A lady asks me by Guido Cavalcanti

A lady asks me - I speak for that reason
Of an effect - that so often - is daring
And so haughty - he's called Amore:

He who denies him - now realise the truth!
I speak - to those present - with knowledge,
Owning no expectation - that the base-hearted
Can gain understanding through explanation:

Nor that - without practical demonstration
I have the talent - to prove at will

Where he lives, or who gave him creation,
Or what his power is, or what his virtue,
His essence too - and his every movement,
Nor the delight - so that we say: ‘to love',

Nor whether a man can show him to gazing.
In the place - that memory inhabits
He has his station - and takes on form
Like a veil of light - born of that shadow

Which is of Mars - that arrives and remains;
He is created - has sensation - name,

From the soul, manner - from the heart, will.
And comes from visible form that takes on,
And embraces - in possible intellect,
As in the subject - location and dwelling.
And yet he has no weight in that state
Since he is not as a quality descending:
Shines out - of himself perpetual impression;
Takes no delight - except in awareness;
Nor can scatter his likenesses around.
He is not virtue - but out of that comes

Which is perfection - (so self-established),
And through feeling - not rationally, I say;
Beyond balance - yet proclaiming judgement,
That will itself - 'stead of reason - is valid:
Poor in discernment - so vice is his friend.
Oft from his power then death will follow,
He's strong - and, virtue opposing him,
Thus runs counter to what brings succour:
Not that he is by nature in conflict;
But twisted awry from true perfection

By fate - no man possessor of life can say
That once established - he has no lordship.
Likewise he has power though men forget.
He comes into being - when will is such
That a further measure - of nature's - at play;
Then he will never adorn himself - with rest.
Moving - changing colour, laughing through tears,
Contorting - the features - with signatures of fear;
Scarce pausing; - yet you will note of him
He's most often found with people of worth.

His strange quality gives rise to sighing,
And makes a man gaze - into formless places
Arousing the passion that stirs a flame,
(No man can imagine him who's not known him)

Unmoving - yet he draws all towards him,
Not turning about - to discover joy:
Nor minded to know whether great or small.
From his like he elicits - the complex glance
That makes - the pleasure - appear more certain:
Nor can stay hidden - when he is met with.
Not savage indeed - yet beauty his arrow,

So that desire - for fear is - made skilful:
Following all merit - in the piercing spirit.
Nor can be comprehended from the face:
Seen - as blankness fallen among objects;
Listening deep - yet seeing not form itself:
But led by what emanates from it.
Far from colour, of separate being,
Seated - in midst of darkness, skirting the light,
Yet far from all deceit - I say, worthy of trust,
So that compassion is born from him alone.
Canzone, confidently, now you may go
Wherever you please, I've adorned you so
Your reasoning - will be praised by everyone
Who makes the effort to comprehend you: though
You will reveal no art to other than them. 

Guido Cavalcanti, (born c. 1255, Florence [Italy]—died Aug. 27/28, 1300, Florence), Italian poet, a major figure among the Florentine poets who wrote in the dolce stil nuovo (“sweet new style”) and who is considered, next to Dante, the most striking poet and personality in 13th-century Italian literature.

Born into an influential Florentine family of the Guelf (papal) party, Cavalcanti studied under the philosopher and scholar Brunetto Latini, who earlier had been the teacher of Dante. 

Brunetto Latini (1220-1294)

Cavalcanti married the daughter of the rival Ghibelline (imperial) party leader Farinata degli Uberti but joined the White Guelf faction when, in 1300, that party split into Blacks and Whites. That same year, Dante, who had dedicated several poems to Cavalcanti and called him his “first friend,” apparently was involved in banishing Cavalcanti from Florence. In exile in Sarzana, Cavalcanti contracted malaria and was permitted to return to Florence, where he died.

Cavalcanti’s strong, temperamental, and brilliant personality and the poems that mirror it were admired by many contemporary poets and such important later ones as Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Ezra Pound. He left about 50 poems, many addressed to two women: Mandetta, whom he met in Toulouse in 1292, and Giovanna, whom he calls Primavera (“Springtime”). Cavalcanti’s poems glow with the brilliance, grace, and directness of diction characteristic of the style at its best. Love is the poet’s dominant theme, generally love that causes deep suffering.

Two of Cavalcanti’s poems are canzoni, a type of lyric derived from Provençal poetry, of which the most famous is “Donna mi prega” (“A Lady Asks Me”), a beautiful and complex philosophical analysis of love, the subject of many later commentaries. Others are sonnets and ballate (ballads), the latter type usually considered his best. One of his best-known ballate was also one of his last, written when he went into exile: “Perch’io non spero di tornar giamai” (“Because I hope not ever to return”), a line that some hear echoed in T.S. Eliot’s refrain from “Ash Wednesday,” “Because I do not hope to turn again.”

Farinata

 Wikipedia