Di suo dover, come il più basso face
Qual timon gira per venire a porto.”[300]
[300]
“To duty there
Each one convoying, as that lower doth
The steersman to his port.”
_Purg._ xxx. 4-6. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like the seven stars, also, the heavenly Septentrion is said
figuratively to know neither setting nor rising, but unlike them it
knows no cloud except of sin.[301] Because it is spoken of as guiding
mariners, some commentators have taken the above to refer rather to
Septentrio Minor (Ursa Minor), which also has seven chief stars, and
is a better guide because nearer the Pole, as Thales taught; but the
comparatively faint stars of the Little Bear would not be so apt a
comparison with the celestial lights.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[301] _Purg._ xxx. 1-3.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By the name of the Bears, both Ursa Major and Minor are referred to as
guides at sea in _Par._ ii. 9. In the strange new seas on which Dante
warns his readers he is about to enter, Minerva will blow a favouring
wind, Apollo will steer the barque, and the nine Muses will guide his
course by the Bears. They are also spoken of together in _Purg._ iv.
65, to indicate the northern part of the sky.
A fifth name for Ursa Major is derived from the fable (known to Dante
probably from Ovid’s _Metamorphoses_) of the nymph Helice, who was
turned into a she-bear by Juno, and was hunted by her own son, Orcas.
Jupiter transformed them into Ursa Major and Boötes.
“Se i barbari, venendo di tal plaga
Che ciascun giorno d’Elice si copra,
Rotante col suo figlio ond’ ell’ è vaga,
Vedendo Rome e l’ ardua sua opra,
Stupefaciensi....”[302]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[302]
“If the barbarians coming from some region
That every day by Helice is covered,
Revolving with her son whom she delights in,
Beholding Rome and all her noble works
Were wonder-struck....”
_Par._ xxxi. 31-35. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Here we have the same idea as of the Wain wheeling round but never
setting, with the addition of a neighbouring constellation describing a
circle in the same time.
The Barbarians who lived in a region always dominated by Ursa Major,
and came to marvel at the mighty buildings of ancient Rome, are
probably the races of northern Europe in general; and this reminds
us again of the lines of Boëthius quoted above, for it is among the
peoples ruled by Rome that he mentions “quos premunt septem gelidi
triones.”[303] If, however, Dante meant a country where the seven stars
pass exactly overhead, the barbarians must have inhabited Scotland, or
southern Scandinavia, or central Russia. If he means that Boötes also
remained always above the horizon, they must have come from within the
Arctic Circle, but this is not likely.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[303] “Those under the sway of the seven cold oxen.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 42. Ursa Minor as a Horn. _Par._ xiii. 10.]
In one of the passages just quoted other constellations and stars are
mentioned together with Ursa Major. In _Par._ xii. Dante has compared
the two circles of spirits which surround Beatrice and himself to a
double rainbow, and to two garlands of immortal roses. In the next
canto he finds a new simile: in imagination he takes some of the
brightest and most familiar stars from our sky, and makes of them two
new constellations in the form of two crowns. The stars are these:
fifteen from different parts of the sky, which are so brilliant that
they shine through air dense enough to quench lesser orbs; the Wain,
which never sets in our sky; and the mouth of the horn whose tip is
the axis on which the Primum Mobile revolves. That is to say, as we
have before remarked, Dante takes the fifteen first-magnitude stars and
the stars instanced by Alfraganus as of second magnitude. Ursa Minor
is aptly compared to a horn, the wide mouth of which is formed by its
two bright stars Beta and Gamma,[304] while the narrow end is Alpha,
the Pole Star. These twenty-four bright stars we must then imagine to
group themselves into two constellations like that into which Ariadne,
the daughter of Minos, was changed when she died; this is Corona
Borealis or the Northern Crown, otherwise called Ariadne’s Crown,
which suggests a circle, though it is not a perfect one. Dante uses the
word “segni” for any constellations, a custom we find in Ristoro also,
although the modern usage is to restrict “signs” to mean only divisions
of the zodiac.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[304] I do not know whether this comparison originated with Dante, but
it was well known to Spanish sailors two centuries later. In the _Arte
of Navigation_ which was “Englished out of the Spanyshe,” by Richard
Eden in 1561, Beta and Gamma of Ursa Minor are referred to as “two
starres called the Guardians, or the mouth of the horne.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The star-like spirits, thus grouped into a surpassingly brilliant
double constellation, begin to sing their ineffable heavenly song, and
to circle round the centre where Dante stands, in a marvellous dance,
whose swiftness, when compared with anything known on earth, is as the
movement of that swift heaven which carries with it all the rest, when
compared with the flowing of the sluggish river Chiana.[305]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[305] _Par._ xiii. 1-28.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This passage helps us to understand expressions which often strike
one as very strange, describing the circling movements of the spirits
in Paradise. For the likeness to stars is clear throughout. Their
brightness is an expression of their happiness,[306] and increases in
each succeeding heaven. Only in the lowest can Dante see the forms and
features of Piccarda and the other blessed spirits; in the next they
clothe themselves in light, and although at first the radiant eyes of
Justinian are seen, the first words addressed to him cause him to shine
more brilliantly than before, and as the sun conceals himself by his
own light, so the spirit conceals himself by the splendour which grows
with his joy.[307] In the third heaven the spirits shine in the star
of Venus like sparks seen in flame;[308] in the fourth they are called
suns, and surpass the sun in brilliancy;[309] in the fifth they are
compared with the Galaxy[310] and with shooting stars,[311] in the
seventh and eighth with stars[312] and with spheres of light, turning
on fixed poles and flaming like comets.[313]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[306] _Par._ viii. 52, 53.
[307] _Par._ v. 136, 137.
[308] _Par._ viii. 16.
[309] _Par._ x. 76, 40-42.
[310] _Par._ xiv. 97-101.
[311] _Par._ xv. 13, 14.
[312] _Par._ xxi. 32, 33; xxiii. 26, 27.
[313] _Par._ xxii 23; xxiv. 11, 12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In like manner the swiftness of their motion increases in proportion
to the clearness with which each beholds eternal truth.[314] The
almost incredible speed with which Dante himself soars from sphere to
sphere, and with which the spirits move—whether in coming towards him,
impelled by Divine charity, in returning to the heaven of heavens,
or in circling with one another in mystic dance—is frequently dwelt
upon, and illustrated by many striking similes. The dance is always a
circling or wheeling movement (“il giro,” “la rota,” _Par._ viii. 20
and 26; ix. 65). And besides this, individual spirits turn with a rapid
motion, remaining on the same spot. Descending the celestial Ladder in
the heaven of Saturn, step by step, they revolve:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[314] _Par._ viii. 20, 21; and xxviii. 100-102.
“Vid’ io più fiamelle
Di grado in grado scendere e girarsi,
Ed ogni giro le facea più belle.”[315]
[315]
“Saw I many little flames
From step to step descending and revolving,
And every revolution made them fairer.”
_Par._ xxi. 136-138. (_Longfellow_).
Compare 80, 81 and 39; and _Par._ xxiv. 10, 11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now these two things, their light and their movements, were all the
facts concerning the stars which mediæval astronomers could observe;
and the movements were thought to be in circles and inconceivably
rapid. Motion in circles, and especially the movement of rotation
on an axis, remaining in the same place, had been said by Aristotle
to be the most noble form of motion, and the fittest for celestial
bodies. Therefore, when Dante represents the redeemed and the angels
as expressing their bliss by radiance and marvellously rapid motion
in circles, he makes them resemble the heavenly spheres and stars
among which they manifest themselves to him. The motions are directly
compared with those of stars in the passage already quoted:—
“Poi, sì cantando, quegli ardenti soli
Si fur girati intorno a noi tre volte,
Come stelle vicine ai fermi poli.”[316]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[316]
“As soon as singing thus those burning Suns
Had round about us whirled themselves three times,
Like unto stars neighbouring the steadfast poles.”
_Par._ x. 76-78. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Remembering this significance of circular motion we shall feel a little
less strange the similes of a mill and a top applied to the spirits of
Paradise.[317]
A third way in which the spirits express their joy is by the sweetness
of their song,[318] and here also they resemble the heavenly bodies,
which make sweet music as they circle. This doctrine of Pythagoras was
very popular throughout the Middle Ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[317] _Par._ xxi. 80, 81; xii. 3; xviii. 41, 42.
[318] _Par._ xxiv. 22-24, x. 73, and many others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. THE GALAXY.
The Galaxy or Milky Way is twice referred to in the _Divine Comedy_. In
_Inf._ xvii. 106-108, it is in connection with the myth of Phaeton, who
being allowed by his father Jove to drive the chariot of the sun for
one day, lost control of his chargers, and going all astray, burned the
sky in a part which still shows signs of this catastrophe, _i.e._ the
Milky Way.
“Quando Fetòn abbandonò li freni,
Per che il ciel, come pare ancor, si cosse.”[319]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[319]
“What time abandoned Phaëton the reins,
Whereby the heavens, as still appears, were scorched.”
_Inf._ xvii. 107-108. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This of course is only a poetical myth. But in the _Paradiso_, in three
lines the appearance, colour, and approximate position of the Galaxy
are described, and allusion is made to the difference of opinions
between learned men with regard to the puzzling question of its
nature. Dante is in the heaven of Mars. He sees the soldier saints,
star-like and fiery red, some larger and some less, thronging thick
in two great bands, which, crossing one another in the depths of the
planet, form a marvellous Crucifix. The crowded lights make him think
of the Galaxy, with its multitudinous points of light, differing in
brightness, although that is white, and lies in a great circle between
the celestial poles.
“Come, distinta da minori e maggi
Lumi, biancheggia tra i poli del mondo
Galassia sì che fa dubbiar ben saggi,
Sì costellati facean nel profondo
Marte quei rai il venerabil segno
Che fan giunture di quadranti in tondo.”[320]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[320]
“Even as, distinct with less and greater lights,
Glimmers between the two poles of the world
The Galaxy that maketh wise men doubt,
Thus constellated in the depths of Mars
Those rays described the venerable sign
That quadrants joining in a circle make.”
_Par._ xiv. 97-102. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If we now turn to the fifteenth chapter of Treatise II. of the
_Convivio_, we shall find the Phaeton myth and the various theories
about the Milky Way set forth in due order, and shall learn which of
these Dante considered to be true.
