But an opposite
view holds that such a deduction overlooks the unique fact that the love
of Dante and Beatrice was purely spiritual and mystical. Doctor Zahm
says that Dante's passion was "a species of homage to the beloved which
was common during the age of the troubadours but which has long since
disappeared--a chivalrous devotion to a woman, neither wife nor
mistress, by means of which the spirit of man, were he knight or poet,
was rendered capable of self-devotion, and of noble deeds and of rising
to a higher ideal of life" (Great Inspirers, p. 245.)
In any event we know that it was a most noble, exalting sentiment and if
we accept the statement of Bishop de Serravalle, the love was mutual and
lasting. This ecclesiastic while attending the council of Florence in
1414 was asked by the Bishops of Bath and Salisbury, England, to make a
Latin translation of the Divine Comedy. In the preamble to his
translation he not only declares that Dante historically and literally
loved Beatrice (_"Dantes delexit hanc puellam historice et
literaliter"_) but he affirms that the love was reciprocal and that it
lasted during the lifetime of Beatrice, ("_Philocaptus fuit de ipsa et
ipsa de ipso, qui se invicem dilexerunt quousque vixit ipsa puella_").
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