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. _

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 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 inthe _Monthly Packet_, and part in the Magazine of the Home ReadingUnion. It will be seen, therefore, that it is not intended for thosewhom Italians call “Dantists, ” but for students at an early stage oftheir studies. To the former class there will be nothing in the bookthat is not already familiar--except where they happen to find mistakes, from which, in so extensive a field for blundering as Dante affords, Icannot hope to have kept it free. In the domain of history alone freshfacts are constantly rewarding the indefatigable research of German andItalian scholars--a research of which only the most highly specialisedspecialist can possibly keep abreast. Even since the following pageswere for the most part in print, we have had Professor Villari’s _TwoCenturies of Florentine History_, correcting in many particulars thechroniclers on whom the Dante student has been wont to rely. This bookshould most emphatically be added to those named in the appendix asessential to the study of our author. 

In connection with some of the remarks in the opening chapter, ProfessorButcher’s Essay on _The Dawn of Romanticism in Greek Poetry_ should benoticed. I do not think that the accomplished author’s view isincompatible with mine; though I admit that I had not taken much accountof the Greek writers whom we call “post-classical. ” But it is to benoted, 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 ornearly touched by Asiatic influences. 

I have made some attempt to deal in a concise way with two subjectswhich have not, I think, hitherto been handled in English books onDante, other than translations. One of these is the development of theGuelf and Ghibeline struggle from a rivalry between two German houses toa partisan warfare which rent Italy for generations. I am quite awarethat I have merely touched the surface of the subject, which seems tome to contain in it the essence of all political philosophy, withspecial features such as could only exist in a country which, likeItaly, had, after giving the law to the civilised world, been unable toconsolidate itself into a nation like the other nations of Europe. Ihave, I find, even omitted to notice what seem to have been the rulingaims of at any rate the honest partisans on either side: unity, that ofthe Ghibelines; independence, that of the Guelfs. Nor have I drawnattention to a remarkable trait in Dante’s own character, which, so faras I know, has never been discussed--I mean his apparent disregard ofthe “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 himthe world consisted of what now would be called “the upper tenthousand. ” In an ordinary politician or partisan, or even in a mere manof letters this would not be strange; but when we reflect that Dante wasa man who went deeply into social and religious questions, that he wasborn less than forty years after the death of St. Francis, and was atleast closely enough associated with Franciscans for legend to make hima member of the order, and that most of the so-called heretical sects ofthe time--Paterines, Cathari, Poor Men--started really more from socialthan from religious discontent, it is certainly surprising that hisinterest in the “dim, common populations” should have been so slight. 

The other object at which I have aimed is the introduction of Englishstudents to the theories which seem to have taken possession of the mosteminent Continental Dante scholars, and of which some certainly seem tobe quite as much opposed to common sense and knowledge of human natureas the conjectures of Troya and Balbo, for instance, were to soundhistorical criticism. Here, again, I have but touched on the moresalient points; feeling sure that before long some of the scholarship inour Universities and elsewhere, which at present devotes itself to Greekand Latin, having reached the point of realizing that Greek and Latintexts may be worth studying though written outside of so-calledclassical periods, will presently extend the principle to the furtherpoint of applying to mediæval literature, which hitherto has been toomuch the sport of _dilettanti_, the methods that have till now beenreserved for the two favoured (and rightly favoured) languages. Unless Iam much mistaken, the finest Latin scholar will find that a close studyof early Italian will teach him “a thing or two” that he did not knowbefore in his own special subject; so that his labour will not be lost, even from that point of view. Then we shall get the authoritativeedition of Dante, which I am insular enough to believe will never comefrom 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 hastwo great difficulties to reckon with: the quantity which has alreadybeen written on the subject, and the quantity which remains to bewritten. The first involves the reading of an enormous mass ofliterature in several languages, and very various in quality; but forthe comfort of the young student, it may at once, and once for all, bestated that he can pretty safely ignore everything written between 1400and 1800. The subject of commentaries, biographies, and other helps, orwould-be helps, will be treated of later on. Here we need only say thatthe Renaissance practically stifled anything like an intelligent studyof Dante for those four centuries; and it was not until a new criticalspirit began to apply to it the methods which had hitherto been reservedfor the Greek and Latin classics, that the study got any chance ofdevelopment. How enormously it has developed during the present centuryneeds not to be said. It may suffice to point out that the BritishMuseum Catalogue shows editions of the _Commedia_ at the rate of one forevery year since 1800, and other works on Dante in probably five timesthat proportion. 

Now, it has been said of the _Commedia_, and the remark is equally trueof Dante’s other works, that it is like the Bible in this respect: everyman finds in it what he himself brings to it. The poet finds poetry, thephilosopher philosophy; the scientific man science as it was known in1300; the politician politics; heretics have even found heresy. Nor isthis very surprising when we consider what were the author’ssurroundings. Naturally, no doubt, a man of study and contemplation, hislot was cast in the midst of a stirring, even a turbulent, society, where it was hardly possible for any individual to escape his share ofthe public burdens. Ablebodied men could not be spared when, as wasusually the case, fighting was toward; all men of mental capacity wereneeded in council or in administration. And, after all, the area to beadministered, the ground to be fought over, were so small, that the manof letters might do his duty by the community and yet have plenty oftime to spare for his studies. He might handle his pike at Caprona orCampaldino one day, and be at home among his books the next. Then, again, the society was a cultivated and quick-witted one, with manyinterests. Arts and letters were in high esteem, and eminence in them assure a road to fame as warlike prowess or political distinction. Fromall this it is clear that the Florentine of the thirteenth century hadpoints of contact with life on every side; every gate of knowledge layopen to him, and he could explore, if he pleased, every one of itspaths. They have now been carried further, and a lifetime is too shortfor one man to investigate thoroughly more than one or two; but in thosedays it was still possible for a man of keen intelligence, added to thealmost incredible diligence, as it appears to us, of the Middle Ages, tomake himself acquainted with all the best that had been done and saidin the world. 

This it is which forms at once the fascination and the difficulty ofDante’s great work. Of course, if we content ourselves with reading itmerely for its “beauties, ” for the æsthetic enjoyment of an image hereand an allusion there, for the trenchant expression of some thought orfeeling at the roots of human nature, there will be no need of anyharder 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. Thepleasure, one might almost say the physical pleasure, derived fromsonorous juxtaposition of words, such as we obtain from Milton or fromShelley, is scarcely to be genuinely felt in the case of a foreignlanguage; and the beauties of matter, as distinguished from those ofform, are faithfully enough rendered by Cary or Longfellow. 

It may, however, be safely assumed that few intelligent students willrest content with this amount of study. They will find at every turnallusions calling for explanation, philosophical doctrines to be tracedto their sources, judgements on contemporary persons and events to beverified. On every page they will meet with problems the solution ofwhich has not yet been attempted, or attempted only in the mostperfunctory way. For generation after generation readers have gone onaccepting received interpretations which only tell them what their ownwits could divine without any other assistance than the text itselfgives. No commentator seems yet to have realised that, in order tounderstand Dante thoroughly, he must put himself on Dante’s level so faras regards a knowledge of all the available literature. The more obviousquarries from which Dante obtained the materials for his mightystructure--the Bible, Virgil, Augustine, Aquinas, Aristotle--have nodoubt been pretty thoroughly examined, and many obscurities which thecomments of Landino and others only left more obscure have thus beencleared up; but a great deal remains to be done. Look where one may inthe literature which was open to Dante, one finds evidence of hisuniversal 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 referagain), and find the good bishop moralising thus on the mutability ofhuman affairs, with especial reference to the break-up of the Empire inthe 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 whenhe wrote that bitter apostrophe to his own city with which the sixthcanto of the _Purgatory_ ends:--

 “E se ben ti ricorda, e vedi lume, Vedrai te somigliante a quella inferma, Che non può 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 pagesof any book which Dante may conceivably have read without coming on somepassage which one feels certain he had read, or at the very leastcontaining 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 Provençal, “published, ” if we may use the term, upto the year 1300. Of course a good many Latin books were (may one sayfortunately?) in temporary retirement at that time; but even of these, whether, as has been suggested, through volumes, now lost, of “ElegantExtracts, ” or by whatever other means, more was evidently known than isalways realised. 

We must, however, beware of treating Dante merely as a repertory ofcurious lore or museum of literary _bric-à-brac_--a danger almost asgreat as that of looking at him from a purely æsthetic point of view. Hehad no doubt read more widely than any man of his age, and he is one ofthe half-dozen greatest poets of all time. But his claim on ourattention rests on even a wider basis than these two qualities wouldafford. He represents as it were the re-opening of the lips of the humanrace: “While I was musing, the fire kindled, and at last I spake with mytongue. ” The old classical literature had said its last word whenClaudian died; and though men continued to compose, often with abilityand intelligence, the histories and chronicles which practically formedthe only non-theological writings of the so-called “Dark Ages, ” lettersin the full sense of the term lay dormant for centuries. Not till thetwelfth 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 ofsong came almost simultaneously from all Western Europe. To this periodbelong the Minnesingers of Germany, the Troubadours of Provence, theunknown authors of the lovely romance--poetical in feeling, though castchiefly in a prose form--_Aucassin et Nicolete_, and of several not lesslovely English ballads and lyrics. Even the heavy rhymed chroniclesbegin to be replaced by romances in which the true poetic fire breaksout, 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 lovebetween man and woman, which with the ancients and even with earlyChristian writers scarcely ever rises beyond the level of a sensualpassion, [3] becomes transfigured into a profound emotion touching thedeepest roots of a man’s nature, and acting as an incentive to nobleconduct; and, closely connected with this, the influence of externalnature upon the observer begins for the first time to be recognised andto form a subject for poetical treatment. [4] Horace has several charmingdescriptions of the sights and sounds of spring; but they suggest to himmerely that life is short, or that he is thirsty, and in either case hecannot do better than have another drink in company with a friend. Sowith Homer and Virgil. External nature and its beauty are often touchedoff in two or three lines which, once read, are never forgotten; but itis always as ornament to a picture, not auxiliary to the expression of amood. You may search classical literature in vain for such passages asWalther von der Vogelweide’s:--

 “Dô der sumer komen was Und die bluomen durch daz gras Wünneclîche ensprungen, Aldā die vogele sungen, Dâr kom ich gegangen An einer anger langen, Dâ ein lûter brunne entspranc; Vor dem walde was sī ganc, Dâ diu nahtegale sanc;”[5]

or the unknown Frenchman’s:--

 “Ce fu el tans d’esté, 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 thethirteenth century the spring, and the nightingales, and the floweringmeadows had become a commonplace of amatory and emotional poetry. 

So far, however, poetry was exclusively lyrical. The average standard ofversifying 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, orGuido dalle Colonne the judge of Messina; fighting men, like several ofthe Troubadours; political intriguers, like Bertrand del Born--all haveleft verses which, for beauty of thought and melody of rhythm, haveseldom been matched. But the great poem was yet to come, which was togive to the age a voice worthy of its brilliant performance. It is notonly in literature that it displays renewed vitality. Turn where wewill, in every department of human energy it must have been brilliantbeyond 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 whichhad other ideals of government; but it had set in a blaze of splendour, and its last wielder, Frederick II. , was, not unfitly, known as theWonder of the World. The mediæval Papacy, though about to undergo a lossof prestige which it never retrieved, outlived its rival, and hadseldom been a greater force in the political world than it was in thehands of the ambitious and capable Boniface VIII. The scholasticphilosophy, which had directed the minds of men for many generations, was soon to make way for other forms of reasoning and other modes ofthought; but its greatest exponent, St. Thomas Aquinas, was Dante’scontemporary for nine years. These examples will serve to show that theold systems were capable to the very last of producing and influencinggreat men. 

Meantime the new order was showing no lack of power to be born. Two ofour countrymen, Roger Bacon and, somewhat later, William of Ockham, sowed, each in his own way, the seeds which were to bear fruit in thescience and speculation of far distant ages. In the arts, architecturereached its highest pitch of splendour; and painting was at the outsetof the course which was to culminate, more than two hundred years later, in Titian and Raffaelle. But in no field did the energy of thethirteenth century manifest itself as in that of politics. With thecollapse of the Empire came the first birth of the “nationalities” ofmodern Europe. The process indeed went on at very different rates. Therepresentative constitution of England, the centralised government ofFrance were by the end of the century fairly started on the lines whichthey have followed ever since. But England had never owned allegiance tothe Emperor, while France had pretty well forgotten whence it had gotthe name which had replaced that of Gaul. In the countries where theEmpire had till recently been an ever-present power, Germany and Italy, the work of consolidation went on far less rapidly; indeed, it has beenreserved for our own age to see it completed. With Germany we have herenothing directly to do; but it is all-important to the rightunderstanding of Dante’s position that we should glance briefly at thepolitical state of Italy and especially of Tuscany during the latterhalf of the thirteenth century. By good fortune we have very copiousinformation on this matter. A contemporary and neighbour of Dante’s, byname John Villani, happened to be at Rome during the great Jubilee of1300. The sight of the imperial city and all its ancient glories set himmeditating on its history, written, as he says (in a collocation ofnames which looks odd to us, but was usual enough then), “by Virgil, bySallust and Lucan, by Titus Livius, Valerius, and Paulus Orosius, ” andmoved him, as an unworthy disciple, to do for his native city what theyhad done for Rome. The result was the most genial and generallydelightful work of history that has been written since Herodotus. Villani, who lived till 1348, when the plague carried him off, seems tohave been a man of an equable disposition and sober judgement. LikeDante and all the Florentines of that day, he belonged to the Guelfparty; and, unlike his great fellow-citizen, he adhered to itthroughout, though by no means approving all the actions of its leaders. After the fashion of the time, he begins his chronicle with the Tower ofBabel; touches on Dardanus, Priam, and the Trojan war; records theorigin of the Tuscan cities; and so by easy stages comes down towardsthe age in which he lived. The earlier portions, of course, are moreentertaining and suggestive than trustworthy in detail; but as heapproaches a time for which he had access to living memory, and stillmore when he records the events of which he was himself a witness, he isour 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 _Heroïdes_; 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 Hæmon 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 fieldof 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 thetangled threads which have attached themselves to those famous names;but since we may be, to use a picturesque phrase of Carlyle’s, “thankfulfor any hook whatever on which to hang half-an-acre of thrums in fixedposition, ” a few of the more prominent points in the early history ofthe great conflict shall be noted here. 

As every one knows, the names originally came from Germany, and to thatcountry we must turn for a short time to know their import. 

About seven miles to the north-east of Stuttgart, in what is now thekingdom of Wurtemberg, is a small town called Waiblingen, where was oncea 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 Empirein 1024. His line held the imperial crown for just a century, in thepersons of himself and three Henries, who are known as the second, third, and fourth, or third, fourth, and fifth, according as we reckontheir places among Roman Emperors or German Kings; Henry III. (or IV. )being famous as the great opponent of Pope Gregory VII. ; Henry IV. (orV. ) interesting to us as the first husband of the daughter of Henry I. Of England, renowned in English history as the Empress Maud. The lastHenry died childless in 1125. But the Franconian line was not extinct. Half a century or so before, Bishop Otto of Freising tells us “a certaincount, by name Frederick, sprung from one of the noblest families ofSuabia, had founded a colony in a stronghold called Staufen. ” Staufen, better known as Hohenstaufen, is a lofty hill about twenty miles fromWaiblingen, and within the Suabian frontier. Frederick had been staunchto Henry IV. In his time of greatest difficulty, and received as hisreward, together with the dukedom of Suabia, which the house ofZähringen had forfeited through disloyalty, the hand of the Emperor’sdaughter Agnes. By her he had two sons, Frederick, who succeeded to hisown duchy of Suabia, and Conrad, who received from his uncle Henry V. That of Franconia, including no doubt the lordship of Waiblingen. AtHenry’s death Frederick and Conrad, being then thirty-five andthirty-three years old respectively, were the most powerful princes ofthe Empire. Henry had designated Frederick as his successor; but theelectors thought otherwise. At the instance of the Archbishop of Mainz, between whom and the Hohenstaufen there was no love lost, and, as itwould seem, not without pressure from Lewis VI. Of France, whom Henry’sdeath had just saved from having to face an alliance between Englandand 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 theRoman Empire, about the parts where Gaul and Germany meet, the Henriesof Waiblingen, and the Welfs of Altdorf. ” The Welfs go back to by farthe greater antiquity. They probably did not originally belong to theBajovarian stock, for we read elsewhere that they had “large possessionsin the parts where Alemannia meets the Pyrenæan Mountains, ” as Ottousually designates the Alps west of the Brenner. This Altdorf is avillage near Ravensburg in Wurtemberg, between Ulm and Friedrichshafen. We first meet with the name in history about the year 820, when theEmperor Lewis I. , “the Pious, ” married as his second wife Judith, “daughter of the most noble Count Welf. ” Somewhere about the middle ofthe tenth century, a Rudolf of the race was Count of Bozen. His son Welftook part in the insurrection of the Dukes of Worms and Suabia againsttheir step-father Conrad II. , “the Salic, ” and lost some of histerritories in consequence, Bozen passing to Etiko, an illegitimatemember of the same house. The family must have soon been restored to theimperial 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 hissister, who had married Azzo II. Of Este. This Welf IV. Fought on theside of Henry IV. , against the revolted Saxons at the Unstrut, but soonrebelled himself. He became for a time the husband of the “greatCountess” Matilda of Tuscany. Through him and his son Henry, “theBlack, ” the line was maintained; and though during the period at whichwe have arrived the head of the family for several generations bore thename 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 theaccession of Lothar II. The head of the house was Henry, surnamed “theProud. ” With him the new emperor at once made close alliance, giving himhis daughter Gertrude in marriage. Henry’s sister Judith was alreadymarried to Frederick of Suabia, but he sided with his father-in-law, anda struggle began which lasted for ten years, and in which theHohenstaufen brothers had not entirely the worst of it. Conrad wasactually anointed at Monza as King of Italy; but in the end, through theintervention of St. Bernard, peace was made, and lasted during the fewremaining months of Lothar’s life. At his death in 1137 Conrad waselected. His first act was to take the duchy of Bavaria from Henry, andbestow it on Leopold, the Marquis of Austria, his own half-brother, andwhole brother to Bishop Otto, the historian. Henry died very soon, leaving a young son, afterwards known as Henry “the lion, ” and abrother, Welf, who at once took up the quarrel on behalf of his nephew. He beat Leopold; but when, emboldened by this success, he proceeded toattack the Emperor, who was besieging the castle of Weinsberg, inFranconia, he suffered a severe defeat. At this battle we are told thecries of the contending sides were “Welf!” and “Waiblingen!” Why thename of an obscure fortress should have been used as a battle-cry forthe mighty house of Hohenstaufen, we shall probably never know; it maybe that it was a chance selection as the password for the day. Howeverthat may be, the battle-cries of Weinsberg were destined to resound farinto future ages. Modified to suit non-Teutonic lips, they became famousthroughout the civilised world as the designations of the two parties ina struggle which divided Italy for centuries, and of which the lastvibrations only died down, if indeed they have died down, in our ownday. 

Of all faction-wars which history records, this is the most complicated, the most difficult to analyse into distinct issues. The Guelfs have beenconsidered the Church or Papal party; and no doubt there is some truthin this view. Indeed, there seems to have been some hereditary traditionof the kind dating from a much earlier generation; long, in fact, beforethe Ghibeline name had been heard of. When, as we have seen, CountessMatilda of Tuscany, the champion of Gregory VII. , was looking out for asecond husband, she fixed upon Welf of Bavaria, presumably the “duxNoricorum, ” who, as Bishop Otto tells us, “in the war with the Emperor, destroyed the cities of Freising and Augsburg. ” Their union did not lastlong, for Matilda seems to have been hard to please in the matter ofhusbands; 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 ashaving been “the seed of the Guelf and Ghibeline races, whereby when theinundation of foreigners ceased, Italy was torn with intestine wars. ”Yet we may shrewdly suspect that it was not so much any special devotionto the Church, as the thwarted ambition of a powerful house, which madethe Welfs to be a thorn in the side first of the Franconian, then of theSuabian Emperors. [10] At any rate, when a representative of the family, in the person of Otto IV. , at last reached “the dread summit of Cæsareanpower, ” the very Pope, whose support had placed him on the throne, foundhimself within little more than a year under the familiar necessity ofexcommunicating the temporal head of Christendom. Still, in Italy nodoubt the Guelfs, politically at any rate, held by the Church, while theGhibelines had the reputation of being, as a party, at least taintedwith what we should now call materialism. It will be remembered thatamong the sinners in this kind, who occupy the burning tombs within thewalls of the city of Dis, Dante places both the Emperor Frederick II. , the head of Ghibelinism, and Farinata degli Uberti, the vigorous leaderof the party in Tuscany, while the only Guelf who appears there is onewho probably was a very loose adherent to his own faction. 

