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 PQ 4315.58.B74 
 
 Vita nuova and its author: 
 
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THE VITA NUOVA 
 
 AND ITS AUTHOR 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028129694 
 
THE VITA NUOVA 
 
 AND ITS AUTHOR 
 
 BEING THE VITA NUOVA OF DANTE ALIGHIERl, 
 
 LITERALLY TRANSLATED, WITH NOTES 
 
 AND AN INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY 
 
 CHARLES STUART BOSWELL 
 
 LONDON 
 KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRUBNER & CO. Ltd. 
 
 Paternoster House, Charing Cross Road . 17/ 
 
 1895 
 
X 
 
THE VITA NUOVA AND ITS 
 AUTHOR. 
 
 INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Dante's fame, like that of most writers who 
 have left behind them some one work of tran- 
 scendent excellence, is so inseparably connected, 
 in the minds of men generally, with that work, 
 that his minor Writings are seldom permitted to 
 have their due weight in the estimate either of 
 his works or of his personality. That this 
 should be so is, perhaps, inevitable : life is too 
 short, and, for most, too busy, to admit of an 
 exhaustive study of the whole life-work of even 
 the greatest men. None the less, however, is it 
 true that by remaining in ignorance of an author's 
 minor writings, we not only lose much that is 
 of intrinsic worth, but we also, and especially, 
 forego .some of our most valuable aids to the 
 
 B 
 
2 The Vita Niiova and its Author. 
 
 full comprehension and due appreciation both 
 of his personality and of his greater works. 
 
 Of none is this more true than it is of Dante. 
 To none, not even, perhaps, to Shakspere, 
 may the epithet " myriad-minded " be applied 
 with greater fitness ; in no one man's work are 
 represented with greater completeness all, or 
 nearly all, man's mental capacities and the 
 various aspects of human nature, or are more 
 completely mirrored the characteristics of the 
 times in which he lived. All these elements, it 
 is true, are to be found in the Corn-media — and 
 there most highly developed — by such "fts have 
 eyes to see what is before them. Dante, how- 
 ever, has suffered from the very greatness of his 
 fame, which, subsisting through the ages imme- 
 diately preceding our own, htfs been handed 
 down to us by critics unable, indeed, to ignore, 
 but incapable of appreciating, his genius ; and 
 these critics have -decided the judgment of the 
 generality of readers, who are prone to turn 
 most eagerly to those passages of a book which 
 are most deeply thumb-marked by their pre- 
 decessors, and to form their opinions upon the 
 marginal notes which they find pencilled there. 
 
 For a century past, sounder literary apprecia- 
 tions have prevailed, and a vast amount of 
 
Introduction. 3 
 
 learning and industry has been devoted to the 
 elucidation of Dante's life and works ; even 
 nOw, however, it is by no means rare to find 
 many who should know better speaking and 
 writing of Dante's harshness, his sternness, his 
 cruelty, his partiality, his vindictiveness , his love 
 of the horrible, and what not ; their knowledge 
 of the poet being confined apparently to certain 
 passages of the Inferno descriptive of the 
 torments of the damned, and of the crimes by 
 which those penalties were incurred ; while, 
 even in those very passages, the tragedy, the 
 pathos, and the moral significance are ignored, 
 and only the horrors are dwelt upon. Truly 
 these critics would seem to enter upon the 
 perusal of one of the world's greatest poems in 
 much the same spirit as that in which readers 
 of another class take up the "Police News" — 
 in search olun nouveau frisson. 
 
 A far other and juster estimate of the divine 
 poem and its author might be formed by a 
 study of his minor works, in each of which is 
 developed some special side of his character, 
 some special set of his convictions expounded ; 
 while those who already love and appreciate 
 the great work, will find in them much that will 
 enable them to return to its perusal with a 
 B 2 
 
4 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 fuller comprehension of the subject, and a 
 livelier conception of the author's personality. 
 There is not one of these minor works but 
 reveals to us much of the author's inner life 
 — something, too, of his outer life ; not one 
 but contains the germs of thoughts afterwards 
 matured in the Commedia. Of inestimable 
 value, too, are these books, one and all, for the 
 light they shed upon the troublous but most 
 momentous epoch which witnessed the forma- 
 tion of that Italian civilization, which was 
 destined to influence and direct the material 
 and mental development of the whole civilized 
 world. 
 
 In the Vita Nuova we behold a wonderful 
 picture of that early love which was the inspira- 
 tion of the poet's youth, the regenerative 
 principle of his manhood, and, finally, the 
 beacon which guided his course to the desired 
 haven. From the Convito, of which but a 
 fraction was ever written, we learn what were 
 the studies of Dante's maturity, gaining, at the 
 same time, a compendious view of the systems 
 accepted in his day concerning things material 
 and spiritual. In the same work, one book 
 is devoted to an eloquent and passionate 
 exposition of what, in the author's view, 
 
Introduction, 5 
 
 constitutes true nobility. In his treatise De 
 Monarchia Dante expounds and elaborates his 
 ideal system of an universal Polity, attempting 
 the solution of the burning question which 
 racked all Christendom during the eleventh, 
 twelfth, and thirteenth centuries — the relative 
 preponderance of the civil and ecclesiastical 
 power. The fragment . De Vulgari Eloquentia 
 is at once an interesting critique upon the 
 modern romance tongues, and the vernacular 
 poetry of his own day, and an inception of his 
 own theory of poetics. In short, Dante's life- 
 work forms one great whole, of which the 
 individual parts, though treating of topics the 
 most widely diverse, and betraying those 
 changes and inconsistencies which are the 
 necessary outcome of ripening powers and 
 extended knowledge, are yet linked each to 
 each by innumerable traits of thought, imagery 
 and expression, testifying to the marvellous 
 unity of the mind which gave them birth. 
 
 Of Dante's minor works, the most germane 
 to our present purpose — the study, that is, of 
 Dante's own personality — as well as the one 
 most conspicuous for its own inherent beauty, 
 is without doubt the Vita Nuova, the story of 
 the poet's early love. The claims of this little 
 
6 The Vita Nuova and its Author, 
 
 work are many and various. Its interest is at 
 once prospective and retrospective. From the 
 latter point of view, it is interesting as being 
 the culmination and the quintessence of that 
 mediseval school of love poetry, which, ori- 
 ginating with the Troubadours of the South of 
 France, became naturalized in every country 
 of Southern Europe as the literature of the 
 cultured classes: — interesting, too, for the 
 apergus which it affords of the physics and 
 metaphysics of that day. Yet more interesting 
 is it from the prospective point of view. It is 
 the first piece of artistic prose in the Italian 
 language ; it is the first specimen of the modern 
 introspective autobiography ; it contains, pro- 
 bably, the first essay in any modern tongue in 
 literary and philological criticism. Indeed, in 
 this its twofold aspect, it is no bad emblem of 
 Dante's whole life-work, for it was his task to 
 concentrate within himself all the thought and 
 learning of the middle ages, and to make this 
 the starting point of the thought and learning 
 of modern times, thus building up the future in 
 the only way which can ensure stability, namely 
 by laying its foundations deep down in the past. 
 After all, however, the main interest of the book 
 is a personal one, as being the beautiful expres- 
 
Introduction. 7 
 
 sion of a most beautiful mind ; the most fair 
 blossom of that tree which was destined in its 
 autumn to bear such goodly fruit. 
 
 Such being the Vita Nuova, it is needless to 
 state that it has several times been translated 
 into English, and that, more than once, with 
 an excellence to which the present translation 
 can make no pretension. Doubtless, therefore, 
 my present task will appear superfluous to many ; 
 nevertheless, I venture to think that there is still 
 room for an edition prepared upon the plan 
 which I have followed. The translation of a 
 work like the present will be carried out on a 
 different system, according to the design which 
 the translator has in view. This design may be 
 either .^Esthetic, or Historic, or Biographical. 
 In the first case, the translator will set himself 
 to reproduce the beauties of the original in 
 his own tongue, so far as his own skill and the 
 restrictions imposed upon him by an alien idiom 
 will permit. For this purpose, he must re- 
 produce, not so much the exact words of the 
 original, as the impression which those words 
 are intended to convey ; he must study not 
 so much the accuracy of detail, as the accuracy 
 of the total effect ; and to this end the sacrifice 
 of strict verbal accuracy is often needful. The 
 
8 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 translator of the second class has the simplest 
 task of all before him. He has but to furnish 
 such a correct and readable version of his author 
 as shall enable those of an alien tongue to 
 acquaint themselves with the facts, the opinions, 
 or other the subject matter, of the original, and 
 is free, where he can do so without deviating 
 from the sense of a passage, to render the 
 author's idiom by some corresponding idiom of 
 his own language. A translation of the third 
 class, though making less demands upon the 
 native talents of the translator than oneof the first 
 class, is perhaps beset with greater mechanical 
 difficulties than either of the others, while the 
 results obtained are likely to prove less grateful. 
 His object is to render as fully as possible all 
 that throws any light upon the personality of his 
 author, and to this end he must reproduce, 
 so far as differences of idiom will permit, all 
 those turns of thought and language in which 
 so much of personality finds expression. To 
 this last design, I have, in the present translation, 
 endeavoured to conform, and preferring, where 
 the choice appears inevitable, baldness to 
 licence, have aimed at an even slavish literalness, 
 extending, in some cases, even to the order in 
 which the words of the original occur. By this 
 
Introduction. 9 
 
 course, much of the author's charm is necessarily 
 sacrificed, and the translation must needs forfeit 
 all claims to style by so close an adherence 
 to the forms proper to a foreign language, and 
 to the peculiar characteristics of another man's 
 mind. This is especially the case with such a 
 writer as Dante, and although the Vita Nuova 
 is comparatively free from those difficulties with 
 which an excessive tendency to concentration 
 and allusion fill the Commedia, it none the less 
 bears throughout the impress of Dante's 
 peculiarly individual style, which, when trans- 
 lated from his own into another tongue, runs 
 the risk of falling into an idiom foreign to both. 
 In spite, however, of these great drawbacks, 
 and although I cannot hope to have attained, in 
 all cases, to that perfect accuracy which has 
 been my aim, it yet seems probable that the 
 operations of the author's mind may be traced 
 more distinctly in a translation carried out 
 upon these lines, than in one which deviates 
 more widely from the words which are the 
 immediate expression of this mental process. 
 
 So much being premised, it may be well, for 
 the better understanding of the work before us, 
 to give some slight sketch of the author's life, 
 down to the time of its composition, and at the 
 
10 The Vita Nuova audits Author. 
 
 same time to attempt an estimate of the social 
 and literary conditions among which he grew 
 up. And here it must be confessed that few 
 indeed are the events of Dante's life which are 
 admitted without dispute ; hardly one but has 
 given rise to a mass of controversy, sometimes 
 greater in bulk than the whole of Dante's own 
 writings. Into matters of controversy neither 
 our present purpose nor the space at our disposal 
 will permit me to enter. Such must be reserved 
 for a further and more ambitious work, should 
 I ever succeed in bringing it to completion. 
 Here it must suffice to record such few facts of 
 Dante's early life as are most generally ad- 
 mitted, and to give such details of the forces 
 brought to bear upon his development as may 
 enable the reader, in some degree, to fill up the 
 meagre outline. 
 
 Dante's family, the Alighieri, was, according 
 to the universal testimony of the poet's earliest 
 biographers, an ancient and noble house of 
 Florence. Much doubt has been expressed by 
 some of the most eminent modern commentators 
 with regard to this alleged nobility, although, 
 as I venture .to think, none of the arguments 
 adduced to the contrary suffice to outweigh the 
 ancient tradition, founded, as it is, upon the 
 belief which generally prevailed in Florence 
 
Introduction. 1 1 
 
 immediately after the poet's death, at a time 
 when nobility of birth was highly valued, and 
 its evidences carefully recorded. The only 
 positive evidence we have is that of Dante 
 himself, who in Books XV. and XVI. of the 
 Paradiso holds converse with his great-great- 
 grandfather Cacciaguida, born probably 1090-I, 
 and made a knight of the Empire by the 
 Emperor Conrad III., whom he accompanied 
 in his crusade of 1147, and died there. Tradi- 
 tion goes on to state that Cacciaguida was a 
 scion of the Florentine house of the Elisei, and 
 upon marrying Alighiera degl' Aldighieri, an 
 heiress of a noble family of the Val di Pado (at 
 Ferrara, according to most, at Parma or Verona, 
 according to others), founded a new house, 
 bearing his wife's farriily name, corrupted to 
 Alighieri (spelled also Allighieri, Aldighieri and 
 otherwise).' Tradition ascribed an ancient and 
 
 ' So Paradiso XV. (Gary's translation) : — 
 From Valdipado came to me my spouse. 
 And thence thy surname grew. I followed then 
 The Emperor Conrad ; and his knighthood he 
 Did gird on me ; in such good part he took 
 My valiant service. After that I went 
 With him, to testify against that evil law, 
 Whose people, by the shepherd's fault, possess 
 Your right, usurping. There, by that foul crew. 
 Was I released from the deceitful world, etc. 
 
1 2 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 illustrious origin to the Elisei. Their founder 
 was said to be one Eliseo or EliseuSj of the 
 great Roman house of the Frangipani, one of 
 the seven companions of Hubertus Csesar sent 
 by Julius Caesar to rebuild Florence, which had 
 been destroyed in the civil wars. As, however, 
 Hubertus Cffisar never existed, nor did Julius 
 Caesar send him or anyone else to rebuild 
 Florence, this part of the story is obviously 
 mythical. So, probably, is the account of one 
 of the Elisei having been knighted by Charle- 
 magne, and set by him to superintend the 
 rebuilding, or, rather, the extension of Florence. 
 However, the unauthenticity of the early 
 history of the Elisei does not suffice to dis- 
 credit the received tradition that the Alighieri 
 sprang from them. The separate existence of 
 the latter had subsisted, at the time of Dante's 
 death, for about two centuries only, and the 
 authentic history of the family might well be 
 known to many of those with whom the early 
 commentators were acquainted. 
 
 The Alighieri, differing herein from the 
 Elisei, were Guelfs, and, as such, twice suffered 
 banishment upon the accession to power of the 
 Ghibellines (Inferno, X.). However, whether 
 nobles or popolani, they do not seem to have 
 
Introduction. 1 3 
 
 been a distinguished, though a well-to-do and 
 respected family, and their names do not appear 
 in the lists of the principal houses adhering to 
 one or other of the rival factions, 
 
 Dante's father, Alighiero Alighieri, is said by 
 some to have been a jurisconsult or notary of 
 some eminence ; professions then of much 
 dignity and esteem in the Italian states, and 
 often followed by the higher nobility. He 
 was twice married: to Lapa di Chiarissimo 
 Cialuffi, a popolana, i.e. a member of a non-noble 
 family, and to Monna Bella, said to be the 
 daughter of Durante di Messer Scolaio degl' 
 Abati. The latter was Dante's mother, though 
 it is uncertain whether she was Alighiero's 
 second wife, or his first, dying in Dante's 
 infancy. 
 
 Dante was born in the latter part of May, or 
 the beginning of June — probably the former — 
 1265, and was baptized in the Baptistery, or 
 Church of S. Giovanni,' by the name of 
 Durante, shortened, after the familiar usage of 
 Florence, into Dante, just as Beatrice was 
 
 ' Paradise XXV. It was here that all the children of 
 Florence were baptized. A rude kind of census was kept 
 by depositing in an urn for every boy a black bean, and 
 for each girl a white. 
 
14 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 shortened into Bice. Of Dante's home life 
 we know absolutely nothing. The only re- 
 corded event of his childhood is his first 
 meeting with Beatrice, the daughter, according 
 to the account generally received, of Folco 
 Portinari, one of the wealthiest and most 
 honoured citizens of Florence, and Giulia 
 Caponsacchi his wife.' 
 
 Of the circumstances attending this first 
 meeting, Dante has himself told us something 
 in the second chapter of the Vita Nuova. 
 This account has been much amplified by 
 I^occaccio ; but though the added details are 
 purely the growth of the novelist's own tropic 
 fancy," yet is his narative so charming in itself, 
 
 * The identity of the poet's early love with Beatrice 
 Portinari has lately been impugned by Dr. G. A. 
 Scartazzini with all his accustomed force of argument ; 
 but as I venture to think that his arguments, though 
 powerful, are not altogether conclusive, and as it is my 
 object to avoid controversy in this place, I merely set 
 down the hitherto accepted tradition, to which the poet's 
 earliest biographers and commentators — Leonardo 
 Bruni, Boccaccio, L'Ottimo, Gianozzo Manetti, Filippo 
 Villani, Benvenuto da Imola, and others have given the 
 support of their testimony. 
 
 ' Boccaccio had been acquainted with Dante's son 
 Pietro, with the confidential attendant of his later years, 
 Piero di Messer Giordino da Ravenna, and with other of 
 the poet's friends, so that it is just possible that some. 
 
Introduction. 1 5 
 
 so illustrative of the Florentine society of the 
 day, and so fully in accordance with the 
 circumstances as they might have been, and 
 probably were, that it will be but a venial sin 
 against brevity to set it out at length. 
 
 "At that season," then, begins the Decam- 
 eronist, "at that season when the mildness of 
 the heavens again clothes the earth in her fair 
 array, and sets her all smiling with the variety 
 of flowers intermingled with the green leaves, it 
 was the usage in our city, alike of men and 
 women, to keep festival- at their country houses, 
 each in distinct companies." To one of these 
 May festivals, held in the Portinari Gardens,' 
 Alighiero, it is said, went as an invited guest, 
 taking with him the little Dante, then on the 
 verge of nine years old. " Among- the crowd of 
 young people there was a daughter of the afore- 
 
 at any rate, of the picturesque details with which the 
 novelist has embeUished his panegyric upon the master, 
 were derived from stray reminiscences imparted by the 
 latter in moments of expansion, and treasured up by the 
 auditors. 
 
 ^ The home of the Alighieri was in the Quarter of the 
 Porta S. Piero, or the " Quarter of Scandal," inhabited by 
 the Arte, or Guild, of the Medici e Speziali, in the centre 
 of the city, near the Mercato Vecchio. Their house 
 closely adjoined those of the Portinari, and of Dante's 
 friends, and subsequent foes, the Donati. 
 
1 6 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 said Folco, whose name was Bice (as he always 
 called her, from her original name which was 
 Beatrice), whose age was perhaps about eight 
 years ; very charming and beautiful in her 
 childish way, and in her actions gentle and 
 right pleasing, with manners and speech some- 
 what more grave and modest than her early 
 years required; and besides this, the features 
 of her face were exceeding delicate, and ex- 
 cellently disposed, and full, besides her beauty, 
 of a winsomeness so noble that she was esteemed 
 by many as well nigh a little angel. She, then, 
 being such as I describe her, or, perchance, even 
 more beautiful, made her appearance at this 
 festival, not, as I deem, for the first time, but 
 now first with the power to enamour the eyes 
 of our Dante ; who, all boy as he was, received 
 her fair image into his heart, with so great 
 affection that from this day forth it never 
 departed thence, so long as he lived." 
 
 Nothing is recorded of the nine years imme- 
 diately following Dante's first meeting with 
 Beatrice, save that we learn from the same second 
 chapter of the Vita Nuova, that the impression 
 made by her apparition upon his childish fancy 
 was not at once obliterated, but that he would 
 seek opportunities of looking upon her, and that 
 
Introduction. 17 
 
 her image in his heart was even then a talisman, 
 or Socratic daemon, ruling all his conduct, and 
 forbidding all such things as were not sanctioned 
 by right reason. All else that befell during 
 these nine years is a blank, which even tradition 
 has barely attempted to fill up. 
 
 Dante's father died while he was still very 
 young ; the precise year is uncertain, but pro- 
 bably about 1274-5. The care of Dante's educa- 
 tion thus devolved upon his mother, or, perhaps, 
 his stepmother, Monna Lapa. We have no 
 means of knowing how she discharged her trust. 
 Leonardo Bruni, indeed, tells us that, " in his 
 boyhood, being liberally brought up, and en- 
 trusted to the masters of letters,' there straight- 
 
 ' It is commonly reported that one of Dante's masters 
 was Brunetto Latini, the foremost scholar of his day, of 
 whose Tesoretto Dante apparently made some use in the 
 Commedia. It appears doubtful, however, whether there 
 be any further foundation for this report than that pas- 
 sage in the Inferno, Bk. XV., where Dante addresses 
 him as his teacher and his guide in the way by which 
 man makes himself immortal. The language implies a 
 personal intercourse, but it does not follow that such in- 
 struction was imparted by Brunetto to Dante in the 
 capacity of a psedagogue. This supposition, indeed, is 
 rendered the less probable by the fact that Brunetto, 
 besides being a scholar of such eminence, was also 
 an active politician, and Secretary to the Republic of 
 Florence. 
 
1 8 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 way showed itself a very great genius, and most 
 apt for excellent things. . . . He devoted him- 
 self not to literature only, but to the other liberal 
 studies, passing by nothing which goes to render 
 a man excelling. Nor, for all this, did he shut 
 himself up in sloth, nor sever himself from the 
 world ; but, living and conversing with the other 
 youths of his own age, he was found well versed 
 and expert, and courageous in every youthful 
 exercise." Again — "and it was a thing worthy 
 of note that, though studying continually, it 
 would not have seemed to any person that he 
 did study, from his cheerful habit, and his 
 youthful conversation." 
 
 All this is at once probable enough in itself, 
 and in accordance with other and earlier accounts 
 of Dante's social and personal qualities, derived, 
 not improbably, from persons who had known 
 him. Boccaccio, after his wont, is much more 
 explicit, and, enumerating all the acquirements 
 which he deems appropriate to his ideal of the 
 man of culture, represents them as entering into 
 his hero's curriculum. 
 
 " From the beginning of his boyhood," he 
 says, "after having already learnt the first 
 elements of letters, he did not, after the fashions 
 of the nobles of our own day, give himself up 
 
Introduction. 19 
 
 to childish wantonness and idlesse, waxing in 
 slothfulness in his mother's lap, but, in his native 
 land, he devoted his boyhood with continual 
 study to the liberal arts, and in these became 
 marvellously expert. And, as his mind and 
 genius grew together with his years, he did 
 not addict himself to the quest of gain, after 
 which everyone, for the most part, runs nowa- 
 days, but to the laudable pursuit of eternal 
 fame, etc." 
 
 Then follows a formidable list of Dante^s 
 acquirements, comprising an intimate acquaint- 
 ance with the poets — and among them Virgil, 
 Ovid, Horace and Statius — and the utmost skill 
 in the imitation of them ; together with a 
 thorough knowledge of history and of philo- 
 sophy, natural and moral. "And, taken with 
 the sweetness of knowing the truth concerning 
 the recondite things of heaven, nor finding aught 
 in his life dearer than the same, wholly forsaking 
 all other temporal cares, he devoted himself 
 altogether to this alone. And, to the intent 
 that no part of philosophy might remain un- 
 reviewed of him, he betook himself, with 
 penetrating intellect, to the profoundest depths 
 of theology ; nor was the result wide of his 
 intention ; for, caring not for heat, nor cold, 
 C 2 
 
20 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 nor vigils, nor fasting, nor any other bodily dis- 
 comfort, he penetrated with assiduous zeal to 
 the knowledge of all that pertains to the divine 
 essence, and the other separate intelligences, 
 which can be understood concerning them by 
 the human intellect." 
 
 That Dante actually did, in the course of his 
 life, master all these branches of learning, or 
 even more, so far as was possible at his epoch, 
 is certain ; but that, as Boccaccio himself admits, 
 these " diverse sciences were acquired at diverse 
 ages," and that, consequently, this highly coloured 
 picture is no faithful portraiture of the studies 
 of his, boyhood, or early manhood even, is 
 equally certain. Indeed, we learn from Dante's 
 own declaration that it was not until he had 
 completed his twenty-sixth year that he became 
 acquainted with Boethius De Consolatione and 
 Cicero De Amicitia, although these were two of 
 the most widely read books at that day among 
 the learned. Moreover, he confesses that the 
 Latinity of these two books, surely not hard 
 specimens of the language, then offered many 
 difficulties to him — proof positive that his was 
 not a learned or scholastic education. Never- 
 theless, it does not follow that his education had 
 been neglected, or that he grew up an unlettered 
 
Introduction. 2i 
 
 youth, lacking in culture and general informa- 
 tion. Indeed, the Vita NuovCi itself, if, as I 
 think most probable, it was written soon after 
 the time \vhen Dante first began to addict him- 
 self to the severer studies, furnishes irrefragable 
 proofs to the contrary. 
 
 Since, then, we are unable to ascertain what 
 course the poet's education followed, all we can 
 do is to form some general notion of the 
 influences, literary and otherwise, among which 
 his nature expanded, by briefly passing in review 
 the means at his disposal, together with his 
 political and social environment. 
 
 Latin, of course, was still the great vehicle of 
 learning, the most important branches of in- 
 struction being comprised in the Trivium and 
 Quadrivium, making together the seven liberal 
 sciences, namely: — Grammar (including the 
 rudiments of literature generally), dialectics, and 
 rhetoric ; arithmetic, geometry, music and 
 astronomy. That Dante, in his youth, co.uld 
 have penetrated very deeply into these studies 
 is negatived by his ignorance of the two Latin 
 authors just referred to, whose works formed a 
 principal study in the course, of which, indeed, 
 Boethius was the founder. However, it is quite 
 possible that Dante was instructed in the rudi- 
 
22 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 ments of those studies which constituted the 
 orthodox education of his day, even though he 
 may not have progressed so far as to make 
 acquaintance with the great authors at first hand. 
 There was, besides, outside the strictly scholastic 
 system other literary pabulum, abundant in 
 quantity, if sometimes rather deficient in quality. 
 Instructive treatises abounded, of encyclopaedic 
 character, mainly compiled from the ancients, 
 and treating de omnibus rebus, et quibusdam 
 aliis : — History and geography, physics and 
 metaphysics, mythology and demonology, as- 
 tronomy — chiefly in the form of astrology, — 
 natural history — most unnatural, — and medicine, 
 admirably conducive to the health of the com- 
 munity by its fitness for relieving it of its sickly 
 members. Of course, there was no lack of moral 
 and theological works, these usually consisting 
 of sentences or aphorisms taken from the writings 
 of the fathers and schoolmen. There were, be- 
 sides, books somewhat more literary in form, 
 and, though rude and inartistic, of a more stimu- 
 lating nature than the foregoing. Such were 
 the lives and works of saints and martyrs ; 
 histories and biographies of Greece and Rome, 
 drawn, for the most part, — by several stages 
 perhaps, — from Plutarch and the historians of 
 
Introduction. 23 
 
 the later Empire ; monkish chronicles, too, of 
 modern times, and the gestes of warriors and 
 paladins, together with the accounts of modern 
 travel and exploration. 
 
 That age, moreover, was one of awakening 
 activity in several departments of learning, whose 
 medium was still the Latin tongue. The school 
 of modern historians had then just arisen ; the 
 civil and canon law had for more than a century 
 past been studied with renewed diligence, and 
 formed the principal subject of study at the 
 great university of Bologna ; medicine, to which 
 fresh vigour had been imparted by the Arab and 
 Jewish physicians encouraged by the Suabian 
 rulers of Naples, possessed the university of 
 Salerno, was the leading subject at the university 
 of Padua, and at Bologna was second only to 
 jurisprudence. The Aristotelian philosophy, 
 once banned by the Church, had now become 
 her trustiest henchman ; and, preserved in, if 
 disguised by, the translations of the Arab doc- 
 tors, by whom it had been commingled with 
 Platonic, and Neo-Platonic, and Oriental doc- 
 trines, had taken the foremost place in the studies 
 of Western scholars, and had lately been intro- 
 duced into Italy under the auspices of the 
 Emperor Frederick II. Closely connected with 
 
24 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 the last, was that stupendous mass of scholastic 
 theology and metaphysics, which had agitated 
 the learned world from Erigena to Aquinas, 
 with its disputes concerning the Eucharist, 
 Realism and Nominalism, and other abstruse 
 points, which excited men's minds to a degree 
 which we can hardly conceive nowadays in con- 
 nection with questions of such a purely abstract 
 nature. 
 
 With the more profound of the above-named 
 subjects Dante can have made no acquaintance 
 until a much later period than that of which we 
 are treating, but we cannot doubt that a youth 
 of his capacity and temperament, living, too, at 
 a period of such mental activity and devotion to 
 letters, early acquired some knowledge of the 
 more popular branches of learning. Nor does 
 the fact of his weak Latinity militate against 
 this supposition. The Latin in which a great 
 part of the literature of the day was written was 
 of an ultra-canine description ; the constructions 
 being of an excessively analytic type, ignoring, 
 — if not, as almost appears sometimes, studiously 
 avoiding — the ordinary rules of case and gender, 
 and wholly untrammelled by the laws of syntax. 
 Evidently, then, it was possible to have a very 
 competent knowledge of the contemporary Latin, 
 
Introduction, 25 
 
 in which the current literature and the manuals 
 of popular instruction were written, and yet find 
 great difficulty in coping with the easiest of the 
 classical authors. 
 
 But in Dante's day the Romance peoples were 
 no longer dependent upon a dead language for 
 their literature. Italy, it is true, owing chiefly, 
 among other causes, to the wider prevalence and 
 greater vitality of the Latin in that country, 
 lagged somewhat behind France and Provence, 
 perhaps even Spain, at the outset. From the 
 two first named countries Italy borrowed an 
 exotic literature. In the north, and especially 
 the Trevisan March, French predominated, and 
 became the language of polite letters and of 
 cultured society, while French Trouveurs made 
 the Chansons de Gestes — metrical romances of 
 Charlemagne and Orlando and other Paladins — 
 familiar not to the cultivated classes only, but, 
 in a rude jargon of French interlarded with 
 Italian dialect words, to the people at large. A 
 little later, upon the great Celtic literary revival, 
 when the romances of the Arthurian cycle, and 
 the other sagas which were drawn into its vortex, 
 took all Europe by storm, Italy shared in the 
 contagion, and French was the language in 
 which she read of Arthur and his Round Table, 
 
26 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 Lancelot, Guenever, the Grail, and kindred 
 myths.' 
 
 So completely did the French tongue domi- 
 nate the literature of Northern Italy, that even 
 the earliest essays of the Italians themselves in 
 vernacular composition were made in that 
 language. Sordello, the most famous singer of 
 his day, wrote chiefly, though not exclusively, in 
 French, as did most of his brother poets. It 
 was in French that Aldobrandino wrote his 
 treatise Le Regime du corps, and Martino da 
 Canale his Cronique des Veniciens. The 
 voyages of Marco Polo were first written in 
 that language, besides many Romances of 
 Chivalry and the like, by Italian authors, as 
 was Li Tresors {II Tesoro), the encyclopaedic 
 work of Brunetto Latini, who states his reason 
 for this preference to be por ce que la par- 
 lenze est plus delitable et plus comune a toutes 
 gentes. 
 
 Simultaneously with the French, Proven9al 
 
 ■' Dante says of the French of his day : — " Owing to 
 its easier and more pleasing vernacular, any prose trans- 
 lation or composition in the vulgar tongue is appropriate 
 to it : namely, the books compiled from the gestes of the 
 Trojans and the Romans ; also the most admirable fables 
 of King Arthur, and many other) works historical and 
 instructive." — {De Vulg. Eloq., I. x.) 
 
Introduction. 27 
 
 literature became widely diffused throughout 
 all Italy, especially in the South. Possessing 
 less variety of subject than the French, and 
 less rich in matter, it yet, by its superiority in 
 artistic form, exercised a more immediate and 
 a more durable influence upon the develop- 
 ment of Italian poetry, though it does not 
 appear to have greatly affected the formation 
 of a native prose. Soon after the middle of the 
 twelfth century Italy became the resort of 
 Provencal Troubadours of all ranks, from the 
 prince and noble to the wandering minstrel. 
 Their headquarters were in Sicily, where they 
 were warmly welcomed at the Court of William 
 II., " The Good," and of the equally culture- 
 loving, and more cultured, Frederick II. and 
 Manfred. They visited, besides, the other states 
 of Italy, especially after the crusade against 
 the Albigenses had forced many of them to 
 seek an asylum abroad. Even at this early 
 date, Florence, it would seem, stood high in 
 point of culture, for we find Raimund de Tors, 
 an exiled Troubadour, in the early part of the 
 thirteenth century, writing to his confrhe 
 Gaucelm, urging him to " seek shelter in the 
 noble city of the Florentines, which is called 
 Florence, where all true valour is maintained : 
 
28 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 there are perfected and adorned joy, song and 
 love." As in the North of Italy the earliest 
 Italian authors wrote in French, so in Sicily and 
 Naples did the native poets rhyme in the 
 tongue and metre of the Troubadours. 
 
 But the Italians were not long contented 
 with this literary subjection to aliens. In the 
 latter part of the twelfth century, many of the 
 Italian Trovatori began to rhyme, after Pro- 
 ven9al models, it is true, but in their own 
 dialects, and by the middle of the thirteenth 
 century all Italy was vocal with the songs 
 of Italian singers, rhyming in their native 
 tongue.' 
 
 ^ Although the Italian word Trovatore is the same as 
 the Proven9al Troubadour {Trouveur being the French 
 form), and although their works were of the same 
 character, both in subject and form, the two classes 
 widely differed socially. The Troubadours of higher 
 rank were a kind of poetical knights-errant ; those of 
 the lower rank were wandering ministrels ; while the 
 majority partook largely of both characters. The Italian 
 Trovatori, on the other hand, differ but little in their 
 lives from other classes of litterateurs, and do not 
 appear to have cultivated the fantastic chivalry, or 
 practised the vagabond habits, of the Troubadours. 
 They were distinguished from the Poeti mainly by the 
 circumstance that in their compositions they gave them- 
 selves up to a native vein of talent without studying the 
 rules of art. Their name (7>^z/a/(7r2 = "finders ") im- 
 
Introduction. 29 
 
 In this national movement the Sicilian school 
 took the lead, but, though it can claim some 
 priority in point of time, and undoubtedly ex- 
 ercised great influence upon the rest of Italy, 
 yet independent, and almost contemporary, 
 schools arose in other parts, especially in Bologna 
 and Tuscany, through one or two of which 
 channels the main stream of Italian poetry 
 flowed, so soon as it had acquired any con- 
 siderable depth and volume. 
 
