Finally, we have the cases in which the object is natural, or even laudable. A fair share of this world's goods, our daily food, the love between man and woman, all these are objects to which the desires may lawfully be directed, so long as they are duly restrained. When, however, they become the main aim, they are sinful, and lead to the sins for which the discipline of the three upper cornices is required; the most severe of all that is undergone in Purgatory. Yet these are the sins which in Hell "incur less blame," as being sins involving rather the animal than the spiritual part of man. But there is not space here to discuss this aspect of the subject. Readers will find much interest in 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 an introduction to Dante's ethics and psychology; and is remarkable both in its agreement with Aristotle and its divergence from him. The occasion for it is found in a question raised by Dante, and suggested to him by the appearance of the shades in the circle which they have just left: namely, how beings who have no need to go through the ordinary process of nutrition, can feel the desire for food (as Forese has explained that they do) and grow lean through the deprivation of it. In order to solve this difficulty, Statius sketches briefly the stages of the development of the human being, from his first conception until he has an independent existence, showing how the embryo progresses first to vegetative then to animal life, and how finally, when the brain is complete (this being the last stage in the organisation), the "First Mover" breathes the human soul into the frame. The soul, having thus an independent existence, when the frame decays sets itself loose therefrom, taking with it the senses and passions, as well as the mental faculties of memory, understanding, and will. The latter are still in full activity, but the former have only a potential existence until such time as the soul has found its place in the other world. Then it takes to itself a bodily shape, formed out of the surrounding air (as a flame is formed by the fire), and equips it with organs of sense; and thenceforward this shape is adapted to express all the natural emotions and desires, including of course those of hunger and thirst. This remarkable exposition is based on Aristotle's theory of the generation of the body, and the introduction into it of the soul; but there is an important difference. The Greek philosopher, though his language is not very explicit, has apparently no idea of any survival of the personal identity after death. At all events, so he was interpreted by Averroes and later by Aquinas. With him the source of all movement is the father, from whom only (though here again Aristotle is not quite clear) comes the gift of a soul. Dante, on the contrary, refers these back to the Prime Mover, namely God, and conceives a special creative act as performed on behalf of every human being that is brought into the world. As will be easily seen, this conception is the necessary complement to Dante's system of ethics, based on individual free-will, and postulating a newly-created soul, fresh from the Maker's hand; a tabula rasa, with no attributes save the natural propension towards that which gives it pleasure.

We may now pass to the six cantos which conclude this division of the poem, and form a most important stage in the development of the whole plan. Dante has now proceeded as far as human reason, typified by Virgil, is able to guide him. He is on the threshold of Heaven; but before he can be admitted among the blessed, another conductor must be provided, 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 may say for shortness, theology, not in the sense of a formal science, but in one approaching more nearly to what Aristotle calls Theoria, or contemplation. From certain expressions in the earliest cantos of the poem, it is clear that Dante looked upon the woman whom in his youth he had loved, and who had, at the supposed date of these events, been ten years dead, as symbolising this Theoria, and as being in some special way entrusted with the task of saving him from spiritual ruin. She accordingly appears, and takes up the duties which Virgil is surrendering. The manner of her appearance must be noticed—showing as it does the almost inextricable web in which Dante combines fact and allegory. That the "Beatrice" who is introduced is primarily none other than an actual woman of flesh and blood, whom hundreds of then living people had known, who had gone about Florence for twenty-four years and married a prominent citizen, and whom Dante had loved with the romantic passion of the Middle Ages, only the misplaced ingenuity of paradoxical critics can doubt.[35] Yet at her entry she is escorted by a procession, the members of which represent the books of the Bible, the seven virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; while the car on which she is borne (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 the Trinity. If it be objected that the salvation of Dante is a small matter about which to set in motion so stupendous a machinery, we may answer that, in the first place, his own salvation does not seem unimportant to the man himself; and further, which is of more weight, that Dante himself is here no less symbolical than Beatrice, or Virgil, or the mystic Gryphon. He is the typical human soul; his experiences, his struggles, his efforts to shake himself free of the trammels of the world and the flesh, are familiar features in the spiritual history of the great majority of Christians. Thus the wonderful pageant described in this canto must be regarded as being displayed, not to him only, but to all Christendom in his person.

A few words with regard to this pageant may afford a little help to its comprehension. After the arrival of Beatrice, a scene follows in which she upbraids Dante for his forgetfulness of her, and receives an avowal of his fault. He is then bathed in the stream of Lethe—another curious employment of pagan mythology—and brought back to the presence of Beatrice. Hitherto she has been veiled; but now, at the special entreaty of her attendant nymphs (those nymphs who are also the four stars in heaven, and denote the cardinal virtues), she withdraws the veil, and discloses again the smile for which her "faithful one" had yearned during ten years.

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

In the final scene of all, Beatrice, in phrases hardly less obscure than the vision itself, indicates to Dante the lesson which he is to learn from it, and repeats in another form Virgil's prediction of a champion who is to come and set the world to rights. Much has been written about the first of these, the Veltro; hardly less about the "five hundred, ten, and five," or DXV. The usual interpretation takes these letters as intended merely to suggest Dux, a leader; but this seems a little weak. Elsewhere I have given reasons for thinking that Dante had a special motive for wrapping up his meaning in this numerical form.

Lastly, in a passage which, though ostensibly only one of Dante's usual time-indications, seems intended to suggest repose after the labours through which he has brought his readers, and the agitation of the last canto, 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 voluminous interpretations which have been offered of the very difficult and perplexing mysticism of these cantos. Some points are perhaps plainer to the student who considers them with a fair knowledge of the Bible and history, than to the commentator who wishes to establish a new and original theory. But they are so important (particularly Cantos xxx. and xxxi.) to any one who wishes to understand Dante's whole position as man, poet, scholar, and politician, that they should not be passed over as mere futile mediaeval fancies. It should be said, too, that they contain some passages which will never be out of date until the poetic taste of mankind has altogether changed.

Section 3. PARADISE.

