# Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti/Sonnets

SONNETS
SONNETS
SONNET I
You, who do breach mine eyes and touch the heart, And start the mind from her brief reveries, Might pluck my life and agony apart. Saw you how love assaileth her with sighs, And lays about him with so brute a might That all my wounded senses turn to flight. There’s a new face upon the seigniory, And new is the voice that maketh loud my grief.
Love, who hath drawn me down through devious ways, Hath from your noble eyes so swiftly come! ’Tis he hath hurled the dart, wherefrom my pain, First shot’s resultant! and in flanked amaze See how my affrighted soul recoileth from That sinister side wherein the heart lies slain.
SONNET II
I saw the eyes, where Amor took his place When love’s might bound me with the fear thereof, Look out at me as they were weary of love. I say: The heart rent him as he looked on this, And were’t not that my Lady lit her grace, Smiling upon me with her eyes grown glad, Then were my speech so dolorously clad That Love should mourn amid his victories.
The instant that she deigned to bend her eyes Toward me, a spirit from high heaven rode And chose my thought the place of his abode With such deep parlance of love’s verities That all Love’s powers did my sight accost As though I’d won unto his heart’s mid-most.
SONNET III
O lady mine, doth not thy sight allege Him who hath set his hand upon my heart, When parched responses from my faint throat start And shudder for the terror of his edge? He was Amor, who since he found you, dwells Ever with me, and he was come from far; An archer is he as the Scythians are Whose only joy is killing someone else.
My sobbing eyes are drawn upon his wrack, And such harsh sighs upon my heart he casteth That I depart from that sad me he wasteth, With Death drawn close upon my wavering track, Leading such tortures in his sombre train As, by all custom, wear out other men.
SONNET IV
If I should pray this lady pitiless That Mercy to her heart be no more foeman, You’d call me clownish, vile, and say that no man Was so past hope and filled with vanities.
Where find you now these novel cruelties? For still you seem humility’s true leaven, Wise and adorned, alert and subtle even, And fashioned out in ways of gentleness?
My soul weeps through her sighs for grievous fear, And all those sighs, which in the heart were found, Deep drenched with tears do sobbing thence depart, Then seems that on my mind there rains a clear Image of a lady, thoughtful, bound Hither to keep death-watch upon that heart.
SONNET V
Lady, my most rash eyes, the first who used To look upon thy face, the power-fraught, Were, Lady, those by whom I was accused In that harsh place where Amor holdeth court. And there before him was their proof adduced, And judgment wrote me down: “Bondslave” to thee, Though still I stay Grief’s prisoner, unloosed, And Fear hath lien upon the heart of me. For the which charges, and without respite, They dragged me to a place where a sad horde Of such as love and whom Love tortureth Cried out, all pitying as I met their sight, “Now art thou servant unto such a Lord Thou’lt have none other one save only Death.”
SONNET VI
Thou fill’st my mind with grief so populous That my soul irks him to be on the road. Mine eyes cry out, “We cannot bear the load Of sighs the grievous heart sends upon us.” Love, sensitive to thy nobility, Saith, “Sorrow is mine that thou must take thy death From this fair lady who will hear no breath In argument for aught save pitying thee.” And I, as one beyond life’s compass thrown, Seem but a thing that’s fashioned to design, Melted of bronze or carven in tree or stone. A wound I bear within this heart of mine Which by its mastering quality is grown To be of that heart’s death an open sign.
SONNET VII
Who is she coming, drawing all men’s gaze, Who makes the air one trembling clarity Till none can speak but each sighs piteously Where she leads Love adown her trodden ways?
Ah God! The thing she’s like when her glance strays, Let Amor tell. ’Tis no fit speech for me. Mistress she seems of such great modesty That every other woman were called “Wrath.”
No one could ever tell the charm she hath For all the noble powers bend toward her, She being beauty’s godhead manifest.
Our daring ne’er before held such high quest; But ye! There is not in you so much grace That we can understand her rightfully.
SONNET VIII
Ah why! why were mine eyes not quenched for me, Or stricken so that from their vision none Had ever come within my mind to say “Listen, dost thou not hear me in thine heart?” Fear of new torments was then so displayed To me, so cruel and so sharp of edge That my soul cried, “Ah, mistress, bring us aid, Lest th’ eyes and I remain in grief always.”
