Dante's Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the 'Vita Nuova'

by Dante Alighieri

  If Amore e monna Lagia is printed here beside Guido, i’ vorrei, it is because of the many considerations expressed over many years by Barbi, Contini, De Robertis, and others, and not because of the reattribution recently carried out by De Robertis. The transfer of eight lyrics from the doubtful to the canonical list will have to be studied and De Robertis’ reasons will have to be scrutinized, text by text. When philologists have reached a widely shared consensus, on the basis of considerations that one hopes will be made transparent to all (it is unfortunately not rare for “philological” decisions to be based on considerations that are not strictly philological, but stylistic or ideological),63 then we will be able to decide how to proceed.

  Contini called Amore e monna Lagia “this obscure (but smiling) sonnet” (p. 229), and the sonnet is in fact difficult to interpret, above all because of its allusiveness. Like the sonnets exchanged between Dante and Forese Donati, Amore e monna Lagia gives the impression of being immersed in the ordinary quotidian flux of social life, in this case of a group of friends, and “presupposes that it is sufficient for the state of things to be known to those involved” (DR, ed. comm., p. 304). The result is that there are many questions to which it is not possible to respond. According to Contini, the presence of Lapo Gianni “is absolutely demanded by that of his friend, lady Lagia … Dante and Lapo must therefore be on the one hand the author and on the other the unnamed protagonist of the sonnet” (p. 229). The unnamed protagonist is the “ser costui [certain sir]” (2) – who is thanked ironically for having caused the break-up (“che·nn’ha partiti [for parting us]” [3]) of the group that served Love, and whose name must remain “in oblio [out of mind]” (4):

  Amore e monna Lagia e Guido ed io

  possiamo ringraziar un ser costui

  che·nn’ha partiti sapete da cui

  (no·l vo’ contar per averlo in oblio).

  (Amore e monna Lagia, 1–4)

  [Guido, lady Lagia, Love and I

  must show a certain sir our gratitude

  for parting us from him, and you know who,

  though I won’t say, to keep him out of mind.]

  Lapo is thus responsible for “a general change of the situation and for the dissolution of a pact of fidelity and ‘service’ that bound the members of the group together in the name of Love” (DR, ed. comm., p. 304).

  From Amore e monna Lagia emanates a trace “scent” of the life of the brigata – of the authentic social life of Duecento Florence – as also from Sonar bracchetti, Volgete gli occhi, and Guido, i’ vorrei. It is interesting to note that the social group of this sonnet, like that of Guido, i’ vorrei (and that of the frame-tale of the Decameron) is mixed-gender, composed of women and men, while the brigata of hunters in Sonar bracchetti is exclusively male.

  The little bit of information offered regarding the members of the company piques our belated curiosity. The group that is dissolving because of “ser costui” consists of three members, “monna Lagia e Guido ed io [Guido, lady Lagia and I]” (1), who manifest three different behaviours. The woman takes back her heart from her “servant” (“ch’eran serventi di tal guisa a lui [who used to serve him with such loyalty]” [6]), and so is no longer to be numbered among the fedeli d’amore: “la donna saggia / che[d] in quel punto li ritolse il core [that lady then who prudently / reclaimed her heart]” (10–11). (Note the presence of a “saggia donna” also in Amore ’l cor gentil sono una cosa: “Bieltate appare in saggia donna pui [Then beauty in a worthy lady’s seen]” [9].) Guido proves immune, in Contini’s words, “from infatuation for the alleged god of love” (p. 230): “e Guido ancor, che·nn’è del tutto fore [and Guido next, who keeps his distance now]” (12). Only the author, “alone, would like to yield or still yields to the power of the one from whom the other characters named in the first verse are liberated” (Contini, p. 230): “ed io ancor che ’n sua vertute caggia [and I, although I fall beneath his spell]” (13). The yielding – literally “falling” (“caggia” from cadere) – to the power of Love is an old topos of Dante’s.

