The Romance of Biography Volume I Part 7

It appears from the 7th and 8th Sonnets of the Vita Nuova, that in the early part of their intercourse, Beatrice, indulging her girlish vivacity, smiled to see her lover utterly discountenanced in her presence, and pointed out her triumph to her companions. This offence seems to have deeply affected the proud, susceptible mind of Dante: it was under the influence of some such morose feeling, probably on this very occasion, that his dark pa.s.sions burst forth in the bitter lines beginning,

Io maledico il d ch' io vidi imprima La luce de' vostri occhi traditori.

"I curse the day in which I first beheld the splendour of those traitor eyes," &c. This angry sonnet forms a fine characteristic contrast with that eloquent and impa.s.sioned effusion of Petrarch, in which he multiplies blessings on the day, the hour, the minute, the season, and the spot, in which he first beheld Laura--

Benedetto sia l' giorno, e 'l mese, e l' anno, &c.

This fit of indignation was, however, short-lived. Every tender emotion of Dante's feeling heart seems to have been called forth when Beatrice lost her excellent father. Folco Portinari died in 1289; and the description we have of the inconsolable grief of Beatrice and the sympathy of her young companions,--so poetically, so delicately touched by her lover,--impress us with a high idea both of her filial tenderness and the general amiability of her disposition, which rendered her thus beloved. In the 12th and 13th Sonnets, we have, perhaps, one of the most beautiful groups ever presented in poetry. Dante meets a company of young Florentine ladies, who were returning from paying Beatrice a visit of condolence on the death of her father. Their altered and dejected looks, their downcast eyes, and cheeks "colourless as marble," make his heart tremble within him; he asks after Beatrice--"_our_ gentle lady,"

as he tenderly expresses it: the young girls raise their downcast eyes, and regard him with surprise. "Art thou he," they exclaim, "who hast so often sung to us the praises of our Beatrice? the voice, indeed, is his; but, oh! how changed the aspect! Thou weepest!--why shouldest _thou_ weep?--thou hast not seen _her_ tears;--leave _us_ to weep and return to our home, refusing comfort; for we, indeed, have heard her speak, and seen her dissolved in grief; so changed is her lovely face by sorrow, that to look upon her is enough to make one die at her feet for pity."[42]

It should seem that the extreme affliction of Beatrice for the loss of her father, acting on a delicate const.i.tution, hastened her own end, for she died within a few months afterwards, in her 24th year. In the "Vita Nuova" there is a fragment of a canzone, which breaks off at the end of the first strophe; and annexed to it is the following affecting note, originally in the handwriting of Dante.

"I was engaged in the composition of this Canzone, and had completed only the above stanza, when it pleased the G.o.d of justice to call unto himself this gentlest of human beings; that she might be glorified under the auspices of that blessed Queen, the Virgin Maria, whose name was ever held in especial reverence by my sainted Beatrice."

Boccaccio, who knew Dante personally, tells us, that on the death of Beatrice, he was so changed by affliction that his best friends could scarcely recognise him. He scarcely eat or slept; he would not speak; he neglected his person, until he became "una cosa selvatica a vedere," _a savage thing to the eye_: to borrow his own strong expression, he seems to have been "grief-stung to madness." To the first Canzone, written after the death of Beatrice, Dante has prefixed a note, in which he tells us, that after he had long wept in silence the loss of her he loved, he thought to give utterance to his sorrow in words; and to compose a Canzone, in which he should write, (weeping as he wrote,) of the virtues of her who through much anguish had bowed his soul to the earth. "Then," he says, "I thus began:--gli occhi dolenti,"--which are the first words of this Canzone. It is addressed, like the others, to her female companions, whom alone he thought worthy to listen to her praises, and whose gentle hearts could alone sympathise in his grief.

Non vo parlare altrui Se non a cor gentil, che 'n donna sia!

One stanza of this Canzone is unequalled, I think, for a simplicity at once tender and sublime. The sentiment, or rather the meaning, in homely English phrase, would run thus:--

"Ascended is our Beatrice to the highest Heaven, to those realms where angels dwell in peace; and you, her fair companions, and Love and me, she has left, alas! behind. It was not the frost of winter that chilled her, nor was it the heat of summer that withered her; it was the power of her virtue, her humility, and her truth, that ascending into Heaven moved the ETERNAL FATHER to call her to himself, seeing that this miserable life was not worthy of any thing so fair, so excellent!"

On the anniversary of the death of Beatrice, Dante tells us that he was sitting alone, thinking upon her, and tracing, as he meditated, the figure of an angel on his tablets.[43] Can any one doubt that this little incident, so natural and so affecting,--his thinking on his lost Beatrice, and by a.s.sociation sketching the figure of an angel, while his mind dwelt upon her removal to a brighter and better world,--must have been real? It gave rise to the 18th Sonnet of the Vita Nuova, which he calls "Il doloroso annovale," (the mournful anniversary.)

Another little circ.u.mstance, not less affecting, he has beautifully commemorated in two Sonnets which follow the one last mentioned. They are addressed to some kind and gentle creature, who from a window beheld Dante abandon himself, with fearful vehemence, to the agony of his feelings, when he believed no human eye was on him. "She turned pale,"

he says, "with compa.s.sion; her eyes filled with tears, as if she had loved me: then did I remember my n.o.ble-hearted Beatrice, for even thus she often looked upon me," &c. And he confesses that the grateful, yet mournful pleasure with which he met the pitying look of this fair being, excited remorse in his heart, that he should be able to derive pleasure from anything.

