I showed this sonnet to Messer Guido, who laughed a little, and said that I might be the laureate of the tavern and the brothel, but that this new and nameless singer was a man of another metal, whom I could never understand. Whereat I laughed, too; but being none the less a little piqued, as I think, I made it a point thereafter, whenever Guido had one of these new poems come to him, to answer it with some poem of my own, cast in a similar form to that chosen by the unknown. But my verses were always written in praise of the simple and straightforward pleasures of sensible men, to whom all this talk about the G.o.d of Love and about some single exalted lady seems strangely away from the mark of wise living. For a.s.suredly if it be a pleasant thing to love one woman, it is twenty times as pleasant to love twenty. But I will not give you all of these poems, nor perhaps any more, for you can read them for yourselves, if you wish to, in my writings.
Now in a little while this same unknown poet was pleased to put abroad a certain ballad of his that was ostensibly given over to the praise of certain lovely ladies of our city. Florence was always a very paradise of fair women. An inflammable fellow like myself could not walk the length of a single street without running the risk of half a dozen heartaches, and never was traveller that came and went but was loud in his laudations of the loveliness of Florence feminine. A poet, therefore, could scarcely have a more alluring theme or a livelier or more likable, and the fact that the mysterious singer had taken such a subject for his inspiration was rightly regarded as another instance of his exceeding good sense. It was a very beautiful ballad, fully worthy of its honorable subject, and it paid many compliments of an exquisite felicity to many ladies that were indicated plainly enough by some play upon a name or some praise of an attribute. But it was, or might have been, plain enough to all that read it that this poem was written for no other purpose than to bring in by a side wind, as it were, the praise of a lady that was left nameless, but that he who wrote declared to be the loveliest lady in that n.o.ble city of lovely ladies. This ballad seemed to be unfinished, for in its last stanza the writer promised to utter yet more words on this so favorable theme. Now when I had heard of this poem and before I had read it--for Guido, to whom the first copy was given, loved it so much and lingered so long upon its lines that he kept it an unconscionable time from his fellows--I bethought me that I, too, would write me a set of verses on the brave and fair ladies of Florence, and that in doing so I could bring in the name of the girl of my heart.
It was easy enough for me to write a pa.s.sable ring of rhymes that should introduce with all due form and honor the names of those ladies that all in that time agreed to be most eminent for their beauty and gentleness in the beautiful and gentle city. And so I got a good way upon my work with very little trouble indeed, for, as I have said, rhymes always came easy to me and I loved to juggle with colored words. My difficulty came with the moment when I had to decide upon the introduction of my own heart"s desire.
Now about this time of the year when I began my ballad, I was myself very plenteously and merrily in love with a certain lady whose name I will here set down as Ippolita, for that was what I called her, seeing in her a kind of amazonian carriage, though that was not the name she was known by among the men and the women, her neighbors. She had dark eyes whose brightness seemed to widen and deepen as you kissed her lips--and, indeed, the child loved to be kissed exceedingly, for all her quaint air of woman-warrior--and she had dark hair that when you, being permitted to play her lover, uncoiled it, rolled down like a great mane to her haunches, and her face, both by its paleness and by the perfection of its featuring, seemed to vie with those images of Greece by which the wise set such store. To judge by the serenity of her expression, the suavity of her glances, you would have sworn by all the saints that here if ever was an angel, one that would carry the calm of Diana into every action of life, and challenge pa.s.sion with a chast.i.ty that was never to be gainsaid. But he that ever held her in his arms found that the so-seeming ice was fire, under those snows lava bubbled, and she that might have pa.s.sed for a priestess of Astarte quivered with frenzy under the dominion of Eros. To speak only for myself, I found her a very phoenix of sweethearts.
