Page:Sonnets and Ballate of Guido Cavalcanti.djvu/23

 and given to being alone.” It is so we find him in the poems themselves.

Dante’s delay in answering Cavalcante’s question (Inferno, x.): “What said you, he (Guido) had? Lives he not still, with the sweet light beating upon his eyes?” is, I think, a device for reminding the reader of the events of the year 1300. One who had signed a decree of exile against his friend, however much civic virtue was thereby displayed, might well delay his answer.

And if that matchless and poignant ballad,

had not reached Florence before Dante saw the vision, it was at least written years before he wrote the tenth canto of the Inferno.

Guido left two children, Andrea and Tancia. Mandetta of Toulouse is an incident. “Our own Lady” is “presumably” that Giovanna of whom Dante writes in the Vita Nuova (Sonnet xiv., and the prose preceding), weaving his fancy about Primavera, the first coming Spring, St. John the Forerunner, with Beatrice following Monna Vanna, as the incarnate love. Again, in the sonnet of the enchanted ship, “Guido vorrei…” we find her mentioned in the chosen company. One modern writer would have us follow out the parallels between the Commedia and “Book of His Youth,” and identify her with the “Matilda” of the Earthly Paradise. By virtue of her position and certain