Venice masks

Saturday, 13 August 2022

Friendship - Santob de Carrion

What treasure greater than a friend
  Who close to us hath grown?
Blind fate no bitt’rer lot can send
  Than bid us walk alone.

For solitude doth cause a dearth
  Of fruitful, blessed thought,
The wise would pray to leave this earth,
  If none their friendship sought.

Yet sad though loneliness may be,
  That friendship surely shun
That feigns to love, and inwardly
  Betrays affections won.
Santob de Carrion (1290 - 1369) Spain
Translated by Joseph Friedlander
Source: The Standard Book of Jewish Verse. Joseph Friedlander, comp. Dodd, Mead and Company, 1917

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