After this vain imagining, it happened one day that, while I was sitting somewhere thinking, I felt a tremor beginning in my heart, as if I was in the presence of that lady. Then I say that a vision of Love came to me: and he seemed to come to me from the place where my lady lived, and it seemed to me that he said in my heart, joyfully: ‘Think blessedly of the day that I seized on you, because you ought to do so.’ And indeed my heart seemed so joyful, that it did not seem to be my heart, in this new state.
And not long after these words, that my heart spoke to me with the tongue of Love, I saw a gentle lady coming towards me, who was famous for her beauty, and who had long been my best friend’s lady. And the name of this lady was Giovanna, except that because of her beauty as others believe she was also named Primavera (Spring, the first greenness): and called so. And after her, as I gazed, I saw the miraculous Beatrice come by.
These ladies passed near me one after the other, and it seemed that Love spoke in my heart, and said: ‘The first is named Primavera, only because of what happened today: since I inspired the originator of the name to call her Primavera, she who first passes (prima verrà), on the day that Beatrice shows herself to the imagination of her faithful one. And if you also consider her first name, it also says ‘she who first passes’, since Giovanna comes from Giovanni (John) who preceded the true light, saying: “Ego vox clamantis in deserto: parate viam Domini: I am a voice crying in the wilderness: prepare the way of the Lord”’.
And after that it seemed to me that he said these words also: ‘Anyone who considers carefully would call Beatrice Love for the great similarity she has to me.’ Later, reflecting, I decided to write to my best friend in verse (withholding certain words it seemed best to withhold), believing that his heart still marvelled at the beauty of this gentle Primavera: and I wrote this sonetto, which begins: ‘Io mi senti´ svegliar.’
I felt a stirring in my heart
of a spirit of love which slept:
and then I saw Love coming from afar
so happy, that I scarcely recognised him,
saying : ‘Now think only to honour me’:
and he was smiling at every word.
And while my lord was standing by me,
I, gazing at the road that he had come,
saw lady Vanna and lady Bice
approaching the place where I was,
one miracle behind the other:
and as my mind repeats it to me,
Amor said to me: ‘That lady is Primavera,
and this lady has Love’s name, so resembling me.’
This sonetto has a number of parts: the first of them says how I felt a familiar tremor stirring in my heart, and how Love seemed to appear to me from afar, happy and in my heart: the second says how it seemed to me that love spoke to me in my heart, and how he looked to me: the third says how, when he had been with me a while, I saw and heard certain things. The second part begins with: ‘dicendo: “Or pensa”: saying: “ Now think”’: the third with: ‘E poco stando: And while’. The third part is divided in two: in the first I say what I saw: in the second I say what I heard. The second begins with: ‘Amor mi disse: Amor said to me.’
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