The following literal prose translation of Petrarch's "Sonnet 140," the poem translated by both Wyatt and Surrey, is taken from p. 9 of The English Sonnet by Patrick Cruttwell (Longmans, Green & Co., 1996).
Love, who lives and reigns in my thought and keeps his principal seat
in my heart, comes like an arned warrior into my forehead, there places
himself and there sets up his banner. She who teaches me to love and to
suffer and who wishes that reason, modesty and reverence should restrain
my great desire and burning hope, thrusts aside and disdains our ardour.
Wherefore Love in terror flies to my heart, abandoning all his enterprise,
and laments and trembles; there he hides himself and no more appears without.
What can I do, when my lord is afraid, except stay with him until the last
hour? For he makes a fine end who dies loving well.
In his interesting discussion of the sonnet, Cruttwell points out that
although Surrey's translation is the more "faithful" one, Wyatt has created
the finer English poem. He attributes some of the challenge of translation
to the "full-bodied" sound of the abstract words in Italian as opposed
to English and also to different values of the aesthetic Italian and the
pragmatic English literary cultures.
By special request: Petrarch's Sonnet in Italian (Rima 140)
Amor, che nel penser mio vive et regna
e 'l suo seggio maggior nel mio cor tene,
talor armato ne la fronte vene,
ivi si loca, et ivi pon sua insegna
Quella ch'amare et sofferir ne 'nsegna
e vol che 'l gran desio, l'accesa spene,
ragion, vergogna et reverenza affrene,
di nostro ardir fra se stessa si sdegna.
Onde Amor paventoso fugge al core,
lasciando ogni sua impressa, et piange, et trema;
ivi s'asconde, et non appar piu fore.
Che poss'io far, temendo il mio signore,
se non star seco infin a l'ora extrema?
Che bel fin fa chi ben amando more.