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Qual paura ho quando mi torna a mente - 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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Qual paura ho quando mi torna a mente

  • With what keen dread do I recall the day
  • When I did leave my lady—and my heart!
  • Pensive and grave was she when we did part.
  • No other image in my thought will stay!
  • Amid fair women in their fine array,
  • Humble I see her stand. She seems a rose
  • ’Mong lesser flowers. No joy nor pain she shows,
  • But a dim dread as one who cannot say
  • What he doth fear. Her mirth is put away,
  • Her pearls, her garments gay, her garlands choice;
  • Silent her songs and laughter and sweet voice.
  • And thus I left her, to dark doubts a prey.
  • Now portents, dreams and many a boding thought
  • Assail my heart; Pray God they come to nought!
  • ccxlix

1347. Cochin, p. 115.

Soon this foreboding takes definite shape in a dream in which Laura tells him that this parting is their final one.