From The New Life of Dante Alighieri, translated by Charles Eliot Norton; Houghton, Mifflin and Company; Boston and New York; 1896; pp. 106-129.
THE charm of apparent simplicity and sincerity in the Vita Nuova is so great, that a reader may feel at first a certain sense of regret, as he gradually discovers that the narrative, while professedly the record of actual experience, is a work of poetic art, of elaborate and highly artificial structure, in which the story is ordered not in literal conformity with fact, but according to an ideal of the imagination; and that its reality does not consist in the exactness of its report of fact, but in the truth of the imaginative conception by which the individual experience is transmuted from prose to poetry. Then as 107 the reader grows familiar with the little book under this aspect, its higher worth becomes manifest to him, and he finds in it a deeper interest than ever.
But he has another discovery to make. Underneath a part at least of the narrative, which appears so direct and single in its intention, lies concealed a studied allegory. The record of professed fact is in part a fiction invented for the garb of an inner meaning, of which the text gives no hint, and which would hardly have been suspected, certainly never truly interpreted, if Dante himself had not elsewhere revealed it.
This revelation is made in his Convito or “Banquet.” The Convito is an unfinished work composed, and in great part written, during the exile of the poet. Certainly not less, probably much more, than ten years intervened between its composition, and that of the Vita Nuova. I say composition, rather than writing, for it, like the New Life, is made up of poems and of prose written at various times, but brought together finally in the form of a consecutive work.
The Convito derives its name of the “Banquet” from its main design, which was that of providing instruction which should be serviceable in the conduct of life for those who had scant opportunities of learning. This Dante proposed to do by means of a series of treatises in the vulgar tongue, and in the form of comments upon canzoni of his own, which, though in appearance poems of love, were in reality poems of morality or philosophy. The method admitted of wide and discursive treatment of multifarious topics. It is only in its relation to the New Life that the Banquet concerns us here.
108Very near the beginning, in the first chapter, Dante says: “If in the present work, which is called the Banquet, the discourse be more virile than that of the New Life, I do not therefore intend to discredit the latter in any respect, but much more to confirm that work by this, seeing how reasonably it behoves that that should be fervid and impassioned, this temperate and virile. . . . For in the former I spoke at the entrance to my youth, in the latter [I speak], youth being now gone by.”
This is, I believe, the only direct reference to the New Life in the first treatise or book of the Banquet; so that, noting only this intention to confirm the New Life, we pass to the second treatise, which is composed of the canzone beginning,
and of the comment upon it. In this canzone the poet, addressing the Intelligences of the Heaven of Venus, tells them of the state to which he has been reduced by the conflict of a new love with his old. It deals with those conditions and experiences of the poet which form the subject of chapters thirty-six to thirty-nine of the New Life. Because of its close relation to the narrative in those chapters, and for the better understanding of what follows, I give a translation of it.
Dante begins his comment upon this canzone by saying that certain writings are to be understood in four senses, and may require an exposition according to each sense. The first is the literal meaning; the second is 111 the allegorical or real, though hidden significance; the third is the moral, that is, their meaning in its practical application to life; the fourth is the anagogical or supersensual significance, by which things true in a literal sense are shown to have also truth in regard to the supernal things of eternal glory, as when the prophet says that, in the coming out of the people of Israel from Egypt, Judea was made holy and free, which, manifestly true according to the letter, is not less true if spiritually understood of the coming out of the soul from sin, by which it is made free and holy.
The exposition of the literal meaning should precede that of the other meanings, and Dante goes on to set forth, in the second chapter of the Treatise, the literal meaning of the canzone, as follows: “Beginning therefore I say, that after the death of the blessed Beatrice, who lives in Heaven with the Angels, and on earth with my soul, the star of Venus had twice revolved in that circle which makes it appear as evening and as morning star, according to the two different seasons, when that gently lady of whom I made mention toward the end of the New Life, first appeared before my eyes accompanied by Love, and took some place in my mind.8
112“And as I have told in the aforesaid little book, it came to pass more through her gentleness than by my own choice, that I yielded myself to her; for she showed herself filled with such compassion for my widowed life, that the spirits of my eyes became altogether friendly to her, and they presented her in such wise within me 113 that my will was freely content to unite itself unto that image. But since love does not spring up and grow great and become perfect all at once, but requires some time and the nourishment of thoughts, especially in case of the existence of contrary thoughts which hinder it, it could not but be that, before this new love could become perfect, there should be many a battle between the thought which nourished it and that which was opposed to it, which, through that glorified Beatrice, still held the citadel of my mind. For the one was continually succored from in front by means of my eyes, and the other from behind by means of my memory; and that which was succored from in front increased every day, which was impossible for the other, opposed to it, and in some measure hindered by it from turning back its look.
