because he had sinned in the same way; and if Foscolo's opinion could
be established--that the incident of the book is invention--their
conclusion would receive curious collateral evidence, the circumstance
of the perusal of the romance in company with a lady being likely enough
to have occurred to Dante. But the same probability applies in the case
of the lovers. The reading of such books was equally the taste of their
own times; and nothing is more likely than the volume's having been
found in the room where they perished. The Pagans could not be rebels
to a law they never heard of, any more than Dante could be a rebel
to Luther. But this is one of the absurdities with which the impious
effrontery or scarcely less impious admissions of Dante's teachers
avowedly set reason at defiance,--retaining, meanwhile, their right of
contempt for the impieties of Mahometans and Brahmins; "which is odd,"
as the poet says; for being not less absurd, or, as the others argued,
much more so, they had at least an equal claim on the submission of the
reason; since the greater the irrationality, the higher the theological
triumph.]
[Footnote 16: Plutus's exclamation about Satan is a great choke-pear to
the commentators. The line in the original is
"Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe."
The words, as thus written, are not Italian. It is not the business of
this abstract to discuss such points; and therefore I content myself
with believing that the context implies a call of alarm on the Prince of
Hell at the sight of the living creature and his guide.]
[Footnote 17: Phlegyas, a son of Mars, was cast into hell by Apollo for
setting the god's temple on fire in resentment for the violation of his
daughter Coronis. The actions of gods were not to be questioned, in
Dante's opinion, even though the gods turned out to be false Jugghanaut
is as good as any, while he lasts. It is an ethico-theological puzzle,
involving very nice questions; but at any rate, had our poet been a
Brahmin of Benares, we know how he would have written about it in
Sanscrit.]
[Footnote 18: Filippo Argenti (Philip _Silver_,--so called from his
shoeing his horse with the precious metal) was a Florentine remarkable
for bodily strength and extreme irascibility. What a barbarous strength
and confusion of ideas is there in this whole passage about him!
Arrogance punished by arrogance, a Christian mother blessed for the
unchristian disdainfulness of her son, revenge boasted of and enjoyed,
passion arguing in a circle! Filippo himself might have written it.
Dante says,
"Con piangere e con lutto
Spirito maladetto, ti rimani.
Via costà con gli altri cani," &c.
Then Virgil, kissing and embracing him,
"Alma sdegnosa
Benedetta colei che 'n te s'incinse," &c.
And Dante again,
"Maestro, molto sarei vago
Di vederlo attuffare in questa broda," &c. ]
[Footnote 19: Dis, one of the Pagan names of Pluto, here used for Satan.
Within the walls of the city of Dis commence the punishments by fire.]
[Footnote 20: Farinata was a Ghibelline leader before the time of Dante,
and had vanquished the poet's connexions at the battle of Montaperto.]
[Footnote 21: What would Guido have said to this? More, I suspect, than
Dante would have liked to hear, or known how to answer. But he died
before the verses transpired; probably before they were written; for
Dante, in the chronology of his poem, assumes what times and seasons he
finds most convenient.]
[Footnote 22:
"Sì che la pioggia non par che 'l maturi."
This is one of the grandest passages in Dante. It was probably (as
English commentators have observed) in Milton's recollection when he
conceived the character of Satan.]
[Footnote 23: The satire of friarly hypocrisy is at least as fine as
Ariosto's discovery of Discord in a monastery.
The monster Geryon, son of Chrysaor (_Golden-sword_), and the
Ocean-nymph Callirhoe (_Fair-flowing_), was rich in the possession
of sheep. His wealth, and perhaps his derivatives, rendered him this
instrument of satire. The monstrosity, the mild face, the glancing point
of venom, and the beautiful skin, make it as fine as can be.]
[Footnote 24: "_Malebolge_," literally Evil-Budget. _Bolgia_ is an old
form of the modern _baule_, the common term for a valise or portmanteau.
"Bolgia" (says the _Vocabolario della Crusca, compendiato_, Ven. 1792),
"a valise; Latin, bulga, hippopera; Greek, ippopetha [Greek]. In
reference to valises which open lengthways like a chest, Dante uses the
word to signify those compartments which he feigns in his Hell." (Per
similitudine di quelle valigie, che s'aprono per lo lungo, a guisa di
cassa, significa quegli spartimenti, che Dante finge nell' Inferno.)
The reader will think of the homely figurative names in Bunyan, and the
contempt which great and awful states of mind have for conventional
notions of rank in phraseology. It is a part, if well considered, of
their grandeur.]
