Poiché l'avida sete

Poiché l'avida sete
C'hai del mio tristo e lagrimoso humore
Non è ancor spenta, O dispietato core,
Spengala il sangue mio
C'hor verserà dal mio trafitto petto
Un doloroso rio.
 
Since the keen thirst
that you feel for my sad, tearful humour (*)
is not yet slaked, merciless lady,
let it be sated with my blood
which will issue forth from my pierced chest
in a melancholy stream.

(*) This is presumably a reference both to the poet's mood and to the fluids - the four 'humours' - assumed under ancient physiological theories to exist within the human body and to affect temperament.