No More Learning

I'd like then, the better to ease my pain,

To be Narcissus, and she a fountain,

Where I'd swim all night, at my pleasure:

And I'd like it, too, if Aurora would never

Light day again, or wake me ever,

So that this night could last forever.

Note: Jupiter, disguised as a shower of gold, raped Danae, and as a white bull carried off Europa. Narcissus fell in love with his own reflection. Aurora was the goddess of dawn. Ronsard's Cassandra, was Cassandra Salviati, the daughter of an Italian banker.

Les Amours de Cassandre: XXXVI

At the sorrow I'm made to feel by Love,

Phoebus you used to lament, like me,

When you sang, in exile, passionately,

Near Ilium on the banks of Xanthus.

You bewitched the rivers, flowers and woods,

With your lyre, in vain but beguilingly,

Yet not what your soul felt, the beauty

That dealt what was festering in your blood.

There you turned the flowers pale, with your hue,

There the streams filled with tears for you,

There you lived in hope, but all in vain.

Love grieves me for that same name, this hour,

Near Vendome, on the banks of Loir,

Like a Phoenix born again from my pain.

Note: Cassandra of Troy refused Phoebus Apollo's love. Ilium is Troy, and the Xanthus is one of its two rivers, the Scamander. The Loir is a tributary of the larger Loire, in the Vendomois. The Phoenix was the mythical bird that rose again from the ashes of its own immolation.

Les Amours de Cassandre: XLIII

Now fearfulness, and now hopefulness

Pitch camp in every part of my heart:

Neither, in war, can take the victor's part,

Equal in fortitude and forcefulness.

Now filled with confidence, now doubtfulness,

I promise deliverance to my captive heart,

Trying in vain to fool myself by art,

Between hope, and doubt, and fearfulness.
Shall I not see that hour before I die,

When I shall cull the flower of her springtime

Who makes my being languish in the dark?

Shall I not see myself clasped in her arms,

Breathless and exhausted by love's charms,

Die a sweet death in her embraces' arc?

Les Amours de Cassandre: XLIV

I'd like to be Ixion or Tantalus,

Fixed to the wheel or down there in the lake,

And press that beauty naked in my embrace,

That's equal to the angels' there above us.

If it could be so I'd make no fuss,

All fate's suffering would seem sweet today,

Not even if I'd to be a vulture's prey,

Nor he who must roll the boulder, Sisyphus.

To see or to touch the curve of her breast

Would lift my lover's fate above the rest,

Raising me on high like an Asian prince.

I'd be a demi-god, kissed by her desire,

And breast on breast, quenching my fire,

A deity at the gods' ambrosial feast.

Note: Ixion was tormented on a wheel in Hades, Tantalus by water and food just out of reach, Prometheus by having his liver torn by vultures, Sisyphus by being forced eternally to roll a boulder to the top of a hill and see it roll back again. Ambrosia was the food of the gods.

Les Amours de Cassandre: XCIV

Whether her golden hair curls languidly,

Or whether it swims by, in two flowing waves

That over her breasts wander there, and stray,

And across her neck float playfully:

Whether a knot, ornamented richly,

With many a ruby, many a rounded pearl,

Ties the stream of her rippling curls,

My heart delights itself, contentedly.

What delight it is, a wonder rather,

When her hair, caught above her ear,

Imitates the style that Venus employed!

Or with a cap on her head she is Adonis,

And no one knows if she's a girl or boy,

So sweetly her beauty hides in both disguises.

Note: Venus loved Adonis. The styles are taken from Classical art.

Les Amours de Cassandre: CXXXV

Sweet beauty, murderess of my life,

Instead of a heart you've a boulder:

Living, you make me waste and shudder,

Impassioned by amorous desire.

The fresh blood that would set you on fire

Has failed to melt your icy nature,

Savage, cruel, liking nothing better,

Than suitor-less icily to retire.

Oh, learn to live, so fierce in your cruelty:

Don't keep it all for Dis, your sweet beauty,

We have to capture a little joy in loving.