Of louder trump than mine, which hasteneth on,
Urging its arduous matter to the close),
Her words resum’d, in gesture and in voice
Resembling one accustom’d to command:
“Forth from the last corporeal are we come
Into the heav’n, that is unbodied light,
Light intellectual replete with love,
Love of true happiness replete with joy,
Joy, that transcends all sweetness of delight.
Here shalt thou look on either mighty host
Of Paradise; and one in that array,
Which in the final judgment thou shalt see.”
As when the lightning, in a sudden spleen
Unfolded, dashes from the blinding eyes
The visive spirits dazzled and bedimm’d;
So, round about me, fulminating streams
Of living radiance play’d, and left me swath’d
And veil’d in dense impenetrable blaze.
Such weal is in the love, that stills this heav’n;
For its own flame the torch this fitting ever!
No sooner to my list’ning ear had come
The brief assurance, than I understood
New virtue into me infus’d, and sight
Kindled afresh, with vigour to sustain
Excess of light, however pure. I look’d;
And in the likeness of a river saw
Light flowing, from whose amber-seeming waves
Flash’d up effulgence, as they glided on
’Twixt banks, on either side, painted with spring,
Incredible how fair; and, from the tide,
There ever and anon, outstarting, flew
Sparkles instinct with life; and in the flow’rs
Did set them, like to rubies chas’d in gold;
Then, as if drunk with odors, plung’d again
Into the wondrous flood; from which, as one
Re’enter’d, still another rose. “The thirst
Of knowledge high, whereby thou art inflam’d,
To search the meaning of what here thou seest,
The more it warms thee, pleases me the more.
But first behooves thee of this water drink,
Or ere that longing be allay’d.” So spake
The day-star of mine eyes; then thus subjoin’d:
“This stream, and these, forth issuing from its gulf,
And diving back, a living topaz each,
With all this laughter on its bloomy shores,
Are but a preface, shadowy of the truth
They emblem: not that, in themselves, the things
Are crude; but on thy part is the defect,
For that thy views not yet aspire so high.”
Never did babe, that had outslept his wont,
Rush, with such eager straining, to the milk,
As I toward the water, bending me,
To make the better mirrors of mine eyes
In the refining wave; and, as the eaves
Of mine eyelids did drink of it, forthwith
Seem’d it unto me turn’d from length to round,
Then as a troop of maskers, when they put
Their vizors off, look other than before,
The counterfeited semblance thrown aside;
So into greater jubilee were chang’d
Those flowers and sparkles, and distinct I saw
Before me either court of heav’n displac’d.
O prime enlightener! thou who crav’st me strength
On the high triumph of thy realm to gaze!
Grant virtue now to utter what I kenn’d,
There is in heav’n a light, whose goodly shine
Makes the Creator visible to all
Created, that in seeing him alone
Have peace; and in a circle spreads so far,
That the circumference were too loose a zone
To girdle in the sun. All is one beam,
Reflected from the summit of the first,
That moves, which being hence and vigour takes,
And as some cliff, that from the bottom eyes
Its image mirror’d in the crystal flood,
As if ’t admire its brave appareling
Of verdure and of flowers: so, round about,
Eyeing the light, on more than million thrones,
Stood, eminent, whatever from our earth
Has to the skies return’d. How wide the leaves
Extended to their utmost of this rose,
Whose lowest step embosoms such a space
Of ample radiance! Yet, nor amplitude
Nor height impeded, but my view with ease
Took in the full dimensions of that joy.
Near or remote, what there avails, where God
Immediate rules, and Nature, awed, suspends
Her sway? Into the yellow of the rose
Perennial, which in bright expansiveness,
Lays forth its gradual blooming, redolent
Of praises to the never-wint’ring sun,
As one, who fain would speak yet holds his peace,
Beatrice led me; and, “Behold,” she said,
“This fair assemblage! stoles of snowy white
How numberless! The city, where we dwell,
Behold how vast! and these our seats so throng’d
Few now are wanting here! In that proud stall,
On which, the crown, already o’er its state
Suspended, holds thine eyes—or ere thyself
Mayst at the wedding sup,—shall rest the soul
Of the great Harry, he who, by the world
Augustas hail’d, to Italy must come,
Before her day be ripe. But ye are sick,
And in your tetchy wantonness as blind,
As is the bantling, that of hunger dies,
And drives away the nurse. Nor may it be,
That he, who in the sacred forum sways,
Openly or in secret, shall with him
Accordant walk: Whom God will not endure
I’ th’ holy office long; but thrust him down
To Simon Magus, where Magna’s priest
Will sink beneath him: such will be his meed.”
CANTO XXXI
In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then
Before my view the saintly multitude,
Which in his own blood Christ espous’d. Meanwhile
That other host, that soar aloft to gaze
And celebrate his glory, whom they love,
Hover’d around; and, like a troop of bees,
Amid the vernal sweets alighting now,
Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows,
Flew downward to the mighty flow’r, or rose
From the redundant petals, streaming back
Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy.
Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold;
The rest was whiter than the driven snow.
And as they flitted down into the flower,
From range to range, fanning their plumy loins,
Whisper’d the peace and ardour, which they won
From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast
Interposition of such numerous flight
Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view
Obstructed aught. For, through the universe,
Wherever merited, celestial light
Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.
All there, who reign in safety and in bliss,
Ages long past or new, on one sole mark
Their love and vision fix’d. O trinal beam
Of individual star, that charmst them thus,
Vouchsafe one glance to gild our storm below!
If the grim brood, from Arctic shores that roam’d,
(Where helice, forever, as she wheels,
Sparkles a mother’s fondness on her son)
Stood in mute wonder ’mid the works of Rome,
When to their view the Lateran arose
In greatness more than earthly; I, who then
From human to divine had past, from time
Unto eternity, and out of Florence
To justice and to truth, how might I choose
But marvel too? ’Twixt gladness and amaze,
In sooth no will had I to utter aught,
Or hear. And, as a pilgrim, when he rests
Within the temple of his vow, looks round
In breathless awe, and hopes some time to tell
Of all its goodly state: e’en so mine eyes
Cours’d up and down along the living light,
Now low, and now aloft, and now around,
Visiting every step. Looks I beheld,
Where charity in soft persuasion sat,
Smiles from within and radiance from above,
And in each gesture grace and honour high.
So rov’d my ken, and its general form
All Paradise survey’d: when round I turn’d
With purpose of my lady to inquire
Once more of things, that held my thought suspense,
But answer found from other than I ween’d;
For, Beatrice, when I thought to see,
I saw instead a senior, at my side,
Rob’d, as the rest, in glory. Joy benign
Glow’d in his eye, and o’er his cheek diffus’d,
With gestures such as spake a father’s love.
And, “Whither is she vanish’d?” straight I ask’d.
“By Beatrice summon’d,” he replied,
“I come to aid thy wish. Looking aloft
To the third circle from the highest, there
Behold her on the throne, wherein her merit
Hath plac’d her.” Answering not, mine eyes I rais’d,
And saw her, where aloof she sat, her brow
A wreath reflecting of eternal beams.
Not from the centre of the sea so far
Unto the region of the highest thunder,
As was my ken from hers; and yet the form
Came through that medium down, unmix’d and pure,
“O Lady! thou in whom my hopes have rest!
Who, for my safety, hast not scorn’d, in hell
To leave the traces of thy footsteps mark’d!
For all mine eyes have seen, I, to thy power
And goodness, virtue owe and grace. Of slave,
Thou hast to freedom brought me; and no means,
For my deliverance apt, hast left untried.
Thy liberal bounty still toward me keep.
That, when my spirit, which thou madest whole,
Is loosen’d from this body, it may find
Favour with thee.” So I my suit preferr’d:
And she, so distant, as appear’d, look’d down,
And smil’d; then tow’rds th’ eternal fountain turn’d.
And thus the senior, holy and rever’d:
“That thou at length mayst happily conclude
Thy voyage (to which end I was dispatch’d,
By supplication mov’d and holy love)
Let thy upsoaring vision range, at large,
This garden through: for so, by ray divine
Kindled, thy ken a higher flight shall mount;
And from heav’n’s queen, whom fervent I adore,
All gracious aid befriend us; for that I
Am her own faithful Bernard.” Like a wight,
Who haply from Croatia wends to see
Our Veronica, and the while ’tis shown,
Hangs over it with never-sated gaze,
And, all that he hath heard revolving, saith
Unto himself in thought: “And didst thou look
E’en thus, O Jesus, my true Lord and God?
And was this semblance thine?” So gaz’d I then
Adoring; for the charity of him,
Who musing, in the world that peace enjoy’d,
Stood lively before me. “Child of grace!”
Thus he began: “thou shalt not knowledge gain
Of this glad being, if thine eyes are held
Still in this depth below. But search around
The circles, to the furthest, till thou spy
Seated in state, the queen, that of this realm
Is sovran.” Straight mine eyes I rais’d; and bright,
As, at the birth of morn, the eastern clime
Above th’ horizon, where the sun declines;
To mine eyes, that upward, as from vale
To mountain sped, at th’ extreme bound, a part
Excell’d in lustre all the front oppos’d.
And as the glow burns ruddiest o’er the wave,
That waits the sloping beam, which Phaeton
Ill knew to guide, and on each part the light
Diminish’d fades, intensest in the midst;
So burn’d the peaceful oriflamb, and slack’d
On every side the living flame decay’d.
And in that midst their sportive pennons wav’d
Thousands of angels; in resplendence each
Distinct, and quaint adornment. At their glee
And carol, smil’d the Lovely One of heav’n,
That joy was in the eyes of all the blest.
Had I a tongue in eloquence as rich,
As is the colouring in fancy’s loom,
’Twere all too poor to utter the least part
Of that enchantment. When he saw mine eyes
Intent on her, that charm’d him, Bernard gaz’d
With so exceeding fondness, as infus’d
Ardour into my breast, unfelt before.
CANTO XXXII
Freely the sage, though wrapt in musings high,
Assum’d the teacher’s part, and mild began:
“The wound, that Mary clos’d, she open’d first,
Who sits so beautiful at Mary’s feet.
The third in order, underneath her, lo!
Rachel with Beatrice. Sarah next,
Judith, Rebecca, and the gleaner maid,
Meek ancestress of him, who sang the songs
Of sore repentance in his sorrowful mood.
All, as I name them, down from deaf to leaf,
Are in gradation throned on the rose.
And from the seventh step, successively,
Adown the breathing tresses of the flow’r
Still doth the file of Hebrew dames proceed.
For these are a partition wall, whereby
The sacred stairs are sever’d, as the faith
In Christ divides them. On this part, where blooms
Each leaf in full maturity, are set
Such as in Christ, or ere he came, believ’d.
On th’ other, where an intersected space
Yet shows the semicircle void, abide
All they, who look’d to Christ already come.
And as our Lady on her glorious stool,
And they who on their stools beneath her sit,
This way distinction make: e’en so on his,
The mighty Baptist that way marks the line
(He who endur’d the desert and the pains
Of martyrdom, and for two years of hell,
Yet still continued holy), and beneath,
Augustin, Francis, Benedict, and the rest,
Thus far from round to round. So heav’n’s decree
Forecasts, this garden equally to fill.
With faith in either view, past or to come,
Learn too, that downward from the step, which cleaves
Midway the twain compartments, none there are
Who place obtain for merit of their own,
But have through others’ merit been advanc’d,
On set conditions: spirits all releas’d,
Ere for themselves they had the power to choose.
And, if thou mark and listen to them well,
Their childish looks and voice declare as much.
“Here, silent as thou art, I know thy doubt;
And gladly will I loose the knot, wherein
Thy subtle thoughts have bound thee. From this realm
Excluded, chalice no entrance here may find,
No more shall hunger, thirst, or sorrow can.
A law immutable hath establish’d all;
Nor is there aught thou seest, that doth not fit,
Exactly, as the finger to the ring.
It is not therefore without cause, that these,
O’erspeedy comers to immortal life,
Are different in their shares of excellence.
Our Sovran Lord—that settleth this estate
In love and in delight so absolute,
That wish can dare no further—every soul,
Created in his joyous sight to dwell,
With grace at pleasure variously endows.
And for a proof th’ effect may well suffice.
And ’tis moreover most expressly mark’d
In holy scripture, where the twins are said
To, have struggled in the womb. Therefore, as grace
Inweaves the coronet, so every brow
Weareth its proper hue of orient light.
And merely in respect to his prime gift,
Not in reward of meritorious deed,
Hath each his several degree assign’d.
In early times with their own innocence
More was not wanting, than the parents’ faith,
To save them: those first ages past, behoov’d
That circumcision in the males should imp
The flight of innocent wings: but since the day
Of grace hath come, without baptismal rites
In Christ accomplish’d, innocence herself
Must linger yet below. Now raise thy view
Unto the visage most resembling Christ:
For, in her splendour only, shalt thou win
The pow’r to look on him.” Forthwith I saw
Such floods of gladness on her visage shower’d,
From holy spirits, winging that profound;
That, whatsoever I had yet beheld,
Had not so much suspended me with wonder,
Or shown me such similitude of God.
And he, who had to her descended, once,
On earth, now hail’d in heav’n; and on pois’d wing.
“Ave, Maria, Gratia Plena,” sang:
To whose sweet anthem all the blissful court,
From all parts answ’ring, rang: that holier joy
Brooded the deep serene. “Father rever’d:
Who deign’st, for me, to quit the pleasant place,
Wherein thou sittest, by eternal lot!
Say, who that angel is, that with such glee
Beholds our queen, and so enamour’d glows
Of her high beauty, that all fire he seems.”
