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

by Dante Alighieri

  to render thanks to God for his good grace, because her beauty is so powerful in others envy’s never born of it; instead, it makes them bear her qualities

  8

  di gentilezza, d’amore e di fede.

  of love, nobility, and loyalty.

  La sua vista face ogni cosa umìle, e non fa sola lei parer piacente,

  The sight of her makes every being kind: her look not only makes her beautiful,

  11

  ma ciascuna per lei riceve onore. Ed è negli atti suoi tanto gentile che nessun la si può recare a mente

  but through her every lady gains esteem. And in her bearing she’s so full of grace that no one’s able to remember her

  14

  che non sospiri in dolcezza d’amore.

  who does not sigh from sweetness filled with love.

  VN 5. E sua – 9. La vista sua fa o. – 10. sola sé p.

  METRE: sonnet ABAB ABAB CDE CDE.

  45 Di donne io vidi una gentil schiera

  While Contini labels Di donne io vidi “a true anthology of the most ordinary stilnovist themes” (p. 71), I see it as rather more interesting. This sonnet is distinguished from other stilnovist poems by the temporal precision with which it situates itself on a specific date of the Florentine calendar. The action is immediately declared to have occurred on the most recent All Saints’ Day: “Di donne io vidi una gentil schiera / quest’Ognisanti prossimo passato [I saw a band of lovely ladies meet / on All Saints’ Day not very long ago]” (1–2). The specific reference to the feast of November 1, “in those days a more solemn holiday than in ours” (Barbi-Maggini, p. 263), evokes a feeling that we can still tap into: even today, in a time when civic life is so much more fragmented, there are still communal holidays that are difficult to ignore.

  Such temporal precision is extraordinary in a love lyric of this period, which normally floats in a deliberately nebulous and stylized setting. The phrase “quest’Ognisanti prossimo passato,” literally “this All Saint’s Day that has just passed,” boasts a strong deictic questo (“this”) reinforced by the adjective prossimo (“near”). Recalling that a deictic, grammatically, is an element that situates what is said in a concrete spatio-temporal reality, we experience a frisson of immediacy and of lived, tangible history from the opening of this sonnet. Foster-Boyde observe that line 2 of Di donne io vidi indicates that the poet is writing only a week or two after the event he describes (p. 127); De Robertis even suggests that the sonnet can be dated “to All Saints’ Day of 1289” (ed. comm., p. 368).

  Perhaps it is no coincidence that a sonnet that so inscribes itself into Florentine life should invoke “a band of lovely ladies,” given that the “schiera” – a group gathered together for social purposes, a brigata – cannot help but suggest collective experience. Such collective experiences are invoked in the prose of the Vita Nuova, and in the descriptions of brigate such as we find in Folgore da San Gimignano and Boccaccio.

  The event described in Di donne io vidi is the arrival of the poet’s beloved, flanked by Love, at the head of the female companions who are part of the “gentil schiera”: “e una ne venia quasi ’mprimiera / veggendosi l’Amor dal destro lato [and one of them appeared to lead the rest,/Love standing close upon her right-hand side]” (3–4). At this point the sonnet begins to list the qualities and virtues of madonna that we know. From the eyes of this lady “gittava una lumiera / la qual parea un spirito ’nfiammato [radiated a light / that seemed just like a spirit made of fire]” (5–6); similarly in Donne ch’avete, “De li occhi suoi, come ch’ella li mova,/escono spirti d’amore inflammati [Her eyes, wherever she should turn her gaze,/send spirits forth, inflamed with love]” (51–2). Just as in Io voglio del ver by Guinizzelli, where the lady “abassa orgoglio a cui dona salute [curtails the pride of those she greets]” (10), in this sonnet she “d[on]ava salute / con [gli] atti suoi …/e empiva ’l cor a ciascun di virtute [greeted anyone who was of worth …/and filled the heart of each with inner strength]” (9–11). And as in Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare, where madonna is “una cosa venuta / di cielo in terra a miracol mostrare [a creature come / from heaven to earth to show a miracle]” (7–8), in Di donne io vidi she “ven[n]e in terra per nostra salute [came for our salvation here on earth]” (13).

