‘O frate, disse, questi ch’io ti scerno Col dito (ed additò uno spirto innanzi) Fu miglior fabbro del parlar materno. Versi d’amor e prose di romanzi Soverchiò tutti ... Canto xxvi., verses 115-119. ‘O brother,’ cried he, pointing with his hand, ‘This spirit whom I show far better knew To weld the language of his native land. In lays of love and in romances too He bore the palm.’ ... (CAYLEY’S translation.) This artful ‘smith of his mother-tongue’ is our troubadour, who, when addressed, replies in pure Provençal, a language evidently quite familiar to Dante. The above-cited lines are generally considered to be the clue to the apparently excessive admiration lavished on Arnaut by the Italian poets. There can indeed be no doubt that, in addition to his fame as a lyrical singer or troubadour proper, his equal excellence as a narrative poet is here referred to, the word ‘_prose_’ being used not in our modern sense, but for the rhymed couplets of the epic in contradistinction to the elaborate stanzas or _versi_ of the love-song. The further question arises, what were the works on which Arnaut’s reputation as an epical poet was founded, and for the answer to this question we again must look in the works of Italian poets. Pulci, the humorous author of the ‘Morgante Maggiore,’ mentions our troubadour twice amongst the writers of Carlovingian epics, explaining his statement by the further indication that he (Arnaut) ‘wrote most diligently and investigated the deeds of Rinaldo (i.e. Renaut de Montauban, the eldest of the _quatre fils Aimon_) and the great things he did in Egypt.’ This seems to prove conclusively that as late as the end of the fifteenth century, when Pulci wrote, an epic poem on ‘Renaut’ by Arnaut Daniel was known amongst scholars in Italy.[6] But a still later and in one sense still more important testimonial to Arnaut is found in Torquato Tasso, who, it appears, mentions him as the author of a poem on ‘Lancelot.’ For this enables us to connect our troubadour with a second and perhaps the divinest passage in Dante’s divine poem. The reader need scarcely be reminded that the story which kindles to open and conscious flame the silent passion of Francesca da Polenta and Paolo Malatesta is a romance of Lancelot— Di Lancilotto come amor lo strinse; and nothing is more probable than that Dante should have thought of Arnaut Daniel’s lost epic when he wrote the inspired lines that are in everybody’s memory. Per più fiate gli occhi ci sospinse Quella lettura, e scollorocci ’l viso; Ma solo un punto fu quel che ci vinse; Quando leggemmo il disiato riso Esser baciato da cotanto amante, Questi che mai di me non fia diviso La bocca mi bacciò tutto tremante. Galeotto fu il libro e chi lo scrisse; Quel giorno più non vi legemmo avante.