Disio Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1 1848; 1868 March (recovered)
abbaabbacddccd iambic pentameter sonnet
<artist/> <location/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnpictorial> <citnmythic> <name/> <culture/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnmythic> <citnhistorical> <event/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnhistorical> <citnautobiographical> <name/> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnautobiographical> <citnscenic> <place/> <date/> <bibl/> <note/> </citnscenic> </listcitn> </source> <commentaries> <head>Commentary</head> <section type="intro"> <head>Introduction</head> <p>When first composed, the sonnet formed a pair with the sonnet <xref doc="a.48-1869.raw">Compenso</xref>. There are multiple manuscript copies of both, though DGR left them unpublished.</p> </section> <section type="texthistcomp"> <head>Textual History: Composition</head> <p>DGR dates this sonnet March 1868 in the cancelled Fitzwilliam Museum text but that date signals when he recovered the sonnet and thought to rework it for publication in his 1870 <xref doc="a.1-1870.raw"> <title level="wrk"> <hi rend="i">Poems</hi> . The sonnet, like its companion, was originally written in 1848 (see commentary for “Compenso” ).

Textual History: Revision

Production History

Reception

Iconographic

Printing History

Baum was the first to print a text of this work and its companion sonnet in 1931 in his <hi rend="i">Analytical List of Manuscripts in the Duke University Library</hi> , 53-54 .

Pictorial

Historical

Literary

Translation

O mouth that in the hour of desireI have studied so often and gained peace,how the many spirits of the fixated eyekiss at all hours, and always my lip,— Ah, mouth, what pleasure I desire from you,O what hope that would not fail,or what smile like yours, tell me if it pleases you,and what words, through the power of God's love? Alas poor hope! and how can I thinkTo join peace, with its closely folded wings,to these twin smiling portals?The more erotically intense each wordseems, alas the more it becomes for usthe source of the silence of death.

Autobiographical

Bibliographic

Fitzwilliam Manuscript text avorte: Baum prints the word as “acorte”, but that word is meaningless in Italian. The emendation is conjectural. ,Fitzwilliam Manuscript text A Doctor's Advice Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1866 0 Disio Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1868 0 The Bodleian Notebook (“Kelmscott Love Sonnets”) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1874 0 Poems and Sonnets (Fitzwilliam Museum bound volume of miscellaneous poems) DGR 1848-1881 0 Sonnets by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (Tinker Library, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University) Dante Gabriel Rossetti 1848-50 0