READ AT THE TWENTIETH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE DANTE SOCIETY ON JUNE 13,
1900.
To discourse of Dante, concerning whom, ever since Boccaccio lectured on
the _Divina Commedia_ in the _Duomo_ of Florence, more than five hundred
years ago, there has been an unbroken procession of loving commentators,
must always be a difficult undertaking; and the difficulty is increased
when the audience addressed, as I believe is the case this evening, is
composed, for the most part, of serious students of the austere
Florentine. The only claim I can have on your attention is that I am, in
that respect at least, in a more or less degree, one of yourselves. It is
now close on forty years since, in Rome, as Rome then was, one repaired,
day after day, to the Baths of Caracalla--not, as now, denuded of the
sylvan growth of successive centuries, but cloaked, from shattered base to
ruined summit, in tangled greenery--and in the silent sunshine of an
Imperial Past surrendered oneself to
quella fonte
Che spande di parlar si largo fiume,
that unfailing stream of spacious speech which Dante, you remember,
ascribes to Virgil, which Dante equally shares with him, and to each
alike of whom one can sincerely say:
Vagliami il lungo studio e il grande amore,
Che m'han fatto cercar lo tuo volume.
But love and study of Dante will not of themselves suffice to make
discourse concerning him interesting or adequate; and I am deeply
impressed with the disadvantages under which I labour this evening. But my
task has been made even exceptionally perilous, since it has been preceded
by the entrancing influence of music, and music that borrowed an added
charm from the melodious words of the poet himself. May it not be with you
as it was with him when the musician Casella--"Casella mio"--acceded to
his request in the Purgatorial Realm, and sang to him, he says,
si dolcemente,
Che la dolcezza ancor dentro mi suona--
sang to him so sweetly that the sweetness of it still sounded in his ears;
words that strangely recall the couplet in Wordsworth, though I scarcely
think Wordsworth was a Dante scholar:
The music in my heart I bore
Long after it was heard no more.
Many of you remember, I am sure, the entire passage in the second canto of
the _Purgatorio_. But, since there may be some who have forgotten it--and
the best passages in the _Divina Commedia_ can never be recalled too
often--and since, moreover, it will serve as a fitting introduction to the
theme on which I propose for a brief while to descant this evening, let me
recall it to your remembrance. Companioned by Virgil, and newly arrived
on the shores of Purgatory, Dante perceives a barque approaching, so swift
and light that it causes no ripple on the water, driven and steered only
by the wings of an Angel of the Lord, and carrying a hundred disembodied
spirits, singing "_In exitu Israel de AEgypto_." As they disembark, one of
them recognises Dante, and stretches out his arms to embrace the Poet. The
passage is too beautiful to be shorn of its loveliness either by
curtailment or by mere translation:
Io vidi uno di lor trarresi avante
Per abbracciarmi con si grande affetto,
Che mosse me a far lo somigliante.
O ombre vane, fuor che nell' aspetto!
Tre volte dietro a lei le mani avvinsi,
E tante mi tornai con esse al petto.
Among them was there one who forward pressed,
So keen to fold me to his heart, that I
Instinctively was moved to do the like.
O shades intangible, save in your seeming!
Toward him did I thrice outstretch my arms,
And thrice they fell back empty to my side.[2]
Words that will recall to many of you the lines in the second book of the
_AEneid_, where AEneas describes to Dido how the phantom of his perished
wife appeared to him as he was seeking for her through the flames and
smoke of Troy, and how in vain he strove to fold her in one farewell
embrace.
Ter conatus ibi collo dare bracchia circum,
Ter frustra comprensa manus effugit imago.
Similarly, the incorporeal figure in the _Divine Comedy_ bids Dante desist
from the attempt to embrace him, since it is useless; and then Dante
discerns it is that of Casella, who used oftentimes in Florence to sing
to him, and now assures the poet that, as he loved him upon earth, so here
he loves him still. Encouraged by the tender words, Dante calls him
"Casella mio," and addresses to him the following request:
Se nuova legge non ti toglie
Memoria o uso all' amoroso canto,
Che mi solea quetar tutte mie voglie,
Di cio ti piaccia consolare alquanto
L'anima mia, che con la sua persona
Venendo qui, e affannata tanto.
If by new dispensation not deprived
Of the remembrance of beloved song
Wherewith you used to soothe my restlessness,
I pray you now a little while assuage
My spirit, which, since burdened with the body
In journeying here, is wearied utterly.
Quickly comes the melodious response:
"Amor che nella mente mi ragiona,"
Comincio egli allor si dolcemente,
Che la dolcezza ancor dentro mi suona.
Lo mio Maestro, ed io, e quella gente
Ch'eran con lui, parevan si contenti,
Com'a nessun toccasse altro la mente.
"Love that holds high discourse within mind,"
With such sweet tenderness he thus began
That still the sweetness lingers in my ear.
Virgil, and I, and that uncarnal group
That with him were, so captivated seemed,
That in our hearts was room for naught beside.
Not so, however, the guide of the spirits newly arrived in Purgatory.
Seeing them "_fissi ed attenti alle sue note_," enthralled by Casella's
singing, he begins to rate them soundly as "_spiriti lenti_," lazy,
loitering spirits, asks them what they mean by thus halting on the way,
and bids them hasten to the spot where they will be gradually purged of
their earthly offences, and be admitted to the face of God. The canto
closes with the following exquisite lines:
Come quando, cogliendo biada o loglio,
Gli colombi adunati alla pastura,
Queti, senza mostrar l'usato orgoglio,
Se cosa appare ond' elli abbian paura,
Subitamente lasciano star l'esca,
Perche assaliti son da maggior cura;
Cosi vid'io quella masnada fresca
Lasciar il canto, e fuggir ver la costa,
Com'uom che va, ne sa dove riesca.
As when a flight of doves, in quest of food,
Have settled on a field of wheat or tares,
And there still feed in silent quietude,
If by some apparition that they dread
A sudden scared, forthway desert the meal,
Since by more strong anxiety assailed,
So saw I that new-landed company
Forsake the song and seek the mountain side,
Like one who flees, but flies he knows not whither.
Now, if we consider this episode in its integrity, do we not find
ourselves, from first to last, essentially in the region of the Ideal?
Whether you believe in the existence of a local habitation named
Purgatory, or you do not, none of us, not even Dante himself, has seen it,
save with the mind's eye. It was said of his austere countenance by his
contemporaries that it was the face of the man who had seen Hell. But the
phrase, after all, was figurative, and not even the divine poet had, with
the bodily vision, seen what Virgil, in one of the most pathetic of his
lines, calls the further ashore. Moreover, for awhile, and in what may be
termed the exordium of the episode, Dante surrenders himself wholly to
this Ideal, and treats it idealistically. First he discerns only two
wings of pure white light, which, when he has grown more accustomed to
their brightness, he perceives to be the Angel of the Lord, the steersman
of the purgatorial bark:
Vedi che sdegna gli argomenti umani,
Si che remo non vuol, ne altro velo
Che l'ale sue, tra liti si lontani
* * * * *