The lover writes this sonnet, according to the prose explanation that precedes, because a friend, having read “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore” (which by this time had become well-known), asked him for his definition of love. And the protagonist decided that, after having treated the theme of Beatrice’s excellence, it would be fitting to treat of love in general. We must wonder how anybody who truly appreciated the originality and power of this, one of the greatest canzoni in Italian literature, could suggest that its author return to the stale practice of offering a definition of love. But it is even more surprising that the author of “Donne ch’avete intelletto d’amore” should be interested in fulfilling his friend’s request. If he believed that he could revitalize this conventional theme, as Guinizelli had done so magnificently in his famous canzone (“Al cor gentil …”), the reader of the Vita nuova might understand his decision, but in the sonnet which the protagonist wrote, supposedly following his friend’s suggestion, the staleness is unmitigated; the lack of poetic inspiration is obvious. And it suffers painfully from its immediate juxtaposition with the canzone. To this, one cannot object that the poem may well have been one of the young Dante’s earliest poems, for it was the older Dante that decided on such a juxtaposition, just as he decided to give the rather witless motivation for its composition that he did. The author of the Vita nuova chose to place one of the weakest poems he had ever written where he did to indicate a decline of the protagonist’s creative powers after the high point reached in his first canzone. Just how long this diminution of his powers may have lasted is not made specific, but it seems clear that the lover of Beatrice wrote nothing during the time his canzone was becoming known. And it would also seem that he was forced to accept gratefully a theme proposed by a friend, only indirectly related to his new program of praise, in order to start writing again.
It would seem, too, that the effort expended in producing this sonnet-by-request gives our protagonist a new momentum (for a while), even suggesting the way to return to his chosen theme: having described the power of any virtuous and beautiful woman, he tells us (XXI) he is inspired now to describe the far greater power of his own lady. He writes the graceful sonnet “Ne li occhi porta la mia donna amore” to be followed in Chapter XXVI by the exquisite “Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare” and the more modest “Vede perfettamente ogni salute.”
In carefully comparing these sonnets with the first canzone the reader can only feel, as has been said, that there has been a let-down, but, as we have just seen, these sonnets do not follow the canzone immediately. They follow the feeble sonnet written after the great falling away from the canzone, and as a continuation of this sonnet they represent an increase in poetic creativity. The protagonist was, after all, able to move upward for a second time and maintain himself on a relatively high plateau before he fell to the low level of the unfinished canzone (XXVII), in which he returns to the self-pity of the earlier years before embarking on his new program of praise.19
Between Chapters XXI and XXVI, containing the three sonnets of praise, come four more poems: two sonnets on the death of Beatrice’s father (XXII), the canzone describing the lover’s prophetic vision of Beatrice’s death (XXIII), and the sonnet dealing with his last vision of Love. Since none of these is a love poem the question of “praise” versus “self-pity” cannot arise. At the same time, however, it is true that the first two offered the protagonist an excellent opportunity to express indirectly whatever grief he may still have been feeling because of the loss of his lady’s greeting, channeling the main stream of his grief into tributaries, as it were.
In the prose of Chapter XXII we are told that the lover takes up his stand on a street by which most of the ladies who had gone to Beatrice’s home to mourn her father’s death would be likely to return. We watch three groups of ladies pass and hear them speak. The first group speak of Beatrice’s grief, the second of their own (and their words reduce him to tears); the third group turn their attention to the grief-stricken figure of the lover, whom they recognize, covering his face with his hands. They seem to wonder at his tears since he has not been privileged to see Beatrice weep; they also comment on the change he has undergone since they first knew him—we may be reminded of the three groups of ladies in Chapter XVIII. And as, continuing to speak, they leave him behind, he hears the sound of his name mingled with that of Beatrice.