He is comparing the two sciences of Metaphysics and Physics with the
Heaven of the Fixed Stars, and takes the opportunity to tell us some
of the most important facts known about it. Here he calls the Galaxy
a circle:—“La Galassia, cioè quello bianco cerchio che il vulgo
chiama la Via de Santo Jacopo.”[321] This popular name perhaps arose
through a confusion of Galaxy and Galicia, where was a famous shrine
of St. James, and hence came the belief in Italy that the _Galassia_
was a sign by night to guide pilgrims on their way to this shrine at
Compostella in _Galizia_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[321] “The Galaxy, that is, the white circle commonly called St.
James’s Way.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante proceeds as follows with his comparison:—
“E per la Galassia, ha questo cielo grande
similitudine colla Metafisica. Perchè è da sapere
che di quella Galassia li filosofi hanno avuto
diverse opinioni. Chè li Pittagorici dissero che ’l
sole alcuna fiata errò nella sua via, e, passando
per altre parti non convenienti al suo fervore,
arse il luogo, per lo quale passò; e rimasevi
quell’ apparenza dell’ arsura. E credo che
si mossero dalla favola di Fetonte, la quale
narra Ovidio nel principio del secondo di
_Metamorfoseos_. Altri dissero (siccome fu
Anassagora e Democrito) che ciò era lume del sole
ripercosso in quella parte. E queste opinioni
con ragioni dimostrative riprovarono. Quello che
Aristotile si dicesse di ciò, non si può bene
sapere, perchè la sua sentenza non si trova cotale
nell’ una traslazione come nell’ altra. E credo
che fosse l’errore de’ traslatori; che nella
Nuova par dicere che ciò sia uno raunamento di
vapori sotto le stelle di quelle parte, che sempre
traggono quelli; e questa non pare avere ragione
vera. Nella Vecchia dice, che la Galassia non è
altro che multitudine di stelle fisse in quella
parte, tanto picciole che distinguere di quaggiù
non le potemo, ma di loro apparisce quello albore
il quale noi chiamiamo Galassia. [E puote essere
che il cielo in quella parte è più spesso, e
però ritiene e ripresenta quello lume] e questa
opinione pare avere, con Aristotile, Avicenna e
Tolommeo. Onde conciossiacosachè la Galassia sia
uno effetto di quelle stelle le quali non potemo
vedere, se non per lo effetto loro intendiamo
quelle cose, e la Metafisica tratta delle prime
sustanze, le quali noi non potemo simigliantemente
intendere se non per li loro effetti; manifesto è
che ’l cielo stellato ha grande similitudine colla
Metafisica.”[322]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[322]
“And in the Galaxy this heaven has a close
resemblance to Metaphysics. Wherefore it must be
known that the Philosophers have had different
opinions about this Galaxy. For the Pythagoreans
affirmed that the sun at one time wandered in its
course, and in passing through other regions not
suited to sustain its heat, set on fire the place
through which it passed; and so these traces of the
conflagration remain there. And I believe that they
were influenced by the fable of Phaëton, which Ovid
tells at the beginning of the second book of the
_Metamorphoses_. Others (as for instance Anaxagoras
and Democritus) said that the Galaxy was the light
of the sun reflected in that region. And these
opinions they confirmed by demonstrative reasons.
What Aristotle may have said about it cannot be
accurately known, because the two translations give
different accounts of his opinion. And I think that
any mistake may have been due to the translators,
for in the _New Translation_ he is made to say
that the Galaxy is a congregation, under the stars
of this part of the heaven, of the vapours which
are always being attracted by them; and this
opinion does not appear to be right. In the _Old
Translation_ he says that the Galaxy is nothing but
a multitude of fixed stars in that region, stars
so small that they are not separately visible from
our earth, but the appearance of whiteness which
we call the Galaxy is due to them. [And it may be
that the heaven in that part is more dense, and
therefore retains and reproduces that light] and
this opinion Avicenna and Ptolemy appear to share
with Aristotle. Therefore, since the Galaxy is an
effect of those stars which cannot be perceived
except so far as we apprehend these things by
their effect, and since Metaphysics treats of
primal substances which in the same way we cannot
apprehend except by their effects, it is plain that
there is a close resemblance between the starry
heaven and Metaphysics.”
_Conv._ II. xv. 44-86. (_Jackson_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This characteristic passage is interesting for several reasons. It
illustrates the mediæval fondness for allegory, the reluctance to
believe that Aristotle could ever be wrong, and the interest in ancient
Greek speculations, in all of which Dante expresses the feelings of his
age: and it brings vividly before us the methods and the difficulties
of mediæval authors. For Dante is repeating from Albertus Magnus
all these ancient speculations: the officious copyist who altered
Aristotle’s words, the fact that Aristotle could only be read in
Latin, and the variety of translations, were all everyday obstacles
to study; and Dante’s own book has suffered from one of them in this
very passage. The words placed between brackets are evidently an
interpolation (as Mr. Wicksteed observes in the “Temple” _Convivio_):
without them the passage goes on smoothly and logically to its end.
On the assumption that the Galaxy is composed of a multitude of small
stars, but not that the sky is denser in that part, the parallel with
Metaphysics holds good.
Dante therefore held the true opinion about the Milky Way, but he was
mistaken in thinking that he had the support of Aristotle. It was the
“New Translation” (made by Aquinas from the Greek) which gave his
opinion correctly; in the “Old” (made by Michael Scot from the Arabic)
his statement had been apparently changed without comment into one
which seems to Dante—and also to us—to represent the truth about the
Galaxy.
5. THE PLANETS.
All the planets which were known before the days of the telescope are
mentioned by Dante several times. Each has its peculiar beauty, but “la
lucentissima stella di Venere”[323] is brighter and more beautiful than
any other. He speaks of “la chiarezza del suo aspetto, ch ’è soavissima
a vedere più che altra stella.”[324]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[323] “That most brilliant star, Venus.” _Conv._ II. iv. 88.
[324] “The brightness of her appearance, which is more lovely to behold
than that of any other star.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 112, 113.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
No reader of the _Purgatorio_ can ever forget that matchless morning on
which Dante, escaping at last from the murky gloom of the _Inferno_,
sees the sky once more, pure blue even to its furthest limits, and the
planet of love shining in the east.
“Dolce color d’oriental zaffiro,
Che s’accoglieva nel sereno aspetto
Dell’ aer, puro infino al primo giro,
Agli occhi miei ricominciò diletto,
Tosto ch’ i’ uscii fuor dell’ aura morta,
Che m’avea contristati gli occhi e il petto,
Lo bel pianeta che ad amar conforta
Faceva rider tutto l’oriente,
Velando i Pesci ch’erano in sua scorta.”[325]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[325]
“Sweet colour of oriental sapphire,
Which was gathering in the serene aspect
Of the sky, pure even to the first circle,
To my eyes restored delight,
So soon as I had come forth from that dead air,
Which had troubled eyes and breast.
The fair planet that inspires love
Was making all the orient smile,
Veiling the Fishes which were in her train.”
Alternative rendering of the first three lines:—
“Sweet colour of oriental sapphire,
Which was diffused over the tranquil scene,
From mid-heaven even to the first circle.”
_Purg._ i. 13-21.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Strange to say, the beginning of the above beautiful passage which
conveys so direct and vivid an impression of blue sky and pure air,
presents some difficulties when one comes to translate it word by
word, especially as the texts offer more than one reading. By some
commentators the “primo giro”[326] has been understood to mean the
sphere of the moon,[327] or even the highest sphere (the Primum
Mobile); but this is certainly inadmissible, as Dante supposed the
atmosphere to reach only as far as the sphere of Fire, which came
between it and the moon. The prime circle is here evidently the
horizon, the fundamental circle of observers, the First Circle of the
astrologers, from which they reckoned all the rest. It is here that the
sky usually becomes pale and misty, however blue and clear it may be
above. The colour was gathering and deepening,[328] especially in the
east, where Dante was looking, as dawn began to appear in a perfectly
cloudless sky; for during the darkness of the night it would have
appeared almost black.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[326] First, or prime, circle.
[327] _Conv._, II. iv. 1-3.
[328] Literally, “was assembling,” or “was being collected.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Moore thinks the authority better for a different reading, viz.
“Dal mezzo”[329] instead of “Dell’ aer.”[330] In this case, we must
take “mezzo puro” to mean mid-heaven, that is the zenith, “puro” being
used as a noun, and meaning a cloudless sky (like “sereno” in _Purg._
v. 38); and “il sereno aspetto” must mean “the quiet scene.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[329] “From the middle.”
[330] “Of the air.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Venus appears again in the _Purgatorio_, shining upon the Mountain from
the east before sunrise; and this time she is called Cytherea, after
the island near which she was fabled to have risen from the sea, and in
which she received a special worship.
“Dell’ oriente ... raggiò nel monte Citerea,
Che di foco d’amor par sempre ardente.”[331]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[331] “From the east there shone upon the Mountain Cytherea, who in the
flame of love seems to be always burning.” _Purg._ xxvii. 94-96.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The position of Venus in her course through the zodiac is indicated
in the previous passage by the expression “velando i Pesci.”[332] The
oscillating motion, by which she appears first on the morning and then
on the evening side of the sun is referred to several times. In prose
Dante speaks of her two apparitions, the morning and the evening: “la
sua apparenza, or da mane, or da sera;”[333] in poetry, he describes
her as wooing the sun, first following and then facing him:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[332] “Veiling the Fishes” (the zodiacal constellation).
[333] “Her appearance, now in the morning, and now in the evening.”
_Conv._ II. xiv. 114, 115.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“la stella
Che il sol vagheggia or da coppa or da ciglio.”[334]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[334]
“The star
That woos the sun, now following, now in front.”
_Par._ viii. 11-12. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mercury and Venus (called rather oddly after their mothers), are said
both to move closely round the sun:—
... “vidi com’ si move
Circa e vicino a lui Maia e Dione.”[335]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[335]
“I saw how move themselves,
Around and near him, Maia and Dione.”
_Par._ xxii. 143-144.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Quel bel pianeta di Mercuro”[336] keeps closest, for he is more
hidden than any other in the rays of the sun. Here again the fact is
expressed in simple prose in the _Convivio_:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[336]
“That fair planet, Mercury.”
_Son._ xxviii. 9.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Mercurio ... più va velata de’ raggi del sole che
null’ altra stella.”[337]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[337] “Mercury ... as it moves is more veiled by the rays of the sun
than any other star.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 99-100.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
which explains (if necessary) the more poetical language of the
_Paradiso_:—
“La spera,
Che si vela ai mortal con altrui raggi.”[338]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[338]
... “The sphere
That veils itself from men in alien rays.”
