{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_16978/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_16978","id":"gutenberg_16978","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/16978","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Biographies","Category: History - Medieval/Middle Ages","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321","Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321. Divina commedia"],"text":"E-text prepared by David Garcia, Bethanne M. Simms, and the Project\nGutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/)\n\n\n\nDANTE: \"THE CENTRAL MAN OF ALL THE WORLD.\"\n\nA Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the\nNew York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920\n\nby\n\nJOHN T. SLATTERY, Ph.D.\n\nWith a Preface by John H. Finley, L.H.D.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNew York\nP. J. Kenedy & Sons\n1920\nCopyright, 1920, by\nP. J. Kenedy & Sons, New York\nPrinted in U.S.A.\n\n\n\n\n\nDEDICATION\n\nTHIS MODEST WORK OWES ITS\nPUBLICATION TO THE ENCOURAGEMENT OF\n\nPRESIDENT ABRAM R. BRUBACHER\n\nAND\n\nDEAN HARLAN H. HORNER\n\nOF THE STATE COLLEGE FOR TEACHERS, ALBANY, N.Y.\n\n     WHERE MANY PLEASANT HOURS WERE PASSED IN\n     DELIVERING THESE LECTURES. TO THESE FRIENDS\n     AND TO THE STUDENT-BODY OF THE COLLEGE THE\n     AUTHOR HAS THE HONOR OF DEDICATING THIS BOOK\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nI stand as does the reader at the entrance to this book which I have not\nas yet entered myself. I have before me the journey through the Inferno\nand Purgatorio, into Paradise, with a new companion. I have made the\njourney before many times with others, or with Dante and Virgil alone,\nbut I know that I shall enjoy especially the companionship and comment\nof one with whom I have had such satisfaction of comradeship in our\njourney as neighbors for a little way across this earth. I invite\nothers, and I hope they may be many, to make this brief journey with\nus, not because I know specifically what Dr. Slattery will say along\nthe way, but because whatever he says out of his deep and reverent\nacquaintance with the Divine Comedy will help us all who follow him,\nwhether we are of his particular faith or not, to an appreciation of\nthe meaning of this immortal poem, and make us desire to go again and\nagain in our reading through these spaces of the struggles of human souls.\n\nA world-literary-movement will commemorate in 1921 the six hundredth\nanniversary of the death of the immortal Dante. That a medievalist\nshould call forth the homage of the twentieth century to the extent of\nbeing honored in all civilized lands and by cultured peoples who, for\nthe most part, do not know the language spoken by him, or who do not\nprofess the religion of him who wrote the most religious book of\nChristianity, is a marvel explainable by the fact that the Divine Comedy\nis a drama of the soul,--the story of a struggle which every man must\nmake to possess his own spirit against forces that would enslave it. The\ncentral interest of the poem is in the individual who may be you or I\ninstead of Dante the subject of the work, and that fact exalts the\npersonal element and gives the spiritual value which we of modern times\nappreciate as well as did the thirteenth century.\n\nThe Divine Comedy is attractive for other reasons. It may appeal to us\nas it did to Tennyson, because of \"its divine intensity,\" or it may\naffect us as it did Charles Eliot Norton by \"its powerful exposition of\nmoral penalties and rewards,\" showing that righteousness is inexorable;\nor it may interest us because of its solid realism, its pure strength of\nconception, its surpassing beauty, its vivid imaginative power, its\nperfection of diction \"without superfluousness, without defect.\"\nWhatever be the reason of our interest in Dante, the study of his Divine\nComedy will ever be both a discipline \"not so much to elevate our\nthoughts,\" says Coleridge, \"as to send them down deeper,\" and a delight\ncalling forth the deepest emotions of our being.\n\nJOHN H. FINLEY.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n                           PAGE\n\n   Dante and His Time         1\n\n   Dante, The Man            49\n\n   Dante's Inferno          101\n\n   Dante's Purgatorio       151\n\n   Dante's Paradiso         219\n\n\n\n\n\nDANTE AND HIS TIME\n\n\n\n\nDANTE AND HIS TIME\n\n\nTo know Dante we must know the age which produced Christianity's\ngreatest poet, he whom Ruskin calls \"the central man of all the world,\nas representing in perfect balance the imaginative, moral and\nintellectual faculties, all at their highest.\" Other writers are not so\ndependent upon their times for our clear understanding of their books.\nDante to be intelligible to the modern mind, cannot be taken out of the\nthirteenth century. \"Its contemporary history and its contemporary\nspirit\" says Brother Azarias in his Phases of Thought and Criticism,\n\"constitute his clearest and best commentary.\" Only in the light of this\ncommentary can we hope to know his message and realize its supremacy.\nAnd that it is worth while to make the study there can be no doubt upon\nthe part of any seeker of truth and admirer of beauty.\n\nEmerson said: \"I think if I were a professor of rhetoric I should use\nDante for my text-book. Dante is the rhetorician. He is all wings, pure\nimagination and he writes like Euclid.\" James Russell Lowell told his\nstudents in answer to the question as to the best course of reading to\nbe followed: \"If I may be allowed a personal illustration, it was my\nown profound admiration for the Divina Commedia of Dante that lured me\ninto what little learning I possess.\" Gladstone declared: \"In the school\nof Dante I learned a great part of that mental provision ... which has\nserved me to make the journey of human life.\" It surely must be of\ninestimable advantage to sit under the instruction of one of the race's\nmaster teachers who stimulates one to lofty thinking and deep feeling,\nleads one into realms of wider knowledge and helps one to know his own\nage by revealing a mighty past.\n\nTo see that mighty past, to live again with Dante in the thirteenth\ncentury is possible only after we have cleared the way with which\nignorance and misrepresentation have encumbered the approach. Here,\nperhaps, more than in any other period of civilization is the dictum\ntrue that history is often a conspiracy against the truth. We moderns\nwho are not only obsessed with the theory of evolution, but are\ndominated by the idea that nothing of permanent value can come from\nmedievalism, arrogantly proclaim that ours is the greatest of centuries\nbecause we have not only what all other centuries had, but something\nelse distinctively our own--a vast contribution to the world's progress.\nThis self-complacency makes us forget that whatever truth there may be\nin the great theory of evolution, certainly the validity of the theory\nis not confirmed by the intellectual history of the human race. As was\nsaid of the Patriarchal Age so we may say of Dante's times \"there were\ngiants in those days\" which we presume to ignore. Homer, Shakespeare,\nDante, indeed stand forth in irrefutable protest against the\nquestionable assertion of evolution that the present is intellectually\nsuperior to the past.\n\nThe evolutionary theory prejudices our age against acknowledging the\nhigh accomplishments of the past. So to know the truth we must overcome\nthe conspiracy with which so-called history has enveloped the past,\nespecially those generations immediately prior to Dante's. How that\nignorance of the history and spirit of that period can blind even a\ngreat writer to the wonderful feats inherited from the centuries\nimmediately preceding the thirteenth, is revealed by the assertion of\nCarlyle that \"in Dante ten _silent_ centuries found a voice.\" To\nstate what history now regards as fact, it must be said that while Dante\nby his giant personality and sublime poetic genius could alone ennoble\nany epoch he was not \"a solitary phenomenon of his time but a worthy\nculmination of the literary movement which, beginning shortly before\n1200, produced down to 1300 such a mass of undying literature\" that\nsubsequent generations have found in it their model and inspiration\nand have never quite equalled its originality and worth.\n\nIn verification of this statement I have only to mention to you the\nnames of the Cid of Spain, the Arthurian Legends of England, the\nNibelungen Lied of Germany and the poems of the Meistersingers, the\nTrouveres and the Troubadours. The authors of these works had been\ntaught to make themselves eternal as Dante says Brunetto Latini taught\nhim. They are proof against the alleged dumbness of the ages just\npreceding Dante's. Of those times speaks Dr. Ralph Adams Cram, renowned\nequally for historical study and for architectural ability: \"The twelfth\nwas the century of magnificent endeavors and all that was great in its\nsuccessor is here in embryo not only in art but in philosophy, religion\nand the conduct of life. The eleventh century is a time of aspiration\nand vision, of the enunciation of new principles and of the first shock\nof the contest between the old that was doomed and the new that was\ndestined to unprecedented victories.\" (The Substance of Gothic, p. 69.)\n\nLet us now make a general survey of Dante's century and then consider\nthe more particular events and circumstances of his environment.\n\nIt may be a surprise to you to know that there is a book entitled The\nThirteenth, the Greatest of Centuries by Dr. James J. Walsh, in its\nfifth edition with a sale of 70,000 copies. He indeed is not the only\nman of letters who signalizes that century for its greatness. To confine\nthe quotations to two writers well known in our day, I find that Fiske\nin his Beginnings of New England says of the thirteenth century: \"It was\na wonderful time but after all less memorable as the culmination of\nmedieval empire and medieval church than as the dawning of the new era\nin which we live today.\" Frederic Harrison, in his Survey of the\nThirteenth Century says, \"Of all the epochs of effort after a new life\nthat ... is the most spiritual, the most really constructive and indeed\nthe most truly philosophic. It had great thinkers, great rulers, great\nteachers, great poets, great artists, great moralists, and great\nworkmen. It could not be called the material age, the devotional age,\nthe political age or the poetic age in any special degree. It was\nequally poetic, political, industrial, artistic, practical, intellectual\nand devotional. And these qualities acted on a uniform conception of\nlife with a real symmetry of purpose.\"\n\nOurs is an age of thought but of thought finding concrete expression\nin practical invention and especially in activities in the line of\nmanufacture and commerce. Posterity will probably characterize our age\nas the Industrial Age, a phrase that will signalize our period both for\nthe development of industries not thought possible a century ago and\nfor the evolution of the industrial worker to a position of striking\nimportance and power. For the first time in the history of humanity the\nworkman's status is the subject of international agreement. The League\nof Nations promises to treat Labor from a humanitarian point of view\nand so to place it on the broad, firm pathway leading to industrial\npeace and economical solidarity for the common good. That would seem\na necessity in view of the strides of progress in other directions.\n\nNow wireless telegraphy crosses oceans and unites continents. The\nwireless telephone between ships and shore is in operation. It has been\nfound practicable to transport by submarine a cargo from Bremen to\nBaltimore. In aircraft the development has been just as wonderful. Less\nthan ten years ago the world's record for long flight by aeroplane was\nmade, with no regard for time, with two stops between Albany and New\nYork. In July, 1919, an aeroplane making no stop covered the distance\nbetween New York and Chicago in some six hours. Furthermore an American\nseaplane, in three stages made the trip from New York to England and\nthen a British Dirigible without making a stop came from England to\nLong Island in ninety-six hours. \"This is the end and the beginning of\nan age\" says the author of Mr. Brittling Sees It Through. \"This is\nsomething far greater than the French Revolution or the Reformation\nand we live in it.\"\n\nWe indeed consider it the age of \"big things.\" Dynasties fall and\nrepublics spring up. When war breaks out it is a World War involving\ntwenty-four nations and causing 7,781,806 deaths (Nelson's Encyclopedia,\nV. iv, p. 519) and costing $200,000,000,000. In the first year in which\nwe were at war, our country spent more than had been the cost of\nconducting the government for 124 years, including the expenses of\n the Civil and the Spanish-American Wars. Yes, it is an age of \"big\nthings.\" The Allies in the Champagne offensive of September, 1915,\nthrew 50,000,000 shells into the German lines in three days. Was it one\nout of sympathy with \"big things,\" one intent on the quiet of the higher\nlife as contrasted with the din of the day, who said that \"modern\ncivilization is noise and the more civilization progresses, the greater\nwill be the noise?\" In any event the muses who inspired Dante, are\nalmost dumb. Now the captains of industry are the commanding figures of\nthe day and the student, the poet, the philosopher, the statesman have\ngone into innocuous desuetude. Amy Lowell is preferred to Longfellow:\nCharlie Chaplin draws bigger crowds than Shakespeare can interest.\nTrainmen get wages higher than are the salaries of some of our\ngovernors. Unskilled labor is paid more than the teachers of our youth\nreceive. The cost of living was never higher in the history of mankind.\n\nHow illuminating to turn from this picture to that of Dante's age. Then\nin Florence, a bushel of wheat cost about fifteen cents, a carpenter\ncould buy a broad ax for five cents, a saw for three cents, a plane\nfor four cents, a chisel for one cent. The average daily wage of a\nwoolworker was about thirty-six cents. In view of the high purchasing\npower of money in Dante's age, the fact that he borrowed at least seven\nhundred and fifty seven and a half golden florins, a debt that was not\npaid until after his death, leads one to think that he must have been\nregarded by his contemporaries as prodigal in the use of money. His\nfinancial difficulties must have given him an uneasy conscience for he\ninsists repeatedly on the wickedness of prodigality. In fact he makes\nthe abuse of money on the part either of a miser or of a spendthrift a\nsin against the social order punishable according to the gravity of the\noffence in Hell or Purgatory.\n\nTo return to the matter of prices in Dante's day. In England a goose\ncould be bought for two and a half pence. A stall-fed ox commanded\ntwenty-four shillings while his fellow brought up on grass was sold for\nsixteen shillings. A fat hog, two years old,--and this is interesting to\nus who pay seventy-five cents a pound for bacon--a fat hog two years old\ncost only three shillings four pence and a fat sheep shorn, one shilling\nand two pence. A gallon of oysters was purchasable for two pence, a\ndozen of the best soles for three pence. A yard of broadcloth cost only\none shilling one pence, a pair of shoes four pence. These figures of\nEnglish money are taken from an act of Edward III of England who was\nborn seven years after Dante's death. Parliamentarian enactment under\nthe same king fixed a table of wages.\n\nFor a day's work at haymaking or weeding of corn, for instance, a woman\ngot one penny. For mowing an acre of grass or threshing a quarter of\nwheat a man was paid four pence. The reaper received also four pence for\nhis day's labor. Eight hours constituted a working day. The people of\nthe Middle Ages not only had the Saturday half-holiday but they enjoyed\nrelease from work on nearly forty vigils of feast days during the year.\nThat they were as well off, e.g. as the unskilled laborer of our day,\nwho demands from four to eight dollars a day as a wage, is evident from\nthe fact that while he has to pay forty cents a pound for mutton, the\nworkman of Edward the Third's day earned enough in four days to buy a\nwhole sheep and a gallon of ale. So plentiful was meat in England that\nit was the ordinary diet of the poor. A preamble of an act of Parliament\nof the fourteenth century in specifying beef, pork, mutton and veal\ndeclares that these are \"the food of the poorer sort.\" (The Thirteenth,\nthe Greatest of Centuries, p. 479.)\n\nSpeaking of live-stock leads to the observation that the people of\nDante's time for the most part lived in the country. Cities had not yet\nbecome magnets. London is supposed to have had a population of\ntwenty-five thousand, York ten thousand four hundred, Canterbury, four\nthousand seven hundred, Florence, in the year 1300, according to\nVillani, a contemporary of Dante, had \"ninety thousand enjoying the\nrights of citizenship. Of rich Grandi, there were fifteen hundred.