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_ DANTE. Continues 6 - Footnotes 1 - 262 [1] The Shadow of Dante, being an Essay towards studying Himself, his World, and his Pilgrimage. By Maria Francesca Rossetti. "Se Dio te lasci, lettor prender frutto Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872. 8vo. pp. 296. [2] The Florentines should seem to have invented or re-invented banks, book-keeping by double entry, and bills of exchange. The last, by endowing Value with the gift of fern seed and enabling it to walk invisible, turned the flank of the baronial tariff-system and made the roads safe for the great liberalizer Commerce. This made Money omnipresent, and prepared the way for its present omnipotence. Fortunately it cannot usurp the third attribute of Deity,--omniscience. But whatever the consequences, this Florentine invention was at first nothing but admirable, securing to brain its legitimate influence over brawn. The latter has begun its revolt, but whether it will succeed better in its attempt to restore mediaeval methods, than the barons in maintaining them remains to be seen. [3] Ghiberti's designs have been criticised by a too systematic aestheticism, as confounding the limits of sculpture and painting. But is not the _riliero_ precisely the bridge by which the one art passes over into the territory of the other? [4] Inferno, IV. 102. [5] The Nouvelle Biographie Generale gives May 8 as his birthday. This is a mere assumption, for Boccaccio only says generally May. The indication which Dante himself gives that he was born when the sun was in Gemini would give a range from about the middle of May to about the middle of June, so that the 8th is certainly too early. [6] Secolo di Dante, Udine edition of 1828, Vol. III. Part I. p.578. [7] Arrivabene, however, is wrong. Boccaccio makes precisely the same reckoning in the first note of his Commentary (Bocc. Comento, etc., Firenze, 1844, Vol. I. pp. 32, 33). [8] Dict. Phil., art. _Dante_. [9] Paradise, XXII. [10] Canto XV. [11] Purgatorio, XVI. [12] Though he himself preferred French, and wrote his _Tresor_ in that language for two reasons, _"l'una perche noi siamo in Francia, e l'altra perche, la parlatura francesca e piu dilettevolee piu comune che tutti li altri linguaggi_." (_Proemio, sul fine_.) [13] Inferno, Canto VII. [14] Paradiso, Canto X. [15] See especially Inferno, IX. 112 et seq.; XII. 120; XV. 4 et seq.; XXXII. 25-30. [16] Vit. Nuov. p. 61, ed. Pesaro, 1829. [17] Tratt. III. Cap. XI. [18] Letter of Dante, now lost, cited by Aretino. [19] Inferno, XXI. 94. [20] Balbo, Vita di Dante, Firenze, 1853, p. 117. [21] Life and Times of Dante, London, 1858, p. 80. [22] Notes to Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar." [23] See the story at length in Balbo, Vita di Dante, Cap. X. [24] Thus Foscolo. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that at first the blacks were the extreme Guelphs, and the whites those moderate Guelphs inclined to make terms with the Ghibellines. The matter is obscure, and Balbo contradicts himself about it. [25] Secolo di Dante, p. 654. He would seem to have been in Rome during the Jubilee of 1300. See Inferno, XVIII. 28-33. [26] That Dante was not of the _grandi_, or great nobles (what we call grandees), as some of his biographers have tried to make out, is plain from this sentence, where his name appears low on the list and with no ornamental prefix, after half a dozen _domini_. Bayle, however, is equally wrong in supposing his family to have been obscure. [27] See Witte, "Quando e da chi sia composto l' Ottimo Comento," etc. (Leipsic, 1847) [28] Ott. Com. Parad. XVII. [29] The loose way in which many Italian scholars write history is as amazing as it is perplexing. For example: Count Balbo's "Life of Dante" was published originally at Turin, in 1839. In a note (Lib. I. Cap. X.) he expresses a doubt whether the date of Dante's banishment should not be 1303, and inclines to think it should be. Meanwhile, it seems never to have occurred to him to employ some one to look at the original decree, still existing in the archives. Stranger still, Le Monnier, reprinting the work at Florence in 1853, within a stone's throw of the document itself, and with full permission from Balbo to make corrections, leaves the matter just where it was. [30] Convito, Tratt. I. Cap. III. [31] Macchiavelli is the authority for this, and is carelessly cited in the preface to the Udine edition of the "Codex Bartolinianus" as placing it in 1312. Macchiavelli does no such thing, but expressly implies an earlier date, perhaps 1310. (See Macch. Op. ed. Baretti, London, 1772, Vol. I. p. 60.) [32] See Carlyle's "Frederic," Vol. I. p. 147. [33] A mistake, for Guido did not become lord of Ravenna till several years later. But Boccaccio also assigns 1313 as the date of Dante's withdrawal to that city, and his first protector may have been one of the other Polentani to whom Guido (surnamed Novello, or the Younger; his grandfather having borne the same name) succeeded. [34] Under this date (1315) a 4th _condemnatio_ against Dante is mentioned _facta in anno 1315 de mense Octobris per D. Rainerium, D. Zachario de Urbeveteri, olim et tunc vicarium regium civitatis Florentia_, etc. It is found recited in the decree under which in 1342 Jacopo di Dante redeemed a portion of his father's property, to wit: _Una possessione cum vinea et cum domibus super ea, combustis et non combustis, posita in populo S. Miniatis de Pagnlao_. In the _domibus combustis_ we see the blackened traces of Dante's kinsman by marriage, Corso Donati, who plundered and burnt the houses of the exiled Bianchi, during the occupation of the city by Charles of Valois. (See "De Romanis," notes on Tiraboschi's Life of Dante, in the Florence ed. of 1830, Vol. V. p. 119.) [35] Voltaire's blunder has been made part of a serious theory by Mons. E. Aroux, who gravely assures us that, during the Middle Ages, Tartar was only a cryptonym by which heretics knew each other, and adds: _Il n'y a donc pas trop a s'etonner des noms bizarres de Mastino et de Cane donnes a ces Della Scala_. (Dante, heretique, revolutionnaire, et socialiste, Paris, 1854, pp. 118-120.) [36] If no monument at all was built by Guido, as is asserted by Balbo (Vita, I. Lib. II. Cap. XVII.), whom De Vericour copies without question, we are at a loss to account for the preservation of the original epitaph replaced by Cardinal Bembo when he built the new tomb, in 1483. Bembo's own inscription implies an already existing monument, and, if in disparaging terms, yet epitaphial Latin verses are not to be taken too literally, considering the exigencies of that branch of literary ingenuity. The doggerel Latin has been thought by some unworthy of Dante, as