When the Inhuman Fate’s Flaming Pincers

Poem by Théodore Agrippa D'Aubigné Period 16th century

When the inhuman fate’s flaming pincers
From the midst of my body cruelly draw
My heart that still beats and stubbornly sends forth,
Abandoning the body, its powerless laments,

What sorrows I feel, what violent pains!
My body remains dry, struck down by torment,
And the heart that is torn from me is part of my feeling,
These parts die in me, each absent from the other.

All my bewildered senses suffer from its rigors,
And all equally bear from its misfortunes
The infinity that cannot be extinguished by division,

For love is a fire and fire divided
Into a thousand and a thousand bodies cannot be exhausted,
And though divided, each part is no less.

Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné

Translation generated by Poésies 123 with assistance from the deepseek-chat artificial-intelligence model.

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