_Par._ v. 128, 129.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the same way we may compare the descriptions of Mars in the
_Paradiso_ with a statement in the _Convivio_:—
“Questo fuoco,”[339] and “l’affocato riso della
stella,”[340] and “Marte rosseggia,”[341] with
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[339] “This Fire.” _Par._ xvi. 38.
[340] “The burning smile of the star.” _Par._ xiv. 86.
[341] “Mars shows red.” _Purg._ ii. 14.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Esso Marte ... il suo calore è simile a quello del
fuoco; ... esso appare affocato di colore.”[342]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[342]
“This Mars ... his heat is like the heat of a fire ...
his colour is as if he were on fire.”
_Conv._ II. xiv. 162-165.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The famous occultation of Mars by the moon, seen by Aristotle, is
quoted by Dante in _Conv._ II. iii. 59-65.
Jupiter is the “dolce stella”[343] and the “giovial facella.”[344] He
is silvery white, the whitest of all the stars:—“Intra tutte le stelle
bianca si mostra, quasi argentata.”[345]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[343] “Sweet star.” _Par._ xviii. 115.
[344] “The torch of Jove.” _Par._ xviii. 70.
[345] “Amongst all the stars it shows white, as if silvered over.”
_Conv._ II. xiv. 202-204.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Therefore when Dante saw the planet filled with brilliant spirits,
he says: “Giove pareva argento lì d’ oro distinto.”[346] Comparisons
between the colours of Jupiter and Mars are made in _Par._ xviii.
64-69, and xxvii. 13-15.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[346]
“Jupiter
Seemed to be silver there with gold inlaid.”
_Par._ xviii. 95-96. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finally Saturn is the slowest and the most distant of all the planets.
These two characteristics are thus described in the _Convivio_:—
“L’una si è la tardezza del suo movimento per li
dodici segni; chè ventinove anni e più, secondo le
scritture degli astrologi, vuole di tempo lo suo
cerchio: l’altra si è che esso è alto sopra tutti
gli altri pianeti.”[347]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[347] “One is the slowness of its movement through the twelve signs;
for twenty-nine years and more, according to the writings of the
astrologers, are required for its revolution: the other is that it is
high above all other planets.” _Conv._ II. xiv. 226-231.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the _Paradiso_ Saturn is called a Mirror,[348] a Crystal,[349] a
splendour;[350] his circling motion is alluded to, and his position at
the time in the zodiac:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[348] _Par._ xxi. 18.
[349] _Par._ xxi. 25.
[350] _Par._ xxi. 13.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“Cerchiando il mondo.”[351]
“Sotto il petto del Leone ardente.”[352]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[351] “Circling the world.” _Par._ xxi. 26.
[352] “Beneath the burning Lion’s breast.” _Par._ xxi. 14.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some of the most beautiful similes in the _Divine Comedy_ are drawn
from the planets. The angel-pilot of Purgatory, when first seen far
off over the sea, is likened to the planet Mars, glowing red through
morning mists, low in the west above the ocean floor;[353] and the
angel that welcomes the poet to the second circle on the Mountain is
beautiful as the Morning Star.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[353] _Purg._ ii. 13-15.
“A noi venia la creatura bella,
Bianco vestita, e nella faccia quale
Par tremolando mattutina stella.”[354]
[354]
“Towards us came the being beautiful,
Vested in white, and in his countenance
Such as appears the tremulous morning star.”
_Purg._ xii. 88-90. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although any of the planets when rising just before the sun may be
called a morning star, Venus is probably intended here, as also where
St. Bernard, in his devotion to the Virgin, is compared with the
Morning Star which takes its beauty from the sun:—
“Colui ch’abbelliva di Maria,
Come del sole stella mattutina.”[355]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[355] “He who drew beauty from Mary, as the Morning Star does from the
Sun.” _Par._ xxxii. 107, 108.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
All the seven planets (that is, including sun and moon), are
occasionally mentioned together, “tutti e sette,”[356] and their
movement in the ecliptic is referred to in _Par._ x, 14: “L’obbliquo
cerchio che i pianeti porta.”[357] In the 14th and 15th chapters of
the second treatise of the _Convivio_, already so often quoted, Dante
draws an elaborate comparison between the seven planets and the seven
sciences of the Trivium and Quadrivium. The moon is Grammar, Mercury
Dialectic, Venus Rhetoric, the Sun Arithmetic, Mars Music, Jupiter
Geometry, and Saturn Astrology. The reasons given for the latter are
the slow movement and the height (_i.e._ distance from Earth) of
Saturn, which Dante compares with the length of the time taken in
learning astronomy, and the loftiness of its subject.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[356] “All the seven.” _Son._ xxviii. 14, and _Par._ xxii. 148.
[357] “The oblique circle which carries the planets.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the same way the star sphere is said to resemble Physics and
Metaphysics, the Primum Mobile Ethics, and the Empyrean Theology. The
argument is very fanciful, but just what would appeal to readers of
Dante’s day, who loved to find allegories everywhere; and it gives him
an opportunity of instructing them very simply in his beloved science.
He sometimes uses the planetary periods as divisions of time (as Plato
said they should be used), for computing earthly events, and in him
this does not seem affectation, as it would with almost anyone else. It
seems quite natural that Cacciaguida, when speaking in the heaven of
Mars, and answering a question regarding the date of his birth, should
count the time not by solar but by Martian years, saying that from
the beginning of the Christian Era to the day of his birth, Mars had
returned to his Lion (the constellation of Leo) five hundred and eighty
times.[358] The length of the Martian year according to Alfraganus is
1 Persian year, 10 months, and 22 days nearly. The Persian year (as
he tells us in the first chapter of the _Elementa_) consists of 12
months of 30 days each plus 5 extra days, making 365 days exactly (not
365¼ days like the Roman), so the Martian year is 687 days (the modern
estimate is 686·9). 687 days × 580 gives us 1091 a.d. as the date of
Cacciaguida’s birth. This is consistent with the date of his death, for
he had just told Dante that he fell in the Crusade to which he followed
the Emperor Conrad, and we know that this was fought in the year 1147.
Some commentators think that Dante did not intend the Martian year
to be taken so precisely, but only as approximately two solar years,
since he gave it thus in _Conv._ II. xv. 145. But there he specially
states that he is quoting an approximate figure only (“uno anno
quasi”[359] is half the period of Mars) whereas in the _Paradiso_ it
is used to fix a date. Since by taking 580 × 2 years we get 1160, an
impossible date of birth for a man who died in 1147, the only way to
support this theory that Dante was speaking loosely here is to adopt
another reading of the passage, and substitute “tre” for “trenta.”[360]
Then 553 (instead of 580) × 2 years would give the date 1106; but the
reading is not supported by good authority.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[358] _Par._ xvi. 34-39.
[359] “About a year.”
[360] “Three,” for “thirty.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The period of Venus is used with equal appropriateness when Dante is
relating how love for the Gentil Donna found a way to his heart, coming
on the rays of Venus,[361] the star of love.
“La stella di Venere due fiate ere rivolta in
quello suo cerchio che la fa parere serotina e
mattutina, secondo i due diversi tempi, appresso
lo transpassamento di quella Beatrice beata, che
vive in cielo con gli angioli e in terra colla mia
anima, quando quella Gentil Donna, di cui feci
menzione nella fine della _Vita Nuova_, apparve
primamente accompagnata d’Amore agli occhi miei, e
prese alcuno luogo nella mia mente.”[362]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[361] _Conv._ II. vii. 88, 89.
[362] “The star of Venus had twice revolved in that circle of hers
which makes her appear as evening and morning star, according to her
two seasons, since the translation of that holy Beatrice who lives in
heaven with the angels and on earth in my soul, when that Gentle Lady,
of whom I made mention at the end of the ‘New Life,’ appeared first
before my eyes, escorted by Love, and took some place in my mind.”
_Conv._ II. ii. 1-12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Venus runs through her changes, appearing first as Evening and then
as Morning star, in 584 days; and, as the reader will remember,
this movement was ascribed by Ptolemy to her epicycle (“quello suo
cerchio,” “that circle of hers”). Dante would find 584 days given for
it in his Alfraganus.[363] Twice 584 is 1168 days, or three years and a
little more than 2 months. Therefore, since we know from _V. N._ xxx.
that Beatrice died in June 1290, Dante wishes to say that he first saw
the Lady of Pity in August 1293.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[363] “Venus [ambitum epicycli peragit] anno Persico 1, mensibus 7,
et diebus prope 9,” that is, the period of Venus on her epicycle is
365 + 210 + 9 = 584 days nearly, according to Alfraganus. The modern
mean value is also 584 days.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The period has been taken by some modern commentators to refer to the
225 days in which Venus revolves round the sun, but this period has no
place in the Ptolemaic system. We cannot here discuss Dante’s allegory
of the Gentle Lady and Philosophy, but in this passage he has stated
without ambiguity or uncertainty the date of her first appearance.[364]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[364] See Lubin’s _Dante e gli Astronomi Italiani_. The period of 225
days may be easily deduced from Ptolemy’s system, for it is the time in
which the epicycle of Venus would make an absolute revolution round its
centre, the diameter becoming parallel to its former position. But the
Greeks invariably reckoned the period as the time in which it revolved
relatively to Earth, that is 584 days.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
6. ECLIPSES.
We find solar eclipses mentioned six times in Dante’s works. As in all
old records, there is no allusion to the features which chiefly strike
modern astronomers—the pearly corona, and the blood-red prominences
standing out like flames round the black disc. The terror of the sudden
darkness, even when foreseen, seems to have absorbed all attention,
and only the appearance of stars in the daytime and the frightened
behaviour of animals was noted by Ristoro, and by others until quite
modern times.
In his letter to the Cardinals of Italy, Dante speaks of the shameful
and grievous removal of the Papacy from Rome to Avignon as an eclipse
of the sun.[365] In his dream of the death of Beatrice, he sees the sun
so darkened that the stars appear, to his great terror:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[365] _Ep._ viii. 158, 159.
“Poi mi parve vedere appoco appoco
Turbar lo Sole ed apparir la stella.”[366]
[366]
“The while, little by little, as I thought,
The sun ceased, and the stars began to gather.”
_V. N._ xxiii. 176, 177. (_Rossetti_).
See also the prose description just before, lines 35-37.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He also refers to the disputed idea that the darkness at the time of
the Crucifixion was caused by an eclipse of the sun,[367] and to the
figurative eclipse which then took place in heaven.[368]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[367] _Par._ xxix. 97-102.