Shakespeare's doggerel English epitaph has been thought unworthy of him. In both cases the rudeness of the verses seems to us a proof of authenticity. An enlightened posterity with unlimited superlatives at command, and in an age when stone-cutting was cheap, would have aimed at something more befitting the occasion. It is certain, at least in Dante's case, that Cardinal Bembo would never have inserted in the very first words an allusion to the De Monarchia, a book long before condemned as heretical. [37] We have translated _lacusque_ by "the Pit," as being the nearest English correlative. Dante probably meant by it the several circles of his Hell, narrowing, one beneath the other, to the centre. As a curious specimen of English we subjoin Professor de Vericour's translation: "I have sang the rights of monarchy; I have sang, in exploring them, the abode of God, the Phlegethon and the impure lakes, as long as destinies have permitted. But as the part of myself, which was only passing, returns to better fields, and happier, returned to his Maker, I, Dante, exiled from the regions of fatherland, I am laid here, I, to whom Florence gave birth, a mother who experienced but a feeble love." (The Life and Times of Dante, London, 1858, p. 208.) [38] Inferno, X. 85. [39] Paradiso, XVII. [40] He says after the return of Louis of Bavaria to Germany, which took place in that year. The De Monarchia was afterward condemned by the Council of Trent. [41] Paradiso, XXVII. [42] Inferno, XI. [43] See the letter in Gaye, Carteggio inedito d' artisti, Vol. I. p. 123. [44] St. Rene Taillandier, in Revue des Deux Mondes, December 1, 1856. [45] Dante, Vol. IV. p. 116. [46] Ste. Beuve, Causeries du Lundi, Tome XI. p. 169. [47] Dict. Phil., art. _Dante_. [48] Corresp. gen., Oeuvres, Tome LVII. pp. 80, 81. [49] Essai sur les moeurs, Oeuvres, Tome XVII. pp. 371, 372. [50] Genie du Christianisme, Cap. IV. [51] Ed. Lond. 1684, p. 199. [52] It is worth notice, as a proof of Chaucer's critical judgment, that he calls Dante "the great poet of Itaille," while in the "Clerke's Tale" he speaks of Petrarch as a "worthy clerk," as "the laureat poete" (alluding to the somewhat sentimental ceremony at Rome), and says that his "Rhetorike sweete [53] It is possible that Sackville may have read the Inferno, and it is certain that Sir John Harrington had. See the preface to his translation of the Orlando Furioso. [54] Second edition, 1800. [55] Dante Alighieri's lyrische Gedichte, Leipzig, 1842, Theil II. pp. 4-9. [56] Vita, p. 97. [57] Comment on Paradiso, VI. [58] Jean de Meung had already said,-- "Ge n'en met hors rois ne prelas Roman de la Rose (ed. Meon), V. ii. pp. 78, 79. [59] Dante, Studien, etc., 1855, p. 144. [60] Compare also Spinoza, Tractat. polit., Cap. VI. [61] It is instructive to compare Dante's political treatise with those of Aristotle and Spinoza. We thus see more clearly the limitations of the age in which he lived, and this may help us to a broader view of him as poet. [62] A very good one may be found in the sixth volume of the Molini edition of Dante, pp. 391-433. [63] See Field's "Theory of Colors." [64] As by Dante himself in the Convito. [65] Psalm cxiv. 1, 2. [66] He commonly prefaced his letters with some such phrase as _exul immeritus_. [67] In order to fix more precisely in the mind the place of Dante in relation to the history of thought, literature, and events, we subjoin a few dates: Dante born, 1265; end of Crusades, death of St. Louis, 1270; Aquinas died, 1274; Bonaventura died, 1274; Giotto born, 1276; Albertus Magnus died, 1280; Sicilian vespers, 1282; death of Ugolino and Francesca da Rimini, 1282; death of Beatrice, 1290; Roger Bacon died, 1292; death of Cimabue, 1302; Dante's banishment, 1302; Petrarch born, 1304; Fra Dolcino burned, 1307; Pope Clement V. at Avignon, 1309; Templars suppressed, 1312; Boccaccio born, 1313; Dante died, 1321; Wycliffe born, 1324; Chaucer born, 1328. [68] Rivavol characterized only a single quality of Dante's style, who knew how to spend as well as spare. Even the Inferno, on which he based his remark, might have put him on his guard. Dante understood very well the use of ornament in its fitting place. _Est enim exornatio alicujus convenientis additio_, he tells us in his De Vulgari Eloquio (Lib. II. C. II.). His simile of the doves (Inferno, V. 82 et seq.), perhaps the most exquisite in all poetry, quite oversteps Rivarol's narrow limit of "substantive and verb." [69] Discorso sul testo, ec., sec. XVIII. [70] Convito, B. IV. C. XXII. [71] It is remarkable that when Dante, in 1297, as a preliminary condition to active politics, enrolled himself in the guild of physicians and apothecaries, he is qualified only with the title _poeta_. The arms of the Alighieri (curiously suitable to him who _sovra gli altri come aquila vola_) were a wing of gold in a field of azure. His vivid sense of beauty even hovers sometimes like a _corposant_ over the somewhat stiff lines of his Latin prose. For example, in his letter to the kings and princes of Italy on the coming of Henry VII: "A new day brightens, revealing the dawn which already scatters the shades of long calamity; already the breezes of morning gather; _the lips of heaven are reddening!"_ [72] Purgatorio, XXXII. 100. [73] Paradiso, I. 70. [74] In a letter to Can Grande (XI. of the Epistolae). [75] Witte, Wegele, and Ruth in German, and Ozanam in French, have rendered ignorance of Dante inexcusable among men of culture. [76] Inferno, VII. 75. "Nay, his style," says Miss Rossetti, "is more than concise: it is elliptical, it is recondite. A first thought often lies coiled up and hidden under a second; the words which state the conclusion involve the premises and develop the subject." (p. 3.) [77] A complete vocabulary of Italian billingsgate might be selected from Biagioli. Or see the concluding pages of Nannucci's excellent tract "Intorno alle voci usate da Dante," Corfu, 1840. Even Foscolo could not always refrain. Dante should have taught them to shun such vulgarities. See Inferno, XXX. 131-148. [78] "My Italy, my sweetest Italy, for having loved thee too much I have lost thee, and, perhaps, ... ah, may God avert the omen! But more proud than sorrowful, for an evil endured for thee alone, I continue to consecrate my vigils to thee alone.... An exile full of anguish, perchance, availed to sublime the more in thy Alighieri that lofty soul which was a beautiful gift of thy smiling sky; and an exile equally wearisome and undeserved now avails, perhaps, to sharpen my small genius so that it may penetrate into what he left written for thy instruction and for his glory." (Rossetti, Disamina, ec., p. 405.) Bossetti is himself a proof that a noble mind need not be narrowed by misfortune. His "Comment" (unhappily incomplete) is one of the most valuable and suggestive. [79] The great-minded man ever magnifies himself in his heart, and in like manner the pusillanimous holds himself less than he is. (Convito, Tr. I. c. 11.) [80] Dante's notion of virtue was not that of an ascetic, nor has any one ever painted her in colors more soft and splendid than he in the Convito. She is "sweeter than the lids of Juno's eyes," and he dwells on the delights of her love with a rapture which kindles and purifies. So far from making her an inquisitor, he says expressly that she "should be gladsome and not sullen in all her works." (Convito, Tr. I. c. 8.) "Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose"! [81] Inferno, XIX. 28, 29. [82] Inferno, VIII. 70-75. [83] Paradise, X. 138. [84] Paradiso, IV. 40-45 (Longfellow's version). [85] Marlowe's "Faustus." "Which way I fly is hell, myself am hell." (Paradise Lost, IV. 75.) In the same way, _ogni dove in cielo o Paradiso_. (Paradiso, III. 88, 89.) [86] Purgatorio, XIX. 7-33. [87] Convito, Tr. II. c. 16. [88] _La natura universale, cioe Iddio._ (Convito, Tr. III. c. 4.) [89] Inferno, III. 7, 8. [90] Inferno, XX. 30. Mr. W.M. Rossetti strangely enough renders this verse "Who hath a passion for God's judgeship" _Compassion porta_, is the reading of the best texts, and Witte adopts it. Buti's comment is "_cioe porta pena e dolore di colui che giustamente e condannato da Dio che e sempre giusto_." There is an analogous passage in "The Revelation of the Apostle Paul," printed in the "Proceedings of the American Oriental Society" (Vol. VIII. pp. 213, 214): "And the angel answered and said, 'Wherefore dost thou weep? Why! art thou more merciful than God?' And I said, 'God forbid, O my lord; for God is good and long-suffering unto the sons of men, and he leaves every one of them to his own will, and he walks as he pleases'" This is precisely Dante's view. [91] Inferno, VIII 40. [92] "I following her (Moral Philosophy) in the work as well as the passion, so far as I could, abominated and disparaged the errors of men, not to the infamy and shame of the erring, but of the errors." (Convito, Tr IV. c. 1.) "Wherefore in my judgment as he who defames a worthy man ought to be avoided by people and not listened to, so a vile man descended of worthy ancestors ought to be hunted out by all." (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 29.) [93] Paradise, XVII. 61-69. [94] It is worth mentioning that the sufferers in his Inferno are in like manner pretty exactly divided between the two parties. This is answer enough to the charge of partiality. He even puts persons there for whom he felt affection (as Brunetto Latini) and respect (as Farinata degli Uberti and Frederick II.). Till the French looked up their MSS., it was taken for granted that the _beccajo di Parigi_ (Purgatorio, XX. 52) was a drop of Dante's gall. "Ce fu Huez Capez e' on apelle bouchier." Hugues Capet, p. 1. [95] De Vulgari Eloquio, Lib. I, Cap. VI. Cf. Inferno, XV. 61-64. [96] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 23. Ib. Tr. I. c. 2. [97] Convito, Tr. III. c. 13. [98] Opp. Min., ed. Fraticelli, Vol. II. pp. 281 and 283. Witte is inclined to put it even earlier than 1300, and we believe he is right. [99] Paradiso, VI. 103-105. [100] Some Florentines have amusingly enough doubted the genuineness of the De vulgari Eloquio, because Dante therein denies the pre-eminence of the Tuscan dialect. [101] See particularly the second book of the De vulgari Eloquio. [102] Purgatorio, XXXIII. 141. "That thing one calls beautiful whose parts answer to each other, because pleasure results from their harmony." (Convito, Tr. I. c. 5.) Carlyle says that "he knew too, partly, that his work was great, the greatest a man could do." He knew it fully. Telling us how Giotto's fame as a painter had eclipsed that of Cimabue, he takes an example from poetry also, and selecting two Italian poets,--one the most famous of his predecessors, the other of his contemporaries,--calmly sets himself above them both (Purgatorio, XI. 97-99), and gives the reason for his supremacy (Purgatorio, XXIV. 49-62). It is to be remembered that _Amore_ in the latter passage does not mean love in the ordinary sense, but in that transcendental one set forth in the Convito,--that state of the soul which opens it for the descent of God's spirit, to make it over into his own image. "Therefore it is manifest that in this love the Divine virtue descends into men in the guise of an angel, ... and it is to be noted that the descending of the virtue of one thing into another is nothing else than reducing it to its own likeness." (Convito, Tr. III. c. 14.) [103] Convito, Tr. III. c. 11. Ib. Tr. I. c. 11. [104] Convito, Tr. III. c. 12-15. [105] Inferno, II. 94. The _donna gentil_ is Lucia, the prevenient Grace, the _light_ of God which shows the right path and guides the feet in it. With Dante God is always the sun, "which leadeth others right by every road." (Inferno, I. 18.) "The spiritual and unintelligible Sun, which is God." (Convito, Tr. III. c. 12) His light "enlighteneth every man that cometh into the world," but his dwelling is in the heavens. He who wilfully deprives himself of this light is spiritually dead in sin. So when in Mars he beholds the glorified spirits of the martyrs he exclaims, "O Elios, who so arrayest them!" (Paradiso, XIV. 96.) Blanc (Vocabolario, _sub voce_) rejects this interpretation. But Dante, entering the abode of the Blessed, invokes the "good Apollo," and shortly after calls him _divina virtu._ We shall have more to say of this hereafter. [106] Convito, Tr. III. c. 12. [107] Convito, Tr. III. c. 15. Recalling how the eyes of Beatrice lift her servant through the heavenly spheres, and that smile of hers so often dwelt on with rapture, we see how Dante was in the habit of commenting and illustrating his own works. We must remember always that with him the allegorical exposition is the true one (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 1), the allegory being a truth which is hidden under a beautiful falsehood (Convito, Tr. II. c. 1), and that Dante thought his poems without this exposition "under some shade of obscurity, so that to many their beauty was more grateful than their goodness" (Convito, Tr. I. c. 1), "because the goodness is in the meaning, and the beauty in the ornament of the words" (Convito, Tr. II. c. 12). [108] Convito, Tr. III. c. 14. [109] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 22. [110] Convito, Tr. III. c. 6. [111] Convito, Tr. III. c. 2. By _potenzia_ and _potenza_ Dante means the faculty of receiving influences or impressions. (Paradiso, XIII. 61; XXIX. 34.) Reason is the "sovran potency" because it makes us capable of God.
