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Repetition of Words and Phrases at the Beginning of Consecutive Tercets in Dante's Divine Comedy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Extract
The Divine Comedy contains three examples of the repetition of a word or a phrase at the beginning of successive lines, one where the first word of a line is repeated from the last of the preceding line, another pas-
Per Me Si Va Nella Citta Dolente,
Per Me Si Va Nell' Eterno Dolore,
Per Me Si Va Tra La Perduta Gente.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1914
References
Per Me Si Va Nella Città Dolente,
Per Me Si Va Nell' Eterno Dolore,
Per Me Si Va Tra La Perduta Gente.
(Inf. iii, 1-3.)
Ricominciò: “Noi semo usoiti fuore
Del maggior corpo al ciel ch' è pura luce:
Luce intellettual, piena d' amore;
Quegli ch' usurpa in terra il loco mio,
Il loco mio, il loco mio, che vaca
Nella presenza del Figliuol di Dio.
(Par. xxvil, 22-4.)
Così mi si cambiaro in maggior feste
Li fiori e le faville, si ch'io vidi
Ambo le corti del ciel manifeste.
O isplendor di Dio, per eu'io vidi
L'alto trionfo del regno verace,
Dammi virtù a dir com'io lo vidi!
(Par. xxx, 94-9.)
Compare also per amenda (Purg. xx, 65-9) and Cristo (Par. xii, 71-5; xiv, 104-8; xix, 104-8; xxxii, 83-7). In Provençal poetry the same word sometimes occurs in rime once in each stanza of a poem. In Raynouard (op. cit., vol. v, pp. 411-13) we find a poem of six stanzas, the word lenga being repeated at the end of the fifth line of all the stanzas except the last (where the repeated word occurs at the end of the first line). A similar device is found in two other poems contained in Raynouard's collection (pp. 413-4; 414-6). Compare also the repetition of the word lonh at the end of the second and fourth lines of all the stanzas of a poem (with the exception of the last, which contains only three lines) by Jaufre Rudel (Appel's Provenzalische Chrestomathie, p. 15).
5 This entire passage is quoted infra, p. 548.
6 A poem bearing a very striking resemblance to these lines in Dante is found in Rime di Trecentisti Minori, a cura di Guglielmo Volpi, Firenze (Sansoni), 1907, pp. 247-51. This little poem (entitled Profezia) consists of thirty-seven stanzas, thirty-one of which begin with Vedrai. The following quotation will illustrate:
Vedrai colei che veste
Quella ch' ha sette teste
Avrà di gran tempeste
E gran paura.
Vedrai dreto alle mura
Rinchiusi con rancura:
La lor fiera armadura
Saran gli spromi.
7 For a similar use of repetition in Dante's lyrics compare Canz. 17 and Son. 33.
8 In Paradiso xiii, 94-102, we find a group of three tercets beginning with Non.
In a poem of four stanzas by Lorenzo Moschi (Gugliehno Volpi, op. cit., iv), the word Benedetto, occurs at the beginning of each stanza. Compare the Beatitudes (Math. v, 3-11; Lu. vi, 20-22) and also the repetition of the word cursed in Deut. xxvii, 15-26; xxviii, 16-19.
9 See Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. xxvii, pp. 265-6.
10 See Hill, op. cit., pp. 266-8.
11 In five of the stanzas enoia occurs three times.
12 Provenzalische Chrestomathie (second edition), von Carl Appel, 43. Compare also E. Philippson, Der Mönch von Montaudon, Halle, 1873, p. 51; Bartsch, Chrestomathie, p. 134; Otto Klein, Die Dichtungen des Mönchs von Montaudon, Marburg, 1885, p. 54.
13 See Raynouard, op. cit., vol. v, pp. 244-6.
14 Compare Raynouard, op. cit., where we find a similar repetition of enueia in another poem by the same author. For other examples of the enueg in Provengal literature, compare Hill, op. cit., pp. 269-74.
15 See op. cit., pp. 276-7.
16 For a general discussion of the enueg in Italy, compare Hill, op. cit., pp. 276-293.
17 See Kenneth McKenzie, Le Note di Antonio Pucci secondo la lezione del codice di Wellesley gilt Kirkupiano (Studi dedicati a Francesco Torraca, pp. 179-90); The Oxford Text of the Noie of Antonio Pucci (Reprinted from Anniversary Papers by Colleagues and Pupils of George Lyman Kittredge, Boston, 1913).
18 For examples of the plazer, a similar type of composition, compare Hill, op. cit., pp. 268-9; 284-5.
19 See Hill, op. cit., pp. 290-1.
20 See Scelta di Curiosità Letterarie, vol. lxxxii, pp. 65-8.
21 Op. cit., p. 286.
22 For examples of repetition in Old French, compare Paris, Extraits de la Chanson de Roland, p. xxxix; Gröber, Zeitschrift, vi, pp. 492-500; A. Nordfeld, Les Couplets similaires dans la vieille épopée française, Stockholm, 1893; Geddes, La Chanson de Roland, New York, 1906, p. lxi.