trained, small goods seem great, and 96. Henry Vaughan, Sacred Poems :- They are that city's shining spires 99. Leviticus xi. 4: "The camel be. cause he cheweth the cud, but divideth not the hoof: he is unclean to you." Dante applies these words to the Pope as temporal sovereign. 101. Worldly goods. As in the old French satirical verses : "Au temps passé du siècle d'or, Second. Gregory retained the ambition, more full and "Frederick the Second, with many of the noblest qualities which could capti 107. The Emperor and the Pope; the vate the admiration of his own age, in temporal and spiritual power. 115. Lombardy and Romagna. 117. The dissension and war between the Emperor Frederick the Second and Pope Gregory the Ninth. Milman, Hist. Lat. Christ., Book X. Ch. 3, says : some respects might appear misplaced, and by many centuries prematurely born. Frederick having crowded into his youth adventures, perils, successes, almost unparalleled in history, was now only expanding into the prime of manhood. "The Empire and the Papacy were A parentless orphan, he had struggled now to meet in their last mortal and im- upward into the actual reigning monarch placable strife; the two first acts of this of his hereditary Sicily; he was even tremendous drama, separated by an in- then rising above the yoke of the turterval of many years, were to be deve- bulent magnates of his realm, and the loped during the pontificate of a prelate depressing tutelage of the Papal See; who ascended the throne of St. Peter at he had crossed the Alps a boyish adventhe age of eighty. Nor was this strife turer, and won so much through his own for any specific point in dispute, like the valour and daring that he might well right of investiture, but avowedly for ascribe to himself his conquest, the kingsupremacy on one side, which hardly dom of Germany, the imperial crown; deigned to call itself independence; for he was in undisputed possession of the independence, on the other, which re- Empire, with all its rights in Northern motely at least aspired after supremacy. Italy; King of Apulia, Sicily, and Jeru. Cæsar would bear no superior, the suc- salem. He was beginning to be at once cessor of St. Peter no equal. The con- the Magnificent Sovereign, the knight, test could not have begun under men the poet, the lawgiver, the patron of more strongly contrasted, or more deter- arts, letters, and science; the Magniminedly oppugnant in character, than ficent Sovereign, now holding his court Gregory the Ninth and Frederick the in one of the old barbaric and feudal more strong or more irreconcilable than the octogenarian Gregory, in his cloister palace, in his conclave of stern ascetics, with all but severe imprisonment within conventual walls, completely monastic in manners, habits, views, in corporate spirit, in celibacy, in rigid seclusion from the rest of mankind, in the conscientious determination to enslave, if possible, all Christendom to its inviolable unity of faith, and to the least possible latitudə of discipline; and the gay and ya youthful Frederick, with his mingled assemblage of knights and ladies, of Christians, Jews, and Mohammedans, of poets, and men of science, met, as it were, to enjoy and minister to enjoy ment, -to cultivate the pure intellect, gion, at least the awful authority of churchmen was examined with freedom, sometimes ridiculed with sportive wit." See also Inf. X. Note 119. 124. Currado (Conrad) da Palazzo of Brescia; Gherardo da Camino of Treviso; and Guido da Castello of Reggio. Of these three the Ottimo thus speaks: cities of Germany among the proud and turbulent princes of the Empire, more often on the sunny shores of Naples or Palermo, in southern and almost Oriental luxury; the gallant Knight and troubadour Poet, not forbidding himself those amorous indulgences which were the reward of chivalrous valour and of the 'gay science;' the Lawgiver, whose far-seeing wisdom seemed to anticipate some of those views of equal justice, of the advantages of commerce, of the cultivation of the arts of peace, beyond all the toleration of adverse religions, which even in a more dutiful son of the Church would doubtless have seemed godless indifference. Frederick must appear before us in the course of our history in the full development of all these shades of cha--where, if not the restraints of reliracter; but besides all this, Frederick's views of the temporal sovereignty were as imperious and autocratic as those of the haughtiest churchman of the spiritual supremacy. The ban of the Empire ought to be at least equally awful with that of the Church; disloyalty to the Emperor was as heinous a sin as infidelity to the head of Christendom; the independence of the Lombard republics was as a great and punishable political heresy. Even in Rome itself, as head of the Roman Empire, Frederick aspired to a supremacy which was not less unlimited because vague and undefined, and irreconcilable with that of the Supreme Pontiff. If ever Emperor might be tempted by the vision of a vast hereditary monarchy to be perpetuated in his house, the princely house of Hohenstaufen, it was Frederick. He had heirs of his greatness; his eldest son was King of the Romans; from his loins might yet spring an inexhaustible race of princes; the failure of his imperial line was his last fear. The character of the man seemed formed to achieve and to maintain this vast design; he