The Knight in History (11 page)

Arnaut’s
cansos
are written in a different spirit, though with sensuality and irony, but display the same virtuosity of craftsmanship. In one, admired by Dante and translated by Ezra Pound, Arnaut uses a rhyme scheme in which, besides interior rhymes, each line rhymes with a corresponding line in the other stanzas—almost a third of the syllables are governed by rhyme. Alliteration and assonance also tie the poem together. The lines are segments of the more customary eight-syllable line, and the sounds, rough and smooth, produce the onomatopoeic effect of the wind in the trees and the chattering birds. (Ezra Pound’s translation accomplished the difficult feat of reproducing meter and rhyme scheme, although he did not attempt the onomatopoeia; but the unfortunate result was to emphasize the poem’s mechanics and obscure the meaning, at the same time employing jarring archaisms. The two verses given below are accompanied by James Wilhelm’s literal translation.)

L’aura amara

Fa · ls
^*
bruoills brancutz

Clarzir

Que · l doutz espeissa ab fuoills
,

E · ls letz

Becs

Dels auzels ramencs

Ten balps e mutz
,

Pars

E non-pars
;

Per qu ’eu m ’esfortz

De far e dir

Plazers

A mains, per liei

Que m ’a virat bas d’aut
,

Don tem morir

Si · ls afans no m’asoma
.

Tant fo clara

Ma prima lutz

D’eslir

The bitter breeze

Makes the leafy copses

Whiten

That the soft one thickens with leaves,

And the happy

Beaks

Of birds on branches

It holds stammering and mute,

Both paired

And unpaired.

And so I strive

To do and say

Pleasant things

To many, because of her

Who has turned me from high to low,

So that I fear to die

If she doesn’t heal my torments.

It was so clear,

My first bright glimpse,

When I selected

Lieis don cre · l cors los buoills
,

Non pretz

Necs

Mans doz aigonencs;

D’autra s’es dutz

Rars

Mos preiars
,

Pero deportz

M’es ad auzir

Volers
,

Bos motz ses grei

De liei don tant m ’azaut

Qu ’al sieu servir

Sui del pe tro c’al coma….

Her for whom the heart believes the eyes,

I don’t value

Base

Messages worth two angevins;

By another very rarely

Is my prayer

Drawn forth;

And so it’s a delight

For me to hear

Good will,

Good words with nothing harsh

From her for whom I exult so

That at her service

I stand from the feet up to my hair….
³⁹

The theme is not difficult to understand. The poet is cast out by his lady; still he loves her, he hopes for her love, he sends his song to the king of Aragon, and he expresses his devotion. The biographer who blames Arnaut’s “precious rhymes” for his songs’ obscurity was to the point; it is the poem’s extreme compression that makes it difficult. But the compression supplies the essential poetic ingredient, the poet’s feeling of violent constriction and repression.

In Petrarch’s words, Arnaut was the “great master of Love,”
⁴⁰
and love is invariably his subject (here again the rhymes are between corresponding lines in the stanzas).
^*

En cest sonet coind’e leri

Fauc motz e capuig e doli
,

E serant verai e cert

Quan n’aurai passat la lima;

Qu ’Amors marves plan ’e daura

In this gay, charming air

I will put words so honed and pared

that when they’ve passed beneath

my file, they’ll be true and sure;

for love at once smooths and gilds

Mon chantar, que de liei mou

Qui pretz manten e governa
.

Tot jorn meillur et esmeri

Car la gensor serv e coli

Del mon, so · us dic en apert

Sieus sui del pe tro qu ’en cima
,

E si tot venta · ill freid’aura

L’amors qu ’inz el cor mi plou

Mi ten chaut on plus iverna….

No vuoill de Roma l’emperi

Ni c ’om me ’en fassa apostoli
,

Qu ’en lieis non aia revert

Per cui m ’art lo cors e · m rima;

E si · l maltraich no · m restaura

Ab un baisar anz d’annou

Mi auci e si enferna
.

Ges pel maltraich qu ’ieu soferi

De ben amar no · m destoli

Si tot me ten en desert
,

C’aissi’n fatz los motz en rima
.

Pieitz trac aman c’om que laura
,

C’anc plus non amet un ou

Cel de Moncli n’Audierna
.

my song, which proceeds from her

whom Merit guides and sustains.

