The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 6

La Morte fin d' una prigion oscura Agli animi gentili; agli altri noia, Ch' hanno posto nel fango ogni lor cura.

[35]

Ma non si ruppe almen ogni vel quando Sola i tuoi detti, te presente accolsi "_Dir pi non osa il nostro amor_," cantando.

(The song here alluded to is not preserved in Petrarch's works, and the expression "_il nostro amore_," is very remarkable.)

[36] This sounds at first pedantic; but it must be remembered that at this very time Petrarch was studying Seneca, and writing a Latin poem on the history of Scipio: thus the ideas were fresh in his mind.

[37] The hypothesis I have a.s.sumed relative to Laura's character, her married state, and the authenticity of the MS. note in the Virgil, have not been lightly adopted, but from deep conviction and patient examination: but this is not the place to set arguments and authorities in array--Ginguen and Gibbon against Lord Byron and Fraser Tytler. I am surprised at the ground Lord Byron has taken on the question. As for his characteristic sneer on the a.s.sertion of M. de Bastie, who had said truly and beautifully--"qu'il n'y a que la vertu seule qui soit capable de faire des impressions que la mort n'efface pas," I disdain, in my feminine character, to reply to it; I will therefore borrow the eloquence of a more powerful pen:--"The love of a man like Petrarch, would have been less in character, if it had been less ideal. For the purposes of inspiration, a single interview was quite sufficient. The smile which sank into his heart the first time he ever beheld Laura, played round her lips ever after: the look with which her eyes first met his, never pa.s.sed away. The image of his mistress still haunted his mind, and was recalled by every object in nature. Even death could not dissolve the fine illusion; for that which exists in the imagination is alone imperishable. As our feelings become more ideal, the impression of the moment indeed becomes less violent; but the effect is more general and permanent. The blow is felt only by reflection; it is the rebound that is fatal. We are not here standing up for this kind of Platonic attachment, but only endeavouring to explain the way in which the pa.s.sions very commonly operate in minds accustomed to draw their strongest interests from constant contemplation."--_Edinburgh Review._

CHAPTER VIII.

ON THE LOVE OF DANTE FOR BEATRICE PORTINARI.

Had I taken chronology into due consideration, Dante ought to have preceded Petrarch, having been born some forty years before him,--but I forgot it. "Truth," says Wordsworth, "has her pleasure-grounds,

Her haunts of ease And easy contemplation;--gay parterres And labyrinthine walks; her sunny glades And shady groves for recreation framed."

And such a haunted pleasure-ground of beautiful recollections, would I wish my subject to be to myself and to my readers; where we shall be priviledged to wander at will; to pause or turn back; to deviate to this side or to that, as memory may prompt, or imagination lead, or ill.u.s.tration require.

Dante and his Beatrice are best exhibited in contrast to Petrarch and Laura. Petrarch was in his youth an amiable and accomplished courtier, whose ambition was to cultivate the arts, and please the fair. Dante early plunged into the factions which distracted his native city, was of a stern commanding temper, mingling study with action. Petrarch loved with all the vivacity of his temper; he took a pleasure in publishing, in exaggerating, in embellishing his pa.s.sion in the eyes of the world.

Dante, capable of strong and enthusiastic tenderness, and early concentrating all the affections of his heart on one object, sought no sympathy; and solemnly tells us of himself,--in contradistinction to those poets of his time who wrote of love from fashion or fancy, not from feeling,--that he wrote as love inspired, and as his heart dictated.

"Io mi son un che, quando Amore spira, noto, ed in quel modo Ch'ei detta dentro, vo significando."

PURGATORIO, c. 24.

A coquette would have triumphed in such a captive as Petrarch; and in truth, Laura seems to have "sounded him from the top to the bottom of his compa.s.s:"--a tender and impa.s.sioned woman would repose on such a heart as Dante's, even as his Beatrice did. Petrarch had a gay and captivating exterior; his complexion was fair, with sparkling blue eyes and a ready smile. He is very amusing on the subject of his own c.o.xcombry, and tells us how cautiously he used to turn the corner of a street, lest the wind should disorder the elaborate curls of his fine hair! Dante, too, was in his youth eminently handsome, but in a style of beauty which was characteristic of his mind: his eyes, were large and intensely black, his nose aquiline, his complexion of a dark olive, his hair and beard very much curled, his step slow and measured, and the habitual expression of his countenance grave, with a tinge of melancholy abstraction. When Petrarch walked along the streets of Avignon, the women smiled, and said, "there goes the lover of Laura!" The impression which Dante left on those who beheld him, was far different. In allusion to his own personal appearance, he used to relate an incident that once occurred to him. When years of persecution and exile had added to the natural sternness of his countenance, the deep lines left by grief, and the brooding spirit of vengeance, he happened to be at Verona, where since the publication of the Inferno, he was well known. Pa.s.sing one day by a portico, where several women were seated, one of them whispered, with a look of awe,--"Do you see that man? that is he who goes down to h.e.l.l whenever he pleases, and brings us back tidings of the sinners below!" "Ay, indeed!" replied her companion,--"very likely; see how his face is scarred with fire and brimstone, and blackened with smoke, and how his hair and beard have been singed and curled in the flames!"

Dante had not, however, this forbidding appearance when he won the young heart of Beatrice Portinari. They first met at a banquet given by her father, Folco de' Portinari, when Dante was only nine years old, and Beatrice a year younger. His childish attachment, as he tells us himself, commenced from that hour; it became a pa.s.sion, which increased with his years, and did not perish even with its object.

Beatrice has not fared better at the hands of commentators than Laura.