Less justified, it would seem, is the idea that the Guelfs werespecially the patriotic party in Italy. No doubt the Popes at one timetried to pose as the defenders of Italian liberties against Germantyrants, and some modern historians, forgetting the mediæval conceptionof the Empire, have been inclined to accept this view. But when itsuited his purpose, the Pope was ready enough to support an “anti-Cæsar”who was no less a German, or even to call in a French invader. The truthis that at that time (and for many centuries afterwards), no conceptionof “Italy” as a nation had entered into men’s minds. We do not alwaysrealise that until the year 1870, the territory, well enough defined byNature, which forms the modern kingdom of Italy, had never, exceptindeed as part of a far wider Empire, owned the rule of a singlesovereign. Patriotism hardly extended beyond the walls of a man’s owncity. Even Dante feels that residence in Lucca, Bologna, or Verona is anexile as complete as any, and that his only _patria_ is Florence, thoughit may be safely said that to him, if to any living man, the idea of anItalian nation had presented itself. 

The one argument which we can find to support this view lies in the factthat while the chief Guelf names are those of burgher families, many ofthe leading Ghibeline houses were undoubtedly of German origin. AtFlorence the Uberti, at Bologna the Lamberti, show their descent intheir names. Villani tells us that the Emperor Otto I. Delighted inFlorence, “and when he returned to Germany certain of his baronsremained there and became citizens. ” The two families just mentionedare specified. So far, then, the Guelfs may be regarded as representingnative civic liberties against an alien feudal nobility, and thestruggle between the two factions will fall into line with that which ata somewhat later date went on in Germany between the traders of thecities and the “robber-barons” of the country. In this aspect we may seethe full meaning of Dante’s continual allusion to the sin of avarice, under the image of the “wolf;” an allusion, again, which the originalname whence the Guelf party took its appellation would specially point. 

How and when the names first appeared in Italy we do not know. The firstmanifestation of resistance on the part of the cities to the Imperialcontrol was given when Milan withstood Frederick Barbarossa--in defence, it may be noted, of its own right to oppress its weaker neighbours; butduring the war which followed, and which was terminated by Frederick’sdefeat at Legnano, the head of the Welfs, Henry the Lion, was for mostof the time fighting on the Imperial side, and though he desertedFrederick at the last, he does not seem to have given any active help tothe Lombard League. Yet it may well be that in his defection we have tosee a stage in the transition from Welf to Guelf. It is, however, not inLombardy, but in Tuscany, that the names of Guelf and Ghibeline, asrecognised party designations, first appear. Machiavelli says--perhapsby a confusion with the Black and White factions, of whom we shall hearlater--that they were first heard in Pistoia; but however this may be, they would seem to have been definitely accepted by 1215, to which yearVillani assigns their introduction into Florence. 

We have now reached the first date, it may be said, which students ofDante will have to remember; a date which to him, and equally to thesober chronicler Villani, marked the beginning of troubles for the citywhich both loved as a mother, though to the greater son she was “amother of small love. ” The occasion is so important that it ought to berelated 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 eitherside. Curiously enough, they were at first evenly divided--thirty-eightto thirty-eight. Not much is to be inferred from the names, though it issomewhat significant that of those, some half a dozen families in all, whom Villani, himself a Guelf, notes as having only recently attained tonobility, all joined the Guelf party. There seems also to have been atendency for Ghibeline houses to become Guelf, which is not balanced byany defections in the opposite sense, so that the balance of parties wassoon disturbed in favour of the Guelfs. At first, however, though

“there was a division among the nobles of the city in that one loved thelordship of the Church, and the other that of the Empire, yet in regardto the state and welfare of the commonwealth all were in concord. ”

This state of things did not last long. In 1220 Frederick II. Wascrowned Emperor at Rome. Up till that time he had been more or less a_protégé_ of the Popes. First Innocent III. , then Honorius III. , hadkept a fatherly eye upon his youth and early manhood, and for a timeChurch and Empire seemed to pull together. Honorius had, indeed, occasion to write severely to him more than once, but there was nobreach of the peace. The accession of Gregory IX. , in 1227, changed theaspect of affairs. Before the year was out, Frederick, like most of hispredecessors for 200 years past, was under the ban of the Church: andfrom this time forward there was an end of peace and quiet government inNorthern Italy. “Before Frederick met with opposition, ” Dante makes aLombard gentleman of the last generation say, “valour and courtesy werewont to be found in the land which Adige and Po water; now may any mansafely go that way, who through shame has left off to converse withgood men or approach them. ”[15]

Florence seems to have remained longer than most of the chief citiesaloof from the main contest. She had her own wars with Pisa, beginningwith a private quarrel at the Emperor’s coronation (in which we areexpressly told that both parties united), and afterwards with Siena; andthe great houses did a certain amount of private fighting; “but stillthe people and commonwealth of Florence continued in unity, to thewelfare and honour and stability of the republic. ” In 1248, however, Frederick turned his attention in that direction, moved, it may be, bythe growing strength of the Guelfs. His natural son, Frederick ofAntioch, was sent with a force of German men-at-arms, and after somefierce street fighting, the Guelfs were driven out. 

The Ghibeline supremacy was short-lived. Their nobles, especially thegreat house of the Uberti, became unpopular by reason of the exactionswhich they enforced; they got beaten in a fight with some of thebanished Guelfs at no great distance from the city; and before the endof 1250 a meeting of “the good men, ” as Villani calls them, or, as weshould say, the middle class, limited the power of the Podestà, [16] andappointed a Captain of the People to manage the internal affairs of thecity, with a council of twelve Elders. Other important changes were madeat the same time, and the new constitution--the third recorded inFlorentine history--was known as the “Primo Popolo. ” The death ofFrederick in the same year still further weakened the Ghibelines. Someof them were banished, and the exiled Guelfs were recalled. Peace, however, seems to have been kept between the parties for some time, andwhen in 1255 Count Guido Guerra on his own account expelled theGhibelines from Arezzo, the Florentines restored them, and lent theAretines money to pay a fine which the Guelf chief had inflicted; “but Iknow 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, thechampionship of the Hohenstaufen cause had fallen, was daily increasingin strength. His orders came to the Ghibelines of Florence to crush thepopular party; and the latter, being warned in time, drove out all thegreat Ghibeline families. Two years later these had their revenge. OnSeptember 4, 1260, a date much to be remembered in the history of thesetimes, the banished Ghibelines, aided by eight hundred of Manfred’sGerman horse, seized the opportunity of hostilities between theFlorentines and the Sienese to meet their opponents in a pitched battle. This took place on the Arbia, near the fortress of Montaperti, to theeast of Siena. [17] The Guelfs were utterly routed, partly, it wouldseem, through the incompetence of some of the Elders who accompanied thearmy, and who, civilians though they were, overruled the judgement ofthe military leaders, and accepted battle under unfavourableconditions; and partly through the treachery of some Ghibelines who, nothaving been exiled, were serving in the Florentine host. Readers of the_Commedia_ will remember the name of Bocca degli Abati, placed by Dantein the lowest pit of hell. [18]

Sixty-five of the leading Guelf families fled to Lucca, while theGhibelines entered Florence, and appointed Guido Novello, of the greathouse of the Conti Guidi, Imperial Podestà. A meeting of the leaders ofthe party from Pisa, Siena, and Arezzo was held at Empoli, and aproposal was made on behalf of the rival cities, to raze Florence to theground as a fortified city, and so preclude her revival as a Guelfstronghold. For once, however, a man was found to set patriotism aboveparty. The great Farinata degli Uberti, whose wise counsel and warlikeskill had mainly contributed to the victory, rose, with the samemagnificent scorn, we may suppose, that Dante afterwards saw him displayfor the torments of Hell, [19] and let it be known that, so long as hehad life in him, he would resist any such measure at the sword’s point. Count Giordano, the commander of the Germans, who had convened themeeting, gave in, and Florence was saved. 

This was the last gleam of success which the Imperial cause was toenjoy in Tuscany for nearly half a century. Soon after the battle ofMontaperti, Urban IV. Was elected to the Papal See. He was a Frenchmanby birth, “son of a shoemaker, but a valiant man and wise, ” saysVillani. In view of the growing power of Manfred, vigorous steps had tobe taken. The exiled Florentine Guelfs had made a fruitless attempt toeffect a diversion in Germany, by inciting the young Conradin to opposethe acting head of his house. This old expedient having failed, Urbanturned his eyes towards his own country. Charles of Anjou, brother ofSaint Lewis, was at that time, next to the reigning sovereigns, the mostpowerful prince in Christendom, and to his aid the Pope appealed. Himself a man of Puritanical strictness in his life, and devoted to theChurch, Charles was ready enough to accept the call, which appealedalike to his principles and to his ambition, and to act as the championof the Holy See against the dissolute and freethinking Manfred; and theinfluence of his wife, the only one of Raymond Berenger’s four daughterswho was not actually or in prospect a queen, [20] was thrown on the sameside. After keeping Easter 1265 at Paris, Charles set out, and landed atthe mouth of the Tiber in May. In December he was crowned at Rome Kingof Naples, Sicily, and Apulia. Two months later, at the end of February1266, Charles and Manfred met near Benevento. After some hard fighting, of which the German troops seem to have borne the brunt, the battle wasdecided against Manfred by the desertion of his Apulian barons, and hehimself was slain. His defeat gave the final blow to the Ghibeline causein Tuscany. Only Pisa and Siena remained faithful. In Florence anattempt was made to avoid civil strife by the device of doubling theoffice of Podestà. Two gentlemen from Bologna, Catalano de’ Malavoltiand Loderingo de’ Landolò, a Guelf and a Ghibeline, [21] were appointed, and they nominated a council of thirty-six, chosen from both sides. Butthis plan did not work well. Party spirit had grown too violent to allowof half measures, and before the year was out the people rose again, andthe 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 _Podestà_ 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 Podestà 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 childwas born at Florence to a citizen named Alighiero, son of Bellincione. We do not know for certain his _casato_, or family name. Bellincione’sfather 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 theprominent house of the Elisei, which is known to have existed as farback as the beginning of the eleventh century, since it was not uncommonfor 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 familyof Aldighieri is known to have existed. [22] In any case, it wasoriginally no Florentine name, and it may be doubted if it ever wasrecognised as the appellation of a family. True, Dante is once or twicereferred to as “Dantes de Alegheriis, ” but this may be due to the factthat he was known to have had recently two ancestors of the name. Hehimself, if we may trust the evidence of letters ascribed to him, seemsto have written “Dantes Alligherius, ” while his son calls him DantesAligherii, and himself Petrus Dantis Aligherii, “Peter, son of Dante, son of Alighiero. ” In the official Florentine documents, where his nameoccurs, it is “Dantes Allegherii” or “Dante d’Alighiero, ” “Dante the sonof Alighiero, ” and no more. The form “degli Alighieri, ” which wouldindicate a true family name, we find in no undoubtedly contemporarydocument. 

In view of this initial uncertainty, the discussion whether the poet wasof “noble” family or not seems a trifle superfluous. Hisgreat-great-grand-father, Cacciaguida, is made to say (_Par. _, xv. 140)that he himself received knighthood from the Emperor Conrad III. (ofHohenstaufen). This would confer nobility; but it would appear that itwould be possible for later generations to lose that status, and thereare some indications that Dante was sensitive on this point. At anyrate, it is pretty clear that his immediate ancestors were not in anyway distinguished. The very fact that he was born in Florence during aperiod when all the leading Guelfs were in exile shows that Alighierowas not considered by the dominant Ghibelines a person of too greatimportance to be allowed to remain undisturbed in the city. 

Of Dante’s boyhood and early youth we have only stray indications, andthose mainly gathered from his own writings. We can, indeed, form apretty clear notion of what he _was_, but we know little enough aboutwhat 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 withsuspicion, while regarding their silence as good evidence that whatthey do not mention cannot have happened, we must admit that we cannotwith certainty date any event in the first thirty years of Dante’s life. Still, we can infer a good deal. He must unquestionably, during thistime, have read a great deal, for it would have been impossible for aman wandering about from place to place, and intermittently busied inpolitical affairs, to have amassed in seven or eight years the amount oflearning which the _Commedia_ by itself shows him to have possessed. Hemust have been recognised at an early age as a young man of markedability. His intimacy with the old statesman Brunetto Latini, who diedin 1294, and his friendship with Charles of Anjou’s grandson, CarloMartello, [23] the young King of Hungary, who was at Florence in the sameyear and the following, are sufficient to prove this. Neither Brunetto, the most learned man of his age in Florence, and, as we should say, aman of “society” as well, nor a prince who, had he lived, would havebeen one of the most important personages in Europe, was likely to havedistinguished with his friendship a young man of twenty-nine, not of thehighest birth, unless he had already made himself notable forintellectual eminence. 

One event occurred during Dante’s youth, in which he is so generallybelieved to have borne a part, that it will probably come as a shock tomany people to learn that this belief rests only on the statement of awriter who was not born till nearly fifty years after Dante’s death. OnSt. Barnabas’s day, June 11, 1289, the Florentine Guelfs met theGhibelines of Arezzo, in whose ranks many of their own exiles werefighting, in a plain called Campaldino, belonging to the district ofCertomondo, which lies in the Casentino, or upper part of the Arnovalley. The Florentines gained a complete victory, though only after ahard fight, in which many of the chief Ghibeline leaders lost theirlives. The event was one of great importance, and Villani recounts it invery full detail. [24] Dante also refers to it in one of the best-knownpassages of the _Purgatory_ (v. 92). It is quite possible that hehimself may have taken part in the battle; but if he did so, it issomewhat strange that none of the earlier commentators, including hisown son, nor any biographer of the fourteenth century, should have knownof it, or, knowing of it, should have thought it worth recording; andthat it should have been left to Leonardo Bruni of Arezzo, writing afterthe year 1400, to make the first reference to so noteworthy an incidentin Dante’s early career. Leonardo (whose “Life” will be found inBianchi’s edition of the _Commedia_) quotes, indeed, a letter, said tohave been written many years afterwards by Dante, in which reference ismade to his presence in the battle; but this letter has longdisappeared, and it is to be noted that the biographer does not evenprofess to have seen it himself. There is, it must be said, in the_Hell_ (xxii. _init. _) one allusion to warlike operations in theAretine territory of which Dante claims to have been an eye-witness; butas none of the early commentators seems to refer to Campaldino inconnection with this passage, it tells, if anything, against thereceived story. 

Another event, sometimes assigned to the period of Dante’s life beforehis banishment, has somewhat more evidence in its favour. That hevisited Paris at least once in the course of his life, the earlyauthorities are agreed; but Villani, Boccaccio, and Benvenuto of Imola, all writing in the fourteenth century, make the visit to have takenplace during his exile. It is not until we come to John of Serravalle, Lord of Fermo, who as Bishop of Rimini attended the Council ofConstance, and there, at the request of the Bishops of Bath and Wellsand Salisbury, prepared a Latin version of the _Commedia_ withcommentary, that we find mention of an earlier visit. His testimony is alittle suspicious, because in the same sentence he also asserts thatDante studied at Oxford, a statement which, without strong confirmation, it would be very hard to accept. On the other side, it may be said thatthe silence of the older biographers is not conclusive evidence againstthe early study at Paris. Dante also went to Bologna, as it wouldappear, both before and after his banishment; yet while Villani andBoccaccio only name the latter visit, Benvenuto speaks only of theformer. It is therefore quite possible that all three may have ignoredthe first period of study at Paris, or, if there was but one suchperiod, may have assigned it to the wrong part of Dante’s life. _Primâfacie_ it is more probable that he would have undertaken both the longjourney and the course of study in his days of “greater freedom and lessresponsibility, ” than when he was not only engaged upon the compositionboth of his great poem and of several prose treatises, but was taking anactive share in political work. 

Again, the allusion in the _Paradise_ to the lectures of Sigier bearsall the stamp of a personal reminiscence; just as the allusion to thedykes along the coast of Flanders to illustrate those which form thebanks of the river Phlegethon, could hardly have occurred to one who hadnot seen them with his own eyes, though the biographers mention nojourney to Flanders. But Sigier’s lectures and his life too were over by1300. 

Another little bit of evidence may be given for what it is worth. Anyone who has read the discourses of Meister Eckhart, the founder of theschool of German mystics, will be struck by the frequent and closeresemblances, 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 dueto mere coincidence. [25] But Eckhart preached and wrote (if he wrote) inGerman, a language which we have no reason to think that Dante knew; sothat the exchange of ideas between them, if any, must have taken placeby word of mouth, and in French or Latin. Now, Eckhart was for a longtime in Paris--so long that he seems to have been known as “MasterEckhart 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, itappears to have been only on a journey to Rome, the last place saveFlorence where Dante would then have cared to show himself), and that atsome time before 1300. 

Lastly, we may question if Dante would have chosen Paris as a place ofresidence while Philip the Fair was on the throne of France. 

If, then, he did visit France before his exile, we can date the visitwith some certainty. It can hardly have been before 1290, the year ofBeatrice’s death, nor after 1294, the year in which Carlo Martello cameto Florence. Dante’s marriage, again, in all probability took placesomewhere about the latter year. We know nothing directly of Dante’sdoings in this interval; nothing, at any rate, inconsistent with hishaving been for some considerable period away from Florence. 

But we have kept till the last the subject which to many is the only oneassociated with Dante’s younger life. What, it will be said, aboutBeatrice? The fashionable theory nowadays seems to be that thereundoubtedly was a lady at Florence of that name, the daughter of FolcoPortinari, that she was married to Simone de’ Bardi, a member of thatgreat family who were Edward III. ’s bankers, and that she died in theflower of her youth. But, say the modern Italian and German writers, this lady--Frau Bardi-Portinari, the latter call her--had no more to dowith Dante than any other Beatrice in history. This will seem to manywho do not realise on how slight a basis the identification of herrests, to be the very wantonness of paradox. These may be startled tolearn that the whole story depends upon the veracity of one man, andthat a professed writer of romantic fiction. It is from Boccaccio, andfrom him alone, that we have learnt to see in Dante’s mystical guide andguardian, in the lost love of his early years, only the idealised andallegorised figure of Folco Portinari’s daughter. What, then, is hisevidence worth? To this we can only reply, that Boccaccio was born eightyears before Dante’s death; that he lived in Florence from hischildhood; that he must have spoken with scores of people to whom thesocial and literary history of the years preceding 1290 was perfectlyfamiliar; that both Dante and the husband of Beatrice were prominentmen; and that Boccaccio can have had no motive for making a statementwhich, if untrue, he must have known to be so. Further, if the statementhad been untrue, it would surely have been contradicted, and some traceof the contradiction would have been found. But, on the contrary, itseems to have been accepted from the first. It is repeated byBoccaccio’s younger contemporary and disciple Benvenuto of Imola, whohimself lived for some time in Florence, before all those who would beable from their own recollection to confirm or deny it would have passedaway. And Benvenuto, it may be noted, though devoted to Boccaccio, wasno mere student, but a shrewd and critical man of the world. Dante’s sonPietro, indeed, says no word to show that Beatrice was anything but asymbol, and in this some of the other early commentators follow him. Butthis would prove too much. Whether she be rightly identified withBeatrice Portinari or not, it is impossible for any reader possessingthe least knowledge of the human heart to see in the Beatrice of the_Commedia_ a symbol merely. Not to mention that it would be quitecontrary to Dante’s practice thus to _invent_ a personage for the sakeof the symbol, it is absurd to suppose that the “ten years’ thirst”which the sight of her relieves, “the eyes whence Love once took hisweapons, ” and such-like expressions were intended primarily asreferences to a neglected study of theology or a previous devotion to acontemplative life. The omission, therefore, of the commentators whointerested themselves mainly in the allegory to tell us about the realBeatrice cannot be used as evidence against her existence. 

The first supporter of what may be called the “superior” view--namelythat the whole story of Beatrice is purely allegorical--was one GiovanniMario Filelfo, a writer of the fifteenth century, born more than ahundred years after Dante’s death. As a rule, where his statements canbe tested, they are incorrect; and on the whole his work appears to be amass of unwarranted inferences from unverified assertions. It was nottill recent times that his theory on the subject found any defenders. 

We may, then, pretty safely continue in the old faith. After all, itexplains more difficulties than it raises. No doubt if we cannot freeourselves from modern conceptions we shall be somewhat startled not onlyby the almost deification of Beatrice, but also by the frank revelationof Dante’s passion, with which neither the fact of her having becomeanother 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 lifein the thirteenth century to understand the position. As has beenalready pointed out, the notion of woman’s love as a spur to nobleliving, “the maiden passion for a maid, ” was quite recent, and at itsfirst growth was quite distinct from the love which finds its fulfilmentin marriage. Almost every young man of a literary or intellectual turnseems to have had his Egeria; and when we can identify her she isusually 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 virtù_. 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 influencedby the political circumstances of his age, it will be well to carry oursurvey of events somewhat further, with special reference to the affairsof Florence. 

As we have seen, after frequent alternations of fortune, the citypassed, within two years of Dante’s birth, for good and all to the Guelfside. On St. Martin’s Day, in November, 1266, Count Guido Novello andhis German horse were driven out of the city by the burghers; and thoughin the January following a treaty of peace was made, and cemented byvarious marriages between members of the leading families on eitherside--an arrangement of which the chief result was to embitter partyspirit among the Guelfs who had taken no share in it--anything like alasting reconciliation was soon found to be out of the question. Charlesof Anjou, moreover, fresh from his victory over Manfred, was by no meansdisposed 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 thecity at the head of eight hundred French cavalry. The Ghibelines did notventure to strike a blow, but departed on the day before his arrival. AtEaster, says Villani, the crime was committed which first split the cityinto factions; and at Easter the descendants of the men who hadcommitted the crime went into exile, never to return. 