The first point which will strike the reader on entering upon the third division of the poem is the sudden change in the conditions under which the action is carried on. Hitherto Dante has been moving on solid earth, subject to the usual limitations which are enforced by physical laws upon all human action. Henceforth, as he tells us (Par., xxx. 123), God operates directly, and physical laws have no longer any place. "It is Beatrice," he elsewhere says, "who leads on so swiftly from one stage of blessedness to a higher;" and we shall notice that the transference from 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. According to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, as adapted to the requirements of mediaeval belief, the earth was at the centre, and concentric with it were ten hollow spheres. In the first eight of these were placed consecutively the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. In order to explain the irregular movements of the planets, "epicycles" or smaller spheres borne by the principal spheres, and bearing the planets, were devised, but these need not be considered here. Outside of the fixed stars came the primum mobile, which gave the diurnal revolution of the heavens, and beyond this the Empyrean, or fixed heaven, in which was the special abode of God, and in which all the blessed had their places. Between the earth and the innermost sphere, that of the Moon, lie the regions of water, air, and fire. The Mountain of Purgatory, on the summit of which Dante at the conclusion of the second Cantica was standing, lifts its head as far as the third of these. Through this accordingly, Beatrice and Dante have to rise in order to reach the first step in the celestial ascent. It must be noted that there is no reason to suppose that in every case the actual planet is visited. The "heaven" of the planet embraces the whole "sphere" in which it is set, and its characteristics may be conceived as extending to the whole of that sphere.

The fact of rising without apparent motive force through a medium lighter than his own body, at once forms a subject for enquiry on Dante's part; and Beatrice, as she has frequently to do in the course of their journey, resolves his doubt. Those who are reading the poem for the first time will probably pass lightly over these difficult metaphysical passages. They must be read sooner or later by any one who wishes thoroughly to understand Dante's place in the history of speculative thought; but in the first instance it will probably be better to "take them as read" and endeavour to get a clear notion of the general arrangement. There are obvious reasons why this portion of the poem 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 a detailed picture; and terms indicative of simple brightness are limited. Nor, again, is it easy where all are perfect to depict individual character. Consequently two great elements of interest in the first two parts of the poem are far less available here; and their place must be filled by other matter. What this matter should be is suggested by the natural division of speculative science into Ethics, or the study of man's conduct as a moral being; Politics, or the science relating to his behaviour in regard to the social order; and Metaphysics, which for Dante is synonymous with theology, the investigation of all that concerns his spiritual part, as well as the Divine order generally. With the first two we have dealt in the Hell and the Purgatory respectively; the third is reserved for the Paradise. Once or twice indeed Dante touches on matters that would seem more fitly to belong to the others; as, for instance, the magnificent passage in Canto vi., where Justinian, after sketching the triumphant course of the Roman Eagle, inveighs against the party feuds of the time; or Carlo Martello's reference to the Sicilian Vespers, and the misdeeds of his brother Robert. But of these the first leads up to an elaborate exposition of the scheme of Redemption, the second seems intended directly to introduce a dissertation on matters lying at the very root of human nature.

To the same difficulty in varying the methods (to use a phrase of Ginguene's) must be attributed the occurrence of a good many conceptions which to our taste appear somewhat grotesque. Yet the better we know the poem the more we shall feel that in this third part the author's genius rises to its sublimest efforts, and agree with the late Dean of St. Paul's, that it is the true pierre de touche of the student of Dante.

To go briefly through the various stages. The heaven of the Moon is that in which appear the spirits of those who having taken vows have under compulsion or persuasion abandoned them; Mercury contains statesmen and men of affairs; Venus those who have been over-much swayed by indulgence in earthly love. It must be observed that, according to the astronomy of the time, the shadow of the Earth, cast into space by the Sun, extended as far as the orbit of Venus. The spirits in these three spheres therefore form a group by themselves: being distinguished by the fact that they had allowed earthly cares and pleasures to obtain too strong hold of them, to the injury of their spiritual development. In these three spheres respectively the representative speakers are Piccarda Donati, sister of Dante's friend Forese, and of Corso, the leader of the "Black Guelfs;" the Emperor Justinian; and Carlo Martello, the titular king of Hungary, son of Charles II., king of Naples, who is followed by Cunizza, sister of the Ghibeline chief, Ezzelino da Romano, and Folco of Marseilles, who began as a troubadour and became bishop of his native city.

Although in one sense the inhabitants of the three lower spheres may be said to have attained a less perfect blessedness than those to whom the rest of heaven is assigned, it must not be supposed that they are conscious of any lack. All have their places in the highest or Empyrean heaven, and all sense of sorrow for past imperfections is at an end. We must indeed suppose that, as with Dante himself, the imperfections have been effaced by the discipline of Purgatory, and their remembrance washed away by the water of Lethe.

With the sphere of the Sun, however, we arrive for the first time in the presence of those who have lived so as to earn the full honour of sanctity, and find ourselves amongst canonised saints. Even here Dante has shown himself, as usual, independent of conventional or official restrictions. In his introduction of St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura he merely anticipates the formal decision of the Church; but in "Peter of Spain," that is Pope John XXI. (the only historical Pope whom he places in Paradise), he selects for special honour a man who was by no means free from grave suspicion of heresy, and who has never been canonised. As Dante never did anything without a reason we must suppose that some now forgotten merit earned for the Spanish logician a place beside Nathan, Chrysostom, and Anselm. It is by these and such men as these, great teachers and thinkers, that the heaven of the Sun is occupied; the reason no doubt being that as the Sun is the source of light and the promoter of growth in the physical world, so are these in the spiritual.

