"[114] Did Dante believe himself
to be one of these? He certainly gives us reason to think so. He was born
under fortunate stars, as he twice tells us,[115] and he puts the middle
of his own life at the thirty-fifth year, which is the period he assigns
for it in the diviner sort of men.[116]
The stages of Dante's intellectual and moral growth may, we think, be
reckoned with some approach to exactness from data supplied by himself.
In the poems of the _Vita Nuova_, Beatrice, until her death, was to him
simply a poetical ideal, a type of abstract beauty, chosen according to
the fashion of the day after the manner of the Provencal poets, but in a
less carnal sense than theirs. "And by the fourth nature of animals, that
is, the sensitive, man has another love whereby he loves according to
sensible appearance, even as a beast.... And by the fifth and final
nature, that is, the truly human, or, to speak better, angelic, that is,
rational, man has a love for truth and virtue.... Wherefore, since this
nature is called _mind_, I said that love discoursed in my mind to make
it understood that this love was that which is born in the noblest of
natures, that is, [the love] of truth and virtue, and to _shut out every
false opinion by which it might be suspected that my love was for the
delight of sense.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81