 The Trovatori, like their Proven9al masters, 
 though personal satire and contemporary 
 politics often formed the subject of their verse, 
 derived their chief inspiration from that ever- 
 lasting theme of love, which recurs with such 
 wearisome persistence, and with such monotony 
 of treatment, throughout the poetry of the 
 middle ages. Nevertheless, the Trovatori de- 
 serve a higher reputation than that usually 
 accorded to them. However closely they may 
 have followed Proven9al models, they are not a 
 mere servile herd of imitators. Their verse is 
 often melodious and graced by a rare beauty of 
 expression ; it is fresh and spontaneous, and not 
 wanting in such originality as is compatible 
 
 plies as much. Dante observed this distinction both in 
 the Vita Nuova and the De Vulgari Eloquentia. 
 
30 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 with the absence of all profundity, and with 
 the trammels of received convention, to burst 
 which no supreme genius had yet arisen. 
 
 Even these trammels were gradually shaken 
 off. This movement towards emancipation 
 was inaugurated by the Sicilian poets, several 
 of whom, quitting the conventionalities of their 
 school, sought to clothe deeper thought and 
 feeling in more original modes of expression, 
 and evince much appreciation of the moral and 
 spiritual elements of love, and of its metaphysical 
 relations to the intellectual self.^ 
 
 * Jacopo, a Notary of Lentino, one of the most melo- 
 dious and original singers of his time, has a passage 
 which must surely have inspired at least one passage of 
 Dante's Vita Nuova. (See especially the Canzone in 
 c. xix., stanza 2.) Hear Jacopo : " O glorious King, 
 full of all mercy, give no heed to the prayers which the 
 saints prefer to Thee, nor to the angels which stand 
 before Thee, who, for their own delight, beg for my 
 lady. Give heed to us, who discern in her beauty that 
 love whence we learn to love, and perceive, one and all, 
 that in her is Thy majesty depicted ; so that, beholding 
 her, we may bless Thy mighty power, which hath given 
 us an ensample of Thee, for our faith's sake. And didst 
 not Thou show us great mercy, each one of us would die 
 despairing, so greatly do we love." Again, in a sonnet 
 wherein he inquires into the nature of perfect love, he 
 defines its essence to be such as to exclude all possibility 
 of its ever ending. It is to continue beyond this life, and 
 
Introduction. 3 1 
 
 Similar characteristics mark several singers 
 of the early Tuscan school,' but the meta- 
 
 he looks to meet his lady in Paradise, which, without her, 
 would have no joys for him. 
 
 An anonymous early Sicilian poet hymns the praises 
 of the " Intelligenza" personified as his lady, in a long 
 poem in nana rima, one of the most beautiful produc- 
 tions of his school. " She is a mirror," he says, con- 
 cerning this allegorical lady, or, perhaps, real lady 
 allegorized, "of wondrous clearness ; a form of fair 
 semblants and of delight. By the splendour of her 
 rich goodness is each dame and damsel ennobled 
 (s'aggenzd)" " True love set her in the world to move 
 every wise man to wonder." " Her supermarvellous 
 {sovramirabile) beauty makes all the world more lucent 
 and clear, wise and courteous, and of fresh youthfulness." 
 " Love of his own courtesy, to make his grace to me 
 complete, scorning not my base condition, granted me 
 the sensible perception of himself.'' We can hardly 
 doubt that Dante had this last passage in mind when 
 he wrote the sonnet or ballala in c. vii. of the Vita 
 Nuova. 
 
 ' Pacino Angiolieri of Florence (fl. circ. 1250) writes 
 to his lady : " Verily, you bear upon your head a crown 
 of right high worth — of honour, to wit — wherein you sur- 
 pass all other ladies." Pacino wrote, besides, a poem of 
 singular beauty and pathos upon his lady's death. 
 
 Maestro Torrigiano, a compatriot and contemporary of 
 Pacino, sings : " Love, the song and cry of the folk, is a 
 desire of the soul, which keeps her meditating upon the 
 joy of love, wherein she trusts. And this is love's special 
 property : that by his helm alone is the soul guided." 
 
 So Giovanni dell' Orto, of Arezzo : " Love alone — for 
 he knoweth a pure and noble heart — hovers over her, 
 
32 The Viia Nuova and its Author. 
 
 physical school of love poetry attained to its 
 height in the person of Guido Guinicelli of 
 Bologna (1220-77), who stood at the head of 
 the singers of his day. Dante himself speaks 
 of him with high admiration, and in many 
 passages shows how much he was influenced by 
 him. It was Guido Guinicelli who wrote the 
 lines, quoted, lauded, and imitated by Dante : — 
 
 Al cor gentil ripara sempre Amore, 
 Come I'augello in selva alia verdura, 
 Ne ft amor prima che gentil core, 
 N^ gentil cor prima d'amor, natura. 
 
 " Unto the gentle heart aye repaireth Love, 
 even as the bird in wood to the green foliage ; 
 nor did nature create love before the gentle 
 heart, nor the gentle heart before love." 
 
 Guinicelli's theory of love is in complete 
 harmony with that of his illustrious disciple ; 
 he dwells with especial emphasis upon its 
 ennobling and elevating power over its 
 possessor. In many passages of his philo- 
 sophical poetry he anticipates, perhaps inspires, 
 
 and then turns to her ; and straightway, when he is 
 come to her, he nourisheth and adorneth her with a good 
 perfect beyond nature.'' 
 
 It would be easy to multiply similar quotations were 
 any object to be served in doing so. 
 
Introduction. 33 
 
 his greater successor. Then he lays down the 
 principle which Dante declares and defends 
 with such fiery eloquence in the 4th book 
 of the Convito, namely, that nobility consists 
 not in high birth, but in virtue only.' 
 Further, he anticipates Dante's favourite 
 axiom, that in the culture of the reason and 
 intellect lies the sole distinction between the 
 rational man and the irrational beast. ^ 
 
 Yet nearer, in every way, to our poet was he 
 whom Dante himself styles "the foremost of 
 my friends/' and whose friendship contributed 
 so much to the formation of Dante's personal 
 
 ' The amusing vehemence with which he supports this 
 thesis is worth recording. He says, that should any 
 maintain the contrary, " answer should be made to such 
 bestiality, not with words, but with the knife. Risponder 
 si vorrebbe, non colle parole, ma col coliello, a tanta 
 bestialita. This argumentuin ad cultellum was quite in 
 accordance with the rules of controversy then in favour. 
 St. Louis, one of the best and most benevolent of men, 
 held similar views. Joinville reports a conversation re- 
 specting disputes with unbelievers, wherein, "'So I tell 
 you,' said the king, ' that none, an he be not a right good 
 clerk, should reason with them ; but the layman, whenso 
 he heareth the Christian law reviled, should not defend 
 the Christian law, save with the sword, wherewith it 
 behoveth him to let drive into the belly, so far as ever it 
 will go.' " 
 
 ' Cp. Convito IV., vii. ; Inferno XXVI., etc., etc. 
 
 D 
 
34 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 character and of his opinions, literary and 
 political. Further particulars concerning the 
 man and his writings are given in note 7 to 
 chapter iii. of the Vita Nuova, but we may, 
 perhaps, consider here one or two instances of 
 the close coincidence of his mental attitude 
 with that of Dante. Like the latter, he traces 
 back all love to its source in that Primal Love, 
 TO vorjTov, which, according to Aristotle, Kivel 
 ov Kivov/j,evov, " moves, not being moved," dx; 
 ipdtfievov " as being the object of love " (Metaph. 
 xii. 7). Thus Guido writes : — " O Primal Love 
 immovable which movest the whole, and guidest 
 so that the motion is ordered by thy power 
 alone ! " The ennobling power of beauty in the 
 object of a pure earthly love is thus described : — 
 
 " If love honoureth a lady so exalted as is 
 this blessed one, no marvel is it to him who ob- 
 serves rightly, and considers her benignity. . . . 
 In her is angelic beauty resplendent, with such 
 great glory that, as he looks upon her, every 
 man bends down his gaze.^' The reader will 
 at once perceive the close resemblance of this 
 passage to many in the Vita Nuova. 
 
 In Italy, as in almost every country, the 
 first essays at a national literature took the 
 form of poetry, for prose, although an earlier 
 
Introduction. 35 
 
 growth of language than poetry, is at first 
 of that unconscious kind which M. Jourdain 
 spoke. Before long, however, the new-born 
 activity of Italian literature extended to prose 
 composition, Its earliest form was that of 
 translations from the French, often of works 
 originally written in that language by Italian 
 authors. Among these were the Travels of 
 Marco Polo, the Tesoro of Brunetto Latini ; 
 and the Governamento dei Principi of Egidio 
 Colonna. In the latter half of the thirteenth 
 century, there appeared many translations of 
 moral and religious works, generally in the 
 form of precepts or aphorisms taken from the 
 fathers or later divines ; academic treatises, 
 too, in Grammar^ Rhetoric, Dialectics, etc., 
 besides translations and digests of various 
 French romances of the Charlemagne and 
 Arthurian cycles. 
 
 At the same time, works of religion and 
 ethics, history and rhetoric, were translated 
 from the Latin. These were soon followed by 
 original compositions, sometimes of a religious 
 or otherwise edifying nature, such as Brunetto 
 Latini's // Tesoretto, sometimes in the shape of 
 fiction, such as the Cento Novelle Antiche, most 
 of which, though some were written in the 
 D 2 
 
36 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 fourteenth century, are considered to be of an 
 earlier date than that of Dante's writings. The 
 close of the thirteenth century was further 
 signalized by the advent of the pioneers of that 
 Italian school of historians, who, in the following 
 century and a half, occupy so conspicuous a 
 place in the national literature in its best days. 
 
 All these earlier writers, both in prose and 
 verse, employed the dialect of the district to 
 which they belonged. It is true that in the 
 form in which they have reached us, these 
 dialectical divergencies are often comparatively 
 slight, and this has led some critics to regard 
 the language in which they appear as the in- 
 choation of that lingua aulica so greatly desired 
 by Dante ; a language, that is, which should 
 comprise the excellencies of each dialect, while 
 itself belonging to none. The explanation, 
 however, of this similarity in the language of 
 writers belonging to different districts, is to be 
 found in the fact of their having been handed 
 down to us, for the most part, by Tuscan copy- 
 ists, who purposely and avowedly Tuscanized the 
 authors they transcribed ; by which process, 
 though they destroyed much which would have 
 possessed high antiquarian and historical 
 interest for posterity, they yet undoubtedly 
 
Introduction. . 37 
 
 aided in the establishment of the Tuscan as the 
 literary \&ngviZ.gQ par excellence. 
 
 The religious movements of the age likewise 
 did much to foster the growth of the vernacular. 
 As Luther, by his translation of the Bible, and 
 by his hymn-book, finally settled the German 
 tongue, so must the preaching and ministrations 
 of the Dominican and Franciscan orders have 
 contributed, though in a less degree, to the 
 formation of a general Italian speech, and to 
 the smoothing away of some of the harsher 
 discrepancies between the various dialects. It 
 was to the Franciscans, moreover, that the 
 Italians owed the inception of their popular 
 religious poetry. St. Francis' famous hymn to 
 the Sun, written in the beginning of the 
 thirteenth century, probably the first com- 
 position of its kind, was speedily followed by a 
 number of other hymns in the vernacular, and 
 notably, about half a century later, by the 
 rhapsodical and mystical poems of Jacopone da 
 Todi. 
 
 Nor should the purely popular literature of 
 the country be forgotten, the folk-songs, and 
 folk-stories, which, though few have reached us 
 in their original form, must have existed in pro- 
 fusion, and have been familiar to all classes of 
 
38 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 the community. This popular literature was 
 doubtless rich and varied : in verse there would 
 be love-songs, heroic ballads, narrative poems, 
 pathetic and tragic^ and rude essays in satire. 
 In prose there would be the legends of the 
 saints, tales of popular mythology and supersti- 
 tion, stories of Italian history, from the early 
 Roman and pre- Roman days, through the wars 
 and conquests of the barbarians, down to the al- 
 most contemporary exploitsof the Hohenstauffen 
 kings and crusaders, and the atrocities of the 
 Eccelini. The popular literature could also 
 boast many stories of the Eulenspiegel type, 
 the point whereof lay in some practical joke, 
 or repartee, or piece of niaiserie, — a species 
 of humour which appealed strongly to the 
 mediaeval taste, and still more, perhaps, in 
 Florence than in any other southern country, 
 the wits of the people being keen, and tinged 
 with a certain bourgeois grossness. 
 
 Again, the chain of tradition, linking modern 
 times with antiquity, was never completely 
 broken in Italy. The Roman history was in 
 some degree the national history, and the 
 Roman literature a national literature. Thus 
 the debris of Roman myth and history entered 
 largely into the popular literature of the middle 
 ages, and its heroes — though often diablement 
 
Introduction. 39 
 
 changis en route (witness Virgil and Ovid, 
 transformed by tradition into potent necro- 
 mancers), became the heroes'of the folk-tale. Of 
 this Dante himself bears witness, in his exquisite 
 description of life in old Florence (Par. xv.), 
 where he places before us the thatige Hausfrau 
 presiding over her maidens in their spinning, 
 the while she tells them " fables of Troy, and 
 Fesole, and Rome." 
 
 Florence, in common with the other cities of 
 the North of Italy, could also show some vague 
 outlines of a popular drama. The ancient 
 Mimes and Atellane Farces had left their 
 descendants, which afterwards developed into 
 the Commedie dell' A rti, in which the dramatis 
 personce were certain stereotyped characters, 
 while the dialogue was for the most part 
 improvised. In the course of the thirteenth 
 century, too, poems upon the crusades, the 
 romances of chivalry, etc., used to be sung 
 upon a stage, accompanied with action, At the 
 same time, the Sacre Rappresentasioni'girQS&nted 
 sacred subjects in a more or less dramatic form. 
 
 Life in Dante's native city was no less 
 stimulating in its active than in its scholastic 
 aspect. In population, in wealth, in commerce, 
 in military importance, in learning, culture and 
 mental activity generally, Florence, at this 
 
40 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 period, was far ahead of Rome, and was one of 
 the foremost cities of the age. During the 
 twelfth century, its internal politics had con- 
 sisted, in great measure, of the armed conflicts 
 between the different noble houses, and in the 
 struggle for political power between the nobles 
 and the people. In this struggle the people 
 were victorious, and the nobles of the Florentine 
 Contado were one after another forced, or con- 
 sented, to hold their territories as vassals of the 
 Commune, or else to raze their fastnesses, and 
 take up their abode within the city. The 
 immediate effect of this wise and vigorous 
 policy — wise, in spite of the unforeseen and 
 ultimately disastrous results of importing into 
 the state the feuds of the aristocracy, and thus 
 infecting it with the disease which finally proved 
 its ruin — was greatly to extend and consolidate 
 the power of the republic, and to infuse into it 
 the energy, the warlike spirit^ and more cultured 
 tastes of the nobles who now became its leading 
 citizens. 
 
 In the year 12 15, Florence was stricken with 
 the Guelf and Ghibelline madness, and for 
 half a century was torn in sunder between the 
 contending parties, now one and now the other 
 obtaining a temporary victory, accompanied by 
 
Introduction. 41 
 
 massacres and arson, and followed by proscrip- 
 tions and confiscations, until their opponents, 
 availing themselves of domestic discontents or 
 of foreign alliances, succeeded in ousting them, 
 and in winning a brief ascendancy for them- 
 selves. 
 
 On the whole, the predominance was with 
 the Ghibelline party, who, to a certain extent, 
 represented the aristocratic principle, and they 
 grossly abused their ascendency, their cruelty to 
 their vanquished opponents and the oppressive 
 nature of their rule contributing at least as much 
 as party feeling to each revolution which drove 
 them from power, and set up in their place their 
 Guelf antagonists, who^ though mainly led by 
 nobles, had identified themselves, whether from 
 sympathy or policy, with the popular cause. 
 This constant see-saw of parties was put an end 
 to by the defeat of the Hohenstauffen, the heads 
 of the Ghibelline party, by Charles of Anjou, at 
 Benevento (1266)^ where Manfred was slain. In 
 the following year, the Guelfs, then in exile, 
 returned to Florence. Their power being now 
 established on a firm basis, by the ruin of the 
 Ghibelline cause throughout Italy, they re- 
 modelled the constitution, giving the people a 
 larger share in the government, which was now 
 
42 The Vita Nuov a and its Author. 
 
 carried on by mixed councils of the nobles and 
 popolani. 
 
 From this time there was a long period of 
 comparative peace, broken from time to time by 
 fitful contests respecting the partial restoration 
 to political rights of the Ghibellines,' now 
 no longer formidable, and by the growing 
 arrogance and lawlessness of the Guelf faction.' 
 All this time the constitution was becoming 
 more and more democratic, every fresh contest 
 between the nobles and the people resulting in 
 a new constitution, by which wider powers were 
 given to the latter. The most notable of these 
 constitutions, and that which formed the basis, 
 with more or less important modifications, of 
 future constitutions, was that of 1282. By it the 
 
 ' By the constitution of 1280, six of the fourteen chief 
 magistrates were to be Ghibellines. 
 
 " "The Guelf nobihty had become insolent, and feared 
 not the magistrates, so that every day were committed 
 many homicides and other acts of violence, without those 
 who committed them being punished, they being the 
 favourites of some or other noble." — Machiavelli : 
 History of Florence, Bk. II., cxi. Nevertheless, these 
 sporadic crimes of violence, from which no state was 
 free in those troublous times, were very different from 
 the tyrannical imperium in imperio, shortly afterwards 
 established by the Heads of the Guelf party, an oligarchy 
 dominating, though unrecognized by, the constitution. 
 
Introduction. 43 
 
 supreme power was vested in the Priors, or Heads 
 of the three (afterwards six) Greater Arts, or Com- 
 mercial Guilds, together with the Gonfalonier 
 of Justice, a popolano, who held the command 
 of a civic force for the preservation of peace. 
 Thus no noble could take part in the supreme 
 magistracy, unless he consented to waive his 
 dignity, and become a popolano, by enrolling 
 himself in one of the Commercial Guilds, as, 
 indeed, very many nobles did. The Priors held 
 office for two months, during the whole of which 
 time they remained shut up in the Palace, 
 transacting the business of the state, being 
 allowed to hold no private communication with 
 those without. The Legislative, Judicial and 
 Executive functions were discharged by a com- 
 plicated system of councils, chosen by different 
 methods, and out of different classes of citizens. 
 One of the most remarkable institutions was 
 that of the Podesta delta Giustizia, a curious 
 system which arose in the third quarter of the 
 twelfth century, and became almost universally 
 prevalent among the republics of Northern 
 Italy in the course of the following century. 
 The spirit of faction so universally prevailed in 
 these cities, that men despaired of finding 
 among their most eminent citizens one impartial 
 
44 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 enough to curb with even hand the excesses of 
 both parties. It thus became customary to 
 confide their city's peace to the care of a 
 Podesta, who had to be a foreigner, born without 
 a certain radius of the city ; over thirty-five 
 years of age ; of illustrious family ; a knight, 
 or, if not, he was knighted by the city upon 
 election. He was bound to bring with him 
 and maintain a certain number, fixed by 
 agreement^ of jurisconsults, with their notaries' 
 clerks, etc., and of knights and squires, with a 
 police or military force. To enable him to 
 maintain due state, and in remuneration of his 
 services, he received a fixed salary from the 
 public moneys. On the expiration of his term 
 of office, his conduct was subjected to a 
 sindicato, or scrutiny, when, if he had abused 
 the powers committed to him, he was punished 
 with fine and ignominy ; if, on the contrary, he 
 had deserved well of the state, he was escorted 
 home with great honours and rich gifts. 
 
 The first appointment of a Podesta in 
 Florence took place in the year 1207. His 
 tribunal was the supreme court in civil and 
 criminal causes, but, in the latter, his juris- 
 diction could only be exercised on the written 
 complaint of the injured party or his relatives. 
 
Introduction. 45 
 
 This anomalous system was generally found, 
 though with many exceptions, to work well, 
 especially in the larger and more powerful 
 cities ; in the smaller, the Podesta, as might 
 have been expected, would sometimes be un- 
 willing to resign the sweets of power, and would 
 set up an independent tyranny. 
 
 What we know of the social life of Florence 
 at the end of the thirteenth century, proves that 
 it must have been singularly rich and attractive. 
 The worst of her civil discords were temporarily 
 allayed, and no foreign war seriously threatened 
 either her safety or her essential welfare, the 
 petty wars in which she was frequently engaged 
 with neighbouring states rather serving as a 
 healthy vent for the exuberant vitality of her 
 sons, than constituting a grave danger or a 
 drain upon her resources. Increasing in wealth 
 and prosperity, Florence threw herself with 
 characteristic energy into the pursuits at once 
 of art and letters, commerce and pleasure. A 
 native literature had recently come into being, 
 and was taking rapid growth ; the classics were 
 beginning to be studied with a quickened 
 diligence ; the dawn of modern art, though not 
 yet risen, had begun to whiten the horizon, 
 and into all these paths of activity the Floren- 
 
46 The Vita Nuov a and its Author. 
 
 tines, keen of wit, restless and vehement of 
 temperament, and strong of fibre, were eagerly 
 pressing. 
 
 The peculiar relation in which the nobles 
 stood to the state at large must have exercised 
 a potent influence upon the social development 
 of the latter. Subjected to the people, and not 
 only shorn of special privileges, but, by the 
 very fact of their birth, rendered incapable of 
 enjoying the full rights of citizens without 
 divesting themselves of their nobility, they yet, 
 by compliance with the requisite formalities, 
 managed to secure a large share of substantial 
 power, and that pre-eminence in the state for 
 which they were well adapted. Closely linked 
 with, but not completely fused in, the body of 
 the people, they were enabled at once to take 
 the initiative in arms, in politics and in letters, 
 and, at the same time, to communicate to their 
 fellow-citizens something of the especial virtues 
 of an aristocracy — marked individuality, a code 
 of honour, refinement of manners, respect for 
 self and for others. Italian chivalry is usually 
 regarded as an exotic importation, a pale 
 reflection of the northern chivalry, as a matter 
 of holiday pageantry rather than as the ideal 
 to which every noble life should conform. 
 
Introduction. 47 
 
 There is much truth in this view ; the Italian 
 nobility never, as a whole, devoted themselves 
 to that enthusiastic and semi-religious cult of 
 the laws of chivalry, which was regarded as the 
 normal existence of the privileged classes in 
 France and Germany. But here, as is often 
 the case, the event proved the truth of Hesiod's 
 axiom that the half is sometimes greater than 
 the whole. In the north, its proper home, 
 chivalry was the cherished possession of the 
 few, who, by making its rules the ideal guide of 
 life, were enabled to attain to a certain narrow 
 self-perfection, while they added thereby to the 
 height and strength of the barriers which shut 
 them off from their fellows. In the Italian 
 republics, however, the truer and healthier 
 relation in which the nobility stood to the 
 citizens at large, caused the principles of chivalry 
 to become more diffused among the people, 
 and substituted for the exclusive observance of 
 the point of personal honour, which, though to 
 a certain extent ennobling, was wholly self- 
 regarding, a regard for and jealousy of the 
 honour and true dignity of the community. 
 Thus was fostered a principle of the truest 
 democracy, — a recognition of the right of all 
 classes to share in that nobility which consists 
 
48 Th^ Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 in obligations rather than privileges ; and thus, 
 in these communities of tanners and silk- 
 weavers, woolcombers and usurers, we occa- 
 sionally meet with the strange spectacle of a 
 government guided by the rules of honour rather 
 than the interests of the moment, and a people 
 preferring justice to success.' 
 
 The progress made by Florence in wealth and 
 culture had the usual effect of bringing in its 
 train a corresponding advance in luxury, or, 
 as some would style it, corruption. At an 
 earlier period, social life in Florence, even 
 among the most eminent citizens, had been 
 remarkable for its simplicity. Of this life Dante 
 gives a charming picture in the Paradiso 
 (c. XV.), where his ancestor, Cacciaguida, is 
 made to speak. 
 
 Florence, within her ancient limit-mark. 
 Which calls her still to matin prayers and noon, 
 Was chaste and sober, and abode at peace. 
 
 ' Of course it is not intended to deny that the political 
 dealings of the Italian republics, as of all states of every 
 age, race, and form of government, were generally 
 characterized by rapacity, injustice, and perfidy ; never- 
 theless signal instances of an opposite character are by 
 no means rare. See the picturesque account in Fauriel, 
 Dante et les Origines de la langue et de la litterature 
 italiennes. Vol. I., Lecture iii. 
 
Introduction. 49 
 
 She had no armlets and no head-tires then, 
 
 No purpled tires, no zone that caught the eye 
 
 More than the person did. Time was not yet 
 
 When at his daughter's birth ,the sire grew pale, 
 
 For fear the age and dowry should exceed 
 
 On each side just proportion. House was none 
 
 Void of its family ; nor yet had come 
 
 Sardanapalus, to exhibit feats 
 
 Of chamber prowess. . . . 
 
 I saw Bellincion Berti walk abroad 
 
 In leathern girdle and a clasp of bone ; 
 
 And, with no artful colour on her cheeks. 
 
 His lady leaves the glass. The sons I saw 
 
 Of Nerli and of Vecchio well content 
 
 With unrobed jerkin ; and their good dames handling 
 
 The spindle and the flax. O happy they ! 
 
 Each sure of burial in her native land, 
 
 And none left desolate a-bed for France ! 
 
 One waked to tend the cradle, hushing it 
 
 With sounds that lull'd the parent's infancy : 
 
 Another, with her maidens, drawing off 
 
 The tresses from the distaff, lectured them 
 
 Old tales of Troy and Fesole and Rome. 
 
 (Gary's Translation.) 
 
 Nor is this description a mere poetical lauda- 
 tion of the past, exalting it, as usual, into a 
 golden age. It is fully borne out by the 
 chronicler Villani, Dante's somewhat younger 
 contemporary, who gives a detailed description 
 of the simplicity of life prevailing so late as the 
 year 1259. 
 
 " The citizens of Florence," says Villani, 
 
 E 
 
so The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 " lived soberly and upon coarse food, and at small 
 expense, and many of their customs and fashions 
 were gross and rude ; and they were clad, 
 themselves and their wives, in coarse cloth, 
 and many wore bare leather garments, without 
 cloth, and with caps on their heads, and all 
 with boots on their feet ; and the Florentine 
 ladies with boots without any ornaments ; and 
 the greatest ladies put up with a gown, quite 
 close, of coarse scarlet stuff of Ypres or Camo, 
 girt about with a strap, in the antique style, and 
 a mantle lined with fur, with a cape above, and 
 this they wore over the head ; and the women 
 of the commoner sort went clad in coarse green 
 stuff of Cambray, made after the like fashion. 
 Of such like habit, and rude customs, were the 
 Florentines of that period ; but they were of 
 good faith, and loyal to one another, and to 
 their commune, and with all their rough living 
 and their poverty they achieved greater actions 
 and of more virtue than have been performed 
 in our times of greater softness and of greater 
 wealth." 
 
 But this antique simplicity was of short 
 duration. Writing in 1330, Villani describes 
 the Florentine ladies of his own day as going 
 about " in a superabundance of ornaments — 
 
Introduction, $1 
 
 crowns and chaplets of gold, and silver, and 
 pearls, and precious stones — and with nets and 
 certain intertwined garlands of pearls, and other 
 rare adornments for the head, of great cost ; 
 and likewise in slashed garments of divers kinds 
 of cloth, and of stuffs embroidered with silk, 
 and in sundry fashions, with fringes, and 
 pearlsj and silver buttons, often gilt, and in 
 three or four rows joined together, and buckled 
 at the breast with pearls and precious stones^ in 
 various figures and letters." This account is 
 confirmed by the oldest of Dante's commentators, 
 and by the novels of Sacchetti, and extravagance 
 in attire rose to such a height that sumptuary 
 laws were passed, forbidding any woman to 
 wear a crown or chaplet, or embroidered robes, 
 or jewellery, or more than two rings. The 
 luxury thus inveighed against was not confined 
 to feminine attire, but was apparent in all 
 circumstances of public and domestic life, as 
 contemporary writers testify.' 
 
 ' The height to which luxury had risen in Tuscany is 
 best shown by the sonnets of Folgore da San Gemignano, 
 a noble Sienese poet, who wrote, probably, about the end 
 of the thirteenth or beginning of the fourteenth century. 
 In these sonnets he depicts the ideal life of the noble 
 classes, a life of the utmost gaiety and magnificence. 
 They form, as it were, a calendar, in which every month 
 E 2 
 
52 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 It is true that the state of things described by 
 Villani prevailed at a period a generation and 
 
 of the year, each day of the week, and each hour of the 
 day has its allotted pleasure — field sports, pageants, 
 banquets, fHes champStres, music, dancing — all on the 
 most sumptuous scale, with splendid raiment, and the 
 height of good living. Chivalry, too, has its place in 
 Folgore's ideal life, but rather as an added grace than as 
 the main devoir of a gentleman. Not that Folgore's 
 ideal gentleman was to be a mere carpet knight. 
 Fighting was a necessary item in the programme, a 
 portion of each Tuesday being devoted to that species 
 of entertainment. War, indeed, is treated as a mere 
 diversion, like everything else in life, but it is to ^be 
 pursued with vigour, and Folgore gives a vivid picture of 
 the rout of the enemy, and of the horses dragging their 
 fallen masters among the entrails of the slain, scattered 
 about the field. 
 
 These sonnets reveal how wealthy Tuscany laid all 
 Europe under contribution for its entertainment. The 
 sonnet on April gives a list of sundry articles of luxury 
 imported from abroad, which displays certain traits of 
 the exporting countries quite in harmony with their more 
 modern characters. Thus, Spain sends horses, Pro- 
 vence songs and dances, France musicians, Germany 
 brass music (German bands ?). 
 
 Of course, Folgore's picture of social life is mainly an 
 ideal one, or only realized, if at all, in his own Siena, 
 among the Brigata Goderecchia, of which he was a 
 member, a club of rich and noble spendthrifts who de- 
 voted their energies to the dissipation of their fortunes 
 in every kind of luxury and wanton extravagance, a 
 laudable design, in which their efforts were crowned with 
 
Introduction. 5 3 
 
 a half later than that of which we are now 
 treating ; nevertheless the advance of the Flor- 
 entines in luxury, the natural consequence of 
 peace and wealth, had already begun. Villani 
 himself especially notes the year 1283 as exhibit- 
 ing a great increase in the splendour with which 
 the customary May festivities were celebrated. 
 As we have seen from a passage already quoted 
 from Boccaccio, it was customary in Florence, 
 as in most countries, to welcome in the May with 
 sports, and festivals, and villeggiature. These 
 festivities, in the pleasure-seeking and pageant- 
 loving city of Florence, were prolonged, more or 
 less, through the months of May and June, and 
 were made the occasion of public and private 
 celebrations of great pomp and magnificence. 
 Villani speaks of one company consisting of a 
 thousand men and upwards, who, all clad in 
 white, and under the leadership of a Lord of 
 Love, would parade the city in procession on 
 every day of the festival, accompanied with 
 joyous music ; they then repaired to the country, 
 where they spent the day in mirth and feasting, 
 
 such success that most of them were reduced to beggary 
 in less than a year. Nevertheless, making the necessary 
 allowances, we can still perceive the luxury and magnifi- 
 cence prevalent among the wealthier classes. 
 
54 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 sports and dances, in which ladies, knights and 
 others took part, until evening. Other chroni. 
 clers speak of other similar companies, who wore 
 uniforms of silk, velvet, and gold samite of 
 various colours, and were adorned with garlands 
 and diadems. 
 
 This same year of 1283 brings us to Dante's 
 second recorded meeting with Beatrice. He 
 was now eighteen, and she nearly a year 
 younger ; thus, nine years had elapsed since 
 he had first beheld and loved her. As we 
 have already seen, for some time after this first 
 meeting, he sought frequent opportunities of 
 seeing her, but the terms in which he describes 
 their second meeting would lead us to infer 
 that these occasions had long ceased. How 
 far Dante's childish love for Beatrice con- 
 tributed to the passion which he now conceived 
 for her, or how far this was a continuation of 
 the former, it is impossible to say. That he him- 
 self regarded this, the love of his life, as dating 
 from that first meeting with her, and as suffering 
 no interruption, is placed beyond all question by 
 many passages alike in the present work, and in 
 the Commedia. True, the description contained 
 in the Vita Nuova, c. ii., of the results produced 
 by that first meeting — the violent agitation, 
 
Introduction . 5 S 
 
 mental and physical, which he then experienced, 
 the dpminion which Love thenceforth assumed 
 over him, the ennobling influence of Beatrice's 
 image which abode continually with him — 
 appears somewhat highly coloured, when we 
 remember that these experiences purport to be 
 those of a boy of nine. That the event there 
 related actually occurred, we cannot doubt, nor 
 need it tax our belief. Children are essentially 
 imitative animals, and just as they imitate their 
 elders by playing at soldiers, at horses, or at 
 shop, so do they sometimes imitate them by 
 playing at lovers ; the play in this case deriving 
 additional reality and duration from the affec- 
 tion actually felt for a favourite playmate, but 
 being outgrown at length, when other childish 
 games are outgrown. When, however, as in 
 Dante's case, the object of this childish flame, 
 met with in after years, becomes the love of 
 mature life, the mind must be prone to relate 
 back to that earlier time, and, bridging over 
 the interval between, to confuse the re-awakened 
 memory with continuity of experience. 
 
 In the present case, no doubt, something of 
 this mental operation may be detected, for 
 whatever nucleus of reality existed in Dante's 
 boyish passion, and that some such nucleus did 
 
56 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 exist we may be sure, some of the effects which 
 the sight of Beatrice is asserted to have pro- 
 duced upon him are such as presuppose an 
 experience, literary and otherwise, impossible in 
 a boy of nine, even though that boy be a young 
 Dante. 
 
 Nevertheless, it must not be forgotten that 
 there are cases on record of a very strong and 
 unmistakable love subsisting at a very early 
 age. Such was the love which Byron felt for 
 Mary Duff, the little Highland girl with whom 
 he used to play upon the Aberdeenshire hills, 
 he aged eight, and she six, a love which was, 
 perhaps, the most deep-seated he ever knew, as 
 it certainly was the most durable, retaining, as 
 it did, sufficient power, after he had grown up, 
 and had not seen her for well-nigh a dozen years 
 past, to cause the sudden news of her marriage 
 to communicate a violent shock to him. 
 
