But say: in th' hour of sweetest sighs,
By what and how found Love relief
And broke thy doubtful longing's spell?"
And she: "There is no greater grief
Than joy in sorrow to retell.
But if so urgently one seeks
To know our Love's first root, I will
Do as he does who weeps and speaks.
One day of Lancelot we still
Read o'er, how love held him enchained.
Without mistrust we were alone.
Our cheeks oft were of color drained:
One passage vanquished us, but one.
When we read of lips longed for pressed
By such a lover with a kiss,
This one whom naught from me shall wrest,
All trembling kissed my mouth. To this
That book and writer brought us. We
No farther read that day." While she
Thus spake, the other spirit wept
So bitterly, with pity I
Fell motionless, my senses swept
By swoon, as one about to die.
In the very first line two Italian trisyllables, _rivolsi_ and
_parlai_, are given in English with literal fidelity by two
monosyllables, _turned_ and _spake_. In the fourth observe how, in a
word-for-word rendering, the eleven Italian syllables become, without
any forcing, eight English:
"Ma dimmi: al tempo de' dolci sospiri:"
"But tell me: in th' hour of sweet sighs.
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