Paradiso, V. 115-118. [113] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 21. [114] Convito, Tr. III. c. 7. [115] Inferno, X. 55, 56; Paradiso, XXII. 112-117. [116] Convito, Tr. I. c. 23 (cf. Inferno, I. IV). [117] Convito, Tr. III. c. 3; Paradiso, XVIII. 108-130. [118] See an excellent discussion and elucidation of this matter by Witte, who so highly deserves the gratitude of all students of Dante, in Dante Alighieri's Lyrische Gedichte, Theil II. pp. 48-57. It was kindly old Boccaccio, who, without thinking any harm, first set this nonsense agoing. His "Life of Dante" is mainly a rhetorical exercise. After making Dante's marriage an excuse for revamping all the old slanders against matrimony, he adds gravely, "Certainly I do not affirm these things to have happened to Dante, for I do not know it, though it be true that (whether things like these or others were the cause of it), once parted from her, he would never come where she was nor suffer her to come where he was, for all that she was the mother of several children by him." That he did not come to her is not wonderful, for he would have been burned alive if he had. Dante could not send for her because he was a homeless wanderer. She remained in Florence with her children because she had powerful relations and perhaps property there. It is plain, also, that what Boccaccio says of Dante's _lussuria_ had no better foundation. It gave him a chance to turn a period. He gives no particulars, and his general statement is simply incredible. Lionardo Bruni and Vellutello long ago pointed out the trifling and fictitious character of this "Life." Those familiar with Dante's allegorical diction will not lay much stress on the literal meaning of _pargoletta_ in Purgatono, XXXI. 59. Gentucca, of course, was a real person, one of those who had shown hospitality to the exile. Dante remembers them all somewhere, for gratitude (which is quite as rare as genius) was one of the virtues of his unforgetting nature Boccaccio's "Comment" is later and far more valuable than the "Life." [119] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 17; Purgatorio, XXVII. 100-108. [120] Convito, Tr. II. c. 8. [121] That is, _wholly_ fulfil, _rendono intera_. [122] We should prefer here, "Nor inspirations _won by prayer_ availed," as better expressing _Ne l'impetrare spirazion_. Mr. Longfellow's translation is so admirable for its exactness as well as its beauty that it may be thankful for the minutest criticism, such only being possible. [123] Which he cites in the Paradiso, VIII. 37. [124] Dante confesses his guiltiness of the sin of pride, which (as appears by the examples he gives of it) included ambition, in Purgatorio, XIII. 136, 137. [125] Convito, Tr. II. c. 11. [126] Purgatorio, XXVIII. [127] Purgatorio, XXVIII. 40-44; Convito, Tr. III. c. 13. [128] Purgatorio, XXVII. 94-105. [129] Psalm li. 2. "And therefore I say that her [Philosophy's] beauty, that is, morality, rains flames of fire, that is, a righteous appetite which is generated in the love of moral doctrine, the which appetite removes us from the natural as well as other vices." (Convito, Tr. III. c. 15.) [130] Purgatorio, XXXI. 103,104. [131] Tr. IV. c. 22. [133] Purgatorio, 100-102. [133] Such is the _selva oscura_ (Inferno, I. 2), such, the _selva erronea di questa vita_ (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 24). [134] Convito, Tr. I. c. 13. [135] Convito, Tr. II. c. 2. [136] _Mar di tutto il senno_, he calls Virgil (Inferno, VIII. 7). Those familiar with his own works will think the phrase singularly applicable to himself. [137] Convito, Tr. III. c. 9. [138] Convito, Tr. III. c. 3. [139] Vita Nuova, XI. [140] Vita Nuova, Tr. II. c. 6. [141] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 24. The date of Dante's birth is uncertain, but the period he assigns for it (Paradiso, XXII. 112-117) extends from the middle of May to the middle of June. If we understand Buti's astrological comment, the day should fall in June rather than May. [142] Vita Nuova, XXXIX. Compare for a different view, "The New Life of Dante, an Essay with Translations," by C. E. Norton, pp. 92. et seq. [143] There is a passage in the Convito (Tr. III. c. 15) in which Dante seems clearly to make the distinction asserted above, "And therefore the desire of man is limited in this life to that _knowledge_ (_scienzia_) which may here be had, and passes not save by error that point which is beyond our natural understanding. And so is limited and measured in the angelic nature the amount of that _wisdom_ which the nature of each is capable of receiving." Man is, according to Dante, superior to the angels in this, that he is capable both of reason and contemplation, while they are confined to the latter. That Beatrice's reproaches refer to no human _pargoletta_, the context shows, where Dante asks, "But wherefore so beyond my power of sight Purgatorio, XXXIII. 82-90. The _pargoletta_ in its ordinary sense was necessary to the literal and human meaning, but it is shockingly discordant with that non-natural interpretation which, according to Dante's repeated statement, lays open the true and divine meaning. [144] "So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you." Romans viii. 8, 9. [145] Convito, Tr. II. c. 14, 15. [146] Convito, Tr. II. c. 4. Compare Paradiso, I. 76, 77. [147] "Vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called." 1 Tim. vi. 20. [148] That is, no partial truth. [149] Paradise, IV. 124-132. [150] "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."--Judges xiv. 14. [151] Purgatorio, III. 34-44. The allusions in this passage are all to sayings of Saint Paul, of whom Dante was plainly a loving reader. "Remain contented at the _Quia_," that is, be satisfied with knowing _that_ things are, without inquiring too nicely _how_ or _why_. "Being justified by faith we have peace with God" (Rom. v. 1). _Infinita via_: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Rom. xi. 93) _Aristotle and Plato_: "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.... For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so _that they are without excuse_. Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 18-21). He refers to the Greeks. The Epistle to the Romans, by the way, would naturally be Dante's favorite. As Saint Paul made the Law, so he would make Science, "our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. iii. 24). He puts Aristotle and Plato in his Inferno, because they did not "adore God duly" (Inferno, IV. 38), that is, they "held the truth in unrighteousness." Yet he calls Aristotle "the master and guide of human reason" (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 6), and Plato "a most excellent man" (Convito, Tr. II. c 5). Plato and Aristotle, like all Dante's figures, are types. We must disengage our thought from the individual, and fix on the genus. [152] It is to be remembered that Dante has typified the same thing when he describes how Reason (Virgil) first carries him down by clinging to the fell of Satan, and then in the same way upwards again _a riveder le stelle_. Satan is the symbol of materialism, fixed at the point "To which things heavy draw from every side"; as God is Light and Warmth, so is he "cold obstruction"; the very effort which he makes to rise by the motion of his wings begets the chilly blast that freezes him more immovably in his place of doom. The danger of all science save the highest (theology) was that it led to materialism There appears to have been a great deal of it in Florence in the time of Dante. Its followers called themselves Epicureans, and burn in living tombs (Inferno, X.). Dante held them in special horror. "Of all bestialities that is the most foolish and vile and hurtful which believes there is no other life after this." "And I so believe, so affirm, and so am certain that we pass to another better life after this" (Convito, Tr. II. c. 9). It is a fine divination of Carlyle from the _Non han speranza di morte_ that "one day it had risen sternly benign in the scathed heart of Dante that he, wretched, never resting, worn as he was, would [should] full surely _die_." [153] Purgatorio, XXXI. 103. [154] Inferno, XXXI. 5, 6. [155] Tr. IV. c. 28. [156] Inferno, XXV. 64-67. [157] Purgatorio, XXXI. 123-126. [158] Spenser, who had, like Dante, a Platonizing side, and who was probably the first English poet since Chaucer that had read the Commedia, has imitated the pictorial part of these passages in the "Faerie Queene" (B. VI. c. 10). He has turned it into a compliment, and a very beautiful one, to a living mistress. It is instructive to compare the effect of his purely sensuous verses with that of Dante's, which have such a wonderful reach behind them. They are singularly pleasing, but they do not stay by us as those of his model had done by him. Spenser was, as Milton called him, a "sage and serious poet"; he would be the last to take offence if we draw from him a moral not without its use now that Priapus is trying to persuade us that pose and drapery will make him as good as Urania. Better far the naked nastiness; the more covert the indecency, the more it shocks. Poor old god of gardens! Innocent as a clownish symbol, he is simply disgusting as an ideal of art. In the last century, they set him up in Beatrice recalls her Germany and in France as befitting an era of enlightenment, the light of which came too manifestly from the wrong quarter to be long endurable. [159] This touch of nature recalls another. The Italians claim humor for Dante. We have never been able to find it, unless it be in that passage (Inferno, XV. 119) where Brunetto Latini lingers under the burning shower to recommend his Tesoro to his former pupil. There is a comical touch of nature in an author's solicitude for his little work, not, as in Fielding's case, after _its_, but his own damnation. We are not sure, but we fancy we catch the momentary flicker of a smile across those serious eyes of Dante's. There is something like humor in the opening verses of the XVI. Paradiso, where Dante tells us how even in heaven he could not help glorying in being gently born,--he who had devoted a Canzone and a book of the Convito to proving that nobility consisted wholly in virtue. But there is, after all, something touchingly natural in the feeling. Dante, unjustly robbed of his property, and with it of the independence so dear to him, seeing "Needy nothings trimmed in jollity, would naturally fall back on a distinction which money could neither buy nor replace. There is a curious passage in the Convito which shows how bitterly he resented his undeserved poverty. He tells us that buried treasure commonly revealed itself to the bad rather than the good. "Verily I saw the place on the flanks of a mountain in Tuscany called Falterona, where the basest peasant of the whole countryside digging found there more than a bushel of pieces of the finest silver, which perhaps had awaited him more than a thousand years." (Tr. IV. c. 11.) One can see the grimness of his face as he looked and thought, "how salt a savor hath the bread of others!" [160] L'Envoi of Canzone XIV. of the Canzoniere, I. of the Convito. Dante cites the first verse of this Canzone, Paradiso, VIII. 37. [161] How Dante himself could allegorize even historical personages may be seen in a curious passage of the Convito (Tr. IV. c. 28), where, commenting on a passage of Lucan, he treats Martia and Cato as mere figures of speech. [162] II. of the Canzoniere. See Fraticelli's preface. [163] Don Quixote, P. II. c. VIII. [164] De vulgari Eloquio, L. II. c. 2. He says the same of Giraud de Borneil, many of whose poems are moral and even devotional. See, particularly, "Al honor Dieu torn en mon chan" (Raynouard, Lex Rom I. 388), "Ben es dregz pos en aital port" (Ib. 393), "Jois sia comensamens" (Ib. 395), and "Be veg e conosc e say" (Ib. 398). Another of his poems ("Ar ai grant joy," Raynouard, Choix, III. 304) may _possibly_ be a mystical profession of love for the Blessed Virgin, for whom, as Dante tells us, Beatrice had a special devotion. [165] Convito, Tr. III. c. 14. In the same chapter is perhaps an explanation of the two rather difficult verses which follow that in which the _verace speglio_ is spoken of (Paradise, XXVI. 107, 108). "Che fa di se pareglie l' altre cose Buti's comment is, "that is, makes of itself a receptacle to other things, that is, to all things that exist, which are all seen in it." Dante says (_ubi supra_), "The descending of the virtue of one thing into another is a reducing that other into a likeness of itself.... Whence we see that the sun sending his ray down hitherward reduces things to a likeness with his light in so far as they are able by their disposition to receive light from his power. So I say that God reduces this love to a likeness with himself as much as it is possible for it to be like him." In Provencal _pareilh_ means _like_, and Dante may have formed his word from it. But the four earliest printed texts read:-- "Che fa di se pareglio all' altre cose." Accordingly we are inclined to think that the next verse should be corrected thus:-- "E nulla face a lui di se pareglio." We would form _pareglio_ from _parere_ (a something in which things _appear_), as _miraglio_ from _mirare_ (a something in which they are _seen_). God contains all things in himself, but nothing can wholly contain him. The blessed behold all things in him as if reflected, but not one of the things so reflected is capable of his image in its completeness. This interpretation is confirmed by Paradiso, XIX. 49-51. "E quinci appar _ch' ogni minor natura
