Page:The Earliest Lives of Dante (Smith 1901).djvu/27

 them. They expected that this would shortly come to pass, seeing that he gave no ear to the comfort and consolation offered him. The days were like the nights, and the nights like the days. Not an hour of them passed without groans, and sighs, and an abundant quantity of tears. His eyes seemed two copious springs of welling water, so that most men wondered whence he received moisture enough for his weeping.

But even as we see that sufferings through long experience become easy to bear, and that similarly all things in time diminish and cease, so it came to pass that in the course of several months Dante seemed to remember without weeping that Beatrice was dead. And with truer judgment, as grief somewhat gave place to reason, he came to recognize that neither weeping, nor sighs, nor aught else could restore his lost lady to him, wherefore he prepared to sustain the loss of her presence with greater patience. Nor was it long, now that the tears had ceased, before the sighs, which were already near their end, began in great measure to depart without returning. Through weeping and the pain that his heart felt within, and through lack of any care of himself, he had become outwardly almost a savage thing to look upon—lean, unshaven, and almost utterly transformed from that which he was wont to be formerly; so that his aspect moved to pity not only his acquaintances but all others who saw him, although he let himself be seen but little by any one save his friends while this so tearful state endured. Their compassion and fear of worse to come made his relatives attentive to his comfort. And when they saw that his tears had somewhat ceased, and knew that the burning sighs gave a little respite to his troubled bosom, they began again to solicit the broken-hearted one with consolations that had long been unheeded. And though up to that hour he had obstinately closed his ears to every one, he now began not only to open them somewhat, but willingly to listen to that which was said for his comfort.