HC 102H, Honors College World Literature

According to Robert M. Durling in Petrarch's Lyric Poems (Harvard UP, 1976), the "repertory of situations, technical vocabulary, images, and structures" which animate fourteenth-century love poetry include

Love at first sight, obsessive yearning and lovesickness, frustrations, love as parallel to feudal service; the lady as ideally beautiful, ideally virtuous, miraculous, beloved in Heaven, and destined to early death [Dante's poetry is instrumental in establishing this pattern]; love as virtue, love as idolatry, love as sensuality; the god of love with his arrows, fires, whips, and chains; war within the self--hope, fear, joy, sorrow. Conceits, wit, urbane cleverness; disputations and scholastic precision; allegory, personification; wooing, exhortation, outcry; praise, blame; self-examination, self-accusation, self-defense; repentance and the farewell to love. (9)

Choose one of the poems from La Vita Nuova and characterize its use of these conventions. How are conventions made new in Dante's poetry?

Below follow two translations, besides Cervigni's and Vasta's, of the sonnets they translate on pages 61 and 125 of their edition. Use these versions to think about the issue of translation; if you know Italian, you might also attempt your own translations.

9

(Musa translation) As I rode out one day not long ago
By narrow roads, and heavy with the thought
Of what compelled my going, I met Love
In pilgrim's rags coming the other way.
All his appearance seemed to speak such grief
As kings might feel upon the loss of crown;
And ever sighing, bent with thought, he came,
His eyes averted from all passers-by.
Yet as we met he called to me by name
And said to me, "I come from that far land,
Where I had sent your heart to serve my will;
I bring it back to court a new delight."
And then so much of him was fused with me,
He vanished from my sight, I know not how. | Back to top of page |

(Reynolds translation) As I rode forth one day not long ago,
Pensive about my journey and distressed,
I met Love, like a traveller, humbly dressed,
Coming along my path, forlorn and slow.
Such wretchedness his aspect seemed to show,
He might have been a monarch dispossessed.
With thoughtful steps and sighing he progressed,
His gaze averted and his head held low.
When he caught sight of me he called my name
And said: ‘From far away I bring your heart,
Where it has dwelt, according to my will,
And take it a new service to fulfill.'
Then I absorbed of him so great a part,
He vanished just as strangely as he came. | Back to top of page |

Cavalcando l'altr'ier per un cammino,
pensoso de l'andar che mi sgradia,
trovai Amore in mezzo de la via
in abito leggier di peregrino.
Ne la sembianza mi parea meschino,
come avesse perduta segnoria;
e sospirando pensoso venia,
per non veder la gente, a capo chino.
Quando mi vide, mi chiamò per nome,
e disse: "Io vegno di lontana parte,
ov'era lo tuo cor per mio volere;
e recolo a servir novo piacere".
Allora presi di lui sì gran parte,
ch'elli disparve, e non m'accorsi come. | Back to top of page |

32

(Musa translation) Now come to me and listen to my sighs,
O gracious hearts (for pity wants it so):
The sights that issue in despondency.
But for their help I would have died of grief,
Because my eyes would be debtors indeed,
Owing much more than they could hope to pay
By weeping for my lady in such way
That mourning her, my heart might be relieved,
And ceaselessly shall sighs of mine be heard
Calling upon my lady who is gone
To dwell where worth like hers is merited;
And often heard in scorn of this our life,
As if thy were the mournful soul itself
Abandoned by its hope of happiness. | Back to top of page |

(Reynolds translation) Come, gentle hearts, have pity on my sighs,
As mournful from my breast you hear them go.
To the relief they bring my life I owe
Since I should die of sorrow otherwise;
Without them, to make recompense, my eyes,
More often than I'd wish, alas!, would flow
To lessen by their tears the weight of woe
Which on my weeping spirit grievous lies.
Many a time you'll hear them calling her,
My gentle lady, who from here was borne
Into a kingdom worthier than this
Of her great virtue; and our life in scorn
Sometimes they will revile, as though they were
The soul itself forsaken by its bliss. | Back to top of page |

Venite a 'ntender li sospiri miei,
oi cor gentili, ché pietà 'l disia:
li quai disconsolati vanno via,
e s'e' non fosser, di dolor morrei;
però che gli occhi mi sarebber rei,
molte fiate più ch'io non vorria,
lasso! di pianger sì la donna mia,
che sfogasser lo cor, piangendo lei.
Voi udirete lor chiamar sovente
la mia donna gentil, che si n'è gita
al secol degno de la sua vertute;
e dispregiar talora questa vita
in persona de l'anima dolente
abbandonata de la sua salute.

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This page created by Louise M. Bishop | Last updated 5 January 2002