\nStrangers passing through the city numbered about two thousand. In\nthe elementary schools were eight thousand to ten thousand children.\"\n(Staley's Guilds of Florence, p. 555.)\n\nThe means of travel and communication, of course, were few and\ndifficult. The roads were bad and dangerous. In France, Germany and\nItaly there were so many forms of government, dukedoms, baronies,\nmarquisates, signories, city republics, each with its own custom\nregulations, not to speak of each having its own coinage and language,\nthat travelers encountered obstacles almost at every step. For the most\npart, journeys had to be made afoot and a degree of safety was attained\nonly if the traveler joined a large trade caravan, a pilgrimage or a\ngovernmental expedition. Night often found the party far from a hospice\nor inn and so they were obliged for shelter to camp on the highway or\nin the fields. Necessarily the traveler was subjected to innumerable\nprivations and sufferings.\n\nI have not been able to get accurate information as to the exact length\nof time required to make a trip, say from London to Paris--a distance\ncovered the other day by an aeroplane in eighty minutes. But, the\n\"Consuetudines\" of the Hereford Cathedral, England, afford us some data\nupon which to base the conclusion that six weeks were necessary for\nsuch a trip, allowing another week for religious purposes. The\n\"Consuetudines\" after specifying that no canon of the cathedral was to\nmake more than one pilgrimage beyond the seas in his lifetime, allows\nthe clergyman seven weeks' absence to go abroad to the tomb of St. Denis\nin the suburbs of Paris, sixteen weeks to Rome and a year to Jerusalem.\n\nA table of time limits between Florence and the principal cities of\nEurope and the East made by the Florentine Banking houses in Dante's\nday, showed the number of days required for consignments of specie and\ngoods to reach their destination. Rome was reached in fifteen days,\nVenice and Naples in twenty days, Flanders in seventy days, England and\nConstantinople in seventy-five days, Cyprus in ninety days. How long it\ntook Dante to make the trip from Florence to Rome, we do not know but\nhistory tells us that he went to the Eternal City in the year 1300. He\nwas indeed a great traveler. During his twenty years' exile, we know\nthat our poet's itinerary led him among other places to Padua, Venice,\nRavenna, Paris and there is good reason to believe, as Gladstone\ncontends, that he went for study to Oxford. The regret is permissible\nthat he did not leave us an account of his journeyings. \"Had he given us\npictures--as he alone could have painted them--of scenes by the wayside\nand of the courts of which he was an honored guest,\" says Dr. J.A. Zahm\nin his Great Inspirers, \"we should have had the most interesting\nand the most instructive travel book ever written.\"\n\nWe cannot but notice one great effect brought about by traveling in\nthose days, especially by pilgrimages and by the Crusades formed in\ndefence of pilgrimages to the Holy Land and that is, that there arose on\nall sides a desire for liberty and the growth of a spirit of nationality\nthat worked to the destruction of absolute government. The power of the\ncommon people began to assert itself. In 1215, England forced from John\nLackland the Magna Charta, the foundation of all the liberty of English\nspeaking people even in modern times. The very year in which Dante was\nborn, representatives of the townspeople were admitted as members of the\nEnglish Parliament. In France, during the thirteenth century, the\ncentralization of power in the hands of the kings went forward with the\ngradual diminution of the influence of the nobility--a fact operating to\nthe people's advantage.\n\nIn 1222 the nobles forced Andrew II of Hungary to issue the Golden Bull,\nthe instrument which Blackstone later declared turned \"anarchy into\nlaw.\" In Germany and Sicily Frederick II published laws giving a larger\nmeasure of popular freedom. In Italy, the existence of the city\nrepublics--especially those of Florence, Sienna, Pisa--showed how\nsuccessfully the ferment of liberty had penetrated the mass of the\nbody-politic.\n\nComing now to regard the characteristics of Dante's age we must say that\nthe first big thing that looms in sight is the fact that this was the\ngolden age of Christian faith. Everywhere the Cross, the symbol of\nsalvation, met the eye. It was the age when men lived in one faith, used\none ritual, professed one creed, accepted a common doctrine and moral\nstandard and breathed a common religious atmosphere. Heresy was not\nwholly absent but it was the exception. Religion regarded then not as an\naccident or an incident of life but as a benign influence permeating\nthe whole social fabric, not only cared for the widow and orphan and\nprovided for the poor, but it shaped men's thoughts, quickened their\nsentiments, inspired their work and directed their wills. These men\nbelieved in a world beyond the grave as an ever present reality. Hell,\nPurgatory, Heaven were so near to them that they, so to speak, could\ntouch the invisible world with their hands. To them, as to Dante, \"this\nlife was but a shadowy appearance through which the eternal realities of\nanother world were constantly betraying themselves.\" Of the intensity\nand universality of faith in that life beyond death, Dante is not the\nexception but the embodiment. His poem has no such false note of\nscepticism as we detect in Tennyson's In Memoriam. Note the words of the\nmodern poet:\n\n  \"I falter where I firmly trod\n    And falling with my weight of cares\n    Upon the great world's altar stairs\n  That slope through darkness up to God,\n  I stretch lame hands of faith and grope\n    And gather dust and chaff and call\n    To what I feel is Lord of all\n  And faintly trust the larger hope.\"\n\nNot thus does Dante speak. As the voice of his age he begins with faith,\ncontinues with faith and leads us to the unveiled vision of God. He\nboth shows us his unwavering adherence to Christian doctrine in that\nscene in Paradiso where he is examined as to his faith by St. Peter and\nhe teaches us that the seen is only a stepping stone into the unseen. It\nhas been said of him in reference to his Divina Commedia, \"The light of\nfaith guides the poet's steps through the hopeless chambers of Hell with\na firmness of conviction that knows no wavering. It bears him through\nthe sufferings of Purgatory, believing strongly fits reality: it raises\nhim on the wings of love and contemplation into Heaven's Empyrean, where\nhe really hopes to enjoy bliss far beyond that whereof he says.\"\n(Brother Azarias.)\n\nLeading the religious awakening of the thirteenth century and making\npossible Dante's work at the end of the century were two of the world's\ngreatest exponents of the spiritual life, both signalized in the\nParadiso. St. Dominic characterized by Dante (Par. XII, 56) as \"a\njealous lover of the Christian faith with mildness toward his disciples\nbut formidable to his foes,\" founded an order to be \"the champions of\nFaith and the true lights of the world.\" Even in its early days it gave\nto the world eminent scholars such as Albertus Magnus and St. Thomas\nAquinas, and it has never ceased to number among its members great\nthinkers, ardent apostles, stern ascetics and profound mystics. In\nDante's time it was the only order specially charged with the office of\npreaching and from its founder's time down to the present day the one\nwho acts as the Pope's Theologian has been taken from the ranks of this\norder. Besides preaching to all classes of Christian society and\nevangelizing the heathen, the Dominicans in Dante's day fought against\nheresy and schism, lectured in the universities, toiled among the poor,\nactivities in which the order is still engaged.\n\nBut perhaps the man whose spiritual influence was greatest in\nmedievalism, if not in all the history of Christianity, was Francis of\nAssisi, who \"all seraphical in order rose a sun upon the world.\" (Par.\nXI, 37.) Born at Assisi in Umbria in 1182, the son of a wealthy cloth\nmerchant and of Pica, a member of a noble family of Provence, Francis\ngrew up a handsome, gay and gallant youth \"the prime favorite among the\nyoung nobles of the town, the foremost in every feat of arms, the leader\nof civil revels, the very king of frolic.\" A low fever contracted when\nwith his fellow citizens he fought against the Perugians turned his\nthoughts to the things of eternity. Upon his recovery he determined to\ndevote himself to the service of his fellow man for the honor of God.\n\nHis renunciation of the things of this life was dramatic. To swerve him\nfrom the new life his father had cited him to appear before the Bishop.\nFrancis, unmoved by the appeal of his father persisted in his\nresolution. Stripping himself of the clothes he wore, the Bishop\ncovering his nakedness, Francis gave his clothes to his father saying,\n\"Hitherto I have called you Father, henceforth I desire to say only Our\nFather who art in heaven.\" Then and there as Dante sings, were\nsolemnized Francis' nuptials with his beloved Spouse, the Lady Poverty,\nunder which name, in the mystical language afterwards so familiar to\nFrancis, \"he comprehended the total surrender of all wordly goods,\nhonors and privileges.\" He went forth and attracted disciples. With\nthese partaking of his zeal and animated by his charity, he labored to\nmake his generation turn from the sordid to the spiritual, diffusing\nover all the people a tender love of nature and God.\n\nAmong his disciples--great minds of the time--were Thomas of Celano, one\nof the literary geniuses of the day, the author of the sublime Dies\nIrae--a religious poem chanted to this day at every funeral high mass\nin the Catholic Church, and frequently sung or played in great opera\nhouses,--Bonaventure, professor of philosophy and theology at the\nuniversity of Paris, Roger Bacon, the friar, the renowned teacher at\nParis and Oxford, Duns Scotus, the subtile doctor. In the Third Order\nestablished for those not following the monastic life the membership,\nin the course of time, embraced among others St. Louis, King of France,\nSt. Elizabeth of Hungary, and Dante.\n\nHe, towards the end of his exile, footsore, weary and discouraged,\nbuffeted by the adverse winds of fortune knocked, a stranger, at the\ngates of the Franciscan monastery at Lunigiana. \"As neither I nor any of\nthe brothers recognized him,\" writes Brother Hilary, the Prior, \"I asked\nhim what he wished. He made no answer but gazed silently upon the\ncolumns and galleries of the cloister. Again I asked him what he wished\nand whom he sought and slowly turning his head and looking around upon\nthe brothers and me, he answered 'Peace.'\"\n\nThe monks spoke gently to him, ministered with kindly and delicate\nsympathy to his bodily and spiritual needs. His reticence left him and\nhis reserve melted away. Here the object of loving hospitality, he\nremained finding means and opportunity for profound study. Before he\ndeparted he drew from his bosom a part of the precious manuscript of\nDivina Commedia and trustingly giving it into the hands of the Prior\nsaid, \"Here, Brother, is a portion of my work which you may not have\nseen: this remembrance I leave with you: forget me not.\"\n\nThat he himself was not unforgetful of the sympathy of the simple and\nwarm-hearted followers of St. Francis is evident from the fact that he\ngloried in his membership of the Third Order, wearing about his body the\nFranciscan cincture for chastity and it is not unlikely that at Ravenna\nbefore he finally closed his eyes upon the turmoil of the world full of\nvicissitudes, he modestly requested that he be buried in the simple\nhabit of the order and be laid to rest in a tomb attached to their\nmonastery. In any event such was his burial.\n\nFor our sympathetic understanding of the supremacy of religion in\nDante's day, may I again quote Ralph Adams Cram, whose words on the\neleventh century are equally applicable to the era of our Florentine and\nto his country? Dr. Cram writes: \"It is hard for us to think back into\nsuch an alien spirit and time as this and so understand how with\none-tenth of its present population England could support so vast and\nvaried a religious establishment, used as we are to an age where\nreligion is only a detail for many and for most a negligible factor. We\nare only too familiar with the community that could barely support one\nparish church, boasting its one-half dozen religious organizations, all\ntogether claiming the adherence of only a minority of the population,\nbut in the Middle Ages, religion was not only the most important and\npervasive thing, it was a moral obligation on every man, woman and\nchild, and rejection or even indifference was unthinkable. If once we\ngrasp this fact,\" continues Cram, \"we can understand how in the eleventh\ncentury, the whole world should cover itself with 'its white robe of\nchurches.'\"\n\nThe second great fact observable in the times of Dante is that it was an\nage of inquiry and of efficient craftsmanship. Many of our generation\nthink that Dante's day being so far removed from the age of printing and\nthe spirit of positivism, and being given to the upholding of authority\nalmost as an unexhaustible source of knowledge, was wholly unacquainted\nwith scientific research. Furthermore they declare that education then\nwas almost at its minimum stage. A little study will show that the\npeople of that era were not unacquainted with the scientific spirit and\nit will also prove that if education did not prevail, in the sense that\neverybody had an opportunity to read and write--a consummation hardly to\nbe expected--education in the sense of efficiency--education in the\netymological sense, i.e. the training of the faculties so that the\nindividual might develop creative self-expression and especially that he\nmight bring out what was best in him, all which meant knowledge highly\nuseful to himself and others--that kind of education was not uncommon.\n\nTo give an idea of the scientific inquiry and sharp observation of mind\nin those days, I might cite Dante as a master exponent of nature study,\nand adept of science. Passing over his experiment in optics given in\nParadiso, given so naturally as to justify the inference that\ninvestigation in physics was then not an uncommon mode of gaining\nknowledge, I call your attention to an observation made by Alexander\nVon Humboldt, the distinguished scientist, to prove that nothing escaped\nthe eyes of Dante, intent equally upon natural phenomena and the things\nof the soul. Von Humboldt suggests that the rhetorical figure employed\nby Dante in his description of the River of Light with its banks of\nwonderful flowers (Par. XXX, 61) is an application of our poet's\nknowledge of the phosphorescence of the ocean. If you have ever looked\ndown the side of a steamship at night as it ploughed its way forward,\nand if you have ever observed in the sea the thousand darting lights\njust below the water line your enjoyable experience will enable you\nto appreciate the beauty of this passage. I now quote:\n\n  \"I saw a glory like a stream flow by\n  In brightness rushing and on either side\n  Were banks that with spring's wondrous hues might vie\n  And from that river living sparks did soar\n  And sank on all sides in the flow'rets bloom\n  Like precious rubies set in golden ore\n  Then as if drunk with all the rich perfume\n  Back to the wondrous torrent did they roll\n  And as one sank another filled its room.\"\n\nCommenting on this passage, Von Humboldt says \"It would seem as if this\npicture had its origin in the poet's recollection of that peculiar and\nrare phosphorescent condition of the ocean in which luminous points\nappear to rise from the breaking waves and, spreading themselves over\nthe surface of the waters, convert the liquid plain into a moving sea of\nstars.\" This mention of a sea brings to mind the striking fact that Dean\nChurch has pointed out, viz., when Dante speaks of the Mediterranean, he\nspeaks not as a historian or an observer of its storms or its smiles but\nas a geologist. The Mediterranean is to him: \"The greatest _valley_\nin which water stretcheth.\" (Par. IX, 82.)\n\nSo also when he speaks of light he regards it not merely in its\nbeautiful appearances but in its natural laws (Purg. XV). And when Dante\ncomes to describe the exact color, say of an apple blossom, his splendid\nand unequalled power as a scientific observer of Nature and a poet is\nmost evident. Ruskin (Mod. Painters III, 226) commenting on the passage:\nflowers of a color \"less than that of roses but more than that of\nviolets\" (Purg. XXXII, 58) makes this interesting remark: \"It certainly\nwould not be possible in words, to come nearer to the _definition_\nof the exact hue which Dante meant--that of the apple blossom. Had he\nemployed any simpler color phrase, as 'pale pink' or 'violet pink' or\nany other such combined expression, he still could not have completely\ngot at the delicacy of the hue; he might, perhaps, have indicated its\nkind, but not its tenderness; but by taking the rose-leaf as the type\nof the delicate red, and then enfeebling this with the violet gray he\ngets, as closely as language can carry him to the complete rendering of\nthe vision although it is evidently felt by him to be in its perfect\nbeauty ineffable.