“Wherefore this appeared to me so wonderful and also hard to bear, that I could not endure it, and, crying out as it were, in order to excuse myself for what seemed to me the lack of fortitude, I addressed my voice to that quarter whence was proceeding the victory of the new thought, which was most powerful, as of celestial power, and I began to say: ‘Ye, who, intelligent, the third heaven move.’ ”
Here Dante breaks off his narrative, in order to proceed with the literal exposition of the canzone, which, with various digressions, occupies many chapters. He explains that he made his appeal to the Angelic Intelligences of the third Heaven, the Heaven of Venus, because they who, in the order of the Heavenly Hierarchy, 114 are the Thrones, deriving their nature from the Love of the Holy Spirit, work in accordance with it in the revolution of that Heaven which is filled with Love. In this revolution the Heaven acquires a powerful glow by which the souls on earth are kindled to love, according to their respective dispositions. (ii. 6.)
But his canzone exhibits the contention of two loves within his heart, “and some one may say: ‘Since love is the effect of these Intelligences, and that first love of thine was love, even as this later was love, how is it that their power destroys the one and generates the other; seeing that it ought to save the former love, for the reason that every cause loves its effect, and, loving, saves it?’ To this question the answer is easy. The effect wrought by these Intelligences is, indeed, Love, as has been said; but since they can save it ony in those who are subject to their circulation,9 they transfer it from an existence which lies outside of their power, to one which lies within it; namely, from the soul departed from this life to that which still dwells here.”
It is thus that Dante accounts for the transference of his love from Beatrice to another object of love. Beatrice had gone to the immortal world, far above the influence of the Intelligences of the third Heaven. “But,” he continues, “inasmuch as the immortality of the soul is here touched upon, I will make a digression, that I may discourse of it; for discourse of it will be a fair close to speech concerning that living, blessed Beatrice of whom I do not propose to speak further in this 115 book.” The digression ends with the following words: “And I believe, and affirm, and am sure that I shall go to another better world after this, where that lady lives in glory, with whom my mind was enamored when it had the battle.” (ii. 9.)
So far, then, the narrative in the Banquet conforms in the main with that of the New Life. But now, having completed the literal exposition of the canzone, Dante proceeds to the “allegoric and true interpretation.”
“And therefore, beginning again at the beginning, I say, that when the first delight of my soul was lost, of which mention has already been made, I remained pierced with such affliction that no comfort availed me. Nevertheless, after some time, my mind, which was endeavoring to heal itself, undertook, since neither my own nor others’ consoling availed, to turn to the mode which other comfortless ones had adopted for their consolation. And I set myself to reading that book of Boethius, not known to many, in which he, a prisoner and an exile, had consoled himself. And hearing, moreover, that Tully had written a book in which, treating of friendship, he had introduced words of consolation for Lælius, a most excellent man, on the death of Scipio his friend, I set myself to read that. And although it was difficult for me at first to enter into their meaning, I finally entered into it, so far as my knowledge of Latin and a little of my own genius permitted; through which genius I already, as if in a dream, saw many things, as may be seen in the New Life. And as it sometimes happens that a man goes seeking silver, and, 116 beyond his expectation, finds gold, which a hidden occasion affords, not perchance without divine guidance, so I, who was seeking to console myself, found not only relief for my tears, but words of authors, and of knowledge, and of books; reflecting upon which, I came to the conclusion that Philosophy, who was the lady10 of these authors, this knowledge, and these books, was a supreme thing. And I imagined her as having the features of a gentle lady; and I could not imagine her in any but a compassionate act, wherefore my sense so willingly admired her in truth, that I could hardly turn it from her. And after this imagination I began to go there where she displayed herself truly, that is to say, to the school of the religious, and to the disputations of the philosophers, so that in a short time, perhaps in thirty months, I began to feel so much of her sweetness that the love of her chased away and destroyed every other thought. Wherefore I, feeling myself lifted from the thought of my first love to the virtue of this, wondering as it were in myself, opened my mouth in the utterance of the preceding canzone, showing my condition under the figure of other things; because, to speak, openly of the lady of whom I was enamored, no rhyme of any vulgar tongue was worthy,11 nor were the hearers so 117 well disposed that they would have so easily apprehended words not fictitious,12 nor would they have given credence to the true meaning as to the fictitious; because in truth it was the common belief that I was devoted to the former love, and there was no such belief in regard to the latter. I began, therefore, with saying, —
And because, as has been said, this lady was the daughter of God, queen of all things, the most noble and most beautiful Philosophy, it is now for us to see who these movers were, and what was this third heaven.” (ii. 13.)
