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

by Dante Alighieri

  I have frequently noted the importance for Dante of direct discourse, which he uses to cross the boundaries between the imagined and the real, and in this case literally between life and death. The poet speaks directly, in the climactic expression of his suffering, to his lady, asking her, as if she were alive, “Are you now dead?”: “Or se’ tu morta?” (55). The conceptual paradox of this question is genial. Its form – not only direct discourse but the fact of its being a question, a locution that requires an interlocutor, as well as the literal and temporal meaning of the pleonastic particle “or” (“now”) – battles and almost overwhelms its substance: it is not possible for Beatrice to be dead, if one can talk to her! The poet’s question “makes her alive,” in what we might call an “optical illusion” created by words.115 And yet what it is that he asks her is if she is dead.

  Verbal “optical illusions” are fundamental to sustaining the fiction that is not a fiction of the Commedia. The profound implications of the little question “Or se’ tu morta?” in Li occhi dolenti come further into focus if we consider another apparently humble and straightforward question that begins with “or,” at the culmination of Paradiso: “Segnor mio Iesù Cristo, Dio verace,/or fu sì fatta la sembianza vostra? [My Lord Jesus Christ, true God, was your appearance then really fashioned like this?]” (Par. 31.107–8). The childishly straightforward question “Or se’ tu morta?” is only apparently a simple move; in Dante’s hands it is a highly effective rhetorical way to create the illusion of crossing the boundary between life and death. As he works out in Li occhi dolenti a poetics in which he can obtain the reader’s consent to the idea of a living man who speaks with a dead woman, Dante is laying the groundwork for the fundamental fiction of the Commedia, an otherworld journey in which a living man talks to the dead.

  After the query “Are you now dead?” comes the extraordinary verse in which Beatrice comforts Dante: “e mentre ch’io la chiamo, me conforta [and while I call on her she comforts me]” (56). This is not the first appearance of consolatio in the poems collected in the Vita Nuova. The verb confortare also appears in the sonnet Ciò che m’incontra (“se l’alma sbigottita non conforta [if he does not console my troubled soul]” [10]), in the sonnet of mourning Se’ tu colui (“e fa peccato chi mai ne conforta [to try to comfort us would be a sin]” [10]), and in the canzone Donna pietosa (“E quando un poco confortato fui [And after being somewhat comforted]” [27]).116 Donna pietosa offers the verb consolare as well, “Deh, consoliam costui [Let’s comfort him]” (23), and in Donna pietosa the ladies – who are indeed pietose – ask Dante, “Perché si ti sconforte? [Why are you so discomforted?]” (12), and then set about consoling him.117

  But in Li occhi dolenti we see consolatio come to the fore in a new way: it is connected for the first time to the imaginative processes of the lover and to what he can do to obtain consolation for himself. Consolatio is now tied to the act of imagining his lady alive. We find in Li occhi dolenti not only the despondency aroused by the death of madonna but Dante’s response: his move towards a poetics that brings the dead to life. While the death of Beatrice leaves the soul despondent, in a condition of fundamental deprivation, stripped of all consolation, “d’onne consolar … spoglia” (40), the ability to imagine her alive to the point of talking to her opens the door to the possibilities of consolatio. And not to the consolatio provided by books or by abstractions like Lady Philosophy, but to the consolatio provided by Beatrice herself, as emphasized by the timely repetition of her name: “chiamo Beatrice, e dico: ‘Or se’ tu morta?’;/e mentre ch’io la chiamo, me conforta [I call to Beatrice: ‘Are you now dead?’/And while I call on her she comforts me]” (54–6).

  In the Convivio, the philosophical treatise written between the end of the Vita Nuova and the beginning of the Commedia, Dante, modelling himself on the protagonist of the Consolatio Philosophiae of Boethius, consoles himself for Beatrice’s death with a personified abstraction, Lady Philosophy. In Li occhi dolenti, Beatrice is dead – but she is no abstraction. The consolation that Dante imagines is offered to him by Beatrice in Li occhi dolenti anticipates the Commedia in its historicity. Following Dante, the idea of consolatio provided directly by the dead beloved, as if she were alive, will be the basis of the second part of Petrarch’s Rerum vulgarium fragmenta, where, for instance, the poet sees his dead lady “calcare i fior’ com’una donna viva [treading the flowers like a living woman]” (Rvf 281.13)

