Screen Lady

Vita Nova 2

Many people responded to this sonnet and gave various interpretations of it. One of the responses came from somebody whom I consider my best friend, who wrote a sonnet beginning, “You saw, it seems to me, the whole of worth.” His discovery that I was the one who had sent the poem was, so to speak, the beginning of our friendship. The correct interpretation of my dream was not understood by anyone at first, but now it is clear to even the most simple-minded.

From the time of this vision, my natural spirit started to be hindered in its functioning, since my soul was completely absorbed in thinking about this most gracious of women. Thus in no time at all I grew so frail and weak that the sight of me weighed on many of my friends. And many spitefully curious sorts of people hunted for ways to find out the very thing about me that I wanted to keep hidden from others. Aware their questions were malicious, I responded to them—through the will of Love, who commanded me in keeping with reason’s counsel—that Love was the one who had ruled me in that way. I said Love since my face showed so many signs of him that disguising it wasn’t possible. And when they asked me, “Over whom are you so wrecked by Love?” I would look at them smiling and tell them nothing.

It happened one day that this most gracious of women was sitting in a place where words about the Queen of Glory were being listened to, and I was positioned in such a way that I saw my beatitude. And in the middle of a direct line between her and me was seated a gracious and very attractive woman who kept looking at me wondering about my gaze, which seemed to rest on her. Many people were aware of her looking, and so much attention was being paid to it that, as I was leaving the place, I heard people saying, “Look at the state he is in over that woman.” And hearing her name I understood they were talking about the woman who had been situated midpoint in the straight line that proceeded from that most gracious lady, Beatrice, and reached its end in my eyes.

Then I felt relieved, confident my secret had not been betrayed that day by my appearance. And immediately I thought of using the gracious woman as a screen for the truth, and I made such a show over it in a short amount of time that most people who talked about me thought they knew my secret.

I concealed myself by means of this woman for a number of years and months. And to make others even greater believers I wrote certain little rhymes for her which I do not intend to write down here if they don’t relate in some way to that most gracious lady, Beatrice. And so I will leave out all of them other than something I will write down that plainly is in praise of her.

I tell you that, during the time when this woman was a screen for this great love of mine, I was taken with a wish to record the name of that most gracious of women and to place it in the company of many women’s names, especially this gracious woman’s. And I gathered together the names of sixty of the most beautiful women of the city where my lady was put by the supreme Lord, and I composed an epistolary poem in the form of a serventese, which I will not write down here. And I wouldn’t even have mentioned it if it were not to say what wondrously took place as I was composing it: the name of my lady would not settle for being in any other position, among the names of these women, but that of the number nine.

The woman with whom I had for quite some time concealed my desire had to leave the above-named city to go to a place that was far away. As a result, rather disconcerted over having lost my lovely defense, I felt utterly miserable—much more so than I would have believed possible. And realizing that, if I didn’t speak about her departure somewhat despondently, people would soon catch on to my cover, I decided to lament it in a sonnet, which I will write down here, since my lady was the direct source for certain words in the sonnet, as is plain to anyone who understands it. And then I wrote this sonnet, which begins, “O all ye passing by.”

O all ye passing by along Love's way,  
    attend a while and see  
    if there be sorrow such as I sustain.  
    Please suffer me and listen now, I pray;  
    imagine patiently  
    if I am inn and key to every pain.  
    Not, surely, by my merit's meager sway:  
    by Love's nobility,  
    Love placed me in a life so sweet and sane,  
    I often heard behind me others say:  
    “How did he earn to be  
    so weightless in his heart—please, God, explain?”
Now I have lost impetuous delight
    that all my tender loving treasure lent,
    and I am indigent 
    because I’m timid when I talk or write.
    So that, like those who hide impoverishment
    for shame of how they seem in others’ sight,
    outside my mood is light,
    while in my heart I wither and lament.

This sonnet has two main parts. In the first I mean to call on Love’s faithful, with those words of the prophet Jeremiah: “O is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow,” and to ask them to be patient enough to hear me out. In the second part I tell where Love placed me, with a sense different from the one at the end of the sonnet, and I tell what I have lost. The second part begins: “Not, surely, by my merit’s.”

by Dante Alighieri,

trans. Andrew Frisardi