GRICE E CAVALCANTI: L'IMPLICATURA CONVERSAZIONALE DEL SINOLO DEGL'AMANTI -- FILOSOFIA ITALIANA

 

 

Grice e Cavalcanti: l’implicatura conversazionale del sìnolo degl’amanti -- filosofia italiana – Luigi Speranza (Firenze). Filosofo italiano. Grice: “I like Cavalcanti; he thinks he is an Aristotelian, but he is surely Platonic – therefore, obsessed with ‘eros,’ or ‘amore,’ as the Italians call it – Like Alighieri’s, his philosophy of ‘eros’ is confused, but interesting!” Come del corpo fu bello e leggiadro, come di sangue gentilissimo, così ne’ suo fiosofare non so che più degli altri bello, gentile e peregrino rassembra, e nell’invenzione acutissimo, magnifico, ammirabile, gravissimo nelle sentenze, copioso e rilevato nell’ordine, composto, saggio e avveduto, le quali tutte sue beate virtù d'un vago, dolce stile, come di preziosa veste, sono adorne. Lorenzo il Magnifico, Opere). Alighieri e Virgilio incontrano all'Inferno. Ritratto di Cavalcanti, in Rime. Figlio di Cavalcante dei Cavalcanti, nacque in una nobile famiglia guelfa di parte bianca, che ha la sua villa vicina a Orsanmichele e che e tra le più potenti della regione. Il padre fu mandato in esilio in seguito alla sconfitta di Montaperti. In seguito alla disfatta dei ghibellini nella battaglia di Benevento, padre e figlio riacquistarono la preminente posizione sociale a Firenze. A lui e promessa in sposa la figlia di Farinata degli Uberti, capo della fazione ghibellina, dalla quale Guido ha i figli Andrea e Tancia. E tra i firmatari della pace tra guelfi e ghibellini nel Consiglio generale al Comune di Firenze insieme a Latini e Compagni. A questo punto avrebbe intrapreso un pellegrinaggio -- alquanto misterioso, se si considera la sua infamia di ateo e miscredente! Muscia, comunque, ne dà un'importante testimonianza attraverso un sonetto.  Alighieri, priore di Firenze, fu costretto a mandare in esilio l'amico, nonché maestro, con i capi delle fazioni bianca e nera in seguito a nuovi scontri. Si reca allora a Sarzana. “Perch'i' no spero di tornar giammai” e composto durante l'esilio. La condanna e revocata per l'aggravarsi delle sue condizioni di salute. Muore a causa della malaria contratta durante l'esilio forzato d’Alighieri.È ricordato oltre che per i suoi componimentiper essere stato citato da Dante (del quale fu amico assieme a Gianni) nel celebre nono sonetto delle Rime Guido, i' vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io (al quale Guido rispose con un altro, mirabile, ancorché meno conosciuto, sonetto, che ben esprime l'intenso e difficile rapporto tra i due amici, “S’io fosse quelli che d'amor fu degno”. Alighieri, remmorso, lo ricorda anche nella Divina Commedia (Inferno, canto X e Purgatorio, canto XI) e nel De vulgari eloquentia, mentre Boccaccio lo cita nel Commento alla Divina Commedia e in una novella del Decameron.  La sua personalità, aristocraticamente sdegnosa, emerge dal ricordo che ne hanno lasciato gli filosofi contemporanei, Compagni, Villani, Boccaccio e Sacchetti. Il gentile figlio di Cavalcante C., nobile cavaliere e cortese e ardito, ma sdegnoso e solitario, e intento alla filosofia. La sua personalità è paragonabile a quella di Alighieri, con la importante differenza del carattere laico.  Noto per il suo ateismo, Alighieri l’incontra nell’Inferno (Inf. X, 63). Boccaccio (Decameron VI, 9: si dice tralla gente volgare che questa sua speculazione filosofica sull’amore e solo in cercare se puo trovarse che Iddio non e. Villani (De civitatis Florentie famosis civibus). La sua eterodossia è stata tra l'altro rilevata nella grande canzone dottrinale o manifesto “Me prega” -- certamente il testo più arduo e impegnato, anche sul piano filosofico -- di tutta la poesia stilnovistica, in cui s i rinvenge il carattere di correnti radicali dell'aristotelismo. Famoso e significativo l'episodio narrato dal Boccaccio di una specie di scherzoso assalto al filosofo da parte di due fiorentini a cavallo, di cui schivava la compagnia. L’episodio e ripreso da Italo Calvino in una lezione in cui il filosofo con l'agile salto da lui compiuto, diventa un emblema della leggerezza.  L'episodio figura anche nell'omonimo testo di France ne "Santa Chiara" dove, peraltro, i fatti risalienti della sua vita vengono riportati sotto una veste quasi mistica.  La opera di Cavalcanti consta di cinquantadue componimenti, di cui due canzoni, undici ballate, trentasei sonetti, un mottetto e due frammenti composti da una stanza ciascuno. Le forme maggiormente utilizzate sono la ballata ed il sonetto, seguite dalla canzone. La ballata appare congeniale alla sua poetica, poiché incarna la musicalità sfumata e il lessico delicato, che si risolvono poi in una costruzione armoniosa. Peculiare di C. è, nei sonetti, la presenza di rime retrogradate nelle terzine. Temi  Quadro di Johann Heinrich Füssli. Teodoro incontra nella foresta lo spettro del suo antenato C.. I temi della sua opera sono quelli cari al stilnovista; in particolare la sua canzone manifesto “Me prega” è incentrata sull’effetto prodotti dall'amato sull’amante. La concezione filosofica su cui si basa è l'aristotelismo radicale che sostene l’eternità e l'incorruttibilità dell'anima separata dal corpo e l'anima sensitiva come entelechia o perfezione del corpo. Va da sé che, avendo le varie parti dell'anima funzioni differenti, solo collaborando esse potevano raggiungere il sinolo, l’armonia perfetta – anima/corpo entelechia. Si deduce che, quando l'amore colpisce l’anima, la squarcia a e la devasta, compromettendo il sinolo e ne risente molto l’anima inferiore vegetativa – L’amante non mangia o non dorme). Da qui la sofferenza dell'animo che, destatasi per questa rottura del sinolo, rimane impotente spettatore della devastazione. È così che l'amante giunge alla morte. L’amato, avvolto come da un alone mistico, rimane così irraggiungibile. Il dramma si consuma nell'animo dell'amante.  Questa complessissima concezione filosofica permea la poesia ma senza comprometterne la raffinatezza o superfizialita letteraria. Uno dei temi fondamentali è l'incontro dell’amante e l’amato che conduce sempre, ed al contrario che in Guinizzelli, al dolore, all'angoscia kierkegaardiana, e al desiderio di morire. La opera dell’amore di Cavalcanti possiede un accento di vivo dolore riferio spesso al corpo dell’amante.  Cavalcanti e un fine filosofo –  scrive Boccaccio: lo miglior loico che il mondo avesse -- ma non ci resta nulla di sue saggistica filosofica, ammesso che ne abbia effettivamente scritte.  Il poetare di Cavalcanti, dal ritmo soave e leggero è di una grande sapienza retorica.  I versi di Cavalcanti possiedono una fluidità melodica, che nasce dal ritmo degli accenti, dai tratti fonici del lessico impiegato, dall'assenza di spezzettature, pause, inversioni sintattiche.  Cavalcanti: la poetica e lo Stilnovo, L’amico di Dante” (Roma-Bari: Laterza).  “Species intelligibilis”, C.laico e le origini della poesia italiana, Alessandria: Edizioni dell'Orso); C. auctoritas”; C. laico; La felicità: Nuove prospettive per Cavalcanti (Torino, Einaudi); C. (Torino, Einaudi); C.: poesia e filosofia, Alessandria, Edizioni Dell'Orso); C.: uno studio sul lessico lirico, Roma, Nuova Cultura); Per altezza d'ingegno: saggio su Cavalcanti, Napoli, Liguori); L'ombra di Cavalcanti; Roma, L'Asino d'Oro,. Guido Cavalcanti, Rime, Firenze, presso Niccolò Carli). Dizionario biografico degli italiani; Il controverso pellegrinaggio Cavalcanti”; “La Divina Commedia. Inferno, Mondadori, Milano); La società letteraria italiana. Dalla Magna Curia al primo Novecento. La fama o, meglio, l’habitus di filosofo Cavalcanti lo deve essenzialmente ad una sua poesia: la canzone celeberrima e alquanto complessa, sia per la metrica che per i contenuti, Donna me prega. In essa il poeta parlerà di “amore” con gli strumenti della filosofia naturale (“natural dimostramento”), conducendo un’analisi razionale volta a spiegarne la natura e le cause. Una prima importante informazione circa l’essere dell’amore C. ce l’ha già fornita nell’incipit della canzone: egli, infatti, ci ha detto che l’amore è un accidente e che, di conseguenza, non è una sostanza. Questa definizione, tuttavia, ha un significato tecnico preciso, che il poeta mutua dalla filosofia di Aristotele. Occorre, pertanto, fare una premessa. La sostanza, secondo il grande filosofo greco, è ciò che ha vita propria, ciò che cioè esiste autonomamente, mentre gli accidenti esistono solo come qualità di essa; in altre parole, l’accidente si aggiunge alla sostanza