Friday, November 21, 2008
Dante’s Beatrice
Posted by Zach in News


Cory’s Beatrice

When Dante was nine years old, he fell in love with an eight-year-old girl. Her name was Beatrice, “conferrer of blessing,” and she became one of the most famous women in all of literature. After their first encounter Dante writes that “Love held sovereign empire over my soul.” Theodore Martin gives this touching account.

“… Dante, then scarce nine years old, who, with the other children of his own age that were in the house, engaged in the sports appropriate to their years. Among these others was a little daughter of the aforesaid Folco, called Bice, about eight years old, very winning, graceful, and attractive in her ways, in aspect beautiful, and with an earnestness and gravity in her speech beyond her years. This child turned her gaze from time to time upon Dante with so much tenderness as filled the boy brimful with delight, and he took her image so deeply into his mind, that no subsequent pleasure could ever afterwards extinguish or expel it.”

Nine years later, he saw her again. Dante writes of her in Vita Nuova.

“She, crowned and clothed with humility, took her way, displaying no pride in that which she saw and heard. Many, when she had passed, said, ‘This is not a woman, rather is she one of the most beautiful angels in heaven.’ Others said, ‘She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform such a marvel.’ I say, that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all beauties, that those who looked on her felt within themselves a pure and sweet delight, such as they could not tell in words.”

She filled Dante with so much happiness that he went home, fell asleep, and dreamed of her. Tragically, eight years later at age 24, Beatrice died.

Beatrice is the opposite of a seductress. She is ennobling. Dante describes her this way: “She has ineffable courtesy, is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices, and the queen of virtue, my salvation.”

In Vita Nuova, Dante declares, “I hope to write of her what has never been written of any woman.” He does so in The Divine Comedy. Jorge Luis Borges says, “I suspect that Dante constructed the best book literature has achieved in order to interpolate into it a few encounters with the irrecuperable Beatrice.” Their first encounter occurs at the veil of paradise. As Dante exchanges Virgil’s guidance for Beatrice’s, what follows is widely regarded as one of the most surprising scenes in literature.



Beatrice enters in a procession of heavenly beings amongst whom are a Griffin, a red woman, and a woman with three eyes (she represents prudence, whose eyes have insight into the past, present, and future). Beatrice calls Dante’s name. She tells him to confide to her those allurements that beset the quest for good that she inspired. She challenges, “…what satisfactions, or what advantages were displayed on the brow of the others, for which thou shouldst have lingered before them?” Grief stricken, he stammers and finally whispers a confession, “The present things with their false pleasure turned my steps, soon as your face was hidden.”

Beatrice tells him that at the first assault from hollow things, he should have sought refuge in the heavens, like a full-fledged bird instead of waiting on continued assaults like a nestling.

“‘Thy part ’twas not to stoop thy wings,

‘And court the breath of lightsome things,

‘The glance of girlish eye,

‘Or like brief vanity.’”

She doesn’t pull any punches. While Dante looks at the ground like a guilty child, she says,

“…If what thou hast heard’

She said ‘doth grieve thee, lift thy beard:

‘Greater thy pain will be,

‘When thou shalt look on me…’

“Then at her word my chin uprose:

And, when to mark my face she chose

My beard, well could I reach

The venom of her speech.”

In other words, she appeals to his beard, his manhood, when she asks him to look her in the eyes. As the eyes are frequently a symbol for wisdom, she might be suggesting that an increase in wisdom requires an increase in manhood. This is a humiliating rebuke from a woman he basically worships.

What’s startling is that this humiliation is the author’s construction. If he wanted, he could make her squeal with delight and throw her arms around him. Instead she provokes him to a public confession, and when he stares at the ground in shame, she says, “Be a man! Look at me!”

Dante pursues truthfulness during the books greatest opportunity for self-promotion. Carlo Steiner gives an insight into Dante’s creative priorities: “A woman with three eyes is a monster, but the Poet does not submit here to the restraints of art, because it matters much more to him to express the moralities he holds dear. Unmistakable proof that in the soul of this greatest of artists, it was not art that occupied the first place, but love of the Good.”


Justin’s Beatrice

Dante’s art is about something other than itself. It sets it’s gaze on Beatrice’s goodness. Beatrice in turn lifts the hearts of those who love her to God. The exaltation of virtue is so essential to her identity, that Dante retains it even at the expense of his own pride. The book, Dante himself, and Beatrice all act as successive arrows that point to God, the Divine Fountain of Good.

The exit of Beatrice’s character is perhaps as sudden as the exit from her earthly life. Dante turns to question Beatrice and finds that she is gone, replaced with another guide. He beholds her on the third circle of heaven, and from a great distance thanks her for her kind pity.

“Preserve towards me thy magnificence,

So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed,

Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body.

“Thus I implored; and she, so far away,

Smiled, as it seemed, and looked once more at me;

Then unto the eternal fountain turned.”

This last bit is poignant because it seems that her last smile is directed at Dante the author more than Dante the character. And in keeping with her “magnificence,” she turns our attention away from the pleasure of blessedness and towards the eternal Fountain of Blessings.

2 Responses to “Dante’s Beatrice”

Carlee Lingerfelt comments:
Sunday, November 23rd, 2008

Hey, I really appreciate this blog. I don’t comment very often but I keep up pretty well and I always enjoy the mini-essays and the regular illustrative contributions and the historical insight. I just remembered I was going to email you guys about something so look out for it…

Carlee

Julia comments:
Thursday, December 18th, 2008

This is really beautiful.

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