Guido Orlandi. “Sonnet (to Dante da Maiano). He interprets the Dream related in the foregoing Sonnet [Sonnet. He craves interpreting of a Dream of his.]”

Guido Orlandi's sonnet, as DGR's note to the poem indicates, is a reply to Dante Da Maiano's sonnet “Provvedi saggio ad esta visione”. Orlandi does not respond in kind to Dante da Maiano's parodic work, which he censures sternly. Although DGR's primary sympathies are with the serious treatment of ideal love themes, it's clear he takes some delight in Maiano's irreverence and regards Orlandi's sonnet as the work of a “bore”. Compare DGR's interesting pair of sonnets “Parted Love” and its parodic mirror “Parted Love!”.

The source text for this somewhat free translation was Poeti del Primo Secolo (II. 274).

Probably an early composition, late 1840s.

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