esprimendone una caratteristica casuale o fortuita. Ad esempio, un certo uomo è una sostanza, mentre l’insieme delle qualità che esso può avere (alto, basso, pallido, paonazzo, ecc…) sono gli accidenti. Tornando dunque a Cavalcanti, egli afferma che l’amore non è una sostanza poiché non possiede un’esistenza autonoma come, ad esempio, gli uomini (l’amore, infatti, non ha né corpo né figura); esso esiste piuttosto come qualità della sostanza, ovvero come sentimento (qualità) dell’uomo (sostanza). Innanzitutto, C. ci dice che l’amore si insedia nella memoria. Anche qui, però, occorre richiamare per sommi capi la psicologia di Aristotele, poiché essa è indispensabile per intendere i versi del poeta. Nel De anima, Aristotele definisce l’anima forma del corpo; egli, tuttavia, per forma non intende l’aspetto esteriore di una cosa, ma la sua natura propria, la struttura che rende quella tale cosa ciò che è. L’anima, dunque, vivifica e dà al corpo la sua struttura essenziale. Essa, inoltre, secondo Aristotele, pur essendo unica, può essere divisa, a seconda delle funzioni che svolge, in tre parti: anima vegetativa, anima sensitiva e anima intellettiva. La prima riguarda le funzioni vitali minime (come, ad esempio, la nutrizione e la riproduzione) degli esseri viventi a cominciare dalle piante; la seconda, invece, comprende i sensi e il movimento ed è propria solamente degli animali e dell’uomo; la terza, infine, riguarda il pensiero, le funzioni intellettuali, ed propria solo dell’uomo. La memoria, per Aristotele e, quindi, anche per C., appartiene all’anima sensitiva; essa, cioè, è un prolungamento o estensione della sensazione. In altre parole, l’anima sensitiva non solo permette all’uomo di vedere, sentire, gustare gli altri corpi, ma gli permette anche di avere di questi ultimi delle immagini. La passione amorosa, dunque, è creata da una sensazione: il diletto per la vista della donna fa si che l’immagine di essa si imprima nella memoria; l’amore è il nome che si dà ad una operazione dell’anima sensitiva, poiché ad essa, come abbiamo visto, appartengono sia la funzione della vista che quella della memoria. Il poeta, tuttavia, ci dice che questa immagine trova “loco e dimoranza” anche nell’intelletto possibile. Che cosa intende con questi versi? Bisogna ritornare brevemente alla psicologia aristotelica. Abbiamo visto che l’anima, a seconda delle sue funzioni, può essere vegetativa, sensitiva e intellettiva. L’ultima delle tre riguarda il pensiero, le operazioni intellettuali proprie dell’uomo. Secondo Aristotele, dopo che un oggetto è stato percepito dai sensi e che l’immagine di esso si è impressa nella memoria, esso viene pensato dall’intelletto. In che modo? Una parte dell’anima sensitiva, che egli chiama intelletto possibile, riceve l’immagine dell’oggetto percepito dai sensi grazie all’azione di un’altra componente della stessa anima, che egli chiama intelletto agente. Per fare un esempio, si potrebbero paragonare l’intelletto possibile ad un quaderno ancora intonso e l’intelletto agente all’azione dello scrivere. Dunque, mentre i sensi producono nella memoria l’immagine della donna, l’intelletto agente imprime nell’intelletto possibile la forma astratta di questa immagine. Ricapitolando, nell’anima sensitiva si sviluppa la passione amorosa attraverso la vista della donna e la memoria della sua immagine, mentre niente di tutto questo avviene nell’anima intellettiva, la quale ha dell’amata soltanto un concetto astratto e disincarnato. L’amore non è una virtù morale (queste, infatti, sono un prodotto della ragione, dell’anima intellettiva), ma è una virtù sensibile, appartiene all’anima sensitiva. Cavalcanti ci dice che non l’anima intellettiva, ma bensì l’anima sensitiva è perfezione dell’uomo, poiché essa attua tutte le potenzialità insite nell’individuo umano. Il poeta, infatti, seguendo l’interpretazione che di Aristotele aveva dato il filosofo arabo Averroè, ritiene che esista un unico intelletto sempre in atto ed eterno separato dagli uomini, con il quale le facoltà superiori dell’anima sensitiva di ciascun essere umano entrano in contatto ogni qual volta si sviluppa il pensiero. In altre parole, egli, affermando l’esistenza di un intelletto unico ed eterno, separa l’anima intellettiva, unica ed eterna, dalle anime sensitive concrete e mortali di ciascun uomo. Questa complessa psicologia che Cavalcanti mutua da Averroè è la base del suo celebre pessimismo amoroso. La passione amorosa ottunde la capacità di giudizio poiché l’immagine della donna amata, ormai insediata nella memoria e desiderata dai sensi, determina il netto prevalere dell’anima sensitiva su quella intellettiva. Questo non vuol dire, però, che l’amore ottenebra l’intelletto; come abbiamo poc’anzi visto, infatti, le facoltà intellettuali sviluppano la conoscenza, non il desiderio; inoltre, il poeta, seguendo Averroè, ha appena sostenuto che l’anima intellettiva è separata dalle anime sensitive degli uomini. Quello che Cavalcanti intende, dunque, è questo: la passione amorosa, “se forte”, impedisce all’uomo, dominato totalmente dai bisogni dell’anima sensitiva, di stabilire un contatto con l’intelletto e quindi di avere raziocinio. In questo senso egli parla dell’amore come di un vizio, che porta chi ne è colpito a non saper più distinguere il bene dal male (“discerne male”). Ciononostante, Cavalcanti ci dice che l’amore non è cosa contraria alla natura (“non perché oppost’a naturale sia”); anzi, al pari degli altri bisogni naturali, la passione amorosa sviluppa una potenzialità propria dell’anima sensitiva e, pertanto, rinunciarvi sarebbe deleterio e controproducente. Come interpretare questa affermazione apparentemente contraddittoria? È necessario, anche in questo caso, richiamare Aristotele. Nell’Etica Nicomachea, il filosofo greco afferma che ognuno è felice quando realizza bene il proprio compito (ad esempio, il costruttore sarà felice quando realizzerà oggetti perfetti). Il compito dell’uomo, però, non potrà certo essere quello di assecondare l’anima vegetativa o quella sensitiva; egli dovrà piuttosto vivere secondo ragione; pertanto, secondo il filosofo greco, la felicità per l’uomo consiste nell’attività razionale, nella vita secondo ragione. Cavalcanti, dunque, seguendo Aristotele, ci dice che l’amore è deleterio e mortale solo quando ci allontana violentemente da questo tipo di vita; poiché una vita vissuta in preda ai bisogni a agli istinti dell’anima sensitiva è una non-vita, più adatta agli animali che agli uomini. Viceversa, l’amore che riesce ad essere temperante, e che cioè non allontana l’uomo dalla vita razionale, è espressione di un naturale bisogno della nostra sensualità.  sìnolo s. m. [dal gr. σύνολον, comp. di σύν«con» e ὅλος «tutto»]. – Nel linguaggio filos., termine aristotelico che designa la concreta sostanza (v. sostanza, n. 1 a), concepita come sintesi di materia (ciò che è mera potenza) e forma (ciò che porta all’atto la potenzialità della materia). Alighieri sends out among the best known Italian  poets a sonnet asking interpretation of a dream. The god of love,  so it seemed, had come carrying Beatrice asleep, and had fed her  with Dante's own heart, and had then departed weeping.   Several poets answered. One, Dante of Maiano, suggested as a  probable solution of this, and other such distressing visions, a dose  of salts ; the others fell in with Dante's mood and answered seri-  ously. Of their various interpretations that which best pleased  Dante, though not quite satisfied him, was C.’s  " And this," wrote Dante later in the New Life, " was, as it were,  the beginning of the friendship between him and me, when he knew  that I was he who had sent it (the sonnet) to him."   C.s interpretation was in an important particular ambiguous.  Love, he wrote, fed your heart to your lady, seeing that "vostra donna  la morte chedea" To understand this clause as meaning " Death  claimed your lady" is natural, and would make the interpretation  interestingly prophetic; but, whether or not this reading might be  justified symbolically, Dante himself forbids it. For, in spite of his  pleasure in his " first friend's " explanation of the dream, he added :  " The true meaning of this dream was not then seen by any one, but  now it is plain to the simplest." It was easy for him after the event  to read prophecy of Beatrice's death into the dream ; but he expressly  denies to Guido among the rest the prescience. We are bound,  therefore, to take as the interpreter's meaning that there was malice  prepense in the cannibal appetite of the sleeping lady, that she  claimed the death of her servant's heart. No wonder the love god  wept as he carried her off sated !   Irreverent though it be, one thinks of The Vampire of Kipling.  For Guido the gentle Beatrice was as "the woman who couldn't  understand," sucking, asleep, in a sort of diabolical innocence, the  life blood, literally eating the heart, out of her helpless victim. And  Dante, the lover, the victim, approves the picture !   Of course the gruesomeness of this symbolism may be explained  away as merely a conceitfully emphatic reassertion of the ancient  fancy that a lover's heart is no longer his own, but has passed into  the custody of his mistress. Only, the dream then and its interpre-  tation would indeed be a much ado about nothing. And why, at so  customary a happening, should love weep? In fact, Guido's thought  cuts deeper, and is, I venture to urge, not so remote, in a sense,  from the thought underlying The Vampire. It is The Vampire uplifted  into the more tenuous, yet.no less intense, atmosphere of mysticism.   Before attempting to let in light directly upon this dim utterance  it is expedient to recall certain facts in Guido's life and personality.   " Cortese e ardito, ma sdegnoso e solitario e intento alio studio " —  so Guido is introduced into the Florentine Chronicle of Dino Compagni,  who knew him personally. Guido could not have been much over  twenty-five when, at the death of his father, his elder brother being  in orders, he became head and champion of one of the two or three  most powerful and aristocratic families in the republic. For gen-  erations the Cavalcanti had been leaders in the state, haughtily  contemptuous of the mere people, yet fierce partisans of civic inde-  pendence against those who were willing to sacrifice this for the  dream of a " Greater Italy " united under a revivified Emperor of the  West. To this great feud and to the lesser local feuds which grew  out of it Guido may be said to have been a predestined, yet mostly  a willing, sacrifice. He was born into the feud ; he lived his life  long in the heat of it ; it married him ; it perhaps lost him his best  friend ; it certainly killed him before his time.   It married him. In 1267, a vear a *ter the decisive battle of Bene-  vento, when the last hope of the Imperialists, the Ghibellines, fell  with Manfred, in Florence an attempt was made towards permanent  peace by marrying together certain sons and daughters of victors  and vanquished. Among the rest Guido Cavalcanti was wedded, or  then more likely betrothed, — for he could not have been more than  fifteen, — to Bice, daughter of the Ghibelline leader, the Florentine  " Coriolanus," Farinata degli Uberti. Seven years before Farinata  had "painted the Arbia red" with the blood of Florentine Guelphs  at Monteaperti; and it had been a kinsman of Guido who com-  manded the Guelphs on that disastrous day. We do not know how  this real " Capulet-Montague " match turned out, — only that Monna  Bice bore children to her husband and outlived him many years,  and that the peace which their union, among others, was intended to  effect did not come to pass.   On the contrary the great Guelph families, after 1267 in secure  possession of the city, soon quarreled, even connived against each  other with the ever-ready Ghibelline exiles, or with popular dema-  gogues, so great was their common jealousy. Meanwhile, during  the distraction of the nobles, the middle classes had been prosper-  ing ; and coming at last to feel their strength and the weakness of  those above them, in 1293 they rebelled and crushed the aristocrats.  In the first insolence of triumph they excluded the nobles abso-  lutely from public office, but two years later conceded eligibility to  such nobles as would join one of the Arti, or trades unions. This  virtual abdication of caste Guido Cavalcanti refused to make. In  vain good easy Dino pleaded with him. " I am ever singing your  praises," he wrote in a kindly sonnet, " telling folks how wise you are,  and brave and strong, skilled to wield and ward the sword, and how  compact with sifted learning your mind is, and how you can run and  leap and outlast the best. Nor is there lacking you high birth  nor wealth ... in fine, the one thing wanting to give scope to all  these gifts and powers is a mere name.   " Ahi! com saresti stato om mercadiere! "   Now almost certainly some generations back the Cavalcanti had  been in trade, and had made their fortune in trade, but latterly it had  pleased them to entertain a genealogy reaching royally back into  Germany and descending into Italy with Charlemagne's baronage.  To traverse this pleasing legend with the gross title "om merca-  diere," tradesman, was out of the question : Guido declared himself  irreconcilable.   Meanwhile Dante, unfettered by a legend or a temperament,  had accepted the situation even cordially, and was taking active  part in the councils of the new bourgeois regime. That Guido must  have regarded his friend's secession with disgust seems natural. It  was worse than an offense against party; it was an offense against  caste. " Uomo vertudioso in molte cose, se non ch'egli era troppo  tenero e stizzozo," writes Giovanni Villani of Guido. Fastidious,  exclusive, thin-skinned, choleric, Guido was just the man to feel this  consorting of his friend with vulgar political upstarts incompatible  with their own intimacy. And the matter was made worse by its  open denial of their poetic profession of faith in the " cor gentile."  This vulgar folk was that " fango," that human " mud " of which  Guinizelli had written :   Fere lo sole il fango tutto'l giorno,  Vile riman . . .   how might the " gentle heart " mix itself with this irredeemable  "mud" and be not defiled? So Guido addressed to his friend a  sonnet at once haughty and tender — like Guido himself: 1   lo vengo il giorno a te infinite volte  e trovoti pensar troppo vilmente :  allor mi dol de la gentil tua mente  e d'assai tue virtu che ti son tolte.   Solevanti spiacer persone molte,  tuttor fuggivi la noiosa gente,  di me parlavi si coralemente  che tutte le tue rime avei ricolte.   Or non ardisco per la vil tua vita,   far mostramento che tu' dir mi piaccia,  ne vengo 'n guisa a te che tu mi veggi.   Se '1 presente sonetto spesso leggi  lo spirito noioso che ti caccia  si partira da Panima invilita. 2   1 1 believe that Lamma, in his Questioni Dante sche, Bologna, is the  first to propose this construction of the famous " reproach." It seems to me the  best of all.   2 1 come to thee infinite times a day  And find thee thinking too unworthily :  Then for thy gentle mind it grieveth me,  And for thy talents all thus thrown away.  Whether the two friends again came together in life is not known.  The next situation in which we hear of them is tragic. Dante is sit-  ting among his " first friend's " judges ; Guido is condemned to exile,  and goes — in effect — to his death.   Under the new bourgeois rule civic disorders rather increased than  otherwise. Prime mover of discord was the Florentine " Catiline," as  Dino calls him, Corso Donati. Somewhat ineffectually opposing his  self-seeking machinations were the parvenu Cerchi, powerful only  through wealth and the popularity of their cause. With these also  stood Guido. Hatred, no less than misfortune, makes strange bed-  fellows ; and the hatred between Guido and Corso was intense. Each  had sought the other's life : Corso meanly, by hired assassins ; Guido  openly, in the public street, by his own hand. Violence followed  violence ; the number of factionaries increased, until at last in 1300  the city Priors determined to expel the leaders of both parties. Guido  was conspicuous among these leaders ; Dante, as has been said, among  these Priors. The place of exile, Sarzana, proved to be pestilent with  fever ; and although Guido and the Cerchi, less culpable than Corso,  were recalled within the year, it was too late. A few months after-  ward, the 28th or 29th of August, 1300, Guido died. " E fu gran  dommaggio" wrote Dino.   It was a strange preparation for "gentle and gracious rhymes  of love," — this short, tumultuous, hate-driven career. Yet there is  but one direct echo of the feudist in all Guido's verse, — a sonnet  to a kinsman, Nerone Cavalcanti. Nerone had made Florence too     To flee the vulgar herd was once thy way,  To bar the many from thine amity ;  Of me thou spakest then so cordially  When thou hadst set thy verse in full array.   