ill liiS ' ■ #lr ^ >'' ?' ^•' ' ' ' / CORNELL UNIVERSITY LIBRARY GIFT OF J. P. Bretz Cornell University Library PQ 4315.C33 1897 Divine corned' 3 1924 026 364 863 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tine Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026364863 JUIL imit yxv' xnr !^wr vw iutt ot- - wv vvv wv mi vw iisv Jt^v THE DIVINE COMEDY DANTE ALIGHIERl TRANSLATED BY THE REV. HENRY F. GARY TOGETHER WITH DANTE GABRIEL ROSSETTFS TRANSLATION OF THE NEW LIFE EDITED WITH INTRODUCTION AND NOTES BY OSCAR KUHNS PROFESSOR IN WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY AUTHOR OF "THE TREATMENT OF NATURE IN DANTE" NEW YORK THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. PUBLISHERS pa. /(ft? Copyright, 1B97, By T. Y. CROWELL & CO. ^l^yi cj "3", /, /^.-'LCi^ Iforfaoat! 5PrtB3 J. S. Cushirg & Co. - Enwick & Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. PROFESSOR C. T. WINCHESTER, L.H.D. FRIEND AND TEACHER CONTENTS. PREFACE INTRODUCTION BIBLIOGRAPHY THE NEW LIFE THE DIVINE COMEDY — HELL . THE DIVINE COMEDY — PURGATORY THE DIVINE COMEDY — PARADISE . INDEX TO PROPER NAMES IN THE DIVINE COMEDY PAGE vii xxxiu I • 45 . 183 • 321 • 463 PREFACE. AMONG the famous English translations of foreign classics, that of the Divine Comedy^ by the Reverend Henry F. Cary,^ holds a high rank. Owing to a lack of interest in the study of Dante at the time of its appear- ance, it at first attracted little attention, — but a eulogistic mention of it by Coleridge in a lecture on Dante, delivered February 27, 18 18, led to the immediate sale of a thousand copies and to notices, re-echoing Coleridge's praises, in the Edinburgh and Quarterly reviews. ^ Since that time it has been universally recognized as a remarkable triumph over the difficulties of translation. 3 The number of editions published has been very large, and it is probable that even to-day the majority of English readers know their Dante through Gary. In one respect, however, this version has fallen behind the times. The last revised edition was made in 1844, just before Mr. Gary's death. The notes, although containing much that is valuable, are to-day entirely inade- quate ; and, moreover, are not adapted to the needs of the general reader. Believing, as I do, that on the whole, Gary's is still the best poetical 1 Henry Francis Gary was born at Gibraltar, Dec. 6, 1772. He was educated at Rugby and Oxford, and in 1796 took orders. His transla- tion of the Inferno was published in 1805, that of the whole of the Divine Comedy in 1812. He died Aug. 14, 1844, and was buried in Westmin- ster Abbey, by the side of Samuel Johnson. 2 Letters of Coleridge, vol. ii., p. 677. 3 It may be of interest to quote a few of the judgments passed by great critics on this trans- lation. Goleridge, in a letter to Gary, Nov. 6, 1817, says; " This is the excellence of the work considered as a translation of Dante, that it gives the reader a similar feeling of wandering and wandering, onward and onward. Of the diction I can only say that it is Dantesque even in that in which the Florentine must be pre- ferred to our own English giant (Milton), — namely, that it is not only pure laitguage, but pure English." Ugo Foscolo {Edinhtirgk Review, vol. 29) speaks of Gary's " fidelity almost without ex- ample," while Southey says the work was ** exe- cuted with perfect fidelity and skill." In his Essay on Dante, Macaulay speaks of ** Mr. Gary, to whom Dante owes more than ever poet owed to translator"; and later says, " There is no other version in the world, so far as I know, so faithful, yet there is no other version which so fully proves that the translator is himself a man of poetical genius." The American historian, Prescott, in a letter to Mr. George Ticknor, says, "As to Gary, I think Dante would have given him a place in his ninth heaven, if he could have foreseen his translation. ... It is most astonishing, giving not only the literal corresponding phrase, but the spirit of the original, — the true Dantesque manner." viii PREFACE. version of the Divine Comedy in English, I have endeavoicd to render it more useful by bringing it into closer conformity to modern scholarship. In view of the intimate relation between the New Life and the Divine Comedy, it has been thought advisable to include in this volume Rossetti's translation of the former. In so doing I have retained Rossetti's notes, marking with a K those added bj myself. In regard to the notes to the Divine Comedy, I had at first contemplated a similar arrangement. On considering, however, the extensive nature of the changes which would have been rendered necessary in correcting, add- ing, cutting down, and omitting, it seemed to me wiser to cut practically loose from Gary, and make my own commentary.^ Of course, in making this last statement, I mean simply that I have consulted the best authori- ties and selected what seemed appropriate for the purpose I had in view.^ In so doing I have made most use of the editions of Bianchi, Fraticelli, Philalethes, and Scartazzini, especially the last two. In addition to the notes to Dante proper, I have also given some on the translation. Gary, in taking Milton as his model, often makes use of obsolete words and expressions. These I have explained. I have like- wise endeavored to correct not only actual errors of translation, but also to simplify what are often rhetorical circumlocutions. In this way it is hoped that the reader will have a clearer idea of that conciseness and ' simplicity of style which is so marked a feature in the original. I would call especial attention to the interpretive notes to the Paradise, in which, by means of brief yet clear synopses of the argument, I have endeavored to aid the reader to understand the often difficult (though never obscure) theological and philosophical discussions of Dante. The introduction was originally prepared in the form of popular lectures (afterwards published in the Methodist Review for May-June, 1894, and March-April, 1896.) While many changes have been made, the popular style has, to a certain extent, been retained, for it has been my purpose, so far as possible, to attract readers to a poem which, although at first sight it may appear harsh and forbidding, becomes on nearer acquaintance, full of the highest beauty and fraught with deepest profit and enjoyment. It is hoped that this edition, with its introduction, bibliography, and notes may serve to give a new impulse to the study of the Divine Poet. 1 Most of the parallel passages and quotations ^ On the function of the modem commentator are taken from Gary. In the Hell^ — especially of Dante, see the preface to the editions of Bi- the earlier Cantos, — I have also taken a few of anchi, Fraticelli, and Scartazzini. his historical and interpretative notes. INTRODUCTION I. AMONG the cities of the Old World famous for their beauty none has won more universal admiration than Florence, — the city of flowers, — situated in the heart of Tuscany, on the banlcs of the river Arno. But beauty is not the only claim that Florence has to the love and reverence of mankind. No city ever built by the hand of man has exerted a more mighty influence on that form of civilization which finds expression in the arts of painting, architecture, and sculpture. Of the long line of famous men which Florence can boast of, — Giotto, Fra Angelico, Michael Angelo,' IVIacchiavelli, Savonarola, — the greatest of all is Dante Alighieri. Even to-day the city is full of reminiscences of the great poet. In the square of the cathedral you can see the old Church of St. John, — " il mio bel San Giovanni," Dante calls it, — which was the chief church of Florence in his day. Near by Giotto's tower they still showed not long ago a stone where the poet was said to have sat and watched the building of the tower ; " Sasso di Dante " was the inscription upon it. As one walks along the narrow street of San Martino his eyes rest by chance on a tall, narrow stone building, and the words over the door, " Casa di Dante" tell you that this was the birthplace of the poet. Not far off is the church where the poet was married to Gemma Donati, while a few streets away is the site of the palace of Folco Portinari, the father of Beatrice. Dante Alighieri was born in dark and troublous times. The year after his birth, 1266, is memorable as the date of the battle of Benevento, where Charles of Anjou conquered Mahfred and destroyed forever the power of the Hohenstaufens. It may not be out of place here to say a word or two concerning the history of the times ; some general idea of them is indis- pensable to a clear conception of the life and works of Dante. The story of the fall of the Roman empire and of the invasion of barbarians from the North is too well known to need more than mention. Out of the materials that survived the wreck of empires, the remnants of the Italian people, together with the Lombards, Goths, and Vandals, formed a ne'w X introduction: order of society. Toward the ninth century cities began to rebuild their walls. Industry, arts, agriculture, which had lain dormant for so many years, began to give signs of awakening life. With the growth of the cities came hostility between them and the nobles. The latter had lived for the most part in mountain fortresses until the prosperity of the towns allured them thither. There were two rival powers in Italy during the Middle Ages who claimed sovereignty over all — the pope and the German emperors, who since the days of Charlemagne claimed to be the heirs of the old Roman empire. Until the election of Pope Gregory VII., in the eleventh century, no one had questioned the supremacy of the German emperor. Thi;; pontiff, who was a man of boundless ambition, and who changed the whoU; spirit of popedom, claimed the right of investing the German bishops, ;i right hitherto remaining in the hands of the emperor. There is no need of reviewing the oft-told story of the ruthless war waged by Hildebrandl against Henry IV. — how he hurled the anathemas of the Church and set son against father, and how he crowned his haughty arrogance by that famous scene at Canossa, where the ruler of the western world stood three days in the snow outside the castle walls, until it might please his holi- ness, the bishop of souls, to grant him his presence. Suffice it to say ■that from this struggle over the investiture of bishops arose those endlesii wars between Guelphs and Ghibellines. Every city in Italy was dividecl into two parties — the Guelphs, who espoused the cause of the pope, and the Ghibellines, who sided with the emperor. Owing to this constant state of warfare houses were built like fortresses, with thick walls, high, narrow windows, and doors of massive oak. In times of conflict chains were drawn across the streets, barricades thrown up, and murder and pillage ran riot. The political complexion of various cities changed from time to time as the parties rose or fell. At times the Guelphs had the upper hand and drove out the Ghibellines ; and then the r61es were changed, and the Guelphs were exiled in their turn. These different parties after a time lost their original significance as partisans of pope or emperor, and often represented only, private quarrels. Great families were at feud with one another. Thus, in Florence, the terrible disorders of the Whites and Blacks, — the Bianchi and the Neri, — -yifhich finally engulfed Dante in ruin, had their origin in a private quarrel. The principal families of the city at this time were the Buondelmonti and Amidei, the Uberti and Donati. A half century before Dante's birth one of the Buondelmonti, who was a Guelph, had been engaged to a daughter of the Amidei, a Ghibelline family. Urged by a widow of the house of Donati, however, he broke his engagement and married the daugliter of the widow, who belonged to the same political party as himself. The Amidei, deeply INTRODUCTION. xi • insulted, lay in wait for the young Buondelmonti and slew him on the Ponte Vecchio, at the foot of the statue of Mars. The whole city was immediately thrown into a state of warfare ; family was arrayed against family, and fierce encounters took place in the streets. Hardly a day passed without swords being drawn, the tocsin sounding, and bloody brawls taking place in the streets. This party hatred became so fierce that once, after the battle of iVIonte Aperti, in 1260, when the river Arbia ran red with blood, the victorious Ghibellines seriously considered the advisability of razing Florence to the ground and building a new city at Empoli, a small town on the road from Florence to Pisa. It was Farinata degli Uberti, one of the most distinguished warriors and eloquent orators of his time, who successfully opposed this plan. But in spite of war and bloodshed, of constant change of government and magistrates, the city grew greater and richer. It was the money centre of Europe, commerce flourished, and art in its noblest expression had its cradle there. At the time Dante was born the appearance of the city was not the same as it is now. The Duomo, Giotto's tower, the Palazzo Vecchio, and the Church of Santa Croce had not yet been built ; but before he died all this noble cluster of buildings had been begun. Life was gay and brilliant. The contado was cultivated by active peas- ants ; the city possessed thick walls, strong towers, and streets flagged with stones. Old Giovanni Villani, in his chronicle of Florence, dwells upon the luxury and display of the citizens. It has often been claimed that the family of Dante was a noble one, and that he was descended from one of the patrician families of Rome. We cannot, however, trace his ancestry further than the twelfth century — to that Cacciaguida whom the poet meets in the heaven of Mars and who foretells to him his future woes. The family of his mother. Donna Bella, was likewise of obscure origin. All authorities agree that Dante Alighieri was born in May, 1265. We know but little about his early life, his expe- rience at home and school, and the friends he made. The testimony of Boccaccio is looked upon with suspicion by Dante scholars. He tells us that the boy Dante did not join in childish sports and frolics, but gave himself up to the study of the liberal arts, in which he became marvel- lously expert. It is probable he obtained most of his knowledge from books without a teacher, although a passage in the Inferno, where the poet speaks of the " dear paternal image " of Brunetto Latini, has led some to conclude that the author of the Tesoro was his teacher. Even this, however, must remain in doubt. But although we know so little of the facts of his early life, we can form a good idea of his character, both from his own writings and the opinions of the early biographers. We know that he was a man of keen intellect, and yet of extreme sensitiveness of feeling ; he loved equally to bury him- xii INTRODUCTION. self in mysticism and to struggle with the intricate problems of the scho- lastic philosophy. Giovanni Villani says that by reason of his knowledge he was somewhat presumptuous and haughty, that he was never affable, and did not Icnow how to converse with the unlearned. Dante shows him- self in his works to possess wide and deep information. The Divine Comedy embraces all the science, philosophy, theology, and classical learn- ing of the time. He was proud-spirited and full of contempt for all that degrades man. He gives up his dearest hopes rather than humble him- self before injustice. But side by side with fierce hatred of his enemies we catch glimpses of tender pity and of soft compassion. The man who painted the wonderful pictures of Francesca da Rimini and Ugolino in the Tower of Hunger must have had a heart as tender and as easily touched as that of a woman. But Dante was not merely a man of books. He interested himself in politics, and was willing to give and take his share of hard blows when necessary. In the battle of Campaldino, June ii, 1289, in which the Guelphs of Florence defeated the Ghibellines of Arezzo, Dante was pres- ent, " no child in arms," he says himself, " and I had much fear, but in the end the greatest joy, on account of the various events of the battle." About 1 295 Dante married Gemma, the daughter of Manetto de' Donati. By this marriage he had several children. He is utterly silent concerning his family, wife, parents, brothers, children. We have no reason, how- ever, for believing otherwise than that Gemma was virtuous and that his domestic life was happy. Perhaps she was " the gentle lady " who com- forted the poet on the death of Beatrice, of which we shall speak later. She, did not share his exile, nor was this possible at first, on account of the tender age of her children. The Florentines, under the leadership of Giano della Bella, had passed laws to the effect that no noble or grandee should be eligible to the office of prior, the highest in the gift of the city. Every aspirant for office had to enroll himself in one of the guilds or professions. Dante at the age of thirty was enrolled in the guild of physicians and apothecaries, and in 1300 he was elected one of the ^priori. The office lasted only two months, yet it was the beginning for him of sorrows and misfortunes that were to end only with life itself. It was at this time that Pope Boniface VIII. sent Cardinal d' Acquasparta to pacify Florence. On being opposed by Dante and his colleagues, the pope in anger sent to France for Charles of Valois and bestowed on him the title of Pacificator of Italy. Charles entered Florence on the ist of November, 1301, and treated it as a vanquished city. Houses were destroyed, goods were confiscated, and many citizens were banished. Among the latter was Dante, charged with being a forger and bribe-taker. On the 27th of January, 1302, he was condemned to pay a fine of five thousand florins. If the sum was not paid in three days his introduction: xiii goods were to be confiscated and destroyed ; if it was paid he was still to be exiled two years from Tuscany. About forty days later he was charged, first, with not having obeyed the summons, and, secondly, with not having paid the fine. Therefore he was condemned to be burnt alive if ever he came within the jurisdiction of Florence. Years after, in 131 1 and in 1315, his name was mentioned as that of a rebel and outlaw. Villani, the most trustworthy of all ancient authorities, says the only cause of his ban- ishment was that he favored the White party, although nominally a Guelph. From this time on Dante separated himself from his family traditions and became a Ghibelline, or at least a supporter of the German emperor. This exile must have been a terrible blow to Dante. He was still young, eager for honor and fame, and loved his native city with passionate devo- tion. And now at one fell stroke he was cut off from home and family, his property confiscated, and he himself, driven into ignominious banishment, forced to become a wanderer and a beggar on the face of the earth. No wonder that at first he devoted all his energies to endeavoring to re-enter Florence. The supreme desire of his life for three years was to return to the city where his family and his friends were and where he had passed his youth. But he soon became weary of the companions among whom fate had cast his lot — fierce, scheming, unprincipled, the great family of bitter and disappointed partisans. He left them and, to use his own language, made a party for himself. His ancestor, Cacciaguida, in the nineteenth canto of the Paradise, while foretelling to him the trials of his exile, says, " Thou shalt prove how salt is the taste of others' bread, and how hard it is to descend and climb another's stairs ; but that which most of all will weigh heavy on thy soul will be the evil and foolish companions whom thou shalt fall in with in this valley of exile." During these three years he is said to have written a letter to his fellow-citizens, full of pathetic plead- ing and beginning with the words, " O popule mi, quid feci tibiP'' — " O my people, what have I done unto th.ee ? " But neither tears nor entreaties, threats nor open warfare, could unlock the gates of the city to him who was destined to be the glory, not only of Florence, but of all Italy. He seems finally to have accepted his exile as inevitable and, like the strong man that he was, adapted his work to his iife. Once only, years after, did a gleam of hope light up the dark path of the lonely wanderer. In 1308 Henry of Luxembourg ascended the throne of the empire, and in 13 10 entered Italy, which had been neglected by her rulers for over fifty years. Dante, once more hoping to return to Florence, wrote a letter full of fierce reproach to the Florentines, and another letter to Henry, urging him to hurry on his work of regenerating Italy. Henry went from Genoa to Pisa, and thence to Rome, where he was crowned Emperor in 1312. Afterwards he besieged Florence, but meeting with no success, went on to Pisa and to Buonconvento, where he died August 24, 1313. After his death Italy, like xiv introduction: a ship without a pilot, was tossed about on the waves of political disaster, and not until long centuries later, in the year 1870, did the poet's dream of a united Italy find its realization. The whole period of the exile is so obscured by myth and fiction that it is difiicult to separate the true from the false. ' Almost every city in Italy claims the honor of his presence, and Belgium and France, and even Eng- land, are said to have been visited by him. The poet's movements during this period are shrouded in obscurity ; yet from time to time the mist rolls away and we catch a glimpse of the wanderer climbing some mountain pass, wending his way through plain and valley, or, like a lost soul from the spirit world, threading the crowded streets of some great city. Legend has been busy with the poet's life and has woven many a beau.iful story of these days of exile. It is said that at the close of a long summer's day a stranger, weary and travel-stained, knocked at the door of the monastery of Santa Croce, near Spezia, which is situated on the hills which look out over the blue waters of the Mediterranean, just above the spot where, long years afterward, the body of Shelley was washed ashore. When asked what he desired the only response the stranger made was, " Pace, pace'''' — " Peace, peace." But, leaving aside tradition, we know that Dante spent some time in the University of Bologna, where he studied hard and his eyes became weak, so that the " stars were dimmed with a kind of white- ness." We know that he visited also Padua, where he lived in the street of St. Laurence and must have met Giotto, who was at that time engaged on the frescoes in the Church of the Madonna dell' Arena. It was in the beautiful city of Verona, with its old palaces, marble-faced churches, lofty towers, and picturesque old bridge, that Dante found his first refuge in the palace of Can Grande della Scala. The story of Romeo and Juliet is said to have occurred in Verona in 1302, a few years before Dante's arrival ; and we love to think that the poet who has immortalized the touching story of Francesca da Riniini's love and death knew that other story of love unto death which forms the subject of Shakespeare's tragedy. Dante was heartily welcomed by the head of the noble Ghibelline family of the Scaligers, and lived probably a number of years with him. He is said to have owned property at Gargnano, near Verona, where he wrote the Purgatory. His daughter married into the Veronese family of Serego, the descendants of whom are still living. We can almost see the sad and melancholy figure of the poet as he moved silently among the brilliant courtiers of the court of Can Grande, looking so stern and grim that the women in the streets whispered to each other, " Ecco P uomo che e stato nelV inferno" — " Behold the man who has been in hell." It was during these years of trial and sorrow that his conversion took place. Hitherto he had rejoiced in the pride' of intellect, had recognized only human reason, and had sought for earthly happiness and honor. He INTRODUCTION. xv says himself that pride and envy had been his special sins. But now that a MjgjiU l . tily~happiiiess tailedTum and the star of hope had set forever, he turned to thoughts of the eternal world and became a humble seeker after divine wisdom and illuminating grace. Converted and shuddering at the horrors of eternaljerdition which he had "escaped) he wrote the -Divine.- Come^^f^/warn others of The iiTevitable consequences of their sins and to lead them up the-steep- heights of Purgatory, to the life with God on high. In the year 1316 Florence announced that all exiles would be allowed to return, but on humiliating conditions. These conditions were, first, that they should pay a certain sum of money; second, that they should wear paper mitres on their heads as a sign of infamy and march to the Church of St. John, and there make an offering for their crimes. Many yielded, and Dante's friends urged him to yield likewise. But the poet, preferring exile to self-abasement, even with return to Florence, wrote the following letter full of noble independence and indignation : " This is not the way to return to my country, O my Father. If another shall be found by you, or by others, that does not derogate from the fame and honor of Dante, that will I take with no lagging steps. But if Flor- ence is entered by no other path, then never will I enter Florence. What ! Can I not look upon the face of the sun and the stars everywhere ? Can I not meditate anywhere under the heavens upon most sweet truths, unless I first render myself inglorious, nay ignominious, to the people and state of Florence ? Nor, indeed, will bread be lacking." ^ Long before the inroads of the barbarians had driven the inhabitants of Padua and the neighboring cities to seek refuge among the lagoons of the northern Adriatic, and so to found the city of Venice, another city had been built on the shores of the Adriatic, where the waters of the Po min- gled with the salt waves of the sea around its very walls. This city was Ravenna, and was chosen by the Emperor Augustus for one of his two naval stations. But to-day the sea has receded and left the city four miles inland, while a forest of pines occupies the site where Roman fleets once lay at anchor. In this strange, weird old city Dante Alighieri found his last refuge and final resting-place. Here in the palace of Guido Novello da Polenta, the ruins of which can still be seen, he found a per- manent home and kind friends and protectors. From time to time he made journeys and visits to neighboring towns and villages. We are told that he would spend whole days in the vast forest of pines, brooding over Florence and her civil wars and meditating cantos of his poem. It was a familiar sight to the people of Ravenna, that figure slighdy bent, with gait gentle and grave, always clad in becoming garments, and with face 1 Letters of Dante, translated by C. S. Latham, Boston, 1892, pp. 185, 186. xvi mrnobucTiON: melancholy and thoughtful. But it was only after long years, when Flor- ence had vainly begged for the ashes of him she had martyred, that they knew what an honor had been bestowed on their city when the "divine poet" came to live and die in their midst. In the year 1321 the republic of Venice was at war with the lord of Polenta, and Dante was sent thither to sue for peace. On his return he fell seriously ill, and died September 14, 1 32 1. When the modern traveller arrives in Ravenna, before visiting the mosaics of San Vitale or the tomb of Galla Placidia, he inquires the way to Dante's tomb. The inscription on it, in barbarous Latin, is said to have been composed by the poet himself. The last two lines breathe a bitter melancholy : — " Hie claudor Danfes, patriis extorris ab oris, Quem genuit parvi Florentia mater amoris " — " Here lie I, Dante, an exile from my native land, born of Florence, a mother of little love." The monument is poor and unworthy ; and yet this fact is forgotten in the presence of the mortal remains of him whose life was made so bitter and sad by hate and injustice, and who, in the words of another, " has built himself an eternal dwelling, a monument more durable than bronze or marble, a vast city peopled with his creations and filled with his glory." II. I have purposely said nothing yet of Dante's relations with Beatrice Portinari, but have reserved the whole subject for discussion in connection with the JVew Life. Leaving one side several scientific treatises in Latin, nearly all Dante's literary activity is recorded in the trilogy composed of the Vita Nuova, or the New Life, the Co7ivito or the Banquet, and the Divine Comedy. In studying these works we can trace three distinct phases in the development of the character and genius of the author. In the New Life we see a young man full of enthiisiastic devotion to poetry and study, filled with a pure, idealized love for a noble woman, and led by this love to confiding faith in God, and to love and charity for all the world. Toward the end of this book we catch a glimpse of a change in his mind and ideas, which forms a transition toward the second period, represented by the Banquet. This is a fragment of a larger work, to have been completed in fifteen parts, of which only four were written. It is a sort of commentary on the poet's philosophical and lyrical poems, and is an encyclopedic disquisition on the philosophy and science of the times. Here we see Dante full of passionate love for science, struggling with doubts, and relying on human reason as the sole means of obtaining happiness and fame. We no longer find the simple faith and peace of INTRODUCTION. xvii early days, but struggles and conflicts with temptations and grief. The third and last period shows us the poet, crushed by sorrow and chastened by suffering, returning to his God for peace and comfort, and, having reached a haven of quiet and safety himself, sending out a warning cry to all men to save them from their sin and folly. The New Life is one of the strangest books' in all literature. It is the story of a young man's love for a girl, told in quaint naive style, full of affectation, yet tender and touching. The love that fills its pages is utterly free from passion and desire, unlike that love " That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloyed, A burning forehead, and a parching tongue." It is the love of the age of chivalry, of the " courts of love " in Toulouse, the love that drove the troubadour Geoffrey Rudel over land and sea, until he had found the lady whom he had seen only in his dreams. The book itself is a small one, occupying in the present edition only forty-four pages. It is broken up into forty-three short chapters or paragraphs,* and consists of mingled prose and verse — a chante-fable, as the old French would have called it. It opens with the first meeting of Dante and Beatrice when both were about nine years old, and ends with the death of Beatrice, in 1290. It can roughly be divided into three parts, the first containing the descrip- tion of Beatrice's charms and influence, with a series of little events and thoughts suggested by them ; the second part deals with the spiritual virtues of Beatrice, her death, and Dahte's grief; while the last part is occupied with an episode which has produced an endless amount of dis- cussion — that of a gentle lady who caused him to lose for a time the memory of Beatrice. The book closes with the poet's repentance for this brief desertion, and the resolution to devote his life to sounding the praise of her who had been to him the symbol of all that is good and holy. Dante before his eighteenth year had written a number of lyrical poems celebrating the beauty of Beatrice. At her death, wishing to raise a monument to her, he gathered together the various poems he had writ- ten in her honor during her life. At the beginning of each poem he writes an introduction in prose, explaining how the idea of the poem came into his mind ; and then at the end he places a commentary in quaint, scholastic language. The events described are half historical, half mys- tical. The book is altogether subjective ; it deals with feelings alone and introduces us to a strange, ideal world. We see vague figures move across the stage, we catch glimpses of weddings, funerals, churches, social gath- erings, but all seen through a dim, vaporous twilight, like a picture by Burne-Jojies or Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It resembles real life as moon- 1 This division into paragraphs has been made only in modern times. xvffl introduction: light resembles sunlight or "as water is to winej' In spite of the artificia. surroundings, the affectatioB, the quaint conceits, and pedantic coramenta-- ries, it all moves us deeply. We feel 'that the sentiment is genuine and the love noble and true. We knov^ that the man who wrote this simple story of love fought with the bravest at Campaldino ; that he spent his whole life in exile rather than submit to dishonor. We know, too, that he was a man of wide knowledge, a leader of men, an uncompromising foe to tyranny, as well as a tender lover. It is the thought of all this that invests the New Life with such peculiar interest. It is hard for us of the nineteenth century to realize the strange joy with which the people of the Middle Ages welcomed the return of spring. With the budding of the flowers and the singing of the birds a thrill of delight ran through the mediaeval wo^rld. The songs of German mipne- singer and Frenoh troubadour are fuU of the praise of spring, and almost all old romances begin, with April or IVIay, Easter or Pentecost. Thus, the rea,d'er will remember, Rtineke: Fmhs opens at " Pfingsien, das Uebliche Fest^'' and Chaucer's pilgrims set out fflr Canterbury " Whan that ApriUe with his schowres swoote The drought of Marche had perced to the roote." Springtime at Florence is full of radiant loveliness. The fields and ga,i;dens about the city are covered with flowers of every kind and color, and they are brought into the city and offered for sale, piled up in great masses against the old stone pal,aoes^ The air is -soft and clear, and the sky is of that dolce color d''oriental zaj^ro, "that sweet color of oriental, sapphire," that Dante speaks of in the Purgatory. No wonder, then, that the return of spring was celebrated at Florence by special festivities in the days of old. It was at one of these spring festivals that Dante first met Beatrice. In the opening paragraphs of the New Life he describes the scene in quaint, mystic, and scholastic laijguage^ in which you will note the r61e played by the figure nine.