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diff --git a/27999.txt b/27999.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d5fa0b5 --- /dev/null +++ b/27999.txt @@ -0,0 +1,4962 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Dante: His Times and His Work, by Arthur John Butler + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Dante: His Times and His Work + +Author: Arthur John Butler + +Release Date: February 4, 2009 [EBook #27999] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANTE: HIS TIMES AND HIS WORK *** + + + + +Produced by Irma Špehar and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + DANTE + HIS TIMES AND HIS WORK + + + + + THE PURGATORY OF DANTE. Edited, with Translation and Notes, by + A. J. BUTLER, M.A. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ + + THE PARADISE OF DANTE. By the same. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ + + THE HELL OF DANTE. By the same. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ + + A COMPANION TO DANTE. By Professor SCARTAZZINI. Translated by A. + J. BUTLER, M.A. Crown 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ + + THE PURGATORY OF DANTE. Translated by C. LANCELOT SHADWELL, M.A. + Crown 8vo. 10_s._ net. + + THE EARTHLY PARADISE OF DANTE. Translated by the same. Crown + 8vo. 5_s._ net. + + READINGS ON DANTE. By the Hon. WILLIAM WARREN VERNON, M.A. + + THE PURGATORIO. With Introduction by Dean CHURCH. 2 vols. Crown + 8vo. 24_s._ + + THE INFERNO. With Introduction by Rev. E. MOORE, D.D. 2 vols. + Crown 8vo. 30_s._ + + THE PARADISO. With Introduction by the Bishop of RIPON. 2 vols. + Crown 8vo. 21_s._ + + DANTE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. By R. W. CHURCH. Globe 8vo. 5_s._ + + LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. + + + + + DANTE + HIS TIMES AND HIS WORK + + BY + + ARTHUR JOHN BUTLER, M.A. + + LATE FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE + + + ~London~ + MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED + NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY + 1902 + + _All rights reserved_ + + + PRINTED BY + WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + +PREFACE + + +This little book is mainly compounded of papers which appeared, part in +the _Monthly Packet_, and part in the Magazine of the Home Reading +Union. It will be seen, therefore, that it is not intended for those +whom Italians call "Dantists," but for students at an early stage of +their studies. To the former class there will be nothing in the book +that is not already familiar--except where they happen to find mistakes, +from which, in so extensive a field for blundering as Dante affords, I +cannot hope to have kept it free. In the domain of history alone fresh +facts are constantly rewarding the indefatigable research of German and +Italian scholars--a research of which only the most highly specialised +specialist can possibly keep abreast. Even since the following pages +were for the most part in print, we have had Professor Villari's _Two +Centuries of Florentine History_, correcting in many particulars the +chroniclers on whom the Dante student has been wont to rely. This book +should most emphatically be added to those named in the appendix as +essential to the study of our author. + +In connection with some of the remarks in the opening chapter, Professor +Butcher's Essay on _The Dawn of Romanticism in Greek Poetry_ should be +noticed. I do not think that the accomplished author's view is +incompatible with mine; though I admit that I had not taken much account +of the Greek writers whom we call "post-classical." But it is to be +noted, as bearing on the question raised in the second footnote on p. 9, +that most or all of the writers whom he cites were either Asiatics or +nearly touched by Asiatic influences. + +I have made some attempt to deal in a concise way with two subjects +which have not, I think, hitherto been handled in English books on +Dante, other than translations. One of these is the development of the +Guelf and Ghibeline struggle from a rivalry between two German houses to +a partisan warfare which rent Italy for generations. I am quite aware +that I have merely touched the surface of the subject, which seems to +me to contain in it the essence of all political philosophy, with +special features such as could only exist in a country which, like +Italy, had, after giving the law to the civilised world, been unable to +consolidate itself into a nation like the other nations of Europe. I +have, I find, even omitted to notice what seem to have been the ruling +aims of at any rate the honest partisans on either side: unity, that of +the Ghibelines; independence, that of the Guelfs. Nor have I drawn +attention to a remarkable trait in Dante's own character, which, so far +as I know, has never been discussed--I mean his apparent disregard of +the "lower classes." Except for one or two similes drawn from the +"villano" and his habits, and one or two contemptuous allusions to +"Monna Berta e Ser Martino" and their like, it would seem as if for him +the world consisted of what now would be called "the upper ten +thousand." In an ordinary politician or partisan, or even in a mere man +of letters this would not be strange; but when we reflect that Dante was +a man who went deeply into social and religious questions, that he was +born less than forty years after the death of St. Francis, and was at +least closely enough associated with Franciscans for legend to make him +a member of the order, and that most of the so-called heretical sects of +the time--Paterines, Cathari, Poor Men--started really more from social +than from religious discontent, it is certainly surprising that his +interest in the "dim, common populations" should have been so slight. + +The other object at which I have aimed is the introduction of English +students to the theories which seem to have taken possession of the most +eminent Continental Dante scholars, and of which some certainly seem to +be quite as much opposed to common sense and knowledge of human nature +as the conjectures of Troya and Balbo, for instance, were to sound +historical criticism. Here, again, I have but touched on the more +salient points; feeling sure that before long some of the scholarship in +our Universities and elsewhere, which at present devotes itself to Greek +and Latin, having reached the point of realizing that Greek and Latin +texts may be worth studying though written outside of so-called +classical periods, will presently extend the principle to the further +point of applying to mediaeval literature, which hitherto has been too +much the sport of _dilettanti_, the methods that have till now been +reserved for the two favoured (and rightly favoured) languages. Unless I +am much mistaken, the finest Latin scholar will find that a close study +of early Italian will teach him "a thing or two" that he did not know +before in his own special subject; so that his labour will not be lost, +even from that point of view. Then we shall get the authoritative +edition of Dante, which I am insular enough to believe will never come +from either Germany or Italy, or from any intervening country. + + _February_, 1895. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + + I. THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY 1 + + II. GUELFS AND GHIBELINES 16 + + III. DANTE'S EARLY DAYS 38 + + IV. FLORENTINE AFFAIRS TILL DANTE'S EXILE 52 + + V. DANTE'S EXILE 69 + + VI. THE "COMMEDIA" 89 + + VII. THE MINOR WORKS 171 + + APPENDIX I.--SOME HINTS TO BEGINNERS 189 + + APPENDIX II.--DANTE'S USE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE 198 + + + + +DANTE: HIS TIMES AND HIS WORK + +CHAPTER I. + +THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY + + +The person who sets to work to write about Dante at the present day has +two great difficulties to reckon with: the quantity which has already +been written on the subject, and the quantity which remains to be +written. The first involves the reading of an enormous mass of +literature in several languages, and very various in quality; but for +the comfort of the young student, it may at once, and once for all, be +stated that he can pretty safely ignore everything written between 1400 +and 1800. The subject of commentaries, biographies, and other helps, or +would-be helps, will be treated of later on. Here we need only say that +the Renaissance practically stifled anything like an intelligent study +of Dante for those four centuries; and it was not until a new critical +spirit began to apply to it the methods which had hitherto been reserved +for the Greek and Latin classics, that the study got any chance of +development. How enormously it has developed during the present century +needs not to be said. It may suffice to point out that the British +Museum Catalogue shows editions of the _Commedia_ at the rate of one for +every year since 1800, and other works on Dante in probably five times +that proportion. + +Now, it has been said of the _Commedia_, and the remark is equally true +of Dante's other works, that it is like the Bible in this respect: every +man finds in it what he himself brings to it. The poet finds poetry, the +philosopher philosophy; the scientific man science as it was known in +1300; the politician politics; heretics have even found heresy. Nor is +this very surprising when we consider what were the author's +surroundings. Naturally, no doubt, a man of study and contemplation, his +lot was cast in the midst of a stirring, even a turbulent, society, +where it was hardly possible for any individual to escape his share of +the public burdens. Ablebodied men could not be spared when, as was +usually the case, fighting was toward; all men of mental capacity were +needed in council or in administration. And, after all, the area to be +administered, the ground to be fought over, were so small, that the man +of letters might do his duty by the community and yet have plenty of +time to spare for his studies. He might handle his pike at Caprona or +Campaldino one day, and be at home among his books the next. Then, +again, the society was a cultivated and quick-witted one, with many +interests. Arts and letters were in high esteem, and eminence in them as +sure a road to fame as warlike prowess or political distinction. From +all this it is clear that the Florentine of the thirteenth century had +points of contact with life on every side; every gate of knowledge lay +open to him, and he could explore, if he pleased, every one of its +paths. They have now been carried further, and a lifetime is too short +for one man to investigate thoroughly more than one or two; but in those +days it was still possible for a man of keen intelligence, added to the +almost incredible diligence, as it appears to us, of the Middle Ages, to +make himself acquainted with all the best that had been done and said +in the world. + +This it is which forms at once the fascination and the difficulty of +Dante's great work. Of course, if we content ourselves with reading it +merely for its "beauties," for the aesthetic enjoyment of an image here +and an allusion there, for the trenchant expression of some thought or +feeling at the roots of human nature, there will be no need of any +harder study than is involved in going through it with a translation. +Indeed, it will hardly be worth while to go to the original at all. The +pleasure, one might almost say the physical pleasure, derived from +sonorous juxtaposition of words, such as we obtain from Milton or from +Shelley, is scarcely to be genuinely felt in the case of a foreign +language; and the beauties of matter, as distinguished from those of +form, are faithfully enough rendered by Cary or Longfellow. + +It may, however, be safely assumed that few intelligent students will +rest content with this amount of study. They will find at every turn +allusions calling for explanation, philosophical doctrines to be traced +to their sources, judgements on contemporary persons and events to be +verified. On every page they will meet with problems the solution of +which has not yet been attempted, or attempted only in the most +perfunctory way. For generation after generation readers have gone on +accepting received interpretations which only tell them what their own +wits could divine without any other assistance than the text itself +gives. No commentator seems yet to have realised that, in order to +understand Dante thoroughly, he must put himself on Dante's level so far +as regards a knowledge of all the available literature. The more obvious +quarries from which Dante obtained the materials for his mighty +structure--the Bible, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, Aristotle--have no +doubt been pretty thoroughly examined, and many obscurities which the +comments of Landino and others only left more obscure have thus been +cleared up; but a great deal remains to be done. Look where one may in +the literature which was open to Dante, one finds evidence of his +universal reading. We take up such a book as Otto of Freising's _Annals_ +(to which, with his _Acts of Frederick I._, we shall have to refer +again), and find the good bishop moralising thus on the mutability of +human affairs, with especial reference to the break-up of the Empire in +the middle of the ninth century:-- + + "Does not worldly honour seem to turn round and round after the + fashion of one stricken with fever? For such place their hope of + rest in a change of posture, and so, when they are in pain, + throw themselves from side to side, turning over + continually."[1] + +It is hard not to suppose that Dante had this passage in his mind when +he wrote that bitter apostrophe to his own city with which the sixth +canto of the _Purgatory_ ends:-- + + "E se ben ti ricorda, e vedi lume, + Vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma, + Che non puo trovar posa in su le piume, + Ma con dar volta suo dolore scherma." + +It is hardly too much to say that one cannot turn over a couple of pages +of any book which Dante may conceivably have read without coming on some +passage which one feels certain he had read, or at the very least +containing some information which one feels certain he possessed. A real +"Dante's library"[2] would comprise pretty well every book in Latin, +Italian, French, or Provencal, "published," if we may use the term, up +to the year 1300. Of course a good many Latin books were (may one say +fortunately?) in temporary retirement at that time; but even of these, +whether, as has been suggested, through volumes, now lost, of "Elegant +Extracts," or by whatever other means, more was evidently known than is +always realised. + +We must, however, beware of treating Dante merely as a repertory of +curious lore or museum of literary _bric-a-brac_--a danger almost as +great as that of looking at him from a purely aesthetic point of view. He +had no doubt read more widely than any man of his age, and he is one of +the half-dozen greatest poets of all time. But his claim on our +attention rests on even a wider basis than these two qualities would +afford. He represents as it were the re-opening of the lips of the human +race: "While I was musing, the fire kindled, and at last I spake with my +tongue." The old classical literature had said its last word when +Claudian died; and though men continued to compose, often with ability +and intelligence, the histories and chronicles which practically formed +the only non-theological writings of the so-called "Dark Ages," letters +in the full sense of the term lay dormant for centuries. Not till the +twelfth century was far advanced did any signs of a re-awakening appear. +Then, to use a phrase of Dante's, the dead poetry arose, and a burst of +song came almost simultaneously from all Western Europe. To this period +belong the Minnesingers of Germany, the Troubadours of Provence, the +unknown authors of the lovely romance--poetical in feeling, though cast +chiefly in a prose form--_Aucassin et Nicolete_, and of several not less +lovely English ballads and lyrics. Even the heavy rhymed chronicles +begin to be replaced by romances in which the true poetic fire breaks +out, such as the _Nibelungen Lied_ (in its definitive form) and the +_Chronicle of the Cid_. + +In the new poetry two features strike us at once. The sentiment of love +between man and woman, which with the ancients and even with early +Christian writers scarcely ever rises beyond the level of a sensual +passion,[3] becomes transfigured into a profound emotion touching the +deepest roots of a man's nature, and acting as an incentive to noble +conduct; and, closely connected with this, the influence of external +nature upon the observer begins for the first time to be recognised and +to form a subject for poetical treatment.[4] Horace has several charming +descriptions of the sights and sounds of spring; but they suggest to him +merely that life is short, or that he is thirsty, and in either case he +cannot do better than have another drink in company with a friend. So +with Homer and Virgil. External nature and its beauty are often touched +off in two or three lines which, once read, are never forgotten; but it +is always as ornament to a picture, not auxiliary to the expression of a +mood. You may search classical literature in vain for such passages as +Walther von der Vogelweide's:-- + + "Do der sumer komen was + Und die bluomen durch daz gras + Wunnecliche ensprungen, + Ald[=a] die vogele sungen, + Dar kom ich gegangen + An einer anger langen, + Da ein luter brunne entspranc; + Vor dem walde was s[=i]n ganc, + Da diu nahtegale sanc;"[5] + +or the unknown Frenchman's:-- + + "Ce fu el tans d'este, el mois de mai, que li jor sont caut, + lonc, et cler, et les nuits coies et series. Nicolete jut une + nuit en son lit, et vit la lune cler par une fenestre, et si oi + le lorseilnol center en garding, se li sovint d'Aucassin sen ami + qu'ele tant aimoit;"[6] + +or the equally unknown Englishman's:-- + + "Bytuene Mershe and Averil, + When spray biginneth to springe, + The lutel foul hath hire wyl + On hyre lud to synge; + Ich libbe in love-longinge + For semlokest of alle thinge, + He may me blisse bringe, + Icham in hire baundoun."[7] + +But it is hardly necessary to multiply instances. By the middle of the +thirteenth century the spring, and the nightingales, and the flowering +meadows had become a commonplace of amatory and emotional poetry. + +So far, however, poetry was exclusively lyrical. The average standard of +versifying was higher, perhaps, than it has ever been before or since. +Every man of education seems to have been able to turn a sonnet or ode. +Men of religion, like St. Francis or Brother Jacopone of Todi; +statesmen, like Frederick II. and his confidant, Peter de Vineis; +professional or official persons, like Jacopo the notary of Lentino, or +Guido dalle Colonne the judge of Messina; fighting men, like several of +the Troubadours; political intriguers, like Bertrand del Born--all have +left verses which, for beauty of thought and melody of rhythm, have +seldom been matched. But the great poem was yet to come, which was to +give to the age a voice worthy of its brilliant performance. It is not +only in literature that it displays renewed vitality. Turn where we +will, in every department of human energy it must have been brilliant +beyond any that the world has ever seen. It stood between two worlds, +but we cannot say of them that they were + + "One dead, + The other powerless to be born." + +The old monarchy was dying, had indeed, as Dante regretfully perceived, +died before he was born, and the trumpet-call of the _De Monarchia_, +wherewith he sought to revive it, was addressed to a generation which +had other ideals of government; but it had set in a blaze of splendour, +and its last wielder, Frederick II., was, not unfitly, known as the +Wonder of the World. The mediaeval Papacy, though about to undergo a loss +of prestige which it never retrieved, outlived its rival, and had +seldom been a greater force in the political world than it was in the +hands of the ambitious and capable Boniface VIII. The scholastic +philosophy, which had directed the minds of men for many generations, +was soon to make way for other forms of reasoning and other modes of +thought; but its greatest exponent, St. Thomas Aquinas, was Dante's +contemporary for nine years. These examples will serve to show that the +old systems were capable to the very last of producing and influencing +great men. + +Meantime the new order was showing no lack of power to be born. Two of +our countrymen, Roger Bacon and, somewhat later, William of Ockham, +sowed, each in his own way, the seeds which were to bear fruit in the +science and speculation of far distant ages. In the arts, architecture +reached its highest pitch of splendour; and painting was at the outset +of the course which was to culminate, more than two hundred years later, +in Titian and Raffaelle. But in no field did the energy of the +thirteenth century manifest itself as in that of politics. With the +collapse of the Empire came the first birth of the "nationalities" of +modern Europe. The process indeed went on at very different rates. The +representative constitution of England, the centralised government of +France were by the end of the century fairly started on the lines which +they have followed ever since. But England had never owned allegiance to +the Emperor, while France had pretty well forgotten whence it had got +the name which had replaced that of Gaul. In the countries where the +Empire had till recently been an ever-present power, Germany and Italy, +the work of consolidation went on far less rapidly; indeed, it has been +reserved for our own age to see it completed. With Germany we have here +nothing directly to do; but it is all-important to the right +understanding of Dante's position that we should glance briefly at the +political state of Italy and especially of Tuscany during the latter +half of the thirteenth century. By good fortune we have very copious +information on this matter. A contemporary and neighbour of Dante's, by +name John Villani, happened to be at Rome during the great Jubilee of +1300. The sight of the imperial city and all its ancient glories set him +meditating on its history, written, as he says (in a collocation of +names which looks odd to us, but was usual enough then), "by Virgil, by +Sallust and Lucan, by Titus Livius, Valerius, and Paulus Orosius," and +moved him, as an unworthy disciple, to do for his native city what they +had done for Rome. The result was the most genial and generally +delightful work of history that has been written since Herodotus. +Villani, who lived till 1348, when the plague carried him off, seems to +have been a man of an equable disposition and sober judgement. Like +Dante and all the Florentines of that day, he belonged to the Guelf +party; and, unlike his great fellow-citizen, he adhered to it +throughout, though by no means approving all the actions of its leaders. +After the fashion of the time, he begins his chronicle with the Tower of +Babel; touches on Dardanus, Priam, and the Trojan war; records the +origin of the Tuscan cities; and so by easy stages comes down towards +the age in which he lived. The earlier portions, of course, are more +entertaining and suggestive than trustworthy in detail; but as he +approaches a time for which he had access to living memory, and still +more when he records the events of which he was himself a witness, he is +our best authority. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [1] Otho Fris., _Annales_, v. 36. + + [2] A useful list, with some account of the authors cited by + Dante, is given by Mr. J. S. Black, in a volume entitled + _Dante_; _Illustrations and Notes_, privately printed by Messrs. + T. & A. Constable, at Edinburgh, 1890. He does not, however, + include (save in one or two cases, and those rather doubtful) + authors of whom Dante's knowledge rests on inference only. + + [3] I do not forget Ulysses and Penelope, Hector and Andromache, + or Ovid's _Heroides_; but the love of husband and wife is + another matter altogether. The only instance in classical + literature that I can recall of what may be termed the modern + view of the subject is that of Haemon and Antigone. See, on this + subject, and in connection with these paragraphs generally, + Symonds, _Introduction to the Study of Dante_, ch. viii. + + [4] This must be taken as referring only to European literature. + Such a passage as Canticles ii. 10-14 shows that Oriental poets + felt the sentiment from very early times. Is it possible that + contact with the East evoked it in Europeans? + + [5] "When the summer was come, and the flowers sprang joyously + up through the grass, right there the birds were singing; + thither came I, on my way over a long meadow where a clear well + gushed forth; its course was by the wood where the nightingale + sang." + + [6] "It was summer time, the month of May, when the days are + warm, and long, and clear, and the nights still and serene. + Nicolete lay one night on her bed, and saw the moon shine clear + through a window, yea, and heard the nightingale sing in the + garden, so she minded her of Aucassin, her lover, whom she loved + so well" (Lang's translation). + + [7] Lud = song; semlokest = seemliest; he = she; in hire + baundoun = at her command. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + +GUELFS AND GHIBELINES[8] + + +Mention was made, in the last chapter, of the "Guelf" party, and this, +with its opposite, the party of the "Ghibelines," fills the entire field +of Italian politics during Dante's life, and indeed for long afterwards. +It would be impossible in the space of these pages to follow up all the +tangled threads which have attached themselves to those famous names; +but since we may be, to use a picturesque phrase of Carlyle's, "thankful +for any hook whatever on which to hang half-an-acre of thrums in fixed +position," a few of the more prominent points in the early history of +the great conflict shall be noted here. + +As every one knows, the names originally came from Germany, and to that +country we must turn for a short time to know their import. + +About seven miles to the north-east of Stuttgart, in what is now the +kingdom of Wurtemberg, is a small town called Waiblingen, where was once +a stronghold, near the borders of Franconia and Suabia (or Alemannia), +belonging to the Franconian dukes. Conrad, often called "the Salic," +head of that house, was raised to the throne of Germany and the Empire +in 1024. His line held the imperial crown for just a century, in the +persons of himself and three Henries, who are known as the second, +third, and fourth, or third, fourth, and fifth, according as we reckon +their places among Roman Emperors or German Kings; Henry III. (or IV.) +being famous as the great opponent of Pope Gregory VII.; Henry IV. (or +V.) interesting to us as the first husband of the daughter of Henry I. +of England, renowned in English history as the Empress Maud. The last +Henry died childless in 1125. But the Franconian line was not extinct. +Half a century or so before, Bishop Otto of Freising tells us "a certain +count, by name Frederick, sprung from one of the noblest families of +Suabia, had founded a colony in a stronghold called Staufen." Staufen, +better known as Hohenstaufen, is a lofty hill about twenty miles from +Waiblingen, and within the Suabian frontier. Frederick had been staunch +to Henry IV. in his time of greatest difficulty, and received as his +reward, together with the dukedom of Suabia, which the house of +Zahringen had forfeited through disloyalty, the hand of the Emperor's +daughter Agnes. By her he had two sons, Frederick, who succeeded to his +own duchy of Suabia, and Conrad, who received from his uncle Henry V. +that of Franconia, including no doubt the lordship of Waiblingen. At +Henry's death Frederick and Conrad, being then thirty-five and +thirty-three years old respectively, were the most powerful princes of +the Empire. Henry had designated Frederick as his successor; but the +electors thought otherwise. At the instance of the Archbishop of Mainz, +between whom and the Hohenstaufen there was no love lost, and, as it +would seem, not without pressure from Lewis VI. of France, whom Henry's +death had just saved from having to face an alliance between England +and Germany, they chose Lothar, Duke of Saxony. + +We will now quote Otto of Freising once more. "Up to the present time," +he says, writing of the year 1152, "two families have been famous in the +Roman Empire, about the parts where Gaul and Germany meet, the Henries +of Waiblingen, and the Welfs of Altdorf." The Welfs go back to by far +the greater antiquity. They probably did not originally belong to the +Bajovarian stock, for we read elsewhere that they had "large possessions +in the parts where Alemannia meets the Pyrenaean Mountains," as Otto +usually designates the Alps west of the Brenner. This Altdorf is a +village near Ravensburg in Wurtemberg, between Ulm and Friedrichshafen. +We first meet with the name in history about the year 820, when the +Emperor Lewis I., "the Pious," married as his second wife Judith, +"daughter of the most noble Count Welf." Somewhere about the middle of +the tenth century, a Rudolf of the race was Count of Bozen. His son Welf +took part in the insurrection of the Dukes of Worms and Suabia against +their step-father Conrad II., "the Salic," and lost some of his +territories in consequence, Bozen passing to Etiko, an illegitimate +member of the same house. The family must have soon been restored to the +imperial favour, for before 1050 Welf III. appears as Duke of Bavaria. + +At his death, without issue, in 1055, he was succeeded by the son of his +sister, who had married Azzo II. of Este. This Welf IV. fought on the +side of Henry IV., against the revolted Saxons at the Unstrut, but soon +rebelled himself. He became for a time the husband of the "great +Countess" Matilda of Tuscany. Through him and his son Henry, "the +Black," the line was maintained; and though during the period at which +we have arrived the head of the family for several generations bore the +name of Henry, it is usually spoken of as "the house of the Welfs,"[9] +and the name is borne by some member of the family at most times. At the +accession of Lothar II. the head of the house was Henry, surnamed "the +Proud." With him the new emperor at once made close alliance, giving him +his daughter Gertrude in marriage. Henry's sister Judith was already +married to Frederick of Suabia, but he sided with his father-in-law, and +a struggle began which lasted for ten years, and in which the +Hohenstaufen brothers had not entirely the worst of it. Conrad was +actually anointed at Monza as King of Italy; but in the end, through the +intervention of St. Bernard, peace was made, and lasted during the few +remaining months of Lothar's life. At his death in 1137 Conrad was +elected. His first act was to take the duchy of Bavaria from Henry, and +bestow it on Leopold, the Marquis of Austria, his own half-brother, and +whole brother to Bishop Otto, the historian. Henry died very soon, +leaving a young son, afterwards known as Henry "the lion," and a +brother, Welf, who at once took up the quarrel on behalf of his nephew. +He beat Leopold; but when, emboldened by this success, he proceeded to +attack the Emperor, who was besieging the castle of Weinsberg, in +Franconia, he suffered a severe defeat. At this battle we are told the +cries of the contending sides were "Welf!" and "Waiblingen!" Why the +name of an obscure fortress should have been used as a battle-cry for +the mighty house of Hohenstaufen, we shall probably never know; it may +be that it was a chance selection as the password for the day. However +that may be, the battle-cries of Weinsberg were destined to resound far +into future ages. Modified to suit non-Teutonic lips, they became famous +throughout the civilised world as the designations of the two parties in +a struggle which divided Italy for centuries, and of which the last +vibrations only died down, if indeed they have died down, in our own +day. + +Of all faction-wars which history records, this is the most complicated, +the most difficult to analyse into distinct issues. The Guelfs have been +considered the Church or Papal party; and no doubt there is some truth +in this view. Indeed, there seems to have been some hereditary tradition +of the kind dating from a much earlier generation; long, in fact, before +the Ghibeline name had been heard of. When, as we have seen, Countess +Matilda of Tuscany, the champion of Gregory VII., was looking out for a +second husband, she fixed upon Welf of Bavaria, presumably the "dux +Noricorum," who, as Bishop Otto tells us, "in the war with the Emperor, +destroyed the cities of Freising and Augsburg." Their union did not last +long, for Matilda seems to have been hard to please in the matter of +husbands; but the fact of his selection looks as if he had been a +_persona grata_ with the Papal See. It is somewhat significant, too, +that Machiavelli regards the contest between Henry IV. and the Papacy as +having been "the seed of the Guelf and Ghibeline races, whereby when the +inundation of foreigners ceased, Italy was torn with intestine wars." +Yet we may shrewdly suspect that it was not so much any special devotion +to the Church, as the thwarted ambition of a powerful house, which made +the Welfs to be a thorn in the side first of the Franconian, then of the +Suabian Emperors.