But now I dare not, so thy life is base,   Make manifest that I approve thine art,  Nor come to thee so thou mayst see my face.   Yet if this sonnet thou wilt take to heart,   The perverse spirit leading thee this chase  Out of thy soul polluted shall depart. hot for the rival Buondelmonti, and Guido hails him with ironical  deprecation.   Novelle ti so dire, odi, Nerone,   che' Bondelmonti treman di paura,   e tutt* i fiorentin' no li assicura,   udendo dir che tu a* cor di leone.   E piu treman di te che d' un dragone  veggendo la tua faccia, ch* e si dura  che no la riterria ponte ne mura  se non la tomba del re faraone.   De ! com' tu fai grandissimo peccato  si alto sangue voler discacciare,  che tutti vanno via sanza ritegno.   Ma ben e ver che ti largar lo pegno,  di che potrai V anima salvare  se fossi paziente del mercato. 1   Guido's disdainful temper both piqued and puzzled his townsfolk.  Sacchetti's anecdote 2 of the Florentine small boy who, having slyly  nailed Guido's gown to his bench, then teased him until the irate  gentleman tried — naturally to his discomfiture — to chase him, has   1 News have I for thee, Nero, in thine ear.   They of the Buondelmonte quake with dread,  Nor by all Florence may be comforted,  For that thou hast a lion's heart they hear.   And more than any dragon thee they fear,   For looking on thy face they are as dead :  Bastion nor bridge against it stands in stead,  Nor less than Pharaoh's grave were barrier.   Marry ! but thou hast done a wicked thing,   Having the heart to scatter such high blood,  For without let now one and all they flee.   And 'sooth, a truce-bait too they proffered thee,  So that thy soul might still be with the Good,  Hadst but had stomach for the bargaining.   For the first quatrain of this sonnet I have slightly altered Rossetti's translation.  In the rest a mistaken understanding of the sonnet as if addressed to the pope  has misled him. 2 // aVm 53^     its point in a very human satisfaction at the scorner scorned. Boc-  caccio's novella 1 is more significant, illustrating vividly, if perhaps  by a fictitious occurrence only, the subtle mingling of awe and defi-  ance which Guido inspired. Boccaccio's " character " of Guido is a  eulogy. " He was one of the best thinkers (Joici) in the world and  an accomplished lay philosopher (filosofo naturale), . . . and withal a  most engaging, elegant, and affable gentleman, easily first in what-  ever he undertook, and in all that befitted his rank." This character,  together with the mood of tragic doubt upon which the point of Boc-  caccio's narrative turns, inevitably, if tritely, brings to mind Ophelia's  character of Hamlet :   The courtier's, soldier's, scholar's eye, tongue, sword ;  The expectancy and rose of the fair state,  The glass of fashion and the mould of form,  The observed of all observers. . . .   But, if we may still trust Boccaccio, " that noble and most sovereign  reason " of Guido was also " out of tune and harsh " with scrupulous  doubt ; " so that lost in speculation, he became abstracted from men.  And since he held somewhat to the opinion of the Epicureans, gossip  among the vulgar had it that these speculations of his only went to  establish, if established it might be, that there was no God."   Boccaccio does not call Guido an atheist ; that was mere vulgar  gossip. He does not even declare him a convinced Epicurean, one  of those who with his own father   . . . P anima col corpo morta fanno.   Boccaccio's charge is qualified : " he held somewhat to the opinion  of the Epicureans " {egli alquanto tmea della opinione degli Epicurj).  Dante's commentator, indeed, Benvenuto da Imola, is more cate-  gorical and extreme : " Errorem, quern pater habebat ex ignorantia,  ipse (Guido) conabatur defendere per scientiam." Benvenuto is even  remoter in time, however, than Boccaccio ; and his phrasing suggests  at least a mere perpetuation of that vulgar gossip which Boccaccio con-  temptuously records. But can we trust Boccaccio's own testimony?  At least there is no antecedent improbability. Skepticism was  common, especially in the highly educated class to which Guido   1 Decam^ VI, 9.     belonged ; and it was not unnatural at any rate for him to weigh  carefully an opinion held by his own father. Again, there is noth-  ing in either his life or writings to indicate an active faith. Much  indeed has been made of his " pilgrimage " to the shrine of St. James  at Compostella; but the mood of this was so little serious that a  pretty face at Toulouse was enough to change his intention. The  ironical sonnet of Muscia of Siena is a hint that his contemporaries  could not take him very seriously as a pious pilgrim; and Muscia  stresses Guido's excuse for breaking his supposed vow that there was  no vow in the case — " non v' era botio" Guido may have started in  a moment of reaction from his doubt — does not doubt itself imply  a wavering will ? He may have left Florence as a matter of prudence  — Corso tried to have him assassinated on the way as it was. As  for his writings, these, considering the intimate theological associa-  tions of the school of Guinizelli, are noticeably barren of religious  feeling or phrase ; and he certainly scandalized the worthy, if narrow,  Orlandi by his jesting sonnet about the thaumaturgic shrine of "my  Lady." The hypothetical confirmation of Guido's skepticism, on the  other hand, in his "disdain for Virgil, ,, mentioned by Dante in his  answer to the elder Cavalcanti's question 1 why Dante's "first friend "  had not accompanied him, has beendiscredited after twenty years of  support by its own proposer, D'Ovidio. The passage is, to be sure,  still a moot question ; and D'Ovidio, even in the zeal of his recanta-  tion, still admits the allegorical taking of it to be plausible as a sec-  ondary intention on Dante's part. In any case, even waiving the  confirmation, the tradition of Guido's skepticism is not impugned ; and  in view of the persistent tradition, and of the antecedent probability  in its favor, the burden of disproof would seem to rest on those who  reject the tradition. Meanwhile, I propose to test the credibility of  the tradition by assuming it. If the assumption proves to be a factor  in a coherent and credible interpretation of Guido's poetry, the credi-  bility of the assumption proportionately increases. The argument  is of course a circle, but I think not a vicious circle.   There is also another tradition, which happens likewise to be sub-  sidiary to the same end. As the one tradition charges Guido with  unfaith in religion, so the other charges him with faithlessness in love.   i Inf., X, 60.   Hewlett, in his Masque of Dead Florentines,  has seized upon this supposed fickleness of Guido as Guido's char-  acteristic trait. Guido is made to say :   My way was best.  From lip to lip I past, from grove to grove :  I am like Florence ; they call me Light o' Love.   I am dubious indeed about that literal criticism which surmises a  " family skeleton " in every locked sonnet. Heine assuredly reckoned  without his Scholar when he complained :   Diese Welt glaubt nicht an Flammen,  Und sie nimmt's fur Poesie.   When Guido writes a sonnet describing how Love had wounded him  with three arrows, — Beauty, Desire, Hope of Grace, — it is hardly fair  for Rossetti to entitle his own translation He speaks of a third love  of his. Rossetti the scholar should have known better. Of course  Guido is simply copying a conceit from the Romance of the Rose : the  three arrows are three arrows from the eyes of one lady, not of three  ladies. Again, it is almost worse when poor Guido essays a pretty  pastourelle, which is by definition a gallant adventure between a pass-  ing knight and a shepherdess, to discuss the " peccadillo " in a solemn  footnote ! Yet Rossetti, himself a poet, does so. Nay, Guido's latest  learned editor, Signor Rivalta, speaks 1 of his singing "anche i suoi  desideri meno puri e piu umani come nella ballata :   In un boschetto trovai pasturella . . ."   This ballata is the pastourelle in question. Stifl, waiving such pseudo-  revelations of a stethoscopic criticism, there are, considering the  meagerness of Guido\s poetical remains, hints enough besides the  mention of several ladies — Mandetta, Pinella, and by, inference her  whom Dante calls Giovanna — to accept with discretion sober Guido  Orlandi's perhaps malicious insinuation, when he inquires of Guido  Cavalcanti concerning the nature, the effects, the virtues of Love :   Io ne domando voi, Guido, di lui :  odo che molto usate in la sua corte ;   1 Le Rime di Guido Cavalcanti^ Bologna, 1902, p. 23. and even the cruder implication in Orlandi's boast of his chaster mind :   Io per lung' uso disusai lo primo  amor carnale : non tangio nel limo.   Reckless feudist, unbeliever, " light o' love," squire of dames, pro-  found thinker, gracious gentleman — a perplexing motley of a man;  it is no wonder that his poetry, reflecting himself, more easily with  its many-faceted light dazzles rather than illumines the understand-  ing. In addition, one has to contend in his more doctrinal pieces,  especially in the famous canzone of love, with a rigorous scholastic  terminology dovetailed into a most intricate metrical schema, and with  a text at the best corrupt. In spots Guido — as we have him — is  as hopeless as Persius; yet we may waive these and still venture  upon a general interpretation.   In general, Guido's love poems hinge upon two parallel but opposite  moods, — a radiant mood of worshipful admiration of his lady, a tragic  mood of despair wrought in him by his love of her. His sight of  her is a rapture, as in the most magnificent of his sonnets, beginning  " Chi e questa che ven ":   Chi e questa che ven ch' ogn' om la mira  e fa tremar di chiaritate V a're,  e mena seco amor si che parlare  null' omo pote, ma ciascun sospira?   O Deo, che sembra quando li occhi gira   dica '1 Amor, ch' i' no '1 savria contare :   cotanto d' umilta donna mi pare,   ch' ogn' altra ver di lei i' la chiam' ira.   Non si poria contar la sua piagenza,   ch' a lei s' inchina ogni gentil virtute,  e la beltate per sua dea la mostra.   * Non f u si alta gia la mente nostra   e non si pose in noi tanta salute,   che propriamente n' aviam canoscenza. 1   1 Lo! who is this which cometh in men's eyes  And maketh tremulously bright the air,  And with her bringeth love so that none there  Might speak aloud, albeit each one sighs ? The sonnet is a superb tribute ; but it is also more. It contains,  as I conceive, the pivotal idea in Guido's philosophy of love, —  namely, in the lines describing his mistress as   Lady of Meekness such, that by compare  All others as of Wrath I recognize,  (cotanto d* umilta donna mi pare,  ch' ogn' altra ver di lei i' la chiam' ira.)   Ira . . . umilta : wrath . . . meekness — the antithesis dominates  Guido's thought. Wrath is in his vocabulary the concomitant of  imperfection, of desire ; meekness the concomitant of perfection, of  peace. He, the lover, is therefore in a state of wrath ; she, the  lovable, in a state of meekness, —   Quiet she, he passion-rent.   The identification of passionate love with a state of wrath is fun-  damental in Guido's philosophy. It is the germinal idea of the  doctrinal canzone beginning " Donna mi prega." In answer to the  query as to the where and whence of the passion —   La ove si posa e chi lo fa creare —  he declares that   In quella parte dove sta memora   prende suo stato, si formato come  diaffan da lume, — d'una scuritate  la qual da Marte vene e fa dimora. 1   " In that part where memory is love has its being ; and, even as light  enters into an object to make it diaphanous, so there enters into the   Dear God, what seemeth if she turn her eyes  Let Love's self say, for I in no wise dare :  Lady of Meekness such, that by compare  All others as of Wrath I recognize.   Words might not body forth her excellence,  For unto her inclineth all sweet merit,  Beauty in her hath its divinity.   Nor was our understanding of degree,  Nor had abode in us so blest a spirit,  As might thereof have meet intelligence.  1 vv. 15-18. I use here as elsewhere the edition of Ercole Rival ta, Bologna, 1902.  constitution of love a dark ray from Mars, which abides." Now Dante  conceives love as an emanation from the star of the third heaven, Venus,  along a bright ray : " I say then that this spirit (i.e. of love) comes  upon the * rays of the star ' (i.e. of the third heaven, Venus), because  you are to know that the rays of each heaven are the path whereby  their virtue descends upon things that are here below. And inas-  much as rays are no other than the shining which cometh from the  source of the light through the air even to the thing enlightened, and  the light is only in that part where the star is, because the rest of the  heaven is diaphanous (that is transparent), I say not that this ' spirit/  to wit this thought, cometh from their heaven in its totality but from  their star. Which star, by reason of nobility in them who move it, is  of so great virtue that it has extreme power upon our souls and upon  other affairs of ours," etc. 1 So Dante. Guido, on the other hand,  while accepting the notion of love as an emanation, holds the emana-  tion to be rather from the star of the fifth heaven, Mars, along a dark  ray. The power over the soul of this star is no less extreme than  that of Venus; only it is, in a sense, a power of darkness rather than  of light. It may strike at life itself —   Di sua potenza segue spesso morte. (v. 35)   The passion which its influence excites passes all normal bounds in  any case, destroying all healthful equilibrium :   L'esser e quando lo voler e tan to  ch' oltra misura di natura torna:  poi non s' adorna di riposo mai.  Move cangiando color riso e pianto  e la figura con paura stoma. . . . 2 (vv. 43-47)   Finally, — and here we reach the gist of the matter, — the influ-  ence of the choleric planet engenders sighs and fiery wrath in the   1 Conv.y II, vii. (Wicksteed's translation.)   2 It has its being when the passionate will   Beyond all measure of natural pleasure goes :  Then with repose unblest forever, starts  Laughter and tears, aye changing color still,  And on the face leaves pallid trace of woes.  lover, impotent to reach the ever-receding goal of his desire (non   fermato loco):   La nova qualita move sospiri   e vol ch' om miri in non fermato loco   destandos' ira, la qual manda foco. 1   This strangely pessimistic reading of love seems to have struck at  least one of Guido's contemporaries with indignant surprise, not only  at the apparent slight upon love, but also at the silence seeming to  give assent of other poets, especially of Dante. Cecco d'Ascoli, in his  Acerba, iii, 1, denies that so sweet a thing as love could emanate  from the planet Mars, seeing that from that planet rather " proceeds  violence with wrath " (procede Vimpeto con Fire) ; wherefore :   Errando scrisse Guido Cavalcanti. . . .  qui ben mi sdegna lo tacer di Danti.   In fact, Dante, in the sonnet in the sixteenth chapter of the New Life,  apparently alludes sympathetically to Guido's dark rays of love —   Spesse fiate vegnommi a la mente   l'oscure qualita ch' Amor mi dona —   and proceeds to describe, though not by this name, just such a  " state of wrath " in himself as Guido believes inseparable from love.  With Dante, of course, the mood is but passing. For him love is  in its essence a beneficent power.   For Guido also it might seem that this tragic wrath of desire is  not incurable. There is a power in meekness to overcome wrath  and to subdue wrath also to meekness. And the meek one is  impelled to exercise this power, to confer this boon, by pity for the  one suffering in wrath. It is the failure to follow this blessed  impulse for which Guido reproaches his lady in the octave of the  sonnet beginning " Un amoroso sguardo," when he says that she is one   . . . for whom availeth not  Nor grace nor pity nor the suffering state. . . .   (. . . verso cui non vale  Merzede ne pieta ne star soffrente. . . .)   1 The novel state incites to sighs, and makes  Man to pursue an ever-shifting aim,  Till in him wrath is kindled, spitting flame.  Meekness, grace, pity, the suffering state of wrath — the terms have  a scriptural sound, and of right ; for they are actually scriptural anal-  ogies applied to love. Precisely this poetical analogy was the innova-  tion of Guido Guinizelli, whom Dante called " father of me and of my  betters," — of which last Guido Cavalcanti was in Dante's mind first,  if not alone. Before Guinizelli Italian poets had accepted the other  analogy of the troubadours of Provence, which applied to love the canon  of feudal homage. For these the lady of desire was as the haughty  baron to whom they owed servile fealty, and whose inaccessible mood  was not of gentle meekness but of cruel pride, claiming willfully of  her vassal perhaps life itself. But feudalism and its harsh canon  of service were alien to the Italian communes ; Italian poetry built  upon an analogy with it must needs be an affectation. These burgher  poets were only play knights; these frank Tuscan and Lombard girls  were only play barons. Affectation, the pen following not the dicta-  tion of the feelings but of hearsay feelings, — this is the precise charge  which Dante, from the standpoint of the " sweet new style," brings  against the older style. 