Dante

"she was dressed in a very noble colour, a decorous and delicate crimson".

"when he first saw her he uttered the words "Behold a God more poweful than I who comes to rule over me".

"Woe is me! For I shall often be impeded from now on".

[love] "He began to acquire such assurance and mastery over me".

"He often commanded me to go where perhaps I might see this angelic child and so, while I was still a boy, I often went in search for her; and I saw that in all her ways she was so praiseworthy and noble">

"But, since to dwell on the feelings and actions of such early years might appear to some as fictious...I will move one".

"When exactly nine years had passed".

"Marvel appeared before me again, dressed in purest white".

(walked with 2 older women).

"She turned her eyes towards me where I stood in fear and trembling, and with her ineffable courtesy, which is now rewarded in eternal life, she greeted me, and such was the virtue of her greeting that I seemed to experience the very height of bliss".

"It was exactly the ninth hour of the day when she gave me her sweet greeting".

which led to the first poem (In every captive soul) - eating of the heart.

"He held my heart; and in his arms there lay my lady in a mantle wrapped and sleeping/ My burning heart fed to her reverently/ Then he departed from my vision weeping".

Chapter 4

"I grew so frail and weak that many of my friends felt concern at my appearance".

"Many others, full of malicious curiosity were doing there best to discover things about me which I particularly wished to conceal">

Chapter 5

"Lady of pleasing appearance" - first screen.

"Feeling confident that my gaze had not revealed my secret that day".

"To make it more convincing I wrote a few little things for her...which I do not intend to include unless they relate to the theme of that most gracious lady, Beatrice".

Chapter 6

Made a list of 60 women.

"I would not have mentioned it except to relate the wonderful thing which occured...the name of my lady would not fit anywhere but ninth in order".

Chapter 7

Screen lady leaves "Dismayed by the loss of my beautiful defense".

Writes a poem about his sadness because people might become aware of his pretense. The poem is included because he thinks of Beatrice whilst writing it.

Eight

"I had seen her formerly in the company of my most gracious one I could not help shedding a few tears".

Death villainous and cruel, pity's foe,/ Though ancient womb of woe, / Burden of judgement irreversible".

"Forced to show/ The evil wrong of which thou'rt culpable".

Nine

Love appears to him like a traveller dressed in simple, humble clothing.

"Love seemed to call my name and say: "I have come from the lady who has for a long time been your defence; I know now that her return will be long deferred and so I have brought back the heart which you gave her at my command". Gives him a new defense.

"because of excessive rumours, which, it seems were maliciously defaming me, the most gracious being the queen of virtue, in whose presence all evil was destroyed...refused me her sweetest greeting".

Her Greeting was a "Miraculous Salutation...I felt I had not an enemy in the world".

"I glowed with a flame of charity, which moved me to forgive all who had ever injured me".

"Anyone wanting to behold Love could have done so then by watching the quivering of my eyes".

He shut himself in his room "went to a solitary place where I drenched the earth with bitter tears".

He "fell asleep in the midst of my weeping, like a child that has been beaten".

Vision: Love stands before him "in white garments". He informs Dante why Beatrice denied him his greeting "Our Lady Beatrice was informed by certain people who were discussing you that the lady whom I mentioned to you on the road of sighs had met with some discourtesy rom you; and so this gravious being, who is the contrary of all that's discourteous did not deigh to greet you, fearing you might be importunate" (persistant to the point of annoyance).

"Therefore since your long-kept secret is in truth already partly known to her, I want you to compose something in rhyme in which you will tell the power I have over you on her account, and how you were her's straightwaway, ever since boyhood".

"In this way she will come to know your true desire and will see how mistaken are the words of those who speak wrongly about you".

"Make your verses a kind of intermediary, for it is not fitting to address her directly".

"Adorn them with sweet harmony".

"I discovered that this vision had occured in the ninth hour of the day".

Dante has "a number of conflicting thoughts".

