Translation

From Philotheus Giodarno Bruno of Nola

To the friend and studious reader

It was placed there in the heights
  on Chios, the countenance of Diana,
  which seems dolorous with approaching steps toward the temple,
  but with departures, joyful.

And the letter of Pythagoras,
  with its two-horned choice between deeds,
  which extends the roughshod surface of a footpath to the favored,
  to him it grants the best end.

These things emerged from the profound 
  darknesses of shadows,
  Ultimately the reader will be set before the agreeable, but now the harsher
  both countenance and letter.


Dissection

  • facies, facieī, f: countenance, face, image
  • lit(t)era Pythagorae: the letter Y; here, a "Y" in the road, a fork
  • tramēs, tramitis, m.: foot-path
Translating Bruno's DE VMBRIS IDEARVM