"Amor che nella mente mi ragiona," and the commentary upon it, and some to which his experience of life must have given an intenser meaning. The writer of that book also personifies Wisdom as the mistress of his soul: "I loved her and sought her out from my youth, I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty." He says of Wisdom that she was "present when thou (God) madest the world," and Dante in the same way identifies her with the divine Logos, citing as authority the "beginning of the Gospel of John." He tells us, "I perceived that I could not otherwise obtain her except God gave her me," and Dante came at last to the same conclusion. Again, "For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love. And love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her laws is the assurance of incorruption." But who can doubt that he read with a bitter exultation, and applied to himself passages like these which follow? "When the righteous _fled from his brothers wrath, she guided him in right paths showed him the kingdom of God, and gave him knowledge of holy things_. She defended him from his enemies and kept him safe from those that lay in wait, ... that he might know that godliness is stronger than all.... She forsook him not, but delivered him from sin; _she went down with him into the pit_, and left him not in bonds till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, ... and gave him perpetual glory." It was, perhaps, from this book that Dante got the hint of making his punishments and penances typical of the sins that earned them. "Wherefore, whereas men lived dissolutely and unrighteously, thou hast tormented them with their own abominations." Dante was intimate with the Scriptures. They do even a scholar no harm. M. Victor Le Clerc, in his "Histoire Litteraire de la France au quatorzieme siecle" (Tom. II. p. 72), thinks it "not impossible" that a passage in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, paraphrased by Dante, may have been suggested to him by Rutebeuf or Tristan, rather than by the prophet himself! Dante would hardly have found himself so much at home in the company of _jongleurs_ as in that of prophets. Yet he was familiar with French and Provencal poetry. Beside the evidence of the _Vulgari Eloquio_, there are frequent and broad traces in the Commedia of the _Roman de la Rose_, slighter ones of the _Chevalier de la Charette, Guillaume d'Orange,_ and a direct imitation of Bernard de Ventadour. [167] Convito, Tr. I. c. 12. [168] Purgatorio, XXII. 115, 116. [169] That Dante loved fame we need not be told. He several times confesses it, especially in the De Vulgari Eloquio, I. 17. "How glorious she [the Vulgar Tongue] makes her intimates [_familiares_, those of her household], we ourselves have known, who in the sweetness of this glory put our exile behind our backs." [170] Dante several times uses the sitting a horse as an image of rule. See especially Purgatorio, VI. 99, and Convito, Tr. IV. c. 11. [171] "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God!" Dante quotes this in speaking of the influence of the stars, which, interpreting it presently "by the theological way," he compares to that of the Holy Spirit "And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from above?" (Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 17.) The last words of the Convito are, "her [Philosophy] whose proper dwelling is in the depths of the Divine mind". The ordinary reading is _ragione_ (reason), but it seems to us an obvious blunder for _magione_ (mansion, dwelling). [172] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 28. [173] He refers to a change in his own opinions (Lib II. sec. 1), where he says, "When I knew the nations to have murmured against the preeminence of the Roman people, and saw the people imagining vain things _as I myself was wont_." He was a Guelph by inheritance, he became a Ghibelline by conviction. [174] It should seem from Dante's words ("at the time when much people went to see the blessed image," and "ye seem to come from a far off people") that this was some extraordinary occasion, and what so likely as the jubilee of 1300? (Compare Paradiso, XXXI. 103-108.) Dante's comparisons are so constantly drawn from actual eye-sight, that his allusion (Inferno, XIII. 28-33) to a device of Boniface VIII. for passing the crowds quietly across the bridge of Saint Angelo, renders it not unlikely that he was in Rome at that time, and perhaps conceived his poem there as Giovanni Villani his chronicle. That Rome would deeply stir his mind and heart is beyond question "And certes I am of a firm opinion that the stones that stand in her walls are worthy of reverence, and the soil where she sits worthy beyond what is preached and admitted of men." (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 5.) [175] _Beatrice, loda di Dio vera_, Inferno, II. 103. "Surely vain are all men by nature who are ignorant of God, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is, neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the work-master.... For, being conversant in his works, they search diligently and believe their sight, because the things are beautiful that are seen. Howbeit, neither are they to be pardoned." (Wisdom of Solomon, XIII. 1, 7, 8.) _Non adorar debitamente, Dio_. "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and godhead; so that they are without excuse." It was these "invisible things" whereof Dante was beginning to get a glimpse. [176] Convito, Tr. I. c. 7. [177] "And here we would have forgiven Mr. Captain if he had not betrayed him (_traido, traduttore traditore_) to Spain and made him a Castilian, for he took away much of his native worth, and so will all those do who shall undertake to turn a poem into another tongue; for with all the care they take and ability they show, they will never reach the height of its original conception," says the Curate, speaking of a translation of Ariosto. (Don Quixote, P. I. c. 6.) [177] In his own comment Dante says, "I tell whither goes my thought, calling it by the name of one of its effects." [178] _Spirito_ means in Italian both breath (_spirto ed acqua fessi_, Purgatorio, XXX. 98) and spirit. [180] By _visione_ Dante means something seen waking by the inner eye. He believed also that dreams were sometimes divinely inspired, and argues from such the immortality of the soul. (Convito, Tr. II. c. 9.) [181] Paradiso, XXV. 1-3. [182] De Monarchia, Lib. III. sec. _ult_. See the whole passage in Miss Rossetti, p 39. It is noticeable that Dante says that the Pope is to _lead_ (by example), the Emperor to _direct_ (by the enforcing of justice) The duty, we are to observe, was a double but not a divided one. To exemplify this unity was indeed one object of the Commedia.
