Dante's Lyric Poetry

by Dante Alighieri

  The reader doesn’t know who are the friends of Volgete gli occhi, nor with whom the poet went hunting. We can easily imagine a group of friends, all men, like the group of friends who are listed with such precision in the incipit of Guido, i’ vorrei che tu a Lapo ed io (to whom, however, the sestet will add a group of women, thus creating a company that is sexually mixed, like the one that inhabits the frame-tale of the Decameron), and, by doing so, we can glimpse in Volgete gli occhi the same tension between the male world and the female world that we have examined in Sonar bracchetti. The male social life of the brigata of friends – and we recall from the Decameron not only the mixed gender brigata of the frame-tale, but the hyper-male brigata that besieges the poet Guido Cavalcanti in Decameron 6.9 – is opposed to the feminized life of the lover under the yoke of Love. From this perspective both Sonar bracchetti and Volgete gli occhi suggest a less transgressive and less fantastical reality than the one imagined in Guido, i’ vorrei or in the frame-tale of the Decameron; in actual Florentine society of that era the sexes did not casually mix.42

  While there is a tradition that appropriates the real hunt of the aristocracy for courtly ideology, and for the metaphorical “hunt” of the lover, in the sonnet Sonar bracchetti the hunt is constructed in opposition to love: as a literal hunt, one of the favoured activities of the aristocracy and its imitators in mercantile Tuscany, and not as a romantic pursuit.43 In Sonar bracchetti Love intervenes to turn the man away from his world of male activity, from the male hunt, in a sense “feminizing” him. In this either / or universe the lover receives a take-it-or-leave-it proposition: he must decide whether to “lasciar le donne,” leave the ladies, for the hunt. The rigid dichotomy between the male and female worlds established by Sonar bracchetti is an indicator of the anxiety the young poet felt about the norms imposed by his society.

  Dante’s ability to violate such norms is on display early in his poetic career: one thinks for instance of the violent reaction of Dante da Maiano to the “favoleggiar” of the sonnet A ciascun’alma, and too of Dante’s sonnets Voi che portate la sembianza umile and Se’ tu colui c’ hai trattato sovente, which show a young poet who wants to take part in the mourning rituals reserved for women in his society. In these texts Dante is already probing the limits with regard to social behaviour dictated by gender. Using Sonar bracchetti as a point of departure with respect to the male / female binary, we will be able to trace the itinerary in Dante’s thought from the rigid dichotomy on display here to a more complex and nuanced view: in Paradiso the lines “E come surge e va ed entra in ballo / vergine lieta, sol per fare onore / a la novizia, non per alcun fallo [And as a happy virgin rises and goes and enters the dance, simply to honour the new bride, not because of any fault]” (Par. 25.103–5) refer to Saint John.44

  17 (B LXI; C 15; FB 16; DR 44)

  Sonar bracchetti e cacciatori aizzare, lepri levare ed isgridar le genti, e di guinzagli uscir veltri correnti,

  The beagles’ belling and the hunters’ cries, the hares flushed out, the cheering of the crowd, the greyhounds loosed from leashes, dashing by,

  4

  per belle piagge volger e ’mboccare, assai credo che deggia dilettare libero core e van d’intendimenti. Ed io, fra gli amorosi pensamenti,

  careening through the fields in search of prey, must surely be a source of great delight to any heart not bound by love’s demands. But in my thoughts of love I find myself

  8

  d’uno sono schernito in tale affare,

  put down and mocked by one of them;

  e dicemi esto motto per usanza: “Or ecco leggiadria di gentil core

  and as it’s done before, it jokes and says: “Now here’s refinement in a gentleman,

  11

  per una sì selvaggia dilettanza lasciar le donne e lor gaia sembianza!” Allor, temendo non che ’l senta Amore,

  deserting ladies and their gaiety for such a rough-and-tumble sport as this.” And fearing then that Love will overhear,

  14

  prendo vergogna, onde mi ven pesanza.

  I feel ashamed and have a heavy heart.

  METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDC CDC.