 Alfieri, too, affirms that at the age oi five he 
 experienced a love which gave colour to the 
 whole of his after life, and to this he attributes 
 great influence upon his poetical development. 
 Many similar instances might be adduced, to 
 show that the experiences which Dante records 
 of his early days are neither impossible nor 
 
Introduction. 57 
 
 unexampled, although the aftergrowth which 
 sprang from this seed was such as could find 
 being in none save him alone. 
 
 What renders Dante's case the more re- 
 markable, is the fact that he and Beatrice, in 
 those early days, were never so much as play- 
 mates even ; indeed, until this second meeting, 
 the very sound of her voice, so he tells us, had 
 never reached his ears. Upon returning home 
 after this meeting he fell asleep, and his excited 
 fancy presented to him the vision of the eaten 
 heart, which he related in a sonnet (c. iii.), the 
 earliest of his poems still surviving, although, as 
 he tells us, he had ere this taught himself the 
 art of verse. The sonnet is memorable as 
 having led to the great friendship of Dante's 
 life, that with Guido Cavalcanti, whose 
 influence, as pointed out elsewhere, became 
 so potent a factor in Dante's mental evolution. 
 Probably, too, this was the occasion of Dante's 
 becoming acquainted with others of his brother 
 poets, to whom, in orthodox Troubadour fashion, 
 he sent this sonnet, praying them for their 
 interpretation thereof. Of the replies which he 
 received four have reached us, those, namely, of 
 Guido Cavalcanti, Dante da Maiano, Cecco 
 
$8 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 Angiolieri and Cino da Pistoia -^ if, indeed, the 
 sonnet generally ascribed to the latter be really 
 his, seeing that he was only thirteen at the 
 time. Guido wrote in a style becoming a 
 friend, putting a favourable interpretation upon 
 the vision, which signified, according to his rede, 
 that it was well to be in Love's power : — Love 
 took Dante's heart and fed Beatrice withal, as 
 knowing that she was destined to die ; Love's 
 weeping at his departure was expounded as a 
 favourable omen, by the well-known rule of 
 interpretation by contraries. Cino held that 
 Love, by feeding Beatrice with Dante's heart, 
 communicated to her his passion, and wept to 
 think of the love-pangs that she would undergo 
 for him. The reply of Dante da Maiano is 
 severely practical, rather than either poetical or 
 courteous, referring to the stomach the cause of 
 the vision, and advocating appropriate remedies. 
 
 ' A notary of Pistoia, b. 1270, exiled for his partisan- 
 ship of the Ghibelline cause. He held high office 
 under Louis of Savoy, who finally effected his reconcilia- 
 tion with the government of his native state. Dante 
 highly esteemed his poetry, and associated him with 
 himself as the promoters of a literary Italian language. 
 In the De Vulgari Eloquentia he constantly refers to 
 Cinus Pistoriensis et amicus ejus, by the latter meaning 
 himself. 
 
Introduction. 59 
 
 Cecco's answer is couched in humble terms, 
 paying- homage to Dante as to his superior, but 
 merely pointing out what he conceived to be 
 contradictions in the vision, and stating that he 
 now understood, and now understood not. 
 
 From this time forth, Dante was "wholly 
 given up to his thoughts concerning that most 
 gentle being," and fell into such a morbid and 
 brooding habit that his health suffered thereby. 
 This was remarked by those who knew him, and 
 they sought to discover the cause, but he, not 
 wishing to divulge his lady's name, would not 
 answer them . About this time, chance suggested 
 to him a further expedient for keeping his 
 secret inviolate, upon which it is worth while to 
 dwell a littlcj as illustrating some curious 
 features of the mediaeval Frauendienst, Beatrice 
 was one day listening to a sermon, whereat 
 Dante also was, observing her intently. Directly 
 between them sat another lady, upon whom 
 Dante's eyes, as they gazed over her at their 
 object beyond, appeared to be resting, as she 
 herself deemed to be the case, and as others 
 thought, whom the fixity of Dante's gaze had 
 not escaped. Hence occurred to Dante the 
 brilliant thought of making this lady his 
 stalking-horse, so that, by rendering to her a 
 
6o The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 feigned homage, he might divert any suspicion 
 which might arise of his real love for Beatrice. 
 
 All went well for a time, but at length 
 the lady in question had occasion to leave 
 Florence. Dante at first was left disconsolate, 
 but soon resolved, or, as he puts it, was bidden 
 by Love in another vision, to get him a fresh 
 screen, in the person of a second lady ; a 
 mandate he so well obeyed, that soon a scandal 
 arose thereanent, and " passed beyond the 
 bounds of courtesy." He now found that he 
 had been only too successful in his mystifica- 
 tion, for Beatrice, hearing of these rumours, 
 showed her disapproval of Dante's supposed 
 misconduct by withholding from him her saluta- 
 tion, which she had been wont to bestow upon 
 him when they met, such being the sole inter- 
 course that passed between them, and wherein, 
 he says, " abode all his bliss." Now was Dante 
 sore dismayed, and betook himself to solitude 
 and tears. Then came to him another dream, 
 real or fictitious, wherein Love bade him put 
 away all disguise, and justify himself in verse; 
 which he did, though, apparently, without any 
 immediate result. 
 
 There is something very ludicrous in this 
 episode, heightened by the ndiveti with which 
 
Introduction. 6i 
 
 Dante relates it, evidently without a suspicion 
 of the humour of it. On the contrary, he 
 describes his behaviour with an air of quiet 
 complacency, pluming himself thereupon, as 
 though his delicacy were something highly 
 meritorious, without appearing to recognize the 
 possibility of his conduct being somewhat 
 unfair to the two ladies whom he successively 
 used to screen his real passion by feigning love 
 for them. We can only hope that these ladies 
 were somewhat of coquettes, and could take 
 their part in the game for the game's sake, and 
 without much regard for the stakes, not averse 
 from a passing affair with the rising young 
 poet, even with, or especially with, its accom- 
 panying esclandre. This must be said for 
 Dante, that what he did was in strict accord- 
 ance with established Troubadour precedent, it 
 being a frequent practice of their bards to 
 conceal their actual love by a pretended love 
 for some other.' 
 
 ' For instance, Folquet de Marseilles feigned a passion 
 for the sister of Barral de Baux, Viscount of Marseilles, 
 to disguise his love for the latter's sister, Adalasia. 
 So, too, Pons de Capdeuil, another Troubadour, made 
 use of the Vicountess of Marseilles as a " screen '' to 
 conceal his platonic attachment for Adalasia, wife of the 
 Lord of Mercoeur. 
 
62 The Vita Nuova audits Author. 
 
 All this while, the question naturally presents 
 itself, was this fervid love of Dante for Beatrice 
 returned by her ? but to this question his 
 writiiigs give no answer, beyond, at most, the 
 vaguest inferences. We might perhaps be in- 
 duced to answer it in the affirmative, by the 
 ofifence taken by Beatrice at the scandal current 
 anent Dante's supposed liaison with his second 
 " screen," whereby we are naturally led to 
 infer that Dante and his doings were not 
 altogether indifferent to her. 
 
 About this time, Dante was taken by a friend 
 to a wedding feast, at which Beatrice was also 
 present. Many commentators have supposed 
 that this may have been Beatrice's own 
 wedding, who, as we learn from her father's will, 
 dated January, 1287, was already at that time 
 the wife of Simone de' Bardi, a member of one 
 of the most honourable and wealthy houses of 
 Florence, or, indeed, of Europe. This con- 
 jecture, which no positive evidence either 
 supports or impugns, is not in itself destitute of 
 probability. We cannot presume that Dante 
 remained unaffected by Beatrice's marriage, or 
 that he would have failed to give some indica- 
 tion of it in his amatory history, while that such 
 hint should be a dark one would be quite in 
 
Introduction. 63 
 
 keeping with the course adopted by him 
 throughout the work. The conjecture, if true, 
 would afford an additional reason for the 
 violent pertubation into which Dante was 
 thrown at the sight of Beatrice among the 
 wedding guests, and which, despite his efforts 
 to dissemble, made itself manifest to all in the 
 commotion of his countenance. Beatrice her- 
 self observed it, and in common with the other 
 ladies, her friends, was moved to laughter, as 
 well she might be. This unkindness on the 
 part of his mistress, though we can neither 
 blame nor wonder at it, smote cruelly upon 
 Dante. He returned home, and for some time 
 to come remained sunk in despondency, 
 breathing an unwholesome atmosphere of 
 longing and regrets, which he describes in 
 cc. xiv.-xvi. of the Vita Nuova, and the series 
 of sonnets then produced, but upon which he 
 , wisely declines to dwell (c. xvii.). 
 
 One day, while he was still in this morbid 
 state, he was accosted by some ladies, who 
 questioned him concerning his plight and the 
 causes thereof; whereupon he told them of his 
 love, of his bliss subsisting in Beatrice's salu- 
 tation, and of this being now withheld from him, 
 so that the only joy now left him was in speaks 
 
64 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 ing of her. To this they replied, that had what 
 he said been true, he would have framed his 
 poetry in other wise, instead of devoting it to 
 the description of his own condition. This 
 speech formed an epoch in Dante's poetical 
 development, and as such he recognized it. 
 Struck by the remarks of his fair critic, he 
 passed his verse in review before him, and 
 found that it did in fact record his own emotions 
 merely, instead of celebrating the praises of his 
 lady. Taking this to heart, he remained a while 
 in some perplexity, but the final result of his 
 cogitations was that he broke away from the 
 old conventional school of the Troubadours, and 
 took the step, which had already been taken 
 by several of his predecessors and contem- 
 poraries, — among others, by the Anonymous 
 Sicilian, by Jacopo da Lentino, Giovanni 
 deir Ortd, Noffo Buonaguida, Maestro 
 Torrigiano, Guido Guinicelli, Guido Cavalcanti, 
 etc. — to a poetry which had its roots below the 
 surface of the senses and emotions, and sought 
 for the metaphysical and spiritual verities un- 
 derlying phenomena. This sloughing of the 
 poetical chrysalis is rendered memorable by the 
 first-fruits of the dolce stilo nuovo to which 
 Dante had now turned, — the magnificent 
 
Introduction. 65 
 
 Canzone, " Donne ch'avete intelletto d^amore" — 
 the highest flight of the Italian muse up to that 
 time, quickly followed by the exquisite sonnet 
 Amore cor gentil sono una cosa, a melody upon a 
 theme already treated by Guide Guinicelli. 
 
 In the Canzone, Dante sets forth his lady's 
 worth, not by describing the beauties of her 
 face and form, but by dwelling on the ennobling 
 influence which radiated from her, paralyzing 
 every vile thought in all beholders, and inspiring 
 them with a truly celestial love. In order to 
 do this in the highest terms, he does not even 
 shrink from the bold course of bringing the 
 Deity Himself upon the scene, in colloquy with 
 His saints, who are represented as praying Him 
 to supply the one thing lacking to Heaven's 
 bliss by translating Beatrice thither.' The 
 poem is further remarkable as containing indica- 
 tions that the germ of Dante's great work had 
 even thus early taken root within his mind : — 
 not, indeed, of the Commedia, such as we have 
 it, but of some poem whose scene should be the 
 world beyond, and its subject the praise of his 
 lady. In all probability, the work, as originally 
 conceived, was intended to be modelled after 
 
 ' Compare the passage from Jacopo da Lentino cited 
 in Note i to p. 30, ante. 
 
 F 
 
66 Tke Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 the style of those visions of the world of spirits 
 which enjoyed so great a popularity in the 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 From the very first, the path of Dante's love 
 had been clouded by the shadow of death. 
 The vision which gave rise to the first sonnet in 
 the Vita Nuova. had been presageful of tears 
 and death, and, so far, Guido Cavalcanti, in his 
 interpretation of it, was only too true a prophet. 
 Soon afterwards, the death of a young lady, 
 Beatrice's friend, furnished another subject for 
 Dante's verse (c. viii.), and awakened forebodings 
 on behalf of his own lady, forebodings which 
 ever and anon recurred to him. And now 
 Beatrice was to experience a nearer bereavement 
 in the death of her father, Folco Portinari, 
 which plunged her into sore affliction. Her 
 grief was fully shared by Dante, for whom it 
 must have derived additional poignancy from 
 the impossibility of his holding any com- 
 munion with her, whereby he might render his 
 sympathy effective. He has left us a simple, 
 but wonderfully graphic, picture of himself, as 
 he loitered before Beatrice's house, watching 
 the ladies, her friends, as they went and came 
 on their visits of condolence to her, gathering 
 from their sorrowful looks and broken talk 
 
Introduction. 6^ 
 
 what he could concerning his mistress' plight, 
 and picking up such stray scraps of sympathy 
 for himself as his wretched aspect induced them 
 to bestow. 
 
 A few days later, whether it was that the 
 morbid f^xcitement of his mind had affected his 
 bodily health, or from some other cause, he fell 
 sick ; and as he lay in a feverish trance, there 
 came to him another vision, wherein, amid such 
 signs and portents as the Hebrew seers made 
 the precursors of a ruining universe, the death 
 of Beatrice herself was announced to him, and 
 he beheld her lying dead. Thus were the 
 shadows growing thick about him, and the 
 spectre which had continually been hovering 
 about his way began to assume a more menac- 
 ing aspect. It is, of course, possible that when 
 Dante came to compose his narrative, in the 
 light of after events, he insensibly depicted his 
 own ever-present fear as more intense than it 
 had actually been at the time, and that it was 
 really but little more than one of those passing 
 tremors and forebodings with which even the 
 happiest love will sometimes find a fearful 
 pleasure in dallying ; but it is also possible that 
 these tremors may have acquired additional force 
 from the pallid tint on Beatrice's features, that 
 F 2 
 
68 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 " love's own hue," that " hue of pearl," which is 
 
 the only definite physical trait of his mistress 
 
 which Dante has recorded. 
 
 Dante's narrative has now brought us to 
 
 about his twenty-fourth year, without containing 
 
 a single indication that he led any kind of life 
 
 outside this life of the emotions, or that he was 
 
 anything more than a puling lover. 
 
 " Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad 
 Made to his mistress' eyebrow." 
 
 To infer, however, from this silence as to any 
 active or intellectual life that no such life 
 existed would be rash, or, rather, absurd. 
 Dante's Vita Nuova does not purport to be a 
 complete autobiography, a transcript of all that 
 was written " in the book of his memory," 
 but only of what stands there under a certain 
 "rubric." Enough, I think, has been said to 
 show that Dante could, and probably did, 
 arrive at a very considerable proficiency in 
 letters, such as they were, even before he had 
 become skilled in the classical Latin. This 
 mental culture, moreover, was not confined to 
 that to be derived from books. During these, 
 peaceful years he entered into close relations 
 with some of the best minds of his day. We 
 have already seen how the poetical firstfruits 
 
Introduction. 6g 
 
 of his love won him the friendship of several 
 among his fellow poets, and especially of the 
 greatest among them, Guide Cavalcanti, who 
 afterwards became " the first of his friends," 
 besides Dante da Maiano, Cecco Angiolieri, and, 
 then or later, Cino da Pistoia. Other friends he 
 numbered among the poets ; — Lapo Gianni, Dino 
 Frescobaldi, Buonaggiunta degl' Urbicciani, and 
 others, though whether any of these, besides 
 Lapo Gianni, became acquainted with him at 
 so early a date may be doubted. Other friend- 
 ships he contracted, besides those with his fellow- 
 craftsmen ; notably with Giotto, in whDse art he 
 delighted, and with whom he sometimes con- 
 sorted in after years, during his exile. Tradition, 
 a doubtful one, it must be confessed, makes these 
 two fellow-students under Cimabue. Another 
 artist friend was Oderigi of As^ubbio, the most 
 distinguished miniature painter of his day. 
 Among the votaries of the sister art of music 
 was that Casella, for whom Dante manifested 
 so tender an affection, enduring beyond the 
 grave, when he met him at the foot of the 
 Purgatorial Mount. This Casella was like- 
 wise the foremost in his own art at that day, 
 and is said to have set some of Dante's poems 
 to music, while Landino tells us that Dante 
 
70 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 would often find solace in his music from the 
 fatigues of study. Bellacqua, a famous lute- 
 maker, and a man of culture, was likewise one 
 of this brilliant constellation. Nor can we 
 doubt that one of Dante's temperament, the 
 friend, moreover, of Guido Cavalcanti and the 
 Donati, had already begun to render himself 
 conversant with public affairs, and to prepare 
 for his subsequent short and disastrous, though 
 honourable, political career. 
 
 It now befell him to have a brief experience 
 of military life. Most of the principal Tuscan 
 cities at this time were in the hands of the 
 Guelf party ; Arezzo, however, was Ghibelline, 
 and, under the leadership of its Bishop, stood at 
 the head of the newly formed Ghibelline league, 
 which was joined by the exiles from the other 
 cities of Tuscany. In 1288, Florence, in alliance 
 with Siena and Pistoia, took the field against 
 the league, and laid waste the Aretine territories. 
 In the following year, the Aretines, encouraged 
 by a victory which they had won over the 
 Sienese at Pieve, and by a revolution in Pisa 
 which placed the Ghibellines at the head of 
 the government, mustered all the forces of the 
 league, with the intention of striking a decisive 
 blow at Florence, the stronghold of the Guelfs. 
 
In traduction . 7 ^ 
 
 The Florentines, with their allies, marched 
 forth to meet them in great force, under the 
 supreme command of Aymeric de Narbonne, 
 and on the nth June, 1289, the hostile armies 
 met at Campaldino. The vanguard of the 
 Guelfs, mainly consisting of the Florentine 
 troops, was under the command of Viero de' 
 Cerchi, the reserve was commanded by his 
 futiire rival, Corso Donati, Dante served in 
 the cavalry under the former leader, apparently 
 not without distinction. Of his presence at this 
 battle he himself makes mention in a letter, an 
 extract from which has been preserved by 
 Leonardo Bruni. Speaking of the battle of 
 Campaldino, he says, " Where I was present, not 
 a boy in arms, and where at the beginning I 
 experienced great fear, and at the end, the 
 utmost joy, on account of. the varying fortunes 
 of the fight." 
 
 The battle was not wanting in heroic incidents. 
 It was one of the many chivalrous customs 
 observed by the Italian states in time of war, to 
 name a certain number of champions called 
 feditori — twelve with the Florentines — to com- 
 mence the attack, and to snatch, as it were, an 
 augury of victory. This custom, doubtless, was 
 a survival of the belief, prevalent in Roman 
 
72 The Vita Nuova and its A uthor. 
 
 times, — itself a relic of the times of human 
 sacrifices — that a single champion, by devoting 
 himself to death on behalf of his country, could 
 ensure the victory of his comrades, a belief which 
 inspired the patriotic self-immolation of several 
 of the Decii. At Campaldino, it devolved upon 
 Viero de' Cerehi, as general in command of the 
 van, to appoint \he feditori, whereupon, though 
 suffering from a wound in the leg, he named 
 first himself, then his son, and then his nephew, 
 after which he refused to name any more, but 
 bade those follow him who would. In a moment, 
 not twelve, but 1 50, had volunteered, and rushed 
 furiously upon the enemy. Despite this com- 
 mencement, the Aretines charged in their turn 
 with such determination that the Florentines 
 wavered and gave way. The day was saved 
 by Corso Donati, whose indomitable self-will and 
 ungovernable temper, destined one day to blast 
 at once his country's liberties and his own fair 
 fame, now stood them both in good stead. He 
 had been placed in command of the reserve, with 
 strict injunctions not to stir without orders, on 
 pain of death ; but, at this supreme crisis, 
 replying to timid counsellors that if they were 
 to be overcome it would be little worth to 
 study his safety by obeying orders, while death 
 
Introduction. 73 
 
 would be but a small matter if thereby he could 
 save his country, he charged with all his 
 forces, and converted the threatened rout into a 
 brilliant victory. The enemy were scattered, 
 and the Ghibelline cause in Tuscany almost 
 destroyed ; the Bishop of Arezzo fell, fighting 
 desperately, besides many other chiefs of the 
 League, including three of the Uberti. 
 
 After this victory, the Florentines proceeded 
 to the siege of Caprona, which capitulated. 
 Here, too, Dante was present, as he has recorded 
 in the Commedia} 
 
 Whether it was that the healthy excitement 
 of the campaign had a beneficial effect upon him, 
 or that he found his lady kinder to him after 
 his return, certain it is that Dante's writings 
 
 • Inferno XXI. :— 
 
 Thus, issuing from Caprona, once I saw 
 Th' infantry dreading, lest his covenant 
 The foe should break. 
 
 (Carys Translation!) 
 In the following Canto Dante records some of his 
 ca\'alry experiences : — 
 
 It hath been heretofore my chance to see 
 Horsemen with martial order shifting camp, 
 To onset sallying, or in muster ranged, 
 Or in retreat sometimes outsheaved for flight ; 
 Light-armed squadrons, and fleet foragers, 
 Scouring thy plains, Arezzo, have I seen, etc. 
 
74 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 assume for a while a more cheerful tone. He 
 has escaped from the unwholesome swamps of 
 morbid introspection to a serener atmosphere, 
 wherein he contemplates his lady's celestial 
 beauties, of mind and body, her virtues, and 
 the ennobling influence which she sheds on all 
 beholders. These chapters (xxvi.-xxviii.) de- 
 serve to be read with especial attention, as 
 revealing the true nature of Dante's love, how 
 real it was and heartfelt, and, at the same time, 
 how ideal and contemplative. Desirous of 
 treating this subject at greater length than the 
 narrow bounds of the sonnet would permit, he 
 began a Canzone, wherein he proposed to 
 describe how sweet was the dominion which his 
 lady exercised over him, and how he was en- 
 nobled thereby. 
 
 This poem, however, was destined to remain 
 unfinished. It breaks off abruptly at the end 
 of the first stanza, and the words which follow 
 are a cry of bitterest grief, for Beatrice was 
 dead. Of the circumstances of her death we 
 know nothing, only that she died on the 9th 
 June, 1290. Dante passes over the subject 
 without dwelling upon it, because, he says, it 
 does not. fall within his prescribed scope, and 
 
Introduction. 75 
 
 because his pen is not capable of treating of it 
 worthily ; also because he could not do so with- 
 out becoming guilty of self-praise. The last 
 sentence is mysterious, and Dante offers no 
 explanation. The question^ however, presents 
 itself to our minds, whether Beatrice in her last 
 moments might not have recognized the fidelity 
 of her votary, and admitted that his love was 
 returned. 
 
 The desolation brought upon Dante's life by 
 the loss of Beatrice was proportionate to the 
 completeness with which the thoughts of her 
 had filled his life for so many years past. The 
 story of his sorrow, and the sonnets in which he 
 celebrates it, are characterized by rare beauty 
 and pathos ; at the same time, it is noteworthy 
 that Dante describes this real calamity with 
 much greater brevity and simplicity than those 
 fantastic woes which he underwent in the earlier 
 stages of his love. 
 
 Somewhat more than a year after the light of 
 Dante's life had set in death, he experienced an 
 afterglow of passion. Still unconsoled, he 
 would often resort to solitude, in order to 
 indulge his grief in secret. On one of these 
 occasions, he espied a lady watching him from 
 
76 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 the window of a neighbouring house, with an 
 expression of sympathy and compassion.' 
 Dante responded to the interest, or something 
 more, which this lady evinced. Her sympathy 
 fell gratefully upon his wounded and solitary 
 spirit, and the regard with which he evidently 
 inspired her, her own personal attractions, 
 combined with a certain resemblance to Dante's 
 dead lady, like whom, she wore on her features 
 " love's own hue," moved him to transfer to this 
 new object his now loosed allegiance, and to 
 make her the subject of his verse. In short, 
 
 " She pitied him, and loved him. 
 And he loved her that she did pity him." 
 
 With sentimentalists, this transfer of a love 
 which had for so long a time formed the central 
 point of Dante's existence, and was to be the 
 lode-star of his future life, will doubtless detract 
 
 ' It has been conjectured, with much probability, that 
 the lady in question was the Monna Gemma Donati, 
 who ere long became Dante's wife. The Casa Donati 
 closely adjoined the house of the Aligliieri, and its win- 
 dows could probably command a view of the latter. 
 Dante, indeed, here speaks of his passion for this fair 
 and compassionate lady as of short duration and 
 already a thing of the past ; still, it may well have been 
 a mere temporary cessation of this new love, caused by 
 the reaction of feeling which Dante describes, during 
 which the Vita Nuova was written. 
 
Introduction. "jy 
 
 somewhat from the interest of his character. 
 It would, however, be both shallow and unjust 
 to accuse him on account of it of levity or 
 inconstancy. The poignant sorrow which con- 
 tinued to oppress him for a year or two after 
 Beatrice's death is sufficient proof of the depth 
 and truth of his attachment. Nor is it of rare 
 occurrence, or difficult of explanation, that upon 
 the loss of the beloved object a void is. created, 
 which nature seeks to fill up as best may be. 
 In bringing about this result, which, far from 
 necessarily implying any forgetfulness of, or 
 infidelity to, the former ties, may even proceed 
 in great measure from the acuteness with which 
 the loss consequent upon the severance of those 
 ties is felt, both physiological and psychological 
 causes take part. Moreover, none can say how 
 often the second love may be a Laodamia's 
 image of the first ; how often the lesser light 
 which arises upon the night of bereavement 
 may but shine by reflection from the day-star 
 which has set ; the melody may be but a 
 nachhall caught from strings formerly set vibrat- 
 ing ; the sparse primroses of the later year may 
 grow from a root which has blossomed more 
 richly in the spring of life. 
 
 So it was with Dante's second love. Akin to 
 
78 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 Pity, and the child of Fancy by Memory, it soon 
 betrayed how little power it had to displace, or 
 to obscure for long, the image of that incarna- 
 tion of all good which the benedetta Beatrice 
 had been, and was to be, to him. His tem- 
 porary aberration soon gave rise to a remorse so 
 keen that even the strictest of Love's votaries 
 might well admit that piii gran delitto men 
 vergogna lava. Beatrice again appeared to him 
 in vision, clad, this time, in the robe of crimson 
 ("that most noble of colours," as Dante had 
 well called it) which she wore when she first won 
 his childish love. A severe struggle between 
 the new love and the old ensued, but it 
 was short, and the old emerged triumphant. 
 Then again came to him a " marvellous 
 vision of that Blessed One," which, however, he 
 refrains from describing, " until he shall be 
 capable of treating of her more worthily." To 
 this object he solemnly dedicates the labour of 
 his life ; and with a prayer to be worthy of 
 eternal union with his glorified lady, ends, as 
 with a solemn organ voluntary, this Hymn to 
 the Christian Eros. 
 
 The Vita Nuova was probably written soon 
 after the last events recorded therein. Some, 
 indeed, have assigned it to the year 1 300, that 
 year of Dante's great moral regeneration, in 
 
Introduction. "jg 
 
 which he sets the action of the Commedia. 
 That year was, indeed, a solemn one for all 
 Christendom. The first Jubilee had been pro- 
 claimed by Pope Boniface VIII., and vast 
 numbers of pilgrims flocked to Rome from 
 all Europe, there being daily in Rome 200,000 
 strangers, besides those going and returning. 
 Accordingly, Dante's mention of the pilgrims 
 in c. xli., and of the reflections to which the 
 sight of them gave rise in his mind, has been 
 adduced in support of their theory by those 
 who refer the composition of the book to the 
 year of the Jubilee, when great troops of 
 pilgrims would be passing through Florence 
 daily. The very passage in question, however, 
 is opposed to the theory which it is adduced to 
 support. Dante saw the pilgrims " at that 
 time when many folk were. going to behold the 
 blessed likeness which," etc., etc. Now, had 
 these pilgrims been on their way to the Jubilee, 
 it is most improbable that Dante would have 
 failed to make some mention, at the least, of 
 the main object of their pilgrimage, so great 
 and solemn as the occasion was, instead of 
 merely referring to one of the minor incidents 
 of it. Indeed, the words of the text are at 
 least as applicable to any year as to that of 
 the Jubilee, it being customary to exhibit the 
 
8o The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 Vera Icon every January, Holy Week and 
 Ascension Day. 
 
 Moreover, it is improbable that amid such 
 stormy political events as those which marked 
 the year 1300, and in which the poet himself 
 bore so active a part, he should have been 
 engaged upon a work of so calm and contem- 
 plative a character as the Vita Nuova. 
 
 Moreover, the reproaches addressed by 
 Beatrice to Dante in the Earthly Paradise 
 indicate that he had then (1300) been guilty of 
 repeated acts of infidelity to her memory, and 
 had for some time past led a life which was to 
 say the least not wholly immaculate, although 
 it might, and probably would, be most unjust 
 to attribute to him any very grave delinquencies. 
 This, however, is wholly inconsistent with the 
 concluding chapters of the Vita Nuova} 
 There, after a single, and very venial, offence 
 
 ' See Purgatorio, c. xxxi., where, further, Beatrice 
 speaks of repeated visions and monitions, whereby she 
 sought to recall Dante to his pristine faith, but in vain. 
 Now, in the Vita Nuova, Dante speaks of only one such 
 warning vision, which was immediately efficacious. 
 Hence we must infer that Dante's return to his allegi- 
 ance was but temporary, and that he fell away again 
 and again, until, later on in life, he finally emerged from 
 the selva oscura inhabited by warring passions. 
 
Introduction. 8 1 
 
 against his voluntary allegiance, Dante, with a 
 passion of grief and remorse far greater than 
 the occasion required, returned without reserve 
 to his pristine fidelity. 
 
 Hence we can only infer, or rather it is clear 
 almost beyond inference, that the Vita Nuova 
 could only have been written at that season 
 when the angel consideration had come tq 
 Dante, and further that such season was of but 
 temporary duration, for even Dante had to 
 fall, and rise, and fall again, and rise again, 
 before he could reach the summit of that 
 purgatorial mount which has to be climbed on 
 this side Styx. 
 
 Of course, the foregoing remarks concerning 
 the date of the Vita Nuova can apply only to 
 the work in its completed form. The book 
 consists of a prose narrative, thickly inter- 
 spersed with lyrical poems illustrative of the 
 different stages of the history. These lyrics 
 are of earlier date than the prose portion of the 
 work, having been written at the time of the 
 incidents recorded in them, and although it is 
 not at all improbable that Dante, when collect- 
 ing these poems and arranging them in due 
 order, may have revised and corrected them to 
 a certain, even a considerable, extent we cannot 
 
 G 
 
82 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 doubt that they are substantially the same as 
 when written. The work is a curious mixture 
 of passion and method, characteristic both of 
 Dante's own nature, and of the times in which 
 he lived. To us, it appears strangely incon- 
 gruous to find introduced into the story of a 
 love at once so passionate and so transcendental 
 a calm discourse upon poetics, and a disser- 
 tation upon the mystical system of numbers 
 closely following upon the impassioned lament 
 on Beatrice's death. Still more incongruous 
 are the commentaries which are attached to 
 each of the lyrics, wherein the poem is 
 deliberately dissected, distributed under dis- 
 tinct heads in accordance with the nature of 
 the subject, and the purport, literal and esoteric, 
 scientifically analyzed. Interesting as these 
 commentaries are from a historical point of 
 view, it is irritating in the extreme, after 
 reading one of these exquisite lyrics, palpitating 
 with life, the new-born offspring of the author's 
 emotions, to find it, as it were, straightway cut 
 to pieces, weighed and measured, tied up in 
 parcels, and ticketed, often with a most in- 
 appropriate label. This passion for subtle 
 analysis, and minute, often arbitrary, distinction, 
 is the most characteristic feature of all the 
 
Introduction. 83 
 
 intellectual work of the middle age, and Dante, 
 though belonging to all time, was the quint- 
 essence of his age. Cold-blooded as may seem, 
 at first glance, the application of this critical 
 method to matters of the emotions, yet is this 
 view far from being the true one. Such 
 matters were deemed to be among the great 
 verities of human nature, and, as such, to be 
 worthy of the patient and scrupulous investiga- 
 tion which truth demands. All thought was 
 intensely vital ; all things pertaining to man 
 were considered in their relation to the spirit of 
 man, and to the Spirit from which that spirit was 
 derived, and however crude, and even puerile, 
 the results of mediaeval thought might be, 
 herein is it most favourably contrasted with 
 that dilettante pseudo-scientific spirit which has 
 done so much towards transforming modern 
 poetry and fiction into superficial treatises 
 upon, and sham analyses of, the principles of 
 religion and ethicSj sociology and psychology. 
 
 Not only in date is the Vita Nuova the work 
 of Dante's youth. Its essence and structure 
 alike mark it as the product of what may be 
 termed, the receptive period ; a period to which 
 belong the earlier works of all young poets, even, 
 or especially, of the most original. Such early 
 G 2 
 
84 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 works, though they may be essentially original, 
 though they may even constitute a new departure 
 in the history of letters, yet teem with reminis- 
 cences and imitations, conscious or unconscious, 
 of their predecessors, alike in outward form, and 
 in thought, imagery, diction and innumerable 
 details. A new life has been born into the 
 world, but its steps need support for a while; 
 
 So it was with Dante. The very framework 
 of the Vita Nuova, in its alternation of prose 
 and verse,' and its frequent employment of 
 
 ' It must, however, be remembered that the same 
 form appears in the romantic Hterature of the Middle 
 Ages, e.g., " Aucassin and Nicolette," and in the ancient 
 Celtic literature. Indeed, it seems probable that 
 modern literature, prose and verse, in form and matter, 
 owes to Celtic literature a vastly greater debt than has 
 ever been acknowledged. It is customary to ascribe 
 to Arab influences such features of the mediaeval lyric 
 poetry, the chivalric spirit it embodies, the love of nature 
 it evinces, its novel metres, etc., as cannot be directly 
 traced to classic or Teutonic sources, to the Saracens, 
 who so long maintained their footing in Provence. Such 
 features, however, are at least as distinctive of Celtic as 
 of Oriental romance, and considerable as the Arab in- 
 fluence upon mediaeval letters undeniably was, it may 
 be doubted whether the Celtic influence, first, during 
 the great period of Irish culture in the Carlovingian 
 age ; secondly, in the great Welsh revival of the eleventh 
 and twelfth centuries, to which so great a part of the 
 romance of chivalry may be traced, were not even more 
 deep and extensive. 
 
