Dante's Lyric Poetry: Poems of Youth and of the 'Vita Nuova' Read online

  What is most striking – and anomalous with respect to his peers – in Dante Alighieri’s response is the seriousness with which he effects a total transposition from the event described to its meaning. (Nor does he respond per le rime, repeating only the first rhyme of Dante da Maiano’s quatrains – Alighieri’s ragione rhymes with da Maiano’s visïone – and he changes the rhyme scheme of the sestet.) The commitment with which the young Dante throws himself into the work of manufacturing significance is confirmed by the presence of the verb significare: “significasse il don che pria narrate [the gift you spoke of earlier / did signify]” (8). We see here Dante’s first use of a verb that he will use rarely and in signature moments,6 as in the verses of the Purgatorio in which he describes the composition of love poems as a process of making significance on the basis of Love’s dictation: “a quel modo / ch’e’ ditta dentro vo significando [in that way that he (Love) dictates within, I signify]” (Purg. 24.53–4). Immediately following are the verses in which Dante baptizes the lyric production of his own youth as the “sweet new style” – the “dolce stil novo” (Purg. 24.57) – in marked comparison to that of previous influential poets who, along with their followers, did not compose in the dolce stil novo: Giacomo da Lentini, Guittone d’Arezzo, and Bonagiunta da Lucca. As Dante wrote the verses of Purgatorio 24 that became official Italian historiography, with their signature “vo significando,” did his mind go back to his own youthful Guittonian correspondence with a poet who never evolved beyond Occitan and Guittonian mannerisms to reach the sweet new style? We cannot know, but the sheer rareness of the verb significare in Dante’s poetic lexicon is suggestive: after he composed Savete giudicar, Dante never used significare in his verse again until he wrote Purgatorio 24, and he subsequently distils his entire poetic enterprise in the verses “Trasumanar significar per verba / non si poria [Going beyond the human cannot be signified in words]” (Par. 1.70–1).

  Regarding the interpretations of Dante da Maiano’s vision offered by the young Dante Alighieri (the garland is the desire sparked by the lady, the garment signifies her requital of his desire, the dead woman steadiness in love), more important than the specific glosses is his move to psychologize, his pronounced effort to interpret the internal motivations of the soul. This effort is completely absent in the poem of Dante da Maiano, and also from those of the other respondents (Chiaro Davanzati, Guido Orlandi, Salvino Doni, Ricco da Varlungo, and ser Cione Baglione). With respect to the dead mother of the last verse of Provedi, saggio, Guido Orlandi interprets in the light of the strong reproof that he issues to Dante da Maiano for revealing a love affair under cover of a dream vision. It is not correct, writes Guido Orlandi, to disclose your love and to use “I dreamed” as an excuse: “non bona convenenza è palesare / amor di gentil donna o di donzella,/e per iscusa dicere: ‘io sognai’ [It is improper to reveal / a noble lady’s or a maiden’s love / and then as an excuse to say: ‘I dreamed it’].” Hence, continues Orlandi, your mother comes to punish you: “dicer: ‘Non dico’. Pensa chi t’appella:/màmmata [sì] ti vene a gastigare./Ama celato, avra’ne gioia assai [Say rather: ‘I won’t tell.’ Think who calls you:/your mother comes to punish you./Love secretly and you will have much joy]” (Al motto diredàn prima ragione, 9–14). While not as critical as Guido Orlandi, Chiaro Davanzati would like Dante da Maiano to avoid thinking of his mother in the context of a love poem: “Di tua madre ti guarda da pensare,/ch’altra tua cosa s’avverrà con ella [Refrain from thinking of your mother,/for other things of yours will take place with her]” (Amico, proveduto ha mia intenzione, 13–14).

  Only Dante Alighieri deliteralizes and deepens the significance of Dante da Maiano’s mother (explicitly called “mia madre” by Dante da Maiano, an identification duly confirmed by Chiaro Davanzati and Guido Orlandi in respectively “tua madre” and “màmmata” [= “tua mamma”]). Dante Alighieri removes the literal biographical quality of the reference by excising “madre” from his reply altogether, replacing it with the more generic and evocative “figura” and thus giving himself the opportunity to manufacture significance: this “figura” now can represent the steadiness of the lady in love, the unwavering firmness of her desire. Dante Alighieri is analysing desire, as the choice of “fermezza” in “è la fermezza ch’averà nel core” testifies: this is a word that resonates with the discourse of desire in earlier love poetry. We need only remember that Arnaut Daniel’s sestina begins “Lo ferm voler qu’el cor m’intra [The firm desire that enters my heart]” and that Dante in Io son venuto writes “ch’ïo son fermo di portarla sempre [for I’m resolved to bear it (the thorn of love) forever]” (51). Moreover, there is no word of greater thematic importance for Dante’s personal trajectory: here the lady is said to be as unwavering as death, and later in his life Dante will require himself to be unwavering even after his lady’s death.

