The Divine Comedy - Dante Alighieri (bts book recommendations txt) 📗

at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the twelfth century." Dict. de Moreri.

v. 131. The straw-litter'd street.] The name of a street in Paris: the "Rue du Fouarre."

v. 136. The spouse of God.] The church.

CANTO XI

v. 1. O fond anxiety of mortal men.] Lucretius, 1. ii. 14

O miseras hominum mentes ! O pectora caeca
Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis
Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est!

v. 4. Aphorisms,] The study of medicine.

v. 17. 'The lustre.] The spirit of Thomas Aquinas

v. 29. She.] The church.

v. 34. One.] Saint Francis.

v. 36. The other.] Saint Dominic.

v. 40. Tupino.] A rivulet near Assisi, or Ascesi where Francis was born in 1182.

v. 40. The wave.] Chiascio, a stream that rises in a mountain near Agobbio, chosen by St. Ubaldo for the place of his retirement.

v. 42. Heat and cold.] Cold from the snow, and heat from the reflection of the sun.

v. 45. Yoke.] Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of the mountain to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi (as I have taken it) of the heavy impositions laid on those places by the Perugians. For GIOGO, like the Latin JUGUM, will admit of either sense.

v. 50. The east.]

This is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Shakespeare.

v. 55. Gainst his father's will.] In opposition to the wishes of his natural father

v. 58. In his father's sight.] The spiritual father, or bishop, in whose presence he made a profession of poverty.

v. 60. Her first husband.] Christ.

v. 63. Amyclas.] Lucan makes Caesar exclaim, on witnessing the secure poverty of the fisherman Amyclas:

—O vite tuta facultas
Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum
Intellecta deum! quibus hoc contingere templis,
Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu,
Caesarea pulsante manu?
Lucan Phars. 1. v. 531.

v. 72. Bernard.] One of the first followers of the saint.

v. 76. Egidius.] The third of his disciples, who died in 1262. His work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp See Lucas Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.

v. 76. Sylvester.] Another of his earliest associates.

v. 83. Pietro Bernardone.] A man in an humble station of life at Assisi.

v. 86. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.

v. 90. Honorius.] His successor Honorius III who granted certain privileges to the Franciscans.

v. 93. On the hard rock.] The mountain Alverna in the Apennine.

v. 100. The last signet.] Alluding to the stigmata, or marks resembling the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the saint's body.

v. 106. His dearest lady.] Poverty.

v. 113. Our Patriarch ] Saint Dominic.

v. 316. His flock ] The Dominicans.

v. 127. The planet from whence they split.] "The rule of their order, which the Dominicans neglect to observe."

CANTO XII

v. 1. The blessed flame.] Thomas Aquinas

v. 12. That voice.] The nymph Echo, transformed into the repercussion of the voice.

v. 25. One.] Saint Buonaventura, general of the Franciscan order, in which he effected some reformation, and one of the most profound divines of his age. "He refused the archbishopric of York, which was offered him by Clement IV, but afterwards was prevailed on to accept the bishopric of Albano and a cardinal's hat. He was born at Bagnoregio or Bagnorea, in Tuscany, A.D. 1221, and died in 1274." Dict. Histor. par Chaudon et Delandine. Ed. Lyon. 1804.

v. 28. The love.] By an act of mutual courtesy, Buonaventura, a Franciscan, is made to proclaim the praises of St. Dominic, as Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, has celebrated those of St. Francis.

v. 42. In that clime.] Spain.

v. 48. Callaroga.] Between Osma and Aranda, in Old Castile, designated by the royal coat of arms.

v. 51. The loving minion of the Christian faith.] Dominic was born April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace, Callaroga; his father and mother's names, Felix and Joanna, his mother's dream; his name of Dominic, given him in consequence of a vision by a noble matron, who stood sponsor to him, are all told in an anonymous life of the saint, said to be written in the thirteenth century, and published by Quetif and Echard, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. Par. 1719. fol. t 1. p. 25. These writers deny his having been an inquisitor, and indeed the establishment of the inquisition itself before the fourth Lateran council. Ibid. p. 88.

v. 55. In the mother's womb.] His mother, when pregnant with him, is said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white and black dog, with a lighted torch in its mouth.

v. 59. The dame.] His godmother's dream was, that he had one star in his forehead, and another in the nape of his neck, from which he communicated light to the east and the west.

v. 73. Felix.] Felix Gusman.

v. 75. As men interpret it.] Grace or gift of the Lord.

v. 77. Ostiense.] A cardinal, who explained the decretals.

v. 77. Taddeo.] A physician, of Florence.

v. 82. The see.] "The apostolic see, which no longer continues its wonted liberality towards the indigent and deserving; not indeed through its own fault, as its doctrines are still the same, but through the fault of the pontiff, who is seated in it."

v. 85. No dispensation.] Dominic did not ask license to compound for the use of unjust acquisitions, by dedicating a part of them to pious purposes.

v. 89. In favour of that seed.] "For that seed of the divine word, from which have sprung up these four-and-twenty plants, that now environ thee."

v. 101. But the track.] "But the rule of St. Francis is already deserted and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness."

v. 110. Tares.] He adverts to the parable of the taxes and the wheat.

v. 111. I question not.] "Some indeed might be found, who still observe the rule of the order, but such would come neither from Casale nor Acquasparta:" of the former of which places was Uberto, one master general, by whom the discipline had been relaxed; and of the latter, Matteo, another, who had enforced it with unnecessary rigour.

