Dante: His Times and His Work

experience shows not only that such a summary is found by most readers to be the best of all helps to the

be found to some questions which previous writers, in England at all events, have passed over; and tha

. H

eans or, as we should now say, the Materialists, bear really a much stronger affinity to those who are outside the walls, those whose sin has been lack of self-restraint in one form or another, than they do to the worse criminals who have "offended of malicious wickedness," and who lie at and below the foot of the steep guarded by the Minotaur. The former class at all events have been, to use a common phrase, "their own worst enemies;" their sins have not been, at any rate in their essence, like those of the latter, of the kind which break up the

in which the action of the poem begins to the "hound" who is to free Italy. These, more especially the latter, have given as much trouble to the interpreter as anything in the whole poem; indeed it may be said that in the matter of the Veltro we have not made much advance on Boccaccio, who frankly admitted that he could not tell what was meant. But between these two points we have some hundred lines in nearly every one of which, beside its obvious and literal interpretation, we must look for all the others enumerated by Dante in the famous p

could wish. The whole conception of this canto seems to be due to Dante's own invention; only to a nature like his, keenly alive to the eternal distinction between right and wrong, and burning with zeal in the cause of right, could it have occurred to mark off for special ignominy people whose sole fault seems to have been that they "took things too easily." When, in Canto iv., we pass the river of Acheron, and find ourselves for the first time actually on the border of Hell itself, we are conscious at first of an alleviation. Melancholy there is, but it is a dignified melancholy, as different from the sordid misery of the wretches we have just left, as the "noble city" and the green sward enclosed by it are different from the murky air and the foul mud among which they have to dwell. Both in this and in the second circle we have punish

nity. It will be observed, too, that at this point what may be called pictorial description begins. Hitherto we have had merely a general impression of murky air and miry soil, sloping perhaps a little toward the centre, and intersected now and again by a stream. Now the City of Dis with minarets and towers rises in front of us, and, as we shall see in future cantos, from this time onwards the character of the scenery is indicated with great preciseness, e

Medusa and the Furies, which has earned perhaps a greater reputation for obscurit

f that history in the preceding chapters will understand the full force of Farinata's discourse with Dante. We have had a brief pa

ndeed, a summary of and key to the arrangement of the penalties, and a thorough comprehension and

Crucifixion. The descent is guarded by the legendary Minotaur, the Cretan monster, part bull, part man. In this connection it may be noticed that the beings suggested by classical mythology, who are met with in the division of Hell which lies between the wall of the City of Dis and the brink of Malebolge, the Minotaur, the Centaurs, the Harpies, and Geryon (as Dante conceives him), all belong to the semi-bestial class. In spite of the opinion held by some of the most eminent Dante-scholars, th

, robbers, and murderers, some famous, some obscure, are plunged more or less deeply in proportion to the heinousness of their crimes; for, like earthly streams, this has its deep and shallow. At the latter point they cross, on the back of Nessus the Centaur, and at once enter (Canto xiii.) a wood of gnarled and sere trees, in which the Harpies have their dwelling. These trees have sprung from the souls of suicides, and retain the power of speech and sensation. From one of these, who in life had been the famous s

lable; and Dante hands to Virgil a cord with which he is girt. The meaning of this cord is very obscure. He says: "I once thought to capture the leopard with it;" and if the leopard denotes the factions of Florence, the cord may perhaps symbolise justice or equity. When Virgil has thrown it down they wait a short time, and presently a monster appears whose name we find to be Geryon, and who symbolises fraud or treachery. It is perhaps not unnatural that when the power to enforce justice has been cast away, treachery should raise its head. This monster draws near the brink (Canto xvii.), but before they mount on him, Virgil allows Dante to walk a few paces to the right, in order that he may take note of the last class of "violent" sinners, namely, the usurers. These hold an intermediate position between the violent and the treacherous; just as the heretics did between the incontinent and the violent. Here again are many Florentines. Like the other misusers of money in Canto vii. their features are unrecognisable, and they are only to be known by the arms embroidered on their money bags. After hearing a few words from one of them, Dante returns to Virgil, and both take their place on the croup of Geryon, who bears them downwards to the eighth circle. This (Canto xvii

ade money by misuse of sacred offices are buried head downwards in holes with their feet projecting, and fire plays about their so

turned round so that they look down their own backs. The sight of Manto, daughter of Tiresias, suggests a description of the origin of the c

s class are immersed. For some reason, which is not very clear, Dante devotes two whole cantos to this subdivision of the subject. There is no doubt that baratteria, peculation or jobbery, was rampant throughout Southern Europe at the time, and, as has been said, it was one of the charges brought against the poet himself at the time of his b

heir organisation. Dante's skill is perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the way in which he has surmounted the difficulty of depicting beings in whom there is no touch of any good quality.

