Dante's Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the 'Vita Nuova'

by Dante Alighieri

  10

  lauderà ’l mio signore.”

  will praise my noble lord.”

  S’ïo sarò là dove sia Fioretta mia bella a sentire, allor dirò la donna mia

  If I should find myself where my fair Fioret may hear, I’ll say my lady wears

  14

  che port’in testa i mie’ sospire. Ma per crescer disire [la] mia donna verrà

  my sighs around her head. But to increase desire my lady will come

  17

  coronata d’Amore.

  crowned by Love.

  Le parolette mie novelle che di fior[i] fatt’han ballata, per leggiadria ci hanno tolt’elle

  These freshly minted words of mine, which knit a ballad out of flowers, have taken as an ornament

  21

  una vesta ch’altrui fu data: però siate pregata, qual uom la canterà,

  a dress another was to wear: and so I now request, whoever sings its tune,

  24

  che·lli facciate onore.

  please greet him graciously.

  METRE: ballata with ripresa xyz and three stanzas of seven verses, with rhyme scheme ab ab byz. The fronte is four novenari (2 + 2), and the volta is three settenari.

  22 Deh, Vïoletta, che ’n ombra d’Amore

  This ballata is less delicately ornamental and more passionate than Per una ghirlandetta. With the exception of the lady’s name, Violetta, which is mentioned two times, the floral motif is absent and now the lover, instead of “sospirare ogni fiore” (sighing at all flowers) (Per una ghirlandetta, 3), more conventionally asks the lady to have “pietà del cor che tu feristi,/che spera in te e disïando more [pity on the heart that you did wound,/which trusts in you and dies now of desire]” (Deh, Vïoletta, 3–4).

  The dominant motif in Deh, Vïoletta is the fire of love. With her beauty, “tuo piacer” in verse 7 (Francesca too uses “piacer” in the sense of “beauty” in Inf. 5.104), Violetta has ignited a fire in the lover: with an “atto di spirito cocente [flaming spirit’s forceful act]” she has aroused hope in him: “foco mettesti dentro in la mia mente / col tuo piacer ch’io vidi;/poi con atto di spirito cocente / creasti spene [you’ve set my mind ablaze through beauty / that I saw in you;/and through a flaming spirit’s forceful act,/you brought forth hope]” (6–9). Violetta’s “atto di spirito cocente” evokes Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore, where from Beatrice’s eyes “escono spirti d’amore inflammati [issue spirits aflame with love]” (52). Maintaining the same metaphorical system, the poet exhorts his lady: “ma drizza gli occhi al gran disio che m’arde [look at the great desire that burns in me]” (12).

  Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this poem is in the characterization of Violetta as possessing “more than human form”: “Vïoletta, in forma più che umana [Violetta, surpassing human form]” (5). More than a generic “stil novo-style transhumanizing” (Contini, p. 43), we have here a reference to the Cavalcantian ballata that I singled out as a point of reference for both Per una ghirlandetta and Deh, Vïoletta. At the end of the second strophe of Fresca rosa novella Cavalcanti places his lady in a superhuman setting with the following rhetorical question: “tanto adorna parete / ch’eo non saccio contare:/e chi poria pensare – oltra natura? [you appear so lovely / that I cannot convey it:/and who could think – beyond nature?]” (29–31). Then, using the Provençal technique of coblas capfinidas, in which the first words of the new stanza take up the last words of the previous one, Cavalcanti starts off the third stanza by repeating “oltra natura” and adding “umana,” underscoring in this way the idea of the supernatural lady: “Oltra natura umana / vostra fina piagenza [Beyond human nature / your graceful loveliness]” (32–3).

  If it is true that these early ballate of Dante’s are variants of Cavalcanti’s Fresca rosa novella, it is also instructive to note the points of divergence. Domenico De Robertis, in his commentary on Cavalcanti, notes that Fresca rosa novella “with the three following sonnets represents a phase – call it auroral – in which the discovery of love does not involve ascertaining its passionate nature: the only ‘difficulty’ is the inconceivability of the lady’s worth” (p. 3). In other words, in these early poems the tragic and negative vision of Cavalcantian love does not yet appear. The only block to his love at this stage is that the cognitive capacity of the poet is not up to comprehending the lady’s existential value, precisely because one’s thought cannot go beyond human nature, to a supernatural domain: “e chi poria pensare – oltra natura?”

