What are we without this?
Whirling in the dark universe,
alone, afraid, unable to influence fate [...]
This philosophical and ethereal poem explores the state and nature of the universe. In this particular stanza, the narrator ponders what humanity would be without its capacity for goodness, kindness, and compassion. And yet, in spite of this, the narrator realizes that humanity has little ability to influence or control fate. Regardless of our propensity for kindness or cruelty, humanity itself is nothing more than a blip of existence on the vast canvas of the universe. One person’s personality or actions, the narrator concludes, can no more influence the vast hand of fate than can another’s personality or actions. Therefore, this quotation captures the narrator’s cynicism and internal struggle.
Hear me out: that which you call death
I remember.
In this poem, the narrator recounts her return from death. During this experience, she recalls breaching the time and space between the living world and the next. In this very short quotation, the narrator implores the reader to listen to her story and to understand that she experienced what humanity has coined as “death.” She wants her readers and/or listeners to believe her and, in this quotation, she begs anyone who will listen to listen with an open mind. It is clear that the narrator is desperate to share her experience and for others to believe her.
What do we have really?
Sad tricks with ladders and shoes,
tricks with salt, impurely motivated recurring
attempts to build character.
What do we have to appease the great forces?
This quotation captures the narrator’s internal struggle to come to terms with and make sense of the fact that her actions will neither influence nor alter the course of humanity. She struggles to understand what the purpose of existence is, when no amount of effort or compassion or action can appeal to the greater forces of will. The narrator compares humanity’s efforts to “sad tricks,” which could not ever possibly compare to the power and might of fate.
Surely spring has been returned to me, this time
not as a lover but a messenger of death, yet
it is still spring, it is still meant tenderly.
In these closing lines of “Vita Nova,” the narrator draws a metaphorical and oft-used parallel between the changing of the seasons and the season of life. After recounting and recalling her childhood, youth, and middle-aged memories throughout the seasons, she then realizes that the season of spring has returned. This time, however, spring represents impeding death. Though spring is often a season that represents re-birth and new life, for the narrator, it is a season that no longer represents this love, but instead represents a tender transition from life to a re-birth in the afterlife.
