words of the old man to him are,

"If through this blind prison thou goest through loftiness of soul,
where is my son? oh, why is he not with thee?"[E]

[Footnote E: _Inferno_, x. 58-60.]

The sonnet of Guido, in reply to that sent him by Dante, has been
preserved, together with the replies by two other contemporary poets;
but Dante says of them all,--"The true meaning of my sonnet was not then
seen by any one, though now it is plain to the simplest."

After this vision, the poet, whose soul was wholly devoted to his most
gentle lady, was brought by Love into so frail a condition of health,
that his friends became anxious for him, and questioned him about that
which he most wished to conceal. Then he told them that it was Love
which had brought him to this pass. But when they asked him, "For whom
has Love thus wasted thee?" he looked at them smiling, and said nothing.

"One day it happened," he goes on to relate, "that this most gentle lady
sat where words concerning the Queen of Glory are heard, and I was in a
place from which I beheld my bliss. Between her and me in a direct line
sat a gentle lady of most pleasing aspect, who looked at me often,
wondering at my gaze, which seemed to terminate upon her; and many
observed her looks. So great attention, indeed, was paid to this, that
when I went out from the place I heard some one say, 'Behold how that
lady wastes the life of this man!'--and naming her, I heard that they
spoke of her who had been in the path of the straight line which,
parting from my most gentle Beatrice, had ended in my eyes." Then he
says he thought to make this lady serve as a screen for his real love,
and he did this so well that in a short time many persons fancied they
knew his secret. And in order to deceive them still more, he addressed
to this lady many trifles in rhyme, of which he will insert in this
account of his "New Life" only those which bear reference to Beatrice.

Some time after this, "it was the pleasure of the Lord of the Angels to
call to his glory a young and beautiful lady, who had been very lovely
in the city of Florence. And I saw her body lying without its soul,
surrounded by many ladies who wept grievously. Then remembering that I
had formerly seen her in company with that most gentle lady, I could not
restrain some tears; and, weeping, I proposed to say some words about
her death, as a return for that I had seen her sometimes with my lady."
Then, he says, he wrote two