[Bowra, an English critic and literary historian, was considered among the foremost classical scholars of the first half of the twentieth century. He also wrote extensively on modern literature, particularly modern European poetry, in studies noted for their erudition, lucidity, and straightforward style. In the following essay, he argues against the theory that Dante, by placing Sordello in Purgatory, characterized the troubadour as among the negligent rulers. Proposing that Sordello's placement in the poem resulted from his violent death and inability to repent, Bowra maintains that Dante had ample reason to respect the troubadour, citing in particular the political invective of the "Lament for Lord Blacatz," which Dante not only admired but imitated.]

On the lowest slope of the Mount of Purgatory Dante and Virgil, seeing that night is coming on, decide to make enquiries about the best way of ascent. They mark a solitary figure looking towards them and approach:

Venimmo a lei: O anima Lombarda,
Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa,
E nel mover degli occhi onesta e tarda!

Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa;
Ma lasciavane gir, solo sguardando
A guisa di leon quando si posa.
(Purg. VI, 61-66)

When questioned by Virgil about the way upward, this figure replies by asking about the strangers' country and life. On hearing the word "Mantua" he leaps up and embraces Virgil, and reveals that he is Sordello of the same city. At this dramatic point Dante suddenly breaks his narrative to devote seventy-six lines to a blistering denunciation of Italian discords and lawlessness. Then he picks up the tale and makes Sordello and Virgil exchange information about their respective places in the afterworld. Sordello then guides the two poets to the Valley of the Negligent Rulers, where he points out with appropriate comments the chief inmates and adds some hard words about their sons. When during the night Dante and Virgil are transported to Purgatory proper, Sordello remains behind:

Sordel rimase, e l'altre gentil forme.
(Purg. IX, 58)

He has played his part and is not mentioned again.

Sordello is an important and engaging figure of his time, at once poet and man of affairs. Born towards the beginning of the thirteenth century at Goito, near Mantua, he entered the court of Count Ricciardo di San Bonifazio, lord of Verona, where he fell in love with his master's wife, Cunizza da Romano, and about 1223 eloped with her to the court of her brother, the terrible Ezzelino, at Treviso. Soon afterwards he abandoned Cunizza and made a secret marriage with Otta di Strasso. This meant that he had to flee from Treviso and the fury of his wife's relatives, and no doubt explains why about 1229 he left Italy for the south of France, where in due course he visited the courts of Provence, Toulouse, Roussillon, and Castile. About 1245 we find him at the court of the Countess Beatrice, daughter of Raymond Berengar, count of Provence, and wife of Charles of Anjou. From 1252 to 1265 Sordello's name appears in several treaties and records, which show that Charles held him in high esteem and entrusted him with important tasks. He followed Charles on his Italian expedition against Manfred in 1265, but seems to have been captured by the Ghibellines before reaching Naples. At any rate, in September 1266 he was a prisoner at Novara; but Clement IV persuaded Charles to ransom him, and in 1269 he received as a recompense for his services five castles in the Abruzzi near the Pescara River. Nothing more is recorded of him; but, since in the same year the castles passed to other owners, the probability is that he died at this time, being by now an elderly man.

Sordello was also a poet of distinction and renown. Of his poetry there survive twelve chansons, four partimens, two tensons, eight sirventes, fifteen coblas, and a long didactic poem in 1,327 lines called "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor." His shorter poems may lack the virile gaiety of Guillaume of Aquitaine or the accomplished grace of Bernart de Ventadour or the passion of Bertran de Born, but they have their own distinction. He is an accomplished metrist, who knows how to lace rhymes into elaborate patterns; a stylist, who avoids phrases which are too trite or too recondite; a man of the world, who relates his poetry to his own varied experience. We can understand that Dante might think well of him, since, unlike Arnaut Daniel, who combines protestations of ideal love with desires which are more earthy, he is a thorough Platonist. Whatever his actual conduct may have been, his poetry is consistently high-mined and idealistic. He tells his lady that he does not wish to taste of any fruit whose sweetness will turn to bitterness (xxi, 23-24), that no knight loves his lady unless he loves his own honor equally (xxv, 17-19), that he will never reveal to any honest woman his true feelings about her (xxiv, 49-50), that every loyal lover is sufficiently recompensed if he is honored in himself (xxvii, 1 ff.). He builds his cult of ideal love on personal honor and is quite consistent in his conclusions. It is not surprising that, in the interchange of verse between him and Peire Guillem, Peire says that he has never known anyone like Sordello; since he disdains what other men make it their ambition to win (xviii, 13 ff.). In Sordello's system the man of honor must love a woman as honorable as himself and be as sensitive for her reputation as for his own. If Sordello is not in the highest rank of troubadours, he is certainly the most distinguished of those who came from Italy and sufficiently original and powerful to have attracted Dante's attention by his poetry.

