11
ov’era lo tuo cor per mio volere; e recolo a servir novo piacere.” Allora presi di lui sì gran parte,
where your heart dwelled by my command; I bring it back to serve another love.” And then I took from Love so much of him
14
ch’elli disparve, e non m’accorsi come.
he disappeared, without my knowing how.
METRE: sonnet ABBA ABBA CDE EDC.
24 Ballata, i’ voi che tu ritrovi Amore
The longest of Dante’s six ballate, Ballata, i’ voi is the only ballata included in the Vita Nuova, where Dante places it in chapter XII (5). With the sonnet Cavalcando l’altr’ier that precedes it and the four sonnets that follow, it is part of an arc of texts that together constitute the most manifestly Cavalcantian section of the Vita Nuova. In the case of this composition, the Cavalcantian turn is further marked by the presence of a genre much favoured by Guido, as is underscored by the first word, which is both technical and metapoetic: “Ballata.”
However, differently from the sonnets that follow, Ballata, i’ voi is not an especially Cavalcantian poem; it is rather a generic courtly lyric. As discussed in the essay on Cavalcando l’altr’ier, Dante in the first part of the Vita Nuova constructs a plot that dramatizes the failure of courtly values: so long as the protagonist of the Vita Nuova behaves according to such values, participating for example in a “simulated love” for the screen-ladies, he will be blocked, incapable of setting out on the new path that he finds first after being challenged about his love by certain unnamed Florentine ladies, loses during the encounter with the donna gentile, and finds again at the end of the libello.
The various Occitan genres that are utilized by Dante in the first part of the Vita Nuova are inserted into the prose frame as emblems of an outworn ideology. We have already seen that the sonnet Piangete, amanti belongs to the Occitan genre of lamentation or planh. Ballata, i’ voi openly declares its provenance from the Occitan escondig: the ballata presents itself with Love before madonna “sì che la scusa mia, la qual tu cante,/ragioni poi con lei lo mio segnore [so that my Lord can then explain to her / the crux of my defence, which you will sing]” (3–4). Saying that the ballata sings “my defence,” “la scusa mia” (and “scusa” occurs again at line 20), Dante is informing us that this poem belongs to the courtly genre in which the lover defends himself from slanderous gossip.
To Ballata, i’ voi is entrusted the task of calming the indignation of madonna (“di me adirata [annoyed with me]” [12]), and explaining to her that, even if Love had forced the poet to look at other women (“li fece altra guardare [made him look at someone else]” [23]), his love for her remains unchanged. Here we see the theme of the will’s fickleness and variability already discussed in connection with Cavalcando l’altr’ier. The poet, however, declares he never had a change of heart: “non mutò ’l core” (24). His heart has preserved a fidelity so staunch – “sì fermata fede” (26) – that his every thought has prodded him to serve her: “che ’n voi servir l’ha ’mpronto onne pensero [that all his thoughts compel (his) serving you]” (27).
The lexicon of Ballata, i’ voi, with its insistence on servire, to serve (“servire” [27], “servidore” [34], “servo” [40]), reflects its courtly provenance: the ballata goes to madonna “sì cortesemente [so courteously]” (5). Testifying to Occitan influence is also the conspicuous Provençalism and hapax “sdonnei,” in line 36. Sdonneare is the opposite of donneare, which derives from Provençal domnejar, that is, “to court, to be with ladies in a courtly manner.” The verb donneare is present again in the canzone dedicated to courtly morality, Poscia ch’Amor; Dante will use it finally twice in Paradiso, where we find “La mente innamorata, che donnea / con la mia donna sempre [The mind in love that ever amorously courts my lady]” (Par. 27.88–9) and “La Grazia, che donnea / con la tua mente [Grace, which amorously courts your mind]” (Par. 24.118–19). The use of courtly donneare in Paradiso, by now fully theologized, has its distant origin in line 36 of Ballata, i’ voi. For the courtly lexicon of Paradiso, see also the discussion of leggiadria in O voi che per la via d’Amor passate.
