THE ‘DE VULGARI ELOQUIO’: ITS HISTORY AND AUTHENTICATION—ITS IMPORTANCE, AND THE SCANTY RECOGNITION THEREOF—ABSTRACT OF ITS CONTENTS: THE “VULGAR TONGUE” AND “GRAMMAR”—THE NATURE, ETC., OF THE GIFT OF SPEECH—DIVISION OF CONTEMPORARY TONGUES, AND OF THE SUBDIVISIONS OF ROMANCE—THE ‘ITALIAN DIALECTS’: SOME REJECTED AT ONCE—OTHERS: SICILIAN, APULIAN, TUSCAN, AND GENOESE—VENETIAN: SOME GOOD IN BOLOGNESE—THE “ILLUSTRIOUS” LANGUAGE NONE OF THESE, BUT THEIR COMMON MEASURE—ITS FOUR CHARACTERISTICS—THE SECOND BOOK: WHY DANTE DEALS WITH POETRY ONLY—ALL GOOD POETRY SHOULD BE IN THE “ILLUSTRIOUS”—THE SUBJECTS OF HIGH POETRY: WAR, LOVE, VIRTUE—ITS FORM: CANZONI—DEFINITION OF POETRY—ITS STYLES, AND THE CONSTITUENTS OF THE GRAND STYLE—“SUPERBIA CARMINUM”—“CONSTRUCTIONIS ELATIO”—“EXCELLENTIA VERBORUM”—“PEXA ET HIRSUTA”—THE CANZONE—IMPORTANCE OF THIS BOOK—INDEPENDENCE AND NOVELTY OF ITS METHOD—DANTE’S ATTENTION TO FORM—HIS DISREGARD OF ORATORY—THE INFLUENCE ON HIM OF ROMANCE, AND OF COMPARATIVE CRITICISM—THE POETICAL DIFFERENTIA ACCORDING TO HIM—HIS ANTIDOTE TO THE WORDSWORTHIAN HERESY—HIS HANDLING OF METRE—OF DICTION—HIS STANDARDS OF STYLE—THE “CHAPTER OF THE SIEVE”—THE “PEXA”—THE “HIRSUTA”—OTHER CRITICAL “LOCI” IN DANTE: THE EPISTLE TO CAN GRANDE—THE “CONVITO”—DANTE ON TRANSLATION—ON LANGUAGE AS SHOWN IN PROSE AND VERSE—FINAL REMARKS ON HIS CRITICISM.

Many are the fortunes of books and the curiosities of them: but there are few which exceed, in curiosity of many kinds, the history, character, and fate of the treatise variously entitled De Vulgari Eloquentia and De Vulgari Eloquio, and attributed generally, if not universally, to Dante Alighieri.^[547] Its mere history is unusual. In the fifth chapter of the first book of |The De Vulgari Eloquio. Its history and authentication.| the Convito, Dante says that he shall speak elsewhere more fully, on the subject of Latin and the Vernacular, in a book which, D.V., he intends to write on Volgare Eloquenza. Boccaccio further says that very near his death he did write it, and the statement is confirmed by Villani. These mentions give it us as written in Latin prose and in two books, but after them we hear nothing about it. In 1529 the poet and dramatist Trissino printed at Vicenza an Italian translation of it, not under his own name, but under that of Giovan Battista Doria. No indication was given that this was not the original, and for a time it was taken as such. But in 1577 Jacopo Corbinelli published, at Paris, the Latin Text. The MS. which he used, and which for centuries was supposed to be unique, appears to be that rediscovered at Grenoble in 1840, and published in facsimile by MM. Maignien and Prompt in 1892; but there are two other early MSS. One of these, belonging to the Trivulzi, is taken to be as old, perhaps, as the Grenoble, both not improbably being older than 1400. A third, at the Vatican, is a century younger, but still some twenty years older than the first printed (and translated) edition. The usual difficulties have been started over these facts, and over some supposed contradictions between the treatise and Dante’s more certain work. But these concern us little, and may be sought, by those who want them, in the editions of the book. It is sufficient to say that few books have a better external testimony, and that the internal difficulties (some of which will be referred to later) are quite insignificant.

