Pouch-mouthed blubberers, culrouns and aborted, May flame bite in your gullets, sore eyes and rank T' the lot of you, you've got my horse, my last Shilling, too; and you'd see love dried and salted. God blast you all that you can't call a halt! God's itch to you, chit-cracks that overbear And spoil good men, ill luck your impotence!! More told, the more you've wits smeared and congested.
Arnaut has borne delay and long defence And will wait long to see his hopes well nested.
[In De Vulgari Eloquio II, 13, Dante calls for freedom in the rhyme order within the strophe, and cites this canzo of Arnaut's as an example of poem where there is no rhyme within the single strophe. Dante's "Rithimorum quoque relationi vacemus" implies no carelessness concerning the blending of rhyme sounds, for we find him at the end of the chapter "et tertio rithimorum asperitas, nisi forte sit lenitati permista: nam lenium asperorumque rithimorum mixtura ipsa tragoedia nitescit," as he had before demanded a mixture of shaggy and harsh words with the softer words of a poem. "Nimo scilicet eiusdem rithimi repercussio, nisi forte novum aliquid atque intentatum artis hoc sibi praeroget." The De Eloquio is ever excellent testimony of the way in which, a great artist approaches the detail of métier.]
[4] This is nearly as bad in the original.
[6] Our Lady of Poi de Dome? No definite solution of this reference yet found.
[8] Dante cites this poem in the second book of De Vulgari Eloquio with poems of his own, De Born's, and Cino Pistoija's.
[9] Vivien, strophe 2, nebotz Sain Guillem, an allusion to the romance "Enfances Vivien."
[10] Longus, centurion in the crucifixion legend.
[11] King of the Galicians, Ferdinand II, King of Galicia, 1157-88, son of Berangere, sister of Raimon Berenger IV ("quattro figlie ebbe," etc.) of Aragon, Count of Barcelona. His second son, Lieutenant of Provence, 1168.
[12] King crowned at Etampe, Phillipe August, crowned May 29, 1180, at age of 16. This poem might date Arnaut's birth as early as 1150.
[13] "Brighter than glass, and yet as glass is, brittle." The comparisons to glass went out of poetry when glass ceased to be a rare, precious substance. (_Cf_. Passionate Pilgrim, III.)