Laura, with her golden hair scattered to the winds, "i capei d'oro al aura sporsi," her soft smiles, and her angel-like deportment, was to be Repentance; and the more majestic Beatrice, in whose eyes dwelt love,

E spiriti d'amore infiammati,

was sublimated into _Theology_: with how much reason we shall examine.

In one of his canzoni, called il Ritratto, (the Portrait) Dante has left us a most minute and finished picture of his Beatrice, "which," says Mr.

Carey, "might well supply a painter with a far more exalted idea of female beauty, than he could form to himself from the celebrated Ode of Anacreon, on a similar subject." From this canzone and some lines scattered through his sonnets, I shall sketch the person and character of Beatrice. She was not in form like the slender, fragile-looking Laura, but on a larger scale of loveliness, tall and of a commanding figure;[38]--graceful in her gait as a peac.o.c.k, upright as a crane,

Soava a guisa va di un bel pavone, Diritta sopra se, come una grua.

Her hair was fair and curling,

"Capegli crespi e biondi,"

but not _golden_,--an epithet I do not find once applied to it: she had an ample forehead, "s.p.a.ciosa fronte," a mouth that when it smiled surpa.s.sed all things in sweetness; so that her Poet would give the universe to hear it p.r.o.nounce a kind "yes."

Mira che quando ride Pa.s.sa ben di dolcezza ogni altra cosa.

Cos di quella bocca il pensier mio Mi sp.r.o.na, perch io Non ho nel mondo cosa che non desse A tal ch'un si, con buon voler dicesse.

Her neck was white and slender, springing gracefully from the bust--

Poi guarda la sua svelta e bianca gola Commessa ben dalle spalle e dal petto.

A small, round, dimpled chin,

Mento tondo, fesso e piccioletto:

and thereupon the Poet breaks out into a rapture, any thing but theological,

Il bel diletto Aver quel collo fra le braccia stretto E far in quella gola un picciol segno!

Her arms were beautiful and round; her hand soft, white, and polished;

La bianca mano morbida e pulita:

her fingers slender, and decorated with jewelled rings as became her birth; fair she was as a pearl;

Con un color angelica di perla:

graceful and lovely to look upon, but disdainful where it was becoming:

Graziosa a vederla, E disdegnosa dove si conviene.

And as a corollary to these traits, I will quote the eleventh Sonnet as a more general picture of female loveliness, heightened by some tender touches of mental and moral beauty, such as never seem to have occurred to the debased imaginations of the cla.s.sic poets:

Negli occhi porta la mia Donna Amore; Perch si fa gentil ciocch' ella mira: Ov' ella pa.s.sa, ogni uom ver lei si gira; E cui saluta, fa tremar lo core, Sicch ba.s.sando 'l viso tutto smuore, Ed ogni suo difetto allor sospira; Fugge dinanzi a lei superbia ed ira.

Ajutatemi, donne, a farle onore!

Ogni dolcezza, ogni pensiero umile Nasce nel core a chi parlar la sente; Onde laudato chi prima la vide.

Quel ch' ella par, quando un poco sorride No si pu dicer, n tenera mente; Si nuovo miracolo e gentile.

TRANSLATION.

"Love is throned in the eyes of my Beatrice! they enn.o.ble every thing she looks upon! As she pa.s.ses, men turn and gaze; and whomsoever she salutes, his heart trembles within him; he bows his head, the colour forsakes his cheek, and he sighs for his own unworthiness. Pride and anger fly before her! a.s.sist me, ladies, to do her honour! All sweet thoughts of humble love and good-will spring in the hearts of those who hear her speak, so that it is a blessedness first to behold her, and when she faintly and softly smiles--ah! then it pa.s.ses all fancy, all expression, so wondrous is the miracle, and so gracious!"

The love of Dante for his Beatrice partook of the purity, tenderness, and elevated character of her who inspired it, and was also stamped with that stern and melancholy abstraction, that disposition to mysticism, which were such strong features in the character of her lover. He does not break out into fond and effeminate complaints, he does not sigh to the winds, nor swell the fountain with his tears; his love does not, like Petrarch's, alternately freeze and burn him, nor is it "un dolce amaro," "a bitter sweet," with which his fancy can sport in good set terms. No; it shakes his whole being like an earthquake; it beats in every pulse and artery; it has dwelt in his heart till it has become a part of his life, or rather his life itself.[39] Though we are not told so expressly, it is impossible to doubt, on a consideration of all those pa.s.sages and poems which relate to Beatrice, that his love was approved and returned, and that his character was understood and appreciated by a woman too generous, too n.o.ble-minded, to make him the sport of her vanity. He complains, indeed, _poetically_, of her disdain, for which he excuses himself in another poem: "We know that the heavens shine on in eternal serenity, and that it is only our imperfect vision, and the rising vapours of the earth, that make the ever-beaming stars appear clouded at times to our eye." He expresses no fear of a rival in her affections; but the native jealousy as well as delicacy of his temper appears in those pa.s.sages in which he addresses the eulogium of Beatrice to the Florentine ladies and her young companions.[40] Those of his own s.e.x, as he a.s.sures us, were not worthy to listen to her praises; or must perforce have become enamoured of this picture of female excellence, the fear of which made a coward of him--

Ma tratter del suo stato gentile Donne e donzelle amorose, con vui; Che non cosa da parlarne altrui.

Among the young companions of Beatrice, Dante particularly distinguishes one, who appears to have been her chosen friend, and who, on account of her singular and blooming beauty, was called, at Florence, Primavera, (the Spring.) Her real name was Giovanna. Dante frequently names them together, and in particular in that exquisitely fanciful sonnet to his friend Guido Cavalcanti; where he addresses them by those familiar and endearing diminutives, so peculiarly Italian--

E Monna Vanna e Monna Bice poi.[41]