  18 Volgete gli occhi a veder chi mi tira

  Volgete gli occhi opens with an existential drama: the poet must choose between his friends and Love. This sonnet is thematically connected with Sonar bracchetti, where the poet feels obliged to be with the ladies instead of participating in the hunt with his friends. As in Sonar bracchetti, Volgete gli occhi takes its cue from the internal conflict of the poet, who is here literally tugged in two opposing directions: his friends are on one side beckoning to him to come with them and Love is on the other, pulling him. He had intended to be with his friends; hence now he tells them to turn their eyes and look at the force that prevents him from joining them: “Volgete gli occhi a veder chi mi tira,/per ch’io non posso più venir con voi [Turn round and see the one who tugs at me / so I no more can share your company]” (1–2).

  We do not know with whom the poet was expected “to come” nor what he intended to do with them, but the very fact that he uses the plural form of the verb “Volgete” suggests a group – a male brigata – with common interests. The use of the verb venire gives a feeling of immediacy to the opening: we can imagine the friends saying “Come on!” to Dante. A group of male friends is moreover listed with precision in the opening of Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io. Given the primary position of Guido Cavalcanti in that sonnet, it is interesting to note that Guido too uses the verb venire in a famous sonnet of reproof directed at Dante that begins with venire a (rather than venire con): I’ vegno’l giorno a·tte ’nfinite volte [I come to you a thousand times a day].

  In the opening of Volgete gli occhi the poet directly addresses his friends, apologizing for his neglect of them, urging them to consider who is dragging him away, so that they may fully appreciate why he can’t come with them. It is not just any force that pulls him from his friends: it is Love, who must be honoured, who makes men suffer on account of women (“e onoratel, che questi è colui / che per le gentil donne altru’ martira [and honour him, for he’s the one who plies / our noble ladies to wreak others’ woe]” [3–4]), and who has the power to kill (“La sua virtute, ch’ancide sanz’ira [this power of his,/which slays sans violence]” [5]).

  Stylistically and ideologically, Volgete gli occhi hovers between Sicilian conventions and a new, more Cavalcantian style. The image of Love painting the lady in the mind of her lover is Sicilian; it is an image that we have seen in the canzone La dispietata mente, where we find as well the syntagma “mi tira” (“ ’l disio amoroso che mi tira [love’s desire, which draws me]” [4]). In this case the lady’s nobility painted in his mind is such that all the poet’s strength hurries to kneel before her feet: “e pingevi una donna sì gentile / che tutto mio valore a’ piè le corre [depicting there a lady of such worth / that all my strength kneels down before her feet]” (10–11).

  In terms of ideology, the love of Volgete gli occhi is tyrannical, powerful, and “fero” (fierce, acting with force or violence): “ch’elli m’è giunto fero nella mente [for he has forced his way inside my mind]” (9). While this position can easily be conventional, Dante’s Sicilian-style poems tend to sing a benevolent and optimistic love: it is possible therefore that this cruel and “fero” love already reflects the influence of Cavalcanti. Dante’s use in Volgete gli occhi of the Sicilian topos of the lady painted in the heart lends itself to a Cavalcantian interpretation. We saw that the “valore” of the lover kneels at madonna’s feet. The image of the lady painted within the lover leads thus to the lover’s self-abasement rather than to his elevation, precisely as in Cavalcanti’s poems, where the figure of the lady frequently has the effect of reducing or negating the existential worth of the lover (and the word “valore,” used in precisely this sense, is very Cavalcantian; see note 47 in the essay on Guido, i’ vorrei).

  The concluding move of Volgete gli occhi is explicitly stilnovistic: a
refined and gentle voice speaks within the poet, and its words take the form of direct speech (the fragmentation of the “I” into various speaking entities is also a Cavalcantian speciality). Here the soft voice that speaks has the same tone of reprimand, though not as sharp, that we witnessed in the words of the speaking thought of Sonar bracchetti. There, the thought sarcastically asserts what it does not think is true, that the lover’s behaviour is a sign of courtesy: “Or ecco leggiadria di gentil core [Now here’s refinement in a gentleman]” (Sonar bracchetti, 10). Here, the soft voice puts a rhetorical question to the protagonist that reconnects to the existential drama at the start of the sonnet: “Dunque, vuo’ tu per neente / agli occhi tuoi sì bella donna tôrre? [Would you, for nothing in return,/remove so fair a lady from your eyes?]” (13–14).

  This question asserts again that the only valid choice on the poet-lover’s part is to adore madonna (hence not to turn his eyes away from her), given that every other activity – such as, for example, passing time with friends – is classified as literally “neente” (nothing). To the rather aggressive question with which the sonnet closes, “vuo’ tu per neente / agli occhi tuoi sì bella donna tôrre?” the only acceptable response clearly is “No, there is no sufficient motive for depriving my eyes of the sight of such a beautiful lady.” But the response remains implicit, and the dominant note of Volgete gli occhi is therefore tension: the tension of the imperative with which the sonnet opens and the tension of the question, left hanging, with which it ends.

