_August 1899._
_INTRODUCTION._
The _Vita Nuova_ (the Autobiography or Autopsychology of Dante’s youth
till about his twenty-seventh year) is already well known to many in
the original, or by means of essays and of English versions partial or
entire. It is therefore, and on all accounts, unnecessary to say much
more of the work here than it says for itself. Wedded to its exquisite
and intimate beauties are personal peculiarities which excite wonder
and conjecture, best replied to in the words which Beatrice herself
is made to utter in the _Commedia_: “Questi _fù tal_ nella sua vita
nuova.”[2] Thus then young Dante _was_. All that seemed possible to be
done here for the work was to translate it in as free and clear a form
as was consistent with fidelity to its meaning; and to ease it, as far
as possible, from notes and encumbrances.
[2] “Purgatorio,” C. xxx.
It may be noted here how necessary a knowledge of the _Vita Nuova_
is to the full comprehension of the part borne by Beatrice in the
_Commedia_. Moreover, it is only from the perusal of its earliest and
then undivulged self-communings that we can divine the whole bitterness
of wrong to such a soul as Dante’s, its poignant sense of abandonment,
or its deep and jealous refuge in memory. Above all, it is here that we
find the first manifestations of that wisdom of obedience, that natural
breath of duty, which afterwards, in the _Commedia_, lifted up a mighty
voice for warning and testimony. Throughout the _Vita Nuova_ there is
a strain like the first falling murmur which reaches the ear in some
remote meadow, and prepares us to look upon the sea.
Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, tells us that the great poet, in later
life, was ashamed of this work of his youth. Such a statement hardly
seems reconcilable with the allusions to it made or implied in the
_Commedia_; but it is true that the _Vita Nuova_ is a book which only
youth could have produced, and which must chiefly remain sacred to
the young; to each of whom the figure of Beatrice, less lifelike than
lovelike, will seem the friend of his own heart. Nor is this, perhaps,
its least praise. To tax its author with effeminacy on account of the
extreme sensitiveness evinced by this narrative of his love, would be
manifestly unjust, when we find that, though love alone is the theme of
the _Vita Nuova_, war already ranked among its author’s experiences at
the period to which it relates. In the year 1289, the one preceding the
death of Beatrice, Dante served with the foremost cavalry in the great
battle of Campaldino, on the eleventh of June, when the Florentines
defeated the people of Arezzo. In the autumn of the next year, 1290,
when for him, by the death of Beatrice, the city as he says “sat
solitary,” such refuge as he might find from his grief was sought in
action and danger: for we learn from the _Commedia_ (Hell, C. xxi.)
that he served in the war then waged by Florence upon Pisa, and was
present at the surrender of Caprona. He says, using the reminiscence to
give life to a description, in his great way:—
“I’ve seen the troops out of Caprona go
On terms, affrighted thus, when on the spot
They found themselves with foemen compass’d so.”
(CAYLEY’S _Translation_.)
A word should be said here of the title of Dante’s autobiography.
The adjective _Nuovo_, _nuova_, or _Novello_, _novella_, literally
_New_, is often used by Dante and other early writers in the sense of
_young_. This has induced some editors of the _Vita Nuova_ to explain
the title as meaning _Early Life_. I should be glad on some accounts
to adopt this supposition, as everything is a gain which increases
clearness to the modern reader; but on consideration I think the more
mystical interpretation of the words, as _New Life_ (in reference to
that revulsion of his being which Dante so minutely describes as having
occurred simultaneously with his first sight of Beatrice), appears
the primary one, and therefore the most necessary to be given in a
translation. The probability may be that both were meant, but this I
cannot convey.[3]
[3] I must hazard here (to relieve the first page of my translation
from a long note) a suggestion as to the meaning of the most
puzzling passage in the whole _Vita Nuova_,—that sentence
just at the outset which says, “La gloriosa donna della mia
mente, la quale fù chiamata da molti Beatrice, i quali non
sapeano che si chiamare.” On this passage all the commentators
seem helpless, turning it about and sometimes adopting
alterations not to be found in any ancient manuscript of the
work. The words mean literally, “The glorious lady of my
mind who was called Beatrice by many who knew not how she
was called.” This presents the obvious difficulty that the
lady’s name really _was_ Beatrice, and that Dante throughout
uses that name himself. In the text of my version I have
adopted, as a rendering, the one of the various compromises
which seemed to give the most beauty to the meaning. But
it occurs to me that a less irrational escape out of the
difficulty than any I have seen suggested may possibly be
found by linking this passage with the close of the sonnet
at page 104 of the _Vita Nuova_, beginning, “I felt a spirit
of love begin to stir,” in the last line of which sonnet
Love is made to assert that the name of Beatrice is _Love_.
Dante appears to have dwelt on this fancy with some pleasure,
from what is said in an earlier sonnet (page 39) about “Love
in his proper form” (by which Beatrice seems to be meant)
bending over a dead lady. And it is in connection with the
sonnet where the name of Beatrice is said to be Love, that
Dante, as if to show us that the Love he speaks of is only
his own emotion, enters into an argument as to Love being
merely an accident in substance,—in other words, “Amore e il
cor gentil son una cosa.” This conjecture may be pronounced
extravagant; but the _Vita Nuova_, when examined, proves so
full of intricate and fantastic analogies, even in the mere
arrangement of its parts, (much more than appears on any but
the closest scrutiny,) that it seems admissible to suggest
even a whimsical solution of a difficulty which remains
unconquered. Or to have recourse to the much more welcome
means of solution afforded by simple inherent beauty: may not
the meaning be merely that any person looking on so noble
and lovely a creation, without knowledge of her name, must
have spontaneously called her Beatrice,—_i.e._, the giver
of blessing? This would be analogous by antithesis to the
translation I have adopted in my text.