Dante Alighieri. “Sonnet. To certain Ladies; when Beatrice was lamenting her Father's Death.”

Dante Gabriel Rossetti

General Description

Date: 1861
Rhyme: abbaabbacdcdcd
Meter: iambic pentameter
Genre: sonnet

Bibliography

“Introduction to Part II” (in The Early Italian Poets) 189-193

◦ Foster and Boyd, Dante's Lyric Poetry, I.68-69 (II. 111-112) .

Annotations

Editorial glosses and textual notes are available in a pop-up window. Line numbering reflects the structure of the Early Italian Poets text..

Scholarly Commentary

Introduction

This is one of a group of Dante's poems that DGR translates because of their relation to the Vita Nuova (see DGR's note to the sonnet preceding this one in his 1861 collection). This sonnet and the following one are alternate (perhaps earlier?) versions of the pair of sonnets Dante included in Section XX of the Vita Nuova: “You that thus wear a modest countenance” and “Canst thou indeed be he that still wouldst sing”.

The source text for DGR's translation was Fraticelli, Opere Minori di Dante Alighieri (I. 142-143).

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: 41d-1861.raw.xml