It has been claimed that Dante regards Sordello as himself a member of the class of negligent rulers and that this determines his place in Purgatory. So R. W. Church says [in Dante and Other Essays]: "He is placed among those who had great opportunities and great thoughts—the men of great chances and great failures." Something of the same kind seems to have been in Browning's mind when he wrote his remarkable poem about Sordello. For Browning he is an interesting failure, who might have been a true forerunner of Dante but through some defect of character or conviction failed to realize his proper destiny. It is true that Browning does not follow history very closely and that his Sordello is largely an imaginary figure; however, he too regards him as one who had great gifts and chances but failed to take advantage of them:

    one who was chiefly glad
To have achieved the few real deeds he had,
Because that way assured they were not worth
Doing, so spared from doing them henceforth—
A tree that covets fruitage and yet tastes
Never itself, itself.

Church and Browning can hardly be right about Dante's treatment of Sordello. The only possible evidence that he is one of the negligent rulers is that Dante and Virgil leave him with them when they ascend to Purgatory proper, and that is by no means conclusive. On the other hand, there are good arguments against this view. First, if Sordello were himself one of this company, his language about its other members would be unsuitable, especially in Purgatory, for one who has himself been guilty of the same fault. Secondly, he was never himself in so exalted a position as the kings and princes whom he criticizes. He belonged to a section of society eminent enough in its own way but not charged with imperial or regal responsibilities, and Dante would hardly have classed him with the Emperor or the kings of France and England.

In fact, it is quite clear where Dante places Sordello, and his reasons for doing so are of some interest. When Dante and Virgil meet him, he is outside Purgatory proper and says of his position:

          "Loco certo non c'é posto:
Licito m'é andar suso ed intorno;
Per quanto ir posso, a guida mi t'accosto."
(Purg. VII, 40-42)

Sordello's place indicates that he is one of the late repentant who have died violent deaths. Apparently Dante knew something about him which is not mentioned by the brief Provençal biographies. Nor is this surprising, since the biographies are very feeble affairs and draw most of their information from the poems. There is no difficulty about Dante knowing of an event which took place in 1269 and must have made a stir at the time, since Sordello was a man of some importance. The passage not only settles where Dante places Sordello but also indicates that he knew more of him than his poems. At the end of a varied life Sordello died a violent death, and to this Dante implicitly refers.

That Dante had various sources of information is clear from a passage in the De vulgari eloquentia, where in discussing the need for an illustre vulgare he considers the Bolognese dialect but, after admitting its merits, comes to the conclusion that it too is not fitted for the highest purposes of poetry. He illustrates his point from Sordello:

Dicimus ergo quod forte non male opinantur qui Bononienses asserunt pulcriori locutione loquentes, cum ab Imolensibus, Ferrarensibus, et Mutinensibus circumstantibus aliquid proprio vulgari adsciscunt; sicut facere quoslibet a finitimis suis conicimus, ut Sordellus de Mantua sua ostendit, Cremonae, Brixiae, atque Veronae confini; qui tantus eloquentiae vir existens, non solum in poetando sed quomodocunque loquendo patrium vulgare deseruit. [1, 15]

We say, then, that perhaps those are not far wrong who assert that the people of Bologna use a more beautiful speech, since they receive into their own dialect something borrowed from their neighbours of Imola, Ferrara, and Modena, just as we conjecture that all borrow from their neighbours, as Sordello showed with respect to his own Mantua, which is adjacent to Cremona, Brescia, and Verona; and he who was so distinguished by his eloquence, not only in poetry but in every other form of utterance forsook his native vulgar tongue.

