The prose account allows Dante to insist on visionary modalities, as for example when he specifies that “non solamente piangea ne la imaginazione, ma piangea con li occhi, bagnandoli di vere lagrime [I wasn’t crying only in imagination but I was crying with my eyes, wetting them with real tears]” (VN XXIII.6 [14.6]); such synchrony between fantasy experience and bodily experience is typical of vision literature. Language that one might call “technical” with respect to the narratio of a vision, present but less emphatic in the canzone, is highlighted in the prose: the continual use of direct discourse and of the verbs vedere and parere, and the insistence on the paradoxical coexistence of truth and falsehood. Donna pietosa and the chapter of the Vita Nuova to which it belongs are early experiments in the visionary mode of “nonfalse errors,” as distilled by verses in Purgatorio 15 that express in nuce much of Dante’s thought on visionary experience: “Quando l’anima mia tornò di fori / a le cose che son fuor di lei vere,/io riconobbi i miei non falsi errori [When my soul returned to the things that are true outside of it, I recognized my nonfalse errors]” (Purg. 15.115–17).96
In the prose the poet is “awakened” from the visionary state after having assisted in the funeral rites for Beatrice: “E quando io avea veduto compiere tutti li dolorosi mestieri che a le corpora de li morti s’usano di fare, mi parea tornare ne la mia camera [And when I had seen all the mournful rites that are customarily done with the bodies of the dead, it seemed that I returned to my room]” (VN XXIII.10 [14.10]). To the gaunt corresponding verse of the canzone, “Poi mi partia, consumato ogne duolo [Once the last rites were done I went away]” (80), the prose adds the information that the “mournful rites” have to do with “the bodies of the dead,” thus enriching what we might call the sociology of the corrotto (funeral lament), as introduced by the previous chapter, Vita Nuova XXII (13). Earlier as well, regarding the veil that covers the dead woman, there is a significant addition in the prose: where the canzone indicates only that the ladies cover madonna “d’un velo” – “vedea che donne la covrian d’un velo [I saw those ladies wrap her in a veil]” (68) – the prose specifies the colour of the veil and the part of the body (again the emphasis on “the bodies of the dead”) that is covered: “e pareami che donne la covrissero, cioè la sua testa, con uno bianco velo [and it seemed that women were covering her – that is, her head – with a white veil]” (XXIII.8 [14.8]). I cannot therefore agree with De Robertis when he claims that there is not “any real gain in the prose” (VN, p. 158); the prose here adds notable information about Florentine social life, as elsewhere in the Vita Nuova. This shift suggests that Donna pietosa, too, was composed before the prose and not contemporaneously.
In his vision the poet is able to steal into the room where the cadaver of madonna is lying and participate fully in mourning. Now he does precisely what he was prevented from doing in the two preceding sonnets of the Vita Nuova. He finds himself exactly where he wanted to be in the sonnets Voi che portate and Se’ tu colui: not at the margins of the mourning process, not at the periphery, but at the centre of the funeral activities. Now, however, it is not madonna who is mourning, as in the preceding sonnets, but madonna who is mourned.
The protagonist of the prose narration awakens with a “doloroso singulto di pianto [an agonized tearful sob]” (VN XXIII.11 [14.11]) that shakes up a lady seated beside his bed, “who was joined to me by the closest of blood ties [la quale era meco di propinquissima sanguinitade congiunta]” (VN XXIII.12 [14.12]). This precise designation of kinship is not present in the poem and represents another substantial addition of social information by the prose. Once that lady has departed – she has been identified by commentators as a sister of the poet97 – the other ladies “si trassero verso me per isvegliarmi, credendo che io sognasse, e diceanmi: ‘Non dormire più,’ e ‘Non ti sconfortare’ [drew near me to wake me up, believing that I was dreaming, and they said to me: ‘Don’t sleep anymore,’ and, ‘Don’t despair’]” (VN XXIII.12 [14.12]). From here the prose winds towards its conclusion, in which the poet comes out of the “powerful fantasy at the very moment when I was about to say, ‘O Beatrice, blessed are you’; and I had already said, ‘O Beatrice’” (“forte fantasia entro in quello punto ch’io volea dicere: ‘O Beatrice, benedetta sie tu’; e già detto avea ‘O Beatrice’”) (VN XXIII.13 [14.13]), and feels ashamed of having named Beatrice publicly. A parallel moment is Dante’s waking up in the earthly paradise, where, however, Beatrice’s name can be declared without shame: “E tutto in dubbio dissi: ‘Ov’è Beatrice?’ [And full of doubt I said: ‘Where is Beatrice?’]” (Purg. 32.85). The stress on the name that escapes from him is very strong in the prose – “I was about to say, ‘O Beatrice, blessed are you’; and I had already said, ‘O Beatrice’” – which makes its absence from the canzone all the more noteworthy.