So I again resorted to the lore
Of my wise teacher, he, whom Mary’s charms
Embellish’d, as the sun the morning star;
Who thus in answer spake: “In him are summ’d,
Whatever of buxomness and free delight
May be in Spirit, or in angel, met:
And so beseems: for that he bare the palm
Down unto Mary, when the Son of God
Vouchsaf’d to clothe him in terrestrial weeds.
Now let thine eyes wait heedful on my words,
And note thou of this just and pious realm
The chiefest nobles. Those, highest in bliss,
The twain, on each hand next our empress thron’d,
Are as it were two roots unto this rose.
He to the left, the parent, whose rash taste
Proves bitter to his seed; and, on the right,
That ancient father of the holy church,
Into whose keeping Christ did give the keys
Of this sweet flow’r: near whom behold the seer,
That, ere he died, saw all the grievous times
Of the fair bride, who with the lance and nails
Was won. And, near unto the other, rests
The leader, under whom on manna fed
Th’ ungrateful nation, fickle and perverse.
On th’ other part, facing to Peter, lo!
Where Anna sits, so well content to look
On her lov’d daughter, that with moveless eye
She chants the loud hosanna: while, oppos’d
To the first father of your mortal kind,
Is Lucia, at whose hest thy lady sped,
When on the edge of ruin clos’d thine eye.
“But (for the vision hasteneth so an end)
Here break we off, as the good workman doth,
That shapes the cloak according to the cloth:
And to the primal love our ken shall rise;
That thou mayst penetrate the brightness, far
As sight can bear thee. Yet, alas! in sooth
Beating thy pennons, thinking to advance,
Thou backward fall’st. Grace then must first be gain’d;
Her grace, whose might can help thee. Thou in prayer
Seek her: and, with affection, whilst I sue,
Attend, and yield me all thy heart.” He said,
And thus the saintly orison began.
CANTO XXXIII
“O virgin mother, daughter of thy Son,
Created beings all in lowliness
Surpassing, as in height, above them all,
Term by th’ eternal counsel pre-ordain’d,
Ennobler of thy nature, so advanc’d
In thee, that its great Maker did not scorn,
Himself, in his own work enclos’d to dwell!
For in thy womb rekindling shone the love
Reveal’d, whose genial influence makes now
This flower to germin in eternal peace!
Here thou to us, of charity and love,
Art, as the noon-day torch: and art, beneath,
To mortal men, of hope a living spring.
So mighty art thou, lady! and so great,
That he who grace desireth, and comes not
To thee for aidance, fain would have desire
Fly without wings. Nor only him who asks,
Thy bounty succours, but doth freely oft
Forerun the asking. Whatsoe’er may be
Of excellence in creature, pity mild,
Relenting mercy, large munificence,
Are all combin’d in thee. Here kneeleth one,
Who of all spirits hath review’d the state,
From the world’s lowest gap unto this height.
Suppliant to thee he kneels, imploring grace
For virtue, yet more high to lift his ken
Toward the bliss supreme. And I, who ne’er
Coveted sight, more fondly, for myself,
Than now for him, my prayers to thee prefer,
(And pray they be not scant) that thou wouldst drive
Each cloud of his mortality away;
That on the sovran pleasure he may gaze.
This also I entreat of thee, O queen!
Who canst do what thou wilt! that in him thou
Wouldst after all he hath beheld, preserve
Affection sound, and human passions quell.
Lo! Where, with Beatrice, many a saint
Stretch their clasp’d hands, in furtherance of my suit!”
The eyes, that heav’n with love and awe regards,
Fix’d on the suitor, witness’d, how benign
She looks on pious pray’rs: then fasten’d they
On th’ everlasting light, wherein no eye
Of creature, as may well be thought, so far
Can travel inward. I, meanwhile, who drew
Near to the limit, where all wishes end,
The ardour of my wish (for so behooved),
Ended within me. Beck’ning smil’d the sage,
That I should look aloft: but, ere he bade,
Already of myself aloft I look’d;
For visual strength, refining more and more,
Bare me into the ray authentical
Of sovran light. Thenceforward, what I saw,
Was not for words to speak, nor memory’s self
To stand against such outrage on her skill.
As one, who from a dream awaken’d, straight,
All he hath seen forgets; yet still retains
Impression of the feeling in his dream;
E’en such am I: for all the vision dies,
As ’twere, away; and yet the sense of sweet,
That sprang from it, still trickles in my heart.
Thus in the sun-thaw is the snow unseal’d;
Thus in the winds on flitting leaves was lost
The Sybil’s sentence. O eternal beam!
(Whose height what reach of mortal thought may soar?)
Yield me again some little particle
Of what thou then appearedst, give my tongue
Power, but to leave one sparkle of thy glory,
Unto the race to come, that shall not lose
Thy triumph wholly, if thou waken aught
Of memory in me, and endure to hear
The record sound in this unequal strain.
Such keenness from the living ray I met,
That, if mine eyes had turn’d away, methinks,
I had been lost; but, so embolden’d, on
I pass’d, as I remember, till my view
Hover’d the brink of dread infinitude.
O grace! unenvying of thy boon! that gav’st
Boldness to fix so earnestly my ken
On th’ everlasting splendour, that I look’d,
While sight was unconsum’d, and, in that depth,
Saw in one volume clasp’d of love, whatever
The universe unfolds; all properties
Of substance and of accident, beheld,
Compounded, yet one individual light
The whole. And of such bond methinks I saw
The universal form: for that whenever
I do but speak of it, my soul dilates
Beyond her proper self; and, till I speak,
One moment seems a longer lethargy,
Than five-and-twenty ages had appear’d
To that emprize, that first made Neptune wonder
At Argo’s shadow darkening on his flood.
With fixed heed, suspense and motionless,
Wond’ring I gaz’d; and admiration still
Was kindled, as I gaz’d. It may not be,
That one, who looks upon that light, can turn
To other object, willingly, his view.
For all the good, that will may covet, there
Is summ’d; and all, elsewhere defective found,
Complete. My tongue shall utter now, no more
E’en what remembrance keeps, than could the babe’s
That yet is moisten’d at his mother’s breast.
Not that the semblance of the living light
Was chang’d (that ever as at first remain’d)
But that my vision quickening, in that sole
Appearance, still new miracles descry’d,
And toil’d me with the change. In that abyss
Of radiance, clear and lofty, seem’d methought,
Three orbs of triple hue clipt in one bound:
And, from another, one reflected seem’d,
As rainbow is from rainbow: and the third
Seem’d fire, breath’d equally from both. Oh speech
How feeble and how faint art thou, to give
Conception birth! Yet this to what I saw
Is less than little. Oh eternal light!
Sole in thyself that dwellst; and of thyself
Sole understood, past, present, or to come!
Thou smiledst; on that circling, which in thee
Seem’d as reflected splendour, while I mus’d;
For I therein, methought, in its own hue
Beheld our image painted: steadfastly
I therefore por’d upon the view. As one
Who vers’d in geometric lore, would fain
Measure the circle; and, though pondering long
And deeply, that beginning, which he needs,
Finds not; e’en such was I, intent to scan
The novel wonder, and trace out the form,
How to the circle fitted, and therein
How plac’d: but the flight was not for my wing;
Had not a flash darted athwart my mind,
And in the spleen unfolded what it sought.
Here vigour fail’d the tow’ring fantasy:
But yet the will roll’d onward, like a wheel
In even motion, by the Love impell’d,
That moves the sun in heav’n and all the stars.
NOTES TO PARADISE
CANTO 1
Verse 12. Benign Apollo.] Chaucer has imitated this invention very
closely at the beginning of the Third Booke of Fame.
If, divine vertue, thou
Wilt helpe me to shewe now
That in my head ymarked is,
* * * * *
Thou shalt see me go as blive
Unto the next laurer I see,
And kisse it for it is thy tree
Now entre thou my breast anone.
v. 15. Thus for.] He appears to mean nothing more than that this part
of his poem will require a greater exertion of his powers than the
former.
v. 19. Marsyas.] Ovid, Met. 1. vi. fab. 7. Compare Boccaccio, II
Filocopo, 1. 5. p. 25. v. ii. Ediz. Fir. 1723. “Egli nel mio petto
entri,” &c. - “May he enter my bosom, and let my voice sound like his
own, when he made that daring mortal deserve to come forth unsheathed
from his limbs. “ v. 29. Caesar, or bard.] So Petrarch, Son. Par.
Prima.
Arbor vittoriosa e trionfale,
Onor d’imperadori e di poeti.
And Spenser, F. Q. b. i. c. 1. st. 9,
The laurel, meed of mighty conquerours
And poets sage.
v. 37. Through that.] “Where the four circles, the horizon, the zodiac,
the equator, and the equinoctial colure, join; the last
threeintersecting each other so as to form three crosses, as may be
seen in the armillary sphere.”
v. 39. In happiest constellation.] Aries. Some understand the
planetVenus by the “miglior stella “
v. 44. To the left.] Being in the opposite hemisphere to ours, Beatrice
that she may behold the rising sun, turns herself to the left.
v. 47. As from the first a second beam.] “Like a reflected sunbeam,”
which he compares to a pilgrim hastening homewards.
Ne simil tanto mal raggio secondo
Dal primo usci.
Filicaja, canz. 15. st. 4.
v. 58. As iron that comes boiling from the fire.] So Milton, P. L. b.
iii. 594. —As glowing iron with fire.
v. 69. Upon the day appear’d.
—If the heaven had ywonne,
All new of God another sunne.
Chaucer, First Booke of Fame
E par ch’ agginuga un altro sole al cielo.
Ariosto, O F. c. x. st. 109.
Ed ecco un lustro lampeggiar d’ intorno
Che sole a sole aggiunse e giorno a giorno.
Manno, Adone. c. xi. st. 27.
Quando a paro col sol ma piu lucente
L’angelo gli appari sull; oriente
Tasso, G. L. c. i.
-Seems another morn
Ris’n on mid-noon.
Milton, P. L. b. v. 311.
Compare Euripides, Ion. 1550. [GREEK HERE] 66. as Glaucus. ] Ovid, Met.
1. Xiii. Fab. 9
v. 71. If.] “Thou O divine Spirit, knowest whether 1 had not risen
above my human nature, and were not merely such as thou hadst then,
formed me.”
v. 125. Through sluggishness.] Perch’ a risponder la materia e sorda.
So Filicaja, canz. vi. st 9.
Perche a risponder la discordia e sorda
“The workman hath in his heart a purpose, he carrieth in mind the whole
form which his work should have; there wanteth not him skill and desire
to bring his labour to the best effect, only the matter, which he hath
to work on is unframeable.” Hooker’s Eccl. Polity, b. 5. 9.
CANTO II
v. 1. In small bark.]
Con la barchetta mia cantando in rima
Pulci, Morg. Magg. c. xxviii.
Io me n’andro con la barchetta mia,
Quanto l’acqua comporta un picciol legno
Ibid.
v. 30. This first star.] the moon
v. 46. E’en as the truth.] Like a truth that does not need
demonstration, but is self-evident.”
v. 52. Cain.] Compare Hell, Canto XX. 123. And Note
v. 65. Number1ess lights.] The fixed stars, which differ both in bulk
and splendor.
v. 71. Save one.] “Except that principle of rarity and denseness which
thou hast assigned.” By “formal principles, “principj formali, are
meant constituent or essential causes.” Milton, in imitation of this
passage, introduces the angel arguing with Adam respecting the causes
of the spots on the moon.
But, as a late French translator of the Paradise well remarks, his
reasoning is physical; that of Dante partly metaphysical and partly
theologic.
v. 111. Within the heaven.] According to our Poet’s system, there are
ten heavens; the seven planets, the eighth spheres containing the fixed
stars, the primum mobile, and the empyrean.
v. 143. The virtue mingled.] Virg. Aen. 1. vi 724. Principio coelum,
&c.
CANTO III
v. 16. Delusion.] “An error the contrary to that of Narcissus, because
he mistook a shadow for a substance, I a substance for a shadow.”
v. 50. Piccarda.] The sister of Forese whom we have seen in the
Purgatory, Canto XXIII.
v. 90. The Lady.] St. Clare, the foundress of the order called after
her She was born of opulent and noble parents at Assisi, in 1193, and
died in 1253. See Biogr. Univ. t. 1. p. 598. 8vo. Paris, 1813.
v. 121. Constance.] Daughter of Ruggieri, king of Sicily, who, being
taken by force out of a monastery where she had professed, was married
to the Emperor Henry Vl. and by him was mother to Frederick 11. She was
fifty years old or more at the time, and “because it was not credited
that she could have a child at that age, she was delivered in a
pavilion and it was given out, that any lady, who pleased, was at
liberty to see her. Many came, and saw her, and the suspicion ceased.”
Ricordano Malaspina in Muratori, Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 939; and
G. Villani, in the same words, Hist. I v. c. 16
The French translator above mentored speaks of her having poisoned her
husband. The death of Henry Vl. is recorded in the Chronicon Siciliae,
by an anonymous writer, (Muratori, t. x.) but not a word of his having
been poisoned by Constance, and Ricordano Malaspina even mentions her
decease as happening before that of her husband, Henry V., for so this
author, with some others, terms him. v. 122. The second.] Henry Vl. son
of Frederick I was the second emperor of the house of Saab; and his son
Frederick II “the third and last.”
CANTO IV
v. 6. Between two deer]
Tigris ut auditis, diversa valle duorum
Extimulata fame, mugitibus armentorum
Neseit utro potius ruat, et ruere ardet utroque.
