Franco Sacchetti. “Ballata. His Talk with certain Peasant Girls.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1849; 1861
Rhyme: ababbc (with couplet refrain)
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: ballata

Bibliography

“Table of Poets” in Early Italian Poets, xxxv-xxxvi.

Raccolta di rime antiche toscane, IV. 188-189 (see also 174-176).

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

The translation is rather free, as one sees immediately in the refrain; but DGR does follow his habit of remaining faithful to the rhyme scheme of the original. DGR has an extended note on this celebrated fourteenth-century writer, best known for his lively fictional prose.

The translation's source text was the Raccolta di rime antiche toscane (IV. 188-189).

Textual History: Composition

Probably this was 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: 205d-1861.raw.xml