_Purgatorio_, XVIII. 46-48. Beatrice here evidently impersonates Theology. It would be interesting to know what was the precise date of Dante's theological studies. The earlier commentators all make him go to Paris, the great fountain of such learning, after his banishment. Boccaccio indeed says that he did not return to Italy till 1311. Wegele (Dante's "Leben und Werke," p. 85) puts the date of his journey between 1292 and 1297. Ozanam, with a pathos comically touching to the academic soul, laments that poverty compelled him to leave the university without the degree he had so justly earned. He consoles himself with the thought that "there remained to him an incontestable erudition and the love of serious studies." (Dante et la philosophic catholique, p. 112.) It _is_ sad that we cannot write _Dantes Alighierius, S. T. D._! Dante seems to imply that he began to devote himself to Philosophy and Theology shortly after Beatrice's death. (Convito, Tr. II. c. 13.) He compares himself to one who, "seeking silver, should, without meaning it, find gold, which an occult cause presents to him, not perhaps without the divine command." Here again apparently is an allusion to his having found Wisdom while he sought Learning. He had thought to find God in the beauty of his works, he learned to seek all things in God. [184] In a more general view, matter, the domain of the senses, no doubt with a recollection of Aristotle's [Greek: hylae]. [185] As we have seen, even a sigh becomes _He_. This makes one of the difficulties of translating his minor poems. The modern mind is incapable of this subtlety. [186] Purgatorio, III. 122,123. [186] Purgatorio, III. 122,123. [187] Purgatorio, V. 107. [188] Inferno, III. 17, 18 (_hanno perduto_ = thrown away). [189] Convito, Tr. II. c. 14. [190] Purgatorio, XXIII. 121, 122. [191] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 7. [192] Inferno, XXXIII. 118, et seq. [193] Inferno, I. 116, 117. [194] Mr. Longfellow's _for_, like the Italian _per_, gives us the same privilege of election. We "freeze for cold," we "hunger for food." [195] Inferno, V. 67. [196] Paradiso, XVIII. 46. Renoard is one of the heroes (a rudely humorous one) in "La Bataille d'Alischans," an episode of the measureless "Guillaume d'Orange." It was from the graves of those supposed to have been killed in this battle that Dante draws a comparison, Inferno, IX. Boccaccio's comment on this passage might have been read to advantage by the French editors of "Alischans." [197] We cite this comment under its received name, though it is uncertain if Pietro was the author of it. Indeed, we strongly doubt it. It is at least one of the earliest, for it appears, by the comment on Paradiso, XXVI., that the greater part of it was written before 1341. It is remarkable for the strictness with which it holds to the spiritual interpretation of the poem, and deserves much more to be called Ottimo, than the comment which goes by that name. Its publication is due to the zeal and liberality of the late Lord Vernon, to whom students of Dante are also indebted for the parallel-text reprint of the four earliest editions of the Commedia. [198] See Wegele, _ubi supra_, p. 174, et seq. The best analysis of Dante's opinions we have ever met with is Emil Ruth's "Studien ueber Dante Alighieri," Tuebingen, 1853. Unhappily it wants an index, and accordingly loses a great part of its usefulness for those not already familiar with the subject. Nor are its references sufficiently exact. We always respect Dr. Ruth's opinions, if we do not wholly accept them, for they are all the results of original and assiduous study. [199] See the second book of the De Vulgari Eloquio. The only other Italian poet who reminds us of Dante in sustained dignity is Guido Guinicelli. Dante esteemed him highly, calls him maximus in the De Vulgari Eloquio, and "the father of me and of my betters," in the XXVI. Purgatorio. See some excellent specimens of him in Mr. D. G. Rossetti's remarkable volume of translations from the early Italian poets. Mr. Rossetti would do a real and lasting service to literature by employing his singular gift in putting Dante's minor poems into English. [200] The old French poems confound all unbelievers together as pagans and worshippers of idols. [201] Dante is an ancient in this respect as in many others, but the difference is that with him society is something divinely ordained. He follows Aristotle pretty closely, but on his own theory crime and sin are identical. [202] Purgatorio, XVIII. 73. He defines it in the De Monarchia (Lib. I. sec. 14). Among other things he calls it "the first beginning of our liberty." Paradiso, V. 19, 20, he calls it "the greatest gift that in his largess God creating made." "Dico quod judicium medium est apprehensionis et appetitus." (De Monarchia, _ubi supra_.)
