[Footnote H: Compare Canz. x. and xi.]
After this poem was finished, Dante describes what he calls "a battle of thoughts" concerning Love within his mind, and then goes on to relate that it happened one day that he was taken, by a friend who thought to give him pleasure, to a feast at which many ladies were present. "They were assembled," he says, "to attend a lady who was married that day, and, according to the custom of the city, they bore her company at her first sitting at table in the dwelling of her new husband." Dante, believing thus to do pleasure to his friend, proposed to stand in waiting upon these ladies. But at the moment of this intention he felt a sudden tremor, which caused him to lean for support against a painting which ran round the wall,[I] and, raising his eyes, he beheld Beatrice. His confusion became apparent; and the ladies, not excepting Beatrice herself, laughed at his strange appearance. Then his friend took him from their presence, and having asked him what so ailed him, Dante replied, "I have set my feet on that edge of life beyond which no man can go with intent to return." Then leaving him, he went to the chamber of tears, weeping and ashamed; and in his trouble he wrote a sonnet to Beatrice, in which he says, that, if she had known the cause of his trouble, he believes that she would have felt pity for him.[J]
[Footnote I: This is, perhaps, the earliest reference in modern literature to the use of painting as a decoration for houses. It is probable that it was a recent application of the art, and resulted from the revival of interest in its works which accompanied the revival of the art. We shall have occasion again to note a reference to painting.]
[Footnote J: To this period, apparently, belong Sonnets xxix. and xxx. of the general collection. The last may not unlikely have been omitted in the Vita Nuova on account of the tenderness with which the death of Beatrice had invested every memory of her, preventing the insertion of a poem which might seem harsh in its expression:—
"I curse the day on which I first beheld
The light of thy betraying eyes."
]
The foregoing passage, like many others in the "Vita Nuova," is full of the intense and exaggerated expressions of passionate feeling. But this feeling is recorded with a frank simplicity which carries conviction of the sincerity of emotion. It may be laughed at, but it cannot be doubted. It is possible, though hardly probable, that the scene took place at the wedding festival of Beatrice herself. She was married sometime previous to 1287, and unless a reference to this event be found here, no notice of it is taken by Dante in what he has written concerning her. That the fact of her marriage changed in no degree the feeling with which Dante regarded her is plain. His love was of no low quality, to be altered by earthly circumstance. It was a love of the soul. No change or separation that left the being untouched could part him from it. To the marriage of true souls there was no impediment, and he would admit none, in her being the wife of another. The qualities which she possessed as a maiden belonged to her no less as a wife.
It was in the same year, probably, as that in which the "Vita Nuova" was composed and published, that Dante himself was married to Gemma Donati. There are stories that their married life was unhappy. But these stories have not the weight of even contemporary gossip. Possibly they arose from the fact of the long separation between Dante and his wife during his exile. Boccaccio insinuates more than he asserts, and he concludes a vague declamation about the miseries of married life with the words, "Truly I do not affirm that these things happened to Dante, for I do not know." Dante keeps utter silence in his works,—certainly giving no reason to suppose that domestic trials were added to his other burdens. One thing is known which deserves remembrance,—that, when, after some years, a daughter was born to him, the name which she received was Beatrice.
In the next few pages of the "Vita Nuova" Dante describes various thoughts which came to his mind concerning his appearance when in presence of his lady; but, passing over these, we come to a passage which we give in full, as containing a delightful picture from Florence in its old time, and many sentences of sweet and characteristic feeling.
"Many persons had now learned from my looks the secret of my heart. And it happened that certain ladies, who well knew my heart, each of them having witnessed many of my discomfitures, had assembled together, taking pleasure in each other's company. And I, by chance passing near them, was addressed by one of these gentle ladies. She who called to me was very graceful in her speech, so that when I reached them, and saw well that my most gentle lady was not with them, reassuring myself, I saluted them, and asked what might be their pleasure. The ladies were many, and some of them were laughing together, and others looked at me, waiting for what I might say, while others spoke among themselves, and one of them, turning her eyes toward me, and calling me by name, said, 'To what end dost thou love this lady, since thou canst not support her presence? Tell us, for it is certain that the object of such a love must be a very strange one.' And when she had said these words to me, not only she, but all the others, began to attend in expectation of my reply. Then I said to them, 'Ladies, the object of my love was, in truth, the salutation of that lady of whom perhaps you speak; and in that dwelt the bliss which was the end of all my desires. But since it has pleased her to deny it to me, my lord Love, thanks be to him, has placed all my bliss in that which cannot be taken from me.' Then these ladies began to speak together, and, as we sometimes see rain falling mingled with beautiful snow, so, it seemed to me, I saw their words mingled with sighs. And after they had spoken for some time among themselves, the same lady who had first spoken to me said to me, 'We pray thee that thou wouldst tell us in what consists this thy bliss.' And I, replying to her, said, 'In those words which speak my lady's praise.' And she answered, 'If thou sayest truth in this, those words which thou hast spoken concerning thine own condition must have been written with another intention.'[K] Then I, thinking on these words, and, as it were, ashamed of myself, departed from them, and went, saying to myself, 'Since there is such bliss in those words which praise my lady, why has my speech been of other things?' And I proposed to take always for my subject, henceforward, the praise of this most gentle lady. And thinking much on this, I seemed to myself to have taken too lofty a subject for my power, so that I did not dare to begin. Thus I delayed some days, with the desire to speak, and with a fear of beginning.
[Footnote K: This refers to the sonnets Dante had written about his own trouble and the conflict of his thoughts. It will be observed that the words "speak" and "speech" are used in reference to poetic compositions. In those days the poet was commonly called il dicitore in rima, "the speaker in rhyme," or simply il dicitore.]