[115] In Purgatory his conscience accuses him of pride, and he already seems to feel the weight of the grievous burden beneath which the proud bend as they purge themselves of their sin (Purg. xiii. 136). Some amount of self-accusation seems to be implied in such passages as Inf., v. 142 and Purg. xxvii. 15, etc.; but too much must not be made of it.
[116] In a letter of a few lines to one of the Marquises Malaspina, written probably in the earlier years of his exile, he tells how his purpose of renouncing ladies’ society and the writing of love-songs had been upset by the view of a lady of marvellous beauty who ‘in all respects answered to his tastes, habits, and circumstances.’ He says he sends with the letter a poem containing a fuller account of his subjection to this new passion. The poem is not found attached to the copy of the letter, but with good reason it is guessed to be the Canzone beginning Amor, dacchè convien, which describes how he was overmastered by a passion born ‘in the heart of the mountains in the valley of that river beside which he had always been the victim of love.’ This points to the Casentino as the scene. He also calls the Canzone his ‘mountain song.’ The passion it expresses may be real, but that he makes the most of it appears from the close, which is occupied by the thought of how the verses will be taken in Florence.
[117] However early the De Monarchia may have been written, it is difficult to think that it can be of a later date than the death of Henry.
[118] The De Vulgari Eloquio is in Latin. Dante’s own Italian is richer and more elastic than that of contemporary writers. Its base is the Tuscan dialect, as refined by the example of the Sicilian poets. His Latin, on the contrary, is I believe regarded as being somewhat barbarous, even for the period.
[119] In his Quæstio de Aqua et Terra. In it he speaks of having been in Mantua. The thesis was maintained in Verona, but of course he may, after a prolonged absence, have returned to that city.
[120] Parad. xvii. 70.
[121] Purg. xviii. 121.
[122] But in urgent need of more of it.—He says of ‘the sublime Cantica, adorned with the title of the Paradiso’, that ‘illam sub præsenti epistola, tamquam sub epigrammate proprio dedicatam, vobis adscribo, vobis offero, vobis denique recommendo.’ But it may be questioned if this involves that the Cantica was already finished.
[123] As, for instance, Herr Scheffer-Boichorst in his Aus Dantes Verbannung, 1882.
[124] The Traversari (Purg. xiv. 107). Guido’s wife was of the Bagnacavalli (Purg. xiv. 115). The only mention of the Polenta family, apart from that of Francesca, is at Inf. xxvii. 41.