Introduction. 85 
 
 visions as part of the poetic machinery, is that 
 adopted by Boethius, in his treatise De Consola- 
 tione. Now at the time when we suppose the 
 Vita Nuova to have been written — about 
 1293-4 — it was this very work of Boethius in 
 which Dante found at once solace for his grief, 
 and an entrance into the world of classical 
 literature.' 
 
 Still more thoroughly is the work pervaded 
 by the influences of that mediaeval literature 
 with which Dante was so deeply imbued. 
 Instances enough have been adduced in these 
 pages, and many more might be cited, to show 
 the readiness with which Dante, in common 
 with all other great and original writers, such 
 being as assimilative as they are creative, would 
 avail himself of the labours of his predecessors. 
 The very language in which he describes his 
 passion ; the tears and plaints, the lamentations 
 over imaginary griefs, nursed by self-pity into 
 realities ; the silent worship of his mistress, and 
 the persistent concealment of her name ; the 
 choosing of another lady to serve as a " screen " 
 
 * This treatise of Boethius played an important part 
 in the nascent literature of England as well as of Italy- 
 King Alfred's translation of it into Anglo-Saxon is, with 
 that monarch's other translations, the first specimen of 
 Anglo-Saxon prose literature. 
 
86 The Vita Nuova and its A uthor. 
 
 to his actual love, the incident of the eaten 
 heart in the first vision ; — all these, and many 
 more, are characteristic of the Proven9al 
 Troubadours and their Italian imitators, from 
 whose works Dante copied them with an almost 
 childlike ndivetL 
 
 Regarding Dante's literary style in the Vita 
 Nuova, we are unable to exclude the recollection 
 that it was probably the first, certainly almost 
 the first, attempt at artistic prose composition 
 in the Italian, and are thus struck with a certain 
 air of maturity, wherein it differs widely from the 
 first rude essays of the early French, English 
 and German writers. The style, however, no 
 less than the matter, bears the note of youth, the 
 youth both of the author and of his native 
 speech, which, even in his hands, has not yet 
 reached that perfect development to which 
 Italian prose was so soon to attain. Born an 
 infant Hercules, and capable of great feats in 
 its very cradle, it had yet to grow in strength 
 and stature before all its labours could be 
 accomplished. Even the verse, although, as is 
 natural, far more mature than the prose, is 
 wanting in that perfection of " finish," which 
 betrays the craftsman possessed of both acquired 
 and inherited experience. 
 
Introduction. 87 
 
 But though unable to boast of any great 
 polish or artistic finish, the style is not unworthy 
 of the matter. It has a naive charm and beauty 
 of its own, an exquisite simplicity alike in 
 thought and diction. Its pathos is graceful 
 and touching in the extreme,' while on the rare 
 occasions when the author would express a 
 happier mood,^ the narrative goes singing on 
 its way in a bright and limpid flow, like a 
 mountain brook in sunlight. Pity it is that 
 such moods are of so rare occurrence and so 
 brief duration, for the general note is " a most 
 humorous sadness," which, at any rate in the 
 portions of the work treating of the early stages 
 of Dante's passion, when his sorrows proceed 
 from no graver cause than somewhat fantastical 
 love-longings, dims, in some degree, its beauty. 
 
 All works, indeed, of a purely emotional 
 character, labour more or less under this 
 drawback. No amount of beauty or genius 
 in such a book will save the reader from 
 a certain impatience at being perpetually 
 tossed upon a weltering flood of sentiment, 
 blown up by sighs, and exposed to an unceasing 
 rain of tears. The gusty passion of Boccaccio's 
 
 ' See especially cc. xxii., xxiii., xxxii. (Canzone), xxxv. 
 ' See especially cc. xxiv., xxvi. 
 
88 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 Fiammetta, — the sentimentality of Rousseau's 
 Nouvelle Hdlo'ise, — the everlasting Empfindsam- 
 keit of Jean Paul Richter and the German 
 Romanticists, all afflict us, in the midst of our 
 admiration, with a certain feeling of weariness, 
 almost of disgust. Even a smaller admixture 
 of the like defects will suffice to alloy the 
 charm of Petrarch's sonnets and Heine's Lieder. 
 Dante, it is true, is preserved from this reproachj 
 in its graver forms, as well by the strength and 
 elevation of his own genius, as by the very 
 structure of his work, whose clearly defined 
 outline, terse and direct treatment, and simple 
 genuineness, permit no great divagations, and 
 sustain the interest of the narrative. 
 
 Yet even here the same fault is apparent, 
 though in a mitigated form, and if we knew no 
 more of Dante than what he himself discloses 
 in his plaintive love story, we might be excused 
 from regarding with something approaching to 
 contempt so lachrymose a swain, who, by his 
 own showing, passes the best years of his life 
 in bewailing a hopeless passion. The remem- 
 brance, however, that he upon whom we would 
 pass this hasty judgment is not merely one of 
 the three supreme poets of all time, but one 
 who stood among the foremost of his day in 
 scholarship, theology, philosophy, political and 
 
Introduction. 89 
 
 natural science, while he took part in the active 
 life of his time as soldier, statesman, politician 
 and litterateur, should give us pause, and cause 
 us to take thought how far those characteristics 
 which strike upon us so unpleasantly pertain to 
 the very essence of Dante's genius, and how far 
 (to employ a term which would have recom- 
 mended itself to him) they inhere therein per 
 accidens merely. 
 
 Now, it is very certain that however deep 
 and heartfelt a man's emotion may be, the 
 particular form in which that emotion finds 
 expression is almost as much a matter of 
 circumstance, determined by the conventions of 
 the society in which he lives, as is the dialect in 
 which he writes. The fashion of this outward 
 vesture of the emotions, as it may be called, 
 is always set in great measure, at any rate in 
 the more cultured classes, by the tone of the 
 romantic literature for the time being in vogue ; 
 and although such literature, in the first place, 
 undoubtedly reflects, while heightening, traits 
 actually existing in the society wherein it takes 
 its rise, still, when come to maturity, it 
 establishes a conventional etiquette of emotion 
 which cannot fail to influence, however uncon- 
 sciously, each individual. 
 
 This love language of sighs and tears, plain- 
 
90 The Vita Nuova and its A uthor. 
 
 ings, and lamentings, is a distinctive note of the 
 imaginative literature of the Middle Ages. In 
 the Romances of Chivalry, vi^e find knights- 
 errant and Paladins — who think no more of 
 cleaving a few giants to the chine (that mysteri- 
 ous part, so conspicuous in chivalric anatomy), 
 or of routing a Paynim host single-handed, 
 than Hotspur would of killing half-a-dozen 
 Scots before breakfast — passing the intervals of 
 leisure between their feats of prowess, in the 
 most dolorous wailings over their mistresses' 
 cruelty, while the smallest access of joy or 
 grief in the course of their love will suffice to 
 overcome them, even to swooning. In real life, 
 no less, the men of blood and iron, who wrought 
 out the history of the Middle Age, could roar 
 you as gently as any sucking dove, when hit by 
 the blind archer, and strove, not unsuccessfully, 
 to realize in practice the wildest extravagancies 
 related of their favourite horses of romance.' 
 Yet more lamentable lovers were the singers of 
 the Langue d'Oc, with a melancholy as baseless 
 
 ' Witness the whole history of the mediseval Frauen- 
 dtenst, culminating in the extraordinary lunes of the 
 famous Ulrich von Lichtenstein, a knight-errant at least 
 as mad as Don Quixote himself, without the, excuse of 
 the latter's noble aspirations and illusions. 
 
Introduction. 9 1 
 
 and fantastic as that of Don Quixote, as 
 humorous and complex as that of Jaques, 
 their verses, in great measure, filled with lan- 
 guorous complaints or with quibbling, pseudo- 
 scholastic dissertations upon love and beauty. 
 
 Surely, then, far from impeaching the truth 
 of Dante's passion, or the manliness of his 
 character, on account of certain superficial 
 blemishes, the inevitable result of surrounding 
 influences, we should rather recognize that 
 strong originality — even in this his earliest work 
 — and that truth and depth of feeling, which 
 enabled him to wear the garb of sentimentality 
 — a Nessus skirt, so generally fatal to all life 
 which it enfolds — so lightly as not greatly to 
 hamper the free play of his genius, or to veil 
 its beauty. 
 
 Hitherto we have dealt, chiefly, and, as may 
 appear to many, at too great a length, upon 
 that for which Dante was more or less indebted 
 to others. Only from a perusal of the work 
 itself can we gather what was more peculiarly 
 his own, and his is everything which constitutes 
 the very spirit and substance of the whole. 
 Other poets had already sung their loves in 
 verses rich with melody and imagery ; others 
 had revered, in the person of the beloved, a 
 
92 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 moral beauty, of which the outward beauty was 
 but the appropriate raiment; others had por- 
 trayed a love which endures beyond the grave ; 
 a few had even re-discovered Plato's teaching, 
 that all earthly beauty is as a glass wherein the 
 lineaments of the divine beauty are darkly 
 visible. It was reserved for Dante, however, to 
 actualize these vague perceptions, and to make 
 the Platonic ideal the vital principle of his life 
 and of his work. In the Phaedrus, Plato tells 
 how the human soul, fallen from its native 
 heaven to earth, the pinions of its winged 
 coursers all torn and shattered by the fall, lies 
 dazed and helpless, until the aspect of some 
 earthly beauty remind it of its celestial home, 
 the divine fount of all beauty. Then is life 
 newly kindled, and the plumes of its coursers 
 begin to shoot anewj until, strengthened by 
 the contemplation of the divine good thus 
 incarnate in an earthly object, it is again fit to 
 essay its heavenward flight. So it was with 
 Dante. Although the beauty of his lady's 
 person sufficed to fill him with an ecstasy of 
 reverential awe (for all this is implied in his word 
 umiltd), yet was this physical beauty the mere 
 expression of the spiritual and celestial beauty 
 of which she was the abode or the symbol : 
 
Introduction. 93 
 
 which of the two, or whether both, we cannot 
 tell. 
 
 Suffice it, that she presented herself to his 
 imagination as the point wherein centred all 
 the qualities which make up human perfection, 
 as the personification of " whatsoever things are 
 true, whatsoever things are honest . . . whatso- 
 ever things are pure, whatsoever things are 
 lovely." Thus it was but meet that Beatrice 
 should be loved for herself, and independently 
 of any return she might make for the love 
 bestowed upon her. " If I love thee, what is 
 that to thee ? " And the love thus founded 
 could not die with the earthly form of its object, 
 but the tie between them must needs become a 
 Jacob's ladder set up from earth to heaven, — 
 whereon angelic passengers — human prayers and 
 aspirations, celestial monitions and consolations 
 were continually ascending and descending. 
 
 Yet, ideal as was Dante's love for Beatrice, 
 it was none the less real ; it was the love of a 
 man for a woman, a love, indeed, most pure, 
 but also most strong and heartfelt. Of this, 
 innumerable passages in the Vita Nuova, the 
 Convito and the Commedia will leave no doubt 
 in any who come to the perusal of them with a 
 mind unbiassed by theories. Still, it is passing 
 
94 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 strange how great a fire was kindled by so 
 small a spark as the meeting of the nine-year- 
 old Dante with the eight-year-old Beatrice; 
 and although, as we have already seen, a child- 
 love so early, yet so genuine, is by no means 
 unexampled, it is surely cause for wonder that 
 upon a meeting with Beatrice, when grown to 
 woman's years, this love should have been 
 renewed, and that no discordance should have 
 been found between the actual woman and the 
 ideal of Dante's childish dreams. Nor can we 
 choose but marvel, when we find that this love 
 of Dante's maturer age, which dominated his 
 life for seven or eight years, and deeply 
 influenced it to the very end, appears to have 
 been nourished only by the unsubstantial food 
 of looks and glances, with the interchange of 
 an occasional greeting. 
 
 Possibly, however, this strangeness is more 
 apparent than real. There are many ways of 
 love, and herein, as in so many other things, 
 extremes are apt to meet. The love " engen- 
 dered of the eye, by gazing fed," which owes 
 its origin to mere physical beauty, and is apt, 
 with the generality, to assume the lowest form 
 of passion, may yet, in strongly imaginative 
 temperaments, become the purest and most 
 
Introduction. 95 
 
 exalted. Such temperaments are apt to create 
 their own imagined ideal of perfection, and 
 when any object succeeds in kindling their 
 fancy, they invest such object with all those 
 qualities which properly pertain to their ideal 
 only. If it was so with Dante, as it may well 
 have been, for he was at that age when ideals 
 still seem capable of realization, those very cir- 
 cumstances, which would, in ordinary natures, 
 cause an incipient passion to die away for want 
 of sustenance, may have actually contributed 
 with him to the permanence of his passion, by 
 obviating the possibility of that disillusioning 
 effect which closer acquaintance may so readily 
 produce, — save in those rarest cases of elective 
 affinity where each half of the primal androgy- 
 nous being has found its proper mate, — when 
 jarring notes will occur to mar the harmony, 
 or, at least, the strings will be let down to a 
 pitch more suited for the calmer music of 
 domestic life.^ 
 
 ' It is remarkable that Dante never gives utterance to 
 the slightest aspiration to the hand of Beatrice — and 
 any lower form of passion is wholly inconceivable here — 
 while his language, before Beatrice's death, keeps, for 
 the most part, at an equable level of desponding melan- 
 choly and unrest, never rising to hope, nor sinking to 
 passionate despair. This, however, rnay be explained. 
 
96 The Vita Nuova and its Author. 
 
 It is hardly necessary to discuss the theories 
 of those commentators who have; seen in 
 Beatrice an allegorical personage only, typical 
 of Theology of the Holy Roman Empire, of 
 Italy, or what not. Their speculations, in- 
 genious as they often are, are signal instances 
 of the powerlessness of the utmost learning and 
 acumen to preserve their possessor from error, 
 when they have once received a fatal bias 
 towards some preconceived theory. We may 
 be very sure that Beatrice was neither an 
 allegorical personage, nor the arbitrarily chosen 
 object of an artificial and merely poetical devo- 
 tion. Whoso should doubt of this, after an 
 attentive perusal of Dante's own writings, must 
 either be strangely involved in the meshes of 
 his own theory, or else yet more strangely 
 ignorant of human nature and the language of 
 human passion, Dante must be interpreted, 
 
 either by Beatrice failing, from the very first, to return 
 his love, or, which seems far more probable, from dis- 
 parity of fortune putting their marriage out of the 
 question. Thus Dante may have attained to that quali- 
 fied blessing proverbially assigned to those who expect 
 nothing, and if his love brought him but little happiness, 
 he was, at any rate, saved from the disappointment 
 caused by hopes frustrated, or the yet more grievous disr 
 appointment which often attends upon hopes fulfilled. 
 
The Vita Nuova and its Author. g^ 
 
 at any rate as to his primary intent and mean- j 
 ing, by Dante himself, and those who merely | 
 seek to read into him the figments of their own j "V 
 ingenuity will find his books like those of Aris- / 
 totle, " published and not published." They ] 
 will find that the key to Dante's soul is not to 
 be found by those who look upon him merely 
 as an embodied intellect, and not a man of like 
 feelings and passions with others, living at 
 every pore ; and to their interrogations they 
 will meet such answer only as Dante himself 
 gave to the inquisitive Florentines, when he 
 " smiled upon them, and answered — nothing." 
 
 H 
 
VITA NUOVA. 
 
 I. 
 
 In that part of the book of my memory prior 
 to which there is but little to be read, there is 
 found a rubric' * which saith : Incipit Vita Nova — 
 " Here beginneth the New Life." Beneath which 
 rubric I find written the words which it is my 
 intention to copy into this little book, and if not 
 all, at least the sense of them. 
 
 II. 
 
 Nine times already since my birth had the 
 luminous heaven ' well nigh returned to the self- 
 same point, in its own revolution, when first 
 appeared before mine eyes the glorious lady 
 of my soul, who was called Beatrice of many, 
 who knew not what it was that they called 
 her.' She had then been in this life so long 
 
 * The Arabic figures refer to the notes at the end of the 
 volume. 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO Vita Nuova, 
 
 that, in her time, the starry heaven had moved 
 towards the region of the East one twelfth part 
 of a degree,^ so that she appeared to me at 
 about the beginning of her ninth year, and I 
 beheld her almost at the end of my ninth year. 
 She appeared unto me, clad in that most noble 
 hue, modest^ and full of dignity — a crimson 
 that is — gi'rt and adorned in such wise as 
 beseemed her very early years. At that 
 moment, I verily say, the vital spirits," which 
 have their abode within the most secret chamber 
 of the heart, began to tremble so violently as to 
 be felt in my smallest pulses ; and, trembling, I 
 spake these words : Ecce Deus fortior me, qui 
 veniens dominabitur mihi (" Lo, a God stronger 
 than I, who shall come and have dominion over 
 me "). At that moment, the animal spirits, 
 which dwell within the lofty chamber, where- 
 unto all the sensitive spirits convey their 
 perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, 
 addressing more especially the visive spirits, 
 spake these words : Apparuit jam beatitudo 
 vestra {" Now hath thy bliss appeared "). At 
 that moment the natural spirits, which dwell in 
 that region where the nutrition is manifest, 
 began to ■ lament, and, lamenting, spoke these 
 words : Hen miser ! quia frequenter impeditus 
 
Vita Nuova. loi 
 
 ero deinceps (" Woe's me ! for ofttimes shall I 
 be sorely let from henceforth"). From that 
 tune forth, I say, love became the lord of my 
 soul, which was thus speedily wedded to him, 
 and he began to assume so firm and so great a 
 dominion over me, by virtue of the power con- 
 ferred on him by my imagination," that it behoved 
 me wholly to fulfil his every pleasure. Many a 
 time he bade me seek to behold this most 
 youthf ul angel, so that in my boyhood ^ I would 
 often go about seeking her ; and I discerned in 
 her so noble and admirable a bearing, that of 
 her might surely have been spoken those words 
 of the poet Homer :^ " She seemeth not the 
 daughter of a mortal man, but of God." And 
 although her image, which abode with me 
 continually, emboldened Love to rule over me > 
 yet was it of such notable virtue as never to 
 permit love to direct me, without the faithful 
 counsel of the reason, whensoever it might be 
 well to give ear unto such counsel.^ 
 
 And since the dwelling upon the passions 
 and actions of so youthful a season seemeth 
 like some fabulous story, I will quit them, and 
 passing over many things which might be drawn 
 from the exemplar '° whence these words take 
 their birth, I will pass on to those words which 
 
102 Vtia Nuova. 
 
 are written in greater paragraphs within my 
 memory." 
 
 III. 
 
 After so many days had passed by, that nine 
 years were just accomplished since the above 
 described apparition of my most gentle one, 
 upon the last of these days, it so happened that 
 this wondrous lady appeared to me, in garments 
 of whitest hue, between two gentlewomen, who 
 were of more advanced age than she. And as 
 she passed by the way, she turned her eyes 
 towards the spot where was I, greatly afraid ; 
 and, of her ineffable courtesy, which is now 
 receiving its reward in eternity/ she saluted me 
 in virtuous wise, insomuch that methoughTI then 
 beheld Hhe farthest limits of bliss.' The hour 
 that her sweetest greeting came to me, was 
 just the ninth hour of the day,* and, seeing that 
 this was the first time that her words had moved 
 towards mine ears, I felt such sweetness, that, 
 like one intoxicated, I departed from among 
 the folk, and, repairing to the solitude of my 
 room, I set myself to think upon this most 
 courteous lady ; and, as I was a thinking of her, 
 
Vita Nuova. 103 
 
 a sweet sleep overcame me, wherein appeared 
 to me a marvellous vision. 
 
 I seemed to see within my room a flame- 
 coloured cloud, wherein I descried a lordly 
 figure, of an aspect terrible to whoso looked 
 upon him, and he seemed to me so greatly to 
 rejoice within himself that it was a wonder ; 
 and in his words he said many things, which I 
 understood not, save only a few, among which 
 I understood these words : Ego dominus tuus 
 ("I am thy lord"). Within his arms, me- 
 thought, I saw a lady asleep, naked, save that 
 she seemed to be lightly wrapped in a robe of 
 crimson hue ; and as I observed her full closely, 
 I perceived that she was the lady of the saluta- 
 tion, who had that day already deigned to 
 salute me. And in one of his hands he seemed 
 to hold something, which was all burning, and 
 he seemed to say to me these words, Ecce cor 
 tuum (" Behold thine heart "). And after he 
 had tarried there somewhile, methought that he 
 awoke her who was asleep, and so wrought of 
 his will that he made her eat of that which was 
 burning in his hand, the which she ate, as one 
 doubting. After that, there was but small delay 
 ere his joy was turned into most bitter mourn- 
 ing, and thus lamenting, he again gathered up 
 
104 Vita Nuova. 
 
 that lady into his arms, and, as it seemed to me, 
 departed with her to heaven. Wherefrom I 
 sustained anguish so great that my feeble sleep 
 might no longer endure, but was broken, and I 
 awoke. And straightway I began to bethink mcj 
 and found that the hour at which this vision 
 had appeared to me was the fourth hour of the 
 night, whereby it is manifest that it was the first 
 of the last nine hours of the night. And as I 
 thought of that which had appeared to me, I 
 resolved to make it known unto many who 
 were famous makers ^ at that time. And as I 
 had already discovered for myself the art of 
 saying my say in rhyme, I resolved to make a 
 sonnet, wherein I might salute all Love's faith- 
 ful lieges; and, praying them to give their 
 judgments upon my vision,' I wrote to them that 
 which I had seen in my sleep : so then I began 
 this sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Unto every captive soul, and gentle heart, to 
 whose sight these presents shall come, to the 
 end that they may write me back their inter- 
 pretation thereof, be greeting in the name of 
 their lord, which is Love. 
 
 Now was well nigh spent the third hour of 
 
Vita Nuova. 105 
 
 that season when every star gives its light, 
 when Love suddenly appeared to me, the 
 remembrance of whose person awakens horror 
 within me. Cheerful seemed Love, holding in 
 his hand my heart, and in his arms he bore my 
 lady, asleep, wrapped in a loose mantle. Then 
 he awoke her, and made her, all timid and 
 downcast, to eat of that burning heart : then I 
 saw him turn away, weeping. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into two parts : in the 
 first part, I tender my greeting, and demand a 
 reply ; in the second, I declare that to which a 
 reply is sought. The second part begins here: 
 " Now was, etc." 
 
 To this sonnet reply was made by many and 
 in diverse senses, and among them He ' replied, 
 whom I call first among my friends ; and he 
 then indited a sonnet which begins : Vedesti al 
 mio parere ogni valere ("Methinks thou'st seen 
 a vision of all worth"). And this was almost 
 the beginning of the friendship between him 
 and me, when he knew that I was he who had 
 sent him the sonnet. The true meaning of the 
 said sonnet was not then discerned by any one, 
 but is now manifest to the most simple. 
 
io6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 IV. 
 
 From this vision forth, my natural spirits 
 
 began to be impeded in their operations/ seeing 
 
 that my mind was wholly given up to the 
 
 thought of this most gentle being. Whence, in 
 
 a little while, I came into so frail and weak a 
 
 state, that to many of my friends it was a grief 
 
 to look on me; while many, full of envy, sought 
 
 C to learn of me that which I endeavoured wholly 
 
 ") to conceal from all others. But I, understand- 
 
 ^ing the malicious questions which they put to 
 
 me, answered them even as Love willed — who 
 
 directed me after the counsels of reason, — " that 
 
 it was Love which had thus assumed the 
 
 mastery over me." I spoke of " Love," because 
 
 I bore in my visage so many of his tokens " that 
 
 I they could not be hid. And when they asked 
 
 ' me, " By whose means hath Love thus 
 
 destroyed thee ? " I would look on them with a 
 
 ' smile, and name to them no one. 
 
 V. 
 
 One day it chanced that my most gentle lady 
 was sitting in a place where folk were listening 
 to a discourse concerning the Queen of Glory,' 
 
Vita Nuova. 107 
 
 and I was in a spot whence I could look upon 
 my bliss. And midway in a straight line 
 between her and me, was sitting a gentle lady of 
 right pleasant aspect. Now this lady looked at 
 me several times, wondering at my gaze, which 
 seemed to rest upon her ; and thus many 
 people became aware of her glances. And it 
 attracted so much attention, that, as I left the 
 place, I heard those near me saying, " See how 
 such and such a lady is destroying him." And, 
 as they named her, I understood that they were 
 speaking of her who had sat in the direct line 
 which proceeded from the most gentle Beatrice, 
 and ended in my eyes. Then I took great 
 comfort, assuring myself that my secret had 
 not that day been betrayed to others by my 
 gaze, and straightway I thought of making this 
 gentlewoman serve as a screen to the truth, and 
 I soon made such a semblance, that my secret 
 was believed to be known to most of those who 
 were wont to prate concerning me. With this 
 lady I dissembled for several months and 
 years ; and, the better to persuade others, I 
 composed for her several little pieces in rhyme, 
 which it is not my intention- to set down here, 
 save insofar as they had to treat of that most 
 gentle Beatrice ; and so I will omit them all, 
 
io8 Vi^a Nuova. 
 
 excepting anything that I have written which 
 appears to be in praise of her. 
 
 VI. 
 
 I say that at the time when this gentle- 
 woman was the screen of so great a love of 
 mine, a desire came to me to record the name 
 of my most gentle one, and to accompany it 
 with the names of many ladies, and especially 
 with that of the lady already mentioned ; so I 
 took the names of sixty, the fairest of the city 
 where my lady had been placed by the Lord 
 Most High, and composed an epistle, in the 
 form of a sirventese^ which I will not set down. 
 Nor would I have made mention of it, but to 
 record the marvellous thing which occurred as I 
 was writing it ; namely, that in no other order 
 could my lady's name be made to stand save 
 ninth among the names of the other ladies. 
 
 VII. 
 
 The lady by whose means I had so long con- 
 cealed my desire, was now obliged to leave the 
 
Vita Nuova. log 
 
 before named city, and to go into a distant 
 country, for which cause I was dismayed at the 
 loss of so excellent a defence, and was more 
 discomfited than I myself could have believed 
 beforehand. And deeming, if I spake not 
 somewhat dolorously of her departure, people 
 would the sooner detect my dissimulation, I 
 proposed to make some lamentation in a 
 sonnet, which I will transcribe ; seeing that my 
 lady was the immediate occasion of certain 
 words in the sonnet, as is apparent to him who 
 understands. So then I indited this sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet.' 
 
 O ye, who pass along Love's way, rest ye, 
 and see if there be any sorrow, grievous as mine ; 
 and, I pray you, deign but to hearken unto me, 
 and then picture to yourselves how I am all 
 sorrow's inn ° and key. 
 
 Love, not soothly for my slight worthiness, 
 but of his own nobleness, set me in a way of 
 life so pleasant and so sweet, that often, erst- 
 while, have I heard folk say behind me, " Ah, 
 for what worthiness beareth he so light a 
 heart ? " Now have I lost all my confidence, 
 which drew its being from out Love's treasury, 
 so that I am left destitute, in such wise that 
 
1 10 Vita Nuova. 
 
 there cometh over me a fear to speak thereof. 
 And therefore, fain to do even as they, who, 
 for very shame, disguise their penury, I show an 
 
 ] outward cheerfulness, while within my heart I 
 
 ' waste and weep. 
 
 This sonnet has two principal parts ; for in 
 the ■first T mean to call upon Lovers faithful sub- 
 jects in the words of feremiah the prophet? O 
 vos omnes, qui transitis per viam, attendite et 
 videte, si est doler sicut doler meus, and to beseech 
 that they would deign to hear me. In the second, 
 I tell where Love had set me, with other meaning 
 than that which the latter part of the sonnet dis- 
 closes ; * and I tell what I have lost. 
 
 The second part begins here : " Love, etc." 
 
 VIII. 
 
 Soon after the departure of this gentlewoman, 
 it pleased the Lord of Angels to call to his 
 glory a lady, young, and of right pleasing 
 aspect, who had dwelt in the before named city, 
 full of grace ; whose body I saw lying, bereft 
 of the spirit, in the midst of many ladies, who 
 were weeping very piteously. Then, remem- 
 bering to have seen her in company with my 
 
Vtia Nuova. 1 1 1 
 
 most gentle one, I could not refrain from 
 shedding a few tears ; and thus weeping, I 
 determined to say some few words anent her 
 death, in recompense for her having been some- 
 time seen with my lady. And upon this I 
 touched somewhat in the last part of the lines 
 which I indited thereon, as manifestly appears 
 to whoso understands them. So then I indited 
 these two sonnets, the first whereof begins, 
 " Weep, lovers ; " and the second, " Thou 
 caitiff Death." 
 
 Sonnet I.' 
 
 Weep, lovers, for Love weepeth, hearing what 
 cause he hath to weep. 
 
 Love heareth certain ladies crying for pity, 
 betraying by their eyes the grief that is within ; 
 for caitiff Death has wrought his cruel handi- 
 work upon a gentle heart, laying waste all that 
 the world can praise in a gentle lady, save 
 honour only. 
 
 Hark ye, what great honour Love did pay 
 her ; for I saw him in his proper guise, weeping 
 over her winsome dead form ; and ofttimes 
 looked he up to heaven, where that gentle soul 
 had found her place, who had been a lady of 
 so cheerful a mien. 
 
112 Vita Nuova. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the 
 first, I call upon, and entreat, all Love' s faithful 
 subjects to mourn, and tell them that their Lord 
 moumeth ; and that, hearing the cause of his 
 mourning, they should the more dispose themselves 
 to hearken unto me ; in the second, I relate the 
 cause ; in the third, I tell of a certain honour 
 •which Love conferred upon this lady. The 
 second part begins, " Love heareth ; " and the 
 third, " Hark ye'' 
 
 Sonnet II. 
 
 Thou caitiff Death, pity's foe, old mother of 
 grief, tyrannous sentence without appeal : — for 
 that thou hast given cause to my sorrowing 
 heart to go so heavily, the tongue groweth 
 weary in reproaching thee. And, lest haply 
 thou wouldst beg for grace, it behoves me 
 to tell of thine offence, wrongful beyond all 
 wrong ; not, indeed, that it is hid from men, but 
 so as to stir up ruth in each one who hath 
 been wont to make Love his daily bread. 
 
 Courtesy hath fled the world, and virtue, 
 which is to be prized in women ; in the midst 
 of joyous youth hast thou destroyed these lovely 
 charms. Who this lady is I will not reveal, 
 save by her well-known qualities. 
 
Vita Nuova. iij 
 
 Let none who meriteth not salvation, hope 
 ever again to have fellowship with her. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into four parts. In the 
 first, I call upon Death by certain of his proper 
 titles ; in the second, addressing him, I declare 
 the cause which moves ine to reproach him ; in 
 the third, I revile him ; m the fourth, I turn me 
 to some person not defined, though defined so far as 
 suits my own intention. The second part begins, 
 "For that thou ; " the third, "And lest haply ; " 
 and the fourth, "Let none,'' 
 
 IX. 
 
 A few days after this lady's death, a matter 
 occurred which obliged me to leave the above 
 named city, and to go towards those parts 
 where abode the gentlewoman who had been my 
 screen, though my destination was not so far 
 distant as the place where she was. And 
 although I was in the company of many 
 persons, as might be seen, yet was my de- 
 parture so unpleasing to me, that hardly could 
 my sighs disburden my heart of the anguish 
 which it felt, in that I was leaving my bliss 
 behind. So then my sweetest lord, who ruled 
 
 I 
 
114 y^if'^ Nuova. 
 
 me by virtue of that most gentle lady, appeared 
 before me in the guise of a pilgrim,' lightly clad, 
 J and in vile raiment. He seemed to me to be 
 I troubled, and bent his gaze upon the earth, save 
 that at times, methought, his eyes would turn 
 towards a fair river, rapid and most clear, which 
 flowed beside the road wherein I was. And I 
 thought that Love called to me, and spake to me 
 these words : — " I come from that lady who has 
 long been thy screen, and I know that thou 
 wilt never find her more ; and so that heart 
 which I made thee have by her, I have with me, 
 and bear it to a lady who shall be thy screen, 
 as was the other " — and he named her name, so 
 that I knew her — " but nevertheless, if of these 
 words which I have spoken unto thee thou 
 shouldst repeat any again, speak thou in such 
 manner that none may detect thereby the 
 feigned love which thou hast hitherto professed 
 towards this lady, and must henceforth profess 
 towards another." And after he had said these 
 words, this my vision suddenly disappeared, for 
 the most part — for it seemed to me that Love 
 gave me of his own substance ^ — and, with 
 altered visage, I rode on that day, deep in 
 thought, and companioned with many sighs. 
 At the end of that day I began the following 
 sonnet. 
 
Vita Nuova. 115 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 As I was riding along a certain road, some 
 days agone, musing upon my journey, which 
 pleased me ill, I met Love midway, clad in a 
 light pilgrim's weed. He seemed to me down- 
 cast of mien, as though he had lost lordship ; 
 and he came on, sighing, deep in thought, with 
 head bent down, that folk might not gaze upon 
 him. When he espied me, he called to me by 
 name, and said, " I come from a far-off place, 
 where thine heart abode, according to my will ; 
 and I bring it again, that it may serve a new 
 delight.'' Then took I into myself so much 
 of him,^ that he vanished, without my knowing 
 how. 
 
 This sonnet has three parts. In the first, I 
 relate how I found Love, and how he appeared to 
 me ; in the second, L tell what he said to me, 
 although not fully, for the fear I had of dis- 
 covering my secret; in the third, I say how he 
 disappeared. The second begins, " When hi 
 espied ; " th^ third, " Then took I" 
 
 X. 
 
 Upon my return, I set myself to seek out 
 that lady whom my Lord had named to me 
 I 2 
 
Ii6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 upon the Way of Sighs. And that my story 
 may be the briefer, I say that in a short time I 
 had made her so completely my disguise, that 
 too many people talked thereof beyond the 
 bounds of courtesy, whereat I was often 
 grievously troubled. And for this reason, 
 namely, on account of that importunate rumour, 
 which, it seems, had basely defamed me, that 
 most gentle one, who was the mortal foe of all 
 vices, and queen of all the virtues,^ meeting me 
 in a certain place, withheld from me that 
 sweetest salutation of hers, wherein subsisted 
 all my bliss. Wherefore, departing somewhat 
 from the present matter, I would fain give to 
 understand what were the virtuous effects which 
 her salutation wrought upon me. 
 