1: "The domination of love is a good thing because he guides the mind of his faithful follower away from all unworthiness".

2. "The domination of Love is not good because the more faithfully a follower serves him, the more burdensome and grievous...he must endure.

3. "The name of love is so sweet to hear that it is impossible that it can be anything but sweet".

4. "The Lady for whom love holds you so enthralled is not like other women whose hearts are easily moved".

"He became like a person who does not know which road to take on his journey, who wants to set out but does not know where to start".

Dante & Friend go to a place where many beautiful women are present in the company of a lady who has been married that day.

Defensive: "Who thought it would give me great pleasure to be present where many beautiful women were to be seen. Hardly knowing where I was being taken and trusting the person who had in fact brought his friend almost to the verge of death".

He felt a "extraordinary throbbing on the left side of my breast" and "leaned for support against the fresco painted in a frieze round the walls of the house" - before he even see's her.

He says to his friend that he had "set foot in that part of life beyond, which one cannot go with any hope of returning".

He is upset that Beatrice mocked him "If my lady knew of my condition, I do not believe she would so mock at my appearance; indeed, I think she would feel great passion".

"It is impossible to explain this to anyone who is not to the same extent a faithful follower of love".

"But if anyone has not the wit to understand it with the help of the divisions already made he had best leave it aone".

"I am afraid that I may have conveyed it's meaning to too many by dividing it even as I have done, if it should come to the ears of too many".

After this an "insistent thought...would hardly ever leave me". It "repeatedly took possession of me".

"Since you take on such an absurd appearance whenever you are near this lady, why do you still try and see her?".

His reply would be "If I did not lose my wits and were confident to reply to her, I would tell her that as soon as I imagine her wonderful beauty the desire is so powerful that it utterly destroys anything in my memory that might raise up against it".

So he writes a poem...

"When I am close to you I hear love say:

If you fear Death, now is the time to fly!".

Wanted to write a poem including 4 things.

1. Often distressed when memory stirred my imagination to consider the effect Love was having on me".

2. Frequently Love assailed me so violently that nothing remained alive in me except a though that spoke of my lady".

3. "When the battle of Love raged within me in this way, I felt impelled, all pale as I was, to go and see my lady, believing that the sight of her, would give me protection from this battle, quite forgetting what happened to me when I drew near such graciousness".

4. The sight of her "finally defeated what little life I had left".

Chapter 17

"I had said almost everything about my state and I thought it right to be silent and say no more".

"I refrained from writing verses addressed to her, I felt impelled to take up a new and nobler theme than before".

Chapter 18

"What is the point of your love for your lady since you are unable to endure her presence".

"My Lord Love, in his mercy, has placed all my hope of that same joy in something which cannot fail me". "In words that praise my lady".

"If you were telling the truth those words you have composed to describe your state would have been written in such a way to convey a different meaning".

"moved away feeling almost ashamed, saying to myself "Since there is so much joy in words which praise my lady why have I ever written in any other manner?"

"So I remained for several days desiring to write and afraid to begin".

Chapter 19

"I walked along a path beside which flowed a stream of very clear water so strong an urge to write came over me". "Then my tongue spoke, almost as if it moved of it's own accord".

"Ladies who know by insight what love is..."- First poem addressed to female audiences.

"One imperfection only Heaven has:

The lack of her".

"My lady is desired in the highest heaven" - foreshadowing.

"She is the sum of natures universe"

"When this canzone had circulated among a number of people a friend who heard it was moved to ask me to write saying what love is".

"Love is encompassed in my ladies eyes

Where she enobles all she looks upon".

"When she a little smiles, her aspect then

No tongue can tell, no memory can hold,

So rare and strange a miracle is she".

Beatrice actualizes love in the hearts of all whom she see's.

"No friendship is so intimate as that between a good father and a good child: and since my lady was of the highest degree of goodness, and her father, as many believe and as it true, was also a great man of goodness, it is plain that my lady was filled with bitterest sorrow".

