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

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The ways in which falcons and cranes appear in each canticle illustrate divine order: those in Inferno have an element of chaos, the souls compared to them in Purgatorio are training and on pilgrimage, while those in Paradiso are enlightened, and have reached their goal. A distinction is made between the wild falcons and hawks of Inferno and those domesticated in training in Purgatorio, or finished training in Paradiso. Likewise, the cranes of Inferno fly in' a disorderly fashion, while those in Purgatorio are migrating, like the souls in transit, and those in Paradiso are feeding and rejoicing, like the souls enjoying full divine love. maintenant crient et font esveillier leg autres por eschaper a sauvete. (Brunetto Latini, Li livres dozr Tresol; I.V.165, ed. P. Chabaille (Paris: Imprimerie Imperiale, 1863), pp. 215-16.) Translation: "Cranes are birds that fly in formation, like armed knights who are going to battle [...I and the first one leads and guides and instructs with its voice, and all the others follow it and obey its instructions. When the chieftain has grown hoarse and its voice is somewhat weak it has no sense of shame at being replaced by another, and it goes back to join the others which are following [...I one out of twelve [sic] of them watches over and protects the others as they sleep [...I all the while they hold a stone in their claw which does not let them fall asleep [...I. When something dangerous arises, they immediately cry out and awaken the others so they can escape to safety." (Trans. Paul Barrette and Spurgeon Baldwin, Brunetto Latini, The Book of the Treasure [Li Livres dou Tresor] [New York-London: Garland Publishing, 19931, 122.) Also, Hugh de Fouilloy expounds on the view of cranes as symbols of divine order and monastic living: Grues dum pergunt, unam sequuntur ordine litterato [...I. 1110s autem significant, qui ad hoc student, ut ordinate vivant. Grues enim ordine litterato volantes designant ordinate viventes. Cum autem ordinate volando procedunt, ex se litteras in volatu fingunt. 1110s autem designant, qui in se praecepta Scripturae bene vivendo formant. Una earum reliquas antecedit, quae clamare non desinit, quia praelatus, qui primum locum regiminis obtinet, suos sequaces moribus et vita praeire debet, ita tamen ut semper clamet, et viam bonae operationis sequacibus suis praedicando demonstret. Quae autem alias antecedit, si rauca facta fuerit, tune alia succedit, quia praelatus si verbum Dei subjectis non praedicet, vel praedicare nesciat, cum raucus fuit, necesse est ut alius succedat. Translation: "While cranes are flying they follow one of their number in lettered order [...I. They symbolize, moreover, those who strive to live by the Rule. Moreover, when they fly in formation they fashion letters with their bodies as they fly: further, they denote moreover those who by righteous living form within themselves the teachings of Scripture. A certain one of the cranes precedes the others, one which cries continually, because a priest, who occupies a prime position in the care of souls, should lead his followers by his manner and way of life, so that he still continually cries out and in his sermons demonstrates to his followers the path of good behaviour. If (the bird) which leads the others, however, should become hoarse, then another takes its place, because if one priest should not preach the Word of God to those in his care, or cannot preach because he becomes hoarse, it is necessary that another take his place," from The Medieval Book of Birds: Hugh of Fouilloy's Aviarium, trans. Willene B. Clark (Binghamton: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1992), 203-5.
These birds are not used solely to represent the residents of the afterlife; Dante uses them self-referentially as well. He compares himself to a falcon in training in ~ur~atorio,~ while his concern for his own writing and its aims prompts many of the crane similes. The ability of cranes to form letters in flight has long since been seen as the origin of the alphabet and thence as a metaphor for the act of writing it~elf.~ Allegorically, if cranes in migration are to be viewed as Christians seeking divine inspiration, then the "writing" that the cranes perform in the sky is also like divinely- inspired human writing: at the very least, it has as its goal and inspiration divine love, and at most, it is writing that is no longer divinely-inspired and composed by humans, but is actually divinely-dictated and recorded by humans. To act as the scribe of this last sort o,f writing is precisely the role that Dante wishes to play and which he is able to accomplish in Paradiso XVIII: Messo t'ho innanzi: omai per te ti ciba; chC a se torce tutta la mia cura quella materia ond'io son fatto scriba. (Paradiso X, 25-7) In this light, cranes, besides symbolizing good Christians, become for Dante the image of the correctly-inspired writer of poetry, that is, the poet that he himself is striving to become. Moreover, in their system of rotating leadership, cranes always take care that their leader in migration is sound of mind and purpose. As a "lead -- - Boccassini (257-259) sees another reference to Dante as a falcon in training in Inferno, in the reference to "pasto" in Canto XIV, when he asks Virgil for an explanation of the source of infernal rivers: "per ch'io pregai che mi largesse '1 pasto I di cui largito m'avea il disio" (91-93). See Martial, Epigrammata, ed. A. J. Valpy (London: A. J. Valpy, 1822), Vol. 2, XIII.75: "Turbabis versus, nec litera tota volabit, I Unam perdideris si Palamedis avem." ("You will confuse the lines and the writing will not fly complete, if you lose one of Palamedes' birds." Epigrams, trans. D. R. Shackleton Bailey [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 19931, p. 203.)
