A Love Story ...

Dante and Beatrice, 1883 by Henry Holiday

Dante encontrou Beatrice, pela primeira vez, em Florença (1274), tinha apenas 9 anos de idade e ela 8. Ela trajava de vermelho claro e trazia uma fita à volta da cintura. Dante apaixonou-se à primeira vista e fantasiou-a como sendo um ser angelical, nobre e cheio de virtudes. A partir desse dia, começou a frequentar lugares onde sabia poder vislumbrá-la, contemplá-la. Beatrice, no entanto, só lhe dirigiria a palavra volvidos 9 anos. Numa tarde de 1283 viu-a descendo a rua, vestida de branco. Acompanhada por duas mulheres mais velhas, Beatrice dirigiu-se a ele, cumprimentando-o. Tal feito encheu-o de alegria, recolhendo-se de seguida em casa, para pensar na sua amada. Já no quarto, adormeceu e teve um sonho que viria a ser o tema do seu primeiro soneto de La Vita Nuova, um dos maiores “poemas” românticos do mundo.

“And thinking of her a sweet sleep overcame me, in which a marvellous vision appeared to me: so that it seemed I saw in my room a flame-coloured nebula, in the midst of which I discerned the shape of a lord of fearful aspect to those who gazed on him: and he appeared to me with such joy, so much joy within himself, that it was a miraculous thing: and in his speech he said many things, of which I understood only a few: among them I understood this: ‘Ego dominus tuus: I am your lord.’
It seemed to me he held a figure sleeping in his arms, naked except that it seemed to me to be covered lightly with a crimson cloth: gazing at it very intently I realised it was the lady of the greeting, she who had deigned to greet me before that day. And in one of his hands it seemed to me that heheld something completely on fire, and he seemed to say to me these words: ‘Vide cor tuum: Look upon your heart. And when he had stood for a while, he seemed to wake her who slept: and by his art was so forceful that he made her eat the thing that burned in her hand, which she ate hesitantly.”

Excerpt from Dante’s La Vita Nuova , Translated by A.S.Kline.