_The Truth about Dante._
Folco di Ricovero Portinari had a daughter named Beatrice, a comely and
amiable child, who had just turned of nine years when her estimable
father gave a fashionable party to numerous friends in his palatial
Florentine residence. There came to this party, in company of his father
and mother, a lad named Durante Alighieri, himself but a few months
older than little Beatrice. These two children, being the only little
folk at the party, took a fancy to each other, and romped and played
together on this occasion, as any other two children would have played
under similar circumstances. Being somewhat the elder, and considerably
the stronger, of the two, little Durante, or Dante as he was called, had
pretty much his own way; and having robbed little Beatrice of most of
her cake and all her candies, and having threatened to thrash her if she
ever told, Dante declared to his doting parents that he had never before
met with so sweet a little playmate as was this same little Beatrice.
We are given to understand that from an acquaintance thus made, grew an
affection that endured until death removed the two principals to another
sphere. In fact, the love of Dante for Beatrice has been the theme of
many a sentimental poem and emotional essay.
The truth, however, is, that although Beatrice lived to be twenty-five
years of age, Dante could at no time, during the sixteen years he
associated with her, convince himself that he loved her well enough to
make her his wife. It was not until he heard of her death that he became
satisfied that he had loved Beatrice with an all-consuming love; and,
having satisfied himself on this point, he began at once to indite
elegiac verse to her memory,—a habit which, we regret to observe, he had
the infinite bad taste to persist in up to the very date of his demise.
Fortunately, there have been preserved, by the genius of a Bostonian
named Prang, a countless number of copies of a portrait of Beatrice made
several months previous to that estimable maiden-lady’s death; and the
sad beauty of the unhappy woman’s face has appealed to the compassion of
all beholders. This portrait, as we interpret its expression, represents
the patient Beatrice as gazing pensively into space, and wondering when
Dante was going to propose.
Beatrice had been buried scarcely a year when her heart-broken lover
made up his mind that the best consolation for the loss of one
sweetheart was the procuring of another; and so he began paying his
_devoirs_ to a wealthy and beautiful girl named Gemma Donati, one of the
belles of Florence. While he was courting this bright, pretty, and
unsuspecting lady, however, he continued to indite whining elegies,
sonnets, triolets, quatrains, couplets, etc., to the memory of Beatrice,
the woman who had died of a broken heart because Dante didn’t have spunk
enough to pop the question. We take it for granted that none of these
mortuary verses ever reached the eyes or the ears of Gemma Donati before
she was married. Otherwise, you can depend upon it, she would have given
Mr. Alighieri the mitten he deserved, for she was a proud, spirited
girl. She believed Dante loved her; and believing in him, and trusting
in his love, she went to the altar with him.
It was not long, however, before Gemma discovered that she had caught a
Tartar. Instead of the bright, happy fellow she had a right to expect in
her bridegroom, she found that Dante was capricious, moody, and
dyspeptic. He had a habit of sitting up late of nights, groaning and
sighing, writing poetry which he industriously hid away from her, but
read to everybody else,—doing, in fine, all manner of things beseeming a
person afflicted with a chronic disorder of the liver and a natural
wrongness of the heart. Truly, an enviable honeymoon it must have been
that poor Gemma passed with this bridegroom of hers! One day, at last,
she found a verse that explained much to her. It was a verse in Dante’s
chirography; and Gemma read the cruel lines, and fell down in a swoon.
“Fatto era un stagno piu secura e brutto—
O Beatrice! di quel grazzia la citta,
Altro non e dar;
Uno esperto non Gemma e l’opra
Un correger soave un pio sostegno—
Figgo del sperto solle!”
That night she taxed Dante with having deceived her, and he was mean
enough to accuse her of being jealous. When he discovered that his bride
was hopelessly miserable, he clinched the general cussedness of the
situation by applying himself more diligently than ever before to the
business of composing maudlin poetry to the memory of the defunct old
maid,—“his sainted Beatrice,” as he called her in his miserable dago
hypocrisy.
This delectable state of affairs continued a number of years; and
meantime, in spite of his devotion to the sacred memory of his “first
and only love in heaven,” Dante contrived to become the father of six
children, one of whom was a girl. This girl should have been named after
her estimable mother; but in order, apparently, to grind the iron even
deeper into his wife’s soul, Dante stole away to a priest’s house with
the baby one day, and had the little creature christened Beatrice. There
seems to have been no end to this man’s indecent cruelty.
Well, having wrecked his wife’s life, Dante proceeded to make a public
nuisance of himself; and he embarked in politics, and began sloshing
around at a great rate. But dealing with a discriminating and exacting
public is very different from bully-ragging a patient, submissive wife;
and the first thing he knew, Dante was in deep water,—hot water too. He
was banished from the province; and, although he made vigorous and
persistent efforts to get back again, his fellow-townsmen were wise
enough to let the decree stand. Of course Gemma sympathized with her
husband in his troubles, but the burden of these troubles fell rather
upon her; for now it became her duty to provide for the six children
which Dante had left behind when he made his escape. A small part of
Dante’s property she saved from confiscation by claiming it as her
dower; and it was upon this pittance that Gemma reared and educated
their children,—Dante’s and hers. It was a hard struggle, involving
countless sacrifices; but it was a struggle to which Gemma applied
herself courageously, patiently, and grandly,—courageous, patient, noble
woman that she was!