Ovid, Metam. 1. v. 166
v. 13. Daniel.] See Daniel, c. ii.
v. 24. Plato.] [GREEK HERE] Plato Timaeus v. ix. p. 326. Edit. Bip.
“The Creator, when he had framed the universe, distributed to the stars
an equal number of souls, appointing to each soul its several star.”
v. 27. Of that.] Plato’s opinion.
v. 34. The first circle.] The empyrean.
v. 48. Him who made Tobias whole.]
Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deign’d
To travel with Tobias, and secur’d
His marriage with the sev’n times wedded maid,
Milton, P. L. b. v. 223.
v. 67. That to the eye of man.] “That the ways of divine justice are
often inscrutable to man, ought rather to be a motive to faith than an
inducement to heresy.” Such appears to me the most satisfactory
explanation of the passage.
v. 82. Laurence.] Who suffered martyrdom in the third century.
v. 82. Scaevola.] See Liv. Hist. D. 1. 1. ii. 12.
v. 100. Alcmaeon.] Ovid, Met. 1. ix. f. 10.
—Ultusque parente parentem
Natus, erit facto pius et sceleratus eodem.
v. 107. Of will.] “What Piccarda asserts of Constance, that she
retained her affection to the monastic life, is said absolutely and
without relation to circumstances; and that which I affirm is spoken of
the will conditionally and respectively: so that our apparent
difference is without any disagreement.” v. 119. That truth.] The light
of divine truth.
CANTO V
v. 43. Two things.] The one, the substance of the vow; the other, the
compact, or form of it.
v. 48. It was enjoin’d the Israelites.] See Lev. e. xii, and xxvii.
v. 56. Either key.] Purgatory, Canto IX. 108.
v. 86. That region.] As some explain it, the east, according to others
the equinoctial line.
v. 124. This sphere.] The planet Mercury, which, being nearest to the
sun, is oftenest hidden by that luminary
CANTO VI
v. 1. After that Constantine the eagle turn’d.] Constantine, in
transferring the seat of empire from Rome to Byzantium, carried the
eagle, the Imperial ensign, from the west to the east. Aeneas, on the
contrary had moved along with the sun’s course, when he passed from
Troy to Italy.
v. 5. A hundred years twice told and more.] The Emperor Constantine
entered Byzantium in 324, and Justinian began his reign in 527.
v. 6. At Europe’s extreme point.] Constantinople being situated at the
extreme of Europe, and on the borders of Asia, near those mountains in
the neighbourhood of Troy, from whence the first founders of Rome had
emigrated.
v. 13. To clear th’ incumber’d laws.] The code of laws was abridged and
reformed by Justinian.
v. 15. Christ’s nature merely human.] Justinian is said to have been a
follower of the heretical Opinions held by Eutyches,” who taught that
in Christ there was but one nature, viz. that of the incarnate word.”
Maclaine’s Mosheim, t. ii. Cent. v. p. ii. c. v. 13.
v. 16. Agapete.] Agapetus, Bishop of Rome, whose Scheda Regia,
addressed to the Emperor Justinian, procured him a place among the
wisest and most judicious writers of this century.” Ibid. Cent. vi. p.
ii c. ii. 8.
v. 33. Who pretend its power.] The Ghibellines.
v. 33. And who oppose ] The Guelphs.
v. 34. Pallas died.] See Virgil, Aen. 1. X.
v. 39. The rival three.] The Horatii and Curiatii.
v. 41. Down.] “From the rape of the Sabine women to the violation of
Lucretia.” v. 47. Quintius.] Quintius Cincinnatus.
E Cincinnato dall’ inculta chioma.
Petrarca.
v. 50. Arab hordes.] The Arabians seem to be put for the barbarians in
general.
v. 54. That hill.] The city of Fesulae, which was sacked by the Romans
after the defeat of Cataline.
v. 56. Near the hour.] Near the time of our Saviour’s birth.
v. 59. What then it wrought.] In the following fifteen lines the Poet
has comprised the exploits of Julius Caesar.
v. 75. In its next bearer’s gripe.] With Augustus Caesar.
v. 89. The third Caesar.] “Tiberius the third of the Caesars, had it in
his power to surpass the glory of all who either preceded or came after
him, by destroying the city of .Jerusalem, as Titus afterwards did, and
thus revenging the cause of God himself on the Jews.”
v. 95. Vengeance for vengeance ] This will be afterwards explained by
the Poet himself. v. 98. Charlemagne.] Dante could not be ignorant that
the reign of Justinian was long prior to that of Charlemagne; but the
spirit of the former emperor is represented, both in this instance and
in what follows, as conscious of the events that had taken place after
his own time.
v. 104. The yellow lilies.] The French ensign.
v. 110. Charles.] The commentators explain this to mean Charles II,
king of Naples and Sicily. Is it not more likely to allude to Charles
of Valois, son of Philip III of France, who was sent for, about this
time, into Italy by Pope Boniface, with the promise of being made
emperor? See G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 42.
v. 131. Romeo’s light.] The story of Romeo is involved in some
uncertainty. The French writers assert the continuance of his
ministerial office even after the decease of his soverign Raymond
Berenger, count of Provence: and they rest this assertion chiefly on
the fact of a certain Romieu de Villeneuve, who was the contemporary of
that prince, having left large possessions behind him, as appears by
his will, preserved in the archives of the bishopric of Venice. There
might however have been more than one person of the name of Romieu, or
Romeo which answers to that of Palmer in our language. Nor is it
probable that the Italians, who lived so near the time, were
misinformed in an occurrence of such notoriety. According to them,
after he had long been a faithful steward to Raymond, when an account
was required from him of the revenues whichhe had carefully husbanded,
and his master as lavishly disbursed, “He demanded the little mule, the
staff, and the scrip, with which he had first entered into the count’s
service, a stranger pilgrim from the shrine of St. James in Galicia,
and parted as he came; nor was it ever known whence he was or wither he
went.” G. Villani, 1. vi. c. 92.
v. 135. Four daughters.] Of the four daughters of Raymond Berenger,
Margaret, the eldest, was married to Louis IX of France; Eleanor; the
next, to Henry III, of England; Sancha, the third, to Richard, Henry’s
brother, and King of the Romans; and the youngest, Beatrice, to Charles
I, King of Naples and Sicily, and brother to Louis.
v. 136. Raymond Berenger.] This prince, the last of the house of
Barcelona, who was count of Provence, died in 1245. He is in the list
of Provencal poets. See Millot, Hist, Litt des Troubadours, t. ii. P.
112.
CANTO VII
v. 3. Malahoth.] A Hebrew word, signifying “kingdoms.”
v. 4. That substance bright.] Justinian.
v. 17. As might have made one blest amid the flames.] So Giusto de’
Conti, Bella Mano. “Qual salamandra.”
Che puommi nelle fiammi far beato.
v. 23. That man who was unborn.] Adam.
v. 61. What distils.] “That which proceeds immediately from God, and
without intervention of secondary causes, in immortal.”
v. 140. Our resurrection certain.] “Venturi appears to mistake the
Poet’s reasoning, when he observes: “Wretched for us, if we had not
arguments more convincing, and of a higher kind, to assure us of the
truth of our resurrection.” It is here intended, I think, that the
whole of God’s dispensations to man should be considered as a proof of
our resurrection. The conclusion is that as before sin man was
immortal, so being restored to the favor of heaven by the expiation
made for sin, he necessarily recovers his claim to immortality.
There is much in this poem to justify the encomium which the learned
Salvini has passed on it, when, in an epistle to Redi, imitating what
Horace had said of Homer, that the duties of life might be better
learnt from the Grecian bard than from the teachers of the porch or the
academy, he says—
And dost thou ask, what themes my mind engage?
The lonely hours I give to Dante’s page;
And meet more sacred learning in his lines
Than I had gain’d from all the school divines.
Se volete saper la vita mia,
Studiando io sto lungi da tutti gli nomini
Ed ho irnparato piu teologia
In questi giorni, che ho riletto Dante,
Che nelle scuole fattto io non avria.
CANTO VIII
v. 4. Epicycle,] “In sul dosso di questo cerchio,” &c. Convito di
Dante, Opere, t. i. p. 48, ed. Ven. 1793. “Upon the back of this
circle, in the heaven of Venus, whereof we are now treating, is a
little sphere, which has in that heaven a revolution of its own: whose
circle the astronomers term epicycle.”
v. 11. To sit in Dido’s bosom.] Virgil. Aen. 1. i. 718,
v. 40. ‘O ye whose intellectual ministry.] Voi ch’ intendendo il terzo
ciel movete. The first line in our Poet” first canzone. See his
Convito, Ibid. p. 40.
v. 53. had the time been more.] The spirit now speaking is Charles
Martel crowned king of Hungary, and son of Charles 11 king of Naples
and Sicily, to which dominions dying in his father’s lifetime, he did
not succeed.
v. 57. Thou lov’dst me well.] Charles Martel might have been known to
our poet at Florence whither he came to meet his father in 1295, the
year of his death. The retinue and the habiliments of the young monarch
are minutely described by G. Villani, who adds, that “he remained more
than twenty days in Florence, waiting for his father King Charles and
his brothers during which time great honour was done him by the,
Florentines and he showed no less love towards them, and he was much in
favour with all.” 1. viii. c. 13. His brother Robert, king of Naples,
was the friend of Petrarch.
v. 60. The left bank.] Provence.
v. 62. That horn Of fair Ausonia.] The kingdom of Naples.
v. 68. The land.] Hungary.
v. 73. The beautiful Trinaeria.] Sicily, so called from its three
promontories, of which Pachynus and Pelorus, here mentioned, are two.
v. 14 Typhaeus.] The giant whom Jupiter is fabled to have overwhelmed
under the mountain Aetna from whence he vomits forth smoke and flame.
v. 77. Sprang through me from Charles and Rodolph.] “Sicily would be
still ruled by a race of monarchs, descended through me from Charles I
and Rodolph I the former my grandfather king of Naples and Sicily; the
latter emperor of Germany, my father-in-law; “both celebrated in the
Purgatory Canto, Vll.
v. 78. Had not ill lording.] “If the ill conduct of our governors in
Sicily had not excited the resentment and hatred of the people and
stimulated them to that dreadful massacre at the Sicilian vespers;” in
consequence of which the kingdom fell into the hands of Peter III of
Arragon, in 1282
v. 81. My brother’s foresight.] He seems to tax his brother Robert with
employing necessitous and greedy Catalonians to administer the affairs
of his kingdom.
v. 99. How bitter can spring up.] “How a covetous son can spring from a
liberal father.” Yet that father has himself been accused of avarice in
the Purgatory Canto XX. v. 78; though his general character was that of
a bounteous prince.
v. 125. Consult your teacher.] Aristole. [GREEK HERE] De Rep. 1. iii.
c. 4. “Since a state is made up of members differing from one another,
(for even as an animal, in the first instance, consists of soul and
body, and the soul, of reason and desire; and a family, of man and
woman, and property of master and slave; in like manner a state
consists both of all these and besides these of other dissimilar
kinds,) it necessarily follows that the excellence of all the members
of the state cannot be one and the same.”
v. 136. Esau.] Genesis c. xxv. 22.
v. 137. Quirinus.] Romulus, born of so obscure a father, that his
parentage was attributed to Mars.
CANTO IX
v. 2. O fair Clemenza.] Daughter of Charles Martel, and second wife of
Louis X. of France.
v. 2. The treachery.] He alludes to the occupation of the kingdom of
Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother s son Carobert, or
Charles. Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani, 1. viii. c. 112.
v. 7. That saintly light.] Charles Martel.
v. 25. In that part.] Between Rialto and the Venetian territory, and
the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava is situated a castle called
Romano, the birth-place of the famous tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the
brother of Cunizza, who is now speaking. The tyrant we have seen in
“the river of blood.” Hell, Canto XII. v. 110.
v. 32. Cunizza.] The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the influence
of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino of Padua, 1. i. c.
3, in Muratori Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 173.
She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in the
company of Sordello, (see Purgatory, Canto VI. and VII. ) with whom she
is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage: then lived with a
soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at the same time in the same
city, and on his being murdered by her brother the tyrant, was by her
brother married to a nobleman of Braganzo, lastly when he also had
fallen by the same hand she, after her brother’s death, was again
wedded in Verona.
v. 37. This.] Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provencal poet, commonly
termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was perhaps bishop.