  But if on the one hand the traits shared by Di donne io vidi and a “pure” praise-sonnet such as Tanto gentile are obvious, the points of divergence are notable as well. The differences begin with the reference to a historically situated event that occurred on “quest’Ognisanti prossimo passato”: such an event requires a protagonist, who is placed in chronological relation to “this” holiday to which he alludes. And in fact the “I” of Di donne io vidi – not hidden but fully present as narrator and witness right from the start – is more the protagonist of this sonnet than are the ladies whom he describes. The narrator describes not only the event of madonna’s arrival with her “gentil schiera”; he describes as well an event of which he is the undoubted protagonist: the moment in which he dares to look at her. In Tanto gentile “the eyes dare not direct their gaze at her” (“gli occhi non l’ardiscon di guardare”) (4). In Di donne io vidi, by contrast, the same verb ardire (to dare) signals the transgression of the lover’s eyes, whose boldness is related in the first person, as though the narrator were staking claim to a kind of heroic action: “I became so bold I looked into / her face, and saw an angel figured there” (“io ebbi tanto ardir, [ch’]in la sua ciera / guarda’, e vidi un a[n]giol figurato”) (7–8).

  The octave of Di donne io vidi thus culminates not with the miraculous nature of madonna, as in Tanto gentile, but with the action of the male protagonist: his ardire (daring), which results in his guardare (looking), and therefore in his vedere (seeing). The protagonist sees a supernatural being, specifically “an angel figured there.” In De Robertis’ gloss, he sees “the image of an angel: as is seen flying over Fioretta in Per una ghirlandetta, 6–7, and as probably appears as the figure of Love in madonna’s face in Donne ch’avete, 55 (in short: ‘I seemed to see an angel’)” (ed. comm., p. 370).108

  There are two uses of “vidi” (the dominant verb of the Commedia) in our sonnet: the “vidi” of the incipit and the “vidi” of the last line of the octave. This double presence of “vidi” signals an adventure of which the narrator is the hero, in which he passes from an entirely natural, real vision, whose quotidianness is reinforced by the chronological reference – “Di donne io vidi una gentil schiera / quest’Ognisanti prossimo passato” (1–2) – to a vision that is supernatural and beyond quotidian reality: “guarda’, e vidi un a[n]giol figurato” (8). The supernatural vision of the angel stands out with greater intensity against the quotidian backdrop of Florentine life.

  At the end of the octave the narrator has completed a visual adventure that begins with the everyday “normal” viewing, grounded in historical reality, of the ladies in the incipit and culminates with the daring visionary feat that breaks the confines of normality in lines 7–8. Such boldness – “tanto ardire” of line 7 – will lead directly to the “bold” (“ardito”) protagonist of Paradiso 33 who penetrates the infinito valore with his gaze: “E’ mi ricorda ch’io fui più ardito/per questo a sostener, tanto ch’i’ giunsi / l’aspetto mio col valore infinito [And I recall that I, because of this, was bolder in sustaining it, until I joined my sight with the infinite goodness]” (Par. 33.79–81). The emboldened gaze of the protagonist in Di donne io vidi is especially noteworthy because it is anchored in historical reality: the Commedia is distinguished from other visionary texts precisely in its being anchored in a dense network of local and historical references.

  After the octave the sonnet falls back on the conventions of the praise style, listing the virtues of madonna. The list of her virtues in the sestet completes a circle that brings the reader back to the beginning of the sonnet: specifying that “every lady close to her is blessed” (“è beata chi·ll’è prossimana”) (14), we return to the idea of the “gentil schiera”
with which Di donne io vidi opens. Furthermore, the final word, “prossimana,” echoes “prossimo” in the line “quest’ Ognisanti prossimo passato” (2). The last verse of Di donne io vidi thus reminds the reader of the quotidian social life that gives our hero his context and that sets this sonnet apart from other sonnets of stilnovist love.

  45 (B LXIX; C 22; FB 45; DR 60)

  Di donne io vidi una gentil schiera quest’Ognisanti prossimo passato,

  I saw a band of lovely ladies meet on All Saints’ Day not very long ago,

  e una ne venia quasi ’mprimiera

  and one of them appeared to lead the rest,

  4

  veggendosi l’Amor dal destro lato. Degli occhi suoi gittava una lumiera la qual parea un spirito ’nfiammato, e io ebbi tanto ardir, [ch’]in la sua ciera

  Love standing close upon her right-hand side. She radiated from her eyes a light that seemed just like a spirit made of fire, and I became so bold I looked into

  8

  guarda’, e vidi un a[n]giol figurato.

  her face, and saw an angel figured there.