  But this difficulty in fact already contains in nuce the whole Cavalcantian problematic, which is epistemological, rotating around the word (non-)canoscenza. The Cavalcantian lady, even when she is not “fera” (fierce), remains in any case inaccessible. The basic problem for Cavalcanti is always one of an insurmountable epistemological distance. His lady does indeed have value and worth and power, in fact she has “troppo valore [too much worth / power]” (cf. Io non pensava che lo cor giammai: “Tu non camperai,/ché troppo è lo valor di costei forte [You won’t survive / because this woman’s power is much too great]” [7–8]). Precisely because it is “troppo,” excessive with respect to the human capacity of the poet, her power is unattainable and incomprehensible, unusable by him. From the poet’s point of view, the lady’s power serves only to emphasize his epistemological failure.

  In Dante’s poetry a completely different situation obtains. Armed with peerless epistemological vigour, Dante does not hesitate to imagine that his lady is “in forma più che umana” and also that – undeterred by her superhuman status – he can have access to her. Moreover, he can reach her not only when she is alive but also when she is dead: Oltra la spera che più larga gira, the last sonnet of the Vita Nuova, imagines that a “sospiro ch’esce del mio core [sigh that issues from my heart]” (2) passes beyond the crystalline sphere to reach his lady. The opening of Oltra la spera seems like a response to Cavalcanti’s question. One asks: “e chi poria pensare – oltra natura?” The other responds, repeating the keyword “oltra”: “Oltra la spera che più larga gira / passa ’l sospiro ch’esce del mio core [Beyond the sphere that makes the widest sweep / proceeds the sigh that issues from my heart]” (1–2).

  There is no trace in Deh, Vïoletta of the negative implications of the superhuman nature of Cavalcanti’s lady. The cognitive deficiencies of the poet with respect to the power of his lady, to which Fresca rosa novella clearly alludes, are not present in Deh, Vïoletta, where the fact that the lady possesses “forma più che umana” seems not to pose any obstacle to her lover. In fact, the fire created by her creates hope in him.

  22 (B LVIII; C 12; FB 23; DR 29)

  Deh, Vïoletta, che ’n ombra d’Amore nelli occhi miei sì sùbito apparisti, aggi pietà del cor che tu feristi,

  Ah, Violetta, you who in Love’s form appeared before my eyes so suddenly, take pity on the heart that you did wound,

  4

  che spera in te e disïando more.

  which trusts in you and dies now of desire.

  Tu, Vïoletta, in forma più che umana foco mettesti dentro in la mia mente col tuo piacer ch’io vidi; poi con atto di spirito cocente creasti spene che ’n parte mi sana

  You, Violetta, surpassing human form, have set a fire ablaze within my mind through beauty that I saw; and through a flaming spirit’s forceful act, you brought forth hope that heals me partially

  10

  là dove tu mi ridi. Deh non guardare perch’a·llei mi fidi, ma drizza gli occhi al gran disio che m’arde, ché mille donne già, per esser tarde,

  when you just smile at me. Ah, disregard the fact I trust in hope, look at the great desire that burns in me, for many ladies, being slow to act,

  14

  sentit’han pena de l’altrui dolore.

  have known the pain of others’ suffering.

  METRE: ballata, with ripresa XYYX and a single stanza of ten verses (eight hendecasyllables and two settenari), with rhyme scheme ABc BAc CDDX. The fronte is six verses (3 + 3) and the volta i
s four verses.

  23 Cavalcando l’altr’ier per un cammino

  This sonnet, placed by Dante in Vita Nuova IX (4), describes a journey and an encounter between the lover and Love. Perhaps because of the journey motif, its pace is more narrative than lyrical. The lover is unhappy because he finds the journey that he is taking unpleasant; he is “pensoso de l’andar che mi sgradia [taking little pleasure as (he goes)]” (2). The sonnet does not explain why the journey is disagreeable, but one presumes that the cause of suffering is the distance from the lady about whom Love speaks: “e disse: ‘Io vegno di lontana parte,/ov’era lo tuo cor per mio volere;/e recolo a servir novo piacere’ [and (he) said: “I’ve travelled from a distant land / where your heart dwelled by my command;/I bring it back to serve another love]” (10–12). After the two initial verses that describe the situation and the lover’s state of mind, almost the whole rest of the sonnet is dedicated to the description of Love, who is unusually represented “in abito leggier di peregrino [attired in simple clothes that pilgrims wear]” (4), and to the words that Love spoke.

