1

As we suggested in the Introduction, in the petrose Dante conceived of the stanza form of the canzone as imitating the motion of the heavens. "Io son venuto al punto de la rota" seems to be the first poem in which he endeavored to embody that principle fully. The study of Book 3 of Seneca's Natural Questions (see Durling 1975) seems to have played a particularly important role in this experiment. The most important points of connection are (1) the acting out of cyclic recurrences, patterned especially on the motion of the heavens, as a principle of literary structure; (2) the idea that the life cycle of the speaker is an instance of the cyclicality governing the cosmos; (3) the prominence given the concept of the inversion of an astrological position; and (4) the parallel between the human body and the earth, extended by Dante to the rest of the cosmos. The first of these principles of course underlies all of the petrose; so also, to a certain extent, do the others, but they are most explicit in "Io son venuto."

We begin with the Senecan theme of the cosmic cycles and with Renucci's observation (1958 73) that the successive stanzas of the poem describe winter in the different realms of nature, mentioned in descending order: the heavens; the atmosphere; birds and animals; plants; earth and water. Thus the poem represents—includes—the cosmos as a whole. The stanzas are rigorously parallel. Each consists of three groups of three lines each (we will call them a, b, c ) devoted to the description

of winter, and a fourth group of four lines (we will call it d ) devoted to the state of the lover; the four parts are parallel from stanza to stanza metrically, syntactically, and thematically.^[4] It is not merely that nine lines go to the description of winter; rather, each stanza describes or alludes to one or more cycles proper to the level of nature it describes. Thus (but not exhaustively!):

1 a. the annual cycle of the sun and the daily turning of the sky

b, c. the periods of Venus and Saturn

2 a, b, c. the generation of wind and precipitation

3 a. the seasonal migration of certain birds

b, c. the seasonal apathy of other birds and animals

4a. the seasonal deciduousness of plants

b. evergreens

c. the cycle of generation of plants (flowers)

5 a, b, c. the cyclical movement of waters

In each stanza, furthermore, there is a clearly discernible parallel pattern in the cycles themselves:

1a. Night rises; the sun sets.

b. Venus is veiled and remote.

c. Saturn is strong.

2a. The wind rises,

b. approaches and clouds the sky.

c. Rain and snow fall.

3 a. Migratory birds have flown away.

b. Nonmigratory birds are silent.

c. Other animals are apathetic.

4a. Deciduous foliage has fallen.

b. Evergreen foliage remains.

c. The flowers are dead.

5 a. Earth draws up waters.

b. The road is flooded.

c. The ground freezes.

To take part a first, in 1a there is both a rising and a setting; thereafter rising predominates (except for 4a). In part b, the emphasis is on im-

mobility. In parts 1c and 5c the emphasis is on the increasing immobility of things, but in 2c, 3c, and 4c the motion is downward.

Thus, although Dante has avoided a monotonous identity of pattern, the description of winter in each stanza follows a similar pattern: (a) upward motion; (b) motionlessness or ineffectiveness of what is above; (c) descent. This pattern is that of a half-cycle, closely related to Dante's conception of the "arc of life," which Bruno Nardi showed to be parallel to the presence of the sun above the horizon and its nightly disappearance.^[5] it can hardly escape notice that, just as the successive stanzas concern progressively lower realms of nature, so the high and low points of each stanza are lower and lower as we move through the poem. Starting with the heavens, our eye moves in a descending series of half-circles that implies a descending spiral. In view of the explicit theme of the poem, the explanation is not far to seek: the pattern of the parallel stanzas is an imitation of the gradually descending path of the sun as it nears the winter solstice; each day the sun rises a little later and a little farther to the south, crosses the meridian at noon a little lower in the sky, and sets a little earlier and, again, farther to the south.

The last stanza introduces one of the important "scientific" notions we discussed in the Introduction, the idea that when it has been frozen for a sufficiently long time, ice turns to crystal:

la terra fa un suol che par di smalto, 
e l'acqua morta si converte in vetro 
per la freddura che di fuor la serra . . .