But thou hast left them so that Amor cometh And weepeth over them so piteously That there’s a deep voice heard whose sound in part Turned unto words, is this: “Whoever knoweth Pain’s depth, let him look on this man whose heart Death beareth in his hand cut cruciform.”
SONNET IX
At last I am reduced to self compassion, For the sore anguish that I see me in; At my great weakness; that my semi hath been Concealed beneath her wounds in such a fashion: Such mine oppression that I know, in brief, That to my life ill’s worst starred ills befall; And this strange lady on whose grace I call Maintains continuous my stour of grief, For when I look in her direction, She turns upon me her disdeigning eyen So harshly that my waiting heart is rent And all my powers and properties are spent, Till that heart lieth for a sign ill-seen, Where Amor’s cruelty hath hurled him down.
SONNET X
Alas, my spirits, that ye come to find me So painful poor, waylaid in wretchedness, Yet send no words adorned with deep distress Forth from my mind to say what sorrows bind me. Alas, ye see how sore my heart is wounded By glance, by fair delight and by her meekness; ’Las! Must I pray ye that ye aid his weakness, Seeing him power-stripped, naked, confounded.
And now a spirit that is noble and haut Appeareth to that heart with so great might That all th’ heart’s virtues turn in sudden flight.
Woe! and I pray you greet my soul as friend, Who tells through all her grief what things were wrought On her by Love, and will be to the end.
SONNET XI
If Mercy were the friend of my desires, Or Mercy’s source of movement were the heart, Then, by this fair, would Mercy show such art And power of healing as my pain requires. From torturing delights my sighs commence, Born of the mind where Love is situate, Go errant forth and naught save grief relate And find no one to give them audience.
They would return to the eyes in galliard mode, With all harsh tears and their deep bitterness Transmuted into revelry and joy; Were’t not unto the sad heart such annoy, And to the mournful soul such rathe distress That none doth deign salute them on the road.
SONNET XII
The grace of youth in Toulouse ventureth; She’s noble and fair, with quaint sincerities, Direct she is and is about her eyes Most like to our Lady of sweet memories. So that within my heart desirous She hath clad the soul in fashions peregrine. Pilgrim to her he hath too great chagrin To say what Lady is lord over us. This soul looks deep into that look of hers, Wherein he rouseth Love to festival, For deep therein his rightful lady resteth. Then with sad sighing in the heart he stirs, Feeling his death-wound as that dart doth fall Which this Tolosan by departure casteth.
Born of the perception of beauty, he arouseth that power of the mind whence is born that quality of love which ennobleth every sense and every desire; misunderstanded of base minds who comprehend not his power, he is the cause of that love in woman which teacheth modesty. Thus from him is born that love in woman whence is born Mercy, and from Mercy “as a gentle rain from heaven” descend those spirits which are the keys of every spirit, perforce of the one spirit which seeth.
SONNET XIII
Subtle the spirit striking through the eyes Which rouseth up a spirit in the mind Whence moves a spirit unto love inclined Which breeds, in other sprites, nobilities. No turbid spirit hath the sense which sees How greatly empowered a spirit he appeareth; He is the little breath which that breath feareth, Which breedeth virginal humilities. Yet from this spirit doth another move Wherein such tempered sweetness rightly dwells That Mercy's spirit followeth his ways, And Mercy's spirit as it moves above Rains down those spirits that ope all things else, Perforce of One who seeth all of these.
SONNET XIV
Surely thine intellect gives no embrace To him who hath bred this day’s dishonesty; How art thou shown for beggared suddenly By that red spirit showing in thy face! Perhaps it is some love within thee breedeth For her who’s folly’s circumscription, Perhaps some baser light doth call thee on To make thee glad where mine own grief exceedeth.
Thou are my grief, my grief to such extent That I trust not myself to meet Milady, Starving myself of what Love sweetest lent me So that before my face that key’s forbent Which her disdeign turned in my heart and made me Suitor to wrath and sadness and lamenting.
SONNET XV
Thou hast in thee the flower and the green And that which gleameth and is fair of sight, Thy form is more resplendent than sun’s sheen; Who sees thee not, can ne’er know worth aright. Nay, in this world there is no creature seen So fashioned fair and full of all delight; Who fears Amor, and fearing meets thy mien, Thereby assured, he solveth him his flight.
