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Grice e Cavalcanti: la ragione
conversazionale e l’implicatura conversazionale del sìnolo degl’amanti – scuola
di Firenze – filosofia fiorentina – filosofia toscana -- filosofia italiana –
Luigi Speranza, pel Gruppo di Gioco di H. P. Grice, The Swimming-Pool Library (Firenze). Filosofo
fiorentino. Filosofo toscano. Filosofo italiano. Firenze,
Toscana. 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 C., in Rime. Figlio di Cavalcante dei C., 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. C. 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 C., dal ritmo soave e leggero è di una grande
sapienza retorica. I versi di C. 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 C. 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 C., 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. C. 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 C. 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 C. 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, C. 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. C., 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 C. 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, 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, 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 C. 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 C. 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
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 afterward, 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 C.i.
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. Guido's disdainful temper both piqued and puzzled his townsfolk.
Sacchetti's anecdote 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 Boccaccio'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 (si veda) 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 (Decam.) 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 C. concerning the nature, the effects, the virtues of Love :
Io ne domando voi, Guido, di lui : odo che molto usate in la sua
corte ; Le Rime di C. Bologna. 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 emanation 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. 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. Finally, — and here we reach the gist of the matter, — the influ-
ence of the choleric planet engenders sighs and fiery wrath in the Conv..
(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.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 C. . . . 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 Guinizelli, whom Dante called " father of me and of my
betters," — of which last C. 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. 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. 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 commoner 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 Orlandi's question restated by C. — "
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 "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 ? 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. 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.
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