Dissertation on Birds of Prey and the Sport - the Falconry Heritage ...

and exults in the joy he feels in loving her, while examining his emotions. Being far
away, he wishes to return, and describes how quickly he would like to accomplish this,
with a comparison to a falcon's speed:
Atendo di compire,
e vado sogiornando
in questo mio viagio;
e s'eo per tosto gire
potesse, come stando,
compier lo meo coragio,
farea questo passagio - in tal manera,
che falcon di rivera
apena credo ch'avanti mi gisse
per fin che '1 meo viagio si c~m~isse.~
His desire to return to his lady is so great that he might nearly be able to outrun a
falcon "di rivera," one that hunts waterfowl, to get home. It is a simple comparison that
effectively conveys a sense of the movement to which the poet aspires, and again evokes
the linking of the falcon to love. A falcon flying fast is probably pursuing prey, as the
poet wishes to pursue his lady
Of course, sometimes, sensual love is not celebrated but condemned by the poet.
Such is the situation in a moralizing work of Guittone dlArezzo, the Trattato d'amore, a
series of twelve poems, primarily sonnets, in which he warns of the dangers of love. This
is a product of his later years, after he joined the order of the Frati Godenti, and became
known as Fra Guittone dlArezzo. The poems all center on analysis of a picture of Love
personified, that he describes in prose in very specific detail:
Qui de' essere la figura de l'amore pinta si ch'el sia garzone nudo, cieco, cum due
ale su le spalle e cum un turcascio a la centura, entrambi di color di porpora, cum
un arc0 en man, ch'el abia ferito d'una saitta un giovene enamorato cum una
ghirlanda in testa. Cum l'altra man porga un'asta cum fuogo di cappo; e per gli
artigli si abbia le granfe de a~tore.~
Vv. 3 1-40. From Zaccagnini and Parducci, Rimatori siculo-toscani del dugento (Bari: Laterza, 19 15), 62.
F. Egidi, Le rime di Guittone d'Arezzo (Bari: Laterza, 1940), 268.