"But great fear and great apprehension comes upon me, so that I dare not tell you, lady, that it is I who sing of you."
Arnaut seems to have introduced a new poetical genre into Provençal literature, the love-letter. He says that the difficulty of finding a trustworthy messenger induced him to send a letter sealed with his own ring; the letter is interesting for the description of feminine beauty which it contains: "my heart, that is your constant companion, comes to me as your messenger and portrays for me your noble, graceful form, your fair light-brown hair, your brow whiter than the lily, your gay laughing eyes, your straight well-formed nose, your fresh complexion, whiter and redder than any flower, your little mouth, your fair teeth, whiter than pure silver,... your fair white hands with the smooth and slender fingers"; in short, a picture which shows that troubadour ideas of beauty were much the same as those of any other age. Arnaut was eventually obliged to leave Béziers, owing, it is said, to the rivalry of Alfonso II. of Aragon, who may have come forward as a suitor for Adelaide after Roger's death in 1194. The troubadour betook himself to the court of William VIII., Count of Montpelier, where he probably spent the rest of his life. The various allusions in his poems cannot always be identified, and his career is only known to us in vague outline. Apart from the love-letter, he was, if not the initiator, one of the earliest writers of the type of didactic poem known as ensenhamen, an "instruction" containing observations upon the manners and customs of his age, with precepts for the observance of morality and right conduct such as should be practised by the ideal character. Arnaut, after a lengthy and would-be learned introduction, explains that each of the three estates, the knights, the clergy and the citizens, have their special and appropriate virtues. The emphasis with which he describes the good qualities of the citizen class, a compliment unusual in the aristocratic poetry of the troubadours, may be taken as confirmation of the statement concerning his own parentage which we find in his biography.
CHAPTER V
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
We now reach a group of three troubadours whom Dante[21] selected as typical of certain characteristics: "Bertran de Born sung of arms, Arnaut Daniel of love, and Guiraut de Bornelh of uprightness, honour and virtue." The last named, who was a contemporary (1175-1220 circa) and compatriot of Arnaut de Marueil, is said in his biography to have enjoyed so great a reputation that he was known as the "Master of the Troubadours." This title is not awarded to him by any other troubadour; the jealousy constantly prevailing between the troubadours is enough to account for their silence on this point. But his reputation is fairly attested by the number of his poems which have survived and by the numerous MSS. in which they are preserved; when troubadours were studied as classics in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Guiraut's poems were so far in harmony with the moralising tendency of that age that his posthumous reputation was certainly as great as any that he enjoyed in his life-time.
Practically nothing is known of his life; allusions in his poems lead us to suppose that he spent some time in Spain at the courts of Navarre, Castile and Aragon. The real interests of his work are literary and ethical. To his share in the controversy concerning the trobar clus, the obscure and difficult style of composition, we have already alluded. Though in the tenso with Linhaure, Guiraut expresses his preference for the simple and intelligible style, it must be said that the majority of his poems are far from attaining this ideal. Their obscurity, however, is often due rather to the difficulty of the subject matter than to any intentional attempt at preciosity of style. He was one of the first troubadours who attempted to analyse the effects of love from a psychological standpoint; his analysis often proceeds in the form of a dialogue with himself, an attempt to show the hearer by what methods he arrived at his conclusions. "How is it, in the name of God, that when I wish to sing, I weep? Can the reason be that love has conquered me? And does love bring me no delight? Yes, delight is mine. Then why am I sad and melancholy? I cannot tell. I have lost my lady's favour and the delight of love has no more sweetness for me. Had ever a lover such misfortune? But am I a lover? No! Have I ceased to love passionately? No! Am I then a lover? Yes, if my lady would suffer my love." Guiraut's moral sirventes are reprobations of the decadence of his age. He saw a gradual decline of the true spirit of chivalry. The great lords were fonder of war and pillage than of poetry and courtly state. He had himself suffered from the change, if his biographer is to be believed; the Viscount of Limoges had plundered and burnt his house. He compares the evils of his own day with the splendours of the past, and asks whether the accident of birth is the real source of nobility; a man must be judged by himself and his acts and not by the rank of his forefathers; these were the sentiments that gained him a mention in the Fourth Book of Dante's Convivio.[22]
The question why Dante should have preferred Arnaut Daniel to Guiraut de Bornelh[23] has given rise to much discussion. The solution turns upon Dante's conception of style, which is too large a problem for consideration here. Dante preferred the difficult and artificial style of Arnaut to the simple style of the opposition school; from Arnaut he borrowed the sestina form; and at the end of the canto he puts the well-known lines, "Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan," into the troubadour's mouth. We know little of Arnaut's life; he was a noble of Riberac in Périgord. The biography relates an incident in his life which is said to have taken place at the court of Richard Coeur de Lion.
A certain troubadour had boasted before the king that he could compose a better poem than Arnaut. The latter accepted the challenge and the king confined the poets to their rooms for a certain time at the end of which they were to recite their composition before him. Arnaut's inspiration totally failed him, but from his room he could hear his rival singing as he rehearsed his own composition. Arnaut was able to learn his rival's poem by heart, and when the time of trial came he asked to be allowed to sing first, and performed his opponent's song, to the wrath of the latter, who protested vigorously. Arnaut acknowledged the trick, to the great amusement of the king.
Preciosity and artificiality reach their height in Arnaut's poems, which are, for that reason, excessively difficult. Enigmatic constructions, word-plays, words used in forced senses, continual alliteration and difficult rimes produced elaborate form and great obscurity of meaning. The following stanza may serve as an example—
L'aur' amara fa·ls bruels brancutz