^ From the time of his first meeting, Beatifice was all in all to him. Like every lover from the dawn of time, he SQUght all opportunities of seeing her. He tells us, that her love made his heart noble and gay and full of holy charity. It impelled him to. love his neighbors and to forgive those who offended him. She became the sysabol of all that is good on earth and lifted his soul to the love of the highest good, which is God. It has been ajrgjie.d that Beatrice is only an aJJlegory ; but it seems to me impos- sible to harmonize this theory with all the personal details which we have of her. She is a woman of flesh and blood, modest, gentle, dignified, and grave : — 1 Sees- II. introduction: six " A creature not too bright or good, For human nature's daily food." We see her walking through the streets of Florence, kneeling before the altar at church, smiling and making merry at parties, and weeping at funerals. The figure is dim, it is true, half real, half ideal ; but there is too much passion, tenderness, and unconscious truth in the poet's lan- guage to leave us in any doubt as to her existence. When next he speaks of her, nine years had again passed away. This time he sees her in the street, dressed in pure white and in company with two ladies both older than herself. Dante stood by timidly and she spoke to him. This simple salutation filled him with unutterable bhss ; he calls it ineffable courtesy, worthy of reward in the eternal world. He was intoxicated with sweet- ness, and turned away to brood in solitude over his happiness. How true and natural it all seems through the mist of intervening years — love " Old and yet ever new, and simple and beautiful always." In order to get sight of her he haunted the streets and churches. They show you to-day in the court of the Palazzo Salviati, which occupies the site of Folco Portinari's house, the nicchia di Dante, where the poet is supposed to have waited and watched for Beatrice. He tried to conceal the real state of affairs by feigning love for another ; and so successful was he that Beatrice, whether from jealousy or other reasons we know not, refused to speak to him any more. This filled him with inexpressible grief. We have already seen in the opening passage of the New Life the straftge mingling of mysticism, personification, and scholastic use of Latin. The passage describing Dante's grief may be taken as a piece of simple and tender pathos.^ It came to pass some time after this that he saw Beatrice at a wedding, and so strong an emotion came over him that all present saw it and laughed at him. He grew pale and faint, he trembled ; and the very stones cried out, •' Die, die ! " Though he says nothing definite about it, many haye supposed this was Beatrice's own wedding ; hence the strong feelings of the poet. She had been affianced in early youth to Simone de' Bardi, whom she afterward married. This may account for the fact that Dante seems never to have deemed it possible for him to marry her. And yet, after all, it is not necessary to seek such an explanation, for we know that the love of chivalry was something different from conjugal affection. Indeed, in the fantastic ideas of the age love could not exist in the married state. No very definite information of actual events can be gathered from the 1 See § XII. XX INTRODUCTION. New Life. The poet speaks obscurely and by way of allusion. He wrote for ladies and lovers ; it was the deeper spiritual phases of love he sought to describe, and the events of everyday life were of no great importance to him. The visions he sees, the thoughts that sway his mind, the tears and sighs, the longing to see his lady, and his purpose to speak her praise — these are the themes of his book. Thus in the beautiful sonnet beginning, " Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare La mia donna," 1 he gives no detail of her appearance, the color of her eyes or hair, whether she is tall or slender, but only the effect of her beauty on the passers-by when she appears in the street. And yet here and there we do get a glimpse of actual events. We learn that the father of Beatrice dies, and that he was a good man. But this is told in a line or two, while whole pages are devoted to the grief of the daughter and to Dante's sympathetic sorrow. At one time Dante fell grievously ill and was in sore pain. Then there came to him those solemn thoughts of life and death which come at some time or another to all men — the short, bird-like flight across the lighted chamber of life, and then the unknown dark hereafter. As he pondered on the frailty of human life, with startling suddenness a dread presentiment fell upon him. He said to himself, " It needs must be that Beatrice shall die." In a horrible vision strange ladies came to him and said, " Thou too shalt die " ; and hideous faces cried out, " Thou art dead." Then as the fever-trance proceeded he saw women with dishevelled hair, the sun grew dark, birds fell from the air, and a pale-faced, hoarse-voiced man cried out, " Dead is thy lady." He was then taken into a room where she was lying so sweetly and quietly that she seemed to say, " Lo, I am in peace." This dark presentiment which had haunted his fever-troubled brain finally came true. A poem which he had started breaks off in the middle and is followed by these words from the Book of Lamentations : " How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people ! how is she become as a widow, she that was great among the nations ! " Beatrice was dead. It is very characteristic of the book that in the first few pages after this event, instead of giving expression to his sorrow, the poet goes into a dis- cussion of the symbolic number nine. Beatrice, whom he had met in her ninth year, died on the ninth day of the ninth month, in the ninth decade of the century. But after this there is no lack of feeling or weeping. His grief was so bitter that purple rims were about his eyes. He grew wan and pale and longed to die. The only consolation he could find was in writing poems in praise of her who had gone from him forever. The episode of a certain gentle lady whom he saw looking compassion- ' § XXVI. introduction: xxi ately upon him from a window, and whom he toolc pleasure in seeing and thinking of, comes in lilce a discordant note to mar the lyric purity of these last pages of grief. Some have conjectured that this was Gemma Donati, whom he afterward married ; others see in her only the symbol of phi- losophy. Whoever she was, wife or symbol or passing fancy, this interlude in his mourning lasted but a short time. In a vision he saw Beatrice in the same crimson dress she had worn at their first meeting; and as the memories of a lifetime rushed over him her love entered his breast once more, there to set up its everlasting rest. And then, after the final sonnet of the book, exalted by the consciousness of his own genius, he ex- claims in words of prophetic beauty : " After writing this sonnet, it was given unto me to behold a very wonderful vision — wherein I saw things which determined me that I would say nothing further of this most blessed one, until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. And to this end I labor all I can; as she well knoweth. Wherefore if it be his pleasure through whom is the life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which, may it seem good unto Him who is the Master of Grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady : to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now gazeth continually on his countenance q2ii est per omnia sacula benedictus y With the death of Beatrice and Dante's despairing grief the New Life ends. The days of childhood and youth are past. The man is about to enter on that stormy and troublous career the story of which, with its bitter sense of injustice and its sorrow almost unto death, together with a new hope and love, this time, however, the love of God, is told in that " poem of the earth and air," the Divine Comedy. III. An enterprising publisher once asked Victor Hugo to prepare for him a selection from his works to be issued in one volume. The French writer replied with characteristic indignation, " Would you ask a tourist to bring you from Chamouni a pebble as a sample of Mont Blanc ?" It is with such a feeling as this that one attempts to give an idea of Dante's Divine Comedy within the narrow limits of an introduction. The poem is so vast that at first approach we are overpowered. Only after long and earnest study can we realize its greatness and seize the multitudinous details com- prised in its mighty structure. And yet, as Dean Church says, "those who know the Divina Commedia best will best know how hard it is to be interpreter of such a mind ; but they will sympathize with the wish to call , attention to it. They know, and would wish others to know also, not by xxii tntroouction: hearsay, but by experience, the power of that wonderful poem." A book parts of which Ruskin has declared to be little short of the miraculous, a book containing passages that Walter Savage L^ndor and Goethe have placed far above all other poetry, a book that has won the lifelong devo- tion of such scholars as Hegel and Schopenhauer, Tholuck and Schelling, Longfellow and Lowell — such a book must surely be worthy of study. The outer form which Dante gave to his poem was nothing new or origi- nal. Visions of journeys into the other world were common "during the Middle Ages. The limits between the unseen life and ours were not so definite then as now, and the undiscovered country seemed very real. The mysteries, and the miracle plays with their three stages representing Earth, Heaven, and Hell, which were often produced in the public squares of ■ Italian cities, were undoubtedly as familiar to Dante as the puppet shows of the Faust legend, long after, were to the boy Goethe, to whom they gave the first suggestions of that drama which was to sum up all the develop- ment of his mind and soul. As the year looo drew near, tlie whole Chris- tian world was expectant of the millennium foretold by St. John, when Satan, after being bound a thousand years, should be loosed, and Death and Hell should deliver up their dead. The terror which then smote men's souls can still be seen in the literature and customs of the times. Human imagination, stirred by the vision of the seer of Patmos, penetrated into the mysteries of the life to come, and out of the details given by St. John — the bottomless pit, the lake of brimstone and fire, the dragons and serpents, the angels and the great white throne — men wrought a whole system of supernatural worlds. These fancies and speculations were writ- ten and read and told, and passed into the very life of mediaeval society. It is useless to seek for any one vision which may have served Dante as a model ; there were a number of them, and he simply followed the beliefs of his time in giving to his poem the form of a journey through Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. What differentiated him, however, from his predecessors is that he made his vision a carefully wrought-out allegory which, besides containing wonderful poetry, is also an epitome of the poet's own life and of the whole mediaeval world. That the allegory exists there can be no doubt ; Dante himself distinctly tells us so, if the letter to Can Grande della Scala be genuine. What the real meaning is has been the subject of more or less discussion. The older commentators, such as Boccaccio and Pietro Alighieri, make the allegory a religious one — ^"to free men from their sins, to direct them toward the purgation of their souls, and to strengthen them in holiness and virtue," says the latter. Later commentators, on the other hand, have been more inclined to give a politico-historical meaning to the allegory. Both are probably rio-ht. But there is a personal allegory in the poem as well. Dante himself is the introduction: xxii- chief actor. He it is who is lost in the world of sin, who is repulsed from the mount of peace and consolation by the wolf, the panther, and the Uon. Virgil; representing Earthly Wisdom, or Reason, and Beatrice, represent- ing Divine Wisdom, or Illuminating Grace, lead him throilgh the darksohie ways of Hell and up over the craggy heights of Purgatory to the Paradise of God. We are told that it is necessary for Dante to make this journey in order to gain full experience of God's purpose and to reach that liberty which is more precious than life itselE But when he has reached the heaven of the fixed stars, where he sees the glory of Christ surrounded by the apostles, St. Peter, with holy indignation at the corruption of the Church, tells him to relate his vision to the world lying Id sin and suffer- ing: "And thou, my son, when thou shalt return below, open thou thy mouth and hide not what I hide not from thee." Not only is the world lying in spiritual wretchedness, but owing to the unholy desire for tempo^ ral power on the part of God's vicar, the Pope, all Italy is full of war, murder, and rapine ; city is arrayed against city, family against family ; and pity, patriotism, and religion seem lost forever in the " endless dark " of civil strife. To change this state of things Dante wrote his pOem. Ugo Foscolo says that the poet undoubtedly believed his mission to be apostolic and consecrated. His was not to reform the Church alone, as Luther did, but the world, society, man. Virgil, as Reason, was to show men the folly of the political suicides of the day ; Beatrice, as Faith, was to lift their eyes to those hills whence cometh all help. But, after all, the allegory is not the most important part of the Divine Comedy. The poem compels our undying admiration because it is a drama in which we see moving across the stage the mighty forms of all lands and ages. Greece and Rome are there ; and Dante, boldest among poets, gives us a living, breathing picture of his own times and country. Among these spirits who have left such deep footprints on the saiids of time we see the grim figure of the poet himself = — the exile and partisan, full of hate and indignation, yet inspired by the noblest ideals for Church and State, and touched by the tenderest sympathy for all that is sweet and good. It is this intensely personal stamp that makes the Divine Comedy so real; the throbbings of the poet's heart, the longings of his soul, his words of fierce denunciation, with the sublime poetry in which they are embalmed, make the book unique among the world's books. In order to obtain a Clear conception of Dante's journey through the three supernatural kingdoms, we must have some intelligent idea of his universe. His system of astronomy was tl;at of Ptolemy. Take any spherical substance and let that represent the earth, — for Dante knew that the earth is round, — cut out of it a section in the shape of an inverted cone, the apex being at the centre ; remove this and place its base on the surface of the sphere exactly opposite the place whence it was taken. The xxiv INTRODUCTION. cavity thus made will represent Hell, and the cone Purgatory. Paradise comprises the heavens of the planets and fixed stars, and the Primum Mobile heaven, all of which revolve about the earth ; and beyond stretches out to infinity the Empyrean, motionless in itself but the source of all motion, where abides the ineffable splendor of God, surrounded b_y the hierarchies of cherubim and seraphim, angels and archangels, principalities and powers. Hell is divided into nine circles, sloping down toward a yawning abyss in the centre, the depth of which is measured by half the diameter of the earth. It is impossible to give briefly an idea of the variety of these circles, each one bearing its individual stamp and present- ing all the diversities of natural scenery that Dante had seen in the world above — woods and rivers, plains and valleys — but all shrouded in an atmosphere of darkness and terror. The Mount of Purgatory is situated on an island in the Southern Sea, and rises sheer up through the atmos- phere which surrounds its lower portion, while at its top the Earthly Para- dise basks eternally in the light of the sun, untouched by the atmospheric changes that affect its base. Purgatory is divided into seven terraces, which, with Ante-Purgatory and the Earthly JParadise, form nine divisions and thus correspond to the nine circles of Hell and the nine heavens. Dante's theory as to the origin of Hell and Purgatory is very naive in its seriousness. When Lucifer was flung out of heaven he fell headlong to the earth and penetrated to its centre. The southern hemisphere shrank in terror before his face and covered itself with the waters of the great deep, while out of the interior a great mass was thrown up and formed the mountain of Purgatory. Scattered over the infernal circles and the purgatorial terraces is the infinite multitude of souls who sinned on earth, and who are now pun- ished with all the refinements of horror which the mind of the poet can invent. In Hell the punishment is eternal ; in Purgatory it is expia- tory and temporary ; in both it is physical and moral. The damned are not only tormented with fire and sword, with fever and thirst, but are filled with hate toward God and each other ; they blaspheme the Creator and curse their parents and their birth. The physical punishment of the Divine Comedy is founded on the Old Testament principle of "an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth." Dante has often been accused of excessive cruelty in his conception of punishmerit ; but he wrote accord- ing to the religious ideas of his times. In loading hypocrites with heavy cloaks of gilded lead he undoubtedly took the idea from Frederick II., who was wont to clothe traitors in a similar manner and then burn them alive. The terrible story of Piero Dolcino's public torture in the streets of Novara shows to what refinements of cruelty Dante's contemporaries could stoop. Th'i poet gives a correspondence, literal or figurative, between a sin and i*f jjunishmen'-. Thus, the licentious are forever blown about by a fierce introduction: xxv wind, because on earth they had been the sport of the whirlwind of pas- sion ; the gluttonous lie in filth like swine ; schismatics are cloven asunder ; murderers and tyrants are plunged into rivers of boiling blood ; in Purga- tory the proud are crushed beneath heavy burdens, and the envious have their eyelids sewn together. One striking difference between the punish- ments of Purgatory and Hell is that in the former place the soul desires its own torment, which renders it capable of coming at last to peace and joy in the Lord. As hate is the prevailing note in Hell, in Purgatory love softens suffering and soothes pain. Not with blasphemies do the souls there receive the recompense of their sins, but with sweet old Latin hymns of praise and hope. " Salve Regina," " Te Lucis Ante," " Beati Pauperes Spiritu" — these are the sounds which greet the wanderers as they mount from terrace to terrace toward the summit whose ascent becomes more easy as they rise. Dante's doctrine of the forms of the souls that inhabit these kingdoms coincides with that of the Church fathers. They are living shadows, made of some spiritual substance ; for their mortal bodies still lie in the grave, and only after the Last Judgment shall body and spirit be reunited. But these shadows have flesh and blood, and are capable of intensest physical suffering. It is often hard to see any essential difference between them and the human body. In Paradise the blessed have practically no body ; they are lights and stars and splendors, which flash and coruscate in daz- zling brilliancy. There are two kinds of devils in Hell — the guardian and the minister- ing — the latter plying their functions with fiendish joy and diabolical faithfulness. There is here a curious mingling of Christianity and classic mythology. We find among these devils Minos, Pluto, Cerberus, and the Harpies. Some explain this by saying that Dante was deeply saturated with classic antiquity and could not free himself from its influence. Others, perhaps more correctly, point out that the early Christian Church meta- morphosed the gods of Greece and Rome into demons. This we find in Augustine and Origen ; and St. Paul, it will be remembered, says, " The things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God " ; and even to later times the Venusberg in the Thuringian Forest, which plays so great a part in Wagner's opera of Tannh'duser, bears wit- ness to the tenacity with which old Grecian divinities clung to mediaeval legends. The guardians of Purgatory and Paradise are beautiful angels, with white, or green, or golden wings, and faces as of flame. The action of the Divine Comedy begins at Easter in the year 1300 — " Nei mezzo del cammin di nostra vita," says Dante in the first line — that is, in the midst of the journey of his life, when he was thirty-five years old. He has lost his way in a dark wood, and as he tries to gain a dis- tant mountain top he is filled with dismay at the sight of three fierce xxvi INTRODUCTION: beasts who block his way. As he retreats a spirit coming toward him malies itself known as the poet Virgil, whose JEneid has been Dante's lifelong study. Virgil has been sent to his relief by Beatrice, Lucia, and the Blessed Virgin ; and tells him that, to escape from the wood of error and sin, he must pass through the bitterness of Hell and so up to the alto lume, the light of God on high. With renewed courage the poet signifies his willingness to undertake the lofty task, and the two wanderers make their way toward the portals of Hei!, which they reach as day begins to decline. It is during the first hours of twilight, as the world lies down to tranquil sleep, that Dante begins his weird journey into the undiscov- ered country filled with unutterable darkness and horror. Over the gate in dark letters is written a tremendous inscription, beneath which they pass. Making their way across the vestibule of Hell, inhabited by the ignoble souls of those who were neither God's enemies nor his friends, they reach the river Acheron, over which the poet is carried in a swoon. Hell proper begins with the second circle, and here dwell in a stately castle the souls of the virtuous men of ancient days, whose only punish- ment for an unbelief in Christ for which they are not responsible is to live always in desire without hope. Virgil and Dante pass through the midst of these venerable spirits, who speak rarely and with soft voices, and soon issue out upon the full fury of the infernal world. As they stand in the third circle and gaze upon the innumerable company of the licen- tious, blown hither and thither by a wind which roars like the sea in a storm, Dante's attention is attracted to two souls who still cling together, although tossed about like chaff before the breeze. He calls to them and invites them to approach. Leaving the " band where Dido is," they fly toward the wanderers, and while a brief hush stills the air Francesca da Rimini tells her sad story of love and crime, in words full of deathless beauty and pathos. ^ As Dante listens, so strongly does pity seize upon his heart that he faints and falls as one that is dead. Midnight finds the two poets standing at the foot of a tower on the shore of the Stygian marsh, whose sullen waters plash in the inky dark- ness. Hours have passed since Dante had swooned. On awakening he had moved forward and downward ; he had seen the gluttonous beaten down upon by the heavily falling, rotting rain, and the misers and spend- thrifts rolling heavy rocks against each other and cursing each other's sins. And now as the travellers peer through the murky air, looking for some way of crossing the putrid waters of the marsh, suddenly two lights flash from the top of the tower beside them ; and soon a swift bark approaches the shore, and, entering in, the wanderers are rowed across by the fierce-mouthed boatman Phlegyas. ' Hell, V. introduction: xxvli Nearing the other shore, they see looming up vaguely the walls of th: infernal city of Dis, in shape like a mediaeval fortress, surrounded by deep ditches, and with towers which gleam blood-red. Thousands of demons swarm on the walls and defend the entrance ; high up on the summit of the towers stand the three furies stained with blood and girdled and crowned withMW^iing serpents. " Let Medusa come," they cry, " and turn him iata^rotre!W And now doubt assails the heart of Virgil, and Dante's cou^g^g faiUllg, he would fain turn back ; when lo, with earth- quake and rhu'nder^U, appears a celestial messenger, before whom the devils fly i^terrorapd the gates of the city open. As they enter, there stretches dut,- as f|f as eye can reach, an immense graveyard, a sort of subterrania,n ;JE*ire'fla Chaise, crowded thick with tombs whose sides are red-hot and fl"o!mfwhose half-open covers issue flames. In them those who dejf e tainly of her might have been said those words of the poet Homer, " She seemed not to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God." ^ And albeit her image, that was with me always, was an exultation of Love to subdue me, it was yet of so perfect a quality that it never allowed me to be over- ruled by Love without the faithful counsel of reason, whensoever such counsel was useful to be heard. But seeing that were I to dwell overmuch on the passions and doings of such early youth, my words might be counted something fabulous, I will therefore put them aside ; and passing many things that may be conceived by the pattern of these, I will come to such as are writ in my memory with a better distinctness. in. After the lapse of so inany days that nine years exactly were com- pleted since the above-written appearance of this most gracious being, on the last of those days it happened that the same wonderful lady appeared to me dressed all in pure white, between two gentle ladies elder than she. And . passing through a street, she turned her eyes thither where I stood sorely abashed : and by her unspeakable courtesy, which is now guerdoned in the Great Cycle,^ she saluted me with so virtuous a bearing that I seemed then and there to behold the very limits of blessedness. The hour of her most sweet salutation was exactly the ninth of that day ; and because it was the first time that any words from her reached mine ears, I came into such sweetness that I parted thence as one intoxicated. And betaking me to the loneliness of mine own room, I fell to thinking of this most courteous lady, thinking of whom I was overtaken by a pleasant slumber, wherein a marvellous vision was presented for me : for there appeared to be in my room a mist of the color of fire, within the which I discerned the figure of a lord of terrible aspect to such as should gaze upon him, but who seemed therewithal to rejoice inwardly that it was a marvel to see. Speaking he said many things, among the which I could understand but few ; and of these, this : Ego dominus tuus.