k, and is with us for our behoof;
Blessed are they who meet her on the earth.

(_Transl. by_ D.G. ROSSETTI.)

The lover has a foreboding of the fate awaiting him: "I have set my feet
into that phase of life from whence there is no return." He divines the
sorrow to which love has predestined him. But others, too, divining that
this man "expects more, perhaps, of love than others," ask him to
explain to them the essence of love, and he answers them with the famous
sonnet:

_Amor e cor gentil sono una cosa_
(Love and the gentle heart are but one thing.)

The death of Beatrice is accompanied by the same phenomena as was the
death of Christ: the sun lost its brilliance, stars appeared in the
sky, birds fell to the ground, dead, the earth trembled; God visibly
intervened in the course of nature.

For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead
Such an exceeding glory went up hence,
That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire,
Until a sweet desire
Entered Him for that lovely excellence,
So that He bade her to Himself aspire;
Counting this weary and most evil place
Unworthy of a thing so full of grace.

(_Transl. by_ D.G. ROSSETTI.)

In the 29th chapter, which we, to-day, do not readily understand, Dante
established by a system of symbolical numbers a connection between
Beatrice and the Trinity; the deification of the beloved had been
achieved in thought and emotion, religion enriched by a new divinity.
"Love, weeping, has filled my heart with new knowledge," he says, at the
conclusion of the work of his youth. I repeat what I have already said
in another place, and supported by passages from the _Divine Comedy_: It
was never Dante's intention to write fictitious poems in our meaning of
the term, but at every hour of his life he was convinced that he was
proclaiming the pure truth; he knew himself to be the chosen vehicle for
the interpretation of the eternal system of the world.

At the conclusion of the _Vita Nuova_, Beatrice is a divine being,
devoid of all emotion--enthroned in Heaven; in the _Comedy_ she becomes
her lover's saviour and redeemer, and through him a helper of all
humanity. The love of the youth had found no response in the heart of
the Florentine maiden, but the soul of the glorified woman was inspired
by love of him. She trembles for him, and when Mary's messenger
admonishes her: "Why doest thou not help