  The fifth stanza of Li occhi dolenti focuses on the “debased [’nvilita]” (66) life of the protagonist after the death of his lady. Once again we note the passage from the general to the particular, in this case the passage from those whose hearts are “vile and base” (“malvagio e vile”) (33) in the third stanza to the debased life of the lover in the fifth. The antithesis between gentile and vile, which occurs throughout stil novo poetry, will develop into the far-reaching ethical and social discourse on the nature of true nobility in the fourth book of the Convivio. The gentile/vile antithesis also connects Li occhi dolenti to the famous sonnet by Cavalcanti to Dante, I’ vegno ’l giorno a·tte ’nfinite volte, where Guido accuses his friend of being “steeped in shameful thoughts” (“pensar troppo vilmente”) (2) and complains that “molto mi dol della gentil tua mente / e d’assai tue vertù che·tti son tolte [it pains me deeply that your noble mind / and many virtues have been stripped away]” (3–4).

  I’ vegno ’l giorno a·tte ’nfinite volte is a sonnet that was probably written in the period after Beatrice’s death, and that could be defined as an “anti-consolatory” poem, in that it aims more to shake up the mourner and to rouse him from his mental lethargy than to console him.118 One can usefully compare I’ vegno ’l giorno to the fifth stanza of Li occhi dolenti. Cavalcanti is treating the same material but from a reversed and external perspective, from the viewpoint of an intimate friend who no longer sympathizes, whose sympathy has changed into scorn for the self-damaging behaviour that he peremptorily defines as “la vil tua vita [your debased life]” (9). Cavalcanti is referring, I believe, to the dejected, depressed condition described in the fifth stanza of Li occhi dolenti, where the life of the lover is acknowledged to be “sì ’nvilita [so debased].” I’ vegno ’l giorno a·tte concludes with the same adjective, invilita, that we find in the canzone: “Se ’l presente sonetto spesso leggi,/lo spirito noioso che·tti caccia / si partirà dall’anima invilita [If you reread this sonnet several times,/the loathsome spirit persecuting you / will be dispelled from your degraded soul]” (I’ vegno ’l giorno, 12–14). The fifth stanza of Li occhi dolenti would seem to exemplify the “pensar troppo vilmente” of which Cavalcanti accuses his friend.

  But everything changes in the last two verses of the fifth stanza, in which a consolatory, anti-depressive option reopens. Here Dante imagines that his lady sees him and hopes (an anti-depressant emotion by definition) that she may offer him comfort even after death: “Ma qual ch’io sia la mia donna il si vede,/e io ne spero ancor da lei merzede [But what I have become my lady knows,/and I still hope to gain her clemency]” (69–70). This simple move – the idea that the beloved dies and that then from paradise she sees the sadness of her lover and helps him, and above all that her death is not an obstacle to such help – is the necessary precondition of the Commedia. The plot of the second canto of Inferno, where Beatrice comes to assist Dante, is prepared in nuce in Li occhi dolenti.

  The congedo closes the circle and returns to the beginning, reprising the idea of weeping, the physical sign of mourning: “Pietosa mia canzone, or va piangendo [My somber song, I bid you now weep tears, and go]” (71). Sending the canzone to find “le donne e le donzelle / a cui le tue sorelle / erano usate di portar letizia [the ladies and the girls / to whom your sister poems / were sent as messengers of happiness]” (72–4), we note the difference between this canzone, “figliuola di tristizia [daughter of despondency]” (75), and the other rime, the happy “sister poems.”119

  The theme of consolatio is the final note of Li occhi dolen
ti. In the last line the poet assigns to his canzone the label “disconsolata,” making it the emblem and spokes-person for the state of being inconsolable: “e tu, che se’ figliuola di tristizia,/vatten disconsolata a star con elle [and you, the daughter of despondency,/go off in misery to stay with them]” (75–6).120 It is not surprising that Li occhi dolenti, the first poem in morte and the quasi-official canzone of mourning for Beatrice, should end “disconsolata.” However, the great importance of Li occhi dolenti actually lies in the consolatio that, despite everything, it manages to find. This consolatio is provided not by others (Dante’s friend Cino da Pistoia, for instance),121 but, characteristically for Dante, by himself (the greatest example of self-consolation before the Commedia is the canzone of exile, Tre donne): this is the consolatio wrought by the poet’s imagination.

