was sublimated into Theology: with how much reason we shall examine.
In one of his canzoni, called il Ritratto, (the Portrait) Dante has left us a most minute and finished picture of his Beatrice, "which," says Mr. Carey, "might well supply a painter with a far more exalted idea of female beauty, than he could form to himself from the celebrated Ode of Anacreon, on a similar subject." From this canzone and some lines scattered through his sonnets, I shall sketch the person and character of Beatrice. She was not in form like the slender, fragile-looking Laura, but on a larger scale of loveliness, tall and of a commanding figure;[38]—graceful in her gait as a peacock, upright as a crane,
Soava a guisa va di un bel pavone,
Diritta sopra se, come una grua.
Her hair was fair and curling,
"Capegli crespi e biondi,"
but not golden,—an epithet I do not find once applied to it: she had an ample forehead, "spaciosa fronte," a mouth that when it smiled surpassed all things in sweetness; so that her Poet would give the universe to hear it pronounce a kind "yes."
Mira che quando ride
Passa ben di dolcezza ogni altra cosa.
Così di quella bocca il pensier mio
Mi sprona, perchè io
Non ho nel mondo cosa che non desse
A tal ch'un si, con buon voler dicesse.
Her neck was white and slender, springing gracefully from the bust—
Poi guarda la sua svelta e bianca gola
Commessa ben dalle spalle e dal petto.
A small, round, dimpled chin,