 XL 
 
 I say, that when she appeared from either 
 side, the hope of her admirable greeting left no 
 man my foe, nay, rather, a flame of charity took 
 hold upon me, which made me forgive whoever 
 had offended me ; and if, at that moment, any 
 man had asked me aught, my reply would have 
 been merely " Love," with a countenance 
 
Vita l^uova. 117 
 
 clothed in humility. And as she drew nigh 
 somewhat, to greet me, a spirit of Love,^ 
 subduing all the other spirits of sense, drove 
 forth the enfeebled visive spirits, and said to 
 them, " Go ye, do honour to your lady," and 
 he remained in their place. And whoso had 
 desired to perceive Love, might then have 
 done so, observing the tremor of mine eyes. 
 And when that most gentle lady gave me her 
 greeting. Love was, not to say a protection to 
 me from a bliss beyond endurance, but, as 
 though by excess of sweetness, he became such, 
 that my body, which was wholly under his 
 dominion, would often move like some heavy 
 and lifeless thing. So that it manifestly 
 appears that in her greeting abode my bliss, 
 which many times surpassed and overflowed my 
 strength to bear it. 
 
 xn. 
 
 Now, returning to my subject, I say that 
 after my bliss was withdrawn from me, so great 
 a grief came over me, that, going apart from all 
 people, I went into a solitary place, to bathe 
 the ground with bitterest tears ; and so soon as 
 
1 1 8 Vita Nuova. 
 
 my weeping was somewhat assuaged, I repaired 
 to my room, where I could lament without 
 being overheard ; and there, crying mercy of 
 the lady of courtesy, and exclaiming, " Love, 
 help thou thy faithful servant ! " I fell asleep, 
 weeping like a beaten child. And in the 
 middle of my slumber, it came to pass, as I 
 thought, that I saw a youth in my room, sitting 
 by my side, clad in whitest apparel, deep in 
 thought, as his aspect betrayed. He was 
 watching me there, where I was lying, and after 
 he had gazed upon me for some time, he 
 appeared to sigh, and to call on me, and say to 
 me, " Fili mi, tempus est ut prcztermittantur 
 simulata nostra " (" My son, it is time that our 
 feigning be laid aside "). Then seemed I to 
 recognize him, for he addressed me even as he 
 had addressed me in my sleep many a time 
 before. And as I looked at him, he seemed to 
 be weeping piteously, and to be expecting 
 some words from me ; whereupon, taking 
 courage, I began thus to speak with him : 
 " Lord of all nobleness, why weepest thou ? " 
 i And he said unto me these words : "B^o tan- 
 quam centrum circuli, cui simili modo se habent 
 circumferentics partes ; tu autem non sic " (" I 
 am, as it were, the centre of a circle, to which 
 
Vita Nuova. 119 
 
 the several parts of the circumference bear a 
 like relation ; but thou art not so ")} "K^en as I 
 pondered his words, he seemed to me to have 
 spoken very obscurely ; so I constrained myself 
 to say to him : " What is this, my Lord, which 
 thousayest to me with so much obscurity ? " And 
 he said to me in the vulgar tongue, " Ask not 
 more than is profitable for thee." So then I 
 began to discourse with him concerning the 
 salutation which had been refused me, and 
 asked him the cause thereof, when he replied to 
 me in this manner : 
 
 " Our Beatrice has heard from certain persons 
 who were talking of thee, that the lady of whom 
 I spoke to thee on the Way of Sighs has 
 received some annoyance from thee. Where- 
 fore, seeing that in truth thy secret, which 
 hath endured so long, is in some degree made 
 known to her, I will that thou indite certain 
 words in rhyme, wherein thou shalt set down 
 how great a power I wield over thee, through 
 her, and how thou hast been hers, even from 
 thine early childhood ; "^ and summon thou, to 
 testify to this, him to whom it is known, and 
 bid him tell it her ; and I, who am he, will 
 gladly discourse with her thereof; and hereby 
 shall she perceive thy desire, perceiving which, 
 
120 Vita Nuova. 
 
 she will understand what was said by those 
 dupes. Let these words be as it were an inter- 
 mediary, that thou mayest not speak to her 
 directly, which is not seemly. And send them 
 not without me to any place where they might 
 be understood by her, but make them to be 
 adorned with sweet melody, wherein will I be pre- 
 sent, at all times when occasion shall require." 
 
 And having spoken these words, he vanished, 
 and my slumber was broken. 
 
 Now, when I came to reflect, I found that 
 this vision had appeared to me at the ninth 
 hour of the day. And before I left my room, I 
 resolved to make a ballad, wherein I might 
 fulfil the commands which my Lord had laid 
 on me ; and I made this ballad. 
 
 Ballad. ' 
 
 Ballad, I would have thee find out Love, 
 and go with him into the presence of my Lady, 
 that so may he plead with her my defence, 
 which thou shalt sing. Thou goest, my 
 ballad, with so courteous a mien, that even un- 
 companioned thou mightest well have confi- 
 dence, in every place ; yet, if thou wouldst be 
 
Vita Nuova. I2I 
 
 secure in thy going, find out Love first ; for it is 
 not well, I trow, to go apart from him : for she, 
 who is to give audience to thee — if, as methinks, 
 she is angered with me — might lightly show 
 thee contumely if thou wert not accompanied 
 by him. 
 
 With sweet melody, when thou art with her, 
 begin these words (so soon as thou shalt have 
 craved her grace): — "My lady, he who sends 
 me to you is wishful, if it please you, that 
 you give ear to me pleading his defence. Love 
 it is who, by your beauty's aid, makes him to 
 change his looks at will. Then think you not 
 since Love has made him look upon another, 
 that his heart is therefore changed." Say to her, 
 " My lady, his heart is stablished with so con- 
 firmed a faith, that his every thought prompts 
 him to serve you : right early was he yours, and 
 never hath he gone astray." 
 
 But if she will not believe thee, bid her call 
 Love to witness, who knoweth the truth thereof. 
 And lastly, put up an humble prayer to 
 her, to pardon this thing if it do irk her. 
 Let her even send a message bidding me die, 
 and her servant's obedience shall be seen. And 
 say thou to him who is all pity's key,^ before 
 thou leavest my lady's presence, — that he may 
 
122 Vita Nuova. 
 
 deign to plead my good tause — " For guerdon 
 of my sweet notes, remain thou here with her, 
 and discourse concerning thy servant even as 
 thou wilt ; and if, for thy prayer's sake, she 
 shall pardon him, make her to proclaim peace 
 by her fair semblance towards him." 
 
 My gentle Ballad, if so it please thee, go 
 with such speed that honour may be thine 
 therefor. 
 
 This ballad is divided into three parts ; in the 
 first, I tell it where it must go, and exhort it, 
 that it may go with the better courage ; and say 
 whose company it should seek, if it would go 
 securely, and without any danger. In the second, 
 I show that which behoves it to make known. In 
 the third, I give it leave to go when it will, com- 
 mending its going to the arms of fortune. The 
 second part begins, " With sweet melody ; " the 
 third, " My gentle Ballad!' Haply one might 
 allege against me, that he could not tell to whom 
 I zvas speaking in the second person, for the 
 ballad is nought else than the words which I 
 speak. A nd so, T say, I mean to solve this doubt, 
 and to make it clear in a yet m.ore doubtful part 
 of this book.^ And then he who doubts, or de- 
 sires to contradict me, zvill in that way come to 
 understand. 
 
Vtia Nuova. 123 
 
 XIII. 
 After the vision I have just narrated, when I 
 had indited the letter which Love bade me 
 write, I began to be tossed and vexed by many 
 and diverse thoughts, and almost irresistibly so 
 by each. Among which thoughts there were 
 four which more especially disturbed the repose 
 of my life. One of them was : — " Good is 
 Love's lordship, in that it withdraws his liege- 
 man's mind from all base things."' The 
 second was : — " Love's lordship is not good, 
 inasmuch as the greater faith his faithful liege- 
 man keeps with him, the more grievous and 
 sorrowful moments must he pass." The next 
 was : — " The name of Love is so sweet to hear, 
 that it seems to me impossible for his effect, in 
 most things, to be aught else than sweet ; 
 seeing that names follow the things named, as 
 it is written, Nomina sunt consequentia rerum.r " 
 The fourth was this : — " The lady, through 
 whom Loves urges thee so, is not like other 
 ladies, that her heart may be moved readily." 
 And by each of these thoughts was I buffeted 
 so sore that I stood like one who knows not by 
 what path to take his way, who would fain go, 
 yet knoweth not which way he should go.' And 
 if I sought to find a middle course between 
 
124 Vita Nuova. 
 
 them, — a course, that is, wherein they might all 
 concur, — such a course was one right grievous 
 to me, it being to call upon Pity, and to throw 
 myself into her arms. And as I stayed in this 
 pass, the desire came to me to write certain 
 rhymes ; and I then indited this sonnef* 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 My thoughts all speak to me of Love ; and 
 have so great a variance among themselves, 
 that one makes me desirous of his dominion ; 
 another discourses loudly, concerning his 
 worthiness; another hopefully, bringeth me 
 delight; another makes me to mourn re- 
 peatedly ; and they agree in nought but craving 
 pity, all trembling with that dread which is 
 within mine heart. 
 
 Wherefore know I not what course I should 
 adopt ; and I would fain speak, but I know not 
 what to say : thus do I find myself in Love's 
 labyrinth. And if I would make accordance 
 with all, it behoves me to call upon her who is 
 mine enemy, my Lady Pity, to defend me. 
 
 This sonnet may be divided into four parts. In 
 the first, I assert and propound that all my thoughts 
 are of Love ; in the second, I tell how they are 
 diverse, and declare their diversities ; in the third, 
 
Vita Nuova. 125 
 
 I show wherein they all seem to accord ; in the 
 fourth,! say that when I would fain speak of love, 
 I know not from which of them to take my theme, 
 and if I would take it from them all, it behoves me 
 to call upon mine enemy, my Lady Pity. I say, 
 " my Lady," as in a wrathful manner of speech. 
 The second part begins, " And have so great ; " the 
 third, " And they agree ; " the fourth, " Wherefore 
 know I not" 
 
 XIV. 
 
 After the battle of my conflicting thoughts, 
 it chanced that my most gentle one came where 
 many gentle ladies were met together ; to 
 which place I was brought by some friendly 
 soul, who thought to do me great pleasure by 
 bringing me to a spot where so many ladies 
 were displaying their beauty. Whereupon, 
 not knowing whereunto I had been brought, 
 and confiding in him who had brought his friend 
 even unto life's extreme, I said to him, " Why 
 have we come among these ladies ? " 
 
 Then he replied, " To see that they be meetly 
 served." Now sooth is that they had assembled 
 in order to attend upon a lady who had been 
 espoused that day ; and so, according to the 
 custom of the before named city, it behoved 
 that they should bear her company the first 
 
126 Vita Nuova. 
 
 time she sat at table in the house of her new 
 husband.' Wherefore, thinking to give pleasure 
 to my friend, I resolved to stay and wait upon 
 these ladies, in company with him. 
 
 Now as soon as I had thus resolved, I per- 
 ceived a strange trembling,^ which began to 
 make itself apparent in the left side of my 
 breast, and quickly spread to all parts of my 
 body. Then, I say, I dissembled, and leant 
 over towards a painting which ran round about 
 that house ; and, fearing lest others should 
 remark my trembling, I raised my eyes, and, 
 looking towards the ladies, saw amongst them 
 the most gentle Beatrice. 
 
 Then were my spirits so distraught, by the 
 power which Love acquired on seeing himself 
 in so close proximity to that most gentle lady, 
 that there was no life left in me, save in my 
 visual spirits,' and even they were banished from 
 their organs, for that Love would fain take up 
 his rest in their most noble seat,^ in order to 
 gaze upon that admirable lady. And although 
 I had become other than my wonted self,° yet 
 was I grieved for those spirits, for they lamented 
 bitterly, and said : 
 
 " Had he * not thus hurled us forth, we might 
 have abode, and beheld this marvel of a lady, 
 even as abide the other spirits, our peers." 
 
Vita Nuova. 12/ 
 
 I say that many of those ladies observed 
 mine altered semblance, and straightway mar- 
 velled at it, and began to talk and to laugh at 
 me, together with my most gentle one ; where- 
 fore my friend, perceiving this, took my hand 
 right faithfully, and, leading me out of these 
 ladies' sight, asked me what ailed me. 
 
 Then, after that I had rested me awhile, and 
 my deadened spirits had revived, and they that 
 had been banished had returned to their habita- 
 tions, I said to this friend of mine : 
 
 " I have set my feet in that part of life, beyond 
 which none may go, who looks to return 
 again/' 
 
 And quitting him, I retired to the chamber 
 of tears,' where, weeping and ashamed, I said 
 within myself: "Had my lady but known of 
 my condition, methinks she would not thus 
 have mocked at mine aspect ; nay, I rather 
 believe that she would have been touched with 
 pity therefor." 
 
 And as I stood thus lamenting, I resolved to 
 indite somewhat, wherein I might show the 
 cause of mine altered semblance, and might 
 affirm that I knew it was not comprehended, 
 for had it been, I believe that others would have 
 been moved to pity. And this I purposed to 
 say, hoping that it might haply come unto her 
 
128 Vita Nuova. 
 
 hearing. So then I indited the following 
 sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Lady, you join with other ladies in mocking 
 at my mien, and think not wherefore it comes 
 to pass that my visage presents to you so 
 unwonted a cheer, whenever I look upon your 
 beauty. If you but knew it, pity would not 
 suffer that I should be put any longer to the 
 wonted proof ; for Love, when he finds me near 
 you, putteth on so great an arrogance, and so 
 great confidence, that he smiteth among my 
 trembling spirits, and slayeth this one, and 
 driveth out that, so that he alone remains to 
 gaze upon you ; so that my face is transformed 
 as it were into that of another, yet for all that, 
 I still feel well the sorrows of my banished and 
 tormented spirits. 
 
 This sonnet is not divided into parts, because 
 a division is only made in order to open up the 
 sense of the thing divided; wherefore, it being 
 made sufficiently clear by the foregoing discourse, 
 it needs no division. True it is, that amid the 
 words wherein is explained the occasion of this 
 sonnet, some doubtful saying may be found; that 
 is, when I say that Love slayeth all my spirits 
 
Vita Nuova. 129 
 
 and the visive spirits remain alive, but outside 
 their proper organs. And this uncertainty is 
 incapable of solution by any one who is not in 
 the like degree Love's liegeman; and to those 
 which are, that is plain which these doubtful 
 sayings seek to resolve ,- and, therefore, it is not 
 well that I should explain such ambiguity, seeing 
 that my words would be either in vain, or else 
 superfluous. 
 
 XV. 
 
 After this strange disfigurement,' a strong 
 notion took hold upon me, and seldom left me ; 
 nay, it rather kept continually recurring to me, 
 and spake to me in this wise : — 
 
 " Since thou puttest on so ridiculous a mien 
 when thou art near this lady, why dost thou 
 ever seek to behold her ? If, now, she were to 
 ask thee, what wouldst thou reply ? supposing 
 that thou hadst all thy faculties unimpeded, 
 whereby thou mightest reply to her." 
 
 And to this replied another thought, an 
 humble one, which said : — " If I had not lost 
 my faculties, and were free to make reply, I 
 would tell her, that so soon as my imagination 
 
 K 
 
I30 Vita Nuova. 
 
 calls up her wondrous beauty, so soon cometh 
 over me the desire to look on her, the which is 
 of such strength, that it slays and destroys 
 everything which could rise up in my memory 
 against it; and so my past sufferings in no 
 wise withhold me from seeking the sight of her. 
 And so, moved by such thoughts as these, I 
 resolved to indite somewhat, wherein, excusing 
 myself to her from such a reproof, I might set 
 forth all which cometh to me in her presence 
 And I indited the following sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Every thought I meet with in my mind dies, 
 whenso I gaze upon you, fair joy ; and when I 
 am near to you, I hear love say, " Fly, if death 
 be irksome to thee." My face betrays the hue 
 of my heart, which, fainting, findeth what stay 
 it can ; drunk, as it were, with the greatness of 
 its dread, so that the very stones seem to cry 
 out, " Die, die ! " 
 
 He sinneth, who, seeing me then, doth 
 nought to comfort my soul in its dismay, if 
 only by showing that he is touched with ruth 
 for me, — for pity's sake, slain by your mockery," 
 — pity, which is born of the deathlike look of 
 mine eyes, whose desire is for death. 
 
Vita Nuova. 131 
 
 This sonnet is divided into two parts ; in the 
 first, I declare what cause I have for not abstain- 
 ing from approaching my lady ; in the second, I 
 say what cotneth to me, through approaching her ; 
 and this part begins here, " A nd when I am near 
 to you." And moreover this second part is 
 divided into five, according to five different things 
 which I relate. For in the first, I tell what Love, 
 counselled by reason, says to me when I am near 
 her ; in the second, I portray the state of my 
 heart, as testified by m,y visage ; in the third, I 
 tell how all my confidence diminishes ; in the 
 fourth, I say that he sins who shows no pity for 
 me, that I might have some comfort thereby ; in 
 the last, I say why one should have pity on me, 
 even for the piteous look which cometh into mine 
 eyes ; the which piteous look is destroyed, that is 
 to say, it is unmarked of others, through m,y lady's 
 mockery, who draweth to do the like those who, 
 perhaps, would perceive that piteousness. The 
 second part begins, " My face betrays ; " the third, 
 " Drunk, as it were ; " the fourth, " He sinneth ; " 
 the fifth, "For pity's sake." 
 
 K 2 
 
132 Vita Nuova. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 Soon after that of which I have spoken, this 
 sonnet aroused within me a desire to say some- 
 what further, wherein I might declare four 
 other things concerning my case, which, it 
 seemed to me, I had not yet made clear. The 
 first of which things is, that I ofttimes suffered 
 grief, when my memory prompted my fancy to 
 depict what Love had done to me. The second 
 is that Love would ofttimes assail me with 
 such vehemence, that nought of life remained 
 within me, save one thought only, which spoke 
 to me of my lady. The third is, that when I 
 was so sore bestead in this conflict of Love, I 
 would betake myself, all my colour fled, to look 
 upon my lady, thinking that the sight of her 
 would save me from that combat, forgetting 
 what always befell me upon drawing nigh to so 
 noble a creature. The fourth is, that not only 
 did the sight of her succour me not, but it even 
 discomfited the. little of life that yet remained 
 to me. And so I indited this sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Full often times there recurs to niy mind that 
 darkened aspect ' which Love bestows upon 
 
Vita Nuova. 133 
 
 me ; and such a pang comes over me, that I 
 say, right oft : " Ah woe ! did ever the like 
 come to any other ? " For Love assails me 
 suddenly, in such wise that life well nigh for- 
 sakes me ; and one only of my spirits doth he 
 save alive, and that one remains because it 
 holds discourse of you. Then I constrain my- 
 self — eager to obtain relief — and so, half dead, 
 and destitute of all resource, I come to gaze 
 upon you, hoping to find my cure ; and if I 
 raise up mine eyes to look on you, so great a 
 trembling begins within mine heart,'' as to make 
 the soul desert its pulses. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into four parts, accord- 
 ing as there are four things narrated therein ; and 
 since they have been discussed above, I will concern 
 myself no farther than to distinguish the parts by 
 their beginnings. So, I say, the second part 
 begins, "For Love ;" the third, " Then I con- 
 strain ;" the fourth, " If I uplift." 
 
 XVII. 
 
 After I had composed these three sonnets, 
 wherein I held converse with my lady, — for 
 they were the narrators of well nigh my whole 
 
1 34 Vita Nuova. 
 
 condition — I thought it well to keep silence, 
 
 seeing that I had disclosed myself sufficiently. 
 
 And although I constantly refrained from 
 I addressing her, it becomes me to enter upon a 
 
 new matter, and one more noteworthy than 
 I the foregoing. And since the occasion of this 
 i new matter is pleasant to hear, I will recount 
 \ it, as briefly as I may. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 It followed that many persons had learnt, 
 from my looks, the secret of mine heart, and 
 several ladies, who were met together, enjoying 
 one another's society, knew my heart, each of 
 them having been present on many occasions of 
 my discomfiture. And as I was passing by 
 them, as though by fortune's guidance, I was 
 called by one of these gentle ladies ; and she 
 who had called to me was of right fair speech. 
 So when I had come into their presence, and 
 saw that my most gentle lady was not among 
 them, I took courage, and, saluting them, 
 asked what was their pleasure. There were 
 many ladies present, and among them ^ome 
 that laughed between themselves. Others there 
 
Vita Nuova. 135 
 
 were who looked towards me, awaiting what I 
 should say. Others there were talking among 
 themselves, one of whom, turning her eyes 
 towards me, and addressing me by name, spake 
 these words : — 
 
 "To what end lovest thou this lady, seeing 
 that thou canst not bear her presence ? Tell 
 us ; for surely the purport of such a love 
 deserves to be most widely known." 
 
 And having spoken these words, not only 
 she, but all the rest likewise, set themselves to 
 await my reply. Then spake I these words 
 unto them : — 
 
 " Ladies, the object of my love was formerly 
 the greeting of that lady, whom, doubtless, you 
 have in mind ; and therein consisted the bliss 
 which was the end of all my desires. But since 
 it has pleased her to withhold it from me, my 
 lord Love, of his beneficence, has set all my 
 bliss in that which can never be diminished." 
 
 Then began these ladies to speak among 
 themselves, and, even as we sometimes see the 
 rain fall mingled with fair snow, so did I 
 seem to hear their words commingled with 
 sighs. And after they had held converse among 
 themselves somewhile, the lady who had first 
 accosted me went on to say : — 
 
1 36 Vita Nuova. 
 
 " We pray thee, tell us wherein this bliss of 
 thine consists." 
 
 And I spake in this wise : — 
 
 "In those words which proclaim my lady's 
 praise." 
 
 And she replied : — 
 
 " If thou spakest true, thou wouldst have 
 fashioned in other sense those words which 
 thou hast written, in order to make thy 
 condition known." 
 
 Wherefor, pondering over these words, I 
 left them, as though ashamed ; and went, 
 saying within myself, " Since so great bliss 
 there is in those words which tell my lady's 
 praise, why has my speech ever been of aught 
 else ? " 
 
 Wherefore I determined for ever thereafter to 
 take as the subject of my speech something 
 which should be in praise of my most gentle 
 one ; and musing much thereon, meseemed that 
 I had taken upon me a matter which was too 
 high for me, so that I dared not begin ; and 
 so I remained for some days, longing for utter- 
 ance, yet fearing to begin. 
 
Vtia Nuova, 137 
 
 XIX. 
 
 After which, it chanced that as I was passing 
 along a road, beside which ran a stream with 
 clearest waves, I was seized with so great a 
 desire for speech that I began to muse what 
 fashion I should take; and it seemed to me, 
 that it became me not to speak of her, save 
 by addressing ladies in the second person ; and 
 not every lady, but such as were gentle women, 
 and not women merely. Then, I say, my 
 tongue spake as though it were moved of itself,' 
 and said, Donne cKavete intelletto d'amore (" Ye 
 ladies, who possess intelligence of Love"). 
 These words I stored up in my mind with great 
 joy, thinking to take them for my beginning. 
 Then I returned to the above-named city, and 
 after meditating for some days, I began a 
 Canzone ^ with this beginning, ordered in the 
 manner which will be made visible below, in the 
 division of it. The Canzone begins thus : — 
 
 Canzone.' 
 
 Ye ladies who possess intelligence of Love, I 
 would fain discourse with you concerning my 
 lady, not that I may fully rehearse her praise, 
 but that by discourse I may unpack mine heart.* 
 
138 Vita Nuova. 
 
 I tell you that when I muse upon her worthiness, 
 Love enters so sweetly into my thoughts, 
 that, did not my courage wholly fail me at such 
 times, I would, by my speech, move all men 
 to love. 
 
 Now I wish not to discourse in so high a 
 style that I should become caitiff from fear,* but 
 I will treat of her noble condition, — slightly, 
 indeed, with respect to her— with you, O noble 
 dames and damosels, for no matter is it whereof 
 to talk with others. 
 
 An angel " calleth to the Divine Intelligence, 
 saying : — 
 
 " Lord, there is seen on earth a miracle in 
 act, proceeding from a soul whose radiance 
 mounteth up even unto this place. Heaven^ 
 which hath no other want, than to possess her, 
 begs her of its lord, and every saint cries aloud 
 for this boon." 
 
 Mercy alone defends our cause, for God saith, 
 (who knoweth my lady well) : — 
 
 " My beloved, suffer ye now that the object 
 of your hope tarry there, so long as it shall 
 please me, where one there is who looks to lose 
 her ; and who will say unto the ill starred 
 ones in Hell, " I have beheld the hope of the 
 blessed!'" 
 
Viia Nuova. 139 
 
 My lady is desired in high Heaven ; now 
 would I teach you to know what virtue is hers, 
 I say, let every she, who would appear a 
 noble lady, go with her ; for wherever she 
 goes, Love casts a frost upon all churlish hearts, 
 so that^ their every thought perishes and dies ; 
 and everything which he should suffer to abide 
 the sight of her, would become noble, or else 
 would die ; and whensoever anyone is found 
 worthy to behold her, he doth prove her virtue ; 
 for there cometh to him that which giveth him 
 weal, and renders him so meek that he forgets 
 all offence.* Moreover, God hath bestowed on 
 her this further grace, that none can come to an 
 ill end who hath spoken with her. 
 
 Love saith of her : — 
 
 " How can mortal thing be so fair, so pure ? " 
 
 Then he , looks upon her, and swears within 
 himself that it is God's purpose to make of her 
 some new thing. 
 
 Hers is a hue like pearl, so far as is comely in 
 a lady, but not beyond measure ; " she is com- 
 pact of all good that nature can make ; by her, 
 as paragon, is beauty judged. From her eyes, 
 whensoever she moves, spirits issue forth, fired 
 with love, which strike upon the eyes of him 
 who then looks on them, and pass through, so 
 
140 Vt'fa Nuovd. 
 
 that each one of them reaches the heart. You 
 see Love depicted in her smile, whereon none 
 can keep his gaze firmly bent. 
 
 My song, I know that thou wilt go, and 
 parley with ladies many, when I shall have 
 adorned thee : now do I warn thee — for I have 
 brought thee up as Love's own daughter, youth- 
 ful and simple, — that where thou lightest, thou 
 shalt say, beseechingly : — 
 
 " Teach me my way : for I am sent to her 
 with whose praises I am bedight." 
 
 And if thou wouldst go not as one who goeth 
 in vain, abide thou not where churlish folk be ; 
 bethink thee, if thou canst, to be open only 
 with a courteous dame or man, who will put 
 thee in the speedy way. 
 
 Thou wilt find Love, and her with him ; 
 commend me to them, as is thy devoir. 
 
 That this Canzone may be the better understood, 
 I will divide it with greater art than those that 
 have gone before, and therefore I inake three parts 
 of it. The first part is the proem to the words that 
 follow ; the second is the entire treatise ; the third 
 is, as it were, ancillary to the words that go before. 
 The second begins, "An angel calleth ; " the third, 
 " My song, I know" The first part is divided into 
 four : in the first I say to whom I wish to speak 
 
Vita Nuova. 141 
 
 concerning my lady, and why T wish to speak ; in 
 the second, I say how her worthiness appears to 
 myself when I think thereon, and how T would 
 speak, did 1 not lose my courage ; in the third, T 
 say how I think fit to speak, so that I be not 
 hindered by mine abjectness ; in the fourth, again 
 saying to whom I speak, I declare the reason why 
 I speak to them. The second begins, "/ say 
 that ; " the third, " Now I would not ; " the fourth, 
 " With you, O lovely dames" 
 
 Then, when I say "An angel calleth," I begin 
 to treat of my lady ; and I divide this part into 
 two. In the first, I say how she is esteemed in 
 heaven ; in the second, how she is esteemed on 
 earth, beginning, "My lady is desired" This 
 second part is divided into two : for in the first, I 
 speak of her so far as relates to the nobility of her 
 soul, narrating somewhat of her virtues, which 
 proceed from her soul ; in the second, I speak of 
 her so far as relates to the nobility of her body, 
 narrating somewhat of her beauties, beginning, 
 '^ Love saith of her'' This second part is divided 
 into two ; for in the first I speak of certain beauties 
 which pertain unto her whole person ; in the 
 second, I speak of certain beauties which pertain 
 unto a determinate part of her person, begin- 
 ning, " From her eyes" This second part is 
 
142 Viia Nuova. 
 
 divided into two ; for in the first T speak of 
 her eyes, which are the beginning of love j in 
 the second, I speak of her mouth, which is the end 
 of Love}'' A nd that every vicious thought be far 
 removed from hence, let him who readeth call to 
 mind that it is written above, that my lad^s 
 greeting, which was the work of her mouth, was 
 the end of my desires, so long as I might receive it. 
 Finally, when I say, " My song I know" I add 
 a stanza, ancillary, as it were, to the others, 
 wherein I declare that which I require of my 
 song. And because this part is easy to under- 
 stand, I trouble not myself with more divisions. 
 Truly I admit that it would be well, the more 
 fully to open up the sense of this canzone, to adopt 
 more minute divisions ; howbeit, whoso is not of 
 sufficient understanding to comprehend it by 
 means of those already made, it irks me not 
 though he should e'en let it bide ; for, in sooth, 1 
 should fear to have communicated its sense to only 
 too many, even by those divisions which are now 
 made, if so it were that many could understand it. 
 
 XX. 
 
 After this Canzone was somewhat spread 
 >road among folk, it came to pass that a 
 
Vita Nuova. 143 
 
 friend of mine, having heard it, was moved with 
 a desire to pray me that I would tell him what 
 Love is, entertaining, perchance, from what he 
 had heard, a hope of me higher than my deserts. 
 And so, thinking it well that after such a 
 treatise, I should treat somewhat of Love, and 
 also deeming it right to oblige my friend, I 
 determined to indite somewhat, wherein I 
 might treat of Love ; and thereupon I indited 
 this sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Love and the gentle heart are one single 
 thing,' even as the Sage ^ declares in his lay ; so 
 that the one without the other would come nigh 
 to be as the rational soul without reason.' 
 
 Nature maketh them both, when she is in 
 loving vein ; — Love, for the heart's lord, the 
 heart for his mansion, wherein he reposes, 
 sleeping, — sometimes for a little while, some- 
 times for a long season. Then Beauty ap- 
 peareth, in the person of some virtuous lady, 
 which is so pleasing to the eyes, that a desire 
 is born within the heart for that which giveth 
 pleasure :* and then it abides therein so long, 
 that it arouses the spirit of love. And the like 
 is wrought with a lady by a worthy man. 
 
144 V^if^ Nuova. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the 
 first, I speak of him {i.e. Love) in so far as he 
 subsists potentially ; ^ in the second, I speak of him 
 in so far as from potency he is reduced to actuality. 
 The second begins, " Then beauty'' 
 
 The first part is divided into two : in the 
 first, I show in what subject this potency subsists ; 
 in the second, I declare how this subject and potency 
 are together reduced to actuality, and how the 
 one hath such respect to the other as form to matter. 
 The second begins, " Nature maketh them'' 
 
 Then, when I say, " Then Beauty,'' I show how 
 this potency is actualized ; and, first, how it is 
 actualized in a man, then how it is actualized in a 
 lady, as here, " A nd the like, 8^c." 
 
 XXI. 
 
 After I had treated of Love in the aforesaid 
 rhymes, the desire came to me to say some- 
 what further in praise of my most gentle one, 
 wherein I might show how this love for her 
 awoke, and how not only did she awake him 
 when he was sleeping, but how, further, where 
 he was not even potentially, she wrought in such 
 wondrous wise as to make him come. And 
 then I indited this sonnet. 
 
Vita Nuova, [45 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Within her eyes doth my lady bear Love,' 
 whereby she ennobles all that she looks upon ; 
 wherever she passes, each one turns towards 
 her, and the heart of him whom she greets is 
 moved, to trembling ; so that, bending down his 
 face, he faileth utterly, and straightway sighs for 
 all his sins ; before her pride and wrath flee 
 away : help me, ye ladies, to do her reverence. 
 
 All sweetness, every humble thought, is born 
 in the heart of him who heareth her accost him ; 
 wherefore blessed is he who is the foremost to 
 behold her. 
 
 What her semblance is when she smiles a 
 little, none may tell, nor retain in memory, so 
 strange a miracle is that gentle creature. 
 
 This sonnet has three parts. In the first, I say 
 how my lady reduces that potency into actuality 
 so far as pertaineth to that most noble part of her, 
 the eyes ; and in the third I say the same, so far 
 as pertaineth to that most noble part, the mouth.'' 
 And between these two parts is a little part, which 
 is, as it were, a suppliant for aid, to the preceding 
 part and the following, and begins here, " Help 
 me, ye ladies" The third begins, '^ All sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 L 
 
146 Vtta Nuova. 
 
 The first is divided into three; for in the first I 
 tell with how great virtue she ennobles that which 
 she looks upon ; and this is as imich as to say how 
 she brings Love into potency, there where he is not. 
 In the second, I tell hoiv she reduces Love into 
 actuality in the hearts of all them upon whom she 
 looketh. In the third, T tell of that which she 
 afterwards works with so great virtue within 
 their hearts. The second begins, " Wherever she 
 passes;" the third, "■ And the heart T When I 
 say afterwards, " Help me, ye ladies',' I give it to 
 be understood to whom it is my intention to speak, 
 by summoning those ladies to help m,e in honouring 
 her. Then when I say, " A II sweetness," I say the 
 same thing as is said in the first part, but relating 
 to two actions of her mouth; one of which is her 
 sweetest speech, and the other her marvellous 
 smile ; save only that I say not concerning this 
 last, how it works upon the hearts of others, for 
 the memory cannot retain it, nor yet the virtue of 
 it. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 After this, not many days had passed by, 
 when (as it pleased our glorious Lord, who 
 refused not to take death upon Himself) the 
 
Vita Nuova. 147 
 
 father of so great a marvel as that most noble 
 Beatrice was seen to be, departed this life, and 
 passed to that glory which is truly eternal. 
 