The example supports Dante's contention that Italian dialects are not suited to the grand style; Sordello tried first to write in his own vernacular but abandoned it, presumably for Provençal. We know nothing of his work in Italian, since it is doubtful whether a poem claimed for him by Bertoni is his, but Dante not only knew his Italian poems but other works, presumably not in verse, or at least knew his reputation as a writer or a speaker. In this, as in other respects, Dante was better informed about Sordello than we are.

Concerning one matter Dante shows a remarkable restraint. He must have known about the elopement with Cunizza and is not likely to have approved of it. Of course, if he said nothing about it, no question would arise; but he comes near to referring to it in the Paradiso, when Cunizza, being placed in Venus, explains that she is rightly placed in the star of love and that her former sins no longer distress her:

"Cunizza fui chiamata, e qui refulgo,
Perché mi vinse il lume d'esta Stella;

Ma lietamente a me medesma indulgo
La cagion di mia sorte, e non mi noia;
Che parria forse forte al vostro vulgo."
(Par. IX, 32-36)

Here Dante is a little artful. He would know that any mention of Cunizza would stir his readers to expect some mention of Sordello, but he says nothing of him. Instead he rather tantalizingly makes Cunizza speak of her devotion to another troubadour, Folquet of Marseilles. Dante's silence on Sordello suggests that he has weighed his faults with his virtues and decided that the virtues win.

Yet, though Dante admired Sordello and surely approved of his love poetry, what he liked most seems to have been the courageous expression of political convictions in which Sordello more than once indulged. In the Purgatorio Sordello's first function is to provide a starting point for Dante's passionate outburst on the woes of Italy. The abrupt transition is surely dictated by Sordello's own views on such matters and especially by what he says in "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor," where he sets out his notions of chivalrous behavior and his theory of pretz, or worth. It is by no means the only poem of its kind, nor the best. It is quite legitimate to prefer the "Romans di Mondana Vita" of Folquet de Lunel or the "Four Cardinal Virtues" of Daude de Pradas; and, of course, if Dante himself knew these other poems, he may well have thought them better. But that is no reason for arguing, as some have, that Dante would therefore pay no attention to Sordello's poem, still less that he did not know it. Since he seems to have been well acquainted with Sordello's writings, we can hardly doubt that he knew this piece. Once he decided to make use of Sordello in the Divine Comedy, he would naturally seize on relevant elements in his outlook and especially on those which were expressed at some length in "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor."

Though the chivalrous ideal set forth in this poem is commonplace in comparison with that of the Vita Nuova or even of the Convito, with which it has more in common, it certainly says much of which Dante would approve and very little of which he would disapprove. Just as in his shorter poems Sordello makes the ideal love of a woman an important part of his whole conception of honor, so here he bases his philosophy and especially his notions of pretz and onor on the inspiration and challenge which such a love gives. His course is somewhat sluggish and circuitous. He dilates on the love of God and the origin of evil before he reaches the rules of behavior. He does not at first say much about women or love, but that is because he keeps them in reserve. As he draws to his close, he expands upon the relations of women and their lovers and tells how they should bear themselves and what conversation they should hold. Then in the last paragraph he pays a tribute to his own lady, Agradiva, who inspires all that is best in his life. In this poem ideal love is a pivotal point in a system of worth and honor; and, though Sordello does not draw such bold conclusions as Dante would, he is a consistent apologist for the cult of love as a system of life.

In "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor" Sordello proves himself worthy of Dante's respect as a critic of life and politics, whose philosophy is of the kind which Dante himself held and developed. In this we may see Dante's reason for placing his outburst on Italy immediately after Virgil and Sordello have greeted each other as fellow Mantuans. This covers a deeper kinship between them, and Dante draws the moral:

Quell'anima gentil fu così presta,
Sol per lo dolce suon della sua terra,
Di fare al cittadin suo quivi festa;

E ora in te non stanno senza guerra
Li vivi tuoi, e l'un l'altro si rode
Di quei ch'un muro ed una fossa serra.
(Purg. VI, 79-84)

Italy is equally dear to Virgil, to Dante, and to Sordello. From his knowledge of Sordello's work Dante advances from the friendly warmth of the greeting to a fierce denunciation, in which he not only says much with which Sordello would agree but even seems to follow with his own vivid variations certain topics with which Sordello deals in his poem.