I continually improve and purify myself, for I serve the gentlest lady

in the world (and say so openly

I am hers from head to toe,

and even amid cold winds,

the love raining within my heart

keeps me warm in harshest winter….

I do not want the Empire of Rome,

nor to be elected Pope, if I

cannot return to her for whom

my heart burns and cracks;

and if she does not cure my ills

with a kiss before the new year,

she’ll kill me and condemn herself.

Yet in spite of the ills I suffer,

I shall not desist from loving,

even though I remain in solitude,

for I can still set words to rhyme.

Love makes my lot worse than that

of a peasant—yet the lord of Montcli

did not love Audierna one whit more.

leu sui Arnautz qu’amas l’aura
,

E cbatz la lebre ab lo bou

E nadi contra suberna
.

I am Arnaut who gathers the wind

and hunts the hare with the ox

and swims against the incoming tide.
⁴¹

Dante’s favorite among Arnaut’s
cansos
was not a technical display of virtuosity such as “
L’aura amara
,” but “
Sols sui qui sai
,” a poem with a simple metrical arrangement and a rhyme scheme in which each line in the seven-line stanza rhymes with a corresponding line in the others; what Dante admired was the harmony between the means of expression and the ideas expressed, the “lucid and graceful and elevated order of construction.”
⁴²

…D’autras vezer sui secs e d’auzir sortz
,

Qu’en sola lieis vei et esgar;

E jes d’aisso no · ill sui fals plazentiers

Que mais la vol non ditz la boca · l cors;

Qu ’eu no vau tant chams, vauz ni plans in puois

Qu ’en un sol cors trob aissi bos aips totz:

Qu ’en lieis los volc Dieus triar et assire
.

Ben ai estat a maintas bonas cortz

Mas sai ab lieis trob pro mais que lauzar:

Mesura e sen et autres bos mestiers
,

Beutat, joven, bos faitz e bels demors
.

Gen I’enseignet Cortesia e la duois;

Tant a de si totz faitz desplazens rotz

…I am blind to others, and their retort

I hear not. In her alone, I see, move,

Wonder…. And jest not. And the words dilate

Not truth; but mouth speaks not the heart outright:

I could not walk roads, flats, dales, hills, by chance,

To find charm’s sum within one single frame

As God hath set in her t’assay and test it.

And I have passed in many a goodly court

To find in hers more charm than rumor thereof…

In solely hers. Measure and sense to mate,

Youth and beauty learned in all delight,

Gentrice did nurse her up, and so advance

Her fair beyond all reach of evil name,

PAGE FROM A MANUSCRIPT OF ARNAUT DANIEL’S “LO FERM VOLER.”
(BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA, MILAN, MS. G R71 SUPERIORE, F. 78)

De lieis no cre rens de ben sia a dire….

Ma chansos prec que no · us sia enois
,

Car si voletz grazir lo son e · ls motz

Pauc preza Arnautz cui que plassa o que tire
.

To clear her worth, no shadow hath oppresst it….

The song begs you: Count not this speech ill chance,

But if you count the song worth your acclaim,

Arnaut cares lyt who praise it or who contest it.

(Translation by Ezra Pound)
⁴³

Arnaut’s most famous poem, “
Lo ferm voler
,” was a sestina, a form invented by Arnaut and imitated by a number of poets, including Dante and Petrarch. This poem has been called “a high point of
trobar clus
” (difficult troubadour poetry).
⁴⁴
Six rhyming words are used, repeated in each subsequent stanza in a fixed pattern in relation to the preceding one, the rhyming words of the
tornada
repeating the last three of the last stanza. Arnaut’s poem plays throughout on the words
l’oncle
(uncle or kinsman) and
l’ongle
(claw or nail) and on
verga
, which can mean “rod” or “Virgin” and
vergier
(orchard). At least two levels of meaning are present: the literal one, the thoughts of the lover whose love is firm against the attacks of slanderers, who longs for his lady and loves her more than his family, and whose love will bring him joy in paradise; and the allegorical one, the debate between mind and spirit, with Arnaut’s affirmation of
Fin’ Amors
, the perfect form of profane love, which he hopes will take him to paradise.