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Šiško Menčetić (ca. 1457–ca. 1527) Perhaps one of the “predecessors” Marulić refers to in his dedication to Judith, Menčetić was an ebullient poet in the Petrarchan style. A patrician of Dubrovnik, he purveyed Italian Renaissance sensibilities into the Croatianlanguage literature of his day. Not a clergyman, he was free in expressing the more sensuous aspects of courtly love. The poems are from: John S. Miletich, ed. and transl., Love Lyric and Other Poems of the Croatian Renaissance: A Bilingual Anthology, second edition, revised and expanded (Bloomington, Indiana: Slavica, 2009): 29. An Anthology of Croatian Literature  Death Is My Lot Oh why do I yet live? For death is now my lot, since I have borne the ire of Venus’ true desire; than wormwood harsher still, it is a living death which, when the hound grows near, the timid deer does feel. I Do Not Sing But Sob I pray you, floret mine, as I a lady would, when I am sobbing, hear, think not that I do sing; the fact, indeed, is that I here now cry aloud. But since I suffer so for you, can I be glad? How can a song spring up from deep within my heart since night and day I pine away from such desire? With this my grieving heart is ever all ablaze, much like the mountain flower that’s scorched by sun at noon. Behold How Fair She Is Let each in turn this glorious nymph behold who longs to see a creature new on earth and spend his life in praising her fair youth, as in her face all heaven’s joy she bears. Behold her stately gait, her look so sweet! Who does not die nor give his heart to her? And when she speaks, that voice, there is no doubt, does melt each man in never-ending bliss. ...

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