The Works of Dante Gabriel Rossetti :: :: University of Virginia Library

Dante Alighieri, Cecco, your good friend
And servant, gives you greeting as his lord,
And prays you for the sake of Love's accord,
Love being the Master before whom you bend,)
That you will pardon him if he offend,
Even as your gentle heart can well afford.
All that he wants to say is just one word
Which partly chides your sonnet at the end.
For where the measure changes, first you say
You do not understand the gentle speech
A spirit made touching your Beatrice:
And next you tell your ladies how, straightway,
You understand it. Wherefore (look you) each
Of these your words the other's sense denies.

See ante, page 346.

II
Sonnet

He will not be too deeply in Love

I am enamoured, and yet not so much
But that I'd do without it easily;
And my own mind thinks all the more of me
That Love has not quite penned me in his hutch.
Enough if for his sake I dance and touch
The lute, and serve his servants cheerfully:
An overdose is worse than none would be:
Love is no lord of mine, I'm proud to vouch.
So let no woman who is born conceive
That I'll be her liege slave, as I see some,
Be she as fair and dainty as she will.
Too much of love makes idiots, I believe:
I like not any fashion that turns glum
The heart, and makes the visage sick and ill.

392

III
Sonnet

Of Love in Men and Devils

The man who feels not, more or less, somewhat
Of love in all the years his life goes round
Should be denied a grave in holy ground
Except with usurers who will bate no groat:
Nor he himself should count himself a jot
Less wretched than the meanest beggar found.
Also the man who in Love's robe is gown'd
May say that Fortune smiles upon his lot.
Seeing how love has such nobility
That if it entered in the lord of Hell
'Twould rule him more than his fire's ancient sting;
He should be glorified to eternity,
And all his life be always glad and well
As is a wanton woman in the spring.

IV
Sonnet

Of Love, in honour of his mistress Becchina

Whatever good is naturally done
Is born of Love as fruit is born of flower:
By Love all good is brought to its full power:
Yea, Love does more than this; for he finds none
So coarse but from his touch some grace is won,
And the poor wretch is altered in an hour.
So let it be decreed that Death devour
The beast who says that Love's a thing to shun.
A man's just worth the good that he can hold,
And where no love is found, no good is there;
On that there's nothing that I would not stake.
So now, my Sonnet, go as you are told
To lovers and their sweethearts everywhere,
And say I made you for Becchina's sake.

V
Sonnet

Of Becchina, the Shoemaker's Daughter

Why, if Becchina's heart were diamond,
And all the other parts of her were steel,
As cold to love as snows when they congeal
In lands to which the sun may not get round;
And if her father were a giant crown'd
And not a donkey born to stitching shoes,
Or I were but an ass myself;—to use
Such harshness, scarce could to her praise redound.
Yet if she'd only for a minute hear,
And I could speak if only pretty well,
I'd let her know that I'm her happiness;
That I'm her life should also be made clear,
With other things that I've no need to tell;
And then I feel quite sure she'd answer Yes.

393

VI
Sonnet

To Messer Angiolieri, his Father

If I'd a sack of florins, and all new,
(Packed tight together, freshly coined and fine,)
And Arcidosso and Montegiovi mine,
And quite a glut of eagle-pieces too,—
It were but as three farthings to my view
Without Becchina. Why then all these plots
To whip me, daddy? Nay, but tell me—what's
My sin, or all the sins of Turks, to you?
For I protest (or may I be struck dead!)
My love's so firmly planted in its place,
Whipping nor hanging now could change the grain.
And if you want my reason on this head,
It is that whoso looks her in the face,
Though he were old, gets back his youth again.

Perhaps the names of his father's estates.

VII
Sonnet

Of the 20th June 1291

I'm full of everything I do not want,
And have not that wherein I should find ease;
For alway till Becchina brings me peace
The heavy heart I bear must toil and pant;
That so all written paper would prove scant
(Though in its space the Bible you might squeeze,)
To say how like the flames of furnaces
I burn, remembering what she used to grant.
Because the stars are fewer in heaven's span
Than all those kisses wherewith I kept tune
All in an instant (I who now have none!)
Upon her mouth (I and no other man!)
So sweetly on the twentieth day of June
In the new year twelve hundred ninety-one.

