The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti Edited with Preface and Notes by William M. Rossetti: Revised and Enlarged Edition |
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 | The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti |  |
367
GIANNI ALFANI TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI
Sonnet
On the part of a Lady of Pisa
Guido, that Gianni who, a day agone,Sought thee, now greets thee (ay and thou mayst laugh!)
On that same Pisan beauty's sweet behalf
Who can deal love-wounds even as thou hast done.
She asked me whether thy good will were prone
For service unto Love who troubles her,
If she to thee in suchwise should repair
That, save by him and Gualtier, 'twere not known:—
For thus her kindred of ill augury
Should lack the means wherefrom there might be plann'd
Worse harm than lying speech that smites afar.
I told her that thou hast continually
A goodly sheaf of arrows to thy hand,
Which well should stead her in such gentle war.
From a passage in Ubaldini's Glossary (1640) to the “Documenti d'Amore” of Francesco Barberino (1300), I judge that Guido answered the above sonnet, and that Alfani made a rejoinder, from which a scrap there printed appears to be taken. The whole piece existed, in Ubaldini's time, among the Strozzi MSS.
| The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti | |