In the third canzone Dante speaks of the
impossibility of comprehending what gave him a glimpse of the nature of
his mistress. It was a foreboding of new and great things, struggling
slowly and gradually to take shape, for the creation of a world-system,
one of whose supporting pillars was personal love of an individual, was
an unprecedented achievement. "When she speaks a spirit inclines from
heaven." The angels implore God to call this "miracle" into their midst,
but God wills that they shall have patience until the "Hope of the
Blessed" appears.
Love says of her can there be mortal thing
At once adorned so richly and so pure?
Then looks on her and silently affirms
That heaven designed in her a creature new.
(_Transl. by_ C. LYELL.)
Again and again recurs the motif of her beauty before which the world
must fall prostrate. In a sonnet not included in the _Vita Nuova_ he
says:
In heaven itself that lady had her birth,
I think, and is with us for our behoof;
Blessed are they who meet her on the earth.
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