Both of the poems in Chapter XXII are full of tears. In the first, where the lover pretends to address the grieving ladies who have come from the scene of Beatrice’s grief, it is her tears and theirs that are described; in the last line only is there a reference to the feelings of the protagonist touched by the ladies’ grief:
lo veggio li occhi vostri c’hanno pianto
e veggiovi tornar sì sfigurate,
che ’l cor mi triema di vederne tanto.
(I see your eyes, I see how they have wept,
and how you come retreating all undone;
my heart is touched and shaken at the sight.)
But the reader is made aware of the vicarious pleasure the lover is experiencing as he dwells at length on the mourners’ expressions of grief. In the second sonnet, in which he pretends that the ladies returning from Beatrice address him, the first two quatrains are devoted to his own grief:
Se’ tu colui c’hai trattato sovente
di nostra donna, sol parlando a nui?
Tu risomigli a la voce ben lui,
ma la figura ne par d’altra gente.
E perché piangi tu sì coralmente,
che fai di te pietà venire altrui?
Vedestù pianger lei, che tu non pui
punto celar la dolorosa mente?
(Are you the one that often spoke to us
about our lady, and to us alone?
Your tone of voice, indeed, resembles his,
but in your face we find another look.
Why do you weep so bitterly? Pity
would melt the heart of anyone who sees you.
Have you seen her weep, too, and now cannot
conceal from us the sorrow in your heart?)
It is true that these words are put into the mouths of the ladies; the poet-lover does not speak in his own voice to describe his grief. But what he has done instead makes us even more aware of his self-centeredness: he has offered us a picture of himself as seen by others, he has made of himself a theatrical figure of grief—a grief which supposedly has so ravaged his features as to make him all but unrecognizable. Not only does his sorrow over Beatrice’s father as it is portrayed here strike the reader as excessive: one must also wonder why, in this account of the protagonist’s experience as a lover, two poems have been inspired by the father’s death. One can only conclude that the occasion offered him the excuse to treat a favorite theme without directly expressing his own feelings. (Ultimately the two poems are artistically justified: concerned as they are with the theme “death of a loved one,” they serve to anticipate the canzone that immediately follows, containing the lover’s vision of Beatrice’s death.20)
After learning of his lady’s death, which seems to take place between chapters XXVII and XXVIII, somewhere outside of the world of the Vita nuova, the protagonist writes three chapters without a poem. In the first he announces with composure the calling to glory of Beatrice, and enumerates the reasons for not discussing this event; in the second he offers a brief treatise on the significance of the number nine and its relationship to Beatrice; in the third he tells us of having written to the “great of the land” about the desolation of Florence after Beatrice’s death.
These three chapters following the death of Beatrice constitute the most arid portion of the Vita nuova. No reader can fail to notice the chill of this opening part of the final section of Dante’s Book of Memory, and the contrast it offers to the poem that has just preceded. Has the shock of Beatrice’s death numbed the protagonist’s feelings (if not his memory)? Or has he, feeling shame over the self-pitying mood in which he was caught by the
news of her death, resolved to banish all thoughts about his own condition? To one who reads carefully the opening lines of Chapter XXX the first suggestion is patently false; the second is closer to the truth.
Poi che fue partita da questo secolo, rimase tutta la sopra-detta cittade quasi vedova dispogliata da ogni dignitade; onde io, ancora lagrimando in questa desolata citade …
(After she had departed from this world, the aforementioned city was left as if a widow, stripped of all dignity, and I, still weeping in this barren city….)
Evidently, ever since the moment that the lover heard about Beatrice’s death he has been weeping, forcing himself, while he wept, to think beyond his tears; he wrote his Latin letter “ancora lagrimando.” Because of this ancora we can reread Chapter XXVIII with more sympathy, and with admiration for the task which he had stoically imposed upon himself in what were perhaps his moments of deepest grief.
