| Samuel Waddington, comp. The Sonnets of Europe. 1888. | | | | To Brunetto Latini | | By Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) |
| | Translated by Henry Francis Cary
(Sent with the Vita Nuova)
MASTER BRUNETTO, this I send entreating | |
| Ye’ll entertain this lass of mine at Easter; | |
| She does not come among you as a feaster; | |
| No: she has need of reading, not of eating. | |
| Nor let her find you at some merry meeting, | 5 |
| Laughing amidst buffoons and drollers, lest her | |
| Wise sentence should escape a noisy jester; | |
| She must be wooed, and is well worth the weeting. | |
| If in this sort you fail to make her out, | |
| You have amongst you many sapient men, | 10 |
| All famous as was Albert of Cologne. | |
| I have been posed amid that learned rout, | |
| And if they cannot spell her right, why then | |
| Call Master Giano, and the deed is done. | | | | |
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