The tenth canto is specially notable as bringing Dante into the presence of the greatest exponent of the Scholastic philosophy, and the master whom he followed more closely than any other, St. Thomas Aquinas. In the eleventh, the illustrious Dominican recounts the life of St. Francis of Assisi, the founder of the rival order. This is one of the most notable passages in the whole poem, rising as it does to a sustained magnificence of diction which especially characterises those portions of the 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 the poem; and it is to them that students who wish to feel the attraction which 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, one of the two regions of Heaven in which Dante makes the longest stay, the other being that of the Fixed Stars. The passage to it marks a distinct stage in his progress. Looking back to the end of Canto ix. we see that it forms a kind of peroration; while the first twenty-seven lines of Canto x. are, as it were, the introduction to a fresh division of the poem, and recall certain phrases which occurred in the opening canto. It is difficult to say why these two spheres should be made of so much more importance than the rest. Mars is the only one which approaches them; but this is selected by Dante as the scene of his interview with his ancestor Cacciaguida, which gives the occasion for the magnificent contrast between the old days of Florence and its present state, and the prophecy of his own exile; subjects which might well occupy a considerable 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 so mighty a paladin," responds to it, fine as they are, do not appear indispensable 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 obvious symmetry than is to be found in the two former Cantiche. No doubt the plan is there; but just as "time-indications" for the most part fail us, or can be extracted only by elaborate and somewhat uncertain calculations, so it would seem as if the poet, no longer hampered by the necessities of time and space, had wished to show how he could work with no self-made restrictions.

After his discourse in praise of the founder of the rival order, immediately followed by its counterpart—an eloquent summary of the career of St. Dominic, put into the mouth of the Franciscan Bonaventura—St. Thomas speaks again (Canto xiii.), in order to explain an apparent over-estimate of Solomon's greatness among mankind which an expression used by him in naming the spirits present with him might have seemed 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 is made the introduction to some profound teaching in reference to the workings of the human mind—teaching which is at least as needful in the present day as it ever was in Dante's own time. Solomon himself then speaks, answering a question put by Beatrice on Dante's behalf as to the nature of the glorified body; and then Dante, having looked upon the countenance of Beatrice, and being by this means (as in every other case) raised "to a higher salvation," finds by the ruddy light which surrounds 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 some special image displayed. In the case of Mars, it is a vast crucifix, composed of spirits, who are darting in all directions within the figure, like motes in a sunbeam. One of them glides from the arm to the foot of the cross, and makes himself known to Dante as his great-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, probably (though this is not certain) of the family of the Elisei.[36] He had been, like all the other spirits, as it would seem, of this sphere, a soldier, and had died in battle as a Crusader. The latter half of this, the fifteenth canto, together with the two following, form what is probably the best-known and most frequently quoted portion of the Paradise. First we have a beautiful picture of the simple and kindly life of old Florence, before party-spirit and luxury had entered and corrupted its citizens. The picture is, of course, one of those which people in every age have drawn of earlier times, supposed to have been free from the corruptions which each man's experience teaches him are rife in his own day; but none the less it is of value as showing Dante's ideal of social life.

The next canto continues to deal with the same topic; but enters more into detail with regard to the various families, and the vicissitudes in their fortunes. This leads up to the existing strife of parties, and this again naturally to Dante's own share in it, and his exile. It must be remembered that this did not actually come about till two years after the date at which the action of the Commedia is supposed to take place; so that the whole is cast into a prophetic form. The language used, however, must be taken as expressing the feeling with which Dante looked back after an interval of nearly twenty years—for the Paradise was probably completed very shortly before the poet's death—upon the events in which he had borne a somewhat prominent part. Whether he was ever a personage of the first importance in Florence we may be allowed to doubt. No doubt he was a man of some consideration; but still the office of Prior was one which nearly every eligible citizen must have held;[37] and Villani, who devotes a chapter to his memory, does not mention his name among the political leaders of an earlier period. Probably he occupied among the exiles of 1302 a far less important place in their own eyes and those of contemporaries than he does in ours; but if not a leader, he was in the front rank, and must have been aware of all that went on. The passages relating to his exile, to the worthlessness of his companions, to his gratitude towards those who helped him, gain immensely in force and pathos if we regard them as an aging man's reminiscences of a long by-gone time.

With the passage to the sphere of Jupiter (Canto xviii.) the imagery becomes yet more daring. This is the region specially devoted to the spirits 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 a further transformation takes place; the letter is gradually modified into the shape of the imperial eagle. Righteousness, or justice, is, it should be remembered, in Dante's view (as indeed in that of most moralists) the source and foundation of all that goes to establish human society on a virtuous and duly ordered basis. Thus it is rightly illustrated by the symbol of the Empire. The Eagle behaves as one single individual, though composed of countless spirits; speaking with a single voice, and in the singular number. A discourse on justice leads up to a sharp rebuke of nearly every prince then ruling, on the score of misgovernment in one or another form.

After this the Eagle proceeds to indicate whose are the spirits which compose its eye. These with one exception are all great sovereigns of ancient and recent times. The exception is remarkable. In Hell we found several cases in which mythological or fictitious personages were treated on a footing of absolute equality with those who had a perfect historical claim to the distinction; but the appearance in the Christian Heaven of a man whose very name is preserved merely in a single line of the Aeneid strikes us with astonishment. For being recorded by Virgil as the most righteous man among the Trojans, Rhipeus takes his place beside David, Hezekiah, Constantine, and the "good king" William II. of Sicily.

When the time comes for the ascent to be resumed, Dante notices that Beatrice smiles no longer. On the threshold, as she explains, of the seventh heaven, the lustre of her smile would be more than his eyes could endure. Here, in Saturn, a ladder is seen, reaching to the next sphere. We learn that this is identical with the ladder seen by Jacob in his vision; and down it are descending the spirits of such as in this world had lived the contemplative life in full perfection. The chanting which has been audible in the other spheres is here silent—no doubt in order to symbolise the insensibility to outward impressions of the soul rapt in contemplation. The speakers in this group are St. Peter Damian and St. Benedict; both of whom have severe words to say as to the corruption of the monastic orders.

The company of saints reascend (Canto xxii.): and Dante and Beatrice follow them, mounting by the ladder, but, as it would appear, with no perceptible lapse of time. The eighth heaven, that of the Fixed Stars, is reached in the sign of the Twins; under which Dante himself had been born. At this point Beatrice directs him, before entering on the final blessedness of heaven, and doubtless with the ulterior view of leading him to a just sense of the insignificance of earthly things, to look back over the course which he has traversed.

