The most important amongst these is the _sestina_. It was invented by Arnaut Daniel, the master of ‘dear rhymes’ and ‘obscure words,’ of whom and of which previous mention has been made. For his propensities in that direction Arnaut himself tenders a very plausible excuse. He shifts the responsibility from his own shoulders to those of his lady. If she were kind to him, he alleges, melodious rhythms and pleasing simple verses would naturally flow from his pen. The lady’s cruelty therefore is answerable for involved sentences and harsh rhymes. The plea is not altogether without force. But Arnaut’s natural tendency towards the incomprehensible and strikingly original is at the same time established beyond a doubt. One of his favourite devices was to construct a stanza without a single rhyme in the stanza itself. But instead of this the close of the first line would match with that of all the other stanzas of the poem, the second line with the second, and so forth. In one poem, for instance, the last word of the opening line of the first stanza is _larga_, that of the second stanza _embarga_, that of the third _descarga_, and so on through all the corresponding lines of the poem. To modern and northern ears the consonance thus suspended for eight or more lines is hardly perceptible. But in the south and in the middle ages this was different. Even so great a master of form as Dante highly approved of Arnaut’s practice, and, what is more, avowedly imitated it (‘et nos eum secuti sumus.’—_De Vulgari Eloquio_, cap. 10). The result of this imitation is one of the sweetest love poems of the ‘_Canzoniere_,’ the _sestina_ beginning, ‘Al poco giorno ed al gran cerchio d’ombra.’ Two other poems of the same kind are attributed to Dante by some commentators, although others doubt their authenticity. The fundamental scheme of the _sestina_, as has already been stated, is that of blank-verse stanzas, being in the relation of rhyme to other blank-verse stanzas. But here this principle is carried to a climax. For not only the consonances, but the actual rhyme-words of the first strophe are repeated throughout the poem. The difficulty of writing sense and poetry under such conditions is increased by the curiously inverted order in which these words are repeated. To give the reader an idea of the ingenuity of this contrivance, it will be necessary to write down the concluding words of the six stanzas of a celebrated _sestina_ by Arnaut Daniel in the order in which they occur. The number six—both as regards the stanzas of the poem and the lines of each stanza—is the orthodox one, and has given the name to the poem. A short _tornada_ or _envoi_, however, is added, and in this the six rhyme-words of the previous stanza are once more repeated. I. STANZA. II. STANZA. III. STANZA. IV. STANZA.