The ladies of whom thy cortège consisteth Please me in this, that they’ve thy favour won; I bid them now, as courtesy existeth, Holding most dear thy lordship of their state, To honour thee with powers commensurate, Sith thou art thou, that art sans paragon.
Sonnet XVI TO GUIDO ORLANDO
This most lief lady, where doth Love display him So full of valour and so vestured bright, Bids thy heart “Out!” He goes and none gainsay him; And he takes life with her in long delight. Her cloister’s guard is such that should you journey To Ind you’d see each unicorn obey it; Its armèd might against thee in sweet tourney Cruel riposteth, thou canst not withstay it. And she is surely in her valliancies Such that she lacks not now worth’s anything, And yet He made her for a mortal creature. Then showed her forth, and here His foresight is, And His providence, Ah, how fair a thing If by her likeness thou mayst learn its nature!
SONNET XVII
Now every cool small spring that springeth sweetly Takes clarity and virtue in Liscian climes, Bernard my friend, from one sole source, discretely: So she who answereth thy sharpened rimes. For in that place where Love’s reports are laid Concerning all who to his sight are led, He saith that this so gracious and fair maid Hath in herself all graces gatherèd.
Whereas my grief in this is grown more grave And sighs have turned me to one light and flame, I send my burning heart, in her acclaim Unto Pinella, upon a magic stream Where fairies and their fair attendants gleam, In this wrecked barque! where their show is so brave!
SONNET XVIII
Beauty of woman, of the knowing heart, And courtly knights in bright accoutrement And loving speeches and the small birds’ art, Adorned swift ships which on high seas are sent, And airs grown cairn whenwhite the dawn appeareth And white snow falling where no wind is bent, Brook-marge and mead where every flower flareth, And gold and Silver and azure in ornament:
Effective ’gainst all these think ye the fairness And valour of my Lady’s lordly daring?
Yea, she makes all seem base vain gathering, And she were known above whome’er you’d bring As much as heaven is past earth’s comparing; Good seeketh out its like with some address.
SONNET XIX
News have I now for thee, so hear, Nerone, How that the Buondelmonti shake with fear, And all the Florentines cannot assure them, Seeing thou hast in thee the lion-heart. They fear thee more than they would fear a dragon, Seeing that face of thine, how set it is That neither bridge nor walls could hold against it Lest they were strong as is King Pharaoh’s tomb. Oh how thou dost of smoky sins the greatest In that thou wouldst drive forth such haughty blood Till ali be gone, gone forth without retention. But sooth it is, thou might’st extend the pawn Of one whose soul thou mightest give salvation Wert thou more patient in thine huckstering.
SONNET XX
So vilely is this soul of mine confounded By strife grown audible within the heart, That if toward her some frail Love but start With unaccustomed speed, she swoons astounded.
She is as one in whom no power aboundeth; Lo, she forsakes my heart through fearfulness, And any seeing her, how prone she is, Would deem her one whom death’s sure cloak surroundeth.
Through th’ eyes, as through the breach in wall, her foes Came first to attack and shattered all defence, Then spoiled the mind with their down-rained blows.
Whoe’er he be who holdeth Joy most dose Would, should he see my spirit going hence, Weep for the pity and make no pretence.
Cf. Sonnet i.
SONNET XXI THE DREAD SPIRIT
Thou mayest see, who seest me face to face, That most dread spirit whom Love summoneth To meet with man when a man meets with Death; One never seen in any other case. So dose upon me did this presence show That I thought he would slay my heart his dolour And my sad soul clad her in the dead colour That most accords the will and ways of woe. Then he restrained him, seeing in trae faith The piteous lights forth-issue from your eyes The which bore to my heart their foreign sweetness, While the perceptive sense with subtle fleetness Rescued those others who had considered death The one sure ending for their miseries.
SONNET XXII (To Dante, in answer to the first sonnet of the Vita Nuova.)
Thou sawest, it seems to me, all things availing, And every joy that ever good man feeleth. Thou wast in proof of that lord valorous Who through sheer honour lords it o’er the world. Thou livest in a place where baseness dieth, And holdest reason in the piteous mind: So gently move the people in this sleep That the heart bears it ’thout the feel of grief.
