The New Life (La Vita Nuova)

Images of the original pages are available through Internet Archive/American Libraries. See http://archive.org/details/newlifelavitanuo00dantrich The Siddal Edition THE NEW LIFE (LA VITA NUOVA) of DANTE ALIGHIERI Translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti Ellis and Elvey London 1899 Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury. _PREFATORY NOTE_ Dante Gabriel Rossetti, being the son of an Italian who was greatly immersed in the study of Dante Alighieri, and who produced a Comment on the _Inferno_, and other books relating to Dantesque literature, was from his earliest childhood familiar with the name of the stupendous Florentine, and to some extent aware of the range and quality of his writings. Nevertheless—or perhaps indeed it may have been partly on that very account—he did not in those opening years read Dante to any degree worth mentioning: he was well versed in Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Byron, and some other writers, years before he applied himself to Dante. He may have been fourteen years of age, or even fifteen (May 1843), before he took seriously to the author of the _Divina Commedia_. He then read him eagerly, and with the profoundest admiration and delight; and from the _Commedia_ he proceeded to the lyrical poems and the _Vita Nuova_. I question whether he ever read—unless in the most cursory way—other and less fascinating writings of Alighieri, such as the _Convito_ and the _De Monarchiâ_. From reading, Rossetti went on to translating. He translated at an early age, chiefly between 1845 and 1849, a great number of poems by the Italians contemporary with Dante, or preceding him; and, among other things, he made a version of the whole _Vita Nuova_, prose and verse. This may possibly have been the first important thing that he translated from the Italian: if not the first, still less was it the last, and it may well be that his rendering of the book was completed within the year 1846, or early in 1847. He did not, of course, leave his version exactly as it had come at first: on the contrary, he took counsel with friends (Alfred Tennyson among the number), toned down crudities and juvenilities, and worked to make the whole thing impressive and artistic—for in such matters he was much more chargeable with over-fastidiousness than with laxity. Still, the work, as we now have it, is essentially the work of those adolescent years—from time to time reconsidered and improved, but not transmuted. Some few years after producing his translation of the _Vita Nuova_, Rossetti was desirous of publishing it, and of illustrating the volume with etchings from various designs, which he had meanwhile done, of incidents in the story. This project, however, had to be laid aside, owing to want of means, and the etchings were never undertaken. It was only in 1861 that the volume named _The Early Italian Poets_, including the translated _Vita Nuova_, was brought out: the same volume, with a change in the arrangement of its contents, was reissued in 1874, entitled _Dante and his Circle_. This book, in its original form, was received with favour, and settled the claim of Rossetti to rank as a poetic translator, or indeed as a poet in his own right. For _The Early Italian Poets_ he wrote a Preface, from which a passage, immediately relating to the _Vita Nuova_, is extracted in the present edition. There are some other passages, affecting the whole of the translations in that volume, which deserve to be borne in mind, as showing the spirit in which he undertook the translating work, and I give them here:— “The life-blood of rhythmical translation is this commandment—that a good poem shall not be turned into a bad one. The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nation, as far as possible, with one more possession of beauty. Poetry not being an exact science, literality of rendering is altogether secondary to this chief law. I say _literality_,—not fidelity, which is by no means the same thing. When literality can be combined with what is thus the primary condition of success, the translator is fortunate, and must strive his utmost to unite them; when such object can only be obtained by paraphrase, that is his only path. Any merit possessed by these translations is derived from an effort to follow this principle.... The task of the translator (and with all humility be it spoken) is one of some self-denial. Often would he avail himself of any special grace of his own idiom and epoch, if only his will belonged to him: often would some cadence serve him but for his author’s structure—some structure but for his author’s cadence: often the beautiful turn of a stanza must be weakened to adopt some rhyme which will tally, and he sees the poet revelling in abundance of language where himself is scantily supplied. Now he would slight the matter for the music, and now the music for the matter; but no, he must deal to each alike. Sometimes too a flaw in the work galls him, and he would fain remove it, doing for the poet that which his age denied him; but no, it is not in the bond.” It may be as well to explain here a very small share which I myself took in the _Vita Nuova_ translation. When the volume _The Early Italian Poets_ was in preparation, my brother asked me (January 1861) to aid by “collating my _Vita Nuova_ with the original, and amending inaccuracies.” He defined the work further as follows: “What I want is that you should correct my translation throughout, removing inaccuracies and mannerisms. And, if you have time, it would be a great service to translate the analyses of the poems (which I omitted). This, however, if you think it desirable to include them. I did not at the time (on ground of readableness), but since think they may be desirable: only