[368] _Par._ xxvii. 35, 36.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If he had ever seen one in reality, it would have made more impression
upon him, and we should surely have found it referred to several times
and vividly described. The only suggestion of a personal experience is
where he temporarily loses the power of sight by gazing too fixedly
upon the spirit of St. John; and he compares this to a man who looks so
intently at the sun, just before an eclipse, that he becomes incapable
of seeing it at the critical moment.[369] This incident may have been
told him by an observer of the total eclipse of June 1239, which was
visible in Italy, and seems to be the one described by Ristoro.
Lastly, he mentions the discovery that the moon comes between us and
the sun, which we have learned from eclipses, as an example of the
proper method of reasoning: for we must first ask whether a thing is,
and afterwards why it is. Thus man’s wonder leads him to knowledge.[370]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[369] _Par._ xxv. 118-121.
[370] _Qu._ xx. 3-5, 26-29.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The eclipsed moon is only once mentioned, viz. in _De Mon._ III. iv.
140-142, where she is described as not wholly dark. With his usual
indifference to her Dante fails to note the often extraordinary beauty
of her colouring when the eclipse is total.
7. COMETS AND METEORS.
The connection between these two classes of heavenly bodies seems to be
real, though its exact nature is still a mystery. In old days little
or no distinction was drawn between them, so that it is sometimes
difficult to know whether a writer is describing a large meteor, or a
comet, or a shower of falling stars.
Dante only mentions comets once, very briefly, when he describes
spirits in Paradise as “fiammando forte a guisa di comete.”[371] He
says nothing of the magnificent comet described by Ristoro, which
rose at three o’clock in the morning, huge as a mountain, and with
great rays like a mane; but travelling always towards the south grew
gradually fainter, and disappeared after 60 days. Yet it was seen in
Tuscany shortly before Dante’s birth, and it was thought to herald the
death of the Pope (Urban IV. in 1264) and the terrible war in which
first Manfred and afterwards Conradin were slain. These events are
familiar to every reader of the _Divine Comedy_,[372] but there is
never any mention of the comet.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[371] “Blazing brilliantly like comets.” _Par._ xxiv. 12.
[372] _Inf._ xxviii. 16-17; _Purg._ iii. 112-132.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nor does he describe in any detail the fiery cross which was seen in
the sky above Florence “in the beginning of her destruction,” which
does not mean, as one might think, the legendary sack of the city
by Totila, but the treacherous entry of Charles of Valois, “Totila
secundus,”[373] in November 1301. This portent was of course considered
as of ill omen for the Republic, and although Dante was still absent
on his embassy to Rome, and cannot have seen it himself, it is rather
remarkable that he says so little about it. It is described by an
eye-witness, “Io, che chiaramente la viddi”[374] as a red cross which
appeared in the evening over the Priors’ Palace; the vertical arm
seemed to be 20 ells long, the transverse one a little shorter, and
it remained visible for as long as it would take a horse to gallop
two furlongs. Villani the historian describes it as like a comet with
an immense trail, as of smoke, behind it. Dante merely mentions it,
together with the ball of fire seen by Seneca at the death of Augustus,
which, judging by Seneca’s own words, was also a large meteor, for
he describes it as flashing into sight and moving very rapidly,
disappearing as it moved.[375]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[373] _V. E._ II. vi. 48.
[374] “I, who saw it clearly.”
[375] _Naturales Quæstiones_, Bk. I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante calls meteors “kindled vapours,”[376] in accordance with the
doctrines of Aristotle, but the popular idea of them is shown by his
observation that they might be taken for stars in motion, only that
no star vanishes from its place, and they are only seen for a short
time.[377] Ristoro d’Arezzo had already alluded to this fallacy:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[376] _Conv._ II. xiv. 168-171, and _Purg._ v. 37.
[377] _Par._ xv. 16-18.
“Alquanti non savi credono ch’elle sieno stelle,
che caggino del cielo e vengano meno.”[378]
[378] “Some ignorant people think that they are stars which fall from
heaven and vanish.” _Comp. del Mondo_, VII. v.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He gives the same reason as Dante for disbelieving this, and Seneca had
expressed it more forcibly, saying that if true there would be no more
stars in the sky, for some meteors are seen every night.
Albertus Magnus, who seems to have had a genius for mistaking his
authorities, quotes Alfraganus as stating that shooting stars are most
frequent in evening twilight, though nothing of the kind is said in the
_Elementa._ Dante perhaps accepted the statement, though it is by no
means necessarily implied in his “di prima notte:”[379] moreover there
is some authority for the alternative reading of “mezza notte.”[380]
Wherever the idea originated, its sole foundation must have been the
circumstance that more persons are awake in the early than in the late
hours of the night: the fact is that more meteorites are captured by
the morning side of the earth, which is turned in the direction towards
which she is moving in her orbit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[379] “Early in the night.”
[380] “Midnight.” _Purg._ v. 38.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Shooting stars were necessarily familiar to a lover of starry skies,
and Dante has given us an exquisite description of the suddenness with
which they startle quiet eyes, while their brilliancy and swiftness of
flight provides him with two beautiful similes.
In the first he compares them, and also flashes of summer lightning,
with messenger spirits in Purgatory hastening to bring their friends to
him:—
“Vapori accesi non vid’ io sì tosto
Di prima notte mai fender sereno,
Nè, sol calando, nuvole d’agosto,
Che color non tornasser suso in meno,
E giunti là, con gli altri a noi dier volta.”[381]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[381]
“Vapours enkindled saw I ne’er so swiftly
At early nightfall cleave the air serene,
Nor, at the set of sun, the clouds of August,
But upward they returned in briefer time,
And on arriving with the others, wheeled
Towards us.”
_Purg._ v. 37-41. (_Longfellow_).
(By “vapours that cleave the clouds of August,” flashes of lightning
without thunder are meant. Aristotle believed both these and meteorites
to be ignited vapours).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The second illustrates the brightness and beauty, as well as the
movement, of the star-like spirits in Mars:—
“Quale per li seren tranquilli e puri
Discorre ad ora ad or subito foco,
Movendo gli occhi che stavan sicuri,
E pare stella che tramuti loco,
Se non che dalla parte ond’ ei s’ accende
Nulla sen perde, ed esso dura poco ...”[382]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[382]
“As through the pure and tranquil evening air
There shoots from time to time a sudden fire,
Moving the eyes that steadfast were before,
And seems to be a star that changeth place,
Except that in the place where it is kindled
Nothing is missed, and this endureth little.”
_Par._ xv. 13-18. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. THE SUN’S PATH IN THE SKY SEEN FROM DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE EARTH.
We have now seen how familiar Dante was with the aspects of the skies
above his head. His writings show also that he had pictured clearly
to himself what they must be in other parts of the world—in regions
far east or west, in the southern hemisphere, at the equator, and at
either pole. Science could not tell him all that he would have liked to
know about the stars, so that although he can speak of regions where
Ursa Major passes overhead, and where it sinks out of sight below
the horizon, he has to fall back upon his imagination and invent new
constellations for the southern hemisphere.
But astronomy could tell him, and his habit of accurate thought,
as well as his imagination, helped him to grasp how the sun would
appear at any latitude on the earth, and what would be the results on
the length of day and night, and on the seasons. A very interesting
little disquisition on this subject is found in the _Convivio_, in
illustration of some lines in one of his Odes, which speak of the sun
circling the whole world. In order to understand this completely, Dante
says, we must know exactly in what way the sun circles the world. The
chief point to bear in mind while reading his description is that the
sun, besides the simple daily motion in a circle, has a constant slow
motion north or south, and therefore his path in the sky, as we see it
day after day, is really spiral.
The passage is much too long to quote in full, but if the reader will
follow me, taking his _Convivio_ and opening it at chapter v. of
Treatise III. and beginning at line 66, I will give a résumé which will
form a running commentary on the text, and an explanation of any points
which may not at once be clear.
We see the sky, says Dante, continually revolving round Earth as
centre; and it has two fixed poles of revolution—the northern, which is
visible to nearly all the land not covered by sea, and the southern,
which is hidden from nearly all of it. And the circle which is
equi-distant from these two poles [the celestial equator] is that part
of the sky in which we see the sun when he is in Aries and in Libra.
Now if a stone could be dropped from this pole of ours [the northern],
it would fall far away yonder in the ocean just where, if a man were
standing, he would always have the Pole Star exactly overhead. [“La
stella”[383] is the Pole Star, see p. 291]. And I believe (Dante says)
that from Rome to the north pole, in a direct line, is a distance
of about 2,700 miles. To fix our ideas, let us imagine that at this
spot there is a city called _Maria_, and let us imagine another city,
called _Lucia_, at the spot exactly opposite, where a stone would
fall if dropped from the other pole. And I believe that from Rome
southwards to this second place would be a distance of about 7500
miles. Thus the distance between the two cities, in whatever direction
the measuring cord be stretched, would be 10,200 miles, that is, half
the circumference of the globe,[384] and the inhabitants of _Maria_
would have their feet opposite the feet of those of _Lucia_. [If any
two spots on a sphere are exactly antipodal, but in no other case, the
distance may be measured in an infinity of directions, and always come
out the same.]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[383] “The star.”
[384] As this is the value given by Alfraganus, we must here understand
Arabian miles. The distances from Rome to the north and south pole are
therefore probably equal to 3500 to 9750 English miles, and both are a
little too large, because the half circumference of Earth is too large.
The proportion is about right, however, for Rome is nearly three times
as far from the south pole as the north, her latitude being 42° N.
Alfraganus placed her in the fifth climate, at the northern boundary of
which he said the pole was elevated 43½°.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lastly, let us imagine a circle on the globe, which will be at equal
distances everywhere from _Maria_ and _Lucia_ [the equator]. According
to the opinions of the astrologers, if I understand them aright,
and according to what is said by Albertus Magnus and by Lucan, this
circle would divide the dry land from the ocean there in the south,
approximately along the extremity of the First Climate, where amongst
others live the Garamantes, who go almost always naked, to whom Cato
went when fleeing from Cæsar.
“Approximately,” because the southern extremity of the First Climate,
according to Alfraganus, lay a little north of the equator, although
land extended, and was sparsely inhabited, as far the equator (see p.
186).
Dante speaks again of these extra-climatal races in _De Mon._ I. xiv.
