arles on his
Italian expedition against Manfred in 1265, and seems to have been
captured by the Ghibellines before reaching Naples. At any rate, he was
a prisoner at Novara in September 1266; Pope Clement IV. induced Charles
to ransom him, and in 1269, as a recompense for his services, he
received five castles in the Abruzzi, near the river Pescara: shortly [103]
afterwards he died. The circumstances of his death are unknown, but from
the fact that he is placed by Dante among those who were cut off before
they could repent it has been conjectured that he came to a violent end.

Sordello's restless life and his intrigues could be exemplified from the
history of many another troubadour and neither his career nor his
poetry, which with two exceptions, is of no special originality, seems
to justify the portrait drawn of him by Dante; while Browning's famous
poem has nothing in common with the troubadour except the name. These
exceptions, however, are notable. The first is a _sirventes_ composed by
Sordello on the death of his patron Blacatz in 1237. He invites to the
funeral feast the Roman emperor, Frederick II., the kings of France,
England and Aragon, the counts of Champagne, Toulouse and Provence. They
are urged to eat of the dead man's heart, that they may gain some
tincture of his courage and nobility. Each is invited in a separate
stanza in which the poet reprehends the failings of the several
potentates.

Del rey engles me platz, quar es paue coratjos,
Que manje pro del cor, pueys er valens e bos,
E cobrara la terra, per que viu de pretz blos,
Que.l tol lo reys de Fransa, quar lo sap nualhos;
E lo reys castelas tanh qu'en manje per dos, [104]
Quar dos regismes ten, e per l'un non es pros;
Mas, s'elh en vol manjar, tanh qu'en manj'a rescos,
Que, si.l mair'o sabra, batria.l ab bastos.

"As concerns the English King (Henry III.) it pleases me, for he is
little courageous, that he should eat well of the heart; then he will be
valiant and good and will recover the land (for loss of which he lives
bereft of worth), which the King of France took from him, for he knows
him to be of no account. And the King of Castile (Ferdinand III. of
Castile and Leon), it is fitting that he eat of it for two, for he holds
two realms and he is not sufficient for one; but if he will eat of it,
'twere well that he eat in secret: for if his mother were to know it,
she would beat him with staves