If we compare Dante's outburst with Sordello's "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor," we may notice several points of similarity, which suggest that Dante has a clear purpose in his abrupt change of subject. There is, it is true, a great difference of manner between the two poets. While Sordello is dry and abstract and theoretical, Dante is vivid and personal and illustrates individual issues with homely or colloquial phrases. But behind this difference there are considerable resemblances of thought and outlook; indeed each point made by Dante can be paralleled by something said by Sordello. Dante begins by denouncing the disobedience prevalent in Italy and proclaiming the need to let the Emperor rule; Sordello (lines 543 ff.) also lays down the need for an ideal of service and blames those who shun what is right or accept what is not. Dante then blames the German Albert for deserting his duty and calls down judgment from Heaven on him; Sordello (lines 589 ff.) says that a common failing of the great is to be interested in themselves instead of in those whom they rule. Dante ascribes imperial negligence to the avarice of Albert and his father; Sordello (lines 506 ff.) expatiates on the duties of wealth and the need for generosity. In his denunciation of Florence, Dante says that its people have no justice in their hearts, though its name is often on their lips; Sordello (lines 601 ff.) inveighs against those who condemn the faults of others and pay no attention to their own. Dante blames the Florentines for refusing public burdens; Sordello (lines 55 ff.) regards such service as owed to both God and man. Finally, Dante denounces the improvidence which means that what is spun in October does not reach to mid-November; Sordello (lines 489 ff.) regards forethought as the first duty of all rulers. Thus Dante's principles of government, as revealed in his outburst on Italy, may be illustrated almost line by line from Sordello's poem.

This does not mean that Dante necessarily had "L'Ensegnamen d'Onor" before him when he wrote this passage or even that he knew it so well that he was able to adapt its thoughts to his own. But it suggests at least that he knew it and agreed with it and saw in it sufficient justification for making the meeting with Sordello the occasion for a denunciation of Italy and its rulers. It is of course true that other poets expressed ideas very like Sordello's and that, if he had wished, Dante could have used them. But he does not, for a good reason. Sordello appealed to him on more than one account; the appeal of Mantua was in itself sufficient to give Sordello a priority over other politically minded poets and to provide the use of his own appearance for an outburst of Dante's own feelings. The passage is introduced with great skill, both formally and essentially. After the moving character of the meeting between the two Mantuans, what follows comes with an impressive shock of contrast; but the similarity between Sordello's views and Dante's justifies the introduction of a theme which might otherwise do undue violence to the narrative.

In this passage Dante agrees with Sordello on some general principles of politics, though he gives them a particular application, which Sordello does not. Later in the Purgatorio, when Dante is concerned with political personalities, he again chooses to follow a model from Sordello. In Canto VII, 83-136, Sordello points out various negligent rulers who are seated on the grass in the wonderful valley and comments on them and on others who are not present. Here, we can hardly doubt, Dante had in mind Sordello's most famous poem, the planh which he wrote on the death of Blacatz and which is so important that it must be quoted in full (from the Hill and Bergin Anthology, Yale Romanic Studies, No. XVII):

Planher vuelh en Blacatz en aquest leugier so
Ab cor trist e marrit, et ai en be razo,
Qu'en luy ai mescabat senhor et amic bo,
E quar tug l'ayp valent en sa mort perdut so:
Tant es mortals lo dans, qu'ieu noy ai sospeisso
Que jamais si revenha, s'en aital guiza no,
Qu'om li traga lo cor, e qu'en manjol baro
Que vivon descorat, pueys auran de cor pro.

Premiers manje del cor, per so que grans ops l'es,
L'emperaire de Roma, s'elh vol los Milanes
Per forsa conquistar, quar luy tenon conques,
E viu deseretatz, malgrat de sos Ties;
E deseguentre lui manj' en lo reys frances,
Pueys cobrara Castella, que pert per nescies;
Mas, si pez' a sa maire, elh no'n manjara ges,
Quar ben para son pretz qu'elh non fai ren quel
  pes.

Del rey engles me platz, quar es pauc coratjos,
Que manje pro del cor, pueys er valens e bos,
E cobrara la terra, per que viu de pretz blos,
Quel tol lo reys de Fransa quar lo sap nualhos;
E lo reys castelas tanh qu'en manje per dos,
Quar dos regismes ten, e per l'un non es pros;
Mas, s'elh en vol manjar, tanh qu'en manj' a
  rescos,
Que, sil mair' o sabia, batria 1 ab bastos.