She was married to a tedious old Mumpsiman that kept himself and her in little ease by plying the trade of a horse-leech, which trade, for the girl"s felicity, held him much abroad, and gave her occasion, seldom by her neglected, to prove to her intimate of the hour that there can be fire without smoke. Now I, being somewhat top-heavy at this season with the wine of so fair a lady"s favors, thought that I might, with no small advantage to myself and no small satisfaction to my mistress, set me to doing her honor with some such tuneful words as the unknown singer was blowing with such sweet breath about Florence in praise of his lady. For it is cheaper to please a woman with a sonnet than with a jewel, and as my Ippolita was not avaricious, I was blithe to oblige her in golden numbers in lieu of golden pieces.
Wherefore I set my wits to work one morning after an evening of delight, and found the muse complaisant. My fancy spouted like a fountain, the rhymes swam in the water like gilded or silver fishes, so tame you had but to dip in your fingers and take your pick, while allusion and simile crowded so thickly about me that I should have needed an epic rather than my legal fourteen lines to make use of the half of them. I tell you I was in the very ecstasy of composition that lasted me for the better part of a fortnight. But by the time that I had come to this point the pretty Ippolita, whose name I had intended to place there, was no longer the moment"s idol of my soul, and between the two dainty girls that had succeeded her I sat for a long while embarra.s.sed, like the schoolman"s a.s.s between the two bundles of hay, not knowing, as it were, at which to bite.
At last I bethought me that the best way out of my trouble was to set down the names of all the sweet women whom I loved or had loved, and to let those others and more famous, of whom I knew nothing save by sight or renown, stand to one side. So it came to pa.s.s that this poem of mine proved, at the last, more like an amorous calendar of my own life than a hymn in praise of the famous beauties of Florence. For with famous beauties I have never at any time had much to do. It has always been my desire to find my beauties for myself, and I have ever found that there is a greater reward in the discovery of some pretty maid and a.s.suring her that she is lovelier than Helen of Troy or Semiramis or Cleopatra, than in the paying of one"s addresses to some publicly acclaimed loveliness.
By the time my tale of verses was complete, it was as different as it might be from that which it set itself, I will not say to rival, but to parody, for it contained few names of great ladies that were upon the lips of every Florentine, but sang the praises of unknown witches and minxes that were at the time of writing, or had been, very dear to me.
If my song was not so fine a piece of work as that of Messer Dante, though Messer Dante was at that time only in the earlier flights of his efforts, and his pinions were, as yet, unfamiliar to the poet"s ether, it was perhaps as true a picture, after its fashion, of a lover"s heart.
After all, it must be remembered that there are many kinds of lovers"
hearts, and that those who can understand the "New Life" of Messer Dante"s are very few, and fewer still those that can live that life. But I here protest very solemnly that it was with no thought of scoff or mockery that I made my ballad, but just for the sake of saying, in my way, the things I thought about the pretty women that pleased me and teased me, and made life so gay and fragrant and variegated in those far-away, dearly remembered, and no doubt much-to-be-deplored days.
It was the dreaming of this ballad of mine that led me to think of Monna Vittoria, whom you will remember if you bear in mind the beginning of this, my history, the lady that Messer Simone of the Bardi was whimsically pledged to wed if he failed to win a certain wager that I trust you have not forgotten. And thinking of Monna Vittoria led, in due time, to a meeting with Monna Vittoria that was not without consequences.
It is not incurious, when you come to reflect upon it, how potent the influence of such a woman as Vittoria may be upon the lives of those that would seem never destined by Heaven to come in her way. My Dante was never in those days a wooer of such ladies. As to certain things that are said of him later, in the hours of his despair, when the world seemed no better than an empty sh.e.l.l, I shall have somewhat to say, perhaps, by-and-by, for there is a matter that has led to not a little misunderstanding of the character of my friend. As for Madonna Beatrice, she that was such a flower in a guarded garden, why, you would have said it was little less than incredible that the clear course of her simple life could be crossed by the summer lightning of Madonna Vittoria"s brilliant, fitful existence. Yet, nevertheless, from first to last, Madonna Vittoria was of the utmost moment in the lives of this golden la.s.s and lad, and this much must be admitted in all honesty: that she never did, or at least never sought to do, other than good to either of them. I should not like to say that she would have troubled at all about them or their welfare if it had not served her turn to do so. But whatever the reasons for her deeds, let us be grateful that their results were not malefic to those whose interests concern us most. If Messer Simone had never made his brutal boast, Madonna Vittoria would never have made her wild wager. But having made it, she was eager to win it at all costs, and it was her determination that Simone of the Bardi should never wed with Beatrice of the Portinari, that led, logically enough if you do but consider it aright, to the many strange events which it is my business to narrate.
