Jacopo da Lentino. “Sonnet. No Jewel is worth his Lady.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbadeffed
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Bibliography

“Table of Poets” in Early Italian Poets vol. 1, xxvi-xxvii.

◦ Valeriani and Lampredi, Poeti del primo secolo vol. 1, 302.

◦ Panvini Le rime della scuola siciliana vol. 1, 55.

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

DGR's translation of the original sonnet is exceedingly free, even in the deployment of its rhymes. But the result is so successful as poetry, particularly the exquisite sestet, that one can hardly find fault with the liberties he took.

The source text is Poeti del Primo Secolo (I. 302).

Textual History: Composition

As with most of DGR's translations of the early Italian poets, the date of this cannot be precisely determined. It is probably an early translation.

Printing History

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 164d-1861.raw.xml