Del rey d'Arago vuel del cor deja manjar,
Que aisso lo fara de l'anta descarguar
Que pren sai de Marcella e d'Amilau, qu'onrar
Nos pot estiers per ren que puesca dir ni far;
Et apres vuelh del cor don hom al rey navar,
Que valia mais coms que reys, so aug comtar:
Tortz es quan Dieus fai home en gran ricor
  pojar,
Pus sofracha de cor lo fai de pretz bayssar.

Al comte de Toloza a ops qu'en manje be,
Sil membra so que sol tener ni so que te,
Quar, si ab autre cor sa perda non reve,
Nom par que la revenha ab aquel qu'a en se.
El coms proensals tanh qu'en manje, sil sove
C'oms que deseretatz viu guaire non val re,
E, sitot ab esfors si defen nis chapte,
Ops l'es mange del cor pel greu fais qu'el soste.
Li baro m volran mal de so que ieu dic be,
Mas ben sapchan qu'ie'ls pretz aitan pauc quon
  ylhe me.

Belh Restaur, sol qu'ab vos puesca trobar merce,
A mon dan met quascun que per amic nom te.

Blacatz is dead. In this plain descant I intend
To weep for him, nor care a jot if I offend;
For in him I have lost my master and good
  friend,
And know that with his death all princely virtues
  end.
It is a mortal loss, which nought can ever
  mend,
In truth I so suspect, unless his heart we send
To the great lords to eat. To hearts they can't
  pretend!
But then they'll have enough of heart to make
  amend.

First let the Emperor eat. Great need of it is his,
If he would crush by force the rebel Milanese
And force his conquerors to do what he
  decrees;
Despite his German guards he has no fiefs or
  fees.
Then let the French king eat, and may-be he will
  seize
Castile again, which he lost by his idiocies.
But he'll refrain if his good mother disagrees;
Honor, we know, forbids that he should her
  displease.

I bid the English king, who is so ungallant,
Eat of the heart; then he'll be bold and valiant,
Win back the lands whose loss proclaims him
  recreant,
All that the French king took, knowing him
  indolent.
Next the Castilian king enough for two will want;
Two realms has he, but ev'n for one his heart's
  too scant.
If he would eat, let him be secret and not flaunt;
He'll feel his mother's stick if she learns of his
  vaunt.

Then of this heart must eat the king of Aragon;
So shall he wash away the shame which he has
  won
At Marseilles and Milhau; of his lost honor none
Can he recover now, whatever's said and done.
Then unto Navarre's king I bid this heart be
  shown,—
Better as count than king in my comparison,—
Great pity 'tis when God exalts dominion
For princes who then bid all name and fame be
  gone.

Next, the Count of Toulouse is in sore need of it,
If he recall what lands he has, of what he's quit,
To win his losses back a new heart he must fit,—
The heart that he has now will mend them not a
  bit.
Last, the Count of Provence will eat if he admit
That the disinherited are honored not a whit;
Yes, let him do his best himself to benefit;
So burdensome a load he bears that he must eat.

For all these well said words I'll win the great
  lords' hate,
But let them know I'll pay their knocks back
  with like weight.
Sweet Comfort, if I find your favor in the end,
I'm little vexed by those who scorn to call me
  friend.

This unusual poem shows the strength and originality of Sordello's art and makes it easier to understand why Dante forgave him his sins and gave him an honorable part in the Divine Comedy.

In the well-regulated world of Provençal poetry Sordello's planh has a peculiar place. It has precedents in such pieces as Cercamon's lament for Guillaume of Aquitaine in 1137, or Bertran de Born's for Henry II's son, the "young king," in 1183, or those of Jaucelm Faidit and Giraut de Borneil for Richard Cœur de Lion in 1199. The lament was an ancient form and followed conventional lines, in which the poets usually complain that with the passing of a great man chivalry, valor, and courtesy have vanished from the earth. They do not usually seize the occasion, as Sordello does, to say unpleasant things about the living. But historically he is justified in this, because the planh is closely related to the sirventés, which is what the Provençal poets use when they wish to criticize their lords and masters or to pass political judgments. Sordello must have known this, and his poem is close to such poems as that written by the younger Bertran de Born against King John in 1204, in which he mocks him for the loss of Poitou and Guyenne, accuses him of betraying his armies, and generally derides his failure. Sordello's originality lies in finding in Blacatz's death an opportunity to say what he feels about the rulers of Europe. If the form allowed some latitude, he took all that he could and made the most of it.