1 But if as free burghers Italians could not  really feel the alien mood of feudal homage, yet as Christian gentle-  men they could, and should, sanctify their love of women with the  mood of religious awe. There need be no affectation in that. Free  burghers, they recognized no temporal overlord, no absolute baron ;  Catholics, they did believe in, and might with sincerity worship, min-  istering angels — "donne angelicate," the meek ones whom, as the  Psalmist had declared, the Lord has beautified with salvation.   Guido therefore can no more worthily praise his mistress than by  calling her his " Lady of Meekness." Indeed, by further analogy he  sets her above the angels themselves; for the Christ himself had said :  "Mitis sum et humilis corde — I am meek and lowly in heart." For him-  self, " passion-rent " in his love, the poet speaks as St. Paul, — " we . . .  had our conversation ... in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires  of the flesh and of the mind ; and were by nature the children of wrath  (filii irae)" And the merzede, the "grace," for which he sues — solu-  tion of wrath by the spirit of meekness — is again in accord with  Paul's promise to these very "children of wrath," — "By grace are ye  saved through faith" — faith, that is, in loving and serving the one  divinity as the other.   i Purg., XXIV, 49 seq. This is pious doctrine indeed for the righting cavalier, skeptic, Love-  lace I have in a measure assumed Guido to be. Is then his love creed  also a pose, worse than the apes of Provence whom Dante exposed,  because he thus adds hypocrisy to affectation ? Well, if so, the same  Dante would hardly have hailed him as "first friend" in life and  master after Guinizelli in poetry, nor have outraged the memory of  Beatrice by associating her in the New Life with Guido's lady Joan.   The solution of the apparent antinomy lies in the meaning for  Guido of that rnerzede, that " grace," the granting of which by ; the  lady, the meek one, might appease the lover, the one in "wrath."  The term itself — Italian merzede or English " grace " — has a fourfold  significance according as it is a function of the lady, of the lover, or  of the reciprocal relationship between them. "Grace" in her signifies  her beatitude, her "meekness"; in him, his "merit" which through  faith and loving service deserves the boon, or "grace," of her con-  descension to redeem him from his "state of wrath," for which  condescension it would be befitting him to render thanks, "yield  graces, — a phrase now obsolete in English but used by Dante, —  render mercede. Of this fourfold intention of the term the one funda-  mentally doubtful is ,the " grace " which is constituted by the act of  condescension of the lady : what then is the grace or boon that the  lover asks and hopes ? In other words, what is the end of desire ?   The answer is no mystery. The end of desire is always possession,  in one sense or another, of the thing desired. In the practical sense  possession of the loved one means union, physical or social, or both,  sacramentally recognized, in marriage ; but the sacrament of marriage  allows a more mystical sense, presenting the ideal, hardly realizable  on earth, of a spiritual union which is also a unity of two in one :   The single pure and perfect animal,   The two-cell'd heart beating with one full stroke,   Life.   So Tennyson modernly ; but more in accord with the metaphysical  mood of Guido is the old Elizabethan phrasing :   So they loved, as love in twain  Had the essence but in one ;  Two distincts, division one:  Number there in love was slain.   To the " gentle heart " there is no love but highest love ; there is  no union but perfect union, wherein two shall   Be one, and one another's all.   Until the "gentle heart " may attain to that perfect union its desire  is unappeased, its " wrath " unsubdued. Tennyson premises it for  the right marriage; but there is ever the doubter ready to remark  that if such marriages are really made in heaven, they certainly  are kept there. Human sympathy cannot quite bridge the span  between two souls: self remains self; and though hands meet and  lips touch and wills accord, there is always something deeper still,  inexpressible, unreachable.   Yes ! in the sea of life enisled,  With echoing straits between us thrown,  Dotting the shoreless watery wild,  We mortal millions live alone.   In vain, says Aristophanes in Plato's Banquet, in vain, "after the  division (of the primeval man-woman in one), the two parts of man,  each desiring his other half, came together, and threw their arms  about one another eager to grow into one. . . ." True, Aristophanes  in effect goes on, Zeus in pity consoled the loneliness of dissevered  " man-woman " by physical union ; but that consolation the " gentle  heart " must forever regard as of itself inadequate and unworthy.   There is indeed a solution. Guinizelli and Dante read further into  the Banquet of Plato — or into the Christian doctrine built upon that  — to where the wise woman of Mantineia reveals the mysteries of a  love extending into a mystic otherworld — at least so Christians read  her teaching — where in the bosom of God all become as one. There  "wrath" is resolved into "meekness" perfectly.   The love of Guinizelli, and of Dante, was the love of happier men  of which Arnold speaks :   Of happier men — for they, at least,   Have dream '</ two human hearts might blend   In one, and were through faith released   From isolation without end   Prolong'd. But if Guido, even as Arnold, lacked this faith, doubted this mystic  otherworld whither therefore he might not accompany his first friend  to find his Giovanna, as Dante his Beatrice, perfect in meekness,  purged of all wrath, and to learn from her release hereafter from the  dividing flesh, union at last with her spirit at peace ? — if he was of  those, even uncertainly wavered with those, who   . . . F anima col corpo morta f anno ? —   then indeed for him, in degree as his desire was ideally exalted,  so its grace, its merzede, became an irony, a tragic paradox. His  must be a passionate loneliness forever teased by an illusion, a  phantom mate of its own conjuring. And I at least so understand  the concluding words of the canzone :   For di colore d'esser e diviso,   assiso mezzo scuro luce rade :   for d'onne fraude dice, degno in fede,   che solo di costui nasce mercede. 1   That is, the only love of which grace is born, entire possession  granted, is love of the dim immaterial idea, — " la figlia della sua  tnente, Vamorosa idea" as Leopardi calls it. Ixion embraces his  Cloud. Guido's lady's desirable perfection, her " meekness," exists not  in her, but in his glorified ideal of her, " bereft " as that is " of color   1 Bereft is (love) of color of existence,   Seated half dark, it bars the light (i.e. which might make it visible).  Without deceit one saith, worthy of faith,  That born of such a love alone is grace.   Rivalta's reading without in would apparently make mezzo adverbial. The com-  moner reading, " assiso in mezzo oscuro luce rade' 1 more naturally gives mezzo as  a noun: " seated in a dark medium," etc. The meaning is not substantially  different. The reading in mezzo, however, is more suggestive, as implying not  only the immateriality of the mental fact but also the darkening of the " medium,"  i.e. the imagination, by the " Martian " ray of passion. The assertion of the  invisibility of love is in answer to Guido Orlandi's question restated by Caval-  canti in v. 1 4 — " s* omo per veder lo po y mostrare." Question and answer are alike  absurd, however, unless we understand "love" to mean the object loved, which it  may naturally do ; one's §l love " means both one's passion and one's lady.  of existence." Therefore Guido's mood is essentially one with Leo-  pardi's when the latter exclaims :   Solo il mio cor piaceami, e col mio core  In un perenne ragionar sepolto,  Alia guardia seder del mio dolore. 