  From this tension we can deduce that the young Dante is not without ambivalence in his adherence to the values of courtly love, values that (as too in Sonar bracchetti) separate him from the world of friends, from the world of men.

  18 (B LIX; C 13; FB 17; DR 45)

  Volgete gli occhi a veder chi mi tira, per ch’io non posso più venir con voi, ed onoratel, che questi è colui

  Turn round and see the one who tugs at me so I no more can share your company, and honour him, for he’s the one who plies

  4

  che per le gentil donne altru’ martira. La sua virtute, ch’ancide sanz’ira, pregatel che mi laghi venir poi, e io vi dico, de li modi suoi

  our noble ladies to wreak others’ woe. Beseech him to allow this power of his, which slays sans violence, to enter me; I tell you this: one understands his ways

  8

  cotanto intende quanto l’uom sospira;

  according as one suffers from his might;

  ch’elli m’è giunto fero nella mente e pingevi una donna sì gentile

  for he has forced his way inside my mind, depicting there a lady of such worth

  11

  che tutto mio valore a’ piè le corre; e fammi udire una boce sottile che dice: “Dunque, vuo’ tu per neente

  that all my strength kneels down before her feet: he makes me listen to a gentle voice that says: “Would you, for nothing in return,

  14

  agli occhi tuoi sì bella donna tôrre?”

  remove so fair a lady from your eyes?”

  METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDE DCE.

  19 Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io

  In this sonnet Dante writes about friendship, a subset of love.45 Friendship is one of Dante’s great themes, with roots in his earliest lyrics, as discussed in the introductory essays to Deh ragioniamo, Sonar bracchetti, and Volgete gli occhi. The social life of a group of male friends is common to Guido, i’ vorrei, Sonar bracchetti, and Volgete gli occhi; only in Guido, i’ vorrei, however, do we find Dante linking friendship to poetry. The friends named in Guido, i’ vorrei include at least one poet, Guido Cavalcanti, and more than one poet if we take “Lapo” to refer, as is traditional, to Lapo Gianni. (I do not follow De Robertis in substituting the traditional “Lapo” by “Lippo,” because the reasons he gives for his choice do not convince me.)46 The first friend to be named, the one to whom the sonnet is addressed, and who responds, in the sonnet S’io fosse quelli che d’Amor fu degno,47 is the poet whom Dante calls “primo de li miei amici [the first of my friends]” in the prose of the Vita Nuova (III.14 [2.1]), where he explains that Guido’s response to A ciascun’alma “was more or less the beginning of the friendship between him and me” (“fue quasi lo principio de l’amistà tra lui e me”) (VN III.14 [2.1]). In this passage of the Vita Nuova Dante makes explicit the link between making poetry and making friends.48 Guido, i’ vorrei thus offers a privileged early vantage on the tight bond that Dante forges between poetry and friendship and on Guido’s “primacy” (“primo de li miei amici”) in both domains.

  We find a fascinating confirmation of the link between making poetry and being friends in Cavalcanti’s I’ vegno ’l giorno a·tte ’nfinite volte, the famous sonnet in which Guido reprimands Dante for the condition to which he has sunk after Beatrice’s death: he now has an “anima invilita [degraded soul]” (14). Here Guido indicates that his friendship with Dante had a textual dimension, resulting in Guido’s collection of Dante’s lyrics: “di me parlavi sì coralemente / che·ttutte le tue rime avìe ricolte [of me you used to speak so cordially / that I would welcome every poem you sent]” (I’ vegno ’l giorno, 7–8). Similarly, Guido’s disappointment in Dante also has a textual dimension, for now he feels obliged to reject his friend’s poetry, his “dir”: “Or non ardisco, per la vil tua vita,/far mostramento che·ttu dir mi piaccia [I now dare not, since you’ve demeaned yourself,/acknowledge that I like your poetry]” (I’ vegno ’l giorno, 9–10). I would classify I’ vegno ’l giorno as an “anti-consolatory” poem, a poem that applies to the ailing friend an electric jolt rather than a warm hug. The friend who wrote instead the canonic consolatoria to Dante on Beatrice’s death (consolatoria is the term used to denote a canzone of consolation), Cino da Pistoia, will take Guido’s place as canonic friend-poet in Dante’s subsequent writings.49

