Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

And again, Canto XXVI. 106:--
"For I behold it in the truthful mirror,
That of Himself all things parhelion makes,
And none makes Him parhelion of itself."

58. "Say what it is," and "whence it came to be."

62. The answer to these two questions involves no self-praise, as the answer to the other would have done, if it had come from Dante's lips.

67. This definition of Hope is from Peter Lombard's Lib. Sent., Book III. Dist. 26: "Est spes certa expectatio fu turæ beatitudinis, veniens ex Dei gratia, et meritis præcedentibus."

72. The Psalmist David.

73. In his divine songs, or songs of God. Psalm ix. 10: And they that know thy name will put their trust in thee."

78. Your rain; that is, of David and St. James.

84. According to the legend, St. James suffered martyrdom under Herod Agrippa.

89. "The mark of the high calling and election sure," namely, Paradise, which is the aim and object of all the "friends of God;" or, as St. James expresses it in his Epistle, i. 12 "Blessed is the man that endureth temptation for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord hath promised to them that love him."

90. This expression is from the Epistle of James, ii. 23: "And he was called the Friend of God."

91. The spiritual body and the glo

rified earthly body. Isaiah Ixi. 7: "Therefore in their land they shall pos sess the double; everlasting joy shall be unto them."

95. St. John in Revelation vii. 9: "After this I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and palms in their hands."

100. St. John.

IOI. If Cancer, which in winter rises at sunset, had one star as bright as this, it would turn night into day.

105. Any failing, such as vanity, ostentation, or the like.

107. St. Peter and St. James.

113. This symbol or allegory of the Pelican, applied to Christ, was popular during the Middle Ages, and was seen not only in the songs of poets, but in sculpture on the portals of churches.

Thibaut, Roi de Navarre, Chanson LXV., says :

"Diex est ensi comme li Pelicans,

Qui fait son nit el plus haut arbre sus,
Et li mauvais oseau, qui vient de jus
Ses oisellons ocist, tant est puans;
Li pere vient destrois et angosseux,
Dou bec s'ocist, de son sanc dolereus
Vivre refait tantost ses oisellons;
Diex fist autel, quant vint sa passions,
De son douc sanc racheta ses enfans
Dou Deauble, qui tant parest poissans."

114. John xix. 27: "Then saith he to the disciple, Behold thy mother! And from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home."

121. St. John. Dante-bearing in mind the words of Christ, John xxi. 22, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die "-looks to see if the spiritual body of the saint be in any way eclipsed by his earthly body. St. John, reading his unspoken thought, immediately undeceives him.

Mrs. Jameson, Sacred and Legendary Art, I. 139, remarks: "The legend which supposes St. John reserved alive has not been generally received in the Church, and as a subject of painting it is very uncommon. It occurs in the

enologium Gracum, where the grave to which St. John descends is, accordg to the legend, fossa in crucis figuram n the form of a cross). In a series the deaths of the Apostles, St. John ascending from the grave; for, acording to the Greek legend, St. John ied without pain or change, and imhediately rose again in bodily form, nd ascended into heaven to rejoin Christ and the Virgin."

126. Till the predestined number of he elect is complete. Revelation vi. I : "And white robes were given unto very one of them; and it was said unto hem, that they should rest yet for a ittle season, until their fellow-servants lso and their brethren, that should be killed as they were, should be ful

illed."

127. The spiritual body and the glori ied earthly body.

128. Christ and the Virgin Mary. Butler, Lives of the Saints, VIII. 173, says: "It is a traditionary pious belief, that the body of the Blessed Virgin was raised by God soor after her death, and assumed to glory, a singular privilege, before the general resurrection of the dead. This is mentioned by the learned Andrew of Crete in the East, in the seventh, and by St. Gregory of Tours in the West, in the sixth century..... So great was the respect and veneration of the fathers towards this most holy and most exalted of all pure creatures, that St. Epiphanius durst not affirm that she ever died, because he had never found any mention of her death, and because she might have been preserved immortal, and translated to glory without dying."