We may take it then on its own showing; and, without haggling about dates, be reasonably confident that it was written |Its importance.| after Dante’s banishment, and of course before his death—that is to say, in the opening years of the fourteenth century. Forgery is practically out of the question, for, as has been said, the oldest manuscripts are some century and a quarter older than Trissino’s version, and there could be no conceivable reason why any one late in the fourteenth century—even if he had the wits to forge such a thing, which is begging a huge question—should have abstained from reaping the sole advantage derivable from such a forgery by making it known as Dante’s. We take it, then—and may take it with confidence very nearly if not completely absolute—as in two different ways a document of the very highest value, even before its intrinsic worth is considered at all. In the first place, there is the importance of date, which gives us in it the first critical treatise on the literary use of the vernacular, at exactly the point when the various vernaculars of Europe had finished, more or less, their first stage. Secondly, there is the importance of authorship, in that we have, as is hardly anywhere else the case, the greatest creative writer, not merely of one literature but of a whole period of the European world, betaking himself to criticism. If Shakespeare had written the Discoveries instead of Ben Jonson, the only possible analogue would have been supplied. Even Homer could not have given us a third, for he could hardly have had the literature to work upon.

As a matter of fact, however, the book, as I shall hope to show, would be of almost the highest interest if it were anonymous. |And the scanty recognition thereof.| Its intrinsic value has been by no means universally recognised: indeed I hardly know any editor or critic of Dante who has put it in quite its right place. This is, I venture in all humility to think, due mainly to the fact that the historic estimate of criticism in general has hitherto been so rarely taken, and so scantily based. But there are minor reasons. In the first place, the book, except by professed Dantists, has been very little studied.^[548] And in the second, what I shall endeavour to prove to be its greatest value may, in the curious critical prejudices which still prevail so largely, have told positively against it. It has shocked people to find the author of the Commedia indulging in grammatical and prosodic scholasticism; and the shocked ones either do not pause to ask, or refuse to answer, the question whether the said scholasticism had not a good deal to do with the quality of the Commedia.

As in the case of other books of importance, we may give a pretty full abstract of the book, which will be all the more desirable in that it is, as has been said, far from well known. The Latin, though not very crabbed, is sometimes peculiar, and some of the terms require careful elucidation.

Dante begins by stating in due form his reasons for writing; the absence of any treatise of the kind, the importance of the |Abstract of its contents: The “Vulgar Tongue” and “Grammar.”| subject, and so forth. He is going to write about the Vulgar Tongue, and this Vulgar Tongue is that which we acquire, without any rule, by imitating our nurses. But, he says, we also have another and secondary speech, which the Romans called Grammar. The Greeks also have it, and other nations, but not all, while comparatively few individuals possess it, because its acquisition means time and trouble. And the Vulgar Tongue is nobler, because it is more natural: so we shall treat of it.

Here a slight crux arises as to what Dante meant by “Grammar”: at least (for the first part of his observations is clear enough) what he meant by saying that “the Greeks have it, and others but not all.”^[549] Are Grammatica and “Latin” interchangeable terms? or does he mean that there was a literary as well as a vernacular form of Greek, and literary as well as vernacular forms of Hebrew, Arabic, &c.? The latter seems to suit the argument best up to a certain point; but it is exposed to the difficulty that, if so, Dante would be trying to make, out of the Vulgars, a Grammatica for Italian, which nowhere seems to have been his intention. But it is no great matter.