If we consider this ballata in isolation, we find a poem whose courtly formulas harbour the theme of the heart’s volatility, which in this case touches on the theme of simulation. As we noted in the discussion of Cavalcanto l’altr’ier, these themes, both fundamentally ethical, will have a long history in Dante’s poetry. If instead we consider Ballata, i’ voi as a way station in the Cavalcantian section of the Vita Nuova, we come back to the problem of mediation, as discussed with respect to Cavalcando l’altr’ier: Cavalcanti adopts the presence of mediating figures as obstacles to “im-mediate” (unmediated) contact with the lady, which is to say, as obstacles to immediate / unmediated contact with canoscenza. In this part of the Vita Nuova Dante dramatizes the crisis of mediation, presented in such a way as to implicate not only courtly culture in general but Cavalcanti in particular.
Before arriving at Ballata, i’ voi the Vita Nuova prose is carefully stocked with phrases and words dear to Guido. For example, to describe the effect of Beatrice’s greeting Dante speaks of the “spirito d’amore,” which, “distruggendo tutti li altri spiriti sensitivi, pingea fuori li deboletti spiriti del viso [destroying all the other spirits of the sensitive soul, would drive out the weak spirits of sight]” (VN XI.2 [5.5]). De Robertis notes that this experience is described “according to the Cavalcantian model and by way of the typical mechanics of the ‘spirits’ in the sonnet Con l’altre donne,” and that “the expression li deboletti spiriti [the weak spirits] harkens back to Guido’s sonnet Voi che per li occhi” (VN, p. 70). Immediately after, the theme of mediation is broached: Love, we are told, is not “tal mezzo” – such a mediator – that he can temper “la intollerabile beatitudine [the unbearably powerful bliss]” of Beatrice’s greeting (VN XI.3 [5.6]). Gorni notes with respect to “intollerabile” that it is “a synthetic definition of a state that Cavalcanti describes in Veggio negli occhi” (VN, p. 53). The “soverchio di dolcezza [excess sweetness]” (VN XI.3 [5.6]) provoked by the greeting features another “Cavalcantian word” (De Robertis, VN, p. 71): in Io non pensava Cavalcanti uses the phrase “soverchio de lo su’ valore [excess of her worth / power]” (49) to indicate the excessive – hence intolerable and inaccessible – worth of madonna.
This concept is fundamental for Cavalcanti: in the same canzone Love declares, “Tu non camperai / ché troppo è lo valor di costei forte [You won’t survive / because this woman’s worth / power is much too great]” (Io non pensava, 7–8). Far from helping its devotee, the excessive and supernatural valore of the Cavalcantian lady constitutes the obstacle that blocks the lover’s search: her troppo valore functions in relation to him as an obstacle that is harmful and indeed (as testified by “Tu non camperai”) deadly.
The Cavalcantian lady possesses troppo valore and so needs to be mediated, as in the Vita Nuova Love serves as a “mezzo” – mediator, medium – between Dante and Beatrice. But Dante’s path will bring him to an entirely different destination, to a system radically opposed to that of Cavalcanti. In Dante’s system the lady is a beatrice, one who blesses: that is, not only is she unmediated and thus im-mediate but she herself functions as mediator, giving access to and knowledge of a reality even more vast and significant than she. The Love who commands Dante to use Ballata, i’ voi as a “mezzo,” an intermediary – “Queste parole fa che siano quasi un mezzo [Make it so that your words are a kind of intermediary]” – because Beatrice might become indignant if he addressed her “immediatamente” – “sì che tu non parli a lei immediatamente [so that you do not speak to her directly]” (VN XII.8 [5.15]) – is a Cavalcantian Love who gives Cavalcantian advice. The advice given by this Love is wrong. It is discredited in the Vita Nuova, and of course in the Commedia: as we know, in the Commedia Dante speaks to Beatrice “immediatamente.”
I will add that, when Dante goes beyond the courtly norm that it is discourteous
to address the lady directly, not only does he give freedom to speak to himself but he also gives it to her: the Beatrice of the Commedia is anomalous also inasmuch as she is an erstwhile lyric lady who speaks. There is a first hint of this Beatrix loquax in the Vita Nuova not long after this ballata, where certain speaking ladies (an oxymoron in the courtly tradition, where young shepherd girls speak, but never ladies) liberate Dante from courtly ideology. As Beatrice will do in the Commedia – where she declares, “amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare [love moves me, making me speak]” (Inf. 2.72)72 – the Florentine ladies in Vita Nuova XVIII (10) speak in order to offer greater access to knowledge, to spur Dante on to a higher level of understanding.
