Читать книгу Gesammelte Aufsätze zur romanischen Philologie – Studienausgabe. Herausgegeben und ergänzt um Aufsätze, Primärbibliographie und Nachwort von Matthias Bormuth und Martin Vialon онлайн

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The ancient commentators were more cautious, Benvenuto da ImolaBenvenuto da Imola writes:16

… et primo quidem introducit unum senem cantantem laudes ipsius ecclesiae. Et ad intelligentiam litterae debes scire, quod hic erat Salomon qui inter alios fecit librum qui intitulatur Canticum Canticorum, in quo sub typo describit statura ecclesiae introducens sponsum et sponsam, id est Christum et ecclesiam, ad loquendum mutuo. … Ista verba scripta in praedicto libro Canticorum sunt verba sponsi, id est Christi, qui dicit ad sponsam idest ecclesiam: Veni sponsa mea odorifera. Libanum enim est mons Arabiae, ubi nascitur thus quod etiam dicitur olibanum, sicut patet per Bernardum, qui pulcre scripsit super istum librum …

This passage is a precious testimony for two reasons: Bernard of ClairvauxBernhard v. Clairvaux, whom it mentions, had a deep, lasting and widespread influence, particularly through his cycle of Sermons on the Canticles; above all, it shows the spontaneous reaction of every mediaeval Christian to the words sponsus and sponsa: they meant for him Christ and the Church; for the Church you may sometimes put Christianity or every faithful soul.17 These meanings had become current and familiar from thousands of sermons, from liturgical and ‘semiliturgical’ representations. In view of the great liberty of interpretation which I have already mentioned, it was certainly possible occasionally to use one of these words in another sense; but then it was indispensable to say so explicitly, as DanteDante did in the above quoted passage of the Convivio. Otherwise the words sponsus and sponsa were just as fixed as the words President and Congress are now in the United States. In the same way it would have seemed very strange and astonishing to the mediaeval reader to see the verses veni sponsa de Libano and benedictus qui venis applied to the same person. He knew, on the contrary, from many sermons and from the liturgy, that the first refers to the Church, or Christianity, or the faithful soul, the other to the Saviour. Therefore it is, if not impossible, at least very unlikely, that DanteDante intended the words veni sponsa de Libano as an invitation to Beatrice.