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

forcibly for its having been written by James the Elder. Lardner rejects that opinion as absurd; while Benson argues against it, but is well answered by Michaelis, who after all, is obliged to leave the question undecided. See his Introduction to the New Testament, translated by Dr. Marsh, ed. Cambridge, 1793. V. iv. c. 26. - 1, 2, 3.

v. 35. As Jesus.] In the transfiguration on Mount Tabor.

v. 39. The second flame.] St. James.

v. 40. I lifted up.] "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help." Ps. Cxxi. 1.

v. 59. From Egypt to Jerusalem.] From the lower world to heaven.

v. 67. Hope.] This is from the Sentences of Petrus Lombardus. "Est autem spes virtus, qua spiritualia et aeterna bona speratam, id est, beatitudinem aeternam. Sine meritis enim aliquid sperare non spes, sed praesumptio, dici potest." Pet. Lomb. Sent. 1. Iii. Dist. 26. Ed. Bas. 1486. Fol.

v. 74. His anthem.] Psalm ix. 10.

v. 90. Isaias ] Chap. lxi. 10.

v. 94. Thy brother.] St. John in the Revelation, c. vii. 9.

v. 101. Winter's month.] "If a luminary, like that which now appeared, were to shine throughout the month following the winter solstice during which the constellation Cancer appears in the east at the setting of the sun, there would be no interruption to the light, but the whole month would be as a single day."

v. 112. This.] St. John, who reclined on the bosom of our Saviour, and to whose charge Jesus recommended his mother.

v. 121. So I.] He looked so earnestly, to descry whether St. John were present there in body, or in spirit only, having had his doubts raised by that saying of our Saviour's: "If I will, that he tarry till I come what is that to thee."

v. 127. The two.] Christ and Mary, whom he has described, in the last Canto but one, as rising above his sight

CANTO XXVI

v. 2. The beamy flame.] St. John.

v. 13. Ananias' hand.] Who, by putting his hand on St. Paul, restored his sight. Acts, c. ix. 17.

v. 36. From him.] Some suppose that Plato is here meant, who, in his Banquet, makes Phaedrus say: "Love is confessedly amongst the eldest of beings, and, being the eldest, is the cause to us of the greatest goods " Plat. Op. t. x. p. 177. Bip. ed. Others have understood it of Aristotle, and others, of the writer who goes by the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, referred to in the twenty-eighth Canto.

v. 40. I will make.] Exodus, c. xxxiii. 19.

v. 42. At the outset.] John, c. i. 1. &c.

v. 51. The eagle of our Lord.] St. John

v. 62. The leaves.] Created beings.

v. 82. The first living soul.] Adam.

v. 107. Parhelion.] Who enlightens and comprehends all things; but is himself enlightened and comprehended by none.

v. 117. Whence.] That is, from Limbo. See Hell, Canto II. 53. Adam says that 5232 years elapsed from his creation to the time of his deliverance, which followed the death of Christ.

v. 133. EL] Some read UN, "One," instead of EL: but the latter of these readings is confirmed by a passage from Dante's Treatise De Vulg. Eloq. 1. i. cap. 4. "Quod prius vox primi loquentis sonaverit, viro sanae mentis in promptu esse non dubito ipsum fuisse quod Deus est, videlicet El." St. Isidore in the Origines, 1. vii. c. 1. had said, "Primum apud Hebraeos Dei nomen El dicitur."

v. 135. Use.] From Horace, Ars. Poet. 62.

v. 138. All my life.] "I remained in the terrestrial Paradise only tothe seventh hour." In the Historia Scolastica of Petrus Comestor, it is said of our first parents: Quidam tradunt eos fuisse in Paradiso septem horae." I. 9. ed. Par. 1513. 4to.

CANTO XXVII

v. 1. Four torches.] St. Peter, St. James, St. John, and Adam.

v. 11. That.] St. Peter' who looked as the planet Jupiter would, if it assumed the sanguine appearance of liars.

v. 20. He.] Boniface VIII.

v. 26. such colour.]
Qui color infectis adversi solis ab ietu
Nubibus esse solet; aut purpureae Aurorae.
Ovid, Met. 1. iii. 184.

v. 37. Of Linus and of Cletus.] Bishops of Rome in the first century.

v. 40. Did Sextus, Pius, and Callixtus bleed And Urban.] The former two, bishops of the same see, in the second; and the others, in the fourth century. v. 42. No purpose was of ours.] "We did not intend that our successors should take any part in the political divisions among Christians, or that my figure (the seal of St. Peter) should serve as a mark to authorize iniquitous grants and privileges."

v. 51. Wolves.] Compare Milton, P. L. b. xii. 508, &c.

v. 53. Cahorsines and Gascons.] He alludes to Jacques d'Ossa, a native of Cahors, who filled the papal chair in 1316, after it had been two years vacant, and assumed the name of John XXII., and to Clement V, a Gascon, of whom see Hell, Canto XIX. 86, and Note.

v. 63. The she-goat.] When the sun is in Capricorn.

v. 72. From the hour.] Since he had last looked (see Canto XXII.) he perceived that he had passed from the meridian circle to the eastern horizon, the half of our hemisphere, and a quarter of the heaven.

v. 76. From Gades.] See Hell, Canto XXVI. 106

v. 78. The shore.] Phoenicia, where Europa, the daughter of Agenor mounted on the back of Jupiter, in his shape of a bull.

v. 80. The sun.] Dante was in the constellation Gemini, and the sun in Aries. There was, therefore, part of those two constellations, and the whole of Taurus, between them.