Reassured that the name he pronounced has not been heard and comprehended by the ladies around his bed, the poet sets himself to recount “quello che veduto avea, tacendo lo nome di questa gentilissima [what I had seen, staying silent about the name of this most gracious of women]” (VN XXIII.15 [14.15]). All that then remains is to reconfirm the fundamental fiction of the Vita Nuova, which holds that the poems were written for the occasions described in the prose: “Onde poi, sanato di questa infermitade, propuosi di dire parole di questo che m’era addivenuto, però che mi parea che fosse amorosa cosa da udire; e però ne dissi questa canzone [Later, having recovered from this illness, I planned to compose a poem about what happened to me, since it seemed to me to be a love theme worthy of an audience; and so I wrote this canzone]” (VN XXIII.16 [14.16]).
The very presence of this routine confirmation of what is elsewhere not true, namely that the poem was composed specifically for the occasion described in the prose, further suggests that in this case, as elsewhere, the canzone was not contemporaneous with but actually preceded the prose, and that it was not originally written for the never-named Beatrice. The evidence gathered here suggests that the canzone and prose were not composed contemporaneously: Beatrice is never named in the can-zone, as she is obsessively in the prose; the prose includes many details of social and material life not present in the canzone; Dante utilizes the same technique of relating that the poem was composed for the occasion described in the prose that he uses throughout the Vita Nuova, a technique that we know to be deliberately misleading.
Analysing the narrative blocks that make up the prose, we can point to three macro-episodes: (1) the poet’s illness; (2) the delirious visions; (3) his waking up again surrounded by ladies, among whom is first of all his sister. It is important to note, with respect to Dante’s commitment to the phenomenology of visionary experience in the Vita Nuova, that in the prose the visionary material precedes the matter-of-fact information that he is in his sickbed surrounded by concerned ladies. The prose reverses the order of the canzone, which begins with the episode that is last in the prose: Donna pietosa e di novella etate starts with the person that the prose designates his sister – the “lady youthful and compassionate” of the incipit – and with the moment in which the poet comes to consciousness beside her and then tells the other compassionate ladies all that has happened to him except for the name of the gentilissima. This story narrated by the poet to the ladies around his bed, which does not appear as such in the prose, is instead the gist of the canzone, which therefore takes the form of a story within a story: both the opening illness and the vision are narrated in the canzone not in the sequence in which they were experienced but in the form of a flashback told by the poet to his gracious interlocutors.
The poet of Donna pietosa is at the centre of the scene: he is sick, in bed, at the centre of attention of a group of women. This literally central position of the protagonist is highlighted by the formal structure of the canzone, where the sick poet’s interactions with the women who are his healers and interlocutors frame his telling of his story: first comes the description of the ladies, then his recounting of his story to them, then a closin
g interaction with the ladies. In this way, the poet’s narrative about himself is literally and materially central in the disposition of the canzone.
As the ladies physically surround the bed of the protagonist, so formally his dialogue with them frames his story: the last line of the canzone, “Voi mi chiamaste allor, vostra merzede [Then, by your mercy, you called out to me]” (84), marks the exit from the flashback and the return of the poet to the “reality” of his conversation with the women. If therefore on the one hand the prose is richer than the poem with historical and sociological detail – for example, the particular about the kinship of the “donna pietosa e di novella etate” – on the other hand the canzone is endowed with a much more complex narrative structure, which the prose unpacks and embroiders. Organized in the form of one discourse (the poet’s illness, the consequent visions) framed by another (the conversation with the consoling ladies), the complexity of the structure is such that it is useful to visualize Donna pietosa in outline form:
First stanza: Begins where the prose ends, with the kind lady (in the prose identified as his sister) sitting by his bed, hearing the words of his delirium and beginning to weep. The other ladies, just as in the prose, become aware of him because of her weeping, send her away, and approach him to hear what he is saying. They speak consoling words to him. He leaves “la nova fantasia [my strange imaginings]” as a result of their intervention.
