by Coleridge · Cluster: Unrequited Frustrated Love · Unattainable Beloved · Petrarchan Sonnet
Abstract
Sonnet translated from Marini in which lover and disdainful lady are doomed to burn in hell, love as fire and torment. Baroque conceit of love as damnation.
Connections
Topoi: Combat Strife Archetypes: Femme Fatale Motifs: Fire Themes & Concepts: Lust Sexual Desire, Unrequited Frustrated Love Forms & Genres: Sonnet Settings: Underworld Cave
Testo integrale / Full text
TRANSLATED FROM MARINI
Lady, to Death we’re doom’d, our crime the same!
Thou, that in me thou kindled’st such fierce heat;
I, that my heart did of a Sun so sweet
The rays concentre to so hot a flame.
I, fascinated by an Adder’s eye — 5
Deaf as an Adder thou to all my pain;
Thou obstinate in Scorn, in Passion I —
I lov’d too much, too much didst thou disdain.
Hear then our doom in Hell as just as stern,
Our sentence equal as our crimes conspire — 10
Who living bask’d at Beauty’s earthly fire,
In living flames eternal these must burn —
Hell for us both fit places too supplies —
In my heart thou wilt burn, I roast before thine eyes.
? 1805.