Part 42 (2/2)
Mouth, now what knacks!
What folly hath infected Thee? Gifts, that th' Emperor of the Salonikes Or Lord of Rome were greatly honored by, Or Syria's lord, thou dost from me distract; O fool I am! to hope for intervening?
From Love that s.h.i.+elds not love! Yea, it were juster To call him mad, who 'gainst his joy engages.
POLITICAL POSTSCRIPT
The slimy jacks with adders' tongues bisected, I fear no whit, nor have; and if these tykes Have led Galicia's king to villeiny----[11]
His cousin in pilgrimage hath he attacked-- We know--Raimon the Count's son--my meaning Stands without screen. The royal filibuster Redeems not honor till he unbar the cages.
CODA
I should have seen it, but I was on such affair, Seeing the true king crown'd here in Estampa.[12]
Arnaut's tendency to lengthen the latter lines of the strophe after the diesis shows in: Er vei vermeils, vertz, blaus, blancs, gruocs, the strophe form being:
Vermeil, green, blue, peirs, white, cobalt, Close orchards, hewis, holts, hows, vales, And the bird-song that whirls and turns Morning and late with sweet accord, Bestir my heart to put my song in sheen T'equal that flower which hath such properties, It seeds in joy, bears love, and pain ameises.
The last cryptic allusion is to the quasi-allegorical descriptions of the tree of love in some long poem like the Romaunt of the Rose.
Dante takes the next poem as a model of canzo construction; and he learned much from its melody:
Sols sui qui sai lo sobrefan quern sortz Al cor d'amor sofren per sobramar, Car mos volers es tant ferms et entiers Cane no s'esduis de celliei ni s'estors Cui encubric al prim vezer e puois: Qu'ades ses lieis die a lieis cochos motz, Pois quan la vei non sai, tant l'ai, que dire.
We note the soft suave sound as against the staccato of ”L'aura amara.”
_Canzon._
I only, and who elrische pain support Know out love's heart o'er borne by overlove, For my desire that is so firm and straight And unchanged since I found her in my sight And unturned since she came within my glance, That far from her my speech springs up aflame; Near her comes not. So press the words to arrest it.
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 G.o.d hath set in her t'a.s.say and test it.
And I have pa.s.sed 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 adyance Her fair beyond all reach of evil name, To clear her worth, no shadow hath oppresst it.
Her contact flats not out, falls not off short....
Let her, I pray, guess out the sense hereof For never will it stand in open prate Until my inner heart stand in daylight, So that heart pools him when her eyes entrance, As never doth the Rhone, fulled and untame, Pool, where the freshets tumult hurl to crest it.
Flimsy another's joy, false and distort, No paregale that she springs not above....
Her love-touch by none other mensurate.
To have it not? Alas! Though the pains bite Deep, torture is but galzeardy and dance, For in my thought my l.u.s.t hath touched his aim.
G.o.d! Shall I get no more! No fact to best it!
No delight I, from now, in dance or sport, Nor will these toys a tinkle of pleasure prove, Compared to her, whom no loud profligate Shall leak abroad how much she makes my right.
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