it must be said that the majority of his poems are far from attaining this ideal.  Their obscurity, however, is often due rather to the difficulty of the subject matter than to any intentional attempt at preciosity of style.  He was one of the first troubadours who attempted to analyse the effects of love from a psychological standpoint; his analysis often proceeds in the form of a dialogue with himself, an attempt to show the hearer by what methods he arrived at his conclusions.  “How is it, in the name of God, that when I wish to sing, I weep?  Can the reason be that love has conquered me?  And does love bring me no delight?  Yes, delight is mine.  Then why am I sad and melancholy?  I cannot tell.  I have lost my lady’s favour and the delight of love has no more sweetness for me.  Had ever a lover such misfortune?  But am I a lover?  No!  Have I ceased to love passionately?  No!  Am I then a lover?  Yes, if my lady would suffer my love.”  Guiraut’s [55] moral sirventes are reprobations of the decadence of his age.  He saw a gradual decline of the true spirit of chivalry.  The great lords were fonder of war and pillage than of poetry and courtly state.  He had himself suffered from the change, if his biographer is to be believed; the Viscount of Limoges had plundered and burnt his house.  He compares the evils of his own day with the splendours of the past, and asks whether the accident of birth is the real source of nobility; a man must be judged by himself and his acts and not by the rank of his forefathers; these were the sentiments that gained him a mention in the Fourth Book of Dante’s Convivio.[22]

The question why Dante should have preferred Arnaut Daniel to Guiraut de Bornelh[23] has given rise to much discussion.  The solution turns upon Dante’s conception of style, which is too large a problem for consideration here.  Dante preferred the difficult and artificial style of Arnaut to the simple style of the opposition school; from Arnaut he borrowed the sestina form; and at the end of the canto he puts the well-known lines, “Ieu sui Arnaut, que plor e vau cantan,” into the troubadour’s mouth.  We know little of Arnaut’s life; he was a noble of Riberac in Perigord.  The biography relates an incident in his life which is said to have taken place at the court of Richard Coeur de Lion.

A certain troubadour had boasted before the king that he could compose a [56] better poem than Arnaut.  The latter accepted the challenge and the king confined the poets to their rooms for a certain time at the end of which they were to recite their composition before him.  Arnaut’s inspiration totally failed him, but from his room he could hear his rival singing as he rehearsed his own composition.  Arnaut was able to learn his rival’s poem by heart, and when the time of trial came he asked to be allowed to sing first, and performed his opponent’s song, to the wrath of the latter, who protested vigorously.  Arnaut acknowledged the trick, to the great amusement of the king.