  A chi era degno d[on]ava salute con [gli] atti suoi quella benigna e piana,

  She greeted anyone who was of worth with humble gestures full of tenderness,

  11

  e empiva ’l cor a ciascun di virtute. Credo che de l[o] ciel fusse soprana, e ven[n]e in terra per nostra salute:

  and filled the heart of each with inner strength. I hold in heaven she was unsurpassed and came for our salvation here on earth:

  14

  laond’è beata chi·ll’è prossimana.

  so every lady close to her is blessed.

  METRE: sonnet ABAB ABAB CDC DCD.

  46 Sì lungiamente m’ha tenuto Amore

  The poem Sì lungiamente m’ha tenuto Amore is placed by Dante in Vita Nuova XXVII (18). From the thematic point of view, Sì lungiamente returns to the effects that madonna has on the lover. If, in the preceding chapter, the poet illustrates the effects that she has on everyone (“propuosi di dicere parole, ne le quali io dessi ad intendere de le sue mirabili ed eccellenti operazioni [I planned to compose a poem in which I would describe some of the wondrous and excellent effects she brought about]” [VN XXVI.4 (17.4)]), in chapter XXVII (18) he wants to compensate for not having highlighted the effect she has on him “at the present time”: “io non avea detto di quello che al presente tempo adoperava in me … E però propuosi di dire parole, ne le quali io dicesse come me parea essere disposto a la sua operazione, e come operava in me la sua vertude [I had not mentioned the effects which her influence was bringing about in me … And so I planned to write a poem in which I would say how I seemed to be susceptible to her influence, and how her power influenced me]” (VN XXVII.1–2 [18.1–2]).

  Dante doesn’t believe himself “capable of conveying this in the brief space of a sonnet” (“potere ciò narrare in brevitade di sonetto”) (VN XXVII.2 [18.2]) and for this reason he writes a canzone. Sì lungiamente is a single-stanza canzone, the only one in the Vita Nuova, whose lone stanza is composed of fourteen lines like the stanzas of the three great canzoni of the Vita Nuova, the two ones before this (Donne ch’avete and Donna pietosa) and the one following (Li occhi dolenti).109

  The poem that follows Sì lungiamente in the Vita Nuova is the canzone that mourns the death of Beatrice, Li occhi dolenti. In the narrative economy of the libello the positioning of Sì lungiamente and the link that Dante creates between it and Beatrice’s death are its most notable features. The handling of Sì lungiamente in the Vita Nuova dramatizes the death of Beatrice, which is announced right after the canzone’s conclusion, without any delay or digression: there are none of the usual “divisions” and textual glosses following it, no prose to fill the space between the end of the poem and the end of the chapter. Instead, from the last verse of Sì lungiamente we pass directly to the citation from Jeremiah’s Lamentations with which Beatrice’s death is announced, an event that Dante then links explicitly to the monostrophic canzone, offering the death of Beatrice as justification for the canzone’s incompleteness: “Io era nel proponimento ancora di questa canzone, e compiuta n’avea questa soprascritta stanzia, quando lo segnore de la giustizia chiamoe questa gentilissima … [I was still engaged with this canzone, and had completed the above stanza, when the Lord of Justice called this most gracious of women … ]” (VN XXVIII.1 [19.1]). One might say, therefore, that Beatrice dies not so much in mediis rebus as in mediis verbis.

  As always, it is necessary to keep in mind that the interpretative frame imposed by the Vita Nuova was added by Dante in a second editorial phase. In the case of Sì lungiamente it is important to extricate the canzone from the complex role that is assigned to it in the libello, where Dante underscores the trauma of Beatrice’s death, blaming it for the supposed interruption of the single-stanza canzone. It is clear that the choice of a monostrophic canzone in this position of the libello is functional for the purposes of the diegesis and tied to the announcement of Beatrice’s death. For our purposes, the canzone Sì lungiamente, which commentators agree is a complete treatment of the theme proposed in the first four lines, should be considered a finished single-stanza canzone, like the others that Dante wrote.110

