Chapter V: Part 5

[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, cioè 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
"_cioè porta pena e dolore di colui che giustamente è 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 virtù._ 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.

[112]
"O thou _well-born_, unto whom Grace concedes
To see the thrones of the Eternal triumph,
Or ever yet the warfare be abandoned."

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 _Nè 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
Soars your desirable discourse that aye
The more I strive, so much the more I lose it?
That thou mayst recognize, she said, the school
Which thou hast followed, and mayst see how far
Its doctrine follows after my discourse,
And mayst behold your path from the divine
Distant as far as separated is
From earth the heaven that highest hastens on."

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,
And captive Good attending Captain Ill,"

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 sè pareglie l' altre cose
E nulla face lui di sè pareglio."

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 Provençal _pareilh_ means _like_,
and Dante may have formed his word from it. But the four earliest
printed texts read:--

"Che fa di sè pareglio all' altre cose."

Accordingly we are inclined to think that the next verse should be
corrected thus:--

"E nulla face a lui di sè 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
É corto recettacolo a quel bene
Che non ha fine_, e sè con sè misura."

[166] "Wisdom of Solomon," VII. 26, quoted by Dante (Convito, Tr.
III. c. 15) There are other passages in the "Wisdom of Solomon"
besides that just cited which we may well believe Dante to have had
in his mind when writing the Canzone beginning,--

"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 Littéraire de la France au quatorzième
siècle" (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 Provençal 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. § 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. § _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.

[183]
"What Reason seeth here
Myself [Virgil] can tell thee; beyond that await
For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of Faith."

_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 über
Dante Alighieri," Tübingen, 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. § 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_.)

"Right and wrong,
Between whose endless jar justice resides."

_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, § _ult_.

[209] De Monarchia Lib III § 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. § 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. § 5.

[217] Purgatorio, VI. 83, 84.

[218] De Monarchia, Lib. I. § 16.

[219] De Monarchia, Lib. I. § 5.

[220] De Monarchia, Lib II. § 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. § 14.

[225] De Monarchia, Lib. I. § 18.

[226] De Monarchia, Lib. I. § 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
Méon, II.

[230] De Monarchia, Lib. III. § 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. § 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. § 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."

[250]
"But now was turning my desire and will,
Even as a wheel that equally is moved,
The Love that moves the sun and other stars."

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
Createdst_, Love who governest the heavens,
Thou knowest who didst lift me with thy light."

Paradiso, I. 70-75.

[252] Paradiso, II. 7. Lucretius makes the same boast:--

"Avia Pieridum peragro loca nullius ante
Trita solo."

[253] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 15.

[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,
That give away their motion to the stars."

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.

SPENSER.

Chaucer had been in his grave one hundred and fifty years ere England had secreted choice material enough for the making of another great poet. The nature of men living together in societies, as of the individual man, seems to have its periodic ebbs and floods, its oscillations between the ideal and the matter-of-fact, so that the doubtful boundary line of shore between them is in one generation a hard sandy actuality strewn only with such remembrances of beauty as a dead sea-moss here and there, and in the next is whelmed with those lacelike curves of ever-gaining, ever-receding foam, and that dance of joyous spray which for a moment catches and holds the sunshine.

From the two centuries between 1400 and 1600 the indefatigable Ritson in his _Bibliographia Poetica_ has made us a catalogue of some six hundred English poets, or, more properly, verse-makers. Ninety-nine in a hundred of them are mere names, most of them no more than shadows of names, some of them mere initials. Nor can it be said of them that their works have perished because they were written in an obsolete dialect; for it is the poem that keeps the language alive, and not the language that buoys up the poem. The revival of letters, as it is called, was at first the revival of _ancient_ letters, which, while it made men pedants, could do very little toward making them poets, much less toward making them original writers. There was nothing left of the freshness, vivacity, invention, and careless faith in the present which make many of the productions of the Norman Trouvères delightful reading even now. The whole of Europe during the fifteenth century produced no book which has continued readable, or has become in any sense of the word a classic. I do not mean that that century has left us no illustrious names, that it was not enriched with some august intellects who kept alive the apostolic succession of thought and speculation, who passed along the still unextinguished torch of intelligence, the _lampada vitae_, to those who came after them. But a classic is properly a book which maintains itself by virtue of that happy coalescence of matter and style, that innate and exquisite sympathy between the thought that gives life and the form that consents to every mood of grace and dignity, which can be simple without being vulgar, elevated without being distant, and which is something neither ancient nor modern, always new and incapable of growing old. It is not his Latin which makes Horace cosmopolitan, nor can Béranger's French prevent his becoming so. No hedge of language however thorny, no dragon-coil of centuries, will keep men away from these true apples of the Hesperides if once they have caught sight or scent of them. If poems die, it is because there was never true life in them, that is, that true poetic vitality which no depth of thought, no airiness of fancy, no sincerity of feeling, can singly communicate, but which leaps throbbing at touch of that shaping faculty the imagination. Take Aristotle's ethics, the scholastic philosophy, the theology of Aquinas, the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, the small politics of a provincial city of the Middle Ages, mix in at will Grecian, Roman, and Christian mythology, and tell me what chance there is to make an immortal poem of such an incongruous mixture. Can these dry bones live? Yes, Dante can create such a soul under these ribs of death that one hundred and fifty editions of his poem shall be called for in these last sixty years, the first half of the sixth century since his death. Accordingly I am apt to believe that the complaints one sometimes hears of the neglect of our older literature are the regrets of archaeologists rather than of critics. One does not need to advertise the squirrels where the nut-trees are, nor could any amount of lecturing persuade them to spend their teeth on a hollow nut.

