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any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from these things, God shall take away his part from the good things written in this book."

may say manifold. For one sense is that which is derived from the letter, and another is that which is derived from the things signified by the letter. The first is called literal, the second allegorical or moral. The subject, then, of the whole work, taken literally, is the condition of souls after death, simply considered. For on this and around this the whole action of the work turns. But if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is man, how by actions of merit or demerit, through free--Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, an dom of the will, he justly deserves reward or punishment."

It may not be amiss here to refer to what are sometimes called the sources of the Divine Comedy. Foremost among them must be placed the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey, and the Sixth of the Eneid; and to the latter Dante seems to point significantly in choosing Virgil | for his Guide, his Master, his Author, from whom he took "the beautiful style that did him honour."

Next to these may be mentioned Cicero's Vision of Scipio, of which Chaucer says:—

Chapiters seven it had, of Heaven, and Hell,,,

And Earthe, and soules that therein do dwell."

Then follow the popular legends which were current in Dante's age; an age when the end of all things was thought to be near at hand, and the wonders of the invisible world had laid fast hold on the imaginations of men. Prominent among these is the "Vision of Frate Alberico," who calls himself "the humblest servant of the servants of the Lord;" and who

"Saw in dreame at point-devyse Heaven, Earthe, Hell, and Paradyse."

This vision was written in Latin in the latter half of the twelfth century, and contains a description of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, with its Seven Heavens. It is for the most part a tedious tale, and bears evident marks of having been written by a friar of some monastery, when the afternoon sun was shining into his sleepy eyes. He seems, however, to have looked upon his own work with a not unfavourable opinion; for he concludes the Epistle Introductory with the words of St. John : 'If

It is not impossible that Dante may have taken a few hints also from the Teso retto of his teacher, Ser Brunetto Latini. See Canto XV. Note 30.

See upon this subject, Cancellieri, Osservazioni Sopra l' Originalità di Dante;

Essay on the Legends of Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise, current during the Middle Ages ;-Ozanam, Dante et la Philosophie Catholique au Treizième Siècle ; —Labitte, La Divine Comédie avant Dante, pub. lished as an Introduction to the translation of Brizeux ;-and Delepierre, Le Livre des Visions, ou l'Enfer et le Ciel décrits par ceux qui les ont vus. See also the Illustrations at the end of this volume.

CANTO I.

I. The action of the poem begins on Good Friday of the year 1300, at which reached the middle of the Scriptural time Dante, who was born in 1265, had threescore years and ten. It ends on the first Sunday after Easter, making in all ten days.

2. The dark forest of human life, with its passions, vices, and perplexities of all kinds; politically the state of Florence with its factions Guelph and Ghibelline. Dante, Convito, IV. 25, says:-"Thus the adolescent, who enters into the erroneous forest of this life, would not know how to keep the right way if he were not guided by his elders." Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, II. 75:

"Pensando a capo chino
Perdei il gran cammino,
E tenni alla traversa
D'una selva diversa."

Spenser, Faerie Queene, IV. ii. 45:-
"Seeking adventures in the salvage wood."

13. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, which is a kind of Divine Comedy in prose, says: "I beheld then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty. . . . . But the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the

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name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. . . . . They went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before."

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14. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress:— But now in this valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he spied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or stand his ground. . . . Now at the end of this valley was another, called the valley of the Shadow of Death; and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it."

sophers and fathers think the world was created in Spring.

45. Ambition; and politically the royal house of France.

48. Some editions read temesse, others tremesse.

49. Avarice; and politically the Court of Rome, or temporal power of the Popes.

60. Dante as a Ghibelline and Imperialist is in opposition to the Guelphs, Pope Boniface VIII., and the King of France, Philip the Fair, and is banished from Florence, out of the sunshine, and into "the dry wind that blows from dolorous poverty."

Cato speaks of the "silent moon" in De Re Rustica, XXIX., Evchito luna silenti; and XL., Vites inseri luna silenti. Also Pliny, XVI. 39, has Silens luna; and Milton, in Samson Agonistes,

17. The sun, with all its symbolical meanings. This is the morning of Good"Silent as the moon." Friday.

In the Ptolemaic system the sun was one of the planets.