Many errors of Nostradamus, regarding him, which have been followed by
Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are detected by the diligence of
Tiraboschi. Mr. Matthias’s ed. v. 1. P. 18. All that appears certain,
is what we are told in this Canto, that he was of Genoa, and by
Petrarch in the Triumph of Love, c. iv. that he was better known by the
appellation he derived from Marseilles, and at last resumed the
religious habit. One of his verses is cited by Dante, De Vulg. Eloq. 1.
ii. c. 6.
v. 40. Five times.] The five hundred years are elapsed: and unless the
Provencal MSS. should be brought to light the poetical reputation of
Folco must rest on the mention made of him by the more fortunate
Italians.
v. 43 The crowd.] The people who inhabited the tract of country bounded
by the river Tagliamento to the east, and Adice to the west.
v. 45. The hour is near.] Cunizza foretells the defeat of Giacopo da
Carrara, Lord of Padua by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on the 18th September
1314. See G. Villani, 1. ix. c. 62. v. 48. One.] She predicts also the
fate of Ricciardo da Camino, who is said to have been murdered at
Trevigi, where the rivers (Sile and Cagnano meet) while he was engaged
in playing at chess.
v. 50. The web.] The net or snare into, which he is destined to fall.
v. 50. Feltro.] The Bishop of Felto having received a number of
fugitives from Ferrara, who were in opposition to the Pope, under a
promise of protection, afterwards gave them up, so that they were
reconducted to that city, and the greater part of them there put to
death.
v. 53. Malta’s.] A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which under
the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been “with many a foul and midnight murder
fed,” or (as some say) near a river of the same name, that falls into
the lake of Bolsena, in which the Pope was accustomed to imprison such
as had been guilty of an irremissible sin.
v. 56 This priest.] The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous partisan
of the Pope, had committed the above-mentioned act of treachery.
v. 58. We descry.] “We behold the things that we predict, in the
mirrors of eternal truth.”
v. 64. That other joyance.] Folco.
v. 76. Six shadowing wings.] “Above it stood the seraphims: each one
had six wings.” Isaiah, c. vi. 2.
v. 80. The valley of waters.] The Mediterranean sea.
v. 80. That.] The great ocean.
v. 82. Discordant shores.] Europe and Africa.
v. 83. Meridian.] Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at last
reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its horizon when it enters
the straits of Gibraltar. “Wherever a man is,” says Vellutello, “there
he has, above his head, his own particular meridian circle.”
v. 85. —’Twixt Ebro’s stream
And Macra’s.]
Eora, a river to the west, and Macra, to the east of Genoa, where
Folco was born.
v. 88. Begga.] A place in Africa, nearly opposite to Genoa.
v. 89. Whose haven.] Alluding to the terrible slaughter of the Genoese
made by the Saracens in 936, for which event Vellutello refers to the
history of Augustino Giustiniani.
v. 91. This heav’n.] The planet Venus.
v. 93. Belus’ daughter.] Dido.
v. 96. She of Rhodope.] Phyllis.
v. 98. Jove’s son.] Hercules.
v. 112. Rahab.] Heb. c. xi. 31.
v. 120. With either palm.] “By the crucifixion of Christ”
v. 126. The cursed flower.] The coin of Florence, called the florin.
v. 130. The decretals.] The canon law.
v. 134. The Vatican.] He alludes either to the death of Pope Boniface
VIII. or, as Venturi supposes, to the coming of the Emperor Henry VII.
into Italy, or else, according to the yet more probable conjecture of
Lombardi, to the transfer of the holy see from Rome to Avignon, which
took place in the pontificate of Clement V.
CANTO X
v. 7. The point.] “To that part of heaven,” as Venturi explains it, “in
which the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac intersect each other, where
the common motion of the heavens from east to west may be said to
strike with greatest force against the motion proper to the planets;
and this repercussion, as it were, is here the strongest, because the
velocity of each is increased to the utmost by their respective
distance from the poles. Such at least is the system of Dante.”
v. 11. Oblique.] The zodiac.
v. 25. The part.] The above-mentioned intersection of the equinoctial
circle and the zodiac.
v. 26. Minister.] The sun.
v. 30. Where.] In which the sun rises every day earlier after the
vernal equinox.
v. 45. Fourth family.] The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth planet.
v. 46. Of his spirit and of his offspring.] The procession of the
third, and the generation of the second person in the Trinity.
v. 70. Such was the song.] “The song of these spirits was ineffable.
v. 86. No less constrained.] “The rivers might as easily cease to flow
towards the sea, as we could deny thee thy request.”
v. 91. I then.] “I was of the Dominican order.”
v. 95. Albert of Cologne.] Albertus Magnus was born at Laugingen, in
Thuringia, in 1193, and studied at Paris and at Padua, at the latter of
which places he entered into the Dominican order. He then taught
theology in various parts of Germany, and particularly at Cologne.
Thomas Aquinas was his favourite pupil. In 1260, he reluctantly
accepted the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years after resigned it,
and returned to his cell in Cologne, where the remainder of his life
was passed in superintending the school, and in composing his
voluminous works on divinity and natural science. He died in 1280. The
absurd imputation of his having dealt in the magical art is well known;
and his biographers take some pains to clear him of it. Scriptores
Ordinis Praedicatorum, by Quetif and Echard, Lut. Par. 1719. fol. t. 1.
p. 162.
v. 96. Of Aquinum, Thomas.] Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is reported
to have said, “Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn the church of
Rome,” and whom Hooker terms “the greatest among the school divines,”
(Eccl. Pol. b. 3. 9), was born of noble parents, who anxiously, but
vainly, endeavoured to divert him from a life of celibacy and study;
and died in 1274, at the age of fourty-seven. Echard and Quetif, ibid.
p. 271. See also Purgatory Canto XX. v. 67.
v. 101. Gratian.] “Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the convent
of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a Tuscan, composed,
about the year 1130, for the use of the schools, an abridgment or
epitome of canon law, drawn from the letters of the pontiffs, the
decrees of councils, and the writings of the ancient doctors.”
Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. 12. part 2. c. i. 6.
v. 101. To either forum.] “By reconciling,” as Venturi explains it “the
civil with the canon law.”
v. 104. Peter.] “Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is the
place of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a recommendation from
the bishop of Lucca to St. Bernard, he went into France to continue his
studies, and for that purpose remained some time at Rheims, whence he
afterwards proceeded to Paris. Here his reputation was so great that
Philip, brother of Louis VII., being chosen bishop of Paris, resigned
that dignity to Pietro, whose pupil he had been. He held his bishopric
only one year, and died in 1160. His Liber Sententiarum is highly
esteemed. It contains a system of scholastic theology, so much more
complete than any which had been yet seen, that it may be deemed an
original work.” Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett. Ital. t. iii. 1. 4. c.
2.
v. 104. Who with the widow gave.] This alludes to the beginning of the
Liber Sententiarum, where Peter says: “Cupiens aliquid de penuria ac
tenuitate nostra cum paupercula in gazophylacium domini mittere,” v.
105. The fifth light.] Solomon.
v. 112. That taper’s radiance.] St. Dionysius the Areopagite. “The
famous Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius the
Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who, under the protection of this
venerable name, gave laws and instructions to those that were desirous
of raising their souls above all human things in order to unite them to
their great source by sublime contemplation, lived most probably in
this century (the fourth), though some place him before, others after,
the present period.” Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. i. cent. iv. p. 2. c. 3.
12.
v. 116. That pleader.] 1n the fifth century, Paulus Orosius, “acquired
a considerable degree of reputation by the History he wrote to refute
the cavils of the Pagans against Christianity, and by his books against
the Pelagians and Priscillianists.” Ibid. v. ii. cent. v. p. 2. c. 2.
11. A similar train of argument was pursued by Augustine, in his book
De Civitate Dei. Orosius is classed by Dante, in his treatise De Vulg.
Eloq. I ii c. 6. as one of his favourite authors, among those “qui usi
sunt altissimas prosas,”—” who have written prose with the greatest
loftiness of style.”
v. 119. The eighth.] Boetius, whose book De Consolatione Philosophiae
excited so much attention during the middle ages, was born, as
Tiraboschi conjectures, about 470. “In 524 he was cruelly put to death
by command of Theodoric, either on real or pretended suspicion of his
being engaged in a conspiracy.” Della Lett. Ital. t. iii. 1. i. c. 4.
v. 124. Cieldauro.] Boetius was buried at Pavia, in the monastery of
St. Pietro in Ciel d’oro.
v. 126. Isidore.] He was Archbishop of Seville during forty years, and
died in 635. See Mariana, Hist. 1. vi. c. 7. Mosheim, whose critical
opinions in general must be taken with some allowance, observes that
“his grammatical theological, and historical productions, discover more
learning and pedantry, than judgment and taste.”
v. 127. Bede.] Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation of the
Venerable, was born in 672 at Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the bishopric of
Durham, and died in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope Sergius I., he
preferred passing almost the whole of his life in the seclusion of a
monastery. A catalogue of his numerous writings may be seen in Kippis’s
Biographia Britannica, v. ii.
v. 127. Richard.] Richard of St. Victor, a native either of Scotland or
Ireland, was canon and prior of the monastery of that name at Paris and
died in 1173. “He was at the head of the Mystics in this century and
his treatise, entitled the Mystical Ark, which contains as it were the
marrow of this kind of theology, was received with the greatest
avidity.” Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. xii. p. 2. c. 2. 23.
v. 132. Sigebert.] “A monk of the abbey of Gemblours who was in high
repute at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth
century.” Dict. de Moreri.
v. 131. The straw-litter’d street.] The name of a street in Paris: the
“Rue du Fouarre.”
v. 136. The spouse of God.] The church.
CANTO XI
v. 1. O fond anxiety of mortal men.] Lucretius, 1. ii. 14
O miseras hominum mentes ! O pectora caeca
Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis
Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est!
v. 4. Aphorisms,] The study of medicine.
v. 17. The lustre.] The spirit of Thomas Aquinas
v. 29. She.] The church.
v. 34. One.] Saint Francis.
v. 36. The other.] Saint Dominic.
v. 40. Tupino.] A rivulet near Assisi, or Ascesi where Francis was born
in 1182.
v. 40. The wave.] Chiascio, a stream that rises in a mountain near
Agobbio, chosen by St. Ubaldo for the place of his retirement.
v. 42. Heat and cold.] Cold from the snow, and heat from the reflection
of the sun.
v. 45. Yoke.] Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of the
mountain to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi (as I have taken it) of the
heavy impositions laid on those places by the Perugians. For GIOGO,
like the Latin JUGUM, will admit of either sense.
v. 50. The east.]
This is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Shakespeare.
v. 55. Gainst his father’s will.] In opposition to the wishes of his
natural father
v. 58. In his father’s sight.] The spiritual father, or bishop, in
whose presence he made a profession of poverty.
v. 60. Her first husband.] Christ.
v. 63. Amyclas.] Lucan makes Caesar exclaim, on witnessing the secure
poverty of the fisherman Amyclas:
—O vite tuta facultas
Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum
Intellecta deum! quibus hoc contingere templis,
Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu,
Caesarea pulsante manu?
Lucan Phars. 1. v. 531.
v. 72. Bernard.] One of the first followers of the saint.
v. 76. Egidius.] The third of his disciples, who died in 1262. His
work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp See Lucas
Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.
v. 76. Sylvester.] Another of his earliest associates.
v. 83. Pietro Bernardone.] A man in an humble station of life at
Assisi.
v. 86. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.
v. 90. Honorius.] His successor Honorius III who granted certain
privileges to the Franciscans.
v. 93. On the hard rock.] The mountain Alverna in the Apennine.
v. 100. The last signet.] Alluding to the stigmata, or marks resembling
the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the saint’s body.
v. 106. His dearest lady.] Poverty.
v. 113. Our Patriarch ] Saint Dominic.
v. 316. His flock ] The Dominicans.
v. 127. The planet from whence they split.] “The rule of their order,
which the Dominicans neglect to observe.”
CANTO XII
v. 1. The blessed flame.] Thomas Aquinas
v. 12. That voice.] The nymph Echo, transformed into the repercussion
of the voice.
v. 25. One.] Saint Buonaventura, general of the Franciscan order, in
which he effected some reformation, and one of the most profound
divines of his age. “He refused the archbishopric of York, which was
offered him by Clement IV, but afterwards was prevailed on to accept
the bishopric of Albano and a cardinal’s hat. He was born at Bagnoregio
or Bagnorea, in Tuscany, A.D. 1221, and died in 1274.” Dict. Histor.
par Chaudon et Delandine. Ed. Lyon. 1804.
v. 28. The love.] By an act of mutual courtesy, Buonaventura, a
Franciscan, is made to proclaim the praises of St. Dominic, as Thomas
Aquinas, a Dominican, has celebrated those of St. Francis.
v. 42. In that clime.] Spain.
v. 48. Callaroga.] Between Osma and Aranda, in Old Castile, designated
by the royal coat of arms.
v. 51. The loving minion of the Christian faith.] Dominic was born
April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace, Callaroga; his
father and mother’s names, Felix and Joanna, his mother’s dream; his
name of Dominic, given him in consequence of a vision by a noble
matron, who stood sponsor to him, are all told in an anonymous life of
the saint, said to be written in the thirteenth century, and published
by Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. Par. 1719. fol.
t 1. p. 25. These writers deny his having been an inquisitor, and
indeed the establishment of the inquisition itself before the fourth
Lateran council. Ibid. p. 88.
v. 55. In the mother’s womb.] His mother, when pregnant with him, is
said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white and black dog,
with a lighted torch in its mouth.
v. 59. The dame.] His godmother’s dream was, that he had one star in
his forehead, and another in the nape of his neck, from which he
communicated light to the east and the west.
v. 73. Felix.] Felix Gusman.
v. 75. As men interpret it.] Grace or gift of the Lord.
v. 77. Ostiense.] A cardinal, who explained the decretals.
v. 77. Taddeo.] A physician, of Florence.
v. 82. The see.] “The apostolic see, which no longer continues its
wonted liberality towards the indigent and deserving; not indeed
through its own fault, as its doctrines are still the same, but through
the fault of the pontiff, who is seated in it.”
v. 85. No dispensation.] Dominic did not ask license to compound for
the use of unjust acquisitions, by dedicating a part of them to pious
purposes.
v. 89. In favour of that seed.] “For that seed of the divine word, from
which have sprung up these four-and-twenty plants, that now environ
thee.”
v. 101. But the track.] “But the rule of St. Francis is already
deserted and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness.”
v. 110. Tares.] He adverts to the parable of the taxes and the wheat.
v. 111. I question not.] “Some indeed might be found, who still observe
the rule of the order, but such would come neither from Casale nor
Acquasparta:” of the former of which places was Uberto, one master
general, by whom the discipline had been relaxed; and of the latter,
Matteo, another, who had enforced it with unnecessary rigour.
v. 121. -Illuminato here, And Agostino.] Two among the earliest
followers of St. Francis.
v. 125. Hugues of St. Victor.] A Saxon of the monastery of Saint Victor
at Paris, who fed ill 1142 at the age of forty-four. “A man
distinguished by the fecundity of his genius, who treated in his
writings of all the branches of sacred and profane erudition that were
known in his time, and who composed several dissertations that are not
destitute of merit.” Maclaine’s Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. v. iii . cent.
xii. p. 2. 2. 23. I have looked into his writings, and found some
reason for this high eulogium.
v. 125. Piatro Mangiadore.] “Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born at
Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards chancellor of
the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices to become a
regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in 1198. Chaudon et
Delandine Dict. Hist. Ed. Lyon. 1804. The work by which he is best
known, is his Historia Scolastica, which I shall have occasion to cite
in the Notes to Canto XXVI.
v. 126. He of Spain.] “To Pope Adrian V succeeded John XXI a native of
Lisbon a man of great genius and extraordinary acquirements, especially
in logic and in medicine, as his books, written in the name of Peter of
Spain (by which he was known before he became Pope), may testify. His
life was not much longer than that of his predecessors, for he was
killed at Viterbo, by the falling in of the roof of his chamber, after
he had been pontiff only eight months and as many days. A.D. 1277.