^ In his arms it seemed to me that a person was sleeping, covered only with a blood- colored cloth ; upon whom looking very attentively, I knew that it was the lady of the salutation who had deigned the day before to salute me. And he who held her held also in his hand a thing that was burning in flames ; and he said to me. Vide cor tuumfi But when he had remained with me a little while, I thought that he set himself to awaken her that slept ; after ^"Woe is mel for that often I shall be dis- KritischerText, unter Beniitzungvonssbekann- turbed from this time forth ! " ten Handschriften) all give grande secolo^ " the 2 " 0v56 ewKCt other life," — " the eternal world." — K. 'AvSpog y€ OvriTov wais €^fi€vai, aAXa fleoto.'" i " \ am thy master,*' niad, xxiv. 258. ^ " Behold thy heart.** 3 Fraticelli, Moore, and Beck ( Fz'ia Nova, THE NEW LIFE. 3 the which he made her to eat that thing which flamed in his hand ; ^ and she ate as one fearing. Then, having waited again a space, all his joy was turned into most bitter weeping ; and as he wept he gathered the lady mto his arms, and it seemed to me that he went with her up towards heaven : whereby such a great anguish came upon me that my light slumber could not endure through it, but was suddenly broken. And immediately having considered, I knew that the hour wherein this vision had been made manifest to me was the fourth hour (which is to say, the first of the nine last hours) of the night. Then, musing on what I had seen, I proposed to relate the same to many poets who were famous in that day : and for that I had myself in some sort the art of discoursing with rhyme, I resolved on making a son- net, in the which, having saluted all such as are subject unto Love, and entreated them to expound my vision, I should write unto them those things which I had seen in my sleep. And the sonnet I made was this : — To every heart which the sweet pain doth move. And unto which these words may now be brought For true interpretation and kind thought. Be greeting in our Lord's name, which is Love. Of those long hours wherein the stars, above. Wake and keep watch, the third was almost naught. When Love was shown me with such terrors fraught As may not carelessly be spoken of. He seemed like one who is full of joy, and had My heart within his hand, and on his arm My lady, with a mantle round her, slept ; Whom (having wakened her) anon he made To eat that heart ; she ate, as fearing harm. Then he went out ; and as he went, he wept. This sonnet is divided into two parts. /« the first part I give greeting, and ask an answer ; in the second, I signify what thing has to be answered to. The second part comtnences here : '^ Of those long hours.'''' To this sonnet I received many answers, conveying many diiferent opin- ions ; of the which one was sent by him whom I now call the first among my friends, and it began thus, " Unto my thinking thou beheld'st all worth." 2 And indeed, it was when lie learned that I was he who had sent 1 Dante may here have had in mind the Where evil dies, even there he has his hirth, ■strange story of the Troubadour Guillem de Whose justice out of pity's self doth grow. Cabestaing. See Diez, Leten mid Werke der Softly to sleeping persons he will go, Trouhadoitrs , p. 71. — K. And, withnopaintothem, their heartsdrawforth. 2 The friend of whom Dante here speaks Thy heart he took, as knowing well, alas ! w^s Guido Cavalcanti. The answer is as fol- That Death had claimed thy lady for a prey: lo^s : I" f^^'' whereof, he fed her with thy heart ti-w-T i_- 1 • ^1- I, 1. ij' ► ,.n ,.r«,.fT, But when he seemed in sorrow to depart, " Unto my thinkmg, thou beheld st all worth, r \. t. ^ ■ t All joy, as much of good as man may know, Swee was thy dream ; for by that s.gn, I say. If thou wert in his power who here below Purely the opposite shall come to pass. Is honor's righteous lord throughout this Other answers were sent by Cijio da Pistoia earth. '"' ^^^ Dante da Maiano. 4 THE NEW LIFE. those rhymes to him, that our friendship commenced. But the true mean ing of that vision was not then perceived by any one, thougli it be now- evident to the least skilfval. IV From that night forth, the natural functions of my body began to be vexed and impeded, for I was given up wholly to thinlcing of tliis most gracious creature : whereby in short space I became so wealc and so re- duced that it was irlisome to many of my friends to look upon me ; while others, being moved by spite, went about to discover wnat it was my wish should be concealed. Wherefore I (perceiving the drift of their unkindly questions), by Love's will, who directed me according to the counsels of reason, told them how it was Love himself who had thus dealt with me : and I said so, because the thing was so plainly to be discerned in my countenance that there was no longer any means of concealing it. But when they went on to ask, " And by whose help hath Love done this ? " I looked in their faces smiling, and spake no word in return. V. Nov/ it fell on a day, that this most gracious creature was sitting where words were to be heard of the Queen of Glory ; ^ ana I was in a place whence mine eyes could behold their beatitude : and betwixt her and me, in a direct line, there sat another lady of a pleasant favor ; who looked round at me many times, marvelling at ray continued gaze which seemed to have her for its object. And many perceived that she thus looked ; so that departing thence, I heard it whispered after me, " Look you to what a pass siich a lady hath brought him " ; and in saying this they named her who had been midway between the most gentle Beatrice and mine eyes. Therefore I was reassured, and knew that for that day my secret had not become manifest. Then immediately it came into my mind that I might make use of this lady as a screen to the truth : and so well did I play my part that the most of those who had hitherto watched and wondered at me, now imagined they had found me out. By her means I kept my secret concealed till some years were gone over ; ^ and for my better security, I even made divers rhymes in her honor ; whereof I shall here write only as much as concerneth the most gentle Beatrice, which is but a very little. VI. Moreover, about the same time while this lady was a screen for so much love on my part, I took the resolution to set down the name of this most gracious creature accompanied with many other women's names, and. especially with hers whom I spake of. And to this end I put together the names of sixty of the most beautiful ladies in that city where God had placed mine own lady ; and these names I introduced in an epistle in the form oi a sirvent ; ^ which it is not my intention to transcribe here. Neither should I have said anything of this matter, did I not wish to take note of a certain strange thing, to wit : that having written the list, I found' my lady's name would not stand otherwise than ninth in order among the names of these ladies. VII. Now it so chanced with her by whose means I had thus long time concealed my desire, that it behoved her to leave the city I speak of, a'lid 1 / ^. in a church. ^ In Provencal a sirvenies was a song oi 2 This anxiety to keep his love secret is quite praise or blame, originally composed by a court in line with the Troubadours. Cf. Diaz, Die poet for his lord (from servirL', to serve) , This Foesie der Trouhadours, p. i2g. — K. poem of Dante has been lost. — ci. THE NEW LIFE. 5 to journey afar : wherefore I, being sorely perplexed at the loss of so excel- lent a defence, had more trouble than even I could before have supposed. And thinking that if 1 spoke not somewhat mournfully of her departure, my former counterfeiting would be the more quickly perceived, I deter- mined that I would make a grievous sonnet ' therefore ; the which I will write here, because it hath certain words in it whereof my lady was the immediate cause, as will be plain to him that understands. And the son- net was this : — All ye that pass along Love's trodden way, Pause ye awhile and say If there be any grief like unto mine : I pray you that you hearken a short space Patiently, if my case Be not a piteous marvel and a sign. Love (never, certes, for my worthless part, But of his own great heart) Vouchsafed to me a life so calm and sweet That oft I heard folk question as I went What such great gladness meant : — They spoke of it behind me in the street. But now that fearless bearing is all gone Which with Love's hoarded wealth was given me ; Till I am grown to be So poor that I have dread to think thereon. And thus it is that I, being like as one Who is ashamed and hides his poverty. Without seem full of glee. And let my heart within travail and moan. This poem has two principal parts ; for, in the first, I mean to call the Faithful of Love in those words of Jeremias the Prophet, " O vos omnes qui transitis per viam, attendite et videte si est dolor sicut dolor mens," and to pray them to stay and hear me. In the second I tell where Love had placed me, with a meaning other than that which the last part of the poem shows, and I say what / have lost. The second part begins here, '■^ Love (jiever, certes)." VIII. A certain while after the departure of that lady, it pleased the Master of the Angels to call into His glory a damsel, young and of a gentle presence, who had been very lovely in the city I speak of: and I saw her body lying without its soul among many ladies, who held a pitiful weeping. ^ It will be observed tbat this poem is not of two quatrains followed by two triplets. Dante what we now call a sonnet. Its structure, how- applies the term sonnet to both these forms of ever, is analogous to that of the sonnet, being composition, and to no other, two sextetts folfiTwed by two quatrains, instead 6 THE ISTEW LIFE. Whereupon, remembering that I had seen her in the company of excellent Beatrice, I could not hinder myself from a few tears ; and weeping, I con- ceived to say somewhat of her death, in guerdon of having seen her some- while with my lady ; which thing I spake of in the latter end of the verses that I writ in this matter, as he will discern who understands. And 1 wrote two sonnets, which are these : — I. Weep, Lovers, sith Love's very self ^ doth weep, And sith the cause for weeping is so great ; When now so many dames, of such estate In worth, show with their eyes a grief so deep For Death the churl has laid his leaden sleep Upon a damsel who was fair of late. Defacing all our earth should celebrate,^ — Yea all save virtue, which the soul doth keep. Now hearken how much Love did honor her. I myself saw him in his proper form Bending above the motionless sweet dead, And often gazing into Heaven ; for there The soul now sits which when her life was warm Dwelt with the joyfiil beauty that is fled. This first sonnet is divided into three parts. In the first, I call and be- seech the Faithful of Love to weep ; and I say that th^ir Lord weeps, and that they, hearing the reason why he weeps, shall he more minded to listen to m.e. In the second, I relate this reason. In the third, I speak of honor done by Love to this Lady. The second part begins here, " When now so many dames " ; the third here, " Now hearken.'''' n. Death, always cruel. Pity's foe in chief. Mother who brought forth grief. Merciless judgment and without appeal! Since thou alone hast made my heart to feel This sadness and unweal, My tongue upbraideth thee without relief. And now (for I must rid thy name of ruth) Behoves me speak the truth Touching thy cruelty and wickedness : Not that they be not known ; but ne'ertheless I would give hate more stress With them that feed on love in very sooth. ^ Beatrice is here meant, — K. ^ Death destroys youth and beauty, but not virtue, over which it has no poiyer. — K. THE NEW LIFE. 7 Out of this world thou hast driven courtesy, And virtue, dearly prized in womanhood ; And out of youth's gay mood The lovely lightness is quite gone through thee. Whom now I mourn, no man shall learn from me Save by the measure of these praises given. Whoso deserves not Heaven May never hope to have her company.^ This poem is divided into four parts. In the first, I address Death by certain proper names of hers. In the second, speaking to her, I tell the reason why I am moved to denounce h^r. In the third, I rail against her. In the fourth, I turn to speak to a person undefined, although defined in my own conception. The second part commences here, " Since thou alone " ; the third here, " And now {for I must) " ; the fourth here, " Whoso deserves net:' IX. Some days after the death of this lady, I had occasion to leave the city I speak of, and to go thitherwards where she abode who had formerly been my protection ; albeit the end of my journey reached not altogether so far. And notwithstanding that I was visibly in the company of many, the journey was so irksome that I had scarcely sighing enough to ease my heart's heaviness; seeing that as I went, I left my beatitude behind me. Wherefore it came to pass that he who ruled me by virtue of my most gen- tle lady was made visible to my mitid, in the light habit of a traveller, coarsely fashioned. He appeared to me troubled, and looked always on the ground ; saving only that sometimes his eyes were turned towards a river which was clear and rapid, and which flowed along the path I was taking. And then I thought that Love called me and said to me these words : " I come from that lady who was so long thy surety ; for the matter of whose return, I know that it may not be. Wherefore I have taken that heart which I made thee leave with her, and do bear it unto another lady, who, as she was, shall be thy surety" (and when he named her I knew her well). "And of these words I have spoken if thou shouldst speak any again, let it be in such sort as that none shall perceive thereby that thy love was feigned for her, which thou must now feign for another." And when he had spoken thus, all my imagining was gone suddenly, for it seemed to me that Love became a part of myself: so that, changed as it were in mine aspect, I rode on full of thought the whole of that day, and with heavy sighing. And the day being over, I wrote this sonnet : — 1 The commentarors assert that the last two was worthy of heaven, and that person was .Unes here do not allude to the dead lady, but Beatrice, Or indeed the allusion to Beatrice to Beatrice. This would make the poem very might be in the first poem, where he says that clumsy in construction ; yet there must be some Love " in forma vera" (that is, Beatrice) covert allusion to Beatrice, as Dante himself mourned over the corpse; as he afterwards says intimates. The only form in which I can trace of Beatrice, " Quella ha nome Amor." Most it consists in the implied assertion that such probably both allusions are intended, person as kad enlnyed the dead lady's society 8 THE NEW LIFE. A DAY agone, as I rode sullenly Upon a certain path that liked me not, I met Love midway while the air was hot, Clothed lightly as a wayfarer might be. And for the cheer he showed, he seemed to me As one who hath lost lordship he had got ; Advancing tow'rds me full of sorrowful thought, Bowing his forehead so that none should see. Then as I went, he called me by my name. Saying : " I journey since the morn was dim Thence where I made thy heart to be : which now I needs must bear unto another dame." ^ Wherewith so much passed into me of him That he was gone, and I discerned not how. This sonnet has three parts. In the first part, I tell how I?tiet Love, and of his aspect. In the second, I tell what he said to me, although not in full, through the fear I had of discovering my secret. In the third, I say how he disappeared. The second part commences here, " Then as I went " ; the third here, ^^ Wherewith so much." X. On my return, I set myself to seek out that lady whom my master had named to me while I journeyed sighing. And because I would be brief, I will now narrate that in a short while I made her my surety, in such sort -that the matter was spoken of by many in terms scarcely cour- teous ; through the which I had oftenwhiles many troublesome hours. And by this it happened (to wit : by this false and evil rumor which seemed to misfame me of vice) that she who was the destroyer of all evil and the queen of all good, coming where I was, denied me her most sweet salutation, in the which alone was my blessedness. XI. And here it is fitting for me to depart a little from this present mat- ter, that it may be rightly understood of what surpassing virtue her saluta- tion was to me. To the which end I say that when she appeared in any place, it seemed to me, by the hope of her excellent salutation, that there was no man mine enemy any longer ; and such warmth of charity came upon me that most certainly in that moment I would have pardoned who- soever had done me an injury ; and if one should then have questioned me concerning any matter, I could only have said unto him " Love," with a countenance clothed in humbleness. And what time she made ready to salute me, the spirit of Love, destroying all other perceptions, thrust forth the feeble spirits of my eyes, saying, " Do homage unto your mistress," and putting itself in their place to obey : so that he who would, might then have beheld Love, beholding the hds of my eyes shake. And when this most gentle lady gave her salutation, Love, so far from being a medium becloud- ing mine intolerable beatitude, then bred in me such an 'overpowering sweetness that my body, being all subjected thereto, remained many times helpless and passive. Whereby it is made manifest that in her salutation ^ The original is piacere^ pleasure or delight, but used conventionally for beauty of woman's form, — K, THE NEW LIFE. 9 alone was there any beatitude for me, which then very often went beyond my endurance. XII, And now, resuming my discourse, I will go on to relate that when, for the first time, this beatitude was denied me, I became possessed with such grief that, parting myself from others, I went into a lonely place to bathe the ground with most bitter tears : and when, by this heat of weep- ing, I was somewhat relieved, I betoolc myself to my chamber, where I could lament unheard. And there, having prayed to the Lady of all Mer- cies, and having said also, " O Love, aid thou thy servant," I went suddenly asleep like a beaten sobbing child. And in my sleep, towards the middle of it, I seemed to see in the room, seated at my side, a youth in very white raiment, who kept his eyes fixed on me in deep thought. And when he had gazed some time, I thought that he sighed and called to me in these words : " Fili mi, teinpus est tU prcetermittanttir simulata nostra.'''' ^ And thereupon I seemed to know him ; for the voice was the same wherewith he had spoken at other times in my sleep. Then looking at him, I per- ceived that he was weeping piteously, and that he seemed to be waiting for me to speak. Wherefore, taking heart, I began thus : " Why weepest thou. Master of all honor? " And he made answer to me : " Eg'o tanquam cen- tr7tm circuli, nii simili modo se habent circumfer entice partes: tit autem non sic.'''' - And thinking upon his words, they seemed to me obscure ; so that again compelling myself unto speech, I asked of him : " What thing is this, Master, that thou hast spoken thus darkly?" To the which he made answer in the vulgar tongue : " Demand no more than may be use- ful to thee." Whereupon I began to discourse with him concerning her salutation which she had denied me ; and when I had questioned him of the cause, he said these words : " Our Beatrice hath heard from certain persons, that the lady whom I named to thee while thou journeyedst full of sighs is sorely disquieted ^ by thy solicitations : and therefore this most gracious creature, who is the enemy of all disquiet, being fearful of such disquiet, refused to salute thee. For the which reason (albeit, in very sooth, thy secret must needs have become known to her by familiar ob- servation) it is my will that thou compose certain things in rhyme, in the which thou shalt set forth how strong a mastership I have obtained over tiiee, through her ; and how thou wast hers even from thy childhood. Also do thou call upon him that knoweth these things to bear witness to them, bidding him to speak with her thereof; the which I, who am he, 1 " My son, it Is time for us to lay aside our lovable objects, whether in heaven or earth, or counterfeiting." any part of the circle's circumference, are 2 " I am as the centre of a circle, to the which equally near to me. Not so thou, who wilt all parts of the circumference bear an equal rela- one day lose Beatrice when she goes to heaven." tion : but with thee it is not thus." This phrase The phrase would thus contain an intimation of seems to have remained as obscure to commen- the death of Beatrice, accounting for Dante be- tators as Dante found it at the moment. No ing next told not to inquire the meaning of the one, as far as I know, has even fairly tried to speech, — " Demand no more than may be use- find a meaning for it. To me the following ful to thee." ■ appears a not unlikely one. Love Is weeping ^ in the original we have not'a, = " annoy- on Dante's account, and not on his own. He ance," rather than "disquiet." Professor Nor- says, " I am the centre of a circle {Amor che ton translates " harm." — K. vtuove il sole e I' altre sielle) : therefore all lo THE NEW LIFE. will do willingly. And thus she shall be made to know thy desire ; know- ing which, she shall know likewise that they were deceived who spake of thee to her. And so write these things, that they shall seem rather to be spoken by a third person ; and not directly by thee to her, which is scarce fitting. After the which, send them, not without me, where she may chance to hear them ; but have them fitted with a pleasant music, into the which I will pass whensoever it needeth." With this speech he was away, and my sleep was broken up. Whereupon, remembering me, I knew that I had beheld this vision during the ninth hour of the day ; and I resolved that I would make a ditty, before I left my chamber, according to the words my master had spoken. And this is the ditty that I made : — Song, 't is my will that thou do seek out Love, And go with him where my dear lady is ; That so my cause, the which thy harmonies Do plead, his better speech may clearly prove. Thou goest, my Song, in such a courteous kind. That even companionless Thou mayst rely on thyself anywhere. And yet, an thou wouldst get thee a safe mind, First unto Love address Thy steps ; whose aid, mayhap, 't were ill to spare, Seeing that she to whom thou mak'st thy prayer Is, as I think, ill-minded unto me. And that if Love do not companion thee, Thou 'It have perchance small cheer to tell me of. With a sweet accent, when thou com'st to her, Begin thou in these words, First having craved a gracious audience : " He who hath sent me as his messenger, Lady, thus much records. An thou but suffer him, in his defence. Love, who comes with me, by thine influence Can make this man do as it liketh him : Wherefore, if this fault is or doth but seem Do thou conceive : for his heairt cannot move.'' Say to her also : " Lady, his poor heart Is so confirmed in faith That all its thoughts are but of serving thee : 'T was early thine, and could not swerve apart." Then, if she wavereth. Bid her ask Love, who knows if these things be. And in the end, beg of her modestly To pardon so much boldness : saying too : — " If thou declare his death to be thy due, The thing shall come to pass, as doth behove." THE NEW LIFE. ii Then pray thou of the Master of all ruth, Before thou leave her there, . That he befriend my cause and plead it well. " In guerdon of my sweet rhymes and my truth" (Entreat him) " stay with her ; Let not the hope of thy poor servant fail ; And if with her thy pleadings should prevail, Let her look on him and give peace to him." Gentle my Song, if good to thee it seem. Do this : so worship shall be thine and love. This ditty is divided into three parts. In the first, I tell it whither to go, and I encourage it, that it may go the more confidently, and I tell ii whose company to join if it would go with confidence and without any danger. In the second, I say that which it behooves the ditty to set forth. In the third, I give it leave to start when it pleases, recommending its course to the arms of Fortune. The second part begins here, " With a sweet accent" ; the third here, " Gentle my Song." Some m.ight contradict me, and say that they understand not whom I address in the second person, seeing that the ditty is tnerely the very words I ain speaking. And there- fore I say that this doubt I intend to solve and clear up in this little book itself, at a more difficult passage, and then let him understand who now doubts, or would now contradict as aforesaid. XIII. After this vision I have recorded, and having written those words which Love had dictated to me, I began to be harassed with many and divers thoughts, by each of which I was sorely tempted ; and in especial, there were four among them that left me no rest. The first was this: " Certainly the lordship of Love is good ; seeing that it diverts the mind from all mean things."^ The second was this: " Certainly the lordship of Love is evil ; seeing that the more homage his servants pay to him, the more grievous and painful are the torments wherewith he torments them." The third was this : " The name of Love is so sweet in the hearing that it would not seem possible for its effects to be other than sweet ; seeing that the name must needs be like unto the thing named ; as it is written : Nomina sunt consequentia rerum." ^ And the fourth was this : " The lady whom Love hath chosen out to govern thee is not as other ladies, whose hearts are easily moved." And by each one of these thoughts I was so sorely assailed that I was like unto him who doubteth which path, to take, and wishing to go, goeth not. And if I bethought myself to seek out some point at the which all these paths might be found to meet. I discerned Ijut one way, and that irked me ; to wit, to call upon Pity, and to commend myself unto her. And it was then that, feeling a desire to write somewhat thereof in rhyme, I wrote this sonnet : — 1 Cf. Shakespeare, — 2 " Names are the consequents of things.*' *' Things base and vile, holding no quantity, Love can transpose to form and dignity." M.N.D.'x. I.— K. 12 THE NEW LIFE. All my thoughts always speak to me of Love, Yet have between themselves such difference That while one bids me bow with mind and sense, A second saith, " Go to ; look thou above" ; The third one, hoping, yields me joy enough ; And with the last come tears, I scarce know whence : All of them craving pity in sore suspense, Trembling with fears that the heart knoweth of. And thus, being all unsure which path to take, Wishing to speak I know not what to say. And lose myself in amorous wanderings : Until, (my peace with all of them-to make,) Unto mine enemy I needs must pray. My Lady Pity, for the help she brings. This sonnet may be divided into four parts. In the first, I say and pro- pound that all my thoughts are concerning Love. In the second, I say that they are diverse, and I relate their diversity. In the third, I say wherein they all seem to agree. In the fourth, I say that, wishing to speak of Love, I know not from which of these thoughts to take my argument ; and that if I would take it from all, I shall have to call upon mine enemy, my Lady Pity. " Lady,'''' I say, as in a scornful mode of speech. The second begins here, " Yet have between themselves^'' ; the third, "All of them craving'''' ; the fourth, ^ And thus .''^ XIV. After this battling with many thoughts, it chanced on a day that my most gracious lady was with a gathering of ladies in a certain place ; to the which I was conducted by a friend of mine ; he thinking to do me a great pleasure by showing- me the beauty of so many women. Then I, hardly knowing whereunto he conducted me, but trusting in him (who yet was leading his friend to the last verge of life^), made question: "To what end are we come among these ladies ? " and he answered : " To the end that they may be worthily served." And they were assembled around a gentlewoman who was given in marriage on that day ; the custom of the city being that these should bear her company when she sat down for the first time at table in the house of her husband. Therefore I, as was my friend's pleasure, resolved to stay with him and do honor to those ladies. But as soon as I had thus resolved, I began to feel a faintness and a throbbing at my left side, which soon took possession of my whole body. Whereupon I remember that I covertly leaned my back unto a painting that ran round the walls of that house ; and being fearful lest my trembling should be discerned of them, I lifted mine eyes to look on those ladies, and then first perceived among them the excellent Beatrice. And when I perceived her, all my senses were overpowered by the great lordship that Love obtained, finding himself so near unto that most gracious being, until nothing but the spirits of sight remained to me ; and even these remained driven out of their own instruments because Love entered in that honored place of theirs, that so he might the better behold her.^ And although -I 1 This is explained in the last sentence of the 2 -phis agitation in the presence of the be- following paragraph. — K. loved one is characteristic of Provencal poetry: ■ cf. Bernart de Vcntad.