In the next chapter Dante says that by “Heaven” he means knowledge, and by “the Heavens” the various sciences, or branches of knowledge. “To the seven first heavens (those of the planets) correspond the seven sciences of the Trivium and of the Quadrivium, namely, Grammar, Dialectics, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth sphere, that is, to the sphere of the fixed stars, corresponds the science of Nature, which is called Physics, and the first science,13 which is called Metaphysics, and to the ninth sphere [the crystalline] corresponds Moral science, and to the 118 quiet heaven [the Empyrean] corresponds Divine science, which is called Theology.”
Dante goes on to set forth this correspondence by fanciful analogies. There is much in his treatment of the subject which is of interest as showing his conception of the order and progress of knowledge leading up to moral philosophy, “which disposes us for the other branches of knowledge,” while last in the series, the source and the end of all, is “the Divine science, which is full of all peace, and will not endure any strife of opinions or of sophistical arguments, because of the most excellent certitude of its subject, which is God.” This alone is perfect knowledge, “because it makes us see perfectly the Truth in which our souls repose.” (ii. 15.)
Now the canzone on which Dante is commenting is addressed to the Intelligences who move the third heaven, the heaven of Venus, the heaven to which Rhetoric corresponds, because Rhetoric is the sweetest of all sciences, its object being to delight and to persuade. And according to the allegory, the movers of this heaven are the masters of Rhetoric, such as Boethius and Tully, “who by the sweetness of their speech directed me along the way, as has already been told, into the love, that is, into the study of this most gentle Lady Philosophy, with the radiance of their star, which is what is written of her. For in every science the writing is a star, full of light, which demonstrates that science. And now, this being made clear, the true meaning of the first stanza of the above canzone can be seen by means of the fictitious and literal interpretation. The 119 second stanza is sufficiently intelligible to where it says, He maketh me upon a lady look; where it is to be known that this lady is Philosophy, which truly is a lady full of sweetness, adorned with dignity, marvellous in knowledge, glorious in liberty, as will be shown in the third Treatise, in which her nobility is to be treated of. And where it says: Let him who wisheth health to see, Take care upon this lady’s eyes to look, the eyes of this lady are her demonstrations, which, directed upon the eyes of the understanding, enamor the soul, made free in its conditions. Oh, ye sweetest and ineffable looks, sudden ravishers of the human mind, which appear in the eyes of Philosophy when she discourses with her lovers! truly in you is the salvation by which he who looks on you is made blessed, and safe from the death of ignorance and of vice. Where it is said: Unless he fear the agony of sighs, the meaning is, unless he fear the labor of study and the strife of doubts, which, at the beginning of the looks of this lady, rise multiplied, and then, her light continuing, fall, even as the little morning clouds before the face of the sun; so that the understanding, become her familiar, remains free and full of certainty, purged and luminous as the air by the noonday rays.
“The third stanza also is intelligible through the literal exposition to where it says: Then weeps the soul.. Here there is need to attend carefully to a moral truth which may be noted in these words: that a man ought not, because of a greater friend, to forget the services he has received from a lesser; but if it be needful for him to 120 follow the one and to leave the other, he must follow the best, abandoning the other with some honest lamentation, by which he gives occasion to the one whom he follows, for more love.
“Afterward, where it says: Then of my eyes, it means nothing else, save that the hour was hard when the first demonstration of this lady entered into the eyes of my understanding, which was the immediate cause of this enamoring. And where it says: My peers, it means, the souls free from wretched and mean delights and from vulgar customs, and endowed with intelligence and memory. And then it says: It slays, and then: I am slain, which seems contrary to what is said before of the salvation proceeding from this lady. And therefore it is to be known that here one of the parties is speaking, and there the other is speaking, which were striving against each other, as has been made clear in what precedes. Wherefore it is no wonder if there it says ‘yes,’ and here it says ‘no,’ if good regard be paid to who descends, and who mounts.14
“Afterwards, in the fourth stanza, where it says: a little sprite of Love, by this is meant a thought which is born of my study; and it is to be known that by Love in this allegory is always meant that study, which is the application of the mind to the thing whereof it is enamored.
