La Vita Nuova (The New Life) XXXV. The lady at the window
by Alighieri Dante
Some time after that, since it happened that I was in a place where I remembered time past, I paused thinking deeply, and with sad thoughts, so much so that it made me seem to have an aspect of terrible distress. So that, aware of my trouble, I lifted my eyes to see if others had seen it.
Then I saw a gentle and very lovely young lady, who was looking at me so pitifully from a window, showing so much in her face that all pity seemed concentrated in her.
Since, when it happens that the miserable see compassion for themselves in others, they are moved to weep more quickly, as though pitying themselves, I then felt my eyes begin to want to weep: and then, fearing to reveal my unhappy life, I withdrew from that lady’s sight: and later I said to myself: ‘It cannot be other than that the most noble love lives within that lady’.
And so I decided to write a sonetto, in which I would speak of her, and contain in it everything that is narrated in this account. And since this account is clear enough, I will not divide it. The sonetto begins with: ‘Videro li occho mei’.
My eyes saw how much pity
was apparent in your face,
when you gazed at the attitude and form
that I often appear in through grief.
Then I understood that you would know
the nature of my hidden life,
so that I felt fear in my heart
of showing my misery in my eyes.
And taking myself away from you, I felt
that the tears rose from my heart,
which were summoned by your look.
Then I said to my sad spirit:
‘It must be that Love lives within this lady
who makes me go weeping so.’
