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 DANTE
 
 HOOKS BY HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK 
 
 ITALY IN THK THIRTEKNTH TENTURV 
 A SHOUT HISTORY OF ITALY 
 
 AN apolo(;y for old maids and other essays 
 
 ESSAYS ON GREAT WRITERS 
 LIFE OF FRANCIS I'ARKMAN, ETC.
 
 DA N IE 
 Front I III linnr^i- licml in I In- Muxeinn nl Mniihi.t.
 
 DANTE 
 
 AN ELEMENTARY BOOK FOR THOSE 
 
 WHO SEEK IN THE GREAT POET THE 
 
 TEACHER OF SPIRITUAL I> I F E 
 
 BY 
 HENRY DWIGHT SEDGWICK 
 
 NEW HAVEN 
 
 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
 
 OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 
 
 MDCCCCXX
 
 COPYRIGHT, Mncrrcx VI I I , HY 
 YALK UNIVERSITY I'RKSS 
 
 First printed, li*18. 
 Reprinted, 1920.
 
 \ 
 
 in 
 
 <o 
 
 TO. 
 
 TO 
 S. M. S. 
 
 o 
 
 Qual zmol (jentil donna parere 
 Vada con lei. 
 
 e 
 
 I 
 
 240238
 
 O Friend, hope in Him while thou llvest, 
 know Hlni while thou livest, 
 
 For in life is thy release. 
 If thy bonds be not broken while thou livest, 
 
 "What hope of deliverance in death? 
 
 If He is found now, He is found then: 
 
 If not, we go but to dwell in the city of Death. 
 If thou hast union now, thou shalt have it hereafter. 
 
 Kabir saith: It is the spirit of the quest that helpeth. 
 I am the slave of the spirit of the quest. 
 
 (Kabir) 
 
 Notre coeur est plus grand que tout le monde. 
 
 St. Francois de Sai.es 
 
 Our whole doctrine is nothing else but an instruction to 
 show how man may create a Kingdom of light within him- 
 self. 
 
 Jacob Boehme 
 
 VII
 
 PREFACE 
 
 Another elementary book on Dante needs an 
 /-% excuse. My excuse is that interest in Dante 
 ■^ -^ among people who have not the time or the 
 inclination to become serious students is very wide- 
 spread, more so perhaps than ever before, and that 
 as these peoj^le feel various sorts of curiosity about 
 Dante, there may be those among them whose attitude 
 towards Dante coincides with mine. 
 
 Some readers are eager to learn about the political 
 turmoil in which he lived, about Guelphs and Ghibel- 
 lines, about Blacks and Whites, about Pope Boniface 
 VIII and Prince Philip of Valois. Others are drawn to 
 Dante's theology, to mediaeval Christianity, to the 
 doctrines of Albertus Magnus, Bonaventura, and 
 Thomas Aquinas ; others still are chiefly concerned 
 with Dante's exposition of mediaeval science, his 
 geography, the Ptolemaic astronomy, and similar 
 matters ; and so on, through a wide range of taste 
 and curiosity. All such readers can find on any library 
 shelf any number of books from which to slake their 
 thirst. For centuries scholars have been delving in the 
 past to unearth facts about Dante's life, to discover 
 explanations for the references and allusions in the 
 Divine Comedy, and to trace the sources of his 
 learning. The early commentators, Boccaccio, Ben- 
 venuto da Imola, Francesco da Buti, and their suc- 
 cessors, the moderns, Witte, Ozanam, Scartazzini, 
 
 ix
 
 X PREFACE 
 
 our illustrious American scholars, Longfellow, Lowell, 
 Norton, and those of more recent date, Torraca, 
 Casini, Zingarclli, Hauvette, Gardner, Toynbee, 
 Moore, Wicksteed, Oelsner, Fletcher, Grandgent, 
 and others, with pious seriousness have been busy 
 studying not only the world, but the whole universe, 
 in which Dante lived, so that we may be able in 
 imagination to put ourselves by his side, see what he 
 saw, and comjjrehend the hopes, beliefs, and passions 
 of his time. 
 
 Nevertheless, there must be in every generation 
 persons whose experiences in life are different from 
 those of scholars, whose demands upon life are dif- 
 ferent from the demands made upon life by scholars, 
 and who therefore seek in a great poet an aspect 
 other than that which commonly reveals itself to 
 the learned. Of such seekers some at least desire to 
 forsake the highroad of erudition, to shake them- 
 selves free from authorized guides, and to obtain for 
 themselves a more personal intimacy with Dante's 
 spirit, and therefore there is always a chance that 
 what a man, not a scholar, gets from Dante may con- 
 tain a hint to help others, who likewise are not 
 scholars, adjust their relations with the great poet 
 more to their satisfaction than they would be able to 
 do under learned guidance. The hand of little em- 
 ployment, in some respects, has the daintier sense; 
 and there may be a value in the impressions made 
 upon the uninstructed, fresher mind of the passer- 
 by, who, free from all ambition of adding to the 
 high scaffolding of knowledge that has been built up 
 so admirably about Dante, has sought, not pleasure.
 
 PREFACE XI 
 
 but help and comfort from merely touching, as it 
 were, the garment of a great man. 
 
 In these years we are living through a period that 
 seems the handiwork of the Spirit of Evil, as if the 
 Almighty had said to Satan, "Put forth thine hand, 
 behold all that man hath is within thy power," and 
 we turn to the great spiritual leaders of tlie world as 
 never before. For many the traditional doctrines of 
 Christianity have lost much, or all, of their power; 
 the comfort that depends upon supernatural virtue 
 has lost its soothing; and the precepts of Stoicism 
 are not enough to give us courage to look upon the 
 world as we see it. We must have some ideal world 
 in our mind's eye, on the creation of which we may 
 labor and sacrifice ourselves. In order to do this we 
 must get sjiiritual power where we can; and Dante 
 stands ready to help us. Not only now, but in the 
 years after the war we shall all need spiritual sup- 
 port, for history seems to teach that after great wars 
 people turn their minds to material things, to eating, 
 drinking, and being merry, to the acceptance of 
 luxury, ease, and comfort as the goal of man, and 
 shut their eyes to things of the spirit. 
 
 For these reasons, it seems to me likely that, at the 
 present time, here and there, persons who lack in- 
 terest in the Middle Ages, who remain cold before 
 the assertion that Dante is "the voice of ten silent 
 centuries," or "the synthesis of mediaeval thought," 
 may find some use for a primer which leaves learning 
 one side and busies itself with Dante as a poet and a 
 believer in eternal righteousness. 
 
 H. D. S.
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 IX 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. Daxte's Fame 
 
 II. The Prophet and his Woiu.n 
 
 III. Beatrice .... 
 
 IV. After the Death of Beatrice 
 V. Exile 
 
 VI. Intellectual Preparation 
 
 VII. Inferno ..... 
 
 VIII. Other Aspects of the Inferno 
 
 IX. Purgatorio .... 
 
 X. The Happy Side of Purgatory 
 
 XI. Introduction to the Paradiso 
 
 XII. Paradiso .... 
 
 XIII. The Last Years 
 
 Appendix. Suggestions for Beginners 
 
 1 
 14 
 23 
 34 
 
 48 
 
 60 
 
 73 
 
 84 
 
 93 
 
 114 
 
 129 
 
 146 
 
 163 
 
 173 
 
 xin
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 DANTE'S FAME 
 
 TO us of the Western World, certainly to 
 English-speaking people, bred upon the tra- 
 ditions of Protestant Christianity, the Bible 
 is the book first in rank, supreme over all other books. 
 It is the base and prop of the Christian religion, it has 
 played a guiding part in the world's history, and, 
 in the English version, it is the great prose classic of 
 all literature. No poetry nor prose can contest its 
 primacy. What book can venture to claim the second 
 place, unless it be the Divine Comedy? 
 
 The Bishop of Ripon, Boyd Carpenter, says, diffi- 
 dently as becomes a man Avho speaks with authority, 
 that although Dante is not the greatest poet, yet 
 the Divine Comedy is the greatest poem we possess. 
 He might well have made the assertion more boldly; 
 for what single book is there, leaving the Bible aside, 
 in the whole range of literature that, in height, depth, 
 and amplitude of thought, in ethical, philosophical, 
 and religious interest, in intensity and variety of 
 human drama, can match the Divine Comedy? Take 
 the Iliad or the Odyssey; great and beautiful as 
 they are, nevertheless we, who are bred upon near 
 two thousand years of Christian beliefs, find in them 
 little ethical and less religious meaning. We ask of 
 
 1
 
 ^ DANTE 
 
 a great book that it shall take us up on a tower, as it 
 were, show us wider regions of life than of ourselves 
 we can perceive, and, by the illumination of that 
 wider knowledge, help us to choose our own path 
 with a truer sense of what is good in life. 
 
 Take any play of Aeschylus, Euripides, or Sopho- 
 cles, and not only is the thought in great measure 
 alien, but the powerful concentration of interest on 
 one situation or one passion is so solemn, so remote, 
 so unalloyed by common, human triviality, that it 
 does not satisfy the various demands which we, of 
 less robust souls than the ancient Hellenes, make 
 upon literature as the interpreter of life. Take the 
 Aeneid or De Rerum Natura, and it needs no second 
 thought to see that neither Virgil nor Lucretius can 
 feed the hungry soul. Take King Liear, Othello, or 
 Macbeth; the play ousts us from ourselves, it exalts 
 us into a world of passion high above our own world, 
 and causes us rather to forget ourselves than to en- 
 noble our own spiritual needs. Hamlet is but an 
 exposition of the helplessness of man in striving to 
 bring his life into right relations "with the eternal. 
 Goethe's Faust has both human passion and philoso- 
 phy ; it has poetry and the grand manner ; but in 
 variety, in religious reach, in hel])ing us to put our 
 little hands into a great helper's hand, it cannot 
 claim — perhaps it would disdain — comparison with 
 the Commedia. Even in Faust Goethe does not 
 divest himself of liis theory tliat self-dependence 
 should be the goal of a man's effort. In French 
 literature there is no book that j)rofesses so wide a 
 scope of human interest as Dante's poem, and none
 
 DAN TE's FAME 3 
 
 that can compare with its poetry. So, too, Don 
 Quixote, however profound, however filled with the 
 nohility as well as with the irony of life, is not a 
 poem. 
 
 In each one of these masterpieces of literature 
 there may well be some point or points in which they 
 match, or even excel, the Divine Comedy, but in the 
 combination of grandeur, vividness, tenderness, and 
 beauty, at least for a person who seeks to find a 
 meaning in life and to set himself in right relations 
 with the universe, the Divine Comedy is easily su- 
 perior, and has clear title to a rank inferior only to 
 the Bible. N 
 
 The poem usually put forward in comparison with 
 the Divine Comedy is Paradise Lost. This is no place 
 to push comparisons and weigh sjiiritual and poetic 
 merits ; and yet two things may be suggested. Lord 
 Macaulay states somewhere, that Milton's repu- 
 tation would stand higher had Paradise Lost ended 
 with the fourth book. One need not accept Macaulay 
 as an authority upon poetry, one need not agree with 
 his statement, but his position may certainly be sup- 
 ported by argument ; whereas, with the Divine 
 Comedy, the whole structure of the poem, canto 
 upon canto, culminating at the end of the Paradiso 
 in the sublime fulfillment of the soul's desire, is so 
 excellently contrived that nobody could suggest that 
 any taking from it would be other than a mutilation. 
 The second suggestion is that Milton's theolog}' is 
 now of no living interest, whereas the fundamental , , 
 religious doctrine in the Divine Comedy is fraught 
 with as much meaning for us to-day as for Dante's 
 contemporaries six hundred years ago.
 
 * DANTE 
 
 The career of the Divine Comedy has been wortliy 
 of its rank. Even in Dante's lifetime, great noblemen 
 were interested in the poem, and unlettered people 
 declaimed bits of it in the streets. Within a few 
 years after his death commentators began to ex- 
 })lain the meaning of the poem, in Florence, in 
 Bologna, and elsewliere. The poet's two sons, Pie- 
 tro and Jacopo, both wrote glosses ; Pietro, who fol- 
 lowed the profession of law in Verona, composed 
 his in very elaborate fashion. Giovanni Villain, the 
 historian, a contemporary, inserted in his history 
 of Florence a little sketch of the poet. To receive a 
 place beside kings in a national chronicle at that 
 time was an unprecedented honor for a man of 
 letters. Not long afterwards Boccaccio (1313-1375) 
 wrote his biogra))hy of Dante. Boccaccio is known to 
 most of us as the author of the Decameron, and is 
 burdened with the reputation of having written 
 stories best left unwritten. This is a sorry piece of 
 injustice. No doubt Boccaccio in his youth followed 
 primrose paths ; but his contemporaries knew him 
 as a poet, as a distinguished scholar, and as a man 
 chosen by his government to perform resi)onsible 
 services for the state. He was a devoted friend to 
 Petrarch and a reverent admirer of Dante. He is 
 accused of regarding biography as a brancli of the 
 art of fiction ; and it is true that he sometimes let his 
 pen run away witli him, and that he had little or no 
 idea of investigation or critical examination in writ- 
 ing biography. But he was a Florentine, already 
 eight years old when Dante died, was acquainted 
 with Dante's daughter and with persons who had
 
 D A N T E ' S I A M E 5 
 
 known Dante, and his biography, thougli it wanders 
 away from its subject somewhat whimsically, is the 
 best early biography of Dante that there is. Later, 
 at the instance of the government of Florence, Boc- 
 caccio delivered public lectures upon the Comedi/, 
 but owing to ill health he got no further than the 
 seventeenth canto of the Inferno. A year or two 
 afterwards, Benvenuto da Imola, who had attended 
 Boccaccio's lectures, lectured upon the Comedy in 
 Bologna. These lectures were subsequenth'^ cast into 
 the form of a commentary, in Latin. This commen- 
 tary is very long, and full of discursive, historical 
 information; it has been publislied in half a dozen 
 great folio volumes by William Warren Vernon, and 
 constitutes one of the great monuments in the 
 literature upon Dante. A few years later Filippo 
 Villani, a nephew of Giovanni Villani, wrote a little 
 book of lives of famous citizens of Florence, which 
 included a brief biography of Dante. 
 
 In the fifteenth century, during the rise of the 
 Renaissance in Florence, three biographies were 
 written, by Leonardo Bruni (1369-1444), Giannozzo 
 Manetti (1396-1459), and Giovan Mario Filelfo 
 (1426-1480). Of these Leonardo Bruni's is the most 
 valuable. Besides this interest shown in Dante's 
 life, Cristoforo Landino (1424-1504), one of the 
 early Florentine Platonists, a scholar and statesman, 
 and also both tutor and friend to Lorenzo dei Medici, 
 wrote another commentary on the Commedia. The 
 great painter, Sandro Botticelli (1447-1515), made 
 illustrations of the three canticles. Hell, Purgatorij, 
 and Paradise. And Michelangelo, who of all Italians
 
 6 DANTE 
 
 comes nearest to Dante in intellectual power and 
 magnanimity of soul, wrote this sonnet upon the 
 poet, for whom he entertained a passionate reverence: 
 
 Dal mondo scese ai ciechi abissi, e poi 
 Che Tuno e Taltro inferno vide, a Die, 
 Scorto dal gran pensier, vivo salio; 
 E ne die in terra vero lume a noi. 
 
 Stella d'alto valor, co' raggi suoi 
 
 Gli occulti eterni a noi ciechi scoprio; 
 E n'ebbe il premio alfin, che il mondo rio 
 Dona sovente ai piii pregiati eroi. 
 
 Di Dante nial fur Topre conosciute, 
 E'l bel desio, da quel popolo ingrato, 
 Che solo ai giusti manca di salute. 
 
 Pur foss'io tal ! che, a siniil sorte nato, 
 Per I'aspro esilio suo con la virtute 
 Darei del mondo il piii felice stato. 
 
 From out the world he went down to the blind abyss, 
 And, after he had seen all Hell throughout, 
 Escorted by great thought, mounted alive 
 To God, and gave true gleams of Him to us on earth. 
 
 This star of virtue, by his shining showed 
 To us blind men the bid eternities; 
 And that reward received, wiilcb this l)ad world 
 On its most valiant heroes frequently bestows. 
 
 The poem of Dante and his noble hope 
 
 Were but ill known to that ungrateful folk 
 Who only good men fail to recognize. 
 
 Could T be such as he, born to like deeds, 
 rd give the happiest state in all the world 
 For his harsh exile with such virtue joined. 
 
 During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 
 the intellectual world of Italy, turning toward the 
 classic, and then to the baroque and the rococo,
 
 Dante's fame 
 
 looked down on the Middle Ages as barbaric, and 
 consequently neglected Dante ; but as the great 
 human movement that expressed itself most dramati- 
 cally in the French Revolution began to affect Italy, 
 interest in Dante revived and quickened; and since 
 the beginning of the Risorgimento Dante has been 
 a kind of guardian genius watching over Italy, as 
 reverence-insjDiring a figure to Italians as Pallas 
 Athene was to the imagination of the men of Athens. 
 His influence in Italy has been twofold. In the first 
 place (followed in the next generation by Petrarch 
 and Boccaccio, who carried on the literary task that 
 he began), he directed the course and shaped the form 
 of Italian literature. He found Italy divided up into 
 numberless independent regions, each speaking its 
 own dialect, and here and there local schools of 
 poetry, but no national literature. By his poetry and 
 his prose he raised the dialect of Florence to be the 
 language of Italy. He is the creator of the Italian 
 literary language to a degree that no other man in any 
 country, not even Luther in Germany, can boast of. 
 And in addition to that, it may be said of him, 
 without exaggeration, that he is the founder of 
 United Italy. He gave to the people of the Italian 
 peninsula, who were divided and separate, subject 
 to all sorts of petty governments of King, Pope, 
 Duke, Seigniory, Doge, Baron, the promise of po- 
 litical unit}'^ by giving Italy, as it were, a soul. He 
 has been her spiritual banner. From him were 
 learned the passionate convictions that Italy should 
 be free and united. He has been the rallying 
 center of all Italian patriotism. Alfieri, who calls
 
 8 DANTE 
 
 him "O gran padre Alighier," Leopardi, Ugo Foscolo, 
 Carducci, and all the high aspiring souls of the Ri- 
 sorgimento, turned towards him. And besides all 
 this, Dante has held and holds an unrivaled place 
 in the religious life of Italy. The policy of the Roman 
 Catholic Church has been to discourage private 
 reading of the Bible, and the Divine Comedy has 
 stepped in and occujiies the place with them that 
 the Bible holds with us. It is the book for them that 
 concerns the dealings of God with man. 
 
 From Italy Dante's fame spread rapidly over 
 Europe. In the beginning of the fifteenth century 
 Spain felt his influence, and translations appeared in 
 Castilian and Catalan. In France, because her 
 enthusiasm for Italy was first kindled by the Italian 
 Renaissance, interest in Dante lingered, and the 
 French did not begin to appreciate him until the 
 period of Catholic reawakening in the nineteenth 
 century, when the two religious writers and scholars, 
 Lamennais and Ozanam, proclaimed his genius. In 
 Germany Karl Witte (1800-1883) stands at the head 
 of all Dante scholars. His Dante-Forschunrjen con- 
 stitutes the greatest contribution to our knowledge 
 concerning Dante and the Divine Comedy that has 
 been made since the fourteenth century; and since 
 then tlierc have been many distinguished German 
 Dantists. Among the living Karl Vossler is eminent. 
 Karl Witte and the scholarly King of Saxony, 
 John Nepomuk Maria Joseph, who wrote under the 
 pseudonym of Philalethes, both published trans- 
 lations of the Comedy. Scartazzini, the German 
 Swiss, is probably the best known of recent foreign
 
 D A N T E ' S r A M E 9 
 
 commentators, though Mr. Norton said that he 
 lacked "the higher qualities" of the critic. 
 
 Dante's fame seems to have reached England 
 earlier than any other country. Chaucer knew the 
 Divine Comedy well. Some of the Elizabethans were 
 more or less acquainted with it; Sir Philip Sidney 
 for one, and probably Edmund Spenser. Since then 
 almost all the greater English poets, certainly all 
 who were scholars (as so many English poets have 
 been), have admired and cherished Dante, — Milton, 
 Gray, Shelley, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson, 
 Browning. The earliest translation that still holds 
 the field, by the Rev. Henry Francis Gary, was begun 
 about 1797, and published early in the nineteenth 
 century. In the next generation Thomas Carlyle 
 wrote his celebrated essay on Dante and Shakespeare 
 (the "Hero as Poet") ; and his brother John made 
 a prose translation of tlie Inferno that has become 
 a classic. Dante Gabriel Rossetti rendered the Fita 
 Nuova into English j^rose and English verse as 
 nearly equal in beauty to the original as the differ- 
 ence of language would permit. And a long line of 
 English scholars. Lord Vernon, his son W. W. Ver- 
 non, Dean Church, Dean Plumptre, Edward Moore, 
 A. J. Butler, E. G. Gardner, Paget Toynbee, P. H. 
 Wicksteed, Oelsner, and others have devoted their 
 talents and industry to a study of the great poet. 
 
 In the United States perhaps T. "W. Parsons is 
 entitled to the credit of leadership. He was followed 
 by the three eminent scholars whose names are 
 associated with Harvard University. Longfellow not 
 only translated the Divine Comedy but also wrote
 
 10 DANTE 
 
 long notes of explanation. Lowell's essay on Dante is 
 famous ; and Charles Eliot Norton translated the 
 Comedy and the J'ita Nuova and dedicated a great 
 part of his Italian scholarshijj to the service of Dante. 
 Since then there have been several translations by 
 Americans ; that by the late Henry Johnson of Bow- 
 doin College met with hearty approval from many 
 Dante lovers, and a new translation by Professor 
 Courtney Langdon of Brown University, of which 
 the Inferno only has appeared, is excellent. Besides 
 translations, frequent books of criticism, of investi- 
 gation, of explanation, as well as essays and lectures, 
 testify to the living power of the great poet. 
 
 Aside from the special grounds for his exalted po- 
 sition in Italy, the reasons for the universal inter- 
 est in Dante are that he is a great poet and a great 
 prophet of righteousness. As a poet, he is one of the 
 supreme masters of language. He takes the soft, 
 voweled, Italian syllables and gives them a temper 
 and rugged force equal to tlie German of Luther's 
 Bible or the English of Pilgrim's Progress. And, 
 though we usually think of Italian as words of many 
 syllables, with Dante one word in every three is a 
 monosyllable. This mingling words of different 
 lengths, measured by syllables, gives flexibility and 
 power to his verse. And though tiie Italian language 
 labors under what to English ears is the disadvantage 
 tliat almost all its words end in vowels, yet Dante, by 
 freely clipping off tlie final vowels, out of sweetness 
 brings forth strength, and creates a sense of power 
 that has never been surpassed, if it has been equaled, 
 in English. His ear is musical and he loves the
 
 dante'sfame 11 
 
 melody of liis native, liquid syllables; and yet he uses 
 tlieir music unconsciously, or by an art so mastered 
 in his youth as to have become instinctive. He con- 
 centrates his mind ujjon his thought, and often 
 disregards his mode of exjiression, or, with a violence 
 that Italians call terribilita, forces his words to fit 
 his thought. In his tender passages he gives free rein 
 to his genius for beauty, but he does not calculate 
 the succession of consonants, or the repetition^ or 
 contrast of vowels, as lesser poets do. His harmonies, 
 even his rare alliterations, spring from his love of 
 music. 
 
 Dante also possesses the magic secret of arranging 
 words — familiar words in daily use — in such an 
 order that they conjure up images of all kinds, of 
 horror or loathsomeness, of beauty and tenderness, 
 so vividly that the reader feels were he to put out 
 his hand he would touch them. There is no need to 
 dwell upon this ; the charm he has exercised upon 
 English poets — on Chaucer, Milton, Byron, Shel- 
 ley, Coleridge, Browning — is proof enough. Byron 
 said: "There is no tenderness equal to the tender- 
 ness of Dante"; Coleridge: "In picturesqueness 
 Dante is beyond all other poets, ancient or modern"; 
 and Shelley speaks of "the exquisite tenderness, 
 sensibility, and ideal beauty in which Dante excelled 
 all poets except Shakspere."^ 
 
 Dante is very great as a poet, but as a poet he has 
 
 rivals, whereas as a prophet of righteousness he has 
 
 no peer since the time of the Apostles. It is for this 
 
 reason that the book of Isaiah and St. Paul's Epistles 
 
 1 Dante in English Literature, Toynbee.
 
 12 DANTE 
 
 are .m almost necessary preparation for under- 
 standing tlie Divine Comedy. He is the best medicine 
 for minds diseased with skepticism as to the value 
 of righteousness. 
 
 Sometime or other in the ears of almost all people 
 who meet the ordinary experiences of life, the voice 
 of Mephistopheles, the Spirit-that-denies, sounds 
 most persuasively. He smiles his pleasant, mocking 
 smile at all the convictions we learned when we were 
 children, as though they were merely the convictions 
 of children; he smiles at all we have been taught in 
 school, at church, at home, about honor, loyalty, 
 holiness, and, with a great show of reason, asks why 
 it is that a man should grunt and sweat for his 
 fellow-men; why sliould he give up the delights of 
 life for the sake of ideas foisted upon us by ages of 
 superstition ; wliy should he go and stand in a trench 
 in Flanders on behalf of the Belgians; why should 
 he give his hcaltli, liis youth, liis life, for his country.-* 
 What is "country" but a motley collection of two- 
 legged animals who happen to live under one political 
 government? 
 
 In upon this state of mind Dante sweeps like an 
 archangel and speaks, as when (iod sjioke out of the 
 whirlwind. He is filled with the Spirit-that-affirms. 
 "Pleasure, ease, enjoyment! (he would cry) How 
 dare a man mention such words, when to him has 
 been given the priceless privilege of life, an oppor- 
 tunity to fight for righteousness, to serve God, 
 to feel the joy of an uplifted soul.''" Dante cannot 
 comprehend and cannot endure a pusillanimous, 
 effeminate state of mind. And, therefore, many
 
 D A N T E S r A M E 13 
 
 people, in moments of doubt or disbelief, especially 
 in these dark days, find strength and comfort from 
 his masculine energy and his heroic soul. His fame 
 rests secure in the permanent needs of the human 
 soul for poetry, heroism, and holiness.
 
 CHAPTKR II 
 
 THE PROPHET AND HIS WORLD 
 
 DANTE ALIGHIERI was born in Florence 
 in the year 1265. He belonged to that 
 doubtful generation that may be regarded 
 as the last generation of the Middle Ages or the first 
 of the Modern World. It was a time of turmoil; the 
 old order had rotted away, and the new order, 
 pushing up through tlie broken crust of the past, 
 was still too rudimentary and unsubstantial to be 
 recognized by contemporary eyes. The world of 
 politics was topsy-turvy. Stable government there 
 was none. In this clash of old and new, Dante clung 
 to the past. He turned his face backwards, and be- 
 lieved that he saw through the arch of centuries, in 
 radiant light, a universal government of law, order, 
 and justice, — an imperial rule, which by the mere 
 majesty of its presence enabled mankind to attain 
 complete development, intellectual, moral, and spir- 
 itual. For him Rome was what Israel was for the 
 Hebrew proplicts. According to his creed, the Roman 
 Empire had been establislied by the Lord to carry 
 out His divine purpose for the government of the 
 world ; Aeneas, like Moses, had led the children of a 
 covenant into a promised land. Sign upon sign, 
 miracle upon miracle had shown that the Romans, 
 
 14
 
 THE PROPHET AND HIS WORLD 15 
 
 "holy, compassionate and glorious," were God's 
 chosen people (De Mon. Book II). The heroes of the 
 Republic, the founder of the Emjaire, Julius Caesar, 
 and his successors, the "good" Augustus {Inf. I, 
 71), Trajan, "prince of high glory" {Purg. X, 73), 
 Justinian {Par. VI), Charlemagne, emperor after 
 emperor, whether Latin, Greek, or Teuton, down 
 to the illustrious House of Hohenstaufen {F. E. 
 I, ch. 12), were all servants of God, and, in establish- 
 ing and maintaining the Roman Empire, had per- 
 formed His will. In Dante's judgment, it was patent 
 to everybody, by clear-cut "demonstration, that 
 the Emperor, or jNIonarch of the world, is in direct 
 relation to the Prince of the Universe, who is God" 
 {De Mon. Ill, ch. 16). In no way other than by sub- 
 mission to this universal Empire could mankind 
 realize the best that it is capable of ; by general 
 obedience to this universal Empire only could peace, 
 justice, law, and order be set up throughout the 
 world. But right does not make might. The ancient 
 sovereignty, that looked so solid and splendid to 
 Dante as he cast his eyes backward, had cracked and 
 shrunk. Interregnums, rival claims, negligent princes 
 had put the little that was left of imperial authority 
 in jeopardy, and had brought ruin upon Italy, 
 the fairest of imperial provinces. No man then alive, 
 looking at the foul disorder in which she lay, could 
 guess that Italy had been, and of right still was, the 
 great foundation, the origin and crown, of the 
 Roman Empire. As men to-day who have visited 
 Belgium are shaken in their most familiar notions 
 of the stability of right, so Dante was shaken and 
 
 \< 
 
 l!
 
 16 DANTE 
 
 sick at heart at the confusion of Italy; and* the 
 bitterness in his soul increased because in a universe 
 where justice and mercy are signs of righteousness, 
 confusion is the sign of sin. In like manner Isaiah had 
 felt for Israel: 
 
 Ah sinful nation, a pcojile laden with iniquity, 
 
 A seed of evil-doers, children that deal corruptly: 
 
 They have forsaken tlie Lord, 
 
 They have despised the Holy One of Israel; 
 
 They are estranged and gone backward. . . . 
 
 Your country is desolate; your cities are burned with fire, 
 
 Your land, strangers devour it in your presence, 
 
 And it is desolate, as overthrown by strangers. 
 
 Isaiah i, 4-7 
 
 With thedeathof the Emperor Frederick II (1250) 
 the Roman Empire had collapsed. The last imperial 
 famih'-, the Hohenstaufens, had been cut off by their 
 enemies, root and branch, and the German princes 
 who succeeded Frederick II concerned themselves 
 wholly witli Germany and their own personal for- 
 tunes, leaving Italy a prey to anarchy. Every- 
 where throughout the peninsula there was jealousy, 
 hatred, and war. In Lombardy, each city — Milan, 
 Pavia, Parma, Cremona — fought witli its neigh- 
 bor; in Tuscany, Florence, Siena, Arezzo, Lucca, 
 Pistoia did the same; Rome fought the little 
 cities roundabout; tlie kingdom of Najiles was split 
 in two, and Sicily fought the mainland; outside 
 the walled towns, feudal barons sallied forth from 
 castles, perched on outlying hills of the Alps or 
 Apennines, and robbed and laid waste in savage 
 fury ; and on the waters tliat encompass Italy the
 
 THE PROPHET AND HIS WORLD 17 
 
 armed galleys of Venice, Genoa^ and Pisa sunk one 
 another. And as city fought against city, so within 
 each town political party fought against political 
 party, class against class, family against family. In 
 an apostrophe to Italy Dante says: 
 
 Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello, 
 
 nave senza nocchiero in gran tempesta, 
 non donna di provincie, ma bordello ! 
 
 ed era in te non stanno senza guerra 
 
 li vivi tuoi, e I'un Taltro si rode 
 
 di quel che un niuro ed una fossa serra. 
 Cerca, niisera, intorno dalle prode 
 
 le tue marine, e poi ti guarda in seno, 
 
 se alcuna parte in te di pace gode. 
 
 Ah, Italy! Thou slave, thou ostelry of woe! 
 Ship without pilot in a mighty storm. 
 She that was once a princess among provinces 
 
 How now become a brothel ! 
 
 They that now dwell in thee are all at war: 
 Even men encompassed by one wall, one moat, 
 Rend each the other. Search, wretched Italy, 
 
 Along thy seashore, over every coast, 
 And in thy l)osom look, to find 
 If any place in thee enjoyeth peace. 
 
 Purg. VI, 76-87 
 
 The weight of lawlessness lay heavy on the land; 
 but the fault, according to Dante, was not due to the 
 political institution of empire contrived by Provi- 
 dence, but to the derelictions of negligent Emperors. 
 And the Emperors were not alone in blame. Another 
 mighty edifice had been created and built up by
 
 18 DANTE 
 
 Providence for the welfare of mankind, the Holy 
 Roman Apostolic Church. Christ had given to Peter, 
 and his successors, power over spiritual things, 
 symbolized by the keys of heaven; He had estab- 
 lished His Clmrcli to be the ark of His covenant for 
 all the world; but the guardians to whom the ark 
 had been committed were not faithful to their trust. 
 Instead of keeping their hearts and minds fixed on 
 the things of heaven, they had succumbed to the 
 itchings of covetousness. Pope Sylvester had ac- 
 cepted from tlie Emperor Constantine a great grant 
 of temporal jjower and possessions {Inf. XIX, 115- 
 117). That fatal grant was the beginning of world- 
 liness; and worldliness had grown by what it fed 
 upon. Christ had said: "Provide neither gold, nor 
 silver, nor brass in your purses, nor scrip for your 
 journey" (De Mon. Ill, X, 109-110); and yet, in 
 flat disobedience to His command, priests, prelates, 
 popes, had turned their backs on the concerns of 
 the soul and souglit for earthly riches and earthly 
 dominion. Peter and Paul had gone about lean and 
 unshod, taking food when and where it might be 
 given to tliem, but })ricsts of mediaeval Italy went 
 heavily laden with possessions {Par. XXI, 127-132) ; 
 the popes Nicholas III (1277-1280) and Boniface 
 VIII (1294-1303) set terrible examples of selling the 
 gifts of the spirit for money (Inf. XIX). They had 
 polluted the papacy, as had been foretold by St. 
 John the Divine in the Apocalypse: "I saw a woman 
 sit upon a scarlet-coloured beast, full of names of 
 blasjjhemy . . . and the woman was arrayed in 
 purple and scarlet-colour, and decked with gold and
 
 THE PROPHET AND HIS AVORLD 19 
 
 precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in 
 her hand full of abominations and filtliiness" (Rev. 
 xvii, 3-4, Inf. XIX, 106-109). 
 
 Love of comfort, ease, luxury, power, had infected 
 the Church. And worse than this, the Papacy had 
 not only not performed its own duty, but it had 
 thwarted the Empire in doing its duty. Providence 
 had assigned to each its task. The Emperor's duty 
 was to enforce law and order, — he was the supreme 
 temporal lord of the world; the Pope's duty was to 
 instruct and guide men's souls, — he was the supreme 
 spiritual lord. Their functions were separate and 
 distinct; but the Popes had not only opposed the 
 Emperors in temporal matters and encouraged and 
 stirred up rebellion against them, but even assumed 
 imperial functions themselves, converting their 
 sacred office into a secular government. They had 
 debased religion and confounded temporal matters 
 (Purg. XVI). 
 
 With the Roman Pope thwarting and fighting the 
 Roman Emperor, how could the people of Florence, 
 who should have been able to live in tranquillity 
 beside their vines and fig trees under the sword of the 
 Emperor and the crook of the Pope, hope to have 
 leisure and opportunity to achieve a higher morality 
 and to pursue a spiritual life? All the good old ways 
 were gone. The old Florence, that had lived in peace, 
 sobriety, and modesty, was a thing of the past. In 
 earlier generations the principal men of the city used 
 to lead lives of frugal dignity ; they were too proud 
 to indulge in vulgar luxury; they wore jerkins made 
 of leather, and their wives spun their own linen.
 
 20 DANTE 
 
 The women lived simjily; they tended the cradle 
 themselves, and told their children stories of how 
 their ancestors founded Rome and Florence, Rome's 
 most beautiful daughter ; then homes were realh'^ 
 homes (Par. XV). But now, in Dante's time, the 
 women decked themselves with coronets and chains, 
 they painted their faces, they dressed immodestly. 
 So had it been in Isaiah's time: "Because the 
 daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with 
 stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and 
 mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their 
 feet: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the 
 crown of the head of the daughters of Zion . . . the 
 Lord will take away the bravery of their anklets, and 
 the cauls, and the crescents; . . . and the fine linen, 
 . . . and the veils" (Isaiah, iii, 16-23). 
 