\"\n\nThese examples of Dante's interest in scientific observation prove his\nfitness to be considered a representative of his age in its love for\nscience. Instead, however, of proposing Dante as a typical example of\nthe experimental inquiry of his age--you may say that he is _sui\ngeneris_--I shall call forth other witnesses.\n\nFirst let Albertus Magnus speak. He was distinguished as a theologian\nand philosopher and was also renowned as a scientist. In his tenth book\nafter describing all the trees, plants and herbs then known, he says:\n\"All that is here set down is the result of our own observation or has\nbeen borrowed from others whom we have known to have written what their\npersonal experience has confirmed, for in these matters, experience\nalone can give certainty (_experimentum solum certificat in talibus_).\"\n\nWe may be sure that such an investigator showing in his method a\nprodigious scientific progress was on the line so successfully followed\nby modern natural philosophy. This conclusion is confirmed by evidence\nfrom his other books showing that he did a great deal of experimental\nwork, especially in chemistry. In his treatise De Mineralibus, Albertus\nMagnus keen to observe natural phenomena, enumerates different\nproperties of natural magnets and states some of the properties commonly\nattributed to them.\n\nIn his book on Botany he treats of the organic structure and physiology\nof plants so accurately as to draw from Meyer, a botanist of the\nnineteenth century, this appreciative tribute. \"No botanist who lived\nbefore Albert can be compared to him unless Theophrastus, with whom he\nwas not acquainted: and after him none has painted nature with such\nliving colors or studied it so profoundly until the time of Conrad\nGesner and Cesalpino\"--a high compliment indeed for Albertus for\nleadership in science for three centuries. To quote Von Humboldt again,\n\"I have found in the book of Albertus Magnus, De Natura Locorum,\nconsiderations on the dependence of temperature concurrently on latitude\nand elevation and on the effect of different angles of incidence of the\nsun's rays in heating the ground, which have excited my surprise.\"\n\nAlbertus Magnus gains renown also from his distinguished pupil Roger\nBacon who, some think, should have the honor of being regarded as the\nfather of inductive science--an honor posterity has conferred upon\nanother of the same family name who lived 300 years later. We, who wear\neye-glasses would be willing, I think, to vote the honor to the elder\nBacon, because if we do not owe to him the discovery of lenses, we are\nhis debtors for his clarification of the principles of lenses and for\nhis successful efforts in establishing them on a mathematical basis. In\nany event, he was a pioneer in inductive science.\n\nBefore gunpowder is known to have been discovered in the West, the friar\nRoger Bacon must have made some interesting experiments along the line\nof explosives, else he could not have made the following remarkable\nstatement as to the property of gunpowder: \"One may cause to burst from\nbronze, thunderbolts more formidable than those produced by nature. A\nsmall quantity of prepared matter causes a terrible explosion\naccompanied by a brilliant light. One may multiply this phenomenon so\nfar as to destroy a city or an army.\" Anticipating the use of even motor\nboats and automobiles driven by gasoline, this thirteenth century\nscientist wrote: \"Art can construct instruments of navigation such that\nthe largest vessels governed by a single man will traverse rivers and\nseas more rapidly than if they were filled with oarsmen. One may also\nmake carriages which, without the aid of any animal, will run with\nremarkable swiftness.\" This man whose clarity of vision anticipated\nthose discoveries of the nineteenth century, left three disciples after\nhim,--John of Paris, William of Mara and Gerard Hay--who followed their\nmaster's methods, especially of testing by observation and by careful\nsearching of authorities, every proposition that came up for study.\n\nPerhaps the most striking argument in favor of the experimental attitude\nof Dante's century is that afforded by certain facts in the history of\nmedicine of that epoch. Then surgery began to make vast strides. Pagel,\nregarded in our time as the best informed writer on the history of\nmedicine, has this to say of the surgery in Dante's age. \"The stream of\nliterary works on surgery flows richer during this period. While\nsurgeons are far from being able to emancipate themselves from the\nruling pathological theories, there is no doubt that in one department,\nthat of manual technics, free observation came to occupy the first place\nin the effort for scientific progress. Investigation is less hampered\nand concerns itself with practical things and not with artificial\ntheories. Experimental observation was in this not repressed by an\nunfortunate and iron-bound appeal to reasoning.\" (The Popes and Science,\np. 172.)\n\nAs to medical practice in the thirteenth century, interesting data are\nfurnished by the Bulletin of Johns Hopkins Hospital and the Journal of\nthe American Medical Association, January, 1908. The former publication\ngives us remarkable instances of surgical operations and of the\ntreatment of Bright's disease, matters which we might have thought\npossible only in the nineteenth century; the latter publishes in full\nthe law for the regulation of the practice of medicine issued by Emperor\nFrederick II in 1240 or 1241. According to that law binding on the two\nSicilies, three years of preparatory university work were required\nbefore the student could begin the study of medicine. Then he had to\ndevote three years to the study of medicine and finally he had to spend\na year under a physician's direction before a license was issued to him.\nIn connection with this high standard of a medical education, the law\nof Frederick II forbade not only the sale of impure drugs under penalty\nof confiscation of goods, but also the preparation of them under penalty\nof death--stern legislation, anticipating by nearly seven centuries the\nAmerican Pure Drug Law. (The Popes and Science, p. 419.)\n\nUndoubtedly the experimental demonstration and original observation of\nDante's time sprang either from the training or pedagogical methods of\nthe great universities of that period. There were universities at\nOxford, Paris, Cologne, Montpelier, Orleans, Angers. Spain had four\nuniversities; Italy, ten. The number of students in attendance must\namaze us if we think that higher education did not then prevail.\nProfessor Thomas Davidson in his History of Education, says: \"The number\nof students reported as having attended some of the universities in\nthose early days almost passes belief, e.g. Oxford is said to have had\nabout 30,000 about the year 1300 and half that number as early as 1224.\nThe numbers attending the University of Paris were still greater. The\nnumbers become less surprising when we remember with what poor\naccommodations--a bare room and an armful of straw--the students of\nthose days were content and what numbers of them even a single teacher\nlike Abelard could, long before, draw into lonely retreats.\"\n\nThat in the twelfth and following centuries there was no lack of\nenthusiasm for study, notwithstanding the troubled conditions of the\ntimes, is very clear. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries,\neducation rose in many European states to a height which it had not\nattained since the days of Seneca and Quintilian.\n\nThe curriculum followed by a student in Dante's time embraced the seven\nliberal arts of the Trivium and the Quadrivium, namely Grammar,\nDialectic, Rhetoric, Arithmetic, Music, Geometry and Astrology. The\nhigher education comprised also Physics, Metaphysics, Logic, Ethics, and\nTheology. Of the cultural effect of the old education, Professor Huxley\nspoke in the highest praise on the occasion of his inaugural address as\nrector of Aberdeen University. \"I doubt,\" he said, \"if the curriculum\nof any modern university shows so clear and generous a comprehension\nof what is meant by culture as the old Trivium and Quadrivium does.\"\n(The Thirteenth the Greatest of Centuries, p. 466.)\n\nSpeaking of education in those distant days, one thinks of the supreme\nintellect of medieval life, the giant genius St. Thomas Aquinas, whose\nphilosophy was the food of Dante and became the basis not only of\nDante's great poem but of Christian Apologetics down to our own day,\nwhen Pope Leo XIII directed that all Catholic seminaries and\nuniversities implant the doctrine expounded by Thomas, Angel of the\nSchools. A philosopher whose breadth and lucidity of mind gave such\nperennial interest to a system of thought that it is still followed more\ngenerally than that of any other school of philosophy--taught in the\nregular course even at Oxford, Harvard, Columbia--such a philosopher\ncould have left the impress of his genius upon seven succeeding\ncenturies only if his work had been to philosophy what Dante's Divina\nCommedia is to literature.\n\nThe subject of scholastic philosophy now more or less claims attention\nhere, since the coming to our country of the most distinguished exponent\nof Neo-scholasticism. Cardinal Mercier before becoming a prince of the\nChurch, held the chair of neo-scholastic philosophy at Louvain where he\nmade his department so distinguished for deep scholarship that pupils\ncame from afar to sit under his instruction or to prepare themselves for\na doctorate of philosophy whose requirements at Louvain were perhaps,\nmore exacting than at any other modern university.\n\nIn 1889 Bishop John H. Keane engaged in the task of getting together a\nfaculty for the Catholic University at Washington went to Louvain to see\nDr. Mercier. \"I want you to go to Washington and become head of our\nschool of philosophy,\" said the visitor. \"I am perfectly willing to go,\nnothing could please me more. But we must first get the permission of\nthe Pope,\" answered the Belgian scholar. Bishop Keane went to Rome and\npresented the matter to Leo XIII. \"Better leave him where he is,\"\nreplied the Pope. \"He is more needed in Belgium than in the United\nStates.\" So it was owing to the wisdom of Pope Leo in keeping the right\nman in the right place that Belgium's strongest man was held for his\ncountry against the evil hour to be a terror to wrongdoers and an\ninspiration and object of reverence.\n\nThe World's War revealed Belgium's Primate not only as a great lucid\nthinker who shattered the subtilities with which the philosophy of might\ntried to confuse the mind of the world, but also as an undaunted leader\nwho could not be frightened or defeated by all the forces of militarism.\nTo my mind the secret of the dominating influence working upon Cardinal\nMercier's character and making him a world-hero came from his training\nin scholastic philosophy and from his having assimilated the spirit of\nthe thirteenth century.\n\nThat period indeed not only trained its people to a high spiritual ideal\nbut gave them golden opportunities to express themselves and to put\nforth, under the inspiration of religion, the best that was in them.\nThe medium was the guild system which, working from a self-protecting\nalliance of traders, extended itself to every existing form of industry\nand commerce and gave \"the workman a position of self-respect and\nindependence such as he had never held before and has failed to achieve\nsince\" (Cram).\n\nA remarkable thing about the guild system was that it established and\nmaintained what we, today, call technical schools for the training of\napprentices. But more remarkable was the spirit which animated the\nsystem. _Operare est orare_ was its principle. As a result of that\nteaching that labor is practical prayer, that the worker should labor\nnot simply for a wage, but for perfection, men with untiring energy\nstraining for finer and better work came to make the best things their\nminds could conceive, their taste could plan, their hands could fashion.\nBell-making in Dante's day attained such perfection that the form and\ncomposition of bells have ever since been imitated. Workers of precious\nmetals produced such wonderful chalices that succeeding generations have\nnever equalled the ancient model. The masonry of medievalism has secrets\nof construction lost to our age. Mechanical engineering solved without\nthe use of steel girders problems in the structural work of cathedrals,\npalaces, fortresses and bridges that causes open-eyed astonishment in\nthe twentieth century. Wood carving as seen in many medieval chairs,\ntables, and choir equipment is of design so exquisite and of finish of\ndetail so artistic that it is the despair of the cabinet makers of our\nage.\n\nThe beauty of the thirteenth century needlework made into chasubles,\ncopes, albs, stoles, altar covers,--triumphs of artistic excellence, is\nseen in the typical example of the Cope of Ascoli for which Mr. Pierpont\nMorgan about ten years ago, paid sixty thousand dollars. So high a price\nwas paid for this ecclesiastical vestment not because it was an antique\nbut because marvelous expertness in artcraft had given it such value. Be\nit recorded to the honor of the American millionaire, that he returned\nthe treasure to a church in Italy when he discovered that he had\nunknowingly bought stolen property.\n\nOf iron-mongery of Dante's time, the author of the Thirteenth the\nGreatest of Centuries writes as follows: \"It is difficult to understand\nhow one of the village blacksmiths of the time made a handsome gate that\nhas been the constant admiration of posterity ever since, or designed\nhigh hinges for doors that artists delight to copy, or locks and latches\nand bolts that are transported to our museums to be looked at with\ninterest not only because they are antiques but for the wonderful\ncombination of the beautiful and the useful which they illustrate. The\nsurprise grows the greater when we realize that these beautiful objects\nwere made not only in one place or even in a few places, but in nearly\nevery town of any size in England, France, Italy, Germany and Spain at\nvarious times during the thirteenth century and that at any time a town\nof considerably less than ten thousand inhabitants seemed to be able to\nobtain among its own inhabitants, men who could make such works of art\nnot as copies nor in servile imitation of others, but with original\nideas of their own, and make them in such perfection that in many cases\nthey have remained the models for many centuries.\"\n\nThat is especially true of the thirteenth century glass windows as seen,\nfor example, in the Cathedrals of York, Lincoln, Westminster,\nCanterbury, Chartres, Rheims, and in Notre Dame and the Sainte Chapelle,\nParis. Modern art with all its boasting cannot begin to make anything\ncomparable to that antique glass made and put in place by faith and love\nlong before Columbus discovered America. There are tiny bits of it in\nthis country as a result of the relic hunting of our soldiers in the\nWorld's War. Many of them got a fragment of the shattered glass of\nRheims, \"petrified color\" deep sky blue, ruby, golden green, and sent it\nhome to a sweetheart, a wife or sister to be mounted on a ring or set in\na pin.\n\nThe donors for the most part of the glass of the thirteenth century\nCathedrals, were guilds at that time. For the Cathedral of Chartres\ne.g. the drapers and the furriers gave five windows, the porters one,\nthe tavern-keepers two, the bakers two.\n\nIn Dante's time glass-making reached its climax and then the curve began\nto decline, until in the eighteenth century and in the early part of the\nnineteenth century glass-making reached its lowest point.\n\nGreat as was Dante's day in the efficiency and education promoted by the\nGuild system--Dante himself was a member of it--the achievement of his\nera in architecture was the \"most notable perhaps because what happened\nthere epitomizes all that was done elsewhere and the nature of what was\naccomplished is precisely that which informed the whole body of medieval\nachievement.\" (The Substance of Gothic, p. 137.)\n\nIn the course of the century that gave birth to Dante, architecture rose\nto a glory never equalled before or after. In France alone between the\nyears of 1180 and 1270 eighty great cathedrals and five hundred abbey\nhouses were constructed. It was in this century that Notre Dame, Paris,\narose, \"the only un-Greek thing\" said R.M. Stevenson, \"which unites\nmajesty elegance and awfulness.