[Footnote 25: Boniface the Eighth was the pope then living, and one of
the causes of Dante's exile. It is thus the poet contrives to put his
enemies in hell before their time.]
[Footnote 26: An allusion to the pretended gift of the Lateran by
Constantine to Pope Sylvester, ridiculed so strongly by Ariosto and
others.]
[Footnote 27: A truly infernal sentiment. The original is,
"Quì vive la pietà quand' è ben morta."
Here pity lives when it is quite dead.
"Chi è più scellerato," continues the poet, "di colui,
Ch'al giudicio divin passion porta."
That is: "Who is wickeder than he that sets his impassioned feelings
against the judgments of God?" The answer is: He that attributes
judgments to God which are to render humanity pitiless.]
[Footnote 28: _Ne' fianchi così poco_. Michael Scot had been in
Florence; to which circumstance we are most probably indebted for this
curious particular respecting his shape. The consignment of such men to
hell is a mortifying instance of the great poet's participation in the
vulgarest errors of his time. It is hardly, however, worth notice,
considering what we see him swallowing every moment, or pretending to
swallow.]
[Footnote 29: "Bonturo must have sold him something cheap," exclaimed a
hearer of this passage. No:--the exception is an irony! There was not
one honest man in all Lucca!]
[Footnote 30:
"Intorno si mira
Tutto smarrito da la grande angoscia
Ch'egli ha sofferta, e guardando sospira."
This is one of the most terribly natural pictures of agonised
astonishment ever painted.]
[Footnote 31: I retain this passage, horrible as it is to Protestant
ears, because it is not only an instance of Dante's own audacity, but
a salutary warning specimen of the extremes of impiety generated by
extreme superstition; for their first cause is the degradation of the
Divine character. Another, no doubt, is the impulsive vehemence of the
South. I have heard more blasphemies, in the course of half an hour,
from the lips of an Italian postilion, than are probably uttered in
England, by people not out of their senses, for a whole year. Yet the
words, after all, were mere words; for the man was a good-natured
fellow, and I believe presented no image to his mind of anything he was
saying. Dante, however, would certainly not have taught him better by
attempting to frighten him. A violent word would have only produced more
violence. Yet this was the idle round which the great poet thought it
best to run!]
[Footnote 32: Cianfa, probably a condottiere of Mrs. Radcliffe's sort,
and robber on a large scale, is said to have been one of the Donati
family, connexions of the poet by marriage.]
[Footnote 33: This, and the transformation that follows, may well excite
the pride of such a poet as Dante; though it is curious to see how he
selects inventions of this kind as special grounds of self-complacency.
They are the most appalling ever yet produced.]
[Footnote 34: Guido, Conte di Montefeltro, a celebrated soldier of that
day, became a Franciscan in his old age, in order to repent of his sins;
but, being consulted in his cloister by Pope Boniface on the best mode
of getting possession of an estate belonging to the Colonna family,
and being promised absolution for his sins in the lump, including the
opinion requested, he recommended the holy father to "promise much, and
perform nothing" (_molto promettere, e nulla attendere_).]
[Footnote 35: Dolcino was a Lombard friar at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, who is said to have preached a community of goods,
including women, and to have pretended to a divine mission for reforming
the church. He appears to have made a considerable impression, having
thousands of followers, but was ultimately seized in the mountains where
they lived, and burnt with his female companion Margarita, and many
others. Landino says he was very eloquent, and that "both he and
Margarita endured their fate with a firmness worthy of a better cause."
Probably his real history is not known, for want of somebody in such
times bold enough to write it.]
[Footnote 36: Literally, "under the breastplate of knowing himself to be
pure:"
"Sotto l'osbergo del sentirsi pura."
The expression is deservedly admired; but it is not allowable in
English, and it is the only one admitting no equivalent which I have
met with in the whole poem. It might be argued, perhaps, against the
perfection of the passage, that a good "conscience," and a man's
"knowing himself to be pure," are a tautology; for Dante himself has
already used that word;
"Conscienzia m'assicura;
La buona compagnia che l'uom francheggia
Sotto l'osbergo," &c.
But still we feel the impulsive beauty of the phrase; and I wish I could
have kept it.]
[Foonote 37: This ghastly fiction is a rare instance of the meeting of
physical horror with the truest pathos.]
[Footnote 38: The reader will not fail to notice this characteristic
instance of the ferocity of the time.]
