The Vision of Dante Alighiere or Hell, Purgatory and Paradise Page 14

the bishopric of Venice. There might however have been more than

  one person of the name of Romieu, or Romeo which answers to that

  of Palmer in our language. Nor is it probable that the Italians,

  who lived so near the time, were misinformed in an occurrence of

  such notoriety. According to them, after he had long been a

  faithful steward to Raymond, when an account was required from

  him of the revenues whichhe had carefully husbanded, and his

  master as lavishly disbursed, "He demanded the little mule, the

  staff, and the scrip, with which he had first entered into the

  count's service, a stranger pilgrim from the shrine of St. James

  in Galicia, and parted as he came; nor was it ever known whence

  he was or wither he went." G. Villani, 1. vi. c. 92.

  v. 135. Four daughters.] Of the four daughters of Raymond

  Berenger, Margaret, the eldest, was married to Louis IX of

  France; Eleanor; the next, to Henry III, of England; Sancha, the

  third, to Richard, Henry's brother, and King of the Romans; and

  the youngest, Beatrice, to Charles I, King of Naples and Sicily,

  and brother to Louis.

  v. 136. Raymond Berenger.] This prince, the last of the house

  of Barcelona, who was count of Provence, died in 1245. He is in

  the list of Provencal poets. See Millot, Hist, Litt des

  Troubadours, t. ii. P. 112.

  CANTO VII

  v. 3. Malahoth.] A Hebrew word, signifying "kingdoms."

  v. 4. That substance bright.] Justinian.

  v. 17. As might have made one blest amid the flames.]

  So Giusto de' Conti, Bella Mano. "Qual salamandra."

  Che puommi nelle fiammi far beato.

  v. 23. That man who was unborn.] Adam.

  v. 61. What distils.] "That which proceeds immediately from

  God, and without intervention of secondary causes, in immortal."

  v. 140. Our resurrection certain.] "Venturi appears to mistake

  the Poet's reasoning, when he observes: "Wretched for us, if we

  had not arguments more convincing, and of a higher kind, to

  assure us of the truth of our resurrection." It is here

  intended, I think, that the whole of God's dispensations to man

  should be considered as a proof of our resurrection. The

  conclusion is that as before sin man was immortal,

  so being restored to the favor of heaven by the expiation made

  for sin, he necessarily recovers his claim to immortality.

  There is much in this poem to justify the encomium which the

  learned Salvini has passed on it, when, in an epistle to Redi,

  imitating what Horace had said of Homer, that the duties of life

  might be better learnt from the Grecian bard than from the

  teachers of the porch or the academy, he says--

  And dost thou ask, what themes my mind engage?

  The lonely hours I give to Dante's page;

  And meet more sacred learning in his lines

  Than I had gain'd from all the school divines.

  Se volete saper la vita mia,

  Studiando io sto lungi da tutti gli nomini

  Ed ho irnparato piu teologia

  In questi giorni, che ho riletto Dante,

  Che nelle scuole fattto io non avria.

  CANTO VIII

  v. 4. Epicycle,] "In sul dosso di questo cerchio," &c.

  Convito di Dante, Opere, t. i. p. 48, ed. Ven. 1793.

  "Upon the back of this circle, in the heaven of Venus, whereof we

  are now treating, is a little sphere, which has in that heaven a

  revolution of its own: whose circle the astronomers term

  epicycle."

  v. 11. To sit in Dido's bosom.] Virgil. Aen. 1. i. 718,

  v. 40. 'O ye whose intellectual ministry.]

  Voi ch' intendendo il terzo ciel movete. The first line in our

  Poet" first canzone. See his Convito, Ibid. p. 40.

  v. 53. had the time been more.] The spirit now speaking is

  Charles Martel crowned king of Hungary, and son of Charles 11

  king of Naples and Sicily, to which

  dominions dying in his father's lifetime, he did not succeed.

  v. 57. Thou lov'dst me well.] Charles Martel might have been

  known to our poet at Florence whither he came to meet his father

  in 1295, the year of his death. The retinue and the habiliments

  of the young monarch are minutely described by G. Villani, who

  adds, that "he remained more than twenty days in Florence,

  waiting for his father King Charles and his brothers during which

  time great honour was done him by the, Florentines and he showed

  no less love towards them, and he was much in favour with all."

  1. viii. c. 13. His brother Robert, king of Naples, was the

  friend of Petrarch.

  v. 60. The left bank.] Provence.

  v. 62. That horn

  Of fair Ausonia.]