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

He and his guide have now reached the outermost of the heavenly spheres of whose existence our senses give any evidence—that of the Fixed Stars. A vision of Christ descending, accompanied by His Mother, and surrounded with saints, is granted to Dante; after which he is again able 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; and presently, at the request of Beatrice, St. Peter comes forward, and proceeds to examine Dante on the subject of Faith, and the grounds for his belief in the Christian revelation. The ensuing colloquy is interesting, as being practically a versified form of the scholastic method of discussion, such as we find in Aquinas. St. Peter plays the part of the supposed opponent, and brings forward the standard objections to Dante's statements of dogma. For the ordinary reader, however, this and the next two cantos form, it must be admitted, one of the less attractive portions of the poem. Yet even here we now and then come upon a passage of pure poetry, such as the famous lines at the opening of Canto xxv., in which Dante utters what must have been almost his last aspiration after a return to "the fair fold in which as a lamb I slept."

Following St. Peter, St. James makes his appearance. To him is entrusted the task of testing Dante's soundness in the doctrine and definition of Hope. Lastly, comes St. John, who examines him touching the right object of Love. In each case, when he has answered to the satisfaction of his questioner, a chant goes up from the assembled spirits; the words on every occasion being taken, as it would appear, from the Te Deum. Afterwards the three Apostles are joined by Adam, who takes up the discourse, and answers two unexpressed questions of Dante's, as to the length of his stay in Paradise, and the nature of the primitive language of mankind.

Canto xxvii. opens with a tremendous invective, put into the mouth of St. Peter, against the corruption of the Papacy; a passage which incidentally contains an important piece of evidence with regard to the date at which the later cantos of the Paradise were written. A bitter allusion to "men of Cahors" can have been evoked only by the election of John XXII., who was from that city; and he became Pope in 1316. After this the whole multitude of Saints ascend to the highest heaven; but before Dante follows, Beatrice makes him look down once more, and he perceives that since his entry into this sphere he has moved with the diurnal rotation through an arc of forty-five degrees. Then they ascend into the sphere of the First Motion, where place and time no longer exist. From its movement time is measured; and its place is in the Divine intelligence only. Here the Empyrean, or highest Heaven, comes into view; at first as a point of intense brilliancy round which nine circles are revolving. These represent the Angelic hierarchies, and their places with regard to the central point are in inverse order to that of the spheres which they move. Beatrice takes occasion from them to instruct Dante upon some points relating to the creation and functions of the angels, and incidentally, upon the creation of form and matter, and their combination in the visible universe. The passage (Canto xxix.) is difficult; but is so magnificent in its diction as to deserve careful study. Dante has nowhere else succeeded so completely in clothing with poetry the dry bones of scholastic theology. The discussion, by dealing with several disputed points, gives occasion for some stringent remarks on the preachers of the time.

They now rise to the highest heaven, outside of all the spheres, in which all the blessed have their true place. At first Dante is aware of light only, but gradually a fresh power of sight comes to him, and he sees a river, from and to which bright sparks are ever issuing and returning. The banks are brilliant with flowers. At the command of Beatrice he bows down and drinks, and at once sees the river as a lake of light, the flowers on the banks as concentric rows of saints seated on thrones, and the flitting sparks as angels. At this point Beatrice leaves Dante, after a few scathing words in reference to the "covetousness"[38] of the Papacy, which has put the world out of joint—words which may be taken as summing up in brief all the passages throughout the poem in which political affairs are touched upon. With this, if we except one bitter jibe at Florence (xxxi. 39) all controversial matters are dismissed, and the last three cantos of the poem are devoted to a description, rising ever in sublimity, of the joys and mysteries of Heaven.

The "soldiery of heaven" appears in the form of a vast white rose, whose petals are the seats on which the saints sit. On one hand these are filled, being occupied by holy men and women belonging to the old dispensation: while on the other the number of the elect has still to be accomplished. Beatrice having gone back to her place among the blessed beside Rachel, the task of escorting Dante is entrusted to St. Bernard, who points out where some of the more eminent have their stations. As throughout the poem, all is arranged with order and symmetry. The junction between the Old and New Testaments is indicated by the position assigned 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. Below her 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 them Moses 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 other teachers; the lower circles are filled with the spirits of children.

At the close of his enumeration of these chief personages, St. Bernard observes that the time of Dante's slumber is nearly at an end, and that they must, "like a good tailor, cut the coat according to the cloth." In these three lines are two very noticeable points. First, the word "slumber," implying that the whole journey through the other world has been performed in a dream; and secondly, the bold use, at perhaps the most 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 mediaeval mind. The subject is too wide to be discussed here; but readers may be reminded of the numerous examples which the architecture of the period shows, in which grotesque or even indecent figures are introduced among the ornamental work of sacred buildings.

At the beginning of the last canto, St. Bernard, in an address of exquisite beauty (of which Chaucer, in the Second Nun's Tale has given an almost equally exquisite rendering), appeals to the Virgin—who, it will be remembered, is throughout represented as taking a special interest in Dante—for her aid to him in his last and crowning experience. Thus succoured, he is able to gaze upon the Supreme Light; and in a flash there is revealed to him a full comprehension of all fundamental truths, first those of metaphysics, then those of faith. He understands for a moment the whole composition of the universe, and then the mysteries of the Incarnation and the Trinity. The intuition is momentary, and leaves merely the memory of a memory. But the lasting effect is the entire union of his will with the Divine will, and herein, we must understand him to imply, is found the salvation the attainment of which has been the ultimate aim and object of his whole journey.

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

It remains to be added that the Commedia was first printed at Foligno in 1472. Editions followed in quick succession from Jesi, Mantua, and Naples. The first Venetian edition is that of Vindelin of Spires, in 1477; the first Florentine, that with Landino's commentary, in 1481. It was printed several times more before 1500, and constantly in the sixteenth century. We have several commentaries dating from a period only 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 distinctly identified with Dante's name. Yet it must be remembered that, as a matter of fact, it represents less than half of the total bulk of his writings; and, further, that the remainder comprises several works which, though not attaining to the pre-eminent position which all the world now recognises the great poem as occupying, are very remarkable monuments of mediaeval literature.