\" But it was not alone. Other Notre Dames\nsprung up in Germany, Italy and Spain. In England also, in that period\nthere were more than twenty cathedrals in the course of construction,\nsome of them in places as small as Wells, whose population never\nexceeded four thousand.\n\nTo look today upon Wells with its facade of nearly three hundred\nstatues, one hundred and fifty-three of which are life size or heroic\nand then to realize that this magnificent poem in stone was composed by\nvillagers unknown to us and unhonored and unsung, is to open our eyes\nto the wonders accomplished by the foremost age of architecture.\n\nSo wonderful are those cathedrals that Ferguson, the standard English\nauthority on Gothic architecture, does not hesitate to say; \"If any one\nman were to devote a lifetime to the study of one of our great\ncathedrals, assuming it to be complete in all its medieval\narrangements--it is questionable whether he would master all its details\nand fathom all the reasonings and experiments which led to the result\nbefore him.\n\n\"And when we consider that not only in the great cities alone, but in\nevery convent and in every parish, thoughtful men were trying to excel\nwhat had been done and was doing by their predecessors and their\nfellows, we shall understand what an amount of thought is built into the\nwalls of our churches, castles, colleges and dwelling houses. My own\nimpression is that not one-tenth part of it has been reproduced in all\nthe works written on the subject up to this day and much of it is\nprobably lost never again to be recovered for the instruction and\ndelight of future ages.\"\n\nThe irreparable shattering of the greatest of these monuments of the\npast, occurred in our day. The Cathedral of Rheims, the crowning\nperfection of architecture having survived \"the ravages of wars, the\nbrutishness of revolutions, the smug complacency of restoration which\nhad stripped it of its altars, its shrines and its tombs of unnumbered\nkings\" was the target for two years of German shell and shrapnel and\ntoday it stands gaunt and scathed in a circle of ruin. But even in its\nruin it shows infinite majesty and if it is left as it is,--and may that\nbe so--for restoration would only vulgarize its incomparable art, Rheims\nwill stand as a monument both to the thirteenth century which had made\nit the supreme type of the Gothic ideal to raise men's souls to God, and\nto the twentieth century against whose materialism it was an offence and\na protest.\n\nThe third characteristic of the age of Dante is its chivalry, which\nplaced woman on the highest pedestal she had ever occupied. In\nliterature that unique influence is seen in a new and an exalted\nconception of love. Love is now coupled with nobility of life. The\ntroubadours had sung of love as a quality belonging to gentle folk,\nmeaning by that phrase the nobility, and nobility had been defined by\nthe Emperor Frederick II, patron of the troubadours, as a combination\nof ancestral wealth and fine manners. In the Banquet (bk. IV) Dante\nrejects that definition and transfers nobility from the social to the\nmoral order holding that \"nobility exists where virtue dwells.\"\n\nLove, the flowering of this nobility, may be found in the heart of him\neven lowest in the social scale provided that he is a virtuous man. It\nis not an affair solely of gentle blood. It has no pedigree of birth or\nrichness. \"In this sense the true lover need not be a _gentleman_\nbut he must be a _gentle man_, loving not by genteel code of caste\nbut by gentle code of character.\" (J.B. Fletcher: Dante p. 27.)\n\nThus Dante makes Guido Guinicelli say: \"Love and the gentle heart are\none and the same thing.\" And Dante himself in one of his Canzoni writes:\n\n  \"Let no man predicate\n  That aught the name of gentleman should have\n  Even in a king's estate\n  Except the heart there be a gentle man's.\"\n\nLove, Then, Became In Literature Such A Refined Emotion That To Quote\nDante: \"It Makes Ill Thought To Perish, It Drives Into Foul Hearts A\nDeadly Chill\" And On The Other Hand It Fills Indeed The Lover With Such\nDelicacy Of Sentiment For His Beloved That She Is His Inspiration To\nVirtue And The Muse Who Directs His Pen. In Harmony With \"The Sweet New\nStyle\" Of Sincerity With Which Dante Treats Of Love, Thomas Bernart De\nVentadorn Sings:\n\n\"It is no wonder if I sing better than any other singer, for my heart\ndraws near to Love and I am a better man for Love's command.\"\n\nNot in literature alone but in actual life did chivalry exalt \"the\neternal womanly.\" In Dante's age, to quote the author of Phases of\nThought and Criticism, \"Knights passed from land to land in search of\nadventure, vowed to protect and defend the widow and the orphan and the\nlonely woman at the hazard of their lives: they went about with a prayer\non their lips and in their hearts the image of the lady-love whom they\nhad chosen to serve and to whom they had pledged loyalty and fidelity:\nthey strove to be chaste in body and soul and as a tower of strength for\nthe protection of this spirit of chastity, they were taught to venerate\nthe Virgin Mother Mary and cultivate toward her a tender devotion as the\npurest and holiest ideal of womanhood. This spirit of chivalry is the\nruling spirit of Dante's life and the inspiration of some of his\nsublimest flights.\"\n\nAll these high achievements of Dante's century are all the more notable\nin view of the fact that war with its horror and destruction was never\nabsent from those times. Every European country was involved often in\nwar and Asia and Africa were not free from its devastation.\n\nIn such stirring times, Dante was born at Florence. A city of flowers\nand gay festivities, the home of a cultured pleasure-loving people, it\nwas the frequent scene of feuds and factions handed down from sire to\nson. The hatred they engendered and the desolation they caused may be\nunderstood from the reading of Romeo and Juliet, a tragedy whose scene\nis laid in Verona in the year 1303 and to the families concerned in\nwhich Dante makes allusion in the sixth canto of his Purgatorio. But\nVerona and Florence were not the only cities involved by the militarism\nof the age. Especially in northern Italy were strife and bloodshed\ncommon. Province, city, town, hamlet and even households were torn by\ninternal dissensions, which only complicated the main conflict of that\nday, viz., the world struggle for supremacy of pope and emperor.\n\nThe imperial party called Ghibellines, composed mainly of aristocrats\nand their followers, aimed to break down the barriers which kept the\nGerman Emperor out of Italy, their object being to have him subjugate\nthe whole country, even the states of the Pope. The papal or popular\nparty, known as Guelfs, had as its purpose the independence of\nItaly--the freedom and alliance of the great cities of the north of\nItaly and dependence of the center and southern parts on the Roman See.\nA few months after Dante's death, the Ghibellines, the imperial party,\nsuffered a defeat by the overthrow of King Manfred from which they never\nrecovered. But in Florence for many years they maintained their\nstruggle.\n\nTo add to the confusion of the Florentines whose sympathy was mostly\nGuelf--i.e. favorable to the papal or popular cause--the Guelf party of\nFlorence was divided into two factions, the Bianchi and the Neri, the\nhistory of whose tumults often leading to blood and mischief may be\nknown by the frequent allusions of our poet. Embroiled by those feuds,\nDante is found not only as a prior among the ruling Bianchi but as a\nsoldier under arms at the battle of Campaldino and at the siege of\nCaprona. Later when the Neri were restored to power, Dante was banished\nand never again beheld his beloved city. In exile Dante transferred his\nallegiance to the Ghibellines though he upheld the Guelf view as to the\nprimacy of the Church. Subsequently he tried, but in vain, to form a\nparty independent of Guelf, Ghibelline, Bianchi or Neri.\n\nMay I conclude this chapter by giving you another view of Dante's\nenvironment? To point out the degeneracy of Florence, Dante becomes a\n_laudator acti temporis_ in a picture of the earlier Florence that\nhas never been equalled.\n\n\"Florence was abiding in peace, sober and modest. She had not necklace\nor coronal or women with ornamented shoes or girdle which was more to be\nlooked at than the person. Nor yet did the daughter at her birth give\nfear to her father, for the time and dowry did not outrun measure on\nthis or that side. She had not houses empty of families. I saw\nBellencion Berti go girt with leather and bone and his lady come from\nthe mirror with unpainted face. I saw him of the Nerlo and him of the\nVecchio satisfied with unlined skin and their ladies with the spindle\nand the distaff. O! fortunate women, each was sure of her burial place\"\n(Paradiso IV, 97).\n\nBut time changed all that. With her population vastly increased in\nDante's day and her commerce on all seas and on every road and her\nbanking system controlling the markets of Europe and the East, Florence\nhad become such a mighty city that Pope Boniface VIII could say to the\nFlorentine embassy who came to Rome to take part in the Jubilee of 1300:\n\"Florence is the greatest of cities. She feeds, clothes, governs us all.\nIndeed she appears to rule the world. She and her people are, in truth,\nthe fifth element of the universe.\" (The Guilds of Florence, p. 562.)\n\nSuch greatness was attained according to Dante only at the loss of\npristine simplicity and virtue. So he apostrophizes his native city:\n\"Rejoice O Florence, since thou art so mighty that thou canst spread\nthy wings over sea and land and thy name is known throughout Hell.\"\nNotorious for crime Florence still kept a big place in her life for\nreligion. There \"religion was abused but its beneficial effects\ncontinued to be manifest--vice was flagrant but it never lost the sense\nof shame--men were cruel but their cruelty was followed by sincere\nregrets--misfortunes were frequent and signal but they were accepted\nwith resignation or with the hope of retrieval or men gloried in them\non account of the cause in which they suffered.\" (Brother Azarias.)\n\nAnd, meanwhile, side by side with fierce and bloody struggles the\ncreative forces of art and architecture were making marvelous progress\nbefore the very eyes of Dante. Niccolo Pisano had finished his Sienna\npulpit and with his son was engaged on his immortal works of sculpture.\nOrcagna had made a wonderful tabernacle for the Florentine church of San\nMichele, Cimabue had painted the Madonna which is now in the Rucellai\nchapel. Giotto had completed his work at Assisi and Rome and would soon\ngive to the world the Florentine Campanile. Fra Sisto and Fra Ristoro\nhad built the church Santa Maria Novella at Florence and Arnolfo di\nCambio, while Dante was writing sonnets, had begun the duomo or\ncathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore. The stout walls and lofty tower of\nthe Bargello had sprung into beauteous being. Santa Croce destined to\nbe the burial place of illustrious Italians, had been built and remains\ntoday one of Florence's greatest churches. St. John's Baptistry, _il\nmio bel Giovanni_, had received its external facing of marble, and in\nten years after Dante's death would get its massive bronze doors which\nare unparalleled in the world.\n\nThe century closed with the opening of the great Jubilee at Rome. March\ntwenty-fifth of the following year, 1300, Dante places as the time for\nhis journey through the realms of the unseen--the story of which is told\nin the Divina Commedia. If sympathy with Dante and his work is not\naroused already, perhaps these two quotations may quicken your interest.\n\nCharles Elliot Norton writes: \"There are few other works of man, perhaps\nthere is no other, which affords such evidence as the Divine Comedy, of\nuninterrupted consistency of purpose, of sustained vigor of imagination,\nand of steady force of character controlling alike the vagaries of the\npoetic temperament, the wavering of human purpose, the fluctuation of\nhuman powers, the untowardness of circumstances. From the beginning to\nthe end of his work of many years there is no flagging of energy, no\nindication of weakness. The shoulders burdened by a task almost too\ngreat for mortal strength, never tremble under their load.\"\n\nAnd Dr. Frank Crane, a foremost writer of the syndicate press, says \"I\nhave put a good deal of hard labor digging into Dante and while I cannot\nsay that I ever got from him any direct usable material, yet I no more\nregret my hours spent with him than I regret the beautiful landscapes I\nhave seen, the great music I have heard, the wise and noble souls I have\nmet, the wondrous dreams I have had. These are all a part of one's\neducation, of one's equipment for life and perhaps the best part.\"\n\n\n\n\nDANTE THE MAN\n\n\n\n\nDANTE THE MAN\n\n\nFifty-five years ago when called on for a poem to celebrate the sixth\nhundredth anniversary of Dante's birth, Tennyson, feeling his own\nlittleness before \"this central man of all the world,\" wrote:\n\n  \"King, that has reigned six hundred years and grown\n  In power and ever growest\n  I, wearing but the garland of a day,\n  Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away.\"\n\nNew tributes to the genius of Dante will be offered by our generation,\nfor already great preparations are under way in all parts of Italy and\nthe literary world to commemorate in 1921, the six hundredth anniversary\nof the death of the author of the greatest of all Christian poems. The\nquestion naturally suggests itself: Has not the world moved forward many\ncenturies from Dante's viewpoint and lost interest in many things\nregarded as truths or at least as burning issues by Dante? Who is now\nconcerned with the Ptolomaic system of astronomy, which is so often the\nsubject of Dante's thought? Who is now interested in the tragic\njealousies and injustices suffered by the people of Florence which led\nto the bitter feuds that helped to make Dante the great poet? Who, in\nthis twentieth century so intent upon making the world safe for\ndemocracy, has sympathy with Dante's advocated scheme of a world-wide\nabsolute monarchy as the cure for the ills of the society of his day?\nIs this generation which sees Italy united as a result of the overthrow\nof the Papal states, so universally concerned with Papal claims which\nwere matters of vital importance to Dante and his generation? Is our\nera, which unfortunately looks upon religion as a negligible factor and\nnot as the animating principle of life, interested in the golden age of\nfaith of which Dante is the embodiment, and his message in which the\neternal is the object?\n\nYet, Dante's following is today larger than ever before; his empire over\nminds and hearts is more extensive. The moving pictures feature his\nInferno; the press issues, even in languages not his own, such a mass of\nbooks and articles concerning him that a specialist can hardly keep\ntrack of the output. In the universities, especially of Harvard, Cornell\nand Columbia, not to speak of those in other lands, the courses on Dante\nattract an unusually large number of students. Outside of the academic\natmosphere there are thousands of readers who still find in his\nwritings, a solace in grief, a strength in temptation, a deep sense of\nreality, permanent though unseen, of the love of God and of His justice.\nThe reasons are not far away.\n\n\"Our poet,\" says Grandgent \"was a many sided genius who has a message\nfor nearly everyone.\"\n\nDante's compelling renown among us, is due says Dr. Frank Crane both \"to\nthe intrinsic greatness of the man's personality and to the sheer beauty\nof his craftsmanship.\"\n\n\"The secret of Dante's power\" writes James Russell Lowell \"is not far\nto seek. Whoever can express _himself_ with the full force of\nunconscious sincerity will be found to have uttered something ideal\nand universal.\"\n\nWhether one or all these reasons are the true explanation of the\ntwentieth century's great interest in Dante, the fact remains, as\nTennyson said, that far from being a waning classic, Dante \"in power\never grows,\" and the interest he calls forth constitutes, as James Bryce\nobserved in his Lowell Institute lectures \"the literary phenomenon of\nEngland and America.\"\n\nNow to Dante as the man let us turn. To know the fibre of his manhood\nwill help us to appreciate the genius of his art. \"It is needful to know\nDante as man\" wrote Charles Elliot Norton, \"in order fully to\nappreciate him as poet.\" The thought is expressed in another way by\nJames Russell Lowell: \"The man behind the verse is far greater than the\nverse itself and Dante is not merely a great poet but an influence, part\nof the soul's resources in time of trouble. From him the soul learns\nthat 'married to the truth she is a mistress but otherwise a slave shut\nout of all liberty'\" (The Banquet). But that knowledge is dependent upon\nour intimacy with the life and spirit of Dante. In many other cases the\nknowledge of the life and personality of an author may not be essential\nto either our enjoyment or our understanding of his work. In the case of\nDante \"he faces his own mirror and so appears in the mid-foreground of\nhis reflected word.