[10] At any rate, when a representative of the family, +in the person of Otto IV., at last reached "the dread summit of Caesarean +power," the very Pope, whose support had placed him on the throne, found +himself within little more than a year under the familiar necessity of +excommunicating the temporal head of Christendom. Still, in Italy no +doubt the Guelfs, politically at any rate, held by the Church, while the +Ghibelines had the reputation of being, as a party, at least tainted +with what we should now call materialism. It will be remembered that +among the sinners in this kind, who occupy the burning tombs within the +walls of the city of Dis, Dante places both the Emperor Frederick II., +the head of Ghibelinism, and Farinata degli Uberti, the vigorous leader +of the party in Tuscany, while the only Guelf who appears there is one +who probably was a very loose adherent to his own faction. + +Less justified, it would seem, is the idea that the Guelfs were +specially the patriotic party in Italy. No doubt the Popes at one time +tried to pose as the defenders of Italian liberties against German +tyrants, and some modern historians, forgetting the mediaeval conception +of the Empire, have been inclined to accept this view. But when it +suited his purpose, the Pope was ready enough to support an "anti-Caesar" +who was no less a German, or even to call in a French invader. The truth +is that at that time (and for many centuries afterwards), no conception +of "Italy" as a nation had entered into men's minds. We do not always +realise that until the year 1870, the territory, well enough defined by +Nature, which forms the modern kingdom of Italy, had never, except +indeed as part of a far wider Empire, owned the rule of a single +sovereign. Patriotism hardly extended beyond the walls of a man's own +city. Even Dante feels that residence in Lucca, Bologna, or Verona is an +exile as complete as any, and that his only _patria_ is Florence, though +it may be safely said that to him, if to any living man, the idea of an +Italian nation had presented itself. + +The one argument which we can find to support this view lies in the fact +that while the chief Guelf names are those of burgher families, many of +the leading Ghibeline houses were undoubtedly of German origin. At +Florence the Uberti, at Bologna the Lamberti, show their descent in +their names. Villani tells us that the Emperor Otto I. delighted in +Florence, "and when he returned to Germany certain of his barons +remained there and became citizens." The two families just mentioned +are specified. So far, then, the Guelfs may be regarded as representing +native civic liberties against an alien feudal nobility, and the +struggle between the two factions will fall into line with that which at +a somewhat later date went on in Germany between the traders of the +cities and the "robber-barons" of the country. In this aspect we may see +the full meaning of Dante's continual allusion to the sin of avarice, +under the image of the "wolf;" an allusion, again, which the original +name whence the Guelf party took its appellation would specially point. + +How and when the names first appeared in Italy we do not know. The first +manifestation of resistance on the part of the cities to the Imperial +control was given when Milan withstood Frederick Barbarossa--in defence, +it may be noted, of its own right to oppress its weaker neighbours; but +during the war which followed, and which was terminated by Frederick's +defeat at Legnano, the head of the Welfs, Henry the Lion, was for most +of the time fighting on the Imperial side, and though he deserted +Frederick at the last, he does not seem to have given any active help to +the Lombard League. Yet it may well be that in his defection we have to +see a stage in the transition from Welf to Guelf. It is, however, not in +Lombardy, but in Tuscany, that the names of Guelf and Ghibeline, as +recognised party designations, first appear. Machiavelli says--perhaps +by a confusion with the Black and White factions, of whom we shall hear +later--that they were first heard in Pistoia; but however this may be, +they would seem to have been definitely accepted by 1215, to which year +Villani assigns their introduction into Florence. + +We have now reached the first date, it may be said, which students of +Dante will have to remember; a date which to him, and equally to the +sober chronicler Villani, marked the beginning of troubles for the city +which both loved as a mother, though to the greater son she was "a +mother of small love." The occasion is so important that it ought to be +related in the historian's own words:-- + + "In the year of Christ 1215, one Messer Bondelmonte, of the + Bondelmonti, a noble citizen of Florence, having promised to + take to wife a damsel of the house of the Amidei, honourable and + noble citizens; as this Messer Bondelmonte, who was a gay and + handsome cavalier, was riding through the city, a lady of the + Donati family called to him, speaking evil of the lady who had + been promised to him, how that she was not fair nor fitting for + him, and saying: 'I have kept my daughter here for you,' showed + him the maiden; and she was very fair. And straightway falling + enamoured of her, he gave her his troth, and espoused her to + wife; for which cause the kinsfolk of the first promised lady + gathered together, and being grieved for the shame that Messer + Bondelmonte had wrought them, they took on them the accursed + quarrel whereby the city of Florence was laid waste and broken + up. For many houses of the nobles[11] bound themselves together + by an oath to do a shame to the aforesaid Bondelmonte in + vengeance for those injuries. And as they were in council among + themselves in what fashion they should bring him down, Mosca of + the Lamberti said the ill word: "A thing done hath an end," + meaning that he should be slain.[12] And so it came to pass; for + on the morning of Easter Day they assembled in the house of the + Amidei by St. Stephen's, and the said Messer Bondelmonte, coming + from beyond Arno, nobly clad in new white clothes, and riding on + a white palfrey, when he reached the hither end of the Old + Bridge, just by the pillar where was the image of Mars, was + thrown from his horse by Schiatta of the Uberti,[13] and by + Mosca Lamberti and Lambertuccio of the Amidei assailed and + wounded, and his throat was cut and an end made of him by + Oderigo Fifanti; and one of the counts from Gangalandi was with + them. For the which thing's sake the city flew to arms and + uproar, and this death of Messer Bondelmonte was the cause and + beginning of the accursed Guelf and Ghibeline parties in + Florence, albeit that before this the factions among the nobles + of the city had been plenty, and there had been the parties I + have said, by reason of the conflicts and questions between the + Church and the Empire; but through the death of Messer + Bondelmonte all the families of the nobles and other citizens of + Florence took sides with them, and some held with the + Bondelmonti, who took the Guelf side and were its leaders, and + others with the Uberti, who were head of the Ghibelines. Whence + followed much havoc and ruin to our city, and one may think that + it will never have an end if God put not a term to it."[14] + +The historian proceeds to enumerate the noble families who joined either +side. Curiously enough, they were at first evenly divided--thirty-eight +to thirty-eight. Not much is to be inferred from the names, though it is +somewhat significant that of those, some half a dozen families in all, +whom Villani, himself a Guelf, notes as having only recently attained to +nobility, all joined the Guelf party. There seems also to have been a +tendency for Ghibeline houses to become Guelf, which is not balanced by +any defections in the opposite sense, so that the balance of parties was +soon disturbed in favour of the Guelfs. At first, however, though + +"there was a division among the nobles of the city in that one loved the +lordship of the Church, and the other that of the Empire, yet in regard +to the state and welfare of the commonwealth all were in concord." + +This state of things did not last long. In 1220 Frederick II. was +crowned Emperor at Rome. Up till that time he had been more or less a +_protege_ of the Popes. First Innocent III., then Honorius III., had +kept a fatherly eye upon his youth and early manhood, and for a time +Church and Empire seemed to pull together. Honorius had, indeed, +occasion to write severely to him more than once, but there was no +breach of the peace. The accession of Gregory IX., in 1227, changed the +aspect of affairs. Before the year was out, Frederick, like most of his +predecessors for 200 years past, was under the ban of the Church: and +from this time forward there was an end of peace and quiet government in +Northern Italy. "Before Frederick met with opposition," Dante makes a +Lombard gentleman of the last generation say, "valour and courtesy were +wont to be found in the land which Adige and Po water; now may any man +safely go that way, who through shame has left off to converse with +good men or approach them."[15] + +Florence seems to have remained longer than most of the chief cities +aloof from the main contest. She had her own wars with Pisa, beginning +with a private quarrel at the Emperor's coronation (in which we are +expressly told that both parties united), and afterwards with Siena; and +the great houses did a certain amount of private fighting; "but still +the people and commonwealth of Florence continued in unity, to the +welfare and honour and stability of the republic." In 1248, however, +Frederick turned his attention in that direction, moved, it may be, by +the growing strength of the Guelfs. His natural son, Frederick of +Antioch, was sent with a force of German men-at-arms, and after some +fierce street fighting, the Guelfs were driven out. + +The Ghibeline supremacy was short-lived. Their nobles, especially the +great house of the Uberti, became unpopular by reason of the exactions +which they enforced; they got beaten in a fight with some of the +banished Guelfs at no great distance from the city; and before the end +of 1250 a meeting of "the good men," as Villani calls them, or, as we +should say, the middle class, limited the power of the Podesta,[16] and +appointed a Captain of the People to manage the internal affairs of the +city, with a council of twelve Elders. Other important changes were made +at the same time, and the new constitution--the third recorded in +Florentine history--was known as the "Primo Popolo." The death of +Frederick in the same year still further weakened the Ghibelines. Some +of them were banished, and the exiled Guelfs were recalled. Peace, +however, seems to have been kept between the parties for some time, and +when in 1255 Count Guido Guerra on his own account expelled the +Ghibelines from Arezzo, the Florentines restored them, and lent the +Aretines money to pay a fine which the Guelf chief had inflicted; "but I +know not if they ever got it back," says Villani. + +Again the compromise proved unstable. Manfred, Frederick's natural son, +to whom, during the childhood of his young nephew, Conradin, the +championship of the Hohenstaufen cause had fallen, was daily increasing +in strength. His orders came to the Ghibelines of Florence to crush the +popular party; and the latter, being warned in time, drove out all the +great Ghibeline families. Two years later these had their revenge. On +September 4, 1260, a date much to be remembered in the history of these +times, the banished Ghibelines, aided by eight hundred of Manfred's +German horse, seized the opportunity of hostilities between the +Florentines and the Sienese to meet their opponents in a pitched battle. +This took place on the Arbia, near the fortress of Montaperti, to the +east of Siena.[17] The Guelfs were utterly routed, partly, it would +seem, through the incompetence of some of the Elders who accompanied the +army, and who, civilians though they were, overruled the judgement of +the military leaders, and accepted battle under unfavourable +conditions; and partly through the treachery of some Ghibelines who, not +having been exiled, were serving in the Florentine host. Readers of the +_Commedia_ will remember the name of Bocca degli Abati, placed by Dante +in the lowest pit of hell.[18] + +Sixty-five of the leading Guelf families fled to Lucca, while the +Ghibelines entered Florence, and appointed Guido Novello, of the great +house of the Conti Guidi, Imperial Podesta. A meeting of the leaders of +the party from Pisa, Siena, and Arezzo was held at Empoli, and a +proposal was made on behalf of the rival cities, to raze Florence to the +ground as a fortified city, and so preclude her revival as a Guelf +stronghold. For once, however, a man was found to set patriotism above +party. The great Farinata degli Uberti, whose wise counsel and warlike +skill had mainly contributed to the victory, rose, with the same +magnificent scorn, we may suppose, that Dante afterwards saw him display +for the torments of Hell,[19] and let it be known that, so long as he +had life in him, he would resist any such measure at the sword's point. +Count Giordano, the commander of the Germans, who had convened the +meeting, gave in, and Florence was saved. + +This was the last gleam of success which the Imperial cause was to +enjoy in Tuscany for nearly half a century. Soon after the battle of +Montaperti, Urban IV. was elected to the Papal See. He was a Frenchman +by birth, "son of a shoemaker, but a valiant man and wise," says +Villani. In view of the growing power of Manfred, vigorous steps had to +be taken. The exiled Florentine Guelfs had made a fruitless attempt to +effect a diversion in Germany, by inciting the young Conradin to oppose +the acting head of his house. This old expedient having failed, Urban +turned his eyes towards his own country. Charles of Anjou, brother of +Saint Lewis, was at that time, next to the reigning sovereigns, the most +powerful prince in Christendom, and to his aid the Pope appealed. +Himself a man of Puritanical strictness in his life, and devoted to the +Church, Charles was ready enough to accept the call, which appealed +alike to his principles and to his ambition, and to act as the champion +of the Holy See against the dissolute and freethinking Manfred; and the +influence of his wife, the only one of Raymond Berenger's four daughters +who was not actually or in prospect a queen,[20] was thrown on the same +side. After keeping Easter 1265 at Paris, Charles set out, and landed at +the mouth of the Tiber in May. In December he was crowned at Rome King +of Naples, Sicily, and Apulia. Two months later, at the end of February +1266, Charles and Manfred met near Benevento. After some hard fighting, +of which the German troops seem to have borne the brunt, the battle was +decided against Manfred by the desertion of his Apulian barons, and he +himself was slain. His defeat gave the final blow to the Ghibeline cause +in Tuscany. Only Pisa and Siena remained faithful. In Florence an +attempt was made to avoid civil strife by the device of doubling the +office of Podesta. Two gentlemen from Bologna, Catalano de' Malavolti +and Loderingo de' Landolo, a Guelf and a Ghibeline,[21] were appointed, +and they nominated a council of thirty-six, chosen from both sides. But +this plan did not work well. Party spirit had grown too violent to allow +of half measures, and before the year was out the people rose again, and +the Ghibelines were banished for good and all. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [8] It seems proper to say that this chapter was written, and at + least some of it printed, before Mr. Oscar Browning's + interesting volume, _Guelphs and Ghibellines_ (Methuen), + appeared. + + [9] It may not be out of place here to correct the vulgar error + that "Guelf" is in any sense the surname of our Royal family. + The house of Brunswick is no doubt lineally descended from these + Welfs of Bavaria; but it has been a reigning house since a + period long antecedent to the existence (among Teutonic peoples) + of family or surnames, and there is no reason for assigning to + the Queen the Christian name of one of her ancestors more than + another--"Guelf" more than "George." + + [10] Hallam considers that hostility to the Empire was the + motive principle of the Guelf party in Lombardy; attachment to + the Church in Tuscany. + + [11] Observe that the Bondelmonti were comparatively newcomers. + They had originally belonged to Valdigreve, and had only lived + in Florence for some eighty years at the date of this event. + Hence they were looked upon as upstarts, and not properly + speaking, nobles at all. See _Paradise_, xvi. 133-147. + + [12] _Hell_, xxviii. 106. + + [13] Possibly "by the Uberti lot." + + [14] Villani, _Croniche_, v. 37. + + [15] _Purgatory_, xvi. 115. + + [16] The name _Podesta_ originally denoted the chief authority + of a city or county, whether vested in one person or several. + Frederick I. established Imperial officers under this title + throughout Tuscany near the end of his reign, and for some time + the Podesta was regarded as the Emperor's delegate. Before the + end of the century, however, they had become municipal officers, + gradually displacing the former consuls from the chief position. + About 1200 the custom of choosing them from the citizens of some + other town than that in which they officiated, seems to have + become established; the native consuls being their councillors. + + [17] _Hell_, x. 96. + + [18] _Hell_, xxxii. 81, 106. + + [19] _Ibid._, x. 36. + + [20] _Paradise_, vi. 133. + + [21] They seem to have acted on the principle of filling their + own pockets, rather than of maintaining order; and are placed by + Dante among the hypocrites, in the sixth pit of Malebolge + (_Hell_, xxiii. 103). They belonged to the order of Knights of + St. Mary, popularly called Jovial Friars. + + + + +CHAPTER III. + +DANTE'S EARLY DAYS + + +In the month when Charles of Anjou sailed up the Tiber to Rome, a child +was born at Florence to a citizen named Alighiero, son of Bellincione. +We do not know for certain his _casato_, or family name. Bellincione's +father was another Alighiero, or, as it was originally written, +Aldighiero. His father was Cacciaguida, who had a brother named Eliseo; +from which it has been conjectured that he may have belonged to the +prominent house of the Elisei, which is known to have existed as far +back as the beginning of the eleventh century, since it was not uncommon +for members of a family to bear the founder's name. We know, further, +that the name of Alighiero came into the family with Cacciaguida's wife, +who belonged to some city near the Po, probably Ferrara, where a family +of Aldighieri is known to have existed.[22] In any case, it was +originally no Florentine name, and it may be doubted if it ever was +recognised as the appellation of a family. True, Dante is once or twice +referred to as "Dantes de Alegheriis," but this may be due to the fact +that he was known to have had recently two ancestors of the name. He +himself, if we may trust the evidence of letters ascribed to him, seems +to have written "Dantes Alligherius," while his son calls him Dantes +Aligherii, and himself Petrus Dantis Aligherii, "Peter, son of Dante, +son of Alighiero." In the official Florentine documents, where his name +occurs, it is "Dantes Allegherii" or "Dante d'Alighiero," "Dante the son +of Alighiero," and no more. The form "degli Alighieri," which would +indicate a true family name, we find in no undoubtedly contemporary +document. + +In view of this initial uncertainty, the discussion whether the poet was +of "noble" family or not seems a trifle superfluous. His +great-great-grand-father, Cacciaguida, is made to say (_Par._, xv. 140) +that he himself received knighthood from the Emperor Conrad III. (of +Hohenstaufen). This would confer nobility; but it would appear that it +would be possible for later generations to lose that status, and there +are some indications that Dante was sensitive on this point. At any +rate, it is pretty clear that his immediate ancestors were not in any +way distinguished. The very fact that he was born in Florence during a +period when all the leading Guelfs were in exile shows that Alighiero +was not considered by the dominant Ghibelines a person of too great +importance to be allowed to remain undisturbed in the city. + +Of Dante's boyhood and early youth we have only stray indications, and +those mainly gathered from his own writings. We can, indeed, form a +pretty clear notion of what he _was_, but we know little enough about +what he _did_. From a very early period he was made a hero of romance. +Without going so far as some recent writers, both German and Italian, +who seem to look upon every statement of early biographers with +suspicion, while regarding their silence as good evidence that what +they do not mention cannot have happened, we must admit that we cannot +with certainty date any event in the first thirty years of Dante's life. +Still, we can infer a good deal. He must unquestionably, during this +time, have read a great deal, for it would have been impossible for a +man wandering about from place to place, and intermittently busied in +political affairs, to have amassed in seven or eight years the amount of +learning which the _Commedia_ by itself shows him to have possessed. He +must have been recognised at an early age as a young man of marked +ability. His intimacy with the old statesman Brunetto Latini, who died +in 1294, and his friendship with Charles of Anjou's grandson, Carlo +Martello,[23] the young King of Hungary, who was at Florence in the same +year and the following, are sufficient to prove this. Neither Brunetto, +the most learned man of his age in Florence, and, as we should say, a +man of "society" as well, nor a prince who, had he lived, would have +been one of the most important personages in Europe, was likely to have +distinguished with his friendship a young man of twenty-nine, not of the +highest birth, unless he had already made himself notable for +intellectual eminence. + +One event occurred during Dante's youth, in which he is so generally +believed to have borne a part, that it will probably come as a shock to +many people to learn that this belief rests only on the statement of a +writer who was not born till nearly fifty years after Dante's death. On +St. Barnabas's day, June 11, 1289, the Florentine Guelfs met the +Ghibelines of Arezzo, in whose ranks many of their own exiles were +fighting, in a plain called Campaldino, belonging to the district of +Certomondo, which lies in the Casentino, or upper part of the Arno +valley. The Florentines gained a complete victory, though only after a +hard fight, in which many of the chief Ghibeline leaders lost their +lives. The event was one of great importance, and Villani recounts it in +very full detail.[24] Dante also refers to it in one of the best-known +passages of the _Purgatory_ (v. 92). It is quite possible that he +himself may have taken part in the battle; but if he did so, it is +somewhat strange that none of the earlier commentators, including his +own son, nor any biographer of the fourteenth century, should have known +of it, or, knowing of it, should have thought it worth recording; and +that it should have been left to Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, writing after +the year 1400, to make the first reference to so noteworthy an incident +in Dante's early career. Leonardo (whose "Life" will be found in +Bianchi's edition of the _Commedia_) quotes, indeed, a letter, said to +have been written many years afterwards by Dante, in which reference is +made to his presence in the battle; but this letter has long +disappeared, and it is to be noted that the biographer does not even +profess to have seen it himself. There is, it must be said, in the +_Hell_ (xxii. _init._) one allusion to warlike operations in the +Aretine territory of which Dante claims to have been an eye-witness; but +as none of the early commentators seems to refer to Campaldino in +connection with this passage, it tells, if anything, against the +received story. + +Another event, sometimes assigned to the period of Dante's life before +his banishment, has somewhat more evidence in its favour. That he +visited Paris at least once in the course of his life, the early +authorities are agreed; but Villani, Boccaccio, and Benvenuto of Imola, +all writing in the fourteenth century, make the visit to have taken +place during his exile. It is not until we come to John of Serravalle, +Lord of Fermo, who as Bishop of Rimini attended the Council of +Constance, and there, at the request of the Bishops of Bath and Wells +and Salisbury, prepared a Latin version of the _Commedia_ with +commentary, that we find mention of an earlier visit. His testimony is a +little suspicious, because in the same sentence he also asserts that +Dante studied at Oxford, a statement which, without strong confirmation, +it would be very hard to accept. On the other side, it may be said that +the silence of the older biographers is not conclusive evidence against +the early study at Paris. Dante also went to Bologna, as it would +appear, both before and after his banishment; yet while Villani and +Boccaccio only name the latter visit, Benvenuto speaks only of the +former. It is therefore quite possible that all three may have ignored +the first period of study at Paris, or, if there was but one such +period, may have assigned it to the wrong part of Dante's life. _Prima +facie_ it is more probable that he would have undertaken both the long +journey and the course of study in his days of "greater freedom and less +responsibility," than when he was not only engaged upon the composition +both of his great poem and of several prose treatises, but was taking an +active share in political work. + +Again, the allusion in the _Paradise_ to the lectures of Sigier bears +all the stamp of a personal reminiscence; just as the allusion to the +dykes along the coast of Flanders to illustrate those which form the +banks of the river Phlegethon, could hardly have occurred to one who had +not seen them with his own eyes, though the biographers mention no +journey to Flanders. But Sigier's lectures and his life too were over by +1300. + +Another little bit of evidence may be given for what it is worth. Any +one who has read the discourses of Meister Eckhart, the founder of the +school of German mystics, will be struck by the frequent and close +resemblances, not of thought only, but of expression and illustration, +which exist between him and Dante. So frequent and so close are these, +that the reader can hardly conceive the possibility of their being due +to mere coincidence.[25] But Eckhart preached and wrote (if he wrote) in +German, a language which we have no reason to think that Dante knew; so +that the exchange of ideas between them, if any, must have taken place +by word of mouth, and in French or Latin. Now, Eckhart was for a long +time in Paris--so long that he seems to have been known as "Master +Eckhart of Paris"--and left that city in 1302. If he and Dante ever met, +it must have been in Paris (for though Eckhart went to Italy in 1302, it +appears to have been only on a journey to Rome, the last place save +Florence where Dante would then have cared to show himself), and that at +some time before 1300. + +Lastly, we may question if Dante would have chosen Paris as a place of +residence while Philip the Fair was on the throne of France. + +If, then, he did visit France before his exile, we can date the visit +with some certainty. It can hardly have been before 1290, the year of +Beatrice's death, nor after 1294, the year in which Carlo Martello came +to Florence. Dante's marriage, again, in all probability took place +somewhere about the latter year. We know nothing directly of Dante's +doings in this interval; nothing, at any rate, inconsistent with his +having been for some considerable period away from Florence. + +But we have kept till the last the subject which to many is the only one +associated with Dante's younger life. What, it will be said, about +Beatrice? The fashionable theory nowadays seems to be that there +undoubtedly was a lady at Florence of that name, the daughter of Folco +Portinari, that she was married to Simone de' Bardi, a member of that +great family who were Edward III.'s bankers, and that she died in the +flower of her youth. But, say the modern Italian and German writers, +this lady--Frau Bardi-Portinari, the latter call her--had no more to do +with Dante than any other Beatrice in history. This will seem to many +who do not realise on how slight a basis the identification of her +rests, to be the very wantonness of paradox. These may be startled to +learn that the whole story depends upon the veracity of one man, and +that a professed writer of romantic fiction. It is from Boccaccio, and +from him alone, that we have learnt to see in Dante's mystical guide and +guardian, in the lost love of his early years, only the idealised and +allegorised figure of Folco Portinari's daughter. What, then, is his +evidence worth? To this we can only reply, that Boccaccio was born eight +years before Dante's death; that he lived in Florence from his +childhood; that he must have spoken with scores of people to whom the +social and literary history of the years preceding 1290 was perfectly +familiar; that both Dante and the husband of Beatrice were prominent +men; and that Boccaccio can have had no motive for making a statement +which, if untrue, he must have known to be so. Further, if the statement +had been untrue, it would surely have been contradicted, and some trace +of the contradiction would have been found. But, on the contrary, it +seems to have been accepted from the first. It is repeated by +Boccaccio's younger contemporary and disciple Benvenuto of Imola, who +himself lived for some time in Florence, before all those who would be +able from their own recollection to confirm or deny it would have passed +away. And Benvenuto, it may be noted, though devoted to Boccaccio, was +no mere student, but a shrewd and critical man of the world. Dante's son +Pietro, indeed, says no word to show that Beatrice was anything but a +symbol, and in this some of the other early commentators follow him. But +this would prove too much. Whether she be rightly identified with +Beatrice Portinari or not, it is impossible for any reader possessing +the least knowledge of the human heart to see in the Beatrice of the +_Commedia_ a symbol merely. Not to mention that it would be quite +contrary to Dante's practice thus to _invent_ a personage for the sake +of the symbol, it is absurd to suppose that the "ten years' thirst" +which the sight of her relieves, "the eyes whence Love once took his +weapons," and such-like expressions were intended primarily as +references to a neglected study of theology or a previous devotion to a +contemplative life. The omission, therefore, of the commentators who +interested themselves mainly in the allegory to tell us about the real +Beatrice cannot be used as evidence against her existence. + +The first supporter of what may be called the "superior" view--namely +that the whole story of Beatrice is purely allegorical--was one Giovanni +Mario Filelfo, a writer of the fifteenth century, born more than a +hundred years after Dante's death. As a rule, where his statements can +be tested, they are incorrect; and on the whole his work appears to be a +mass of unwarranted inferences from unverified assertions. It was not +till recent times that his theory on the subject found any defenders. + +We may, then, pretty safely continue in the old faith. After all, it +explains more difficulties than it raises. No doubt if we cannot free +ourselves from modern conceptions we shall be somewhat startled not only +by the almost deification of Beatrice, but also by the frank revelation +of Dante's passion, with which neither the fact of her having become +another man's wife nor his own marriage seems in any way to interfere. +It needs, however, but a very slight knowledge of the conditions of life +in the thirteenth century to understand the position. As has been +already pointed out, the notion of woman's love as a spur to noble +living, "the maiden passion for a maid," was quite recent, and at its +first growth was quite distinct from the love which finds its fulfilment +in marriage. Almost every young man of a literary or intellectual turn +seems to have had his Egeria; and when we can identify her she is +usually the wife of some one else. