From the highest star

22

"There died in our city a woman, who, if she moved the whole Florentine people to compassion, it is no great wonder, because she was truly adorned with human beauty and kindness more than any other who had lived before. And, among her other excellent qualities, she had such a sweet and attractive manner, that all those who had any relationship with her believed that they were supremely loved by her.

The women who were her equals not only had no envy of her excellence among the others, but they greatly exalted and praised her beauty and nobility: so that it seemed impossible to believe that so many men without jealousy loved her and so many women without envy praised her. And if her life, because of her dignified condition, made her dear to all, the compassion of death, and for her young age and beauty that, dead like this, perhaps more than ever before showed alive, left a very ardent desire for her.

O clear star, that with your rays
Thou takest from thy neighbouring stars the light,
Why dost thou shine so much more than thy custom?
Why dost thou still contend with Phebo?

Perchance the beautiful eyes, which Death has taken from us
Cruel Death, who now too much presumes,
Thou hast received in thee: adorn with their number,
You can ask Phebo for his beautiful chariot.

O this or new star that thou art
That with new splendour adorns the sky,
Call upon it, O deity, our vows:

Raise thy splendour so far away
That to the eyes, which have of eternal weeping, zeal,
Without other offence happy show thyself

(Lorenzo the Magnificent)

He was already directed to his desire
Great treaty from his companions removed,
Nor yet with one step does the prey advance,
And already all his steed he feels fatigued;
But still following his vain hope
Arrived in a flowery and green meadow:
There under a white veil there appeared to him
A nymph, and away the fairy vanished.

The fairy vanished from her eyelashes,
But the youth of the fairy now cares not;
Nay, he tightens his bridle upon the runner,
And restrains it above the vegetable.
There all filled with wonderment therein
Even of the nymph he beholds the figure:
Speak, that from her lovely face and eyes
A new sweetness bursts in his heart.

As a tiger, from whose stony lair
Has taken from the hunter his dear children;
Angrily follows him through the Irian wilderness,
Which soon thinks to bloody its claws;
Then remains of a mirror in the vain shade,
To the shade, which seems to be similar to her children;
And while the fool falls in love with such a sight
The foolish woman, the predator devours her way.

Soon Cupid within his beautiful eyes concealed,
To the nerve adapts the neck of his stral,
Then with his mighty arm draws him on,
Such that he reaches both the one and the other nock;
The left hand with the fiery gold,
The right stern with the rope he touches:
Nor first through the air, buzzing, goes out the square,
That Julius in his heart has heard it.

O what a time it became, ah how to the youth
The great fire ran through all his marrow!
What trembling in his breast his heart shook!
With an icy sweat all was soft;
And made greedy of its sweet aspect,
Never could his eyes from his eyes be lifted up;
But all caught up in the vague splendour
Does not perceive that here is Love.

He notices not that Love is armed therein
Only to disturb his long-standing peace;
He perceives not to what knot he is already bound,
He knows not his wounds yet secret;
Of pleasure, of desire all is invested,
And thus the hunter is caught in the net.
His arms between himself he praises, and his face and hair,
And in her he discerns something divine.