Choose not, for God’s love, I should perish quite;
My sorrow’s port I hope to find anon;
My heart has learnt not by long pain to veer.
Note 1. This translation of Bonaggiunta’s sonnet on “the danger of falling out of love” is taken from the Notes to Dante’s Divine Comedy, translated by C. B. Cayley. Bonaggiunta (Buonagiunta) was a native of Lucca, and appears to have been a poet and orator of considerable repute. He is depicted in the twenty-fourth Canto of the Purgatorio as undergoing torment amongst the Gluttons, and is said to have been intimate with Dante, and to have carried on a poetical correspondence with him. Evidently Dante did not forget his old friends. Benvenuto observes:—“Buonagiunta, of Urbisani, an honourable man of the city of Lucca, a brilliant orator in his mother tongue, a facile producer of rhymes, and still more facile consumer of wines; who knew our author (Dante) in his lifetime, and sometimes corresponded with him.” [back]
