LITERATURE AND POETRT 7" DR. SCHAFPS WORKS. Vol. Vol, Vol. 1. II. III. Vol. Vol, IV, VI HISTORY OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. 5th edition, revised and enlarged. 1890. Apostolic Christianity, A.D. !-ioo. 8vo, $4,00. Ante-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 100-325. 8vo, $4.00. Nicene and Post-Nicene Christianity, A.D. 311-600. 8vo, $4 00. Mediaeval Christianity, A.D. 590-1073. 8vo, $4,00. Modern Christianity — The German Refornnation, 8vo, $4.00. [Vols. V. and VII. are in course of preparation.] THE CREEDS OF CHRISTENDOM. 6th edition, revised, 3 vols. 1890. 8vo, $15.00. Vol. I. History of Creeds. Vol. II. The Greel< and Latin Creeds (with Translations). Vol. III. The Protestant Creeds (with Translations). THE TEACHING OF THE TV/ ELVE APOSTLES ; or, THE OLD- EST CHURCH MANUAL. 3d edition, revised and enlarged. 1889. 8vo, $2.50. ST. AUGUSTIN, MELANCHTHON, NEANDER. Three Biogra- phies. 1886. i2mo, $1.00. 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CHURCH AND STATE IN THE UNITED STATES; or, The Ameri- can Idea of Religious Freedom and its Practical Effect. 1888. 8vo, $1.50. CREED REVISION IN THE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHES, 1890, Svo. 50 cents. LITERATURE AND POETRY: Studies in the English Language, the Poetry of the BibJe, the Dies Irae, the Stabat Mater, the Hymns of St. Bernard, Dante Alighieri, and the Divina Comme- dia. 1890. 8vo, $2.50. '^ : ■ > ''■' ?.. [St. Andrews, Scotland, 1888] LITERATL^KE AND POETRY STUDIES ON THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE ; THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE ; THE DIES IK^ ; THE STABAT MATEE ; THE HYMNS OF ST. BEENAED J THE UNIYEESITY, ANCIENT AND MODEEN ; DANTE ALIGHIEEI ; THE DIYINA COMMEDIA PHILIP SCHAFF D.D. LL.D PROFESSOR OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, NEW YORK • KEW YOKK CHARLES SCPIBNER'S SONS 1890 COPYKIGHT, 1890, BY CHAELES SCKIBNEK'S SONS. Wm. F. Fell & Co., PRINTERS, PHILADELPHIA. DEDICATED MY FAMILY CONTENTS. I. The English Language : Heterogeneous in Formation, Homo- geneous IN Character, Universal in Destination for THE Spread of Civilization, 1-62 Language and Reason, 1. — Origin of Language, 2. — Diversity of Language, 3-4. — The English Language — Grimm's Judgment, 5. — The Composite Character of the English Race and Language, 6. — The Proportion of Saxon, Latin, and other Elements in Eng- lish, 7-8. — The Anglo-Saxon Stock, 9-14. — The Saxon Element in the English Bible, 14. — Illustrations from Shakespeare, 15. — The Latin Element, 16. — Original Latinisms, 16-19. — French Latinisms, 19-21. — The Gradual Mingling of the Saxon and Nor- man, 21-23. — The Relation of the Norman and Saxon Elements, 23-25. — Illustrations from Milton, 26. — Illustrations from Daniel Webster, 26-29. — The Other Elements of the English Language, 29.— The Celtic Element, 29.— The Danish, or Norse Element, 30.— Hebrew Words, 31.— Greek Words, 31.— Dutch Words, 32.— Italian Words, 33.— Spanish Words, 33. Arabic Words, 33. — Persian Words, 33. — Turkish Words, 34. — Slavonic Words, 34. — Indian Words and Names, 34. — Americanisms, 34. — Hybrid Words, 35. — The Organic Union of these Elements, 36. — Results of this Mixture. Spelling, 37. — New Middle Sounds, 38. — Musical English — Illustrations from Byron, Tennyson, and Poe, 37-38. — Simplicity of the Grammar, 40-41. — Brevity, 42-45. — Monosylla- bic Character, 45. — Illustrations from Shakespeare, Wordsworth, Byron, Tennyson, 46-50. — Large Number of Synonyms, 51-54. — Perfectibility, 54-55. — Cosmopolitan Destination, 55. — Spread of the English Language, 56-59. — Providential Design, 59-60. — The English Language and the Bible, 60-62. — Conclusion, 62. IL The Poetry OF the Bible, 63-133 Origin of Poetry and Music, 64. — Poetry and Inspiration, 65. — Poetry and Religion, 65.— The Poetry of the Bible, 66.— The Spirit of Bible Poetry, 70.— Poetic Merit, 74.— Tributes of Poets and Scholars to Hebrew Poetry, 77. Classification of Bible Po- etry, 79, — Lyric Poetry, 80. — The Song of Lamech, 82. — The Song of Moses, 83. — Lyrics in the Later Historical Books, 86. — David's Lament of Jonathan, 88. — The Psalter, 91. — The Lamentations, ix CONTENTS. 93. — Lyrics in the New Testament, 95. — Didactic Poetry, 97. — The Proverbs, 99. — Ecclesiastes, 104. — Fable and Parable, 105. — Prophetic Poetry, 106. — Dramatic Poetry, 112. — The Song of Songs, 113.— The Book of Job, 116.— The Form of Bible Poetry: Poetic Diction, 120. — Versification, 122. — Parallelism of Mem- bers, 125. — Literature on Bible Poetry, 130. The Received Latin Text, 134. — The Name and Use of the Poem, 134. — Contents, 134. — Character and Value, 138. — Opin- ions of Critics, 141. — Origin and History, 145. — Thomas of Ce- lano, 146.— The Text of Mantua, 149.— The Text of Hammer- lin of Zurich, 150. — A Political Perversion, 151. — Translation of the Dies L-se, 152. — English Translations, 155. — German Trans- lations, 173. — Literature, 182. — Chronological List of English Versions, 183. IV. The Stabat Mater Dolorosa, 187-217 The Two Stabat Maters, 187.— The Mater Dolorosa, 188.— Character and History of the Hymn, 190. — Francis of Assisi, 195. — Jacobus de Benedictis, 196. — English Translations, 198. — German Translations, 210. — Literature, 216. V. The Stabat Mater Speciosa, 218-231 The Latin Text, 218. — The Discovery of the Mater Speciosa, 220.— Authorship, 222.— Merits, 222.— English Translations, 223. — German Translations, 229. VI. St. Bernard as a Hymnist, 232-255 Sketch of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 232. — " Jesu dulcis Memo- ria," 233.— The Benedictine Text, 234.— Mone's Text, 237.— English Translations, by Caswall, 239. — By J. W. Alexander, 241.— By Ray Palmer, 242.— By A. Coles, 242.— German Trans- lation by Count Zinzendorf, 243. — St. Bernard's Passion Hymns, 245. — Ad Cor Christi : " Summi Regis Cor, Aveto," 245. — Translation of Edward A. Washburn, 246. — Ad Faciem Christi: " Salve Caput Cruentatura," 248. — Translation by Mrs. E. R. Charles, 249.— By A. Coles, 250.— Modern Reproduc- tions of Ancient Hymns, 252. — Gerhardt's "0 Haupt voU Blut und Wunden," 253. — J. W. Alexander's " Sacred Head now- Wounded," 263. VII. The Umversity : Past, Present, and Future, 256-278 The Mediaeval University, 256. The University of Bologna, 262. The Eighth Centenary of the University of Bologna, 265. — The American University, 273. — Appendix, 278. CONTENTS. XI PAGE VIII. Daxte Alighieri, 279-337 Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, 279.— Life of Dante, 284.— Dante and Beatrice, 28G. — The Donna Pietosa, 292. — Dante's Educa- tion, 298.— His Learning, 299.— His Marriage, 299.— Dante in Public Life, 300. — His Banishment. Dante and Boniface YIIL, 303.— Dante in Exile, 304, — Can Grande, the Veltro, and the Dux, 308. — Dante in Ravenna, 312. — Death and Bu- rial, 313. — Posthumous Fame, 314. — The Sixth Centenary of Dante's Birth, 315. — Character and Habits of Dante, 316. — Portraits of Dante, 317. — The Works of Dante, 319. — The New Life, 319.— The Banquet, 319.— On the Empire, 320.— The Canzoniere, 322. — On Popular Eloquence, 323. — On Water and Earth, 323.— Letters, 324.— The Creed, 324.— The Comedy, 325.— Note on Giotto's Portrait of Dante, 325. Dante Chronicle, 326 Dante Literature, 338 IX. Poetic Tributes to Dante 338-344 Michael Angelo Buonarotti, 338.— Ludwig Uhland, 339.— W. W. Skeat, 340. — Henry Wardsworth Longfellow, 343. — Alfred Tennyson, 343. — Emanuel Geibel, 344. X. The DivixA Commedia 345-429 General Estimate, 345. — The Sources of the Commedia, 348. — Name of the Poem, 352. — Time of Composition, 354. — Dura- tion of the Vision, 356. — Dante's Cosmology, 357. — Explana- tion of the Commedia, 360. — Design of the Commedia, 365. — The Way to Paradise, 367.— The Poetic Form of the Com- media, 370. — The Dark Forest, 372. — The Inscription to Hell, 373. — Eternal Punishment, 375. — Vestibule or Fore-Hell, 378. — The Structure of the Inferno, 380. — Sin and Punishment, 382.— Impartiality of Dante, 383.— The Nine Circles of the Inferno, 384.— The Purgatorio, 392.— The Paradiso, 395.— The Beatific Vision, 403. — Dante's Theology, 405. — Dante's Rela- tion to the Papacy and the Reformation, 410. — Dante and the Joachimites, 416. — Dante and Scbelling. The Three Ages of Christianity, 424. Alphabetical Index, 431-436 Illustrations. Dante's Universe, 357 Dante's Inferno, 380 Dante's Purgatorio, • 392 The Rose of the Blessed, in Dante's Paradiso, 40S THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: ITS COSMOPOLITAN CHARACTER AND MISSION FOR THE SPREAD OF CIVILIZATION. LANGUAGE AND EEASON. Language, next to reason, is the greatest gift of God to man. It raises him above the brute creation and makes him the prophet and king of nature. It is the inseparable companion of rea- son, its utterance and embodiment, the interpreter of thought and feeling, the medium of intercourse, the bond of society, and the source of all that happiness which springs from contact be- tween heart and heart. It is the ^^ armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.^' So close is the connection between intelligence and speech, be- tween thought and word, that the one may be called the inward speech, or speech concealed, and the other the outward thought, or thought revealed. Hence, also, the intimate relation between grammar, which treats of the laws of language, and logic, which teaches the laws of thought; the one is the logic of speech, the other the grammar of reason. The second person of the holy Trinity is called by St. John the ^^ Logos,'' or the personal Word; for in him God is revealed to himself, and through him he reveals himself to the world. A distinguished writer on comparative philology denies this connection between reason and language. He maintains that language belongs not to man as an individual, but as a member of society, and that a solitary child would never frame a lan- guage, but remain a mute all his life. Granted, but such a child would also remain ignorant and would never become a man intellectually or morally. All his mental faculties would 1 2 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. lie dormant or be extinguished altogether. It is idle to reason from a sheer possibility which God never intended, and which would destroy the very nature and destiny of man. For man is essentially and constitutionally a social as he is a rational being. In the same degree in which the mind produces thoughts it also clothes them in words of some kind, although they may not be expressed or uttered. If a man thinks he knows a thing, but cannot say it, his knowledge is to the same extent defective ; the idea may be begotten, but it is not born until it assumes shape and form in some word or words, or some symbolic signs, however imperfectly they may convey the meaning. And it must be admitted that language even in its most perfect state is only a partial revelation of reason which has hidden depths transcending the resources of grammar and dictionary. All human knowledge ^'ends in mystery,''^ ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE. The origin of language must be divine, like that of reason itself. In creatino; Adam a rational beino; or with the facultv of knowledge, God endowed him at the same time not, indeed, with a full-formed grammar and diction, as little as with a minute positive knowledge of all surrounding objects, but with the power or capacity and with the organ of articulate speech, and taught him also the actual use of words as signs of ideas. This capacity grew and developed itself with the expansion of reason and observation, knowledge and experience, by an inherent law and impulse or instinct under the direction of the Creator. Adam himself named his female companion and the objects of ' The science of language as such is of recent growth, but lias made aston- ishing progress in connection with comparative pliilology. It was nurtured by Wilhelm von Humboldt, the brothers Schlegel, Bopp, Grimm, Pott, in Germany ; by Rask, in Denmark; Burnouf and Renan, in France; JNIax Miiller, in England ; Marsh, Brown, Dwight, Scheie de Vere, White, Whit- ney, in America. See Mailer's Lectures on the Science of Language, 8th cd. 1875, 2 vols. ; and Whitney's Language and the Study of Language, 18G7. For the chief authorities on the English language I refer to the long list of Skeat in his Etijm. Diet., pp. xxiii.-xxviii., and to the list at tlie head of Goold Brown's Grammar of English Grammars, 10th ed., by Berrian (New York, 1875, pp. xi.-xx.). THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 3 nature as they passed before him, but he did it at the suggestion of God and with the faculty ira{)arted to him.-^ Every language commenced, as it does now in children, with a scanty list of root-words, mostly onomatopoetic and exclama- tory or interjectional, expressing the most obvious objects of sense and sensations of the heart, and reached its relative per- fection by a slow and gradual historical growth corresponding to the growth of civilization and literature. Professor Skeat closes the preface to his Etymol. Dictionary (Oxford, 1882) with the truthful remark, ^' The speech of man is influenced by physical laws, in other words, by the working of Divine power. It is therefore possible to pursue the study of language in a spirit of reverence similar to that in which we study what are called the works of nature ; and by the aid of that spirit we may gladly perceive a new meaning in the sublime line of our poet Coleridge, that " 'Earth, with her thousaud voices, praises God.' " DIVERSITY OF LANGUAGE. The diversity of language is traced by the Bible to the pride and confusion of Babel. But it was nevertheless decreed and is controlled by divine Providence like the diversity of nations. God made of one blood all nations of the earth, says Paul, and determined the bounds of their habitation. He raises up nations for particular purposes and assigns them a peculiar work. Every language reflects the genius of the nation which uses it as the organ of its inner life, and serves the special mission which it is called to fulfill in the great family of nations and in the drama of history. The knowledge of the language, there- fore, is the key to the knowledge of the people with which it is identified. The Hebrew language, by its simplicity and sublimity, was admirably adapted to be the organ of the earliest revelations of ^ Comp. Gen. i. 19. "Webster makes language itself, as well as the faculty of speech, the immediate gift of God, but supposes it to have been very lim- ited in vocabulary. See Introd. to his Dictionary. 4 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. God, of priraitiv^e history, poetry, and prophecy, which prepared men for Christianity. Its literature remains to this day an ever fresh fountain of popular instruction and devotion. The Greek abounds in wealth, vitality, elasticity, and beauty; and hence it became the organ not only of every branch of ancient classical science and art, but also of the eternal truths of Christianity. The Latin embodies the commanding power, dignity and ma- jesty of the old Roman people which conquered the world by the sword and organized it by law. It ruled the literature of Europe long after the downfall of the Western empire and became the fruitful mother of all Romanic languages. It is still and will remain the official organ of the Roman Church. Of the Romanic languages again, each has its peculiar merit and beauty. The Italian, spoken by an imaginative, excitable, art-loving people, in a warm climate, under serene skies, sounds like music itself, and glows with all the fire of passion. ^'It melts like kisses from a woman's mouth.'' ^ The Spanish, by its pathos and grandezza, reminds us of the days of Castilian chivalry. The French is the medium of travel, fashion, and diplomacy on the Continent of Europe, and expresses the clearness, direct- ness, and precision, the polished ease and elegance, the sprightly vigor, the mercurial vivacity, and martial fire, but also the lightness and fickleness of the French, whom one of their most philosophic writers, M. de Tocqueville, characterizes as at once ^^ the most brilliant and the most dangerous nation of Europe." The German language, in native strength, fullness, depth, and flexibility, as also in the leavening influence of its literature upon the progress of knowledge, strongly resembles the ancient Greek, and is best adapted for the mining operations of thought, for every kind of speculative and scientific research and every form of poetry, but far less for business, commerce, political life, forensic and parliamentary eloquence, than eitiier the French or the English. • ^^ Lingua Ihacatia in hoca Eomana c la bcllissima lingua dd mondo.'^ THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 5 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE— GRIMM'S JUDGMENT. Tiie character of the English language cannot be better expressed than in the words of Professor Jacob Grimm, the author of the most learned German grammar and, jointly with his brother, of the best German dictionary. " Among all the modern languages,'^ he says, ^^ none has, by giving up and confounding all the laws of sound, and by cutting off nearly all the inflexions, acquired greater strength and vigor than the English. Its fullness of free middle sounds which can- not be taught, but only learned, is the cause of an essential force of expression such as perhaps never stood at the command of any other language of men. Its entire highly intellectual and wonderfully happy structure and development are the result of a surprisingly intimate marriage of the two noblest languages in modern Europe, the Germanic and the Romance ; the former (as is well known) supplying in far larger proportion the material groundwork, the latter the intellectual conceptions. As to vrealth, intellectuality, and closeness of structure, none of all the living languages can be compared with it. In truth, the English language, which by no mere accident has produced and upborne the greatest and most commanding poet of modern times as distinguished from the ancient classics — I can, of course, only mean Shakespeare — may with full propriety be called a world-language ; and like the English people it seems destined hereafter to prevail even more extensively than at present in all the ends of the earth. '^ ^ * Ueher den Ursprung der Sprache^ Berlin, 1852, p. 50 : ^^ Keine unter alien neueren Sprachenliat gerade durch das Aufgehen und Zerriittcn aller Laufgesetze, dunh den Wegfall beinahe sdmmtlicher Flexionen cine grossere Kraft und Sidrke €m])fangc7i, als die englische, und von ihrcr nicJtt einmal lehrbaren, nnr lernharen F'dlle freier Mitteltone ist eine icesentliche Gewalt des Ausdruckes ahhdngig gcwor- dcn, u-ic sie viclleicht noch nie einer menscJdichen Zunge zu Geboie stand. Ihre ganze, iibemus geistige, wunderbar gcglilckte Anlage und Durchbitdung war her- vorgegangen aus einer iiberrasehenden Vermdhlung der beiden edelsten Sprachen des spdtercn Europas, der germanischen und romanischen, und bekannt ist, wie ini Englischen sich beide zu einander verhalten, indemjene bei weitem die sinnliche Grundlage hergab, diese die gei^figen Begriffe zufiihrie. Aii Eeichthum, Ver- nunft und gedrdngter Fuge Idsd sick keine aller noch Icbenden Sprachen ihr an die Seiie setzen. Ja die englische Sprache, von der nicht umsonst der grosste und 6 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. This remarkable eulogy on the language of Great Britain and North America has the more weight as it comes from a foreign scholar who is not blinded by national prejudice and vanity, and is universally acknowledged to be one of the first masters of the entire field of Teutonic philology and literature. I shall choose it as the text of my dissertation. THE COMPOSITE CHARACTER OF THE ENGLISH RACE AND LANGUAGE. The origin, growth and material of the English language clearly indicate its comprehensive destiny. The character and history of the nation and of the language singularly correspond in this case. Every stage in the progress of the one forms an epoch for the other. Every invasion of England left its perma- nent trace in the language and enriched its power and capacity. The English language contains the fossil poetry, philosophy, and history of the English people. The changes and enrichments of the language have been brought about by the irresistible force of time and custom, and by the multiform pursuits, the migra- tory habits, and universal trade of the English race, but most of all by the successive immigrations of foreigners. It is well known that the English people are not a homoge- neous race, but an organic mixture of different national elements. So also their language derived its material from many sources, like a mighty river in its majestic flow through fertile valleys to the boundless sea. Almost every language of Europe, besides some of Asia, Africa and America, has furnished its contribu- tion. Professor Skeat distributes the English words under the fol- lowing heads: English {i e., Anglo-Saxon and Middle English of the earlier period). Old Low German, Low German, Dutch, Scandinavian, German, French from German, Teutonic (in a general sense), Celtic, Romanic Languages (including Italian, uherlcf/en.ste Dichier dcr neuen Zeit, im Gegensatz zur dassischcn alien Poesie — ich knnn vaCdrJich nur Shakespeare meinen — gezeugt und geiragen worden ist, sie darf mit voUeni Reekie cine Welispraehe heissen und seheint gleieh dem englisehen Volke auaersehen, k'dnftig noch in huheretn Masse an alien Enden der Erdc za walten. ' ' THE ENGLISH LAXGUAGE. 7 French, Spanish and Portuguese), Latin, French from Latin, French from Low Latin, Provenyal from Latin, Italian from Latin, Spanish from Latin, Portuguese from Latin, Low Latin, Greek, French from Latin from Greek, Slavonic, Lithuanian, Asiatic Aryan Languages (Persian, Sanskrit), European non- Aryan Languages, Semitic Languages (Hebrew, Arabic), Hindu- stani, Malay, African Languages, American Languages, and Hybrid Words (made up from two different languages).^ The two principal sources are the German, or Anglo-Saxon, and the Latin, or Norman-French ; the other elements are small side-currents Avhich have enriched to a greater or less extent almost every other civilized language of modern Europe. THE PROPORTION OF SAXON, LATIX, AXD OTHER ELEMEXTS IX THE EXGLISH LAXGUAGE. The authorities which I have consulted differ in their estimates of the proportion of these various elements which enter into the English language. Dr. R. G. Latham, the late distinguished professor of the English language and literature in the Univer- sity College of London, supposes that of forty thousand English words thirty thousand are Anglo-Saxon, five thousand Anglo- Norman, one hundred Celtic, sixty Latin, fifty Scandinavian, and the rest miscellaneous.^ The number of words of direct Latin origin seems here considerably understated. Archbishop Richard Chenevix Trench estimates that of a hundred parts of the English language sixty are Saxon, thirty Latin and French, five Greek, and the remaining five from all other sources which have contributed to its stock.^ This is probably correct as an average estimate. But we must make a material distinction between the language of the diction- ary or the language at rest and the language in actual use or the language in motion. The latter is more predominantly Saxon than the former. The entire vocabulary of the English language as found in the • Efymol. Did., pp. 747-771. 2 A Handbook of the English Grammar (American ed., New York, 1852), pp. 62, 63. Conip. Preface to his enlarged ed. of Johnson's Dictionary. ^ English Past and Present (Xew York ed., 1855), p. 19. 8 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. dictionaries exceeds the number of one hundred thousand words. But of these only about ten thousand are used for ordinary written composition, and perhaps not more than five thousand for common intercourse.^ Now, we may safely say that the living English is more pre- dominantly Saxon than the dictionary English, and the spoken Eno-lish even more than the written. Sharon Turner and Noah Webster assert that more than four-fifths of modern English words in actual use are of Saxon descent.^ This is no doubt true of the daily conversational language. But we doubt its general applicability to book language, where the proportion of native Saxon to foreign words depends very much upon the education and taste of the author and the nature of his subject, and can therefore not be absolutely determined. It is stated that in the Authorized Version of the Bible and in Shakespeare 60 per cent, of the vocabulary are of Saxon origin (whicli would very nearly correspond to the Saxon proportion in the language itself) ; that in Milton's poetical works about two- thirds of the vocabulary are foreign, but that in the sixth book of Paradise Lost four-fifths of all the words are Saxon. The style of Johnson abounds in Latinisms, but in the })reface to his Dictionary there are '^ 72 per cent, of Saxon words.'' ^ ^ C. P. jVLarsli says {Lectures on the English Language^ New York, 1860, p. 183) : "Few writers or speakers use as many as ten thousand words, ordi- nary persons of fair intelligence not above three or four thousand. If a scholar were to be required to name, without examination, the authors whose English Yocabulary was the largest, he would probably specify the all- embracing Shakespeare and the all-knowing INIilton. And yet in all the worlcs of the great dramatist, there occur not more than fifteen thousand words, in the poems of Milton not above eight thousand." 2 See Webster's i)/c^,ed. of 1850, Introd., p. li. Note. In the ed. of Goodrich c^ Porter, 1864, p. xxviii., it is stated that the preponderance of Saxon words varies from 60 to more than 90 per cent. ^ A. H. ^Yelsh, in Development of English Literature and Language, Chicago, 1886 (7th ed.), vol. i., 53, allows a much higher i:)ercentage to Anglo-Saxon in the various departments of literature. His estimate of tlie relative pro]>ortion of Anglo-Saxon is as follows : Bible, 93 ; Poetry, 88 ; Prayer-Book, 87 ; Fiction, 87 ; i:ssay, 78 ; Oratory, 76 ; History, 72 ; Newspaper, 7'2 ; lihetorie, G9. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 9 THE ANGLO-SAXON STOCK. The various languages of the earth, amounting to about nine hundred, are now divided by comparative philologists into three great families, called the Aryan (formerly called Indo-Ger- MANic), the Semitic, and the Turanian (a doubtful nomencla- ture for an indefinite number of lano^ua<2;es with the ao^o^luti native structure). The Aryan family again embraces the tongues of India and Persia, the Greek and Latin, the Romanic, the Celtic, the Teutonic, and the Slavonic languages and dialects. The English, like the Dutch, Frisian, Gothic, Icelandic, Swedish, Danish, and High German, belongs to the Teutonic or Germanic branch, and shares all its main characteristics. The grammar, the bone and sinew, the heart and soul of the English language, are thoroughly Germanic, whatever be the number of its foreig^n ino;redients. It partakes of the main characteristics of the family to which it belongs. The Germanic language, with its various dialects, is a free, independent, original language. It is neither obtruded by a foreign conqueror, nor learned by slaves, as the Spanish, English, and French were learned by the Indians and African negroes, nor derived from an older language, like the idioms of southern Europe, which are descended from the Latin. It pre- ceded the Christianization of the nations of central and northern Europe and accompanied them through all their phases of devel- opment to the present time. It embraces the two great periods of mediaeval and modern civilization. It has a primitive vigor, exuberant wealth, and is adapted to all the manifestations of the human mind. It is equal to the deepest researches of thought and the hio:hest flio-hts of fancy. Most of its words have their meaning, not by agreement and conventional usage, but by nature. It rolls with the thunder and flashes with the lightning ; it roars with the storm and blusters with the sea; it whispers with the breeze and lisps with the leaf; it rushes with the moun- tain torrent and murmurs with the brook ; it shouts with heaven and bellows with hell. The Germanic dialect which underlies the present English is called Anglo-Saxon, from the tribes which imported it from 10 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Germany to England. It goes back to the origin of the English race in the middle of the fifth, if not the fourth, century, when, according to the *' Saxon Chronicle,'' various German tribes, especially the Angles and Saxons^ under the leadership of Hengist and his brother Horsa^ — the Romulus and Remus of English history — migrated in successive invasions from the regions between the Elbe and the Rhine into Britain, wresting the larger part from its original inhabitants of the Celtic stock, changing it from Britain to England and laying the foundation for that remarkable people which from that rock-bound island extends the sceptre of its dominion to the extremities of the globe. They were then heathen savages, but endowed with all the physical, intellectual, and moral requisites for a great nation. The Anglo-Saxon language belongs to the Low German branch of the Teutonic family, and is therefore allied with the various dialects, called Piatt- Deutsch, with the Frieslc, and the Nether- landish, or Dutch. But it also differs from them all. It was probably a mixture of the dialects of the different German tribes, who met in England, and is so far indigenous, like the later English itself. There is no proof that it was spoken anywhere but in Great Britain. It never attained to its full development, like the Continental German. Its progress was arrested by the Norman conquest. The most considerable monument of the original Anglo-Saxon tongue is the Beowulf, an essentially pagan epic, revised by some Christian writer. Caedmon, first a swine-herd, then a monk at Whitby (about 680), sung, as by inspiration, the wonders of creation and redemption, and became the father of Christian Saxon poetry. The works of King Alfred, the best of British rulers, may be taken as the best specimens of Saxon prose. Of the Continental or German Saxon we have but fragmentary remains, of a later period, especially in Ileliand (from heal, IIc'il- ^ Hence the combination Anglo-Saxon. Gildas, the oldest British author, who wrote in the sixth century, more than one hundred and fifty years before Bede, mentions only the Saxons, with genuine Celtic hatred — ^''fcrocissimi illi ncfandi nominis Saxoncs. ' ' Latham doubts the immigration of Jutes or Danes from Jutland, as attested by the Saxon historian Bede. 2 Both these terms are common to the Teutonic and Scandinavian dialects, and signify the genus horse (comp. the German Hcngst and liosn). THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 11 and, i.e., Saviour), a life of Christ in alliterative meter, of the ninth or tenth century. But several hundred years before, in the fourth century, the Arian bishop Ulphilas, or Wulfila (^Yolflein, i.e., Little Wolf) had translated the Bible into the cognate Gothic, of ^yhich considerable fragments have been pub- lished by Angelo Mai, Massmann, Bernhardt, Stramm, and in fac-simile by Uppstrom.^ In many \yords and grammatical forms the present English is nearer the original Saxon and Gothic than the present German, and reveals more clearly its kinship with the Sanscrit, the oldest sister of the Indo-Germanic or Aryan languages.^ Some hold that spoken English is as old as spoken Sanscrit. Skeat says (Efym. Did., p. xiii.) : '' Sometimes Sanscrit is said to be an ^ elder sister' to English; the word ^ elder' woukl be better omitted. Sanscrit has doubtless suffered less change, but ev^en twin-sisters are not always alike, and, in the course of many years, one may come to look younger than the other." The Anglo-Saxon is not simply the prevailing element in the present English, but it is its proper basis and main structure. It supplies the essential parts of speech, the article, the pronouns ^ See also specimens in the first volume of Wilhelm Wackernagel's Altdeidschcs Lescbiich, pp. 6-26, with a dictionary, and in Braune's Gothic Grammar, with specimens and glossary, translated b}' G. H. Balg. New York, AVestermann & Co., 1883. 2 Compare, for illustration, the following table which I borrow from an article on comparative philology by B. W. D wight, in the BihVwtheca Sacra for 1858, p. 119 :— Saxscp.it. Greek. Latix. Germax. ExGLisir. bhu, io he, oio), fui, bin. be. bhratar, a brother, opari/p^ frater, Bruder, brother. bhai, to hear. hl the hand and the stay," must be given up. The word is of Sea idinavian origin, and corresponds to the Icelandic hush6ndi, a contracted foi n of hilshdandi or huandi, from Jius, house, and pres. part, huatidi, from hiia, '-o dvrell, inhabit. Comp. the Ger- man Z/rt^ en, 7jrt« cr ; Dutch, JiOrr. 2 The Anglo-Saxon wife and the Germar Weih are usually derived from wcav- ing, iroof, v(h (u-ehen), one of the earliest and most ordinary Ijranchcs of female industry' and in-door employments. Kluge connects it, less probably, with the Sanscrit WIF, insjjired, imeardhj moved (of priests) because the Germans originally honored in woman " sanctum aliquid ci providum.^'' 3 Tlie last two words occur in no other Teutonic language, and although undoubtedly Saxon, are of somewhat doubtful etymology. The common THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 13 the members of the human body : head, eye, ear, nose, hair, mouth, tongue, breast, bosom, heart, arm, hand, finger, foot, bone, flesh, and blood; for the faculties and actions of the mind: soul, feeling, will, understanding, wit, word, speech, deed (although here we meet with a number of Latin words, as mind, reason, intellect, memory, sense, conscience, imagination, action); for the necessities and actions of daily life: food, bread, water, milk, eat, drink, sit, stand, walk, go, come, rest, sleep, dream, wake, live, and die ; for the essential affections and conditions: love, hatred, health, sickness, happiness, woe, mirth, sorrow, life, death, grave ; for the elements and common objects of nature: earth, land, sea, fire, sun, moon, stars, heaven, wind, storm, thunder, light, heat, cold ; for the changes in the day and sea- son : day, night, morning, noon, evening, spring, summer, fall, winter ; for the domestic animals : horse, mare, colt, cow, ox, steer, calf, sheep, pig, boar, swine, cat, dog, mouse, deer ; for the chief products of the earth and the main instruments of culti- vating it : wheat, rye, oats, barley, plow, spade, sickle, flail. Most of the onomatopoetic or sound-imitating words are Saxon, as bang, buzz, bellow, break, crash, creak, gurgle, hiss, hum, howl, hollow, murmur, roar, shriek, snap, snarl, storm, thunder, whistle, whine, tick-tick, pee- wee, bow-wow, chit-chat, sing-song. So also most of the com[)ound words, as god-man, house-wife, key-stone, north-east, top-knot, elm-tree, pine- wood, foot-fall, horse-shoe, shoe-maker, snuff-box, morning-cloud, water-fall. A large proportion of the language of humor and colloquial pleasantry point to the same source. Finally, the Saxon furnishes some of the fundamental terms in morals and religion, as God, good, bad, evil, sin, belief, love, hope, fear, heaven,^ hell, gospel (i. e., God^s spell, or good derivation of lord (A. S. hJdford) from Ji Id f or loaf, bread, and ford or a ford — 'bread-giver, does not explain ladij, Avhicli in Saxon is ^vritten hhifduje. Tooke and Richardson derive lord from Idif-ian, to raise, and ord — oriuH, origin, so as to mean high-born. Ladjj would then mean lifted, elevated. Bnt the A. S. hldf- ord most likely stands for hldf-weard, loaf-keeper, i. e., the master of the house, father of the family, and is etiuivalent in meaning to husband. So Skeat. ^ Some derive heofon, heaven, from A.S. hebl)an,Germ'An heben — elevated, arched. Kluge, however, connects heaven and Himmel and derives both from an old Germanic stem hem, him ; probably connected with the stem ham, to cover, conceal. 14 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. news)/ righteousness, holiness, godliness. On the other hand, it can be abused for the hardest swearing. The Saxon would be sufficient for all the ordinary purposes of life. We can live and die, love and hate, work and play, laugh and cry, tell tales and sing songs, in Saxon; but the foreign elements greatly enrich and embellish our intellectual, emotional and spiritual existence and enjoyments. THE SAXON ELEMENT IN THE ENGLISH BIBLE. One of the chief excellencies of our Protestant version of the Bible, as compared with the Roman Catholic or Douay version, is the predominance of the Saxon element, while the latter, being based upon the Latin Vulgate, employs too many Latin terms. The idiom of the Authorized Aversion of 1611 is chiefly due to the previous labors of William Tyndale, who first translated the New Testament from the original Greek into English, and died a martyr of his immortal work. Let us give a few specimens. In the Lord's Prayer fifty-four words are Saxon, and the remaining six, which are of Latin origin (trespasses, trespass, temptation, deliver, power, glory), could easily be replaced by Saxon (sins, sin, trial, free, might, brightness) without materially altering the sense. The Douay Bible has for daily bread super substantial bread (from the Vulgate), which the common reader cannot understand. In the sublime beginning of the Gospel of John, from verse 1 to 14, out of more than two hundred words only four or five are not of Saxon descent. The most exquisite passages of the Old Testament are likewise almost exclusively Saxon. Take the first verses in Genesis : — " In the beginning G-od created'^ (for which might be substituted the Saxon mat/f;) " the heavens and the earth And God said, Let there be light : and there was light." ^ The exact English equivalent for the Greek £vayy(?uov. For this reason some prefer the derivation of the first syllable from the adjective ffood, to tlie deriva- tion from God {GofFs icord^ God^s dory, i. c, the life of Christ), l)ut the latter is supported by the analogy of the Icelandic, and the Old High German (jotspell, {God-atonj)^ not (juot-^pdl. God and good, however, are closely connected. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 15 The twenty -third Psalm would lose nothing of its beauty if the few Latin terms were exchanged for Saxon, as follows : — " The Lord is my sliephenl ; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green j-)astu res {meadoics) : he leadeth me heside the still waters. He reMoMli {qnichent'tli) my sonl : he leadeth me in the paths of righteous- ness for his name's sake. Yea. though I walk through the valley [daJe] of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil : for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort [i:hlv nationalized as to sound like native words. To the Saxon period belong saint from sanctus, religion from reJigio, bishop and archbishop from episcopus (from the Greek i-i'jTspn<;), deacon from dlaconus (dcdy.o'^o?), apostle, angel (likewise originally Greek), preach (Saxon prcecUeian, Gavnmn j)redige7i) from prcEdi- care, prove (profian) from probare, minster from monasterium, cloister from claustrum, master from magister, monk (munuc) from monachus (,a6>o?, fxo>a/_(k), porch from portlcus, provost from pr<^positus, pall from pallium, candle from candela, chalice from calix, mint from moneta, psalter from psalterium ((paX-rrjoto^), mass from missa (dismissa est ecclesia), palsy from paralysis {i^'apdlucri^), alms from eleomosyna (from k'ho?), abyss, anathema, anthem, antiphon, cathedral, character, canon, canonical, catholic, ecclesi- astic, laic, school, system, Testament, trinity, unity; perhaps also the stem verbs bib from bibere, carp from carpere, cede from cedere (or the French ceder), urge from urgere. (b) The second class of Latinisms are theological and philo- sophical terms, not found in classical nor patristic Latin, and introduced during the reign of scholasticism in the middle ages, as real, virtual, entity, nonentity, equivocation, beatitude,^ solil- oquy (the last two being first used by St. Augustin). ^ A few Latin terms relating mostly to military afifairs, as xfrcef from strata, the endings — coin (as in Lincoln) from colonia, — ccstir (as in GloucestLr — glevae cadra) from castra, were ah-eady introduced in the Celtic jieriod under Caesar and the heathen Eomans, but they are too insignificant to be regarded as a separate class. 2 Kather than from j)/v'PN/r.'<', which would not account for the second /• in the German Fricstcr and the French prctre. Milton says, " Presbyter is priest writ large." ^Cicero coined both heat Has and heatitudo (Xat. Dear. 1, 34, 95), but they 2 18 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Dunce and dunceiy are likewise from the scholastic period, according to Trench and Skeat. Duns Scotus, the standard di- vine of the Franciscans, was anything but a blockhead ; but his name may have been used reproachfully by the rival school of Thorn ists (the Dominicans), or by the enemies of scholasticism. Most of the sectarian terms, as Arians, Apollinarians, Euty- chians, Nestorians, Pelagians, Lutherans, Zwinglians, Puritans, Methodists, etc., were originally terms of reproach invented by enemies. (c) The third stratum of English Latin of direct derivation is modern, and comprises a considerable number of scientific and technical terms, which can easily be distinguished from the older importations by their unaltered condition, the language having now lost to a great extent its former power of assimilation. In these cases even the Latin plural is generally retained, as in axis and axes, crisis and crises, basis and bases, formula und for mulce, calculus and calculi, magus and magi, colossus and colossi, funda- mentum and fundamenta, medium and media, datum and data, momentum and momenta, erratum and errata, stratum and strata, index and indices, radix and radices, also appendix, ratio, stimu- lus, emporium, apparatus, species, series. In the same class we may embrace Latin phrases which have become naturalized, as ab ante, ab ovo, ad libitum, ad nauseam, a posteriori, a priori, cui bono, de facto, dejure, ex-officio, ex-parte, brutum fulmen, in medias res, in memoriam, ipsissima verba, jure divino, nil admirari, non multa sed multum, non sequitur, obiter dictum, obsta principiis, otium cum dignitate, tabula rasa, terra firma^ via media, vox populi vox Dei. There are some Latin words of comparatively recent introduc- tion which have undergone a considerable change and are trans- formed into the English idiom, as mob from mobile (vulgus), which was introduced in the reign of Charles I. (d) A number of words which Latham calls di-morphic, exist in a double form, the original Latin and the French Latin, the latter being generally cut a syllable or two shorter, and often did not pass into usage among classical writers until Augustin naturalized heatitudo {De Civ. Dei, xxi. 17, where he uses the plural hcatitudinca). So- liloquia is the title of one of his devotional tracts. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 19 representing a different shade of meaning, as pauper and poor (from pauper and pauvre), probe and prove (from prohare and eprouver), secure and sure (from securus and sur), also fidelity and fealty, species and spice, blaspheme and blame, granary and garner, hospital and hotel, persecute and pursue, faction and fashion, particle and parcel, potion and poison, redemption and ransom, tradition and treason. We may add presbyter and priest, monastery and minster; but priest (Saxon preost) and minster (Saxon minister) are older than presbyter and monastery. In a fe\y cases the substantive was borrowed from the French, as people from pteuple (populus), parish from paroisse {parochia) ; wdiile at a later period the corresponding adjective was taken directly from the Latin, as popular and parochial. Bishop and episcopal or episcopalian (for bishoply, German bischoflich) are an instance of a double formation from the Latin. FRENCH LATINIS:MS. 11. The second and by far the largest class of Latin words have come to us through the medium of the Norman French or Romance, which itself w^as a daughter of the Latin, with a num- ber of Celtic and Teutonic elements incorporated into its vocab- ulary. The French English can easily be distinguished from the Latin English by the spelling. Thus Saviour comes from the Latin Salvator, but through the French Sauveur ; honour from honor ^ through honeur ; favour from /a?;or, through faveur ; judgment from judicium, through jugement ; people from populus, through peuple; crown from corona, through couroniie ; treasure from thesaurus, through tresor ; emperor from imperutor, through em- pereur. Through the same medium we have received arms, armour, army, navigation, navy, bachelor, barber, battery, battle {bataille, from hatere, to beat), beverage, bullet, calamity, channel, chant, chapel, charity, charm, dainty, dame {domina), fable, fabric, lan- guage, madam, mademoiselle, magistrate, mansion, merit, prime, etc., etc. The Normans adopted, with the Christian religion, the lan- guage, laws, and arts of the Romanized Gauls and Romanized 20 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. Franks, or rather they developed, in their new home, a national character and language of their own, which differed both from that of their rude Scandinavian kinsmen on the shores of the North Sea and the Baltic, and from that of the original Roman- esque provincials on the banks of the Seine. In this modified shape as semi-civilized, Romanized, Frenchi- fied Normans, after a residence in France of more than a century and a half, they successfully invaded England in 1066 under Duke William the Conqueror, who had a slight pretext of right to the English crown by his relationship to Edward the Con- fessor and the alleged bequest of the sovereignty to him by that king. They defeated the Saxons in the battle of Hastings, took possession of the country, gave kings to the throne, knights and nobles to the estates, judges to the tribunals, bishops to the church, teachers to the schools, but also tyrants to the peasantry, oppressors to the burghers, and brought untold misery upon the people of England for several generations. To get a proper view of the extent of this conquest and its effect, we must dismiss all idea of the present England, when no such thorough transformation could take place by any foreign invasion, owing to the numerical strength and high grade of civilization to which it has long since attained. It is estimated that the Saxon population at the time of the con- quest amounted to about a million and a half or two millions, of whom more than a hundred thousand were destroyed during the cruel and despotic reign of William the Conqueror. Tlie number of Normans who emigrated with him or followed during his reign and that of the next successors, can hardly be less than from two to three hundred thousand souls. For at the battle of Hastings alone he had sixty thousand fighting men.-^ The Normans had the advantage in point of education and po- sition. The influence of their lano;uao;e was favored bv the use of the Latin in worship and among the learned, and more directly by the English possessions in France and the frequent wars and intercourse between the two nations. ^ See the particulars in Thierry's " Norman Conqnost, " TTallani's "Middle Ages," Creasy's " Jiise and I'roj^ress of the English Constitution" (eh. v. and vi,), and Freeman's "History of the Norman Conquest." THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 21 Yet they could not internally conquer the stubborn Saxon ele- ment, but were even more influenced by it in the course of time than the Saxons were by them. They never made a Norman- land or a Xew France out of England. Instead of converting the Saxons into Frenchmen, they became Englishmen themselves, just as the Xormans had become Frenchmen in France, and the Goths Spaniards in Spain. Fortunately for the future destiny of England both nationalities were yet in a crude and semi- bar- barous condition, and hence they could be so molded and assimi- lated as to constitute at last a new nationality which is neither Saxon nor Norman, but combines the excellencies of both. THE GRADUAL MINGLING OF THE SAXON AND NORMAN. This was a very slow process. For nearly three hundred years the two languages stood in hostile antagonism, or rather in neutral indifference, side by side as two distinct currents, like the waters of the Monongahela and Alleghany in the Oiiio river, or the Missouri and Mississippi after their junction above St. Louis. The Norman was spoken by the lords and barons in their feudal castles, in parliament, in the courts of justice, in the schools, and on the chase ; the Saxon by the people in their rural homes, fields, and workshops. There was an English j^roverb in the middle ages: "Jack would be a gentleman if he could speak French." Some traces of the distinct existence of the Norman are still preserved in those technical phrases which give the royal assent to the different laws of parliament, as " La reine le veut; " " Solt fait comme il est desire ;^^ ^^ La^ reine remercie ses bons sujets, accepte leur benevolence et ainsi le veut.'^ Cromwell signed the bills in plain English, but the Romanizing Stuarts characteristi- cally restored these vestiges of the Norman conquest. During the long intellectual winter which followed the Norman conquest the germ of a new and nobler nationality and language was gradually maturing under the snow-covered soil for a vigorous and prolific growth in the approaching spring. The profound truth of the Word, " That which is sown is not quickened except it die," is applicable also in this case. The Saxon and Norman, together with the remaining Celtic and Danish ele- ments, slowly melted and coalesced into a harmonious whole, 22 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. and came out of the process a new and better race than any that preceded it. The Saxon gave up a part of his vocabulary, the Norman a part of his together with all his grammar, and the result was the English language with its meagre but simple sys- tem of grammatical inflection and its rich vocabulary. This process was completed in the fourteenth century. The commencement of the English (that is, Normanized Saxon) lan- guage and literature coincides with a reformatory national move- ment which, although suppressed for several generations, tri- umphed at last under a modified form in the sixteenth century. Wyclifle, by his translation of the Latin Bible in 1380, is the father of English prose, as his sympathizing contemporary, Chaucer, by his " Canterbury Tales," is the father of English poetry.-^ In the same age Edward III. ordered, in 1362, the pleadings of the court to be carried on in English instead of French. But the first bill of the lower house of Parliament in the English language dates from 1425. Since that time the lan- guage has, of course, undergone considerable changes, so that the writings before the Reformation cannot be fully understood now without the help of a glossary. Yet in all the essential features it is the same. The groundwork of the new language remained Saxon. But the Norman disturbed its inflections, articulation, and pronunciation, simplified its syntax and en- riched its vocabulary, although the gain in this respect was partly neutralized by the loss of corresponding terms. The change introduced into the vocabulary may be illustrated by the following two paragraphs which exhibit successively the Norman and Saxon elements : ^ 1 Coleridge calls Chaucer the " myriad-minded," and Marsh places liim as to original power and all the highest qualities of poetry above all contempo- rary writers with the single exception of Bante. *' He is eminently," (says he, Ledurcti, p. 22), "the creator of our literary dialect, the introducer, if not the inventor, of some of our poetical forms." The more it is to be regretted that many of his works are disfigured, stained, and polluted by a grossness of thought and of language which strangely and painfully contrasts with the delicacy, refinement, and moral elevation of his other productions. 2 This illustration is borrowed mainly from Prof Scheie de Vere's " Out- lines of Comparative Fhilology.'''' New York, 1853. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 23 ' ' With the Norman conquest tlie French was introduced in the higher circles; the King alone retained his name, but the state and the court became French ; the administration v^-a^ carried on according to the con- stitution ; treaties were concluded by the ministersm their cabinet and s?/Z>- m it ted for approved to the sovereign ; the p?Ti*]/ council was consulted on tlie ((ffairs of the empire, and A>^a? subjects sent representatives to parlia- ment. Here the members debated on matters of grave importance, on peace and ?r(7/', ordered the a?'?«^ and the ??(7zvy, oV,s;po.s«Z of the national treasunj, contracted debts, and had their sessions and their parties. Brilliant feasts and splendid tournaments collected the flower of chivahy ; magnificent balls where beauty and delicious music enchanted the assembled nobles, gave new splendor to society, polished the memners and excited the admiration of tlie ancient inhabitants, who, charmed by such elegance, recognized in their conquerors p)ersons of superior intelligence, admired them, and e/i- deavored to imitate theiv fashions.'^ ' ' But — to continue this illustration in Saxon — the dominion of the Nor- man (//(Z not extend to the Ao??i6 of the Saxon ; it stopped at the threshold of his house; there, around the fireside in his h'itchen and the hearth in his room, he 7??e^ his beloved kindred ; the Z^/vVZe, the ^v/e, and the husband, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, tied to each o^'Ae?* by /oi-e, friend- ship, and kind feelings, knew nothing dearer than their own s?rec^ /io?«e. The Saxon's ^t>c/i, still grazing in his 7?e/(7.s and meadows, ^are him ?n<7yt and hitter, meat and wool ; the herdsman icatched them in spring and summer, the ploughman drew his furrows, and used his harrows, and in harvest, the c<7r^ and the fiail ; the reaper plied his scythe, piled u]) sheaves and hauled his wheat, oats, and ?;?/e to the ?>«?•«. In his ^racZe by ?«»<:? and sea, he still so/cZ and bought, m the s^ore or the sAop, the market or thes^ree^; he Zf';«^ or bori'owed, trusted his neighbor, and with skill throve and grew icecdthy. He continued to love freedom, to ea^ and to drink, to sZeep and to aweike, to -zcdZA: and to ride, to fish and to ^?«i/, to sing and to pZ«^, to read and to «67' — /. opuhition as is the English now in America." Tlie differences in the English of New England, the Southern States, the Northwest and the Pacific coast, arc confnied to a limited number of provincialisms, and affect also the pronunciation, ))ut they are not sufficiently marked to constitute separate dialects. The l^nglish his- THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 59 the power and influence of our institutions, commerce, literature and art grows and extends with the rapidity of the railroad and telegraph, our national language follows this progress step by step, even to the soil of Liberia, to spread thence into the unex- plored interior, to turn the haunts of the slaver into Christian homes, and the curse of American slavery, now happily extin- guished by the blood of our civil war, into a blessing for Africa, The English is also the language of the ocean. It is better understood and more widely spoken than any other tongue on the ships which cross the Atlantic, or Pacific, the Mediterranean, the Suez Canal, the Indian and Chinese Seas. Even on the Fjords of Norway and in the Gulf of Finland, you will scarcely meet a captain that cannot fluently converse in English. The Samoan Conference, held this year (1889) at Berlin, be- tween Germany, Great Britain and the United States, marks a new departure in the preference given to English for diplomacy. Formerly the Latin was used in international conferences and treaties, and is still used by the papal court. Then the French took its place and kept it in all international conferences till 1878. But in the Samoan conference, for the first time on the continent of Europe, the English was exclusively used in the discussions and in the treaty.^ A significant fact for the future. The English race surpasses all others in successful colonization and commercial enterprise, and hence its language must inevit- ably become the chief organ of international communication. torian, Edward A. Freeman, after a visit to the United States in 1882, wrote in the FortnighiJy Eevicw ; " I never found any difficulty in understanding an American speaker, but I Lave often found it difficult to understand a Scotch or even a northern English speaker. The American speaks my own language ; he speaks my own dialect of that language, but he speaks it with certain local differences." ^ The conference was opened in French, but by a vote of six to three English was substituted in the preliminary negotiations and discussion^. The American and British Commissioners naturally preferred their own tongue, and as Count Herbert Bismarck, who, as ]\Iinister of Foreign Affairs of Germany, presided over the conference, speaks English as fluently as he does German and French, there was no objection to the wishes of the majority. 60 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. PROVIDENTIAL DESIGN. Who could have dreamed of such a result fourteen hundred years ago, when the savage heathen Angles and Saxons under the lead of Hengist and Horsa sailed from northern Germany to England, or eight hundred years ago, when William the Bas- tard, a semi-civilized robber and pirate, following the instincts of his Norman ancestors, subdued the island? Truly, the history of the English people and language is a wonderful commentary on the truth, that " God's ways are not our ways." Those very events which to other nations would have brought ruin, proved a blessing to England. The very absence of great monarchs (with few exceptions, as Alfred, Eliz- abeth, Cromwell, William III., and Victoria) has secured to her a higher degree of national liberty and strength. The frequent changes of her language have increased its wealth and enlarged its destiny. The very isolation in an inhospitable home has promoted the cultivation of domestic virtues, the development of national resources, and brought out that power of self-govern- ment which fitted her to become the mistress of empires in distant parts of the globe. The very loss of the American colonies has proved a gain to England at home, and still more to her genius and language under a new and independent form in this new world of freedom and of the future. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND THE BIBLE. Xever was a nobler mission intrusted to any language. The crowning glory of this mission is its intimate connection with the triumph of the Christian religion over the nations of the earth. We hold in the highest esteem the Greek language as the vehicle of ancient classical culture and the original organ of the everlast- ing truths of the gos})el. But the actual use of the Greek Testa- ment and the Latin Vulgate dwindles almost into insignificance before the circulation of the common English Bible, which is scattered by hundreds of millions of copies over the face of the earth. ^ Eor general accuracy, popularity, and thorough natural- ^ It is estimated that in England alone between two and three millions of English Bibles are printed annually, and prohably as many in the United THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 61 ization it stands unsurpassed and unequaled among all the ancient and modern translations of the oracles of the living God, and as to purity and beauty of diction it is the noblest monu- ment of English literature. And though it may be superseded ultimately by the Anglo-American Revision of 1881 in its present or in some improved shape, we must remember that this is not a new version, but only an improvement of the old, and retains the idiom of the version of 1611 with its strong hold upon the memory and affections of the people. Yea, we may say, that the Revision will renew the youth of the venerable mother, and make her even a greater blessing for generations to come than she has been in generations past. The extraordinary interest with which the Revision was first received is certainly a most hopeful sign of the times, and proves beyond controversy that the Bible is more deeply imbedded in the affections of the English-speaking race and more inseparably connected with its progress and prosperity than with any other nation of the world. Of the Revised New Testament of 1881 about three millions of copies were sold in less than a year, and over thirty American reprints appeared ; yea, the greater part of the text was tele- graphed from New York to two daily papers of Chicago in advance of the arrival of the book. A fact without a parallel in the history of literature. The Revision is sometimes charged with sacrificing idiomatic English to idiomatic Greek, and rhythm to accuracy. If so, it deserves commendation, for truth is more important than rhythm. But the objection is not well founded. In many cases the rhythm has been improved. Take the following examples : — States, where, besides the Bible House in New York, many publishing and printing houses are exclusively engaged in the multiplication of Bibles. In the Bible House of New York three thousand to four thousand Bibles are daily manufactured. In 1886 the British and Foreign Bible Society sold and gave away 568,610 whole English Bibles and 1,123,903 English New Testa- ments, the American Bible Society 295,769 English Bibles and 326,918 English New Testaments (all of the authorized version), besides a large number of parts (as the Psalter and the Gospels). The works which come next in the English book market are Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, Robinson Crusoe, and Shakespeare. Of Shakespeare about twenty thousand copies are said to be annually sold in England. 62 THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. AUTHORIZED VERSION. Luke VI. 49. REVISED VERSION. "But he tliat licareth and doeth not, is like a man that without a foundation built an house upon the earth : against which the stream did beat vehemently, and immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great. ' ' "But he that heareth and doeth not, is like a man that built a house upon the earth without a foundation; against which the stream brake, and straightway it fell in ; and the ruin of that house was great. ' ' AUTHORIZED VERSION. Matt. VIII. 32. REVISED VERSION. "And behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. ' ' "And behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep into the sea, and perished in the waters. ' ' Thess. I. 11. "Fulfil all the good pleasure of his goodness, and the work of faith with power. ' ' ' ' Fulfil every desire of goodness and every work of faith, with power. ' ' Col IV. 10. "Marcus, sister's son to Barna- I " Mark, the cousin of Barnabas. " ba^." I Rev. VII. 17. Unto living fountains of water. ' ' ' ' Unto fountains of waters of life." But the Authorized Version has the great advantage of vener- able age and sacred associations, which in the minds of many conservative Bible readers far outweigh its imperfections, and will long keep it in private and public use. It fully deserves the eulogy of the ardent hymnist, Frederick W. Faber, who after his secession to Rome could not forget " the uncommon beauty and marvelous English of the Protestant Bible," and who said of it with as much beauty as truth : " It lives on the ear like a music that can never be forgotten, like the sound of church bells, which the convert hardly knows how he can forego. Its felicities often seem to be almost things rather than mere words. The memory of the dead passes into it. The potent traditions of childhood are stereotyped in its verses. The power of all the griefs and trials of man is hidden beneath its words. THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE. 63 It is the representative of his best moments, and all that there has been about him of soft, and gentle, and pure, and penitent, and good, speaks to him forever out of his English Bible/' CONCLUSION. The progress of the language of Great Britain and America is the progress of commerce and industry, of a rich and healthy literature, of the arts and sciences, of the highest form of civili- zation known in history, of the power of self-government, of civil and religious freedom, of domestic virtue, of happy homes, of active philanthropy, of national prosperity, and of the truths of Christianity, bearing on its banner the angelic inscription : — " Glory to God in the highest, Peace on earth among men of his good pleasure. ' ' Well may we bid Godspeed to the progress of the Anglo- Norman and Anglo-American tongue, as the chief organ for the spread of Christian civilization. "Go forth, then, noble Saxon tongue. And speed the happy time When truth and righteousness shall reign In every zone and clime ; When earth's oppressed and savage tribes Shall cease to pine and roam, All taught to prize the English words : Faith, Freedom, Heaven, and HomOo" THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. OEIGIN OF POETRY AND MUSIC. Poetry and music are the highest and most spiritual of the fine arts. They are twin sisters. They hail from a prehistoric age. The Bible traces their origin to the celestial world. When man was created in God's image, " the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy.'' Christianity was sung into the world by an anthem of the angelic host. Raphael paints St. Cecilia, the patroness of church music, as standing between St. Paul and St. John, St. Augustin and Mary Magdalene, as holding an organ in her hands, and listening with rapture to a higher and sweeter chorus of six angels in heaven. The master-compositions of Handel, Mozart, and Beethoven make the impression of supernatural inspiration, and sound like voices from a higher and purer world. We may call the crea- tions of music, to use the language of a great English divine^ — " the outpourings of eternal harmony in the medium of created sound ; they are echoes from our Home ; they are the voice of Angels, or the Magnificat of Saints, or the living laws of Divine governance, or the Divine attributes ; something are they beside themselves, which we cannot compass, which we cannot utter — though mortal man, and he perhaps not otherwise distinguished above his fellows, has the gift of eliciting them." As poetry and music began in heaven, so they will end, with- out end, in heaven and constitute an unfailing fountain of joy and bliss to the innumerable army of the redeemed. In these arts the power of creation is continued. Every true poet, as the word indicates,^ is a maker or creator. To create anything out of nothing is indeed the sole prerogative of the Almighty. But the poet recreates out of existing material. He has at his command the starry heavens and flowery fields, the ^ Cardinal Newman, in the last of his sermons preached in the University of Oxford (1843). ^ 7r()/;/r/>;, from -ottu)^ to make, to create. 01 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 65 snow-capped mountains and fertile valleys, the boundless ocean and the murmuring brook, the beauties of nature and the experi- ences of history, the feelings and passions of individuals and the rise and fall of nations ; out of these exhaustless stores he con- structs an ideal world of beauty for the delight of man. This creative power of poetry has found classic expression in the passage of Shakespeare, who himself possessed it in a most eminent degree : — "The poet's eye, in a fine frenzy rolling, Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet's pen Turns them to shapes, and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name." POETRY AND INSPIRATION. In a wider sense all true poetry is inspired by a higher power. The poet and the prophet are akin. They were regarded by the Greeks as friends of the gods ; and all ceremonies, oracles and mysteries of religion were clothed in poetic dress. They often give utterance to ideas which they do not fully understand. Their genius is carried beyond the ordinary consciousness and self-possession; it soars above the clouds; it moves in an ecstatic condition of mind, bordering on madness. " Great wits to madness, sure, are near allied. And thin partitions do their wails divide. ' ' ^ Goethe makes the remark that ^' the unconscious " is the deepest element in poetry, and that his tragedy of Faust pro- ceeded from a '^ dark state ^' of his mind. There is, however, a twofold inspiration. Divine and Satanic. The poetry which administers to the sensual passions, which idolizes the creature, which ridicules virtue and makes vice lovely and attractive, is the product of the evil spirit. POETRY AND RELIGION. Poetry and music came from the same God as religion, and are intended for the same holy end. They are the handmaids ^ Drydeu. 5 66 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. of religion, and the wings of devotion. Nothing can be more preposterous than to assume an antagonism between them. The abuse can never set aside the right use. The best gifts of God are liable to the worst abuse. Some have the false notion that poetry is necessarily fictitious and antagonistic to truth. But poetry is the fittest expression of truth; it is the truth in festal dress, the silver picture of the golden apple, the ideal embodied in and shining through the real. '' Let tliose," says Lowth, " who affect to despise the Muses, cease to attempt, for the vices of a few who may abuse the best of things, to bring into disrepute a most laudable talent. Let them cease to speak of that art as light and trifling in itself, to accuse it as profane or impious ; that art which has been con- ceded to man by the favor of his Creator, and for the most sacred purposes; that art, consecrated by the authority of God Himself, and by His example in His most august ministrations."^ Dean Stanley says : ^ " There has always been, in certain minds, a repugnance to poetry, as inconsistent with the gravity of religious feeling. It has been sometimes thought that to speak of a book of the Bible as poetical, is a disparagement of it. It has been in many churches thought that the more scholastic, dry and pro- saic the forms in which religious doctrine is thrown, the more faithfully is its substance represented. To such sentiments the towering greatness of David, the acknowledged preeminence of the Psalter, are constant rebukes. David, beyond king, soldier or prophet, was the sweet singer of Israel. Llad Raphael painted a picture of Hebrew as of European Poetry, David would have sat aloft at the summit of the Hebrew Parnassus, the Homer of Jewish song." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. The Jews paid little attention to the arts of design ; sculpture and painting were forbidden in the second commandment, on account of the danger of idolatry. For the same reason they are forbidden among the Moslems. As to architecture, the only ^ Lectures on Hebrew Poetry^ Stowe's ed., p. 28. 2 Uisiory of the Jewish Churchy Vol. II., p. 164, Am. ed. THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. 67 great and beautiful work of this art was the temple of Jerusalem. Nothii]<2: can be more strikino^ to a traveller than the contrast between Egypt covered all over with ruins of temples, statues and pictures of the gods, and Palestine which has no such ruins. The remains of the few synagogues are of the plainest kind and destitute of all ornament. But in poetry the case is reversed. Of all ancient nations, except the Greeks, the Hebrews have by far tlie richest poetry, and in religious poetry they greatly excel the Hindoos, Persians, Egyptians, Greeks and Romans. More than one-third of the Old Testament is poetry. This fact is concealed and much of the beauty of the Bible lost to English readers by the absence of quantity, metre and rhyme, and by the uniform printing of poetry and prose in our popular Bibles. The current versicular division is mechanical and does not correspond to the metrical structure of Hebrew poetry. The Revised Version corrects the defect, at least in part, namely in the book of Job and in the Psalter, iu the poems scattered through the historical books, as Gen. iv. 23-24; xlix. 2-27; Ex. XV. 1-21; Deut. xxxii. 1-43; xxxiii. 2-29; Judges v. 2-31, etc., and in a few lyric sections of the Prophets (Jonah iv. 2-10; Habakkuk iii. 2-19). The same method ought to have been carried through the Prophets, all of whom, except Daniel, delivered the prophetic messages in poetry. The older commentators and divines paid little or no attention to the literary and aesthetic features of the Bible. The study of Hebrew poetry as poetry is comparatively recent and dates from the middle of the eighteenth century, although its power and beauty were felt long before. Lowth, Herder and Ewald are the first masters in this department of Biblical literature. The poetry of the Okl Testament is contained in the Poetical Books, which in the Jewish Canon are included among the Hagiographa or Holy Writings. They embrace the Book of Job, the Psalter, the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon. Besides these the Lamentations of Jeremiah and most of the Prophets are likewise poetic in sentiment and form, or they vibrate between poetry and prose. A number of lyric songs, odes, and prophecies are scattered through the historical books. 68 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. The poetic sections of the New Testament are the Magnifieaf of the blessed Virgin, the Benedidus of Zachariah, the Gloria in Excelsis of the Angels, the Nuno Dimittis of Simeon, the Parables of our Lord, the Anthems of the Apocalypse, and several poetic quotations in the Epistles. But we may say that the whole Bible is cast in a poetic mould. The Hebrews were a highly imaginative people. The Hebrew language, as Herder says, is itself a poem. Some of the prose of the Bible is equal to the best poetry, and blends truth and beauty in harmony. It approaches also, in touching^ the highest themes, the rhythmical form of Hebrew poetry, and may be arranged according to the parallelism of members. Moses was a poet as well as an historian. Every prophet or seer is a poet, though not every poet is a prophet.^ The prose of the New Testament is no less poetic than that of the Old. What can be at once more truthful, more eloquent, and more beautiful than the Beatitudes and the whole Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of our Lord, the Prologue of St. John, the seraphic description of love by St. Paul, and his tri- umphant pgean at the close of the eighth chapter of the Epistle to the Eomans ? In the opinion of Erasmus, an excellent judge of literary merit, Paul was more eloquent than Cicero.^ In this wider sense the Bible begins and ends with poetry, and clothes the first and last facts of Divine revelation in the garb of beauty. The retrospective vision of the first creation and the prospective vision of the new heavens and the new earth are presented in language which rises to the summit of poetic sublimity and power. There is nothing more pregnant and sublime in thought, and at the same time more terse and classical in expression, than the sentence of the Creator : — "Let there be light ! And there was light. " There can be no nobler and higher conception of man than * Isaac Taylor says {The Spirit of Hebrew Podnj, page 68) : "Biblical utterances of the first truths iu theology possess tlie grandeur of the lofti- est poetry, as well as a rliythmical or artificial structure." 2" Quid unquaia Cicero dixit grandiloquent ins ?^^ says Erasmus, in reference to the eightli chapter of Romans. The heathen Lougiuus placed l*aul among the greatest orators. THE POETKY OF THE BIBLE. 69 that witli which the Bible introduces him into the world as the very image and likeness of the infinite God. And the idea of a paradise of innocence, love and peace at the threshold of history is poetry as well as reality, casting its sunshine over the gloom of the fall, and opening the prospect of a future paradise regained. Then, passing from the first chapter of Genesis to the last of the Apocalypse, how lovely and comforting is St. John's description of the New Jerusalem. It has inspired those hymns of heavenly homesickness, from ^' Ad perennis vitce fontem " to " Jerusalem the Golden," which cheer the weary pilgrim on his home-bound journey through the wilderness of life. The poetry of the Old Testament has always been an essential part of Jewish and Christian worship. The Psalter was the first, and for many centuries the only hymn-book of the Church. It is the most fruitful source of Christian hymnody. Many of the finest English and German hymns are free reproductions of Hebrew psalms ; the 23d Psalm alone has furnished the keynote to a large number of Christian hymns, and the 46th Psalm to Luther's masterpiece : — "^m' feste Burg ist unser Gott''^ As among other nations, so among the Jews, poetry was the oldest form of composition. It precedes prose, as youth precedes manhood, and as feeling and imagination are active before sober reflection and logical reasoning. Much of the Hebrew poetry is lost. Solomon composed a thousand and five songs (1 Kings iv. 32). " The Bool« of the Wars of Jehovah'' (Num. xxi. 14) and "The Book of Jashar," or the Upright (Josh. x. 13 ; 2 Sam. i. 18) were at least partly poetic. Jeremiah composed an elegy for Josiah (2 Chron. XXXV. 25). Poetry and music were closely connected, and accompanied domestic and social life in seasons of joy and sorrow. They cheered the wedding, the harvest and other feasts (Jos. ix. 3; Judg. xxi. 19; Amos vi. 5; Ps. iv. 8). They celebrated victory after a battle, as the song of Moses, Ex. xv., and the song of Deborah, Judg. v. ; they greeted the victor on his return, 1 Sam. xviii. 8. The shepherd sung while watching his flock, the hunter 70 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. in the pursuit of his prey. Maidens deplored the death of Jeph- thah's daughter in songs (Judg. xi. 40), and David, the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 18), and afterward of Abner (2 Sara. iii. 33). Love was the theme of a nobler inspiration than among the sensual Greeks, and the Song celebrates the Hebrew ideal of pure bridal love, as reflecting the love of Jehovah to His people, and prefiguring the union of Christ with His church. THE SPIRIT OF BIBLE POETRY. The poetry of the Bible is in the highest and best sense the poetry of revelation and inspiration. It is animated by the genius of the true religion, by the Spirit of Jehovah ; and hence rises far above the religious poetry of the Hindoos, Parsees and Greeks, as the religion of revelation is above the religion of nature, and the God of the Bible above the idols of the heathen. It is the poetry of truth and holiness. It never administers to trifling vanities and lower passions ; it is the chaste and spotless priestess at the altar. It reveals the mysteries of the Divine will to man, and ofi^ers up man^s prayers and thanks to his Maker. It is consecrated to the glory of Jehovah and the moral perfection of man. The most obvious feature of Bible poetry is its intense Theism. The question of the existence of God is never raised, and an atheist is simply set down as a fool (Ps. xiv.). The Hebrew poet lives and moves in the idea of a living God, as a self- revealing, personal, almighty, holy, omniscient, all-pervading and merciful Being, and overflows with his adoration and praise. He sees and hears God in the works of creation and in the events of history. Jehovah is to him the Maker and Preserver of all things. He shines in the firmament ; He rides on the thunder-storm; He clothes the lilies ; He feeds the ravens and young lions, and the cattle on a thousand hills ; He gives rain and fruitful seasons. He is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, of Moses, David, and the Prophets. He is the ever- present help and shield, the comfort and joy of Israel. He is just and holy in His judgments, good, merciful and true in all His dealings. He rules and overrules even the wrath of man for His own glory and the good of His people. