Cino da Pistoia. “Canzone. His Lament for Selvaggia.”

DGR's translation follows closely the high rhetorical flourishes of Cino's original canzone, which recalls liturgical forms of ritual prayer. Fazio degli Uberti's “His Portrait of his Lady, Angiola of Verona” seems clearly to have been influenced by this work, as have various sonnets by Petrarch (e.g., sonnet CCLXVII of the Canzoniere).

See also the commentary for the source text, which was Sebastiano Ciampi's edition of the Vita e Poesie di Messer Cino da Pistoia (pages 85-86).

An early translation, probably late 1840s.

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