  The kingdom of Naples.

  v. 68. The land.] Hungary.

  v. 73. The beautiful Trinaeria.] Sicily, so called from its

  three promontories, of which Pachynus and Pelorus, here

  mentioned, are two.

  v. 14 'Typhaeus.] The giant whom Jupiter is fabled to have

  overwhelmed

  under the mountain Aetna from whence he vomits forth smoke and

  flame.

  v. 77. Sprang through me from Charles and Rodolph.] "Sicily

  would be still ruled by a race of monarchs, descended through me

  from Charles I and Rodolph I the former my grandfather king of

  Naples and Sicily; the latter emperor of Germany, my

  father-in-law; "both celebrated in the Purgatory Canto, Vll.

  v. 78. Had not ill lording.] "If the ill conduct of our

  governors in Sicily had not excited the resentment and hatred of

  the people and stimulated them to that dreadful massacre at the

  Sicilian vespers;" in consequence of which the kingdom fell into

  the hands of Peter III of Arragon, in 1282

  v. 81. My brother's foresight.] He seems to tax his brother

  Robert with employing necessitous and greedy Catalonians to

  administer the affairs of his kingdom.

  v. 99. How bitter can spring up.] "How a covetous son can

  spring from a liberal father." Yet that father has himself been

  accused of avarice in the Purgatory Canto XX. v. 78; though his

  general character was that of a bounteous prince.

  v. 125. Consult your teacher.] Aristole. [GREEK HERE]

  De Rep. 1. iii. c. 4. "Since a state is made up of members

  differing from one another, (for even as an animal, in the first

  instance, consists of soul and body, and the soul, of reason and

  desire; and a family, of man and woman, and property of master

  and slave; in like manner a state consists both of all these and

  besides these of other dissimilar kinds,) it necessarily follows

  that the excellence of all the members of the state cannot be one

  and the same."

  v. 136. Esau.] Genesis c. xxv. 22.

  v. 137. Quirinus.] Romulus, born of so obscure a father, that

  his parentage was attributed to Mars.

  CANTO IX

  v. 2. O fair Clemenza.] Daughter of Charles Martel, and second

  wife of Louis X. of France.

  v. 2. The treachery.] He alludes to the occupation of the

  kingdom of Sicily by Robert, in exclusion of his brother s son

  Carobert, or Charles. Robert, the rightful heir. See G. Villani
,

  1. viii. c. 112.

  v. 7. That saintly light.] Charles Martel.

  v. 25. In that part.] Between Rialto and the Venetian

  territory, and the sources of the rivers Brenta and Piava is

  situated a castle called Romano, the birth-place of the famous

  tyrant Ezzolino or Azzolino, the brother of Cunizza, who is now

  speaking. The tyrant we have seen in "the river of blood." Hell,

  Canto XII. v. 110.

  v. 32. Cunizza.] The adventures of Cunizza, overcome by the

  influence of her star, are related by the chronicler Rolandino of

  Padua, 1. i. c. 3, in Muratori Rer. It. Script. t. viii. p. 173.

  She eloped from her first husband, Richard of St. Boniface, in

  the company of Sordello, (see Purgatory, Canto VI. and VII. )

  with whom she is supposed to have cohabited before her marriage:

  then lived with a soldier of Trevigi, whose wife was living at

  the same time in the same city, and on his being murdered by her

  brother the tyrant, was by her brother married to a nobleman of

  Braganzo, lastly when he also had fallen by the same hand she,

  after her brother's death, was again wedded in Verona.

  v. 37. This.] Folco of Genoa, a celebrated Provencal poet,

  commonly termed Folques of Marseilles, of which place he was

  perhaps bishop. Many errors of Nostradamus, regarding him, which

  have been followed by Crescimbeni, Quadrio, and Millot, are

  detected by the diligence of Tiraboschi. Mr. Matthias's ed. v.

  1. P. 18. All that appears certain, is what we are told in this

  Canto, that he was of Genoa, and by Petrarch in the Triumph of

  Love, c. iv. that he was better known by the appellation he

  derived from Marseilles, and at last resumed the religious habit.