 Wherefore, seeing that such a parting is 
 grievous to those who are left behind, and have 
 been friends of him who departeth — and that 
 none so close a friendship is there, as that of a 
 good father to a good son, and of a good son to 
 a good father ; and that my lady was good in the 
 very highest degree of goodness, and her father 
 (so many believe, and so it truly is) was good in 
 a high degree — it is manifest that my lady was 
 filled with the most bitter grief. And as, 
 according to the usage of the above-named city, 
 women are wont to assemble together with 
 women, and men with men, at such time of 
 mourning, many ladies assembled there where 
 my Beatrice was weeping piteously ; wherefore, 
 observing several ladies returning from her, I 
 heard them speaking of my most gentle one, 
 how she was lamenting. Amid the which talk, I 
 heard them say : — 
 
 " In sooth, she weepeth so, that whoso beheld 
 her might well die of pity." 
 
 Then these ladies passed by ; and I remained 
 in grief so great that my face was bathed with 
 tears, for which cause I hid myself, by many 
 L 2 
 
148 Vita Nuova. 
 
 times placing my hands before mine eyes. And 
 had it not been that I waited to hear further 
 concerning her (I being in a place by which 
 were passing most of the ladies who were leav- 
 ing her house), I would have gone and hidden 
 myself straightway when the tears had surprised 
 me. But as I tarried yet awhile in the same 
 spot, other ladies passed near me, who were 
 talking among themselves, and saying : — 
 
 " Which of us can ever be glad again, after 
 hearing this lady speak in such piteous wise ? " 
 
 After them, other ladies passed by, who said 
 as they came along : — 
 
 "Yon man who is hard by, weeps neither 
 more nor less than if he had seen her as we 
 have." 
 
 Then others said of me : — 
 
 " Lo, how he seemeth not the same man, so 
 greatly is he changed." 
 
 And thus, as these ladies were passing by, 
 heard I them discoursing of her and of me, even 
 as I have said. And taking thought thereon, I 
 resolved to indite something, even as I had 
 good cause to do, wherein I should bring 
 together all which I had heard these ladies say. 
 And as I would fain have questioned them, 
 could I have done so without reproof, I chose 
 
Vita Nuova. li^g 
 
 such fashion of speech as though I had questioned 
 them, and they had replied to me. And I made 
 two sonnets ; and in the first I put my questions 
 in that wise in which desire prompted me to 
 question them; in the second, I relate their 
 reply, taking that which I had heard them say, 
 as though they had said it in reply to me. And 
 I began the first, " Ye who do bear ; " the 
 second, " Art thou he ? " 
 
 Sonnet I. 
 
 Ye who do bear so lowly a cheer, your down- 
 cast eyes betraying sorrow, whence come ye 
 that your hue seems changed to pity's likeness ? 
 Have ye beheld our lady, with her visage bathed 
 in loving tears ? Tell me, ladies, for so mine 
 heart tells me, for I see you go with no ignoble 
 mien.' And if ye come from so great a sorrow, 
 please you to abide here with me somewhile, 
 and do not hide from me, how it is with her ; 
 for I see that your eyes have wept, and I see 
 you come with such altered cheer that mine 
 heart trembles to see this much. 
 
 This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the 
 first, I call and ask these ladies if they come 
 from her, telling them that T think it, because 
 they return as though ennobled. In the second, I 
 
150 Vita Nuova. 
 
 pray them to tell me of her ; and the second 
 begins, " And if ye come" 
 
 Sonnet II. 
 
 Art thou he that hath so often treated of our 
 lady, speaking to us alone ? Truly thou art 
 like unto him in voice, but thy face seemeth 
 that of another. And wherefore weepest thou 
 thus from thine heart, so as to infect each one 
 with pity. Hast thou seen her weeping, that thou 
 canst not at all dissemble thy dolorous thoughts .' 
 Leave it to us to weep and to go sadly (and he 
 sinneth who shall ever seek to comfort us), who 
 have heard her words amid her weeping. Upon 
 her countenance weareth she a grief so manifest, 
 that she who had seen meet to gaze upon her 
 should have fallen dead before her. 
 
 This sonnet has four parts, according as the 
 ladies, in whose persons I reply, held four m,an- 
 ners of speech among them. And since these are 
 made sufficiently clear above, I concern not my- 
 self with recounting the meaning of the parts, 
 and therefore distinguish them merely. The 
 second begins, " Wherefore weepest thou ; " the 
 third, " Leave it to us ;" the fourth, " Upon her 
 visage" 
 
Vita Nuova. i S i 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 Some days after this, it chanced that a part of 
 my body was afflicted with a grievous sickness, 
 whereby, for many days, I suffered the most 
 cruel pain ; the which brought me to so great 
 a feebleness, that I must needs abide like those 
 who are unable to move. And on the ninth 
 day,' I say, being in intolerable pain, there 
 came to me a thought concerning my lady. 
 And when I had thought on her for some time, 
 I turned me towards my feeble life, and seeing 
 how unstable was its duration, even in good 
 health, I began to lament such misery, within 
 myself. Then, sighing deeply, I said within 
 myself : — 
 
 " It needs must be that the most gentle 
 Beatrice shall one day die." 
 
 And then so great a dismay came upon me, 
 that I closed mine eyes, and began to labour 
 like one distraught, and to imagine after this 
 wise : — that in the beginning of the wanderings 
 of my fancy, I seemed to see the faces of 
 certain women with dishevelled hair, who said 
 to me : — " Thou shalt even die." 
 
 And after these women, there appeared to 
 me certain faces, of diverse aspect, and horrible 
 
152 Vita Nuova. 
 
 to behold, which said to me : — " Thou art 
 dead." 
 
 And when my fancy began to wander thus, I 
 came to such a pass that I knew not where I 
 was ; and I seemed to see women with dis- 
 hevelled hair pass on their way, weeping, and 
 wondrous sorrowful. And methought I saw 
 the sun darkened, so that the stars showed 
 themselves of such a hue as to make me deem 
 that they were mourning, and the birds seemed 
 to fall dead in their flight, and there were great 
 earthquakes.^ 
 
 Then marvelling at such a vision, and greatly 
 afraid, I fancied that I saw a certain friend, who 
 came to me, and said : — 
 
 " What ! knowest thou not ? Thy wondrous 
 lady hath quitted this world." 
 
 Then began I to weep right piteously ; and 
 not only in imagination did I weep, but I wept 
 with mine eyes, bathing them in real tears. 
 
 I fancied that I was gazing up to heaven, and 
 meseemed I saw a multitude who were going 
 up on high, and bare among them a little cloud 
 of purest white ; and the angels seemed to be 
 singing gloriously, and methought the words of 
 their song were these : " Hosanna in excelsis." ' 
 And nought else did I seem to hear. 
 
Vita Nuova. 153 
 
 Then thought I that my heart, wherein was 
 so great a love, said to me : — 
 
 " True it is that our lady is lying dead." 
 
 And then, I thought, I went to look upon 
 the body wherein that most noble and blessed 
 soul had dwelt. And so strong was mine errant 
 fancy, that it showed me my lady, dead ; and it 
 seemed as though ladies were covering her head 
 with a white veil ; and her face wore a look of 
 so great humility that she seemed to be saying: — ■ 
 
 " I am to behold the source of peace." ■* 
 
 And in my vision, so great abasement fell on 
 me at the sight of her, that I called upon Death 
 and said, " O sweetest Death ! come to me ; 
 and be not grudging to me ; for surely thou 
 shouldst be courteous, having taken thee such 
 an abode I * Come now to me, for I desire thee 
 greatly : thou seest that I already wear the 
 colours of thy livery." ^ 
 
 And when I had seen all the sad offices, 
 which are rendered, of usage, to the bodies of 
 the dead, fully discharged, I returned to my 
 room, and, as it seemed, looked up to heaven ; 
 and so strong was my phantasy, that, weeping, 
 I said in my natural voice : — 
 
 "O fairest soul, how blessed is he who 
 beholds thee ! " 
 
154 Vita Nuova. 
 
 And ab I said these words, with a bitter sob of 
 grief, and called on Death to come to me, a 
 lady, young and gentle, who was by my bedside, 
 thinking that my tears and my words were a 
 plaining for the pain of my sickness, began to 
 weep, in great fear. Whereupon other ladies 
 who were in the room, perceived, by the lament 
 which she made, that I was weeping; and 
 making her leave me (which lady was very 
 near of kin to me) they drew nigh to me, 
 in order to wake me, thinking that I was 
 dreaming, and said to me : — 
 
 " Sleep no more, neither be distressed." 
 And as they spoke to me thus, my strong 
 phantasy ceased, just as I was about to say : — 
 " Oh, Beatrice, blessed be thou 1 " 
 And I had already said, " Oh, Beatrice ! " 
 when, rousing myself, I opened mine eyes, and 
 saw that I had been deceived ; and although I 
 uttered that name, my voice was so broken with 
 sobs and tears that those ladies could not 
 understand me. And although I was greatly 
 ashamed, yet, in obedience to a certain admoni- 
 tion of Love, I turned me towards them. 
 
 And when they saw me, they began to say : — 
 " He is like unto one dead ; " — and one to 
 another : — 
 
Vita Nuova. 155 
 
 " Let us strive to comfort him." 
 
 So many words they spake to comfort me, 
 and then they asked me, of what had I been 
 afraid ? So I, being somewhat comforted, and 
 having now understood that deceitful phantasy, 
 answered them : — 
 
 " I will tell you what has befallen me." 
 
 Then, beginning with the beginning, I told 
 them all that I had seen, even unto the end, 
 only keeping silent as to the name of my most 
 gentle one. After which, being healed of that 
 sickness, I resolved to indite some words con- 
 cerning that which had befallen me, thinking 
 that it would be a right lovely thing to hear : 
 so I indited this canzone thereon. 
 
 Canzone. 
 
 A compassionate lady, young of age, and fully 
 adorned with all manner of human gentleness, 
 was there when I was continually calling upon 
 Death. As she beheld mine eyes, full of piteous- 
 ness, and listened to my vain babble, she was 
 moved with fear to loud weeping ; then other 
 ladies, who were made heedful of me by her who 
 was weeping with me, made her depart, and 
 drew near to me, so that I might hear them. 
 
 One said, " Weep not ; " and one said, " Why 
 
IS6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 art thou so disconsolate ? " Then I quitted my 
 strange phantasy, calling upon my lady's name. 
 
 So sorrowful was my voice, and so broken 
 with pain and tears, that I alone heard my lady's 
 name within my heart ; and love made me turn 
 towards them, with a look all full of shame, 
 which straight came into my face. Such was 
 my hue to look upon, that it made them all dis- 
 course of death. 
 
 " Ah, let us comfort him ! " one besought the 
 other in lowly wise ; and full often did they 
 say: — 
 
 "What hast thou seen, that thou hast no 
 courage left ? " 
 
 And when I was a little comforted, I said : — 
 
 " Ladies, I will tell it you. 
 
 " While I was thinking on this frail life of 
 mine, and perceived how slight a thing was its 
 duration. Love wept within mine heart, wherein 
 he abode ; whereby my soul was so dismayed, 
 that, sighing, I said in thought : — 
 
 " ' It must surely be that my lady shall die.' 
 
 " Then fell I into so great a confusion, that I 
 closed mine eyes, which were oppressed with 
 terror, and my spirits were so dismayed, that 
 each one went wandering forth. And afterwards, 
 in my phantasy, which was devoid of conscious- 
 
Vita Nuova. 157 
 
 ness and of truth, there appeared to me the 
 troubled countenances of certain women, who 
 said unto me : — 
 
 "' Surely thou shalt die ! thou shalt die ! ' 
 
 "Then saw I many things of doubtful import, 
 in that vain phantasy into which I had come ; 
 and methought I was in I know not what place, 
 and saw women go their way, dishevelled, one 
 weeping, and one uttering long-drawn wailings, 
 the which shot out fiery darts of sorrow. 
 
 " Then I seemed to see how, little by little, 
 the sun became troubled, and the stars appeared, 
 and he and they were weeping ; the birds 
 dropped down in their flight through the air, and 
 the earth trembled ; and a man appeared to me, 
 with colour fled, and with gasping breath, and 
 said : — 
 
 " ' What dost thou ? knowest thou not that 
 thy lady is dead, which was so fair ? ' 
 
 " Then lifted I up mine eyes, and saw, like a 
 rain of manna,' the angels returning upward 
 toward heaven ; and they had a little cloud in 
 front of them, behind which they were crying, 
 Hosanna ! and if they had said aught beside, I 
 would tell it you. 
 
 " Then said Love : — ' I hide nothing more 
 from thee ; come, and look upon our lady as 
 she lies ! ' 
 
IS8 Vita Nuova. 
 
 " The deceitful phantasy led me to look upon 
 my dead lady ; and when I had espied her, I 
 saw ladies covering her with a veil ; and she 
 wore on her so true a humility, that it seemed as 
 though she said : — 
 
 " ' I am at peace.' 
 
 " I became so humble in my sorrow, behold- 
 ing in her so perfect a humility, that I said : — 
 
 " ' O Death ! I hold thee exceeding sweet : 
 henceforth shouldst thou be a right gentle thing, 
 seeing that thou hast made thy rest within my 
 lady, and thou shouldst have pity, and not dis- 
 dain. So, I come, so wishful to be of thine own, 
 that, in faith, I am like unto thee.' Come, for 
 mine heart calleth thee.' 
 
 "Then I departed, when all the mourning 
 was ended ; and when I was alone, I said, look- 
 ing toward the realm on high : — 
 / " ' Blessed, O fair soul, is he who beholdeth 
 / thee!"' 
 
 "Then you called me, — thanks be yours 
 \ therefore." 
 
 ^ This canzone hath two parts ; in the first, ad- 
 dressing some person undefined, I relate how I 
 was roused by certain ladies from a vain phantasy, 
 and how I promised to recount it to them ; in the 
 second, I tell how I recounted it to them. The 
 
Vita Nuova. 159 
 
 first part is divided into two : in the first I tell 
 what certain ladies, and what one alone, said and 
 did during my phantasy, in so far as it was before 
 I had returned to full consciousness ; in the second, 
 I tell what these ladies said to tne, after I had 
 quitted this frenzy ; and it begins here, " So sor- 
 rowful was my voice.'' Afterwards, when I say, 
 " While I was thinking," f tell how I related this 
 phantasy of mine to them ; and concerning that 
 I make two parts. In the first, I relate this phan- 
 tasy in order ; in the second, saying at what time 
 they called me, I thank them, in conclusion; and 
 this part begins, " Then you called me." 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 After this vain phantasy, it chanced one day, 
 that as I was sitting musing in a certain place, 
 I felt begin a trembling at the heart, even as 
 though I had been in my lady's presence. Then, 
 I say there came to me a vision of Love ; so that, 
 methought, I saw him coming thence where my 
 lady dwelt, and he seemed to say cheerfully 
 within mine heart : — 
 
 " Bethink thee to bless the day whereon I 
 possessed thee, even as thou shouldst do." 
 
i6o Vita Nuova. 
 
 Then, verily, I seemed to have so glad a 
 heart, that I felt as though, in this its new con- 
 dition, it were no heart of mine. And a little 
 after these words, which my heart said to me, 
 with Love's tongue/ I saw a lady come towards 
 me, who was of famous beauty, and was, in sooth, 
 the lady of this my foremost friend. And this 
 lady's name was Giovanna,^ but, by reason of 
 her beauty, as some think, folk had given her, 
 the name of Primavera (Springtide), and so she 
 was called. And then, as I looked towards her, 
 I saw the wondrous Beatrice draw nigh. These 
 ladies came close by me in this wise, the one 
 after the other ; and meseemed that Love spoke 
 within mine heart, and said : — 
 ,^ " That foremost lady is named Primavera 
 solely for the cause of her this day's coming ; 
 for I moved him who conferred this name upon 
 her to call her Primavera; that is to sa.y, prima 
 verrct (' she shall come foremost ') on the day 
 when Beatrice shall manifest herself, after her 
 liegeman's vision. And if thou wouldst also 
 consider her first name^ that is as much as to 
 say ' Primavera,' her name, Giovanna, cometh 
 from that Giovanni (John) who preceded the 
 true Light, saying : — Ego vox clamantis in de- 
 serto : parate viam Domini ("The voice of one 
 
Vita Nuova. i6i 
 
 crying in the wilderness ; ' Prepare ye the way 
 of the Lord 0." 
 
 And after he had spoken these words, he 
 seemed to say further : — 
 
 " He who should consider subtly, would call 
 your Beatrice, ' Love,' for the great resemblance 
 she beareth to me." ^ 
 
 Whereupon, taking thought, I purposed to 
 write in rhyme to my chiefest friend (keep- 
 ing silent as to certain words which seemed 
 meet for silence), deeming that his heart still 
 regarded the beauty of that gentle Primavera.'' 
 And I indited this sonnet. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 I felt awaken within mine heart a spirit of 
 Love, which was sleeping : and then I beheld 
 Love, approaching from afar off, so cheerful, 
 that I hardly knew him ; saying : — 
 
 " Now bethink thee to do me honour." 
 
 And at each word of his he smiled. 
 
 Then, while my Lord was abiding with me 
 for a little space, I looked thitherward whence 
 he came, and beheld Monna Vanna and Monna 
 Bice coming towards the spot where I was ; 
 the one marvel following after the other : and, 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Vita Nuova. 
 
 even as my mind telleth me again, Love said 
 to me : — 
 
 " This one is Springtide (Primavera), and 
 that is Love, so greatly doth she resemble me." 
 
 This sonnet hath many parts ; the first of which 
 tells how I felt the wonted tremor " awaken within 
 mine heart, and how it seemed that Love appeared 
 to me, of good cheer, from afar ; the second tells 
 how Love seemed to speak to me within mine 
 heart, and how it seemed to me ; the third tells 
 how, after he had tarried with me thus for some 
 while, I saw and heard certain things. The 
 second part begins, " Saying, ' Now bethink thee ; ' " 
 the third, " Then, while my Lord'' The third 
 part is divided into two ; in the first, I say what 
 I saw ; in the second, I say what I heard; and 
 this begins, " Love said to me'' 
 
 XXV. 
 
 Now a doubt might here arise in the mind of 
 one who deserved to have all his doubts re- 
 solved ; namely, he might doubt concerning the 
 manner in which I speak of Love as if it were 
 a thing per se, and, further,, as if it were not 
 only an intellectual substance, but even a 
 
Vita Nuova. 163 
 
 corporeal substance.' Which thing, taken 
 literally, is false ; for Love is not a self-existent 
 substance, but is an accident in a substance. 
 Now, that I speak of it as if it were a body, 
 and further, as if it were a man, is evident from 
 three things which I say concerning it. I say 
 that I saw him coming from afar, whence, in 
 that the word " to come " signifies local motion 
 (and, according to the Philosopher,' body alone 
 is capable per se of local motion), it is apparent 
 that I suppose Love to be a body. I say, 
 further, that he laughed, and further, that he 
 spoke, both of which things would appear to be 
 proper to man, especially the capacity for 
 laughter, and hence it is apparent that I sup- 
 pose him to be a man. 
 
 In order to clear up this matter,' so far as is 
 fitting for the present purpose, it is to be under- 
 stood that of old there were no singers of Love 
 in the vulgar tongue ; but rather the singers of 
 Love were certain poets in the Latin tongue : 
 among us,* that is, I say, although among other 
 nations, there might have been," and although, 
 further, even as in Greece, not popular, but 
 lettered poets treated of these matters. And it 
 is not so many years ago, since first these poets 
 of the vulgar appeared among us ; for composing 
 M 2 
 
164 Vita Nuova. 
 
 in rhyme in the vulgar tongue is equivalent to 
 composing in verses in Latin, in some propor- 
 tion." And a sign that such time is short, is that 
 if we would search in the Lingua cVoco and in the 
 Lingua disi^ we would not find anything written 
 a hundred and fifty years before the present time. 
 And the reason why certain rude folk obtained 
 a reputation for poetic skill, is that they were 
 about the first who composed in the Lingua di 
 si? And the first who began to compose as a 
 poet in the vulgar, was moved by the desire to 
 make his words to be understood of his lady, 
 to whom it was not easy to understand verses 
 in the Latin. And this makes against those 
 who rhyme on other matters than those per- 
 taining to love ; " seeing that such a mode of 
 speech was invented at the first in order to 
 speak of Love. Wherefore, since a greater 
 licence of speech is conceded to the poets than 
 to prose writers, and seeing that these com- 
 posers in rhyme are nought else than the poets 
 of the vulgar tongue, it is seemly and reasonable 
 that "a greater licence of speech be accorded to 
 them than to the rest who speak in the vulgar 
 tongue. Wherefore, if any figure or colour, of 
 rhetoric is conceded to the poets, it is conceded 
 also to the rhymers. If, then, we see that the 
 poets have spoken of inanimate things as if 
 
Vita Nuova. 165 
 
 they had sense and reason, and have made them 
 converse together ; and not only real things, 
 but also things unreal (that is to say, they have 
 asserted that things speak which are non- 
 existent, and have made accidents speak as if 
 they were substances, and even men) ; — the 
 rhymers are justified in doing the like, not 
 without any cause, but with such cause as is 
 capable of being explained in prose.'" That the 
 poets have spoken even as is spoken above, is 
 apparent in Virgil ; who says that Juno, that is, 
 a goddess hostile to the Trojans, addresses 
 Aeolus, lord of the winds, here in the first book 
 of the Aeneid ; Aeole, namque tibi, etc., and that 
 this lord replies to her here, Tuus, O regina, 
 quid optes, etc. In this very poet the thing 
 which is not animate speaks to the animate 
 thing, in the third of the Aeneid, here, Dardan- 
 idae duri, etc. In Lucan, the animate thing 
 speaks to the inanimate, Multum Roma tamen 
 debes civilibus annis. In Horace, the man 
 addresses his own art, and not only are the 
 words those of Horace, but he even utters them 
 as the mouthpiece of the good Homer. In 
 Ovid, Love speaks as if he were a human being, 
 in the beginning of the book De Remedio 
 Amoris. — Bella mihi video, bella parantur, ait. 
 And hereby may my book be rendered clear 
 
1 66 Vita Nuova. 
 
 to any to whom some part of it may give pause. 
 And lest some rude person may take arrogance 
 upon him, I say that neither do the poets speak 
 thus without reason, nor should the rhymers 
 speak thus, not having in themselves power to 
 render a reason for what they say; for great 
 shame would it be to such an one, if aught 
 should be left clad with a robe of rhetorical 
 figures and colours, and he should be unable, 
 when required, to strip his words of such their 
 garb, so that they might bear their true mean- 
 ing. And this my chiefest friend and I know 
 full many of them that rhyme in such foolish 
 wise. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 My most gentle lady, concerning whom I 
 have spoken in what has gone before, advanced 
 so far in the good graces of the people, that, 
 when she passed along the way, the folk would 
 run to gaze upon her ; whereat I felt a mar- 
 vellous joy. And when she drew nigh unto 
 anyone, so great a reverence entered into that 
 man's heart, that he ventured not to raise his 
 eyes, nor to reply to her greeting ; and to this 
 
Vita Nuova. 167 
 
 many could testify, of their own experience, to 
 any who should not believe it.' She went her 
 way, crowned and clad with humility, betraying 
 no pride for all that she saw and heard. Many 
 would say, when she had passed by, " This is no 
 woman, but rather one of the fairest angels of 
 heaven." Others said : — 
 
 " She is a marvel ; blessed be the Lord who 
 can do such marvellous works ! " 
 
 She showed herself, I say, so gentle, and so 
 full of all pleasing qualities, that all who looked 
 on her felt within themselves a noble and sweet 
 delight, such as they could not express; and 
 not one was there who could look upon her 
 but he must needs sigh incontinent. Such and 
 yet more marvellous things proceeded from her 
 in wondrous and virtuous wise. So I, consider- 
 ing this, and fain to resume the theme of her 
 praises, resolved to indite somewhat, wherein I 
 might make her wondrous and excellent virtues 
 known, to the end that not they alone who 
 could see her with the eye of sense, but others 
 too, might know such things concerning her as 
 words have power to declare. Then I indited 
 this sonnet. 
 
1 68 Vita Nuova. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 So gentle and so noble seemeth my lady, 
 when she greeteth any, that every tongue, falter- 
 ing, becomes mute, and the eyes no longer dare 
 to gaze. She goes on her way, feeling that she 
 is lauded, clad in the kindly garb of humility : 
 and she seemeth as though she were a creature 
 come from heaven to earth, that she might reveal 
 a miracle. She appears so pleasing to whoso 
 regardeth her, that she sendeth to the heart a 
 sweetness which none who proveth it not may 
 know. And from out her lips there seemeth to 
 move a spirit, sweet and full of love, which 
 enters into the soul, and says, " Sigh ! " 
 
 This sonnet is so easy to understand, by what 
 has been related before, that it stands in need of 
 no division. 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 My lady, I say, attained to such grace, that 
 not only was she honoured and commended, 
 but many ladies were honoured and commended 
 through her.^ And therefore, seeing this, and 
 desiring to make it known unto him who saw it 
 not, I resolved to write something further, in 
 
Vita Nuova. 169 
 
 which this might be made manifest ; and so I 
 indited this sonnet, wherein I declared how her 
 virtue wrought upon other ladies. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 He sees all blessedness most perfectly, who 
 sees my lady among the ladies ; they that do 
 go with her are held of such good grace that 
 they may thank God therefor. 
 
 And her beauty hath such perfection that no 
 envy accrues therefrom to others, but it rather 
 makes them go with her, clothed in gentleness, 
 in love and in faith. Her look makes all things 
 humble, and makes not herself alone to appear 
 delightsome, but each one receives honour 
 through her. And so gentle is she in all her 
 actions, that none may call her to mind without 
 sighing, for Love's sweetness. 
 
 This sonnet hath three parts ; in the first, I 
 say among what manner of folk my lady appears 
 most admirable ; in the second, I say how gracious 
 was her presence ; in the third, I speak of those 
 effects which she wrought with so much virtue 
 upon others. The second part begins, " They that 
 do go;" the third, "And her beauty'' This 
 last part is divided into three ; in the first, I say 
 what she wrought in the ladies, with regard to 
 
170 Vita Nuova. 
 
 themselves ; in the second, I say what she wrought 
 in them with regard to others ; in the third, I say 
 how she wrought, not upon ladies only, but upon 
 all persons, and how, not only by her presence, but 
 when they came to recall her to mind, she wrought 
 in wondrous wise. The second begins, " Her 
 look; " the third, "And so gentle'.' 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 After this, I began one day to ponder over 
 what I had said concerning my lady in the two 
 preceding sonnets, and, while I so thought, 
 perceiving that I had made no mention of the 
 power which at that present time she exercised 
 over me, it seemed to me that I had often spoken 
 of her imperfectly. And therefore I proposed to 
 say certain words, wherein I might declare in 
 what manner I was subject to her power, and 
 in what manner her virtue wrought upon me. 
 And deeming that I could not recount this 
 within the narrow limits of a sonnet, I straight- 
 way commenced a canzone, which begins : — 
 
 Canzone. 
 So long hath Love held me enthralled, and 
 tamed to his lordship, that even as he was stern 
 
Vita Nuova. 171 
 
 to me at first, so is he now a pleasant inmate of 
 mine heart. Therefore, when he taketh away 
 my strength, so that my spirits seem to flee away, 
 then doth my frail soul feel such sweetness, that 
 my visage pales at it. 
 
 Then Love assumes such power within me 
 that he makes my sighs to come forth in words ; 
 and they issue forth, calling upon my lady to 
 augment my bliss. This cometh to me whenso- 
 ever she looks upon me, and is a thing of such 
 humility as passes belief 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Quomodo sola sedet civitas plena populo ! facta 
 est quasi vidua domina gentium} (" How doth 
 the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! how 
 is she become as a widow ! she that was great 
 among the nations ! ") 
 
 I was still upon the exordium of this canzone, 
 and had completed the above written stanza, 
 when the Lord of Justice summoned my most 
 gentle one to glory, under the banner of that most 
 blessed queen, Mary, whose name was ever held 
 in the utmost reverence in the speech of my 
 blessed Beatrice. 
 
172 Vita Nuova. 
 
 And although it might, perchance, be pleasing 
 if I were now to deliver some account of her 
 parting from us, it is not my design to treat 
 thereof in this place, for three reasons. The 
 first is, because this would be beyond our 
 present purpose, if we would have regard to the 
 Proem which precedes this book.* The second 
 is, that even supposing it did belong to my 
 present design, yet would not my pen suffice to 
 treat of it in such manner as would be worthy 
 thereof. The third is, that, admitting the one 
 and the other, it becomes me not to speak of 
 that, in treating of which I must needs speak in 
 mine own praise (which thing is blameable in 
 the highest degree in him who practises it) ,^ and 
 so I leave this matter to another chronicler. 
 Nevertheless, since the number nine has found a 
 place in the foregoing discourse, whence it 
 appears that it is not without significance, and 
 since, in her departing, such number seems to 
 have had great place, it is meet to set down 
 here what pertains to the subject. So I will 
 first say how it bore a part in her passing away, 
 and then I will assign some reason for this 
 number being so much her friend. 
 
Vita Nuova. 173 
 
 XXX.' 
 
 I say that, according to the usage of Italy, 
 her most noble soul departed at the first hour of 
 the ninth day of the month ; and according to 
 the usage of Syria, she departed in the ninth 
 month of the year ; seeing that the first month 
 there is Tismin, which is our October. And 
 according to our usage, she departed in that 
 year of our reckoning — that is, in the year of 
 Our Lord — in which the perfect number'' had 
 been nine times counted in that century in 
 which she was set in our world ; and this was 
 the thirteenth century of the Christians. 
 
 And this, perchance, may be the reason why 
 this number was her so constant friend ; namely, 
 that since, according to Ptolemy,^ and according 
 to Christian verity, there are nine heavens which 
 move, and, according to the common opinion 
 of astrologers, the said heavens exercise an 
 influence upon the lower world,^ according to 
 their conjunctions, this number was associated 
 with her, that so it might be understood that at 
 her birth all the nine movable heavens were in 
 most perfect accord. 
 
 This is one reason thereof; but considering 
 the matter more subtly, and in accordance with 
 
174 Vita Nuova. 
 
 the ineffable Truth, this number was she her- 
 self — I speak by way of metaphor, and this is 
 what I mean. The number three is the root of 
 nine, for, without any other number, when 
 multiplied by itself it makes nine, as we see 
 clearly that 3x3 makes 9. If, then, the 3 by 
 itself is the efficient of 9, and the efficient of 
 miracles is the Three of Himself — namely, the 
 Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which are the 
 Three in One — then was my lady attended by 
 the number nine to the intent that it might be 
 understood that she was a nine, that is, a 
 miracle, the root of which is merely the 
 miraculous Trinity, Perchance some more 
 subtle wit might discern some yet more subtle 
 reason ; but this is what I see therein, and that 
 which pleases me most. 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 After that most gentle lady had departed 
 from this world, all the aforesaid city was left, 
 as it were, widowed, and despoiled of all worthi- 
 ness ; wherefore I, still weeping in that desolate 
 city, wrote to the princes of the land concern- 
 ing the condition thereof, beginning with this 
 
Vita Nuova. 175 
 
 passage taken from Jeremiah ; Quomodo sedet 
 sola civitas. And I say this, that others may 
 not marvel why I have quoted it above, as an 
 introduction to the new matter which follows 
 thereupon. And if any man should reprove me 
 for not writing here the words which follow 
 those just quoted, my excuse is that it was my 
 desire from the beginning not to write down 
 anything save in the vulgar tongue. Where- 
 fore, the words which follow those quoted being 
 all in Latin, it would be beside my purpose if I 
 wrote them down ; and I know that my friend 
 to whom I write had the like intent, namely, 
 that I should write in the vernacular only. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 After that mine eyes had wept for some time, 
 and were so wearied that I could no longer find 
 a vent for my sadness,' I thought to relieve it 
 by some words of sorrow ; and then I deter- 
 mined to make a canzone wherein I might hold 
 lamentable discourse of her for whose sake so 
 great a grief had become the destroyer of 
 my spirit, and I began forthwith : Gli occhi 
 dolenti. 
 
176 Vita Nuova. 
 
 In order that this canzone may appear to be 
 left the more completely widowed after its close, I 
 will mark out its divisions before writing it 
 down ; and such fashion will I retain henceforth. 
 I say that this piteous little canzone has three 
 parts ; the first is the Proem j in the second, I 
 discourse concerning her-, in the third, I speak to 
 my canzone in piteous wise. The second begins, 
 " Beatrice hath departed; " the third, " Weep, 
 piteous song" The first is divided into three ; 
 in the first, I say what moves m.e to speak ; in the 
 second, T say to whom I would speak ; in the 
 third, I say of whom I would speak. The second 
 begins, "And because T remember;" the third, 
 " A nd I will speak r Afterwards, when I say 
 "■Beatrice hath departed" I discourse of her, and 
 thereof T m,ake two parts. First I declare the 
 cause of her being taken away, and then I say 
 how others bewail her -departure ; and this part 
 begins, " The gentle spirit^ This part is divided 
 into three -. in the first, I declare who mourneth 
 her not ; in the second, I declare who doth mourn 
 her ; in the third, I speak of mine own condition. 
 The second begins, " But h^ hath sadness ; " the 
 third, " My deep sighs" Then, when I say, " My 
 piteous song" I address me to this my song, 
 pointing out to it the ladies to whom it shall go, 
 to abide with them. 
 
Vita Nuova. 177 
 
 Canzone. 
 
 Mine eyes, grieving for pity of mine heart, 
 have endured such pains from weeping that 
 they are now all to-spent. Now if I would 
 disburden me of my grief, which little by little 
 is leading me to deaths it behoves me to speak, 
 and give a vent to my woes. And because I 
 remember that I gladly spake with you, gentle 
 ladies,^ concerning my lady, while she was yet 
 alive, I desire not to speak to any other, save to 
 the gentle heart that is in a lady's breast ; and 
 I will speak of her with tears, for that she hath 
 betaken herself to Heaven, and hath left Love 
 with me weeping. 
 