Of the youthful work, the Vita Nuova, we have already spoken. It may be sufficient here to add that—though there is some controversy on the point—the name probably means only "Early" or "Fresh Life." The book was pretty certainly written not much after 1290, though the last chapter, in which the author's design to compose a greater work is alluded to, may have been added when the scheme of the Commedia was more 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, considerable uncertainty exists. Villani says that the odes to which it is ostensibly a commentary were written in exile. Some critics hold that it belongs, at all events in great part, to the "pre-exilian" period of Dante's life; while others place it as late as 1310. The late Dr. Witte regarded it as the middle division of what he called "Dante's Trilogy"—the drama, that is, of the development of Dante's soul. In this view, the early 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 to the truths of religion, but seeking to establish these rather on the basis of human reason than on revelation. Lastly, the Commedia shows us the soul, convinced that salvation and enlightenment are not to be found on this road, returning again to child-like submission. There is no doubt an attractive symmetry about this arrangement, but it is open to some objections, one of them being, as a French critic said, that part at least of the Convito must almost certainly have been written after the date in which Dante's conversion is represented as having taken 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 than any one without his marvellous "visualising" power could hope for, to avoid anything like an anachronism in the Commedia. If he allows no event, which, in the history of the world, was still future in 1300, to be referred to as past, why should he have allowed this in regard to events in the history of his own spiritual development?

The truth is, that all these elaborate and symmetrical theories prove too much; and what is worse, they all spring from an ignorance, or a neglect, of the great facts of human nature. The Commedia is, of course, full of expressions of contrition for former error; of frank recognition that the writer has gone astray in the past, and hopes to keep straight in the future. But might not any man, any thoughtful man at all events, of thirty-five years old and upwards, take Dante's words with perfect sincerity, as the expression of his own deepest thoughts? Why assume that the faults of which Dante repented with tears in the presence of Beatrice, were limited to a too great reliance on human reason, or to a secret leaning to the philosophy of Averroes? Were they not moral as well as intellectual? Whether the year 1300 really marked an epoch at which anything of the nature of what is now called "conversion" took place in Dante's mind, we cannot say. It pretty certainly corresponded with a decided revulsion in his political views. It cannot have been without a pang that he found himself obliged formally to break with the Guelf party, of which he had hitherto been a faithful 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 set of turbulent, over-bearing swashbucklers, trying with the help of foreign men and money to reimpose a feudal tyranny on a prosperous and free commonwealth. For this is the aspect in which the Ghibelines must have presented themselves to a Florentine burgher of the year 1300. No doubt the doings of the Black party would have taught him that overbearing and tyrannical ways, turbulence and swagger were not the monopoly 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 the earth must have seemed to him to be out of course, and we can well imagine that his thought may have been driven inward, and he may thus have come to recognise how far the school which he had followed, and the path upon which he had walked—not in philosophy only, but in all matters of conduct—had led him from the ideals of his early manhood and from the way of God. Thus he would naturally refer the vision, which, of course, contains an allegorical account of all this change or "conversion," if we may call it so, to that year the events of which had given the first impulse to it.

It is not, however, necessary to suppose that with Dante, any more than with most men of a similar age, a conviction that he had hitherto been on the wrong track involved an entire break with former habits, at all events of mind and thought. He may very well have gone on stringing together the curious medley of learning which he had not unfitly called a "Banquet."[40] As we have said already, it looks very like the contents of a commonplace book, in which materials for other works—notably for the Commedia—were collected. Many of the views enunciated in it may well be those held by Dante long before, and subsequently changed, though he might not have taken the trouble to expunge them, even when stating a maturer opinion in a later work.

A good many of the difficulties which arise in the consideration of the dates of Dante's works, probably arise from oblivion of the fact that "publication" in our modern sense did not exist in those days. An author would 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 as they had. Thus portions of a book would get about long before the whole was 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 the angelic 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 known that this was the case. Subsequently, having changed his mind—it may be, even before 1300—he would take the opportunity of a part of the Commedia having got into circulation, to recant; and even so the original view might stand in the Convito, and appear in that work when finally 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 first printed in 1490.

The De Monarchia is a complete treatise, in fact, probably the only work besides the Commedia which we can feel sure that we have in a form 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 that the Church has never looked upon it with favour, which was probably the reason of its not being printed till 1559, and then in Germany.

The unfinished treatise known as De Vulgari Eloquentia had the curious fortune to appear in an Italian translation (1529) some fifty years before it was printed in its original Latin. It is a most interesting little work, showing considerable acuteness of perception in regard to peculiarities of local vernacular, and a general "feeling" for linguistic matters.

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

In the Chapter to which we have already more than once referred, containing the notice of Dante's death, that historian gives a list of his 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 all manuscripts. But, assuming them to be genuine, it will be seen that we have here an almost contemporary notice, with one or two exceptions, of all the main works now contained in the editions of Dante. The chief exception is the curious little treatise on physical geography, called De aqua et terra, which purports to be a lecture delivered by Dante at Verona, in the last year of his life; but this is of very questionable genuineness. It was first printed, indeed, in 1508, but no manuscript of it is now known to exist.

Of the other works, Villani's notice may be regarded as clear proof that they are what they profess to be; and incidentally it may be said that his mention of them has probably been of great service. Literary morality was sufficiently lax in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, and people's ideas as to the use that might legitimately be made of famous names differed considerably from those now in force. As it is, a good many compositions have passed under Dante's name, from an early date, which scarcely pretend to be genuine works of his. We can imagine what a temptation it would have been for some enterprising man of letters to complete the Convito or the De Vulgari Eloquentia, or even to add a canto or two to the Commedia, if there had been no record in existence to let the world know where the genuine ended and the spurious began.[41] Even this security, however, is not quite sufficient to set us at our ease in the case of the letters. True, we have three letters purporting to be the three which Villani mentions, as well 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 to set ingenious scribes at work to produce them. Manuscripts of them are very few, and they occur in company with other works which are undoubted exercises of fancy.

On the other hand, more than one writer of the fifteenth century professes to have seen letters of Dante's, of which no trace can now be found. That referring to the battle of Campaldino, for which Leonardo Bruni vouches, has already been mentioned; and Flavius Blondus of Forli, a historian about contemporary with Leonardo, speaks of others as extant in his time. These, if they could now be recovered, would be of the greatest interest, since they related to the obscure period immediately following the exile of the White party. Meanwhile the genuineness of the more important letters which we possess is perhaps the most interesting question which remains to be settled in connection with Dante's works.

