Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti/Introduction
GUIDO CAVALCANTI
INTRODUCTION
"Cimabue thought that in portraiture
He held the field; now Giotto hath the cry
And all the former fame is turned obscure;
Thus hath one Guido from the other reft
The glory of our tongue, and there’s perchance
One born who shall un-nest both him and him."
Even the qualification in the last line of this speech which Oderesi, honour of Agobbio, illuminator of fair pages, makes to Dante in the terrace for the purgation of Pride, must be balanced by Dante’s reply to Guido's father among the burning tombs (Inferno, x.) [sic].
Cavalcante di Cavalcanti:
"If by the height of genius thou dost go
Through this blind prison house; where is my son?
Why is he not with thee?
Dante:
"I come not of myself,
But he, who awaiteth there (i.e. Virgil), doth lead me through."
After these passages from the Commedia there should be small need of my writing introductions to the poems of Guido Cavalcanti, for if he is not among the major prophets, he has at least his place in the canon, in the second book of The Arts, with Sappho and Theocritus and all those who have sung, not all the modes of life, but some of them, unsurpassedly, those who in their chosen or fated field have bowed to no one.
It is conceivable that poetry of a far-off time or place requires a translation not only of word and of spirit, but of "accompaniment," that is, that the modern audience must in some measure be made aware of the mental content of the older audience, and of what these others drew from certain fashions of thought and speech. Six centuries of derivative convention and loose usage have obscured the exact significances of such phrases as: "The death of the heart," and "The departure of the soul."
Than Guido Cavalcanti, no psychologist of the emotions is more keen in his understanding, more precise in his expression; we have in him no rhetoric, but always a true description, whether it be of pain itself, or of the apathy that comes when the emotions and possibilities of emotion are exhausted, or of that stranger state when the feeling by its intensity surpasses our powers of hearing, and we seem to stand aside and watch it surging across some thing or being with whom we are no longer identified.
The relation of certain words in the original to the practice of my translation may require gloze. L’ anima and la Morte are feminine, but it is not always expedient to retain this gender in English. Gentile is noble; gentleness in our current sense would be soavitate. Mente is mind, consciousness, apperception. The spiriti are the senses, or the intelligences of the senses, perhaps even “the moods,” when they are considered as “spirits of the mind.” Valore is power. Virtute, virtue, potency, requires a separate treatise. Pater has explained its meaning in the preface to his The Renaissance, but in reading a line like
“Vedrai la sua virtù nel ciel salita”
one must have in mind the connotations alchemical, astrological, metaphysical, which Swedenborg would have called the correspondences.
The equations of alchemy were apt to be written as women’s names, and the women so named endowed with the magical powers of the compounds. Virtù is the potency, the efficient property of a substance or person. Thus modern science shows us radium with a noble virtue of energy. Each thing or person was held to send forth magnetisms of certain effect; in Sonnet xxxv. the image of his lady has these powers. It is a spiritual chemistry, and modern science and modern mysticism are both set to confirm it.
“Vedrai la sua virtù nel ciel salita.”
The heavens were, according to the Ptolemaic system, clear concentric spheres with the earth as their pivot; they moved more swiftly as they were far removed from it, each one endowed with its virtue, its property for affecting man and destiny; in each its star, the sign visible to the wise and guiding them. A logical astrology, the star a sort of label of the spiritual force, an indicator of the position and movement of that spiritual current. Thus “her” presence, his Lady’s, corresponds with the ascendency of the star of that heaven which corresponds to her particular emanation or potency. Likewise
“Vedrai la sua virtù nel ciel salita.”
“Thou shalt see the rays of this emanation going up to heaven as a slender pillar of light.” Or returning and correlating this line with the first stanza of the ballata, one subtile body issues from the lips of the lady, from that a subtler body, and from that a body of pure flame, “the star,” in which is heard the voice.
I would go so far as to say that Il Paradiso and the form of the Commedia might date from this line; very much as I think I find in Guido’s “Place where I found people whereof each one grieved overly of Love,” some impulse that has ultimate fruition in Inferno, v.
These are lines in the sonnets; is it any wonder that “F. Z.” is able to write:
“His (Guido’s) canzone solely on the nature of Love was so celebrated that the rarest intellects, among them ‘il beato Egidio Colonna,’ set themselves to illustrating it with commentaries, of which the most cited is that of Mazzucchelli”?
Another line, of which Rossetti completely loses the significance, is
“E la beltate per sua Dea la mostra” (Sonnet vii. 2),
“Beauty displays her for her goodness.” That is to say, as the spirit of God became incarnate in the Christ, so is the spirit of the eternal beauty made flesh dwelling amongst us in her. And in theline preceding,
“Ch’ a lei s’ inchina ogni gentil virtute”
means, that “she” acts as a magnet for every “gentil virtute,” that is, the noble spiritual power, the invigorating forces of life and beauty bend toward her; rather than:
“To whom are subject all things virtuous,”
as Rossetti translates it.
