Instigations Part 43

Is this too much? If she count not mischance What I have said, then no. But if she blame, Then tear ye out the tongue that hath expresst 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 or who contest it.

The XVIth canto goes on with the much discussed and much too emphasized cryptogram of the ox and the hare. I am content with the reading which gives us a cla.s.sic allusion in the palux Laerna. The lengthening of the verse in the last three lines of the strophe is, I think, typically Arnaut's. I leave the translation solely for the sake of one strophe.

Ere the winter recommences And the leaf from bough is wrested, On Love's mandate will I render A brief end to long prolusion: So well have I been taught his steps and paces That I can stop the tidal-sea's inflowing.

My stot outruns the hare; his speed amazes.

Me he bade without pretences That I go not, though requested; That I make no whit surrender Nor abandon our seclusion: "Differ from violets, whose fear effaces Their hue ere winter; behold the glowing Laurel stays, stay thou. Year long the genet blazes."

"You who commit no offences 'Gainst constancy; have not quested; a.s.sent not! Though a maid send her Suit to thee. Think you confusion Will come to her who shall track out your traces?

And give your enemies a chance for boasts and crowing?

No! After G.o.d, see that she have your praises."

Coward, shall I trust not defences!

Faint ere the suit be tested?

Follow! till she extend her Favour. Keep on, try conclusion For if I get in this naught but disgraces, Then must I pilgrimage past Ebro's flowing And seek for luck amid the Lernian mazes.

If I've pa.s.sed bridge-rails and fences, Think you then that I am bested?

No, for with no food or slender Ration, I'd have joy's profusion To hold her kissed, and there are never s.p.a.ces Wide to keep me from her, but she'd be showing In my heart, and stand forth before his gazes.

Lovelier maid from Nile to Sences Is not vested nor divested, So great is her bodily splendor That you would think it illusion.

Amor, if she but hold me in her embraces, I shall not feel cold hail nor winter's blowing Nor break for all the pain in fever's dazes.

Arnaut hers from foot to face is, He would not have Lucerne, without her, owing Him, nor lord the land whereon the Ebro grazes.

The feminine rhyming throughout and the shorter opening lines keep the strophe much lighter and more melodic than that of the canzo which Canello prints last of all.

SIM FOS AMORS DE JOI DONAR TANT LARGA

"_Ingenium n.o.bis ipsa puella facit."

Propertius II, I._

Sim fos Amors de joi donar tant larga c.u.m ieu vas lieis d'aver fin cor e franc, Ja per gran ben nom calgra far embarc Qu'er am tant aut quel pes mi poia em tomba; Mas quand m' albir c.u.m es de pretz al som Mout m'en am mais car anc l'ausiei voler, C'aras sai ieu que mos cors e mos sens Mi farant far lor grat rica conquesta.

Had Love as little need to be exhorted To give me joy, as I to keep a frank And ready heart toward her, never he'd blast My hope, whose very height hath high exalted, And cast me down ... to think on my default, And her great worth; yet thinking what I dare, More love myself, and know my heart and sense Shall lead me to high conquest, unmolested.

I am, spite long delay, pooled and contorted And whirled with all my streams 'neath such a bank Of promise, that her fair words hold me fast In joy, and will, until in tomb I am halted.

As I'm not one to change hard gold for spalt, And no alloy's in her, that debonaire Shall hold my faith and mine obedience Till, by her accolade, I am invested.

Long waiting hath brought in and hath extorted The fragrance of desire; throat and flank The longing takes me ... and with pain surpa.s.sed By her great beauty. Seemeth it hath vaulted O'er all the rest ... them doth it set in fault So that whoever sees her anywhere Must see how charm and every excellence Hold sway in her, untaint, and uncontested.

Since she is such; longing no wise detorted Is in me ... and plays not the mountebank, For all my sense is her, and is compa.s.sed Solely in her; and no man is a.s.saulted (By G.o.d his dove!) by such desires as vault In me, to have great excellence. My care On her so stark, I can show tolerance To jacks whose joy's to see fine loves uncrested.

Miels-de-Ben, have not your heart distorted Against me now; your love has left me blank, Void, empty of power or will to turn or cast Desire from me ... not brittle,[13] nor defaulted.

Asleep, awake, to thee do I exalt And offer me. No less, when I lie bare Or wake, my will to thee, think not turns thence, For breast and throat and head hath it attested.

Pouch-mouthed blubberers, culrouns and aborted, May flame bite in your gullets, sore eyes and rank T' the lot of you, you've got my horse, my last s.h.i.+lling, too; and you'd see love dried and salted.

G.o.d blast you all that you can't call a halt!

G.o.d's itch to you, chit-cracks that overbear And spoil good men, ill luck your impotence!!

More told, the more you've wits smeared and congested.

CODA

Arnaut has borne delay and long defence And will wait long to see his hopes well nested.

[In De Vulgari Eloquio II, 13, Dante calls for freedom in the rhyme order within the strophe, and cites this canzo of Arnaut's as an example of poem where there is no rhyme within the single strophe. Dante's "Rithimorum quoque relationi vacemus" implies no carelessness concerning the blending of rhyme sounds, for we find him at the end of the chapter "et tertio rithimorum asperitas, nisi forte sit lenitati permista: nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragoedia nitescit," as he had before demanded a mixture of s.h.a.ggy and harsh words with the softer words of a poem. "Nimo scilicet eiusdem rithimi repercussio, nisi forte novum aliquid atque intentatum artis hoc sibi praeroget." The De Eloquio is ever excellent testimony of the way in which, a great artist approaches the detail of metier.]

[1] Preeminence.

[2] Presumably De Born.

[3] Wriblis = warblings.

[4] This is nearly as bad in the original.

[5] Raik = haste precipitate.

[6] Our Lady of Poi de Dome? No definite solution of this reference yet found.

[7] Make = mate, fere, companion.

[8] Dante cites this poem in the second book of De Vulgari Eloquio with poems of his own, De Born's, and Cino Pistoija's.

[9] Vivien, strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance "Enfances Vivien."

[10] Longus, centurion in the crucifixion legend.

[11] King of the Galicians, Ferdinand II, King of Galicia, 1157-88, son of Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc.) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, Lieutenant of Provence, 1168.

[12] King crowned at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned May 29, 1180, at age of 16. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.

[13] "Brighter than gla.s.s, and yet as gla.s.s is, brittle." The comparisons to gla.s.s went out of poetry when gla.s.s ceased to be a rare, precious substance. (_Cf_. Pa.s.sionate Pilgrim, III.)

VIII

TRANSLATORS OF GREEK

EARLY TRANSLATORS OF HOMER