Madrigal I - Torquato Tasso

Once a mosquito came a-buzzing round
The happy place
Where in his mother’s lap Love lay sleep-bound
With pretty grace;
Said Love, aroused from slumber by the hum:
“How from so small
A body can so great a clamour come,
Awaking all?”
   Beguiling him with song, Venus replied:
“Thou too art small,
Yet mortals wake who on the earth abide
And the Gods all
Up in the sky,
Hearing thee cry.”

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Torquato Tasso (1544–1595) Italy
Translated by Lorna de’ Lucchi
Source: An Anthology of Italian Poems 13th-19th Century selected and translated by Lorna de’ Lucchi, Alfred A. Knopf, New York; 1922
Based on a poem by Anacreon (Cupid and the Bee)