The first supporter of what may be called the “superior” view—namely that the whole story of Beatrice is purely allegorical—was one Giovanni Mario Filelfo, a writer of the fifteenth century, born more than a hundred years after Dante’s death. As a rule, where his statements can be tested, they are incorrect; and on the whole his work appears to be a mass of unwarranted inferences from unverified assertions. It was not till recent times that his theory on the subject found any defenders.
We may, then, pretty safely continue in the old faith. After all, it explains more difficulties than it raises. No doubt if we cannot free ourselves from modern conceptions we shall be somewhat startled not only by the almost deification of Beatrice, but also by the frank revelation of Dante’s passion, with which neither the fact of her having become another man’s wife nor his own marriage seems in any way to interfere. It needs, however, but a very slight knowledge of the conditions of life in the thirteenth century to understand the position. As has been already pointed out, the notion of woman’s love as a spur to noble living, “the maiden passion for a maid,” was quite recent, and at its first growth was quite distinct from the love which finds its fulfilment in marriage. Almost every young man of a literary or intellectual turn seems to have had his Egeria; and when we can identify her she is usually the wife of some one else.
FOOTNOTES:
[22] It may be noted that the name is undoubtedly Teutonic. The suggested derivations from aliger, “the wing-bearer,” and the like, are purely fanciful. The first part of the word is doubtless alt, “old,” which we have in our own Aldhelm; the termination is the geirr, or gar, which occurs in all Teutonic languages, and means “spear.” Dante (= Durante) was a common Christian name.
[23] Doubts have even been thrown on Dante’s friendship with this young King. To these we can only reply that, if it is not implied by Par., viii. 55, it is impossible to draw any inference whatever as to Dante’s life from any line of the poem.
[24] The conclusion of his account is picturesque enough to deserve reproduction. “The news of the said victory came to Florence the very day and hour when it took place; for the Lords Priors having after dinner gone to sleep and rest, by reason of the anxiety and watching of the past night, suddenly came a knock at the door of the chamber, with a cry, ‘Rise up, for the Aretines are discomfited;’ and when they were risen, and the door opened, they found no man, and their servants without had heard nothing. Whence it was held a great and notable marvel, seeing that before any person came from the host with the news, it was towards the hour of vespers.”
[25] We find close resemblances between Dante and the founder of German mysticism. Not only in similes and illustrations, such as the tailor and his cloth, the needle and the loadstone, the flow of water to the sea, the gravitation of weights to the centre; or in such phrases as Eckhart’s “nature possesses nothing swifter than the heaven,” or his use of edilkeit “nobility,” in reference to freewill, la nobile virtù. These may have been, in some cases were, borrowed by both from a common source, though the fact of their so often borrowing the same things is suggestive. So, too, both Dante and Eckhart quote St. John i. 3, 4, with the punctuation adopted by Aquinas, quod factum est, in ipso vita erat—“what was made, in Him was life”—though the Vulgate and St. Augustine prefer the arrangement of the words familiar to us in our own version. But when we find such an unusual thought as that in Par., viii. 103, 104, of the redeemed soul having no more need to repent of its sins, expressed in almost similar words by Eckhart, it is hardly possible to believe that it occurred to both independently. There are many other instances, but it would occupy too much space if I were to give them here.