Repository path: workshop/translations/vita-nuova/R04-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

«Vita Nova» XXIV–XXVI — the whole of three chapters, R04

• Work: Dante Alighieri, «Vita Nova» (c. 1292–4), chapters XXIV, XXV and XXVI complete, including the two divisioni the copy-text prints as footnotes.
• Source: ../source-it-xxiv-xxvi.txt, blocks v1–v12 — 1,715 Italian words, from the 1829 Pesaro text as transcribed at it.wikisource.org, collated in this span against the 1829 scan's own OCR (three eyeskips in the transcription found and repaired; the list is at the foot of the source file).
• Regime: R04 (lead close translation, source only). The draft was frozen first as T-vita-nuova-R06-v1 at 84dd1e9b, before the self-revision began.
• Translated by: the lead agent, in session, from the Italian alone. Cost $0, not ledgered.
• Contamination: suspected — see §Contamination below for the measurement, which was made after the freeze.
• Lineage: first rendering of this work in the project. No earlier lead version exists.
• Evaluation: none designed. The lead never judges its own translation (charter §5). The seven Latin loci in this span are reported as a labelled fifth hand in RS-20260903-latin-in-italian, alongside four published hands, and are never pooled with them.

XXIV

After this imagining it happened one day that, being deep in thought in a certain place, I felt a tremor come into my heart, as though I had been in that lady's presence. Then, I say, an imagining of Love came to me: I seemed to see him coming from that quarter where my lady was, and it seemed that he said to me gladly, within my heart: think to bless the day I took you, for you are bound to. And truly my heart seemed to me so glad that it did not seem to be my heart, so new was its condition. And a little after these words that my heart said to me in Love's tongue, I saw a beauty come towards me who had many a time been the lady of that first friend of mine. And this lady's name was Giovanna, except that for her beauty — so others believe — the name Primavera had been laid on her, and so she was called. And looking beyond her I saw the marvellous Beatrice coming. These two passed by me, one behind the other, and it seemed that Love spoke to me and said: That first one is called Primavera only for this coming of today; for it was I who moved the giver of the name to call her Primavera — that is, prima verrà, she will come first — on the day Beatrice shows herself after her faithful one's imagining. And if you will also consider her original name, it comes to as much as saying Primavera; because her name Giovanna is from that Giovanni who went before the true light, saying: Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini. And it also seemed that he said these words to me: And anyone who would consider it subtly would call that Beatrice Love, for the many likenesses she has to me. Whereupon, thinking it over, I resolved to write of it in rhyme to my first friend — passing over certain words that seem best passed over — believing that his heart was still gazing on the beauty of this gentle Primavera; and I said this sonnet:

I felt awaken in my heart a loving spirit that had been asleep; and then I saw Love coming from far off, so glad I hardly knew him for himself, saying: Now only think to do me honour — and every word of his was laughing. And, my lord being a short while with me, and I looking to the quarter whence he came, I saw monna Vanna and monna Bice coming towards the place where I then was, one marvel and then the other marvel. And, as my memory says it over to me, Love said: This one is Primavera, and that one has the name of Love; so like me is she.

[The copy-text prints what follows as a footnote to the sonnet.] This sonnet has many parts. The first of them tells how I felt the accustomed trembling wake in my heart, and how it seemed that Love appeared to me, glad, from far off. In the second I tell how it seemed that Love spoke within my heart, and how he seemed to me. The third tells how, when he had stayed a while with me, I saw and heard certain things. The second part begins here: "saying: Now only think". The third: "And, my lord being a short while". The third divides into two parts: in the first I tell what I saw, in the second what I heard, and it begins here: "Love said".

XXV

Here someone might be in doubt — someone who deserves to have every doubt of his cleared up — and the doubt might be about what I say of Love, as though he were a thing in himself, and not only an intelligence but a bodily substance. Which, in truth, is false: for Love is not in himself a substance, but an accident in a substance. And that I speak of him as though he were a body, and further as though he were a man, appears from three things I say of him. I say that I saw him coming from far off; and since coming states a motion in place — and, according to the Philosopher, only a body is movable in place of itself — it appears that I posit Love to be a body. I say of him also that he laughed, and also that he spoke, which things seem to be proper to man, being capable of laughter especially; and so it appears that I posit him to be a man.