Second stanza: Still proemial. His voice was so broken by his weeping that he alone understood the name in his heart, “ch’io solo intesi il nome nel mio core” (17). In other words, the ladies were unable to catch the beloved’s name: note how the prose unpacks the potential social trespass, while the poem stays within the lyric frame of the amorous / erotic. They ask him what he saw, and he tells them that he will tell them: “io dissi, ‘Donne, dicerollo a vui’” (28). Speech within speech begins.
Third stanza: “While I was thinking of my frail life”: here begins the flashback to what he was imagining while delirious. Now the poem treats the visionary material where the prose begins. Thinking of the frailty of his own life, he says to himself (in direct discourse of course) that his lady will die: “Ben converrà che la mia donna mora [My lady someday surely has to die]” (34). Just as in the prose, reflections on his own mortality lead to the certainty of her mortality. He experiences such smarrimento as a result of this thought that he closes his eyes and his spirits are confused and he begins to imagine (“e poscia imaginando” [39]) the faces of women who say to him (in direct discourse): “Morra’ti, morra’ti [You’ll die, you’ll die]” (42).
Fourth stanza: The “vano imaginare ov’io entrai [deceptive vision that I had]” (44): the poet is in an unspecified place (as in the prose), where he sees precisely what the prose relates in greater detail, in the same sequence. He sees: “donne andar per via disciolte [ladies walked whose hair was left unbound]” (46); “turbar lo sole e apparir la stella [the sun grow dim and then the stars appear]” (50); “cader li augelli [birds fall from the sky]” (52); “la terra tremare [the earth then quake]” (53). The final vision is a man who appears and announces the lady’s death: “ed omo apparve scolorito e fioco,/dicendomi: ‘Che fai? Non sai novella?/Morta è la donna tua, ch’era sì bella’ [and someone pale and indistinct appears,/who said to me: ‘Have you not heard the news?/Your lady’s dead who was so beautiful’]” (54–6). This “omo scolorito e fioco” is the “alcuno amico” of the prose.
Fifth stanza: Still within the vision. He looks up and sees the angels returning to heaven after which they cry out Osanna; if they had said anything more, says the poet, I would tell you (that last curious statement is missing from the prose). Love speaks: “Più non ti celo;/vieni a veder nostra donna che giace [No longer will I hide the truth:/come and behold our lady who lies dead]” (63–4). His “imaginar fal-lace [false imagining]” (65) leads him to look upon his dead lady; once he has seen her, the ladies cover her with a veil, and she seems to say, “Io sono in pace [I am at peace]” (70).
Sixth stanza: Still within the vision. He addresses death, whom he now finds sweet; he desires death. Then, once all the funeral preparations are taken care of (“consumato ogne duolo”; the prose adds that these preparations are for “le corpora de li morti”), he remains alone and, looking towards heaven, speaks to his dead lady: “Beato, anima bella, chi te vede [Whoever sees you, lovely soul, is blessed]” (83). These words, which anticipate the end of the Vita Nuova, are the penultimate line of the canzone, but they remain technically within the poet’s account of his “strange imaginings.” Only in the very last verse of the canzone does the poet leave the trance and return from his vision to reality. The canzone concludes with the poet addressing the ladies, recalling the moment when they interrupted his vision by calling to him: “Voi mi chiamaste allor, vostra mercede” (84).
The construction of Donna pietosa anticipates that of the second canto of Inferno, another text made up of embedded speeches. Just as in Inferno 2, where there is a relay of female compassion that motivates the ladies of the court of heaven to help the lost pilgrim, Donna pietosa opens with the pity of one lady that elicits the compassion of others: “E altre donne, che si fuoro accorte / di me per quella che meco piangia,/fecer lei partir via,/e appressarsi per farmi sentire [And other ladies, learning of my plight / because of her who wept there by my side,/sent her away / and came to aid in my recovery]” (7–10). Shaken by their concerned comments and questions – “Qual dicea: ‘Non dormire,’/e qual dicea: ‘Perché sì ti sconforte?’ [One said: ‘Wake up!’/Another asked: ‘Why are you so distraught?’]” (11–12) – the poet comes to. The first stanza of Donna pietosa ends with him awaking and calling out his lady’s (unspecified) name: “Allor lassai la nova fantasia,/chiamando il nome de la donna mia [I then forsook my strange imaginings,/as I was calling out my lady’s name]” (13–14).
