1. Fenzi (1966 305) quotes Momigliano's attack on the poem's "excesses." The poem's importance to contemporaries is suggested by Boccaccio's transcription of it in the first place in his copies of Dante's canzoni and his allusion to it in Decameron 5.8; see below, note 3. For balanced recent appreciation, see Dante 1967 2:273-275. Vallone 1974 is especially valuable for citations of verbal parallels (mostly in secondary stilnovisti like Lapo and Cino) and insight into the tormented psychology of the speaker; di Girolamo 1976 emphasizes the metaphorical functions, inclusive of displaced sexual reference, of Dante's language.

2. But see Vallone 1974 265-266, 269; and di Girolamo 1976 27, who contradict Contini here. Regan (1982) offers insights but seems not to know Dronke. Comens (1986) reads the petrose as a set of dramatic monologues depicting the speaker's surrender to sexual concupiscence and wrath; his views require forcing of the text (e.g., 164, 167, 168, 173, 179) and neglect the formal complexities of the poems (as well as much of the bibliography on them); his article renders extreme the "theological" notion that the experience recorded in the petrose is to be viewed as exclusively negative. A similar logic would require us to condone continue

      without question all forms of anger in the Commedia on the grounds of their "theological" foundation.

3. For Boccaccio's copies of Dante's canzoni, see Dante 1946 288-291; Pernicone 1970C; and Pernicone 1973b 952. Boccaccio's placing of the petrose as first and central is, however, striking; the last poem in Boccaccio's order is "E' m'incresce di me sì duramente" (67), which has many features in common with "Così nel mio parlar"; it is thus arguable that Boccaccio thought of the petrose and related poems as the most important in Dante's stravaganti.

4. The antithesis of rime aspre and dolci rime is spelled out in the commentary to "Le dolci rime" in Conviio 4.2.11-13. See also Dante 1946 165.

5. Boyde (1971 201) notes the ambiguous syntax of "questa bella petra, / la quale ognora impetra / maggior durezza e più natura cruda" (2-4). If la quale is object, then impetra is a metaphorical verb meaning "petrifies"; but if durezza is object, then the verb means "obtains." See also Dante 1946 167; and Vallone 1974 238.

6. The text of the canzone has the lady wearing the jasper ("si veste d'un diaspro," 3), suggesting that she displays it prominently on her brow or upper body. Dante was of course familiar with jasper from the description of the twelve stones, standing for the twelve tribes of Israel, in Aaron's breastplate in Exodus (28:6-21). In Martianus Capella 1.75, the sun wears a crown with twelve stones, among which are jasper and heliotrope. The lady's jasper is usually glossed as a reference to her chastity, citing the lapidary of Marbod of Rennes (see Dante 1946 168); see PL 171:1743:

Caste gestatus fugat et febres, et hydropem 
appositusque juvat mulierem parturientem. 
Et tutamentum portanti creditur esse; 
Nam consecratus gratum facit atque potentem, 
Et sicut perhibent, phantasmata noxia pellit.

      Marbod (as well as Isidore, Hrabanus, etc.) merely notes that the jasper is most effective against fever when borne by a chaste person. Other attributes of the stone include protection from harm, conferral of charm and strength, and the repulsion of harmful fantasies; these other associations may be more specifically relevant to "Così nel mio parlar." The petra is protected not only from Love's arrows but also from the corrosive thoughts of love that torture the speaker; the poem itself would be the erotic fantasy aimed at her hitherto impenetrable armor. Some lapidaries also observe that jasper was more effective when carved with the figure of an armed man (identified often as Mars) or a virgin wearing a stole (probably Pallas with the aegis, bearer of the Gorgon); see Evans 1922 206: "sculpere oportet in eo [iaspide] martem armatum aut virginem stolatam cum veste circumfusa tenentem laurum." Such associations suggest a derivation of the military themes of the canzone from the key rhyme aspro / diaspro and hint at the submerged presence of the Medusa.

7. See above, pp. 138-139, and Appendix 1, pp. 261-263. Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:273-275) offer excellent commentary. break

8. In addition to De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii.6 (on the tempering of harsh and smooth words: "Omativa vero dicimus omnia polisillaba [yrsuta] que, mixta cum pexis, pulcram faciunt armoniam compaginis") and 2.xiii.13 ("nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragedia nitescit"), Dante uses the metaphor of temperament in discussing the dialect of the Bolognese (1.xv.5, "Si ergo bononienses utrinque accipiunt, ut dictum est, rationabile videtur esse quod eorum locutio per commixtionem oppositorum ut dictum est ad laudabilem suavitatem remaneant temperata"). Mengaldo here cites Boethius's Institutio arithmetica (1867 2.32): "non sine causa dictum est, omnia, quae ex contrariis consisterent, armonia quadam coniungi atque componi. Est enim armonia plurimorum adunatio et dissidentium consensio."

9. Aquinas, following Aristotle, refutes the idea that the soul is a harmony or temperament ( Summa contra gentiles 2.63-64). The exploration of the limits of the stanzaic habitudo, the mixture of rhymes ( rithimorum relatio ), and the weaving of hendecasyllables and heptasyllables ( contextum carminum ) ( De vulgari eloquentia 2.xi.I), is what results in the determinate complexion or temperament of each canzone stanza ("cantio est coniugatio stantiarum," 2.ix.I); "possumus . . . dicere stantiam esse sub certo cantu et habitudine limitatam carminum et syllabarum compagem," 2.ix.6). The recurrence of metaphors like compages, mixtura, coniugatio, and armonia means that Dante is drawing on the idea of a substance (a material body, a living creature, an artificial product) as a complexio or temperament of primary elements. The analogy between the canzone and the body is based finally on their common status as composites of matter and form—sententia and habitudo in the poem, matter and temperament or complexion in the body. Both are thus susceptible of harmony and discord: in an analogy that goes back to Hippocrates, the body's health is a harmony of humors or qualities, while the canzone, as we noted of Dante's terminology, may be thought of as a whole series of harmonies: of words and music, of words in meter, of harsh and smooth rhymes, of the parts of the stanza ( armoniam compaginis ). As Monterosso (1970a 381) observes, Dante's immediate model when he discusses harmony is the harmony of the proportions of the physical body "Quella cosa dice l'uomo essere bella cui le parti debitamente si rispondono, per che de la loro armonia resulta piacimento. Onde pare l'uomo essere bello, quando le sue membra debitamente si rispondono, e dicemo bello lo canto, quando le voci di quello, secondo debito de l'arte, sono intra sé rispondenti" ( Convivio 1.5.13). See Spitzer 1963.

10. De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii (see Appendix 4 for translation). We follow Dante 1967 2:275, in the determination of dolci and aspre syllables found within the rhyme: "ignoring . . . all consonants except those which close the penultimate syllable, and open the final syllable." For convenience, we summarize here Foster and Boyde's explanation of verbal harshness, drawn from De vulgari eloquentia 2.vii: "Asperitas is found in words which are aspirated (his example is 'honore'), which have fewer than two or more than three syllables, which are stressed on the final syllable, or which have certain consonant groups-namely double z or double x, or consonant groups made up of two liquids or a liquid followed by a mute" (p. 275). break

11. Di Girolamo (1976 19) notes: "si notino pure le poche rime facili, che coincidono con i rari momenti di serenità e di sogno: come la rima baciata face :pace, che conclude l'ultima stanza, o come dora:allora."

12. A similar opposition distinguishes the octave of Dante's sonnet "Com' più vi fere Amor co' suoi vincastri" (Dante 1946 51-52), marked by harsh and rare rhymes, from the sestet, where the rhymes are dolci—as Contini points out.

13. Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:274) note that "in short, D goes far beyond the simple mixture of vocabula pexa and vocabula yrsuta that he recommends in De vulgari eloquentia II.vii.6," but add, "the poem is experimental, and it is not evidence of a break with traditional poetics: rather, it is the exception that proves the rule." Vallone (1974 269), however, thinks "Così" and the Vita nuova the principal lyric moments on the way to the Commedia.

14. Guittone d'Arezzo (cited in Dante 1979a 85): "Credo savete ben, messer Onesto / che proceder dal fatto il nome dia"; and Ubertino to Guittone: "Se'l nome deve seguitar lo fatto."