43-51, where he contrasts the Scythians who live beyond the seventh
climate, and therefore endure extreme inequality of days and nights,
and suffer almost intolerable cold, with the Garamantes who live under
the equator, where days and nights are always equal, and the heat
is so intense that they can scarcely bear any clothing. Since “the
astrologers who determine the climates”[385] had fixed their northern
limit at 50½°, nearly the whole of Britain also lay, like barbarous
Scythia, in this scarcely habitable region of long nights and bitter
cold!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[385] _Qu._ xix. 36.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
When we have marked these three places on the globe, _i.e._ the two
poles and the equator, it is easy (Dante goes on) to see how the sun
circles. I say then, that the heaven of the sun turns from west to
east, not directly against the diurnal movement—that is, the movement
which produces day and night—but obliquely against it, and so that its
middle circle, which is similarly between its two poles, and on which
is the body of the sun [_i.e._ the ecliptic], cuts in two opposite
points the circle of the two first poles [the equator], that is, at the
beginning of Aries and the beginning of Libra; it diverges from that
circle in two arcs, one north and the other south. The highest points
of these arcs are equally distant from the first circle in either
direction, being 23 degrees and a little more; and the one summit is at
the beginning of Cancer, and the other at the beginning of Capricorn.
Therefore, when the sun is in the beginning of Aries, travelling in
the mid-circle of the first poles [the equator], _Maria_ will see this
sun circling the world, low down on the ground, or on the sea, like
a mill-stone only half of which is seen, and day after day he will
be seen to rise, like the screw of a press, until he has performed
about ninety revolutions, or a little more. When these revolutions are
accomplished, he will be as high in the sky above _Maria_ as he stands
in the sky of the Garamantes at middle-tierce at the time of equal days
and nights.[386]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[386] Adopting the reading of Dr. Moore: “nella mezza terra, alla mezza
terza,” that is, “at the equator at middle-tierce.” See _Studies in
Dante_ III. 107, 108.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[From _Conv._ IV. xxiii. and III. vi., where Dante explains the use
of temporal hours, we learn that mid-tierce on the day of the equinox
is an hour and a half after sunrise, or 7.30 A.M. Since the sun moves
through 360 degrees divided by 24, that is 15 degrees, in an hour,
and his motion is vertical in equatorial countries at the equinox,
it would bring him in 1½ hours to 22½ degrees above the horizon. His
greatest height above the horizon at the pole is only one degree more
than this, for it is obviously equal to the greatest distance between
the equator and the ecliptic, _i.e._ 23½ degrees, since at the pole the
equator coincides with the horizon. This gives a good idea, therefore,
of the appearance of the sun in the sky to the people at _Maria_, and
is a striking illustration of the difference between the polar sun and
the equatorial. For at the time mentioned, the sun has only a quarter
the height which it will attain at noon, when it will pass through the
zenith of the Garamantes; yet this is the highest position in which the
inhabitants of _Maria_ can ever see it].
If a man stood upright in _Maria_, and kept turning his face to the
sun, he would see it move to his right [as we do].
After reaching his greatest height in the sky, the sun would begin to
descend again, in the same spiral way like a screw turning, for another
ninety revolutions or so, until once more he was circling down on the
horizon, only half his body visible.
Then he would be lost to sight altogether, and would begin to be seen
in _Lucia_, where he would rise and descend in just the same way as in
_Maria_. But if a man faced the sun in _Lucia_, he would see it moving
to his left [as one does in Australia where it goes north at noon].
[Illustration: Fig. 43. The Sun at the Equinox, seen from the poles and
the equator. _Conv._ III. v.
(Maria, Lucia, imaginary cities at the North and South poles).]
We see, then, that these places have one day in the year which is six
months long, and one night of equal length, and when it is day with
one, it is night with the other.
Now on the circle on the globe where the Garamantes live [the equator],
the sun when in Aries goes exactly overhead, not circling horizontally
like a mill-stone, but vertically like a wheel, and exactly half of
this wheel is visible above the horizon.
After this, the sun is seen to depart and go towards _Maria_ for about
91 days; then in about the same time it returns, and enters Libra; then
it goes towards _Lucia_ for about 91 days, and in the same period
returns. And this place, which circles the entire globe, always has
equal day and night, on whichever side of it the sun is; and twice in
the year it has a very hot summer, and twice a mild winter.
The regions which are between the two imaginary cities and the
mid-circle, see the sun in different ways, according to their distance
from these places, but the details, our author says, he will leave to
the ingenious reader,
“Siccome omai, per quello che detto è, puote vedere
chi ha nobile ingegno, al quale è bello un poco di
fatica lasciare.”[387]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[387] “For now, after what has already been said, the rest may be
understood by whomsoever has a noble mind, to which it is well to leave
a little labour.” (_Cf. Par._ x. 22-25).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
He draws attention to the interesting fact, which follows from the
above, that in the course of a year (when the heaven of the sun has
made a complete revolution and returned to the same place), every
part of this globe on which we live has received an equal amount of
daylight. And the essay ends in an apostrophe which recalls the reproof
of Virgil to those who will not look up to the skies:[388]
“O ineffabile Sapienza che a così ordinasti, quanto
è povera la nostra mente a Te comprendere! E voi,
a cui utilità e diletto io scrivo, in quanta
cecità vivete, non levando gli occhi suso a queste
cose, tenendoli fissi nel fango della vostra
stoltezza.”[389]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[388] _Purg._ xiv. 148-151.
[389] “O unspeakable Wisdom who hast thus ordained, how poor is our
intellect to understand Thee! And you, for whose benefit and pleasure
I am writing, in what blindness you live, not lifting up your eyes to
these things, but keeping them fixed on the slough of your folly.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is interesting to compare this passage with the parallel passages
in Alfraganus and Ristoro. The astronomer is concise and clear; the
monk is diffuse and apt to repeat himself; the poet is quaintly
picturesque. Both the Italians evidently draw the main facts from
the Arab, and all use the illustration of a mill-stone to explain
the horizontal motion of the heavens at the pole: here are the three
corresponding passages:—
“Coelumque molæ trusatilis instar gyrum
vertitur.”[390]
“Lì si volgera il cielo attorno con tutte le sue
stelle, in modo di macina.”[391]
“Conviene che _Maria_ veggia ... esso sole ‘girare
il mondo’ ... come una mola.”[392]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[390] “And the sky revolves like a mill-stone.” _El. Ast._ ch. vii.
[391] “There the sky will revolve, with all its stars, mill-stone
fashion.” _Comp. del Mondo._ I. xxiii.
[392] “It follows that _Maria_ must see this sun ‘circling the world’
like a mill.” _Conv._ III. v. 142-147.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante alone uses the figure of a wheel to illustrate the vertical
motion at the equator; he perhaps takes from Ristoro the idea of
the spiral. For the latter describes the path of the sun as a “via
tortuosa, la quale i savi chiamano spira;”[393] but he explains it as
like a string wound round a stick, Dante like the screw of a press.
Dante is dealing only with the sun, and does not enter into details
about the visibility of the zodiacal signs like the other two authors;
but on the other hand he goes south to the other pole, which apparently
does not interest the others, perhaps because the southern hemisphere
was thought to be uninhabited. But the poet has added life to his
description by supposing both poles inhabited, placing there his
imaginary, mysteriously-named cities of “Maria” and “Lucia.” On the
equator, where Ristoro has the mythical city of Arym, whose wise and
prosperous citizens enjoy a perfect climate, Dante, relying more on the
classics, lets his barbarous Garamantes run about naked most of the
year, under the fierce equatorial sun.
Needless to say, his little homily in conclusion is all his own;
it is more interesting to find that he alone mentions the opposite
movements of the Sun, to right and left respectively in the north and
south hemispheres,[394] and the fact that every part of the earth
receives the same amount of sunlight in a year. This may have been
suggested by someone else, but one would like to think he arrived at it
independently, when thinking over the facts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[393] “A winding path, which the learned call a spiral.”
[394] “Lucan, who was well known to Dante, had observed that shadows
cast by the sun in the southern hemisphere travel to the right instead
of to the left, and fall southwards when with us they fall to the
north.” Moore, _Studies in Dante_ i. p. 239.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the light of this treatise, which describes so truthfully the path
of the sun, and its effect on the seasons in different latitudes, we
may explain two rather puzzling passages in the _Divine Comedy_.
One is at the beginning of the tenth canto of the _Paradiso_, where
Dante wishes his readers to realize the position of the sun when he
entered it with Beatrice, and the great importance of this position.
“Lift your eyes with me, reader,” he says, “to that place in the lofty
heavens where the one motion meets the other, and see how the oblique
circle which carries the planets branches off from that point.” The
reader is now familiar with the “two chief motions,” and knows that one
is the diurnal, from east to west, the other the planetary periodical
motions in the opposite direction; they meet at the equinoxes, where
the ecliptic cuts the equator. It is the spring equinox which Dante is
speaking of, for a little further on he says that the sun, situated
in the place above-mentioned, was circling in those spirals which
bring him to us earlier every day (lines 31-33). Now if the path
of the planets were not thus oblique, he continues, much virtue in
heaven would be lost, and almost every earthly power dead. Even if the
obliquity were merely less or more, the universal order of both heaven
and earth would suffer greatly. But why this should be so he leaves his
readers to think out for themselves, having a greater matter in hand
which demands all his attention.
It is easy to see that if the sun always moved in the equator, without
departing from it either north or south, he would rise every day to
the same height in the sky, and there would be no change of seasons
anywhere on the earth; he would always be overhead at noon to Dante’s
Garamantes, living on the equator, and always just on the horizon, day
and night, to the people of “Maria” and “Lucia” at the Poles. If the
ecliptic made a greater angle with the equator the seasons would be
more marked, and the sun would rise higher in summer in high latitudes.
If the angle were less, the reverse would be the case. Moreover if sun
and moon and all the planets followed the same track, they would be
constantly eclipsing one another.
But if we would understand the full meaning of—
“Se la strada lor non fosse torta,
Mota virtù nel ciel sarebbe in vano,
E quasi ogni potenza quaggiù morta.”[395]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[395]
“If their pathway were not thus inflected,
Much virtue in the heavens would be in vain,
And almost every power below here dead.”
_Par._ x. 16-18. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
we must turn to thirteenth-century Ristoro of Arezzo, who has set forth
in detail the results which he believed would follow from a change in
the ecliptic. If all the seven planets moved in the same narrow path,
there would be much less variety in their “aspects,” and therefore
in their influences upon the earth; and in the frequent eclipses one
would prevent the other from looking at the earth (“impedimenterebbe
l’uno l’altro a guardare la terra”), and so hinder its action. And
since it is the northward movement of the sun which causes our plants
to blossom, and later to bear fruit, if there were no such motion we
should see no renewal of life. He argues further that if the obliquity
of the ecliptic were greater, countries in high latitudes would have
too severe a winter to be inhabited; while if it were less, the summer
there would not be warm enough for the ripening of harvests; therefore
in whichever way it differed from the actual value, a smaller part of
the earth would be habitable.
