s soul's mistress, is only a _reductio
ad absurdum_ of a rather popular theory. All narratives of this sort
can probably be traced back to Dante's autobiography, as given in the
_Vita Nuova_. We have two poetic dramas dealing with Dante's love,
by G. L. Raymond, [Footnote: _Dante_] and by Sara King Wiley.
[Footnote: _Dante and Beatrice_] Both these writers, however, show
a tendency to slur over Dante's affection for Gemma. Raymond represents
their marriage as the result solely of Dante's compromising her by
apparent attention, in order to avoid the appearance of insulting
Beatrice with too close regard. Sara King Wiley, on the other hand,
stresses the other aspect of Dante's feeling for Gemma, his gratitude
for her pity at the time of Beatrice's death. Of course both dramatists
are bound by historical considerations to make the outcome of their
plays tragical, but practically all other expositions of the poet's
double affections are likewise tragic. Cale Young Rice chooses another
famous Renaissance lover for the hero of _A Night in Avignon_, a
play with this theme. Here Petrarch, in a fit of impatience with his
long loyalty to a hopeless love for Laura, turns to a light woman for
consolation. According to the accepted mode, he refuses to tolerate
Laura's name on the lips of his fancy. Laura, who has chosen this
inconvenient moment to become convinced of the purity of Petrarch's
devotion to her, comes to his home to offer her heart, but, discovering
the other woman's presence there, she fails utterly to comprehend the
subtle compliment to her involved, and leaves Petrarch in an agony of
contrition.

Marlowe, in Josephine Preston Peabody's drama, distributes his
admiration more equally between his two loves. One stimulates the
dramatist in him, by giving him an insatiable thirst for this world; the
other elevates the poet, by lifting his thoughts to eternal beauty. When
he is charged with being in love with the Canterbury maiden who is the
object of his reverence, the "Little Quietude," as he calls her, he,
comparing her to the Evening Star, contrasts her with the object of his
burning passion, who seems to him the fruit of the tree of knowledge of
good and evil. He explains,

I serve a lady so imperial fair,
June paled when she was born. Indeed no star,
No dream, no distance, but a very woman,
Wise with the argent wisdom of the snake;
Fair nurtured with that old forbidden fruit
That thou hast heard of ..