The inchina implies, I think, not the homage of an object but the direction of a force.
In the matter of these translations and of my knowledge of Tuscan poetry, Rossetti is my father and my mother, but one man cannot be expected to see everything at once.
The twelfth ballata, being psychological and not metaphysical, need hardly be explained. Exhausted by a love born of fate and of the emotions, Guido turns to an intellectual sympathy,
“Love that is born of loving like delight,”
and in this new force he is remade
“formando di disio nova persona,”
yet with some inexplicable lack. His sophistication prevents the complete enthusiasm. This “new person” which is formed about his soul
“amar gia non osa”
knowing “The end of every man’s desire.”
The facts of Guido’s life, as we know them from other evidence than that of his own and his friends’ poems, are about as follows:–Born 1250 (circa), his mother probably of the Conti Guidi. In 1266 or 1267 “Cavalcante de Cavalcanti gave for wife to his son Guido one of the Uberti,” i. e. the daughter of Farinata. Thus Villani. Some speak of this as a “betrothal.” In 1280 he acted as one of the sureties of the peace arranged by Cardinal Latino. We may set 1283 as the date of the reply to Dante’s first sonnet. In 1284 he was a member of the Grand Council with Dino Compogni and Brunetto Latino. In party feuds of Florence Guelf, then a “White” with the Cherci, and most violent against Corso Donati. 1292–96 is the latitude given us for the pilgrimage to the holy house of Galicia. Corso, it is said, tried to assassinate him on this pilgrimage. It is more plausible to accept 1292 as the date of the feud between the Cavalcanti and the Bundelmonti, dating so the sonnet to Nerone; for upon his return from the pilgrimage which had extended only to Toulouse, Guido attacks Corso in the streets of Florence, and for the general turmoil ensuing, the leaders of both factions were exiled. Guido was sent with the “Whites” to Sarzana, where he caught his death fever. Dante at this time (1300), being a prior of Florence, was party to decree of exile, and perhaps, though no one so far as I know has suggested it, a cause of Cavalcanti’s speedy recall. “Il nostro Guido” was buried on August 29, whence writes Villani, “and his death is a great loss, for as he was philosopher, so was he man of parts in more things, although somewhat punctilious and fiery.” Boccaccio considers him “probably” the “other just man,” in Dante’s statement that there were two in Florence.
Benvenuto says so positively, “alter oculus Florentiæ.” In the Decameron we hear that, “He was of the best logicians in the world, a very fine natural philosopher. Thus was he leggiadrisimo” (there is much in that word wherewith to confute those who find no irony in his sonnets), “and habile, and a great talker.” On the “sixth day” (Novel ix.) the queen herself tells how he leapt over an exceeding great tomb to escape from that bore, Betto Brunelleschi. Other lines we have of him as: “noble and pertinent and better than another at whatever he set his hand to”; among the critics, Crescimbene notes, “robustezza e splendore”; Cristofore Landiano, “sobrio e dotto, and surpassed by a greater light he became not as the moon to the sun. Of Dante and Petrarcha, I speak elsewhere.”
Filippo Villani, with his translator Mazzuchelli, set him above Petrarch, speaking of him as “Guido of the noble line of the Cavalcanti, most skilled in the liberal arts, Dante’s contemporary and very intimate friend, a man surely diligent and given to speculation, ‘physicus’ (? natural philosopher) of authority… worthy of laud and honour for his joy in the study of ‘rhetoric,’ he brought over the fineness of this art into the rhyming compositions of the common tongue (eleganter traduxit). For canzoni in vulgar tongue and in the advancement of this art he held second place to Dante, nor hath Petrarch taken it from him.”
Dino Compagni, who knew him, has perhaps left us the most apt description, saying that Guido was “cortes e ardito, ma sdegnoso e solitaro,” at least I would so think of him, “courteous, bold, haughty, and given to being alone.” It is so we find him in the poems themselves.
Dante’s delay in answering Cavalcante’s question (Inferno, x.): “What said you, he (Guido) had? Lives he not still, with the sweet light beating upon his eyes?” is, I think, a device for reminding the reader of the events of the year 1300. One who had signed a decree of exile against his friend, however much civic virtue was thereby displayed, might well delay his answer.
And if that matchless and poignant ballad,
“Perch’ io non spero di tornar gia mai,”
had not reached Florence before Dante saw the vision, it was at least written years before he wrote the tenth canto of the Inferno.
