Les Regrets/5

IV 'Don’t be astonished, you, who are half my heart '

Les Regrets ~ V written by Joachim Du Bellay translated by A. S. Kline

VI. 'After long wandering on the darkened plain'

Les Regrets - V. ‘Ce n’est le fleuve tusque au superbe rivage’.

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V

"It’s not the Tuscan river with its proud shore"
 
It’s not the Tuscan river with its proud shore
Nor the Latin air, Ronsard, nor the Palatine,
Requires Latin to grace this tongue of mine,
Making my native language strange once more.
 
It’s the tedium of living, three years and more,
Like some Prometheus, chained to the Aventine,
Where cruel fate brought me to serve and pine,
Not love’s sweet yoke, wretched here and poor.
 
What then, Ronsard: if, to far exile subject,
Ovid was forced to claim a barbarous dialect,
To gain a hearing, for this happier change who could
 
Now, blame me? None, since the French I speak,
Though you may be equal to Roman and Greek,
On these Latin shores is scarcely understood.