Sonnet 40: Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all
BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all:
What hast thou then more than thou hadst before?
No love, my love, that thou mayst true love call—
All mine was thine before thou hadst this more.
Then if for my love thou my love receivest,
I cannot blame thee for my love thou usest;
But yet be blamed if thou this self deceivest
By wilful taste of what thyself refusest.
I do forgive thy robb’ry, gentle thief,
Although thou steal thee all my poverty;
And yet love knows it is a greater grief
To bear love’s wrong than hate’s known injury.
Lascivious grace, in whom all ill well shows,
Kill me with spites, yet we must not be foes.
“Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all”
24×20 inches, oil on aluminum panel
Copyright 2023 Fatima Ronquillo
“The Troubadour” is inspired by the Medieval narrative poem “The Lay of Yonec” by Marie de France. It tells the tale of a knight who visits his lover in the form of a hawk. I also imagine him as one of our modern day troubadour singers like Bill Anderson, Buck Owens and Gram Parsons wearing the famously embroidered “Nudie” suits. This singer of love songs is seen in the act of hiding or revealing a secret locket. Beside him, a kestrel or sparrow hawk, dives down into his heart, seemingly becoming part of the intricate embroidery of his jacket.
From The Lais of Marie de France
The knight proved most courteous,
For he addressed her, speaking thus:
‘Lady,’ said he, ‘you need not fear.
A noble bird this hawk; though here
All seems mysterious and obscure,
Be certain you may rest secure,
If you take me for your friend!
For this is the reason I descend
Here; long have I loved you so;
And in my heart desired you; know
That I have loved no other, ever,
And none but you will love forever.
“The Troubadour”
24×20 inches, oil on aluminum panel
Copyright 2023 Fatima Ronquillo
Amoretti XXX: My Love is like to ice, and I to fire
BY EDMUND SPENSER
My Love is like to ice, and I to fire:
How comes it then that this her cold so great
Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
But harder grows the more I her entreat?
Or how comes it that my exceeding heat
Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
And feel my flames augmented manifold?
What more miraculous thing may be told,
That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
And ice, which is congeal’d with senseless cold,
Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
That it can alter all the course of kind.
“Amoretti XXX: My love is like to ice, and I to fire”
12×9 inches, oil on aluminum panel
Copyright 23023 Fatima Ronquillo
from The Nightingale and The Rose
by Hafez (tr. by Gertrude Bell)
The nightingale with drops of his heart’s blood
Had nourished the red rose, then came a wind,
And catching at the boughs in envious mood,
a hundred thorns about his heart entwined.
Like to the parrot crunching sugar, good
Seemed the world to me who could not stay
The wind of Death that swept my hopes away.
“The Nightingale and The Rose”
9×12 inches, oil on aluminum panel
Copyright 2023 Fatima Ronquillo
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