  In the verses “Disio verace, u’ rado fin si pone,/che mosse di valore o di bieltate [A true desire, one rarely satisfied,/inspired by beauty and great worthiness]” (5–6), we can see the great Dantean theme of desire in its role as the motor of human life. Desire that arises from virtue or beauty (“Disio verace … che mosse di valore o di bieltate”), and to which one can rarely bring an end (“u’ rado fin si pone”), is the motor that pushes us along the “path of our life,” the “cammin di nostra vita” of the Commedia’s first verse. Desire is both lack – “ché nullo desidera quello che ha, ma quello che non ha, che è manifesto difetto [For no one desires what he has but rather what he does not have, which is manifest lack]” (Conv. 3.15.3) – and the spiritual movement with which we attempt to fill that lack: “disire,/ch’è moto spiritale [desire, which is a spiritual motion]” (Purg. 18.31–2). Thus, desire is a function of time, the medium that signals mortality – movement, change, absence of being – and that condemns us always to desire. These are the principles that, according to Dante, govern the temporal journey of life (and that govern the narrative journey as well, in imitation of the voyage of life):7 “Omne quod movetur, movetur propter aliquid quod non habet, quod est terminus sui motus. … Omne quod movetur est in aliquo defectu, et non habet totum suum esse simul [Each thing that moves, moves because of something that it does not have, which is the goal of its motion. … Each thing that moves exists in some defect and does not possess all its being at once]” (Epistola 13.71–2).8

  In Savete giudicar, we can already catch a glimpse of a much more mature Dante, one who will openly tell us that desire is the motor of the spirit, a motor that stops only when the spirit arrives at its goal: “così l’animo preso entra in disire,/ch’è moto spiritale, e mai non posa / fin che la cosa amata il fa gioire [so the captured soul enters into desire, which is a spiritual motion, and it never rests until the beloved thing causes it to rejoice]” (Purg. 18.31–3). We are at the beginning of the path, where we are in a position to note how the rich current of Dante’s meditation on “disio verace [true desire]” wells up from the small spring of these verses, and how the concept of desire that is “moto spiritale” exists in nuce in “disio … che mosse di valore o di bieltate.”

  The dependent clauses of these verses are not ornamental fillers, but fully functional, contributing to the analysis of the nature of “true desire.” The first clause pushes forward, towards the desired end, the goal of the voyage, and therefore poses the question of fulfilment, here defined as rare (“u’ rado fin si pone”). If we consider this phrase in the context of the Purgatorio verses just cited, we see that it treats the issue of the soul’s arrival at “the beloved thing that causes it to rejoice.” The second clause instead folds backward, towards the beginning of the journey, the source from which the soul’s desire originally flowed, noting that the stimuli that induce the spirit to desire the beloved object – to make it beloved – are virtue or beauty (“che mosse di valore o di bieltate”). We are already in the presence of Dante’s core obsession.

  1a (B XXXIX; C1; FB 1a; DR 84) Dante da Maiano to various poets

  Provedi, sa
ggio, ad esta visïone, e per mercé ne trai vera sentenza.

  Dico: una donna di bella fazzone,

  Consider well, wise friend, this dream of mine, and please reveal its true significance. To wit: a lady who is beautiful, to do whose pleasure is my heart’s delight, presented me a garland as a gift, with leaves all green, arranged quite pleasantly. Then soon I found myself, it seemed to me, apparelled in a shirt that had her size.

  4

  di cui el meo cor gradir molto s’agenza, mi fé d’una ghirlanda donagione, verde, fronzuta, con bella accollienza; appresso mi trovai per vestigione

  And then, my friend, I got my courage up and threw my arms around her tenderly: she offered no resistance, only laughed. And while she laughed, I kissed her many times: I’ll say no more, on this she made me swear. Then one who’s dead – my mother – was with her.