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [22] It may be noted that the name is undoubtedly Teutonic. The + suggested derivations from _aliger_, "the wing-bearer," and the + like, are purely fanciful. The first part of the word is + doubtless _alt_, "old," which we have in our own Aldhelm; the + termination is the _geirr_, or _gar_, which occurs in all + Teutonic languages, and means "spear." Dante (= Durante) was a + common Christian name. + + [23] Doubts have even been thrown on Dante's friendship with + this young King. To these we can only reply that, if it is not + implied by _Par._, viii. 55, it is impossible to draw any + inference whatever as to Dante's life from any line of the poem. + + [24] The conclusion of his account is picturesque enough to + deserve reproduction. "The news of the said victory came to + Florence the very day and hour when it took place; for the Lords + Priors having after dinner gone to sleep and rest, by reason of + the anxiety and watching of the past night, suddenly came a + knock at the door of the chamber, with a cry, 'Rise up, for the + Aretines are discomfited;' and when they were risen, and the + door opened, they found no man, and their servants without had + heard nothing. Whence it was held a great and notable marvel, + seeing that before any person came from the host with the news, + it was towards the hour of vespers." + + [25] We find close resemblances between Dante and the founder of + German mysticism. Not only in similes and illustrations, such as + the tailor and his cloth, the needle and the loadstone, the flow + of water to the sea, the gravitation of weights to the centre; + or in such phrases as Eckhart's "nature possesses nothing + swifter than the heaven," or his use of _edilkeit_ "nobility," + in reference to freewill, _la nobile virtu_. These may have + been, in some cases were, borrowed by both from a common source, + though the fact of their so often borrowing the same things is + suggestive. So, too, both Dante and Eckhart quote St. John i. 3, + 4, with the punctuation adopted by Aquinas, _quod factum est, in + ipso vita erat_--"what was made, in Him was life"--though the + Vulgate and St. Augustine prefer the arrangement of the words + familiar to us in our own version. But when we find such an + unusual thought as that in _Par._, viii. 103, 104, of the + redeemed soul having no more need to repent of its sins, + expressed in almost similar words by Eckhart, it is hardly + possible to believe that it occurred to both independently. + There are many other instances, but it would occupy too much + space if I were to give them here. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + +FLORENTINE AFFAIRS TILL DANTE'S EXILE + + +In order to understand the extent to which Dante's life was influenced +by the political circumstances of his age, it will be well to carry our +survey of events somewhat further, with special reference to the affairs +of Florence. + +As we have seen, after frequent alternations of fortune, the city +passed, within two years of Dante's birth, for good and all to the Guelf +side. On St. Martin's Day, in November, 1266, Count Guido Novello and +his German horse were driven out of the city by the burghers; and though +in the January following a treaty of peace was made, and cemented by +various marriages between members of the leading families on either +side--an arrangement of which the chief result was to embitter party +spirit among the Guelfs who had taken no share in it--anything like a +lasting reconciliation was soon found to be out of the question. Charles +of Anjou, moreover, fresh from his victory over Manfred, was by no means +disposed to allow the beaten Ghibelines any chance of rallying. +Negotiations were entered into between him and the Florentine Guelfs, +and on Easter Day, 1267, Guy of Montfort (son of Sir Simon) entered the +city at the head of eight hundred French cavalry. The Ghibelines did not +venture to strike a blow, but departed on the day before his arrival. At +Easter, says Villani, the crime was committed which first split the city +into factions; and at Easter the descendants of the men who had +committed the crime went into exile, never to return. + +The same year saw a general rally of the north Italian states to the +Guelf side, and before many months were out even Lombardy, where, says +Villani, there was hardly any memory of the Guelfs, followed the stream. +In Tuscany, Pisa and Siena alone held by the tradition--for it was +little more--of allegiance to the Empire. The Florentine exiles betook +themselves to those cities, and before long the spirits of the party had +revived sufficiently to allow them to play what must have been felt to +be their last stroke in the game. Profiting by the disaffection of +certain Apulian and Sicilian barons (whom one may imagine to have found +the gloomy discipline of Charles a poor exchange for the brilliancy and +licence of Frederick's Court), they cast their eyes towards the last +surviving representative of that Count Frederick who, some two hundred +years before, had fixed his seat in the hill-fortress of Staufen. +Conrad, or Corradino, as the Italians called him, grandson of Frederick +II., was a lad of sixteen, still under the tutelage of his mother, the +widow of Conrad IV. Germany seems to have been loyal to him, and had it +not been for the impatience of the Italian Ghibelines, he might well +have looked forward to regaining, perhaps under more favourable +auspices, the Empire which his predecessors had held. But the Tuscan +nobles, smarting under defeat, could not wait; and in spite of his +mother's opposition, they carried the boy off. Money was lacking; and of +the ten thousand German horsemen who accompanied him across the Brenner, +only three thousand five hundred went beyond Verona. He passed through +Lombardy, however, without opposition, and with the aid of the Genoese +fleet reached Pisa in May, 1268. The rising of the Apulian barons had +compelled Charles to return hastily to his kingdom, and Conradin found +his way clear to Siena. An action in the district of Arezzo resulted in +the defeat and capture of Charles's "marshal," who had come out from +Florence in pursuit, and the German force was able to enter Rome +unmolested. There they received a reinforcement of eight hundred good +Spanish cavalry under Don Henry, brother of the King of Castile, and, +elated with success, pushed on to strike a decisive blow. They marched +eastward to Tagliacozzo, just within the frontier of the Abruzzi, while +Charles reached the same point by forced marches from Nocera. The armies +met on St. Bartholomew's Eve, and at first everything seemed to go well +for Conradin. The Spanish division defeated the Provencals, and the +Germans crushed the French and Italians. But Charles had with him an +experienced old knight, Alard de St. Valery, by whose advice he held a +picked force in reserve, concealed behind some rising ground. With this +he now attacked the victorious Germans and Spaniards, who had got out +of hand in the excitement of pursuit and plundering. They made a bold +resistance, but discipline told in the end; they were utterly defeated +and their leaders put to flight. Conradin and his immediate staff, +comprising the Duke of Austria and some German and Italian nobles, made +their way to Astura on the coast of the Campagna, and had succeeded in +embarking when they were recognised by one of the Frangipani, who were +the lords of the territory. Arrested by him and handed over to Charles, +they were subjected to a form of trial, and beheaded in the market-place +of Naples. This act has always been regarded as an indelible blot on +Charles's record. Dante couples it with the alleged murder, by his +order, of St. Thomas Aquinas; and it seems to have been felt even by +members of the Guelf party as something, if one may so say, beyond the +rules of the game. Pope Clement, according to Villani, blamed Charles +severely; and the pious historian, for his own part, sees in the King's +subsequent misfortunes the judgment of God upon his cruelty towards an +innocent boy. The judge who pronounced the sentence was slain before +Charles's very eyes by his son-in-law, Robert, son to the Count of +Flanders, "and not a word was said, for Robert was great with the King, +and it appeared to the King and to all the barons that he had acted like +a valiant gentleman." In Conradin the Hohenstaufen line came to an end, +and therewith all _raison d'etre_ for the Ghibeline party. After this it +became merely a turbulent faction, until the accession of Henry of +Luxemburg; when Caesar once more began to take interest in his Italian +dominions. + +It may be conceded that party rancour had much more to do with the +bringing of Conradin into Italy than any conscientious adhesion to views +such as those to which Dante afterwards gave utterance in the _De +Monarchia_, or faith in the benefit which would accrue to the world from +the rule of a single sovereign. But it shows the hold which the Empire +still had on men's minds, that the Ghibeline chiefs should have +preferred to take a boy from Germany as the figure-head of their cause, +rather than seek a leader of more experience from among their +fellow-countrymen. Nor does it seem to have entered any one's mind to +look out of Germany for an Emperor. There were, indeed, at the very +time, two rival Caesars-elect in existence--Richard, Earl of Cornwall, +and Alfonso, King of Castile, the former of whom his own countrymen, +more in derision than respect, were wont to call "King of Almayne;" but +clearly no Ghibeline cared to call upon either of them to "heal the +wounds which were killing Italy." Later, when the long interregnum was +brought to an end by the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg, even the Guelf +Villani holds that if he had been willing to pass into Italy he would +have been lord of it without opposition; but that astute prince no doubt +found himself much better employed in converting a petty baronial line +into one of the great houses of Germany, and ultimately of Europe, than +in acting up to a titular dignity which brought its bearer more +splendour than either wealth or ease. When he did send an Imperial Vicar +into Tuscany in 1281 his chance was gone, and the emissary was glad to +come to terms with the Florentines. + +Thus, from the earliest time that Dante could remember, the Guelfs held +an almost undisturbed supremacy throughout Tuscany. There was occasional +fighting between Florence, as the head of the Guelf League, and Siena, +or Pisa, as the case might be. The Sienese, though helped by Guido +Novello and the Florentine exiles, and by some of the Spanish and German +troops who had escaped from Tagliacozzo, were badly beaten at Colle di +Val d'Elsa in 1269, and their commander, Provenzano Salvani (whom Dante +afterwards met in Purgatory), taken and slain. In the following year +this city too was purged of the Ghibeline taint, and a few Florentine +citizens who were caught were, after a reference to Charles, duly +beheaded. Pisa held out somewhat longer, and was able to expel its +Guelfs in 1275, among them the famous Count Ugolino de' Gherardeschi, a +member of the house of Donoratico, one of whose counts had been captured +and killed with Conradin; but in a year's time a Florentine success +brought them back. An effort made by Pope Gregory X. to reconcile the +factions, as he passed through Florence on his way to the Council of +Lyons, bore little or no fruit, and, as a pendant to former +excommunications of Emperors, the city was placed under interdict. When, +a year and a half later, Gregory died at Arezzo, "by his death," says +Villani, "the Guelfs of Florence were greatly cheered, by reason of the +ill will which he had towards them;"--an interesting remark, as showing +that the Guelfs were not prepared to support the Holy See farther than +their own interests as a party demanded. + +The condition of Florence at this time cannot be better described than +in Villani's words. Writing of the year 1278, he says-- + + "In these times, the Guelf nobles of Florence, reposing from + their foreign wars with victory and honour, and fattened upon + the goods of the exiled Ghibelines, and by reason of their other + gains, began, through pride and envy, to quarrel among + themselves; whence came to pass in Florence more feuds and + enmities between the citizens, with slayings and woundings. + Among them all the greatest was the quarrel between the house of + the Adimari of the one part, who were very great and powerful, + and on the other side were the house of the Donati; in such wise + that nearly the whole of the city took sides, and some held with + one party and some with the other, whereby the city and the + Guelf party were in great danger." + +We shall remember how, in Dante's judgement also, pride, envy, and +avarice were "the sparks that had set hearts on fire," in Florence. + +Once again the Pope, who was now Nicholas III., interfered; and once +again representatives of the two great factions exchanged the kiss of +peace before a Papal Legate, this time in front of "the Preaching +Friars' new church of New St. Mary's, in Florence," of which the Legate, +Cardinal Latino, had but lately laid the first stone. The Ghibeline +leaders were still kept out, but the rank and file returned. The feud of +the Adimari and Donati was patched up for the time, whereby "the said +Cardinal had much honour, and Florence remained a good time in a +peaceful and good and tranquil state." + +Cardinal Latino had arranged for the government of Florence by a +committee of fourteen "good men," of whom eight were to be Guelfs and +six Ghibelines. They were to hold office for two months. It marks the +Cardinal as a man of some organizing capacity that his peace continued +for four years, during which time Villani has next to nothing to relate +about the affairs of his city. These were the years in which Dante was +growing up to manhood. As a boy of thirteen he would doubtless have +looked on at the scene in front of Santa Maria Novella; and during the +next four peaceful years we may suppose that he would have begun to sit +at the feet of the old statesman, diplomatist, and scholar Brunetto +Latini, picking up from his lips the lore "how man becomes immortal." +We can picture him too, where the boys and girls were gathered together, +a silent and reserved lad, probably unpopular unless with one or two +special friends, paying little heed to any of his companions save one +girl of about his own age, whose movements he would follow, and for the +sound of whose words, though never addressed to him, he would listen, +with the speechless devotion which perhaps is only felt at sixteen or +seventeen, and then only by natures which fortunately are exceptional in +this world. "The child is father to the man;" and we can be pretty +certain from what we know of the man Dante what the boy Dante must have +been. + +The tranquil period was disturbed in 1282. Pope Nicholas, who, whether +guilty of Simony or not--and one fears that the case against him must +have been strong, since not only Dante, but even Villani charges him +with the offence--at least deserved the blessing pronounced on +peacemakers, had died in the previous year at Viterbo, a town which, +during this period, seems to have suited the Popes better than Rome as a +place of residence. Charles, between whom and Nicholas no love had been +lost, was resolved that the next Pope should not come from the powerful +house of the Orsini, to a branch of which, the Guatani, the late Pontiff +had belonged, and by an arrangement with the people of Viterbo, +succeeded in getting the two most prominent clerical members of that +house imprisoned. Thus he secured the election of a Frenchman, Simon of +Brie, who, being a canon of Tours, took the name of Martin IV. His +Papacy, though it lasted little more than three years, was eventful. He +was elected in January, 1282, and on the following Easter Monday, March +30th, the people of Palermo, furious at the outrages of Charles's French +troops, rose and massacred every Frenchman upon whom they could lay +hands. Charles's efforts to recapture the island were baffled, chiefly +owing to the hostility of Manfred's son-in-law. King Peter of Aragon, +also, with the help of his famous admiral, Roger of Loria, began about +this time to prove a serious thorn in the side of the Angevin King. From +the day of the "Sicilian Vespers," fortune turned against Charles. His +son was taken prisoner by Loria in 1284, his life being spared only at +the entreaty of Peter's wife, while he did not recover his liberty till +1289. The King himself died broken down with grief and disappointment, +in the early days of 1285, and was followed a couple of months later by +his creature, Martin IV., and, before the year was out, by his enemy, +King Peter. It will be remembered that Peter and Charles were seen by +Dante in the "Valley of Princes," awaiting their entry into Purgatory, +and singing their Compline hymn in friendly accord: Martin IV. being +placed higher up the mountain, among the gluttonous. + +At Florence the course of affairs was not much affected by the reverses +which befell Charles. At the same time, these, and a success gained by +Guy of Montefeltro over John of Appia, a French officer whom Martin had +appointed Count of Romagna, made the Guelf majority uneasy. Cardinal +Latino's Constitution was abandoned, and a new form of government +adopted. The trading-class resolved to get rid altogether of the +representatives of feudal authority, weak as they had become,[26] and to +this end the Fourteen were abolished, and the chief power placed in the +hands of the Priors of the Arts, or, as we should say, the Masters of +the great trading guilds. The number of those guilds which contributed +members to the governing body seems to have been gradually increased. At +first only three--the Clothmakers, the Money-changers, and the +Wool-dealers--were thus honoured; but by the end of the century, at +least twelve, seven greater and five lesser arts, were included. The +Priors, as the Fourteen had done, held office for two months only, and +various devices were employed to prevent any house or any person from +becoming dangerously powerful. Nobles, in order to qualify for office, +had to join a guild; and as the nobles, or _grandi_, were more +frequently on the Ghibeline side, this would yet further weaken that +party. + +Florence had now fairly entered upon a period of great prosperity. Her +bankers lent money to kings; her trade extended all over Europe. Pisa, +her most dangerous rival, had been utterly crushed by the Genoese in the +great sea-fight off Meloria, with a slaughter which seems to have +struck awe into the hearts even of the victors; and though she expelled +her Guelfs four years later, in 1288, and, in 1291, under the brilliant +leader Guy of Montefeltro, won some successes in the field, she was +never again a power to be feared. Arezzo gave some trouble as a +rendezvous for the banished Ghibelines; but the battle of Campaldino, in +1289, already referred to, broke her strength for a long time. Florence +was thus free to attend to the arts of peace. The city walls were +extended and new gates built; and several of the buildings, which to +this day are among the glories of Florence, date from that period. +Still, however, much of the old class-jealousy smouldered; and, as +Machiavelli points out, all fear of the Ghibelines being removed, the +powerful houses began to oppress the people. Giano della Bella, himself +of noble family, casting in his lot with the commons, succeeded in +carrying what were called the Ordinances of Justice, whereby, among +other things, nobles were absolutely disqualified from taking any part +in the government. A measure so oppressive as this was bound to bring +about its own appeal, and, as a matter of fact, within two years from +its promulgation, Giano was driven into exile, and the nobles were more +turbulent than ever. It is at this time that the name of Corso Donati +first comes into prominence. + +Another event, which was to influence the destinies of Florence and of +Dante, occurred shortly before Giano's overthrow. This was the election +to the Papacy, in 1294, of Benedetto Guatani, known to history as +Boniface VIII. The most vigorous Pope who had held the office for +several generations, he soon let it be known that he intended to revive +all the claims which his predecessors, Gregory VII. and Innocent III., +had made to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His first efforts +were devoted to getting Tuscany into his hands, and to this end he seems +to have intrigued freely with the leaders of both parties in Florence. +In theory, of course, where all were Guelfs, the Pope ought to have had +little trouble; but there were Guelfs and Guelfs, and it was not long +before party differences were emphasised, and, so to say, crystallised, +by party names. Curiously enough, these again appear first at Pistoia. A +family feud there had led to two branches of the Cancellieri being +distinguished as Black and White, and towards 1300 the names appear at +Florence. The Donati headed the Black faction; their rivals, the Cerchi, +the White. The latter represented the more orderly section of the +community; the former reproduced all the worst features of the old +Ghibeline aristocracy, though in the end it was the Whites who had to +coalesce with the Ghibelines. At first, indeed, it would seem as if +Boniface might have been willing to work with the Whites. He sent for +Vieri de' Cerchi, the leader of that party, and tried to induce him to +live peaceably with the other side. Vieri, for reasons which we can only +conjecture, replied curtly that he had no quarrel with any one; and +Boniface resorted to the old expedient of sending a Cardinal--Matthew of +Acquasparta--to reconcile the factions. + +We have now reached the critical year of Dante's life--that in which he +held the office of Prior. But for the events of this and the next two +years, it may be doubted whether the _Commedia_ would ever have come +into existence, at least in the form in which six centuries have studied +and admired it. Henceforth Dante's own history, rather than that of his +times, will be our chief subject. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [26] In 1300, when the Black and White factions arose, we find + among the twenty-eight houses enumerated by Machiavelli, as the + chief on either side, only _three_ which in the old days had + belonged to the Ghibeline party. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + +DANTE'S EXILE + + +Towards the end of the thirteenth century, Dante's name begins to appear +in public documents as taking a share in the business of the State. Thus +he spoke in the "Council of the Hundred" on December 10, 1296, and in +the following March, in opposition, it would seem, to a proposal of a +grant to King Charles II. of Apulia. In May, 1299, he acted as +ambassador from Florence to the neighbouring city of San Gemignano, the +only one of all the numerous embassies ascribed to him by some +biographers in which modern criticism will still allow us to believe. +Finally, in 1300, probably from June 15th to August 15th, he served his +term as Prior. + +The Constitution of Florence at this time was somewhat complicated. It +will be sufficient to say here that the government was carried on by a +committee of six priors, who held office for two months only; and that +in order to be eligible for the offices of State a man had to be +enrolled in one of the twelve trading guilds known as Arts, of which +seven ranked as "greater," five as "less." Dante belonged to one of the +"greater arts," that of the _speziali_, "dealers in spices," which +included the apothecaries and, as it is believed, the booksellers. The +number of priors was so large, and their tenure of office so short, that +the selection of any particular citizen would hardly imply more than +that he was regarded as a man of good business capacity; but in 1300 +public affairs in Florence were in such a critical state, that one may +well suppose the citizens to have been especially careful in their +choice. In the previous April an accusation had been brought by Lapo +Salterelli (afterwards one of Dante's fellow-exiles, not held by him in +much esteem), who then was Prior, against three citizens of +Florence--Simon Gherardi, Noffo Quintavalle, and Cambio, son of Sesto, +of conspiring against the State. The facts are somewhat obscure, but, as +it appears that they were all connected with the Papal Court, and that +Boniface made strong efforts to get the fine imposed on them remitted, +we may conjecture that they had in some way abetted his scheme of +"getting Tuscany into his hands." In a remarkable letter addressed to +the Bishop of Florence, in which a good deal of the argument, and even +some of the language, of Dante's _De Monarchia_ is curiously paralleled, +of course from the opposite point of view, the Pope requires the +attendance before him of Lapo (whom he styles _vere lapis offensionis_) +and the other accusers. As may be supposed, no notice was taken of this +requisition, and the fines were duly enforced. + +Boniface's letter is dated from Anagni, on May 15th. Before it was +written, the first actual bloodshed in the feud between the Black and +White parties had taken place. Some of the young Donati and Cerchi, with +their respective friends, were in the Piazza di Santa Trinita on May +1st, looking on at a dance. Taunts were exchanged, blows followed, and +"Ricoverino, son of Messer Ricovero de' Cerchi, by misadventure got his +nose cut off his face." The leading Guelfs, seeing what a chance the +split in their party would offer to the Ghibelines, sought the mediation +of the Pope. Boniface was of course willing enough to interfere, and, as +has been said, sent Matthew of Acquasparta, Cardinal of Ostia, a former +General of the Franciscans, to Florence as peacemaker. He arrived just +about the time when the new Priors, including, as we must suppose, +Dante, were entering on office, and was received with great honour. But +when it came to measures of pacification, he seems to have had nothing +better to suggest than the selection of the Priors by lot, in place of +their nomination (as had hitherto been the custom) by their predecessors +and the chiefs of the guilds. "Those of the White party," says Villani, +"who controlled the government of the country, through fear of losing +their position, and of being hoodwinked by the Pope and the Legate +through the reform aforesaid, took the worser counsel, and would not +obey." So the familiar interdict was launched once more, and the Legate +departed. + +In the city, things went from bad to worse. At the funeral of a lady +belonging to the Frescobaldi, a White family, in the following December, +a bad brawl arose, in which the Cerchi had the worst of it. But when the +Donati, emboldened by this success, attacked their rivals on the +highway, the Commune took notice of it, and the assailants were +imprisoned, in default of paying their fines. Some of the Cerchi were +also fined, and, though able to pay, went to prison, apparently from +motives of economy, contrary to Vieri's advice. Unluckily for them, the +governor of the prison, one of their own faction, "an accursed Ser Neri +degli Abati," a scion of a family which seems, if we may trust Dante's +mention of some of its other members, to have made a "speciality" of +treacherous behaviour, introduced into the prison fare a poisoned +millet-pudding, whereof two of the Cerchi died, and two of the opposite +party as well,[27] "and no blood-feud came about for that"--probably +because it was felt that the score was equal. + +The Blacks now made a move. The "captains of the Guelf party," who, +though holding no official position, seem to have exercised a sort of +_imperium in imperio_, were on their side; and a meeting was held in +Holy Trinity Church, at which it was resolved to send a deputation to +Boniface, requesting him to take once again what seems to us--and indeed +was--the fatal step of calling in French aid. The stern prophecy which +Dante puts into the mouth of Hugh Capet in Purgatory was to be +fulfilled:-- + + "I see the time at hand + That forth from France invites another Charles + To make himself and kindred better known. + Unarm'd he issues, saving with that lance + Which the arch-traitor tilted with; and that + He carries with so home a thrust, as rives + The bowels of poor Florence." + +We may probably date from this Dante's final severance from the Guelf +party; and, at any rate, we may judge from it the real value of Guelf +patriotism. + +It must be remembered that the Black faction was still but a faction. +The conspiracy leaked out, and popular indignation was aroused. The +_Signoria_ that is, the Priors, took action. Corso Donati and the other +leaders were heavily fined, and this time the fines were paid. Probably +they did not wish to taste Ser Neri degli Abati's cookery a second time. +A good many of the junior members of the party were banished to Castello +della Pieve; and at the same time, "to remove all jealousy," several of +the White leaders were sent to Serezzano (which we now call Sarzana)--a +weak and unlucky attempt at compromise. They were, indeed, soon allowed +to return, their place of exile being unhealthy; so much so that one of +them, Dante's most intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti, died in the course +of the winter from illness contracted there. + +Cardinal Matthew seems not to have actually left Florence till after the +beginning of 1301. We are told that among his other demands (probably +made on this occasion), was one to the effect that Florence should +furnish a hundred men-at-arms for the Pope's service; and that Dante, +who, after his term of office as Prior, remained a member of the +council, moved that nothing should be done in the matter. Indeed, in the +scanty notices which we have of his doings in this critical period, he +appears as the steady opponent of all outside interference in the +affairs of Florence, whether by Pope or Frenchman. In the face of this +it is hard to understand how the famous story of his having gone on an +embassy to Rome--"If I stay, who goes? If I go, who stays?"