Читать книгу Erotica Romana - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - Страница 8

  "Can you be cruel enough to sadden me thus with reproaches?

    Germans speak, I suppose, bitterly when they're in love.

  Bear it I must when the gossips bring forth accusations: I'm guilty —

    Or am I not? But, alas, all of my guilt was with you.

  Clothes that you've given bear witness for envious neighbors

      That the poor widow no more grieves for her husband alone.

  Did you not thoughtlessly visit me in the disguise of a cleric,

      Muffled all up in a cloak, hair all rounded behind?

  Who was it chose that gray monk if not you? Well then a prelate

    Now is my lover – Ah, who is my prelate but you?

  Never, incredible as it may sound in this clerical city,

    Has any cleric brought me – swear it I will – to his bed.

  I was sufficiently poor, sad to say. I was young. The seducers

    Noted it well. Falconier ogled me often enough.

  One of the pimps for Albani with billets doux very impressive

    Called me to Ostia once. Quattro Fontani next time.

  Who was it did not appear there? Why, who but the very same girl who

    Hated with all of her heart stockings both violet and red.

  For: 'In the end you poor girls are the ones who are sure to be cheated.'

    So said my father although – Mother was not much impressed.

  Father was right. Here I stand in the end being cheated and scolded.

    You don't believe your own words. They're your excuse to escape.

  Go, then. Unworthy of women are men. We, who carry your children

    Next to our hearts, in these hearts loyalty we bear you, too.

  As for you men, when you've poured out your potency in our embraces

    And your desires dissipate, love with them passes away."

  These things expressed, and taking her child from its chair, my beloved

    Presses it close to her heart, kisses it, tears in her eyes.