“Afterward when it says: Thou shalt see adornment of such lofty miracles, it declares that through 121 her the adornments of miracles shall be seen; and it says truth, for by the adornments of marvels is meant the sight of the causes of those things which Philosophy demonstrates; as the Philosopher seems to hold at the beginning of his Metaphysics, saying that by the sight of these adornments men begin to become enamored of his lady. . . . And thus, in conclusion of this second treatise, I say and affirm that the lady of whom I was enamored, after my first love, was the most beautiful and worthy daughter of the Emperor of the Universe, to whom Pythagoras gave the name of Philosophy. And here ends the second treatise which is offered as the first viand of the Banquet.”
The canzone prefixed to the third treatise begins with the verse: —
and is that which Casella chose when Dante wooed him to sing,
That Dante himself held it in high esteem thus seems manifest, but in form it is hardly so fair as the preceding canzone, and in substance, as the praise of Philosophy under the garb of a lady, it requires a no less elaborate exposition for its true comprehension. To this exposition, first of the literal meaning, and then of the meaning concealed within the letter, the third treatise is devoted.
It begins, “As has been narrated in the preceding treatise, my second love took its beginning from the 122 compassionate looks of a lady, which Love, finding my life disposed to his ardor, kindled, like a fire, from a little to a great flame, so that not only when I waked, but when I slept, her light found its way within my head. And how great was the desire which Love gave me to see her can neither be told nor understood. And not only was I thus desirous of her, but also of all those persons who had any proximity to her, either through acquaintance, or through some kinship. Oh, how many were the nights, when the eyes of other persons were reposing closed in sleep, and mine were gazing fixedly upon the dwelling place of my love!” He goes on to say that as intense fire insists on breaking out, so he could not refrain from speaking of Love, in praise of her whom he loved. And to this, beside other motives, the thought moved him, that “I should perhaps be blamed for levity of mind by many, when they heard that I had changed from my first love. Wherefore to prevent this blame, there was no better argument than to tell who the lady was that had changed me; for her manifest excellence would lead to the consideration of her power; and, on understanding the greatness of her power, the thought might follow that the most stable mind was, under her influence, liable to change; and therefore I was not to be judged either light-minded or unstable. Wherefore I undertook to praise this lady; and if not as was befitting, at least to the degree that was within my power.” (iii. 1.)
After a long exposition of the literal meaning of the canzone which he then wrote, Dante says, “Returning 123 now to the beginning, I say that this lady is that lady of the understanding which is called Philosophy.” And Philosophy, as he afterwards explains, “is naught else than the love of wisdom or of knowledge,” and the end of Philosophy is that most excellent delight which suffers neither intermission nor defect, namely, the true felicity which is acquired through contemplation of the truth.” And those branches “of knowledge on which Philosophy fixes her sight more fervently, that is to say, natural science, moral science, and metaphysics, are called by her noble name.” (iii. 11.)
When then “I say: Love, which within my mind discourseth with me, I mean by Love the study which I applied in order to acquire the love of this Lady, . . . and this study shaped within my mind continual new and most lofty considerations of this Lady.” And when in his canzone he says, that the Sun which circles all the world sees not a thing so gentle as she, he means by the Sun, God, and that He, who is the spiritual light of the world, sees no such gentle thing as when He sees this Philosophy, “which is the loving practice of wisdom, which has its source in God, because in Him is supreme wisdom, and supreme love, and supreme act, which cannot exist elsewhere save as they proceed from Him. The Divine Philosophy is, therefore, of the Divine essence, because in this nothing can be added to its own essence; and it is most noble, because the most noble essence is the Divine; and it is in It in a perfect and true mode, as by eternal marriage.” (iii. 12.)
And hence, it follows, that “where the love of this 124 bride of God is resplendent, all other loves become dark, and, as it were, extinct; because its eternal object, bearing no proportion to other objects, conquers and overcomes them.”
Thus Philosophy, which in its first beginnings in the mind deals with things mortal and of earth, brings her lover at last to things immortal and heavenly. “It is to be known that the beholding of this lady was so largely ordained to us, not only that we may see the face she shows to us, but that we may desire and attain to those things which she holds concealed. And as through her many of those things are seen by the reason, so through her we believe that every miracle may have its reason in a higher intellect, and consequently may be. Whence our good faith has its origin, and from faith comes the hope of the anticipated things which we desire, and from that is born the working of charity; by the which three virtues we rise to philosophize in the celestial Athens where the Stoics, Peripatetics, and Epicureans, through the art of eternal truth, concur accordantly in a single will.” (iii. 14.)