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 71 To this all-prevailing Theism corresponds the anthropology and ethics of the Bible. Man is always represented under his most important moral and religious relations, in the state of innocence, in the terrible slavery of sin, and in the process of redemption and restoration to more than his original glory and dominion over the creation. Hebrew poetry reflects in fresh and life-like colors the working of God^s law and promise on the heart of the pious, and every state of his experience, the deep emotions of repentance and grief, faith and trust, gratitude and praise, hope and aspiration, love and peace. Another characteristic of Bible poetry is the combination of childlike simplicity and sublimity. The grandest ideas are set forth and brought home to the heart of every reader who has a lively organ for religious truth. The Psalms and the Parables are alike suited to the capacity of the young and the old, the cultured and the uncultured. They are popular and yet ele- vated, luminous and yet profound, easily comprehended and yet inexhaustibly deep. We never get tired of them, and every reading reveals new treasures. More than this, the Bible poetry has a cosmopolitan character and a universal interest. It is as well adapted to Christians in America in this nineteenth century as it was to the Jews in Palestine centuries before Christ. The scenery and style are thoroughly oriental and Hebrew, and yet they can be translated into every language without losing by the process — which cannot be said of any other poetry. Greek and Roman poetry have more art and variety, more ele- gance and finish, but no such popularity, catholicity and adapta- bility. The heart of humanity beats in the Hebrew poet. It is true, his experience falls far short of that of the Christian. Yet nearly every phase of Old Testament piety strikes a corres- ponding chord in the soul of the Christian ; and such are the depths of the Divine Spirit who guided the genius of the sacred singers that their words convey far more than they themselves were conscious of, and reach prophetically forward into the most distant future. All this applies with special force to the Psalter, the holy of holies in Hebrew poetry, and in the Psalter to the psalms which 72 THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. bear the name of David, " the singer of Israel." He was placed by Providence in the different situations of shepherd, courtier, outlaw, warrior, conqueror, king, that he might the more vividly set forth Jehovah as the Good Shepherd, the ever-present Helper, the mighty Conqueror, the just and merciful Sovereign. He was open to all the emotions of friendship and love, gene- rosity and mercy ; he enjoyed the highest joys and honors ; he suffered poverty, persecution and exile, the loss of his dearest friend, treason and rebellion from his own son. Even his changing moods and passions, his sins and crimes, which with their swift and fearful punishments form a domestic tragedy of rare terror and pathos, were overruled and turned into lessons of humility, comfort and gratitude. All this rich spiritual biography from his early youth to his old age, together with God's merciful dealings with him, are written in his hymns, though with reference to his inward states of mind rather than his outward condition, so that readers of very different situation or position in life might yet be able to sympathize with the feelings and emotions expressed. His hymns give us a deeper glance into his inmost heart and his secret communion with God than the narrative of his life in the historical books. They are remarkable for simplicity, freshness, vivacity, warmth, depth and vigor of feeling, childlike tenderness and heroic faith, and the all-pervading fear and love of God. ^' In all his works," says the author of Ecclesiasticus (xlvii. 8-12), "he praised the Holy One; to the Most High he sang with all his heart in words of glory, and loved Him that made him. He set singers also before the altar, that by their voices they might make sweet melody and daily sing praises in their songs. He beautified their feasts and set in order the solemn times until the end, that they might praise His holy name, and make the temple resound from the morning. The Lord took away his sins and exalted his horn forever; He gave him a covenant of kings and a throne of glory in Israel. '^ ^ ^ Comp. Ewald's admirable portrait of David as a poet, in the first volume of Die JJichier (Ics A. B., p. 25. Dean Perowne, in liis Commentary on the Psalms, Vol. I., pp. 8, 9, third ed. (1873), gives this truthful description of him : "As David's life shines in his poetry, so also does his character. That THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 73 This inseparable union with religion, with truth and holiness, gives to Hebrew poetry an enduring charm and undying power for good in all ages and countries. It never gets out of date, and never grows old. The dew of youth is upon it. It brings us into the immediate presence of the great Jehovah, it raises us above the miseries of earth, it dispels the clouds of darkness; it inspires, ennobles, purifies and imparts peace and joy; it giv^es us a foretaste of heaven itself. Ewald truly says of Hebrew poetry : " It is the interpreter of the sublimest religious ideas for all times, and herein lies its most important and imperish- able value.^' ^ In this respect the poetry of the Bible is as far above classic poetry as the Bible itself is above all other books. Homer and Virgil dwindle into insignificance as compared with David and Asaph, if we look to the moral effect upon the heart and the life character -was no commou one. It was strong Tvith all the strength of man, tender with all the tenderness of woman. Naturally brave, his courage was heightened and confirmed by that foitli in Grod which never, in the worst extremity, forsook him. Naturally warm-hearted, his affections struck their roots deep into the innermost centre of his being. In his love for his parents, for whom he provided in his own extreme peril — in his love for his wife ^Michal — for his friend Jonathan, whom he loved as his own soul — for his darling Absalom, whose death almost broke his heart — even for the infant whose loss he dreaded; — we see the same man, the same depth and truth, the same tenderness of personal affection. On the other hand, when stung with a sense of wrong or injustice, his sense of which was peculiarly keen, he could flash ont into strong words and strong deeds. He could hate with the same fervor that he loved. Evil men and evil things, all that was at war with goodness and with God — for these he found no abhorrence too deep, scarcely any imprecations too strong. Yet he was, withal, placable and ready to forgive. He could exercise a prudent self-control, if he was occasionally im- petuous. His true courtesy, his chivalrous generosity to his foes, his rare delicac}', his rare self-denial, are all traits which present themselves most forcibly as we read his history. He is the truest of heroes in the genuine elevation of his character, no less than in the extraordinary incidents of his life. Such a man cannot wear a mask in his writings. Depth, tenderness, fervor, mark all his poems." ^ Winer, too, derives from the religious character of Hebrew poetry its "sublime flight and never-dying beauty." Angus says: "The peculiar excellence of the Hebrew poetry is to be ascribed to the employment of it in the noblest service, that of religion. It presents the loftiest and most precious truths, expressed in the most appropriate language." 74 THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. of the reader. The classic poets reach only a small and cultured class ; but the singers of the Bible come home to men of every grade of education, every race and color, every condition of life, and every creed and sect. The Psalter is, as Luther calls it, ^' a manual of all the saints," where each one finds the most truthful description of his own situation, especially in seasons of affliction. It has retained its hold upon the veneration and affections of pious Jews and Christians for these three thousand years, and is even now and will ever be more extensively used as a guide of private devotion and public worship than any other book. " When Christian martyrs, and Scottish Covenanters in dens and caves of the earth, when French exiles and Ensflish fugitives in their hiding-places during the panic of revolution or of mutiny, received a special comfort from the Psalms, it was because they found themselves literally side by side with the author in the cavern of Adullam, or on the cliffs of Engedi, or beyond the Jordan, escaping from Saul or from Absalom, from the Philistines or from the Assyrians. When Burleigh or Locke seemed to find an echo in the Psalms to their own calm phi- losophy, it was because they were listening to the strains which had proceeded from the mouth or charmed the ear of the saga- cious king or the thoughtful statesman of Judah. It has often been observed that the older we grow, the more interest the Psalms possess for us as individuals; and it may at most be said that by these multiplied associations, the older the human race grows, the more interest do they possess for mankind." ^ POETIC MERIT. In its religious character, as just described, lies the crowning excellence of the poetry of the Bible. The spiritual ideas are the main thing, and they rise in richness, purity, sublimity and universal importance immeasurably beyond the literature of all other nations of antiquity. But as to the artistic and aesthetic form, it is altogether subor- dinate to the contents, and held in subserviency to the lofty aim. Moses, David, Solomon, Isaiah, and the author of the Book of ^ Stanley : Wmt. of the Jewish Chureh, II. 167. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 75 Job, possessed evidently the highest gifts of poetry, but they restrained them, lest human genius should outshine the Divine grace, or the silver picture be estimated above the golden apple. The poetry of the Bible, like the whole Bible, wears the garb of humility and condescends to men of low degree, in order to raise them up. It gives no encouragement to the idolatry of genius, and glorifies God alone. '^ Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto Thy name give glory" (Ps. cxv. 1). Hence an irreligious or immoral man is apt to be repelled by the Bible; he feels himself in an uncongenial atmosphere, and is made uneasy and uncomfortable by the rebukes of sin and the praise of a holy God. He will not have this book rule over him or disturb him in his worldly modes of thought and habits of life. Others are unable to divest themselves of early prejudices for classical models ; they esteem external polish more highly than ideas, and can enjoy no poetry which is not cast in the ancient Greek or modern mould, and moves on in the regular flow of uniform metre, stanza, and rhyme. And yet these are not essen- tial to true poetry. The rhyme was unknown to Homer, Pindar, Sophocles, Virgil and Horace ; it was even despised by Milton as " the invention of a barbarous age to set oflp wretched matter and lame metre, as the jingling sound of like endings trivial to all judicious ears and of no true musical delight." This is indeed going to the opposite extreme ; for although rhyme and even metre are by no means necessary in the epos and drama, they yet belong to the perfection of some forms of lyric poetry, which is the twin sister of music. If we study the Bible poetry on its own ground, and with unclouded eyes, we may find in it forms of beauty as high and enduring as in that of any nation ancient or modern. Even its artless simplicity and naturalness are the highest triumph of art. Simplicity always enters into good taste. Those poems and songs which are the outgushings of the heart, without any show of artificial labor, are the most popular, and never lose their hold on the heart. Vie feel that we could make them ourselves, and yet only a high order of genius could produce them. Where is there a nobler ode of liberty, of national deliverance 76 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. and independence, than the Song of Moses on the overthrow of Pharaoh in the Red Sea (Ex. xv.) ? Where a grander panorama of creation than in the one hundred and fourth Psahn? Where a more charming and loving pastoral than the twenty-third Psalm ? Where such a high view of the dignity and destiny of man as in the eighth Psalm ? Where a profounder sense of sin and Divine forgiveness than in the thirty-second and fifty-first Psalms? Where such a truthful and overpowering description of the vanity of human life and the never-changing character of the holy and just, yet merciful God, as in the ninetieth Psalm? Where have the infinite greatness and goodness of God, his holi- ness, righteousness, long-suffering and mercy, the wonders of His government, and the feeling of dependence on Him, of joy and peace in Him, of gratitude for His blessings, of praise of His glory, found truer and fitter embodiment than in the Psalter and the Prophets ? Where will you find more sweet, tender, and deli- cate expression of innocent love than in the Song of Songs, which sounds like the singing of birds in sunny May from the flowery fields and the tree of life in Paradise ? The Prayer of Moses (Psalm xc.) has been styled "the most sublime of human compo- sitions, the deepest in feeling, loftiest in theologic conception, the most magnificent in its imagery.'^ Isaiah is,, in the judgment of the ablest critics, one of the greatest of poets as well as of prophets, of an elevation, a richness, a compass, a power and comfort that are unequalled. No human genius ever soared so high as this evangelist of the old dispensation. Jeremiah, the prophet of sorrow and affliction, has furnished the richest supply of the language of holy grief in seasons of public calamity and distress, from the destruction of Jerusalem down to the latest siege of Paris; and few works have done this work more effectively than his Lamentations. And what shall we say of the Book of Job, the Shakespeare in the Bible? Where are such bold and vivid descriptions of the wonders of nature, of the behemoth, the levi- athan, and of the war-horse? What can be finer than Job's picture of wisdom, whose price is far above rubies? And what a wealth of comfort is in that wonderful passage, which inspired the sublimest solo in the sublimest musical composition, those words graven in the rock forever, where this patriarchal sage THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 77 and saint of the order of Melchisedec expresses his faith and hope that his ^^ lledeemer liv^eth," and that the righteous shall see Him face to face. TRIBUTES OF POETS AND SCHOLARS TO HEBREW POETRY. The times for the depreciation of Bible poetry have passed. Many of the greatest scholars and poets, some of whom by no means in sympathy with its religious ideas, have done it full justice. I quote a few of them who represent different stand- points and nationalities. Henry Stephens, the greatest philologist of the sixteenth cen- tury, thought that there was nothing more poetic {jzinrjrf/.w-spov)^ nothing more musical (/j.()ucrf/.a)Tep(>w), nothing more thrilling {jopywrspov^j nothing more full of lofty inspiration [Sci9uparij3r/.6' repov) than the Psalms of David. John Milton, notwithstanding his severe classic taste, judges: ^^ There are no songs comparable to the songs of Zion, no orations equal to those of the Prophets, and no politics like those which the Scriptures teach.'' And as to the Psalms, he says : " Not in their divine arguments alone, but in the very critical art of composition, the Psalms may be easily made to appear over all the kinds of lyric poesy incomparable.'' Sir William Jones : " I have regularly and attentively read the Holy Scriptures, and am of the opinion that this volume, independently of its divine origin, contains more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, more important history and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected from all other books." Sir D. K. Sand ford : "In lyric flow and fire, in crushing force and majesty, the poetry of the ancient Scriptures is the most superb that ever burnt within the breast of man." John von Miiller, the German Tacitus: '^ There is nothing in Greece, nothing in Rome, nothing in all the ^yest, like David, who selected the God of Israel to sing Him in higher strains than ever praised the gods of the Gentiles." Herder, who was at home in the literature of all ages and countries, is full of enthusiastic admiration for the pure and sublime beauties of Hebrew poetry, as may be seen on almost 78 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. every page of his celebrated work on the subject. He regards it as ^' the oldest, simplest, siiblimest ^' of all poetry, and in the form of a dialogue between Alciphron and Eutyphron, after the Platonic fashion, he triumphantly vindicates its merits against all objections, and illustrates it with admirable translations of choice passages. Goethe pronounced the book of Ruth '^ the loveliest thing in the shape of an epic or idyl which has come down to us.^^ Alexander von Humboldt, in his " Cosmos " (where the name of God scarcely occurs, except in an extract from the heathen Aristotle), praises the Hebrew description of nature as unrivalled, especially the 104th Psalm, as ^^ presenting in itself a picture of the whole world." ^' Nature," he says, ^' is to the Hebrew poet not a self-dependent object, but a work of creation and order, the living expression of the omnipresence of the Divinity in the visible world." Thomas Carlyle calls the Book of Job, "apart from all theories about it, one of the grandest things ever written by man. A noble book ! All men's book ! Such living likenesses were never since drawn. Sublime sorrow, sublime reconcilia- tion ; oldest choral melody, as of the heart of manhood ; so soft and great as the summer midnight; as the world with its seas and stars. There is nothing written, I think^ of equal literary merit." Isaac Taylor : " The Hebrew writers as poets were masters of all the means and the resources, the powers and the stores, of the loftiest poetry, but subservient to a far loftier purpose than that which ever animates human genius." Heinrich Ewald calls the old Hebrew poetry " unique in its kind and in many respects unsurpassed, because as to its contents it is the interpreter of those sublime religious thoughts which lived in Israel, and are found nowhere else in antiquity in such purity, vigor and durability, and as to its form it has a won- derful simplicity and naivete flowing from that sublimity of thought." Dean Stanley : " The Psalms are beyond question poetical from first to last, and he will be a bold man who shall say that a book is less inspired, or less true, or less orthodox, or less THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. 79 Divine, because it is like the Psalms. The Prophet, in order to take root in the common life of the people, must become a Psalmist." J. J. Stewart Perowne : ^' The very excellence of the Psalms is their universality. They spring from the deep fountains of the human heart, and God, in Plis providence, and by His Spirit, has so ordered it, that they should be for His Church an ever- lasting heritage. Hence they express the sorrows, the joys, the aspirations, the struggles, the victories, not of one man, but of all. And if we ask. How comes this to pass ? the answer is not far to seek. One object is ever before the eyes and the heart of the Psalmist. All enemies, all distresses, all persecutions, all sins, are seen in the light of God. It is to Him that the cry goes up ; it is to Him that the heart is laid bare; it is to Him that the thanksgiving is uttered. This it is which makes them so true, so precious, so universal. Xo surer proof of their inspiration can be given than this, that they are ' not of an age, but for all time/ that the ripest Christian can use them in the fulness of his Christian manhood, though the words are the words of one who lived centuries before the coming of Christ in the flesh." CLASSIFICATION OF BIBLE POETRY. Strictly speaking, there are only three classes of pure poetry in which imagination and feeling are controlling factors. These are lyric, epic, and dramatic. Lyric poetry is the poetry of subjective emotions ; epic poetry, the poetry of objective narration ; dramatic poetry, the poetry of living action.^ But there is a mixed kind, called didactic poetry. It is the product of reflection as well as of imagination. It runs into philosophy and ethics. The first three kinds have their aim in themselves. Didactic poetry has its aim beyond itself, in instruction or improvement, and uses the poetic form as a means to an end. Bible poetry is chiefly lyric and didactic. Many writers 'Goethe says: " jS's gibt nur drci eclite Naturformen der Poesie : die klar erzdhlende, die enthusiast isch aufgeregte und die personlich handelnde : Epos, Lyrik und Drama.'' ^ 80 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. admit only these two kinds.-^ But we must add to them as sub- ordinate forms, PROPHETIC and dramatic poetry. Prophetic poetry may be regarded as a branch of didactic, or, perhaps better, as a substitute for epic poetry. The revealed religion excludes mythology and hero-worship, which control the epic poetry of the heathen. It substitutes for them mono- theism, which is inconsistent with any kind of idolatry. The real hero, so to speak, of the history of revelation is Jehovah Himself, the only true and living God, to whom all glory is due. And so He appears in the prophetic writings. He is the one object of worship, praise and thanksgiving, but not the object of a narrative poem. He is the one sovereign actor, who in heaven originates and controls all events on earth, but not one among other actors, cooperating or conflicting with finite beings. There are epic elements in several lyric poems which cele- brate certain great events in Jewish history, as the Song of Moses, Exod. XV., and the Song of Deborah, Judg. v. ; yet even here the lyric element preponderates, and the subjectivity of the poet is not lost in the objective event as in the genuine epos. The Book of E.uth has been called an epos. The Prologue and E})i- logue of Job are epic, and have a truly narrative and objective character; but they are only the framework of the poem itself, which is essentially didactic in dramatic form. In the apocry- phal books the epic element appears in the book of Tobit and the book of Judith, which stand between narrative and fiction, and correspond to what we call romance or novel. Dramatic poetry occurs in close connection with lyric and didactic poetry, but is subordinate to them, and is not so fully develoi^ed as in Greek literature. I. LYRIC POETRY. Lyric poetry, or the poetry of feeling, is the oldest and pre- dominant form of poetry among the Hebrew as all other Semitic 'So Perowne {The Booh of Psalms, Vol. L, p. 1, third ed.) : "The poetry of the Hebrews is mainly of two kinds, lyrical and didactic. They have no epic and no drama. Dramatic elements are to be found in many of their odes, and tlie Book of Job and the Song of Songs have sometimes been called Divine dramas ; but dramatic poetry, in the proper sense of that term, was altogetlier unknown to the Israelites." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 81 nations. It is the easiest, the most natural, and best adapted for devotion both private and public. It wells up from the human heart, and gives utterance to its many strong and tender emotions of love and friendship, of joy and gladness, of grief and sorrow, of hope and desire, of gratitude and praise. Ewald happily de- scribes it as '^the daughter of the moment, of swift, rising, pow^- erful feelings, of deep stirrings and fiery emotions of the soul.'^^ Lyric poetry, as the name indicates,^ is closely connected w^ith music, its twin sister. The song of Lamech and the song of Moses were accompanied by musical instruments. David was a poet and a musician and sang his hymns to the sound of the harp or guitar. The minstrel and gleeman of the middle ages represent the same union. Among the Greeks the epos appears first; but older lyric effusions may have been lost. Among the Hindoos they are preserved in the Vedas. Lyric poetry is found among all nations which have a poetic literature ; but epic poetry, at least in its fuller development, is not so general, and hence cannot be the primitive form. Lyric poetry contains the fruitful germs of all other kinds of poetry. When the poetic feeling is kindled by a great event in history, it expresses itself more or less epically, as in the battle and victory hymns of Moses and Deborah. When the poet desires to teach a great truth or practical lesson, he becomes didactic. When he exhibits his emotions in the form of action and real life, he approaches the drama. In like manner the ^ Ewald, Dicliter des A. 5. I., p. 17 : " Die hjrisclie Dichtung oder das Lied isi ilherall die nachste Art von Dichtung, welche bei irgend einem Voike entsteht. Sie ist cs ihrem Wcsen nach: denn sie ist die Tochter des Augenblicks, schnell emporkommcnder gcivaltiger Empfindungen, tiefer B'dhrungen und feuriger Bewe- gungen des Gem'dthcs, von ivelchen der Dicliter so ganz hingcrissen ist, dass er in sich wie vcrlorcn, nichts als sie, so gcwaltig icie sie in ihm leben, aussprcchen toill. Sie ist es ebcnso der Zeit nach: das kurzc Lied ist der bestdndigste, unvericilstlichste Theil ran Pocsie, der erste und letzie Erguss dichierischer Stimmung, wie eine unversiegbare Quelle, welche zu jeder Zeit sich icieder friscJi crgiessen kann. Sie ist also auch bei alien Volkern nothwendig die ciltc^te, die, icelche zucrst eine dichterische Gestaltiing und Kunst gr'dndet und alien ilbrigen Arten von Dichtung die Wege bahnt.''^ On p. 91 Ewald ^^ays : " Und so bleibt das Lied in scinem ganzen rcinen und vollcn Wesen wie der Anfang so das Ende alter Dichtung.''^ 2 From /.I'pa, a striuged iustrumeiit. 6 82 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. lyric poetry may give rise to mixed forms which appear in the later stages of literature.-^ THE SONG OF LAMECH. The oldest known specimen of lyric poetry and of all poetry (excepting the Divine poem of creation) is the song of Lamech to his two wives (Gen. iv. 23). It has already the measured arrangement, alliteration and musical correspondence of Hebrew parallelism. It is a proud, fierce, defiant ^^ sword-song,^^ com- memorating in broken, fragmentary utterances the invention of weapons of brass and iron by Lamech's son, Tubal-Cain (/. c, lance-maker), and threatening vengeance : — "Adah and Zillali ! hear my voice ; Ye wives of Lamecli, listen to my speech : For I have slain - a man for wounding me, Even a young man for bruising me. Lo ! Cain shall be avenged seven-fold, But Lamech seventy and seven-fold. ' ' ^ ^ Ewald, I. c, p. 1 sq. : ^ ^ Der hesondere Zweck, ivclchen der Didder verfolgen mag, kann im Allgemeinen niir em dreifaclier sein: er ivlll cntweder mit seinen gefl'dgelten Worten loie mit einer Lelire andre treffen, odcr er will erzdhlend hesehreiben, oder endlich er will das voile Leben selbst ehenso hhcndig wiedergehen : und so warden Lehrdichtuxg, Sagendichtuxg {Epos, und Lebexsdich- TUNG {Drama) die drei Arten hoherer Dichtung sein, welehe sich uberall wie von selbst ausbilden wollen. Erst wenn sie sich vollkommen ausgebildet haben, entstelien aueh wohl neue Zwitterarten, indem das Lied als die Urart alter Dichtung seine eigenthJXmliche Weise mit einer derselben neu verschmilzt und diese stets ndchste und allgegenwdrtigste Urdichtung sich so in neaer Schopfung mannichfach verjiingt.''^ ^ The perfect, / have slain (^nJl^H' Sept. a~t:tiTF.iva^ Vulg. oecidi), is prob- al)ly used in the spirit of arrogant boasting, to express the future with all tlie certainty of an accomplished fact. Chrysostom, Theodoret, Jerome, Jarchi and others set Lamech down as a murderer (of Cain), who here confesses his deed to ease liis conscience ; but Aben-Ezra, Cilviu, Herder, Ewald, Delitzsch, take the verb as a threat : "I will slay any man who wounds me." Dillman combines the past and tlie future: '"'' Das Perfectam kann nicht den I'orsatz ausdriieken, aueh nicht die blosse Gewissheit, .soxdern niir die voUzogene That, die er aber in dhnlichevi Falle zu wiederholen nicht zugern wird.'" The Iv. V. puts the future into tlie margin : / ivill slay. ^ The law of blood for blood is strongly exx)re.ssed also in the tragic poetry THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 83 Here we have the origin of secular poetry, and also of music (for the other son of Laniccli, Juhal, /. e., Harper, invented musical instruments), in connection with the progressive material civilization of the descendants of Cain. The other poetic remains of the ante-Mosaic age are the Pre- diction of Noah concerning his three sons (Gen. ix. 25-27), and the death-chant of Jacob (Gen. xlix. 1-27) ; but these belong rather to prophetic poetry. THE SOXG OF MOSES. In the Mosaic ag^e we meet first with the sonor of deliverance which Moses sang with the children of Israel unto the Lord after the overthrow of Pliaraoh's host in the Red Sea (Ex. xv. 1-18). It is the oldest specimen of a patriotic ode,^ and may be called the national anthem, or the Te Deum of the Hebrews. It sounds through all the thanksgiving hymns of Israel, and is associated by the Apocalyptic Seer with the final triumph of the Church, when the saints shall sing " the song of Moses, and the song of the Lamb " (Rev. xv. 3). Its style is archaic, simple, and grand. It is arranged for antiphonal singing, chorus answering to chorus, and voice to voice; the maidens playing upon the timbrels. It is full of alliterations and rhymes which cannot be rendered, and hence it necessarily loses in any translation.^ of Greece, especially in the Eumenides of iEschylus, also the Choejjhorse, 398 (quoted by Prof. T. Lewis, in Lange's Com. on Gen. iii loc.) : — " There is a law that blood once poured on eaith By murderous hands demands that other blood Be shed in retribution. From the slain Erynnys calls aloud for vengeance still, Till death in justice must be paid for death." ^ From d(kteiv^ to sing. ^ Dr. Ley (p. 210 sqq.) arranges the Hebrew text octametrically and says: ^^Diescr alte Festgesang id durehaus octaincfrisch, hat lautcr rcgdmdssige Stropheii mit Ausnahme dcr ersten.''^ Herder says of this poem, of which he gives a free German translation: ^^ Der Durchgang durchs Meer hat das dltestc uiid klingcndstc Sicgc-Hlied hervorgcbracht, das wir in dieser Sprache hahen. Es ist Chorgesang : cine einzelne Stimme malte viclleicht die Thaten setbst, die der Chor auffing und glcichsam verhallte. Sein Bau ist einfach, voll Assonanzen und Beime, die ich in unsrcr Sprache ohne Wortzwang nicht zu geben w'dsste ; denn die ebras- 84 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. " I will sing unto Jehovah, For He hath triumphed gloriously : The horse and his rider Hath He thrown into the sea. Jehovah is my strength and song, And He is become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise Him ;^ My Other's God, and I will exalt Him. Jehovah is a man of war ; Jehovah is His name. Pharaoh's chariots and his host Hath He cast into the sea : And his chosen captains Are sunk in the Red Sea. The depths cover them ; They went down to the bottom like a stone. Thy right hand, Jehovah, is glorious in power, Thy right hand, Jehovah, dasheth in pieces the enemy. And in the greatness of Thy majesty Thou overturnest them that rise up against Thee. Thou sendest forth Thy wrath. It consumeth them like stubble. And with the blast of Thy nostrils the waters were piled up. The floods stood upright as an heap. The depths were congealed in the heart of the sea. ische Sprache ist ivegen ihres einfonnigen Banes soldier klingenden Assonanzen roll. LeicJite, layige, aher icenige Worte versclncehen in der Luft, iind meistens endigt eindunklcr, einsylhiger Schall, der vielleicM den Bardlet des Chors machte.''^ Lange thus happily characterizes this ode {Comm. on Ex.) : " Wie der Durch- gang durch das Bothe 3Ieer als einefundamentale Thatsache des typischen Beiehcs Goites seine Bezlehung durch die game HeiJige ScJtrift aushreitct, wie er sick ruckicdrfs auf die S'dndfluth bezieJit, iceiier vorwdrfs auf die christliche Taufc^ und schliessUch auf das EndgericJit, so gehen auch die Beflexe von dicsem Liede 3Ioses durch die ganze Heilige Schrift. B'dckwdrts ist es vorhereiiet durch die poefischen Laute der Genesis und durch den Segen Jakohs, vorwarts gcht es durch kJeinc episcJie Laute iiber auf das Ahschiedslicd des Moses und seinen Segen, 5 JIos. 32, 33. Zicei grossartige Seitensi'dcke, wcJche foJgen, das Siegeslied der Dehor a und das BettungsJied des David, 2 Sam. 22 {Bs. 18), leiten dann die Bsalmen- poesie ein, in ivelcher vieJfach der Grundton unsres Liedes wieder mit anklingt, Bs. 77, 78, 105, 106, 114. Koch einnml ist am Schiusse des X. T. von dvuh Liede Mosis die Bede ; es tunt fort als das tgpische Triumphlied des J'olkes Gotfes bis in die andre Welt hinein, Off'enb. xv. 3." ^ The Autli. V. : " I will prepare him an liabitatiou " (sanctuary), would THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 85 The enemy sai'l. I will pursue. I will uvenake, I will divi'ie the si-oil, My liiw with Thy win'i. The sea covereil them : They sank as lead in the mighty waters. Wh'j is like iint':> Thee. Jeh'i'vah. am^mg the gods? Wlio is like Thee. gL.>ri':«iLS in h^jlint-ss. Fcarliil in praises, d'jing w^jn^lc rs ? Thi;>ii didst stretch out Thy right han-i, The earth swallowed them. Thou in Thy mercy hast le<;l the people Which ThL'U hast re^ieeme'i. Th'ju hast gui-le<;l them in Thy strength T.J Thy h-ly habitation. The peo'ple have heard, they tremble : ^ Pangs have taken hold on the inhabitants of Philistia. Then were the chiefs of E';l;>m ':lismayed ; Tne mighty men of M':>ab, trembling taketh hold iijx>n them. All the inhabitants of Canaan are melte-i away : Tt-rrur an..! dread tail uT>on them. By the greatness of Thine arm they are as still as a stone ; Till Thy peijple pass uver. Jehovah, Till the pe'.'ple pass over. Which Thuu hast i:aLrchased. Thiju shalt bring them in. Au'i plant them in the mLaintain '.-f Thine inheritance. The pkce, Jehovah, which Th-ai hast made fjr Thee to dwell in. The sanctuary. Jehovah. whi<;h Thy hau'ls have establishes! Jehuvah shall reign fbr ever and evcr. anticipate the building of the tabernacle, but is not justiiieil by the Hebre-rr. The Revision renders as alx)ve. ^ The p«x-t, alter giving thanks ibr the past. lo<3ks to the future and describes the certain c»3nseqnenees of this mighty deliverance, which struck terror into the hearts of all enemies of Israel, and must end in the conqueiat of Canaan, as promise*;! by Jehovah. 86 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. Here the song ends, and what follows (ver. 19) is probably a brief recapitulation to fix the event in the memory : — ' ' For the horses of Pharaoh went in with his chariots And with his horsemen into the sea, And Jehovah brought again the waters of the sea upon them ; But the children of Israel walked on dry land In the midst of the sea. ' ' Moses wrote also that sublime farewell song which celebrates Jehovah's merciful dealings with Israel (Dent, xxxii.), the part- ing blessing of the twelve tribes (Deut. xxxiii.), and the nine- tieth Psalm, called " A Prayer of Moses, the man of God/' which sums up the spiritual experience of his long pilgrim- age in the wilderness, and which proves its undying force at every sick bed and funeral service. What can be more sub- lime than the contrast this Psalm draws between the eternal, unchangeable Jehovah and the fleeting life of mortal man. ' ' Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling place In all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, Or ever Thou hadst formed the earth and the world, Even from everlasting to everlasting Thou art God. Thou turnest man to destruction ; And sayest, Return, ye children of men. For a thousand years in Thy sight Are but as yesterday when it is past, And as a watch in the night. The days of our years are threescore years and ten, Or even by reason of strength fourscore years ; Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow ; For it is soon gone, and we fly away. So teach us to number our days, That we may turn our hearts unto wisdom. LYRICS IX THE LATER HISTORICAL BOOKS. The Book of Joshua (x. 12, 13) contains a poetic quotation from the book of Jashar (the Upright), which was probably a collection of patriotic songs in commemoration of providential THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 87 deliverances and heroic deeds. In describing the victory of Joshua over the Amorites at Gibeon, the poet says : — " Sun, stand still upon Gibeon, And thou, moon, ui)on the valley of Ajalon ! And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed her course, Until the nation were avenged of their enemies. ' ' This passage has the rhythm, parallelism and alliteration of Hebrew poetry, and expresses in a bold, oriental figure the idea that all the powers of nature are made subservient to the inter- ests of the theocracy. The Song of Deborah (Judges v. 20) expresses the same idea : — " The stars in their courses fought against Sisera, The river of Kishon swept them away. ' ' The period of the Judges was, like the Middle Ages, a period of striking contrasts, wild disorder, heroic virtue and romantic poetry. Then might was right, and every man did what seemed good in his sight. The people were constantly exposed to inva- sion from without and civil war from within, but Providence raised deliverers who were both captains and judges, and restored peace and order. The spirit of that age found utterance in the Song of Deborah (Judges v. 2-31), eight hundred years before Pindar. It is a stirring battle-song, full of fire and dithyrambic swing, and all the more remarkable as the product of a woman, the Jeanne d'Arc of Israel : — " Hear, ye kings ; Give ear, ye princes : I, even I, will sing to Jehovah ; I will sing praise to Jehovah, the God of Israel. When Thou didst go forth out of Seir, When Thou didst march out of the field of Edom, The earth trembled, the heavens also dropped. Yea, the clouds dropped water. The mountains quaked at the presence of Jehovah, Even yon Sinai at the presence of Jehovah, the God of Israel."^ ^ For an English translation of the whole song, see Dean Stanley, Jewish Church, II. 332. An admirable German translation by Herder, and another by Cassel (^iu Lange's Bibdwcrk). 88 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. Another but very different specimen of female poetry is Han- nah's hymn of joy and gratitude when she dedicated her son Samuel, the last of the Judges, to the service of Jehovah (1 Sam. ii. 1-10). It furnished the key-note to the llagnificat of the Virgin Mary after the miraculous conception. The Book of Ruth is an idyllic poem in prose, and exhibits in contrast to the wild commotion of the period of the Judges, a picture of domestic peace and happiness and the beauty of filial devotion. DAVID'S LAMENT OF JONATHAN. The reign of David was the golden age of lyric poetry. He was himself the prince of singers in Israel. *' His harp was full- stringed, and every angel of joy and sorrow swept over the cords as he passed." His religious poetry is collected in the Psalter. The beautiful 18th Psalm is also incorporated in 2 Sam. xxii. Of his secular poetry the author of the Books of Samuel has preserved us two specimens, a brief stanza on the death of Abner, and his lament for the death of Saul and Jonathan (2 Sam. i. 19-27). The latter is a pathetic and touching elegy full of the strength and tenderness of the love of friendship. His gener- osity in lamenting the death of his persecutor who stood in his way to the throne, enhances the beauty and effect of the elegy. ' ' Thy G lory, Israel, ^ is slain upon thy heights. (Chorus) How are the heroes fallen ! 1 Or, "The Glory (the Beauty) of Israel." Ewald,^ Bunsen, Keil, take ^N^t^^ as vocative, " O Israel ; " the A. V. ("the beauty of Israel "), De AVette, Erdniaun {Die Zicrde hraels), and others, as genitive. ^^^^* means splendor^ glory (Isa. iv. 2 ; xiii. 19 ; xxiv. 16, and is often used of tlie land of Israel, and of Mount Zion, which is called "the mountain of holy beauty," t^"]p ^D^ *°)tl^ Dan. xi, 45) ; also a ^'aseZZe, from the beauty of its form (1 Kings v. 3 ; Isa. xiii. 14). The gazelles w^ere so much admired by the Hebrews and Arabs that they even swore by tliem (Cant. ii. 7 ; iii. 5). Herder {IsraeVs Eeh), andEwald [Dcr Steinbock, Israel — to avoid the feminine die Gazelle) take it in the latter sense, and refer it to Jonathan alone. Ewald conjectures tliat Jonathan was familiarly known among the soldiers of Israel as the Gazelle on account of his beauty and swiftness. Jonathan was, of course, much neann- to the heart of the poet, but in this national song David had to identil'y him with Saul, so that both are included in the Glory of Israel. The Kc^'ised Aversion has " Thy Glory, O Israel," in the text, and "The Gazelle" in tlie mari(jsco(^, el^ (ju'^-(jr^)j a skillfully constructed ode, a reflective, contemplative, didactic song. Michtham {azr^/Mypacia or £;v (TrriXoypaciav, lit., song of inscrip- tion), a golden poem, or a song of mysterious, deep import. (Delitzsch : catch-word poem.) Shiggaion, an excited, irregular, dithyrambic ode. Thehlllahj a hymn of praise. The plural thehillim is the Hebrew title of the Psalter. Thephillah, a prayer in song. (Pss. xvii., Ixxxvi., xc, cxlii., Hab. iii.) Shir jedtdothj song of loves, erotic poem (Ps. xlv.). Shir hamma'aloth (Sept. wdrj rwv d'^d^a/^fxw'^, Vulg. canticum graduum, A. V. '^ song of degrees^'), most probably a song of the goings up, i.e., a pilgrim song for the journeys to the yearly festivals of Jerusalem. So, also, the R. V., which renders the title '^song of ascents." These pilgrim songs are among the most beautiful in the whole collection. Kinah {^'^pv-^o?), a lament, dirge, elegy.* Here belong the laments of David for Saul and Jonathan, 2 Sam. i. 19-27, for Abner (2 Sam. iii. 33, 34), and for Absalom (2 Sam. xviii. 33), the psalms of mourning over the disasters of Judah (Pss. xlix., Ix., Ixxiii., cxxxvii.), and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. ^ See above, pp. 71, 72, 74, 76, 77, 78, 79. ^ For particulars on the names and musical titles iu the inscriptions of the Psalms, some of ^vhich are very obscure and variously interpreted, we must refer to the commentaries of Ewald, Hitzig, Delitzsch, Moll (iu Lange), Hupfeld (Riehm's edition), Perowne, and Cheyne. ^ From e e /.tyetv^ to cry woe, woe I Comp. the German, Klaglicd, Trauer- lied, Todtcnlied, GraUicd. 92 THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. The titles of the Psahns are not original, but contain the ancient Jewish traditions, more or less valuable, concerning the authorship, historical occasion, musical character and liturgical use of the Psalms. Seventy-three poems are ascribed to David nil'?);^ twelve to Asaph (w^DK'?), one of David's musicians (Pss. 1., Ixxiii-lxxxiii.); eleven or twelve to the sons of Korah, a family of priests and singers of the age of David (Pss. xlii.- xlix., Ixxxiv., Ixxxv., Ixxxvii., Ixxxviii.); one to Heman the Ezrahite (Ixxxviii.) ;^ one to Ethan the Ezrahite (Ixxxix) ; two to Solomon (Ixxii., cxxvii.) ; one to Moses (xc.) ; while fifty are anonymous and hence called Orphan Psalms in the Talmud. The Septuagint assigns some of them to Jeremiah (cxxxvii.), Haggai, and Zechariah (cxlvi., cxlvii.). The Psalter is divided into five books, and the close of each is indicated by a doxology and a double Amen. In this division several considerations seem to have been combined — authorship and chronology, liturgical use, the distinction of the divine names (Elohistic and Jehovistic Psalms), perhaps also the five- fold division of the Thorah (the Psalter being, as Delitzsch says, the subjective response or echo from the heart of Israel to the law of God). We have an analogy in Christian hymn- and tune-books, which combine the order of subjects and the order of the ecclesiastical year, modifying both by considerations of ^ Thirty-seven in the first Book, Ps. iii.-xli., 18 in the second, 1 in the third, 2 in the fourth, 15 in the fifth Book. The Septuagint ascribes to David 85 Psalms (including xcix. and civ., which are proljably his). The N. T. quotes as his also the anonymous Pss. ii. and xcv. (Acts iv. 25, 26 ; Heb. iv. 7). Ps. ii. certainly has the impress of his style and age (as Ewald admits). But some of the Psalms ascribed to him, either in the Hebrew or Greek Bible, betray by their Chaldaisms a later age. Hengstenberg and Alexander mostly follow the Jewish tradition; Delitzsch {Commcntar uher die Fsabncn, p. 7) thinks that at least fifty may be defended as Davidic ; while Hupfeld, Ewald, and especially Hitzig, considerably reduce the number. Ewald regards Pss. iii., iv., vii., viii., xi., xv., xviii., xix., xxiv., xxix., xxxii., ci., as undoubt- edly Davidic ; Ps. ii., xviii., xxvii., Ixii., Ixiv., ex., cxxxviii., as coming very near to David. 2 Tliis Psalm is called sJiir mizmor and maschil, and is ascribed l)oth to the sons of Korali and to Heman the Ezrahite, of tlie age of kSolomon (1 Kings v. 11). The older commentators generally regard the former as the singers of the .s7»>, the latter as the iuithor of the maschil. Hupfeld thinks that the title combines two conflicting traditions. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 93 convenience, and often adding one or more ap})endixes. The five books rei)resent the gradual growth of the collection till its completion after the exile, about the time of Ezra. The collec- tion of the first book, consisting chiefly of Psalms of David, may be traced to Solomon, who would naturally provide for the preservation of his father's poetry, or, at all events, to King Hezekiah, who "commanded the Levites to sing praise unto the Lord with the words of David and of Asaph, the Seer '^ (2 Chron. xxi. 30 ; Prov. xxxv. 1). The Revised Version has restored the Hebrew division, which is ignored in King James' Version. If we regard chiefly the contents, we may divide the Psalms into Psalms of praise and adoration. Psalms of thanksgiving, Psalms of faith and hope under affliction,^ penitential Psalms, didactic Psalms, historic Psalms, Pilgrim Songs (cxx.-cxxxvi.), and prophetic or Messianic Psalms. THE LAMENTATIONS. The Lamentations (Hl^p, 'Vv^<'', eleglce) of Jeremiah likewise belong to lyric poetry. Tliey are the most extensive elegy in the Bible. They are a funeral dirge of the theocracy and the holy city after its destruction by Nebuchadnezzar and the Chaldees, and give most pathetic utterance to the most intense grief. The first lines strike the key-note. Jerusalem is per- sonified and bewailed as a solitary widow : — (Aleph) " How sitteth solitary The city once full of people ! She has become as a widow ! She that was great among the nations, A princess over the provinces, Has become subject to tribute. (Beth) She weepeth bitterly in the night, And her tears are upon her cheeks ; She hath no comforter From among all her lovers : All her friends have turned traitors to her, They have become her enemies. ^ What the Germans Avould call Kreuz- und Trost-Fsalmen, 94 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. (Lamed) Is it nothing to you, all ye that pass by ? Behold and see, If there be any sorrow like unto mj^ sorrow, Which is inflicted on me, Wherewith Jehovah hath afflicted me In the day of his fierce anger. ' ' The ruin and desolation, the carnage and famine, the pollu- tion of the temple, the desecration of the Sabbath, the massacre of the priests, the dragging of the chiefs into exile, and all the horrors and miseries of a long siege, contrasted with the re- membrance of former glories and glad festivities, and intensified by the awful sense of Divine wrath, are drawn with life-like colors and form a picture of overwhelming calamity and sad- ness. ^^ Every letter is written with a tear, every word is the sob of a broken heart V^ Yet Jeremiah does not forget that the covenant of Jehovah with his people still stands. In the stormy sunset of the theo- cracy he beheld the dawn of a brighter day, and a new covenant written, not on tables of stone, but on the heart. The utterance of his grief, like the shedding of tears, was also a relief, and left his mind in a calmer and serener frame. Beginning with wailing and weeping, he ends with a question of hope, and with the prayer : — "Turn us unto Thee, Jehovah, And we shall be turned ; Renew our days as of old ! " These Lamentations have done their work very effectually, and are doing it still. They have soothed the weary years of the Babylonian Exile, and after the return they have kept up the lively remembrance of the deepest humiliation and the judg- ments of a righteous God. On the ninth day of the month of Ab (July) they are read year after year with fasting and weep- ing by that remarkable people who are still wandering in exile over the face of tlie earth, finding a grave in many lands, a home in none. Among Ciiristians the poem is best appreciated in times of private affliction and ])ublic calamity ; a companion in mourning, it serves also as a book of comfort and consolation. Tlie poetic structure of the Lamentations is the most artificial THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 95 in the Bible. The first four chapters are alphabetically arranged, like the 119th and six other Psalms, and Proverbs xxxi. 10-31. Every stanza begins with a letter of the Hebrew al[)habet in regular order ; all the stanzas are nearly of the same length; each stanza has three nearly balanced clauses or members which together constitute one meaning ; chaps, i., ii. and iv. contain twenty-two stanzas each, according to the number of Hebrew letters; the third chapter has three alphabetic series, making sixty-six stanzas in all. Dante chose the terza rima for his sublime vision of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise ; Petrarca the complicated sonnet for the tender and passionate language of love. The author of Lamentations may have chosen his struc- ture as a discipline and check upon the intensity of his sorrow — perhaps also as a help to the memory. Poems of this kind once learnt, are not easily forgotten. '^ In the scatterings and wanderings of families," says Isaac Taylor, "and in lonely journeyings, in deserts and cities, where no synagogue-service could be enjoyed, the metrical Scriptures — infixed as they were in the memory, by the very means of these artificial devices of verses and of alphabetic order, and of alliteration — became food to the soul. Thus was the religious constancy of the people and its brave endurance of injury and insult sus- tained and animated.'^ LYRICS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. The Christian dispensation opens with a series of lyrical poems of thanksgiving and praise for the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel and the salvation of mankind from the curse of sin and death by the coming of the Messiah. These poems are the last of Hebrew psalms and the first of Christian hymns. They connect the Old and jN^ew Testaments. Tliey can be trans- lated word for word into Hebrew, and were probably composed in that language. They are contained in the first two chapters of Luke, which have all the charms of poetry and innocent childhood, and may be called the Gospel of Paradise Regained.^ ' Renan calls Luke the most literary among the Evangelists, and liis Gospel the most beautiful book in existence {'^ c^ est le plus beau Uvre qu^il y uW''). Les Evangiles, p. 282 sq. 96 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. These poems resound from Sunday to Sunday throughout the churches of Christendom, and will never grow old. They strike the key-note of Christian hymnody. They are called after the first words in the Latin version, the '^ Magnificat " of the Virgin Mary (i. 46), which is divided into four stanzas of four lines each, and begins : — " My soul doth magnify the Lord, And my spirit has rejoiced in God my Saviour ; "'' the " Benedictus '' of Zachariah (i. 68), who, being filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied, saying, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel ; For lie hath visited and wrought redemption for his people ;" the " Gloria in Excelsis ^^ of the heavenly host announcing the birth of the Saviour (ii. 14) : — ' ' Glory to God in the highest. And on earth peace among men of his good pleasure ;" ^ and the " Nunc Dimittis " of the aged Simeon (ii. 29), who was permitted to hold the Christ-child in his arms and sang: — "Now lettest Thou Thy servant depart, Lord, According to Thy word, in peace. ' ' The " Ave Maria," the favorite prayer of Roman Catholics, is an amplified combination of the salutation of the angel (i. 28):- ^ Or, "of his good will." The Revised Version : "in whom He is well pleased." This translation is supported by the best ancient authorities, which read the genitive (evihuiag, home voluntatis, of t/ood will or pleasure), instead of the nominative {tixhu'ia, voluntas). It gives a doable parallelism with three correspoudi ng ideas : ' ' glory ' ' and ' ' peace ;' ' " God ' ' and ' ' men ;' ' " in the highest" (in heaven) and "on earth." The textus receptus (ebihKia), suggests a triple parallelism, the third being a substantial repetition of the second. The Authorized Version follows this text but ignores the preposi- tion iv by translating ^^ toivards men," instead of " rt//to/i^ men." The Ke- vi.sed Version adopts the older reading in the text and gives the other in the margin (" good pleasure among men"). Dr. Hort {Notes and Seleet headings, ii. 50) suggests a more equal division of the lines Ijy connecting " and (ni earth" with the lirst clause, thus: — " Cilory to God in the highest and upon earth ; I'eace iiniong men of his good pleasure," THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 97 "Hail, tliou art highly favored, The Lord is with thee ; " and of the salutation of Elizabeth (i. 42) : — "Blessed art thou among women. And blessed is the fruit of thy womb. ' ' There are fragments or reminiscences of primitive Christian hymns scattered throughout the Epistles, and the Apocalypse. Paul exhorts his readers to '^ teach and admonish one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts unto God '' (Col. iii. 16). The passage, 1 Tim. iii. 16, is best explained as a quotation from a hymn in praise of Christ, especially if we adopt (with the Revised Version) the better attested reading ^' Who " (o;-, referring to a preceding " Christus '' or '' Logos ^'), instead of '' God '^ (.!/s^?) :— ' ' He who was manifested in the flesh, Justified in the spirit, Seen of angels. Preached among the nations, Believed on in the world, Received up in glory. ' ' ^ Another quotation from an unknown source is introduced by "/iesaith,^^Eph. v. 14 :— " Awake, thou that sleepest. And arise from the dead, And Christ shall shine upon thee. ' ' The passage 1 Pet. iii. 10-12 reads like a psalm and is metri- cally arranged in the Test, of Westcott and Hort. II. DIDACTIC POETRY. Didactic poetry is the combined product of imagination and reflection. It seeks to instruct as well as to please. It is not simply the outpouring of subjective feeling which carries along its own end and reward, but aims at an object beyond itself. It is ^ Westcott and Hort in their Greek Test, divide the passage into two stanzas of three lines each. 7 98 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. the connecting link between pure poetry and philosophy. It sup- plies among the Shemitic nations the place of ethics, with this difference, that it omits the reasoning and argumentative process, and gives only the results of observation and reflection in a pleasing, mostly proverbial, sententious style, which sticks to the memory. It is laid down in the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes. Many Psalms also are didactic (i., xxxvii., €xix., etc.), and the Book of Job is a didactic drama. The palmy period of didactic or gnomic poetry was the peaceful and brilliant reign of Solomon, which lasted forty years (B. C. 1015-975). He was a favorite child of nature and grace. He occupies the same relation to the Proverbs as David does to the Psalter, being the chief author and model for imitation. He was the philosopher, as David was the warrior and singer, of Israel. The fame of his wisdom was so great that no less than three thousand proverbs were ascribed to him. ^^ God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and large- ness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea-shore. And Solomon^s wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east, and all the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men ; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol : and his fame was in all the nations round about. And he spake three thousand proverbs : and his songs were a thousand and five. And he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he spake also of beasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes. And there came of all peoples to hear the wisdom of Solomon, from all kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom." (1 Kings iv. 29-34.) According to a rabbinical tradition, Aristotle derived his philoso- phy from the Solomonic writings which Alexander the Great sent him from Jerusalem.-^ * Comp. on the wisdom of Solomon, Ewald's GcHchiclite dcs VoJkcs Israel, Vol. III. pp. 374 sqq. ; and Stanley's Lectures on the Histonj of the Jewish Church, Vol, II. pp. 252 sqq. Ewald exclaims with relerence to the visit of the Queen of Sheba (p. 379) : "0 glilckUehe Zeit, wo maehtige FUrsfen mitten in ihrcn von heiliger Gottesruhe umfriedigten Landern so zu einander ivallfahrten, so in Weishcit, und ivas noch mehr ist, im regen Suchen dcrselhen ivetteifern kotincn .'" THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 99 THE PROYEKBS. The usual word for a didactic poem is mdshdl (7ti^/tD -apotfxca, TzapaiSo/.rj), a likeuess, similitude, comparison ; then, in a wider sense, a short, sharp, pithy maxim, sententious saying, gnome, proverb. It is couched in figurative, striking, pointed language. Brevity is the soul of a proverb as well as of wit. A proverb contains rnultum in parvo. It condenses the result of long ob- servation and experience in a few words which strike the nail on the head and are easily remembered. It is the philosophy for the people, the wisdom of the street. The Orientals, especially the Arabs, are very fond of this kind of teaching. It suited their wants and limits of knowledge much better than an elabo- rate system of philosophy. And even now a witty or pithy proverb has more practical effect upon the common people than whole sermons and tracts. ^ The Proverbs of the Bible are far superior to any collection of the kind, such as the sayings of the Seven Wise Men of Greece, the Aurea Carmina attributed to Pythagoras, the Remains of the Poetse Gnomici, the collection of Arabic proverbs. They bear the stamp of Divine inspiration. They abound in polished and sparkling gems. They contain the practical wisdom (chokma) of Israel, and have furnished the richest contributions to the dictionary of proverbs among Christian nations. They trace wisdom to its true source, the fear of Jehovah (chap. i. 7). Nothing can be finer than the description of Wisdom in the eighth chapter, wdiere she is personified as the eternal compan- ion and delight of God, and commended beyond all earthly treasures : — "Wisdom is better than rubies, And no precious things compare with her. I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, And find out knowledge and discretion. The fear of Jehovah is to hate evil ; Pride, haughtiness, and the evil way. And the peiTerse mouth, do I hate. 8 Cicero says : " Gravisssimce sunt ad hcate vivendum breviter enunciatse sen- ientiss.^^ 100 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. Counsel is mine, and sound knowledge ; I am understanding ; I have strength. By me kings reign, And princes decree justice. By me princes rule, And nobles, even all the judges of the earth. I love them that love me ; And they that seek me early shall find me. Biches and honor are with me. Yea, enduring riches and righteousness. My fi-uit is better than gold, yea, than refined gold And my increase than choice silver. I walk in the way of righteousness, In the midst of the paths of judgment ; To ensure abundance to those that love me, And to fill their storehouse. Blessed is the man that heareth me, Watching daily at my gates. Waiting at the posts of my doors ! For whosoever findeth me findeth life ; And shall obtain flivor from Jehovah. ' ' The description of the model Hebrew woman in her domestic and social relations (chap. xxxi. 10-31, in the acrostic form) has no parallel for truthfulness and beauty in ancient literature, and forms the appropriate close of this book of practical wisdom ; for from the family, of which woman is the presiding genius, springs private and public virtue and national prosperity. ^' The Book of Proverbs," says a distinguished Anglican divine, " is not on a level with the Prophets or the Psalms. It approaches human things and things divine from quite another side. It has even something of a worldly, prudential look, unlike the rest of the Bible. But this is the very reason wliy its recognition as a Sacred Book is so useful. It is the philoso- phy of practical life. It is the sign to us that the Bible does not despise common sense and discretion. It impresses upon us, in the most forcible manner, the value of intelligence and pru- THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. 101 dence, and of a good education. The whole strength of the Hebrew language, and of the sacred authority of the book is thrown upon these homely truths. It deals, too, in that refined, discriminating, careful view of the finer shades of human char- acter, so often overlooked by theologians, but so necessary to any true estimate of human life. ' The heart knoweth its own bitter- ness, and the stranger does not intermeddle with its joy.' How much is there, in that single sentence, of consolation, of love, of forethought ! And, above all, it insists, over and over again, upon the doctrine that goodness is ^wisdom/ and that wickedness and vice are 'folli/.^ There may be many other views of virtue and vice, of holiness and sin, better and higher than this. But there will always be some in the world who will need to remem- ber that a good man is not only religious and just, but wise; and that a bad man is not only wicked and sinful, but a miserable, contemptible fool.'' ^ The poetic structure of the Proverbs is that of Hebrew paral- lelism in its various forms. They consist of single, double, triple, or more couplets; the members corresponding to each other in sense and diction, eitlier synonymously or antithetically. Delitzsch calls them two-liners, four-liners, six-liners, eight- liners.^ The first section, x.-xxii. 16, contains exclusively two- liners. Besides these there are a few three-liners, five-liners and seven-liners, where the odd line is either a repetition or a reason for the idea expressed in the first lines. A few speci- mens w^ill make this clear. i. Single synonymous couplets : — Chap. hi. 1. "My son, forget not my law : And let thy heart keep my commandments." 12. "Whom Jehovah lovetli He correcteth : Even as a father the son in whom he delighteth. " ^ Deau Stanley, Vol. II., p. 269. A different view is presented and elabo- rately defended in the comnieutary of Rev. John ]Miller, of Princeton (New York, 1872), who maintains that the Proverbs, being an inspired book, can have no secular, but must have tliroughout a spiritual, meaning. He charges King James' version with making the book "hopelessly secular in many places" (p. 12). This view is paradox rather than orthodox. ^ Zweizeiler^ Vierzeiler, Scchszeiler, Achtzeiler. Commentary on Proverbs, Leipz., 1873, pp. 8 sqq. 102 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 13. "Blessed is the man who finds wisdom : And the man who obtains understanding. ' ' XT. 25. "The Kberal soul shall be made fat : And he that watereth shall himself be watered. ' ' XVI. 32. "He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty : And he that ruleth his own spirit than he who taketh a city. ' ' 2. Single antithetic couplets : — Chap. x. 1. "A wise son maketh a glad father : But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. ' ' 12. " Hatred stirreth up strifes : But love covereth all sins. ' ' 16. "The wages of the righteous is hfe : The gain of the wicked is sin. ' ' XIII. 9. "The light of the righteous shall be joyous : But the lamp of the wicked shall go out. ' ' 24. ' ' He that spareth his rod hateth his son : But he that loveth him giveth him timely chas- tisement." XVIII. 17. "He that is first in his own cause seemeth right : But his neighbor cometh and searcheth him." 3. Single couplets which merely express a comparison — Chap. XXVII. 8. "As a bird that wandereth from her nest, So is a man that wandereth from his place." 15. "A continual dropping in a very rainy day, And a contentious woman are alike. ' ' 16. "As in water flice answereth to face, So the heart of man to man. 4. Single couplets where the second member completes the idea of the first or assigns a reason or a qualification : — Chap. xvi. 24. ' ' Pleasant words are as a honey-comb, Sweet to the soul and health to the bones." 31. "The hoaiy head is a crown of glory, If it be found in the way of righteousness." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 103 5. Three-liners : — Chap. hi. 3. " Let not mercy and tnith forsake thee : Bind them about thy neck ; {Si/non}j7nous) Write them upon the table of thine heart." XXVIII. 10. "Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way : He shall fall himself into his own pit, (Antithetic) But the upright shall inherit good things." XXVII. 10. "Thine own friend and thy father's friend forsake not : Neither go into thy brother's house in the day of thy calamity ; (Reason) For better is a neighbor near than a brother afar off. ' ' 6. Double couplets or four-liners: xxiii. 15 sq. ; xxiv. 3 sq. ; 28 sq. ; xxx. 5 sq., 17 sq. ; xxii. 22 sq., 24 sq. These are all synonymous, or synthetic, or corroboratory, but there seems to be no example of an antithetic four-liner. 7. Five-liners ; the last three usually explaining and confirm- ing the idea of the first two lines : xxxiii. 4 sq. ; xxv. 6 sq. ; xxx. 32 sq. 8. Triple couplets or six-liners, which spin out an idea with more or less repetition or confirmations and illustrations : xxiii. 1-3, 12-14, 19-21; xxiv. 11 sq. ; xxx. 29-31. 9. Seven-liners : xxiii. 6-8. The only specimen in the Pro- verbs. 10. Quadruple couplets or eight-liners: xxiii. 22-25. But these four, six and eight-liners, so-called, may be easily resolved into two, three or four single couplets. Take, e.g., chap, xxiii. 12-14, which Delitzsch quotes as a six-liner, and we have there simply three couplets wdiich carry out and unfold one idea, or expand the mashal sentence into a mashal poem : ' ' Apply thy heart to instruction : And thine ears to the words of knowledge. Withhold not correction from the child : For if thou beat him with a rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, And shalt deliver his soul from Sheol. ' ' 104 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. ECCLESIASTES. Ecclesiastes or Koheleth is a philosophic poem, not in broken, disconnected maxims of wisdom, like the Proverbs, but in a series of soliloquies of a soul perplexed and bewildered by doubt, yet holding fast to fundamental truth, and looking from the vanities beneath the sun to the external realities above the sun. It is a remarkable specimen of Hebrew scepticism sub- dued and moderated by Hebrew^ faith in God and his command- ments, in the immortality of the soul, the judgment to come, the paramount value of true piety. It corresponds to the old age of Solomon, as the Song of Songs reflects the flowery spring of his youth, and the Proverbs the ripe wisdom of his manhood.^ Whether written by the great monarch, or more probably by a much later author, it personates him (i. 12) and gives the last sad results of his experience after a long life of unrivalled wis- dom and unrivalled folly, namely, the overwhelming impression of the vanity of all things earthly, with the concluding lesson of the fear of God, which checks the tendency to despair, and is the star of hope in the midnight darkness of doubt. The key-note is struck in the opening lines, repeated at the close (xii. 3) : — ' ' vanity of vanities ! Koheleth saith ; vanity of vanities ! all — vanity ! ' ' This is the negative side. But the leading positive idea and aim, or "the end of the matter,^' is expressed in the concluding words : — " Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is all of man. ^ For Grod shall bring everything into judgment, Whether it be good or whether it be evil. ' ' Some regard Koheleth as an ethical treatise in prose, with regular logical divisions. But it is full of poetic inspiration, ^ This comparison was made by Rabbi Jonathan on the assumption of the Solomonic authorship of the three works. ^ The Authorized Version inserts " tlie whole f/u/^of man." The Revised Version puts on the margin as an alternate rendering : "This is ihc duiij of all men." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 105 and in part at least also poetic in form, with enough of rhyth- mical parallelism to awaken an emotional interest in these sad soliloquies and questionings of the poet. Prof. Tayler Lewis (in his additions to Zockler's Commentary in Lange's Bible- work), has translated the poetic portions in Iambic measure, with occasional use of the Choriambus. We transcribe two speci- mens from chap. vii. and chap. xi. : — ' ' Better the lionored name than precious oil ; Better the day of death than that of being born. Better to visit sorrow's house than seek the banquet hall ; Since that (reveals) the end of every man, And he who lives should lay it well to heart. Better is grief than mirth ; For in the sadness of the face the heart becometh fair. The wise man's heart is in the house of mourning, The fool's heart in the house of mirth. Better to hear the chiding of the wise Than hear the song of fools. For like the sound of thorns beneath the pot, So is the railing laughter of the fool. This, too, is vanity. "Rejoice, youth, in childhood ; let thy heart Still cheer thee in the day when thou art strong. Go on in every way thy will shall choose. And after every form thine eyes behold ; But know that for all this thy God will thee to judgment bring. 0, then, turn sorrow from thy soul, keep evil from thy flesh ; For childhood and the morn of life, they, too, are vanity. Ptemember thy Creator, then, in days when thou art young ; Before the evil days are come, before the years draw nigh When thou shalt saj- — delight in them is gone." FABLE AND PARABLE. To didactic poetry belong also the fable and the parable. They are usually composed in narrative prose, but the matter is all fiction and imagination. Both are allegories in the style of history ; both are conscious fictions for the purpose of instruc- tion, and differ from the myth, which is the unconscious product of the religious imagination and identifies fiction with fact. But they differ in regard to the reality of the imagery and the nature 106 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. of the aim. The fable rests on admitted impossibilities and introduces irrational creatures, animals or plants, to teach maxims of secular prudence and a lower, selfish morality; while the par- able takes its illustrations from real life, human or animal, with its natural characteristics, and has a higher moral aim. " The fable seizes on that which man has in common with the creatures below him ; the parable rests on the truth that man is made in the image of God." The former is fitted for the instruction of youth, which does not raise the question of veracity and revels in the marvellous ; the latter is suited for a riper age^ and is much better fitted as a medium of religious instruction. There are no fables in the New Testament, and only two in the Old, viz.y the fable of Jotham : the trees choosing their king, Judges ix. 8-15, and the fable of Jehoash : the cedars of Lebanon and the thistle, 2 Kings xiv. 9, and 2 Chr. xxv. 18. The riddle (parable) of Ezekiel xxii. 1-10 introduces two eagles as repre- sentatives of human characters, but without ascribing to them human attributes. The parable occurs in 2 Sam. xii. 1 (the poor man's ewe lamb), Isa. V. 1 (the vineyard yielding wild grapes), also 1 Kings xx. 39 ; xxii. 19. It was cultivated by Hillel, Shammai and other Jewish rabbis, and appears frequently in the Gemara and Mid- rash. It is found in its perfection in the Gospels. The parables of our Lord illustrate the various aspects of the kingdom of heaven (as those in the Synoptical Gospels), or the personal relation of Christ to His disciples (as the parable of the Good Shepherd, and that of the Vine and the Branches, in the Gospel of John). They reveal the profoundest ideas in the simplest and most lucid language. But what they reveal to the susceptible mind, they conceal to the profane, which sees only the outer shell, and not the inner kernel of the truth. They are at once pure truth and pure poetry. Every trait is intrinsically possible and borrowed from nature and human life; and yet the composition of the whole is the product of the imagination. The art of illustrative teaching in parables never rose so high before or since, nor can it ever rise higher.^ * Ewald (p. 54) says of the parables of Christ : '' Was Iticr arts dcr Men- schenwelt crziihlt ivird, ist rollkonwicn wahr, (J. i. den mcnsehlichen ]'crhaltnissc)i THE POETRY OP^ THE BIBLE. 107 III. PROPHETIC POETRY. This is peculiar to the Bible and to the religion of revelation. Heathen nations had their divinations and oracles, but no divinely inspired prophecy. Man may have forebodings of the future, and may conjecture what may come to pass under certain condi- tions; but God only knows the future, and he to whom He chooses to reveal it. Prophecy is closely allied to poetry. The prophet sees the future as a picture with the spiritual eye enlightened by the Divine mind, and describes it mostly in more or less poetic form. Prophetic poetry combines a didactic and an epic ele- ment.-^ It rouses the conscience, enforces the law of God, and holds up the history of the future, the approaching judgments and mercies of God, for instruction, reproof, comfort and en- couragement. Prophecy is too elevated to descend to ordinary prose, and yet too practical to bind itself to strict rules. Daniel, like St. John in the Apocalypse, uses prose, but a prose that has all the effect of poetry. Jonah and Haggai likewise wrote in prose, Malachi in a sort of middle style. The other prophets employ prose in the narrative and introductory sections, but a rhythmical flow of diction in the prophecies pro})er, with divi- sions of clauses and stanzas, and rise often to the highest majesty and power. The sublime prayer of Habakkuk (ch. iii.) is a lyric poem and might as well have a place in the Psalter. The earliest specimens of prophetic poetry are the prediction volll-ommen enfsprecJicnd , so dnss kciner, der es hort, an seinem Dasein zurifein Jcann, nnd ist dennoch nur Bild, nur Lehrc, und nicht anders gemeint. Ahcr mit der hochstoi Wahrhcit der SchUderung dieses nienschlichen Lehens verhindet sich hier Hire hochste Einfalt, Liehlichkeit und VoUendung, urn ihr den unividersteh- lichsten Zauher zu gchen.''^ E wald treats prophec}'' as a part of didactic poetry. ' ' Ein reiner DieMer^ ' ' he says (p. 51), " « j/i tirsjjr'dnglichsten Shine dcs Wortes ist der Prophet nieht: icas er ausspricht, soil von vorne an bestimmend, vorschreibend, belehrend auf Andere wirken. Aber sein Wort loill von der Begeisterung Flugeln getragen von obcn herab trefen, und muss so von vorn an erhaben in gleieher Ilohe sieh bis ziim Ende Jialfen. . . . So drdngt sieh denn dem Propheten die Idngst gegebene Dichtenceise zinwillkiihrlieh auf, cUinlich hebt und senkt sieh bei ihm der Strom der Rede, nur der Gesang fallt vor der ungewohnlichcn Hohe und dem Ernsie seiner Worte leicht von selbst iceg.^^ 108 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. of Noah, Gen. ix. 25-27, the blessing of Jacob, Gen. xlix., the prophecies of Balaam, Numb, xxiv., and the farewell blessing of the twelve tribes by Moses, Deut. xxxiii. They are pro- phetical lyrics or lyrical prophecies, and hence may also be classed with lyrical poetry like the Messianic Psalms. The golden age of prophetic poetry began eight centuries before Christ, and continued till the return from the exile, warning the people of the approaching judgments of Jehovah, and comforting them in the midst of their calamities with his promise of a brighter future when the Messiah shall come to redeem His people and to bless all the nations of the earth. The poetry of the Prophets varies according to their temper- ament and subject. Amos, a herdsman of Tekoa, in the tribe of Judah, who prophesied in the eighth century before Christ, abounds in illustrations from pastoral and rustic life, and con- tains some rare specimens of sublime thought beautifully ex- pressed. Hosea, his contemporary (between 790 and 725 B.C.), is bold, vigorous, terse, pregnant, but abrupt and obscure. Jeremiah is the melancholy poet of the downfall of the theoc- racy, full of tender pathos, and fills the heart with holy grief, but also with hope of a new and better covenant. Ezekiel, a younger contemporary of Jeremiah, is dark and enigmatic, but elevated and forcible. He presents a variety of visions, sym- bolical actions, parables, proverbs, allegories, " wheels within wheels, with living creatures welded.^^ He draws ilhistrations from architecture, from Solomon's temple, and the winged and human-headed lions which were dug up in our age fro'm the dust of long-lost Nineveh. Habakkuk belongs to the later Baby- lonian period. Ewald thus describes him in his book on the Hebrew Prophets: ^^ Great as Habbakkuk is in thought, he is no less so in language and literary skill ; he is tlie last prophet belonging to the age preceding the destruction of Jerusalem who is ma.'