Used of the landscape that surrounds the speaker, which we of course understand to be Italian, probably Florentine, these terms are hyperbolic or metaphorical, for crystal was supposed to be formed in the far north or perhaps in the Alps; but the reference to the doctrine is clear. Common to the passages on the formation of crystal and other stones is the idea that cold is a form of pressure exerted on things: a compound becomes stone when the cold has, as it were, squeezed out all the air (Seneca) or moisture (Albertus); Dante has "la freddura che di fuor la serra." In this context of ideas, the descending spiral of the sun, by which the cold increases, is like the turning of a great press, gradually increasing its enormous pressure to cause the compression and hardening of the waters in the last stanza.^[6]

The descent through nature of the five stanzas of the poem thus involves something much more interesting than a static hierarchical rela-

tion or the mechanical following out of a topos. The gradual increase in pressure from stanza to stanza derives from a carefully controlled set of gradations. For instance, the descent through the successive realms of the cosmos, since it is a movement from the outer spheres toward the center, is a movement into ever greater enclosure: the heavens enclose the whole; the atmosphere encloses the earth; the birds live in the air but animals on the ground; and so on. Particularly in the first two stanzas, the idea of enclosure is given great prominence.

Now in describing the effect of winter in successively lower realms, the poem is imitating the pouring down into the sublunary of the influence of the heavenly bodies, especially, as we have seen, that of Capricorn, Saturn, and Mars. This is true both of the sequence of the five stanzas and of the structure of each stanza in itself; for in each stanza what we might call an upper part (a, b, and c ) concerns the heavens or the product of their influence, and a lower part (d ) concerns the lover on whom all these influences are impinging. This is not merely a thematic imitation, as we have seen: the daily rotation of the heavens, which brings the sun closer and closer to solstice as it moves along the ecliptic, is imitated in the repetitive cyclic structure of the upper part of each stanza.

One formal peculiarity of the stanzas is particularly interesting, the relation of the change in subject matter to the diesis, the change of "melody" of the stanza. Formally, the relation of part d, where the state of the lover is introduced, to the rest of the stanza is somewhat anomalous. In the terminology of the De vulgari eloquentia, parts a and b constitute the two pedes of the stanza, consisting of six hendecasyllables rhyming ABC.ABC; parts c and d are the sirma with concatenatio, rhyming CDEeDFF ; all but one line are hendecasyllables (line 10 is a settenario). The anomaly consists in the fact that although the diesis—the major formal division of the stanza—occurs after line 6, it is only in part d, at line 10, that the topic of the speaker's opposition to the rest of nature, which is the major shift in subject matter, is brought in. In other words, there is a dissonance between the formal and the logical organization of the stanza, since one would expect the topic to change at the beginning of the sirma. The winter encroaches, as it were, on the sirma, comes down into it.^[7]

This invasion of the sirma by the winter is a formal correlative of the theme of the invasion of the poet's spirit. But part d is introduced by the one settenario in the stanza, and the shortness of that settenario,

along with the fact that it rhymes with the immediately preceding line, and especially the emphasis with which the speaker's solitary opposition to the cold is introduced, give the turn to part d very much the feeling of the diesis, the major turn, of a stanza. The speaker achieves, as it were, only a delayed diesis, or a subdiesis; yet it is a powerful one.^[8]

As we said in the Introduction, Dante's new poetics involves a certain self-division. "Io son venuto" is a particularly clear case of this: in the first part of each stanza, in order to represent the forces that seem arrayed against him, the poet must identify himself with them, he must imitate them; and he does so, as one might say, icastically—that is, by means of visual representations—and, equally important, by enacting analogous motions and cycles. Then in each stanza the other pole of the lover's struggle with the season comes into focus.

At the solstice, all things may seem to come to frozen immobility in a way that mirrors the paired impasse between the lover and the lady. But the rigidity of winter is only temporary; further rotation of the heavenly wheel will eventually bring spring. As a matter of fact, as Dante knew, it is in Sagittarius and Capricorn that the sun seems to move fastest along the ecliptic.^[9] By symbolically acting out the descent to solstice, the poem seeks to move the lady past the solstice of her rejection, to turn her toward springtime. "Io son venuto" represents the first half of a pattern of descent followed by ascent—katabasis followed by anabasis—that will be more fully explored in "Così nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro."

