La Vita Nuova

We may give a few examples of these three classes.

i when boccaccio states that dante began his poem in latin and according to some authorities intended to dedicate its three cantiche to uguccione della fagiola frederick of sicily and morello malaspina respectively we know that he based his statements on a document which he had seen and had copied which he regarded as a respectable but not conclusive authority and which we still possess it is interesting to note moreover that in this instance modern criticism can hardly be regarded as having advanced beyond this doubtful verdict on the authority of the letter of fra ilario see below two on the other hand when boccaccio declares that dante in his after-life was ashamed of the vita nuova we may fairly suppose that the statement is due to a careless reading of the first book of the convivio in which dante perhaps a trifle nervously declares that he is not ashamed of the vita nuova but shows great concerns as to the infamy which the common understanding of a certain of his consoni is calculated to bring upon him again boccaccio's assertion that the comedy was begun in thirteen hundred no doubt rests on his interpretation of his opening lines and adds nothing to our information nor is it possible to say whether his statements as to the dates of the remaining works rest on any other basis than that of obvious conjectures suggested by the works themselves three the assertions as to dante's extreme political importance in florence bear evidence of some rhetorical inflation but are evidently not mere inventions they rest upon evidence the details of which we have no adequate means of controlling his allegations against dante to which of these last two classes does boccaccio's startling declaration as to dante's personal licentiousness of life belong had he independent evidence of it or did he only infer it from the study of dante's own works there is no conclusive answer to this question but my own belief is strong that boccaccio based his statement on internal evidence supplied by dante's works filippo villani expressly and leonardo bruni by implication contradict boccaccio's opinion and though they themselves perhaps stood on no firmer ground than that of inference and general impression yet their testimony is enough to show that at any rate there was no consistent tradition and therefore presumably no body of external evidence to dante's discredit in this matter how the internal evidence of dante's works became the nucleus of a chronique scandaleuse among such as had a taste for the like may be seen by the version of dante's amours given in the shorter form or compendium of boccaccio's life to which reference has already been made the epitomiser after speaking of the death of beatrice continues nor was our poet impassioned by this love alone nay rather was he much disposed to this affection we find him often to have sighed for other objects in his riper age and especially after his exile when he was in lucca for a lady whom he calls pargoletta and besides this almost at the end of his life in the alps of the cosentino for an alpine lady who if i have not been misinformed however beautiful in face had a goiter and for one or another of these he composed many a fine thing in rhyme it is easy to see how this trash has grown up on the one hand out of a misconception of the tender tribute rendered by dante in the purgatorio to the unknown lucchese lady together with the phrase in his confession in the earthly paradise and on the other hand out of the evidence supplied by the celebrated mountain song Footnote.

Could we accept, which I, for one, cannot, the theory recently revived by Rostagno, that the compendium is in truth from Boccaccio's own hand, being a first draft of the life, we should be able to say, with absolute confidence, that Boccaccio had nothing to go on but his own inferences from Dante's poems.

End footnote.

Diverse works written by Dante.

This glorious poet composed many works in his time, of which I think it were well to make orderly enumeration, lest some other be credited with any of his works, or by chance some work of another be attributed to him.