-ter of a beautiful style, of forcible description, and an artistic power that enlivens and orders everything with charming effect. We are still able to admire in him the genuine type and full beauty of ancient Hebrew prophecy ; he is its last pure light, and although he already reproduces much from older books, he still maintains complete independence." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 109 The greatest poet among the prophets is Isaiah, who lived In the Assyrian period (between 760 and 698). He at the same time comes nearest to the gospel, and is called the Evangelist of the Old Covenant. He gathers up all past prophecies and sends them enriched into the future. He excels in the grandeur and variety of images and in sudden contrasts. Ewald admira- bly describes him. '' In Isaiah/^ he says, " we see the prophetic authorship reaching its culminating point. Everything con- spired to raise him to an elevation to which no prophet, either before or after, could as writer attain. Among the other prophets each of the more important ones is distinguished by some one particular excellence and some one peculiar talent; in Isaiah all kinds of talent and all beauties of prophetic discourse meet together, so as mutually to temper and qualify each other; it is not so much any single feature that distinguishes him, as the symmetry and perfection as a whole. ... In the sentiment he ex[)resses, in the topics of his discourses, and in the manner, Isaiah uniformly reveals himself as the kingly prophet.'^ A few selections must suffice, one from the first and one from the second Part. We have nothing to do here with tlie critical question of the authorship of the collection which bears his name and which refers partly to the Assyrian, partly to the Babylo- nian period, but which nevertheless has a unity of spirit with minor differences of style. The following is a beautiful description of the happy Mes- sianic age (ch. XXXV.) : — " The wilderness and the solitaiy place shall be glad ; And the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as a rose. It shall blossom abundantly, And rejoice even with jo}' and singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, The excellency of Carmel and Sharon : They shall see the glory of Jehovah, The excellency of our God. ^ And vet he was numbered among the prose writers till the time of Lowth, It is strange that even so able a scholar as Dr. Jos. Addison Alex- ander, in his commentary on Isaiah, sliould protest (from early habit) against what he calls "the fantastic and injurious mode of printing most transla- tions of Isiiiah, since the days of Lowth, in lines analogous to those of classical and modern verse." 110 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. Strengthen ye the weak hands, And confirm the feeble knees. Sa}^ to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not ; Behold, your Grod will come with vengeance, With the recompense of God ; He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, And the tongue of the dumb shall sing ; For in the wilderness shall waters break out, And streams in the desert. And the glowing sand shall become a pool, And the thirsty ground springs of water ; In the habitation of jackals, where they lay, ShaU be grass with reeds and rushes. And an liighway shall be there, and a way, And it shall be called the way of holiness. The unclean shall not pass over it ; For it shall be for those : The wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there. Nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon. They shall not be found there. But the redeemed shall walk there ; And the ransomed of the Lord shall return. And come with singing unto Zion ; And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads : They shall obtain gladness and joy, And sorrow and sighing shall flee away. In the second part, from ch. xl. to the close, called Deutero- Isaiah, the })rophet — whether it be Isaiah, or ^' the great Un- known/' at the close of the exile — describes the approach of the Messianic salvation, and draws, lineament for lineament, the phy- siognomy of the suffering and triumphant Saviour, for the comfort of all ages. The fifty-second and fifty-third chapters are the holy of holies of Hebrew prophecy, the gospel of the Old Testament. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. HI 'How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of liiui That bi-ingeth good tidings, That pubhsheth peace, That bringeth good tidings of good. That abhsheth salvation ; Thac saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth ! The voice of thy watchman ! they lift up the voice, Together do they sing ; For they shall see, eye to eye, AVhen Jehovah returneth to Zion. Break forth into joy, Sing together, ye waste places of Jeiiisalem ; For Jehovah hath comforted Flis people. He hath redeemed Jemsalem. Jehovah hath made bare His holy arm In the eyes of all the nations ; And all the ends of the earth Shall see the salvation of our God. Behold, 3Iy SeiTant shall prosper. He shall be exalted and lifted up and be very high. Like as many were astonished at thee (His visage was so marred, more than an}^ man, And His form more than the sons of men), So shall He sprinkle many nations ; Kings shall shut their mouths at Him ; For that which had not been told them they shall see ; And that which they had not heard They shall attentively consider. Who hath believed our report ? And to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed ? For He grew up before Him as a tender plant. And as a root out of a dry ground : He hath no form nor comeliness ; and when we see Him, There is no beauty that we should desire Him. He was despised, and rejected by men ; A Man of sorrows, and acciuainted with grief : And as one from whom men are hiding their face, He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Verily He hath borne our griefs, And carried our sorrows : Yet we did esteem Him stricken. Smitten of God and afflicted. 112 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities : The chastisement of our peace was upon Him ; And with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep went astray ; We turned every one to his own way ; And Jehovah laid on Him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet He humbled himself. And opened not His mouth : As a Lamb that is brought to the slaughter, And as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb ; Yea, He opened not His mouth. He was taken away by oppression and judgment ; And His hfe who shall recount ? For He was cut off from the land of the living : For the transgression of my people was He stricken. And they made His grave with the wicked, And with the rich in His death ; Although He had done no violence. Neither was any deceit in His mouth : Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him ; He hath put Him to grief When He shall offer Himself a sacrifice for sin. He will see His seed, He will prolong His days. And the pleasure of Jehovah will prosper in His hands. He will see of the travail of His soul, and will be satisfied : By His knowledge will My righteous Servant justify many ; For He will bear their iniquities. Therefore I shall give Him a portion among the great. And He will divide the spoil with the strong : Because He hath poured out His soul unto death. And was numbered with the transgressors ; And He bare the sin of many. And made intercession for the transgressors. ' ' IV. DRAMATIC POETRY. If we start with the Greek conception of the drama, there is none in the Bible. But if we take the word in a wider sense, and apply it to lengthy poetic compositions, unfolding an action THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. 113 and introducing a number of speakers and actors, we have two dramas in the Old Testament. The Song of Solomon is a lyric drama or melo-drama ; the Book of Job is a didactic drama. The best judges of different ages and churches, as Gregory of Nazlanzen, Bossuet, Lowth, Ewald, Renan, Stanley, recognize the dramatic element in tliese two poems, and some have even gone so far as to suppose that both, or at least the Canticles, were really intended for the stage/ But there is not the slight- est trace of a theatre in the history of Israel before the age of Herod, who introduced foreign customs ; as there is none at the present day in the Holy Laud, and scarcely among the Moham- medan Arabs, unless we regard the single reciters of romances (always men or boys) with their changing voice and gestures as dramatic actors. The ruins of large theatres east of the Jordan are of post-Christian date and were erected by the Romans. The modern attempts to introduce theatres in Beirut and Cairo have signally failed, or are patronized almost exclusively by foreigners. THE SONG OF SONGS. The Canticles, or Song of Songs, presents the Hebrew ideal of pure bridal and conjugal love in a series of monologues and dialogues by different persons : a lover, king Solomon (Shelomoh, the Peaceful), a maiden named Shulamith, and a chorus of virgins, daughters of Jerusalem. There are no breaks or titles to indicate the change of scene or speakers, and they can be recog- nized only by the sense and the change of gender and number in the personal pronoun. The English version is much obscured by a neglect of the distinction of feminine and masculine pro- ^ Ewald {Die Didder clcs A. B., I. 72 sqq.) asserts very positively, but without proof, that dramas were enacted on the great festivals, aud at the courts of David aud Soloniou. He calls the Cauticles " the purest model of a comedy {LustspieJ) " ; Job, " a genuine tragedy {Trauerspicl).''^ He admits, however, that iu no case could God (Avho is one of the actors iu Job) have beeu introduced on a Jewish stage, like the gods in the Greek dramas. Reuau (Ze Cantiquc dcs Caniiques) denies the existence of public theatres among the Hebrews, owing to the abseuceof a complicated mythology which stimulated the development of the drama among the Hindoos and Greeks, but maintains that the Song of Songs, being a dramatic poem, must have beeu represented iu private families at marriage feasts. 8 114 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. nouns in the Hebrew. These defects have been mended in the Revised Version. The poem is full of the fragrance of spring, the beauty of flowers, and the loveliness of love. How sweet and charming is the lover's description of spring, ch. ii. 10-14: " Else up, my ove, my fair one, and come away ! For, lo, the winter is past. The rain is over and gone ; The flowers appear on the earth ; The time for the singing of birds is come, And the voice of the turtle is heard in our land. The fig-tree ripeneth her green figs, And the vines are in blossom. They give forth their fragrance. Arise, my love, my fair one, and come away ! My dove, in the clefts of the rock. In the recess of the cliff's, Let me see thy countenance. Let me hear thy voice ; For sweet is thy voice. And thy countenance is comely."^ The Song of Solomon canonizes the love of nature, and the love of sex, as the Book of Esther canonizes patriotism or the love of country. It gives a place in the Book of inspiration to the noblest and strongest passion which the Creator has planted in man, before the fall, and which reflects His own infinite love to His creatures, and the love of Christ to His Church. Proeul ■abeste pi^ofani! The very depth of perversion to which the passion of love can be degraded, only reveals the height of its origin and destiny. Love is divine. Love in its primal purity is a ^^ blaze^' or 'Mightning flash from Jehovah'' (Shalhebeth- Jah, ch. viii. 6), and stronger than death. As it proceeds from ^ Logau calls tlie month of May "a kiss which heaven gives to earth," " Dieser Clonal ist ein Kuss, Den dcr llimmcl gicht tier Erdc, Dass siejetzo seine Brauf, K'dnflig cine Mutter iverde.'' THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 115 God SO it retiirDS to Him ; for '^ God is love; and he that dwell- eth ill love, dwelleth in God, and God in him ^' (1 John iv. 16). Tersteegen, one of the purest and deepest German hymnists, in liis sweet hymn : " /c/i bete an die Macht der Licbe/^ traces all true earthly love and friendship to Christ as the fountain-head, in these beautiful lines : — " Ulir sei drm liolien Je-visnamen, In dem der Lfche Quell entspringt^ Yon dem Ju'er alJe Bachlein kamen^ Aus dem der SeV gen Schaar dort trinli.^^ As to the artistic arrans^ement or the number of acts and cantos in each act of this melodrama of Love there is consider- able difference among commentators. Some divide it into five acts, according to the usual arrangement of dramas (Ewald, Bottcher, Zockler, Moody, Stuart, Davidson, Ginsburg), some into six (Delitzsch, Hahn), some into seven, corresponding to the seven days of the Jewish marriage festival for which the successive portions of the poem are supposed to have been intended to be sung (Bossuet, Percy, Williams). Ewald sub- divides the five acts into thirteen, Kenan into sixteen, others into more or less cantos. On the other hand, Thrupp and Green give up the idea of a formal artistic construction, such as the Indo-European conception of a drama would require, and sub- stitute for it a looser method of arrano-ement or afro;re2;ation, with abrupt transitions and sudden changes of scene. All the parts are variations of the same theme, of pure bridal love as the image of a divine and spiritual love. Those who regard the poem as an idyl rather than a drama (Sir William Jones, Good, Fry, xsoyes, Herbst, Heiligstedt) divide it into a series of songs, but likewise differ as to the number and the pauses. This is not the place to enter into tlie wilderness of interpre- tations of this wonderful and much-abused poem, except to pro- test against those profane rationalistic expositions which can find in it no more than a sensuous, erotic meaning, and make its position in the sacred canon inexplicable, as well as against those arbitrary allegorical impositions which, in violation of all the laws of hermeneutics, force upon the words a meaning which 116 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. tlie author never dreamed of. Dr. Angus makes some judi- cious remarks on the subject.-^ " Much of the language of this poem/' he says, " has been misunderstood by early expositors. Some have erred by adopting a fanciful method of explanation, and attempting to give a mystical meaning to every minute cir- cumstance of the allegory. In all figurative representations there is always much that is mere costume. It is the general truth only that is to be examined and explained. Others, not understanding the spirit and luxuriancy of eastern poetry, have considered particular passages as defective in delicacy, an impres- sion which the English version has needlessly confirmed, and so have objected to the whole, though the objection does not apply with greater force to this book than to Hesiod or Homer, or even to some of the purest of our own authors. If it be remembered, that the figure employed in this allegory is one of the most fre- quent in Scripture, that in extant oriental poems it is constantly employed to express religious feeling, that many expressions which are applied in our translation to the person, belong prop- erly to the dress, that every generation has its own notions of delicacy (the most delicate in this sense being by no means the most virtuous), that nothing is described but chaste affection, that Shulamith speaks and is spoken of collectively, and that it is the general truth only which is to be allegorized, the whole will appear to be no unfit representation of the union between Christ and true believers in every age. Pro})erly understood, this portion of Scripture will minister to our holiness. It may be added, however, that it was the practice of the Jews to withhold the book from their children till their judgments w^ere matured.'' THE BOOK OF JOB. The Book of Job is a didactic drama, with an ej)ic introduc- tion and close. The prologue (chs. i. and ii.) and the epilogue ((,'!]. xlii. 7-17) are written in plain prose, the body of the poem in poetry. It has been called the Hebrew tragedy, but it differs from other tragedies by its happy termination. We better call it a dramatic theodicy. It wrestles with the perj)lexing problem ' Bible Handbook, Lond. Ed., p. 419. THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. 117 of ages, viz., the true meaning and object of evil and suffering in the world under the government of a holy, wise and merciful God. The dramatic form shows itself in the symmetrical ar- rangement, the introduction of several speakers, the action, or rather the suffering of the hero, the growing passion and con- flict, the secret crime supposed to underlie his misfortune, and the awful mystery in the background. But there is little external action {dodfia) in it, and this is almost confined to the prologue and epilogue. Instead of it we have here an intellectual battle of the deepest moral import, mind grappling with mind on the most serious questions which can challenge our attention. The outward drapery only is dramatic, the soul of the poem is didac- tic. It is inspired by the Hebrew idea of Divine Providence, which differs from the Greek notion of blind Fate, as the light of day differs from midnight, or as a loving father differs from a heartless tyrant. It is intended for the study, not for the stage. -^ The book opens, like a Greek drama, with a prologue, which introduces the reader into the situation, and makes him ac- quainted with the character, the prosperous condition, the ter- rible misfortunes, and the exemplary patience of the hero. Even God, and His great antagonist, Satan, who appears, how- ever, in heaven as a servant of God, are drawn into the scenery, and a previous arrangement in the Divine council precedes and determines the subsequent transaction. History on earth is thus viewed as an execution of the decrees of heaven, and as con- trolled throughout by supernatural forces. But we have here the unsearchable wisdom of the Almighty Maker and Ruler of men, not the dark impersonal Fate of the heathen tragedy. ^ W. A. Wright (in W. Smith's Diciionnnj of the Bible, III., 2553) says of tlie Book of Job : " Inasmuch as it represents an action and a progress, it is a drama as truly and reall}^ as any poem can be which develops the working of passion and the alternations of faith, hope, distrust, triumphant couli- dence and black despair, in the struggle which it depicts the human mind as engaged in, while attempting to solve one of the most intricate problems it can be called upon to regard. It is a drama as life is a drama, the most pow- erful of all tragedies ; but that it is a dramatic poem intended to be repre- sented upon the stage, or Ciipable of being so represented, may be confidently denied." 118 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. This grand feature of Job lias been admirably imitated by Goethe in the prologue of Faust. The action itself commences after seven days and seven nights of eloquent silence. The grief over the misfortunes which, like a swift succession of cyclones, had suddenly hurled the patriar- chal prince from the summit of prosperity to the lowest depths of misery, culminating in the most loathsome disease, and in- tensified by the heartless sneers of his wife, at last bursts forth in a passionate monologue of Job, cursing the day of his birth (ch. iii.). ' ' Let the day perish wherein I was born, And the night which said : There is a man-child conceived. Why did I not die in the womb? Why did I not give up the ghost, When I came out of the belly ? As a hidden untimely birth ; As infants who never saw light. There the wicked cease from troubling ; And there the weary are at rest. ' ' Then follows the metaphysical conflict with his friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, who now turn to enemies, and " miserable comforters," '^ forgers of lies, and botchers of vani- ties." The debate has three acts, with an increasing entangle- ment, and every act consists of three assaults of the false friends, and as many defences of Job (with the exception that, in the third and last battle, Zophar retires and Job alone speaks).^ The poem reaches its height in Job's triumphant assertion of faith in his Redeemer (ch. xix. 23-27), by which ^'the patriarch of Uz rises to a level with the patriarch of Ur as a pattern of faith." ^ The significance of tlie ruling number three reminds one of the trilogies in Dante's JJicina Commcdia. THE POETEY OF THE BIBLE. 119 "Oil, tliat my words were now written ! Oh, that they were inscribed in a book ! That with an iron pen and lead They were graven in the rock forever ! For I know that my Kedeemer hveth, And that He shall stand up at the last upon the earth : And after my skin hath been thus destroyed, Yet without my flesh ^ shall I see God ; Whom I shall see for myself And mine eyes shall behold, and not another. ' ' After a closing monologue of Job, expressing fully his feel- ings and thoughts in view of the past controversy, the youthful Elihu, who had silently listened, comes forward, and in three speeches administered deserved rebuke to both parties, with as little mercy for Job as for his friends, but with a better phi- losophy of suffering, whose object he represents to be correction and reformation, the reproof of arrogance and the exercise of humility and faith. He begins the disentanglement of the problem and makes the transition to the final decision. At last God Himself, to whom Job had appealed, appears as the Judge of the contest, and humbles him by unfolding before his eyes a magnificent panorama of creation and showing him the boundaries of his knowledge. He points him to the mysteries of the stars in heaven, as '^ the cluster of the Pleiades,^' and ''the bands of Orion," and in the animal world on earth, as the lion, the wild ox, the behemoth (hippopotamus), " who eateth grass as an ox, who moveth his tail like a cedar," the leviathan (the crocodile), '' in whose neck abideth strength, and terror danceth before him," and of the war-horse (xxxix. 21-25) : — ' ' He paweth in the valley, And rejoiceth in his strength : He goeth forth to meet the armed men. ^ According to the Hebrew text (mibcsari), i. c, with my naked spirit or by direct spiritual intuition. The passage teaches the immortality of the soul, but not the resurrection of tlie body (^vhicll comes out in the last books of the Old Testament). The A. Y. and Luther wrongly translate "m my flesh," "?;i meinem Fleische,^^ following the text of the Yulgate : '' ct nirsiim circumdahor jicUc viea, ct in came mca videho Dcum mcum.'''' The R. V. reads in the text '^from my flesh," and in the margin "' icifhout my liesh." 120 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. He mocketh at fear, and is not dismayed : Neither turneth he back from the sword. The quiver rattleth against him, The flashing spear and the javehn. He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage ; Neither beheveth he that it is the voice of the trumpet. As oft as the trumpet soundeth he saith. Aha ! And he smelleth the battle afar off, The thunder of the captains and the shouting. ' ' Job is overwhelmed with a sense of the infinite power and wisdom of the Almighty, and of his own impotence and igno- rance, and penitently confesses his sin and folly (xlii. 2-6) : — "I know that Thou canst do all things. And that no purpose of thine can be restrained. Who is this that hidetli counsel without knowledge ? I have then uttered what I understood not, Things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. But hear me now, and let me speak ; Thee will I ask, and do Thou teach me. I had heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear ; But now mine eyes behold Thee. Therefore I abhor it' (I recant), And repent in dust and ashes. ' ' This repentance and humble submission is the moral solution of the mighty problem, if solution it can be called. A brief epilogue relates the temporal or historical solution, the restoration and increased prosperity of Job after this severest trial of his faith. To the external order corresponds the internal dialectic devel- opment in the warlike motion of conflicting sentiments and growing passions. The first act of the debate shows yet a toler- able amount of friendly feeling on both sides. In the second the passion is much increased, and the charges of the opponents against Job are made severer. In the last debate Eliphaz, the ^ The Hebrew verb bas no pronominal object ; tliis is eitber tbe person of Job (Sept. tfiavTov ; Vulg. me ; A. and E. V. myself ; Lntber, mieh), or bis argument, bis foolisb wisdom (Aben Ezra : quiequld antea in te sum temerc lotnitns et impcrite). lAvabl translates indefinitely : '^ Drumundernife ieh und uhe Jieuc.^^ Similarly Ziickler : '•'■ Darum icidcrrufe ieh und ihite Basse.''' THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 121 leader of the rest, proceeds to the open accusation of heavy crimes against the sufferer, with an admonition to repent and turn to God. Job, after repeated declarations of his innocence and vain attempts at convincing his opponents, appeals at last to God as his Judge. God appears, convinces him of his igno- rance, and brings him to complete submission. This is as far as the Hebrew religion could go. In the Christian dispensation we know God not only as a God of power and wisdom, whose paths are past finding out, but also as a God of love and mercy, who maketh all things to work together for good to those that love him. Yet there are many dark problems of Providence which we cannot understand until we shall see face to face and know even as we are known. The Book of Job, considering it as a mere poem, stands on a par with the Iliad, the ^Eneid, the Divina Commedia, Macbeth, Hamlet, and Faust, and considering its antiquity and moral bearing, it is superior to all. The dark mystery of suffering has never b^een more profoundly debated, and never been brought nearer to solution, except by the teaching and example of Christ and the sacrifice on the Cross. The poem is also remarkable for its universal import. Whether written in the patriarchal, or Mosaic, or Solomonic, or a still later age, Job is represented as a man who lived before or independent of the Mosaic economy, and outside, yet near the Holy Land ; ignorant of the written law and the temple, and yet a worshiper of Jehovah; a mysterious stranger of the type of Melchisedek, " without father, without mother, without genealogy," yet a true prophet and priest of the Most High, and a comforter of the children of affliction in all aires. THE FORM OF BIBLE POETRY. POETIC DICTION. We must now consider the artistic form of the poetry of the Bible, and the questions of versification, metre and rhyme. The language of Hebrew, as well as of all other poetry, is in one respect more free, in other respects more bound, than the language of prose. It is the language of imagination and feel- 122 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. ing, as distinct from the language of sober reflection and judg- ment. It is controlled by the idea of beauty and harmony. It is the speech of the Sabbath-day. It soars above what is ordi- nary and common. It is vivid, copious, elevated, sonorous, striking, impressive. Hence the poet has more license than the prose-writer; while, on the other hand, he submits to cer- tain restraints of versification to secure greater aesthetic effect. He is permitted to use words wdiich are uncommon or obsolete, but which, for this very reason, strike the attention and excite the emotion. He may also use ordinary words in an extraordi- nary sense. The licenses of the Hebrew poets are found in the following particulars : — 1. Archaic forms and peculiar words, some of Aramaic or even a prior Shemitic dialect : Eloah for Elohim (God), enosh for adam (man), orach for derech (path), havah for haiah (to be), millah for dabai- (word), i^aal for asah (to do), hatal for razah (to kill). Sometimes they are accumulated for poetic effect.-^ The modern knowledge of Assyrian and Babylonian literature sheds light upon these poetic archaisms. 2. Common words in an uncommon sense : Joseph for the nation of Israel ; adjectives for substantive objects, as the hot for the sun, the ivhite for the moon (Cant. vi. 10), the strong for a bull (Ps. 1. 13), the flowing for stream (Isa. xliv. 3). 3. Peculiar grammatical forms, or additional syllables, which give tlie word more sound and harmony, or an air of antiquity ; as the paragogic ah (H ^) affixed to nouns in the absolute state, (V), and i (**-) affixed to nouns in the construct state; the feminine termination ath, atha(for the ordinary ah) ; the plural ending in and ai (for im) ; the verbal suffixes mo, amo and emo ; the pronominal suffixes to nouns and prepositions — amo (for am), and ehu (for an) ; also lengthened vowel forms of pronouns and prepositions — lamo (for lo or lahem), minni (for miyt), lemo (for ^), Lemo (for 5), hemo (for D), eleh (for '7N), adai (for ^^). ^ So in tlie highly poetic Ps. viii. 8 we have zonch (sheep) for the prosaic zon ; alaphim (oxen) for bakar ; sadai (fiekl) for scuhh ; and hahamoth sadai (beasts of the field) instead of haiaih haarez. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 123 YERSIFICATIOX. Hebrew poetry has a certain rhythmical flow, a rise and fall (arsis and thesis), versicular and strophic divisions, also occa- sional alliterations and rhymes, and especially a correspondence of clauses called " parallelism,^' but no regular system of versifi- cation, as we understand it. It is not fettered by mechanical and uniform laws ; it does not rest on quantity or syllabic measure; there is no equal number of syllables in each line or verse, nor of lines in each stanza or strophe. It is poetry of sense rather than sound. The thought is lord over the outward form. It differs in this respect from classical, modern, and also from later Hebrew poetry. " Compared with the poetry of other ancient nations,'' says Ewald, " Hebrew poetry represents a more simple and childlike age of mankind, and overflows with an internal fullness and grace that cares very little for external ornament and nice artistic law." ^ This freedom and elasticity of Hebrew poetry gives it, for purposes of translation, a great advantage above ancient and modern poetry, and subserves the universal mission of the Bible, as the book of faith and spiritual life for all nations and in all languages. A more artificial and symmetrical structure would make the translation a difficult task, and either render it dull and prosy, by a faithful adherence to the sense, or too free and loose, by an imitation of the artistic form. Besides it would introduce confusion among the translations of different Christian nations. The Iliad of Homer, the Odes of Horace, Dante's Divina Commedia, Petrarca's Sonnets, Milton's Paradise Lost, Goethe's Faust, cannot be translated in prose without losing their poetic ^ EAvald (/. c, p. 104) denies the existence of rhyme in Hebrew poetry : yet the occasional rhymes and alliterations in the song of Lamech, the song of ]Moses, the song of Deborah, etc., can hardly be merely accidental. Delitzscli (in his, Com. on the Faalnis, Leipz., 1867, p. 17) says: ''Bicalt- hebniische Pocsic hat wedcr Iicim iioch Jlctrum, xcelehe heide erst im 7. Jahr n. Chr. von der j'ddischen Poesie angceignet xcurden.''^ But afterwards he quali- fies this remark and admits that the beginnings of rhyme and metre are found in the poetry of the O. T., so that there is an element of truth in the assertion of Philo, Josephue, Eusebius and Jerome, who find there the Greek and Koman metres. 124 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. charm, yea, their very soul. They must be freely reproduced in poetic form, and this can only be done by a poetic genius, and with more or less departure from the original. But the Psalms, the Book of Job, and Isaiah can be transferred by a good and devout scholar, in form as well as in substance, into any lan- guage, without sacrificing their beauty, sublimity, force, and rhythm. The Latin, English and German Psalters are as poetic as the Hebrew, and yet agree with it and among themselves. It is impossible not to see here the hand of Providence, which made the word of truth accessible to all. The few acrostic or alphabetical poems can hardly be called an exception, viz., Pss. xxv., xxxiv., xxxvii., cxi., cxii., cxix. and cxlv., the Lamentations, and the last chapter of Proverbs (xxxi. 10 sqq.). For the alphabetical order is purely external and mechanical, and at best only an aid to the memory. Pss. cxi. and cxii. are the simplest examples of this class; each contains twenty-two lines, according to the number of the Hebrew alphabet, and the successive lines begin with the letters in their regular order. Ps. cxix. consists of twenty-two strophes, cor- responding to the number of Plebrew letters; each strophe be- gins w^ith the letter of the alphabet, and has eight parallelisms of two lines each, and the first line of each parallelism begins with the initial letter of the strophe. The remaining four acrostic Psalms are not so perfect in arrangement. Many attempts have been made by Jewish and Christian scholars to reduce the form of Hebrew poetry to a regular sys- tem, but they have failed. Josephus says that the Song of Moses at the Red Sea (Ex. xv.) and the farewell Song of Moses (Deut. xxxii.), are composed in the hexameter measure, and the Psalms in trimeters, pentameters and other metres. But he and Philo were anxious to show that the poets of their nation anticipated the Greek poets even in the art of versification. Eusebius says that Deut. xxxii. and Psalm xviii. have the heroic metre of sixteen syllables, and that other metres were employed by the Hebrews. Jerome, the most learned among the Chris- tian fathers (appealing to Philo, Josephus, Origen and Eusebius for proof), asserts that the Psalter, the Lamentations, the Book of Job and almost all the poems of the Bible are composed in THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 125 hexameters and pentameters, with dactyls and spondees, or in other regular metres, like the classic poems of Pindar, Alca}iis and Sappho; he points also to the alphabetical arrangement of Pss. cxi., cxii., cxix., cxlv., and the Lamentations. But the Jews, the custodians of the Hebrew text, ignored such system and arranged the poetic accentuation simply for cantillation in the synagogue. Among later scholars some deny all metrical laws in Hebrew poetry (Jose})h Scaliger, Richard Simon); others maintain the rhythm without metre^ (Gerhard Vossius); others both rhythm and metre (Gomarus, Buxtorf, Hottinger) ; others a full system of versification, though differing much in detail (Meibom, Hare, Anton, Lautwein, Bellerraann, Saalschiitz, E. Meier, Ley, Bickell, Cheyne, Briggs) ; wliile still others, believing in the existence of such a system, in whole or in part, think it im- possible to recover it (Carpzov, Lowth, Jahn, to some extent also Herder, De Wette, Winer and Wright). Ewald discusses at great length the Hebrew rhythm, metre and strophes, also Hebrew song and music, but without making the matter very clear. Professor Merx, of Heidelberg, finds in the Book of Job a regular syllabic and strophic structure, eight syllables in each stich or line, and an equal number of stichs in each strophe, but he is obliged to resort to arbitrary conjectures of lacuna? or interpolations in the masoretic text. Dr. Julius Ley, in two elaborate treatises (1875, 1887), constructs a minute system of Hebrew versification which is very ingenious but very artificial. He bases it on accentuation, and lays down the principle that the Hebrew metre is not regulated by syllables but by risings [Ile- bimgen), and the risings by the accent which generally falls on the last syllable. He distinguishes hexametric, octametric, deca- metric strophes, disticha, tristicha, tetrasticha, pentasticha, hexas- ticha, octasticha, enneasticha. Professor Bickell, a distinguished Orientalist in the Roman Catholic University of Innsbruck, de- fends similar views and furnished specimens of Hebrew poems in metrical arrangement in conformity with Syriac poetry,^ but in ^ All metre is rhythm, but not all rhythm is metre, as Augustiu says {De 3fusica). 2 Carmina Vcteris Tesiamenti 3Tetrice, and Dichtunyen dcr llebrdcr, 1S8"2 126 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. violation of the traditional accentuation and vocalization. Glet- man agrees with him in principle, but Ecker raised energetic protest. The great objection to those elaborate systems of Hebrew versi- fication is that they are too artificial and cannot be carried out except by violent and arbitrary construction. They must resort to substitution and compensation to account for irregularities, and violate more or less the masoretic system. In most cases they give us no more than a rhythm. The stanzas are of unusual length, and usually no more than periods in prose. The rhyme seldom extends beyond two or three verses, and has no such fixed rules, as it has in modern and also in Arabic poetry. The same is the case with the alliteration and assonance ; they do occur, but only occasionally and irregularly. The spirit always controls the letter, and the thought determines the expression. PARALLELISM OF MEMBERS. But while the theories of a uniform and fully developed system of versification are at least doubtful, it is generally ad- mitted that Hebrew poetry is marked throughout by what is called the parallelismus membrorum} It is not confined to Hebrew poetry, but is found also in Assyrian, Babylonian and Akkadian hymns.^ This parallelism consists of a certain rhyth- He had previously published >S'. Eplirsemi Sijri Carmina JVisihena, 1866. Bickell is a convert from Lutheranism. ^ The term was introduced by Bishop Lovs^th, who first developed the sys- tem of parallelism in its various forms. But the thing itself was known before under different names. Aben Ezra calls it duplicatio {caj)Jml), Kimchi, duplicaiio sententise verbis variatis. See Delitzsch, I. c. p. 18. Rabbi Azariah, and especially Schcittgen {Hone Hcbraicx, Vol. I. 1249-1263), seem to have anticipated the main features of Lowth's system. The theory of Lowth was further developed l)y Bishop Jebb (died at Limerick, 1833) : Sacred Litera- ture, comprising a review of the principles of composition laid down hy Bishop Loicth, London, 1831. Jebb has shown that parallelism pervades a great portion of the New Testament. The same was done to excess by Dr. John Forbes : 71ic Sipnmetrical Structure of Scripture^ or the Principles of Hebrew Parallelism, Edinburgh, 1854. 2 It is alsfl found in didactic poetry among the Chinese, although only in antithetic; form. So I was told by the late missionary bishop, Dr. Schereschrew- sky, of Peking. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 127 mical and musical correspondence of two or more sentences of similar, or opposite meaning; so that idea answers to idea in somewhat different words. It serves, by a felicitous variation, to give full expression and harmony to the thought. The paral- lel members complete or illustrate each other, and produce a music of vowels and consonants. Parallelism reflects the play of human feeling, and supplies the place of regular metre and rhyme in a way that is easily understood and remembered, and can be easily reproduced in every language. It is like the ebb- ing and flowing of the tide, or like the sound and its echo. Ewald happily compares it to '^ the rapid stroke as of alternate wings,^^ and to *^ the heaving and sinking as of the troubled heart. ^^ It is found even in the earliest specimen of Hebrew poetry, the Song of Lamech (Gen. iv. 23). It must, therefore, answer to a natural and primitive impulse of poetic sentiment. " Amant alterna camcence/' says Virgil. The classic hexameter and pentameter are a continual parallelism, where, as Herder describes it, ''the poetic flowers which, in Hebrew verse, grow on separate stems, are woven into an unbroken wreath. ^^^ There are different forms of parallelism, according to the nature of the internal relation of the members. The corre- spondence may be either one of harmony, or one of contrast, or one of progressive thought, or one simply of comparison, or of symmetrical structure. Since Lowth, it has become customary to distinguish three classes of parallelisms : synonymous, anti- thetic, and synthetic or constructive. The majority belong to the third class, and even those which are usually counted as synony- mous, show more or less progress of thought, and might as well be assigned to the third class. A large number of parallelisms cannot be classified. 1. Synonymous (also called gradational) parallelism expresses ^ Compare Schiller's distich : "Jw Hexameter steigt dcs Springquells flilssige Sdule ; Im Fentamcter danafdllt sie mclodisch hejxih.'" And the happy rendering of Coleridge : " In the hexameter rises the fountain's silvery column ; In the pentameter aye falling in melody back." 128 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. the same idea in different but equivalent words, as in the follow- ing examples : — Ps. II. 4. " He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugli : The Lord shall have them in derision. " Ps. VIII. 4. "What is man that Thou art mindful of him ? And the son of man that Thou visitest him ?" Ps. XIX. 1,2. " The heavens declare the glory of Grod : And the firmament showeth his handiwork. ' ' ' ' Day unto day uttereth speech : And night unto night proclaimeth knowledge. ' ' Ps. cm. 1. " Bless the Lord, my soul : And all that is within me, bless His holy name." Judg. XIV. 14. (Samson's riddle). Out of the eater came forth meat, And out of the strong came foith sweetness. ' ' These are parallel couplets ; but there are also parallel triplets, as in Ps. i. 1 : — ' ' Blessed is the man That walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor standeth in the way of sinners. Nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful." The priestly blessing, Numbers vi. 24-26, is a synonymous tristich : — "Jehovah bless thee and keep thee : Jehovah make His face shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee : Jehovah lift up His countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. ' ' Similar triplets occur in Job iii. 4, 6, 9 ; Isa. ix. 20. Parallel quatrains or tetrastichs are less frequent, as in the oracle of Jehovah to Rebekah predicting the future of Jacob and Esau, Gen. xxv. 23 : — " Two nations are in thy womb, And two peoples will separate themselves from thy bowels ; And people will prevail over peoi)le, And the elder will serve the younger. ' ' In Ps. ciii. 11, 12, the first member corresponds to the third, and the second to the fourth : — " For as the heavens are high above the earth, 8o great is His mercy toward them that fear Him. So lar as the East is from the We^^t, So far has He removed our transgressions from Him." THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 129 When the two members are precisely the same in word and sense, they are called identic parallelism : but there are no cases of mere repetition, unless it be for the sake of emphasis, as in Isa. XV. 1 ; Ps, xciv. 1, 3. Occasionally this parallelism is completed by a closing rhyme, as Gen. iv. 23; 1 Sam. xviii. 7; Prov. xxii. 10; xxiii. 22. 2. Antithetic parallelism expresses a contrast or antithesis in sentiment : — Ps. I. 6. " For the Lord knowetli the way of the righteous : But the way of the ungodly shall perish. ' ' Ps. xxxviii. 9. ' ' Evil-doers shall be cut oif : But those that wait upon tlie Lord, they shall inherit the earth. ' ' Prov. x. L "A wise son rejoiceth his father : But a foolish son is the grief of his mother. ' ' Prov. x. 7. " The memoiy of the just is a blessing : But the name of the wicked shall rot. ' ' Prov. xii. 10, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast : But the tender mercies of the wicked are cmel. ' ' Hos. XIV. 9. " The ways of the Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them ; But the transgressors shall fall therein." 3. Synthetic or constructive parallelism. Here the con- struction is similar in form, without a precise correspondence in sentiment and word as equivalent or opposite, but with a grada- tion or progress of thought, as in Ps. xix. 7-11 ; cxlviii. 7-13; Isa. xiv. 4-9. We quote the first : — "The law of Jehovah | is perfect, | restoring the soul : The testimony of Jehovah | is sure, | making wise the simple. The precept'^ uf Jehovah | are right, | rejoicing the heart : The commandment of Jehovah | is pure, | enlightening the eyes. The fear of Jehovah | is clean, | enduring forever : The judgments of Jehovah | are true, | and righteous altogether, More to be desired are they | than gold, | yea, than much fine gold : Sweeter also 1 than honey | and the honeycomb, Moreover, by them | is Thy serv^ant warned : In keeping of them | there is great reward. ' ' 9 130 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 1 Sam. xyiii. 7. ' ' Saul smote his thousands : And David his myriads. ' ' To these three kinds of parallelism Jebb {Sacred Literature) adds a fourth, which he calls introverted parallelism, where the first line corresponds to the last (fourth), and the second to the penultimate (third), as in Prov. xxiii. 15, 16 : — " My son, if thy heart be wise, My heart also shall rejoice ; Yea, my reins shall rejoice, When thy lips speak right things. ' ' De Wette distinguishes four, slightly differing from Lowth, Delitzsch six or eight forms of parallelism. The pause in the progress of thought determines the division of lines and verses. Hebrew poetry always adapts the poetic structure to the sense. Hence there is no monotony, but a beau- tiful variety and alternation of different forms. Sometimes the parallelism consists simply in the rhythmical correspondence of sentences or clauses, without repetition or contrast, or in carry- ing forward a line of thought in sentences of nearly equal length, as in Psalm cxv. 1-11 : — " Not unto us, Jehovah, not unto us, But unto Thy name give glory. For thy mercy. For Thy truth's sake. Wherefore should the nations say, ' Where is now their God ? ' But our Grod is in the heavens ; He has done whatsoever He pleased. Their idols are silver and gold. The work of the hands of men. A mouth have they, but they speak not ; Eyes have they, but they see not ; Ears have they, but they hear not ; Noses have they, but they smell not ; Hands have they, but they handle not ; Feet have they, but they walk not ; Neither speak they through their throat. They that make them shall be like unto them ; Yea, every one that trusteth in them. THE rOETRY OF THE BIBLE. 131 Israel, trust tliou in Jehovah : He is their lielp and their shield. house of Aaron, trust ye in Jehovah : He is their help and their shield. Ye that fear Jehovah, trust in Jehovah : He is their help and their shield. ' ' This looser kind of parallelism or rhythmical correspoDdence and symmetrical construction of sentences, characterizes also much of the Hebrew prose, e. (/., the Decalogue, and is con- tinued in the Xew Testament, e. g., in the Sermon on the Mount (especially the Beatitudes), in the Lord's Prayer, in the Prologue of John, in Rom. v. 12 sqq. ; viii. 28 sqq. ; 1 Cor. xiii. 1 sqq.; 2 Tim. ii. 11, and other passages wliich we are accustomed to read as prose, but which even in form are equal to the best poetry — gems in beautiful setting, apples of gold in pictures of silver. LITERATUEE OX BIBLE POETRY. In conclusion, I present a classified list of the principal works on the Poetry of the Bible : — I. SPECIAL WORKS OX HEBREW POETRY. * Robert Lo"wth (son of AYilliam Lowth, who wrote a Commentary on the Prophets, born at AYinchester, 1710, Prof, of Poetry, Oxford, since 1741, Bishop of London, since 1777, died 17S7): De Sacra Poesi Hehra'- orum Pra'Iecifones Academicce^ Oxford, 1753 ; with copious notes b}'' JuJui David JL'chaeh's (Prof, in Gottingen, d. 1791), Gott., 1770; another ed. with additional notes by Rosenimdler, Leipz. , 1815 ; best Latin edition, with the additions of Michaelis, Rosenmiiller, Richter, and Weiss, Oxon., 1828. English translation {''Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, with the principal notes of Michaelis'') by G. Gregory, 1787; reedited, with improvements, by Calvin E. Stoice, Andover, 1829. Comp. also Lowth's preliminary^ dissertation to his translation of Isaiah (1773 ; 13th ed. , Lond. , 1842). Lowth's work is the first scholarly attempt at a learned and critical discussion of Hebrew poetry. Its chief merit is the discovery of par- allelism. ■^ J. Grottfried Herder (an almost universal genius and scholar, poet, historian, philosopher and theologian, born 1744, at Mohmngen, in East Prassia, died as court chaplain at Weimar, 1803): Geist der Ilebrdischen Poesie (Spint of Hehr. Poetry), Dessau, 1782; 3d ed. by Justi, Leipz., 1825 ; reprinted in Herder's collected works. Full of enthusiasm for the pui'ity and sublimity of Hebrew poetry. English translation by President Ie32 THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. James Marsh, Burlington, Yt., 1833, 2 vols, Comp. also the first twelve Letters of Herder on the Study of Theology. While Lowth discussed chiefly i\iQ form of Hebrew poetry, Herder eloquently and enthusiastically expounded its spirit. Leutwein : Versuch eiiier richtigen Theorie von der hihiischen Vers- hnist. Tubingen, 1775. L. T. Koseg-arten : Ueher den Dichtergeist der heil. Schriftsteller und Jesu Chr. Greifswald, 1794. Bellermann: Versuch ilher die Metrih der Hehr der. Berlin, 1813. A. Gugler: Die heil. Kunst der Hebrder. Landshut, 1814. J. L. Saalschiitz : Von der Form der hebrdischen Poesie. Konigs- berg, 1825. M. Nicolas: Forme de la poesie hehraique. Paris, 1833. Pr. Delitzsch : Zur Geschichte der jUdischen Poesie vom Ahschluss der heil. Schriften des A. Bundes his aif die neueste Zeit. Leipz., 1836. J. G. Wenrich : Commentatio de poeseos JTehi^aicce atque ArahiccB origine, indole, mutuoque consensu atque discrimine. Lips., 1843 (276 pp. )• J. G-. Sommer : Vom Reime in der hehr. Volkspoesie, in his Bihl. Ahhandlungen. Bonn, 1846, pp. 85-92. ^ H. Hupfeld : Rhythm and Accentuation in Ilehrew Poetry, transl. by Prof. Charles M. Mead in the Andover '' Bihliotheca Sacra'' for 1867. Hupfeld was the successor of Gesenius in Halle, and one of the ablest Hebrew scholars and commentators on the Psalms (d. 1866). ^ Isaac Taylor (Independent, a learned Lwman, d. 1865) : The Spirit of the Hebrew Poetry, repub., New York, 1862 (with a biographical introduction by Dr. "VYm. Adams). The work of an able and ingenious amateur in full sympathy with the spirit of Hebrew Poetry. Ernst Meier : Geschichte der poetischen National- Literatur der Ile- hrder. Leipz., 1856. The same: Die Form der Ilehrdischen Poesie. Tubingen, 1853. H. Steiner : Ueher hehrdisclie Poesie. Basel, 1873. Albert Werfer : Die Poesie der Bihel. Tubingen, 1875. Julius Ley (Prof in ^Marburg): Grundzilge des Rhythmus, des Vers- itnd Strophenhaus in der hebrdischen Poesie. Halle, 1875. By the same : Leitfaden der Metrih der hebrdischen Poesie nebst dem ersten Buche der Pscdmen nach rhythmischer Vers- und Strophenabtheiluug mit metrischer Analyse. Halle, 1887. B. Meteler. Grundzilge der hebrdischen Metrih der Psalmen. Miinstcr, 1870. G. Bickell (R. Cath. Prof in Innsbruck): Metrices hiblicce regid(r. exemplis illustratre, and Supplementum metrices biblicw. Innsbruck, 1879 ; Die hehr. Metrih, 1881 ; Carmina Veteris Tcstamenfi metrice, 1882. G. Gietmann: Deremetrica Ilehra;orum. Freiburg i. B. , 1880. J. Ecker: Prof. BicheWs Carmina V. T. metrice; der neuste Ver- such einer hehr. Metrih. Miinster, 1883. THE POETRY OF THE BIBLE. 133 Older essays on Hebrew poetry and music by Ebert, Gomarus, Schramm, Fleury, Dannhaucr, Pfeiffer, Leyser, Le Clerc, Hare, and others may be found in the XXXIst and XXXIId vols, of Ugolino's Thesaurus Antiquitatum /Sacra rum {Venet. 1744-69, 34 vols.). II. ESSAYS AND ARTICLES IN BOOKS, CYCLOPAEDIAS, AND REVIEWS. Gr. B. "Winer : Poesie, hehrdische, in his Bihl Eealwortcrhuch^ Vol. II., 2G4-2G8(3ded., 1849). Ed. Reuss: Ilehrdische Poesie, in Herzog's Real-Encyclopcedie, Vol. v., 598-608; revised ed., V., 671-681. Abridged translation with biblio- grapliical additions in SchafF-Herzog, II. 953 sqq. "W. A. "Wright: Hebrew Poetry, in Smith's Dictionary of the Bible (enlarged Am. ed.), Vol. III., pp. 2549-2561. Ludwig- von Diestel (d. 1879) : Dichthunst der Ilebrder, in SchenkeFs Bibellexicon, I., 607-615. Gust. Baur : Dichthunst, in Riehm's Handiourterbuch des bibJ. Alter- thums, 274-280. A. S. Aglen: The Poetry of the Bible. Several Art. in The Bible Educator. Ed. by E. II. Plumptre. Vols. I.-IV. Lond., 1875. "Wm. Robertson Smith: The Poetry of the Old Testament, in ""The British Quarterly Review'' for Jan., 1877, pp. 26-70. Richard Holt Hutton : Th-e Poetry of the Old Testament, in his ''Lit. Essays.'' London, 1880. Pp. 201-237. C. A. Brig-gs (Prof in the Union Theol. Seminary, New York): Hebrew Poetry, in the " Homiletical Quarterly," ed. by Caldwell and Exell. London, 1881. By the same : Biblical Study. New York and Edinb., 1883. Ch. IX., pp. 248-295. III. COMMENTARIES AND ISAGOGICAL WORKS. * H. Ewald : Die Dichter des Alten Bundes, in 3 Parts. Gottingen, 1835-'37; 2ded., 1865 sqq. ; 3d ed., 1868. English translation, London, 1880 sqq. Full of genius and independent research. Engl, translation, London, 1880 sqq. See also his Propheten des Alten Bundes, 1840 ; 3d ed. 1868, 3 vols. Engl, translation, Lond., 1876-81, 5 vols. R. Weber: Diepoet. Biicher des A. Bundes. Stuttg., 1853-60. Ph. Schaff: Introduction to the Poetical Books of the 0. T. In Lange's Com. on Job, Am. ed. New York, 1874. E. Meier: Diepoet. Biicher des A. T. Stuttgart, 1864. Tayler Lewis : Metrical Version of KoheletK with an introduction (in an Appendix to his translation of Zockler on Koheleth in Lange's Com- mentary). New York, 1870. The relevant sections in the Critical Introductions to the Old Testament by De AVette, Haevernick, Keil, Bleek, Keuss (§§ 122-129, p. 141 sq(i.), and the numerous Commentaries on the Psalms, the Book of Job, the Proverbs, and the Song of Songs. THE DIES lE^. 1. "Dies irae, dies ilia, Solvet saeclum in favilla, Teste David cum Sibylla. 2. Quantus tremor est futurus, Quando judex est venturus, Cuncta stricte discussurus ! 3. Tuba, mirum spargens sonum, Per sepulchra regionum, Coget omnes ante thronum. 4. Mors stupebit et natura, Quum resurget creatura, Judicanti responsura. 5. Liber scriptus proferetur, In quo totum continetur, Unde mundus judicetur. 6. Judex ergo quum sedebit Quidquid latet apparebit. Nil inultum remanebit. 7. Quid sum miser tunc dicturus, Quem patronum rogaturus, Quum vix Justus sit securus ? 8. Rex tremendae majestatis. Qui salvandos salvas gratis, Salva me, fons pietatis. g. Recordare, Jesu pie. Quod sum causa tuae viae; Ne me perdas ilia die. 10. Quaerens me sedisti lassus, Redemisti crucem passus, Tantus labor non sit cassus. 11. Justae judex ultionis, Donum fac remissionis Ante diem rationis. 12. Ingemisco tamquam reus, Culpa rubet vultus meus : Supplicanti parce, Deus. 13. Qui Mariam absolvisti, Et latronem exaudisti, Mihi quoque spem dedisti. 14. Preces meae non sunt dignae, Sed Tu, bone, fac benigne, Ne perenni cremer igne. 15. Inter oves locum praesta, Et ab haedis me sequestra, Statuens in parte dextra. 16. Confutatis maledictis, Flammis acribus addictis ; Voca me cum benedictis. 17. Oro supplex et acclinis. Cor contritum, quasi cinis : Gere curam mei finis." 18. [Lacrymosa dies ilia, Qua resurget ex favilla, Judicandus homo reus, Huic ergo parce, Deus ! 19. Pie Jesu, Domine, Dona eis requiem. Amen.] This is the famous Dies Ir^ after the received text of the Roman Missal. Mohnike and Daniel give also the various readings and the text of Hiimmerlin, which difiers considerably 134 THE DIES IR.^. 135 and has six additional stanzas. Of this and the text from the marble slab at Mantua I shall speak below. I have put the last six lines in brackets because they depart from the triplet and triple rhyme, and are no part of the original poem, but were added for liturgical purposes. THE XAME AXD USE OF THE POEM. The poem is variously called " Prosa de Mortuis;^^ ^' De Die Jurlicll;'' "In Commemoratione Defundorum;^^ but usually, from its opening words, "Dies IvceP It is used in the Latin Church, regularly, on the Day of All Souls (Xovember 2), and, at the discretion of the priest, in masses for the dead and on other funeral solemnities. It is frequently accompanied with music, which doubles the effect of the poem, especially Mozart^s Requiemy his last masterpiece, which is itself like a wondrous trumpet spreading wondrous sounds. CONTEXTS. The Dies Ir.e is a judgment hymn written for private devo- tion. It is an act of humiliation and prayer in contemplation of the impending day of retribution, when all secrets shall be revealed and all men be judged according to their deeds done in this life. It is a soliloquy cast in the mould of Augustinian theology. It vibrates between a profound sense of man's guilt and a humble trust in Christ's mercy. The poet is the single actor, and prays for himself. Without a prelude he brings before us the awful theme with a few startling words from the Holy Scriptures. He first describes the general judgment as a future fact, with its accompanying terrors ; then he gives expression to the sense of guilt and dismay, and ends with a prayer for the mercy of the Saviour, which prompted Him to die for poor sinners, to forgive Mary Magdalene, and to promise the penitent robber, in his dying hour, a seat in Paradise. The poem is based upon the prophetic description of the great Day of Jehovah as described in Zephaniah i. 15, 16 : — "That day is the day of wrath, A day of trouble and distress, A da}" of wasteness and desolation, A day of darkness and gloom. 136 THE DIES lE^E. A day of clouds and thick darkness, A day of the trumpet and alarm Against the fenced cities, And against high battlements." ^ The first words of this prophecy, according to the Latin trans- lation, "Dies irce, dies illa/^ furnished the beginning and the key-note of the poem. In like manner the Stabat Mater derived its theme and inspiration from a few words of the Bible in the Vulgate (John xix. 25). The author of Dies Ir.e had also in view the Lord's description of His coming and of the general judgment. Matt. xxiv. and xxv., and several passages of the New Testament, especially 2 Pet. iii. 7-12: "The day of the Lord will come as a thief, in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall be dissolved with fervent heat, and the earth and the works that are therein shall be burned up." The " tuba miimm spargens sonum/^ in verse 3, is an allusion to 1 Cor. xv. 52: "The trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised," and 1 Thess. iv. 16: "The Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God." The ^^ liber scriptus/' in verse 5, is the record of all human actions, which will be opened on the judgment day, Dan. vii. 10; Kev. XX. 12. The reference to it calls to mind the sinful deeds and deepens the sense of guilt and awe.^ In verse 7 the writer had undoubtedly in mind Job iv. 18; xv. 15, and especially 1 Pet. iv. 18 : "If the righteous is scarcely saved {si Justus vix salvabi- tur), where shall the ungodly and sinner appear?" The second line in verse 8 expresses the idea of salvation by free grace as taught in Rom. iii. 24 (" being justified freely by his grace/' justi- jicaii gratis per gratiam ipsius) ; Eph. ii. 8 ; 2 Tim. i. 9, etc. The first line in verse 10 : " Qucerens me sedisti (not, venisti) lassus/' is a touching allusion to the incident related John iv. 6: ^' Jesus FATIGATUS ex itinere, sedebat sic supra fontem/' unless it be ^ According to the translation of the Vulgate, "Dies ir.e, dies illa, dies iribulationis ct angustiie, dies calamitatis et misei'ix, dies ienehrarum ct cali- ginis, dies ncbahe et iurbinis, dies tuhx et clangoris super civitates munitas et super angclos excehos. ' ' 2 A writer in the Loudon "Spectator" for March 7, I8G8, mistakes this book for tlie Bible. THE DIES 1R2E. 137 referred to the whole state of humiliation. Mary, in verse 13, is Mary Magdalene, or the sinful woman to whom Christ said: *^Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace,'^ Luke vii. 50. Verses 15 and 16 are suggested by the description of the judgment, Matt. XXV. 33 sqq. David is mentioned in the first stanza as the representative of the Old Testament prophets, with reference probably to several Psalms in which the judgment of the world is foretold, as Ps. xcvi. 13 ("He cometh. He cometh to judge the earth; He shall judge the world with righteousness"); cii. 26 (''The heavens shall perish"). In some copies and translations, however, Petei' is substituted for David, on account of 2 Pet. iii. 7-12. "With David is joined the Sibyl as the representative of the unconscious prophecies of heathenism, with allusion to the Si- bylline Oracles of the destruction of the world. The writer no doubt had in view chiefly those lines of Sibylla Erythrsea, which form an acrostic on the words IIIIOTI XPIITOI 6 EOT TIG I IQTHP, i. e. "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour," and which are quoted by Eusebius iu Greek, and by St. Augustin in a Latin metrical version, retaining the acrostic form.-^ This apoc- ryphal feature is somewhat repugnant to modern taste, and hence omitted or altered in many Protestant versions of the poem.^ But it is in perfect keeping with the patristic and scholastic use of the Sibylline Oracles, the 4th Eclogue of Virgil, and other heathen testimonies of the same kind, for apologetic purposes. It gives to the idea of the judgment of the world a universal character, as being founded in the expectations of Gentiles, Jews, and Chris- tians, and indicated by the light of reason as well as by the voice of revelation. The mediaeval painters and Michael Angelo like- wise placed the Sibyl alongside of the prophets of Israel. ^ Augustin, De Civitate Dei, lib. xviii., cap. 23 (trauslated in Schaff's ed. of " The City of God," p. 572 sq.). The oracle consists of 27 lines, and com- mences : — " ludicii signum tcllus sudore madescet ; Ec Rex adveniet per sxcla futurus : Scilicet in came prsesens ut Judicet orhem.'^'' 2 Some Roman Catholic ^Missals, as those of Paris and Metz (1778), substi- tute from Matt. xxiv. 30, for David cum Sibylla : — " Crucis expandens vexilla.'^ 138 THE DIES IRM. The original poem appropriately closes with the words : ^'Gere curam met finisJ^ The last six lines break the unity and sym- metry of the poem, they differ from the rest in rhyme and measure, and turn the attention from the writer to the departed faithful as the subject of his prayer {Jiuic, eis). They are, there- fore, an addition by another hand, probably from a funeral service already in public use. CHARACTER AND VALUE. The Dies Ir^ is the acknowledged masterpiece of Latin church poetry, aud the greatest judgment hymn of all ages. No single poem of any nation or language has acquired such a celebrity, and been the subject of so much praise and comment. It has no rival. It stands solitary and alone in its glory, and will probably never be surpassed. '^It would be difficult,'' says Coles, "to find, in the whole range of literature, a production to which a profounder interest attaches than to that magnificent canticle of the middle ages, the Dies Ir^e. Among poetic gems it is the diamond.'' The Ger- mans call it, with reference to its majesty and antique massive- ness, the gigantic hymn (Gigantenhymnus). In simplicity and faith it fully equals an older anonymous judgment hymn of the seventh or eighth century, commencing: ^' Apparebit repentina magna dies Domini ;^^ ^ while in lyric fervor and effect, as well as in majesty and terror, it far surpasses it and all the numerous imitations of later times. The Stabat Mater Dolorosa. bears many points of resemblance, being likewise the product of the Franciscan order, a regular part of the Catholic worship, the theme of glorious musical compositions, and multiplied by a large number of translations. It is equal, or even superior, to the Dies Ir^e in pathos, but does not reach its power and grandeur, and offends Protestant ears by addressing the Virgin Mary rather than Christ. The Dies Ir^e breathes, it is true, the mediaeval spirit of legal- ^ See the Latin text in Daniel, Thcs. Hijmnol. i. 194, and the English version of John M. Neale in Schaff's Christ in Song, p. 287 sqq. (London edition). THE DIES IR^. 139 istic and ascetic piety, and looks forward to the solemn winding- up of the world's history with feelings of trembling and fear rather than of hope.^ The concluding prayer for the dead, which, however, is a later addition, implies that the souls of the departed (in Purgatory) may be benefited by the prayers of the living. But with this exception the poem is free from the objectionable features of Romanism; while it is positively evangelical in representing salvation as an act of the free grace of Christ, " qui salvandos salvat gratis.''^ And in the lines, ^^ Quern patronum rogaturus, Quum vix Justus sit securus,^^ it virtually renounces the doctrine of the advocacy of the Virgin and the Saints, and takes refuge only in Christ. Beneath the drifting mass of me- diaeval traditions there was an undercurrent of simple faith in Christ, which meets us in the writings of St. Anselm, St. Ber- nard, the sermons of Tauler, and in the inimitable Imitation of Christ by Thomas a Kempis. When Christians come to die, they ask nothing but mercy and rely solely on the merits of the Re- deemer. The nearer they approach Christ and eternity the nearer they approach each other. Copernicus composed the following epitaph for himself: ' ' Not the grace bestowed upon Paul do I pray for ; Not the mercy by which Thou pardoned.st Peter : That alone which Thou grantedst the crucified robber, — That alone do I pray for. ' ' The Dies Ir^ is as much admired by Protestants as by Roman Catholics. Protestant writers have done most for its illustration and translation, and Goethe has best described its effect upon the guilty conscience (in the cathedral scene of Faust) : ' ' Hon'or seizes thee ! The trump sounds ! The grave trembles ! And thy heart From the repose of its ashes, For fiery torment Brought to fife again, Trembles up. ' ' ^ The bright aspect of the judgment as the day of complete redemption i9 set forth in the mediaeval companion hymn, ''Dies iras, dies vitx.''^ See Schaflf 's Christ in Song, p. 296. 140 THE DIES lE^. The secret of the power of the Dies Ir^ lies first in the intensity of pious feeling with which its great theme is handled. The poet realizes the impending judgment of the world as an awful and overpowering event that is as certain as the approach of night. He hears the trumpet of the archangel sounding through the open sepulchres. He sees the dead rising from the dust of ages, and stands aghast before the final conflagration and collapse of the universe. He sees the Son of Man seated in terrific majesty on the judgment throne, with the open book of the deeds of ages, dividing the good from the bad and pro- nouncing the irrevocable sentence of everlasting weal and ever- lasting woe. And with the spirit of an humble penitent he pleads for mercy, mercy at the hands of Him who left his throne of glory and died on the cross for the salvation of sinners. The poem is a cry from the depth of personal experience, and irresistibly draws every reader into sympathetic excitement. That man is indeed to be pitied who can read it without shaking and quivering with emotion. The second element of its power lies in the inimitable form wdiich commands the admiration of every man of taste for poetry or music. The poem is divided into stanzas ; each stanza is a triplet with a triple double rhyme, which strikes the ear like solemn music and excites deep emotion. Dante may have caught from it the inspiration of the spirit and form of his Divina Com media with its triplets and terza rima. Each word is the right word in the right place, and could not be spared. And what a combination of simplicity and majesty in the diction as well as the thought ! Whatever there is of power, dignity and melody in the old Roman tongue is here combined with unadorned simplicity, as in no other poem, heathen or Christian, and is made subservient to the one grand idea of the poem. The Dies Irje is onomato-poetic. It echoes, as well as human language can do, the collapse and wreck of the universe, the trembling and wailing of sinners before the judgment seat of an infinitely holy and righteous God, and the humble })leading for mercy from the All-Merciful. Every word sounds like the peal of an organ, yea, like the trumpet of the archangel summoning the dead to end- less bliss or to endless woe. The stately metre, the tri[)le rhyme. THE DIES 1R2E. 141 the selection of the vowels in full harmony With the thought and feeling, heighten and complete the effect upon the ear and the heart of the hearer. The music of the vowel assonances and consonances, e. g., the double u in the 2d and 7th stanzas (fatarus, venturus, discussurus ; diduruSj rogaturus, securus), the o and u in the 3d stanza (sonum, regionumy thronum), the i and e in the 9th stanza {pie, viae, die), defy the skill of the best translators in any language.^ OPINIONS OF CRITICS. We add the judgments of eminent writers. Frederick von Meyer, a senator of Frankfort-on-the-Main, and author of a revision of Luther's German Bible, in intro- ducing two original translations of the Dies Irje, calls it "an awful poem, poor in imagery, all feeling. Like a hammer it beats the human breast with three mysterious rhyme-strokes. With the unfeeling person who can read it without terror, or hear it without awe, I would not live under one roof. I wish it could be sounded into the ears of the impenitent and hypo- crites every Ash Wednesday, or Good Friday, or any other day of humiliation and prayer in all the churches.''^ Daniel, the learned hymnologist, justly styles the Dies Irje ^^uno omnium consensu sacrae poeseos summum decus et ecclesice ^ In another place {Christ in Song, London ed., 1870, p. 290) I have thus characterized this poem : " The secret of the irresistible power of the Dies Irje lies in the awful grandeur of the theme, the intense earnestness and pathos of the poet, the simple majesty and solemn music of its language, the stately metre, the triple rhyme, and the vowel assonances chosen in striking adaptation to the sense, — all combining to produce an overwhelming effect, as if we heard the final crash of the universe, the commotion of the opening graves, the trumpet of the archangel that summons the quick and the dead, and as if we saw 'the King of tremendous majesty,' seated on the tlu'one of justice and mercy, and ready to dispense eternal life and eternal woe." 2 '' Der Lichibote^^ (Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1806): '' Wie ein Hammer schlagt cs mit drci gcheimnissvollcn Bcimkldngen an die 3Iensc7ienhru8t. 3Iit dem Unempfindlichen, der es oJine Schrecken Icsen und oJme Grauen lioren kann, muehte ich nicht unter einem Dache wolincn,''^ Daniel, ii. 112, erroneously ascribes this admirable description to Guericke (1849), who must have bor- rowed it from Meyer (180GV 142 THE DIES IRvE. latince x£t/i7jXt(» prdiosissimum,^' and adds : " Quot sunt verba tot ponder a, immo tonitruaJ^ ^ Albert Knapp, one of the most gifted religious poets of Ger- many, compares the Latin original to a blast from tiie trump of the resurrection, and declares it inimitable in any translation.^ Dean Milman places it next to the Te Deum, and remarks: "There is nothing, in my judgment, to be compared with the monkish Dies irce, dies ilia, or even the Stahat 3IaterJ' Dr. William R. Williams, an American Baptist divine, and a scholar of cultivated literary taste, has appended to his essay on the "Conservative Principle of our Literature,^^ a fine note on Dies Irje, in which he characterizes it thus : " Combining somewhat of the rhythm of classical Latin with the rhymes of the mediaeval Latin, treating of a theme full of awful sub- limity, and grouping together the most startling imagery of Scripture as to the last judgment, and throwing this into yet stronger relief by the barbaric (?) simplicity of the style in which it is set, and adding to all these its full and trumpet-like caden- ces, and uniting with the impassioned feelings of the South, whence it emanated, tlie gravity of the North, whose severer style it adopted, it is well fitted to arouse the hearer."^ Archbishop Trench, who among other useful works has pre- pared an admirable collection of Latin Church poetry, and writ- ten one of the best translations of Dies Irm, remarks: "The metre so grandly devised, of which I remember no other example,^ fitted though it has here shown itself for bringing out some of ^ Thcs. Hymnol., ii., p. 112, 2 Evanjelischer Licderschatz, 3d ed., p. 1347. 3 3Iiscellanies, N. Y., 1850, p. 78. * This is an error. There are verses of striking resemblance attributed by some to St. Bernard, but probably of much later date (seeMohnike, I. c, p. 9): " Quum rccordor moriturus Quid post mortem sim futurus, Terror terret me venturus, Quern expecio non securus. Terret dies me icrroris, Dies irne ac furoris, Dies luctus ac moeroris, Dies ultrix jyeceatoris, Dies irx, dies ilia.'''' THE DIES mJE. 143 the noblest powers of the Latin language — the solemn effect of the triple rhyme, which has been likened [by Fred, von Meyer] to blow followino; blow of the hammer on the anvil — the con- fidence of the poet in the universal interest of his theme, a confidence which has made him set out his matter with so majestic and unadorned a plainness as at once to be Intelligible to all — these merits, with many more, have combined to give the Dies Ir.e a foremost place among the masterpieces of sacred song. ^ Abraham Coles, the author of seventeen distinct translations of Dies Ir^, says of it among other things : " Every line weeps. Underneath every word and syllable a living heart throbs and pulsates. The very rhythm, or that alternate elevation and de- pression of the voice which prosodists call the arsis and the thesis, one might almost fancy Avere synchronous with the con- traction and the dilatation of the heart. It Is more than dramatic. The horror and the dread are real, are actual, not acted !'^ "The Dies Ir^e,'^ to quote from the celebrated French phi- losopher Victor Cousin, '^recited only, produces the most terrible effect. In those fearful words, every blow tells, so to speak; each word contains a distinct sentiment, an Idea at once pro- found and determinate. The intellect advances at each step, and the heart rushes on In Its turn.^^^ Mrs. Charles, the accomplished authoress of the "Schonberg- Cotta Fauilly" and other popular works, thus speaks of the Dies Ir^e: "That hymn rose alone in a comparative pause, as ^ If Christendom had been hushed to listen to its deep music, ranging as It does through so many tones of human feeling, from the treuibling awe and the low murmurs of confession, to tender, pathetic pleading with One who, though the ^just, aveng- ing Judge, yet sate weary on the well of Samaria, seeking the lost, trod the mournful way, and died the bitterest death for sinful men.' Its supposed author, Thomas of Celano, in the Abruzzo, lived during the fourteenth [thirteenth] century, was a Franciscan monk, and a personal friend of St. Francis him- self, whose life he wrote. But so much doubt has hung about the authorship, and if Thomas of Celano was the author, so ^ Sacred Latin Poetry, 2d ed. , p. 296. ^ Lectures on the True, the Beautiful, and the Good, p. 177. 144 THE DIES lE.E. little is known of him — even the date of his birth and death not being ascertained — that we may best think of the Dies Irj^: as a solemn strain sung by an invisible singer. There is a hush in the great choral service of the universal Church, when sud- denly, we scarcely know whence, a single voice, low and trem- bling, breaks the silence; so low and grave that it seems to deepen the stillness, yet so clear and deep that its softest tones and words are heard throughout Christendom, and vibrate throughout every heart — grand and echoing as an organ, yet homely and human as if the words were spoken ratlier than sung. And through the listening multitudes solemnly that melody flows on, sung not to the multitudes, but 'to the Lord,' and therefore carrying with it the hearts of men, till the singer is no more solitary, but the selfsame tearful, solemn strain pours from the lips of the whole Church as if from one voice, and yet each one sings it as if alone, to God.'^^ Edwards and Park, in their Selections from German Litera- ture^ quote a remark of Tholuck, as to the deep sensation produced by the singing of this hymn in the University church at Halle: "The impression, especially that which was made by the last words, as sung by the University choir alone, will be forgotten by no one." An American clergyman, present on the occasion, said : "It was impossible to refrain from tears, when, at the seventh stanza, all the trumpets ceased, and the choir, accompanied by a softened tone of the organ, sung those touching lines — ' Quid sum miser tunc dicturus. Literary men and secular poets have been captivated by the Dies Ir^ as well as men in full religious sympathy with its solemn thoughts and feelings. Goethe introduced several stanzas with thrilling effect in the cathedral scene of Faust to stir np the conscience of poor Margaret, who is seized with horror at the thought of the sounding trump, the trembling graves, and the fiery torment. Justin us Kerner, a Suabian poet and a friend of Uhland and Schwab, made good use of it in his poem Die Wahnsinnigen 1 The Voice of Christian Life in Sonff^ N. York ed., 1859, p. 170. ^Andover, Mass., iHliO, p. 185. THE DIES IR.E. 145 Brilder, where four impious brothers enter a church to ridicule reb'gion, but are suddenly brought to pause and repent, by hear- ing this judgment hymn. Dr. Johnson, with his coarse, yet noble and manful nature, could never repeat, without bursting into a flood of tears, the stanza ending — " Tantiis labor non sit ccissus.^^ The Earl of Roscommon, ^' not more learned than good,'^ in the moment in which he expired, uttered with the most fervent devotion two lines of his own version : — ' ' My Grod, my Father, and my Friend, Do not forsake me in my end ! ' ' Sir Walter Scott happily reproduced some stanzas of the Dies Irjg in English, and, following the example of Goethe, inserted them in the sixth canto of his " Lay of the Last Minstrel/^ On his dying bed, when the strength of his body and mind was failing, he was distinctly overheard repeating portions of the Latin original. In a letter to Crabbe, he remarks: ^^To my Gothic ear, the Stabat Mater, the Dies Ie^, and some of the other hymns of the Catholic Church, are more solemn and affecting than the fine classical poetry of Buchanan ; the one has the gloomy dignity of a Gothic church, and reminds us con- stantly of the worship to which it is dedicated ; the other is more like a pagan temple, recalling to our memory the classical and fabulous deities.'