Dante da Maiano. “Sonnet. He thanks his Lady for the Joy he has had from her.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1848?; 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbacdeecd
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The translation is perhaps most interesting, so far as DGR is concerned, in its first line, where a signature Rossettian figure appears in the praise of the lady's “royal neck” (which translates the source text's unusual phrase “gola morganata”). The translation, fairly free in a literal sense, is faithful to the general spirit of the sonnet.

See also the commentary for DGR's source text, Raccolta di Rime Antiche Toscane (I. 234).

Textual History: Composition

Probably an early translation, late 1840s.

Printing History

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

Electronic Archive Edition: 1
Source File: 168d-1861.raw.xml