Angelo Poliziano

Angelo Poliziano (1454-1494) is someone I love and need to feature, he was an Italian whose nickname was Poliziano; his real last name was Ambrogini. Like many during the Italian Renaissance, his nickname was often used as a 'real' name [ie. like Botticelli means 'little barrel']. 

He knew the famous Marisilio Ficino, the philosopher, and was extremely educated. His poems are incredible. I have a book of them in Italian that I'm still slowly trying to read in the original--with tons of dictionaries. His work is like Petrarch, but different. He's very sweet and almost like a simply Shelley.

Here is an excerpt from his work:

                              I

 

Hear, woods, my words of sweetness

Since my nymph she will not listen.

The lovely nymph is deaf to sorrow,

Cares not for our flute’s music:

So my horned flock languishes

Won’t dip to drink the clear water,

Won’t deign to touch the tender grass:

Grieves for a shepherd in distress.

Hear, woods, my words of sweetness.

The flock cares deeply for its shepherd:

The nymph cares nothing for her lover:

The lovely nymph with heart of stone,

Or steel rather, or even diamond:

She always flees so swiftly from me,

Like a lamb from the wolf’s harshness.

Hear, woods, my words of sweetness.

Tell her, my flute, how slender beauty

Flies with the years and both together:

Tell her how time itself destroys us,

The lost years never renewing for us:

Say she must use her loveliness,

They don’t last, the violets, roses.

Hear, woods, my words of sweetness.

Carry, you breezes, my sweet verses

To the ears of that nymph of mine:

Tell of the tears I weep for her,

And beg her not to be so cruel.

Tell her my life is flying by me,

Melted like the frost in sunlight.

Hear, woods, my words of sweetness

Since my nymph she will not listen.

                              II

I found myself, one morning, maidens,

In the middle of May in a green garden.

There were violets and lilies round me

In the green grass, hosts of fresh flowers,

Yellow and blue, and white and crimson:

I stretched out my hand to pluck them,

So I might adorn my gold locks,

Crown my beloved with a garland.

I found myself, one morning, maidens,

In the middle of May in a green garden. [...]