Les Regrets/11

X. 'Let’s live, let’s live, Gordes, and ignore '

Les Regrets ~ XI écrit par Joachim Du Bellay traduit par A. S. Kline

XII. 'I write not of love, not feeling amorous'

Les Regrets - XI. ‘Je ne découvre ici les mystères sacrés’.

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XI

"The sacred mysteries of holy Roman"
 
The sacred mysteries of holy Roman
Priests, I’ll not uncover here, I’d not write
To make a modest virgin blush on sight,
I only touch on vices barely hidden.
 
But, you say, my Regrets are badly planned,
Seeing that my words are often light:
The sea, I say, can’t always roar its might,
Phoebus often kept his arrows in hand.
 
If you encounter aught that’s facile still;
If not yet christened with the mask of ill,
Is the verse I sigh on Ausonian shore:
 
The moan I make, Dilliers, is genuine:
If I laugh, it’s as one does above the wine,
It’s sardonic, as they say, nothing more.