The biographies that have come down to us are all biographies of Dante.
Therefore we can only surmise at the magnitude of the suffering which
Gemma endured. But we know this, that Gemma brought her six children to
maturity, and that she lived to see them prosperous and honored. During
all the intervening years, it was one continuous fight to make the ends
meet; and every now and then Gemma squeezed out of her paltry savings a
little money to send to her exiled husband.
Meantime, instead of trying to earn means whereby to contribute to the
support of his family, Dante seems to have devoted all his time to
writing poetry and things calculated to make trouble for the home-folk.
His most pretentious composition was a grotesque production purporting
to be an account of a visit to hell and purgatory. His dyspeptic
stomach, his torpid liver, and his malignant temper, qualified him for a
work of this character; and, having consistently raised —— all his life,
it is not surprising that he should have left to posterity a minute
description of that undesirable locality, and the industries therein
abounding. With the utmost care, Dante drew his pen-pictures of the
infernal regions, and introduced as figures therein all the Florentines
he disliked, particularly those who were likely to be of kindly service
to his wife and his children. At one time, having heard that the noble
Duke della Caseras had advanced Gemma the sum of ten ducats to keep her
and her babies from starving, Dante at once proceeded to represent the
noble duke in hell, with his body submerged in a lake of sulphurous
flame, and his legs sticking up in a preposterous manner. If any citizen
of Florence was good to Dante’s wife, he was promptly put in hell by
Dante himself. In fact, hell, as Dante pictured it, was peopled with men
and women who treated Dante’s wife and children humanely. This made life
rather awkward for Mrs. Alighieri and the rising generation of
Alighieris; but their feelings were not to be considered, so long as Mr.
Alighieri’s demoniacal spite was being gratified.
Many of the Florentine people whom Dante utilized in this scandalous
manner overlooked his offences in a good-natured way. They regarded
Gemma as a very worthy woman; and they were prepared at all times to do
her kindnesses, no matter how rudely Gemma’s husband treated them in his
spiteful poems. But there were others who refused to take kindly to
Dante’s ungrateful methods. Giovanni Ferato, the baker, was one of
these. “Signora,” said he to Gemma one day, “I have suffered your
account to run for many months. Whenever you came for bread, or called
for rolls, or ordered pie, or sent for cake, I have permitted you to
have them without question; for I knew you were pressed by poverty, and
I thought to do you a kindness. But your husband has paid the debt by
devoting seven lines of blank verse to me and my family, representing us
as floating about in a sea of molten lead, with winged devils shooting
flaming darts into our bodies. You will have to go elsewhere for your
pastry hereafter.”
Guiseppe Angelo once let Gemma have a load of fagots at half price,
whereupon Dante represented Guiseppe as being nailed down with red-hot
nails to the very floor of hell; while a vulture tore out his entrails,
and devoured them without seasoning. When Gemma went for another load of
fagots, she had to pay a double price.
In like manner, Torquato Rovera, the cobbler; Michael Levato, the
huckster; Hermozo Bambino, the butcher; and a score of other
tradefolk,—were prejudiced against this modest, amiable, and unoffending
woman. To put the case as mildly as possible, it was, so far as Gemma
was concerned, awkward.
But of all the mean, despicable things done in Dante’s career of
incomparable meanness, the meanest was his allusion to his wife in the
sixteenth canto of his “Hell.” Heedless of the wrongs he had done her,
and forgetting all her sacrifices for him and for his children, the
jaundiced ingrate left to posterity these lines:—
“—me, my wife
Of savage temper, more than aught beside,
Hath to this evil brought.”
Dante died at Ravenna. While he was ill, he wrote his wife a dismal
letter, begging for money: she borrowed three ducats, and sent them to
him. The gold reached him just as he lay at the point of death. He read
the accompanying letter, and groaned. “She does not say who lent her the
money,” he sighed. “Would that I knew his name, that I might put him
with the others in that brimstone pit!”
Then he raised himself feebly, and said to Pietro Alfieri, his friend,
“Take this gold, and with it pay the printer, who delays too long the
publication of my last poem.” With these words he expired.
Alfieri took the money to the printer. “Have you a poem here, the work
of Dante Alighieri?” he asked.
“I have,” said Fernando Pizaro. “There is due upon it three ducats, else
it shall not leave the shop.”
“Let me see the poem,” demanded Alfieri.
The printer brought forth the manuscript. It was entitled, “To My
Beatrice in Heaven!”
“Whistle for your money!” said Alfieri laconically; and he threw down
the manuscript, and walked out of the shop.
