Mariota, the hardy wife of the metal-smith, is not for one of your quality, though the wench is well enough now with her baby on her arm and the best of her seen by a poet and made enduring. He, like our Bernardo, had motherhood in such esteem that he held it would ransom a sin. A sin? I am no casuïst to discuss rewards and punishments; but if Socrates were rightly informed and sin indeed ignorance, I have no whips for Mariota's square shoulders. Her baby, I warrant, plucked her from the burning. I am not so sure but you might find in that girl a responsive spirit, and—is the saying too hard?—a teacher. Contentment with a few things was never one of your virtues, madam.
There is a lady whose name has been whispered through my pages, a lady with whom I must make peace if I can. Had I known her, as Dante did, in the time of her nine-year excellence and followed her (with an interlude, to be sure, for Gentucca) through the slippery ways of two lives with much eating of salt bread, I might have grown into her favour. But I never did know Monna Beatrice Portinari; and when I met her afterwards as my Lady Theologia I thought her something imperious and case-hardened. Now here and there some words of mine (for she has a high stomach) may have given offence. I have hinted that her court is a slender one in Italy, the service paid her lip-service; the lowered eyes and bated breath reserved for her; but for Fede her sister, tears and long kisses and the clinging. Well! the Casa Cattolica is a broad foundation: I find Francis of Umbria at the same board with Sicilian Thomas. If I cleave to the one must I despise the other? Lady Fede has my heart and Lady Dottrina must put aside the birch if she would share that little kingdom. Religio habet, said Pico; theologia autem invenit. Let her find. But she must be speedy, for I promise her the mood grows on me as I become italianato; and I cannot predict when the other term of the proposition may be accomplished. For one thing, Lady Theologia, I praise you not. Sympathy seems to me of the essence, the healing touch an excellent thing in woman. But you told Virgil,
"Io son fatta da Dio, sua mercè, tale,
Che la vostra miseria non mi tange."
Sympathy, Madonna? And Virgil hopeless! On these terms I had rather gloom with the good poet (whose fault in your eyes was that he knew in what he had believed) than freeze with you and Aquinas on your peak of hyaline. And as I have found you, Donna Beatrice, so in the main have they of whom I pitch my pipe. Here and there a man of them got exercise for his fingers in your web; here and there one, as Pico the young Doctor of yellow hair and nine hundred heresies, touched upon the back of your ivory dais that he might jump from thence to the poets out beyond you in the Sun. Your great Dante, too, loved you through all. But, Madonna, he had loved you before when you were—
Donna pietosa e di novella etade,
and, as became his lordly soul, might never depart from the faith he had in you. For me, I protest I love Religion your warm-bosomed mate too well to turn from her; yet I would not on that account grieve her (who treats you well out of the cup of her abounding charity) by aspersing you. And if I may not kiss your foot as you would desire, I may bow when I am in the way with you; not thanking God I am not as you are, but, withal, wishing you that degree of interest in a really excellent world with which He has blessed me and my like, the humble fry.
Lastly, to the Spirits which are in the shrines of the cities of Tuscany, I lift up my hands with the offering of my thin book. To Lucca dove-like and demure, to Prato, the brown country-girl, to Pisa, winsome maid-of- honour to the lady of the land, to Pistoja, the ruddy-haired and ample, and to Siena, the lovely wretch, black-eyed and keen as a hawk; even to Perugia, the termagant, with a scar on her throat; but chiefest to the Lady Firenze, the pale Queen crowned with olive—to all of you, adored and adorable sisters, I offer homage as becomes a postulant, the repentance of him who has not earned his reward, thanksgiving, and the praise I have not been able to utter. And I send you, Book, out to those ladies with the supplication of good Master Cino, schoolman and poet, saying,
E se tu troverai donne gentile,
Ivi girai; chè là ti vo mandare;
E dono a lor d' audienza chiedi.
Poi di a costor: Gittatevi a lor piedi,
E dite, chi vi manda e per che fare,
Udite donne, esti valletti umili.