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He sent, who by their deeds and words might join
Again His scatter'd people. In that clime
Where springs the pleasant west-wind to unfold
The fresh leaves, with which Europe sees herself
New-garmented; nor from those billows 10 far,
Beyond whose chiding, after weary course,
The sun doth sometimes" hide him; safe abides
The happy Callaroga," under guard

Of the great shield, wherein the lion lies
Subjected and supreme. And there was born
The loving minion of the Christian faith,"
The hallow'd wrestler, gentle to his own,
And to his enemies terrible. So replete
His soul with lively virtue, that when first
Created, even in the mother's womb,"
It prophesied. When, at the sacred font,
The spousals were complete 'twixt faith and him,
Where pledge of mutual safety was exchanged,

15

The dame, who was his surety, in her sleep

Beheld the wondrous fruit, that was from him
And from his heirs to issue. And that such
He might be construed, as indeed he was,
She was inspired to name him of his owner,
Whose he was wholly; and so call'd him Dominic.
'And I speak of him, as the labourer,

Whom Christ in His own garden chose to be
His help-mate. Messenger he seem'd, and friend.
Fast-knit to Christ; and the first love he show'd,
Was after the first counsel that Christ gave.

"In that clime." Spain.
10" Those billows." The Atlantic.
11 During the summer solstice.
12" Callaroga." Between Osma
and Aranda, in Old Castile desig-
nated by the royal coat-of-arms.

13 Dominic was born April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace Callaroga; his father and mother's names, Felix, and Joanna; his mother's dream; his name of Dominic, given him in consequence of a vision by his godmother, are all told in an anonymous life of the saint, said to have been written in the thirteenth century.

14 His mother, when pregnant with

16

him, is said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white and black dog with a lighted torch in his mouth, which were signs of the habit to be worn by his order, and of his fervent zeal.

15 His godmother's dream was. that he had one star in his forehead and another in the nape of his neck, from which he communicated light to the east and the west.

16 If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.' -Matt. xix. 21. Dominic followed this advice.

Many a time" his nurse, at entering, found
That he had risen in silence, and was prostrate,
As who should say, 'My errand was for this.'
O happy father! Felix" rightly named.

18

O favour'd mother! rightly named Joanna;
If that do mean, as men interpret it."

Not for the world's sake, for which now they toil
Upon Ostiense and Taddeo's" lore;

20

But for the real manna, soon he grew
Mighty in learning; and did set himself
To go about the vineyard, that soon turns
To wan and wither'd, if not tended well:
And from the see," (whose bounty to the just
And needy is gone by, not through its fault,
But his who fills it basely,) he besought,
No dispensation" for commuted wrong,
Nor the first vacant fortune," nor the tenths
That to God's paupers rightly appertain,
But, 'gainst an erring and degenerate world,
License to fight, in favour of that seed
From which the twice twelve cions gird thee round.
Then, with sage doctrine and good will to help,
Forth on his great apostleship he fared,
Like torrent bursting from a lofty vein;
And, dashing 'gainst the stocks of heresy,
Smote fiercest, where resistance was most stout.
Thence many rivulets have since been turn'd,
Over the garden catholic to lead

25

Their living waters, and have fed its plants.

17 His nurse, when she returned to him, often found that he was prostrate, and in prayer.

18" Felix." Felix Gusman. 19 Grace or gift of the Lord.

20 Arrigo (about 1250 A. D.), a native of Susa, and cardinal of Ostia and Velletri, hence his name of Ostiense, was celebrated for his lectures on the Decretals.

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of Bologna, left no writings behind him.

22 The apostolic see, which no longer continues its wonted liberality toward the indigent and deserving; not indeed through its own fault, but through the fault of the pontiff who is seated in it.

23 Dominic did not ask for license to compound for the use of unjust acquisitions by dedicating a part of them to pious purposes.

24 The first benefice that fell vacant. 25" For that seed of the divine Word, from which have sprung up these four-and-twenty plants, these holy spirits that now environ thee."

26

28

"If such, one wheel of that two-yoked car,
Wherein the holy Church defended her,
And rode triumphant through the civil broil;
Thou canst not doubt its fellow's excellence,
Which Thomas," ere my coming, hath declared
So courteously unto thee. But the track,"
Which its smooth fellies made, is now deserted:
That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees.
His family, that wont to trace his path,
Turn backward, and invert their steps; erelong
To rue the gathering in of their ill crop,
When the rejected tares" in vain shall ask
Admittance to the barn. I question not
But he, who search'd our volume, leaf by leaf,
Might still find page with this inscription on't,
'I am as I was wont.' Yet such were not
From Acquasparta nor Casale, whence,
Of those who come to meddle with the text,
One stretches and another cramps its rule.
Bonaventura's life in me behold,

30

From Bagnoregio; one, who, in discharge
Of my great offices, still laid aside

All sinister aim. Illuminato here,

31

And Agostino join me: two they were,

Among the first of those barefooted meek ones,
Who sought God's friendship in the cord: with them
Hugues of Saint Victor; " Pietro Mangiadore;"

26 Dominic; as the other wheel is Francis.

27" Thomas." Thomas Aquinas. 28" But the track." "But the rule of St. Francis is already deserted; and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness."

