CHAPTER IX
DANTE
In the year 1265 there was born in the city of Florence in Italy a man who was destined to become one of the four greatest poets that the world has ever produced. This man was Dante, the son of Alighiero, a Florentine who was popular and well known as a man of affairs.
When Dante was born Italy was very different from what it is to-day, for instead of being formed of a single nation, or even of a number of smaller ones, the cities themselves were nations and made their own laws. These cities, moreover, were constantly at war with one another, and fighting was the order of the day. Even within the cities there were often bloody frays and brawls between the supporters of one or another noble family. These brawls sometimes became so extensive that they grew into civil war, and penetrated beyond the limits of the cities in which they were hatched. Such was the state of affairs in Dante's time, and it is important to remember this, because the quarrels of these different factions had a great effect upon his life.
Particularly long and bloody in Florence and other cities had been the strife between two families and factions who called themselves respectively the Guelfs and the Ghibellines. Dante's father belonged to the Guelf party and the boy was brought up with the idea that he must always serve the Guelfs, and support them in all their quarrels. The Guelfs, moreover, were high in the affairs of Florence and had overcome their opponents there. And for this reason those who belonged to the Guelf cause had the chance to rise in the affairs of the city.
So Dante's boyhood was not spent like that of some other poets, in the midst of books alone, or in the quiet seclusion of school and college. He was thrown neck and heels into the midst of the fiery Italian politics of an age when one could poniard his enemy on the streets and go unpunished, providing he had power or influence. And it is probable that he saw many wild doings. He was, however, of studious habits and loved reading more than the air he breathed. And while little is known of his boyhood years, it is certain that he mastered then and in his early manhood many of the best books that had been written since the beginning of the world. Moreover, as Dante later said, he had taught himself "the art of bringing words into verse"—an art that he mastered so thoroughly that his name was to live forever.
When Dante was still a young boy there befell something that proved to be the most wonderful happening in his entire life. This was nothing else than meeting a little girl named Beatrice Portinari. Although Beatrice was only a child, and Dante himself hardly ten years old, he felt a love for her that lasted from that minute until the day of his death and that inspired him to write the great poem that made his name famous throughout the world.
A festival was given by the family of the Portinari which was a noble one and possessed such wealth that its members afterward became bankers for King Edward the Third of England. Among the guests was the boy, Dante, and he beheld Beatrice there as a beautiful little girl. How strangely he was affected by the sight of her he told in later years, and his words have been translated and quoted as follows: "Her dress, on that day," said Dante, "was of a most noble color,—a subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in such sort as best suited her very tender age. At that moment, I say most truly, that the spirit of life, which hath its dwelling in the secretest chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently that the least pulses of my body shook therewith. From that time Love ruled my soul."
Dante did not speak to Beatrice on that occasion,—in fact, he saw her, or addressed her, only two or three times in his entire life. But from the day when she first appeared to him in her crimson dress, he sought to perform some deed that would make him worthy of her love, and the result was the great poem in which he placed her name beside his own.
In spite of his love, Dante did not become an idle dreamer, but developed into an active and studious young man, ready to take up the sword to defend his city whenever it might call on him to do so. And when he was twenty-four years old he put on his armor and went forth to battle against the citizens of Arezzo, a town where the Ghibellines were powerful and had been acting in a hostile manner toward the Guelfs, who controlled Florence.