 Lowered standards of personal dignity were among 
 the least of the evils. In the absence of orderly gov- 
 ernment, in tlie absence of religion, in the sudden ac- 
 quisition of riches {Inf. XVI, 73), wickedness and 
 vice flourished malignantly. Men familiarly known in 
 Florence and in neigliboring towns, Pistoia, Lucca, 
 Siena, Arezzo, were guilty of gluttony and drunken- 
 ness, of mad anger, of highway robbery, of usury, of 
 malfeasance in office, of bestial sins; but very few 
 anywliere in all Italy strove after virtue. 
 
 Such was the world as it appeared to Dante when 
 he looked about him with tlie disillusioned eyes of 
 manhood ; and, like the prophets of old, his soul cried 
 out: "Why dost Thou show me iniquity and cause 
 me to behold grievance."*" Like them, he felt the bur- 
 den of sin ; like them, Iiis whole being compelled him
 
 THE PROPHET AND HIS WORLD 21 
 
 in the midst of darkness, to search for light; like 
 them, he was filled with an imperious need of be- 
 lieving in a God of order, reason, justice, and mercy, 
 of seeking for Him, of finding and then proclaim- 
 ing Him. Such is a prophet's nature; such is a 
 prophet's task. 
 
 Turning from a troubled world toward the heaven 
 of spiritual peace, is a phenomenon common enough 
 in great souls. It marks a large number of tlie saints; 
 and both the beginning and the continuance of the 
 process are of absorbing interest. In the case of some 
 men, there is what in popular s{3eech is called con- 
 version, which takes place, on the surface at least, 
 very rapidly, sometimes almost in the twinkling of 
 an eye, and is so obscure in its working that it seems 
 to be the doing of supernatural power. In the case 
 of others, there is a slow series of contributory causes, 
 in which sometimes the heart, sometimes the intel- 
 lect, is the dominant factor. In almost all the cases 
 we have little or no information beyond what the 
 persons converted tell us themselves. Of Isaiah's illu- 
 mination we know nothing except that, as he says, 
 a seraph came and touched his lips with a coal of 
 fire. Of St. Paul we know how his violent nature led 
 him to consent to Stephen's death, how he haled 
 Christians to prison, and how there shined round 
 him a great light from heaven, and he heard a voice 
 say: "Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me.^" St. 
 Augustine tells us of an unpoised and disordered 
 youth, and how, by the way of philosophy, of Plato, 
 Cicero, and St. Paul, he came to where, yearning 
 for truth under the fig tree, he heard a voice saying:
 
 22 DANTE 
 
 "Tolle lege, tolle lege"— "Take up thy Bible and 
 read." And Jolin Bunyan says "that had not a 
 miracle of grace prevented, I had not only perished by 
 the stroke of eternal justice, but had also laid myself 
 open, even to the stroke of those laws, which bring 
 some to disgrace and open shame before the face of 
 the world" {Grace Abounding to the Chief of Sinners), 
 and yet he gives us no exposition of the miracle. 
 
 In the lives of these four, Isaiah, St. Paul, St. 
 Augustine, and Bunyan, there was a spiritual crisis 
 that turned them from the carnal life to the spiritual 
 life; but, except in the case of St. Augustine, we 
 know little of the stages that preceded the crisis. 
 With Dante it is different; with him the process of 
 illumination began in his youth and continued all 
 his life. Two great teachers guided his soul and taught 
 him the profoundest lessons of life; one taught hira 
 in his youth, the other taught him in his mature 
 years. The first teacher was Beatrice ; the second. 
 Exile. Without Beatrice, his eyes would not have been 
 lifted up so high; without Exile, he would not have 
 discovered the inner life in its fullness. So the de- 
 velopment of Dante's spiritual life w<ts gradual. In 
 place of a crisis, he underwent growth; and, in the 
 end, arrived face to face with the profoundest 
 realities imaginable by man. The first stage of the 
 long road that he traveled, he has described at length 
 in the J'ita Nuova. The second stage we know by 
 deductions from the Commedia and from casual 
 remarks and references elsewhere. His confessions 
 are nearly as full as those of St. Augustine, and tell 
 in fairly definite sequence and detail the several 
 stages of his spiritual drama.
 
 CHAPTKR III 
 
 BEATRICE 
 
 DANTE'S family — father, mother, brother, 
 and sisters — played little part so far as we 
 know in his life; he mentions a sister (at 
 least such is the interpretation put on one passage of 
 the Vita Nuova) but none of the others. We know 
 nothing of any schoolmaster or preceptor except 
 Messer Brunetto Latini, and of him as such only 
 through a passage in the Inferno. There Dante says : 
 
 in la mente m'fe fitta, ed or mi accora, 
 la cara e buona imagine paterna 
 di voi, quando nel niondo ad era ad era 
 m'insegnavate come Tuom s'eterna; 
 
 Within my memory is fixed, and now it wrings my heart. 
 Your dear and kindly image, like a father's, 
 As when in life, from hour to hour, you taught 
 Me how a man shall have eternal life. 
 
 Inf. XV, 8i3-85 
 
 But Brunetto Latini was a distinguished citizen, 
 widely known from his learned books, old enough to 
 be Dante's grandfather, and busy with public affairs, 
 so that the relations between Dante and him could 
 hardly have been more than those between a young 
 man Avho bore the stamp of genius on his face and 
 the elderly man who recognized the stamp. What 
 
 23
 
 -^ DANTE 
 
 Dante means by the -words "come I'uom s'eterna" 
 scorns to be a reference to Clirist's teaching. "Be- 
 liold, one came/ and said to liim. Good Master, wliat 
 good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life? 
 And he said unto him, ... If thou wilt enter into 
 life, keep the commandments. He saith unto him. 
 Which.'' Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou 
 shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. Thou 
 shalt not bear false witness. Honour tliy father and 
 thy mother, and Thou shalt love thy neighbour as 
 thyself. The young man said unto him, All these 
 things have I kept from my youth up: what lack 
 I yet.-* Jesus said unto him. If thou wilt be perfect, 
 go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and 
 thou slialt have treasure in heaven ; and come and 
 follow me" (St. Matt, xix, 16-21). There could not 
 have been a more tender or beautiful reference to 
 Brunetto Latini's influence. 
 
 The education, however, that molded all his life 
 came from another source. To him was vouchsafed 
 in early youth a revelation of tlie divine, in the form 
 of a radiant girl. To some men revelation of the 
 divine has come through sacred books, to others 
 through some saintly person, to others from the soli- 
 tude of the desert, from illness, from a child. There 
 arc many wa3's from God to the heart of man. Mark 
 Rutlierford says: "The love of woman to man is a 
 revelation of the relationship in which God stands to 
 him. ... I was wretched till I considered that in her 
 I saw the Divine Nature itself, and that her passion 
 was a stream straight from the highest. The love of 
 woman is, in other words, a living witness never
 
 BEATRICE 25 
 
 failing of an actuality in God which otherwise we 
 should never know" {Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, 
 Cli. VIII). So was it with Dante; only the revelation 
 lay in his love for Beatrice, rather than in her love 
 for him. It was Beatrice, not Brunetto Latini, who 
 started Dante's steps upon the way that leads to the 
 life of the soul. That she was a real person, seems to 
 me, though eminent scholars have thought otherwise, 
 beyond a doubt. Dante's own son, Pietro, says that 
 she was ; and Boccaccio, who, though of the next 
 generation, knew near members of Dante's family, 
 in his biography tells how they first met, or — if we 
 think that he is drawing on his imagination — how 
 they might have met. 
 
 Dante's love was not ordinary mortal love. His 
 love was the love of a poet and saint ; for him love 
 must be a revelation of the grace of God, and he 
 turned, with all the confidence of innocence, not to 
 Holy Writ nor to ecclesiastical worship, but to the 
 girlish loveliness of Beatrice Portinari. As the needs 
 of his spirit grew deeper, and the power of his spirit 
 grew stronger, her figure became idealized, crowned 
 with light, transfigured, until at last, when her 
 earthly body came to its earthly end, she was trans- 
 lated into the "light between the truth and the in- 
 tellect," the wisdom of holiness that leads the soul 
 to God. 
 
 In his book. The New Life, Dante relates all that 
 we know of his acquaintance with her: "Nine times 
 already since my birth had the heaven of light re- 
 turned to the selfsame point, . . . when first the 
 glorious Lady of m^^ mind was made manifest to
 
 26 DANTE 
 
 mine eyes; even she who was called Beatrice by 
 ni.itiy wlio knew not wherefore. . . . She appeared 
 to me at the beginning of her ninth year almost, and 
 I saw her almost at the end of my ninth year. Her 
 dress, on that day was of a most noble colour, a 
 subdued and goodly crimson, girdled and adorned in 
 such sort as best suited witli her very tender age. At 
 that moment, I say most truly that the spirit of life, 
 whicli hath its dwelling in the seeretest chamber of 
 the heart, began to tremble so violently that the 
 least pulses of my body shook therewith; and in 
 trembling it said these words : Ecce deus fortior me, 
 qui veniens dominahitur mihi [Here is a deity 
 stronger than I, who, coming, shall rule over me], 
 ... I say that, from that time forward. Love quite 
 governed my soul ; which was immediately espoused 
 to him, and with so safe and undisputed a lordship 
 (bv virtue of strong imagination), that I had nothing 
 left for it but to do all his bidding continually. He 
 oftentimes commanded me to seek if I might see this 
 youngest of the Angels: wherefore I in my boyhood 
 often went in search of her, and found her so noble 
 and praiseworthy that certainly of her might have 
 been said those words of the poet Homer: 'She seemed 
 not to be the daughter of a mortal man, but of God.' 
 And albeit her image, that was with me always, was 
 an exultation of Love to subdue me, it was yet of so 
 perfect a quality that it never allowed me to be over- 
 ruled by Love without the faithful counsel of 
 reason. . . . 
 
 "After the lapse of so many days that nine years 
 exactly were completed since the above-written
 
 BEATRICE 27 
 
 appearance of this most gracious being, on the last 
 of those days it happened that the same wonderful 
 lady appeared to me dressed all in pure white, be- 
 tween two gentle ladies elder than she. And passing 
 through a street, she turned her eyes thither where 
 I stood sorely abashed: and by her unspeakable 
 courtesy, which is now guerdoned in the Great 
 Cycle, she saluted me with so virtuous a bearing that 
 I seemed then and there to behold the very limits of 
 blessedness. The hour of her most sweet salutation 
 was certainly the ninth of that day; and because it 
 was the first time that any words from her reached 
 mine ears, I came into such sweetness that I parted 
 thence as one intoxicated. And betaking me to the 
 loneliness of mine own room, I fell to thinking of 
 this most courteous lady, thinking of whom I was 
 overtaken by a pleasant slumber, wherein a marvel- 
 ous vision was presented to me." Here he tells of a 
 vision. Love, of terrible asjject, appeared holding 
 Beatrice in his arms and Dante's heart in his hand, 
 and gave Beatrice to eat of the heart and she ate as 
 one fearing. "From that night forth, the natural 
 functions of my body began to be vexed and impeded, 
 for I was given up wholly to thinking of this most 
 gracious creature: whereby in short space I became 
 so weak and so reduced that it was irksome to many 
 of my friends to look upon me ; while others, being 
 moved by spite, went about to discover what it was 
 my wish should be concealed. Wherefore I (perceiv- 
 ing the drift of their unkindly questions), by Love's 
 will, Avho directed me according to the counsels of 
 reason, told them how it was Love himself who had
 
 28 DANTE 
 
 tluis dealt with me: and I said so, because the thing 
 ■was so plainly to be discerned in my countenance 
 that there "was no longer any means of concealing it. 
 But -when they went on to ask, 'And by whose help 
 hath Love done this?' I looked in their faces smiling, 
 and spake no word in return." 
 
 It so happened, that in church one day Dante was 
 gazing at Beatrice, and tliat another lady, of a 
 pleasant face, sat in a line between him and her, and 
 people, seeing the direction but mistaking the 
 object of his sight, thought that this other ladj^ was 
 his love; and he, learning this, encouraged the error, 
 and, resolving to make use of her as a "screen to the 
 truth," wrote rimes in her honor. But this lady 
 went away to another city, and then at Love's in- 
 stigation Dante took another "screen" lady to be 
 his protection, "in such sort that the matter was 
 spoken of by many in terms scarcely courteous ; 
 through the which I had oftcnwhiles many trouble- 
 some hours. And by this it happened (to wit: by this 
 false and evil rumour which seemed to misfame me 
 of vice) that she who was the destroyer of all evil 
 and the queen of all good, coming where I was, 
 dcTued me her most sweet salutation, in the which 
 alone w-as my blessedness. 
 
 "And here it is fitting for me to depart a little from 
 this present matter, tliat it may be rightly under- 
 stood of Avhat surpassing virtue her salutation was to 
 me. To tlie which end I say that when she appeared 
 in any place, it seemed to me, by the hope of her 
 excellent salutation, tliat there was no man mine 
 enemy any longer; and such warmth of charity
 
 BEATRICE 29 
 
 came upon me that most certainly in that moment 
 I Avould have pardoned whosoever had done me an 
 injury; and if one should then have questioned me 
 concerning any matter, I could only have said unto 
 him 'Love,' with a countenance clothed in humble- 
 ness. ..." 
 
 "And when for the first time this beatitude was 
 denied me, I became possessed with such grief that 
 parting myself from others, I went into a lonely 
 place to bathe the ground with most bitter tears: 
 and when, by this heat of weeping, I was somewhat 
 relieved, I betook m^'^self to my chamber, where I 
 could lament unheard. ..." 
 
 Dante then recounts further visions of Love, in 
 one of which Love said: "It is my will that thou 
 compose certain things in rhyme, in the which thou 
 shalt set forth how strong a mastership I have ob- 
 tained over thee, through her ; and how thou wast 
 hers even from childhood." And he inserts odes and 
 sonnets on which he makes comments ; and he nar- 
 rates sundry episodes, how he saw Beatrice at a 
 wedding feast ; how she grieved for the death of her 
 father; how he had a presentiment of her death; and 
 other episodes. And in the middle he puts a long 
 digression on poetry. Then he takes up the thread 
 again. 
 
 "But returning to the matter of my discourse. 
 This excellent lady, of whom I spake in what hath 
 gone before, came at last into such favour with all 
 men, that when she passed anywhere folk ran to 
 behold her; which thing was a deep joy to me: and 
 when she drew near unto an}', so much truth and
 
 30 DANTE 
 
 simpleness entered into liis heart, that he dared 
 neither to lift his eyes nor to return her salutation: 
 and unto this, many who have felt it can bear wit- 
 ness. She went along crowned and clothed with 
 humility, showing no whit of pride in all that she 
 heard and saM': and when she had gone by, it was said 
 of many: 'This is not a woman, but one of the beauti- 
 ful angels of Heaven,' and there were some that said: 
 'This is surely a miracle; blessed be the Lord, who 
 hath power to work thus marvelously.' I say, of 
 very sooth, that she showed herself so gentle and so 
 full of all perfection, that she bred in those who 
 looked upon her a soothing quiet beyond any speech ; 
 neither could any look upon her without sigliing 
 immediately. These things, and things yet more 
 wonderful, were brought to pass through her mirac- 
 ulous virtue." So he wrote a sonjiet to express in 
 poetry what he had just said: 
 
 Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare 
 
 La donna mia, quand' ella altrui saluta, 
 
 Ch' ogni lingua divien tremando iiiuta, 
 
 E gli occhi non ardiscon di guardare. 
 Ella sen va, sentendosi laudare, 
 
 Benipnaiiiente d'uniilta vestuta; 
 
 E par die sia una cosa venuta 
 
 Di cielo in terra a niiracol inostrarc. 
 Mostrasi si piacente a chi la mira, 
 
 ('he d;'i jx-r gli oodii una dolcezza al core, 
 
 Che intcnder non la puo chi non la })rova. 
 E par che della sua labhia si muova 
 
 Uno spirfo soave c |)ien d'aiiiore, 
 
 Che va diccndo all'anima: sospira.
 
 BEATRICE 31 
 
 My lady looks so gentle and so pure 
 
 When yielding salutation by the way, 
 
 That the tongue trembles and has nought to say, 
 And the eyes, which fain would see, may not endure. 
 And still, amid the praise she hears secure, 
 
 She walks with humbleness for her array; 
 
 Seeming a creature sent from Heaven to stay 
 On earth, and show a miracle made sure. 
 She is so pleasant in the eyes of men 
 That through the sight the inmost heart doth gain 
 
 A sweetness which needs proof to know it by: 
 And from between her lips there seems to move 
 A soothing spirit that is full of love, 
 
 Saying forever to the soul, "O sigh!" 
 
 He also wrote another sonnet and began an ode 
 to tell of the manner in which he was subject to her 
 influence. Then he says: "I was still occupied with 
 this poem . . . when the Lord God of justice called 
 my most gracious lady unto Himself, that she might 
 be glorious under the banner of that blessed Queen 
 Mary, whose name had always a deep reverence in 
 the words of holy Beatrice." 
 
 Then follow certain episodes, somewhat apart from 
 the main matter of the story, the last of which, 
 however, leads up to the sonnet that begins: 
 
 Oltre la spera, che piii larga gira, 
 
 Passa il sospiro ch' esce del raio core: 
 Intelligenza nuova, che I'Amore 
 Piangendo mette in lui, pur su lo tira. 
 
 Beyond the sphere which spreads to widest space 
 Now soars the sigh that my heart sends above: 
 A new perception born of grieving Love 
 
 Guideth it upward the untrodden ways.
 
 32 DANTE 
 
 And he says: "After writing this sonnet, it was 
 given unto me to behold a very wonderful vision; 
 wherein I saw things which determined me that I 
 would say nothing further of this most blessed one, 
 until such time as I could discourse more worthily 
 concerning her. And to this end I labour all I can; 
 as she well knoweth. Wherefore if it be His pleasure 
 through whom is the life of all things, that my life 
 continue with me a few years, it is my hope that I 
 shall yet write concerning her what hath not before 
 been written of any woman. After the which, may 
 it seem good unto Him who is the Master of Grace, 
 that my spirit should go hence to behold the glory 
 of its lady: to wit, of that Blessed Beatrice who now 
 gazeth continually on His countenance qui est per 
 omnia saecula benedictus" (Rossetti's translation). 
 
 Here we find the glory of God gleaming upon the 
 young prophet and leading him on. It is a story illu- 
 mined more by the light of heaven than of earth. 
 The poet takes his memories of Beatrice, the beauti- 
 ful girl with whom he played as a child and saw at 
 rare intervals in his adolescence, and arranges them 
 in order, as if they were comments, around a num- 
 ber of his earliest poems, both sonnets and odes, 
 so that the poems are strung like beads on the 
 thread of his experience. And since, at the time of 
 writing, after the death of Beatrice, he has plunged 
 into the study of scholastic j^hilosophy, he gives to 
 all his memories a touch of allegory, and indicates 
 darkl}' how, to the discerning mind, they embody 
 deep truths concerning the turning of the soul to 
 God. At the same time, possessed by a sense that the
 
 B E A T 11 I C E 33 
 
 mystery of Godhead is in all about us, he seeks to 
 indicate the presence of this mystery by recounting 
 liis visions, real or imaginary, and by dwelling upon 
 mystic numbers, three, nine, and seven. No doubt, 
 the conscious artist is at work ; and the whole scheme 
 of the book shows that Dante has been under the 
 influence of Guido Guinizelli's famous ode: 
 
 Al cor gentil ripara sempre Amore 
 Sicconie augello in selva alia verdura. 
 
 Nfe fe' Amore avanti gentil core, 
 
 Ne gentil core avanti Amor, Natura: 
 
 Within the gentle heart Love shelters him, 
 As girds within the green shade of the grove. 
 
 Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme. 
 Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love. 
 
 D. G. ROSSETTI 
 
 For Dante human love, such love as his for Bea- 
 trice, is a ray of God's light ; and this it is impossible 
 for the human tongue to describe. Nevertheless, by 
 means of poetr}^, theology, and philosophy, it may- 
 be stammeringly hinted at; and this he did in the 
 J'ita Nuova. As to the fashion and workmanshij) of 
 the little book, Dante makes use of familiar metliods. 
 Visions of Love, the purifying jDower of his lady's 
 salutation, the idea of a "screen" lady, are all in 
 conventional use in Provencal and Italian poetry ; 
 and, as I have said, the whole book is shaped and 
 colored by his youthful enthusiasm for lyric poetry 
 and scholastic philosophy, but still out of the pages 
 of this record of his new life shines the illumination 
 of a soul that is radiant with light of the revelation 
 of God.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 
 
 BEATRICE PORTINARI married Simone de' 
 Bardi, a member of a great Florentine bank- 
 ing house, in 1287, and died in 1290. The Vita 
 Nuova was probably written a year or two after- 
 •w'ards, as Dante was nearing thirty. During this 
 early period of his manliood, covered by the narra- 
 tive in the J'ita Nuova, notwithstanding the great 
 internal drama that centered around Beatrice, he 
 led the ordinary life of a citizen of Florence of the 
 educated upper class. His biographer, Leonardo 
 Bruni (13G9-1 44'4), says: "He devoted himself not 
 only to literature but to the other liberal studies, 
 leaving nothing one side that is appro))riate to make 
 a man excel. Nor, for all this, did he shut himself up 
 in an easy life, or keep liimself apart from the world, 
 but he lived and went about with otlier young men 
 of his age, well-behaved, alert, and good at every 
 manly exorcise. So much so that in the great and 
 memorable battle of Campaldino, a mere lad but 
 well thought of, he took part on horseback in the 
 front rank and fought vigorously, and ran into great 
 danger. . . . After the battle Dante returned home 
 and devoted himself to his studies more than ever, 
 
 34
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 35 
 
 but nevertheless he did not neglect the polite society 
 of the town. It is extraordinary that though he 
 studied continually^ nobody would have thought 
 that he was a student, because of his gay manners 
 {usanza Ueta)." 
 
 Of this lieta usanza we get a glimpse in the fol- 
 lowing sonnet to Guido Cavalcanti, the poet: 
 
 Guido, vorrei che tu e Lapo ed io 
 Fossimo presi per incantamento, 
 E messi ad un vascel, ch' ad ogni vento 
 Per mare andasse a voler vostro e mio; 
 
 Sicche fortuna, od altro tempo rio 
 Non ci potesse dare impedimento, 
 Anzi, vivendo sempre in un talento, 
 Di stare insieme crescesse 11 disio. 
 
 E Monna Vanna e Monna Lagia poi, 
 Con quella ch' e sul numero del trenta, 
 Con noi ponesse 11 buono incantatore: 
 
 E qulvi ragionar sempre d'amore; 
 E ciascuna dl lor fosse contenta, 
 Siccome lo credo che sariamo noi. 
 
 Guido, I wish that Lapo,i thou, and I, 
 
 Could be by spells convey'd, as it were now, 
 Upon a barque, with all the winds that blow 
 
 Across all seas at our good will to hie. 
 
 So no mischance nor temper of the sky 
 
 Should mar our course with spite or cruel slip ; 
 But we, observing old companionship, 
 
 To be companions still should long thereby. 
 
 And Lady Joan and Lady Lagia.2 
 
 1 Lapo Gianni, the poet. 
 
 2 Rossetti wrote "Beatrice" following a reading of the 
 Italian text now no longer accepted.
 
 36 DANTE 
 
 And her the thirtiethi on my roll, with us 
 Should our good wizard set, o'er seas to move 
 And not to talk of anything hut love: 
 And tlicy tiireo ever to he well at ease 
 
 As we should be, I think, if this were thus. 
 
 D. G. RoSSETTI 
 
 Boccaccio says: "His mind and intelligence grow- 
 ing witli his years, he did not turn to lucrative studies 
 to wliicli everybody hurries nowadays, but with a 
 praiseworthy love of enduring fame he despised 
 transitory riches and gave himself over to acquire 
 complete knowledge of poetry and of the poetic art. 
 In tlie course of this he became very familiar with 
 Virgil, Horace, Ovid, Statins, and every other 
 famous })oet; he not only took pains to know them, 
 but by writing jDoetry in an elevated style he strove 
 to imitate them, as his works show." 
 
 His works show that he not only studied poetry, 
 but all books of philosophy and learning that he 
 could lay hands on: volumes of Aristotle that had 
 been translated into Latin, such bits of Plato as 
 were accessible, scraps of Homer, certain works of 
 Cicero, Seneca, and Bocthius, treatises that came 
 from tlie Arabic through the Moors, St. Augustine, 
 Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. He began 
 his studies while quite young. He says, quoting 
 Aristotle: "All men by nature desire to know," 
 and no doubt after the death of Beatrice, in order 
 to distract his mind, In; look to study with far 
 greater zeal. 
 
 1 This number, "thirtieth," seems to be the "Screen Lady."
 
 Al'TEll THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 37 
 
 There is one episode concerning his life related in 
 the latter part of the J'ita Nuova, which, if we accept 
 Dante's subsequent ex2Jlanation of it, bears upon the 
 matter of his studies at this time; his explanation 
 also raises the whole question of his use of allegory, 
 and as this is necessary to an understanding of the 
 Commeclia, it is worth while to pause over it. He tells 
 how, a year after Beatrice's death, he was standing, 
 with all his sorrow depicted in his face, and says : 
 "I lifted mine eyes to look; and then perceived a 
 young and very beautiful lady, who was gazing 
 upon me from a window with a gaze full of pity, 
 so that the very sum of pity appeared gathered 
 together in her. ... It happened after this, that 
 whensoever I was seen of this lady, she became pale 
 and of a piteous countenance, as though it had been 
 with love; whereby she remembered me many times 
 of my own most noble lady, who was wont to be of 
 a like paleness. And I know that often, when I could 
 not weep nor in any way give ease unto mine anguish, 
 I went to look upon this lady, who seemed to bring 
 the tears into my eyes by the mere sight of her. 
 ... 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." 
 And a little further on he says: "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 set her in my path, that so my
 
 .'i8 DAN T E 
 
 life miglit find peace.' And there were times when 
 I thought yet more fondly, until m}^ heart consented 
 unto its reasoning" (D. G. Rossetti). 
 
 There can be little doubt that this episode is liter- 
 ally true, and that Dante, as a relief from sorrow, 
 turned toward this gentle Lady of the Window, and 
 transferred some, at least, of his devotion from 
 Beatrice to her. Afterwards, it seems, he was blamed 
 by his friends and acquaintances for levity and in- 
 constancy; and, in the Convivio, he boldly asserts 
 that the Lady of the Window is mere allegory, and 
 that he meant by her nothing but Philosophy. It is 
 very hard for modern readers to accej)t this expla- 
 nation ; it looks as if Dante's love, and perhaps his 
 pride, had revolted at his own inconstancy, and that 
 he had succeeded in persuading himself, and sought 
 to persuade his friends, that he had not really fallen 
 in love with another woman. 
 
 Hut in judging human conduct we are dealing 
 with subtle mysteries of motives, impulses, feelings, 
 tlioughts that shift, meet, combine, and separate 
 like clouds; and it may be that Dante had begun to 
 fix his thoughts so much more upon the divine sym- 
 bolism in Beatrice than upon her earthly person that 
 he had really transferred all his thoughts to that 
 allegorical plane, and that at the period of his writ- 
 ing the gentle Lady of the Window had undergone a 
 similar transformation. In those times almost every- 
 thing, esjjecially where the deeper emotions were 
 concerned, was interpreted as the literal expression 
 of some spiritual reality. To-day we are far removed 
 from that theory ; nevertheless, life as it reveals
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 39 
 
 itself lias too many "shoots of everlastingness" for 
 the human heart to accept the reports of our senses 
 as literally true. Only the hard-and-fast materialist 
 accepts the sensual presentation of the external 
 world as true and final. Most of us look upon the 
 literal presentation of life with a reservation and 
 bow our heads before the mystery. 
 
 Dante was convinced that he was always con- 
 fronted by an allegory. "The things which are seen 
 are temporal, but the things which are not seen are 
 eternal" (II Cor. iv, 18). All thoughtful men of the 
 Middle Ages accepted life as a parable, and bestirred 
 themselves to find out the meaning behind the veil. 
 Theologians emjiloyed this method in the inter- 
 pretation of Holy Writ; St. Paul did so, and so do all 
 interpreters from St. Paul to Swedenborg, and from 
 Swedenborg until to-day. In Dante's time the same 
 method was employed in interpreting the classical 
 poets. Boccaccio expresses the common view: "Holy 
 Writ, which we call theology, sometimes under the 
 figure of a story, sometimes under that of a vision, 
 sometimes under the guise of lamentation, or in many 
 another way, means to show us the deep mystery 
 about the incarnation of the Word, His life, the 
 things that happened at His death, His triumphant 
 resurrection, His miraculous ascension, and about 
 everything He did. . . . So, poets in their works. 
 which we call poetry, by the fiction of different gods, 
 by the metamorphosis of men into idle shapes, and 
 sometimes by light-minded discoursing, have shown 
 us the causes of things, the consequences of virtues 
 and vices, what we ought to shun and what to
 
 40 D A N T E 
 
 follow, so tlint at the last we may come, by doing 
 what is right, to that goal which they [the jjagan 
 poets] wlio did not rightly know the true God be- 
 lieved to be the height of salvation." 
 
 Dante also, in his famous letter to Can Grande 
 della Scala, lord of Verona, which serves as a preface 
 to the Commedia, sets forth the method of allegori- 
 cal explanation, and gives this example of the differ- 
 ent ways of interpreting a verse from the Bible: 
 " 'When Israel went out of Egypt, the House of 
 Jacob from a jjcople of strange language, Judah was 
 his sanctuary and Israel his dominion' (Psalm cxiv, 
 1-2). Should we consider the letter only, the exit of 
 the Children of Israel from Egypt in the time of 
 Moses, is what is signified to us; if the allegorif, our 
 redemption through Christ is signified to us; if the 
 moral sense, the conversion of the mind from the grief 
 and misery of sin to the state of grace is signified 
 to us; if the anagocjical, the exit of the holy soul 
 from the slavery of this corruption to the liberty of 
 eternal glory is signified. And although these mystic 
 senses are called by various names they may all 
 in general be called allegorical, since they differ from 
 the literal or historical." 
 
 This mode of interi)retation, that appears so fan- 
 tastic to us, was to the men of that time as familiar 
 and natural as any of our rules of deduction sanc- 
 tioned by logic. Dante ajjplied this method, not as 
 an artist, but unconsciously in all good faith to 
 Beatrice Portinari and to the gentle Lady of the 
 Window. Literally they were two lovely maidens; 
 allegorical ly they could easily become Theology and
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 41 
 
 Philosopliy. So, when Dante explains to us that the 
 second lady is in fact Philosophy, he may in very 
 truth have dropped from his mind her perishable 
 part and be concerned solely with her spiritual 
 significance. At least, he says so himself: "I, who 
 was seeking to console myself, found not only a cure 
 for my tears, but words of authors, and of sciences, 
 and of books, pondering upon which I judged that 
 Philosophy, who was the lady of these authors, of 
 these sciences, and of these books, was a thing su- 
 preme ; and I conceived her after the fashion of a 
 gentle lady, and I might not conceive her in any 
 attitude save that of compassion; wherefore the 
 sense for truth so loved to gaze upon her that I 
 could scarce turn it away from her; and imj^elled 
 by this imagination of her, I began to go where she 
 was in very truth revealed, to wit, to the schools of 
 the religious orders, and to the disputations of the 
 philosophers ; so that in a short time, I suppose some 
 thirtj' months, I began to feel so much of her sweet- 
 ness that the love of lier expelled and destroyed 
 every other thought" (Conv. II, ch. 13). 
 
 It may be that Dante, under the influence of his 
 studies and his pride, has distorted the natural, 
 literal interpretation of the Lady of the Window, 
 or. it may be that the original passage in the J^ita 
 Nuova is allegorical ; in either view the episode helps 
 us to realize how completely the habit of accepting 
 life as a mere colored veil concealing the reality be- 
 hind had possession of Dante, and thereby helps us 
 to understand the Commedia. 
 
 But, whether or no his attentions to the I.ady of
 
 42 DAN T E 
 
 the Window were tinged witli disloyalty to Beatrice, 
 some far more serious infidelity to her memory took 
 place in these years. Just what this falling away 
 from her ideals was, we can only infer from what he 
 and others say; but it was black enough to give him 
 the bitter, poignant consciousness of sin that is 
 shown in the Inferno. It seems most likely that 
 (a])art from the pervading sin of pride) Dante was 
 
 lu'l diletto della carne involto, 
 in the pleasures of the flesli enmeshed. 
 
 The testimony to this sin is very strong. Guido 
 Cavalcanti, in a sonnet to Dante, applies the words 
 "base" and "abject" to Dante's way of life. Boc- 
 caccio says: "With such great virtue, with so much 
 learning, as has been shown to belong to this won- 
 drous i)oet, sensuality found too great a place, not 
 only in his youthful years but also in his maturity." 
 And, at this period of his life, Forese Donati, a glut- 
 tonous, dissolute fellow (Purg. XXIII), was his 
 boon companion. There still exist half a dozen 
 ribald sonnets, in which the two friends revile one 
 another for discreditable conduct in a very unedi- 
 fying manner. And — though at a later period — 
 Dante also wrote several odes to a young woman with 
 a heart, he says, as hard as stone, but wlio is very 
 beautiful : 
 
 (^iiaiid" clla ha in testa una gliirlanda d'erba, 
 trac dclla niente nostra ogni altra donna; 
 perchl* si niischia 11 crcspo friallo e'l verde 
 si bel, ch' Amor vi vicne a stare all' onibra.
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 43 
 
 When on her head she wears a garland wrought of leaves 
 She draws from out my mind all women else; 
 The green so sweetly mingles with her golden locks, 
 That Love himself would nestle in their shade. 
 
 [Canzone I] 
 
 These odes express a love quite other than that 
 which he felt for Beatrice. In addition to all this, 
 in the Purgatorio, after lie has ascended to the top 
 of the Mount of Purgatory, Dante is obliged to pass 
 through the fire tliat hedges off the Earthly Paradise 
 from the last circle of Purgatory, and also, it seems, 
 purifies sins of the flesh. It is obvious that this narra- 
 tive reveals an inner drama. 
 
 After he has passed the fire and stands in the 
 presence of Beatrice, he feels himself dissolve in 
 shame. She rebukes him, before a multitude of holy 
 spirits, sternly, almost cruelly, so that his sorrow 
 shall equal his sin (Pnrg. XXX, 108), and says: 
 
 Questi fu tal nella sua vita nuova 
 
 virtualmente, ch' ogni ahito destro 
 
 fatto avrehbe in lui mirahil prova. 
 Ma tanto piu maligno e piii silvestro 
 
 si fa il terren col mal seme e non col to, 
 
 quant' egli ha piu del buon vigor terrestro. 
 Alcun tempo il sostenni col mio volto; 
 
 mostrando gli occhi giovinetti a lui, 
 
 mcco il menava in dritta parte volto. 
 Si tosto come in su la soglia fui 
 
 di mia seconda etade, e mutai vita, 
 
 questi si tolse a me, a diessi altrui. 
 Quando di carne a spirto era salita, 
 
 e hellczza e virtii cresciuta m' era, 
 
 fu' io a lui men cara e men gradita; 
 e volse i passi suoi per via non vera, 
 
 imagini di hen seguendo false, 
 •che nulla promission rendono intera.
 
 44 I) A N T E 
 
 Ne iinpetrare spirazion mi valse, 
 
 con Ic quali cd in sogno cd altrinienti 
 lo rivocai; si poco a lui ne calse. 
 
 Tanto {rill cadde, chc tutti arpoinenti 
 alia salute sua eran gia coiti, 
 fuor che mostrargli le jierdute genti. 
 
 Per questo visitai I'uscio dei inorti, 
 cd a colui che Tha quassii coiulotto 
 li prcghi niiei, piangendo, furon j>orti. 
 
 Alto fato di Dio sarebhe rotto, 
 sc Lete si passassc, e tal vivanda 
 fosse gustata senza alcuno scotto 
 
 di pentiinento che lagrime spanda. 
 
 This man in his New Life was ai)le to be such 
 That every beneficial aptitude 
 Would have wrought wonderful effects in him. 
 
 Hut so much the more malignant and more wild 
 The ground becomes with evil seeded, and unjilowed, 
 According as it has more vigorous soil. 
 
 Awhile I, by my presence, held him u]>; 
 And looking on him with my maiden eyes 
 I took him with me turned to righteousness. 
 
 But soon as I had reached a later time 
 Of womanhood and quitted mortal life. 
 Me he forsook and unto others turned. 
 
 When I from fle.sh to spirit had uprisen 
 
 With botli my beauty and my worth increa.sed, 
 To liim I was less j)leasing and less dear; 
 
 He l)ent his footsteps by a path not true, 
 To chase deceitful images of good 
 That never kec]) their promi.se honestly. 
 