The same year saw a general rally of the north Italian states to theGuelf side, and before many months were out even Lombardy, where, saysVillani, there was hardly any memory of the Guelfs, followed the stream. In Tuscany, Pisa and Siena alone held by the tradition--for it waslittle more--of allegiance to the Empire. The Florentine exiles betookthemselves to those cities, and before long the spirits of the party hadrevived sufficiently to allow them to play what must have been felt tobe their last stroke in the game. Profiting by the disaffection ofcertain Apulian and Sicilian barons (whom one may imagine to have foundthe gloomy discipline of Charles a poor exchange for the brilliancy andlicence of Frederick’s Court), they cast their eyes towards the lastsurviving representative of that Count Frederick who, some two hundredyears before, had fixed his seat in the hill-fortress of Staufen. Conrad, or Corradino, as the Italians called him, grandson of FrederickII. , was a lad of sixteen, still under the tutelage of his mother, thewidow of Conrad IV. Germany seems to have been loyal to him, and had itnot been for the impatience of the Italian Ghibelines, he might wellhave looked forward to regaining, perhaps under more favourableauspices, the Empire which his predecessors had held. But the Tuscannobles, smarting under defeat, could not wait; and in spite of hismother’s opposition, they carried the boy off. Money was lacking; and ofthe ten thousand German horsemen who accompanied him across the Brenner, only three thousand five hundred went beyond Verona. He passed throughLombardy, however, without opposition, and with the aid of the Genoesefleet reached Pisa in May, 1268. The rising of the Apulian barons hadcompelled Charles to return hastily to his kingdom, and Conradin foundhis way clear to Siena. An action in the district of Arezzo resulted inthe defeat and capture of Charles’s “marshal, ” who had come out fromFlorence in pursuit, and the German force was able to enter Romeunmolested. There they received a reinforcement of eight hundred goodSpanish cavalry under Don Henry, brother of the King of Castile, and, elated with success, pushed on to strike a decisive blow. They marchedeastward to Tagliacozzo, just within the frontier of the Abruzzi, whileCharles reached the same point by forced marches from Nocera. The armiesmet on St. Bartholomew’s Eve, and at first everything seemed to go wellfor Conradin. The Spanish division defeated the Provençals, and theGermans crushed the French and Italians. But Charles had with him anexperienced old knight, Alard de St. Valéry, by whose advice he held apicked force in reserve, concealed behind some rising ground. With thishe now attacked the victorious Germans and Spaniards, who had got outof hand in the excitement of pursuit and plundering. They made a boldresistance, but discipline told in the end; they were utterly defeatedand their leaders put to flight. Conradin and his immediate staff, comprising the Duke of Austria and some German and Italian nobles, madetheir way to Astura on the coast of the Campagna, and had succeeded inembarking when they were recognised by one of the Frangipani, who werethe 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-placeof Naples. This act has always been regarded as an indelible blot onCharles’s record. Dante couples it with the alleged murder, by hisorder, of St. Thomas Aquinas; and it seems to have been felt even bymembers of the Guelf party as something, if one may so say, beyond therules of the game. Pope Clement, according to Villani, blamed Charlesseverely; and the pious historian, for his own part, sees in the King’ssubsequent misfortunes the judgment of God upon his cruelty towards aninnocent boy. The judge who pronounced the sentence was slain beforeCharles’s very eyes by his son-in-law, Robert, son to the Count ofFlanders, “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 likea valiant gentleman. ” In Conradin the Hohenstaufen line came to an end, and therewith all _raison d’être_ for the Ghibeline party. After this itbecame merely a turbulent faction, until the accession of Henry ofLuxemburg; when Cæsar once more began to take interest in his Italiandominions. 

It may be conceded that party rancour had much more to do with thebringing of Conradin into Italy than any conscientious adhesion to viewssuch as those to which Dante afterwards gave utterance in the _DeMonarchia_, or faith in the benefit which would accrue to the world fromthe rule of a single sovereign. But it shows the hold which the Empirestill had on men’s minds, that the Ghibeline chiefs should havepreferred to take a boy from Germany as the figure-head of their cause, rather than seek a leader of more experience from among theirfellow-countrymen. Nor does it seem to have entered any one’s mind tolook out of Germany for an Emperor. There were, indeed, at the verytime, two rival Cæsars-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;” butclearly no Ghibeline cared to call upon either of them to “heal thewounds which were killing Italy. ” Later, when the long interregnum wasbrought to an end by the election of Rudolf of Hapsburg, even the GuelfVillani holds that if he had been willing to pass into Italy he wouldhave been lord of it without opposition; but that astute prince no doubtfound himself much better employed in converting a petty baronial lineinto one of the great houses of Germany, and ultimately of Europe, thanin acting up to a titular dignity which brought its bearer moresplendour than either wealth or ease. When he did send an Imperial Vicarinto Tuscany in 1281 his chance was gone, and the emissary was glad tocome to terms with the Florentines. 

Thus, from the earliest time that Dante could remember, the Guelfs heldan almost undisturbed supremacy throughout Tuscany. There was occasionalfighting between Florence, as the head of the Guelf League, and Siena, or Pisa, as the case might be. The Sienese, though helped by GuidoNovello and the Florentine exiles, and by some of the Spanish and Germantroops who had escaped from Tagliacozzo, were badly beaten at Colle diVal d’Elsa in 1269, and their commander, Provenzano Salvani (whom Danteafterwards met in Purgatory), taken and slain. In the following yearthis city too was purged of the Ghibeline taint, and a few Florentinecitizens who were caught were, after a reference to Charles, dulybeheaded. Pisa held out somewhat longer, and was able to expel itsGuelfs in 1275, among them the famous Count Ugolino de’ Gherardeschi, amember of the house of Donoratico, one of whose counts had been capturedand killed with Conradin; but in a year’s time a Florentine successbrought them back. An effort made by Pope Gregory X. To reconcile thefactions, as he passed through Florence on his way to the Council ofLyons, bore little or no fruit, and, as a pendant to formerexcommunications of Emperors, the city was placed under interdict. When, a year and a half later, Gregory died at Arezzo, “by his death, ” saysVillani, “the Guelfs of Florence were greatly cheered, by reason of theill will which he had towards them;”--an interesting remark, as showingthat the Guelfs were not prepared to support the Holy See farther thantheir own interests as a party demanded. 

The condition of Florence at this time cannot be better described thanin 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, andavarice were “the sparks that had set hearts on fire, ” in Florence. 

Once again the Pope, who was now Nicholas III. , interfered; and onceagain representatives of the two great factions exchanged the kiss ofpeace before a Papal Legate, this time in front of “the PreachingFriars’ new church of New St. Mary’s, in Florence, ” of which the Legate, Cardinal Latino, had but lately laid the first stone. The Ghibelineleaders were still kept out, but the rank and file returned. The feud ofthe Adimari and Donati was patched up for the time, whereby “the saidCardinal had much honour, and Florence remained a good time in apeaceful and good and tranquil state. ”

Cardinal Latino had arranged for the government of Florence by acommittee of fourteen “good men, ” of whom eight were to be Guelfs andsix Ghibelines. They were to hold office for two months. It marks theCardinal as a man of some organizing capacity that his peace continuedfor four years, during which time Villani has next to nothing to relateabout the affairs of his city. These were the years in which Dante wasgrowing up to manhood. As a boy of thirteen he would doubtless havelooked on at the scene in front of Santa Maria Novella; and during thenext four peaceful years we may suppose that he would have begun to sitat the feet of the old statesman, diplomatist, and scholar BrunettoLatini, 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 twospecial friends, paying little heed to any of his companions save onegirl of about his own age, whose movements he would follow, and for thesound of whose words, though never addressed to him, he would listen, with the speechless devotion which perhaps is only felt at sixteen orseventeen, and then only by natures which fortunately are exceptional inthis world. “The child is father to the man;” and we can be prettycertain from what we know of the man Dante what the boy Dante must havebeen. 

The tranquil period was disturbed in 1282. Pope Nicholas, who, whetherguilty of Simony or not--and one fears that the case against him musthave been strong, since not only Dante, but even Villani charges himwith the offence--at least deserved the blessing pronounced onpeacemakers, had died in the previous year at Viterbo, a town which, during this period, seems to have suited the Popes better than Rome as aplace of residence. Charles, between whom and Nicholas no love had beenlost, was resolved that the next Pope should not come from the powerfulhouse of the Orsini, to a branch of which, the Guatani, the late Pontiffhad belonged, and by an arrangement with the people of Viterbo, succeeded in getting the two most prominent clerical members of thathouse imprisoned. Thus he secured the election of a Frenchman, Simon ofBrie, who, being a canon of Tours, took the name of Martin IV. HisPapacy, though it lasted little more than three years, was eventful. Hewas elected in January, 1282, and on the following Easter Monday, March30th, the people of Palermo, furious at the outrages of Charles’s Frenchtroops, rose and massacred every Frenchman upon whom they could layhands. Charles’s efforts to recapture the island were baffled, chieflyowing 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 aboutthis time to prove a serious thorn in the side of the Angevin King. Fromthe day of the “Sicilian Vespers, ” fortune turned against Charles. Hisson was taken prisoner by Loria in 1284, his life being spared only atthe entreaty of Peter’s wife, while he did not recover his liberty till1289. The King himself died broken down with grief and disappointment, in the early days of 1285, and was followed a couple of months later byhis creature, Martin IV. , and, before the year was out, by his enemy, King Peter. It will be remembered that Peter and Charles were seen byDante in the “Valley of Princes, ” awaiting their entry into Purgatory, and singing their Compline hymn in friendly accord: Martin IV. Beingplaced higher up the mountain, among the gluttonous. 

At Florence the course of affairs was not much affected by the reverseswhich befell Charles. At the same time, these, and a success gained byGuy of Montefeltro over John of Appia, a French officer whom Martin hadappointed Count of Romagna, made the Guelf majority uneasy. CardinalLatino’s Constitution was abandoned, and a new form of governmentadopted. The trading-class resolved to get rid altogether of therepresentatives of feudal authority, weak as they had become, [26] and tothis end the Fourteen were abolished, and the chief power placed in thehands of the Priors of the Arts, or, as we should say, the Masters ofthe great trading guilds. The number of those guilds which contributedmembers to the governing body seems to have been gradually increased. Atfirst only three--the Clothmakers, the Money-changers, and theWool-dealers--were thus honoured; but by the end of the century, atleast twelve, seven greater and five lesser arts, were included. ThePriors, as the Fourteen had done, held office for two months only, andvarious devices were employed to prevent any house or any person frombecoming dangerously powerful. Nobles, in order to qualify for office, had to join a guild; and as the nobles, or _grandi_, were morefrequently on the Ghibeline side, this would yet further weaken thatparty. 

Florence had now fairly entered upon a period of great prosperity. Herbankers lent money to kings; her trade extended all over Europe. Pisa, her most dangerous rival, had been utterly crushed by the Genoese in thegreat sea-fight off Meloria, with a slaughter which seems to havestruck awe into the hearts even of the victors; and though she expelledher Guelfs four years later, in 1288, and, in 1291, under the brilliantleader Guy of Montefeltro, won some successes in the field, she wasnever again a power to be feared. Arezzo gave some trouble as arendezvous for the banished Ghibelines; but the battle of Campaldino, in1289, already referred to, broke her strength for a long time. Florencewas thus free to attend to the arts of peace. The city walls wereextended and new gates built; and several of the buildings, which tothis day are among the glories of Florence, date from that period. Still, however, much of the old class-jealousy smouldered; and, asMachiavelli points out, all fear of the Ghibelines being removed, thepowerful houses began to oppress the people. Giano della Bella, himselfof noble family, casting in his lot with the commons, succeeded incarrying what were called the Ordinances of Justice, whereby, amongother things, nobles were absolutely disqualified from taking any partin the government. A measure so oppressive as this was bound to bringabout its own appeal, and, as a matter of fact, within two years fromits promulgation, Giano was driven into exile, and the nobles were moreturbulent than ever. It is at this time that the name of Corso Donatifirst comes into prominence. 

Another event, which was to influence the destinies of Florence and ofDante, occurred shortly before Giano’s overthrow. This was the electionto the Papacy, in 1294, of Benedetto Guatani, known to history asBoniface VIII. The most vigorous Pope who had held the office forseveral generations, he soon let it be known that he intended to reviveall the claims which his predecessors, Gregory VII. And Innocent III. , had made to temporal as well as spiritual supremacy. His first effortswere devoted to getting Tuscany into his hands, and to this end he seemsto have intrigued freely with the leaders of both parties in Florence. In theory, of course, where all were Guelfs, the Pope ought to have hadlittle trouble; but there were Guelfs and Guelfs, and it was not longbefore party differences were emphasised, and, so to say, crystallised, by party names. Curiously enough, these again appear first at Pistoia. Afamily feud there had led to two branches of the Cancellieri beingdistinguished as Black and White, and towards 1300 the names appear atFlorence. The Donati headed the Black faction; their rivals, the Cerchi, the White. The latter represented the more orderly section of thecommunity; the former reproduced all the worst features of the oldGhibeline aristocracy, though in the end it was the Whites who had tocoalesce with the Ghibelines. At first, indeed, it would seem as ifBoniface might have been willing to work with the Whites. He sent forVieri de’ Cerchi, the leader of that party, and tried to induce him tolive peaceably with the other side. Vieri, for reasons which we can onlyconjecture, replied curtly that he had no quarrel with any one; andBoniface resorted to the old expedient of sending a Cardinal--Matthew ofAcquasparta--to reconcile the factions. 

We have now reached the critical year of Dante’s life--that in which heheld the office of Prior. But for the events of this and the next twoyears, it may be doubted whether the _Commedia_ would ever have comeinto existence, at least in the form in which six centuries have studiedand admired it. Henceforth Dante’s own history, rather than that of histimes, 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 appearin public documents as taking a share in the business of the State. Thushe spoke in the “Council of the Hundred” on December 10, 1296, and inthe following March, in opposition, it would seem, to a proposal of agrant to King Charles II. Of Apulia. In May, 1299, he acted asambassador from Florence to the neighbouring city of San Gemignano, theonly one of all the numerous embassies ascribed to him by somebiographers in which modern criticism will still allow us to believe. Finally, in 1300, probably from June 15th to August 15th, he served histerm as Prior. 

The Constitution of Florence at this time was somewhat complicated. Itwill be sufficient to say here that the government was carried on by acommittee of six priors, who held office for two months only; and thatin order to be eligible for the offices of State a man had to beenrolled in one of the twelve trading guilds known as Arts, of whichseven ranked as “greater, ” five as “less. ” Dante belonged to one of the“greater arts, ” that of the _speziali_, “dealers in spices, ” whichincluded the apothecaries and, as it is believed, the booksellers. Thenumber of priors was so large, and their tenure of office so short, thatthe selection of any particular citizen would hardly imply more thanthat he was regarded as a man of good business capacity; but in 1300public affairs in Florence were in such a critical state, that one maywell suppose the citizens to have been especially careful in theirchoice. In the previous April an accusation had been brought by LapoSalterelli (afterwards one of Dante’s fellow-exiles, not held by him inmuch esteem), who then was Prior, against three citizens ofFlorence--Simon Gherardi, Noffo Quintavalle, and Cambio, son of Sesto, of conspiring against the State. The facts are somewhat obscure, but, asit appears that they were all connected with the Papal Court, and thatBoniface 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 tothe Bishop of Florence, in which a good deal of the argument, and evensome of the language, of Dante’s _De Monarchia_ is curiously paralleled, of course from the opposite point of view, the Pope requires theattendance before him of Lapo (whom he styles _vere lapis offensionis_)and the other accusers. As may be supposed, no notice was taken of thisrequisition, and the fines were duly enforced. 

Boniface’s letter is dated from Anagni, on May 15th. Before it waswritten, the first actual bloodshed in the feud between the Black andWhite parties had taken place. Some of the young Donati and Cerchi, withtheir respective friends, were in the Piazza di Santa Trinità on May1st, looking on at a dance. Taunts were exchanged, blows followed, and“Ricoverino, son of Messer Ricovero de’ Cerchi, by misadventure got hisnose cut off his face. ” The leading Guelfs, seeing what a chance thesplit in their party would offer to the Ghibelines, sought the mediationof the Pope. Boniface was of course willing enough to interfere, and, ashas been said, sent Matthew of Acquasparta, Cardinal of Ostia, a formerGeneral of the Franciscans, to Florence as peacemaker. He arrived justabout the time when the new Priors, including, as we must suppose, Dante, were entering on office, and was received with great honour. Butwhen it came to measures of pacification, he seems to have had nothingbetter to suggest than the selection of the Priors by lot, in place oftheir nomination (as had hitherto been the custom) by their predecessorsand the chiefs of the guilds. “Those of the White party, ” says Villani, “who controlled the government of the country, through fear of losingtheir position, and of being hoodwinked by the Pope and the Legatethrough the reform aforesaid, took the worser counsel, and would notobey. ” So the familiar interdict was launched once more, and the Legatedeparted. 

In the city, things went from bad to worse. At the funeral of a ladybelonging 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 theDonati, emboldened by this success, attacked their rivals on thehighway, the Commune took notice of it, and the assailants wereimprisoned, in default of paying their fines. Some of the Cerchi werealso fined, and, though able to pay, went to prison, apparently frommotives of economy, contrary to Vieri’s advice. Unluckily for them, thegovernor of the prison, one of their own faction, “an accursed Ser Neridegli Abati, ” a scion of a family which seems, if we may trust Dante’smention of some of its other members, to have made a “speciality” oftreacherous behaviour, introduced into the prison fare a poisonedmillet-pudding, whereof two of the Cerchi died, and two of the oppositeparty as well, [27] “and no blood-feud came about for that”--probablybecause 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 inHoly Trinity Church, at which it was resolved to send a deputation toBoniface, requesting him to take once again what seems to us--and indeedwas--the fatal step of calling in French aid. The stern prophecy whichDante puts into the mouth of Hugh Capet in Purgatory was to befulfilled:--

 “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 Guelfparty; and, at any rate, we may judge from it the real value of Guelfpatriotism. 

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 otherleaders were heavily fined, and this time the fines were paid. Probablythey 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 Castellodella Pieve; and at the same time, “to remove all jealousy, ” several ofthe White leaders were sent to Serezzano (which we now call Sarzana)--aweak and unlucky attempt at compromise. They were, indeed, soon allowedto return, their place of exile being unhealthy; so much so that one ofthem, Dante’s most intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti, died in the courseof the winter from illness contracted there. 

Cardinal Matthew seems not to have actually left Florence till after thebeginning of 1301. We are told that among his other demands (probablymade on this occasion), was one to the effect that Florence shouldfurnish 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 thecouncil, moved that nothing should be done in the matter. Indeed, in thescanty notices which we have of his doings in this critical period, heappears as the steady opponent of all outside interference in theaffairs of Florence, whether by Pope or Frenchman. In the face of thisit is hard to understand how the famous story of his having gone on anembassy to Rome--“If I stay, who goes? If I go, who stays?”--can everhave obtained credence. Some words like those he may well have used, inthe magnificent self-consciousness which elsewhere made him boast ofhaving formed a party by himself; but we cannot suppose that he would atany time in the course of 1301 have thus put his head into the lion’smouth. That Boniface was at the time of the supposed mission not at Romebut at Anagni is a minor detail. 

If all the White party had possessed Dante’s energy, Florence might havebeen saved. Vieri de’ Cerchi had, indeed, as we have seen, spirit enoughto tell the Pope in effect to mind his own business, and he was notdevoid of shrewdness; but he seems to have been incapable of anysustained vigour in action. The party as a whole were probably ascorrupt as their rivals, and less astute--“an evil and foolish company, ”as Dante afterwards called them by the mouth of Cacciaguida. CorsoDonati, on the other hand, was a bold and reckless intriguer. Hefollowed up the conspiracy of the Santa Trinità by hastening to thePapal Court, and inducing Boniface to send at once for Charles ofValois, brother of the French king, Philip the Fair. Charles obeyed thesummons readily, in the hope, says Villani, of the Imperial crown. Aftera 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 theassurance 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 aKing’s son to maintain the city in peace and good estate; andincontinently by him and by his people the contrary was done. ” Armed menwere introduced; Corso Donati, though under sentence of banishment, entered with them, Vieri de’ Cerchi, in foolish confidence, forbiddinghis arrest. The populace, promptly seeing who were the masters, raised ashout of “Long live Lord Charles and the Baron” (the name given toCorso); and the city was given up for a week to burning and pillage. Asecond visit from the Cardinal of Acquasparta produced no result, save amomentary truce and another interdict. Throughout the early months of1302, 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 thisday 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 plotbeing duly reported, the conspirators fled on April 4th, some to Pisa, some to Arezzo, some to Pistoia, and joined the already exiledGhibelines. 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 hasnever been thoroughly solved, but is of sufficient interest to delay usfor a while. In the short biography of the poet which Villani gives whenrecording 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 thatwhen Lord Charles of Valois, of the house of France, came to Florence in1301 and drove out the White party, as is mentioned above under thedate, the said Dante was one of the chief governors of our city, andbelonged to that party, Guelf though he was; and therefore, _for noother fault_, he was driven forth and banished with the said White partyfrom Florence. ” This seems very explicit, but there are difficulties inthe way of taking it quite literally. A document exists, dated January27, 1302, in which the Podestà, Cante de’ Gabrielli of Gubbio, chargesDante Alighieri and three others with various offences, the chief being_baratteria_ (or corrupt jobbery in office), the use of public money toresist the entrance of Charles of Valois, and interference in theaffairs of Pistoia with the view of securing the expulsion from thatcity “of those who are called Blacks, faithful, men devoted to the HolyRoman 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 aresentenced to pay five thousand florins apiece within three days, or, indefault, be banished and have their houses destroyed and their goodsconfiscated; and in any case they were banished for two years. A seconddecree of March 10th condemns Dante and fourteen others, among them LapoSalterelli, if they fall into the power of the Commonwealth, to be burntto death. 