Love bore away thy heart, because in his sight Was Death grown clamorous for one thou lovest, Love fed her with thy heart in dread of this, Then, when it seemed to thee he left in sadness, A dear dream was it which was there completed, Seeing it contrary came conquering.
Note.–Dante, v. n. 111: “The true significance of the dream was not then seen by anyone.”
SONNET XXIII (To Dante, rebuking him for his way of life after the death of Beatrice.)
I daily come to thee uncounting times And find thee ever thinking over vilely; Much doth it grieve me that thy noble mind And virtue’s plenitude are stripped from thee;
Thou wast so careless in thy fine offending, Who from the rabbie alway held’st apart, And speaking of me so straightly from thy heart That I gave welcome to thine every rime.
And now I care not, sith thy life is baseness To give the sign that thy speech pleaseth me, Nor come I to thee in guise visible, Yet if thou’lt read this sonnet many a time, That malign spirit which so hunteth thee Will sound forloyn and spare thy affrighted soul.
SONNET XXIV
Dante, I pray thee, if thou Love discover In any place where Lappo Gianni is,– If ’t irk thee not to move thy mind in this, Write me these answered: “Doth he style him Lover?”; And, “Doth the lady seem as one approving?”; And, “Makes he show of service with fair skill?”; For many a time folk made as he is, will To assume importance, make a show of loving.
Thou know’st that in that court where Love puts on His royal robes, no vile man can be servant To any lady who were lost therein; If servant’s suff’ring doth assistance win, Our style could show unto the least observant, It beareth mercy for a gonfalon.
SONNET XXV “Hoot Zah!!!”
Come, come Manetto, look upon this scarecrow And set your mind upon its deformations, Compute th’ extent of its sad aberrations, Say what it looks like where she scarcely dare go!
Nay, were she in a cloak most well concealèd And snugly hooded and most tightly veiled, If, by her, daylight should once be assailed Though by some noble woman partly healèd,
Still you could not be so sin-laden or quite So bound by anguish or by love’s abstractions Nor so enwrapped in naked melancholy But you were brought to deathly danger, solely By laughter, till your sturdy sides grew fractions, ’Struth you were dead, or sought your life in flight.
SONNET XXVI OF LOVE IN A DEAD VISION
Nay, when I would have sent my verses to thee To say how harshly my heart is oppressed, Love in an ashen vision manifest Appeared and spake: “Say not that I foredo thee,
For though thy friend be he I understand, He will not yet have his mind so enured But that to hear of all thou hast endured, Of that blare flame that hath thee ’neath its hand,
Would blear his mind out. Verily before! Yea, he were dead, heart, life, ere he should hear To the last meaning of the portent wrought.
And thou; thou knowest well I am Amor Who leave with thee mine ashen likeness here And bear away from thee thine every thought.”
SONNET XXVII
Were I that I that once was worthy of Love (Of whom I find naught now save the remembrance) And if the lady had another semblance, Then would this sort of sign please me enough.
Do thou, who art from Love’s clear realm returned, Where Mercy giveth birth to hopefulness, Judge as thou canst from my dim mood’s distress What bowman and what target are concerned.
Straining his are, behold Amor the bowman Draweth so gaily that to see his face You’d say he held his rule for merriment, Yet hear what’s marvellous in all intent: The smitten spirit pardoneth his foeman Which pardon doth that foeman’s power debase.
Anyone who can, from the text as it stands, discern what happens to whom in the final lines of this sonnet, is at liberty to emend my translation.
SONNET XXVIII
A love-lit glance, with living powers fraught, Renewed within me love’s extreme delight, So love assails me with unwonted might, And cordially he driveth me in thought Towards my lady with whom ’vaileth not Mercy nor pity not the suffering wrought, So oft and great, her torments on me fall That my heart scarce can feel his life at all.
But when I feel that her so sweet regard Passeth mine eyes and to the heart attaineth Setting to rest therein spirits of Joy, Then do I give her thanks and without retard; Love asked her to do this, and that explaineth Why this first pity doth her no annoy.
SONNET XXIX
Dante, a sigh, that’s the heart’s messenger Assailed me suddenly as I lay sleeping; Aroused, I fell straightway into fear’s keeping, For Love came with that sigh as curator.
