Chapter VII

Now it so chanced with her by whose means I had thus long time concealed my desire, that it behoved her to leave the city I speak of, and to journey afar: wherefore I, being sorely perplexed at the loss of so excellent a defence, had more trouble than even I could before have supposed. And thinking that if I spoke not somewhat mournfully of her departure, my former counterfeiting would be the more quickly perceived, I determined that I would make a grievous sonnet¹ thereof; the which I will write here, because it hath certain words in it whereof my lady was the immediate cause, as will be plain to him that understands.

And the sonnet was this:—

All ye that pass along Love’s trodden way, Pause ye awhile and say If there be any grief like unto mine: I pray you that you hearken a short space Patiently, if my case Be not a piteous marvel and a sign.

Love (never, certes, for my worthless part, But of his own great heart,) Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet That oft I heard folk question as I went What such great gladness meant:— They spoke of it behind me in the street.

But now that fearless bearing is all gone Which with Love’s hoarded wealth was given me; Till I am grown to be So poor that I have dread to think thereon. And thus it is that I, being like as one Who is ashamed and hides his poverty, Without seem full of glee, And let my heart within travail and moan.

This poem has two principal parts; for, in the first, I mean to call the Faithful of Love in those words of Jeremias the Prophet, “O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte si est dolor sicut dolor meus,” and to pray them to stay and hear me. In the second I tell where Love had placed me, with a meaning other than that which the last part of the poem shows, and I say what I have lost. The second part begins here, “Love, (never, certes).”

Footnotes

1. It will be observed that this poem is not what we now call a sonnet. Its structure, however, is analogous to that of the sonnet, being two sextetts followed by two quatrains, instead of two quatrains followed by two triplets. Dante applies the term sonnet to both these forms of composition, and to no other. ↩