Blacatz, whose death Sordello laments, is not unknown to history. He was seigneur of Aups near Draguignan and is mentioned in several documents after 1194. Himself the author of ten surviving poems, he was also the friend and patron of poets and was praised for his generosity and goodness. Sordello seems to have come into contact with him at the court of Guida, daughter of Henry I, count of Rodez, before 1240. She has been thought to be the "Belh Restaurs" to whom he addresses several poems, including the planh, and she is associated with Sordello in the parody of it written by Bertrand d'Alamanon. Though in 1240 Sordello is known to have been at Montpellier, it looks as if he wrote the planh when he was back with Guida and addressed it to her because she too had been a friend of the dead man. The freedom with which he speaks sheds an interesting light on the conditions of the time, when a small court like that of Guida could flaunt its opposition to the great powers of Europe. Sordello throws his net wide. In turn he denounces the Emperor Frederick II, Louis IX of France, Henry III of England, Ferdinand III of Castile, James I of Aragon, Thibaut I of Navarre, Raymond VII of Toulouse, and Raymond Berengar V of Provence.

It is not impossible to fix an approximate date for the poem. The death of Blacatz seems to have coincided with a considerable crisis in western Europe. In 1242 Raymond VII of Toulouse formed a league of southern potentates in the hope of shaking off French suzerainty and received assurances of help from the kings of Castile and Aragon. At the same time Henry III of England set sail for France on May 9 with the ambition of regaining the lands lost by his father. On July 23 he was defeated by Louis IX at Saintes, and, though his army remained for some time in France, it had no hope of success. Despite this Raymond tried to make a treaty with Henry and eventually did so by the end of August. Then in October all went wrong. The count of Foix deserted; the kings of Castile and Aragon held aloof from action; and on October 20 Raymond submitted to Louis. It is a sorry tale, and Sordello takes full advantage of it.

Of his eight rulers five were involved in the revolt, and each is mocked for his failure—Henry III, quite accurately, for lands lost to the French king, not so much what John had already lost but Poitou and Saintonge as far as the Gironde; Ferdinand III for his cowardice in failing to help Raymond VII; James I for still not being master of Marseilles, which ought to have been his on the death of Raymond Berengar IV, and of Milhau, which once belonged to his house but was still in the hands of Toulouse with the connivance of Louis IX and the Pope; Raymond VII of Toulouse for his failure to regain lands lost earlier to Louis; and Raymond Berengar V of Provence for gaining nothing by making up his quarrel with Toulouse and being forced to accept a diminution of his domains. The outbreak of 1242 was largely an attempt to regain territories recently lost; when it failed, these remained with their recent owners and especially with Louis.

To this list Sordello adds three other names, Frederick II, Louis IX, and Thibaut I, who fall in rather a different category, since they were not on the defeated side in the revolt. Frederick could hardly be omitted from a list of living monarchs; and Sordello, who himself came from Lombardy, delights in his continued lack of success with the Milanese, whom he defeated at Cortenuova in 1237 but never subdued. Louis had indeed defeated his enemies in France, but Sordello condemns him for not making the most of his victory and taking Castile, to which he had a reasonable claim through his mother, especially since Ferdinand's mother, Berengaria, was declared not to have been married to his father, Alfonso X of Leon. Finally, since Thibaut of Navarre, formerly count of Champagne, is not known to have joined Raymond VII, Sordello probably derides him for his behavior in the recent crusade, when he retreated before the Saracens and took ship home. These three additional names complete Sordello's picture of western Europe governed by poltroons. Although his actual occasion seems to have been the war of 1242, he passes beyond it to a wider view and distributes his blows impartially on eight potentates.