20. The deep mountain tarn of his heart, dark with its own depth, and the shadows hanging over it.

63. The long neglect of classic studies in Italy before Dante's time.

70. Born under Julius Cæsar, but too late to grow up to manhood during his Imperial reign. He flourished later under Augustus.

27. Jeremiah ii. 6: "That led us 79. In this passage Dante but exthrough the wilderness, through a land presses the universal veneration felt for of deserts and of pits, through a land of Virgil during the Middle Ages, and drought, and of the shadow of death, especially in Italy. Petrarch's copy of through a land that no man passed Virgil is still preserved in the Ambrosian through, and where no man dwelt." Library at Milan; and at the beginning In his note upon this passage Mr. of it he has recorded in a Latin note the Wright quotes Spenser's lines, Faerie time of his first meeting with Laura, and Faerie Queene, I. v. 31,the date of her death, which, he says, "I write in this book, rather than elsewhere, because it comes often under my

"there creature never passed That back returned without heavenly grace."

30. Climbing the hillside slowly, so that he rests longest on the foot that is lowest.

31. Jeremiah v. 6: "Wherefore a lien out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces."

32. Worldly Pleasure; and politically Florence, with its factions of Bianchi and Neri.

36. Più volte volto. Dante delights in a play upon words as much as Shake

speare.

38. The stars of Aries. Some philo

eye.

In the popular imagination Virgil be. came a mythical personage and a mighty magician. See the story of Virgilius in Thom's Early Prose Romances, 11. Dante selects him for his guide, as symbolizing human science or Philosophy. "I say and affirm," he remarks, Convito, V. 16, "that the lady with whom I became enamoured after my first love was the most beautiful and modest daughter of the Emperor of the Universe, to whom Pythagoras gave the name of Philosophy."

87. Dante seems to have been already conscious of the fame which his Vita Nuova and Canzoni had given him,

IOI. The greyhound is Can Grande nella Scala, Lord of Verona, Imperial Vicar, Ghibelline, and friend of Dante. Verona is between Feltro in the Marca Trivigiana, and Montefeltro in Romagna. Boccaccio, Decameron, I. 7, speaks of him as 66 one of the most notable and magnificent lords that had been known in Italy, since the Emperor Frederick the Second." To him Dante dedicated the Paradiso. Some commentators think the Veltro is not Can Grande, but Ugguccione della Faggiola. See Troya, Del Veltro Allegorico di Dante. 106. The plains of Italy, in contradistinction to the mountains; the humilemque Italiam of Virgil, Æneid III. 522: "And now the stars being chased away, blushing Aurora appeared, when far off we espy the hills obscure, and lowly Italy."

116. give preference to the reading, Vedrai gli antichi spiriti dolenti. 122. Beatrice.

I.

CANTO II.

The evening of Good Friday. Dante, Convito, III. 2, says: "Man is called by philosophers the divine animal." Chaucer's Assemble of Foules:

"The daie gan failen, and the darke night That reveth bestes from hir businesse Berafte me my boke for lacke of light." Mr. Ruskin, Modern Painters, III. 240, speaking of Dante's use of the word bruno," says:

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"In describing a simple twilight-not a Hades twilight, but an ordinarily fair evening-(Inf. ii. 1), he says, the 'brown' air took the animals away from their

fatigues; the waves under Charon's boat are brown' (Inf. iii. 117); and Lethe, which is perfectly clear and yet dark, as with oblivion, is bruna-bruna,' brown, exceeding brown.' Now, clearly in all these cases no warmth is meant to be mingled in the colour. Dante had never seen one of our bog-streams, with its porter-coloured foam; and there can be no doubt that, in calling Lethe brown, he means that it was dark slate-gray, inclining to black; as, for instance, our clear Cumberland lakes, which, looked straight down upon where they are deep, seem to be lakes of ink. I am sure this is the

colour he means; because no clear stream or lake on the Continent ever looks brown, but blue or green; and Dante, by merely taking away the pleasant colour, would get at once to this idea of grave clear gray. So, when he was talking of twilight, his eye for colour was far too good to let him call it brown in our sense. Twilight is not brown, but purple, golden, or dark gray; and this last was what Dante meant. Farther, I find that this negation of colour is always the means by which Dante subdues his tones. Thus the fatal inscription on the Hades gate is written in 'obscure colour,' and the air which torments the passionate spirits is 'aer nero,' black air (Inf. v. 51), called presently afterwards (line 81) malignant air, just as the gray cliffs are called ma lignant cliffs."