Mariana, Hist. de Esp. l. xiv. c. 2.
v. 128. Chrysostom.] The eloquent patriarch of Constantinople.
v. 128. Anselmo.] “Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aosta,
about 1034, and studied under Lanfrane at the monastery of Bec, in
Normandy, where he afterwards devoted himself to a religious life, in
his twenty-seventh year. In three years he was made prior, and then
abbot of that monastery! from whence he was taken, in 1093, to succeed
to the archbishopric, vacant by the death of Lanfrane. He enjoyed this
dignity till his death, in 1109, though it was disturbed by many
dissentions with William II and Henry I respecting the immunities and
investitures. There is much depth and precisian in his theological
works.” Tiraboschi, Stor. della Lett. Ital. t. iii.
1. iv. c. 2. Ibid. c. v. “It is an observation made by many modern
writers, that the demonstration of the existence of God, taken from the
idea of a Supreme Being, of which Des Cartes is thought to be the
author, was so many ages back discovered and brought to light by
Anselm. Leibnitz himself makes the remark, vol. v. Oper. p. 570. Edit.
Genev. 1768.”
v. 129. Donatus.] Aelius Donatus, the grammarian, in the fourth
century, one of the preceptors of St. Jerome.
v. 130. Raban.] “Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, is deservedly
placed at the head of the Latin writers of this age.” Mosheim, v. ii.
cent. ix. p. 2 c. 2. 14.
v. 131. Joachim.] Abbot of Flora in Calabria; “whom the multitude
revered as a person divinely inspired and equal to the most illustrious
prophets of ancient times.” Ibid. v. iii. cent. xiii. p. 2. c. 2. 33.
v. 134. A peer.] St. Dominic.
CANTO XIII
v. 1. Let him.] “Whoever would conceive the sight that now presented
itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the brightest stars in
heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus Major and two of Arcturus
Minor, ranged in two circles, one within the other, each resembling the
crown of Ariadne, and moving round m opposite directions.”
v. 21. The Chiava.] See Hell, Canto XXIX. 45.
v. 29. That luminary.] Thomas Aquinas.
v. 31. One ear.] “Having solved one of thy questions, I proceed to
answer the other. Thou thinkest, then, that Adam and Christ were both
endued with all the perfection of which the human nature is capable and
therefore wonderest at what has been said concerning Solomon”
v. 48. That.] “Things corruptible and incorruptible, are only
emanations from the archetypal idea residing in the Divine mind.”
v. 52. His brightness.] The Word: the Son of God.
v. 53. His love triune with them.] The Holy Ghost.
v. 55. New existences.] Angels and human souls.
v. 57. The lowest powers.] Irrational life and brute matter.
v. 62. Their wax and that which moulds it.] Matter, and the virtue or
energy that acts on it.
v. 68. The heav’n.] The influence of the planetary bodies.
v. 77. The clay.] Adam.
v. 88. Who ask’d.] “He did not desire to know the number of the stars,
or to pry into the subtleties of metaphysical and mathematical science:
but asked for that wisdom which might fit him for his kingly office.”
v. 120. —Parmenides Melissus Bryso.] For the singular opinions
entertained by the two former of these heathen philosophers, see
Diogenes Laertius, 1. ix. and Aristot. de Caelo, 1. iii. c. 1 and Phys.
l. i. c. 2. The last is also twice adduced by 2. Aristotle (Anal Post.
1. i. c. 9. and Rhet. 1. iii. c. 2.) as 3. affording instances of false
reasoning.
v. 123. Sabellius, Arius.] Well-known heretics.
v. 124. Scymitars.] A passage in the travels of Bertradon de la
Brocquiere, translated by Mr. Johnes, will explain this allusion, which
has given some trouble to the commentators. That traveler, who wrote
before Dante, informs us, p. 138, that the wandering Arabs used their
scymitars as mirrors.
v. 126. Let not.] “Let not short-sighted mortals presume to decide on
the future doom of any man, from a consideration of his present
character and actions.”
CANTO XIV
v. 5. Such was the image.] The voice of Thomas Aquinas proceeding, from
the circle to the centre and that of Beatrice from the centre to the
circle.
v. 26. Him.] Literally translated by Chaucer, Troilus and Cresseide.
Thou one two, and three eterne on live
That raignest aie in three, two and one
Uncircumscript, and all maist circonscrive,
v. 81. The goodliest light.] Solomon.
v. 78. To more lofty bliss.] To the planet Mars.
v. 94. The venerable sign.] The cross.
v. 125. He.] “He who considers that the eyes of Beatrice became more
radiant the higher we ascended, must not wonder that I do not except
even them as I had not yet beheld them since our entrance into this
planet.”
CANTO XV
v. 24. Our greater Muse.] Virgil Aen. 1. vi. 684. v. 84. I am thy
root.] Cacciaguida, father to Alighieri, of whom our Poet was the
great-grandson.
v. 89. The mountain.] Purgatory.
v. 92. Florence.] See G. Villani, l. iii. c. 2.
v. 93. Which calls her still.] The public clock being still within the
circuit of the ancient walls.
v. 98. When.] When the women were not married at too early an age, and
did not expect too large a portion.
v. 101. Void.] Through the civil wars.
v. 102 Sardanapalus.] The luxurious monarch of Assyria Juvenal is here
imitated, who uses his name for an instance of effeminacy. Sat.
v. 103. Montemalo ] Either an elevated spot between Rome and Viterbo,
or Monte Mario, the site of the villa Mellini, commanding a view of
Rome.
v. 101. Our suburban turret.] Uccellatojo, near Florence, from whence
that city was discovered.
v. 103. Bellincion Berti.] Hell, Canto XVI. 38. nd Notes. There is a
curious description of the simple manner in which the earlier
Florentines dressed themselves in G. Villani, 1 vi. c. 71.
v. 110. Of Nerli and of Vecchio.] Two of the most opulent families in
Florence.
v. 113. Each.] “None fearful either of dying in banishment, or of being
deserted by her husband on a scheme of battle in France.
v. 120. A Salterello and Cianghella.] The latter a shameless woman of
the family of Tosa, married to Lito degli Alidosi of Imola: the former
Lapo Salterello, a lawyer, with whom Dante was at variance.
v. 125. Mary.] The Virgin was involved in the pains of child-birth
Purgatory, Canto XX. 21.
v. 130 Valdipado.] Cacciaguida’s wife, whose family name was
Aldighieri; came from Ferrara, called Val di Pado, from its being
watered by the Po.
v. 131. Conrad.] The Emperor Conrad III who died in 1152. See G.
Villani, 1. iv. 34.
v. 136. Whose people.] The Mahometans, who were left in possession of
the Holy Land, through the supineness of the Pope.
CANTO XVI
v. 10. With greeting.] The Poet, who had addressed the spirit, not
knowing him to be his ancestor, with a plain “Thou,” now uses more
ceremony, and calls him “You,” according to a custom introduced among
the Romans in the latter times of the empire.
v. 15. Guinever.] Beatrice’s smile encouraged him to proceed just as
the cough of Ginevra’s female servant gave her mistress assurance to
admit the freedoms of Lancelot. See Hell, Canto V. 124.
v. 23. The fold.] Florence, of which John the Baptist was the patron
saint.
v. 31. From the day.] From the Incarnation to the birth of Cacciaguida,
the planet Mars had returned five hundred and fifty-three times to the
constellation of Leo, with which it is supposed to have a congenial
influence. His birth may, therefore, be placed about 1106.
v. 38. The last.] The city was divided into four compartments. The
Elisei, the ancestors of Dante, resided near the entrance of that named
from the Porta S. Piero, which was the last reached by the competitor
in the annual race at Florence. See G. Villani, 1. iv. c. 10.
v. 44. From Mars.] “Both in the times of heathenish and of
Christianity.” Hell, Canto XIII. 144.
v. 48. Campi and Certaldo and Fighine.] Country places near Florence.
v. 50. That these people.] That the inhabitants of the above- mentioned
places had not been mixed with the citizens: nor the limits of Florence
extended beyond Galluzzo and Trespiano.”
v. 54. Aguglione’s hind and Signa’s.] Baldo of Aguglione, and Bonifazio
of Signa.
v. 56. Had not the people.] If Rome had continued in her allegiance to
the emperor, and the Guelph and Ghibelline factions had thus been
prevented, Florence would not have been polluted by a race of upstarts,
nor lost the most respectable of her ancient families.
v. 61. Simifonte.] A castle dismantled by the Florentines. G. Villani,
1. v. c. 30. The individual here alluded to is no longer known.
v. 69. The blind bull.] So Chaucer, Troilus and Cresseide. b. 2.
For swifter course cometh thing that is of wight
When it descendeth than done things light.
Compare Aristotle, Ethic. Nic. l. vi. c. 13. [GREEK HERE]
v. 72. Luni, Urbisaglia.] Cities formerly of importance, but then
fallen to decay.
v. 74. Chiusi and Sinigaglia.] The same.
v. 80. As the moon.] “The fortune of us, that are the moon’s men doth
ebb and flow like the sea.” Shakespeare, 1 Henry IV. a. i. s. 2.
v. 86. The Ughi.] Whoever is curious to know the habitations of these
and the other ancient Florentines, may consult G. Villani, l. iv.
v. 91. At the poop.] Many editions read porta, “gate.” -The same
metaphor is found in Aeschylus, Supp. 356, and is there also scarce
understood by the critics. [GREEK HERE] Respect these wreaths, that
crown your city’s poop.
v. 99. The gilded hilt and pommel.] The symbols of knighthood
v. 100. The column cloth’d with verrey.] The arms of the Pigli.
v. 103. With them.] Either the Chiaramontesi, or the Tosinghi one of
which had committed a fraud in measuring out the wheat from the public
granary. See Purgatory, Canto XII. 99
v. 109. The bullets of bright gold.] The arms of the Abbati, as it is
conjectured.
v. 110. The sires of those.] “Of the Visdomini, the Tosinghi and the
Cortigiani, who, being sprung from the founders of the bishopric of
Florence are the curators of its revenues, which they do not spare,
whenever it becomes vacant.”
v. 113. Th’ o’erweening brood.] The Adimari. This family was so little
esteemed, that Ubertino Donato, who had married a daughter of
Bellincion Berti, himself indeed derived from the same stock (see Note
to Hell Canto XVI. 38.) was offended with his father-in-law, for giving
another of his daughters in marriage to one of them.
v. 124. The gateway.] Landino refers this to the smallness of the city:
Vellutello, with less probability, to the simplicity of the people in
naming one of the gates after a private family.
v. 127. The great baron.] The Marchese Ugo, who resided at Florence as
lieutenant of the Emperor Otho III, gave many of the chief families
license to bear his arms. See G. Villani, 1. iv. c. 2., where the
vision is related, in consequence of which he sold all his possessions
in Germany, and founded seven abbeys, in one whereof his memory was
celebrated at Florence on St. Thomas’s day. v. 130. One.] Giano della
Bella, belonging to one of the families thus distinguished, who no
longer retained his place among the nobility, and had yet added to his
arms a bordure or. See Macchiavelli, 1st. Fior. 1. ii. p. 86. Ediz.
Giolito.
v. 132. -Gualterotti dwelt And Importuni.] Two families in the
compartment of the city called Borgo.
v. 135. The house.] Of Amidei. See Notes to Canto XXVIII. of Hell. v.
102.
v. 142. To Ema.] “It had been well for the city, if thy ancestor had
been drowned in the Ema, when he crossed that stream on his way from
Montebuono to Florence.”
v. 144. On that maim’d stone.] See Hell, Canto XIII. 144. Near the
remains of the statue of Mars. Buondelmonti was slain, as if he had
been a victim to the god; and Florence had not since known the blessing
of peace.
v. 150. The lily.] “The arms of Florence had never hung reversed on the
spear of her enemies, in token of her defeat; nor been changed from
argent to gules;” as they afterwards were, when the Guelfi gained the
predominance.