Guido left two children, Andrea and Tancia. Mandetta of Toulouse is an incident. “Our own Lady” is “presumably” that Giovanna of whom Dante writes in the Vita Nuova (Sonnet xiv., and the prose preceding), weaving his fancy about Primavera, the first coming Spring, St. John the Forerunner, with Beatrice following Monna Vanna, as the incarnate love. Again, in the sonnet of the enchanted ship, “Guido vorrei…” we find her mentioned in the chosen company. One modern writer would have us follow out the parallels between the Commedia and “Book of His Youth,” and identify her with the “Matilda” of the Earthly Paradise. By virtue of her position and certain similarities of phrasing in Purgatory, xxviii., and one of the lives of the saint. We know that Matilda in some way corresponds to or balances John the Baptist. Dante is undoubtedly reminded of his similar equation in the Vita Nuova and shows it in his
“Tu mi fai remembrar, dove e qual era
Proserpina, nel tempo che perdette
La madre lei, ed ella primavera.”
Dante’s commentators, in their endless search for exact correspondences, seem never to suspect him of poetical innuendo, of calling into the spectrum of the reader’s mind associated things which formno exact allegory. So far as the personal Matilda is concerned, the great Countess of Tuscany has some claims, and we have nothing to show that Giovanna was dead at the time of the vision.
As to the actual identity of Guido’s lady–granting her to have been one and not several; no one has been rash enough to suggest that il nostro Guido was in love with his own wife, to whom he had been wedded or betrothed at sixteen. True, it would have been contrary to the laws of chivalric love, but Guido was not one to be bound by a convention if the whim had taken him otherwise. Such explanation might give us one more reason, which were superfluous, for the respect paid to Farinata (Inferno, x.). The discussion of such details and theories is futile, except in so far as it may serve to bring us more intimately in touch with the commune of Florence and the year of grace one thousand three hundred.
As for the verse itself: I believe in an ultimate and absolute rhythm as I believe in an absolute symbol or metaphor. The perception of the intellect is given in the word, that of the emotions in the cadence. It is only, then, in perfect rhythm joined to the perfect word that the twofold vision can be recorded. I would liken Guido’s cadence to nothing less powerful than line in Blake’s drawing.
In painting, the colour is always finite. It may match the colour of the infinite spheres, but it is in a way confined within the frame and its appearance is modified by the colours about it. The line is unbounded, it marks the passage of a force, it continues beyond the frame.
Rodin’s belief that energy is beauty, holds at least this far, namely, that all our ideas of beauty of line are in some way connected with our ideas of swiftness or easy power of motion, and we consider ugly those lines which connote unwieldy slowness in moving.
Rhythm is perhaps the most primal of all things known to us. It is basic in poetry and music mutually, their melodies depending on a variation of tone quality and pitch respectively, as is commonly said; but if we look more closely we will see that music is, by further analysis, pure rhythm; rhythm and nothing else, for the variation of pitch is the variation in rhythms of the individual notes, and harmony the blending of these varied rhythms. When we know more of overtones we shall see that the tempo of every masterpiece is absolute, and is exactly set by some further law of rhythmic accord. Whence it should be possible to show that any given rhythm implies about it a complete musical form, fugue, sonata, I cannot say what form, but a form, perfect, complete. Ergo, the rhythm set in a line of poetry connotes its symphony, which, had we a little more skill, we could score for orchestra.
The rhythm of any poetic line corresponds to a particular emotion. It is the poet’s business that this correspondence be exact, i. e. that it be the emotion which surrounds the thought expressed. For which cause I have set here Guido’s own words, that those few of you who care, may read in them the signs of his genius. By the same token, I consider Carducci and Arnone blasphemous in accepting the reading
E fa di clariate tremar l’are
instead of following those MSS. which read
E fa di clarità l’aer tremare.
I have in my translations tried to bring over the qualities of Guido’s rhythm, not line for line, but to embody in the whole of my English some trace of that power which implies the man. The science of the music of words and the knowledge of their magical powers has fallen away since men invoked Mithra by a sequence of pure vowel sounds. That there might be less interposed between the reader and Guido, it was my first intention to print only his poems and an unrhymed gloze. This has not been practicable. I cannot trust the reader to read the Italian for the music after he has read my English for the sense.
These are no sonnets for an idle hour. It is only when the emotions illumine the perceptive powers that we see the reality. It is in the light born of this double current that we look upon the face of the mystery unveiled. I have lived with these sonnets and ballate daily, month in and month out, and have been drawn daily deeper into them and daily into contemplation of things that are not of an hour. And I deem, for this, that voi altri pochi, who understand, will love me better for my labour in proportion as you read more carefully.
For the rest, I can but quote an envoi, that of Guido’s Canzone, “Donna mi pregna”:
Thou mayest go assured, my Canzone,
Whither thou wilt, for I have so adorned thee
That praise shall rise to greet thy reasoning
Mid all such folk as have intelligence;
To stand with any else, thou’st no desire.
November 15, 1910.