15. See Consolatio 3.pr. 11: "Quod si rationes quoque non extra petitas sed intra rei quam tractabamus ambitum collocatas agitavimus, nihil est quod admirere, cum Platone sanciente didiceris cognatos de quibus loquuntur rebus oportere esse sermones." Boethius refers to Timaeus 29b. Alain of Lille De planctu naturae pr. 4 (Häring 1978 839) makes the relevant point that sometimes discourses must be ugly in order to accommodate "deformed" subjects: "Sed tamen aliquando, ut superius libavimus, quia rebus de quibus loquimur cognatos oportet esse sermones, rerum informitati locutionis debet deformitas conformari" (emphasis added).

16. See Chapter 6, pp. 217-223.

17. See Inferno 32.1-12. Dante knew the story of Amphion from many sources, including Ovid, Statius, and Brunetto Latini.

18. "Hinc aestimo et Orphei vel Amphionis fabulam, quorum alter animalia ratione carentia, alter saxa quoque trahere cantibus ferebantur, sumpsisse principium, quia primi forte gentes vel sine rationis cultu barbaras, vel saxi instar nullo affectu molles, ad sensum voluptatis canendo traxerunt" (Macrobius 1970a 105 [ Commentarium 2.3.8]). Just above, Macrobius opines that none is so merciless or hard of heart ("nullum sit tam immite, tam asperum pectus" ) that he cannot be moved by music, which is a memory of the music known in heaven ("quia in corpus defert memoriam musicae cuius in caelo fuit conscia"). Macrobius's other example is Orpheus, whose skill in moving rocks and trees is remembered by Dante in the Convivio 2.1.3; there, too, the rocks and stones moved by Orpheus are allegorized as cruel listeners: "che vuol dire che lo savio uomo con lo strumento de la sua voce fa[r]ia mansuescere e umiliare li crudeli cuori."

19. "Musica non modo speculationi, verum etiam moralitati coniuncta. . . . Nulla omnino . . .  aetas quae a cantilenae dulcis delectatione seiuncta sit. . . . Lascivus quippe animus, vel ipse lascivioribus delectatur modis vel saepe eosdem audiens cito emollitur, ac frangitur. Rursus asperior mens vel incitatioribus gaudet, vel incitatioribus asperatur . . . . Nulla enim magis ad animum disciplinis via, quam auribus patet. Cum ergo per eas rhythmi modique ad animum usque descenderint, dubitari non potest quin aequo modo mentem atque ipsa continue

      sunt efficiant atque conforment. Id vero etiam intelligi in gentibus potest. Nam quae asperiores sunt Getarum, durioribus delectantur modis. Quae vero mansuetae, mediocribus" ( De musica institutione 1.1; quoted in Monterosso 1971 1062).

20. Dante could have known of the specifically cathartic effects of music from Aristotle's discussion of the function of music in education in the eighth book of the Politics.

21. "Quia percussus aer ipso interventu ictus vim de se fragoris emittit, ipsa cogente natura ut in sonum desinat duorum corporum violenta conlisio. sed is sonus, qui ex qualicumque aeris ictu nascitur, aut dulce quiddam in aures et musicum defert, aut ineptum et asperum personat. nam si ictum observatio numerorum certa moderetur, compositum sibique consentiens modulamen educitur: at cum increpat tumultuaria et nullis modis gubernata conlisio, fragor turbidus et inconditus offendit auditum" (Macrobius 1970a 96).

22. See Macrobius 1970a 99: "in Timaeo suo mundi animam per istorum numerorum contextionem ineffabili providentia dei fabricatoris instituit"; p. 101: "Timaeus igitur Platonis in fabricanda mundi anima consilium divinitatis enuntians ait illam per hos numeros fuisse contextam, qui et a pari et ab impari cybum id est perfectionem soliditatis efficiunt"; pp. 102-103: "ergo mundi anima, quae ad motum hoc quod videmus universitatis corpus impellit, contexta numeris musicam de se creantibus concinentiam necesse est ut sonos musicos de motu quem proprio impulso praestat efficiat . . . ait enim Plato, ut supra rettulimus, auctorem animae deum post numerorum inter se imparium contextionem hemioliis epitritis et epogdois et limmate hiantia intervalle supplesse."

23. See De vulgari eloquentia 2.xii.1: "Est etiam, ut superius dictum est, habitudo quedam quam carmina contexendo considerare debemus"; 2.xii.3: "Horum prorsus, cum tragice poetari conamur, endecasillabum propter quandam excellentiam in contextu vincendi privilegium promeretur. Nam quedam stantia est que solis endicasillabis gaudet esse contexta, ut illa Guidonis de Florentia ['Donna mi prega'] et etiam nos dicimus ['Donne ch'avete']." See also 2.12.4, 5, 7, and 9; also 2.13.5, 7.

24. Alain of Lille presents the reconciliation of the discordant elements in the kind of anthropomorphic terms that we suggest are reversed in the case of "Così": that is, the reconciliation of petra and speaker has something in it of the joining of discordant elements. See Alain Deplanctu naturae pr. 4 (Häring 1978 840): "Deus igitur mundiali palatio varias rerum species ascribendo quas, discrepantium generum litigio disparatas, legitimi ordinis congruentia temperavit, leges indidit, sanctionibus alligavit. Sicque res generum oppositione contrarias, inter quas locus ab oppositis locum posuerat, cuiusdam reciproce habitudinis relativis osculis federando in amicicie pacem litem repugnantie commutavit. Subtilibus igitur invisibilis iuncture cathenis concordantibus universis ad unitatem pluralitas, ad idemptitatem diversitas, ad consonantiam dissonantia, ad concordiam discordia, unione pacifica remeavit."

25. Matthew ofVendôme (Faral 1924 154) writes: "Ex superficiali ornatu verborum elegantia est in versibus . . . . Siquidem in hoc articulo versificatorem oportet esse expeditum, ne ex penuria ornatus hirsuta verborum aggregatio in continue

      metro videatur mendicare: sed, quadam similitudine sumpta a rebus materiatis, sicut de lana caprina et de panniculis inveteratis nemo festivum potest contexere indumentum . . . similiter in versibus." And Geoffroy de Vinsauf (Faral 1924 254):

26. Perugi (1978 77) argues that Dante's verse echoes Arnaut's "aesplan e daura." If so, the alteration of aesplan to increspa supports our point: as the lady's coiffeur, Love curls and roughens the surface of her hair, makes it, technically, reburrus (and see Mengaldo's note on this word, quoting Uguccione da Pisa: "Reburrus.a.um, hispidus, recalvus, renudatus, discoopertus, scilicet cuius primi et anteriores capilli altius ceteris horrescunt" [Dante 1979a 191]).

27. Combing or adorning hair is a specific image for "grooming" words in Geoffroy de Vinsauf Doctrina de arte versificandi 2.3.7 (Faral 1924): "in hoc adjectivo perpexa, per pexionem designamus ornatum, sicut cum dicitur 'Verba habes perpexa,' id est ornata"; 2.3.21: "sicut homo . . . quando vult pulchriores reddere capillos, comit vel pectit eos, similiter dicitur comere vel pectere verba, quando reddit pulchra."

28. Vallone (1974 248) is especially good on the paradoxical final moments of the poem, where sardonic parody and a mystical serenity overlap.

29. Contini (Dante 1946 157) speaks of an alternation of objective and subjective moments.

30. For the aggressive viso of the lady, see Dante's canzone "E' m'incresce di me si duramente" (Dante 1946 62), where the lady's penetrating sight is a recurring topic: "Entro'n quel cor che i belli occhi feriro" (7); "lor vittoriosa vista" (22); "alza li occhi micidiali e grida" (49); "per una luce che nel cor percosse" (65); "lo mirare intento ch'ella fece" (78). "E'm'incresce di me" alludes to the innamoramento of the Vita nuova, and as Fenzi (1966 271) has pointed out, it is closely related to "Così nel mio parlar." For the lady's glance as an arrow, see note 99.

31. In "E'm'incresce di me," the speaker is similarly impeded in his operations: "Che a tutte mie virtù fu posto un freno / subitamente, sì ch'io caddi in terra, / per una luce che nel cuor percosse" (63-65). Contini (Dante 1946 168) and most editors read vertù in verse 34 as referring to the power of the denti d'Amor that corrode the pensier, but Peter Boyde (1971 201) observes that the phrase is ambiguous; Foster and Boyde (Dante 1967 2:279) provide a more convincing case for taking pensier as the subject of bruca than they do for their preferred solution: "Metaphorically, Death is devouring D's senses with Love's continue

      teeth; in somewhat plainer language ( cioè ), the tormenting obsession with his beloved ( pensier ) is corroding the power of his senses and slowing down their operation, thus leading him to his death which, obviously, occurs when their operation finally ceases." Vallone (1976 252) notes that " Tre donne," 47-48 ("ivi dovel'l gran lume / toglie a la terra del vinco la fronda"), is similarly ambiguous.

