38 (B LXX; C 23; FB 38; DR 56)
Onde venite voi così pensose? Ditemel, s’a voi piace, in cortesia, ch’i’ ho dottanza che·lla donna mia
Where have you been that makes you so distraught? Please tell me, in the name of courtesy, because I fear my lady is the reason
4
non vi faccia tornar così dogliose. Deh gentil donne, non siate sdegnose né di ristare alquanto in questa via e dire al doloroso che disia
your return is burdened with such pain. Ah, noble ladies, don’t disdain my plea to pause a while along the path you take to have a word with one who’s suffering
8
udir della suo donna alquante cose,
and longs to have some news about his lady,
avegna che gravoso m’è l’udire: sì·mm’ha in tutto Amor da·ssé scacciato
though hearing it may well be hard to bear, since Love’s rejected me so utterly
11
ch’ogni suo atto mi trae a·fferire. Guardate bene s’i’ son consumato, ch’ogni mie spirto comincia a·ffuggire
that all his deeds are meant to bring me harm. Just see how wholly worn away I am, and know my spirits will begin to flee,
14
se da voi, donne, non son confortato.
if you, dear ladies, do not comfort me.
METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDC DCD. See metrical notation to Voi che portate.
39 Voi donne, che pietoso atto mostrate
Voi donne, che pietoso atto mostrate concentrates within itself the imaginary tenzone enacted by the two sonnets set in Vita Nuova XXII (13), Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui. The octave of Voi donne contains the questions that the poet addresses to the ladies (elaborated in Voi che portate), and the sestet contains their response (elabo-rated in Se’ tu colui), leading Contini to the conclusion that “Voi donne is certainly prior to the final arrangement” (p. 76). Even if generally considered superior to the preceding sonnet, given the excessive self-pity of Onde venite, Voi donne still demonstrates clear traces of inadequacy with respect to the theme that dominates Vita Nuova XXII (13): the theme of public mourning, which will be taken up again at the end of the libello in Deh pellegrini che pensosi andate. Again, as with Onde venite, the problem is one of focus. The poet begins by referring to madonna’s grief – “chi è ’sta donna che giace sì vinta? [Who is this lady lying fallen here?]” (2) – but then changes direction to focus on the relationship that ties the beloved to him, falling back on the old Sicilian topos of the lady painted in the heart of her lover: “Sarebbe quella ch’è nel mio cor pinta? [Is she the one who’s painted in my heart?]” (3).
There are other interesting features that suggest Voi donne was written before Dante had fully conceptualized the situation of Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui, two sonnets that breathe life into the topic of mourning as a public event and into the dynamic (seen in a quasi-anthropological light) between those who can participate in the corrotto and those who – like the poet himself – cannot. Above all, Voi donne conjures an implausible situation, for in Voi donne the lover is physically present in the space where the beloved is. In other words, the grieving lady is not physically distant from the man who observes her, and the questions put by the lover to the lady’s companions aim at verifying what he indeed already knows:
Deh, s’ell’è dessa, più non me ·l celate.
Ben ha le sue sembianze sì cambiate
e la figura sua mi par sì spenta,
ch’al mio parere ella non rapresenta
quella che fa parer l’altre beate.
(Voi donne, 4–8)
[Ah, if it’s she, do not hide her from me.
Her features are so utterly transformed,
her look so changed, that she no longer seems
to me to bear the likeness of the one
who makes all others shine with blessedness.]
A situational analysis offers further confirmation of Contini’s suggestion that this poem was written before the two on the same topic that were placed in the Vita Nuova. If the poet can imagine himself in the presence of his grieving lady it means that he has not yet devised the basic situation of Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui, which is founded on actual social convention: the strict separation of men and women that was imposed by contemporary social customs. In Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui Dante dramatizes the rigid boundaries that he opposes – at least in his imagination. If he is in the same room with madonna, all this vanishes: there is no boundary to transgress.