  47 (B XXV; FB 47; VN XXXI.8–17 [20.8–17])

  Li occhi dolenti per pietà del core hanno di lagrimar sofferta pena,

  My eyes, distraught by pity for my heart, have borne the suffering that weeping brings,

  3

  sì che per vinti son remasi omai. Ora, s’i’ voglio sfogar lo dolore, che a poco a poco a la morte mi mena,

  so that, exhausted, they concede defeat. And if I now should wish to vent my grief, which slowly though most surely leads to death,

  6

  convenemi parlar traendo guai. E perché me ricorda ch’io parlai de la mia donna, mentre che vivia, donne gentili, volentier con vui,

  I must lament with words while weeping tears. Since I remember how I used to speak about my lady willingly with you, my gentle ladies, while she was alive,

  10

  non voi parlare altrui, se non a cor gentil che in donna sia; e dicerò di lei piangendo, pui che si n’è gita in ciel subitamente,

  I choose to speak to none except a lady with a gentle heart. And I shall speak of her while weeping, since she’s gone away to heaven suddenly

  14

  e ha lasciato Amor meco dolente.

  and left Love here with me in misery.

  Ita n’è Beatrice in l’alto cielo, nel reame ove li angeli hanno pace,

  Beatrice has gone to heaven on high, the kingdom where the angels dwell in peace;

  17

  e sta con loro, e voi, donne ha lassate: no la ci tolse qualità di gelo né di calore, come l’altre face,

  she lives with them, and leaves you ladies here: no property of heat or cold took her away from us, as it has taken others;

  20

  ma solo fue sua gran benignitate; ché luce de la sua umilitate passò li cieli con tanta vertute, che fé maravigliar l’etterno Sire,

  it was alone her great kind-heartedness, because a ray of her humility traversed the heavens with such radiance it filled the Everlasting Lord with awe,

  24

  sì che dolce disire lo giunse di chiamar tanta salute; e fella di qua giù a sé venire, perché vedea ch’esta vita noiosa

  so that a sweet desire moved Him to summon so much worthiness; he made her come to him from here below, because he knew this world of wretchedness

  28

  non era degna di sì gentil cosa.

  was undeserving of so fine a being.

  Partissi de la sua bella persona piena di grazia l’anima gentile,

  Her tender, noble soul so full of grace departed from her lovely human form

  31

  ed èssi gloriosa in loco degno. Chi no la piange, quando ne ragiona, core ha di pietra sì malvagio e vile,

  and lives in glory in a worthy place. Whoever speaks of her and fails to weep betrays a heart of stone so vile and base

  34

  ch’entrar no i puote spirito benegno. Non è di cor villan sì alto ingegno, che possa imaginar di lei alquanto, e però no li ven di pianger doglia:

  that no kind spirit penetrates inside. No evil heart could have sufficient wit to figure forth an image of her worth, and so it feels no grief for which to weep;

  38

  ma ven tristizia e voglia di sospirare e di morir di pianto, e d’onne consolar l’anima spoglia chi vede nel pensero alcuna volta

  but anguish and desire to sigh and then to die from weeping tears, depriving their own soul of all relief, arise in those who see at times in thought

  42

  quale ella fue, e com’ella n’è tolta.

  her essence and how she was torn from us.

  Dannomi angoscia li sospiri forte, quando ’l pensero ne la mente grave

  My sighing makes me grieve convulsively when thinking brings back to my weary mind

  45

  mi reca quella che m’ha ’l cor diviso: e spesse fiate pensando a la morte, venemene un disio tanto soave,

  the thought of her who’s cleaved my heart in two: and many times while contemplating death, so sweet a longing makes its way to me

  48

  che mi tramuta lo color nel viso. E quando ’l maginar mi ven ben fiso, giugnemi tanta pena d’ogne parte, ch’io mi riscuoto per dolor ch’i’ sento;

  that all the colour in my face is lost. And when my thought is wholly fixed on her, from every side I’m so assailed by grief that I’m brought back by all the pain I feel;

  52

  e sì fatto divento, che da le genti vergogna mi parte. Poscia piangendo, sol nel mio lamento chiamo Beatrice e dico: “Or se’ tu morta?”;

  and such do I become that shame keeps me apart from everyone. Then weeping, all alone in my lament, I call to Beatrice: “Are you now dead?”

