"VITA NUOVA" AND "CONVITO."

4I

of these compositions are collected together in his Vita Nuova ("New Life" 1), a youthful work of the poet, written whilst he was still at Florence, and dedicated to his elder friend, Guido Cavalcanti, who died in 1300. The Vita Nuova is the record of the new life, which was awakened in him by his meeting with Beatrice, and his ideal love of her. It consists of lyrical pieces, sonnets, ballads, and songs, interspersed with prose; partly narrations of those incidents in his life which inspired his poetry, partly explanatory of them. Here Dante already proves himself a master in the use of his mother tongue. His prose is clear, pure, and vigorous; his lyrics are characterised by genuine and deep feeling, lofty conceptions of life and of the world, by chaste and spiritualised affections, as well as by the religious tone which pervades the whole. In these his lesser poems, the musical rhythm, the wealth of noble ideas, his powerful and original imagination, presage the future author of the Divina Commedia.

The Convito, "Banquet," a name probably suggested by Plato's Symposium, resembles the Vita Nuova in its external form. Here also a prose commentary accompanies the poetry which it illustrates. The Convito is divided into four books, but was never completed. The plan of the work was that of an encyclopædia, embracing the whole range of contemporary science, and written in the vulgar tongue, to bring it within reach of unlettered persons. Thus he says in the introduction: 3 "O happy those few who sit at the table where the bread of angels is eaten, and miserable those who partake of food in common with beasts. Yet since each man is by nature the friend of his fellow, and as every friend laments over his friend's need, therefore those who feast at so high a table are not without pity towards those, whom they behold straying in the

1

1 According to Fraticelli, "youth," or "young life."

Convito, i. I.

...

pastures of cattle and feeding upon grass and acorns. And inasmuch as pity is the mother of charity, those who possess knowledge are ever ready to share their glorious abundance with the truly poor, and thus they become the living fountains through whose streams the natural thirst of which we have spoken is quenched.1 . . . Therefore I now propose to prepare a feast for all. The viands at this banquet will be set out in fourteen different manners, that is, will consist of fourteen canzoni, the materials of which are love and virtue. Without the bread that accompanies them, they would not be free from some shade of obscurity; but the bread, that is, the explanation, will be that light which will bring forth all their colours, and display their full meaning to the view." 2

The three canzoni, to whose interpretation the work is devoted, date from about 1300, whilst the prose commentary may be assigned to a period subsequent to Dante's banishment, probably about 1309. We look in vain for any classification of the immense learning here displayed, since the whole work is subordinated to the several allegorical meanings of each canzone. The different parts have no systematic connection, and questions on the most diverse sciences are intermixed. But the Convito shows us some of the raw material eventually developed in the Divina Commedia, and gives much valuable information as to its purport. It is Dante's special merit that his enthusiastic love of his country led the poet to write in the vulgar tongue, in preference to the stiff scholastic language, till then universally employed." "For without 1 "The natural thirst, ne'er quench'd but from the well Whereof the woman of Samaria craved.”—Purg. xxi. 1. 2 Cary's Dante, p. xxx.

3 The Inferno was originally begun in Latin. The opening was as

follows:

"Ultima regna canam fluido contermina mundo

Spiritibus quæ lata patent, quæ præmia solvunt

Pro meritis cuicunque suis."-Boccaccio, p. 32, ed. Nap. 1856.

"DE VULGARI ELOQUIO."

43

familiar intercourse," he says, "it is impossible to gain the knowledge of men, and the Latinist can in no country hold converse with so many persons as he who speaks the vulgar tongue, which is used familiarly by all, and therefore to the masses the Latinist remains a stranger." "" 1

In the Convito, science for the first time speaks the language of the people, but is still religious. It descends into the arena of common life, whilst maintaining the closest union with the Church. The daring intellect of the poet handles the most difficult problems, but within the depths of his soul he guards his humble faith. The philosophy of the "heavenly Athens" is the goal to which all his learning tends, in faith, hope, and love.2

