Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/340

320 "And Bertrand used to boast that he had more wits than he needed. And when the king took him prisoner, he asked him, 'Have you all your wits, for you will need them now ? ' And he answered, *I lost them all when the young king died.' Then the king wept, and pardoned him, and gave him robes, and lands, and honors. And he lived long and became a Cistercian monk."

Fauriel, Histoire de la Poesie Proven- ^ale, Adler's Tr., p. 483, quoting part of this passage, adds:—

"In this notice the old biographer indicates the dominant trait of Ber- trand's character very distinctly ; it was an unbridled passion for war. He loved it not only as the occasion for exhibiting proofs of valor, for acquir- ing power, and for winning glory, but also, and even more on account of its hazards, on account of the exaltation of courage and of life which it produced, nay, even for the sake of the tumult, the disorders, and the evils which are accustomed to follow in its train. Ber- trand de Born is the ideal of the un- disciplined and adventuresome warrior of the Middle Age, rather than that of the chevalier in the proper sense of the term."

See also Millot, Hist. Litt. des Trou- badours, I. 210, and Hist. Litt. de la France par les Bene die tins de St. Maur, continuation, XVII. 425.

Bertrand de Born, if not the best of the Troubadours, is the most prominent and striking character among them. His life is a drama full of romantic in- terest; beginning with the old castle in Gascony, " the dames, the cavaliers, the arms, the loves, the courtesy, the bold emprise " ; and ending in a Cis- tercian convent, among friars and fast- ings and penitence and prayers.

135. A vast majority of manuscripts and printed editions read in this line. Re Giovanni, King John, instead of Re Giovane, the Young King. Even Boc- caccio's copy, which he wrote out with his own hand for Petrarca, has Re Gio- vanni. Out of seventy-nine Codici examined by Barlow, he says, Study of the Divina Commedia, p. 153, "Only five were found with the correct read- ing — re giovane. . . . The reading re giovane is not found in any of the early editions, nor is it noticed by any of the early commentators." See also Ginguene, Hist. Litt. de PItalie, II. 586, where the subject is elaborately discussed, and the note of Biagioli, who takes the opposite side of the question.

Henry II. of England had four sons, all of whom were more or less rebel- lious against him. They were, Henry, surnamed Curt-Mantle, and called by the Troubadours and novelists of his time " The Young King," because he was crowned during his father's life ; Richard Coeur-de-Lion, Count of Gui- enne and Poitou ; Geoffroy, Duke of Brittany; and John Lackland. Henry was the only one of these who bore the title of king at the time in ques- tion. Bertrand de Born was on terms of intimacy with him, and speaks of him in his poems as lo Reys joves,