Its opening sentence is full of the imagery of love.  “Since the death of that blessed Beatrice who lives in heaven with the angels, and on earth with my soul, the star of Venus had twice shone in the different seasons, as the star of morning and of evening, when that gentle lady, of whom I have made mention near the close of the “New Life,” first appeared before my eyes accompanied by Love, and gained some place in my mind. ...  And before this love could become perfect, there arose a great battle between the thought that sprang from it and that which was opposed to it, and which still held the fortress of my mind for the glorified Beatrice."[M]

[Footnote M:  Convito, Tratt. ii. c. 3.]

And so hard was this struggle, and so painful, that Dante took refuge from it in the composition of a poem addressed to the Angelic Intelligences who move the third heaven, that is, the heaven of Venus; and it is to the exposition of the true meaning of this Canzone that the second book or treatise of the “Convito” is directed.  In one of the later chapters he says, (and the passage is a most striking one, from its own declaration, as well as from its relation to the vision of the “Divina Commedia,")—­“The life of my heart was wont to be a sweet and delightful thought, which often went to the feet of the Lord of those to whom I speak, that is, to God,—­for, thinking, I contemplated the kingdom of the Blessed.  And I tell [in my poem] the final cause of my mounting thither in thought, when I say, ’There I beheld a lady in glory’; [and I say this] in order that it may be understood that I was certain, and am certain, through her gracious revelation, that she was in heaven, whither I in my thought oftentimes went,—­as it were, seized up.  And this made me desirous of death, that I might go there where she was."[N] Following upon the chapter in which this remarkable passage occurs is one which is chiefly occupied with a digression upon the immortality of the soul,—­and with discourse upon this matter, says Dante, “it will be beautiful to finish speaking of that living and blessed Beatrice, of whom I intend to say no more in this book....  And I believe and affirm and am certain that I shall pass after this to another and better life, in which that glorious lady lives of whom my soul was enamored."[O]

[Footnote N:  Convito, Tratt. ii. c. 8.]

[Footnote O:  Id. c. 9.]

But it is not from the “Convito” alone that this portion of the “Vita Nuova” receives illustration.  In that passage of the “Purgatory” in which Beatrice is described as appearing in person to her lover the first time since her death, she addresses him in words of stern rebuke of his fickleness and his infidelity to her memory.  The whole scene is, perhaps, unsurpassed in imaginative reality; the vision appears to have an actual existence, and the poet himself is subdued by the power of his own imagination.  He tells the words of Beatrice with the same feeling with which he would have repeated them, had they fallen on his mortal ear.  His grief and shame are real, and there is no element of feigning in them.  That in truth he had seemed to himself to listen to and to behold what he tells, it is scarcely possible to doubt.  Beatrice says,—­