As DGR's headnote to this extended sonnet shows, he believed it was written in
response to tenzone that was initiated in other sonnets translated by DGR, but
which he did not realize were part of a longer unit of poetical exchanges between the
two men (see
DGR varies the rhyme scheme of the original, but (as usual) in a way that adheres to typical early Italian form.
DGR's source text was
Poeti
del Primo Secolo
Probably an early translation, late 1840s.
The translation was first published in 1861 in
The
Early Italian Poets
Dante
and his Circle
Early Italian Poets)Poeti de Duecento
Guido Cavalcanti.
Rime