>rn : — THE NEW LIFE. 13 was other than at first, I grieved for the spirits so expelled, which kept up a sore lament, saying : " If he had not in this wise thrust us forth, we also should behold the marvel of this lady.'" By this, many of her friends, having discerned my confusion, began to wonder ; and together with her- self, kept whispering of me and mocking me. Whereupon my friend, who knew not what to conceive, took me by the hands, and drawing me forth from among them, required to know what ailed me. Then, having first held me at quiet for a space until my perceptions were come back to me, I made answer to my friend : " Of a surety I have now set my feet on that point of life, beyond the which he must not pass who would return." ^ Afterwards, leaving him, I went back to the room where I had wept be- fore ; and again weeping and aghamed, said : " If this lady but knew of my condition, I do not think that she would thus mock at me ; nay, I am sure that she must needs feel some pity." And in ray weeping I be- thought me to write certain words, in the which, speaking to her, 1 should signify the occasion of my disfigurement, telling her also how I knew that she had no knowledge thereof; which, if it were known, I was certain must move others to pity. And then, because I hoped that peradventure it might come into her hearing, I wrote this sonnet : — Even as the others mock, thou mockest me ; Not dreaming, noble lady, whence it is That I am taken with strange semblances, Seeing thy face which is so fair to see : For else, compassion would not suffer thee To grieve my heart with such harsh scoffs as these. Lo! Love, when thou art present, sits at ease, And bears his mastership so mightily That all my troubled senses he thrusts out, Sorely tormenting some, and slaying some. Till none but he is left and has free range To gaze on thee. This makes my face to change Into another's ; while I stand all dumb, And hear my senses clamor in their rout. This sonnet I divide not into parts, because a division is only made «, open the meaning of the thing divided: and this, as it is sufficiently mani fest through the reasons given, has no need of division. True it is that, amid the words whereby is shown the occasion of this sonnet, dubious words are to be found; namely, when I say that Love fills all 7ny spirits, but that the visual re}>iain in life, only outside of their own instruments. And this " Quant ieu la vey, be m'es parven bride on this occasion might seem out of the Als hnels, al vis a la color, question, from the fact of its not being in any Qu' eissamen trembli de paor way so stated: but on the other hand, Dante's Cum fa la fuelha contra 'I yen." silence throughout the Vita Nuovn as regards Mahii, Werke der Troubadours, \, ^6.— Vi. her marriage (which must have brought deep 1 It is difficult not to connect Dante's agony sorrow even to his ideal love) is so startling, at this wedding feast, with our knowledge that that we might almost be led to conceive in this in her twenty-first year Beatrice was wedded to passage the only intimation of it which he Simone de' Bardi. That she herself was the thought fit to give. 14 THE NEW LIFE. difficulty it is impossible for any to solve who is not in equal guise liege unto Love ; and, to those who are so, that is manifest which would clear up the dubious words. And therefore it were not well for me to expound this difficulty, inasmuch as my speaking would be either fruitless or else superfluous. XV. A while after this strange disfigurement, I became possessed with a strong conception which left me but very seldom, and then to return quickly. And it was this : " Seeing that thou comest into such scorn by the companionship of this lady, wherefore seekest thou to behold her? If she should agk thee this thing, what answer couldst thou make unto her? yea, even though thou wert master of all thy faculties, and in no way hindered from answering." Unto the which, another very humble thought said in reply : " If I were master of all my faculties, and in no way hindered from answering, I would tell her that no sooner do I image to myself her marvellous beauty than I am possessed with the desire to behold her, the which is of so great strength that it kills and destroys in ray menory all those things which might oppose it; and it is therefore that the great anguish I have endured thereby is yet not enough to restrain me from seeking to behold her." And then, because of these thoughts, I resolved to write somewhat, wherein, having pleaded mine excuse, I should tell her of what I felt in her presence. Whereupon I wrote this sonnet : — The thoughts are broken in my memory. Thou lovely Joy, whene'er I see thy face ; When thou art near me. Love fills up the space, Often repeating, " If death irk thee, fly." My face shows my heart's color, verily. Which, fainting, seeks for any leaning-place ; Till, in the drunken terror of disgrace, The very stones seem to be shrieking, " Die ! " It were a grievous sin, if one should not Strive then to comfort my bewildered mind (Though merely with a simple pitying) For the great anguish which thy scorn has wrought In the dead sight o' the eyes grown nearly blind. Which look for death as for a blessed thing. This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the first, I tell the cause why I abstain not from coming to this lady. In the second, I tell what befalls nie through coming to her ; and this part begins here, " When thou art nearP And also this second part divides into five distinct statements. For, in the first, I say what Love, counselled by Reason, tells me when 1 am near the Lady. In the second, I set forth the state of my heart by the example of the face. In the third, I say how all ground of trust fails me. In the fourth, I say that he sins who shows not pity of me, which would give me some comfort. In the last, [ say why people should take pity ; namely, for the piteous look which comes into mine eyes ; which piteous look is destroyed, that is, appeareth not unto others, through the jeering of this lady, who draws to the like action those who peradventure would see this piteousnf,ss. The second part begins here, " My face shows " ; tht THE NEW LIFE. 15 third, "Till, in the drunken terror ^^ ; the fourth, "ft were a grievous sin" ; the fifth, "For the great anguish.''' XVI. Thereafter, this sonnet bred in me desire to write down in verse four otlier things touching my condition, the which things it seemed to me that I had not yet made manifest. The first among these was the grief that possessed me very often, remembering the strangeness which Love wrought in me ; the second was, how Love many times assailed me so suddenly and with such strength that I had no other life remaining except a thought which spake of my lady ; the third was, how, when Love did battle with me in this wise, I would rise up all colorless, if so I might see my lady, conceiving that the sight of her would defend me against the assault of Love, and altogether forgetting that which her presence brought unto me ; and the fourth was, how, when I saw her, the sight not only defended me not, but took away the little life that remained to me. And I said these four things in a sonnet, which is this : — At whiles (yea oftentimes) I muse over The quality of anguish that is mine Through Love : then pity makes my voice to pine, Saying, " Is any else thus, anywhere ? " Love smiteth me, whose strength is ill to bear ; So that of all my life is left no sign Except one thought ; and that, because 't is thine, Leaves not the body but abideth there. And then if I, whom other aid forsook, Would aid myself, and innocent of art Would fain have sight of thee as a last hope, No sooner do I lift mine eyes to look Than the blood seems as shaken from my heart. And all my pulses beat at once and stop. This sonnet is divided into four parts, foter things being therein nar- rated ; and as these are set fo^-th above, I only proceed to distinguish the ■ •parts by their beginnings . Wherefore I say that the second part begins, "Love smiteth me " ; the third, "And then if I " ; the fourth, "No sooner do I lift." XVII. After I had written these three last sonnets, wherein I spake unto my lady, telling her almost the whole of my condition, it seemed to me that I should be silent, having said enough concerning myself. But albeit I spake not to her again, yet it behoved me afterward to write of another matter, more noble than the foregoing. And for that the occasion of what I then wrote may be found pleasant in the hearing, I will relate it as briefly as I may. XVIII. Through the sore change in mine aspect, the secret of my heart was now understood of many. Which thing being thus, there came a day when, certain ladies to whom it was well known (they having been with me at divers time in my trouble) were met together for the pleasure of gentle company. And as I was going that way by chance, (but I think rather by the will of fortune,) I heard one of them call unto me, and she l6 THE ISTEW LIFE. that called was a lady of very sweet speech. And when I had come close up with them, and perceived that they had not among them mine excel- lent lady, I was reassured ; and saluted them, asking of their pleasure. The ladies were many ; divers of whom were laughing one to another, while divers gazed at me as though I should speak anon. But when I still spake not, one of them, who before had been talking with another, ad- dressed me by my name, saying, " To what end lovest thou this lady, seeing that thou canst not support her presence ? Now tell us this thing, that we may know it : for certainly the end of such a love must be worthy of knowledge." And when she had spoken these words, not she only, but all they that were with her, began to observe me, waiting for my reply. Whereupon I said thus unto them ; " Ladies, the end and aim of my Love was but the salutation of that lady of whom I conceive that ye are speaking ; wherein alone I found that beatitude which is the goal of de- sire. And now that it hath pleased her to deny me this. Love, my Master, of his great goodness, hath placed all my beatitude there where my hope will not fail me." Then those ladies began to talk closely together; and as I have seen snow fall among the rain, so was their talk mingled with sighs. But after a little, that lady who had been the first to address me, addressed me again in these words : "We pray thee that thou wilt tell us wherein abideth this thy beatitude." And answering, I said but this much : " In those words that do praise my lady." To the which she rejoined : " If thy speech were true, those words that thou didst write con- cerning thy condition would have been written with another intent." Then I, being almost put to shame because of her answer, went out from among them; and as I walked, I said within myself: " Seeing that there is so much beatitude in those words which do praise my lady, wherefore hath my speech of her been different? " And then I resolved that thenceforward I would choose for the theme of my writings only the praise of this most gracious being. But when I had thought exceedingly, it seemed to me that I had taken to myself a theme which- was much too lofty, so that I dared not begin ; and I remained during several days in the desire of speaking, and the fear of beginning. XIX. After which it happened, as I passed one day along a path which lay beside a stream of very clear water, that there came upon me a great desire to say somewhat in rhyme : but when I began thinking how I should say it, methought that to speak of her were unseemly, unless I spoke to other ladies in the second person ; which is to say, not to any other ladies, but only to such as are so called because they are gentle, let alone for mere womanhood. Whereupon I declare that my tongue spake as though . by its own irajjulse, and said, " Ladies that have inteUigence in love." These words I laid up in my mind with great gladness, conceiving to take them as my commencement. Wherefore, having returned to the city I spake of, and considered thereof during certain days, I began a poem with this beginning, constructed in the mode which will be seen below in its division. The poem begins here : — Ladies that have intelligence in love. Of mine own lady I would speak with you ; THE NEW LIFE. 17 Not that I hope to count her praises through, But telling what I may, to ease my mind. And I declare that when I speak thereof, Love sheds such perfect sweetness over me * That if my courage failed not, certainly To him my hsteners must be all resigned. Wherefore I will not speak in such large kind That mine own speech should foil me, which were base ; But only will discourse of her high grace In these poor words, the best that I can find. With you alone, dear dames and damozels ; 'T were ill to speak thereof with any else. An Angel, of his blessed knowledge, saith To God : " Lord, in the world that Thou hast made, A miracle in action is displayed. By reason of a soul whose splendors fare Even hither : and since Heaven requireth Naught saving her, for her it prayeth Thee, Thy Saints crying aloud continually." Yet Pity still defends our earthly share In that sweet soul ; God answering thus the prayer. " My well-beloved, suffer that in peace Your hope remain, while so My pleasure is. There where one dwells who dreads the loss of her : And who in Hell unto the doomed shall say, ' I have looked on that for which God's chosen pray.' " My lady is desired in the high Heaven : Wherefore, it now behoveth me to tell, Saying : Let any maid that would be well Esteemed keep with her : for as she goes by, Into foul hearts a deathly chill is driven By Love, that makes ill thought to perish there : While any who endures to gaze on her Must either be ennobled,^ or else die. When one deserving to be raised so high Is found, 't is then her power attains its proof, Making his heart strong for his soul's behoof With the full strength of meek humility. Also this virtue owns she, by God's will :_ Who speaks with her can never come to ill. Love saith concerning her : " How chanceth it That flesh, which is of dust, should be thus pure?" ' We find almost these same words in Pro- Deuria esser al partir vengal poetry ; — Savis e de belh captenh." " Lo plus nescis horn del renh Mahn, Werke der Troubadours, 11, 121 --K. Que la veya ni remit C l8 THE NEW LIFE. Then, gazing always, he makes oath : " Forsure, This is a creature of God till now unknown." She hath that paleness of the pearl that 's fit In a fair woman, so much and not more ; She is as high as Nature's skill can soar ; Beauty is tried by her comparison. Whatever her sweet eyes are turned upon. Spirits of love do issue thence in ilame, Which through their eyes who then may look on them Pierce to the heart's deep chamber every one. And in her smile Love's image you may see ; Whence none can gaze upon her steadfastly. Dear Song, I know thou wilt hold gentle speech With many ladies, when I send thee forth : Wherefore, (being mindful that thou hadst thy birth From Love, and art a modest, simple child,) Whomso thou meetest, say thou this to each : " Give me good speed ! To her I wend along In whose much strength my weakness is made strong." And if, i' the end, thou wouldst not be beguiled Of all thy labor, seek not the defiled And common sort ; but rather choose to be Where man and woman dwell in courtesy. So to the road thou shalt be reconciled, And find the lady, and with the lady. Love. Commend thou me to each, as doth behove. This poem, that it may be better understood, I will divide more subtly than the others preceding ; and therefore I will make three parts of it. The first part is a proem to the words following. The second is the matter treated of. The third is, as it were, a handmaid to the preceding words. The second begins here, '■'■An angel"; the third here, "Dear Song, I know.'''' The first part is divided into four. In the first, I say to whom I mean to speak of my Lady, and wherefore I will so speak. In the second, I say what she appears to myself to be when I reflect upon her excellence, and what I woidd utter if I lost not courage. In the third, I say what it is I purpose to speak so as not to be impeded by faintheartedness. In the fourth, repeating to whom f purpose speaking, I tell the reason why I speak to them. The second begins here, '■' And I declare" ; the third here, '^■Wherefore I will not speak" ; the fourth here, " With you alone." Then, when I say " An angel," I begin treating of this lady : and this part is divided into two. In the first, I tell what is understood of her in heaven. In the second, I tell what is understood of her on earth : here, "My lady is desired." This second part is divided into two ; for, in the first, I speak of her as regards the nobleness of her soul, relating some of her virtues proceeding from her soul ; in the second, I speak of her as regards the noble- ness of her body, narrating some of her beauties : here, " Love saith con- cerning her.'''' 'This second part is divided into two, for, in the first, 1 THE NEW LIFE. 19 speak of certain beauties which belong to the whole person ; in the second^ I speak of certain beauties which belong to a distinct part of the person : here, '■^Whatever her sweet eyes.'''' This second part is divided into two ; for, in the one, I speak of the eyes, which are the beginning of love ; in the second, I speak of the mouth, which is the end of love. And that every vicious thought may be discarded herefrom, let the reader remember that it is above written that the greeting of this lady, which was an act of her mouth, was the goal of my desires, while I could receive it. Then, when 1 say, " Dear Song, I know^ I add a stanza as it were handmaid to the others, wherein I say what I desire from this 7tiy poem. And because this last part is easy to understand, / trouble not myself with jnore divisions. I say, indeed, that the further to open the jneaning of this poem, 7nore minute divisions ought to be used; but nevertheless he who is not of wit enough to understand it by these which have been already made is welcome to leave it alone ; for certes, f fear f have communicated its sense to too many by these present divisions, if it so happened that fnany shoidd hear it.^ XX . When this song was a Httle gone abroad, a certain one of my friends, hearing the same, was pleased to question me, that I should tell him what thing love is ; it may be, conceiving from the words thus heard a hope of me beyond my desert. Wherefore I, thinking that after such discourse it were well to say somewhat of the nature of Love, and also in accordance with my friend's desire, proposed to mysfelf to write certain words in the which I should treat of this argument. And the sonnet that I then made is this : Love and the gentle heart are one same thing. Even as the wise man ^ in his ditty saith : Each, of itself, would be such life in death As rational soul bereft of reasoning. 'T is Nature makes them when she loves : a king Love is, whose palace where he sojourneth Is called the Heart ; there draws he quiet breath At first, with brief or longer slumbering. Then beauty seen in virtuous womankind Will make the eyes desire, and through the heart Send the desiring of the eyes again ; Where often it abides so long enshrined That Love at length out of his sleep will start. And women feel the same for worthy men. This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the first, I speak of him ac~ •n^ding to his power. In the second, I speak of him according as his power 1 It seems probable that Dante had in mind *' Within the gentle heart Love shelters him here the trohar clus or escur of the Trouba- As birds within the green shade of the grove, dours, which Arnaut Daniel especially affected. Before the gentle heart, in nature's scheme, It is rather interesting to compare also Brown- « Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love lug's views of his own poetry, in the letter to For with the sun, at once, W. G. Kingsland, 1868. Cf. Corson, Introduc- So sprang the light immediately; nor was tion to Browning, p. 75. — K. Its birth before the sun's. 2 Guido Guinicelli, in the canzone, the first And Love hath his effect in gentleness stanza of which is as follows: — Of very self; even as Within the middle fire the heat's excess." 20 THE NEW LIFE. translates itself into act. The second part begins here, " Then beauty seen.'''' The first is divided into two. In the first, I say in what subject Ms power exists. In the second, I say how this subject and this power are produced together, and how the one regards the other, as for7n does matter. The second begins here, '■ 'T' is Nature.''"' . Afterwards when I say, '■^Then beauty seen in virtuous womankind" I say how this power trans- lates itself into act ; and, first, how it so translates itself in a man, then how it so translates itself in a woman : here, ''And women feel.''^ XXI. Having treated of love in the foregoing, it appeared to me that I should also say something in praise of my lady, wherein it might be set forth how love manifested itself when produced by her ; and how not only she could awaken it where it slept, but where it was not she could marvel- lously create it. To the which end I wrote another sonnet ; and it is this : — My lady carries love within her eyes ; All that she looks on is made pleasanter ; Upon her path men turn to gaze at her ; He whom she greeteth feels his heart to rise, And droops his troubled visage, full of sighs, And of his evil heart is then aware : Hate loves, and pride becomes a worshipper. O women, help to praise her in somewise. Humbleness, and the hope that hopeth well, By speech of hers into the mind are brought, And who beholds is bless&d oftenwhiles. The look she hath when she a little smiles Cannot be said, nor holden in the thought ; ^ 'T is such a new and gracious miracle. This sonnet has three sections. In the first, I say how this lady brings this power into action by those most noble features, ]ier eyes ; and, in the third, I say this same as to that most noble feature, her mouth. And be- tween these two sections is a little section, which asks, as it were, help for the previous section and the subsequent ; and it begins here, " O women, help.'''' The third begins here, "Humbleness." The first is divided into three ; for, in the first, I say how she with power makes noble that which she looks upon ; and this is as much as to say that she brings Love, in power, thither where he is not. In the second, I say how she brings Love, in act, into the hearts of all those whom she sees. In the third, I tell what she afterwards, with virtue, operates upon their hearts. The second be- gins, "Upon her path " ; the third, "-He whom she greeteth?'' Then, when I say "O women, help,'''' I intimate to whojn it is tny intention to speak, calling on women to help me to honor her. Then, when I say, "■Humble- ness,'''' I say that same which is saidtin the first part, regarding two acts of her mouth, one whereof is her 7nost sweet speech, and the other her marvel- lous smile. Only, I say not of this last how it operates upon the hearts of others, because memory cannot retain this smile, nor its operation. * This same idea is expressed in the Paradise, xviii. g-ii — K. THE NEW LIFE. 21 XXII. Not many days after this (it being the will of the most High God, who also from Himself put not away death), the father of wonderful Beatrice, going out of this life, passed certainly into glory. Thereby it happened, as of very sooth it might not be otherwise, that this lady was made full of the bitterness of grief: seeing that such a parting is very grievous unto those friends who are left, and that no other friendship is like to tlirt between a good parent and a good child; and furthermore considering that this lady was good in the supreme degree, and her father (as by many it hath been truly averred) of exceeding goodness. And because it is the usage of that city that men meet with men in such a grief, and women with women, certain ladies of her companionship gathered themselves unto Beatrice, where she kept alone in her weeping : and as they passed in and out, I could hear them speak concerning her, how she wept. At length two of them went by me, who said : " Certainly she grieveth in such sort that one might die for pity, beholding her." Then, feeling the tears upon my face, I put up my hands to hide them : and had it not been that I hoped to hear more concerning her (seeing that where I sat, her friends passed continually in and out), I should assuredly have gone thence to be alone, when I felt the tears come. But as I still sat in that place, certain ladies again passed near me, who were saying among themselves : " Which of us shall be joyful any more, who have listened to this lady in her piteous sorrow? " And there were others who said as they went by me : " He that sitteth here could not weep more if he had beheld her as we have beheld her " ; and again : " He is so altered that he seem- eth not as himself." And still as the ladies passed to and fro, I could hear them speak after this fashion of her and of me. Wherefore afterwards, having considered and perceiving that there was herein matter for poesy, I resolved that I would write certain rhymes in the which should be contained all that those ladies had said. And because 1 would willingly have spoken to them if it had not been for discreetness, 1 made in my rhymes as though I had spoken and they had answered me. And thereof I wrote two sonnets ; in the first of which I addressed them as I would fain have done ; and in the second related their answer, using the speech that I had heard from them, as though it had been spoken unto myself. And the sonnets are these : — You that thus wear a modest countenance With lids weighed down by the heart's heaviness, Whence come you, that among you every face Appears the same, for its pale troubled glance? Have you beheld my lady's face, perchance. Bowed with the grief that Love makes full of grace? Say now, " This thing is thus " ; as my heart. says, Marking your grave and sorrowful advance. And if indeed you come from where she sighs And mourns, may it please you (for his heart's relief) To tell how it fares with her unto him 22 THE NEW LIFE. Who knows that you have wept, seeing your eyes, And is so grieved with loolcing on your grief That his heart trembles and his sight grows dim? This sonnet is divided into two parts. In the first, I call and ask thest ladies whether they come from her, telling them that I think they do, because they return the nobler. In the seco?id, I pray them to tell me of her ; and the second begins here, "And if indeed." Canst thou indeed be he that still would sing Of our dear lady unto none but us ? For though thy voice confirms that it is thus. Thy visage might another witness bring. And wherefore is thy grief so sore a thing That grieving thou mak'st others dolorous? Hast thou too seen her weep, that thou from us Canst not conceal thine inward sorrowing? Nay, leave our woe to us : let us alone : 'T were sin if one should strive to soothe our woe, For in her weeping we have heard her speak ; Also her look 's so full of her heart's moan That they who should behold her, looking so, Must fall aswoon, feeling all life grow weak. This sonnet has four parts, as the ladies in whose person I rely had four forms of answer. And, because these are sufficiently shown above, I stay %ot to explain the purport of the parts, and therefore I only discriminate them. The second begins here, "And wherefore is thy grief'' ; the third here, "Nay, leave our woe " ; the fourth, "Also her look.'''' XXIII. A few days after this, my body became afflicted with a painful infirmity, whereby I suffered bitter anguish for many days, which at last brought me unto such weakness that I could no longer move. And I remember that on the ninth day, being overcome with intolerable pain, a thought came into my mind concerning my lady : but when it had a little nourished this thought, my mind returned to its brooding over mine enfee- bled body. And then perceiving how frail a thing life is, even though health keep with it, the matter seemed to me so pitiful that I could not choose but weep ; and weeping I said within myself: " Certainly it must some time come to pass that the very gentle Beatrice will die." Then, feeling bewildered, I closed mine eyes ; and my brain began to be in trav- ail as the brain of one frantic, and to have such imaginations as here follow. And at the first, it seemed to me that I saw certain faces of women with their hair loosened, which called out to me, '-Thou shalt surely die" ; after the which, other terrible and unknown appearances said unto me, " Thou art dead." At length, as my phantasy held on in its wanderings, I came to be I knew not where, and to behold a throng of dishevelled ladies won- THE NEW LIFE. 23 derfuUy sad, who kept going hither and thither weeping. Then the sun went out, so that the stars showed themselves, and they were of such a color that I knew they must be weeping : and it seemed to me that the birds fell dead out of the sky, and that there were great earthquakes. With that, while I wondered in my trance, and was tilled with a grievous fear, I conceived that a certain friend came unto me and said : " Hast thou not heard ? She that was thine excellent lady hath been taken out of life." Then I began to weep very piteously ; and not only in mine imagination, but with mine eyes, which were wet with tears. And I seemed to look towards Heaven, and to behold a multitude of angels who were returning upwards, having before them an exceedingly white cloud : and these angels were singing together gloriously, and the words of their song were these : " Osanna in excelsis " ; and there was no more that I heard. Then my heart that was so full of love said unto me : " It is true that our lady lieth dead " ; and it seemed to me that I went to look upon the body wherein that blessed and most noble spirit had had its abiding-place. And so strong was this idle imagining, that it made me to behold my lady in death, whose head certain ladies seemed to be covering with a white veil ; and who was so humble of her aspect that it was as though she had said, "I have attained to look on the beginning of peace." And therewithal I came unto such humility by the sight of her, that I cried out upon Death, saying : " Now come unto me, and be not bitter against me any longer : surely, there where thou hast been, thou hast learned gentleness. Where- fore come now unto me who do greatly desire thee : seest thou not that I wear thy color already? " And when I had seen all those offices performed that are fitting to be done unto the dead, it seemed to