To clear such a thing up, which is worth doing here, it must first be understood that in old times there were no speakers of love in the vernacular; rather there were certain poets in the Latin tongue. Among us, I mean: it may be that among other peoples it happened otherwise, and happens still, as in Greece, where these matters were handled not by vernacular poets but by lettered ones. And it is no great number of years since these vernacular poets first appeared. For to speak in rhyme in the vernacular is as much as to speak in verses in Latin, allowing for some proportion between them. And a sign that the time is short is this: that if we care to search in the tongue of oc and in the tongue of sì, we shall find nothing said before the present time by a hundred and fifty years. And the reason why certain coarse writers had a name for knowing how to speak is that they were nearly the first who spoke in the tongue of sì. And the first who began to speak as a vernacular poet was moved to it because he wished to make himself understood by a lady to whom Latin verses were hard to understand. And this is against those who rhyme upon any matter other than love, since such a manner of speaking was from the beginning found out in order to speak of love.

Now since poets are allowed a greater licence of speech than prose writers, and since these speakers in rhyme are nothing other than vernacular poets, it is right and reasonable that a greater licence of speech be granted to them than to other vernacular speakers; so that if any figure or colour of rhetoric is allowed to poets, it is allowed to rhymers. So then, if we say that the poets have spoken of inanimate things as though they had sense and reason, and have made them speak to one another — and not only real things, but unreal ones too, that is, that they have said of things which are not, that they speak, and have said that many accidents speak as though they were substances and men — it is fitting that the speaker in rhyme do the like: yet not without some cause, but with a reason which he could afterwards open up in prose. That the poets have spoken so, as has been said, appears from Virgil, who says that Juno, that is, an enemy of the Trojans, spoke to Aeolus, lord of the winds, at this place in the Aeneid: Aeole, namque tibi etc.; and that this lord answered her at this place: Tuus, o regina, quid optes etc. In this same poet a thing not animate speaks to a thing animate, in the third book of the Aeneid, at this place: Dardanidae duri etc. In Lucan a thing animate speaks to a thing inanimate, at this place: Multum, Roma, tamen debes civilibus armis. In Horace a man speaks to his own art as though to another person; and they are not only Horace's words, but he says them as though reciting the words of good Homer, at this place in his Art of Poetry: Dic mihi, Musa, virum etc. In Ovid, Love speaks as though he were a human person, in the book that has the name Remedy of Love, at this place: Bella mihi video, bella parantur, ait. And by this it may be made plain to anyone who doubts at any point in this little book of mine. And so that no coarse person may take boldness from it, I say that neither did the poets speak so without reason, nor should those who rhyme speak so having no reasoning in them for what they say; because it would be a great shame to a man who rhymed things under the dress of a figure or of rhetorical colour, and then, being asked, could not strip his words of such a dress so that they had a true sense. And this first friend of mine and I know well enough of some who rhyme foolishly in that way.

XXVI

This most gentle lady, of whom the foregoing words have spoken, came into such favour with people that when she passed along the street they ran to see her, at which a marvellous gladness came to me. And when she was near anyone, so much modesty came into his heart that he did not dare to lift his eyes, nor to answer her greeting; and of this many, as having experienced it, could bear witness to anyone who did not believe it. And she went crowned and clothed in humility, showing no pride at all in what she saw and heard. Many said, when she had gone by: This is no woman; rather she is one of the most beautiful angels of heaven. And others said: This is a marvel — blessed be the Lord, who can work so wonderfully! I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of every pleasingness that those who looked at her took into themselves a sweetness so modest and so soft that they could not say it again; nor was there anyone who could look at her but that, at the first, he must needs sigh. These things and more marvellous ones proceeded from her by virtue; whereupon I, thinking of this, and wishing to take up again the style of her praise, resolved to say words in which I should give to be understood something of her marvellous and excellent workings, so that not only those who could see her with their senses, but others too, might know of her what words can make understood. Then I said this sonnet:

So gentle and so modest does she seem, my lady, when she greets another, that every tongue goes trembling into silence and the eyes do not dare to look at her. She goes her way, hearing herself praised, benignly, clothed upon with humility, and seems a thing come down from heaven to earth to show a miracle. She shows herself so pleasing to whoever looks that through the eyes she gives the heart a sweetness which none can understand who has not felt it. And it seems that from her face there moves a soft spirit, full of love, that goes saying to the soul: Sigh.

[Printed as a footnote in the copy-text.] This sonnet is so plain to understand, by what has been told before it, that it has no need of any division.

I say that this lady of mine came into such favour that not only was she honoured and praised, but many were honoured and praised because of her. Whereupon I, seeing this, and wishing to make it plain to those who did not see it, resolved again to say words in which it should be signified; and I said this sonnet, which tells how her power worked in the others.