132. By the sacred trio of St. Peter, St. James, and St. John.

138. Because his eyes were so blinded by the splendour of the beloved disciple. Speaking of St. John, Claudius, the German poet, says: "It delights me most of all to read in John: there is in him something so entirely wonderful,— twilight and night, and through it the swiftly darting lightning,-a soft evening cloud, and behind the cloud the broad full moon bodily; something so deeply, sadly pensive, so high, so full of anticipation, that one cannot have

enough of it. always with me as though I saw him In reading John it is before me, lying on the bosom of his Master at the last supper: as though his angel were holding the light for me, and in certain passages would fall upon my neck and whisper something in mine ear. I am far from understanding all I read, but it often seems to me as if what John meant were floating before in the distance; and even when I look into a passage altogether dark, I have a foretaste of some great, glorious meaning, which I shall one day understand, and for this reason I grasp so eagerly after every new interpretation of the Gospel of John. Indeed, most of them only play upon the edge of the evening cloud, and the moon behind it has quiet rest.”

[merged small][merged small][ocr errors]

"Love,

By name to come called Charity."

12. Ananias, the disciple at Damascus, whose touch restored the sight of Saul.

Acts ix. 17: "And Ananias went his way, and entered into the house, and putting his hands on him, said, Brother Saul, the Lord, even Jesus, that appeared unto thee in the way as thou camest, hath sent me, that thou mightest receive thy sight, and be filled with the Holy Ghost. And immediately there fell from his eyes as it had been scales; and he received sight forthwith, and arose, and was baptized.' 17. God is the beginning and end of all my love.

[ocr errors]

38. The commentators differ as to which of the philosophers Dante here refers; whether to Aristotle, Plato, or Pythagoras.

39. The angels.

42. Exodus xxxiii. 19. "And he said, I will make all my goodness pass before thee."

44. John i. 1: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word was made flesh, and

A A

dwelt among us,

and truth."

full of grace

124. Most of the Oriental languages claim the honour of being the language

46. By all the dictates of human rea-spoken by Adam in Paradise. Juan Bautista de Erro claims it for the Basque,

son and divine authority.

52. In Christian ar the eagle is the or Vascongada. See Alphabet of Prim symbol of St. John, indicating his more | Lang. of Spain, Pt. II. Ch. 2, Erving' fervid imagination and deeper insight Tr. into divine mysteries. Sometimes even the saint was represented with the head and feet of an eagle, and the hands and body of a man.

64. All living creatures.

69. Isaiah vi. 3: "As one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory."

83. The soul of Adam.

91. "Tell me, of what age was Adam when he was created?" is one of the questions in the Anglo-Saxon Dialogue between Saturn and Solomon; and the answer is, "I tell thee, he was thirty winters old." And Buti says: "He was created of the age of thirty-three, or thereabout; and therefore the author says that Adam alone was created by God in perfect age and stature, and no other man." And Sir Thomas Browne, Religio Medici, § 39: "Some divines count Adam thirty years old at his creation, because they suppose him created in the perfect age and stature of man."

Stehelin, Traditions of the Jews, I. 16, quotes Rabbi Eliezer as saying "that the first man reached from the earth to the firmament of heaven; but that, after he had sinned, God laid his hands on him and reduced him to a less size." And Rabbi Salomon writes, that "when he lay down, his head was in the east and his feet in the west."

107. Parhelion is an imperfect image of the sun, formed by reflection in the clouds. All things are such faint reflections of the Creator; but he is the reflection of none of them.

Buti interprets the passage differently, giving to the word pareglio the meaning of ricettacolo, receptacle.

118. In Limbo, longing for Paradise, where the only punishment is to live in desire, but without hope. Inf. IV. 41:

"Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire."

129. See Canto XVI. 79:

"All things of yours have their mortality, Even as yourselves."

134. Dante, De Volg. Eloq., I. Ch. 4, says, speaking of Adam: "What was the first word he spake will, I doubt not. readily suggest itself to every one of sound mind as being what God is, namely, El, either in the way of question or of an swer."

136. The word used by Matthew, xxvii. 46, is Eli, and by Mark, xv. 34, Eloi, which Dante assumes to be of later use than El. There is, I believe, no authority for this. El is God; Eli, or Eloi, my God.