have become so unfamiliar with the book that I have no distinct opinion.” On January 25th he wrote: “Many and many thanks for a most essential service most thoroughly performed. I have not yet verified the whole of the notes, but I see they are just what I needed, and will save me a vast amount of trouble. I should very much wish that the translation were more literal, but cannot do it all again. _My_ notes, which you have taken the trouble of revising, are, of course, quite paltry and useless.” In order that the reader may judge as to this question of literality, I will give here the literal Englishing of the Sonnet at p. 38, and the paragraph which precedes it (I take the passage quite at random), and the reader can, if he likes, compare this rendering with that which appears in Dante Rossetti’s text:— “After the departure of this gentlewoman it was the pleasure of the Lord of the Angels to call to His glory a lady young and much of noble[1] aspect, who was very graceful in this aforesaid city: whose body I saw lying without the soul amid many ladies, who were weeping very piteously. Then, remembering that erewhile I had seen her keeping company with that most noble one, I could not withhold some tears. Indeed, weeping, I purposed to speak certain words about her death, in guerdon of my having at some whiles seen her with my lady. And somewhat of this I referred to in the last part of the words which I spoke of her, as manifestly appears to him who understands them: and then I composed these two Sonnets—of which the first begins, ‘Weep, lovers’—the second, ‘Villain Death.’ [1] _Gentile._ The word means “noble” rather than (in its modern shade of meaning) “gentle.” “Genteel” would sometimes apply, but has ceased to be admissible in serious writing. “Weep, lovers, since Love weeps,—hearkening what cause makes him wail: Love hears ladies invoking pity, showing bitter grief outwardly by the eyes; because villain Death has set his cruel working upon a noble heart, ruining that which in a noble lady is to be praised in the world, apart from honour. Hear how much Love did her honouring; for I saw him lamenting in very person over the dead seemly image: and often he gazed towards heaven, wherein was already settled the noble soul who had been a lady of such gladsome semblance.” It would be out of place to enter here into any detailed observations upon the _Vita Nuova_, its meaning, and the literature which has grown out of it. I will merely name, as obvious things for the English reader to consult, the translation which was made by Sir Theodore Martin; the essay by Professor C. Eliot Norton; the translations published by Dr. Garnett in his book entitled _Dante, Petrarch, Camoens, 124 Sonnets_, along with the remarks in his valuable _History of Italian Literature_; Scartazzini’s _Companion to Dante_; and the publications of the Rev. Dr. Moore, the foremost of our living Dante scholars. W. M. ROSSETTI. _August 1899._ _INTRODUCTION._ The _Vita Nuova_ (the Autobiography or Autopsychology of Dante’s youth till about his twenty-seventh year) is already well known to many in the original, or by means of essays and of English versions partial or entire. It is therefore, and on all accounts, unnecessary to say much more of the work here than it says for itself. Wedded to its exquisite and intimate beauties are personal peculiarities which excite wonder and conjecture, best replied to in the words which Beatrice herself is made to utter in the _Commedia_: “Questi _fù tal_ nella sua vita nuova.”[2] Thus then young Dante _was_. All that seemed possible to be done here for the work was to translate it in as free and clear a form as was consistent with fidelity to its meaning; and to ease it, as far as possible, from notes and encumbrances. [2] “Purgatorio,” C. xxx. It may be noted here how necessary a knowledge of the _Vita Nuova_ is to the full comprehension of the part borne by Beatrice in the _Commedia_. Moreover, it is only from the perusal of its earliest and then undivulged self-communings that we can divine the whole bitterness of wrong to such a soul as Dante’s, its poignant sense of abandonment, or its deep and jealous refuge in memory. Above all, it is here that we find the first manifestations of that wisdom of obedience, that natural breath of duty, which afterwards, in the _Commedia_, lifted up a mighty voice for warning and testimony. Throughout the _Vita Nuova_ there is a strain like the first falling murmur which reaches the ear in some remote meadow, and prepares us to look upon the sea. Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, tells us that the great poet, in later life, was ashamed of this work of his youth. Such a statement hardly seems reconcilable with the allusions to it made or implied in the _Commedia_; but it is true that the _Vita Nuova_ is a book which only youth could have produced, and which must chiefly remain sacred to the young; to each of whom the figure of Beatrice, less lifelike than lovelike, will seem the friend of his own heart. Nor is this, perhaps, its least praise. To tax its author with effeminacy on account of the extreme sensitiveness evinced by this narrative of his love, would be manifestly unjust, when we find that, though love alone is the theme of the _Vita Nuova_, war already ranked among its author’s experiences at the period to which it relates. In the year 1289, the one preceding the death of Beatrice, Dante served with the foremost cavalry in the great battle of Campaldino, on the eleventh of June, when the Florentines defeated the people of Arezzo. In the autumn of the next year, 1290, when for him, by the death of Beatrice, the city as he says “sat solitary,” such refuge as he might find from his grief was sought in action and danger: for we learn from the _Commedia_ (Hell, C. xxi.)