 Nor (lid tlic spiritual help I gave 
 
 Avail, with which in dreams and other ways 
 I called him l)ack; so little did he heed. 
 
 He fell so low, that all the arguments for 
 His salvation's sake were found too scant. 
 Except the sight of the lost souls in hell.
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 45 
 
 Therefore, I souglit the threshold of the dead, 
 
 And weeping made petition unto him 
 
 Who has conducted tills man up to here. 
 The high decree of God would broiien be 
 
 If Lethe he should cross and taste our fruit. 
 
 And pay no penitential scot of tears. 
 
 Purg. XXX, 115-145 
 
 Dante admits that all she says is true and bursts 
 into a torrent of tears; and she goes on: 
 
 Per entro i miei disiri, 
 che ti menavano ad amar lo bene 
 di la dal qual non e a che s' aspiri, 
 
 qua! fossi attraversati o quai catene 
 trovasti, per che del passare innanzi 
 dovessiti cosi spogliar la sj)ene? 
 
 E quali agevolezze o quail avanzi 
 nella fronte degli altri si mostraro, 
 per che dovessi lor passeggiare anzi? 
 
 Within your yearnings up toward me. 
 That then were leading you to love the good 
 \\'hich is the final goal to be aspired to, 
 What pitfalls in your way, what chains 
 
 Found you? that made you lay aside your hope 
 Of going on; or what sweet winsomeness 
 Or promises upon the brow of others were there shown 
 That you to meet them needs must take your way? 
 
 Purg. XXXI, 2:3-30 
 
 Dante, still weeping, replies: 
 
 Le presenti cose 
 col falso lor piacer volser miei j)assi, 
 tosto che il vostro viso si nascose. 
 
 Immediate things 
 With their deceitful pleasures turned my steps 
 Aside, soon as your face was hid. 
 
 lb. 34-37
 
 4-6 DANTE 
 
 Beatrice grants that confession and repentance miti- 
 gate the sin, hut hids him stop weeping and listen 
 
 to hi'i- rehiike: 
 
 j)crc'hc altra volta 
 udendo le Sirene sie piii forte 
 
 so that another time 
 Hearing the Sirens thou niayest he more strong. 
 
 lb. 44.-4.5 
 
 Then she says, — and tlie reader must remember that 
 slie has been transmuted into Divine Wisdom: 
 
 Mai non t' appresento natura o arte 
 
 piacer, quanto le helle inemhra in eh' io 
 rinehiusa fui, e sono in terra sparte; 
 
 e se il sonmio piacer si ti fallio 
 
 per la inia niorte, qual cosa niortale 
 dovea poi trarre te nel suo disio? 
 
 Ben ti dovevi, ])er lo prinio strale 
 delle cose fallaci, levar suso 
 di retro a nie che non era piu tale. 
 
 Non ti dovean gravar le penne in giuso, 
 ad aspettar piu colpi, o pargoletta, 
 o altra vanita con si breve uso. 
 
 Never did nature, nor did art, to you 
 
 Pleasure present, so great as tlie fair limbs 
 
 In which I was enclosed, and now are one with earth; 
 And wlien this greatest jjleasure I)y my death 
 
 Came to an end, what mortal tiling 
 
 Ought then to lure you \iy a love of it? 
 Kathcr you should, at the first arrow of 
 
 Deceitful things, have mounted ujjvvard after me 
 
 Who was no longer of their world. 
 No girl, nor vain tiling else (so (piick to p.iss) 
 
 .Should have iieen able to weigh down your wings. 
 
 To wait for further shots. 
 
 lb. 49-00
 
 AFTER THE DEATH OF BEATRICE 47 
 
 In these verses not only does Divine Wisdom re- 
 buke human frailty but also Beatrice, the woman, 
 rebukes her erring lover; and the reproof strengthens 
 the hypothesis that Dante has been false to a human, 
 as well as to a divine, loyalty. But ^Beatrice's last 
 words altra vanita (1. 60) indicate other failings; and 
 this, too, is vaguely confirmed by her further words: 
 
 e veggi vostra via dalla divina 
 distar cotanto, quanto si discorda 
 da terra il ciel che piii alto festina. 
 
 And see, your way is distant from the way 
 Divine as far, as is the highest heaven 
 That whirls above distant from earth. 
 
 Ih. XXXIII, 88-90 
 
 Therefore, according to Beatrice, Dante's path had 
 led him directly away from God, into the region 
 where God is not, which is sin, although she gives 
 no hint of its nature. All this is autobiographical, and 
 will help us to understand Dante's bitter conscious- 
 ness of sin, and the whole scheme of the Commedia.
 
 c: n A i» T K u V 
 EXILE 
 
 OF outward events in Dante's life after he 
 wrote the J'ita Nuova, we know little. He 
 married a Florentine lady, Gemma Donati, 
 and had four children, two boys and two girls. He 
 took part in the public affairs of the city, and became 
 a member of the more important councils. He quali- 
 fied himself for office, as was necessary under a recent 
 democratic law, by enrolling in a guild; as he had 
 neitlier a profession nor a trade, he chose the guild of 
 Physicians and Apothecaries, to which it seems men 
 of letters and artists naturally turned. In the year 
 l.'iOO he was elected one of the six priors, a board 
 which constituted the supreme executive body in the 
 state. "All the ills and misfortunes that befell me," 
 he wrote, "had their cause and origin in the unlucky 
 sessions of my priorate" (Bruni). It was a tumultu- 
 ous time in Florence; political passions rose to fight- 
 ing heat, and the two parties that divided the city, 
 known as the Neri (Blacks) and tlie Bianchi 
 (Whites), came to blows. The priors, trying to act 
 with impartiality, banished the chiefs of both fac- 
 ticjns. One of these was Dante's particular friend, 
 Guido Cavalcanti, of the Bianchi faction. But the 
 
 48
 
 EXILE 49 
 
 efforts of the priors to establish peace, with justice to 
 both parties, were in vain; outside powers, too mighty / 
 to be resisted, tipped the scales. Pope Boniface VIII, 
 scheming to get the city in his clutches, made an 
 unscrupulous bargain with the Neri, and sent a 
 blackguardly French prince, Charles of Valois, with 
 a body of men-at-arms, to do what he called bring- 
 ing about peace and order. Prince Charles promptly 
 put the Neri in power; and they, with equal prompti- 
 tude, treated Florence like a conquered city and 
 proscribed the principal men of the Bianchi faction. 
 Dante's patriotic opposition to the Pope had marked 
 him for vengeance ; he was summoned to trial on 
 trumped-up charges of corruption and of actions 
 hostile to the Pope, as if his duty had been to the 
 Pope and not to his city. He did not obey the sum- 
 mons, and was condemned to exile for two years, to 
 disfranchisement and to a fine, and if the fine were 
 not paid within three days, then to the forfeiture of 
 all his property. A second decree, six weeks later, 
 condemned him to be burned alive (January and 
 March, 1300). 
 
 So, leading the life of the world brought Dante to 
 his worldly undoing. Banished from home, his prop- 
 erty confiscated, condemned to leave his wife, his 
 little children, his friends, the beautiful city of his 
 youth and of his forefathers, which he loved so 
 passionately, and to roam poor, despised, begging 
 alms at the courts of princes, — this, as the world 
 judges, was the very failure of failures. The passages 
 in which he speaks of his exile are fraught Avith 
 pathos :
 
 50 DAN T E 
 
 Tu lascerai ogni cosa diletta 
 
 pill caramente, e qucsto e quello strale 
 che I'arco dello esilio pria saetta. 
 
 Tu proverai si come sa di sale 
 
 lo pane altrui, e com' e duro calle 
 
 lo scendere e il salir per I'altrui scale. 
 
 Thou Shalt leave everything most dearly loved; 
 This is the dart, the bow of exile first shall shoot. 
 
 And thou shalt prove how salt the taste 
 Of otiiers' bread, and what a rugged patli 
 Descending and ascending others' stairs. 
 
 Par. XVII, 5o-60 
 
 And in the Convivio he says: 
 
 "Since it was the pleasure of the citizens of the 
 most beauteous and the most famous daughter of 
 Rome, Horence, to cast me forth from lier most 
 sweet bosom (wherein I was born and nurtured until 
 the culmination of my life, wherein with their good 
 leave I long with all my heart to repose my wearied 
 mind and end the time which is granted me), through 
 well-nigh all the regions whereto this tongue [the 
 Italian language] extends, a wanderer, almost a 
 beggar, have I i)aced, revealing, against my will, the 
 wound of fortune, which is often wont to be unjustly 
 imputed to him who is wounded. Verily have I been 
 a ship without sail and without helm, drifted upon 
 divers ])orts and straits and shores by the dry wind 
 that grievous i)overty exhales" (First Treatise, ch. 
 Ill, Temple Classics). 
 
 Dante did not know, he could not know, as he 
 drifted like a hulk over that tempestuous sea, that, 
 next to Beatrice exile would be his truest guide to
 
 EXILE 51 
 
 help him reach the "glorious haven" that Brunetto //' 
 Latini had foreseen for him. Exile detached his / 
 heart from vanities that had assailed his attention 
 and held it in servitude. Exile taught him the differ- y 
 ence between things that pass and things that abide; 
 exile turned his thoughts from the outward world 
 in upon himself. He learned, as few have learned, 
 how 
 
 The mind is its own place and in itself 
 Can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven. 
 
 In exile, as he wandered about, he learned that the 
 confusion in Florence was matched by the confusion 
 in all Italy; but he also learned that the bitterness 
 in political confusion is due not to the tumult that 
 rages without, but to the shaken equilibrium of the 
 soul within. In exile he acquired the painful knowl- 
 edge that he himself had wrought the disorder in his 
 own heart, in that, captivated by the false glitter of 
 appearances, he had followed paths that lead away 
 from God; but he acquired also the comforting 
 knowledge that in his heart he could find shelter 
 from all disorder, the peace that the world cannot 
 give, the truth that the Kingdom of Heaven is 
 within us. This is the deep doctrine that lies at the J 
 
 heart of Christianity. 
 
 There are various ways of finding the hidden God 
 within. St. John of the Cross teaches us one way; 
 "God abides in the very innermost depths of the 
 soul, and there He hides. So the soul that would find 
 Him must issue forth by means of affection and of 
 will from all that is created, and enter into herself 
 in a musing so profound that all creation becomes
 
 52 DANTE 
 
 for her as if it were not. That is why St. Augustine 
 says: 'I despatched my outward senses^ as scouts, 
 to seek Thee, but I did not find Thee, for I sought 
 unwisely. For now I see, God, my light, that hast 
 enlightened me, that I sought Thee unwisely by my 
 scouts, because Thou art within me.' So, indeed, 
 God is liiddcn in the soul, and therein must the re- 
 pentant, in contemj)lation, seek it with love, crying 
 'Where art Tliou liid.'*' " (Canticle of the Spirit). 
 
 And Meister Eckhardt lias his way, which he tells 
 in this dialogue: 
 
 Qu. What sort of man are you? 
 ^/n.f. 1 am a king. 
 
 Qu. Where is your kingdom? 
 .Ins. My soul is my kingdom, for I can so rule my senses 
 inward and outward that all the desires and powers 
 of my soul are in subjection, and this kingdom is 
 greater tlinn a kingdom on earth. 
 Qu. What i)rought you to this perfection? 
 Ans. My silence, my high thoughts, and my xmion with 
 God. For 1 could not rest in anything that was less 
 than God. Now I have found God; and in God have 
 eternal rest and peace. i 
 
 Oth(;rs attain to this knowledge by voluntary 
 renunciation, by vows of chastity and obedience, by 
 giving up ambition and all the things of this world. 
 But the ways of contemplation, of voluntary pov- 
 erty, of renunciation were not ways natural to the 
 ))roud aristocrat Dante. Some other way had to be 
 opened to him. Exile for him was, next to Beatrice, 
 the i)ighest manifestation of God's grace. Had it 
 not been for exile, Dante would not have learned 
 
 1 Quoted in Myxtirium, by Evelyn Underhill, p. 2.5r?.
 
 EXILE 53 
 
 that the Kingdom of Heaven is within, and would 
 have floundered about seeking for the higliest good 
 in a return to Florence and a laurel crown in the 
 Baptistery of San Giovanni, and the Divine Comedy 
 would not have been written. He wandered in many 
 places suffering contumely; but he perceived at 
 last that the drama of Emperor and Pope, of rival 
 barons, of proud cities, was but as a play of sliadows 
 cast upon a screen compared with the drama in the 
 depths of his own soul. 
 
 As to where Dante wandered to, there are some 
 scanty records, scattered about in archives, that 
 prove Dante to have been in one or two places on 
 such and such a date ; and there are in the Commedia 
 many descriptions of places and allusions to persons 
 which enable the painstaking student to follow 
 Dante's footsteps in at least a part of his wanderings. 
 At first he joined a company of exiles, most of whom 
 belonged to the old aristocratic Ghibelline faction 
 that had been expelled from Florence thirty or forty 
 years before, and witli them he plotted to return by 
 force of arms; but the attempt failed, and Dante, 
 disgusted with his associates, went his own way alone. 
 He found refuge and hospitality in Verona, at the 
 court of the della Scala; later he became the guest of 
 the Malaspina family, in the northwest of Tuscany. 
 Afterwards he went to the upper waters of the Arno, 
 to Bologna, to Lucca, and elsewhere, in different 
 parts of Lombardy and Tuscany. 
 
 All the time he nursed his passionate longing to 
 return to Florence, and his hopes rose high several 
 times. At one period he thought that the governors
 
 5-i I) A N T E 
 
 of the city would have a cliange of heart, and he 
 wrote letters to various citizens to use their in- 
 fluence on his behalf, but all in vain. Then suddenly 
 hope flared up like a bonfire. For over fifty years no 
 Emperor had come to Italy. Rudolph of Hapsburg 
 (1273-1291) and his successors had concerned them- 
 selves only with German affairs and their own for- 
 tunes; but in 1308 a new Emperor was elected, 
 Henry VII, M-ho proclaimed that he would not neglect 
 his duty to Italy as his predecessors had done ; and 
 after his coronation Henry announced his intention 
 of crossing the Alps and of coming to Italy. Dante 
 was almost beside himself. He wrote exultingly one 
 of his strange, mediaeval letters, directed to the 
 Princes of Italy: "Lo, now is the acceptable time 
 wherein arise the signs of consolation and peace. 
 For a new day beginneth to glow, showing forth the 
 dawn which is even now dissipating the darkness of 
 our long calamity; and already the breezes of the 
 east begin to blow, tlie lips of heaven glow red, and 
 confirm the auspices of the nations with a caressing 
 calm. And we, too, shall see the looked-for joy, we 
 who have kept vigil through the long niglit in the 
 desert. For peace-bringing Titan shall arise, and 
 Justice . . . will revive again so soon as he sliall 
 brandish his first ray. All they who hunger and 
 thirst shall be satisfied in the light of liis rays, and 
 they who love iniquity shall be confounded before 
 his shining face. For the strong lion of the tribe 
 of Judah [Christ] h.iLh lifted up his merciful ears, 
 and, taking pity on the wail of universal captivity, 
 hath raised up a second Moses to snatch his people
 
 EXILE 55 
 
 from the burdens of the Egyptians, leading them 
 to a land that floweth with milk and honey. . . . 
 Awake then all ye dwellers in Italy and arise before 
 your king since ye are destined not only to obey his 
 command, but, as free-born children, to follow his 
 guidance" (Epistola V, Temple Classics). 
 
 But the Guelfs of Italy did not hearken to Dante; 
 they stood apart, hostile, and the city of Florence 
 put herself at the head of the opposition. At this, 
 Dante wrote a letter of warning to the Florentines ; 
 but they took no notice of him; on the contrary, they 
 strengthened their fortifications and prepared for de- 
 fense. Then Dante, in a fury, wrote to the Emperor 
 (who, in Dante's view, was wasting his strength 
 against minor enemies in Lombardy), a fiery letter 
 in which he denounced the city and its leaders: 
 
 "Dost thou not know, most excellent of princes, 
 and from the watch tower of highest exaltation dost 
 thou not perceive where the fox of this stench skulks 
 in safety from the hunters.-* For the culprit drinketh 
 not of the headlong Po, nor of thy Tiber, but her 
 jaws do ever pollute the streams of the torrent of 
 Arno; and (knowest thou not perchance?) this dire 
 plague is named Florence. She is the viper that turns 
 upon the entrails of her mother. She is the sick sheep 
 that infects the flock of her lord with her contagion. 
 ... In truth, with the fierceness of a viper she is 
 striving to rend her mother, for she hath sharpened 
 the horns of rebellion against Rome, who created her 
 in her image and after her likeness" (Epistola VII, 
 Temple Classics). 
 
 Henry VII did his best. He strove gallantly to re-
 
 56 I) A X T E 
 
 store the power of the Empire in Italy, but he was 
 striving to restore what Time had abolished; his 
 peaceful efforts, and his warlike efforts were alike 
 unavailing. He marched here and there, and laid 
 siege to Florence, but all in vain. Suddenly he fell 
 ill of a fever and died, and with him perished the last 
 hope of bringing the Holy Roman Empire back to 
 life, and Dante's last hope of returning to Florence 
 by means of force. 
 
 An opportunity of recall, however, was offered 
 to him. Exiles such as he were granted a pardon upon 
 condition that they should pay a fine and present 
 themselves according to the usage prescribed for 
 pardoned criminals, before the altar in the Baptis- 
 tery, confess their wrongdoing and abase themselves. 
 Some kinsman, a priest apparently, wrote him of this 
 ungenerous offer of clemency. We have Dante's 
 letter in reply: "With grateful mind and close atten- 
 tion did I perceive from your letter, received with 
 due reverence and affection, how deeply you have 
 my recall at heart. And tliereby you liave bound me 
 under the closer obligation because it so rarely 
 chanceth that exiles find friends. But I go on to 
 answer the contents of it. And if my answer be not 
 such as perchance the pusillanimity of certain might 
 seek, I woukl beg you, in all affection, to winnow it 
 in your judgment before you pronounce upon it. 
 
 "This, tlien, is wliat has been indicated to me by 
 the letters of 3'our nephew and mine, and many 
 other friends, as to the decree recently passed in 
 Florence concerning the pardon of the exiles: That 
 if I will consent to ))ay a certain sum of money, and
 
 E X I I- E 57 
 
 be willing to bear the brand of oblation, I may be 
 absolved and may return at once. Wherein are two 
 things ridiculous and ill-advised, O father ! I say ill- 
 advised by those who have expressed them; for your 
 letter, more discreetly and advisedly drawn up, con- 
 tained no hint of them. 
 
 "Is this the glorious recall whereby Dante Ali- 
 ghieri is summoned back to his country after suffer- 
 ing well-nigh fifteen years of exile? Is this the re- 
 ward of innocence manifest to all the world, of 
 unbroken sweat and toil in study ? Far be it from the 
 disciple of philosophy, this abject-self-abasement 
 of a soul of clay ! To allow himself to be presented at 
 the altar, as a prisoner after the fashion of . . . some 
 infamous wretch. Far be it from the preacher of 
 justice, when he hath suffered a wrong, to pay his 
 coin to them that inflicted it as though they had de- 
 served well of him. 
 
 "Not tliis the way of return to my country, O my 
 father ! But if another may hereafter be found by you 
 or any other, which hurts not Dante's fair fame and 
 honour, that will I accept with no lagging feet. If no 
 such path leads back to Florence, then will I never 
 enter Florence more. What then ? ]\Iay I not gaze 
 upon the mirror of the sun and stars wherever I may 
 be? Can I not ponder on the sweetest truths wherever 
 I may be beneath the heaven, but I must first make 
 me inglorious, nay infamous, before the people and 
 the state of Florence? Nor shall 1 lack for bread" 
 (Epistola IX, Temple Classics). 
 
 There is another reference to his exile contained in 
 what is known as Fra Ilario's letter. This letter has
 
 58 DANTE 
 
 usually been considered a forgery ; and it certainly 
 contains matter that seems a jumble of erroi's. 
 Nevertheless it goes back to the time of Boccaccio, 
 and, at least in this one passage^ gives what might 
 well have been an account of a real meeting between 
 a friar on a remote mountain and this lonely wan- 
 derer. The writer describes a visit of Dante's to his 
 monastery in the Apennines: "Hither he came, 
 passing through the diocese of Luni, moved either 
 by tlie religion of the i:)lace or by some other feeling. 
 And seeing him as yet unknown to me and to all my 
 brethren, I questioned him of his wishings and his 
 seekings there. He moved not ; but stood silently con- 
 templating the columns and arches of the cloister. 
 And again I asked him what he wished and whom he 
 sought. Then, slowly turning his head, and looking 
 at the friars and at me, he answered 'Peace!'" 
 (Longfellow's Illustrations, etc.). 
 
 So he wandered on, the proud, lonely, passionate 
 man. He could not tell that the seeds which Beatrice 
 had sown in his heart depended upon loneliness, 
 bitterness of soul, and degradation in the eyes of 
 men, for their ripening. Or did he, with the confidence 
 of genius that resists and overcomes all the buffetings 
 of adverse circumstances, feel assured that, come 
 good, come ill, in either event he should prove his 
 soul, and write concerning Beatrice "what had not 
 before been written of any woman"."* In his letter to 
 the Princes of Italy he said: "It is not always we 
 who act. Nay sometimes we are God's instruments, 
 and human wills, which are by nature free, are 
 sometimes driven without touch of lower affection.
 
 EXILE 59 
 
 submissive to the eternal will, serving it often though 
 they know it not" (Epistola V). 
 
 During these years, chiefly (it seems) during the 
 last ten years of his life, following Beatrice as a star, 
 and taught in the school of Exile, Dante composed 
 the Commedia, the great poem upon which later 
 generations have conferred the epithet Divine.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARA TION 
 
 BEATRICE was the guiding star that directed 
 Dante towards God, and Exile was the cruel 
 yrt kindly ])ower that detached him from 
 false values of life. Beatrice was to him what the 
 Church is to the devout Catholic, what the Bible is 
 to the strict Protestant, a light emanating from the 
 True Light that lighteth the Avorld. PLxile was to 
 him what Poverty was to St. Francis of Assisi, not 
 merely detachment from riches, luxury, material 
 possessions, but a spiritual freedom; it unbound the 
 cords that tied him to the world, it freed his soul 
 from the hindrances of lesser desires. Both Beatrice 
 and Exile were vouchsafed to him, as it were, by 
 the grace of God, that he might be able to attain his 
 full spiritual stature and strength, and reveal to 
 men, in the appropriate language of noblest poetry, 
 his conviction of what is worthy and what is worth- 
 less in this strange and wonderful human pilgrimage 
 from tlie dark to the dark. 
 
 But Dante was no passive instrument in the hands 
 of fate ; he was aware of his own genius, he compre- 
 hended the magnitude of the task that he was under- 
 taking, and prepared liimsclf as best he could to 
 execute it. He had started upon tlie quest of God, 
 
 fiO
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARATION 61 
 
 and though in the end he found that he must look 
 for God within his own heart, in the beginning he 
 thouglit that he must look for Him in the outside 
 universe, believing that the way of the intellect was 
 the true road, because, as he judged, if one has 
 eyes to see, God reveals Himself in all objects of 
 sense, in all the workings of the universe. So Dante 
 set out to master all knowledge. Even in his youth, 
 as we learn from the Vita Nuova, he had begun with 
 diligence, and as years went on lie devoted to his 
 task what time was not taken up by the immediate 
 demands of life. He studied when and where he 
 could, and became one of the most learned men of 
 his generation, if not actually the most learned of all. 
 To his contemporaries his renown as a man of 
 learning was almost as great as his renown as a poet. 
 The historian Giovanni Villani (a contemporary) 
 wrote: "Dante was xerj well read in almost every 
 science, although he was a layman; he was a very 
 great poet and philosopher and a j^erfect master of 
 style"; and from what he says concerning the Divine 
 Comedy, it appears that he was more impressed by 
 the subtle discussions in it upon ethics, natural liis- 
 tory, astrology, philosophy, and theology, than by 
 its poetry. The same opinion prevailed in the next 
 generation. Antonio Pucci, a Florentine poet, de- 
 picts the seven liberal arts, Grammar, Logic, Rhet- 
 oric, Arithmetic, Geometry, Music, and Astronomy, 
 as weeping and tearing their hair at Dante's death, 
 while Theology tries to console them ; but he says 
 nothing of 'the Muses. No witnesses, however, outside 
 of Dante's writings are needed to prove his learning.
 
 02 1) A N T E 
 
 His writings are stuffed with references and quo- 
 tations. In this stage of study and self-preparation, 
 certain particular matters, at one period and another, 
 came to the front and occupied his attention, in 
 especial the Italian language, philosophy, and poli- 
 tics, upon each of which he wrote a book. 
 
 The treatise on the Italian language, De Vulgari 
 Eloquent'ia, written in Latin, is a book of remarkable 
 scholarship for the time. Italian, in her development 
 from the Latin, had lingered behind her sister tongues 
 of France, Provence, and Spain. The reasons for this 
 are easily understood. In Italy the Latin language 
 naturally had a more tenacious hold than elsewhere 
 in Europe, and had received a smaller admixture of 
 foreign words; therefore Italian had been tardier in 
 growing out of the debased Latin of the dark ages 
 into a modern language. And even after what may 
 be called Italian had become the common speech 
 of the people, it found Latin entrenched across its 
 path, thwarting its progress towards becoming the 
 accepted mode of expression either in writing or 
 talking for educated men. Latin was the language 
 of the Church, of the law, of government, of all 
 serious affairs; it was taught in the schools as the 
 language of the ujjper class; it held a large place in 
 the patriotic heart, for it was all that was left of the 
 imperial inheritance from ancient Rome, mistress 
 of tlie world. The Italians proudly called it "la 
 lingua nostra latina" — "our Latin language." So 
 that in the twelfth century, although there were 
 already national literatures in England, Germany, 
 France, Provence, and Spain, there was none in
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARATION 63 
 
 Italy. The earliest specimen of Italian poetry that 
 has any interest for modern readers is St. Francis's 
 canticle to the sun. But that canticle is outside the 
 main channel of Italian poetry. That main channel 
 takes us back to Provence. 
 
 Provencal poetry had at this time already reached 
 a high stage of delicate lyrical finish ; it was con- 
 ventional, refined, aristocratic, fit for the leisure 
 of pleasure-loving lords and ladies. Troubadours 
 wandered into Italy ; and so great was the prestige of 
 Provencal poetry in Lombardy that many poets, 
 Italian born, wrote their lyrics in Proven9al and 
 in accordance with the rules of Provencal verse. Of 
 these the most famous is Sordello of Mantua, who 
 was still living, a man of more than three score, 
 when Dante was born. After the French crusaders, 
 led by Simon de Montfort and blessed by Pope 
 Innocent III, had trampled under foot the easy 
 pleasant civilization of Provence, many more trouba- 
 dours sought refuge in Italy. So, of their own free 
 will or chased from home by invaders, Proven9al 
 poets familiarly frequented the princely courts of 
 Italy. 
 
 From this Provencal poetry Italian lyrical poetry 
 took its origin. The earliest school had its home in 
 Southern Italy, and was called the Sicilian School, 
 although its members came from all about, because 
 its most distinguished patron, the Emperor Fred- 
 erick II, was King of Sicily; its principal poets were 
 the Emperor himself, his two charming sons, Man- 
 fred and Enzio, his chief counselor, Pier della Vigna, 
 and Jacopo da Lentino, known from his profession as
 
 (i* D A N T E 
 
 the Notary, wlio, though the least of the group as a 
 personage, was tlic most important as a poet. The 
 next school in Italian poetry centers about Guitone 
 of Arezzo (a little town in Tuscany near Florence), 
 who lived till Dante Avas nearly thirty, and, as he 
 seems to have spent the end of his life in Florence, 
 may have been known to Dante. Then, for the 
 third stage, the genius of poetry going north tarried 
 in Bologna, where the great figure is Guido Guinizelli 
 (1230?- 1276), whom Dante admired greatly. In the 
 Purgatorio Dante calls him 
 
 il padre 
 iiiio, e defili altri miei miglior, che mai 
 riiiu- d'amorc usar dolci e lefrfliadre. 
 
 My father, 
 And of those, my Itettcrs, wlio ever made 
 Sweet, gracious, dainty rhymes of love. 
 
 Purff. XXVI, 97-99 
 
 These earlier Italian poets imitated very closely 
 their Provenq-al masters; but Guinizelli introduced 
 an idealistic j)hilosophy and a new manner into his 
 poems, so that they became the starting point of a 
 new Tuscan school, composed of Guido Cavalcanti, 
 Dante, Cino of Pistoia, and others. 
 
 Provencal j)oetry and this early Italian poetry, 
 Dante studied with great care. lie liad made Ills 
 vow that he "would say nothing further of tliis 
 most blessed one [Beatrice] until such time as he 
 could discourse more worthily concerning her." 
 And to be able to discourse worthily, he must 
 become a master of tlie art of language. How dili-
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARATION 65 
 
 gently he investigated this art, the De Vulgari Elo- 
 quentia tells us. It is an admirable treatise, clear, 
 learned, and scientific. Dante speaks of the origin 
 of language, of its three great branches, and of the 
 three subdivisions into which the branch prevailing 
 in southwestern Europe was divided, the tongues in 
 which yes is expressed by oc, oil, and si. He then sets 
 out to see if there is an Italian language worthy to 
 be the national, literary language, and in this quest 
 examines and criticizes the numerous dialects of 
 Italy. He enumerates them one by one and finds them 
 all inadequate, and concludes that the Italian lan- 
 guage he is looking for, worthy to serve the highest 
 uses of educated men, is the general speech of all 
 Italy freed from the peculiarities and grossness of 
 local dialects. To this he applies the adjectives "il- 
 lustrious, cardinal, courtly and curial," which means 
 proper for palaces, courts of justice, and in general 
 dignified and polished use. He then treats of this 
 national literary language, of its employment in 
 poetry, — especially for dealing with the proper sub- 
 jects of lyrical poetry, war, love, and righteousness, 
 — and more particularly in the ode (canzone). He 
 analyzes and judges the structure of the ode, the 
 number of syllables in the line, the words proper to 
 be used, in short what we call the technique of the 
 poetic art. The treatise was broken off abruptly, but 
 there is enough to show tliat he took the greatest 
 pains to master his art, so that the manner of his 
 poem should be worthy of its matter. 
 
 The Banquet, II Convivio, is a book, in Italian, on 
 philosophy. In form it is a collection of his odes with
 
 66 DANTE 
 
 long glosses that are packed full of all the learning 
 of the time. In these glosses Dante takes the doc- 
 trines of the two great religious philosophers, Alber- 
 tus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas, whose special 
 task had been to combine and reconcile the teachings 
 of Aristotle and of the Bible, and puts their doctrines 
 into a form more intelligible to persons who are not 
 scholars. The whole book is divided into parts, called 
 treatises, each treatise being a commentary on an 
 ode; of these there were to be fifteen, but only four 
 ■were completed. The first is introductory and sets 
 forth Dante's reasons for writing the book and for 
 writing it in Italian, instead of in Latin, which would 
 be the approjjriate language for a work on philos- 
 ophy. In the second, he comments upon the ode that 
 begins with an apostrophe to the angelic beings who 
 preside over the heaven of Venus, from whence rain 
 down influences of love. The first line is. 
 
 Vol die intendendo il terzo ciel inovete, 
 
 Ye who by understanding move the third heaven. 
 
 It is in this commentary that he states that by the 
 gentle Lady of the Window, spoken of in the Vita 
 Nuova, lie represented Philosophy. Then, comment- 
 ing upon the verses in order, he adds an exjiosition 
 of the lieavens, of the angelic intelligences that 
 govern them, and of kindred matters. All this is of 
 great help in understanding tlic mediaeval learning 
 packed into the Commedia. In these comments he 
 follows the accepted method of expounding first the 
 literal meaning and afterwards the allegorical mean-
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARATION 67 
 
 ing. In the third treatise he explains that what, 
 according to tlie bald meaning of the words, apj^ears 
 to be the passion of human love is really love of 
 philosophy. In the fourth treatise he discourses at 
 length upon the true nature of nobility. The other 
 treatises, so far as we know, were never written. 
 
 Dante's learning was vast. He did not pursue 
 learning for learning's sake nor out of intellectual 
 curiosity, but because knowledge of all kinds, so he 
 believed, is knowledge of God. The ultimate goal of 
 all endeavor is to see God face to face, but in the 
 meantime, before the soul is lifted up to such a 
 heiffht, the more the intellect understands of the 
 workings of God's will in the universe, the nearer 
 the soul comes to God. Two wings are necessary for 
 the soul's flight, the heart and the intellect. To be 
 sure one cannot know God unless one loves Him, 
 but one cannot love Him as He deserves unless one 
 knows Him. God is truth. Christ expressly said: "I 
 am . . . the truth" (St. John xiv, 6). And truth, 
 for men, is a knowledge of reality ; and though it may 
 be that the presence of God can be perceived more 
 vividly in ecstatic vision, nevertheless in ordinary 
 moments His presence can be perceived in all parts 
 of creation. As a lover of art gets to know an artist 
 by studying his works, so Dante believed that he 
 attained, by amassing knowledge, to a clearer under- 
 standing of God. 
 
 St, Paul says: "God our Saviour , . . will have all 
 men to be saved and to come into the knowledge of 
 the truth" (I Tim. ii, 4). And Christ himself had 
 said: "Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall
 
 68 DANTE 
 
 make you free" (St. John viii, 32). Truth is the 
 meeting of man's mind with God, and God — 
 though all these matters are beyond the plummet of 
 the human intellect — is present in all His works ; 
 in them man still feels the pressure of His creative 
 hand, and touches the prints of His fingers. So — 
 Dante would say — by knowledge of matter and 
 energy, of time and space, of things metaphysical 
 and spiritual, the seeker after God enters into the 
 outer courts of His presence and feels the breathings 
 of His spirit. Not an ignorant and slothful intellect 
 can perceive God; but an intellect clarified and 
 stimulated by effort, an intellect that has sought 
 God everywhere, in all His handiwork, in the heavens 
 that declare His glory, in men, in beasts, in plants, 
 in all manifestations whatever of His power and 
 majesty. "Through knowledge shall the just be de- 
 livered" (Prov. xi, 9). So, Dante, with such hopes 
 and beliefs, in his exile and wanderings, in his poverty 
 and dependence upon others, steadily pressed on 
 upon the path of knowledge that his soul might at 
 last be ))ermitted to see God face to face. And having 
 studied in order to help his own soul, he wrote II 
 Convivio to help others, for as he says: "The prin- 
 cipal design of it is to lead men to knowledge and 
 virtue" (I-'irst treatise, ch. JX). 
 
 The De Monarchia is primarily a political treatise 
 on the relation between Church and State. It is 
 written in Latin, because Dante here is a scholar 
 talking to scholars. Taken together with the Con- 
 vivio it shows how Dante's thought is gradually 
 moving towards the form it was finally to take in the
 
 INTELLECTURAL PRETARATION 69 
 
 Commedia. The Convivio deals with one asj)ect of the 
 problem that continually occupied him, how man 
 shall pass from the confusion of sin to the ordered 
 peace of the spirit; that aspect pointed to salvation 
 through knowledge. The De Monarchia considers the 
 same problem from a political, or social, point of 
 view. Both, in their most serious meanings, make 
 one prayer, "Grant us thy peace." If Dante had 
 been a recluse, he would have concerned himself only 
 with the soul and its spiritual salvation ; but he was 
 a man of action, full of compassion for mankind, and 
 he would not be saved alone. For him the problems 
 of salvation concerned social and political life as well 
 as personal life. He felt with Tolstoi, — "They 
 speak in vain who say that the Christian teaching 
 touches the personal salvation, and not the general 
 question of state" {My Religion, ch. III). Dante 
 sought for the great law of spiritual gravitation that 
 draws all things to God — "quia fecisti nos ad te et 
 inquietum est cor nostrum, donee requiescat in te," for 
 Thou liast made us for Thyself, and our hearts are 
 restless until they find rest in Thee (St. Aug. Conf. 
 I, 1). The De Monarchia is an examination of the po- 
 litical basis necessary to enable that spiritual law to 
 operate. Dante starts from the premise that the souls 
 of men cannot attain to God unless they are free to 
 busy themselves with the task of self-perfectioning; 
 they must have full liberty for contemplation and 
 for action. Such liberty cannot exist where there is 
 social confusion ; and social confusion will exist so 
 long as there are a multitude of rulers, with selfish 
 ambitions and interests, each covetous and grasping.
 