1   Guido has himself described with quaint " preraphaelite " symbol-  ism the process of progressive detachment of the ideal from the  real in the ballata beginning " Veggio ne gli occhi."   Cosa m* avien quand* i' le son presente  ch' i' no la posso a lo 'ntelletto dire :  veder mi par de la sua labbia uscire  una si belladonna, che la mente  comprender no la pu6 ; che 'nmantenente  ne nasce un* altra di bellezza nova,  da la qual par ch' una Stella si mova  e dica: la salute tua e apparita. 2   The imagery here is manifestly in accord with contemporary pictorial  symbolism, in which souls as living manikins issue forth from the  lips of the dead; but the significance of the passage is, I take it, at  one with that of the so-called Platonic " ladder of love " by which  through successive abstractions the pure idea, the intelligible virtue,  is reached. The following stanza in the same ballata again defines  this "virtue" as "meekness," and again declares it to be merely  " intelligible,"   for di colore d' esser . . . diviso,  assiso mezzo scuro luce rade ;   1 Only my heart pleased me, and with my heart  In a communing without cease absorbed,   Still to keep watch and ward o'er my own smart.   2 Something befalleth me when she is by   Which unto reason can I not make clear:   Meseems I see forth through her lips appear   Lady of fairness such that faculty   Man hath not to conceive ; and presently   Of this one springs another of new grace,   Who to a star then seemeth to give place,   Which saith: Thy blessedness hath been with thee. only instead of the metaphysical directness of the canzone, the poet  employs the theological tropes of the dolce stil.   La dove questa bella donna appare  s'ode una voce che le ven davanti,  e par che d' umilta '1 su' nome canti  si dolcemente, che s' P '1 vo' contare  sento che '1 su* valor mi fa tremare.  E movonsi ne 1' anima sospiri  che dicon : guarda, se tu costei miri  vedrai la sua vertu nel ciel salita. 1   And now the tragic note in Guido's is explained. It is neither  the polite fiction, the " pathetic fallacy " of the Sicilian school, nor  yet the quickly passing shadow of this life set between Dante and the  sun of his desire.   La tua magnificenza in me custodi,   SI che P anima mia che fatta hai sana,  Piacente a te dal corpo si disnodi.   Cosi orai . . . 2   "So I prayed," writes Dante, triumphant in expectation ; but for those  Che 1 'anima col corpo morta fanno,   there could be health of soul neither now nor hereafter. Wherefore  Guido's text in the analysis of his own passion is in all literalness  the words of the Preacher, — " All his days ... he eateth in dark-  ness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath in his sickness." Until   1 There where this gentle lady comes in sight   Is heard a voice which moveth her before  And, singing, seemeth that Meekness to adore  Which is her name, so sweetly, that aright  I may not tell for trembling at its might.  And then within my soul there gather sighs  Which say: Lo ! unto this one turn thine eyes:  Her virtue to heaven wingeth visibly.   2 Farad., XXXI, 88-91.Guido prays indeed for release in death, not triumphantly as Dante,  but piteously, in the spirit of Leopardi's words in Amore e Morte:   Nova, sola, infinita  Felicita . . . il suo (the lover's) pensier figura :  Ma per cagion di lei grave procella  Presentendo in suo cor, brama quiete,  Brama raccorsi in porto  Dinanzi al fier disio,  Che gia, rugghiando, intorno intorno oscura. 1   Poi, quando tutto avvolge  La formidabil possa,  E fulmina nel cor Tinvitta cura,  Quante volte implorata  Con desiderio intenso,  Morte, sei tu dair affanoso amante ! 2   Precisely in this mood Guido invokes death :   Morte gientil, rimedio de' cattivi,   merze merze a man giunte ti cheggio :  vienmi a vedere e prendimi, che peggio  mi face amor : che mie' spiriti vivi   1 Not only are Guido and Leopardi saying the same thing in effect, but even  their figures of speech are in accord. There is evident similarity of symbolism  between the soul-darkening storm blast of the one and the soul-darkening Martian  ray of the other ; although doubtless the mediaeval poet may have conceived his  " dark ray " as a real phenomenon.   2 New, infinite, unique  Felicity ... he pictures to his mind :  And yet because of it the wrath of storm  Foreboding in his heart, he longs for calm,  Longs for the quiet haven  Far from that fierce desire,  Which even now, rumbling, darkens all around.   Then, when o'erwhelmeth him  The fury of its might,   And in his heart thunders unconquerable care,  How many times he calls  In agony of need,  Death, upon thee in his extremity ! son consumati e spenti si, che quivi,  dov* i' stava gioioso, ora mi veggio  in parte, lasso, la dov' io posseggio  pena e dolor con pianto : e vuol ch' arrivi   ancora in piu di mal s' esser piu puote ;  perche tu, morte, ora valer mi puoi  di trarmi de le man di tal nemico.   Aime ! lasso quante volte dico :   amor, perche fai mal pur sol a' tuoi  come quel de lo 'nferno che i percuote ? 1   At other times Guido describes the combat to the death between  his " spirits " of life and love. He enlarges his canvas and, calling  to aid a whole dramatis personae of the various " souls " and " animal  spirits " of scholastic psychology, objectifies his mood into miniature  epic and drama. This mythology of the inner world arose naturally  enough to mind from the ambiguity of the term " spirits," meaning  at once bodily humors and bodiless but personal creatures ; and  in Guido's delicate handling the symbolism is singularly effective.  Only by exaggeration of imitation did it grow stale and ludicrous,  meriting the jibes of Onesto da Bologna at such " sporte piene di   1 Gentle death, refuge of th' unfortunate,   Mercy, mercy with clasp'd hands I implore :  Loo^ down upon me, take me, since more sore  Hath been love's dealing : in so evil state   Are brought the spirits of my life, that late   Where I stood joyous, now I stand no more,  But find me where, alas ! I have much store  Of pain and grief with weeping : and my fate   Yet wills more woe if more of woe might be ;   Wherefore canst thou, death, now avail alone  To loose the clutch of such an enemy.   How many times I say, Ah woe is me 1   Love, wherefore only wrongest thou thine own,  As he of hell from his wrings misery ?     3spiriti." The following curiously rhymed sonnet may illustrate his  manner in this kind.   L' anima mia vilment' e sbigotita   de la battaglia ch* ell' ave dal core,  che, s T ella sente pur un poco amore  piu presso a lui che non sole, la more. Sta come quella che non a valore,   ch' e per temenza da lo cor partita :  e chi vedesse com' ell* e fuggita  diria per certo : questi non a vita.   Per gli occhi venne la battaglia in pria,  che ruppe ogni valore immantenente  si, che del colpo fu strutta la mente.   Qualunqu* e quei che piu allegrezza sente,  se vedesse li spirti fuggir via,  di grande sua pietate piangeria. 1   It transpires then for Guido as for Leopardi that the only grace,  the only boon of peace, to which love leads is death ; and so is verified   1 The spirit of my life is sore bested   By battle whereof at heart she heareth cry,   So, that if but a little closer by   Love than his wont she feeleth, she must die.   She is as one dejected utterly ;   The heart she hath deserted in her dread :  And who perceiveth how that she is fled,  Saith of a certainty : This man is dead.   First through the eyes swept down the battle-tide,  Which broke incontinently all defense,  And by its wrath wrecked the intelligence.   Whoever he that most of joy hath sense,  Yet if he saw the spirits scattered wide,  In his excess of pity must have sighed.  %\   the warning of those who came to meet him when he first entered the  court of love :   Quando mi vider, tutti con pietanza  dissermi : fatto se' di tal servente  che mai non dei sperare altro che morte. 1   In reality, he knows the futility of any appeal to his lady for aid.  She is indeed the innocent occasion of his suffering, but of it she is  a mere passive spectator, hardly understanding it, and certainly help-  less to relieve it ; and so Guido himself describes her in the sonnet  beginning " S' io prego questa donna." In the midst of his agony,   Allora par che ne la mente piova  una figura di donna pensosa,  che vegna per veder morir lo core. 2   Here then at last we find the explanation of his interpretation of  Dante's sonnet, when he said that love fed Dante's heart to his lady,   vegendo  che vostra donna la morte chedea.   