"She weeps so much that truly anyone seeing her must die of compassion" - ladies.

Dante (who hasn't seen her) "my face was bathed in tears, and I hid my eyes in my hands again and again".

"Look at this man! You would hardly know him, he is so changed".

- Intense illness for 9 days "Lay like somebody paralysed".

"One day, inevitably, even your most precious Beatrice must die".

Tourmented by fantasies "I saw faces of dishevelled women, who said "You too will die" and then after these women, other faces appeared, strange and horrible to look at, saying "You are dead".

Visions of the world without Beatrice "Birds flying in the air fell dead, and the earth trembled with great violence">

"I wept not only in my dreams but with my eyes, which were wet with real tears".

See's the angels "returning to their realm, and before them floated a little cloud of purest white". "The angels were singing to the glory of god...Hossannah in the Highest".

He see's Beatrice dead "Her expression seemed to say I now behold the fountainhead of peace". "I was filled with such serenity at the sight of her that I called on Death and said "Sweet Death, Come to me".  He wakes up and creates a poem.

"I felt a tremor in my heart as though I were in my lady's presence."

Beatrice approaches with Giovanna (Cavalcanti's love)

They walk close to him.

Love says "Anyone who thought carefully about this would call Beatrice love because of the great resemblance she bears to me!".

"Someone whose objections are worthy of the fullest attention might be mystified by the way I speak of love as though it were a thing in itself and not only a substance".

"I say I saw him coming; now "to come" implies locomotion...it follows that I classify love as a body".

"I say also that he laughed and that he spoke, which things are appropriate to a man, especially the capacity to laugh; and so it follows that I make love out to be a man".

"The first to write as a vernacular poet was moved to do so because he wished to make his verses intelligible to a lady who found it difficult in understanding Latin".

"In ovid, love speaks as though it were a human being...This should serve as an explaination to anyone who has doubts concerning any part of this little book of mine".

"And lest any uneducation person should assume too much, I will add that the latin poets did not write in this manner without good reason, nor should those who compose in rhyme, if they cannot justify what they say...My most intimate friend and I know quite a number who compose rhymes in this stupid manner". (using rhetorical devices without knowing their meaning).

"This is no woman; this is one of the fairest angels in Heaven".

"Wanting to resume the theme of her praise, I decided to compose something that would convey the marvellous and beneficent effects of her power, so that not only those who could see her with their own eyes but others might know of her what words are able to convey".

"None comprehends who does not know this state;

And from her lips there seems to emanate

A gentle spirit, full of tender love,

Which to the sould enraptured whispers: 'sigh'.

"Simple to understand...doesn't require any analysis"..

"Her presence brings" (other women) "such felicity".

"The Lord of Justice called this most gracious lady to partake of glory under the banner of the blessed Queen, the virgin Mary, whose name was always uttered in prayers of the utmost reverence by this blessed Beatrice".

He said he does not want to discuss her death because.

1. "To do so does not form part of the present subject, as can be seen as referring to the preface which proceeds this little book".

2. "No words of mine would be adequate to treat the subject as it should be treated".

3. "It is not fitting for me to discuss her departure because in doing I should be obliged to write in praise of myself".

"I therefore leave this subject to be discussed by someone else.

"I will first say what part it (9) played in her departured, and then I shall suggest some reasons why this number was so closely associated with her".

"Her most noble soul departed from us in the ninth hour of the ninth day of the month".

"According to the syrian method, she died in the ninth month of the year">

"She departed this life in the year of our Christian era...in which the perfect number had been completed nine tine's in the century in which she had been placed in this world".

1. All of the 9 moving heavens were in perfect conjuctin.

2. "I say that she herself was the number 9" (as an analogy).

"Perhaps a more subtle mind would find a still more subtle reason for it...but (it) pleases me most".

The city is left as "widowed, despoiled of all good">

He does not include a poem that he wrote to the rulers of the earth because "my closest friend, for whom I write this work, also deskired that I should write it entirely in the vernacular".