32. Vallone (1976 247) notes: " Si pongono da una parte tre modi personali di essere ( mia mente, mio mal, m'affonda ) e di fronte tre elementi della realtà esterna ( fronda, onda, rima )."

33. The prohibition on speaking the lady's name derives from the "rules" of Courtly Love; see the thirteenth rule of Andreas Capellanus (1972 310: "Amor raro consuevit durare vulgatus"). In chapter 5 of the Vita nuova, Love prescribes elaborate schermi for the protagonist so that his love for Beatrice may be secret; in "Lo doloroso amor" (Dante 1946-68), the speaker has borne his pain secretly ("l'ho portato nascosto," 7; Contini's note is "il soverchio dolore s' oppone alla discrezione cavalleresca").

34. Vallone (1976 257) makes the link—a phonosymbolic one—of strida with the previous corrosion of the lover's faulties: "il verbo strida sembra provocato dall' attrito di quei molti e confusi residui, generati dal lavorio della lima e dal rodio del cuore a scorza a scorza."

35. " La lotta, come sempre nei grandi poeti intimisti, si sposta all' interno. Per non cedere a petra occorre anche vincere i sentimenti dell' animo, di qui sradicarla" (Vallone 1976 244). But Vallone overlooks the extent to which the threat comes from the lover himself.

36. Dante's concern with inversion in "Così", as in all the petrose, may owe a debt to Raimbaut d' Aurenga's masterpiece, "Ar resplan la Flors enversa" (Pattison 1952 199), which is based on a comples series of inversions —thematic, imagistic, formal, linguistic—worked out in six stanzas. Raimbaut's techniqe of rim derivatiu is often considered a forerunner of the sestina (De Riquer 1975 1:445), and his use of rhyme-words and derivative rhyme makes " Ar resplan" a possible predecessor of the petrose . Although Dante never mentions. Raimbaut, we suggest that Raimbaut's poem has influenced " Così" in the following ways: in the perverso / riverso / verso rhyme, which reflects Raimbaut's use of enversa/ enverse as the initial rhymes of each stanza (and as the seminal idea of the poem); int he speaker's reference to the lady's braids as whips ("che son per me scudiscio e ferza"), which echoes Raimbaut's description of his lady's eyes as whips ("Vostre belh huelh mi son giscle"); and in the speaker's desire that his poem strike the lady like an arrow ("dàlle per lo cor d'una saetta"), which echoes Raimbaut's desire that his poem be so that it will move the lady (" A midons lo chant e.1 siscle / Clar, qu'el cor l'en introl giscle"), a verse that also might anticipate " Amor, tu vedi ben,"52 ("entrale in core omai"). Moreover, Raimbaut's idea that his opem is itelf in some sense (or senses) reversed ("Mos vers an, qu'aissi l'enverse" —with a suggestive duplication of vers ) may be behind Dante's extraordinarily self-conscious and intense exploration of forms of inversion in "Così" and the rest of the petrose . For the hypothesis that "Ar resplan" is an immediate precedent for "Lo ferm voler," see Roncaglia 181 29-31.

37. The augustinian tag is quoted by Albertus Magnus in his De homine, continue

      quaest. 67, art. 1: "bellum enim semper est propter quietem et pacem, ut dicit Augustinus" (cited in Shaw 1948 35).

38. Fenzi (1966 271) notes, "Il ritmo che poi aumenta in crescendo, sempre più fitto, sempre più marcato."

39. Dante uses pondus in the De vulgari eloquentia 2.v.3 when speaking of the relative "weights" of verses—eleven-syllable lines being the weightiest of all. Settenarii are permitted in a canzone in any number so long as they do not outweigh the eleven-syllable lines; Dante suggests one, two, three, four, or five (Dante 1979a 170). In "Così" Dante uses three—the mean.

40. A case in point is the middle of stanza 1, where the sequence of assonant vowels gives an effect of internal rhyme: "perch' ella s'arretra, / non esce di far etra / sa etta " (6-8).

41. "Ne risulta che dal sesto verso in giù non s'hanno se non rime baciate, con un effetto d'insistenza incalzante, spezialmente in presenza dei settenari" (Dante 1946 165). "Doglia mi reca," which has six rime baciate after the piedi (counting the concatenatio ), is the nearest rival; but the series is interrupted: ABbCdACcBeEffGgHIiiHH.

42. Again, in a manner unique among Dante's canzoni. "Donne ch'avete," the first canzone of the Vita nuova, is a near miss: its stanzas are composed entirely of eleven-syllable lines and therefore perfectly symmetrical with respect to the pondus of the verses, but they have an even number of lines (fourteen) and therefore no central verse.

43. There are several forms of licentia to which Dante refers: of stanzaic habitudo ( De vulgari eloquentia 2.x.5), of verse lengths (2.xii.5), of rhymes (2.xiii.4); but they must be justified by authoritative precedent (2.x.5). As we suggested earlier, Dante's own authority is sufficient to justify the license of his choice; thus, the principle by which Dante fashions the stanza of "Così" is closely akin to that which justifies the use of the aspro diction.

44. Descort is defined in the late Provençal Leys d'Amors: "Descortz es dictatz mot divers; e pot haver aytantas coblas coma vers, so's a ssaber de v a x, las quals coblas devon esser singulars, dezacordablas e variablas en acort, en so et en lengatges. E devon esser totas d'un compas o de divers. E dei tractar d'amors o de lauzors o per maniera de rancura: 'quar midons no mi ayma ayssi cum sol', o de tot aysso essems, qui.s vol" (Hill and Bergin 1973 1: 265). "Così" has regular stanzas and only one language, but it does treat of Love "per maniera de rancura." Examples in Dante's tradition are the multilingual descort of Raimbaut de Vaqueiras ("vuelh un descort comensar / d'amor, per qu'ieu vauc aratges / quar ma domna.m sol amar, / mas camiatz l'es sos coratges, / per qu'ieu vuelh dezacordar / los motz, e.ls sos e.ls lenguatges"; cited in Spitzer 1963 90); Giacomo da Lentini's "Dal core mi vene" (Contini 1960 1: 68); Bonagiunta da Lucca's "Or veo la rivera" and "Ai faux ris," attributed to Dante (1946 240). This last instance is a discordo plurilingue, with numerous features reminiscent of the petrose, from the gravis mea spina (42) that recalls the crudele spina of "Io son venuto" (49), as Scherillo and Crescini observe (Dante 1946 241), to the characterization of the donna as having a "cor di ghiaccio / et tant d'aspresse" (!) (27-28). The dardi and stocchi (17) are of course generic for a canzone about cruel love. It continue

      is significant in connection with Raimbaut's poem (whose self-definition has obviously influenced that of the Leys ) that the writing of descortz is presented as willful: "Vuelh dezacordar los sos"; cf. "Voglio esser aspro." Marshall (1981) points out that a small number of isostrophic descortz in Provençal have survived; see also, for the Italian discordo, Russell 1982 59-71.

45. A comparison with "Io son venuto" is instructive here. In that canzone the dissonance of logical and formal units is internal to the stanza; "Così" is distinguished rather by the relation between stanzas, which is fully manifested only over the whole span of the poem. The effect of overlapping between the stanzas of "Così" applies to the parts of the stanza as well: the two pedes can be seen as two sirmata that overlap, the fifth verse in each stanza being taken twice. This notion is less fanciful if we note that lines 5-9 of each stanza end with a couplet, just as the sirma does.

46. There is no comparable overlapping in Dante's other lyric poems. Boyde (1971 243) claims that the linking of stanzas in "Così" is a version of the Provençal technique, similar to what Dante does in "Li occhi dolenti" ( Vita Nuova, chap. 31). But he underestimates the extent to which consecutive sirma and pedes are permeated by links; compare "E'm'incresce di me," a poem closely related to our canzone, where the technique remains very close to that of coblas capfinidas (and see Boyde 1971 239).