And in fact there is no reprimand in Voi donne, as there is in Se’ tu colui. “Non pianger più, tu sè già tutto sfatto [but weep no more, for you are quite destroyed]” (14), addressed by the ladies to the poet in Voi donne, is a comforting gesture, not a rebuke, as in the parallel verse of Se’ tu colui: “Lascia piangere noi [Leave weeping to us]” (9). In Voi donne the “do not weep” motif belongs to the ladies’ attempt to comfort the lover, who is “quite destroyed,” and is a development of the situation of Onde venite, where the poet voices his wish to be comforted: “ch’ogni mie spirto comincia a·ffuggire / se da voi, donne, non son confortato [and know my spirits will begin to flee,/if you, dear ladies, do not comfort me]” (Onde venite, 13–14). In Se’ tu colui, by contrast, the “do not weep” motif functions not to comfort but to reprimand: you, man, do not belong to the group designated to do the weeping, so go back within your borders and “leave the weeping to us.”
The sonnets Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui are more realistic than Voi donne, in the sense that they reflect the real segregation of the sexes in Florentine society, while Voi donne takes place in an imaginary world in which the poet is free to go wherever he wants, even into madonna’s room. By inserting elements of daily life and of its governing social norms, Dante creates in Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui the dramatic tension that is lacking in Voi donne.
The true theme of Voi donne, in contrast to the theme of mourning that will be developed in Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui, is that of the relation between our self-representation and our self: if the outer features of madonna are “so transformed” (“sì cambiate”) that “she no longer seems / to me to bear the likeness of the one / who makes all others shine with blessedness” (7–8), is it possible that she is no longer she? In Italian these verses feature the verb rappresentare95 (“e la figura sua mi par sì spenta,/ch’al mio parere ella non rapresenta/quella che fa parer l’altre beate”), which helps us to see that the question here posed is: What is the relationship between our self-representation in the world and our essence? The ladies reassure the lover on the identity between figura and essence, telling him that they too could not recognize madonna when they first saw her (“Se nostra donna conoscer non pòi,/ch’è sì conquisa, non mi par gran fatto,/però che quel medesmo avenne a noi [It’s not at all surprising that you fail / to recognize our lady in this state,/because this happened just as well to us]” [9–11]), but add that if he looks carefully at her eyes, seeking her interiority, he will recognize her: “Ma se tu mirerai el gentil atto / degli occhi suoi, cognosceraila poi [But if you gaze upon the noble glance / of her sweet eyes, then you will know it’s she]” (12–13). The link between res and signum, between the physical manifestation of madonna and her essence, is intact: this is the actual comfort offered by Voi donne.
39 (B LXXI; C 24; FB 39; DR 65)
“Voi donne, che pietoso atto mostrate, chi è ’sta donna che giace sì vinta? Sarebbe quella ch’è nel mio cor pinta?
“You ladies who show pity in your eyes, who is this lady lying fallen here? Is she the one who’s painted in my heart?
4
Deh, s’ell’è dessa, più non me·l celate. Ben ha le sue sembianze sì cambiate e la figura sua mi par sì spenta, ch’al mio parere ella non rapresenta
Ah, if it’s she, do not hide her from me. Her features are so utterly transformed, her look so changed, that she no longer seems to me to bear the likeness of the one
8
quella che fa parer
l’altre beate.”
who makes all others shine with blessedness.”
“Se nostra donna conoscer non pòi, ch’è sì conquisa, non mi par gran fatto,
“It’s not at all surprising that you fail to recognize our lady in this state,
11
però che quel medesmo avenne a noi. Ma se tu mirerai el gentil atto degli occhi suoi, cognosceraila poi.
because this happened just as well to us. But if you gaze upon the noble glance of her sweet eyes, then you will know it’s she:
14
Non pianger più, tu sè già tutto sfatto.”
but weep no more, for you are quite destroyed.”
METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDC DCD. The B rhyme, where i rhymes with e, is Guittonian. See metrical notation to Voi che portate.
