Snare 26 -- Esme

Esme's story is revealed in chapter 26...and it is a sad one.  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8955111/26/

Camilla's short poem (SatinCoveredSteel helped to translate it):

 Or l'dea s'è presentata:
se in vampira trasformata
sempre insieme potran stare
e la morte cancellare.

 A new idea now comes to mind:
if she becomes one of his kind,
they'll be able to stay together forever
and death itself they'll surely conquer.

The new chapter is due to be posted in two weeks.

Reviewers get a little gift.

Petrarch's Poems - mentioned in the chapter

Alone and thoughtful, through the most desolate fields,

I go measuring out slow, hesitant paces,

and keep my eyes intent on fleeing

any place where human footsteps mark the sand.

I find no other defence to protect me

from other people’s open notice,

since in my aspect, whose joy is quenched,

they see from outside how I flame within.

So now I believe that mountains and river-banks

and rivers and forests know the quality

of my life, hidden from others.

Yet I find there is no path so wild or harsh

that love will not always come there

speaking with me, and I with him.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

What must I do? What do you counsel, Love?

The time has truly come to die,

and I have lingered longer than I wish.

My lady is dead, and my heart with her:

and if I wish to follow,

I must interrupt this cruel life,

since I have no more hope

of seeing her here, and waiting galls me.

Now all my joy

has turned to weeping at her going,

all sweetness has been taken from my life.

Love, you feel how deep and bitter

is this loss, where I grieve with you:

and know the weight and pain of my ill,

or rather ours, because a reef

has shattered the vessel,

and in a moment our sun is darkened.

What ingenuity with words

could express my grievous state?

Ah, blind, thankless world,

you’ve good reason to weep with me,

since what was beautiful in you is lost with her.

Fallen is your glory, and you do not see it,

nor were you worthy, while she

lived here, to have known her,

nor even to have been touched by her sacred feet,

because so lovely a thing

had to adorn heaven with her presence.

But I, alas, who without her

cannot love mortal life or myself,

weep cruelly for her:

this is all I have of all my hopes,

and this alone is what still keeps me here.

Ah me, that lovely face is turned to dust,

that used to be the pledge to us,

down here, of heaven and its good:

her form, invisible in paradise,

freed from that veil,

that shadowed the flower of her years,

later to be worn once more,

and never more relinquished.

when we shall see her again

dear and lovely, more, by as much

as eternal beauty exceeds mortal.

She returns, more lovely and more graceful

a lady, within me, where

she feels the sight of herself is more exalted.

This is one pillar of my life,

the other her bright name

that sounds so sweetly in my heart.

But recalling in my mind

that my hope is truly dead, living

while she flowered,

Love knows what I become, and she (I hope)

can see it now who is so near to Truth.

Ladies, you who have seen her beauty

and the angelic life

that heavenly one lived on earth,

show me your grief, and be overcome

by pity, not for here who leapt

into such peace, but for me left in this war:

so that if the way

to follow her is barred to me for long

only Love, speaking with me,

stops me from severing the knot.

For he reasons like this inside me:

‘Rein in the great grief that transports you,

lest your over-riding desire

loses you heaven, to which your heart aspires,

where she lives who seems dead to others,

and smiles to herself at her

own lovely leavings, and only sighs for you:

and prays that her fame, that breathes

still in many places, through your words,

is not extinguished,

rather that, if her eyes were ever dear

and sweet to you, your voice illuminate her name.’

Flee the fresh and blithe,

don’t go near laughter or song,

my song, but weep:

don’t take your place among happy people,

widow, disconsolate, in your black dress.

-x-x-x-x-x-


MyReadingLounge is also on Facebook, with daily posts
http://www.facebook.com/MyReadingLounge

Happy 2014!