  One of his verses is cited by Dante, De Vulg. Eloq. 1. ii. c. 6.

  v. 40. Five times.] The five hundred years are elapsed: and

  unless the Provencal MSS. should be brought to light the poetical

  reputation of Folco must rest on the mention made of him by the

  more fortunate Italians.

  v. 43 The crowd.] The people who inhabited the tract of country

  bounded by the river Tagliamento to the east, and Adice to the

  west.

  v. 45. The hour is near.] Cunizza foretells the defeat of

  Giacopo da Carrara, Lord of Padua by Can Grande, at Vicenza, on

  the 18th September 1314. See G. Villani, 1. ix. c. 62.

  v. 48. One.] She predicts also the fate of Ricciardo da Camino,

  who is said to have been murdered at Trevigi, where the rivers

  (Sile and Cagnano meet) while he was engaged in playing at chess.

  v. 50. The web.] The net or snare into, which he is destined to

  fall.

  v. 50. Feltro.] The Bishop of Felto having received a number of

  fugitives from Ferrara, who were in opposition to the Pope, under

  a promise of protection, afterwards gave them up, so that they

  were reconducted to that city, and the greater part of them there

  put to death.

  v. 53. Malta's.] A tower, either in the citadel of Padua, which

  under the tyranny of Ezzolino, had been "with many a foul and

  midnight murder fed," or (as some say) near a river of the same

  name, that falls into the lake of Bolsena, in which the Pope was

  accustomed to imprison such as had been guilty of an irremissible

  sin.

  v. 56 This priest.] The bishop, who, to show himself a zealous

  partisan of the Pope, had committed the above-mentioned act of

  treachery.

  v. 58. We descry.] "We behold the things that we predict, in

  the mirrors of eternal truth."

  v. 64. That other joyance.] Folco.

  v. 76. Six shadowing wings.] "Above it stood the seraphims:

  each one had six wings." Isaiah, c. vi. 2.

  v. 80. The valley of waters.] The Mediterranean sea.

  v. 80. That.] The great ocean.

  v. 82. Discordant shores.] Europe and Africa.

  v. 83. Meridian.] Extending to the east, the Mediterranean at

  last reaches the coast of Palestine, which is on its horizon when

  it enters the straits of Gibraltar. "Wherever a man is," says

  Vellutello, "there he has, above his head, his own particular

  meridian circle."

  v. 85. --'Twixt Ebro's stream

  And Macra's.]

  Eora, a river to the west, and Macra, to the east of Genoa, where

  Folco was born.

  v. 88. Begga.] A place in Africa, nearly opposite to Genoa.

  v. 89. Whose haven.] Alluding to the terrible slaughter of the

  Genoese made by the Saracens in 936, for which event Vellutello

  refers to the history of Augustino Giustiniani.

  v. 91. This heav'n.] The planet Venus.

  v. 93. Belus' daughter.] Dido.

  v. 96. She of Rhodope.] Phyllis.

  v. 98. Jove's son.] Hercules.

  v. 112. Rahab.] Heb. c. xi. 31.

  v. 120. With either palm.] "By the crucifixion of Christ"

  v. 126. The cursed flower.] The coin of Florence, called the

  florin.

  v. 130. The decretals.] The canon law.

  v. 134. The Vatican.] He alludes either to the death of Pope

  Boniface VIII. or, as Venturi supposes, to the coming of the

  Emperor Henry VII. into Italy, or else, according to the yet more

  probable conjecture of Lombardi, to the transfer of the holy see

  from Rome to Avignon, which took place in the pontificate of

  Clement V.

  CANTO X

  v. 7. The point.] "To that part of heaven," as Venturi explains

  it, "in which the equinoctial circle and the Zodiac intersect

  each other, where the common motion of the heavens from east to

  west may be said to strike with greatest force against the motion

  proper to the planets; and this repercussion, as it were, is here

  the strongest, because the velocity of each is increased to the

  utmost by their respective distance from the poles. Such at least

  is the system of Dante."

  v. 11. Oblique.] The zodiac.

  v. 25. The part.] The above-mentioned intersection of the

  equinoctial

  circle and the zodiac.

  v. 26. Minister.] The sun.

  v. 30. Where.] In which the sun rises every day earlier after

  the vernal equinox.

  v. 45. Fourth family.] The inhabitants of the sun, the fourth

  planet.

  v. 46. Of his spirit and of his offspring.] The procession of

  the third, and the generation of the second person in the

  Trinity.

  v. 70. Such was the song.] "The song of these spirits was

  ineffable.

  v. 86. No less constrained.] "The rivers might as easily cease

  to flow towards the sea, as we could deny thee thy request."

  v. 91. I then.] "I was of the Dominican order."

