inning to utter some golden words
in the praise of my friend's verses, she very sweetly but very surely
cut my compliments short, and gave me the answer to my embassy.

"Tell Messer Dante," she said, "that he is so great a poet that it were
scarcely gracious for me to refuse him the favor he asks, though,
indeed, he must know as well as I know that it is no small favor. It is
not perhaps fitting, and it certainly is not easy, for a maiden to
accord a lonely meeting to a youth, even when that youth has some reason
to call himself the maiden's friend. But I shall retire before this
festival comes to an end, and I shall walk awhile on the loggia above in
the moonlight and the sweet air before going to my sleep. If he will
come to me there I will speak with him and hear him speak for a little
while. Tell him I do this for the sake of his verses."

Therewith she made me a suave salutation and turned to speak to another,
and I, finding myself thus amiably dismissed, and being very well
satisfied with the fruits of my enterprise, bowed very lowly before her,
and turned and went my ways, seeking my friend. Soon I found him with
many youths and elders about him, all as eager as Guido had been to
congratulate him on what he had done. But if Dante seemed pleased to
hear their praises, as it was only right he should seem pleased, he
showed still greater pleasure in beholding me and reading the message of
my smiling face.

He made some excuse for quitting his company and drawing apart with me,
and when he had heard what I had got to say, I think that he looked the
happiest man that I had ever seen. "Heaven bless my lady Beatrice for
her sovereign grace," he said, very softly and earnestly, and then he
wrung me very hard by the hand, and left me and went back to his
admirers, and thereafter, during the progress of the night's pleasures,
I saw him move and take his share with an unwonted brightness of
countenance and mirthfulness of bearing, and I was glad with all my
heart to see him so cheerful.

Indeed, that was a cheering time, and the man or woman would have been
hard to please who found nothing to delight or to amuse at Messer
Folco's festival. To speak for myself, I had never known better
diversion. There was a whole world of pretty women assembled within
Messer Folco's walls, and I may as well confess here, if I have not
confessed it already, that I take great delectation in the companionship
of pretty women. How many litt