As has been said, Dante must clearly have been out of Florence when thisdocument was launched. Leonardi Bruni says he was at Rome on an embassywhen the Whites left Florence, and that he hastened to join his party atSiena; but for the reasons already given, this story of the embassycannot be accepted. Some have suggested that as at Florence the oldstyle prevailed, under which March 26th was New Year’s Day, the twosentences really belong to what we should now call 1303, when Dante hadundoubtedly been in exile for some months, and this is corroborated byBenvenuto’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 issome little ground for suspecting it--we must assume that, though aFlorentine official, he did not use Florentine style, and that Dante, with some few others of the leading White Guelfs, was compelled to flysooner than the bulk of his party. He may very well have been regardedas a specially dangerous opponent. 

That there was any foundation for the charge of corruption it isimpossible to believe. Dante’s faults were many, but they did not lie inthat direction; and the honest Villani, though he appears to have sidedwith the Black party, and indeed held office himself as Prior only a fewyears later, seems to have introduced the words which we have italicisedin the passage given above, with the express intention of indicatingthis. On the other hand, it may be noted that the charge was ingeniouslydevised. Dante is known to have been in debt, for some of hisnotes-of-hand exist, belonging to the years preceding 1300; while in thecourse of 1301 he was engaged in superintending the performance ofcertain public works in the city. Thus it would be matter of commonknowledge both that he was short of money and that he had recently beenin a position offering good opportunities for peculation, a fact ofwhich his unscrupulous adversaries would naturally avail themselves. Wemay perhaps see, in the large space which he devotes, in the _Hell_, tothe crime of _baratteria_, evidence of a wish to express his especialdetestation of it. 

What, however, we know for certain is that, after some date early in theyear 1302, Dante never saw Florence again. Several attempts were made bythe 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 ofhis exile, seems very doubtful. We know from his own words that he hadno sympathy with the men with whom he was thrown. Indeed, it was acurious irony of fate which linked in one condemnation his name and thatof Lapo Salterelli, a man whom he selects (_Par. _, xv. 128) as anexample of the degradation into which the Florentine character hadfallen. During this first period he was probably eating his heart, andwatching for the coming of the deliverer who, by bringing all the worldunder one impartial sway, should put an end to faction andself-seeking--the _invidia_ and _avarizia_ against which he is for everinveighing--and permit every man “to sit at ease and perfect himself inprudence and wisdom;” thus fulfilling his proper task of “making himselfimmortal, ” or, as St. Paul phrases it, coming “to the measure of thestature of the fulness of Christ. ” It is a noble conception, though thesix hundred years which have elapsed since Dante looked for itsfulfilment do not seem to have brought us very much more forward in thatdirection. Still, we can give him the honour due to a lofty standard ofpolitical and social conduct in a violent and profligate, if brilliant, age; and we can still read with interest and profit that wonderfulrepertory of political wisdom, dialectical argument (after the manner ofthe schoolmen), and passionate pleading for good government, which hecalls the _Treatise on Monarchy_. 

The date at which the _De Monarchia_ was composed is uncertain, but itwould seem to belong most fitly to the years which immediately succeededDante’s banishment. The Empire was in the hands of the incapable Albertof Hapsburg while the Pope, from 1305, was the creature of the FrenchKing. Cæsar and Peter seemed both alike to have abdicated, and the worldwas going from bad to worse. With the election of Henry of Luxemburg, in1308, better times may seem to have dawned, when practice mightsupersede abstract theories. The letter which Dante actually wrote toHenry in 1311 is couched in a far less meditative tone. 

During Henry’s short reign the Ghibeline cause looked up; nor was hisdeath in 1313 so fatal a blow to it as might have been expected. Severalpowerful leaders arose, one of whom, Uguccione della Faggiuola of Pisa, won back most of Tuscany for his party. In 1315 he inflicted a severedefeat on the Florentines and their allies at Montecatini, on the borderof the Florentine and Lucchese territories; but he was unable to followup his success so far as to enter the city. Some two months later athird sentence went forth against Dante, in which his sons wereincluded, condemning them, as Ghibelines and rebels against theCommonwealth and people of Florence and the statutes of the Guelf party, to be beheaded whenever taken. It has been plausibly suggested that thetwo events were not unconnected; and as it is hardly likely that at theage of fifty Dante would have taken a prominent part in the actualfighting, we must suppose it to have been as a leading adviser of theenemy that he was specially obnoxious to the ruling powers at Florence. 

The chief importance, however, which Dante’s exile has for us, is thatwith it his great literary activity began. He had, of course, writtenall his life; and it is quite possible even that some portion of the_Commedia_ had been composed before he left Florence. The story told byBoccaccio is well known. Commenting upon the opening words of Cantoviii. , he tells us that the preceding portion of the poem had beenwritten before the final catastrophe, and left behind by Dante in hisflight, not being discovered for some years. In any case, the _VitaNuova_ 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 ithad first come into existence as the contents of notebooks, in whichmaterials 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 exilethat we owe in their completed form the works which place him not onlyamong the world’s five or six greatest poets, but in an eminent positionamong philosophers, theologians, statesmen, and men of science. 

We have but little certain information as to Dante’s life during hisexile. Legends innumerable have sprung up as to his residence here, there, and elsewhere; but most of these are based on the fancies oflater writers; or in some cases even on local vanity, which wasflattered by the remotest connection with the great name. We can say forcertain that he passed some time at Verona, some at Lucca, some atRavenna, where his sepulchre remains to this day; and with some approachto probability we can place him at Paris, at Bologna, and perhaps atMilan. He may possibly have spent some time in the Lunigiana, and somein 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, andwent up and down other men’s stairs. He was honoured, it is true. Greatnobles were glad to employ his services, and, as we have said, the factof his being so often selected by the rulers of Florence forcondemnation, shows that at least they regarded him as a man to bereckoned with. But probably the strongest evidence of the estimation inwhich he was held is to be found in Villani’s obituary chapter, whereinhis character and accomplishments are set forth with a fulness which thehistorian elsewhere reserves for Popes and sovereigns; a fulness all themore noteworthy since his name never occurs in the chronicle of eventsin which he undoubtedly took a leading part. 

Only when Italy and Florence had lost him beyond hope of recovery was itrealised that he was one of his country’s greatest glories. Then chairswere founded from which the most eminent literary men of the age shouldexpound his works; and commentator after commentator--nine or ten beforethe end of the fourteenth century--cleared up some obscurities and madeothers more obscure. Of course, so far as historical allusions go, thewriters who were nearly or quite contemporary with the events are oftenof great service; but it is otherwise, as a rule, when a knowledge ofbooks is wanted. We are never so much impressed with the vastness ofDante’s reading, as when we see the utter failure of these learned meneven to observe, in many cases, that any explanation or illustration ofan allusion is wanted. This, however, brings us back to the point fromwhich we started, namely, that much as has been written about Dante, thepossible fields of research are by no means exhausted. 

The interest of the events which moulded Dante’s career and influencedhis work has perhaps led to their occupying too large a share of thesepages; but it has been thought best to go into the history at somelength, as being after all the first and most essential step towards athorough comprehension of the position which his writings, andespecially the _Commedia_, hold in European literature. This is quiteunique of its kind. Never before or since has a poem of the highestimagination served--not merely as a political manifesto, but--as a partypamphlet; and we may safely say that no such poem will in future servethat purpose, at all events until the conditions under which it wasproduced occur. Whether that is ever likely to be the case, those whohave 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 mayappear superfluous. At the same time, experience shows not only thatsuch a summary is found by most readers to be the best of all helps tothe study of the poem, but also that every fresh summariser treats itfrom a somewhat different point of view. It is therefore possible thatin the following pages answers, or at least suggestions of answers, maybe found to some questions which previous writers, in England at allevents, have passed over; and that they may serve in some measure as asupplement to the works which will be mentioned in the appendix. 

§ 1. HELL. 

The first eleven cantos of the _Hell_ form a very distinct subdivisionof the poem. They embrace, first, the introduction contained in Cantoi. ; secondly, the description of the place of punishment up to a pointat which a marked change in the character of the sins punished isindicated. In one sense, no doubt, an important stage in the journey iscompleted when the City of Dis is reached, in Canto viii. ; but it willbe observed, when we reach that point, that the class of sinners who aremet with immediately within the walls of the City, the Epicureans or, aswe should now say, the Materialists, bear really a much strongeraffinity to those who are outside the walls, those whose sin has beenlack of self-restraint in one form or another, than they do to the worsecriminals who have “offended of malicious wickedness, ” and who lie atand below the foot of the steep guarded by the Minotaur. The formerclass at all events have been, to use a common phrase, “their own worstenemies;” their sins have not been, at any rate in their essence, likethose of the latter, of the kind which break up the fabric of society, and with them the heretics may most naturally be considered. It canhardly be doubted that some such view as this led Dante to make thefirst great break of level in his scheme of the lower world at a pointwhich would leave the freethinkers and materialists actually nearer tothe sinners of whom he holds that their sin “men Dio offende, ” eventhough theological exigencies compel him to place them within the wallsof the “red-hot city. ” We may thus conveniently take these eleven cantosfor consideration as a group by themselves. 

In the earlier cantos, as indeed throughout the poem, the maindifficulties with which we meet depend far more on interpretation thanon the mere “construing” of the words; and even if it were otherwise, all purely linguistic difficulties have been so fully dealt with overand over again in commentaries and translations that it would, as hasbeen said, be quite superfluous to enter here upon any discussion ofthem. The opening canto, as every reader will at once perceive, issymbolism and allegory from beginning to end, from the “dark wood” inwhich 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 theinterpreter as anything in the whole poem; indeed it may be said that inthe matter of the _Veltro_ we have not made much advance on Boccaccio, who frankly admitted that he could not tell what was meant. But betweenthese two points we have some hundred lines in nearly every one ofwhich, beside its obvious and literal interpretation, we must look forall the others enumerated by Dante in the famous passage of his letterto Can Grande. The second canto is of much the same character, in somerespects almost in more need of close study. The significance of thethree beasts who hinder Dante is easier to make out than that of thethree heavenly ladies who assist him. Meantime, if we are content toread the poem as narrative merely, there is no great difficulty to beovercome. 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 (thoughhardly in Hell properly so called) we enter upon a fresh subdivision ofthe poem; and are very soon brought up by the first, and one of the mostperplexing, of the allusions to contemporary history with which itabounds. The elucidation of these would constantly offer almosthopeless difficulties, were it not for the early commentators, who areoften able to explain them from personal knowledge. Now and then, however, it happens that they differ, and then the modern student is ata loss. This has been in some measure the case with the famous “granrifiuto, ” iii. 60; so that while we may with a high degree ofprobability accept the more usual view that the allusion is to theabdication of Celestine V. , we cannot without further evidence feel socertain about it as we could wish. The whole conception of this cantoseems to be due to Dante’s own invention; only to a nature like his, keenly alive to the eternal distinction between right and wrong, andburning with zeal in the cause of right, could it have occurred to markoff for special ignominy people whose sole fault seems to have been thatthey “took things too easily. ” When, in Canto iv. , we pass the river ofAcheron, and find ourselves for the first time actually on the border ofHell itself, we are conscious at first of an alleviation. Melancholythere is, but it is a dignified melancholy, as different from the sordidmisery of the wretches we have just left, as the “noble city” and thegreen sward enclosed by it are different from the murky air and thefoul mud among which they have to dwell. Both in this and in the secondcircle we have punishment indeed but without degradation, even with somemitigation. Virgil at least enjoys the converse of the sages and greatmen of old and, in so far as non-Christians go, of recent times; whileFrancesca is solaced by the perpetual companionship of him for whosesake she has lost her soul. Even the penalty which she suffers, of beingwhirled for ever on the storm, is not exactly humiliating. From thispoint, however, we are conscious of a change. The gluttons seated orlying on putrid earth and exposed to lashing rain; the misusers ofwealth, with all human lineaments effaced, and engaged in a foolish andwearisome scuffle; the ill-tempered, floating on the surface of the foulmarsh of Styx or lying submerged in it according as their dispositionwas to fierce wrath or sullen brooding--all these are not merelytormented but degraded as well. 

After crossing the Styx (Canto viii. ) we find a further change. Thus farthe sins punished have differed only in degree from those which we shallfind being expiated in Purgatory. They are indeed the simpler forms, soto speak, of the defects common to all animal nature. They are the samewhich, in one of their interpretations, the three symbolical beasts ofCanto i. Denote. Henceforth we find sins which are only possible to thehigher intelligence of humanity. It will be observed, too, that at thispoint what may be called pictorial description begins. Hitherto we havehad merely a general impression of murky air and miry soil, slopingperhaps a little toward the centre, and intersected now and again by astream. Now the City of Dis with minarets and towers rises in front ofus, and, as we shall see in future cantos, from this time onwards thecharacter of the scenery is indicated with great preciseness, even toits smallest details. Here, too, actual devils, beings whose will, asAquinas says, is obstinately set upon evil, appear for the first time, as distinct from the personages of classical mythology, who act aswarders of the various circles. Virgil, or human reason, is no longersufficient of himself to secure a passage. Both at the gates of thefiery city and on subsequent occasions he is as helpless, withoutsuperior aid, as his disciple and follower. 

The ninth canto contains a piece of allegory, that involved in theintroduction of Medusa and the Furies, which has earned perhaps agreater reputation for obscurity than it deserves, from the fact thatDante himself calls special attention to it. 

Cantos x. And xi. Are both very important, the former for its bearing onthe history of Florence. Those who have read the sketch of that historyin the preceding chapters will understand the full force of Farinata’sdiscourse with Dante. We have had a brief passage of the same kind inCanto vi. , but here the subject is treated at greater length, and withsome marvellous dramatic touches. 

Canto xi. Must be thoroughly mastered if Dante’s scheme of ethics is tobe understood. It forms, indeed, a summary of and key to the arrangementof the penalties, and a thorough comprehension and retention of it inthe memory will be found a wonderful help to a recollection of the wholeCantica. 

At the conclusion of the discourse in which Dante, speaking by the mouthof Virgil, has set forth this ethical system, the poets move forwardalong the brink of the pit until they arrive at a spot where they canreach the lower level. The descent is rendered possible by a steep andbroken slope of loose rock, which Dante compares to the great landslipbetween Trent and Verona, known as the Slavino di Marco. [28] Virgilexplains that this was due to the “rending of the rocks” at the time ofthe Crucifixion. The descent is guarded by the legendary Minotaur, theCretan monster, part bull, part man. In this connection it may benoticed that the beings suggested by classical mythology, who are metwith in the division of Hell which lies between the wall of the City ofDis and the brink of Malebolge, the Minotaur, the Centaurs, the Harpies, and Geryon (as Dante conceives him), all belong to the semi-bestialclass. In spite of the opinion held by some of the most eminentDante-scholars, that Dante in his classification of sins does not followAristotle’s grouping of them into incontinent, malicious, and brutal, but recognises the first two only, it seems difficult not to see inthis, especially when it is taken in connection with expressionsscattered throughout his writings, an indication that in the sins ofthe seventh circle he found the equivalent of the Greek philosopher’sθηριότης--the result of giving a free range to the brutal, asdistinct from the common animal, impulses. 

In this seventh circle, too, we first meet with _fire_ as an instrumentof Divine wrath. Indeed, with the single exception of the suicides, forwhom a specially significant chastisement is devised, all the sinners inthis group, from the heretics in their red-hot tombs to the usurerstormented on one side by the fiery rain, and on the other by theexhalations from the deeper pit, are punished by means of heat. At thefoot of the slope is a great circular plain, ringed with a river ofboiling blood in which spoilers, robbers, and murderers, some famous, some obscure, are plunged more or less deeply in proportion to theheinousness of their crimes; for, like earthly streams, this has itsdeep and shallow. At the latter point they cross, on the back of Nessusthe Centaur, and at once enter (Canto xiii. ) a wood of gnarled and seretrees, in which the Harpies have their dwelling. These trees have sprungfrom the souls of suicides, and retain the power of speech andsensation. From one of these, who in life had been the famous statesmanPeter de Vineis, Dante learns that at the judgement they will recovertheir bodies, like others, but will not be allowed to reassume them. Thebody will be hung on the tree to which it belongs. Here, as in the caseof the avaricious and the wrathful, the spirits of other sinners take apart in the infliction of the punishment. The wood is inhabited by thesouls of those who had wasted their substance in life, and these areconstantly chased through it by hounds, with much destruction of leavesand twigs. 

On issuing from the wood (Canto xiv. ), they find themselves at the edgeof a great circular plain of sand, upon which flakes of fire areceaselessly dropping. Skirting the wood for some distance they reach thebank of the stream of blood which, having circled all round the outermargin of the wood, now comes flowing through it, and crosses the sandyplain in a channel carefully built of shaped stone. Virgil takesoccasion to explain the origin of the rivers of Hell. Thick fumes risefrom it which quench the falling flames, so that along its bank, andthere only, can a way be found. As they proceed they find sinners lyingprone or running under the fiery shower. These are they who had doneviolence to God, either directly by open blasphemy, or indirectly byviolating the divinely appointed natural order whereby both the race ofmankind and its possessions should increase and multiply. Many famousFlorentines are among these sinners (Cantos xv. And xvi. ); and Dantetalks long with the famous statesman and philosopher, Brunetto Latini, who had been his early friend and adviser, and with sundry greatcaptains and men of renown. After this they reach the point where theriver falls with a mighty roar down to the next level. There is nonatural means of descent here available; and Dante hands to Virgil acord with which he is girt. The meaning of this cord is very obscure. Hesays: “I once thought to capture the leopard with it;” and if theleopard denotes the factions of Florence, the cord may perhaps symbolisejustice or equity. When Virgil has thrown it down they wait a shorttime, and presently a monster appears whose name we find to be Geryon, and who symbolises fraud or treachery. It is perhaps not unnatural thatwhen the power to enforce justice has been cast away, treachery shouldraise its head. This monster draws near the brink (Canto xvii. ), butbefore they mount on him, Virgil allows Dante to walk a few paces to theright, in order that he may take note of the last class of “violent”sinners, namely, the usurers. These hold an intermediate positionbetween the violent and the treacherous; just as the heretics didbetween the incontinent and the violent. Here again are manyFlorentines. Like the other misusers of money in Canto vii. Theirfeatures are unrecognisable, and they are only to be known by the armsembroidered on their money bags. After hearing a few words from one ofthem, Dante returns to Virgil, and both take their place on the croup ofGeryon, who bears them downwards to the eighth circle. This (Cantoxviii. ), from its configuration, is known as Malebolge, or Evilpits. Itis divided into ten concentric rings, or circular trenches, separated bya tract of rocky ground. From various indications we gather that eachtrench is half a mile across, and the intervening ground a mile and aquarter. The trenches are spanned by rocky ribs, forming bridges bywhich the central cavity can be reached. Here we find for the first timedevils, in the ordinary acceptation of the term, employed as tormentors. The sinners in this circle are those who have been guilty in any way ofleading others into sin, deceiving or cheating them, without anyaggravating circumstances of ingratitude or breach of natural ties. Inthe first pit are those who have led women astray; these are scourged byfiends. In the next lie flatterers immersed in the most loathsome filth. In each Dante notes two examples: one of recent times--indeed, in bothcases an acquaintance of his own, --and one taken from ancient history orlegend. Jason, for his desertion of Hypsipyle and Medea, is theclassical example of the first offence. Of this use of mythologicalpersons we have many examples, but the typical flatterer of old time isa more curious selection, being a character in a play, whom Dante hasborrowed from Cicero. 

In the next, or third pit (Canto xix. ), we again find fire as theinstrument with which the sinners are punished. Those who have mademoney by misuse of sacred offices are buried head downwards in holeswith their feet projecting, and fire plays about their soles. Naturallyan opportunity is here presented for some strong invective against therecent unworthy occupants of the See of Rome. 

Canto xx. Brings us to the fourth pit, in which those who have professedto foretell the future march in a dismal procession with their headsturned round so that they look down their own backs. The sight of Manto, daughter of Tiresias, suggests a description of the origin of the cityof Mantua. The last lines of this canto contain one of the mostimportant indications of time which Dante gives in this part of thepoem. 