ts. They are quite solitary, for the first time in the course of their journey out of sight and hearing of any other beings; but still in fear of pursuit from the

is to the rending of the rocks at the moment of Our Lord's death (cf. xii. 31-45), which took place at 3 p.m., so that we have 10 a.m. on Easter Eve fixed as the hour at which the poets meet with the devils of the fifth pit. Among the hypocrites Dante talks with two men who had jointly held the office of Podestà, or chief magistrate, at Florence in the year after his birth.[30] They belonged to opposite parties, and the double appointment had been one of the many expedients devised to restore peace; but it had not answered, and the two were suspected of having sunk their own differences of opinion, not to

e one-fireflies flitting in summer about a mountain valley; and the punishment though terrible is in no way loathsome or degrading, like most of those which have hitherto been described in the present circle. The sinners, too, who are mentioned are men who on earth had played heroic parts; the manner of their speech is dignified, and Dante treats them with respect. They are those who have sinned by giving wicked counsel to others, and so leading them to commit sin; and the two who are especially distinguished and who relate their stories at length are Ulysses (Canto xxvi.) and Count Guy of Montefeltro, a great Ghibeline leader (xxvii.). The former probably owes his place here to Virgil's epithet scelerum inventor, deviser of crimes. In a passa

punishment of these sinners is appropriate. They are constantly being slashed to pieces by demons; the wounds being closed again before they complete the circuit. Curio, who as Lucan narrates, spoke the words which finally decided C?sar to enter upon civil war, Mosca de' Lamberti, the instigator of the crime which first imported especial bitterness into the strife of factions at Florence, and one Peter of Medicina, who seems to have devoted himself to keeping party-spirit alive in Romagna, are here. Last of all, carrying his own head like a lantern, is Bertrand of Born, the famous troubadou

he coinage or pretending to transmute metals. These suffer from leprosy, dropsy, raving madness, and other diseases. Before leaving the pit, a quarrel between

etriment of the Guelfs.[32] The mention of Bocca and Dante's behaviour to him, may remind us that the whole question of Dante's demeanour towards the persons whom he meets in the first part of the poem is interesting. For some he is full of pity, towards some he is even respectful; occasionally he is neutral; while in some cases he displays anger and scorn, amounting as here to positive cruelty. The expressions of pity, it will be observed, practically cease from the moment that Malebolge, the "nethermost Hell," is reached. Similarly, after reaching the City of Dis, the tone of Virgil towards the guardians of the damned, which up to that point has been peremptory, becomes almost suppliant. The reason for this is indeed somewhat obscure: one does not at once see why the formula "So it is willed there, where will is power," should not be as good for the Furies or for Malacoda as it has proved for Charon and Minos. Perhaps the clue is to be found in the fact that the sins punished inside the walls of the city (sins which, it will be seen, are not represented in Purgatory at all) are to be regarded as the result of a will obstinately set against the will of God; while the sins arising from the frailty of human nature may be checked by the "right judgement" recalling, before it is too late, what the will of God is. This, however, is a different question, and we must not here pursue it too far. To revert to that of Dante's various demeanour, it will be seen that, with the limitation indicated above, his sympathy with the sinner does not vary with the comparative heinousness of the sin. Almost his bitterest scorn, indeed, is directed towards some whose chief sin is lack of any positive qualities, good or bad. One infers that he would almost rather wander i

s, but of the sordidness of dishonesty. Curiously enough, the one denizen of this region who is thoroughly dignified and even pathetic, is the pagan Ulysses; and to him Dante does not himself speak, leaving the pagan Virgil to hold all communication with him. Besides Ulysses, Guy of Montfeltro and Ugolino are presented in such a way as to enlist,