Sordello's planh evidently made a considerable mark, since it was soon imitated or parodied by Peire Bremon Ricas Novas and by Bertran d'Alamanon. It also became known in due course to Dante, who was evidently taken by the image of eating the dead man's heart. To this there seems to be no parallel in mediaeval poetry except in poems obviously derived from Sordello. It is conceivable that it comes from folk song or folk tale, since the troubadours were not averse from drawing on such popular sources, but even for this the nearest parallel is no closer than a Greek [source] in which an eagle summons other birds to eat of its vitals. Dante's debt to the planh may first be seen in a poem in the Vita Nuova, where the figure of Love appears to him in a vision:

Allegro mi sembrava Amor, tenendo
Mio core in mano, e nelle braccia avea
Madonna, involta in un drappo, dormendo.

Poi la svegliava, e d'este core ardendo
Lei paventosa umilmente pascea;
Appresso gir ne lo vedea piangendo.

Dante does not use the image of eating the heart quite as Sordello does; while Sordello insists that it will give strength to the feeble, Dante suggests that his whole being is absorbed in that of his lady. None the less, the two poems are sufficiently similar to justify the conclusion that Dante has borrowed something from Sordello.

If this was the first impression which the planh made on Dante, it was not the only one. When he came to write the Purgatorio, he was interested not in the image of the heart but in the denunciation of European rulers. If Sordello's poem surveys these about 1242, the speech which Dante gives him covers some forty years of history as seen in retrospect from the ideal date of 1300. Dante uses the presence of the negligent rulers for two purposes, first to comment on those who belong to the class, then to say something, usually unpleasant, about their sons and successors. The negligent rulers named are the Emperor Rudolph, Ottocar of Bohemia, Philip III of France, Henry of Navarre, Peter III of Aragon, Charles I of Anjou, Henry III of England, and William of Montferrat. Only concerning two of these does Dante say enough to show why they are placed where they are. The Emperor Rudolph is guilty of negligence:

       … fa sembianti
D'aver negletto ciò che far dovea.
(Purg. VII, 91-92)

In the previous canto he has been associated with his son Albert as being guilty of neglecting their own lands in their covetousness (Purg. VI, 97-105), and now Dante stresses the fruit of this policy in the condition of Italy, whose wounds Rudolph might have healed. Dante is also explicit about Philip III of France, who "died in flight, dishonoring the lily"—a reference to Philip's fatal defeat in 1285 by Roger di Loria, the admiral of Peter III of Aragon. However, Dante may have had more than this in mind, since Philip had tried to seize Aragon for his son, Charles of Valois, of whom Dante had a low opinion because of his interference in Florentine politics (Purg. XX, 71). So perhaps he here recalls that among Philip's other faults was favoritism to an unworthy son.

Though Dante does not explain why the other kings and princes are classed as negligent, there is no great difficulty. They have all in their own way failed, presumably through some weakness of character, and their failure has led to discord or defeat. Whatever their personal virtues and charms may have been, and Dante is generous enough about them, they have none the less failed in their first duty, which is to rule and keep order. Ottocar of Bohemia has divided the Empire in his struggle with Rudolph of Hapsburg. The policies of Charles of Anjou ended in disaster when he was driven out of Sicily after the Sicilian Vespers, but before that he had caused havoc in Italy (Purg. XX, 67 ff.; Par. VIII, 73 ff.). Henry III of England, the only figure who appears both in Sordello's poem and here, "il re della semplice vita," is another whose efforts to regain his lost lands have failed and have been followed by civil war. William of Montferrat tried to lead a league against Charles of Anjou, but could not control its members and was ruined when Alessandria rose against him; he was put in a cage where he was kept until his death. Neither Henry of Navarre nor Peter III of Aragon, despite many chivalrous qualities and the admiration of their contemporaries, were really successful kings. The company is well enough chosen and excites little comment. Indeed the only possible criticism of it is that we may feel surprise at Charles of Anjou being so well treated. Elsewhere Dante says of him:

Carlo venne in Italia, e, per vicenda,
Vittima fé di Corradino; e poi
Ripinse al ciel Tommaso, per ammenda.
(Purg XX, 67-69)

The deaths of Conradin and Thomas Aquinas might seem to argue graver faults in Charles than negligence, but for some reason Dante condones them and sets Charles in reasonably good company.

