Beatrice,--no longer the soft, frail, and feminine being he had known and loved upon earth, but an admonishing spirit,--rises up in her chariot, And with a mien Of that stern majesty which doth surround A mother's presence to her awe-struck child, She looked--a flavour of such bitterness Was mingled with her pity! CAREY'S TRANS. Dante then puts into her mouth the most severe yet eloquent accusation against himself: while he stands weeping by, bowed down by shame and anguish. She accuses him before the listening angels for his neglected time, his wasted talents, his forgetfulness of her, when she was no longer upon earth to lead him with the light of her "youthful eyes," (gli occhi giovinetti.) Soon as I had changed My mortal for immortal, then he left me, And gave himself to others; when from flesh To spirit I had risen, and increase Of beauty and of virtue circled me, I was less dear to him and valued less! PURGATORY, C. 30.--CAREY'S TRANS. This praise of herself and stern upbraiding of her lover, would sound harsh from woman's lips, but have a solemnity, and even a sublimity, as uttered by a disembodied and angelic being. When Dante, weeping, falters out a faint excuse-- Thy fair looks withdrawn, Things present with deceitful pleasures turned My steps aside,-- she answers by reproaching him with his inconstancy to her memory:-- Never didst thou spy In art or nature aught so passing sweet As were the limbs that in their beauteous frame Enclosed me, and are scattered now in dust. If sweetest thing thus failed thee with my death, What afterward of mortal should thy wish Have tempted? PURGATORY, c. 31. And she rebukes him, for that he could stoop from the memory of her love to be the thrall of a _slight girl_. This last expression is supposed to allude either to Dante's unfortunate marriage with Gemma Donati,[44] or to the attachment he formed during his exile for a beautiful Lucchese named Gentucca, the subject of several of his poems. But, notwithstanding all this severity of censure, Dante, gazing on his divine monitress, is so rapt by her loveliness, his eyes so eager to recompence themselves for "their ten years' thirst," (Beatrice had been dead ten years) that not being yet freed from the stain of his earthly nature, he is warned not to gaze "too fixedly" on her charms. After a farther probation, Beatrice introduces him into the various spheres which compose the celestial paradise; and thenceforward she certainly assumes the characteristics of an allegorical being. The true distinction seems this, that Dante has not represented Divine Wisdom under the name and form of Beatrice, but the more to exalt his Beatrice, he has clothed her in the attributes of Divine Wisdom.