SONNET XXXV

Mario, Love the ingrate having observed
the purity of my faith, my constancy,
resolved to use on me the baseness he
reserves for those by whom he best is served;

and fearing to lose face if men understand
his true nature from what I write or say,
yet lacking strength of his own to satisfy
his cruelty, he annexed my enemy’s hand;

and so, in the part which manages my right
hand and in that which clothes in speaking sense
the concepts of the soul, I have been wounded.

But I will make sure this cowardly offence
costs the offender dear, for now I’m fit
and free and desperate and offended.