 TO DANTE 
 
 Tolstoi says the same thing: "The greatest welfare 
 of man towards which all men aspire can only be 
 obtained by perfect union and concord among men" 
 (Christian Teaching). Tolstoi also says: "I not only 
 know now that my separation from other nations is 
 an evil which ruins my good: I know also the offense 
 which has led me into this evil, and I can no longer, 
 as I used to before, serve it calmly and consciously. 
 I know that this offense consists in the delusion that 
 my good is connected only with the good of my 
 nation and not with the good of the whole world. 
 Now I know that my union with other men cannot 
 be imjiaired by a border line and by government de- 
 cisions as to my belonging to this nation or to that. 
 ... I now understand the meaning of the words. 
 Do good to your enemies ; do to them what you would 
 do to your own people. You are all the children of 
 one Father ; and be like your Father, that is make 
 no division between your nation and another, — be 
 alike to all. Now I understand that the good is 
 possible for me only when I recognize the union with 
 all men of the world without any exception." 
 
 Dante's theory was that the cure for divisions, 
 hostility, and war between nation and nation, prince 
 and j)rince, city and city, faction and faction, lies in 
 bringing them all under one common government. 
 To-day, still more poignantly, we feel the same need; 
 and our remedy approximates to his, for we propose 
 to bring all nations under the guidance of one su- 
 ])reme court in all matters of international dissension. 
 By different roads we arrive at the same conclusion. 
 There must be a monarch — a supreme will^ — that
 
 INTELLECTUAL PREPARATION 71 
 
 shall have power to settle quarrels, maintain peace, 
 to decide between divergent national interests, and 
 to spread good will among men. For us that monarch, 
 that supreme will, must be composed of the coordi- 
 nated wills of many nations ; for Dante, it was the 
 Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, a ruler ap- 
 pointed by Divine Providence, and raised high 
 above the temptations that beset lesser princes. 
 We in America base our hopes in this respect on the 
 analogy of the successful union of our forty-eight 
 states united under one head; Dante based his hopes 
 on the teaching of European history, that only the 
 dominion of the Emperor of the Roman Empire 
 could establish peace, order, justice, law. 
 
 The De Monarchia is divided into three parts. The 
 first sets forth the need of monarchy for humanity; 
 the second, the proofs that the Romans M^ere God's 
 chosen people, apj^ointed by Him to establish uni- 
 versal monarchy; the third discusses the relations 
 between this universal tem^joral rule of the Emperor 
 and the universal spiritual rule of the papacy, and 
 concludes that the right of the Roman Emperor is 
 derived directly from God and is not dependent upon 
 the papal will. From this the obvious inference is that 
 the Poj^e must not cross the Emperor in temporal 
 matters. 
 
 Under the government of an Emperor, raised 
 above mortal temptations (so Dante thought), 
 righteousness will flourish, men will find themselves 
 equal to the task of combating evil, and able to give 
 themselves to contemplation, to prayer, to a long- 
 continued discipline of the senses, to things of the
 
 72 DANTE 
 
 mind and tilings of the soul, and so, though the 
 human heart will still need refining and purifying, 
 thev may have comfortable hoijc that in the end 
 they shall attain to a knowledge and love of God. 
 
 In this way Dante, listening to the incantations 
 of hope, lifted up his eyes above the battlements and 
 castellated tops that shut in the narrow streets of 
 Verona and Ravenna, above the towers of Bologna, 
 beyond the clangor of warlike bells, and the vitupera- 
 tions of angry citizens, beyond the rough tops of the 
 Ai)ennines, beyond the steep stairs and the salt 
 bread of exile, high above the grossness and cruelty 
 of common life, and gazed at the starry sky, and be- 
 lieved that as God had established an order in 
 heaven, so should an Emperor establish order on 
 earth. 
 
 But after the death of Henry VII, his thoughts 
 turned from outward peace to inward peace, and 
 little by little he learned the supreme lesson of life, 
 that the confusion which tosses us to and fro, and 
 the peace that comforts and illumines us, are not in 
 the material world without but in the spiritual world 
 within, and pondering on this lesson, and having 
 mastered the art of poetry, and having profoundly 
 studied science and i)liilosoj)hy, he ajjplied himself 
 with all his heart and soul, and all his mind, to 
 the great task to which he had dedicated himself 
 in youth.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE INFERNO \ 
 
 THE Commedia consists of three pprts, — the 
 Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso. 
 Each part has thirty-three cantos, and the 
 Inferno an introductory canto as well, so that in all 
 there are a hundred. The verse is terza rima, a form 
 virtually of Dante's own creating, the lines being 
 grouped three by three, and each rime repeated 
 thrice, in this fashion, A B A, B C B, C D C, and so 
 on. At the beginning and end of each canto one of the 
 three rimes is of necessity omitted. The line has 
 eleven syllables as read aloud; but as a vowel at the 
 end of a word is elided when the next word begins 
 with a vowel, the reader often sees printed many 
 more syllables than are pronounced. 
 
 Dante called the poem a commedia, because as 
 with comedy it begins in a troublous and threatening 
 situation and ends happily, and also because it is 
 written in Italian, not Latin, and in a loose and 
 simple manner (Letter to Can Grande, Sec. 10), in 
 a less stately style than would befit tragedy (De 
 Vulg. El. Book I, ch. IV). To this name posterity has 
 prefixed the adjective divine. Boccaccio speaks of the 
 divina commedia, but this phrase was not used as a 
 title until an edition published in 1555. 
 
 73
 
 T4 DANTE 
 
 The Commedia has two princijoal aspects, — literal 
 and allegorical. Dante's contemporaries knew, with- 
 out being told, and modern readers conversant with 
 mediaeval literature know, that a poem written at 
 the beginning of the fourteenth century on such a 
 subject could not be a mere story, but must hold a 
 deeper meaning in the allegory hidden beneath the 
 letter. Nevertheless, Dante, having made the literal 
 story as vivid and picturesque as language is able to 
 do, is half afraid lest the attention of his readers may 
 be absorbed by its fascination ; therefore he reminds 
 them again and again of the allegory underneath. In 
 one of the early cantos of the Inferno he says: 
 
 O voi, che avete gl' intelletti sani, 
 mirate la dottrina, che s'asconde 
 sotto il velame degli vers! strani! 
 
 O ye who have your understandings sound 
 1,00k at the teaching that lies hid 
 Under the veiling of these verses strange. 
 
 Inf. IX, 61-63 
 
 And he also did the same in the Purgatorio: 
 
 Aguzza qui, lettor, ben gli occhi al vero, 
 che il velo c ora ben tanto sottile, 
 certo, che il trapassar dentro e leggiero. 
 
 Sharpen your eyes here. Reader, to the truth 
 Because the veil is now so very thin 
 That verily to pass within is easy. 
 
 Purff. VIII, 19-21 
 
 And a third time, in the dedicatory letter to Can 
 Grande, which is a sort of preface to the Paradiso, 
 he in.sists on the importance of the allegory. Dante
 
 INFERNO 75 
 
 never forgot that he is a preacher, as well as a 
 prophet and poet. 
 
 In its literal aspect the Inferno is the hell of popu- 
 lar tradition^ the abode of lost souls after death. It 
 is a great pit, shaped like a cone, growing narrov/er 
 and narrower, with its mouth under ground some- 
 where below Jerusalem, and its apex down at the 
 very center of the earth. In places this pit is encircled 
 by rugged ledges, and at others its sides are sheer 
 precipices of almost unimaginable depth. Round 
 these frightful circles, down these horrible abysses, 
 we accompany the poet. Every step of the way is as 
 vivid to our intelligence as objects of sight. Dante 
 begins by saj^ing that in the raid-road of human life 
 he became aware that he was in a wild, dark wood, 
 and had lost his way; nevertheless he could see the 
 top of a sunlit mountain and Avas starting out 
 towards it when savage beasts rushed out and 
 frightened him so that he turned to go back. To 
 his great comfort he perceives some one coming. It 
 is the gracious Virgil, who tells him that to escape 
 from the wild wood he must take another way, and 
 that he will guide him through the darkness of Hell 
 and up through Purgatory. Dante shrinks back at 
 the mere thought of going down into Hell, but Virgil 
 inspires him with courage by recounting how Bea- 
 trice had come down from Heaven on purpose to 
 rescue him. So they set forth and pass through the 
 gate of Hell, under the terrible inscription, — 
 
 lasciate ogni speranza, vol ch' entrate. 
 
 All hope abandon ye who enter here. 
 
 Inf. Ill, 9 
 
 fl
 
 76 DANTE 
 
 There, in a sort of vestibule, Dante hears all the 
 various sounds of woe. First are the cowards who 
 evaded the responsibility of life, daring neither to do 
 right nor to do wrong: 
 
 Questo misero niodo 
 
 tengon 1' anime triste di colore, 
 
 ohc visser scnza infamia c senza lodo. 
 JMiscliiate sono a quel cattivo coro 
 
 degli angeli che non furon ribelli, 
 
 nb fur fedeli a Die, ma per se foro. 
 Cacciarli i eiel per non esser men belli, 
 
 nh lo profondo inferno gli riceve, 
 
 chfe alcuna gloria i rei avrebber d' elli. 
 
 This wretched kind of life 
 the miserable spirits lead of those 
 who lived with neitiier infamy nor praise. 
 Commingled are they with that worthless choir 
 of Angels who did not rebel, nor yet 
 were true to (lod, l)ut sided with themselves. 
 The heavens, in order not to be less fair, 
 expelled them; nor doth nether Hell receive them, 
 because the bad would get some glory thence. 
 
 Inf. Ill, 34-42, Langdon 
 
 Then the poets reach the river Acheron, across 
 whicli Charon ferries them, and on the further side 
 thcv come to Limbo, where thev see the souls of those 
 who never knew God, both the unbaptized and the 
 heathen. After this they pass the great judge, Minos, 
 and arrive at the circle where sins of the flesh are 
 punislicd. Here they meet Francesca da Rimini, who 
 tells her story, not outdone in tenderness even by the 
 scene in King Lear where the poor old man slowly 
 comes to his senses and recognizes his daughter
 
 INFERNO 77 
 
 Cordelia (Act IV, scene VII). It is one of the per- 
 fect j)assages in all poetry. On the two poets go, 
 through the abode of gluttons, misers, prodigals, of 
 the wrathful, across the foul Stygian swamp, and 
 approach the city of Dis^ the inner citadel of Hell. 
 Here a multitude of demons forbid their entrance, but 
 an angel descends from Heaven and drives them 
 back. They pass in, and see the punishment of here- 
 tics, among Avhom is Farinata degli Uberti ; and, 
 further down, they walk round other circles peopled 
 by the souls of the violent, — tyrants, murdei-ers, 
 conquerors, and suicides. Here is Pier della Vigna, 
 bosom counselor to Frederick II. Further down still 
 are those who have offended against the primal laws 
 of nature; among these is Brunetto Latini. Then 
 down into INIalebolge (pouches of evil), where there 
 is a horrid succession of panders, seducers, flatterers, 
 simonists, magicians, cheats, hypocrites, thieves, and 
 evil counselors. 
 
 Here they meet Ulysses ; and in meeting him, as in 
 meeting Pier della Vigna and Brunetto Latini, the 
 preacher and the prophet are lost in the poet, and 
 Dante, kindled to enthusiasm, gives rein to his 
 admiration. Ulysses tells the story of his last voyage, 
 how neither the sweet society of his son, nor filial 
 duty towards his old father, nor marital love for 
 Penelope, had been able to restrain his ardent curi- 
 osity to see the world; so he had put to sea with his 
 little band of comrades, and sailed westward through 
 the Mediterranean out past the pillars which Her- 
 cules had set as a mark that no man should venture 
 further:
 
 78 DANTE 
 
 "O frati," dissi, "che per cento milia 
 perigli siete giunti all' occidente, 
 a questa tanto picciola vigilia 
 
 de' vostri sensi, di' e del rinianente, 
 non vogliate negar 1' esperienza, 
 di retro al sol, del mondo senza gente. 
 
 Considerate la vostra semenza: 
 
 fatti non foste a viver come bruti, 
 ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza." 
 
 And then I said: "O brothers, ye who now 
 
 have through a hundred thousand perils reached 
 
 the West, to this so short a waking-time 
 
 still left your senses, will not to refuse 
 
 experience of that world behind the sun 
 
 wliich knows not man ! Bethink you of the seed 
 
 whence ye have sprung; for ye were not created 
 
 to lead the life of stupid animals, 
 
 but manliness and knowledge to pursue." 
 
 Jnf. XXVI, 112-130, Laxgdok 
 
 After leaving Ulysses, Virgil and Dante take their 
 way still downward, towards the bottom of the pit, 
 where disloyalty shows its hideous character. Here 
 is the episode of Ugolino witli his teeth in the skull 
 of Archbishop Ruggieri, both frozen in one hole 
 {Inf. XXXII-XXXIII). And at the very bottom of 
 the pit are the most horrid traitors of all. Cassias, 
 Brutus, Judas, and Satan himself, with no touch of 
 dignity or nobility, but foul, bestial, and loathsome. 
 This is the depth of Hell, the center of the earth; and 
 having descended to the central spot, the poets turn 
 and j)rocced upward by a little path that leads tliem 
 once more to the sweet air, at the antipodes of 
 Jerusalem, and they issue forth on the other side of
 
 I N r E K N o 79 
 
 the world, "a riveder le stelle," "to see the stars 
 again," near the base of the Mount of Purgatory. 
 
 This is a wonderful narrative. The reader forgets 
 that he has not followed Virgil himself, so grimly all 
 the rugged path, the foul swamp, the great bowlders, 
 the fearful depths, the wretched men, and the mighty 
 servants of Hell have stood forth against the back- 
 ground of everlasting darkness. Never has a master 
 of words possessed so much of the power of the 
 painter, the sculptor, and the architect. Dante has 
 planned, digged, built, modeled, and colored. He 
 must have had a remarkable eye for visual effects. 
 Leonardi Bruni says: "Di sua mano egregiamente 
 disegnava," "with his own hand he drew extraordi- 
 narily well," and, in the Vita Nuova, Dante himself 
 speaks of drawing: "I betook myself to drawing the 
 likeness of an angel on my tablets" ; but there needs 
 no evidence outside of the Commedia to show his 
 interest in all the arts; there one sees in the blossom 
 that Florentine delight in art of all kinds which 
 came to full flowering during the following centuries. 
 
 But to Dante this literal Hell was a secondary 
 matter; so it is to us. He and we are concerned with 
 the allegory. That allegory is simple. Hell is the 
 absence of God. Thomas a Kempis cried out: "Where 
 Thou art, there is heaven; and where Thou are not, 
 there is death and hell." Hell is the consequence of 
 sin, and sin is negation, a closing of the eyes to the 
 presence of God, a refusal to take His proffered 
 hand, a denial of all loyalty to the divine. Dante's 
 conception of sin is like that of all great moral 
 geniuses who have learned to know the peace and
 
 80 1) A N T E 
 
 joy of the presence of God. Sin is a turning away 
 from God. St. Augustine sa3^s: "I inquired what 
 iniquity might be, and I found it not to be a sub- 
 stance, but a swerving merely of the will, turned 
 quite away from Thee, O God . . . towards lowest 
 things" {Coiif. VII, IG). But sin may be worse than 
 that, "Sin," John Bunyan said on his deathbed, 
 "turns all God's grace into wantonness; it is the 
 dare of His justice, the rape of His mercy, the jeer 
 of His patience, the slight of His power and the con- 
 tempt of His love." 
 
 This is the awful thing, contempt of God's love. 
 It is God's love (manifested for most people in human 
 love) that constitutes goodness and happiness. If 
 men turn from love, they inflict upon themselves 
 their own punishment. God's presence, when intel- 
 ligible to the human mind, is to be found in love, in 
 beauty, in radiance, in kindness, in joy, in work, in 
 sacrifice; and so to forsake Him, the Sum of Good, 
 is to descend into Hell. Dante's literal Hell is sin 
 made visible, palpable; his sinners are men living 
 in the dark pit of a consciousness wholly unillumined 
 by a knowledge or love of God. Pascal says: "Apart 
 from Jesus Christ is naught but vice and misery, 
 error and darkness, death and despair." Necessarily, 
 the soul that is in a state of sin does not behold the 
 manifestations of God; so in Dante's literal Hell 
 there are none of the signs and wonders of God that 
 cheer men upon earth, no warmth of the sun, no 
 moonlight on the waters, no birds singing, no noises 
 of ( liildliood, no dance of maidens, no nimbleness of 
 youth, no smiles, no laughs, no kindly human inter-
 
 INFERNO 81 
 
 course, no flashes of heroism, no glamour of high 
 romance, no thrill of self-sacrifice, no reachings of 
 the mind toward infinite wisdom ; but in their place 
 envy, hatred, malice, bestiality, and fraud. The heart 
 has become on unwatered desert where no good things 
 grow. 
 
 This is the only explanation needed to understand 
 the allegory, if this obvious explanation may be 
 called necessary ; all commentaries and notes serve 
 only to confuse the reader whose object is spiritual 
 light. This one key unlocks the whole inner meaning 
 of all the episodes. If the reader begins with the 
 consciousness that he is reading about sin, spiritually 
 understood, he never loses the thread, he is never 
 at a loss, never slips back into the literal signification. 
 The meaning of the wild wood, of the beasts, is 
 obvious. So Bunyan says, "Fears like masterless 
 hell-hounds roared and bellowed in my soul." Virgil 
 is unmistakably a wise guide who will lead a stray 
 soul through the ways of sin and penitence, but can- 
 not conduct it into the presence of God, because he 
 himself does not know God. The gates of Hell, the 
 murky Limbo, the circles, the precipices, the horrible 
 coldness of the pit, need no interpreter. The dramatis 
 personae of the hellish drama have received the 
 stamp of individuality from the genius of the poet, 
 and speak to Dante as man to man, but they are 
 none the less types of sins such as the Apostle Paul 
 speaks of: "Even as they did not like to retain God 
 in their knowledge, God gave them over to a repro- 
 bate mind to do things which are not convenient; 
 being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness.
 
 82 DANTE 
 
 covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, 
 debate, deceit, malignity, whisperers, backbiters, 
 haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors 
 of evil things, disobedient to parents, \vithout under- 
 standing, covenant-breakers, without natural affec- 
 tion, implacable, unmerciful" (Rom. i, 28-31). "Their 
 portion shall be indignation, wrath, tribulation and 
 anguish" (Is. ii, 8-9). The ghosts of such sins, Dante 
 saw in his descent into the lowest recesses of the 
 human heart. 
 
 In Pilgrim's Progress the allegory is almost lost in 
 the literal narrative, here the letter is almost lost in 
 the allegory. For instance, the thirst of the forger 
 Maestro Adamo is an obvious allegory of the thirst 
 for innocence: 
 
 Lasso ! un gocciol d' acqua bramo. 
 Li ruscelletti, che dei verdi colli 
 
 del Casentin discendon giuso in Arno, 
 
 facendo i lor canali freddi e nioUi, 
 sempre mi stanno innanzi. 
 
 Alas ! I crave a drop of water. 
 The little brooks which toward the Arno run 
 down from the Casentino's green-clad hills, 
 and render all their channels cool and fresh 
 are evermore before me. 
 
 Inf. XXX, 63-67, Laxgdon" 
 
 Likewise what fitter description of a glutton's 
 spiritual atmosphere can there be tlian in these lines? 
 
 Clrandine grossa, e acqua tinta, e neve 
 per Taer tenebroso si reversa; 
 pute la terra che questo riceve.
 
 INFERNO 83 
 
 Coarse hail, and snow and dirty-colored water 
 througli the dark air are ever pouring down; 
 and foully smells the ground receiving them. 
 
 Inf. VI, 10-12, Langdon 
 
 And wliat can depict the mad fury of rage better 
 than this ? 
 
 Qual e quel toro che si slaccia in quella 
 che ha ricevuto gia '1 colpo mortale, 
 che gir non sa, ma qua e la saltella; 
 
 vid' io lo Minotauro far cotale; 
 
 As doth a bull, who from his leash breaks free 
 the moment he receives the mortal blow, 
 and cannot walk but plunges here and there; 
 so doing I beheld the Minotaur. 
 
 Inf. XII, 23-25, Langdox
 
 C 11 A P T K H VIII 
 
 OTHER ASPECTS OF THE INFERNO 
 
 EVERYWHERE the allegory constitutes the 
 great body of the poem, in all its parts and 
 jnembers, while the literal story is a mere 
 skin or covering. And yet under the allegory lies a 
 personal confession. It is impossible to read the 
 Inferno and not know that the poet who wrote it had 
 committed sin. The only mistake might be to think 
 his sin more heinous than it was. No doubt every 
 sensitive S2)iritual soul who has done wrong and re- 
 pented, when he looks back ujDon his wrongdoing 
 inclines to magnify its wickedness. St. Augustine dis- 
 torted robbing his neighbor's pear tree into a sin; 
 and Bunyan suffered because he had played hit-the- 
 stick on Sunday. But allowing for exaggeration, it is 
 true, as Bunyan said, "Plow can he tell what it is to 
 be saved, that liath not in his own conscience groaned 
 under the burden of sin.?" Spiritual souls may be 
 morbid and convert trivial misdoing into wickedness, 
 but that is because they understand what it is to be 
 cut off from the knowledge and love of God; whereas 
 ordinary men, with what they call a healthy tend- 
 ency to make the best of things, incline to look 
 upon their sins as trivial and excusable. 
 
 Some of Dante's wrongdoing we learned in another 
 
 84
 
 OTHER ASPECTS OF THE INFERNO 85 
 
 chapter. The sin of incontinence, however gross it 
 appeared to him in the presence of Beatrice, he recog- 
 nized to be the sin most readily pardoned. In Hell it 
 receives the lightest punishment. That is because 
 this sin is sometimes ennobled by love, as with Paolo 
 and Francesca; and yet in spite of its romantic 
 glamour, Dante saw the ugliness of the sin which 
 disfigures the beauty of love. St. Augustine looked 
 back on his backslidings in the same manner: "And 
 what was it that I delighted in, but to love and be 
 loved? but out of the puddly concupiscenoe of my 
 flesh, certain mists and bubblings of youth fumed up, 
 which beclouded and so overcast my heart, that I 
 could not discern the beauty of a chaste affection 
 from a fog of impure lustfulness. Both did confusedly 
 boil in me, and ravished away my unstayed youth 
 over the downfalls of unchaste desires, and drenched 
 me over head and ears in the very whirlpool of most 
 heinous impurities" (Conf. II, 2, translation by 
 Watts). But Dante was aware of a deeper and 
 subtler sin, the sin of pride. Of this sin, Satan, "king 
 over all the children of pride" (Job xli, 34), is the 
 great symbol. In the days before the war, old tradi- 
 tional notions of chivalry, of gentility, of what were 
 called birth and honor, prevented most men from 
 understanding the true nature of pride; the phrase 
 "proper pride" was jvidged an acceptable excuse for 
 many an act of unchristian conduct. The Church had 
 accomplished little or nothing by classifying pride as 
 one of the seven deadly sins. But now that we see 
 how pride of dynasty, pride of caste, pride of race, 
 pride of accomplishment, pride of power, have
 
 bCi DANTE 
 
 ^v^ought a world of woe, we understand better the 
 nature of pride, that it is indeed a deadly sin. 
 
 Coleridge says of it: "In its utmost abstraction 
 and consequent state of reprobation, the Will be- 
 comes Satanic pride and rebellious self-idolatry in 
 the relations of the spirit to itself, and remorseless 
 despotism relatively to others; the more hopeless 
 as the more obdurate by its subjugation of sensual 
 impulses, b}^ its superiority to toil and pain and 
 pleasure: in short, by the fearful resolve to find in 
 itself al«ne the one absolute motive of action, under 
 which all other motives from within and from without 
 must be either subordinated or crushed. . . . Wher- 
 ever it has apjjcared, under whatever circumstances 
 of time and country ... it has been identified by 
 the same attributes. Hope, in which there is no 
 cheerfulness ; steadfastness within and immovable 
 resolve, with outward restlessness and whirling 
 activity; violence with guile; temerity with cunning; 
 and, as the result of all, interminableness of object 
 with perfect indifference of means" (Lay Sermons, 
 quoted in The Spirit of Man, No. 274). Dante was 
 a proud man, but with his clear spiritual insight he 
 recognized the wickedness of pride and the virtue of 
 humility. 
 
 Giovanni Villani says: "Questo Dante per lo suo 
 sapere fu alquanto presontuoso e schifo e isdegnoso," 
 — "This Dante on account of his learning was 
 somewhat arrogant, fastidious, and disdainful" ; and 
 Boccaccio, "Fu il nostro Poeta, . . . di animo alto 
 e di.sderjnoso mnlto," — "Our poet was of a high spirit 
 and very disdainful." Boccaccio also tells a story.
 
 OTHER ASPECTS OF THE INFERNO 87 
 
 foolish in itself, which serves to show Dante's popular 
 reputation. A proposal was made for the government 
 of Florence to send an embassy to Pope Boniface, and 
 it was suggested that Dante should be at the head 
 of it; whereupon he said: "Se io vo, chi rimane? se io 
 rimango, chi va?" "If I go, who stays? If I stay, 
 who goes?" That is mere gossip; but his pride is well 
 shown in his letter refusing to accept the pardon 
 proffered to exiles by the Florentine government; 
 it also betrays itself in many places in the Commedia. 
 The wickedness of pride is that it substitutes self- 
 will in place of the will of God; like leaven, it puffs 
 up every sin, and pushed to extreme becomes rank 
 disloyalty to God, as in Lucifer. It mocks the prayer 
 that Jesus taught to all men, "Thy will be done." 
 Dante knew his own weakness, and knew it to be 
 sin, the cause of sorrow and suffering. 
 
 But Dante is not thinking only of himself; he is a 
 prophet yearning over people who like silly sheep 
 follow a false show of pleasure and turn their backs 
 on God. So, in the Inferno, he does not confine 
 himself to his own sins, but enumerates all the cate- 
 gories, so that we all may find our own wrongdoings 
 bodied forth, whether they are due to incontinence, 
 to anger and violence, or to disloyalty towards what 
 we feel is the highest. Dante is possessed by the 
 thought that no man leads his life alone, that we are 
 all members of the great body corporate of humanity, 
 bound together for better, for worse ; therefore, in 
 his narrative of his own descent into Hell, he is also 
 the representative of humanity. His experience is 
 the experience of the race. Dante is full of this feel-
 
 88 DANTE 
 
 ing of liis identity with mankind. For instance, during 
 humanity's })ilgrimage through the dark places of 
 mortal life, Christ had come into the world and 
 shewed men the true light (St. John i, 9) ; in like 
 manner, Beatrice, who is also an emanation from 
 God, had shown the true light to him (T. N. XXIV). 
 So all through the poem we find meaning intertwined 
 with meaning, allegory blended with allegory. 
 
 However much we may be absorbed in the inner 
 meanings of the poem, we cannot escape from admi- 
 ration for the amazing skill with which the poet has 
 kept letter and allegory so intricately imited, and 
 so distinct and separate. The two are like brain and 
 mind, seeming to keep arm-in-arm forever, and yet 
 with nothing in common, the one tangible, visible, 
 material, the other an unknown, magic essence. 
 Dante is a master craftsman, and, when he will, a 
 master artist. Homer, it is said, nods, and Shake- 
 speare, it is certain, writes loose bombast; but Dante 
 is always alert and concentrated on his task, always 
 lord of his material. It is so from the first line of the 
 first canto, and so it continues. 
 
 To appreciate his jjoetrj^ his art and his power of 
 combining allegory and story, one need but read the 
 beautiful passage in the second canto, in which 
 Dante, by drawing down to tlie confines of Hell the 
 glorious light of Paradise, emphasizes the blackness 
 of the abode of sinners. Virgil tells Dante how 
 Beatrice sent him to rescue him: 
 
 lo era tra color, che son sospesi, 
 c donna rni chianii'* hcata e bella, 
 tal, (he di coniandarc io la richiesi.
 
 OTHER ASPECTS OF THE INFERNO 89 
 
 Lucevan gli occhi suoi piii che la stella; 
 
 e coniincioinnii a dir soave c plana, 
 
 con angelica voce, in sua favdla: 
 "O anima cortese Mantovana, 
 
 di cui la fama ancor ncl mondo dura, 
 
 e durera quanto il moto lontana ! 
 Tamico mio, e non della ventura, 
 
 nella diserta piaggia e impedito 
 
 si nel cammin, che volte t per paura; 
 temo che non sia gia si smarrito, 
 
 ch'io mi sia tardi al soccorso levata, 
 
 per quel ch'io ho di lui nel Cielo udito. 
 Or muovi, e con la tua parola ornata, 
 
 e con ci6, ch' e mestieri al suo campare, 
 
 I'aiuta si, ch'io ne sia consolata. 
 lo son Beatrice, che ti faccio andare; 
 
 vegno di loco, ove tornar disio, 
 
 amor mi mosse, che mi fa parlare. 
 
 Donna e gentil nel Ciel, che si compiange 
 di questo iinpcdimento, ov' io ti niando, 
 si che duro giudizio lassu f range. 
 
 Questa chiese Lucia in suo dimando, 
 e disse: 'Or ha bisogno il tuo fedele 
 di te, ed io a te lo raccomando.' 
 
 Lucia, nimica di ciascun crudele, 
 
 si mosse, e venne al loco dov' io era, 
 che mi sedea con I'antica Rachele. 
 
 Disse: 'Beatrice, loda di Dio vera 
 che non soccorri quel che t'amo tanto, 
 che uscio per te della volgare schiera? 
 
 Non odi tu la pieta del suo pianto? 
 Non vedi tu la morte che il combatte 
 su la fiumana, ove il mar non ha vanto?' 
 
 Al mondo non fur mai persone ratte 
 a far lor jiro, ne a fuggir lor danno, 
 com'io, dopo cotai parole fatte.
 
 90 DANTE 
 
 venni quaggiii dal mio beato scanno, 
 fidandonii del tuo parlare onesto, 
 che onora te, e quci che udito I'hanno." 
 
 Poscia che ni'ebbe ragionato questo, 
 gli occhi lucenti lagrimando volse; 
 per che mi fece del venir piu presto; 
 
 e venni a te cosi, com' ella volse; 
 dinanzi a quella fiera ti levai, 
 che del bel monte il corto andar ti tolse. 
 
 Among the intermediate souls I was, 
 
 when me a Lady called, so beautiful 
 
 and happy, that I begged her to command. 
 
 Her eyes were shining brighter than a star, 
 
 when swectlj'^ and softly she began to say, 
 
 as with an angel's voice she spoke to me: 
 
 "O courteous Mantuan spirit, thou whose fame 
 
 is still enduring in the world al)ove, 
 
 and will endure as long as lasts the world, 
 
 a friend of mine, but not a friend of Fortune, 
 
 is on his journey o'er the lonely slope 
 
 oI)structcd so, that he hath turned through fear; 
 
 and, from what I have heard of him in Heaven, 
 
 I fear lest he may now have strayed so far, 
 
 that I have risen too late to give him help. 
 
 Bestir thee, then, and with thy finished speech, 
 
 and with whatever his escape may need, 
 
 assist him so that I may be consoled. 
 
 I, who now have thee go, am Beatrice; 
 
 thence come I, whither I would fain return; 
 
 t'was love that moved me, love that makes me speak. 
 
 There is a Gentle Lady up in Heaven, 
 who grieves so at this check, whereto I send thee, 
 that broken is stern judgment there above. 
 She called Lucia in her prayer, and said: 
 'Now hath thy faithful servant need of thee, 
 and I, too, recommend him to thy care.' 
 Lucia, hostile to all cruelty.
 
 OTHER ASPECTS OF THE INFERNO 91 
 
 set forth thereat, and came unto the ])lace, 
 where I with ancient Rachel had my seat. 
 'Why, Beatrice,' she said, 'true Praise of God, 
 dost thou not succour him who loved thee so, 
 that for thy sake he left the common herd? 
 Dost thou not hear the anguish of his cry? 
 See'st not the death that fights him on the flood, 
 o'er which the sea availeth not to boast?' 
 Ne'er were there any in the world so swift 
 to seek their profit and avoid their loss, 
 as I, after such words as these were uttered, 
 descended hither from my blessed seat, 
 confiding in that noble speech of thine, 
 which honors thee and whosoe'er has heard it," 
 Then, after she had spoken to me thus, 
 weeping she turned her shining eyes away; 
 which made me hasten all the more to come; 
 and, even as she wished, I came to thee, 
 and led thee from the presence of the beast, 
 wnich robbed thee of the fair Mount's short approach. 
 
 Inf. II, 52-72, 94-120, Langdox 
 
 On the surface Dante is often subtle, scholastic, 
 hairsplitting, so that the shell of the Commedia be- 
 comes crabbed and hieroglyphic; and that is why 
 there are so many commentaries ; but every now and 
 then, underneath this mediaeval casing, his passion 
 for righteousness and his poetic soul rise up in their 
 strength, bursting through obsolete science, outworn 
 theology, and forgotten history, as Samson burst free 
 from the bondage of green withes, and embody 
 themselves in immortal verse.
 
 CHAPTKR IX 
 
 THE PURGATORIO 
 
 GEORGE FOX, the founder of the Quakers, 
 in his journal says: "I saw that there was an 
 ocean of darkness and death; but an infinite 
 ocean of liglit and love, which flowed over tlie ocean 
 of darkness." This is also Dante's experience, light 
 above darkness, and tlie experience of almost every 
 man who seeks for spiritual life, however different 
 tlie words may be in which different men clothe 
 their experiences. Dante had seen spiritual darkness 
 and spiritual death, and now he jjerceived the 
 radiance of s])iritual light and sjiiritual love. 
 
 The literal Mount of Purgatory is on an island on 
 the side of the earth opposite Jerusalem, this island 
 is encircled by the sea upon which the adventurous 
 Ulysses and his mariners were drowned. The shore 
 and the lower slopes of the mountain are but ap- 
 proaches, or antc-Purgatory, for Purgatory itself is 
 the main ascent. Round and round tlie mountain, 
 mounting by steep stairs from ledge to ledge, the 
 rugged path slowly climbs. On different ledges, 
 different sins are expiated in the order of their 
 gravity, — pride, envy, anger, sloth, avarice, glut- 
 tony, and sensuality. At last, having reached the 
 top, the pilgrim, purified and washed clean, even of 
 
 92
 
 P ull G A T O 11 I O 93 
 
 the memory of liis sins, in the river Lethe, enters 
 into the Earthly Paradise, the liome of innocence. 
 
 Seekers after the sjiiritual life want to know from 
 Dante's experience how they, too, can pass from sin 
 into the state of blessedness, how they shall learn to 
 mount upwards, who or what will be their helpers, 
 and whence sliall come their strength. Therefore, 
 the allegory rather than the literal narrative is our 
 immediate concern, so let us follow the allegory. 
 
 At the opening of the first canto the poet says: 
 
 E cantero di quel secondo regno, 
 do%'e runiano spirito si purga 
 e di salire al ciel diventa degno. 
 
 And I will sing of that second kingdom 
 Where the human soiil is ]iurified 
 And becomes worthy to mount to Heaven. 
 
 Purg. 1, 4-6 
 
 The essence of Hell is the darkness that is caused 
 by the complete absence of God; whereas in Purga- 
 tory the light of God shines roundabout. No sooner 
 has Dante emerged from the darkness of sin than 
 his soul is bathed by this light; 
 
 Dolce color d'oriental zaffiro 
 
 che s' accoglieva nel sereno aspetto 
 
 dell' aer puro . . . 
 agli occhi miei ricomincio diletto, 
 
 tosto ch' i' uscii fuor dell' aura morta. 
 
 Sweet color of orient sapphire 
 
 That was deepening in the serene aspect 
 Of the stainless air . . . 
 
 To my eyes brought back delight, 
 
 As soon as I had issued forth from the dead air. 
 
 lb. 13-17
 
 94 DANTE 
 
 This is the radiance of joy on abandoning sin. So 
 St. Augustine, emerging from the follies of his youth, 
 says: "Into my heart I entered and with the eyes of 
 my soul I saw above . . . the unchangeable Light. 
 . . . He that knoweth Truth, knoweth that light, and 
 he that knoweth that light, knoweth eternity" (Conf. 
 Book VII, ch. X). 
 
 Liglit is the great gift of God to those that turn 
 towards Him; that light illumines the penitents on 
 their way up the mountain, and when it is not shin- 
 ing they cannot see to go; 
 
 andar sii di notte non si puote, 
 
 There is no going up by night. 
 
