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Feb12
Sonnet 10
De ceste belle, douce, honneste chasteté
Naissoit un froid glaçon, ains une chaude flame,
Qu’encores aujourd’huy esteinte sous la lame
Me reschauffe, en pensant quelle fut sa clarté.
La traict que je receu, n’eut le fer espointé :
Il fut des plus aigus qu’Amour nous tire en l’ame,
Qui s’armant d’un trespas, par le penser m’entame,
Et sans jamais tomber se tient à mon costé.
Narcisse fut heureux mourant sur la fontaine,
Abusé de miroër de sa figure vaine :
Au moins il regardoit je ne sçay quoy de beau.
L’erreur le contentoit, voyant sa face aimee :
Et la beauté que j’aime, est terre consumee.
Il mourut pour une ombre et moy pour un tombeau.
From this fair, sweet, respectable chastity
Was born a cold icicle, and too a hot flame,
Which still today – extinguished beneath the blade –
Warms me, in thinking of the brightness that was hers.
The wound that I received was not pointed steel:
It was among the sharpest that Love shoots into our hearts
Which, arming itself with a death, through my thoughts slices me
And stays, without ever falling, at my side.
Narcissus was happy dying on his spring,
Deceived by a mirror with his own empty form;
At least he was looking at something fair.
The error of seeing his beloved face contented him;
But the beauty that I love is now absorbed into the earth.
He died for a shadow, I for a tomb.