One of the most important aspects of the poet's opposition to the season is of course his writing of the poem itself. Part d of the first four stanzas and of the congedo represents love as a burden that the lover cannot cast off despite the season:

Insofar as "Io son venuto" is dominated by the idea of winter, it explores, of the two motions of the heavens (those of the Same and the Other), the effects specifically due to the motion of the Other. Each stanza brings not only the description of the effects of cold as such, but also explicit references to the annual cycle of the sun and the revolutions of the other planets. The motion of the Other is opposed by the motion of the Same, which carries the entire heavens with it and produces the diurnal cycle of day and night. The poem powerfully exploits the juxtaposition of these two principles. For instance, in stanza 1, sunset and the rising of stars are phenomena caused by the diurnal turning of the heavens (i.e., the motion of the Same); the presence of Gemini in the night sky and the positions of Venus and the sun in Capricorn and of Saturn on the Tropic result from the diverse motions of the Other. In stanza 3, the striking reference to the seven gelid stars' also refers to the diurnal motion of the Same.

Particularly interesting is the third stanza, where the independence of the poet's love from the turning of time is contrasted with the silence of birds and animals:

      Fuggito è ogne augel che 'l caldo segue 
del paese d'Europa, che non perde 
le sette stelle gelide unquemai . . . 
           (27–29)

The migration of birds is contrasted with the fixity of the northern stars, those of the Great Bear, which are never lost, never set, over Europe. Such lesser species as migrant birds may escape the cold, but not the lover: he is fixed. The sphere of the fixed stars, in its daily turning, is kept before us in this reminder that the northern stars (unlike the sun of stanza 1) never set. At the center of the poem, then, we are presented with the fixed axis of the cosmos, just as in the outermost stanzas we see (in stanza 1) the ecliptic and the Tropic and (in stanza 5) the center of the earth, the other extreme.

   e li altri han posto a le lor voce triegue 
per non sonarle infino al tempo verde 
se ciò non fosse per cagion di guai; 
     e tutti li animali che son gai 
di lor natura, son d'amor disciolti, 
però che 'l freddo lor spiriti ammorta: 
e 'l mio più d'amor porta . . . 
           (30–36)

The stanza is carefully gradated: from the (evasive) activity of migrant birds, to the silence of the remaining birds, to the extinguishing of the fiery spirit in the other animals. The terms apply, per antithesin, to the poet: the poet's love is not extinguished, his burden is increased; he does not flee but stays with the cold stars; there is no truce (triegua ) for him (cf. guerra in the next stanza). And—most important—he is not silent: that is, he is singing—writing the poem. Thus, the central stanza of the poem correlates love as a burden, the turning of the sky, and the poet's song—contrasted with the (absent) songs of the birds.

Closely following on "e 'l mio più d'amor porta" comes the parallel (it is implicit, but strongly operative nonetheless, and it, too, is based on troubadour tradition)^[10] between the poet's song and the blossoming of the world in the springtime:

        Passato hanno lor termine le fronde 
che trasse fuor la virtù d'Arïete . . . 
           (40–41)

We have already discussed the correlation of the cycles of this stanza with the larger cycles of the speaker's life (and death). What concerns us here is the contrast/parallel between the birth of the leaves and flowers "che trasse fuor la virtù d'Arïete" and the poem itself; for it is in part the virtù di Capricorno (or of Saturn in Gemini) that is drawing forth the new poetry. The explicit parallel in this stanza is between the foliage and the spina, the thorn of love; equally important is the implicit parallel between the foliage and the poem: the poet is now bringing forth, in this winter, more than the perhaps facile poetics of spring formerly allowed him to do.

The writing of the poem itself, then, is one of the most important forms of the speaker's opposition to the universal cold. Both as lover and as poet he is the same in winter as in the other seasons. As Plato had said, and as the tradition agreed, the principle of identity is superior to

the principle of diversity, is in fact its source. The emphasis on the sameness of the speaker's love identifies him with the superior principle, and stanzas 3 and 4 explicitly refer to the speaker's superiority to time—

ché li dolzi pensier' non mi son tolti 
né mi son dati per volta di tempo 
           (37–38)

and to the possibility of immortality—

per ch'io son fermo di portarla sempre 
ch'io sarò in vita, s'io vivesse sempre. 
           (51–52)

In "Io son venuto," then, the poet's effort to confront the complexities of his nature and to represent them in their cosmic context is a struggle to achieve identification with the Same. Of course, the problem is not simple, for to the extent that the speaker's love is an expression of the influence of Saturn and other planets, it results from the motion of the Other, not that of the Same. Furthermore, passion and sexual desire almost by definition resist the higher principle of identity—rationality.^[11] The issue is whether or not a synthesis is possible. But now we must examine the astrology of the poem.