[Footnote 39: This is admirable sentiment; and it must have been no
ordinary consciousness of dignity in general which could have made Dante
allow himself to be the person rebuked for having forgotten it. Perhaps
it was a sort of penance for his having, on some occasion, fallen into
the unworthiness.]
[Footnote 40: By the Saracens in Roncesvalles; afterwards so favourite
a topic with the poets. The circumstance of the horn is taken from the
Chronicle of the pretended Archbishop Turpin, chapter xxiv.]
[Footnote 41: The gaping monotony of this jargon, full of the vowel _a_,
is admirably suited to the mouth of the vast, half-stupid speaker. It is
like a babble of the gigantic infancy of the world.]
[Footnote 42:
"Nè sì chinato li fece dimora,
E come albero in nave si levò."
A magnificent image! I have retained the idiomatic expression of the
original, _raised himself_, instead of saying rose, because it seemed to
me to give the more grand and deliberate image.]
[Footnote 43: Of "_màmma_" and "_bàbbo_," says the primitive poet. We
have corresponding words in English, but the feeling they produce is not
identical. The lesser fervour of the northern nations renders them, in
some respects, more sophisticate than they suspect, compared with the
"artful" Italians.]
[Footnote 44: Alessandro and Napoleon degli Alberti, sons of Alberto,
lord of the valley of Falterona in Tuscany. After their father's death
they tyrannised over the neighbouring districts, and finally had a
mortal quarrel. The name of Napoleon used to be so rare till of late
years, even in Italian books, that it gives one a kind of interesting
surprise to meet with it.]
[Footnote 45:
"Se _voler_ fu, o destino o fortuna,
Non so."
What does the Christian reader think of that?]
[Footnote 46: Latrando.]
[Footnote 47: Bocca degli Abbati, whose soul barks like a dog,
occasioned the defeat of the Guelfs at Montaperto, in the year 1260, by
treacherously cutting off the hand of the standard-bearer.]
[Footnote 48: This is the famous story of Ugolino, who betrayed the
castles of Pisa to the Florentines, and was starved with his children in
the Tower of Famine.]
[Footnote 49: I should be loath to disturb the inimitable pathos of this
story, if there did not seem grounds for believing that the poet was too
hasty in giving credit to parts of it, particularly the ages of some of
his fellow-prisoners, and the guilt of the archbishop. See the Appendix
to this volume.]
[Footnote 50: This is the most tremendous lampoon, as far as I am aware,
in the whole circle of literature.]
[Footnote 51: "Cortesia fu lui esser villano." This is the foulest blot
which Dante has cast on his own character in all his poem (short of the
cruelties he thinks fit to attribute to God). It is argued that he is
cruel and false, out of hatred to cruelty and falsehood. But why then
add to the sum of both? and towards a man, too, supposed to be suffering
eternally? It is idle to discern in such barbarous inconsistencies any
thing but the writer's own contributions to the stock of them. The
utmost credit for right feeling is not to be given on every occasion to
a man who refuses it to every one else.]
[Footnote 52: "La creatura ch'ebbe il bel sembiante."
This is touching; but the reader may as well be prepared for a total
failure in Dante's conception of Satan, especially the English reader,
accustomed to the sublimity of Milton's. Granting that the Roman
Catholic poet intended to honour the fallen angel with no sublimity,
but to render him an object of mere hate and dread, he has overdone and
degraded the picture into caricature. A great stupid being, stuck up in
ice, with three faces, one of which is yellow, and three mouths, each
eating a sinner, one of those sinners being Brutus, is an object
for derision; and the way in which he eats these, his everlasting
_bonnes-bouches,_ divides derision with disgust. The passage must be
given, otherwise the abstract of the poem would be incomplete; but I
cannot help thinking it the worst anti-climax ever fallen into by a
great poet.]
[Footnote 53: This silence is, at all events, a compliment to Brutus,
especially from a man like Dante, and the more because it is extorted.
Dante, no doubt, hated all treachery, particularly treachery to the
leader of his beloved Roman emperors; forgetting three things; first,
that Cæsar was guilty of treachery himself to the Roman people; second,
that he, Dante, has put Curio in hell for advising Cæsar to cross the
Rubicon, though he has put the crosser among the good Pagans; and third,
that Brutus was educated in the belief that the punishment of such
treachery as Cæsar's by assassination was one of the first of duties.
How differently has Shakspeare, himself an aristocratic rather than
democratic poet, and full of just doubt of the motives of assassins in
general, treated the error of the thoughtful, conscientious, Platonic
philosopher!]