The year, according to the calendar of those days, began on the 25th March. The alteration to 1st January was made in 1582 by the Pope, and immediately adopted by all Catholic countries, but by England not till 1752. There is some added vividness in remembering that Cecco's unplatonic love-encounter dates eleven days after the first death-anniversary of Beatrice (9th of June 1291), when Dante tells us that he “drew the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets.” (See ante, p. 340.)

394

VIII
Sonnet

In absence from Becchina

My heart's so heavy with a hundred things
That I feel dead a hundred times a-day;
Yet death would be the least of sufferings,
For life's all suffering save what's slept away;
Though even in sleep there is no dream but brings
From dream-land such dull torture as it may.
And yet one moment would pluck out these stings,
If for one moment she were mine to-day
Who gives my heart the anguish that it has.
Each thought that seeks my heart for its abode
Becomes a wan and sorrow-stricken guest:
Sorrow has brought me to so sad a pass
That men look sad to meet me on the road;
Nor any road is mine that leads to rest.

IX
Sonnet

Of Becchina in a rage

When I behold Becchina in a rage,
Just like a little lad I trembling stand
Whose master tells him to hold out his hand;
Had I a lion's heart, the sight would wage
Such war against it, that in that sad stage
I'd wish my birth might never have been plann'd,
And curse the day and hour that I was bann'd
With such a plague for my life's heritage.
Yet even if I should sell me to the Fiend,
I must so manage matters in some way
That for her rage I may not care a fig;
Or else from death I cannot long be screen'd.
So I'll not blink the fact, but plainly say
It's time I got my valour to grow big.

395

X
Sonnet

He rails against Dante, who had censured his homage to Becchina

Dante Alighieri in Becchina's praise
Won't have me sing, and bears him like my lord.
He's but a pinchbeck florin, on my word;
Sugar he seems, but salt's in all his ways;
He looks like wheaten bread, who's bread of maize;
He's but a sty, though like a tower in height;
A falcon, till you find that he's a kite;
Call him a cock!—a hen's more like his case.
Go now to Florence, Sonnet of my own,
And there with dames and maids hold pretty parles,
And say that all he is doth only seem.
And I meanwhile will make him better known
Unto the Count of Provence, good King Charles;
And in this way we'll singe his skin for him.

This may be either Charles II., King of Naples and Count of Provence, or more probably his son Charles Martel, King of Hungary. We know from Dante that a friendship subsisted between himself and the latter prince, who visited Florence in 1295, and died in the same year, in his father's lifetime (Paradise, C. viii.)

XI
Sonnet

Of his four Tormentors

I'm caught, like any thrush the nets surprise,
By Daddy and Becchina, Mammy and Love.
As to the first-named, let thus much suffice,—
Each day he damns me, and each hour thereof;
Becchina wants so much of all that's nice,
Not Mahomet himself could yield enough;
And Love still sets me doting in a trice
On trulls who'd seem the Ghetto's proper stuff.
My mother don't do much because she can't,
But I may count it just as good as done,
Knowing the way and not the will's her want.
To-day I tried a kiss with her—just one—
To see if I could make her sulks avaunt:
She said, “The devil rip you up, my son!”

396

XII
Sonnet

Concerning his Father

The dreadful and the desperate hate I bear
My father (to my praise, not to my shame,)
Will make him live more than Methusalem;
Of this I've long ago been made aware.
Now tell me, Nature, if my hate's not fair.
A glass of some thin wine not worth a name
One day I begged (he has whole butts o'the same,)
And he had almost killed me, I declare.
“Good Lord, if I had asked for vernage-wine!”
Said I; for if he'd spit into my face
I wished to see for reasons of my own.
Now say that I mayn't hate this plague of mine!
Why, if you knew what I know of his ways,
You'd tell me that I ought to knock him down.

