Franco meditates on an absent lover (Capitolo 21) - Veronica Franco

I said: "My heart, if my own weapons
do this to me, what will those do
with which cruel fortune pierces me?"
If I myself feel, having fled far from my love,
that pain closes in on me ever more,
that my leaving brings it closer to me,
I must surely have taken medicine opposed
to my languid state and to my heart's raving,
which sends me down a miserable path...

"Such," I say, "is my love's handsome face,
where heaven bestowed all of its gifts,
and nature most reveals her perfection."
Then when I see through the dark night
so many stars light up in the sky,
Love, who is with me, assures me and swears
that those lights in the sky, fair and everlasting,
are not as numerous as the virtues of the man
who ruthlessly tears the soul from my breast.
And to make my days even sadder and darker,
far from my light, I always carry alive in my heart
the burning sun from which I once caught fire,
to whom, weeping and sighing, I write...

---

Veronica Franco (1546 - 1591) Italy
Translated by Ann Rosalind Jones and Margaret F. Rosenthal.