Besides the prose letters, two poetical epistles are still extant, and these, strange to say, the most sceptical critics have so far allowed to pass unquestioned. There is something a little pathetic about their history. Two or three years before Dante's death, a young scholar of Bologna, known from his devotion to the great Latin bard, as Joannes de Virgilio, addressed an extremely prosaic, but highly complimentary, epistle to the old poet, urging him to write something in the more dignified language of antiquity. Dante replied in an "Eclogue," wherein, under Virgilian pastoral imagery, he playfully banters his correspondent, and says that he had better finish first the work he has in hand, namely the Commedia. One more communication on either side followed, and then Dante's death brought the verse-making to a close. In his own pieces one is struck rather by the melody of the rhythm and occasional dignity of the thought, than by the classical quality of the Latinity. But they are unquestionably remarkable specimens of Latin verse for an age previous to the revival of classical study, and, we should say, far more genial and more truly Virgilian in spirit than the most polished composition of the Humanists.

It is not intended here to enter into any analysis or estimate of Dante's prose works. The former task is one which readers should perform for themselves. Nor need they find it too much for their powers. With all his obscurity of allusion, and occasionally of phrase, Dante is not really a difficult author. From his teachers, the schoolmen, he had learnt to arrange his matter with due, perhaps more than due, regard to order and symmetry; and consequently the attentive reader is seldom at a loss to know what part of the subject is, at any given place, under consideration.

Of the obscurity which results from over-elaboration of the thought, or from an attempt at originality of expression, Dante is, in his maturer works, singularly free.[42] It must be remembered, too, that very often phrases which look to us like "conceits" are merely instances of the employment of scientific and technical terms now obsolete, but then familiar to every cultivated reader.

For aesthetic, 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 the critic's own perception or his delicacy of phrase—the study of Dante would seem to be a very unpromising field. The sentimentalist and the elegant craftsman in words seem out of place in the company of this uncompromising seeker after realities, this relentless exposer of shams.

It is much better that the student should begin by understanding his author. When he has mastered the meaning, it will be time enough to begin to admire, whether it be the thought or the words, or the expression of the one through the other. For this reason we should strongly counsel beginners to read Dante himself first, and books about Dante 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 a dictionary. It is far better practice to find out for yourself where the difficulties lie, than to be told where to expect them. Similarly with the "beauties." These will reveal themselves a ciascun' alma presa e gentil cuore, and every reader will find them in such measure as he deserves. Then will be the time to use the commentaries to solve, so far as may be, the problems which have been discovered, and then to take up such works as Mr. Symonds's Study of Dante, Miss Rossetti's Shadow of Dante, and Dean Church's Essay. The student who, to a thorough knowledge of the poem, joins a careful perusal of these three works will find his knowledge co-ordinated, his grasp of Dante's whole system strengthened, his perception of Dante's greatness marvellously quickened. If he afterwards cares to pursue the subject further into the thickets of modern Italian and German criticism, he will find plenty of entertainment. Only let him remember that most of the minute details with which the excellent critics deal are not really of the very slightest importance.

As has been said above, there is ample reason for believing that the person to whom Dante refers under the name of Beatrice was a young lady of that name, daughter of one Folco Portinari, and wife to Simone de' Bardi. But suppose that irresistible evidence to the contrary could be found? Suppose that documents should come to light showing that no Beatrice Portinari ever lived—even that there was no woman, young or old, in Florence, who bore the Christian name of Beatrice between 1200 and 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, or Andromache, 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 attended those who would have us believe that half a dozen or more men contributed to the Iliad, any one book of which would entitle its author to rank among the great poets of all time? The world would prove to be richer by as many great poets as could be shown to have collaborated in the writing of the Commedia; and how should we be the poorer? The poem would still be there, with all its power to soothe, to stimulate, to throw light upon the most hidden corners of the human soul, to reveal our own motives to us. It is, of course, only human nature 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 the man is only interesting because of his work. After all, when the most destructive criticism has done its worst, we know much more about Dante than we know about the still greater Shakespeare; and let us be thankful for 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 of Dante should set to work in the way both of putting himself so far as possible at Dante's point of view with regard to earlier literature, and of availing himself of the various commentaries and treatises which subsequent writers have produced in such abundance; but it may be convenient to enter into this matter somewhat more in detail. It would obviously be too much to expect of every beginner that he should prepare himself for the study of Dante by a preliminary perusal of all the books which Dante may have read. But if he is to read with any profit, or indeed with any real enjoyment, some preliminary study is almost indispensable. Take, for instance, the historical standpoint. Some of Dante's grandest apostrophes fall flat to one who has not grasped the mediaeval theory of the Roman Empire, as set forth in Mr. Bryce's well-known book or elsewhere. Much of his imagery, especially in the first Cantica, seems fantastic and arbitrary to one who is not familiar with Virgil's sixth Aeneid, and does not realise that nearly every feature in the Dantesque Hell is developed, with assistance no doubt from mediaeval legend, out of some hint of the Virgilian nether world. Of allusions to contemporaries it is hardly necessary to speak; and in many cases we must fall back on the commentators, who for their part have often nothing to tell us but what we have already gathered for ourselves. Cacciaguida's statement that no souls had been shown to Dante save those of people known to fame, may not be always true so far as any but the most strictly contemporary fame is concerned, but it is true in a great many cases. Few indeed there are whose names have not gained additional celebrity from Dante's mention of them; but, on the other hand, there are very few whose memory but for it would have perished altogether; and the thrill with which the reader comes across an old acquaintance, marked by the unfaltering hand for renown or infamy, as long as men shall read books on this earth, is far more satisfying than the process of looking a person up because he is some one in Dante. It is therefore at least worth while, if not essential, to know something of 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 the point from which Dante looked at ethical and metaphysical problems, will hardly be satisfied with an occasional quotation from Aristotle or Aquinas. If, as may well be the case, they cannot spare the time for systematic reading of those somewhat exacting authors, they should at least 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, as may be obtained from Ueberweg or some other approved history of philosophy. So for physical science and natural history, those who have not the leisure to read Aristotle (again), or Pliny, or Brunetto's Tresor, may get from the fourth book of Whewell's History of the Inductive Sciences, and from parts of Humboldt's Cosmos, some idea of the way in which Dante would regard the external world.

