Lo ferm voler ch’el cor m’intra. The unexpected result of a dice roll

The composition of Lo ferm voler qu'el cor m'intra by Arnaut Daniel marks the birth of the lyric sestina, but is still surrounded by an aura of excessive sacrality that does not allow its essence to be understood. The sestina, in fact, presents compositional peculiarities that must first be returned to the type of fruition that the troubadour performance implied (i.e. oral and not written) (Mayo, 2012). Moreover, the significance of this performance is not to be attributed to contrivances for their own sake, but to the composer's precise intention to reintroduce into the performance an unexpected passion of his: gambling (Marchis, 2009). Here, rhymes and notes actually become the dice with which Arnaut plays, and the sestina is transformed into a permutation of possible random combinations (Canettieri, 2023). This is made even more effective by the particular melodic patterns (Rossell, 2015): the suggestions of the unusual intervals of thirds, the iambic rhythm, and the allusions in the text cause the listener to be transported to the goliardic setting of the tavern, where playing dice is customary, resulting in a playful art. The presence of the dice is not only an aesthetic factor, of textual embellishment, but provides the link with the mental states attributable to the Azar game, making the audience part of it. According to Schechner's (2013) view, it is not the stage that identifies and delimits the performance, but almost any everyday action is characterised by a certain performative dimension in which we replay, assembling them variously, our restored behaviour. In consideration of the aforementioned factors, it can be posited that in order to achieve a comprehensive understanding of Lo ferm voler, it would be a fallacy to restrict interpretation exclusively to the text. Rather, it should be conceived of as a global performance that incorporates both the dice and the element of chance. When considered from this perspective, Arnaut Daniel's sestina can even be regarded as a particular instance of gamification.