NOTES ON THE POEM
Caption I. Instead of "Cant de la primera comedia" one would expect "Primer cant de la comedia." The numeral "segona" likewise qualifies "comedia" in the caption of the second canto. This peculiar order of words is probably due to a mistake on the part of the scribe, who was ignorant of the real meaning of the word "comedia," a term borrowed from the Italian.
It will be noticed that only the first two cantos have captions. This is one of the signs of the probably unfinished or abridged state of the poem in its present form. See Introduction, p. 46.
1-8. The parallel between these opening verses and the beginning of the Divine Comedy is almost too evident to require comment. With
"me retrobi un dia
Dins una vall d'arbres, tan dolorosa"
cf. Inf. I, 2:
"Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,"
with vv. 7-8 cf. Inf. I, 10-11:
"I' non so ben ridir com' i' v'entrai,
Tant' era pien di sonno in su quel punto."
The mention of death in v. 6 is also a reflection of Inf. I, 7:
"Tanto è amara, che poco è più morte."
The desire for death (v. 6) as a cure for the torments of love is a commonplace in the literature of the Middle Ages. Rocabertí had perhaps read Boccaccio's Corbaccio; cf . p. 1 (Moutier edition): "estimai che molto più facile e assai men grave dovesse essere la morte che la vita: e quella con sommo desiderio cominciai a chiamare."
16. The Pyrrhus here referred to is the son of Achilles, renowned for cruelty on account of having slain Priam and having sacrificed Polyxena. Although Rocabertí may have seen Pyrrhus mentioned in the Inferno (XII, 135), where he is placed among the cruel, the form "Pirrus" indicates that the poet was more familiar with the name from some non-Italian source, probably the Roman de Troie; cf. vv. 695-696 (Constans edition) of the latter:
"De Pirrus, le fil Achillès,
Qui assez fu fel e engrès."
19. Verses with lyrical cæsura, that is, with an atonic syllable immediately before the cæsura, occur frequently throughout the poem; cf. vv. 66, 234, 245, etc. This usage is called a vice ("vici")