--can ever +have obtained credence. Some words like those he may well have used, in +the magnificent self-consciousness which elsewhere made him boast of +having formed a party by himself; but we cannot suppose that he would at +any time in the course of 1301 have thus put his head into the lion's +mouth. That Boniface was at the time of the supposed mission not at Rome +but at Anagni is a minor detail. + +If all the White party had possessed Dante's energy, Florence might have +been saved. Vieri de' Cerchi had, indeed, as we have seen, spirit enough +to tell the Pope in effect to mind his own business, and he was not +devoid of shrewdness; but he seems to have been incapable of any +sustained vigour in action. The party as a whole were probably as +corrupt as their rivals, and less astute--"an evil and foolish company," +as Dante afterwards called them by the mouth of Cacciaguida. Corso +Donati, on the other hand, was a bold and reckless intriguer. He +followed up the conspiracy of the Santa Trinita by hastening to the +Papal Court, and inducing Boniface to send at once for Charles of +Valois, brother of the French king, Philip the Fair. Charles obeyed the +summons readily, in the hope, says Villani, of the Imperial crown. After +a visit to the Pope at Anagni, he entered Florence on All Saints' Day, +1301. All opposition on the part of the Whites was disarmed by the +assurance that he came only as "peacemaker;" and a meeting, "at which I, +the writer, was present," was held in the Church of Santa Maria Novella. +Charles, "with his own mouth, undertook and swore, and promised as a +King's son to maintain the city in peace and good estate; and +incontinently by him and by his people the contrary was done." Armed men +were introduced; Corso Donati, though under sentence of banishment, +entered with them, Vieri de' Cerchi, in foolish confidence, forbidding +his arrest. The populace, promptly seeing who were the masters, raised a +shout of "Long live Lord Charles and the Baron" (the name given to +Corso); and the city was given up for a week to burning and pillage. A +second visit from the Cardinal of Acquasparta produced no result, save a +momentary truce and another interdict. Throughout the early months of +1302, killings and slayings went on, Corso's only son, among others, +being mortally wounded in the act of murdering one of the Cerchi. +Finally, one of the French knights, acting in the capacity which to this +day is regarded as peculiarly suited to the French genius, that of +_agent provocateur_, induced some of the White party, by offers of help, +to form some kind of conspiracy against Charles's person. This plot +being duly reported, the conspirators fled on April 4th, some to Pisa, +some to Arezzo, some to Pistoia, and joined the already exiled +Ghibelines. They were condemned as rebels, and their houses destroyed. +From this time the Whites and Ghibelines form one party. + +Whether Dante actually went with them is a perplexing question which has +never been thoroughly solved, but is of sufficient interest to delay us +for a while. In the short biography of the poet which Villani gives when +recording his death, we read: "This Dante was a citizen of Florence, +honourable and of old family, belonging to the ward of St. Peter's Gate, +and a neighbour of ours. His exile from Florence was for the reason that +when Lord Charles of Valois, of the house of France, came to Florence in +1301 and drove out the White party, as is mentioned above under the +date, the said Dante was one of the chief governors of our city, and +belonged to that party, Guelf though he was; and therefore, _for no +other fault_, he was driven forth and banished with the said White party +from Florence." This seems very explicit, but there are difficulties in +the way of taking it quite literally. A document exists, dated January +27, 1302, in which the Podesta, Cante de' Gabrielli of Gubbio, charges +Dante Alighieri and three others with various offences, the chief being +_baratteria_ (or corrupt jobbery in office), the use of public money to +resist the entrance of Charles of Valois, and interference in the +affairs of Pistoia with the view of securing the expulsion from that +city "of those who are called Blacks, faithful, men devoted to the Holy +Roman Church," which had taken place in May, 1301. It is stated that, +having been duly summoned, they had contumaciously absented themselves, +which seems to show that they were not in Florence; and they are +sentenced to pay five thousand florins apiece within three days, or, in +default, be banished and have their houses destroyed and their goods +confiscated; and in any case they were banished for two years. A second +decree of March 10th condemns Dante and fourteen others, among them Lapo +Salterelli, if they fall into the power of the Commonwealth, to be burnt +to death. + +As has been said, Dante must clearly have been out of Florence when this +document was launched. Leonardi Bruni says he was at Rome on an embassy +when the Whites left Florence, and that he hastened to join his party at +Siena; but for the reasons already given, this story of the embassy +cannot be accepted. Some have suggested that as at Florence the old +style prevailed, under which March 26th was New Year's Day, the two +sentences really belong to what we should now call 1303, when Dante had +undoubtedly been in exile for some months, and this is corroborated by +Benvenuto's statement, "bannitus fuit anno MCCCIII."--"bannitus" +meaning, no doubt, "placed under ban," as distinct from voluntary exile. +But it appears that Cante de' Gabrielli went out of office in June, +1302. So, unless we can suppose this last date to be wrong--and there is +some little ground for suspecting it--we must assume that, though a +Florentine official, he did not use Florentine style, and that Dante, +with some few others of the leading White Guelfs, was compelled to fly +sooner than the bulk of his party. He may very well have been regarded +as a specially dangerous opponent. + +That there was any foundation for the charge of corruption it is +impossible to believe. Dante's faults were many, but they did not lie in +that direction; and the honest Villani, though he appears to have sided +with the Black party, and indeed held office himself as Prior only a few +years later, seems to have introduced the words which we have italicised +in the passage given above, with the express intention of indicating +this. On the other hand, it may be noted that the charge was ingeniously +devised. Dante is known to have been in debt, for some of his +notes-of-hand exist, belonging to the years preceding 1300; while in the +course of 1301 he was engaged in superintending the performance of +certain public works in the city. Thus it would be matter of common +knowledge both that he was short of money and that he had recently been +in a position offering good opportunities for peculation, a fact of +which his unscrupulous adversaries would naturally avail themselves. We +may perhaps see, in the large space which he devotes, in the _Hell_, to +the crime of _baratteria_, evidence of a wish to express his especial +detestation of it. + +What, however, we know for certain is that, after some date early in the +year 1302, Dante never saw Florence again. Several attempts were made by +the exiles to win their way back, but they were uniformly unsuccessful, +and only led to fresh sentences against those who took part in them. +Whether Dante was among these, at all events during the earlier years of +his exile, seems very doubtful. We know from his own words that he had +no sympathy with the men with whom he was thrown. Indeed, it was a +curious irony of fate which linked in one condemnation his name and that +of Lapo Salterelli, a man whom he selects (_Par._, xv. 128) as an +example of the degradation into which the Florentine character had +fallen. During this first period he was probably eating his heart, and +watching for the coming of the deliverer who, by bringing all the world +under one impartial sway, should put an end to faction and +self-seeking--the _invidia_ and _avarizia_ against which he is for ever +inveighing--and permit every man "to sit at ease and perfect himself in +prudence and wisdom;" thus fulfilling his proper task of "making himself +immortal," or, as St. Paul phrases it, coming "to the measure of the +stature of the fulness of Christ." It is a noble conception, though the +six hundred years which have elapsed since Dante looked for its +fulfilment do not seem to have brought us very much more forward in that +direction. Still, we can give him the honour due to a lofty standard of +political and social conduct in a violent and profligate, if brilliant, +age; and we can still read with interest and profit that wonderful +repertory of political wisdom, dialectical argument (after the manner of +the schoolmen), and passionate pleading for good government, which he +calls the _Treatise on Monarchy_. + +The date at which the _De Monarchia_ was composed is uncertain, but it +would seem to belong most fitly to the years which immediately succeeded +Dante's banishment. The Empire was in the hands of the incapable Albert +of Hapsburg while the Pope, from 1305, was the creature of the French +King. Caesar and Peter seemed both alike to have abdicated, and the world +was going from bad to worse. With the election of Henry of Luxemburg, in +1308, better times may seem to have dawned, when practice might +supersede abstract theories. The letter which Dante actually wrote to +Henry in 1311 is couched in a far less meditative tone. + +During Henry's short reign the Ghibeline cause looked up; nor was his +death in 1313 so fatal a blow to it as might have been expected. Several +powerful leaders arose, one of whom, Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa, +won back most of Tuscany for his party. In 1315 he inflicted a severe +defeat on the Florentines and their allies at Montecatini, on the border +of the Florentine and Lucchese territories; but he was unable to follow +up his success so far as to enter the city. Some two months later a +third sentence went forth against Dante, in which his sons were +included, condemning them, as Ghibelines and rebels against the +Commonwealth and people of Florence and the statutes of the Guelf party, +to be beheaded whenever taken. It has been plausibly suggested that the +two events were not unconnected; and as it is hardly likely that at the +age of fifty Dante would have taken a prominent part in the actual +fighting, we must suppose it to have been as a leading adviser of the +enemy that he was specially obnoxious to the ruling powers at Florence. + +The chief importance, however, which Dante's exile has for us, is that +with it his great literary activity began. He had, of course, written +all his life; and it is quite possible even that some portion of the +_Commedia_ had been composed before he left Florence. The story told by +Boccaccio is well known. Commenting upon the opening words of Canto +viii., he tells us that the preceding portion of the poem had been +written before the final catastrophe, and left behind by Dante in his +flight, not being discovered for some years. In any case, the _Vita +Nuova_ was written, as he himself tells us, before he was twenty-five; +and a good deal of the _Convito_, a work which looks very much as if it +had first come into existence as the contents of notebooks, in which +materials to be afterwards worked into the great poem were jotted down, +was no doubt in writing. But it is to Dante's twenty years of exile +that we owe in their completed form the works which place him not only +among the world's five or six greatest poets, but in an eminent position +among philosophers, theologians, statesmen, and men of science. + +We have but little certain information as to Dante's life during his +exile. Legends innumerable have sprung up as to his residence here, +there, and elsewhere; but most of these are based on the fancies of +later writers; or in some cases even on local vanity, which was +flattered by the remotest connection with the great name. We can say for +certain that he passed some time at Verona, some at Lucca, some at +Ravenna, where his sepulchre remains to this day; and with some approach +to probability we can place him at Paris, at Bologna, and perhaps at +Milan. He may possibly have spent some time in the Lunigiana, and some +in the Casentino. All we know is that his life was spent in wandering, +that he had no settled home, that he lived on other men's bread, and +went up and down other men's stairs. He was honoured, it is true. Great +nobles were glad to employ his services, and, as we have said, the fact +of his being so often selected by the rulers of Florence for +condemnation, shows that at least they regarded him as a man to be +reckoned with. But probably the strongest evidence of the estimation in +which he was held is to be found in Villani's obituary chapter, wherein +his character and accomplishments are set forth with a fulness which the +historian elsewhere reserves for Popes and sovereigns; a fulness all the +more noteworthy since his name never occurs in the chronicle of events +in which he undoubtedly took a leading part. + +Only when Italy and Florence had lost him beyond hope of recovery was it +realised that he was one of his country's greatest glories. Then chairs +were founded from which the most eminent literary men of the age should +expound his works; and commentator after commentator--nine or ten before +the end of the fourteenth century--cleared up some obscurities and made +others more obscure. Of course, so far as historical allusions go, the +writers who were nearly or quite contemporary with the events are often +of great service; but it is otherwise, as a rule, when a knowledge of +books is wanted. We are never so much impressed with the vastness of +Dante's reading, as when we see the utter failure of these learned men +even to observe, in many cases, that any explanation or illustration of +an allusion is wanted. This, however, brings us back to the point from +which we started, namely, that much as has been written about Dante, the +possible fields of research are by no means exhausted. + +The interest of the events which moulded Dante's career and influenced +his work has perhaps led to their occupying too large a share of these +pages; but it has been thought best to go into the history at some +length, as being after all the first and most essential step towards a +thorough comprehension of the position which his writings, and +especially the _Commedia_, hold in European literature. This is quite +unique of its kind. Never before or since has a poem of the highest +imagination served--not merely as a political manifesto, but--as a party +pamphlet; and we may safely say that no such poem will in future serve +that purpose, at all events until the conditions under which it was +produced occur. Whether that is ever likely to be the case, those who +have followed the history may judge. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [27] So I understand an obviously corrupt passage in Villani, + viii. 41. One of the unlucky Blacks was a Portinari, doubtless a + kinsman of Beatrice--a fact which curiously seems to have + escaped the conjectural commentators. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + +THE "COMMEDIA" + + +So many good summaries of the _Commedia_ exist that to give another may +appear superfluous. At the same time, experience shows not only that +such a summary is found by most readers to be the best of all helps to +the study of the poem, but also that every fresh summariser treats it +from a somewhat different point of view. It is therefore possible that +in the following pages answers, or at least suggestions of answers, may +be found to some questions which previous writers, in England at all +events, have passed over; and that they may serve in some measure as a +supplement to the works which will be mentioned in the appendix. + + +Section 1. HELL. + +The first eleven cantos of the _Hell_ form a very distinct subdivision +of the poem. They embrace, first, the introduction contained in Canto +i.; secondly, the description of the place of punishment up to a point +at which a marked change in the character of the sins punished is +indicated. In one sense, no doubt, an important stage in the journey is +completed when the City of Dis is reached, in Canto viii.; but it will +be observed, when we reach that point, that the class of sinners who are +met with immediately within the walls of the City, the Epicureans or, as +we should now say, the Materialists, bear really a much stronger +affinity to those who are outside the walls, those whose sin has been +lack of self-restraint in one form or another, than they do to the worse +criminals who have "offended of malicious wickedness," and who lie at +and below the foot of the steep guarded by the Minotaur. The former +class at all events have been, to use a common phrase, "their own worst +enemies;" their sins have not been, at any rate in their essence, like +those of the latter, of the kind which break up the fabric of society, +and with them the heretics may most naturally be considered. It can +hardly be doubted that some such view as this led Dante to make the +first great break of level in his scheme of the lower world at a point +which would leave the freethinkers and materialists actually nearer to +the sinners of whom he holds that their sin "men Dio offende," even +though theological exigencies compel him to place them within the walls +of the "red-hot city." We may thus conveniently take these eleven cantos +for consideration as a group by themselves. + +In the earlier cantos, as indeed throughout the poem, the main +difficulties with which we meet depend far more on interpretation than +on the mere "construing" of the words; and even if it were otherwise, +all purely linguistic difficulties have been so fully dealt with over +and over again in commentaries and translations that it would, as has +been said, be quite superfluous to enter here upon any discussion of +them. The opening canto, as every reader will at once perceive, is +symbolism and allegory from beginning to end, from the "dark wood" in +which the action of the poem begins to the "hound" who is to free Italy. +These, more especially the latter, have given as much trouble to the +interpreter as anything in the whole poem; indeed it may be said that in +the matter of the _Veltro_ we have not made much advance on Boccaccio, +who frankly admitted that he could not tell what was meant. But between +these two points we have some hundred lines in nearly every one of +which, beside its obvious and literal interpretation, we must look for +all the others enumerated by Dante in the famous passage of his letter +to Can Grande. The second canto is of much the same character, in some +respects almost in more need of close study. The significance of the +three beasts who hinder Dante is easier to make out than that of the +three heavenly ladies who assist him. Meantime, if we are content to +read the poem as narrative merely, there is no great difficulty to be +overcome. The language is straightforward on the whole, almost the only +_crux_ being ii. 108, which has not yet been satisfactorily explained, +nor is the imagery other than simple. + +With Canto iii. and the arrival within the actual portal of Hell (though +hardly in Hell properly so called) we enter upon a fresh subdivision of +the poem; and are very soon brought up by the first, and one of the most +perplexing, of the allusions to contemporary history with which it +abounds. The elucidation of these would constantly offer almost +hopeless difficulties, were it not for the early commentators, who are +often able to explain them from personal knowledge. Now and then, +however, it happens that they differ, and then the modern student is at +a loss. This has been in some measure the case with the famous "gran +rifiuto," iii. 60; so that while we may with a high degree of +probability accept the more usual view that the allusion is to the +abdication of Celestine V., we cannot without further evidence feel so +certain about it as we could wish. The whole conception of this canto +seems to be due to Dante's own invention; only to a nature like his, +keenly alive to the eternal distinction between right and wrong, and +burning with zeal in the cause of right, could it have occurred to mark +off for special ignominy people whose sole fault seems to have been that +they "took things too easily." When, in Canto iv., we pass the river of +Acheron, and find ourselves for the first time actually on the border of +Hell itself, we are conscious at first of an alleviation. Melancholy +there is, but it is a dignified melancholy, as different from the sordid +misery of the wretches we have just left, as the "noble city" and the +green sward enclosed by it are different from the murky air and the +foul mud among which they have to dwell. Both in this and in the second +circle we have punishment indeed but without degradation, even with some +mitigation. Virgil at least enjoys the converse of the sages and great +men of old and, in so far as non-Christians go, of recent times; while +Francesca is solaced by the perpetual companionship of him for whose +sake she has lost her soul. Even the penalty which she suffers, of being +whirled for ever on the storm, is not exactly humiliating. From this +point, however, we are conscious of a change. The gluttons seated or +lying on putrid earth and exposed to lashing rain; the misusers of +wealth, with all human lineaments effaced, and engaged in a foolish and +wearisome scuffle; the ill-tempered, floating on the surface of the foul +marsh of Styx or lying submerged in it according as their disposition +was to fierce wrath or sullen brooding--all these are not merely +tormented but degraded as well. + +After crossing the Styx (Canto viii.) we find a further change. Thus far +the sins punished have differed only in degree from those which we shall +find being expiated in Purgatory. They are indeed the simpler forms, so +to speak, of the defects common to all animal nature. They are the same +which, in one of their interpretations, the three symbolical beasts of +Canto i. denote. Henceforth we find sins which are only possible to the +higher intelligence of humanity. It will be observed, too, that at this +point what may be called pictorial description begins. Hitherto we have +had merely a general impression of murky air and miry soil, sloping +perhaps a little toward the centre, and intersected now and again by a +stream. Now the City of Dis with minarets and towers rises in front of +us, and, as we shall see in future cantos, from this time onwards the +character of the scenery is indicated with great preciseness, even to +its smallest details. Here, too, actual devils, beings whose will, as +Aquinas says, is obstinately set upon evil, appear for the first time, +as distinct from the personages of classical mythology, who act as +warders of the various circles. Virgil, or human reason, is no longer +sufficient of himself to secure a passage. Both at the gates of the +fiery city and on subsequent occasions he is as helpless, without +superior aid, as his disciple and follower. + +The ninth canto contains a piece of allegory, that involved in the +introduction of Medusa and the Furies, which has earned perhaps a +greater reputation for obscurity than it deserves, from the fact that +Dante himself calls special attention to it. + +Cantos x. and xi. are both very important, the former for its bearing on +the history of Florence. Those who have read the sketch of that history +in the preceding chapters will understand the full force of Farinata's +discourse with Dante. We have had a brief passage of the same kind in +Canto vi., but here the subject is treated at greater length, and with +some marvellous dramatic touches. + +Canto xi. must be thoroughly mastered if Dante's scheme of ethics is to +be understood. It forms, indeed, a summary of and key to the arrangement +of the penalties, and a thorough comprehension and retention of it in +the memory will be found a wonderful help to a recollection of the whole +Cantica. + +At the conclusion of the discourse in which Dante, speaking by the mouth +of Virgil, has set forth this ethical system, the poets move forward +along the brink of the pit until they arrive at a spot where they can +reach the lower level. The descent is rendered possible by a steep and +broken slope of loose rock, which Dante compares to the great landslip +between Trent and Verona, known as the Slavino di Marco.[28] Virgil +explains that this was due to the "rending of the rocks" at the time of +the Crucifixion. The descent is guarded by the legendary Minotaur, the +Cretan monster, part bull, part man. In this connection it may be +noticed that the beings suggested by classical mythology, who are met +with in the division of Hell which lies between the wall of the City of +Dis and the brink of Malebolge, the Minotaur, the Centaurs, the Harpies, +and Geryon (as Dante conceives him), all belong to the semi-bestial +class. In spite of the opinion held by some of the most eminent +Dante-scholars, that Dante in his classification of sins does not follow +Aristotle's grouping of them into incontinent, malicious, and brutal, +but recognises the first two only, it seems difficult not to see in +this, especially when it is taken in connection with expressions +scattered throughout his writings, an indication that in the sins of +the seventh circle he found the equivalent of the Greek philosopher's +[Greek: theriotes]--the result of giving a free range to the brutal, as +distinct from the common animal, impulses. + +In this seventh circle, too, we first meet with _fire_ as an instrument +of Divine wrath. Indeed, with the single exception of the suicides, for +whom a specially significant chastisement is devised, all the sinners in +this group, from the heretics in their red-hot tombs to the usurers +tormented on one side by the fiery rain, and on the other by the +exhalations from the deeper pit, are punished by means of heat. At the +foot of the slope is a great circular plain, ringed with a river of +boiling blood in which spoilers, robbers, and murderers, some famous, +some obscure, are plunged more or less deeply in proportion to the +heinousness of their crimes; for, like earthly streams, this has its +deep and shallow. At the latter point they cross, on the back of Nessus +the Centaur, and at once enter (Canto xiii.) a wood of gnarled and sere +trees, in which the Harpies have their dwelling. These trees have sprung +from the souls of suicides, and retain the power of speech and +sensation. From one of these, who in life had been the famous statesman +Peter de Vineis, Dante learns that at the judgement they will recover +their bodies, like others, but will not be allowed to reassume them. The +body will be hung on the tree to which it belongs. Here, as in the case +of the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take a +part in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by the +souls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these are +constantly chased through it by hounds, with much destruction of leaves +and twigs. + +On issuing from the wood (Canto xiv.), they find themselves at the edge +of a great circular plain of sand, upon which flakes of fire are +ceaselessly dropping. Skirting the wood for some distance they reach the +bank of the stream of blood which, having circled all round the outer +margin of the wood, now comes flowing through it, and crosses the sandy +plain in a channel carefully built of shaped stone. Virgil takes +occasion to explain the origin of the rivers of Hell. Thick fumes rise +from it which quench the falling flames, so that along its bank, and +there only, can a way be found. As they proceed they find sinners lying +prone or running under the fiery shower. These are they who had done +violence to God, either directly by open blasphemy, or indirectly by +violating the divinely appointed natural order whereby both the race of +mankind and its possessions should increase and multiply. Many famous +Florentines are among these sinners (Cantos xv. and xvi.); and Dante +talks long with the famous statesman and philosopher, Brunetto Latini, +who had been his early friend and adviser, and with sundry great +captains and men of renown. After this they reach the point where the +river falls with a mighty roar down to the next level. There is no +natural means of descent here available; and Dante hands to Virgil a +cord with which he is girt. The meaning of this cord is very obscure. He +says: "I once thought to capture the leopard with it;" and if the +leopard denotes the factions of Florence, the cord may perhaps symbolise +justice or equity. When Virgil has thrown it down they wait a short +time, and presently a monster appears whose name we find to be Geryon, +and who symbolises fraud or treachery. It is perhaps not unnatural that +when the power to enforce justice has been cast away, treachery should +raise its head. This monster draws near the brink (Canto xvii.), but +before they mount on him, Virgil allows Dante to walk a few paces to the +right, in order that he may take note of the last class of "violent" +sinners, namely, the usurers. These hold an intermediate position +between the violent and the treacherous; just as the heretics did +between the incontinent and the violent. Here again are many +Florentines. Like the other misusers of money in Canto vii. their +features are unrecognisable, and they are only to be known by the arms +embroidered on their money bags. After hearing a few words from one of +them, Dante returns to Virgil, and both take their place on the croup of +Geryon, who bears them downwards to the eighth circle. This (Canto +xviii.), from its configuration, is known as Malebolge, or Evilpits. It +is divided into ten concentric rings, or circular trenches, separated by +a tract of rocky ground. From various indications we gather that each +trench is half a mile across, and the intervening ground a mile and a +quarter. The trenches are spanned by rocky ribs, forming bridges by +which the central cavity can be reached. Here we find for the first time +devils, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, employed as tormentors. +The sinners in this circle are those who have been guilty in any way of +leading others into sin, deceiving or cheating them, without any +aggravating circumstances of ingratitude or breach of natural ties. In +the first pit are those who have led women astray; these are scourged by +fiends. In the next lie flatterers immersed in the most loathsome filth. +In each Dante notes two examples: one of recent times--indeed, in both +cases an acquaintance of his own,--and one taken from ancient history or +legend. Jason, for his desertion of Hypsipyle and Medea, is the +classical example of the first offence. Of this use of mythological +persons we have many examples, but the typical flatterer of old time is +a more curious selection, being a character in a play, whom Dante has +borrowed from Cicero. + +In the next, or third pit (Canto xix.), we again find fire as the +instrument with which the sinners are punished. Those who have made +money by misuse of sacred offices are buried head downwards in holes +with their feet projecting, and fire plays about their soles. Naturally +an opportunity is here presented for some strong invective against the +recent unworthy occupants of the See of Rome. + +Canto xx. brings us to the fourth pit, in which those who have professed +to foretell the future march in a dismal procession with their heads +turned round so that they look down their own backs. The sight of Manto, +daughter of Tiresias, suggests a description of the origin of the city +of Mantua. The last lines of this canto contain one of the most +important indications of time which Dante gives in this part of the +poem. + +The sinners of the fifth pit correspond in some degree with those of the +third, except that in their case the traffic which is punished has to do +with secular offices. Canto xxi. opens with the famous description of +the work in the arsenal of Venice, which is introduced in order to +afford an image of the boiling pitch in which sinners of this class are +immersed. For some reason, which is not very clear, Dante devotes two +whole cantos to this subdivision of the subject. There is no doubt that +_baratteria_, peculation or jobbery, was rampant throughout Southern +Europe at the time, and, as has been said, it was one of the charges +brought against the poet himself at the time of his banishment.[29] We +find here again one of "the torments of heat;" with one exception, that +of the evil counsellors in Canto xxv., the last instance in which heat +plays a part. It would be interesting, by comparison of the various sins +into the punishment of which it enters, to see if any ground can be +suggested for its employment in their case. + +Cantos xxi. and xxii. are also noteworthy as bringing into prominence +the agency of devils, and showing them actually at work. Ten are +introduced and named; and some indication is given of their +organisation. Dante's skill is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the +way in which he has surmounted the difficulty of depicting beings in +whom there is no touch of any good quality. They are plausible; and +their leader, Malacoda, appears at first sight almost friendly. It is +not until later that his apparent friendliness turns out to be a +deliberate attempt to mislead. + +At the opening of Canto xxiii. we find the poets exactly half-way +through Malebolge, on the rocky table-land, so to call it, which +separates the fifth and sixth pits. They are quite solitary, for the +first time in the course of their journey out of sight and hearing of +any other beings; but still in fear of pursuit from the fiends whom they +have just left. These do not, however, come up until just as the poets +have begun the descent into the sixth pit, and here their power is at an +end. + +In this pit are punished the hypocrites, who go in slow procession clad +in cowls of gilded lead. Contrary to the usual practice the poets have +in this case to descend to the bottom of the pit, the bridges being all +broken away. Malacoda, the leader of the fiends in the last _bolgia_, +had mentioned one, but (falsely) assured them that they would find a +sound one further on. He also informed them that the destruction of the +bridges had taken place 1266 years ago on the previous day, but five +hours later than the time of speaking. This gives an important +"time-reference." There can be no doubt that the allusion is to the +rending of the rocks at the moment of Our Lord's death (_cf._ xii. +31-45), which took place at 3 P.M., so that we have 10 A.M. on Easter +Eve fixed as the hour at which the poets meet with the devils of the +fifth pit. Among the hypocrites Dante talks with two men who had jointly +held the office of _Podesta_, or chief magistrate, at Florence in the +year after his birth.[30] They belonged to opposite parties, and the +double appointment had been one of the many expedients devised to +restore peace; but it had not answered, and the two were suspected of +having sunk their own differences of opinion, not to conciliate the +factions, but to enrich themselves at the expense of the State. While +talking to them Dante sees a figure fastened to the ground with three +stakes, as though crucified. This, it is explained, is Caiaphas; Annas +being similarly placed at another point of the circle. Dante and Virgil +have to leave this pit as they entered it, by climbing over the rocks +(Canto xxiv.); and from the minuteness with which this process is +described (even to so characteristic a touch as "I talked as I went, to +show that my wind was good,") it has been thought that Dante was not +without experience in mountain-craft. + +The seventh pit is appointed for the punishment of thieves. Serpents and +dragons are here introduced. In some cases the body is reduced to ashes +in consequence of the bite, and presently recovers its shape; in others +man and serpent blend; in others, again, they exchange natures, the +sinners themselves being transmuted into the reptiles, and becoming the +instruments of torment to their fellows. A kind of reckless and brutal +joviality seems to characterise the malefactors whom we meet with in +this region. Among them are many Florentines, a fact which prompts Dante +to an apostrophe full of bitter irony, with which Canto xxvi. opens. In +the following pit a curious change of tone is manifest. The image chosen +to illustrate the scene is an agreeable one--fireflies flitting in +summer about a mountain valley; and the punishment though terrible is in +no way loathsome or degrading, like most of those which have hitherto +been described in the present circle. The sinners, too, who are +mentioned are men who on earth had played heroic parts; the manner of +their speech is dignified, and Dante treats them with respect. They are +those who have sinned by giving wicked counsel to others, and so +leading them to commit sin; and the two who are especially distinguished +and who relate their stories at length are Ulysses (Canto xxvi.) and +Count Guy of Montefeltro, a great Ghibeline leader (xxvii.). The former +probably owes his place here to Virgil's epithet _scelerum inventor_, +deviser of crimes. In a passage which has deservedly become famous, he +gratifies Dante's curiosity as to the manner of his end. The passage, +apart from its poetic beauty, is remarkable as being, so far as can be +traced, due entirely to the poet's own invention. At all events, beyond +two or three words in the _Odyssey_, nothing in either classical or +mediaeval legend is known which can have given the suggestion for it. In +the case of the Count of Montefeltro, who is alleged to have given +treacherous counsel to Boniface VIII., it also appears difficult to +understand how the facts, if facts they are, became known to Dante. +Villani no doubt gives the story, but in language so similar to that of +the poem that a suspicion arises whether he may not be relying on it as +his authority. + +The next canto (xxviii.) introduces us to one of Dante's most ghastly +conceptions. The ninth pit is peopled by those who have on earth caused +strife and divisions among mankind. They are not, as often stated, +schismatics in the technical sense of the word. Mahommed and Ali are +there, obviously not on religious grounds however, but as having brought +about a great breach between divisions of the human race; and though Fra +Dolcino, who is introduced as it were by anticipation, was a religious +schismatic, it was no doubt his social heterodoxy which earned him a +commemoration in this place. The punishment of these sinners is +appropriate. They are constantly being slashed to pieces by demons; the +wounds being closed again before they complete the circuit. Curio, who +as Lucan narrates, spoke the words which finally decided Caesar to enter +upon civil war, Mosca de' Lamberti, the instigator of the crime which +first imported especial bitterness into the strife of factions at +Florence, and one Peter of Medicina, who seems to have devoted himself +to keeping party-spirit alive in Romagna, are here. Last of all, +carrying his own head like a lantern, is Bertrand of Born, the famous +troubadour, who is charged with having promoted the quarrel between +Henry II. of England and his son. It is worth noting that at this point +we get the first definite indication of the dimensions which Dante +assumes for the present division of Hell. We are told that this ninth +pit of Malebolge has a circumference of twenty-two miles. From the next +canto we learn that the last or innermost pit has half this measure; and +from this basis it has been found possible to draw an accurate plan of +Malebolge, and to conjecture, with an approach to certainty, the +conception formed by Dante of Hell generally.[31] + +In the last pit (Cantos xxix. and xxx.) are found those who have been +guilty of personation with criminal intent, or of bearing false witness, +or of debasing the coinage or pretending to transmute metals. These +suffer from leprosy, dropsy, raving madness, and other diseases. Before +leaving the pit, a quarrel between two of the sinners attracts Dante's +attention more than Virgil thinks seemly; and a sharp reprimand follows. +Dante's penitence however earns speedy forgiveness. + +We are now drawing near the lowest pit; and through the dim air is heard +the sound of a great horn (Canto xxxi.) Going forward, they find that +the final descent, which appears to be a sheer drop of about thirty-five +feet, is guarded by a ring of giants. Those of them who are seen are +Nimrod, and the classical Ephialtes and Antaeus; but we learn that others +famous in Greek mythology are there also. Antaeus being addressed by +Virgil in courteous words, lifts the poets down the wall and lands them +on the lowest floor of Hell. This (Canto xxxii.) is of ice, and must be +conceived as a circular plain, perhaps about two miles in diameter. In +this are punished all who have been guilty of any treachery towards +those to whom they were bound by special ties of kindred, +fellow-citizenship, friendship, or gratitude. Each of these various +grades of crime has its own division, and these are arranged +concentrically, with no very definite boundaries between the different +classes. At the same time each division has its appropriate name, formed +from some famous malefactor who had specially exemplified that class of +crime. Thus the first ring is Caina; the second, Antenora, from Antenor, +who, according to a late version of the Trojan legend, had betrayed Troy +to the Greeks; the third, Toommea, from that Ptolemy, son of Abubus, +who treacherously slew the Maccabees at a feast; the last, in which +Lucifer himself abides, is Giudecca. No distinction appears to exist +between the penalties inflicted on the two first classes; all are alike +plunged up to the shoulders in the ice, the head being free. Dante +speaks with more than one, most of them persons who had belonged to the +Ghibeline party; though in the case of one, Bocca degli Abati, the +treachery had been committed to the detriment of the Guelfs.[32] The +mention of Bocca and Dante's behaviour to him, may remind us that the +whole question of Dante's demeanour towards the persons whom he meets in +the first part of the poem is interesting. For some he is full of pity, +towards some he is even respectful; occasionally he is neutral; while in +some cases he displays anger and scorn, amounting as here to positive +cruelty. The expressions of pity, it will be observed, practically cease +from the moment that Malebolge, the "nethermost Hell," is reached. +Similarly, after reaching the City of Dis, the tone of Virgil towards +the guardians of the damned, which up to that point has been +peremptory, becomes almost suppliant. The reason for this is indeed +somewhat obscure: one does not at once see why the formula "So it is +willed there, where will is power," should not be as good for the Furies +or for Malacoda as it has proved for Charon and Minos. Perhaps the clue +is to be found in the fact that the sins punished _inside_ the walls of +the city (sins which, it will be seen, are not represented in Purgatory +at all) are to be regarded as the result of a will obstinately set +against the will of God; while the sins arising from the frailty of +human nature may be checked by the "right judgement" recalling, before +it is too late, what the will of God is. This, however, is a different +question, and we must not here pursue it too far. To revert to that of +Dante's various demeanour, it will be seen that, with the limitation +indicated above, his sympathy with the sinner does not vary with the +comparative heinousness of the sin. Almost his bitterest scorn, indeed, +is directed towards some whose chief sin is lack of any positive +qualities, good or bad. One infers that he would almost rather wander in +a flame with Ulysses, or lie in the ice with Ugolino, than undergo the +milder punishment of Celestine and his ignoble companions. For the +simply self-indulgent, Francesca or Ciacco, he has pity in abundance; +Farinata, Brunetto, and the other famous men who share the fates of +these, may probably come into the same category. In such cases as these, +while he has not a word to say against the justice of God, he has no +desire to add "the wrath of man" thereto. In the one instance in +Malebolge where he shows any sympathy (and is reproved by Virgil for +doing so) it is for the soothsayers, whose sin would not necessarily +involve the hurt of others. But his conduct is very different to those +whose sin has been primarily against their fellow-man, or against kindly +human intercourse. His first fierce outbreak is against the swaggering +ruffian Filippo Argenti, who seems to have been in Florentine society +the most notable example of a class now happily extinct in civilised +countries, at all events among adults; a kind of bully, or "Mohock," +fond of rough practical jokes, prompted, not by a misguided sense of +humour, but by an irritable man's delight in venting his spite. One can +sympathise, even after six hundred years, in Dante's pious satisfaction +when he saw the man, of whom he may himself have once gone in bodily +fear, become in his turn the object of persecution. It is, however, +after Malebolge is reached, and Dante is among the sinners who have by +dishonest practices weakened the bond of confidence which should bind +human society together, that he lets his wrath and scorn have full play. +His imagery even takes on a grotesque, at times even a foul aspect. He +was not one to mince his words, and if he means to sicken his readers, +he goes straight to his aim. + +It is to be noted, too, that the language and demeanour of the sinners +themselves have in many cases changed. Above Malebolge, at all events +till the usurers are reached, a certain dignity of speech and action is +the rule. Now we find flippant expressions and vulgar gestures. Nothing +is omitted which can give a notion, not merely of the sinfulness, but of +the sordidness of dishonesty. Curiously enough, the one denizen of this +region who is thoroughly dignified and even pathetic, is the pagan +Ulysses; and to him Dante does not himself speak, leaving the pagan +Virgil to hold all communication with him. Besides Ulysses, Guy of +Montfeltro and Ugolino are presented in such a way as to enlist, in +some degree, the sympathy of the reader; and it may further be noted +that in each case a representative of the family in the next generation +is placed in Purgatory; as though Dante, while bound to condemn the +elder men, had held the houses in such esteem that he wished to balance +the condemnation by assigning a better fate to their successors. + +The opening of Canto xxxiii. brings us to the famous episode of Count +Ugolino, which shares with the earlier one of Francesca da Rimini the +widest renown of any passage in the whole poem. It is curious, by the +way, that the structure of the two shows many marked parallelisms; only +the tender pity which characterises Dante's treatment of the former is +wholly lacking in the latter. There is no need to dwell on so well-known +a story; but it may be noted that Ugolino, though a Guelf leader, and +condemned here no doubt for his intrigues with the Ghibeline Archbishop +Roger, came of a Ghibeline family, and thus forms only a partial +exception to the rule stated above. The only genuine Guelf who is named +in this division is Tesauro de' Beccheria, the Abbot of Vallombrosa. + +This will perhaps be the best point at which to say a few words on a +subject about which much misconception has prevailed. It has often been +supposed that Dante was just a Ghibeline partisan, and distributed his +characters in the next world according to political sympathies. The +truth is, that under no circumstances, so far as we can see, does he +assign to any one his place on political grounds--that is, merely for +having belonged to one or other of the great parties which then divided +Italy. He himself, as we know, belonged to neither. His political ideal +was a united world submitting to the general direction of the Emperor in +temporal matters, of the Pope in spiritual. On the other hand, he would +have had national forms of government retained. Brought up as he had +been, the citizen and afterwards the official of a Guelf republic, there +is no reason to suppose that a republican form of government was in any +way distasteful to him, provided that it was honestly administered. It +was not until the more powerful faction in the Guelf party called in the +aid of an external power, unconnected with Italy, and hostile, or, as he +would doubtless hold, rebellious, to the Empire, that he, along with the +more "constitutional" branch of the Guelfs, threw in his lot with the +long-banished Ghibelines. But neither then nor at any time did he belong +to the Ghibeline party. So far from it, that he takes that party (in +_Par._, vi. 105) as the example of those who follow the imperial +standard in the wrong way, and make it a symbol of iniquity. The +greatest and most heroic figure in the whole history of the Ghibelines, +the man whose love for the rebellious city was as great as Dante's own, +who when he had by his prowess in arms recovered it for the Empire, +stood resolutely between it and the destruction which in the opinion of +his comrades it had merited, is condemned to share with a Pope and an +Emperor the penalty of speculative heterodoxy. On the other hand, we +find Charles of Anjou, the foreign intruder, the bitter foe of the +Empire and pitiless exterminator of the imperial race, a man in whom +later historians, free from personal or patriotic bias, have seen hardly +any virtue to redeem the sombre cruelty of his career, placed, not +indeed in Paradise, but in Purgatory, and waiting in sure and certain +hope of ultimate salvation, as one who in spite of many faults had led a +pure and ascetic life in a profligate and self-indulgent age. It would +be interesting to know, if Dante had met Charles somewhat later, in +which of the Purgatorial circles he would have placed him. He seems to +evade the difficulty of classifying him by finding him where he does. + +It is necessary to insist rather strongly on this point, since even so +accomplished a scholar as the late Professor Bartoli, when dealing with +Dante's reference to the Emperor Henry VII. (in _Par._, xxx. 133, sqq.), +forgets that all the saints in Paradise have their allotted seat in the +Rose of the highest heaven, and speaks as though Dante had honoured +Henry above all but the greatest saints and foretold his "direct flight +from the earth to the Empyrean." Of course there is not a word of this. +All that we are entitled to say is that Dante held Henry to be an +Emperor who was doing his duty, and would earn his reward like any other +Christian and before Dante himself. It will be observed that he sees no +other Emperor in Paradise, save Charlemagne; one, Rudolf of Hapsburg, is +in, or rather just outside of, Purgatory; one, the great Frederick II., +in Hell. Of the Popes one only, and he a Pope who in his life lay under +grievous suspicion of heterodoxy, and moreover only occupied the Papal +See for a few months, is placed in Heaven. This is "Peter of Spain," +Pope John XXI. Two are in Purgatory; one of them, Martin IV., being a +man who, as a Frenchman by birth, and a strong partisan of Charles of +Anjou, might be supposed to have been specially obnoxious to Dante. No +doubt Popes appear in what may seem an unfair proportion among the +guilty souls below; but even for this distribution Dante could probably +have pleaded orthodox authority and certainly scriptural support. "To +whom much is given, of the same shall much be required." It is true, as +Professor Bartoli points out, that Dante's "reverence for the supreme +keys" was compatible with a very low estimate of their holders; but is +not this exactly what we should expect from a man of high ideals and +intolerant of failure in proportion to the dignity of the aim? His +treatment of Pope Celestine, the one Pope of his time from whom, _prima +facie_, something other than political partisanship might have been +hoped, and who having put his hand to the plough had looked back, is +sufficient to indicate his attitude in this matter. + +Once realise that Dante was, like our own Milton, a man with a keen +sense of what ought to be, and an equally keen appreciation of the fact +that things in his time were by no means as they ought to be, that he +was fallen on evil days and evil tongues--an appreciation which +doubtless most great souls, short of the few greatest, have had at most +periods of the world's history--and you have the key to much that no +ordinary theory of party-spirit will explain. Men of this temper care +little for the party cries of everyday politics; and yet they cannot +quite sit outside the world of affairs and watch the players, as we may +imagine Shakespeare to have done, in calm consciousness that the shaping +of our rough-hewn ends was in other hands than ours. No great historian +of Shakespeare's time devoted a whole chapter to his memory, as did +Villani to that of Dante; yet we can hardly doubt that in the education +of the world Shakespeare has borne the more important share, and Dante, +with his deep conviction of the higher dignity of the "contemplative +life," would be the first to own it. + +The third subdivision, known as Tolommea, has, as one of its inmates +says, the "privilege" of receiving the souls of sinners while their +bodies are yet alive on earth, animated by demons. With this horrible +conception we seem to have reached the highest mark of Dante's inventive +power. Only two names are mentioned, but one feels that if the owners of +them ever came across the poem in which they had earned so sinister a +commemoration, their sentiment towards the poet would hardly be one of +gratitude.[33] These are the last of his contemporaries whom Dante +brands, the last, indeed, whom he recognises. In Giudecca (Canto xxxiv.) +the sinners are wholly sunk below the ice, and only show through like +straws or other small impurities in glass. An exception is made in the +case of the three persons whom Dante regards as having carried the sin +of ingratitude to its highest point. Lucifer, who, as has been said, is +fixed at the lowest point, has three faces. In the mouth of the central +one he for ever gnaws Judas Iscariot, while in the others are Brutus and +Cassius. + +The journey to the upper world is begun by a climb down the shaggy sides +of the Archfiend himself. On reaching his middle, which is also the +centre of the earth, the position is reversed, and the ascent begins. +For a short distance they climb up by Lucifer's legs, then through a +chimney in the rock; lastly, it would appear, following the course of a +stream which winds spirally down through the earth, they reach the +surface, and again come in sight of the stars. + + +Section 2. PURGATORY. + +After the invocation to the Muses, a curious survival of classical +imagery with which in one form or another each division of the poem +begins, Dante relates how, on emerging from the lower world, as Easter +Day was dawning the poets found themselves on an island with the first +gleam of day just visible on the distant sea. Venus is shining in the +eastern heaven; and four stars, "never seen save by the earliest of +mankind," are visible to the south. No doubt some tradition or report of +the Southern Cross had reached men's ears in Europe; but the symbolical +meaning is more important, and there can be no doubt that the stars +denote the four "cardinal" or natural or active virtues of fortitude, +temperance, justice, and prudence. In the evening, as we shall see later +on, their place is taken by three other stars, which symbolise the +theological or Christian or contemplative virtues--faith, hope, charity. + +On turning again Dante sees close at hand an old man of venerable +countenance, who questions them by what right they had come. Virgil +recognises him for Cato of Utica, the Roman Republican patriot. His +position here, as warder of the mount of purification, is very curious, +and has never been thoroughly explained. Among other things it is +probable that Dante was influenced by the Virgilian line in which Cato +is introduced as the lawgiver of good men in the after-world. Being +satisfied with the explanation given, Cato directs them to the shore, +where Virgil is to wash the grime of Hell from Dante's face, and gird +him with a rush, as an emblem of humility. When this has been done and +as the sun is rising (Canto ii.) a light is seen approaching over the +water. As it draws near, it is seen to be an angel. His wings form the +sails to a boat which comes to the shore, freighted with more than a +hundred souls on their way to Purgatory. They are chanting the Easter +Psalm _In exitu Israel_; at the sign of the cross made by the angel they +come ashore, and begin by inquiring the way of Virgil. While he is +explaining that he is no less strange to the country than they are, some +of them perceive that Dante is a living man, and all crowd around him. +Among them he recognises a friend, the musician Casella, who, after some +affectionate words have passed between them, begins at Dante's request +to sing one of the poet's own odes; and the crowd listen intently. But +Cato comes up, and bidding them delay no longer, drives them like a +flock of frightened pigeons towards the mountain. + +Even Virgil is somewhat abashed on account of his participation in the +delay (Canto iii.); but soon recovers his equanimity, and resumes his +usual dignified pace. Dante for the first time observes that his +companion casts no shadow on the ground, and Virgil explaining that the +spiritual form, while capable of feeling pain, has not the property of +intercepting light, takes occasion to point out that there are mysteries +for which the human reason is unable to account, and that this very +inability forms the chief unhappiness of the great thinkers whom they +saw among the virtuous heathen on the border of Hell. With this they +reach the foot of the mountain of Purgatory. As is explained elsewhere, +this occupies a position exactly opposite to the conical pit of Hell; +being indeed formed of that portion of the earth which fled at the +approach of Satan when he fell from Heaven. Some of its features are no +doubt borrowed from the legendary accounts which Pliny and others have +preserved of a great mountain seen by navigators to the west of the +Straits of Gibraltar; these accounts being probably based on imperfect +descriptions of Atlas or Teneriffe, or both confused together. Its +summit is exactly at the Antipodes of Jerusalem, a point which must be +carefully borne in mind if the various astronomical indications of time +given in the course of the journey are to be rightly understood. + +The mountain-side, which Dante compares to the steepest and most rugged +parts of the Genoese Riviera, appears at first, quite inaccessible; but +before long they meet a company of spirits, who, after recovering from +their first astonishment at seeing from Dante's shadow that he is not +one of themselves, indicate to them the point at which the cliff may be +attacked. Before they proceed further, one of the shades addressing +Dante makes himself known as Manfred, son to the Emperor Frederick II., +and gives an account of his end, explaining that excommunication--for he +had died under the ban of the Church--is powerless to do more than +protract the interval between the soul's admission to Purgatory. After +this (Canto iv.) they enter a steep and narrow cleft in the rock, from +which they emerge upon a ledge on the mountain face, and a further climb +up this lands them about noon on a broader terrace. Hitherto they have +been mounting from the eastward, and on looking back in that direction, +Dante is surprised to find the sun on his left hand. Virgil explains the +topography; and is saying, in order to encourage Dante, that the labour +of climbing will diminish as they get higher, when a bantering voice +interrupts with the assurance that he will need plenty of sitting yet. +The poet recognises in the speaker a Florentine friend. Another playful +sarcasm on his thirst for information makes Dante address the shade and +inquire as to his state. He, like Manfred, is debarred from entering +Purgatory, but on the ground that he had led an easy life, and taken no +thought of serious matters till his end drew near. In the following +cantos (v. and vi.) we meet with many spirits who are from various +causes in a similar position. First come those who have been cut off in +the midst of their sins, but have sought for mercy at the last. The most +noteworthy of these is Buonconte of Montefeltro, son of that Count Guy +whom we met in the eighth pit of Malebolge. He was slain fighting +against the Florentines at the battle of Campaldino (1289), in which +Dante himself may possibly have borne arms.