n translation of the Divine Comedy. In the preamble to his
translation he not only declares that Dante historically and literally
loved Beatrice (_"Dantes delexit hanc puellam historice et
literaliter"_) but he affirms that the love was reciprocal and that it
lasted during the lifetime of Beatrice, ("_Philocaptus fuit de ipsa et
ipsa de ipso, qui se invicem dilexerunt quousque vixit ipsa puella_").

Only by holding such a view can we really appreciate the significance
and beauty of that episode in Purgatorio depicting the first meeting of
the lovers in the invisible world after ten years' separation--a meeting
said to be "one of the most touching and beautiful episodes in all
literature."

In the Terrestrial Paradise a voice is heard after the sudden departure
of Virgil. "Dante" it says "though Virgil leave thee, weep not, weep not
yet, for thou must weep for a greater wound. I beheld that Lady who had
erst appeared to me under a cloud of flowers cast by angel's hands: and
she was gazing at me across the stream ... 'Look at us well. We are,
indeed Beatrice. Hast thou then condescended to come to the mountain?'
(the mountain of discipline)--Shame weighed down my brow. The ice that
had collected about my heart, turned to breath and water and with agony
issued from my breast through lips and eyes." Beatrice then proceeds to
tell the angels of her love for the poet and of his faithlessness to
her. "For some time I sustained him with the sight of my face. Showing
to him my youthful eyes I led him toward the right quarter. As soon as I
reached the threshold of the second age of man and passed from mortal to
eternal life he took himself from me and gave himself to another."

Beatrice now turns to Dante and rebukes him: "In order the more to shame
thee from thine error and to make thee stronger, never did nature and
art present to thee a charm equal to that fair form now scattered in
earth with which I was enclosed. And if this greatest of charms so
forsook thee at my death, what mortal thing should thereafter have led
thee to desire it? Verily at the first hour of disappointment over
elusive things, thou shouldst have flown up after me who was no longer
of them. Thou shouldst not have allowed thy wings to be weighed down to
get more wounds, either by a little maid or by any other so short lived
vanity." The effect of her rebuke is the overwhelming of his heart with
shame and contrition. "So much remorse gnawed at my heart tha