^ The Dies Ir.e has also given rise to some of the greatest musical compositions of Palestrina, Durante, Pergolese, Haydn, Vogler, Winter, Cherubini, Gottfried Weber, Neukomm, and of Mozart, in his famous Requiem, during the composition of which he died (1791). ORIGIN AND HISTORY The author of the Dies Ir.e was unconcerned about his fame, and probably unconscious of the merits of the poem, as he cer- tainly was of its unparalleled success. Like the cathedral builders, he wished to be unknown, feeling that God alone is great, and that Jiian is nothing. He wrote the poem from a sort of 10 146 THE DIES IR JE. inward necessity and under the power of an inspiration which prompts every great work of genius. His object was to excite himself to repentance and faith by a description of the terrors of the judgment day. The poem emanated from a subjective state of mind, probably without any regard to public use, but was soon found to be admirably adapted for divine worship on solemn occasions, especially the day for the commemoration of the departed. The deepest subjectivity in lyric poetry often proves to be the highest order of objectivity. The same may be said of the hymns of Paul Gerhardt and of many Moravian hymns. The authorship of Dies Ir^ cannot be determined with absolute certainty. It became early a subject of dispute between rival monastic orders. There is no positive evidence to decide the question, but the probability is in favor of Thomas a Celano, so called from his native little town Celano, in Abruzzo Ulteriore, in Italy, on the Adriatic. He was an intimate friend and the first biographer of St. Francis of Assisi,^ Superior of the Franciscan Convents at Cologne, Mayence, Worms and Speier, and died, after his return to Italy, about A. d. 1255. The very first notice of the poem, which, however, is one hundred and thirty years later than the age of the supposed author, ascribes it to Thomas. This notice is found in a super- stitious book entitled. Liber Conformitatum, written in 1385 by a Franciscan monk, Bartholomseus Albizzi, of Pisa (died 1401), in which he tries to show, by forty points of comparison, that St. Francis of Assisi became completely conformed to our Saviour, especially by the impression of the five stigmata on his body.^ Here he speaks incidentally of brother Thomas of Celano in this way : "Locum habet Celani de quo fuit frater Thomas, qui ^ His biography of St. Francis, known under the name of Lcgenda Aniiqua, is published in the Acta Sanciorum for October, torn. ii. Mohnike (7. e. p. 30) is in error on this point, when he says that it was never printed. It is called Lcgenda Antiqua, to distinguish it from the Lcgenda Major of Bonaveutura, a later and fuller biography of St. Francis. 2 On this book and the stigmatization miracle, compare an interesting essay of Tholuck on the Miracles of the Catholic Church, in his 3nsceUanic.% vol. i., p. 97 sqq. ; also the biographies of St. Francis by Hase (1856), Mrs. Oliphant (1870), Cherance (1879), and Bernardin (1880). TPIE DIES IR.E. 147 mandato Apostolico [/.e., by order of Pope Gregory IX.] scripsit sermone polito legendam primam heatl Francisci, et prosam de MORTUIS QU.E CAXTATUR IX MISSA ' DiES IR.e/ ETC., DICITUR FECISSE." This passage proves only the existence of a tradition in favor of the authorship of Thomas and the use of the Dies Ir.e in the mass toward the close of the fourteenth century. The learned and laborious Irish historian of the Franciscans, Lucas Wadding (born 1580, died 1657), in his two works, Annates Mlnorum (1625-1654), and Scriptorcs Ordinis Minorum (1650), defends the tradition, though without positive proof, and ascribes to Thomas two other hymns, both in honor of St. Fran- cis.-^ He was followed by Rambach, Mohnike, Finke, Lisco, Daniel, Mone, Koch, Palmer, Trench, W. R. Williams, Coles, and nearly all the modern writers on the subject. Mohnike, after a careful examination of tjie question of authorship, arrives at the conclusion (/. c, p. 31): ^'Thomas of Celano must be regarded as the author of the Dies Ir^e until — which can scarcely be expected — it can be irrefragably proven that another composed it." There is no doubt that his claims are much stronger than those of any other to whom the rivalry of monastic orders or the conjecture of critics has ascribed the authorship — viz., Gregory the Great (died 604), St. Bernard (died 1153), St. Bonaventura (died 1274), Latinus Frangipani, also called Malabranca, a Dominican (died 1296), Thurston, Archbishop of York (died 1140), Felix Htimmerlin, or Malleolus, of Zurich (1389 to 1457). The extraordinary religious fervor and devotion which char- acterize the early history of the Franciscan order, may be considered as an argument of internal probability for the author- ship of Thomas of Celano. The other two hymns ascribed to him, though far inferior in merit, are by no means destitute of poetic talent. Many a poet has risen once, under the power ^ The one commencing ^^Frcgit victor virtualis,^^ the other, ^^Sanciifatis nova sigtia.^^ Wadding supposed that these poems were lost; but the first was printed in one of the earlier Paris Missals, the other in the Acta Sanctorum for Oct. 2, p. 301. See both in Daniel's Thes. Hymnol., torn, v., p. 314, 317. Comp. Trench's Sacred Latin Poetry, p. 295 (2d ed.). 148 THE DIES IR^. of inspiration, far above the level of his ordinary works. St. Francis himself had a poetic nature. Another Franciscan monk, Jacopone, who died half a century after Thomas, is the reputed autlior of the Stabat Mater, which stands next to the Dies Ir^ in the whole range of Latin hymnology. Thus we are indebted, in all probability, to the Franciscan order for the most sublime, as well as for the most pathetic hymn of the middle ages. Mone^ has suggested the idea that the Dies iRiE arose not, as heretofore supposed, from the individual contemplation of a monk in his lonely cell, but was intended for the funeral service of the Church, and inspired by older judgment hymns in public use. In one of these, which he found in a MS. at Reichenau from the twelfth or thirteenth century, the passage occurs : — '''' Lacrymosa dies ilia, Qua rcsurgens exfamlla Homo reus judicandus.^^ The closing suspirium and prayer for the departed, '"''PieJesu^ Domine, Dona els requiem^^^ is likewise found in older hymns and missals. Mone conjectures that the author of Dies Ir^e himself appended these closing lines to his poem. Daniel^ and Philip Wackernagel* are dis- posed to adopt his view. But it seems to me much more probable, as already remarked, that the original poem closed with ^'Gere curam mei Jinis/^ and that the remaining six lines, with their different versification and the change from the first person to the third ('7ii62c" and "eis^'), were added from older sources by the compilers of mediaeval missals. Then we have a perfectly uni- form production, free from any allusion to Purgatory. The poem cannot be traced beyond the thirteenth century.^ In the second half of the fourteenth it was in public use in Italy. 1 Lateinische Ili/mneii dcs llificlaUcrs, 1853, vol. i., p. 408, 2 Tom. v., p. 110. ^ Das Dcnf.sche Kirchcnlicd von dcr aUcsten Zcit, etc., vol. i., p. 138. * Daniel (ii. , p. 113) : ^^ Ij)sius nimirum carminis natura indicate illud multo marjis post quam ante Thomai Celancnsis xtatem in lucon prodiissc.''^ THE DIES IR^. 149 From the land of its birth it gradually passed into the church service of other countries, scattering along its track " the luminous footprints of its victorious progress as the subduer of hearts." DIFFERENT TEXTS. The question as to the best text of the Dies Ir^ must be de- cided in favor of the received text which is found in the Mis- sals. But it has probably undergone several slight modifications before it assumed its present authorized shape. We have besides two texts which differ from the received, not only by a number of verbal variations, but also in length. One of these texts is said to be inscribed on a marble slab of the Church of St. Francis of Assisi at Mantua, and opens with the following four stanzas, which serve as an introduction and give the poem the aspect of a solitary devotional meditation : — 1. " Cogita {Quseso), anima fidells, 1. ''Weigh with solemn thought and tender, Ad quid resjiondere velis AVhat response, thou, soul, wilt render Christo venturo de ccelis, Then, when Christ shall come in splendor, 2. Quum deposcet rationem 2. And thy life shall be inspected, Oh honi omissionem, All its hidden guilt detected, Ob mail commissionem. Evil done and good neglected. 3. Dies ilia, dies irse, 3. For that day of vengeance neareth : Quam conemur jyrsevenire, Ready be each one that heareth, Obviamque Deo irse, God to meet when He appeareth, 4. Seria contritione, 4. By repenting, by believing, Gratise apprehensione, By God's offered grace receiving, Vitse emendatione." By all evil courses leaving." Then follows the "Dies irse, dies ilia,'' as we now have it from the first to the sixteenth stanza, ending with, " T oca 7ne cum henedictis.''^ Instead of the eighteenth stanza and the last six lines, the Mantua text offers this concluding stanza : — " Consors nt hentitntis "That in fellowship fraternal Vivam cum justijieatis AVith inhabitants supernal In sevum seternitatis. Amen !" I may live the life eternal. Amen !" Dr. Mohnike, of Stralsund, who published this text (I. c, p. 45-47) in 1824, as he supposed, for the first time, from a manu- 150 THE DIES IR^. script copy made in the seventeenth century by Charisius, burgo- master of Stralsund (1676), regards it as the original form of the hymn, or at least as coming nearest to it.^ This conjecture derives some support from the fact that other hymns were abridged or altered for the Missal and the Breviary (e. g., St. Bernard's ""^ Jesu dulcis memoria^^)? But this consideration is overruled by the questionable date of the Mantua inscrip- tion, as compared with the present text, which was already men- tioned in 1385, and by the evident inferiority of the introductory stanzas, which are flat and prosy compared with the rest. There could be no more startling and majestic opening than the ancient Scripture words, ^^ Dies irce, dies ilia.'' The Stabat Mater, likewise, opens with a Scripture sentence. The second rival of the received text is found amono^ the poems of Felix Hiimmerlin (Malleolus) of Zurich, a distinguished ecclesiastic of his age, a member of the Councils of Constance and Basel, and a reformer of various abuses, who ended his life (a.d. 1457) in the prison of the Franciscan convent at Lucerne. Among several poems which he composed in prison was found a Dies Irce, which was published from the manuscripts of the pub- lic library of Zurich, by Leonhard Meister, also by Mohnike (p. 39-42), and Lisco (ii. 103-105). It opens like the received text, which it presents with some verbal variations till stanza 17th (inclusive), and then adds the following seven stanzas, which we give with the translation of Dr. Coles (p. xviii.) : — 18. " Lacrymosa die ilia, 18. ''On that day of woe and weeping Quum resurget ex favilla, When, like fire from spark upleaping, Tamquum ic/nis ex scintilla, Starts, from ashes where he's sleeping, ^ Charisius, however, copied his text not directly from the original at Mantua, but, as Daniel shows (ii. 118), from the Florilcgium Mafjmim, pub- lished at Frankfort-on-the-Main, 1621, p. 1862, without any allusion to the Mantua inscription. This work reads in the first line Quivso for Cogita. Lisco (i. 89), Williams {Miscellanies^ p. 80), and Coles {I. c., p. xiv.) adopt the conjecture of Mohnike. ^ The Roman Breviary deals very freely with original texts. Protestant hymnology likewise furnishes some examples of appropriating a part only of a longer poem and omitting the first stanzas, e.g. Keble's evening hymn: "Sun of my soul, my Saviour dear," and Meta Heusser's Easter hymn: ^^ Lamm das gelitten, mid Lowe der sicgreich gcrungen,^'' — both great favorites, though not intended for hymns by the authors. THE DIES lE.E. 161 19. Judicandus homo rcjis ; Iluic ergo parce, Dciis, Esto semper adjutor mens ! 20. Quando coeli. aunt movendi, Dies adsunt tunc tremendt, Nullum tempus paenitendi. 21. Sed salvatis Isefa dies, Et dainnatia nulla quies, Sed dsemonum cffi(jics. 22. tu Deus majestatis, Alme candor Trinitatts, Nunc conjunge cum heatis. 23. Vitam meam fac felicem , Propter tuam genetricem, Jesse Jiorem et radicem. 21. PrsBHta nobis tunc levamen, Dulce nostrum fac certamen, Ut clamemus omnes Amen." 19. Man, account to Thee to render; Spare the miserable offender, Be my Helper and Defender ! 20. AYhen the heavens away are flyintr, Days of trembling then and crying, For repentance time denying; 21. To the saved a day of gladness, To the damned a day of sadness, Demon forms and shapes of madues: 22. God of infinite perfection. Trinity's serene reflection. Give me part with the election ! 23. Happiness upon me shower. For Thy Mother's sake, with power, Who is Jesse's root and flower. 24. From Thy fulness comfort pour us. Fight Thou with us or fight for us. So we'll shout. Amen, in chorus." Every reader must feel at once that these additions are but weak repetitions of the former verses. They are disfigured, moreover (ver. 23), by Mariolatry, of which the original is en- tirely free. A POLITICAL PERVERSION. The Dies Irae did not escape profanation. Some Roman priest, about the year 1700, gratified his hatred of Protestantism by perverting this judgment hymn into a false prophecy of the downfall of the Reformed religion in Holland and England, which he hoped from the restoration of the Stuarts and the union of the French and Spanish crowns in the Bourbon family. Here are a few specimens of this wretched parody as quoted by Guh- rauer, Lisco and Daniel : ^ ' ' Dies irae^ dies ilia, Solvet foedus infavilla, Teste Tago, Scaldi, Scylla. ^ Lisco (p. Ill sqq.) gives also Guhrauer's German translation, which begins : — ^^Jcncr Tag, dcr Tag dcr We/icn, Lclsst den Bund in Nichts vergchen, Tajo, Schclde wcrdcn^s schcn.''^ 152 THE DIES IR^. Quantus tremor est faturus^ Dum Plnlippiis est venturus, Has Paliides aggressurus ! Hie Rex ergo cum sedehit, Verajides refidgehit^ Nil Calvhio remanehit. Quid Slim miser tunc dicturus, Quem Patronum rogaturus, Quum nee Aaglus sit securvsf 3Iagne Rector liliorum^ ^ Amor, timor popidorum, Puree terris Batavorum. Preces mece non sunt digncje, Sed, Rex magne, fac henigne, Ne homhorum cremer igne. Covfutatis Cahi hrutis, Patre, nato, restitutis,'^ Redde mihi spem salutis ! Oro supplex et accUnis Calvinismus fiat cinis, Laerymarum ut sit finis P^ TRANSLATIONS OF THE DIES IR^. No poem has so often challenged and defied the skill of translators and imitators as the Dies Ir^. A collection of the English and German translations alone would fill a respectable volume. The dictionary of rhyme has been nearly exhausted upon it, and every new attempt must of necessity present points of resemblance to former versions. But the very fact that it is untranslatable will ever call forth new attempts. The large number of translations proves that none comes fully up to the original. Its music, majesty and grandeur can be only imperfectly rendered. " Its apparent ^ Louis XIV. J of France, in allusion to the lilies on his armorial shield. 2 James II., of England, and his son, the Prince of Wales, expelled in 1G88 by Parliament and the Protestant William of Orange. THE DIES IR^. 153 artlessness and simplicity indicate that it can be turned readily into another language, but its secret power refuses to be thus transferred." ^' The song of Thomas," says Daniel,^ '' is not only in words but in spirit intensely Latin and uncongenial to any other language." He finds the chief difficulty in repro- ducing the vowel assonances which constitute the musical power and effect of the original. By far the greatest number of translations are German and English. Mohnike gives, in full or in part, 24 German versions made prior to 1824, and added 21 more in 1832. Lisco, in his mono- graph on the Dies Tree, 1840, increased the number to 54, ex- clusive of incomplete versions. In a subsequent monograph on the Stahat Mater, 1843, he republished in full, in three parallel columns, 53 German versions of the Stahat Mater Dolorosa, and, in an appendix, 17 additional versions of the Dies Ir^. This w^ould make in all 71 German translations before the year 1843. But this list has since considerably increased, so that the whole number of German translations now existing cannot fall short of eighty, if not a hundred. Some eminent poets, as Herder, A. ^y. von Schlegel, and Albert Knapp, are among the German translators of the Dies Irm. Larger in number, and equal or superior in merit, are the English versions. I counted over a hundred and fifty .^ They are mostly of recent date. The English language, by its solemnity, music and force, is admirably adapted for the Dies Ir^, not- withstanding its comparative poverty in double rhymes. The oldest translation was made in 1621 by Joshua Sylvester, in 10 stanzas of 6 lines each. Then followed, in 1646, the free and vigorous reproduction of Crashaw, an Anglican clergyman of poetic genius, who from the school of Archbishop Laud went over to the Roman Church. The Earl of Roscommon (1633- 1684), a nephew of the famous Earl of Strafford, and the only virtuous popular poet in the licentious age of the Restoration, a poet, "To whom the wit of Greece and Rome was known, And every author's merit but his own," ^ Thes. IlymnoL, ii., 121. ^ gg^ the list at the close of the essay. 154 THE DIES IR^. made a more faithful version, in iambic triplets. In the present century Sir Walter Scott, by his partial, but most happy repro- duction, awakened a new literary interest in the poem, to which we owe the easy and elegant version of Lord Macaulay from the year 1826. High dignitaries and eminent divines of the Church of England, as Archbishop Trench and Dean Alford, adhered more closely to the original. Several members of the Anglo-Catholic school of Oxford, Isaac Williams, W. J. Irons, and E. Caswall (the last seceded to Home) furnished excellent translations. In America, ministers and laymen of various denomina- tions have taken part in this rivalry and nearly or fully doubled the number of English translations. Among them are Dr. W. R. Williams (Baptist), Dr. H. Mills (Presbyterian), Dr. Robert Davidson (Presbyterian), Charles Rockwell, Edward Slosson, Epes Sargent, Erastus C. Benedict (Dutch Reformed), General John A. Dix (Episcopalian), Thomas C. Porter (Ger- man Reformed), Dr. Ch. P. Krauth (Lutheran), Samuel W. Duffield (Presbyterian), Dr. Franklin Johnson (Baptist), Dr. W. S. McKenzie (Baptist), Rev. A. H. Fahnestock (Presbyterian). The palm among American translators must be awarded to a physician, Abraham Coles, of Scotch Plains, New Jersey. He prepared, between 1847 and 1859, thirteen versions, six of which are in the trochaic measure and double rhyme of the original, five in the same rhythm, but in single rhyme, one in iambic triplets, like Roscommon's, the last in quatrains, like Crashaw's version. The first two appeared anonymously in the Newark Daily Advertise!', 1847, and a part of one found its way into Mrs. Stowe's Uncle Tom^s Cabin, the other into H. W. Beecher's Plymouth Collection of Hymns and Tunes. The thirteen versions were published together with an introduction in a beautiful volume, in antique type, on tinted paper. New York (Appletons), 1866. He has since published three additional versions in double rhyme. New York, 1881 {'' The Microcosm and other Poems'^). In August, 1889, he made one more version in single rhyme and four lines. These seventeen versions show a rare fertility and versatility, and illustrate the possibilities of variation without altering the sense. THE DIES IR.E. 155 EXGLISII YERSIOXS. Of those translations I select some of the best in double and in single rhyme. Of others I can only give one or more stanzas. f William Josiah Irons, d.d. (died 1883). Firat puhlhlied on ajljj sheet, 1848. 1. Day of Wrath ! Day of mourninsr ! See ! once more the Cross returning; — ^ Heav'n and earth in ashes burning ! 2. what fear man's bosom rendeth, When from heav'n the Judge de- scendeth, On whose sentence all dependeth ! 3. Wondrous sound the Trumpet flingeth, Through earth's sepulchres it ringeth, All before the throne it bringeth ! 4. Death is struck, and Nature quak- ing- All creation is awaking. To its Judge an answer making ! 5. Lo, the Book, exactly worded, Wherein all hath been recorded; — Thence shall judgment be awarded. "^^ Abraham Coles, m.d. (Xo. 1.) First pnblifihed 1847. 1. Day of wrath, that day of burning, Seer and Sibyl speak concerning, All the world to ashes turning. 2 2. Oh, what fear shall it engender. When the Judge shall come in splen- dor. Strict to mark and just to render ! 3. Trumpet, scattering sounds of won- der, ^.. Rending sepulchres asunder. Shall resistless summons thunder. 4. All aghast then Death shall shiver. And great Nature's frame shall quiver, When the graves their dead deliver. 5. Book, where actions are recorded All the ages have afforded, Shall be brousht and dooms awarded. 6. When the Judge His seat attaineth, And each hidden deed arraigneth, Nothing unaveng'd remaineth. 7. What shall I, frail man, be pleading ? Who for me be interceding ? — When the just are mercy needing. 8. King of majesty tremendous, Who dost free salvation send us. Fount of pity ! then befriend us ! 6. When shall sit the Judge unerring. He'll unfold all here occurring. No just vengeance then deferring. 7. What shall I say, that time pending. Ask what advocate's befriending, When the just man needs defending ? 8. Dreadful King, all power possessing. Saving freely those confessing, Save Thou me, Fount of Blessing! 1 Dr. Irons, like Dean Alford, follows the reading of the Parisian Missal, ^'Dies irae, dies ilia, Crucis expandens vexilla, Solvet sxclum in favilla. ' ' 2 I prefer the original form of this stanza as it appeared in the Newark Daily Advertiser for March 17, 1847 : — *' Day of wrath, that day of burning, All shall melt, to ashes turning, As foretold by seers discerning. ' ' 156 THE DIES IR^. Think, kind Jesu' — my salvation Caus'd Thy wondrous Incarnation ; Leave me not to reprobation ! 9. Think, Jesus, for what reason Thou didst bear earth's spite and treason, Nor me lose in that dread season ! 10. Faint and weary Thou hast sought me, 10. Seeking me Thy worn feet hasted, On the Cross of suffering bought me : — On the cross Thy soul death tasted : Shall such grace be vainly brought me ? Let such travail not be wasted ! 11. Righteous Judge of retribution, Grant Thy gift of absolution, Ere that reckoning-day's conclusion ! 12. Guilty, now I pour my moaning, All my shame with anguish owning; Spare, God, Thy suppliant groaning ! 13. Thou the sinful woman savest; Thou the d3nng thief forgavest, And to me a hope vouchsafest. 14. Worthless are my prayers and sighing. Yet, good Lord, in grace complying. Rescue me from fires undying ! 15. With Thy favor'd sheep, place me ! Nor among the goats abase me; But to Thy right hand upraise me. 16. While the wicked are confounded, Doom'd to flames of woe unbounded, Call me, with Thy saints surrounded. 17. Low I kneel, with heart-submission; See, like ashes, my contrition — Help me in my last condition ! 18. Ah ! that Day of tears and mourning! From the dust of earth returning, Man for judgment must prepare him; — Spare ! God, in mercy spare him I Lord, Who didst our souls redeem. Grant a blessed requiem ! Amen." 11. Righteous Judge of retribution! Make me gift of absolution Ere that day of execution ! 12. Culprit-like, I plead, heart-broken, Ou my cheek shame's crimson token : Let the pardoning word be spoken I 13. Thou, who Mary gav'st remission, Ileard'st the dying Thief's petition, Cheer'st with hope my lost condition. 14. Though my prayers be void of merit, What is needful, Thou confer it, Lest I endless fire inherit! 15. Be there. Lord, my place decided, With Thy sheep, from goats divided Kindly to Thy right hand guided ! 16. When th' accursed away are driven, To eternal burnings given. Call me with the blessed to heaven ! 17. I beseech Thee, prostrate lying. Heart as ashes, contrite, sighing, Care for me when I am dying ! IS. Day of tears and late repentance, Man shall rise to hear his sentence : Him, the child of guilt and error, Spare, Lord, in that hour of terror! " Richard C. Trexch. Archhi-shoj) of Dublin {d. 1886). that day, that day of ire, Told of Prophet, when in fire. Shall a world dissolved expire ! wliat terror shall be then. When the Judge shall come again. Strictly searching deeds of men : Henry Alford. Dean of Canterbury [d. 1871). 1. Day of anger, that dread Day Shall the Sign in Heaven display, And the Earth in ashes lay. 2. what trembling shall appear. When His coming shall be near, Who shall all things strictly clear ; THE DIES IK^E. 157 3. When a trump of awful tone, 3. Thro' the caves sei^ulehral blown, Summons all before the throne. 4. "What amazement shall o'ertake, 4, Nature, when the dead shall wake, Answer to the Judge to make. 5. Open then the book shall lie, 5. All o'erwrit for every eye, With a world's iniquity. 6. When the Judge Ilis place has ta'cn, 6. All things hid shall be made plain, Nothing unavenged remain. 7. What then, wretched ! shall I speak, 7. Or what intercession seek. When the just man's cause is weak ? 8. King of awful majesty, 8. Who the saved dost freely free; Fount of mercy, pity me ! 9. Jesus, Lord, remember, pray, 9. I the cause was of Thy wny : Do not lose me on that day. 10. Tired Thou satest, seeking me — 10. Crucified, to set me free; Let such pain not fruitless be ! 11. Terrible Avenger, make 11. Of Thy mercy me partake. Ere that day of vengeance wake. 12. As a criminal I groan, 12. Blushing deep my faults I own ; Grace be to a suppliant shown. 13. Thou who Mary didst forgive, 13. And who bad'st the robber live, Hope to me dost also give. 14. Though my prayer unworthy be, 14. Yet, set me graciously From the fire eternal free. 15. 'Mid Thy sheep my place command, 15. From the goats far off to stand : Set me. Lord, at Thy right hand : 16. And when them who scorned Thee here 16. Thou hast judged to doom severe. Bid me with Thy saved draw near ! 17. Lying low before Thy throne, 17. Crushed my heart in dust, I groan ; Grace be to a suppliant shown ! When the Trumpet shall command Through the tombs of every land All before the Throne to stand. Death shall shrink and Nature quake, AVhcn all creatures shall awake, Answer to their God to make. Sec the Book divinely penned. In which all is found contained, Whence the world shall be arraigned ! When the Judge is on His Throne, All that's hidden shall be shown. Naught unfinished or unknown. What shall I before Him say ? How shall I be safe that day. When the righteous scarcely may? King of awful majesty, Saving sinners graciously, Fount of mercy, save Thou me ! Leave me not, my Saviour, one For whose soul Thy course was run, Lest I be that day undone. Thou didst toil my soul to gain; Didst redeem me with Thy pain; Be such labor not in vain ! Thou just Judge of wrath severe. Grant my sins remission here. Ere Thy reckoning day appear. My transgressions grievous are. Scarce look up for shame I dare ; Lord, Thy guilty suppliant spare ! Thou didst heal the sinner's grief. And didst hear the dying thief; Even I may hope relief. All unworthy is my prayer ; Make my soul Thy mercy's care, And from fire eternal spare ! Place me with Thy sheep, that band Who shall separated stand From the goats, at Thy right hand ! When Thy voice in wrath shall say. Cursed ones, depart away ! Call me with the blest, I pray ! Lord, Thine ear in mercy bow ! Broken is my heart and low; Guard of my last end be Thou I 158 THE DIES IR^. "W. R. Williams, d.d. (Died in New York, 1SS5.)^ 1. Day of wrath ! that day dismaying; As the seers of old were saying. All the world in ashes laying. 2. What the fear ! and what the quaking! When the Judge his way is taking. Strictest search in all things making. 3. When the trump, with blast astounding, Through the tombs of earth resounding, Bids all stand, the throne surrounding. 4. Death and Nature all aghast are. While the dead rise fast and faster. Answering to their Judge and Master. 5. Forth is brought the record solemn ; See, o'erwrit in each dread column, With man's deeds, the Doomsday volume. 6. Now the Sovreign Judge is seated; All, long hid, is loud repeated; Naught escapes the judgment meted. 7. Ah ! what j^lea shall I be pleading ? Who for me be interceding, When the just man help is needing? 8. Oh, thou King of awful splendor, Of salvation free the Sender, Grace to me, all gracious, render. 9. Jesus, Lord, my plea let this be, Mine the woe that brought from bliss Thee; On that day. Lord, wilt Thou miss me ? 10. Wearily for me Thou soughtest; On the cross my soul Thou boughtest; Lose not all for which Thou wroughtest! U 18. In that day, that mournful day, When to judgment wakes our clay, Show me mercy, Lord, I pray ! Samuel W. Duffield. (Died in Bloomfield, N. J., 1887.) 1. Day of wrath, thine awful morning Burns to ashes earth's adorning, As the saint and seer give warning. 2. Then what terror of each nation When the Judge shall take His station. Strictly trying His creation. 3. When the trumpet tone of thunder, Bursting bands of tombs asunder, Bids men face that throne of wonder, 4. Death and Nature He surprises, Who, a creature, yet arises Unto those most dread assizes. 5. There that written book remaineth Whose sure registry containeth That which all the world arraigneth. 6. Therefore when He judgeth rightly We shall view each act unsightly : Nothing shall be pardoned lightly. 7. With what answer shall I meet Him, By what advocate entreat Him, When the just may scarcely greetHim? 8. King of mightiest coronation. Some through grace gain approba- tion — Save me, source of all salvation ! 9. Hear me, Thou Holy Saviour, Brought to earth through my beha- viour — Take not then away Thy favour. 10. Seeking me Thy love outwore Thee, And the cross, my ransom, bore Thee; Let this not seem liyrht before Thee. Vengeance, Lord, then be Thy mission : 11. Righteous Judgie of my condition, iS'oic, of sin grant free remission Grant me, for my sins, remission, Ere that day of inquisition. Ere the day which ends contrition. ' Published in his 3IisceUa7iics, second ed. , New York, 1850, p. 88-9. The author kindly submitted it to me (in 1868), with a few improvements (in verses 17 and 19), and the modest remark : " The imperfections of the trans- lation are excusable only from its having preceded the more finished render- ing of my friend, Dr. Coles." THE DIES IK.^. 159 12. Low in shame before Thee groaning ; Blushes deep my sin are owning : Hear, Lord, my suppliant moaning 13. Her of old that sinned forgiving. And the dying thief receiving, Thou, to me too, hope art giving. 14. In my prayer though sin discerning. Yet, good Lord, in goodness turning. Save me from the endless burning ! 15. 'Mid Thy sheep be my place given; Far the goats from me be driven : Lift, at Thy right hand, to heaven. 16. When the cursed are confounded, With devouring flame surrounded, AVith the blest be mv name sounded. 12. In my guilt, for pity yearning, With my shame my face is burning; Spare me, Lord, to Thee returning ! 13. Thou, once touched by Mary's crying, Who didst save the thief, though dy- ing, Gavest hope to me when sighing. II. Poorly are my prayers ascending. But do Thou in mercy bending. Leave me not to flames unending. 15. Give me with Thy sheep a station, Far from goats in separation — On Thy right my habitation. 16. When the wicked meet conviction. Doomed to fires of sharp affliction. Call me forth with benediction. 17. Low, I beg, as suppliant bending ; 17. Now I pray Thee, naught commend- With crushed heart, my life forth spend- ing, ing ; Flames of pride to ashes tending : Lord, be nigh me in my ending 1 1 Guard me then when earth is ending. 18. Ah that day ! that day of weepin^ When in dust no longer sleeping, Man to God in guilt is going — Lord, be then Thy mercy showing IS. that day so full of weeping. When, in dust no longer sleeping, Man must face his worst behaviour; Therefore, spare me, God and Saviour/ Thomas C. Porter, d.d. (18S2).2 1. Day of Wrath ! that awful day Shall the world in ashes lay, David and the Sibyl say.* Philip Schaff, d.d. (1868). 3 1. Day of Wrath ! that woful day Shall the world in ashes lay ; David and Sibylla say.* ^ This stanza was substituted for the one in 1850 : — " Bowed and prostrate, hear me crying ; Heart in dust before Thee lying, Lord, my end, O be Thou nigh in ! " 2 Professor of Biology in Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. He kindly wrote to me July 16th, 1889: "You are at full liberty to make what use you see fit of my translation of the Dies Irss, published in Tlie Guardian, by the Reformed Church Board of Publication, at Philadelphia, October, 1882." 3 First published in Hours at Home, New York, 1868, May, p. 39. Sug- gested in part by Alford and Caswall, but more literal. "* This is an undesigned coincidence of two independent translations. In order to avoid it, I would substitute a less literal version : — Day of Wrath ! that day foretold By the saints and seers of old. Shall the world in flames infold. 160 THE DIES IR^. 2. Oh ! the trembling there will be ! — Every eye the Judge shall see, Come for strictest scrutiny. 3. Loud shall peal the trumpet's tone, Through the graves of every zone, Forcing all before the throne'. 4. Death and Xature, in surprise, Shall behold the creature rise, ■Summoned to the grand assize. 5. Now, the books'^ shall be unroUe 1, In whose volumes manifold All the deeds of time are told. 6. When His seat the Judge has ta'en, Hidden things will hide in vain — Nothing unavenged remain. 7. What shall I, a wretch, then say ? Unto what kind patron pray, When the righteous feel dismay ? 8. King of dreadful majesty, Whose salvation is so free. Fount of pity, save Thou me ! 9. Jesu, Lord, remember, I Caused Thy coming down to die : Lest I perish, hear my cry ! 10. By Thee weary I was sought, By Thy bitter passion bought : Can such labor go for naught? 11. Just Avenger, let me win Full remission of my sin Ere the day of doom begin. 12. Like a criminal I groan ; Blushing, all my guilt I own : Hear, God ! a suppliant's moan I 13. Mary's pardon came from Thee, And the robber's on the tree. Giving also hope for me. 14. Though my prayers no merit earn, Let Thy favor on me tuin, Lest in quenchless fire I burn. 15. From the goats my lot divide; 'Midst the sheep, a ])lace provide, On Thy right band justified. 2. What a trembling, what a fear. When the dread Judge shall appear. Strictly searching far and near ! 3. Hark ! the trumpet's wondrous tone, Through sepulchral regions blown. Summons all before the throne. 4. Death shall shiver. Nature quake, When the creatures shall awake. Answer to their Judge to make. 5. Lo, the Book of ages spread. From which all the deeds are read Of the living and the dead. 6. Now before the Judge severe All things hidden must appear. Nought shall pass unpunished here. 7. Wretched man, what shall I plead, Who for me will intercede. When the righteous mercy need? 8. King of awful majesty, Author of salvation free. Fount of pity, save Thou me I 9. Recollect, good Lord, I pray, I have caused Thy bitter way, Me forget not on that day ! 10. Weary did'st Thou seek for mo, Did'st redeem me on the tree- Let such toil not fruitless be ! 11. Judge of righteousness severe. Grant me full remission here Ere the reckoning day appear. 12. Sighs and tears my sorrow speak. Shame and grief are on my cheek : Mercy, mercy, Lord, I seek. 13. Thou didst Mary's guilt forgive, And absolve the dying thief: Even I may ho])e relief. 14. Worthless are my prayers, I know; Yet, Lord, thy mercy show, Save me from eternal woe ! 15. Make me with Thy sheep to stand. Far from the convicted band. Placing me at Thy right hand. ^ Changed to the plural. See Rev. xx. 12. THE DIES IRiE. 161 16. As the wicked, clothed in shame, Pass to fierce tonnenting flaine, With the blessed call my name. Broken-hearted, low I bend ; From the dust my prayer I send : Let Thy mercy crown my end ! 18. "When, on that most tearful do}^, Man, to judgment waked from clay. Quails at Thine uplifted rod, Spare the guilty one, God ! 19. Jesu, Lord, their trials o'er, Grant them rest for evermore ! Amen." 16. When the damn'd are put to shame, Cast into devouring flame, AVith the blest then call my name. 17. Suppliant at Thy feet I lie. Contrite in the dust I cry. Care Thou for me when I die ! " IS. [Day of tears and day of dread. When, arising from the dead. Guilty man awaits his doom; God, have mercy on his soul ! 19. Gentle Jesus, Lord of grace. Grant to them eternal rest ! Amen.] EEV, W. S. McKEXZIE, D. D. (1889). Dr. McKenzie, of Bostou, is the author of the following two translations, one in double, the other in single rhyme, which were first published in The Beacon, and The Watchman, Boston, 1887, and were kindly placed at my disposal in this final shape by the author, August 12, 1889. I. IL 1. The day of Avrath ! That day draws near. Far back foretold by Saint and Seer, That earth in flames would disappear. 2. What dread will seize the human race! The Judge will come with frowning face. And search out every hiding place. 3. The trumpet's peal, the world around. Will through sepulchral vaults re- sound. And wake the millions under ground. 4. Then Death and Nature with surprise Will watch the sleeping dead arise. To answer in the grand assize. 1. Day of wrath and consternation ! World-wide sweeps that conflagration. Long foretold by inspiration. 2. Sudden fear on men is falling ! For the Judge, to judgment calling, Searcheth all with gaze appalling. 3. Peals the trumpet's blast of wonder; Bursting every tomb asunder; Citing all with voice of thunder. 4. Death and Xature, awestruck, quak- ing, See the sleeping dead awaking At the call the Judge is making. 5. God's own Book of registration Bears impartial attestation In the great adjudication. 6. On His throne the Judge is dealing With each hidden deed and feeling : Wrath against all wrong revealing. 11 5. The Book of God's recording pen, Containing deeds and thoughts of men, For Judgment will be opened then. 6. And when the Judge ascends His throne. All secret things will He make known, And nought of wrong will He condone. 162 THE DIES IR^E. 7. "\Yhat defence shall I be making ? Who my part will then be taking, When the just with fear are quaking ? 8. thou King of awful splendor — Yet a Saviour, loving, tender, Source of love ! be my defender. 9. Blessed Jesus ! my salvation Brought Thee down from exaltation : Rescue me from condemnation. 10. Worn and wasted Thou hast sought me; With Thy death-pangs Thou hast bought me ; Shield the hope such anguish brought me. 11. Stay, just Judge, Thine indignation; Grant me pardon and salvation Ere the Judgment proclamation. 12. Bowed with guilt, my soul is groan- ing; Guilt my crimsoned face is owning — Spare, God, a suppliant moaning. 13. Mary found in Thee remission ; Thou did'stheed the thief's petition : Grant me grace in my contrition. 14. Never can my prayers commend me; Graciously do Thou befriend me. And from quenchless flames defend 15. When the sheep shall be selected, Severed from the goats rejected, Raise me to Thy right perfected. 16. When Thy foes in flames are wailing, AYhere all cries are unavailing. Summon me to joys unfailing. 17. Low before Thee I am bending ; Sharp remorse my soul is rending : Succor me when life is ending. 18. On that day of woe and weeping, When from dust where he is sleeping, Man shall wake and rise to meet Thee, Spare him, Jesus, I entreat Thee. 7. Ah, wretched me ! what will I say, What advocate for me will pray, When saints will scarce escape that day ? 8. Thou King majestic, pity me ! Thou savest all redeemed by Thee : Thou Fount of love ! my Saviour be. 9. Remember, holy Christ, I pray. When thou didst tread the doleful way : And spare me in the Judgment day. 10. With weary steps Thou soughtest me! What pangs my pardon wrung from Thee! Shall such keen anguish wasted be ? 11. righteous Judge of future woe. Forgiving grace on me bestow Before to judgment I must go. 12. My groans cannot my guilt erase ; My crimes I own with crimsoned face; My God ! I plead for pardoning grace. 13. By Magdalen was pardon found; Tiie dying thief by Thee was crowned; To me, e'en me, lei grace abound. 14. My tears and pleas may worthless be; But Thou, good Lord, hast wrought for me; From quenchless flames then set me free. 15. Among Thy sheep appoint my place; Do not with goats my name embrace; But welcome me before Thy face. 16. And when the wicked stand aghast, To bitter flames are hurled at last, let my lot with saints bo cast. 17. Now prostrate in the dust I lie; In ashes of repentance sigh : Be Thou near me when death draws nigh. 18. In that last day of bitter cries. When from the dust the dead shall rise, And man to Judgment must repair. Then spare him. Lord, in mercy spare. THE DIES IR^. 163 SpccimohH of other English Versions. IxICIIAEl) Crasiiaw (1G46). " Heard' st tliou, my soul, Avhat serious thiuf^s Both tlic Psalm and Sibyl sings Of a sure Judge, from whose sharp ray The world in flames shall fly away ?' ' Eael of Roscommon (died 1684). "The day of wrath, that dreadful day. Shall the whole world in ashes lay, As David and the Sibyls say. ' ' SiK Waltek Scott (died 1832). A Condensed Reproduction (1805). "That day of wrath, that dreadful day ! When heaven and earth shall pass away, "What power shall be the sinner's stay? How shall he meet that dreadful day ? When, shriv'lling like a parched scroll, The flaming heavens together roll, And louder yet, and yet more dread. Swells the high trump that wakes the dead. Oh ! on that day, that wrathful day. When man to judgment wakes from clay. Be Thou, Christ ! the sinner's stay, Though heaven and earth shall pass away." This partial version, or free reproduction rather, has found its way into every good English and American hymn book, and thus has become much more popular than any other trans- lation. LOED Macaulay. From the Christian Observer, 1826. ' ' On that great, that awful day. This vain world shall pass away. Thus the Sibyl sang of old ; Thus hath holy David told. There shall be a deadly fear When the Avenger shall appear, And unveiled before His eye All the works of men shall lie. ' ' 164 THE DIES IR.E. Caxox F. C. Husenbeth. Missal for the Laity (1831). ' ' The dreadful day, the day of ire Shall kmdle the avenging fire Around the expiring world ; And earth, as Sibyls said of old, And as the prophet king foretold, Shall be in niiu hurled. ' ' LOED A. W. C. Lindsay (1847). "Day of wrath and doom of fire — Hark the Seer's, the Sibyl's lyre — Earth and heaven shall expire. ' ' Eev. E. Caswall. Lyra Catholica (1849). Nigher still, and still more nigh Draws the Day of Prophecy, Doomed to melt the earth and sky. ' ' William John Blew (1851). ■ Day of vengeance, day of sorrow, Fiery morn that knows no morrow — Seer's and Sibyl's word to borrow. '' Mrs. Chaeles (1858). From The Voice of Christian Life in Song. 'Lo, the Day of Wrath, the Day Earth and heaven melt away, David and the Sibyl say. Stoutest hearts with fear shall quiver. When to Him who erretli never, All must strict account deliver. Lo, the trumpet's wondrous pealing, Flung through each sepulchral dwelling, All before the throne compelling. ' ' THE DIES IRM. 165 Abraham Coles, m. d., ll. d. Dr. Abraham Coles, of Scotch Plains, X. J., prepared in all seventeen versions, including one of 1889, not yet published (see p. 154). These are the lii'st stanzas : — No. 1. "Day of wrath, that day of burning, Seer and Sibyl speak concerning. All the world to ashes turning. ' ' Xo. '2. ' ' Day shall dawn that lias no morrow, Day of vengeance, day of sorrow, As from Prophecy we borrow. ' ' Xo. 3. ' ' Day of Vengeance and of "\Vages, Fiery goal of all the ages, Burden of prophetic pages ! ' ' Xo. 4. ' ' Day of Prophecy ! it flashes, Falling spheres together dashes, And the world consumes to ashes. ' ' Xo. 5. ' ' Day of vengeance, and of scorning. World in ashes, world in mourning, Whereof Prophets utter warning !" Xo. G. ' ' Day of wrath and consternation, Day of fiery consummation. Prophesied in Revelation ! ' ' Xo. 7. ' ' Day of wrath, that day of days, Present to my thought always. When the world shall burn and blaze ! " Xo. 8. "0, that dreadful day, my soul ! Which the ages shall unroll, When the knell of Time shall toll ! " Xo. 9. ' ' Day fortetold, that day of ire, Burden erst of David's lyre, When the world shall sink in fire ! " Xo. lu. "Lo ! it comes, with stealthy feet, Da}", the ages shall complete, When the world shall melt with heat ! " Xo. 11. "Day of wrath, that day of dole. When a fire shall wrap the whole, And the earth be burnt to coal ! ' ' 166 THE DIES IRiE. No. 12. "0 Day of wrath ! day of fate ! Day foreordained and ultimate, When all things here shall terminate ! ' ' No. 13. "That day, that awful Day, the last, Kesult and sum of all the Past, Great necessary day of doom, When wrecking fires shall all consume ! No. 14. " Day of audit and decision. Fiery wreck and world collision. Witnessed in prophetic vision ! ' ' No. 15. " Day of fiery wrath unsparing ! End of all things here declaring ! David thus and Sibyl swearing ! " No. 16. " Day of wrath ! that day dismaying, All the world in ashes laying, David thus and Sibyl saying ! ' ' No. 17. " Day of wrath that day of doom, All to ashes shall consume ; Whereof David witness bears ; As the Sibyl too declares. ' ' Heney Mills, d.d., of Auburn, N. Y. (1856). ' ' Day of wrath — the sinner dooming, Earth with all its work consuming, — Scripture warns — that day is coming ! ' ' William G. Dix (1852). ' ' That day of wrath — upon that day To ashes earth shall pass away. Both David and the Sibyl say. 3. The trump shall spread its startling sound Through sepulchres beneath the ground, And gather all the throne around. 17. Thou gav'st to sinful Mary peace ; Thou to the thief didst grant release : Let not my hope of pardon cease. THE DIES IR^. 167 Epes Saegext, Esq., New York (1852). ' ' Diiy of ire, that day impending, Earth shall melt, in ashes ending — Seer and Sibyl so portending. Ah ! what trembling then, what quailing, When shall come the Judge unfaiHng, Every human life unveiling. ' ' Rev. C. Z. AVeiser, Pennsburg, Pa. (1859). ' Day of wrath ! that Day of days To ashes shall the earth emblaze — Say David's hymns and Sibyl lays." Robert Davidsox, d.d., New York (1860). ' ' Day of wrath ! that day is hasting, All the world in ashes wasting, David with the Sibyl testing. ' ' Rev. Charles Rockwell (1860). "Day of wrath! Oh! direful day ! Earth in flames shall pass away, Virgil [?] and the Sibyl say." From Poems by Somniator. Philadelphia Bulletin, 1860. "The Sibyl's leaf, the Psalmist's lay Alike portend a wrathful day, When heaven and earth shall melt away." Anoxymous. 1. "Day of wrath !■ that day appalling ! Words of ancient seers recalling : Earth on fire, in ashes falling. 2. Oh, in hearts of men what trembling, At that Judge's bar assembling, Where of sins is no dissembling. 3. Louder and yet louder breaking From the sky, the caverns shaking. Angel tramps the dead awaking. ' ' 168 THE DIES IR^. Genekal Johx Adams Dix (1863). ' ' Day of vengeance, without morrow ! Eartli shall end in flame and sorrow, As from Saint and Seer we borrow. ' ' This version, which has been highly praised and widely circu- lated, was made at Fortress Monroe, Va., during the civil war, in which the brave and patriotic name of General Dix occupies a distinguished ])lace. But it does not stand close examination. In the first stanza the rhymes ('^morrow, sorrow, borrow ^^) are borrowed from Coles (No. 2), but the " Day of Wrath ^' (which is the key-note of the whole poem) is changed into a ^^ Day of vengeance," and '^ Saint and Seer" are substituted for ^' David and Sibylla." The author was himself dissatisfied and changed it in a revised edition, 1875, as follows: — "Day of vengeance, lo ! that morning, On the earth in ashes dawning, David with the Sibyl warning. ' ' Most of the other stanzas present striking coincidences with older renderings, especially of Irons and Coles ; but some rhymes will naturally occur to different translators. Take the following specimens : — A. Coles, No. 1 (1847). 13. "Thou to Mary gav'st remission, Heard' st the dying thief's petition. Cheer' st with hope my lost condition." JoHX A. Dix (1863). 13. " Thou to Mary gav'st remission. Heard' st the dying thief's petition, Bad'st me hope in my contrition." W. J. Irons (1848). 10. "Faint and weaiy Thou hast sought me. On the cross of suffering bought me ; Shall such grace be vainly brought me ? 11. Righteous Judge of retribution. Grant Thy gifl of absolution, Ere that reckoning day's conclusion." THE DIES IR^E. 169 Adolphe Peeies, of Philadelphia (1861). ' ' Righteous Judge of retribution, (rrant us sinners absolution Ere the day of dissolution. ' ' JoHX A. Dix (1863). 10. "Worn and weary, Thou hast sought me, By Thy cross and passion bought me — Spare the hope Thy labors brought me. 11. Righteous Judge of retribution. Give, give me absolution, Ere the day of dissolution. ' ' Dr. Coles, in the eleventh stanza of his first translation of 1847, had anticipated Irons, P6ries, and Dix: — "Righteous Judge of retribution. Make me gift of absolution Ere that day of execution. ' ' Compare also Dr. H. Mills (1856) : — "Righteous Judge of retribution, Bless my soul with absolution Ere that day of execution. ' ' Edward Slossox, of the bar of Xew York. From the Xew York Journal of Commerce^ March 10, 1866. "Day of Wrath ! of days that Day ! Earth in flames shall melt awaj^. Heathen seers, with Prophets say. ' ' Erastus C. Bexedict, Esq. ^Ir. Benedict, a lawyer of New York, prepared three translations, first published in the Christian InteUiffenccr, 1864, and then in his Hymn of Hildebert, and other 3Iedixval Hymns, X. Y., 1867, pp. 108-120 :— No. 1. "DayofAYrath! that final day, Shall the world in ashes lay ! David and the Sibyl say. ' ' No. 2. ' ' Day of threatened Wrath from heaven, To the sinful, unforgiven ! Earth on fire, to ashes driven ! ' ' No. 3. ' ' Day of Wrath, with vengeance glowing I Seer and Sibyl long foreknowing ! Earth and time to ruin going ! 170 THE DIES IR^. 2. How the guilty world will tremble, "Wlieii the Judge shall all assemble, And not one will dare dissemble ! 3. When the trumpet's summons, swelling Through Death's dark and dusty dwelling, To the throne is all compelhng ! ' ' Anoxymous. From the N. York Evening Post, July 20, 1866. 1. "A day of wrath and woe that day The world in ashes melts away ; So David and the Sibyl say. ' ' Peof. C. INI. DoDD, Indiana State University (1867). "Day of wrath ! that day foretold ! Which in ashes earth shall fold ; Witness Seer and Sibyl old." J. HosKYXs Abeahall. From the Christian Eemenibrancer, Jan., 1868. "Day of wrath and tribulation, Day in vasty conflagration Heaven and earth together blending, And the world's long cycle ending — Know, it cometh; be thou heeding Hebrew seers and heathen's reading." AXOXYMOUS. (R. H. HUTTOX?) From the London Spectator for March 7, 1868. 1. "The day of wrath, that haunting day Shall the whole age in ashes lay. Thus David and the Sibyl say. 2. What terror then shall seize the breast. When the great Judge is manifest To institute the awful quest. ' ' Aetkue p. Staxley, Dean of Westminster (d. 1881). From llacmillan^s 3Iagazine, December, 1868. ' ' Day of wrath, dreadful day, When this world shall pass away, And the heavens together roll. Shrivelling like a parched scroll. Long foretold by saint and sage, David's harp and Sibyl's page." THE DIES IRJE. 171 Joiix D. Van Buiiex. From The Sfahat Maicr and other Versions, Albany (Joel Munsell), 1872. "Day of wratli ! terrific morning ! Earth in aslies at its dawning David, Sibyl, both give warning. ' ' John O'Hagan. Dublin, 1874. "Day of wrath, that day whose knelhng Gives to flame this earthly dwelling ; Psalm and Sibyl thus foretelling. ' ' AXOXYMOUS. From TJie Catholic World, New York, 1882 (p. 42). " The judgment day, that day of dread, Shall see the world in ashes laid. As David and the Sibyl said. ' ' W. J. COPELAXD, Rector of Farnham. From The Dublin Review, 1883 (p. 382). ' ' Day of doom, that day of ire. Earth shall sink in crumbling fire ; Seer's and Sibyl's burden dire." Prior James D. Aylward. From The Duhlin Ilcvieic, 1883 (p. 383). "Day of wratli and grief and shame, Shall fold the world in sheeted flame As psalm and Sibyl's songs proclaim." Feaxklix Johxsox, d. d. (1883). 1. " Day of wrath, that day of burning ! Earth shall end, to ashes turning : Thus sing Saint and Seer discerning. 2. How shall quake both high and lowly When the judge shall come, most holy. Strict to search all sin and folly. ^ ^ The author, a Baptist clergyman of Old Cambridge, Mass. , who published this version in 1883, speaks of the tantalizing effort to reproduce "the 172 THE DIES mJE. 3. There is heard a sound of wonder ! Mighty blasts of trumpet thunder, Rend the sepulchres asunder ! ' ' John Mason Beown. From The Catholic JVorld, N. York, Nov., 1884 (p. 177). "That day of wrath, of Grod's dread ire, Shall wrap the Universe in fire, Foretold by Seer and Psalmist's lyre. ' ' Hex. John L. Hayes, ll.d. (Cambridge, Mass.). From The Independent, New York, Dec. 30, 1886. ' ' That day of doom and dread amaze, The earth dissolved, the heavens ablaze, Foreseen by seers' and Sibyl's gaze." John S. Hagee (U. S. Senator 1874-'75). From The Overland 3Ionthhj, Vol. Yii, San Francisco, 1886 (p. 530). "Day of wrath, that day when burning Earth dissolves, to ashes turning ; Witness Psalm and Sibyl's wailiing." Rev. Alfeed H. Fahnestock. From the Presbyterian Journal, Philadelphia, July 22, 1889. 1. " Day of wrath, that day of dooming, All the worlds in flames consuming, Seers behold with aspect glooming. 2. Lo ! how great the trepidation, When the Judge of all creation Maketh close investigation ! 3. Loud the awful trumpet sounding, vi Calls, with voice through tombs rebounding. All before the throne astounding. burden of thought, the sublime pictures, the throbs of emotion, the weird measure, and delicate associations " of the original, and suggests, in a letter to me, August 28, 1889, the following substitute for the second stanza (to get rid of "folly "):— " How man's heart with terror quaketh Earthward when His way Christ taketh, And strict search in all things maketh." THE DIES IR/E. 173 4. Death Jind Nature, awed and quaking, See the Imnian creature waking. And in judgment answer making. 5. Then the book is shown containing All men's deeds, all guilt explaining, Not a soul unjudged remaining." GEKMAX YERSIOXS. The following specimens will give an idea of the Gernian translations. The first stanza is selected, as it is generally char- acteristic of the whole. Catholic Hymx Book, Munich (1613). "An jenem Tag, nach David's Sag, Soil Grottes Zorn erbriunen: Durch Feuers Flamm, muss allesamm, Gleichwie das Wachs zerrinnen. ' ' AXDEEAS Gryphius (1659). "Zorntag ! Tag, der, was wir ehren, Wird durch schnelle Grlut zertsoren, Wie Sibjdl und Petrus lehren. ' ' These seem to be the two oldest German translations, but inferior to the English translations of the seventeenth century. Fraxz Xavier Riedel (1773). "Am Tag' des Zorns, an jenem Tage Nach Davids und Sibyllens Sage Yersinkt in Asche diese Welt. ' ' Chr. D. Ebelixg (1800). "Erden wanken, Welten beben, Wenn du, Herr, dich wirst erheben, Richtend liber Tod und Leben. ' ' J. G. vox Herder (1802). 1. " Tag des Schreckens ! Tag voll Beben ! Wenn die Griifte sich erheben Und die Todten wiederceben ! o Welch ein Zittern, welch ein Zagen ! Wenn im Donner jetzt der Richter Kommt und ruft, die uns verklagen ! 174 THE DIES IR^. 3, Furclitbar schallet die Drommete, Aus den Griiiften aller Erde Zwingt sie alles in's G-ericlit." Herder's version, though superior to its predecessors, is incom- plete (only eight stanzas), unequal, and unworthy of his great genius. A. W. VON SCHLEGEL (1802). 1, " Jenen Tag, den Tag des Zoren, Geht die Welt in Brand verloren, Wie Propheten lioch beschworen. 2. \yelch ein Graun wird sein und Zagen, Wenn der Richter kommt, mit Fragen Streng zu priifen alle Klagen ! 3. Die Posaun' im Wundertone, Wo audi wer im Grabe wohne, Rufet alle lier zum Throne. 4, Tod, Natur mit Staunen sehen Dann die Creatur erstelien, Zur Yerantwoitung zu gelien. ' ' This is the first really good German version, and betrays the skill of a master. Yet Schlegel himself (in a letter to Konigs- feld) admitted the failure of the first stanza ; Zoren for Zorn is antiquated, and the Sibyl should not be omitted in a faithful version, unless it be intended for public worship. Fk. von Meyee (1806). ' ' Tag des Zorns, mit wildem Raube Wandelst du die Welt zu Staube, So bezeugt's der heil'ge Glaube." The whole version, as modified in 1824, is given by Lisco. Catholic Hymn Book of Munich (1810). 1. "Erden wanken, Welten beben, Wenn du, Herr ! dicli wirst erheben, Riclitend liber Tod und Leben. 9 Ach vor jenen Ungewittern, Die der Welten Bau crscliiittern, Werdcn alle Frevler zitteru. ' ' THE DIES IRJE. 175 This version was made use of in several editioDs of Mozart's Requiem. J. (I. FiciiTE, the celebrated philosopher (1S13). 1. " Jencn Tacr, den Tag der Fiille, Fallt die Welt in Graus uiid Stille, David zeugt's imd die Sibylle. 2. Angst ergrcift die Creaturen, AVie sie in azurneu Fhiren Sehn des nah'nden Riehters Spuren." M. F. Jack (1815). " Welche bange Trauerstunde, Wenn, nach der Proplieten Munde, Gliiht die Erd' im Feuerschlunde. ' ' • Lisco quotes another from Jiick : — ' ' Tag, prophetisch uns verkiindet, Wenn du kommst, wie Staub versehwindet Dann, was sich auf Erden findet. ' ' Fk. Kind (1817). ' ' Tag des Zorns, du wirst crfiillen Davids Wort uud der Sibyllen, Wirst die Welt in Asche hiillen. ' ' SCHMEDDIXG (1817). " Jener Tag, den Zorn entziindet, Da die Welt in Asclie scliwindet, Ward proplietiseli uns verkiindet,*" Ad. L. Follex (1819). ' ' Tag des Zornes, wann er taget, Feuerloh die Zeit zernaget, Wie Sibyll mit David saget." J. P. SiLBEET (1820). 1 . " Tag des Zornes, furchtbar stille ! Du vergliihst des Erdballs Fiille, Zeugt mit David die Sibylle. 176 THE DIES IR^. 2. Welch ein Zittern unci Erbeben, Wird im Glanz der Ricliter scbweben, Streng zu ricliten Aller Leben ! 3. Hehr wird die Posaune kliiigen, Wird durcb feme Griifte dringen, Alle Yor den Tliron zuin zwingen. 4. Die Natur, der Tod sielit bebend Das Geschopf der Gmft entscliwebend, Und dem Ricliter Antwort gebend. 5. Und ein Buch ersclieint zur Stunde ; Dies, entfaltend jede Kunde, Liegt dem Weltgericht zum Grunde. " This excellent version rivals with that of Schle^el &" A. C. DoEiXG (1821). ' ' Tag des Zorns, wo Gott einst richtet, Und die Welt in Glut vernichtet, Wie Propheten uus berichtet. ' ' J. H. Von AVessexbeeg, Bishop of Constance (1820). "Furchtbar wird der Tag sich rothen, Kundgethan von den Propheten, Der die Welt in Staub wird treten ' ' W. A. SwoBODA (Prag, 1826). " Tag des Zornes, Tag der Klagen ! Zeit und Welt wirst du zerschlagen, Wie uns die Propheten sagen," Christiax Meusch (1827). " Jencr Tag der Zornesfulle Lost die Welt zu Aschenhiille ; David zeugt's und die Sibylle.'* J. A. ScHOLTZ (1828). *' Jener Tag in Zornes Fiille Lost in Brand der Zeitcn Hiille, David zeugt's und die Sibylle." THE DIES lllJE. 177 ClAUS IfAKMS (1828). " Zorntag, grosstcr aller Tage, Allcr Bibolu ernste Sage, Mit doui Feuer, mit der Waage." J. Em. Yeith (1829). "Tag des Zoriies, Tag der Zillireii AVird die A^'elt in Asche kelireii, Wie Sibyir und David lehren. ' ' J. C. W. XiEMEYER (Halle, 1833). " Jener Rachetag der Siinden Wird die Welt zu Asclie ziinden, Wie Sibyll' und David kiinden. Chevalier Buxsex (1833). "Tag des Zorns, Tag voll Grauen, Da die AVelt den Herrn soil schauen, Nacli dem Wort, dem wir vertrauen." Gael Simrock (1834). ' ' Tag des Zornes, des Gerichtes ! AVas von Staub in Flammen bricht es : David und Sibylle spriclit es. ' ' MoiixiKE (1834). "Tag des Zorns ! in Flammenwelien AVird die AVelt zu Staub vergelieu, Wie Proplieten liingst gesehen. ' ' Feaxke (1839). "Einst am Richttag wird vei-schwinden Zeit und A\ elt in Feuersclilunden, AVie uns lieil'ge Sanger kiinden." Dr. H. a. Eriiaed, of ]MUnster. "Tag des Grinnncs, Tag voll Sclielten, Der in Asche k^gt die AVelten, AA'ie uns lieil'ge Seher melden." F. v. Pechlix (Lisco, p. 152). " Ja, ein Tag wird Zorn enthiillcn, Durcli den Brand der AA^elt erfiillen David's AA^ort und der Sibyllen." 12 178 THE DIES lE^. F. G. Lisco, D.D. (1840). " Tag des Zorns, Tag zu vergelten ! Feuers Glut verzehrt die Welten, Denn der Seller Wort muss gelten." Cue. L. Couaed, d.d. (1840). ' ' Tag des Zorns, in Asclienlilille Kleid'st du einst der Welten Hiille, David zeugt's und die Sibylle." From another version by the same^ quoted by Lisco, his fellow-pastor in Berlin (1840): — "Tag des Zorns, in Flammenmeeren Wirst du einst die Welt verzehren, Wie Sibyir und David leliren." Anonymous (1840). " Schreckenstag der Zornesfiille ! A\^eltenpraclit wird Asclienliiille ! David zeugt's und die Sibylle." Anonymous (1840.) "Tag des Zorns, der wird crfiillen David's Sprueh und der Sibyllen, Und die Welt in Asclie lilillen. ' ' Dr. L. Steckling (1840). "Tag der Zorngewalt, der holien, Du zerstorst die Welt in Lohen, Wie Sibyir und David drolien." EOBEET Lecke (1842). ' ' Jener Tag, wo Gott wird richten, Soil die Welt zu Staub vcrnicliten, Wie Proplieten uns berichten. ' ' Lecke made and published at his own expense, at Munich, 1842, no less than twelve translations, which, however, do not rise above mediocrity. Kael Foetlage (1844). "Jener Tag voll Zorn und llingen Wird die Welt in Glut vcrschlingen, Wie Sibyir und David singen." THE DIES IRiE. 179 Albeet Knapp (1850). "All dem Zorntag, an dem holien, Stiirzt die AVclt in Fouerlolicn, Wie Proplietenscliwiirc drolicn. ' ' Knapp made an earlier version in 1829, which is the basis of the one in the Wiirtemberg Hymn Book, 1849: — ' ' Jenen Tag, den Tag der Wehen, Wird die AVelt ini Staub vergehen, Wie Prophetenspruch geschchen. ' ' Lebrecht Dreves (1846). "Tag des Zorns, bei deinem Tagen Wird die Welt zu Staub zerschlagen, Wie Sibyir und David sagen. ' ' G. A. KiJNIGSFELD (1847). "An dem Zorntag, jenem heliren, Wird die Glut das All verzehren, Wie Sibyll' und David lehren." In his second collection of Latin hymns with translations, published in Bonn, 1865, Konigsfeld gives a revised version, changing the first line thus : — "Jenen Zorntag, jenen scliwercn." FiuEDRiCH Heixricii Schlosser (1851). "Tag des Zorns, der Tag der Fiille, Deckt die Welt mit Asclienliiille, David zeugt es und Sibyile. ' ' Vox Seld. In Daniel's Thes. Ili/nmol, ii, p. 110. " Zorn und Zittern bange Klag ist, Wenn der letzte aller Tag ist, Wie die alte heil'ge Sag ist." H, A. Daniel (1855). Two versions. No. 1. "Tag des Zorns, du Tag der Fulle, Kehrst die Welt in Staubgeriille — So zeugt David und Sibyile. ' ' 180 THE DIES IR^. No. 2. ' ' David und Sib3dla spricht : Erd und Himmel bleiben nicht, Wenn der jiingste Tag anbricht." Kael Kolker (1888). 1. " Jener Zorntag, Tag der Klagen Wird die Welt zii Asclie schlagen, Wie Sibyir und David sagen. 2. Welclie Angst entsteht, welch Bangen, Wenn der Richter kommt gegangen, Streng zu priifen, was begangen. 10. Sucbtest micb mit miiden Schrittcn, Hast am Kreuz mir Heil erstritten, Nicht umsonst sei dies erlitten ! ' ' The best among these German versions are those of Schlegel, Silbert, Bunsen, Knapp and Daniel. But none of them has become so popular as the free reproduction in the old German hymn : ^' Es ist gew'issUch an der Zeit,^^ by Bartholomiius Eing- waldt, 1582. FREXCH VERSIONS. The French language is bright, brilliant, and rhetorical, but less adapted for poetry, especially of this solemn kind. I have seen but one French translation, by an anonymous author, in Lisco's ^'Stabat Mater/' from an older print of 1702. It begins : — ^''Ojoiir du Dieii vengear^ oiiponr punir Jes crimes Un deluge hrulant sortira des ahimes^ Et le del s' arinera defoudres et d' eclairs ; Quel trouble en tous les coeurs^ quand cejuge severe^ LaiKjant de tout e part les traits de sa colcre, K^ur un trone de feu paraitra dans less curs!''' There are several good translations into Dutch. A translation into modern Greek, by the Rev. Mr. Hildner, a missionary of the Church of England at Syra, was first published in Tholuck's Literay^y Advertiser for 1842, and then by Daniel, Thesaurus HymnoL, torn, ii., p. 105. Daniel (ii. 387) gives also a Hebrew version by L. Splieth. THE DIES IRM. 181 TWO YEESIOXS IX GERMAN. I add In conclusion two German translations which I made in 1858, together with an English version^, when I was preparing a German hymn book for the German Reformed Church in America. They claim no poetic merit, but one of them, with some alterations, has found a place in several German hymn books. 1. An dem Tag der Zornesflammon Sturzt die Welt in Staub zusammen, Kach dem Wort, das Ja und Amen. 2. Welch' ein Grauen bei der Kunde, Dass der Riciiter nalit zur Stunde, Mit dem Flammenschwert im Munde ! 3. Die Posaune wird erschallen Durcli der Grliber dumpfe Ilallen, '' Auf zum Throne ! " rufend Allen. 4. Tod und Leben seh'n mit Beben Die Geschopfe sich erheben, Antwort vor Gericht zu geben. 5. Jetzt wird sich ein Buch entfalten, Drinnen Alles ist enthalten, Darnach wird der Richter schalten. 6. Also ^yird der Richter sitzen, Das Verborgenste durchblitzen Nichts vor seiner Rache schiitzen. 7. Wie wird dann mir sein zu Muthe, Wer lenkt ab des Zornes Ruthe, Wenn kaum sicher ist der Gate ? 8. Kcinig schrecklicher Gewalten, Frei ist deiner Gnade Schalten, Heiland, lass mich Gnad' erhalten ! 9. Jesu ! mir zum Heil erkoren, Denk', aueh mir wardst Du geboren, Dass ich einst nicht geh' verloren. 10. Ich war Ziel ja deines Strebens ; Kreuzestod der Preis des Lebens ; So viel Miih' sei nicht vergebens ! 11. Richter mit der heil'gen Wage, Hilf mir, dass ich nicht verzage An dem grossen Rachetage. II. 1. An dem Tag der Zornesfiille Sinkt die Welt in Aschenhiille : So zeugt Gottes W^ort und Wille. =« 2. Welch' ein Zittern, welch' ein Zagcn Wenn der Richter kommt, mit Fragen, Alle Siinder anzukiagen. o. Die Posaun' im Wundertone Schallt durcli Griiber jeder Zone Fordcrnd alle zu dem Throne. 4. Erd' und Holle werden zittern In des Wcltgerichts Gewittern, Die das Todtcnreich erschUttern. 5. Und ein Buch wird aufgeschlagcn, Drinnen Alles eingetragen, Dcss die Siinder anzukiagen. 6. Als dann wird der Richter thronen, Alles Gute zu belohnen, Keine Siinde zu verschonen. 7. Was soil dann ich Armer sagen, W"en um Schutz zu bitten wagen, Wenn Gerechte fast verzagen? S. Konig, furchtbar hoch erhaben, Brunnquell aller Gnadengaben, Dcin Erbarmen lass mich laben ! y. Milder Jesu ! wollst bedenken, Dass Du kamst den Zorn zu lenken; Ew'ges Heil auch mir zu schenken. 10. Du hast ja fiir mich gerungen, Slind' und Tod fiir mich bezwungen ; Solch' ein Sieg ist Dir gelungen ! ] ] . Richter der gerechten Rache, Aller Schuld mich ledig mache. Eh' zum Zorntag ich erwache. ^ See above, p. 159 sq. ^ Literally : "David zeugt's und die Sibylle;" but the Sibyl is out of place in a Protestant hymn book. 182 THE DIES IR^. 12. Ach icli muss yor Schaam errothcn, Sieh' mich reuig yor Dich treten ; Hor'mein briinstig Fleli'n und Bcten. 13. Der Marien Du erhoret, Und dem Scliucher Huld gewahret, Hast auch hoften mich gelehret. 14. Zwar mein Fleh'n ist zu geringe; Nur um freie Gnad' ieh ringe, Dass die Glut mich nicht verschlinge. 15. Zu den Schaafen lass mich kommcu, Fern den Bocken, angenommen Dir zur Rechten bei den Frommen. 16. Wenn Du zu den Feuerflammen Die Yerworfnen wirst verdammen, Ruf' mit Sei'gen mich zusammen. 17. Herr, zerknirscht im tiefsten Grunde, Bet' ich, dass ich noch gesunde, Sorge f iir die letzte Stunde ! 12. Sieh' ich seufze schuldbeladen, Schaamroth liber schweren Schaden, Heir' mein Fleh'n, o Gott, in Gnadcn. 13. Der Du lossprachst einst Marien, Und dera Sch'dcher selbst yerziehen, Hast auch HofFnung mir verliehen. 14. Zwar unwUrdig ist mein Flehen Doch lass Gnad' f Iir Recht ergehen, Mich die ew'ge Glut nicht sehen. 15. Wollst mich yon den Bocken trennen, Deinen Schaafen zuerkeunen, Platz zu Deiner Rechten gonncn. 16. Wenn die Bosen in's Vcrderben Stlirzen zu dem ew'gen Sterben, Ruf mich mit den Himmelserben. 17. Tief im Staub ring' ich die Ilaude, Und den Seufzer zu Dir sende : Gieb mir, Herr, ein selig Ende ! Jesu, treuster Heiland Du, Schenke uns die ew'ge Ruh ! Amen. Jesu, Allerbarmer Du, Schenk' uns all'n die ew'ge Ruh Amen. LITEEATUEE. G. C. F. Mohxike: Kirchen-und literarhistonsche Studien und BliWieilungen. Stralsund, 1824, Bd. I., Heft 1 {Beitrdge zur alien kirchUchcn HymnoJogie), pp. 1-111 ; and HymnoL Forschungen, 1832, Tlieil ii., 149-160. (My copy has the autograph of Gieseler, the church historian. ) G. W. P'lXK: Thomas von Celano, in Ersch und Gruber's '"Encyclop." Sect. 1, Bd. XVI. 7-10. F. G. LiSCO (Pastor in Berlin) : Dies Irw, Ilyninus auf das WcltgericM. Berlin, 1840 (152 pi^., 4to). Contains fifty -four German translations, besides a number of fragments, and adds historical remarks, mostly from Mohnike. In an Appendix to a similar monograph on the Stahat Mater (Ber- lin, 1843), Lisco notices seventeen additional translations of the Dies Irw, and gives a chronological list of 78 German versions complete or incomplete, and 4 Dutch versions. W. R. Williams : MisceUanies. New York, second ed., 1850, pp. 78-90. H. A. Daxiel : Thesaurus Ilymnologicus. Lips., Tom, ii. (1855), pp. 103- 131 ; and Tom. v. (185G), pp. 110-116. (The Preface to Vol. i. is dated May 21, 1841.) Richaed Chexevix Teexcii (Archbishop of Dublin, d. 1886) : Sacred Latin Poetry. London and Cambridge, 1819; second ed. , 1864 ; third ed., 1874, revised, pp. 302-307. He is mistaken if he says (p. 307) that the German versions of the Dies Inv are more numerous than the English. THE DIES lEiE. 183 ABRAHA:\r Coles (m.d., ph. d., ll.d.) : Dies Iras in thirteen original versions, li'itli pliotograpldc illustrations. New York (Appletons), 1859; fifth ed., 1868 (p. 63). Comp. his 3Iicrocosm and other Focms, New York, 1881, pp. 277-285, which contains three additional translations (see above, pp. 154 and 1G5). An anonymous publication [by Mrs. A. E. Nott], entitled The Seven Great Hymns of the Mediceval Churchy New York (Anson D. F. Eandolph & Co.), third ed., 1867, pp. 44-97, gives seven English versions of the Dies Ini', by Gen. Dix, Eoscommon, Crashaw, Irons, Slosson, and Coles (2 ver- sions). The 5th ed., 1868 (pp. 153), has some additions. Philip Schaff : Dies Irx. Two articles in "Hours at Home,^^ New York (Ch. Scribner), 1868, May and July Nos., pp. 39-48, and 261-268. They form the basis of this essay. Orby Shipley: Fifti/ Versions of "Dies Irw.''^ Two articles in "The Dublin Eeview," London, 1883, Vol. IX, 48-77, and 399-396. The writer gives (p. 56 sq. ) a list of 50 English versions, with names of authors, date, religion, metre and rhyme. He omits the American versions, but charges Dr. Coles, without naming him (p. 51), with " an uni)ardonable offense" ( !) for publishing tliirteen different versions of his own. Fraxklix Johxsox : The Dies Iriv. Privately printed, Cambridge, Mass., 1883 (pp. 38). The Latin text with an English version in double rhyme, and notes. (A copy in the Library of Harvard College, Cambridge, Mass.) See above, p. 171. K. E. EoELKER : Die altkirchliche Hymnenpoesie. Osnabrlick, 1888, A posthumous fragment of 94 pages, with German translations of Dies Irx. Compare also the hymnological works of Mox'^E, Koch, and AYacker- NAGEL. To these will soon be added a comprehensive Cyclopaedia of Hymnology, edited by Julian, and to be published in 1890 by J. Murray, in London, and Charles Scribner's Sous, in New York. Johx Edmaxds (Librarian of the Mercantile Library in Philadelphia) : Bibliography of the Dies Irx of Thomas de Celano. In the " Bulletin of the Mercantile Library of Philadelphia," Yol. I., No. 9 (Oct. 1, 1884), pp. 160- 166, and No. 10 (Jan. 1, 1885), pp. 179-188. A very full and accurate list of English versions down to 1884, to which I am chiefly indebted for the following CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ENGLISH TRANSLxiTIONS OF THE DIES IR^ FROM 1621-1889. The translations marked by an asterisk are the best, as far as 1 can judge, either from j^ersonal examination or from the name of the translator and his other works. Joshua Sylvester : London, 1621. 10 W. Drummoiid, of Hawthorndon: stanzas of lines each. London, 1656. *Richard Crashaw: London, 1646, A. C. Crowther and T. V. Sadler: often reprinted. 17 stanzas of 4 lines 1657. each. A reproduction. See pp. 153 and James Dymock : London, 1687. 163. Anonymous: 1694. 184 THE DIES IK^. *"W. Dillon, Earl of Roscommon: London, 1696, 1717, and often. Andrew Dickinson: 1768. *Sir Walter Scott: 1805, often re- published in his works and in many hymn books. An abridged reproduction, in 3 stanzas of 4 lines each. See p. 163. Anonymous : In " Christian Observer," London, May, 1819. Anonymous: 1825. *Lord Th. E. Macaulay : London, 1826, and often. ?ee p. 16;^ F. C. Husenbeth : London, 1831. William Hay: 1S31. "•••Isaac Williams t London, 1831, and often. Kichard Parkinson : London, 1832. Anonymous: 1833. John Chandler : 1837. Anonymous: In "Christian Observer," London, Jan., 1837. J. R. Beste London, 1839. Daniel French : 1839. Anonymous : " N. Y. Evangelist," Oct. 16, 1841. William Young: 1842. '••Henry Alford (d. d.. Dean of Can- terbury) : London, 1844, and often. See p. 156. *■ Richard C. Trench (Archbishop of Canterbury) : London, 1844, and since. See p. 156. Henry Mills : Auburn, 1845. " Hora3 Germanicoe," 2d ed., 1856, Appendix (p. 363 sq.). See pp. 166 and 169. Edw. V. Hyde Kenealy : 1845. John Williams : Hartford, 1845. W. F. Wingfield : 1845 (" Prayers for the Dead"). James D. Aylward : Dublin, 1846. H. H. Brownell : Xew York, 1847. ■-'•Abraham Coles (m.d. and ll. d.): New York, 1847 fiqq. Seventeen transla- tions between 1847 and Aug., 1889. Two of them often reprinted. Sce])p. 154,155,165. Lord A. W. C. Lindsay : London, 1847. Seep. 164. * William J. Irons : London, 1848. First printed on a fly-leaf and very often republished in hymn books and other collections. See ]>. 155. Matthew Bridges : London, 1848. J. Newton Brown : New York, 1848. Richard Dalton Williams : 1848. * Edward Caswall : " Lyra Catholica," London, 1849. Many reprints. See pp. 154, 164. Brahazon William Disney : Dublin, 1849. (See Brit. Mus. Catal.) Arthur E. Rowan : Dublin, 1849. Robert Campbell : Edinburgh, 1850. Howel W. Lloyd : London (?), 1850. * William R. Williams (r>. c, Baptist minister in New York) : New York, 1850. Seep. 158. William John Blew : London, 1851. Charles Porterfield Krauth : Balti- more, 1851. (•' Literal, without rliyme," Edmunds.) ■'■■Arthur Tozer Russell: 2 versions. liondon, 1851. Epes Sargent: New York, 1852 and 1867. See p. 167. •* William G. Dix : New York, '^ Lit- erary World," Dee. 1 1, 1 852. Sec p. 1 66. Anonymous: ''Z.," in "Lit. World," New York, Dec. 11, 1852. R. G. Loraine : 1854. "Libretto to Mozart's Ptequiem." S. Dryden Phelps : New York, 1855. James Aitken Johnstone : 1856. H. Jas. BuckoU : " Pugby School Col- lection," 1857. W. Bright (d. d., Professor of Church History in Oxford) : London, 1858. ■■^- Mrs. Elizabeth Charles : London, 1858. Sec pp. 143 and 164. Richard Furman: Charleston, 1859. John William Hewett: London, 1859. W. Snyden (Methodist New Connec- tion): 1859. Anonymous : " Somniator," Philadel- phia, 1859 and 18G0. P. 166. C. Z.Weiser: Philadelphia, 1859. P. 167. Mrs. F. J. Partridge : London, 1860. Repeated. Robert Davidson: New York, 1860. P. 167. Dr. Noris: 1860. Charles Rockwell : New York, 1S60. P. 167. THE DIES lE^. 185 P. S. Worsley : In '< Blackwood's Magazine," :May, ISGO. •••Adolplie Peries (a merchant of Phila- delphia) : Philadelphia, 1801. P. 1()9. Herbert Kyuaston : London, 1S()2. George Alex. Crooke : Philadelphia, 1SG,3. •'• Jolrn Adams Dix : Cambridge, lSo3 (priv. print.), often reprinted. A second version, containing tlic author's reasons for feeling dissatisfied with the first, Cambridge, 1S75 (priv. print.), and in "Scribner's Monthly," New York, 1876. The variations of the two versions are printed in parallel columns in General Dix's Memoirs by his son. Dr. Morgan Dix, of Trinity Church, Is^cw York, lS8:j, II., 371,- with several letters containing critical estimates of the first version, II., 234-9. P. 1G8. Crammond Kennedy; In "American Baptist," Xew York, April, 1803. Anonymous : 1864. James Ross: In "Xew York Ob- server," 1S04-. Anonymous: London, 1864. C. B. Cayley : London, 1864. Francis Trappes: London, 1865. Marshall H. Bright : New York, 1866 (priv. print.). Anonymous : Boston. In " Litttell's Living Age," Aug. 11, 1806. W. H. Robinson: London, 1866. J. W. Slater : 3 versions, unrhymed, 1866. "■•'•Edward Slosson : New York, 1866, See p. 109. Anonymous: In '' New York Evening Post," July 20, 1866. See p. 169. ■'■■Erastus C. Benedict: 3 versions, 1864-'67. P. 169. CM. Dodd: 1867. P. 170. Benjamin Johnson: Atlanta, Ga., 1867. Anonymous: "Round Table," New York, Feb. 23, 1867. ("Contains two cantos, made by D. A. C. from the ver- sions of Coles, Irons, Dix, Slosson, and Caswall." Edmands.) Anonymous: Boston. In "' Littell's Living Age," Jan. 26, 1867. John Wesley Thomas : 1867. Roger S. Tracy : In " New York Even- ing Post," Jan., 1808. ■■^Arthur P. Stanley (Dean of West- minster, d. 1881) : In Macmillan's "Maga- zine," for December, 1808, pp. 167-'69, Avith an introductory note by the Dean, in which he states that he freely used the versions of Walter Scott, Trench and Irons. 10 stanzas of 6 lines each. (Mr. Edmands dates this version from 1864, but was unable to give me his authority. It may have been first privately ])rinted.) Seep. 170. J. Hoskyns Abrahall : In "Christian Remembrancer," London, Jan., 1808. A paraphrastic translation in 17 stanzas of lines each. See p. 170. Mrs. Margaret Junkin Preston : In the " Presbyterian," Pliiladeljjhia, Jan. 18, 1868 (but the version was made in 1851). R. Holt Hutton : In the London "Spectator" for March 7, 1868. See p. 170. Philip Schaif : New York, 1868. See p. 159. Robert Corbet Singleton : London, 1808. Horace Castle : 1809. Anonymous: In " Lippincott's Maga- zine," Philadelphia, 1809. * Samuel W. Dufiield : 1870. Eive versions. See p. 158. Asahel C. Kendrick : New York, 1870. W. Cooke : In the "Ilymnary," 1871. John D. van Buren : Albany, 1872. Anonymous: Signed "Trinity," in " The Churchman," March 9, 1872, New York. John Anketell : "Am. Church Re- view," New York, 1873. C. A.Walworth: "Catholic World," New York, 1873. Charles H. A. Esling: "Catholic Record," Philadelphia, March, 1874. Charles Kent : London, 1874. John O'Hagan : Dublin, 1874. P. 171. John Wallace : London, 1874. Anonymous : Messenger of the Sacred Heart, 1875. 