  8

  camiscia di suo dosso, a mia parvenza.

  Allor di tanto, amico, mi francai che dolcemente presila abbracciare:

  11

  non si contese, ma ridea la bella. Così, ridendo, molto la basciai: del più non dico, ché mi fé giurare.

  14

  E morta, ch’è mia madre, era con ella.

  METRE: sonnet ABAB ABAB CDE CDE.

  1 (B XL; C 1a; FB 1; DR 85) Response by Dante Alighieri

  Savete giudicar vostra ragione, o om che pregio di saver portate; per che, vitando aver con voi quistione,

  You’re wise enough to explicate your theme, O man of learning held in high esteem; so, steering clear of starting a dispute, as best I can, I’ll answer your fine words. A true desire, one rarely satisfied, inspired by beauty and great worthiness, is what the gift you spoke of earlier did signify, according to your friend.

  4

  com so rispondo a le parole ornate. Disio verace, u’ rado fin si pone, che mosse di valore o di bieltate, emagina l’amica openïone

  The shirt, the gift of her whom you desire, denotes her love, of this you can be sure. And so your spirit did foresee the truth, that is, in view of what she then did next. The figure of the one already dead is constancy that she’ll bear in her heart.

  8

  significasse il don che pria narrate.

  Lo vestimento, aggiate vera spene che fia, da lei cui disïate, amore;

  11

  e ’n ciò provide vostro spirto bene: dico, pensando l’ovra sua d’allore. La figura che già morta sorvene

  14

  è la fermezza ch’averà nel core.

  METRE: sonnet ABAB ABAB CDC DCD.

  La tenzone del duol d’amore

  [2a Per pruova di saper com vale o quanto: Dante da Maiano to Dante Alighieri]

  2 Qual che voi siate, amico, vostro manto: Dante Alighieri to Dante da Maiano

  [3a Lo vostro fermo dir fino ed orrato: Dante da Maiano to Dante Alighieri]

  3 Non canoscendo, amico vostro nomo: Dante Alighieri to Dante da Maiano

  [3b Lasso, lo dol che più mi dole e serra: Dante da Maiano to Dante Alighieri]

  This exchange of sonnets between Dante Alighieri and Dante da Maiano is known as the “tenzone del duol d’amore [poetic exchange on the suffering of love],” so named by Flaminio Pellegrini in an essay of 1917. This set of sonnets compels us to confront a problem of attribution that arose because of an error in the text that contains them, the collection of Sonetti e canzoni di diversi antichi autori toscani (Sonnets and canzoni of diverse ancient Tuscan authors), printed by the publishing house of the Giunti brothers in Florence in 1527. The “Giuntina,” as it is known, is the first printed edition of the lyrics of Dante and other “antichi autori toscani”; it constitutes our only source of the poetry of Dante da Maiano and a fortiori of the correspondence between Dante da Maiano and Dante Alighieri. The exchange between the two Dantes can be found in book 11 of the Giuntina, where the five sonnets that make up the tenzone del duol d’amore appear in the order preserved in modern editions, but with the following headings:

  1. “Dante da Maiano a Dante Alaghieri” (Per pruova di saper)

  2. “Risposta di Dante Alaghieri a D. da Maiano” (Qual che voi siate)

  3. “Risposta di Dante Alaghieri a D. da Maiano” (Lo vostro fermo dir)

  4. “Risposta di Dante Alaghieri a D. da Maiano” (Non canoscendo)

  5. “Risposta di Dante da Maiano a Dante Alaghieri” (Lasso, lo dol)

  The error is evident: the editors of the Giuntina present three “responses of Dante Alaghieri” one after the other (poems 2–4 in the above sequence), thus abandoning the alternating pattern that an exchange requires. Clearly, the simplest solution is to break the chain, attributing the third sonnet to Dante da Maiano and imagining that the editor intended to write the heading “Risposta di Dante da Maiano a Dante Alaghieri” instead of the opposite. That is the solution endorsed by Barbi:

  The order is correct with respect to the meaning of the poems and cannot be changed; but in the attribution of the sonnets an error has evidently occurred, because there are three of Dante Alighieri’s sonnets in a row (2, 3, and 4). The correction that seems obvious, and we can even say certain, is to change the rubric for sonnet 3 to Dante da Maiano in order to re-establish the alternating order. Modern scholars have accepted this correction, with the exception of S. Santangelo, who proposes exchanging the attributions between the two Dantes in such a way that Dante Alighieri becomes the proposing writer with sonnets 1, 3, and 5 and Dante Da Maiano the respondent with sonnets 2 and 4. (Barbi-Maggini, p. 159)