It is through Philosophy alone that beatitude, the chief good of Paradise, is to be attained. This delight cannot be found in anything on earth, save in her eyes and her smile, for “her eyes are the demonstrations of wisdom by which the truth is seen with full assurance, and her smiles are its persuasions, in which the inner light of wisdom is shown without a veil.” “And only in beholding her is human perfection acquired, that is, the perfection of the reason, on which, as on its principal 125 part, all our being depends.” Moreover another delight of Paradise, a secondary felicity, proceeds from her beauty, for morality is her beauty, and to live according to virtue is felicity. And finally, in highest praise of that Wisdom which is, as it were, the body of Philosophy, it was with her the God began the world, so that, speaking through Solomon, she says, “When God prepared the heavens I was there.”
“Oh, worse than dead ye who fly from her friendship! Open your eyes and behold, that before ye were she loved you, and after ye were created, in order to set you right, she came in your own likeness to you! And if ye all cannot come unto the sight of her, honor her in her friends, and obey their commands, as those who announce to you the will of this eternal Empress. . . . And here may end the exposition of the true meaning of this Canzone.” (iii. 15.)
Thus with the exaltation of Philosophy, till from the order of human knowledge she rises to be the Wisdom of God, finally incarnate in the Son of God himself, Dante completes the praise of her who, by the sweetness of her compassionating countenance, had drawn his eyes, and, following them, his heart, from his first love. Here, then, the relation of the Banquet to the New Life ends. Let us briefly review it.
The first part of the exposition, in the Banquet, of the experience which Dante underwent some time after the death of Beatrice, corresponds nearly enough with that portion of the narrative in the New Life which tells of the gentle lady whom he saw looking upon him from a 126 window with compassionate gaze, provided that this latter narrative be interpreted according to the allegoric signification which he teaches us in the Banquet to find in it. Mr. Lowell, in his essay on Dante, had pointed out that by putting the gentle lady at a window, which is as place to look out, he intended to imply that she personified Speculation, or the turning of the eyes of the mind to the contemplation of those things of which the study might distract the mind from sorrow. The conflict between the new thoughts which sought to take possession of Dante’s soul and the hold which held it in affliction for the loss of Beatrice is depicted in the sonnets of the New Life much as it is exhibited in the canzone of the Banquet. There is no difficulty in reconciling one account with the other, till we come in the New Life to the chapter (c. xl.) in which Dante tells of the vision of Beatrice, as she had first appeared to his eyes, which recalled him wholly to his allegiance to her, and made him “repent of the desire by which his heart had allowed itself to be possessed so vilely for some days, contrary to the constancy of the reason, so that this evil desire being driven out, all his thoughts returned to their most gentle Beatrice.” Here the contradiction between the one narrative and the other appears complete, and at first sight irreconcilable, whether interpreted literally or allegorically. I believe that as they stand they are irreconcilable. But it seems to me that what may be called a moral reconciliation of them is possible, nay, must be possible, if we accept Dante’s own assertion that the Banquet was intended to confirm and not in any respect to detract from the New Life.
127The difference in the character of the two books needs first to be considered. The New Life is a book of poetry, a composition of art, a work largely shaped by the pure imagination, whilst the Banquet is essentially a work of moral philosophy, of unusual form, indeed, but of a form which does not interfere with the directness of its ethical teaching. The main doctrine of the portions of the Banquet which have immediate relation to the New Life is the mounting of the soul of man, by its inborn love of truth, through the study of the things of the visible world to the contemplation and study of the things of the visible world to the contemplation and study of the things of the invisible world, until the soul finds the beatitude which it seeks in union with God, who is the proper object of its love and in whom is Truth itself.
Now in the New Life this same doctrine lies concealed under a poetic garb. Beatrice on earth had been in her loveliness the type to her lover of the beauty of eternal things; she had lifted his heart from sensual to spiritual love; she had revealed to him the Creator in his creature. But her death had plunged him in a grief which derived no consolation from spiritual comforts. In his sorrow he at length turned himself to such sources of comfort as he could find in study, and, seeking silver, he found gold. For the acquisition of knowledge gradually opened to him the way to wisdom. Philosophy, which first showed herself to him as the mistress of human science, so long as she was only this, was merely the means of distracting his thoughts. And in this aspect she became hateful to him. Then Beatrice revealed 128 herself in vision to him no longer merely as a type of heavenly things, but as herself the guide to the knowledge of them, herself the revealer of the Divine truth. She, looking upon the face of God, reflected its light upon her lover. She became the image of Divine Philosophy.