As already noted, “il nome de la donna mia” is not specified; so too unspecified is the kinship of the “Donna pietosa e di novella etate,/adorna assai di gentilezze umane [A lady youthful and compassionate,/so well adorned with human gentleness]” (1–2). If his sister, then the “gentilezze” of which the “donna pietosa” is “adorna” constitute not only a reference to her nobility of spirit but also a first indication of the great importance that Dante attaches (protestations notwithstanding) to his nobility of blood, that “nobiltà di sangue” that he shares with Cacciaguida and of which he boasts at the beginning of Paradiso 16.
The scene of the poet just having woken up and being surrounded by female attention continues in the second stanza, where we learn that, because of his voice “rotta sì da l’angoscia del pianto [broken by the anguish of my tears]” (16), the ladies did not hear the name of his heart: the line “io solo intesi il nome nel mio core” (I alone understood the name in my heart) (17) is an interesting reminder of the “dolce nome che mi fa il cor agro [sweet name that embitters so my heart]” in the canzone that names Beatrice, Lo doloroso amor (15). His pallor rouses compassion that leads to the ladies’ wish to console – “‘Deh, consoliam costui’/pregava l’una l’altra umilemente [‘Let’s comfort him,’/each one of them implored kind-heartedly]” (23–4)98 – and to their curiosity, which takes the form of the question, already implicitly visionary: “Che vedestù, che tu non hai valore? [What have you seen that takes away your strength?]” (26).99 The second stanza concludes with the poet’s offer to narrate what he saw in his delirium to the ladies: the last line of the second stanza – “Donne, dicerollo a vui [I’ll tell you, ladies, what I saw]” (28) – is the beginning of the poet’s account that will continue uninterrupted until the penultimate line of the canzone, requiring four of the six stanzas of Donna pietosa for its unfolding. The emphatic position of the meta-discursive “Donne, dicerollo a vui” underscores the importance of what follows.
The third stanza of Donna pietosa begins the flashback with the meditation on his own mortality – “Mentr’io pensava la mia frale vita,/e vedea ’l suo durar com’è legg
iero [While I was thinking of my frail life,/and saw how my survival was unsure]” (29–30) – that leads to the recognition of the beloved’s mortality, followed by panic and confusion: “Io presi tanto smarrimento allora,/ch’io chiusi li occhi vilmente gravati [I then became so wholly mystified / I closed my eyes, weighed down with cowardice]” (35–6). The stanza ends with the first vision and with the insistent rhythm of death: “visi di donne m’apparver crucciati,/che mi dicean pur: ‘Morra’ti, morra’ti’ [I saw the looks of ladies suffering / who said repeatedly: ‘You’ll die, you’ll die!’]” (41–2).
The situation outlined in Donna pietosa broadly anticipates the beginning of the Commedia. In the canzone too the protagonist is smarrito – “per che l’anima mia fu sì smarrita [this made my soul so utterly distraught]” (32) – and enters a new reality where he sees frightening things: “Poi vidi cose dubitose molte,/nel vano imaginare ov’io entrai [Then I saw many things that frightened me / in the deceptive vision that I had]” (43–4). He witnesses a cosmic scene of lament, “donne andar per via disciolte [ladies walk(ing) whose hair was left unbound]” (46), followed by a series of natural dislocations – “turbar lo sole e apparir la stella … cader li augelli … e la terra tremare [The sun grow dim and then the stars appear … birds … fall from the sky,/the earth then quake]” (50, 52, 53) – that culminate with the apparition of a tragic messenger: “ed omo apparve scolorito e fioco,/dicendomi: ‘Che fai? non sai novella?/Morta è la donna tua, ch’era sì bella’ [And someone pale and indistinct appear,/who said to me: ‘Have you not heard the news?/Your lady’s dead, who was so beautiful’]” (54–6).