He has so far cleared his ground very well; but, to his own orderly and scholastically educated mind, he does not seem to |The nature, &c., of the gift of speech.| have done enough. He lays down in chap. ii. that man alone has intercourse by speech. Angels and animals do not want it, for angels communicate intuitively; devils have no need of it;^[550] to animals^[551] it were useless: and if anybody urges the serpent in Paradise, Balaam’s ass, Ovid in the Metamorphoses about magpies, these objections can be met in various ways. The real power of speech has been given to man alone. He needed it (chap. iii.) because he has both reason and senses, and therefore must have some medium which will convey the discourse of the former in a manner acceptable to the latter. It is probable (chap. v.) that man spoke before woman, though the earliest recorded speech is assigned to Eve: for man is more excellent. And it is probable that the first word he spoke was “El,” “God,” and was addressed to God Himself in Paradise. No doubt (vi.) the language was Hebrew. Foolish people may be driven (had Dante heard of the Gaelic claim?) to believe that their own vernacular was that of Adam. But he knows better. Though he drank of Arno before his teeth appeared, and loves Florence so dearly that for the love he bore her is he wrongfully suffering exile—though for the pleasure of his own senses there exists no pleasanter place than Florence, yet he thinks that there are places in the world nobler and more delightful than Tuscany and Florence, and that many nations and races may use a pleasanter and handier speech. The consideration of the Flood, Babel, and the consequent division of speech (chap, vii.) saddens him very much; but the facts are indisputable.

It is probable that these chapters, coming as they do at the very outset, have, with hasty readers and thinkers, brought some discredit on the book. They exhibit what it used to be, and still is to some extent, the fashion to call the childish side of mediævalism and scholasticism. Every age no doubt has its own childishnesses, and is profoundly convinced that in holding them it has thoroughly put away childish things. I do not myself know that, if it were possible to take a simultaneous horizontal view of the ages, the nineteenth century would be found so very much in advance of the thirteenth in this respect. But putting this aside as matter of separable controversy, we may observe that, in the main body of his argument, Dante is merely arguing, and arguing very sensibly and closely, from premisses which no one educated man in a thousand of his contemporaries would have disputed, and that at the beginning and end there are very notable things. The notable thing at the beginning is the separation of “Grammar” and the “Vulgar Tongue,” and the, at that time, exceedingly bold ascription of greater “nobility” to the latter.^[552] The notable thing at the end is the unexpectedly cosmopolitan character of Dante’s sentiments about the excellence of various countries and their vernaculars. It is true that, for good as well as for evil, there was about Europe then a certain solidarity which has entirely disappeared; but local, as distinct from national, patriotism was as strong, and occasionally as silly, as at any other time. Dante’s own attitude puts us at once into a position for literary criticism which neither Greek nor Roman had enjoyed—the Greek losing it by his arrogant assumption of a solitary literary position for his own tongue, and the Roman partly by his imitation of Greek, partly by the lurking desire to make out that Latin was not so very inferior after all.

At any rate, in the chapter (viii.) which follows, there is no deficiency in what we are pleased to call the scientific spirit; |Division of contemporary tongues.| on the contrary, any one who knows the historical circumstances of the time can only be amazed at the precision, the general justice, and, on the whole, the particular exactness with which Dante, in full Middle Age, surveys the languages of Europe. He is well aware of the threefold general division of language—Teutonic-Slavonic, Turanian or Tartar, and Romance—and assigns the boundaries quite correctly. He is further aware of the divisions of Romance speech itself, and as he had adopted as his criterion of Teutonic speech different forms of “yea” (“jo”) for the word of affirmation, so he uses the same criterion in this case. Of Romance-speaking nations he says, some say “oc,” some “oil,” and some “si.” The first are “Spaniards,” the second Frenchmen, the third Italians. The connection of “Spaniards” and “oc” need excite no surprise. Castilian, though in existence, and already provided with the noble Poema del Cid and other documents, was as yet by no means the dominant language of Spain. In particular, Aragon and Catalonia, which spoke a Provençal dialect, had far more to do with Italy than Castile: Galicia, which all Europe visited in pilgrimage to the shrine of Santiago, also favoured the “oc,” and Provençal was actually later than this the dialect of Portugal, if not of all Spain, for certain literary purposes. And the Spanish kingdom of Aragon was infinitely the most important country that spoke “oc.”

