2.S0 



DISCOVIiHY 



Apart from the Vila Nuova and the three canzoni 

 included in the Convivio (the unfinished work in which 

 he intended to comment upon 14 of these poems), the 

 critical edition accepts as genuine poems of Dante 

 13 canzoni, 5 ballate, 34 sonnets, and 2 stanze. It is 

 pleasant to observe that two sonnets, translated by 

 Rossetti, but unhesitatingly rejected by recent editors, 

 are now given a place in the canon. These are the 

 charming " Master Brunetto, this my little maid," 

 which, however, has no connection (as Rossetti sup- 

 posed) with Brunetto Latini or the Vita Nuova, and 

 " Upon a day came sorrow into me," which Rossetti 

 took as referring to the death of Beatrice. I must 

 confess personally to being not quite convinced as 

 to the sufficiency of the evidence for the unqualified 

 . acceptance of some of the poems received into the canon; 

 but this is immaterial. 



The Ri)ne bring to perfection the technique of early 

 Italian lyrical poetry, itself in part a heritage of the 

 poets of the Sicilian school from the troubadours of 

 Provence, and the spiritual ideals of the " sweet new 

 style," of which the initial inspiration came from 

 Guido Guinicclli at Bologna. They gradually pre- 

 pare the way for the ampler music of the Divina Corn- 

 media. 



Dante no doubt included what he regarded as the 

 best of his lyrics for Beatrice in the Vita Nuova ; but 

 we find among his " juvenilia " such little masterpieces 

 as the sonnet to Guido Cavalcanti, Guido, i vorrei che 

 til e Lapo ed to, with its romantic atmosphere and 

 Merlin's enchanted boat, and that other, Suonar 

 bracchetti e cacciatori aizzare, in which the poet of 

 love appears incongruously at a hunting party and 

 appreciates a kindly jape at his own expense: — 



" Guido, I would that thou and Lapo and I were 

 taken by enchantment and set in a boat, which under 

 every wind should course the sea at your will and mine ; 

 so that no tempest or other evil weather could hinder 

 us, but rather, living always in one desire, our wish 

 to abide together might increase. And Lady Vanna 

 and Lady Lagia too, with her who is thirtieth on the 

 roll, should the good magician place with us ; and 

 there to discourse alwaj's on love ; and each of them 

 to be content, as I am sure that we should be. 



" Beagles questing and huntsmen setting on, hares 

 starting and folk hallooing, and from the leash swift 

 hounds issuing to scour fair slopes and seize the quarry ! 

 In sooth, I think it should delight a heart that is free 

 and void of purpose ; and I, among my amorous 

 musings, am mocked by one on this account, who jests 

 with me thus in familiar wise : ' Now see the chivalry 

 of a noble lieart ; for a sport so rustic to leave ladies 

 and their joyous semblance ! ' Then, fearing lest 

 Love may hear, I am ashamed, and go downcast 

 thereat." 



In a lighter mood, too, arc some of the pieces which 

 appear for the first time in the present edition ; the 

 sonnet on the Garisenda tower of Bologna ; various 

 epistolary sonnets, in which no doubt at times, when 

 answering friends or other contemporary rhymers, 

 Dante wrote without any very serious intent or delibera- 

 tion : " Rispondo brieve con poco pensare," as he says 

 in one of the sonnets now added to the list. In the 

 abusive tenzone with Forcse Donati (which should not, 

 perhaps, be taken too seriously), Dante is following the 

 practice, which Rustico di Filippo had made character- Lj 

 istically Florentine (though Guido Guinicelli himself I 

 once did the like), of employing the sonnet for satire and 

 burlesque. Most of the sonnets interchanged with Cino 

 da Pistoia belong to a later date, and — with one 

 exception — are in a strain of high solemnity. 1 



The most striking IjTics composed by Dante during 

 the years between the completion of the Vita Nuova 

 and his exile are the " rime pietrose " and certain 1 

 allegorical poems expressing a novel conception of love. 

 The former — four canzoni — are remarkable for a 

 peculiar and incessant playing upon the word pietra, 

 " stone," which led to the theory that they were inspired 

 by a lady named Pietra, or, at least (" Pietra," like 

 other names of this kind introduced into Dante's 

 lyrics, being probably a device like that used by the 

 Provencals), by one who had proved hard and rigid 

 where Beatrice had been the giver of blessing. One of 

 the group strikes a note of stormy, even sensual passion 

 that we hardly meet elsewhere in Dante's lyrics. In 

 another, " To the show day and the great circle of 

 shadow " (familiar to EngHsh readers in Rossetti), 

 we have the first example in Italian of what was later 

 called a scstina — the peculiar form of canzone invented 

 by the troubadour, Arnaut Daniel, for the expression 

 of the mood of a mind haunted by fixed ideas round 

 which it pla\^s in a poetical attempt to discover their 

 ultimate relations with itself and with each other. But 

 the unquestionable masterpiece in this group is the 

 canzone, " I am come to the point of the wheel," 

 on love in wnter, contrasting stanza by stanza the 

 phenomena of the external world in the season of ice 

 and snow with the state of the poet's soul, ever burning 

 in the " sweet torment " of love's fires. It is the 

 artistic perfecting of a species of poem not unfrequent 

 with the troubadours of Provence. 



The allegorical canzoni express a love that is 

 identical with philosophical devotion. Dante writes 

 in the Convivio (ii. 16) : " By love, in this allegory, is 

 alwa\'s intended that study which is the appHcation of 

 the enamoured mind to that thing of which it is ena- 

 moured." They illustrate the fundamental idea of the 

 Convivio that philosophy is the amorous use of wisdom, 

 or, as Hugh of St. Victor put it, " the love and the 

 studv and, in a certain manner, the friond.^hip of 



