ed in such wise that the least pulses of my being shook....
So noble was her manner, that assuredly one might repeat of her the words
of Homer: 'She seemed born not of mortal but of God.'"

Years passed during which often he encountered her, without, however, a
word being interchanged. Subsequently, at a festival, she recognized him
and bowed--"so virtuously," he said, "that I thought myself lifted to the
limits of beatitude."

Another interval ensued. Again she met him. Dante was then twenty,
Beatrice nineteen. On this occasion she omitted to bow. The omission
affected him profoundly. It was even inspirational. He began to write, "so
well" said Boccaccio "that he effaced the fame of poets that had been and
menaced that of those to be."

In promenading his young glory he again encountered Beatrice, this time in
a house where a betrothal was being celebrated. On entering he was so
emotionalized that he had to lean against a wall. The women who were
present divined the reason. Beatrice was there. The situation amused them.
They laughed. Beatrice also laughed.[54] Whether or not it was her
betrothal that was being feted is uncertain. It may have been. Shortly she
became the wife of Simon dei Bardi, _gentiluomo_.

Dante more profoundly affected than ever cursed the day on which they met:

Io maledico il di ch'io vidi imprima
La luce de' vostri occhi traditori.

To the melody of the imprecation, Petrarch, in honor of Laura, added a
variant:

Benedetto sia l'giorno, e l'mese, e l'anno.

Both were unfortunate in their loves but of the two Dante's was the least
favored. It had nothing for sustenance. Yet, save for that one reproach,
it persisted. Its continuance was fully justified by the code, though, in
the absence of any reciprocity whatever, it was perhaps more vaporous than
any that the codifiers had considered.

Hitherto Dante had hoped but for a bow. Thereafter the hope seemed
ambitious. He ceased to expect so much. A woman, cognizant, as all
Florence was, of the circumstances said to him: "Since you barely dare to
look at Beatrice, what can your love for her be?" Dante answered: "The
dream of my love was in her salutation but since it has pleased her to
withhold it from me, my happiness now resides in what cannot be
withdrawn." "And what is that?" the donna asked. "In words that praise
her," he replied.

Seemingly instead of that, instead rather of limiting his previous
ambition to a salutatio