“Weep, lovers, since Love weeps,—hearkening what cause makes him wail: Love hears ladies invoking pity, showing bitter grief outwardly by the eyes; because villain Death has set his cruel working upon a noble heart, ruining that which in a noble lady is to be praised in the world, apart from honour. Hear how much Love did her honouring; for I saw him lamenting in very person over the dead seemly image: and often he gazed towards heaven, wherein was already settled the noble soul who had been a lady of such gladsome semblance.” It would be out of place to enter here into any detailed observations upon the _Vita Nuova_, its meaning, and the literature which has grown out of it. I will merely name, as obvious things for the English reader to consult, the translation which was made by Sir Theodore Martin; the essay by Professor C. Eliot Norton; the translations published by Dr. Garnett in his book entitled _Dante, Petrarch, Camoens, 124 Sonnets_, along with the remarks in his valuable _History of Italian Literature_; Scartazzini’s _Companion to Dante_; and the publications of the Rev. Dr. Moore, the foremost of our living Dante scholars. W. M. ROSSETTI. _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.