Italia! O Italia! thou who hast The fatal gift of beauty, which became A funeral dower of present woes and past, On thy sweet brow is sorrow plough'd by shame, And annals graved in characters of flame. [It., Italia, Italia, O tu cui feo la sorte, Dono infelice di bellezza, ond' hai Funesta dote d'infiniti guai Che in fronte scritti per gran doglia porte.]

Vicenzo da Filicaja

Related Quotes

I only served with them 64 days as a mechanic in Italy,

On desperate seas long wont to roam, Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face, Thy naiad airs have brought me home To the glory that was Greece And the grandeur that was Rome.

— Edgar Allan Poe

There are olive trees outside and the imagined smell of their bark and silvered leaves brings with it the first unfurling of some new imperative she feels coiled up within her. Her whole body with a joyful shout know it is back in Italy.

— Glenn Haybittle

Italy, like areas of her childhood, is a part of her world she has always kept secret from her husband. These are places she goes to renew her virginity.

— Glenn Haybittle

I didn't speak Italian when I got to Italy. I had taken a couple of lessons and did a year in college, but in six months, I became regionally submersed to the point that I can curse in dialect.

— Mario Batali