Flattery, caresses, and false declarations of love / lusinga – "these made-up pleasures", I begin, "that are also our gifts", lusingamente / enticingly (or self-deluding some prefer).
Alletare / to delight, alletante / alluring, these too, even as in other throats – "fa schifo!"/ ‘It is disgusting!’ is breathed out, schifo / nausea, loathing expelled.
Adescare / to lure, and besides allure, fascino del mare / under the lure of the sea, her spell or charm, as well as the corrupting (the sea-witch cursed) touch of salt.
Alletare / and besides delight, by a violent breath of wind, to be bowled or knocked over, flattened to the ground.
To entice with disgusto / disgust, ripugnanza / repugnance, ribrezzo / shudder, or stizza / vex.
But we are honesta / honest women who, in the city where ‘all is put to the service of the re-publica (those things that all share in common), rise up by another way than the way reserved by men, the Golden Staircase from the primo piano / first floor to the second.
My sister Gaspara being inducted into the Accademia dei Dubbiosi (the College of the Doubtful) in 1550, found her voice under the name of "Anaxilla" (signifying the misfortunes of her abandonment): enticing / alletante.
Or the alternative, that of being flattened by a violent breath of wind.
After Gaspara’s death at the age of thirty one from male de mare / the sickness of the sea, I, her sister Cassandra, had published her 311 surviving Rime / poems. "Lasci questo bastarlo", she declared in a song of love, "quello che la fa scrive" / ‘Let it be enough for you, that it makes you write.’
mmj