Analects of the Core: Petrarch on sailing with a foe at the helm

Today’s Analect is drawn from Petrarch’s Canzoniere (#189) translated by Mark Musa:

My ship full of forgetful cargo sails
through rough seas at the midnight of a winter
between Charybdis and the Scylla reef,
my master, no, my foe, is at the helm…

Passa la nave mia colma d’oblio
per aspro mare, a mezza notte il verno,
enfra Scilla et Caribdi; et al governo
siede ’l signore, anzi ’l nimico mio.

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