Читать книгу A history of Italian literature онлайн

35 страница из 109

The salt stream that did sorrowfully flow, Speeded, ye Eyes, from your deep springs apace, Gave marvel unto all who such long space Beheld you weeping, as yourselves do know. Now fear I that all such ye would forgo, If I upon my own part would be base, And not all shift and subterfuge displace, Reminding you of her who made your woe. Your levity lays load of heavy thought Upon me, sore disquieted with dread Of her who looks on you in wistful wise. By nothing less than Death should you be wrought E’er to forget your Lady who is dead; Thus saith my heart, and afterward it sighs.

Dante appears to say that he entirely overcame this rather regrettable than reprehensible lapse from his ideal, and we believe him. If so, the pitiful lady cannot be identified with Gemma Donati, whom, at latest in 1293, if she had really borne him seven children by 1300, he married by the persuasion of his friends. TheVita Nuova was in all probability written by this time, and from its conclusion we learn that Dante was even then preparing to celebrate Beatrice in theDivina Commedia. It is therefore exceedingly improbable that he would have wedded one at all likely to impair or efface the freshness of her image in his soul; and though his union with Gemma was apparently untroubled by discord, it probably lacked all consecration but the ceremonial. It was brought to a close by Dante’s exile from his native city in 1301. Gemma and the children did not accompany him, and he never saw them more. The reason is not difficult to discover: it prefigured the case of Milton. Gemma’s family, the Donati, had come to belong to a party opposed to Dante. The interests of her numerous children, mostly of very tender age, undoubtedly counselled Gemma to cleave to the winning side, and she can scarcely be blamed if she declined to forsake her blood relations for a husband whom she had probably found unsympathetic. Whether Dante approved her course, or rejoiced in his liberty (Short-sighted Devil, not to take his spouse!), or was simply choked by indignation, he never honours or dishonours her by a single word. Gemma Donati’s portrait hangs in the gallery of poets’ wives, like Marshal Marmont’s in the gallery of French marshals, covered by a veil of crape.