So base is no man's heart on this wide earth,
Love could not guide it to great excellence.
Giraut of Calenso said of the City of Love that no base or ignorant man could enter it, and the Italian Lapo Gianni sang:
The youthful maiden who appeared to me
So filled my soul with pure and lofty thoughts,
That henceforth all ignoble things I scorn.
Dante in the Vita Nuova calls Beatrice "the destroyer of all evil and the queen of all virtues."
The very thought of the beloved makes a good man of the lover:
"I cannot sin when I am in her thoughts."
asserts the sincere Guirot Riquier, and he prays Christ to teach him the true love of woman.