The Vita Nuova and Its Author Author:Dante Alighieri Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: VITA NUOVA. In that part of the book of my memory prior to which there is but little to be read, there is found a rubric1 which saith: Incipit Vita Nova— " H... more »ere beginneth the New Life." Beneath which rubric I find written the words which it is my intention to copy into this little book, and if not all, at least the sense of them. Nine times already since my birth had the luminous heaven ' well nigh returned to the selfsame point, in its own revolution, when first appeared before mine eyes the glorious lady of my soul, who was called Beatrice of many, who knew not what it was that they called her.2 She had then been in this life so longthat, in her time, the starry heaven had moved towards the region of the East one twelfth part of a degree," so that she appeared to me at about the beginning of her ninth year, and I beheld her almost at the end of my ninth year. She appeared unto me, clad in that most noble hue, modest4 and full of dignity—a crimson that is—girt and adorned in such wise as beseemed her very early years. At that moment, I verily say, the vital spirits,6 which have their abode within the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble so violently as to be felt in my smallest pulses ; and, trembling, I spake these words : Ecce Deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi (" Lo, a God stronger than I, who shall come and have dominion over me"). At that moment, the animal spirits, which dwell within the lofty chamber, where- unto all the sensitive spirits convey their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, addressing more especially the visive spirits, spake these words: Apparuit jam beatitude vestra (" Now hath thy bliss appeared "). At that moment the natural spirits, which dwell in that region where the nutrition is manifest, began to lament, and, lam...« less