VII.
The lady with whom I had so long concealed my will was obliged to depart from the above-mentioned city, and go to a very distant place; whereat I, wellnigh dismayed by reason of the fair defence which had failed me, did more discomfort me than I myself would beforehand have believed. And, thinking that, if I did not speak somewhat grievingly of her departure, people would sooner become acquainted with my secret, I resolved to make some lament for it in a sonnet, which I will transcribe because my lady was the immediate occasion of certain words which are in the sonnet, as is evident to whoever understands it; and then I devised this sonnet: —
O ye who turn your steps along Love’s way,
Consider, and then say,
If there be any grief than mine more great;
That ye to hear me deign, I only pray;
Then fancy, as ye may,
If I am every torment’s inn and gate.
‘T was not my little goodness to repay,
But bounty to display,
Love gave me such a sweet and pleasant fate,
That many times I heard behind me say,
”Ah, through what merit, pray,
Hath this man’s heart become so light of late?”
But now is wholly lost my hardihead,
Which came from out a treasure of Love’s own,
And I stay poor alone,
So that of speech there cometh to me dread.
Thus wishing now to do like unto one
Who, out of shame, concealeth his disgrace,
I wear a joyful face,
While in my heart I waste away and groan.
This sonnet has two principal parts; for in the first I intend to cry to the liegemen of Love with those words of Jeremy the prophet: O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte, si est dolor sicut dolor meus [All ye that pass by, behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow]: and to pray them to deign to listen to me. In the second I relate where Love had set me, with other intent than that which the last parts of the sonnet indicate; and I tell that which I have lost. The second part begins here: “‘T was not my.”