186 THE DIES IR.E. Hamilton M. Macgill: London, 1S76. Mrs. Emily Righton : 1S76. William Mcllvaine: Belfast, 1878. Samuel J. Watson : 1S7S. William W. Nevin : In "The Press," Philadelpliia. Jan. IS, 1S7S. Osmund Seager: London, 1878. J. Howard West: Gettvsbiii-g,Pa.,1878. Oliver Crane : Hartford, 1879. Nathaniel B. Smithers : 1879. Joel Swartz : In *' Lutheran Ob- server," Philadelphia. Aug. 22, 1879. Orlando Dobbin : 1879. William B. Robertson : " Presbyte- rian Hymnal," Philadelphia, 1879. D. T. Morgan: London, 1880. D. Y. Heisler: In "Reformed Quar- terly Review," 1880. Randolph W. Lowrie : In "The Churchman," Xew York, April 3, 1880. Anonymous : 1880. Charles Elliot: In "The Standard," Chicago, Feb. 24, 1881. Anatole Police : London, 1881. Matthias Sheeleigh : In " Lutheran Observer," Philadelphia, May 20, 1881. James A. Whitney : " New York Ob- server," May 19, 1S81. * Henry C. Lea: Philadelphia, 1882. "Translations and other rhymes" (priv. print.). Joseph J. Marrin : " Catholic "\Yorld," New York, 1882. Emily Clemens Pearson : Hartford, 1882. ■'•Thomas C. Porter: Philadelphia, 1882. See p. 159. Miss Elizabeth Cleveland : New York "Independent," April 12, 1883. William John Copeland : " Dublin Review," Jan., 1883. P. 173. W. Hilton: "Dublin Review," 1883. -■• Franklin Johnson : Cambridge, Mass., 1883. See p. 171. M. Woolsey Stryker: New York "Evangelist," Nov., 18S3. Another ver- sion, April 3, 1SG4. -Thomas MacKellar : Philadelphia, 1883. James D. Aylward: "Dublin Re- view," April, 18S3. Two versions in single rhymes. P. 171. John Mason Brown : " Catholio World," New A'ork, Nov., 1SS4. George M. Davie : " Catholic "World," New York, Nov., 1884. P. 172. Henry Rawes : 1884 (fly-sheet; un- rhymed). * Hon. John Hayes (ll.d., Cambridge, Mass.): In "The Independent," New York, Dec. 30, 1886. P. 172. «JohnS. Hager: In "The Overland Monthly," San Francisco, 1886 (Vol. VII., 630). P. 172. * W. G. McKenzie : Boston, 1887 and 1889. Two versions. ;ee p. 161. Alfred H. Fahnestock : " Presbyterian Journal," Philadelphia, July 22, 1889. See p. 172. This list gives us over one hundred and fifty translations (counting Coles 17, Benedict 3, Dufiield 5, Dix 2, McKenzie 2, and omitting the anony- mous) from ministers and laymen of various denominations — Roman Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian, Baptist, etc. No hymn has such a histoiy. Next to it comes, perhaps, Luther's EiN feste Burg, of which Rev. Dr. B. Pick, of Allegheny (as he informed me), has collected 131 versions in all languages. One good translation is worth a hundred poor ones and will outlive them. IVIany were stillborn, or not born at all. But the ever-increasing number is a proof of the popularity and untranslatableness of the Dies iRiE, the greatest religious lyric of all ages. THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. There are two mediaeval hymns which begin with the words Stabat Mater. They resemble each other like twin sisters, or rather like mother and daughter. Both are dedicated to the Virgin Mary, one to Mary at the Cross, the other to Mary at the Cradle, of the Saviour. One is a Good-Friday hymn, the other is a Christmas hymn. Both breathe the same burning love to Christ and his Mother and the desire to become identified with her by sympathy in the intensity of her grief and her joy. They are the same in structure, and excel alike in the touching music of language and the soft cadence that echoes the senti- ment. Both describe first the situation, then identify the author with the situation, and address the Virgin as an object of that worship which the Roman Church claims for her as the Mother of the Saviour and the Queen of Saints. Both bear the impress of mediasval piety and of the monastic order which gave them birth. The Good-Friday hymn has long been known under the name of Stabat Mater^ and admired as the most pathetic poem of Latin church poetry, inferior only to the more sublime and impressive Dies Ie^e ; the Christmas hymn has recently been brought to light, and is a worthy companion, though of inferior merit. We may hereafter distinguish the two as the Mateb Dolorosa and thf. Mater Speciosa. 187 188 THE STABAT ISIATER DOLOEOSA. THE MATER DOLOROkSA. The Latin original from the Roman Missal, with textual variations. 6 I. Stabat Mater dolorosa Juxta crucem lacrymosa, Dum^ pendebat Filius, Cujus animam gementem Contristatam^ ac dolentem Pertransivit giadius. Sancta Mater, istud agas Crucifix! fige plagas Cordi meo valide.' Tui nati vulnerati Tarn dignati pro me pati Poenas mecum divide. 2. O quam tristis et afflicta Fuit ilia benedicta Mater Unigeniti ! Quae mcerebat et dolebat Et tremebat, cum^ videbat Nati poenas inclyti. Fac me tecum vere flere* Crucifixo condolere, Donee ego vixero. Juxta crucem tecum stare Te libenter sociare,^ In planctu desidero. Quis est homo, qui non fleret, Matrem Christi* si videret In tanto supplicio ? Quis non posset contristari, Piam Matrem contemplari Dolentem cum Filio. 8. Virgo virginum praeclara Mihi tam^° non sis amara, Fac me tecum plangere. Fac ut portem Christi mortem Passionis fac consortem^^ Et plagas ^2 recolere.13 Pro peccatis suae gentis Vidit Jesum in tormentis Et flagellis subditum, Vidlt suum dulcem natum Morientem,^ desolatum, Dum emisit spiritum. c,\ Fac me plagis vulnerari Cruce hac inebriari^^ Ob amorem Filii. Inflammatus et accensus Por te, Virgo, ^5 sim defensus In die judicii. Eia^ Mater, fons amoris ! Me sentire vim doloris Fac, ut tecum lugeam. Fac, ut ardeat cor meum In amando Christum Deum Ut si^i complaceam. Fac me cruce custodiri, Morte Christi praemuniri, Confoveri gratia.^ ^ Quando corpus morietur Fac ut animse donetur Paradisi gloria.^* THE ST A BAT MATER DOLOROSA. 189 Textual variatioxs. ^Alii : qua, sc. cruce. So also ]\[one. ^ :Mone et al. : contristanicm. ^ Mone : dum. •* Mone : Chridi Matrcm. ^ Moue : Jloriendo. ^ So the Missal, Stella, Daniel. Other MSS. read pm. " Al. : vivide. * Stella aud Mone better : vcre iccum ficre. ^ Moue et al. better : JTcque (or d me) iihi sociare. ^° Mone : jam. ^^ Stella : ^ass/on/s cius sortcm. xVl. : sum sortem ^ 2 Al. : pcenam. ^ ^ Al. : plagis fe colere. ^* Mone aud others : Cruceque (or Cruce fac) me fac heari. An attempt to weaken the force aud audacity of the author's metaphor — the drunkenness of love. ^ ^ Al. : pia. ^ ^ Moue and others : — " Christe, cum sit Jiinc transire, Da per JTatrem me venire Ad paJmam victorise.''^ ^ ' Wackemagel adds from mediaeval jNISS. the first half of an eleventh stanza where the author, as in the variation of the tenth stanza just quoted from Mone (il., 147), addresses himself to Christ directly : — ^^Christe, cum sit Jiinc exire, Da per Matrcm me venire Ad palmam victorise,''^ The text of Georgius Stella (chancellor and historian of Genoa, d. about 1420), which is given by Daniel [Tlies. HymnoJ. Ii., 131 sq.), inserts three additional stanzas of inferior merit, as follows : — 3. Quis no n potest contristari, Ilatrem Christi contemplari DoJentem cum Filio. In me sistat dolor tui, Crucifixo fac me frui Dum sum in exilio. 4. Hunc dolorem fac me moestu^n, Kec me facias aJienum Ah hoc desiderio. ^i\ Ilium corde, ilium ore. Semper f cram cum dolore Et mentis martyrio. 9. Alma salus. advocata 3Iortc Christi desolata, Miserere popidi ; Virgo dulcis, virgo pia, Virgo clemens, o 3Iaria, Audi preces servuH. 190 THE STAB AT MATER DOLOROSA. CHARACTER AND HISTORY OF THE HYMN. The Mater Dolorosa — usually called the Stabat Mater^ also the Lament of the Blessed Virgin'^ — is a passion hymn which describes the intense suffering of Mary at the cross of her Divine-human Son as He offered himself a sacrifice for the sins of the world. It expresses in words what Carlo Dolce and other painters of the Mater Dolorosa express in color. It is based on the prophecy of the aged Simeon, who said to Mary in the Temple: ^^ A sword shall pierce through thine own soul ^' (Luke ii., 35)^ and on the last interview of our Lord with his earthly mother, wdien she stood with her sister (Salome, the mother of St. John) and two other women (Mary wife of Cleo- phas, and Mary Magdalene) by the cross, and when He com- mended her to the beloved disciple and the beloved disciple to her (John, xix., 25). From the former passage the poet borrowed the last line of the first sta.nza (pertranslvit gladius) ; from the latter he took the opening sentence, according to the Latin version ['' Stabat mater jicxta crucem ejus ^'). The first two words of this version furnished the key-note and gave the name to the poem; as the prophetic words of Zephania: ^^ Dies Ircey'^ gave theme and title to the judgment hymn of Thomas a Celano. This touching incident in the history of the Passion — that most amazing spectacle ever presented to the gaze of heaven and earth — has never found a more impressive expression than in this hymn. It describes first the agony of the mother of the dying Saviour, and then prays to be identified w^ith her suffering and with his crucifixion, that dying to sin, he may stand in the day of judgment and partake of Christ's glory in heaven. The Mater Dolorosa is by common consent the most tender and pathetic of Latin hymns. Daniel calls it " the queen of sequences.^' ^ It is inferior to the Dies Irje in force and majesty, but equal in melody, and superior in tenderness. The difference ^ Plancius Beaise Virginis, or Sequeniia de Scptem DQlorihus B. VirginiSj or De Comjjassione B. V. 2 Tlics. Ilymnol.^Y. 59. The term sequcntin or prosayvas first applied to hymns in rhythmical prose which followed the Alleluia after the reading of the Epistle, and afterwards to rhymed hymns as well. See Schaflf, Church Misloru^ vol. IV., 430. THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 191 corresponds to the theme : one is a judgment hymn, and hence solemn, awful, overpowering, like "The Day of Wrath"; the otlier is a passion hymn, and hence tender, touching and sym- pathetic, like Mary standing at the cross. Both breathe the same spirit of profound repentance and glowing love to Christ. The secret of the power of the Mater Dolorosa lies in the intensity of feeling with which the poet identifies himself with his theme, and in the soft, plaintive melody of its Latin rhythm and rhyme, which cannot be transferred to any other language. It draws the reader irresistibly into sympathy with the agony described, and makes him a fellow-sufferer with Mary. It fills him with o-nef for his own sins which have cost such a sacrifice, and with gratitude for the love of the Sou of God, who spared not his own life for our redemption.^ The only objectionable feature in this incomparable poem is a touch of what Protestants call Mariolatry, which excludes it from evangelical hymn books unless the prayer to Mary be changed into a prayer to Christ.^ It fixes the pious contempla- tion on the human mother rather than her Divine Son, and ascribes to her the functions of the Holy Spirit. There breathes also through the ninth stanza a morbid passion for the miracle of stigmatization which the legend reports of St. Francis of Assisi. But we must judge the poet from the standpoint of mediaeval piety, and not forget that some truth underlies every error of the ^ Dr. Coles {Siabat 3Tatcr, p. 6) thus characterizes the author: "He has clairvoyance aud second sight. The distant and the past are made to him a virtual here and now. He is in Italy, hut he is also in Judaea. He lives in the thirteenth century, hut is an eye witness of the crucifixion in the beginning of the first. He has immediate vision. All that is transpiring on Golgotha is distinctly pictured on the retina of his mind's eye. And by the light which is in him he photographs what he sees for the use of others. His ecee ! is no pointless indication, but an actual showing. The wail he utters is a veritable echo of that which goes up from the cross. Everything is true to nature and to life." . . . "He prays that he maybe permitted to bear a part, not in the way of sympathy merely, but of suffering also, and this too, the same both in kind and degree ; that euduring stripe for stripe, wound for wound, there might be to him in every stage of the Redeemer's passion, groan answering to groan." - Tliis is done by ^lonsell, Knapp and other Protestant translators. See Schaff's DcM^scAes Gemiujhuch, No. 117. 192 THE STAB AT MATER DOLOROSA. Roman Church and gives it such a hold on the pious feelings of her members. It is, after all, Christ's sufferings which were reflected in Mary's agony ; as it is the heavenly beauty of the Christ-child which shines on the face of the Madonnas of Ra- ph.ael. We must also give to Roman Catholics credit for their distinction between different kinds of worship; adoration (Jatria), which belongs to God alone ; veneration (dulia), which is due to Saints in the presence of God ; and a special degree of venera- tion or semi-adoration which is claimed for the Virgin Mary, as the Mother of the Saviour and the Queen of Saints in heaven. They do not pray to Mary as the giver of the mercies desired, but only as the interceder, thinking that she is more likely to prevail with her Son than any poor unaided sinner on earth. The poem soon became popular. It was spread all over Europe by the Flagellants or Brethren of the Cross (Crucij ratines, Cruciferi) in their penitential processions. It gradually found a place in almost every breviary and missal, and, with slight changes, in many evangelical hymn books. Its charm is felt by every man of religious feeling and poetic taste, and even by per- sons who have little religious sympathy with the theme. "The loveliness of sorrow,'' says the German poet Tieck,^ speaking of the Stabat Mater and Pergolesi's composition, ^' m the depth of pain, the smiling in tears, the childlike simplicity, which touches on the highest heaven, had to me never before risen so bright in tl>e soul. I had to turn away to hide my tears, especially at the place, ' Videt suiim didcem natum.'' " Goethe had this poem in mind when he put this prayer into the mouth of Margaret as she looked with a guilty conscience at a picture of the Mater Dolorosa : — " JLc/i neige, Dii, SclimerzenretcJiG Deiii AntUtz gnddig mcincr Noth! Das Seine ert im Herzcn^ Mit tausend Schmerzoi Blicli'st avfzu deines SoJutes Tod. ^ Tieck's rhant(if. Holy Mother, with affliction Of His saving crucifixion Fill and thrill mine inmost heart ; With thy Son, His wounds receiving That have caused thy soul its grieving. May I ever have a part. 7. I would weep with all thy weeping, Vigil with thy vigil keeping, Till my mortiil life shall fail ; Near the cross and near beside thee, Where these agonies betide thee, I would stand and with thee wail. S. Virgin, virgins all excelling,^ For thy love and grief a dwelling Pure and holy make in me ; Let me bear Christ's crucifying; Let me know the pains of dying That He suflfered on the tree. 9. Let my heart with His be riven ; - Let His cup to me be given ; Let me of its depths partake ; And, still flaming thus with fervor, Let me find thee my preserver When the Judgment day shall break. 10. Through the cross thy blessing send me ; 3 Let Christ's death from sin defend me ; Care for me in tender love ; When this mortal flesh shall perish. Let thy Son my spirit cherish In His Paradise above.* Hox. JoHX L. Hayes (Cambridge, Mass.). From '-The ludependeut,"' Xew York, Dec. 30, 1S86. 1. Stood the grief-struck Mother weeping. At the Cross her vigil keeping. Where her suffering Son was bound ; And her heart with anguish groaning And His agony bemoaning, Bleeds with every bleeding wound. 2. Oh ! What sorrow and affliction, She the font of benediction, Bore for her beloved Son ! With what grief and what bewailing, And what trembling and heart-failing, Looked she on the martyred One I 3. Who could hold his tears from flowing For Christ's stricken Mother, knowing All her misery and jjain ? Who withhold his lamentation. In the mournful contemplation Of her grieving for the slain ? 4. She, for sinners' sure salvation, Saw her Son in condemnation Whipped with scourges, led to death; Saw Him, without const>lation, In despair and desolation Utter His expiring breath. ^ In the second, version : ' ' Jesus, all our thoughts excelliuc - '' Let my heart with Thine be riven." ^ '* Through Thy cross Thy blessing send me, Let Thy death from sin defend me." ■* "Evermore my spirit cherish, In Thy Paradise above. ' ' 206 THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 5. Thou, Mother ! love-bestowing ! Make me, with thy grief o'erfiowing. Make me mourn and weep with thee ! Fill my heart with love all burning. Unto Christ His love returning, That thy blessing fall on me. 6. Holy Mother ! by thy favor May the wounds of Christ forever Be engraven on my heart; Of His suffering and wounding May I, through thy grace abounding, Though unworthy, bear a part. 7. With thy tears let mine fall duly ; At the cross lamenting truly May I weep till life shall end ; Near His cross give me my station, And with thee association, That my griefs with thine may blend. 8. Virgin, than all virgins fairer ! In thy pain let me be sharer ; Let me always with thee mourn. Give me part in Christ's affliction; Let His stripes and crucifixion In my heart of hearts be borne. 9. With His wounds may I be sinking; Of His cup may I be drinking, With His blood inebriate be ! Lest by flames I be consumed, And in day of judgment doomed, Virgin blest, I call on thee ! 10. By the Cross may I be guarded; By Christ's death from dangers warded. Through His grace that open lies! When my dust to dust is given, ^^ And my soul its bonds hath riven. Give me place in Paradise ! Two Versions of Rev. W. S. McKenzie, D.D., Boston, Mass., 1887, First published in " The Beacon," Boston, Mass., May 7, 1887. Ix Double Rhyme. 1. Stood the Virgin Mother weeping Near the cross, sad vigils keeping O'er her son there crucified : Through her soul in sorrow moaning. Racked with grief, with anguish groaning, Pierced the sword as prophesied. 2. Ah ! how doleful and dejected Was that woman, the elected Mother of the Holy One; Who, with weeping and with grieving, Stood there trembling, while perceiv- ing How they smote her peerless Son. 3. Who could see without emotion Christ's dear mother, all devotion, Crushed beneath such misery? ^Could one sec her desolation, Would he hush her lamentation For her Son in agony ? SixGLK Rhyme. The Virgin Mother sighed and Avept, As near the cross she steadfast kept. Where her Son in torture hung : Her stricken heart with anguish groaned. With grief o'erwhelmed she cried and moaned, For the sword her bosom wrung. How sad was she, and sore dis- tressed ! — That Woman once supremely blessed, Called to bear the Holy One ! What tears were hers ! what bitter woes ! Ah ! how she quivered as the blows Fell upon her peerless Son. And who would not with her have grieved. Had he Christ's Mother there per- ceived. Crushed beneath such misery ? What mortal would from tears re- frain. Could he but hear her cries of pain O'er her Son's sharp agony? THE STABAT MATER DOLOEOSA. 207 For His wicked nation pleading, She saw Jes^us scourged, and bleeding 'Neath the smitings of the rod; Saw her Son's meek resignation. As He died in desolation, Yielding up His soul to God, For His own nation's sinfulness She saw her Jesus in distress 'Neath the smitings of the rod; Saw on the cross her own sweet Son, Deserted, dying, and undone, Breathing forth His plaints to God. 5. Mother, fount of love's deep yearnin< I, thy weight of woe discerning, Partner in thy tears would be ; May my heart with ardor glowing. And with love to Christ outflowing, S3-mpathize with Him and thee. Mother, fount whence love doth flow, I would that I thy pangs might know, Sharing them in sympathy. Inspire my soul with love like thine. That I may cleave to Christ Divine With thy fervent loyalty. Make me know thy sore affliction, Print the wounds of crucifixion Deepl}' on my inmost heart. With thy Son, the wounded, bleeding, For me stooping, interceding, Let me feel the scourge and smart. sacred Mother, heed my plea, Lay thou the cross of Christ on me, Grave it on my inmost heart; With Him on whom my sins were laid. Who stooped to me, my ransom paid, I would bear an equal part. 7. Let me join thy lamentation. Share thy sweet commiseration, And through life a mourner be : Near the cross, with thee abiding, I would stand, with thee dividing All the woes afflicting thee. 7. Such tears as thine make me to weep; With thee thy vigils let me keep, Till my life on earth is past : I near the cross with thee would stand, With heart to lieart and hand to hand, Fellow-mourner to the last. S. Virgin, virgins all excelling, Make my heart, like thine, love' dwelling, Let thy tortures rend my soul ; Let me share Christ's crucifying, Let me feel His pangs of dying. Let His sorrows o'er me roll. S. Thou purest Virgin ! matchless Maid! Do not repel my proffered aid ; Let thy sorrows o'er me roll : Christ's dying I would daily bear; His crucifixion I would dare; Let its tortures rend my soul. 9. May I suffer all His bruising; Quaff the crimson liquid oozing From the wounds of that dear Son. Rapt with fervor and affection. Grant me. Virgin, thy protection, When the Judorment is bej^un. 9. Ay, wound me with the wounds He bore ! And let me quaff the sacred gore Gushing from thy mangled Son ! My soul aglow with love's pure flame, Virgin, shield me with thy name When the judgment is begun. 10. Let me by the cross be guarded; By Christ's death from dangers warded; By His grace through life supplied. Death the ties of earth may sever ; I shall live in Christ forever, One of Eden's glorified. 10. May the cross my guardian be; May Christ's atonement guerdon me. May He keep me in His love. AVhen death shall end my earthly- strife. May I attain to endless life In the Paradise above. 208 THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. Anonymous. 1. There she stood, the Mother weeping ! Nigh the Cross sad watches keeping, While her Son did hang and bleed ! Bitter were her tears and grieving : Through that bosom, wildly heaving, There had passed a sword indeed ! Holy mother, by thy favor, Let the nails which pierced my Saviour, Pierce and fix my wandering heart ! In His sorrows, which abounded. In His woundings, Who was wounded, All for me, oh give me part. There she stood in deep affliction, She who heard the benediction *'IIail of Heaven, Thou blessed one!'- And, with breast o'erflowed with an- guish, Saw beneath dire tortures languish Him who was the promised Son ! 7. Be it mine through life, sincerely Aye to weep with thee ! and nearly Follow still my Lord divine ! Near the Cross be still my station. By thy side ! Each lamentation Of thy lips be swelled with mine ! Who, with eye no moisture showing, Could see Mary's overflowing? Stricken by so sharp a blow ! Who the generous sigh could smother As he watched sweet Jesus' mother Sunk in sympathetic woe? 8. Virgin queen of heavenly splendor, Let me share, oh bosom tender ! Ev'n thy Sorrows' secresies ! Let me bear my Jesus' dying In my flesh ! And to Him flying, Cherish every wound of His ! 4. Well she knew 'twas for her nation. For that sinful generation That the shameful stripes He bore ! That, beneath men's eyes averted, Saddened, desolate, deserted. Breathed He, on the Cross, no more ! 9. With His love, oh re-create me! With His cross inebriate me ! Wound me with love's wounds, I pray ! That secure in thy protection, Bound to Him with strong affection, I may meet the judgment day ! 5. Mother, full of tendernesses ! I would know of thy distresses ! By community of pain. Let the love of Christ within me Burn and flame, until it win me, Answering love from Him again 10. Be His Cross my tower abiding. And His death my place of hiding ! Feed me with His grace and lovo That, when worms my flesh inherit, I may rise, a ransomed spirit. To the Paradise above ! A PROTESTANT TRANSFUSION. From Dr. Heney IVIills, of Auburn (1786-1867), ITonr. GermanicT, second ed., New York, 1856, Appendix, p. 365, 7 stanzas, of wliicli I give 1, 4, 5, 6, 7. Dr. K. D. Hitchcock, in Carmina Sanctorum, No. 195, erroneously ascribes Vers. 1 to liev. Dr. JA^IES Waddell Alexander (1804-1859). Neither the Rev. Dr. S. D. Alexander of N. York (the brother of J. W. A.), nor Mr. A. D. Randolpli (his publisher) could <^ive nie any information about a trans- lation of the Slabat 3Iatcr by Dr. J. W. Alexander. THE STABAT MATEE DOLOROSA. 209 1. Near the cross was Mary weeping, There her mournful station keeping, Gazing on her dying Son : There in speechless anguish groaning, Yearning, trembling, sighing, moan- ing,— Through her soul the sword had gone. 3. But Ave have no need to borrow Motives from the Mother's sorrow, At our Saviour's cross to mourn. 'Twas our sins brought Him from heaven. These the cruel nails had driven : — AH His griefs for us were borne. What lie for His people suffered. Stripes, and scoffs, and insults offered, His fond Mother saw the whole; — Never from the scene retiring, Till He bowed His head, expiring, And to God breathed out His soul. "When no eye its pity gave us, "W^hen there was no arm to save us. He His love and power dis^jlayed : By His stri])es He wrought our healing By His death, our life revealing, He for us the ransom paid. 5. Jesus, may Thy love constrain us. That from sin we may refrain us, In Thy griefs may deeply grieve: Thee our best affections giving, To Thy glory ever living. May we in Thy glory live ! AxoxYMors. From Schaff 's " Christ in Song,'' 1868. 1. At the cross her station keeping. Stood the mournful Mother weeping. Where He hung, her Son and Lord. For her soul, of joy bereaved, Bowed with anguish, deeply grieved, Felt the sharp and piercing sword. 3. Who, on Christ's dear Mother gazing, Pierced by anguish so amazing. Born of woman, would not weep? Who, on Christ's dear Mother thinking. Such a cup of sorrow drinking. Would not share her sorrows deep? 2. Oh, how sad and sore distressed Now was she, that Mother blessed Of the sole-begotten One; Deep the woe of her affliction When she saw the crucifixion Of her ever-glorious Son. For His people's sins chastised She beheld her Son despised. Scourged, and crowned with thorns entwined; Saw Him then from judgment taken, And in death by all forsaken. Till His spirit He resigned. 5. Jesu, may such deep devotion Stir in me the same emotion. Fount of love, Redeemer kind ! That my heart, fresh ardor gaining And a purer love attaining. May with Thee acceptance find. 14 Through her heart with wruns:. 210 THE STAB AT MATER DOLOROSA. Lord Lindsay, 1847. The stanzas of this version are irregular in merit and in form, which varies between the double and single rhyme. I give three stanzas. The whole is printed in full in [Xott's] Seven Great Hymns of the Blediseval Church (N. York, 5th ed., 1868, p. 103). 1. By the Cross, sad vigil keeping, Oh ! what bitter tears she shed Stood the mournful mother weeping, Whilst before her Jesus bled While on it the Saviour hung; 'I^eath the Father's penal rod ! In that hour of deep distress. Pierced the sword of bitterness 5, Mary mother, fount of love, ^"^ Make me share thy sorrow, move All my soul to sympathy ! Make my heart within me glow 2. Oh ! how sad, how woe-begone With the love of Jesus — so Was that ever-blessed one. Shall I find aceeptancy. Mother of the Son of God ! JoHx D. Van Burex. From The Stabat 3Iaier, translated hy John D. Van Buren, Albany, 1872. 1. Stands, in tears, with bosom heaving, Sharpest sword of pain is darting By the Cross the Mother, grieving. Thro' her soul, in anguish smarting, While her Son upon it hung; By the sorest torture wrung. GERMAN TRANSLATIONS. Dr. Lisco, in his monograph on the Stabat Mater ^ published in 1843, gives in three parallel columns the text of fifty-three German translations of the Mater Dolorosa, iha oldest by Hermann of Salzburg (d. 1396), the latest of the year 1842, besides some frag:ments. Pie makes out a chronoloo-ical list of 78 full or partial German, and 4 Dutch translations, but ignores the English versions. Among the translators are Klopstock (1771, very free), Riedel (1773), Hiller (1781), Lavater (1785), Lud- wig Tieck (1812, very free), Baron De la Motte Fouque (1817), A. L. Follen (1819), Baron von Wessenberg (1825), Thiersch (1825), Simrock (1834), Friedrich von Meyer (1836), Knapp (1837), Freiberg (1839), Daniel (1840), Lisco (1842), von Seld (1842), Loschke (1842), Baltzer (1842), Graul (1842), Schlosser (1863), Konigsfeld (1865). I give the full text of three, and one or two stanzas of the best of the otliers. They are all found in Lisco's monograph, except those of Schlosser and Konigsfeld. THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 211 IIerm. Adalb. Daniel (1840). From his Thesaurus ITymnoIogicus, il, 135, and Lisco's Stabat llatcr, p. 15. Yoller Thriincn, voUer Schmerzen, Stand die Mutter, wund im Ilerzen An dem Krcuz, da Jesus hing ; Durch die Sccle graraumliiillet Seufzcrschwer und Qualerfiillet Eincs Schwcrtes Sehlirle ging. 0. Ileirge IMuttcr ! alle "Wundcn, So dein Solm am Kreuz empfunden, Di-ucke ticf sie in mein Ilerz. Wundgcschlagen hat voll Zagen FUr mich Plagen Christ getragen — Gicb mir Theil an seinem Schmerz. Ach, wie elend, wie gebeuget War, die Gottes Kind geslluget, Einst vom Engel benedcit : Nun voll Beben sieht sie schweben Dort ihr Leben, hingegeben In des bittern Todes Leid. 7. Lass im Weinen uns vereinen. Den Gckreuzigten bcweinen Will auc-li ich mein Leben lang. An dem Kreuz mit dir zu stehen, Mich im Leid dir Eins zu sehen Sehnt der Seele Liebesdrangr. 3. Wer ist Mensch, der nicht beweinct Christi Mutter, die erscheinet So voll Schmerzen, Schmach Ilohn ? Ohne Lied, wer kcinnte sehen, Diese fromme Mutter stehen Die da Icidet mit dem Sohn ? und 8. AUer Jungfraun Krone ! briinstig Fleh ich : lass mich hold und giin- stig Mit dir klagen um den Sohn ; Lass mich erben Christi Sterben, Seine Marter mich erwerbcn, Schmecken seine Passion. FUr die Sunden seiner Brlidcr Sieht sie ihres Jesu Glieder Wie die Geissel sie zerreisst: \ Sieht ihr susses Kind erblassen, Sieht den Sohn von Gott verlasscn, Und verhauchen ihn den Geist. Wundcnmale lass mir fliessen, Mich in Liebesrausch ergiessen Zu dem Kreuz mit deinem Sohn : Und um solchen Eifcrs Flammen Lass mich, Jungfrau, nicht verdam- nien Yor dcs Wcltenrichtcrs Thron. 5. Fromme Mutter ! Quell der Liebe, Gieb dass innigst mich betriibe All dein Leid und deine Pein. Christo lass mein Ilerz entbrenncn. Lass mich Ilerr und Gott ihn nenncn, Mich ihm wohlsrefallijr sein. 10. Christi Kreuz lass mich bcschiitzen Christi Tod als Schild mir niitzen, Schirmen seine GnUdigkeit: Und zerf iillt der Leib hienieden, Lass der Seele sein bcschieden Paradieses Ilerrlichkeit. Albert Kxapp (1837). From his Licdersehatz^ and the new WUrttemherg Hymn-book of 1842. An evangelical transformation. Schaut die Mutter voUer Schmerzen, Wie sie mit zerriss'nem Herzen Bei dem Kreuz des Sohnes steht ! Schauet ihre Triibsalshitze, Wie des Schvvertes blut'ge Spitze Tief durch ihre Seele geht ! [2. Welches tiefen Jammers Beute Wurde die gebenedeito Mutter dieses Einzigen! Welch ein Trauern, welch ein Zagen, Welch ein Ringen, welch ein Nagen, Bei der Schmach des Gottlichen !]^ ^ This stanza is omitted by Knapp and inserted from the version of Fr. von Meyer, who likewise removed the elements of Roman Mariolatry. 212 THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 3. Wessen Auge kann der ZUhren Bei dein Jammer sich erwehren, Der des Hochsten Sohn umfangt? Wie Er mit gelass'nem Muthe Todesmatt in seinem Blute An dem Holz des Fluches hanst ! 7. Lass mich herzlich mit Dir weinen, Mich durch's Kreuz mit Dir vereinen ; Aller Weltsinn sei verfluclit ! Untcr'm Kreuze will ieh stehen, Und Dich zittern, bluten sehen, Wenn die Siinde mich versucht. 4. Fiir die Siinden seiner Briider Leidet Er, dass seine Glieder Unnennbare Qual zerreisst. Fiir uns ruft Er im Erblassen : Gott, mein Gott, ich bin verlassen ! Und verathmet Seinen Geist. 5. Lass, Jesu, Quell der Liebe, Deines Ilerzens heil'ge Triebe Stromen in mein Herz hinab ! Lass mich Dich mein Alles nennen, Ganz fiir Dich in Liebe brennen, Der fiir mich Sein Leben gab ! 6. Driick, mein Konig, Deine Wunden, Die Du auch fiir mich erapfunden, Tief in meine Seel' hinein. Lass in Reue mich zerfliessen, Mit Dir leiden, mit Dir biissen, Mit Dir tragen jede Pein. 8. Gieb mir Theil an Deinem Leiden, Lass von aller Lust mich scheiden. Die Dir solche Wunden schlug ! Ich will auch mir Wunden schlagen. Will das Kreuz des Lammes tragen, Welches meine Siinden trug. 9. Lass, wenn meine Thriinen flie^sen, Mich den Gnadenglanz geniessen Deines milden Angesichtsj Decke mich durch Deine Plagen Vor den Aengsten und den Klagen Einst am Tage des Gerichts. 10. Gegen aller Feinde Stiirmen Lass mich, Ilerr, Dein Kreuz be- schirmen, Deine Gnade leuchte mir I Deckt des Grabes finstre Hohle Meinen Leib, so nimm die Seele Hin in's Paradies zu Dir. Dr. G. a. Konigsfeld (1865). From his Latcinische Hymnen und Gesdnge aus dem 3IiiielaUer. Neue Samm- lung. Bonn, 1865. The author made two translations, the first of which appeared in 1847, and begins : — " Weinend stand die schmerzgeheugte Mutter an dem Kreuz, das feuchte Auge an dem Sohin 1. Thranenvoll, in Gram zerflossen, 3. Stand am Kreuz des gottlich Grossen Mutter, wo Er sterbend hing; Durch das Ilerz, das Gram dureh- wUhlte, Das ganz mit Ihm litt und fiihlte, Ihr des Schwertes Schneide King;. hing." Welch ein Mensch sollt' da nicht weinen, Sieht die Mutter er erscheinen. In so tiefcn Jammers Noth ? Wer nicht mit ihr trauernd stehen, Wenn die Mutter er gesehen Duldend mit dem Sohn den Tod. AVie war traurig, voller Schmerzcn, Die begnadet trug am Ilerzcn Ihn, den eingebornen Sohn ! Wie sie jammertc und klagte, Wie sic zitterte und zagte, Bei des Ilohcn Qual und Ilohn. 4. Fiir der ganzen Menr^chheit Siinden Sah sie Jesum martern, binden, Wilder Geisselhiebe Ziel ; Sah den Ilolden sie erblassen, In dem Todeskampf verlassen, Als des Geistes lliille fiel. THE STABAT MATER DOLOROSA. 213 5. Darum Mutter, Quell der Ilulden, Lass micli mit dir fiihlcn, dulden, Theilen diese Schmerzen all; Lehr' meiu Herz mit Glutentrieben Christum, Gottes Sohn, zu lioben, Dass ich Ihm nur woblS'/s, Jesii^ meum gaud ium, Qui est futuriim prsemiujn, In te sit mea gloria Per cuncta semper sxcula.'' ST. BERNARD AS A HYMXIST. 237 From a Frankfort MS. of the 14th century, in ^Slone-s Lateinische JTymnen des JliUelalters, 1853, vol. i, 329 sq., under the title Cursus de seterna sapi- eniia. Ad JIatufinos. I. Jesu dulcis memoria 3. Jesu, spes pcenitentibus, Dans vera cordis gaudia, Quam pius es petentibus, Sed super mel et omnia Quam bonus es quaerentibus, Dulcis ejus praesentia. Sed quid invenientibus ? 2. Nil canitur suavius, Auditur nil jocundius, Nil cogitatur dulcius Quam Jesus, Dei filius. 4. Sterna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. I. Jesu, rex admirabilis Et triumphator nobilis, Dulcedo ineffabilis, Totus desiderabilis. In Laudibus. 3. Amor Jesu continuus Mihi languor assiduus^ Mihi Jesus inellifluus Fructus vitae perpetuus. 2. Nee lingua potest dicere, Nee littera exprimere, Experto potes credere, Quid sit Jesum diligere. /Eterna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. Amor Jesu dulcissimus Et vere suavissimus, Plus millies gratissimus, Quam dicere sufficimus. Ad Frimam. 3. Jesu mi bone, sentiam Amoris tui copiam, Da mihi per pcenitentiam Tuam videre gloriam. 2. Jesus decus angelicum, In aure dulce canticum. In ore mel mirificum, In corde nectar ccelicum. /Eterna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. I. Tua, Jesu, dilectio, Grata mentis affectio, Replens sine fastidio, Dans famem desiderio. Ad Tertiam. 3. Desidero te millies, Mi Jesus, quando venies, Quando me laetum facies, Me de te quando saties 1 2. Qui te gustant, esuriunt. Qui bibunt, adhuc sitiunt, Desiderare nesciunt Nisi Jesum, quem diligunt. interna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. 238 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. Jesu, summa benignitas, Mira cordis jocunditas, Incomprehensa bonitas, Tua me stringit caritas. Bonum mihi diligere Jesum, nil ultra quserere, Mihi prorsus deficere, Ut illi queam vivere. Ad Sextam. 3. Jesu mi dilectissime, Spes suspirantis animae, Te quaerunt piae lacrimae Et clamor mentis intimae. 4. Sterna sapientia. Tibi Patnque gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. I. Quocunque loco fuero, Mecum Jesum desidero, Quam felix, cum invenero, Quam laetus, quum tenuero ! Ad Nonam. 3. Jam, quod quaesivi, video, Quod concupivi, teneo, Amore Christi langueo Et corde totus ardeo. Tunc amplexus, tunc oscula. Quae vincunt mellis pocula, Tunc felix Christi copula, Sed in his brevis morula. Sterna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. I. Jesus sole praeclarior Et balsamo suavior, Omni dulcore dulcior, Prae cunctis amabilior. Ad Vesperas. 3. Jesus, auctor clementiae, Totius spes laetitiae, Dulcoris fons et gratiae, Verse cordis deliciae. 2. Tu mentis delectatio, Amoris consummatio, Tu mea gloriatio, Jesu, mundi salvatio. interna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. Ad Completorium. Jesus in pace imperat, 3. Jesus at patrem rediit, Quae omnem sensum superat, Cceleste regnum subiit, Hanc mea mens desiderat Cor meum a me transiit, Et ilia frui properat. Post Jesum simul abiit. 2. Te cceli chorus praedicat Et tuas laudes replicat, Jesus orbem laetificat Et nos Deo pacificat. Sterna sapientia, Tibi Patrique gloria Cum Spirito paraclito Per infinita saecula. ST. BERNARD AS A HYMXIST. 239 English Translations of Jesu Dulcis Memoria. Rev. Edward Caswall, Roman Catholic (1814-1878). From " Lyra CaihoUca, containing all the Breviary and 3Iissal Hymns,^^ LQudoD, 1849 (pp. 56-59). Vespers. {Jcs2( dulcis memoria. Verse 1-4, Bened. ed.) 1 . Jesu ! the very tliouglit of Thee With sweetness fills my breast ; But sweeter fiir Thy face to see, And in Thy presence rest. 2. Nor voice can sing, nor heart can frame, Nor can the memory find, A sweeter sound than Thy blest name, Saviour of mankind ! 3. hope of every contrite heart, joy of all the meek. To those who fall, how kind Thou art ! How good to those who seek ! 4. But what to those who find ? ah ! this Nor tongue nor pen can show : The love of Jesus, what it is, None but His lov'd ones know. 5. Jesu ! our only joy be Thou, As Thou our prize wilt be ; Jesu ! be Thou our glory now. And through eternity. Matins. {Jesu, Rex admirahilis. Ver. 9 sqq.) 1. Jesu ! King most' wonderful ! Thou Conciueror renown' d ! Thou Sweetness most ineff"able ! In whom all joys are found ! 2. When once Thou visltest the heart, Then truth begins to shine ; Then earthly vanities depart ; Then kindles love divine. 240 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 3. Jesu ! Light of all below ! Thou Fount of life and fire ! Surpassing all the joys we know, All that we can desire : 4. May every heart confess thy name, And ever Thee adore ; And seeking Thee, itself inflame To seek Thee more and more. 5. Thee may our tongues forever bless ; Thee may we love alone ; And ever in our lives express The image of Thine own. Lauds. [Jesu, decus angelicinn. Yer. 21 sqq.) L Jesu ! Thou the beauty art Of angel worlds above ; Thy Name is music to the heart, Enchanting it with love. 2. Celestial sweetness unalloy'd, Who eat Thee hunger still ; Who drink of Thee still feel a void, Which nought but Thou can fill. 3. my sweet Jesu ! hear the sighs Which unto Thee I send ; To Thee mine inmost spirit cries, My being's hope and end. 4. Stay with us. Lord, and with Thy light Illume the soul's abyss ; Scatter the darkness of our night. And fill the world with bliss. 5. Jesu ! spotless Virgin flower ! Our life and joy ! to Thee Be praise, beatitude and power, Through all eternity. ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 241 Rev. James Waddell Alexander, d.d., Presbyterian (1804-1859). First published in the " Mercersburg Review " for April, 1859 (p. 304, with the Latin text and an introductory note by Philip Schaflf). JESUS, HOW SWEET THY MEMORY IS. {Jcsii chdcfs memoria. Yer, 1 sqq. ) 1. Jesus, how sweet Thy memory is ! Thiukhig of Thee is truest bliss ; Beyond all lioneyed sweets below Thy presence is it here to know. 2. Tongue cannot speak a loveher word, Nought more melodious can be heard, Nought sweeter can be thought upon, Than Jesus Christ, God's only Sou. 3. Jesus, Thou hope of those who turn. Gentle to those who pray and mourn, Ever to those who seek Thee, kind, — What must Thou be to those who find ! 4. Jesus, Thou dost true pleasures bring, Light of the heart, and living spring ; Higher than highest pleasures roll, Or warmest wishes of the soul. 5. Lord, in our bosoms ever dwell, And of our souls the night dispel ; Pour on our inmost niiud the ray, And fill om- earth with blissful day. 6. If Thou dost enter to the heart, Then shines the truth in every part ; All worldly vanities grow vile, And charity burns bright the while. 7. This love of Jesus is most sweet, This laud of Jesus is most meet; Thousand and thousand times more dear Than tongue of man can utter here. 8. Praise Jesus, all with one accord, Crave Jesus, all, your love and Lord, Seek Jesus, warmly, all below, And seeking into rapture glow ! 16 242 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 9. Thou art of heavenly grace the fount, Thou art the true Sun of God's mount Scatter the saddening cloud of night, And pour upon us glorious light ! Rev. Ray Palmer, d.d., Congregationalist (1808-1887). Written, 1858, at Albany, N. Y. A free reproduction of five stanzas. JESUS, THOU JOY OF LOVING HEARTS. ("Jesii, didcedo cordium.'^ Yer, 4 sqq. ) 1. Jesus, Thou Joy of loving hearts, Thou Fount of life, Thou Light of men. From the best bliss that earth imparts, We turn unfilled to Thee again. 2. Thy truth unchanged hath ever stood ; Thou savest those that on Thee call; To them that seek Thee, Thou art good, To them that find Thee, All in all. 3. We taste Thee, thou living Bread, And long to feast upon Thee still ; We drink of Thee, the Fountain Head, And thirst, our souls from Thee to fill. 4. Our restless spirits yearn for Thee, Where'er our changeful lot is cast ; Glad, when Thy gracious smile we see. Blest, when our faith can hold Thee fast. 5. Jesus, ever with us stay ; Make all our moments calm and bright ; Chase the dark night of sin away ; Shed o'er the world Thy holy light. De. Abraham Coles, 1889. Verses 1, 2, 3, 5. la. The memory of Jesus' Name Is past expression sweet : At each dear mention, hearts aflame With quicker pulses beat. ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 243 Ih. But sweet above all sweetest tilings Creation can aiford, That sweetness which His presence brings, The vision of the Lord. 2. Sweeter than His dear Name is nought ; None worthier of laud Was ever sung or heard or thought Than Jesus, Son of Grod. 3. Thou hope to those of contrite heart I To those who ask, how kind ! To those who seek, how good Thou art But w^hat to them who find ? 4. No heart is able to conceive ; Nor tongue nor pen express : Who tries it only can believe How choice that blessedness. A Germax Teaxslatiox by Count Zinzexdoef. Originally 31 stanzas. See Albert Kuapp's edition of Geisiliche Lieder des Grafcn von Zinzendorf, Stuttgart, 1845, pp. 94, 95, and Schaff's Deutsches Gesangbuch, Philadelphia, 1859, etc., Xo. 160. 1. Jesu ! Deiner zu gedenken, Kann dem Herzen Freude schenken ; Doch mit siissen Himmelstrlinken Labt uns Deine Gegenwart ! 2. Lieblicher hat nichts geklungen, Holder ist noch nichts gesungen, Sanfter nichts in' s Herz gedrungen, Als mein Jesus, Gottes Sohn. 3. Trbstlich, wenn man reuig stehet ; Herzlich, wenn man vor Dir flehet ; Lieblich, wenn man zu Dir gehet ; Unaussprechlich, wenn Du da ! 4. Du erquickst das Herz von inncn, Lebensquell und Licht der Sinnen ! Freude muss vor Dir zerrinnen ; Niemand sehnt sich g'nug nach Dir. 244 ST. BERNAED AS A HYMNIST. 5. Scliweigt, ilir ungeiibten Zungen ! Welches Lied hat Ihn besungcn ? Niemand weiss, als der's errungen, Was die Liebe Cliristi sei. 6. Jesu, wunderbarer Konig, Dem die Yolker untertlianig, Alles ist vor Dir zu wenig, Du allein bist liebenswerth. 7. Wenn Du uns trittst vor' s Gresichte, Wird es in dem Hcrzen licbte, Alles Eitle wird zunichte, Und die Liebe gliihet auf. 8. Acli, Du hast fiir uns gelitten, Wolltest all Dein Blut ausschiitten, Hast vom Tod uns losgestritten, Und zur Gottesschau gebracht ! 9. Konig, wlirdig aller Kranze, Quell der Klarheit ohne Grrenze, Komm der Seele nahcr, gliinze ! Komm, Du liingst Erwarteter ! 10. Dich erhbhn des Himmels Heere, Dich besingen unsre Chore : Du bist unsre Macht und Ehre, Du hast uns mit Gott versohnt ! 1 1 . Jesus hcrrscht in grossem Frieden ; Er bewahrt Sein Yolk hienieden, Dass es, von Ihm ungeschieden, Frohlich Ihn erwarten kann. ] 2. Himmelsbiirger, kommt gezogcn, OefFnct eurer Thore Bogcn, Sagt dem Sieger wohlgewogen : ' ' Holder Kijnig, sei gegriisst ! ' ' 13. Jesus, Den wir jetzt mit Loben Und mit Psalmen lioch crhoben, Jesus hat aus Gnaden droben Friedenshiittcn uns bestellt ! ST. BERNARD AS A HYMXIST. 245 ST. BERNARD'S PASSION HYMNS. ^ St. Bernard wrote seven passion hymns addressed to the wonnded members of Christ's body suspended on tlie Cross (the feet, the knees, the hands, the side, the breast, the heart, and the face), as follows : — Ad Pedes : " Salve., mundi salutare.'^ Ad Genua. '' Salve, Je.m, rex sanctorum.^' Ad Manus : " Salve, Jesii pastor hone.''^ Ad Latus : " Salve, Jesu, summe honu^.''^ Ad Pectus : " Salve, sal lis mea Dens.'''' Ad Cor : " Summi regis cor, aveto.''^ Ad Faciem : " Salve, caput cruentatum.'''' The last two hymns are the best and have been well trans- lated. Ad Cor Cheisti. Summi regis cor, aveto. I. Summi regis cor, aveto, 2. O mors ilia quam amara, Te saluto corde Iseto, Quam immitis, quam avara; Te complecti me delectat, Quae per cellam introivit, Et hoc meum cor affectat, In qua mundi vita vivit, Ut ad te loquar, animes. Te mordens, cordulcissimum. Quo amore vincebaris. Propter mortem quam tulisti Quo dolore torquebaris, Quando pro me defecisti, Cum te totum exhaurires, Cordis mei cor delectum, Ut te nobis impartires, In te meum fer affectum, Et nos a morte tolleres ! Hoc est quod opto plurimum. ^ Ehythmica Oratio ad unum quodlihet memhrum Christi paiieniis ct a eruce pendentis. Kcinigsfeld has abridged and combined tlie seven hymns into one, in his German translation. Lat. Hymnen und Gesdnge, Second selection, Bonn, 1865, pp. 191-200. 246 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. O cor dulce praedilectum, Munda cor meum illectum, Et in vanis induratum ; Pium fac et timoratum Repulso tetro frigore. Per medullam cordis mei, Peccatoris atque rei, Tuus amor transferatur, Quo cor totum rapiatur Languens amoris vulnere. Dilatare, aperire, Tanquam rosa fragrans mire, Cordi meo te conjunge, Unge illud et compunge ; Qui amat te, quid patitur ? Quidnam agat nescit vere, Nee se valet cohibere, Nullum modum dat amori, Multa morte vellet mori, Amore quisquis vincitur. 5. Viva cordis voce clamo, Dulce cor; te namque amo Ad cor meum inclinare, Ut se possit applicare, Devoto tibi pectore. Tuo vivat in amore Ne dormitet in torpore, Ad te oret, ad te ploret Te adoret, te honoret, Te fruens omni tempore. 5. Rosa cordis, aperire, Cujus odor fragrat mire, Te dignare dilatare, Fac cor meum anhelare Flamma desiderii. Da cor cordi sociari. Tecum, Jesu, vulnerari. Nam cor cordi similatur Si cor meum perforatur Sagittis improperii. 7. Infer tuum intra sinum Cor ut tibi sit vicinum, In dolore gaudioso Cum deformi specioso, Quod vix se ipsum capiat. Hie repauset, hie moretur, Ecce jam post te movetur, Te ardenter vult sitire. Jesu, noli contraire, Ut bene de te sentiat. "HEART OF CHRIST MY KING." {Summi regis cor, aveto.) Translated by the Rev. E. A. Washbuen, d.d., New York, late Rector of Calvary Church and member of the American Bible Revision Committee (d. 1881). First published in Schafif 's Christ in Song, 1868. 1. Heart of Christ my King ! I greet Thee : Gladly goes my heart to meet Thee ; To embrace Thee now it burnetii, And with eager thirst it yearneth, Spirit blest, to talk with Thee. Oh ! what love divine compelling ! With what grief Thy breast was swelling ! All Tliy soul for us o'erflowhig, All Thy life on us bestowing, Sinful men from death to free ! ST. BERXAED AS A HYMNIST. 247 Oh, that death ! in bitter anguish, Cruel, pitiless to languish ! To the inmost cell it entered. Where the life of man was centred, Gnawing Thy sweet heartstrings there. For that death which Thou hast tasted, For that form by soitow wasted, Heart to my heart ever nearest. Kindle in me love the dearest ; This, Lord, is all my prayer. sweet Heart ! my choicest blessing, Cleanse my heart, its sin confessing ; Hardened in its worldly folly, Make it soft again, and holy, Melting all its icy ground. To my heart's core come, and quicken Me a sinner, conscience-stricken ; By Thy grace my soul renewing. All its powers to Thee subduing, Languishing with love's sweet wound. Open flower, with blossom fairest, As a rose of fragrance rarest ; Knit to Thee mine inmost feeling ; Pierce, then pour the oil of healing ; What to love of Thee is pain ? Naught he fears, whom Thy love calleth, No self-sacrifice appalleth ; Love divine can have no measure. Every death to him is pleasure, AVhere such holy love doth reign. 5. Cries my heart with living voices ; In Thee, heart of Christ, rejoices ; Draw Thou nigh with gracious motion, Knit it, till in full devotion Thou its every power employ. Love be all my life ; no slumber E'er my drowsy thought incumber ; To Thee praying, Thee imi)loring, Thee aye praising, Thee adoring. Thee my sempiternal joy ! 248 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 6. Heart Rose, in thy fulness blossom, Slied Thy perfume o'er my bosom ; Be Thy beauty in me growing ; Light the fires for ever glowing On the altar of my heart. Aid me, Thy dear image wearing. E'en Thy wounds, my Jesu, sharing, Till Thy very form I borrow, When my bosom feels Thy sorrow, Piercing with its keenest dart. 7. To Thy holy heart, oh, take me ! Thy companion, Jesu, make me. In that sorrow joy exceeding, In that beauty scarred and bleeding, Till my heart be wholly Thine. Rest, my soul ! now naught shall sever j After Thee it follows ever ; Here its thirst finds glad fulfilling ; Jesu ! be Thou not unwilling, Take this loving heai't of mine ! I. Salve, caput cruentatum, Totum spinis coronatum, Conquassatum, vulneratum, Arundine sic verberatum, Facie sputis illita. Salve, cujus dulcis vultus, Immutatus et incultus, Immutavit suum florem, Totus versus in pallorem, Quem cceli tremit curia. Ad Faciem Christi. Salve, caput cruentatum. 3. In hac tua passione, Me agnosce, Pastor bone, Cujus sumpsi mel ex ore, Haustum lactis cum dulcore, Prae omnibus deliciis. Non me reum asperneris. Nee indignum dedigneris, Morte tibi jam vicina, Tuum caput hie inclina, In meis pausa brachiis. Omnis vigor atque viror Hine recessit, non admiror, Mors apparet in adspeetu Totus pendens in defeetu, Attritus aegra maeie. Sic affectus, sic despectus, Propter me sic interfectus, Peceatori tarn indigno Cum amoris in te signo Appare clara facie. Tuse sanctae passioni, Me gauderem interponi, In hac cruce tecum mori; Praesta crucis amatori Sub cruce tua moriar. Morti tuae tam amarae Grates ago, Jesu care ; Qui es Clemens, pie Deus, Fac quod petit tuus reus, Ut absque te non finiar. ST. BEKNARD AS A IIYMNIST. 249 5. Dum me mori est necesse, Noli mihi tunc deesse ; In tremenda mortis hora Veni, Jesu, absque mora, Quere me et libera. Cum me jubes emigrare, Jesu care, tunc appare : O amator amplectende, Temet ipsum tunc ostende In cruce salutifera. HAIL, THOU HEAD ! SO BRUISED AND WOUNDED. {Salve, caput cruentatum.) English Translation by ]\Irs. Elizabeth Rundle Chaeles, authoress of the Chronicles of the Schonbcrg-Cotta Family (1863). From Christian Life in Souff, p. 159 (Am. ed.) 1. Hail, Thou Head ! so bruised and wounded, With the crown of thorns surrounded ; Smitten with the mocking reed, ^Younds which may not cease to bleed. Trickling faint and slow. Hail ! from whose most blessed brow None can wipe the blood-drops now ; All the flower of life has fled, Mortal paleness there instead ; Thou, before whose presence dread Angels trembling bow. 2. All Thy vigor and Thy Hfe Fading in this bitter strife ; Death his stamp on Thee has set, Hollow and emaciate. Faint and drooping there. Thou this agony and scorn Hast for me, a sinner, borne, Me, unworthy, all for me ! With those signs of love on Thee, Glorious Face, appear ! 3. Yet, in this Thine agony, Faithful Shepherd, thiuk of me ; From whose lips of love divine Sweetest draughts of life are mine, Purest honey flows. 250 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. All unworthy of Thy thought, Guilty, yet reject me not ; Unto me Thy head incline, Let that dying head of Thine, In mine arms repose ! 4. Let me true communion know With Thee in Thy sacred woe, Counting all beside but dross. Dying with Thee on Thy cross : 'Neath it will I die ! Thanks to Thee with every breath, Jesus, for thy bitter death ; Grant Thy guilty one this prayer, When my dying hour is near, Gracious God, be nigh ! 5. When my dying hour must be. Be not absent then from me ; In that dreadful hour, I pray, Jesus, come without delay : See and set me free ! When Thou biddest me depart, Whom I cleave to with my heart, Lover of my soul, be near ; With Thy saving cross appear, Show Thyself to me. Dr. Abraham Coles, 1889. Dr. Coles, of Scotch Plains, New Jersey, the successful translator of Dies Jrse, and Stabat 3Iater, has reproduced, but has not yet published, all the passion hymns of St. Bernard, and kindjy placed this last at my disposal. 1. Hail, bleeding Head and wounded. With a crown of thorns surrounded, Buifeted, and bruised and battered, Smote with reed by striking shattered. Face with spittle vilely smeared ! Hail, whose visage sweet and comely. Marred by fouling stains and homely. Changed as to its blooming color, All now turned to deathly pallor. Making heavenly hosts affeared ! ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 251 Back tlic life-blood liatli retreated, Of all vital force depleted, In Thy looks death plainly painting — There Thou hangest pale and fainting, Wasted, haggard, worn and lean : Tims affected, disrespected, For me thus to death subjected, Be to me a sinner gracious, Of Thy love let token precious In Thy shining Face be seen ! Good Shepherd, favor show me, In Thj^ passion deign to know me ! From Thy mouth I've honey eaten, Milk have dnink, with power to sweeten INIore than aught the senses charms. Spurn not me, a culprit pleading. Me disdain not, mercy needing ! Now Thy life about resigning, Hitherward Thy Head inclining, Breathe Thy life out in my arms ! That Thy passion be not single I would like therein to mingle ; I would wish to share Thine anguish, On the cross with Thee to languish. Of Thy cross enamored be : For Thy bitter death, I render Thanks to Thee, O Jesu tender ! God of mercy, I beseech Thee, May the prayer I offer reach Thee, — Let me die not without Thee. While to die is necessary. Fail me not then, be not very Far from me in that dread season. Quickly come, for urgent reason Guard, defend, and set me free. When, dear Jesu, Thou dost call me, Then appear lest ill befall me : divine and gracious Lover, In Thy saving Cross discover Thyself able to save me ! 252 ST. BERNAED AS A HYMNIST. MODEEX EEPRODUCTIONS OF ANCIENT HYMNS. Some hymns, like the Hebrew Psalms, have had the good for- tune to be renewed in countries and languages of which the authors never dreamed. The oldest Christian poem, written by Clement of Alexandria (c. 200), in praise of the Divine Logos, remained for sixteen centuries unknown, except to students of church history, until it was popularized in our age by a felicitous transfusion of Dr. Dexter, an American clergyman.-^ Dr. John Mason Neale has brought to light the hidden treasures of Greek hymnody, and enriched English and American hymn books with some of the choicest lyrics of Anatolius, John of Damascus, Cosmas of Jerusalem, St. Theophanes, Andrew of Crete, Theo- dore of the Studium, Theoctistus of the Studlum, and Stephen of St. Sabas (author of " Art thou weary, art thou languid ^'')? He has also popularized by abridgment and free reproduction the heavenly Jerusalem hymn, Hora novisslma, of Bernard of Cluny (a contemporary of St. Bernard of Clairvaux).^ The last of the seven passion hymns of St. Bernard has passed through two transformations which are fully equal to the original and have made it familiar to a much larger number of readers in Europe and America. The first is the famous passion hymn of Paul Gerhardt, " TIaupt voll Blut und Wunden/^ which appeared first in 1656, and may be found in every good German hymn book. The second is Dr. Alexander's " Sacred Head ^ See both in Schaff 's Church History, ii. 230 sq. (revised fifth ed.) 2 See Neale's Hymns of the Eastern Church, London 1862, third ed. 1866, and an account of Greek Hymnody in Schaff 's Church History, vol. iv. 402- 415. 3 Neale's Mediseval Hymns and Sequences, London, 1851, third cd. 1867. Comp. Schaff 's Christ in Song, pp. 511-516, London ed, I have a copy of the original poem (perhaps the only one in this country), published by Matthias Flacius, and printed at Basel with a preface dated Magdeburg, May 1, 1556, under the title : Varia Doctorum piorumque Virorum de corrupto JEccIcsise statu Poc'mata, pp. 494. Bernard's poem I)e Coniemptu Miindi, ad Fetrum ahhatcm snum, pp. 247-349, begins : ^^ Hora novissima, tempora pessima S7mt, vigilemtis,^^ and contains nearly three thousand lines of dactylic hexa- meters with the leonine and tailed rhyme, each line being broken up in three equal parts. Neale has selected tlie incidental description of the heavenly Jerusalem, which is contrasted with the misery of this corrupt world. ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 253 noivivouncled/^ wliicli was first published in Schaff's ^'Deutsche Kirclienfreund,^^ for March, 1849, and has passed into several American liymn books, though in some of them with arbitrary abridgments and mis-improvements.^ I present them both in parallel columns : — Paul Geriiakdt. 1G5G. 1. Ilaupt voll Blut una Wundcn, Toll Scliincrz unJ roller Ilohn ! Ilaupt, zum Spott gcbunden Mit cincr Dorncnkron ! Ilaupt, sonst schon gezierct Mit hochster Elir und Zier, Jetzt abcr hochst schiuipfirct, Gegriissest seist Du mir ! James AV, Alexander. 1849. ! . sacred Head, now wounded, With grief and shame weighed down ; Now scornfully surrounded With thorns. Thy only crown ; sacred Head, what glory, What bliss, till now was Thine ! Yet, though despised and gory, I joy to call Thee mine. Du edles Angesichte, Davor sonst schrickt und scheut Das grosse Weltgewichte, Wie bist Du so bespeit, Wie biit Du so erbleichet, Wer hat Dcin Augenlicht, Dem sonst kein Licht nicht gleichet, So schandlich zuarericht't? noblest brow, and dearest. In other days the world All feared, when Thou appearedst ; What shame on Thee is hurl'd ! How art Thou \)ii\e with anguish, With sore abuse and scorn ; How does that visage languish Which once was bris-ht as morn ! Die Farbe Deincr Wangen, Der rothen Lippen Pracht 1st hin und ganz vergangen : Des blassen Todes Macht The blushes late residing Upon that holy cheek. The roses once abiding Upon those lips so meek ^ Dr. James W. Alexander sent me the hymn from New York, where he was then pastor, with the remark that some stanzas of his Tersiou had been previously "so mutilated and butchered by editors of papers that I cannot own as my offspring any but the text which I annex. ' ' He added : ' ' Though very Anglican in my origin, education and tenets, I have a deep interest in German Christianity, and, as one of its richest manifestations, in German hymns. You will guess as much when I add that I have around me not only Wackernagel's Paul Gerhardt, but his larger work, as well as the hymns of the Unitas Fratrum, the whole of Zinzendorf, and two collections of Latin hymnology. In my humble judgment, he who has produced one such hjann as tliat of the Electress (of Brandenburg) ' Jesus, meine Zuvcrsicht^^ or (Paul Gerhardt's) ' Wie soil ichDich cmpfangen,'' has not lived in vain ; even though he has done nothing else." {Der Deutsche Kirchcnfrcund, INIercersburg, Penna., vol. II. 1849, p. 90 sq.) Dr. Alexander is beyond a doubt one of the best translators of German hj^mns into idiomatic English, and for this, if for no other reason, "has not lived in vain." 254 ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. Hat alles hingenommen, Hat alles liingerafft, Und dahcr bist Du kommen Von Deines Leibes Kraft. Alas ! they have departed; Wan Death has riQed all ! For weak, and broken-hearted, I see Thy body fall. 4. Nun, was Du, Herr, erduldet, 1st alles meine Last, Ich hab es selbst verschuldet, "Was Du getragen ha^t. Schau her, hier steh' ich Armer, Der Zorn verdienct hat: Gib mir, mein Erbarmer, Den Anblick Deiner Gnad' ! 4. What Thou, my Lord, hast suffered Was all for sinners' gain; Mine, mine was the transgression, But Thine the deadly pain. Lo ! here I fall, my Saviour ! 'Tis I deserve Thy place; Look on me with Thy favor, Vouchsafe to me Thy grace. 5. Erkenne mich, mein Hiiter, Mein Hirte, nimm mich an Von Dir, Quell aller Giiter, 1st mir viel Guts getban, Dein Mund hat mich gelabet Mit Milch und slisser Kost, Dein Geist hat mich begabet Mit mancher Himmelslust. 5. Pteceive me, my Redeemer, My Shepherd, make me Thine; Of every good the fountain. Thou art the spring of mine. Thy lips with love distilling, And milk of truth sincere, AVith heaven's bliss are filling The soul that trembles here. 6. Ich will hier bei Dir stehen, Verachte mich doch nicht ! Von Dir will ich nicht gehen, Wann Dir Dein Ilerze bricht; Wann Dein Haupt wird erblassen Im letzten Todesstoss, Alsdann will ich Dich fassen, In meinen Arm und Schoss. 6. Beside Thee, Lord, I've taken My place — forbid me not ! Hence will I ne'er be shaken. Though Thou to death be brought. If pain's last paleness liold Thee In agony opprest. Then, then will I enfold Thee Within this arm and breast ! 7. Es dient zu meinen Freuden Und kommt mir herzlich wohl, Wenn ich in Deinem Leiden, Mein Ileil, mich finden soil. Ach ! mocht ich, o mein Leben, An Deinem Kreuze hier Mein Leben von mir geben, Wie Avohl geschilhe mir ! 7. The joy can ne'er be spoken. Above all joys beside, When in Thy body broken I thus with safety hide. My Lord of life, desiring Thy glory now to see. Beside the Cross expiring, I'd breathe my soul to Thee. Ich dnnkc Dir von Herzen, Jesu, liebstcr Freund, Fur Deines Todcs Schmerzen, Da Da's so gut gcmcint. Ach ! gib, dass ich mich halte Zu Dir und Deiner Trcu, Und wann ich nun erkalte, In Dir mein Ende sei. 8. What language shall I borrow To thank Thee, dearest Friend, For this. Thy dying sorrow, Thy ])ity without end ? make me Thine forever, And should I fainting be, Lord, let me never, never. Outlive my lovo to Theo. ST. BERNARD AS A HYMNIST. 255 9. Wann ich einmal soil scheiden, So scheido nicht von mir; AVann ich den Tod soil leidcn, So tritt Du dann hcrfiir. "Wann mir am allerbUnijstcn Wird um das Ilerze soin, So reiss mich aus don Aengsten Kraft Deiner Angst und Pein. 0. And ■when I am departing, part not Thou from me; When mortal pangs are darting, Come, Lord, and set me free ! And when my heart must languish Amidst the final throe, Release me from my anguish By Thine own pain and woe ! ^ 10. Erscheine mir zum Schilde, Zum Trost in meinem Tod, Und lass mich seh"n Dein Bilde In Deiner Kreuzesnoth. Da will ich nach Dirblicken, Da will ich glaubensvoll Dieh fest an mein Ilerz driicken; "Wer so stirbt, der stirbt wohl. 10. Be near when I am dying, show Thy Cross to me ! And for my succor flying. Come, Lord, to set me free. These eyes new faith receiving From Jesus shall not move; For he who dies believing, Dies safc'y through Thy love. ^ This stanza ^as substituted by the translator in Schafif's Kirchenfreund for 1849, p. 421, as au improvement on his earlier translation {Ibid., p. 92), which reads as follows : — 9. If I, a wretch, should leave Thee, O Jesus, leave not me ; In faith may I receive Thee, AYhen death shall set me free. When strength and comfort languish, And I must hence depart, Release me then from anguish. By Thine own wounded heart. THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE. Including an account of the Eighth Centenary of the University of Bologna, June, 1888. — An Address delivered before the University of the City of New York at the Celebration of Founders' Day, April 18th, 1889. I.— THE MEDIEVAL UNIVERSITY. Universities are institutions for the cultivation of every branch of knowledge, human and divine, to the highest attainable degree of perfection. They are the centres of the intellectual and literary life of nations, the workshops of learning and research, the nurseries of the men of power and influence in the various professions. They receive the best minds from all ranks of society, and mould them for public usefulness. These institutions originated in the Middle Ages. They were partly an expansion of monastic and cathedral schools, partly independent foundations. A vague tradition traces the University of Paris back to Charlemagne in the eighth, and the University of Oxford to King Alfred in the ninth, century. These noble rulers were indeed lights shining in the darkness, the legislators, educators, and benefactors of Europe in that chaotic period of transition from ancient to modern civilization. But universities, in any proper sense of the term, do not appear before the close of the eleventh or the beginning of the twelfth century. They are intimately connected with that remarkable revival of Western Christendom which reformed the papacy, roused the crusades, built the cathedrals, founded the monastic orders, and produced the scholastic and mystic theology. They owe their origin to the enthusiasm of scholars. Emperors, kings, popes, and cities granted them charters and various privileges, but some of them were in vigorous existence before they received governmental recognition and authority. They gradually grew from humble rudiments to their present state of completeness, and they are still expanding with the progress of knowledge. 256 THE UNIVERSITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 257 The original idea of a university differs from that which obtains at the present time. It v/as not a university of letters (universitas literarum), but a university of teachers and students [univei'sifas magistronim d scholarium). The usual designation in the thir- teenth century for such a literary community was ^'Study/^ or ^' General Study '^ (studiam generah or stadium XLiiiversale). The University of Ijologna was called '' Siudium Bononice" or "Bono- n'lensef^ ^ that of Paris, " Studium Paridensc; ^' tiiat of Oxford, ^' Studium OxonieiiscJ' The addition ^^ generah^^ had reference likewise to scholars, not to different branches of knowledge. It meant a centre of study for all. ^ Some ''Studies'^ were only for medicine, or law, or theology. But the tendency and aim of a mediaeval university was to provide for all branches of learning then attainable, and thus the name naturally passed from the personal sense of a body of teachers and learners to the literary sense of a body of studies.^ The designation of the University as " alnia^' or 'Udnia mater'' dates from the thirteenth century. The term ''faculty'' meant both the body of teachers of a particular branch of knowledo:e, and the science tauo:ht. A full university requires four faculties — theology, philosophy (arts), law, and medicine — corresponding to the four learned pro- fessions. But some of the best universities were incomplete for a long time. Nearly one-half of them excluded theology, because this was provided for in the monastic and episcopal schools. On the other hand, Paris, where theology and the canon law were taught from the beginning, had no provision for teaching civil law from 1219 to the seventeenth century. ^ The philosophical faculty embraced originally the seven liberal arts of the Trliium (grammar, logic, and rhetoric) and Qitadrlvium (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy); but in its modern ^ The Italians still call it Lo Studio BoJogncsc. 2 Comp. Denifle : Die UnivcrHiUiien dcs Miitvlaltcrs his 1400 (Berlin, 1885), Vol. I. 5 f<'iq. A "general" study nii^lit Ije founded for each separate faculty. Hence the phrase : " Vigcat studium gcncrale in thcolofjica facuUate.''^ ^ The German emperor, Frederick II., in 1224, expressed the desire that the University of Naples sliould have "doctors and masters in every faculty," and that "the studies of every profession should llourish." Denifle, I. 28. 4 Denifle, i. 703. 17 258 THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. expansion it includes all branches of metaphysical, linguistic, mathematical, historical, scientific, and other studies, which may claim the dignity of independent departments. Besides the literary division into faculties there was a national division, with provincial subdivisions. The students of Paris were divided into the four nations of France, Picardy (including the jN'etherlands), Normandy, and England (which in 1430 gave place to Germany). They had distinct suffrages in the affairs of the university. In Bologna, Padua, and Vercelli there were four ^' nniversitates/^ composed of different nationalities — Italians, English, Proven§als, and Germans. The provincial division is still kept up in the Swedish universities of Upsala and Lund. A university formed a republic of letters, a state Avithin the state, a church within the church. It had an independent gov- ernment and jurisdiction, large endowments and privileges, granted by popes, kings, cities, and individuals. An elective rector or chancellor stood at the head of the whole corporation, a dean at the head of each faculty, and each nation had its pro- curator; these officers constituted the governing and executive body. The academic senate embraced the ordinary professors of all the faculties and was the legislative body. Each faculty granted the license to teach, and conferred the academic degrees of bachelor, licentiate (master), and doctor. These degrees looked originally to public teaching, and marked as many steps in the promotion to this office. In law, there were doctors of civil law, and doctors of canon law. The doc- torate of divinity required nine years of preparation, but is now usually bestowed honoris causa for actual services rendered to sacred learning. The academic degrees conveyed important rights and privileges, and were carefully guarded and highly esteemed. This is still the case in all the leading universities of Europe. In our country the lavish bestowal of diplomas by several hundred colleges, the feeblest as well as the strongest, has made those dignities as numerous and as cheap as leaves in Yallom- brosa. There are more doctors of divinity in the State, if not in the city of New York alone, than in the whole German Empire, which is emphatically the land of learning. The only present THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 259 remedy for this abuse is the indication of the source from which the degree is derived. The stronger an institution, the greater should be the discrimination and care in the distribution of these honors. Italy, France, and England took the lead in the history of the univer!?itics. Germany was behind them till the period of the Relbrmation ; but the Hohenstaufen emperors — Frederick Bar- barossa, and Frederick II. — began the university legislation and granted the first charters to Italian universities, w^iich took the lead, especially in law and medicine. They were followed by Paris and Oxford. In modern times the German universities are the chief nurseries of progressive learning, and attract students from all parts of the w^orld. The attendance of students in the Middle Ages was larger than in modern times, because there were fewer universities and libraries. This scarcity made oral instruction all the more valu- able. If one desired to be taught by Abelard or Thomas Aquinas, he must go to Paris. We read that Bologna had at one time as many as 10,000, Paris 25,000, and Oxford 30,000 scholars. Abelard lectured before 3,000 hearers. In like man- ner the scarcity of preaching and good preachers increased the number of hearers. Berthold of Regensburg, a Franciscan monk and revival preacher in the middle of the thirteenth century, is reported to have preached at times to an audience of 60,000.1 These figures are probably exaggerated, but not impossible. The time for study was more extended. Men in mature age, even priests, canons, and professors, often turned students for a season. The line between teachers and learners was not closely drawn, and both were included in the name of scholar or stu- dent (scholaris or scholastlcus). The professors were called Doctor ^ Magister, Dominus. They ^ The largest number of students for 1887 was 5,357 in Berlin, 4,893 in Vienna, 3,231 in Leipzig, 3,17G in Munich. Tlie number of professors (ordi- nar}^, extraordinary, and Privatdoceuten) for the same year \vas29G in Berlin, 301 in Vienna, 180 in Leipzig, 165 in Munich, 131 in Breslau, 121 in Gottin- gen, 110 in Prague. The largest number of Italian students in 1887 was in the University of Naples and reached 4,083. 260 THE UXIVERSITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. had DO regular salary, and lived on lecture fees or private means or charitable funds. Some were supported from the royal purse or private endowments. Most of them were monks or ecclesiastics, and had no families to support. They had no common building, and taught wherever it was most conve- nient, in colleges, in convents, in public halls or private rooms. University buildings, libraries, antiquarian and artistic collec- tions were of slow growth, and the effects of successful teaching. With us colleges often begin with brick and mortar, and have to wait for teachers and students. Brain produces brick, but brick will not produce brain. A papal bull was usually required for a university.^ Every doctor and public teacher of theology was sworn to defend the Scriptures and the faith of the holy Roman Catholic Church. Luther took that oath. Paris, Louvain, and Cologne condemned him as a heretic. Yet from the universities proceeded, in spite of papal prohibi- tions and excommunications, the intellectual and ecclesiastical revolutions of modern times. The last mediaeval university — Wittenberg — became the first Protestant university. Heidel- berg, Leipzig, Tubingen, Oxford, and Cambridge, once among the chief nurseries of scholastic theology and Roman orthodoxy, have long since transferred their loyalty and zeal to a different creed. The oldest Scotch university — St. Andrews — founded for the defence of the Roman Catholic faith, became a bulwark of the Reformation, so that the phrase " to drink from St. Leonard's well" (one of the colleges of St. Andrews) was equivalent to imbibing the doctrines of Calvin. Almost every new school of theological thought, and every great ecclesi- astical movement were born or nursed in some university. Salerno is the oldest university so called ; it dates from the ninth century, but never acquired general influence, and was confined to the study of medicine. In 1231 it was constituted by the Emperor Frederick II. as the only school of medicine in the kingdom of Naples, but was subsequently overshadowed by ^ This media3val custom has long since ceased in Europe, l)ut has l)een renewed in our country hy Pope Leo XIII., in chartering tlie Catholic uni- versity in the citvof Washinizton, which was dedicated November 13, 1889. THE UNIVEKSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 261 the University of Naples, which had likewise a medical faculty. It has long since ceased to exist. The oldest surviving, and at the same time most important, universities of the Middle Ages are those of Bologna, Paris, and Oxford. The total number of mediaeval universities, founded before A.D. 1500, amounts to about sixty. They were Roman Cath- olic in religion. Most of them still survive, but have under- gone many changes. The universities which date from the last three centuries are chiefly Protestant, or purely scientific and lit- erary. Germany heads the list with twenty-two universities, which include all the four or five faculties; France has probably as many, but some are incomplete as to the number of faculties; Italy has twenty-one; Spain, ten; Austria-Hungary, seven; Switzerland, six; Holland, five; Belgium, four; England, three; Scotland, four; Ireland, two; Sweden, two; Norway, one; Denmark, one; Portugal, one; Greece, one. The nine Russian universities are all of modern date, and profess the Greek religion; but Dorpat has a Lutheran faculty of theology, which is taught in the German language. Colleges are not to be confounded with universities, as is often the case in our country. They were originally charitable insti- tutions for poor students, called ^^ bursars'' {hursier, hence the German Burschen), wdio lived together under the supervision of masters. Canon Robert de Sorbon, chaplain and confessor of Louis IX., endowed such a monastic, beneficiary college in Paris (1274), which was called after him the Sorbonne (Sorbona) — a name often incorrectly given to the theological faculty or even to the whole University of Paris. On the Continent, colleges or gymnasia are subordinate and preparatory to the university, and cannot confer degrees. In England, on the contrary, the colleges have absorbed the univer- sity, and constitute the university. In Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham the several colleges and halls have separate endow- ments, buildings, libraries, and corps of teachers, retain the dor- mitory system and instruction by masters and tutors or fellows, and enforce attendance upon the daily devotions in the chapel. The American college and university system is built on the Eng- 262 THE UXIYERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. lisli rather than the Continental model^ but boldly ventures on all sorts of new experiments, some of which will fail, while others will succeed. II.— THE UNIVERSITY OF BOLOGNA. ^ Bologna (Bonouia), a beautiful old city on the northern slope of the Apennines, which formerly belonged to the Papal States (from 1513 to 1860), but now to the United Kingdom of Italy, derives her fame chiefly from the university, which is the oldest in existence. Tradition traces its origin back to the reign of Theodosius II., in 425; but there is no evidence of Its existence before the close of the eleventh or the beo^innino- of the twelfth century, when Irnerius, a native of Bologna, discovered and expounded in that city the Civil Code of Justinian. He is called the Restorer and Expounder of Roman jurisprudence.^ He was in the service of the Emperor Henry V., as counsellor, between 1116 and 1118, and died before 1130.^ Shortly after him, Gratian, a Camalduenslan monk, taught the canon law in the Convent of St. Felix in Bologna, and published in 1150 the famous Decretum Gratiani, which was adopted as a text-book in all universities. The Decretum — or, as he called it, " the Concordance of Discordant Canons,'^ Is a systematic and harmonlstic collection of canons of ancient councils and papal decretals, based upon older collections, and explained by glosses. It forms the first part of the Corpus juris canonicl, or catholic church law, which was gradually enlarged by synodical decrees and papal bulls to its present dimensions. Thus we find In Bologna before the middle of the twelfth cen- ^ The best accounts of the University of Bologna during the ]Middle Ages, with special reference to the study of the Roman Luv, are given by Professor Fr. Carl von Savigny in the third volume of his great German work on the Hi story of the Roman Law, pp. 159-272 (2d ed., 1834-1851, 7 vols.), and by Giacomo Cassani (formerly Professor of Canon Law in Bologna), in DcJVanileo studio di Bolofjna e sua origine, Bologna, 1888. Much information may also be obtained from works on the canon law, and from the publications issued in commemoration of the eighth centenary of the university, which are men- tioned in the appendix to this address. 2 " Seicntix legalis iUuminator ^ Von Savigny treats very fully of Irnerius in his GcscJiichte dcs romischoi Ecchts, Vol. IV. y-G7 (2d ed., 1850). THE UNIVERSITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 263 tiiry two law schools. The teachers of the Roman, or civil, law were called Legalists; the teachers of the canou law, Cauouists or Decretists. The Emperor Frederick I., called Barbarossa, on a visit to Bologna, on Whitsunday, 1155, took these schools under his pro- tection and gave them the first university charter/ In 1158 he extended the privileges at the Diet of Roncaglia, at which four professors of law from Bologna were present, to other schools of Italy, and secured imperial protection to scholars on their journeys.