On the whole, the Scottish poetry of the fifteenth century has more meat in it than the English, but this is to say very little. Where it is meant to be serious and lofty it falls into the same vices of unreality and allegory which were the fashion of the day, and which there are some patriots so fearfully and wonderfully made as to relish. Stripped of the archaisms (that turn every _y_ to a meaningless _z_, spell which _quhilk_, shake _schaik_, bugle _bowgill_, powder _puldir_, and will not let us simply whistle till we have puckered our mouths to _quhissill_) in which the Scottish antiquaries love to keep it disguised,--as if it were nearer to poetry the further it got from all human recognition and sympathy,--stripped of these, there is little to distinguish it from the contemporary verse-mongering south of the Tweed. Their compositions are generally as stiff and artificial as a trellis, in striking contrast with the popular ballad-poetry of Scotland (some of which possibly falls within this period, though most of it is later), which clambers, lawlessly if you will, but at least freely and simply, twining the bare stem of old tradition with graceful sentiment and lively natural sympathies. I find a few sweet and flowing verses in Dunbar's "Merle and Nightingale,"--indeed one whole stanza that has always seemed exquisite to me. It is this:--

"Ne'er sweeter noise was heard by living man
Than made this merry, gentle nightingale.
Her sound went with the river as it ran
Out through the fresh and flourished lusty vale;
O merle, quoth she, O fool, leave off thy tale,
For in thy song good teaching there is none,
For both are lost,--the time and the travail
Of every love but upon God alone."

But except this lucky poem, I find little else in the serious verses of Dunbar that does not seem to me tedious and pedantic. I dare say a few more lines might be found scattered here and there, but I hold it a sheer waste of time to hunt after these thin needles of wit buried in unwieldy haystacks of verse. If that be genius, the less we have of it the better. His "Dance of the Seven Deadly Sins," over which the excellent Lord Hailes went into raptures, is wanting in everything but coarseness; and if his invention dance at all, it is like a galley-slave in chains under the lash. It would be well for us if the sins themselves were indeed such wretched bugaboos as he has painted for us. What he means for humor is but the dullest vulgarity; his satire would be Billingsgate if it could, and, failing, becomes a mere offence in the nostrils, for it takes a great deal of salt to keep scurrility sweet. Mr. Sibbald, in his "Chronicle of Scottish Poetry," has admiringly preserved more than enough of it, and seems to find a sort of national savor therein, such as delights his countrymen in a _haggis_, or the German in his _sauer-kraut_. The uninitiated foreigner puts his handkerchief to his nose, wonders, and gets out of the way as soon as he civilly can. Barbour's "Brus," if not precisely a poem, has passages whose simple tenderness raises them to that level. That on Freedom is familiar.[263] But its highest merit is the natural and unstrained tone of manly courage in it, the easy and familiar way in which Barbour always takes chivalrous conduct as a matter of course, as if heroism were the least you could ask of any man. I modernize a few verses to show what I mean. When the King of England turns to fly from the battle of Bannockburn (and Barbour with his usual generosity tells us he has heard that Sir Aymer de Valence led him away by the bridle-rein against his will), Sir Giles d'Argente

"Saw the king thus and his menie
Shape them to flee so speedily,
He came right to the king in hy [hastily]
And said, 'Sir, since that is so
That ye thus gate your gate will go,
Have ye good-day, for back will I:
Yet never fled I certainly,
And I choose here to bide and die
Than to live shamefully and fly.'"

The "Brus" is in many ways the best rhymed chronicle ever written. It is national in a high and generous way, but I confess I have little faith in that quality in literature which is commonly called nationality,--a kind of praise seldom given where there is anything better to be said. Literature that loses its meaning, or the best part of it, when it gets beyond sight of the parish steeple, is not what I understand by literature. To tell you when you cannot fully taste a book that it is because it is so thoroughly national, is to condemn the book. To say it of a poem is even worse, for it is to say that what should be true of the whole compass of human nature is true only to some north-and-by-east-half-east point of it. I can understand the nationality of Firdusi when, looking sadly back to the former glories of his country, he tells us that "the nightingale still sings old Persian"; I can understand the nationality of Burns when he turns his plough aside to spare the rough burr thistle, and hopes he may write a song or two for dear auld Scotia's sake. That sort of nationality belongs to a country of which we are all citizens,--that country of the heart which has no boundaries laid down on the map. All great poetry must smack of the soil, for it must be rooted in it, must suck life and substance from it, but it must do so with the aspiring instinct of the pine that climbs forever toward diviner air, and not in the grovelling fashion of the potato. Any verse that makes you and me foreigners is not only not great poetry, but no poetry at all. Dunbar's works were disinterred and edited some thirty years ago by Mr. Laing, and whoso is national enough to like thistles may browse there to his heart's content. I am inclined for other pasture, having long ago satisfied myself by a good deal of dogged reading that every generation is sure of its own share of bores without borrowing from the past.