me that I went back unto mine own chamber, and looked up towards Heaven. And so strong was my phantasy that I wept again in very truth, and said with my true voice : " O excellent soul ! how blessed is he that now looketh upon thee ! " And as I said these words, with a painful anguish of sobbing and another prayer unto Death, a young and gentle lady, who had been standing beside me where I lay, conceiving that I wept and cried out because of the pain of mine infirmity, was taken with trembling and began to shed tears. Whereby other ladies, who were about the room, becoming aware of my discomfort by reason of the moan that she made (who indeed was of my very near kindred), led her away from where I was, and then set them- selves to awaken me, thinking that I dreamed, and saying: "Sleep no longer, and be not disquieted." Then, by their words, this strong imagination was brought suddenly to an end, at the moment that I was about to say, " O Beatrice ! peace be with thee." And already I had said, "O Beatrice!" when being aroused, I opened mine eyes, and knew that it had been a deception. But albeit I had indeed uttered her name, yet ray voice was so broken with sobs, that it was not understood by these ladies ; so that in spite of the sore shame that I felt, I turned towards them by Love's counselling. And when they beheld me, they began to say, '' He seemeth as one dead," and to whisper among themselves, "Let us strive if we may not comfort him." Where- upon they spake to me many soothing words, and questioned me moreover touching the cause of my fear. Then I, being somewhat reassured, and 24 THE NEW LIFE. having perceived that it was a mere phantasy, said unto them, " This thing it was that made me afeard " ; and told them of all that I had seen, from the beginning even unto the end, but without once speaking the name of my lady. Also, after I had recovered from my sickness, I bethought me to write these things in rhyme ; deeming it a lovely thing to be known. Whereof I wrote this poem : — ■ A VERY pitiful lady, very young, Exceeding rich in human sympathies. Stood by, what time I clamored upon Death And at the wild words wandering on my tongue And at the piteous look within mine eyes She was affrighted, that sobs choked her breath. So by her weeping where I lay beneath. Some other gentle ladies came to know My state, and made her go : Afterward, bending themselves over me. One said, "Awaken thee! " And one, "What thing thy sleep disquieteth ? " With that, my soul woke up from its eclipse, The while my lady"s name rose to my lips : But uttered in a voice so sob-broken, So feeble with the agony of tears. That I alone might hear it in my heart ; And though that look was on my visage then Which he who is ashamed so plainly wears. Love made that I through shame held not apart, But gazed upon them. And my hue was such That they looked at each other and thought of death ; Saying under their breath Most tenderly, " O let us comfort him " : Then unto me : " What dream Was thine, that it hath shaken thee so much?" And w'hen I was a little comforted, " This, ladies, was the dream I dreamt," I said. " I was a-thinking how life fails with us Suddenly after such a little while ; When Love sobbed in my heart, which is his home. Whereby my spirit waxed so dolorous That in myself I said, with sick recoil : ' Yea, to my lady too this Death must come.' And therewithal such a bewilderment Possessed me, that I shut mine eyes for peace ; And in my brain did cease Order of thought, and every healthful thing. Afterwards, wandering Amid a swarm of doubts that came and went, THE NEW LIFE. 25 Some certain women's faces hurried by, And shrielced to me, ' Thou too shalt die, shalt die ! ' " Then saw I many broken hinted sights In the uncertain state I stepped into. Meseemed to be I know not in what place, Where ladies through the streets, like mournful lights. Ran with loose hair, and eyes that frightened you, By their own terror, and a pale amaze ; The while, little by little, as I thought, The sun ceased, and the stars began to gather. And each wept at the other ; And birds dropped in mid-flight out of the sky ; And earth shook suddenly ; And I was 'ware of one, hoarse and tired out, Who asked of me : ' Hast thou not heard it said? . . . Thy lady, she that was so fair, is dead.' "Then lifting up mine eyes, as the tears came, I saw the Angels, like a rain of manna, In a long flight flying back Heavenward ; Having a little cloud in front of them, After the which they went and said, ' Hosanna' ; And if they had said more, you should have heard. Then Love said, ' Now shall all things be made clear s Come and behold our lady where she lies.' These 'wildering phantasies Then carried me to see my lady dead. Even as I there was led. Her ladies with a veil were covering her; And with her was such very humbleness That she appeared to say, ' I am at peace.' " And I became so humble in my grief. Seeing in her such deep humility, That I said : ' Death, I hold thee passing good Henceforth, and a most gentle sweet relief. Since my dear love has chosen to dwell with thee : Pity, not hate, is thine, well understood. Lo ! I do so desire to see thy face That I am like as one who nears the tomb ; My soul entreats thee. Come.' Then I departed, having made my moan ; And when I was alone I said, and cast my eyes to the High Place : ' Blessed is he, fair soul, who meets thy glance ! ' . . . Just then you woke me, of your complaisaunc5." 26 THE NEW LIFE. This poem has two parts. In the first, speaking to a person ttndefined, I tell how I was aroused from a "vain phantasy by certain ladies, and how I promised them to tell what it was. In the second, I say how I told them. The second part begins here, '^I.was a-thinking.'''' The first part divides into two. In the first, I tell that which certain ladies, and which one singly, did and said because of my phantasy, before I had returned into my right senses. In the second, I tell what these ladies said to me after I had left off this wandering: and it begins here, "But uttered in a voice." Then, when I say, "/ was a-thinking^'' I say how I told them this my imagi- nation ; and concerning this I have two parts. In the first, I tell, in order, this imagination. In the second, saying at what time they called me, I covertly thank them : and this part begins here, "Just then you woke me." XXIV. After this empty imagining, it happened on a day, as I sat thoughtful, that I was taken with such a strong trembling at the heart, that it could not have been otherwise in the presence of my lady. Where- upon I perceived that there was an appearance of Love beside me, and I seemed to see him coming from my lady ; and he said, not aloud but within my heart : " Now take heed that thou bless the day when I entered into thee ; for it is fitting that thou shouldst do so." And with that my heart was so full of gladness, that I could hardly believe it to be of very truth mine own heart and not another. A short while after these words which my heart spoke to me with the tongue of Love, I saw coming towards me a certain lady who was very famous for her beauty, and of whom that friend whom I have already called the first among my friends had long been enamoured. This lady's right name was Joan ; but because of her comeliness (or at least it was so imag- ined) she was called of many Prijnavera (Spring), and went by that name among them. Then looking again, I perceived that the most noble Beatrice followed after her. And when both these ladies had passed by me, it seemed to me that Love spake again in my heart, saying : " She that came first was called Spring, only because of that which was to happen on this day. And it was I myself who caused that name to be ■ g-iven her; seeing that as the Spring cometh first in the year, so should she come first on this day.i when Beatrice was to show herself after the vision of her servant. And even if thou go about to consider her right name, it is also as one should say, ' She shall come first ' : inasmuch as her name, Joan, is taken from that John who went before the True Light, saying : ' Ego voxclamatis in deserto : Parate viam Domini.'' " ^ And also it seemed to me that he added other words, to wit : " He who should in- quire delicately touching this matter, could not but call Beatrice by mine own name, which is to say, Love ; beholding her so like unto me." Then I, having thought of this, imagined to write it with rhymes and send it unto my chief friend; but setting aside certain words ^ which 1 There is a play in the original upon the 3 That is (as I understand it), suppressing, words Prima-jera (Spring) and frima verra from delicacy towards his friend, the words in (she shall come first), to which I have given as which Love describes Joan as merely the fore- near an equivalent as I could. runner of Beatrice. And perhaps in the latter 2 " I am the voice of one crying in the wil- part of this sentence a reproach is gently con- derness: ' Prepare ye the way of the Lord.'" veyed to the fickle Guido Cavalcanti, who may THE NEW LIFE. 27 seemed proper to be set aside, because I believed that his heart still re- garded the beauty of her that was called Spring. And I wrote this sonnet : — I FELT a spirit of love begin to stir Within my heart, long time unfelt till then ; And saw Love coming towards me fair and fain, (That I scarce knew him for his joyful cheer,) Saying, " Be now indeed my worshipper! " And in his speech he laughed and laughed again. Then, while it was his pleasure to remain, I chanced to look the way he had drawn near. And saw the Ladies Joan and Beatrice Approach me, this the other following. One and a second marvel instantly. And even as now my memory speaketh this. Love spake it then : " The first is christened Spring ; The second Love, she is so like to me." This sonnet has many parts: whereof the first tells how I felt awakened within my heart the accustomed tremor, and how it seemed that Love ap- peared to me joyful from afar. The second says how it appeared to 7ne that Love spake within my heart, and what was his aspect. The third tells how, after he had in such wise been with me a space, I saw and heard certain things. The second part begins here, ^^ Saying, '■Be now ' " ; the third here, '■'■Then, while it was his pleasure.'''' The third part divides into two. In the first, I say what [saw. In the second, I say what I heard ; and it begins here, "■Love spake it then.'''' XXV. It might be here objected unto me, (and even by one worthy of controversy,) that I have spoken of Love as though it were a thing out- ward and visible : not only a spiritual essence, but as a bodily substance also. The which thing, in absolute truth, is a fallacy ; Love not being of itself a substance, but an accident of substance. Yet that I speak of Love as though it were a thing tangible and even human, appears by three . things which I say thereof. And firstly, I say that I perceived Love com- ing towards me ; whereby, seeing that to come bespeaks locomotion, and seeing also how philosophy teacheth us that none but a corporeal substance hath locomotion, it seemeth that I speak of Love as of a corporeal sub- stance. And secondly, I say that Love smiled : and thirdly, that Love spake ; faculties (and especially the risible faculty) which appear proper unto man : whereby it further seemeth that I speak of Love as of a man. Now that this matter may be explained, (as is fitting,) it must first be re- membered that anciently they who wrote poems of Love wrote not in the vulgar tongue, but rather certain poets in the Latin tongue. 1 mean, among us, although perchance the same may have been among others, and although likewise, as among the Greeks, they were not writers of spoken language, but men of letters treated of these things. ^ And indeed it is already have transferred his homage (though l On reading Dante's treatise De Vulgari Dante had not then learned it) from Joan to Eloguio^ it will be found that the distinction Mandetta. which he intends here is not between one lau' 28 THE NEW LIFE. not a great number of years since poetry began to be made in the vulgar tongue ; the writing of rhymes in spoken language corresponding tothe writing in metre of Latin verse, by a certain analogy. And I say that it is but a little while, because if we examine the language of oco and the lan- guage of J2,' we shall not find in those tongues any written thing of an earlier date than the last hundred and fifty years. Also the reason why certain of a very mean sort obtained at the first some fame as poets is, that before them no man has written verses in the language of si : and of these, the first was moved to the writing of such verses by the wish to make himself understood of a certain lady, unto whom Latin poetry was difficult. This thing is against such as rhyme concerning other matters than love ; that mode of speech having been first used for the expression of love alone. 2 Wherefore, seeing that poets have a license allowed them that is not allowed unto the writers of prose, and seeing also that they who write in rhyme are simply poets in the vulgar tongue, it becomes fitting and reasonable that a larger license should be given to these than to other modern writers ; and that any metaphor or rhetorical similitude which is permitted unto poets, should also be counted not unseemly in the rhymers of the vulgar tongue. Thus, if we perceive that the former have caused inani- mate things to speak as though they had sense and reason, and to dis- course one with another ; yea, and not only actual things, but such also as have no real existence (seeing that they have made things which are not, to speak ; and oftentimes written of those which are merely accidents as though they were substances and things human) ; it should therefore be permitted to the latter to do the like ; which is to say, not inconsiderately, but with such sufficient motive as may afterwards be set forth in prose. That the Latin poets have done thus, appears through Virgil, where he saith that Juno (to wit, a goddess hostile to the Trojans) spake unto y^olus, master of the Winds; as it is written in the first book of the .(Eneid, ^ole, nainque tibif etc ; and that this master of the Winds made reply: Tims, o regiiia, quid optes — Explorare labor, mihi jussa capessere fas est.* And through the same poet, the inanimate thing speaketh unto the animate, in the third book of the .(Eneid, where it is written : Darda- nidcE duri, etc.^ With Lucan, the animate thing speaketh to the inanimate ; as thus : Multum, Roma, tamen debes civilibus armis.^ In Horace, man guage, or dialect, and another; but between ever he wrote (at this age) had to take the "vulgar speech" (that is, the language handed form of a love-poem. Thus any poem by Dante down from mother to son without any conscious not concerning love is later than his twenty- use of grammar or syntax), and language as seventh year (1291-2), when he wrote the prose regulated by grammarians and the laws of liter- of the Vita Nuova; the poetry having been ary composition, and which Dante calls simply written earlier, at the time of the events referred " Grammar." to. 1 /.?.,thelanguagesofProvenceandTuscany. s " for to thee, O jEoIus," etc. — K. 2 It strikes me that this curious passage fur- * " "T is thy task, O Queen, to consider what nishes a reason, hitherto (I believe) overlooked, thou desirest; mine it is to fulfill thy corn- why Dante put such of his lyrical poems as mands." — K. relate to philosophy into the form of love-poems. ^ " Ye hardy sons of Dardanus," etc. — K. He liked writing in Italian rhyme rather than " Still, much dost thou owe, O Rome, to Latin metre; he thought Italian rhyme ought the arms of thy citizens." — K, to be confined to love-poems; therefore what- THE NEW LIFE. 29 is made to speak to his own intelligence as unto another person ; (and not only hath Horace done this, but herein he foUoweth the excellent Homer,) IS thus in his Poetics : Die mihi, Musa, virum, etc^ Through Ovid, Love speaketh as a human creature, in the beginning of his discourse De Remediis Ainoris : as thus : Bella miki, video, bella parantur, ait.''- By which ensamples this thing shall be made manifest unto such as may be offended at any part of this my book. And lest some of the common sort should be moved to jeering hereat, I will here add, that neither did these ancient poets speak thus without consideration, nor should they who are makers of rhyme in our day write after the same fashion, having no reason in what they write ; for it were a shameful thing if one should rhyme under the semblance of metaphor or rhetorical similitude, and afterwards, being questioned thereof, should be unable to rid his words of such sem- blance, unto their right understanding. Of whom, (to wit, of such as rhyme thus foolishly,) myself and the first among my friends ^ do know many. XXVI. But returning to the matter of my discourse. This excellent lady of whom I spake in what hath gone before, came at last into such favor with all men, that when she passed anywhere folk ran to behold her ; which thing was a deep joy to me : and when she drew near unto any, so much truth and simpleness entered into his heart, that he dared neither to lift his eyes nor to return her salutation : and unto this, many who have felt it can bear witness. She went along crowned and clothed with humil- ity, showing no whit of pride in all that she heard and saw : and when she had gone by, it was said of many, " This is not a woman, but one of the beautifiil angels of Heaven " : and there were some that said : " This is surely a miracle ; blessed be the Lord, who hath power to work thus mar- vellously." I say, of very sooth, that she showed herself so gentle and so full of all perfection, that she bred in those who looked upon her a sooth- ing quiet beyond any speech ; neither could any look upon her without sighing immediately. These things, and things yet more wonderful, were brought to pass through her miraculous virtue. Wherefore I, considering thereof and wishing to resume the endless tale of her praises, resolved to write somewhat wherein I might dwell on her surpassing influence ; to the end that not only they who had beheld her, but others also, might know as much concerning her as words could give to the understanding. And it was then that I wrote this sonnet : — My lady looks so gentle and so pure When yielding salutation by the way. That the tongue trembles and has naught to say, And the eyes, which fain would see, may not endure. And still, amid the praise she hears secure. She walks with humbleness for her array ; Seeming a creature sent from Heaven to stay On earth, and show a miracle made sure. 1 "Tell me, O Muse, of the man," etc. — K. 3 Guido Cavalcanti. — K. 2 " Wars, he says, I see are preparing .against me." — K. 30 THE NEW LIFE. She is so pleasant in the eyes of men That through the sight the inmost heart doth gain A sweetness which needs proof to know it by : And from between her lips there seems to move A soothing essence that is fiill of love, Saying for ever to the spirit, " Sigh! " XXVII. This sonnet is so easy to understand, from what is afore nar- rated, that it needs no division ; and therefore, leaving it, I say also that this excellent lady came unto such favor with all men; that not only she herself was honored and commended, but through her companionship, honor and commendation came unto others. Wherefore I, perceiving this, and wishing that it should also be made manifest- to those that beheld it not, wrote the sonnet here following; wherein is signified the power which her virtue had upon other ladies : — For certain he hath seen all perfectness Who among other ladies hath seen mine : They that go with her humbly should combine To thank their God for such peculiar grace. So perfect is the beauty of her face That it begets in no wise any sign Of envy, but draws round her a clear line Of love, and blessed faith, and gentleness. Merely the sight of her makes all things bow : Not she herself alone is holier Than all ; but hers, through her, are raised above. From all her acts such lovely grac-es flow That truly one may never think of her Without a passion of exceeding love. This sonnet has three parts. In the first, I say in what company this lady appeared most wondrous. In the second, I say how gracious wa^ her society. In the third, I tell of the things which she, with power, worked upon others. The second begins here, "They that go with her " ; the third here, "So perfect.'''' This last part divides into three. In the first, I tell what she operated upon women, that is, by their own faculties. In the second, I tell what she operated in them through others, hi the third, I say flow she not only operated in women, but in all people ; and not only while herself present, but, by memory of her, operated wondrously. The second begins here, "Merely the sight " ; the third here, "From all her ads.'''' XXVIII. Thereafter on a day, I began to consider that which I had said of my lady : to wit, in these two sonnets aforegone : and becoming aware that I had not spoken of her immediate effect on me at that especial time, it seemed to me that I had spoken defectively. Whereupon I re- solved to write somewhat of the manner wherein I was then subject to her influence, and of what her influence then was. And conceiving that I should not be able to say these things in the small compass of a sonnet, I began therefore a poem with this beginning : — THE NEW LIFE. Ji Love hath so long possessed me for his own And made his lordship so familiar That he, who at first iriced me, is now grown Unto my heart as its best secrets are. And thus, when he in such sore wise doth mar My life that all its strength seems gone from it, Mine inmost being then feels throughly quit Of anguish, and all evil keeps afar. Love also gathers to such power in me That my sighs speak, each one a grievous thing, Always soliciting My lady's salutation piteously. Whenever she beholds me, it is so, Who is more sweet than any words can show. XXIX. Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena fopulo ! facta est quasi vidua domina gentium ! ^ I was still occupied with this poem, (having composed thereof only the above written stanza,) when the Lord God of justice called my most gra- cious lady unto Himself, that she might be glorious under the banner of that blessed Queen Mary, whose name had always a deep reverence in the words of holy Beatrice. And because haply it might be found good that I should say somewhat concerning her departure, I will herein declare what are the reasons which make that I shall not do so. And the reasons are three. The first is, that such matter belongeth not of right to the present argument ; if one consider the opening of this little book.2 The second is, that even though the present argument required it, my pen doth not suffice to write in a fit manner of this thing. And the third is, that were it both possible and of absolute necessity, it would still be unseemly for me to speak thereof, seeing that thereby it must behove me to speak also mine own praises : a thing that in whosoever doeth it is worthy of blame. ^ For the which reasons, I will leave this matter to be treated of by some other than myself. Nevertheless, as the number nine, which number hath often had mention in what hath gone before, (and not, as it might appear, without reason,) seems also to have borne a part in the manner of her death : it is therefore right that I should say somewhat thereof. And for this cause, having first said what was the part it bore herein, I will afterwards point out a reason which made that this number was so closely allied unto my lady. XXX. I say, then, that according to the division of time in Italy her 1 " How doth the city sit solitary, that was 3 This passage explains the words in Hell, Aill of people! how is she become as a widow, iv. lOO, "Now fitter left untold," evidently she that was great among the nations ! " — meaning that the matters spoken of were the Lamentations of Jeremiah, i. i. praises of Dante. — K. 3 See paragraph I. 33 THE NEW LIFE. most noble spirit departed from among us in the first hour of the ninth day of the month ; and according to the division of time in Syria, in the ninth month of the year : seeing that Tismim, which with us is October, is there the first month. Also she was taken from among us in that year of our reckoning (to wit, of the years of our Lord) in which the perfect number was nine times multiplied within that century wherein she was born into the world : which is to say, the thirteenth century of Christians.^ And touching the reason why this number was so closely allied unto her, it may perad venture be this. According to Ptolemy, (and also to the Christian verity,) the revolving heavens are nine ; and according to the common opinion among astrologers, these nine heavens together have influence over the earth. Wherefore it would appear that this number was thus allied unto her for the purpose of signifying that, at her birth, all these nine heavens were at perfect unity with each other as to their influ- ence. This is one reason that may be brought : but more narrowly con- sidering, and according to the infallible truth, this number was her own self: that is to say, by similitude. As thus. The number three is the root of the number nine ; seeing that without the interposition of any other number, being multiplied merely by itself, it produceth nine, as we mani- festly perceive that three times three are nine. Thus, three being of itself the eflScient of nine, and the Great Efficient of Miracles being of Himself Three Persons, (to wit : the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,) which, being Three, are also One : this lady was accompanied by the number nine to the. end that men might clearly perceive her to be a nine, that is, a miracle, whose only root is the Holy Trinity. It may be that a more subtile person would find for this thing a reason of greater subtilty : but such is the reason that I find, and that liketh me best. XXXI. After this most gracious creature had gone out from among us, the whole city came to be as it were widowed and despoiled of all dignity. Then I, left mourning in this desolate city, wrote unto the principal per- sons thereof, in an epistle, concerning its condition ; taking for my com- mencement those words of Jeremias : Quojnodo sedet sola civitas I etc. And I make mention of this, that none may marvel wherefore I set down these words before, in beginning to treat of her death. Also if any should blame me, in that I do not transcribe that epistle whereof I have spoken, I will make it mine excuse that I began this little book with the intent that it should be written altogether in the vulgar tongue ; wherefore, see- ing that the epistle I speak of is in Latin, it belongeth not to mine under- taking : more especially as I know that my chief friend,^ for whom I write this book, wished also that the whole of it should be in the" vulgar tongue. XXXII. When mine eyes had wept for some while, until they were so weary with weeping that I could no longer through them give ease to my sorrow, I bethought me that a few mournful words might stand me instead 1 Beatrice Portinari will thus be found to of her death, was twenty-four years and three have died during the first hour of the gth of months. The *' perfect number " mentioned in June, 1290. And from what Dante says at the the present passage is the number ten. commencement of this work (viz. that she was 2 Guido Cavalcanti. In Hell, x. 61-63 ^^ ^ younger than himself by eight or nine months), said to have neglected Virgil. — K. it may also be gathered that her age, at the time THE NEW LIFE. 33 of tears. And therefore I proposed to make a poem, that weeping I might speak therein of her for whom so much sorrow had destroyed my spirit; and I then began " The eyes that weep." That this poem may seem to remain the more widowed at its close, I will divide it before writing it ; and this method I will observe he7iceforward. I say that this poor little poem has three parts. The first is a prelude. In the second, I speak of her. In the third, I speak pitifully to the poem . The second begins here, '■'■Beatrice is gone up'''' ; the third here, "Weep, pitiful Song of mine.'' The first divides into three. In the first, I say what moves me to speak. In the second, I say to whoin I mean to speak. In the third, I say of whom I mean to speak. The second begins here, "And because often, thinking" ; the third here, "And I will say.'''' Then, when I say, ''Beatrice is gone up,'''' I speak of her ; and concerning this I have two parts. First, I tell the catise why she was taken away from us : afterwards, I say how oneweeps her parting; and this part commences here, "Wonderfully.'''' This ■part divides into three. In the first, I say who it is that weeps her not. In the second, I say who it is that doth weep her. In the third, I speak 0) my condition. The second begins here, "But sighing comes, and griefs ', the *hird, "With sighs P Then, when I say, "Weep, pitiful Song of ■mint^ I speak to this my song, telling it what ladies to go to, and stay with. The eyes that weep for pity of the heart Have wept so long that their grief languisheth, And they have no more tears to weep withal : And now, if I would ease me of a part Of what, little by little, leads to death. It must be done by speech, or not at all. And because often, thinking, I recall How it was pleasant, are she went afar, To talk of her with you, kind damozels, I talk with no one else, But only with such hearts as women's are. And I will say, — still sobbing as speech fails, — That she hath gone to Heaven suddenly, And hath left Love below, to mourn with me, Beatrice is gone up into high Heaven, The kingdom where the angels are at peace ; And lives with them : and to her friends is dead. Not by the frost of winter was she driven Away, like others ; nor by summer-heats ; But through a perfect gentleness, instead. For from the lamp of her meek lowlihead Such an exceeding glory went up hence That it woke wonder in the Eternal Sire, Until a sweet desire Entered Him for that lovely excellence, ' So that He bade her to Himself aspire ; Counting this weary and most evil place Unworthy of a thing so full of grace. 