  After the Vita Nuova, in which the figure of Guido Cavalcanti is first among friends, we pass to the treatise De vulgari eloquentia, where the catalogues of vernacular poets contain traces of Dante’s friendships. The Italian poets are listed in the De vulgari eloquentia’s catalogue of Book 2, chapter 6 in this manner: Guido Guinizzelli, Guido Cavalcanti, Cino da Pistoia, and “his [Cino’s] friend” (DVE 2.6.6). The last poet, referred to by the periphrasis “amicus eius,” is Dante himself. The perfect expression of the symbiosis between poetry and friendship is the phrase “amicus eius,” used repeatedly in the De vulgari eloquentia: instead of using the name “Dante” to place himself in the lists of vernacular poets, Dante calls himself “amicus eius.” By calling himself the friend of the poet who precedes him in the catalogues, Cino da Pistoia,50 Dante performs the idea that the friend is as Cicero says, another self.

  Dante reinforces the link between poetry and friendship in the Commedia, pairing every citation of his own canzoni to an encounter with a friend, and putting onstage many friendly encounters among poets in the otherworld.51 Among these let us recall the moments when Dante imagines himself welcomed by the great poets of antiquity as “sesto tra cotanto senno [sixth among so much wisdom]” (Inf. 4.102) and when Statius realizes he is in the presence of his adored Vergil (Purg. 21; for this moment see the introductory essay to Deh ragioniamo). In fact, if there are tight-knit male brigate in the Commedia, they are composed of poets, able to become fast friends and always to find something to chat about (but not to share with outsiders to the group): Dante walks with the poets in Limbo “talking about things of which it is best to remain silent” (“parlando cose che ’l tacere è bello” [Inf. 4.104]), and as he follows Vergil and Statius he “listened to their words that gave me understanding of poetry” until the novelty of the upside-down tree interrupted “the sweet conversing” (“le dolci ragioni” [Purg. 22.128–30]). As discussed in the essay on Deh ragioniamo, “ragionar” (talking) is the social activity preferred by Dante’s poets. Similarly, in Guido, i’ vorrei the line “e quivi ragionar sempre d’amore [and here to talk always about love]” (12) is an indicator of being in the company of poets
.

  In this sonnet, friendship is experienced as an enchanted state that permits complete transparency untrammelled by our existence as differentiated ontological beings – in effect, a transparency and unity uncontaminated by difference. This fantasy of oneness causes exquisite pleasure but also sadness: the total reciprocity and transparency that is longed for cannot be grasped in human life and the enchantment is therefore veiled by melancholy. Guido, i’ vorrei expresses a desire: the desire for a magic space of impossible and perfect non-difference.52 The afflatus with which the name “Guido” is pronounced at the poem’s opening is the breath of friendship itself.

  The expression of this desire controls and governs the sonnet from the beginning, even syntactically: we encounter right off, after the vocative “Guido,” the verb of desire, “i’ vorrei [I wish],” on which the syntax of the entire sonnet depends. (The conditional “vorrei” is followed by imperfect subjunctives, as befits a classic conditional contrary-to-fact construction.) The transition from the incipit to the following line indicates the parameters of the fantasy. From the recitation of names and pronouns that mark the fully individuated and hence plural state of the three friends – Guido, Lapo, and Dante himself are three subjects who are ontologically and grammatically separate and different – we move to the unitary state of the plural verb at the beginning of the second line: “Guido, i’ vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io/fossimo presi … [Guido, I wish that Lapo, you, and I / were carried off … ]” (1–2). The three plural identities, which preserve their individuality underscored by the pronouns “I” and “you,” would be, in this fantasy, part of one magic circle. Here we find a distant preview of the many attempts in Paradiso to give poetic life to the idea that Three can become One while always remaining Three. Or, switching cultural contexts, we think of Cicero’s De Amicitia, where a friend is “another self” – “alter idem” (21.80) – and friendship results in such a mixing of souls as to “almost make one of two” (“ut efficiat paene unum ex duobus!”) (21.81), and the power of friendship is such as to make one soul where there was a plurality of souls: “Nam cum amicitiae vis sit in eo ut unus quasi animus fiat ex pluribus [the effect of friendship is to make, as it were, one soul out of many]” (25.92).