The translation is a splendid tour de force rendering of the
rhyme scheme and metrical form of Cavalcanti's ballata. Some of the verbal
renderings are quite free but equally admirable for that—as in lines 3-4, where
the Italian would be ludicrous if translated literally. Elsewhere DGR chooses, I think
rightly, to stay fairly close to the literal sense even when the meaning and form is
archaic and artificial (e.g., lines 15-16). In such cases the Italian itself flaunts its own
mannered character. The occasion of the ballad is the same as
It's worth mentioning that Cavalcanti's argument here implicitly supports the
central ideas in Dante's work, particularly in the
DGR's source text in
DGR projected two pictures to illustrate this poem but neither was executed. See WMR's
Date of composition uncertain; perhaps late 1840s. The only manuscript related to the poem that survives is
a
The pictures that were to accompany the text were probably conceived around 1855. According to WMR (see his edition of MANDETTA, of Thoulouse,
‘sweetly kirtled and enlaced,
’ with Love in an architectural background, the Daurade, and Giovanna weeping on the other side. Or, Giovanna and Mandetta together, developing the likeness. (Guido Cavalcanti.)” DGR then went on to describe a second possible picture: “For the ‘
’ subject.—The two ladies to be very
uniform in action. The well and figures to be more at one side of
the picture, and the rest occupying a clearer space as large in size as
possible. The Church of the Daurade to be the background—ladies
issuing from the porch, among them Mandetta; to whom Love,
draped, should be introduced by another lady, and offer her the ballad
on his knees. Other ladies in galleries, etc.”.
The translation was first published in 1861 in
The Early Italian Poets)