1. Is the light of his beauty hidden from my eyes?
Is my heart forbidden to yearn for his memory?

2. You order me to forget his love, but how can I forget
One whose home is in the center of my heart?

3. I have shed my chastity for one whose chastity, when pained,
Presents to me chaste excuses for passion’s beauty.

4. And though I risk my reputation for him,
I’m not the first led to danger by her eyes for him.

5. My two friends, of your love nothing remains
Except a gasp. How strange that it remains!

6. Come look into his condition and intercede
For one longing and hoping to find healing.

7. Take from him for me pardon, if I’m his killer,
And don’t reproach him, but ask him for his reproach.

8. Say a sick man lies in your hands, his cure is your nearness,
He’s at death’s door, but your approach is his life.

9. He wept and complained—if only you pitied his tears,
And if only the softness of your nature bent toward his plaint!

10. By my life! If we shared the bonds of sickness,
I would have the right to watch over him.

11. He called me to keep the vow, then forgot it,
Taught me to remember passion, then neglected it.

12. My fate is that he makes my imagination pretend,
While my fortune is that I love him.