34 THE NEW LIFE. Wonderfully out of the beautiful form Soared her clear spirit, waxing glad the while ; And is in its first home, there where it is. Who speaks thereof, and feels not the tears warm Upon his face, must have become so vile As to be dead to all sweet sympathies. Out upon him ! an abject wretch like this May not imagine anything of her, — He needs no bitter tears for his relief. But sighing comes, and grief, Anr". the desire to find no comforter, (Save only Death, who makes all sorrow brief,) To him who for a while turns in his thought How she hath been among us, and is not. With sighs my bosom always laboreth In thinking, as I do continually. Of her for whom my heart now breaks apace ; And very often when I think of death. Such a great inward longing comes to me That it will change the color of my face ; And, if the idea settles in its place, All my limbs shake as with an ague-fit : Till, starting up in wild bewilderment, I do become so shent That I go forth, lesffolk misdoubt of it. Afterward, calling with a sore lament On Beatrice, I ask, " Canst thou be dead?" And calling on her, I am comforted. Grief with its tears, and anguish with its sighs, Come to me now whene'er I am alone ; So that I think the sight of me gives pain. And what my life hath been, that living dies, Sinee for my lady the New Birth's ^ begun, I have not any language to explain. And so, dear ladies, though my heart were fain, I scarce could tell indeed how I am thus. All joy is with my bitter life at war ; Yea, I am fallen so far That all men seem to say, " Go out from us," Eying ray cold white lips, how dead they are. But she, though I be bowed unto the dust. Watches me ; and will guerdon me, I trust. Weep, pitiful Song of mine, upon thy way, To the dames going and the daraozels For whom and for none else * The original has secol novo; the meaning is the same as on page 3. — K, THE NEW LIFE. 35 Thy sisters have made music many a day. Thou, that art very sad and not as they Go dwell thou with them as a mourner dwells. XXXIII. After I had written this poem, I received the visit of a friend whom I counted as second unto me in the degrees of friendship, and who, moreover, had been united by the nearest Icindred to that most gracious creature. And when we had a little spoken together, he began to solicit me that I would write somewhat in memory of a lady who had died ; and he disguised his speech, so as to seem to be speaking of another who was but lately dead : wherefore I, perceiving that his speech was of none other than that blessed one herself, told him that it should be done as he required. Then afterwards, having thought thereof, I imagined to give vent in a sonnet to some part of my hidden lamentations ; but in such sort that it might seem to be spoken by this friend of mme, to whom I was to give it. And the sonnet saith thus : " Stay now with me," etc. This sonnet has two parts. In the first, I call the Faithful of Love to hear fne. In the second, I relate 7iiy miserable condition. The second be- gins here, '■'■Mark how they force.'''' Stay now 'with me, and listen to my sighs. Ye piteous hearts, as pity bids ye do. Mark how they force their way out and press through ; If they be once pent up, the whole life dies. Seeing that now indeed my weary eyes Oftener refuse than I can tell to you (Even though my endless grief is ever new) To weep and let the smothered anguish rise. Also in sighing ye shall hear me call On her whose blessed presence doth enrich The only home that well befitteth her : And ye shall hear a bitter scorn of all Sent from the inmost of my spirit in speech That mourns its joy and its joy's minister. XXXIV. But when I had written this sonnet, bethinking me who he was to whom I was to give it, that it might appear to be his speech, it seemed to me that this was but r. poor and barren gift for one of her so near kindred. Wherefore, before giving him this sonnet, I wrote two stanzas of a poem : the first being written in very sooth as though it were spoken by him, but the other being mine own speech, albeit, unto one who should not look closely, they would both seem to be said by the same person. Nevertheless, looking closely, one must perceive that it is not so, inasmuch as one does not call this most gracious creature his lady, and. the other does, as is manifestly apparent. And I gave the poem and the sonnet unto my friend, saying that I had made them only for him. The poem begins, "Whatever while^'' and has two parts. In the first, that is, in the first stanza, this my dear friend, her kinsman, laments. In the second, I lament ; that is, in the other stanza, which begins, " For- 36 THE NEW LIFE. ever." And thus it appears that in this poem two persons lament, of whom one laments as a brother, the other as a servant. Whatever while the thought comes over me That I may not again Behold that lady whom I mourn for now, About my heart my mind brings constantly So much of extreme pain That I say, Soul of mine, why stayest thou? Truly the anguish, soul, that we must bow Beneath, until we win out of this life, Gives me full oft a fear that trembleth : So that I call on Death Even as on Sleep one calleth after strife, Saying, Come unto me. Life showeth grim And bare ; and if one dies, I envy him. Forever, among all my sighs which burn. There is a piteous speech That clamors upon death continually : Yea, unto him doth my whole spirit turn Since first his hand did reach My lady's life with most foul cruelty. But from the height of woman's fairness, she, Going up from us with the joy we had, Grew perfectly and spiritually fair ; That so she spreads even there A light of Love which makes the Angels glad. And even unto their subtle minds can bring A certain awe of profound marvelling. XXXV. On that day which fulfilled the year since my lady had been made of the citizens of eternal life, remembering me of her as I sat alone, I betook myself to draw the resemblance of an angel upon certain tablets.^ And while I did thus, chancing to turn my head, I perceived that some were standing beside me to whom I should have given courteous welcome, and that they were observing what I did : also I learned afterwards that they had been there a while before I perceived them. Perceiving whom, I arose for salutation, and said : "Another was with me."^ Afterwards, when they had left me, I set myself again to mine occupation, to wit, to the drawing figures of angels : in doing which, I conceived to write of this matter in rhyme, as for her anniversary, and to address my rhymes unto those who had just left me. It was then that I wrote the sonnet which saith, "That lady" : and as this sonnet hath two commence- ments, it behoveth me to divide it with both of them here. / say that, according to the first, this sonnet has three parts. In the ^ Browning has made a beautiful allusion to however, add the words, " And therefore was T this passage in his " One Word More." — K. in thought " : but the shorter speech is perhaps * Thus according to some texts. The majority, the more forcible and pathetic. THE NEW LIFE. 37 first, I say that this lady was then in my memory. In the second., I tell what Love therefore did with me. In the third, I speak of the effects of Love. The second begins here, ^'Love knowing"; the third here, ^^ Forth went they." This part divides into two. In the one, I say that all my sighs issued speaking. In the other, I say how some spoke certain words different from the others. The second begins here, "And still." In this same manner is it divided with the other beginning, save that, in the first part, I tell when this lady had thus come into my mind, and this I say not in the other. That lady of all gentle memories Had lighted on my soul ; — whose new abode Lies now, as it was well ordained of God, Among the poor in heart,^ where Mary is. Love, knowing that dear image to be his, Woke up within the sick heart sorrow-bowed. Unto the sighs which are its weary load Saying, " Go forth." And they went forth, I wis ; Forth went they from my breast that throbbed and ached ; With such a pang as oftentimes will bathe Mine eyes with tears when I am left alone. And still those sighs which drew the heaviest breath Came whispering thus : " O noble intellect ! It is a year to-day that thou art gone." Second Commencement. That lady of all gentle memories Had lighted on ray soul ; — for whose sake flowed The tears of Love ; in whom the power abode Which led you to observe while 1 did this. Love, knowing that dear image to be his, etc. XXXVL Then, having sat for some space sorely in thought because of the time that was now past, I was so filled with dolorous imaginings that it became outwardly manifest in mine altered countenance. Whereupon, feeling this and being in dread lest any should have seen me, I lifted mine eyes to look ; and then perceived a young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing upon me from a window with a gaze full of pity, so that the very sum of pity appeared gathered together in her. And seeing that unhappy persons, when they beget compassion in others, are then most moved unto weeping, as though they also felt pity for themselves, it came to pass that mine eyes began to be inclined unto tears. Wherefore, becom- ing fearful lest I should make manifest mine abject condition, I rose up, and went where I could not be seen of that lady ; saying afterwards within myself: "Certainly with her also must abide most noble Love." And with that, I resolved upon writing a sonnet, wherein, speaking unto her, I should say all that I have just said. And as this sonnet is very evident I will not divide it : — 1 The original is ' nel ciel dell* umiltate,' = the heaven of humility. 38 THE NEW LIFE. Mine eyes beheld the blessed pity spring Into thy countenance immediately A while agone, when thou beheldst in me The sickness only hidden grief can bring ; And then I knew thou wast considering How abject and forlorn my life must be ; And I became afraid that thou shouldst see My weeping, and account it a base thing. Therefore I went out from thee ; feeling how The tears were straightway loosened at my heart Beneath thine eyes' compassionate control. And afterwards I said within my soul ; " Lo ! with this lady dwells the counterpart Of the same Love who holds me weeping now." XXXVII. It happened after this that whensoever I was seen of this lady, she became pale and of a piteous countenance, as though it had been with love ; whereby she remembered me many times of my own most noble lady, who was wont to be of a like paleness. And I know that often, when I could not weep nor in any way give ease unto mine anguish, I went to look upon this lady, who seemed to bring, the tears into my eyes by the mere sight of her. Of the which thing 1 bethought me to speak unto her in rhyme, and then made this sonnet : which begins, " Love's pallor," and which is plain without being divided, by its exposition aforesaid : — Love's pallor and the semblance of deep ruth Were never yet shown forth so perfectly In any lady's face, chancing to see Grief's miserable countenance uncouth, As in thine, lady, they have sprung to soothe, When in mine anguish thou hast looked on me ; Until sometimes it seems as if, through thee, My heart might almost wander from its truth. Yet so it is, I cannot hold mine eyes From gazing very often upon thine In the sore hope to shed those tears they keep; And at such time, thou mak'st the pent tears rise Even to the brim, till the eyes waste and pine ; Yet cannot they, while thou are present, weep. XXXVIII. At length, by the constant sight of this lady, mine eyes began to be gladdened overmuch with her company ; through which many times I had much unrest, and rebuked myself as a base person : also, many times I cursed the unsteadfastness of mine eyes, and said to them inwardly : "Was not your grievous condition of weeping wont one while to make others weep ? And will ye now forget this thing because a lady looketh upon you ? who so looketh merely in compassion of the grief ye then showed for your own blessed lady. But whatso ye can, that do ye, accursed THE NEW LIFE. 39 eyes ! many a time will I make you remember it ! for never, till death dry you up, should ye make an end of your weeping." And when I had spoken thus unto mine eyes, I was taken again with extreme and grievous sighing. And to the end that this inward strife which I had undergone might not be hidden from all saving the miserable wretch who endured it, I proposed to write a sonnet, and to comprehend in it this horrible condition. And I wrote this which begins, " The very bitter weeping." The sonnet has two parts, lit the first, I speak to my eyes, as my heart spoke within myself. In the second, I remove a difficulty, showing who it is that speaks thus : and this part begins here, '■^ So far." It well might receive other divisions also ; but this would be useless, since it is manifest by the preceding exposition- " The very bitter weeping that ye made So long a time together, eyes of mine, Was wont to make the tears of pity shine In other eyes full oft, as I have said. But now this thing were scarce remembered If I, on my part, foully would combine With you, and not recall each ancient sigh Of grief, and her for whom your tears were shed. It is your fickleness that doth betray My mind to fears, and makes me tremble thus What while a lady greets me with her eyes. Except by death, we must not any way Forget our lady who is gone from us." So far doth my heart utter, and then sighs. XXXIX. The sight of this lady brought me into so unwonted a con dition that I often thought of her as of one too dear unto me ; and I began to consider her thus: "This lady is young, beautiful, gentle, and wise: perchance it was Love himself who set her in my path, that so my life . might find peace." And there were times when I thought yet more fondly, until my heart consented unto its reasoning. But when it had so con- sented, my thought would often turn round upon me, as moved by reason, and cause me to say within myself: "What hope is this which would console me after so base a fashion, and which hath taken the place of ali other imagining?" Also there was another voice within me, that said: " And wilt thou, having suffered so much tribulation through Love, not escape while yet thou mayst from so much bitterness ? Thou must surely know that this thought carries with it the desire of Love, and drew its life from the gentle eyes of that lady who vouchsafed thee so much pity." Wherefore I, having striven sorely and very often with myself, bethought me to say somewhat thereof in rhyme . And seeing that in the battle of doubts, the victory most often remained with such as inclined towards the lady of whom I speak, it seemed to me that I should address this sonnet unto her : in the first line whereof, I call that thought which spake of her a gentle thought, only because it spoke of her who was gentle ; being of itself most vile.i 1 Boccaccio tells us that Dante was married of Beatrice. Can Gemma then be " the lady of to Gemma Donati about a year after the death the window," his love for whom Dante so con- 40 THE NEW LIFE. In this sonnet I make myself into two, according as my thoughts were divided one from the other. The one part I call Heart, that is, appetite ; the other, Soul, that is, reason ; and I tell what one saith to the other- And that it is fitting to call the appetite Heart, and the reason Sold, is manifest enough to them to whom I wish this to be open. True it is that, in the preceding sonnet, I take the part of the Heart against the Eyes ; and that appears contrary to what / say in the present ; and therefore I say that, there also, by the Heart T mean appetite, because yet greater was my desire to remeiiiber my most gentle lady than to see this other, although indeed I had some appetite towards her, but it appeared slight : wherefrom it appears that the one state?nent is not contrary to the other. This sonnet has three parts. In the first, I begin to say to this lady how my desires turn all towards her. In the second, I say how the sotd, that is the reason, speaks to the Heart, that is, to the appetite. In the third, I say how the latter answers. The second begins here, '^And what is this f " the third here, "-And the heart answers" A GENTLE thought there is will often start, Within my secret self, to speech of thee : Also of Love it speaks so tenderly That much in me consents and takes its part. " And what is this," the soul saith to the heart, " That Cometh thus to comfort thee and me. And thence where it would dwell, thus potently Can drive all other thoughts by its strange art ? " And the heart answers : " Be no more at strife 'Twixt doubt and doubt : this is Love's messenger And speaketh but his words, from him received ; And all the strength it owns and all the Jife It draweth from the gentle eyes of her Who, looking on our grief, hath often grieved." XL. But against this adversary of reason, there rose up in me on a certain day, about the ninth hour, a strong visible phantasy, whei'ein I seemed to behold the most gracious Beatrice, habited in that crimson raiment which she had worn when I had first beheld her ; also she ap- peared to me of the same tender age as then. Whereupon I fell into a deep thought of her : and my memory ran back, according to the order of time, unto all those matters in the which she had borne a part ; and my heart began painfully to repent of the desire by which it had so basely let itself be possessed during so many days, contrary to the constancy of reason. And then, this evil desire being quite gone from me, all my thoughts turned again unto their excellent Beatrice. And I say most truly that from that hour I thought constantly of her with the whole humbled and ashamed heart ; the which became often manifest in sighs, that had temns? Such a passing conjecture (when con- believe to He at the heart of all true Dantesque sidered together with the interpretation of this commentary; that is, the existence always of passage in Dante's later work, the Convito) the actual events even where the allegorical would of course imply an admission of what I superstructure has been raised by Dante himself. THE NEW LIFE. 41 among them the name of that most gracious creature, and how she departed from us. Also it would come to pass very often, through the bitter anguish of some one thought, that I forgot both it, and myself, and where I was. By this increase of sighs, my weeping, which before had been somewhat lessened, increased in like manner ; so that mine eyes seemed to long only for tears and to cherish them, and came at last to be circled about with red as thougli they had suffered martyrdom : neither were they able to look again upon the beauty of any face that might again bring them to shame and evil : from which things it will appear that they were fitly guer- doned for their unsteadfastness. Wherefore I (wishing that mine abandon- ment of all such evil desires and vain temptations should be certified and made manifest, beyond all doubts which might have been suggested by the rhymes aforewritten) proposed to write a sonnet wherein I should express this purport. And I then wrote, " Woe's me ! " / said, " Woe's tne ! " because I was ashamed of the trifling of mine eyes. This sonnet I do not divide, since its purport is manifest enough. Woe's me! by dint of all these sighs that come Forth of my heart, its endless grief to prove, Mine eyes are conquered, so that even to move Their lids for greeting is grown troublesome, They wept so long that now they are griefs home, And count their tears all laughter far above ; They wept till they are circled now by Love With a red circle in sign of martyrdom. These musings, and the sighs they bring from me, Are grown at last so constant and so sore That love swoons in my spirit with faint breath ; Hearing in those sad sounds continually The most sweet name that my dead lady bore, With many grievous words touching her death. XLI. About this time, it happened that a great number of persons undertook a pilgrimage, to the end that they might behold that blessed portraiture bequeathed unto us by our Lord Jesus Christ as the image of His beautiful countenance ^ (upon which countenance my dear lady now looketh continually). And certain among these pilgrims, who seemed very thoughtful, passed by a path which is well-nigh in the midst of the city where my most gracious lady was born, and abode, and at last died. Then I, beholding them, said within myself: "These pilgrims seem to be come from very far ; and I think they cannot have heard speak of this lady, or know anything concerning her. Their thoughts are not of her, but of other things ; it may be, of their friends vvho are far distant, and whom we, in our turn, know not." And I went on to say: "I know that 1 The Veronica {Vera icon, or true image) ; also in the Divine Comedy {Par. xxi. 94 ff.), that is, the napkin with which a woman was where he says: — ■ said to have wiped our Saviour's face on His " Like a wight, way to the cross, and which miraculously re- Who haply from Croatia wends to see lained its likeness. Dante makes mention of it Our Veronica." 42 THE NEW LIFE. if they were of a country near unto us, they would in some wise seem dis- turbed, passing through this city which is so full of grief." And I said also : " If I could speak with them a space, I am certain that I should make them weep before they went forth of this city ; for those things that they would hear from me must needs beget weeping in any." And when the last of them had gone by me, I bethought me to write a sonnet, showing forth mine inward speech ; and that it might seem the more pitiful, I made as though I had spoken it indeed unto them. And I ,wrote this sonnet, which beginneth : " Ye pilgrim-folk." I made use of the -^oxA. pilgrim for its general signification ; for "pilgrim" may be under- stood in two senses, one general, and one special. General, so far as any man may be called a pilgrim who leaveth the place of his birth ; whereas, more narrowly speaking, he only is a pilgrim who goeth towards or fro- wards the House of St. James. ^ For there are three separate denomina- tions proper unto those who undertake journeys to the glory of God. They are called Palmers who go beyond the seas eastward, whence often they bring palm-branches.^ And Pilgrims, as I have said, are they who journey unto the holy House of Galicia ; seeing that no other apostle was buried so far from his birth-place as was the blessed Saint James. And there is a third sort who are called Romers ; in that they go whither these whom I have called pilgrims went : which is to say, unto Rome. This sonnet is not divided, because its own words sufficiently declare it Ye pilgrim-folk, advancing pensively As if in thought of distant things, I pray. Is your own land indeed so far away — As by your aspect it would seem to be — That this our heavy sorrow leaves you fi-ee Though passing through the mournful town mid-way; Like unto men that understand to-day Nothing at all of her great misery ? Yet if ye will but stay, whom I accost. And listen to my words a little space, At going ye shall mourn with a loud voice. It is her Beatrice that she hath lost ; Of whom the least word spoken holds such grace That men weep hearing it, and have no. choice. XLII. A while after these things, two gentle ladies sent unto me, pray- ing that I would bestow upon them certain of these my rhymes. And I (taking into account their worthiness and consideration,) resolved that I would write also a new thing, and send it them together with those others, to the end that their wishes might be more honorably fulfilled. Therefore I made a sonnet, which narrates my condition, and which I caused to be conveyed to them, accompanied by the one preceding, and with that other 1 James, the brother of John the Evangelist, body lay in a forest, near the present Santiago The Spaniards believe that his body was brought de Compostella. Cf. Par. xxv. ig, 20. — K. to Spain, and found in 835 by Bishop Theode- 2 Q{^ Piirg. xxxiii. 78. — K. mir, who was led by a star to Galicia, where the THE NEW LIFE. 43 which begins, " Stay now witli me and listen to my siglis." And the new sonnet is, " Beyond the sphere." This sonnet comprises five parts . In the first, I tell whither my thought goeth, naming the place by the name of one of its effects. In the second, I say wherefore it goeth up, and who makes it go thus. In the third, I tell what it saw, namely, a lady honored. Arid I then call it a ^^Pilgrim Spirit^'' because it goes tip spiritually, and like a pilgrim who is out of his known country. In the fourth, I say how the spirit sees her such {that is, in such quality') that I cannot understand her ; that is to say my thought rises into the quality of her in a degree that my intellect cannot coinpre- hend, seeing that our intellect is, towards those blessed souls, like Our eye weak against the sun; and this the Philosopher'^ says in the Second of the Metaphysics. In the fifth, I say that, although I cannot see there whither my thought carries me — that is, to her admirable essence — I at least under- stand this, namely, that it is a thought of my lady, because I often hear her name therein. And, at the end of this fifth part, I say, ^'■Ladies mine," to show that they are ladies to whom I speak. The second part begins, "A new perception " ; the third, "When it hath reached" ; the fourth, "It sees her such " ; the fifth, "And yet I know. ''^ It might be divided yet more nicely, and made yet clearer ; but this division may pass, and therefore I stay not to divide it further . Beyond the sphere whicli spreads to widest space ^ Now soars the sigli that my heart sends above; A new perception born of grieving Love Guideth it upward the untrodden ways. When it hath readied unto the end, and stays, It sees a lady round whom splendors move In homage ; till, by the great light thereof Abashed, the pilgrim spirit stands at gaze. It sees her such, that when it tells me this Which it hath seen, I understand it not. It hath a speech so subtile and so fine. And yet I know its voice within my thought Often remembereth me of Beatrice : So that I understand it, ladies mine. XLIII. After writing this sonnet, it was, given unto me to behold a very wonderful vision : ^ wherein I saw things which determined me that I .would say nothing further of this most blessed one, until such time as I could discourse more worthily concerning her. .And to this end I labor all I can ; as she well knoweth. Wherefore if it be His pleasure through 1 Aristotle. — K. Nuova are almost identical" with those at the 2 The Priraum Mobile, — K. close of the letter in which Dante, on conclud- 3 This we may believe to have been the ing the Paradise, and accomplishing the hope Vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, which here expressed,- dedicates his great work to Can furnished the triple argument of the Divine Grande della Scala. Comedy. The Latin words ending the Vita 44 THE NEW LIFE. whom is the life of all things, that my life continue with me a few years, it Is my hope that I shall yet write concerning her what hath not before been written of any woman. After the which, may it seem good unto Him who is the Master of Grace, that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory of its lady : to wit, of that blessed Beatrice who now gazeth contin- ually on His countenance qui est per omnia scecula benedictus .^ Laus Deo. 1 " Who is blessed throughout all ages." THE DIVINE COMEDY, IbeH. CANTO I. ARGUMENT. The Poet, having lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, is met by Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterwards of Purgatory ; and that he shall then be con- ducted by Beatrice into Paradise. He follows the Roman poet. In the midway of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray^ Gone from the path direct : and e'en to tell, It were no easy task, how savage wild That forest, how robust and rough its growth, 5 Which to remember only, my dismay Renews, in bitterness not far from death. Yet to discourse of what there good befell, All else will I relate discovered there. How first I entered it I scarce can say, 10 Such sleepy dulness in that instant weighed My senses down, when the true path I left ; But when a mountain's foot I reached, where closed The valley that had pierced my heart with dread, I looked aloft, and saw his shoulders broad 15 Already vested with that planet's beam, 1. In the Poet's thirty-fifth year. He was il. Spiritual drowsiness induced by sin. born in 1265, and the vision is supposed to take 12. " I am the way, the truth, and the life." place in 1300. In the Convito (iv. 23) the John xiv. 6. life of man is compare-j to an arch, the highest 13. The mount of salvation, point of which is reached at the age of thirty- 15. " I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, frta. The date of the poem is more definitely from whence cometh my help." Psalm given in /yw^, xxi. 109 ff. cxxi. 1. 2. Symbol of g' il into which Dante had fallen 16. The sun, which according to the Ptolemaic after the death of Beatrice. system is a planet. Used here in the Scriptural 6. "Even w'en I remember I am afraid." and symbolical sense. Job xxi. 6. 45 40 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto i. Who leads all wanderers safe through every way. Then was a little respite to the fear, That in my heart's recesses deep had lain, All of that night, so pitifully past : 20 And as a man, with difficult short breath, Forespent with toiling, 'scaped from sea to shore, Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands At gaze ; e'en so my spirit, that yet failed Struggling with terror, turned to view the straits, 25 That none hath past and lived. My weary frame After short pause recomforted, again I journeyed on over that lonely steep. The hinder foot still firmer. Scarce the ascent Began, when, lo ! a panther, nimble, light, 30 And covered with a speckled skin, appeared ; Nor, when it saw me, vanished, rather strove To check my onward going ; that ofttimes. With purpose to retrace my steps, I turned. The hour was morning's prime, and on his way 35 Aloft the sun ascended with those stars, That with him rose when Love divine first moved Those its fair works : so that with joyous hope All things conspired to fill me, the gay skin Of that swift animal, the matin dawn 40 And the sweet season. Soon that joy was chased, And by new dread succeeded, when in view A lion came, 'gainst me, as it appeared, With his head held aloft and hunger-mad, That e'en the air was fear-struck. A she- wolf 45 Was at his heels, who in her leanness seemed Full of all wants, and many a land hath made Disconsolate ere now. She with such fear O'erwhelmed me, at the sight of her appalled, That of the height all hope I lost. As one, 50 Who, with his gain elated, sees the time When all unwares is gone, he inwardly Mourns with heart-griping anguish ; such was I, Haunted by that fell beast, never at peace, 29. It is to be remembered, that in ascending 36. According to ancient tradition, referred a iiill the weight of the body rests on the hinder to here by Dante, the world was created in foot. spring when the sun was in the constellation of 3c. The three animals in the following lines Aries, were evidently suggested by Jeremiah v. 6, — 41. Sweet season is the conventional term " Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay for spring in the Middle Ages, and..