CANTO XVII
v. 1. The youth.] Phaeton, who came to his mother Clymene, to inquire
of her if he were indeed the son of Apollo. See Ovid, Met. 1. i. ad
finem.
v. 6. That saintly lamp.] Cacciaguida.
v. 12. To own thy thirst.] “That thou mayst obtain from others a
solution of any doubt that may occur to thee.”
v. 15. Thou seest as clear.] “Thou beholdest future events, with the
same clearness of evidence, that we discern the simplest mathematical
demonstrations.”
v. 19. The point.] The divine nature.
v. 27. The arrow.] Nam praevisa minus laedere tela solent. Ovid.
Che piaga antiveduta assai men duole.
Petrarca, Trionfo del Tempo
v. 38. Contingency.] “The evidence with which we see the future
portrayed in the source of all truth, no more necessitates that future
than does the image, reflected in the sight by a ship sailing down a
stream, necessitate the motion of the vessel.”
v. 43. From thence.] “From the eternal sight; the view of the Deity.
v. 49. There.] At Rome, where the expulsion of Dante’s party from
Florence was then plotting, in 1300.
v. 65. Theirs.] “They shall be ashamed of the part they have taken
aga’nst thee.”
v. 69. The great Lombard.] Either Alberto della Scala, or Bartolommeo
his eldest son. Their coat of arms was a ladder and an eagle.
v. 75. That mortal.] Can Grande della Scala, born under the influence
of Mars, but at this time only nine years old
v. 80. The Gascon.] Pope Clement V.
v. 80. Great Harry.] The Emperor Henry VII.
v. 127. The cry thou raisest.] “Thou shalt stigmatize the faults of
those who are most eminent and powerful.”
CANTO XVIII
v. 3. Temp’ring the sweet with bitter.] Chewing the end of sweet and
bitter fancy. Shakespeare, As you Like it, a. 3. s. 3.
v. 26. On this fifth lodgment of the tree.] Mars, the fifth ot the @
v. 37. The great Maccabee.] Judas Maccabeus.
v. 39. Charlemagne.] L. Pulci commends Dante for placing
Charlemagne and Orlando here:
Io mi confido ancor molto qui a Dante
Che non sanza cagion nel ciel su misse
Carlo ed Orlando in quelle croci sante,
Che come diligente intese e scrisse.
Morg. Magg. c. 28.
v. 43. William and Renard.] Probably not, as the commentators have
imagined, William II of Orange, and his kinsman Raimbaud, two of the
crusaders under Godfrey of Bouillon, (Maimbourg, Hist. des Croisades,
ed. Par. 1682. 12mo. t. i. p. 96.) but rather the two more celebrated
heroes in the age of Charlemagne. The former, William l. of Orange,
supposed to have been the founder of the present illustrious family of
that name, died about 808, according to Joseph de la Piser, Tableau de
l’Hist. des Princes et Principante d’Orange. Our countryman, Ordericus
Vitalis, professes to give his true life, which had been misrepresented
in the songs of the itinerant bards.” Vulgo canitur a joculatoribus de
illo, cantilena; sed jure praeferenda est relatio authentica.” Eccl.
Hist. in Duchesne, Hist. Normann Script. p. 508. The latter is better
known by having been celebrated by Ariosto, under the name of Rinaldo.
v. 43. Duke Godfey.] Godfrey of Bouillon.
v. 46. Robert Guiscard.] See Hell, Canto XXVIII. v. 12.
v. 81. The characters.] Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terrarm. “Love
righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth “ Wisdom of Solomon, c.
i. 1.
v. 116. That once more.] “That he may again drive out those who buy and
sell in the temple.”
v. 124. Taking the bread away.] “Excommunication, or the interdiction
of the Eucharist, is now employed as a weapon of warfare.”
v. 126. That writest but to cancel.] “And thou, Pope Boniface, who
writest thy ecclesiastical censures for no other purpose than to be
paid for revoking them.”
v. 130. To him.] The coin of Florence was stamped with the impression
of John the Baptist.
CANTO XIX
v. 38. Who turn’d his compass.] Compare Proverbs, c. viii. 27. And
Milton, P. L. b. vii 224.
v. 42. The Word] “The divine nature still remained incomprehensible. Of
this Lucifer was a proof; for had he thoroughly comprehended it, he
would not have fallen.”
v. 108. The Ethiop.] Matt. c. xii. 41.
v. 112. That volume.] Rev. c. xx. 12.
v. 114. Albert.] Purgatory, Canto VI. v. 98.
v. 116. Prague.] The eagle predicts the devastation of Bohemia by
Albert, which happened soon after this time, when that Emperor obtained
the kingdom for his eldest son Rodolph. See Coxe’s House of Austria,
4to. ed. v. i. part 1. p. 87
v. 117. He.] Philip IV of France, after the battle of Courtrai, 1302,
in which the French were defeated by the Flemings, raised the nominal
value of the coin. This king died in consequence of his horse being
thrown to the ground by a wild boar, in 1314
v. 121. The English and Scot.] He adverts to the disputes between John
Baliol and Edward I, the latter of whom is commended in the Purgatory,
Canto VII. v. 130.
v. 122. The Spaniard’s luxury.] The commentators refer this to Alonzo X
of Spain. It seems probable that the allusion is to Ferdinand IV who
came to the crown in 1295, and died in 1312, at the age of twenty four,
in consequence, as it was supposed, of his extreme intemperance. See
Mariana, Hist I. xv. c. 11.
v. 123. The Bohemian.] Winceslaus II. Purgatory, Canto VII. v.
v. 125. The halter of Jerusalem.] Charles II of Naples and Jerusalem
who was lame. See note to Purgatory, Canto VII. v. 122, and XX. v. 78.
v. 127. He.] Frederick of Sicily son of Peter III of Arragon.
Purgatory, Canto VII. v. 117. The isle of fire is Sicily, where was the
tomb of Anchises.
v. 133. His uncle.] James, king of Majorca and Minorca, brother to
Peter III.
v. 133. His brother.] James II of Arragon, who died in 1327. See
Purgatory, Canto VII. v. 117.
v. 135. Of Portugal.] In the time of Dante, Dionysius was king of
Portugal. He died in 1328, after a reign of near forty-six years, and
does not seem to have deserved the stigma here fastened on him. See
Mariana. and 1. xv. c. 18. Perhaps the rebellious son of Dionysius may
be alluded to.
v. 136. Norway.] Haquin, king of Norway, is probably meant; who, having
given refuge to the murderers of Eric VII king of Denmark, A D. 1288,
commenced a war against his successor, Erie VIII, “which continued for
nine years, almost to the utter ruin and destruction of both kingdoms.”
Modern Univ. Hist. v. xxxii p. 215.
v. 136. -Him Of Ratza.] One of the dynasty of the house of Nemagna,
which ruled the kingdom of Rassia, or Ratza, in Sclavonia, from 1161 to
1371, and whose history may be found in Mauro Orbino, Regno degli
Slavi, Ediz. Pesaro. 1601. Uladislaus appears to have been the
sovereign in Dante’s time, but the disgraceful forgery adverted to in
the text, is not recorded by the historian v. 138. Hungary.] The
kingdom of Hungary was about this time disputed by Carobert, son of
Charles Martel, and Winceslaus, prince of Bohemia, son of Winceslaus
II. See Coxe’s House of Austria, vol. i. p. 1. p. 86.
4to edit.
v. 140. Navarre.] Navarre was now under the yoke of France. It soon
after (in 1328) followed the advice of Dante and had a monarch of its
own. Mariana, 1. xv. c. 19.
v. 141. Mountainous girdle.] The Pyrenees.
v. 143. -Famagosta’s streets And Nicosia’s.]
Cities in the kingdom of Cyprus, at that time ruled by Henry II a
pusillanimous prince. Vertot. Hist. des Chev. de Malte, 1. iii. iv. The
meaning appears to be, that the complaints made by those cities of
their weak and worthless governor, may be regarded as an earnest of his
condemnation at the last doom.
CANTO XX
v. 6. Wherein one shines.] The light of the sun, whence he supposes the
other celestial bodies to derive their light
v. 8. The great sign.] The eagle, the Imperial ensign.
v. 34. Who.] David.
v. 39. He.] Trajan. See Purgatory, Canto X. 68.
v. 44. He next.] Hezekiah.
v. 50. The other following.] Constantine. There is no passage in which
Dante’s opinion of the evil; that had arisen from the mixture of the
civil with the ecclesiastical power, is more unequivocally declared.
v. 57. William.] William II, king of Sicily, at the latter part of the
twelfth century He was of the Norman line of sovereigns, and obtained
the appellation of “the Good” and, as the poet says his loss was as
much the subject of regret in his dominions, as the presence of Charles
I of Anjou and Frederick of Arragon, was of sorrow and complaint.
v. 62. Trojan Ripheus.]
Ripheus, justissimus unus
Qui fuit in Teneris, et servantissimus aequi.
Virg. Aen. 1. ii. 4—.
v. 97. This.] Ripheus.
v. 98. That.] Trajan.
v. 103. The prayers,] The prayers of St. Gregory
v. 119. The three nymphs.] Faith, Hope, and Charity. Purgatory, Canto
XXIX. 116. v. 138. The pair.] Ripheus and Trajan.
CANTO XXI
v. 12. The seventh splendour.] The planet Saturn
v. 13. The burning lion’s breast.] The constellation Leo.
v. 21. In equal balance.] “My pleasure was as great in complying with
her will as in beholding her countenance.”
v. 24. Of that lov’d monarch.] Saturn. Compare Hell, Canto XIV. 91.
v. 56. What forbade the smile.] “Because it would have overcome thee.”
v. 61. There aloft.] Where the other souls were.
v. 97. A stony ridge.] The Apennine.
v. 112. Pietro Damiano.] “S. Pietro Damiano obtained a great and
well-merited reputation, by the pains he took to correct the abuses
among the clergy. Ravenna is supposed to have been the place of his
birth, about 1007. He was employed in several important missions, and
rewarded by Stephen IX with the dignity of cardinal, and the bishopric
of Ostia, to which, however, he preferred his former retreat in the
monastery of Fonte Aveliana, and prevailed on Alexander II to permit
him to retire thither. Yet he did not long continue in this seclusion,
before he was sent on other embassies. He died at Faenza in 1072. His
letters throw much light on the obscure history of these times. Besides
them, he has left several treatises on sacred and ecclesiastical
subjects. His eloquence is worthy of a better age.” Tiraboschi, Storia
della Lett Ital. t. iii. 1. iv. c. 2.
v. 114. Beside the Adriatic.] At Ravenna. Some editions have FU instead
of FUI, according to which reading, Pietro distinguishes himself from
another Pietro, who was termed “Peccator,” the sinner.
v. 117. The hat.] The cardinal’s hat.
v. 118. Cephas.] St. Peter.
v. 119 The Holy Spirit’s vessel.] St. Paul. See Hell, Canto II. 30.
v. 130. Round this.] Round the spirit of Pietro Damiano.
CANTO XXII
v. 14. The vengeance.] Beatrice, it is supposed, intimates the
approaching fate of Boniface VIII. See Purgatory, Canto XX. 86.
v. 36. Cassino.] A castle in the Terra di Lavoro.
v. 38. I it was.] “A new order of monks, which in a manner absorbed all
the others that were established in the west, was instituted, A.D. 529,
by Benedict of Nursis, a man of piety and reputation for the age he
lived in.” Maclaine’s Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. v. ii. cent. vi. p. 2. ch.
2 - 6.
v. 48. Macarius.] There are two of this name enumerated by Mosheim
among the Greek theologians of the fourth century, v. i. cent. iv p. 11
ch. 2 - 9. In the following chapter, 10, it is said, “Macarius, an
Egyptian monk, undoubtedly deserves the first rank among the practical
matters of this time, as his works displayed, some few things excepted,
the brightest and most lovely portraiture of sanctity and virtue.”
v. 48. Romoaldo.] S. Romoaldo, a native of Ravenna, and the founder of
the order of Camaldoli, died in 1027. He was the author of a commentary
on the Psalms.
v. 70. The patriarch Jacob.] So Milton, P. L. b. iii. 510:
The stairs were such, as whereon Jacob saw
Angels ascending and descending, bands
Of guardians bright.
v. 107. The sign.] The constellation of Gemini.
v. 130. This globe.] So Chaucer, Troilus and Cresseide, b. v,
And down from thence fast he gan avise
This little spot of earth, that with the sea
Embraced is, and fully gan despite
This wretched world.
Compare Cicero, Somn. Scip. “Jam ipsa terra ita mihi parva visa est.”
&c. Lucan, Phar 1. ix. 11; and Tasso, G. L. c. xiv. st, 9, 10, 11.
v. 140. Maia and Dione.] The planets Mercury and Venus.
CANTO XXIII
v. 11. That region.] Towards the south, where the course of the sun
appears less rapid, than, when he is in the east or the west.
v. 26. Trivia.] A name of Diana.
v. 26. Th’ eternal nymphs.] The stars.
v. 36. The Might.] Our Saviour
v. 71. The rose.] The Virgin Mary.
v. 73. The lilies.] The apostles.
v. 84. Thou didst exalt thy glory.] The diving light retired upwards,
to render the eyes of Dante more capable of enduring the spectacle
which now presented itself.
v. 86. The name of that fair flower.] The name of the Virgin.
v. 92. A cresset.] The angel Gabriel.
v. 98. That lyre.] By synecdoche, the lyre is put for the angel
v. 99. The goodliest sapphire.] The Virgin
v. 126. Those rich-laden coffers.] Those spirits who, having sown the
seed of good works on earth, now contain the fruit of their pious
endeavours.
v. 129. In the Babylonian exile.] During their abode in this world.
v. 133. He.] St. Peter, with the other holy men of the Old and New
testament.
