ve 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 grass 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 grass, and the glimpses of blue sky through the