Ballata 5

Guido Cavalcanti (1255-1300)


Light do I see within my Lady’s eyes

And loving spirits in its plenisphere
Which bear in strange delight on my heart’s care
Till Joy’s awakened from that sepulchre.

That which befalls me in my Lady’s presence

Bars explanation intellectual.
I seem to see a lady wonderful
Spring forth between her lips, one whom no sense
Can fully tell the mind of, and one whence
Another, in beauty, springeth marvelous,
From whom a star goes forth and speaketh thus:
"Now my salvation is gone forth from thee."

There where this Lady’s loveliness appeareth,

Is heard a voice which goes before her ways
And seems to sing her name with such sweet praise
That my mouth fears to speak what name she beareth,
And my heart trembles for the grace she weareth,
While far in my soul’s deep the sighs astir
Speak thus: "Look well! For if thou look on her,
Then shalt thou see her virtue risen in heaven."

Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire

My love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal'd with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind. 

A sonnet from Edmund Spenser, rhyming scheme, The lover trying hard to immortalise the relationship. 

The poem is a sonnet grouped into three quatrains and a couplet. The rhyme scheme of the first quatrain is ABAB / fire, great, desire, entreat; the second is BCBC / heat, cold, sweat, manifold; the third rhymes CDCD / told, ice, cold, device; and the couplet rhymes EE / mind, kind. 

The first line is a simile that compares his love/beloved one to ice and the speaker to a fire that for some reason does not thaw his frozen love. The more he pursues her, the faster she flees (the colder she gets!) . There is a 'law of contraries' being created here that defies natural law - those laws like gravity that operate on one and all in normal circumstances. But these are NOT normal times, the speaker alleges. This is a time for miracles in the realm of romance. We are in a foreign place where the usual laws do not apply. The couplet resolves the dilemma by sleight of language - the power of love can overrule natural love and change our very nature. 

Amoretti LXXV: One Day I Wrote Her Name

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Agayne I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tyde, and made my paynes his pray.
"Vayne man," sayd she, "that doest in vaine assay.
A mortall thing so to immortalize,
For I my selve shall lyke to this decay,
and eek my name bee wyped out lykewize."
"Not so," quod I, "let baser things devize,
To dy in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your vertues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens wryte your glorious name.
Where whenas death shall all the world subdew,
Our love shall live, and later life renew." 


The poem “One day I wrote her name upon the strand” is written by Edmund Spenser, for his lady love, Elizabeth Boyle, who later becomes his wife.

Amoretti is a sonnet cycle by Edmund Spencer. It's a sonnet of 14 lines with a rhyme scheme of abab bcbc cdcd ee... This word is derived from the Latin word, "Amor" meaning Cupid.

This poem tries to portray that, if you love someone, the love does not have to end.  Love is eternal.  

The purpose of this poem, is to make one realize that lives are not forever, relationships are not forever, but love is. Love is the only thing stretches beyond mortality. It follows us to our next lives and lead to the path to heaven.

The opening scene reveals a man writing his woman's name on the sand, but it's washed away by the waves.  He tries again, but it happens again. “But came the tyde, and made my paynes his prey”. 

The first eight lines of this poem, beautifully illustrates a man who tries to make his mortal love, immortal.This man tried to write her name upon the strand twice, he is trying to do the same thing twice and hopes to expect different results, this illustrates insanity on the mans part. His lady love calls him “Vayne man".  "Vayne" (vain) because he writes on the sand, expecting for the name to stay and it obviously wont because the tide will wash it away. She continues, “that doest in vayne assay a mortall thing so to immortalize. For I my selve shall, lyke to this decay, And eek my name bee wyped out lykewize”, meaning her lover is a fool in the aspect of life and relationships. Just like the sand is washed away from the tide, she will die eventually, one day and there is nothing that he can do to control that,as immortality is not real. 

The poem goes on to say “Not so,” quod I, “let baser things devize, to dy in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your vertues rare shall eternize, And in the heavens wryte your glorious name”. Here poet claims that, he can make their love last forever despite mortality. He says he can do this by using his verse.  

The last two lines of the poem are the rhyming couplets, “Where whenas death shall all the world subdew, Our love shall live, and later life renew.” What the poet is trying to portray is that they may live mortal lives but their love will last forever. They will be together until death and even after death they will reunite into the kingdom of heaven, where they will live forever.