47. For the poem's center as heart or bosom, see Regan 1982 140. As Fenzi (1966 267) has noted, the center of the poem is correlated to the attack on the speaker's heart: the center of the body and the formal center of the text coincide, with consequences for interpretation. See Chapter 4, pp. 143-144.

48. Negatives in initial position: verses 7, 10, 14, 15; medial, verses 9, 13, 21, 24, 29, 31; final, verse 39. There is therefore a development, with negatives migrating from initial to final position, where the instance is a substantive (a rhetorical conversio of negare ).

49. In stanza 5, six instances ( vedesse, sarebbe, griderei, farei, metterei, piacerei ); in stanza 6, seven ( avessi, passerei, sarei, farei, vendicherei, guarderei, renderei ). This section of the poem echoes the techniques of the plazer, the Provençal genre used for wishful thinking, of which the most famous example in Italian is Cecco Angiolieri's sonnet "S'i'fosse fuoco, arderei'l mondo" (Contini 1960 2:377). For Dante's own essay in the genre, "Guido, io vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io," see Dante 1946 34-36.

50. On anaphora and antistrophe, see Chapter 2, note 99.

51. "The canzone which he is now sending is his revenge: it can become the arrow thrust in the woman's heart, the one thing that may shatter her defences" (Dronke 1968 166). And see di Girolamo 1976 21: "La situazione cortese della poesia come panegirico della dama è qui completamente ribaltata: il testo diviene esso stesso strumento di vendetta (ultimo vocabolo e ultima rima della canzone), ed è in grado da trafiggere (a freddo, e fuori dall'allucinazione della quinta stanza) il cuore di madonna." Describing words as arrows is of course a topos; see Chapter 5, pp. 181-182. break

52. Di Girolamo (1976 27) notes: "É quindi alla metafora che è affidato il messaggio centrale della canzone."

53. For the guises of Love in the Vita nuova, see Chapter 4, note 50; and Singleton 1949 74-77.

54. Use of the familiar pronoun probably excludes the petra from consideration as the lima, as Dante will use the honorific form voi in verse 61. It is worth remembering, however, that at Paradiso 31.81 Dante shifts to the familiar in his farewell words to Beatrice, after using the respectful voi for thirty-five cantos.

55. For the distinction of love as substance and accident, see the Vita nuova 25.11 (Dante 1980 164), and our remarks, pp. 390-391.

56. For this topos of the lyric tradition, see Guittone d'Arezzo, "Ahi, Deo, che dolorosa," 28: "Amore quanto a mor te vale a dire" (Contini 1960 2:193); and Inferno 5.106: "Amor condusse noi ad un A MOR te." But amor and mors are also found in Aeneid 4, linked to the name of Dido; see 4.171: "nec iam furtivum Dido meditatur amorem"; 4.291-292: "sese interea, quando optima Dido / nesciat et tantos rumpi non speret amores"; and 4.450-451: "Tum vero infelix fatis exterrita Dido / mortem orat."

57. "Con la violentissima 'scinderatio' . . . . fra E' e Amore, rifà senza dubbio il verso all'accesissimo incipit di 7.1-2, 'Anc eu no l'ac, mas ela m'a / tostemps en son poder Amors"' (Perugi 1978 77).

58. In the Roman de la rose, the ceremony of Amanz's feudal homage to Amor (in many respects a model for subsequent representations of this event, inclusive of stilnuovo lyric) includes the lover's insistence that Love treat him fairly, as a loyal vassal ought to be treated:

Sire, fis je, grant talent é 
de fee vostre volenté; 
mes mon servise recevez 
en gre, foi que vous me devez. 
Nou di pas por recreandise, 
que point ne dot vostre servise, 
mes sergenz en vain se travaille 
de fee servise qui valle, 
se li servise n'atalante 
au seignor cui l'en presente. 
             (2013-22).

59. See Cavalcanti's famous canzone "Donna mi prega" (Contini 1960 2: 524-525).

60. All three of these terms recur in the Commedia applied to similar instruments: in Purgatorio 16.47, when Marco Lombardo recalls his idealism, "quel valore amai / al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco"; in Paradiso 15.6, where in reference to the celestial harp formed by the cross in the sphere of Mars Dante refers to "le sante corde / che la destra del ciel allenta e tira"; and in Paradiso 20.143, "E come a buon cantor buon citarista / fa seguitar lo guizzo della corda." For the analogy of the tempered bow and the body, Nardi (1930 131) cites one of continue

      the aphorismi of Serapion Damascenus recorded by Pietro d'Abano in his Conciliator (diff. 21, pr. 3): "Complexio corporis animati est ad figuram numeri consoni, idest, proportionem seu similitudinem armonici numeri. Huiusmodi autem proportio et consonantia musica magis reperitur in complexione temperata quam in aliis." From this point of view, the lack of health in the body can be described as distensio corporis by a physician like Jacopo da Bologna (Nardi 1930 244).

61. For the distinction of higher and lower souls (the Platonic distinction of intellectual, vital, and nutritive— Timaeus 69b-72d), see Vita nuova, chap. 2, where Dante's first sight of Beatrice produces a different comment from each of the "souls" or spirits.

62. Vallone (1974 256) notes: "È necessario scendere sempre più in basso per tentare poi di risalire. L'estrema umiliazione, il soffocamento d'ogni guizzo, l'offesa e la burla della stessa angoscia ricuperano nel fondo della coscienza i residui più inconditi e li sollevano a ribellione."

63. Arnaldo da Villanova interpreted the name of the disease as hereos because it dominates the physical life of its victims: "It is called heroic love, as if pertaining to lordship, not because it only afflicts lords, but either because it dominates by subjecting the soul and commanding the heart of man, or because the acts of such lovers toward the object desired are like the acts of subjects toward their lords" ("Dicitur autem amor heroycus, quasi dominalis, non quia solum accidat dominis, sed quia aut dominatur subiiciendo animam et cordi hominis imperando, aut quia talium amantium actus erga rem desideratam similes sunt actibus subditorum erga proprios dominos"; quoted in Lowes 1913-14 497; our translation).

64. The topic of flaying, though submerged, is implicit in the use of scudiscio and scorza. Perugi (1978 80) points out that "infine la reduplicazione in rima di XLVI 25 a scorza a scorza discende certo dalla clausola di 18.32 com l'ecors'en la veria: nella stessa canzone cfr. in rima il binomio sinonimico di 67 scudiscio e ferza, precisa gemmazione di veria." The imagery of flaying will be echoed in passages of the Commedia that are closely related to "Così": thus atra/ squatra/ latra returns in Inferno 6 as atra/latra/isquatra in the presence of iscoia: "Graffia gli spiriti ed iscoia ed isquatra" (18).

65. The association of Love with military activities and attributes goes back at least to Ovid, for whom every lover was a soldier ( militat omnis amans ) and every seduction a campaign. It acquires medieval trappings when courtly love service assumes the elaborate forms of vassalage; see Perella 1968 128-129. Love as a quasi-military dux is manifest, even etymologically, in the lyrics (cf. "Lo doloroso amor che mi conduce" ), in the Vita nuova, and in the Commedia (cf. "Amor condusse noi ad una morte," Inferno 5.106); and see Vallone 1974 255, for parallels. In the case of Dante, however, the military metaphor is taken much more seriously, both as an indication of the violent descort between speaker and lady in the petrose and as the context for the poet's own initiation into a select company—hence the determination of "Amor, tu vedi ben" as an unattempted task worthy of a knighting day (see Appendix 1). Owen (1975 45) reprints a miniature from Bibliothèque Nationale Ms. fr. III, fol. 126v (Paris), showing Lancelot continue

      holding Meleagant supine on the ground, sword at his breast, when King Bademagus intervenes. The positions illustrate those of Amor and the speaker in the poem.

66. In terms contemporary with Dante, the stanza is a poetic inquiry into Love's nature— Amor quid sit —closely related to Cavalcanti's own famous canzone, "Donna mi prega." Indeed, Cavalcanti's role as primo amico in the rhetorical excursus of Vita nuova 25 may help account for the elaborate reference to his poetry in the third stanza of "Così." Part of the reference is thematic: for example, the representation of the speaker's inner life through an interior theater, direct speech between the hypostatized spiriti, and the depiction of Amor as pitiless and destructive. Corti (1951 642) argues that the description of psychological states as an internal theater, as well as the tendency to represent the lover's plight as a deadly battle, characterizes Cavalcanti's lyrics. For the lotta or battaglia, see Corti 1951 650-652, with reference to Dante's adoption of these topics in the Vita nuova ("Amore . . . che fiere . . . e quale ancide"). Corti also discusses the phenomenon of Cavalcantian spiriti, noting in particular the ballata "Vedete ch'io son un," echoed in stanzas 3-4 of "Così." Boyde has analyzed the phenomenon of speaking spiriti, in both Cavalcanti and Dante, with reference to the rhetorical category of sermonicatio; for the link with Cavalcanti generally, see Dante 1967 2:278.