Proceeding, Dante illustrates the relationship of the three tongues by observing that all call most important things (God, |And of the subdivisions of Romance.| heaven, earth, living, dying, loving—the selection is not negligible) by forms of the same Latin originals. In the next chapter he continues the stress on this point, producing literary and poetical quotations, from Provençal (Giraut de Borneil), French (Thibaut of Navarre), and Italian (Guido Guinicelli), of the word Amor; and points out—thus ever drawing nearer, in true methodic way, to his special subject—that the variations between the three great Romance speeches are produced, in each language, by dialectic differences. And he has, on the fact and on the consequent necessity of establishing some common centrical form by Grammar^[553], observations which lack neither truth nor sense. Then, Which is the best of the three Romance forms? He will not say, only timidly advancing for Italian that si is nearest sic. Otherwise, each has strong claims. Oil is not only easier and pleasanter,^[554] but whatever has been composed or translated in vernacular prose belongs to it, the “most fair intricacies of Arthur,”^[555] those of Trojans and Romans, &c. Oc was first employed for poetry, being more finished and sweeter. Italian has the sweetest and most refined poets^[556] of all, and seems to be the closest to “grammar.”^[557]

He will not, however, attempt componere lites^[558], but consider the variations, &c., of the Vulgar Tongue itself—i.e., Italian—though, |The Italian Dialects: Some rejected at once.| as we shall see, he does not hesitate to draw illustrations from the others. He first takes the Apennines as his language-watershed, and allowing fifteen main dialects, not a few of which are sub-divided, he proceeds to examine their claims, clearing away the bad ones. As the Romans think they ought to have precedence^[559] (note the crisp touch of life in this), let us give it them—by kicking their claims out of the way at once.^[560] The alma sdegnosa gives something more than a hint of itself in the description of Roman dialect as a “tristiloquy,” the ugliest of all the vernacular dialects; which is no wonder, since they stink worst of all in the deformity of their customs and morals. The Marchers of Ancona and the Spoletans go next, each of the rejected ones having a scornful tag of his own barbarism tied to his tail, as Dante ejects him from the competition. And he tells us, as if it settled the matter (for, as we shall see, the Canzone is rather a fetish with Dante), “many Canzoni have been written in contempt of them.” The Milanese, the Bergamasks, the Aquileans and Istrians follow, with all the mountainous and country patois^[561], and the Sardinians, who are not Latins, though “to be joined with them,” and who only imitate Latin as apes do men. After this rapid sifting (he uses the metaphor) a new chapter is necessary.

Of those “kept in the sieve” Sicilian claims the first place. Indeed Dante acknowledges that “whatsoever the Italians poetise is called Sicilian.” He admits this, but says it is merely |Others—Sicilian, Apulian, Tuscan, and Genoese.| due to the fact that Sicilian princes, or princes resident in Sicily, Frederick the Emperor and his son Manfred, have been patrons of literature, and have thus attached the best Italian genius to the Sicilian court. But he says (after an indignant digressory denunciation of contemporary sovereigns) that there is no special value in the common Sicilian dialect, which indeed is seldom used for poetry at all, while of that which is used, more to follow. As for the Apulians, there have been some good writers among them, but their ordinary speech is spoilt with barbarisms.^[562]

But what of the Tuscans? Dante can only repeat that cosmopolitan criticism, which, though it would be very illiberal to impute it wholly to his exile, was no doubt assisted thereby. They may madly assert their title to the possession of the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue, and even some distinguished men may have condescended to the Tuscan vernacular. But let us examine them town by town. Florence, Pisa, Lucca, Siena, Arezzo are hit off each in a sentence expressing its boast, and, we may suppose, expressing it with some provincialism. But Dante says, when men really to be admired, Guido, Lapo, and “another”^[563] of Florence, and Cino da Pistoia, have written, it is in “curial,” not in the vulgar Tuscan tongue.

