3 thoughts on “Henry Holiday

  1. shinichi Post author

    Dante looks longingly at Beatrice Portinari (in yellow) as she passes by him with Lady Vanna (in red).

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unrequited_love

    Eric Berne considered that “the man who is loved by a woman is lucky indeed, but the one to be envied is he who loves, however little he gets in return. How much greater is Dante gazing at Beatrice than Beatrice walking by him in apparent disdain”.

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    Unrequited love or one-sided love is love that is not openly reciprocated or understood as such by the beloved. The beloved may not be aware of the admirer’s deep and strong romantic affection, or may consciously reject it.

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  2. shinichi Post author

    ダンテ・アリギエーリ

    https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/ダンテ・アリギエーリ

    ダンテ・アリギエーリ(イタリア語:Dante Alighieri、1265年 – 1321年9月14日)は、イタリア都市国家フィレンツェ出身の詩人、哲学者、政治家。

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    ベアトリーチェ (Beatrice Portinari)

    ダンテを代表する最初の詩文作品、『新生』によれば、1274年5月1日に催された春の祭りカレンディマッジョ(Calendimaggio)の中で、ダンテは同い年の少女ベアトリーチェ・ポルティナーリ(イタリア語版)に出会い、魂を奪われるかのような感動を覚えたと言う。この時、ダンテは9歳であった。

    それから9年の時を経て、共に18歳になったダンテとベアトリーチェは、聖トリニタ橋のたもとで再会した。その時ベアトリーチェは会釈してすれ違ったのみで、一言の会話も交さなかったが、以来ダンテはベアトリーチェに熱病に冒されたように恋焦がれた。しかしこの恋心を他人に悟られないように、別の二人の女性に宛てて「とりとめのない詩数篇」を作る。その結果、ダンテの周囲には色々な風説が流れ、感情を害したベアトリーチェは挨拶すら拒むようになった。こうしてダンテは、深い失望のうちに時を過ごした。1285年頃に、ダンテは許婚のジェンマ・ドナーティ(イタリア語版)と結婚した。

    二人の間にさしたる交流もないまま、ベアトリーチェもある銀行家に嫁ぎ、数人の子供をもうけて1290年に24歳で病死した。彼女の死を知ったダンテは狂乱状態に陥り、キケロやボエティウスなどの古典を読み耽って心の痛手を癒そうとした。そして生涯をかけてベアトリーチェを詩の中に永遠の存在として賛美していくことを誓い、生前の彼女のことをうたった詩をまとめて『新生』を著した。その後、生涯をかけて『神曲』三篇を執筆し、この中でベアトリーチェを天国に坐して主人公ダンテを助ける永遠の淑女として描いた。

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  3. shinichi Post author

    Beatrice and Dante

    https://www.florenceinferno.com/beatrice-portinari/

    Beatrice was Dante’s true love. In his Vita Nova, Dante reveals that he saw Beatrice for the first time when his father took him to the Portinari house for a May Day party. They were children: he was nine years old and she was eight.
    Dante was instantly smitten and never forgot her after this meeting even though he married another woman, Gemma Donati, in 1285, with whom he had three sons and one daughter.

    According to tradition, Dante and Beatrice were also neighbors outside the walls of Florence—near the hill of Fiesole, where the Portinari and Alighieri families had two neighboring summer villas. It is plausible that Dante and Beatrice met each other as children there.

    He would meet her again nine years later in an unexpected fashion: Beatrice was walking along dressed in white and accompanied by two older women on Lungarno (one of the Florence streets along the Arno River).

    She turned and greeted him. Dante remembered the episode well, but ran away without saying a word.

    Her salutation filled him with such joy that he retreated to his room to think about her. In so doing he fell asleep and had a dream that would become the subject of the first sonnet in La Vita Nuova.

    Afterward, there were only two other short meetings between the two: one in the church of Santa Margherita dei Cerchi (the church visited by Robert Langdon and Sienna Brooks in Dan Brown’s Inferno) and one at a wedding feast.

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