137. Horace, Ars Poet., 60: "As the woods change their leaves in autumn, and the earliest fall, so the ancient words pass away, and the new flourish in the freshness of youth.. .. Many that now have fallen shall spring up again, and others fall which now are held in honour, if usage wills, which is the judge, the law, and the rule of language.'

139. The mount of Purgatory, on whose summit was the Terrestrial Paradise.

142. The sixth hour is noon in the old way of reckoning; and at noon the sun has completed one quarter or quadrant of the arc of his revolution, and changes to the next. The hour which is second to the sixth, is the hour which follows it, or one o'clock. This gives seven hours for Adam's stay in Paradise; and so says Peter Comestor (Dante's Peter Mangiador) in his ecclesiastical history.

The Talmud, as quoted by Stehelin, Traditions of the Jews, I. 20, gives the following account: "The day has twelve hours. In the first hour the dust of which Adam was formed was brought together. In the second, this dust was made a rude, unshapely mass. In the third, the limbs were stretched out. the fourth, a soul was lodged in it. In

In

In

the fifth, Adam stood upon his feet. the sixth he assigned the names of all things that were created. In the seventh, he received Eve for his consort. In the eighth, two went to bed and four rose out of it; the begetting and birth of two children in that time, namely, Cain and his sister. In the ninth, he was forbid to eat of the fruit of the tree. In the tenth, he disobeyed. In the eleventh, he was tried, convicted, and sentenced. In the twelfth, he was banished, or driven out of the garden."

CANTO XXVII.

1. The Heaven of the Fixed Stars continued. The anger of St. Peter; and the ascent to the Primum Mobile, or Crystalline Heaven.

Dante, Convito II. 15, makes this Crystalline Heaven the symbol of Moral Philosophy. He says: "The Crystalline Heaven, which has previously been called the Primum Mobile, has a very manifest resemblance to Moral Philosophy; for Moral Philosophy, as Thomas says in treating of the second book of the Ethics, directs us to the other sciences. For, as the Philosopher says in the fifth of the Ethics, legal justice directs us to learn the sciences, and orders them to be learned and mastered, so that they may not be abandoned; so this heaven directs with its movement the daily revolutions of all the others, by which daily they all receive here below the virtue of all their parts. For if its revolution did not thus direct, little of their virtues would reach here below, and little of their sight. Hence, supposing it were possible for this ninth heaven to stand still, the third part of heaven would not be seen in each part of the earth; and Saturn would be hidden from each part of the earth fourteen years and a half; and Jupiter, six years; and Mars, almost a year; and the Sun, one hundred and eighty-two days and fourteen hours (I say days, that is, so much time as so many days would measure); and Venus and Mercury would conceal and show themselves nearly as the Sun; and the Moon would be hidden from all people for the space of fourteen days and a half. Truly there would be

here below no production, nor life of animals, nor plants; there would be neither night, nor day, nor week, nor month, nor year; but the whole universe would be deranged, and the movement of the stars in vain. And not otherwise, were Moral Philosophy to cease, the other sciences would be for a time concealed, and there would be no production, nor life of felicity, and in vain would be the writings or discoveries of antiquity. Wherefore it is very manifest that this heaven bears a resemblance to Moral Philosophy.

9. Without desire for more.

10. St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam.

14. If the white planet Jupiter should become as red as Mars.

22. Pope Boniface VIII., who won his way to the Popedom by intrigue. See Inf. III. Note 59, and XIX. Note 53.

25. The Vatican hill, to which the body of St. Peter was transferred from the catacombs.

36. Luke xxiii. 44: "And there was darkness over all the earth..... And the sun was darkened."

41. Linus was the immediate successor of St. Peter as Bishop of Rome, and Cletus of Linus. They were both martyrs of the first age of the Church.

