Guido Cavalcanti

“ In that harsh place where Amor holdeth court.
And there before him was their proof adduced,
And judgment wrote me down: “Bondslave” to thee,
Though still I stay Grief’s prisoner, unloosed,
And Fear hath lien upon the heart of me.
For the which charges, and without respite,
They dragged me to a place where a sad horde
Of such as love and whom Love tortureth
Cried out, all pitying as I met their sight,
“Now art thou servant unto such a Lord
Thou’lt have none other one save only Death.”
SONNET VI
Thou fill’st my mind with grief so populous
That my soul irks him to be on the road. ”

“ SONNET XXII
(To Dante, in answer to the first sonnet of the Vita Nuova.)
Thou sawest, it seems to me, all things availing,
And every joy that ever good man feeleth.
Thou wast in proof of that lord valorous
Who through sheer honour lords it o’er the world.
Thou livest in a place where baseness dieth,
And holdest reason in the piteous mind:
So gently move the people in this sleep
That the heart bears it ’thout the feel of grief. ”

“ I see my heart stand up before mine eyes,
While my self-slaying mournful soul receiveth
Love’s mortal stroke and in that moment dies,
Yea, in the very instant he perceiveth
Milady, and yet that smiling sprite who cleaveth
To her in joy, that very one is he
Who sets the seal of my mortality. ”

“ So over-wearied by that spirit wried
(For whom thou car’st not till his ways be tried,
Showing thyself thus wise in ignorance
To hold him hostile) that I pray that mover
And victor and slayer of every hard-wrought thing
That ere mine end he show him conquering.
Sith at his blows, who holds life in despite,
Thou seest clear how in my barbed distress
He wounds me there where dwells mine humbleness,
Till my soul living turneth in my sight
To speech, in words that grievous sighs o’ercover. ”

“ Where fairies and their fair attendants gleam,
In this wrecked barque! where their show is so brave!
SONNET XVIII
Beauty of woman, of the knowing heart,
And courtly knights in bright accoutrement
And loving speeches and the small birds’ art,
Adorned swift ships which on high seas are sent,
And airs grown cairn whenwhite the dawn appeareth
And white snow falling where no wind is bent,
Brook-marge and mead where every flower flareth,
And gold and Silver and azure in ornament:
Effective ’gainst all these think ye the fairness
And valour of my Lady’s lordly daring? ”

“ And power of healing as my pain requires.
From torturing delights my sighs commence,
Born of the mind where Love is situate,
Go errant forth and naught save grief relate
And find no one to give them audience.
They would return to the eyes in galliard mode,
With all harsh tears and their deep bitterness
Transmuted into revelry and joy;
Were’t not unto the sad heart such annoy,
And to the mournful soul such rathe distress
That none doth deign salute them on the road.
SONNET XII
The grace of youth in Toulouse ventureth ”

“ I believe in an ultimate and absolute rhythm as I believe in an absolute symbol or metaphor. The perception of the intellect is given in the word, that of the emotions in the cadence. It is only, then, in perfect rhythm joined to the perfect word that the twofold vision can be recorded. I would liken Guido’s cadence to nothing less powerful than line in Blake’s drawing.
In painting, the colour is always finite. ”

“ SONNET XXXIII
WITH DEATH
Death who art haught, the wretched’s remedy,
Grace! Grace! hands joined I do beseech it thee,
Come, see and conquer for worse things on me
Are launched by love. My senses that did live,
Consumèd are and quenched, and e’en in this place
Where I was galliard, now I see that I am
Fallen away, and where my steps I misplace,
Fall pain and grief; to open tears I nigh am. ”

“ Than Guido Cavalcanti, no psychologist of the emotions is more keen in his understanding, more precise in his expression; we have in him no rhetoric, but always a true description, whether it be of pain itself, or of the apathy that comes when the emotions and possibilities of emotion are exhausted, or of that stranger state when the feeling by its intensity surpasses our powers of hearing, and we seem to stand aside and watch it surging across some thing or being with whom we are no longer identified. ”

“ These are no sonnets for an idle hour. It is only when the emotions illumine the perceptive powers that we see the reality. It is in the light born of this double current that we look upon the face of the mystery unveiled. I have lived with these sonnets and ballate daily, month in and month out, and have been drawn daily deeper into them and daily into contemplation of things that are not of an hour. And I deem, for this, that voi altri pochi, who understand, will love me better for my labour in proportion as you read more carefully. ”

“ He suggests to his kinsman Nerone that there may be one among ali the Buondelmonti of whom they might in time make a man.
SONNET XIX
News have I now for thee, so hear, Nerone,
How that the Buondelmonti shake with fear,
And all the Florentines cannot assure them,
Seeing thou hast in thee the lion-heart.
They fear thee more than they would fear a dragon,
Seeing that face of thine, how set it is
That neither bridge nor walls could hold against it
Lest they were strong as is King Pharaoh’s tomb. ”

