, the convict says;
and any humble slave
will call the master his without offense.
Thus, when I call you mine,
it's not that I expect
you'll be considered such--
only that I hope I may be yours.
I saw you-need more be said?
To broadcast a fire,
telling the cause suffices--
no need to apportion blame for the effect.
Seeing you so exalted
does not prevent my daring;
no god is ever secure
against the lofty flight of human thought.
There are women more deserving,
yet in distance from heaven
the humblest of valleys
seems no farther than the highest peak.
In sum, I must admit
to the crime of adoring you;
should you wish to punish me,
the very punishment will be reward.
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET XXXIII. Valle che d' lamenti miei se' piena. ON HIS RETURN TO VAUCLUSE AFTER LAURA'S DEATH. Valley, which long hast echoed with my cries;Stream, which my flowing tears have often fed;Beasts, fluttering birds, and ye who in the bedOf Cabrieres' wave display your speckled dyes;Air, hush'd to rest and soften'd by my sighs;Dear path, whose mazes lone and sad I tread;Hill of delight—though now delight is fled—To rove whose haunts Love still my foot decoys;[Pg 261]Well I retain your old unchanging face!Myself how changed! in whom, for joy's light throng,Infinite woes their constant mansion find!Here bloom'd my bliss: and I your tracks retrace,To mark whence upward to her heaven she sprung,Leaving her beauteous spoil, her robe of flesh behind! Wrangham. Ye vales, made vocal by my plaintive lay;Ye streams, embitter'd with the tears of love;Ye tenants of the sweet melodious grove;Ye tribes that in the grass fringed streamlet play;Ye tepid gales, to which my sighs conveyA softer warmth; ye flowery plains, that moveReflection sad; ye hills, where yet I rove,Since Laura there first taught my steps to stray;—You, you are still the same! How changed, alas,Am I! who, from a state of life so blest,Am now the gloomy dwelling-place of woe!'Twas here I saw my love: here still I traceHer parting steps, when she her mortal vestCast to the earth, and left these scenes below. Anon.
|
Written by
Francesco Petrarch |
SONNET XCIV. Se 'l sasso ond' è più chiusa questa valle. COULD HE BUT SEE THE HOUSE OF LAURA, HIS SIGHS MIGHT REACH HER MORE QUICKLY. If, which our valley bars, this wall of stone,From which its present name we closely trace,Were by disdainful nature rased, and thrownIts back to Babel and to Rome its face;Then had my sighs a better pathway knownTo where their hope is yet in life and grace:They now go singly, yet my voice all own;And, where I send, not one but finds its place.There too, as I perceive, such welcome sweetThey ever find, that none returns again,But still delightedly with her remain.My grief is from the eyes, each morn to meet—Not the fair scenes my soul so long'd to see—Toil for my weary limbs and tears for me. Macgregor.
|