paruit jam beatitudo vestra. And the Natural Spirit cried Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero

deinceps. heart.

The reign of Love had begun in Dante's

Nine years later, the same youthful angel again appeared, clad this time in a very white hue, and walking between two gentle ladies, her elders. And, by reason of her ineffable courtesy, she greeted him with such effect as to bring all heaven before his eyes ("mi parve allora vedere tutti i termini della beatitudine"), and cause him to see and describe

the first of a series of visions. Bartoli

Visions has said very happily that the Vita Nuova "proceeds by way of visions," of which there are contained in all seven. Neither Bartoli nor Pio Rajna accepts these visions as actual occurrences; but the truth, perhaps, is not so self-evident as these writers pretend. I recollect the shrewd remark of the old gentleman in the Essays of Elia, who tested the prospects of a poetical aspirant by asking, "Young man, what sort of dreams have you?" A born poet, and absorbed by thoughts of love, Dante may have dreamed dreams, and seen visions, innumerable. If not, he exercised his just prerogative in feigning them.

Dante's first sonnet.

In the first sonnet Dante tells how Love appeared to him. In his hand he held Dante's heart, and in his arms, asleep and wrapt in a cloth, Dante's lady. Love awoke her and fed her, all humble and fearful, with that glowing heart, and thereafter Dante saw him go away weeping. This

sonnet the young poet sent to all the "vassals of Love," the famous troubadours of the time, that they might pass sentence on it. He received many replies (some of them, we know, not too complimentary), and among them was one from Guido Cavalcanti, who answered,

“Vedesti al mio parer ogni valore."

The allegory does not appeal to modern taste, but its rich symbolism—and this is the important thing—did appeal to the taste of Dante's contemporaries. The last line, as Dante himself points out, was unconscious prophecy.

His great

It is hardly worth while perhaps to go over, one by one, the "incidents" of the Vita Nuova. They possess, for the most part, a purely subjective interest. It is these visions that are the kernel of the work, and, above all, that great dream of which all have heard, and which inspired in Dante the divine ode, Donna pietosa e di novella etate. The prefatory prose, however, is the quintessence of poetry. dream. "A few days after this, it befel that in a certain part of my person a dolorous infirmity overtook me, whence I suffered continuously most bitter torture. On the ninth day there came to me a thought concerning my lady. And when I had mused of her somewhat, I returned in thought to my own feeble life, and seeing how slight was its duration, whole though it might be, I began to weep within myself at so great misery. And, sighing heavily, I said within myself, 'It must needs be that the most gentle Beatrice do sometime die.'

And thereat so strong a bewilderment smote me that I shut my eyes, and began to agitate myself like one distract, and to imagine in this wise: that (at the beginning of my fantasy's wandering) there appeared to me divers faces of dishevelled ladies, which said to me, Thou wilt surely die.' And after these ladies, divers other faces, dreadful to behold, which said to me, Thou art dead.'

"Thus my fantasy beginning to wander, I came to this that I knew not where I was. And methought I saw ladies going dishevelled along the way, wondrous sad, and methought I saw the sun darken so that the stars showed of a colour that made me judge that they were weeping, and methought that the birds flying through the air dropped dead, and there were very great earthquakes. And wondering at such fantasy, and dreading not a little, I imagined that a friend came to me, and said: 'What knowest thou not? Thy rare lady is departed this world.' Then began I to weep very piteously; and not only did I weep in imagination, but I wept with my eyes, bathing them with real tears.

"I imagined that I gazed towards Heaven, and methought I saw a multitude of angels that were returning upwards, and they had before them a very white cloudlet. And methought these angels sang gloriously, and the words of their song were these: Osanna in excelsis, and I heard nought else. Then methought that my heart, where was so great love, said to me: True is it that our lady lieth dead.' And thereat I went to see the body wherein had lain that

most noble and blessed soul. And so strong was the wandering fantasy that it showed me this lady dead. And methought ladies covered her head with a white veil, and her countenance had so great a look of humility that it seemed to say: 'I am beholding the source of peace.'

"As I thus imagined, there fell upon me so great humility through beholding her, that I called Death, and said: Most sweet Death, come to me, and be not churlish, forasmuch as thou must have become gentle, in such quarter hast thou been. Now come to me, who much yearn for thee; and do thou behold it, for already I bear thy colour."

Towards the end of the Vita Nuova Dante records how he saw a young and very beautiful lady gazing compassionately at him from a window. Infidelity. She became to him his lady of pity and consolation, and, as Scartazzini guesses, was none other than his future wife, Gemma Donati. Dante's own account of her is as follows: "I say and affirm that the lady of whom I became enamoured after the first love was the most beautiful and honest daughter of the Ruler of the Universe, on whom Pythagoras bestowed the name of Philosophy" (Convivio, ii. 16). This passage, however, must be read in conjunction with others, and in no way affects the existence of the "gentle lady" in a literal, as well as allegorical,

sense.

The unfaithfulness to which he confesses was only for a time. Before the record closes we find mention in it of a sharp spiritual conflict, Dante's

remorse is terrible. He curses his eyes for their vanity, and tells them that Death alone should cause them to forget "our lady." Finally his heart triumphs over his eyes, and he concludes (save for the benediction) with the memorable words: "I hope to say of her what never was said of any." The application of these words to the Commedia, their relation as promise and performance, is obvious and universally admitted. What is considerably less familiar to most persons is an earlier, more obscure, perhaps wholly fortuitous anticipation of the same great achievement in one of the canzoni. Dante is under a cloud. Beatrice, displeased with him, withholds her greeting; but this tacit rebuke does but lift her in his esteem, renders him more reverent. He pictures to himself an angel crying aloud in heaven, and claiming Beatrice as the only boon that heaven yet lacks. The saints all support this petition, and Pity alone defends Dante's cause. God charges His beloved to suffer "their hope" to remain during His pleasure in the world. Yonder is one who looks to lose her, and who will say to the vile, "I saw the hope of the blessed."

A difficulty.

I have mentioned earlier in the chapter that Dante borrowed the sestina directly from Provence. His sestine, as well as certain canzoni, excite interest other than attaches to the mere form, since they are sensuous, and erotic, and so unlike the lyric, whether of the Vita Nuova or Convivio. A great pother has been made over the cold and unimpressionable pietra. Who was she? Nobody knows, but it is conceded on all hands that she was neither