Re: the above, if abstinence were taught as salvational instead of religion, the race would have a better chance of being saved. Teach them to regard every tempation as a plot to perpetuate misery--which it indeed is. Pipedream of course, but the perfect catechism. Every irresistible beauty is the enemy's torture device.
A nice transparent translation. And the more transparent the translation the better.
I have been working on some Petrarch translations, so "great minds think alike." ;-)
The sonnet reminds me of a line from Rousseau: "We are slaves in vice, free in repentance."
Your 2nd stanza's syntax snagged me a bit. Made me think of dangling participles.
So I decided to stick a different rendering of the sonnet below:
HE CONFESSES THE VANITY OF HIS PASSION
Ye who in rhymes dispersed the echoes hear
Of those sad sighs with which my heart I fed
When early youth my mazy wanderings led,
Fondly diverse from what I now appear,
Fluttering 'twixt frantic hope and frantic fear,
From those by whom my various style is read,
I hope, if e'er their hearts for love have bled,
Not only pardon, but perhaps a tear.
But now I clearly see that of mankind
Long time I was the tale: whence bitter thought
And self-reproach with frequent blushes teem;
While of my frenzy, shame the fruit I find,
And sad repentance, and the proof, dear-bought,
That the world's joy is but a flitting dream.
CHARLEMONT.
I always thought of Petrarch as a bit of a lad, so the translations that I've see always bear the mark of the translator, to me ...
Here is a slightly different take:
You - my mistress of rhyme - heard those sighs
Breathed as I made a mistake unwise,
By the man-child that I was when we slept,
And also heard those tears that I wept:
Forgive my false hopes, and juvenile pain -
For that arose from my teenage crush.
Grant mercy for my unseasonal rush,
And clemency for my overtures vain.
But I’ve grown and have learned from fiction and life
That Love’s nature is all trouble and strife.
Not to take seriously, that which is jest,
And not be ashamed that I acted in earnest.
For vanity bears bitter fruit that falls quite rotten,
And long tales of woe are just as ill-gotten. Michael Westcombe
Re: the above, if abstinence were taught as salvational instead of religion, the race would have a better chance of being saved. Teach them to regard every tempation as a plot to perpetuate misery--which it indeed is. Pipedream of course, but the perfect catechism. Every irresistible beauty is the enemy's torture device.