And I turned straight and saw the servitor Of Monna Lagia, who came there a-crying, “Ah pity! Aid me!” and at this his sighing I took from Pity this much power and more:
That I found Love a-filing javelins And asked him of both torment and solution, And in this fashion came that Lord’s replies: “Say to the servant that his service wins. He holds the Lady to his pleasure won. If he’d believe it, let him watch her eyes.”
SONNET XXX
I fear me lest unfortune’s counter thrust Pierce through my throat and rip out my despair. I feel my heart and that thought shaking there Which shakes the aspen mind with his distrust, Seeming to say, “Love doth not give thee ease So that thou canst, as of a little thing, Speak to thy Lady with full verities, For fear Death set thee in his reckoning.”
By the chagrin that here assails my soul My heart’s parturèd of a sigh so great It crieth to the spirits: “Get ye gone!” And of all piteous folk I come on none Who seeing me so in my grief’s control Will aid by saying e’en: “Nay, Spirits, wait!”
SONNET XXXI
You, who within your eyes so often carry That Love who holdeth in his hand three arrows, Behold my spirit, by his far-brought sorrows, Commends to you a soul whom hot griefs harry.
A mind thrice wounded she already hath, By this keen archer’s Syrian shafts twice shot. The third, less tautly drawn, hath reached me not, Seeing your presence is my shield ’gainst wrath.
Yet this third shot had made more safe my soul, Who almost dead beneath her members lies; For these two arrows give three wounds in all:
The first: delight, which payeth pain his toll; The second brings desire for the prize Of that great joy which with the third doth fall.
SONNET XXXII TO CECCO
If Santalena does not come unto you Down in the plow-lands where the clods are hard, But falls into the hands of some hot clod-pole Who’ll wear her out and hardly then return her; Then tell me if the fruit which this land beareth Is born of drought or heat or from the dampness, And say what wind it is doth blight and wither And which doth bring the tempest and the mist.
Say if it please you, when at break of morning You hear the farmer’s workman bawling out And all his family meddling in the noise?
Egad! I think that if your sweet Bettina Beareth a mellow spirit in her heart She’ll rescue you once more from your last choice.
SONNET XXXIII WITH DEATH
Death who art haught, the wretched’s remedy, Grace! Grace! hands joined I do beseech it thee, Come, see and conquer for worse things on me Are launched by love. My senses that did live, Consumèd are and quenched, and e’en in this place Where I was galliard, now I see that I am Fallen away, and where my steps I misplace, Fall pain and grief; to open tears I nigh am. And greater ills He’d send if greater may be, Sweet Death, now is the time thou may’st avail me And snatch me from His hand’s hostility. Ah woe! how oft I cry, “Love tell me now: Why dost thou ill only unto thine own, Like him of hell who maketh the damned groan?”
SONNET XXXIV
Amore and Mona Lagia and Guido and I Can give true thanks unto Ser Such-a-one Who hath now ridded us of Know-you-who? I’ll name no name for I’d have it forgotten. And these three people have no wish for it Though they were servants to him in such wise That they, in sooth, could not have served him more Had they mistaken him for God himself.
Let Love be thanked who was first made aware, And then give thanks unto the prudent lady Who at Love’s instance hath called back her heart; Then thanks to Guido who’s not here concerned And to me too who drove him back to virtue, If then he please me, think it not perchance.
SONNET XXXV TO GUIDO ORLANDO He explains the miracles of the Madonna of Or San Michele, by telling whose image it is.
My Lady’s face it is they worship there, At San Michele in Orto, Guido mine, Near her fair semblance that is clear and holy, Sinners take refuge and get consolation. Whoso before her kneeleth reverently No longer wasteth but is comforted; The sick are healed and devils driven forth, And those with crooked eyes see straightway straight. Great ills she cureth in an open place, With reverence the folk all kneel unto her, And two lamps shed the glow about her form. Her voice is borne out through far-lying ways ’Till brothers minor cry: “Idolatry,” For envy of her precious neighbourhood.
* ↑ Vita Nuova, xli. 46, and Sonnet xxiv. and Sonnet v. l. 4: “In guisa che da lui si svia e vanne a lei.”
* ↑ The senses or the spirits of the senses.
* ↑ The recall of the hounds.
* ↑ I. e. The Soul. I have kept the Italian gender in those few sonnets where there is no danger of confusing “her,” the soul, with the subjects of other feminine pronouns.
* ↑ I. e. Guido Orlando.