“Or ti riman, lettor, sopra il tuo banco,
Dietro pensando a ciò!”[396]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[396]
“And now remain, reader, on your bench, thinking over this!”
_Par._ x. 22, 23.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How much of this was in Dante’s mind it is hardly possible to say,
but it is evident that the “via tortuosa” of the seven planets, and
its effects on the earth, was a favourite subject for thought in his
time.[397]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[397] Thus Petrarch: “Le stelle vaghe e lor viaggio torto.” (“The
wandering stars and their winding way.”) _Sonetto de Morte di Madonna
Laura._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
But the most famous passage relating to the sun’s path and its aspect
in strange latitudes is _Purg._ iv. 52-84.
Here Dante is able at once to understand the startling appearance
of the sun travelling to his left instead of his right, as seen on
the first morning in Purgatory, for he grasps the full meaning of
Virgil’s explanation, and caps it, in a way which seems astonishingly
quick-witted to unastronomical readers!
The two poets had begun to climb the mountain just at sunrise, and sat
down to rest on a ledge at about half-past nine, looking east. Dante
at first looked down at the shore, whence he had so painfully climbed,
then raised his eyes to the sun, and was amazed to find that its rays
struck him on the left shoulder.
Virgil, seeing his astonishment, explains why the sun is going north
instead of south as it climbs the sky. The sun is now in Aries, and
therefore on the equator, as we know from several passages, but Virgil
begins by saying that if it were in Gemini [a more northerly sign] and
kept to its ancient path, Dante would see it travelling still further
northwards in its daily course. “If Castor and Pollux [stars in Gemini]
were in company with that Mirror [the sun] which carries his light up
and down [_i.e._ goes north and south alternately], you would see the
glowing zodiac [that part in which the sun is] revolving still closer
to the Bears.” Gemini is literally nearer to the constellations of the
Bears than Aries, but this is not the sense of Virgil’s statement: he
means merely to indicate the north in general (see Ptolemy, p. 157).
“To understand why the sun goes north,” Virgil says, “you must know
that this mountain and Zion [Jerusalem] are so situated on the earth
that one is precisely antipodal to the other; and so, the sun’s path
being between them, when he is viewed in one direction from Jerusalem,
he is viewed in the opposite direction from Purgatory. If you turn from
the east to your right to see him from Jerusalem, you must turn to your
left in Purgatory.” Virgil speaks of the sun’s path or the ecliptic as
the path which Phaëton was not able to keep, and he describes the two
antipodal places as having one and the same horizon but two entirely
different hemispheres.
“Certainly,” replies Dante, “I have never seen anything so clearly as
I now perceive what at first puzzled me. For the middle circle of the
celestial motion,[398] which is called the equator in a certain art
[astronomy], and which always remains between the sun and winter, [the
sun crosses it departing from us in either hemisphere at the autumnal
equinox], here lies to the north of us, for the reason you have given
[namely, that we are in the southern hemisphere], whilst the Hebrews
[inhabitants of Jerusalem] see it towards the hot region [the south].”
Observe that the expression used of the equator “che sempre riman
tra il sole e il verno,”[399] distinctly suggests the reversed
seasons in the southern and northern hemispheres, so that Dante has
no intention, as Dr. Moore suggests, of assuming by a poetic licence
that it is spring in Purgatory as well as in Italy.[400] It is autumn
in the southern hemisphere, but this need not distress us: the holy
Mountain knows no inclement weather,[401] and in the Garden of Eden
on its summit spring flowers and autumn fruits eternally flourish
together.[402]
An allusion is made to a tropical summer in “la terra che perde
ombra.”[403] Tropical Africa is intended, where the sun at certain
times passes directly overhead, and therefore casts no shadows, as the
Alexandrian astronomers had observed (see p. 117).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[398] _Cf. Conv._ III. v. 76, 191.
[399]
“Which always remains between the sun and the winter.”
_Purg._ iv. 81.
[400] _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 166.
[401] _Purg._ xxi. 46-48; _Purg._ xix. 38.
[402] _Purg._ xxviii. 143.
[403] “The land where shadows are lost.” _Purg._ xxx. 89.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Did Dante believe that no land exists anywhere in the southern
hemisphere? There are some indications that he thought it possible to
push the limits of the habitable earth a little beyond the equatorial
boundary of Alfraganus. There would be no heresy in lengthening the
southward extremities of Africa or Asia, because all that the Church
forbade was to plant another land in the south, separated from us
by a vast ocean or impassable torrid zone, and to people it with
inhabitants, who could not therefore be descendants of Adam or have the
Gospel preached to them. Nor would there be any inconsistency with the
poet’s own description of our hemisphere as that covered by “la gran
secca,”[404] or with the voyage of Ulysses, on which he saw no land but
the Mountain of Purgatory; for he sailed south-west, not due south, and
the “mondo senza gente”[405] was “diretro al Sol.”[406]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[404] “The great dry land.” _Inf._ xxxiv. 113.
[405] “The unpeopled world.” _Inf._ xxvi. 117.
[406] “Behind the sun.” _Ibid._
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The indications are as follows:—
(1) The passage quoted above, where it is said that the equator
“divides the uncovered land from the ocean”[407] is ambiguous in the
original, and might mean “divides the land uncovered by Ocean.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[407] _Conv._ III. v. 117, 118.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) Shortly before, he has distinctly admitted that there is some land
in the southern hemisphere, by saying that the north celestial pole is
visible to _nearly all_ the land not covered by sea, and the south is
hidden from _nearly all_ of it. The first is true in any case, since
though the pole is theoretically visible as far as the equator, it is
often hidden by mist or rising land on the northern horizon; but unless
the second “nearly” has been added by a (somewhat natural) mistake of a
copyist, it can only apply to lands in the southern hemisphere.[408]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[408] Refraction makes the pole visible a little before one reaches the
equator, but such refinements need not be considered in dealing with a
popular work like the _Convivio_.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
(3) There is a stanza in _Canzone XV._ which suggests that Dante
believed Ethiopia to be on the south side of the equator. Classical
and mediæval cosmographers had very vague ideas about the extent and
position of this country. Dante describes a wind raised in its deserts
by the sun, which _now_ is heating it (implying the time of summer?);
but the same wind, crossing the sea to Europe, darkens all _this_
hemisphere, bringing clouds which fall in snow.
“Levasi della rena d’Etiopia
Un vento pellegrin, che l’ aer turba,
Per la spera del sol, ch’ or la riscalda,
E passa il mare, onde n’adduce copia
Di nebbia tal, che s’ altro non la sturba
Questo emisperio chiude tutto, e salda;
E poi si solve, e cade in bianca falda
Di fredda neve, ed in noiosa pioggia.”[409]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[409]
“There riseth up from Ethiopia’s sands
A wind from far-off clime which rends the air,
Through the sun’s orb that heats it with its ray.
The sea it crosses; thence, o’er all the lands
Such clouds it brings that but for wind more fair
O’er all our hemisphere ’twould hold its sway;
And then it breaks and falls in whitest spray
Of frozen snow and pestilential showers.”
_Canz._ xv. 14-21. (_Plumptre_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, it may be said that “or la riscalda”[410] means merely
that it is always hot in the tropics, even when we have winter, and
that “questo emisperio”[411] cannot possibly mean the whole of the
terrestrial northern hemisphere from equator to pole, but simply
describes the appearance of the hemispherical sky,[412] completely
covered with cloud.
These doubtful passages are not strong enough to set against the
explicit statement in the _Quæstio_ that the habitable earth extends
from the equator to the Arctic circle and no further.[413] Letters and
reports from missionaries and traders, none of them scientific, did not
shake Dante’s faith in the limits laid down by Ptolemy and Alfraganus.
His geography was utterly wrong, but his astronomy was right; and
therefore, although he had no idea of what he would see on our globe in
untravelled latitudes, he knew exactly, and has described vividly, what
he would see in the sunny sky.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[410] “Now heats it.”
[411] “This hemisphere.”
[412] Just as in _Par._ xxviii. 80.
[413] _Qu._ xix. 53-57, and repeated in xxi. 36-40.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
9. CELESTIAL PHENOMENA AND TIME.
The foregoing quotations have shown how well Dante understood
the changing appearances of the celestial phenomena as viewed
from different latitudes: it now remains to be seen what were his
conceptions of longitude.
A difference in longitude between two places makes no difference in the
stars, nor in the apparent paths of the heavenly bodies, but they come
to the meridian sooner in the more easterly place; and as it is the
meridian passage of the sun which determines local time, this will vary
in exact proportion to the distance east. When it is early morning in
England, it is noon in Burmah, and evening in Fiji. As Alfraganus had
observed (following Ptolemy), a celestial phenomenon such as a lunar
eclipse, which is caused by an actual darkening of the moon’s surface
when immersed in Earth’s shadow, is visible in every place where the
moon is above the horizon, though the local hour differs.
It is otherwise with a total solar eclipse, for this is only visible
from the very small portion of Earth on which the moon’s shadow falls
as she passes between us and the sun (see fig. 44); and as this shadow
moves on, owing to her own motion and the diurnal revolution combined,
the eclipse becomes visible successively from different parts of
the earth. Dante realized this when he quoted the argument of some
theologians that the miraculous three hours’ darkness described in
the Gospels could not have been caused by an eclipse of the sun, as
Aquinas and others had suggested, because it was visible all over the
earth at the same absolute time, that is, during the Crucifixion.[414]
Some said, he tells us, that the moon went back and placed herself
between us and the sun (for the moon at Passover time was always full,
and therefore opposite the sun), so that the sun’s light should not
come down (to us on the earth); others, that the sun hid itself, for
a corresponding eclipse was seen by Spaniards and Indians as well as
Jews.[415] Spaniards and Indians were supposed to live at the extreme
western and eastern limits of the habitable earth: they were 180° in
longitude, or 12 hours in time, apart, and Jerusalem was midway between
them. Therefore the sun would be visible to all, though only just
rising in India and just setting in Spain;[416] but it could not have
been an eclipse that darkened it to all at the same time.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[414] _Luke_ xxiii. 44.
[415] _Par._ xxix. 97-102.
[416] Dante believed the death of Christ to have taken place when it
was noon in Jerusalem. _Conv._ IV. xxiii. 105-106.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 44. Lunar and Solar Eclipses.]