VIII
MONNA VITTORIA SENDS ME A MESSAGE
Monna Vittoria dwelt in the pleasantest part of the country outside the city, in a quarter where there were many gardens and much thickness of trees and greenness of gra.s.s and coloring of bright flowers--all pleasing things, that made an agreeable background to her beauty when she went abroad in her litter. For, indeed, she was a comely creature, and one that painters would pause to look at and to praise, as well as others that eyed her more carnally minded. Now I myself had but a slight acquaintance, albeit a pleasant one, with Vittoria. This was partly because my purse was but leanly provided, and partly because I had ever in mind with regard to such creatures the wise saying of the Athenian concerning the girl Lais, that it was not worth while to spend a fortune to gain a regret. Moreover, I was too much occupied with my own very agreeable love-affairs, that were blended with poetry and dreams and such like sweetnesses, as well as with reality, to make me feel any wish for more extravagant alliances. But I had it in my mind now that it might be a good thing for me, in the interests of my poem in praise of fair Florentines, to pay this lady a visit, and I hoped, being a poet, though I trust not over puffed up with my own pride of importance, and knowing that she was always fain to be regarded as a patroness of the arts, that I might, without much difficulty, gain access to her.
So I spent a careless morning on a hillside beyond the city in the excellent company of a flask of wine and a handful of bread and cheese, and there I sprawled upon my back among the daisies and munched and sipped, and listened to the bees, and looked upon the brown roofs of beautiful Florence, and was very well content. And when I had stayed my stomach and flung the crumbs to the birds, and had emptied the better part of my flagon, I stretched myself under a tree like a man in a doze.
I was not dozing, however, for the flowers and the verdure about me, and the birds that piped overhead, and the booming bees, and the strong sunlight on the gra.s.s, and the glimpses of blue sky through the branches, were all busying themselves for me in weaving the web of the poem I wanted to carry home with me.
As I shot the bright verses this way and that way, and caught with a childish pleasure at the shining rhymes as a child will catch at some glittering toy, I had perforce to smile as I reflected on what a different business mine was to that of the unknown singer of those days. For those poems of his that he had sent to Guido and to others were exceeding beautiful, and full of a very n.o.ble and golden exaltation. I think if the angels in heaven were ever to make love to one another they would choose for their purpose some such perfection of speech as Dante--for I knew the singer to be Dante a little later--found for his sonnets and canzone. For myself, I frankly admit, being an honest man, that I could not write such sonnets even if I had my Dante"s command of speech, to which Heaven forbid that I should ever pretend.
Those rhymes of his, for all their loveliness--and when I say that they were lovely enough to be worthy of the lady to whom they were addressed, I give them the highest praise and the praise that Dante would most have cared to accept--were too ethereal for my work-a-day humors. I liked better to write verses to the laughing, facile la.s.ses with whom my way of life was cast--jolly girls who would kiss to-day and sigh to-morrow, and forget all about you the third day if needs were, and whom it was as easy for their lover to forget, so far as any sense of pain lay in the recollection of their graces. And I would even rather have the jolly job I was engaged on at that moment of some ripe, rich-colored verses for Vittoria, for I could, in writing them, be as human as I pleased and frankly of the earth earthly, and I needed to approach my quarry with no tributes pilfered from the armory of heaven. I could praise her beauty with the tongue of men, and leave the tongue of angels out of the question; and if my muse were pleased here and there to take a wanton flutter, I knew I could give decorum the go-by with a light heart.
