Toynbee "Arnaldo Daniello"

Arnaut Daniel, who flourished as a poet between 1180 and c. 1210, belonged to a noble family of Ribeyrac in Périgord (in the modern department of Dordogne). Little is known of his life. He appears to have been a personal friend of the famous Bertran de Born. He spent much of his time at the court of Richard Coeur de Lion (the king of Dover, 'lo reis de Dobra', as he calls him); he visited Paris, where he attended the coronation of Philip Augustus ('al coronar fui del bon rei d'Estampa'), as well as Spain, and perhaps Italy. His works, such as they have been preserved, consist of eighteen lyrical poems, one satirical, the rest amatory. The tenor of one of these, which forms part of a poetical controversy with two other troubadours concerning the conduct of a certain lady, sufficiently accounts for the place in Purgatory assigned to him by D. [See U. A. Canello ed., La vita e le opere del trovatore Arnaldo Daniello (Halle, 1883); for critical re-edition, see R. Lavaud ed., Lcs poésies d'Arnaut Daniel (Toulouse, 1910).]

Arnaut is said to have been the originator of the sestina, a form of composition which D. imitated from him, as he himself tells us in the {VE. II. x. 2}:

. . . huiusmodi stantia usus est fere in omnibus cantionibus suis Arnaldus Danielis, et nos eum secuti sumus cum diximus: Al poco iorno e al gran cerchio d'ombra [Rime ci].

D. regarded him pre-eminently as the poet of love:

. . . hec tria, Salus videlicet, Venus et Virtus, apparent esse illa magnalia que sint maxime pertractanda, hoc est ea que maxime sunt ad ista, ut armorum probitas, amoris accensio, et directio voluntatis. Circa que sola, si bene recolimus, illustres viros invenimus vulgariter poetasse, scilicet Bertramum de Bornio, arma Arnaldum Danielem, amorem; Gerardum de Bornello rectitudinem; Cinum Pistoriensem, amorem, amicum eius, rectitudinem. (V.E. II. ii. 8, V.E. II. ii. 9.)

He is mentioned as having employed a stanza without refrain and without rime, wherein D. copied him, V.E. II. x. 2, V.E. II. xiii. 2; the first lines of three of his poems are quoted V.E. II. ii. 9 (No. ix in Canello ed.); V.E. II. vi. 6 (No. xv); and V.E. II. xiii. 2 (No. xvii).

Arnaut is pre-eminent as a poet in the style of trobar clus, with the result that his poems are not easy to understand, and even in Dante's own time were regarded as difficult and obscure, as appears from the old Provençal biography:

Arnautz Daniels si fo d'aquella encontrada don fo N'Arnautz de Meruoill, de l'evesquat de Peiregors, d'un castel que a nom Ribaurac, e fo gentils hom. Et amparet ben letras e delectet se en trobar. Et abandonet las letras, et fetz se joglars, e prcs una maniera de trobar en caras rimas, per que soas cansons no son leus ad entendre ni ad aprendre.

Petrarch gives Arnaut the first place among love-poets who were not natives of Italy:

. . . e poi v'era un drappello
di portamenti e di volgari strani:
fra tutti il primo Arnaldo Daniello,
gran maestro d'amor, ch'a la sua terra
ancor fa onor col suo dir strano e bello. ({Petrach. Trionfi. iv. 38-42}.)

Gaston Paris in 'Etudes sur les Romans de la Table Ronde', Romania, x (1881), 478-479, gives the following description of the characteristics of Arnaut's poetry:

Arnaut Daniel est un troubadour de la fin du xiie siècle, dont il nous est resté dix-sept chansons, d'un style très travaillé, très particulier et très obscur, il est par excellence le maître du trobar clus, de cet art singulier où on estimait en seconde ligne la difficulté de composition pour le poète, et en première la difficulté de compréhension pour l'auditeur. Ce genre, qui nous paraît rebutant et puéril, avait certains mérites dont le plus grand était, en donnant à chaque mot une importance exagérée, de préparer la création du style expressif, concis, propre et personnel qui devait se produire avec un incomparable éclat dans la Devine Comédie. Aussi Dante admirait-il profondément Arnaut Daniel qu'il avait certainement étudié à fond. Dans un passage célèbre du Purgatoire, il le déclare bien supérieur à Giraut de Borneil, que lui préfère la vaine opinion du vulgaire. Nous sommes aujourd'hui de l'avis du vulgaire et le jugement de Dante a surpris tous les critiques modernes.

The expression used by D. of Arnaut, Versi d'amore e prose di romanzi / soverchiò tutti ([Purg. xxvi. 118-119]), has been misunderstood by some of the commentators as meaning that A. surpassed every one both in versi d'amore and in prose di romanzi, that is to say that he was preeminent as a writer both of love verse and prose romances, an interpretation which appears to have been due to some extent to an error of Tasso and Pulci, who attribute to A. the authorship of a Lancilotto and a Rinaldo. There is no evidence, however, that he wrote any romances in prose or verse and there is little doubt that the real meaning of D.'s phrase is that suggested by the comment of Buti, viz. that A. surpassed all writers of love-verse and prose-romance, that is to say -- having regard to D.'s statement in the V.E. I. x. 2) that everything in vernacular prose, whether translated or original, was in French -- that A. was superior to all who wrote either in Provençal or in French. [See P. Toynbee, 'Dante and Arnaut Daniel: A Note on "Purg.", xxvi, 118', Academy (Apr. 13, 1889), 256 (reprinted in his SR, pp 262-265)]

D. puts into the mouth of Arnaut eight lines of Provençal ([Purg. xxvi. 140-147]) -- in order, says Benvenuto, to show that he had some knowledge of everything -- with which, as was to be expected, the copyists have played havoc. The accepted text of the Società Dantesca reads as follows:

'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.
Ara vos prec, per aquella valor
que vos guida al som de l'escalina,
sovenha vos a temps de ma dolor!'

['Your courteous request so pleases me that I cannot and will not conceal myself from you. I am Arnaut who weep and sing as I go. Sadly I look back on my past folly, and joyously to the hoped-for day ahead. Now, by that Power which guides you to the top of this stairway, I pray you be mindful of my pain betimes.']

Several stories are told of Arnaut: the old Provençal biographer gives an account of a trick he played upon another troubadour while at the court of Richard Coeur de Lion; and Benvenuto relates how he supported himself in his old age, and how he ended his days as a monk:

. . . iste magnus inventor fuit quidam provincialis tempore Raymundi Berengerii boni comitis provinciae nomine Arnaldus, cognomine vero Daniel, vir quidem curialis, prudens et sagax, qui invenit multa et pulera dicta vulgaria; a quo Petrarcha fatebatur sponte se accepisse modum et stilum cantilenae de quatuor rhythmis, et non a Dante. Hic, dum senuisset in paupertate, fecit cantilenam pulcerrimam, quam misit per nuntium suum ad regem Franciae, Angliae, et ad alios principes occidentis, rogans, ut quemadmodum ipse cum persona juverat eos delectatione, ita ipsi cum fortuna sua juvarent eum utilitate. cum autem nuntius post hoc reportasset multam pecuniam, dixit Arnaldus: Nunc video, quod Deus non vult me derelinquere. Et continuo sumpto habitu monastico parcissimae vitae semper fuit.