Chapter 31: He writes another poem but analyses poem first "so that this canzone may seem more widowed after it's conclusion".

"Tears of compassion for my grieving heart... having wept their fill, they can no more".
"Words must bring aid like weeping did before".

(Cause of death) "No quality of cold caused her to die...But only virtue and great gentleness/ For light, ascneding from her lowliness/So pierced the heavens with its radiance that God was moved to wonder the same"."He called her by her name/ Because our grevious kife He saw to be/ Unfit for such a noble thing as she"."Whoever speaks of her and shed's no tears/ His heart is stone""And often while I'm pondering on Death/the colour leaves my cheeks, so sweet I find/ Anticipation of his blandishment".

Chapter 32 & 33 writes poems for her brother

- Year since Beatrice's death.

"I was thinking of her as I sat drawing an angel on some wooden boards".

Visited by "certain men to whom respect was due".

Verses for those who visited him.

Chapter 35

"I became very pensive and filled with such sorrowful thoughts that I took on an appearance of terrible distress".

"Then I saw a gracious lady, young and very beautiful, who was looking at me from a window, so compassionately, as it seemed from her appearance, that all pity seemed to be gathered there in her".

"It must surely be that in the kindest lady's company there is the most noble love".

"From then on wherever this lady saw me her expression grew compassionate and her face turned pale almost as though with love, reminding me often of my most noble lady".

He continues to see her when he can not weep.

"My wasted eyes I find I cannot keep/

From gazing at you ever and again

For by a tearful longing they are led

Beholding you then so augments their pain.

They are consumed by their desire to weep.

Yet in your presence tears they cannot shed".

"My eyes began to delight too much in seeing her, with the result that often I grew angry in my heart".

"Once you moved to tears all who saw you by yours sorrowful condition; now it seems that you are ready to forget all that because of this lady who gazes at you; she is not gazing at you at all, except in so far as she is sad about the lady in glory".

"In order that this battle which was raging within me should not remain locked within the breast of the wretch" he wrote a sonnet.

1. "This is a gracious lady, beautiful, young and wise; perhaps she has appeared by Love's will so that my life may know peace".

2. "Lord, what is this thought that tries to console me in this base fashion and barely let's me think of anything else".

3. "You have recently been in great tribulation. Why do you not want to escape from such bitterness?"

CONCLUSION: HEART OVER EYES.
"My desire to remember my most gracious lady was still greater than the desire to see the new one".

"Almost at the ninth hour, a vivid impression in which I seemed to see Beatrice in glory, clothed in the crimson garments in which she first appeared before my eyes; and she seemed as young as I first saw her".

"My heart began to repent sorrowfullt of the desire by which it had so basely allowed itself to be possessed...and when this evil desire had been expelled all my thoughts returned once more to their most gracious Beatrice".

"From then onwards I began to think of her with the whole of my remorseful heart".

"my eyes were ringed with dark red...Thus it seemed that they were justly rewarded for their inconsistancy".

30

Saw pilgrims passing him going to St James Shrine.

31

Writes for 2 ladies a composition.

32

"After this sonnet, there appeared to me a marvellous vision in which I saw things which made me decide to write no more of this blessed one until I could do so more worthily".

"If it shall please Him who is the Lord of Courtesy that my soul may go to see the glory or my lady, that is of the blessed Beatrice, who now in glory beholds the face of Him who is blessed forever".

1. Transform poetryinto theme of woe and make it stronger.

2. If she had lived longer the love could have been corrupted by sex, she can continue to be a monument of love and spirtitual symbol.

3. Step aside for religion. His only love is God, by not having sex with Beatrice he didn't betray God.

4. Three deaths.

5. Prepare Dante for Death.

6. He draws her as an angel. He could love her better now with no physical lust.

1. Personal response and analysis.

2. Poetry & Prose combination.

3. Love as nervousness and anxiousness.