\" Before looking into that mirror for Dante's\npicture, let us first recall some of the established facts in his life\nand then see what manner of man he appeared to those who were his\ncontemporaries or who lived chronologically near him.\n\nDante was born in Florence in the year 1265. His father was a notary\nbelonging to an old but decadent Guelph family, his mother, named Bella,\nwas a daughter of Durante Abati, a Ghibelline noble. Whether his own\nfamily was regarded among the first families of nobility or not, it is\ncertain that Dante enjoyed the honor of knowing that one of his\nforebears, Cacciaguida, had been knighted by Emperor Conrad II on the\nSecond Crusade. Precocious Dante must have been, as a boy, with\nfaculties and emotions extraordinarily developed, for in his ninth year,\nwhile attending a festal party, he fell in love with a little girl named\nBeatrice Portinari, eight years old. \"Although still a child\" to quote\nBoccaccio his earliest biographer \"he received her image into his heart\nwith such affection that from that day forward never so long as he\nlived, did it depart therefrom.\" She became the wife of Simone dei\nBardi, and died in her twenty-fourth year, the subject of many sonnets\nfrom her mystic lover who, if he had never written anything else, would\nhave been entitled, by his book of sonnets, his New Life, to rank as a\npoet of the first class.\n\nTwo years after the death of Beatrice, Dante married Gemma Donati, a\nmember of an old aristocratic family of Florence and by her had four\nchildren. In the period between the death of Beatrice and his marriage\nhe had seen military service, having borne arms as a Guelph at the\nbattle of Campaldino (Purg. V, 91-129) in which the Florentines defeated\nthe Ghibelline league of Arezzo and he took part at the siege of Caprona\nand was present at its surrender by the Pisans (Inf., XXI, 95.) When he\nwas thirty years old he became a member of the Special Council of the\nRepublic, consisting of eight of the best and most influential citizens\nand in 1300, at the age of thirty-five, midway in the journey of his\nlife, he was elected one of the six Priors (chief magistrates of his\ncity) for the months of June and July. Shortly after this Dante with\nthree others went to Rome on an embassy to Pope Boniface VIII to get\nthat pontiff's veto to the intervention of Charles de Valois, brother\nof Philip IV of France, in the affairs of Florence. But there was delay\nin the transaction of the business and that gave the stranger time to\nwin the city by treachery. When the news reached Dante, he hurried\nhomeward. At Sienna he learned that his house had been pillaged and\nburned and he himself had been accused of malfeasance in office. Without\na trial he was condemned to a heavy fine and to perpetual banishment\nunder penalty that if he returned he would be burned alive. Then began\nhis twenty years' exile--years in which he went sometimes almost begging\nand at all times even when he was an honored guest in the home of\nnobility--knowing as only an exile can know \"how bitter is the bread of\ndependence and how steep the stranger's stairs.\" It was during his exile\nthat Dante completed his immortal Divina Commedia, the child of his\nthought \"cradled into poetry by wrong.\" Dante never again saw Florence\nfor which he yearned with all the intensity of the Hebrew captives weeping\non the rivers of Babylon for a sight of Jerusalem. Death came to free his\nundaunted soul in the year 1321 while he was a guest at Ravenna of Guido\nNovello da Polenta, a nephew of Francesca da Rimini. At Ravenna the last\nseat of Roman arts and letters, in a sepulchre attached to the convent\nof the Franciscan monks, he was buried with the honors due to a saint\nand a sage. The inscription on his epitaph said to have been composed by\nhim on his deathbed, is paraphrased by Lowell in the following words:\n\n  \"The rights of Monarchy, the Heavens, the stream of Fire, the Pit\n  In vision seen, I sang as far as to the Fates seemed fit.\n  But since my soul, an alien here, hath flown to nobler wars,\n  And happier now, hath gone to seek its Maker with the stars,\n  Here am I, Dante, shut, exiled from the ancestral shore\n  Whom Florence, the fairest of all-least-loving mothers, bore.\"\n\nSuch is the brief outline of the outward life of him of whom\nMichelangelo declared:\n\n\"Ne'er walked the earth a greater man than he.\"\n\nIt will help us to a better understanding of that man if his likeness is\nimpressed upon our memory. The portrait made by his friend Giotto, shows\nhim as a young man perhaps of twenty to twenty-five years, with a face\nnoble, beardless, strong, intelligent and pensive--a face which would\nnot lead one to suspect an appreciation of humor. Yet writers find two\ndistinct forms of that quality--a playfulness in his eclogues and a\ngrotesqueness in certain of his assignments to punishments in Hell.\nContrasting with this picture of his early life is the face of his death\nmask and of the Naples bust, suggesting the lines\n\n  \"How stern of lineament, how grim\n  The father was of Tuscan song.\"\n\nHere we see him mature with strength of character in every feature and a\nseriousness of mien which shows a man with whom one might not take\nliberties. It was of Dante in mature life that Boccaccio wrote: \"Our\npoet was of moderate height and after reaching maturity was accustomed\nto walk somewhat bowed with a slow and gentle pace, clad always in such\nsober dress as befitted his ripe years. His face was long, his nose\naquiline and his eyes rather large than small. His jaws were large and\nhis lower lip protruded beyond the upper. His complexion was dark and\nhis expression very melancholy and thoughtful. His manners, whether in\npublic or at home, were wonderful, composed and restrained, and in all\nways he was more courteous and civil than any one else.\"\n\nBruni, on the other hand, who wrote a century later describes Dante as\nif he had in mind Giotto's fresco of the poet. This is Bruni's\nword-picture: \"He was a man of great refinement, of medium height and\na pleasant but deeply serious face. It was remarkable that although he\nstudied incessantly, none would have supposed from his happy manner and\nyouthful way of speaking that he had studied at all.\" However well these\npictures may visualize the poet for us, I cannot help thinking that\nDante himself, after the manner of great artists who paint their own\npictures, gives us a far better portrait of himself. What we know of him\nfrom others is as nothing compared to the revelation he has made of\nhimself in his writings. For, as Dr. Zahm, in his Great Inspirers, has\nsaid: \"Dante, although the most concealing of men was, paradoxical as it\nmay seem, the most self-revealing.\" The indirect recorder of his own\nlife, he discloses to us an intimate view of his spiritual struggles, of\nthe motives which actuated him, of the passions he experienced, not to\nspeak of the judgments he formed upon all great questions. \"So true is\nthis that if it were possible to meet him, we should feel that he was\nan intimate friend who had never concealed anything from us--who had\ndiscoursed with us on all subjects; science, literature, philosophy,\ntheology, love, poetry, happiness, the world to come and all that of\nwhich it most imports us to have accurate knowledge.\" Let us then see\nthe man as reflected in his writings.\n\nFirst of all he reveals himself as a man profoundly animated by\nreligion. He is not a Huysmanns or a Francois Coppee, a Brunetiere,\na Paul Bourget, forsaking the religious teachings of his youth only to\nembrace them in mature life. Never for a moment did he deflect from the\nCatholic doctrine, though his studies led him to the consideration of\nthe most subtle arguments raised against it. He was indeed the defender\nand champion of faith, having no sympathy for a mind which would lose\nitself in seeking the solution of the incomprehensible mysteries of\nreligion. So he has Virgil say:\n\n  \"Insensate he who thinks with mortal ken\n  To pierce Infinitude which doth enfold\n  Three persons in one substance. Seek not, then,\n  O Mortal race, for reasons, but believe\n  And be content, for had all been seen\n  No need there was for Mary to conceive.\n  Men have ye known who thus desired in vain\n  And whose desires, that might at rest have been,\n  Now constitute a source of endless pain.\n  Plato, the Stagerite, and many more\n  I here allude to. Then his head he bent,\n  Was silent and a troubled aspect wore.\"\n          (Purg., III, 34.)\n\nGuided by the wisdom he thus enunciated Dante from youth to death\nmaintained a child-like faith that satisfied his intellect and animated\nhis sentiments. His faith really grew into a passion. His fidelity to\nthe truth of the doctrines of the Church or to the sacred offices of the\npapacy was never shaken either by the scandals of clerical life or the\nopposition of different popes to his political ideals. Frequently he\nraised his voice in protest yet, notwithstanding his censures against\nwhat he considered abuses in the external administration of the Church\nand the policy of her popes, on his part there was not the least\nsuspicion of unsettled faith or revolutionary design. Strongly convinced\nof the divinity of the Church, his passionate nature could not help\nexecrating the human element that would weaken her influence. \"He\nteaches that the mystical Vine of the Church still grows and Peter and\nPaul who died for it, still live. He holds by that Church. He begs\nChristians not to be moved feather-like by every wind of doctrine. 'You\nhave' he tells them 'the Old Testament and the New. The Pastor of the\nChurch guides you, let this suffice for your salvation'\" (Brother\nAzarias). In his devotional life Dante is just as ardent as he is firm\nin his adherence to dogma. While all Catholics are held to profess a\ncommon creed, each may follow the bent of his disposition and sympathy\nin pious practices, theologically called devotions. It seems to me that\nDante had three such devotions which he practised intensely in his inner\nlife.\n\nFirst, devotion to the sacred Humanity of Christ. In eleven places does\nhe speak at length of Christ's two-fold nature as God and Man; in ten\nplaces does he refer to Christ as the Second Person of the Blessed\nTrinity, and wherever Cristo occurs at the end of a line, Dante out of\nreverence for the Sacred Person does not rime with it, but repeats the\nname itself. The climax of the Purgatorio is the apparition of the\nGriffin, the symbol of Christ. Further, on the stellar white cross of\nred-glowing Mars the poet shows the figure of the Redeemer. In the\nEmpyrean Christ is represented in the unveiled glory of His human and\ndivine natures. So teaching the doctrine of the Incarnation most clearly\nand most ardently Dante seeks to promote this cultus as the soul of the\nCatholic religion.\n\nDante's second special devotion is to the Blessed Virgin. His Paradiso\ncontains the best treatise on Mariology. The whole Divine Comedy indeed\nis the poet's loving testimonial of gratitude to the Madonna. It was\nthrough Mary that his visionary voyage to the other world was made\npossible. She rescued him when he was enslaved by sin and sent as his\nsuccessive guides Virgil, Beatrice and St. Bernard. She of all creatures\nis proclaimed on every terrace of Purgatory first in virtue and highest\nin dignity and her example is exhibited as an unfailing source of\ninspiration to the Souls, to endure suffering cheerfully and to make\nthemselves, like her, the exemplars of goodness in the highest degree.\nIn Paradiso she is seen by the poet in all her unspeakable loveliness\nand beatitude and as Queen of Angels and of Saints her intercession is\nfavorably invoked that Dante might enjoy the Vision of God himself. In\nthe last canto of the poem her super-eminence and incomparable\nexcellence are sung \"with a sweetness of expression, a depth of\nphilosophy and a tenderness of feeling that have never been surpassed\nin human language.\"\n\n  \"Thou Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son,\n  Humble and high beyond all other creatures,\n  The limit fixed of the eternal counsel;\n  Thou art the one who such nobility\n  To human nature gave that its Creator\n  Did not disdain to make Himself its creature.\n  Within thy womb rekindled was the love\n  By heat of which in the eternal peace,\n  After such wise, this flower was germinated.\n  Here unto us thou art a noonday torch\n  Of charity, and below there among mortals\n  Thou art the living fountainhead of hope.\n\n  Lady, thou art so great and so prevailing,\n  That he who wishes grace nor runs to thee,\n  His aspirations without wings would fly.\n  Not only thy benignity gives succor\n  To him who asketh it, but oftentimes\n  Forerunneth of its own accord the asking.\n  In thee compassion is, in thee is pity,\n  In thee magnificence; in thee unites\n  Whatever of goodness is in any creature.\"\n\nThe third private devotion of Dante is devotion to the Souls in\nPurgatory--a pious practice founded upon the scriptural words: \"It is a\nholy and a wholesome thought to pray for the dead that they may be\nloosed from their sins.\" Not only does Dante answer the objection raised\nas to the efficacy of prayer offered for the souls in Purgatory (VI, 28)\nbut in many passages he promises his own prayers and works and seeks to\narouse in others on earth a helpful sympathy for those souls. \"Truly\" he\nsays, \"we ought to help them to wash away their stains which they have\nborne hence, so that, pure and light, they may go forth to the starry\nspheres,\" (Purg. VI, 34.)\n\nTo sum up Dante's attachment to his religion we can truly say not only\nhis life but his great poem radiates the spirit and doctrine of the\nChurch. Hettinger says of Dante: \"In truth he anticipated the most\npregnant developments of Catholic doctrine, mastered its subtlest\ndistinctions and treated its hardest problems with almost faultless\naccuracy. Were all the libraries in the world destroyed and the Sacred\nScripture with them, the whole Catholic system of doctrine and morals\nmight be almost reconstructed out of the Divina Commedia.\"\n\nIntensity, indeed, is the characteristic of Dante's spiritual life. In\nbringing that quality to his faith and religious practice he was only\nmanifesting the operation of the dominating quality which regulated his\nwhole life and shaped all his mental and emotional habits. The realm of\nhis thought and feeling was truly the land of the strenuous life. Having\nonce set out to say of Beatrice what had never been said of any woman,\nDante applied himself to his prodigious task with a consistency of\npurpose that was unmoved by persecution and unshaken by time. In all\nthe years that he spent in the composition of the Divina Commedia there\nwas no flagging of interest, no indication of weakness. No one ever\napplied himself with more complete absorption or with greater power\nof unfaltering concentration, just as no one ever felt more deeply\nthe outrageous arrows of fortune or the transcendent supremacy of love.\nIt is precisely because of this intensity that his thoughts and feelings\naffect us so profoundly six centuries later.\n\nIntense in his own life Dante had no sympathy with slackers or the\nlukewarm whom he characterizes as never having been alive, i.e. of never\nhaving awakened to responsibility to take part in good or evil. As a\nconsequence they never contributed anything to society. Because in this\nlife they shifted from one side to another, they are now depicted\nrunning perpetually after an aimlessly dodging banner. Here is the\ndescription of the punishment of the lukewarm:\n\n\"Now sighs, cries, and shrill shrieks rang through the starless air:\nWhereat at first I began to weep, strange tongues, hurried speech, words\nof pain, accents of wrath, voices loud and weak, and the sound of hands\naccompanying them, made a tumult which revolves forever in that air\nendlessly dark, like sands blowing before a whirlwind. And I, whose head\nwas hooded with horror, exclaimed: 'Master, what is it I hear? What\nkind of people is it that seems so vanquished by grief? And he replied:\n'This is the miserable way followed by the sorry souls of those who\nlived without infamy and without glory. They are mingled with the mean\nchoir of those angels who were not rebels and were not faithful to God,\nbut were for themselves. Heaven cast them out lest its beauty should be\nspoiled; and deep Hell will not receive them, because the damned might\nderive some satisfaction from them.'\n\n\"'Master,' I said, 'what is so grievous to them which makes them\ncomplain so loud?' 'I shall tell thee right briefly' he answered. 