[34] Four lines at the end of +this canto are among the most famous in the poem. In a few words they +commemorate one of the domestic tragedies which were only too familiar +in mediaeval Italy. Passing through the crowd, they fall in, as evening +is drawing on, with a solitary shade, who replies to Virgil's inquiry +for the best road by asking whence they come. At the answer, "Mantua," +the shade springs up, and reveals himself as the famous warrior-poet of +that city, Sordello. The affectionate greeting which follows between +the fellow-citizens moves Dante to a splendid denunciation of the +internecine quarrels then raging throughout Italy, and of the neglect on +the part of the divinely ordained monarch, the Roman Emperor, which has +allowed matters to come to such a pass. Lastly he directs his invective +especially against his own city, Florence, and in words of bitter +sarcasm upbraids her with the perpetual revolutions which hinder all +good government. + +Sordello is an example of those whom constant occupation in affairs of +state had caused to defer any thought for spiritual things, and who are +expiating the delay in the region outside the proper entrance to +Purgatory. In Canto vii., after explaining that they will not be able to +stir a step after sunset ("the night cometh when no man can work"), he +leads the poets to a spot where they may pass the night. This is a +flowery dell on the hillside, occupied by the spirits of those who in +life had been sovereign princes and rulers. There they see the Emperor +Rudolf and his adversary, Ottocar of Bohemia; Charles of Anjou, King of +Naples and Sicily, Philip III. of France, Peter III. of Aragon, Henry +III. of England, and many other famous men of the last generation. +Sordello, in pointing them out, takes occasion to enlarge on the +degeneracy of their sons, making a special exception in favour of +Edward, son of Henry. + +The sun sets (Canto viii.) and the shades join in the Compline hymn. At +its conclusion, two angels clad in green robes descend, and take up +their position on either side of the little valley. Dante, with his +companions, goes down to join the "mighty shades," and is met by one +whom he at once recognises as an old friend, the Pisan noble Giovanni, +or Nino de' Visconti, "judge" or governor of the Sardinian province +called Gallura, nephew of Count Ugolino. After some talk Dante notices +the three stars spoken of above, and at the same moment Sordello draws +Virgil's attention to an "adversary." They see a serpent making its way +through the grass; and immediately the angels start in pursuit, putting +it to flight. After this episode another shade announces himself as +Conrad Malaspina, of the house with whom Dante was to find shelter +during a part of his exile. + +The night wears on, and Dante falls asleep (Canto ix.). He dreams that +he is being carried by an eagle up to the empyrean heaven. On awaking +he finds that the sun has risen some time, and learns from Virgil that +at daybreak St. Lucy (who has already come under notice as taking an +interest in his welfare) had appeared and borne him to the place where +they now are, in front of the gate of Purgatory. This is approached by +three steps of variously-coloured stone. The first is white marble, the +second a dark and rough rock, the third blood-red porphyry, indicating +probably the three stages of the soul's progress to freedom through +confession, contrition, and penance. On the topmost step sits an angel, +who having marked seven P's (_peccata_ sins) on Dante's forehead, admits +them within the gate. + +Thus far, except in the passage, Canto viii. 19 sqq., to which Dante +himself draws the reader's attention, the allegorical interpretation has +not afforded any very great difficulty. With this particular passage +readers will do well to compare _Inf._, ix. 37 sqq., where a very +similar indication is given of an underlying allegory, and draw their +own conclusions. But on the whole, the main interest of the first nine +cantos of the _Purgatory_ is more of a personal nature. Sordello alone +may give an excuse for a good deal of historical research. For example, +no one has yet explained Dante's reasons for so distinguishing a person +who, from all the records that we have, does not seem to have made any +great figure in the eyes of his contemporaries. + +It will hardly be necessary to follow Dante step by step through the +stages of the mountain of purification. We shall probably do best to +consider the general plan on which Purgatory is arranged, the nature of +the various penances, with their adaptation to the offences which they +expiate, and the light thrown in this division of the poem on Dante's +opinions about the elements of political and moral science. + +We find, then, seven cornices, or ledges, on the mountain, connected +with each other by stairways cut in the rock. Each stairway is guarded +by an angel, and each, as it would appear, is shorter and less steep +than the previous one. Thus the passage from the first to the second +circle takes a considerable time, enough at all events to allow of some +conversation between Dante and Virgil between the moment of their +passing the angel and that at which they reach the top of the stairway. +On the other hand, when they come to the final ascent, from the seventh +circle to the level of the Earthly Paradise which occupies the summit, a +few steps are sufficient to bring them to their halting-place, which, as +appears afterwards, is practically on the summit level. Each angel, as +Dante passes, erases from his forehead one of the P's which the warder +of the first gate had inscribed there, and utters one of the Scriptural +Beatitudes appropriate to the circle which they are quitting. Thus, +"Blessed are the peacemakers" accompanies their departure from the +circle of the wrathful; "Blessed are they that hunger after +righteousness" is heard as they leave that where gluttony is expiated. + +The ritual, so to speak, is very precise throughout. Besides the +Beatitudes, which are recited by the angel-guards, and in some cases it +would seem repeated by a chorus of voices, we find in each circle +commemoration variously contrived of notable instances, both of the sins +punished and of their "contrary virtues." These are perhaps worth going +through in detail. In the circle of Pride, where it is necessary to go +in a stooping posture, the pavement is engraved with representations of +humility. The first is the Annunciation, (and here it should be noted +that in every group an event from the life of the Virgin holds the first +place); next comes David dancing before the Ark; and lastly, Trajan +yielding to the widow's prayer that he would perform an act of justice +before setting out with the pomp of a military expedition. Further on in +the same circle are found examples of the punishment of pride, taken +alternately from Scripture and from classical mythology. The next circle +is that of Envy. Here the penalty consists of the sewing up of the eyes, +so that pictured representations would be of no use; and, accordingly, +the task of calling the examples to mind is discharged by voices flying +through the air. Yet another method is adopted in the third circle, +where the Angry are punished by means of a dense smoke. Here the +pictures are conveyed to Dante's mind by a kind of trance or vision, in +which he sees the various scenes. We must suppose that the spirits pass +through some similar experience. In the fourth circle, the examples of +activity and warnings against Sloth are delivered by the souls +themselves. As it is night while Dante is in this circle, he is himself +unable to move; but the discipline being to run at speed, the souls pass +him in their course. The fifth circle, of the Avaricious and Prodigal, +follows much the same rule as the fourth, except that here the instances +of virtue are recited in the day, those of sin at night, so that Dante +does not actually hear the latter. In this case the souls lie prostrate. +The Gluttonous, in the sixth circle, are punished by having to pass +under trees laden with fruit, which they cannot reach; and the examples +and warnings are conveyed by voices among the branches of these trees. +The seventh circle follows the fashion of the fourth, except that the +souls (who are punished by fire for having in life failed to hold in due +restraint the flames of passion) seem to address the warning +reminiscences to each other as they meet in the circuit. An instance of +the system on which the examples are introduced has been given from the +first circle. Perhaps that for the sixth is even more typical. On first +entering this they come to a tree, among the branches of which a voice +is heard recording the conduct of the Virgin at the feast in Cana, when +"she thought more of the success of the banquet than of her own mouth;" +the custom of drinking only water prevalent among the Roman women, and +the abstemiousness of Daniel and the Baptist. Then, after passing +through a portion of the circle, and holding converse with its inmates, +they reach another tree, from which a second voice comes to them bidding +them remember the trouble that came from the drunkenness of the Centaur +at the wedding of Pirithous, and the rejection by Gideon of the men who +had drunk immoderately. This coupling of a classical and Scriptural +instance is quite invariable. + +To pass on to the subject of the light thrown upon Dante's speculative +views in the _Purgatory_. It is not too much to say that from that point +of view it is the most important division of the whole poem. This, +perhaps, follows naturally from its subject. The Purgatorial existence +bears more affinity to the life of this world than does that of those +who have reached their eternal abode; and human affections and human +interests still have much of their old power. This, then, would +naturally be the division in which questions arising from the conditions +of man's life with men would be likely to suggest themselves. + +In the _Hell_ we had indeed a statement of Dante's view of Ethics, so +far as was necessary to explain his attitude towards breaches of the +moral law and their punishment. In the _Purgatory_ he goes more deeply +into the question, and expounds in Cantos xvi., xvii., and xviii., a +theory with regard to the origin of morals and knowledge. According to +this the soul when created is a _tabula rasa_, but having certain +capacities inherent in it in consequence of the nature of its Creator. +The Creator being absolutely veracious, the information imparted by the +senses is infallible. Further, the Creator being absolutely happy, the +soul naturally seeks happiness, and is said to love that in which it +expects to find happiness. So far there is no room for error. Where it +can come in is in the inferences which the mind draws from the +information which the senses give, and in either its choice of an object +to love, or the vigour with which it pursues that object. It must be +further noted that the soul is endowed at the outset with a knowledge +of good and evil, _i.e._ conscience, and with free-will; though this +latter has to struggle with the conditions which the influence of the +heavenly bodies imposes on the individual. With due culture, however, it +can ultimately prevail over these; but it must also be aided in its +struggle by the check of law and the guidance which should be afforded +by spiritual pastors. In order that these may have their full effect, it +is desirable that the secular and spiritual authorities should be in +different hands: and thus we are brought to the same conclusions as in +the treatise _De Monarchia_. + +To return, however, to the moral question. All action, as has been said, +is directed to an end, and (in the words of Aquinas, following +Aristotle) the end for each individual is that which he desires and +loves. If the end is rightly selected, and the love duly proportioned, +the action does not incur blame. But it may happen that the end may be +evil; in which case evil becomes the object of the love, or the love is +turned to hatred. Now, no created being can hate its Creator, nor can +any man hate himself; therefore the sins arising from this cause must be +sins against fellow-men. These, so far as Purgatory is concerned, are +pride, envy, anger, which, when carried into action, become the sins +that are punished within the City of Dis, though in Purgatory they would +appear on the whole to be regarded as the less grave offences. + +When the object is good, but the love is lacking in due vigour, we have +the sin of sloth, or, as our forefathers called it, "accidie." This +occupies a somewhat anomalous position. Those who have allowed it to +grow to moodiness and given way to it past hope of repentance, lie in +Hell at the bottom of the Stygian marsh, and nothing is seen of them but +the bubbles which are formed by their sighs; while the wrathful or +ill-tempered lie in the same marsh, but appear above the water. Both +sins alike render the man full of hatred for his fellows, and make him +insensible to the joy of life. In Purgatory, on the other hand, the +anger which is punished seems rather to be the fault of hasty temper; +while in the case of sloth, the souls who expiate it are represented as +running at great speed, and proclaiming instances of conspicuous +alertness. For our present purpose, then, it must be regarded as merely +slothfulness or indolence. + +Finally, we have the cases in which the object is natural, or even +laudable. A fair share of this world's goods, our daily food, the love +between man and woman, all these are objects to which the desires may +lawfully be directed, so long as they are duly restrained. When, +however, they become the main aim, they are sinful, and lead to the sins +for which the discipline of the three upper cornices is required; the +most severe of all that is undergone in Purgatory. Yet these are the +sins which in Hell "incur less blame," as being sins involving rather +the animal than the spiritual part of man. But there is not space here +to discuss this aspect of the subject. Readers will find much interest +in working it out for themselves. + +The physiological sketch given by Statius in the twenty-fifth canto, +introduced to account for the spiritual body, is in logical order an +introduction to Dante's ethics and psychology; and is remarkable both in +its agreement with Aristotle and its divergence from him. The occasion +for it is found in a question raised by Dante, and suggested to him by +the appearance of the shades in the circle which they have just left: +namely, how beings who have no need to go through the ordinary process +of nutrition, can feel the desire for food (as Forese has explained that +they do) and grow lean through the deprivation of it. In order to solve +this difficulty, Statius sketches briefly the stages of the development +of the human being, from his first conception until he has an +independent existence, showing how the embryo progresses first to +vegetative then to animal life, and how finally, when the brain is +complete (this being the last stage in the organisation), the "First +Mover" breathes the human soul into the frame. The soul, having thus an +independent existence, when the frame decays sets itself loose +therefrom, taking with it the senses and passions, as well as the mental +faculties of memory, understanding, and will. The latter are still in +full activity, but the former have only a potential existence until such +time as the soul has found its place in the other world. Then it takes +to itself a bodily shape, formed out of the surrounding air (as a flame +is formed by the fire), and equips it with organs of sense; and +thenceforward this shape is adapted to express all the natural emotions +and desires, including of course those of hunger and thirst. This +remarkable exposition is based on Aristotle's theory of the generation +of the body, and the introduction into it of the soul; but there is an +important difference. The Greek philosopher, though his language is not +very explicit, has apparently no idea of any survival of the personal +identity after death. At all events, so he was interpreted by Averroes +and later by Aquinas. With him the source of all movement is the father, +from whom only (though here again Aristotle is not quite clear) comes +the gift of a soul. Dante, on the contrary, refers these back to the +Prime Mover, namely God, and conceives a special creative act as +performed on behalf of every human being that is brought into the world. +As will be easily seen, this conception is the necessary complement to +Dante's system of ethics, based on individual free-will, and postulating +a newly-created soul, fresh from the Maker's hand; a _tabula rasa_, with +no attributes save the natural propension towards that which gives it +pleasure. + +We may now pass to the six cantos which conclude this division of the +poem, and form a most important stage in the development of the whole +plan. Dante has now proceeded as far as human reason, typified by +Virgil, is able to guide him. He is on the threshold of Heaven; but +before he can be admitted among the blessed, another conductor must be +provided, to whom the way to the Divine Presence shall be freely open. +This, of course, can only be knowledge informed by faith, or, as we may +say for shortness, theology, not in the sense of a formal science, but +in one approaching more nearly to what Aristotle calls _Theoria_, or +contemplation. From certain expressions in the earliest cantos of the +poem, it is clear that Dante looked upon the woman whom in his youth he +had loved, and who had, at the supposed date of these events, been ten +years dead, as symbolising this _Theoria_, and as being in some special +way entrusted with the task of saving him from spiritual ruin. She +accordingly appears, and takes up the duties which Virgil is +surrendering. The manner of her appearance must be noticed--showing as +it does the almost inextricable web in which Dante combines fact and +allegory. That the "Beatrice" who is introduced is primarily none other +than an actual woman of flesh and blood, whom hundreds of then living +people had known, who had gone about Florence for twenty-four years and +married a prominent citizen, and whom Dante had loved with the romantic +passion of the Middle Ages, only the misplaced ingenuity of paradoxical +critics can doubt.[35] Yet at her entry she is escorted by a procession, +the members of which represent the books of the Bible, the seven +virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; while the car on which she is +borne (which itself denotes the Church) is drawn by a mystical figure, +in which we cannot fail to see a symbol of the second Person of the +Trinity. If it be objected that the salvation of Dante is a small matter +about which to set in motion so stupendous a machinery, we may answer +that, in the first place, his own salvation does not seem unimportant to +the man himself; and further, which is of more weight, that Dante +himself is here no less symbolical than Beatrice, or Virgil, or the +mystic Gryphon. He is the typical human soul; his experiences, his +struggles, his efforts to shake himself free of the trammels of the +world and the flesh, are familiar features in the spiritual history of +the great majority of Christians. Thus the wonderful pageant described +in this canto must be regarded as being displayed, not to him only, but +to all Christendom in his person. + +A few words with regard to this pageant may afford a little help to its +comprehension. After the arrival of Beatrice, a scene follows in which +she upbraids Dante for his forgetfulness of her, and receives an avowal +of his fault. He is then bathed in the stream of Lethe--another curious +employment of pagan mythology--and brought back to the presence of +Beatrice. Hitherto she has been veiled; but now, at the special entreaty +of her attendant nymphs (those nymphs who are also the four stars in +heaven, and denote the cardinal virtues), she withdraws the veil, and +discloses again the smile for which her "faithful one" had yearned +during ten years. + +Soon, however, his attention is called away to new and strange sights. +The procession, of which Dante and his remaining companion Statius now +form part, moves forward through the wood of the Earthly Paradise; the +car is attached to a tree, identified with the "tree of knowledge," +which since Adam's disobedience has been leafless and fruitless. After +this Dante falls into a short sleep, and on waking finds that Beatrice +with her attendants is alone left, as a guardian to the car. Then follow +a series of strange transformations, the general plan of which is +clearly suggested by the Apocalypse; but their interpretation is to be +sought in the relations of the Church to the Empire, down to the time of +the "Babylonish captivity," or transference of the Papal See to Avignon. +This is symbolised by the departure of the car, drawn this time by a +giant (Philip the Fair of France), and occupied no longer by Beatrice, +but by a harlot, to denote (again with allusion to the Apocalypse) the +corrupt rule under which the Church had fallen. + +In the final scene of all, Beatrice, in phrases hardly less obscure than +the vision itself, indicates to Dante the lesson which he is to learn +from it, and repeats in another form Virgil's prediction of a champion +who is to come and set the world to rights. Much has been written about +the first of these, the _Veltro_; hardly less about the "five hundred, +ten, and five," or DXV. The usual interpretation takes these letters as +intended merely to suggest _Dux_, a leader; but this seems a little +weak. Elsewhere I have given reasons for thinking that Dante had a +special motive for wrapping up his meaning in this numerical form. + +Lastly, in a passage which, though ostensibly only one of Dante's usual +time-indications, seems intended to suggest repose after the labours +through which he has brought his readers, and the agitation of the last +canto, he tells us that at noon they reached the edge of the forest. +Here he is made to drink of another stream, Eunoe, or "right mind," +after which he is ready for the upward journey. + +It is too much to expect readers to work through the voluminous +interpretations which have been offered of the very difficult and +perplexing mysticism of these cantos. Some points are perhaps plainer to +the student who considers them with a fair knowledge of the Bible and +history, than to the commentator who wishes to establish a new and +original theory. But they are so important (particularly Cantos xxx. and +xxxi.) to any one who wishes to understand Dante's whole position as +man, poet, scholar, and politician, that they should not be passed over +as mere futile mediaeval fancies. It should be said, too, that they +contain some passages which will never be out of date until the poetic +taste of mankind has altogether changed. + + +Section 3. PARADISE. + +The first point which will strike the reader on entering upon the third +division of the poem is the sudden change in the conditions under which +the action is carried on. Hitherto Dante has been moving on solid earth, +subject to the usual limitations which are enforced by physical laws +upon all human action. Henceforth, as he tells us (_Par._, xxx. 123), +God operates directly, and physical laws have no longer any place. "It +is Beatrice," he elsewhere says, "who leads on so swiftly from one stage +of blessedness to a higher;" and we shall notice that the transference +from sphere to sphere is effected by Dante's fixing his eyes on hers, +while she gazes upwards. + +A word as to the various spheres may not be out of place here. According +to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, as adapted to the requirements of +mediaeval belief, the earth was at the centre, and concentric with it +were ten hollow spheres. In the first eight of these were placed +consecutively the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, +and the fixed stars. In order to explain the irregular movements of the +planets, "epicycles" or smaller spheres borne by the principal spheres, +and bearing the planets, were devised, but these need not be considered +here. Outside of the fixed stars came the _primum mobile_, which gave +the diurnal revolution of the heavens, and beyond this the Empyrean, or +fixed heaven, in which was the special abode of God, and in which all +the blessed had their places. Between the earth and the innermost +sphere, that of the Moon, lie the regions of water, air, and fire. The +Mountain of Purgatory, on the summit of which Dante at the conclusion of +the second _Cantica_ was standing, lifts its head as far as the third of +these. Through this accordingly, Beatrice and Dante have to rise in +order to reach the first step in the celestial ascent. It must be noted +that there is no reason to suppose that in every case the actual planet +is visited. The "heaven" of the planet embraces the whole "sphere" in +which it is set, and its characteristics may be conceived as extending +to the whole of that sphere. + +The fact of rising without apparent motive force through a medium +lighter than his own body, at once forms a subject for enquiry on +Dante's part; and Beatrice, as she has frequently to do in the course of +their journey, resolves his doubt. Those who are reading the poem for +the first time will probably pass lightly over these difficult +metaphysical passages. They must be read sooner or later by any one who +wishes thoroughly to understand Dante's place in the history of +speculative thought; but in the first instance it will probably be +better to "take them as read" and endeavour to get a clear notion of the +general arrangement. There are obvious reasons why this portion of the +poem should consist as largely as it does of these subtle disquisitions. +There is far less room, in the first place, for variety of description. +In a region where there are no shadows, it is impossible to give a +detailed picture; and terms indicative of simple brightness are limited. +Nor, again, is it easy where all are perfect to depict individual +character. Consequently two great elements of interest in the first two +parts of the poem are far less available here; and their place must be +filled by other matter. What this matter should be is suggested by the +natural division of speculative science into Ethics, or the study of +man's conduct as a moral being; Politics, or the science relating to his +behaviour in regard to the social order; and Metaphysics, which for +Dante is synonymous with theology, the investigation of all that +concerns his spiritual part, as well as the Divine order generally. With +the first two we have dealt in the _Hell_ and the _Purgatory_ +respectively; the third is reserved for the _Paradise_. Once or twice +indeed Dante touches on matters that would seem more fitly to belong to +the others; as, for instance, the magnificent passage in Canto vi., +where Justinian, after sketching the triumphant course of the Roman +Eagle, inveighs against the party feuds of the time; or Carlo Martello's +reference to the Sicilian Vespers, and the misdeeds of his brother +Robert. But of these the first leads up to an elaborate exposition of +the scheme of Redemption, the second seems intended directly to +introduce a dissertation on matters lying at the very root of human +nature. + +To the same difficulty in varying the methods (to use a phrase of +Ginguene's) must be attributed the occurrence of a good many +conceptions which to our taste appear somewhat grotesque. Yet the better +we know the poem the more we shall feel that in this third part the +author's genius rises to its sublimest efforts, and agree with the late +Dean of St. Paul's, that it is the true _pierre de touche_ of the +student of Dante. + +To go briefly through the various stages. The heaven of the Moon is that +in which appear the spirits of those who having taken vows have under +compulsion or persuasion abandoned them; Mercury contains statesmen and +men of affairs; Venus those who have been over-much swayed by indulgence +in earthly love. It must be observed that, according to the astronomy of +the time, the shadow of the Earth, cast into space by the Sun, extended +as far as the orbit of Venus. The spirits in these three spheres +therefore form a group by themselves: being distinguished by the fact +that they had allowed earthly cares and pleasures to obtain too strong +hold of them, to the injury of their spiritual development. In these +three spheres respectively the representative speakers are Piccarda +Donati, sister of Dante's friend Forese, and of Corso, the leader of +the "Black Guelfs;" the Emperor Justinian; and Carlo Martello, the +titular king of Hungary, son of Charles II., king of Naples, who is +followed by Cunizza, sister of the Ghibeline chief, Ezzelino da Romano, +and Folco of Marseilles, who began as a troubadour and became bishop of +his native city. + +Although in one sense the inhabitants of the three lower spheres may be +said to have attained a less perfect blessedness than those to whom the +rest of heaven is assigned, it must not be supposed that they are +conscious of any lack. All have their places in the highest or Empyrean +heaven, and all sense of sorrow for past imperfections is at an end. We +must indeed suppose that, as with Dante himself, the imperfections have +been effaced by the discipline of Purgatory, and their remembrance +washed away by the water of Lethe. + +With the sphere of the Sun, however, we arrive for the first time in the +presence of those who have lived so as to earn the full honour of +sanctity, and find ourselves amongst canonised saints. Even here Dante +has shown himself, as usual, independent of conventional or official +restrictions. In his introduction of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. +Bonaventura he merely anticipates the formal decision of the Church; but +in "Peter of Spain," that is Pope John XXI. (the only historical Pope +whom he places in Paradise), he selects for special honour a man who was +by no means free from grave suspicion of heresy, and who has never been +canonised. As Dante never did anything without a reason we must suppose +that some now forgotten merit earned for the Spanish logician a place +beside Nathan, Chrysostom, and Anselm. It is by these and such men as +these, great teachers and thinkers, that the heaven of the Sun is +occupied; the reason no doubt being that as the Sun is the source of +light and the promoter of growth in the physical world, so are these in +the spiritual. + +The tenth canto is specially notable as bringing Dante into the presence +of the greatest exponent of the Scholastic philosophy, and the master +whom he followed more closely than any other, St. Thomas Aquinas. In the +eleventh, the illustrious Dominican recounts the life of St. Francis of +Assisi, the founder of the rival order. This is one of the most notable +passages in the whole poem, rising as it does to a sustained +magnificence of diction which especially characterises those portions of +the _Paradise_ where the poet allows full play to his genius. +Justinian's roll-call of the Roman achievements in Canto vi. is another. +Nothing at all like them is found in the two former divisions of the +poem; and it is to them that students who wish to feel the attraction +which the _Paradise_ undoubtedly exercises over those who know it well, +should first turn. + +The sphere of the Sun, in which we now are, is, it should be noted, one +of the two regions of Heaven in which Dante makes the longest stay, the +other being that of the Fixed Stars. The passage to it marks a distinct +stage in his progress. Looking back to the end of Canto ix. we see that +it forms a kind of peroration; while the first twenty-seven lines of +Canto x. are, as it were, the introduction to a fresh division of the +poem, and recall certain phrases which occurred in the opening canto. It +is difficult to say why these two spheres should be made of so much more +importance than the rest. Mars is the only one which approaches them; +but this is selected by Dante as the scene of his interview with his +ancestor Cacciaguida, which gives the occasion for the magnificent +contrast between the old days of Florence and its present state, and the +prophecy of his own exile; subjects which might well occupy a +considerable space. On the other hand, the eulogy of St. Francis, +already referred to, which St. Thomas Aquinas delivers, and that of St. +Dominic, with which St. Bonaventura, "vying with the courtesy of so +mighty a paladin," responds to it, fine as they are, do not appear +indispensable in the scheme of the poem. But the whole plan of the +_Paradise_ is, so far as can be seen, arranged with much less of obvious +symmetry than is to be found in the two former _Cantiche_. No doubt the +plan is there; but just as "time-indications" for the most part fail us, +or can be extracted only by elaborate and somewhat uncertain +calculations, so it would seem as if the poet, no longer hampered by the +necessities of time and space, had wished to show how he could work with +no self-made restrictions. + +After his discourse in praise of the founder of the rival order, +immediately followed by its counterpart--an eloquent summary of the +career of St. Dominic, put into the mouth of the Franciscan +Bonaventura--St. Thomas speaks again (Canto xiii.), in order to explain +an apparent over-estimate of Solomon's greatness among mankind which an +expression used by him in naming the spirits present with him might have +seemed to imply. As happens more than once in this division of the poem, +a piece of what at first sight looks rather like logical quibbling is +made the introduction to some profound teaching in reference to the +workings of the human mind--teaching which is at least as needful in the +present day as it ever was in Dante's own time. Solomon himself then +speaks, answering a question put by Beatrice on Dante's behalf as to the +nature of the glorified body; and then Dante, having looked upon the +countenance of Beatrice, and being by this means (as in every other +case) raised "to a higher salvation," finds by the ruddy light which +surrounds him that he has entered the sphere of Mars. + +A new feature appears here. In each of the three planets exterior +(according to the astronomy of that age) to the Sun, we find some +special image displayed. In the case of Mars, it is a vast crucifix, +composed of spirits, who are darting in all directions within the +figure, like motes in a sunbeam. One of them glides from the arm to the +foot of the cross, and makes himself known to Dante as his +great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, probably (though this is not +certain) of the family of the Elisei.