 Beatrice hath departed to Heaven on high, 
 to the realm where the angels are at peace, and 
 dwells with them, and hath left you, ladies. 
 No frosty attemperature rapt her away, nor 
 heat, as befalleth others, but it was her great 
 goodness alone. For the radiancy of her 
 humility penetrated the heavens with such 
 virtue as to move the Eternal Sire to wonder, 
 so that a sweet desire moved Him to claim so 
 great a blessedness, and He made her to ascend 
 from here below unto Himself, because he saw 
 that this weary life was unworthy of so gentle a 
 creature.^ 
 
 N 
 
178 Vita Nuova. 
 
 The gentle spirit has quitted her beauteous 
 form, and is glorified in its meet place. He 
 who bewaileth her not, when speaking of her, 
 hath a heart of stone, so malevolent and so 
 base that no kindly spirit can find an entrance 
 therein. His churlish heart hath no so lofty- 
 conception that it can imagine aught pertaining 
 to her, and therefore no desire of weeping 
 cometh to him ; but that man hath sadness, 
 and mourneth so that he sighs, and fails for 
 grief, and denies his soul all consolation, who 
 sees in thought, but for one single time, what 
 she was, and how she hath been reft away. 
 
 My deep sighs give me anguish, when the 
 thought of my burdened spirit reminds me of 
 her who hath cleft mine heart in twain, and oft- 
 times, while I muse on death, there visits me a 
 'desire so sweet that it transforms the hue of 
 my visage. When my phantasy takes firm 
 hold upon me, then I am beset on every side 
 with such pangs, that I shudder for the grief 
 which I feel, and I come into such a plight, that 
 shame sends me forth from among folk. Then 
 weeping, and all alone in mine affliction, I cry 
 aloud to Beatrice, and say : — 
 
 " What ! art thou now dead ? " 
 
 And even, while I am calling upon her I take 
 comfort. 
 
Vita Nuova. 179 
 
 Tears of grief and sighs of anguish lay waste 
 mine heart whensoever I find myself alone ; so 
 that it moves ruth thereat in each one that 
 beholdeth. And what my life hath been, ever 
 since my lady betook her into the new world, 
 no tongue is there which could tell ; and there- 
 fore, ladies mine, for all my will to do so, I 
 could not well tell you of the manner of my 
 being ; so am I travailed by my bitter life, 
 which hath become so vile, that each man 
 seemeth to me to say : — 
 
 " I give thee up ! " seeing my deathlike 
 countenance. 
 
 But my lady seeth well what I am, and I 
 yet hope for grace from her therefor. 
 
 My piteous song, go now thy way weeping, 
 and seek out the dames and damosels to whom 
 thy sisters were wont to bear delight; and 
 thou, which art the daughter of sorrow, go thou, 
 all disconsolate, to abide with them. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 After I had written this canzone, then came 
 
 to me one, who, in the degrees of friendship,' 
 
 was, immediately after the first, my nearest 
 
 friend ; and he was so nearly linked in blood to 
 
 N 2 
 
i8o Vita Nuova. 
 
 my glorified lady, that there was none more 
 near of kin to her. And after he had held 
 converse with me, he prayed me to write some- 
 thing for a lady who had died ; and he dis- 
 sembled in his speech, so that it might appear 
 that he was speaking of another ; but I, per- 
 ceiving that he was speaking of none other 
 than that blessed one, said that I would fulfil 
 what his prayer required of me. And so, 
 taking thought, I purposed to make a sonnet, 
 wherein I might lament some deal, and give it 
 to this my friend, so that it might appear as 
 though I had made it for him : and then I 
 said : Venite a intender, etc. 
 
 This sonnet hath two parts ; in the first, I call 
 upon Lovers faithful lieges to hearken unto me ; 
 in the second, I speak of mine own wretched plight. 
 The second begins, " Which go." 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Come ye, and listen to my sighs, O gentle 
 hearts, — for pity wills it — ; which go their way 
 disconsolate, and were it not for them, I 
 would die of grief. For that mine eyes would 
 prove rebels to me, oftener far than I could 
 wish, — weary now of mourning thus for my lady 
 — so that mine heart would be smothered with 
 
Vita Nuova. i8l 
 
 its moans for her. You would hear them often 
 calling upon my gentle lady, who is gone unto 
 the sphere worthy of her virtues, and at such 
 time setting at nought this present life, showing 
 forth the sorrowing soul, which is forsaken of 
 its bliss. 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 After I had composed this sonnet, bethink- 
 ing me who it was to whom I meant to give it, 
 as though made for him, I perceived how poor 
 and bald a service it seemed to render to one 
 who was so near akin to my glorious lady. 
 And so, before giving him the above written 
 sonnet, I composed two stanzas of a canzone, 
 one, truly, for him, the other for myself, but in 
 such wise that both the one and the other 
 might appear to one who regarded not the 
 matter accurately, to be made for the same 
 person. But every fine observer can well 
 perceive that the speakers are different persons, 
 in that the iirst does not call her his lady, 
 while the other does so, as manifestly appears. 
 This canzone and this sonnet I gave him, tell- 
 ing him that I had made them for him alone. 
 
1 83 Vita Nuova. 
 
 The canzone begins, Quantunque volte, and has 
 two parts ; in the one, that is in the first stanza, 
 this dear friend of mine, her kinsman, makes 
 tnoan ; in the second, T myself mourn, that is in 
 the other stanza, which begins, " Amid my sighs" 
 A nd thus it is plain that in this canzone two 
 persons lament, the one of whom laments as a 
 brother, the other as a servant} 
 
 Canzone. 
 
 How many a time, alas ! do I recall to mind 
 that I must never see my lady more, wherefore 
 I go thus sorrowful; and my sad thoughts heap 
 up so great a grief about mine heart, that I 
 say: — 
 
 " My soul, why takest thou not thy flight ? 
 For the anguish thou must endure in this world, 
 which has become so tedious to thee, makes me 
 to think thereon with great dread. Wherefore 
 I call for Death, as for a sweet and pleasant 
 sleep ; and say, ' Come to me/ with so great 
 an affection that I bear envy to each one that 
 dies." 
 
 Among my sighs may be heard a piteous 
 voice, which goes calling upon Death con- 
 tinually. Towards him have all my desires 
 turned, ever since my lady was overtaken by his 
 
Vi£a Nuova. 183 
 
 cruelty; for her loveliness is become a high 
 spiritual beauty, which spreadeth through the 
 heavens a radiancy of love, which greeteth the 
 angels, and moves to wonder even their lofty 
 and subtle intellects, — so noble is it. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 Upon that day on which the year was 
 fulfilled since my lady had become one of the 
 citizens of Life Eternal, I was sitting in a place 
 where, calling her to mind, I began to draw an 
 angel' upon certain tablets. And whilst I wag 
 drawing it, I turned mine eyes, and saw beside 
 me certain persons to whom it behoved me to 
 pay reverence. Now, they were watching what 
 I was doing, and, as I have been told since, 
 had already been there some time before I 
 perceived them.^ When I saw them, I rose, 
 and, saluting them, said : — 
 
 " Someone was with me just now,' and there- 
 fore was I wrapt in thought.^' 
 
 So when they were gone, I returned to my 
 work, that is, to drawing angels' faces. And 
 while I was working the thought came to me 
 that I should say some words in rhyme, as 
 
184 Vita Nuova. 
 
 though to celebrate her anniversary, and should 
 inscribe them to those who had just come upon 
 me. And then I composed this sonnet, which 
 begins, Era venuta, and has two beginnings, so 
 that I will divide it according to both. 
 
 / say that according to the first, this sonnet has 
 three parts: in the first, I say that my lady was 
 already m my memory ; in the second, I tell of 
 that which love therefore did to me; in the third, 
 I speak of the effects of Love. The second begins, 
 "Love who, etc.; " the third,'" They came forth^' 
 This part is divided into two; in the one I say 
 that all my sighs issue forth speaking ; in the 
 uther I tell how some of them uttered certain 
 words diverse from the others. The second 
 begins, " But those'' 
 
 After the same fashion is it divided according 
 to the other beginning, save that in the first part 
 I say when it was that my lady thus came into my 
 mind, and this I say not in the other. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 First Beginning. 
 
 Into my thoughts there came that gentle lady, 
 who, for her worthiness, had been set by the 
 
Vita Nuova. 185 
 
 Lord most high in the Heaven of Humility/ 
 where Mary is. 
 
 Second Beginning. 
 
 Into my thoughts there came that gentle 
 lady, whom Love bewaileth, even at that 
 moment when her power made you come and 
 look upon that which I was fashioning. 
 
 Love — for in thought he felt her — was re- 
 awakened in my desolate heart, and said unto 
 the sighs : — 
 
 " Go ye forth," so that each of them went 
 forth sorrowing. 
 
 They came forth from out my breast, weeping, 
 with one single voice, which often brings the 
 tears of woe to my sad eyes. But those which 
 issued forth with most pain came out, saying : — 
 
 " O noble spirit ! this day is the year fulfilled 
 since thou hast ascended into heaven." 
 
 XXXVL 
 
 Some time after this, being in a place where I 
 called to mind the times that were sped, I 
 was standing right pensively and with such 
 
1 86 Vita Nuova. 
 
 dolorous thoughts that they made me wear a 
 look of dire dismay. Whereupon, becoming 
 aware of my perturbation, I raised mine eyes to 
 look whether others marked me ; and I saw a 
 gentle lady, young and very fair, who, from a 
 window, was regarding me with great pity, as it 
 seemed ; so that it seemed as though all pity 
 were in her assembled. Wherefore, seeing that 
 the wretched, when they perceive the compassion 
 of others for them, are the more readily moved 
 to tears, as though themselves had pity upon 
 themselves, I then felt mine eyes beginning to 
 be disposed for weeping, and therefore, fearing to 
 betray the wretchedness of my life, I departed 
 from before the eyes of this gentle being ; and 
 then I said within myself: — 
 
 " It cannot be, but with this compassionate 
 lady love must be most noble." 
 
 And so I resolved to compose a sonnet, 
 wherein I might accost her, and so include 
 therein all that is narrated in this discourse. 
 And since this discourse is sufficiently plain, I 
 will not divide it. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Mine eyes beheld how great a pity had shown 
 itself in your countenance, when you looked 
 
Vita Nuova. 187 
 
 upon the gestures and the posture which Love 
 •so often wrought in me. 
 
 Then saw I how you thought upon the plight 
 of my darkened life, so that fear entered into 
 mine heart, lest mine eyes should betray mine 
 abjectness. And I withdrew me from before 
 you, feeling that the tears were uprising from 
 mine heart, which was subjected to your gaze. 
 Afterwards said I within my sad soul : — 
 
 " Surely with this lady dwells the self-same 
 love as that which made me go weeping thus." 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 After this, it so happened that whenever this 
 lady beheld me, she became of a piteous sem- 
 blance, and a pallid hue, as though for love ; 
 wherefore I often called to mind my most 
 noble lady, who had been wont to appear before 
 me of like hue.' And certes, being many a 
 time unable to weep, or to disburden me of my 
 sadness, I would go to look upon this piteous 
 lady, who seemed to draw the tears from out 
 mine eyes by her look. And so the desire of 
 speech, and of speech with her, again came 
 upon me, and I indited this sonnet, which begins. 
 
1 88 Vita Nuova. 
 
 Color (Tamore, and is made plain, without 
 division, by the foregoing discourse. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Love's hue and pity's likeness never possessed 
 them of any lady's visage in such virondrous 
 wise, from looking often upon loving eyes and 
 sorrowful plaints, as upon yours, what time you 
 see before you my grievous countenance, where- 
 fore you bring to my mind a matter which 
 makes me greatly to dread lest my heart go 
 astray. I cannot refrain my spent eyes from 
 gazing oftentimes upon you, for the desire they 
 have of weeping ; and so greatly do you increase 
 their proneness, that they are altogether 
 consumed by their desire ; but in your presence, 
 weep they cannot. 
 
 XXXVIII. 
 
 I came to such a pass by the sight of this 
 lady, that mine eyes began to take too great a 
 pleasure in gazing upon her. So, many a time 
 would I vex myself thereat, and esteem myself 
 a base person enough, and again and again 
 would I curse the vanity of mine eyes, and say 
 to them, in thought ; — 
 
Vita Nuova. 1 89 
 
 " Once were ye wont to move to tears each 
 one who beheld your sorrowful plight; and now 
 it seems that ye would forget all this, for that 
 lady's sake, who taketh note of you, and taketh 
 no note of you save for sorrow of the glorious 
 lady whom ye were wont to mourn ; but what 
 ye can do, do ye, for I will call her to your 
 memory, and that right often, ye accursed eyes, 
 for never, until death was past, should your 
 tears have ceased to flow." 
 
 And when I had thus spoken within myself 
 with mine eyes, a sighing, most deep and grievous, 
 assailed me. And that this battle which I 
 waged within myself might remain unknown to 
 all, save to the wretch who felt it, I resolved to 
 make a sonnet, and to set down in it this my 
 terrible plight, and I indited the following, which' 
 begins, L'amaro lagrimar. 
 
 This sonnet has two parts ; in the first, I speak 
 to mine eyes, even as my heart spake within my- 
 self ; in the second, I remove a certain ambiguity, 
 by making it manifest who it is that so speaks ; 
 and this part begins, " Thus saith." It might 
 well undergo further divisions, but that would be 
 fruitless, seeing that it is rendered clear by the 
 foregoing discourse. 
 
1 90 Vita Nuova. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 " The bitter weeping which you were used to 
 make, mine eyes^ for so long a season, made all 
 people wonder with pity, as you have seen. 
 Now, meseems, ye would forget her, if I, on my 
 part, were so perfidious, as not to thwart your 
 every chance of so doing by reminding you of 
 her, for whom ye were wont to weep. Your 
 lightness makes me muse, and alarms me so 
 that I am in great fear because of a lady's face 
 who looks upon you. Never, save for death 
 alone, should ye forget our lady, who is dead." 
 
 So saith mine heart, and then sighs. 
 
 XXXIX. 
 
 The sight of this lady brought me to so new 
 a condition, that I often thought of her as of 
 one who pleased me only too much ; and thus 
 I thought : — 
 
 " This is a gentle lady, fair, young, discreet, 
 and haply so ordained by Love, that my life 
 may find some repose." 
 
 And many a time I thought of her in yet 
 more loving wise, so that mine heart consented 
 
Vita Nuova. 191 
 
 thereto, — that is, to such my reasoning. And 
 after -consenting thereto, I again bethought me, 
 as though moved by reason, and said within 
 myself : — 
 
 " Ah ! what thought is this, that I would 
 fain find comfort in so base a way, and have no 
 other thought save this ? " 
 
 Then another thought rose up, and said : — 
 
 " Now that thou hast been in such tribulation 
 of love, why wilt not find an escape from such 
 bitterness ? Thou seest that this is an inspira- 
 tion, which calls up love once again, and that 
 the place whence it proceeds is so noble as are 
 the eyes of that lady who has shown herself so 
 compassionate towards thee/' 
 
 Wherefore, after having often waged such 
 war within myself, I again desired to say certain 
 words ; and seeing that, in the war of thoughts, 
 those would conquer which spoke for her, it 
 seemed to me that I should address myself to 
 her ; and I indited this sonnet, which begins, 
 Gentil pensiero ; and I said " gentle," inasmuch 
 as I was discoursing with a gentle lady, though 
 in aught else it was most base. 
 
 In this sonnet, T make two parts of myself, 
 according as my thoughts were divided in two. 
 The one part I call heart, that is, " desire ; " the 
 
192 Vita Nuova. 
 
 other soul, that is, ''reason." And that it is 
 fitting to call the desire heart, and the reason soul, 
 is sufficiently manifest to all those to whom T 
 would wish it to be clear. True it is that in the 
 preceding sonnet I set the part of the heart in 
 opposition to that of the eyes, and that appears 
 contrary to what T say in the present ; and I 
 therefore say, that there too I m.ean " the heart " 
 to stand for " desire," seeing that a yet greater 
 desire was mine again to call to mind my most 
 gentle lady, than was that of looking upon the 
 other, although I had some desire for this, but it 
 seemed a slight one ; whence it appears that the 
 one expression is not contrary to the other. This 
 sonnet has three parts : in the first, I begin by 
 telling this lady how my desire all burns towards 
 her ; in the second, I tell how the soul, that is, 
 the reason, speaks to the heart, that is, to the 
 desire ; in the third, I say how this replies to it. 
 The second begins, '^ The soul saith ;" the third, 
 " The heart replies'' 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 A gentle thought, which speaketh of you, 
 often comes to dwell with me, and discourses of 
 love so sweetly as to win mine heart to consent 
 to it. 
 
Vifa Nuova. 193 
 
 The soul saith to the heart : — 
 
 " Who is this that cometh to solace our mind ? 
 whose virtue is so puissant as to let no other 
 remain with us." 
 
 The heart replies : — 
 
 " O brooding soul, this is a fresh spirit of love 
 which brings his desires before me ; and his life 
 and all his might are sprung from the eyes of 
 that pitiful lady, who was so sore vexed at our 
 anguish." 
 
 XL. 
 
 Against this foe to reason, there arose within 
 me, one day, at about the ninth hour,' a strong 
 phantasy ; so that I seemed to behold my 
 glorious Beatrice in those crimson garments in 
 which she first appeared before mine eyes ; ° 
 and she seemed young, of like age to that in 
 which I first beheld her. Straightway I began 
 to think upon her, and remembering me, after 
 the 'order of the bygone time, mine heart began 
 to repent right grievously of the desire, by 
 which it had, for some days; so basely let itself 
 be possessed, contrary to reason's firmness ; 
 and, such evil desire now banished, all my 
 
 O 
 
194 Vita Nuova. 
 
 thoughts again returned to their most gentle 
 Beatrice. And I say that from that time forth 
 I began to think of her so, with a heart all full 
 of shame, that my sighs betrayed this, many a 
 time ; for in their passage forth, they all well- 
 nigh declared what my heart debated of, that 
 is, the name of that most gentle one, and how 
 she departed from us. And many times it 
 chanced that some thought bare so great a 
 grief within it, that I would forget what it was, 
 and where I was. 
 
 By this reawakening of my sighs, my tears, 
 now somewhat assuaged, were re-kindled too, 
 in such wise that mine eyes were like two things 
 which desired nought save to weep : and it 
 often happened that from their long continued 
 weeping, they were surrounded with a purple 
 hue, such as is commonly seen where one has 
 undergone martyrdom.' Whence it is apparent 
 that they received the due reward of their 
 vanity, so that from that time forth they could 
 not look upon anyone whose glances had power 
 to seduce them to a like intent. 
 
 Therefore, wishful that such an evil desire and 
 vain temptation might be shown to be so utterly 
 extinguished that no doubt could arise from 
 the rhymes which I had previously written, I 
 
Viia Nuova. 195 
 
 determined to make a sonnet which should 
 comprise the substance of this discourse. And 
 then I said, Lasso perforza, etc. 
 
 I said "Alas!" inasmuch as I was ashamed 
 that mine eyes had so given themselves over to 
 vanity. I do not divide this sonnet, because its 
 sense is sufficiently clear. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Alas ! by force of the many sighs which take 
 their birth from the thoughts in mine heart, 
 mine eyes are vanquished, and have no strength 
 to regard any person who looks on them. And 
 such are they become that they are like unto 
 two desires of weeping and of displaying grief, 
 and many time they weep so, that Love encir- 
 cles them with a crown of martyrdom. These 
 thoughts, and the sighs which I cast forth, be- 
 come so full of anguish within mine heart, that 
 Love swooneth therefrom, so do they stir his 
 ruth ; for these sorrowful ones bear written on 
 themselves that sweet name of my lady, and 
 many words concerning her death. 
 
 O 2 
 
ig6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 After this tribulation, it came to pass (at that 
 season when many people were going to behold 
 that blessed image, which Jesus Christ left us as 
 an ensample of His most beauteous face,' the 
 which my lady beholds in glory) that certain 
 pilgrims'* were going by a way which leads 
 through the city wherein that most gentle lady 
 had been born, lived and died ; and they went, 
 as seemed to me, right pensively. So, as I 
 regarded them, I said within myself: — 
 
 " These pilgrims, methinks, are from a distant 
 land, neither have they ever heard tell of my 
 lady, nor know they aught concerning her ; 
 therefore are their thoughts set upon other things 
 than her, yea, haply they are thinking of their 
 distant friends, who are unknown to us." 
 Then said I to myself : — 
 " If I could but hold them back for a while, 
 I would surely make them to mourn, for I would 
 say to them such words as would move to tears 
 each one that heard them." 
 
 Then when they had passed out of my sight, 
 I resolved to make a sonnet, wherein I should 
 set forth all that I had said within myself ; and 
 in order to stir up the greater pity, I determined 
 
Viia Nuova, 197 
 
 to speak as though I had held converse with 
 them. Then I indited this sonnet, which begins, 
 Deh peregrini. 
 
 T said ^^ pilgrims " (peregrini) according to the 
 wider signification of the word ; for the word 
 ^^ pilgrims" may be taken in two senses, one 
 wider, and the other narrower. In the wider, in 
 so far as each one is a pilgrim who is out of his 
 own fatherland ; in the narrower sense, no one is 
 deemed to be a pilgrim,, who is not going to the 
 shrine of St. fames^ or returning ; and therefore 
 it should be known that in three manners are 
 properly named such folk as are travelling on the 
 service of the Most High. They are called^' Palm- 
 ers" {Palmieri) when they go beyond the seas, 
 thither whence they often bring back palm ; they 
 are called " Pilgrims '' {Peregrini) when they go 
 to the shrine of Galicia, seeing that the shrine of 
 St. James was more distant from his native land 
 than was that of any other apostle ; they are called 
 " Roamers" {Romei) when they go to Rome,* 
 whither those whom I call " Pilgrims " were going. 
 This sonnet is not divided, beaxuse its sense has 
 been sufficiently declared. 
 
198 Vita Nuova. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Ye pilgrims, treading thus your pensive way, 
 Dreaming, perchance, of things far other- 
 where, 
 From such a distant country do ye fare, 
 
 I pray you, as your semblance seems to say ? 
 
 For nought at all of sorrow you betray. 
 As through our sorrowing city you repair, 
 Like them that, all unwitting, have no care 
 
 For that which causeth her so sore dismay. 
 
 But deign to pause, and hearken to my rede. 
 For, sure, the sighs within my breast declare 
 That then with tears ye would depart from 
 hence : 
 
 She mourneth for her Beatrice dead : — 
 And the discourse men hold concerning her 
 Hath force to move all hearts to condolence. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 At this time two gentlewomen sent to me, 
 praying me to send them some of my rhymes ; 
 wherefore, bethinking me of their nobility, I 
 purposed to send them some, and to make some 
 new thing, which I would send them with the 
 rest, to the intent that I might the more 
 
Vita Nuova. 199 
 
 honourably comply with their requests. And I 
 then composed a sonnet, which describes my 
 condition, and sent it them together with the 
 preceding sonnet, and with another, which 
 begins, Venite a intender. The sonnet which 
 I then made is, Oltre la spera, etc. 
 
 This sonnet containeth five parts : in the first 
 I say whither my thought goes, giving it the name 
 of one of its effects ; in the second, I say why it 
 ascends, and who causes it so to do ; in the third, 
 I say what it sees, namely, an honoured lady. 
 And I then call it "Pilgrim spirit" seeing that 
 it ascends in spirit, and even as a pilgrim, who is 
 beyond his native land. In the fourth, I say how 
 it sees her in such wise, that is, of such quality, 
 that I cannot conceive her; ' that is to say, my 
 thought soars in the quality of her that my 
 intellect cannot comprehend it; seeing that our 
 intellect stands in such relation to those blessed 
 souls as doth our feeble eye to the sun ; and so 
 saith the philosopher in the second of his 
 Metaphysics ; ' in the fifth part, I say that 
 although my sight cannot attain to where my 
 thought draws me, namely, to her admirable 
 quality, this at least T understand, namely, that 
 such thought is of my lady, because I often find 
 her name in that thought of mine. And at the 
 
200 Vita Nuova. 
 
 end of this fifth part I say, "Dear ladies mine" 
 as giving it to be understood that they are ladies 
 to whom I speak. The second part begins," A 
 fresh intelligence ;" the third, " When it has 
 reached;" the fourth, " But of my lady's semblance;" 
 the fifth, " But yet I know." It might be divided 
 still more subtly, and be made yet farther under- 
 stood, but it ptay pass with this division, and 
 so I do not concern myself to divide it further. 
 
 Sonnet. 
 
 Beyond the sphere, which turns in widest gyres,' 
 The sigh mounts up which from mine, heart 
 
 doth rove ; 
 A fresh intelligence, which weeping Love 
 
 Implants in it, its upward ardour fires ; 
 
 When it has reached the goal of its desire, 
 It sees a lady, honoured there above, 
 And the great radiance, which from her doth 
 move, 
 
 The pilgrim sprite in wonderment admires. 
 But of my lady's semblance, when that sigh 
 Would tell again, my poor heart, fain to 
 
 hear, — 
 So subtle its discourse — can nought divine : 
 
 But yet I know he tells me of my dear. 
 For " Beatrice 1 " is its constant cry. 
 And so I understand, dear ladies mine. 
 
Vita Nuova. 201 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 After this sonnet, there appeared to me a 
 wondrous vision, wherein I beheld things which 
 made me resolve to say no more concerning my 
 Blessed One, until I could treat of her more 
 worthily. And that I may attain unto this, I 
 study with all my might, as she, truly, knoweth. 
 Wherefore, if it shall be the pleasure of Him by 
 whom all things live, that my life shall yet 
 endure for some years, I hope to say concerning 
 her that which has never been said concerning 
 any woman. And then may it please Him who 
 is the Lord of courtesy that my soul may come 
 to behold the glory of its lady, that is, of that 
 Beatrice, blessing and blessed,' who in glory 
 looks upon the face of Him, qui est per omnia 
 saecula benedictus.^ 
 
 END OF THE VITA NUOVA. 
 
NOTES. 
 
 I. 
 
 ' Rubrica. The title, head-note, or summary of con- 
 tents of a book or chapter ; so called because in illu- 
 minated manuscripts they were generally written in red 
 (Lat. rubei:). 
 
 II. 
 
 ' Luminous heaven. The sphere of the sun, which 
 illumines the universe ; the fifth heaven, according to 
 the Ptolemaic astronomy, adopted by medieval science 
 and theology. For a more detailed account of this 
 system, and Dante's use of it, v. post, c. xxx., and notes 
 thereon. 
 
 ' This passage has led some commentators, and 
 notably the most eminent among them. Dr. G. A. 
 Scartazzini {Dante- Handbuch, iii.), to suppose that 
 Beatrice was a feigned name, adopted by Dante, after 
 the manner of many singers, to enable him to celebrate 
 his lady's praise, without disclosing her personality. 
 Their point is, why should Dante say that " she was 
 called Beatrice by many who knew not what she was 
 called," if Beatrice was her true name? for then she 
 would have been so called, not by many only, but by all. 
 
Notes. 203 
 
 Dr. Scartazzini's slightest suggestions are worthy of 
 most profound respect ; nevertheless, I cannot but 
 think that in the present instance he has given way to 
 over refinement. Dante's own junior contemporaries are 
 so undoubting in their identification of Dante's lady with 
 Beatrice Portinari, that something more than a mere 
 assumption is necessary to invalidate their assertion. I 
 have, therefore, interpreted this passage as meaning, 
 " She was called Beatrice by many who did not know 
 how appropriate this name was to her," Beatrice signi- 
 fying, " she who blesses, or gives bliss," a signification 
 at which Dante frequently hints, both in the Vita Nuova 
 and elsewhere (v. especially Vita Nuova, c. xliii., and 
 note thereon ; Convilo ii. 2. Quella Beatrice beata, che 
 vive in cielo con gU angeli, e in terra colla tnia anima). 
 The word "many," then, would not mean that "many 
 called her Beatrice, being ignorant of her true name ; '' 
 but, "many called her Beatrice without knowing how 
 fitly she was so called." 
 
 ' In the Convito II. vi., Dante states that the heaven 
 of fixed stars, or eighth heaven, moves from West to 
 East at the rate of one hundred years to a degree. Thus 
 the twelfth part of a degree would be eight years and 
 four months. 
 
 * Umile, utnilta, are used in various senses throughout 
 the Vita Nuova, to express not only what we generally- 
 mean by humility, lowliness, etc., but also, and with 
 subtle truth, all that is characterized by gentleness, 
 worthiness, and measured dignity ; and even the 
 chastened exaltation proceeding from the surrender of 
 self, and the recipience of ennobling influences from 
 without. See especially the passage pointed out in n. i 
 to c. xxviii. 
 
 ' According to the system of physiology current in and 
 after the Middle Ages, and based upon Bl. II. of Aris- 
 
204 ^it<^ Nuova. 
 
 totle De Gen. An., the vital functions of the body, the 
 perceptions, the cogitations, etc., were carried on by 
 means of certain very subtle essences called spirits, 
 each of which had its own special domain in the body. 
 Thus, some regulated the blood, others the digestion, 
 others, whose seat was in the brain, the perceptions ; 
 and to these last the " sensitive spirits " conveyed the 
 impressions which they had received from the external 
 objects in the peripheral parts of the body. 
 
 This theory was fully accepted by many of the most 
 eminent men in science and philosophy, so late even as 
 the latter part of the seventeenth century. 
 
 Here, as in many other passages in the Vita Nuova, 
 Dante, by a quasi-mythological process, bestows upon 
 these essences, or spirits, a certain dramatic personality. 
 Cp. post cc. iv., xi., xiv. 
 
 ' In the language of the old psychology, the term 
 Imagination ha? a much wider sense than that now 
 commonly given to it. The name was applied to the 
 (supposed) formative faculty of the soul, which gave 
 form to the perceptions of which the sensation and re- 
 flection supplied the matter. After the manner of the 
 times a certain objective reality was ascribed to it, and 
 it was credited with most powerful influences over the 
 physical and psychical states both of the owner and of 
 others. It played a most important part in the operations 
 of magic, witchcraft, fascination, and the like, and it is 
 curious and interesting to note how through this mass 
 of error pierce faint gleams of truths lately placed upon 
 a scientific basis by modem researches in mental sugges- 
 tion, hypnotism, and the like. 
 
 The Imagination received and conveyed its impressions 
 with most efficacy through the eyes, and this Dante, 
 with his love for scientific method, doubtless had in 
 
Notes. 205 
 
 mind in the passages of the present work referred to in 
 the last note, and in many others. 
 
 The passages in question will be further illustrated by 
 the following extract from Reginald Scot's Discoverie of 
 Witchcraft, .citing the great Neapolitan physician 
 Giovanni Battista Porta : " This fascination . . . though 
 it begin by touching or breathing, is alwaies accom- 
 plished and finished by the eie, as an extermination or 
 expulsion of the spirits through the eies, approching to 
 the hart of the bewitched, and infecting the same. . . . 
 And the lightest and finest spirits, ascending into the 
 highest parts of the head, doo fall into the eies, and so 
 on from thence sent foorth, as being of all other parts of 
 the bodie the most cleare, and fullest of veines and 
 pores, and with the very spirit or vapor proceeding 
 thence, is conueied out as it were by beames and 
 streames a certeine fierie force." 
 
 ' Compare post c. xii., note 2. 
 
 ' Quoted by Aristotle Nic. Eth. vii., i, from a transla- 
 tion of which Dante no doubt took the passage. 
 
 ' For the ennobling influence of Dante's love for 
 Beatrice, cp. post c. xi. To the present passage seem 
 to refer the lines in which Beatrice, in the Earthly 
 Paradise, describes her influence over her youthful 
 lover : — 
 
 " These looks sometime upheld him ; for I show'd 
 My youthful eyes, and led him by their light 
 In upward walking.'' 
 
 {Purg. XXX. — Gary's Translation?^ 
 
 '" Exemplar: i.e. the "book of memory" referred to 
 in c. i., the original whence Dante drew his narra- 
 tive. 
 
 " That is, which occupied a greater and more im- 
 portant place in the said " book of memory.'' 
 
2o6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 III. 
 
 ' Nel grande secolo. 
 
 ^ Mi pareva vedere. It would be almost permissible 
 to avoid the constant recurrence of the words " I seemed,'' 
 " it appeared," and the like, by simply using the past 
 tense of the verb which follows ; as, " I saw," etc. In 
 the extremely analytic state into which the vernacular 
 Latin fell for some time before it passed into the Italian, 
 it is common to find all the tenses formed with the aid 
 of other verbs, used as auxiliaries : volo, habeo, possum, 
 videor, etc. ; e.g. visus sum habere=haheo (v. Fauriel, 
 Dante et les Origines de la Langue et de la Literature 
 Italiennes, Vol. II. Sect. xiv.). A corresponding usage 
 prevailed more or less in the early Italian. 
 
 • Cp. Paradise xv. 35. Toccar lo fondo 
 
 Delia mia grazia e del mio Paradiso. 
 " I reached the profoundest depths of my grace and 
 of my Paradise." 
 
 * An instance of the mystical import formerly attached 
 to numbers, and especially of the personal significance 
 which Dante ascribed to the number nine, of which we 
 shall find many examples farther on. See especially 
 c. XXX. n. I. 
 
 ' "Makers." This old English word for a folk-poet 
 is perhaps the aptest translation of trovatori (lit. 
 "finders"), although these were not strictly popular 
 poets. However, Dante, in his treatise De Vulgari 
 Eloquentia, distinguishes between the trovatoti and 
 the poets, in that the former merely aimed at the artless 
 expression of their talents, while the latter rhymed in 
 accordance with the rules of art. The word Trovatore 
 is the same as the French Trouveur and Provencal 
 Troubadour, though these three classes of rhymers 
 differed more or less both in their mode of life and in 
 the nature of their compositions. 
 
Notes. 207 
 
 • It was a frequent custom of the Troubadours to 
 send to one another their compositions for criticism. 
 Thus Aymeric de Penguillian sends to Sordello a 
 Fabliau ending : " This envoi bears my Fabliau to the 
 March, to Dom Sordello, that he may pass loyal judg- 
 ment thereon, according to his wont." 
 
 For the replies to the present sonnet by various poets 
 see the Introduction to the present volume, p. 57, sq. 
 
