Janet and Clive,
I'm glad you like the Cecco poem too. Another way it gets its effect is with all those verbs in the conditional, ending with ei. Nearly every line in the poem has one - part of that anaphoric buildup Clive mentions. Notice also that these are used as rhyme words only in the octave. The strong end-stops and the repetition of the strongly accented 4th syllable do have the effect of making us wait for the punch line at the end.
The poem comes from the comic-burlesque tradition in Italy, usually dated back to Rustico Filippo in the 13th century. Cecco provided comic relief to the great stilnovo high style, including Dante. I took this from the internet (
http://www.planck.com/rhymedtranslat...ccosifosse.htm):
Dante Alighier, s'i' so bon begolardo,
tu mi tien' bene la lancia a le reni,
s'eo desno con altrui, e tu vi ceni;
s'eo mordo 'l grasso, tu ne sugi 'l lardo;
s'eo cimo 'l panno, e tu vi freghi 'l cardo:
s'eo so discorso, e tu poco raffreni;
s'eo gentileggio, e tu misser t'avveni;
s'eo so fatto romano, e tu lombardo.
Sì che, laudato Deo, rimproverare
poco pò l'uno l'altro di noi due:
sventura o poco senno cel fa fare.
E se di questo vòi dicere piùe,
Dante Alighier, i' t'averò a stancare;
ch'eo so lo pungiglion, e tu se' 'l bue.
Dante, if I'm head fool it's by a narrow
margin, you are right there at my heels.
I chew the fat and you suck out the marrow:
if I'm the houseguest, you appear for meals.
If I seem virtuous, you're canonized;
if I hold forth, you're burning to butt in;
I'm stuck in Rome, and you get Lombardized—
I hang the suit up, you brush off the lint.
It looks, praise God, like neither one of us
can justly act superior about
the other's lack of sense or adverse fate,
and now if you persist in this debate,
Dante boy, I'll simply wear you out:
since I'm the cattle-prod that drives your ox.