So I wallowed at my ease in the gra.s.ses and tossed verses as a juggler tosses his b.a.l.l.s, and watched them glitter and wink as they rose and fell, and at last I shaped to my own satisfaction what I believed to be an exceedingly pleasant set of verses that needed no more than to be engrossed on a fair piece of sheepskin and tied with a bright ribbon and sent to the exquisite frailty. And all these things I did in due course, after the proper period of polishing and amending and straightening out, until, as I think, there never was a set of rhymes more carefully fathered and mothered into the world. And here is the sonnet:
"There is a lady living in this place That wears the radiant name of Victory; And we that love would bid her wingless be, Like the Athenian image, lest her grace, Lifting a siren"s-tinted pinions, trace Its glittering course across the Tyrrhene sea To some more favored Cyprian sanctuary, Leaving us lonely, longing for her face.
O daughter of the G.o.ds, though lovelier lands, If such there be, entreat you, do not hear Their whispering voices, heed their beckoning hands; Have only eye for Florence, only ear For Florentine adorers, while their cheer Between your fingers spills its golden sands."
Now this sonnet may be divided into four parts. In the first part, I make my statement that there is a lady dwelling in Florence whose name is Vittoria. In the second part, I allow my fancy to play lightly with the suggestions this name arouses in me, and I make allusion very felicitously to the famous statue of the Wingless Victory, which the Athenians honored in Athens so very specially in that, being wingless, it could not fly away from the city. In the third part, I express my alarm lest her loveliness should spread its vans in flight and leave us lonely. In the fourth, I entreat her to pay no heed to the solicitations of others, but to remain always loyal to her Florentine lovers so long as they can give her gifts. The second part begins here: "And we that love." The third begins, "Lest her grace." The fourth part begins, "O daughter of the G.o.ds."
That simile of the Wingless Victory tickled me so mightily that I was in a very good conceit with myself, and if I read over my precious sonnet once, I suppose I read it over a score of times; and even now, at this distance of days, I am inclined to pat myself upon the back and to call myself ear-pleasing names for the sake of my handiwork. Of course I am ready to admit quite frankly that most, if not all, of Dante"s sonnets are better, taking them all round, than my modest enterprises. But there is room, as I hope, for many kinds of music-makers in the fields about Parna.s.sus. I know Messer Guido spoke very pleasantly of my sonnets, and so I make no doubt would Dante have, but somehow or other I never showed them to him.
Now, when I had scrolled my rhymes precisely, I had them dispatched to Monna Vittoria by a sure hand, and, as is my way, having done what I had to do, thought no more about the matter for the time being. It was ever a habit of mine not merely to let the dead day bury its dead, but to let the dead hour, and, if possible, the dead minute and dead second bury their dead, and to think no more upon any matter than is essential. I think the sum of all wise living is to be merry as often as one can, and sad as seldom as one can, and never to fret over what is unavoidable, or to be pensive over what is past, but to be wise for the time. So I remember that days not a few drifted by after I had sent my rhymes and my request to Monna Vittoria, and I was very busy just then paying my court to three of the prettiest girls I had ever known, and I almost forgot my poem and Monna Vittoria altogether.
But I recall a grayish morning along Arno and a meeting with Messer Guido, and his taking me on one side and standing under an archway while he read me a sonnet that the unknown poet had composed in ill.u.s.tration of his pa.s.sion for his nameless lady, and had sent to Messer Guido. It was a very beautiful sonnet, as I remember, and I recall very keenly wishing for an instant that I could write such words and, above all, that I could think such thoughts. I think I have already set it down that love has always been a very practical business with me. If one girl is not at hand, another will serve, and the moon-flower, sunflower manner of worship was never my way. But if one must love like that, making love rather a candle on G.o.d"s altar than a torch in Venus her temple, there is no man ever since the world began, nor will, I think, ever be till the world shall end, to do so better than Messer Dante.
When I had done reading the sonnet, and had parted from friend Guido, I found myself in the mood that this then unknown poet"s verses always swung me into, of wonder and trouble, as of one who, having drunk over-much of a heady and insidious wine, finds himself thinking unfamiliar thoughts and seeing familiar things unfamiliarly. While I was thus mazed and arguing with myself as to whether I were right and this poet wrong or this poet right and I wrong in our view of love and women.
