La Vita Nuova (The New Life) IX. Dante’s journey: the new screen lady
by Alighieri Dante
A few days after the death of this lady something happened which forced me to leave the above city and travel to that region where the gentle lady was who had been my screen, though the destination of my journey was not as far as where she was. And although I was in the company of many, at least outwardly, the travelling displeased me so much that my sighs could scarcely relieve the anguish my heart felt, because I distanced myself from my blessedness.
And so the sweetest lord who ruled over me through the virtue of my most graceful lady appeared in my imagination like a traveller simply dressed, in coarse cloth. He seemed to me dejected, and gazed at the ground, except when he seemed to me to turn his eyes towards a beautiful and clearest of running streams, which ran along the way I was going.
It seemed to me that Amor called my name and said these words to me: ‘I come from that lady who has long been your screen, and I know that her return will not be for some time, and so I have with me that heart which I made you leave with her, and I carry it to a lady who will become your defence, as she was.’ And he named her name to me, so that I knew her well. ‘But take care, if you repeat any thing of these words I have mentioned to you, that it be in such a way that no one discerns by them the false love you have shown, and which you must show to another.’
And speaking these words he departed my imagination quite suddenly for the most part, as it seemed that Amor merged himself with me: and somewhat changed in my appearance, I rode on that day thinking deeply and accompanied by many sighs. After that day I began this sonetto, which begins: ‘Cavalcando’.
Riding the other day along a track,
thinking of the journey I disliked,
I found Amor in the middle of the way
in the simple dress of a traveller.
In his countenance, wretched, he seemed to me
as if he had lost a ruler-ship:
and he came sighing thoughtfully
not seeing anyone, with head bowed low.
When he saw me he called me by name,
and said: ‘I come from a distant place
from where your heart was according to my wish:
and bring it back to serve new pleasures.’
Then I took from him so great a part
that he vanished, and I did not see how.
This sonetto has three parts: in the first I say how I met Amor and how he seemed to me: in the second I say what he said to me, thought not completely for fear of revealing my secret: in the third I say how he vanished. The second begins with: ‘Quando mi vide: When he saw me’: the third: ‘Allora presi: Then I took.’
