Dante's Vita Nuova, New Edition: A Translation and an Essay

II. Aspects

ment of her greeting, we catch a glimpse of Heaven. Also in the description of Beatrice's first appearance on stage the reader had been reminded of her death by the simple device of using an epithet applicable only to her role after death; the effect was completely static. Here, however, there is movement, and interruption of movement, and movement again: Beatrice alive, Beatrice dead, Beatrice continuing to live. As the reader will surely remember, there is much more vitality , movement, color in the narration of the visions than in that of the events of the real world of the Vita lluova.12 The most vivid of the visions are those contained in Chapters III and XXIII, both of them prophetic of Beatrice's death, the first more touched with mystery, the second characterized by more phantasmagoric elements. Thus, the poet does not hesitate to appeal to the senses of his reader when describing a visionary world; and if Dante's descriptions throughout the Divine Comedy show a colorful technique so at variance with the shadowy outlines of the Vita nuova as a whole, this must be because the Divine Comedy is, throughout, one continuous vision. Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise and the souls that are hopelessly damned, or suffering in hope, or enjoying the beatific vision in those three realms, respectively, are described in greater detail because, being e~ernal, they are more real than are this world and the souls that temporarily inhabit it. The visions, too, in the Vita nuova are more real than anyone of the events in the story proper, for there, as we shall soon see, the protagonist is offered glimpses of eternity. II Aspects All of the characters in the Vita nuova were mentioned in the preceding chapter of this essay, with the important exception of one of the three main characters in Io6 Dante's Vita Nuova this love-story: the god of Love, who appears on stage playing an important role in Chapters III, IX, XXI and XXIV. In most of his visits to the lover this being is presented far more vividly than any of the other characters seen by the protagonist-who, for the most part, come through to the reader as shadowy shapes indeed. The first three times Love makes his entrance onto the stage of the Vita nuova, not only are his clothes described but also his gestures and movements; and in all four of his appearances Love's voice is heard.l This character, on whom a spotlight is focused, is made to behave in a way that must puzzle any reader. Love speaks Italian sometimes, sometimes Latin, and sometimes he even shifts languages in the midst of a visit. The accouterments of this actor in the scenes in which he plays his different roles vary, being those of a terrifying deity, a shabby traveler or a guardian angel. And so do his moods change, not only from scene to scene but within the same scene: from the radiant happiness of majesty, or the poised tranquility of beatitude, Love will fall into bitter weeping. Or, again, in his relationship toward the lover he may shift from kindly counselor to sublimely haughty lord, to impatient monitor, to chatty conspiratorial advisor. What can be the true significance of this mysterious, protean figure of Love, who four times appears on stage at a given moment to address the lover?2 The god of Love first appears to the lover on the evening after he has received Beatrice's first greeting and returned home, ecstatic, to fall into a sweet sleep (III). He dreams he sees Love holding a sleeping lady in his arms; the figure speaks to the lover, in Latin, words that are mainly incomprehensible, and then ascends to Heaven. In Chapter IX the protagonist sees the figure of Love walking toward him along a country road; Love offers him practical advice as to maintaining the strategem of the screen-lady. In Chapter XII, just as in Chapter III, Love appears to him during his sleep, a sleep into which he has An Essay on the Vita Nuova I07 fallen grieving bitterly over the loss of his lady's greeting. In Chapter XXIV, which immediately follows the prophetic vision of Beatrice's death, the lover is sitting thoughtful in "a certain place" when he sees Love coming from the direction "where his lady was." Then Beatrice appears...