Part 15

After today, I'll remember you even more kindly, tavernas,

You osterias, as you are called, aptly by those here in Rome.

That was the place I encountered my mistress today with the uncle

Whom she so often deceives, so that she can have me.

Here's where I sat at a table surrounded by good-natured Germans;

Over on that side the girl, finding a seat for herself

Next to her mother where, frequently shifting her bench, she arranged

Nicely for me to perceive profile and curve of her neck;

Speaks just a little more loudly than women in Rome are accustomed;

Significant glance as she pours--misses the glass with the wine

So that it spills on the table, and she with a delicate finger

Over its surface can draw circles in damp arabesque:

Her name entwining in mine, while my eyes most eagerly follow

All that her fingertip writes. She is of course well aware

That I am watching, so finally makes the V of the Roman

Five, with a virgule before. Quickly, as soon as I've seen,

She interlaces the circles, reducing them all to ornatest

Patterns--but still the sweet IV stood as engraved in my eye.

I sat there mutely and biting my passionate lips almost bloody

Half from delight at the ruse, partly from stifled desire:

Such a long time until dark, then another four hours of waiting.

--Sun, who tarries on high, contemplating Rome:

Greater never you've nor shall you in future see greater

Than Rome, O sun, as your priest, Horace, enraptured foretold.

Tarry no longer today. Go seek other realms beneath heaven.

Sooner depart and leave Rome's seven famed hills to me.

Please do the poet a favor and shorten the glorious hours

Which the painter devours, eagerly filling his eyes.