was at once terrible and popular, courteous, generous, placable to his foes; yet there was a depth of cruelty in the heart of Frederick towards revolted subjects, which made him look on the atrocities of his allies, Eccelin di Romano, and the Salinguerras, but as legitimate means to quell insolent and stubborn rebellion. "It is impossible to conceive a contrast "Messor Currado was laden with honour during his life, delighted in a fine retinue, and in political life in the government of cities, in which he acquired much praise and fame. "Messer Guido was assiduous in honouring men of worth, who passed on their way to France, and furnished many with horses and arms, who came hitherward from France. To all who had honourably consumed their property, and returned more poorly furnished than became them, he gave, without hope of return, horses, arms, and money. "Messer Gherardo da Camino delighted not in one, but in all nobl things, keeping constantly at home." He farther says, that his fame was so great in France that he was there spoken of as the "simple Lombard,” just as, "when one says the City, and no more, one means Rome." Benvenuto da Imola says that all Italians were called Lombards by the French. In the Histoire et Cronique du petit Jehan de Saintré, fol. 219, ch. iv., the author remarks: "The fifteenth day after Saintré's return, there came to Paris two young, noble, and brave Italians, whom we call Lombards." 132. Deuteronomy xviii. 2: "Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them." 140. "This Gherardo," says Buti, had a daughter, called, on account of her beauty, Gaja; and so modest and virtuous was she, that through all Italy was spread the fame of her beauty and modesty." The Ottimo, who preceded Buti in point of time, gives a somewhat different and more equivocal account. He says: "Madonna Gaia was the daughter of Messer Gherardo da Camino: she was a lady of such conduct in amorous delectations, that her name was notorious throughout all Italy; and therefore she is thus spoken of here." CANTO XVII. 1. The trance and vision of Dante, and the ascent to the Fourth Circle, where the sin of Sloth is punished. 2. Iliad, III. 10: "As the south wind spreads a mist upon the brow of a mountain, by no means agreeable to the shepherd, but to the robber better than night, in which a man sees only as far as he can cast a stone." 19. In this vision are represented some of the direful effects of anger, beginning with the murder of Itys by his mother, Procne, and her sister, Philomela. Ovid, VI. : "Now, at her lap arrived, the flattering boy . When Procne, on revengeful mischief bent, beautifully when the spring newly begins, sitting in the thick branches of trees, and she, frequently changing, pours forth her much-sounding voice, lamenting her dear Itylus, whom once she slew with the brass through ignorance.' 25. Esther vii. 9, 10: "And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king, Behold also, the gal. lows, fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said, Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king's wrath pacified." 34. Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Queen Amata, betrothed to Turnus. Amata, thinking Turnus dead, hanged herself in anger and despair. Eneid, XII. 875, Dryden's Tr. : "Mad with her anguish, impotent to bear The mighty grief, she loathes the vital air. She calls herself the cause of all this ill, And owns the dire effects of her ungoverned will: She raves against the gods, she beats her breast, She tears with both her hands her purple vest; Then round a beam a running noose she tied, And, fastened by the neck, obscenely died. "Soon as the fatal news by fame was blown, And to her dames and to her daughters known, The sad Lavinia rends her yellow hair And rosy cheeks; the rest her sorrow share; With shrieks the palace rings, and madness of despair." 53. See Par. V. 134 :— "Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself By too much light." And Milton, Parad. Lost, III. 380:"Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear." 68. Matthew v. 9: "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God." : 85. Sloth. See Inf. VII. Note 115. And Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, XXI. 145 "In ira nasce e posa Accidia niquitosa." 97. The first, the object; the second, too much or too little vigour. 124. The sins of Pride, Envy, and The other is Sloth, or luke Or perhaps the reference is to the Homeric legend of Philomela, Odyssey, Anger. XIX. 518: "As when the daughter of warmness in well-doing, punished in this Pandarus, the swarthy nightingale, sings | circle. 136. The sins of Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. CANTO XVIII. 1. The punishment of the sin of Sloth. 27. Bound or taken captive by the image of pleasure presented to it. See Canto XVII. 91. 22. Milton, Parad. Lost, V. 100: "But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties, that serve 30. The region of Fire. Brunetto Latini, Tresor. Ch. CVIII.: "After the zone of the air is placed the fourth element. This is an orb of fire without any moisture, which extends as far as the moon, and surrounds this atmosphere in which we are. And know that above the fire is first the moon, and the other stars, which are all of the nature of fire. 44. If the soul follows the appetitus naturalis, or goes not with another foot than that of nature. 