[Footnote 54: At the close of this medley of genius, pathos, absurdity,
sublimity, horror, and revoltingness, it is impossible for any
reflecting heart to avoid asking, _Cui bono?_ What is the good of it
to the poor wretches, if we are to suppose it true? and what to the
world--except, indeed, as a poetic study and a warning against degrading
notions of God--if we are to take it simply as a fiction? Theology,
disdaining both questions, has an answer confessedly incomprehensible.
Humanity replies: Assume not premises for which you have worse than no
proofs.]
II.
THE JOURNEY THROUGH PURGATORY.
Argument.
Purgatory, in the system of Dante, is a mountain at the Antipodes, on
the top of which is the Terrestrial Paradise, once the seat of Adam and
Eve. It forms the principal part of an island in a sea, and possesses
a pure air. Its lowest region, with one or two exceptions of redeemed
Pagans, is occupied by Excommunicated Penitents and by Delayers of
Penitence, all of whom are compelled to lose time before their atonement
commences. The other and greater portion of the ascent is divided into
circles or plains, in which are expiated the Seven Deadly Sins. The Poet
ascends from circle to circle with Virgil and Statius, and is met in
a forest on the top by the spirit of Beatrice, who transports him to
Heaven.
THE JOURNEY THROUGH PURGATORY.
When the pilgrims emerged from the opening through which they beheld the
stars, they found themselves in a scene which enchanted them with hope
and joy. It was dawn: a sweet pure air came on their faces; and they
beheld a sky of the loveliest oriental sapphire, whose colour seemed
to pervade the whole serene hollow from earth to heaven. The beautiful
planet which encourages loving thoughts made all the orient laugh,
obscuring by its very radiance the stars in its train; and among those
which were still lingering and sparkling in the southern horizon,
Dante saw four in the shape of a cross, never beheld by man since they
gladdened the eyes of our first parents. Heaven seemed to rejoice in
their possession. O widowed northern pole! bereaved art thou, indeed,
since thou canst not gaze upon them![1]
The poet turned to look at the north where he had been accustomed to see
stars that no longer appeared, and beheld, at his side, an old man, who
struck his beholder with a veneration like that of a son for his father.
He had grey hairs, and a long beard which parted in two down his
bosom; and the four southern stars beamed on his face with such lustre,
that his aspect was as radiant as if he had stood in the sun.
"Who are ye?" said the old man, "that have escaped from the dreadful
prison-house? Can the laws of the abyss be violated? Or has Heaven
changed its mind, that thus ye are allowed to come from the regions of
condemnation into mine?"
It was the spirit of Cato of Utica, the warder of the ascent of
purgatory.
The Roman poet explained to his countryman who they were, and how Dante
was under heavenly protection; and then he prayed leave of passage of
him by the love he bore to the chaste eyes of his Marcia, who sent him a
message from the Pagan circle, hoping that he would still own her.
Cato replied, that although he was so fond of Marcia while on earth that
he could deny her nothing, he had ceased, in obedience to new laws, to
have any affection for her, now that she dwelt beyond the evil river;
but as the pilgrim, his companion, was under heavenly protection, he
would of course do what he desired.[2] He then desired him to gird his
companion with one of the simplest and completest rushes he would see by
the water's side, and to wash the stain of the lower world out of his
face, and so take their journey up the mountain before them, by a
path which the rising sun would disclose. And with these words he
disappeared.[3]
The pilgrims passed on, with the eagerness of one who thinks every step
in vain till he finds the path he has lost. The full dawn by this time
had arisen, and they saw the trembling of the sea in the distance.[4]
Virgil then dipped his hands into a spot of dewy grass, where the sun
had least affected it, and with the moisture bathed the face of Dante,
who held it out to him, suffused with tears;[5] and then they went on
till they came to a solitary shore, whence no voyager had ever returned,
and there the loins of the Florentine were girt with the rush.
On this shore they were standing in doubt how to proceed,--moving
onward, as it were, in mind, while yet their feet were staying,--when
they be held a light over the water at a distance, rayless at first as
the planet Mars when he looks redly out of the horizon through a fog,
but speedily growing brighter and brighter with amazing swiftness. Dante
had but turned for an instant to ask his guide what it was, when, on
looking again, it had grown far brighter. Two splendid phenomena, he
knew not what, then developed themselves from it on either side; and, by
degrees, another below it. The two splendours quickly turned out to be
wings; and Virgil, who had hitherto watched its coming in silence, cried
out, "Down, down,--on thy knees! It is God's angel. Clasp thine hands.