v. 93. The fair nest of Leda.] "From the Gemini;" thus called, because Leda was the mother of the twins, Castor and Pollux

v. 112. Time's roots.] "Here," says Beatrice, "are the roots, from whence time springs: for the parts, into which it is divided, the other heavens must be considered." And she then breaks out into an exclamation on the degeneracy of human nature, which does not lift itself to the contemplation of divine things.

v. 126. The fair child of him.] So she calls human nature. Pindar by a more easy figure, terms the day, "child of the sun."

v. 129. None.] Because, as has been before said, the shepherds are become wolves.

v. 131. Before the date.] "Before many ages are past, before those fractions, which are drops in the reckoning of every year, shall amount to so large a portion of time, that January shall be no more a winter month." By this periphrasis is meant " in a short time," as we say familiarly, such a thing will happen before a thousand years are over when we mean, it will happen soon.

v. 135. Fortune shall be fain.] The commentators in general suppose that our Poet here augurs that great reform, which he vainly hoped would follow on the arrival of the Emperor Henry VII. in Italy. Lombardi refers the prognostication to Can Grande della Scala: and, when we consider that this Canto was not finished till after the death of Henry, as appears from the mention that is made of John XXII, it cannot be denied but the conjecture is probable.

CANTO XXVIII

v. 36. Heav'n, and all nature, hangs upon that point.] [GREEK HERE] Aristot. Metaph. 1. xii. c. 7. "From that beginning depend heaven and nature."

v. 43. Such diff'rence.] The material world and the intelligential (the copy and the pattern) appear to Dante to differ in this respect, that the orbits of the latter are more swift, the nearer they are to the centre, whereas the contrary is the case with the orbits of the former. The seeming contradiction is thus accounted for by Beatrice. In the material world, the more ample the body is, the greater is the good of which itis capable supposing all the parts to be equally perfect. But in the intelligential world, the circles are more excellent and powerful, the more they approximate to the central point, which is God. Thus the first circle, that of the seraphim, corresponds to the ninth sphere, or primum mobile, the second, that of the cherubim, to the eighth sphere, or heaven of fixed stars; the third, or circle of thrones, to the seventh sphere, or planet of Saturn; and in like manner throughout the two other trines of circles and spheres.

In orbs
Of circuit inexpressible they stood,
Orb within orb
Milton, P. L. b. v. 596.

v. 70. The sturdy north.] Compare Homer, II. b. v. 524.

v. 82. In number.] The sparkles exceeded the number which would be produced by the sixty-four squares of a chess-board, if for the first we reckoned one, for the next, two; for the third, four; and so went on doubling to the end of the account.

v. 106. Fearless of bruising from the nightly ram.] Not injured, like the productions of our spring, by the influence of autumn, when the constellation Aries rises at sunset.

v. 110. Dominations.]
Hear all ye angels, progeny of light,
Thrones, domination's, princedoms, virtues, powers.
Milton, P. L. b. v. 601.

v. 119. Dionysius.] The Areopagite, in his book De Caelesti Hierarchia.

v. 124. Gregory.] Gregory the Great. "Novem vero angelorum ordines diximus, quia videlicet esse, testante sacro eloquio, scimus: Angelos, archangelos, virtutes, potestates, principatus, dominationae, thronos, cherubin atque seraphin." Divi Gregorii, Hom. xxxiv. f. 125. ed. Par. 1518. fol.

v. 126. He had learnt.] Dionysius, he says, had learnt from St. Paul. It is almost unnecessary to add, that the book, above referred to, which goes under his name, was the production of a later age.

CANTO XXIX

v. 1. No longer.] As short a space, as the sun and moon are in changing hemispheres, when they are opposite to one another, the one under the sign of Aries, and the other under that of Libra, and both hang for a moment, noised as it were in the hand of the zenith.

v. 22. For, not in process of before or aft.] There was neither "before nor after," no distinction, that is, of time, till the creation of the world.

v. 30. His threefold operation.] He seems to mean that spiritual beings, brute matter, and the intermediate part of the creation, which participates both of spirit and matter, were produced at once.

v. 38. On Jerome's pages.] St. Jerome had described the angels as created before the rest of the universe: an opinion which Thomas Aquinas controverted; and the latter, as Dante thinks, had Scripture on his side.

v. 51. Pent.] See Hell, Canto XXXIV. 105.

v. 111. Of Bindi and of Lapi.] Common names of men at Florence

v. 112. The sheep.] So Milton, Lycidas.
The hungry sheep look up and are not fed,
But, swoln with wind and the rank mist they draw,
Rot inwardly.

v. 121. The preacher.] Thus Cowper, Task, b. ii.

'Tis pitiful
To court a grin, when you should woo a soul, &c.

v. 131. Saint Anthony. Fattens with this his swine.] On the sale of these blessings, the brothers of St. Anthony supported themselves and their paramours. From behind the swine of St. Anthony, our Poet levels a blow at the object of his inveterate enmity, Boniface VIII, from whom, "in 1297, they obtained the dignity and privileges of an independent congregation." See Mosheim's Eccles. History in Dr. Maclaine's Translation, v. ii. cent. xi. p. 2. c. 2. - 28.

v. 140. Daniel.] "Thousand thousands ministered unto him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him." Dan. c. vii. 10.

CANTO XXX

v. 1. Six thousand miles.] He compares the vanishing of the vision to the fading away of the stars at dawn, when it is noon-day six thousand miles off, and the shadow, formed by the earth over the part of it inhabited by the Poet, is about to disappear.

v. 13. Engirt.] " ppearing to be encompassed by these angelic bands, which are in reality encompassed by it."

v. 18. This turn.] Questa vice. Hence perhaps Milton, P. L. b. viii. 491. This