The imaginative estimate or ideal conception of Woman by the Poets has
always been deemed exceptionally interesting, especially by women
themselves, for, as a rule, it is agreeable; and, even if the presentation
be sometimes a little overcharged with glowing colour, all of us, men and
women alike, are not otherwise than pleased with descriptions that portray
us, not exactly as we are, but as we should like to be. Withal, a
portrait, to obtain recognition, must have in it some resemblance to the
original; and, speaking in the most prosaic manner, one need not hesitate
to affirm that any representation of women, at least of womanly women,
that was not attractive would be a travesty of the fact.
Alike in the _Vita Nuova_ and the _Divina Commedia_, Beatrice Portinari
figures so largely, and Dante's love for her from childhood in her tenth
till her death in her twenty-sixth year is so striking that most persons
think of the great Florentine Poet in association with no other women,
their characters, their occupations, temptations, weaknesses, virtues, and
everyday duties. Yet no man could be a Poet such as Dante who confined his
ken to so limited a field of observation and feeling, and to whom the
whole range of feminine emotion and action was not familiar; and, in the
exposition of that theme, I would invite attention to that wider range and
scope of interest, though from it Beatrice will not be forgotten. Let us
turn, first of all, to the fifteenth canto of the _Paradiso_, where
Cacciaguida, the Poet's ancestor, describes, while Beatrice looks on with
assenting smile, the simplicity of Florentine manners in former times,
alike in men and women, but in women especially--times dear to Dante,
since they immediately preceded those in which he himself lived.
Fiorenza,
says Cacciaguida, calling the city by its original name,
Fiorenza, dentro della cerchia antica,
Si stava in pace, sobria e pudica.
Non avea catenella, non corona,
Non donne contigiate, non cintura,
Che fosse a veder piu che la persona.
Florence, within her ancient boundaries
Was chaste, and sober, and in peace abode.
No golden bracelets and no head-tires then,
Transparent garments, rich embroideries,
That caught the eye more than the wearer's self.
He goes on to say that the Florentine ladies of that day left their mirror
without any artificial colouring on their cheeks. Mothers themselves
tended the cradle, and maidens and matrons drew off the thread from the
distaff, while listening to old tales of Troy, Fiesole, and Rome. It is
Dante's own description of the manners and customs of the days when he was
a child.
Some, perhaps, will ask, "Surely there is nothing very poetic in the
foregoing description of woman?" If so, one must reply, indeed there is,
and only the acceptance of the idea of Poetry prevailing amongst us of
late years, which is essentially false, because so narrow and so exclusive
of the simplest poetry at one end of the scale, and of the highest poetry
at the other, could make any one doubt that a really poetic and
imaginative conception of woman must include the dedication, though not
the entire dedication, of herself to domestic duty and tenderness.
Is there nothing poetic in Wordsworth's picture of a girl turning her
wheel beside an English fire?