“Though the sun beat all day upon the mud,
Still foul the mud remains and bright the sun.”
Guido Guinizzelli (1230–1276) Italian poet
Fere lo sol lo fango tutto ’l giorno;
Vil riman, ne il sol perde colore.
Canzone. (Poeti del Primo Secolo, Firenze, 1816, p. 92).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 302.