I was accosted in the plain highway by a dapper little brat of a page that wore a very flamboyant livery, and that carried a letter in his hand. And the page questioned me with a grin and asked me if I were Messer Lappo Lappi, and I, being so bewildered with the burden of my warring thoughts, was half of a mind to answer that I was no such man, but luckily recalled myself and walked the sober earth again soberly. I a.s.sured him that I was none other than poor Lappo Lappi, and I pinched a silver coin from my pocket and gave it to him, and he handed me the missive and grinned again, and whistled and slipped away from me along the street, a diminished imp of twinkling gilt. And I opened the letter then and there, and read in it that Monna Vittoria very gracefully gave me her duty, and in all humility thanked me for my verses--Lord, as if that ample baggage could ever be humble!--and would be flattered beyond praise if my dignity would honor her with my presence on such a day at such an hour. And I was very well pleased with this missive, and was very careful to obey its commands.
The house where Monna Vittoria dwelt was a marvel of beauty, like its mistress--a fair frame for a fair portrait. It seemed to have laid all the kingdoms of earth under tribute, for, indeed, the lady"s friends were mainly men of wealth, cardinals and princes and great captains, that were ever ready to give her the best they had to give for the honor of her acquaintance. Her rooms were rich with statues of marble and statues of bronze, and figures in ivory and figures in silver, and with gold vessels, and cabinets of ebony and other costly woods; and pictures by Byzantine painters hung upon her walls, and her rooms were rich with all manner of costly stuffs and furs. He that was favored to have audience with Monna Vittoria went to her as through a dream of loveliness, marvelling at the many splendid things that surrounded her: at the fountain in her court-yard, where the goldfish gambolled, and where a Triton that came from an old Roman villa spouted; at her corridors, lined with delicately tinted majolica that seemed cool and clean as ice in those summer heats; at her antechambers, that glowed with color and swooned with sweet odors; and, finally, at her own apartments, where she that was lady of all this beauty seemed so much more beautiful than it all.
Madonna Vittoria would have looked queenly in a cottage; in the midst of her gorgeous surroundings she showed more than imperial, and she knew the value of such trappings and made the most of them to dazzle her admirers, for her admirers, as I have said, were all great lords that were used to handsome dwellings and sumptuous appointments and costly adornings, but there was never one of them that seemed to dwell so splendidly as Monna Vittoria.
Now I, that came to her with nothing save such credit as I might hope to have for the sake of my verses, could look at all this magnificence with an indifferent eye. Yet I will confess that as I moved through so much sumptuousness, and breathed such strangely scented air, I was stirred all of a sudden with strange and base envy of those great personages for whom this brave show was spread, and found myself wishing unwittingly that I were some great prince of the Church or adventurous free-companion who might not, indeed, command--for there were none who could do that--but hope for the lady"s kindness. Although I a.s.sured myself l.u.s.tily that a poet was as good as a prince, in my heart, and in the presence of all this luxury, I knew very dismally that it was not so, and that Monna Vittoria would never be persuaded to think so. As I have already said, I had no great yearning for these magnificent mercenaries of the hosts of Love, for these bejewelled amazons that seemed made merely to prove to man that he is no better than an unutterable a.s.s. My pulses never thrilled tumultuously after her kind, and in the free air of the fields I would not have changed one of my pretty sweethearts against Monna Vittoria. But somehow in that fantastic palace of hers, with its enchanted atmosphere and its opulent surroundings, my cool reason of the meadows and the open air seemed at a loss, and I found myself ready, as it were, to surrender to Circe like any hog pig of them all.
If this were the time and the place, I should like to try to find out, by the light of a dry logic, and with the aid of a cold process of a.n.a.lysis, why these Timandras and Phrynes have so much power over men.
