Who He Is
Guido Guinizelli and Arnaut are the two poets of love whom Dante meets on the last fire of the mountain, the ledge of lust, and the poem presents them together, one passing on to the other the praise he has just received. Guinizelli speaks first. He addresses Dante as one who expects an answer, because he burns with thirst and fire, and when the living man answers him he says his own name and that he is already being purged for having wept well over his sin before the end. Dante calls him father, and of him and of the other best poets he says that they used sweet and graceful rhymes of love. Arnaut is the shade that Guinizelli points out with his finger, and who answers in the language in which he sang, Provençal, the only passage of the whole Comedy in another Romance language. What unites them is language: Guinizelli calls Dante brother and says that the other was the better craftsman of the mother tongue, and Arnaut only says his name, the weeping, the song, and the joy he awaits. What the poem shows in them is a poetry that recognizes itself greater than its own, and a grief that does not close, and that is why the two are purged among the flames.
Trajectory
All of it happens in Canto XXVI of Purgatory. Dante and Virgil walk in single file along the edge of the ledge, between the precipice and the fire, and the shades notice that he casts a shadow. One of them asks him for an answer, and the two bands that cross each other kiss quickly and each cry out the example of its own error: some Sodom and Gomorrah, others that Pasiphae went into the cow. The one who speaks to Dante explains the cry as a penalty and gives the common rule:
Nostro peccato fu ermafrodito; / ma perché non servammo umana legge, / seguendo come bestie l’appetito, Our sin was hermaphroditic; but because we did not observe human law, following appetite like beasts.
He says he cannot give names, that there is no time and he would not know, and gives only his own: he is Guido Guinizelli. Dante reacts like the sons who run to see their mother again in the grief of Lycurgus, though without so much impetus, and he says it thus:
quand’ io odo nomar sé stesso il padre / mio e de li altri miei miglior che mai / rime d’amore usar dolci e leggiadre, when I hear named himself, the father of mine and of the others, my betters, who never used sweet and graceful rhymes of love.
Without hearing or speaking, he goes on pensively for a good while, looking at him, not approaching because of the fire, and after satisfying his gaze he offers himself wholly to his service. The reply measures the affection by the river of forgetting:
Tu lasci tal vestigio, / per quel ch’i’ odo, in me, e tanto chiaro, / che Letè nol può tòrre né far bigio, You leave such a trace in me, by what I hear, and so bright, that Lethe cannot take it away nor make it grey.
Guinizelli doubts the praise and asks why Dante holds him so dear. Dante says it is his sweet speech which, as long as the modern usage endures, will make even his inks dear. Guinizelli points to a shade ahead and passes on the title:
fu miglior fabbro del parlar materno. / Versi d’amore e prose di romanzi / soverchiò tutti; e lascia dir li stolti / che quel di Lemosì credon ch’avanzi, he was the better craftsman of the mother tongue. In verses of love and prose of romances he surpassed them all; and let the fools talk who believe that the one from Limoges surpasses him.
He explains why those err who prefer the other, the one from Limoges:
A voce più ch’al ver drizzan li volti, / e così ferman sua oppinïone / prima che arte o ragion per lor s’ascolti, They turn their faces more to fame than to truth, and so they settle their opinion before art or reason is heard by them.
He takes Guittone as the example: many of the ancients gave him the prize, cry after cry, until the truth overcame him with more people. He then asks Dante, who has such a privilege of going to the cloister where Christ is abbot of the college, for an Our Father, as much as they need in this world, where the power to sin is no longer theirs. Afterward, perhaps to make room for the next, he vanishes into the fire, as a fish goes to the bottom in the water. Dante goes forward to the one that was shown to him and says that his desire prepares a gracious place for his name. The shade responds with free will, and in Provençal:
Guinizelli points ahead to who was the better craftsman of the mother tongue, and that poet, when addressed, answers in the language in which he sang, not in Italian. The choice is a gesture of courtesy, because Dante's request was courteous, and the poem yields him the space to speak for himself.Tan m’abellis vostre cortes deman, / qu’ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire. / Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan; / consiros vei la passada folor, / e vei jausen lo joi qu’esper, denan, So much does your courteous request please me that I cannot and do not wish to hide myself from you. I am Arnaut, who weeps and goes singing; pensive I see the past folly, and joyful I see the joy I hope for, ahead.
He asks, in time, that Dante remember his pain, and hides himself in the fire that refines him. Earlier, in Canto XXIV of Purgatory, Bonagiunta of Lucca had already told Dante what separated his school from the sweet new style, and the conversation of the fire continues the same subject, the poetry of love, on another ledge:
On the ledge of gluttony, the poet Bonagiunta asks Dante whether he is the author of "Donne ch'avete intelletto d'amore," and hears in reply the definition of a method: to write exactly what love dictates from within, without the artifice of a school. Dante answersI’ mi son un che, quando / Amor mi spira, noto, e a quel modo / ch’e’ ditta dentro vo significando, I am one who, when Love inspires me, takes note, and in the manner in which it dictates within I go on signifying. It is the other who names the school: Bonagiunta recognizes, in the reply, the knot that held him,O frate, issa vegg’ io [...] il nodo / che ’l Notaro e Guittone e me ritenne / di qua dal dolce stil novo ch’i’ odo!, O brother, now I see the knot that held back the Notary, Guittone and me on this side of the sweet new style that I hear! The expression that names an entire movement comes from the mouth of one who was left outside it.
Themes Embodied
The two embody Art as filiation. Dante calls them fathers and says that they used sweet and graceful rhymes of love; they pass the title on. Love has in their mouths the double form of the ledge: the fire that refines, the cry that shames, the weeping that repents. Redemption is that of the poet who wept well over his sin before the end: Guinizelli is purged for this, and Arnaut sees, pensive, the past folly and, joyful, the joy he awaits.
The encounter measures the distance between admiring an author and sitting beside him in flames. Dante stays a long time looking at the father, and only the fire keeps him from drawing near, and the phrase with which he offers himself to their service is a vow that makes one believe. What the poem adds is that the admiration is returned, and that the object of the praise answers with the modesty of passing the title on.
Divergent Readings
The text supports two readings of Guinizelli's gesture. One is modesty: the poet who has just been called master points to another and says that he was the better craftsman. The other is conviction: his criterion, to judge by the verse and not by the voice, obliges him to say who wrote better, even if it is another. The canto does not choose. The change of language in Arnaut says the same: Dante acknowledges, within his own work, that a greater poetry exists outside Italian, and yields to it the space to speak for itself.
Relationships
- Dante: the disciple who calls Guinizelli father and offers himself to the service of both.
- Virgil: the guide who, at the fire's ledge, witnesses the encounter and gives it room.
- Matelda: the lady whom Dante meets just after the stair, in the garden, and who, in Canto XXVIII, says that the ancient poets perhaps dreamed the garden.