*eiT5eft» them, and a wolf of the evenings shall spoil scores of times in the Troubadoui':. and JVIinne- them, a leopard shall watch over their cities." singers. The panther signifies here worldly pleasure ; 43. The lion signifies pride r ambition: po- or according to those who see a political allegory litically, — the royal House of F ranee, in the poem, Florence, divided by the Guelphs 45. Avarice; politically, — ths ; Roman Court, !Uid Ghibelliaes. I Canto I.] • HELL. 47 Who coming o'er against me, by degrees 55 Impelled me where the sun in silence rests. While to the lower space with backward step I fell, my ken discerned the form of one, Whose voice seemed faint through long disuse of speech. When him in that great desert I espied, • 60 " Have mercy on me," cried I out aloud, " Spirit! or living man! whate'er thou be! " He answered : "Now not man, man once I was, And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both By country, when the power of Julius yet 65 Was scarcely firm. At Rome my life was past Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time Of fabled deities and false. A bard Was I, and made Anchises' upright son The subject of my song, who came from Troy, 70 When the flames preyed on Ilium's haughty towers. But thou, say wherefore to such perils past Return'st thou ? wherefore not this pleasant mount Ascendest, cause and source of all delight? " " And art thou then that Virgil, that well-spring, 75 From which such copious floods of eloquence Have issued?" I with front abashed replied. " Glory and light of all the tuneful train! May it avail me, that I long with zeal Have sought thy volume, and with love immense 80 Have conned it o'er. My master thou, and guide! Thou he from whom alone I have derived That style, which for its beauty into fame Exalts me. See the beast, from whom I fled. O save me from her, thou illustrious sage ! 85 For every vein and pulse throughout my frame She hath made tremble." He, soon as he saw That I was weeping, answered, " Thou must needs 56. Hence Milton appears to have taken his xxii, 70.] 3. Homer being unknown then, Vir- idca in the Samson Agonisies : gil was the only poet who had described a ,, rr,, ^ ■ J 1 descent to Hell. The sun to me is dark, ^ _,, . . , ■ , , , A J -1 . ti... •'«♦.. 05. ihis IS explained by the commentators And silent as the moon, etc. ^ t^ a 1 i_ i_ • i . to mean — "Although it was rather late with The same metaphor will recur. Canto V., respect to my birth, before Julius Casar as- V. 29. sumed the supreme authority, and made him- " Into a place I came j^jf perpetual dictator." Where light was silent all." Virgil indeed was born twenty-five years 64. Virgil was really born in Andes, to-day before that event. Pietola, a village near Mantua. 81 "Thou art my father, thou my author, Dante seems to have chosen him as his guide thou." for three reasons: Milton, P. L. ii. 864. r. He was his master in poetry. 2. The 84. Dante has seen three beasts, but hence- Middle Ages regarded Virgil as a prophet forth he speaks of only one, — the wolf. of the coming of Christ. [See note to Purg. I 48 THE DIVmE COMEDY. [Canto I Another way pursue, if thou wouldst 'scape From out that savage wilderness. This beast, 9° At whom thou criest, her way will suffer none To pass, and no less hindrance makes than death : So bad and so accursed in her kind, That never sated is her ravenous will. Still after food more craving than before. 95 To many an animal in wedlock vile She fasten?, and shall yet to many more, Until that greyhound come, who shall destroy Her with sharp pain. He will not life support By earth nor its base metals, but by love, 100 Wisdom, and virtue, and his land shall be The land 'twixt either Feltro. In his might Shall safety to Italia's plains arise. For whose fair realm, Camilla, virgin pure, Nisus, Euryalus, and Turnus fell. 105 He, with incessant chase, through every town Shall worry, until he to hell at length Restore her, thence by envy first let loose. I for thy profit pondering now devise. That thou mayst follow me ; and I, thy guide, 1 10 Will lead thee hence through an eternal space, Where thou shalt hear despairing shrieks, and see Spirits of old tormented, who invoke A second death ; and those next view, who dwell Content in fire, for that they hope to come, 115 Whene'er the time may be, among the blest. Into whose regions if thou then desire To ascend, a spirit worthier than I Must lead thee, in whose charge, when I depart, Thou shalt be left : for that Almighty King, 120 Who reigns above, a rebel to his law Adjudges me ; and therefore hath decreed That, to his city, none through me should come. He in all parts hath sway ; there rules, there holds 8g. He must first see the hideousness of sin 103. " Umile Italia," from Virgil, ^n. iii. and its inevitable consequences, and then climb 522. the mount of purgation before he can approach " Humilemque videraus the throne of God. Italiam." g8. The greyhound has been variously inter- 164. Characters in the j^neid, who died preted as signifying Henry of Luxembourg, fighting for their country. With the death of Uguccibne della Faggiola, — and Can Grande Turnus Virgil ends his poem, della Scala, Lord of Verona. The last is 113. "And in these days shall men seek probably meant. death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to 102. Verona, the country of Can della Scala, die, and death shall flee from them." Rev. ix. 6. is situated between Feltre, a city in the Marca 115. The spirits in Purgatory, Trevigiana, and Monte Feltro, a city in the ter- 118. Beatrice, who conducts the Poet through ritory of Urbino. Paradise. She represents Divine Wisdom, while Virgil represents Earthly Wisdom. Canto II.] HELL. 49 His citadel and throne. O happy those, 125 Whom there he chooses! " I to him in few : "Bard! by that God, whom thou didst not adore, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse I may escape) to lead me, where thou said'st, That I Saint Peter's gate may view, and those 130 Who, as thou tell'st, are in such dismal plight." Onward he moved, I close his steps pursued. CANTO IL ARGUMENT. After the invocation, which poets are used to prefix to ttieir works, he shows that, on a consideration of his own strength, he doubted whether it sufficed for the journey proposed to him, but that, being comforted by Virgilj he at last took courage, and followed him as his guide and master. Now was the day departing, and the air, Imbrowned with shadows, from their toils released All animals on earth ; and I alone Prepared myself the conflict to sustain, Both of sad pity, and that perilous road, 5 Which my unerring memory shall retrace. Muses ! O high genius ! now vouchsafe Your aid! O mind! that all I saw hast kept Safe in a written record, here thy worth And eminent endowments come to proof. lo 1 thus began : " Bard! thou who art my guide, Consider well, if virtue be in me Sufficient, ere to this high enterprise Thou trust me. Thou hast told that Silvius' sire, Yet clothed in corruptible flesh, among 15 The immortal tribes had entrance, and was there Sensibly present. Yet if heaven's great Lord, Almighty foe to ill, such favor showed. In contemplation of the high effect, Both what and who from him should issue forth, 20 130. The gate of Purgatory, which the Poet 8. " O thought that write all that I met, feigns to be guarded by an angel placed on that And in the tre^rie It set station by St. Peter. Of my braine, now shall men see X, A compendium of Virgil's description, ^«. If any virtue in thee be." iv. 522. Qora^Ar^ ApoUoniusBhodiuSyVS.. Ti,^, Chaucer ^ Temple of Fame /\\, -A. and iv. 1058. i4- jEneas. " The day gan failin; and the darke night, 19. The "high effect" is the founding of That revith bestis from their businesse, Rome. Berafte me my booke," etc. 20. The Roman Empire and CsBsar. Chaucer J The Assemble p/FouIes. so THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto IJ. It seems in reason's judgment well deserved : Sith he of Rome and of Rome's empire wide, In heaven's empyreal height was chosen sire : Both which, if truth be spoken, were ordained And 'stablished for the holy place, where sits 25 Who to great Peter's sacred chair succeeds. He from this journey, in thy song renowned. Learned things, that to his victory gave rise And to the papal robe. In after-times The chosen vessel also travelled there, 30 To bring us back assurance in that faith Which IS the entrance to salvation's way. But I, why should I there presume ? or who Permits it? not ^neas I, nor Paul, Myself I deem not worthy, and none else 35 Will deem me. I, if on this voyage then I venture, fear it will in folly end. Thou, who art wise, better my meaning know'st Than I can speak." As one, who unresolves What he hath late resolved, and with new thoughts 40 Changes his purpose, from his first intent Removed ; e'en such was I on that dun coast, Wasting in thought my enterprise, at first So eagerly embraced. " If right thy words I scan," replied that shade magnanimous, 45 " Thy soul is by vile fear assailed, which oft So overcasts a man, that he recoils From noblest resolution, like a beast At some false semblance in the twilight gloom. That from this terror thou mayst free thyself, 50 I will instruct thee why I came, and what I heard in that same instant, when for thee Grief touched me first. I was among the tribe, Who rest suspended, when a dame, so blest And lovely I besought her to command, 55 Called me ; her eyes were brighter than the star Of day ; and she, with gentle voice and soft, Angelically tuned, her speech addressed : 'O courteous shade of Mantua! thou whose fame Yet lives, and shall live long as nature lasts ! 60 A friend, not of my fortune but myself, 23. £m>^r(ri;/Ai;i^Ai = theE[npyrean, which , " Se 1' alma avete oResa da viltate." surrounds the nine heavens and is the seat of the Godhead. ^ ' (^ Ti 1 A . • « T» IX. 6r. This translation is based upon a wrona ^o. St. Paul. Acts IX. IS. " But the Lord • . ... r .1. ■ ■ 1 wiuiig . , . . /.. i_ r ^ • ^"^" interpretation of the original, — said unto him, Oo thy way; for he is a chosen vessel unto me." " ^' amico mio e non della ventura," 46. " L' anima tua 6 da viltate offesa." So which is more accurately translated by Long- in Berni, Orl. Inn. iii. i. 53. fellow, — S3. The spirits in Limbo, neither admitted to a state of glory nor doomed to punishment. Canto II.] HELL. 51 On the wide desert in his road has met Hindrance so great, that he through fear has turned. Now much I dread lest he past help have strayed, And I be risen too late for his relief, 65 From what in heaven of him I heard. Speed now, And by thy eloquent persuasive tongue, And by all means for his deliverance meet, Assist him. So to me will comfort spring. I, who bid thee on this errand forth, 70 Am Beatrice ; from a place I come Revisited with joy. Love brought me thence. Who prompts my speech. When in my IVIaster's sight I stand, thy praise to him I oft will tell.' " She then was silent, and I thus began : 75 'O Lady! by whose influence alone. Mankind excels whatever is contained Within that heaven which hath the smallest orb, So thy command delights me, that to obey. If it were done already, would seem late. So No need hast thou further to speak thy will ; Yet tell the reason, why thou art not loth To leave that ample space, where to return Thou burnest, for this centre here beneath.' " She then : ' Since thou so deeply wouldst inquire, 85 I will instruct thee briefly, why no dread Hinders my entrance here. Those things alone. Are to be feared, whence evil may proceed ; None else, for none are terrible beside. I am so framed by God, thanks to his grace ! go That any sufferance of your misery Touches me not, nor flame of that fierce fire Assails me. In high heaven a blessed dame Resides, who mourns with such effectual grief That hindrance, which I send thee to remove, ' 95 That God's stern judgment to her will inclines. To Lucia calling, her she thus bespake : " Now doth thy faithful servant need thy aid. And I commend him to thee." At her word Sped Lucia, of all cruelty the foe, 100 And coming to the place, where I abode " A friend of mine, and not the friend of fort- lunar heaven, which, being the lowest of all, has nne," meaning neither more nor less than " my the smallest circle, unfortunate friend." 83. The Empyrean. 71. Beatrice Portinari, his early love for 84. Earth is in the centre of the heavenly whom Dante describes in the New Life. Sym- spheres; Hell extends to the centre of the earth, bolically she represents Divine Wisdom, or 93. The Virgin Mary; symbolically, Divine Theology, or according to Scartaz2irii, Ecclesi- Mercy, astical Authority. 97- Lucia, the martyr of Syracuse, symbol 78. Every other thing comprised within the of Illuminating Grace. 52 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto II Seated with Rachel, her of ancient days, She thus addressed me : " Thou true praise of God ! Beatrice! why is not thy succor lent To him, who so much loved thee, as to leave 105 For thy sake all the multitude admires ? Dost thou not hear how pitiful his wail. Nor mark the death, which in the torrent flood, Swoln mightier than a sea, him struggling holds ? " Ne'er among men did any with such speed 1 10 Haste to their profit, flee from their annoy. As, when these words were spoken, I came here, Down from my blessed seat, trusting the force Of thy pure eloquence, which thee, and all Who well have marked it, into honor brings.' 115 " When she had ended, her bright beaming eyes Tearful she turned aside ; whereat I felt Redoubled zeal to serve thee. As she willed. Thus am I come : I saved thee from the beast. Who thy near way across the goodly mount 120 Prevented. What is this comes o'er thee then? Why, why dost thou hang back ? why in thy breast Harbor vile fear ? why hast not courage there, And noble daring ; since three maids, so blest, Thy safety plan, e'en in the court of heaven ; 121; And so much certain good my words forebode ? " As florets, by the frosty air of night Bent down and closed, when day has blanched their leaves. Rise all unfolded o". their spiry stems ; So was my fainting vigor new restored, 130 And to my heart such kindly courage ran, That I as one undaunted soon replied : " O full of pity she, who undertook My succor! and thou kind who didst perform So soon her true behest! With such desire 135 Thou hast disposed me to renew my voyage. That my first purpose fully is resumed. Lead on : one only will is in us both. Thou art my guide, my master thou, and lord." So spake I ; and when he had onward moved, \d,c I entered on the deep and woody way. loz. Rachel, symbol of Contemplation. Chinato e chiuso, poi che il sol T imbianca, 106. In order to magnify the name of Bea- S' apre e si leva dritto sopra il stelo." trice, Dante had devoted himself to study, Boccaccio^ II Filostrato, iii. xiii thus separating himself from the vulgar " But right as floures through the cold of night crowd {volgare schiera). See the New Life, Iclosed, stoupen in her stalkes lowe, § xliii. Redressen hem agen the sunne bright, 119. The wolf. And spreden in her kinde course by rowe," &c, 124. The Virgin Mary, Lucia, and Bea- Chaucer, Troilus and Creseide. ii. trice. It is from Boccaccio rather than Dante that 127. " Come fioretto dal notturno gelo Chaucer has taken this simile. Canto III.] HELL. S3 CANTO III. ARGUMENT. Dante, following Virgil, comes to the gate of Hell ; where, after having read the dread- ful words that are written thereon, they both enter. Here, as he understands from Virgil, those were punished who had past their time (for living it could not be called) in a state of apathy and indifference both to good and evil. Then pursuing their way, they arrive at the river Acheron ; and there find the old ferryman Charon, who takes the spirits over to the opposite shore ; which as soon as Dante reaches, he is seized with terror, and falls into a trance. " Through me you pass into the city of woe : Through me you pass into eternal pain : Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved : To rear me was the task of power divine, S Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here." Sucli characters 111 color dim, I marked lo Over a portal's lofty arch inscribed : Whereat I thus : " Master, these words import Hard meaning." He as one prepared replied :' " Here thou must all distrust be hiiu l thee leave ; Here be vile fear extinguished. fWe are come 15 Where IJiave told thee we-sha ll see the so ula To misery dpbined.-who intell ectual good Ha5ieJ©atJl); And wherThlTHand he had stretched forth To mine, with pleasant looks, whence I was cheered. Into that secret place he led me on. 20 Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pie.ced by no star. That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe. Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, 25 With hands together smote that swelled the sounds, Made up a tumult, that forever whirls 5. The three persons of the blessed Trinity. 21. " Post hsec omnia ad loca tartarea, et ad 7. The things created before Hell are the os infernalis baratri _deductus sum, qui simile angels, the heavens (and the matter out of videbatur puteo, loca vero eadem horridis tene- which the earth is formed) ; these are eternal, bris, faetoribus exhalantibus, stridoribus quoque After Hell were created the earth, — as to form, et nimiis plena erant ejulatibus, juxta quem in- — men, animals, plants, etc., and these are not fernum vermis erat infinitas magnitudinis, ligatus eternal. maxima catena." Alherici Visio, § 9. g. " Lasciate ogni speranza vol ch' entrate." 23. In the earlier circles of Hell Dante is So Berni OrLInti. i.'S. 53. moved to tears at the sufferings of the sinners. " Lascia pur della vita ogni speranza." Later, however, pity gives way to indignation. 17. Intellectual gMd=\LTiov:\i:Agfi oi Goi. and often bitter scorn. 54 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto III. Round through that air with soUd darkness stained, Like to the sand that in the wliirlwind flies. I then, with error yet encompast, cried : 3° "O master! what is this I hear? wliat race Are these, who seem so overcome with woe?" He thus to me : " This miserable fate Suffer the wretched souls of those, who lived Without or praise or blame, with that ill band 35 Of angels mixed, who nor rebellious proved Nor yet were true to God, but for themselves Were only. From his bounds Heaven drove them forth, Not to impair his lustre ; nor the depth Of Hell receives them, lest the accursed tribe 40 Should glory thence with exultation vain." I then : "Master! what doth aggrieve them thus, That they lament so loud ? " He straight replied : " That will I tell thee briefly. These of death No hope may entertain : and their blind life 45 So meanly passes, that all other lots They envy. Fame of them the world hath none, Nor suflfers ; mercy and justice scorn them both. Speak not of them, but look, and pass them by-" And I, who straightway looked, beheld a flag, 50 Which whirling ran around so rapidly. That it no pause obtained : and following came Such a long train of spirits, I should ne'er Have thought that death so many had despoiled. When some of these I recognized, I saw 55 And knew the shade of him, who to base fear Yielding, abjured his high estate. Forthwith I understood, for certain, this the tribe Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing 2g. " Unnumbered as the sands 47. " Cancelled from heaven and sacred mem- Of Barca or Cyrene's torrid soil, ory, Levied to side with warring winds, and Nameless in dark oblivion let them poise dwell." Their lighter wings." Milton, P. L. vi. 380. Milton, P. L. ii. 903. " Therefore eternal silence be their doom." 30. Scartazzini prefers the reading orror Ibid. 385. instead of error, and quotes tTie line, — 50. The flag represents those who in life " Me tum primum saevus circumstetit horror." were blown about by every wind of doctrine. JEn. ii. Cf. 36. Dante here supposes that in the revolt of "All the grisly legions that troop Lucifer against God, some of the angels remained Under the sooty flag of Acheron." neutral. This idea is probably an invention of Milton, Co-mus. his, as it is not found in the Bible. 56. Most commentators take this to be the her- 40. Lest the rebellious angels should exult mit Pietro del Murrone, elected pope under the at seeing those who were neutral, and therefore name of Celestine V, and induced by fraudulent less guilty, condemned to the same punishment means to abdicate, thus making way for his with themselves, successor Boniface VIII. He was imprisoned by the latter and died in 1295. Canto III.] HELL. 55 And to his foes. These wretches, who ne'er lived, 60 Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung By wasps and hornets, which bedewed their cheeks With blood, that, mixed with tears, dropped to their feet, And by disgustful worms was gathered there. . Then looking farther onwards, I beheld 65 A throng upon the shore of a great stream : Whereat I thus : " Sir! grant me now to know Whom here we view, and whence impelled they seem So eager to pass o'er, as I discern Through the blear light?" He thus to me in few : 70 " This shalt thou know, soon as our steps arrive Beside the woeful tide of Acheron." Then with eyes downward cast, and filled with shame, Fearing my words offensive to his ear. Till we had reached the river, I from speech 75 Abstained. And lo ! toward us in a bark Comes on an old man, hoary white with eld. Crying, "Woe to you, wicked spirits! hope not Ever to see the sky again. I come To take you to the other shore across, 80 Into eternal darkness, there to dwell In fierce heat and in ice. And thou, who there Standest, live spirit ! get thee hence, and leave These who are dead." But soon as he beheld I left them not, " By other way," said he, 85 " By other haven shalt thou come to shore, Not by this passage ; thee a nimbler boat Must carry." Then to him thus spake my guide : "Charon! thyself torment- not : so 'tis willed. Where will and power are one : ask thou no more." 90 Straightway in silence fell the shaggy cheeks Of him, the boatman o'er the livid lake, 60. That is, who never lived the true life. 86. The souls who are saved go first to the '* The sinful man may truly be called dead." shore where the Tiber falls into the sea, and are Convito, iv. 7. thence carried over the ocean to Purgatory 66. The Acheron. {P2irg. ii. 96 ff.). This may be the reference 72. Acheron is a Greek word signifying in Charon's words. Or they might mean that " stream of woe." According to mythology all Dante must cross the Acheron in some other souls must cross this river in order to enter Hades, way than in his boat. 77. " Portitor has horrendus aquas et flumina go. In Heaven, where God dwells who is able servat to do whatever he wills. Cf. Hell, v. 26, where Terribili squalore Charon, cui plurima Virgil repeats the same words to Minos, and memo Hell, vii. 10. Canities inculta jacet; stant lumina 92. " Vada livida." flamma." Virgil, Mn. vi. 320, Virgil, /En, vi. 298-300. " Totius ut lacus puticaeque paludis 82. " The delighted spirit Lividissima, maximeque est profunda vora^o." To bathe, in fiery floods, or to reside Catullus, xviii. 10. /n thrilling regions of thick-ribbed ice." Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, iii- -■' Cf. Milton, P. L. ii. fWi S6 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto III. Around whose eyes glared wheeling flames. Meanwhile Those spirits, faint and naked, color changed, And gnashed their teeth, soon as the cruel words 95 They heard. God and their parents they blasphemed, The human kind, the place, the time, and seed, That did engender them and give them birth. Then all together sorely wailing drew To the curst strand, that every man must pass loo Who fears not God. Charon, demoniac form, '■" With eyes of burning coal, collects them all, Beckoning, and each, that lingers, with his oar Strikes. As fall off the light autumnal leaves. One still another following, till the bough 105 Strews all its honors on the earth beneath ; E'en in like manner Adam's evil brood Cast themselves, one by one, down from the shore, Each at a beck, as falcon at his call. Thus go they over through the umbered wave ; 1 10 And eVer they on the opposing bank Be landed, on this side another throng Still gathers. " Son," thus spake the courteous guide, " Those who die subject to the wrath of God All here together come from every clime, 115 And to o'erpass the river are not loth : For so heaven's justice goads them on, that fear Is turned into desire. Hence ne'er hath past Good spirit. If of thee Charon complain. Now mayst thou know the import of his words." 120 This said, the gloomy region trembling shook So terribly, that yet with clammy dews Fear chills my brow. The sad earth gave a blast, That, lightening, shot forth a vermilion flame. Which all my senses conquered quite, and I 125 Down dropped, as one with sudden slumber seized. 101. Dante follows the spirit of his age 104. " Quam multa in silvis autumni frigore in conceiving the beings of mythology as primo demons. Lapsa cadunt folia." 102. *' His looks were dreadful, and his fiery Virgil, j^n, vi. 309. eyes Cf Apol. Rhod. iv. 214. Like two great beacons glared bright 109. Richzaino in the original means the and wide." signal — cry or lure — used by the hunter to Spenser, F. Q. vl. vii. 42. call back his bird. no. Umbered = A-ixV. The originalis ^r7/««. Canto IV.] HELL. 57 CANTO IV. ARGUMENT. The poet, being roused by a clap of thunder, and following his guide onwards, descends into Limbo, which is the first circle of Hell, where he finds the souls of those, who, although they have lived virtuously and have not to suffer for great sins, nevertheless, through lack of baptism, merit not the bliss of Paradise. Hence he is led on by Virgil to descend into the second circle. Broke the deep slumber in my brain a crash Of heavy thunder, that I shoolt myself, As one by rnain force roused. Risen upright, My rested eyes I moved around, and searched, With fixfed ken, to know what place it was 5 Wherein I stood. For certain, on the brink I found me of the lamentable vale, The dread abyss, that joins a thunderous sound Of plaints innumerable. Dark and deep. And thick with clouds o'erspread, mine eye in vain 10 Explored its bottom, nor could aught discern. " Now let us to the blind world there beneath Descend ; " the bard began, all pale of look : " I go the first, and thou shalt follow next." Then I, his altered hue perceiving, thus : 15 " How may I speed, if thou yieldest to dread, Who still art wont to comfort me in doubt ? " He then : " The anguish of that race below With pity stains my cheek, which thou for fear Mistakest. Let us on. Our length of way 20 Urges to haste.'' Onward, this said, he moved ; And entering led me with him, on the bounds Of the first circle that surrounds the abyss. Here, as mine ear could note, no plaint was heard Except of sighs, that made the eternal air 25 Tremble, not caused by tortures, but from grief Felt by those multitudes, many and vast. Of men, women, and infants. Then to me The gentle guide : " Inquirest thou not what sprits , Are these, which thou beholdest? Ere thou pass 30 Farther, I would thou know, that these of sin Were blameless ; and if aught they merited. It profits not, since baptism was not theirs, The portal to thy faith. If they before 8. Milton, P. L, viii. 242: — tized children, and of those virtuous men and " But long ere our approaching heard women who lived before the birth of our Saviour. Noise, other than the sound of dance or song, 34. Instead of porta = portal, Scartazzini Torment, and loud lament, and furious rage." reads /ar^£'= part. Longfellow accepts the for- 23. Limbo, containing the soub of unbap- mer reading, while Professor Norton adopts the 58 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto IV. The Gospel lived, they served not God aright ; 35 And among such am I. For these defects, And for no other evil, vv^e are lost ; Only so far afflicted, that we live Desiring without hope." Sore grief assailed My heart at hearing this, for well I knew 4" Suspended in- that Limbo many a soul Of mighty worth. " O tell me, sire revered! Tell me, my master ! " I began, through wish Of full assurance in that holy faith Which vanquishes all error ; " say, did e'er 45 Any, or through his own or other's merit. Come forth from thence, who afterward was blest ? " Piercing the secret purport of my speech, He answered : " I was new to that estate, When I beheld a puissant one arrive 5° Amongst us, with victorious trophy crowned. He forth the shade of our first parent drew, Abel his child, and Noah righteous man, Of Moses lawgiver for faith approved. Of patriarch Abraham, and David king, 55 Israel with his sire and with his sons. Nor without Rachel whom so hard he won, And others many more, whom he to bliss Exalted. Before these, be thou assured. No spirit of human kind was ever saved." 