67. For scherana, see the parallels in Vallone 1974 260.

68. For the direct gaze as a formula in the Commedia, see Vallone 1974 265.

69. Ovid puts this succinctly in the Heroides ("Dido Aeneae," 195-96): "Praebuit Aeneas et causam mortis et ensem / Ipsa sua Dido concidit usa manu."

70. A summary of this thematics can be found in Klibansky, Panofsky, and Saxl 1964 146. In Paradiso 8.1-9, distinguishing between the (spurious) influence of Venus and Cupid as gods and the "real" influence of the planet, Dante draws on passages depicting the relation of Dido and Amor in the Aeneid that are also echoed in "Così nel mio parlar"; see Aeneid 1.715-19, 4.83-85.

71. Dante's use of the form ancidere in the poem ("ella ancide," 9; "il cor ch'io porto anciso," 75) strengthens the association with Dido; in Inferno 5.61, Dido is "colei che s'ancise amorosa."

72. This is made explicit in Ovid's Heroides 7.31-32 ("Dido Aeneae"): "Parce, Venus, nurui, durumque amplectere fratrem; / Frater Amor: castris militet ille tuis."

73. Dido reproaches Aeneas with having been born in the stony Caucasus ("sed duris genuit te cautibus horrens / Caucasus," Aeneid 4.366-67). Remaining unyielding—"mens immota manet," 4.449—he resembles the inflexible Amor of the canzone, "d'ogni merzé . . . messo al niego." The immutability of Amor before the speaker's pleas ("grido / merzé chiamando, e umilmente il priego," 37-38) reenacts Aeneas's refusal of Anna's embassy from the queen: "nullis ille movetur / fletibus aut voces ullas tractabilis audit" (4.438-439). See also the Heroides 7.37-38: "Te lapis et montes innataque rupibus altis / Robora, te saevae progenuere ferae."

74. Dido struck by Love's arrow: "uritur infelix Dido totaque vagatur / urbe furens, qualis coniecta cerva sagitta / . . . haeret lateri letalis harundo" ( Aeneid continue

      4.68-69, 73). Dido consumed by love's fire: "At regina gravi iamdudum saucia cura / Vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni" (4.1-2). Cf. "cioè che'l penser bruca la lor vertù" (33). Dido burned with a hidden, silent wound: "est mollis flamma medullas / interea et tacitum vivit sub pectore vulnus" (4.66-67). Cf. "dispietata lima / che sordamente la mia vita scemi" (22-23). Dido haunted by the image of a fierce Aeneas: "agit ipse furentem / in somnis ferus Aeneas" (4.466). The lover's strida at line 44 may also echo the sound of Dido's death wound: "illa gravis oculos conata attollere rursus / defuit: infixum stridit sub pectore vulnus" (4.688-689).

75. "Atque illi stellatus iaspide fulva / ensis erat Tyrioque ardebat murice laena / demissa ex umeris, dives quae munera Dido / fecerat" ( Aeneid 4.261-264).

76. The sense of the exchange as a symbolic one is heightened by Servius's gloss on the jasper sword ( Aeneid 4.262): "ensem pro vagina posuit" (Thilo and Hagen 1923-27 1/2:512). Possiedi (1974 23) points out the function of Aeneas's jasper sword in the lapidary economy of the canzone: "la pietra che esalta la virtù della donna, distrugge il sensuale amatore dantesco, come un tempo la sua consorella africana."

77. See Aeneid 4.522-525, 529-532:

Nox erat et placidum carpebant fessa soporem 
corpora per terras, silvaeque et saeva quierant 
aequora, cum medio volvuntur sidera lapsu, 
cum tacet omnis ager, pecudes pictaeque volucres . . . 
at non  infelix animi Phoenissa, neque umquam 
solvitur in somnos oculisve aut pectore noctem 
accipit: ingeminant curae rursusque resurgens 
saevit amor magnoque irarum fluctuat aestu.

The importance of this passage for subsequent lyric, notably that of Petrarch, is well known.

78. The parallels include the use of the adversative conjunction for the lover's "subdiesis," echoing the repetition of At regina . . . at non in the Aeneid. We note, too, that the tragedy of Dido unfolds during the winter ("desaevit hiems," notes Anna as she persuades Dido to entertain her love for Aeneas [ Aeneid 4.52]). The whole of Book 4, with its self-contained structure modeled after Greek tragedy, is played out to the tune of Dido's tragic furor, which is discordant with the fated destiny of Rome. See Chapter 2, note 2.

79. Ovid's Dido provides an instance in the epitaph she orders; it is the final distich of her letter ( Heroides 7.195-196): "Aeneas furnished the cause of death, and the sword; Dido killed herself with her own hand." In the Aeneid, the sequence of causes stretches further: to the designs of Love—that is, of Venus—who collaborates with Juno to arrange the pseudomarriage in the cave; to the stratagem of Venus, who replaces Ascanius, sitting in Dido's lap, with the impish godlet of love himself, as Dante recalls in the Paradiso; to the divine plan instituted by Jove; to the fates.

80. "Haerent infixi pectore vultus / verbaque" ( Aeneid 4.4-5), describing continue

      how profoundly Aeneas's features strike into Dido's heart (with the verb used for the arrow point, haerere ), begins the series of events centered on Dido's wound: when Dido stabs herself, Aeneas's image ( vultus ) has literally become the mortal stroke ( vulnus ) that kills her, a continuity outwardly symbolized and completed by her use of his sword. Ovid, in the Heroides, will make the notion explicit ("Dido Aeneae," 189-190): "Nec mea nunc primum feriuntur pectora telo; / Ille locus saevi vulnus amoris habet." This pattern of imagery in Aeneid 4 is well known (see Otis 1970 70-72); it closely parallels the narrative of the canzone, in which the lady's effects are parsed as darts, as a file, and finally as a killing sword. What is more, the series of transformations of Love's agency in the Aeneid —beginning with the intervention of Venus (1.657; in collusion with Juno, 4.92ff.) and the placement of Cupid in Dido's lap (1.717-719), and culminating with Dido's use of Aeneas's sword ("ensemque recludit Dardanium," 4.647) to compass her suicide—anticipates the several designations of Love's agency in the canzone.

81. Often remarked is the development of the nautical metaphor of the lover as a calm sea—already a sophisticated variation on the more frequent equation of the lover to a ship, and fortune to a stormy sea—into the image of sinking in the next line ("il peso che m'affonda," 20). But there is no question here of a protosurrealism or of "irrational" associations of images. The calm of the marine surface, of which the lady is ignorant or contemptuous ("cotanto del mio mal par che si prezzi"), is also an image of the lover's present suppression of inner turbulence and the anticipation of the explosion of violence to come; it is poca bonaccia.

82. For the figure of the unquiet heart and Christian metaphorics, see Ferguson 1975. As Geoffroy de Vinsauf puts it: "Do not always permit the word to dwell in its own place: such residence is unseemly to the word itself: let it escape its proper place and journey elsewhere [ peregrinetur alibi ] and establish an agreeable seat in another's establishment: let it be, there, a new guest, and let its novelty be pleasing" (Faral 1924 211). Although the passage concerns tropes in general, Geoffroy's remarks echo classical definitions of the trope of metaphor. See Rhetorica ad Herennium 4.34.45: "Translatio est cum verbum in quandam rem transferetur ex alia re, quod propter similitudinem recte videbitur posse transferri"; and Isidore Etymologiarum liber 1.37.2: "Metaphora est verbi alicuius usurpata translatio, sicut cum dicimus 'fluctuare segetes' 'gemmare vites' dum in his rebus fluctus et gemmas non invenimus, in quibus haec verba aliunde transferuntur."