  The theme proposed in the first lines of Sì lungiamente is actually more interesting than that stated in the introductory prose of the Vita Nuova. Rather than illustrating the lady’s virtuous effects on her lover, the canzone duly overturns the various modalities of painful love, the kind of Love that we expect to encounter when we read, “Sì lungiamente m’ha tenuto Amore / e costumato a la sua segnoria [So long a time has Love kept me in tow / and made his mastery of me the rule]” (1–2). The lexicon of these opening verses – the verb tenere that is a variant of stringere, the noun segnoria, and even the adverb lungiamente, which recalls the classic canzone of passionate love by Guido delle Colonne, Amor che lungiamente m’hai menato (cited twice by Dante in De vulgari eloquentia)111 – indicates that we are before the masterful, imperious Love of the courtly tradition.

  But everything is changed. The Love who in the past was experienced by the poet as “forte” – that is, harsh and agonizing – has now become “soave” (tender): “sì com’elli m’era forte in pria,/così mi sta soave ora nel core [even though he was at first severe,/he now reigns in my heart with tenderness]” (3–4). The antithetical adjectives – forte that transforms into soave – signal a conversion, in the truest sense of the word. A conversion is always a change in time from one condition to another, from a before to an after, and Dante here marks the transition from the state of “pria” (before) (3) to the state of “ora” (now) (4) with the same precision and temporal awareness used by St Augustine for his conversion in the Confessions or by Guido da Montefeltro for his failed conversion in canto 27 of Inferno. It is a brilliant move: the Dante who arranged the Vita Nuova chose for the liminal space that marks the turn towards Beatrice’s death a text that already in itself delineates a turn from a before to an after. Sì lungiamente looks toward Dante’s great theme of the conversio from the old life to the new.

  On the other hand, the language of Sì lungiamente is not at all theologized and the conversion described here is from an amore forte to an amore soave. In the context of the poets whom Dante knows, Sì lungiamente recalls above all Guido Cavalcanti: not only the tragic Guido but also the sublime Guido of those (few) poems in which he sings of a quasi-mystical love-sweetness.112 One thinks for example of Cavalcanti’s ballata Veggio negli occhi de la donna mia, in which there are the following verses: “Là dove questa bella donna appare / s’ode una voce che le vèn davanti / e par che d’umiltà il su’ nome canti / sì dolcemente, che, s’i’ ’l vo’ contare,/sento che ’l su’ valor mi fa tremare [There where this beautiful woman appears / is heard a voice that comes before her,/and it seems to sing her name / so sweetly that, if I should tell of it,/I feel her power begin to make me tremble]” (13–17). The verses just cited from Veggio negli occhi are reflected in the humili
ty and the sweetness of the woman in Sì lungiamente; line 12 in Veggio negli occhi declares that “La salute tua è apparita [Your salvation has appeared],” a phrasing that Dante picks up here in his “per darmi più salute [to accord me greater bliss]” (12).

  Reading Sì lungiamente we seem to pass, within a single stanza, from the suffering love of Guido Cavalcanti to his sweet love, and moreover to complete this passage a full two times. The first cycle is in lines 5–8, where Dante completes in four verses the journey from the tragic Guido of the fleeing spirits and the weakened soul113 to the tender Guido of Veggio negli occhi de la donna mia. The first three lines of the cycle seem to move directly towards tragic love – “Però quando mi tolle sì ’l valore,/che li spiriti par che fuggan via,/allor sente la frale anima mia [So when he takes my strength away from me,/which makes my spirits seem to flee in haste,/my feeble soul then feels]” (5–7) – but the movement towards tragedy is then dramatically interrupted by the strong enjambment between line 7 and line 8, and all of a sudden the reader is surprisingly plunged into “tanta dolcezza, che ’l viso ne smore [such sweet delight, the colour in my face begins to fade]” (8). The same itinerary between the two antithetical poles of amore forte and amore soave, and the same overturning of the reader’s expectations, happens again in lines 9–12: the first three lines of the second cycle seem to promise Cavalcantian destructive love – “poi prende Amore in me tanta vertute,/che fa li miei spiriti gir parlando,/ed escon for chiamando [since Love asserts its power in me so much / it makes my spirits go about and speak,/and they rush forth to ask]” (9–11) – but the conclusive line goes in the opposite direction, arriving not at a deadly lady but at “la donna mia, per darmi più salute [my Lady to accord me greater bliss]” (12).