Now thou shalt behold operancy indeed. Lo, how he needs neither sail nor
oar, coming all this way with nothing but his wings! Lo, how he holds
them aloft, using the air with them at his will, and knowing they can
never be weary."
The "divine bird" grew brighter and brighter as he came, so that the
eye at last could not sustain the lustre; and Dante turned his to the
ground. A boat then rushed to shore which the angel had brought with
him, so light that it drew not a drop of water. The celestial pilot
stood at the helm, with bliss written in his face; and a hundred spirits
were seen within the boat, who, lifting up their voices, sang the psalm
beginning "When Israel came out of Egypt." At the close of the psalm,
the angel blessed them with the sign of the cross, and they all leaped
to shore; upon which he turned round, and departed as swiftly as he
came.
The new-comers, after gazing about them for a while, in the manner of
those who are astonished to see new sights, inquired of Virgil and his
companion the best way to the mountain. Virgil explained who they were;
and the spirits, pale with astonishment at beholding in Dante a living
and breathing man, crowded about him, in spite of their anxiety to
shorten the period of their trials. One of them came darting out of the
press to embrace him, in a manner so affectionate as to move the poet to
return his warmth; but his arms again and again found themselves crossed
on his own bosom, having encircled nothing. The shadow, smiling at the
astonishment in the other's face, drew back; and Dante hastened as much
forward to shew his zeal in the greeting, when the spirit in a sweet
voice recommended him to desist. The Florentine then knew who it
was,--Casella, a musician, to whom he had been much attached. After
mutual explanations as to their meeting, Dante requested his friend, if
no ordinance opposed it, to refresh his spirit awhile with one of the
tender airs that used to charm away all his troubles on earth. Casella
immediately began one of his friend's own productions, commencing with
the words,
"Love, that delights to talk unto my soul Of all the wonders of my
lady's nature."
And he sang it so beautifully, that the sweetness rang within the poet's
heart while recording the circumstance. The other spirits listened with
such attention, that they seemed to have forgotten the very purpose
of their coming; when suddenly the voice of Cato was heard, sternly
rebuking their delay; and the whole party speeded in trepidation towards
the mountain.[6]
The two pilgrims, who had at first hastened with the others, in a little
while slackened their steps; and Dante found that his body projected a
shadow, while the form of Virgil had none. When arrived at the foot of
the mountain, they were joined by a second party of spirits, of whom
Virgil inquired the way up it. One of the spirits, of a noble aspect,
but with a gaping wound in his forehead, stepped forth, and asked Dante
if he remembered him. The poet humbly answering in the negative, the
stranger disclosed a second wound, that was in his bosom; and then, with
a smile, announced himself as Manfredi, king of Naples, who was slain in
battle against Charles of Anjou, and died excommunicated. Manfredi gave
Dante a message to his daughter Costanza, queen of Arragon, begging her
to shorten the consequences of the excommunication by her prayers;
since he, like the rest of the party with him, though repenting of his
contumacy against the church, would have to wander on the outskirts of
Purgatory three times as long as the presumption had lasted, unless
relieved by such petitions from the living.[7]
Dante went on, with his thoughts so full of this request, that he did
not perceive he had arrived at the path which Virgil asked for, till the
wandering spirits called out to them to say so. The pilgrims then, with
great difficulty, began to ascend through an extremely narrow passage;
and Virgil, after explaining to Dante how it was that in this antipodal
region his eastward face beheld the sun in the north instead of the
south, was encouraging him to proceed manfully in the hope of finding
the path easier by degrees, and of reposing at the end of it, when they
heard a voice observing, that they would most likely find it expedient
to repose a little sooner. The pilgrims looked about them, and observed
close at hand a crag of a rock, in the shade of which some spirits were
standing, as men stand idly at noon. Another was sitting down, as if
tired out, with his arms about his knees, and his face bent down between
them.[8]
"Dearest master!" exclaimed Dante to his guide, "what thinkest thou of a
croucher like this, for manful journeying? Verily he seems to have been
twin-born with Idleness herself."
The croucher, lifting up his eyes at these words, looked hard at Dante,
and said, "Since thou art so stout, push on."
Dante then saw it was Belacqua, a pleasant acquaintance of his, famous
for his indolence.
"That was a good lesson," said Belacqua, "that was given thee just now
in astronomy."