Commentary
Introduction
The sonnet is Cavalcanti's dark rejoinder to
Dante's sonnet inviting his friend to join him on a perpetual
voyage of love. The translation is considerably less successful than the original,
partly because DGR's source text, if not precisely corrupt, offers weaker readings
than scholars accept as authoritative (the source was Cicciaporci's
Rime di Guido Cavalcanti
(Sonnet XXVII, page 14). So, for example, in line 4 DGR's source has
“segno” instead of the now accepted and much less abstract reading
“legno”. Or consider line 3, where DGR renders “altra
sembianza” as “another brow”: here he clearly is trying to
introduce a realistic detail that will index the ground of Cavalcanti's critical reflection
on Dante's idealistic sonnet, but the detail is only formally “realistic”.
It's actual force is rather more “poetical” than otherwise.
The translation adheres strictly to the source's rhyme scheme.
Textual History: Composition
This is an early translation, late 1840s.
Textual History: Revision
Printing History
The translation was first published in 1861 in
The
Early Italian Poets
; it was reprinted in 1874 in
Dante
and his Circle
.
Bibliographic
“Introduction
to Part II” (in
The Early Italian Poets),
193-206
Contini,
Poeti de Duecento
,
II. 545
Cassata,
Guido Cavalcanti. Rime
, 182-184