40 Donna pietosa e di novella etate
Of Donna pietosa, Foster-Boyde write that it has been “since the nineteenth century the most admired of Dante’s early canzoni” (p. 114). This popularity says much about the challenge represented by Donne ch’avete and its radical work of theologizing the courtly tradition, and by contrast indicates the more accessible nature of Donna pietosa, a canzone of pronounced narrativity and remarkable dramatic flourish. Although Donna pietosa is also highly theologized, its visionary fabric renders its “theology” less severe (more “Gothic,” in the nineteenth-century sense) and more responsive to our tastes than the sermonizing divinity of Donne ch’avete. Moreover, Dante’s dream of his dead lady, not only dead but dead and beautiful (“Morta è la donna tua, ch’era sì bella [Your lady’s dead, who was so beautiful]” [56]), confers a pathos, a tenderness, and a painterly quality on this canzone that again render it more appetizing to modern tastes (to say nothing of the early modern taste of Petrarch, the poet of “cosa bella mortal passa, et non dura [this beautiful mortal creature passes, and does not endure]” [Rvf 248.8]). The English painter and writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti, translator of both Donne ch’avete and Donna pietosa, did not paint the scene described in Donne ch’avete but painted several times a scene taken from Donna pietosa, which he entitled Dante’s Dream at the Time of the Death of Beatrice.
Placed by Dante in Vita Nuova XXIII (14), the second and longest canzone of the libello (Donna pietosa has six stanzas of fourteen lines each, while Donne ch’avete has five stanzas of the same length) is a lyric that in its story-telling narrativity verges on the cadences of prose, while at the same time maintaining an exquisite lyrical delicacy (created metrically by the presence of two settenari per stanza). For this reason also Donna pietosa merits its literally central position in a book that, being a prosimetrum, is a continuous meditation on the dialectic between prose and poetry, between the “distesa lingua” (Par. 11.23) of prose, “open” and unregulated, and poetry, defined as “quel parlare che ’n numeri e tempo regolato in rimate consonanze cade [speech whose cadences are regulated by rhythm and metre to produce rhymed consonances]” (Convivio 4.2.12).
The overlap between Donna pietosa and the prose that precedes it in Vita Nuova XXIII (14), “an unusually precise paraphrase” in the words of De Robertis (VN, p. 152), has caused critics to suspect that Donna pietosa was written specially for the Vita Nuova, at the same time as the prose: “the essential likeness of the two narratives [that of the prose and that of the canzone], both in terms of content and form (apart from the different listener), and ultimately the lack of any real gain in the prose … with respect to the canzone (a canzone that, moreover, has unusual narrative characteristics) – all this leads one to believe in a contemporaneity of inspiration of the two texts, as if both were composed for the Vita Nuova (which is not to say: in the order of the Vita Nuova)” (De Robertis, VN, p. 158).
The “contemporaneity of inspiration of the two texts” is a plausible thesis, although it cannot be verified and I will argue against it on a variety of grounds. There are a number of ways in which the prose adds to the poem, counter to De Robertis’ claim that there is a “lack of any real gain in the prose,” and one such divergence is critical: in the canzone Donna pietosa the name Beatrice is missing. Continually invoked in the prose that precedes it, the name of Beatrice is never present in the canzone. And we know that Dante is capable of naming Beatrice in early lyrics from this time period, because Lo doloroso amor pointedly includes her name: “‘Per quella moro c’ha nome Beatrice.’/Quel dolce nome che mi fa il cor agro [‘I die for her whose name is Beatrice.’/The sweet name that embitters so my heart]” (14–15). Li occhi dolenti, the Vita Nuova’s canzone-lament for Beatrice’s death, records the gentilissima’s name twice.
The lack of her name in the canzone Donna pietosa and its hyper-presence in the prose generate extremely divergent results. For instance, in the canzone Donna pietosa, a meditation on his own mortality leads the poet to think of the inexorable death of the beloved, “la mia donna”: “per che l’anima mia fu sì smarrita,/che sospirando dicea nel pensero:/‘Ben converrà che la mia donna mora’ [This made my soul so utterly distraught / I spoke these words, while sighing, in my thought./‘My lady someday surely has to die’]” (32–34). In the prose the same meditation and the same thought inexorably lead to Beatrice’s name: “Onde, sospirando forte, dicea fra me medesimo: ‘Di necessitade convene che la gentilissima Beatrice alcuna volta si muoia’ [Then, letting out a great sigh, I told myself: ‘There is no escaping the fact that the most gracious Beatrice will have to die some day’]” (VN XXIII.3 [14.3]).