He sees all blessedness in its perfection who sees my lady among other ladies; those who go with her are bound to render God thanks for so fair a grace. And her beauty is of such power that no envy of the others comes from it; rather it makes them go beside her clothed in gentleness, in love and in faith. The sight of her makes every thing humble, and she does not make herself alone seem pleasing, but each of them receives honour through her. And she is in her every act so gentle that no one can bring her back to mind and not sigh in the sweetness of love.

[Printed as a footnote in the copy-text.] This sonnet has three parts. In the first I tell among what people this lady appeared most marvellous. In the second I tell how gracious her company was; in the third I tell of those things she worked by virtue in others. The second begins here: "those who go with her". The third here: "And her beauty". This last part divides in three: in the first I tell what she worked in the ladies, that is, by themselves; in the second I tell what she worked in them through others; in the third I tell how she worked marvellously not only in ladies but in all people, and not only in her presence but when they remembered her. The second begins here: "The sight of her". The third here: "And she is in her every act".

Translator's log

Frozen before any evaluation of this translation was designed, and before any published English rendering of «Vita Nova» was opened. Decisions and alternatives, not quality claims. D1–D21.

The policy that had to be settled first

D1 — the Latin stays, in roman, unglossed, and nothing verbal is added to introduce it. Seven Latin loci fall in this span: L12 (Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini) and the six classical citations of chapter XXV. The live options were (a) keep the Latin as the source keeps it; (b) keep it and set it in italic; (c) keep it and add an English rendering beside it; (d) turn it into English and drop the Latin; (e) keep it and add a verbal signal ("in Latin", "the Aeneid has"). I chose (a) throughout, deliberately and uniformly, on the rule this project has been holding since the Gulistan arm: an Italian reader of 1292 got no typographic signal at these places, and supplying one tells the reader something the author did not.

The cost is exact and I am not hiding it. Chapter XXV's argument is about what the six quotations say — Juno speaking to Aeolus, a thing not animate speaking to a thing animate — and an English reader who cannot read Latin now has Dante's frame without Dante's evidence. In the Italian that reader loses the same thing, which is the defence; but the Italian reader at least sees a language change, and a reader of my page in roman type may not. L12 is the sharper case: the whole force of the sentence is that Giovanni means the voice crying in the wilderness, and the proof of it is in the Latin.

D2 — italic means mentioned, not foreign. The copy-text's editor italicises both, and so does most English practice. I split them: coming, oc, sì, Primavera, prima verrà are set in italic because they are words being talked about rather than used; the Latin runs are set in roman because they are being used. This is a policy with a visible price — it looks like an inconsistency on the page — and it is the one place in this rendering where I have imposed a distinction the copy-text does not draw. It follows from D1: if italic meant foreign, D1 would be broken by the first mention of oc.

D3 — titles are englished; quotations are not. Eneida → Aeneid, Rimedio d'Amore → Remedy of Love, Poetria → Art of Poetry. Dante gives the titles in Italian and the quotations in Latin, and the distinction is his, not mine: a title is a name in the book's own language.

Chapter XXIV

D4 — the pun. «chiamarla Primavera, cioè prima verrà il dì che Beatrice si mostrerà» — the name Primavera and the phrase prima verrà ("she will come first"). English has no name that does this. Options were: an English coinage (Firstcome, Spring-shall-come), which loses the lady's actual name; a footnote, which this rendering does not use; or keeping both Italian forms with the English inside the sentence. Chosen: keep both, gloss inline — «to call her Primavera — that is, prima verrà, she will come first». The gloss is not an addition: Dante's own cioè is doing the same work, and the English simply carries what his cioè points at. What is lost is that an Italian reader hears the pun and an English reader is told about it.

D5 — monna Vanna and monna Bice kept. The draft had "my lady Vanna and my lady Bice". Revised back, because this chapter is about names: Giovanna → Vanna, Beatrice → Bice, and the diminutives are the point of the line. Monna left standing; it is a courtesy title with no English equivalent that is not either wrong (Madam) or arch (Mistress).

D6 — «una beltade» left abstract. "I saw a beauty come towards me". English will take an abstract noun for a person here, just, and the alternative ("a beautiful woman") flattens the move.

D7 — the sonnet's line 7–8 grammar. «E, poco stando, meco il mio segnore / Guardando in quella parte ove venia, / Io vidi…» The gerund guardando can hang on the lord or on the poet. The draft attached it to the lord; the revision attaches it to the poet — «and I looking to the quarter whence he came» — because «Io vidi» immediately follows and it is the poet who sees. The ambiguity is real and the choice is mine.

D8 — the divisioni are printed in the text, with a bracketed note. The copy-text puts them at the foot of the page as footnotes, which is that edition's practice and not Dante's. Printing them where the reader meets them keeps the book's shape; the bracket says where they stood.

