‘Io son venuto al punto de la rota’ by Dante

 

‘Io son venuto al punto de la rota’

I have reached that point of the circuit

where the horizon, when the sun sets,

gives birth to the twin-ruled heavens,

and Love’s planet is remote from us,

because of the bright rays crossing her

slantwise, making of themselves a veil:

while the planet that solaces the frost

shows itself fully from the great arch

in which the Seven cast little shadow:

and yet not one of all the thoughts of love

with which I’m burdened, eases my mind

that seems so much harder than a stone,

gripped firmly by such images of stone.

Lifted high from Ethiopian sands,

those wandering winds that stir the air,

warmed now by the sun’s bright sphere;

cross the waves, carrying in their wake,

such deep fog, which, if nothing clears,

shuts in and darkens all this hemisphere;

and then dissolves, falls in white flakes

of freezing snow and a noxious sleet,

with which the air saddened weeps:

yet Love, who furls his net on high,

because of the power of the winds,

quits me not; such is the lovely lady,

the cruel one, he grants me for my lady.

Some birds chase the warmth, and flee

from European lands that never fail

to see the Seven ever-frozen stars;

the voices of the rest have fallen silent,

not to sing again until green spring,

unless some harshness makes them cry;

and all the creatures carefree by nature,

are freed of love, because their spirits

are wholly deadened by the wintry cold:

yet I feel love within me more than ever,

for those sweet thoughts are neither taken

from me, nor given me for lengths of time,

my lady grants to one with little time.

Leaves the power of the Ram engendered,

to adorn the world, fulfil their hour,

all the grass is dead, and all the green

the foliage of all the trees lost to us,

unless in laurel, in the pines or firs,

or frozen in some other evergreen;

so fierce and bitter is the season,

it kills all the flowers of the field,

that cannot tolerate the biting frost:

yet Love does not intend to draw

this cruel thorn from out my heart;

which I determine to bear forever

as long as I live, were that forever.

The streams run with smoke-laden water,

because of vapours deep underground,

that rise on high from the buried chasms;

so the path that pleased me on fine days

has turned into a river, and so will run

as long as winter’s dire assault shall last;

the earth is floored now as with enamel,

and the dull water changed to glass,

by cold air that seals it from without:

yet I’ve not deviated by a single step

from this war of mine, nor wish I to,

for if anguish is a kind of sweetness,

death must exceed every other sweetness.

Song, what will become of me, now,

in the sweet new season, in which love

rains down on earth from the whole sky.

if love lives on in me alone, despite

this frost, and yet is nowhere else alive?

Surely I will become a man of marble,

if this girl keeps within a heart of marble.