She claimed its death not willfully indeed, as the capricious mistress  of Ulrich von Lichtenstein " claimed " his mutilation, but innocently,  unwittingly, in that her beauty was as a firebrand, her perfection, her  " meekness," a goal of unavailing consuming desire. She is helpless  to relieve him, because — and here is the core of the matter — it is  not she, not the real woman, that he loves, but that idealization of  her which exists only in his own mind —   for di colore d' esser e diviso,   assiso mezzo scuro luce rade.   Compared with this glorified phantom "nel ciel (that is, into the  intelligible world) salita," the real woman also is but "ira," wrath  and imperfection. So he pines for his lady of dreams, who thus a   1 When they beheld me, unto me all cried   Pitiful : bondman art thou made of one   Such that for nought else mayst thou look but death.   2 " Into my mind then seems it that there rays a figure of a pensive lady, com-  ing to behold my heart die." ghostly " vampire " feeds upon his human heart ; but the real woman,  " the woman who does not understand," is no longer of moment to  him. She is, as it were, but the nameless model to his artist mind.  When that has drawn from her all that is of fitness for its master-  piece, it straightway leaves her for another otherwise completing the  ideal type. Giovanna passes ; Mandetta arrives.   Una giovane donna di Tolosa   bell' e gentil, d' onesta leggiadria,   tant' e diritta e simigliante cosa,   ne' suoi dolci occhi, de la donna mia,   ch' e fatta dentro al cor desiderosa   P anima in guisa, che da lui si svia  e vanne a lei ; ma tant* e paurosa,  che no le dice di qual donna sia.   Quella la mira nel su* dolce sguardo,  ne lo qual face rallegrare amore,  perche v' e dentro la sua donna dritta.   Po' torna, piena di sospir, nel core,   ferita a morte d* un tagliente dardo,  che questa donna nel partir li gitta. 1   Plainly it is not of Giovanna, nor of any actual woman, but of his  ideal woman, of whom Giovanna herself was but a reminiscence, that   1 A lady of Toulouse, young and most fair,  Gentle, and of unwanton joyousness,  So is the very image and impress,  In her sweet eyes, of one I name in prayer,   That my soul's wish is more than it can bear :   Wherefore it 'scapeth from the heart's duress  And cometh unto her ; yet for distress  What lady it obeys may not declare.   She looketh on it with her gentle mien,   Whereunto by the will of love it yearns,  Because that lady there it may perceive.   Then to the heart it, full of sighs, returns,  Unto death wounded by an arrow keen,  The which this lady loosed when taking leave. Mandetta reminds him. In her turn Mandetta will pass also. Then  will come Pinella, or another — what does it matter? What cared  Zeuxis for any one of his five Crotonian maidens, once each in her  turn had supplied that particular trait of loveliness which only she,  perhaps, had to offer, but had to offer only ?   Mentre ch* alia belta, ch* i* viddi in prima  Apresso V alma, che per gli ochi vede,  L' inmagin dentro crescie, e quella cede  Quasi vilmente e senza alcuna stima. 1   The words are Michelangelo's, but the idea is in effect Guido's. And  it is an idea which, I think, renders perfectly compatible in him con-  stancy in ideal love with inconstancy in real loves. To keep faith  with perfection is to break faith with imperfection. The love of  Guido brooked no compromise. The perfect one might be unattain-  able in this life; perfect union with her, even if found, might be  impossible in this life; there might be no other life than this so  marred by the perpetual " state of wrath " to which his impossible  desire in its impotence doomed him ; yet nevertheless Guido was  willing to be damned for the greater glory of Love.   In conclusion, I would quote a passage from the elegy to Aspasia  of Leopardi, which puts into modern phrasing exactly what I con-  ceive to be Guido's intention, obscured as that is for us by its  scholastic terminology and its mixture of chivalric and obsolete  psychological imagery. Especially I would call attention to the  precisely similar way in which Leopardi, like Guido, combines in his  mood the loftiest idealization of Woman with the most contemptuous  conception of women. So Hamlet insults, even while he adores.  Dante too had his cynical time, to judge from Beatrice's immortal  rebuke, — when he   . . . volse i passi suoi per via non vera,  Imagini di ben seguendo false.   1 While to the beauty, which first drew my gaze,   My soul I open, which looketh through the eyes,  The inward image grows, the outward dies  In scorn away, unworthy all of praise. But Dante was saved from ultimate cynicism, ultimate unfaith, by the  promise of perfect union with his ideal in paradise. That promise  Guido, like Leopardi, rejected.  Here is Leopardi's confession :   Raggio divino al mio pensiero apparve,  Donna, la tua belta. Simile effetto  Fan la bellezza e i musicali accordi,  Ch' alto mistero d* ignorati Elisi  Paion sovente rivelar. Vagheggia  II piagato mortal quindi la figlia  Delia sua mente, l'amorosa idea,  Che gran parte d* Olimpo in se racchiude,  Tutta al volto, ai costumi, alia favella  Pari alia donna che il rapito amante  Vagheggiare ed amar confuso estima.  Or questa egli non gia, ma quella, ancora  Nei corporali amplessi, inchina ed ama.  Alfin Perrore e gli scambiati oggetti  Conoscendo, s' adira .  (" Sadira /" — " is wrathful " — Leopardi's very words form a gloss  to Guido's. But as little as Guido's is Leopardi's wrath directed  against the real woman, innocent occasion of his illusion and disillu-  sion. Leopardi continues :)  e spesso incolpa  La donna a torto. A quella eccelsa imago  Sorge di rado il femminile ingegno;  E ci6 che inspira ai generosi amanti  La sua stessa belta, donna non pensa,  Ne comprender potria.  (" The woman who does not understand " !)  Non cape in quelle  Anguste fronti ugual concetto. E male  Al vivo sfolgorar di quegli sguardi  Spera V uomo ingannato, e mal richiede  Sensi profondi, sconosciuti, e molto  Piu che virili, in chi dell' uomo al tutto Da nature e minor. Che se piu molli  E piu tenui le membra, essa la mente  Men capace e men forte anco riceve. 1   So the idealist skeptic of the nineteenth century aligns himself  with the idealist skeptic of the thirteenth, even to that last truly  mediaeval touch — confusio hominis est femina. And, if I have not  somewhere gone off on a tangent, I have described my circle. Guido's  philosophy of love at least fits with the hypothesis of his skepticism,  and a practical consequence of both would be that actual fickleness  of heart to which tradition again bears witness.   1 A ray celestial to my thought appeared,  Lady, thy loveliness. Similar effects  Have beauty and those harmonies of music  Which the high mystery of unfathomed heavens  Seem ofttimes to illumine. Even so  Enamoured man upon the daughter broods  Of his own fancy, the amorous idea,  Which great part of Olympus comprehends,  In feature all, in manner, and in speech  Unto the woman like, whom, rapturous man,  In his false lights he seems to see and love.  Yet her he doth not, but that other, even  In corporal embracings, crave and love.  Until, his error and the intent transferred  Perceiving, he grows wrathful ; and oft blames  With wrong the woman. To that ideal height  Rarely indeed the wit of woman rises ;  And that which is in gentle hearts inspired  By her own beauty, woman dreams not of,  Nor yet might understand. No room have those  Too straitened foreheads for such thoughts. And fondly  Upon the spirited flashing of that glance  Builds the infatuate man, and fondly seeks  Meanings profound, undreamt-of, and much more  Than masculine, in one than man in all  By kind inferior. For if more tender,  More delicate of limb, so with a mind  Less broad, less vigorous is she endowed.Guido Cavalcanti. Keywords: lo sviluppo della teoria dell’amore in Aristotele – amore e morte, amore e anima vegetativa (l’amante non mangia, l’amante non dorme) – l’animo e il corpo come entelechia, sinolo perfetto, I due sinola, sinolo, Greco sinolon, da sin, co- e holos, tutto.  – l’amore come incontro disastroso di due entellechie. Refs.: Luigi Speranza, “Grice e Cavalcanti” – The Swimming-Pool Library. Cavalcanti.