Translation of Dante Canzoni ‘Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona’

By David B. Gosselin

The nature of the subject matter discussed in Dante Alighieri’s lyric poetry, his canzoni, has been debated time after time, generation after generation. While the Dantisti as they are called, the Dante scholars, will often take up the habit of prating on individual details and individual poems, sometimes going on ad nauseum about who Dante was discussing in each of the canzoni, how much is literal, how much is autobiographical, who are the different ladies or maidens he’s speaking of, how much is just imagination and how much is literary license—the reality is that all his canzoni need to be approached as a totality: they are each individual frames out of the long process of his personal development. Rather than disputing, as many of the scholars do, who these different women were, these different subjects in his canzoni, the reality is the subject never changes; Dante is the one who changes, in regards to this unchanging idea, the higher hypothesis of his existence—Lady Philosophy.

Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona

Within my mind Love now sweetly discourses
And sings of the reasons why the lady I desire
Moves every thought and feeling I have to some higher
Land, where my weak intellect now wanders.
Her every word seems to issue from heavenly sources
Such that whoever would her words receive, like fire
Would feel themselves consumed and say “None have power
To tell what sights, what thoughts, what great wonders
Are found in this soul, who every earthly thought sunders
And leaves us wandering, longing to tell
Even the smallest part of what they’ve heard –
Which yet our human speech has not a word;
And which transfixes us in one fell
Sweep. Thus whatever shortcoming or defect
My verses may succumb to as they tell the tale
Of my sweet lady, it is not her virtue derelict,
Nor any shortcomings of her above,
But of those who wish mere words would capture Love.

The sun in all its worldly revolutions
Neve does shine upon something so virtuous
As when its golden rays fall upon her, impervious
To mortal stains. As she casts love’s shadow
All gaze upon her above who seek salvation
For all those who fall in Love and meet those numinous
Eyes, can’t help but find her aspect so beauteous.
A place which each of Love’s servants hallows.
Whoever walks within her shadow follows
The trail of virtue and delight unknown,
Exceeding what our mortal nature could conceive.
Her soul which does receive
This saving immutable grace from heaven flown,
Displays its power in each smallest gesture
For such things are felt with each sweet tone
That all who see or hear find early rapture.
Their hearts are flooded with the strongest desire
Which takes flight like sighs that burn with heavens fire.

On her descends the same virtue divine
As it so graces angels who fly to earth;
And to any woman who questions her worth
Follow each of her gentle arts and learn
For wherever she speaks with speech so fine
She so inspires in each who tread the earthly turf
To shun all the pestilence and all the dearth
Of this world, proving how she can spurn
All baseness, as she did from heaven learn.
So effortless her acts that each which sees
Her move must then believe in grace divine;
Her every gesture a heavenly sign.
So it’s said, her eyes are deeper than the seas,
Virtuous all that which women with her share
And fair all that resembles her true beauty,
Thus no mortal can doubt her true duty
For in this our faith is ever raised
From its low place, and now eternally praised.

Appearing in her aspect is Paradise
Which makes itself and all its joys directly known;
That is within those eyes I’ve seen it shone,
Left by Love, who chose his rightful dwelling.
She seizes every thought like streams that turn to ice,
Or as the blinding sky where Helios keeps his throne
Passed earthly sights, over the horizon flown.
And thus, since every sight is met with blinding
Light, I content myself to give a humble telling.
Forever burning like the sun or stars
Orbiting our minds like celestial cars
And shattering each vile thought with thunderous quelling,
Yet let them who by her beauty feels ashamed
Let them find in such radiance compelling
Proof of the humbleness that can be gained,
Whose ways have the power to tame each perverse
Thought, as he who wrought the universe.

My song, you seem to contradict a sister
Of yours, who speaks in such a different way,
For while one says she speaks disdainfully you say
She is humble, with an angels grace.
Despite our fate, which the stars oft temper
You know the sky is clear as day,
Which never turns its back on us though sights betray
Our confidence, as mortal eyes can oft deface
And seem to blur the heaven’s hidden  trace.
Refrain from thinking thus some steadfast truth
Believing such things are as they seem,
For in this way you need not helpless deem
Or let the fear which swims within your soul be proof
Of some bad star possessing you
Rather go speak with her and stay aloof
So that you may without hesitation be true
Telling her: “My lady, only this I pray,
I’d like to sing of you through all life’s way.”

See here for notes on the poem and to compare with other translations.

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