29" Tares." He adverts to the parable of the tares and the wheat.

30" I question not." "Some indeed might be found, who still observe the rule of the order; but such would come neither from Casale nor Acquasparta." At Casale, in Monferrat, the discipline had been enforced by Uberto with unnecessary rigor; and at Acquasparta, in the territory of Todi, it had been equally relaxed by the Cardinal Matteo, general of the order.

31 Two among the earliest follow. ers of St. Francis.

32"Hugues of Saint Victor." He was of the monastery of St. Victor at Paris, and died in 1142, at the age of forty-four. His ten books, illustrative of the celestial hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, ac cording to the translation of Joannes Scotus, are inscribed to King Louis, son of Louis le Gros, by whom the monastery had been founded.

33 Pietro Mangiadore." Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterward chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in 1198.

And he of Spain in his twelve volumes shining;
Nathan the prophet; Metropolitan

35

Chrysostom; and Anselmo;" and, who deign'd
To put his hand to the first art, Donatus.
Raban" is here; and at my side there shines
Calabria's abbot, Joachim," endow'd
With soul prophetic. The bright courtesy
Of friar Thomas and his goodly lore,
Have moved me to the blazon of a peer

.39

So worthy; and with me have moved this throng."

CANTO XIII

ARGUMENT.-Thomas Aquinas resumes his speech. He solves the other of those doubts which he discerned in the mind of Dante, and warns him earnestly against assenting to any proposition without having duly examined it.

ET him,' who would conceive what now I saw,

L

Imagine, (and retain the image firm

As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak,)
Of stars, fifteen, from midst the ethereal host
Selected that, with lively ray serene,

O'ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine
The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky,
Spins ever on its axle night and day,

34 To Pope Adrian V succeeded John XXI, a native of Lisbon; a man of great genius and extraordinary acquirements, especially in logic and in medicine, as his books, written in the name of Peter of Spain (by which he was known before he became Pope), may testify. He was killed at Viterbo, by the falling in of the roof of his chamber, after he had been pontiff only eight months and as many days, A. D. 1277. 35" Chrysostom." The eloquent Patriarch of Constantinople.

36 Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aosta, about 1034, and studied under Lanfranc, at the monastery of Bec in Normandy, where he afterward devoted himself to a religious life, in his twenty-seventh year. In three years he was made prior, and then abbot of that monastery; from whence he was taken, in 1093, to succeed to the

archbishopric, vacant by the death of Lanfranc. He enjoyed this dignity till his death in 1109, though it was disturbed by many dissensions with William II and Henry I respecting immunities and investitures.

37 Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, 847, is placed at the head of the Latin writers of this age.

38 Abbot of Flora in Calabria; whom the multitude revered as divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious prophets of ancient times. 39 " A peer." St. Dominic.

1" Let him." Whoever would conceive the sight that now presented itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the brightest stars in heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus Major and two of Arcturus Minor, ranged in two circles, one within the other, each resembling the crown of Ariadne, and moving round in opposite directions.

With the bright summit of that horn, which swells
Due from the pole, round which the first wheel rolls,
To have ranged themselves in fashion of two signs
In Heaven, such as Ariadne made,

When death's chill seized her; and that one of them
Did compass in the other's beam; and both

In such sort whirl around, that each should tend
With opposite motion; and, conceiving thus,
Of that true constellation, and the dance
Twofold, that circled me, he shall atttain

As 'twere the shadow; for things there as much
Surpass our usage, as the swiftest Heaven
Is swifter than the Chiana.' There was sung
No Bacchus, and no Io Pæan, but

Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one
Person that nature and the human join'd.

The song and round were measured: and to us
Those saintly lights attended, happier made
At each new ministering. Then silence brake
Amid the accordant sons of Deity,

That luminary, in which the wondrous life
Of the meek man of God' was told to me;
'And thus it spake:
"One ear" o' the harvest thresh'd,
And its grain safely stored, sweet charity
Invites me with the other to like toil.

'Thou know'st, that in the bosom, whence the rib
Was ta'en to fashion that fair cheek, whose taste
All the world pays for; and in that, which pierced
By the keen lance, both after and before
Such satisfaction offer'd as outweighs
Each evil in the scale; whate'er of light
To human nature is allow'd, must all

See "Hell," Canto xxix. 45.
Thomas Aquinas.

St. Francis. See Canto xi. 25.
"Having solved one of thy ques-
tions, I proceed to answer the other.
Thou thinkest then that Adam and
Christ were both endued with all
the perfection of which the human
nature is capable; and therefore,
wonderest at what has been said
concerning Solomon."

"Thou knowest that in the breast

of Adam, whence the rib was taken to make the fair cheek of Eve, which, by tasting the apple, brought death into the world; and also in the breast of Christ, which, being pierced by the lance, made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; as much wisdom resided, as human nature was capable of: and thou dost therefore wonder that I should have spoken of Solomon as the wisest." See Canto x. 105.

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