  v. 95. Albert of Cologne.] Albertus Magnus was born at

  Laugingen, in Thuringia, in 1193, and studied at Paris and at

  Padua, at the latter of which places he entered into the

  Dominican order. He then taught theology in various parts of

  Germany, and particularly at Cologne. Thomas Aquinas was his

  favourite pupil. In 1260, he reluctantly accepted

  the bishopric of Ratisbon, and in two years after resigned it,

  and returned to his cell in Co
logne, where the remainder of his

  life was passed in superintending the school, and in composing

  his voluminous works on divinity and natural science. He died in

  1280. The absurd imputation of his having dealt in the magical

  art is well known; and his biographers take some pains to clear

  him of it. Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum, by Quetif and

  Echard, Lut. Par. 1719. fol. t. 1. p. 162.

  v. 96. Of Aquinum, Thomas.] Thomas Aquinas, of whom Bucer is

  reported to have said, "Take but Thomas away, and I will overturn

  the church of Rome," and whom Hooker terms "the greatest among

  the school divines," (Eccl. Pol. b. 3. 9), was born of noble

  parents, who anxiously, but vainly, endeavoured to divert him

  from a life of celibacy and study; and died in 1274, at the age

  of fourty-seven. Echard and Quetif, ibid. p. 271. See also

  Purgatory Canto XX. v. 67.

  v. 101. Gratian.] "Gratian, a Benedictine monk belonging to the

  convent of St. Felix and Nabor, at Bologna, and by birth a

  Tuscan, composed, about the year 1130, for the use of the

  schools, an abridgment or epitome of canon law, drawn from the

  letters of the pontiffs, the decrees of councils, and the

  writings of the ancient doctors."

  Maclaine's Mosheim, v. iii. cent. 12. part 2. c. i. 6.

  v. 101. To either forum.] "By reconciling," as Venturi explains

  it "the civil with the canon law."

  v. 104. Peter.] "Pietro Lombardo was of obscure origin, nor is

  the place of his birth in Lombardy ascertained. With a

  recommendation from the bishop of Lucca to St. Bernard, he went

  into France to continue his studies, and for that purpose

  remained some time at Rheims, whence he afterwards proceeded to

  Paris. Here his reputation was so great that Philip, brother of

  Louis VII., being chosen bishop of Paris, resigned that dignity

  to Pietro, whose pupil he had been. He held his bishopric

  only one year, and died in 1160. His Liber Sententiarum is

  highly esteemed. It contains a system of scholastic theology, so

  much more complete than any which had been yet seen, that it may

  be deemed an original work." Tiraboschi, Storia della Lett.

  Ital. t. iii. 1. 4. c. 2.

  v. 104. Who with the widow gave.] This alludes to the beginning

  of the Liber Sententiarum, where Peter says: "Cupiens aliquid de

  penuria ac tenuitate nostra cum paupercula in gazophylacium

  domini mittere,"

  v. 105. The fifth light.] Solomon.

  v. 112. That taper's radiance.] St. Dionysius the Areopagite.

  "The famous Grecian fanatic, who gave himself out for Dionysius

  the Areopagite, disciple of St. Paul, and who, under the

  protection of this venerable name, gave laws and instructions to

  those that were desirous of raising their souls above all human

  things in order to unite them to their great source by sublime

  contemplation, lived most probably in this century (the fourth),

  though some place him before, others after, the present period."

  Maclaine's Mosheim, v. i. cent. iv. p. 2. c. 3. 12.

  v. 116. That pleader.] 1n the fifth century, Paulus Orosius,

  "acquired a considerable degree of reputation by the History he

  wrote to refute the cavils of the Pagans against Christianity,

  and by his books against the Pelagians and Priscillianists."

  Ibid. v. ii. cent. v. p. 2. c. 2. 11. A similar train of

  argument was pursued by Augustine, in his book De Civitate Dei.

  Orosius is classed by Dante, in his treatise De Vulg. Eloq. I ii

  c. 6. as one of his favourite authors, among those "qui usi sunt

  altissimas prosas,"--" who have written prose with the greatest

  loftiness of style."

  v. 119. The eighth.] Boetius, whose book De Consolatione

  Philosophiae excited so much attention during the middle ages,

  was born, as Tiraboschi conjectures, about 470. "In 524 he was

  cruelly put to death by command of Theodoric, either on real or

  pretended suspicion of his being engaged in a conspiracy." Della

  Lett. Ital. t. iii. 1. i. c. 4.