BEATRICE

   by Dante Aligheri from "La Vita Nuova".

          Nine times the heaven of the light had revolved in its own movement since my birth and had almost returned to the same point when the woman whom my minds beholds first appeared before my eyes.  She was called Beatrice by many who did not know what it meant to call her this.  She had lived in this world for the length of time in which the heaven of the fixed stars had circled one twelfth of a degree towards the East.  Thus she had not long passed the beginning of her ninth year when she appeared to me and I was almost at the end of mine when I beheld her.  She was dressed in a very noble color, a decorous and delicate crimson, tied with a girdle and trimmed in a manner suitable to her tender age.  The moment I saw her I say in all truth that the vital spirit, which dwells in the inmost depths of the heart, began to tremble so violently that I felt the vibration alarmingly in all my pulses, even the weakest of them.  As it trembled, it uttered these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi!  [Behold a god more powerful than I who comes to rule over me!]  At this point, the spirit of the senses which dwells on high in the place to which all our sense perceptions are carried, was filled with amazement and, speaking especially to the spirits of vision, made this pronouncement: Apparuit iam beatitudo vestra!  [Now your source of joy has been revealed!]  Whereupon the natural spirit, which dwells where our nourishment is digested, began to weep and, weeping, said: Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps.  [Woe is me! for I shall often be impeded from now on.]  From then on indeed Love ruled over my soul, which was thus wedded to him early in life, and he began to acquire such assurance and mastery over me, owing to the power which my imagination gave him, that I was obliged to obey all his wishes perfectly.  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 of her; and I saw that in all her ways she was so praiseworthy and noble that indeed the words of the poet Homer might have been said of her: "She did not seem the daughter of a man, but of a god." 

"From then on indeed Love ruled over my soul, which was thus wedded to him early in life, and he began to acquire such assurance and mastery over me, owing to the power which my imagination gave him, that I was obliged to obey all his wishes perfectly."