Perhaps, as I am speaking of Monna Vittoria, I should add the Aspasias to my short catalogue of she-gallants, for Vittoria was a woman well accomplished in the arts, well-lettered, speaking several tongues with ease, well-read, too, and one that could talk to her lovers, when they had the time or the inclination for talking, of the ancient authors of Rome, and of Greece, too, for that matter--did I not say her mother was a Greek?--and could say you or sing you the stanzas of mellifluous poets, most ravishingly to the ear. She knew all the verses of Guido Guinicelli by root of heart, and to hear her repeat that poem of his beginning,
"Love ever dwells within the gentle heart,"
what time she touched a lute to soft notes of complaining and praise and patience and desire, was to make, for the moment, even the most obdurate understand her charm. But if I at all seem to disfavor her, it may be because she was too costly a toy for such as I, save, indeed, when she condescended to do a grace, for kindness" sake, to one whose revenues were of small estate. It is plain that such ladies have their fascination, and in a measure I admit it, but, day in and day out, I prefer my jolly dollimops. This has ever been my opinion and always will be, and I think those are the likelier to go happy that think like me.
IX
MADONNA VITTORIA SOUNDS A WARNING
Madonna Vittoria received me so very graciously that for a while I began to think no little good of myself, and to reconsider my latest opinion as to the value of poets and poetry in the eyes of such ladies. But this mood of self-esteem was not fated to be of long duration. After some gracious words of praise for my verses, which made me pleased to find her so wise in judgment, she came very swiftly to the purpose for which she had summoned me, and that purpose was not at all to share in the delight of my society.
"Are you not a friend," she said, very gravely, "of young Dante of the Alighieri?"
I made answer that for my own poor part I counted myself his very dear and devoted friend, and that I had reason to believe that he held me in some affection. I was not a little surprised at this sudden introduction of Messer Dante into our conversation, and began to wonder if by any chance Monna Vittoria had taken a fancy to him. Such women have such whims at times. However, I was not long left in doubt as to her meaning.
"If you are a true friend to him," she said, "you would do well to counsel him to go warily and to have a care of Messer Simone of the Bardi, for I am very sure that he means to do him a mischief when time shall serve."
Now I had seen nothing of Dante since that day of the little bicker with Simone, long weeks earlier, but as I had heard by chance that he was busy with the practice of sword-craft, I took it for granted that he was thus keeping his promise to a certain lady, and was by no means distressed at his absence. As for Messer Simone, he went his ways in Florence as truculently as ever, and I hoped he would be willing to let bygones be bygones.
"Does he still bear such a grudge for a single rose-blossom?" I asked.
And it seemed to me that it was scarcely in reason to be so pettily revengeful toward a youth that had carried himself so valiantly and so cunningly in the countenance of a great danger.
Monna Vittoria answered me very swiftly and decidedly. "Messer Simone has a little mind in his big body, and little minds cling to trifles.
But it is not the matter of the rose alone that chokes him, but chiefly the matter of the poems."
I stared at Monna Vittoria with round eyes of wonder. "What poems?" I asked; for, indeed, I did not understand her drift.
She frowned a little in impatience at my slowness. "Why, surely," she said, "those poems that Messer Dante has written in praise of Beatrice of the Portinari, and in declaration of his service to her. Have you not seen them? Have you not heard of them? Do you not, who are his friend, know that they were written by young Dante?"
Now, indeed, I knew nothing of the kind, and I could not, in reviewing the matter, blame myself very greatly for my lack of knowledge. Who could guess that a scholarly youth who was now very suddenly and wholly, as I had heard, addicted to martial exercises, should, in a twinkling and without the least warning, prove the peer of the practised poets of Florence? Nor was there in the poems that I had seen any plain hint given that the lady they praised was Madonna Beatrice.
"Are you very sure?" I asked. And yet even as I asked I felt that it must be so, and that I ought, by rights, to have known it before, for all that it was so very surprising. For when a man is in love and has anything of the poet in him, that poet is like to leap into life fully armed with equipment of songs and sonnets, as Minerva, on a memorable occasion, made her all-armored ascent from the riven brows of Jove.