uch violence, that it appeared horribly in the least pulses,
and, trembling, said these words: _Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens
dominabitur mihi!_ [Behold a god, stronger than I, who, coming, shall
rule me![C]]

[Footnote A: It may be that Dante here refers to the meaning of the name
Beatrice,--_She who renders happy. She who blesses._]

[Footnote B: According to the astronomy of the times, the sphere of the
stars moved from west to east one degree in a hundred years. The twelfth
of a degree was, therefore, eight and a half years. See the _Convito_,
Tratt. II. c. vi.]

[Footnote C: Compare with this passage Canzone x, st. 5, 6. Especially
the lines,

"E, se 'l libro non erra,
Lo spirito maggior tremo si forte,
Che parve ben, che morte
Per lui in questo mondo giunta fosse."

"And, if the book errs not, the chief spirit so greatly trembled, that
it plainly appeared that death for him had arrived in this world."

When Dante meets Beatrice in Purgatory, he says, referring to this
time,--and it is pleasant to note these connections between his earliest
and his latest works,--

"Tosto che nella vista mi percosse
L' alta virtu, che gia m' avca trafitto
Prima ch' io fuor di puerizia fosse."
Canto xxx. l. 40-42.
]

"At that instant, the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high
chamber to which all the spirits of the senses bring their perceptions,
began to marvel greatly, and, addressing the spirits of the sight, said
these words: _Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra._ [Now hath appeared your
bliss.] At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part
where the nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said
these words: _Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps._ [Woe
is me wretched! because frequently henceforth shall I be hindered.]

"From this time forward I say that Love lorded over my soul, which had
been thus quickly put at his disposal;[D] and he began to exercise
over me such control and such lordship, through the power which my
imagination gave to him, that I was obliged to perform completely all
his pleasure. He commanded me many times that I should seek to see this
youthful angel, so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw
her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might
be said that saying of the poet Homer: 'She does not seem the daughter
of a mortal, but of God.' And it befell that her image, which stayed
c