As for the Genoese, the annihilation of the letter Z would strike them dumb, for they can say nothing without it.

Then he crosses the Apennines^[564] and decides successively that Romagnese, in its various divisions, and Venetian, are full of |Venetian: Some good in Bolognese.| drawbacks and vulgarities.^[565] After which a whole chapter (xv.) is given to the dialect of Bologna. It is perhaps better than any other and why? Because it borrows the best things from the others, as, for instance, Sordello the Mantuan borrowed from Cremona, Brescia, and Verona. On the other hand, Ferrara, Modena, and Reggio are too Lombardic, and though they have lent a touch of piquancy to Bolognese, cannot create a good literary dialect for themselves. Still Bolognese, though better than other individual dialects, because more composite, is not the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue, for otherwise Guido Guinicelli and other great Bolognese poets would not have departed from it. So down with the sieve for, as for places like Trent and Turin, they are too near the frontier, and if they were pulcherrima as they are turpissima they would not be vere Latinum.

Having thus for fifteen chapters pursued a sort of “Rule of False” in order to catch that panther^[566], the Illustrious Vulgar |The “Illustrious” Language none of these, but their common measure.| Tongue, by the a posteriori method, Dante determines to track her a priori. He calls Logic to his aid, and observes that every individual, species, genus is subject to a common measure. The measure of individual conduct is Virtue; of conduct between man and man, Law; in public behaviour, national manners and customs. So too there must be some norm, some common measure of all Italian tongues and dialects, and this, perceptible in all, abiding in none, will be what is sought for. This is the—

• 1. Illustre.
• 2. Cardinale.
• 3. Aulicum; et
• 4. Curiale vulgare in Latio.

Each of these epithets has then to be discussed.

So we have the substance, the underlying and fashioning unity, of Italian defined as a tongue possessing a quadripartite |Its four characteristics.| differentia, and so it becomes necessary to explain the four parts. Illustrious, as the seventeenth chapter, devoted to it, explains, is something that “shines forth,” illuminans et illuminatum. Men are so called who, having been well trained, are great trainers, like Numa Pompilius and Seneca. This is what the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue of Italy is. It has cleared off much rubbish, as in Cino da Pistoia. It attracts even the unwilling. It exalts those who practise it. They surpass kings, marquises, counts. It gives a glory which even we, exiles as we are, acknowledge as sweetening the bitterness of our exile. Therefore it is Illustrious.

The three other epithets enjoy but a chapter between them. It is Cardinal, for as a door turns on a hinge, so all the throng of dialects turns on it. It is Aulic, because, if we Italians had a Court, it would be spoken there, and because, as a matter of fact, all those who enjoy courtly frequentation speak it. It is Curial because, though as in the Aulic case the conditions are wanting, it would be spoken in the great Law Courts of Italy if they existed, and it presents the action of a great Court of Law in trying and sifting cases. This is the proper Italian language, common to all, aimed at (if unconsciously) by all, giving the real key to all.

And so the first book ends, with the establishment on logical bases (none the weaker because the struts and props of them are sometimes decorated with a bygone ornamentation) at once of the necessity and the fact of a literary language for Italy, a language combining the merits, and purified from the defects, of the various local kinds of speech.

The First Book of the De Vulgari Eloquio has been chiefly concerned with language, though—as it is of the very highest |The Second Book—Why Dante deals with poetry only.| importance to observe—always with a side-glance at literature. The Second passes to literature itself, at least to that part of literature which was almost the only serious part to the earlier Middle Ages—namely, poetry. If we wanted anything to show us what a man of letters Dante was, it would be found in the apology which he makes at the beginning of this book for not dealing with Rhetoric at large, but only with Poetic. It is simply that “prosaicants” usually get their language from “inventors,” and “invention” remains a solid example to them, not vice versa. This, perhaps, with some exceptions (the chief among them he has himself referred to in citing the French Arthurian legend), was true in his time, though it was ceasing to be true; and a certain amount of truth remains still, greatly as the circumstances have changed. There is, he goes on to say, a kind of primacy about verse; so let us deal with it secundum quod metricum est.

