Repository path: workshop/translations/vita-nuova/R06-v1/translation.md · rendered 2026-09-09

«Vita Nova» XXIV–XXVI — the first draft, frozen before revision

R04 step 2a: this is the draft as first written, frozen as its own artifact before the self-revision began, and it is therefore an R06 output in its own right. Nothing below has been touched since it was committed.

• Source: ../source-it-xxiv-xxvi.txt, blocks v1–v12 (1,715 Italian words).
• Translated by: the lead agent, in session, from the Italian alone. Cost $0.
• Contamination: suspected — «Vita Nova» is among the most translated books in Italian and four English renderings of it were in this container when the draft was written, unopened. The measurement is at ../R04-v1/translation.md §Contamination and was made after the freeze.
• No published rendering of this work in any language was opened before this file was committed.

XXIV

After this imagining it happened one day that, as I sat thinking 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 owe it. And truly my heart seemed to me so glad that it did not seem to be my own heart, for the strangeness of its new 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 first 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 spirit of love that had been sleeping there; and then I saw Love coming from far off, so glad that I could hardly know him for himself, saying: Now think only of doing me honour — and every word of his was laughing. And, my lord staying a little while with me, looking towards the quarter he had come from, I saw my lady Vanna and my lady Bice coming toward the place where I then was, one marvel walking behind another marvel; and, as my memory says it over to me, Love said: That one is Primavera, and that one bears the name of Love; so like me is she.

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 think only of doing me honour". The third: "And, my lord staying a little while with me". 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 a person might raise a doubt — a person worth having every doubt cleared for — 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 several 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, here in the Aeneid: Aeole, namque tibi etc.; and that this lord answered her here: 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, here: Dardanidae duri etc. In Lucan a thing animate speaks to a thing inanimate, here: 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, here in his Poetics: 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, here: 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 gone through 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 gives another greeting, that every tongue goes trembling into silence and the eyes do not dare to look at her. She goes her way, hearing herself praised, kindly, and clothed in humility, and seems a thing that has 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 on saying to the soul: sigh.

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 rest comes out of 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 does not make her only 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.

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".