 Purff. VII, 44 
 
 Besides light, which gives color and joy to all things 
 on the purifying way, there is another ripening and 
 mellowing influence, tlie hope of peace; and, as on 
 earth the wishing of peace — Pax tibi. Pax liuic 
 domo — was the familiar salutation enjoined by 
 Christ to His ai)ostles, so now to the repentant spirit 
 on its upward way this hope comes like a divine 
 greeting from Christ Himself. To Dante there M^as 
 music in the word ; and no other that he uses is so 
 charged with pathos. In the Inferno, Francesca da 
 Rimini, whirled along forever by the infernal blast, 
 stirs our compassion to its depths by her unconscious 
 envy of the river that can find ))eace at last: 
 
 Siede la terra, dove nata fui, 
 
 su la marina dove il Po discende 
 per aver pace 
 
 \
 
 P U R G A T O R I O 95 
 
 The town where I was born sits on the shore, 
 Whither the Po descends to be at peace. 
 
 Inf. V, 97-99 
 
 It is the episode of Dante's longing for peace that 
 gives verisimilitude to the Fra Ilario letter. And in the 
 De Monarchia, Dante says : "Patet quod genus hu- 
 manum in quiete she tranquillitate pads ad proprium 
 suum opus, quod fere divinum est (^juxta illud: Mi- 
 nuisli eum paulo minus ah angelis), liberrime atque 
 facillime se habet. Unde manifestum est, quod pax 
 universalis est optimum eorum, quod ad nostram 
 beatitudinem ordinantur. Hinc est, quod pastoribus de 
 sursum sonuit, non divitiae, non voluptates, non ho- 
 nores, non longitudo vitae, non sanitas, non robur, non 
 pulchritudo; sed pax. Inquit enim coelestis militia: 
 'Gloria in altissimis Deo, et in terra pax hominibus 
 honae voluntatis.' Hinc etiam 'Pax vobis,' Salus 
 hominum salutabat. Decebat enim summum Salva- 
 torem, summam sahitationem exprimere." — "It is evi- 
 dent that in the quiet or tranquillity of peace the 
 human race is most freely and favorably disposed 
 towards the work proper to it (which is almost 
 divine, even as it is said 'Thou hast made him a 
 little lower than the angels'). Whence it is manifest 
 that universal peace is the best of all those things 
 which are ordained for our blessedness. And that is 
 why there rang out to the shepherds from on high, 
 not riches, not pleasures, not honours, not length of 
 life, not health, not strength, not beauty, but peace. 
 For the celestial soldiery proclaims, 'Glory to God 
 in the highest; and, on earth, peace to men of good
 
 96 DANTE 
 
 will.' Hence also^ 'Peace be with 3'ou' was the salu- 
 tation of him who was the salvation of man. For it 
 was meet that the siii)reme saviour should utter 
 the supreme salutation" (First Book, Ch. IV, Tem- 
 ple Classics). 
 
 In Purgatory this hope of peace is a presentiment 
 of Paradise, as sweet odors from shore are wafted 
 out over the tumultuous ocean. In Paradise the soul 
 is at one with God and therefore there is perfect 
 
 C peace; nevertheless, wherever God's will is done, 
 even in the pains of Purgatory, there is peace, 
 though not the perfect peace that comes when His 
 will is done perfectly. And, while Francesca's allusion 
 to peace in the Inferno is full of despair, the refer- 
 ences in the Purgatorio are all full of hope. For 
 instance, before the two poets find the entrance to 
 Purgatory, and are wandering about the region 
 below, Virgil asks the way of spirits whom he sees, 
 
 per quella pace 
 ch'io credo che per vol tutti si aspetti, 
 
 by that peace 
 which I believe you all await, 
 
 Purg. Ill, 74-75 
 
 And Dante utters the word as the strongest assev- 
 eration : 
 
 io far6 per quella })ace, 
 
 che, retro ai piedi di si fatta fi^ida, 
 
 di mondo in mondo cercar mi si face. 
 
 I will for that jjcacc' sake 
 Which, close upon the steps of such a guide, 
 From world to world draws me to follow it. 
 
 Purff. V, fil-63
 
 PURGATORIO 97 
 
 So, too, when the poet Statius meets them, his 
 greeting is : 
 
 Frati miei, Die vi dea pace, 
 
 My brothers, God give you peace, 
 
 Purg. XXI, 13 
 
 And Virgil returns the wish ; and to another com- 
 pany of spirits, Dante says: 
 
 O anime sicure 
 d' aver, quando che sia, di pace stato, 
 
 O souls, sure to obtain, 
 Whenever it may be, the state of peace. 
 
 Purg. XXVI, 54 
 
 Virgil, also, in speaking of the lessons of Purgatory 
 calls them 
 
 acque della pace 
 che dair eterno fonte son diffuse. 
 
 Waters of peace 
 That from the Eternal Fount are poured forth. 
 
 Purg. XV, 131-13g 
 
 And the prayer, "O Lamb of God, who takest 
 away the sins of the world, grant us Thy peace" 
 is uttered by the spirits who expiate the sin of wrath 
 {Purg. XVI, 19). 
 
 To take away sin and to bestow peace are one and 
 the same thing; it is for this that Purgatory is estab- 
 lished. And, therefore, when having passed through 
 Purgatory, the two pilgrims reach the Terrestrial 
 Paradise, Virgil says to Dante:
 
 98 DANTE 
 
 Quel dolce pome, che per tanti rami 
 eercando va la cura dei mortali, 
 oggi porra in pace le tue fami. 
 
 That sweet fruit, for which on many boughs 
 mankind goes seeking anxiously, 
 today will grant thy hunger peace. 
 
 Purff. XXVII, 115-117 
 
 The fruit Virgil speaks of is the peace of God, which 
 will come, as the Psalmist says, to the man purified 
 from all guile: "Mark the perfect man, and behold 
 the upright, for the end of that man is peace" 
 (Psalm xxxvii, 37). 
 
 On its journey up the mountain, lighted by the 
 divine light and cheered by the prospect of the peace 
 of God, the soul is purified. The method of purifi- 
 cation is set out in detail, for Dante is a practical 
 preacher. First the pilgrim must start upon his way 
 with Fortitude, Temperance, Prudence and Justice, 
 shining like a constellation above him {Purg. I, 23), 
 he must also wash off the stains of sin (lb. 128-129) ; 
 but tliese are minor matters: the four great helps 
 to climb the mountain are four sorts of spiritual 
 discipline — Effort, Prayer, Divine Grace, and Pain, 
 Purgatory is a steep ascent; the road is hard and 
 dolorous. To the ordinary man effort is the help 
 nearest at hand. By j^utting forth his strength he 
 draws himself back from temptation, from the 
 appetites of the flesh, from the vanities of the world, 
 from liardness of heart, from all ignoble satisfaction 
 in unworthy things. He practices self-denial, he 
 ordains self-discipline; and, little by little, setting
 
 PURGATORIO 99 
 
 his teeth and clenching his fists, by daily taking 
 heed, by contrivances and devices to outwit his old 
 self, he fashions new habits, and bursts at last the \y<^ 
 bonds of his servitude and enters into the perfect 
 freedom of the service of God; — liberta va cercando, 
 he goes in quest of freedom {Purg. I, 71), as Dante 
 puts it. 
 
 The effort necessary to climb, Dante indicates by 
 describing how steep the path is : 
 
 Noi divenimnio intanto al pie del monte: 
 
 quivi trovanimo la roccia si erta, 
 
 che indarno vi sarien le gambe pronte. 
 Tra Lerici e Turbia, la piii diserta, 
 
 la piu romita via e una scala, 
 
 verso di quella, agevole ed aperta. 
 
 Meantime we came unto the mountain's foot: 
 
 And here we found the crag so sheer 
 
 That agile legs would not avail a man. 
 Compared with this the wildest, loneliest way, 
 
 From I.erici to Turbia, is like a stair 
 
 Ample and easy. 
 
 Purg. Ill, 46-51 
 
 Vassi in Sanleo, e discendesi in Noli; 
 montasi su Bismantova in cacume 
 con esso in pie: ma qui convien ch' uom voli; 
 
 dico con I'ali snelle e con le piume 
 del gran disio. 
 
 A man can walk at Sanleo and go down at Noli, 
 He can climb to the very top of Bismantova, 
 Upon his feet; but here a man must fly; 
 
 I mean with the swift wings and pinions 
 Of a great desire. 
 
 Purg. IV, 25-29
 
 100 DANTE 
 
 But the more the efforts are repeated the easier they 
 
 become. 
 
 Questa montagna fe tale, 
 che sempre al coininciar di sotto e grave, 
 E quanto uom piii va su, e men fa male. 
 
 Such is this mountain. 
 That always the beginning down below 
 Is hard, but the toil lessens as you rise. 
 
 ' Purff. IV, 88-90 
 
 The second help is prayer. Praj'er is almost an in- 
 stinctive reaction from a consciousness of sin. St. 
 John of the Cross says: "Broken with grief, stricken 
 by a fear that penetrates to the bottom of the heart 
 at sight of the danger she is in of being lost, the soul 
 renounces all worldly things ; she forsakes all else, 
 and delaying not for a day, not for an hour, with a 
 heart full of groanings, already wounded by the 
 divine love, she begins to call upon her Beloved" 
 (Canticle of the Spirit, Sec. 1). The experience of 
 humanity testifies that the mind, by fixing its gaze 
 upon some selected symbol of the highest good, 
 whether in silent contemplation or with spoken 
 words, is steadied and acquires a poise, and from 
 this steadiness and poise gains strength, so that it is 
 enabled to slough off old habits and put on new; and 
 shift the center rpund whicli revolves its world of 
 hopes and fears^'he range of prayer is very great, 
 from the formal movements of the logical mind, 
 through invocation, confession, and petition, or from 
 the impetuous cry of the hungry heart for something 
 vast and abiding, all the way to silent adoration, or 
 to the mental endeavor, by subtle psychical prac-
 
 PURGATORIO 101 
 
 tices, to open tlie windows of the soul upon some 
 starry skyADraw it out into a litany or compress 
 it to a cry, the yearning is the same: Augusta est 
 domus animae meae, quo venias ad earn; dilatetur abs 
 te. Ruinosa est; refice earn. Habet quae offendant 
 oculos tuos, fateor et scio. Sed quis mundabit earn? 
 Aut cui alteri praeter te clamabo? Ab occultis meis 
 munda me, Domine, et ab alienis parcc servo tuo. — 
 Narrow is the house of my soul for Thee to enter in; 
 make Thou it wide. It lies in ruins ; build Thou it up. 
 I confess, I know, that there is that within it which 
 will offend Thine eyes, But Avho shall cleanse it? 
 Or, to whom but Thee shall I cry.^" Cleanse Thou me 
 from secret sin, O Lord, and keep back Thy servant 
 from presumptuous faults" (St. Augustine's Conf. 
 Book I, Ch. 5). 
 
 The necessity of prayer Dante reiterates. In the 
 precincts outside of Purgatory an angel approaches, U^ 
 and Virgil cries out: 
 
 Fa, fa che le ginocchia cali; 
 ecco r Angel di Die: piega le niani: 
 
 Bend, bend thy knees; 
 Behold the angel of (Jod, fold thy hands. 
 
 Purg. II, 28-29 
 
 At the gate of Purgatory they find another angel 
 sitting, Virgil again bids Dante pray: 
 
 "Chiedi 
 uniilemente che 11 serrame scioglia." 
 Divoto mi gittai a' santi piedi; 
 misericordia chiesi che m'aprisse.
 
 102 DAN T E 
 
 "Beg 
 
 Humlily that he undo the lock." 
 
 Devoutly I threw niystlf at liis lioly feet; 
 
 And Ijeggcd, for mercy's sake, that he would 
 
 open to nie. 
 
 Purg. IX, 108-110 
 
 On the lowest ledge of Purgator}', the proud in aid 
 
 of penitence repeat the Lord's jjrayer {Purg. XI, 
 
 1-21); other sjjirits pray that the living may not 
 
 omit praying for them {Purg. VI, 26). And elsewhere 
 
 a litany (XIII, 50-51), psalms (XXIII, 11), hymns 
 
 (XXV, 121), and the beatitudes (XII, 110, XV, 38, 
 
 etc.) are sung. And, with transparent allegory, Virgil 
 
 prays to the sun: 
 
 O dolce lume, a cui fidanza i' entro 
 per lo nuovo cammin, tu ne conduci. 
 
 O sweet light, through trust in which I enter 
 In this unknown way, lead lliou us on. 
 
 Pure/. XIII, lG-i7 
 
 Prayer is the conscious yearning of the soul ; but 
 deeper than prayer, more accomplishing than per- 
 sonal effort, are the workings of what theologians 
 call the grace of God. Down in that deep, mysterious 
 .self, whose beginning and end we do not know, 
 strange processes take place; and, now and again, 
 as if a loadstone heaved its top above the surface 
 of that dim, vast unconsciousness, and swung the 
 needle of our compass north to south, some force 
 shocjts uj) and readjusts all our life. "In the hidden 
 part Thou shalt make me to know wisdom" (Psalm 
 li, 6). There conversions take j)lace; there Paul was 
 caught up to the third heaven ; there Luther under- 
 went his illumination that "The just shall live by
 
 PURGATORIO 103 
 
 faith"; there St. Augustine heard the voice say 
 "Tolle, lege"; there Socrates was visited by his 
 familiar spirit ; there Pascal had his revelation of fire ; 
 there St. Francis received the stigmata; and there 
 many others, less famous^ have been "touched by 
 the hand of God." Down in these depths (it seems) 
 a word, a touch, a look, lies like a germinating seed, 
 swells and grows, then blossoms and bears, until at 
 last our waking consciousness that ministers to 
 daily needs, inwardly roused, stretches forth its 
 hand, plucks the fruit, and finds that it holds the 
 fruit of the tree of life. Call them subliminal, tran- 
 scendental, real, mystic, neurasthenic, h3^sterical, or 
 what you will^ these processes take place in modes 
 still dark to human understanding. All that is certain 
 is that a change takes place. The animal instinct ^V' 
 of self-preservation and its fellow impulses no longer 
 control the soul's destiny, but new forces, inaudible, 
 invisible, intangible, lead it on a mysterious path, 
 while outsiders look on and marvel ; as when deaf 
 old people seeing children in a room begin dancing 
 to music played in the street, hearing nothing, 
 think them wayward and fantastic. 
 
 When the soul feels this great shift of the center 
 of spiritual gravity, it explains the shock as best it 
 may. Formerly the terms of explanation were chiefly 
 theological, now they are taken from psychology. 
 George Fox says: "When all my hopes in [priests 
 and preachers] and in all men were gone, so that 
 I had nothing outwardly to help me, nor could I tell 
 what to do, then, oh then, I heard a voice which 
 said, 'There is one, even Christ Jesus, that can speak
 
 104 DANTE 
 
 to thy condition'; and when I heard it my lieart did 
 leap for joy" {Journal, Ch. I). And in the biography 
 of St. P'rancis of Assisi it is written: "Being led by 
 the spirit St. Francis went in [to the Church of 
 S. Damiano] to pray; and he fell down before the 
 crucifix in devout supplication, and having been 
 smitten by unwonted visitations, found himself 
 another man than lie who had gone in" (quoted in 
 Mysticism, E. Underliill, p. 218). And St. Catherine 
 of Siena, after a vision in which Christ seemed to 
 take her heart from lier breast and put His there in 
 its stead, said to her confessor: "Do you not see. 
 Father, that I am no longer the person I was, but 
 that I am changed into some one else.'' . . . Oh, 
 Father, I firmly believe that if any one should feel 
 the things that I feel within, no one is so hard- 
 hearted, but he would become softened, none so 
 proud but he would become humble. . . . My mind 
 is in such a state of joy and jubilee that I am amazed 
 how my soul can stay in my body. . . . This ardor 
 produces in my mind a renewal of innocence and 
 humility, as if I had gone back to be four or five 
 years old. Besides it has kindled such love of my 
 neighbor, that for any neighbor I would voluntarily 
 and with great pleasure in my heart and joy in ray 
 mind, give up my mortal life" {Vita, Part II, Ch. VI, 
 Sec. 4). 
 
 Madame Guyon, one of the famous mystics, tells 
 how she had been seeking the presence of God in 
 vain, and how her confessor had said to her: 
 "Madam, you are seeking without, that which you 
 have within. Accustom yourself to seek God in your
 
 P U R « A T {) R I O 105 
 
 own heart, and you will find him" ; these words, she 
 says, "were as an arrow, which pierced my soul 
 througli and through. I felt in this moment a pro- 
 found wound, which was full of delight and of love 
 — a wound so sweet that I desire it might never 
 heal" (quoted in Mysticism, E. Underhill, pp. 222- 
 223). And Brother Lawrence said that his conver- 
 sion took place in this manner: "That in the winter, 
 seeing a tree stripjaed of its leaves, and considering 
 that within a little time the leaves would be renewed, 
 and after that the flowers and fruit appear, he re- 
 ceived a high view of the providence and power of 
 God, which has never been effaced from his soul, 
 and that this view had perfectly set him loose from 
 the world ' (^Brother Lawrence, First Conversation). 
 
 These witnesses, and a multitude of others, con- 
 firm what Emerson says: "There is a difference be- 
 tween one and another hour of life, in their authority 
 and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments. 
 . . . Yet there is a depth in those brief moments 
 which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them 
 than to all other experiences" {The Over-soul) . 
 
 It may be that human nature is of itself pure and 
 holy, and that, when the animal personality is V 
 shaken off, it loses its warped and corrupt shapeless- 
 ness and reassumes its natural beauty ; or, it may be 
 that there is a spiritual order that lies over our 
 carnal order, as life lies over the inorganic world, 
 and that these mysterious forces are "high in- 
 stincts" from that upper region ; or, it may be, as 
 the Apostle puts it, that "God's love is shed abroad 
 in our hearts by the Holy Ghost" (Rom. v, 5).
 
 106 DANTE 
 
 Tolstoi, the greatest religious teacher of our time, 
 says: "What takes place is similar to what happens in 
 the material world at every birth. The fruit is not 
 born because it wants to be born, because it is better 
 for it to be born, and because it knows that it is good 
 to be born, but because it is nature, and it cannot 
 continue its former existence; it is compelled to sur- 
 render to the new life, not so much because the new 
 life calls it, as because the possibility of the former 
 existence is destroyed. . . . What takes place is 
 precisely what happens at the inception of every- 
 thing: the same destruction of the seed, of the pre- 
 , ious form of life, and the appearance of a new 
 growth; the same seeming struggle of the older form 
 of the decomposing seed and the increase of the new 
 growth, and the same nutrition of the new growth 
 at the expense of the decomposing seed. . . . We 
 cannot see the birth of the new essence, the new 
 relation of the rational consciousness [this is his 
 term for the new directing power] to the animal, 
 just as the seed cannot see the growth of its stalk. 
 When the rational consciousness comes out of its 
 concealed position and is made manifest for us, it 
 seems to us that we are experiencing a contradiction. 
 But there is no contradiction, just as there is none in 
 the sprouting seed. In the sprouting seed, we see 
 only that life, which before was in the integument 
 of the seed, is now in its sprout. Even so there is no 
 contradiction in man with his awakened rational 
 consciousness, but only the birth of a new being, of 
 a new relation of the rational consciousness to the 
 animal" {On Life, Ch. IX).
 
 P U R G A T OHIO 107 
 
 The coming of this new life is but another name 
 for the operation of grace. For Dante the divine 
 grace is always at work. It was of divine grace that 
 the Virgin Mary bestirred Lucia to send Beatrice 
 to Dante's rescue, when he was lost in the wild 
 wood. The commentators delight in theological 
 niceties, and therefore give several names — divine , 
 mercy, illuminating grace, theology — to divine grace 
 as it flows down from its source, like geographers 
 wlio give different names to a river, in its upper 
 reaches, in its main channel, and at its mouth; 
 but, in truth, grace is the going forth of power from / 
 the deeps of life, directly or indirectly, to the in- 
 dividual soul that needs it. 
 
 In the Purgatorio the operation of grace is plainly 
 visible. At the very beginning of Dante's journey in 
 ante-Purgatory, Cato, the warder, stops them, until 
 Virgil tells him that Beatrice has bidden them make 
 the journey: 
 
 Deir alto scende virtii che m'aiuta, 
 
 From on high comes down the power that aids me. 
 
 Purg. I, 68 
 
 And when Dante has only gone part way to Purga- 
 tory proper, with still a steep stretch to go, he lies 
 down and sleeps, and on waking finds that he has 
 been carried up to the very entrance of Purgatory. 
 Virgil explains how: 
 
 Dianzl, nell' alba che precede al giorno, 
 
 quando 1' anima tua dentro dorinia 
 
 sopra li fiori, onde laggiu e adorno, 
 venne una donna, e disse: "To son I-ucia;
 
 108 DANTE 
 
 lasciatemi pigliar cestui the dorme, 
 si I'agevolero per la sua via" 
 
 ella ti tolse, e come il di fu chiaro 
 sen venne suso, ed io jier le sue oriiic. 
 Qui ti jioso. 
 
 But now, just at the dawning that precedes the day, 
 \\'hcn thy soul lay asleep upon the flowers 
 With which the place down there is beautified, 
 
 A I-ady came and said, "I am Lucia, 
 I-ct me ])ick up this slee])er here 
 And I will help him nimbly on his way." 
 
 She took thee up, and when the day was bright 
 Came up and laid tliee here, wliile I 
 Went following in her steps. 
 
 Purff. IX, 52-61 
 
 And after Dante has fallen on his knees and said a 
 prayer, the angel guarding the gate of Purgatory 
 unlocks it for him to enter. Indeed, in one sense, the 
 ' whole ascent is a consequence of the action of grace, 
 although the poet does not essay to determine where 
 effort and prayer end and where grace begins. 
 / Howbeit, whether the pilgrim climbs the Mount of 
 Purgatory by means of effort, prayer, or grace, he 
 cannot escape the law of purification through pain. 
 However incomjjrehensible that law is, it is but of"a 
 piece with all the mystery of life. We are aware 
 of j)]ienomena of all kinds that uprise above the 
 liori/.on of our consciousness and, after a brief day, 
 go to their setting, but of the whence, whither, where- 
 fore, we know nothing. We can but strive to discern 
 the pattern in the stuff of life as it passes, and in that
 
 PURGATOllIO 
 
 109 
 
 pattern is the never ending embroidery of pain^JJ 
 life has a meaning, pain shares in it; if life has a 
 purpose, pain furthers it. If, as Dante believed, 
 there is a kingdom of God within us, its foundation 
 can only stand secure where sin has been dug up; 
 and its mansions must be constructed out of the 
 consciousness, whether illusory or not, of a divine 
 presence, and pain is the master builder^This Dante 
 felt. The pains which the penitents undergo on the 
 different ledges of Purgatory are not punishments, 
 much less revenge ; they are the consciousness of sin. 
 The haughty, who with swollen self-complacency 
 had carried their load of pride, now that they are 
 inspired with a desire to mount upward to the 
 Highest, feel crushed down by their intolerable 
 burden (Purg. Cantos X and XI). The envious, who 
 chafed in displeasure at the joy of others, now 
 realize the reason that they did not see the beauty 
 of others' happiness was because their own eye- 
 lids, like those of young falcons in training time, 
 were sewn together, and they weep for the ignominy 
 of such blindness (Cantos XIII and XIV). Men of 
 wrath now perceive that they were shut out from all 
 delight by the black choking fog of their own evil 
 passions, and they pray to be set free. And so in the 
 other ledges. Nevertheless, it is hard for human 
 nature to give up its passions, its vices, its lov^e of 
 ease; and the gradual weaning of the soul, prompted 
 by the love of God, is fraught with pain. Death to 
 sin is dying in a familiar part of oneself, and brings 
 a mortal pang. But at last when the love of God 
 triumphs, and the soul casts off her sins, she mount$y 
 
 vX 
 
 '^ 
 
 v^
 
 110 DANTE 
 
 up to lier own lightness and flies towards her goal 
 {Purr/. XXI, 58-66). 
 
 The last pain of all is to pass tlirough fire (Canto 
 XXVII). Tliis is the stage of purification that pre- 
 sents the simplest and the most profound allegory. 
 In speaking of j)urification by spiritual fire, St. 
 John of the Cross says: "To comprehend it we must 
 bear in mind that this fire of Love, before it pene- 
 trates the inner parts of the soul, hurts her con- 
 stantly while it is destroying and consuming away 
 Vthe weaknesses which come from habitual imper- 
 fections. By so doing the Holy Ghost disposes the 
 soul to unite with God and to transform herself by 
 love into Him. The fire that unites with the soul 
 in the glory of love, is the same that had beforehand 
 1/ encomjjassed her about in order to purify her. It 
 may be likened to the fire that has entered into the 
 wood which it destroys. It began by springing upon 
 it and hurting it by its flames; then it dried it up 
 and expelled all substances that could prevent it 
 from burning; and at last, it so wrouglit upon it by 
 its heat that it could enter deep into the wood and 
 transform it into itself" (The Living Fire of Love, 
 Stroj)lie I). 
 
 A doubting spirit like Amiel says: "Toujours et 
 partout le salut est une torture {The Spirit of Man, 
 No. 280). But a believer like St. Gertrude prays: 
 "Cleanse my soul by fire from all the impurities of 
 sin, so that it may be rendered ca[)able of receiving 
 the living flame of thy doctrines, O Lord, and that 
 Thy Holy Spirit, source of rigliteousness, may dwell 
 as a King in all parts of my soul" {Fifth Exercise).
 
 PURGATORIO m 
 
 These, then, are tlie four great spiritual aids — 
 Effort, Prayer, Divine Grace, and Pain — by which 
 the soul, eager to be good, is enabled to root out the 
 lower elements of self, vicious habits, base passions, 
 loose desires, and to establish the Kingdom of 
 Heaven within. 
 
 Dante himself, when he hears the voice of an 
 angel say that they may not go farther on unless 
 they first pass through the fire, draws back. Virgil 
 tries to rouse his courage, but Dante stands immov- 
 able before the wall of flame, in stubborn fear. Then 
 
 Virgil says: 
 
 Or vedi, figlio, 
 tra Beatrice e te e questo muro. 
 
 Now, look, my son, 
 Between Beatrice and you is yonder wall. 
 
 Piirg. XXVII, 35-36 
 
 and adds, smiling. 
 
 Come? 
 volemci star di qua? 
 
 What? 
 Do we wish to stay upon this side? 
 
 76. 43-44 
 
 At this Dante enters the fire, and Virgil, to distract 
 his mind, goes on talking of Beatrice, saying: 
 
 Gli occhi suoi gia veder parini. 
 
 Already I seem to see her eyes. 
 
 76. 54 
 
 So they passed through the flames and again climbed 
 upward; but night coming on they are forced to lie
 
 112 DANTE 
 
 down, on the stairway where they are, and Dante 
 goes to sleep. When he awakes in the morning, they 
 climb to the top of the stairs. And now the task of 
 Human Reason is finished. It lias led the pilgrim 
 to the Earthly Paradise, where the soul is innocent, 
 and from this time forward, its guide will be Divine 
 Revelation. So Virgil says: 
 
 II temporal foco e I'eterno 
 veduto li.ii, fifrlio, c sei venuto in parte 
 dov' io per nie piii oltre non diseerno. 
 Tratto t' ho qui con ingegno e con arte; 
 lo tuo piaccre oiiiai prendi per duee: 
 fuor sei dell' erte vie, fuor sei dell' arte. 
 
 ...■•.*•• 
 
 Non aspettar mio dir piu, nfe mio cenno. 
 
 I.il)er(), dritto e sano e tuo arhitrio, 
 
 e fallo lora non fare a suo senno: 
 per ch' io te sopra te corono e niitrio. 
 
 The temporal fire and the eternal, 
 
 Thou hast seen, my Son, and art come there 
 Where, of myself, I see my way no more. 
 
 Here have I led thee, in discii)line and reason; 
 Thy own good pleasure, from now on, take as guide: 
 Out of the steep ways, out of the strait ways, art thou 
 now. 
 
 No more expect a word or sign from me. 
 
 Your will is ujjriglit, sound and free. 
 
 And not to follow it would he a wrong. 
 
 Wherefore I crown thee king and do ordain thee priest over 
 
 thyself. 
 
 ^ lb. 127-142 
 
 The long task is done, the Mount of Purgatory 
 lias been climbed, and the soul is now pure-eyed 
 and fit to be led by that human love which has be-
 
 PURGATORIO 113 
 
 come the truest manifestation of divine lioliness, 
 into an abiding consciousness of the presence of God, 
 pure e dlsposto a sulire alle stelle 
 
 pure and ready to mount up to the stars. 
 
 lb. XXXIII, 145 
 
 There are many powers at work to lielp the peni- 
 tent on his purgatorial way. Dante lays stress on 
 some. Wordsworth says: 
 
 Here then we rest; not fearing for our creed 
 The worst that human reasoning can achieve. 
 To unsettle or perplex it; yet with pain 
 Aclinowledging, and grievous self-reproach. 
 That, though immovably convinced, we want 
 Zeal, and the virtue to exist by faith 
 As soldiers live by courage. 
 
 • ••••*••• 
 
 What then remains? — To seek 
 Those helps for his occasions ever near 
 Who lacks not will to use them; vows, renewed 
 On the first motion of a holy thought; 
 Vigils of contemplation; praise; and prayer, — 
 A stream, which from the fountain of the lieart 
 Issuing, however feebly, nowhere flows 
 Without access of unexpected strength. 
 But, above all, the victory is most sure 
 For him, who, seeking faitli by virtue, strives 
 To yield entire submission to the law 
 Of conscience, — conscience reverenced and obeyed, 
 As God's most intimate presence in the soul. 
 And his most perfect image in the world, 
 — Endeavor thus to live; these rules regard; 
 These helps solicit; and a steadfast seat 
 Shall then be yours among tlie happy few 
 Who dwell on earth, yet breathe empyreal air. 
 Sons of the morning. 
 
 The Excursion, Book IV
 
 C 11 A P T K R X 
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 
 
 IN general it is a consciousness of sin that brings 
 a man face to face with the problem of good and 
 evil; and consciousness of sin is started by some 
 powerful emotion which sweeps in a flood over the 
 ordinary paths of thought and action, and obliterates 
 tlicm quite. Perhaps it is a vision, or an escape from 
 deatli, or the loss of a child, or the love of a maiden 
 who lives forever in a lieaven of memory from which 
 no familiarity can drag her down; some potent cause 
 turns the mind in upon itself to contemplate the 
 beauty of goodness and the ugliness of sin, to wonder 
 why goodness is beautiful and sin ugly, and what 
 they have to do with those powers that move the 
 stars, make flowers grow and build up all the jDageant 
 of tliis perceptible universe, till by degrees the mind, 
 passing on from thought to thought, constructs a 
 philosophy of life, and then persuades the will to 
 bring conduct into accord with that philosophy. 
 
 To enter u})on this stage is to pass into the gate of 
 Purgatory, for Purgatory is the process of bringing 
 conduct into conformity with a belief in goodness. 
 It is with this stage that Dante the preacher mainly 
 concerns himself. In his letter to Can Grande he 
 says: "The branch of philosophy that regulates 
 
 114
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 115 
 
 [the Commedia] in its whole and in its parts, is 
 ethical, because the whole poem was undertaken 
 not for speculation but for practical results" (Epis- 
 tola X, lines 271-275) ; and it is the Purgatorio that 
 dejjicts how to attain these practical results. The 
 Inferno is a picture of life at its lowest, a warning 
 cry, a call to repentance; the "Preacher of Justice" 
 denounces the horrors and loathsomeness of sin, so 
 that we all may profit by his denunciations. And on 
 the other hand, in the Paradiso he sets forth the 
 state of those who have entered into the conscious- 
 ness of the presence of God, in the hope that the 
 picture of their blessedness shall draw men from 
 sin to righteousness. Regarded as an ethical poem, 
 therefore, the whole Commedia — Inferno and Para- 
 diso, as well as the Purgatorio — is written for those 
 men and women who, weary and ashamed of days 
 misspent, desire to live a spiritual life, and climb the 
 Hill of Purgatory. And as this world, for the vast 
 majority of peojile, is neither a Hell nor a Paradise, 
 but a place where hope and purpose struggle with 
 sin, Dante's Purgatorio is a far more human place 
 than Hell below or Paradise above, and, in so far 
 as we are concerned with ourselves and our moral 
 well-being, interests us more than either of them 
 does. Hell, the death of the soul, frightens us ; we 
 will not voluntarily contemplate it ; and Paradise, 
 the ecstasy of conscious union with God, as told 
 by the mystics, if not incomprehensible to the work- 
 aday intellect, lies beyond the habitual range of our 
 sympathy. But ordinary human life, the drama of 
 existence, the effort to win in the great wrestling 
 
 \\ 
 
 \
 
 v"^ 
 
 L 
 
 / 
 
 116 DANTE _^ 
 
 match with low appetites and unworthy desires, 
 appeals to us all. Dante is keenly sensible of this, 
 and therefore, in the Purgatorio, so far as is consistent 
 with tlie whole scheme of tlie poem, he introduces 
 ( the characteristic pattern of human life, not only the 
 'y suffering in it, but also, in generous measure, its 
 happiness and joy, — converse with friends, delight 
 in nature, in the rising and going down of the sun, in 
 birds, in music, in singing, painting, and poetry, in 
 youth and beauty. Rightly to understand the Pur- 
 gatorio the reader must a))preciate that Dante (terri- 
 ble in his prophetic mood when he is denouncing sin, 
 and transcendental in his poetic idealism when he 
 foresees the realization of the command, "Enter thou 
 into the joy of thy Lord") in the Purgatorio is human, 
 with the common a))petite for human happiness and 
 for all pleasures that ennoble men. 
 
 The function of Purgatory in human life is to free 
 , us from the bondage of sin, and it is therefore of 
 I necessity a painful process. Dante never attempts 
 to dodge this truth, but he seeks to impress upon 
 us that tliis process lias a double aspect. Under one 
 aspect, the purification burns out the corruption of 
 the heart as witli a hot iron ; under the other, the 
 selfsame act unfolds the bandage from the eyes and 
 shows us the more delicate, the more abiding pleas- 
 ures of life. He will not have us misjudge Purgatory 
 as a place where purification is wrought only by 
 pain, but repeats again and again that purification 
 is also wrought, quite as much, by the refining in- 
 fluences of beauty, of affection, of spiritual insight. 
 Pain we must face, but Pain is fulfilling the office of
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 117 
 
 Love, and brings its blessing with it. Even while he 
 describes the sufferings in Purgatory, he exclaims: 
 
 Non vo' per6, letter, die tu ti smaghi 
 
 di buon proponiniento, per udire 
 
 come Dio vuol che il dehito si paghi. 
 Non attender la forma del martire; 
 
 pensa la succession: 
 
 Reader I do not wish to frighten you 
 
 From good resolves, by hearing how God wills 
 
 Your trespass nuist be paid. i ^^^'^ 
 
 Heed not the nature of the suffering, '^"^ 
 
 Think of what lies beyond. 
 
 Purff. X, 106-110 
 
 And he is most solicitous to show us the tender 
 
 aspect of the purifying process, and how pregnant 
 
 with meaning life appears to the senses that are 
 
 being washed clean, as if the world had been made L/^ 
 
 young and innocent, and the Sons of God again were 
 
 shouting for joy. For instance, each hour of day, 
 
 morning, or evening has its peculiar and tender 
 
 charm : 
 
 Neir ora che comincia i tristi lai 
 la rondinella. 
 
 At the hour when her sorrowful song 
 The swallow begins; 
 
 Pur(f. IX, 13-14 
 
 Era gia I'ora che volge il disio 
 
 ai naviganti, e intenerisce il core 
 
 lo di ch' han detto ai dolci amici addio; 
 E che lo nuovo peregrin d' aniore 
 
 punge, se ode squilla di lontano, 
 
 che paia il giorno pianger che si more:
 
 118 DANTE 
 
 It was the hour when those who sail the sea, 
 
 (The day that they have bid dear friends good-bye) 
 Feel homeward yearnings and a softer heart, 
 
 And when the traveler, just starting on 
 
 His way, is stabl)ed with pangs of love, if from afar 
 He hears the bells that seem to weep the dying day. 
 
 lb. Vni, 1-6 
 
 And no preacher, since the story of the New Testa- 
 ment, who has taught men to turn towards things of 
 the spirit, not even St. Francis of Assisi, was ever 
 more dextrous and delicate in preaching that good- 
 ness hrings its own reward. The worst horrors of 
 Hell consist in the hatred sinners feel for one another, 
 
 / with their cursings and mutual wrath ; but in Purga- 
 tory, the moment the penitent soul perceives the 
 y a{ shining of the divine light, even before climbing the 
 J ])urifying ascent itself, she feels the manifestation of 
 
 ^ God in human friendship, in music, and in poetry. 
 