In his choice of negligent rulers Dante follows very much the same principles as Sordello in his planh. Each condemns rulers for not ruling and suggests that it is due to a failure of character. With Sordello the failure is simply cowardice; with Dante it is something wider, a failure to sustain responsibility, or something like moral cowardice. He seems to have taken Sordello's idea and expanded it. If Sordello thinks that a king's first duty is to hold all the lands which belong to his house, Dante thinks that it is to govern well what lands he has and not to promote discord. If Sordello insists in the case of Thibaut that elevation to kingship is no reason for lapsing into idleness, Dante throughout implies that rulers have great responsibilities and that the higher their position the more it demands of them. If Sordello regards war as the test of a man's worth, Dante at least regards defeat as a sign of weakness. Finally, it is noteworthy that, while Sordello does not shrink from deriding St. Louis, Dante nowhere finds a place for him in the Divine Comedy or even mentions him by name. This king, who seems to us to embody so much that is best in the thirteenth century, evidently did not appeal to Dante. Though the two poets may differ in temperament, they judge rulers by much the same standards and have much the same ideas of what qualities rulers ought to possess.

If part of Sordello's speech is more generous than suits what we know of his character, that is no doubt because Dante wishes to be fair to men like Henry III, who was renowned for his piety, or Peter III, who was praised for his virtue and probity. But Dante was capable of scorn equal to Sordello's and was not afraid to show it when he thought it deserved. He ingeniously makes the sight of the negligent rulers an occasion to mention others who are not present, usually because they are still alive. Of these only two receive favorable comment, Edward I of England, who is a better man than his father, and the eldest son of Peter III of Aragon, who did not reign long enough to make his influence felt. The others mentioned are less worthy—Wenceslas I of Bohemia, Philip the Fair of France, James II of Aragon, his brother Frederick II of Sicily, and Charles II of Naples. If the fathers' faults are pardonable, those of the sons are not. They are men of Dante's own time, concerning whose characters and careers he is well informed and concerning whom he has usually something to say elsewhere in the Divine Comedy. So he speaks of Wenceslas:

Che mai valor non conobbe, ne volle.
(Par. XIX, 126)

Philip the Fair, "il mal di Francia," with his "vita viziata e lorda" is accused of abetting simony (Inf. XIX, 87), of ruining his country by debasing its coinage (Par. XXX, 118), and of being a new Pilate in his treatment of the Church (Purg. XX, 91). James II of Aragon is denounced for participating in the foul deeds of his uncle and brother and making cuckold their family and its two kingdoms (Par. XIX, 136-138). Frederick II of Sicily is attacked for avarice and baseness (Par. XIX, 130); and Charles II of Naples is associated with him, when Dante says that Sicily weeps because they are alive (Par. XX, 62), while the same Charles is blamed for selling his daughter (Purg. XX, 80). If the fathers were no worse than feeble and indolent, the sons are vicious and bring disaster by their evil behavior.

For this state of affairs Dante offers an explanation. It is, he makes Sordello say, usual for families to get worse as they continue:

Rade volte risurge per li rami
L'umana probitate: e questo vuole
Quei che la dá, perché da lui si chiami.
(Purg. VII, 121-123)

In the Paradiso Dante reverts to the question of heredity and comes to a somewhat different conclusion, when Charles Martel explains that the fault lies rather with the assigning of tasks to men who are not naturally fitted for them:

Ma voi torcete alla religione
Tal che fia nato a cignersi la spada,
E fate re di tal ch'é da sermone:

Onde la traccia vostra é fuor di strada.
(Par. VIII, 145-148)

An age which had known both Boniface VIII and Henry III might well grant the truth of these words, and they are probably nearer to Dante's own final conclusions than the doctrine of natural decline which he gives to Sordello in the Purgatorio. Indeed the doctrine may well have been given to Sordello because it suits his outlook and opinions. Sordello not only says that Louis IX and Ferdinand III are weaker than their mothers, but implies that all his kings and princes are worse than their forefathers, whose lands they are too feeble to hold. The theory of degeneration suits Sordello's critical temper and is aptly attributed to him. If later Dante passes beyond it, this is only another sign that Sordello's view was much to his taste, but that, with his usual gift for improving upon the lessons of his masters, he altered it and adapted it to another, more comprehensive view of history.