_Troilus and Cressida._ [203] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 22. [204] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 7. "Qui descenderit ad inferos, non ascendet." Job vii. 9. [205] But it may he inferred that he put the interests of mankind above both. "For citizens," he says, "exist not for the sake of consuls, nor the people for the sake of the king, but, on the contrary, consuls for the sake of citizens, and the king for the sake of the people." [206] Paradiso, VIII. 145, 146. [207] Purgatorio, XVI. 106-112. [208] De Monarchia, sec. _ult_. [209] De Monarchia Lib III sec. 10. "Poterat tamen Imperator in patrocinium Eccelesiae patrimonium et alia deputare immoto semper superiori dominio cujus unitas divisio non patitur. Poterat et Vicarius Dei recipere, non tanquam possessor, sed tanquam fructuum pro Eccelesia proque Christi pauperibus dispensator." He tells us that St. Dominic did not ask for the tithes which belong to the poor of God. (Paradiso, XII. 93, 94.) "Let them return whence they came," he says (De Monarchia, Lib II. sec. 10); "they came well, let them return ill, for they were well given and ill held." [210] Inferno, XIX. 53; Paradiso, XXX. 145-148. [211] Purgatorio, XX. 86-92. [211] Purgatorio, XX. 86-92. [212] Purgatorio, XIX. 134, 135. [213] This results from the whole course of his argument in the second book of De Monarchia, and in the VI. Paradiso he calls the Roman eagle "the bird of God" and "the scutcheon of God." We must remember that with Dante God is always the "Emperor of Heaven," the barons of whose court are the Apostles. (Paradiso, XXIV. 115; Ib., XXV. 17.) [214] Dante seems to imply (though his name be German) that he was of Roman descent He makes the original inhabitants of Florence (Inferno, XV. 77, 78) of Roman seed, and Cacciaguida, when asked by him about his ancestry, makes no more definite answer than that their dwelling was in the most ancient part of the city (Paradiso, XVI. 40.) [215] Man was created, according to Dante (Convito, Tr. II. c. 6), to supply the place of the fallen angels, and is in a sense superior to the angels, inasmuch as he has reason, which they do not need. [216] De Monarchia, Lib I. sec. 5. [217] Purgatorio, VI. 83, 84. [218] De Monarchia, Lib. I. sec. 16. [219] De Monarchia, Lib. I. sec. 5. [220] De Monarchia, Lib II. sec. 7. [221] Purgatorio, XVI. 67, 68. [222] "Troilus and Cressida," Act I. s. 3. The whole speech is very remarkable both in thought and phrase. [223] Purgatorio, I. 71. [224] De Monarchia, Lib. I. sec. 14. [225] De Monarchia, Lib. I. sec. 18. [226] De Monarchia, Lib. I. sec. 14. [227] Paradiso, IX. [228] Inferno, XXXVIII; Purgatorio, XXXII. [229] See the poems of Walter Mapes (who was Archdeacon of Oxford); the "Bible Guiot," and the "Bible au seignor de Berze," Barbezan and Meon, II. [230] De Monarchia, Lib. III. sec. 8. [231] Purgatorio, III. 133, 134. [232] Paradiso, XXVII. 22. [233] Purgatorio, XXVII. 18; Ottimo, Inferno, XXVIII. 55. [234] Inferno, IX. 63; Purgatorio, VIII. 20. [235] Purgatorio, XXIX. 131, 132. [236] Inferno, XXII. 13, 14. [237] De Monarchia, Lib. II. sec. 4. [238] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 4; Ib., c. 27; Aeneid, I. 178, 179; Ovid's Met., VII. [239] Inferno, XXXI. 92. [240] Purgatorio, VI. 118, 119. Pulci, not understanding, has parodied this. ("Morgante," Canto II. st. 1.) [241] See, for example, Purgatorio, XX. 100-117. [242] We believe that Dante, though he did not understand Greek, knew something of Hebrew. He would have been likely to study it as the sacred language, and opportunities of profiting by the help of learned Jews could not have been wanting to him in his wanderings. In the above-cited passage some of the best texts read _I s' appellava_, and others _Un s' appellava_. God was called I (the _Je_ in Jehovah) or _One_, and afterwards _El_,--the strong,--an epithet given to many gods. Whichever reading we adopt, the meaning and the inference from it are the same. [243] Inferno, IV. [244] Dante's "Limbo," of course, is the older "Limbus Patrum." [245] De Monarchia, Lib. II. sec. 8. [246] Faith, Hope, and Charity. (Purgatorio, XXIX. 121.) Mr. Longfellow has translated the last verse literally. The meaning is, "More than a thousand years ere baptism was." [247] In which the _celestial Athens_ is mentioned. [248] Purgatorio, XXVII. 139-142. [249] "I conceived myself to be now," says Milton, "not as mine own person, but as a member incorporate into that truth whereof I was persuaded."
Paradiso, XXXIII., closing verses of the Divina Commedia. [251] Dante seems to allude directly to this article of the Catholic faith when he says, on entering the Celestial Paradise, "to signify transhumanizing by words could not be done," and questions whether he was there in the renewed spirit only or in the flesh also:-- "If I was merely _what of me thou newly Paradiso, I. 70-75. [252] Paradiso, II. 7. Lucretius makes the same boast:-- "Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
[254] Purgatorio, XVI. 142. Here is Milton's "Far off his coming shone." [255] Purgatorio, XV. 7, et seq. [256] See, for example, Inferno, XVII. 127-132; Ib. XXIV. 7-12; Purgatorio, II. 124-129; Ib., III. 79-84; Ib., XXVII. 76-81; Paradiso, XIX. 91-93; Ib. XXI. 34-39; Ib. XXIII. 1-9. [257] Inferno, XXXI. 136-138. "And those thin clouds above, in fakes and bars, Coleridge, "Dejection, an Ode." See also the comparison of the dimness of the faces seen around him in Paradise to "a pearl on a white forehead." (Paradiso, III. 14.) [258] Inferno, X. 35-41; Purgatorio, VI. 61-66; Ib., X. 133. [259] For example, Cavalcanti's _Come dicesti egli ebbe_? (Inferno, X. 67, 68.) Anselmuccio's _Tu guardi si, padre, che hai_? (Inferno, XXXIII. 51.) [260] To the "bestiality" of certain arguments Dante says, "one would wish to reply, not with words, but with a knife." (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 14.) [261] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 2. [262] Paradiso, XXII. 132-135; Ib., XXVII. 110. _ |
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