But one book, among all others, was undoubtedly the main instrument in the formation of Dante's mind and character. Few professed Churchmen have ever been so saturated with the language and the spirit of the Bible as this lay theologian. It was this, indeed, which seems to have specially impressed his contemporaries. "Theologus Dantes nullius dogmatis expers" is the title which the epitaph of his friend Joannes de Virgilio confers upon him in its opening line. And among all the books of the "Sacred Library," as an earlier age called it, we can see that two had a predominant place in his memory—the prophecy of Jeremiah and the Book of Psalms. In these two we may find the solution of some of his most obscure symbolism, and careful study of these will do perhaps more than anything to help the student to read with understanding. Of course those who read Latin should use the Vulgate rather than the English version, for the key to an allusion sometimes lies in a word or a phrase, the identity of which is lost in an alien language.

It is with the study of such books as these, carried as far as the student's opportunities will allow, that he will best prepare himself for that of the Commedia. The next thing will be to read it, either in a translation, or better, in the original, working rapidly through the poem, and noting difficulties which occur, but leaving them for the present. He will thus get a comprehensive view of its general structure and scope, and probably find himself enthralled by the spell; after which, to put it on the lowest ground, he will have a subject of interest to investigate which will last him his lifetime. At any rate he will pretty certainly resolve to go over the ground again, this time more deliberately. Now will come the turn of the commentators, including under this term not only the actual annotators of the text, but those who have in any way discussed, explained, or interpreted the whole poem or its parts, either from a general literary point of view, or in the attempt to clear up special points. Of these there is no lack. Probably no great writer has given occasion for so much writing on the part of lesser men. The French critic Sainte-Beuve remarked that "to read Dante was almost inevitably to want to translate him;" it certainly seems as if 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 few will be read as long as Dante is studied in England. Foremost among these is the Essay by the late Dean of St. Paul's, Dr. Church. This is printed in a volume with an excellent translation of the De Monarchia. As an introduction to Dante from every point of view, whether in connection with the history of his time or in regard to his place in literature, it remains unrivalled, and is likely to remain so until a writer on Dante arises equal to Dean Church in acuteness of historical insight, delicacy of literary taste, and a power of expression capable of translating those gifts into words. No student should fail to read it; and those who can buy a copy will not be likely to regret the outlay. Another instructive book is the late Miss Rossetti's Shadow of Dante. It treats the poem rather in its religious than in its historical or philosophical aspect; and it is of especial value as an aid to understanding the often very perplexing symbolism. Long extracts are given from the versions by Mr. W. M. Rossetti (for the Inferno) and Mr. Longfellow (for the other parts); and these are linked together by a connecting summary. Mr. Symonds's Introduction to the Study of Dante is also useful, especially from the literary point of view, but it is occasionally inaccurate. Of actual translations none is better than Cary's, and this has most valuable notes.

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

The first thing will be to get a text. There are several modern texts published in Italy; but none of them are very correct. Giuliani's is an attractive little book; but the Abate was a somewhat reckless emendator, and some of his readings are very untrustworthy. The little pocket edition published by Barbera contains Fraticelli's text, which suffers rather from lack of correction. Messrs. Longmans publish one based on Witte, but embodying the results of later inquiry. A complete text of Dante's entire works has lately been issued by the Clarendon Press, for the accuracy of which the name of its editor, Dr. Moore, is a sufficient guarantee. The "student's" editions with notes are those of Bianchi and Fraticelli, both in Italian. The latter is for some reason more popular in England, but the notes seem to me decidedly less helpful than those of Bianchi based on Costa's. Better than either is the Vocabolario Dantesco of Blanc. The original work was written in German, and no doubt is to be obtained in that language. It is really a very useful commentary, and has the additional advantage that it forms a pretty copious Concordance, and enables the student to compare the various uses of a word.

The student may now be supposed to be ready to set to work. How is he to proceed? This is a question very difficult to answer. Probably no two grown-up people will attack a new author, or a new language, in quite the same way. The present writer began Dante with very little knowledge of Italian; but knowing French and Latin pretty well. Being in Florence one day, he went to a bookstall and bought for one lira a secondhand copy of a little text published in 1811; and began to puzzle out bits here and there with the help of a small dictionary. In the following winter he went through the whole poem in Bianchi's edition with a friend, aided by various of the older commentaries. Then he took to reading the poem by a canto or two at a time, in bed, without notes or dictionary, and went through it two or three times in this way, at last beginning to feel that he would like to know something about it. Probably a course of this kind, spread in a rather desultory fashion over several years, would hardly suit every student. Nevertheless it has in its general features some merits. In the first place, the only way to learn is to find for yourself where the difficulties are; and this can be done most effectually by beginning with the minimum of help. With notes, there is always the temptation to look at the note first and the text afterwards: a process sure to result in slipshod and inaccurate knowledge. Take a canto at a time, and read it through. Go over the ground again with a commentary and perhaps a translation. Before long the difficulties arising merely from the language will be pretty well mastered, and progress will be more rapid. Above all, avoid in the first instance anything of the nature of aesthetic criticism. Be content to 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 to render every word. It is a very good exercise to keep to the same English word for the same Italian word. This will not be quite always possible; but on the whole it is wonderful how many words in Italian (or any other language) have passed through the same change of signification as some one of their English equivalents. (Thus "sorry" in English means both "sad" and "contemptible." You will find that Italian "tristo" bears both senses equally well.) Try to "explain Dante by Dante," that is, look out for peculiar phrases and constructions which may occur more than once, and get at their meaning by comparison of contexts. One great advantage possessed by the student of Dante is that his author is practically the first in the language in point of time; and though later Italian poets used Dante freely as a quarry, they did not do it intelligently. It may safely be said that, with the occasional exception of Petrarch, no subsequent Italian poet threw the least light on the interpretation of a single word in Dante. Indeed our own Chaucer seems to have understood and appreciated Dante far better than did Dante's countryman Ariosto. It is thus possible to read Dante without a very wide acquaintance with Italian literature in general.

