[Footnote K:  This Canzone, to the exposition of which the third Trattato of the Convito is devoted, has been inimitably translated by the Reverend Charles T. Brooks.  We believe it to be the happiest version of one of Dante’s minor poems that exists in our language,—­and every student of the poet will recognize the success with which very great difficulties have been overcome.  It appeared in the Crayon, for February, 1853.]

“Dante took great delight in music, and was an excellent draughtsman,” says Aretino, his second biographer; and Boccaccio reports, that in his youth he took great pleasure in music, and was the friend of all the best musicians and singers of his time.  There is, perhaps, in the whole range of literature, no nobler homage to Art than that which is contained in the tenth and twelfth cantos of the “Purgatory,” in which Dante represents the Creator himself as using its means to impress the lessons of truth upon those whose souls were being purified for the final attainment of heaven.  The passages are too long for extract, and though their wonderful beauty tempts us to linger over them, we must return to the course of the story of Dante’s life as it appears in the concluding pages of the “New Life.”

Many months had passed since Beatrice’s death, when Dante happened to be in a place which recalled the past time to him, and filled him with grief.  While standing here, he raised his eyes and saw a young and beautiful lady looking out from a window compassionately upon his sad aspect.  The tenderness of her look touched his heart and moved his tears.  Many times afterwards he saw her, and her face was always full of compassion, and pale, so that it reminded him of the look of his own most noble lady.  But at length his eyes began to delight too much in seeing her; wherefore he often cursed their vanity, and esteemed himself as vile, and there was a hard battle within himself between the remembrance of his lady and the new desire of his eyes.

At length, he says, “The sight of this lady brought me into so new a condition, that I often thought of her as of one who pleased me exceedingly,—­and I thought of her thus:  ’This is a gentle, beautiful, young, and discreet lady, and she has perhaps appeared by will of Love, in order that my life may find repose.’  And often I thought more amorously, so that my heart consented in it, that is, approved my reasoning.  And after it had thus consented, I, moved as if by reason, reflected, and said to myself, ’Ah, what thought is this that in so vile a way seeks to console me, and leaves me scarcely any other thought?’ Then another thought rose up and said, ’Now that thou hast been in so great tribulation of Love, why wilt thou not withdraw thyself from such bitterness?  Thou seest that this is an inspiration that sets the desires of Love before thee, and proceeds from a place no less gentle than the eyes of the lady who has shown herself so pitiful toward thee.’  Wherefore, I, having often thus combated with myself, wished to say some words of it.  And as, in this battle of thoughts, those which spoke for her won the victory, it seemed to me becoming to address her, and I said this sonnet, which begins, ‘A gentle thought’; and I called it gentle because I was speaking to a gentle lady,—­but otherwise it was most vile.