The story of Dante and Beatrice is now an old one, but ever fresh with the rare charm which it possesses even after the lapse of these many years. The New Life, Dante's earliest work, which is devoted to a description of his first meeting with Beatrice and his subsequent all-powerful love for her, has been regarded sceptically by some critics, who are inclined to see in it but an allegory, and there are others who go so far as to say that Beatrice never existed. What uncertainty can there be regarding her life, when Cino da Pistoja wrote his most celebrated poem, a canzone to Dante, consoling him for her loss? The following stanza from Rossetti's matchless version is proof enough for all who care to read:
"Why now do pangs of torment clutch thy heart,
Which with thy love should make thee overjoyed,
As him whose intellect has passed the skies?
Behold, the spirits of thy life depart
Daily to Heaven with her, they so are buoyed
With thy desire, and Love so bids them rise.
O God I and thou, a man whom God made wise,
To nurse a charge of care, and love the same!
I tell thee, in His name,
From sin of sighing grief to hold thy breath,
Nor let thy heart to death,
Nor harbour death's resemblance in thine eyes.
God hath her with Himself eternally,
Yet she inhabits every hour with thee."
Beatrice certainly lived; and no matter in what veil of mysticism the poet may choose to envelop her in his later writings, and in spite of the imagery of his phrases, even in the New Life, she never fails to appear to us as a real woman. We know that Dante first saw her on Mayday, in the year 1274, when neither had reached the age of ten, and the thrill he felt at this first vision has been described in his own words on the first page of this chapter. From that time forth it seems that, boy as he was, he was continually haunted by this apparition, which had at once assumed such domination over him. Often he went seeking her, and all that he saw of her was so noble and praiseworthy that he is moved to apply to her the words of Homer: "She seems not the daughter of mortal man, but of God." And he further says: "Though her image, which stayed constantly with me, gave assurance to Love to hold lordship over me, yet it was of such noble virtue that it never suffered Love to rule me without the faithful counsel of the reason in those matters in which it was useful to hear such counsel." So began his pure and high ideal of love, which is most remarkable in that it stands in striking contrast, not only to the usual amatory declarations of the time to be found in literature, but also to the very life and temper of the day and generation in which he was so soon to play a conspicuous part. It was a day of almost unbridled passions and lack of self-restraint, and none before had thought to couple reason with the thought of love. For nine years his boyish dreams were filled with this maiden, Beatrice, and not once in all that time did he have word with her. Finally, he says: "On the last of these days, it happened that this most admirable lady appeared before me, clad in shining white, between two ladies older than herself; and as she passed along, she turned her eyes toward that spot where I stood in all timidity, and then, through her great courtesy, which now has its reward in the eternal world, she saluted me with such virtue that I knew all the depth of bliss." But never did Dante come to know her well, though she was ever in his thoughts, and though he must have watched for her presence in the street. Once she went upon a journey, and he was sore distraught until she came back into his existence; once he was taken to a company of young people, where he was so affected by sudden and unexpected sight of her that he grew pale and trembled, and showed such signs of mortal illness that his friend grew much alarmed and led him quickly away. The cause of his confusion was not apparent to all the company; but the ladies mocked him, to his great dismay, and even Beatrice was tempted to a smile, not understanding all, yet feeling some annoyance that she should be the occasion for such strange demeanor on his part. Later, when her father dies, Dante grieves for her, waits at the corner to pick up fragments of conversation from those who have just come from consoling her, and, in truth, makes such a spectacle of himself, that these ladies passing say: "Why should he feel such grief, when he has not seen her?" He constantly feels the moral force of her influence, and recounts in the following lines-from the Norton translation-her noble influence on others:
"…for when she goes her way
Love casts a blight upon all caitiff hearts,
So that their every thought doth freeze and perish.
And who can bear to stay on her to look,
Will noble thing become or else will die.
And when one finds that he may worthy be
To look on her, he doth his virtue prove."
Before we are through with Dante's little book, we seem to feel that Beatrice must have lived, that she was flesh and blood as we are, and that she really graced the fair city on the Arno in her time, as the poet would have us believe. She is pictured in company with other ladies, upon the street, in social gatherings at the homes of her friends, in church at her devotions, in tears and laughter, and ever is she pictured with such love and tenderness that she will remain, as Professor Norton says, "the loveliest and the most womanly woman of the Middle Ages-at once absolutely real and truly ideal."
At her death, Dante is disconsolate for a time, and then devotes himself to study with renewed vigor; and he closes his story of her with the promise that he will write of her what has never yet been written of any woman. This anticipates, perhaps, the Divine Comedy, which was yet to be written, wherein Beatrice was his guide through Paradise and where he accords her a place higher than that of the angels. It may mar the somewhat idyllic simplicity of this story to add that Dante was married some years later to Gemma Donati, the daughter of a distinguished Florentine family, but such was the case. Little is known of her, however, as Dante never speaks of her; and while there is no reason to suppose that their union was not a happy one, it is safe to conclude that it gave him no such spiritual uplift as he had felt from his youthful passion.
The extent of Dante's greatness is to be measured not only by his wide learning-for he was the greatest scholar of his time-but also by his noble seriousness, which enabled him to penetrate through that which was light and frivolous to that which was of deep import to humanity. His was not the task of amusing the idle populace with what he wrote-he had a high duty, which was to make men think on the realities of life and of their own short-comings. People whispered, as he passed along: "See his dark face and melancholy look! Hell has he seen and Purgatory, and Paradise as well! The mysteries of life are his, but he has paid the cost." And many went back to their pleasures, but some were impressed with his expression. Whence came his seriousness, whence came his penetrating glance and sober mien? Why did he move almost alone in all that heedless throng, intent upon the eternal truth? Because from early youth he had nourished in his heart a pure love which had chastened him and given him an understanding of those deeper things of the spirit, which was denied to most men of his time. Doubtless Dante would have been Dante, with or without the influence of Beatrice, but through her he received that broad humanity which makes him the symbol of the highest thought of his time.
Whatever the story of Petrarch and his Laura may lack in