v. 121. -Illuminato here, And Agostino.] Two among the earliest followers of St. Francis.

v. 125. Hugues of St. Victor.] A Saxon of the monastery of Saint Victor at Paris, who fed ill 1142 at the age of forty-four. "A man distinguished by the fecundity of his genius, who treated in his writings of all the branches of sacred and profane erudition that were known in his time, and who composed several dissertations that are not destitute of merit." Maclaine's Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. v. iii . cent. xii. p. 2. 2. 23. I have looked into his writings, and found some reason for this high eulogium.

v. 125. Piatro Mangiadore.] "Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in 1198. Chaudon et Delandine Dict. Hist. Ed. Lyon. 1804. The work by which he is best known, is his Historia Scolastica, which I shall have occasion to cite in the Notes to Canto XXVI.

v. 126. He of Spain.] "To Pope Adrian V succeeded John XXI a native of Lisbon a man of great genius and extraordinary acquirements, especially in logic and in medicine, as his books, written in the name of Peter of Spain (by which he was known before he became Pope), may testify. His life was not much longer than that of his predecessors, for he was killed at Viterbo, by the falling in of the roof of his chamber, after he had been pontiff only eight months and as many days. A.D. 1277. Mariana, Hist. de Esp. l. xiv. c. 2.

v. 128. Chrysostom.] The eloquent patriarch of Constantinople.

v. 128. Anselmo.] "Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aosta, about 1034, and studied under Lanfrane at the monastery of Bec, in Normandy, where he afterwards devoted himself to a religious life, in his twenty-seventh year. In three years he was made prior, and then abbot of that monastery! from whence he was taken, in 1093, to succeed to the archbishopric, vacant by the death of Lanfrane. He enjoyed this dignity till his death, in 1109, though it was disturbed by many dissentions with William II and Henry I respecting the immunities and investitures. There is much depth and precisian in his theological works." Tiraboschi, Stor. della Lett. Ital. t. iii.

1. iv. c. 2. Ibid. c. v. "It is an observation made by many modern writers, that the demonstration of the existence of God, taken from the idea of a Supreme Being, of which Des Cartes is thought to be the author, was so many ages back discovered and brought to light by Anselm. Leibnitz himself makes the remark, vol. v. Oper. p. 570. Edit. Genev. 1768."

v. 129. Donatus.] Aelius Donatus, the grammarian, in the fourth century, one of the preceptors of St. Jerome.

v. 130. Raban.] "Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, is deservedly placed at the head of the Latin writers of this age." Mosheim, v. ii. cent. ix. p. 2 c. 2. 14.

v. 131. Joachim.] Abbot of Flora in Calabria; "whom the multitude revered as a person divinely inspired and equal to the most illustrious prophets of ancient times." Ibid. v. iii. cent. xiii. p. 2. c. 2. 33.

v. 134. A peer.] St. Dominic.

CANTO XIII

v. 1. Let him.] "Whoever would conceive the sight that now presented itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the brightest stars in heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus Major and two of Arcturus Minor, ranged in two circles, one within the other, each resembling the crown of Ariadne, and moving round m opposite directions."

v. 21. The Chiava.] See Hell, Canto XXIX. 45.

v. 29. That luminary.] Thomas Aquinas.

v. 31. One ear.] "Having solved one of thy questions, I proceed to answer the other. Thou thinkest, then, that Adam and Christ were both endued with all the perfection of which the human nature is capable and therefore wonderest at what has been said concerning Solomon"

v. 48. That.] "Things corruptible and incorruptible, are only emanations from the archetypal idea residing in the Divine mind."

v. 52. His brightness.] The Word: the Son of God.

v. 53. His love triune with them.] The Holy Ghost.

v. 55. New existences.] Angels and human souls.

v. 57. The lowest powers.] Irrational life and brute matter.

v. 62. Their wax and that which moulds it.] Matter, and the virtue or energy that acts on it.

v. 68. The heav'n.] The influence of the planetary bodies.

v. 77. The clay.] Adam.

v. 88. Who ask'd.] "He did not desire to know the number of the stars, or to pry into the subtleties of metaphysical and mathematical science: but asked for that wisdom which might fit him for his kingly office."

v. 120. —Parmenides Melissus Bryso.] For the singular opinions entertained by the two former of these heathen philosophers, see Diogenes Laertius, 1. ix. and Aristot. de Caelo, 1. iii. c. 1 and Phys. l. i. c. 2. The last is also twice adduced by 2. Aristotle (Anal Post. 1. i. c. 9. and Rhet. 1. iii. c. 2.) as 3. affording instances of false reasoning.

v. 123. Sabellius, Arius.] Well-known heretics.

v. 124. Scymitars.] A passage in the travels of Bertradon de la Brocquiere, translated by Mr. Johnes, will explain this allusion, which has given some trouble to the commentators. That traveler, who wrote before Dante, informs us, p. 138, that the wandering Arabs used their scymitars as mirrors.

v. 126. Let not.] "Let not short-sighted mortals presume to decide on the future doom of any man, from a consideration of his present character and actions."

CANTO XIV

v. 5. Such was the image.] The voice of Thomas Aquinas proceeding, from the circle to the centre and that of Beatrice from the centre to the circle.

v. 26. Him.] Literally translated by Chaucer, Troilus and Cresseide.

Thou one two, and three eterne on