Vestiva i colli e le campagne intorno
la primavera di novelli onori
e spirava soavi arabi odori,
cinta d’erbe, di fronde il crin adorno,
quando Licori, a l’apparir del giorno,
cogliendo di sua man purpurei fiori,
mi disse in guidardon di tanti ardori:
A te li colgo et ecco, io te n’adorno.
Così le chiome mie, soavemente
parlando, cinse e in sì dolci legami
mi strinse il cor, ch’altro piacer non sente:
onde non fia già mai che più non l’ami
degl’occhi miei, né fia che la mia mente
altra sospiri desiando o chiami.
Spring, breathing the sweetest perfumes
and garlanded with herbs and leaves,
had dressed the hills and all the countryside
in fresh, long-forgotten clothes,
when Licori, at daybreak,
gathering rose buds with his own hands,
told me this—and it summed up all our desires:
“These are for you; look, I make them yours.”
And so, speaking so sweetly,
he bound my hair; and then he wrapped my heart
in such sweet bonds! I want no other joy:
from now on, he is what I long to look on;
I can never imagine any other desire,
or long for any sighs but his.
This sonnet is famous in Palestrina’s 5-part setting as a madrigal, and then in a mass, and much imitated by other composers. The sonnet is Petrarchan in nature, but almost certainly not by Petrarch.