  Dante adds to the theme of absence another very important theme, that of the potential transition to a new object of desire, to what Beatrice will later call a “novità,” when she chastises Dante for having desired “o pargoletta / o altra novità con sì breve uso [either a girl or some other novelty with such a short-lived use]” (Purg. 31.59–60). The issue of “the new” – il novo – is fundamental to Dante’s thinking:68 a subset of the theme of desire, it focuses on the volatility of the will, on the changeableness of desire that transfers itself from one object to another, new object, here indicated by the words “novo piacere” (new pleasure) (12). This is the problem that Dante considers important enough to discuss with his friend Cino da Pistoia in Epistle 3 (dated 1303–6), in which he responds in the affirmative to the question “utrum de passione in passionem possit anima transformari [whether the soul can move from one passion to another]” (Ep. 3.2). The question of how the soul ought to behave in the face of a “novo piacere” will occupy a fundamental place in Dante’s ethical system, first in his lyrics and finally in the Commedia. The “novo piacere” in verse 12 of Cavalcando l’altr’ier per un cammino anticipates the “altra novità con sì breve uso” of Purgatorio 31.60.

  Cavalcando l’altr’ier is the sonnet with which Dante inaugurates the manifestly Cavalcantian section of the Vita Nuova, after having traversed Sicilian-Guittonian territory and before arriving at the Guinizzellian new world with the discovery of the new style. The most explicit textual presence of Cavalcanti in the Vita Nuova is in chapters XIV (7) through XVI (9), and is concentrated in the three sonnets belonging to the “gabbo [mocking]” episode, sonnets strewn with anxious “spiriti,” trembling souls, and inner breakdowns. The story of Cavalcanti in the Vita Nuova starts earlier, however, back at Cavalcando l’altr’ier and at the poem that follows it, Ballata, i’ voi che tu ritrovi Amore (Vita Nuova XII [5]), texts whose first words – “Cavalcando,” “Ballata” – immediately testify to the presence of Cavalcanti.69

  The presence of Cavalcanti is felt in the unusual presentation of the figure of Love, who is “attired in simple clothes that pilgrims wear”70 and has a miserable appearance, like a lord deposed from his lordship: “Ne la sembianza mi parea meschino,/come avesse perduto segnoria;/e sospirando pensoso venia,/per non veder la gente, a capo chino [By his appearance he seemed destitute,/as if he’d lost his due authority;/and sighing in distress he came along,/his head bowed down so others couldn’t see]” (5–8). The figure of dejection that we find here corresponds to the Cavalcantian imaginary. Fascinatingly, however, Dante has constructed the figure of Love, not on the basis of Cavalcantian Amore, a despotic and fearsome figure, but on that of the Cavalcantian lover, who is precisely dejected, miserable, and dismayed (sbigottito: the adjective that describes Love in the prose of the Vita Nuova IX [4]), prey to an interior fragmentation that destines him to be forever in search of himself – forever a “pilgrim” in an existential “misadventure” (the signature Cavalcantian word is “disaventura”).

  To comprehend the stand taken in the Vita Nuova with regard to Cavalcanti’s ideology, it is necessary to understand that his radical negativity, displayed in theoretical dress in the canzone Donna me prega, manifests in his poetry also through an insistent recourse to mediation: the lady, whom Cavalcanti in Donna me prega proclaims unknowable for epistemological reasons, in the sonnets and ballate is simply rendered unknowable by the presence of various other creatures, like the “giovane donna di Tolosa [the young lady of Tolouse]” and the “foresette nove [young country girls],” who put her out of the picture.71 Even though these presences are benign in themselves, they have the effect of making the possibility of “knowledge” (“canoscenza” is another signature Cavalcantian term) still more remote, by pushing the source of knowledge and epistemological vigour (the lady) still further away. For example, in the ballata Era in penser d’amor quand’i’ trovai “due foresette nove” screen “la Mandetta,” who in her turn screens the original lady (according to the sonnet Una giovane donna di Tolosa), thus placing the poet at two removes from the first catalyst of his desire.

