The New Life of Dante AlighieriTicknor and Fields, 1867 - 149 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
according Æneid angels appeared appeareth ballad beauty began beginning behold blessed bliss Boccaccio called canzone Cimabue color Convito Dante Dante's death delight desire devised this sonnet discourse Divina Commedia Divine Comedy doth earth Empyrean eyes fancy feeling Florence gentle heart gentle lady Giovanni Villani goeth grief grieving Guido Guido Cavalcanti hear heard heaven honor imagination lament little book look Lord Love maketh marvellous mind minor poems noble number nine ofttimes Paradiso passage passed person pilgrims pity poet poetic poetry praise Provençal Ptolemy Purgatory reason replied rhyme Rossetti salutation second age second beginneth second part beginneth seemed seemeth seen sighs sight sirvente sonnet hath sonnet is divided sorrow soul spake speak speaketh spirit spoken stanza sweet tears tell thee things thinking third thought tion tremble truth unto verses villain heart virtue vision Vita Nuova vulgar tongue weep Wherefore wish words youth
Popular passages
Page 138 - HOW doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! How is she become as a widow ! she that was great among the nations, And princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!
Page 1 - She had already been in this life so long that in its course the starred heaven had moved toward the region of the East one of the twelve parts of a degree ; so that at...
Page 147 - And the other heaven with light serene adorned, And the sun's face uprising, overshadowed, So that, by...
Page 110 - Moreover, it is only from the perusal of its earliest and then undivulged self-communings that we can divine the whole bitterness of wrong to such a soul as Dante's, its poignant sense of abandonment, or its deep and jealous refuge in memory. Above all, it is here that we find the first manifestations of that wisdom of obedience, that natural breath of duty, which afterwards, in the Commedia, lifted up a mighty voice for warning and testimony. Throughout the Vita Nuova there is a strain like the...
Page 65 - So gentle and so gracious doth appear My lady when she giveth her salute, That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute ; Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare. Although she hears her praises, she doth go Benignly vested with humility ; And like a thing come down, she seems to be, From heaven to earth, a miracle to show. So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh, She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes, Which none can understand who doth not prove. And from her countenance there seems to move A...
Page 136 - They that go with her humbly should combine To thank their God for such peculiar grace. So perfect is the beauty of her face That it begets in no wise any sign Of envy, but draws round her a clear line Of love, and blessed faith, and gentleness. Merely the sight of her makes all things bow: Not she herself alone is holier Than all; but hers, through her, are raised above. From all her acts such lovely graces flow That truly one may never think of her Without a passion of exceeding love.
Page 148 - Therefore my answer is with greater care That he may hear me who is weeping yonder, So that the sin and dole be of one measure. Not only by the work of those great wheels, That destine every seed unto some end, According as the stars are in conjunction...
Page 124 - Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by? behold, and see if there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is done unto me, wherewith the LORD hath afflicted me in the day of his fierce anger.
Page 3 - He commanded me many times that I should seek to see this youthful angel, so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might be said that saying of the poet Homer : ' She does not seem the daughter of mortal man, but of God.
Page 148 - Even as a sudden lightning that disperses The visual spirits, so that it deprives The eye of impress from the strongest objects, Thus round about me flashed a living light...