I have thought it necessary to soften one or two expressions in this sonnet.

XIII
Sonnet

Of all he would do

If I were fire, I'd burn the world away;
If I were wind, I'd turn my storms thereon;
If I were water, I'd soon let it drown;
If I were God, I'd sink it from the day;
If I were Pope, I'd never feel quite gay
Until there was no peace beneath the sun;
If I were Emperor, what would I have done?—
I'd lop men's heads all round in my own way.
If I were Death, I'd look my father up;
If I were Life, I'd run away from him;
And treat my mother to like calls and runs.
If I were Cecco (and that's all my hope),
I'd pick the nicest girls to suit my whim,
And other folk should get the ugly ones.

XIV
Sonnet

He is past all Help

For a thing done, repentance is no good,
Nor to say after, Thus would I have done:
In life, what's left behind is vainly rued;
So let a man get used his hurt to shun;
For on his legs he hardly may be stood
Again, if once his fall be well begun.
But to show wisdom's what I never could;
So where I itch I scratch now, and all's one.
I'm down, and cannot rise in any way;
For not a creature of my nearest kin
Would hold me out a hand that I could reach.
I pray you do not mock at what I say;
For so my love's good grace may I not win
If ever sonnet held so true a speech!

397

XV
Sonnet

Of why he is unhanged

Whoever without money is in love
Had better build a gallows and go hang;
He dies not once, but oftener feels the pang
Than he who was cast down from Heaven above.
And certes, for my sins, it's plain enough,
If Love's alive on earth, that he's myself,
Who would not be so cursed with want of pelf
If others paid my proper dues thereof.
Then why am I not hanged by my own hands?
I answer: for this empty narrow chink
Of hope;—that I've a father old and rich,
And that if once he dies I'll get his lands;
And die he must, when the sea's dry, I think.
Meanwhile God keeps him whole and me i'the ditch.

XVI
Sonnet

Of why he would be a Scullion

I am so out of love through poverty
That if I see my mistress in the street
I hardly can be certain whom I meet,
And of her name do scarce remember me.
Also my courage it has made to be
So cold, that if I suffered some foul cheat,
Even from the meanest wretch that one could beat,
Save for the sin I think he should go free.
Ay, and it plays me a still nastier trick;
For, meeting some who erewhile with me took
Delight, I seem to them a roaring fire.
So here's a truth whereat I need not stick;—
That if one could turn scullion to a cook,
It were a thing to which one might aspire.

XVII
Prolonged Sonnet

When his Clothes were gone

Never so bare and naked was church-stone
As is my clean-stripped doublet in my grasp;
Also I wear a shirt without a clasp,
Which is a dismal thing to look upon.
Ah! had I still but the sweet coins I won
That time I sold my nag and staked the pay,
I'd not lie hid beneath the roof to-day
And eke out sonnets with this moping moan.
Daily a thousand times stark mad am I
At my dad's meanness who won't clothe me now,
For “How about the horse?” is still his cry.
Till one thing strikes me as clear anyhow,—
No rag I'll get. The wretch has sworn, I see,
Not to invest another doit in me.
And all because of the fine doublet's price
He gave me, when I vowed to throw no dice,
And for his damned nag's sake! Well, this is nice!

398

XVIII
Sonnet

He argues his case with Death

Gramercy, Death, as you've my love to win,
Just be impartial in your next assault;
And that you may not find yourself in fault,
Whate'er you do, be quick now and begin.
As oft may I be pounded flat and thin
As in Grosseto there are grains of salt,
If now to kill us both you be not call'd,—
Both me and him who sticks so in his skin.
Or better still, look here; for if I'm slain
Alone,—his wealth, it's true, I'll never have,
Yet death is life to one who lives in pain;
But if you only kill Saldagno's knave,
I'm left in Siena (don't you see your gain?)
Like a rich man who's made a galley-slave.