 Almost immediately after the poets have emerged 
 from the path leading out of Hell, while still by the 
 shore of the encircling sea, Dante meets his old 
 friend Casella, the musician, a fellow townsman, 
 who had set Dante's odes to music, and the two rush 
 into each other's arms with great affection. And 
 Dante says to him: 
 
 Se niiova lepge non ti toglie 
 niemoria o uso all' amoroso canto, 
 che mi solea quetar tutte mie voglie, 
 di eio ti piaecia eonsolare alqiianto 
 I'anima mia, ehe, eon la sua persona 
 venendo qui, e affannata tanto
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 119 
 
 If new laws do not take from you 
 Memory or skill for songs of love 
 That used to tranquillize all my desires. 
 Please cheer my soul with them awhile. 
 Which traveling in its mortal body here 
 Is very tired. 
 
 lb. II, 106-11 
 
 Casella at once begins to sing Dante's ode: 
 
 Amor, che nella mente mi ragiona 
 Delia mia donna disiosamente. 
 Move cose di lei meco sovente 
 Che r intelletto sovr' esse disvia. 
 
 Love, that discourses to me in my mind 
 About my Lady lovingly. 
 Starts thoughts about her in me oftentimes, 
 Mid which my intellect loses its way. 
 
 Canzone III 
 
 Virgil, Dante, and all the company are so charmed 
 by his singing that they stand still for pleasure and 
 quite forget the duty before them, which is to find 
 the ascent towards God. 
 
 And further on, there are elaborate episodes that 
 deal with poetry. In one jDlace Dante meets a poet 
 from Lucca, Bonagiunta, an adherent to a conven- 
 tional, old-fashioned ~mod& of writing poetry, who 
 recognizes him and asks if it is not he that wrote 
 the famous ode in the Vita Nuova, 
 
 Donne, ch' avete intelletto d'amore, 
 lo vo' con voi della mia donna dire; 
 Xon perch' io creda sue laude finire. 
 Ma ragionar per isfogar la mente.
 
 120 DANTE 
 
 Ladies, that have intelligence in love. 
 
 Of mine own lady I would speak with you; 
 Not that I hope to count her praises through, 
 But telling what I may, to ease my mind. 
 
 D. G. RoSSETTI 
 
 It is obvious that Bonagiunta, as he asks the ques- 
 tion, is puzzled by the difference between Dante's 
 way of writing verses and his own, which was the 
 way of the older schools, presided over by Jacopo da 
 Lentino (the Notary), and by Guittone d'Arezzo. 
 Dante replies: 
 
 lo mi son un che, quando 
 amor mi spina, noto, ed a quel inodo 
 che ditta dentro, vo significando 
 
 I am one who, when 
 Love breathes within me, mark, and in the way 
 He sings to me, I go proclaiming. 
 
 And Bonagiunta answers: 
 
 "O frate, issa veggio," disse, "il nodo 
 che il Xotaro, e (Juittone e me ritenne 
 di qua dal dolce stil nuovo ch' i' odo. 
 
 lo veggio ben come le vostre penne 
 di retro al dittator sen vanno .strette, 
 che delle nostre certo non avenne." 
 
 "O brother, now I see," said he, "the knot 
 That held the Notary, Guittone and myself. 
 Back from that sweet, new style I hear. 
 
 And I see well how your pens follow close 
 Behind the Singer, which with us in truth 
 Was not the case." 
 
 Purff. XXIV, 52-60
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 121 
 
 Again and again, Dante intimates that poetry is 
 not only a means of purifying the soul, but also of 
 bringing pleasure to her, and that the purer she be- 
 comes the greater is her pleasure. Besides meeting 
 Casella and Bonagiunta, he also meets Guido Guini- 
 zelli, the most distinguished of the earlier generation 
 of poets, and Arnaut Daniel, the Provencal, as well 
 (Canto XXVI) ; and, for a good stretch of the way, 
 Sordello accompanies him (Cantos VI-VIII) and 
 afterwards Statins, the late Latin poet (Cantos XXI- 
 XXVII). No episode is more charming than the 
 meeting with Sordello. This poet is the famous 
 Italian troubadour, who, like Virgil, was born at 
 Mantua. 
 
 While Dante and Virgil are still wandering in ante- 
 Purgatory they behold a noble figure standing alone 
 in quiet dignity, looking about him like a lion. Virgil, 
 with no suspicion of who he is, draws near and asks 
 him the best way up the mountain. The stranger 
 does not answer the question, but asks of what coun- 
 try they are. Virgil no sooner begins, "From Man- 
 tua — " than the other leaps toward him and cries: 
 "From Mantua you! I am Sordello of your city!" 
 And they hug one another (Purg. VI). Then Sor- 
 dello asks, "Who are you.'^" and Virgil answers, "/o 
 son Virgilio" — "I am Virgil." Sordello stares in 
 sudden bewilderment, then bends and clasps his 
 knees : 
 
 "O gloria de' Latin," disse, "per cui 
 mostro ci5 che potea la linpua nostra, 
 o pregio eterno del loco end' io fui, 
 
 Qual merito o qual grazia mi ti mostra?" 
 
 ly
 
 / 
 
 122 DANTE 
 
 "O glory of the Latin race," said he, "through whom 
 
 (^ur language sliowed what it could do, 
 
 O everlasting lionor of my native place! 
 What merit or what grace shows you to nie?" 
 
 Purg. VII, 16-19 
 
 Just what spiritual refreshment a pilgrim could get 
 from Sordello or from Statius, I must leave to schol- 
 ars familiar with their writings; but as it was ac- 
 cepted doctrine that the function of poetry is to 
 uplift the soul, these poets may be regarded as 
 symbols, taken somewhat arbitrarily to mean for 
 readers of that time what Wordsworth, Browning, 
 Matthew Arnold, Francis Thomson, and many 
 another, not to mention Dante himself, mean to the 
 pilgrim to-day. 
 
 This friendly intercourse between various persons 
 sn their upward way is perhaps the most noticeable 
 of the pleasures in Purgatory; but everywhere we 
 perceive the light of the divine illumination. Sin, even 
 pride, seen in that light, no longer calls forth our 
 iiulignation, but our compassion; and how beautiful 
 is the description of Humility: 
 
 A noi venia la creatura l)ella, 
 
 bianco vcstita, e nella faceia quale 
 par treniolando rnattutina steila. 
 
 Toward us the beauteous creature came 
 
 All rol)ed in white, and in his countenance 
 Such as the tremulous morning star. 
 
 Purf/. XII, 88-90 
 
 In fact Purgatory seems far more of a school than 
 a house of {)unishment, and goodness is inculcated
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 123 
 
 by exhortation and precept almost more than by 
 pains. Virgil, who plays the schoolmaster, says: 
 
 Chiamavi il clelo, e intorno vi si gira, 
 inostrandovi le sue bellezze eterne, 
 e I'DCohio vostro pure a terra mira; 
 
 The Heavens call you, and whirl around you, 
 Displaying to you their eternal beauty, 
 But your eyes gaze upon the earth. 
 
 76. XIV, 148-150 
 
 The pains are grim enough — crushing weights, eye- 
 lids sewn up, choking fog, fire — but over and above, 
 like a flight of bobolinks singing and fluttering in a \/^ 
 radiant sky, flash and echo sights and sounds of 
 spiritual joy, presentiments of the Earthly Paradise 
 that lies at the end of the journey. That Earthly / 
 Paradise, of course, is the complete innocence of 
 the soul, which Wordsworth conceives as the ful- 
 fillment of duty: 
 
 Serene will be our days and bright, 
 And happy will our nature be. 
 When love is an unerring light, 
 And joy its own security. 
 
 But we are not left with a didactic eulogy of inno- 
 cence. On the contrary, Dante's picture of it merely 
 embodies the joy of life. The most perfect simile for 
 innocence and goodness was when Christ took the 
 little children and said, "Of such is the kingdom of. 
 Heaven." But since then (one may boldly affirm) 
 there has been no more charming glimpse of life 
 unspotted by the Avorld than this of Dante's. He has
 
 124 DANTE 
 
 i-eached the river Lethe in the wonderful garden at 
 the top of Purgatory, and looks across: 
 
 e la m'apparve, si com' egli appare '•- 
 
 subitamente cosa che disvia ij 
 
 per niaraviglia tutt' altro ])ensare, ' ' 
 una donna soletta, che si gia 
 
 cantando ed iscegliendo fior da fiore, V 
 
 ond' era pinta tutta la sua via. ''" 
 
 "Dch, bcUa donna, ch' ai raggi d' aniore 
 
 ti scaldi, s'io vo' credere ai seinhianti < 
 
 che soglion esser te.stiinon del core, 
 Veg'nati voglia di trarreti avanti," 
 
 diss' io a lei, "verso questa riviera, 
 
 tanto ch' io possa intciider ehe tu canti. 
 Tu mi fai rinieuibrar, dove e qual era 
 
 Proserpina nel tempo che j^erdette 
 
 la madre lei, ed ella primavera." 
 Come si volge, con Ic piante strette 
 
 a terra ed intra se, donna che balli, 
 
 e piede innanzi piede a pena rnette, 
 voLsesi in sui vermigii ed in sui glalli 
 
 fioretti verso me, non altrinienti 
 
 che verglne che gli occhi onesti avvalli; 
 e fece i preghi niiei esser contenti, 
 
 si appressando se, che il dolce suono 
 
 veniva a me co' suoi intendimenti. 
 Tosto che fu la dove Terbe sono 
 
 bagnate gia dall' onde del bel fmme, 
 
 di levar gli occhi suoi mi fece dono. 
 Non credo che splendesse tanto lume 
 
 sotto le ciglia a Venere trafitta 
 
 dal figlio, fuor di tutto suo costume. 
 
 And there apjxarcd to me — even as doth appear 
 
 Some sudden thing that banisheth 
 
 In wonderment all thoughts of other things — 
 A lady all alone, who singing went 
 
 And picking flower on flower, with which 
 
 Iler path was colored all the way.
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 125 
 
 "O Lovely Lady, who cloth warm thyself 
 
 Beneath the rays of love (if I may credence give 
 
 To looks that often are a witness of the heart) 
 May thy good will thee nearer hring," said I 
 
 To her, "towards the river bank, so close 
 
 That I may hear the song thou sings't. 
 Thou bringest to my mind Proserpina, 
 
 Both where and what she was, that time 
 
 Her mother lost her, and she lost the spring." 
 She turned upon her red and yellow flowers 
 
 Toward me, in just the way a maiden turns 
 
 And drops her modest eyes, 
 And satisfied my prayers. She drew so close 
 
 That with her music came to me 
 
 The meaning of her words. 
 So soon as she was where the grasses bathe 
 
 Within the waters of the lovely stream, 
 
 She granted me a boon — she raised her eyes. 
 I do not think that ever so much light 
 
 Flashed under Venus' lids, when pierced 
 
 By her son's arrow shot with unwonted force. 
 
 Purg. XXV HI, 37-66 
 
 This lovely lady explains to Dante the nature of 
 the Earthly Paradise, and singing, "Blessed are they 
 whose sins are forgiven them," conducts him to where 
 he shall see Beatrice. The allegory is simple; after , ^^ 
 the soul has become as a young child, it is endowed 
 with heavenly wisdom and is able to understand the 
 exquisite beauty of innocence. So Milton says: 
 
 That when a soul is found sincerely so, 
 A thousand liveried angels lackey her. 
 Driving far off each thing of sin and guilt. 
 And in clear dream, and solemn vision. 
 Tell her of things that no gross ear can hear, 
 Till oft converse with heav'nly habitants 
 Begin to cast a beam on th' outward shape,
 
 126 DANTE 
 
 The unpolluted temi)le of the mind, 
 
 And turns it l)y degrees to the soul's essence 
 
 Till all l)e made innnortal. 
 
 And ^niton's contemporary, George Fox, tells his 
 experience of the Earthly Paradise on the further 
 side of Purgatory in this way: "Now I was come up 
 in spirit through the flaming sword, into the Para- 
 dise of God. All things were new ; and all creation 
 gave unto me another smell than before, beyond 
 what words can utter. I knew nothing but pureness 
 and innocency, and righteousness, being renewed 
 into the image of God by Christ Jesus, to the state 
 of Adam which he was in before he fell" {Journal, 
 1648). 
 
 But the seeker must not expect to find that there 
 is only one road up the Hill of Purgatory, for there 
 are many — a separate road for each it may be. 
 Some may have a path of sorrow, some a path of 
 joy; some may find the road in cloistered ways far 
 from the rush of life, others may find it in the very 
 thick of the struggle. 
 
 Pascal prayed: "Je ne detnande pas d'etre exempt 
 des douleurs, . . . mats je detnande de n'etre pas 
 ahandonne aux douleures de la nature sans les con- 
 solations de votre esprit."^ It is for the sake of such 
 petitioners that Dante insists that these divine con- 
 solations — music, poetry, affection, and visions 
 angelical — are always to be found by the soul that 
 is climbing the road, even the road of pain, to the 
 garden of innocence. Brother Lawrence says "that 
 we must be faithful in doing our duty and denying 
 
 1 Quoted in The Spirit of Man, No. 258.
 
 THE HAPPY SIDE OF PURGATORY 127 
 
 ourselves, and that after that unspeakable pleasures 
 will follow" {Third Conversation). And Plato bore 
 his testimony long ago: "He who has been instructed 
 thus far in the science of Love, and has been led to 
 see beautiful things in their due order and rank, when 
 he comes toward the end of his discipline, will sud- 
 denly catch sight of a wondrous thing, beautiful 
 with the absolute Beauty; ... he will see a Beauty 
 eternal, not growing or decaying, not waxing or 
 waning; nor will it be fair here and foul there, nor 
 depending on time or circumstance or place, as if 
 fair to somCj and foul to others : . . . Beauty abso- 
 lute, separate, simple and everlasting; which lending 
 of its virtue to all beautiful things that we see born 
 to decay, itself suffers neither increase nor dimi- 
 nution, nor any other change. 
 
 "When a man proceeding onwards from terrestrial 
 things by the right way of loving, once comes to 
 sight of that Beauty, he is not far from his goal. And 
 this is the right way wherein he should go or be 
 guided in his love: he should begin by loving earthly 
 things for the sake of the absolute loveliness, ascend- 
 ing to that as it were by degrees or steps, from the 
 first to the second, and thence to all fair forms ; and 
 from fair forms to fair conduct, and from fair con- 
 duct to fair i^rinciples, until from fair principles he 
 finally arrive at the ultimate principle of all, and 
 learn what absolute Beauty is. 
 
 "This life, my dear Socrates, said Diotima, if any 
 life at all is worth living, is the life that a man should 
 live, in the contemplation of absolute Beauty: . . . 
 What if a man's eyes were awake to the sight of the
 
 128 DANTE 
 
 true Beauty, the divine Beauty, pure, clear and un- 
 alloyed, not clogged with the pollutions of mortality, 
 and the many colours and varieties of human life? 
 What if he should hold converse with the true 
 Beauty, simple and divine? 
 
 "O think you? she said, that it would be an 
 ignoble life for a man to be ever looking thither and 
 with his i)roper faculty contemplating the absolute 
 Beauty, and to be living in its presence? Are you 
 not rather convinced tliat he who thus sees Beauty as 
 only it can be seen, will be specially fortuned? And 
 that, since he is in contact not with images but re- 
 alities, he will give birth not to images, but to very 
 Truth itself? And being thus the parent and nurse 
 of true virtue it will be his lot to become a friend of 
 God, and, so far as any man can be, immortal and 
 absolute" {Sijmposimn, translation from The Spirit 
 of Man, No. 37). 
 
 Poet and philosopher agree witli the Apostle Paul 
 that "without holiness no man shall see the Lord" 
 (Heb. xii, It).
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 
 
 PARADISE is attained when the soul, at every 
 moment and in every place, with the sub- 
 conscious mind if not with the waking con- 
 sciousness, is aware of the presence of God. "Ogn'i 
 dove in cielo e Paradiso," Dante says {Par. Ill, 
 88-89) ; every place where God is present is Paradise. 
 To the soul, so aware, the world is filled with splen- 
 dor, and life is a benediction. 
 
 La gloria di Colui che tutto move 
 per runiverso penetra, 
 
 The glory of Him who moveth all things 
 Permeates the universe. 
 
 Par. I, 1-3 
 
 This permeating presence of God is manifested in 
 love. "Love," Dante says, "truly taken and subtly 
 considered, is nought else than a spiritual union of 
 the soul and of the thing beloved" {Conv. Ill, Ch. 
 2) ; and Paradise is the union of the soul with God. 
 "Ipsa est beata vita, gaudere de te, ad te, propter te : 
 ipsa est et non est altra" — "This is the life of 
 blessedness, to rejoice concerning Thee, toward 
 Thee, and because of Thee; this it is and nothing 
 else" (St. Augustine's Conf. X, Ch. 22). 
 
 This conscious union of the soul with God is, no 
 
 129
 
 130 DANTE 
 
 douht^ an experience confined to the very few. These 
 few we call mystics. They believe that in this life 
 they come face to face witli God. This meeting, this 
 union, they delight to speak of as the mystical 
 espousals of the soul with God. Their language is 
 figurative, because, such a union being beyond the 
 common experience of normal man, and language 
 having been framed for the use of normal man, there 
 are no words for it. But though their words may not 
 present definite concepts to the rational mind, they 
 are intelligible to the desirous heart. To the outsider, 
 these mystics appear to fall into two categories. The 
 first category includes those who have had visions 
 which affected the senses themselves, such as St. 
 Paul, who saw the strange light in heaven, St. Au- 
 gustine, who heard the voice say, "Tolle, lege," St. 
 Francis of Assisi, who received stig-mata, St. Theresa, 
 Jacob Boehme, and others, who believed that with 
 their human senses they heard and saw God. The 
 second category contains those who seem to have 
 received their mystical experiences rather through 
 the imagination than through the senses, such as 
 Plotinus, St. Bonaventura, Ruysbroeck, Pascal, St. 
 John of the Cross, and many more. And there 
 are other differences; different minds have differ- 
 ent experiences, see different aspects of truth, and 
 express themselves according to tlieir individuality; 
 and some concern themselves with the culminating 
 felicity itself, while others speak of the way of ap- 
 proach. As Dante's opinions have much in common 
 with tliose of saints, mystics, and seers, it may 
 helj) to understand him if I quote from what certain
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 131 
 
 high-souled men have testified concerning this, the 
 deepest experience in life. 
 
 An unknown old German writer expresses himself 
 thus: "Some may ask what it is to be a partaker of 
 the Divine Nature, or a Godlike [vergottet, literally 
 deified] man? Answer: he who is imbued with or 
 illuminated by the Eternal or Divine Light and 
 inflamed or consumed with Eternal or Divine Love, 
 he is a deified man and a partaker of the Divine 
 Nature,"^ Ruysbroeck, the Belgian, with whom 
 Maeterlinck has made us acquainted, asserts: 
 "When love has carried us above all things, above 
 the light, into the Divine Dark, there we are trans- 
 formed by the Eternal Word Who is the image of the 
 Father; and as the air is penetrated by the sun, thus 
 we receive in peace the Incomprehensible Light, en- 
 folding us and penetrating us. What is this light, if 
 it be not a contem{)lation of the Infinite and an in- 
 tuition of Eternity.^ We behold that which we are, 
 and we are that which we behold, because our being, 
 without losing anything of its own personality, is 
 united with the Divine Truth which respects all 
 diversity."^ And the Spanish mystic, St. John of the 
 Cross, in comparing the union of the soul with God 
 to a spiritual marriage, says: "The faculties of the 
 soul have attained so perfect a degree of purity, that 
 her will, in its lower sphere as "well as in its higher 
 sphere, is wholly detached from seeking, and also 
 from desire, for aught that is not God. For His sake, 
 of all things else she makes an absolute sacrifice. 
 
 1 Mysticism, Evelyn Underbill, p. 500. 
 
 2 lb., p. 506.
 
 132 DANTE 
 
 Then, by this spontaneous renouncement, the will 
 of tlie soul and the will of God become one and the 
 same, and God does her the favor to take possession 
 of her, through this conformity of her Avill with His, 
 and He lifts her up to the sjiiritual espousals. In this 
 state the soul becomes the bride of the Word, and 
 the Spouse bestows upon her great and precious 
 favors" {The Living Fire of Love, IH, line 3). 
 
 Jacob Boehme, a very famous German mystic, 
 whose doctrines greatly influenced George Fox, de- 
 clares that: "The only way by which God may be 
 perceived in His word. His essence, and His will, is 
 that man arrives at the state of unity with himself, 
 and that — not merely in his imagination but in his 
 will^ — he should leave everytliing that is his per- 
 sonal self, or that belongs to that self . . . and that 
 his own self sliould become as nothing to him. He 
 must surrender everything . . . ; he should kill and 
 annihilate his self-will, the will that claims . . . 
 things as its possessions. He should surrender all 
 this to his Creator, and say with the full consent of 
 his heart. Lord, all is Thine. . . . Act through me 
 in what manner You will, so that Thy will shall be 
 done in all things, and that all that I am called upon 
 to do may be done for the benefit of my brothers, 
 whom I am serving according to Thy command. 
 He who enters into such a state of supreme resig- 
 nation enters into divine union with Christ, so that 
 he sees God Himself. He speaks with God and God 
 speaks with him, and he thus knows what is the 
 Word, tlie Essence, and the Will of God" {Jacob 
 Boehme, by F. Hartmann, pp. 42-43).
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 133 
 
 Tlicse mystics, German, Belgian and Spanish, use 
 the language of ancient piety, but the meaning is 
 clear. It is stated in modern language by the psy- 
 chologist, M. Delacroix: "The beginning of the 
 mystic life introduced into the personal life of the 
 subject a group of states [of mind] which are dis- 
 tinguished by certain characteristics, and which 
 form, so to speak, a special jisychological system. 
 At its term [end], it has, as it were, suppressed the 
 ordinary self, and by the development of this new 
 system has established a new personality, with a 
 new method of feeling and of action. Its growth 
 results in the transformation of jjersonality ; it abol- 
 ishes the primitive consciousness of selfhood, and 
 substitutes for it a wider consciousness: the total 
 disappearance of selfhood in the divine, the substitu- 
 tion of a Divine Self for the primitive self" (quoted 
 in Mysticism, p. 498). 
 
 So far the mystics. They are beyond the range of 
 common experience, and therefore usually beyond 
 the reach of our understanding and our sympathy. 
 But between them and us, other men take their 
 station, who also desire union with the infinite, 
 who believe in love, in spiritual life, in self-sacrifice, 
 in faith, and yet keep their feet upon this prosaic, 
 it may be, but dear and beautiful earth. Perhaps I 
 should not say that Emerson, whom I now quote, 
 keeps his feet on the earth, rather he hovers near it 
 on his golden wings ; but his thoughts, although 
 tinged with mysticism, are not wholly out of har- 
 mony with the rational atmosphere in which we 
 habitually live. That unity of many powers which
 
 134 DAN T E 
 
 the mystics symbolize by "Christ" or "God," he 
 calls the Over-soul. 
 
 "That Unity, that Over-soul, witliin which every 
 man's particular being is contained and made one 
 witli all other; that common heart ... to which all 
 right action is submission ; that overpowering reality 
 . . . evermore tends to pass into our thought and 
 hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and 
 beauty. . . . And this deep power in which we 
 exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us, is 
 not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but 
 the act of seeing and the thing seen, the seer and 
 the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. 
 ... Of this pure nature every man is at some time 
 sensible. Language cannot paint it with his colors. 
 It is too subtle. It is undefinable, unmeasureable ; 
 but we know that it ])ervadcs and contains us. . . . 
 There is no . . . bar or wall in the soul, where man, 
 the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins. . . . 
 Inefifable is the union of man and God in every act of 
 the soul. The simplest person who in his integrity 
 worships God, becomes God; yet forever and ever 
 the influx of this better and universal self is new and 
 unsearchable. . . . Behold (the soul) saith, I am 
 born into the great, the universal mind. . . . More 
 and more the surges of everlasting nature enter into 
 me. ... So come I to live in thoughts and act 
 with energies which are immortal" {The Oversold). 
 
 Finally, I quote Tolstoi, who stands with his two 
 feet firm on tlie ground. He does not seek religion in 
 some remote sphere of ecstatic speculation, but in 
 humdrum daily life. He says: "My mistake lay
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 135 
 
 in ever expecting an examination of finite things to 
 supply a meaning to life. The finite has no ultimate 
 meaning apart from the infinite. The two must be 
 linked together before an answer to life's problems 
 can be reached. . . . What am I.'' A part of the in- 
 finite. In these few words lies the whole problem" 
 {My Confession^. 
 
 Such are the beliefs of some spiritual minds seek- 
 ing to comprehend the relation of the finite with the 
 infinite, of man's soul with God, and they shed some 
 light for us when we are speculating as to what may 
 be the meaning of those phrases employed by the 
 saints, such as "the state of blessedness," "the 
 Paradise of the elect," "the Kingdom of Heaven." 
 
 In the Paradiso Dante expounds his beliefs; he 
 uses the language, the phrases, the metaphors of his 
 time, and these are very rich and magnificent ; never- 
 theless under all the splendor of poetical imagining 
 the human structure of his beliefs, as they apply 
 to earthly life, may be discerned. If my interpretation 
 is dogmatic, it is for simplicity's sake. The Divine 
 Comedy is like a forest of truth in which a thousand 
 men can climb a thousand trees, and each man, as 
 he mounts nearer toward heaven, fondly believes 
 that he has chosen the poet's tree of life. Dante, then, 
 whatever he may say to learned men, says this to I / 
 the simple: Paradise is within our own souls, and to ! 
 dwell in Paradise, means to be sensitive to the hal- ' ' 
 lowing influences of life, to fix our eyes upon the 
 beauty of holiness, as the lover gazes up at the win- 
 dow in which his lady shall appear; it means, to 
 tend and watch over — as April with its sunshine
 
 136 DANTE 
 
 and its rain tends and watches over the "rathe 
 primrose" — our uncertain and tremulous hope that 
 the power which moves throughout the universe, 
 and impels all motions, may best be interpreted to 
 men by its manifestation in that love which St. 
 Paul describes ; it means the conviction that man is 
 of one substance with all the universe, that he and 
 it have a common purpose, a common task, and a 
 common destiny, that this consubstantiality is of 
 soul and mind, as well as of body, and that universal 
 harmony is necessary for universal joy. 
 
 Dante, like ourselves, cannot explain why the joy 
 of harmony does not prevail throughout the uni- 
 verse. Something is wrong; the stuff out of which 
 men are made, we do not know why, does not take 
 the shape divine influence would impress upon it 
 (Par. XIII, 67-69, and I, 127-129). But that seem- 
 ing misfortune is our good fortune in disguise. Life 
 would lose its highest incentive, and love of God 
 have little meaning, if we had no task to perform, 
 if we could not aspire to be His agents to do His 
 work. In Purgatory our duty is to renounce and to 
 purify; in Paradise it is to gratify the deep religious 
 instinct of the human heart. "Nearer, my God, to 
 Thc^" — that is the subject of the Paradiso. Bea- 
 trice, an emanation from God, conducts the innocent 
 soul up from plane to plane, until the heart, mind, 
 and soul attain "the complete and perfect posses- 
 sion of unlimited life at a single moment" (Boethius, 
 quoted by Gardner, Dante and the Mystics, p. 28). 
 
 This approach nearer and nearer to God, the 
 navigatio ad patriam (Ih. p. 61), has been the subject
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 137 
 
 of dearest interest to the mystics. Plotinus, the 
 Neoplatonie philosopher of Alexandria, says: "The 
 first thing is to render the organ of vision analogous 
 and similar to the object which it is to contemplate. 
 The eye could never have perceived the sun, if it had 
 not first taken the form of the sun ; in the same way, 
 the soul could never see beauty, if she were not first 
 beautiful herself, and every man must begin by 
 making himself beautiful and divine in order to 
 obtain sight of what is beautiful and divine" (quoted 
 by Maeterlinck, Ruyshroech I'admirahle). And St. 
 Bonaventura says of this drawing near: "But if thou 
 wouldst know how these things are done, question 
 grace, not doctrine; desire, not understanding; the 
 sob of prayer, not the study of texts ; the bridegroom, 
 not the master; God, not man; darkness, not clarity; 
 not light, but the fire that inflames utterly and 
 transfers into God, with excessive fervour and most 
 ardent love" (Dante and the Mystics, p. 253). 
 
 But for this drawing near we must remember 
 that God is Truth as well as that God is Love, and 
 therefore that the way of approach must be by the 
 intellect as well as by the heart. God — the Absolute, 
 the Real, the Infinite, Matter, Motion, Mind, Spirit, 
 call Him by what name you will — is beyond the 
 reach of the human intellect; nevertheless seekers 
 believe, or at least they hope, that all things which 
 exist contribute in some measure towards a knowl- 
 edge of God. The laws by which the stars move and 
 "perform their shining," the principles of chemistry, 
 the manifestations of electricity, the habits of 
 animals, the yearnings of man, the brain of Newton,
 
 138 DANTE 
 
 the imagination of Shakespeare, the compassion of 
 Jesus, each and all bring their candles and help us 
 see a little, liowever minute that little is in com- 
 parison with the unmeasured bulk of our ignorance, 
 and give us the hope that by this candle light we may- 
 see the path on which we may walk in accordance 
 with His will. 
 
 Dante, one might almost say, was more interested 
 in the intellect than in the heart. He studied all the 
 religious philosophy of his time, and would not have 
 us think ourselves safe in following an undisciplined, 
 uninstructed conscience. To know the right is, ac- 
 cording to him, a matter that will tax the profoundest 
 thinkers. God, it is said, does not make Himself 
 manifest to cowards; neither does He make Himself 
 manifest to the slothful or the blind. Dante would 
 have us study William James, Bergson, Eucken, 
 James Martineau, and all tliinkers who have pon- 
 dered upon the means of coming nearer to the goal 
 of all desire. It is, nevertheless, not easy to explain 
 the theory of the road to God by the intellect, as 
 Dante understood it, so that it shall be serviceable 
 to us to-day. The best way to make it intelligible, 
 and possibly serviceable, will be to cite what St. 
 Augustine says concerning it, and therefore I cite an 
 extract from his Confessions, Book IX, Ch. 10. "The 
 day was now api)roaching that [my mother Monica] 
 was to depart this life, . . . and it befell, as I be- 
 lieve, because Thou brouglit it about by Thy secret 
 ways, that she and I were standing by ourselves 
 leaning against a certain window whicli looked out 
 on the garden enclosed by the house in which we were.
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 139 
 
 at Ostia on the Tiber; and there, sequestered from 
 the company, after the fatigue of a long journey, we 
 were recruiting our strength for the sea voyage. 
 So, we were talking together, alone, very sweetly, 
 and forgetting those things which are behind and 
 reaching forth unto those things that are before, and 
 we were inquiring of one another (by considering 
 the Present Truth, which Thou art), what would be 
 the eternal life of the saints, which eye hath not seen 
 nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart 
 of man. And we panted in the thirstiness of our 
 hearts for the upper waters of Thy fountain, the 
 fountain of life that is in Thee; so that, besprinkled 
 with it, according to our capacity, we might in some 
 sort meditate on so high a matter. And when our 
 discourse was once come to the point that the 
 greatest pleasure of the bodily senses, in their 
 greatest material glitter, contrasted with the joy of 
 that life, was to the seeing eye not merely not 
 worthy of comparison, but not even of mention. And 
 being lifted up by a more burning affection toward 
 that life, we by degrees passed beyond all material 
 things, even the sky, from which sun, moon and 
 stars shine upon the earth. Thither Ave ascended, in- 
 wardly musing, discoursing, and wondering at Thy 
 works, and we passed on to our minds, and tran- 
 scended mind, until we touched the region of riches 
 that never fail . . . where life is that Wisdom, by 
 which all things are made, both those that have 
 been and those that are to be. (This wisdom is not 
 made, but it is now as it has been and ever shall 
 be. Nay, indeed, the terms 'to have been' and 'shall
 
 1 40 DANTE 
 
 be' do not belong to it. but only the term 'I am/ 
 since it is everlasting. For to eternity there is neither 
 past nor future.) And while we talked and panted for 
 it, by the impulsion of our whole heart, we attained 
 in a meagre measure to the edge of it. . . . So we 
 said: Suppose that the tumult of the flesh be 
 silent, that the phantasms of earth and waters and 
 air be silent, that the heavens be silent and the soul 
 itself be silent, and by not thinking of itself tran- 
 scend self; suppose that dreams be silent and the 
 fantasies of tlie imagination, that every tongue, 
 and every sign, and that whatever is in course of 
 creation be altogetlicr silent — since if any one should 
 hearken to them, all things say, 'We have not made 
 us but He who abides forever made us' ; and suppose 
 that having uttered this they also arc silent (for they 
 have lifted up our ears to Him who made them), and 
 suppose that He Himself speaks alone, not by His 
 creatures, but of Himself, so that we liear His own 
 word, not by tongue of flesh, nor by voice of angel, nor 
 by the sound of thunder, nor by the riddle of allegory, 
 but hear Him Himself, whom manifested in these. His 
 creatures, we love. Himself without them (just as 
 now we stretch forth and in swift thought touch the 
 eternal wisdom that abides over all) ; suppose this 
 exultation of sj)irit continue and all other visions of 
 wholly inferior kind be taken away, and this one 
 vision ravish the beholder, swallow him up, and im- 
 merse him in these inward joys, and suppose that his 
 life were to be forever like to this moment of under- 
 standing for which we have been sighing, is not this the 
 benediction: 'Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord'.''"
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 141 
 
 For St. Augustine the great spiritual adventure 
 of personal consciousness of the presence of God is 
 primarily intellectual, and so I tliink it was with 
 Dante; but with others (and these are the far 
 larger number) it is primarily emotional, manifesting 
 itself in a passionate desire for nearness to God. 
 Nowadaj^s (I speak of the time before the Avar), at 
 least in our industrial society, the love of God, 
 however glib upon the lii:)s, is a pale, languid, tepid 
 emotion, compared with the fiery passion of the 
 mediaeval Catholic saints. But to understand the 
 Paradiso we must feel, behind the scholastic expo- 
 sitions that occur somewhat frequently, this white 
 heat of love, and to that end I quote from 
 St. Gertrude and from Dante's countrywoman, 
 St. Catherine of Siena. 
 
 St. Gertrude expresses herself in this way: "I 
 come, I come toward Thee, O loving Jesus ! Toward 
 Thee whom I have loved, whom I have sought, 
 whom I have longed for. Drawn by Thy gentleness, 
 by Thy compassion, by Thy charity, I give myself 
 up at Thy call, loving Thee with all my heart, with 
 all my soul, with all my might. Let me not be con- 
 founded in my hope, but deal with me according 
 to Thy gentleness and according to the magnitude of 
 Thy mercy. . . . Holy Ghost ! Love ! Love ! Tell me 
 the way that leadeth to so delightful an abiding- 
 place, and where the path of life is that leadeth to 
 those fields fruitful from the dew divine, at which 
 thirsty souls slake their thirst. O Love, Thou alone 
 knowest the way that leads to life and truth, . . . 
 By Thee, O Holy Ghost, are the best gifts poured
 
 142 DANTE 
 
 upon us ; from Thee proceed the fruitful seeds which 
 bring forth the fruits of life; from Thee emanates 
 the sweet honey of the delights that exist only in 
 God; from Thee descend upon us the fertilizing 
 waters of the blessings of the Lord of hosts, the dear, 
 rare gift of the Spirit" (^Third Exercise). 
 
