Guido Cavelcanti POEMS AND MORE
Giacomo Da (di) Lentino (lentini)
First significant poet of the Sicialian School and “creator(?)” of the sonnet
I have seen the clear sky produce rain,
and darkness give off light,
and burning fire turn to ice,
and cold snow give off heat:
And sweet things become so bitter,
and bitterness produce sweetness,
and two enemies remain at peace,
and between two friends hatred arise.
But with love I have seen something even stranger:
for I was stricken, and it cured me by striking;
with fire it extinguished the fire that burned me.
The life it gave me was my death;
from the fire which it extinguished, I now burn:
for so strongly did love attract me that I find no peace.
Guido Guinizelli—Author of the primordial poem: “Al Cor Gentil”
Love always returns to a noble heart
Like a bird to the green in the forest.
Nature did not make love before the noble heart,
Nor the noble heart before love.
As soon as the sun appeared,
Brightness shone forth,
But it did not exist before the sun.
And love takes its place in true nobility
As rightly
As heat in the brightness of fire.
Love’s fire kindles in the noble heart,
Like the power of a precious stone
Whose potency does not descend from the star
Until the sun makes it a noble object:
After the sun has drawn out
Everything base with its own force,
The star confers its power on it.
In such a way, a lady,
Like the star, transforms the heart
Chosen by Nature and made pure and noble.
Love remains in the noble heart for the same reason
That fire shines on the tip of a candle
Clear and refined in its own delight.
Nor could it be any other way—it is so proud.
Thus a baser nature
Opposes love, just as water quenches
Burning fire with its coldness.
Love takes its place in the noble heart
As its rightful dwelling
Like a diamond in a vein of ore.
The sun strikes the mud all day long;
Yet it remains base and the sun’s heat is undiminished.
A proud man says, “A am made noble by birth.”
I liken him to the mud and noble worth to the sun.
No man should believe
That nobility exists outside the heart
By right of lineage,
Unless he has a noble heart disposed to virtue,
Just as water carries the sun’s rays
And the sky holds the stars and their brightness.
God the creator shines in the intelligence
Of the heavens, more than even the sun in our etes.
It understands its maker who is beyond the sky
And, turning in the sky, prepares to obey him;
And much as the blessed realization
Of the just God follows instantly,
So truly should the beautiful lady,
When she shines in the eyes of her noble lover,
Inspire a wish that he will never
Cease in his obedience to her.
Lady, God will say to me when my soul
Stands before him, “How could you presume?
You went past heaven, coming finally to me,
And tried to compare me to a vain love.
All praises are due to me alone
And to the queen of this noble realm
Through whom all evil ends.”
But I shall say to him, “She had the likeness
Of an angel from your kingdom.
It’s not my fault I fell in love with her
Guido Cavalcanti:Dante’s “Primo Amico”
Fresca Rosa Novella
[Not my translation]
New rose, miracle,
pleasing Primavera,
through fields and rivulets
gaily singing
I commend your worth to everything becoming green.
Let your excellence
be sung anew in joy
by every man and boy
on every street:
and let the birds sing about it,
each in its own tongue,
evening and morning,
among the green bushes.
Let the whole world sing---
for spring comes forth---
as it is right,
of your exaltation:
for you are mortal made as angel.
The likeness of an angel
rests upon you lady;
God, how lucky
was my desire!
Your joyous look,
as it surpasses
nature and everything that we are used to---
it is a miraculous thing.
Among themselves the women call
you goddess, as you are:
so beautiful are you when you appear,
I cannot describe it:
whose thought could reach beyond nature?
Beyond human nature
God created
your beauty, that you should be
in essence pre-eminent.
Therefore, may your presence
be not beyond me,
or your gentle wisdom
cruel to me.
And if it seems out of all degree
that I should be given to loving you,
do not blame me:
for it is love alone that forces me
that no force can withstand, and no restraint.
In Un Boschetto
In a little wood I found a shepherd girl
She seemed to me more beautiful than a star.
Her hair was blond and curled about her,
Her eyes were full of love, her skin like a rose.
With her little staff, she tended her lambs,
barefoot, wet with dew,
she sang as one in love,
and she was crowned with every beauty.
I greeted her at once, in the name of love
and asked if she had a companion,
and she answered me soft and sweet
that she was wandering the woods alone, alone,
and she said, “Do you know, when the bird chirps,
then my heart longs to have a friend.”
When she had told me of her heart’s desire
and I heard birds sing through all the wood,
I said to myself, “Now it is time
to take pleasure with this shepherd girl.”
I asked her one favor only,
to kiss and embrace, if that was her wish.
She took me by the hand, longing to love,
and said she had given me her heart;
She led me under the leaves to cool shadows
where I saw flowers of every color,
and I felt such joy and sweetness
that I seemed to see the god of love.
Dante’s early lyric to His Friends Guido and Lapo
Guido I wish that you and Lapo and I
could be carried off by enchantment
and put together into one boat, that, in any wind,
would run through the sea, following your will or mine.
so that neither fortune nor foul weather
would be able to hold us back,
and living together always in one spirit
our desire to share would grow ever greater.
And Mylady Vanna and Mylady Lageia, and she
who is signified by the number thirty
would be put with us by that good enchanter:
and there to speak always of love,
and each of them would be content,
as I think we would be.