Now, ought writers in verse to write vulgariter? Yes, he thought. The best things require the best language, and that, |All good poetry should be in the Illustrious.| as we have seen, is the Illustrious Vernacular. Things not so good will be improved by the best expression. So all verse-writers should use it, at least at first sight, though we must alter this conception on further thought. The Illustrious language demands illustrious writers (alma sdegnosa again!), and not only that, but the best thoughts or subjects. Very inferior persons writing on very inferior subjects had better not use the Illustrious, for an ugly woman never looks uglier than when dressed in gold and silk.

Now what subjects are good enough for the Illustrious Vernacular? Only Three: Salus, Venus, Virtus—in other words, |The subjects of High Poetry—War, Love, Virtue.| War, Love, and Moral Beauty, which means philosophy plus religion. Dante reaches this conclusion in the queer-looking but perhaps not easily improvable manner usual with him, by the prior and the posterior roads alike. These subjects are, first, the three things of most importance to a Vegetable-Animal-Rational-creature like man, and they are also those discussed by the best writers in the Vulgar Tongue, Bertran de Born, Arnaut Daniel, Cino da Pistoia, &c. But he does not find that any Italian has written on the subject of Salus or Arms. (An ominous fact!)

So much for subject; now for form. What forms are there of Illustrious Vulgar Verse? Some have written Canzoni, some |Its form: Canzoni.| Ballades, some Sonnets, some other and irregular forms. The best of these are Canzoni, for a wilderness of reasons, good, not very good, indifferent, and bad, the strongest of which, though not expressed, evidently is that Dante likes Canzoni best and knows he writes them well. They unite, he says, all the best points of art; the works of the best poets are found in them. So let us write of Canzoni, putting off Ballades, &c., to the Fourth Book—which, alas! we have not.

What is Poetry? It is fictio rhetorica in musica posita. |Definition of Poetry.| This is so important that no passing criticism of it will do, and we must postpone the discussion.

But here comes in the curious mediæval humility which made a poet like Dante regard himself as inferior to Ovid, and |Its styles and the constituents of the grand style.| Lucan, and Statius. Our poets differ from the “great” poets, the “regular” ones; but they ought to approach them as nearly as possible, and, as Magister noster Horatius teaches, take a suitable subject. And then they must decide what style to write in. If in the Tragic or Higher style, the Illustrious Vernacular will be suitable; if in the comic, a mixed or intermediate style; if in Elegy, the lower. But these two latter are again relegated to the lost, or never written, Fourth Book. Canzoni must be written in the Tragic style, and the Illustrious Vulgar Tongue. This is to be attained when, with the gravity of the meaning, not merely the pride of the verse, but the loftiness of the phrasing and the excellence of the words, agrees. It is no light matter to compose in this way; the most strenuous efforts are necessary. And, therefore, let the folly of those be confessed who, guiltless of art and science, and trusting to their wits alone, break out into the highest song on the highest subjects.

So the considerations are marked out, the Gravitas Sententiæ having been already distributed between War, Love, and Virtue.

• 1. Superbia Carminum.
• 2. Constructionis elatio.
• 3. Excellentia vocabulorum.

Beginning with metric, Dante, like a sensible man, confines himself here to the teachings of experience, eschewing all |Superbia Carminum.| argument in the vague. What lines have actually given the best results in the Illustrious Vernacular? He looks them over, and finds that lines have varied from three syllables to eleven, that those of five, seven, and eleven are best of all, and that that of eleven (in which he rightly includes the French decasyllable with its weak ending) is the best of these best. Seven comes next; then five, then three. Nine is not good, because divisible into three threes. Even lines are “rude,” by which he means (as is undoubtedly true) that they do not suit the structure of Italian. The hendecasyllable is that superbissimum carmen that we sought.