CANTO XXIV
v. 28. Such folds.] Pindar has the same bold image: [GREEK HERE?] On
which Hayne strangely remarks: Ad ambitus stropharum vldetur
v. 65. Faith.] Hebrews, c. xi. 1. So Marino, in one of his sonnets,
which calls Divozioni:
Fede e sustanza di sperate cose,
E delle non visioili argomento.
v. 82. Current.] “The answer thou hast made is right; but let me know
if thy inward persuasion is conformable to thy profession.”
v. 91. The ancient bond and new.] The Old and New Testament.
v. 114. That Worthy.] Quel Baron. In the next Canto, St. James is
called “Barone.” So in Boccaccio, G. vi. N. 10, we find “Baron Messer
Santo Antonio.” v. 124. As to outstrip.] Venturi insists that the Poet
has here, “made a slip;” for that John came first to the sepulchre,
though Peter was the first to enter it. But let Dante have leave to
explain his own meaning, in a passage from his third book De Monarchia:
“Dicit etiam Johannes ipsum (scilicet Petrum) introiisse SUBITO, cum
venit in monumentum, videns allum discipulum cunctantem ad ostium.”
Opere de Dante, Ven. 1793. T. ii. P. 146.
CANTO XXV
v. 6. The fair sheep-fold.] Florence, whence he was banished.
v. 13. For its sake.] For the sake of that faith.
v. 20. Galicia throng’d with visitants.] See Mariana, Hist. 1. xi.
v. 13. “En el tiempo,” &c. “At the time that the sepulchre of the
apostle St. James was discovered, the devotion for that place extended
itself not only over all Spain, but even round about to foreign
nations. Multitudes from all parts of the world came to visit it. Many
others were deterred by the difficulty for the journey, by the
roughness and barrenness of those parts, and by the incursions of the
Moors, who made captives many of the pilgrims. The canons of St. Eloy
afterwards (the precise time is not known), with a desire of remedying
these evils, built, in many places, along the whole read, which reached
as far as to France, hospitals for the reception of the pilgrims.”
v. 31. Who.] The Epistle of St. James is here attributed to the elder
apostle of that name, whose shrine was at Compostella, in Galicia.
Which of the two was the author of it is yet doubtful. The learned and
candid Michaelis contends very forcibly for its having been written by
James the Elder. Lardner rejects that opinion as absurd; while Benson
argues against it, but is well answered by Michaelis, who after all, is
obliged to leave the question undecided. See his Introduction to the
New Testament, translated by Dr. Marsh, ed. Cambridge, 1793. V. iv. c.
26. - 1, 2, 3.
v. 35. As Jesus.] In the transfiguration on Mount Tabor.
v. 39. The second flame.] St. James.
v. 40. I lifted up.] “I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from
whence cometh my help.” Ps. Cxxi. 1.
v. 59. From Egypt to Jerusalem.] From the lower world to heaven.
v. 67. Hope.] This is from the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus. “Est
autem spes virtus, qua spiritualia et aeterna bona speratam, id est,
beatitudinem aeternam. Sine meritis enim aliquid sperare non spes, sed
praesumptio, dici potest.” Pet. Lomb. Sent. 1. Iii. Dist. 26. Ed. Bas.
1486. Fol.
v. 74. His anthem.] Psalm ix. 10.
v. 90. Isaias ] Chap. lxi. 10.
v. 94. Thy brother.] St. John in the Revelation, c. vii. 9.
v. 101. Winter’s month.] “If a luminary, like that which now appeared,
were to shine throughout the month following the winter solstice during
which the constellation Cancer appears in the east at the setting of
the sun, there would be no interruption to the light, but the whole
month would be as a single day.”
v. 112. This.] St. John, who reclined on the bosom of our Saviour, and
to whose charge Jesus recommended his mother.
v. 121. So I.] He looked so earnestly, to descry whether St. John were
present there in body, or in spirit only, having had his doubts raised
by that saying of our Saviour’s: “If I will, that he tarry till I come
what is that to thee.”
v. 127. The two.] Christ and Mary, whom he has described, in the last
Canto but one, as rising above his sight
CANTO XXVI
v. 2. The beamy flame.] St. John.
v. 13. Ananias’ hand.] Who, by putting his hand on St. Paul, restored
his sight. Acts, c. ix. 17.
v. 36. From him.] Some suppose that Plato is here meant, who, in his
Banquet, makes Phaedrus say: “Love is confessedly amongst the eldest of
beings, and, being the eldest, is the cause to us of the greatest goods
“ Plat. Op. t. x. p. 177. Bip. ed. Others have understood it of
Aristotle, and others, of the writer who goes by the name of Dionysius
the Areopagite, referred to in the twenty-eighth Canto.
v. 40. I will make.] Exodus, c. xxxiii. 19.
v. 42. At the outset.] John, c. i. 1. &c.
v. 51. The eagle of our Lord.] St. John
v. 62. The leaves.] Created beings.
v. 82. The first living soul.] Adam.
v. 107. Parhelion.] Who enlightens and comprehends all things; but is
himself enlightened and comprehended by none.
v. 117. Whence.] That is, from Limbo. See Hell, Canto II. 53. Adam says
that 5232 years elapsed from his creation to the time of his
deliverance, which followed the death of Christ.
v. 133. EL] Some read UN, “One,” instead of EL: but the latter of these
readings is confirmed by a passage from Dante’s Treatise De Vulg. Eloq.
1. i. cap. 4. “Quod prius vox primi loquentis sonaverit, viro sanae
mentis in promptu esse non dubito ipsum fuisse quod Deus est, videlicet
El.” St. Isidore in the Origines, 1. vii. c. 1. had said, “Primum apud
Hebraeos Dei nomen El dicitur.”
v. 135. Use.] From Horace, Ars. Poet. 62.
v. 138. All my life.] “I remained in the terrestrial Paradise only
tothe seventh hour.” In the Historia Scolastica of Petrus Comestor, it
is said of our first parents: Quidam tradunt eos fuisse in Paradiso
septem horae.” I. 9. ed. Par. 1513. 4to.
CANTO XXVII
v. 1. Four torches.] St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam.
v. 11. That.] St. Peter’ who looked as the planet Jupiter would, if it
assumed the sanguine appearance of liars.
v. 20. He.] Boniface VIII.
v. 26. such colour.]
Qui color infectis adversi solis ab ietu
Nubibus esse solet; aut purpureae Aurorae.
Ovid, Met. 1. iii. 184.
v. 37. Of Linus and of Cletus.] Bishops of Rome in the first century.
v. 40. Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed And Urban.] The former
two, bishops of the same see, in the second; and the others, in the
fourth century. v. 42. No purpose was of ours.] “We did not intend that
our successors should take any part in the political divisions among
Christians, or that my figure (the seal of St. Peter) should serve as a
mark to authorize iniquitous grants and privileges.”
v. 51. Wolves.] Compare Milton, P. L. b. xii. 508, &c.
v. 53. Cahorsines and Gascons.] He alludes to Jacques d’Ossa, a native
of Cahors, who filled the papal chair in 1316, after it had been two
years vacant, and assumed the name of John XXII., and to Clement V, a
Gascon, of whom see Hell, Canto XIX. 86, and Note.
v. 63. The she-goat.] When the sun is in Capricorn.
v. 72. From the hour.] Since he had last looked (see Canto XXII.) he
perceived that he had passed from the meridian circle to the eastern
horizon, the half of our hemisphere, and a quarter of the heaven.
v. 76. From Gades.] See Hell, Canto XXVI. 106
v. 78. The shore.] Phoenicia, where Europa, the daughter of Agenor
mounted on the back of Jupiter, in his shape of a bull.
v. 80. The sun.] Dante was in the constellation Gemini, and the sun in
Aries. There was, therefore, part of those two constellations, and the
whole of Taurus, between them.
v. 93. The fair nest of Leda.] “From the Gemini;” thus called, because
Leda was the mother of the twins, Castor and Pollux
v. 112. Time’s roots.] “Here,” says Beatrice, “are the roots, from
whence time springs: for the parts, into which it is divided, the other
heavens must be considered.” And she then breaks out into an
exclamation on the degeneracy of human nature, which does not lift
itself to the contemplation of divine things.
v. 126. The fair child of him.] So she calls human nature. Pindar by a
more easy figure, terms the day, “child of the sun.”
v. 129. None.] Because, as has been before said, the shepherds are
become wolves.
v. 131. Before the date.] “Before many ages are past, before those
fractions, which are drops in the reckoning of every year, shall amount
to so large a portion of time, that January shall be no more a winter
month.” By this periphrasis is meant “ in a short time,” as we say
familiarly, such a thing will happen before a thousand years are over
when we mean, it will happen soon.
v. 135. Fortune shall be fain.] The commentators in general suppose
that our Poet here augurs that great reform, which he vainly hoped
would follow on the arrival of the Emperor Henry VII. in Italy.
Lombardi refers the prognostication to Can Grande della Scala: and,
when we consider that this Canto was not finished till after the death
of Henry, as appears from the mention that is made of John XXII, it
cannot be denied but the conjecture is probable.
CANTO XXVIII
v. 36. Heav’n, and all nature, hangs upon that point.] [GREEK HERE]
Aristot. Metaph. 1. xii. c. 7. “From that beginning depend heaven and
nature.”
v. 43. Such diff’rence.] The material world and the intelligential (the
copy and the pattern) appear to Dante to differ in this respect, that
the orbits of the latter are more swift, the nearer they are to the
centre, whereas the contrary is the case with the orbits of the former.
The seeming contradiction is thus accounted for by Beatrice. In the
material world, the more ample the body is, the greater is the good of
which itis capable supposing all the parts to be equally perfect. But
in the intelligential world, the circles are more excellent and
powerful, the more they approximate to the central point, which is God.
Thus the first circle, that of the seraphim, corresponds to the ninth
sphere, or primum mobile, the second, that of the cherubim, to the
eighth sphere, or heaven of fixed stars; the third, or circle of
thrones, to the seventh sphere, or planet of Saturn; and in like manner
throughout the two other trines of circles and spheres.
In orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb
Milton, P. L. b. v. 596.
v. 70. The sturdy north.] Compare Homer, II. b. v. 524.
v. 82. In number.] The sparkles exceeded the number which would be
produced by the sixty-four squares of a chess-board, if for the first
we reckoned one, for the next, two; for the third, four; and so went on
doubling to the end of the account.
v. 106. Fearless of bruising from the nightly ram.] Not injured, like
the productions of our spring, by the influence of autumn, when the
constellation Aries rises at sunset.
v. 110. Dominations.]
Hear all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, domination’s, princedoms, virtues, powers.
Milton, P. L. b. v. 601.
v. 119. Dionysius.] The Areopagite, in his book De Caelesti Hierarchia.
v. 124. Gregory.] Gregory the Great. “Novem vero angelorum ordines
diximus, quia videlicet esse, testante sacro eloquio, scimus: Angelos,
archangelos, virtutes, potestates, principatus, dominationae, thronos,
cherubin atque seraphin.” Divi Gregorii, Hom. xxxiv. f. 125. ed. Par.
1518. fol.
v. 126. He had learnt.] Dionysius, he says, had learnt from St. Paul.
It is almost unnecessary to add, that the book, above referred to,
which goes under his name, was the production of a later age.
CANTO XXIX
v. 1. No longer.] As short a space, as the sun and moon are in changing
hemispheres, when they are opposite to one another, the one under the
sign of Aries, and the other under that of Libra, and both hang for a
moment, noised as it were in the hand of the zenith.
v. 22. For, not in process of before or aft.] There was neither “before
nor after,” no distinction, that is, of time, till the creation of the
world.
v. 30. His threefold operation.] He seems to mean that spiritual
beings, brute matter, and the intermediate part of the creation, which
participates both of spirit and matter, were produced at once.
v. 38. On Jerome’s pages.] St. Jerome had described the angels as
created before the rest of the universe: an opinion which Thomas
Aquinas controverted; and the latter, as Dante thinks, had Scripture on
his side.
v. 51. Pent.] See Hell, Canto XXXIV. 105.
v. 111. Of Bindi and of Lapi.] Common names of men at Florence
v. 112. The sheep.] So Milton, Lycidas.
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly.
v. 121. The preacher.] Thus Cowper, Task, b. ii.
’Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul, &c.
v. 131. Saint Anthony. Fattens with this his swine.] On the sale of
these blessings, the brothers of St. Anthony supported themselves and
their paramours. From behind the swine of St. Anthony, our Poet levels
a blow at the object of his inveterate enmity, Boniface VIII, from
whom, “in 1297, they obtained the dignity and privileges of an
independent congregation.” See Mosheim’s Eccles. History in Dr.
Maclaine’s Translation, v. ii. cent. xi. p. 2. c. 2. - 28.
v. 140. Daniel.] “Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten
thousand times ten thousand stood before him.” Dan. c. vii. 10.
CANTO XXX
v. 1. Six thousand miles.] He compares the vanishing of the vision to
the fading away of the stars at dawn, when it is noon-day six thousand
miles off, and the shadow, formed by the earth over the part of it
inhabited by the Poet, is about to disappear.
v. 13. Engirt.] “ ppearing to be encompassed by these angelic bands,
which are in reality encompassed by it.”
v. 18. This turn.] Questa vice. Hence perhaps Milton, P. L. b. viii.
491. This turn hath made amends.
v. 39. Forth.] From the ninth sphere to the empyrean, which is more
light.
v. 44. Either mighty host.] Of angels, that remained faithful, and of
beatified souls, the latter in that form which they will have at the
last day. v. 61. Light flowing.] “And he showed me a pure river of
water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God
and of the Lamb.” Rev. cxxii. I.