Then, again, beginners need not be at too much pains to follow out the often very elaborate symbolism. On a first reading take the story as it stands. Let the dark wood and the three beasts, and the hill illuminated by the rising sun, remain what they profess to be, until you see the broad outlines of the poem. There are quite enough passages of purely human interest to occupy you at first. Francesca, Farinata, the Counts of Montefeltro, father and son, Ugolino, the assembled princes awaiting their time to enter Purgatory, the great panegyrics of St. Francis and St. Dominic, these and the like are the "purple patches" on which the beginner's attention should be fixed.

The student who has gone through the poem on these lines will by the end of it be ripe for a more thorough reading and a fuller commentary. Among modern commentaries the fullest is that of Dr. Scartazzini. He is a guide whose judgement is perhaps not always quite equal to his erudition; but his Commentary (in four volumes, including the Prolegomeni) is almost indispensable to the advanced student. He has also published an abridgement in one volume. Those who read German should make acquaintance with the translation and notes of the late King John of Saxony, who wrote under the name of Philalethes, as well as with those of Dr. Witte. Both these deal fully with historical matters, "Philalethes" also going very fully into the theology. In the present writer's edition some attempt is made to clear up obscure points of allegory, and to show the extent of Dante's debt to Greek philosophy. Attention is also called to questions of grammar and philology, which have 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 and Latin literature. The subject is a very wide one, and Dante's treatment of heathen mythology is very curious. It is especially noticeable in the Purgatory, where every sin and its contrary virtue are illustrated by a pair of examples from Scripture history on the one hand, and Greek or Roman history or legend (for both seem alike to him) on the other. Sloth, for instance, is exemplified by the Israelites who "thought scorn" of the promised land, and the slothful followers of Aeneas, who hung back from the conquest of Italy; while Mary going into the hill country with haste, and Caesar dashing into Spain are the chosen models of prompt response to the call of duty. So, again, at the very outset of the poem, we find St. Paul and Aeneas quoted as the two instances of living men who have been permitted to see the future world; and Dante professes his own unworthiness to be put on a level with them, apparently without a hint that he holds the Aeneid any lower as an authority than the Epistle to the Corinthians. In a practically pagan humanist of the days of Leo X. this would hardly surprise us; but it is, at first sight, not a little astonishing in the case of a poet to whom the Christian Church and Christian revelation were vital truths. It is, however, clear that to the mediaeval mind the Bible, though no doubt the highest authority, was in matters of morality, and to some extent even of theology, only "first among its peers." Aquinas quotes Aristotle, the Scriptures, and the Fathers almost indiscriminately in support of his positions. Dante, approaching the subject from a political as well as a moral point, takes for his guide and philosopher the poet Virgil, who, as the Middle Ages deemed, had both foretold the glories of the Church, and sung of the first origin of the Empire. It must never be forgotten that, to Dante, Church and Empire were merely two aspects of one Divine institution. Brutus and Cassius are hardly less guilty than Judas; and that simply from the official point of view, for there is no attempt to sanctify, much less to deify, Caesar as an individual. None the less is the work that he did holy, and this holiness communicates itself, as readers of the De Monarchia will remember, to the whole of the long course of workings by which Divine Providence prepared the way for it. The finger of God is no less plainly to be seen in the victory of Aeneas over Turnus or of the Romans over the Samnites than in the passage of the Israelites across the Red Sea, or the repulse of the Assyrians. Roman history is no less sacred than Hebrew. This being so, we shall not be surprised to find that a certain authority attaches to the literature of either one of the chosen peoples. Did they conflict, doubtless the poet, as an orthodox Catholic, would admit that Virgil must give way to Isaiah; but he would in all probability decline to allow that they could conflict, at all events within the region common to them both. No doubt, just as Caesar and Peter have, besides their common domain, functions peculiar to each, wherein Caesar may not interfere with Peter, or as Aristotle may err when he trespasses on ground that the Church has made her province (for I interpret Purg. xxv. 63 as an allusion to Aristotle), so might Virgil or Lucan become a teacher of false doctrine if he ventured to teach theology. (Statius, who does teach theology, as in the passage just referred to, is, it must be remembered, a Christian.) But Virgil at all events holds scrupulously aloof from any over-stepping of his functions; and within his own limits his authority is infallible. Why, then, should we not accept his account of the infernal regions as trustworthy? He tells us that Charon is the ferryman who carries the souls across to the nether world; Minos the judge who sentences them; Pluto (whom we confuse perhaps a little with Plutus) a great personage in those regions. Furies sit over the inner gate; Gorgons and Harpies play their parts. Holy Scripture has nothing to say against these conceptions; so there is nothing to prevent our accepting Virgil's account, and expanding it into mediaeval precision and symmetry. Thus we have all the official hierarchy of hell ready provided. As has already been observed, it is not until Dante reaches a point very far down that anything like what we may call the Christian devil appears.[43] Throughout the upper circles the work, whether of tormenting or merely of guarding, is performed exclusively by beings taken from classic mythology. If we except the Giants, who seem to occupy a kind of intermediate position between prisoner and gaoler, Geryon is the last of these whom we meet; and him Dante has practically transformed into a being of his own invention: for there is little in common between the personage slain by Hercules and the strange monster with the face of a just man and the tail of a venomous scorpion. As might perhaps be expected when there was plenty of material to hand in Tuscany, less use is made of the persons of classical mythology in finding subjects for punishment. Among the virtuous heathen several find their place; but it may be doubted whether Electra or Orpheus were to Dante any less historical than Plato or Seneca. Semiramis, Dido, Achilles, again, would all be recorded in the histories of Orosius and others whom Dante read, with dates and possibly portraits. Capaneus, one of the "Seven against Thebes," is more nearly mythological; but as the utterer of the earliest profession of reasoned atheism[44] he could hardly be omitted as the typical blasphemer. The most curious example of all is the Thais whom we find among the flatterers. She does not attain even to the dignity of a myth, being only a character in a play of Terence, and borrowed by Dante from Cicero; probably the strangest instance 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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