Canzone, in which Dante describes the person of Beatrice, Strophe third.
[Byron was mistaken in attributing these lines, which form part of a Canzone beginning "Io miro i crespi e gli biondi capegli," to Dante. Neither external nor internal evidence supports such an ascription. The Canzone is attributed in the MSS. either to Fazio degli Uberti, or to Bindo Borrichi da Siena, but was not assigned to Dante before 1518 (Canzoni di Dante, etc. [Colophon]. Impresso in Milano per Augustino da Vimercato ... MCCCCCXVIII ...). See, too, Il Canzoniere di Dante ... Fraticelli, Firenze, 1873, pp. 236-240 (from information kindly supplied by the Rev. Philip H. Wicksteed).]
[ [289] ["Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution, when first the glorious Lady of my mind was made manifest to mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by many who knew not wherefore."—La Vita Nuova, § 2 (Translation by D. G. Rossetti, Dante and his Circle, 1892, p. 30).
"In reference to the meaning of the name, 'she who confers blessing,' we learn from Boccaccio that this first meeting took place at a May Feast, given in the year 1274, by Folco Portinari, father of Beatrice ... to which feast Dante accompanied his father, Alighiero Alighieri."—Note by D. G. Rossetti, ibid., p. 30.]
[ [290] {249}
"L'Esilio che m' è dato onor mi tegno
Sonnet of Dante [Canzone xx. lines 76-80,
Opere di Dante, 1897, p. 171]
in which he represents Right, Generosity, and Temperance as banished from among men, and seeking refuge from Love, who inhabits his bosom.
[ [291] [Compare—