'These\npeople have no hope of death and their blind life's so vile that they\nare envious of any other lot. The world allows no report of them to\nlast: mercy and justice disdain them. Let us not speak of them but look\nand pass by!' And I, looking, saw a banner which ran circling so swift\nthat it seemed scornful of all rest: and after it there came trailing\nsuch a long train of people that I should never have thought death had\nundone so many. When I had made out one or two of them I saw and\nrecognized the shade of him who, for cowardice, made the great refusal.\nForthwith I understood and was convinced that this was the sect of\npoltroons, obnoxious both to God and to God's enemies. These luckless\ncreatures who never had been really alive, were naked and badly stung\nby flies and wasps which were there. These insects streaked their faces\nwith blood which, mixed with tears, was caught by disgusting worms at\ntheir feet--\" (Inferno III, 33. Grandgent's translation.) In reading\nthat description of the punishment of the lukewarm, one cannot fail to\nobserve that not one is called by name. Because they \"lived without\ninfamy and without glory\" their name deserves to be lost forever to\nthe world.\n\nOf the renown of Dante's own name our poet has no misgivings. He reveals\nhimself as a man having supreme confidence in his own powers. Boccaccio\nrepresents him as saying when he was with his party at the head of the\ngovernment of the republic of Florence, and when there was question of\nsending him on an embassy to Rome, \"If I go, who stays? And if I stay,\nwho goes?\" \"As if he alone,\" is the comment of Boccaccio, \"was worth\namong them all, and as if the others were nothing worth except through\nhim.\" It is certain that Dante put a high valuation upon his genius, an\nestimate due, perhaps, to the belief he held, like Napoleon, in the\npotency of his star. He was born under the constellation of the Gemini\nand to them in gratitude for his self-recognized talent he gives praise:\n\n  \"O glorious stars, O light impregnated\n  With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge\n  All of my genius whatso'er it be,\n  With you was born, and hid himself with you,\n  He who is father of all mortal life,\n  When first I tasted of the Tuscan air.\"\n          (Par. XXII, 112)\n\nCertain it is that Dante acted on the counsel which, addressed to\nhimself, he puts into the mouth of his beloved teacher, Brunetto Latini,\n\"Follow thy star and thou cans't not miss the glorious port.\" (Inf., XV,\n55.) In Purgatorio Dante says: \"My name as yet marks no great sound,\"\nbut he boasts that he will surpass in fame the Guidos, writers of verse:\n\"Perchance some one is already born who will drive both from out the\nnest.\" He is so sure that posterity will confer immortality upon his\nwork that he does not hesitate to make himself sixth among the greatest\nwriters of the world. This passage occurs when he enters Limbus\naccompanied by Virgil to whom a group of spirits, Homer, Horace, Ovid,\nand Lucan, make salutation. (Inf., IV, 76.) Posterity has bestowed\ngreater renown on Dante's name than even he presumed to hope, for it\nhas placed him in the Court of Letters with only one of the writers\nof antiquity, Homer, and with two subsequent writers, Cervantes\nand Shakespeare.\n\nNaturally we think that a writer who was so positively confident and\nboastful of his powers must have been given to pride and Dante indeed\nplainly indicates to us that he was guilty of this. But it was pride,\nwe think, that was honorable and not a vice, a pride of which a lesser\nlight, Lacordaire says, \"By the grace of God, I abhor mediocrity.\" In\nthe dark wood Dante represents the Lion (Pride) as preventing him from\nascending the mountain--\"He seemed to be coming to me with head upreared\nand with such raging hunger, that the air appeared to be in fear of\nhim.\" (Inf., I, 43.)\n\nAnd that the poet's trepidation was justified he later makes known\n(Purg. XI, 136) when he expresses the fear that for pride he may be\neternally punished. Perhaps it was because Dante recognized the pride of\nhis learning, of his ancestry, of his associations with distinguished\npersonages as his besetting sin that he exercised his skill as a master\nin showing us profound imagery representing the characteristics of\npride. Carved out of the mountain in the first circle of a terrace of\nPurgatory are scenes illustrative of humility. While looking on these\nscenes, which seem to live and speak in their beautiful and compelling\nreality, the poet turns and sees approaching the forms of the proud. On\nearth they had exalted themselves as if they had the weight of the world\non their shoulders, so now they are seen bent under huge burdens of\nstone, crumpled up in postures of agonizing discomfort. The poet, to let\nus know that he shares in their punishment, says:\n\n  \"With equal pace as oxen in the yoke,\n  I, with that laden spirit, journey'd on\n  Long as the mild instructor suffer'd me.\"\n          (Purg. XII, 1)\n\nHe apostrophizes them, but the words are really an upbraiding of himself\nfor pride.\n\n  \"O ye proud Christians, wretched weary ones,\n  Who in the vision of the mind infirm,\n  Confidence have in your backsliding steps,\n  Do ye not comprehend that we are worms\n  Born to bring forth the angelic butterfly\n  That flieth unto judgment without screen?\n  Who floats aloft your spirit high in air?\n  Like are ye unto insects undeveloped\n  Even as the worm in whom formation fails!\n  As to sustain a ceiling or a roof\n  In place of corbel, sometimes a figure\n  Is seen to join unto its knees its breast\n  Which makes of the unreal, real anguish\n  Arise in him who sees it: fashioned thus\n  Beheld I these, when I had ta'en good heed\n  True is it, they were more or less bent down\n  According as they were more or less laden\n  And he who had most patience on his looks\n  Weeping did seem to say I can no more.\"\n          (Purg. X, 121)\n\nLike all great men of undoubted sincerity Dante was intellectually big\nenough to change his mind when a new view presented itself in\ncondemnation of an earlier judgment. So his \"Vernacular Composition\"\nretracts a statement he had made in the New Life where he had held that\nas amatory poems were addressed to ladies ignorant of Latin, Love should\nbe the only subject the poet ought to present in the vernacular. He\nlearned later and published his new view that there is good precedent\nfor treating in the vulgar tongue not only Love but also Righteousness\nand War.\n\nOther examples of his honesty of mind are furnished in the Paradise\nwhere he expresses through the mouths of his disembodied teachers views\nopposed to those he had already advanced in his other works. Thus his\ntheory of the spots on the moon, his statement as to the respective rank\nof the angelic orders, his assumption that Hebrew was the language of\nAdam and Eve--all yield to a maturer conception in contradiction to his\noriginal views. He is, it is true, sometimes blinded by partisanship or\nlacking in the historical perspective necessary for a true judgment of\nhis contemporaries--but Dante is naturally so sincere a man that he is\neager to be just to every one. Perhaps there is no better instance of\nthe exercise of this quality than in his assigning to the heaven of\nJupiter, Constantine, to whose supposed donation of vast territories,\nthen regarded as genuine, Dante ascribes the corruption of the Church.\n\nMany readers, whose acquaintance with our poet does not extend beyond\nthe Inferno, see in him only the incarnation of savagery and scorn. They\nfail to pay tribute to the wonderful power of his friendship or to\nrecognize that his sufferings of adversity and injustice gave birth to\ndeep passion. To them he seems only to place his few friends in Heaven\nand in Hell to roast all his enemies. It must be at once confessed that\nthere are instances in the Divina Commedia which, taken by themselves,\nwould lead one to so superficial an estimate of the man. In Canto VIII\nof the Inferno Dante with his guide, Virgil, enters a bark on the Styx\nand sails across the broad marsh. During the passage a spirit all\ncovered with mud addresses Dante, who recognizes him as Filippo Argenti,\na Florentine notorious for his arrogance and brutal violence. \"Master,\"\nsays Dante to Virgil, \"I should be glad to see him dipped in this swill\nere we quit the lake.\" And he to me, 'Before the shore comes to thy view\nthou shalt be satisfied.' A little while after this I saw the muddy\npeople make such a rending of him that even now I praise and thank God\nfor it. Such gloating over suffering surely seems to say to you: Here\nwe have a man of a cruel vindictive nature.\n\nAgain, in the ice of Caina, the region where traitors are immersed up to\ntheir heads, Dante hits his foot violently against the face of Bocca\ndegli Abati who betrayed the Florentines at the crucial battle of\nMontaperti. \"Weeping it cried out to me: 'Why tramplest thou on me? If\nthou comest not to increase the vengeance for Montaperti, why dost thou\nmolest me?' I said: 'What art thou who thus reproachest others?' 'Nay\nwho art thou' he answered 'that through the Antenora goest, smiting the\ncheeks of others, so that if thou wert alive, it were too much.' 'I am\nalive' was my reply 'and if thou seekest fame, it may be precious to\nthee, that I put thy name among the other notes.' And he to me. 'The\ncontrary is what I long for, take thyself away!' Then I seized him by\nthe afterscalp and said: 'It will be necessary that thou name thyself or\nthat not a hair remain upon thee here.' Whence he to me: 'Even if thou\nunhair me I will not tell thee who I am.' I already had his hair coiled\non my hand and had plucked off more than one tuft of it, he barking and\nkeeping down his eyes, when another cried, 'What ails thee Bocca?'\nHaving thus learned the sinner's name, the poet releases him, saying:\n'accursed traitor I do not want thee to speak, for to thy shame I will\nbear true tidings'\" (Inf., XXXII, 97.) Some may say that it is to Dante's\nshame that he shows himself so devoid of pity.\n\nAnother example would seem to confirm this startling view of Dante's\ncharacter. At the bottom of Hell, eager to learn the identity of a\nreprobate, a certain Friar Albergo, the poet promises him in return for\nthe desired information to remove the ice from his eyes so that he may\nhave \"the poor consolation of grief unchecked.\"\n\n\"Remove the hard veils from my face that I may vent the grief which\nstuffs my heart, a little ere the weeping freeze again! Wherefore I said\nto him. 'If thou woulds't have me aid thee, tell me who thou art, and if\nI do not extricate thee, may I have to go to the bottom of the ice.'\"\nThe poet of course knows that he must go thither to continue his journey\nto Purgatory, but the reprobate soul is unaware of such a course, and\nbelieves that the visitor has fortified his promise with a true oath.\nBoth his name and the damning story of his life are soon told by the\npoor wretch, who then asks Dante for the fulfillment of the\npromise--the removal of the ice so that sight may be restored even for a\nminute. \"'Open my eyes' he said--but I opened them not, to be rude to\nhim was courtesy\" (Inf., XXXIII, 148.) Does not Dante by his own words\nshow himself deep-dyed in hatred and cruelty?\n\n\"The case against him\" says Dinsmore, \"is not so bad as the first\nreading would indicate. Part of the explanation of his apparent cruelty\nundoubtedly lies in the fact that the poet would teach us that character\nis influenced by environment. In the circle of wrath, he is wrathful, in\nthe pit of traitors he is false. Then we are to recall that Dante\nundoubtedly laid to heart Virgil's reproof, when he wept at the sad\npunishment of the soothsayers: 'Who is more wicked than he who feels\ncompassion at the Divine Judgment.' Passionate love of God, Dante holds,\nimplies passionate hatred of God's enemies. That is a thought expressed\nby the Psalmist. 'Lord, have I not hated them that hate thee and pined\naway because of thy enemies? I have hated them with a perfect hatred and\nthey are become enemies to me' (CXXXVIII, 21). So it may be said that\nDante has the spirit of the psalmist and seeks to love, as God loves,\nand to hate as God hates.\"\n\nWhether that explanation satisfy my readers or not, there is another\nside to Dante's character that is most attractive. \"Dowered with the\nhate of hate, the scorn of scorn,\" he was a paradox,--gentle and tender.\nFailure to see this phase of Dante's nature led Frederick Schlegel to\ndeclare that Dante's \"chief defect is the want of gentle feelings\"--a\nstatement that called forth this exclamation from Lord Byron: \"Of gentle\nfeelings. And Francesca of Rimini and the father's feelings in Ugolino\nand Beatrice and the Pia! Why there is a gentleness in Dante above all\ngentleness when he is tender!\"\n\nLet us see some examples of this tender quality in our poet. Only one\nendowed with gentleness and beauty of soul, could have conceived a\nPurgatory \"not hot with sulphurous flames\" remarks Dinsmore, \"but\nhealing the wounded spirit with the light of shimmering sea, the glories\nof morning, the perfume of flowers, the touch of angels, the living\nforms of art and the sweet strains of music.\"\n\nOnly a man of warm-heartedness and delicate susceptibility at the sight\nof a row of souls, temporarily blinded, would have been touched to such\nan extent that he would be filled with anxiety lest in looking upon them\nand silently passing them by who could not return his gaze, he would\nshow them some discourtesy.\n\n  \"It were a wrong, methought, to pass and look\n  On others, yet myself, the while unseen,\n  To my sage counsel therefore did I turn.\"\n          (Purg. XIII,73)\n\nGentleness also reveals itself in lovely lines wherein the poet speaks\nof the relations of parent and child. He tells us, for instance, how\n\n  \"An infant seeks his mother's breast\n  When fear and anguish vex his troubled heart.\"\n          (Purg. XXX.)\n\nHe recalls how he himself with child-like sorrow stood confessing his\nsins:\n\n  \"As little children, dumb with shame's keen smart,\n  Will listening stand with eyes upon the ground\n  Owning their faults with penitential heart\n  So then stood I.\"\n          (Purg. XXXI, 66)\n\nWhen overcome by the splendor of the heaven Saturn it is as a child he\nturns to Beatrice for assurance:\n\n  \"Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide\n  Turned like a little child who always runs\n  For refuge there where he confideth most,\n  And she, even as a mother who straightway\n  Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy\n  With voice whose wont is to reassure him,\n  Said to me: 'Knowest thou not thou art in heaven?'\"\n          (Par. XXII, I)\n\nAgain, it is the gentle heart of a fond father who speaks in the\nfollowing lines:\n\n  \"Awaking late, no little innocent\n  So sudden plunges towards its mother's breast\n  With face intent upon its nourishment\n  As I did bend.\"\n          (Par. XXX, 85, Grandgent's trans.)\n\nAnother figure of beautiful imagery makes us appreciate Dante's\nunderstanding of infantile emotion. He is eager to tell us how bright\nsouls flame upward towards the Virgin Mother and here is the simile:\n\n  \"And as a babe which stretches either arm\n  To reach its mother, after it is fed\n  Showing a heart with sweet affection warm,\n  Thus every flaming brightness reared its head\n  And higher, higher straining, by its act\n  The love it bore to Mary plainly said.\"\n          (Par. XXIII, 121 Grandgent's trans.)\n\nPerhaps the most appealing example of Dante's kindly love for children\nsprings from the fact that instead of following the teaching of St.\nThomas Aquinas, who holds that in heaven the risen bodies of baby\nchildren will appear in the aspect of the prime of life, our poet\ndiscloses them with the charm of babyhood carrolling, as it were, the\nnursery songs of Heaven. Of those blessed infants he speaks:\n\n  \"Their youth, those little faces plainly tell,\n  Their childish treble voices tell it, too,\n  If thou but use thine eyes and listen well.\"\n          (Par. XXXII, 46. Grandgent's trans.)\n\nSeeing so many examples of Dante's love for motherhood and children, one\nnaturally wonders why he makes no mention of his own wife and children.\nBut we have only to remember that a nice sense of delicacy may have\nrestrained him from speaking of the sacredness of his family life. In\nthis matter he exhibited the wisdom of the gentleman-Saint, Francis de\nSales, who used to say, \"Without necessity never speak of yourself well\nor ill.\" It was indeed a principle of propriety with our poet that\ntalking about one's self in public is to be avoided as unbecoming unless\nthere is need of self vindication or edification of others. Only once in\nthe Divine Comedy does he mention his own name and at once he apologizes\nfor the intrusion. It is true that the poem is autobiographical but it\nis that in so far as it concerns matters of universal interest from\nwhich the poet may draw the moral that what God has done for him He will\ndo for all men if they will but let Him. That being so it was not\nnecessary for him to exploit his family affairs.