“ Note.–Dante, v. n. 111: “The true significance of the dream was not then seen by anyone.”
SONNET XXIII
(To Dante, rebuking him for his way of life after the death of Beatrice.)
I daily come to thee uncounting times
And find thee ever thinking over vilely;
Much doth it grieve me that thy noble mind
And virtue’s plenitude are stripped from thee ”

“ Within my heart this grievous weight descended
Hath slain that band of spirits which was bent
Heartward, that th’ heart might by them be defended.
When the sad heart had summoned them they’d left
Mine eyes of every other guard bereft
Till Rumour, courier through the mind, ran crying,
“A vileness in the heart, Oyez! lies dying.
On guard lest vileness strike at your estate!” ”

“ Who seeing me so in my grief’s control
Will aid by saying e’en: “Nay, Spirits, wait!”
SONNET XXXI
You, who within your eyes so often carry
That Love who holdeth in his hand three arrows,
Behold my spirit, by his far-brought sorrows,
Commends to you a soul whom hot griefs harry.
A mind thrice wounded she [4] already hath,
By this keen archer’s Syrian shafts twice shot.
The third, less tautly drawn, hath reached me not,
Seeing your presence is my shield ’gainst wrath.
Yet this third shot had made more safe my soul,
Who almost dead beneath her members lies ”

“ Rodin’s belief that energy is beauty, holds at least this far, namely, that all our ideas of beauty of line are in some way connected with our ideas of swiftness or easy power of motion, and we consider ugly those lines which connote unwieldy slowness in moving.
Rhythm is perhaps the most primal of all things known to us. It is basic in poetry and music mutually, their melodies depending on a variation of tone quality and pitch respectively, as is commonly said; but if we look more closely we will see that music is, by further analysis, pure rhythm ”

“ Whoe’er he be who holdeth Joy most dose
Would, should he see my spirit going hence,
Weep for the pity and make no pretence.
Cf. Sonnet i.
SONNET XXI
THE DREAD SPIRIT
Thou mayest see, who seest me face to face,
That most dread spirit whom Love summoneth
To meet with man when a man meets with Death ”

“ It is conceivable that poetry of a far-off time or place requires a translation not only of word and of spirit, but of "accompaniment," that is, that the modern audience must in some measure be made aware of the mental content of the older audience, and of what these others drew from certain fashions of thought and speech. ”

“ When we know more of overtones we shall see that the tempo of every masterpiece is absolute, and is exactly set by some further law of rhythmic accord. Whence it should be possible to show that any given rhythm implies about it a complete musical form, fugue, sonata, I cannot say what form, but a form, perfect, complete. ”

“ The relation of certain words in the original to the practice of my translation may require gloze. L’ anima and la Morte are feminine, but it is not always expedient to retain this gender in English. Gentile is noble; gentleness in our current sense would be soavitate. Mente is mind, consciousness, apperception. The spiriti are the senses, or the intelligences of the senses, perhaps even “the moods,” when they are considered as “spirits of the mind.” Valore is power. Virtute, virtue, potency, requires a separate treatise. ”

“ Born of the perception of beauty, he arouseth that power of the mind whence is born that quality of love which ennobleth every sense and every desire; misunderstanded of base minds who comprehend not his power, he is the cause of that love in woman which teacheth modesty. Thus from him is born that love in woman whence is born Mercy, and from Mercy “as a gentle rain from heaven” descend those spirits which are the keys of every spirit, perforce of the one spirit which seeth.
SONNET XIII ”

“ The heavens were, according to the Ptolemaic system, clear concentric spheres with the earth as their pivot; they moved more swiftly as they were far removed from it, each one endowed with its virtue, its property for affecting man and destiny; in each its star, the sign visible to the wise and guiding them. A logical astrology, the star a sort of label of the spiritual force, an indicator of the position and movement of that spiritual current. Thus “her” presence, his Lady’s, corresponds with the ascendency of the star of that heaven which corresponds to her particular emanation or potency. ”

“ Guido was sent with the “Whites” to Sarzana, where he caught his death fever. Dante at this time (1300) , being a prior of Florence, was party to decree of exile, and perhaps, though no one so far as I know has suggested it, a cause of Cavalcanti’s speedy recall. “Il nostro Guido” was buried on August 29, whence writes Villani, “and his death is a great loss, for as he was philosopher, so was he man of parts in more things, although somewhat punctilious and fiery.” Boccaccio considers him “probably” the “other just man,” in Dante’s statement that there were two in Florence. ”

“ Which rouseth up a spirit in the mind
Whence moves a spirit unto love inclined
Which breeds, in other sprites, nobilities.
No turbid spirit hath the sense which sees
How greatly empowered a spirit he appeareth ”

“ The equations of alchemy were apt to be written as women’s names, and the women so named endowed with the magical powers of the compounds. Virtù is the potency, the efficient property of a substance or person. Thus modern science shows us radium with a noble virtue of energy. ”

“ Guido of the noble line of the Cavalcanti, most skilled in the liberal arts, Dante’s contemporary and very intimate friend, a man surely diligent and given to speculation, ‘physicus’ (? natural philosopher) of authority... ”