Laude LXXVI, "O iubelo del core / O exultation of the heart"
O iubelo del core, che fai cantar d’amore!
Quanno iubel se scalda, sí fa l’omo cantare
e la lengua barbaglia e non sa che parlare:
dentro non pò celare, tanto è granne ’l dolzore!
Quanno iubel è acceso, sí fa l’omo clamare;
lo cor d’amore è appreso, che nol pò comportare,
stridenno el fa gridare, e non vergogna allore.
Quanno iubelo ha priso lo cor ennamorato,
la gente l’ha ’n deriso, pensanno suo parlato,
parlanno esmesurato de che sente calore.
O iubel, dolze gaudio, ched intre ne la mente,
lo cor deventa savio celar suo convenente:
non pò esser soffrente che non faccia clamore.
Chi non ha costumanza te reputa ’mpazito,
vedenno esvalianza com ’om ch’è desvanito,
dentr’ha lo cor ferito, non se sente da fore.
Comment:
Jacopone could have written this laude at any point of his life, but most probably during the first decade after his conversion, spent as a ‘bizocone’ (an itinerant preacher). It is typical of the first period of converts to experience mixed feelings: Of despair and remorse as they think of the years spent in revelry and vanity, or of irrepressible joy and jubilation, with songs and loud words and even with dance movements, for the sense of freedom and joy they feel in the world they have discovered after their conversion. People thought they were crazy. This behavior is a classic of almost all mystics, including St. Francis.
Of this laude Giuseppe Ungaretti wrote as follows:
“It is an immersion in an intoxication now without betrayal, and the heart renews its musical beat... His heart is finally in possession of an immeasurable love without limitations, either physical or spiritual, of the immensity of love, of the divinity of love...”
– taken from LAUDI – Jacopone da Todi, edited by Claudio Peri, (Perugia, Fabrizio Fabbri Editore, 2020)