\n\nOut of the kindly heart of Dante sprang gratitude, one of the strongest\nvirtues of his being. He never wearies in pouring forth thanks to his\nMaker for the gift of creation and His fatherly care of all beings in\nthe universe. He is filled with unbounded gratitude to the Saviour for\nhaving become man and for having suffered and died for our salvation\ninstead of taking an easier way of satisfying divine justice. In his\nworks he mentions the name or the offices of the Holy Ghost eight times.\nTo the Blessed Virgin, the saints and especially to Beatrice for their\nvirtuous example and loving protection he is heartily grateful. His\nthankful affection is extended to those who showed him kindness\nparticularly during the years of his homeless poverty. To them he offers\nthe only thing he has to give--an undying tribute of praise. Tenderly he\nmakes known his obligations to all those who taught him, both the\nteachers of his own day and the masters of past ages. But it is to\nVirgil, his ideal author, the guide whom he has chosen for his journey\nthrough Hell and Purgatory, that he offers his most touching tribute of\ngratitude. The occasion arises when he discovers his beloved Beatrice in\nthe Garden of Eden and turns to Virgil to tell him of his overwhelming\njoy. But behold! his guide has vanished, his mission fulfilled. And all\nthe joys of the earthly Paradise, originally forfeited by the sin of\nEve, cannot compensate the disciple for the loss of his great master. In\nloneliness he weeps, staining again his face that had been washed clean\nwith dew by Virgil when they emerged from Hell. Is there not genuine\npathos in these lines?\n\n  \"Virgil was gone! and we were all bereft!\n  Virgil my sweetest sire! Virgil who led\n  My soul to safety, when no hope was left.\n  Not all our ancient mother forfeited,\n  All Eden, could prevent my dew cleansed cheek\n  From changing whiteness to a tearful red.\"\n          (Purg. XXX, 45, Grandgent's trans.)\n\nOne quality is still necessary to complete the picture which our poet\ngives of himself. So far we see him as a man of strong faith, of abiding\nintensity--a man having supreme confidence in himself with resulting\npride of life, a man big with splendid sincerity and dowered with deep\npassion, yet manifesting a gentle, gracious and grateful spirit. So\ncomposed, he is a combination of virtues that may inspire and traits\nthat may attract many readers. But this is not the finished picture of\nthe strangely fascinating man who has for six hundred years exercised an\nirresistible sway over hearts and minds. What feature is lacking? The\none which has made him master over willing subjects who love and admire\nhim whether they live in a monarchy or republic, a hovel or a palace,\nwhether they are of his faith or alien to it. Because the world ever\nloves a lover, and because Dante is The Lover _par excellence_ whose\nlove-story is one \"to which heaven and earth have put their hand,\" he\nstands forth with a hold on humanity that is both enduring and supreme.\n\nLove as a passion and a principle of action never left him to his dying\nday, from the time when he, a boy of nine years of age, became attracted\nby the sweet little girl Beatrice. \"She appeared to me\" he says,\n\"clothed in a most noble color, a modest and becoming crimson, and she\nwas girt and adorned in such wise as befitted her very youthful age.\" If\nwe add to those few lines the brief statements made later in the _New\nLife_ that her hair was light and her complexion a pearl-pink and that\nwhen he saw her as a maiden she was dressed in white, we have the only\ndescription that Dante ever gave of her personal appearance. It was\nlove at sight. \"I truly say that at that instant the spirit of life\nwhich dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, said these words:\n'Behold a god stronger than I, who coming shall rule over me.' From that\ntime forward Love lorded it over my soul which had been so speedily\nwedded to him and he began to exercise over me such control and such\nlordship, through the power which my imagination gave him, that it\nbehooved me to do completely all his pleasure.\"\n\nIf we are disposed to doubt Dante's capability of deep emotion at so\ntender an age we have only to remember that Cupid's darts pierced at an\nearly age the hearts of others of precocious sensibilities. The love\nexperience of Lord Byron, Victor Hugo, and Canova the sculptor, when\nthey too were only children is a matter of history. This statement we\nshall the more readily accept if we recall the dictum of Pascal: \"The\npassions are great in proportion as the intelligence is great. In a\ngreat soul everything is great.\" In the light of that principle we must\nsay that if Dante's love attachment in early life runs counter to the\nexperience of mankind, he is, even as a boy, exceptional in the power of\nimagination and peculiarly sensitive to heart impressions.\n\nHis experience as a nine year old boy loving with a depth of increasing\nemotion a girl with whom there probably had never been any\ncommunication except a mere greeting, a love reverential, persisting,\neven after her marriage to another, continuing through the married life\nof the poet himself, a love, the story of which is celebrated in\nmatchless verse,--all that is so unique a thing that critics have been\nled to deny the very existence of Beatrice or to see in the story an\nallegory which may be interpreted in various ways.\n\nSome critics see in Beatrice only the ideal of womanhood; others make\nher an allegory of conflicting things. Francesco Perez holds that\nBeatrice is only the figure of Active Intelligence, while Dante Gabriel\nRossetti advances the fantastic theory that she is the symbol of the\nRoman Empire, and love--the anagram of Roma--on Dante's part is only\ndevotion to the imperial cause. According to Scartazzini, Beatrice is\nthe symbol of the Papacy. Gietmann denies the historicity of Beatrice\nand declares that she typifies the Church. The argument for this theory\nexpressed by a sympathetic reviewer of Gietmann's book, \"Beatrice, Geist\nund Kern der Danteshen Dichtung,\" follows: \"Beatrice is the soul and\ncenter of the poet's works, his inspiring genius, the ideal which moulds\nhis life and character. If we consider her as a mere historical\npersonage we must look upon those works as silly and meaningless\nromances, and on the poet himself as a drivelling day-dreamer.\n\n\"But if we are able to assign to Dante's beloved an appropriate and\nconsistent allegorical character, in keeping with the views of the\npoet's time, and with the quality of the varied material which goes to\nbuild up his poetic structures, his creations will appear not only\nintelligible and natural, but unfold a treasure of thought and beauty\nnowhere else to be found, while the poet himself will be shown to be not\nonly one of the greatest masters of thought and imagination, but one of\nthe noblest and loftiest minds to be met with in the history of letters\"\n(John Conway, Am. Cath. Quar. Review, April, 1892).\n\nThe editor of the English Quarterly Review (July, 1896, p. 41) while not\ndenying the real existence of Beatrice argues that she represents Faith,\nand affirms that the story of Dante's love for her, a love wavering at\ntimes, represents the conflict of Faith and Science. You will be\ninterested in seeing, as a curiosity of literature, how that author\nattempts the translation into allegory of Dante's account of his first\nmeeting with Beatrice.\n\nThis is the translation--Dante speaking in the first person says: \"At\nthe close of my ninth year I experienced strong impressions of religion.\nThis was the time of my Confirmation and my First Communion. I was\nfilled with reverence for the wondrous truths instilled into my mind by\nthose whom I loved best: and my whole being glowed with the roseate glow\nof a first love. My feelings were rapturous yet constant; and from that\ntime I date the beginning of a New Life. From that time forward I was so\ncompletely under the influence of this divine principle that my soul\nwas, as it were, espoused to heavenly love, and it was in the precepts\nand ordinances of the Church that this passion found its proper\nsatisfaction. Often and often did it lead me to the congregation of the\nfaithful, where I had meetings with my youthful angel and these were so\ngratifying that all through my boyhood I would frequently go in search\nof a repetition of those pleasures and I perceived her so noble and\nadmirable in all her bearings, that of her might assuredly be said that\nsaying of Homer: 'She seemed no daughter of mortal man but of God.'\"\n\nWe need not be surprised that there is such divergence of opinion among\ncritics as to the interpretation of Dante. He himself in The Banquet\n(bk. II, ch. 15), written some years after his New Life, tells us that\nthere is a hidden meaning back of the literal interpretation of his\nwords. That is especially true of the Divine Comedy, as he writes to Can\nGrande in explanation of the purpose of the poem. In the Paradiso he\nbids this lacking in power of penetration to pierce the symbolism, to\naccompany him no longer on his journey through the invisible world.\n\n  \"O ye who in some pretty little boat\n  Eager to listen, have been following\n  Behind my ship, that singing sails along,\n  Turn back to look again upon your shores,\n  Do not put out to sea, lest, peradventure,\n  In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.\"\n          (Par. bk. II, I.)\n\nWith obscurity thus acknowledged, is it any wonder that Dante is\nsubjected to prolonged controversy by historical criticism which has not\nhesitated to cast doubt upon the authorship of the Iliad and the Synotic\nGospels? In the face of this obscurity it is the opinion of such well\nknown Dantian scholars as D'Ancona, Charles Eliot Norton, John Addington\nSymonds, Dean Plumtre, Edmund Gardiner, W.W. Vernon, Paget Toynbe, C.H.\nGrandgent, Jefferson B. Fletcher, James Russell Lowell--that Beatrice is\nboth a real human being and a symbol.\n\nThe direct testimony, not to urge the subtle arguments furnished by\ninternal evidence of Dante's works, as to the reality of Beatrice\nPortinari as the beloved of our poet is offered first by Boccaccio who\nwas acquainted with Dante's daughter Beatrice, a nun who lived near\nenough to the poet to get information from the Portinari family.\nCertainly Boccaccio did not hesitate when chosen in 1373 by the\nFlorentines to lecture on Dante, to make the very positive statement\nthat the boy Dante, \"received the image of Beatrice Portinari into his\nheart with such affection that from that day forward as long as he lived\nit never departed from him.\" That statement was doubtless made within\nthe hearing of many relatives and friends of the families concerned, the\nAlighieri, the Portinari, the Bardi. \"If the statement was false,\"\nargues Dr. Edward Moore, England's foremost Dantian scholar, \"it must\nhave been so glaring and palpable that its assertion could only have\ncovered Boccaccio with ridicule.\" The second authority for the statement\nthat Beatrice Portinari had a real existence and was the object of\nDante's love is furnished by Dante's own son Pietro, who wrote a\ncommentary on the Divine Comedy nineteen years after his father's\ndemise--a commentary in which he declares \"because mention is here first\nmade of Beatrice of whom so much has been said, especially in the third\nbook of the Paradiso, it is to be premised that there really was a lady\nBeatrice by name, greatly distinguished for her beauty and virtues who,\nin the time of the author, lived in the city of Florence and who was of\nthe house of certain Florentine citizens called the Portinari, of whom\nthe author Dante was a suitor. During the life of the said lady, he was\nher lover and he wrote many ballads to her honor. After her death in\norder that he might make her name famous, he, in this his poem,\nfrequently introduced her under the allegory and style of theology.\"\n\nThe third witness quoted by W.W. Vernon, is Benvenuto da Imola who\nattended the lectures of Boccaccio and succeeded him as incumbent of the\nchair of Dantian literature, established by the government of Florence.\nThis Florentine professor whose \"commentary on Dante was written only\nfifty years after the death of the poet, expressly states that this\nBeatrice (he does not mention her family name) was really and truly a\nFlorentine of great beauty and most honorable reputation. When she was\neight years old she so entered into Dante's heart that she never went\nout from it and he loved her passionately for sixteen years, at which\ntime she died. His love increased with his years: he would follow her\nwhere-ever she went and always thought that in her eyes he could behold\nthe summit of human happiness. Dante in his works, at one time, takes\nBeatrice as a real personage and at another in a mysterious sense as\nSacred Theology\" (Readings on Inf., I, 61.)\n\nThe question now arises: Did Beatrice know of Dante's love and did she\nreciprocate his passion? Many critics answer in the negative, believing\nthat an affirmative view must premise a guilty love since Beatrice was\nmarried to Simone de Bardi and Dante to Gemma Donati. But an opposite\nview holds that such a deduction overlooks the unique fact that the love\nof Dante and Beatrice was purely spiritual and mystical. Doctor Zahm\nsays that Dante's passion was \"a species of homage to the beloved which\nwas common during the age of the troubadours but which has long since\ndisappeared--a chivalrous devotion to a woman, neither wife nor\nmistress, by means of which the spirit of man, were he knight or poet,\nwas rendered capable of self-devotion, and of noble deeds and of rising\nto a higher ideal of life\" (Great Inspirers, p. 245.)\n\nIn any event we know that it was a most noble, exalting sentiment and if\nwe accept the statement of Bishop de Serravalle, the love was mutual and\nlasting. This ecclesiastic while attending the council of Florence in\n1414 was asked by the Bishops of Bath and Salisbury, England, to make a\nLatin translation of the Divine Comedy. In the preamble to his\ntranslation he not only declares that Dante historically and literally\nloved Beatrice (_\"Dantes delexit hanc puellam historice et\nliteraliter\"_) but he affirms that the love was reciprocal and that it\nlasted during the lifetime of Beatrice, (\"_Philocaptus fuit de ipsa et\nipsa de ipso, qui se invicem dilexerunt quousque vixit ipsa puella_\").\n\nOnly by holding such a view can we really appreciate the significance\nand beauty of that episode in Purgatorio depicting the first meeting of\nthe lovers in the invisible world after ten years' separation--a meeting\nsaid to be \"one of the most touching and beautiful episodes in all\nliterature.\"\n\nIn the Terrestrial Paradise a voice is heard after the sudden departure\nof Virgil. \"Dante\" it says \"though Virgil leave thee, weep not, weep not\nyet, for thou must weep for a greater wound. I beheld that Lady who had\nerst appeared to me under a cloud of flowers cast by angel's hands: and\nshe was gazing at me across the stream ... 'Look at us well. We are,\nindeed Beatrice. Hast thou then condescended to come to the mountain?'\n(the mountain of discipline)--Shame weighed down my brow. The ice that\nhad collected about my heart, turned to breath and water and with agony\nissued from my breast through lips and eyes.\" Beatrice then proceeds to\ntell the angels of her love for the poet and of his faithlessness to\nher. \"For some time I sustained him with the sight of my face. Showing\nto him my youthful eyes I led him toward the right quarter. As soon as I\nreached the threshold of the second age of man and passed from mortal to\neternal life he took himself from me and gave himself to another.\"\n\nBeatrice now turns to Dante and rebukes him: \"In order the more to shame\nthee from thine error and to make thee stronger, never did nature and\nart present to thee a charm equal to that fair form now scattered in\nearth with which I was enclosed. And if this greatest of charms so\nforsook thee at my death, what mortal thing should thereafter have led\nthee to desire it? Verily at the first hour of disappointment over\nelusive things, thou shouldst have flown up after me who was no longer\nof them. Thou shouldst not have allowed thy wings to be weighed down to\nget more wounds, either by a little maid or by any other so short lived\nvanity.\" The effect of her rebuke is the overwhelming of his heart with\nshame and contrition. \"So much remorse gnawed at my heart that I fell\nvanquished and what I then became she knoweth who gave me the cause\"\n(Purg. XXXI, 49). He arose forgiven, the memory of his sin removed by\nthe waters of Lethe. Then drinking of the waters of Eunoe he was made\nfit to ascend to Heaven.