13. Æneas, founder of the Roman Empire. Virgil, Aneid, B. VI.

24. "That is," says Boccaccio, Co. mento, "St. Peter the Apostle, called the greater on account of his papal dignity, and to distinguish him from many other holy men of the same name.

28. St. Paul. Acts, ix. 15: "He is a chosen vessel unto me." Also 2 Corinthians, xii. 3, 4: "And I knew such a man, whether in the body, or out of the body, I cannot tell; God knoweth; how that he was caught up into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter."

42. Shakespeare, Macbeth, IV. 1:
"The flighty purpose never is o'ertook,

Unless the deed go with it."

52. Suspended in Limbo; neither in pain nor in glory.

star which is brightest," comments Bo 55. Brighter than the star; than "that caccio. Others say the Sun, and refer to Dante's Canzone, beginning:

"The star of beauty which doth measure time, The lady seems, who has enamoшed me, Placed in the heaven of Love."

56. Shakespeare, King Lear, V. 3:— "Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle, and low; an excellent thing in woman.

67. This passage will recall Minerva transmitting the message of Juno to Achilles, Iliad, II.: "Go thou forthwith to the army of the Achæans, and hesi

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tate not; but restrain each man with thy persuasive words, nor suffer them to drag to the sea their double-oared ships."

70. Beatrice Portinari, Dante's first love, the inspiration of his song, and in his mind the symbol of the Divine. He says of her in the Vita Nuova:-"This most gentle lady, of whom there has been discourse in what precedes, reached such favour among the people, that when she passed along the way persons ran to see her, which gave me wonderful delight. And when she was near any one, such modesty took possession of his heart, that he did not dare to raise his eyes or to return her salutation; and to this, should any one doubt it, many, as having experienced it, could bear witness for me. She, crowned and clothed with humility, took her way, displaying no pride in that which she saw and heard. Many, when she had passed, said, "This is not a woman, rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.' Others said, 'She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform such a marvel.'

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say, that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all beauties, that those who looked on her felt within themselves a pure and sweet delight, such as they could not tell in words."-C. E. Norton, The New Life, 51, 52.

78. The heaven of the moon, which contains or encircles the earth.

84. The ampler circles of Paradise. Divine Mercy.

94.

97. St. Lucia, emblem of enlightening Grace.

102.

Rachel, emblem of Divine Contemplation. See Par. XXXII. 9.

108. Beside that flood, where ocean has no vaunt; "That is," says Boccaccio, Comento," the sea cannot boast of being more impetuous or more dangerous than that."

127. This simile has been imitated by Chaucer, Spenser, and many more. Jeremy Taylor says:

"So have I seen the sun kiss the frozen earth, which was bound up with the images of death, and the colder breath of the north; and then the waters break from their enclosures, and melt with joy and run in useful channels; and the files do rise again from their little graves in walls, and dance awhile in the air, to tell

that there is joy within, and that the great mother of creatures will open the stock of her new refreshment, become useful to mankind, and sing praises to her Redeemer."

Rossetti, Spirito Antipapale del Secolo di Dante, translated by Miss Ward, II. 216, makes this political application of the lines: "The Florentines, called Sons of Flora, are compared to flowers; and Dante calls the two parties who divided the city white and black flowers, and himself white-flower,-the name by which he was called by many. Now he makes use of a very abstruse comparison, to express how he became, from a Guelph or Black, a Ghibelline or White. He describes himself as a flower, first bent and closed by the night frosts, and then blanched or whitened by the sun (the symbol of reason), which opens its leaves; and what produces the effect of the sun on him is a speech of Virgil's, persuading him to follow his guidance.'

CANTO III.

