Guido Cavalcanti. “Ballata. Concerning a Shepherd-maid.”

This splendid ballad draws an equally exquisite translation from DGR, who manages to stay quite close to the original in nearly every respect, including the complex rhyme scheme. Only in the penultimate line, which in Cavalcanti reads “gioa e dolzore,” does the translation's variance lose something important. On the other hand, DGR's “Joy's enchanted art” involves a remarkable addition to the poem, making explicit in the deftest way that the ballad is as much about writing poetry as it is about making love. DGR's source text, Cicciaporci (Ballata IX, page 24-25) is reliable.

An early translation, late 1840s.

The translation was first published in 1861 in The Early Italian Poets; it was reprinted in 1874 in Dante and his Circle.