Up to the “ancora lagrimando” of Chapter XXX the lover had been able since the death of his lady to completely hide his tears from us; and after this passing, almost casual, reference to his anguish he is able to continue the chapter imperturbably to its pedantic end. But in Chapter XXXI his self-control breaks down completely. In the tear-drenched narrative of this chapter, redolent of emotional decay, the poet-lover announces the inspiration of what will turn out to be his third and last canzone: since his eyes are too wept-out to relieve his feelings, he hopes this relief may be obtained by writing a sad poem about Beatrice and the destructive effects on him of his grief. And in order that the melancholy effect of his poem might linger on, unchecked by the usual divisione, he decides to get it out of the way before the poem begins.
The first stanza opens with a reference to his grieving eyes that wish to weep, continues with an evocation of the ladies with whom he used to speak of Beatrice alive, and ends with the announcement that his theme will be the ascension of Beatrice’s soul to Heaven. The second stanza, fittingly enough, is concerned with his lady in glory. The third stanza follows without a break as if to invite the reader to continue to meditate on the theme of Beatrice in glory. But then come the harsh lines:
Chi no la piange quando ne ragiona,
core ha di pietra si malvagio e vile
ch’entrar no i puote spirito benegno.
(Who speaks of her and does not speak in tears
has a vile heart, insensitive as stone
which never can be visited by love.)
And, after more flagellation of the wicked hearts that do not weep for Beatrice, the stanza ends with the tears and moans of the pure-hearted who must of necessity weep. From this suggestion of a potentially universal grief, the poet returns, in stanza IV, to the theme of his personal anguish, and to this theme he devotes entirely the last two stanzas, ending with an appeal to Beatrice for mercy. The last word of the stanza is merzede, so reminiscent of the lover’s earlier attitude.
The first of the three canzoni contained an anticipation of the death of Beatrice: in the second stanza was powerfully described the eagerness of Heaven to call her: excited by the splendor of her radiance that has penetrated Heaven from Earth, the angels recognized the miracle of Beatrice. Now, time has passed and Heaven has its wish: Beatrice has ascended to where the beam of her radiance had preceded her. Here in the third canzone, the theme of which is announced as the ascent of Beatrice to Heaven, the poet-lover has the opportunity (in fact, his choice of theme was a direct challenge to his powers) to offer a climactic treatment of Beatrice in glory, the realization of Heaven’s wish. But the potential sublimity of the theme he has chosen not only does not inspire him to transcend his personal grief in the two final stanzas: even in the single stanza devoted to his theme he can only repeat, much less powerfully, with much less conviction, the theme of the second stanza of his first canzone. Compare with that picture of Heaven’s eagerness to receive Beatrice, the picture offered in the third canzone of the fulfillment of Heaven’s wish:
Ita n’è Beatrice in alto cielo,
nel reame ove li angeli hanno pace,
e sta con loro, e voi, donne, ha lassate:
no la ci tolse qualità di gelo
né di calore, come l’altre face,
ma solo fue sua gran benignitate;
ché luce de la sua umilitate
passò li cieli con tanta vertute,
che fè maravigliar l’etterno sire,
sì che dolce disire
lo giunse di chiamar tanta salute;
e fella di qua giù a sé venire,
perché vedea ch’esta vita noiosa
non era degna di sì gentil cosa.
(Beatrice has gone home to highest Heaven,
into the peaceful realm where angels live;
she is with them; she has left you, ladies, here.
No quality of heat or cold took her
away from us, as is the fate of others;
it was her great unselfishness alone.
For the pure light of her humility
shone through the heavens with such radiance,
it even made the Lord Eternal marvel;
and then a sweet desire
moved Him to summon up such blessedness;
and from down here He had her come to Him,
because He knew this wretched life on earth
did not deserve to have her gracious presence.)
To state seriously that Beatrice died because of her virtues and not because of the extremes of the climate of Florence is to show lack of poetic inspiration. And this statement is followed by a rather flat summary of the situation so gloriously described in the first canzone; the last three lines simply bring the reader up to date. This poem, because of the opportunity which was offered by its theme but not exploited, surely exposes the inadequacy of the poet-lover’s inspiration.