  The verse dedicated to Guido stands out above all: “e Guido ancor, che·nn’è del tutto fore [and Guido next, who keeps his distance now]” (12). It is one of those verses that has a strange hold on the reader of today, because it seems to capture in highly concentrated form the whole myth of Guido Cavalcanti, a myth still in the making at the time of the writing of Amore e monna Lagia. Standing alone in splendid isolation, “completely outside” (“del tutto fore”), marginalized, not part of the group, somewhat haughty with respect to communal endeavours:64 all this, later brought to life in the story about Guido Cavalcanti in Decameron 6.9, a story featuring Guido’s rejection of the brigata of Betto Brunelleschi, is already distilled and gathered into the early verse, written when the two poets were still “hanging out” – “e Guido ancor, che·nn’è del tutto fore.”

  The adverb “fore” – “outside” – distils the very essence of Cavalcanti: the poet whose most benign vision materializes in the form of alien, foreign creatures, literally “outsiders” or “foresette” (for Cavalcanti’s foresette, see his poems Era in penser d’amor and Gli occhi di quella gentil foresetta, and the discussion of the role of the foresette in the introductory essay to Cavalcando l’altr’ier). Cavalcanti is the poet sent out of Tuscany, into the physical exile invoked in the famous ballata Perch’i’ no spero di tornar giammai, a physical exile that corresponds to his existential exile and to the interior alienation of his poetry. He is the poet who exhorts Dante to flee “la noiosa gente” (“Solevanti spiacer persone molte,/tuttor fuggivi la noiosa gente [You once would treat crowds with contempt / and always fled from those who are mundane]” [I’ vegno ’l giorno a·tte, 5–6]). He is the poet whom Dante himself “will hunt from the nest” (“caccerà del nido”) (Purg. 11.99): will expel from the domestic circle of poet-friends that emerges from these sonnets.

  Perhaps the psychological distance that separates the non-infatuated Guido of Amore e monna Lagia e Guido ed io, the Guido “che·nn’è del tutto fore,” from the disillusioned Guido of canto 10 of the Inferno, is after all, from Dante’s perspective, not so great. The haughty isolationist quality of being “del tutto fore” seems to have darkened over time in Dante’s imagination, crystallizing ultimately into its infernal variant, “disdegno”: “forse cui Guido vostro ebbe a disdegno [whom perhaps your Guido held in disdain]” (Inf. 10.63).65

  20 (B D. I; C 59; DR 41)

  Amore e monna Lagia e Guido ed io possiamo ringraziar un ser costui che·nn’ha partiti sapete da cui

  Guido, lady Lagia, Love and I must show a certain sir our gratitude for parting us from him, and you know who,

  4

  4 (no·l vo’ contar per averlo in oblio). Poi questi tre più non v’hanno disio, ch’eran serventi di tal guisa a lui, che veramente più di lor non fui

  though I won’t say, to keep him out of mind. For these three wish to cling to him no more, who used to serve him with such loyalty that even I was not more dutiful

  8

  imaginando ch’elli fosse iddio,

  in thinking that he was indeed a god.

  sia ringraziato Amor che se n’accorse primeramente; e poi la donna saggia

  So let’s give thanks to Love, who first perceived the truth, that lady then who prudently

  11

  che[d] in quel punto li ritolse il core; e Guido ancor, che·nn’è del tutto fore; ed io ancor che ’n sua vertute caggia:

  reclaimed her heart from him just afterward, and Guido next, who keeps his distance now; and I, although I fall beneath his spell,

  14

  se poi mi piacque, no·l si crede forse.

  how much I loved him no one will believe.

  METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDE EDC.

  21 Per una ghirlandetta

  The commentators, De Robertis included, usually place this poem, a ballata, in a small cluster that also contains Madonna, quel signor che voi portate and Deh, Vïoletta, che ’n ombra d’Amore. The c
anzone-stanza Madonna, quel signor is traditionally included in this group on the strength of the “soave fiore [delightful flower]” of line 15, but its decidedly Sicilian and Occitan-inspired manner has convinced me to move it forward. Per una ghirlandetta and Deh, Vïoletta remain together in my order, and in a position in which they can bear witness to the increasing importance of Guido Cavalcanti’s poetry in the production of the young Dante.

