(Transl. by D.G. Rossetti.)
The lover has a foreboding of the fate awaiting him: "I have set my feet into that phase of life from whence there is no return." He divines the sorrow to which love has predestined him. But others, too, divining that this man "expects more, perhaps, of love than others," ask him to explain to them the essence of love, and he answers them with the famous sonnet:
Amor e cor gentil sono una cosa
(Love and the gentle heart are but one thing.)
The death of Beatrice is accompanied by the same phenomena as was the death of Christ: the sun lost its brilliance, stars appeared in the sky, birds fell to the ground, dead, the earth trembled; God visibly intervened in the course of nature.
For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead
Such an exceeding glory went up hence,
That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire,
Until a sweet desire
Entered Him for that lovely excellence,