D9 — the divisione's pointers point at my English. Dante cites his own lines by their first words so the reader can find the place. Citing the Italian would leave an English reader unable to do that. So the pointers quote my rendering — "saying: Now only think", "Love said" — and this is the one place where the translation is quoted inside itself, which means that revising a line of the sonnet obliges me to revise the pointer. This is a different decision from D1, and the difference matters: the divisioni quote the book's own vernacular, not a foreign tongue.

Chapter XXV

D10 — «persona degna di dichiararle ogni dubitazione». Literally "a person worthy of having every doubt explained to her". The draft's compression ("a person worth having every doubt cleared for") was unreadable; revised to "someone who deserves to have every doubt of his cleared up". The Italian's courtesy toward the imagined objector is what I was trying to keep.

D11 — «accidente in sostanza» left as "an accident in a substance". Scholastic vocabulary. Modernising it ("a property of something else") would make the chapter easier and would remove the reason Dante needs the chapter.

D12 — «il Filosofo» → "the Philosopher". Capital kept; it is Aristotle and the capital is how a reader is told so without a note.

D13 — «lingua d'oco», and the copy-text reads oco, not oc. I printed oc. This is an emendation on the copy-text and it is the only one in the rendering that is not in the source file's collation list, because it is a decision rather than a repair: oco is a real medieval form and oc is what an English reader will recognise. Logged as a departure.

D14 — «quivi» → "at this place". Repeated six times in one paragraph, and English wants to vary it ("here", "in this passage", "thus"). I kept one English phrase for all six, because the repetition is Dante's citation formula and varying it would make six citations look like six different kinds of act.

D15 — «alquanti grossi» → "certain coarse writers". Grossi is Dante's word for unsubtle; "coarse" carries the class edge he means. "Crude", "gross", "clumsy" were live. The same word returns as «persona grossa» at the end of the chapter and takes the same English — "coarse person" — under the standing rule that a word repeated inside a span keeps one English word.

D16 — «dinudare le sue parole da cotal vesta» → "strip his words of such a dress". The metaphor is clothing and it runs through the sentence (veste di figura, cotal vesta). Kept whole; "explain" would have lost the figure Dante is defending.

Chapter XXVI

D17 — onesta / onestà takes one English word, "modest". It appears in the prose («tanta onestà giugnea nel core»), in the description of the sweetness («una dolcezza onesta e soave») and in the sonnet's first line («tanto onesta pare»). Onestà in Dante is nearer to decorous awe than to modern "modesty"; "seemly", "grave", "chaste" and "honourable" were all live, and each fitted one of the three places and not the other two. "Modest" was chosen because it is the only one of the four that survives all three, and the loss — the note of reverence in the prose — is recorded here rather than repaired locally.

D18 — soave → "soft", everywhere. Forced by D17's reasoning and by gentile → "gentle". Three words, three English words, held constant: gentile gentle, onesta modest, soave soft.

D19 — «ogni salute» → "all blessedness". Salute is health, safety, salvation and greeting at once, and in this book it is also the lady's saluto: her greeting is her salvation. No English word holds the pair. "Blessedness" takes the theological weight and drops the greeting; "salvation" takes more weight and sounds doctrinal; "welfare" and "health" take neither. The pun is simply lost, and it is lost eight lines after a stanza whose subject is her greeting.

D20 — «dalla sua labbia» → "from her face". Labbia is countenance in this period, not lips. The near-miss is worth logging because "lips" would make a better English line and would be wrong.

D21 — «Di gentilezza d'amore e di fede» is ambiguous and I chose the flatter reading. Either "with the gentleness of love and of faith" (one quality, two genitives) or "with gentleness, love and faith" (three). The copy-text's pointing does not decide it. I took the three-term reading because the line before it is a list of what her beauty does not cause, and a list answers a list.

What was hardest

Chapter XXV, and not for its vocabulary. It is an argument in scholastic form written in a language that had no scholastic prose yet, and Dante's sentences hold their subordination together with «con ciò sia cosa che» and «onde» and «dunque» — connectives that English can only render as "since", "so", "therefore", which are shorter and lighter and let the sentence fall apart. I kept the periods whole and long. An English reader will find the paragraph heavy; a shorter version would be a different argument.

Contamination

Measured after the freeze, with tools/dependence_check.py, against the three published hands whose volumes were in this container unopened at freeze time. The numbers and the basis are in RS-20260903-latin-in-italian §2. contamination: suspected stands on the front matter until that result page is read: «Vita Nova» is among the most-translated books in Italian, the sonnet Tanto gentile is one of the most-translated poems in any language, and a clean declaration on this material would need more than one measurement to earn.