The sinners of the fifth pit correspond in some degree with those of thethird, except that in their case the traffic which is punished has to dowith secular offices. Canto xxi. Opens with the famous description ofthe work in the arsenal of Venice, which is introduced in order toafford an image of the boiling pitch in which sinners of this class areimmersed. For some reason, which is not very clear, Dante devotes twowhole cantos to this subdivision of the subject. There is no doubt that_baratteria_, peculation or jobbery, was rampant throughout SouthernEurope at the time, and, as has been said, it was one of the chargesbrought against the poet himself at the time of his banishment. [29] Wefind here again one of “the torments of heat;” with one exception, thatof the evil counsellors in Canto xxv. , the last instance in which heatplays a part. It would be interesting, by comparison of the various sinsinto the punishment of which it enters, to see if any ground can besuggested for its employment in their case. 

Cantos xxi. And xxii. Are also noteworthy as bringing into prominencethe agency of devils, and showing them actually at work. Ten areintroduced and named; and some indication is given of theirorganisation. Dante’s skill is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in theway in which he has surmounted the difficulty of depicting beings inwhom there is no touch of any good quality. They are plausible; andtheir leader, Malacoda, appears at first sight almost friendly. It isnot until later that his apparent friendliness turns out to be adeliberate attempt to mislead. 

At the opening of Canto xxiii. We find the poets exactly half-waythrough Malebolge, on the rocky table-land, so to call it, whichseparates the fifth and sixth pits. They are quite solitary, for thefirst time in the course of their journey out of sight and hearing ofany other beings; but still in fear of pursuit from the fiends whom theyhave just left. These do not, however, come up until just as the poetshave begun the descent into the sixth pit, and here their power is at anend. 

In this pit are punished the hypocrites, who go in slow procession cladin cowls of gilded lead. Contrary to the usual practice the poets havein this case to descend to the bottom of the pit, the bridges being allbroken away. Malacoda, the leader of the fiends in the last _bolgia_, had mentioned one, but (falsely) assured them that they would find asound one further on. He also informed them that the destruction of thebridges had taken place 1266 years ago on the previous day, but fivehours later than the time of speaking. This gives an important“time-reference. ” There can be no doubt that the allusion is to therending 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 EasterEve fixed as the hour at which the poets meet with the devils of thefifth pit. Among the hypocrites Dante talks with two men who had jointlyheld the office of _Podestà_, or chief magistrate, at Florence in theyear after his birth. [30] They belonged to opposite parties, and thedouble appointment had been one of the many expedients devised torestore peace; but it had not answered, and the two were suspected ofhaving sunk their own differences of opinion, not to conciliate thefactions, but to enrich themselves at the expense of the State. Whiletalking to them Dante sees a figure fastened to the ground with threestakes, as though crucified. This, it is explained, is Caiaphas; Annasbeing similarly placed at another point of the circle. Dante and Virgilhave to leave this pit as they entered it, by climbing over the rocks(Canto xxiv. ); and from the minuteness with which this process isdescribed (even to so characteristic a touch as “I talked as I went, toshow that my wind was good, ”) it has been thought that Dante was notwithout experience in mountain-craft. 

The seventh pit is appointed for the punishment of thieves. Serpents anddragons are here introduced. In some cases the body is reduced to ashesin consequence of the bite, and presently recovers its shape; in othersman and serpent blend; in others, again, they exchange natures, thesinners themselves being transmuted into the reptiles, and becoming theinstruments of torment to their fellows. A kind of reckless and brutaljoviality seems to characterise the malefactors whom we meet with inthis region. Among them are many Florentines, a fact which prompts Danteto an apostrophe full of bitter irony, with which Canto xxvi. Opens. Inthe following pit a curious change of tone is manifest. The image chosento illustrate the scene is an agreeable one--fireflies flitting insummer about a mountain valley; and the punishment though terrible is inno way loathsome or degrading, like most of those which have hithertobeen described in the present circle. The sinners, too, who arementioned are men who on earth had played heroic parts; the manner oftheir speech is dignified, and Dante treats them with respect. They arethose who have sinned by giving wicked counsel to others, and soleading them to commit sin; and the two who are especially distinguishedand who relate their stories at length are Ulysses (Canto xxvi. ) andCount Guy of Montefeltro, a great Ghibeline leader (xxvii. ). The formerprobably owes his place here to Virgil’s epithet _scelerum inventor_, deviser of crimes. In a passage which has deservedly become famous, hegratifies 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 betraced, due entirely to the poet’s own invention. At all events, beyondtwo or three words in the _Odyssey_, nothing in either classical ormediæval legend is known which can have given the suggestion for it. Inthe case of the Count of Montefeltro, who is alleged to have giventreacherous counsel to Boniface VIII. , it also appears difficult tounderstand how the facts, if facts they are, became known to Dante. Villani no doubt gives the story, but in language so similar to that ofthe poem that a suspicion arises whether he may not be relying on it ashis authority. 

The next canto (xxviii. ) introduces us to one of Dante’s most ghastlyconceptions. The ninth pit is peopled by those who have on earth causedstrife and divisions among mankind. They are not, as often stated, schismatics in the technical sense of the word. Mahommed and Ali arethere, obviously not on religious grounds however, but as having broughtabout a great breach between divisions of the human race; and though FraDolcino, who is introduced as it were by anticipation, was a religiousschismatic, it was no doubt his social heterodoxy which earned him acommemoration in this place. The punishment of these sinners isappropriate. They are constantly being slashed to pieces by demons; thewounds being closed again before they complete the circuit. Curio, whoas Lucan narrates, spoke the words which finally decided Cæsar to enterupon civil war, Mosca de’ Lamberti, the instigator of the crime whichfirst imported especial bitterness into the strife of factions atFlorence, and one Peter of Medicina, who seems to have devoted himselfto keeping party-spirit alive in Romagna, are here. Last of all, carrying his own head like a lantern, is Bertrand of Born, the famoustroubadour, who is charged with having promoted the quarrel betweenHenry II. Of England and his son. It is worth noting that at this pointwe get the first definite indication of the dimensions which Danteassumes for the present division of Hell. We are told that this ninthpit of Malebolge has a circumference of twenty-two miles. From the nextcanto we learn that the last or innermost pit has half this measure; andfrom this basis it has been found possible to draw an accurate plan ofMalebolge, and to conjecture, with an approach to certainty, theconception formed by Dante of Hell generally. [31]

In the last pit (Cantos xxix. And xxx. ) are found those who have beenguilty of personation with criminal intent, or of bearing false witness, or of debasing the coinage or pretending to transmute metals. Thesesuffer from leprosy, dropsy, raving madness, and other diseases. Beforeleaving the pit, a quarrel between two of the sinners attracts Dante’sattention 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 heardthe sound of a great horn (Canto xxxi. ) Going forward, they find thatthe final descent, which appears to be a sheer drop of about thirty-fivefeet, is guarded by a ring of giants. Those of them who are seen areNimrod, and the classical Ephialtes and Antæus; but we learn that othersfamous in Greek mythology are there also. Antæus being addressed byVirgil in courteous words, lifts the poets down the wall and lands themon the lowest floor of Hell. This (Canto xxxii. ) is of ice, and must beconceived as a circular plain, perhaps about two miles in diameter. Inthis are punished all who have been guilty of any treachery towardsthose to whom they were bound by special ties of kindred, fellow-citizenship, friendship, or gratitude. Each of these variousgrades of crime has its own division, and these are arrangedconcentrically, with no very definite boundaries between the differentclasses. At the same time each division has its appropriate name, formedfrom some famous malefactor who had specially exemplified that class ofcrime. Thus the first ring is Caina; the second, Antenora, from Antenor, who, according to a late version of the Trojan legend, had betrayed Troyto the Greeks; the third, Toommea, from that Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who treacherously slew the Maccabees at a feast; the last, in whichLucifer himself abides, is Giudecca. No distinction appears to existbetween the penalties inflicted on the two first classes; all are alikeplunged up to the shoulders in the ice, the head being free. Dantespeaks with more than one, most of them persons who had belonged to theGhibeline party; though in the case of one, Bocca degli Abati, thetreachery had been committed to the detriment of the Guelfs. [32] Themention of Bocca and Dante’s behaviour to him, may remind us that thewhole question of Dante’s demeanour towards the persons whom he meets inthe 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 insome cases he displays anger and scorn, amounting as here to positivecruelty. The expressions of pity, it will be observed, practically ceasefrom the moment that Malebolge, the “nethermost Hell, ” is reached. Similarly, after reaching the City of Dis, the tone of Virgil towardsthe guardians of the damned, which up to that point has beenperemptory, becomes almost suppliant. The reason for this is indeedsomewhat obscure: one does not at once see why the formula “So it iswilled there, where will is power, ” should not be as good for the Furiesor for Malacoda as it has proved for Charon and Minos. Perhaps the clueis to be found in the fact that the sins punished _inside_ the walls ofthe city (sins which, it will be seen, are not represented in Purgatoryat all) are to be regarded as the result of a will obstinately setagainst the will of God; while the sins arising from the frailty ofhuman nature may be checked by the “right judgement” recalling, beforeit is too late, what the will of God is. This, however, is a differentquestion, and we must not here pursue it too far. To revert to that ofDante’s various demeanour, it will be seen that, with the limitationindicated above, his sympathy with the sinner does not vary with thecomparative heinousness of the sin. Almost his bitterest scorn, indeed, is directed towards some whose chief sin is lack of any positivequalities, good or bad. One infers that he would almost rather wander ina flame with Ulysses, or lie in the ice with Ugolino, than undergo themilder punishment of Celestine and his ignoble companions. For thesimply self-indulgent, Francesca or Ciacco, he has pity in abundance;Farinata, Brunetto, and the other famous men who share the fates ofthese, 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 nodesire to add “the wrath of man” thereto. In the one instance inMalebolge where he shows any sympathy (and is reproved by Virgil fordoing so) it is for the soothsayers, whose sin would not necessarilyinvolve the hurt of others. But his conduct is very different to thosewhose sin has been primarily against their fellow-man, or against kindlyhuman intercourse. His first fierce outbreak is against the swaggeringruffian Filippo Argenti, who seems to have been in Florentine societythe most notable example of a class now happily extinct in civilisedcountries, at all events among adults; a kind of bully, or “Mohock, ”fond of rough practical jokes, prompted, not by a misguided sense ofhumour, but by an irritable man’s delight in venting his spite. One cansympathise, even after six hundred years, in Dante’s pious satisfactionwhen he saw the man, of whom he may himself have once gone in bodilyfear, become in his turn the object of persecution. It is, however, after Malebolge is reached, and Dante is among the sinners who have bydishonest practices weakened the bond of confidence which should bindhuman 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. Hewas 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 sinnersthemselves have in many cases changed. Above Malebolge, at all eventstill the usurers are reached, a certain dignity of speech and action isthe rule. Now we find flippant expressions and vulgar gestures. Nothingis omitted which can give a notion, not merely of the sinfulness, but ofthe sordidness of dishonesty. Curiously enough, the one denizen of thisregion who is thoroughly dignified and even pathetic, is the paganUlysses; and to him Dante does not himself speak, leaving the paganVirgil to hold all communication with him. Besides Ulysses, Guy ofMontfeltro and Ugolino are presented in such a way as to enlist, insome degree, the sympathy of the reader; and it may further be notedthat in each case a representative of the family in the next generationis placed in Purgatory; as though Dante, while bound to condemn theelder men, had held the houses in such esteem that he wished to balancethe condemnation by assigning a better fate to their successors. 

The opening of Canto xxxiii. Brings us to the famous episode of CountUgolino, which shares with the earlier one of Francesca da Rimini thewidest renown of any passage in the whole poem. It is curious, by theway, that the structure of the two shows many marked parallelisms; onlythe tender pity which characterises Dante’s treatment of the former iswholly lacking in the latter. There is no need to dwell on so well-knowna story; but it may be noted that Ugolino, though a Guelf leader, andcondemned here no doubt for his intrigues with the Ghibeline ArchbishopRoger, came of a Ghibeline family, and thus forms only a partialexception to the rule stated above. The only genuine Guelf who is namedin 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 asubject about which much misconception has prevailed. It has often beensupposed that Dante was just a Ghibeline partisan, and distributed hischaracters in the next world according to political sympathies. Thetruth is, that under no circumstances, so far as we can see, does heassign to any one his place on political grounds--that is, merely forhaving belonged to one or other of the great parties which then dividedItaly. He himself, as we know, belonged to neither. His political idealwas a united world submitting to the general direction of the Emperor intemporal matters, of the Pope in spiritual. On the other hand, he wouldhave had national forms of government retained. Brought up as he hadbeen, the citizen and afterwards the official of a Guelf republic, thereis no reason to suppose that a republican form of government was in anyway distasteful to him, provided that it was honestly administered. Itwas not until the more powerful faction in the Guelf party called in theaid of an external power, unconnected with Italy, and hostile, or, as hewould doubtless hold, rebellious, to the Empire, that he, along with themore “constitutional” branch of the Guelfs, threw in his lot with thelong-banished Ghibelines. But neither then nor at any time did he belongto the Ghibeline party. So far from it, that he takes that party (in_Par. _, vi. 105) as the example of those who follow the imperialstandard in the wrong way, and make it a symbol of iniquity. Thegreatest 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 ofhis comrades it had merited, is condemned to share with a Pope and anEmperor the penalty of speculative heterodoxy. On the other hand, wefind Charles of Anjou, the foreign intruder, the bitter foe of theEmpire and pitiless exterminator of the imperial race, a man in whomlater historians, free from personal or patriotic bias, have seen hardlyany virtue to redeem the sombre cruelty of his career, placed, notindeed in Paradise, but in Purgatory, and waiting in sure and certainhope of ultimate salvation, as one who in spite of many faults had led apure and ascetic life in a profligate and self-indulgent age. It wouldbe interesting to know, if Dante had met Charles somewhat later, inwhich of the Purgatorial circles he would have placed him. He seems toevade the difficulty of classifying him by finding him where he does. 

It is necessary to insist rather strongly on this point, since even soaccomplished a scholar as the late Professor Bartoli, when dealing withDante’s reference to the Emperor Henry VII. (in _Par. _, xxx. 133, sqq. ), forgets that all the saints in Paradise have their allotted seat in theRose of the highest heaven, and speaks as though Dante had honouredHenry above all but the greatest saints and foretold his “direct flightfrom 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 anEmperor who was doing his duty, and would earn his reward like any otherChristian and before Dante himself. It will be observed that he sees noother Emperor in Paradise, save Charlemagne; one, Rudolf of Hapsburg, isin, 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 undergrievous suspicion of heterodoxy, and moreover only occupied the PapalSee 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 aman who, as a Frenchman by birth, and a strong partisan of Charles ofAnjou, might be supposed to have been specially obnoxious to Dante. Nodoubt Popes appear in what may seem an unfair proportion among theguilty souls below; but even for this distribution Dante could probablyhave pleaded orthodox authority and certainly scriptural support. “Towhom much is given, of the same shall much be required. ” It is true, asProfessor Bartoli points out, that Dante’s “reverence for the supremekeys” was compatible with a very low estimate of their holders; but isnot this exactly what we should expect from a man of high ideals andintolerant of failure in proportion to the dignity of the aim? Histreatment of Pope Celestine, the one Pope of his time from whom, _primafacie_, something other than political partisanship might have beenhoped, and who having put his hand to the plough had looked back, issufficient to indicate his attitude in this matter. 

Once realise that Dante was, like our own Milton, a man with a keensense of what ought to be, and an equally keen appreciation of the factthat things in his time were by no means as they ought to be, that hewas fallen on evil days and evil tongues--an appreciation whichdoubtless most great souls, short of the few greatest, have had at mostperiods of the world’s history--and you have the key to much that noordinary theory of party-spirit will explain. Men of this temper carelittle for the party cries of everyday politics; and yet they cannotquite sit outside the world of affairs and watch the players, as we mayimagine Shakespeare to have done, in calm consciousness that the shapingof our rough-hewn ends was in other hands than ours. No great historianof Shakespeare’s time devoted a whole chapter to his memory, as didVillani to that of Dante; yet we can hardly doubt that in the educationof the world Shakespeare has borne the more important share, and Dante, with his deep conviction of the higher dignity of the “contemplativelife, ” would be the first to own it. 

The third subdivision, known as Tolommea, has, as one of its inmatessays, the “privilege” of receiving the souls of sinners while theirbodies are yet alive on earth, animated by demons. With this horribleconception we seem to have reached the highest mark of Dante’s inventivepower. Only two names are mentioned, but one feels that if the owners ofthem ever came across the poem in which they had earned so sinister acommemoration, their sentiment towards the poet would hardly be one ofgratitude. [33] These are the last of his contemporaries whom Dantebrands, the last, indeed, whom he recognises. In Giudecca (Canto xxxiv. )the sinners are wholly sunk below the ice, and only show through likestraws or other small impurities in glass. An exception is made in thecase of the three persons whom Dante regards as having carried the sinof ingratitude to its highest point. Lucifer, who, as has been said, isfixed at the lowest point, has three faces. In the mouth of the centralone he for ever gnaws Judas Iscariot, while in the others are Brutus andCassius. 

The journey to the upper world is begun by a climb down the shaggy sidesof the Archfiend himself. On reaching his middle, which is also thecentre of the earth, the position is reversed, and the ascent begins. For a short distance they climb up by Lucifer’s legs, then through achimney in the rock; lastly, it would appear, following the course of astream which winds spirally down through the earth, they reach thesurface, and again come in sight of the stars. 

§ 2. PURGATORY. 

After the invocation to the Muses, a curious survival of classicalimagery with which in one form or another each division of the poembegins, Dante relates how, on emerging from the lower world, as EasterDay was dawning the poets found themselves on an island with the firstgleam of day just visible on the distant sea. Venus is shining in theeastern heaven; and four stars, “never seen save by the earliest ofmankind, ” are visible to the south. No doubt some tradition or report ofthe Southern Cross had reached men’s ears in Europe; but the symbolicalmeaning is more important, and there can be no doubt that the starsdenote the four “cardinal” or natural or active virtues of fortitude, temperance, justice, and prudence. In the evening, as we shall see lateron, their place is taken by three other stars, which symbolise thetheological or Christian or contemplative virtues--faith, hope, charity. 

On turning again Dante sees close at hand an old man of venerablecountenance, who questions them by what right they had come. Virgilrecognises him for Cato of Utica, the Roman Republican patriot. Hisposition here, as warder of the mount of purification, is very curious, and has never been thoroughly explained. Among other things it isprobable that Dante was influenced by the Virgilian line in which Catois introduced as the lawgiver of good men in the after-world. Beingsatisfied with the explanation given, Cato directs them to the shore, where Virgil is to wash the grime of Hell from Dante’s face, and girdhim with a rush, as an emblem of humility. When this has been done andas the sun is rising (Canto ii. ) a light is seen approaching over thewater. As it draws near, it is seen to be an angel. His wings form thesails to a boat which comes to the shore, freighted with more than ahundred souls on their way to Purgatory. They are chanting the EasterPsalm _In exitu Israel_; at the sign of the cross made by the angel theycome ashore, and begin by inquiring the way of Virgil. While he isexplaining that he is no less strange to the country than they are, someof them perceive that Dante is a living man, and all crowd around him. Among them he recognises a friend, the musician Casella, who, after someaffectionate words have passed between them, begins at Dante’s requestto sing one of the poet’s own odes; and the crowd listen intently. ButCato comes up, and bidding them delay no longer, drives them like aflock of frightened pigeons towards the mountain. 

Even Virgil is somewhat abashed on account of his participation in thedelay (Canto iii. ); but soon recovers his equanimity, and resumes hisusual dignified pace. Dante for the first time observes that hiscompanion casts no shadow on the ground, and Virgil explaining that thespiritual form, while capable of feeling pain, has not the property ofintercepting light, takes occasion to point out that there are mysteriesfor which the human reason is unable to account, and that this veryinability forms the chief unhappiness of the great thinkers whom theysaw among the virtuous heathen on the border of Hell. With this theyreach 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 theapproach of Satan when he fell from Heaven. Some of its features are nodoubt borrowed from the legendary accounts which Pliny and others havepreserved of a great mountain seen by navigators to the west of theStraits of Gibraltar; these accounts being probably based on imperfectdescriptions of Atlas or Teneriffe, or both confused together. Itssummit is exactly at the Antipodes of Jerusalem, a point which must becarefully borne in mind if the various astronomical indications of timegiven in the course of the journey are to be rightly understood. 