83. Dante quotes in the Convivio (2.6.2) the opinion of Epicurus that by following their appetites animals tend toward their ends, which are nourishment and reproduction. Aquinas, discussing the ends of man, illustrates movement directed at a goal (as opposed to self-movement) with the flight of the arrow ( Summa theologica 1a, quaest. 1, art. 2): "sicut sagitta tendit ad determinatum finem ex hoc quod movetur a sagittante, qui suam actionem dirigit in finem."

84. In the De vulgari eloquentia (2.viii.1), the target or end ( signum ) of an analysis (here, of a canzone) is logically prior to the analytical procedure, the "archery" ( admissionis sagittae vel iaculi ); in the Convivio (4.22), the target continue

      ( segno ) is the subject of human felicity that the poet has in hand ( I'arco della nostra operazione ). In the Commedia, the majority of uses may be listed as species of the single genus of purposeful activity: as an illustration of speed in reaching the target; as an expression of the direction of desire; as the emanation of the creative Logos; and as an illustration of speech. For the first, see Paradiso 2.23, 5.91; for the second, Purgatorio 6.130-131, 16.48 ("quel valore amai, al quale ha or ciascun disteso l'arco"). For the third, see Paradiso 1.119-121, 124-126; 8.103-105; 29.22-24. For the fourth, see Purgatorio 25.17-18, 31.16-21 (quoted below, note 92). For the figure of the arrow returning to the bow, see Singleton 1965 56-80; for the arrow and bow as images of the body, see Olson 1982 90-93.

85. The speaker's canzone is an expression of the tendency of all human activity to seek its natural end, as in Thomas Aquinas's response: "proprium est naturae rationalis ut tendat in finem" ( Summa Theologica 1a, quaest. 1, art. 2); this end, like the end of all movement and desire, is rest, quies, toward which even war and strife are subordinated as means. Dante writes at the beginning of the Convivio (1.1.1.): "ciascuna cosa, da providenza di propria natura impinta, è inclinabile alla sua perfezione."

86. Vallone (1974 267-268) points out how dritto in the congedo picks up presso efiso in stanza 6 and per lo cor ("per mezzo / lo core") in stanza 5.

87. Dante discusses natural love or gravity in the Convivio 3.3.1-5, listing different orders of being, from the elements like earth and fire through human beings, which incorporate all the desires; in the Monarchia, these natural dispositions illustrate ideas of concord (cf. I.1 5: "ita homines plures concordes dicimus, propter simul moveri secundum velle ad unum, quod est formaliter in suis voluntatibus, sicut qualitas una formaliter in glebis, scilicet gravitas, et una in flammis, scilicet levitas"). These ideas return in the Paradiso, 1.1 03-172, discussed below, note 91.

88. The nautical voyage as a figure for a directed task is traditional; it is implicit in one of Ovid's self-descriptions as narrator ( Ars amatoria 1.8). Dante adopts it the Convivio 2.1.1 and 4.28.8, where it illustrates the biography of Guido da Montefeltro (see Inferno 27.79-81), and the figure returns in the Commedia to describe both the pilgrimage itself ( Purgatorio 17.77-78) and the task of narrating it ("Per correr miglior acque alza le vele / omai la navicella del mio ingegno," Purgatorio 1.1-2). The simile of the lover as a ship making for port is a topos of love lyric (and is so anthologized in the Mare amoroso, 293-294 [Contini 1960 1:498]). Dante's version appears in many respects an adaptation of the figure in Giacomo da Lentini's canzone "Madonna, dir vi voglio": "paria che sofondasse, / e bene sofondara / lo cor, tanto gravara—in su' disio" (58-60).

89. "Quella parte, coiè la ragione, ch'è la sua perfezione maggiore" ( Convivio 2.8.11); also 3.3.12. The association of the cima della mente or apex mentis with a flower is a traditional Neoplatonic metaphor ( anthos; cf. Wallis 1972 153); for the apex mentis in "Così," see Friedrich 1964 156; and Mazzotta 1979 162.

90. "Ignis sursum tendit, deorsum lapis. Ponderibus suis aguntur, loca sua petunt . . . . Minus ordinata, inquieta sunt; ordinantur et quiescunt. Pondus meum, amor meus, eo feror, quocumque feror. Dono tuo accendimur et sursum ferimur. Inardescimus et imus . . . quoniam sursum imus ad pacem Ierusa- soft

      lem" (Capello 1948 532-533; translation Augustine 1960 454). A previous application of this passage to verse 20 of "Così" is in Mazzotta 1978 290.

91. Even closer and more extensive resonance with the canzone is to be found in Dante's own terms for universal teleology in the Paradiso, where rising and sinking movements are combined with the voluntary motion of human agents:

Onde si muovono a diversi porti 
   per lo gran mar dell'essere, e ciascuna 
   con istinto a lei data che la porti. 
Questi ne porta il foco inver la luna; 
   questi ne' cor mortali è permotore; 
   questi la terra in sé stringe e aduna. 
           (1.112-117)

      The context of the passage is appropriate for "Così" because devoted to explaining why the pilgrim, a material body, can ascend like fire. The principle of natural inclination is itself compared to an arrow ("quest'arco saetta," 1.119) and its goal to the peace of the Empyrean ("il ciel sempre quïeto," 1.122), while the failure of natural love is attributed to the "deafness" of matter ("la materia è sorda," 129)—echoing the saetta, the pace, and the petra of our canzone. The pilgrim's motion toward his goal is compared to the arrow's flight:

ed ora lì, com'a sito decreto, 
   cen porta la virtù di quella corda, 
   che ciò che scocca drizza in segno lieto. 
           (1.124-126)

92. In the Purgatorio, too, the pilgrim's view of Beatrice is parsed in terms of two beauties, her eyes and her mouth. Thus, her ninfe invite her to unveil her mouth for the pilgrim: "fa noi grazia che disvele / a lui la bocca tua, sì che discerna / la seconda bellezza che tu cele" (31.136-138); her eyes, in turn, are "li smeraldi / ond'Amor già ti trasse le sue armi" (31.116-117), and so akin to the eyes of the petra —which also fire shots—in "Così." For the evolution of the petra into the figure of Beatrice, see below, note 136.

93. PG 3.717b: "Et haec quidem omnino bono participant, illa autem magis et minus privantur, alia autem obscuriorem habent boni participationem, et aliis secundum ultimam resonantiam adest bonum." Albertus Magnus comments ( Super librum Dionysium de divinis nominibus 4.169): "sicut in his quae malo fini semper coniuncta sunt, ut amor luxuriae, qui tamen, inquantum amor, habet aliquam resonantiam boni, imperfecte tamen."

94. We have argued that "Donne ch'avete" is structured as procession and return; the final account of the lady, whose eyes are the origin and whose mouth the goal of Love, is a recapitulation of the structure. The rhyme riso/fiso/viso returns in Dante's canzone "Amor che nella mente mi ragiona," commented on in the third book of the Convivio, in a similar context; the lady's viso is the vehicle of return to beatific contemplation: break

Cose appariscon ne lo suo aspetto 
che mostran de' piacer di Paradiso,

dico ne li occhi e nel suo dolce riso 
che le vi reca Amor com'a suo loco. 
Elle soverchian lo nostro intelletto 
come raggio di sole un frale viso: 
e perch'io non le posso mirar fiso. 
            (55-61)

95. The first is in chapter 3, the first instance of the saluto: "e passando per una via, volse gli occhi verso quella parte ov'io era molto pauroso."

96. Cf. the frequency of mention of the eyes in "Amor, tu vedi ben" (see Chapter 4, pp. 153-155). On the eye rays as razzi, raggi, radii, and their relationship to light rays, see Favati 1975 188: "Di solito, la parola [razzo] si accosta ai raggi o rai che anche Dante adopera col senso di 'sguardi,' benchè sempre al plurale." Aristotle ( De insomniis 459a) notes that the persistence of visual images in dreams is analogous to the continued motion of a projectile after it has been cast.

97. When occhi appears in "Così" before this point, it refers always to the eyes of others. On verses 74-75 and their possible derivation from Arnaut, see Perugi 1978 83: "riteniamo . . . non impossibile che 7.28 'lo cors m'abranda' abbia fornito il modello immediato per Rime 46.74-5 'Ancor ne li occhi, ond'escon le faville/che m'infiammano il cor' (si osservi che nel modello ad abranda precede in rima aflama )."

98. "È affermata fin dal primo verso la conversione del contenuto nella forma, la poetica delle provenzali rimas caras " (Dante 1946 163).

