Small attendance can Dante give upon these noble beauties. A fatal tremor seizes him; he looks up and, beholding Beatrice, can see nothing else. Nay, even of her his vision is marred by the intensity of his feeling. The ladies first wonder at his agitation, and then make merry over it, Beatrice apparently joining in their merriment. His friend, chagrined at his embarrassment, now asks the cause of it; to which question Dante replies: "I have set my foot in that part of life to pass beyond which, with purpose to return, is impossible."
With these words the poet departs, and in his chamber of tears persuades himself that Beatrice would not have joined in the laughter of her friends if she had really known his state of mind. Then follows, naturally, a sonnet:—
| With other ladies thou dost flaunt at me, |
| Nor thinkest, lady, whence doth come the change, |
| What fills mine aspect with a trouble strange |
| When I the wonder of thy beauty see. |
| If thou didst know, thou must, for charity, |
| Forswear the wonted rigor of thine eye. |
With this poetic utterance comes the plain prose question: "Seeing thou dost present an aspect so ridiculous whenever thou art near this lady, wherefore dost thou seek to come into her presence?"
It takes two sonnets to answer this question. He is not the only person who asks it. Meeting with some merry dames, he is thus questioned by her of them who seems "most gay and pleasant of discourse:" "Unto what end lovest thou this lady, seeing that her near presence overwhelms thee?" In reply, he professes himself happy in having words wherewith to speak the praises of his lady, and going thence, determines in his heart to devote his powers of expression to that high theme. He leaves the cramping sonnet now, and expands his thought in the canzone, of which I need only repeat the first line:—
Ladies who have the intellect of Love.
Why the course of this true love never did run smooth, we know not. Beatrice, at the proper age, was given in marriage to Messer Simone dei Bardi. It is thought that she was wedded to him before the occasion on which Dante's love-lorn appearance moved her to a mirth which may have been feigned. Still, the thought of her continues to be his greatest possession, and he and his master, Love, hold many arguments together concerning the bliss and bane of this high fancy. He has great comfort in the general esteem in which his lady is held, and is proud and glad when those who see her passing in the street hasten to get a better view of her. He sees the controlling power of her loveliness in its influence on those around her, who are not thrown into the shade, but brightened, by her radiance.
| Such virtue rare her beauty hath, in sooth |
| No envy stirs in other ladies' breast; |
| But in its light they walk beside her, dressed |
| In gentleness, and love, and noble truth. |
| Her looks whate'er they light on seem to bless; |
| Nor her alone make lovely to the view, |
| But all her peers through her have honor, too. |
Dante was still engaged in interpreting the merits of Beatrice to the world when that most gentle being met the final conflict, and received the crown of immortality. His first feeling is that Florence is made desolate by her loss. He can think of no words but those with which the prophet Jeremiah bewailed the spoiling of Jerusalem: "How doth the city sit desolate!" The princes of the earth, he thinks, should learn the loss of this more than princess. He speaks of her in sonnet and canzone.
The passing of a band of pilgrims in the street suggests to him the thought that they do not know of his sweet saint, nor of her death, and that if they did, they would perforce stop to weep with him:—