The mountain-side, which Dante compares to the steepest and most ruggedparts of the Genoese Riviera, appears at first, quite inaccessible; butbefore long they meet a company of spirits, who, after recovering fromtheir first astonishment at seeing from Dante’s shadow that he is notone of themselves, indicate to them the point at which the cliff may beattacked. Before they proceed further, one of the shades addressingDante makes himself known as Manfred, son to the Emperor Frederick II. , and gives an account of his end, explaining that excommunication--for hehad died under the ban of the Church--is powerless to do more thanprotract the interval between the soul’s admission to Purgatory. Afterthis (Canto iv. ) they enter a steep and narrow cleft in the rock, fromwhich they emerge upon a ledge on the mountain face, and a further climbup this lands them about noon on a broader terrace. Hitherto they havebeen mounting from the eastward, and on looking back in that direction, Dante is surprised to find the sun on his left hand. Virgil explains thetopography; and is saying, in order to encourage Dante, that the labourof climbing will diminish as they get higher, when a bantering voiceinterrupts with the assurance that he will need plenty of sitting yet. The poet recognises in the speaker a Florentine friend. Another playfulsarcasm on his thirst for information makes Dante address the shade andinquire as to his state. He, like Manfred, is debarred from enteringPurgatory, but on the ground that he had led an easy life, and taken nothought of serious matters till his end drew near. In the followingcantos (v. And vi. ) we meet with many spirits who are from variouscauses in a similar position. First come those who have been cut off inthe midst of their sins, but have sought for mercy at the last. The mostnoteworthy of these is Buonconte of Montefeltro, son of that Count Guywhom we met in the eighth pit of Malebolge. He was slain fightingagainst the Florentines at the battle of Campaldino (1289), in whichDante himself may possibly have borne arms. [34] Four lines at the end ofthis canto are among the most famous in the poem. In a few words theycommemorate one of the domestic tragedies which were only too familiarin mediæval Italy. Passing through the crowd, they fall in, as eveningis drawing on, with a solitary shade, who replies to Virgil’s inquiryfor the best road by asking whence they come. At the answer, “Mantua, ”the shade springs up, and reveals himself as the famous warrior-poet ofthat city, Sordello. The affectionate greeting which follows betweenthe fellow-citizens moves Dante to a splendid denunciation of theinternecine quarrels then raging throughout Italy, and of the neglect onthe part of the divinely ordained monarch, the Roman Emperor, which hasallowed matters to come to such a pass. Lastly he directs his invectiveespecially against his own city, Florence, and in words of bittersarcasm upbraids her with the perpetual revolutions which hinder allgood government. 

Sordello is an example of those whom constant occupation in affairs ofstate had caused to defer any thought for spiritual things, and who areexpiating the delay in the region outside the proper entrance toPurgatory. In Canto vii. , after explaining that they will not be able tostir a step after sunset (“the night cometh when no man can work”), heleads the poets to a spot where they may pass the night. This is aflowery dell on the hillside, occupied by the spirits of those who inlife had been sovereign princes and rulers. There they see the EmperorRudolf and his adversary, Ottocar of Bohemia; Charles of Anjou, King ofNaples and Sicily, Philip III. Of France, Peter III. Of Aragon, HenryIII. Of England, and many other famous men of the last generation. Sordello, in pointing them out, takes occasion to enlarge on thedegeneracy of their sons, making a special exception in favour ofEdward, son of Henry. 

The sun sets (Canto viii. ) and the shades join in the Compline hymn. Atits conclusion, two angels clad in green robes descend, and take uptheir position on either side of the little valley. Dante, with hiscompanions, goes down to join the “mighty shades, ” and is met by onewhom he at once recognises as an old friend, the Pisan noble Giovanni, or Nino de’ Visconti, “judge” or governor of the Sardinian provincecalled Gallura, nephew of Count Ugolino. After some talk Dante noticesthe three stars spoken of above, and at the same moment Sordello drawsVirgil’s attention to an “adversary. ” They see a serpent making its waythrough the grass; and immediately the angels start in pursuit, puttingit to flight. After this episode another shade announces himself asConrad Malaspina, of the house with whom Dante was to find shelterduring a part of his exile. 

The night wears on, and Dante falls asleep (Canto ix. ). He dreams thathe is being carried by an eagle up to the empyrean heaven. On awakinghe finds that the sun has risen some time, and learns from Virgil thatat daybreak St. Lucy (who has already come under notice as taking aninterest in his welfare) had appeared and borne him to the place wherethey now are, in front of the gate of Purgatory. This is approached bythree steps of variously-coloured stone. The first is white marble, thesecond a dark and rough rock, the third blood-red porphyry, indicatingprobably the three stages of the soul’s progress to freedom throughconfession, contrition, and penance. On the topmost step sits an angel, who having marked seven P’s (_peccata_ sins) on Dante’s forehead, admitsthem within the gate. 

Thus far, except in the passage, Canto viii. 19 sqq. , to which Dantehimself draws the reader’s attention, the allegorical interpretation hasnot afforded any very great difficulty. With this particular passagereaders will do well to compare _Inf. _, ix. 37 sqq. , where a verysimilar indication is given of an underlying allegory, and draw theirown conclusions. But on the whole, the main interest of the first ninecantos of the _Purgatory_ is more of a personal nature. Sordello alonemay give an excuse for a good deal of historical research. For example, no one has yet explained Dante’s reasons for so distinguishing a personwho, from all the records that we have, does not seem to have made anygreat figure in the eyes of his contemporaries. 

It will hardly be necessary to follow Dante step by step through thestages of the mountain of purification. We shall probably do best toconsider the general plan on which Purgatory is arranged, the nature ofthe various penances, with their adaptation to the offences which theyexpiate, and the light thrown in this division of the poem on Dante’sopinions about the elements of political and moral science. 

We find, then, seven cornices, or ledges, on the mountain, connectedwith each other by stairways cut in the rock. Each stairway is guardedby an angel, and each, as it would appear, is shorter and less steepthan the previous one. Thus the passage from the first to the secondcircle takes a considerable time, enough at all events to allow of someconversation between Dante and Virgil between the moment of theirpassing 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 seventhcircle to the level of the Earthly Paradise which occupies the summit, afew steps are sufficient to bring them to their halting-place, which, asappears afterwards, is practically on the summit level. Each angel, asDante passes, erases from his forehead one of the P’s which the warderof the first gate had inscribed there, and utters one of the ScripturalBeatitudes appropriate to the circle which they are quitting. Thus, “Blessed are the peacemakers” accompanies their departure from thecircle of the wrathful; “Blessed are they that hunger afterrighteousness” is heard as they leave that where gluttony is expiated. 

The ritual, so to speak, is very precise throughout. Besides theBeatitudes, which are recited by the angel-guards, and in some cases itwould seem repeated by a chorus of voices, we find in each circlecommemoration variously contrived of notable instances, both of the sinspunished and of their “contrary virtues. ” These are perhaps worth goingthrough in detail. In the circle of Pride, where it is necessary to goin a stooping posture, the pavement is engraved with representations ofhumility. The first is the Annunciation, (and here it should be notedthat in every group an event from the life of the Virgin holds the firstplace); next comes David dancing before the Ark; and lastly, Trajanyielding to the widow’s prayer that he would perform an act of justicebefore setting out with the pomp of a military expedition. Further on inthe same circle are found examples of the punishment of pride, takenalternately from Scripture and from classical mythology. The next circleis 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 flyingthrough the air. Yet another method is adopted in the third circle, where the Angry are punished by means of a dense smoke. Here thepictures are conveyed to Dante’s mind by a kind of trance or vision, inwhich he sees the various scenes. We must suppose that the spirits passthrough some similar experience. In the fourth circle, the examples ofactivity and warnings against Sloth are delivered by the soulsthemselves. As it is night while Dante is in this circle, he is himselfunable to move; but the discipline being to run at speed, the souls passhim in their course. The fifth circle, of the Avaricious and Prodigal, follows much the same rule as the fourth, except that here the instancesof virtue are recited in the day, those of sin at night, so that Dantedoes not actually hear the latter. In this case the souls lie prostrate. The Gluttonous, in the sixth circle, are punished by having to passunder trees laden with fruit, which they cannot reach; and the examplesand warnings are conveyed by voices among the branches of these trees. The seventh circle follows the fashion of the fourth, except that thesouls (who are punished by fire for having in life failed to hold in duerestraint the flames of passion) seem to address the warningreminiscences to each other as they meet in the circuit. An instance ofthe system on which the examples are introduced has been given from thefirst circle. Perhaps that for the sixth is even more typical. On firstentering this they come to a tree, among the branches of which a voiceis 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, andthe abstemiousness of Daniel and the Baptist. Then, after passingthrough a portion of the circle, and holding converse with its inmates, they reach another tree, from which a second voice comes to them biddingthem remember the trouble that came from the drunkenness of the Centaurat the wedding of Pirithous, and the rejection by Gideon of the men whohad drunk immoderately. This coupling of a classical and Scripturalinstance is quite invariable. 

To pass on to the subject of the light thrown upon Dante’s speculativeviews in the _Purgatory_. It is not too much to say that from that pointof view it is the most important division of the whole poem. This, perhaps, follows naturally from its subject. The Purgatorial existencebears more affinity to the life of this world than does that of thosewho have reached their eternal abode; and human affections and humaninterests still have much of their old power. This, then, wouldnaturally be the division in which questions arising from the conditionsof 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, sofar as was necessary to explain his attitude towards breaches of themoral law and their punishment. In the _Purgatory_ he goes more deeplyinto the question, and expounds in Cantos xvi. , xvii. , and xviii. , atheory with regard to the origin of morals and knowledge. According tothis the soul when created is a _tabula rasa_, but having certaincapacities inherent in it in consequence of the nature of its Creator. The Creator being absolutely veracious, the information imparted by thesenses is infallible. Further, the Creator being absolutely happy, thesoul naturally seeks happiness, and is said to love that in which itexpects to find happiness. So far there is no room for error. Where itcan come in is in the inferences which the mind draws from theinformation which the senses give, and in either its choice of an objectto love, or the vigour with which it pursues that object. It must befurther noted that the soul is endowed at the outset with a knowledgeof good and evil, _i. E. _ conscience, and with free-will; though thislatter has to struggle with the conditions which the influence of theheavenly bodies imposes on the individual. With due culture, however, itcan ultimately prevail over these; but it must also be aided in itsstruggle by the check of law and the guidance which should be affordedby spiritual pastors. In order that these may have their full effect, itis desirable that the secular and spiritual authorities should be indifferent hands: and thus we are brought to the same conclusions as inthe 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, followingAristotle) the end for each individual is that which he desires andloves. 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 beevil; in which case evil becomes the object of the love, or the love isturned to hatred. Now, no created being can hate its Creator, nor canany man hate himself; therefore the sins arising from this cause must besins against fellow-men. These, so far as Purgatory is concerned, arepride, envy, anger, which, when carried into action, become the sinsthat are punished within the City of Dis, though in Purgatory they wouldappear 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 havethe sin of sloth, or, as our forefathers called it, “accidie. ” Thisoccupies a somewhat anomalous position. Those who have allowed it togrow to moodiness and given way to it past hope of repentance, lie inHell at the bottom of the Stygian marsh, and nothing is seen of them butthe bubbles which are formed by their sighs; while the wrathful orill-tempered lie in the same marsh, but appear above the water. Bothsins alike render the man full of hatred for his fellows, and make himinsensible to the joy of life. In Purgatory, on the other hand, theanger 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 asrunning at great speed, and proclaiming instances of conspicuousalertness. For our present purpose, then, it must be regarded as merelyslothfulness or indolence. 

Finally, we have the cases in which the object is natural, or evenlaudable. A fair share of this world’s goods, our daily food, the lovebetween man and woman, all these are objects to which the desires maylawfully be directed, so long as they are duly restrained. When, however, they become the main aim, they are sinful, and lead to the sinsfor which the discipline of the three upper cornices is required; themost severe of all that is undergone in Purgatory. Yet these are thesins which in Hell “incur less blame, ” as being sins involving ratherthe animal than the spiritual part of man. But there is not space hereto discuss this aspect of the subject. Readers will find much interestin 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 anintroduction to Dante’s ethics and psychology; and is remarkable both inits agreement with Aristotle and its divergence from him. The occasionfor it is found in a question raised by Dante, and suggested to him bythe appearance of the shades in the circle which they have just left:namely, how beings who have no need to go through the ordinary processof nutrition, can feel the desire for food (as Forese has explained thatthey do) and grow lean through the deprivation of it. In order to solvethis difficulty, Statius sketches briefly the stages of the developmentof the human being, from his first conception until he has anindependent existence, showing how the embryo progresses first tovegetative then to animal life, and how finally, when the brain iscomplete (this being the last stage in the organisation), the “FirstMover” breathes the human soul into the frame. The soul, having thus anindependent existence, when the frame decays sets itself loosetherefrom, taking with it the senses and passions, as well as the mentalfaculties of memory, understanding, and will. The latter are still infull activity, but the former have only a potential existence until suchtime as the soul has found its place in the other world. Then it takesto itself a bodily shape, formed out of the surrounding air (as a flameis formed by the fire), and equips it with organs of sense; andthenceforward this shape is adapted to express all the natural emotionsand desires, including of course those of hunger and thirst. Thisremarkable exposition is based on Aristotle’s theory of the generationof the body, and the introduction into it of the soul; but there is animportant difference. The Greek philosopher, though his language is notvery explicit, has apparently no idea of any survival of the personalidentity after death. At all events, so he was interpreted by Averroesand later by Aquinas. With him the source of all movement is the father, from whom only (though here again Aristotle is not quite clear) comesthe gift of a soul. Dante, on the contrary, refers these back to thePrime Mover, namely God, and conceives a special creative act asperformed on behalf of every human being that is brought into the world. As will be easily seen, this conception is the necessary complement toDante’s system of ethics, based on individual free-will, and postulatinga newly-created soul, fresh from the Maker’s hand; a _tabula rasa_, withno attributes save the natural propension towards that which gives itpleasure. 

We may now pass to the six cantos which conclude this division of thepoem, and form a most important stage in the development of the wholeplan. Dante has now proceeded as far as human reason, typified byVirgil, is able to guide him. He is on the threshold of Heaven; butbefore he can be admitted among the blessed, another conductor must beprovided, 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 maysay for shortness, theology, not in the sense of a formal science, butin one approaching more nearly to what Aristotle calls _Theoria_, orcontemplation. From certain expressions in the earliest cantos of thepoem, it is clear that Dante looked upon the woman whom in his youth hehad loved, and who had, at the supposed date of these events, been tenyears dead, as symbolising this _Theoria_, and as being in some specialway entrusted with the task of saving him from spiritual ruin. Sheaccordingly appears, and takes up the duties which Virgil issurrendering. The manner of her appearance must be noticed--showing asit does the almost inextricable web in which Dante combines fact andallegory. That the “Beatrice” who is introduced is primarily none otherthan an actual woman of flesh and blood, whom hundreds of then livingpeople had known, who had gone about Florence for twenty-four years andmarried a prominent citizen, and whom Dante had loved with the romanticpassion of the Middle Ages, only the misplaced ingenuity of paradoxicalcritics can doubt. [35] Yet at her entry she is escorted by a procession, the members of which represent the books of the Bible, the sevenvirtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; while the car on which she isborne (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 theTrinity. If it be objected that the salvation of Dante is a small matterabout which to set in motion so stupendous a machinery, we may answerthat, in the first place, his own salvation does not seem unimportant tothe man himself; and further, which is of more weight, that Dantehimself is here no less symbolical than Beatrice, or Virgil, or themystic Gryphon. He is the typical human soul; his experiences, hisstruggles, his efforts to shake himself free of the trammels of theworld and the flesh, are familiar features in the spiritual history ofthe great majority of Christians. Thus the wonderful pageant describedin this canto must be regarded as being displayed, not to him only, butto all Christendom in his person. 

A few words with regard to this pageant may afford a little help to itscomprehension. After the arrival of Beatrice, a scene follows in whichshe upbraids Dante for his forgetfulness of her, and receives an avowalof his fault. He is then bathed in the stream of Lethe--another curiousemployment of pagan mythology--and brought back to the presence ofBeatrice. Hitherto she has been veiled; but now, at the special entreatyof her attendant nymphs (those nymphs who are also the four stars inheaven, and denote the cardinal virtues), she withdraws the veil, anddiscloses again the smile for which her “faithful one” had yearnedduring ten years. 

Soon, however, his attention is called away to new and strange sights. The procession, of which Dante and his remaining companion Statius nowform part, moves forward through the wood of the Earthly Paradise; thecar is attached to a tree, identified with the “tree of knowledge, ”which since Adam’s disobedience has been leafless and fruitless. Afterthis Dante falls into a short sleep, and on waking finds that Beatricewith her attendants is alone left, as a guardian to the car. Then followa series of strange transformations, the general plan of which isclearly suggested by the Apocalypse; but their interpretation is to besought in the relations of the Church to the Empire, down to the time ofthe “Babylonish captivity, ” or transference of the Papal See to Avignon. This is symbolised by the departure of the car, drawn this time by agiant (Philip the Fair of France), and occupied no longer by Beatrice, but by a harlot, to denote (again with allusion to the Apocalypse) thecorrupt rule under which the Church had fallen. 

In the final scene of all, Beatrice, in phrases hardly less obscure thanthe vision itself, indicates to Dante the lesson which he is to learnfrom it, and repeats in another form Virgil’s prediction of a championwho is to come and set the world to rights. Much has been written aboutthe first of these, the _Veltro_; hardly less about the “five hundred, ten, and five, ” or DXV. The usual interpretation takes these letters asintended merely to suggest _Dux_, a leader; but this seems a littleweak. Elsewhere I have given reasons for thinking that Dante had aspecial motive for wrapping up his meaning in this numerical form. 

Lastly, in a passage which, though ostensibly only one of Dante’s usualtime-indications, seems intended to suggest repose after the laboursthrough which he has brought his readers, and the agitation of the lastcanto, 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 voluminousinterpretations which have been offered of the very difficult andperplexing mysticism of these cantos. Some points are perhaps plainer tothe student who considers them with a fair knowledge of the Bible andhistory, than to the commentator who wishes to establish a new andoriginal theory. But they are so important (particularly Cantos xxx. Andxxxi. ) to any one who wishes to understand Dante’s whole position asman, poet, scholar, and politician, that they should not be passed overas mere futile mediæval fancies. It should be said, too, that theycontain some passages which will never be out of date until the poetictaste of mankind has altogether changed. 

§ 3. PARADISE. 

The first point which will strike the reader on entering upon the thirddivision of the poem is the sudden change in the conditions under whichthe action is carried on. Hitherto Dante has been moving on solid earth, subject to the usual limitations which are enforced by physical lawsupon all human action. Henceforth, as he tells us (_Par. _, xxx. 123), God operates directly, and physical laws have no longer any place. “Itis Beatrice, ” he elsewhere says, “who leads on so swiftly from one stageof blessedness to a higher;” and we shall notice that the transferencefrom 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. Accordingto the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, as adapted to the requirements ofmediæval belief, the earth was at the centre, and concentric with itwere ten hollow spheres. In the first eight of these were placedconsecutively the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. In order to explain the irregular movements of theplanets, “epicycles” or smaller spheres borne by the principal spheres, and bearing the planets, were devised, but these need not be consideredhere. Outside of the fixed stars came the _primum mobile_, which gavethe diurnal revolution of the heavens, and beyond this the Empyrean, orfixed heaven, in which was the special abode of God, and in which allthe blessed had their places. Between the earth and the innermostsphere, that of the Moon, lie the regions of water, air, and fire. TheMountain of Purgatory, on the summit of which Dante at the conclusion ofthe second _Cantica_ was standing, lifts its head as far as the third ofthese. Through this accordingly, Beatrice and Dante have to rise inorder to reach the first step in the celestial ascent. It must be notedthat there is no reason to suppose that in every case the actual planetis visited. The “heaven” of the planet embraces the whole “sphere” inwhich it is set, and its characteristics may be conceived as extendingto the whole of that sphere. 

The fact of rising without apparent motive force through a mediumlighter than his own body, at once forms a subject for enquiry onDante’s part; and Beatrice, as she has frequently to do in the course oftheir journey, resolves his doubt. Those who are reading the poem forthe first time will probably pass lightly over these difficultmetaphysical passages. They must be read sooner or later by any one whowishes thoroughly to understand Dante’s place in the history ofspeculative thought; but in the first instance it will probably bebetter to “take them as read” and endeavour to get a clear notion of thegeneral arrangement. There are obvious reasons why this portion of thepoem 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 adetailed picture; and terms indicative of simple brightness are limited. Nor, again, is it easy where all are perfect to depict individualcharacter. Consequently two great elements of interest in the first twoparts of the poem are far less available here; and their place must befilled by other matter. What this matter should be is suggested by thenatural division of speculative science into Ethics, or the study ofman’s conduct as a moral being; Politics, or the science relating to hisbehaviour in regard to the social order; and Metaphysics, which forDante is synonymous with theology, the investigation of all thatconcerns his spiritual part, as well as the Divine order generally. Withthe first two we have dealt in the _Hell_ and the _Purgatory_respectively; the third is reserved for the _Paradise_. Once or twiceindeed Dante touches on matters that would seem more fitly to belong tothe others; as, for instance, the magnificent passage in Canto vi. , where Justinian, after sketching the triumphant course of the RomanEagle, inveighs against the party feuds of the time; or Carlo Martello’sreference to the Sicilian Vespers, and the misdeeds of his brotherRobert. But of these the first leads up to an elaborate exposition ofthe scheme of Redemption, the second seems intended directly tointroduce a dissertation on matters lying at the very root of humannature. 

To the same difficulty in varying the methods (to use a phrase ofGinguéné’s) must be attributed the occurrence of a good manyconceptions which to our taste appear somewhat grotesque. Yet the betterwe know the poem the more we shall feel that in this third part theauthor’s genius rises to its sublimest efforts, and agree with the lateDean of St. Paul’s, that it is the true _pierre de touche_ of thestudent of Dante. 