 And St. Catherine of Siena, in describing the love 
 of tlie soul for God, says: "The soul, that already 
 perceiveth her own nothingness, and knoweth that 
 all her good lies in the Creator, abandons herself and 
 all her faculties, and all created things, and im- 
 merses herself wholly in her Creator, so that she 
 directs all her workings wholly toward Him, and 
 will not depart at any point from Him, in whom she 
 is aware she has found all good and all perfection of 
 happiness; and from this union of love, which in- 
 creases in her day by day, the soul so transforms 
 herself in a certain manner into God that she cannot 
 think, nor purpose, nor love aught except God, nor 
 can she remember aught else but God, and she 
 perceiveth neither self nor created thing except in 
 God, and remcmbereth neither self nor created thing 
 save only in Him; just as a man who sinks in the 
 sea and swims beneath its waters, neither sees nor 
 touches aught but the waters of the sea and things 
 that are in the water, and neither sees, nor touches, 
 nor feels aught that is out of the water" (La Vita, 
 Part I, Ch. X, Sec. 8). And of her own passion for 
 God, she says to her confessor: "So great was the fire 
 of the love of God, and of my yearning to unite with 
 Him, whom I loved, that even if my heart had been 
 of stone or of iron, it would have burst asunder in
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 143 
 
 like manner and been opened. No created thing, I 
 believe, could have had the power to preserve my 
 heart whole against such power of love. Therefore 
 take it as certain that the heart of my little body 
 cracked from top to bottom from the very violence 
 of love, and lay all open, so that I still seem to feel 
 the marks of that opening. From this you can clearly 
 gather that my soul was wholly separated from my 
 body and I saw the mysteries of God, which no 
 traveller can tell of, since neither has the memory 
 power, nor can human words suffice, to set forth in 
 proper manner matters so sublime, so that whatever 
 I could say would be as clay when matched with 
 gold" {VUa, Part II, Ch. VI, Sec. 21). 
 
 A similar state of mind is told of, in a more re- 
 strained way, by an American woman, Mrs. Jonathan 
 Edwards. "All night I continued in a constant, clear 
 and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ's 
 excellent and transcendent love, of his nearness to 
 me, and of my dearness to him ; with an inexpressibly 
 sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him. I 
 seemed to myself to perceive a glow of divine love 
 come down from the heart of Christ in heaven, into 
 my heart, in a constant stream, like a stream or 
 pencil of sweet light. At the same time my heart and 
 soul all flowed out in love to Christ; so that there 
 seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of 
 heavenly and divine love, from Christ's heart to 
 mine; and I appeared to myself to float, or swim, in 
 these bright sweet beams of the sun, or the streams 
 of his light wliich came in at the window. My soul 
 remained in a kind of heavenlv Elysium. ... It
 
 144. DAN T E 
 
 seemed to be all that my feeble frame could sustain, 
 of that fullness of joy, which is felt by those who be- 
 liold the face of Christ, and share liis love in the 
 hcavenlj' world. . . . To my imagination my soul 
 seemed to be gone out of me to God and Christ in 
 heaven, and to have very little relation to my body. 
 God and Christ were so present to me, that I seemed 
 removed from mj'self. . . . When I arose on the 
 morning of the Sabbath, I felt a love to all mankind, 
 wholly peculiar in its strength and sweetness, far 
 beyond all that I had ever felt before. The power of 
 that love seemed to me inexpressible. I thought, if 
 I were surrounded by enemies, who were venting 
 their malice and cruelty upon me, in tormenting me, 
 it would still be impossible that I should cherish 
 any feelings towards them but those of love, of pity, 
 and ardent desires for their happiness" (Jan. 28-29- 
 30, 1742). 
 
 But over and above these two ways, by the in- 
 tellect and by the heart, of proceeding from the 
 outskirts of Paradise toward the very central point 
 of spiritual gravitation, there is (and Dante fully 
 recognizes it) the mystic way, which is, it would 
 seem, due to the action of grace. The soul, washed 
 and anointed as it were, innocent of earthly stains 
 and yearning for upward flight, of a sudden is rapt 
 on higli into the ))resence of God. The best known 
 ex])eriencc of this kind is that of St. Paul, who says: 
 "I will come to visions and revelations of the Lord. 
 I knew a man in Christ . . . (whether in the body 
 I cannot tell; or whether out of the body, I cannot 
 tell: God knoweth) such an one caught up to the
 
 INTRODUCTION TO THE PARADISO 145 
 
 third heaven. And I knew such a man (whether in 
 the body or out of the body, I cannot tell: God 
 knoweth) how that he was caught up into Paradise, 
 and heard unspeakable words" (II Cor. xii, 1-i). 
 Dante uses very much the same words in the open- 
 ing of the Paradiso: 
 
 Nel ciel che piu della sua luce prende 
 
 fu' io; e vidi cose che ridire 
 
 ne sa nfe pu6 qual di lassu discende. . . . 
 S' io era sol di me quel che creusti 
 
 novellaincnte, Amor che 11 ciel govern!, 
 
 tu il sai, che col tuo lume mi levasti. 
 
 Within the heaven that of His light doth most 
 Receive, was I ; and things helield, that to retell 
 He neither knowledge hath nor power, who thence 
 
 Comes down . . . 
 
 If I was there a bodyless soul 
 
 In spirit only. Thou knowest, O I.ove, 
 
 That in the heavens reignest, for with Thy light 
 
 Thou didst me lift. 
 
 Par. I, 4-6, 73-75 
 
 Some people think that, by these words, Dante 
 means to tell us that he himself had just such a 
 mystical exj^erience as St. Paul had; others think 
 that he speaks figuratively, and was rapt to heaven 
 only in imagination. Whichever it was, Dante shows 
 his belief in a Power that, of a sudden, after the soul 
 has become purified, etherealized, hallowed by pain, 
 effort, prayer, and righteousness, descends like a 
 ministering angel in a cloud of light, and, lifting her 
 up, bears her, liigher and higher, to the very top of 
 human blessedness. This belief is set forth at length 
 in the Paradiso.
 
 CHAP T K R X I I 
 
 THE PARADISO 
 
 TO the non-philosoplier, Paradise is primarily a 
 personal problem ; and as such, although it 
 had its universal aspeet as well, it presented 
 itself to Dante. The Paradiso is his answer to the 
 I^roblem, unfolding the solution in its several stages, 
 as a flower unfolds its encircling petals, opening first 
 the outer envelope, and gradually disclosing row upon 
 row, until at last it lays bare its very heart. From 
 heaven to heaven, the self mounts upward into 
 universal love and truth, but the self is never lost, 
 neither is it diminished, but rises higher and higher, 
 conscious and triumphant. 
 
 Taking tlie narrative in its literal sense, the 
 analogy closest at hand for the reader of to-day, is 
 to the flight of an aeroplane, as aviators describe it. 
 The soul is aware of a sudden motion, it rises from 
 the ground, escaping from the bonds of terrestrial 
 gravitation, and mounts, higher and higher, soaring 
 up into the empyrean, till the earth becomes little 
 more than a memory, and the blue vault of heaven 
 is above and below .-ind all around. I3ut for the 
 allegory this analogy must be pieced out with 
 another. The uprising soul is like a young lover. 
 He sees the object of his love, good and beautiful. 
 His j)assion, like purgatorial fire, burns away the
 
 PARADISO 147 
 
 dross within his heart, and transfuses all his being 
 with yearning for goodness and beauty; it unlooses 
 from his eyes the veil of uncharitableness, and shows 
 him how goodness and beauty are jiresent in all 
 things, 
 
 How many goodly creatures are there here! 
 
 How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, 
 
 That has such people in't! 
 
 The reason that all the world loves a lover is that 
 all the world feels the presence of this divine pas- 
 sion, and opens the windows of its spirit to the re- 
 freshing breath. So the soul in Paradise is in love 
 and mounting higher and higher ; and in every canto 
 of the Paradiso, in almost every line, we are bathed 
 in the light of love and we hear the beat of soaring 
 wings. 
 
 Nevertheless, this blessedness, in itself the same, 
 is possessed in varying measure by different persons : 
 
 Differentemente ban dolce vita, 
 per sentir piu e men Teterno spiro. 
 
 In difTerhig modes do they possess sweet life, 
 According as they feel, or more or less, the eternal breath. 
 
 Par. IV, 35-36 
 
 These differences Dante illustrates by means of the 
 nine revolving heavens. The Ptolemaic astronomy 
 seems to have been devised on purpose for a prophet- 
 poet, so admirable is the allegory it furnishes for 
 the spiritual interpretation of life. The earth rests 
 immobile in the center, and round it revolve sphere 
 after sphere, upon the same axis, first that of the
 
 148 DANTE 
 
 Moon, then in succession those of Mercury, Venus, 
 the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, and 
 the Primum Mobile. In tliese spheres appear souls 
 of different categories. And these different cate- 
 gories exist, because even in heaven the soul cannot 
 free herself from the mold in which she has been 
 cast by the experience of life; even in the presence 
 of God we do not lose our personality. Dante all the 
 time reiterates the lesson, that in making our char- 
 acters we are building everlastingly, for better or 
 worse. Souls that have been dented by sin, or 
 stunted in their growth, cannot contain the grace of 
 God in the same brimful measure as souls unspotted 
 by the world. Like the Inferno and the Purgatorio, 
 the Paradiso is the song of a prophet, a passionate 
 lover of righteousness. 
 
 In Paradise the first duty of the soul is to submit 
 like a child to the guidance of the highest aspirations 
 that the mind can compass, and this is the guidance 
 of the Wisdom of Love, of Beatrice, the bringer of 
 beatitude. So, in the opening canto, while Beatrice 
 has her eyes fixed on high, Dante fixes his eyes on 
 hers, and he becomes so absorbed in his thought of 
 her that what is left of the unspiritual part of his 
 nature falls away from him, and he is ready for his 
 journey. And since greater knowledge is the step- 
 ])ing stone to the greater love of God, Beatrice in- 
 structs him as they go. The first lesson is how love 
 maniff;sts itself in order; for love without peace is 
 not love, and peace without order is not peace. The 
 will of God, which in its application to what our 
 senses report we call the laws of nature, prevails in
 
 PARADISO 149 
 
 beauty everywhere in heaven; and Beatrice, open- 
 ing Dante's mind to how "the firmament showeth 
 His handiwork," reveals to him the workings of the 
 several heavenly spheres and their influences on the 
 souls and destinies of men, and thereby explains to 
 him the reason why men are born different and have 
 different lives. 
 
 Dante's own conception of the action of God's 
 energy in the universe was in accordance with the 
 scholastic doctrines of his time, and, roughly speak- 
 ing, after this fashion: "Within the heaven of Divine 
 Peace," that is, as we may say, within the un- 
 fathomable, encompassing mind of God, the first 
 revolving heaven (within which revolve all the lesser 
 spheres) is vibrant with divine energy; and this 
 energy, both directed and altered by the medium 
 through which it passes, proceeds to the inner 
 spheres, affecting the nearest most, and those more 
 remote according to their remoteness, and also 
 affecting all tilings contained within those spheres 
 according to their several natures. In like manner 
 each of the other spheres radiates this energy on- 
 ward to the spheres within, and to all things within 
 them, but in diminished measure. This energy is 
 spiritual ; it is as if all the universe were held in the 
 arms of God and received the pulsations of His 
 infinite heart. In this way, all parts of the universe, 
 whatever their form or matter, receive this divine 
 energy and pass it on ; so that, although the source 
 of all energy, mechanical, vital, mental, spiritual, is 
 one, the energy manifests itself in a myriad different 
 ways (Par. II).
 
 150 DANTE 
 
 All tlie \vay, either from Beatrice or from the 
 souls they meet, Dante learns the operation of the 
 laws of God. Perhaps the greatest lesson of all he 
 receives in the lowest of the ten heavens, the sphere 
 of the Moon. Here he meets the soul of Piccarda, a 
 Florentine lady, who in life, under compulsion, 
 broke her nun's vow and married, and this unfaith- 
 fulness has left its everlasting mark. Dante asks 
 her if she does not desire to be in a higher heaven, 
 in a place of greater glory, where she would be 
 nearer to God. Piccarda smiles, as radiantly as if 
 she were in the rapture of first love, and answers: 
 
 Frate, la nostra volonta quieta 
 
 virtu di carita, che fa volerne 
 
 .sol quel ch' avenio, e d'altro non ci asseta. 
 Se disiassimo esser piii superne, 
 
 foran discord! gli nostri disiri 
 
 dal voler di colui che qui ne cerne, 
 che vedrai non capere in questi giri, 
 
 s' essere in caritate h qui necesse, 
 
 e .sc la sua natura hen rliniri. 
 Anzi e formale ad esto beato esse 
 
 tenersi dentro alia divina voplia, 
 
 per ch' una fensi nostre voglie .stesse. 
 Si che, come noi sera di soglia in sogHa 
 
 per questo regno, a tutto il regno piace, 
 
 come alio re ch' a suo voler ne invoglia; 
 e la sua voloiitate e nostra ])ace: 
 
 15rf)thfr, the quality of love constrains our will, 
 
 And lets us only wish for what we have. 
 
 And thirst for nothing more. 
 If we should wish to F»e uf) higlicr tluin 
 
 \Vc are, our wills would be at discord 
 
 With His will, who put us here.
 
 P A R A D I S O 151 
 
 And that within these circles cannot be, 
 Since to live in Love is here necessity, 
 If you consider well Love's nature. 
 
 Rather it is the law of this life beatific 
 To keep ourselves within the Will Divine, 
 So that our several wills shall make but one. 
 
 And so, being as we are, from sphere to sphere 
 Throughout this realm, gives joy to all the realm. 
 And to our King, who makes our wills like His. 
 
 And His will is our peace. 
 
 Par. Ill, 70-8T 
 
 This means that contentment is an essential ele- 
 ment in Paradise, although we needed no spirit come 
 back from the realms of the dead to tell us that; 
 and, in like manner, the other spheres indicate other 
 constituent parts of perfect blessedness. In the sphere 
 of Mercury, Dante meets the Emperor Justinian, who 
 inculcates, as the idea appropriate to that sphere, 
 the absence of worldly ambition. In the sphere of 
 Venus Dante learns that, even tliough tainted by an 
 earthly element, true love brings with it a touch 
 of Paradise. In the next (that of the Sun), St. Thomas 
 Aquinas, by the story of St. Francis of Assisi and 
 Lady Poverty, teaches that the soul, before she can 
 enter Paradise, must be wholly free from material 
 cares; and St. Bonaventura^ by the story of St. 
 Dominic, that we must have faith, a faith in some 
 end, whatever it be, a faith that shall justify and 
 consecrate the most complete sacrifice of self. In the 
 heaven of Mars, Dante's ancestor, Cacciaguida, 
 implies that heroism must temper the soul; and in 
 that of Jupiter, tlie spirits of righteous kings symbol- 
 ize a state of peace, order, and justice in the soul
 
 152 DANTE 
 
 vhioh desires to establish within lierself the kingdom 
 of God. 
 
 Next, in the heaven of Saturn, Dante comes to 
 tlie foot of the Celestial Ladder, which is the stair 
 of ascent towards what the heart holds as best and 
 noblest. This ladder means Meditation. It is upon 
 the contemplative mind, meditating on the things 
 of God, that the power and peace of the spirit shed 
 their refreshment, whether that power and peace 
 come direct from God or from the subconscious 
 mind^ or from the treasure house of rest — judge it 
 as you please. James Martineau, that modern 
 English saint, says of meditation: "Its view is not 
 personal and particular, but universal and immense. 
 ... It brings not an intense self-consciousness and 
 spiritual egotism, but almost a renunciation of in- 
 dividuality, a mingling with the universe, a lapse of 
 our little drop of existence into the boundless ocean 
 of being. It does not find for us our place in the 
 known world, but loses it for us in the unknown. It 
 puts nothing clearly beneath our feet, but a vault of 
 awful beauty above our head. It gives us no matter 
 for criticism and doubt, but everything for wonder 
 and love. It does not suggest indirect demonstration, 
 but furnishes immediate ])erce)^tion of things divine, 
 eye to eye with the saints, spirit to spirit with God, 
 peace to peace with Heaven. In thus being alone 
 with the trutli of tilings and passing from shows 
 and shadows into consciousness with the Everlasting 
 One, there is nothing at all impossible and out of 
 reach" {Endeavours after a Christian Life, p. 258). 
 And .Jonathan ICdwards says of his thoughts in a
 
 PARA 1) ISO 153 
 
 time of meditation: "I walked abroad alone, in a 
 solitary place in my father's })asture, for contem- 
 plation. And as I was walking there, and looking 
 upon the sky and clouds, there came into my mind 
 so sweet a sense of the glorious majesty and grace 
 of God, as I know not how to exiDress. I seemed to 
 see them both in a sweet conjunction; majesty and 
 meekness joined together; it was a sweet, and gentle, 
 and holy majesty; and also a majestic sweetness; 
 an awful sweetness ; a high, and great, and holy 
 gentleness. After this my sense of divine things 
 gradually increased, and became more and more 
 lively, and had more of that inward sweetness. 
 The appearance of everything was altered; there 
 seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or 
 appearance of divine glory in almost everything. 
 God's excellency, his wisdom, his purity and love, 
 seemed to appear in everj'^thing ; in the sun, moon, 
 and stars ; in the clouds and blue sky ; in the grass, 
 flowers, trees; in the water and all nature; which 
 used greatly to fix my mind. I often used to sit and 
 view the moon for a long time ; and in the day spent 
 much time in viewing the clouds and sky, to behold 
 the sweet glory of God in these things ; in the mean- 
 time, singing forth, with a low voice, my contempla- 
 tions of the Creator and Redeemer." 
 
 The exercise of meditation or contemplation — for 
 they merge into one another — procures the fulfill- 
 ment of the benediction, "May the peace of God 
 which passeth all understanding keep your hearts and 
 minds in the knowledge and love of God" ; it fixes 
 the heart and mind on spiritual values, and of neces-
 
 15-i! DANTE 
 
 sity discloses the falseness of worldly measures. 
 So Dante, "le luce sue chiare ed acute, his eyes clear 
 and keen" {Par. XXII, 126), looking down from on 
 liigli tlirough all the lower spheres, sees our world 
 and smiling at its obvious worthlessness, says: 
 
 E quel consiglio per niijjliore approbo 
 che I'ha per nieno, e chi ad altro pensa 
 chiamar si puo veraceniente probe. 
 
 And I esteem that wisdom best 
 
 ^\'hic•h rates the world at least; and he whose thoughts 
 Are elsewhere lixed, deserves the name of good. 
 
 Par. XXII, 136-138 
 
 Having learned to hold tlie world cheap, the soul 
 contcmj)lates the spirit of Christ and its effect upon 
 those who were nearest to Him, Mary and the 
 Apostles. Then, by such contemplation deepened 
 and ennobled, the soul seeks to take her own measure, 
 to know herself, to make essay, by examination of 
 her deej)cst beliefs, wliethcr she is capable of still 
 greater heights and of ultimate union with God. In 
 the allegory this process is represented by an ex- 
 amination of Dante, as to his faith by St. Peter, 
 as to his hope by St. James, and as to his love by St. 
 John. "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, 
 the evidence of things not seen" (Hebrews xi, I) ; 
 or, as it may be exj^resscd in terms more current 
 to-day, Faith is the belief in a spiritual order, which 
 we cannot define, fenced in as we are by corporeal 
 experience, and yet we think we can judge what road 
 humanity must travel in order to come into deeper 
 relations therewith.
 
 P A R A I) I S O 155 
 
 lo credo in uno Iddio 
 solo ed etcrno, c-he tutto il ciel move, 
 non luoto, con auiorc e con disio. 
 
 I believe in one God 
 Single and everlasting who, Himself unmoved. 
 Moves all the heaven, by love and longing. 
 
 Par. XXI^^ 130-132 
 
 This dogma means that there is universal unity^ 
 that all things are one, explain their separation, 
 their discord, their contradictions and antagonisms, 
 how you will, and that all things seek, by a tran- 
 scendental law of mutual attraction — which in the 
 lanffuase of the human heart we call love and 
 longing — to attain to the highest fulfillment of their 
 potential life, whatever that life may be. 
 
 "Hope is the certain expectation of future glory, 
 and is due to divine grace and antecedent merit." 
 
 Speme . . . e uno attender certo 
 della gloria futura, il qual produce 
 grazia divina e precedente merto. 
 
 lb. XXV, 67-69 
 
 But it does not require Dante's knowledge of theol- 
 ogy to discern that hope is the foundation of religion. 
 Hope is to men the assurance of a divine compassion ; 
 it blesses the meanest creatures. It is the music that 
 ushers in belief. It is the watclnnan on the turret's 
 top who sees the far-off runner bringing news of 
 victory. Its vagueness, its amplitude, its confidence, 
 are so many witnesses to a nobler order in which the 
 soul of man shall be lifted up. It is certainly brought 
 forth by grace divine — for it bears the marks of
 
 156 DAN T E 
 
 divine origin ; and preceding merit cooperates, for 
 sin which stifles every merit is not a soil that can 
 bring forth such a ))h-nit. And with Dante, as with 
 many another man, belief in the highest promises of 
 hope comes from the testimony of great hearts who 
 have had a rich experience of life. For him the words 
 of David, — "They that know Thy name will put 
 their trust in Thee" (Psalm ix, 10) — were of great 
 significance, and also what St. James says in his 
 epistle, partly, perhaps, from the words themselves, 
 and partly because St. James was the familiar friend 
 of Jesus Christ: "My brethren, count it all joy when 
 ye fall into divers temptations; knowing this, that 
 the trying of your faith worketh patience. But let 
 patience have her perfect work, that ye may be 
 perfect and entire, wanting nothing. If any of you 
 lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all 
 men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be 
 given him. . . . Blessed is the man that endureth 
 tem])tation: for when he is tried he shall receive 
 the crown of life. . . . Every good gift and every 
 perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from 
 the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, 
 neither shadow of turning. Of his own will begat he 
 us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind 
 of first-fruits of his creatures. . . . The wisdom that 
 is from above is first ])ure, then peaceable, gentle. 
 and easy to be intreatcd, full of mercy and good 
 fruits, without partiality, and witliout hypocrisy. 
 . . . Know ye not that the friendship of the world is 
 enmity with God } whosoever therefore will be a 
 friend of the world, is the enemy of God. . . . Draw
 
 PARADISO 157 
 
 nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. . . . 
 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he 
 shall lift you up. ... Is any among you afflicted? 
 Let him pray" (James i, iii, iv, v). 
 
 As to love, Dante says that God is the object of 
 all love. He learned this first from philosophic argu- 
 ments. Good that is recognized as good kindles love, 
 and the greater the good, the greater the love; there- 
 fore Perfect Good must kindle the strongest love ; 
 and this ' rational reasoning was confirmed by au- 
 thority, by Aristotle, by the Book of Exodus, — "I 
 will make all my goodness pass before Thee" (xxxiii, 
 19) — and by Revelation. Besides this, man's love 
 for God is due to gratitude for creation of the world 
 and of himself, and for redemption. Dante puts this 
 examination and appraisal of Faith, Hope, and 
 Charity in language most readily intelligible to his 
 contemporaries, but every man must make them 
 for himself ; and unless he can find a place in his soul 
 for each of the three, he cannot hope (so Dante says) 
 to build a Kingdom of Heaven within him. 
 
 Thus qualified to go upward, Dante mounts 
 through the last revolving sphere up to the empy- 
 rean, eternal peace, which lying outside the barriers 
 of time and space, enfolds creation, — 
 
 al ciel, ch' e pura luce; 
 luce intelletual plena d'amore, 
 amor di vero ben pien di letizia, 
 letizia che trascende ogni dolzore; 
 
 the heaven which is pure light; 
 Light intellectual filled full of gladness, 
 
 Gladness that doth transcend all sweetness. 
 
 Par. XXX, 39-42
 
 158 DANTE 
 
 Luine ^ lassu, die visible face 
 lo Creatore a quelia creatura, 
 che solo in lui vedere lia la sua ])ace; 
 
 Up yonder is the light that visil)le 
 
 Makes the Creator to tlie created soul. 
 Which only in beholding Him has ])eacc. 
 
 Ih. 100-103 
 
 The soul has now mounted very high, and is coming 
 close to the fulfillment of all desire; and as it nears 
 its Beloved. cx])ect.ition and desire become intense. 
 To those who do not know what it is to love, this 
 passion of the soul is incomprehensible, St. Gertrude 
 says: "Here I am^ coming nearer to Thee, Thou 
 Devouring Fire, O my God! In the fiery flames of 
 Thy love devour me, consume me, absorb me, poor 
 grain of dust. Here am I, coming nearer to Thee, O 
 my gentle Light! Cause Thy face to shine upon me; 
 and my darkness shall be in Th}'^ presence as brilliant 
 as the sun at noon. Here am I, coming nearer to 
 Thee, O Blessedness ! Make me one with Thee, by 
 that burning love tliat draws Thee towards Thy 
 creatures to unite them to Thee" {Fourth Exercise). 
 All the mystics felt as she did. The Emjiyrean is the 
 passion of love for God at its heiglit. And here Dante 
 hardly appeals to what we may ever expect to learn 
 through experience, but rather to what we may hope 
 to apjjrchend through the imagination, by means 
 of spiritual inferences from eartlily love. 
 
 In tills ultimate heaven Dante, his eyes endued 
 with sujjcrhuman ))ower to bear the sight, stands 
 before the mystic Rose, whose petals are the souls 
 triumj)hant that encircle God. Here Beatrice calls
 
 PARADING 159 
 
 St. Bernard, and commends Dante to his charge. 
 St. Bernard is the symbol of mj^stical contemplation. 
 The mind, struggling to compass the transcendental, 
 gazes on some symbol of spirit^ as the bodily eyes 
 gaze on the beryl stone, and beholds visions that in 
 its normal state it does not see. This supernormal 
 yearning of the soul seems to burst the bonds of 
 sense, and escape the limitations of humanity. The 
 final means is prayer. St. Bernard prays to the Virgin 
 Mary that Dante may behold God face to face. 
 
 The Virgin Mary is the embodiment, or the sym- 
 bol, of those manifestations of God that stir in us 
 spiritual feelings which, even in our fallen state, 
 rank next in power to the primitive animal im25ulses, 
 and, when once the purgatorial process has begun 
 within our souls, lightly triumph over all instincts. 
 As Virgin, she demands the romantic admiration 
 for loveliness and the chivalric reverence for purity, 
 such as young Dante felt when he met Beatrice in 
 the streets of Florence ; as the Madonna, she repre- 
 sents the compassion, the tender understanding, the 
 self-abnegation, and the adoration of the mother 
 for the child, who in turn is the symbol of a higher 
 life to come. To her St. Bernard prays (Par. xxxiii) : 
 
 Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio, 
 
 umile ed alta piu die creatura, 
 
 terniine fisso d'eterno consiglio, 
 tu se" colci, die Tuniana natura 
 
 nol)ilitasti si die il sue Fattore 
 
 non disdogno di farsi sua fattura. 
 Nel ventre tuo si raccese ramore, 
 
 per lo cui caldo nell' eterna pace 
 
 cosi ^ germinato questo fiore,
 
 IfiO DANTE 
 
 (}ui sci a noi nieridiana face 
 
 di caritate, c giuso, intra i niortali, 
 sci di speranza fontana vivace. 
 
 Donna, sei tanto grande e tanto vali, 
 
 che qual vuol grazia ed a te non ricorre, 
 sua disianza vuol volar senz' ali. 
 
 La tua bcnignita non pur soccorre 
 a chi doinanda, ma niolte fiate 
 liberaniente al domandar jirecorre. 
 
 Thou mayde and niooder, doghter of thy sone, 
 
 Thou wclle of mercy, sinful soules cure, 
 
 In wiiom that God, for Ijountee, chees to wone;i 
 
 Thou humble, and heigh over every creature, 
 
 Tliou noblcdest so ferforth our nature. 
 
 That no desdayn the maker hadde of kinde,2 
 
 His son in I)lode and flesh to clothe and winde. 
 
 \\ itliiime the cloistre blisful of thy sydes 
 
 Took mannes shap the eternal love and pees. 
 
 That of the tryne compas lord and gyde"* is, 
 
 Whom erthc, and see, and hevcn, out of relees,* 
 
 Ay hcrien;'' and thou, virgine wemmelees," 
 
 Bar of thy Ijody, and dweltest maiden j)ure. 
 
 The crcatour of every creature. 
 
 Assemlikd in tlice magnificence 
 
 With mercy, goodnesse, and with swich" pitee, 
 
 'I'hat thf)u, that art the Sonne of excellence, 
 
 Nat only helj)est hem that preyen thee. 
 
 Hut ofte tyme, of thy l)enignitee, 
 
 l''u! frcly, er tliat men thyn help biseche, 
 
 Thou goost Ijiforn, and art hir** lyves leche.f' 
 
 Chaucer, The Seconde Nonne.t Tale, 
 
 vv. .36-56 
 
 1 to dwell. 2 humanity. 
 
 3 lortl and guide of the threefold region. 
 
 •• without ceasing. ■ always j)raise. " stainless. 
 
 T such « their. "leach (physician).
 
 P A R A 1) I S O 161 
 
 St. Bernard then points to Dante: 
 
 Or questi, che dall' infima lacuna 
 
 deir universo infin qui ha vedute 
 
 le vite spiritali ad una ad una, 
 suppUca a te, per grazla, di virtute 
 
 tanto che possa con gli occhi levarsi 
 
 piii alto verso I'ultima salute. 
 
 Now this man here, who from the lowest pit 
 Of all the universe, even up to here, 
 Has seen the lives of spirits, one by one. 
 
 Beseeches thee, through grace, for so much power 
 That with his eyes he may have strength to look 
 Still higher, towards the final blessedness. 
 
 Par. XXXIII, 22-2T 
 
 Mary grants the prayer, and turns her eyes towards 
 God. Then Dante speaks of himself: 
 
 Ed io ch' al fine di tutti i disii 
 
 m' appropinquava, si coin' io dovea, 
 r ardor del desiderio in mi finii; 
 
 chh la mia vista, venendo sincera, 
 e pill e piu entrava per Io raggio 
 deir lata luce, che da s^ h vera. 
 
 And as I toward the goal of all desire 
 
 Was drawing nigh, the ardor of my yearning 
 In me died, as it must do. 
 
 Because my vision, growing purified, 
 Deeper and deeper entered in the beam 
 Of the light profound, which is the Truth itself. 
 
 A quella luce cotal si diventa, 
 
 che volgersi da lei per altro aspetto 
 e impossibil che mai si consenta.
 
 162 DANTE 
 
 Pero che il ben, ch' fe del voler obhietto, 
 tutto s'accoglie in lei, e fuor di quella 
 t difettivo oio che li e perfetto. 
 
 From this light such doth a man l)ecome, 
 
 That for another sight to turn from it 
 
 His will could not consent. 
 Because the Good, which is the ol)ject of the will 
 
 Is wholly gathered there, and that which there 
 
 Is perfect, away from it imj)erfect is. 
 
 Ih. 46-48, 52-54, 100-105 
 
 But the vision of Beauty, Truth, Love, beheld in 
 ecstatic contemplation, cannot be told; memory 
 retains but little, and our speech cannot deliver what 
 little may be remembered: 
 
 Omai sara. piii corta mia favella, 
 
 pure a quel ch'io ricordo, che di un fante 
 che bagni ancor la lingua alia mammella. 
 
 And now my speech must fall more short 
 Of what I still remember, than a babe's 
 Whose tongue still nurses its mother's breast. 
 
 Jb. 106-108 
 
 And the great vision ends with a reiteration of the 
 
 fundamental dogma of living faith, that the power 
 
 which moves the universe is best interpreted by love, 
 
 I'amor che move il sole e I'altre stelle.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE LAST YEARS 
 
 TOWARDS the end of his life Dante lived for 
 a time at Verona, where Can Grande della 
 Scala must have treated him with honorable 
 distinction, for Dante reiterates his admiration and 
 gratitude. And the last years he passed at Ravenna. 
 Guido da Polenta, interesting to us as nephew of 
 Francesca da Rimini, was lord of the city. In Dante's 
 time, of all Italian cities, Ravenna, next to Rome, 
 was richest in classical antiquities. The architectural 
 monuments built during the brilliant period of the 
 restoration of the Roman Empire in Italy by Jus- 
 tinian and during the reigns of his Gothic prede- 
 cessors were far more ancient to Dante than Dante's 
 times are to us. The Florence that Dante knew had 
 nothing of the Florence we know but the Baptistery, 
 the Bargello, and the Badia. Santa Maria del 
 Fiore, Giotto's tower, the Palazzo Vecchio, Santa 
 Croce^ Santa Maria Novella (in its present form) , 
 Orsamraichale, the churches and palaces of the 
 Renaissance, have utterly changed the aspect of the 
 city. But Ravenna had then the very basilicas, 
 chapels, baptisteries, ])alaces, and camijanili that 
 tourists visit to-day, save only that time had buf- 
 feted them less. The Emperor Justinian and his 
 Empress Theodora looked down upon Dante out of 
 
 163
 
 164 DANTE 
 
 the mosaics in S. Vitale as somber and sad as they 
 now look down on us ; and not the least part of our 
 interest in them is that he must have knelt, and 
 said his prayers for the political regeneration of 
 Italy, on tlie stone floor beneath them. 
 
 Here Dante lived in much honor but, it ajapears, 
 in straitened circumstances, for tradition alleges 
 that he taught poetry. His two sons and his daughter 
 Beatrice joined him, but it would seem that they did 
 not live together. iVnd here he- finished the Divine 
 Comedy. These last years, to judge from the Paradiso 
 and from some bantering bucolic poems which he 
 exchanged with an ardent young classical scholar 
 and poet, Giovanni del Virgilio, were calm and 
 mellow. He knew that his work was done; he had 
 experienced sin, suffering, purification, and the 
 peace of complete acceptance of God's will, and he 
 had embodied his experience in a poem that he felt 
 to be sacred {Par. XXV, 1). He had cherished a 
 hope that the renown of his poem would induce the 
 Florentines to call him home and bestow the laurel 
 crown upon him in the baptistery of San Giovanni 
 {Par. XXV, 1-10 and Eclogue I); but that hope 
 was vain, and he would not entertain the idea of 
 being crowned in IJoIogna. 
 
 While at Ravenna, Dante made a visit to Verona, 
 and there, before a distinguished audience, delivered 
 a learned geological discourse to explain how it is 
 that, although earth is heavier than water, so much 
 of the earth's surface stands up above the level of 
 the sea. He was also employed on at least one diplo- 
 matic errand for Count Guido Novello. The Doge
 
 THE LAST YEARS 165 
 
 of Venice, aggrieved by insults and injuries to her 
 galleys and seamen by the people of Ravenna, de- 
 clared war and stirred up the lords of the towns 
 about Ravenna (for to be a neighbor meant to be 
 unfriendly) to join him in hostilities against her. 
 The situation was serious for Count Guido. He sent 
 a hasty ajDology and promises of rej^aration ; and 
 selected Dante as envoy, on account of his talents 
 and reputation, to help bring the quarrel to a peace- 
 ful conclusion. Dante went, and on his return journey 
 cauffht a fever of which he died. Boccaccio tells of 
 his death as follows: 
 
 "In the month of September, in the year of Christ 
 1321, on the day in which the Church celebrates the 
 Exaltation of the Holy Cross, to the very great grief 
 of Count Guido and, generally, of all the citizens of 
 Ravenna, he gave up his weary sjairit to the Creator; 
 and I doubt not that it was received into the arms of 
 the most noble Beatrice, with whom, in the sight of 
 Him who is the Supreme God, having left the miseries 
 of this present life, he now lives most joyfully in that 
 life to whose felicity no end can be imagined. The 
 magnanimous Knight [Count Guido] caused Dante's 
 body on its bier to be dressed in the garb of a poet, 
 and carried on the shoulders of the most distinguished 
 citizens to the church of the Franciscan Friars in 
 Ravenna, with the honors that he thought be- 
 fitted such mortal remains ; a procession followed it 
 there, as if the state were mourning, and [the Count] 
 had it laid in an ark of stone, in Avhich it still lies. 
 He then went back to the house in which Dante 
 lived, and, according to the customs of Ravenna,
 
 166 I) A N T E 
 
 delivered a long and elegant discourse, in praise of 
 the profound learning and of tlie virtue of the de- 
 ceased, as "well as for the consolation of the friends 
 whom he had left in bitter grief. And lie made 
 arrangements (if only his government and his life 
 had lasted) to honor him with so remarkable a 
 tomb, that had Dante possessed no other qualities 
 to hand down his memory to future times, that 
 would have done so." But Count Guido was driven 
 out from Ravenna by his enemies, and his plan for 
 a tomb got no further than a Latin epitaph writ- 
 ten by Dante's friend, Giovanni del Virgilio. Later 
 generations erected a tomb and monument; and 
 there Dante's bones still lie. 
 