But we are getting too far ahead of ourselves. Returning to Ballata, i’ voi, it is important to note that this is the first poem in the libello that, according to the account of the Vita Nuova, had been written specifically for Beatrice. Let me conclude by affirming in lapidary fashion what Barbi, writing at a different critical moment, had to use six pages to explain (Barbi-Maggini, pp. 54–60): there is no reason to think that Ballata, i’ voi was actually written for the gentilissima. As we have discussed, the ballata, if taken on its own, outside the context of the prose, is not even a particularly stil novo composition. It lends itself very well, however, being an escondig, to the task assigned it within the economy of the Vita Nuova, which is to create another occasion to try (and to fail) to build a relationship with madonna according to the outdated schemas of the old courtly ideology.
24 (B IX; FB 24; VN XII.10–15 [5.17–22])
Ballata, i’ voi che tu ritrovi Amore, e con lui vade a madonna davante, sì che la scusa mia, la qual tu cante,
My ballad, I request you seek out Love and with him join my lady’s company, so that my Lord can then explain to her
4
ragioni poi con lei lo mio segnore.
the crux of my defence, which you will sing.
Tu vai, ballata, sì cortesemente, che sanza compagnia
Your conduct, ballad, is so courteous that even on your own
dovresti avere in tutte parti ardire; ma se tu vuoli andar sicuramente, retrova l’Amor pria,
you should feel gallant going anywhere; but if you wish to have security, then first you must find Love,
10
ché forse non è bon sanza lui gire; però che quella che ti dee audire, sì com’io credo, è ver di me adirata: se tu di lui non fossi accompagnata,
for without him perhaps you’d best not go, since she who must give you an audience, I rather think, is quite annoyed with me. If you were not accompanied by him,
14
leggeramente ti faria disnore.
she’d likely greet you with discourtesy.
Con dolze sono, quando se’ con lui, comincia este parole,
With soothing melodies, take up these words, when you are next with him,
appresso che averai chesta pietate: “Madonna, quelli che mi manda a vui, quando vi piaccia, vole,
as soon as you have asked for sympathy: “My lady, he who sends me forth to you, desires, with your consent,
20
sed elli ha scusa, che la m’intendiate. Amore è qui, che per vostra bieltate lo face, come vol, vista cangiare: dunque perché li fece altra guardare
that his defence be made to you by me. For Love is here, who through your loveliness can make him change his outward look at will: so why Love made him look at someone else
24
pensatel voi, da che non mutò ’l core.”
judge for yourself, he’s had no change of heart.”
Dille: “Madonna, lo suo core è stato con sì fermata fede,
Tell her: “My lady, ever has his heart remained so truly firm
che ’n voi servir l’ha ’mpronto onne pensero: tosto fu vostro, e mai non s’è smagato.” Sed ella non ti crede,
that all his thoughts compel its serving you: it was all yours at once, and it’s not strayed.” If she should then demur,
30
dì che domandi Amor, che sa lo vero: ed a la fine falle umil preghero,
tell her to question Love, who knows the truth: and at the end please ask her humbly,
lo perdonare se le fosse a noia, che mi comandi per messo ch’eo moia,
if she should find forgiveness difficult, that she decree my death by messenger,
34
e vedrassi ubidir ben servidore.
and faithfully her servant will obey.
E dì a colui ch’è d’ogni pietà chiave, avante che sdonnei,
And say to Love, who’s keeper of all mercy, (before you take your leave),
che le saprà contar mia ragion bona: “Per grazia de la mia nota soave reman tu qui con lei,
who will know how to make my case to her: “In virtue of my pleasant melody stay here awhile with her,
40
e del tuo servo ciò che vuoi ragiona; e s’ella per tuo prego li perdona, fa che li annunzi un bel sembiante pace.” Gentil ballata mia, quando ti piace,
and speak about your servant as you will; and if she pardons him because you spoke, let her kind face announce to him his peace.” Now go, my gentle ballad, when you please,
44
movi in quel punto che tu n’aggie onore.
at such time you’ll be met with courtesy.
METRE: ballata, with ripresa XYYX and four stanzas of ten verses (eight hendecasyllables and two settenari), with rhyme scheme AbC AbC CDDX. The fronte is six verses (3 + 3) and the volta is four verses.