  We find an analogous situation in Cavalcando l’alt’ier, where Love suggests to the poet that he turn to the “novo piacere” in a manner that is very similar to what happens in Cavalcanti’s ballata with the “foresette nove.” The result – according to the account of the Vita Nuova prose – is extremely negative: the loss of Beatrice’s greeting.

  The prose of Vita Nuova IX (4) narrates how Dante, going away from Beatrice, encounters Love, who tells him that it will be necessary to transfer his heart from the first to the second screen-lady. The “novo piacere” of the sonnet in this way becomes the Vita Nuova’s second screen-lady. The change of perspective from the sonnet to the libello requires a recontextualization of the underlying ethical issue. Instead of the variability of desire, the Vita Nuova instructs us that the topic of the sonnet is the simulation of desire: “simulato amore [simulated love]” (VN IX.6 [4.6]). The screen-ladies, whose function is to screen or protect from others’ eyes the love that Dante has for Beatrice, are creatures imported from the sociology and ideology of the court; they come from the courtly world of lauzengiers, the spies and eavesdroppers who create the need to simulate one’s passion. The narrative of the first part of the Vita Nuova is full of such courtly imports, because Dante has set himself the task of reproducing and unmasking one by one the various empty and artificial games of courtly love. As part of this overall strategy “simulato amore” is first performed and then promptly unmasked, insofar as the simulation leads to an undesirable outcome: the result of all these games will be not to help Dante but to drive Beatrice to deny him her greeting.

  Of all this material added to the sonnet by the prose of the Vita Nuova – of screen-ladies, simulated love, Beatrice – there is not a trace in Cavalcando l’altr’ier. Or better, there is only an indirect trace, through Cavalcanti: Cavalcanti and his ideology are present in the sonnet, and Cavalcanti had drawn on the Occitan and courtly world, above all from the pastorella genre, in his making of the “foresette nove,” precursors of Dante’s “novo piacere.”

  Dante found in Cavalcando l’altr’ier a vehicle through which he could introduce Cavalcanti into the Vita Nuova’s program to deconstruct traditional courtly values. The Cavalcantian move of populating his poems with creatures benign in themselves, but whose mediating presence contributes to the tragic unknowableness of the original desired object, thus comes to be part of the wrong way indicated here: the way of “simulato amore,” which the lover in this section of the Vita Nuova pursues, is made of novi piaceri similar to Cavalcanti’s foresette. Dante gives a name to this path – “lo cammino de li sospiri [the way of sighs]” (VN X.1 [5.1]) – which is tantamount to saying “the way of Cavalcantian poetics.”

  I began by observing that this sonnet’s character is more narrative than lyrical, and conclude by noting the narrat
ological features that prefigure the Commedia: not only certain words and phrases (“per un cammino” [down a road], “peregrino” [pilgrim], “in mezzo de la via” [in the middle of the road]) but modalities of narration such as the use of the gerund (“Cavalcando” [While riding]). Most important in prefiguring the Commedia is the construction of the narrative background with the imperfect tense (“sgradia” [was feeling bad], “parea” [seemed], “venia” [was coming]), against which the key events of the sonnet are etched in the past absolute (“trovai Amore” [I found Love], “Quando mi vide” [When he saw me], “mi chiamò per nome” [he called me by name]). From the “novo piacere” of Cavalcando l’altr’ier per un cammino we move to the “nuovo e mai non fatto cammino di questa vita [new and never travelled road of this life]” (Conv. 4.12.15) to arrive at the “poetics of the new” of the Commedia.

  23 (B VIII; FB 20; VN IX.9–12 [4.9–12])

  Cavalcando l’altr’ier per un cammino, pensoso de l’andar che mi sgradia, trovai Amore in mezzo de la via

  While riding down a road the other day and taking little pleasure as I went I came on Love before me in the road

  4

  in abito leggier di peregrino. Ne la sembianza mi parea meschino, come avesse perduto segnoria; e sospirando pensoso venia,

  attired in simple clothes that pilgrims wear. By his appearance he seemed destitute, as if he’d lost his due authority; and sighing in distress he came along,

  8

  per non veder la gente, a capo chino.

  his head bowed down so others couldn’t see.