6o We, while he spake, ceased not our onward road. Still passing through the wood ; for so I name Those spirits thick beset. We were not far On this side from the summit, when I kenned A flame, that o'er the darkened hemisphere 65 Prevailing shined. Yet we a little space Were distant, not so far but I in part Discovered, that a tribe in honor high That place possessed. " O thou, who every art And science valuest! who are these, that boast 70 Such honor, separate from all the rest ? " He answered : " The renown of their great names. That echoes through your world above, acquires latter, translating, "baptism, which is part of 52. Adam. the faith that thou believest," 64. Summit = edge of the first circle, where 46, Other's merit = the merit of Christ. he had found himself when he awoke. Another 48. Dante has alluded to the descent of Christ reading is so7tno instead of sotnntp, which Pro- into Hell, but did not mention it directly, fessor Norton adopts and translates, "from where Virgil, however, understands his meaning. I slept." Longfellow's translation agrees with 49. Virgil died ig B.C. He had therefore Cary's. been in I.imbo fifty years, when Christ came to 70. The original onori is better translated by free the Saints and Patriarchs of the old dispen- the word honoresi, the term used by both sation. Longfellow and Norton, lvalue in the sense 50. Our Saviour. • of "to cause to have value" is obsolete. Canto IV.] HELL. 59 Favor in heaven, which holds them thus advanced." Meantime a voice I heard : " Honor the bard 75 SubUme! his shade returns, that left us late!" No sooner ceased the sound, than I beheld Four mighty spirits toward us bend their steps. Of semblance neither sorrowful nor glad. When thus my master kind began : " Mark him, 80 Who in his right hand bears that falchion keen, The other three preceding, as their lord. This is that Homer, of all bards supreme : Flaccus the next, in satire's vein excelling ; The third is Naso ; Lucan is the last. 85 Because they all that appellation own. With which the voice singly accosted me. Honoring they greet me thus, and well they judge." So I beheld united the bright school Of him the monarch of sublimest song, • go That o'er the others like an eagle soars. When they together short discourse had held, They turned to me, with salutation kind Beckoning me ; at the which my master smiled : Nor was this all ; but greater honor still 95 They gave me, for they made me of their tribe ; And I was sixth amid so learned a band. Far as the luminous beacon on we passed Speaking of matters, then befitting well To speak, now fitter left untold. At foot 100 Of a magnificent castle we arrived, Seven times with lofty walls begirt, and round Defended by a pleasant stream. O'er this As o'er dry land we passed. Next, through seven gates, I with those sages entered, and we came 105 Into a mead with lively verdure fresh. There dwelt a race, who slow their eyes around Majestically moved, and in their port Bore eminent authority ; they spake Seldom, but all their words were tuneful sweet. i lo We to one side retired, into a place Open and bright and lofty, whence each one 79. *' She nas to sober ne to glad." 86. The name of " bard sublime," see line 75. Chaucer^s Dream. go. Homer. 81. The falchion is the symbol of war 97. He is conscious of his own genius, sung by Homer. The works of the latter had 100. The things talked of there were compli- not yet been translated into Latin, and Dante mentary to Dante, hence not proper to be was ignorant of Greek. He knew Homer repeated by him. chiefly through the references in Aristotle. loi. Symbol of human knowledge. 84. The original has simply, Orazio satiro, 102. The seven cardinal virtues. Horace the satirist. 103. The stream is the emblem of eloquence. 85. Original = Cz/zVz"(7. Naso (like Flaccus 104. The seven liberal arts, forming the quad- above) is an antiquated term. riyium and the trivium. 6o THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto IV. Stood manifest to view. Incontinent Tiiere on the green enamel of the plain Were shown me the great spirits, by whose sight US I am exalted in my own esteem. Electra there I saw accompanied By many, among whom Hector I knew, Anchises' pious son, and with hawk's eye Csesar all armed, and by Camilla there 120 Penthesilea. On the other side. Old King Latinus, seated by his child Lavinia, and that Brutus I beheld, Who Tarquin chased, Lucretia, Cato's wife Marcia, with Julia and Cornelia there ; 125 And sole apart retired, the Soldan fierce. Then when a little more I raised my brow, I spied the master of the sapient throng. Seated amid the philosophic train. Him all admire, all pay him reverence due. 13' There Socrates and Plato both I marked, Nearest to him in rank, Democritus, Who sets the world at chance, Diogenes, With Heraclitus, and Empedocles, And Anaxagoras, and Thales sage, 13S Zeno, and Dioscorides well read In nature's secret lore. Orpheus I marked And Linus, Tully and moral Seneca, 114. For an interesting discussion of the use generosity. It is interesting to note that Dante's o{ enamei here, see Ruskin, Modern Painters, friend Giotto introduces Saladin in his frescoes iii. ch. 14. on the life of S. Francis, in the Church of S. Ir7. The daughter of Atlas, and mother of Croce in Florence. Dardanus, the founder of Troy. See Virg. yS'w. r28. Aristotle. Petrarch assigns the first place viii. 134, as referred to by Dante in his treatise to Plato. See Triumph of Fame, iii. In Ve Monarchia, ii, 3. "Electra, scilicet, nata the Convito (iv. 2) Dante calls Aristotle "the magni nominis regis Atlantis, ut de ambobus master of human reason." testimonium reddit poeta noster in octavo ubi r32. Democritus, who taught that the world yEneas ad Avandrum sic ait was made by the fortuitous concourse of atoms. " Dardanus Iliacse," etc. 133. Diogenes the Cynic. 120. Camilla is also mentioned, .^^//, i. 104. 134. Heraclitus ofEphesus,calIed the "Weep- 121. Queen of the Amazons, who fell in Asia ing Philosopher." Empedocles, follower of fighting for the Trojans. Pythagoras; said to have thrown himself into 122. Father-in-law of j^neas. the crater of .^tna. 123. Junius Brutus, the first consul. The 135. Anaxagoras, master of Pericles. Thales other Brutus, together with Cassius and Judas, of Miletus was founder of the Ionic School. is placed by the Poet in the lowest circle of Hell, 136. Zeno, chief of the Stoics. — that of the traitors. Dioscorides wrote a treatise on the properties 124. Lucretia, wife of CoUatinus. of plants and stones. 125. Julia was the daughter of Julius Caesar 138. Linj^s, fabulous singer, son of Apollo, and wife of Pompey. Cornelia was the Others, and with more probability,, read Livius. daughter of Scipio Africanus, and mother of 7'a//j' = Marcus Tullius Cicero. L. Annaeus the Gracchi. Seneca = the celebrated Roman Stoic philosO' 126. Saladin, Sultan of Egypt and Syria, born pher, teacher of Nero. 1137, died 1193, celebrated for his virtue and Canto V.] HELL. 6i Euclid and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Galenus, Avicen, and him who made 140 That commentary vast, Averroes. Of all to speak at full were vain attempt ; For my wide theme so urges, that ofttimes My words fall short of what bechanced. In two The six associates part. Another way 145 My sage guide leads me, from that air serene, Into a climate ever vexed with storms : And to a part I come, where no light shines. CANTO V. ARGUMENT. Coming into the second circle of Hell, Dante at the entrance beholds Minos the Infer- nal Judge, by whom he is admonished to bew are how he enters those regions. Here he witnesses the punishment of carnal^ sinnersTwlKrare -tossed about ceaselessly in the dark air by the most furious winds. Amongst these, he 'meets with Francesca oi Rimini, through pity at whose sad tale he falls fainting to the ground. From the first circle I descended thus Down to the second, which, a lesser space Embracing, so much more,of grief contains, Provoking bitter moans. /There Minos stands ijrinn#ig with ghastly feature : he, of all 5 Who enter, strict examining the crimes. Gives sentence, and dismisses them beneath. According as he foldeth him around : For when before him comes the ill-fated soul, It all coiiTesses ; and that judge severe 10 Of sins, considering what place in hell Suits the transgression, with his tail so oft Himself encircles, as degrees Ijeneath He dooms^it to descend. Before him stand Alway a numerous throng ; and in his turn 15 Each one to judgment passi^ng, speaks, and hears His fate, thence downward to his dwelling hurled. 139. Ptolemy, the astronomer and geographer, follows that each one of the nine concentric whose system Dante follows in the Divine circles is narrower than its predecessor. Comedy. Hippocrates, Galenus, and Avi- a. Minos was king of Crete. Virgil also cenna were three famous physicians, the first makes him one of the judges in Hell (yfi'M. a Greek, the second from Pergamos in Asia, vi. 132). the third an Arab. 5I Cf Milton, — 141. Arab philosopher, author of a celebrated '. " Death commentary on Aristotle. Grinned horrible a ghastly smile." 2. Hell being shaped like an inverted cone, it P. L. ii. 84s 62 THE DIVmE COMEDY. [Canto V. "O thou! who to this residence of woe Approachest?" when he saw me coming, cried Minos, relinquishing his dread employ,- 20 " Look how thou enter here ; beware in whom Thou place thy trust ; let not the entrance broad Deceive thee to thy harm." To him my guide : " Wherefore exclaimest ? Hinder not his way By destiny appointed ; so 't is willed 25 Where will and power are one. Ask thou no more." Now 'gin the rueful wailings to be heard. Now am I come where many a plaining voice Smites on mine ear. Into a place I came Where light was silent all. Bellowing there groaned 30 A noise, as of a sea in tempest torn By warring wings. The stormy blast of hell With restless fury drives the spirits on. Whirled round and dashed amain with sore annoy. When they arrive before the ruinous sweep, 35 There shrieks are heard, there lamentations, moans, And blasphemies 'gainst the good Power in heaven. I understood that to this torment sad The carnal sinners are condemned, in whom Reason by lust is swayed. As in large troops 40 And multitudinous, when winter reigns, The starlings on their wings are borne abroad ; So bears the tyrannous gust those evil souls. On this side and on that, above, below, It drives them : hope of rest to solace them 9 45 Is none, nor e'en of milder pang. As cranes, Chanting their dolorous notes, traverse the sky, Stretched out in long array ; so I beheld Spirits, who came loud wailing, hurried on By their dire doom. Then I : " Instructor! who 50 Are these, by the black air so scourged? " — " The first 'iVIong those, of whom thou question 'st," he replied, "O'er many tongues was empress. She in vice Of luxury was so shameless, that she made Liking be lawful by promulged decree, 55 To clear the blame she had herself incurred. This is Semiramis, of whom 't is writ, 25. Cf. Hell, iii. 89-go, where the same words Wheel their due flight in varied ranks de- are spoken to Charon. scried ; 35. The precipice which surrounds the vast And each with outstretched neck his rank main- central abyss of Hell. tains, 46. This simile is imitated by Lorenzo de' In marshalled order through the ethereal void." Medici, in his Ambra, a poem, first published Cf. Homer, //. iii. 3. Virgil, j^n, x.. 264, by Mr. Roscoe, in the Appendix to his Life of and Dante's Purgatory, Canto xxiv. 63. Lorenzo: — 57. Queen of Assyria, famous for her licen- " Marking the tracts of air, the clamorous tiousness. The expression" of whom 'tis writ" cranes refers to a passage in Orosius (f/i'st. i. ,,, ^)^ Canto v.] HELL. 63 That she succeeded Ninus her espoused ; And held the land, which now the Soldan rules. The next in amorous fury slew herself, 60 And to Sicheus' ashes broke her faith : Then follows Cleopatra, lustful queen." There marked I Helen, for whose sake so long The time was fraught with evil ; there the great Achilles, who with love fought to the end. 6; Paris I saw, and Tristan ; and beside, A thousand more he showed me, and by name Pointed them out, whom love bereaved of life. When I had heard my sage instructor name Those dames and knights of antique days, o'erpowered 70 By pity, well-nigh in amaze my mind Was lost ; and I began : " Bard ! willingly I would address those two together coming. Which seem so light before the wind." He thus : " Note thou, when nearer they to us approach. 75 Then by that love which carries them along, Entreat ; and they will come." Soon as the wind Swayed them toward us, I thus framed my speech : " O wearied spirits ! come, and hold discourse With us, if by none else restrained." As doves 80 By fond desire invited, on wide wings And firm, to their sweet nest returning home, Cleave the air, wafted by their will along ; Thus issued, from that troop, where Dido ranks. They, through the ill air speeding ; with such force 85 My cry prevailed by strong affection urged. " O gracious creature and benign ! who goest Visiting, through this element obscure, Us, who the world with bloody stain imbrued ; If, for a friend the King of all, we owned, 90 Our prayer to him should for thy peace arise, which Dante has here almost literally trans- 66. Some take Paris to be the son of Priam lated, " Huic mortuo Semiramis uxor successit." and the lover of Helen ; others believe a knight 59. In Dante's time the Sultan of Egypt was of mediaeval romance to be meant. also called Sultan of Babylon. The word " now " Tristan was a knight of King Arthur's means in the year 1300. Round Table. He fell in love with Iseult, wife 60. Dido, referred toby name in line 84. The of his uncle Mark, King of Cornwall, and was story of her love is told in the j^neid i. and iv. wounded by the latter by a poi.soned arrow. 62. Queen of Egypt, mistress of Julius Csesar Iseult came to him on his death-bed, and as the and of Mark Antony. Made prisoner by lovers embraced, both died of love and despair, Octavius, she killed herself. This beautiful legend forms the subject of along 63. Wife of Menelaus, Her flight with Paris poem by Gottfried von Strassburg, and one by was the cause of the Trojan War. Chrt^tien de Troye (lost) , and has been treated in 65. Ach'.lles' love for Polyxena was the cause modern times by Tennyson, Matthew Arnold, of his der.th, he having been killed treacherously Swinburne, and Wagner, by her brother Paris, while the marriage was taking place. 64 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto V Since thou hast pity on our evil plight. Of whatsoe'er to hear or to discourse It pleases thee, that will we hear, of that Freely with thee discourse, while e'er the wind, 95 As now, is mute. The land, that gave rae birth, Is situate on the coast, where Po descends To rest in ocean with his sequent streams. " Love, that in gentle heart is quickly learnt, Entangled him by that fair form, from me loo Ta'en in such cruel sort, as grieves me still : Love, that denial takes from none beloved. Caught me with pleasing him so passing well, That, as thou seest, he yet deserts me not. Love brought us to one death : Caina waits 105 The soul, who spilt our life." Such were their words : At hearing which downward I bent my looks, And held them there so long, that the bard cried : "What art thou pond'ring? " I in answer thus : "Alas! by what sweet thoughts, what fond desire no Must they at length to that ill pass have reached ! " Then turning, I to them my speech addressed. And thus began : " Francesca! your sad fate Even to tears my grief and pity moves. But tell me ; in the time of your sweet sighs, 115 By what, and how love granted, that ye knew Your yet uncertain wishes ? " She replied : " No greater grief than to remember days 96. Ravenna. M. Amp&re speaks of the of Rimini, a man of extraordinary courage, but topographical accuracy of this passage, in his deformed in his person.' His brother Paolo, Voyage Dantesque. who unhappily possessed those graces which the 99. Cf. the first line of the sonnet in the Ne'w husband of Francesca wanted, engaged her iy^, § xx; — ■ affections; and being taken in adultery, they *' Love and gentle heart are one same thing.'' were both put to death by the enraged loi. Because she died in sin, without a Gianciotto. chance to repent; or perhaps because she was The whole of this passage is alluded to by caught in. Jlagrante delicto. Petrarch, in his Triianph of Love, iii. 102. '* Amor, ch' a null' amato amar perdona." Leigh Hunt has expanded the episode into a So Boccaccio, in his Filocopo : — long poem, — called Story of Rifnini. " Amore mai non perdonb r amore a nullo ii8. Imitated by Chaucer: — amato." " For of Fortunis sharp adversite And Puici, in the Morganie Maggiore, iv. : — The worst kind of infortune is this, " E perch^ amor mal volontier perdona, A man to have been in prosperite, Che non .sia al fin sempre amato chi ama." And it remembir when it passid is." Indeed many of the Italian poets have Troilus and Creseide, iii. 233. repeated this verse. Tennyson also refers to these lines in 105. Cai'na is the place where fratricides, or Locksley Hall, — traitors against their kindred, are punished. '* Comfort, comfort, scorned of devils, this is Gary's note here is inaccurate. Ss^/Iellj truth the Poet sings, xxxii. That a sorrow's crown of sorrows 'is remem- 113. Francesca, daughterofGuidodaPolenta, bering happier things." lord of Ravenna, was given by her father in Alfred de Musset protests against th« truth marriage to Gianciotto, son of Malatesta, lord of the sentiment in his poem, — La SolitTHe. Canto VI.] HELL. 65 Of joy, when misery is at hand! That kens Thy learned instructor. Yet so eagerly 120 If thou art bent to know the primal root, From whence our love gat being, I will do, As one, who weeps and tells his tale. One day, For our delight we read of Lancelot, How him love thralled. Alone we were, and no 125 Suspicion near us. Ofttiraes by that reading Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue Fled from our altered cheek. But at one point Alone we fell. When of that smile we read, The wished smile, rapturously kissed 130 By one so deep in love, then he, who ne'er From me shall separate, at once my lips All trembhng kissed. The book and writer both Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day We read no more." While thus one spirit spake, 135 The other wailed _so sorely, that heart-struck I, through compassion fainting, seemed not far From death, and like a corpse fell to the ground. CANTO VI. ARGUMENT. On his recovery, the Poet finds himself in the third circle, where the gluttonous are punished. Their torment is, to lie in the mire, under a continual and heavy storm of hail, snow, and discolored water ; Cerberus meanwhile barlcing over them with his threefold throat, and rending them piecemeal. One of these, who on earth was named Ciacco, foretells the divisions with which Florence is about to be distracted. Dante proposes a question to his guide, who solves it ; and they proceed towards the fourth circle. My sense reviving, that erewhile had drooped With pity for the kindred shades, whence grief O'ercame me wholly, straight around I see The original perhaps is in Boethius, De was the means of bringing Launcelot and Cofisol. Pkiloso^k. " In omni adversitate Guinever together. foKunEe infelicissimum genus est infortunii 136. " E caddi, come corpo morto cade." fuisse felicem et non esse." IT. 4. So Pulci; — . 124. One of the knights of the Round Table, " E cadde come morto in terra cade." and the lover of Ginevra, or Guinever, cele- Morgante Maggoire, c. xxii. brated in romance. The incident alluded to AndAriosto: — seems to have made a strong impression on the " E cada, come corpo morto cade." imagination of Dante, who introduces it again, Orl. Fur. ii. 55, less happily, in the Paradise, xvi. 14, 15. Dante's last refuge was at the house of a 128. " Questoquelpuntofii, che solmi vinse." nephew of Francesca, — Guido Novello da Tasso, II Torrismondo. Polenta. Hence his grief at the sad fate of the 134. " Love's purveyors " in the original = lovers. Galeotto, who according to the old romances 66 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto VI. New torments, new tormented souls, which way Soe'er I move, or turn, or bend my sight. S In the third circle I arrive, of showers Ceaseless, accursed, heavy and cold, unchanged Forever, both in kind and in degree. Large hail, discolored water, sleety flaw Through the dun midnight air streamed down amain : lo . Stank all the land whereon that tempest fell. Cerberus, cruel monster, fierce and strange, Through his wide threefold throat, barks as a dog Over the multitude immersed beneath. His eyes glare crimson, black his unctuous beard, 15 His belly large, and clawed the hands, with which He tears the spirits, flays them, and their limbs Piecemeal disparts. Howling there spread, as curs, Under the rainy deluge, with one side The other screening, oft they roll them round, 20 A wretched, godless crew. When that great worm Descried us, savage Cerberus, he oped His jaws, and the fangs showed us ; not a limb Of him but trembled. Then my guide, his palms Expanding on the ground, thence filled with earth 25 Raised them, and cast it in his ravenous maw. E'en as a dog, that yelling bays for food His keeper, when the morsel comes, lets fall His fury, bent alone with eager haste To swallow it ; so dropped the loathsome cheeks 30 Of demon Cerberus, who thundering stuns The spirits, that they for deafness wish in vain. We, o'er the shades thrown prostrate by the. brunt Of the heavy tempest passing, set our feet Upon their emptiness, that substance seemed. 35 They all along the earth extended lay, Save one, that sudden raised himself to sit. Soon as that way he saw us pass. " O thou! " He cried, " who through the infernal shades art led, Own, if again thou know'st me. Thou wast framed 40 Or ere my frame was broken." I replied : g. i^/rtTo = sudden gust or burst of wind. Cf. Cf. Ariosto, — Milton, — ■■ Ch' al gran vermc infernal mette la briglia, " Snow and hail, and stormy gust and E che di lui conft a lei par dispone." ''^^^■" Oyl. F,cr. xlvi. 78. 12. Cerberus, a dog with three heads, in 35. The spirits have not yet their body, but ancient mythology, guardian of Hell. merely the appearance of them. Only after the 21. " Juxta— infernum vermis erat infinitje Last Judgment will their human forms be re- magnitudinae ligatus maximH catena." Alberici stored to them. Visio, § 9. 40. " You were born before I died." Dante In Canto xxxiv. 102, Lucifer is called was born in 1265: Ciacco died in 1286 " The abhorred worm, that boreth through the world." Canto VI.] HELL. 67 " The anguish thou endurest perchance so takes Thy form from my remembrance, that it seems As if I saw thee never. But inform Me who thou art, that in a place so sad 45 Art set, and in such torment, that although Other be greater, none disgusteth more." He thus in answer to my words rejoined : " Thy city heaped with envy to the brim, Aye, that the measure overflows its bounds, 50 Held me in brighter days. Ye citizens Were wont to name me Ciacco. For the sin Of gluttony, damned vice, beneath this rain, E'en as thou seest, I with fatigue am worn ; Nor I sole spirit in this woe : all these 55 Have by like crime incurred like punishment." No more he said, and I my speech resumed : " Ciacco ! thy dire affliction grieves me much, Even tp tears. But tell me, if thou knowest, What shall at length befall the citizens 60 Of the divided city ; whether any Just one inhabit there : and tell the cause, Whence jarring discord hath assailed it thus ? " He then : " After long striving they will come To blood ; and the wild party from the woods 65 Will chase the other with much injury forth. Then it behoves, that this must fall, within Three solar circles ; and the other rise By borrowed force of one, who under shore Now rests. It shall a long space hold aloof 70 Its forehead, keeping under heavy weight The other opprest, indignant at the load, And grieving sore. The just are two in number, But they neglected. Avarice, envy, pride, Three fatal sparks, have set the hearts of all 75 On fire." Here ceased the lamentable sound; And I continued thus : " Still would I learn 49. Florence, 67, The Bianchi must fall, 52. Ciacco, according to some commentators, 68. Within three years. Ciacco is speaking is a nickname, meaning "hog." Others hold in 1300; the Bianchi and with them Dante were that it is the man's real name. He is intro- banished from Florence in 1302. duced in Boccaccio^s Decameron, Giorn. ix, 69. Charles of Valois, by whose means the Nov. 8. Neri were replaced. 61. Divided into the Bianchi and Neri fac- Better than this, however, is to interpret tions. " one " to mean Boniface VIII. , in which case the 65. So called because it was headed by Veri word piaggia of the original should be trans- de' Cerchi, whose family had lately come into lated, " using flattery, blandishments." Pro- the city from Acone, and the woody country of fessor Norton translates, " tacking," i.e. playing the Val di Nievole. fast and loose with both parties. 66. The opposite party of the Neri, at the 73. It is not known who these two are. head of which was Corso Donati. 68 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto VI More from thee, further parley still entreat. Of Farinata and Tegghiaio say, They who so well deserved ; of Giacopo, 80 Arrigo, Mosca, and the rest, who bent Their minds on working good. Oh! tell me where They bide, and to their knowledge let me come. For I am prest with keen desire to hear If heaven's sweet cup or poisonous drug of hell, 85 Be to their lip assigned." He answered straight : " These are yet blacker spirits. Various crimes Have sunk them deeper in the dark abyss. If thou so far descendest, thou mayst see them. But to the pleasant world when thou returnest, 90 Of me make mention, I entreat thee, there. No more I tell thee, answer thee no more." This said, his fixed eyes he turned askance, A little eyed me, then bent down his head, And 'midst his blind companions with it fell.- 95 When thus my guide; " No more his bed lie leaves, Ere the last angel-trumpet blow. The Power Adverse to these shall then in glory come. Each one forthwith to his sad tomb repair, Resume his fleshly vesture and his form, 100 And hear the eternal doom re-echoing rend The vault." So passed we through that mixture foul Of spirits and rain, with tardy steps ; meanwhile Touching, though slightly, on the life to come. For thus I questioned : " Shall these tortures. Sir! 105 When the great sentence passes, be increased. Or mitigated, or as now severe? " He then : " Consult thy knowledge ; that decides That, as each thing to more perfection grows. It feels more sensibly both good and pain. no Though ne'er to true perfection may arrive This race accurst, yet nearer then, than now. They shall approach it." Compassing that path, Circuitous we journeyed, and discourse. Much more than I relate between us passed : 115 Till at the point, whence the steps led below, Arrived, there Plutus, the great foe, we found. 79. See notes to Hell, x. 32, and xvi. 42. 108. The usual explanation of this passage is 80. See note to Hell, xvi. 45. to refer the word " knowledge " to the teachings 81. Of Arrigo, who is said by the commenta- of Aristotle, who declares that the more perfect tors to have been of the noble family of the the body, the more susceptible is it to pain and Fifanti, no mention afterwards occurs. Mosca pleasure. degli Uberti is introduced in Canto xxviii. 117. Plutus, the god of Riches, is made by 91. Ciacco, like other souls in Hell, desires Dante a demon, in accordance with his custom Dante to keep his name alive in the world above, when introducing mythological characters in 97. The trumpet announcing the Last Judg- Hell. mcnt. Cf. Matth. xxiv. 31. The " adverse Power" is Christ. Canto VII.] HELL. 69 CANTO VII. ARGUMENT. In the present Canto, Dante describes his descent into the fourth circle, at the beginning of which he sees Plutus stationed. Here one like doom awaits the prodigal and the avaricious ; which is, to meet in direful conflict, roUing great weights against each other with mutual upbraidings. From hence Virgil takes occasion to show how vain the goods that are committed into the charge of Fortune ; and this moves our author to inquire what being that Fortune is, of whom he speaks ; which question being resolved, they go down into the fifth circle, where they find the wrathful and slothful tormented in the Stygian lake. Having made a compass round great part of this lake, they come at last to the base of a lofty tower. " Ah me ! O Satan ! Satan ! " loud exclaimed Plutus, in accent hoarse of wild alarm : And the kind sage, whom no event surprised, To comfort me thus spake : " Let not thy fear Harm thee, for power in him, be sure, is none 5 To hinder down this rock thy safe descent." Then to that swoln lip turning, "Peace! " he cried, " Curst wolf ! thy fury inward on thyself Prey, and consume thee! Through the dark profound Not without cause he passes. So 't is willed 10 On high, there where the great Archangel poured Heaven's vengeance on the first adulterer proud." As sails, full spread and bellying with the wind. Drop suddenly collapsed, if tbe mast split ; So to the ground down dropped the cruel fiend. 15 Thus we, descending to the fourth steep ledge, Gained on the dismal shore, that all the woe Hems in of all the universe. Ah me! Almighty Justice! in what store thou heap'st New pains, new troubles, as I here beheld. 20 Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this? E'en as a billow, on Charybdis rising. Against encountered billow dashing breaks ; Such is the dance this wretched race must Iea,d, Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found, 25 r. " Pape Satan, pape Satan aleppe." 22, Cf. — Of the many efforts to explain this line none " As when two billows in the Irish sowndes are satisfactory, and perhaps it is better to under- Forcibly driven with contrarie tides, stand it simply as an exclamation of rage. Do meet together; each aback rebounds 11. Michael, as it is in the original. With roaring rage, and dashing on all sides, 12. Satan. The best commentary on this That filleth all the sea with foam, divides passage is contained in Rev. xii. 7-9. The The doubtful current into divers wayes." word sirupo, translated here " adulterer," means Spenser ^ F. Q. iv, i, 42. rather adultery in the sense of infidelity. 25. In Purg. xx. 11, Dante says that Ava- 16. The word lacca^ which Gary translates rice — antica hipa — is more universal than " ledge," means cavity, hollow. all other vices. 70 THE DIVINE COMEDY. [Canto VII. From one side and the other, with loud voice, Both rolled on weights, by main force of their breasts, Then smote together, and each one forthwith Rolled them back voluble, turning again ; Exclaiming these, "Why boldest thou so fast?" 30 Those answering, " And why castest thou away? " So, still repeating their despiteful song, They to the opposite point on either hand. Traversed the horrid circle : then arrived, Both turned thera round, and through the middle space 35 Conflicting met again. At sight whereof I, stung with grief, thus spal