  Cavalcanti has been present in all the introductory essays from No me poriano on. If in No me poriano Cavalcanti is glimpsed only briefly (in the term “scanoscenti”), Sonar bracchetti renders homage to him quite explicitly: the syntactic form of the octave of Sonar bracchetti is indebted to Cavalcanti’s Biltà di donna. Volgete gli occhi contains some Cavalcantian moves, and as for Guido i’ vorrei we need only cite the first word that announces to the whole world the bond between Dante and the man who in the Vita Nuova is called “primo de li miei amici [the first of my friends]” (VN III.14 [2.1]).

  Per una ghirlandetta and Deh, Vïoletta are both ballate. The very form of the ballata can be considered an homage from Dante to Guido: while the latter cultivated the ballata (Guido wrote, in a collection of fifty-two poems, a full eleven of them) and avoided the canzone, for Dante the opposite is true. The ballata is a rather marginal form for Dante; in a collection of at least eighty-eight texts, there are only six.

  Per una ghirlandetta takes up from Cavalcanti’s ballate both their motif of the lady associated with the world of flowers and spring and their delicate musicality. In particular, we hear echoes of Fresca rosa novella, a ballata that is usually attributed to the young Cavalcanti, and which, according to one of the primary witnesses, Chigiano L VIII 305, was dedicated to Dante. In the first lines of this poem, which identify the lady with newness and rebirth – “Fresca rosa novella,/piacente primavera [Fresh new rose,/delightful spring]” (1–2) – it seems that Dante may have seen a senhal for Cavalcanti’s lady, as suggested by the Vita Nuova: “E lo nome di questa donna era Giovanna, salvo che per la sua bieltade, secondo che altri crede, imposto l’era nome Primavera [And this woman’s name was Giovanna, except that she was given the name Primavera, or Spring – because of her beauty, as others believe]” (Vita Nuova XXIV.3 [15.3]).

  The lady whom Dante sings about in Per una ghirlandetta is called Fioretta: “S’ïo sarò là dove sia / Fioretta mia bella a sentire [If I should find myself / where my fair Fioret may hear]” (11–12). The fact that she is not anonymous has given rise to much conjecture, including whether Fioretta and Violetta are the same person, if she is the first or second screen-lady, and so on. While we are not able to recover a historical reality for these ladies, we can observe that Dante’s imagination in this period of his life is crowded with female presences and that two of their various senhals – Fioretta and Violetta – have clear Cavalcantian connotations, echoing as they do the floral delicacy of “Fresca rosa novella / piacente primavera.”

  The feminine presences in Dante’s lyrics are existentially individuated through the use of proper names or words that function as names: Fioretta, Violetta, Beatrice, Lisetta, the donna gentile, the pargoletta, the pietra. These are names that bear poetic testimony: they trace a meandering path that includes the more Cavalcantian-inspired senhals like Fioretta and Violetta and the more original Dantean choice of Beatrice. Like Fioretta and Violetta, Beatrice is a very early name in Dante’s canon, appearing in the youthful canzone Lo doloroso amor (see the introductory essay to Lo doloroso amor for discussion of the name “Beatrice”).

  The diminutives of Per una ghirlandetta – “ghirlandetta” is repeated two times, then “angiolel,” “Fioretta,” “parolette,” “novelle” – constitute another Cavalcantian stylistic feature (less present in Deh Vïoletta, where the only diminutive is the addressee’s name). Dante is echoing the relatively optimistic, lightly sensual Cavalcanti of Fresca rosa novella and In un boschetto trova’ pasturella; the importance of the latter ballata for the Commedia, especially for the earthly paradise and for the figure of Matelda, who appears “scegliendo fior da fiore [choosing flower from flower]” (Purg. 28.41), is well established.66 We think also of Lia, who makes a garland for herself in the dream of Purgatorio 27: “movendo intorno / le belle mani a farmi una ghirlanda [moving around my lovely hands to make myself a garland]” (Purg. 27.101–2).

