The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri (well read books .txt) 📗

decidedly in favor of the beauty of Christ, and the former severely censures the Manichaeans, who entertained a contrary opinion. Thus, then, Christ, in taking upon him the form of Adam, assumed features exactly resembling those of the Virgin Mary.⁠ ⁠… In the West, a century later than the time of Damascenus, Christ was always thus depicted. S. Anschaire, Archbishop of Hamburg and Bremen, who beheld Christ [in a vision], described him as ‘tall, clad in the manner of the Jews, and beautiful in face, the splendor of Divinity darted like a flame from the eyes of the Redeemer, but his voice was full of sweetness.’ ”

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The Angel Gabriel. Luke 1:28:⁠—

“And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favored, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.”

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The countenance of each saint became brighter. ↩

The word in the original is abbelliva, which Dante here uses in the sense of the Provençal, abellis, of Purgatorio XXVI 140. He uses the word in the same sense in Convito, II 7:⁠—

“In all speech the speaker is chiefly bent on persuasion, that is, on pleasing the audience, all’ abbellire dell’ audienza, which is the source of all other persuasions.”

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The star of morning delighting in the sun, is from Canto VIII 12, where Dante speaks of Venus as

“The star
That wooes the sun, now following, now in front.”

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The Virgin Mary, the Queen of this empire. ↩

Adam. ↩

St. Peter. ↩

St. John, who lived till the evil days and persecutions of the Church, the bride of Christ, won by the crucifixion. ↩

Moses. ↩

Exodus 32:9:⁠—

“And the Lord said unto Moses, I have seen this people, and, behold, it is a stiff-necked people.”

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Anna, mother of the Virgin Mary. ↩

Santa Lucìa, virgin and martyr. Dante, Inferno II 100, makes her, as the emblem of illuminating grace, intercede with Beatrice for his salvation. ↩

Trusting only to thine own efforts. ↩

Chaucer, “Second Nonnes Tale”:⁠—

“Thou maide and mother, doughter of thy son,
Thou well of mercy, sinful soules cure,
In whom that God of bountee chees to won;
Thou humble and high over every creature,
Thou nobledest so fer forth our nature,
That no desdaine the maker had of kinde
His son in blood and flesh to clothe and winde.

“Within the cloystre blisful of thy sides,
Toke mannes shape the eternal love and pees,
That of the trine compas Lord and gide is,
Whom erthe, and see, and heven out of relees
Ay herien; and thou, virgine wemmeles,
Bare of thy body (and dweltest maiden pure)
The creatour of every creature.

“Assembled is in thee magnificence
With mercy, goodnesse, and with swiche pitee,
That thou, that art the sonne of excellence,
Not only helpest hem that praien thee,
But oftentime of thy benignitee
Ful freely, or that men thin helpe beseche,
Thou goest beforne, and art hir lives leche.”

See also his “Ballade of Our Ladie,” and “La Priere de Nostre Dame.” ↩

As St. Macarius said to his soul:⁠—

“Having taken up thine abode in heaven, where thou hast God and his holy angels to converse with, see that thou descend not thence; regard not earthly things.”

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Finished the ardor of desire in its accomplishment. ↩

Aeneid, III 442, Davidson’s Tr.:⁠—

“When, wafted thither, you reach the city Cumae, the hallowed lakes, and Avernus resounding through the woods, you will see the raving prophetess, who, beneath a deep rock, reveals the fates, and commits to the leaves of trees her characters and words. Whatever verses the virgin has inscribed on the leaves, she ranges in harmonious order, and leaves in the cave enclosed by themselves: uncovered they remain in their position, nor recede from their order. But when, upon turning the hinge, a small breath of wind has blown upon them, and the door [by opening] hath discomposed the tender leaves, she never afterward cares to catch the verses as they are fluttering in the hollow cave, nor to recover their situation, or join them together.”

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Luke 9:62:⁠—

“No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

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Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica, I Quaest. IV 2:⁠—

“If therefore God be the first efficient cause of things, the perfections, of all things must preexist preeminently in God.” And Buti: “In God are all things that are made, as in the First Cause, that foresees everything.”

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Of all the commentaries which I have consulted, that of Buti alone sustains this rendering of the line. The rest interpret it, “What I say is but a simple or feeble glimmer of what I saw.” ↩

There are almost as many interpretations of this passage as there are commentators. The most intelligible is, that Dante forgot in a single moment more of the glory he had seen, than the world had forgotten in five and twenty centuries of the Argonautic expedition, when Neptune wondered at the shadow of the first ship that ever crossed the sea. ↩

Aristotle, Ethics, I 1, Gillies’s Tr.:⁠—

“Since every art and every kind of knowledge, as well as all the actions and all the deliberations of men, constantly aim at something which they call good, good in general may be justly defined, that which all desire.”

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In the same manner the reflection of the Griffin in Beatrice’s eyes, Purgatorio XXXI 124, is described as changing, while the object itself remained unchanged:⁠—

“Think, Reader, if within myself I marvelled,
When I beheld the thing itself stand still,
And in its