Amor cha nullo amato amar perdona là gì năm 2024

Dante Alighieri, the legendary Florentine poet has produced much in the name of unmatched literature (within the confines that any mortal could produce). Today, I came across a line from a rather well-known work of his that compelled me to write upon further examination. That line was:

‘Amor c’ha nulla amato amar perdona’

Well, what does it mean?

As you might have discovered at the very start of this lowly discourse, it presents a very simple idea from the traditional rules of love. Rather, it speaks from an age or from a set of ideas embodying a more ‘polite’ tradition of love… Yet to consider the matter more deeply, we find that even that polite love too, corresponds in some way to the deeper realities that accompany it.

What is spoken here is: “The beloved can never quite be exempted from returning love and affection to their love”

To those hopeless romantics who thirst for a mere fleeting chance to taste what is love! Who wish to live what they have seen and consumed in all forms of media… To they, this seems to be the dream itself. To love and be loved.

Perhaps if Love better resembled trade or common social discourse… we might expect that to be the bare minimum that is expected of all beings. That is, to return love to those that give you love. To answer affection with affection. Isn’t that only fair?

I find myself tempted to shut my mouth and haul my arse off to lands far away so that I might not break those hearts seeking and vying for love… Yet I find myself so very compelled to speak with an Eastern perspective, speaking in the terms of the language of love and poetry itself (Those better familiar with the literary tendencies of my native languages will know what I refer to)

Photo by Gioia Maurizi on Unsplash

The Lover, by nature, is inclined towards loving limitlessly. One cannot quite love limitedly and in a matter so terribly half-hearted and yet claim the mantle of a lover! To be a lover, despite all restrictions on your expression and movement… is to bear that madness in your chest and to never let it extinguish.

What is the station of the beloved, though?

Alas! This is where, perhaps, the line I encountered would contrast sharply with the metaphors and language of my native land’s poetry.

In Urdu poetic tradition (and in others), it is an almost unavoidable trope in love poetry (such as Ghazals ) to present a rather interesting sort of dynamic. The lover, as mentioned prior, is given the criteria of madness to qualify. He must be like Qays of Arabia, Majnun ; as they called him because of his madness for his beloved: Layla. The trials of a lover are immense and to be loved in turn… is an immensely rare occasion. In fact, one ought to consider that alone to be grounds for generational celebration.

I did read somewhere of course, that love itself is a strangely spontaneous yet deeply-rooted thing. It is beyond mere emotion or impulse. It is so very separate and deeper sometimes than traditional conventions that it is bound to bring disaster and tragedy. Yet… as they say- The condition of being is to accept a state of affairs wherein you may no longer exist. To love is to fear the day you hurt… to live, is to accept that you will die.

He who loves, might expect love in turn…. and indeed, it is a terrible expectation to harbour… in fact, it is the most dangerous and potentially lethal one too… For the uninitiated, they expect love to be a bed of roses with occasional bumps… It is a bed of thorns that you must willingly lay over and smile as you are pricked and bleed all over; It is a constant fight — You can never obtain your ‘destination’. You must love till your last breath.

Ahem…

Back to our actual topic of discussion.

Dante: Some have written that the verse under discussion (from Canto 5 of Inferno), illustrates the traditions of ‘Courtly love’ in Italy at the time. A writer is perfectly a fit in his capacity both when he describes aptly that which is most familiar to him… though he is fit too, when he describes things he is not native to, but can understand because of his foreignness.

Love is meant to be returned, indeed… But there is a distinction to be made to understand why several views on Love might contrast so sharply…Where as in my native South Asian literature, a directly antonymous maxim exists… One must recognise that the kinds of love under discussion also differ sharply.

What do I mean?

Dante speaks of a different, courtly love here. When we speak of the Love we of the East know… It is a more reckless love… A more pure and perhaps convention less love… If the ‘polite’ loves of the classics are bound to lead to tragedy… you can certainly imagine what might be the result of something far more unadulterated…

Alas!

Love… Universal as it is, yet so terribly misunderstood and forsaken by some…

Indeed, I must agree with Dante: Love, Love does not exempt the beloved from loving back… But perhaps when the Lover loves the way his heart speaks and not the way Etiquette dictates… when things slip from his lips and his gestures cannot hide the intensity of his sentiments — A tragedy of human nature becomes:

Those that love the deepest, are often those that are left to never be loved just the same.

Photo by Zoya Loonohod on Unsplash

Ah! So I have ended up writing about Dante. I owe that one to you tomatotie, I really do. Eh… you don’t happen to be reading this, do you? I don’t mind. Rather, I quite appreciate it.

I don’t get read much these days, and rightfully so. Things have been a tad bit complicated and equivalently convoluted. Too much to do, some victories, some sources of dejection and despair alike… Oh how much I’d love to talk about it… I just don’t get the chance alright.

So!

I hope I can be forgiven for all the mistakes and idiocy that I might commit as well as my flawed interpretations. I am, after all, a tad bit of a dumbass.