There, where we ever see
The bliss of those who love each other well,
There is my misery;
There where is wont to dwell
All bliss, is evil plain,
United in alliance with disdain.
In this abode I lie—
And never do I strive to issue hence—
Built by my agony,
And with so strange a fence,
Methinks they to the ground
Bring it, who love, see, and resist its wound.
OROMPO.
Sooner the path that is his own, the sun
Shall end, whereon he wanders through the sky
After he hath through all the Zodiac run,
Than we the least part of our agony
According to our pain can well declare,
However much we raise our speech on high.
He who lives absent dies, says Crisio there,
But I, that I am dead, since to the reign
Of death fate handed o'er my life's career.
And boldly thou, Marsilio, dost maintain
That thou of joy and bliss hast lost all chance,
Since that which slayeth thee is fierce disdain.
Unto this thought thou givest utterance,
Orfenio, that 'tis through thy soul doth pass,
Not through thy breast alone, the jealous lance.
As each the woes through which his fellows pass
Feels not, he praiseth but the grief he knows,
Thinking it doth his fellows' pangs surpass.
Wherefore his bank rich Tagus overflows,
Swollen by our strife of tears and mournfulness,
Wherein with piteous words we moan our woes.