We present this work in honor of the poet’s 450th birthday.

 

Oblivion’s misty prison ceased its moan
Before the Thracian youth; ceased too the lyre
Its consonance; the tears and fond desire
Ceased in their gentle sweetness to intone.

Sisiphus, at hearing, rests his stone;
And Tantalus might have eased his hunger dire
With that elusive apple, and no ire
Attend him from dread Radamanthus’ Throne.

But see, Eurydice is passing through
The deeps of Orcus, oh, behold her doom!
They turn, he to his moan, she to her chains!

O Love, how good and ill are joined in you!
In one poor lover how could you presume
To give his voice such power,—his eyes such pains?

Translation by Thomas Walsh