  As for the modern editors of Dante’s Rime, Contini and De Robertis follow Barbi, while Foster-Boyde accept Santangelo’s proposal, thus adding one text to their canon of Dante Alighieri’s poems (and so arriving at a total of eighty-nine poems instead of eighty-eight). I find both Santangelo’s arguments and those added by Foster-Boyde unconvincing. They are based on the idea that the presumably mature poet, Dante da Maiano, would not have addressed a young unknown poet, Dante Alighieri. But the most recent editor of Dante da Maiano, Rosanna Bettarini, writes that Dante da Maiano “must have been a little younger than Chiaro and Monte and very close in age to Dante Alighieri”;9 in this case, the entire argument based on the mature poet opposed to the younger poet falls apart. De Robertis confirms Bettarini’s position, noting, with respect to the presumed difference in the two Dantes’ ages, that “we have no proof that Dante da Maiano was the older and more practiced love poet” (Introduzione, 2:934).

  Above all, there is no justification for countering the evidence of the Giuntina with such poorly supported biographical conjectures, since the Giuntina is the only textual authority that we possess with respect to the tenzone between the two Dantes. I follow De Robertis in thinking that the arguments of Santangelo and Foster-Boyde are far from being sufficiently persuasive to justify four corrections of the Giuntina instead of one: “If it were not for that incongruous attribution, would we be debating proper manners and who was older than who? It seems to this editor of the Rime that the most economical hypothesis is to leave the Giuntina as it is, with the one correction of the rubric of the third sonnet, and that this is the hypothesis by which interpretation must abide” (Introduzione, 2:935).

  In the preliminary sonnet, Per pruova di saper com vale o quanto, Dante da Maiano’s octave is devoted to the true matter of this tenzone, which is not the stated question (what is the greatest suffering of love), but the much more socially compelling question of proving one’s worth as a man and as a poet, of testing oneself in the poetic agora. As gold is tested by a goldsmith to discover its true value, so this poem will be submitted to the test of an interlocutor. And not just any interlocutor will do: “l’adduco a voi, cui paragone voco / di ciascun c’have in canoscenza loco,/o che di pregio porti loda o vanto [I’m sending it to you, my touchstone for / whoever claims to rank among the wise,/or who is praised and held in high regard]” (6–8). In the sestet Dante da Maiano turns to the putative topic of the tenzone, asking his interlocutor to name the greatest suffering caused by love: “che mi deggiate il dol ma
ggio d’Amore / qual è, per vostra scienza, nominare [What kind of suffering brought on by Love,/in your experience, is worst of all]” (10–11). But the real materia is the question of a man’s valore, his comparative worth (“che già inver’ voi so non avria valore” [13]), expressed in the oft-repeated verb valere (“to be worth,” “to possess value”). Dante da Maiano is motivated by the desire to ascertain his value, present (“vaglio”) and future (“varraggio”): “e ciò non movo per quistioneggiare/(che già inver’ voi so non avria valore),/ma per saver ciò ch’eo vaglio e varraggio [and this I ask, though not to stir debate,/(for, with respect to you, I’d be outclassed),/but just to know my worth and future promise]” (12–14). The multiple uses of valere echo the great canzone Ora parrà s’eo saverò cantare, in which Guittone d’Arezzo addresses the question of his worth as man, poet, and lover.10

  In his response, Qual che voi siate, amico, vostro manto, Dante Alighieri replies to the question posed by Dante da Maiano only in the last two verses, explaining that pain without equal is carried in the heart of “anyone who loves but is not loved”: “chi non è amato, s’elli è amadore” (13). In other words, the unrequited lover suffers most of all. But again the true materia of the poem is the contest between the two young men, who seem to use flattery as a means of managing the aggression that animates their wary exchange. Dante Alighieri addresses Dante da Maiano in a stylized fashion that suggests contained aggression, with repeated references to the wisdom of his interlocutor and self-deprecating references to his own comparative lack of knowledge: “che di saver ver’ voi ho men d’un moco [compared to yours my learning is but scant]” (6).