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Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera - Francesco Petrarch, Some Love Songs [1915]

Edition used:

Some Love Songs of Petrarch, translated and annotated with a Biographical Introduction by William Dudley Foulke (Oxford University Press, 1915).

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Mille fiate, o dolce mia guerrera

  • A thousand times to make my peace I sought
  • With your fair eyes, O my sweet warrior foe,
  • And offered you my heart; but little thought
  • Had your proud spirit to look down so low.
  • Yet if another would that heart enchain,
  • She lives in fickle hopes and dreams untrue;
  • Since I despise all things that you disdain,
  • It is no longer mine when scorned by you.
  • If driven forth, it cannot find at all
  • Harbour with you upon its wandering way,
  • Nor stand alone, nor go where others call,
  • Far from its natural pathway must it stray.
  • On both our souls this heavy sin will rest,
  • But most on yours, for you my heart loves best.
  • xxi

1330-3. See Mascetta, 117.

During the years that ensue the poet often treats of his love for Laura in lighter vein, and nowhere more exquisitely than in the three madrigals which follow.