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Birds of Prey and the Sport of Falc
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O Copyright by Teresa Flora Lucia G
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Birds of Prey and the Sport of Falc
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
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This dissertation is dedicated to m
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medieval Italian literature is the
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poetry. The Sicilians adopt quite a
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CHAPTER 1 : Falconry as symbols bef
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The ancient Greeks and Romans did n
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hawk. The hawk responds that it is
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If a falcon sees the dead body of a
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The popularity of falcons and hawks
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animali, including a section on fal
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Hrabanus Maurus, in his eighth cent
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earlier; second, that there is a pe
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evolution of the late medieval view
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chapter that consists entirely of a
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century, is not spiritual, but a vo
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conveying the idea of Caesar's fier
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on falcons and hawks, telling about
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it is made typically of something t
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Having established the popularity o
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circle of acquaintances to illustra
Page 48 and 49: C'una noch sornnav' en pascor Tal s
Page 50 and 51: Amors o fai si com lo bons astors q
Page 52 and 53: chosen a mate so far above him in e
Page 54 and 55: Inferno, Chaucer is in this place t
Page 56 and 57: tercel eagle states that she should
Page 58 and 59: she gave in for fear that he might
Page 60 and 61: CHAPTER 2: Falconry in Duecento and
Page 62 and 63: nonexistent in the poetry of the sc
Page 64 and 65: da c'omo vene tosto a compimento. B
Page 66 and 67: It seems as if the text were meant
Page 68 and 69: We find here the image of the nibbi
Page 70 and 71: to be forceful like the sparrowhawk
Page 72 and 73: 10 va' vedere, e par tenere, lo suo
Page 74 and 75: e disleale, larone e traito, che wo
Page 76 and 77: volgesi a1 grido, quand' egli e sta
Page 78 and 79: the hunter. In the stanza in which
Page 80 and 81: practice of falconry does not carry
Page 82 and 83: celebrates throughout his corona-in
Page 84 and 85: These crows and vultures, disagreea
Page 86 and 87: previous ladies who inspired poets,
Page 88 and 89: y Guido Cavalcanti. Matteo Correggi
Page 90 and 91: who far from being beyond the reach
Page 92 and 93: - I' mi son qui selvaggia pasturell
Page 94 and 95: The ladylfalcon is much less hostil
Page 96 and 97: la carta de le regole d'amore, dove
Page 100 and 101: crane" among poets, Dante feels a f
Page 102 and 103: hitless.* Like the other servants o
Page 104 and 105: esponsibility and order, is, howeve
Page 106 and 107: Unlike the birds in Inferno, the fa
Page 108 and 109: Bastiti, e batti a terra le calcagn
Page 110 and 111: Bonagiunta portrays Dante's being i
Page 112 and 113: (Purgatorio XXVI, 133-5) The crane
Page 114 and 115: compared to them have reached the g
Page 116 and 117: source of the formation of letters,
Page 118 and 119: a me medesima uscita di mente, non
Page 120 and 121: E la madre questo vedendo vuole mor
Page 122 and 123: Upon hearing that it was an old man
Page 124 and 125: tal es mon talens, Ke m'inervia d'o
Page 126 and 127: expectation of the class status of
Page 128 and 129: Ardito avendo uno suo figliuolo nom
Page 130 and 131: "'tua figliuola B stata si vaga del
Page 132 and 133: Monna Giovanna re-enters his life w
Page 134 and 135: a "miglior massaio" in a society co
Page 136 and 137: domestication or training of the fa
Page 138 and 139: BIBLIOGRAPHY Aelianus, Claudius. De
Page 140 and 141: Consoli, Joseph P., ed. The Novelli
Page 142 and 143: Lewis, C. S. Allegory of Love: a St
Page 144: . Transcription and Visual Poetics
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