It is in the same beautiful spirit of reverence to the best virtues of our sex, that Alcestis, the wife of Admetus, who sacrificed her life to prolong that of her husband, is honoured above all other heroines of classical story. She has even been elevated into a kind of presiding divinity,--a second Venus, with nobler attributes,--and in her new existence is feigned to be the consort and companion of Love himself. Another peculiarity of the poetry of the middle ages, was the worship paid to the daisy, (la Marguerite) as symbolical of all that is lovely in women. Why so lowly a flower should take precedence of the queenly lily and the sumptuous rose, is not very clear; but it seems to have originated with one of the old Provençal poets, whose mistress bore the name of Marguerite; and afterwards it became a fashion and a kind of poetical mythology.[20] Thus in the "Flower and the Leafe" of Chaucer, the ladies and knights of the flower approach singing a chorus in honour of the Daisy, of which the burthen is, "si douce est la Marguerite." FOOTNOTES: [12] Le Roi lui demande, "S'il a perdu raison?" il lui répond, "Helas, oui! c'est depuis la mort du Prince Henri, votre fils!" [13] Inferno, c. xxviii. [14] Carey's translation of Dante. Mr. Carey reads Re Giovanni, instead of Re giovane:--King John, instead of Prince Henry. [15] Purgatorio, c. vi. [16] Vies des plus célèbres poëtes Provençaux. [17] Agnes de Navarre, Comtesse de Foix, was beloved by Guillaume de Machaut, a French poet; he became jealous, and she sent her own confessor to him to complain of the injustice of his suspicions, and to swear that she was still faithful to him. She required, also, of her lover, to write and to publish in verse the history of their love; and she preserved, at the same time, in the eyes of her husband and of the world, the character of a virtuous Princess.--_See Foscolo_--_Essays on Petrarch._ [18] Percy's Reliques. [19] _Root_, i. e. example or beginner. [20] See the notes to Chaucer, the works of Froissart, and Mémoires sur les Troubadours. CHAPTER V. GUIDO CAVALCANTI AND MANDETTA, CINO DA PISTOJA AND SELVAGGIA. Amatory poetry was transmitted from the Provençals to the Italians and Sicilians, among whom the language of the Troubadours had long been cultivated, and their songs imitated, but in style yet more affected and _recherché_. Few of the Italian poets who preceded Dante, are interesting even in a mere literary point of view: of these only one or two have shed a reflected splendour round the object of their adoration. Guido Cavalcanti, the Florentine, was the early and favourite friend of Dante: being engaged in the factions of his native city, he was forced on some emergency to quit it; and to escape the vengeance of the prevailing party, he undertook a pilgrimage to Sant Jago. Passing through Tolosa, he fell in love with a beautiful Spanish girl, whom he has celebrated under the name of _Mandetta_: