Ballate
She said, “That Lady, who upon thine heart
Cut her full image, clear, by Love’s device,
Hath looked so fixedly in through thine eyes
That she’s made Love appear there;
If thou great pain or fear bear,
Recommend thee unto him!”
Then the other piteous, full of misericorde,
Fashioned for pleasure in love’s fashioning:
“His heart’s apparent wound, I give my word,
Was got from eyes whose power’s an o’er great thing,
Which eyes have left in his a glittering
That mine cannot endure.
Tell me, hast thou a sure
Memory of those eyes?”
To her dread question with such fears attended,
“Maid o’ the wood,” I said, “my memories render
Tolosa and the dusk and these things blended:
A lady in a corded bodice, slender
–Mandetta is the name Love’s spirits lend her–
A lightning swift to fall,
And naught within recall
Save, Death! My wounds! Her eyes!”
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