The poem that follows this canzone, “Venite ad intender li sospiri miei,” was written, so Dante tells us in the prose, at the request of Beatrice’s brother. The poem speaks of the lover’s tears, of his sighs calling upon his lady, of his grief that leads to a desire for death. The following poem (representing the first two stanzas of a canzone), also written for the brother, begins with the same dreary tone: “Quantunque volte, lasso, mi rimembra.” This continues into the second stanza—which ends, however, on a quite different note:
perché ’l piacere de la sua bieltate,
partendo sé da la nostra veduta,
divenne spiritai bellezza grande,
che per lo cielo spande
luce d’amor, che li angeli saluta,
e lo intelletto loro alto, sottile
face maravigliar, sì v’è gentile.
(This is because the beauty of her grace,
withdrawing from the sight of men forever,
became transformed to beauty of the soul,
diffusing through the heavens
a light of love that greets the angels there,
moving their subtle, lofty intellects
to marvel at this miracle of grace.)
In the last five lines we have the picture of Beatrice radiant in Heaven that the poet-lover was not able to achieve in the third canzone.
Perhaps encouraged by this slight success he begins a sonnet continuing the same theme in the same tone:
Era venuta ne la mente mia
la gentil donna che per suo valore
fu posta da l’altissimo signore
nel ciel de l’umilitate, ov’è Maria.
(Into my mind had come the gracious image
of the lady who, rewarded for her virtue,
was called by His most lofty Majesty
to the calm realm of Heaven where Mary reigns.)
But this is the ill-fated sonnet with two beginnings, the second of which cancels out the first:
Secondo cominciamento
Era venuta ne la mente mia
quella donna gentil cui piange Amore,
entro ’n quel punto che lo suo valore
vi trasse a riguardar quel ch’eo
facia.
Amor, che ne la mente la sentia,
s’era svegliato nel destrutto core,
e diceva a’ sospiri: “Andate fore;”
per che ciascun dolente si partia.
Piangendo uscivan for de lo mio petto
con una voce che sovente mena
le lagrime dogliose a li occhi tristi.
Ma quei che n’uscian for con maggior pena,
venian dicendo: “Oi nobile intelletto,
oggi fa l’anno che nel del salisti.”
Second beginning
Into my mind had come the gracious image
of the lady for whom Love still sheds his tears,
just when you were attracted by her virtue
to come and see what I was doing there.
Love, who perceived her presence in my mind,
and was aroused within my ravaged heart,
commanded all my sighs: “Go forth from here!”
And each one started on his grieving way.
Lamenting, they came pouring from my heart,
together in a single voice (that often
brings painful tears to my melancholy eyes);
but those escaping with the greatest pain
were saying: “This day, O intellect sublime,
completes a year since you rose heavenward.”)
The glimpse of Heaven offered by the first is eclipsed by a picture of Love in tears. And it is clearly not the first beginning but the second which sets the tone for the rest of this sad sonnet, which stresses not only the lover’s grief but its destructive effect on his psyche—a sonnet written to commemorate the first anniversary of Beatrice’s ascent to Heaven.
This bicipitous confession of failure is followed immediately by the poems describing his infidelity to Beatrice: the next five chapters with their five sonnets will tell of the lover’s infatuation with “the lady at the window” and his recovery therefrom. In Chapter XXXV he catches sight of a lady looking down at him from her window, observing his sad attitude with an expression of pity. Though he turns away in order to hide his abject state, he tells himself as he leaves that there must be perfect love in the heart of such a compassionate lady. A sudden glance at a stranger’s face, a sudden welling up of tears, results in the immediate conviction that the pity he has seen must be a warrant of the noblest kind of love! At least, however, he confesses for the first time to self-pity as a weakness from which all men may suffer: “…quando li miseri veggiono di loro compassione altrui, piu tosto si muovono a lagrimare, quasi come di se stessi avendo pietade…” He retells this event in the first of the four sonnets concerned with his new love.
Dante’s Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay Page 16