This passage shows that Dante was entirely orthodox and conservative
in his geography, as far as longitude was concerned, and confirms us
in the conclusion that he was so also with regard to latitude, and was
not likely to accept contemporary evidence about lands south of the
equator, or stars unknown to Ptolemy. In the _Divine Comedy_ there are
several passages which refer to the same system, as for instance where
Night is described as covering the whole region from “the Shore” to
Morocco,[417] or where the time is stated to be noon on the Ganges,
sunrise at Jerusalem, and midnight in Spain.[418] And in the _Quæstio
de Aqua et Terra_ the system is thus clearly explained:—
“As all these agree in believing [the naturalists,
the astrologers, and the cosmographers], this
habitable earth extends in longitude from Gades,
which lies on the western boundaries of Hercules,
as far as the mouths of the Ganges, as Orosius
writes.[419] That longitude is such that at the
equinox the sun is setting upon those who are at
one of these boundaries, while it is rising upon
those who are at the other, as astrologers have
discovered by eclipses of the moon. Therefore the
aforesaid boundaries must be 180 degrees distant in
longitude, which is half the distance of the whole
circumference.”[420]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[417] _Purg._ iv. 137-139.
[418] _Purg._ xxvii. 1-5.
[419] Orosius says: “Europæ in Hispania occidentalis oceanus termino
est, maxime ubi apud Gades insulas Herculis columnæ visuntur.... Asia
ad mediam frontem orientis habet in oceano Eoo ostia fluminis Gangis.”
[420] _Qu._ xix. 38-52.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gades is not the city of Cadiz, but two islands (the “Gades Insulæ” of
Orosius), on which Hercules was said to have set up his Pillars, as a
sign that no one should venture further; and they were thought to lie
in the mouth of what we call the Straits of Gibraltar:[421]—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[421] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 124.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
“quella foce stretta,
Ov’ Ercule segnò li suoi riguardi,
Acciochè l’uom più oltre non si metta.”[422]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[422]
“The strait pass, where Hercules ordained
The boundaries not to be o’erstepped by man.”
_Inf._ xxvi. 107-109. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Through these Ulysses sailed, never to return.[423]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[423] _Inf._ xxvi. 106-142.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is difficult to believe that a lunar eclipse had ever been observed
simultaneously, and the local time compared, on the Ganges and at
Gibraltar, as the above quotation from the _Quæstio_ declares: and if
it had been, the astrologers, the cosmographers, and the naturalists
would have found out that they were greatly mistaken, for the distance
is little more than half what they thought. All that Ptolemy had said
was that this was the right method for calculating longitudes, and he
gave as an example an eclipse which had been seen at Arbela at the
fifth hour and at Carthage at the second hour.[424] It was, in fact, an
excellent method, and the only one before the day of chronographs and
telegraphs; and it seems to have been assumed that Ptolemy’s guess of
180° for the extent in longitude of the inhabited earth was based upon
it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[424] _Ptolemy’s Geography_, Bk. I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Then this 180° was considered, in the Middle Ages, as divided into two
equal parts, the western half containing Europe and Africa, the eastern
containing Asia. On the western front of Asia lay Jerusalem, thus
holding the central position in the inhabited earth which was thought
to be her right, on the authority of certain Scripture texts, as we
saw.[425] This gave the Mediterranean a length of 90°, which of course
is vastly too great. Even Ptolemy had only estimated it at 62°, and the
Alfonsine Tables made it 52°, while the true distance is only about 42°.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[425] See p. 176.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Latitude, however, was much more easily measured than longitude, for
it was only necessary to take the height of the pole star above the
horizon with an astrolabe; and the latitude of Jerusalem is really
just about midway between the supposed limits of the habitable earth,
the equator and arctic circle, for it is nearly 32° north.
Some daring spirits ventured to suggest that the dry land stretched
much further round the globe than was commonly supposed, so that one
might sail from Spain to Asia in quite a short time, and they sheltered
themselves behind the great names of Aristotle, Seneca, Pliny, and
Esdras.[426] Albertus Magnus quotes Aristotle to this effect, although
in another part of the same book (his _De Cælo et Mundo_), he repeats
the usual phrase about the habitable Earth being all contained within
one of the northern quadrants of earth. Roger Bacon expresses himself
more boldly, and it is possible that he was impressed by the long
journey of the Franciscan friar Rubruquis, on his mission to Central
Asia, from St. Louis of France to the Emperor of the Mongols. Besides
relating the story of this journey, Bacon speaks of men who were known
to live in tropical Taprobane (Ceylon), and if there, why not also
south of Capricorn? There may be delightful countries there, since it
is the better and nobler part of the world, as Aristotle and Averroës
taught.
Moreover, Dante’s own countryman, the learned Pietro d’Abano,
maintained that there are habitable lands on, and even beyond the
equator, and did not hesitate to quote conversations with Marco Polo
as evidence, although this “most extensive traveller and most diligent
enquirer” was accounted a romancer by most of his contemporaries. Had
not Messer Marco told him that in islands south of the equator he had
seen not only great rams with coarse stiff wool like the bristles of
pigs, but human beings?[427]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[426] _Esdras_ II. vi. 42.
[427] Beazley, _Dawn of Geography_ iii. 28, 29.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Bacon was banished from Oxford on a charge of heresy and
witchcraft: Pietro d’Abano escaped the Inquisition by dying, in 1316.
Men such as these belonged to the new age that was coming, the age
that would throw away the old lesson-books, and begin to discover for
itself—and they suffered in consequence. Dante belonged heart and soul
to his own era, and clung passionately to its ideals and traditions.
For him the Ganges still flowed into the all-surrounding ocean on
the east coast of Asia, 90 degrees from Jerusalem, as Orosius had
pictured it, and there is not the faintest echo in his writings of the
voyages of his countrymen, Corvino and his bishops, or Polo and his
companions,[428] between “Greater India” and “Zayton” (Amoy harbour),
although they surely must have recognized, when they praised the great
rivers of China, that these flowed into a sea many days’ journey
beyond that into which the Ganges rolled its waters. Nor is there, on
the other hand, any hint of the monstrous races with which Dark-Age
superstition had peopled the remote regions of the earth, although
they were regularly represented on the maps of that time. It is true
that the “portolani,” or handy charts, of which the earliest known
date from Dante’s life-time, showed none of these things, but depicted
the coast-lands of the Mediterranean and Black Seas with marvellous
accuracy: but they were only for pilots and merchant captains, and
had nothing to do with scholars. The maps Dante would see were hung
on church or monastery walls, or illustrated learned books; and the
mappe-monde of Cardinal Heinrich of Mainz may be taken as typical of
them all. It much resembles our great Hereford Map of the World, and
was probably copied from the same original design.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[428] Corvino and Marco Polo made the voyage in the same year, 1292,
but in reverse directions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
It is two hundred years older than Dante, but so stationary was
geography throughout the Middle Ages that it might have been executed
in his day, or, except for a few details, several centuries earlier.
Mediæval maps are as fascinating as a fairy tale, which indeed they
much resemble. The shape is conventional, and not supposed to represent
the true shape of the habitable earth; it is sometimes circular,
sometimes quadrilateral, occasionally oval, as in the present instance.
The east is here, as usual, at the top, and there we see the Paradise
of Adam and Eve, and close beside it, to the north, the River Ganges,
flowing into the great ocean which surrounds all the land. At the
opposite or western extremity are the Pillars of Hercules, which two
angels appear to be guarding. In the centre, but not so exactly or
conspicuously central as in some other maps, we find “Hierusalem.”
Along the south is the long narrow continent of Africa, with the Atlas
and Ethiopian mountains; and the Nile, rising far in the south-west,
after mysterious submergences and reappearances, finally flows into
the Mediterranean, past the pictured Pyramids, here strangely called
(according to Dark-Age myth) the Barns of Joseph. In the north another
Angel points to the country where dwell the Gog-Magogs, and not far
off are the lands of the Hyperboreans, here described as untroubled
by disease or discord, of the “most wicked” Gryphons, and of the
Dog-headed folk, adjoining the Arctic Ocean.
Italy is a very large country, roughly triangular, and in the
Mediterranean to the south lie Sicily, the whirlpool Charybdis, the
rock Scylla, Sardinia, Corsica, and other islands. Rome is figured as a
battlemented city, about halfway between Jerusalem and the Pillars of
Hercules.
[Illustration: MAP OF THE WORLD BY HEINRICH OF MAINZ, ABOUT A.D. 1110.
_To face p. 344._
_Reproduced by permission from Beazley’s “Dawn of Modern Geography.”_]
This is where Dante also places the imperial city, for in his system
it is about 45°, or 3 hours, east of Gades and west of Jerusalem. He
tells us in one place that it was vespers in Naples when the sun rose
in Purgatory,[429] and in another that when it was vespers or three
o’clock in the afternoon in Purgatory, it was midnight “here”[430]
which may mean Florence or Italy in general; both these statements
indicate a difference of nine hours or 135° between Italy and
Purgatory. Purgatory in the _Divine Comedy_ is exactly antipodal to
Jerusalem, and therefore twelve hours distant in time;[431] and for
the sake of his allegory Dante has so far departed from tradition as
to place the Earthly Paradise here also.[432] These five places may
therefore be diagramatically represented thus:—
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[429] _Purg._ iii. 25.
[430] _Purg._ xv. 1-6.
[431] _Purg._ iv. 68-71; xxvii. 1-5.
[432] _Purg._ xxviii. 142. Opinions differed as to its exact site, and
some placed it in the ocean beyond the eastern limit of the habitable
earth. In _V. E._ I. viii. 6-10, Dante says that the root of the human
race was planted in eastern lands, but this refers to Adam’s home after
the expulsion from Paradise.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
+---------------------------------------------------------+
EARLY <---------------- TIME ----------------------> LATE
12 hours 6hrs. 3hrs. 6hrs. 12 hours
---+----------+-------+----+---------+-----------+--------
Purgatory Gades Italy Jerusalem Ganes Purgatory
---+----------+-------+----+---------+-----------+--------
180° 90° 45° 0° 90° 180°
WEST <--------------- LONGITUDE --------------------> EAST
+---------------------------------------------------------+
With this key, Dante’s fondness for describing the time at one place by
mentioning one of the others need be no stumbling-block, as it is to
many readers.
The fact is that though Dante had none of our opportunities for
changing time-reckoning by long journeys, nor for communicating with
friends at the other side of the world, who wake while we sleep, the
marvellous daily revolution of the skies had a fascination for him,
and he delighted to picture a glorious sunrise taking place in one
country while in another it was high noon, or the middle of the night.