 The times and jjlaces when and where the Comedy 
 was written are not known. Boccaccio reports this 
 gossip: The first seven cantos of the Inferno had been 
 written by Dante before his exile, and left behind in 
 a chest ; they were found by chance and sent after 
 him, and the poet, urged by his friends, went on Avith 
 the work. Boccaccio further reports that it was 
 Dante's custom, when he had finished six or eight 
 cantos, to send them on to Can Grande, who dis- 
 tributed copies of them. And he adds this curious 
 story. "In this way [Dante] had sent to [Can 
 Grande] all but the last thirteen cantos [of the 
 Paradiso], which had been written but not sent on; 
 and then it haj)pened that he died, without leaving 
 any memorandum of them. His children and pupils 
 hunted through his papers, many times, for months, 
 to see if he had not completed the work, but they 
 could not find the remaining cantos in any way;
 
 THE I. A S T Y EARS 167 
 
 and they were in despair that they could not; and 
 all his friends were greatly vexed that God had not 
 left him in the world at least long enough to have 
 finished the little tliat remained of his work. Dante's 
 sons, Jacopo and Pietro, each of whom wrote 
 verses, persuaded by some of their friends, made up 
 their minds to supplement as well as they could, 
 their father's work, so that it should not go forth in 
 an imperfect state ; when Jacopo, who was much 
 more eager than the other, had a wonderful vision, 
 which not only saved him from his foolish presump- 
 tion, but also showed him where the thirteen cantos 
 were, which the Comedy lacked and they had been 
 unable to find. 
 
 "A worthy man of Ravenna, most respectable 
 and trustworthy [and Boccaccio speaks of him 
 elsewhere as one of the most intimate friends of 
 Dante in Ravenna, and as having been with Dante 
 in his last illness] — his name was Piero Giardino 
 and he had been a pupil of Dante for a long time — 
 used to tell this story. One night, eight months after 
 his teacher's [i.e. Dante's] death, towards morning, 
 Jacopo aforesaid came to his house, and said to him 
 that, that night a little while before the time it was 
 then, while he was asleep, he had seen his father 
 Dante, dressed in very white garments and Avith a 
 strange light shining in his countenance, come to 
 him. He seemed to ask his father if he were alive 
 and to hear from him the answer yes, but in the true 
 life, not ours. Then, moreover, he seemed to ask his 
 father also if he had finished his work before })assing 
 to the true life, and if he had finished it, where was
 
 168 DANTE 
 
 the part that was lacking and tliat they liad never 
 been able to find. To this he seemed to liear an answer 
 for the second time, 'Yes, I finished it.' And then it 
 seemed to him that his father took him by the hand 
 and led him into the room in which he used to sleep 
 when he was living in this life; and touching one 
 part of the room, said, 'What you have looked for 
 so much is here.' After these words were said, it 
 seemed to him tliat sleep and Dante departed at the 
 same moment. Because of all this, he [i.e. Jacopo] 
 asserted, that he could not keep from coming to see 
 him to tell what he had seen, so that they should go 
 together to look in the place shown him (which he 
 had carefully noted in his memory) to see whether a 
 true ghost or a false delusion had pointed it out. 
 Wherefore, as there was still a good bit of night 
 left, they went along together, and came to the 
 house in which Dante was living when he died. 
 They called the man M'ho was then occupying the 
 house, and were admitted. They went to the place 
 indicated, and there they found a matting fastened 
 to the wall, just as they had alwaj's seen it there 
 in the past. This they lifted up gently, and saw a 
 little recess in the wall which none of them had ever 
 seen or known was there ; and in it they found some 
 manuscripts all moldy from the dampness of the 
 wall, and close to being ruined if they had been left 
 there any longer. They cleaned all the mold away, 
 read the manuscripts and saw that they contained 
 the thirteen cantos which they had looked for so 
 much. So, perfectly delighted, they sent these, 
 copied out, to Messer Can [Grande] according to
 
 THE LAST YEARS 169 
 
 the author's custom, and they were then added to 
 the incomplete part where they belonged. In this 
 way the work, put together in the course of years, 
 was brought to completion" (^Trattatello in laiide di 
 Dante, and the Comijendio). As Boccaccio was per- 
 sonally acquainted with Piero Giardino, the story 
 in its outline deserves to be believed. 
 
 Boccaccio, in his Life of Dante, also gives this 
 familiar account of his appearance and ways: "Our 
 poet was of medium height; and, after he had come 
 to middle age, he was somewhat bent. In his move- 
 ments he was serious and gentle, and he always wore 
 very neat clothes, cut suitably according to his age. 
 His face was long, his nose aquiline, his eyes rather 
 big than little, large jaws, and his lower lip pro- 
 truded beyond the upper. His coloring was dark, 
 his hair and beard thick, black and curly, and there 
 was always a thoughtful melancholy in his counte- 
 nance. ... In his manners at home and abroad he 
 was wonderfully measured and self-contained, and 
 most courteous and civil in every respect. He was 
 very temperate in eating and drinking, going to his 
 meals at the hours set, and not taking more than 
 he needed. He was never an epicure either in eating 
 or drinking; he praised the abstemious, generally 
 ate simple food, and blamed exceedingly those who 
 give a great part of their attention to procuring 
 choice dishes and to seeing that they are cooked with 
 great care, asserting that such people did not eat in 
 order to live, but lived in order to eat. No one was 
 more keen than he in his studies or whatever other 
 interest occupied him; so much so that his wife and
 
 170 DANTE 
 
 his household were often annoyed before they got 
 used to his ways and liad become indifferent to 
 them. He seldom spoke unless he was spoken to, 
 and then with consideration, adapting his voice to 
 the subject of wliich lie was talking; nevertheless, 
 when it was appropriate, he was very eloquent and 
 fluent in his discourse and had a ready and admirable 
 delivery. 
 
 "In his youth he took the greatest pleasure in 
 music and singing, and he used to frequent and make 
 great friends with all the best singers and musicians. 
 PromiJted by the pleasure he got from this he com- 
 posed many poems, which these friends, at his 
 request, set to agreeable and admirable accompani- 
 ment. . . . 
 
 "He liked also to be by himself and away from 
 people, so that his meditations should not be inter- 
 rupted; and if any thought that interested him very 
 much came to him while he was in company, no 
 matter what might be said to him, he never answered 
 a questioner, until his mind had approved or dis- 
 approved the thought. This often happened to him 
 when he was at table, or travelling, or elsewhere. 
 
 "In his studies he was very assiduous, so that 
 while he was busy over them, no news of any kind 
 could stir him from them. As to this way of concen- 
 trating himself entirely on what interested him, 
 this anecdote is told by reliable ))eople. Once upon 
 a time he was in Siena and happened upon an 
 apothecary's shop, where he was given a book of 
 great repute among men of parts, which (though 
 promised to him some time before) he had never seen.
 
 THE LAST YEARS 171 
 
 It chanced that there was no other place for liim 
 to go with the book, so he leaned against the counter 
 in front of the apothecary's, put the book before 
 him, and began to examine it most greedily. A little 
 while afterwards, in that same quarter of the town, 
 right in front of him, for it was a great holiday in 
 Siena, the young nobles held a kind of tournament, 
 and the people looking on made a tremendous noise 
 (shouting and playing all kinds of instruments as 
 their custom is), and all sorts of other things were 
 going on, such as dances by pretty ladies and games 
 by young men, that would draw anybody's atten- 
 tion ; but nobody saw him stir or once lift up his 
 eyes from his book. On the contrary, although he had 
 taken his position there about noon, it was past 
 vespers, and he had looked through the whole book 
 and had got a summarized idea of it all, before he 
 got up; and when some people asked him how he 
 had been able to keep from looking at so beautiful 
 a show as had just passed before him, he answered 
 that he had noticed nothing." 
 
 The other biographers add little or nothing to 
 Boccaccio's description. As to the various portraits, 
 none were painted from Dante himself, but they all 
 appear to point to a common source, and therefore 
 deserve a fair measure of credit. The youthful por- 
 trait, attributed to Giotto, painted on the wall of the 
 chapel in the Bargello, now much altered from its 
 original condition, stands sorely, it seems to me, in 
 need of an elaborate defense. But even its apologists 
 will hardly claim that it was painted while Dante 
 was of that youthful age. For some two hundred
 
 172 D A N T E 
 
 years there was a portrait on tlie wall of Santa 
 Croce, painted by Taddeo Gaddi, either from 
 description or from memory, but it was destroyed 
 in the sixteenth century. The death mask is not 
 genuine. For the lovers of Dante the bronze bust in 
 the museum at Naples is, however, an admirable 
 efBgy to express Dante's cliaracter, and may well 
 remain his accepted likeness.
 
 APPENDIX 
 
 SUGGESTIONS FOR BEGINNERS 
 
 THERE are many English translations of the Divine 
 Comedy. With some of these, success seems to have 
 been due to causes other than their intrinsic merits. 
 Cary's was jiublished early in the nineteenth century; it is 
 in blank verse, faithful and forcible, and yet much of its 
 popularity has come because it was virtually the first in the 
 field. Longfellow's appeared shortly after our civil war; it 
 is written in somewhat irregular blank verse, is conscien- 
 tiously accurate, and was carried into favor by the prestige 
 of his poetical reputation. Norton's was written about 1890; 
 it is in a prose that follows the Italian text with scrupulous 
 fidelity. These three are probably the translations best 
 known in tliis country. 
 
 Translators are confronted at tlie outset by the question 
 whether they shall follow Dante's form and write in terza 
 rima, or boldly turn their backs on that difficulty and write 
 in prose, or trim and adopt some riming or rhythmic meas- 
 ure intermediate between terza rima and prose. Terza rima 
 is alien to the genius of tlie English language, whatever 
 Lord Byron or Rupert Brooke may essay, or Shelley in a 
 fragment may acliieve. English syllables end in consonants; 
 whereas in Italian four words out of five end in vowels, and 
 those that end in a consonant trail softly away in an r or an 
 /. This difference renders tlie use of tliose intricately inter- 
 woven rimes of terza rima quite out of the question in Eng- 
 lish, although they have been often tried, for instance by 
 Cayley, Plumj)tre, and Haselfoot; and the same may be 
 said of the fantastic translation in rime by C. I>. Shadwell. 
 
 On the otlier hand, to translate jioetry composed witli 
 rhythm and rime into prose is to confess an astonishing 
 degree of inadequacy, an inadequacy that may be measured 
 by supposing the contrary process, for instance, that a 
 Frenchman were to translate Bacon's Essays into alexan- 
 drine verse. 
 
 173
 
 174 DANTE 
 
 There remains then the via media, and that in English must 
 be blank verse. This measure is freighted with all the 
 authority of the greatest tradition in English literature; in 
 it Shakespeare, Milton, Wordsworth wrote, and from the 
 days of our earliest acquaintance with poetry we are taught 
 to regard it as the appropriate verse for heroic themes. 
 Clank verse is — it should seem l)eyond (|uestion — the proper 
 medium for a translation of Dante. And if any readers pro- 
 pose to confine themselves to English, they should take a 
 version done in blank verse. 
 
 But nol)ody who wishes to know Dante will confine him- 
 self to an English version. Poetry is the wedded union of 
 words and nmsic. Music lies in the order of words; and 
 beauty, strength, and vividness of language lie both in the 
 choice of words and in their order when chosen. Masters of 
 language instinctively feel the relations between each word 
 and those which jirecede and follow it. As Coleridge says, 
 poetry is the best words in the best order. The best order 
 of words in English is a very l)ad order in Italian, and the 
 best order of words in Italian is feeble and unintelligible in 
 English. There seems little room here for difference of 
 opinion. Dante says: "Let everyone know that nothing 
 which bath tlic iiarmony of musical connection can be 
 transferred from its own tongue into another without shat- 
 tering all its sweetness and harmony" (Conv. I, 7). The 
 reader may accept for certain that in every English ver- 
 sion the harmony and sweetness of Dante's poetry lie shat- 
 tered, even when, as in Rossetti's translations of sonnets 
 and canzoni, there is an English harmony and an English 
 sweetness. 
 
 It is true that many people, who have not the leisure to 
 study Italian, would like to know something of the Divine 
 Comedy; it seems also to be true that almost everybody 
 who has the leisure and inclination to study Italian likes to 
 begin with the Divine Corned;/. In cither case, let the 
 neojjhyte get Profes.sor Henry Johnson's or Professor 
 Courtney Langdon's translation, or, as more portable — 
 making in every way less demand on the pocket — the edi- 
 tion of the Divine Comedy published in the Temple
 
 APPENDIX 175 
 
 Classics; then let him read the English story, and every 
 now and again, when he is stirred by a specialipassage, line 
 or word, let him turn to the Italian, which he will find 
 printed on the opposite page. He would do equally well, 
 indeed in some respects better, to take W. W. Vernon's 
 Readincfs on the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paradiso; 
 or A. J. Butler's edition. These books have the translation 
 on the same page, and long comments and elucidations 
 as well. 
 
 The beginner may know nothing of Italian, but the mere 
 uttering aloud, even if with horrible mispronunciation, of 
 Italian syllables that were written by Dante, in the very 
 language spoken by him, by Beatrice, by Brunetto Latini, 
 by Farinata, by Ugolino, by Francesca da Rimini, conjures 
 up over the page a lovely haze such as lingers over the 
 Arno, when the evening star looks down, of a June evening, 
 after the sun has set. 
 
 For the English-speaking foreigner Italian words have 
 all the charm of Italy. They are fragrant with her fragance, 
 beautiful with her beauty; they call up before our imagina- 
 tions all we have seen or heard or read of Italy — the Bay 
 of Naples, the stark Apennines, the stone pines, the roman- 
 tic architecture, the frescoed walls, the world-famous rivers, 
 the plains of Umbria, the trellised vineyards. They walk 
 across the printed page like gay niasqueraders, or when 
 serious, with a solemnity that our English words have lost 
 through familiarity. English words, read in the paj)ers and 
 heard daily bandied about, lose their bloom, they become 
 hackneyed, stale; but to the sensitive beginner the novel 
 Italian words are of an exquisite rarity and ])regnant with 
 meaning. And a chance recognition of a new word through 
 its Latin origin or its French relationship, makes it warmly 
 welcome. I suspect that the English student, in the senti- 
 mental first stage of his acquaintance with Dante, gets far 
 more significance from the Italian words than Italian youths 
 do. At any rate, a translation in itself is a dead thing; 
 it cannot be the equivalent of living Italian. Indeed, it is 
 impossible to say how barren is the English version without
 
 176 DANTE 
 
 the Italian text to look at, and how amazing a richness is 
 conferred by merely an occasional glance at the Italian. 
 
 This little book has been prepared for readers, bred upon 
 the religious and scientific ideas of modern times, who seek 
 a spiritual meaning in Dante and are indifferent to thir- 
 teenth-century theology and astronomy; and so it counsels 
 such readers to skim lightly over Dante's elaborate reckon- 
 ings of the time of day, his explanations of the density of 
 the moon or the influences of the stars, and all natural his- 
 tory taken from Aristotle. From this point of view, for 
 proper reading introductory to Dante, the lieginner should 
 go to Isaiah, the Psalms, St. Paul, Plotinus, St. Augustine's 
 Confessions, or rather, to selected ])arts of such books, also 
 to the Lives of St. Catherine of Siena, of St. Theresa, and 
 to passages from Ruysbroeck, from the Lady Juliana of 
 Norwich, Brother Lawrence, and St. John of the Cross, as 
 well as to sundry chapters of Miss Underhill's book 
 Mysticism. 
 
 Dante is a prophet of the spiritual life, and he is best 
 understood, not by studying Benvenuto da Imola, Witte, 
 Scartazzini, Moore, Gardner, and other eminent .scholars 
 and commentators, but by making ourselves familiar with 
 the thoughts of those men who held the same spiritual view 
 of life that Dante did. 
 
 Noi)ody who has any knowledge of Dante or any acquaint- 
 ance with the bulky literature of explanation that encircles 
 hini, can entertain any feeling other than deep respect and 
 gratitude to the scholars who have dedicated their lives to 
 the service of the great poet. They constitute the goodly 
 company of amiri clelln Memoria di Dnnte, for we may well 
 apply to them the title assumed by Leonardo Bruni. They 
 hare cleared away difficulties in the text; they rave eluci- 
 dated the meaning of old words; they have tracked to their 
 sources a thousand references and allusions taken by Dante 
 from all the known literature that existed before him; they 
 have, as it were, digged, drained and reclaimed a great part 
 of the slough of ol)scurity that surrounded the sacred poem, 
 so tliat now we all, if we will, may approach it over a solid
 
 APPENDIX 1'77 
 
 road of scholarship. Not to mention their labors, even in a 
 little elementary book like this, would be to slam the door 
 in the face of intellectual curiosity. But the palace of learn- 
 ing is like a mediaeval castle, with outer courts, inner 
 courts, halls, chambers, corridors, intricate passage-ways, 
 and underground vaults, where duly authorized ciceroni 
 only are competent to guide and explain; a primer can l^ut 
 point the finger in certain directions and oifer certain 
 general suggestions. 
 
 The beginner should read certain essays on Dante that 
 have become classical; that by Thomas Carlyle on The Hero 
 as Poet and those by R. W. Church, James Russell Lowell, 
 and Charles Eliot Norton. C. A. Dinsmore's Aids to the 
 Study of Dante is an unusually good book. The beginner 
 should buy the three little volumes of the Temple Classics 
 which contain the Inferno, the Purgatorio, and the Paror- 
 diso, Italian on one side, English on the other, and also the 
 volume that contains the Vita Nuova and the C'anzaniere; 
 and whenever he goes for a solitary walk, of a Sunday or 
 in his holidays, he should carry one of them in his pocket. 
 
 Beyond this no primer should be dogmatic, but a bit of 
 advice may be given. Let the beginner go to some library, 
 such for instance as the Harvard College library, take down 
 from the shelves a volume or two of the early commenta- 
 tors, and dip into them, hov.ever casually; for there is in 
 their ancient pages an odor of reverence, of filial piety, that 
 communicates itself through the touch of the hands and the 
 look of the paragra])hs, and the visitor — as if he were in 
 some religious building in a foreign land — cannot but feel 
 a soothing calm from the consciousness that he is in the 
 midst of disciples of a very great man. Here is a list of 
 those earliest commentators: 
 
 Chiose Anonime alia prima Cantica della Divina Convme- 
 dia (Ed. Selmi, 186.5). This gloss is believed to be the 
 earliest, and has been assigned, at a guess, to the year 13;;?0. 
 
 Jl Commento all' Inferno di Graziuolo de' BamhaijUoU 
 (Udine, 1892). This is assigned to the year 1324 or there- 
 abouts.
 
 178 DANTE 
 
 Chiose alia Cantica deW Inferno di Dante Allighieri 
 attribttite a Jacopo suo fiplio (Florence, 1848). This is of 
 about the same date. 
 
 Commento di Jacopo di Giovanni dalla Lana (Milan, 
 1865). Probably written a little before 1330. 
 
 L'Otlimo Commento dcUa Dirina Commedia (Pisa, 1827). 
 Written, perhaps by Andrea Lancia, a little after 1330. 
 
 Petri Allegherii Commentariurn (Florence, 1845). This is 
 a commentary on the whole Comedy by Dante's son Pietro; 
 it was comj)osed about 1340. 
 
 // Comento sopra la Commedia di Dnnte Alighieri di 
 Giovanni Boccaccio. (There are various editions.) Tliis con- 
 tains the substance of Boccaccio's lectures in 1373; it ends 
 abruptly, owing to his death, in Canto XVII of the Inferno. 
 
 Benvenuti de Ramhaldis de Imola Comentum, super 
 iJuntin Aldigherij Comoediam (Florence, 1887). This was 
 written in 1375. 
 
 Divers sorts of curiosity take the bcfjinncr to one or 
 another of these commentaries; one is the oldest, one ))y 
 Dante's son, another (that by Benvenuto da Imola) is by 
 far the longest and the best, a fourth was written by that 
 attractive jierson, Giovanni Boccaccio; two are in I>atin, 
 the rest in Italian. The beginner will do no more than read 
 a few lines here and there; and, even at that, he should be 
 on his guard, and remember to make allowance for the 
 changed significance of words. These old commentators all 
 call Beatrice Theology, whereas we should call her the 
 Knowledge of God or better still, the Wisdom of Love, for 
 God is Love; to them Tlicology was a radiant light, but to 
 us it usually recalls P^aust's remark, wlicn enumerating his 
 .studies, — Philosophy, Juris{)rudence, Medicine, "und leider 
 auch Theologie." 
 
 Sometimes the beginner has a curiosity to know at least 
 the names of Dante's early biographers. They are: 
 
 (Giovanni Viliani (1275P-134S) ; C'ronira, Book VIIT, 
 Chaj). 49. A very brief account of the poet and liis works. 
 
 Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375); Trattatello in laude di 
 Dante, a Little Treatise in praise of Dante, written about
 
 APPENDIX 179 
 
 13()4; and the Compendio, which is the Trattatello with 
 variations of no great importance, apparently made not by 
 Boccaccio but by some unknown liand. 
 
 Filippo Villani, a nephew of Giovanni (d. about 1310), • 
 De Vita et 2loribus Dantis, a brief biography included with 
 others of illustrious Florentines. 
 
 Leonardo Bruni, also called Lionardo Aretino (1370- 
 1444); La Vita di Dante. Bruni had before him some orig- 
 inal documents unknown to Boccaccio. 
 
 These, together with several fifteenth-century biographies, 
 and some scattered scraps concerning Dante's life, are pub- 
 lished together in a large volume, in the Storia Letteraria 
 d'ltuUu. Of them all Boccaccio's is by far the best, and 
 Brum's next; these two have been translated by J. Robin- 
 son Smith (H. Holt, 1901), and by P. H. Wicksteed (Chatto 
 and Windus, 1911). The other biographies have little value. 
 
 For the reader who merely desires a brief account of 
 whiit is known of Dante and his times, there are several 
 little books: Dante Alighieri, his Life and Works, by Paget 
 Toynbee; Dante, by E. G. Gardner; Dante, by C. H. Grand- 
 gent. There are also, of course, very large books with full 
 exposition of the evidence concerning the events of Dante's 
 life, such as Dante; sein Leben und sein Werk, etc., by 
 Franz Xaver Kraus (1897), or Dante, by Nicola Zingarelli 
 in the Storia Letteraria d'ltalia. 
 
 But I have more than reached my limit, and I bid the 
 student Godspeed upon his more ambitious road, 
 
 lo tuo piacere omai prendi per duce. 
 
 He will sit at the feet of Karl Witte (the great German 
 scholar, with his Dante-Forschungen), of Scartazzini, the 
 Swiss, who wrote in German and Italian, of Karl Vossler, 
 an authority now living, of Dante's countrymen, Pio Rajna, 
 Corrado Ricci, Tommaso Casini, Francesco Torraca, of the 
 learned Englishmen, E. Moore, Paget Toynbee, E. G. 
 Gardner, P. H. Wicksteed, and of other scholars, whose 
 reputations are now in the making, both English and 
 American. He will take from the shelf the three concord- 
 ances, Concordance of the Divina Commedia, by E. A, Fay,
 
 180 DANTE 
 
 Concordanza delle opere Italiane in prosa e del canzoniere 
 di Dante AHghieri, by E. S. Sheldon and A. C. White, and 
 Dantis AIncfherii Operiim Latinorum Concordantiae, by 
 E. K. Rand, E. H. Wilkins, and A. C. White. But I have 
 already fjone too far, and I obey the Scholar's voice that 
 sternly addresses me and my fellow dilettanti: 
 
 O voi, che xiete in piccioletta barca, 
 tornate a riveder li vostri liti.
 
 INDEX 
 
 AI.LEGORY, in the Middle Ages, 39. 
 Apocalypse, 18-19. 
 Augustine, St., his conversion, 21-22; on sin, 80; on lust, 85; 
 on prayer, 101; conversation with Monica on "Enter 
 thou into the joy of thy Lord," 138-140. 
 
 BEATRICE (see also Vita Nuova), 23; in Purgatorio 
 her rebuke to Dante, 43-46. 
 
 Benvenuto da Imola, 5. 
 
 Bernard, St., 159; his prayer to the Virgin Mary, 159-160. 
 
 Boccaccio, biography of Dante, 4; lectures on Dante, 5; 
 on Dante's studious youth, 36; on allegory, 39; on 
 Dante's licentiousness, 42; on his pride, 86-87; on 
 Dante's death and funeral, 165-166; description of 
 Dante, 169-170; anecdote of his powers of concentra- 
 tion, 170-171. 
 
 Bochme, Jacob, on self-surrender, 132. 
 
 Boethius, quoted, 136. 
 
 Bonagiunta, 119-120. 
 
 Bonaventura, St., on drawing near to God, 137. 
 
 Boniface VIII, Pope, 18. 
 
 Botticelli, 5. 
 
 15runetto I.t^tini, relations to Dante, 23-24. 
 
 Bruni, Leonardo, 5; on Dante's youth, 34; on his priorate 
 48; on Dante's drawing, 79. 
 
 Butler, A. J., 175. 
 
 Bunyan, his conversion, 22; on sin, 81. 
 
 Byron, on Dante's tenderness, 11. 
 
 CACCIAGUIDA, 151, 
 Can Grande, Dante's letter to, 40. 
 Carlylc, John A., 9. 
 Carlylc, Thomas, 9. 
 Carpenter, Boyd, Bishop of Rijwn, 1. 
 
 181
 
 182 INDEX 
 
 Casella, 118-119. 
 
 Catherine, St., of Siena, on her conversion, 104; on love, 
 
 14;2-M3. 
 Cavalcanti, harsh words on Dante, 42, 
 Chaucer, translation of St. Bernard's prayer, etc., Par. 
 
 XXXIII, 160-161. 
 Church, Dean, 9. 
 Coleridge, on pride, 86. 
 Conwiedia, its rank, 1; its career, 4; reasons therefor, 10- 
 
 13; two aspects, 74; its ethical teaching, 115. 
 Convivio, 11; Lady of the Window (Philosophy), (II, Ch. 
 
 13), 41; on his exile (I, Ch. 3), .50; contents of the 
 
 treatise, 65-66; definition of love (HI, Cli. 2), 139; on 
 
 translation (I, Ch. 7), 174. 
 
 DANIEL, ARNAUT, 121. 
 Dante, his fame in Italy, 7; in Spain, 8; in France, 
 8; in Germany, 8; in England, 9; in the United States, 
 9; a great poet, 10; a prophet, 11; his birth, 14; his 
 views on the Roman Empire, 14; the influence of Bea- 
 trice and of Exile, 22; his youth, 34; his studies, 36; the 
 Lady of the Window, 37; attitude towards allegory, 
 39; letter to Can Grande, 40; sins of the flesh, 42; ode 
 to Pietra, 42; Beatrice's rebuke in Purgatory, 43-46; 
 life before exile, 48; condeumation, 49; exile, 49-50; 
 wanderings, 53; hopes to return, 53-56; letter to 
 Princes of Italy, 51-55; letter to Henry VII, 55; letter 
 on offer of pardon, 56-57; his pride, 85-87; his descent 
 into hell, 87-88; uj) the Mount of Purgatory, 93 et seq.; 
 rapt to Heaven, 145; last years, 163; at Ravenna, 163- 
 164; treatise on Earth and Water, 164; embassy to 
 Venice, 165; death, 165; funeral, 165-166; gossij) as to 
 first seven cantos of Inferno, 166; anecdote as to last 
 thirteen cantos of Paradixo, 166-169; personal char- 
 acteristics, 169-170; anecdote of his absorption in read- 
 ing, 170-171; his portraits, 171-172. 
 
 Drlncroix, on mysticism, 133. 
 
 Donati, Forese, 42. 
 
 iJonne ch'avete intellello d'amore (canzone), 119.
 
 INDEX 183 
 
 EDWARDS, JONATHAN E., on contemplation, 152*153, 
 Edwards, Mrs. Jonathan, on love, 143-144. 
 Emerson, Over-Soul, quoted, 105, 134. 
 Epistola V, quoted, 54-55. 
 Epistola VII, quoted, 55. 
 Epistola IX, quoted, 56-57. 
 Epistola X, quoted, 40, 115. 
 
 FARIXATA DEGLI UBERTI, 77. 
 Filelfo, 5. 
 Fox, George, on conversion, 103-104; on purification, 126. 
 Francesca da Rimini, 76, 94. 
 Francis, St., of Assisi, his conversion, 104. 
 Frederick II, 63. 
 
 GARDNER, E. G., Dante and the Mystics, quoted, 136- 
 137. 
 Gertrude, St., on love, 141-142; on God's presence, 158. 
 Giardino, Piero, anecdote told by, 166-169. 
 Giotto, 171. 
 
 Grace, on divine, 102-104. 
 Guido Novell!, Count, 163, 164-166. 
 Guido, vorrei die tu, etc. (sonnet), 35. 
 Guinizelli, ode, Al cor geniil, 33; Dante's apostrophe to, in 
 
 Purgatory, 64. 
 Gulttone d'Arezzo, 64, 120. 
 Guyon, Madame, 104-105. 
 
 I 
 
 LARIO, ERA, letter of, 57-58. 
 
 Inferno, quoted, grant of riches to Papacy (XIX, 115- 
 117), 18; Simoniacal popes (XIX), 18; scarlet woman 
 of the Apocalypse, IS; calling attention to the allegory 
 (IX, 61-63), 74; lines over i)ortal (III, 9), 75; the 
 trimmers (III, 34-12), 76; Ulysses (XXVI, 112-120), 
 78; Ugolino and Ruggieri (XXXII-XXXIII), 78; 
 Maestro Adamo (XXX, 63-67), 82; gluttony (VI, 10- 
 12), 82-83; mad rage (XII, 22-25), 83; Beatrice's nar- 
 rative to Virgil (II, 52-72, 94-120), 88-91.
 
 184 INDEX 
 
 Isainh, on Israel (i, 4-7), 16; on the daughters of Zion 
 
 (iii, lG-23), 20; his illumination, 21. 
 Italy, her wretched condition, 16-17. 
 
 JACOPO, Dante's son, 4; anecdote of finding last cantos 
 of Paradiso, 1(J7-1G9. 
 Jacopo da Lentino, the Notary, 63-64, 120. 
 James, St., on hope, lo4; Epistle of, 156. 
 John of the Cross, on finding God, 51-52; on prayer, 100; 
 on purification by fire, 110; on the will of God, 131-132. 
 John, St., 154. 
 Johnson, Henry, 10, 174. 
 
 LADY of the Window, 37, 41 et seq. 
 Landino, 5. 
 Langdon, Courtney, 10, 174. 
 Lawrence, Brother, quoted, 105, 126-137. 
 Longfellow, Henry W., 9. 
 Lowell, James Russell, 10. 
 
 MACAULAY, on Paradise Lout, 3. 
 Maeterlinck, quoting Plotinus, 137. 
 Maiietti, 5. 
 
 Martineau, James, on meditation, 152. 
 Matilda. 124-125. 
 Meditation, 152. 
 iMeisler Eckhardt, quoted, 52. 
 Michelangelo, sonnet to Dante, 6. 
 Milton, Paradise Lost and the Divine Comedy, 3; on purity, 
 
 125-126. 
 MonarchUi, he, contents of, 68-71; on peace, 95. 
 Moore, Edward, 9, 179. 
 My.stics, 130. 
 
 N 
 O 
 
 ORTON, CHARLES ELIOT, 10. 
 
 ELSNER, II., 9. 
 Oltre la gpera (sonnet), 31.
 
 INDEX 185 
 
 PARADISE LOST, compared to Divine Comedy, 3. 
 Paradiso, Introduction to, 139; Pdradiso itself, 146 ; 
 passages quoted; on Justinian (VI), 15; on ricli priests 
 (XXI, 127-133), 18; on Florence, decay of simple man- 
 ners (XV), 19-20; prophecy of Dante's exile (XVII, 
 55-60), 50; opening of (I, 1-2), 129; his superhuman 
 experience (I, 4-6, 73-75), 145; differences in blessed- 
 ness (XV, 35-36), 147; Dante's conception of the work- 
 ings of divine energy (II), 149; Piccarda (III, 70-87), 
 150; on the value of worldly things (XXII, 136-138), 
 154; belief in one God (XXH', 130-132), 155; on hope 
 (XXV, 67-69), 155; Empyrean (XXX 39-42), 157; the 
 light of God's presence (XXX, 100-102), 158; St. 
 Bernard's prayer to the Virgin Mary (XXXIII) 160; 
 Dante reaches the immediate presence of God (ib.), 
 161-162; Dante's inability to describe what he saw (ib.), 
 162; end, 162. 
 
 Pascal, 126. 
 
 Paul, St., his illumination, 21 ; Epistle to the Romans (i, 28- 
 31), 81-82; on his being rapt to heaven (II Cor., xii, 
 1-4), 144-145. 
 
 Peter, St., 154. 
 
 Piccarda, 150. 
 
 Pier della Vigne, 77. 
 
 Pietro, Dante's son, 4, 167. 
 
 Plato, Symposium quoted, 127-128. 
 
 Plotinus, quoted, 137. 
 
 Plumptre, Dean, 9. 
 
 Prayer, efficacy in Purgatory, 100. 
 
 Provencal poetry, 63. 
 
 Pucci, Antonio, on Dante, 61. 
 
 Purgatorio, 92; the happy side of, 114; passages quoted: on 
 Trajan (X, 73), 15; on wretched condition of Italy 
 (VI, 76-87), 17; on papal malfeasance, 19; on Forese 
 Donati (XXIII), 42; on Beatrice's rebuke of Dante 
 (XXX, 108), 43; ib. (XXX, 115-145), 44-45; ib. 
 (XXXI, 22-30), 45; ib., 34-37, 45; ib.. 44-45, 46; ib.. 49- 
 60, 46; ib. (XXXIII, 88-90), 47; Guinizelli (XXVI, 
 97-99), 64; Dante calls attention to allegory (VIII, 19-
 
 186 INDEX 
 
 i,'l), 7-1.; openiriir lines of (I, 1-6), 9^; on divine light 
 (I, 13-17), 93; on going uj) at night (VII, 44), 94; on 
 peace (III, 74-75), 96; do (V, 61-63), 96; do (XXI, 
 13), 97; do (XXVI, 54), 97; do (XV, 131-133), 97; do 
 (XXVII, 115-117), 9S; the pagan virtues (I, 23), 98; 
 the steep ascent (III, 46-51), 99; do (IV, 25-29), 99; 
 the ascent becomes easier higher up (IV, 88-90), 100; 
 on prayer (II, 28-29), 101; do (IX, 108-110), 101-102; 
 do (Xill, 16-17), 102; on divine grace (I, 68), 107; do 
 (IX, 52-61), 107-108; the proud (X, XI), and the 
 envious (XIII, XIV), 109; going through fire 
 (XXVII), 110; do (XXVII, 35-36), 111; do (ib., 43- 
 44), 111; do {ib., 54), 111; Virgil's leavetaking 
 (XXVII, 127-142), 112; exhortation not to fear pains 
 (X, 106-110), 117; reference to swallow (IX, 13-14), 
 117; to the homesick traveler (VIII, 1-6), 117; Casella 
 (II, 106-111), 118-119; the true poet (XXIV, 52-60), 
 120; Sordello (VII, 16-19), 121; angel of humility 
 (XII, 88-90), 122; Virgil's rebuke of human baseness 
 (XIV, 148-150), 123; Matilda (the happiness of inno- 
 cence) (XXVIII, 37-66), 124-125. 
 
 ROSSETTI, D. G., 9, 32, 33, 120. 
 Rutherford, JVIark, on the love of woman, 24-25. 
 Iluysi)roeck, 131. 
 
 SCARTAZZINI, 8-9, 179. 
 vShelley, on Dante's tenderness, 11. 
 Sordello, 121-122. 
 Statins, 121, 122. 
 
 T/liiTO gentile, tanto onesta pare (sonnet), 30. 
 Tolstoi, on l)rotherhood of nations, 70; on conversion to 
 a new life, 106; on the infinite, 134-135. 
 Toynbee, Paget, 9, 179. 
 
 UGOEINO, 78. 
 Ulysses, 77-78. 
 Underbill, Evelyn, Mysticism quoted, 52, 104-105, 131, 133.
 
 INDEX 187 
 
 VERNON, LORD, 9. 
 Vernon, W. W., 5, 9, 175. 
 Villani, Filippo, 5. 
 
 Yillani, Giovanni, on Dante, 5; on his pride, 86. 
 Virgil, 88, 112. 
 Vita Nuova, 25-33. 
 Vossler, Karl, 8. 
 Vulgari Eloquentia, De, 63, 65. 
 
 ICKSTEED, P. H., 9, 179. 
 Witte, Karl, 8, 179. 
 
 w 
 
 Wordsworth, The Excursion quoted, 113; Ode to Duty 
 quoted, 123.
 
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