Así como la gula estimulamos
Tentando al paladar con las especias,
Y males invisibles prevenimos
Con purgas que acarrean males ciertos,
Ya harto de gustar de tus dulzuras
Tomé por alimento salsas rancias,
Y enfermo de salud creí adecuado
Procurarme un remedio innecesario.
Y así mi decisión de anticiparme
A un mal inexistente acarreó males
Que mi buena salud deterioraron
Y en mi busca de alivio me hice daño.
Mas luego esta lección aprendí al menos:
Al enfermo de ti nadie lo cura.

Like as, to make our appetites more keen,
With eager compounds we our palate urge;
As, to prevent our maladies unseen,
We sicken to shun sickness when we purge;
Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness,
To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding;
And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness
To be diseased, ere that there was true needing.
Thus policy in love, to anticipate
The ills that were not, grew to faults assured,
And brought to medicine a healthful state
Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured;
But thence I learn and find the lesson true,
Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.