  Matelda and Lia are imagined by Dante as lyric ladies transposed by a number of registers, and their floral activities are part of constructing them on the lyric template. In the Commedia the noun ghirlanda – a fundamental motif of the lady in love poetry, as we saw in Dante da Maiano’s Provedi, saggio – appears as an attribute of Lia and then again to describe the wise men in the heaven of the sun, who are fascinatingly feminized and lyricized by being likened to a ghirlanda shortly after being compared to ladies who pause while dancing.67

  Typical of Dante’s stil novo are both the adjective umile, in the sense of dolce / soave (sweet / mild), which refers to the angel who flies above the garland of flowers worn by the lady (garlands were a typical ornament of Florentine women, above all in May Day celebrations) – “e sovr’a·llei vidi volare / un angiolel d’amore umìle [and over it / I saw an angel full of gentle love]” (6–7) – and the verb laudare, present in the angel’s song: “e ’l suo cantar sottile / dicea: ‘Chi·mmi vedrà/lauderà ’l mio signore’ [and singing gracefully / he said: ‘Whoever looks on me / will praise my noble lord’]” (8–10). The concept of praise will be of primary importance for the Vita Nuova and for Dante’s stil novo, which sets itself to praise madonna rather than asking for the guiderdone (reward) of the courtly tradition. In Per una ghirlandetta the “angiolel d’amore” (little angel of love), whose very existence is a declaration of divine goodness, inspires the onlooker to the praise of God. In the later stil novo poems we will see transferred from angiolel to lady both the quality of humility and the sacramental function – worthy of praise – of being the visible sign of invisibile grace.

  The image of the ghirlandetta suggests to the reader of this ballata the idea of circularity, later to be exploited by Dante when he refers to the circles of wise men in the heaven of the sun as “due ghirlande” (Par. 12.20). A circular form is encountered immediately in the ripresa – “Per una ghirlandetta / ch’i’ vidi, mi farà/sospirare ogni fiore [For a little garland / that I saw / all flowers make me sigh]” (1–3) – and again at the start of the first strophe: “I’ vidi a voi, donna, portare / ghirlandetta di fior’ gentile [I saw you, Lady, wearing / a garland made of lovely flowers]” (4–5). The angel who flies above the circlet of flowers worn by madonna, and who sings with a gentle voice, is a distant prefiguration of the “circulata melodia” of Paradiso 23, where the archangel Gabriel sings and circles the Virgin: “‘Io sono amore angelico, che giro / l’alta letizia’ … Così la circulata melodia / si sigillava [‘I am angelic love, who circles the high joy’ … In this way the circling melody sealed itself]” (Par. 23.103–4, 109–10).

  Of the lady in Per una ghirlandetta it is said that, “per crescer disire [to increase desire]” (a locution that recalls “crescesse il disio [our desire … would grow]” in Guido, i’ vorrei), she “will come / crowned by Love”: “verrà/coronata d’Amore” (16–17). In the sonnet Tanto gentile the lady will be, in a similar rhetorical locution, “d’umiltà vestuta [dressed in humility]” (6).

  If Fioretta seems in some sense to incarnate the flowers that adorn her, almost as if she were Botticelli’s Primavera, the same can be said about the ballata that pays her honour, it too made of flowers: “Le parolette mie novelle / che di fior[i] fatt’han ballata [These freshly minted words of mine,/which knit a ballad out of flowers]” (18–19). The word “ballata” recalls the technical term “sonetto” in Se Lippo amico and in Sonetto, se Meuccio; the “vesta” of line 21 recalls the musical dress of Se Lippo amico. For Dante the implicit meditation on his own poetic activity is never out of place, not even in the wispiest, most delicate lyric. And in fact the confusion generated by the “
parolette mie novelle / che di fior[i] fatt’han ballata” is intriguing: De Robertis’ questions, “Are they a ballata on the theme of flowers? Are they flowers in the form of a ballata?” (ed. comm., p. 269), suggest that once again our fabbro was playing with border-crossing, in this case the border between the flowers of the ghirlandetta and the ballata that sings them.

  21 (B LVI; FB 21; C 10; DR 28)

  Per una ghirlandetta ch’i’ vidi, mi farà

  For a little garland that I saw

  3

  sospirare ogni fiore.

  all flowers make me sigh.

  I’ vidi a voi, donna, portare ghirlandetta di fior’ gentile, e sovr’a·llei vidi volare

  I saw you, Lady, wearing a garland made of lovely flowers, and over it

  7

  un angiolel d’amore umìle; e ’l suo cantar sottile dicea: “Chi·mmi vedrà

  I saw an angel full of gentle love; and singing gracefully he said: “Whoever looks on me