To Rome buried in its ruins
You search in Rome for Rome, oh wanderer!,
and yet in Rome itself you don't find Rome:
the walls boasting its fame are now a corpse,
the Aventine now serves as its own tomb.
It lies now where the Palatine once reigned;
and its medallions, worn away by time,
show more the devastation of the battles
of the ages than great Latium's pride.
Only the Tiber has remained, whose flow,
if once a city watered, now, a grave,
it mourns for her with brokenhearted tones.
Oh Rome!, of all your greatness, your allure,
that which was firm has fled, and nothing but
what is elusive stays and will endure.
Translated by Alix Ingber
#EscritoresEspañoles #Soneto (1648), ABBA ABBA CDC DCD El Parnaso español
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