"the oblivion born before the flames have died"

 

Giordano Bruno by Fidus, 1900

Someone will read as moral

that the people of Rome or Warsaw

haggle, laugh, make love

as they pass by the martyrs' pyres.

Someone else will read

of the passing of things human,

of the oblivion

born before the flames have died.

But that day I thought only

of the loneliness of the dying,

of how, when Giordano

climbed to his burning

he could not find

in any human tongue

words for mankind,

mankind who live on.

~from "Campo dei Fiori" by Czeslaw Milosz

Giordano Bruno was condemned for heresy and burned at the stake in Rome on February 17, 1600. The precise nature of his heresy is a matter of dispute. In any case, his executioners feared his words enough that they clamped his tongue before burning him alive.  

*An interview with Czeslaw Milosz that includes discussion of "Campo dei Fiori" is here.