Pietro Alfieri was a man of decency. He sent the three ducats back to
Gemma Alighieri; and with the money the frugal widow bought shirtwaists
for her five boys, and a nice new jersey for her little girl.
_The Good Cause._
WE understand that our talented fellow-townsman, T. Babbington
Greenleaf, is engaged upon a rhythmical translation of the tripods of
Horace.
* * * * *
THE Book-Binders’ Union will give its regular annual ball in Brand’s
Hall immediately after Lent.
_The Convention of Western Writers._
The Chicago people who went down to Indianapolis last Tuesday, to attend
the convention of Western writers, have returned; and they are telling a
great many amusing stories of their experiences. It would appear that
the convention was not as numerously attended as its promoters had hoped
it would be; the mistake seems to have been in calling a second
convention so soon after the date of the first: once a year is often
enough for authors and poets to get together for consultation. The
Chicago delegates were treated very hospitably; and it is perhaps to
their credit that they took no part in the proceedings, except to stand
around, look dignified, and hear what the other people had to say.
“So you’re from Chicago, are you?” would be the first question asked.
“Yes.”
“What have you written?”
Here would follow a modest confession, made in tones indicative of
embarrassment.
“But have you never written any thing for ‘The Current’?” and this
question would be put with an expression of countenance that seemed to
add, “If you _have_, you must be all right; but if you _haven’t_, you
can’t amount to much.”
The rooms of the Chicago contingent were the resort of the rural
_littérateurs_ with “something to read you for your private opinion.”
Poets came in from every part of Indiana, and each of these poets had a
bundle of original dialect poetry. Mad because they were not billed in
the programme of the convention, these inspired creatures insisted upon
reading their verses to everybody they met. Mr. Maurice Thompson seems
to have been the man who impressed the Chicago visitors most favorably:
he was president of the convention, and one of the first things he did
was to tell the poets that they were nuisances. As the convention
proceeded, and bedlam began to prevail, Mr. Thompson sat quietly in his
chair, regarding the scene with an expression of hopelessness and
contempt commingled. When the last hours of the convention drew on
apace, the poets and authors made a constant tumult for the privilege of
reading their poems and things. Of course, there was not time for all to
be heard; and the result was, that each tried to make himself or herself
heard. The confusion was indescribably ludicrous.
Bill Nye was so disgusted that he retired early from the fray; and so
did James Whitcomb Riley; Thompson staid because he had to.
One old lady about seventy-five years of age had prepared a poem; but
when she looked in her reticule for the manuscript, she could not find
it. Her efforts to recover her lost poem would have been funny had they
not been pathetic. She set everybody to looking under the chairs and on
the tables for the manuscript; and even the cover of the piano was
lifted, in the suspicion that the lost poem might have found its way
into that instrument.
“Oh, I’m so glad to meet you!” said one gushing Hoosier _littérateur_ to
a Chicago lady, “for you can tell me whether the author of ‘The Humbler
Poets’ came down from Chicago with you. I would so like to see him!”
It was a good thing for the gentleman in question that he was a thousand
miles away. But there were constant and numerous inquiries after him by
poets and poetesses who claimed to have “several little gems” of their
own which they felt he would “be glad to add to his collection.”
At first it was determined to hold the next convention in Chicago; but
subsequently this determination was reconsidered, and the executive
committee was empowered to call the next convention at any place it
might choose. One of the Indiana poetesses approached a Chicago visitor,
and said triumphantly, “Well, you aren’t goin’ to get it, after all!”
“Get what?”
“The next convention.”
“Well, that is a matter that doesn’t concern me at all,” replied the
Chicagoan. “I’m not here representing Chicago: I’ve come simply to
report your proceedings for my paper.”
“Oh, yes! I know,” said the poetess; “but Chicago has acted so
indifferent about it that she can’t have it now. Why, if they had agreed
upon Terry Hut, I’d have risen right up in the convention, and thanked
’em, and bid ’em welcome!”
_The Poet’s Corner._
“M. E. B.”—The only English translation of Goethe’s “Faust” we can
recommend is that made by Gen. Zachary Taylor, one of our ex-presidents.
* * * * *
MRS. HANNAH MORE GARDINER, president of the West-Side Browning Club, has
suffered a keen bereavement in the demise of her pet poodle, whom she
had named Robert, in honor of her favorite poet. While not wishing to
invade the sanctity of the gifted lady’s grief, we cannot forbear saying
that this lamentable occurrence has cast a gloom over the whole
community; and the dispensation seems all the more distressing, since
deceased left a numerous infant progeny.
_A Western Boy’s Lament._
I wished I lived away Down East, where codfish salt the sea,
And where the folks have pumpkin-pie and apple-sass for tea.
Us boys who’s livin’ here out West, don’t get more’n half a show:
We don’t have nothin’ else to do but jest to sort o’ grow.
Oh! if I wuz a bird I’d fly a million miles away
To where they feed their boys on pork and beans three times a day;
To where the place they call the Hub, gives out its shiny spokes,
And where the folks—so father says—is mostly women-folks.
_The Story of Xanthippe._