Don’t mourn your luck that’s failing now, work gone wrong, your plans all proving deceptive — don’t mourn them uselessly. As one long prepared, and graced with courage, say goodbye to her, the Alexandria that is leaving. Above all, don’t fool yourself, don’t say it was a dream, your ears deceived you: don’t degrade yourself with empty hopes like these.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you. Wise as you have become, with so much experience, you must already have understood what these Ithacas mean.

Try to keep them, poet, those erotic visions of yours, however few of them there are that can be stilled. Put them, half-hidden, in your lines.

And if you can't shape your life the way you want, at least try as much as you can not to degrade it.

Speak not of guilt, speak not of responsibility. When the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners; when the senses shiver and shudder, it is only a fool and and an irreverent person that will keep his distance, who will not embrace the good cause, marching towards the conquest of pleasures and passions. All of morality's laws - poorly understood and applied - are nil and cannot stand even for a moment, when the Regiment of the Senses parades by, with music, and with banners.

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca, pray that the road is long, full of adventure, full of knowledge.

Return often and take me, beloved sensation, return and take me - When memory of the body awakens, and old desire again runs through the blood; when the lips and skin remember, and the hands feel as if they touch again.