To go briefly through the various stages. The heaven of the Moon is thatin which appear the spirits of those who having taken vows have undercompulsion or persuasion abandoned them; Mercury contains statesmen andmen of affairs; Venus those who have been over-much swayed by indulgencein earthly love. It must be observed that, according to the astronomy ofthe time, the shadow of the Earth, cast into space by the Sun, extendedas far as the orbit of Venus. The spirits in these three spherestherefore form a group by themselves: being distinguished by the factthat they had allowed earthly cares and pleasures to obtain too stronghold of them, to the injury of their spiritual development. In thesethree spheres respectively the representative speakers are PiccardaDonati, sister of Dante’s friend Forese, and of Corso, the leader ofthe “Black Guelfs;” the Emperor Justinian; and Carlo Martello, thetitular king of Hungary, son of Charles II. , king of Naples, who isfollowed by Cunizza, sister of the Ghibeline chief, Ezzelino da Romano, and Folco of Marseilles, who began as a troubadour and became bishop ofhis native city. 

Although in one sense the inhabitants of the three lower spheres may besaid to have attained a less perfect blessedness than those to whom therest of heaven is assigned, it must not be supposed that they areconscious of any lack. All have their places in the highest or Empyreanheaven, and all sense of sorrow for past imperfections is at an end. Wemust indeed suppose that, as with Dante himself, the imperfections havebeen effaced by the discipline of Purgatory, and their remembrancewashed away by the water of Lethe. 

With the sphere of the Sun, however, we arrive for the first time in thepresence of those who have lived so as to earn the full honour ofsanctity, and find ourselves amongst canonised saints. Even here Dantehas shown himself, as usual, independent of conventional or officialrestrictions. In his introduction of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura he merely anticipates the formal decision of the Church; butin “Peter of Spain, ” that is Pope John XXI. (the only historical Popewhom he places in Paradise), he selects for special honour a man who wasby no means free from grave suspicion of heresy, and who has never beencanonised. As Dante never did anything without a reason we must supposethat some now forgotten merit earned for the Spanish logician a placebeside Nathan, Chrysostom, and Anselm. It is by these and such men asthese, great teachers and thinkers, that the heaven of the Sun isoccupied; the reason no doubt being that as the Sun is the source oflight and the promoter of growth in the physical world, so are these inthe spiritual. 

The tenth canto is specially notable as bringing Dante into the presenceof the greatest exponent of the Scholastic philosophy, and the masterwhom he followed more closely than any other, St. Thomas Aquinas. In theeleventh, the illustrious Dominican recounts the life of St. Francis ofAssisi, the founder of the rival order. This is one of the most notablepassages in the whole poem, rising as it does to a sustainedmagnificence of diction which especially characterises those portions ofthe _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 thepoem; and it is to them that students who wish to feel the attractionwhich 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, oneof the two regions of Heaven in which Dante makes the longest stay, theother being that of the Fixed Stars. The passage to it marks a distinctstage in his progress. Looking back to the end of Canto ix. We see thatit forms a kind of peroration; while the first twenty-seven lines ofCanto x. Are, as it were, the introduction to a fresh division of thepoem, and recall certain phrases which occurred in the opening canto. Itis difficult to say why these two spheres should be made of so much moreimportance than the rest. Mars is the only one which approaches them;but this is selected by Dante as the scene of his interview with hisancestor Cacciaguida, which gives the occasion for the magnificentcontrast between the old days of Florence and its present state, and theprophecy of his own exile; subjects which might well occupy aconsiderable 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 somighty a paladin, ” responds to it, fine as they are, do not appearindispensable 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 obvioussymmetry than is to be found in the two former _Cantiche_. No doubt theplan is there; but just as “time-indications” for the most part fail us, or can be extracted only by elaborate and somewhat uncertaincalculations, so it would seem as if the poet, no longer hampered by thenecessities of time and space, had wished to show how he could work withno self-made restrictions. 

After his discourse in praise of the founder of the rival order, immediately followed by its counterpart--an eloquent summary of thecareer of St. Dominic, put into the mouth of the FranciscanBonaventura--St. Thomas speaks again (Canto xiii. ), in order to explainan apparent over-estimate of Solomon’s greatness among mankind which anexpression used by him in naming the spirits present with him might haveseemed 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 ismade the introduction to some profound teaching in reference to theworkings of the human mind--teaching which is at least as needful in thepresent day as it ever was in Dante’s own time. Solomon himself thenspeaks, answering a question put by Beatrice on Dante’s behalf as to thenature of the glorified body; and then Dante, having looked upon thecountenance of Beatrice, and being by this means (as in every othercase) raised “to a higher salvation, ” finds by the ruddy light whichsurrounds 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 somespecial image displayed. In the case of Mars, it is a vast crucifix, composed of spirits, who are darting in all directions within thefigure, like motes in a sunbeam. One of them glides from the arm to thefoot of the cross, and makes himself known to Dante as hisgreat-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, probably (though this is notcertain) of the family of the Elisei. [36] He had been, like all theother spirits, as it would seem, of this sphere, a soldier, and had diedin battle as a Crusader. The latter half of this, the fifteenth canto, together with the two following, form what is probably the best-knownand most frequently quoted portion of the _Paradise_. First we have abeautiful picture of the simple and kindly life of old Florence, beforeparty-spirit and luxury had entered and corrupted its citizens. Thepicture is, of course, one of those which people in every age have drawnof earlier times, supposed to have been free from the corruptions whicheach man’s experience teaches him are rife in his own day; but none theless it is of value as showing Dante’s ideal of social life. 

The next canto continues to deal with the same topic; but enters moreinto detail with regard to the various families, and the vicissitudesin their fortunes. This leads up to the existing strife of parties, andthis again naturally to Dante’s own share in it, and his exile. It mustbe remembered that this did not actually come about till two years afterthe date at which the action of the _Commedia_ is supposed to takeplace; so that the whole is cast into a prophetic form. The languageused, however, must be taken as expressing the feeling with which Dantelooked back after an interval of nearly twenty years--for the _Paradise_was probably completed very shortly before the poet’s death--upon theevents in which he had borne a somewhat prominent part. Whether he wasever a personage of the first importance in Florence we may be allowedto doubt. No doubt he was a man of some consideration; but still theoffice of Prior was one which nearly every eligible citizen must haveheld;[37] and Villani, who devotes a chapter to his memory, does notmention his name among the political leaders of an earlier period. Probably he occupied among the exiles of 1302 a far less important placein their own eyes and those of contemporaries than he does in ours; butif not a leader, he was in the front rank, and must have been aware ofall that went on. The passages relating to his exile, to theworthlessness of his companions, to his gratitude towards those whohelped him, gain immensely in force and pathos if we regard them as anaging man’s reminiscences of a long by-gone time. 

With the passage to the sphere of Jupiter (Canto xviii. ) the imagerybecomes yet more daring. This is the region specially devoted to thespirits 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 afurther transformation takes place; the letter is gradually modifiedinto the shape of the imperial eagle. Righteousness, or justice, is, itshould be remembered, in Dante’s view (as indeed in that of mostmoralists) the source and foundation of all that goes to establish humansociety on a virtuous and duly ordered basis. Thus it is rightlyillustrated by the symbol of the Empire. The Eagle behaves as one singleindividual, though composed of countless spirits; speaking with asingle voice, and in the singular number. A discourse on justice leadsup to a sharp rebuke of nearly every prince then ruling, on the score ofmisgovernment in one or another form. 

After this the Eagle proceeds to indicate whose are the spirits whichcompose its eye. These with one exception are all great sovereigns ofancient and recent times. The exception is remarkable. In Hell we foundseveral cases in which mythological or fictitious personages weretreated on a footing of absolute equality with those who had a perfecthistorical claim to the distinction; but the appearance in the ChristianHeaven of a man whose very name is preserved merely in a single line ofthe _Æneid_ strikes us with astonishment. For being recorded by Virgilas the most righteous man among the Trojans, Rhipeus takes his placebeside David, Hezekiah, Constantine, and the “good king” William II. OfSicily. 

When the time comes for the ascent to be resumed, Dante notices thatBeatrice smiles no longer. On the threshold, as she explains, of theseventh heaven, the lustre of her smile would be more than his eyescould endure. Here, in Saturn, a ladder is seen, reaching to the nextsphere. We learn that this is identical with the ladder seen by Jacob inhis vision; and down it are descending the spirits of such as in thisworld had lived the contemplative life in full perfection. The chantingwhich has been audible in the other spheres is here silent--no doubt inorder to symbolise the insensibility to outward impressions of the soulrapt in contemplation. The speakers in this group are St. Peter Damianand St. Benedict; both of whom have severe words to say as to thecorruption of the monastic orders. 

The company of saints reascend (Canto xxii. ): and Dante and Beatricefollow them, mounting by the ladder, but, as it would appear, with noperceptible lapse of time. The eighth heaven, that of the Fixed Stars, is reached in the sign of the Twins; under which Dante himself had beenborn. At this point Beatrice directs him, before entering on the finalblessedness of heaven, and doubtless with the ulterior view of leadinghim to a just sense of the insignificance of earthly things, to lookback over the course which he has traversed. 

A very distinct stage of the journey is here reached, and, as has beenalready noticed, we are entering that one of the celestial spheres inwhich Dante makes the longest stay. 

He and his guide have now reached the outermost of the heavenly spheresof whose existence our senses give any evidence--that of the FixedStars. A vision of Christ descending, accompanied by His Mother, andsurrounded with saints, is granted to Dante; after which he is againable 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; andpresently, at the request of Beatrice, St. Peter comes forward, andproceeds to examine Dante on the subject of Faith, and the grounds forhis belief in the Christian revelation. The ensuing colloquy isinteresting, as being practically a versified form of the scholasticmethod of discussion, such as we find in Aquinas. St. Peter plays thepart of the supposed opponent, and brings forward the standardobjections to Dante’s statements of dogma. For the ordinary reader, however, this and the next two cantos form, it must be admitted, one ofthe less attractive portions of the poem. Yet even here we now and thencome upon a passage of pure poetry, such as the famous lines at theopening of Canto xxv. , in which Dante utters what must have been almosthis last aspiration after a return to “the fair fold in which as a lambI slept. ”

Following St. Peter, St. James makes his appearance. To him is entrustedthe task of testing Dante’s soundness in the doctrine and definition ofHope. Lastly, comes St. John, who examines him touching the right objectof Love. In each case, when he has answered to the satisfaction of hisquestioner, a chant goes up from the assembled spirits; the words onevery occasion being taken, as it would appear, from the _Te Deum_. Afterwards the three Apostles are joined by Adam, who takes up thediscourse, and answers two unexpressed questions of Dante’s, as to thelength of his stay in Paradise, and the nature of the primitive languageof mankind. 

Canto xxvii. Opens with a tremendous invective, put into the mouth ofSt. Peter, against the corruption of the Papacy; a passage whichincidentally contains an important piece of evidence with regard to thedate at which the later cantos of the _Paradise_ were written. A bitterallusion to “men of Cahors” can have been evoked only by the election ofJohn XXII. , who was from that city; and he became Pope in 1316. Afterthis the whole multitude of Saints ascend to the highest heaven; butbefore Dante follows, Beatrice makes him look down once more, and heperceives that since his entry into this sphere he has moved with thediurnal rotation through an arc of forty-five degrees. Then they ascendinto the sphere of the First Motion, where place and time no longerexist. From its movement time is measured; and its place is in theDivine intelligence only. Here the Empyrean, or highest Heaven, comesinto view; at first as a point of intense brilliancy round which ninecircles are revolving. These represent the Angelic hierarchies, andtheir places with regard to the central point are in inverse order tothat of the spheres which they move. Beatrice takes occasion from themto instruct Dante upon some points relating to the creation andfunctions of the angels, and incidentally, upon the creation of form andmatter, and their combination in the visible universe. The passage(Canto xxix. ) is difficult; but is so magnificent in its diction as todeserve careful study. Dante has nowhere else succeeded so completely inclothing with poetry the dry bones of scholastic theology. Thediscussion, by dealing with several disputed points, gives occasion forsome stringent remarks on the preachers of the time. 

They now rise to the highest heaven, outside of all the spheres, inwhich all the blessed have their true place. At first Dante is aware oflight only, but gradually a fresh power of sight comes to him, and hesees a river, from and to which bright sparks are ever issuing andreturning. The banks are brilliant with flowers. At the command ofBeatrice he bows down and drinks, and at once sees the river as a lakeof light, the flowers on the banks as concentric rows of saints seatedon thrones, and the flitting sparks as angels. At this point Beatriceleaves Dante, after a few scathing words in reference to the“covetousness”[38] of the Papacy, which has put the world out ofjoint--words which may be taken as summing up in brief all the passagesthroughout the poem in which political affairs are touched upon. Withthis, if we except one bitter jibe at Florence (xxxi. 39) allcontroversial matters are dismissed, and the last three cantos of thepoem are devoted to a description, rising ever in sublimity, of the joysand mysteries of Heaven. 

The “soldiery of heaven” appears in the form of a vast white rose, whosepetals are the seats on which the saints sit. On one hand these arefilled, being occupied by holy men and women belonging to the olddispensation: while on the other the number of the elect has still to beaccomplished. Beatrice having gone back to her place among the blessedbeside Rachel, the task of escorting Dante is entrusted to St. Bernard, who points out where some of the more eminent have their stations. Asthroughout the poem, all is arranged with order and symmetry. Thejunction between the Old and New Testaments is indicated by the positionassigned 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. Belowher 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 themMoses 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 otherteachers; the lower circles are filled with the spirits of children. 

At the close of his enumeration of these chief personages, St. Bernardobserves that the time of Dante’s slumber is nearly at an end, and thatthey must, “like a good tailor, cut the coat according to the cloth. ” Inthese three lines are two very noticeable points. First, the word“slumber, ” implying that the whole journey through the other world hasbeen performed in a dream; and secondly, the bold use, at perhaps themost 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 mediæval mind. The subject is too wide to be discussed here; but readers may bereminded of the numerous examples which the architecture of the periodshows, in which grotesque or even indecent figures are introduced amongthe ornamental work of sacred buildings. 

At the beginning of the last canto, St. Bernard, in an address ofexquisite beauty (of which Chaucer, in the Second Nun’s Tale has givenan almost equally exquisite rendering), appeals to the Virgin--who, itwill be remembered, is throughout represented as taking a specialinterest in Dante--for her aid to him in his last and crowningexperience. Thus succoured, he is able to gaze upon the Supreme Light;and in a flash there is revealed to him a full comprehension of allfundamental truths, first those of metaphysics, then those of faith. Heunderstands for a moment the whole composition of the universe, and thenthe mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity. The intuition ismomentary, and leaves merely the memory of a memory. But the lastingeffect is the entire union of his will with the Divine will, and herein, we must understand him to imply, is found the salvation the attainmentof which has been the ultimate aim and object of his whole journey. 

Many touches in this concluding passage bear a strong resemblance towhat seems to have been the teaching of the contemporary German mystics. It would be interesting to inquire how far Dante can have beenacquainted with any of the writings of that school. If any connectioncan be traced, it may throw light on several obscure points. [39]

It remains to be added that the _Commedia_ was first printed at Folignoin 1472. Editions followed in quick succession from Jesi, Mantua, andNaples. The first Venetian edition is that of Vindelin of Spires, in1477; the first Florentine, that with Landino’s commentary, in 1481. Itwas printed several times more before 1500, and constantly in thesixteenth century. We have several commentaries dating from a periodonly 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 distinctlyidentified with Dante’s name. Yet it must be remembered that, as amatter of fact, it represents less than half of the total bulk of hiswritings; and, further, that the remainder comprises several workswhich, though not attaining to the pre-eminent position which all theworld now recognises the great poem as occupying, are very remarkablemonuments of mediæval literature. 

Of the youthful work, the _Vita Nuova_, we have already spoken. It maybe sufficient here to add that--though there is some controversy on thepoint--the name probably means only “Early” or “Fresh Life. ” The bookwas pretty certainly written not much after 1290, though the lastchapter, in which the author’s design to compose a greater work isalluded to, may have been added when the scheme of the _Commedia_ wasmore 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, considerableuncertainty exists. Villani says that the odes to which it is ostensiblya commentary were written in exile. Some critics hold that it belongs, at all events in great part, to the “pre-exilian” period of Dante’slife; while others place it as late as 1310. The late Dr. Witte regardedit as the middle division of what he called “Dante’s Trilogy”--thedrama, that is, of the development of Dante’s soul. In this view, theearly 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 tothe truths of religion, but seeking to establish these rather on thebasis of human reason than on revelation. Lastly, the _Commedia_ showsus the soul, convinced that salvation and enlightenment are not to befound on this road, returning again to child-like submission. There isno doubt an attractive symmetry about this arrangement, but it is opento some objections, one of them being, as a French critic said, thatpart at least of the _Convito_ must almost certainly have been writtenafter the date in which Dante’s conversion is represented as havingtaken 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 thanany one without his marvellous “visualising” power could hope for, toavoid anything like an anachronism in the _Commedia_. If he allows noevent, which, in the history of the world, was still future in 1300, tobe referred to as past, why should he have allowed this in regard toevents in the history of his own spiritual development?

The truth is, that all these elaborate and symmetrical theories provetoo much; and what is worse, they all spring from an ignorance, or aneglect, of the great facts of human nature. The _Commedia_ is, ofcourse, full of expressions of contrition for former error; of frankrecognition that the writer has gone astray in the past, and hopes tokeep straight in the future. But might not any man, any thoughtful manat all events, of thirty-five years old and upwards, take Dante’s wordswith perfect sincerity, as the expression of his own deepest thoughts?Why assume that the faults of which Dante repented with tears in thepresence of Beatrice, were limited to a too great reliance on humanreason, or to a secret leaning to the philosophy of Averroes? Were theynot moral as well as intellectual? Whether the year 1300 really markedan epoch at which anything of the nature of what is now called“conversion” took place in Dante’s mind, we cannot say. It prettycertainly corresponded with a decided revulsion in his political views. It cannot have been without a pang that he found himself obligedformally to break with the Guelf party, of which he had hitherto been afaithful 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 setof turbulent, over-bearing swashbucklers, trying with the help offoreign men and money to reimpose a feudal tyranny on a prosperous andfree commonwealth. For this is the aspect in which the Ghibelines musthave presented themselves to a Florentine burgher of the year 1300. Nodoubt the doings of the Black party would have taught him thatoverbearing and tyrannical ways, turbulence and swagger were not themonopoly 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 theearth must have seemed to him to be out of course, and we can wellimagine that his thought may have been driven inward, and he may thushave come to recognise how far the school which he had followed, and thepath upon which he had walked--not in philosophy only, but in allmatters of conduct--had led him from the ideals of his early manhood andfrom the way of God. Thus he would naturally refer the vision, which, ofcourse, contains an allegorical account of all this change or“conversion, ” if we may call it so, to that year the events of which hadgiven the first impulse to it. 

It is not, however, necessary to suppose that with Dante, any more thanwith most men of a similar age, a conviction that he had hitherto beenon the wrong track involved an entire break with former habits, at allevents of mind and thought. He may very well have gone on stringingtogether the curious medley of learning which he had not unfitly calleda “Banquet. ”[40] As we have said already, it looks very like thecontents of a commonplace book, in which materials for otherworks--notably for the _Commedia_--were collected. Many of the viewsenunciated in it may well be those held by Dante long before, andsubsequently changed, though he might not have taken the trouble toexpunge them, even when stating a maturer opinion in a later work. 

A good many of the difficulties which arise in the consideration of thedates of Dante’s works, probably arise from oblivion of the fact that“publication” in our modern sense did not exist in those days. An authorwould 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 asthey had. Thus portions of a book would get about long before the wholewas 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 theangelic 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 knownthat this was the case. Subsequently, having changed his mind--it maybe, even before 1300--he would take the opportunity of a part of the_Commedia_ having got into circulation, to recant; and even so theoriginal view might stand in the _Convito_, and appear in that work whenfinally 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 firstprinted in 1490. 

The _De Monarchia_ is a complete treatise, in fact, probably the onlywork besides the _Commedia_ which we can feel sure that we have in aform 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 thatthe Church has never looked upon it with favour, which was probably thereason of its not being printed till 1559, and then in Germany. 

The unfinished treatise known as _De Vulgari Eloquentia_ had the curiousfortune to appear in an Italian translation (1529) some fifty yearsbefore it was printed in its original Latin. It is a most interestinglittle work, showing considerable acuteness of perception in regard topeculiarities of local vernacular, and a general “feeling” forlinguistic matters. 

How do we know that all these works are Dante’s? it will be asked. Herewe rest on unusually sure ground, for which once more we have to thankVillani. 

In the Chapter to which we have already more than once referred, containing the notice of Dante’s death, that historian gives a list ofhis 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 allmanuscripts. But, assuming them to be genuine, it will be seen that wehave here an almost contemporary notice, with one or two exceptions, ofall the main works now contained in the editions of Dante. The chiefexception is the curious little treatise on physical geography, called_De aqua et terra_, which purports to be a lecture delivered by Dante atVerona, in the last year of his life; but this is of very questionablegenuineness. It was first printed, indeed, in 1508, but no manuscript ofit is now known to exist. 