—underneath a bright sea flow’d Of jasper, or of liquid pearl. Milton,
P. L. b. iii. 518.
v. 80. Shadowy of the truth.]
Son di lor vero ombriferi prefazii.
So Mr. Coleridge, in his Religious Musings, v. 406.
Life is a vision shadowy of truth.
v. 88. —the eves Of mine eyelids.] Thus Shakespeare calls the eyelids
“penthouse lids.” Macbeth, a, 1. s, 3.
v. 108. As some cliff.]
A lake
That to the fringed bank with myrtle crown’d
Her crystal mirror holds.
Milton, P. L. b. iv. 263.
v. 118. My view with ease.]
Far and wide his eye commands
For sight no obstacle found here, nor shade, But all sunshine.
Milton, P. l. b. iii. 616.
v. 135. Of the great Harry.] The Emperor Henry VII, who died in 1313.
v. 141. He.] Pope Clement V. See Canto XXVII. 53.
v. 145. Alagna’s priest.] Pope Boniface VIII. Hell, Canto XIX.
79.
CANTO XXXI
v. 6. Bees.] Compare Homer, Iliad, ii. 87. Virg. Aen. I. 430, and
Milton, P. L. b. 1. 768.
v. 29. Helice.] Callisto, and her son Arcas, changed into the
constellations of the Greater Bear and Arctophylax, or Bootes. See
Ovid, Met. l. ii. fab. v. vi.
v. 93. Bernard.] St. Bernard, the venerable abbot of Clairvaux, and the
great promoter of the second crusade, who died A.D. 1153, in his
sixty-third year. His sermons are called by Henault, “chefs~d’oeuvres
de sentiment et de force.” Abrege Chron. de l’Hist. de Fr. 1145. They
have even been preferred to al1 the productions of the ancients, and
the author has been termed the last of the fathers of the church. It is
uncertain whether they were not delivered originally in the French
tongue.
That the part he acts in the present Poem should be assigned to him.
appears somewhat remarkable, when we consider that he severely censured
the new festival established in honour of the Immaculate Conception of
the virgin, and opposed the doctrine itself with the greatest vigour,
as it supposed her being honoured with a privilegewhich belonged to
Christ Alone Dr. Maclaine’s Mosheim, v. iii. cent. xii. p. ii. c. 3 -
19.
v. 95. Our Veronica ] The holy handkerchief, then preserved at Rome, on
which the countenance of our Saviour was supposed to have been imprest.
v. 101. Him.] St. Bernard.
v. 108. The queen.] The Virgin Mary.
v. 119. Oriflamb.] Menage on this word quotes the Roman des
Royau
-Iignages of Guillaume Ghyart.
Oriflamme est une banniere
De cendal roujoyant et simple
Sans portraiture d’autre affaire,
CANTO XXXII
v. 3. She.] Eve.
v. 8. Ancestress.] Ruth, the ancestress of David.
v. 60. In holy scripture.] Gen. c. xxv. 22. v. 123. Lucia.] See Hell,
Canto II. 97.
CANTO XXXIII
v. 63. The Sybil’s sentence.] Virg. Aen. iii. 445.
v. 89. One moment.] “A moment seems to me more tedious, than
five-and-twenty ages would have appeared to the Argonauts, when they
had resolved on their expedition.
v. 92. Argo’s shadow]
Quae simul ac rostro ventosnm proscidit aequor,
Tortaque remigio spumis incanduit unda,
Emersere feri candenti e gurgite vultus
Aequoreae monstrum Nereides admirantes.
Catullus, De Nupt. Pel. et Thet. 15.
v. 109. Three orbs of triple hue, clipt in one bound.] The Trinity.
v. 118. That circling.] The second of the circles, “Light of Light,” in
which he dimly beheld the mystery of the incarnation.
End Paradise.
PREFACE
In the years 1805 and 1806, I published the first part of the following
translation, with the text of the original. Since that period, two
impressions of the whole of the Divina Commedia, in Italian, have made
their appearance in this country. It is not necessary that I should add
a third: and I am induced to hope that the Poem, even in the present
version of it, may not be without interest for the mere English reader.
The translation of the second and third parts, “The Purgatory” and “The
Paradise,” was begun long before the first, and as early as the year
1797; but, owing to many interruptions, not concluded till the summer
before last. On a retrospect of the time and exertions that have been
thus employed, I do not regard those hours as the least happy of my
life, during which (to use the eloquent language of Mr. Coleridge) “my
individual recollections have been suspended, and lulled to sleep amid
the music of nobler thoughts;” nor that study as misapplied, which has
familiarized me with one of the sublimest efforts of the human
invention.
To those, who shall be at the trouble of examining into the degree of
accuracy with which the task has been executed, I may be allowed to
suggest, that their judgment should not be formed on a comparison with
any single text of my Author; since, in more instances than I have
noticed, I have had to make my choice out of a variety of readings and
interpretations, presented by different editions and commentators.
In one or two of those editions is to be found the title of “The
Vision,” which I have adopted, as more conformable to the genius of our
language than that of “The Divine Comedy.” Dante himself, I believe,
termed it simply “The Comedy;” in the first place, because the style
was of the middle kind: and in the next, because the story (if story it
may be called) ends happily.
Instead of a Life of my Author, I have subjoined, in chronological
order, a view not only of the principal events which befell him, but of
the chief public occurrences that happened in his time: concerning both
of which the reader may obtain further information, by turning to the
passages referred to in the Poem and Notes.
January, 1814
A CHRONOLOGICAL VIEW
OF
THE AGE OF DANTE
A. D.
1265. Dante, son of Alighieri degli Alighieri and Bella, is born at
Florence. Of his own ancestry he speaks in the Paradise, Canto XV. and
XVI.
In the same year, Manfredi, king of Naples and Sicily, is defeated and
slain by Charles of Anjou. Hell, C. XXVIII. 13. And Purgatory, C. III.
110.
Guido Novello of Polenta obtains the sovereignty of Ravenna.
H. C. XXVII. 38.
1266. Two of the Frati Godenti chosen arbitrators of the differences at
Florence. H. C. XXIII. 104. Gianni de’ Soldanieri heads the populace in
that city. H. C. XXXII. 118.
1268. Charles of Anjou puts Conradine to death, and becomes King of
Naples. H. C. XXVIII. 16 and Purg C. XX. 66.
1272. Henry III. of England is succeeded by Edward I. Purg. C. VII.
129.
1274. Our Poet first sees Beatrice, daughter of Folco Portinari.
Fra.
Guittone d’Arezzo, the poet, dies. Purg. C. XXIV. 56.
Thomas Aquinas dies. Purg. C. XX. 67. and Par. C. X. 96.
Buonaventura dies. Par. C. XII. 25.
1275. Pierre de la Brosse, secretary to Philip III. of France,
executed. Purg. C. VI. 23.
1276. Giotto, the painter, is born. Purg. C. XI. 95. Pope Adrian V.
dies. Purg. C. XIX. 97. Guido Guinicelli, the poet, dies. Purg. C. XI.
96. and C. XXVI. 83.
1277. Pope John XXI. dies. Par. C. XII. 126.
1278. Ottocar, king of Bohemia, dies. Purg. C. VII. 97.
1279. Dionysius succeeds to the throne of Portugal. Par. C. XIX. 135.
1280. Albertus Magnus dies. Par. C. X. 95.
1281. Pope Nicholas III. dies. H. C. XIX 71. Dante studies at the
universities of Bologna and Padua.
1282. The Sicilian vespers. Par. C. VIII. 80.
The French defeated by the people of Forli. H. C. XXVII. 41.
Tribaldello de’ Manfredi betrays the city of Faenza. H. C.
XXXII. 119.
1284. Prince Charles of Anjou is defeated and made prisoner by Rugiez
de Lauria, admiral to Peter III. of Arragon. Purg. C. XX. 78. Charles
I. king of Naples, dies. Purg. C. VII. 111.
1285. Pope Martin IV. dies. Purg. C. XXIV. 23.
Philip III. of France, and Peter III. of Arragon, die. Purg. C.
VII. 101 and
110.
Henry II. king of Cyprus, comes to the throne. Par. C. XIX. 144.
1287. Guido dalle Colonne (mentioned by Dante in his De Vulgari
Eloquio) writes “The War of Troy.”
1288. Haquin, king of Norway, makes war on Denmark. Par. C. XIX. 135.
Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi dies of famine. H. C. XXXIII. 14.
1289. Dante is in the battle of Campaldino, where the Florentines
defeat the people of Arezzo, June 11. Purg. C. V. 90.
1290. Beatrice dies. Purg. C. XXXII. 2. He serves in the war waged by
the Florentines upon the Pisans, and is present at the surrender of
Caprona in the autumn. H. C. XXI. 92.
1291. He marries Gemma de’ Donati, with whom he lives unhappily.
By this marriage he had five sons and a daughter.
Can Grande della Scala is born, March 9. H. C. I. 98. Purg. C.
XX. 16. Par. C. XVII. 75. and XXVII. 135.
The renegade Christians assist the Saracens to recover St. John
D’Acre. H. C. XXVII. 84.
The Emperor Rodolph dies. Purg. C. VI. 104. and VII. 91.
Alonzo III. of Arragon dies, and is succeeded by James II.
Purg. C. VII. 113. and Par. C. XIX. 133.
1294. Clement V. abdicates the papal chair. H. C. III. 56. Dante writes
his Vita Nuova.
1295. His preceptor, Brunetto Latini, dies. H. C. XV. 28. Charles
Martel, king of Hungary, visits Florence, Par. C. VIII. 57. and dies in
the same year. Frederick, son of Peter III. of Arragon, becomes king of
Sicily. Purg. C. VII. 117. and Par. C. XIX. 127.
1296. Forese, the companion of Dante, dies. Purg. C. XXXIII. 44.
1300. The Bianca and Nera parties take their rise in Pistoia.
H. C. XXXII. 60.
This is the year in which he supposes himself to see his Vision.
H. C. I. 1. and XXI. 109.
He is chosen chief magistrate, or first of the Priors of
Florence; and continues in office from June 15 to August 15.
Cimabue, the painter, dies. Purg. C. XI. 93.
Guido Cavalcanti, the most beloved of our Poet’s friends, dies.
H. C. X. 59. and Purg C. XI. 96.
1301. The Bianca party expels the Nera from Pistoia. H. C. XXIV. 142.
1302. January 27. During his absence at Rome, Dante is mulcted
by his fellow-citizens in the sum of 8000 lire, and condemned to
two years’ banishment.
March 10. He is sentenced, if taken, to be burned.
Fulcieri de’ Calboli commits great atrocities on certain of the
Ghibelline party. Purg. C. XIV. 61.
Carlino de’ Pazzi betrays the castle di Piano Travigne, in
Valdarno, to the Florentines. H. C. XXXII. 67.
The French vanquished in the battle of Courtrai. Purg. C. XX. 47.
James, king of Majorca and Minorca, dies. Par. C. XIX. 133.
1303. Pope Boniface VIII. dies. H. C. XIX. 55. Purg. C. XX. 86. XXXII.
146. and Par. C. XXVII. 20. The other exiles appoint Dante one of a
council of twelve, under Alessandro da Romena. He appears to have been
much dissatisfied with his colleagues. Par. C. XVII. 61.
1304. He joins with the exiles in an unsuccessful attack on the city of
Florence. May. The bridge over the Arno breaks down during a
representation of the infernal torments exhibited on that river. H. C.
XXVI. 9. July 20. Petrarch, whose father had been banished two years
before from Florence, is born at Arezzo.
1305. Winceslaus II. king of Bohemia, dies. Purg. C. VII. 99. and Par.
C. XIX 123. A conflagration happens at Florence. H. C. XXVI. 9.
1306. Dante visits Padua.
1307. He is in Lunigiana with the Marchese Marcello Malaspina. Purg. C.
VIII. 133. and C. XIX. 140. Dolcino, the fanatic, is burned. H. C.
XXVIII. 53.
1308. The Emperor Albert I. murdered. Purg. C. VI. 98. and
Par. C. XIX. 114.
Corso Donati, Dante’s political enemy, slain. Purg. C. XXIV. 81.
He seeks an asylum at Verona, under the roof of the Signori della
Scala. Par. C. XVII. 69. He wanders, about this time, over various
parts of Italy. See his Convito. He is at Paris twice; and, as one of
the early commentators reports, at Oxford.
1309. Charles II. king of Naples, dies. Par. C. XIX. 125.
1310. The Order of the Templars abolished. Purg. C. XX. 94.
1313. The Emperor Henry of Luxemburg, by whom he had hoped to be
restored to Florence, dies. Par. C. XVII. 80. and XXX. 135. He takes
refuge at Ravenna with Guido Novello da Polenta.
1314. Pope Clement V. dies. H. C. XIX. 86. and
Par. C. XXVII. 53. and XXX. 141.
Philip IV. of France dies. Purg. C. VII. 108. and Par. C. XIX.
117.
Ferdinand IV. of Spain, dies. Par. C. XIX. 122.
Giacopo da Carrara defeated by Can Grande. Par. C. IX. 45.
1316. John XXII. elected Pope. Par. C. XXVII. 53.
1321. July. Dante dies at Ravenna, of a complaint brought on by
disappointment at his failure in a negotiation which he had been
conducting with the Venetians, for his patron Guido Novello da Polenta.
His obsequies are sumptuously performed at Ravenna by Guido, who
himself died in the ensuing year.