By the time my tale of verses was complete, it was as different as it might be from that which it set itself, I will not say to rival, but to parody, for it contained few names of great ladies that were upon the lips of every Florentine, but sang the praises of unknown witches and minxes that were at the time of writing, or had been, very dear to me. If my song was not so fine a piece of work as that of Messer Dante, though Messer Dante was at that time only in the earlier flights of his efforts, and his pinions were, as yet, unfamiliar to the poet's ether, it was perhaps as true a picture, after its fashion, of a lover's heart. After all, it must be remembered that there are many kinds of lovers' hearts, and that those who can understand the "New Life" of Messer Dante's are very few, and fewer still those that can live that life. But I here protest very solemnly that it was with no thought of scoff or mockery that I made my ballad, but just for the sake of saying, in my way, the things I thought about the pretty women that pleased me and teased me, and made life so gay and fragrant and variegated in those far-away, dearly remembered, and no doubt much-to-be-deplored days.
It was the dreaming of this ballad of mine that led me to think of Monna Vittoria, whom you will remember if you bear in mind the beginning of this, my history, the lady that Messer Simone of the Bardi was whimsically pledged to wed if he failed to win a certain wager that I trust you have not forgotten. And thinking of Monna Vittoria led, in due time, to a meeting with Monna Vittoria that was not without consequences.
It is not incurious, when you come to reflect upon it, how potent the influence of such a woman as Vittoria may be upon the lives of those that would seem never destined by Heaven to come in her way. My Dante was never in those days a wooer of such ladies. As to certain things that are said of him later, in the hours of his despair, when the world seemed no better than an empty shell, I shall have somewhat to say, perhaps, by-and-by, for there is a matter that has led to not a little misunderstanding of the character of my friend. As for Madonna Beatrice, she that was such a flower in a guarded garden, why, you would have said it was little less than incredible that the clear course of her simple life could be crossed by the summer lightning of Madonna Vittoria's brilliant, fitful existence. Yet, nevertheless, from first to last, Madonna Vittoria was of the utmost moment in the lives of this golden lass and lad, and this much must be admitted in all honesty: that she never did, or at least never sought to do, other than good to either of them. I should not like to say that she would have troubled at all about them or their welfare if it had not served her turn to do so. But whatever the reasons for her deeds, let us be grateful that their results were not malefic to those whose interests concern us most. If Messer Simone had never made his brutal boast, Madonna Vittoria would never have made her wild wager. But having made it, she was eager to win it at all costs, and it was her determination that Simone of the Bardi should never wed with Beatrice of the Portinari, that led, logically enough if you do but consider it aright, to the many strange events which it is my business to narrate.
VIII
MONNA VITTORIA SENDS ME A MESSAGE
Monna Vittoria dwelt in the pleasantest part of the country outside the city, in a quarter where there were many gardens and much thickness of trees and greenness of grass and coloring of bright flowers—all pleasing things, that made an agreeable background to her beauty when she went abroad in her litter. For, indeed, she was a comely creature, and one that painters would pause to look at and to praise, as well as others that eyed her more carnally minded. Now I myself had but a slight acquaintance, albeit a pleasant one, with Vittoria. This was partly because my purse was but leanly provided, and partly because I had ever in mind with regard to such creatures the wise saying of the Athenian concerning the girl Lais, that it was not worth while to spend a fortune to gain a regret. Moreover, I was too much occupied with my own very agreeable love-affairs, that were blended with poetry and dreams and such like sweetnesses, as well as with reality, to make me feel any wish for more extravagant alliances. But I had it in my mind now that it might be a good thing for me, in the interests of my poem in praise of fair Florentines, to pay this lady a visit, and I hoped, being a poet, though I trust not over puffed up with my own pride of importance, and knowing that she was always fain to be regarded as a patroness of the arts, that I might, without much difficulty, gain access to her.
So I spent a careless morning on a hillside beyond the city in the excellent company of a flask of wine and a handful of bread and cheese, and there I sprawled upon my back among the daisies and munched and sipped, and listened to the bees, and looked upon the brown roofs of beautiful Florence, and was very well content. And when I had stayed my stomach and flung the crumbs to the birds, and had emptied the better part of my flagon, I stretched myself under a tree like a man in a doze. I was not dozing, however, for the flowers and the verdure about me, and the birds that piped overhead, and the booming bees, and the strong sunlight on the grass, and the glimpses of blue sky through the branches, were all busying themselves for me in weaving the web of the poem I wanted to carry home with me.
As I shot the bright verses this way and that way, and caught with a childish pleasure at the shining rhymes as a child will catch at some glittering toy, I had perforce to smile as I reflected on what a different business mine was to that of the unknown singer of those days. For those poems of his that he had sent to Guido and to others were exceeding beautiful, and full of a very noble and golden exaltation. I think if the angels in heaven were ever to make love to one another they would choose for their purpose some such perfection of speech as Dante—for I knew the singer to be Dante a little later—found for his sonnets and canzone. For myself, I frankly admit, being an honest man, that I could not write such sonnets even if I had my Dante's command of speech, to which Heaven forbid that I should ever pretend. Those rhymes of his, for all their loveliness—and when I say that they were lovely enough to be worthy of the lady to whom they were addressed, I give them the highest praise and the praise that Dante would most have cared to accept—were too ethereal for my work-a-day humors. I liked better to write verses to the laughing, facile lasses with whom my way of life was cast—jolly girls who would kiss to-day and sigh to-morrow, and forget all about you the third day if needs were, and whom it was as easy for their lover to forget, so far as any sense of pain lay in the recollection of their graces. And I would even rather have the jolly job I was engaged on at that moment of some ripe, rich-colored verses for Vittoria, for I could, in writing them, be as human as I pleased and frankly of the earth earthly, and I needed to approach my quarry with no tributes pilfered from the armory of heaven. I could praise her beauty with the tongue of men, and leave the tongue of angels out of the question; and if my muse were pleased here and there to take a wanton flutter, I knew I could give decorum the go-by with a light heart.