49. In the language of the Scholastics, Form was the passing from the potential to the actual. "Whatever is Act," says Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Quæst. LXVI. Art. 1, "whatever is Act is Form; quod est actus est forma." And again Form was divided into Substantial Form, which caused a thing to be; and Accidental Form, which caused it to be in a certain way, 66 as heat makes its subject not simply to be, but to be hot." "The soul," says the same Angelic Doctor, Quæst. LXXVI. Art. 4, "is the substantial form of man; anima est forma ubstantialis hominis." It is segregate or distinct from matter, though united with it. 61. "This" refers to the power that counsels, or the faculty of Reason. 66. Accepts, or rejects like chaff. 73. Dante makes Beatrice say, Par. V. 19: "The greatest gift that in his largess God Creating made, and unto his own goodness Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize Most highly, is the freedom of the will, Wherewith the creatures of intelligence Both all and only were and are endowed." 76. Near midnight of the Second Day of Purgatory. 80. The moon was rising in the sign of the Scorpion, it being now five days after the full; and when the sun is in this sign, it is seen by the inhabitants of Rome to sit between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. 83. Virgil, born at Pietola, near Mantua. 84. The burden of Dante's doubts and questions, laid upon Virgil. 91. Rivers of Boeotia, on whose banks the Thebans crowded at night to invoke the aid of Bacchus to give them rain for their vineyards. 94. The word falcare, in French faucher, here translated "curve," is a term of equitation, describing the motion of the outer fore-leg of a horse in going round in a circle. It is the sweep of a mower's scythe. 100. Luke i. 39: "And Mary arose in those days and went into the hillcountry with haste." 101. Cæsar on his way to subdue Ilerda, now Lerida, in Spain, besieged Marseilles, leaving there part of his army under Brutus to complete the work. 118. Nothing is known of this Abbot, not even his name. Finding him here, the commentators make bold to say that he was "slothful and deficient in good deeds." This is like some of the definitions in the Crusca, which, instead of the interpretation of a Dantesque word, give you back the passage in which it occurs. 119. This is the famous Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who, according to the German popular tradition, is still sitting in a cave in the Kipphauser mountains, waiting for something to happen, while his beard has grown through the stone-table before him. In 1162 he burned and devastated Milan, Brescia, Piacenza, and Cremona. He was drowned in the Salef in Armenia, on his crusade in 1190, endeavouring to ford the river on horseback in his impatience to cross. His character is thus drawn by Milman, Lat. Christ., Book VIII. Ch. 7, and sufficiently explains why Dante calls him "the good Barba rossa where Avarice is punished. It is the dawn of the Third Day. 3. Brunetto Latini, Tresor. Ch. CXL "Saturn, who is sovereign over all, is cruel and malign and of a cold nature." 4. Geomancy is divination by points "Frederick was a prince of intrepid in the ground, or pebbles arranged in valour, consummate prudence, unmea- certain figures, which have peculiar sured ambition, justice which hardened names. Among these is the figure into severity, the ferocity of a barbarian called the Fortuna Major, which is thus somewhat tempered with a high chival-drawn:rous gallantry; above all, with a strength of character which subjugated alike the great temporal and ecclesiastical princes of Germany; and was prepared to assert the Imperial rights in Italy to the utmost. Of the constitutional rights of the Emperor, of his unlimited supremacy, his absolute independence of, his temporal superiority over, all other powers, even that of the Pope, Frederick proclaimed the loftiest notions. He was to the Empire what Hildebrand and Innocent were to the Popedom. His power was of God alone; to assert that it was bestowed by the successor of St. Peter was a lie, and directly contrary to the doctrine of St. Peter." 132. See Inf. VII. Note 115. 135. Numbers xxxii. 11, 12: Surely none of the men that came out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me: save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun; for they have wholly followed the Lord." 137. The Trojans who remained with Acestes in Sicily, instead of following Æneas to Italy. Eneid, V.: "They enroll the matrons for the city, and set on shore as many of the people as were willing,-souls that had no desire of high renown.' 145. The end of the Second Day. CANTO XIX. and which by an effort of imagination Chaucer, Troil. 1415: "But whan the cocke, commune astrologer, Gan for to rise and out his bemes throwe, 6. Because the sun is following close behind. 7. This "stammering woman of Dante's dream is Sensual Pleasure, which the imagination of the beholder adorns with a thousand charms. The "lady saintly and alert is Reason, the same that tied Ulysses to the mast, and stopped the ears of his sailors with wax that they might not hear the song of the Sirens. Gower, Conf. Amant., I.:- 51. "That is," says Buti, "they shall have the gift of comforting their souls." Matthew v. 4: "Blessed are they that mourn; for they shall be com. The ascent to the Fifth Circle, forted." |