Of the other works, Villani’s notice may be regarded as clear proof thatthey are what they profess to be; and incidentally it may be said thathis mention of them has probably been of great service. Literarymorality was sufficiently lax in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and people’s ideas as to the use that might legitimately be made offamous names differed considerably from those now in force. As it is, agood many compositions have passed under Dante’s name, from an earlydate, which scarcely pretend to be genuine works of his. We can imaginewhat a temptation it would have been for some enterprising man ofletters to complete the _Convito_ or the _De Vulgari Eloquentia_, oreven to add a canto or two to the _Commedia_, if there had been norecord in existence to let the world know where the genuine ended andthe spurious began. [41] Even this security, however, is not quitesufficient to set us at our ease in the case of the letters. True, wehave three letters purporting to be the three which Villani mentions, aswell 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 toset ingenious scribes at work to produce them. Manuscripts of them arevery few, and they occur in company with other works which are undoubtedexercises of fancy. 

On the other hand, more than one writer of the fifteenth centuryprofesses to have seen letters of Dante’s, of which no trace can now befound. That referring to the battle of Campaldino, for which LeonardoBruni vouches, has already been mentioned; and Flavius Blondus of Forlì, a historian about contemporary with Leonardo, speaks of others as extantin his time. These, if they could now be recovered, would be of thegreatest interest, since they related to the obscure period immediatelyfollowing the exile of the White party. Meanwhile the genuineness of themore important letters which we possess is perhaps the most interestingquestion which remains to be settled in connection with Dante’s works. 

Besides the prose letters, two poetical epistles are still extant, andthese, strange to say, the most sceptical critics have so far allowed topass unquestioned. There is something a little pathetic about theirhistory. Two or three years before Dante’s death, a young scholar ofBologna, known from his devotion to the great Latin bard, as Joannes deVirgilio, addressed an extremely prosaic, but highly complimentary, epistle to the old poet, urging him to write something in the moredignified language of antiquity. Dante replied in an “Eclogue, ” wherein, under Virgilian pastoral imagery, he playfully banters hiscorrespondent, and says that he had better finish first the work he hasin hand, namely the _Commedia_. One more communication on either sidefollowed, and then Dante’s death brought the verse-making to a close. Inhis own pieces one is struck rather by the melody of the rhythm andoccasional dignity of the thought, than by the classical quality of theLatinity. But they are unquestionably remarkable specimens of Latinverse for an age previous to the revival of classical study, and, weshould say, far more genial and more truly Virgilian in spirit than themost polished composition of the Humanists. 

It is not intended here to enter into any analysis or estimate ofDante’s prose works. The former task is one which readers should performfor themselves. Nor need they find it too much for their powers. Withall his obscurity of allusion, and occasionally of phrase, Dante is notreally a difficult author. From his teachers, the schoolmen, he hadlearnt to arrange his matter with due, perhaps more than due, regard toorder and symmetry; and consequently the attentive reader is seldom at aloss to know what part of the subject is, at any given place, underconsideration. 

Of the obscurity which results from over-elaboration of the thought, orfrom an attempt at originality of expression, Dante is, in his maturerworks, singularly free. [42] It must be remembered, too, that very oftenphrases which look to us like “conceits” are merely instances of theemployment of scientific and technical terms now obsolete, but thenfamiliar to every cultivated reader. 

For æsthetic, 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 thecritic’s own perception or his delicacy of phrase--the study of Dantewould seem to be a very unpromising field. The sentimentalist and theelegant craftsman in words seem out of place in the company of thisuncompromising seeker after realities, this relentless exposer of shams. 

It is much better that the student should begin by understanding hisauthor. When he has mastered the meaning, it will be time enough tobegin to admire, whether it be the thought or the words, or theexpression of the one through the other. For this reason we shouldstrongly counsel beginners to read Dante himself first, and books aboutDante 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 adictionary. It is far better practice to find out for yourself where thedifficulties lie, than to be told where to expect them. Similarly withthe “beauties. ” These will reveal themselves _a ciascun’ alma presa egentil cuore_, and every reader will find them in such measure as hedeserves. Then will be the time to use the commentaries to solve, so faras may be, the problems which have been discovered, and then to take upsuch works as Mr. Symonds’s _Study of Dante_, Miss Rossetti’s _Shadow ofDante_, and Dean Church’s _Essay_. The student who, to a thoroughknowledge of the poem, joins a careful perusal of these three works willfind his knowledge co-ordinated, his grasp of Dante’s whole systemstrengthened, his perception of Dante’s greatness marvellouslyquickened. If he afterwards cares to pursue the subject further into thethickets of modern Italian and German criticism, he will find plenty ofentertainment. Only let him remember that most of the minute detailswith which the excellent critics deal are not really of the veryslightest importance. 

As has been said above, there is ample reason for believing that theperson to whom Dante refers under the name of Beatrice was a young ladyof that name, daughter of one Folco Portinari, and wife to Simone de’Bardi. But suppose that irresistible evidence to the contrary could befound? Suppose that documents should come to light showing that noBeatrice Portinari ever lived--even that there was no woman, young orold, in Florence, who bore the Christian name of Beatrice between 1200and 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, orAndromache, 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 attendedthose who would have us believe that half a dozen or more mencontributed to the _Iliad_, any one book of which would entitle itsauthor to rank among the great poets of all time? The world would proveto be richer by as many great poets as could be shown to havecollaborated in the writing of the _Commedia_; and how should we be thepoorer? The poem would still be there, with all its power to soothe, tostimulate, to throw light upon the most hidden corners of the humansoul, to reveal our own motives to us. It is, of course, only humannature 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 theman is only interesting because of his work. After all, when the mostdestructive criticism has done its worst, we know much more about Dantethan we know about the still greater Shakespeare; and let us be thankfulfor 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 ofDante should set to work in the way both of putting himself so far aspossible at Dante’s point of view with regard to earlier literature, andof availing himself of the various commentaries and treatises whichsubsequent writers have produced in such abundance; but it may beconvenient to enter into this matter somewhat more in detail. It wouldobviously be too much to expect of every beginner that he should preparehimself for the study of Dante by a preliminary perusal of all the bookswhich Dante may have read. But if he is to read with any profit, orindeed with any real enjoyment, some preliminary study is almostindispensable. Take, for instance, the historical standpoint. Some ofDante’s grandest apostrophes fall flat to one who has not grasped themediæval theory of the Roman Empire, as set forth in Mr. Bryce’swell-known book or elsewhere. Much of his imagery, especially in thefirst Cantica, seems fantastic and arbitrary to one who is not familiarwith Virgil’s sixth _Æneid_, and does not realise that nearly everyfeature in the Dantesque Hell is developed, with assistance no doubtfrom mediæval legend, out of some hint of the Virgilian nether world. Ofallusions to contemporaries it is hardly necessary to speak; and in manycases we must fall back on the commentators, who for their part haveoften nothing to tell us but what we have already gathered forourselves. Cacciaguida’s statement that no souls had been shown to Dantesave those of people known to fame, may not be always true so far as anybut the most strictly contemporary fame is concerned, but it is true ina great many cases. Few indeed there are whose names have not gainedadditional celebrity from Dante’s mention of them; but, on the otherhand, there are very few whose memory but for it would have perishedaltogether; and the thrill with which the reader comes across an oldacquaintance, marked by the unfaltering hand for renown or infamy, aslong as men shall read books on this earth, is far more satisfying thanthe process of looking a person up because he is some one in Dante. Itis therefore at least worth while, if not essential, to know somethingof 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 thepoint from which Dante looked at ethical and metaphysical problems, willhardly be satisfied with an occasional quotation from Aristotle orAquinas. If, as may well be the case, they cannot spare the time forsystematic reading of those somewhat exacting authors, they should atleast 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, asmay be obtained from Ueberweg or some other approved history ofphilosophy. So for physical science and natural history, those who havenot the leisure to read Aristotle (again), or Pliny, or Brunetto’s_Trésor_, may get from the fourth book of Whewell’s _History of theInductive Sciences_, and from parts of Humboldt’s _Cosmos_, some idea ofthe way in which Dante would regard the external world. 

But one book, among all others, was undoubtedly the main instrument inthe formation of Dante’s mind and character. Few professed Churchmenhave ever been so saturated with the language and the spirit of theBible as this lay theologian. It was this, indeed, which seems to havespecially impressed his contemporaries. “Theologus Dantes nulliusdogmatis expers” is the title which the epitaph of his friend Joannes deVirgilio confers upon him in its opening line. And among all the booksof the “Sacred Library, ” as an earlier age called it, we can see thattwo had a predominant place in his memory--the prophecy of Jeremiah andthe Book of Psalms. In these two we may find the solution of some of hismost obscure symbolism, and careful study of these will do perhaps morethan anything to help the student to read with understanding. Of coursethose who read Latin should use the Vulgate rather than the Englishversion, for the key to an allusion sometimes lies in a word or aphrase, the identity of which is lost in an alien language. 

It is with the study of such books as these, carried as far as thestudent’s opportunities will allow, that he will best prepare himselffor that of the _Commedia_. The next thing will be to read it, either ina translation, or better, in the original, working rapidly through thepoem, and noting difficulties which occur, but leaving them for thepresent. He will thus get a comprehensive view of its general structureand scope, and probably find himself enthralled by the spell; afterwhich, to put it on the lowest ground, he will have a subject ofinterest to investigate which will last him his lifetime. At any rate hewill pretty certainly resolve to go over the ground again, this timemore deliberately. Now will come the turn of the commentators, includingunder this term not only the actual annotators of the text, but thosewho have in any way discussed, explained, or interpreted the whole poemor its parts, either from a general literary point of view, or in theattempt to clear up special points. Of these there is no lack. Probablyno great writer has given occasion for so much writing on the part oflesser men. The French critic Sainte-Beuve remarked that “to read Dantewas almost inevitably to want to translate him;” it certainly seems asif 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 fewwill be read as long as Dante is studied in England. Foremost amongthese is the _Essay_ by the late Dean of St. Paul’s, Dr. Church. This isprinted in a volume with an excellent translation of the _De Monarchia_. As an introduction to Dante from every point of view, whether inconnection with the history of his time or in regard to his place inliterature, it remains unrivalled, and is likely to remain so until awriter on Dante arises equal to Dean Church in acuteness of historicalinsight, delicacy of literary taste, and a power of expression capableof translating those gifts into words. No student should fail to readit; and those who can buy a copy will not be likely to regret theoutlay. Another instructive book is the late Miss Rossetti’s _Shadow ofDante_. It treats the poem rather in its religious than in itshistorical or philosophical aspect; and it is of especial value as anaid to understanding the often very perplexing symbolism. Long extractsare given from the versions by Mr. W. M. Rossetti (for the _Inferno_)and Mr. Longfellow (for the other parts); and these are linked togetherby a connecting summary. Mr. Symonds’s _Introduction to the Study ofDante_ is also useful, especially from the literary point of view, butit is occasionally inaccurate. Of actual translations none is betterthan Cary’s, and this has most valuable notes. 

These are some of the books from which a student, who did not feel equalto a preliminary study of Italian, might get information about Dante. Itis to be hoped that there are not many who will stop here. When thegenius of a poet is so closely involved as it is in Dante’s case withthe genius of the language, it cannot be too strongly impressed upon thestudent’s mind that he ought to be read in his own words. Italian is theeasiest to learn of all European languages, and the one in which thepreliminary labour of learning grammatical rules is least required. Itsgrammar is very straightforward; its construction, in the best writers, is seldom involved; its words will in most cases be intelligible topeople who know any Latin or French. The prepositions and their usesoffer almost the only stumbling-block which cannot be surmounted by theaid of a pocket-dictionary; and even here the difficulty is more likelyto be apparent in writing Italian. In reading, the context will usuallybe a guide to the meaning when the words are known. 

The first thing will be to get a text. There are several modern textspublished in Italy; but none of them are very correct. Giuliani’s is anattractive little book; but the Abate was a somewhat reckless emendator, and some of his readings are very untrustworthy. The little pocketedition published by Barbèra contains Fraticelli’s text, which suffersrather from lack of correction. Messrs. Longmans publish one based onWitte, but embodying the results of later inquiry. A complete text ofDante’s entire works has lately been issued by the Clarendon Press, forthe accuracy of which the name of its editor, Dr. Moore, is a sufficientguarantee. The “student’s” editions with notes are those of Bianchi andFraticelli, both in Italian. The latter is for some reason more popularin England, but the notes seem to me decidedly less helpful than thoseof Bianchi based on Costa’s. Better than either is the _VocabolarioDantesco_ of Blanc. The original work was written in German, and nodoubt is to be obtained in that language. It is really a very usefulcommentary, and has the additional advantage that it forms a prettycopious Concordance, and enables the student to compare the various usesof a word. 

The student may now be supposed to be ready to set to work. How is he toproceed? This is a question very difficult to answer. Probably no twogrown-up people will attack a new author, or a new language, in quitethe same way. The present writer began Dante with very little knowledgeof Italian; but knowing French and Latin pretty well. Being in Florenceone day, he went to a bookstall and bought for one _lira_ a secondhandcopy of a little text published in 1811; and began to puzzle out bitshere and there with the help of a small dictionary. In the followingwinter he went through the whole poem in Bianchi’s edition with afriend, aided by various of the older commentaries. Then he took toreading the poem by a canto or two at a time, in bed, without notes ordictionary, and went through it two or three times in this way, at lastbeginning to feel that he would like to know something about it. Probably a course of this kind, spread in a rather desultory fashionover several years, would hardly suit every student. Nevertheless it hasin its general features some merits. In the first place, the only way tolearn is to find for yourself where the difficulties are; and this canbe done most effectually by beginning with the minimum of help. Withnotes, there is always the temptation to look at the note first and thetext afterwards: a process sure to result in slipshod and inaccurateknowledge. Take a canto at a time, and read it through. Go over theground again with a commentary and perhaps a translation. Before longthe difficulties arising merely from the language will be pretty wellmastered, and progress will be more rapid. Above all, avoid in thefirst instance anything of the nature of æsthetic criticism. Be contentto 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 torender every word. It is a very good exercise to keep to the sameEnglish word for the same Italian word. This will not be quite alwayspossible; but on the whole it is wonderful how many words in Italian (orany other language) have passed through the same change of significationas some one of their English equivalents. (Thus “sorry” in English meansboth “sad” and “contemptible. ” You will find that Italian “_tristo_”bears both senses equally well. ) Try to “explain Dante by Dante, ” thatis, look out for peculiar phrases and constructions which may occur morethan once, and get at their meaning by comparison of contexts. One greatadvantage possessed by the student of Dante is that his author ispractically the first in the language in point of time; and though laterItalian poets used Dante freely as a quarry, they did not do itintelligently. It may safely be said that, with the occasional exceptionof Petrarch, no subsequent Italian poet threw the least light on theinterpretation of a single word in Dante. Indeed our own Chaucer seemsto have understood and appreciated Dante far better than did Dante’scountryman Ariosto. It is thus possible to read Dante without a verywide acquaintance with Italian literature in general. 

Then, again, beginners need not be at too much pains to follow out theoften very elaborate symbolism. On a first reading take the story as itstands. Let the dark wood and the three beasts, and the hillilluminated by the rising sun, remain what they profess to be, until yousee the broad outlines of the poem. There are quite enough passages ofpurely human interest to occupy you at first. Francesca, Farinata, theCounts of Montefeltro, father and son, Ugolino, the assembled princesawaiting their time to enter Purgatory, the great panegyrics of St. Francis and St. Dominic, these and the like are the “purple patches” onwhich the beginner’s attention should be fixed. 

The student who has gone through the poem on these lines will by the endof it be ripe for a more thorough reading and a fuller commentary. Amongmodern commentaries the fullest is that of Dr. Scartazzini. He is aguide whose judgement is perhaps not always quite equal to hiserudition; but his Commentary (in four volumes, including the_Prolegomeni_) is almost indispensable to the advanced student. He hasalso published an abridgement in one volume. Those who read Germanshould make acquaintance with the translation and notes of the late KingJohn of Saxony, who wrote under the name of Philalethes, as well as withthose of Dr. Witte. Both these deal fully with historical matters, “Philalethes” also going very fully into the theology. In the presentwriter’s edition some attempt is made to clear up obscure points ofallegory, and to show the extent of Dante’s debt to Greek philosophy. Attention is also called to questions of grammar and philology, whichhave 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 andLatin literature. The subject is a very wide one, and Dante’s treatmentof heathen mythology is very curious. It is especially noticeable in the_Purgatory_, where every sin and its contrary virtue are illustrated bya pair of examples from Scripture history on the one hand, and Greek orRoman history or legend (for both seem alike to him) on the other. Sloth, for instance, is exemplified by the Israelites who “thoughtscorn” of the promised land, and the slothful followers of Æneas, whohung back from the conquest of Italy; while Mary going into the hillcountry with haste, and Cæsar dashing into Spain are the chosen modelsof prompt response to the call of duty. So, again, at the very outset ofthe poem, we find St. Paul and Æneas quoted as the two instances ofliving men who have been permitted to see the future world; and Danteprofesses his own unworthiness to be put on a level with them, apparently without a hint that he holds the _Æneid_ any lower as anauthority than the Epistle to the Corinthians. In a practically paganhumanist of the days of Leo X. This would hardly surprise us; but itis, at first sight, not a little astonishing in the case of a poet towhom the Christian Church and Christian revelation were vital truths. Itis, however, clear that to the mediæval mind the Bible, though no doubtthe highest authority, was in matters of morality, and to some extenteven of theology, only “first among its peers. ” Aquinas quotesAristotle, the Scriptures, and the Fathers almost indiscriminately insupport of his positions. Dante, approaching the subject from apolitical as well as a moral point, takes for his guide and philosopherthe poet Virgil, who, as the Middle Ages deemed, had both foretold theglories of the Church, and sung of the first origin of the Empire. Itmust never be forgotten that, to Dante, Church and Empire were merelytwo aspects of one Divine institution. Brutus and Cassius are hardlyless guilty than Judas; and that simply from the official point of view, for there is no attempt to sanctify, much less to deify, Cæsar as anindividual. None the less is the work that he did holy, and thisholiness communicates itself, as readers of the _De Monarchia_ willremember, to the whole of the long course of workings by which DivineProvidence prepared the way for it. The finger of God is no less plainlyto be seen in the victory of Æneas over Turnus or of the Romans over theSamnites than in the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, orthe repulse of the Assyrians. Roman history is no less sacred thanHebrew. This being so, we shall not be surprised to find that a certainauthority attaches to the literature of either one of the chosenpeoples. Did they conflict, doubtless the poet, as an orthodoxCatholic, would admit that Virgil must give way to Isaiah; but he wouldin all probability decline to allow that they could conflict, at allevents within the region common to them both. No doubt, just as Cæsarand Peter have, besides their common domain, functions peculiar to each, wherein Cæsar may not interfere with Peter, or as Aristotle may err whenhe trespasses on ground that the Church has made her province (for Iinterpret _Purg. _ xxv. 63 as an allusion to Aristotle), so might Virgilor Lucan become a teacher of false doctrine if he ventured to teachtheology. (Statius, who does teach theology, as in the passage justreferred to, is, it must be remembered, a Christian. ) But Virgil at allevents holds scrupulously aloof from any over-stepping of his functions;and within his own limits his authority is infallible. Why, then, shouldwe not accept his account of the infernal regions as trustworthy? Hetells us that Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls across to thenether world; Minos the judge who sentences them; Pluto (whom we confuseperhaps a little with Plutus) a great personage in those regions. Furiessit over the inner gate; Gorgons and Harpies play their parts. HolyScripture has nothing to say against these conceptions; so there isnothing to prevent our accepting Virgil’s account, and expanding it intomediæval precision and symmetry. Thus we have all the official hierarchyof hell ready provided. As has already been observed, it is not untilDante reaches a point very far down that anything like what we may callthe Christian devil appears. [43] Throughout the upper circles the work, whether of tormenting or merely of guarding, is performed exclusively bybeings taken from classic mythology. If we except the Giants, who seemto occupy a kind of intermediate position between prisoner and gaoler, Geryon is the last of these whom we meet; and him Dante has practicallytransformed into a being of his own invention: for there is little incommon between the personage slain by Hercules and the strange monsterwith the face of a just man and the tail of a venomous scorpion. Asmight perhaps be expected when there was plenty of material to hand inTuscany, less use is made of the persons of classical mythology infinding subjects for punishment. Among the virtuous heathen several findtheir place; but it may be doubted whether Electra or Orpheus were toDante any less historical than Plato or Seneca. Semiramis, Dido, Achilles, again, would all be recorded in the histories of Orosius andothers whom Dante read, with dates and possibly portraits. Capaneus, oneof the “Seven against Thebes, ” is more nearly mythological; but as theutterer of the earliest profession of reasoned atheism[44] he couldhardly be omitted as the typical blasphemer. The most curious example ofall is the Thais whom we find among the flatterers. She does not attaineven to the dignity of a myth, being only a character in a play ofTerence, and borrowed by Dante from Cicero; probably the strangestinstance 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). 

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 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. 

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 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. 

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 Transcriber’s Note:

 Variations in spelling, hyphenation and use of accents have been retained as they appear in the original publication. 

 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