Arnaut Daniel de Riberac (today Arnaut Danièl) was an Occitan troubadour of the 12th century, praised by Dante as "il miglior fabbro" (the best craftsman/creator, literally "the best smith") and called "Grand Master of Love" by Petrarch. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan A troubadour ( IPA:, originally) was a composer and performer of Occitan Lyric poetry during the High Middle Ages (1100&ndash1350 Francesco Petrarca ( July 20, 1304 – July 19, 1374) known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar In the 20th century he was lauded by Ezra Pound as the greatest poet to have ever lived in his work The Spirit of Romance (1910). The twentieth century of the Common Era began on Ezra Weston Loomis Pound ( Hailey, Idaho Territory, United States October 30 1885 – Venice, Italy November 1 1972 was an American Expatriate
According to one vida, Daniel was born of a noble family at the castle of Ribérac in Périgord; however, the scant contemporary sources point to him being a jester with pernicious economic troubles. Ribérac (Rabairac is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France. The Périgord ( ( Occitan: Peiregòrd / Perigòrd) is a former province of France, which corresponds roughly to the current Dordogne Raimon de Durfort calls him "a student, ruined by dice and shut-the-box". He was the inventor of the sestina, a song of six stanzas of six lines each, with the same end words repeated in every stanza, though arranged in a different and intricate order. A sestina (also sextina, sestine, or sextain) is a highly structured Poem consisting of six six-line Stanzas followed by a Tercet In Poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger Poem. In modern poetry the term is often equivalent with Strophe; in popular vocal music a stanza is Longfellow claims he was also the author of the metrical romance of Lancillotto, or Launcelot of the Lake, but this claim is completely unsubstantiated; Dante's reference to Daniel as the author of prose di romanzi ("proses of romance") remains, therefore, a mystery.
In Dante's The Divine Comedy, Arnaut Daniel appears as a character doing penance in Purgatory for lust. The Divine Comedy See also Intermediate state Limbo|Heaven|Sheol|Hades in Christianity|Hell in Christianity Purgatory, in the original sense is the condition or process of purification He responds in Occitan to the narrator's question about who he is:
- «Tan m'abellis vostre cortes deman,
- qu'ieu no me puesc ni voill a vos cobrire. Occitan ( IPA BrE: /ˈɒksɪtn/ AmE: /ˈɑksəˌtɑn/ known also as Lenga d'òc or Langue d'oc (native name occitan
- 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»
- (Purg. , XXVI, 140-147)
Translation:
- "Your courteous question pleases me so,
- that I cannot and will not hide from you.
- I am Arnaut, who weeping and singing go;
- Contrite I see the folly of the past,
- And, joyous, I foresee the joy I hope for one day.
- Therefore do I implore you, by that power
- Which guides you to the summit of the stairs,
- Remember my suffering, in the right time. "
In homage to these lines which Dante gave to Daniel, the European edition of T. S. Eliot's second volume of poetry was titled Ara Vos Prec. Thomas Stearns Eliot, OM (September 26 1888 – January 4 1965 was a poet Dramatist, and Literary critic. Eliot's poem The Waste Land opens and closes with references to Dante and Daniel. The Waste Land ( 1922) is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T The Waste Land is dedicated to Pound as "il miglior fabbro" which is what Dante had called Daniel. The Waste Land ( 1922) is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T The poem also contains a reference to Canto XXVI in the line "Poi s'ascose nel foco che gli affina" ("Then hid him in the fire that purifies them"), which immediately follows them in to end Dante's Canto, and appears in Eliot's closing section of The Waste Land. The Waste Land ( 1922) is a highly influential 434-line modernist poem by T
Arnaut's 4th canto (see "Arnaut Daniel: Complete Works" external link below) contains the lines that Pound claimed were "the three lines by which Daniel is most commonly known" (The Spirit of Romance, p. 36):
- "leu sui Arnaut qu'amas l'aura
- E chatz le lebre ab lo bou
- E nadi contra suberna"
Translation:
- "I am Arnaut who loves the wind,
- And chases the hare with the ox,
- And swims against the torrent. "
There are sixteen extant lyrics of Arnaut Daniel; there is music for at least one of them, but it was composed at least a century after the poet's death by an anonymous author. No original melody has survived.
The lycée in modern day Ribérac is named for Arnaut Daniel. Ribérac (Rabairac is a commune in the Dordogne department in Aquitaine in southwestern France.
References
- Eusebi, Mario (1995). L'aur'amara. Parma: Pratiche Editrice. ISBN 88-7380-294-X.
- Pound, Ezra (1910). The Spirit of Romance. New Direction Books (1968 reprinting).
See also
External links
- Arnaut Daniel: Complete Works (in English and Provençal)
Dapyx Software network: MP3 Explorer | Ebook Manager | Zenithic