He means, possibly, that he should be more than ever tormented by his creditors on account of their knowing his ability to pay them; but the meaning seems very uncertain.

XIX
Sonnet

Of Becchina, and of her Husband

I would like better in the grace to be
Of the dear mistress whom I bear in mind
(As once I was) than I should like to find
A stream that washed up gold continually:
Because no language could report of me
The joys that round my heart would then be twin'd,
Who now, without her love, do seem resign'd
To death that bends my life to its decree.
And one thing makes the matter still more sad:
For all the while I know the fault's my own,
That on her husband I take no revenge,
Who's worse to her than is to me my dad.
God send grief has not pulled my courage down,
That hearing this I laugh; for it seems strange.

399

XX
Sonnet

To Becchina's rich Husband

As thou wert loth to see, before thy feet,
The dear broad coin roll all the hill-slope down,
Till, gathering it from rifted clods, some clown
Should rub it oft and scarcely render it;—
Tell me, I charge thee, if by generous heat
Or clutching frost the fruits of earth be grown,
And by what wind the blight is o'er them strown,
And with what gloom the tempest is replete.
Yet daily, in good sooth, as morn by morn
Thou hear'st the voice of thy poor husbandman
And those loud herds, his other family,—
I know, as surely as Becchina's born
With a kind heart, she does the best she can
To filch at least one new-bought prize from thee.

This puzzling sonnet is printed in Italian collections with the name of Guido Cavalcanti. It must evidently belong to Angiolieri, and it has certain fine points which make me unwilling to omit it; though partly as to rendering, and wholly as to application, I have been driven on conjecture.

XXI
Sonnet

On the Death of his Father

Let not the inhabitants of Hell despair,
For one's got out who seemed to be locked in;
And Cecco's the poor devil that I mean,
Who thought for ever and ever to be there.
But the leaf's turned at last, and I declare
That now my state of glory doth begin:
For Messer Angiolieri's slipped his skin,
Who plagued me, summer and winter, many a year.
Make haste to Cecco, Sonnet, with a will,
To him who no more at the Abbey dwells;
Tell him that Brother Henry's half dried up.
He'll never more be down-at-mouth, but fill
His beak at his own beck, till his life swells
To more than Enoch's or Elijah's scope.

It would almost seem as if Cecco, in his poverty, had at last taken refuge in a religious house under the name of Brother Henry (Frate Arrigo), and as if he here meant that Brother Henry was now decayed, so to speak, through the resuscitation of Cecco. (See Introduction to Part I., p. 307.)

In the original words, “Ma di tal cibo imbecchi lo suo becco,” a play upon the name of Becchina seems intended, which I have conveyed as well as I could.

400

XXII
Sonnet

He would slay all who hate their Fathers

Who utters of his father aught but praise,
'Twere well to cut his tongue out of his mouth;
Because the Deadly Sins are seven, yet doth
No one provoke such ire as this must raise.
Were I a priest, or monk in anyways,
Unto the Pope my first respects were paid,
Saying, “Holy Father, let a just crusade
Scourge each man who his sire's good name gainsays.”
And if by chance a handful of such rogues
At any time should come into our clutch,
I'd have them cooked and eaten then and there,
If not by men, at least by wolves and dogs.
The Lord forgive me! for I fear me much
Some words of mine were rather foul than fair.

XXIII
TO DANTE ALIGHIERI

Sonnet

He writes to Dante, then in exile at Verona, defying him as no better than himself

Dante Alighieri, if I jest and lie,
You in such lists might run a tilt with me:
I get my dinner, you your supper, free;
And if I bite the fat, you suck the fry;
I shear the cloth and you the teazle ply;
If I've a strut, who's prouder than you are?
If I'm foul-mouthed, you're not particular;
And you're turned Lombard, even if Roman I.
So that, 'fore Heaven! if either of us flings
Much dirt at the other, he must be a fool:
For lack of luck and wit we do these things.
Yet if you want more lessons at my school,
Just say so, and you'll find the next touch stings—
For, Dante, I'm the goad and you're the bull.