Firstly, while his tears were still flowing for the death of his Beatrice, about in his twenty-sixth year, he put together in a little volume which he called the Vita Nuova, certain small things as sonnets and odes which he had made in rhyme at divers seasons therefore marvellously beautiful placing at the head of each severally and in order the occasions that had moved him to write it and adding the divisions of the poems after them and although in his maturer years he took much shame to himself for having written this little book nevertheless when his age is considered tis a right fair and pleasant thing and especially for the unlettered certain years after this compilation as he looked down from the height of the government of the commonwealth on which he stood and saw over a wide stretch as from such places may be seen what was the life of men and what the errors of the common herd and how few they be who depart therefrom and of how great honour worthy are they who side therewith worthy of how great confusion condemning the pursuits of such as these and commending his own far above them there came into his mind a lofty thought whereby he purposed at the same time that is in one same work while showing forth his own power to reprehend the vicious with most grievous pains and honour the worthy with loftiest rewards and gain perpetual glory for himself and since as already set forth he had preferred poetry before every other pursuit he purposed to make his work poetic and having long premeditated that which he must do he began in his thirty-fifth year to give himself to bringing to effect that which he had already premeditated to wit how after their merits he should reprehend and reward the life of men according to its diversity and since he perceived that this life was after three manners to wit the vicious life and the life departing from vice and making for virtue and the virtuous life he divided his work wondrously into three books beginning with the reprehending of the vicious life and ending with the reward of the virtuous and he called the whole the comedy each one of the which three books he divided into cantos and the cantos into lines as may be clearly seen and he composed it in vernacular rhyme with so great art and such marvellous and beauteous arrangement that there hath not yet been any who might reprehend it justly in any point how subtly he poetized therein throughout they may perceive to whom hath been lent such understanding that they may comprehend it but even as we see that great things may not be carried through in brief space and even as we must comprehend accordingly that so lofty so great and so thought out an emprise as was the bringing poetically of all the acts of men and their deserts under rhymed verses in the vernacular could not by possibility be brought to an end within short space especially by one tossed on so many and varied chances of fortune all of them full of anguish and envenomed with bitterness as we have seen was the hap of dante even so albeit as will appear he composed other works meanwhile notwithstanding that he was engaged on this it came to pass that from the hour aforesaid when he gave himself up to so lofty an undertaking even to the extreme of his life his toil therein was unbroken nor will it be superfluous to touch in some sort on certain incidents that came to pass concerning the beginning and the end of this work END OF SECTION FIFTEEN SECTION FIFTEEN OF THE EARLY LIVES OF DANTE Translated by Philip H. Wicksteed This LibriVox recording is in the public domain.