44. Sixtus and Pius were Popes and martyrs of the second age of the Church; Calixtus and Urban, of the third.

47. On the right hand of the Pope the favoured Guelfs, and on the left the persecuted Ghibellines.

50. The Papal banner, on which are the keys of St. Peter.

51. The wars against the Ghibellines in general, and particularly that waged against the Colonna family, ending in the destruction of Palestrina. Inj. XXVII. 85:

"But he, the Prince of the new Pharisees, Having a war near unto Lateran, And not with Saracens nor with the Jews, For each one of his enemies was Christian, And none of them had been to co quer Acre, Nor merchandising in the Sultan's land." 53. The sale of indulgences, stamped with the Papal seal, bearing the head of St. Peter.

AA &

[ocr errors]

55. Matthew vii. 15: "Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves."

57. Psalm xliv. 23: "Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord?"

58. Clement V. of Gascony, made Pope in 1305, and John XXII. of Cahors in France, in 1316. Buti makes the allusion more general: "They of Cahors and Gascony are preparing to drink the blood of the martyrs, because they were preparing to be Popes, cardinals, archbishops and bishops, and prelates in the Church of God, that is built with the blood of the martyrs."

61. Dante alludes elsewhere to this intervention of Providence to save the Roman Empire by the hand of Scipio. Convito, IV. 5, he says: "Is not the hand of God visible, when in the war with Hannibal, having lost so many citizens, that three bushels of rings were carried to Africa, the Romans would have abandoned the land, if that blessed youth Scipio had not undertaken the expedition to Africa, to secure its freedom?"

69. When the sun is in Capricorn; that is, from the middle of December to the middle of January.

68. Boccaccio, Ninfale d'Ameto, describing a battle between two flocks of swans, says the spectators "saw the air full of feathers, as when the nurse of Jove [Amalthea, the Goat] holds Apollo, the white snow is seen to fall in flakes."

And Whittier, Snow-Bound:-
"Unwarmed by any sunset light,

The gray day darkened into night,
A night made hoary with the swarm
And whirl-dance of the blinding storm,
As zigzag wavering to and fro

Crossed and recrossed the wingéd snow."

72. The spirits described in Canto XXII. 131, as

"The triumphant throng That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether,"

and had remained behind when Christ and the Virgin Mary ascended.

74. Till his sight could follow them no more, on account of the exceeding vastness of the space between.

79. Canto XXII. 133.

81. The first climate is the torrid zone, the first from the equator. From midst to end, is from the meridian to the horizon. Dante had been, then, six hours in the Ileaven of the Fixed Stars; for, as Milton says, Par. Lost, V. 580:—

"Time, though in eternity, applied
To motion, measures all things durable,
By present, past, and future."

82. Being now in the meridian of the Straits of Gibraltar, Dante sees to the westward of Cadiz the sea Ulysses sailed, when he turned his stern untc the morning and made his oars wings for his mad flight, as described in Inf. XXVI.

83. Eastward he almost sees the Phoenician coast; almost, and not quite, because, say the commentators, it was already night there.

84. Europa, daughter of King Age nor, borne to the island of Crete or the back of Jupiter, who had taken the shape of a bull.

[ocr errors]

Ovid, Met., II., Addison's Tr. :

[ocr errors]

Among the fields, the milk-white bull surveyed,
Agenor's royal daughter, as she played
And viewed his spotless body with delight,
And at a distance kept him in her sight.
At length she plucked the rising flowers, and fed
The gentle beast, and fondly stroked his head.
Till now grown wanton and devoid of fear,
Not knowing that she pressed the Thunderer,
She placed herself upon his back, and rode
O'er fields and meadows, seated on the god.

"He gently marched along, and by degrees Left the dry meadow, and approached the seas; Where now he dips his hoofs and wets his thighs, Now plunges in, and carries off the prize."

85. See Canto XXII. Note 151. 87. The sun was in Aries, two signs in advance of Gemini, in which Dae then was.

88. Donnea again. See Canto XIV Note 118.

91. Purg. XXXI. 49:

"Never to thee presented art or nature

Pleasure so great as the fa'r limbs wherein
I was enclosed, which scattered are in
earth.

98. The Gemini, or Twins, are Castor and Pollux, the sons of Leda. And as Jupiter, their father, came to

« PreviousContinue »