99. See the passage in the Convivio about the danger of ocular contact, which is marked as the moment when Love lets fly his arrow: "E qui si vuol sapere che avvegna ché più cose ne l'occhio a un'ora possano venire, veramente quella che viene per retta linea nella punta della pupilla, quella veramente si vede, e nella immaginativa si suggella solamente. E questo è però che il nervo per lo qual corre lo spirito visivo, è diritto a quella parte; e però veramente l'un occhio l'altro occhio non può guardare, sicchè esso non sia veduto da lui; chè sì come quello che mira riceve la forma ne la pupilla per retta linea, così per quella medesima linea la sua forma se ne va in quello ch'ello mira: e molte volte, nel dirizzare di questa linea, discocca l'arco di colui al quale ogni arma è leggiere" (2.9.4-5). For the possible relationship of this passage to the optical principle of the centric ray as described by Alhazen, see Edgerton 1975 85-86.

100. The denti d'Amor previously used on the speaker also return in the parlar aspro, a corrosive speech produced by jaws that bark in the caldo borro. A scriptural tradition that compares trenchant words and God's searching Logos to arrows and swords is behind Dante's conception of his poem as mordant—a conception made explicit in the tornata. The description of the Psalmist's enemies at Psalm 57:5 ("Filii hominum dentes eorum arma et sagittae, Et lingua eorum gladius acutus") provides one context for the principal images in the canzone (see also Proverbs 25:18: "Iaculum, et gladius, et sagitta acuta, Homo qui loquitur contra proximum suum falsum testimonium"). In the Old Testament, arrows are often forms of divine wrath (Isaiah 5:28), while the sword is continue

      the word of the prophet (Isaiah 49:2: "et posuit os meum quasi gladium acutum"). Examples could be multiplied.

101. The presence of Cupid's weapons is probably no accident. Of the traditional attributes discussed by Panofsky (1972), only the blindfold and nudity are explicitly absent, though they remain implicit in the speaker's fear of being seen and in the lady's lack of vulnerability—she is never explicitly ignuda. Panofsky (p. 105) cites the account of Hrabanus Maurus, copied from Isidore: "Cupidinem vocatum ferunt propter amorem. Est enim daemon fornicationis, qui ideo alatus pingitur, quia nihil amantibus levius, nihil mutabilius invenitur. Puer pingitur, quia stultus est et irrationalis amor. Sagittam et facem tenere fingitur, quia amor cor vulnerat, facem, quia inflammat." The pairing of the wound and the flame in the canzone ("le faville / che m'infiammano il cor," 74-75; "m'ha ferito il core," 80) are probably another echo of Virgil, whose influential verses "cura / vulnus alit venis et caeco carpitur igni" ( Aeneid 4.1-2) touch on both the wound and fire of love, as Servius notes: "et bene adludit ad Cupidinis tela, ut paulo post ad faculam, ut 'et caeco carpitur igni'; nam sagittarum vulnus est, facis incendium" (Thilo and Hagen 1923-27 1/2:459-460).

102. As Aquinas points out in his commentary on the De anima, the word phantasm is from phos, "light" (Aquinas 1959 162).

103. The displacement of exact sexual terms in the final scene is very marked; Perugi (1978 80) suggests that scudiscio e ferza is a "precisa gemmazione di veria ( verga )" from Arnaut's sestina. It might therefore be a veiled allusion to "lo membro che l'uom cela"—as indeed, it has been hidden here. For the sexual nature of the weapons in the poem, see di Girolamo 1976 23-24.

104. See above, pp. 169-170.

105.   .

Poi, come'l foco movesi in altura 
   per la sua forma ch'è nata a salire 
   là dove più in sua matera dura, 
Così l'animo preso entra in disire, 
   ch'è moto spiritale, e mai non posa 
   fin che la cosa amata il fa gioire. 
                  ( Purgatorio  18.28-33)

106. The association between the justice within the soul and the cosmos described in the Timaeus, on the one hand, and the justice that reigns in the state (described in the Republic ), on the other, is a leading theme of commentary on the Platonic texts in the Middle Ages; see Freccero 1986 177.

107. Dante also uses, in De vulgari eloquentia 2, the form compago (2.vi.2; 2.vii.6; 2.ix.3, 6); his use may allude to the traditional etymology of the word in pax. See Mengaldo's note in Dante 1979a 177.

108. Boethius's yearning to fix his eyes on the fountain of good in "O qui perpetua" ( defigere visus, 25) is possibly echoed here. Augustine's glosses on 1 Corinthians 13:12 are particularly rich in reference to the beatific vision; see Confessions 13.13: "Sic interim sentio, propter illud coelum coeli, coelum intellectuale, ubi est intellectus nosse simul, non ex parte, non in aenigmate, non per speculum, sed ex toto manifestatione facie ad faciem. " Augustine's discussion of continue

      the vision of the saints in the penultimate chapter (22.29) of the De civitate Dei is a gloss on facies ad faciem, including the topic of the final peace that passes understanding (Philippians 4:7).

109. See Perella 1969 51-58, and related notes. Perella cites (p. 52) Bernard's Sermones super Cantica 2.2.3 ( Opera 1.9-10), where the "kiss" is identified with Christ as the Incarnation, which joins heaven and earth in a kiss of peace: "making peace between the things of earth and heaven, for He is our Peace who has made one out of both." He also cites (p. 291 n .14) Guillaume de Saint-Thierry's paraphrase of the bride's longing for the kiss of the bridegroom as the soul's longing for the beatific vision: "Mysterium regni Dei desidero, palam nihi annuntiari de Patre deposco; faciem ad faciem, oculum ad oculum, osculum ad osculum. Osculetur me osculo oris sui " ( Exposé sur le Cantique des Cantiques [Paris, 1962], 118-120).

110. Among the effects of love Aquinas lists liquefactio: "quae opponitur congelationi. Ea enim quae sunt congelata, in seipsis constricta sunt, ut non possint de facili subintrationem alterius pati . . . Unde cordis congelatio vel duritia est dispositio repugnans amori. Sed liquefactio importat quandam mollificationem cordis, qua exhibet se cor habile ut amatum in ipsum subintret" ( Summa theologica 1a-2ae, quaest. 28, art. 5).

111. Vallone (1974 265) takes a more cautious tack: "la novità della petrosa è che, fermo restando questo sfondo, il poeta si sente tanto audace da guardare presso e fiso. Si esprimono due atti distinti; l'accostarsi e il guardare senza distogliere lo sguardo. È attitudine di uomo degno di alto destino, non di uomo mortale."

112. For this rhyme in Monte Andrea ("sì'l cor dell'omo squatra," in rhyme with atra ), see Baldelli 1973 937.

113. Vallone (1974 261) cites the near parallels of burrato in Inferno 12.10 and 16.114; he quotes a canzone of Paolo dell 'Abbaco ("Voce dolente pia nel cor che piagne"):

Ahi ventre golforeo che non li squatra 
El forte laccio dell'avaro Giuda 
Che disperato suda 
Nel caldo borro sostenendo guai.

      The expression suggests an intense misogyny; see Perugi 1978 96-100, who claims to find in Dante's text (though not here) traces of Arnaut's obscene and misogynistic sirventes.

114. Vallone (1974 261) notes: "l'idea del soccorrere è riportata quasi sempre in Dante al bene che dall'alto si distribuisce in basso: è un idea sacra. Beatrice (e basti questo esempio) è pietosa perche soccorre il poeta ( Inferno 2.133). . . . L'ironia di io vi soccoro si muta così in caricatura." But Vallone retreats from the ambiguity suggested by the cited parallels.

115. The speaker's ability to see the petra is thus analogous, though obviously in a different context, to the removal of the veil over Moses' face described in 2 Corinthians 3:18: "Cum autem conversus fuerit ad Dominum, auferetur continue

      velamen." For the possible relation of this passage to the petrose and the Commedia, see Freccero 1972.

116. See especially lines 9-10: "Ah, prender lei a forza, ultra su'grato, / e bagiarli la bocca e'l bel visaggio / e li occhi suoi, ch'èn due fiamme de foco!" (Contini 1960 2:479); in the final verses, however, the poet repents. See also Fiore 57, 60, and 66.

