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

It seems as if the text were meant to be illustrated, or, likely, the figure of Love,
along with its interpretations, was meant to be used to instruct other brothers.'' The
poems that follow it interpret the symbolic meanings of the parts of this figure.
Guittone's main theme is that sensual love leads to death, particularly the death of the
soul. The significance he gives to the talons of Love reinforces this idea:
La sovraditta morte per l'artiglia
mostra esser cosa che 'ngreffisce
e che demostra quello unde assottiglia
di retener ciascun che l'obedisce;
si cum astor che l'algelletto piglia,
che quasi senza morte no1 largisce:
cio e la losingevel meraviglia
d'alcun piacer che l'amante tradisce,
che quince trade certo ogn'amatore,
quando, retinendol, a morte '1 mena
per lusinghe d'alcun piacer tuttore.
E nu110 e piu mortal velen nC pena
d'ogni losinga, che l'om ten di fore,
nC han li amanti piu crude1 catena."
Guittone warns that the pleasures of erotic love do not let go of the lover and lead
him to death. The image of the grasping astore, or goshawk, clinging to a small bird until
its death suits his didactic purpose admirably, portraying Love as a merciless predator
and the lover as, once caught, a helpless victim.
Surrendering to the clutches of love is, in the context of love poetry, quite a
different, in fact, a positive thing. Often the poet hopes that his beloved will do so, and
sets her up as the falcon's prey, the falcon being either himself or Love. In a tenzone
'O For incidences of illustrations of this text, see H. Wayne Storey, "The Missing Picture in the Text of
Escorial e.III.23: Guittone's Trattato d'amore," in Italiana (River Forest, IL: Rosary College, 1988), 59-78;
and his Transcription and Visual Poetics in the Early Italian Lyric (New York: Garland Publishing, 1993).
Egidi, 274.