The prose of Vita Nuova XXIII (14) begins wtih the “dolorosa infermitade [painful illness]” that strikes the poet and because of which he suffers “per nove dì amarissima pena [bitter pain for nine days in a row]”; on the ninth day the thought of his lady comes over him and with it awareness of the mortality of every living thing, including himself: “E quando ei pensato alquanto di lei, ed io ritornai pensando a la mia debilitata vita; e veggendo come leggiero era lo suo durare, ancora che sana fosse, sì cominciai a piangere fra me stesso di tanta miseria [And after having thought about her for a while, I went back to thinking about my incapacitated life; and seeing how fleeting it was, even when it was healthy, I started to weep over such misery]” (VN XXIII.3 [14.3]). The thought of Beatrice makes the poet aware of universal entropy, signalled by the verb durare, present in the prose and in the canzone: “Mentr’io pensava a la mia frale vita,/e vedea ’l suo durar com’è leggiero [While I was thinking of my frail life,/and saw how my survival was unsure]” (29–30).
From the fleetingness of all life, the poet arrives at a realization of Beatrice’s death, expressed in the form of direct discourse: “dicea fra me medesimo: ‘Di necessitade convene che la gentilissima Beatrice alcuna volta si muoia’ [I told myself: ‘There is no escaping the fact that the most gracious Beatrice will have to die some day’]” (VN XXIII.3 [14.3]). The use of direct discourse is important; as I noted in the essay on the sonnet Ciò che m’incontra, direct discourse is a rhetorical marker of Dante’s mystical-visionary mode. Here it prepares for the transition from everyday reality to the alternative reality of Dante’s delirious visions: “E però mi giunse uno sì forte smarrimento, che chiusi li occhi e cominciai a travagliare sì come farnetica persona ed a imaginare in questo modo [As a result, such powerful turmoil came over me that I closed my eyes and started to suffer like a delirious person, imagining things]” (VN XXIII.4 [14.4]).
The adjective farnetico (delirious) and the verb farneticare (to be in a state of delirium) are present in Dante’s oeuvre only in the prose of this chapter of the Vita Nuova: “sì come farnetica persona [like a delirious person]” (XXIII.4 [14.4]), “poi che io lasciai questo farneticare [after I left off being in this state of delirium]” (XXIII.30 [14.30]). It is worth recalling that it is precisely this sort of behaviour, the farneticare recorded in another visionary text, A ciascun’alma, that arouses the contemptuous reaction of Dante da Maiano in his response to Alighieri’s sonnet: “sol c’hai farneticato, sappie, intendo [I only mean, please know, you were delirious]” (Di ciò che stato sè dimandat
ore, 11; see the introductory essay to A ciascun’alma). The careful use of the word farneticare in chapter XXIII (14) of the Vita Nuova, a text dedicated to the phenomenology of vision, would seem therefore to be a defense on Dante’s part of his youthful comportment: Dante da Maiano’s offensive use – “sol c’hai farneticato, sappie, intendo” – is here duly dismissed. To behave “sì come farnetica persona” is legitimate, as will be emphasized in the Commedia when the pilgrim is subject to ecstatic visions and walks “a guisa di cui vino o sonno piega [as one whom wine or sleep bends over]” (Purg. 15.123). To understand that there can be a legitimate farneticare it is, however, necessary to leave behind the intellectual provincialism of Dante da Maiano. It is also necessary to be less afraid of crossing gendered boundaries of comportment than Dante da Maiano appears to have been. As we can see from the discussion of the poems that precede Donna pietosa in the Vita Nuova, the mourning sonnets Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui, Dante Alighieri was not afraid to cross such boundaries.
At this point in the prose Dante begins the narration “de lo errare che fece la mia fantasia [of the wandering about of my fantasy]” (VN XXIII.4 [14.4]), elaborating the visions that are recounted more succinctly in the canzone. He imagines dishevelled women telling him that he will die, then that he is dead; he comes to an unknown place where he sees ladies crying on the street, the sun darkened so that the stars seem to weep, the birds falling dead, earthquakes. He imagines a male friend who tells him Beatrice has died. He begins to weep, not only within the fantasia but in real life. He looks up and sees multitudes of angels singing Osanna in excelsis. His heart then tells him that Beatrice lies dead. He goes to see her body and his erronea fantasia shows him Beatrice dead, and ladies covering her head with a white veil, and he sees her face and its expression. He then calls upon death. When he has completed all the tasks assigned to care for the bodies of the dead he imagines that he returns to his room, and there he looks at heaven and begins to speak to Beatrice.
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