The gracious thinking and the frank
Clear and quick perceiving heart
Have led me to the fort of love.
Finer she is, and I more loyal
Than were Atlanta and Meleager.
Then the quiet conclusion, after the noise of the opening, Pensar de lieis m'es repaus:
To think of her is my rest
And both of my eyes are strained wry
When she stands not in their sight,
Believe not the heart turns from her,
For nor prayers nor games nor violing
Can move me from her a reed's-breadth.
The most beautiful passages of Arnaut are in the canzo beginning:
Doutz brais e critz,
Lais e cantars e voutas
Aug dels auzels qu'en lor latins fant precs
Quecs ab sa par, atressi cum nos fam
A las amigas en cui entendem;
E doncas ieu qu'en la genssor entendi
Dei far chansson sobre totz de bell' obra
Que noi aia mot fais ni rima estrampa.
GLAMOUR AND INDIGO
Sweet cries and cracks
and lays and chants inflected
By auzels who, in their Latin belikes,
Chirm each to each, even as you and I
Pipe toward those girls on whom our thoughts attract;
Are but more cause that I, whose overweening
Search is toward the Noblest, set in cluster
Lines where no word pulls wry, no rhyme breaks gauges.
No culs de sacs
nor false ways me deflected
When first I pierced her fort within its dykes,
Hers, for whom my hungry insistency
Passes the gnaw whereby was Vivien wracked;[9]
Day-long I stretch, all times, like a bird preening,
And yawn for her, who hath o'er others thrust her
As high as true joy is o'er ire and rages.
Welcome not lax,
and my words were protected
Not blabbed to other, when I set my likes
On her. Not brass but gold was 'neath the die.
That day we kissed, and after it she flacked
O'er me her cloak of indigo, for screening
Me from all culvertz' eyes, whose blathered bluster
Can set such spites abroad; win jibes for wages.
God who did tax
not Longus' sin,[10] respected
That blind centurion beneath the spikes
And him forgave, grant that we two shall lie
Within one room, and seal therein our pact,
Yes, that she kiss me in the half-light, leaning
To me, and laugh and strip and stand forth in the lustre
Where lamp-light with light limb but half engages.
The flowers wax
with buds but half perfected;
Tremble on twig that shakes when the bird strikes—
But not more fresh than she! No empery,
Though Rome and Palestine were one compact,
Would lure me from her; and with hands convening
I give me to her. But if kings could muster
In homage similar, you'd count them sages.
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 shields 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: