"Weep you lovers..."

Weep you lovers, since Love is also weeping,
and hear the reason that makes him full of tears.
Amor feels ladies calling on Pity,
revealing a bitter sorrow in their eyes,
because the villain Death in gentle heart
has set his cruel machinations,
destroying what the world has given praise to
in gentle lady, all except honour.
Hear how Amor has honoured her,
who in his true form I saw lamenting
bending above the lifeless image:
and often gazing upwards to the heavens,
where the gentle soul had already fled,
that was a lady of such joyful semblance.

From Dante's La Vita Nuova (The New Life), 1295. Translated by A.S. Kline.

Beatrice, Odilon Redon, 1885. Image from WebMuseum.