arked parallelisms; only the tender pity which characterises Dante's treatment of the former is wholly lacking in the latter. There is no need to dwell on so well-known a story; but it may be noted that Ugolino, though a Guelf leader, and condemned here no

form of government was in any way distasteful to him, provided that it was honestly administered. It was not until the more powerful faction in the Guelf party called in the aid of an external power, unconnected with Italy, and hostile, or, as he would doubtless hold, rebellious, to the Empire, that he, along with the more "constitutional" branch of the Guelfs, threw in his lot with the long-banished Ghibelines. But neither then nor at any time did he belong to the Ghibeline party. So far from it, that he takes that party (in Par., vi. 105) as the example of those who follow the imperial standard in the wrong way, and make it a symbol of iniquity. The greatest and most heroic figure in the whole history of the Ghibelines, the man whose love for the rebellious city was as great as Dante's own, who when he had by his prowess in arms recovered it for the Empire, stood resolutely

he sees no other Emperor in Paradise, save Charlemagne; one, Rudolf of Hapsburg, is in, or rather just outside of, Purgatory; one, the great Frederick II., in Hell. Of the Popes one only, and he a Pope who in his life lay under grievous suspicion of heterodoxy, and moreover only occupied the Papal See for a few months, is placed in Heaven. This is "Peter of Spain," Pope John XXI. Two are in Purgatory; one of them, Martin IV., being a man who, as a Frenchman by birth, and a strong partisan of Charles of Anjou, might be supposed to have been specially obnoxious to Dante. No doubt Popes appear in what may seem an unfair proportion among the guilty souls below; but even for this distribution

rld's history-and you have the key to much that no ordinary theory of party-spirit will explain. Men of this temper care little for the party cries of everyday politics; and yet they cannot quite sit outside the world of affairs and watch the players, as we may imagine Shakespeare to have done, in calm consciousness that the shaping of our rough-hewn ends was

ever came across the poem in which they had earned so sinister a commemoration, their sentiment towards the poet would hardly be one of gratitude.[33] These are the last of his contemporaries whom Dante brands, the last, indeed, whom he recognises. In Giudecca (Canto xxxiv.) the sinners are wholly sunk below the ice, and only show through like straws or

earth, the position is reversed, and the ascent begins. For a short distance they climb up by Lucifer's legs, then through a chimney in the rock; lastly, i

Purga

on the distant sea. Venus is shining in the eastern heaven; and four stars, "never seen save by the earliest of mankind," are visible to the south. No doubt some tradition or report of the Southern Cross had reached men's ears in Europe; but the symbolical meaning is more important, and there can be no

s them to the shore, where Virgil is to wash the grime of Hell from Dante's face, and gird him with a rush, as an emblem of humility. When this has been done and as the sun is rising (Canto ii.) a light is seen approaching over the water. As it draws near, it is seen to be an angel. His wings form the sails to a boat which comes to the shore, freighted with more than a hundred souls on their way to Purgatory. They are chanting the Easter Psalm In exitu Israel; at the sign of the cross made by the angel they come ashore, an

count, and that this very inability forms the chief unhappiness of the great thinkers whom they saw among the virtuous heathen on the border of Hell. With this they reach the foot of the mountain of Purgatory. As is explained elsewhere, this occupies a position exactly opposite to the conical pit of Hell; being indeed formed of that portion of the earth which fled at the approach of Satan when he fell from Heaven. Some of its features are no doubt borrowed fro

ind the sun on his left hand. Virgil explains the topography; and is saying, in order to encourage Dante, that the labour of climbing will diminish as they get higher, when a bantering voice interrupts with the assurance that he will need plenty of sitting yet. The poet recognises in the speaker a Florentine friend. Another playful sarcasm on his thirst for information makes Dante address the shade and inquire as to his state. He, like Manfred, is debarred from entering Purgatory, but on the ground that he had led an easy life, and taken no thought of serious matters till his end drew near. In the following cantos (v. and vi.) we meet with many spirits who are from various causes in a similar position. First come those who have been cut off in the midst of their sins, but have sought for mercy at the last. The most noteworthy of these is Buonconte of Montefeltro, son of that Count Guy whom we met in the eighth pit of Malebolge. He was slain fighting against the Florentines at the battle of Campaldino

"the night cometh when no man can work"), he leads the poets to a spot where they may pass the night. This is a flowery dell on the hillside, occupied by the spirits of those who in life had been sovereign princes and rulers. There they see the Emperor Rudolf and his adversary, Ottocar of Bohemia; Charles

once recognises as an old friend, the Pisan noble Giovanni, or Nino de' Visconti, "judge" or governor of the Sardinian province called Gallura, nephew of Count Ugolino. After some talk Dante notices the three stars spoken of above, and at the same moment Sordello draws Virgil's attention

e as taking an interest in his welfare) had appeared and borne him to the place where they now are, in front of the gate of Purgatory. This is approached by three steps of variously-coloured stone. The first is white marble, the second a dark and rough rock, the thi

ix. 37 sqq., where a very similar indication is given of an underlying allegory, and draw their own conclusions. But on the whole, the main interest of the first nine cantos of the Purgatory is more of a personal nature. Sordello alone may give an e

o consider the general plan on which Purgatory is arranged, the nature of the various penances, with their adaptation to the offences wh

the moment of their passing the angel and that at which they reach the top of the stairway. On the other hand, when they come to the final ascent, from the seventh circle to the level of the Earthly Paradise which occupies the summit, a few steps are sufficient to bring them to their halting-place, which, as appears afterwards, is practically on the summit level. Each angel, as Dante passes,

k of calling the examples to mind is discharged by voices flying through the air. Yet another method is adopted in the third circle, where the Angry are punished by means of a dense smoke. Here the pictures are conveyed to Dante's mind by a kind of trance or vision, in which he sees the various scenes. We must suppose that the spirits pass through some similar experience. In the fourth circle, the examples of activity and warnings against Sloth are delivered by the souls themselves. As it is night while Dante is in this circle, he is himself unable to move; but the discipline being to run at speed, the souls pass him in their course. The fifth circle, of the Avaricious and Prodigal, follows much the same rule as the fourth, except that here the instances of virtue are recited in the day, those of sin at night, so that Dante does not actually hear the latter. In this case the souls lie prostrate. The Gluttonous, in the sixth circle, are punished by having to pass under trees laden with fruit, which they cannot reach; and the examples and warnings are conveyed by voices among the branches of these trees. The seventh circle

is, perhaps, follows naturally from its subject. The Purgatorial existence bears more affinity to the life of this world than does that of those who have reached their eternal abode; and human affections a

ted by the senses is infallible. Further, the Creator being absolutely happy, the soul naturally seeks happiness, and is said to love that in which it expects to find happiness. So far there is no room for error. Where it can come in is in the inferences which the mind draws from the information which the senses give, and in either its choice of an object to love, or the vigour with which it pursues that object. It must be further noted that the soul is endowed at the outset with a knowledge of good and evil, i.e. conscience, and with f

action does not incur blame. But it may happen that the end may be evil; in which case evil becomes the object of the love, or the love is turned to hatred. Now, no created being can hate its Creator, nor can any man hate himself; therefore the sins arising from this cause mus

an marsh, and nothing is seen of them but the bubbles which are formed by their sighs; while the wrathful or ill-tempered lie in the same marsh, but appear above the water. Both sins alike render the man full of hatred for his fellows, and make him insensible to the joy of life. In Purgatory, on the other han

ey 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 s

en 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

heoria, 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

f 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

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

mpion 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

labours through which he has brought his readers, and the agitation of the last canto, he tells us that at noon they reached the ed

r 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, p

Par

ect 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

ncipal 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 whic

ere 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

hich 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 gen

w 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 speake

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.

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

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 ro

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 palad

ing 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

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 beaut

ssing 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 ment

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. T

thological 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

he 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 i

aven, 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 bless

as has been already noticed, we are entering that one of

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 st

ct 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. Afterw

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 mo

ce 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

f 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 o

," 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 emin

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 Inca

contemporary German mystics. It would be interesting to inquire how far Dante can have been acquainted with any o

irst 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

TNO

, of several words used in that district makes it almost certain that Dante was very

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from the surface to the centre is perpendicular, a descent

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Dante did go to Genoa, in the suite of Henry VII., about the end of 1311, and there was ill-used by some

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e, the vice opposed to giustizia, that which

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