 ' " He ; '' that is, Guido Cavalcanti. This " foremost 
 friend " of Dante belonged to one of the noble houses of 
 Florence, and was a son of that Cavalcante Cavalcanti 
 whom Dante places in Hell among the holders of infidel 
 dogmas ; opinions which were shared by his son, ac- 
 cording to some accounts, though it is probable that 
 herein the latter was confused with his father. Guido 
 was distinguished by all knightly and social accom- 
 plishments, though his high qualities were alloyed with 
 a fastidious and haughty temper. He was of Ghibelline 
 tendencies, and one of the most prominent of the Bianchi 
 faction, and was exiled to Sarzana by the government of 
 which Dante was a member, in their last desperate effort 
 to preserve their country by banishing the heads of both 
 the warring factions. He was allowed to return before 
 long, but died of a fever contracted in his unhealthy 
 place of exile (August, 1300). He was one of the fore- 
 most poets of his day, surpassing most of his contem- 
 poraries alike in artistic skill and in depth of thought. 
 Like the rest, he treated of their eternal theme of love, 
 but, following the traditions of Guido Guinicelli, of love 
 in its symbolical and metaphysical aspects, although he 
 wrote many lyrics, full of grace and music, in honour of 
 his more earthly loves, which were various. He is said 
 to have held in slight esteem the outward beauties of 
 form and diction ; if so, his practice was widely different 
 from his theory. He was about fifteen years older than 
 
2o8 Vi^a Nuova. 
 
 Dante, whom he doubtless influenced in many ways ; in 
 politics, in the metaphysical treatment of love, and in 
 the preference of the vernacular, of which he seems to 
 have been the ardent champion (v. c. xxxi. post), going 
 so far as even to depreciate Virgil himself (v. Inf. c. x.). 
 
 IV. 
 
 ' Cp. ante c. ii. 
 
 ^ Love's tokens, i.e. pallor, trembling, etc. Cp. cc. ii., 
 iii., xiv., xvi., xxiv., etc., etc. 
 
 V, 
 
 1 The Virgin Mary, whom, as we are told, Beatrice 
 held in especial honour (post c. xxix), as did Dante 
 himself (Par. xxiii., xxxi., xxxii.), haply for the sake of 
 her dead votaress. 
 
 VI. 
 
 ' The Sirventese was one of the forms of poetry in 
 vogue with the Troubadours. The literal meaning of 
 the word is " service song,'' and this style of composition, 
 like the rest, was originally used for amorous subjects ; 
 later on, however, it was usually devoted to satire. It is 
 supposed to have suggested the terza rima. 
 
 VII. 
 
 ^ Not written in the strict form to which the sonnet 
 has been confined since the end of the 13th century. 
 The older poets applied the term Suono or Sonnetto to 
 
Notes. 209 
 
 any short poem of from nine to eighteen, or even twenty 
 lines ; generally, however, to compositions expressive of 
 passion. Fra Guittone of Arezzo did much to give the 
 Sonnet regular form, which may be deemed to have been 
 finally determined by Dante himself. The following 
 metrical translation of the present sonnet is nearly in 
 the form of the original : — 
 
 ye who on Love's way are journeying, 
 See, briefly tarrying. 
 
 If any sorrow like my sorrow be ; 
 Deign ye to list (it is mine only prayer), 
 And to declare 
 
 Am I not of all grief the inn and key, 
 Love, surely not for my slight worthiness, 
 But of his graciousness. 
 
 Once placed me in a life so sweet, so dear, 
 That oft concerning me the folk have said, 
 " How hath he merited 
 
 To bear within a heart so light of cheer ? " 
 But now, my courage, which from Love's own store 
 
 Was ever wont to draw its nourishment, 
 
 Being wholly gone and spent, 
 
 1 am left so poor, I have no words therefor. 
 And thus it is that, fain to do as they 
 
 Who, for, mere shame, disguise their penury, 
 I wear an outward show of jollity, 
 While in my heart I mourn, and waste away. 
 ' Uogni dolor ostello. The image is repeated in Purg. 
 vi. 76. Ohi serva Italia, di dolore ostello. Petrarch 
 frequently makes use of it, and so does Shakespeare, 
 Ric. II., V. I :— 
 
 Thou most beauteous inn. 
 Why should hard favour'd grief be lodged in thee ? 
 ' Lamentations i. 12. Quoted from the Vulgate, the 
 translation according to our A.V. being : " Is it nothing, 
 
 P 
 
2IO Vifa Nuova. 
 
 to you, all ye that pass by ? behold, and see if there be 
 any sorrow like unto my sorrow." 
 
 ■• I.e. the Sonnet was ostensibly the expression of 
 Dante's regret at the departure of the lady with whom 
 he was supposed to be enamoured, whereas in reality he 
 meant to express his sorrow at losing the wonted means 
 of disguising his love. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 ' This, too, is rather a Ballata, than a Sonnet, strictly 
 so called. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ' The Pilgrims who constitute so common and so 
 picturesque a feature of Middle Ages, would appear to 
 have had a powerful fascination for Dante's imagination, 
 cp. post c. xli. and note 2 thereon. 
 
 ' " Gave me of his own substance :" — i.e. united himself 
 with, entered into, made himself one with me. 
 
 ' " Took Unto myself :" — see last note. 
 
 X. 
 
 ' In the /«/; c.ii. Virgil addresses Beatrice : "O Lady 
 of Virtue." For the ennobling effect upon Dante of his 
 love for Beatrice, cp. ante c. ii. and post c. xiii. ; also, 
 especially Purg. cc. xxx. and xxxi., passim. 
 
 XI. 
 • " Spirit of Love," cp. note 5 to c. ii. 
 
Notes. 2 1 1 
 
 XII. 
 
 1 This somewhat enigmatical saying may be interpreted 
 as meaning that Love, in his essence, remains the same 
 unmoved by the accidents which befall his votaries ; 
 though these, of whom Dante was one, are liable to be 
 affected by all the vicissitudes of human fortunes. Dante 
 probably had in his mind the definition of God attributed 
 to Hermes Trismegistus, as "a circle whose centre is 
 everywhere and his circumference nowhere." 
 
 ' V. ante c. ii. and cp. Purg. c. xxx. " That lofty virtue, 
 which had penetrated me, ere yet I had issued from my 
 childhood." 
 
 ^ The English Ballad, and the French Ballade, though 
 the same in name and in origin, each being, as the name 
 implies, a song accompanied with the dance, differ in 
 construction from each other, and from the Italian 5a//a2'a. 
 The last is, properly, a lyric of two or more stanzas, or 
 strofetti, in the first of which is set out the theme to be 
 amplified in the following. Strictly speaking, the first 
 stanza should be repeated at the end of each of the 
 others. Dante, in his treatise Ve Vulgari Elogueniia, 
 assigns to the Ballata a place midway in dignity between 
 the Canzone and the Sonnet. 
 
 * " Pit/s key : " — cp. the Sonnet in c. vii. ante. 
 
 ' I.e. in c. XXV., where he expounds and defends the 
 poetical licence of using personifications of abstract 
 ideas. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 ' Cp. ante c. xi. n. i. 
 
 ' A maxim of. the Schoolmen, and in accordance with 
 the doctrines of Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, 
 P 2 
 
212 Vita Nuova. 
 
 who held, that the abstract conceptions upon which we 
 bestow generic names, though not possessing substan- 
 tive reality in themselves, are yet indicative of the real 
 nature of things ; thus aifecting a via media between the 
 extremes of realism and nominalism. 
 ^ Cp. Purg. iv. 
 As one who standeth musing on his way, 
 His heart still journeying while his body lingers. 
 And Purg. ii. "As a man that goes, and knows not 
 whither he cometh." 
 
 * These arguments, pro and con, as to the desirability 
 of Love's lordship, are similar to the theses which were 
 debated, with all form and solemnity, in the mediaeval 
 Courts of Love. 
 
 XIV. 
 
 • This wedding feast is supposd by many commentators 
 to have been that of Beatrice herself, but as to this there 
 is no evidence one way or the other. 
 
 ^ Cp. ante cc. ii. and iii. and post xvi., xxiv., etc. At 
 his meeting in the next world with the glorified Beatrice, 
 Dante again experiences the tremors which had been 
 wont to assail him when in her presence : v. Purg. xxx. : 
 " And my spirit, which had now abode so long since it 
 had been amated in her presence, trembling and faint, 
 without the eyes' intelligence, but by the occult virtue 
 which moved from her, felt the old love's mighty power." 
 And a few lines farther on : — " Less than a drachm of 
 blood is left me which trembles not ; I perceive the traces 
 of the old love." 
 
 ' That is to say, his whole vital functions were con- 
 centrated into his gaze, to the exclusion of all the other 
 faculties. 
 
Notes, 213 
 
 * Cp. note 10 to c. xix. post. 
 
 ' I.e. that trasfigurazione, or altered demeanour, 
 pallor, trembling, etc., of which he so often speaks as 
 coming over him at the sight of Beatrice. 
 
 6 " He," i.e. Love. 
 
 ' " Chamber of tears!' v. ante c. xii. 
 
 XV. 
 
 ' Trasfigurazione, i.e. the changes before mentioned as 
 having been wrought in his face by emotion. 
 
 2 That is, his altered features would move pity in 
 others, were it not that such pity was checked by the 
 ridicule of Beatrice and the other ladies. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 ' Oscura qualtta : — the same as the trasfigurazione 
 before mentioned. 
 ^ Cp. note 2 to c. xiv. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 ' Cp. Purg. xxiv. 52 sqq. " Such an one am I, that when 
 Love inspires, I write ; and even as he dictates within, so 
 do I testify." 
 
 ' The Canzone was one of the poetical forms cultivated 
 by the Troubadours ; though the compositions of theirs 
 which pass under this name are of much slighter nature 
 than the majestic Canzoni of Dante and Petrarch. This 
 grander style is said to have been the creation of Dante's 
 friend Lapo Gianni, and their contemporary Gianni Alfani, 
 ( Trucchi Poesie Italiune Jnedite Introd. sec. 68), though 
 
214 Vita Nuova. 
 
 this assertion would seem unjust to the claims of the 
 Sicilian Trov/z/ore ]a.co^o da, Lentmo. Despite its name 
 {Cantid), it is said that the Canzone was never set to 
 music ; see Dante, De Vulgari Eloquentia, c. II. 3, where 
 he terms it " the completed action of him who composed 
 the harmonious words." Hence he sets it above all other 
 modes of lyric poetry in dignity, and declares it eminently 
 fitted for the treatment of ethical and philosophic sub- 
 jects. 
 
 ' This Canzone was apparently a favourite of Dante, 
 for he makes Buonaggiunta da Lucca greet him in Purga- 
 tory as its author, and hail him as the creator of that 
 " sweet, new style " to which earlier bards had failed to 
 attain. Purg. xxiv. 
 
 * Ma ra^onarper isfogar la menie. Cp. Hamlet II. ii. 
 " Unpack my heart with words." 
 
 ' I.e. not to pitch his song in so high a key that he 
 would become dismayed by the greatness of his under- 
 taking. 
 
 ^ Cp. the passage from Jacopo da Lentino quoted in 
 note 9 to the Introduction. 
 
 ' An indication that Dante's great poem was already 
 foreshadowed in his mind, though not, certainly, in the 
 form which it eventually assumed, and, at the same time, 
 an instance of the symmetry with which Dante's intellec- 
 tual self expanded, and of the unity which prevailed 
 through all the periods of his mental life. 
 
 * Cp. ante c. xi. 
 
 ' "Fair, not pale." From c. xxxvii. we learn that 
 Beatrice's tint was of a pale hue, " like that of Love." 
 This is the only definite particular we have respecting 
 her personal appearance. 
 
 '" Cp. the Convito, III. viii. " In the countenance there 
 are two places wherein the soul hath most especial 
 efficiency (seeing that in these two places all the three 
 
Notes y 215 
 
 natures of the soul have jurisdiction, that is to say, in the 
 eyes and in the mouth), and which she most especially 
 adorns and bestows all her care to render beautiful. And 
 in these two places, I say that all those delights appear 
 when I say ' in her eyes and in her sweet smile ; ' which 
 two places, by a fair similitude, may be called the bal- 
 conies of the lady who inhabits the mansion of the body, the 
 soul, that is ; for here, though veiled, as it were, she is 
 wont ofttimes to show herself. She showeth herself 
 in the eyes so plainly, that her present passion may be 
 read by any who regardeth well. . . . And what is laugh- 
 ter if not a coruscation of the souTs delight; a light, that 
 is, which appeareth without, according as it is within ? " 
 
 The eyes and the smile never lost their fascination for 
 Dante. The eyes of Beatrice are commemorated in count- 
 less passages of the Commedia, and the smile of her, of his 
 guide, and of the saints in Paradise constantly recurs, 
 expressive of love, encouragement, approbation, and even 
 of playful chiding. 
 
 XX. 
 
 ' Cp. Guido Guinicelli : — 
 
 Al cor gentil ripara sempre amore, 
 
 Come I'augel in selva alia verdura, 
 Nfe fe amor anziche gentil core, 
 
 Nfe gentil core anziche amor, Natura. 
 " Love aye repairs to the gentle heart, even as the bird 
 in woodland to the green brake ; nor did Nature make 
 love before the gentle heart, nor the gentle heart before 
 love." 
 
 2 " The Sage," i.e. Guido Guinicelli, of Bologna, de- 
 scended from one of the noblest families there. He was 
 one of the earliest of the Italian poets to employ the 
 
2i6 Vita Nuova. 
 
 forms of love poetry cultivated by the Troubadours in the 
 treatment of moral and philosophical subjects. He was 
 probably the greatest of Dante's predecessors, and exer- 
 cised great influence over him. He vifas a notary by 
 profession, like so many of the poets of his day. He was 
 an ardent Ghibelline, and was driven into exile upon the 
 fall of that party in his native place. He died 1276-7. 
 
 ' Cp. Purg. XXV. 64, where he says, in condemnation 
 of Averrhoes, " He divorced from the soul the possible 
 reason." 
 
 * The same idea is expanded in the Purg. xviii. 19, 
 sqq. : " The soul, created prompt to love, is apt to 
 turn towards whatso pleaseth it, so soon as it is roused 
 into action by pleasure. Your apprehension derives 
 from the actual being intention, and so develops it 
 within you as to make the soul turn towards it. And if, 
 thus turned, the soul incline towards it, this inclination is 
 Love." 
 
 This is in accordance with the psychology of St. 
 Thomas Aquinas, who affirms that the Will is moved by 
 the Intellect ^er modunt finis; i.e. by the Intellect set- 
 ting before it some end as desirable. The Apprehension 
 is defined by him as the combination of the Sensitive and 
 Intellective faculties. 
 
 ' In the Aristotelian philosophy, adopted by the School- 
 men, matter iykx], to iiroKei/ievov) of itself was regarded as 
 existing " potentially " merely, being actualised by the 
 accession oiform (ftSos), or that individualizing and vivify- 
 ing principle which made it actually existent (oirois ov). 
 
 XXI. 
 ' Cp. Parad. xxviii. : — 
 
 " The beauteous eyes whence love 
 Had made the leash to take me." 
 
 (Gary's Translation.) 
 
Notes. 217 
 
 So in Purg. xxxi. 116, Beatrice's eyes are called "the 
 emeralds, from which love formerly drew his arms 
 against thee." 
 
 It is probable that in these passages, and others, 
 Dante means more than that he was enslaved by the 
 beauty of Beatrice's eyes. He refers, most likely, to 
 the belief current in his own day, and long afterwards, 
 that the passions of the soul — Love, Hate, Envy, 
 Malevolence, etc. — could be conveyed from one person 
 to another by means of the " spirits," which chiefly held 
 intercommunion through the most sensitive part of the 
 body, the eyes. (See notes 5 and 6 to c. ii., ante.) 
 This belief, which was handed down from classical 
 antiquity, has always prevailed, and still prevails, in the 
 East ; it was much dwelt upon by the mystico-physical 
 School of Paracelsus and the Alchemists, and still sur- 
 vives in that farrago of worn-out superstitions, modern 
 Theosophy. 
 
 ' Cp. note 10 to c. xix. 
 
 XXII. 
 
 ' Andar senza atto vile. And again, a little further on, 
 the ladies are said to be quasi ingentilite by Beatrice's 
 presence. Cp. an early anonymous Sicilian poet : Alio 
 splendor di sua ricca bontade Ciascuna donna e donzella 
 faggenza. " By the splendour of her rich beauty each 
 dame and damsel becomes more noble." And cp. ante 
 c. xix., and post c. xxvii. 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 ' Another instance of the mystical import of the 
 number Nine in connection with Beatrice. See espe- 
 cially post C. XXX. 
 
2 1 8 Vzta Nuova. 
 
 ^ In his account of this vision Dante has followed St. 
 Matthew's Gospel, xxiv. 29, sqq. ; Isaiah xiii. 10 ; 
 Ezekiel xxxii. 7. 
 
 ' So in the Purgatory xxix. 20, 31, the approach of 
 the glorified Beatrice was preceded by songs of 
 " Hosannah." 
 
 * So in the Commedia Dante says : " In Him is our 
 peace." 
 
 ' Cp. the second Sonnet in c. viii. 
 
 ° I.e. the pallor to which he so often refers. 
 
 ^ Rain of manna. Probably a reminiscence of the 
 classical authors, who represent the gods as leaving a 
 fragrance behind them on their departure. 
 
 ^ I.e. death. 
 
 ' Cp. the conclusion of the second sonnet in c. viii., 
 written upon the death of the young lady, Beatrice's 
 friend. 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 ' So in Purg. xxiv. 51. "Such an one am I, that I 
 write when Love inspires me, and even as he dictates 
 within, so do I testify." And cp. ante c. xix. 
 
 ^ That Monna Vanna, or Giovanna, the love of Guido 
 Cavalcanti, to whom Dante refers in that most exquisite 
 sonnet, Guido vorrei che tu, e Lapo, ed to, of which the 
 following translation gives the sense, though nothing 
 more : — 
 
 Guido, I would that Lapo, thou and I 
 Were rapt away by wizard's gramarye, 
 And set upon a bark, which o'er the sea, 
 At our good will, before each wind should fly ; 
 That so from every hurt, which cruelty 
 
 Of time or fortune brings, we might be free, 
 Growing each day more wishful, I and ye, 
 
Notes. 219 
 
 For ever one with other to abye : 
 And our kind necromaunt should thither bring 
 Thy Monna Vanna, Monna Bice, too, 
 With her who in my lay * the thirtieth is ; 
 Then — love the theme of all our reasoning, — 
 Each one should be content, the ages through. 
 To dwell with us, as we with them, I wis. 
 ' Cp. the sonnet in c. viii., where Beatrice, bending 
 over the body of her dead friend, is described as " Love 
 in his proper form.'' 
 
 * A gentle rebuke of his friend's fickleness. Guide 
 being a man of many loves, which we learn as well from 
 other sources as from his own confessions and the 
 poetical reproofs of his brother bards ; who, indeed, for 
 the most part, were not much better in this respect than 
 he. 
 
 * The wontid tremor. Cp. the passage from the Purg. 
 XXX. already quoted. 
 
 XXV. 
 
 ' In the Aristotelian philosophy, that is termed a sub- 
 stance which is not predicated of anything else, but of 
 which other things are predicated ; again, that which 
 constitutes the very essence of a thing. (Arist. Metaph. 
 IV. c. 8). An accident is something which is actually 
 inherent in a thing, but not necessarily so. (lb. c. 30.) 
 
 2 I.e. Aristotle. 
 
 ' In this chapter we have an anticipation of Dante's 
 philological and critical treatise De Vulgari Eloquentia, 
 
 * I.e. the Sirventese already spoken of, in which 
 Dante sang the praises of sixty of the fairest ladies of 
 Florence. 
 
220 Viia Nuova. 
 
 the earliest work on the like subjects in the Italian — 
 probably in any modern language. In that work, 
 several of the points briefly touched upon here are 
 farther expanded. 
 
 ■* The Romance languages, that is, as distinguished 
 from the Latin, which was still cultivated for all literary 
 purposes. 
 
 * I.e. it might have been customary with other nations 
 to compose poetry in their spoken language. 
 
 ° The most prominent distinction in form between the 
 classical and vernacular poetry is that the latter generally 
 rhymes, and is constructed with especial reference to 
 the exigencies and effects of rhyme ; while in the former 
 the syllabic measure wholly determines the character of 
 the verse. Dante touches upon the distinction between 
 the modem rhymes, and the verses constructed after 
 the strict rules of poetic art, in the De Vulg. El. 
 
 ' The three main divisions of the Romance family of 
 languages were distinguished by the affirmative particle 
 used by each. In Northern French the word yes was 
 expressed by Oil, in Provencal (including most of 
 Southern France and part of Northern Spain) by Oc, in 
 Italy by Si, so in the Commedia Dante distinguishes the 
 Bolognese territory as " the land where sipa (' yes ') is 
 pronounced." 
 
 * This limitation of the time during which the ver- 
 nacular poetry had been cultivated, is probably fairly 
 accurate as applied to the Lingria di Si. The Lingua 
 d'Oco, however, had been cultivated for poetical purposes 
 for a much longer period. Count William IX. of Poic- 
 tiers (fl. 1 087- 1 127) has left some poetical remains dating 
 from the end of the eleventh century, which have by no 
 means the appearance of first tentative essays, while we 
 know that there were many Troubadours his contem- 
 poraries. Even as appUed to the Lingua di Si, Dante's 
 
Notes. 221 
 
 statement must be confined to the Kunstlied, for we can 
 hardly doubt that rude songs and ballads had long ere 
 that date existed among the people, which, however 
 different from the Italian with which we are acquainted, 
 must have been more closely akin thereto than to even 
 the most corrupt Latin. 
 
 ' With increased experience, Dante came to take wider 
 views of the capabilities of his native tongue. Here he 
 speaks of it as adapted to love-poetry only. In the De 
 Vulgari Eloquentia he speaks of tragic, comic and elegiac 
 subjects, and especially commends the Canzone as fitted 
 to treat of philosophy and morals ; in the Convito, both 
 verse and prose, he discourses in Italian not upon love 
 alone, but upon science, literature, and morals ; while 
 he pours into the Commedia the quintessence of all the 
 thought and learning of his day. 
 
 '° Characteristic of Dante, who never indulges in the 
 melody of language or the play of fancy for its own 
 sake, but always for the more perfect expression or 
 illustration of his idea. 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 > For the ennobling influence of Beatrice's very aspect 
 upon all observers cp. cc. xix., xxi., and xxii. ante, etc., xxvii. 
 post. Cp.too Guido Cavalcanti : "IfLovehonourethalady 
 so exalted as is my blessed one, no wonder is it, to whoso 
 observeth well, considering her benignity. ... In her is 
 angelic beauty resplendent, with so great a grace that 
 every man who regards her bends down his visage." 
 So the anonymous early Sicilian poet. See the passages 
 quoted in the Introduction, p. 31. 
 
222 VitaNuova. 
 
 XXVII. 
 * Cp. c. xxi. ante. 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 • E si e cesa until, che non si crede. Cp. note 4 to c. 
 ii. ante. Dante himself confesses, and his biographers 
 corroborate him, that his besetting sin was pride ; but 
 none, not Thomas a Kempis himself, feels, and makes 
 others feel, more deeply, how there is no exaltation of 
 spirit to equal that which springs from the most self- 
 obliterating humility in the presence of that which is 
 truly lofty. 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 Lamentations i. i. Again Dante quoted these 
 words, after many years, when he began with them the 
 epistle which he addressed to the Italian Cardinals upon 
 the death of Clement V. (1314), exhorting them to elect 
 an Italian pope, who should bring back the Holy See to 
 Rome, and thus put an- end to the bereavement of 
 Christendom. Not without significance is it that Dante 
 should quote the same words, to express his own personal 
 bereavement, and his bereavement as one of the Christian 
 church. 
 
 ' Cp. Paradise xxxi. and xxxii., where Beatrice's 
 place in Heaven is close to that of the Virgin, of whom 
 she had been an especial votaress. See c. v. ante. 
 
 ' The design of the book, as declared in the Proem, is 
 only to deal with such matters as fall under the rubric 
 Incipit vita nova in the " book of memory." 
 
 ' Dante again speaks in condemnation of self-praise 
 
Notes. 223 
 
 in the Convito, I. ii., where, at the same time, he declares 
 under what exceptional circumstances it is permissible ; 
 namely, where by so doing one may instruct others, or 
 may clear oneself from calumny. 
 
 XXX. 
 
 ' The belief in a mystical virtue inherent in numbers 
 was imported into European philosophy by Pythagoras, 
 long before whose time'it had existed in the East. Plato 
 was in this respect a disciple of Pythagoras, and the 
 significance of numbers was a prime article of the Neo- 
 Platonists, and of the New Pythagoreans, who imbibed 
 many of their doctrines. The Arab philosophers intro- 
 duced them into the scholastic philosophy, with so many 
 other of the Neo-Platonic theories. 
 
 Dante was a strong adherent of this doctrine, as 
 appears by the Commedia, which is wholly constructed 
 upon a strict numerical plan, in which the numbers three, 
 nine and ten predominate. 
 
 ' Ten was called the perfect number, as comprising all 
 numbers in itself, all other numbers being formed from 
 those of the first decade by addition or multiplication. 
 
 • According to the Ptolemaic astronomy, which was 
 accepted in the Middle Age, the earth was the centre of 
 the system, and about it revolved the nine concentric 
 movable heavens. These were the heavens of the seven 
 planets — Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Sun, Jupiter and 
 Saturn — the heaven of fixed stars, and the crystalline 
 heaven, or primum mobile, which communicated its 
 motion to all the rest, itself being moved by the tenth, 
 fixed, or empyreal heaven, which, itself unmoved, moved 
 all, "as being loved" (see ante note i to c. ii.). In the 
 
224 Vtia Nuova. 
 
 Christian system, this tenth heaven was made the more 
 especial abode of the Trinity. 
 
 Dante sets out this system in full in the Convito II. iv., 
 and adheres to it in the celestial geography, so to speak, 
 of the Paradiso. 
 
 * The belief in the influence of the various planetary 
 conjunctions upon human destinies, almost universal in 
 Dante's day, was fully shared by him, and is alluded to in 
 many passages of his works. Thus in Purg. xxx. i lo, " by 
 operation of the great spheres, which direct every seed 
 to some end, according as the stars are in conjunction." 
 
 XXXI. 
 
 ' Guido Cavalcanti, who, as we have already seen, was 
 so staunch a partisan of the vernacular as to fail in the due 
 appreciation of Virgil, his friend's idol, and that of the 
 Middle Age. By, his aid in determining Dante's inclina- 
 tion towards the vernacular, he has merited the undying 
 gratitude of posterity. 
 
 XXXII. 
 
 ' I.e. his eyes were so exhausted with weeping, that 
 his grief could no longer find a vent thereat. 
 
 ' See the canzone in c. xix., Donne che avete intellello 
 d'amore. 
 
 ' See the passage in the canzone just referred to, which 
 explains both this and what precedes : — " Her great 
 goodness,'' etc. 
 
 XXXIII. 
 
 ' Another instance of that curious blending of passion 
 and reflection for which Dcinte is so remarkable. 
 
Notes, 225 
 
 XXXIV. 
 
 • The word in the original is Servitore, which may be 
 literally translated, in conformity with the old English 
 use of the word " servant," as the correlative of '' mis- 
 tress," common in our poets and dramatists. So Shak- 
 spere : — " Sir Valentine and servant." Two Gentlemen 
 of Verona, II. i. 
 
 XXXV. 
 
 ' At her first apparition, Beatrice's form had struck 
 Dante as being that of an angel (c. ii. ante), and now, of 
 all times, would this be the form under which he would 
 attempt to draw her. Of Dante's recorded talent for 
 drawing, mention has been made in the Introduction 
 (p. 69). This present chapter, besides its own inimit- 
 able beauty and pathos, is further memorable as being 
 the occasion of Browning's lines in the dedication of his 
 " Men and Women " to his wife, entitled, " One Word 
 More," wherein the " certain people of importance" 
 who interrupted the work, are treated with far less rever- 
 ence than that which Dante paid them. 
 
 ' Dante, it is said, was very subject to abstraction, or 
 absence of mind. According to a well-known anecdote, 
 he was once before a shop in the great square of Siena, 
 where, taking up a book in which he was interested, he 
 became so absorbed that he stood there for some hours, 
 reading, and unconscious alike of the lapse of time, and of 
 allhis surroundings, although, while he was standing there, 
 public sports and games had been going forward in the 
 square before him, of which he knew nothing. Many 
 incidental allusions in his works apparently confirm this 
 alleged tendency to abstraction. Cp. c. xl. post ; Purga- 
 torio ii. 17 ; iv. 9 ; v. i, 9 ; xii. 75 ; Paradiso xxi. 3. 
 
 ^ Someone was with me just now, i.e. Quella Beatrice 
 beta, che vive in cielo con gli angeli, e in terra colla m-ia 
 
 Q 
 
226 Vita Nuova. 
 
 anima. " That Beatrice, blessing and blest, who liveth 
 in Heaven with the angels, and on earth with my soul." 
 * Cp. Inf. ii., and Parad. xxxi. and xxxii. " Heaven of 
 Humility^ Cp. note 4 to c. ii. and note i to c. xxviii. 
 
 XXXVII. 
 
 ' The pallor before referred to. Cp. Purg. xix. 14, 
 " With love's own hue illumed." (Car^s trans.) 
 
 XL. 
 
 ' The ninth hour of the day ; counting from six a.m., one 
 of the canonical hours of prayer. Another allusion to the 
 mystical number. 
 
 ^ It was in this "most noble colour" that the angiola 
 giovanissima first appeared to him, v. c. ii. 
 
 ' A fanciful comparison of the circles about his eyes, 
 the result of grief, to the nimbus about the heads of 
 martyrs in pictures. 
 
 XLI. 
 
 ' Cp. Paradiso xxxi. 103 : — 
 
 So he, who, haply from Croatia far. 
 Journeys our Veronica to behold, — 
 The ancient rede ne'er sating his desire, — 
 E'en while 'tis shown him, says within his thought, 
 " O Jesu Christ, my Lord, O, very God, 
 Was then thy semblance formed even thus ? " 
 According to the legend, St. Veronica was the daughter 
 of Salome, sister of Herod. Her earlier hfe had been 
 given up to worldliness and vanity, but upon witnessing 
 the passion of Christ, she was moved to awe and com- 
 passion, and was converted. As He was toiling under 
 the weight of the cross, she gave Him her handkerchief 
 to wipe His face, which left its impress upon it. 
 Veronica now became a Christian, and eflfected many 
 
Notes. 227 
 
 miraculous cures by means of the handkerchief, the fame 
 of which became so spread abroad, that she was sent for 
 to Rome to cure Tiberius, then in his last sickness ; but 
 he died before she could reach him. Being in Rome, she 
 associated herself with St. Peter and St. Paul, and, as 
 some say, suffered martyrdom under them ; others say 
 that she went with St. Mary Magdalene and Lazarus on 
 their mission to the South of France, and was martyred 
 there. The sacred handkerchief, with our Lord's like- 
 ness still upon it, was left in a chapel of St. Peter's, in 
 Rome, and was exhibited thrice in the year ; namely, in 
 the middle of January, in Holy Week, and on Ascension 
 Day. It was one of the chief attractions to pilgrims from 
 all parts of Christendom. 
 
 ^ Pilgrims were a favourite subject of allusion and 
 simile with Dante. Cp. Purg. viii. 4 ; xxiii. 16 ; xxvii. 
 100 ; xxxiii. 78 ; Parad. xxxi. 103. V. also c. ix. ante 
 and note 2 thereon. 
 
 ^ I.e. at Compostello in Galicia, in Spain, the shrine 
 and sepulchre of St. James the Greater. According to his 
 legend, after his martyrdom, his disciples took his body, 
 and placed it in a ship ; which was guided by angels, 
 while the disciples slept, through the pillars of Hercules 
 and out into the ocean, until it grounded on the coast of 
 Galicia. The disciples then took the saint's body out of 
 the ship, and laid it upon a rock, into which it sank, as 
 though the stone had been some soft substance, and 
 became embedded, which was a sign that this was the 
 allotted resting-place of the saint. But the queen of the 
 place, who was a most cruel pagan, caused a yoke of wild 
 bulls to be harnessed to the rock, that they might drag it 
 away, and thus the saint's body be destroyed. But the 
 bulls immediately became tame, and drew the body 
 quietly into the palace, whereupon the queen became 
 converted with all her people, and gave the saint a splen- 
 did sepulture. His resting-place afterwards became for- 
 
228 Vita Nuova. 
 
 gotten, until, about the year 800, his body was discovered, 
 and removed to Compostello, which soon became one of 
 the most frequented shrines in Christendom. St. James 
 showed his gratitude by taking the Spanish nation under 
 his special protection, appearing in propria persona on 
 several occasions, in stress of battle with the Moors, to 
 secure the victory to the Christian arms. The famous 
 knightly order of Santiago was founded to protect the 
 pilgrims visiting the shrine at Compostello from the 
 attacks of Moors and robbers. 
 ^ The etymologry here is somewhat doubtful. 
 
 XLII. 
 
 • Dimly, that is, in the glass of the intuitive imagina- 
 tion, and not face to face, with the eyes of reason. 
 
 ^ Otherwise called " Book I., the Less," in c. 2 of 
 which is this passage : " For even as are the eyes of bats 
 to the radiance which follows daybreak, so is the thought 
 of our soul to those things which, of their nature, are 
 radiant above all." 
 
 ' I.e., the primum mobile, or crystalline sphere, the 
 ninth and outermost of the movable heavens. V. ante 
 note 3 to c. XXX. Thus, " beyond this sphere," would be 
 the tenth or empyreal heaven, the mansion of God 
 and His saints. So Thomas Aquinas and others of the 
 schoolmen. 
 
 XLIII. 
 
 ^ Benedetta Beatrice. V. ante c. ii. n. 2, and cp. 
 Convito II. ii. Quella Beatrice beata, eke vive in cielo 
 con gli angeli, e in terra colla mia anima. 
 
 ^ I.e., " Who is blessed throughout all ages." 
 
 THE END. 
 
• ■ ■ " ! ■ ■ : ...if. '.■ 1 ' I 
 
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