  56

  e mentre ch’io la chiamo, me conforta.

  And while I call on her she comforts me.

  Pianger di doglia e sospirar d’angoscia mi strugge ’l core ovunque sol mi trovo,

  To weep for grief and sigh from suffering destroys my heart whenever I’m alone,

  59

  sì che ne ’ncrescerebbe a chi m’audesse: e quale è stata la mia vita, poscia che la mia donna andò nel secol novo,

  so anyone who heard me would take pity; and what my life’s become now ever since my lady passed into the other world,

  62

  lingua non è che dicer lo sapesse: e però, donne mie, pur ch’io volesse, non vi saprei io dir ben quel ch’io sono, sì mi fa travagliar l’acerba vita;

  there is no tongue that has the power to tell: and so, my ladies, even if I wished, I could not tell you what I have become, so much life’s bitterness distresses me;

  66

  la quale è sì ’nvilita, che ogn’om par che mi dica: “Io t’abbandono”, veggendo la mia labbia tramortita. Ma qual ch’io sia, la mia donna il si vede,

  for it is so debased that those who see the pallor in my face appear to tell me: “I abandon you.” But what I have become my lady knows,

  70

  e io ne spero ancor da lei merzede.

  and I still hope to gain her clemency.

  Pietosa mia canzone, or va piangendo; e ritruova le donne e le donzelle

  My somber song, I bid you now weep tears, and go and find the ladies and the girls

  73

  a cui le tue sorelle erano usate di portar letizia; e tu, che se’ figliuola di tristizia,

  to whom your sister poems were sent as messengers of happiness; and you, the daughter of despondency,

  76

  vatten disconsolata a star con elle.

  go off in misery to stay with them.

  METRE: canzone of five stanzas, each composed of fourteen verses (thirteen hendecasyllables and one settenario), with rhyme scheme ABC ABC CDEeDEFF and congedo XYyZZY. The fronte is six verses (3 + 3) and the sirma is eight verses.

  48 Venite a ’ntender li sospiri miei

  First Redaction

  The sonnet Venite a ’ntender li sospiri miei was placed in Vita Nuova XXXII (21), where it reprises the theme of mourning just treated in the great canzone that comes before it. In the sonnet the poet addresses himself to the “cor’ gentili [gracious hearts]” (2), as in Li occhi dolenti he had addressed the “donne gentili [gentle ladies]” (9),
and invites them, since pity requires it, to “ ’ntender li sospiri miei … li quali sconsolati vanno via [listen to the sighs that issue forth in discontent]” (3). The adjective “sconsolati,” here applied to the lover’s sighs, echoes “disconsolata” in Li occhi dolenti, where it appears in the final verse with reference to the canzone itself (“vatten disconsolata a star con elle [go off in misery to stay with them]” [76]). This formal resumption of the end of Li occhi dolenti in the first quatrain of Venite a ’ntender indicates that the sonnet functions as a seal of the funereal canzone in the Vita Nuova’s overall economy.

  The painful weeping of Li occhi dolenti is heard again in the obsessive repetition of piangere that closes the octave of Venite a ’ntender: “lasso!, di pianger sì la donna mia / che sfogassen lo cor piangendo lei [alas, by weeping for my lady in a way / that brings my heart relief by dint of tears]” (7–8). We note the lexical similarity of the apotheosis of madonna in the sonnet and in the canzone: “la qual se n’è ita/al loco degno della sua virtute [who has left this world behind / and gone where her perfection is esteemed]” (Venite a ’ntender, 10–11) echoes “Ita n’è Beatrice in l’alto cielo [Beatrice has gone to heaven on high]” (Li occhi dolenti, 15). The fundamental idea of calling her occurs in both texts: “chiamar sovente / la nostra donna [often calling on my love,/the lady]” in Venite a ’ntender (9–10) recalls “e mentre ch’io la chiamo, me conforta [and while I call on her she comforts me]” in Li occhi dolenti (56).