I. This canto begins with a repetition of sounds like the tolling of a funeral bell: dolente. . . dolore!

Ruskin, Modern Painters, III. 215, speaking of the Inferno, says:

"Milton's effort, in all that he tells us of his Inferno, is to make it indefinite; Dante's, to make it definite. Both, indeed, describe it as entered through gates; but, within the gate, all is wild and fenceless with Milton, having indeed its four rivers,-the last vestige of the mediæval tradition, but rivers which flow through a waste of mountain and moorland, and by many a frozen, many a fiery Alp.' But Dante's Inferno is accurately separated into circles drawn with well-pointed compasses; mapped and properly surveyed in every direc tion, trenched in a thoroughly good style of engineering from depth to depth, and divided, in the accurate middle (dritto mezzo) of its deepest abyss, into a concentric series of ten moats and embankments, like those about a castle, with bridges from each embankment to the next; precisely in the manner of those bridges over Hiddekel and Euphrates, which Mr. Macaulay thinks

so innocently designed, apparently not aware that he is also laughing at Dante. These larger fosses are of rock, and the bridges also; but as he goes further into detail, Dante tells us of various minor fosses and embankments, in which he anxiously points out to us not only the formality, but the neatness and perfectness, of the stonework. For instance, in describing the river Phlegethon, he tells us that it was paved with stone at the bottom, and at the sides, and over the edges of the sides,' just as the water is at the baths of Bulicame; and for fear we should think this embankment at all larger than it really was, Dante adds, carefully, that it was made just like the embankments of Ghent or Bruges against the sea, or those in Lombardy which bank the Brenta, only not so high, nor so wide,' as any of these. And besides the trenches, we have two well-built castles; one like Ecbatana, with seven circuits of wall (and surrounded by a fair stream), wherein the great poets and sages of antiquity live; and another, a great fortified city with walls of iron, red-hot, and a deep fosse round it, and full of grave citizens,'-the city of Dis.

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"Now, whether this be in what we moderns call 'good taste,' or not, I do not mean just now to inquire, Dante having nothing to do with taste, but with the facts of what he had seen; only, so far as the imaginative faculty of the two poets is concerned, note that Milton's vagueness is not the sign of imagination, but of its absence, so far as it is significative in the matter. For it does not follow, because Milton did not map out his Inferno as Dante did, that he could not have done so if he had chosen; only it was the easier and less imaginative process to leave it vague than to define it. Imagination is always the seeing and asserting faculty; that which obscures or conceals may be judgment, or feeling, but not invention. The invention, whether good or bad, is in the accurate engineering, not in the fog and uncertainty.

18. Aristotle says: "The good of the intellect is the highest beatitude;" and Dante in the Convito: "The True is the good of the intellect." In other

words, the knowledge of God is intel lectual good.

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"It is a most just punishment," says St. Augustine, that man should lose that freedom which man could not use, yet had power to keep if he would, and that he who had knowledge to do what was right, and did not do it, should be deprived of the knowledge of what was right; and that he who would not do righteously, when he had the power, should lose the power to do it when he had the will."

22. The description given of the Mouth of Hell by Frate Alberico, Visio, 9, is in the grotesque spirit of the Medieval Mysteries.

"After all these things, I was led to the Tartarean Regions, and to the mouth of the Infernal Pit, which seemed like unto a well; regions full of horrid darkness, of fetid exhalations, of shrieks and loud howlings. Near this Hell there was a Worm of immeasurable size, bound with a huge chain, one end of which seemed to be fastened in Hell. Before the mouth of this Hell there stood a great multitude of souls, which he absorbed at once, as if they were flies; so that, drawing in his breath, he swallowed them all together; then, breathing, exhaled them all on fire, like sparks."

36. The minded of speech.

reader will here be reBunyan's town of Fair

"Christian. Pray who are your kindred there, if a man may be so bold?

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By-ends. Almost the whole town; and in particular my Lord Turnabout, my Lord Timeserver, my Lord Fairspeech, from whose ancestors that town first took its name; also Mr. Smoothman, Mr. Facing-both-ways, Mr. Anything, and the parson of our parish, Mr. Two-tongues, was my mother's own brother by father's side

"There Christian stepped a little aside to his fellow Hopeful, saying, 'It runs in my mind that this is one By-ends of Fair-speech; and if it be he, we have as very a knave in our ce npany as dwelleth in all these parts.'

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42. Many commentators and translators interpret alcuna in its usual signifi

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