This seems to me no forced interpretation of the close of the New Life. Save in the introduction of Beatrice as the image of the Philosophy through the love of which the higher truths of the spiritual life are attained, the substance is essentially the same with that of the Banquet. The New Life presents poetically what the Banquet presents without the coloring of poetry.
In the latter Dante omits all mention of the failure of the Philosophy applied to the lower ranges of thought to satisfy his cravings for the truth in which the soul finds its rest, as the wild beast in his lair, but narrates the unbroken progress from that Philosophy which deals with knowledge to that which is Wisdom itself, through which the vision of divine and eternal things is opened to the soul. Why he did not bring the narratives in his two books into complete external harmony is perhaps to be accounted for by the fact that the canzoni, to the exposition of which, as the praises of Philosophy under the form of a gentle lady, the second and third treatises of the Banquet are devoted, contain nothing which might give him direct occasion to recur to the figurative significance of Beatrice in her final aspect in the New Life.
It was his aim to show that his apparent faithlessness to her memory had not been such in reality; to no other 129 earthly love had he turned, but he had given himself to the love of that wisdom “which whoso findeth, findeth life,” and having shown this, he desisted from setting forth the fact that the earthly Beatrice had become transfigured in his soul to the living image of Her “who maketh happy him who retaineth her.”
With such an understanding as this of the relation between the New Life and the Banquet, they serve fitly as the joint introduction to the Divine Comedy, in which the genius of Dante at length found its full expression, and he accomplished his hope of “saying of Beatrice what was never said of any woman.”
1 “It is to be known that the movers of the Heavenas are immaterial existences, namely Intelligences, whom the common people call Angels.” (ii. 5.) “The Divine light rays out immediately upon the Intelligences, and is reflected by these Intelligences upon other things.” (iii. 14.)
2 Counter to the soul.
3 To the feet of God.
4 The sweet thought.
5 Salute, health, salvation.
6 The soul.
7 With thy meaning.
8 The date of the first appearance of “the gentle lady,” though seemingly fixed by this statement, is uncertain, owing to the fact that one of the terms used by Dante to define it admits of two different interpretations. The revolution of the star of Venus in that circle which makes her appear as evening and as morning star, may mean, according to the Ptolemaic system, her revolution relatively in her epicycle relatively to a fixed direction, which is completed in two hundred and twenty-five days; or, it may mean “her revolution to the line passsing through the earth to the centre of the epicycle,” — a revolution accomplished in five hundred and fifty-four days, in which she returns to the same position in regard to the sun as that from which she started. According as we assume one or the other period, the date of the appearance of the gentle lady, at the end of two revolutions of Venus, would be either fifteen months or very nearly thirty-nine months after the death of Beatrice.
If one or the other of these periods could be determined as the correct interval between the death of Beatrice and the appearance of the compassionate lady, it would help to fix the approximate dates of the compiling of the Vita Nuova. This would be of interest in Dante’s external biography, but it is of slight importance so far as his spiritual biography is concerned. For, as regards the essential experience and development of his spiritual and intellectual nature, it is of little consequence whether the New Life were compiled early or late in the last ten years of the thirteenth century.
The subject has been ably discussed by Professor George R. Carpenter in a scholarly and excellent essay on the “Donna Pietosa” printed with the Eighth Annual Report of the Dante Society, Cambridge (Mass.), 1889. Mr. Carpenter inclines to adopt the shorter revolution of Venus as that intended by Dante.
I am glad of the opportunity, which the mention of this essay of Mr. Carpenter’s affords to me, of expressing my grateful acknowledgment to him for giving me the benefit of his learning and taste in the revision of hte proof-sheets of my translation of the Divine Comedy.
9 That is, subject to the influence of the sphere which they revolve.
10 That is, the object to which they were devoted.
11 Verse in the vulgar tongue had been so appropriated to themes of love, that it was not worthy to discourse openly of higher matters. They must be concealed, as in an allegory, under the form of verses which seemed literally to treat of matters of love.
12 That is, they would not so readily have taken to and understood a poem openly about Philosophy, as they would one in which the true philosophic sense was concealed under an allegory of love.
13 The “first science,” as dealing with the primal substances or existences, which, immaterial, incorruptible, and not objects of sense, are to be known only through their effects.
14 That which mounts is the love of Philosophy; that which descends is the love of Beatrice.