I turned me to the left with the trust with which the little child runs to his mother when he is frightened or when he is afflicted to say to Virgiclass="underline" “Less than a drop of blood is left in me that trembleth not; I recognize the tokens of the ancient flame.” But Virgil had left us bereft of himself, Virgil dearest Father, Virgil for whom for my weal I gave me up; nor did all that our dearest mother lost, avail to keep my dew-washed cheeks from turning dark again with tears.
Dante is alone now, in a beautiful garden, but he is soon astounded by the appearance of a magnificent medieval procession complete with chariots drawn by heraldic beasts. Out of the last chariot of all steps a veiled woman. This is the lady Beatrice.
The story of Dante and Beatrice is well known but bears retelling. Beatrice Portinari was a girl in Florence when Dante was growing up. He met her first in the street when he was nine years old and she about five. The extraordinary thing is that he fell in love with her instantly and carried the love within him until his death. He married another woman and had seven children with her; Beatrice married another man and died, very young, in childbirth. Dante’s love for Beatrice was no secret. He proclaimed it in his early autobiographical work, La Vita Nuova, and told the world about it in The Divine Comedy, which was dedicated to the memory of Beatrice and in which he said of her “what was never yet said of any woman.” Dante thus made Beatrice world famous as his inspiration and his muse.
The date of Dante’s journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Heaven is Easter weekend of the year 1300, although he was working on the poem until his death in 1321. On that assumed date of 1300 Beatrice was already dead and, Dante also assumes, in Heaven. Now, in the poem, she has journeyed down from Heaven to the Earthly Paradise to meet him on his journey upward. At first she refuses to raise her veil. When she does, he is taken aback by the sternness of her look. She chastises him for having fallen away from his youthful innocence and purity of heart. He weeps, she forgives him, and she smiles. He feels within him all the force of l’antica fiamma, the ancient flame of love for her, and she leads him on his way to the throne of God.
Paradiso, the third part of The Comedy, is unfortunately where many readers stumble and lose their way. Theology, with which this part of the poem is deeply concerned, is no longer ordinary fare and there are pages, too, on which even Dante’s powerful poetic imagination may have flagged. But if you will give Paradiso a real chance, reading it slowly and thoughtfully, not feeling pressed, above all not feeling that you must understand everything the first time through, you may find—as others have—that Paradiso contains moments that transcend even Inferno and Purgatorio, that transcend, indeed, any other poetry. The last half dozen cantos are the finest of all. The occasion is the Beatific Vision of the Living God, and Dante rises to it.
A sign that you have approached that vision in your own right is that you have understood a conversation between Dante and a certain Piccarda, whom he meets in the third canto of Paradiso. Piccarda is “low down” in Heaven, a great distance by our mortal measure from God, for reasons having to do with her late repentance for sin while she was in life. Dante asks if her position in the heavenly scheme troubles or disappoints her. “No, of course not,” Piccarda replies. “I am content to be where He has placed me, for,” she adds, “in His will is our peace.” This famous statement comes close to summing up the meaning of The Divine Comedy.
The poem is more than the sum of its meaning. It is also the supreme creation of medieval art. Its words are strange, haunting, and beautiful. Its images implant themselves on the screen of the memory. It rewards any amount of time devoted to reading it
GEOFFREY CHAUCER
1340?–1400
The Canterbury Tales
Troilus and Criseyde
Geoffrey Chaucer was born about 1340, probably in London, of prosperous middle-class parents who were able to provide him with a good education. He married a sister of Catherine Swynford, the third wife of John of Gaunt, the son of Edward III and, as Duke of Lancaster, the leader of the Lancastrian faction in the fifteenth-century civil Wars of the Roses. Through him and probably others, Chaucer obtained at various times throughout his life important and lucrative official posts. He might be described in modern terms as a senior civil servant who was also a great poet. He seems to have possessed a singularly moderate temperament and an exemplary character, for he had many friends and few, if any, enemies. He loved books, as he tells us in several places in his works, and was well read; for example, he may have been the first Englishman to know the writings of Dante and Boccaccio, with whose works he became acquainted during several trips to Italy on diplomatic missions—the king’s business, as he called it. But he also loved human beings and was able to forgive them their follies; although he knew everything about human wickedness he was never indignant or censorious. He was, in short, a nice man.
As late as 1850, even 1900, most persons even in the rich countries of the world were cold in winter and usually spent the long winter nights in darkness. They were used to it, one is inclined to think; cold is partly a state of mind, and eyes grow accustomed to the dark. But in northern Europe and England the nights in winter are very long and very cold, and no amount of “getting used to it” can overcome the discomfort that, today, we can only imagine. Occasionally a power outage or an empty fuel tank or a bill unpaid reminds us of what life was like for almost everybody throughout most of the history of mankind. (I am reminded of an account by the historian Fernand Braudel of a certain January dinner party at Louis XIV’s palace at Versailles. That night, reports Braudel, the wine froze in the glasses on the magnificently appointed tables. The King of France was the richest man in the world and if he was cold, then everybody was.)
A healthy dose of cold and darkness might be the best possible preparation for reading Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. Written at a time—the end of the fourteenth century—well before the discovery of fossil fuels and electric power and the other conveniences of modern life, the poem evokes for us overwhelmingly the sense of spring, when cold, dark winter is replaced by light and warmth, and everyone, not just young lovers, can venture out once more.
When in April the sweet showers fall And pierce the drought of March to the root, and all The veins are bathed in liquor of such power As brings about the engendering of the flower, When also Zephyrus with his sweet breath Exhales an air in every grove and heath Upon the tender shoots, and the young sun His half-course in the sign of the Ram has run, And the small fowl are making melody That sleep away the night with open eye (So nature pricks them and their heart engages) Then people long to go on pilgrimages And palmers long to seek the stranger strands Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands, And specially, from every shire’s end In England, down to Canterbury they wend To seek the holy blissful martyr, quick To give his help when they were sick.