25 Tutti li miei penser parlan d’Amore
The incipit of Tutti li miei penser announces the theme, dear to the troubadours, of conflicting thoughts: among the examples of similar Occitan verses proposed by Barbi-Maggini (p. 60), critical attention has settled on the incipit by Peire Vidal, Tuiz mei cossir son d’amor et de chan. The poet’s thoughts are united in all talking of Love – “Tutti li miei penser parlan d’Amore [All my thoughts now speak to me of Love]” – but they show great variety of perspective: “e hanno in lor sì gran varietate [and yet they share such great diversity]” (2).
The various points of view of the divergent thoughts are then listed one by one, and seem to recapitulate the Italian lyrical tradition prior to Dante. The first thought, which represents the generically courtly point of view and which one might identify, in the Italian context, with the Sicilian tradition, “mi fa voler potestate [compels me to desire its power]” (3). In other words, the first thought compels the poet to accept the power of Love. The second thought brings to mind Guittone, who in the canzone Ora parrà declares “ché ’n tutte parte ove distringe Amore / regge follore – in loco di savere [because wherever Love takes hold,/folly rules in place of knowledge]” (10–11). This thought maintains that Love’s rule is “folle,” irrational: “altro folle ragiona il suo valore [another claims its rule is foolishness]” (4). The third thought, optimistic in a way that recalls Guinizzelli, gives the lover hope and therefore sweet happiness – “altro sperando m’apporta dolzore [another brings delight by means of hope]” (5) – while the fourth, tragic à la Cavalcanti, has the opposite effect, since “pianger mi fa spesse fiate [another oftentimes will make me weep]” (6). All these thoughts agree only in requesting pity for the lover: “e sol s’accordano in chere pietate,/tremando di paura che è nel core [they find their sole accord in seeking pity,/by trembling for the fear within my heart]” (7–8).
Moving from cause in the octave to effect in the sestet (a common division of labour in the early sonnet), Dante goes on to elaborate the result of the condition he has just described: he finds himself in such a state of uncertainty – of “amorosa erranza [confused by love]” (11) – that he ends up saying, “Ond’io non so da qual matera prenda [So I know not from which to take my theme]” (9). Not knowing what line of thought to choose, he is blocked poetically: “e vorrei dire, e non so ch’io mi dica [I’d like to speak, but don’t know what to say]” (10). In other words, he has reached an impasse.
Note
the semantic play of this tercet, a play centred on the metaphor of a poetic path that can be lost or blocked, like the “cammin riciso [cut-off path]” across which the sacred poem must leap in Paradiso 23: “e così, figurando il paradiso / convien saltar lo sacrato poema / come chi trova suo cammin riciso [and so, in figuring paradise, the sacred poem has to leap across, as does a man who finds his path cut off]” (Par. 23.61–3). In the “amorosa erranza” – literally “amorous wandering” – of this early sonnet one can glimpse the long history of the double valence of the metaphor of the path for Dante: a metaphor that Dante applies not only to the experience of living, to the “cammin di nostra vita [journey of our life],” but also to the experience of writing, as in the “cammin riciso” of Paradiso 23.63.73
The prose of Vita Nuova XIII (6), where Dante puts Tutti li miei penser parlan d’Amore, seeks to emphasize the metaphor implicit in the word “erranza” (from the verb errare, to wander) and to reinforce the sense of the poetic journey – in this case blocked – that is implicit in the first tercet of the sonnet: “Ond’io non so da qual matera prenda;/e vorrei dire, e non so ch’io mi dica:/così mi trovo in amorosa erranza! [So I know not from which to take my theme;/I’d like to speak, but don’t know what to say:/that’s why I find myself confused by love]” (9–11). In an excellent example of how the Vita Nuova’s prose, by emphasizing and unpacking, can shed light on apparently secondary, easily neglected aspects of the poetry, the metaphor that is implicit in the sonnet is made plain and explicit in the prose: “E ciascuno mi combattea tanto, che mi facea stare quasi come colui che non sa per qual via pigli lo suo cammino, e che vuole andare e non sa onde se ne vada; e se io pensava di volere cercare una comune via di costoro, cioè là ove tutti s’accordassero, questa era via molto inimica verso me [And each of these thoughts battled within me so much, they made me like someone who doesn’t know which way to take for his journey – who wants to go but doesn’t know where he is headed. And when I considered the way they all had in common – the one they agreed on, in other words – it was a highly hostile one from my point of view]” (VN XIII.6 [6.6]).
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