In which she warns a rose, and through the rose, people

Original Poem, “En que moral censura a una rosa, y en ella a sus semejantes”

Translation of “En que moral censura a una rosa, y en ella a sus semejantes” by Alix Ingber

Divine rose cultivated with such grace

you are, with all your fragrant subtlety,

a scarlet master class in loveliness,

a snowy course that beauty demonstrates;

of human architecture duplicate,

example of all vain gentility,

in whose existence nature aptly joined

the happy crib to sad sepulcher’s gates:

how haughtily you scorn the risks of death,

and later faint, with shriveled petals tucked,

of your declining state give withered signs,

whereby, by your wise death and foolish life,

alive you fool, and dying you instruct.

Advertisement