Next for the phrase or construction. Here Dante becomes a little difficult, chiefly because he uses peculiar words, which have |Constructionis elatio.| not been always judiciously translated. He says that there is first the “insipid” style, that without flavour (sapor) or individual character, which merely states a fact, his example being Petrus amat multum dominam Bertam.

Next there is the purely “sapid” or tasteful, described oddly as that of “rigid scholars or masters”; the sapidus et venustus, which is of those who have drunk superficial draughts of rhetoric; and the sapid, venust, and also lofty, which is the best of all. The examples of these shall be given below^[567], but they are hard to follow in detail, though the classes are clear enough, corresponding to (1) sheer prose, (2) efforts at style, (3) ornate prose without much distinction, (4) style achieved.

This last, of course, is what the poet must aim at, and again examples of hitting it are given. But the chapter ends with a valuable catalogue of the “great,” the “regular” poets: Virgil, Ovid in the Metamorphoses, Statius, and Lucan, with, in prose, Cicero, Livy, Pliny, Frontinus, and (O ye groves of Blarney!) Paulus Orosius. Let people read these, and not talk about Guido of Arezzo.

Lastly the words.

|Excellentia Verborum.|

Here the subdivision is again of great importance and some difficulty. Dante distinguishes a sort of tree—

All these words (save perhaps reburra, which, however, a remembrance of the French à rebours will clear up at once) are easy to understand, if sometimes rather hard of application.

Now, according to Dante, Pexa et Hirsuta are grandiosa, while lubrica et reburra in superfluum sonant. And it will be most specially important to use the “sieve,” for, looking to the poets who have succeeded in the Illustrious Vernacular, sola vocabula nobilissima are to be left therein. “Childish”^[568] words must be left out altogether: “feminine”^[569] words are too soft, “silvan”^[570] words too rough, nor will lubrica nor reburra^[571], though urbana, do. So pexa^[572] et hirsuta^[573] alone are left.

All this terminology is, of course, more than a little obscure, and the explanation of the obscurities rather concerns a commentator |Pexa et hirsuta.| on Dante than a historian of literary criticism. But the explanation, given by the critic-poet himself, of pexa et hirsuta does concern us, and is interesting. The former, it seems, are words which are trisyllabic, or “neighbours to trisyllabity,” without an aspirate, without an acute or circumflexed accent, without double x’s or z’s, without the conjunction of two liquids, or the placing of them after a mute, which freedoms give a certain sweetness. Hirsuta, on the other hand, are all others which, like the monosyllabic pronouns and articles, cannot be dispensed with, or which, though the above uglinesses have not been “combed out” of them, still, when mixed with combed-out words, are ornamental. He includes in this last class sovramagnificentissimamente, a hendecasyllabic in itself. He would not even mind onorificabilitudinitate, which has thirteen syllables in two of its Latin cases, if it were not by its length excluded from Italian verse.

So having got the sticks of words for our faggot the canzone, and the cords of construction and classification to bind them |The Canzone.| up^[574], let us set to work to the actual binding and faggoting, before which something more must be said about the faggot itself, the Canzone. The Canzone (cantio) is the action or passion of singing, just as a “reading” or book (lectio) is the action or passion of reading. A little metaphysic follows on actio and passio, and the fact that the cantio is actio when composed, passio when sung or acted. But is the cantio the words or the tune? Surely the words; nobody calls the tune canzone. In fact, all words written for music may in a sense be called canzoni, even ballads, even sonnets, even poems in Latin (regulariter). But we are speaking of the supreme canzone, like Dante’s Donne ch’ avete. It is “a tragic composition” of equal stanzas, without responsorium (dialogue or antiphon). The last six chapters concern us less, because they are wholly occupied with the particular rhyming, lining, and stanza-fashion of the canzone itself, and, interesting as they are, overflow our limits, except as a particular example of the general kind of criticism which has been so laboriously built up.