SECTION FIFTEEN Boccaccio's Encomium on Dante Incidents that came to pass concerning the Divine Comedy i say that when he was most intent on his glorious work and had already composed seven cantos of the first part thereof the which he entitles hell conducting his invention wondrously and poetising not a wit as a pagan but in a most christian fashion a thing ne'er done before under sanction of this name there came upon him the grievous chance of his banishment or flight whichever we should call it whereupon he must abandon both this and all things else and go wandering for so many years uncertain of his lot among divers friends and seigneurs but even as we must believe very certainly that what god ordains fortune cannot by aught that she may oppose against it restrain from its due end even if she may perhaps interpose some delay it came to pass that a certain one was searching amongst dante's things for a special writing of which perchance he had need in certain chests that had been hastily rescued and deposited in sacred places what time the ungrateful and disordered mob had riotously rushed upon his house seeking plunder rather than just revenge and there he found the first seven cantos that had been composed by dante the which he read with admiration not knowing what they were and taking extreme delight in them he withdrew them by guile from the place where they were and took them and showed them to a citizen of ours whose name was messer dino di lambertuccio who had great fame in those days in florence as a poet in rhyme and when dino saw them being a man of lofty intellect he marvelled no less than he who had brought them to him both at the beautiful and polished and ornate style of speech and at the depth of the meaning which he seemed to see hidden under the fair crust for which reasons and also because of the place whence they had been taken both he and the one who had brought them readily supposed them to be as indeed they were the work of dante and grieving that this work had been left uncompleted and that they could not themselves divine to what end it would have reached they consulted together to search out where dante was and to send him what they had found so that if possible he might give the end he had imagined to such a beginning and learning after some inquiry that he was with the marquis muroello they wrote not to himself but to the marquis to tell their desire and sent him the seven cantos and when the marquis a man of much understanding had seen them and much praised them in himself he showed them to dante and asked him if he knew whose work they were and dante instantly recognising them answered that they were his own then the marquis besought him to be pleased not to leave so lofty a beginning without its due conclusion of a surety saith dante i suppose that in the ruin of all that was mine these and many other books of mine to boot had perished and therefore what with this belief and what with the crowd of other toils that have fallen upon me by reason of my exile i had wholly abandoned the lofty fantasy i had arrested for this work but since fortune in this unlooked-for fashion hath again thrust them upon me and since it is thy pleasure i will seek to call again to memory my first intent and will proceed therewith as grace shall be given me and taking up again not without toil and time the abandoned fantasy he followed on io dico seguitando che sei prima c whether joining on of the interrupted work may be recognised clear enough by whoso considereth well recommencing then his glorious work dante i take it did not lead it to a close as many might think without ever breaking it off but many a time according to the gravity of the chances that befell him required sometimes for months sometimes for years he left it where it was unable to do aught for it nor could he make such speed with it as to be able to make all of it public ere death came upon him it was his wont whenever he had done six or eight cantos more or less to send them from whatever place he was in before any other had seen them to messer cani della scala whom he held in reverence above all other men and when he had seen them dante gave access to them to whoso desired and having sent them to him in this fashion all save the last thirteen cantos which he had finished but had not yet sent him it came to pass that without bearing it in his mind that he was abandoning them he died and when they who were left behind children and disciples had searched many times in the course of many months amongst all his papers if haply he had composed a conclusion to his work and could by no means find the remaining cantos and when every admirer of his in general was enraged that god had not at least lent him to the world so long that he might have had opportunity to finish what little remained of his work they abandoned further search in despair since they could by no means find them sir jacopo and piero sons of dante both of them poets in rhyme moved there too by certain of their friends had taken it into their minds to attempt to supplement the parental work as far as in them lay that it might not remain imperfect when to jacopo who was far more zealous than the other in his work there appeared a wondrous vision which not only checked his foolish presumption but showed him where were the thirteen cantos which were wanting to this divine comedy and which they had not known to find a worthy man of ravenna whose name was piero giardino long time a disciple of dante's related how when eight months had passed after the death of his master the aforesaid jacopo came to him one night near to the hour that we call matins and told him that that same night a little before that hour he in his sleep had seen his father dante approach him clad in whitest garments and his face shining with an unwonted light whom he seemed to ask if he were yet living and to hear in reply that he was but in the true life not in ours whereon he seemed further to ask him if he had finished his work or ever he passed to that true life and if he had finished it where was the missing part which they had never been able to find to this he seemed to hear again in answer yea i finished it whereon it seemed that he took him by the hand and led him to that chamber where he was wont to sleep when he was living in this life and touching a certain spot he said here is that which ye so long have sought and no sooner was uttered that word than it seemed that both dante and sleep departed from him at the same moment wherefore he averred that he could not hold but come and signify what he had seen that they might go together and search in the place indicated to him which he had held most perfectly stamped on his memory to see whether a true spirit or a false delusion had shone at him wherefore since a great piece of the night still remained they departed together and went to the place indicated and there found a mat fixed to the wall which they lightly raised and found a recess in the wall which neither of them had ever seen nor knew that it was there and there they found certain writings all mouldy with the damp of the wall and ready to rot had they stayed there much longer and when they had carefully removed the mould and read they saw that they contained the thirteen cantos so long sought by them wherefore in great joy they copied them out and after the author's wont sent them first to messer carne and then joined them on as was meet to the imperfect work in such manner did the work of so many years see its completion 16.

Some years after the death of his beloved Dante selected from his previous verse a series of poems illustrating the phases of his inner life under Beatrice's influence and surrounded them with a dainty prose explanation.

This is the Vita Nuova, or New Life.

End of section eight.

Section nine of Lectures on the Harvard Classics.

Marvel takes a slight affair, the feeling of a girl for her pet, and gives it a connection with that inexhaustible and terrible nebula of emotion which surrounds all our exact and practical passions and mingles with them.

again marvel does this in a poem which because of its formal pastoral machinery may appear a trifling object clorinda near this a fountain's liquid bell tinkles within the concave shell damon might a soul bathe there and be clean or slake its drought where we find that a metaphor has suddenly wrapped us to the image of spiritual purgation there is here the element of surprise as when villon says necessiter fait jambe et prendre et fin salir le loup des bois the surprise which peau considered of the highest importance and also the restraint and quietness of tone which make the surprise possible and in the verses of marvel which have been quoted there is the making the familiar strange and the strange familiar which coleridge attributed to good poetry The effort to construct a dream world which alters English poetry so greatly in the 19th century, a dream world utterly different from the visionary realities of the Vita Nuova or of the poetry of Dante's contemporaries, is a problem of which various explanations may no doubt be found.

in any case the result makes a poet of the nineteenth century of the same size as marvel a more trivial and less serious figure Marvel is no greater personality than William Morris, but he had something much more solid behind him.

He had the vast and penetrating influence of Ben Johnson.