117. The congedo of "Così" is thus not strictly opposed in meaning, as has been claimed (Comens 1986 186), to the congedo verse that echoes it, "chè perdonar è bel vincer di guerra" ("Tre donne intorno al cor mi son venute," 107), a sentiment that echoes the moment fantasized at the end of stanza six of "Così." For the close relation of "Così" and "Tre donne" in terms of rhymes (e.g., cruda, ignuda ), see Baldelli 1973 938-939. The last line of the congedo to "Così" is modeled, as Perugi notes (1978 79), on Arnaut Daniel 17.50: "q'atenden fai pros homs rica conquesta." Dante cites this poem ("Sim fos amors de ioi donar . . . .") in De vulgari eloquentia 2.xiii.2.

118. Dante will refer to the heavens as lures in Purgatoro 14.147.

119. On this anticourtly dimension, already observed by Fenzi (1966 266), see di Girolamo 1976 27: "si tratta di un messaggio che, benchè non immediatamente anticortese, esorbita per molti aspetti dalle possibilità espressive di un poeta cortese"; and Comens 1986 185.

120. See above, Chapters 2, pp. 104-105; 3, pp. 116-119; and 4, pp. 143, 163; and the current chapter, pp. 191-193. For Medusa and Pygmalion in the petrose, see also Mazzotta 1979 284-287.

121. In Genealogie 10.9, Boccaccio (following a gloss of Arnulfus of Orléans) "demystifies" the Medusa's petrifying power as the paralyzing effect of great beauty (Boccaccio 1951 2:496): "Quod autem prospectantes in saxa converterent, ob id fictum existimo, quia tam grandis esset earum pulchritudo, quod eis visis obstupescerent intuentes, et muti atque immobiles non aliter quam essent saxei devenirent."

122. Ovid Metamorphoses 4.793-802; esp. 800-801: "neve hoc inpune fuisset, / Gorgoneum crinem turpes mutavit in hydros."

123. We thank Rachel Jacoff for this suggestion.

124. The link is the more striking in Mss. Ba and Ce of the Roman de la rose, where a passage of fifty-two lines describing the Medusa directly precedes the tale of Pygmalion; see Freccero 1986 127, 303. In Ovid, the Gorgon is a maker of instant statues; see Barkan 1981 646.

125. Ovid Metamorphoses 10.238-298; see also the Roman de la rose, lines 20755-21236. Among the numerous parallels between the texts of the petrose and the narrative of Pygmalion in the Roman, the most striking is in lines 20817 and 20823: "Pygmalions, uns entaillierres / . . . / Car onc de li nus ne l'ot mieudre"; and "Amor, tu vedi ben," 10-12: "mi fa sembiante pur come una donna / che fosse fatta d'una bella petra / per man di quei che me' intagliasse in petra" (see Chapter 4, note 25). The insistence in the Latin narrative on Pygmalion's palping of his statue, both before and after it is brought to life ("saepe manus operi temptantes admovet / . . . / et credit tactis digitos insidere membris / . . . / continue

      manibus quoque pectora temptat," Metamorphoses 10.254, 257, 282), may be related to the sexual meaning of the speaker's hands ( "metterei mano," 65) in the fantasy of "Così nel mio parlar."

126. Both "animating" forces—the poet's persuasive skill, exhibited in all the petrose, and the petition of higher powers (as in "Amor, tu vedi ben")—are reflected in the Pygmalion narrative, where the impression of the statue's life is an effect of the sculptor's skill, her actual animation the result of Pygmalion's prayer to Venus ( Metamorphoses 10.274-275: "Si, di, dare cuncta potestis, / sit coniunx, opto").

127. See the Ovide moralisé 10.3586-3678 (de Boer 1915-38 vol. 15); and Barkan 1981 642. Pygmalion's sculpture adheres closely to the traditional idea, which we have seen expressed in Albertus Magnus and Dante himself, of art or sculpture as the realization in matter of a concept already fully apprehended in the mind; this of course answers to many passages in the petrose, and constitutes the principal hidden premise that makes poetry an activity parallel to sculpture: see "la mente mia, ch'è più dura che petra / in tener forte imagine di petra" ("Io son venuto," 12-13); "Io porto nel la mente donna" ("Amor, tu vedi ben," 61).

128. For this interpretation, which is based on a reading of the Roman de la rose (which compares Pygmalion to Narcissus), see Robertson 1963 99-103.

129. Although most nearly explicit in the reference to a sculptor in "Amor, tu vedi ben," the petrosa that shows the greatest number of parallels to the Pygmalion narrative in the Roman de la rose is the final scene of"Così nel mio parlar": aside from generic resemblances involving the lady's unwillingness to hear the lover's suit ("el n'antant riens ne ne sent," 20919) are the striking parallels of the lover's burning as he gazes into the eyes of the petra ("Ancor ne li occhi, ond'escon le faville / che m'infiammano il cor . . . / guarderei presso e fiso" (74-76); cf. "et quant de plus prés la regarde / plus art son queur" (21131-32); also the verse of the lady as one "che m' invola / quello ond'io ho più gola" (80-81) and Pygmalion's reference to the statue as "la bele qui mon cuer m' anble " (21097).

130. Of course, Dante's petra "parla e sente come fosse donna"—but this means merely that the poet departs from the premise of a woman whose cruelty has made her, though alive, seem like stone. Indeed, Dante's line seems to almost precisely invert the terms of Jean de Meun's "sourde et mue / qui ne se crole ne se mue"; and note also Boccaccio's wording for the Medusa's admirers: "muti atque immobiles."

131. "Al poco giorno" and "Io son venuto" are also recalled in the rich rhyme and derivative rhyme on ombra at 31.140-144 ( ingombra, adombra; cf. "Io son venuto," 9-10: ombra, ingombra ). Indeed, the whole scene, with Beatrice revealing her mouth to the pilgrim while the heavens harmonize ("armonizzando il ciel," 31.144), is a transformation of the congedo of "Al poco giorno," with the rhyme-words ordered hierarchically and the lady presented as a second sun. For the parallel of barbato ("Al poco giorno," 4) with dibarba (31.70), see SturmMaddox 1987 132.

132. In addition to the crossbow ( balestra, 31.16), see the strale of 31.48, the continue

      rete and saetta of 31.63, the armi of 31.117; also the pageant as an army ("glorioso essercito," 32.17) and Beatrice as an admiral ( ammiraglio, 30.58).

133. For the lover's petrified mind, see "Io son venuto," 12 ("la mente mia ch'è più dura che petra"); but see also Purgatorio 33.79-80, where it is Beatrice who seals the pilgrim's mind indelibly, "che la figura impressa non tramuta." For echoes of "Io son venuto" in 30.85, see Chapter 6, note 33.

134. For impetra ("Così," 3), see 30.133 ("nè l'impetrare spirazion mi valse"). Nuda ("Così," 4, 8, 9: cruda, ignuda, chiuda ) is at 33.100, 102, 104: nude (of parole ), rude, conchiude. Atra ( atre, 30.54, rhyming with patre and matre ) echoes "Così," 54, 55, 58, 59: squatra, atra, latra, latra. Atre, with vowels interchanged, gives ( p)etra —not an arbitrary observation in view of the close phonetic, sometimes anagrammatic relationships linking many of the words in the petrose (e.g., sordamente, rodermi: "Così," 23, 25). Sturm-Maddox (1987) builds her case for a palinodic evocation of the rime petrose in Purgatorio 30-31 around Beatrice's use of the term pargoletta (31.59) as reference to "Io son venuto," 72. Sturm-Maddox is, however, prudently aware of the lack of specificity of this designation, which occurs elsewhere in Dante's lyrics, and cautions (p. 127): "The pargoletta is the marker of a textual presence, not that of an historical presence."

135. In Paradiso 7.14, Dante disassembles Beatrice's name into the two halves of her nickname, Bice —BE and ICE ("pur per Be e per ice ")—suppressing the -atr core; the pointed alliterativeness of this passage seems specifically to recall Beatrice's oddly stuttering self-announcement in Purgatorio 30.73: "'Guardaci ben: ben son, ben son Beatrice."' It is significant that in the only one of Dante's lyrics (outside of the Vita nuova ) that names Beatrice ("Lo doloroso amor" [Dante 1946 67-70]), we find an early excursion into harsh diction (e.g., agro, magro, verses 15, 18); "un vento freddo, da rima petrosa," is Contini's remark (p. 67). Perugi's analysis (1978 70-73) elucidates many of Dante's debts to Arnaut in "Lo doloroso amor."

136. "Amor che ne la mente mi ragiona," 73-86; see Convivi 3.15.19.