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When the bull's horn fills with fiery light renewing the earth with color and strength, bejewelling this world with lovely flowers, and Apollo leads back Prosperina, When I see our springs and meadows filled with graceful sylvan presences and children, or learned spirits seeking the laurel, making our air move sweetly with music; my sad heart is not cheered; deadly pain grips it still and is as heavy as ever; my pain is tenacious if unshared. Why? What is it to me if glad lovers fill the earth with deep delight--my beloved has hidden his light and body from me. |
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition |
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Notes: From V VIII:8. See also B A2:12:61; R XLII:116. Written in response to Bernardino Rota's 9th Eclogue celebrating VC's birthday (April): "Si celebra in questa egloga il giorno del natal di Vittoria Colonna, Marchesana di Pescara, compresa da lui sotto il nome di Nice, che Vittoria significa: & per questo fare invoca la ninfa Egla [the name of BRota's villa], come fa Virgilio nel suo ("Scendi dal tuo bel colle a la marina ...); in BR, Sonetti, et Canzoni, Con l'Egloghe Pescatorie, Vinegia, 1562; a note tells us it was written 27 years earlier. It is not a reworking of Petrarch's Soonet 310, "Zefiro torna e'l bel tempo rimena" (Durling, pp. 488-489) Key |