^ From this time Bologna was the greatest law school, the nurse of jurisprudence {legum nutrlx), and could proudly adopt the device : '^ Bononia docetj' Students flocked to her from all countries and nationalities of Europe by hundreds and thousands. In the fourteenth century she had four faculties — two for law (civil and ecclesiastical), one for medicine, one for theology. The liberal arts were also taught. The double faculty of law continued to be the most important. Six years were required for a full course in canon law, eight years in civil law. The influence which the Roman law and the canon law have exerted on the civilization of Europe down to the present time is simply incalculable. It surpasses the influence of the arms of pagan Rome. The power of law is silent, but deep, constant, pervasive. It touches society at every point and accompanies human life from the cradle to the grave. Conquered by the barbarians, Rome in turn conquered their descendants, and by substituting the law for the sword she once more ruled the world for centuries, mindful of the prophetic line of Virgil : — " Tu, regere imperio popidos, Romaiie, memento.^' But the Roman and the canon law, like heathen Rome and the Roman papacy, became in course of time an intolerable yoke which independent nations would no longer bear, and gradually ^ See a historical poem ou Frederick I., discovered aud first published by Giesebrecht in 1879, aud the remarks of Deuifle, J. c, i. 49 sqq. 2 '' Omnibus qui causa siudioruni pcregrinantur, scolaribus ct maxime divina- rum atque sacrarum legum prof essorihus.''^ 264 THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. shook off. When Luther threw the papal bull of excommunica- tion into the flames, answering fire by fire, he also burnt the canon law with its cruel enactments against heretics. Abuses were abolished, what is good will remain. Bologna is still one of the best law schools, but since the last century she has chiefly cultivated physical, medical, and mathematical sciences. She has chairs for almost every depart- ment of knowledge, except theology. She has rich antiquarian and scientific collections, and one of the finest libraries, over which once the famous Cardinal jNIezzofanti presided, who could familiarly converse with every visitor in his own language and dialect. As to attendance, Bologna stands third among the twenty-one universities of the kingdom of Italy ; the number of her students from 1887-^88 was 1,338, that of Turin 2,102 and that of Naples 4,083.^ An original and romantic feature of the University of Bologna, is the admission of learned ladies to the corps of teacliers. Properzia de Eossi, of Bologna (d. 1530), was a skilful sculptor and musknan, and acquired fame by her cameos of peach-stones, and her masterpiece, '^ Joseph rejecting the Overtures of Poti- phar's Wife.^' Laura Bassi was doctor and professor of philo- sophy and mathematics in her native city (d. 1778). Madame Manzolina lectured on anatomy. Maria Gaetana Agnesi was a prodigy of linguistic and mathematical learning, and filled the chair of her father, who was professor in Bologna ; after his death she retired to a nunnery (d. 1799). Clotilda Tambroni, a Bolognese by birth, expounded the Greek classics from 1794 to 1817. Miss Giuseppina Cattani is at this time a popular lec- turer on pathology and a noted contributor to medical journals. ^ The University Calendar for 1887-'88 {Annuario della regia Universitd di Bologna) mentions tlie departments of the University in the following order : facoUd di letter e e fdosojia ; f. di scienze maicmcdicJie, fibieJte e ncdurali; f. di giuritlic two incidental private remarks "which are highly favorable to his character. He inquired, during the festival of August 1866, at the castle of Heidelberg, very kindly after his former tutor, 270 THE UXIVEKSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTUKE. His letter to Bologna University is singularly appropriate, and will be engraved on a marble table in the University : — ' ' With lively sj^mpathy I accompany the celebration of the University of Bologna and the inspiring reminiscences which its eighth centenary awakens for Germany. I gladly recall the ancient relations which bound Germany to your University. They began seven hundred years ago with the charter of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and were continued by a stream of innumerable sons of Germany, who crossed the Alps to be illuminated in the newly revived science of jurisprudence, and to bring home to their fatherland the creations of classical antiquity. In Bologna the seeds were sown from which the legal culture of Germany has derived nourishment to this day, and the institutions of your University served as a model for the academic freedom of the German Universities. Mindful of the debt which Germany owes to the renowned University of Bologna, I send to her, for the memorable festival, blessing and greet- ing : May she in united Italy ever remain true to her honorable title in science and culture, Bononia docem! (Signed) Friedrich Imp. Bex. Scldoss FriedrlcJisJcron, June 6th, 18S8:' The great festive Oration was intrusted to Giosue Carducci, ordinary Professor in the Faculty of Letters and Philoso})hy, the first living poet of Italy, and since 1861 the founder of a flourishing school of Italian literary history. It was a most elo- quent composition in the purest Italian, pervaded by the glow of patriotism, and delivered with an animation and earnestness that kept the audience spell-bound to the close. It was largely historical, and dwelt upon the influence which Bologna, by teach- ing the civil and the canon law, exercised in civilizing and Romanizing the barbarians of Europe, — an influence greater and more beneficent than the conquests of the Roman eagles. From Rome, the fountain of law, he said, Italy derived her best gifts. New Italy, as Giuseppe Mazzini saw, requires as its centre a my friend and fellow-stndent, Dr. Frederic Godet of Nenchatel, the well known divine and biblical commentator, and gave free expression to his gratel'ul attachment and regard for him. He carried on a familiar correspondence with him to the last, and Godet showed me several of his letters. A year before, iu August 1885, I saw the emperor, then crown prince, at Andermatt in Switzer- land, where he spent the summer with his family. He attended the worship of tlie Church of England in a little room opposite the hotel, and folloAved the service very devoutly. The sermon was rather dull and empty ; but he listened attentively and said to me afterwards : "Never mind the sermon; the 2Jm^er,s are always beautiful ; I like the Episcopal service." THE UNIVEESITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 271 third Rome, which is not aristocratic, not imperial, not papal, but democratic and Italian. This third Rome we owe to the sacrifices, the prisons, the battle-fields, the parliaments of the last and present generation. He wound up with a eulogy of Victor Emmanuel II., wdio lies buried in the Pantheon of Rome, and left to his son the task of guarding the Eternal City as an inalienable conquest. Tiie conclusion elicited an uproarious applause. The royal mL\jesties pressed the hand of the orator with grateful emotion. Tiien followed the interesting ceremony of presentations and congratulations. The academic deputations, divided into groups according to their nationalities in alphabetical order, approached one after another the royal tribune, — the Euro})eans in their academic ornaments, the Americans in their dress-coats and white cravats. They were presented by the Rector to the King and Queen, deposited their credentials and memorial gifts, and received in return a royal smile of thanks. Each nation was allowed one speaker, and each speaker three minutes. The Americans selected the Hon. James Russell Lowell, who could have so well represented American literature and statesmanship in elegant Italian ; but, as he was sick on that day, Professor W. W. Story, the famous sculptor, and for many years a resident of Rome, was requested to express the compliments of young America to venerable Bologna, which he did in a few well- chosen Italian sentences. As the son and biographer of Judge Joseph Story, of the Siipreme Court of the United States, who was also professor of law in Harvard College, he represented at the same time American jurisprudence. All the speeches were in Italian, except one in French, and one in Greek. Professor Gaudino concluded the ceremony by an Address of Thanks in Ciceronian Latin. At six o'clock the Government of the Province of Bologna gave a banquet, and at nine o'clock the delegates were invited to listen to \yagner's music (''Tristan and Isolde") in the theatre. Bologna is at present the seat of Italian enthusiasm for Wagner. On the 13th of June the literary honors were distributed to a number of the most celebrated jurists and scientists of the 272 THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. age, in the same locality and before the same audience. Those present received the diplomas in person from the hands of the Rector. The festivities were concluded by a learned and able Address of Giuseppe Ceneri, Professor of the Roman Law, which once was the great title of the glory of Bologna. He looked forward to a universal reign of liberty, justice and peace {liherta, g'mstiziay pace). The address was delivered with consummate oratorical art, and elicited as much applause as the oration of Canlucci on the previous day. Thus ended the Ottavo Centenario dello Studio Bolognese sotto Valto patronato di S. M. Umberto /., R^ d' Italia. One dark cloud was cast over the assembly as it was about to disperse. Telegrams were received announcing that the Emperor of Germany, after unspeakable sufferings borne without a mur- mur, was dying. The King of Italy, his personal friend and political ally, was moved to tears, and departed without delay in a special train. The German professors hurried home to learn on the way that their beloved Emperor, from whom so much was expected ibr the liberal progress of the Fatherland, had ended his short, sad reign of three months, leaving a nation to mourn his loss, and a world to drop a tear on his grave. The news- papers were dressed in mourning. The expressions of sorrow were sincere and universal ; even the leading papers of France, forgetting Weissenburg and Sedan, spoke generously of the per- sonal qualities and liberal views of the departed monarch. In Italy, Frederick III. had spent, as crown-prince, the early months of his fatal sickness, and received a visit from the King. To Bologna he had sent his last public greeting and blessing. Much as the Germans and Italians differ in their national traits, their political fortunes have been closely interwoven, for good and for evil, from the time when Pope Leo III. crowned Charlemagne in St. Peter's in Rome, to the time when Clement VII. conferred the same crown upon Charles \. in the Church of San Petronio in Bologna. But, while the mediDeval history of Germany and Italy was a history of conflict between the Papacy and the Empire, each despotic and each aspiring after THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 273 supremacy, their modern history is a successful struggle for national unity and liberty. They were closely allied for this purpose. At the head of both nations in this momentous crisis stood the greatest statesmen, the greatest soldiers, and the great- est monarchs of the age. Germany had her Bismarck, her Moltke, and her William I. ; Italy had her Cavour, her Gari- baldi, and her Victor Emmanuel. Such two trios history has never seen before, and may never see again. When the German army returned to Berlin to celebrate the unification of twenty- eight sovereignties under the crown of Prussia, the Italian army entered Rome, henceforth the national capital of Italy — no longer separated into petty, despotic, rival states, but Italy regenerated, united, and free. The literary and patriotic festival we have described, celebrated this great fact and sealed it with all the authority of Bononia docens. This is its historic significance. IV.— THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY. The academic feast of Bologna has carried us back to the dawn of modern civilization in the beginning of the twelfth century. Let us now cast a glance into the future. America has the unspeakable advantage of starting with the capital of Europe. The labors of two thousand years have accumulated immense treasures of knowledge and wisdom which are at our disposal. We have no right to live unless we are willing to profit by the lessons of the past, and to add our share to the wealth of the future. America should advance as much beyond Europe as Europe has improved upon Asia. Every nation of the Old World sends her sons and daughters as well as her literature to help us in this magnificent task. "Time's noblest offspring is the last." The chief instruments in shaping and perfecting American civilization are the public schools, colleges, and universities. Con- sidering the youth of our nation, the progress of education has been marvelous. In two hundred years the United States have advanced as much in this direction as Europe in two thousand years, altliough, of course, with the benefit of European experi- 18 274 THE UXIYEKSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. ence. The past is a sure pledge of a still brighter future. We are only in the beginning of the development of our resources. We are charged with national vanity and boastfulness, not with- out reason. But it is impossible to live a year in this country with one's eyes open, without becoming an optimist. Literary and charitable institutions, churches, and schools are multiply- ing in every direction, and follow the settler across the prairies and primitive forests, where buffaloes and wild Indians were in undisputed possession not many years ago. The donations for these institutions exceed in amount all previous precedents in the history of Europe, and are increasing and multiplying by the irresistible power of example. One citizen of California, prompted by religious and literary motives, has recently conse- crated twenty millions for a university in that Pacific State, which has not yet celebrated its semi-centennial. Where is the Government under the sun that has done so much for such an object as this single individual? Of course, money will not build up an institution; but the race of scholars keeps pace with the growth of the country. The University of the City of INew York is to-day only fifty- «ight years of age, and has already a corps of eighty teachers and lecturers in the faculty of arts and science (dating from 1832), the faculty of medicine (dating from 1841), and the faculty of law (dating from 1858). It was founded neither by pope nor king, but, in truly democratic American style, by the people and for the people. Among those who originated the idea of a university in this metropolis, who endowed it with their means, and who carried it on to its present degree of prosperity, we find the honored names of clergymen, lawyers, physicians, bankers, merchants, and useful citizens of every rank in society. Its facilities and opportunities are expanding with the growth of this city, whose future no one can ])rediet. The first cen- tenary of the University of the City of New York will outshine the eighth centenary of the University of Bologna, as the twentieth century will be in advance of the nineteenth. Your University has already furnished invaluable contributions to the civilization of the world by two inventions made in this your -building by two of your professors — the invention of the Record- THE UNIVERSITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 275 ing Telegrapli, and the invention of the application of Pho- tography to the representation of tlie human countenance. Your Professor Morse and your Professor Draper liave immortalized themselves and immortalized your University as much as Irne- rius and Galvani have immortalized Bologna. Nor should Dr. Draper the son, at first student, then professor here, be un men- tioned to-day, for his unexampled application of photography to the heavenly bodies. If your University is so far incomplete as to exclude a theo- logical department, it has its precedent in Bologna, which had no theological faculty for the first two hundred years of its existence, and has none now. But exclusion with you means no hostility or indifference; on the contrary, it is based on respect for reli- gious freedom, and reflects the relation which the State holds to the Church in our country, that is, a relation of friendly inde- pendence. The separation of Church and State means a free Church in a free State, each sovereign in its own sphere, both mutually recognizing and aiding each other, the State protecting the Church by its laws, the Church promoting the welfare of the State by training good Christians, who are the best citizens. Separation of Church and State is quite compatible with the religious character of the nation. Christianity, general, un- sectarian Christianity, with freedom of conscience for all ; Christianity, as taught by its Founder in the New Testament, is embodied in our laws, institutions and customs, and can never be eradicated. It prospers all the more because it is free. No government in Europe, no matter how closely united to the Church, does so much for the promotion of Christianity at home and abroad as the people of these United States do by their voluntary efforts and gifts. We shall witness in a few days one of the grandest spectacles a nation can present : the first centenary of the Inauguration of our Government, when — in imitation of the example set by the Father of our Country and the Founders of our National Gov- ernment, and at the invitation of President Harrison — the people of all denominations will assemble in their respective houses of divine worship, "to implore ^^ (in the language of the Presidential proclamation) " the favor of God that the blessings 276 THE UNIVERSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. of liberty, prosperity and peace may abide with us as a people, and that His hand may lead us into the paths of righteousness and good deeds/' ^ The founders of this University, from the very start, in a printed appeal to the community, dated January 27th, 1830, have clearly defined its relation to religion, in these words : — ' ' In our general statement it is declared that no faculty of theology shall be created in the University. We deemed this exclusion to be necessary in order the more effectually to secure the institution from the introduction of sectarian influence. But are we therefore to be accounted as proclaiming ourselves indifferent to our religion, and as expecting to build up an insti- tution which proscribes what should be the primary and all-important object of education ? We trust that the names of the gentlemen already engaged in this enterprise would alone be sufficient to secure us from such an injurious imputation. Were we so weak and so wicked as to project a seminary of learning from which religion was to be banished, or by which its holy influences were to be weakened, we should anticipate neither the favor nor the support of men, nor — what is of infinitely greater conse- quence — the blessing of God upon our endeavors. In all systems of instmction and seminaries for training youth, we consider religion- to be of paramount importance. "And while we esteem the rights of conscience and the great principle oi religious liberty to be of inestimable value, and would most sacredly pre- serve them from present or remote danger, we still believe that it will be perfectly competent to the supreme government of the university, and that it will be their duty to provide for the religious instruction of those youths who may be entrusted to their care." To meet this view, the statement proposes that the University be authorized to provide for general instruction in the evidences of Christianity, and to designate religious teachers of different Christian denominations when represented by a sufficient num- ber of students ; but not to compel attendance upon this special instruction without the will of the parent or guardian. The University has lived up to this programme. Its chancel- lors, from the first to the last, have consistently and successfully maintained a friendly attitude to evangelical Christianity with- out in the least interfering with religious liberty. They were, with one exception, themselves honored ministers of the gospel ^ The centennial celebration of Washington's Inauguration has since taken place, from April 29tli to May 1st, 1889, and has itself l)econie a liistoric event of great signilicance for the second century of the United States of America. THE UNIVERSITY : PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. 277 and doctors of divinity, and yet none the less zealous and effec- tive as promoters of all the scientific and literary branches of education. And the one layman who served as chancellor from 1838-1850, Theodore Freylinghuysen, was not only a dis- tinguished statesman, but an influential leader in many religious and charitable movements of his day. The future of our country depends largely upon a voluntary friendly alliance of education with the Christian Church with equal justice to all its branches. The ultimate aim of education is to build up character. This cannot be done without morality and religion, which are inseparably bound together. Morality and religion are the crowning features of individual character, and the pillars of society and government. No liberty without education, no education without virtue, no virtue without piety, no piety without love to God and man. This was the conviction of Washington, exemplified in his pure private and public life, and proclaimed in his first inaugu- ral, and in his last farewell address to the people who revere him as their father. It is an unspeakable blessing that the Almighty Ruler of nations placed at the head of our history a man who feared God and loved righteousness, who appreciated education in connection with virtue and religion, and who, as a gentleman, a citizen, and a patriot, set a bright example for imitation ; a man whose greatness was his goodness — the best, because the most solid, the most beneficent, and the most enduring kind of greatness. Let his counsel of wisdom, confirmed by the experi- ence of a century, go forth with double force as the motto of the second century of our nation. 278 THE UXIYEKSITY: PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. APPENDIX. CEXTEXXIAL PUBLICATIOXS OF THE UXIVEESITY OF BOLOGXA. The following interesting works in commemoration of the Ottavo Centenario dello Studio Bolognese were sent by the University of Bologna to Dr. SchafF, and deposited by him in the library of the University of the City of New York : — Statuti delta Universitd e dei CoUegl dello Studio Bolognese. PulMicati da Caelo MalagolA: dottore coltcgiato onorario delta facoltd giurhlica delta E. Universitd e dircttore detV archivio di stato di Bologna. Bologna, Nicola Zani- chelli, MDCCCLXXXVIII. (524 pp. fol.) Annuario delta Eegia Universitd di Bologna. Anno scotastico, 1887-'88. Bologna, i)remiato stab. tip. successori Monti, 1887. (pp. 349. ) Sfabilimenti Scieniijici delta R. Universitd di Bologna in rapjyorio col Piano Begolatore delta cittd secondo il progetto del Eettore G. Capellixi. Bologna, stab. tip. succ. Monti, 1888. Orazione di LuiGI Galvani, prof, di Anatomia netta Universitd di Bologna letta nel 25 Xovenibre, 1782, per la laurea del nipote GiovAXXl Aldix'I edita per sotennizzare il 1° centenario delta seoperta fatta dal Galvani nel 2G Settemhre^ 1786. Bologna, premiato stab, tip. succ. Monti, 1888. Bologna cd tempo di LXJIGI Galyaxi net suo govcrno civile ed ecclesiastico, nelle sue istituzioni di scienze, di arti e di jnibbtica heneficenza con miscellanea di notizie hiografiche, artistiche, ancddotiche e di costumanze p)atrie particotari. Com- pilazione sopra autentici documenti raccolti ed ordinati dal DoTT. Alessaxdeo Bacchi. Bologna, tipografia gamberini e parmeggiani, 1887. Conosci Te Stcsso e L^Amhiente delta iua Attivitd. Diatoglii 2)er t'istruzione popolare di Ax'GPZLO Maeescotti, senatore del regno. Bologna, Nicola Zani- chelli, 1888. Guida del E. Istituto Geologico di Bologna. Bologna, tix)ografia Fava e Garagnani, 1888. Universitati Litterarum et Artium Bononiensi ferias saecutares octavas pridie idus lunias anno P. A\ C. BIDCCCLXXXVIII celehranti [Cantahrigise, typis academicis). A Greek Poem of Salutation, by Professor R. O. Jebb, of the University of Glasgow, beginning: " Mdrfp apxala codia^, udev Evpcjrza rra/.a/." An Italian Translation, by G. Pelliccioxi, of Jebb's Poem of Salutation, entitled: yilto Studio Di Bologna festeggiante V ottavo suo centenario il XII. Giugno 3IDCCCLXXXVIIL Faccioli, Archiginnasio di Bologna. Bologna, 1888. A Bronze Medal of Humbeetus I. Rex Itali.e, Uxiveesitatis Littee- aeum et Aetium Boxoxiexsis Pateonus. DANTE ALIGHIEKI. DANTE, SHAKESPEAKE, GOETHE. Dante, Shakespeare, and Goethe are the greatest poets of the Christian era; as the author of the Book of Job, Homer, and Yirgil are the greatest of the era before Christ. They rise like pyramids in the history of literature. Their works have a uni- versal and perennial interest. Their theme is man as man. They sympathize with all that is human. They reproduce with the intuition of genius, in classical style, our common nature in all its phases from the lowest to the highest, from the worst to the best. Hence they interest all classes of men. But while they agree in this general characteristic, they differ as widely as the nations and ages to which they belong, and as the languages in which they w^rote. They are intensely human, and yet intensely national. Dante (1265-1321) could only have arisen in Italy, and in the thirteenth century; Shakespeare (156-1-1616) only in England, and in the sixteenth; Goethe (1749-1832) only in Germany, and in the eighteenth century. Dante is the poet of the Middle Ages; Shakespeare is the poet of the transition period of the Renaissance and Reformation ; Goethe is the poet of modern cosmopolitan culture. It is impossible to say who is the greatest and the most uni- versal of the three. Shakespeare is an unexplained literary miracle as to creative fertility of genius which ^' gives to airy nothing a local habitation and a name," and as to intuitive knowledge of human nature — English, old Roman, Italian, French, Scandinavian, Christian, Jewish, heathen, noble and wicked, angelic and Satanic. Goethe presents greater variety of poetic and literary composition, and excels equally in drama, epos, and song, in narrative prose and literary criticism. Dante is the most exalted and sublime of the three, as he follows men into the eternal world of bliss and woe. Viewed in their relation to religion, Dante is the most reli- 279 280 DANTE ALIGHIERI. gious of the three. He is the Homer of mediae val Christianity, aod reflects the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. The divine inspiration and authority of the Scriptures, the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ and the Holy Spirit, the necessity of the atonement, conversion and sanctification, future rewards and punishments, were to him as certain truths as mathematical propositions, and heaven and hell as real facts as happiness and misery In this life. In this respect he resembles the singer of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, and the singer of the Messlad much more than Shakespeare and Goethe; but the Eng- lish Milton and the German Klopstock, with a purer and simpler faith, do not reach the height of the genius of the Tuscan poet. Dante and Milton have several points in common : both are intensely religious, one as a Catholic, the other as a Puritan ; both stood at the height of learning and culture, the one of the thirteenth, the other of the seventeenth century; both were champions of freedom against despotism ; both engaged in party politics, and failed ; both ended their life in unhappy isolation ; but both rose in sublime heroism above personal misfortune, and produced in sorrow and disappointment their greatest works, full of inspiring thoughts for future generations. Shakespeare is a secular poet, and professes no religion at all, whether Catholic or Protestant; he is hid behind his characters. But he always speaks respectfully of religion ; he makes virtue lovely and vice hateful ; he punishes sin and crime, and his trage- dies have the moral effect of powerful sermons. He is full of reminiscences of, and allusions to, the Bible.^ He passed through the great convulsion of the Reformation without losing his faith. There can be no doubt that he reverently bowed before Him whose " Blessed feet were nailed Fur our advantage on the bitter cross. ' ' ^ ' Bishop Charles Wordsworth, of St. Andrews, has written a book of 420 pages on Shakespeare'' s Knowledge and Uae of ihe Bible (London, tliird ed., 1880), in which he traces over 400 passages of the Bible quoted or referred to by Shakespeare. As he wrote most of his works before IGll, when the Authorized Version apjjeared, he used earlier translations. Wordsworth asserts (p. 9) that King James' translators owed more to Shakespeare than he to them. nienry IV., P. i.. Act I., Sc. 1. DANTE ALIGHIERI. 281 And we look in vain in all literature, outside of the New Testa- ment, for a more eloquent and truly Christian description of mercy than that given by '^gentle William " : ^ " The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droi)petli as the gentle rain from heaven Upon tlic place heneath. It is twice bless' d ; It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes : 'Tis mightiest in the mightiest ; it becomes The throned monarch better than his crown : His sceptre shows the force of temporal power, The attribute to awe and majesty, "Wherein doth sit the fear and dread of kings ; But mercy is above this sceptred sway : It is enthroned in the hearts of kings, It is an attribute to God himself. And earthly power doth then show likest God's, When mercy seasons justice. " Goethe is likewise a worldly poet, and touches religion only incidentally and casually as one of the essential elements of human life ; as for instance in the confessions of a beautiful soul (Friiulein von Klettenberg, a pious Moravian lady and friend of his mother), inserted among the mixed theatrical company of Wilhelm Meister. He characterized himself as a liberal and impartial outsider,^ and as a child of the world between two prophets.^ He had a Pelagian or Unitarian view of the way of salvation, and expressed it in the Second Part of Faustj which has been called the tragedy of the modern age of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Faust is saved, not in the evangelical w^ay by free grace through repentance and faith in Christ, but by his own constant endeavor and self-culture, aided by divine love, and by Mary and Gretchen drawing him heaven- ward. Angels bear Faust's immortal part and sing — ^Merchant of Venice, Act iv., Sc. 1. 2 ^^ Ich bin kchi Unchrisi, kcin Widerchrist, dock ein dccidirter NichtchrisV Letter to the pious Lavater, the frieud of his youth, 1782. ' " Prophcte redds, Prophet e links, Das Weltkind in der Mitten.'''' 282 DANTE ALIGHIERI. " Gercttet ist das edle Glied Der Geisterwelt vom Boseii : Wer hnmer strebend sich hemilht, Den hbniien icir erlosen. " Und hat an ihm die Liche gar Von oben teilgenommen, Begegnet ikon die seFge Schaar Mit herzl ichem WiUkonimen/^ ^ We need not wonder that Goethe had the highest admiration for Shakespeare, but disliked Dante, and called his Inferno "abominable;" his P?/.r^aio?^io '^ambiguous '^ and his Paradiso "tiresome'^ (^^ay? 1787). In showing a bust of Dante to Eckermann, he said : " He looks as if he came out of hell." The contrast between the two men is almost as great as the con- trast between Gretchen and Beatrice. And yet the First Part of the tragedy of Faust furnishes a striking parallel to the Inferno of the Divine Comedy, and contains some of the pro- foundest Christian ideas, expressed in the purest language. Think of the prelude in heaven, imitated from the Book of Job, the sublime songs of the three archangels, the triumphant Easter hymn, which prevents Faust from committing suicide, the solemn cathedral scene, the judgment trumpet of the Dies Irce, the terrors of a guilty conscience, and the downward progress of sin begetting new sin and leading stej) by step to insanity, prison and death. The description of Mephistopheles is far more true to the character of the sneering, scoffing, hideous arch-fiend of the human race than Dante's horrid monster at the bottom of the Inferno. The concluding act before the day of execution, the salvation of the innocently guilty and penitent Gretchen, 1 The emphasis lies on the third and fourth lines, the earnest and constant endeavor of man, as the chief condition of salvation, to which is added divine love as a help from above. Goethe himself declared to Eckermann (June 6, 1831) that in these verses lies the key for the redemption of Faust. " //< Fnust selher cine immcr liohcre und reinere Thdtiglrif his an's Endc, nnd von obcn die ihm zu Il'dlfe lomincnde ewige Liche. Es stcht dies mit luisererreligiusen Vorstellunf^ durchuus in Jlarmonie^ nach wclcher irir nicJit hloss durch eigene Kraft sclig werdcn, sondcrn durch die hinzukommende gutlJiche Gnade.''^ This reverses the evangelical order, which puts Divine grace first and human endeavor second, and puts both in the relation of cause and eft'ect. DANTE ALIGHIERI. 283 and the perdition of her guilty seducer, followed by the cry of pity : " Henry, Henry ! '^ is the very perfection of tragical art, and overpowering in its moral effect. The Second Part, wdiich occupied the trembling hand of the aged poet during the last seven years of his life, is full of unexplained allegorical mysteries, and ends with the attraction of ^^ the eternal womanly.'^ So far, but no further, it resembles the Paradise of Dante and the attrac- tion of Beatrice. The Purgatory is missing in Faust, or hid in silence between the First and Second Part. Of the life of Dante and Shakespeare we know very little, and that little is uncertain and disputed. Goethe left a charming record of his early life, and his later years are equally well known. Dante and Shakespeare died in the vigor of manhood, the former at the age of fifty-six, the latter at the age of fifty- three, both in the Christian faith and the hope of immortality. Goethe lived to a serene old age of eighty-two, praying for "more light/' and left, ten days before his departure from this world of mystery to the ^vorld of light, as his last wise utterance, a testimony to the Christ of the Gospel which is w^ell worth pondering by every thinking skeptic, saying: "Let mental culture go on advancing, let mental sciences go on gaining in depth and breadth, and the human mind expand as it may, it will never surpass the elevation and moral culture of Christi- anity as it glistens and shines forth in the Gospels." Add to this his emphatic declaration : " I consider the Gospels to be thoroughly genuine ; for there is reflected in them a majesty and sublimity which emanated from the person of Christ, and which is as truly divine as anything ever seen on earth.'' The great poet of AYeimar pointed in these testimonies to the strongest and most convincing internal evidence of Christianity : the perfect teaching and perfect example of its Founder. If this once takes hold of the heart as well as the mind of a man, he is impregnable against the attacks of infidelity. This was the con- fession of one of the profoundest thinkers of the nineteenth century. "The foundation of all my thinking," says Richard Rothe,^ "I may honestly declare, is the simple faith in Christ, ^ Preface to the first edition of his Thcologische EthiJc, repriuted iu the second edition (Wittenberg, 1367, sqq.), vol. i., p. xvi. 284 DANTE ALIGHIERI. as it (not this or that dogma or this or that theology) has for eighteen centuries overcome the world. It is to me the ultimate certainty, in view of which I am ready, unhesitatingly and joy- fully, to cast overboard every other assumption of knowledge which sliould be found to contradict it. I know no other fixed point into wliich I could cast out the anchor for my thought except the historical manifestation, which is designated by the sacred name, Jesus Christ. It is to me the unassailable Holy of Holies of mankind, the most exalted thing that has ever come into a human consciousness, and a sunrise in history, from which alone light diffuses itself over the collective circle of the objects which fall within our view. With this one absolutely undis- coverable datum, the knowledge of which moreover bears direct testimony to its reality, as the light to itself, and in which lie involved consequences beyond the reach of anticipation, stands and falls for me, in the ultimate ground, every certainty of the spiritual and therefore eternal nobility of the human race.^^ Will America ever produce a poet equal in genius to Dante, Shakespeare, Goethe, but free from their errors; a poet who shall identify his life and work with the cause of Christianity pure and undefiled, and show forth the blissful harmony of beauty, truth, and goodness? Or must we wait for the millennium, or for Paradise ? THE LIFE OF DANTE. "Behold the man who has been in Hell," ^ exclaimed the women of Verona when they looked on Dante, as an exile, walking lonely, thoughtful, sad and solemn through the streets. They might have added, "and in Purgatory and in Paradise.'^ But the Paradiso was at that time not yet finished, and the women were naturally struck with the most prominent feature; they expressed the popular preference for the Inferno^ which is most read and best known. Few have the patience to climb up the mountain of the Fargatorioy and to follow him into the Paradiso J though this is the purest and sublimest part of the Div'ina Commedia. Eternity in all its phases seems impressed upon that countenance, painted by his friend Giotto, which once ^ ^^ Eccovi Vuom cWii stato alV inferno.''^ DANTE ALIGHIERI. 285 seen can never be forgotten. We behold there combined the solemn sadness, the discipline of sorrow, and the repose of faith. Dante's life is a tragedy. It opens with the sweet spring of pure love, passes into the summer heat of severe study and political strife, and ends in an autumn of poverty and exile; but the out- come of all was the Dlvina Commedtay by which he continues to live. " Xiirtiircd into povcrt\^ by wrong He learut in sufiering what he taught in song. ' ' His inner life is written in his works; but of his outward life we know only a few facts with any degree of certainty; others are doubtful or differently interpreted ; hence we must be guarded in our assertions. Dante — an abridgment of Durante, the Enduring — was descended from the ancient and noble family of the Aligeri or Alighieri (Allighieri), and born at Florence in the month of May or June^ 1265, during the pontificate of Clement IV. (1265-1268), in the age of the Crusades, the cathedrals, the scholastic philosophy, the monastic orders, the papal theocracy in conflict with the empire, and of the gigantic contrast between monkish world-renunciation ( Weltentsagung) and popish world- dominion ( Weltbeherrschung). He was a boy of thirteen when Conradin, the last scion of the illustrious imperial house of Hohenstaufen, was beheaded at Naples (1268); he was fifteen at the death of St. Louis, of France, the last of the Crusaders (1270) ; nineteen, when St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Bonaventura, his masters in theology, ascended to the beatific vision in Paradise (1274). He was yet a youth when Giotto was born (1276), when Albertus Magnus died (1280), when the Sicilian Vespers took place (1282). In the year 1289, Francesca da Rimini was murdered, whom he immortalized in the fifth Canto of the Inferno. The death and glorification of Beatrice occurred in 1290, when he had reached his twenty-fifth year. Some important events fell in the period of his exile : the first papal jubilee at Rome (1300), the conflict of Boniface VIII. with Philip the Fair ; the beginning of the Babylonian exile of the papacy (1309-1370); the suppression of the Templars 286 DANTE ALIGHIERI. (1312); the birth of Petrarca (1304), and of Boccaccio (1313); and from these two poets may be dated the Italian Renaissance, and that Rjvival of Letters which, in turn, prepared the way for modern civilization. Dante's father was a lawyer. His mother, Donna Bella, is once mentioned by Virgil in the words addressed to Dante : — ' ' Blessed is she that bore thee. ' ' ^ DANTE AND BEATEICE. In his ninth year Dante saw for the first time, on a festive May-day, under a laurel tree, a Florentine maiden of angelic beauty and loveliness, with fair hair, bright blue eyes and pearl- white complexion, only a few months younger than himself. She was the daughter of Falco Portinari, a noble Florentine, and bore the Christian name of Bice or Beatrice, which recalls the idea of beatitude or blessedness. He touchingly describes the interview in his New Life {Vita Nuova). ^^ She appeared to me,'' he says, ^' clothed in a most noble color, a modest and becoming crimson, garlanded and adorned in such wise as befitted her very youthful age. At that instant the spirit of life which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble, and said : ^ Behold a god, stronger than I, who, coming, shall rule me' [Ecce deus fortior me, qui venieris dominahitur mihi)J' "This most gentle lady reached such favor among the people, that when she passed along the way persons ran to see her, which gave me wonderful delight. And when she was near any one, such modesty took possession of his heart, that he did not dare to raise his eyes or to return her salutation ; and to this, should any one doubt it, many, as having experienced it, could bear witness for me. She, crowned and clothed with humility, took her way, displaying no pride in that which she saw and heard. Many, when she had passed, said: ^This is not a woman, rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.' Others said : ^ She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord who can perform such a marvel.' I say that she showed herself so gentle and so full of ^ Inferno, VIII., 45 : " Benedctia colei die in te s^incinse.''^ DANTE ALIGHIERL 287 all beauties, that those who looked on her felt within themselves a pure and sweet delight, such as they could not tell in words." ^ At the end of that book he calls this Florentine maiden ^' the blessed Beatrice who in glory looks upon the face of Him qui est per omnia secula bencdidusJ^ The meeting of Dante with Beatrice was to him a revelation and an inspiration, the beginning of a new life, the turning point of his career, the germ of his great poem. It opened to him the foun- tain of love and poetry. Beatrice was not destined to be the companion of his life, but they continued to be united by the bands of Platonic love. Xine years after the first interview, when they were eighteen, he saw her again, clothed in pure white, and received her smiling salutation, which filled him with such an ecstacy of delight, that on returning home he fell into a sweet slumber and had a marvelous vision. He described this vision in a sonnet, his first poetic com- position, and sent it, according to the custom of the age, to several eminent persons, among others to Guido Cavalcanti, who became his faithful friend till his death (1300). From this time dates his fame as a poet. He continued to dream and to love, and to gaze at Beatrice from a distance and to write poems in her praise, yet without naming her, lest he should offend her modesty or compromise her honor. In a canzone he describes a dream in which he beheld the lifeless form of Beatrice in sorrowful procession carried to the grave, while angels in a white cloud took up her spirit to God. Soon after this dream Beatrice died, in her twenty-fifth year, June 9th, 1290. But Beatrice rose again in his imagination under a higher character, as the symbol of divine wisdom, and accompanied him as guide and interpreter in the Divina Commcdia through the regions of the Blessed in Paradise up to the dazzling vision of the Triune God. Earthly love was thus transformed into heavenly love and wisdom. Beatrice is the golden thread which runs through the Divina Commedia. She is, so to say, the heroine of the poem. She appeared as a "fair, saintly lady," with eyes shining brighter ^ Hie Neio Life, translated by C. E. Norton, pp. 51, 52. 288 DANTE ALIGHIERI. than the stars, to the poet Virgil of imperial Rome, and com- manded him, with the angelic voice of love, to extricate Dante from the dangers of the dark forest and to lead him through Hell and Purgatory to the gates of Paradise. She meets him on the top of the mountain of Purgatory, '^ smiling and happy/' She rebukes him for his sins, and then leads him to Paradise, He sees her — "Gazing at the sun ; Never did eagle fasten so upon it. ' ' ' ' And she such lightnings flashed into mine eyes, That at the first my sight endured it not. ' ' ' ' Beatrice gazed upon me with her eyes Full of the sparks of love, and so divine, That, overcome my power, I turned my back And almost lost myself with eyes cast down."' ' ' And Beatrice, she who is seen to pass From good to better, and so suddenly That not by time her action is expressed, How lucent in herself must she have been !" "While the eternal pleasure, which direct Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face Contented me with its reflected aspect, Conquering me with the radiance of a smile. She said to me, ' Turn thee about and listen ; Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise. ' ' ' "And so translucent I beheld her eyes. So full of pleasure, that her countenance Surpassed its other and its latest wont. " — "0 Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear !" *' And around Beatrice three several times It whirled itself with so divine a song, My fantasy repeats it not to me." — "So from before mine eyes did Beatrice Cliase every mote with radiance of her own, That cast its li.Ldit a thousand miles and more." — DANTE ALIGHIEKI. 289 "She smiled so joyously That Grod seemed in her countenance to rejoice." — ^ As Dante approached the Empyrean or the highest heaven, he again turns to Beatrice with intense admiration and love. "If what has hitherto been said of her Were all concluded in a single praise, Scant would it be to serve the present turn. Not only does the beauty I beheld Transcend ourselves, but truly I believe Its Maker only may enjoy it all. Vanquished do I confess me by this passage More than by problem of his theme was ever O'ercome the comic or the tragic poet. For as the sun the sight that trembles most, Even so the memory of that sweet smile My mind depriveth of its very self From the first day that I beheld her face In this life, to the moment of this look. The sequence of my song has ne' er been severed ; But now perforce this sequence must desist From following her beauty with my verse, As every artist at his uttermost. Such as I leave her to a greater fame Than any of my trumpet, which is bringing Its arduous matter to a final close, With voice and gesture of a perfect leader She recommenced : 'We from the greatest body Have issued to the heaven that is pure light ; ^ See references to Beatrice in Inferno, ir. 53 sqq., 70, 103 ; x. 131 ; xii. 88 ; XV. 90. Fargatorio, i. 53 ; VI. 47 ; XV. 77 ; xvill, 48, 73 ; XXlii. 128 ; xxvii. 36, 53, 136 ; xxx. 73 ; xxxi. 80, 107, 114, 133 ; xxxii. 36, 85, 106. Paracliso, I. 46 ; in. 127 ; IV. 139-142 ; x. 37-40 ; xviii. 16-21 ; 55-58 : XXIII. 34 ; XXIV. 22-25 ; XXVI. 76-79 ; xxvil. 104, 105 ; XXIX. 8 ; xxx. 14, 128 ; XXXI. 59, 66, 76 ; xxxii. 9 ; xxxiii. 38. The passages quoted are from Longfellow's translation. 19 290 DANTE ALIGHIERI. Light intellectual replete with love, Love of true good replete with ecstasy, Ecstasy that transcendeth every sweetness. Here shalt thou see the one host and the other Of Paradise, and one in the same aspects Which at the final judgment thou shalt see. ' " ^ So far all is pure and lovely. Dante and Beatrice are an ideal and inspiring pair of beauty, and exert a perennial charm upon the imagination. They represent a love that is kindled by an earthly and by a heavenly flame, and blends in harmony the natural and spiritual. As Uhland sings : — " Ja / mlt Fag wird dieser Sanger AIs der g'dttliche vereJtref, Dante, ivelcheni irdsche LlcLe SlcIi zu himndischer verJdaret.^^ The relation of Dante to Beatrice is altogether unique. It is the last and highest stage of chivalric sentiment, but transformed into a mystic devotion to an ideal. Beatrice was a woman of flesh and blood, and at the same time the impersonation of Divine wisdom ; the lovely daughter of Folco Portinari and the symbol of theology, that queen of sciences which comes from God and leads to God. She was both real and ideal, terrestrial and celes- tial, human and divine. She was to him all that is pure, lovely and attractive in innocent womanhood, and all that is sacred and sublime in Divine wisdom. She was while on earth the guardian angel of his youth, and after her death the guardian angel of his lonely exile. She was to him the golden ladder from earth to heaven, the bridge from Paradise Lost to Paradise 1 Parad. XXX. 16-45, Longfellow's translation. If Beatrice represents true theology, or the knowledge of God, then God only can fully know and fully enjoy it, ver. 21. The artist fails in his highest aim, which is the perfect revelation of his ideal, ver, 32. The heaven of pure light, ver. 39, is the tenth and last heaven, above all space. Dante says {Convito, ii. 15) : " The Empyrean Heaven, by its peace, resembles the Divine Science, which is full of all peace ; and which suffers no strife of opinions or sophistical arguments, because of the exceeding certitude of its subject, which is God." In ver. 45 we must distinguish the host of angels who have the same aspect after the last judgment as ])efore, and the host of saints who will wear " the twofold garment," the spiritual body and the glorified earthly body (Canto XXV. 92). BAXTE ALIGIIIERI. 291 Kegalned. She symbolizes that ^^ love which moves the sun and the stars/' that " eternal womanly/' which in its deepest Christian sense is the ever watchful love of God irresistibly drawing us on- ward and upward. " ^Mortal that perishes Tyi^es the ideal ; All that faith cherishes Tims becomes real ; Wrought superhumanly Here it is done ; The cvei'-woinauly Draweth us on. ' ' ^ The double character of Beatrice agrees with the double sense, the literal and spiritual, which Dante gives to his poem. He accepted the exegetical canon of mediaeval theology which dis- tinguished in the Bible four senses — the literal, the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogic (corresponding to history, and to the three cardinal virtues, faith, love and hope). There are some distinguished Dante scholars who deny the historic character of Beatrice and regard her as a pure symbol, as a creature of the poet's imagination.^ But this is inconsis- tent with a natural interpretation of the Vita Nitova, and of the sonnets to Beatrice which are addressed to a living being. Dante might In his ninth year have fallen in love with a pretty girl, but not with an abstract symbol of which he knew nothing. ^ The mj^stic conclusion of the Second Part of Goethe's Faust : — ^^ AUes VergangUche 1st nur ein GlcicJiniss ; Das Unzulllngliche Ilier \cinVs Ercigniss ; Das Unheschreihliclic Ilicr isfs gethan ; Das Eicig- WeihUche Zieht uns hinan.^^ 2 Canon Biscioni (1723) understood Beatrice to mean simply wisdom or theology ; Rossetti, the imperial monarchy ; Prof. Bartoli, woman in her ideal character. According to other Italian commentators, she is Ja teologia ; la grazia cooper ante ; la grazia salvificantc ; la seicnzia divina. Katharine Hil- lard, in the introduction to her translation of Tlie Banquet (London, 1889, pp. XXXIX, sqq.), favors the purely allegorical conception of Beatrice and the Donna gentile. She discredits "the untrustworthy romancer, Boccaccio." Oietmann {Beatrice, 1889) makes Beatrice the symbol of the ideal church. 292 DANTE ALIGHIERI. This was an after-thought of later years, when she was in heaven. Her death and his deep grief over it have no meaning if she was a mere allegory.-^ There is one spot on this bright picture. Judging from the standpoint of Christian ethics, we should think that such an ideal relationship must end either in legitimate marriage, or in per- petual virginity. But neither was the case. Beatrice did not return the love of Dante, except by a smile from a distance. She married — if we are to credit Boccaccio — a rich banker of Florence, Simone de' Bardi, and became the mother of several children. Dante, after two years of grief for Beatrice, married Gemma Donati, who bore him four or seven children. He never mentions the husband of Beatrice, nor his own wife, and remained true to the love of his youth. These facts mar both the poetry and the reality of that rela- tionship. But the chivalry of the Middle Ages and the custom of Italy allowed a division of affection which is inconsistent with modern ideas. The troubadours ignored their own wives^ and idolized other women, married or single. THE DONNA PIETOSA. Dante mourned the death of Beatrice, " the first delight of his. soul,^' till he had no more tears to give ease to his sorrow. "The eyes that weep for pity of my heart Have wept so long that their grief languisheth, And they have no more tears to weep withal. ' ' He gave utterance to his grief in sonnets to "That lady of all gentle memories." He thus celebrated the first anniversary of her departure (June 9th, 1291). About that time he saw the "gentle and compassionate lady," ^ Giov. da Serravalle, who wrote a Latin translation and commentary (aa quoted hy Dean Plumptre, I, p. Lil, from the MS. in the British Museum), sums up tlie case with the words: ^^ Banie dilexit hanc pucllnm Bcatriccm hiHtorice ctlitcrnllter, scd aUegorice, sacram Thcolor/iam.^^ But theology is too narrow a conception ; Beatrice in her ideal nature combines Divine revela- tion, Divine wisdom, and Divine love. DANTE ALIGHIERI. 293 whom lie does not name, but who captivated his eyes and his heart. She has given great trouble to his biographers and com- mentators, who are divided between a literal and an allegorical conception, or combine the two. " I lifted up mine eyes '' — so he tells the story towards the end of the Vita Niiova — " and perceived a gentle (noble) lady, young and very beautiful, who was gazing upon me from a window with a gaze full of pity, so that the very sum of pity appeared gathered around her.-^ And seeing, that unhappy persons, when they beget compassion in others, are then most moved into weeping, as though they also felt pity for themselves, it came to pass that mine eyes began to be inclined unto tears. Wherefore, becoming fearful lest I should make manifest mine abject condition, I rose up, and went where I could not be seen by that lady ; saying afterward 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.'' Then follows this sonnet, after which he continues : " It hap- pened after this, that whensoever I was seen by this lady, she became pale and of a piteous countenance, as though it had been with love ; whereby she reminded me many times of my own most noble lady, wJio was wont to be of a like paleness. And I know that often, when I could not v/eep nor in any way give ease to mine anguish, I went to look upon this lady, who seemed to bring the tears into mine eyes by the mere sight of her. ... At length, by the constant sight of this lady, mine eyes began to be gladdened overmuch with her company; through which thing many times I had much unrest and rebuked myself as a base person ; also many times I cursed the unsteadfastness of mine eyes. . . . The sight of this lady brought me into so unwonted a condition 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 ^ "FiVZi una gentil donna, giovane e heUa molio, la quale da una fenestra mi riguardava molio pi ctosamentc quanV alia vista; sicchd tutta la pietade parcva in lei accolta.''^ Dante uses gentile iu the old English sense of noble, and gcnti- lezza and nohiltd as synonymous. 294 DANTE ALIGHIERI. set her in my path, that so my life might find peace/ And there were times when I thouglit yet more fondly, until ray heart consented unto this reasoning." He then describes in a sonnet the battle between reason and appetite, and a vision of '^ the most gracious Beatrice," which led him painfully to repent of his evil desire. From this time on his thoughts turned again to Beatrice with his whole humbled and ashamed heart. He concludes the Vita Nuova with a won- derful vision, which determined him " to say nothing further of this most blessed lady until such time when he could discourse more worthily of her who now gazes continually on the counte- nance of God, blessed for ever. Laus Deo.'' In the Banquet, which was written several years later, he refers to the same gentle lady, and remarks that she appeared to him a year after the death of Beatrice, who '' lives in heaven with the angels, and on earth with his soul," and that she was accompanied by Amor and took possession of his mind.^ This is a clear hint at the sensual character of his new love. In the same Banquet he tells us that after the death of Beatrice he read for his comfort the famous book of Boethius on the Consolation of JPhilosophy, and Cicero's treatise on Friendship, and speaks of the philosophy of these authors as "a gentle lady." And he describes her as '' the daughter of God, the queen of all, the most noble and most beautiful philosophy."'^ Connecting these passages, it is very evident that the gentle and piteous lady has a double character, like Beatrice, but is in some respects her counterpart. Dante himself says at the close of the first sonnet addressed to the compassionate lady : — ' 'Lo ! with this lady dwells the counterpart Of the same Love who holds me weeping now. ' ' The fair lady of the window was an actual being, a Florentine ^Convito, Trattato Secondo, cap, 2 (ed, Fraticelli, p. Ill) : ^^ quell n gent il donna., di cui feci menzione nella fine dclla ' Vita Naova.,^ apparve pyimamente accompagnata d'Amore agll ocehi miei, e prese alcnno luogo nella mia mentc.''^ This refereuce sets aside the supposition of two distinct ladies. ^ II. 13 : "^ immnginava lei fatta come una donna gentile : c nan la pofea immaginare in atto aleiino, se non mi.^erieordioso . . . Qiiesta donna fu J'iglia d' Iddio, regina di tatto, nohilissiina e bellissima filosofia.''^ DANTE ALIGHIERI. 295 beauty of flesh and blood, and at the same time a symbol of philosophy as represented by Cicero and Boethius. She symbol- izes sensual love and worldly wisdom ; while Beatrice symbolizes ideal lov^e and heavenly wisdom. We have again here a combi- nation of the literal or historical with the spiritual or allegorical sense which runs through Dante's whole poem and the events of his life. We reject therefore the notion that the Donna Pietosa was merely an abstract symbol of philosophy^ or skepticism^, or some- thing higher.^ Nor can we identify her with Gemma Donati / for how could he reproach himself for loving his legitimate wife and the mother of his children ? She must have been a different lady who captivated him between the death of Beatrice and his marriage. She was probably that " little girl ^^ [pargoletia), or other transient vanity {altra vanitd eon si breve uso), for which he was reproved by Beatrice.^ It is useless to deny that Dante went astray for a period from the path of purity and the love of Beatrice. Boccaccio, his first biographer and commentator, who lived in Florence, reports that ^ George B. Carpenter, the most recent investigator of this sulyect, comes to the conclusion that she is simply "a symbol of Dante's love for and study of philosophy, which began in September, 1291, and came to a sudden close in 1298." See his Episode of the Donna Pietosa, in the " Eighth Annual Report of the Dante Society," Cambridge, Mass., 1889, p. 75. But Dante's study of philosophy did not come to a close in 1298 ; it runs through the whole Dicina Commedia. 2 So Scartazzini, who, however, distinguishes two "gentle ladies." 2 Some Italian theological commentators have identified her with 7a grnzia prcveniente, la pietosa orazione, la clemenza diuina, and even with Maria Virgine ! '^ So Rossetti in Dante and his Circle, p. 101, note. ^ Purg. XXXI., 58-60 :— " Thou oughtest not to have stooped thy pinions downward To wait for further blows, or little girl. Or other vanity of such brief use." "There is," says Longfellow (ii., 365), "a good deal of gossiping among commentators about this little girl or jxirgoletta.''^ He takes it as a collective term (with Ottimo), and includes in it the lady of Bologna, of whom Dante sings in one of his sonnets : ' ' And I may say Tliat in an evil hour I saw Bologna, And that fair lady whom I looked upon." 296 DANTE ALIGHIERI. he was much giv^en to sensuality.-^ This testimony is confirmed by Dante's own son, Jacopo^, and by a sonnet of his friend Ouido Cavalcanti, who reproaches him with falling from his '^ many virtues '' into an ^^ abject life/'^ But the strongest proof we have in the Dlvina Commedia, which is autobiographic and implies his own need of purification and Divine pardon. He puts into the mouth of Beatrice, when she meets him on the mountain of Purgatory , the following severe reproof: — " Some time did I sustain him witli my look ; Revealing unto liim my youthful eyes, I led him with me turned in the right way. As soon as ever of my second age I was upon the threshold and changed life, Himself from me he took and gave to others. When from the flesh to spirit I ascended. And heauty and virtue were in me increased, I was to him less dear and less delightful ; And into ways untrue he turned his steps, Pursuing the false images of good, That never any promises fulfil ; Nor prayer for inspiration me availed, By means of which in dreams and otherwise I called him back, so little did he heed them. So low he fell, that all appliances For his salvation were already short, Save showing him the people of perdition. For this I visited the gates of death, And unto him, who so far up hath led him. My intercessions were with Aveeping borne. God's lofty fiat would be violated, If Lethe should be passed, and if such viands Should tasted be, withouten any scot Of penitence, that gushes forth in tears. "^ ^ ^^moUo dedito alia liissiaia.'" 2 In an unpublished commentary on the Inferno in the National Library of Paris, as quoted by Ozanam, in Les Focics Frauciscains, p. 35G sq., tliird edi- tion, Jacopo says that Avhen Dante began tlie Commedia he was " jjrcca/ore c vizioso, e era quasi in una sehxi di vizi e dHpioranza,^^ and a man avIio lived carnally (carnalmcnte vive), but that after his ascent to the mountain of true knowledge and true love he left " questa vallc e vita di miseria.^^ •' The sonnet is translated in Kossctti's Farly Falian Foels, p. o38, and in Longfellow's 7>n//r, ii., ;>()4. ■* Fur(j.^ XXX., 121-145. Longfellow's translation. Compare Canto xxxi., 37-G.'>, where Leatrice continues her censure of Dante. DANTE ALIGHIEEI. 297 " Pricked bv the thorn of penitence," and " stung at the heart by self-conviction/'^ Dante makes his confession, falls to the ground, and is drawn neck-deep by Matilda through the river Lethe to be cleansed. On the other shore he is presented first to the four nymphs, who symbolize the four natural virtues; these in turn lead him to the Gryphon, a symbol of the Divine- human Saviour, where Beatrice is standing; and three virgins, who represent the evangelical virtues of faith, hope and love, intercede for him with Beatrice that she would display to him her second beauty.^ Most of the Dante scholars refer these reproaches and confes- sions to practical transgressions.^ Dante's aberrations were probably confined to the transition period from Beatrice's death and the early part of his political life to his exile, and are not inconsistent with- the testimonies in favor of his many virtues.^ The self-accusations and repentance of Dante, like the confes- sions of St. Augustin, impart a personal interest to his Corn- media, bring him nearer to our sympathy and lessen his guilt.'^ ^ Purg. , XXXI., 35, 38 sqq. ^ Ihicl, XXXI. , 130 sqq. 3 Gary, Longfellow, Lowell, Plumptre, Ozanam, D'Ancona, Carducci, Eossetti, Philalethes, Witte, Wegele, Bollinger, Scheffer-Boichorst, and others. AVitte takes a comprehensive view and combines philosophical, political and erotic aberrations. ^^ Es ware ein Inihiim,^^ he says {D. A. Gditl. Kom., p. 20), ''iccnn mandie Entfremdung von dcm Andenken an Beatrice, dcrcn Dante sich selber anklagt, ausscldicsslich in pltilosopliiseh-theordisclien Untersuchungen finden icollte. Gewiss habcn wir dabei zugleich an cin wcJtlichcs Treihen von mancJierlei Art [Eegefeuer, XXiil., 115), an IcidcnscJiaftliche Bcthciligung hei den Parteikdmpfen und mehr dergJeichen zu denken ; auch ist kein Grund vor- handcn, neuanfkeimende Ncigungen zu anderen Frauen {Eegefeuer, xxxi., 58) auszuschliessen.^^ Compare the notes of Longfellow on Purged. XXX. ^ Melchiore Stefano Coppi says that Dante led a moral life {moredmcnte visse), and Sebastiano Eugubiuus, that he excelled by gifts of nature and every virtue {inter Jiumana ingenia ncdurx dotihus corruscantem et omnium morum liahitihus rutilantem). 5 He alludes to St. Augustin in the Convito i, 2 : "The other case [in which speaking of oneself is allowable] is when the greatest good may come to others by the teaching conveyed ; and this reason moved Augustin in his Confessions to speak of himself; since in the course of liis life, which was from bad to good, and from good to better, and from better to Ijest, he set forth an example and instruction, to which Ave could have no such true testi- mony." St. Augustin is mentioned in Par. x., 120, and XXXil., 35. 298 DANTE ALIGHIERL " noble conscience and without a stain, How sharp a sting is trivial flmlt to thee." ^ DANTE'S EDUCATION. Dante received a good education, and was a profound student. He passed tlirough the usual course of the Trivium and Ouad- rivium. He studied grammar, rhetoric, music, clironology, astronomy (or astrology rather), medicine, and the old Roman classics, especially Virgil and Cicero. He learned a few Greek and Hebrew words, but depended for his knowledge of the Bible, with nearly all the Christian scholars of the Middle xAges, on the Vulgate of Jerome. He mastered the philosophy of Aristotle (in Latin translations), and the theology of Thomas i^quinas. He had an encyclopsedic knowledge of the learning of his age, and worked it up into an independent organic view of the universe. The best proof he gives in his Convito. But his knowledge of history was very limited and inaccurate. He believed with his whole age in the false donation of Constantine, and made no distinction between facts, legends and myths. He attended the schools of his native city, which was the centre of intellectual life in Italy, and probably also the Uni- versities of Bologna, Padua, and Paris, although the date is un- certain. His visit to Oxford is more than doubtful. His principal teacher in Florence was Brunetto Latini (d. 1294), to whom he addressed a sonnet, accompanied by a copy of the Vita Nuova? He is described by Villani (in his Cronica) as a worthy citizen, a great philosopher and perfect master of rhetoric both in speaking and writing, also as the first master in refining the Florentines, and teaching them to speak correctly and to govern the Republic on political principles. He wrote several books, among them a poem in a jingling metre, the Tesoretto, which describes a vision, with the customary allegorical person- ages of the Virtues and Vices. He is sup[)osed by some to have sup:p:ested to Dante the first idea of the Commedla. •tote^ Furgat., ill., 8, 9 (Witte's text) :— " diynitosa coscicnza e ncHa, Come V t picciol fallo amaro morso ! " Translated l)y Kossetti, in Dcnite and his Circle, p. 110, beginning '' Master Brunetto, this my little maid." DANTE ALIGHIERl. 299 But — strange to say — Dante placed him in Hell for a sin against nature, and forever branded him with the mark of infamy.-^ We may admire tlie stern impartiality of justice, but it would have been far better if he had covered the name of his teacher and friend with the charity of silence. Dante passed through a period of skepticism, which tempted independent thinkers even in those ages of faith. He substi- tuted, as he informs us in the Convito^ philosophy for faith, classical literature for the Bible and the Fathers, Athens for Jerusalem. The study of natural science and of medicine eman- cipates from superstition, but often tends towards materialism and pantheism; hence the proverb which originated in the period of the Renaissance, if not earlier : " Where are three physicians, there are two atheists."^ But Dante, like all truly profound intellects, returned to faith, and verified Bacon's maxim, that philosophy superficially tasted leads away from God, thoroughly studied, leads back to God.^ He subordinated philosophy to theology, regarding it as the handmaid of religion, and retained a profound regard for Aris- totle and Yirgil. HIS MARRIAGE. In 1292, two years after the death of Beatrice, in the 27th year of his life, according to others in 1294, he married Gemma Donati, who bore him at least four children (some reports say six, others seven). Two sons, Pietro and Jacopo, and two daughters, Imperia and Beatrice, survived him. Beatrice became a Franciscan nun at Ravenna, and received some aid from the city of Florence through Boccacio. Dante never mentions his wife, nor did he see her after his exile. This silence has given rise to the suspicion, supported by Boccaccio, that she was a Xanthippe, or at all events that he was unfortunate in his domestic relations, like Socrates, Milton, Goethe, Byron, Dickens, Carlyle, and other men of genius, who are apt to move in an ideal world above the prosy realities and 1 Inferno XV., 30 sqq. ; 101 sqq. 2 ^'Uli ires mcdici^ duo athei.'^ 3 ^^ Philosophia, obiter Ubata, ahducit a Deo, penitus hausta, reducit ad eundemy 300 DANTE ALIGHIEEL homely duties of ordinary life. It is quite likely that she could not appreciate him, or she would have followed him into exile. But in this case, silence on his part was kinder than speech, and his poverty would go far to explain, if not to excuse, the permanent separation from his family, which it was his duty to support. A highly gifted German lady, who translated the Divina Commedia within the brief space of sixteen months,-^ has taken up the cause of Dante's wife in a remarkable poem, of which I 2:ive the first and last stanzas : — "On every tongue is Beatrice's name : Of thee, much sorrowing one, no song doth tell ; The pang of parting like a keen dart came, And pierced thee with a wound invisible : Art brings her incense to the fair. Virtue must wait her crown in heaven to wear. Yes, thou brave woman, mother of his sons, 'Twas thine to know the weight of daily care ; 'Twas thine to understand those piteous tones, Thine much to suffer, all in silence bear ; How great thy grief, thy woes how manifold, God only knows — of them no song hath told." DANTE IN PUBLIC LIFE. The public life of Dante was a disastrous failure. He plunged himself into the whirlpool of party politics. Poetry and politics rarely agree ; the one or the other must suffer by the contact. The one is soaring to the skies, the other cleaves to the earth. Dante was a man of much uncommon sense, but of little common sense which, in practical life, is far more important than the former. Dante joined the guild of Physicians and Apothecaries, being familiar with their arts, and his name was entered in 1295 as ^ Josepliavon Iloffinger, born at Vienna, 1820, died in 186(5, in consequence of lier over-exertions in nursing the sick and wounded during the war between Austria and Prussia. She studied theology with Dolliuger. Her translation of Dante appeared as a contribution to the sixth centenary of Dante, at Vienna (liraumUller), 18G5, in 3 small vols, with brief notes. See Piumptre's Danlc, n., 492, where her poem on Dante's wife is translated. DANTE ALIGHIEKL 301 " the poet of Florence'' (poeta Fiorentino). It was one of the seven guilds which controlled the city. In 1299 he was sent as ambassador to the Coramiineof S. Gemignano to settle a dis- pute. This is the only embassy before that to Rome, of which we have documentary evidence; other embassies to Siena, Genoa, Perugia, Ferrara, Venice, Naples, and to foreign kings, reported by some writers (Filelfo, Balbo), are mere myths, or at least'very doubtful. He was not long enough in political life to fulfill so many missions, and daring the seven years from 129-4 to 1301 he seems to have been in Florence. In 1300 he was elected one of the six Priori delle Arti, who ruled the city for two months at a time. The Signory of Flor- ence was composed of seven persons, namely, six Priors of pro- fessions, and one Gonfaloniere of justice. They were subject to the popular will and an assembly of nobles called the Council of the Hundred. Dante was to hold office from June 15th to August 15th. His colleagues were insignificant persons, scarcely known by name. From that appointment to the prior- ship, he dated the beginning of his misfortunes. The little aristocratic Republic of Florence was involved in the great contest between the Guelfs (Guelji, Welfen, from Wolf, a family name) and the Ghibellines (Ghibellini, Ghibellhien, from Waiblingen, the patrimonial castle of Conrad of Hohenstaufen, in Swabia), or between the Papists and the Imperialists. This contest may be dated from the time of Pope Gregory VII. and Emperor Henry IV. and the humiliating scene at Canossa, and continued for three or four hundred years. It caused 7200 revolutions and more than 700 wholesale murders in Italy .^ Every city of Italy was torn by factions headed by petty tyrants. Every Italian was born to an inheritance of hatred and revenge, and could not avoid sharing: in the fio;ht. The war between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, under its general and most comprehen- sive aspect, was a war for the supremacy of Church or State in temporal matters. Boniface VIII., who ascended the chair of St. Peter in 1294, and celebrated the first papal Jubilee in 1300, ^ This calculation has been made by Ferrari, Histoire des revolutioyis d' Italic, ou Guelfes et Ghibelins, Paris, 1858, 4 vols, (quoted by Dollinger, AJMd. Vor- trdge, i., 117.) 302 DAXTE ALIGHIERI. claimed the two swords of the Apostles (Luke xxii. 38), the spiritual aud the temporal ; the spiritual sword to^be wielded by the })ope directly, the temporal to be wielded by the emperor, but under the pope's authority. The Imperialists maintained the divine origin and independent authority of the State in all things temporal. They anticipated the modern theory which has come to prevail since the sixteenth century. Besides this, there was in Florence a local family quarrel between the party of Corso Donati, called the Neri or Blacks, and the party of Bianco, called the Bianchi (also Cerchi) or Whites. Florence was predominantly Guelf. Dante himself belonged originally to that party, and fought for it in 1289, at the battle of Campaldino, and at the siege of the castle of Caprona ; but when the Bianchi families united with the Ghibellines, he joined them, with the reservation of a certain independence.^ Pope Boniface VIII. interfered with the government of Florence, and threw all his influence in favor of the Neri and Guelfs. Dante and his fiv^e obscure colleagues acted with strict impar- tiality, and banished the leaders of both factions. This is the only memorable act in his political career, and it proved fatal to him. Both parties plotted against him. The banished Corso Donati, the gran harone of Florence, was determined on revenge, and appealed to Pope Boniface, who eagerly accepted the opportunity of dividing and governing the cities of Tuscany. Dante was sent \\\i\\ three others to Rome by the Priors who held office from Aug. 15th to Oct. 15th, 1301. He was to o})pose the coming of Charles of Valois, brother of King Philip of France, or to induce him to wait for the consent of the ruling party. On that occasion he uttered the proud word of contempt : ^'If I go, who is to remain ; if I remain, who is to go?'' This saying was treasured up and promoted his ruin. He went to Pome without dreaming that he was never to return to his native city, never to see his family, never to sit again on the Sasso di Dante in the Piazza of the magnificent ^ Boccaccio represents him as a most violent Ghibelliue, from his exile until his death (see Longfellow, I., 222) ; but this is inconsistent with his friend- ship for Guido da Polenta, who was a Guelf, and with his impartial distri- bution of members of both parties to the places of i^unishment or reward. DANTE ALIGHIERI. 803 catLedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, whose foundations had been laid a few years before (1298). THE BAXISIDIEXT. DANTE AND BONIFACE YIII. On Xov. 1st, 1301, Charles of Yalois entered Florence bv authority of the Pope, under the title of ^^ Pacifier of Tuscany/^ With his aid the Guelf or Donati party triumphed. Dante and three of his colleagues in office as Priori were banished from Tuscany for two years, and declared incapable of holding any public office, on the charge of extortion, embezzle- ment, and corruption, and of having resisted the Pope and expelled the Xeri, the faithful servants of the Poi)e. Having been cited for trial and not appearing, they were also fined 5000 florins each for contumacy. The sentence is dated January 27th, 1302. It was repeated March 10th, with the threat that they would be burnt alive if they ever returned to the territory of Florence. Their property was confiscated. The charges were never proved, and were no doubt invented or exaggerated by the party fanaticism of his enemies. Dante treated the charges with the contempt of silence. His innocence is asserted by all his biographers, including Giovanni Villani, who was a Guelf. Dante spent several months in Rome. The Pope summoned him and his fellow-ambassadors, and scolded them for their obstinacy, but promised them his benediction on condition of obedience to his authority. This is all we know about this embassy, and even this is very uncertain.^ Dante assigned to Boniface, for his grasping ambition, avarice and simony, a place in hell.^ He calls him ^' the 1 Quite recently the fact of Dante's emlDassy to Boniface VIII. , which rests on the authority of Boccaccio and Bruni, has been denied by Scar- tazzini {Handbook to Dante, transl. by Th. Davidson, p. 82), on the ground chiefly of the silence of Giovanni Villani, the contemporary chronicler of Florence. If Dante was in Florence at the time of the catastrophe, he must have fled with his political partisans after the first sentence of banishment. 2 Inferno, XIX., 53 sqq. The Divina Commedla was commenced in 1300, but not completed before 1321 ; Boniface died 1303. 304 DANTE ALIGHIERI. prince of modern Pharisees/^ ^ and a usurper, who turned the cemetery of St. Peter (that is, the Vatican hill) into a common sewer.