Thus, the beautiful description of the stars fading in the growing
light of dawn, which we quoted above, is preceded by a picture of the
sun glowing on the meridian some 6000 miles away (rather more than a
quarter the circumference of the globe), while with us Earth’s shadow
has sunk almost to a level plane.[433]
Again, Folco of Marseilles, when describing his birthplace, says that
the greatest of all the seas (the Mediterranean) except the ocean which
encircles all the habitable earth, stretches so far against the sun
(i.e. from west to east), that the line of sky which is on its horizon
at one end is on its meridian at the other.[434] If the sun were
seen just rising on the eastern horizon at Gades, it would be on the
meridian at Jerusalem and the time would there be noon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[433] _Par._ xxx. 1-3.
[434] _Par._ ix. 82-87.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dante’s hours are always reckoned from sunrise, and they are the
“temporary” or Church hours. He defines both kinds in the _Convivio_.
The same lines of his Ode which provided him with a text whereon to
discourse of the sun’s movements, give him occasion to treat of the
division of each day into hours, thus:—
“I say that the sun, in circling round the world,
_ne’er beholdeth aught so noble as this lady_, from
which it follows that she is, as the words affirm,
the most noble of all the things on which the sun
shines. And I say _in that hour_, etc. Wherefore
we must know that the _hour_ is understood in
two senses by astrologers. One sense is employed
when they assign twenty-four hours to the day and
night, that is, twelve to the day and twelve to the
night, however long or short the day may be. And
these hours become short or long in the day and in
the night, according as the day and night wax and
wane. And the Church uses hours in this sense when
she speaks of Prime, Tierce, Sext, and None; and
these are called temporal hours. The other sense is
employed when, of the twenty-four hours alloted to
the day and night, the day has sometimes fifteen
and the night nine, and sometimes the night has
sixteen and the day eight assigned to it, according
as the day and the night wax and wane; and these
are called equal hours. And at the equinox these
latter are always one and the same with those which
are called temporal; for it must needs be so when
the day and the night are of the same length.”[435]
The choice of these two examples of unequal days and nights seems to be
another instance of Dante’s dependence upon Alfraganus, for in Chapter
VIII. of the _Elementa Astronomica_ we read that the middle of the
seventh climate (in which the inequality is greatest) has a longest day
of 16 hours, and the middle of the fifth, of 15 hours; and in chapter
IX. we find that Magna Roma is situated in the fifth climate.
In the fourth treatise of the _Convivio_, Dante returns to the same
subject, and enters into further detail about Church hours and
divisions of the day.[436] Our lives, like the arch of heaven which is
always above us, consist of a rise and a decline, with a culminating
point, and this point he fixes as normally reached at a man’s 35th
year, as Ristoro had also done.[437] In the same way the day rises and
declines, and culminates at the sixth hour; and it is the most noble
hour of the day and the most virtuous (in the old Latin sense of virtue
as strength, efficacy).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[435] _Conv._ III. vi. 7-32.
[436] _Conv._ IV. xxiii. 50 to end.
[437] _Comp. del Mondo_, I. xxii.
“La sesta ora, cioè il mezzo del dì, è la più
nobile di tutto il dì, e la più vertuosa.”[438]
[438] “The sixth hour, that is, the middle of the day, is the most
noble of all the day, and the most virtuous.”
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This means the whole of the sixth hour (as we should say, from 11 to
12 o’clock): the beginning of the seventh hour is the exact moment of
noon, after which the day begins to decline. It was for this reason,
Dante believes, that Christ chose to die during the sixth hour,[439]
and during his 34th year, for then the day and his human life were both
at their culmination, and had not begun to decline.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[439] _Luke_ xxiii. 44-46. Dante understands this to mean that death
took place at about the sixth hour, not the ninth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
There was some difference in the methods of reckoning the hours for
Church offices, but Dante tells in this same passage which of them he
considered right, and he follows it consistently in his works. The
Church day was divided into four parts, viz.:—
At the equinox=
Tierce, Sunrise to the end of the third hour 6 to 9 a.m.
Sext, Fourth to end of sixth hour 9 a.m. to 12 noon
Nones, Seventh to end of ninth 12 noon to 3 p.m.
Vespers, Tenth hour to sunset 3 to 6 p.m.
Two of the Church offices were to be said at the beginning, and one at
the end, of these periods, as follows:—
Tierce, at the end _i.e._ 9 a.m. at the equinox.
Nones, at the beginning _i.e._ 12 noon.
Vespers, ” ” _i.e._ 3 p.m. at the equinox.
Thus sext is omitted altogether, and Dante says that the reason for
the arrangement is to approximate in every case to that hour which is
the noblest of the whole day, the sixth.
Mid-tierce was halfway through the period from sunrise to the end of
the third hour, that is, 7.30 a.m. at the time of the equinox; and
mid-nones and mid-vespers were counted in the same way.
As an instance of reckoning hours by the sun, we may quote the reply of
Adam when Dante desired to know how long time he had spent in Eden:
“Dalla prim’ ora a quella che seconda,
Come il sol muta quadra, l’ora sesta.”[440]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[440]
“From the first hour to that which cometh next
(As the sun changes quarter) to the sixth.”
_Par._ xxvi. 141-142. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Just as the time of day may be told, if one is accustomed to watch the
sun, by noting how much of the daily course has been run, so the time
of day or night (according to her phase) may be told by the moon; only
with her we must take into consideration the rapid and variable motion
eastwards in the zodiac. Alfraganus says that her _mean_ daily motion
in longitude is 13° and nearly 11 minutes,[441] but that a small amount
must be added or subtracted every day in order to find her true motion.
As a clock, therefore, for use in daily life, she leaves much to be
desired. This daily motion makes her fall constantly behind the sun, so
that she loses time every day, and not even the same amount of time;
for though she crosses the meridian on an average 50½ minutes later
each day, the interval is sometimes only 38 minutes and sometimes as
much as 66 minutes. And her times of setting and rising are even more
variable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[441] It is easily seen that this is correct, if we divide the 360° of
the moon’s path through the zodiac by the 27 days and eight hours in
which she traverses it, and returns to the same star. Brunetto Latini
says “La lune s’esloigne _dou Soleil_ chascun jor xiii degrez po s’en
faut,” but he is wrong, having apparently forgotten that the sun is
also moving in the same direction, at the average rate of nearly 1°
daily.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This is easily understood if we remember how much the sun’s time
of setting varies throughout the year, according to the part of the
zodiac in which he is travelling, and consider that what the sun does
in a year the moon does in a month. And in her case the effect is
sometimes exaggerated, sometimes diminished, for her path in the zodiac
is inclined to the sun’s path; moreover, her greatest departure from
it to north and south takes place in different parts of the zodiac at
different times. These facts were well known to Ptolemy and to mediæval
astronomers, and everyone who watches the moon must have noticed how
variable are the intervals between one moonrise or one moonset and the
next.
The extent of variability also depends upon our latitude (just as with
sunrises and sunsets); and in Florence the retardation in one day may
sometimes be only twenty minutes, sometimes an hour and twenty minutes.
The difference would be less in Dante’s Purgatory, since this was in
latitude 32° south, and the intervals between moonset and moonset
become less variable in length as we approach the equator, just as the
days become less unequal all the year round. Still, they would vary
a good deal, so we must conclude that Dante only means to indicate
the time quite roughly when he uses the moon as a clock. As a matter
of fact, he seldom does so in the _Divine Comedy_ without giving us
another clue to the time as well.
These passages all belong to a most interesting series of time
indications, which we may now proceed to examine.
_VI. DANTE’S JOURNEY THROUGH THE THREE REALMS: INDICATIONS OF TIME AND
DIRECTION BY MEANS OF THE SKIES._
1. TIME REFERENCES IN THE DIVINE COMEDY.
The plan of the universe through which Dante feigns himself to have
journeyed is familiar to all readers of the _Divine Comedy_. Hell,
as the Fathers taught, was a subterranean cavity, and Dante pictures
it as an inverted cone, whose apex reaches the exact centre of Earth
and therefore of the universe. It is situated vertically underneath
Jerusalem, the centre of the inhabited Earth. He departs from the
Fathers, however, in removing Purgatory from these dim regions, and
placing it on an island in the midst of the ocean of the uninhabited
hemisphere, exactly at the antipodes of Jerusalem. On this island rises
a mountain whose immensely lofty summit reaches the upper regions of
the atmosphere, and upon the summit is the Eden of our first parents.
This original conception is an extraordinary gain, both from the
artistic and the allegorical points of view; and it is in harmony
with the idea of Aristotle, and of many mediæval writers, that the
southern hemisphere was the “nobler” part of Earth. Here, then, man was
permitted to dwell before the Fall, and hither come repentant souls,
saved from Hell, but not yet pure enough to enter Heaven. Paradise
consists of all the spheres of mediæval astronomy, and the poet
rises from one to another until he finally reaches the all-embracing
Empyrean, where his vision ends.
Nowhere does he describe this scheme in full, but it was evidently
clear in his own mind, and by following him step by step in his journey
it is easily reconstructed, and is represented in the accompanying
diagram.
In the same way he never states how long a time he spent on this
visionary journey, yet this also he had definitely determined, and in
each Cantica he refers once to the period of time alloted to each realm.
In the last Circle but one of the Inferno, he is warned by Virgil
that the time allowed is drawing to a close;[442] in the last but one
of the Purgatorio Virgil urges him to make the best use of the time
appointed;[443] and in the Paradiso, just before the final vision, St.
Bernard tells him that the time of his trance is nearly over.[444]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[442] _Inf._ xxix. 11.
[443] _Purg._ xxiii. 5, 6.
[444] _Par._ xxxii. 139.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In the first Canto, which is introductory to the whole _Commedia_,
he mentions the time at which he assumes that his vision began. It
was “nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”[445] which may mean simply
that he was middle-aged, or comparing it with the passage in the
_Convivio_ quoted earlier (see p. 347), we may suppose it to mean
that he was exactly in his 35th year. The season was spring—“la dolce
stagione,”[446] and when night was over the sun rose among those stars
which were with him at the Creation, which was believed to have taken
place at the vernal equinox some sixty-five centuries before.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[445] “Midway in the journey of our life.” _Inf._ i. 1.
[446] “The sweet season.” _Inf._ i. 43.
“Il Sol montava su con quelle stelle
Ch’ eran con lui quando l’Amor Divino
Mosse da prima quelle cose belle.”[447]
[447]
“Aloft the sun ascended with those stars
That with him rose when Love Divine first moved
Those its fair works.”
_Inf._ i. 38-40. (_Carey_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Fig. 45. The Universe of Dante.]