Amor Amarus
Nil amor est aliud nisi tristis et aegra voluptas;
Nil nisi dulce malum, nil nisi triste bonum.
Source: Giuseppe Gatti, Sales Poetici, Proverbiales, et Iocosi (1703). Meter: Elegiac. Most distich poems make use of parallelism and paradox, but this poem abounds in paradox with every phrase!
Love is nothing (nil amor est) other than (aliud nisi) a sad and sickly pleasure (tristis et aegra voluptas); nothing but (nil nisi) a sweet evil (dulce malum), nothing but a sad goodness (nil nisi triste bonum).
The vocabulary is keyed to the DCC Latin Vocabulary list. There is only one word in this poem that is not on the DCC list:
amārus, -a, -um: bitter, pungent, harsh
aeger aegra agrum: sick; aegrē, with difficulty
alius -a -um: other, another; alias: at another time
amor -ōris m.: love
bonus -a -um: good
dulcis -e: sweet
et: and
malus -a -um: bad, evil; male: (adv.) badly
nihil, nīl: nothing; not at all
nisi/nī: if not, unless
sum, esse, fuī: be, exist
tristis -e: sad, solemn, grim
voluptās -ātis f.: pleasure enjoyment