^ This was the pope who asserted, but could no longer main- tain, the most extravagant claims of divine authority over the church and the world, and marks the beginning of the decline of the papacy from such a giddy height. He frightened Celes- tine into a resignation, and was inaugurated with extraordinary pomp, riding on a white horse instead of an humble ass, two kings holding the bridle, but amidst a furious hurricane which extinguished every lamp and torch in St. Peter's. A similar storm interrupted the crowning ceremony of the Vatican Council in 1870, when Pope Pius IX. read the decree of his own infallibility by candle-light in midnight darkness. Yet Dante did not spare his righteous wrath against Philip the Fair of France, that '^ modern Pilate,'' who with sacrile- gious violence seized the aged Boniface at Anagni, " And Christ in his own Yicar captive made."^ DANTE IN EXILE. Dante learned the sentence of his banishment at Siena, on his return from Rome, probably in April, 1302. The other exiles joined him and engaged with the Ghibellines in vain plots for a recovery of power. ^^ Florence," he said, ^' we must re- cover : Florence for Italy, and Italy for the world." They established a provisional government, raised an army and made ^ Inferno, xxvii., 85. 2 Farad. ^ xxvil., 22-27, where St. Peter says : ' ' He who usurps upon the earth my place, My place, my place, which vacant has become Before the presence of the Son of God, Has of my cemetery made a sewer Of blood and stench, wherel)y the Perverse One, Who fell from hence, below there is a^ipeased ! " {^^''Faito ha del cimiterio mio cloaca Del san(/uc e della puzza; onde il per verso, Che cadde di quassu, lagrjiu, {i. c, nclV inferno) si placa. '''''] ^ Furg., XX., 87 sciq. DANTE ALIGHIERI. 305 two attacks upon Florence, but were defeated, and the prisoners were slaughtered without mercy. Dante became discouraged, and finally withdrew from all par- ties. He always was a patriot rather than a partisan, and tried to reconcile parties for the good of the country. He esteemed patriotism as the highest natural virtue, and abhorred treason as the most hideous crime, worthy of a place with Judas in the lowest depth of hell. The confiscation of his property left him and his family destitute ; but his wife, being of the wealthy Donati family, may have recovered a portion under the plea of a settlement for dowry. From the time of his banishment to his death, a period of nearly twenty years, Dante wandered through Upper and Middle Italy from city to city, from court to court, from convent to con- vent, a poor, homeless and homesick exile, with the sentence of death by fire hanging over him ; everywhere meeting friends and admirers among Ghibellines and those who could appreciate poetry and virtue, but also enemies and detractors, finding rest and happiness nowhere except in the study of truth and the contemplation of eternity. " Florence," he says in his Convito (i. 3), " the beautiful city, the famous daughter of Rome, has rejected me from her sweet bosom, where I was born, where I grew to middle life, and where, if it may please her, I wish from my heart to end my life and then to rest my weary soul; Through almost all parts where our language is spoken, I have gone, a wanderer, well-nigh a beggar, showing against my will the wounds of fortune. Truly I have been a vessel without sail or rudder, driven to divers ports and shores by that hot blast, the breath of dolorous poverty.'^ It must have been hard, very hard indeed, for such a proud spirit to eat the salty bread of others, and to go up and down the stairs of strangers.-^ He fully experienced the bitter truth of the words of Ecclesias- 1 Farad., XVII., 58-60 : " Thou shalt have proof how savoreth of salt {sa di sale) The bread of others, and how hard a road The going down and up another's stairs." 20 306 DANTE ALIGHIERI. ticiis : " It is a miserable thing to go from house to house ; for where thou art a stranger, thou darest not open thy mouth. . . . My son, lead not a beggar's life, for better is it to die than to beg." When stopping at the convent of Santa Croce del Corvo and asked by the prior what he wanted, he replied : " Peace." ^ And yet it was during this sad period of exile that he wrote his Divina Commedia. It brought him no earthly reward (for authorship was unprofitable in the Middle Ages), but immortal fame. It was truly a child of sorrow and grief, like many of the greatest and most enduring works of man. For — ''^Poesie ist tiefes Schmerzen, Und es hoinmt das sclwnste Lied Nur aus emem Menscheiiherzen, Das eiri schweres Leid durchglUhV^^ He seems to have spent most of the years of his banishment in Bologna, Padua, and Verona, studying every where and gathering local and historical information for his great poem. He probably visited Paris also about the year 1309, and buried himself in theological study. Other reports place this visit before his exile. Perhaps he was there twice. The chronicler Yillani simply says : " Dante was expelled and banished from Florence, and went to study at Bologna, and then to Paris, and into several parts of the world.'' Boccaccio's account is vague and confused. The expedition of Emperor Henry VII., of Luxemburg, to Italy in 1310, excited in him the hope of the overthrow of the Guelfs and the realization of his theory on the Monarchy, that is, the temporal supremacy of the holy Roman Empire in inde- pendent connection with the Catholic Church. He hailed him as a " Second Moses," who was called to heal Italy, which had been without an emperor since the extinction of the house of ^ Justinus Kerner, the Swabian poet and friend of Uhlaud and Schwab. Eemember also Goethe's — * ' Wer nie sein Brot mit Thrlinen ass, Wer nie die kummervollen Ndchte Auf seinem Beite iveinend sass, Der kennt euch nicJit, ihr Jiimmlischen Mdclite.'''' DANTE ALIGHIEKI. 307 Hoheiistaufen, and torn by feuds, civil wars and anarchy/ He would not recognize Rudolph of Habsburg (1273-1292), nor Albert I. [^^ Alberto tedesco'\ 1298-1308), as emperors, because they never came to Italy and were not crowned by the pope. He regarded Frederick II. (1220-1250) as the last emperor, but placed him in Hell among the heretics.^ He exhorted Henry in a letter to pursue energetic measures for the restoration of peace. He addressed a letter to all the rulers of Italy, urging them to yield obedience to the new Caesar consecrated by the successor of Peter. But the emperor could accomplish nothing. He died — it was said of poison — Aug. 24th, 1313, after a short reign of five years, near Siena and was buried in the Campo Santo of Pisa.^ With his death the cause of the Ghibellines and the political aspirations of Dante were well-nigh crushed. In the year 1316 or 1317, the government of Florence, in the feeling of security, offered amnesty to political exiles, but on con- dition of a fine and penance in the church, thus degrading them to a level ^vith criminals. A nephew of Dante and his friends urged him to accept, but he proudly refused pardon at the expense of honor. 1 Schiller calls the interregnum, from 1254 to 1273, "rf/e kaiserlose, die schreckUche Zeit.''^ ^ Inf., X., 118-20: "Within here is the second Frederick, And the Cardinal ; and of the rest I speak not." Frederick 11. , the most brilliant of the Hoheustaufen emperors, successively the pupil, the enemy and the victim of the papacy, was called by Pope Gre- gory IX. "a beast, full of the words of blasphemy, " and accused of being the author of the sentence " iJ)e Irihus Impostoribus^^ (Moses, Jesus, Mohammed), which haunted the Middle Ages like a ghost. " The Cardinal " is Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, of Florence, who doubted the immortality of the soul. On the skepticism of Frederick II., see II. Eeuter's Geschichte der Aufklllrung im 3IineMter (Berlin, 1877), Vol. II., 251-304, especially 275 sqq. He thinks that the word about " the three impostors " is probably authentic, but can- not be proven. ^ See Robert Pohlmanu, Dcr Romerzug Kaiser Ileinrichs VII. und die Politik der Curie, des Hauses Anjou und der Welfenliga, NUrnberg, 1875 ; and Georg Irmer, Die Romfahrt Kaiser Ileinrichs VII, 1881. They shed light on many obscure passages in the Purgatorio and Paradiso. See Plumptie, I., p. CXXVIII. sq. 308 DANTE ALIGHIERI. " Has my innocence," he wrote to a priest, " which is manifest to all, after nearly fifteen years of banishment, deserved such a recall? Have my incessant labors and studies deserved it? Far be it from a man familiar with philosophy to submit to such indignity. Far be it from a man who is a preacher of righteousness and suffered injustice, to pay those who did him injustice, as if they were his benefactors? This is not the way to return to my native city. I will rather never enter Florence. And what then ? Can I not everywhere behold the mirrors of the sun and the stars ? Can I not everywhere study the sweetest truths rather than render myself inglorious, yea, most ignomini- ous to the people and commonwealth of Florence ? Nor will bread fail me.^^ ^ CAN GRANDE, THE YELTRO, AND THE DUX. In the year 1317, Dante went to Can Grande, of the family della Scala (Scaligeri) of Verona, who was the leader of the Ghibelline party in Lombardy, and appointed Yicar of Henry VII. in 1311. He was much younger than the poet and survived him eight years (b. 1291, d. 1329). Many exiled Ghibellines and other unfortunate persons of distinction found refuge at his hospitable court, which displayed a barbaric magnificence similar to the court of Frederick II. in Sicily. He kept, we are told, actors, buffoons, musicians and parasites, who were more caressed by the courtiers than poets and scholars. " Various apart- ments in the palace were assigned to them, designated by various symbols; a Triumph for the warriors. Groves of the Muses for the poets ; Mercury for the artists ; Paradise for the preachers ; and for all inconstant Fortune All had their private attendants, and a table equally well served. At times Can Grande invited some of them to his own table, particularly Dante and Guido di Castel di Reggio, exiled from his country with the friends of liberty." ^ Dante fixed his political hopes, after the death of Henry VII. (1313), upon Can Grande, and gave him an undeserved celebrity. ^ An extract from Ep. x., 500-503 (ed. of Fraticelli). 2 Quoted by Longfellow, in., 308. A lively picture of Can Grande's court and Dante's life there is given by Ferrari in his comedy, Uante a Verona. DANTE ALIGHIERI. . 309 He made him the subject of predictions in the Commedia, none of wliich were fulfilled. He mentions him first in the introductory canto of the Inferno under the allegorical name of Veltro^ which means greyhound, and was suggested ])y the name cane, hound, and the boundary of liis territory, " tra Feltro e FeliroJ^ i. e., between Feltro in Friuli and Montefeltro in Komagna. He describes him as the coming saviour of Italy, who sets his heart not on land and money, but on wisdom, love and virtue, and who will slay the wolf of avarice, the root of many evils (1 Tim. 6 : 8, 9).^ "Many the animals with whom she [the she-wolf, lupn] weds, And more tliey shall be still, until the greyhound [<7 veltro'] Comes, who shall make her perish in her pain. He shall not feed on either earth or pelf, But upon wisdom, and on love and yirtue ; 'Twixt Feltro and Feltro shall his nation be ; Of that low Italy shall he be the saviour. On whose account the maid Camilla died, Emyalus, Turnus, Nisus, of their wounds ; Through every city he shall hunt her down, Until he shall have driven her back to Hell, There from whence envy first did let her loose. ' ' In the Paradiso he praises his benefactor in similar terms.^ ' ' But ere the Gascon cheat the noble Henry, Some sparkles of his virtue shall appear In caring not for silver nor for toil. So recognized shall his magnificence Become hereafter, that his enemies Will not have power to keep mute tongues about it. On him rely, and on his benefits ; By him shall many people be transformed, Changing condition rich and mendicant. ' ' ^ ^ Inferno^ I., 100 sqq. ^Parad., XVII., 82-90, sqq. 2 The Gascon is Clement Y., who was elected Pope in 1305. The " noble Henry" is the Emperor Henry VII., who came to Italy in 1310, when Can Grande was about 19 years of age. Clement publicly professed to be Henry's friend, but secretly he was his enemy, and is said to have instigated or con- nived at his death by poison. 310 DANTE ALIGHIERI. He dedicated to him the first cantos of the Paradlso, and wrote hira a letter which furnishes the key to the allegorical understanding of the Commedia. In all probability Can Grande is also meant in that passage of the Purgatorio — the obscurest in the whole poem — where Beatrice predicts the coming of a mighty captain and messenger of God who would restore the Roman empire and slay the Roman harlot, {i. e.y the corrupt, rapacious papacy), together with her giant paramour {i. e., the King of France who transferred the papacy to Avignon).^ "Without an heir shall not forever be The Eagle that left his plumes upon the car, "Whence it became a monster, then a prey ; For verily I see, and hence narrate it, Tlie stars already near to bring the time, From every hindrance safe, and every bar, Witliin which a Five-hundred^ Ten^ and Fke, One sent from God, shall slay the thievish woman, And that same giant who is sinning with lier. ' ' ^ The mystic number 515, in Roman numerals DXY, or with a slight transposition DVX, means not a period (as between Charlemagne and Louis the Bavarian, 799-1314), but a person, a Dux, a captain, a prince. Some eminent com- mentators refer it to Emperor Henry VII. ; ^ but he was more than a Dux, and died (1313) before the Purgatorio was com- pleted (about 1318). We must, therefore, either think of some unknown future Roman emperor,^ or of Can Grande whom ^ Piirg., XXXIII., 37-45. ^ " Nel quale un cinquecento diece e cinque, 3Icsso da Dio, anciderd lafuia, Con quel gigante die con lei dclinque.'^ " Longfellow, Plumptre, and others who understand the Vcltro of Can Grande. '^ So Witte (p. 649) : " Der Divider icird i)i der Zeit die vergnngen u-ar, scif cr die Prophezeiung zu Anfang der Holle geschrieben liatte, erkannt Jiaben, dass Can Grande der Aufgabe, die cr iJnn daiuals gesfellt Jiaffe, nicht geniigfe, und so llbcr- ireid er nun deren ErfiUhuig enij'ernleren unhedimmiercn Hoffnungcn. Ob Ihtidc ddbei an cine schon Ubende, bestimmie PcrHonlichkeit gedavht Iiabe, und an u-S'^. Patrick'' s Purgatory, an essay on the Legends of Purgatory, Hell and Paradise current during the lliddle Ages (London, 1844). Longfellow, in his Illustrations to the Inferno (i. 381 sqq.), gives several visions of the unseen world, beginning with the 11th book of the Odyssey and ending with the Anglo-Saxon description of Paradise. 2 Dante had a very limited knowledge of Greek and of Homer. He says [Conrito I. 7), that Homer was not yet turned, or could not be turned, from Greek into Latin {non si mutd di grcco in latino), like other Greek writers, because translation would destroy all his "sweetness and harmony." THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 349 to aid him in his Christian poem.i jje gives room to heathen gods and demi-gods, but transforms them into demons (as they are represented by sculpture in the Gothic cathedrals). He retains Minos as judge at the door, and Charon as boatman over the Stygian lake, and associates Centaurs and Furies with the agents of diabolical torture. But he puts even the best of the heathen, including his own honored Virgil and Aristotle, into Hell, with two singular exceptions, — Cato of Utica, who keeps watch at Purgatory, and the Emperor Trajan, who was believed to have been saved by the prayers of Pope Gregory I. nearly five hundred years after his death .^ The Christian religion purified and intensified the belief in the immortality of the soul, gave realness to the future life by teaching the resurrection of the body, and created a new idea of Heaven as an abode of holiness and bliss in communion with God and the saints. After the fourth century the Christian eschatology was enriched and obscured by the semi-heathenish conception of Purgatory as an intervening state of purification and preparation for Heaven. It was suggested as a probability by St. Augustin, and taught as a certainty by Pope Gregory I., and gave rise to many crude superstitions which haunted the Middle Ages, and which to this day disturb the peace of pious Roman Catholics in the hour of death. This good but credu- lous pope, in the fourth book of his " Dialogues " (593), tells incredible tales of visions of departed souls, which greatly i/;i/. II. 7 ; Furg. i. 8, 9 ; Par. i. 13 ; ii. 8, 9. 2 Dante refers twice to these prayers : Purg.^ x. 75 ; and (without naming Gregory) Par., XX. 109-111. He followed a curious legend current in the Middle Ages, as told by Paulus Diaconus in his Life of Gregory, by Brunette Latini, in the Fiore di Filosofi attributed to him, and also in the famous Legenda Aurea, and other books. It is this : Trajan, though he persecuted the Christians, was reputed a just emperor. About five hundred years after his death, Pope Gregory, on hearing of his justice and seeing his statue, had him dis- interred, and prayed God with tears to take the soul of this man out of Hell and put him into Heaven. The prayer was heard, and Trajan relieved ; but an angel told Gregory never to make such a prayer again : and God laid upon him a penance, either to spend two days in Purgatory, or to be always ill with fever and side-ache {male di fianco). St. Gregory chose the latter as the lesser punishment. 350 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. strengthened the mediaeval belief in Purgatory.^ Dante men- tions Gregory in Paradise, but only as differing from St. Dio- nysius in the arrangement of the celestial hierarchy.^ He ought to have placed him in the fourth Heaven, among the great doc- tors of the Church.^ The Acts of the female (probably Montanist) martyrs Perpetua and Felicitas (quoted by Tertullian and Augustin), and still more the monastic literature of the Middle Ages and the Lives of Saints, abound in marvelous legends, visions and revelations of the future world. Such visions are reported by the venerable Bede(d. 735), St. Boniface (d. 755), Wettinof Peichenau (824), Prudentius of Troyes (839), Charles the Bald (875), in the Life of St. Brandan (eleventh century), in St. Patrick's Purgatory (twelfth century, by a monk, Owen), by Elizabeth of Schonau (d. 1162), St. Hildegardis (d. 1197), Joachim of Fiore (d. 1202), St. Matilda or Mechtildis (d. 1310). The Vision of Frate Alberico of Monte Cassino in the twelfth century con- tains a description of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise with Seven Heavens. ^' It is," says Longfellow, " for the most part a tedious tale, and bears evident marks of having been written by a friar of some monastery, when the afternoon sun was shining into his sleepy eyes." Dante's own teacher, Brunetto Latini, describes, in his TesorettOj how he was lost in a forest and then led by Ptolemy the astronomer to the vision of the unseen world, and the punishments of the wicked. The Golden Legend of Jacopo da Yoragine, archbishop of Genoa (d. about 1298), teems with supernatural marvels of saints ; it was the most popular book in the Middle Ages, and passed through innumerable editions.^ The whole poetry of the Middle Ages, and the arts of painting ^ Dialogorum libri iv. de vita et miracuUs patrum Italicorum, et de xternitate animse. King Alfred ordered an Anglo-Saxon translation. Gregory acknowl- edged that he knew these ghost stories only from hearsay, and defends his recording them by the example of Mark and Luke, who reported the Gospel second-hand on the authority of eye-witnesses. 2 Far., XVIII. 133. ^ Par. , x. ^ See an interesting article on the literary history of the Aurea Legcnda, by Professor E. C. Richardson, in the first volume of the ' ' Papers of the Ameri- can Society of Church History," N. York, 1889, pp. 237-248. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 351 and sculpture delighted in spectacles of the future world. Labitte states, as the result of his investigations, that the architecture of France alone — the frescoes, windows and porches of the cathedrals of Notre Dame, Chartres, Auxerre, etc. — supplies more than fifty illustrations of the Commedla by way of antici- pation. The most popular plays in Europe were the miracle plays or mysteries, which enacted the descent into Hell and the scenes of the last Judgment. The theatres represented by three stories the three regions of the invisible world. One of the grandest, but most disastrous, of these spectacles took place in Florence during Dante's lifetime, May, 1304, and is described by Villani in his Chronicle. The infernal regions were represented on one of the Arno bridges by misshapen men, hideous demons, divers torments, groans and cries, and other horrible scenes to satisfy the morbid curiosity of the multitude who crowded the banks of the river and the boats and wooden rafts, when suddenly the bridge fell with its weight, and many people were drowned. The only survival of these mediaeval miracle plays is the Passion Play of Oberammergau in the highlands of Bavaria, which is enacted once in every ten years, but is singularly free from superstitious admixtures and preternatural horrors, and confined within the limits of the biblical narrative. The mediaeval faith in a future life was strong, and lively, but sensuous, materialistic and superstitious. Everybody held the Ptolemaic and geocentric system of the universe, and believed in a material hell beneath the earth, a material heaven above the sky, and an intervening material purgatory or transition place and state for the discipline of those who by faith in Christ have escaped hell, but are not yet good enough for heaven. The reality of these subterrestrial and celestial regions was as little doubted as the reality of our terrestrial existence. There were, of course, skeptics who denied or doubted even the immortality of the soul, but they were rare, and abhorred or pitied as mad- men. Dante says in his Convito^ — *^ of all idiocies, that is the most stupid, most vile, and most damnable^ which holds that 1 Bk. II. ch. 9 (Fraticelli, p. 139, Miss Hillard's translation, p. 90). ^ '' Intra tutte le hestialitadi quella e sioJtissima^ vilissima e dannosissiina,^^ etc 352 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. after this life there is none other ; because if we look through all the writings of the philosophers, as well as of the other wise authors, they all agree in this, that there is some part of us which is immortal." He then refers for proof to Aristotle, Cicero, the Gentile poets, the Jews, the Saracens, or any others who live at all according to law, to our aspiration after immor- tality, to the experience in the divinations of our dreams, and to "the most veracious teaching of Christ, who is the Way, the Truth, and the Light (Life). This teaching gives us more certainty than all other reasons. . . . This should be the most potent of arguments ; and thus I believe, assert and am certain, that after this I shall pass to another, better life where that glorious lady [Beatrice] lives, of whom my soul was enamored." Thus Dante found and shared the general belief in the three regions and states of the future world. But he mastered the crude material of tradition for his supernatural journey with the independence of genius, and reduced the legendary chaos to order and beauty. He threw all his predecessors into the shade, and has not been surpassed or equaled by any of his successors. NAME OF THE POEM. Dante called his poem a Comedy in distinction from a Tragedy, for two reasons : because it begins horribly with Hell and ends happily in Paradise, and because it is written in vulgar or popu- lar language.^ An admiring posterity long after his death added ^ In the Letter to Can Grande, ch, 10, in which he dedicates to him the Paradiso, he says : " Lihri titulus est : Incipit Comadia Dantis Alagherii, Floren- tini natione, non morihus. ' ' He derives comedy from /cw//^, villa, and cJJ^, cantus, so as to mean villanus cantiis, a village poem, and tragedy from rpdyog and (p(h'/, cantus hircinus, a goat song, and distinguishes comedy from tragedy in matter and style. " Comadia inchoat asperitatem aliciijus rei, sed ejus materia prospers terminatur, ut patet per Terentium in suis Comosdiis . . . Similiter diffcrunt in modo loquendi: elate et sublime tragcedia, comoedia vero remisse et humiliter, sicut vult Horatius in sua Poetica . . . Et per lioc patet, quod Comadia dicitur prxsens opus. Nam si ad materiam rcspiciamus, aprincipio horrihilis etfwtida est, quia Infernus; in fine prospera, desiderahilis et grata, quia Paradisus. Si ad modum loquendi, remissus est modus et kumilis, quia loquutio vulgaris, in qua et mulier- cnlic communicant.''^ He calls his poem a "Comedy " in Inf. xvi. 128 ; xxxi. 2 {la mia commedia). He does not seem to know the other derivation of comedy, from kcjjuo^, merry-making, revelery (a word which occurs several times in the Greek Testament). THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 353 the epithet divine, and bestowed it also upon the poet.^ He himself calls it a sacred poem that made both heaven and earth co-partners in its toil.^ The ordinary meaning of Comedy does not apply at all to such a solemn and serious poem.^ The Inferno is rather an awful tragedy; the Purgatory is filled with penitential sorrow, irradiated by the hope of final deliverance; the Paradiso is joyful indeed, but far above earthly felicity. The Avhole poem has lyric epi- sodes, epic and dramatic features, and a didactic aim. It may be called an allegorico-didactic epos of the religious history of the world. But it cannot be strictly ranked with lyric, or epic, or dramatic, or didactic poetry, any more than the Book of Job. It stands by itself without a parallel. In the judgment of Schelling, it is an "organic mixture'^ of all forms of poetry, "an absolute individuality, comparable with itself alone, and with nothing else. ... It is not plastic, not picturesque, not musical, but all of these at once and in accordant harmony. It is not dramatic, not epic, not lyric, but a peculiar, unique, and unexampled mingling of all these."^ ^ Scartazzini says that the epithet occurs first in Dolce's edition, Venice, 1555, but that Landino had previously called the poet divine in the edition of 1481. ^ Par ad., XXY. 1 sq. " Se mai confinga die il poema sacro, Al quale ha posto mano e cielo e terra.^' 3 Macaulay (in his essay on Milton) : " In every line of the Di^ine Comedy we discern the asperity which is produced by pride struggling with misery. There is perhaps no work in the world so deeply and uniformly sorrowful. The melancholy of Dante was no fantastic caprice. . . It was from within. . . His mind was, in the noble language of the Hebrew poet, ' a land of dark- ness, as darkness itself, and where the light was as darkness. ' The gloom of his character discolors all the passions of men, and all the face of nature, and tinges with its own livid hue the flowers of Paradise, and the glories of the eternal throne. ' ' * ^^ Ein absolutes Indiiiduum, nicJits anderem und nur sich selbst vergleichhar.''^ Schelling's essay on Dante /?^ pJdlosophiscJier Beziehung, first published in 1803, and in his collected Works, vol. Y. 152 sqq. 23 354 THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. TIME OF COMPOSITION. The Commedia is the life-work of Dante, conceived in his early love for Beatrice, composed during the twenty years of his exile, and completed shortly before his death. It was begun in the year 1300, when he had reached the meridian of life,^ or finished the first half of the course of seventy years which the Psalmist of old sets as the normal limit to our mortal life. ' ' The days of our years are three score years and ten, Or even by reason of strength four score years ; Yet is their pride but labor and sorrow ; For it is soon gone, and we fly away. ' ' The year 1300 is memorable in church history for the first papal jubilee, when two millions of Christian pilgrims visited Rome to offer their countless oblations to St. Peter, and to receive in return absolution from his successor, Boniface VIII.^ It was a gigantic scheme for the increase of the papal power and wealth, to be repeated each hundredth year thereafter, and led in its ultimate consequences to the Protestant Reformation which began with Luther's Theses against the shameful traffic in indulgences for the rebuilding of St. Peter's. Dante may him- self have been one of the pilgrims.^ He alludes twice to the jubilee, but without approval.^ He abhorred Boniface YIII. for his avarice and simony, and puts into the mouth of St. Peter a protest against being made ^ Inf. I, 1. " iVeZ mezzo del cammin di nostra lita,^^ etc. He was born in 1265. 2 Giovanni Villani, one of the Florentine pilgrims, says {Chronica, viii. 36) that throughout the year there were in Rome, besides the Roman population, 200,000 pilgrims, not counting those who were on the way going and return- ing. G. Ventura, the chronicler of Asti, reports the total number of pilgrims as no less than two millions. The oblations exceed all calculation. Two priests stood with rakes in their hands, sweeping the gold from the altar of St. Peter's ; and this immense treasure was at the irresponsible disposal of the pope. ^ As Ozanam conjectiires (/. c, p. 360), though without evidence. ^ Inf., XVIII. 29 sqq.; Furg., II. 98. TPIE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 355 "The figure of a seal To privileges venal and mendacious, Whereat I often redden and flash with fire. ' ' ^ The Inferno was probably completed in substance about 1308, ^ the Purgatorio about 1318, the Paradiso in 1321. But the chronology is not certain. He may Jiave worked at different ])arts, revised the manuscript, and inserted allusions to facts which had occurred in the meantime.^ Boccaccio tells the story that the first seven cantos of the Inferno were written at Florence before the banishment, then lost and recovered, and that the last thirteen cantos of the Paradiso were found eight months after Dante's death, in a hiding-place in his bed-room, thanks to a marvelous dream, in which Dante appeared to his son Jacopo and revealed to him the place. This implies that those cantos were not published before his death. Goethe's Faud furnishes a modern parallel of a poem on which the author labored for many years. He conceived the idea of Faud in his youth, 1769, composed at different times portions which interested him most, and published them from 1790 to 1808, when the First Part appeared complete under the title Faust, eiiie Tragodie. The Second Part he took in hand in August, 1824, at the age of seventy-five and completed it in August, 1831, when he sealed it up and directed that it should not be published till after his death. This ^'tragedy of the modern age," then, covers the youth, manhood, and extreme old age of the poet. ^ Par.^ XXVII. 52-55. In Plumptre's translation: "Not that I should, engraved on seal, give right To venal and corrupt monopolies, "Which make me blush and kindle at the sight." The whole indignant invective of St. Peter against the corruption of his successors (ver. 19 sqq. and QQ sqq.) applies primarily to Boniface VIII., or to Rome in 1300, but as well also to John XXII., or to the Papal court at Avignon in 1320. ^ Scartazzini thinks that the composition of the Inferno was not begun till after the death of Henry YII. (1313), but this is contradicted by Dante's own statement {Inf. i. 1), and by Boccacio's account of the composition of the first seven cantos in Florence before the banishment. ^ For illustration I may refer to his translator Gary, who informs us in his preface that he began the translation of the Purgatorio and the Paradiso long before the translation of the Inferno. 356 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. DURATION OF THE VISION, i Dante presents his poem in the form of a spiritual journey or vision. He began it in the year 1300, on Good Friday, which commemorates the Crucifixion of our Lord.^ He spent two days (Friday and Saturday) in Hell, as long as Christ remained in the spirit world to redeem the waiting saints of the old dispen- sation, and to transfer them to Paradise.^ On Easter morn- ing (giorno di Pasqua) he again rises to the light. He needs one whole day and night for his subterranean journey from Hell to the foot of Purgatory, on the other hemisphere. In four days of toiling, from Monday till Thursday of the Easter week, he ascends to the top of the mountain of Purgatory. Then he flies through Purgatory in a day,^ or, according to another view, in three days ; namely, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, so that the whole action would occupy ten days.^ ^ On the dates of the Commedia, see Kannegiesser's translation, and E. Moore, the Time-Ecferences in the Div. Com. and their hearing on the assumed date and duration of the Vision. London, 1887. Unfortunately, I could not procure this book. 2 Inf. XXI., 112-114, where Virgil says to Dante : — ' ' Yesterday, five hours later than this hour, One thousand and two hundred sixty -six Years were complete, that here the way was broken." At the close of Canto xx. , the time is indicated as being an hour after sunrise. Five hours later would be noon, or the sixth hour of the Crucifix- ion (Luke 23 : 44). Add to the 1266 years the 34 years of Christ's life on earth, and we get the year 1300, when Dante began his pilgrimage. The break or rent in the work alluded to was caused by the earthquake at the time of the Crucifixion. 2 He combines for this purpose, with Thomas Aquinas, the two passages Luke 23 : 43 and 1 Pet. 3 : 19. '^According to Blanc, and Butler, who says {Ihe Paradise of Dante., p. XIV. ) : " The time occupied in the journey through the different Heavens is twenty-four hours." ^ So Fraticelli {La Divina Com., p. 723) : *'// giorno di venerdl e quelJo di sahato {sieome rilcvasi dal canto xxvil., 79-87) gV impiega ncl trajmssare i nove cieli mobili ; e ncl giorno di domenica, otiava di Pasqua, salealV cmpireo. Ecos\ in tutto Vazione del Poema dura died giorni.'''' Davidson (in his translation of Scartazzini's Handbook to D., p. 312) adopts the same view on the basis of ■*/ ■/ }:i LU ""^•1 ^ CO Cj or UJ o > y Z E3 3 ^ ^ IlI 'S THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 357 DANTE'S COSMOLOGY. ^ DaDte did not rise above the geography and astronomy of his age, but took poetic liberties in detail. His Commedla is based upon the Ptolemaic system, which prevailed till the middle of the sixteenth century, when it was gradually supplanted by the Copernican system. The geography of the church in the Middle Ages did not extend much beyond the old Orbis JRomanus, that is, those por- tions of three continents which are washed by the waters of the Mediterranean. Eastern Asia (except East India), Southern Africa and Northern Europe were terrce incognitce, lying beyond the boundaries of civilization. America and Australia were not yet discovered. The earth was divided into two hemispheres, the eastern hemisphere of the inhabited land with Jerusalem as its centre, and the western hemisphere of water. Colum- bus undertook his voyage across the Atlantic in the hope of finding a western passage to East India, and died in the belief that he had found it when he discovered the " West Indies '^ in 1492. The mediaeval cosmology was geocentric. It regarded the earth as the immovable centre of the universe. It maximized our little globe, and made sun, moon and stars revolve around it as obedient servants, to give it light by day and by night. It was moreover, mixed up with astrology and the superstitious belief of the mysterious influence of the celestial bodies upon the birth and fate of men. Dante was full of it. Far., XXVII., 79-87, but I confess I cannot find there no more than that Dante had been then six hours {dal mezzo al fine) in the Heaven of the Fixed Stars. Butler (p. 349) suggests the conjectural reading : " Che va (for /a) dal mezzo al fin del (for il) primo clima.^' ^ See especially Witte, Daniels Weltgehdude in "Jahrbuch der deutschen Dante-Gesellschaft " (1867), vol. i., 73-93 ; his Dante-Forschungen (1879), vol. II., 161-182 ; and the introduction to his German translation of the Commedia (1865 and 1876). Also Philalethes, Ucber Kosmolor/ie und Kosmogenie nach den Ansichten der Scholastiker in Dante\s Zeit, a dissertation in his translation of the first Canto of Paradise (pp. 11-19). Maria Francesca Rossetti, A Shadow of Dante (1871), pp. 9-13. Several editions of the Commedia, and the work of M. F. Rossetti give illustrations of Dante's Universe, which are very helpful. 358 THE DIYINA COMMEDIA. The Ptolemaic system has lost all scientific value, but it retains its historical interest, and a certain practical necessity for our daily vision of sunrise and sunset. It is less grand, but more definite, phenomenal, and, we may say, more poetic than the Copernican system. Dante locates Hell beneath the surface of the land hemisphere and extends it down to the centre of the earth at the oj)posite end of Jerusalem. He gives it the shape of a funnel or inverted cone, which ends in a narrow pit for the traitors, where Satan is stuck in ice. According to the data given by the poet, the dimensions of Hell would be four thousand miles in depth, and as many in breadth at its upper circumference. It is preceded by a vestibule. The entrance is beneath the forest at the " Fauces Averni,^^ near Cumse, on the coast of Campania, where Virgil places the entrance to Hades. Dante divides the infernal amphitheatre into three divisions, separated from each other by great spaces. Each division is subdivided into three concentric circles, corresponding to the several classes of sinners and the degrees of guilt. As they become narrower, the punishment increases. Purgatory is located in the water hemisphere opposite Mount Sion and distant from it by the whole diameter of the globe, that is, somewhere near the South Sea Islands. Dante repre- sents it as a vast conical mountain rising steep and high from the waters of the Southern ocean .^ He surrounds the mountain with seven terraces for the punishment and expiation of the seven deadly sins. As sin and punishment increase in a descend- ing line in Hell, so, on the contrary, sin and punishment de- crease in an ascending line in Purgatory. Rough stairways, cut into the rock, lead from terrace to terrace. On the summit is the table land of the garden of Eden or the terrestrial Paradise, which must not be confounded with the celestial Paradise. Human history began in the innocence of the terrestrial Para- dise ; to it man is led back by penitence and purification till he is fit for the holiness and bliss of the celestial Paradise. The fall of Lucifer, the archrebel, from heaven convulsed and perverted the original world which God had made. He ^ " Tlie mount that rises highest o'er the wave." {Par. xxvi., 139.) THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 359 struck the earth with such violence as to open a chasm clear through the centre and to throw up the Mount of Purgatory on the opposite side of the earth. ^ The Inferno is the eternal prison for the impenitent and lost ; Purgatory is the temporary prison or penitentiary for penitent sinners and will be empty on the day of judgment. Paradise is the eternal home of holy angels and men. Dante reaches it, under the guidance of Bea- trice, by flight from the top of Mount Purgatory, where the law of gravity has an end. Paradise consists of nine heavens and the Empyrean. The nine heavens correspond to the nine circles of Hell and of Pur- gatory. The first seven heavens revolve around the earth as the immovable centre of the universe and are called after the then known planets : Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun (which was likewise regarded as a planet), Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. Each is supposed to be inhabited. Above them is the eighth heaven or the heaven of the Fixed Stars. The ninth heaven is the crys- talline heaven or the Primum Mobile, which is the most rapid in motion, keeps the eight lower heavens in perpetual motion and is the root of time and change throughout creation. With- out and beyond the Primum Mobile is the tenth heaven or the Empyrean, v/hich contains the universe, is timeless, spaceless and motionless, the special abode of God and the eternal home of his saints. It is arranged in the form of a rose around a sea of light. All the blessed dwell in the Empyrean, but they appear to the poet in the different heavens according to the degrees of their merit and happiness. The cosmology of Dante is complicated with astrology inher- ited from heathen times, and with the theory of a celestial hier- archy which was developed in the mystical writings of pseudo- Dionysius, the Areopagite, and excited great influence on the scholastic theology of the Middle Ages;^ nine angelic orders are divided into three hierarchies : the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones ; the Dominions, Virtues and Powers ; the Principali- ties, Archangels and Angels. They move the nine Heavens and ^ Inf., XXXIV., 121 sqcx. 2 Ou the pseudo-Dionysian Ti-ritings, see Schaflf, Church History, vol. iv., 589-600. 860 THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. are themselves unmoved. They receive power from the Empy- rean above and stamp it like a seal upon the splieres below. Dante, in accordance with Thomas Aquinas, placed the creation of the Angels on the first day, and the fall of Lucifer and the rebel Angels within the twenty minutes succeeding. The fall of man must have taken place after the upheaval of Paradise which was caused by the fall of Lucifer. The localities and sceneries of the future world are measured by Dante with mathematical precision, and described with the genius of an architect and painter. Everything is definite and visible. He furnishes the richest material for painters. In this respect the Comedy strikingly contrasts with the vagueness and indefiniteness of Milton^s Paradise Lost, which Ruskin has ad- mirably described.^ Even the departed souls assume a clear, definite shape. They are not nebulous shades, but clothed with a refined corporality resembling their earthly tabernacle. They can roll stones, lift burdens and feel the punishments of Hell and the penal suffer- ings of Purgatory. The blessed in the lower regions of Para- dise retain human lineaments, but in the higher regions they appear only as flames, and in the Empyrean each ]:egains his own body in glorified shape. EXPLANATION OF THE COMMEDIA. To understand the Divina Commedia, we must keep in mind that Dante accepted the mediaeval hermeneutical canon of a four- fold sense of the Scriptures and applied it to his poem : a literal or historical sense, and three spiritual senses — the allegorical proper, the moral, and the anagogical, corresponding to the three cardinal graces : faith (credenda), love (agenda), and hope {sper- anda), as expressed in the couplet : — " Liitera gesta docet ; quid credas^ allegoria ; Moralis^ quid agas ; quo tendas, anagogia. Thus, Jerusalem means literally or historically the city in Palestine; allegorically, the church ; morally, the believing soul ; ^ In Modern Painters, vol. III., ch. 14, copied iu Lougfellow's Danic, ii., 422 sqq. THE DIVIXA COM.MEDIA. 3G1 anagogically, the heavenly home of saints. Babylon may mean the city on the Euphrates, or the world, or heathen and anti- Christian Rome, or the enemies of the church. The three spiritual senses may be united in one sense, called allegorical or mystical. 'The allegorical interpretation was first systematized by Origen in the third century, who followed in the steps of Philo, the Jewish Platonist, and distinguished three senses in the Bible, a somatic or literal, a psychic or moral, and a pneumatic or mysti- cal sense, which correspond to the body, soul, and spirit of man (according to the Platonic trichotomy). The theory of a four- fold sense was developed in the fifth century by Eucherius (d. 450) and Cassian (d. 450), and more fully by Rabanus Maurus (d. 85G). All the patristic, scholastic, and many of the older Protestant commentators indulged more or less in allegorical ex- position and imposition. The grammatico-historical exegesis of modern times assumes that the biblical, like all other writers, intend to convey one and only one definite meaning, according to the use of words familiar to the readers. This sound principle is not inconsistent with the hidden depth and manifold applica- bility of the Scripture truths to all ages and conditions. But explication is one thing, and application is another thing. The business of the exegete is not to put his own fancies into the Bible, but to take out God's facts and truths from the Bible and to furnish a solid basis to the preacher for his practical applica- tion. An exception may be made with allegories, parables and fables, where the author, at the outset, contemplated a double meaning; and this was the case with the Commedia. Dante expounds his theory in the Convito as follows •} — ' ' We should know that books can be understood, and ought to be ex- plained, in four principal senses. One is called literal, and this it is which goes no farther than the letter, such as the simple narration of the thing of which you treat [of which a perfect and appropriate example is to be found in the third canzone treating of nobility]. The second is called alle- fforical, and this is the meaning hidden under the cloak of fables, and is a tmth concealed beneath a fair fiction ; as when Ovid says that Orpheus with his lute tamed wild beasts and moved trees and rocks ; which means that the wise man, with the instrument of his voice, softens and humbles ^ Book II., ch. I., p. 51 sqq. iu K. Hillard's translation. 362 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. cruel hearts, and moves at his will those who live neither for science nor for art, and those who, having no rational life whatever, are almost like stones. And how this hidden thing [the allegorical meaning] may be found by the wise, will be explained in the last book but one. The theologians, however, take this meaning differently from the poets ; but because I intend to follow here the method of the poets, I shall take the allegorical meaning according to their usage. ' ' The third sense is called moral ; and this readers should carefully gather from all writings for the benefit of themselves and their descendants ; it is such as we may gather from the gospel when Christ went up into the mountain to be transfigured, and of the twelve apostles took with him but three ; which, in the moral sense, may be understood thus, that in most secret things we should have few companions. "The fourth sense is called anagogical [or mystical], that is, beyond sense ; and this is when a book is spiritually expounded, which, although [a narration] in its literal sense, by the things signified refers to the super- nal things of the eternal glory ; as we may see in that psalm of the Prophet (Ps. 114 : 2), when he says that when Israel went out of Egypt Judaea became holy and free. Which, although manifestly tnie according to the letter, is nevertheless tnie also in its spiritual meaning — that the soul, in forsaking its sins, becomes holy and free in its powers [functions]. "And in such demonstration the literal sense should always come first, as that whose meaning includes all the rest, and without which it would be impossible and irrational to understand the others ; and, above all, would it be impossible with the allegorical. Because in everything which has an inside and an outside, it is impossible to get at the inside if we have not first got at the outside. Therefore, as in books the literal sense is always outside, it is impossible to get at the other [senses], especially the alle- gorical, without first getting at the literal. ' ' In a long letter to Can Grande della Scala/ in which Dante dedicates to him the opening cantos of the Paradiso, he makes the same distinction and illustrates it more fully by the same example of the Exodus from Egypt (Ps. 114:1), which, he says, means literally, the historical fact; allegorically, our redemption by Christ ; morally, the conversion of the soul from the misery of sin to a state of grace; and anagogically, the exodus of the sanctified soul from the servitude of this corrupt state to the liberty of eternal glory. Then he makes the appli- ^ Blafjnifico atqne victorioso domino, Kami Grandi de la Scala • . . devo- tissimus stius Dantes Alagherii, florentinns natione, nan morihus, etc., in Fraticclli's ed. of// Convito e le Epistoh\ p. 508 sqq. Fratieelli assigns the letter to 131G or 1317, others to 1320. The genuineness has been disputed, but without Kood reason. THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 363 cation of this exegetical canon to his own Comedy in this important passage : — " The subject of the whole work, taken hterally, is the condition of souls after death, simply considered. For on this and around this the whole action of the work turns. But if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is man, how by actions of merit or demerit, through freedom of the will, he justly deserves reward or punishment."^ Plumptre (ii. 358) directs attention to an interesting parallel- ism, the double sense of Spenser's Faerie Queene, as explained in his Epistle to Sir Walter Raleigh, where he describes his book as " a continued Allegory or Dark Conceit.'^ The story of King Arthur is the outward framework ; the Fairy Queen (resembling Beatrice) is both Queen Elizabeth and Glory ; Duessa is Queen Mary of Scots [?] and the Church of Rome. The hermeneutical canon of Dante does not require us to seek four senses in every word or character of the Commedia. This would be sheer pedantry and lead to endless confusion. It is enough to find a literal and a spiritual meaning in the work as a wdiole, and in its leading actors. Thus Dante is an indi- vidual and at the same time a representative of man in his pilgrimage to Heaven. Virgil is the old Roman poet, who wrote the JEneid and taught Dante his beautiful style, but represents at the same time human reason or the light of nature. Beatrice is the angelic maiden of Florence, and a symbol of divine revelation, wisdom and love. Lucia is the saintly virgin and martyr of Syracuse, the patroness of the blind, and signifies the illumination of prevenient grace. The mysterious DUX is Can Grande of Verona, and some future reformer of church and 1 Est ergo suhjecfum iotius ojjcris, Uteralifer tantum acccpti, status animarum post mortem simpJiciter sumptus. Nam de illo et circa ilium totius operis versatur proccssiis. Si vero accipiatur opus aUegorice, subjectum est homo, prout merendo et demcrcndo per arhitrii Jihcrtatem Juslitiw prxmianti aut punienti ohnoxius est.''^ In Par., V. , 19 sqq., Beatrice thus instructs liim ou the high importance of the freedom of the will : — "The greatest gift that in his largess God Creating made, and unto his own goodness Nearest conformed, and which he doth prize Most highly, is the freedom of the will. Wherewith the creatures of intelligence Both all and only were and are endowed. ' ' 364 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. state. The dark forest in which the poet finds himself at the beginning is the labyrinth of sin and error. The three beasts which prevent him from climbing up the illuminated mountain are the human passions (lust^ pride, and greed of gain) and at the same time Florence, France, and the corrupt papacy. It is inconsistent with Dante's rule to deny either the allegori- cal meaning, or the historical reality of the persons introduced, and to resolve them into mere abstractions. The last has been done frequently in the case of Beatrice and the Donna Pietosa. The most recent writer on Beatrice makes her simply an allegory of the ideal church, as the spouse of Christ, the Shulamite of the Song of Solomon, and explains her death to mean the transfer of the papacy to Avignon and the Babylonian exile.-^ But Dante does not identify the church with the papacy, and attacks the papacy at Rome in the person of Boniface VIII., as well as the papacy at Avignon in the persons of Clement V. and John XXII. The severest rebuke of the Roman Church is put into the mouth of Beatrice and of St. Peter.^ Beatrice distinguishes herself from the church triumphant when she, with flaming face and eyes full of ecstasy, points Dante to " the hosts of Christ^s triumphal march.^^ ^ She is only one among the most exalted saints, and occupies in Paradise the same seat with Rachel, the emblem of contemplation, below Eve and the Virgin Mary.^ In calling one of his daughters Beatrice^ Dante wished her to be a reflection of his saintly patron in heaven. His other ^ G. Gietmann (of the Society of Jesus) ; Beatrice^ Geist und Kern der Dante^schen Dichtung, Freiburg i, B. 1889. This book came to hand wliile writing the essay. My views of Beatrice are given in the article on Dante, p. 290 sq. 2 Comp. Inf., XIX., 53 ; XXVII., 70, 85; Purg., xx., 87; xxxil., 149; XXXIII., 44 ; Far., ix., 132 ; Xli., 90 ; XVIL, 50. sq. ("Where every day the Christ is bought and sold") ; xxvii., 18 sqq. (Peter's fearful censure of the Church of Kome) ; xxx., 145 sqq. (where Beatrice predicts that Cle- ment V. shall soon be thrust down to keep company with Simon Magus). The death of Boniface and the removal to Avignon is prophesied as a deliverance of the Vatican "from the adulterer " (Boniface VIII.). Par. ix., 139-142. 3 Par. XXIII., 19-21. ^ Par., xxxir., 7; comp. Inf., IT., 102: " Where I was sitting with the ancient Kachel." THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 365 daughter lie named Imjyeria, probably with reference to his political ideal, the imperium liomanum, which he set forth in his work on the Monarchy. DESIGN OF THE COIMMEDIA. To the double sense of the Commedia corresponds a double design; one is individual, the other is general. Dante says, in the same letter to Can Grande, that the poem aims to remove the living from the state of misery and to lead them to the state of felicity.-^ The Commedia is Dante's own spiritual biography, his pil- grimage from the dark forest of temptation and sin through suffering and purification to the purity and peace of heaven. He is an interested spectator and participant in the awful sufferings of Hell,^ and a penitent in Purgatory, from whose heart the seven mortal sins, like the seven P's upon his forehead, are gradually purged away.^ Then only he obtains a foretaste of that happiness which he hoped and longed to inherit.^ And this longing increased as he advanced in life and grew weary of the corruptions of this evil world.^ ^ ''^ Finis totius et partis esse potest multiplex, scilicet propinquus ct remotus. Sed omissa subtili investir/atione, dicendum est breviter quod finis totius et partis est, removere viventes in hac vita de statu miserise, et joerducere ad statum felici- tatis. - Inf., v., 140 sqq :— " The other one did weep so, that, for pity, I swooned away as if I had been dying, And fell, even as a dead body falls." 3 Purg., IX., 112-114:— "Seven P's upon my forehead he described With the sword's point, and ' Take heed that thou wash These wounds, when thou shalt be within,' he said." 4 Par., v., 105 ; XXX., 135 :— ' ' Before thou suppest at this wedding feast. ' ' 5 Purg., XXIV., 76-81 : — " How long," I answered, " I may live, I know not ; Yet my return will not so speedy be, But I shall sooner in desire arrive ; Because the place where I was set to live From day to day of good is more depleted, And unto dismal ruin seems ordained." S66 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. But the Commedia has a much wider meaning. It is the spiritual biography of man as man ; it is the sinner's pilgrimage from earth to heaven. Ruskin calls Dante *^ the central man of all the world." Dante's conceptions of the universe and the locality of the future world have passed away with the Ptolemaic system ; but the moral ideas of his poem remain. He knew no more than we do, and we know no more than he did about ' ' The undiscovered country, from whose bourn No traveler returns. ' ' The supernatural geography is a subject of uncertain opinion and speculation, but not of revelation and of faith. We know noth- ing of the future world beyond that which God has chosen to reveal, and this is very little. There are more things in heaven and hell than "are dreamed of in our philosophy," or are taught us in the Bible. One thing is certein, however, that there is somewhere within or without the created universe a heaven and a hell, or a future state of reward and punishment. With- out this final solution the present life has no meaning. Sin and misery is hell ; repentance and godly sorrow is purgatory ; holiness and bliss is heaven — already here on earth, and more fully hereafter. The way to heaven leads through knowledge of sin and through repentance. In Dante's Inferno all is darkness and despair ; in the Par- gatorio, sunlight and hope; in the Paradiso^ pure light and bliss. In the first we are repelled, shocked and disgusted by the pictures of moral deformity and hopeless misery ; in the second we are moved to tears by the struggles of penitent souls, their prayers, their psalms, their aspirations for purity and longings for peace; in the third we are lost in the raptures of the beatific vision. Purgatory, as a third or distinct place and state in the future world, is a mediaeval fiction and has lost its significance in the Protestant creeds ; but as a poetic description of the transition state from sin to holiness, it comes home to our daily experience and appeals to our sympathies. For this life is a school of moral discipline and a constant battle between the flesh and the spirit. The Inferno is diabolic, the Purgatorio is human, the Paradiso is angelic. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 367 THE WAY TO PARADISE. On this pilgrimage from earth to heaven man needs the guid- ance of reason and revelation. The former is embodied in Vir- gil, the latter in Beatrice. The Scholastic theology regarded Aristotle as the representa- tive of reason and philosophy, who, like another John the Bap- tist, prepared the way for Christ. Dante himself calls him the " master of those who know," who presides over the philosophic family in the border land of the Inferno} Nevertheless, he chose Virgil as his guide, for several reasons : Virgil was a poet and Dante^s master and favorite author f he had described the descent to the spirit world and thereby anticipated the Coimne- dia ;^ he was the prophet of imperial Rome and its successor, the holy Roman empire. Virgil and Aristotle combined represent the highest wisdom — poetry and philosophy — of which human reason is capable without the aid of divine grace. Virgil came to Dante, not of his own accord, but at the request of Beatrice, who had been urged by St. Lucia at the desire of the Virgin Mary.^ Sympathetic, intercessory, and prevenient grace made use of human wisdom in the preparatory process of salvation. Reason is under higher influence and sub- servient to revelation. Virgil leads Dante through the Inferno and Purgatorioj but is most at home in the former, where he takes sure steps and well knows the way.^ Only in that region where Hell has changed its form by reason of the earthquake at the death of 1 Inf., IV., 131 sq :— " Vidi il 3Iaestro di color che sanno, Seder ira filosofiea famigJia. ' ' 2 Inf., I., 85sqq :— ' ' Thou art my master, and my author thou, Thou art alone the one from whom I took The beautiful style that hath done honor to me." In Inf., VIII., 110, and Purg., xxvii., 52, he calls him his " father sweet," lo dolce padre. ^ In the sixth book of the ^Eneid. ^ Inf., II., 52 sqq. ; 94 sqq. 5 Inf., IX. 30 : " Ben so il cammin.'^ 368 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. Christ is he forced to enquire the way.-"^ In Purgatory he calls himself a stranger and takes uncertain and timid steps.^ Hence, he himself needs the guidance of angels from terrace to terrace. He represents here that prophetic anticipation which goes be- yond ordinary paganism. Human reason knows much of sin and misery, but very little of repentance unto life. Having reached the summit of the Mount of Purgatory or the terrestrial Paradise, Virgil is compelled to return to the infernal region of darkness. Philosophy can only lead to the threshold of revelation.^ A higher guide is now needed. Beatrice conducts the poet from the terrestrial to the celestial Paradise in the name of revealed wisdom and the three Christian graces — faith, hope, love — which dance around lier.^ God is love, and love only can know God. Hence St. Bernard of Clairvaux is given a prominent place in Paradise.^ His motto was : " God is known as far as he is loved. "^ He is the champion of orthodox mysticism which approaches divine truth by devout contemplation and prayer ; while scholasticism tries to reach it by a process of reasoning. He leads Dante to gaze upon the mystery of the Holy Trinity after preparing himself for it by prayer to the Holy Virgin.'^ The Virgin Mary, St. Bernard, St. Lucia, Beatrice and all 1 Inf., XII., 91-94 ; xxiii., 127-132 (comp. ver. 37 sqq.). 2 Purg., II., 61-63 :— "And answer made Virgilius : — ' Ye believe, Perchance that we have knowledge of this place, But we are strangers {peregrin)^ even as yourselves.' " 3 Purg., XVIII., 46-49:— "And he to me : ' What reason seeth here, Myself can tell thee ; beyond that await For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith.' " ^ Purg., XXXI., 130-135. * Par. J XXXI., 94 sqq.; 139 sqq.; XXXII., 1 sqq. ® " Tantum Dcus eognoscitiir quantum diligitur.^^ '' Par.., XXXIII., 1 sqq. :— ' ' Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son, Humble and higli beyond all other creatures." THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. 369 other saints are only agents of the one only Mediator Christ, without whom there is no salvation. ' ' Unto this Kingdom never Ascended one who had not faitli in Christ Before or since He to the tree was nailed. ' ' ^ Many, however, here cry, " Christ, Christ," who at the judg- ment shall be far less near Him than " some shall be who knew not Christ."^ In the Kose of Paradise are seated on one side the saints of the Old Dispensation, "Who believed in Christ who was to come ;" on the other side the saints of the Xew Dispensation, " Who looked to Christ already come."^ Under the Christian Dispensation baptism is necessary to sal- vation, so that even unbaptized innocence is detained in hell.^ Christ is often alluded to in the Purgatorio and Paradiso as our Lord and Saviour, as '' the exalted Son of God and Mary,'' as '* God of very God," as ^' the Lamb of God who taketh sins away," who ^'suffered death that we may live."^ In the Inferno the name of Christ is never mentioned, for the damned cannot endure it, but he is twice alluded to by Virgil as ^'the Mighty One " whom he saw descending into Hell "with the sign of victory crowned," and in the closing Canto, when passing from the Injerno to the Purgatorio, as ' ' The Man who without sin was born and lived. ' ' '^ It is also significant that the Xame, which is above every name and in which alone we can be saved, is made to rhyme only with itself. Hence he repeats the word Cristo three times whenever it closes a line.^ 1 Par., XIX., 103-105. ^ p„,.,^ xix., 106-108. ^ p„,._^ xxxii., 22-24. ^ Far., xxxil., 76-84. This fearful doctrine of the damnation of unbap- tized infants dying in infancy was lir.st clearly stated by St. Augustin and is still held by the Roman Church. 5 Pnrg., XVI., 18 ; XXIII., 75; XXXII., 113 sq.; Far., XVI., 18 ; XXIII., 136 ; XXVI., 59 ; xxxi., 107 ; xxxii., 113, sq. '^ Lif. IV., 53, 54 ; xxxiv., 115. ^ See the passages ending with Cristo, e.g. Far. xiv., 104, 106, 108; xix., 104, 106, 108 ; xxxii., 83, 85 and 87. The reason for this repetition is not a defect of the Italian language, which has many rhymes to Cristo, as vistOy misto, acquisto, tristo. 24 370 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. THE POETIC FORM OF THE COMMEDIA. The Commedia consists of three parts, Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise. Each part includes nine sub-divisions, and thirty- three songs or cantos. Hell, however, has an additional canto, which serves as a general introduction to the whole, so that the poem numbers altogether one hundred cantos, and fourteen thousand two hundred and thirty verses. The system of versification chosen by Dante for the expres- sion of his thoughts, is the terza rima, borrowed from the Proven9al Troubadours, which combines the character of earnest- ness and solemnity with that of gracefulness and melody, and is admirably adapted to the contents of the poem. Each stanza consists of three lines, each line of eleven syllables, making thirty-three syllables for each stanza. One line rhymes with two in the following stanzas; but the last four rhymes of each canto are couplets instead of triplets. The accent falls regularly according to the law of }K)etic harmony. Thomas a Celano, who died several years before Dante was born, had used the triple rhyme in Latin (but in unbroken succession) most effectively and inimitably in his Dies Irce. Everywhere in the Commedia we meet with the number three. It is the symbolic number of the Deity. The Paradiso is full of the praise of the Triune God. The superscription of the InfernOy consisting of three stanzas, reminds us already of Him with fearful earnestness, and the thirty-third canto of the Paradiso closes with the vision of the Trinity. According to Aristotle, everything consists of beginning, middle, and end. According to Thomas Aquinas, this fundamental idea of Chris- tianity pervades the whole constitution of the world. Tlie name of the Holy Trinity is written upon creation, and stamped upon eternity. Our poet represents even Satan with three faces, as the terrible antitype of the Triune God. The fact that the Commedia embraces one hundred songs, symbolizes the perfection of the poem which is complete in itself, a true picture of the harmonious universe. The number ten is the symbol of perfection,^ and its square, one hundred, designates absolute perfection or completion,^ ^ " Numero pcrfctto,''^ as Dante designates it in the Vita Nuova. ^ ' ' Numcro pcrfcttissimo. ' ' THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 371 To show how strictly Dante made it his object to reach an even measure, or to make use of a certain economy in the form, we may mention the circumstance that each of the three parts closes with the word " sklle,^^ or stars ; for these are, according to him, the blessed abodes of peace, whither Iiis view is ever directed, and to which he would also gladly draw with liim his readers. "Can I not everywhere look up to the stars ?'^ he wrote to the government of Florence when he proudly refused the offer of pardon. As already remarked, he always rhymes the peerless name of Christ three times with itself, and with itself only. The rhyme came to him most naturally as the expression of the idea. Both were born together as body and soul. A contempo- rary of Dante (the unknown author of the Ottimo commento) heard him say " that a rhyme had never led him to change his thought, but that often he had made words express for him new meanino^s.^' The language of the poem is everywhere made to correspond with the character of the thought : in Hell, it is awfully earnest; in Purgatory, affectingly pensive; in Paradise, transportingly charming ; in all parts simple and noble, solemn and elevated. It abounds in symbols and images, and sounds like cathedral music. A strikino; feature is Dante's terseness and conciseness, which reminds one of Tacitus and Tertullian. He says no more than enough, and condenses muUum in pa?'vo, even at the expense of clearness. He writes as the lio-htnino; writes on rocks. " One smiting word, and then there is silence, nothing more said. His silence is more eloquent than words.'' (Th. Carlyle.)^ Altogether, the form of the poem as much as the contents reveals the highest order of creative genius. Dante intended to write the Commedia in Latin, but wisely abandoned the idea and chose the vernacular. He thus became the creator of Italian poetry, as Boccaccio, of Italian prose. ^ Prof. Botta {Inirod. to Dnntc, p. 137) thus describes Daute's style : " It comhines sublimity with simplicity, strength with ardor, and intellectual speculation with glowing imagination. Vigorous and concise, it may be said of Dante as has been said of Homer, that it is easier to wrench the club from the hand of Hercules than to take a word from his verses without endangering their harmony and significance." 372 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. THE DARK FOEEST. " Midway upon tlie journey of our life I found myself witliin a forest dark, For the straightforward pathway had been lost. Ah, me ! how hard a thing it is to say "What was this forest savage, rough and stern, Which in the very thought renews the fear." The gloomy and savage forest to which the poet transports us in these first lines, represents the condition of the human heart lying in sin and error, and also the condition of the world at the time of Dante. With the dawn of day he reaches the end of the forest, and seeks to ascend a delectable mountain illuminated by the sun^ the symbol of virtue and of the empire. His efforts are in vain, for he is confronted and driven back by a spotted, deceitful and light-footed leopard, a haughty and terrible lion, and a meagre and ravenous she-wolf.^ This allegory has a moral as well as a political and historical meaning. The three animals reflect the ruling passions of the human heart in youth, manhood, and old age, and symbolize at the same time the principal powers of the times: the leopard stands for cunning, and the republic of Florence; the lion for violence, and the kingdom of France; the she-wolf for avarice, and the papal court at Rome. Just as the poet rushes down the mountain and back again into the dark forest, he beholds the shade of the old singer of the ^neid and prophet of the Roman empire, who represents secular wisdom and statesmanship, and had taught him the poetic art.^ Virgil was sent to his rescue by Beatrice, the impersonation of divine love and wisdom, who herself was moved by the prayers of St. Lucia and the sympathy of the Virgin Mary. He comforts Dante by predicting, under the ^ Dou])tless he had in mind here the passage in Jeremiah v., G : " Where- fore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings [or, deserts] shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities ; every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces : because their transgressions are many, and their backslidings are increased." The three sins may have been suggested by "the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vain- glory of life." 1 John ii., 16. ^ "jLo hello stile che m^ hafatto onore.^' Inf., I., 89. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 373 form of a Greyhound, a reformer of church and state, and offers to lead him on a journey through Hell and Purgatory that he might witness the terrible punishments of the wicked, and the purifying sufferings of the penitent. Through Paradise he would be conducted by a worthier spirit, Beatrice herself. And thus the two brother poets enter upon their visionary pilgrimage. THE INSCRIPTION ON THE GATE OF THE INFERNO. Per me si va nella citta dolente ; Per me si va nell' eterno dolore ; Per me si va tra la perduta gente. Giustizia mosse il mio alto Fattore : Fecemi la divina Potestate, La somma Sapienza, e il primo Amore. Dinanzi a me non fur cose create, Se non eterne, ed io eterna duro : Lasciate ogni speranza, voi, ch' entrate!^ This inscription written in dark colors on the gate to the abode of the lost has, for terrific grandeur, no parallel in poetic literature. It is as trying to translators as the Dies Irce. Let us compare some of the best versions, unrhymed and rhymed. H. F. Gary. 1805. Hexey W. Loxgfellow. 1867. Through me you pass into the city of Through me the way is to the city do- woe : lent ; Through me you pass into eternal pain : Through me the way is to eternal dole ;2 Through me among the people lost for aye. Through me the way among the people lost. Justice the founder of my fabric moved To rear me Avas the task of power divine, Justice incited my sublime Creator; Supremest wisdom, and primeval love. ^'"^^t*^^ ^^« ^i^i"*^ Omnipotence, The highest Wisdom, and the primal Love. Before me things create were none, save things Before me there were no created things, Eternal, and eternal I endure. Only eterne, and I eternal last. All li02)e abandon, ye who enter here. All hope abandon, ye who enter in ! ^7??/., III., 1-9. Witte's text, but I have capitalized the three nouns which refer to the Persons of the Holy Trinty. Fraticelli and Scartazzini read : eterno {efernamcnie) for eterna (which refers to porta., vers. 11). "■' Longfellow (as he told me himself in his study, where I saw him once, not long after the publication of his translation) wished to imitate the repeti- tion of sounds like the tolling of a funeral bell : dolente, dolore. But it is too literal for easy idiomatic English, as is, in fact, his whole otherwise admirable translation. 374 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. ICHABOD CHAELES WEIGHT. 1833. Through me ye enter the abode of woe: Through me to endless sorrow are con- veyed : Through me amid the souls accurst 3'e go- Justice did first my lofty Maker move: By Power Almighty was my fabric made, By highest "Wisdom, and by primal Love. Ere I was form'd, no things created were, Save those eternal — I eternal last : All hope abandon — ye who enter here. Kael Steeckfuss. 1824. Ich fiihre dich^ zur Stadt der Qualerkor- nen, Ich fiihre dich zum unbegrenzten Leid, Ich fiihre dich zum Volke der Verlorneu. Deax E. H. Plumptee. 1887. Through me men pass to city of great woe; Through me men pass to endless misery ; Through me men pass where all the lost ones go. Justice it was that moved my Maker high, The Power of God it was that fashioned me, Wisdom supreme, and primal Charity. Before me nothing was of things that be, Save the eterne, and I cterne endure : Ye that pass in, all hope abandon ye. Otto Gildemeistee. 1888. Ich fiihre zu der Stadt voll Schmerz und Grausen, Ich fiihre zu dem wandellosen Leid, Ich fiihre hin, wo die Yerlornen hausen. Mich schuf mein Meister aus Gerechtig- keit. Die erste Liebe wirkte mich zu griindcn, Die hochste Weisheit und AUmiichtig- keit. Vor mir war nichts ErschafFenes zu finden, Als Ewiges, und ewig daur' auch ich. Lasst, die ihr eingeht, jede Hoflfnung schwinden ! Ihn, der mich schuf, bewog Gerechtig- keit, Mich griindete die Macht des Unsicht- baren. Die erste Lieb und die Alhvissenheit. Geschopfe giebt es nicht, die vor mir waren, Als ewige, die selbst ich ewig bin. Lasst, die ihr eingeht, alle HofFnung fahren ! Hell was founded after the fall of Adam by the Holy Trinity, the Almighty power of the Father (la divina Potedate), the Wisdom of the Son (la somma Sapienza), and the Love of the Holy Spirit (z7 primo Amore). Love is called the " first ^^ because it is tiie motive of the creation and of all the works of God. According to Thomas Aquinas, all the works of the Holy Trinity are common to the three Persons. ^ Durch mich geld man, would be more literal and just as good. A door cannot be said to lead. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 375 ENDLESS rUXISHxMENT. Dante agrees with the orthodox Catholic faith as to endless punishment, and peoples hell not only with all impenitent sin- ners who rejected the gospel, but also with all unbaptized adults and children who never heard the name of Christ. This would include all the heathen, Jews and Mohammedans who, before and after Christ, constitute the overwhelming majority of the human race. He exempts only the Hebrew saints who were redeemed by Christ from their subterranean prison at his descent into the nether w^orld. It is true, he moderates, in accordance with Catholic doctrine, the sufferings of unbaptized children and the nobler heathen. The Scholastic divines make a distinction between the negative penalty of loss {poena damni), and the positive penalty of sense (posna sensus), and usually exempted infants from the latter. According to Dante, they utter " no lamentations but only sighs '^ from " sorrow without pain.^' ^ The reason of their ex- clusion from heaven is not that they sinned, but that they " had not baptism, which is the portal of the faith.'' ^ The heathen are lost, as Yirgil says, who includes himself in the number, because " 111 the right manner they adored not God, . . . For such defects, and not for other guilt, Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on. in desire."^ Dante is " seized with grief in his heart " when he hears this, because ^'some people of much worthiness'' he knew ^^ were suspended in that Limbo." Virgil informs him that at one time Adam, Abel, Noah, Moses, Abraham, David, Rachel and many others were confined there, but were released and trans- ferred to Paradise by '^ a Mighty One (Christ) at his triumphant entrance." Virgil has no hope that he and his heathen brethren will be released in a similar manner at some future day. Their lot, however, is tolerable, and virtually a continuation of their life on earth. The poets and philosophers sit in the dim twilight of 1 Inf., lY., 25-30. 2 j,^y,^ iy_ ^ 36, 3 j„j, ^ j^y ^ 37.42. 876 THE DIYINA COMMEDIA. reason, continue their occupation, and are very courteous and polite to each other. Dante sees first on a summit enlightened by a fire the shades of Homer, the poet sovereign, Horace, the satirist, Ovid and Lucan. They respectfully salute Virgil as he reappears among them, and then after proper introduction they salute Dante also, and receive him as the sixth in the distinguished band of master poets/ Then coming into "a meadow of fresh verdure," he beholds in a place open, luminous and high, a company of the mighty spirits of ancient Greece and Rome, walking on ^Hhe green enamel.'' Electra, Hector and ^neas, Csesar '^ in armor, with falcon eyes," King Latinus with his daughter Lavinia, Brutus ^' who drove Tarquin forth," Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cor- nelia ; and associated with them, but in a separate spot, the noble Saracen knight Saladin ; and higher up Aristotle, "the master of those who know," surrounded by his philosophic family, "all gazing upon him and doing him honor ; " nearest to him Socrates and Plato; and after them Democritus, "who puts the world on chance," Diogenes, the cynic, Empedocles, Thales, Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, Dioscorides, Orpheus, Cicero and Livy, and "moral Seneca," Euclid, the geometrician, Ptolemy, the astronomer, Galen, the physician, Hippocrates, Avicenna, and Averrhoes, the Arabian translator and commentator of Aristotle, and many others whom he " cannot all portray in full." ^ As for the bad heathen and bad Christians, they are doomed to fearful, never ending torments, which Dante describes in picturesque, but horrible forms. The doctrine of eternal punishment is the most awful that can be conceived of. The more we think of it, the more we shrink from it, and the more we desire to escape from it. The Roman Catholic doctrine of Purgatory applies only to imperfect Catholic Christians, and leaves the entire heathen world to outer darkness and despair. The theory of an ultimate restoration of all human beings to holiness and happiness would give absolute relief, and completely restore the harmony of the universe and the con- cord of all the discords of history, but it is not sustained by the 1 Inf., IV., 67 sqq. ^ j„j^^ jy_^ 121-145. DIVINA COMMEDIA. 