discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this end I labour all I can; as she well knoweth. Wherefore if it be His pleasure through whom is the life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which, may it seem good unto Him who is the Master of Grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady; to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now gazeth continually on His countenance, who is blessed throughout all ages.

NOTES

p. 3, 1. 3. "Here beginneth the New Life." Ot this title Rossetti says: "The adjective Nuovo, nuova, or Novello, novella, literally new, is often used by Dante and other early writers in the sense of young. This has induced some editors of the Vita Nuova to explain the title as meaning Early Life. I should be glad on some accounts to adopt this supposition, as everything is a gain which increases clearness to the modern reader; but on consideration I think the more mystical interpretation of the words, as New Life (in reference to that revulsion of his being which Dante so minutely describes as having occurred simultaneously with his first sight of Beatrice), appears the primary one, and therefore the most necessary to be given in a translation. The probability may be that both were meant, but this I cannot convey.

=

This rendering of New Life is now almost universally adopted. It should be added that though we often find nova età early life, no passage has yet been discovered in which nova vita has that meaning. On the other hand, this latter phrase occurs in one of the poems of Dante da Majano (that beginning Giovane donna dentro al cor mi siede) with the obvious meaning of new life: Gli spiriti innamorati cui diletta Questa lor nova vita ("the enamoured spirits, whom this new life of theirs delights"). The passage in Purg. xxx. 115, which is mostly quoted in favour of the "early life"

theory, should therefore most probably be used in support of the other rendering: Questi fu tal nella sua vita nuova = "this man was such in his new life" (i. e. in the new life into which love led him).

P. 3, 1. 8 sqq. Nine times already eyes. Dante first met Beatrice when he was nine years old: the heaven of light, i. e. the sun, had made nine revolutions round the earth since the poet's birth. He is of course following the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, then in general use.

This figure nine recurs frequently throughout the Vita Nuova. (See below pp. 7, 9, 11, 21, 43, 145, 187.) Dante himself explains the mystic and symbolical meaning of the number on pp. 147, 149.

P. 3, 1. 12 sq. even she wherefore. Though Rossetti rendered this difficult passage correctly from the first, it was not till he published the second edition of his book that he fully grasped its meaning. He always realized that the literal rendering of the words is: "The glorious lady of my mind who was called Beatrice by many who knew not how she was called." But somehow he went wrong in the interpretation till, in 1873, he found the solution which seems most acceptable to modern scholars: "May not the meaning be merely that any person looking on so noble and lovely a creation, without knowledge of her name, must have spontaneously called her Beatrice,-i.e. the giver of blessing? This would be analogous by antithesis to the translation I have adopted in my text "

p. 3, l. 13 sqq. She has already been . aegree. In the Convivio, Il. 6, Dante says of the heaven of the sun that it "moves, following the movement of the starry sphere, from west to east one degree in a hundred years.' Thus the twelfth part of a degree is eight years and four months; and this was the age of Beatrice at the time of her first meeting with Dante.

p. 5, 1. 8 sqq. The spirit of life ... animate spirit. natural spirit correspond to the potentia vitalis, potentia animalis and potentia vegititiva (or naturalis) of the schoolmen. Hugh de St. Victor speaks of them as follows: "The vital power dwells within the heart, and whilst, in order to mitigate its heat, it inhales and exhales the air, it communicates life and wellbeing to the whole body; for, by means of the arteries, it drives the blood; vivified by the pure air, through the whole body, and by the movements of the blood physicians recognize the regular or deficient action of the heart.-The animal power has its seat in the brain, from which it imparts life to the four senses, and stimulates the organs of speech into expression as well as the limbs to motion. There are, in fact, three brain-chambers: a front chamber, from which all sensation, a back one, from which all motion, and a third and intermediate one, from which the whole reasoning faculties emanate.-The natural power prepares within the liver the blood and other juices, which spread by means of the veins throughout the whole body" (De Anima, II. 13; the passage translated by Sir Theodore Martin).

P. 7,

1.7 sqq. The ultimate reference is to the Iliad, xxiv 258 sq.:

οὐδὲ ἐῴκει

̓Ανδρός γε θνητοῦ παῖς ἔμμεναι ἀλλὰ θεοῖο.

"He seems not the son of mortal man, but of God."

But Dante was almost certainly ignorant of Greek, and probably derived his knowledge of the passage from some Latin version of Aristotle's Ethica Nicom, VII. 1, where it is quoted; that he was acquainted with this particular book of the Ethics is proved by Conv. IV. 20.

P. 7, 1. 21. nine years exactly. This second meeting therefore took place on May Day, 1283.

P 9,1 8. Great Cycle, eternal life.