He tells us that many answers were made to this sonnet, and "among those
who replied to it was he whom I call the first of my friends, and he
wrote a sonnet which began,
'Thou seest in my opinion every worth.'
This was, as it were, the beginning of our friendship when he knew
that it was I who had sent these verses to him." This first of Dante's
friends was Guido Cavalcanti. Their friendship was of long duration,
beginning thus in Dante's nineteenth year, and ending only with Guido's
death, in 1300, when Dante was thirty-five years old. It may be taken as
a proof of its intimacy and of Dante's high regard for the genius of his
friend, that, when Dante, in his course through Hell, at Easter in 1300,
represents himself as being recognized by the father of Guido, the first
words of the old man to him are,
"If through this blind prison thou goest through loftiness of soul,
where is my son? oh, why is he not with thee?"[E]
[Footnote E: _Inferno_, x. 58-60.]
The sonnet of Guido, in reply to that sent him by Dante, has been
preserved, together with the replies by two other contemporary poets;
but Dante says of them all,--"The true meaning of my sonnet was not then
seen by any one, though now it is plain to the simplest."
After this vision, the poet, whose soul was wholly devoted to his most
gentle lady, was brought by Love into so frail a condition of health,
that his friends became anxious for him, and questioned him about that
which he most wished to conceal.
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