LOVES AND HEROINES.

DANTE ALIGHIERI.

1265-1321.

BEATRICE.

ALL that is known of Beatrice may be summed up in a few words. She was the daughter of Folco Portinari, a wealthy citizen of Florence, in which city she was born in 1266. Dante saw her for the first time in 1274, at a banquet in her father's house. It was a May-day festival, and she appeared in a blood-red dress. They were mere children, both being in their ninth year, still they were old enough to love: at least Dante was, for at the sight of Beatrice he was seized with a sudden passion for her. At the end of nine years they met again. She was walking in the street at the time, between two ladies, and was clothed in white. Dante trembled at her approach, and would have shrank away, but she saw him, and he was rooted to the ground. She saluted him graciously, and he was in the seventh heaven of love. The next time that he saw her was at church. She sat at a distance from him, on a line with another lady, who intercepted his loving looks. He was accused of loving this lady, and for the sake of Beatrice, whose rank seems to have been superior to his own, he favored the mistake, and pretended to be enamoured of her. He wrote a poem on sixty of the loveliest women in the city, and do what he would to the contrary, the name of Beatrice always came the ninth in the list. She made a journey to a distant part of the country, and during her absence he feigned to be in love with another, which offended her so when she heard of it, that she would not salute him on her return. The next thing we learn is that she is married. The date of her marriage is not given, but it must have been before the 15th of January, 1287, for on that day her father drew up a will, in which she and her husband, Simone dei Bardi, were mentioned. The death of her father two years later, and her excessive grief on that occasion, closed the book of her life. She died on the 9th of June, 1290.

This is a meagre account certainly, but it is all that Dante's commentators, for five hundred years, have been able to wring from the Past, and much of this would, doubtless, have escaped them but for Dante himself, so stormy were the times in which he lived. A few years after her death he collected the poems that he had written upon her, and published them with a biographical and critical commentary. This work, which he

called "THE NEW LIFE" (Vita Nuova), was followed by another called "THE BAnquet" (Convito), and at length by the celebrated "Divina Commedia," in both of which she is introduced, or rather her name is, for the Beatrice of the "Divina Commedia” and "THE BANQUET " is an embodiment of Philosophy and Religion, and not the Beatrice Portinari, whom Dante loved in his youth, and remembered with fondness in his age. The following extracts are from "THE NEW LIFE." The version used is that of Lyell. (London, 1845,)

To every captive soul and gentle heart,

Into whose sight the present song shall come,
Praying their thoughts on what it may portend,
Health in the name of Love, their sovereign lord.
A third part of the hours had almost past

Which show in brightest lustre every star,
When suddenly before me Love appeared,
Whose essence to remember gives me horror.
Joyful Love seemed, holding within his hand
My heart, and in his arms enfolded lay
Madonna sleeping, in a mantle wrapt.
Then waking her, he with this burning heart
Courteously fed her, and in fear she ate.
That done, I saw him go his way in tears.

Young, tender, noble maiden, since you see

That Love, with your consent, has made me yours,
And that for you I burn, and waste, and pine,
O let me not expire without reward.

O Love! dear lord, haply thou disbelievest
How hard she is, and cruel is my pain;
For in thy generous heart there must exist
The will to succor my fidelity.

And, lady, every pain would be removed

If hope were realized, and I were blest
With joy which Love solicits you to grant.
O help me, then, Madonna, ere I die;
I live for that alone, and if denied,

A corse you soon will see me at your feet.