Quando tal’hor io mi discopro amante d’un femminil sembiante…

As I become the lover of a graceful woman, everyone laughs, for my cheeks are smooth; And so they say: “That is the lover, Alas! And what could he ever do when reached the embrace, deprived of the two parts of himself?” Thus it’s believed that in Love’s kingdom I struggle, hopeless, to conquer my glory invain — as it is not true that a falcon, lost his rattles, still wins lucky preys. Upon my word it is not so. Rather my value is higher and nobler, since Virtue stays in the middle, and only there. The trunk of a tree still grows, although his branches are cut off. On Love’s table, the food I arrange is enough - nor would I ever want that shameful essence that can never be tasted; since is true pleasure only Pleasure itself, there’s no need for friends, families or witnesses (as in a marriage) to intervene: so it will never happen that some ephemeral joy blemishes my future or that of my beloved. O how delightful it is to use on an unwilling beauty a key so full of cunning which opens for all and never leaves a mark. O how delightful it is for a chaste hand to caress a dart so full of sweet venom which, if ever opens wounds, never causes those of pregnancy. O how it is tender a game to warm yourself up by a fire which never shows an evil flame and, if burns, never leaves blisters!

And yet I hear those that claim: always limp and useless are those weapons. What a false esteem! What is a better weapon than a strong sword? And, if someone says that my cartridges are blank, I answer that, all over the world, for births, celebrations, and pleasures even the Bombardiers shoot without their balls! Will he fall silent, then! No one else doubts for the softness of my skin. Genteel cheeks hate roses who are full of treacherous thorns, for Beauty’s foe is Age. Though is old Amor, born with the world, his face doesn’t show the finest stubble: and is not the string of his arch, that he uses to inspire love, made from nerve, and not hair?