When from the flesh to spirit I ascended,
And beauty and virtue were in me increased,
I was to him less dear and less delightful,
And into ways untrue he turned his steps,
Pursuing the false images of good
That never any promises fulfil[121]
Nor prayer for inspiration me availed,[122]
_By means of which in dreams and otherwise
I called him back_, so little did he heed them.
So low he fell, that all appliances
For his salvation were already short
Save showing him the people of perdition."
Now Dante himself, we think, gives us the clew, by following which we may
reconcile the contradiction, what Miss Rossetti calls "the astounding
discrepancy," between the Lady of the _Vita Nuova_ who made him
unfaithful to Beatrice, and the same Lady in the _Convito_, who in
attributes is identical with Beatrice herself. We must remember that the
prose part of the _Convito_, which is a comment on the _Canzoni_, was
written after the _Canzoni_ themselves. How long after we cannot say with
certainty, but it was plainly composed at intervals, a part of it
probably after Dante had entered upon old age (which began, as he tells
us, with the forty-fifth year), consequently after 1310. Dante had then
written a considerable part of the _Divina Commedia_, in which Beatrice
was to go through her final and most ethereal transformation in his mind
and memory.
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