... And before this love could become perfect, there arose a
great battle between the thought that sprang from it and that which was
opposed to it, and which still held the fortress of my mind for the
glorified Beatrice."[M]
[Footnote M: _Convito_, Tratt. ii. c. 3.]
And so hard was this struggle, and so painful, that Dante took
refuge from it in the composition of a poem addressed to the Angelic
Intelligences who move the third heaven, that is, the heaven of Venus;
and it is to the exposition of the true meaning of this Canzone that
the second book or treatise of the "Convito" is directed. In one of the
later chapters he says, (and the passage is a most striking one, from
its own declaration, as well as from its relation to the vision of the
"Divina Commedia,")--"The life of my heart was wont to be a sweet and
delightful thought, which often went to the feet of the Lord of those
to whom I speak, that is, to God,--for, thinking, I contemplated the
kingdom of the Blessed. And I tell [in my poem] the final cause of my
mounting thither in thought, when I say, 'There I beheld a lady in
glory'; [and I say this] in order that it may be understood that I was
certain, and am certain, through her gracious revelation, that she was
in heaven, whither I in my thought oftentimes went,--as it were, seized
up.
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