Guido Delle Colonne. “Canzone. To Love and to his Lady.” - Collection Introduction

The best part of DGR's translation of this fine poem is the excellent final stanza. For the rest, DGR's departures (even from the interesting rhyme scheme of the Italian poem) are not especially effective, and in certain cases—see for example WMR's critical notes on the translation—miss some of the best features of the original.

DGR's source text was Poeti del Primo Secolo (I.194-197).

DGR's brief notes on Guido delle Colonne identify him as the author of a Latin history of Troy but modern scholars regard this attribution as dubious. The Sicilian poet was, however, a well known figure, even in England (where he was known to Chaucer, Lydgate, Caxton, and Shakespeare). Dante praises his verse and quotes from this canzone and another in De Volgari Eloquio I.xii.2. He was a judge of Messina and wrote in the mid- to late thirteenth-century. He died sometime after 1287.