Dante concludes the collection of his _Rime_, (his miscellaneous poems on the subject of his early love) with this remarkable note:--

"I beheld a marvellous vision, which has caused me to cease from writing in praise of my blessed Beatrice, until I can celebrate her more worthily; which that I may do, I devote my whole soul to study, as _she_ knoweth well; in so much, that if it please the Great Disposer of all things to prolong my life for a few years upon this earth, I hope hereafter to sing of my Beatrice what never yet was said or sung of woman.'"

And in this transport of enthusiasm, Dante conceived the idea of his great poem, of which Beatrice was destined to be the heroine. It was to no Muse, called by fancy from her fabled heights, and feigned at the poet's will; it was not to ambition of fame, nor literary leisure seeking a vent for overflowing thoughts; nor to the wish to aggrandise himself, or to flatter the pride of a patron;--but to the inspiration of a young, beautiful, and n.o.ble-minded woman, we owe one of the grandest efforts of human genius. And never did it enter into the imagination of any lover, before or since, to raise so mighty, so vast, so enduring, so glorious a monument to the worth and charms of a mistress. Other poets were satisfied if they conferred on the object of their love an immortality on earth: Dante was not content till he had placed _his_ on a throne in the Empyreum, above choirs of angels, in presence of the very fountain of glory; her brow wreathed with eternal beams, and clothed with the ineffable splendours of beat.i.tude;--an apotheosis, compared to which, all others are earthly and poor indeed.

FOOTNOTES:

[38] "Membra formosi et grandi."

[39] It borrows even the solemn language of Sacred Writ to express its intensity:

Nelle man vostre, o dolce donna mia!

Raccomando lo spirito che muore.

SON. 34.

[40] I refer particularly to that sublime Canzone addressed to the ladies of Florence, and beginning

"Donne ch' avete intelletto d' amore."

[41] Monna Vanna, for _Madonna Giovanna_; and Monna Bice, _Madonna Beatrice_.

This famous sonnet has been translated by Hayley and by Sh.e.l.ley. I subjoin the version of the latter, as truer to the spirit of the original.

THE WISH.--TO GUIDO CAVALCANTI.

Guido! I would that Lapo, thou, and I, Led by some strong enchantment, might ascend A magic ship, whose charmed sails should fly With winds at will, where'er our thoughts might wend: And that no change, nor any evil chance Should mar our joyous voyage; but it might be That even satiety should still enhance Between our hearts their strict community, And that the bounteous wizard there would place Vanna and Bice, and thy gentle love, Companions of our wanderings, and would grace With pa.s.sionate talk, wherever we might rove Our time!--and each were as content and free As I believe that thou and I should be!

[42] Sonnetto 13 (Poesie della Vita Nuova.)

[43] Vita Nuova, p. 268.

CHAPTER IX.

DANTE AND BEATRICE CONTINUED.

Through the two first parts of the Divina Commedia, (h.e.l.l and Purgatory,) Beatrice is merely announced to the reader--she does not appear in person; for what should the sinless and sanctified spirit of Beatrice do in those abodes of eternal anguish and expiatory torment?

Her appearance, however, in due time and place, is prepared and shadowed forth in many beautiful allusions: for instance, it is she, who descending from the empyreal height, sends Virgil to be the deliverer of Dante in the mysterious forest, and his guide through the abysses of torment.

Io son Beatrice che ti faccio andare; Vegno di loco ove tornar disio: Amor mi mosse che mi fa parlare.

INFERNO, c. 2.

"I who now bid thee on this errand forth Am Beatrice; from a place I come Revisited with joy; love brought me thence, Who prompts my speech."

CAREY'S TRANS.

And she is _indicated_, as it were, several times in the course of the poem, in a manner which prepares us for the sublimity with which she is at length introduced, in all the majesty of a superior nature, all the dreamy splendour of an ideal presence, and all the melancholy charm of a beloved and lamented reality. When Dante has left the confines of Purgatory, a wondrous chariot approaches from afar, surrounded by a flight of angelic beings, and veiled in a cloud of flowers ("un nuvola di fiori," is the beautiful expression.)--A female form is at length apparent in the midst of this angelic pomp, seated in the car, and "robed in hues of living flame:" she is veiled: he cannot discern her features, but there moves a hidden virtue from her,

At whose touch The power of ancient love was strong within him.

He recognises the influence which even in his childish days had smote him--

Che gi m'avea trafitto Prima ch' io fuor della puerizia fosse;

and his failing heart and quivering frame confess the thrilling presence of his Beatrice--

Conosco i segni dell'antica fiamma!

The whole pa.s.sage is as beautifully wrought as it is feelingly and truly conceived.

Beatrice,--no longer the soft, frail, and feminine being he had known and loved upon earth, but an admonishing spirit,--rises up in her chariot,

And with a mien Of that stern majesty which doth surround A mother's presence to her awe-struck child, She looked--a flavour of such bitterness Was mingled with her pity!

CAREY'S TRANS.