wrap-up Christmas present. 'Sonnets of Petrach' illustrated by Aldo Salvadori.

p114.
Love's paradoxes.
CHAUCER
How acurate is this CHAUCER's middle english translation of original Italian? Is there a middle Italian?

If no love is, O god, what fele I so?
And if love is, what thing and whiche is he?
If love be good, from whennes comth my wo?
If it be wikke, a wonder thinketh me,
When every torment and adversitee
That cometh of him, may to me savory thinke;
For ay thurst I, the more that I it drinke.

And if that at myn owene lust I brenne,
Fro Whennes cometh my wailing and my pleynte?
If harme agree me, wher-to pleyne I thenne?
I noot, ne why unwery that I feynte.
O quike deeth, o swete harm so queynte,
How may of thee in me swich quantitee,
But-if that I consente that it be?

And if that I consente, I wrongfully
Compleyne, y-wis; thus possed to and fro,
Al sterelees with-inne a boot am I
A-mid the see, by-twixen windes two,
That in contrarie stonden ever-mo.
Allas! what is this ownder maladye?
For hete of cold, for cold of hete, I dye.