377 Bible or any orthodox Clmrch. The theory of the anninilation of rational beings made in the image of God and redeemed by the blood of Christ is hard enough, but not nearly as revolting to every sentiment of sympathy and compassion, as the doctrine of never-ending ])unishment. It is difficult to conceive that an infinitely wise and merciful God should have created so many beings in full foreknowledge of such a terrible fate. But we humbly bow before the highest authority of Him who came into this world for the express purpose to save it from sin and perdition. There is, however, good scriptural ground for a very serious modification of the orthodox doctrine as far as the number of the lost and the mode of their punishment are concerned. There is no Scripture warrant for excluding from heaven the over- whelming majority of mankind, i.e., not only all bad Christians, but also all the heathen, Jews, Mohammedans, together with their unbaptized (or, in Calvinistic phraseology, non-elect) child- ren dying in infancy. St. Augustin, who exerted more influence upon the Creeds of Christendom than any other divine, first clearly taught the '^terrible dogma ^' of the damnation of all unbaptized infants, though he reduces their sufferings to a mini- mum. He inferred it from the doctrine of the absolute neces- sity of water baptism for salvation, which he based upon a one- sided interpretation of John 3 : 5 and Mark 16 : 16. But these passages can only refer to those who come within the reach of the visible church and the ordinary means of grace. We are bound to these means, but God is free and his Spirit can work where, wdien, and how he pleases (John 3 : 8). As regards child- ren dying in infancy before they have committed any actual transgression, we have the word and act of our Saviour who invited them to his arms, blessed them, and declared, without any reference to circumcision or baptism, and before Christian baptism was instituted or could be exercised : ^^ Of such is the Kingdom of God" (Mark 10 : 13-16). Here is a firm and immovable ground of hope for all bereaved parents. Surely there is nothing in the Bible rightly interpreted to prevent, and much, very much to encourage the charitable hope that the overwhelming mass of God's creatures made in his own image 378 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. and redeemed by the blood of his Son, will ultimately be saved and join "the great multitude which no man can number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues'' (Rev. vii : 9), in the praise of his infinite wisdom and love. THE VESTIBULE. As the poets enter through the gate of despair they are over- whelmed with the horrid lamentations of the lost. ' ' There sighs, complaints, and ululations loud Resounded through the air without a star, Whence I, at the beginning, wept thereat. Languages diverse, horrible dialects. Accents of anger, words of agony. And voices high and hoarse, with sound of hands Made up a tumult that goes whirling on Forever in that air forever black. Even as the sand doth, when the whirlwind breathes."^ The description reminds one of the fearful words of the ghost of Hamlet's father who, however, was not in Hell but only in Purgatory. "I am thy father's spirit ; Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night, And for the day confiu'd to lasting fires. Till the foul crimes, done in my days of nature, Are burnt and purg'd away. But that I am forbid To tell the secrets of my prison-house, I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood, Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres. Thy knotted and combined locks to part. And each particular hair to stand on end. Like quills upon the fretful porcupine ; But this eternal blazon must not be To ears of flesh and blood." The vestibule or outer court of Hell is the abode of the melancholy crowd of cowards and indifferentists, who are too bad for Heaven and too good for Hell, and hence spit out by both in disgust. Dante pours upon them the vial of his scorching sarcasm, of which he was a perfect master. He had in his mind the lukewarm Laodiceans who were neither hot nor cold, and 1 Inf., III., 22-30. THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 379 whom the Lord threatened to spew out of his mouth (Rev. iii. : 15, 16). The iuliabitauts of the Ante-Hell lived in selfish indifference, without fame or infamy, unconcerned about the great moral struggle going on in the world. Mercy and justice alike disdain them. Hell would be too proud to receive such guests who had not courage enough to be bad. Their names are unknown, lost and forgotten.-^ They are mingled with that caitiff choir of angels who remained neutral in the great rebellion of Satan against God. This miserable rabble is driven by an unceasingly whirling flag; while wasps and flies sting their naked bodies. Dante is surprised at their large number. Virgil tells him : "Let us not speak of them, but look and pass."^ Yet Dante recognizes the shade of him, "Who made tlirougli cowardice the great refusal."' This is usually referred to Pope Coelestine Y. (elected July 5, 1294), and "the great refusal,^^ to his abdication of the papacy (December 13, 1294) — an event which had never occurred before. He was a saintly monk, but ignorant of the world and human nature. Cardinal Benedetto Gaetano, afterwards Boni- face YIIL, persuaded him, a few months after his election, to resign the highest dignity on earth, and imprisoned him, to pre- vent a schism, in a castle near Anagni, where he died (May 19, 1296). The resignation of Coelestine was regarded as a sublime act of self-denial and sacrifice, for which he was canonized by Clement Y., in 1313. It is strange that the first person whom Dante met in Hell should be a pope ; and stranger still, that it should be such an humble and innocent pope whom he exposes to contempt, in direct opposition to the judgment of the Church. He may have looked upon the resignation as an act of cowardly escape from solemn duty, prompted by the unholy ambition of Pope Boniface ^ Like that tyrant in Uhland's llinstrcVs Curse : " Vcrsunkcn und vcrgcsscn : das ist dcs Scingcrs Fluch.^^ 2 Inf., III. 51 : ^^Non ragioniam di lor, ma guarda e passa.'''' 3 Ihid., III., 60: ^^Chefcce per viltate il gran rifiuio.^^ 880 THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. YIII., whom above all popes he hated as a bad man and a disgrace to the papacy.-^ But resignation is not " refusal." Some have conjectured that Dante meant Esau who sold his birthright, or the rich youth who was invited by Christ to follow him, but ^^ went away sorrowful " (Matt. xix. : 22). But '^ the great refusal " points to a historic person and act well known in the time of the poet under that name. 1 deem it most probable that the poet had in mind Pontius Pilate, who was perfectly convinced of the innocence of Christ, but from cowardice and fear of losing his place refused to do him justice and surrendered him to the bloodthirsty design of the Jewish hierarchy.^ The basest act a judge could commit. Of all men in biblical or ecclesiastical history, Pilate was the fittest representative of cowardly and selfish neutrality. He was also best known to the readers of the Commedia, as his name is embedded in the Apostles' Creed to designate the his- toric connection of Christ's death with the Roman empire. Dante does not mention Pontius Pilate elsewhere, except figur- atively by calling Philip the Fair of France '^the modern Pilate," for his cowardly cruelty to a defenceless old pope.^ THE STRUCTURE OF THE INFERNO. From the Vestibule the poets are in sleep as by a divine miracle transported across the cheerless Acheron to the Inferno proper. I shall confine myself to an outline of the pilgrimage. The structure of the Inferno, as already observed, is that of a huge subterranean amphitheatre in the shape of a funnel, becoming narrower and narrower in the descent till it reaches the abode of Satan in the centre of the earth. This form corresponds to the nature and progress of sin, which consists in ever narrowing and contracting selfishness. As the number of slight and ordinary sinners is larger than that of great trans- ^ In Inf., XXVII., 104, 105, he makes Boniface say of his predecessor, that he despised the two keys of the papal power. 2 This interpretation as far as I know is new, and was suggested to me recently by a friend in a conversation on Dante, as a phiusible conjecture. I wonder that it has not occurred to any of the numerous commentators on Dante. 3 Furg. XX., 91. SECTION OF THE HELL. LUCIFER •^T. THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. 381 gressors, the upper circles are broader and more densely crowded. It is also very expressive, that over these regions there reigns a constant darkness^ growing denser with the depth. Still, a faint gleam of light overspreads the gloomy terraces ; and the lower portions are illumined by the unquenchable fire/ but only to increase the horror of the damned by rendering their misery visible to them. Thomas Aquinas teaches that the inhabitants of Hell see their misery ''sub quadem umbrositate.^^ Milton describes Hell as "A dungeon horrible, on all sides around, As one great furnace, flam'd ; j^et from those flames No light, but rather darkness visible, Serv'd only to discover sights of woe, Kegions of sorrow, doleful shades, where peace And rest can never dwell, lioj^e never comes That comes to all, but torture without end Still urges, and a fiery deluge, fed "With ever burning sulphur unconsumed."^ In consequence of the meaning of the number three, reaching as it does even to the lower world, Dante divides Hell into three regions, each one comprising three terraces, so that it on the whole consists of nine circles. To them must be added a preliminary circle, the vestibule of Hell. The regions are separated from one another by the windings of a large stream, which flows in circles through Hell. Of these circular windings there are four. The first, separating the fore-court from Hell properly so called, is the joyless Acheron; the second, the marshy Styx ; the third, the burning Phlegethon; and the fourth, the cold Cocytus. The stream ends at last in an icy lake, in the centre of which sits the Devil. This is probably intended to represent the stream of Belial, mentioned in 2 Samuel xxii. : 5, as encompassing the dead in Hell. It rises, according to Dante, in the island of Crete, from the conflu- ence of all the tears which the human race has ever wept in ^ Matt. viii. : 12, " Cast into outer darkness." 2 Compare Mark ix. : 44 ; Matt. iii. : 12 (" unquenchable fire"). ' Far. Lost, Book i., 61 sqq. 382 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. consequence of sin, and will yet weep during the different ages of its existence, which increase in wickedness, and find their representatives in these four streams. SIN AND PUNISHMENT. In the division of sins our poet follows Aristotle, who divides the sins into three classes; namely, incontinence {axpaaia)^ wickedness {y.axia)^ and violence, or beastliness ('>*>; />£or7j?).i But, in accordance with his Christian standpoint, Dante differs from Aristotle in that he places wickedness, or as he terms it cunning (froda)y lowest in the scale. The first kind of sin, that of incontinence, is human ; the second, violence, is bestial ; tiie third, cunning, is demoniacal. Each of these genera comprises again a number of distinct species. Under incontinence, for example, he ranks licentiousness, avarice, prodigality, wrath, etc.; under violence he includes murder, Ijlasphemy. etc.; under cunning, the different forms of treachery. The punishments of the damned are, according to Dante, both spiritual and bodily. The spiritual punishments consist chiefly in an impotent hatred towards God, in envying the happy con- dition of the blessed, in dissensions among themselves, and in a continual lust for sin without the power or prospect of satisfying it. This everlasting torment expresses itself also externally, and Dante exhausts ingenuity in describing the bodily punish- ments. In doing this he follows the general principle laid down in the Book of Wisdom, xi., 17 : " Wherewithal a man sinneth, by the same also shall he be punished." A similar thought was supposed to be implied in the assertion of our Lord : " With what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again " (Mark iv. : 24; Luke vi. : 38). Sin itself, in the other world, is the punishment of sin. Sinners flee from j)unishment, but desire the sin; the desire is present, but its satisfaction is unattainable; the desire itself has become a tormenting sting. This general idea of a close connection between sin and the form of its punishment is, however, carried out, not in a pedantic and literal, but in a very free and manifold way. The lazy, for ^ Ethics, VII., 1. THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 383 example, roll themselves about in the mire; the licentious are driven to and fro by a whirlwind ; the irascible smite each other in the muddy Styx; the Archbishop Ruggieri, who U})on earth had denied food to Count Ugolino, is doomed to have his head chewed by him in Hell. IMPARTIALITY OF DANTE. Dante brings together a variegated mass of pictures from all ages and ranks. Poets, scholars, philosophers, heroes, princes, emperors, monks, priests, cardinals, and popes, in short, all that Truth and History, Poetry and Mythology, have been able to afford of distinguished sins and vices, he causes to pass before us, living, speaking, and suffering, until overcome with horror we feel compelled to bow before the terrible justice of God, to whom every sin is an abomination. There is opened here to the careful reader, a wide field of the most interesting, historical, psycho- logical, metaphysical, theological and edifying observations. No poet has ever so forcibly and graphically described the sinfulness of sin and the well deserved terror of its guilt. In his stern impartiality Dante spares neither friends nor foes, neither Ghibellines nor Guelfs, neither popes nor emperors, and restrains the claims of mercy. Pie assigns to everlasting woe Farinata degli Uberti, the most valiant and renowned leader of the Ghibellines in Florence who died 1261;^ Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti, the father of his most intimate friend, Guido Caval- canti;^ even Brunetto Latini, his own beloved teacher;^ and the unfortunate Francesca da Rimini, a near relative of his last patron, Guido da Polenta, under whose roof he died.^ She is said to have been deceived by her father into marrying the deformed and repulsive Gianciotto Malatesta, son of the Lord of Rimini, while she^loved his handsome brother Paolo, and was 1 Inf., X., 32sqq. 2 IhicL X., 52 sqq. He was a Guelf and doomed to the same torment with the Ghibelline. 3 Ihid. XV., 30 sqq. ^ Ihid. v., 80 sqq. She was either an aunt, or niece of Guido. See Nota A., in Scartazzini's La Div. Com. i., 45, who gives the reports of Boccaccio and the anonymous Florentine edited by Fanfani. 384 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. murdered with him by her husband during tlie lifetime of Dante (1289). When he saw her he was moved to tears, and when he heard her delicate and touching tale of her temptation by reading a romantic love story, he ^' for pity swooned away as if he had been dying, and fell, even as a dead body falls," ^ He would have sent the guilty couple to Purgatory if they had had time to repent of their illicit love. But it was too late, too late ! And so they have to feel that ^' there is no greater sorrow than to be mindful of the happy time in misery." Poor Francesca is the only Christian woman whom he branded ; the other females whom he locates in the same region of despair, are all heathen — Semiramis, Dido, Plelen, and ^^ the voluptuous Cleopatra;"^ and so are the women located in the eighth circle of HelL^ It would have been far more consistent with justice if he had substi- tuted for the relation of his patron those infamous Roman araazons — Marozia and Theodora — who during the period of the papal ^' pornocracy " placed their paramours and bastards on the throne of St. Peter and dragged the papacy down to the lowest depth of depravity. But they are ignored. THE NINE CIRCLES OF HELL. Let US briefly survey the nine circles of Dante's Inferno.^ 1. The first circle is the moderate hell for the least guilty class of sinners who were ignorant of Christianity and deprived of the benefit of baptism, yet are included among the lost in consequence of Adam's fall.^ It is the border region or Limbo, which was formerly divided into the Limhus Infantum for unbaptized infants whose sighs cause the air to tremble, and the Limhus Patt'um, the temporary prison of the pious souls from Adam to John the Baptist, who died in the hope of the coming Saviour, but were transferred to Paradise when Christ descended 1 Ibid, v., 140-142. 2 jjj^ y^ 58 sqq. 3 Thais, the fomous courtesan of Athens, Inf., xviii., 130 sqq. ; Hecuba, Polyxena, and " tlie nefarious Myrrha who became, beyond all rightful love, her father's lover," ibid. XXX., 16 sqq.; 38 sqq. ^ A minute description with suitable illustrations would require a volume. I may refer to the works of Professor Botta, Francesca Kossetti, and Dr. Hettinger, who give large extracts from the poem itself See Lit. , p. 333, 335. ^ See p. 37.") sf]. THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 385 and proclaimed to them the accomplished redemption. Their place is occupied by the great poets, sages, statesmen, and heroes of ancient Greece and Kome who lived up to the dim light of natural reason and conscience. The wicked heathen are dis- tributed among the impenitent Christians. The Limbo is not a place of actual suffering, but ratiier corre- sponds to the Pagau Elysium. The distiuguished heathen lead there a dreamy life of longing and desire, without hope, vainly groping in the dark after the unknown God. They still move in the element of worldly ambition, according to the maxim of Cicero : " Optimus quisque maxime gloria ducitur.^^ They seek honor and take honor, and constantly compliment each other. They look grave with an air of great authority, but speak seldom and with gentle voices. Dante was seized with grief to see among them persons of great worth ; but the orthodox theology did not allow him to entertain any hope of their ulti- mate deliverance. ^' Lasciate ogni speranza ! ^^ 2. The Second Circle is the proper commencement of Hell; and Minos, the infernal Judge, watches at the entrance. It con- tains the souls of carnal sinners who are driven by fierce winds in total darkness. Here are the adulterous and voluptuous women, from Semiramis and Cleopatra to Fraucesca da Rimini among the poet's contemporaries. Canto v.-^ 3. The Third Circle is inhabited by epicures and gluttons, whose god is their belly. They are lying on the ground exposed to a constant shower of hail, foul water or snow, and to the barking of the three-headed monster Cerberus. Canto YI. On the brink of the next Circle the poets find Plutus, the god of riches, who swells with rage when he sees strangers invade his realm, but is sharply reproved by A^irgil. 4. The Fourth Circle is intended for the prodigal and avari- cious doomed to roll large dead weights forwards and back- wards. Among them are many popes and tonsured clergymen. Canto VII. ^ This canto is the most popular in the whole poem and has often been separately translated. K. Kohler published twenty-two German translations from 1763-1863. See Lit., p. 334, and p. 383 sq. 25 386 THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. 5. The Fifth Circle is approached by a broad marsh and cod- tains the filthy spirits of brutal arrogance and wrath. Dante recognizes among them Filippo Argenti, a worthless man of irascible temper, Herculean strength and immense wealth, whose riding horse was shod with silver (argento). He was of the Neri faction in Florence, and seems to have provoked the animosity of Dante, who belonged to the Bianchi. Canto viii. The first five Circles constitute the Upper Hell of Inconti- nence. We descend now to the Lower Hell of Malice. 6. The Sixth Circle is the dreary City of Dis or Lucifer, full of burning sepulchres open on the top. Here heretics and in- fidels are punished. Cantos viii, 76 sqq.-xi. Among them are very distinguished persons, the valiant Ghibelline chief, Fari- nata of Florence, Cavalcante de' Cavalcanti (Farinata's son-in- law, and father of Dante's most intimate friend, Guido Caval- oanti), the Ghibelline Cardinal Ottaviano degli Ubaldini, of Florence, who said, '^if there be any soul, I have lost mine for the Ghibellines," and the liberal and accomplished Hohenstaufen Emperor Frederick IL, to whom Avas ascribed the fabulous book on The Three Impostors (Moses, Jesus, Mohammed).-^ It is strange that Dante omits the far more notorious arch-heretics of the ancient church, as Marcion, Manichseus, Arius, Nestorius, Pelagius, etc. But he wished to strike with his lightning the summits of Italian history still within the memory of his gen- eration. To them he adds a supreme pontiff. On the edge of a rocky precipice between the Sixth and Seventh Circle he found a large monument with an inscription : "Anastasius I hold whom Photinus drew from the straight way.''^ He means Anastasius IL, an obscure pope, who ruled only two years (496-498), and is re- })orted to have received the monophysitic deacon, Photinus of Thessalonica, into church communion. For this he was himself branded as a heretic in the famous Decretum Gratiani, and so ^ Comp. above p. 307. In his book De Vulg. Eloquio, i., 12, Dante speaks highly of Frederick's literary merits. 2/n/., XL, 8, 9: ^^ Anasfasio papa giiardo, Lo qual trasse Fotin dclla via dritta.''^ TPIE DIYINA COMMEDIA. 387 considered in the Church down to the sixteenth century.^ He died suddenly, and this was construed as a divine judgment. Dante no doubt followed the authority of Gratian, the great teacher of the canon law at Bologna. He might have selected clearer and stronger examples of heretical popes, as Liberius (352-366), who was charged with Arianism, and Honorius 1 (625-638), who was condemned by cecuiiienical councils and by his own successors as a Monothelite. The case of Honorius figured most prominently in the Vatican Council of 1870, and was the chief argument of the anti-infallibilists.^ 7. The Seventh Circle (Cantos xii.-xiv.), in three divisions, is the abode of murderers, suicides and blasphemers, and is sur- rounded by a river of blood. The way to it leads through a wild chasm of shattered rocks. It is guarded by the Minotaur, the horror of Crete and emblem of bloodthirsty violence and brutality. Among the murderers are mentioned Alexander the Great, the tyrant Dionysius of Sicily, Guy de Montfort, wdio during mass stabbed Prince Henry from revenge, and Attila, the King of the Huns, who called himself the Scourge of God. Among the suicides, naked and torn, is Pietro delle Vigne (de Vineis), the famous secretary and chancellor of the Emperor Frederick II., otherwise a noble-hearted man, wdio was charged with treason and was unwilling to outlive his honor. The small class of blasphemers against God are lying supine upon a plain of burning sand. They are more severely punished than their neighbors, by a slow and constant shower of flakes of fire, which fall upon them like flakes of snow in the Alps; yet they continue to blaspheme with their old fury. (Canto XIY.) Their representative is Capeneus, one of the seven kings who besieged Thebes. He was struck by Jupiter with his thunder. ' ' Not any torment, saving tliine own rage, Would be unto thy fury pain complete." ^ Cantos XV. and xvi. describe the punishment of violence against nature. Here Dante does not spare his own teacher and ^ See a full account of this case in Dullinger's Papstfaheln des 3Iittclalters, J). 124 sqq. ; Eng. transl. 210 sqq. 2 Schafif, Creeds of Christendom, I., 178 sqq ; Church History, IV., 500 sqq. 3Jn/., XIV., 65, 66. 388 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. friend, Brunetto Latin i (xv., 30 sqq.), bat he speaks to his baked and withered figure with great respect and affection. Canto XVII. describes the punishment of usurers who do violence to nature and to art. We now descend to the sins of bestiality. 8. The Eighth Circle, called the Malebolge^ or Evil-budgets, consists of ten concentric ditches or pits for the following sinners: (1) Seducers, (2) Flatterers, (3) Simoniacs, (4) Soothsayers, (5) Barrators, (6) Plypocrites, (7) Thieves, (8) Evil Counselors, (9) Schismatics, (10) Falsifiers. Cantos xviii.-xxxi. Dante is especially severe, in Canto xix., against the Simoniacs or Simonists, that is, the wretched followers of the arch-heretic and arch-hypocrite, Simon Magus, who prostitute for gold and silver the things of God, and turn his temple into a den of thieves. They are fixed one by one in narrow round holes along the sides of the rock, with the head downwards, with the feet and part of the legs standing out and tormented with flames. At the bottom of the chasm are three popes, Nicholas III. (d. 1281), who enriched all his nephews by open simony; Boniface VIIL, who ^^seized the comely Lady (the Church) and then made havoc of her'' (d. 1303), and Clement Y. (d. 1314), "the lawless shepherd from the west" (who was made pope under shameful conditions by the influence of Philip the Fair, of France). The last two Dante condemns by prophetic anticipation before their death (as the Inferno was begun in 1300). Such false shepherds St. John had in view when he saw the Roman harlot committing fornication with the kings. (Rev. xvii : 1-15.) ' ' Ye have made yourselves a god of gold and silver ; And from the idolater wherein do ye cliifer, Save that he worships one, and ye a hundred ? " ^ Then follows the famous passage of Constantine and his reputed donation of the temporal power to the pope. This fearful severity does not make Dante an enemy of the papacy. On the contrary, he says that his reverence for the lofty keys prevented him from using still greater severity.^ ^ Bolfjin (Lat. hxilgn, Fr. hougc) means a bag, budget, aud iu a -wider sense any dark bole or gulf. 2 Inf., XIX., 112-114. ' Ibid. XIX., 100 sq. THE DIYINA COMMEDIA. 389 Even Thomas Aquinas, his theological master, says that the pope, like any other mortal, may fall into the vice of simony, and his guilt is all the greater, the higher his position as the supreme disposer, not possessor, of the property of the Church.^ Among the sowers of scandal and schism are Mohammed and Ali, fearfully mutilated, and " Cleft in the face from forelock unto cliin."^ 9. The Ninth and last Circle is the abode of traitors, furthest removed from the source of all light and heat, the frozen lake of Cocytus. Cantos xxxii.-xxxiv. Cold is expressive of the heartless selfishness of treason, and to a southern imagina- tion, like Dante's, as severe a punishment as a burning furnace would be to a Scandinavian poet. He divides the circle into four concentric rings or belts, corresponding to four classes of traitors : (1) Caina for traitors to blood relations, called after Cain who murdered his brother. (2) Antenora for the traitors to their country, from Antenor who betrayed his native Troy. (3) Ptolemsea for the traitors to confidants, either from Ptolemy the Egyptian king who betrayed Pompey when he fled to him for protection, or, more probably, from Ptolemy who treacherously slew Simon, the high priest, and his two sons at a feast, 1 Mace, xvi. : 15-17. (4) Judecca for traitors to their benefactors, called after Judas Iscariot. Dante finds many Florentines in the first two rings, both Guelfs and Ghibellines. He especially detests Bocca degli Abati, who by his treachery caused the slaughter of the Guelfs at the battle of Monte Aperto, in 1260, and threw every family of Florence into mourning. But the most horrible scene in the Antenora, and the whole poem, is the punishment of Count Ugolino, Podesta of Pisa and chief of the Guelfs, and Archbishop Puggieri, chief of the Ghibellines.^ The count betrayed the Ghibellines in 12S4, and united wath the archbishop in 1288 in betraying Judge Nino, his own grandson, but was betrayed in turn by the arch- bishop, thrown into prison with two innocent sons and two 1 Summa, li., ii., q. 100, a. 1 a. 2, quoted by Hettinger, p. 166, 191. 2 Ibid, xxviii., 33. ' hif., xxxiL, 124 ; xxxiii., 75. 390 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. grandsons and starved to death in a tower at Pisa, called ever since ^' the Tower of Famine.'^ The two traitors " are frozen together in one hole so closely that one head was a cap to the other; and as bread is chewed for hunger, so the uppermost put his teeth into the other where the brain joins with the nape/^ Dante saw Ugolino as he raised " his mouth from the fell repast and wiped it on the hair of the head he had laid waste behind." The count tells the poet his last sufferings in the prison when he bit both his hands for grief, and his sons, thinking that he did it from hunger, said to him : " Father, much less pain 't will give us If thou do eat of us ; thyself didst clothe us With this poor flesh, and do thou strip it off. ' ' This tragedy, immortalized by Dante and Chaucer, gives a frightful picture of the ambition, treachery, cruelty and ferocity of the Middle Ages, and illustrates the law, that sin is its own worst punishment. The thirty-fourth and last Canto of the Inferno opens with " Vex'dla Regis prodeunt Inferni!'^ ' ' The banners of the King of Hell come forth. ' ' A parody of the hymn of triumph on the mystery of the cross by Fortunatus.-^ It is a startling introduction into the Judecca, the circle of the arch-traitor to God, the traitor to our Saviour, and the traitors to Csesar. Lucifer /' the Emperor of the dolorous Realm," ^ is described as a hideous monster, immersed in the icy lake up to his breast. He had three faces, the counterpart of the Holy Trinity, the one fiery red in front, the others pale and black on the side. The three colors may symbolize the three continents then known over which his dominion extends. Under each, face issued forth two mighty wings broader than sea-sails, in form and texture like a bat's; and he was flapping them so that three winds went forth ^ ^^Vexilla Regis prodnmi, FuJget crucis mysleriion, Quo came carnis eondifor, Su.' (to, -iy.yirJ)^ may have reminded him of our Saviour's word to Judas : " Friend, do that for which thou art come" [iraipt, ^v'-' o -dp-i, Matt. 26 : 50). Here is the culmin- ation of Dante's view of Church and State as developed in his book De Monarchia. Judas sinned against the Divine Head of the Church, Brutus and Cassius sinned against the temporal head of the Imperial State, all sinned against God and humanity. The triple-headed Satan with three sinners in his mouth cor- responds to the grotesque demons in mediaeval art. He is abso- lutely hideous, without one noble feature remaining. Pie thus differs widely from Milton's " archangel ruined," " in shape and gesture proudly eminent/' whose "form had not yet lost all his original brightness."^ Goethe abstains from a description of the outward form of Mephistopheles, but describes his character in words and actions more philosophically than Dante or Milton: " Ich bin ei)i Tliell von jencr Kraft, Die stets d((s B'Ose ici'Il und stcts das Gate schafff ; Ich hui der Geist der stets verneint.'" Having reached the lowest depth of Hell, Yirgil, bearing Dante, slides down the shaggy sides of Beelzebub between the tangled hair and frozen crusts, and passing through a cavern, the poets ascend to the opposite side of the earth, in the South Pacific Ocean. " Thence we came forth to rebeliold the stars." ^Comp. Farad. Lost, i., 192, 589; ii., 63G ; iv., 985. 392 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. THE PURGATORIO. What a chaDge from the region of eternal darkness to the sight of the sun and starry firmament, and from the despair of the lost to the hope of the saved ! Purgatory is the temporary abode of the penitent who died in the grace of God, and look for that perfect peace which awaits them after completing the process of sanctification.-^ Still it is a place of suffering, and so far of dread. All pious Catholics expect to go there, with mingled fears and hopes, and none considers himself fit for the company of saints in light. Even popes are not exempt ; their title ^^ Holiness'' applies only to their official character; })ersonally they may be very unholy. Pope Pius IX., by an inscription on his coffin, requested the faithful to pray for his soul {Orate pro me). The suffering church in Purgatory is in constant contact with the militant church on earth by prayers and masses for the dead. In Purgatory all is human, and appeals to our sympathy : a mingling of weakness and sorrow v/ith virtue and hope, of the tears of repentance with the joys of forgiveness, of prayers and supplications with hymns of praise, of constant effort with the brightening prospect of ultimate purity and deliverance. Dante's Purgatory is a steep, spherical mountain in the West- ern Hemisphere, which, according to the original plan of Provi- dence was to have been the abode of the human race. It is the highest mountain in the world. Its summit is crowned w^ith the terrestrial Paradise, out of which Adam was thrust on account of his transgression. It is the direct antipode of Sion, the mountain of salvation, on the inhabited hemisphere, and at the same time the threshold of Heaven. Both moun- tains rise, in a direct line, above the middle point of Hell. Christ, the second Adam, has again recovered, by his death upon Golgotha, the Paradise which was lost by the sin of the first Adam. But the way now leads through Purgatory, i. e., through the deep knowledge of sin, and the purifying pains of penitence. At the foot of the mountain of purification Dante meets Cato of Utica, the Stoic friend of liberty, who committed ^ Purg., III., 73 sqq. THE PURGATORY. ^ LOVE EXCESSIVE p^'"7~^~i^^ 3 CLASSES "^ ^LOVE DEEECTIVE fetj^^ 1 CLASS ^^ ^LOVE DISTOIlTED^»^-~ hi^J^Q^^^S CL AS SE S ,^ THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 393 suicide that he might not survive the Romau Republic. lie is described as a solitary old man with a venerable aspect, long gray beard and double lock. He is the guardian of Purgatory, and the only heathen who escaped the eternal prison, except the Emperor Trajan. i He wonders at the a})pearance of Virgil, who assures him that he came not of his own accord, but at the behest of Beatrice. By his direction, Virgil must first wash from Dante's face the tilth of Hell, and gird him with a smooth rush (the symbol of humility). Then an angel, the direct re- verse of the dreadful Charon, who conducted the dead across Acheron, brings them in a light bark to the opposite shore. Purgatory has, like Hell, a vestibule where all those are re- quired to tarry, who have postponed repentance while upon earth to the last moment. An angel escorts the v/anderers over three stairs, which represent the three stages of penitence (contritlo, confessio, and saiisfactio), through the gate of absolution, and, in order that he may think upon the seven mortal sins, cuts the letter P [i^cccata) seven times upon his forehead with his sword. ^ The mountain itself has seven broad terraces cut into its sides, and on these dwell the penitent. The different penances correspond with the punishments of Hell, in inverted order. la Hell Dante descended from the lesser to the greater transgres- sions; in Purgatory he leads us from the greater sins and penances upward to those of less enormity. The sins for which penance is done here, are the same which are punished there; but with this difference, that there we have to do with obdurate and impenitent sinners, here with contrite souls. As in Hell, sin and punishment, so in Purgatory, sin and penance, stand in a causal relation toward one another; but the relation here is one of opposition, sin being destroyed, since the will is brought to break and yield, in direct contrariety to what it was before. The proud, who fill the first and lowest terrace, are compelled to totter under huge weights, in order that they may learn humil- ity. The indolent in the fourth terrace are constantly and rap- idly walking. In the fifth, the avaricious and prodigal, their hands and feet tied together, lie with their faces in the dust, weep- ing and wailing. In the sixth, the gluttons must, like Tantalus, ^ See above, p. 349. ^ Purg., IX., 93 sqq. ; 102 sqq. 394 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. suffer hunger and thirst, in sight of a tree richly laden with fruits, and of a fresh flowing fountain, until they have learned moderation. In the seventh, the licentious wander about in flames, that their sensual passions may be purged from them by fire. At the entrance into every circle the angel who conducts them obliterates one of the P's upon the forehead of the poet. In the same measure also his ascent becomes easier at every terrace. In place of the fearful darkness of the Inferno he is here lighted on his way by the three stars of the theological virtues. Faith, Hope, and Love. In place of the heart-rending lamentations of the damned, he hears the Lord's Prayer, the prayers to the saints and the ever sweeter sounding hymns of Salvation, as sung by the souls which are longingly gazing toward Paradise, and step by step approach nearer to its confines. At the beginning of the eleventh Canto we hear a most beautiful paraphrase of the Pater Noster from the mouth of the proud who have to become as little children of the Father in heaven before they can enter the kingdom of heaven (Matt, xviii., 3).^ Whenever a soul has completed its purification a trembling of the whole mountain announces its entrance into heaven.^ Havinoj reached the Terrestrial Paradise on the summit of the mountain, Dante sees in a great vision the Church triumphant, under the image of a triumphal car drawn by a griffin, a fabulous animal, half eagle, half lion, which symbolizes the double nature of Christ, the Head of the Church. The mystery of the incarnation and the cross had been explained to hira previously by Beatrice (in Canto vii., 19 sqq.). Beatrice now descends from Heaven and appears to Dante in the triumphal car. She takes the place of Virgil, who is not j)ermitted to tread the Courts of Heaven. She rebukes Dante in strong language for his sins, and exhorts him to bathe in the ^ " Padre nostro, die ne^cicH stai, JVon circonscritto, ma per pi a amore, Che ai primi ejfeiti di lassii tu hai,^^ etc. 2 Piirg., XXI., 58 sqq. "It trembles here, whenever any sovil Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it." (Luke xv., 10.) THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 395 brook Lethe, that lie may forget all evil and all past afflictions. A second vision displays to him the corruption of the Church. Beatrice prophesies its restoration, and causes him to drink con- version from the brook Eunoe, whereby he becomes ca])able of rising upward to Heaven. THE rARADISO. Lightly now, as upon the wings of light, Dante flies upward through the different spheres of the Celestial Paradise, and marks his progress only by the higher glory of his exalted com- panion.^ Since very few Christians, according to Catholic theology, die in a state sufficiently mature for the company of the saints in light, Dante could not people Paradise with contemporaries or persons recently deceased, and confined himself to canonized saints and the great lights of the Church, who are the common property of mankind. He stretched, however, a point in favor of his ancestor Cacciaguida, who in the heaven of Mars praises the virtues of the great Florentines of former times, and prophe- sies Dante's banishment,^ and in favor of two of his personal acquaintances, namely Piccarda (a sister of Forese and Corso Donati and of his wife Gemma Donati), who was a saintly nun of Santa Clara,^ and Charles Martel of Hungary, his friend and benefactor, who married the beautiful daughter of Emperor Rudolph of Habsburg and died at the age of twenty-three (1295).'* In the cases of those eminent schoolmen, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventura, and Albert the Great, who died during Dante's youth, he anticipated the judgment of the Church which canonized them. High up in Dante's Paradise are the Apostles and Evangelists, and the redeemed of the Old Dispensation from Adam down to John the Baptist. Then we meet in different stars, according to merit and station. Christian emperors and kings, as Constau- tine the Great, Justinian, Charlemagne, William the Good (King of Apulia and Sicily), and the Roman emperor Trajan (whom he believed to have been saved by the intercession of 1 Par., XXI., 7 sqq. ^ Par., III., 49 sqq. 2 Ibid, Cantos xv.-xvii. * Par., viii., 49 sqq. 396 THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. Pope Gregory I.)/ the great doctors of the Church, as Augustin, Chrysostom, Anselra, Thomas Aqainas, Albertus Magnus, Bona- ventura; holy monks, as St. Bernard, St. Dominic, Joachim de Flore, and St. Francis of Assisi. Dante mentions also a few pious popes, as Gregory I., and Agapetus, but only casually in a word, and ignores the great missionaries who converted the northern and western barbarians. But who can make even a limited selection of the cloud of witnesses from all nations and kindreds and tongues ? l^o mortal man, not even the saints in heaven know the number of God's elect. "0 thou predestination, how remote Thy root is from the aspect of all those Who the First Cause do not behold entire ! And you, mortals ! hold yourselves restrained In judging ; for ourselves, who look on God, AVe do not know as yet all the elect : And sweet to us is such a deprivation. Because our good in this good is made perfect, That whatsoe'er God wills, we also will."^ The spirits of the saints show themselves to Dante in different planets to indicate the different stages of perfection and glory which they enjoy, and the planetary influences under which they were while living on earth. But their proper common abode is the Empyrean, as ex})lained in the fourth Canto :^ ' ' He of the Seraphim most absorbed in God, Moses, and Samuel, and whichever John Thou maj^st select, I say, and even Mary, Have not in any other heaven their seats, Than have those spirits that just appeared to thee, Nor of existence more or fewer years ; But all make beautiful the primal circle, And have sweet life in different degrees, By feeling more or less the eternal breath. They showed themselves here, not because allotted Tliis sphere has been to them, but to give sign or the celestial which is least exalted. To speak thus is adapted to your mind, Since only through the sense it apprehendeth What then it worthy makes of intellect. " ^ See above, p. 349. ^ p,^^.^ ^^^ 130-138. ^ p^r,^ iv., 23-42. THE DIVINA CO.MMEDIA. 397 Paradise is a region of pure light, and offers no such variety of definite localities and physical sensations as Hell and Purga- tory. Hence it is less })icturesque, but all the more spiritual and musical. It Is located according to the Ptolemaic system, In and beyond the heavenly bodies known at that time, and viewed as trans- parent spheres that roll around the stationary earth with different degrees of velocity, so that those which are nearest move slowest, while the most distant revolve witli greatest rapidity. Dante gives us his astronomical theory in the second Book of the Convivio as follows ^ : ' ' The order of position [of the heavens] is this, that the first one enumer- ated is that where the jMoon is ; the second that where Mercury is ; the third that where Venus is ; the fourth that where the Sun is ; the fifth that where Mars is ; the sixth that where Jupiter is ; the seventh that where Saturn is ; the eighth that where the Fixed Stars are ; the ninth is that which is not perceptible to sense (except by the motion spoken of above), and which is called by many the Crystalline, that is, the diaphanous, or wholly transparent. However, beyond all these, the Catholics place the Empyrean Heaven, which is as much as to say the Heaven of Flame or Linninous Heaven; and they hold it to be immovable, because it has within itself, in every part, that which its matter demands. And this is the reason that the Primiun Mohile moves with immense velocity ; because the fervent longing of all its parts to be united to those of this [tenth and] most divine and quiet heaven, makes it revolve with so much desire that its velocity is almost incomprehensible. And this quiet and peaceful heaven is the abode of that Supreme Deity who alone doth perfectly behold Him- self This is the abode of the beatified spirits, according to the holy Church, who cannot lie ; and Aristotle also seems to think so, if rightly understood, in the first of The Heavens and Earth. This is the supreme edifice of the universe, in which all the world is included, and beyond which is nothing ; and it is not in space, but was formed solely in the Primal Mind, which the Greeks call Protonoe. This is tliat magnificence of which the Psalmist spake, when he says to God, ' Thy magnificence is exalted above the heavens. ' And thus, summing up what has here been discussed, it seems that there are ten heavens, of which that of Venus is the third ; and this will be spoken of in the place where I intend to explain it. ' ' In the same work he gives the symbolic significance of these heavenly bodies.^ 1 Bk. II., Ch. 4. In K. Hillard's translation, p. 64 sqq. 2 Bk. II., Ch. 14, pp. 104-107, K. Hillard's translation. 398 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 1. "To SCO what is meant by the third heaven, we must first see what I mean by the single word 'heaven ;' and tlicn we shall see how and why this third heaven was necessary to us. I say that by heaven I mean science, and by heavens the sciences, because of three resemblances which the heavens bear to the sciences, above all in order and number, which seem to correspond in them ; as will be seen in treating of this word 'third.' 2. ' ' The first resemblance is the revolution of each around its immovable [centre]. Because each movable heaven revolves around its centre, which, liowever forcible that motion may be, remains immovable ; and so each science revolves around its subject, which is not moved by it, because science demonstrates its own subject, but presupposes it. 3. ' ' The second resemblance is in their power of illumination. For as each heaven illuminates visible things, so each science illuminates those that are intelligible. 4. "And the third resemblance is in their [the heavens] conducting towards perfection of things disposed thereto. Of which influence, in so fiir as it concerns the primal perfection, that is, material generation, all philosophers are agreed that the heavens are the cause, although they state it in difi"erent ways ; some that it comes from the motive Powers, like Plato, Avicenna, and Algazel ; some, from the stars (especially in the case of human souls), like Socrates, and also Plato, and Dionysius the Academician ; and some from the celestial virtue which is in the natural heat of the seed, like Aristotle and the other Peripatetics. 5- " And thus the sciences are the causes that bring about our second per- fection ; for through their means we can speculate on truth, which is our ultimate perfection, as the Philosopher has said in the sixth of the Ethics^ wdien he says that the true is the good of the intellect. For these, as well as for many other resemblances, we may call science heaven. 6. " Now wo must see why we say third heaven. Here we must reflect upon a comparison between the order of the heavens and that of the sciences. For, as has been said above, the seven heavens nearest to us are those of the planets ; then there are two heavens above these, movable, and one over all the rest, motionless. To the first seven correspond the seven sciences of the Trivimn and Quadrivium, that is. Grammar, Dia- lectics, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry, and Astrology. To the eighth sphere, that is, to the Starry Heaven, correspond Natural Science, called Physics, and the first of sciences, caWcd Metaphi/sics ; to the ninth sphere corr c?iY)onds 3Ioral Science; and to the Quiet Heaven corresponds Divine Science, which is called Theology. And the reason of all this may be briefly seen. ' ' He then goes on to explain the reasons of these symbolic references, which are very fanciful. Between the different spheres and their inhabitants, and the grades of their felicity, there is an intimate correspondence. THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. 399 Paradise consists of three chief regions, the Star Pleaveu, the Crystal Heaven, and the Empyrean. With the seven sub- divisions of the first, it comprehends ten places of abode for the blessed, whereby is indicated the fullness and perfection of Paradise. All Paradise resounds with the praise of the Triune God. '"Glory be to the Father, to the Son, And Hoi}' Ghost ! ' all Paradise began, So that the melod}^ inebriate made me. AMiat I beheld seemed unto me a smile Of the universe ; for my inebriation Found entrance through the hearing and the sight. jioy ! gladness inexpressible ! perfect life of love and peacefulness ! riches, without hankering secure ! " ^ Let us now briefly survey the diiferent spheres of the celestial world of Dante. 1. The Moon. It was reached by Dante, after passing throuo^h the reo-ion of air and fire. Here are the souls of those wdio did not quite fulfill their spiritual vows or were forced to violate them. (Canto ii.-iv.) 2. Mercury. Here dwell the souls of those who, although virtuous, yet strove in their bodily life after earthly fame. 3. Venus contains those spirits that in their pious strivings were not sufficiently free from earthly love, (yiii.-ix.) 4. The Sun holds a middle position among the stars, sending forth his rays equally in all directions, and is the clearest ^ Par., XXVII., 1-9. Here, as in the inscription on the gate of Hell, no translation comes up to the beauty and melod}' of the original. " Al Padre, al Figlio, alio Spirito Santo Comincio Gloria tutto il Paradiso, Si die m^ inchbriava il dolce canto. Cid clPio vedcva, mi scvihiava un riso DeJV universo; pcrche mia chhrezza Enirava per V udire e pier lo riso. gioja ! incffahile alJegrczza ! riia intera \s donaticm is admitted to be a forgery, as well as the pseudo- Isidorian Decretals, by all historical scholars of repute. See c. g. Streber iu the new ed. of Wetzer and Welte's Kirehenlcxikon, vol. iii., 979-985, and J. Priedrich, IJie Konstantinische Schenkung, MUncheu, 1889. THE DIVIXA COMMEDIA. 415 made themselves guilty of the same sin and incurred double guilt on account of their exalted position as successors of St. Peter, and the incalculable influence of their bad example upon clergy, monks and laity. It is notorious that many popes made merchandise of holy things, bought the papal crown, sold cardinals' hats and bishops' mitres, and perverted the property of the church for the enrichment of their nephews and other members of their families. Xearly all the rich palaces of Roman nobles with their picture galleries and treasures of art owe their origin to papal nepotism. The worst period of the papacy was that of the so-called pornocracy in the tenth and eleventh centu- ries, which cannot be mentioned without humiliation and shame. It was then that the German emperors had to interfere and to depose those wicked popes, the paramours and bastards of some bold, bad Koman women. Henry YII., at the synod of Sutri (1046), deposed three rival popes, all Simonists, and elected the worthy bishop Bruno of Toul in their place (1048), as Leo IX., the first reforming pope under the direction of Hildebrand, who himself succeeded to the papal chair as Gregory YII. (1073) and made war upon simony, but as well also upon sacerdotal marriage, and the power of the emperor. With all his zeal against Simony, Gregory could not prevent his successors from relapsing into the same sin. Dante condemns the Simonists to the eighth circle of Hell, where they are turned upside down with their heads in a narrow hole and their feet and legs standing out and burning — a fit pun- ishment for perverting the proper order of things by putting the material above the spiritual, and money above religion. The greatest sufferers in this pit are the simoniacal popes. The cor- ruption of the Roman court contaminated the higher and lower clergy and the whole church. Dante looked to Germany for a reformation of the Church and a restoration of the Empire, but he was doomed to disappointment in the hope he set on Henry YIL, and his vicar in Lom- bardy. In the meantime after the death of Boniface, the papacy had been transferred to Avignon, and became subservient to the French monarchs. Then followed the scandalous papal schism, the reformatory councils, the restoration and renewed corruption 416 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. of the papal power. At last the reformation came from Ger- many, but not from an emperor, and in a much more radical form than the poet dreamed of. In another sense, however, he proved a true prophet ; for it was by the aid of Germany, in the wars of 1866 and 1870, that Italy achieved her political unity and independence. DANTE AND THE JOACHIMITES. Dante stood not alone in his attitude to the papacy. There runs through all the Middle Ages a protest against the abuses in the Church and a desire for a reformation which grew stronger and stronger and ultimately culminated in the mighty religious revolution of the sixteenth century. Before him and during his lifetime there was a considerable commotion in the Franciscan order with which he was in sym- pathy. Tradition connects him with this order.^ He was buried in the Franciscan church at Kavenna. His daughter Beatrice was a nun in a Franciscan convent of that city. He fully appre- ciated the monastic principle of apostolic poverty, and considered wealth and temporal power a curse to the clergy. He puts into the mouth of Thomas Aquinas, who was a Dominican, a high eulogy of St. Francis of Assisi ; wdiile Bonaventura, a Franciscan, in the spirit of true brotherhood, without envy and jealousy, celebrates the life and deeds of St. Dominic.^ He assigns one of the uppermost places in the Rose of the Blessed to St. Francis, the most childlike, the most amiable, and the most poetic monk of the Middle Ages, the sympathizing friend of all God's crea- tures, whose highest aim and crowning glory was transformation into the image of the Saviour, who married Christ's poverty and dying left the care of this his " lady-love '' (la sua donna piii cava) to every one of his disciples. Dante, who was probably familiar with Bonaventura's life of the saint, thus tersely describes his character : ^ He joined the lay-brethren of the Franciscan Order, according to the testimony of Francesco da Buti, one of liis earliest commentators, Avho wrote about 1385. ^ p^^^ ^LI., 40 sqq. ; Xll,, 31 sqq. THE DIYIXA COMMEDIA. 417 " On tlie rouiih rock 'twixt Tiber's and Arno's plain, From Clirist received lie the last seal's impress, Which he two years did in his limbs sustain. When it pleased Him, who chose him thus to bless, To lead him up tlie liiuh reward to share Which he had merited by lowliness, Then to his brothers, each as rightful heir, He gave in charge his lady-love most dear. And bade them love her with a steadfast care. ' ' ^ At the same time he complains of the departure of the Fran- ciscans from the apostolic simplicity of their founder, and makes like complaint of the degeneracy of the Dominican order. He was in sympathy with the puritanical or spiritual party of the Joachimites, and the reform movement which agitated the Fran- ciscan order from the middle of the thirteenth century. He esteemed Joachim of Flore, who gave the first impulse to the movement, as a true prophet and assigned him a high place in Paradise with Rabanus Maurus, Dominic, Bonaventura, Chry- sostom, and Anselm. " Here is Rabanus, and beside me here Shines the Calabrian Abbot Joachim, He with the spirit of prophecy endowed. ' ' Joachim was a prophet in the same sense as Dante was a 1 Par. XI., 106-114, Pkimptre's translation. The final seal (/' uliimo sigillo, line 107) of Francis and his Order is the miracle of stigmatization or the im- pression of the five wounds of the crucifixion. It was reported by his biog- raphers that St. Francis after long and intense meditation on the sufferings of the Saviour, received in 1224, on the roeky Mount Alveruia, in the Apen- nines, while absorbed in prayer, on his hands and feet and side the wounds of the nails and the spear, and bore them two years till his death (1226). The place is still shown near the monastery which the saint founded. Thomas a Celano, the author of the Dies Iric, was his intimate friend and first biogra- pher. On St. Francis, see above p. 146 and 193 sqq. 2 Par. XII., 139-141 : *'// Calavrese [Calahrescl abate Gioacckino Di spiv iio prof etico dotaio.''^ His Latin name was Johannes Joachimus de Flore (or de Floris, de Floribus); his Italian name was Giovanni Gioacckino di Fiore (or del Fiore, Santa Fiora). His convent w^as called monasteriuni Florense {de Flore, de Floribun). See Scartazzini, Tom. iii., 333. 27 418 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. prophet. He roused the conscience, he reproved wickedness, he predicted a better future, like the Hebrew prophets. A brief notice of this remarkable man and his school may not be out of place here.^ Joachim was abbot of a Cistercian convent at Flore or Fiore in Calabria, an older contemporary of St. Francis (Renan calls him his Baptist), and like him an enthusiast for entire conformity to Christ in spirit and outward condition. He made a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, fasted forty days on Mount Sinai, led a life of self-denial and devotion to his fellow-men, studied with special zeal the prophetic portions of the Scriptures, opposed the worldliness and earthly possessions, the simony, nepotism and avarice of the clergy, and predicted a reformation. He died about 1202. He was revered by the people as a wonder-working prophet and saint. Neander says of him : ^' Grief over the corruption of the Church, longing desire for better times, pro- found Christian feeling, a meditative mind, and a glowing ^ The Literature on this chapter of mediseval church history is quite exten- sive, although several points need to he cleared up. The Acta Sanctorum for May 29th give many documents. "Wadding, the historian of the Franciscan Order, treats the history of the Spiritual party with sympathy, Annates Ordinis 3Iin. iv., 6 sqq. ISIaurique, Annates Cisicrcicnses, Regensburg, 1741. Oervaise, Ilistoire de VAhhe Joachim, Paris, 1745, v. vol. * Engelhardt, in •his " Kirchengeschichtliche Abhandlungen," Erlangen, 1832 pp. 1-150 ; 265- 291. ^ Hahn, Geschichte des Ketzer im llittetalter (Stuttgart, 1850), vol. ii. 69-175. ^Neander, Church' History, iv. 220-232 (Torrey's translation). * Dcillinger, Pope Fables and Prophecies of the Middle Ayes, Eug. transl. by Plummer, Am. ed. by H. B. Smith, N. York, 1872, pp. 364 391 ; and his AJcad. Vortrdge, 1888, i., 95 sqq. Eousselot, Histoire de V ^vangile eternel, Paris, 1861, I. Renan, Joachim de Flore et V ^vangile eternel, in the " Revue des deux mondes," July, 1866 (the same somewhat enlarged in his " Nouvelles etudes d' histoire religieuse," Paris, 1884). Preger, Das Evangclium aeternum und Joachim von Floris, in the "Abhandlungen der Konigl. Bayerischen Akademie der Wiss.," Mlinchen 1874. * Renter, Gesch. dcr Aufkldrung im 3Iittelalter (Berlin, 1875), vol. II., 191-218. Moller in Schaff-IIerzog, sub "Joachim von Floris." Tocco, Uere^ia nel medio evo, Firenze, 1884. P. Ileinrich Deuifle, Das Evangclium xternum und die Commissioii zu Anagni, with the Protocoll der Commission zu Anagni, in the " Archiv fiir Literatur — und Kirchengeschichte des Mittelalters "ed. by Deniile and Ehrle, vol. i. (1885), pp. 49-142. Franz Ehrle, Die Spiritualen, im Verhdltniss zinn Fraucis- caner Orden laid zu den Fraticellen, ibid. pp. 509-570. The last two treatises publish important documents. THE DIVINA COM MEDIA. 419 imagination, such are the peculiar characteristics of his spirit and of his writings." ^ Joachim wrote three works : The Harmony of the Old and New Testament ; Exposition of the Apocalypse ; Psalter of Ten Chords. To the last are attached two hymns of Paradise, the second of which was, as Renan conjectures, one of the sources of Dante's Commedia. Several other works of uncertain author- ship, especially commentaries on Isaiah and Jeremiah, were also ascribed to him.^ He wished to be orthodox and remained in the communion of the Catholic Church, but his apocalyptic opinions could easily lead astray and be utilized for heretical purposes. After his death he was condemned by the fourth Lateran Council (1215) for tritheism.^ He gave great offence by his attacks on the papacy and his prediction of the Eternal Gospel. An older contemporary, St. Hildegard, abbess of the Rupert convent near Bingen on the Rhine (b. 1098, d. 1107), took a similar position on the church question, and was generally revered as a prophetess. Pope Eugene III. and St. Bernard of Clairvaux, while preaching the second crusade in Germany, recognized her divine mission, and persons of all ranks flocked to her for advice, intercession, consolation, and light on the future.^ Joachim attacked as severely as Dante the corruption of the papacy, although it was better represented in the early than in the latter part of the thirteenth century. He, too, traced the decay of morals and discipline to the temporal power and the love of money, which is "a root of all kinds of evil." (1 Tim. vi. 10.) He complains of the exactions of the Roman curia. 1 Church History^ IV., 220 (Am. ed.). 2 On his works, see Engelhardt, I. c. ; Halm, I. c. iii., 84 ; Neander, iv., 221 ; Eeuter, ii., 356 ; and Denifle, 91. 3 He wished to escape the inference, from the unity of essence, that the incarnation of the Son would imply an incarnation of the Father and Spirit as well. It is uncertain whether he wrote a special book against Peter the Lombard, or whether his views on the Trinity were simply gathered from his Psalterium decern chordarum. See Halm, I. e. p. 87 sqq., and Hefele, Concilien- gesch. v., 180 (second ed. by Kniipfler). The Synod of Aries, 1260, condenmed the doctrina Joachimitica of the three ages. ^ See Neander, iv., 217 sqq. 420 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. "The whole world is polluted with this evil. There is no city nor village where the church does not push her benefices, collect her revenues. Everywhere she will have prebends, endless incomes. O God, how long doest thou delay to avenge the blood of the innocent which cries to thee from beneath the altar of the (Roman) capitol!'^^ He condemns indulgences dispensed from Rome, and rebukes the proud and carnal cardinals and bishops who seek their own instead of the things of Christ. He often compares the Roman Church with the Babylon and the harlot of the Apocalypse, who commits fornication with the kings of the earth, and he predicts that the last and worst Antichrist will sit in the temple of God and the chair of Peter, and exalt himself above all that is called God. He agreed with Hildegard in announcing a terrible judgment and consequent purification and transformation of the Church and the papacy. He divided the history of the world into three periods, which correspond to the persons of the Holy Trinity, the three leading Apostles — Peter, Paul, and John, and the three Christian graces — faith, hope, love. The period of the Father extends from the creation to the incarnation ; the period of the Son to the year 1260; the period of the Holy Spirit to the end of the world. The first period is the period of the laity, the second that of the clergy, the third that of the spiritual monks under a papa angelicus. The first was ruled by the letter of the Old Testa- ment; the second by the letter of the New Testament; the third will be ruled by the spirit of the New Testament, i. e., the spiritual understanding of the Gospel of Christ {splrituale evan- gdium Christij spiritualis intelUgentia Novi Testamenti). This is " the Everlasting Gospel,'^ to be proclaimed by the angel in the Apocalypse (Rev. xiv. 6). It is not a written book, hut a do7ium Spbitus Sandl, a donum contemjjlationis, and the order which is to proclaim it, is an ecdesia contemplativa, a populus spiritualis? Tlie last })eriod is the period of love represented by the be- ^ See Xeander, iv. , 222. 2 A distinction should be made between the unwritten Gospel of Joachim and the written Gospel of the Joachimites He was too modest to identify the Everlasting Gospel with his own writings. Comp. Halm, I. c. p. 158, stiq. ; Denifle, I. c. p. 56. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 421 loved disciple, the period of peace, the Sabbath which remains for the people of God. It will be preceded by a terrible con- flict with the concentrated power of Antichrist in its last and most i^owerful form. Then will be fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah (xiii., 9 sqq.), '' when the day of Jehovah cometh with wrath and fierce anger to make the land a desolation and to destroy the sinners thereof, when the sun shall be darkened, and the moon shall not shine." The three periods are also subdivided into seven sub-periods, corresponding to the days of creation and the Sabbath of rest. These prophecies are more fully developed in the doubtful, than in the three genuine, writings of Joachim, and are involved in mystical fog. The views of Joachim were adopted, enlarged and exagger- ated after his death by the Joachimites, a branch of the Fran- ciscans who opposed the prevailing laxity which had crept into the order, and who insisted on the severe rule of the founder. They were called Spirituals (Spirituales, ZelatoreSy Fraticelli), They indulged in ascetic extravagances and apocalyptic fancies, vehemently opposed the worldliness of the clergy and monks, and became more and more antipapal and antichurchly. Their war cry was 'Hhe Everlasting Gosj^el/' which created a great sensation about the middle of the thirteenth century.-^ ^ Franz Ehile (a Jesuit scholar and co-editor of the ArcJiiv fur Literaiur- uncl Kirchcngescli. des 31ittelalters) thus estimates the importance of this move- ment (Z. c. p. 509) : — ^'' Sowohl fur die kircJdicJte als f'ilr die poUtisclie GescJiicJde des 13. mid I4. JJis. Jiatie die im Franciscanerorden ersiandene Beivegunr/, welcJie wir geicohn- lich an die Nnmen der Spiritualen und Fraiicellen zii knilpfcn pflegen^ eine nicht zu unterschdizende Bedeutung. Dicselhe xcar zundchst ini 13 JIi. von grosster Tragweite fiir die Entwicklung des auf das kirchlicJie, ja auch auf das biirgcr- liche und politiscJie Leben mdchtig einicirkenden Ordcns. Sodann ist die Ge- schichte der Spiritualen eng vcrlmnden mil dem hcdeidungsvollen Wechscl, icelcher sich auf dem SiuJde Petri dureh die Ahdankung Colestins, die ErwclMung und kirchlich-poJitische Bichtung Bonifaz VIII. vollzog ; sie spielt in die gewaliigen Kdmpfe hinein, welche dieser letzere Fapst mit den Colonnas und noch wuer- gleichlich mehr mit deren Beschufzer Fhilipp dem ScJionen zu hestchen hatte. Ohne ein genaues Versidndniss dieser Streitigkeiten sind mehrere der wiclitigsten Decrete des Vienner Concils unvcrstdndlich. Allhckannt istfcrner die massgchcnde Bolle, welche die Fraticcllen in dem so hartndckigcn, fiir Kirche und Beich gleich verderblichen Zwiste zwischen Johann XXII. und Ludwig dem Bayern spielten. 422 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. Gerard, or Gherardiuo, of Borgo-San-Donnino, a Franciscan monk, published at Paris, in 1254, a popular epitome of Joachim's prophetic and apocalyptic writings, with an Introduction [Intro- ductot'ius), under the title, " The Everlasting Gospel,'' and an- nounced the near advent of the Era of the Holy Spirit, which would abrogate the economy of the Son or the New Testament, as the economy of the Son had abrogated the economy of the Father or the Old Testament. By the Everlasting Gospel he meant the three chief works of Joachim, which were to take the place of the New Testament, and to be the canon of the dispensa- tion of the Holy Spirit.-^ The publication excited a great commotion in the University of Paris and throughout the Church. Pope Alexander IV. ap- pointed a Commission of investigation at Anagni, where he then resided. The result was the condemnation of " The Everlastino^ Gospel '^ in 1255." Gherardino refused to recant, and was con- demned to prison for life. He died there after eighteen years. The failure of the prophecy destroyed its effect after 1260 more effectually than the papal anathema. The expectations of the people were raised to the highest pitch in November of that year by a procession of the Flagellants of Perugia through Italy, but the year passed without ushering in the new era. But the spirit of Joachim and Gerard revived in tlie party of the Spirituals and their successors, the Fraticelli. Their 23rophecies were renewed in modified forms, especially by Peter John de Oliva, who was styled Dr. Columbinus (the columba, or dove, being the symbol of the party, and of the Holy Spirit), and were published in a mystic commentary on the mysteries of the Apocalypse about 1290. History was now divided into sev^en periods. The sixth period was dated from St. Francis of Assisi Wer cndlich ein Gegenstuch zu kern Ideenkreis unci dcr Litteratiir unsercr deut- schen Mystiker und^ der sogcnannten * Gottesfrcunde ' sucht, ivird in dcr Ge- schichte, den Schriftcn und Anschauungcn der Spiritualcn manche frappante Veyglcichspunkte fmdcn. ' ' ^ The Introductorius in Evangclium JEternum is lost, with the exception of some extracts i)reserved by Eymerich from the Koniau Acts. See Hahn, J. c. p. 1G4-174. 2 The report of the Commission was published from MSS., by Deuifle, in 1885, /. c. p. 97-145. THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. 423 (b. ,1182), and extended to the time when the temporal power of the papacy, and with it the general corruption of the world, would reach its height and hasten the Divine judgment on the carnal Church. Then would appear the true spiritual Church of the Holy Spirit, free from the poison of earthly possessions, and would convert the Jews and Gentiles. From year to year the Spirituals waited for the advent of the seventh period, but waited in vain. They led a pure and austere life, according to the strict rule of their founder. They declined to recognize any pope since John XXII. (1316-1324), and were fearfully persecuted for more than a hundred years. The bones of de Oliva were dug u}) and burnt, and his writings were pro- hibited until Sixtus IV. (1471-1484), himself a Minorite, ordered a new investigation, which declared them orthodox. The persecutions heightened the anti-papal spirit of the party and matured the opinion that the ])apal chair was or might become for a season the very seat of Antichrist in the temple of God. This opinion was confirmed under Boniface VIII. by his audacious claim of supremacy over the whole world, his tyranny and immorality. It found expression in the writings of Giacopone da Todi, of the order of the Minorites, the author of the Stabat Mater, and in the Commedia of Dante, his younger contemporary. Giacopone was excommunicated and imprisoned by Boniface, but pronounced blessed by posterity.-^ Dante was exiled by the Guelf government of Florence under the influence of the same pope, but his exile gave the world the Dlvina Com- media. Dante kept aloof from the ascetic extravagancies and apoca- lyptic fancies of the Joachimites and Spirituals. He liad too much respect for Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventura, too much knowledge of theology, and too much taste for art to fall into such extremes. Besides, he had political aspirations which ^ See p. 197. Ilase thus admirably cbaracterizes him (Kirchenfjesch., p. 309 sq., 11th ed.): ^''Giacopone da Todi (f 130G) hat das hochste GJ'dek und ticfste Lcid dcr juwjfraulichcn Bluttcr hesunffcn, die Wonncschauerhimmlischer Licbcund das Vergelin des 3Ienschcnhcrzcns in Goit ; cr war aus gliinzcnder Weltstellung durch Sehmcrz und Wahnsinn liindurchgcgangcn, ist vom Papste gcbannt und ivie ein icildcs Thicr gcfangcn gchalfen, abcr vom J'olkc, in dcsscn Jlund- und Dcnkart er auch gedichtci hat, sclig gcsprochen wordcn.'" 424 THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. looked towards the restoration of the German Roman empire. But he agreed with the Joachimites in their warfare against the corrupt papacy of Boniface VIII. , which he calls "a shame- less whore firm as a rock seated on a mountain high/'^ and in their zeal for a reformation of the church in the head and members. DAXTE AND SCHELLIXG. THE THREE AGES OF CHURCH HISTORY. In the confused rubbish of the prophetic and pseudo-prophetic writings of Joachim of Flore, there are not a few grains of gold and fruitful germs of truth. His division of three ages of his- tory corresponding to the three persons of the Trinity^ and the three leading Apostles, is one of these fruitful germs. A modern German philosopher, who was a profound student of Dante,^ has independently arrived at a somewhat similar, though far superior construction of the history of Ciiristianity. Schelling starts from the fact that Christ elected three favorite disciples — Peter, James, and John — to whom he gave new names (Rock, and Sons of Thunder), and whom he made sole witnesses of some of the most important events in his life. They corres- pond to Moses, the lawgiver, Elijah, the fiery prophet, and John the Bai)tist, who concluded the Jewish dispensation by pointing to Christ. Peter is the fundamental Apostle, the rock on which the Church was built, the Apostle of the Father, the Apostle of authority, the Apostle of law and stability, the type of Catholi- cism. But the foundation of a building is only the beginning, and is followed by a succession, by a middle and end. These are repre- sented by James and John, or rather by Paul and John. James died early, before he could fully develop his mission, and his place was filled by Paul, whom the Lord had called before 2 Purg. XXXII., 148-150:— ^^ Sicura, quasi rocca in alio manic, Seder sopr'' csso una puiiana sciolia M'apparve, con le cUjVia iniorno pronte.''^ ^ See a))ove; p. 35r>, -403. THE DIYINA COMMEDIA. 425 the martyrdom of James, and who is in the earliest seals of the popes associated with Peter as joint founders of the Roman Church. Paul is the Elijah of the Church/ who burst forth like a fire, and whose word burns like a torch. He is the Apostle of God the Son. He built on the foundation of Peter, yet independently, and even in opposition to him ; for it is by contrasts (oj' ha-^ziwJ), not by uniformity, that the Spirit of God brings about the greatest things. He insists (in the Galatians) on his direct call by Christ, not by or through men, and at Antioch he openly withstood Peter and the Jewish pillar-apostles {, 358, 365; grades in, 392; characters in, 392. Qiiadrivium, 257, 39r. Rabanus Maurus, 361, 417. Raphael, lU, 66, 318. Reason, relation to speech, 1. Renan, 95, 112, 418. Repentance of Job, 119. Requiem, Mozart's, 135, 145, 175. Revision of the English Bible, 61. Rhyme, 75 ; in Hebrew, 122. Riedel, F. X., 173. Rimini, F. da, 383. Ringwalt, B., 180. RockweU. C. 167. Rolker, K., ISO, 216. Rome, 271, 427. Rome, Church of, its denial, 426. Roscommon, Earl of, 145, 163. Rose of the Blessed, 401, 402. Rossetti, D. G., 295, 335. Rossetti, G., 407. Rossetti, Francesca, 335. Rossi, P. de, 264. Rossini, 193. Rothe. R., 283. Ruggieri, Archbishop, 383. Ruskin, 360, 366. Sandford, D. K., 77. Sargent, E., 167. Savigny, Fr. C. von, 262. Savonarola, 409. Scaliger, Joseph, 124. Scartazzini, 303, 315. 355, 383, 411, 417. SchaflF, Philip, 138, 159, 191, 243, 252, 359, 387, 4U3, 427. Schelling, 346. 353, 403, 424, 427. Schlegel, A. AY. von, 153, 174, Schlosser, F. H., 179. Schmedding, 175. Scholtz, J. A., 176. Scott, Walter, 145, 154, 163. Scotus, Duns, 18. Scriptures, the, 280, 291, 420. Seld, von. 179, 215. Selden, 12. Semiramis, 385. Seneca, 376. Serravalle, G. de, 292. Shakespeare, 65, 279, 280, 378, 390. Sibyl, 137. Silbert, J. P., 175. Simon Magus, 386, 388. Simon, Richard, 124. Simrock, 177, 214. Skeat, W. W., 3, 6, 11, 340. Slosson, E., 169, Socrates, 299, 376. Solomon, 98, 399. Song of Deborah, 87. Song of Lamech, 82. Song of Moses, 83. Song of Moses, farewell, 86. Song of Songs, 113, Song of the creatures, 194. Song of the Sun, 195. Spelling, 37. Spin'tiiales, 421, 426. Stabat Mater Dolorosa, 187. See Table of Contents. Stabat Mater Speciosa, 218. See Table of Contents. Stanley. A. P,, 66, 72, 78, 100, 106, 108, 112. 170. Steckling, L., 178, Stella, G., 189, 198. Stephen of St. Sabas, 252. Stephens, Henry, 77. Story, W, AV., 271. Streckfuss, K,, 374. '' Study," 257. Sylvester, Joshua, 153. Swedenborg, E., 347. Swoboda, W. A,, 176. Synonyms, 51. Tacitus, 371. Tambroni, Clotilda, 264. Tantalus, 392. Tauler, 139. Taylor, Isaac, 68, 78, 95. Tennyson, 48, 342. Tersteegen, 114. TertuUian, 371. Terza rima, 370. Thais, 384. Theodora, 384. Theodosius II., 262. Theology, 292, 359, 361, 375, 377, 397. Tholuck, 144, 146. Thomas Aquinas, 280, 389. Thomas a Kempis, 139. Thomas of Celano, 143, 146, 370, 417. Thought and language, 1. Thurston, Archbisho]), 147. Tieck, L., 192. Trajan, 349, 395. Trench. R. C, 7, 142, 154, 156, 234. Trivium, 257, 397. Trinity, The, 37"0, 374, 398, 403, 420. 436 INDEX. Ubaldini, Cardinal 0. d, 386. Uberti, F. d, 383. Ugolino, Count, 389. Uhland, 290, 339. Umberto, King, 265, University, The, its scope, 256. University of Middle Ages, foundation, 256; intent, 257; faculties in, 257; government, 258; where fostered, 259, 261; attendance On, 259, 264; lodging of students, 260. University, The American, 273; heritage, 273; prospects, 274; of Prague, 265; of St. Andrew's, 260; of AVittenberg, 260; of Heidelberg, 260; of Oxford, 260; of Salerno, 260; Paris, 261; Ro- man Catholic at Washington, 260; of Naples, 264; of Turin, 264. Vallo, Laurentius, 414. Van Buren, J. D., 171, 210. Veith, J. E., 177. Veltro, 309, 311. Veneration, 192. Versification, 122. Victor Emmanuel II., 267. Vigne, P. de, 387. Villani, G., 303, 354. Virgil, 73, 137, 279, 367. Vita Nuova, see New Life. Voragine, J. de, 350. Vossius, G., 124. Vowel sounds, 38. Wackernagel, Ph., 148, 189, 198, 233. Wackernagel, W., 11. Wadding, L., 147, 197, 198, 418. AVagner, Richard, 271. Washburn, E. A., 246. Washington, George, 277. Water and Earth, 323. Webster, D., 26. Webster, N., 3, 54. Weiser, C. Z., 167. Welsh, A. H., 8. Wessenberg, J. H. von, 176, 214. Westcott and Hort, 97. Wetzer and Welte, 414. Whately, 25. Whites, 302. Whitney, W. D., 37, 58. Wienzierl, Fr. J., 213. Williams, W. R., 142, 158. Winer, G. B., 73. Witte, 310, 357. Worcester's Dictionary, 37. Words, and intelligence, 2; in English Bible, 14, 60; Americanisms, 34; Ara- bic, 33; Celtic, 29; Dutch, 32; Greek, 31; Hebrew, 31; Hybrid, 35 ; Indian, 34; Italian, 33; Johnson's, 8; Milton's, 8, 25; Norse, 30; Persian, 33; Saxon, 12; Shakespeare's, 8, 15,46; Slavonic, 34; Spanish, 33; Turkish, 34. Wordsworth, 47. Wordsworth, Charles, 280. Worship as defined by Roman Catholics, 192. Wright, I. C, 374. Wright, W. A., 116. Wulfila, 11. Wycklifi"e, 22. Zinzendorf, Count, 243. 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