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For a long time I loved the world blindly,
allured by fame, that viper at the breast, and what emerged? on my tongue a cry of ceaseless wretchedness. So I turned to God-- and help came. So now I'll write, but with nails from the cross. His dear blood will be my ink; His exhausted body, my streaked paper: may I channel the grief all have known, all He suffered, into these poems. It's no good invoking Parnassus and Delos: look to other springs, rest on another hill human feet cannot climb by themselves. May the Sun which lights the earth and sky, pour his waters down to appease this parched thirst. |
An image of the Italian text from Visconti's 1840 edition |
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Notes: V I:161. From Bullock S1:1:85 (l. 1: "Poi che 'l mio casto amor gran tempo tenne;" also l. 7: "vergata carta"); R III:398-9. Translations: Roscoe 142; Lefevre-Deumier 94-5; McAuliffe 95; Gibaldi 39. Key |
