Giuseppe Tartini - Lettere e documenti / Pisma in dokumenti / Letters and Documents - Volume / Knjiga / Volume II

387 LETTERS I see engulf till the marble bridge, Greetings, oh blissful strand beyond the sea, Greetings happy land oh by the Gods Beloved Land! It was given to you to produce He who was gifted by Nature’s own hands Its sacred Laws, to him alone courteous, Bashful towards others. He disclosed them to the World, Which lay hitherto rife with high error. He opens the sources at first intact, From where of truth a so large vein For those ducts flood papers acclaimed, That sacred grain forever till Earth And sea of light will bathe the silvery Moon by night, and the golden Sun by day. Now give me, oh Muse, the bronze-armed Resounding Lyre, now give me vigour and voice Robust indeed that I can arrive there where Flows skimming the fabulous Idalpe, And by the burning Libya, and by the wavy Last sea, and till above the stars Of Newton to bear the homeland and the name. For not dissimilar reasons (so as not to break, that is, the unity which is the soul of things) I removed from another letter the following verses, which you will find here. You encourage me to send them, believing as you do , meas esse aliquid nugas . 62 Alas, how different you are from what was before My Italy! Who lazy, and almost Not touching your disease, in sloth you slumber Among your dried laurels, servant and divided. Neither the beautiful arts nor the honoured studies, Which from Greece you emulated, now they are no more Your noble concern and your sweetest dominion. Even from your bosom in tearful times Sprung the Lord of the highest song, Petrarch arose, as arose the bold Columbus and Galileo, one new Worlds On Earth opened, the other in the Sky, 62 "namque tu solebas / meas esse aliquid putare nugas" Catullus, Carmina, 1, 4. See BSGRT.