[36] He had been, like all the +other spirits, as it would seem, of this sphere, a soldier, and had died +in battle as a Crusader. The latter half of this, the fifteenth canto, +together with the two following, form what is probably the best-known +and most frequently quoted portion of the _Paradise_. First we have a +beautiful picture of the simple and kindly life of old Florence, before +party-spirit and luxury had entered and corrupted its citizens. The +picture is, of course, one of those which people in every age have drawn +of earlier times, supposed to have been free from the corruptions which +each man's experience teaches him are rife in his own day; but none the +less it is of value as showing Dante's ideal of social life. + +The next canto continues to deal with the same topic; but enters more +into detail with regard to the various families, and the vicissitudes +in their fortunes. This leads up to the existing strife of parties, and +this again naturally to Dante's own share in it, and his exile. It must +be remembered that this did not actually come about till two years after +the date at which the action of the _Commedia_ is supposed to take +place; so that the whole is cast into a prophetic form. The language +used, however, must be taken as expressing the feeling with which Dante +looked back after an interval of nearly twenty years--for the _Paradise_ +was probably completed very shortly before the poet's death--upon the +events in which he had borne a somewhat prominent part. Whether he was +ever a personage of the first importance in Florence we may be allowed +to doubt. No doubt he was a man of some consideration; but still the +office of Prior was one which nearly every eligible citizen must have +held;[37] and Villani, who devotes a chapter to his memory, does not +mention his name among the political leaders of an earlier period. +Probably he occupied among the exiles of 1302 a far less important place +in their own eyes and those of contemporaries than he does in ours; but +if not a leader, he was in the front rank, and must have been aware of +all that went on. The passages relating to his exile, to the +worthlessness of his companions, to his gratitude towards those who +helped him, gain immensely in force and pathos if we regard them as an +aging man's reminiscences of a long by-gone time. + +With the passage to the sphere of Jupiter (Canto xviii.) the imagery +becomes yet more daring. This is the region specially devoted to the +spirits of the righteous; and these as they fly are forming letters, +which ultimately spell out the opening words of the Book of Wisdom: +"Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram." When the final M is reached a +further transformation takes place; the letter is gradually modified +into the shape of the imperial eagle. Righteousness, or justice, is, it +should be remembered, in Dante's view (as indeed in that of most +moralists) the source and foundation of all that goes to establish human +society on a virtuous and duly ordered basis. Thus it is rightly +illustrated by the symbol of the Empire. The Eagle behaves as one single +individual, though composed of countless spirits; speaking with a +single voice, and in the singular number. A discourse on justice leads +up to a sharp rebuke of nearly every prince then ruling, on the score of +misgovernment in one or another form. + +After this the Eagle proceeds to indicate whose are the spirits which +compose its eye. These with one exception are all great sovereigns of +ancient and recent times. The exception is remarkable. In Hell we found +several cases in which mythological or fictitious personages were +treated on a footing of absolute equality with those who had a perfect +historical claim to the distinction; but the appearance in the Christian +Heaven of a man whose very name is preserved merely in a single line of +the _Aeneid_ strikes us with astonishment. For being recorded by Virgil +as the most righteous man among the Trojans, Rhipeus takes his place +beside David, Hezekiah, Constantine, and the "good king" William II. of +Sicily. + +When the time comes for the ascent to be resumed, Dante notices that +Beatrice smiles no longer. On the threshold, as she explains, of the +seventh heaven, the lustre of her smile would be more than his eyes +could endure. Here, in Saturn, a ladder is seen, reaching to the next +sphere. We learn that this is identical with the ladder seen by Jacob in +his vision; and down it are descending the spirits of such as in this +world had lived the contemplative life in full perfection. The chanting +which has been audible in the other spheres is here silent--no doubt in +order to symbolise the insensibility to outward impressions of the soul +rapt in contemplation. The speakers in this group are St. Peter Damian +and St. Benedict; both of whom have severe words to say as to the +corruption of the monastic orders. + +The company of saints reascend (Canto xxii.): and Dante and Beatrice +follow them, mounting by the ladder, but, as it would appear, with no +perceptible lapse of time. The eighth heaven, that of the Fixed Stars, +is reached in the sign of the Twins; under which Dante himself had been +born. At this point Beatrice directs him, before entering on the final +blessedness of heaven, and doubtless with the ulterior view of leading +him to a just sense of the insignificance of earthly things, to look +back over the course which he has traversed. + +A very distinct stage of the journey is here reached, and, as has been +already noticed, we are entering that one of the celestial spheres in +which Dante makes the longest stay. + +He and his guide have now reached the outermost of the heavenly spheres +of whose existence our senses give any evidence--that of the Fixed +Stars. A vision of Christ descending, accompanied by His Mother, and +surrounded with saints, is granted to Dante; after which he is again +able to endure the effulgence of Beatrice's smile. It is not, however, +until Christ has reascended that he recovers his full power of sight. +Then he perceives that the company of saints has remained; and +presently, at the request of Beatrice, St. Peter comes forward, and +proceeds to examine Dante on the subject of Faith, and the grounds for +his belief in the Christian revelation. The ensuing colloquy is +interesting, as being practically a versified form of the scholastic +method of discussion, such as we find in Aquinas. St. Peter plays the +part of the supposed opponent, and brings forward the standard +objections to Dante's statements of dogma. For the ordinary reader, +however, this and the next two cantos form, it must be admitted, one of +the less attractive portions of the poem. Yet even here we now and then +come upon a passage of pure poetry, such as the famous lines at the +opening of Canto xxv., in which Dante utters what must have been almost +his last aspiration after a return to "the fair fold in which as a lamb +I slept." + +Following St. Peter, St. James makes his appearance. To him is entrusted +the task of testing Dante's soundness in the doctrine and definition of +Hope. Lastly, comes St. John, who examines him touching the right object +of Love. In each case, when he has answered to the satisfaction of his +questioner, a chant goes up from the assembled spirits; the words on +every occasion being taken, as it would appear, from the _Te Deum_. +Afterwards the three Apostles are joined by Adam, who takes up the +discourse, and answers two unexpressed questions of Dante's, as to the +length of his stay in Paradise, and the nature of the primitive language +of mankind. + +Canto xxvii. opens with a tremendous invective, put into the mouth of +St. Peter, against the corruption of the Papacy; a passage which +incidentally contains an important piece of evidence with regard to the +date at which the later cantos of the _Paradise_ were written. A bitter +allusion to "men of Cahors" can have been evoked only by the election of +John XXII., who was from that city; and he became Pope in 1316. After +this the whole multitude of Saints ascend to the highest heaven; but +before Dante follows, Beatrice makes him look down once more, and he +perceives that since his entry into this sphere he has moved with the +diurnal rotation through an arc of forty-five degrees. Then they ascend +into the sphere of the First Motion, where place and time no longer +exist. From its movement time is measured; and its place is in the +Divine intelligence only. Here the Empyrean, or highest Heaven, comes +into view; at first as a point of intense brilliancy round which nine +circles are revolving. These represent the Angelic hierarchies, and +their places with regard to the central point are in inverse order to +that of the spheres which they move. Beatrice takes occasion from them +to instruct Dante upon some points relating to the creation and +functions of the angels, and incidentally, upon the creation of form and +matter, and their combination in the visible universe. The passage +(Canto xxix.) is difficult; but is so magnificent in its diction as to +deserve careful study. Dante has nowhere else succeeded so completely in +clothing with poetry the dry bones of scholastic theology. The +discussion, by dealing with several disputed points, gives occasion for +some stringent remarks on the preachers of the time. + +They now rise to the highest heaven, outside of all the spheres, in +which all the blessed have their true place. At first Dante is aware of +light only, but gradually a fresh power of sight comes to him, and he +sees a river, from and to which bright sparks are ever issuing and +returning. The banks are brilliant with flowers. At the command of +Beatrice he bows down and drinks, and at once sees the river as a lake +of light, the flowers on the banks as concentric rows of saints seated +on thrones, and the flitting sparks as angels. At this point Beatrice +leaves Dante, after a few scathing words in reference to the +"covetousness"[38] of the Papacy, which has put the world out of +joint--words which may be taken as summing up in brief all the passages +throughout the poem in which political affairs are touched upon. With +this, if we except one bitter jibe at Florence (xxxi. 39) all +controversial matters are dismissed, and the last three cantos of the +poem are devoted to a description, rising ever in sublimity, of the joys +and mysteries of Heaven. + +The "soldiery of heaven" appears in the form of a vast white rose, whose +petals are the seats on which the saints sit. On one hand these are +filled, being occupied by holy men and women belonging to the old +dispensation: while on the other the number of the elect has still to be +accomplished. Beatrice having gone back to her place among the blessed +beside Rachel, the task of escorting Dante is entrusted to St. Bernard, +who points out where some of the more eminent have their stations. As +throughout the poem, all is arranged with order and symmetry. The +junction between the Old and New Testaments is indicated by the position +assigned to Our Lady on one side of the circle, and in the highest row, +and St. John the Baptist, who is diametrically opposite to her. Below +her sit in order a series of Christ's ancestresses Eve, Rachel, Sarah, +Rebekah, Ruth; Adam is on her left, St. Peter on her right, beyond them +Moses and St. John the Evangelist. On either hand of the Baptist sit St. +Anne and St. Lucy, and below him a line of founders of orders and other +teachers; the lower circles are filled with the spirits of children. + +At the close of his enumeration of these chief personages, St. Bernard +observes that the time of Dante's slumber is nearly at an end, and that +they must, "like a good tailor, cut the coat according to the cloth." In +these three lines are two very noticeable points. First, the word +"slumber," implying that the whole journey through the other world has +been performed in a dream; and secondly, the bold use, at perhaps the +most exalted moment of the whole poem, of a trivial, almost vulgar, +figure of speech. We meet with other instances of this in the +_Paradise_, and they are eminently characteristic of the mediaeval mind. +The subject is too wide to be discussed here; but readers may be +reminded of the numerous examples which the architecture of the period +shows, in which grotesque or even indecent figures are introduced among +the ornamental work of sacred buildings. + +At the beginning of the last canto, St. Bernard, in an address of +exquisite beauty (of which Chaucer, in the Second Nun's Tale has given +an almost equally exquisite rendering), appeals to the Virgin--who, it +will be remembered, is throughout represented as taking a special +interest in Dante--for her aid to him in his last and crowning +experience. Thus succoured, he is able to gaze upon the Supreme Light; +and in a flash there is revealed to him a full comprehension of all +fundamental truths, first those of metaphysics, then those of faith. He +understands for a moment the whole composition of the universe, and then +the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity. The intuition is +momentary, and leaves merely the memory of a memory. But the lasting +effect is the entire union of his will with the Divine will, and herein, +we must understand him to imply, is found the salvation the attainment +of which has been the ultimate aim and object of his whole journey. + +Many touches in this concluding passage bear a strong resemblance to +what seems to have been the teaching of the contemporary German mystics. +It would be interesting to inquire how far Dante can have been +acquainted with any of the writings of that school. If any connection +can be traced, it may throw light on several obscure points.[39] + +It remains to be added that the _Commedia_ was first printed at Foligno +in 1472. Editions followed in quick succession from Jesi, Mantua, and +Naples. The first Venetian edition is that of Vindelin of Spires, in +1477; the first Florentine, that with Landino's commentary, in 1481. It +was printed several times more before 1500, and constantly in the +sixteenth century. We have several commentaries dating from a period +only later by a few years than Dante's death. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [28] Not only this allusion, but the occurrence, in this and + other parts of the poem, of several words used in that district + makes it almost certain that Dante was very familiar with the + country round about Trent. Doubtless he would visit it from + Verona. + + [29] See p. 79. + + [30] See p. 36. + + [31] It seems never to have been noticed that, as every line + from the surface to the centre is perpendicular, a descent by + _slopes_, such as is represented, would really be impossible. + + [32] See p. 34. + + [33] A late legend, to which some eminent writers have given too + easy credence, does actually assert that Dante did go to Genoa, + in the suite of Henry VII., about the end of 1311, and there was + ill-used by some of Branca d'Oria's friends or domestics. But + none of the early commentators knows anything of this tale. + + [34] But see p. 42. + + [35] See pp. 48-51. + + [36] See p. 38. + + [37] See p. 70. + + [38] Note that _cupidigia_ is, in Dante's scheme, the vice + opposed to _giustizia_, that which debases nations as + righteousness exalts them. + + [39] See also p. 46. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + +THE MINOR WORKS + + +The _Commedia_ is, for many readers perhaps, the only book distinctly +identified with Dante's name. Yet it must be remembered that, as a +matter of fact, it represents less than half of the total bulk of his +writings; and, further, that the remainder comprises several works +which, though not attaining to the pre-eminent position which all the +world now recognises the great poem as occupying, are very remarkable +monuments of mediaeval literature. + +Of the youthful work, the _Vita Nuova_, we have already spoken. It may +be sufficient here to add that--though there is some controversy on the +point--the name probably means only "Early" or "Fresh Life." The book +was pretty certainly written not much after 1290, though the last +chapter, in which the author's design to compose a greater work is +alluded to, may have been added when the scheme of the _Commedia_ was +more developed. The _Vita Nuova_ was not printed till 1578. + +With regard to the date at which the most important of the prose works, +known as the _Convito_, or "Banquet," was composed, considerable +uncertainty exists. Villani says that the odes to which it is ostensibly +a commentary were written in exile. Some critics hold that it belongs, +at all events in great part, to the "pre-exilian" period of Dante's +life; while others place it as late as 1310. The late Dr. Witte regarded +it as the middle division of what he called "Dante's Trilogy"--the +drama, that is, of the development of Dante's soul. In this view, the +early love portrayed in the _Vita Nuova_ marks an age of simple faith, +undisturbed by any doubt. The _Convito_ (so far as it was completed) +records a period of philosophical speculation--not actually adverse to +the truths of religion, but seeking to establish these rather on the +basis of human reason than on revelation. Lastly, the _Commedia_ shows +us the soul, convinced that salvation and enlightenment are not to be +found on this road, returning again to child-like submission. There is +no doubt an attractive symmetry about this arrangement, but it is open +to some objections, one of them being, as a French critic said, that +part at least of the _Convito_ must almost certainly have been written +after the date in which Dante's conversion is represented as having +taken place. Nor is it an answer to say that, the action of the +_Commedia_ being purely imaginary, we need pay no attention to dates. +For one thing, Dante is extremely careful, and with more success than +any one without his marvellous "visualising" power could hope for, to +avoid anything like an anachronism in the _Commedia_. If he allows no +event, which, in the history of the world, was still future in 1300, to +be referred to as past, why should he have allowed this in regard to +events in the history of his own spiritual development? + +The truth is, that all these elaborate and symmetrical theories prove +too much; and what is worse, they all spring from an ignorance, or a +neglect, of the great facts of human nature. The _Commedia_ is, of +course, full of expressions of contrition for former error; of frank +recognition that the writer has gone astray in the past, and hopes to +keep straight in the future. But might not any man, any thoughtful man +at all events, of thirty-five years old and upwards, take Dante's words +with perfect sincerity, as the expression of his own deepest thoughts? +Why assume that the faults of which Dante repented with tears in the +presence of Beatrice, were limited to a too great reliance on human +reason, or to a secret leaning to the philosophy of Averroes? Were they +not moral as well as intellectual? Whether the year 1300 really marked +an epoch at which anything of the nature of what is now called +"conversion" took place in Dante's mind, we cannot say. It pretty +certainly corresponded with a decided revulsion in his political views. +It cannot have been without a pang that he found himself obliged +formally to break with the Guelf party, of which he had hitherto been a +faithful member, and to cast in his lot with men whom he, doubtless, +like those with whom he had all his life associated, regarded as a set +of turbulent, over-bearing swashbucklers, trying with the help of +foreign men and money to reimpose a feudal tyranny on a prosperous and +free commonwealth. For this is the aspect in which the Ghibelines must +have presented themselves to a Florentine burgher of the year 1300. No +doubt the doings of the Black party would have taught him that +overbearing and tyrannical ways, turbulence and swagger were not the +monopoly of one side, and that the freedom and peace of Florence must, +in any case, soon be things of the past. All the foundations of the +earth must have seemed to him to be out of course, and we can well +imagine that his thought may have been driven inward, and he may thus +have come to recognise how far the school which he had followed, and the +path upon which he had walked--not in philosophy only, but in all +matters of conduct--had led him from the ideals of his early manhood and +from the way of God. Thus he would naturally refer the vision, which, of +course, contains an allegorical account of all this change or +"conversion," if we may call it so, to that year the events of which had +given the first impulse to it. + +It is not, however, necessary to suppose that with Dante, any more than +with most men of a similar age, a conviction that he had hitherto been +on the wrong track involved an entire break with former habits, at all +events of mind and thought. He may very well have gone on stringing +together the curious medley of learning which he had not unfitly called +a "Banquet."[40] As we have said already, it looks very like the +contents of a commonplace book, in which materials for other +works--notably for the _Commedia_--were collected. Many of the views +enunciated in it may well be those held by Dante long before, and +subsequently changed, though he might not have taken the trouble to +expunge them, even when stating a maturer opinion in a later work. + +A good many of the difficulties which arise in the consideration of the +dates of Dante's works, probably arise from oblivion of the fact that +"publication" in our modern sense did not exist in those days. An author +would no doubt give his manuscript to friends to read, as he went along; +and, if they liked it, they would probably take a copy of so much as +they had. Thus portions of a book would get about long before the whole +was finished; and in this way the views which Dante expresses in the +_Convito_ upon the cause of the markings in the moon, the order of the +angelic hierarchies, the nature of the Milky Way, and similar matters, +may well have been known to many as held by him, and he may have known +that this was the case. Subsequently, having changed his mind--it may +be, even before 1300--he would take the opportunity of a part of the +_Commedia_ having got into circulation, to recant; and even so the +original view might stand in the _Convito_, and appear in that work when +finally produced. When we further remember that Dante left the +_Convito_ little more than begun, and consequently, no doubt, unrevised, +it will be clear that very little inference can be drawn as to its date, +from the fact that certain opinions expressed in it are retracted in the +_Commedia_. It would be truer to say that it had no date. It was first +printed in 1490. + +The _De Monarchia_ is a complete treatise, in fact, probably the only +work besides the _Commedia_ which we can feel sure that we have in a +form which it would have retained however long Dante might have lived. +Enough has been already said as to its scope; it may suffice to add that +the Church has never looked upon it with favour, which was probably the +reason of its not being printed till 1559, and then in Germany. + +The unfinished treatise known as _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ had the curious +fortune to appear in an Italian translation (1529) some fifty years +before it was printed in its original Latin. It is a most interesting +little work, showing considerable acuteness of perception in regard to +peculiarities of local vernacular, and a general "feeling" for +linguistic matters. + +How do we know that all these works are Dante's? it will be asked. Here +we rest on unusually sure ground, for which once more we have to thank +Villani. + +In the Chapter to which we have already more than once referred, +containing the notice of Dante's death, that historian gives a list of +his works. "In his youth," we read-- + + "he made the book called _The New Life of Love_; and afterwards, + when he was in exile, he made some twenty moral and amatory + odes, very excellent; and, among others, he wrote three notable + letters, one to the Government of Florence, lamenting his own + exile without any fault; the second he sent to the Emperor + Henry; the third to the Italian cardinals, when the vacancy + occurred after the death of Pope Clement.... And he made the + _Comedy_, wherein, in polished rhyme, and with great and subtle + questions of morals, nature, and astrology, philosophy and + theology ... he composed and treated in one hundred chapters, or + chants, concerning the being and condition of Hell, Purgatory, + and Paradise.... He also made the _Monarchy_, in which he + treated of the duty of the Pope and of the Emperor. And he began + a commentary on fourteen of the above-mentioned moral odes, in + the vulgar tongue, which, through his death supervening, is only + completed for three.... Also he made a little work which he + calls _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, whereof he promises to make four + books, but only two are extant, perhaps by reason of his speedy + end; in which, in powerful and elegant style, and with fine + arguments, he examines all the vernaculars of Italy." + +The last two paragraphs, it should be said, do not occur in all +manuscripts. But, assuming them to be genuine, it will be seen that we +have here an almost contemporary notice, with one or two exceptions, of +all the main works now contained in the editions of Dante. The chief +exception is the curious little treatise on physical geography, called +_De aqua et terra_, which purports to be a lecture delivered by Dante at +Verona, in the last year of his life; but this is of very questionable +genuineness. It was first printed, indeed, in 1508, but no manuscript of +it is now known to exist. + +Of the other works, Villani's notice may be regarded as clear proof that +they are what they profess to be; and incidentally it may be said that +his mention of them has probably been of great service. Literary +morality was sufficiently lax in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, +and people's ideas as to the use that might legitimately be made of +famous names differed considerably from those now in force. As it is, a +good many compositions have passed under Dante's name, from an early +date, which scarcely pretend to be genuine works of his. We can imagine +what a temptation it would have been for some enterprising man of +letters to complete the _Convito_ or the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, or +even to add a canto or two to the _Commedia_, if there had been no +record in existence to let the world know where the genuine ended and +the spurious began.[41] Even this security, however, is not quite +sufficient to set us at our ease in the case of the letters. True, we +have three letters purporting to be the three which Villani mentions, as +well as several others passing under Dante's name; but it is, of course, +possible that the very fact of his mentioning them may have sufficed to +set ingenious scribes at work to produce them. Manuscripts of them are +very few, and they occur in company with other works which are undoubted +exercises of fancy. + +On the other hand, more than one writer of the fifteenth century +professes to have seen letters of Dante's, of which no trace can now be +found. That referring to the battle of Campaldino, for which Leonardo +Bruni vouches, has already been mentioned; and Flavius Blondus of Forli, +a historian about contemporary with Leonardo, speaks of others as extant +in his time. These, if they could now be recovered, would be of the +greatest interest, since they related to the obscure period immediately +following the exile of the White party. Meanwhile the genuineness of the +more important letters which we possess is perhaps the most interesting +question which remains to be settled in connection with Dante's works. + +Besides the prose letters, two poetical epistles are still extant, and +these, strange to say, the most sceptical critics have so far allowed to +pass unquestioned. There is something a little pathetic about their +history. Two or three years before Dante's death, a young scholar of +Bologna, known from his devotion to the great Latin bard, as Joannes de +Virgilio, addressed an extremely prosaic, but highly complimentary, +epistle to the old poet, urging him to write something in the more +dignified language of antiquity. Dante replied in an "Eclogue," wherein, +under Virgilian pastoral imagery, he playfully banters his +correspondent, and says that he had better finish first the work he has +in hand, namely the _Commedia_. One more communication on either side +followed, and then Dante's death brought the verse-making to a close. In +his own pieces one is struck rather by the melody of the rhythm and +occasional dignity of the thought, than by the classical quality of the +Latinity. But they are unquestionably remarkable specimens of Latin +verse for an age previous to the revival of classical study, and, we +should say, far more genial and more truly Virgilian in spirit than the +most polished composition of the Humanists. + +It is not intended here to enter into any analysis or estimate of +Dante's prose works. The former task is one which readers should perform +for themselves. Nor need they find it too much for their powers. With +all his obscurity of allusion, and occasionally of phrase, Dante is not +really a difficult author. From his teachers, the schoolmen, he had +learnt to arrange his matter with due, perhaps more than due, regard to +order and symmetry; and consequently the attentive reader is seldom at a +loss to know what part of the subject is, at any given place, under +consideration. + +Of the obscurity which results from over-elaboration of the thought, or +from an attempt at originality of expression, Dante is, in his maturer +works, singularly free.[42] It must be remembered, too, that very often +phrases which look to us like "conceits" are merely instances of the +employment of scientific and technical terms now obsolete, but then +familiar to every cultivated reader. + +For aesthetic, or, as it has been unkindly called, "sign-post" +criticism--that which, under the guise of directing the reader's taste, +often seems intended to call attention mainly to the acuteness of the +critic's own perception or his delicacy of phrase--the study of Dante +would seem to be a very unpromising field. The sentimentalist and the +elegant craftsman in words seem out of place in the company of this +uncompromising seeker after realities, this relentless exposer of shams. + +It is much better that the student should begin by understanding his +author. When he has mastered the meaning, it will be time enough to +begin to admire, whether it be the thought or the words, or the +expression of the one through the other. For this reason we should +strongly counsel beginners to read Dante himself first, and books about +Dante afterwards. We would go so far as to say: at the first reading, +dispense even with notes, and be content to look out the words in a +dictionary. It is far better practice to find out for yourself where the +difficulties lie, than to be told where to expect them. Similarly with +the "beauties." These will reveal themselves _a ciascun' alma presa e +gentil cuore_, and every reader will find them in such measure as he +deserves. Then will be the time to use the commentaries to solve, so far +as may be, the problems which have been discovered, and then to take up +such works as Mr. Symonds's _Study of Dante_, Miss Rossetti's _Shadow of +Dante_, and Dean Church's _Essay_. The student who, to a thorough +knowledge of the poem, joins a careful perusal of these three works will +find his knowledge co-ordinated, his grasp of Dante's whole system +strengthened, his perception of Dante's greatness marvellously +quickened. If he afterwards cares to pursue the subject further into the +thickets of modern Italian and German criticism, he will find plenty of +entertainment. Only let him remember that most of the minute details +with which the excellent critics deal are not really of the very +slightest importance. + +As has been said above, there is ample reason for believing that the +person to whom Dante refers under the name of Beatrice was a young lady +of that name, daughter of one Folco Portinari, and wife to Simone de' +Bardi. But suppose that irresistible evidence to the contrary could be +found? Suppose that documents should come to light showing that no +Beatrice Portinari ever lived--even that there was no woman, young or +old, in Florence, who bore the Christian name of Beatrice between 1200 +and 1300, what would it matter? Do we read Andromache's + + "Hector, but thou to me art father and mother and brother, and + thou my gallant husband too;" + +or Helen's + + "Hector, dearest to me by far of all my brothers-in-law, it is + now twenty years since I left my native land, but never yet have + I heard from thee an ill or insulting word," + +with any the less emotion because we do not feel sure that Hector, or +Andromache, or Helen ever lived on this earth? Some would add, or Homer; +but so far, happily, no "separatist" has taken Dante in hand. But again, +suppose he did, and with better success than has on the whole attended +those who would have us believe that half a dozen or more men +contributed to the _Iliad_, any one book of which would entitle its +author to rank among the great poets of all time? The world would prove +to be richer by as many great poets as could be shown to have +collaborated in the writing of the _Commedia_; and how should we be the +poorer? The poem would still be there, with all its power to soothe, to +stimulate, to throw light upon the most hidden corners of the human +soul, to reveal our own motives to us. It is, of course, only human +nature to feel a personal interest in the man who has taught us so much; +but we must not allow this natural sentiment to make us forget that the +man is only interesting because of his work. After all, when the most +destructive criticism has done its worst, we know much more about Dante +than we know about the still greater Shakespeare; and let us be thankful +for what knowledge we have. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [40] This may be a good point at which to say that we need not + suppose because Dante employed the Canzoni as pegs upon which to + hang the philosophical, astronomical, and other lucubrations of + the _Convito_, that when originally written they were anything + but exercises in the amatory style of composition usual in that + age, whether inspired or not by any serious passion. He would + have found no more difficulty in attaching subsequently a + mystical and moral interpretation to them than divines had found + in doing the same for the Canticles. + + [41] In the case of the _Commedia_, it would seem that Dante + himself took measures to guard against interpolations. As is + well known, he never uses any one series of rhymes more than + once in the same canto; and, from the structure of the _terza + rima_, it is impossible to introduce any fresh matter when the + canto is once completed without violating this rule. This fact + alone serves to convict of forgery the unknown person who + inserted eighteen lines after _Hell_, xxxiii. 90, in one of the + Bodleian manuscripts; as to which, see Dr. Moore's _Textual + Criticism_. + + [42] It is, perhaps, worth noting that as the tendency to + _concetti_ increased in Italian literature, Dante was more and + more neglected. Only three editions appeared from 1596 to 1716. + Curiously enough, there are two treatises extant which just + correspond with the beginning and end of this period of eclipse. + One of them is called _A Brief and Ingenious Discourse against + the Work of Dante_. It was written by Monsignor Alessandro + Cariero, and published at Padua in 1582. The arguments are of + the feeblest and most pedantic kind; but it marks a stage in + taste. The recovery is indicated by a _Defence of Dante + Alighieri_, a lecture given by Dr. Giuseppe Bianchini to the + Florentine Academy in 1715, and published three years later. + + + + +APPENDIX I. + +SOME HINTS TO BEGINNERS + + +Something has already been said as to the way in which the student of +Dante should set to work in the way both of putting himself so far as +possible at Dante's point of view with regard to earlier literature, and +of availing himself of the various commentaries and treatises which +subsequent writers have produced in such abundance; but it may be +convenient to enter into this matter somewhat more in detail. It would +obviously be too much to expect of every beginner that he should prepare +himself for the study of Dante by a preliminary perusal of all the books +which Dante may have read. But if he is to read with any profit, or +indeed with any real enjoyment, some preliminary study is almost +indispensable. Take, for instance, the historical standpoint. Some of +Dante's grandest apostrophes fall flat to one who has not grasped the +mediaeval theory of the Roman Empire, as set forth in Mr. Bryce's +well-known book or elsewhere. Much of his imagery, especially in the +first Cantica, seems fantastic and arbitrary to one who is not familiar +with Virgil's sixth _Aeneid_, and does not realise that nearly every +feature in the Dantesque Hell is developed, with assistance no doubt +from mediaeval legend, out of some hint of the Virgilian nether world. Of +allusions to contemporaries it is hardly necessary to speak; and in many +cases we must fall back on the commentators, who for their part have +often nothing to tell us but what we have already gathered for +ourselves. Cacciaguida's statement that no souls had been shown to Dante +save those of people known to fame, may not be always true so far as any +but the most strictly contemporary fame is concerned, but it is true in +a great many cases. Few indeed there are whose names have not gained +additional celebrity from Dante's mention of them; but, on the other +hand, there are very few whose memory but for it would have perished +altogether; and the thrill with which the reader comes across an old +acquaintance, marked by the unfaltering hand for renown or infamy, as +long as men shall read books on this earth, is far more satisfying than +the process of looking a person up because he is some one in Dante. It +is therefore at least worth while, if not essential, to know something +of the minuter contemporary history, and those who can read the seventh, +eighth, and ninth books of Villani's _Florentine History_--not yet, +unfortunately, translated into English--will find their reward. + +Those, again, who wish to place themselves as nearly as may be at the +point from which Dante looked at ethical and metaphysical problems, will +hardly be satisfied with an occasional quotation from Aristotle or +Aquinas. If, as may well be the case, they cannot spare the time for +systematic reading of those somewhat exacting authors, they should at +least be at the trouble of acquiring such a knowledge of their systems, +and of the place which they hold in the widening of men's thoughts, as +may be obtained from Ueberweg or some other approved history of +philosophy. So for physical science and natural history, those who have +not the leisure to read Aristotle (again), or Pliny, or Brunetto's +_Tresor_, may get from the fourth book of Whewell's _History of the +Inductive Sciences_, and from parts of Humboldt's _Cosmos_, some idea of +the way in which Dante would regard the external world. + +But one book, among all others, was undoubtedly the main instrument in +the formation of Dante's mind and character. Few professed Churchmen +have ever been so saturated with the language and the spirit of the +Bible as this lay theologian. It was this, indeed, which seems to have +specially impressed his contemporaries. "Theologus Dantes nullius +dogmatis expers" is the title which the epitaph of his friend Joannes de +Virgilio confers upon him in its opening line. And among all the books +of the "Sacred Library," as an earlier age called it, we can see that +two had a predominant place in his memory--the prophecy of Jeremiah and +the Book of Psalms. In these two we may find the solution of some of his +most obscure symbolism, and careful study of these will do perhaps more +than anything to help the student to read with understanding. Of course +those who read Latin should use the Vulgate rather than the English +version, for the key to an allusion sometimes lies in a word or a +phrase, the identity of which is lost in an alien language. + +It is with the study of such books as these, carried as far as the +student's opportunities will allow, that he will best prepare himself +for that of the _Commedia_. The next thing will be to read it, either in +a translation, or better, in the original, working rapidly through the +poem, and noting difficulties which occur, but leaving them for the +present. He will thus get a comprehensive view of its general structure +and scope, and probably find himself enthralled by the spell; after +which, to put it on the lowest ground, he will have a subject of +interest to investigate which will last him his lifetime. At any rate he +will pretty certainly resolve to go over the ground again, this time +more deliberately. Now will come the turn of the commentators, including +under this term not only the actual annotators of the text, but those +who have in any way discussed, explained, or interpreted the whole poem +or its parts, either from a general literary point of view, or in the +attempt to clear up special points. Of these there is no lack. Probably +no great writer has given occasion for so much writing on the part of +lesser men. The French critic Sainte-Beuve remarked that "to read Dante +was almost inevitably to want to translate him;" it certainly seems as +if to read Dante made the desire to write about him almost irresistible. +Many of these books the world has pretty willingly let die; but a few +will be read as long as Dante is studied in England. Foremost among +these is the _Essay_ by the late Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Church. This is +printed in a volume with an excellent translation of the _De Monarchia_. +As an introduction to Dante from every point of view, whether in +connection with the history of his time or in regard to his place in +literature, it remains unrivalled, and is likely to remain so until a +writer on Dante arises equal to Dean Church in acuteness of historical +insight, delicacy of literary taste, and a power of expression capable +of translating those gifts into words. No student should fail to read +it; and those who can buy a copy will not be likely to regret the +outlay. Another instructive book is the late Miss Rossetti's _Shadow of +Dante_. It treats the poem rather in its religious than in its +historical or philosophical aspect; and it is of especial value as an +aid to understanding the often very perplexing symbolism. Long extracts +are given from the versions by Mr. W. M. Rossetti (for the _Inferno_) +and Mr. Longfellow (for the other parts); and these are linked together +by a connecting summary. Mr. Symonds's _Introduction to the Study of +Dante_ is also useful, especially from the literary point of view, but +it is occasionally inaccurate. Of actual translations none is better +than Cary's, and this has most valuable notes. + +These are some of the books from which a student, who did not feel equal +to a preliminary study of Italian, might get information about Dante. It +is to be hoped that there are not many who will stop here. When the +genius of a poet is so closely involved as it is in Dante's case with +the genius of the language, it cannot be too strongly impressed upon the +student's mind that he ought to be read in his own words. Italian is the +easiest to learn of all European languages, and the one in which the +preliminary labour of learning grammatical rules is least required. Its +grammar is very straightforward; its construction, in the best writers, +is seldom involved; its words will in most cases be intelligible to +people who know any Latin or French. The prepositions and their uses +offer almost the only stumbling-block which cannot be surmounted by the +aid of a pocket-dictionary; and even here the difficulty is more likely +to be apparent in writing Italian. In reading, the context will usually +be a guide to the meaning when the words are known. + +The first thing will be to get a text. There are several modern texts +published in Italy; but none of them are very correct. Giuliani's is an +attractive little book; but the Abate was a somewhat reckless emendator, +and some of his readings are very untrustworthy. The little pocket +edition published by Barbera contains Fraticelli's text, which suffers +rather from lack of correction. Messrs. Longmans publish one based on +Witte, but embodying the results of later inquiry. A complete text of +Dante's entire works has lately been issued by the Clarendon Press, for +the accuracy of which the name of its editor, Dr. Moore, is a sufficient +guarantee. The "student's" editions with notes are those of Bianchi and +Fraticelli, both in Italian. The latter is for some reason more popular +in England, but the notes seem to me decidedly less helpful than those +of Bianchi based on Costa's. Better than either is the _Vocabolario +Dantesco_ of Blanc. The original work was written in German, and no +doubt is to be obtained in that language. It is really a very useful +commentary, and has the additional advantage that it forms a pretty +copious Concordance, and enables the student to compare the various uses +of a word. + +The student may now be supposed to be ready to set to work. How is he to +proceed? This is a question very difficult to answer. Probably no two +grown-up people will attack a new author, or a new language, in quite +the same way. The present writer began Dante with very little knowledge +of Italian; but knowing French and Latin pretty well. Being in Florence +one day, he went to a bookstall and bought for one _lira_ a secondhand +copy of a little text published in 1811; and began to puzzle out bits +here and there with the help of a small dictionary. In the following +winter he went through the whole poem in Bianchi's edition with a +friend, aided by various of the older commentaries. Then he took to +reading the poem by a canto or two at a time, in bed, without notes or +dictionary, and went through it two or three times in this way, at last +beginning to feel that he would like to know something about it. +Probably a course of this kind, spread in a rather desultory fashion +over several years, would hardly suit every student. Nevertheless it has +in its general features some merits. In the first place, the only way to +learn is to find for yourself where the difficulties are; and this can +be done most effectually by beginning with the minimum of help. With +notes, there is always the temptation to look at the note first and the +text afterwards: a process sure to result in slipshod and inaccurate +knowledge. Take a canto at a time, and read it through. Go over the +ground again with a commentary and perhaps a translation. Before long +the difficulties arising merely from the language will be pretty well +mastered, and progress will be more rapid. Above all, avoid in the +first instance anything of the nature of aesthetic criticism. Be content +to treat the poem, if it be not profane to say so, as a "grind." +Translate into the plainest English, so only that you take pains to +render every word. It is a very good exercise to keep to the same +English word for the same Italian word. This will not be quite always +possible; but on the whole it is wonderful how many words in Italian (or +any other language) have passed through the same change of signification +as some one of their English equivalents. (Thus "sorry" in English means +both "sad" and "contemptible." You will find that Italian "_tristo_" +bears both senses equally well.) Try to "explain Dante by Dante," that +is, look out for peculiar phrases and constructions which may occur more +than once, and get at their meaning by comparison of contexts. One great +advantage possessed by the student of Dante is that his author is +practically the first in the language in point of time; and though later +Italian poets used Dante freely as a quarry, they did not do it +intelligently. It may safely be said that, with the occasional exception +of Petrarch, no subsequent Italian poet threw the least light on the +interpretation of a single word in Dante. Indeed our own Chaucer seems +to have understood and appreciated Dante far better than did Dante's +countryman Ariosto. It is thus possible to read Dante without a very +wide acquaintance with Italian literature in general. + +Then, again, beginners need not be at too much pains to follow out the +often very elaborate symbolism. On a first reading take the story as it +stands. Let the dark wood and the three beasts, and the hill +illuminated by the rising sun, remain what they profess to be, until you +see the broad outlines of the poem. There are quite enough passages of +purely human interest to occupy you at first. Francesca, Farinata, the +Counts of Montefeltro, father and son, Ugolino, the assembled princes +awaiting their time to enter Purgatory, the great panegyrics of St. +Francis and St. Dominic, these and the like are the "purple patches" on +which the beginner's attention should be fixed. + +The student who has gone through the poem on these lines will by the end +of it be ripe for a more thorough reading and a fuller commentary. Among +modern commentaries the fullest is that of Dr. Scartazzini. He is a +guide whose judgement is perhaps not always quite equal to his +erudition; but his Commentary (in four volumes, including the +_Prolegomeni_) is almost indispensable to the advanced student. He has +also published an abridgement in one volume. Those who read German +should make acquaintance with the translation and notes of the late King +John of Saxony, who wrote under the name of Philalethes, as well as with +those of Dr. Witte. Both these deal fully with historical matters, +"Philalethes" also going very fully into the theology. In the present +writer's edition some attempt is made to clear up obscure points of +allegory, and to show the extent of Dante's debt to Greek philosophy. +Attention is also called to questions of grammar and philology, which +have been somewhat neglected by the Italian and German commentators. + + + + +APPENDIX II. + +DANTE'S USE OF CLASSICAL LITERATURE + + +A few words on the mythological and classical allusions in the +_Commedia_ may be useful to those who are not familiar with Greek and +Latin literature. The subject is a very wide one, and Dante's treatment +of heathen mythology is very curious. It is especially noticeable in the +_Purgatory_, where every sin and its contrary virtue are illustrated by +a pair of examples from Scripture history on the one hand, and Greek or +Roman history or legend (for both seem alike to him) on the other. +Sloth, for instance, is exemplified by the Israelites who "thought +scorn" of the promised land, and the slothful followers of Aeneas, who +hung back from the conquest of Italy; while Mary going into the hill +country with haste, and Caesar dashing into Spain are the chosen models +of prompt response to the call of duty. So, again, at the very outset of +the poem, we find St. Paul and Aeneas quoted as the two instances of +living men who have been permitted to see the future world; and Dante +professes his own unworthiness to be put on a level with them, +apparently without a hint that he holds the _Aeneid_ any lower as an +authority than the Epistle to the Corinthians. In a practically pagan +humanist of the days of Leo X. this would hardly surprise us; but it +is, at first sight, not a little astonishing in the case of a poet to +whom the Christian Church and Christian revelation were vital truths. It +is, however, clear that to the mediaeval mind the Bible, though no doubt +the highest authority, was in matters of morality, and to some extent +even of theology, only "first among its peers." Aquinas quotes +Aristotle, the Scriptures, and the Fathers almost indiscriminately in +support of his positions. Dante, approaching the subject from a +political as well as a moral point, takes for his guide and philosopher +the poet Virgil, who, as the Middle Ages deemed, had both foretold the +glories of the Church, and sung of the first origin of the Empire. It +must never be forgotten that, to Dante, Church and Empire were merely +two aspects of one Divine institution. Brutus and Cassius are hardly +less guilty than Judas; and that simply from the official point of view, +for there is no attempt to sanctify, much less to deify, Caesar as an +individual. None the less is the work that he did holy, and this +holiness communicates itself, as readers of the _De Monarchia_ will +remember, to the whole of the long course of workings by which Divine +Providence prepared the way for it. The finger of God is no less plainly +to be seen in the victory of Aeneas over Turnus or of the Romans over the +Samnites than in the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, or +the repulse of the Assyrians. Roman history is no less sacred than +Hebrew. This being so, we shall not be surprised to find that a certain +authority attaches to the literature of either one of the chosen +peoples. Did they conflict, doubtless the poet, as an orthodox +Catholic, would admit that Virgil must give way to Isaiah; but he would +in all probability decline to allow that they could conflict, at all +events within the region common to them both. No doubt, just as Caesar +and Peter have, besides their common domain, functions peculiar to each, +wherein Caesar may not interfere with Peter, or as Aristotle may err when +he trespasses on ground that the Church has made her province (for I +interpret _Purg._ xxv. 63 as an allusion to Aristotle), so might Virgil +or Lucan become a teacher of false doctrine if he ventured to teach +theology. (Statius, who does teach theology, as in the passage just +referred to, is, it must be remembered, a Christian.) But Virgil at all +events holds scrupulously aloof from any over-stepping of his functions; +and within his own limits his authority is infallible. Why, then, should +we not accept his account of the infernal regions as trustworthy? He +tells us that Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls across to the +nether world; Minos the judge who sentences them; Pluto (whom we confuse +perhaps a little with Plutus) a great personage in those regions. Furies +sit over the inner gate; Gorgons and Harpies play their parts. Holy +Scripture has nothing to say against these conceptions; so there is +nothing to prevent our accepting Virgil's account, and expanding it into +mediaeval precision and symmetry. Thus we have all the official hierarchy +of hell ready provided. As has already been observed, it is not until +Dante reaches a point very far down that anything like what we may call +the Christian devil appears.[43] Throughout the upper circles the work, +whether of tormenting or merely of guarding, is performed exclusively by +beings taken from classic mythology. If we except the Giants, who seem +to occupy a kind of intermediate position between prisoner and gaoler, +Geryon is the last of these whom we meet; and him Dante has practically +transformed into a being of his own invention: for there is little in +common between the personage slain by Hercules and the strange monster +with the face of a just man and the tail of a venomous scorpion. As +might perhaps be expected when there was plenty of material to hand in +Tuscany, less use is made of the persons of classical mythology in +finding subjects for punishment. Among the virtuous heathen several find +their place; but it may be doubted whether Electra or Orpheus were to +Dante any less historical than Plato or Seneca. Semiramis, Dido, +Achilles, again, would all be recorded in the histories of Orosius and +others whom Dante read, with dates and possibly portraits. Capaneus, one +of the "Seven against Thebes," is more nearly mythological; but as the +utterer of the earliest profession of reasoned atheism[44] he could +hardly be omitted as the typical blasphemer. The most curious example of +all is the Thais whom we find among the flatterers. She does not attain +even to the dignity of a myth, being only a character in a play of +Terence, and borrowed by Dante from Cicero; probably the strangest +instance on record of the "realization" of a dramatic personage. + + FOOTNOTES: + + [43] See p. 102. + + [44] "Primus in orbe Deos fecit timor" (Statius, _Thebaid_, iii. + 661). + + + + +PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, + +LONDON AND BECCLES. + + + + +BY A. J. BUTLER, M.A. + + +THE PURGATORY OF DANTE ALIGHIERI. + + Edited, with Translation and Notes, by ARTHUR JOHN BUTLER, M.A., + late Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ + 6_d._ + +THE PARADISE OF DANTE ALIGHIERI. + + Edited, with Translation and Notes, by ARTHUR JOHN BUTLER, M.A. + Second Edition. Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ + +THE HELL OF DANTE ALIGHIERI. + + Edited, with Translation and Notes, by ARTHUR JOHN BUTLER, M.A. + Crown 8vo. 12_s._ 6_d._ + +A COMPANION TO DANTE. + + By Professor SCARTAZZINI. Translated by A. J. BUTLER, M.A. Crown + 8vo. 10_s._ 6_d._ + + * * * * * + +THE PURGATORY OF DANTE. + + Translated by C. L. SHADWELL. Extra crown 8vo. 10_s._ net. + +THE PARADISE OF DANTE. + + An Experiment in Literal Verse Translation. By C. L. SHADWELL. + Extra crown 8vo. 5_s._ net. + +READINGS ON DANTE. + + Chiefly based on the COMMENTARY OF BENVENUTO DA IMOLA. By the + Honourable WILLIAM WARREN VERNON, M.A. + +THE PURGATORIO. + + With Introduction by Dean CHURCH. 2 vols. Crown 8vo. 24_s._ + +THE INFERNO. + + With Introduction by the Rev. E. MOORE, D.D. 2 vols. 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GREEN, M.A., LL.D. + + =Matthew Arnold's Selected Poems.= + + =Bacon's Essays and Colours of Good and Evil.= With Notes and + Glossarial Index. By W. ALDIS WRIGHT, M.A., LLD. + + =Sir Thomas Browne's Religio Medici=: Letter to a Friend, etc., and + Christian Morals. Edited by W. A. GREENHILL, M.D. Oxon. + + =Sir Thomas Browne's Hydriotaphia and the Garden of Cyrus.= Edited + by W. A. GREENHILL, M.D. Oxon. + + =The Pilgrim's Progress from this World to that which is to Come.= + By JOHN BUNYAN. + + =Poetry of Byron.= Chosen and arranged by MATTHEW ARNOLD. + + =Selections from the Poems of Arthur Hugh Clough.= + + =Letters of William Cowper.= Edited, with Introduction, by the Rev. + W. BENHAM, B.D., F.S.A. + + =Selections from Cowper's Poems.= With an Introduction by Mrs. + OLIPHANT. + + =The Adventures of Robinson Crusoe.= Edited from the Original + Edition, by J. W. CLARK, M.A. + + =Balthazar Gracian's Art of Worldly Wisdom.= Translated by JOSEPH + JACOBS. + + =Heine's Lieder und Gedichte.= Selected and Edited, with an + Introduction and Notes, by Dr. C. A. BUCHHEIM. + + =Herrick=: Selections from the Lyrical Poems. Arranged with Notes, + by F. T. PALGRAVE. + + =Tom Brown's School Days.= By THOMAS HUGHES. + + =The Poetical Works of John Keats.= Edited by F. T. PALGRAVE. + + =The Christian Year.= By J. KEBLE. With Introduction by C. M. YONGE. + + =Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare.= Edited by Rev. A. AINGER, M.A. + + =Walter Savage Landor.= Selections from the Writings of. Arranged + and Edited by SIDNEY COLVIN. + + =Mohammed.= The Speeches and Table Talk of the Prophet. Chosen and + Translated, with Introduction and Notes, by STANLEY LANE POOLE. + + =The Cavalier and his Lady.= Selections from the Works of the First + Duke and Duchess of Newcastle. With an Introductory Essay by + EDWARD JENKINS, Author of "GINX'S BABY," etc. + + =Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam=, the Astronomer-Poet of Persia. Rendered + into English Verse by EDWARD FITZGERALD. + + =Miscellanies (including Euphranor, Polonius, etc.).= By EDWARD + FITZGERALD. + + =Two Essays on Old Age and Friendship.= Translated from the Latin of + Cicero, with Introduction, by E. S. SHUCKBURGH. + + =Marcus Aurelius Antoninus to Himself.= An English Version of the + Works of Marcus Aurelius. By the Rev. Dr. GERALD HENRY RENDALL, + Head Master of Charterhouse. + + =The House of Atreus=: being the Agamemnon, Libation-Bearers, and + Furies of Aeschylus. Translated into English Verse by E. D. A. + MORSHEAD, M.A. + + =The Republic of Plato.= Translated into English, with Notes, by + J. LL. DAVIES, M.A., and D. J. VAUGHAN, M.A. + + =The Trial and Death of Socrates.= Being the Euthyphron, Apology, + Crito, and Phaedo of Plato. Translated into English by F. 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M. + YONGE, Author of "THE HEIR OF REDCLYFFE." With Vignette by + HOLMAN HUNT. + + * * * * * + + =The Golden Treasury Poets.= Arnold, Byron, Cowper, Keats, + Longfellow, Shelley, Southey, Wordsworth. 8 vols. in + cloth box. 21_s._ net. + + + + +~English Men of Letters.~ + +Edited by JOHN MORLEY. + +_In Paper Covers, 1s._; _Cloth, 1s. 6d._ + + + ADDISON. By W. J. COURTHOPE. + BACON. By Dean CHURCH. + BENTLEY. By Professor R. C. JEBB. + BUNYAN. By J. A. FROUDE. + BURKE. By JOHN MORLEY. + BURNS. By Principal SHAIRP. + BYRON. By Professor NICHOL. + CARLYLE. By Professor NICHOL. + CHAUCER. By Professor A. W. WARD. + COLERIDGE. By H. D. TRAILL. + COWPER. By GOLDWIN SMITH. + DEFOE. By W. MINTO. + DE QUINCEY. By Professor MASSON. + DICKENS. By Professor A. W. WARD. + DRYDEN. By Professor SAINTSBURY. + FIELDING. By AUSTIN DOBSON. + GIBBON. By J. C. MORISON. + GOLDSMITH. By WILLIAM BLACK. + GRAY. By EDMUND GOSSE. + HAWTHORNE. By HENRY JAMES. + HUME. By PROFESSOR HUXLEY, F.R.S. + JOHNSON. By LESLIE STEPHEN. + KEATS. By SIDNEY COLVIN. + LAMB, CHARLES. By Canon AINGER. + LANDOR. By SIDNEY COLVIN. + LOCKE. By THOMAS FOWLER. + MACAULAY. By J. C. MORISON. + MILTON. By MARK PATTISON. + POPE. By LESLIE STEPHEN. + SCOTT. By R. H. HUTTON. + SHELLEY. By J. A. SYMONDS. + SHERIDAN. By Mrs. OLIPHANT. + SIDNEY. By JOHN. A. SYMONDS. + SOUTHEY. By Professor DOWDEN. + SPENSER. By Dean CHURCH. + STERNE. By H. D. TRAILL. + SWIFT. By LESLIE STEPHEN. + THACKERAY. By ANTHONY TROLLOPE. + WORDSWORTH. By F. W. H. MYERS. + + * * * * * + +_Reissue in 13 vols._ _Crown 8vo._ _3s. 6d. each._ + + Vol. I. CHAUCER, SPENSER, DRYDEN. + Vol. II. MILTON, GOLDSMITH, COWPER. + Vol. III. BYRON, SHELLEY, KEATS. + Vol. IV. WORDSWORTH, SOUTHEY, LANDOR. + Vol. V. LAMB, ADDISON, SWIFT. + Vol. VI. SCOTT, BURNS, COLERIDGE. + Vol. VII. HUME, LOCKE, BURKE. + Vol. VIII. DEFOE, STERNE, HAWTHORNE. + Vol. IX. FIELDING, THACKERAY, DICKENS. + Vol. X. GIBBON, CARLYLE, MACAULAY. + Vol. XI. SIDNEY, DEQUINCEY, SHERIDAN. + Vol. XII. POPE, JOHNSON, GRAY. + Vol. XIII. BACON, BUNYAN, BENTLEY. + + +MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD., LONDON. + + + + + Transcriber's Note: + + Variations in spelling, hyphenation and use of accents have + been retained as they appear in the original publication. + + [=a] represents a with macron + + [=i] represents i with macron + + + Changes to the original publication have been made as follows: + + Page 11 Bytuene Mershe and Averil, + "Bytuene Mershe and Averil, + + Page 112 to positive cruelty, + to positive cruelty. + + Page 113 becomes almost suppliant + becomes almost suppliant. + + Page 128 eighth pit o + eighth pit of + + Page 128 evening is drawng + evening is drawing + + Page 133 In the circle o + In the circle of + + Page 149 Sun, Mars, Jupiter + Sun, Mars, Jupiter, + + Page 150 by other matter, + by other matter. + + Page 166 Note that capidigia + Note that cupidigia + + Page 178 It is a mos + It is a most + + Page 178 peculiarities of locat + peculiarities of local + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Dante: His Times and His Work, by +Arthur John Butler + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DANTE: HIS TIMES AND HIS WORK *** + +***** This file should be named 27999.txt or 27999.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/9/9/27999/ + +Produced by Irma Špehar and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was +produced from images generously made available by The +Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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