An Anthology of Croatian Literature

Dzore Drzic (1461-1501)

Džore Držić (1461–1501) A close contemporary of Menčetić and a fellow citizen of Dubrovnik, Držić was also a Petrarchan, but, because he was a Roman Catholic priest, he was more restrained in his expression. Together the two poets established the latter half of the fifteenth century as the true beginning of vernacular Croatian literature , and, thanks to them and their successors in Dubrovnik, they influenced the decision centuries later to enshrine the “što” dialect of Dubrovnik as the Croatian standard language, as opposed to the “ča” dialect of the weightier Marulić or the “kaj” dialect of Zagreb, eventually the country’s capital city and major metropolis. The excerpt is 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): 35. An Anthology of Croatian Literature 24 The Whole Day Through I Long For You The whole day through, my precious pearl, I long for you, as does the thirsting deer for cool lake waters clear, so that the sunbeams in your eyes might cure my ills and heal by dint of their sweet charm my secret wounds which your fair gaze has wrought within my very core, your look of love which now deprives me of my life. The palor of my face reveals that wound so deep as also does my life, by you destroyed, my love. This you yourself can see as I pass by your window and grow quite pale and numb with constant sighing spells; though we should openly not look at one another, from one another neither should we mask this love. Oh God, what greater pain have you conceived on earth than crying out aloud with grief for one’s beloved? Oh blessed are they and well endowed by fortune’s hand who oft together joined can consummate their love, and who in mere desire waste not their fairest youth, and do not hope in vain to joy in love’s delights. And thus, my love, may I not slowly pine away, but yet do let me rest upon your lap so still, for swiftly have you with your tresses red and fair my throat ensnared as would some hunter bind his catch; how terrifying ‘tis to think of all these woes, but ‘tis more awful still to bear them in one’s heart. And so, my pearl, the whole day through I long for you, as would a thirsting deer for cool lake waters clear. ...