Oh, think not I am faithful to a vow!
Faithless am I save to love’s self alone.
Were you not lovely I would leave you now:
After the feet of beauty fly my own.
Were you not still my hunger’s rarest food,
And water ever to my wildest thirst,
I would desert you — think not but I would! —
And seek another as I sought you first.
But you are mobile as the veering air,
And all your charms more changeful than the tide,
Wherefore to be inconstant is no care:
I have but to continue at your side.
So wanton, light and false, my love, are you,
I am most faithless when I most am true.
Oh, no creguis que sóc fidel a un vot!
Infidel sóc, tret d’a l’amor mateix.
Et diria adéu, si no em fessis goig:
volaria darrere del que és bell.
Si no em fossis la fam d’un menjar únic
i l’aigua d’una feréstega set,
t’abandonaria –no, no ho dubtis!–
i un altre tindria, com tu primer.
Per bé que ets tornadís, virant com l’aire,
I canviants com la mar els teus encants,
que siguis inconstant no importa gaire:
No puc sinó seguir al teu costat.
Fals i ver, delerós com ets, amor,
quan més infidel, més sincera sóc.
(trad. Josep Porcar)
Del llibre: «A Few Figs from Thistles. Poems and sonnets»