Dante had already declared in the Convito his intention, with the Divine assistance, of producing a work upon the vulgar tongue. This he fulfilled in the treatise entitled De Vulgari Eloquio. Written during his exile, and most probably simultaneously with the Convito, it remains unfinished. Out of the four books which the author purposed to write, two only were composed. Dante was the first to treat of this subject; he wrote in Latin, in order that his book might be accessible to the learned, who despised the vulgar tongue. He draws this distinction between popular and grammatical languages—that the former are learnt in the nursery independently of all rules, the latter only after long and persevering diligence. This dissertation is prefaced by an inquiry into the common origin of language. He next proceeds to speak of the Romance languages in general, and of Italian and its different dialects in particular; of poetry in its various forms, and of the vernacular vulgar tongue through which it finds expression. It was Dante's intention to discuss these questions more fully in the third and fourth books. It is true that many of his propositions are untenable; 1 Convito, i. 6. 2 Ibid., iii. 14.

notably, those which he afterwards retracted relating to the origin of language, those on the formation of the Romance languages, and on the importance of the Tuscan dialect in the formation of Italian. Still the work is one of considerable value, because through it, and especially in its connection with his great poem, Dante thus early created for his people a common language, which has remained without essential change to the present day.1

According to Boccaccio, Dante's De Monarchia owes its origin to the Emperor Henry VII.'s expedition against Rome, and was probably written within the year 1312; but according to De Witte, it was compiled before 1300. In regard to the historical and political views of its author, the De Monarchia is Dante's most important work. It contains the programme of the Ghibellines, set forth by the most moderate of their party; by one who does not even wish to be numbered among them, and it shows to what extravagances some of their extreme partisans were carried. The treatise is divided into three books; in the first, Dante maintains the need of an universal empire; in the second, he contends that this empire is the inalienable right of the Roman people; in the third, that it is immediately dependent upon God. We shall examine its contents more closely when we consider Dante's political theory.

Fourteen letters ascribed to Dante have been discovered; one of them, however, appears to be spurious. They are written chiefly in Latin. The following are among the most important: The epistle of dedication to Can Grande della Scala, often quoted, which contains a prefatory explanation of the Divina Commedia, the letters to the Emperor Henry VII., to the princes of Italy and the Florentines,

1 So Thomas (in Aristot. Politic., ed. Parm., tom. xvi. p. 369) distinguishes between cultivated and barbarous races, in that, with the former, the vulgar tongue is also a written language (habere literalem locutionem in suo vulgari idiomate).

MINOR WRITINGS.

45

and the letter to a friend in Florence already mentioned, in which the poet refuses the proposed amnesty. Dante also wrote two Eclogues, addressed to Giovanni di Virgilio.

The treatise De Duobus Elementis Aquæ et Terræ, to which we have already referred, is an inquiry into the position and form of the two elements, earth and water. It concludes with an avowal of the insufficiency of all human learning. Men must cease to search into things which are above them, and limit their inquiry to those within their reach. Thus they will attain, as far as may be, to the eternal and divine, and will not presume to inquire into what they cannot comprehend. They should listen to the words of Job: Wilt thou comprehend the ways of God, and wilt thou find out the perfection of the Almighty?' (Job xi. 7.) To the Psalmist: 'Thy knowledge is become wonderful to me; it is high, and I cannot reach to it' (Ps. cxxxviii. 6). To Isaiah, who declares, in the name of God: As the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are My ways exalted above your ways' (Isa. lv. 9). To St. Paul: O the depth of the riches of the wisdom of the knowledge of God! How incomprehensible are His judgments, and how unsearchable His ways!' (Rom. xi. 33.) Lastly, they must listen to the voice of the Creator Himself, who says, 'You shall seek Me, and shall not find Me, and where I am, thither you cannot come' (St. John vii. 34.) And let this suffice for the inquiry into the truth before us.”

A poetical paraphrase of the Seven Penitential Psalms, the Apostles' Creed, the Ten Commandments, the Seven Deadly Sins, with the Pater Noster and Ave Maria, entitled the Poet's Creed, is attributed to Dante, but its authenticity is very doubtful. "These verses of Dante," says Balbo," are certainly not his best, yet they are not at all unworthy of him. Perhaps they were written at an earlier period of his life."1 Questionable as is the authen

1 Vita di Dante, p. 420.