Love's heartaches weep all through the night,
When peace rules and Selene [the moon] wakes,
The quiet sounds that flee from the heart,
Are drawn audibly through the silent air.

Hark! Now sounds the call of the nightingale:
Into a peal, it builds from a weak sound,
It rises, it falls, it lifts itself up and melts away
Until it refashions itself, gushing out in one great tone.

One note, mixing pain and pleasure,
Too powerful for its singer's breast;
The throat that produces it can't comprehend it:
I can only be understood by the human heart the bird lacks!

Therefore, the nightingale is "the Bird of Love":
Of love, from which pain's tears flow,
Like she, who with tranquil happiness is intoxicated,
With pleasure, listens to the sweet tone.