\n\nTo understand the allusion to his defection and to see the progressive\ndevelopment of his love of Beatrice as a woman, then as a living ideal\nand finally as an animated symbol--the various transfigurations in which\nBeatrice appears to him, we must go back to his New Life--the book of\nwhich Charles Eliot Norton says--\"so long as there are lovers in the\nworld and so long as lovers are poets this first and tenderest\nlove-story of modern literature will be read with appreciation and\nresponsive sympathy.\"\n\nIt is hardly to be supposed that the nine year old lover noted with\nminute care in his diary, his first meeting of Beatrice Portinari but as\nhe looked back on the event years later he saw that the vision had been\nthe the greatest crisis in his mental, moral and spiritual history. The\nstory begins in the first page of the New Life. A real living child\nfamiliarly called Bice, the diminutive for Beatrice, enamoured Dante\nwith a real, genuine love. \"After that meeting,\" says the poet, \"I in my\nboyhood often went seeking her and saw her of such noble and\npraiseworthy deportment that truly of her might be said the word of the\npoet Homer: 'She seems not the daughter of mortal man but of God.'\" Nine\nyears passed and the child, now a maiden, \"blooming in her beauty's\nspring, saluted me with such virtue that it seemed to me that I saw all\nthe bounds of bliss. Since it was the first time her words came to my\nears I took in such sweetness that, as it were intoxicated, I turned\naway from the folk and betaking myself to the solitude of my own\nchamber I sat myself down to think of this most courteous lady.\"\n\nA little later the wrapt expression of his loving eyes as he looks at\nBeatrice attracts the attention of others and to misdirect them, he\nfeigns love for the lady he calls the screen of truth and writes verses\nin her honor. On the part of Beatrice there is misunderstanding of the\namatory verses he writes at this period and she withholds her greeting.\nThen, more than ever, he realizes what that salutation meant to him.\nDeprived of it now, he dwells upon the sweet memory of the salutation:\n\"In the hope of her marvelous salutation there no longer remained to me\nan enemy, nay, a flame of charity possessed me which made me pardon\neveryone who had done me wrong.\" Under the influence of her salutation,\nDante tells us that he devised this sonnet:\n\n  \"So gentle and so gracious doth appear\n  My lady when she giveth her salute\n  That every tongue becometh, trembling, mute:\n  Nor do the eyes to look upon her dare\n  Although she hears her praises, she doth go\n  Benignly vested with humility:\n  And like a thing come down, she seems to be,\n  From heaven to earth, a miracle to show.\n  So pleaseth she whoever cometh nigh.\n  She gives the heart a sweetness through the eyes,\n  Which none can understand who doth not prove\n  And from her countenance there seems to move\n  A spirit, sweet, and in Love's very guise,\n  Who to the soul, in going sayeth: 'Sigh.'\"\n          (Norton's translation.)\n\nBecause she now denies to him the bliss of salutation he says: \"I went\ninto a solitary place to bathe the earth with most bitter tears.\" But\nthis misunderstanding is not his only torment. Almost from his second\nmeeting he fears that his beloved will soon die. His prophetic vision\nbecomes an agonising reality when in 1290 in her twenty-fourth year, the\neyes that radiated bliss are closed in death.\n\nSo stunned was he by the blow that his life was despaired of. When he\nrecovered it seemed to him that Florence had lost her gaiety and\ndesolate is mourning the loss of his beloved one. Pilgrims passing on\ntheir way to Galicia do not appear to share the general grief. To arouse\ntheir sympathy in the loss which the city has sustained the heart-broken\npoet lover devises a sonnet \"in which I set forth that which I had said\nto myself.\n\n  Pilgrims:\n  If through your will to hear, awhile ye stay,\n  Truly my heart with sighs declare to me\n  That ye shall afterwards depart in tears.\n  Alas her Beatrice now lost hath she.\n  And all the words that one of her way may say\n  Have virtue to make weep whoever hears.\"\n\n         (Norton's translation.)\n\nIn his great affliction his grieving heart is sustained by his belief in\nimmortality. His vision penetrates the skies and he sees his 'lady of\nvirtue' in glory in the regions of the eternal.\n\n  \"The gentle lady to my mind had come\n  Who, for the sake of her exceeding youth,\n  Had by the Lord most High been ta'en from earth\n  To that calm heaven where Mary hath her home.\"\n\nIn heaven indeed more than upon earth she enamours the poet. There\ndivested of her mortal veil, to his eyes she\n\n  \"grew perfectly and spiritually fair,\"\n\nleading him to fit himself to put on immortality. The passion of his\nboyhood has now become the ennobling ideal of his life. Sustaining and\nstimulating him, saving him from himself, ever leading him upward and\nonward, his angelicized lady is an abiding presence with him whether he\nis deep in the contemplation of the study of philosophy and the learning\nof the ancients, or engaged in the activity of military or political\nlife, or as homeless wayfarer in exile, making his way from place to\nplace. When he falls from grace it is Beatrice who disturbs his peace of\nmind by \"a battle of thoughts.\" It is the \"strong image\" of Beatrice who\ncomes to him as he had seen her as a child, raises him from moral\nobliquity, fills him with the very essence of the spiritual. Then he has\na wonderful vision--\"a vision in which I saw things which made me\nresolve to speak no more of this blessed one (Beatrice) until I could\nmore worthily treat of her. And to attain to this I study to the utmost\nof my power as she truly knows: So that if it shall please Him through\nwhom all things live that my life be prolonged for some years, I hope to\nsay of her what was never said of any woman.\"\n\nThat promise, involving years of intense study and increasing devotion\nto his beloved, Dante kept. The Divine Comedy is his matchless monument\nto her who is the protagonist and muse of his poem and the love of his\nheart. \"Not only has the poet made her\" says Norton, \"the loveliest and\nmost womanly woman of the Middle Ages at once absolutely real and truly\nideal,\" but he has done what no poet had ever before conceived, thereby\nachieving something unique in the whole range of literature--he has\n\"imparadised\" among the saints and angels his lovely wonder, Beatrice,\n\"that so she spreads even there a light of love which makes the angels\nglad and even to their subtle minds can bring a certain awe of profound\nmarvelling.\" He has given to her such a glorious exaltation that after\nRachel and Eve she of all women is enthroned in the glowing Rose of\nHeaven next to the Virgin Mother, \"our tainted nature's solitary boast,\"\nand so enthroned, Beatrice is at once his beloved and the symbol of\nrevelation, the heavenly light that discloses to mankind both the true\nend of our being and the realities of Eternity.\n\nNow with tremulous delight in his heart, admiration on his lips, ecstasy\nin his soul, he is able to render her perhaps the very purest tribute of\npraise and gratitude that ever came out of a human soul:\n\n  \"O Lady, thou in whom my hope is strong\n  And who, for my salvation, didst endure\n  In Hell to leave the imprint of thy feet,\n  Of whatsoever things I have beheld,\n  As coming from thy power and from thy goodness\n  I recognize the power and the grace.\n  Thou from a slave hast brought me unto freedom,\n  By all those ways, by all the expedients,\n  Whereby thou hast the power of doing it.\n  Preserve towards me thy magnificence\n  So that this soul of mine, which thou hast healed\n  Pleasing to thee be loosened from the body.\"\n\nNorton says: \"It is needful to know Dante as a man in order fully to\nappreciate him as poet.\"\n\nWhat manner of man then was he? Redeemed by love, he was, to quote John\nAddington Symonds, \"the greatest, truest, sincerest man of modern\nEurope.\"\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S INFERNO\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S INFERNO\n\n\nAt no period of modern times do we find that literature showed an\ninterest more keen in the Hereafter than at the present day. Religion\nhas always used both pen and voice to direct men's thoughts towards\neternity, but now it is literature that goes for subject-matter to\nreligion. This change of attitude is due, no doubt, to the fact that\nseveral factors in present-day life--factors that literature cannot\nignore, have turned popular thought to religion. The World-war has\ndisciplined the character of men by the unspeakable experiences of\ncontact with shot, shell and shrapnel and the result has been that\ncountless numbers have turned to religion for strength and consolation.\nCountless thousands whose dear ones made the supreme sacrifice for the\nideals of patriotism, also find in religion their only solace.\n\nThose who have not this refuge turn to spiritualism and psychical\nresearch in a futile effort to find a satisfactory solution of the\nproblem of the Hereafter. Again and again we see the unrest of the\never-questioning soul depicted in the drama and the literature of the\nday as it seeks enlightenment on the potentiality of the future life.\nThe stage presents plays based on spiritualistic manifestations or upon\nsupernatural healing or miraculous intervention. Many recent novels have\neither psychical phenomena for their central interest or plots evolved\nout of the miraculous in religion. As exponents of psychical research,\nSir Arthur Conan Doyle, W.T. Stead and Sir Oliver Lodge make an appeal\nto readers to accept as scientific truths, the psychical manifestations\nof the unseen world. A typical answer is given to that appeal by a\ndistinguished writer, Doctor Inge, Dean of St. Paul's, London, who\ndeclares: \"If this kind of after-life were true, this portrayed in the\npitiable revival of necromancy in which many desolate hearts have sought\nspurious satisfaction, it would, indeed, be a melancholy postponement or\nnegation of all we hope and believe about our dead.\"\n\nPrescinding from any attempt to discuss the occult phenomena evoked,\nobserved and studied in our day or to treat of the matters involved in\nthe supernatural in the books of the day, one may state as a fact that\nthe whole tendency of present day literature is to show a yearning for\nlight on a subject of fundamental importance to human nature. Far back\nin the history of the race Job gave voice to the spiritual problems that\nare today engaging the attention of the world. Some fifteen hundred\nyears ago, St. Augustine proposed to himself the question which so\ngenerally concerns the twentieth century: \"On what matter of all those\nthings of which thou art ignorant, hast thou the greatest desire for\nenlightenment?\" The great Bishop of Hippo becomes the spokesman of\nhumanity when he answers his own question by proposing another: \"Am I\nimmortal or not?\" (Soliloquia 2d).\n\nIn the realms of literature no work of man has answered that question\nwith greater vividness of imagery, intensity of concentration, beauty of\ndescription--all based in a large measure on the teachings of\nChristianity--than has Dante in his Divine Comedy. Devised as a love\noffering to the memory of his beloved Beatrice who in the work is\nsymbolized as Heavenly Light on the things hidden from man, the poem\nleads the reader through the dark abyss of Hell, the patient abode of\nPurgatory, the glorious realm of Heaven as if the poet had seen Eternity\nin reality instead of in imagination. Not only the state and the\nconditions of the soul after death does he visualize with the precision\nof Euclid, but as a philosopher and a theologian he proposes for our\ninstruction in the course of the journey many questions of dogmatic and\nspeculative thought affecting the Hereafter. He believes himself called\nto be not simply a poet to entertain his readers, but a prophet and a\npreacher with burning fire to deliver a message for man's salvation. So\nhe asks the help of Heaven:\n\n\"O Supreme Light that so high upliftest Thyself from mortal conceptions,\nre-lend a little to my mind of what Thou didst appear and make my tongue\nso powerful that it may be able to leave one single spark of Thy glory,\nfor the future people: for by returning to my memory and by sounding a\nlittle in these verses, more of Thy victory shall be conceived\" (Par.\nXXXIII, 67).\n\nComedy is the title which Dante gives to his trilogy and posterity has\nadded the prefix adjective divine. The term comedy however is not used\nin the modern sense which suggests to us a light laughable drama written\nin a familiar style. \"Comedy\" Dante himself explains in his dedication\nof the poem, \"is a certain kind of poetical narrative which differs from\nall others. It differs from tragedy in its subject matter in this way,\nthat tragedy in the beginning is admirable and quiet, in its ending or\ncatastrophe foul and horrible ... Comedy on the other hand, begins with\nadverse conditions, but its theme has a happy termination. Likewise they\ndiffer in their style of language, for tragedy is lofty and sublime,\ncomedy lowly and humble.\n\n\"From this it is evident why the present work is called a comedy, for\nif we consider the theme in its beginning it is horrible and foul\nbecause it is Hell; in its ending fortunate, desirable and joyful\nbecause it is Paradise: and if we consider the style of language the\nstyle is lowly and humble because it is the vulgar tongue in which even\nhousewives hold converse.\"\n\nThe theme of the poem Dante himself explains: \"The subject of the work\nliterally taken is the state of souls after death; this is the pivotal\nidea of the poem throughout its entire course. In the allegorical sense\nthe poet treats of the hell of this world through which we are\njourneying as pilgrims, with the power of meriting and demeriting, and\nthe subject is man, in as much as by his merits and demerits he is\nsubject to divine Justice, remunerative or retributive\" (Epis. dedicat.\nad Can Grande).\n\nOne of the earliest commentators amplifies the poet's statement.\nBenvenuto da Imola writes: \"The matter or subject of this book is the\nstate of the human soul both as connected with the human body and as\nseparated from it. As the state of the whole is threefold, so does the\nauthor divide his work into three parts. A soul may be in sin; such a\none even while it lives with the body, is morally speaking dead, and\nhence it is in moral Hell; when separated from the body, if it died\nincurably obstinate, it is in the actual Hell. Again a soul may be\nreceding from vice: such a one while still in the body is in the moral\nPurgatory, or in the act of penance in which it purges away its sin; if\nseparated, it is in the actual Purgatory. Yet even while living in the\nbody, a soul is already in a manner in Paradise, for it exists in as\ngreat felicity as is possible in this life of misery: separated from the\nbody, it is in the heavenly Paradise where there is true and perfect\nhappiness, where it enjoys the vision of God.\" (Ozanam, Dante, p. 129.)\n\nThis testimony as to the subject matter of the Divine Comedy is brought\nforth to offset the statements not infrequently made by expositors who\ndeny or ignore the supernatural that Dante's full thought can be\nrealized even if the reader rejects the poet's spiritual teaching,\nespecially his doctrine of the existence of a real Heaven and a real\nHell. It is true that Dante is \"such a many-sided genius that he has a\nmessage for almost every person.\" It is likewise true that an\nallegorical interpretation may be adopted with no belief in the\nHereafter and it may open up many fruitful lessons for the reader. That\nbeing granted, one may still ask whether one can ignore Dante's doctrine\nof future rewards and punishment and so get full satisfaction from\ntreating the poet's conception of the Hereafter as a mere allegory.\n\nThe allegory presupposes that sin inevitably brings its own penalty.\nBut in this life virtue does not always bear its own reward nor is evil\nalways followed by retribution. Dante as the prophet and the preacher of\nChristianity would have us understand, as Benvenuto da Imola points out,\nthat if the moral law is not vindicated in this life it will be in the\nHereafter, for our acts make our eternity. So the poet holds that while\nthis life according as it shows the soul in sin, in repentance or in\nvirtue may be considered allegorically Hell, Purgatory or Heaven, before\nthe Last Judgment a real Hell, a real Purgatory, a real Heaven is the\nabode of disembodied spirits according to their demerits or merits and\nafter the Last Judgment, Purgatory no longer existing, souls will be in\neternal suffering in Hell or in unending joy in Heaven.\n\nIt is not to be expected that any reader will believe that Dante's Hell\nis a photograph of reality. It is a Hell largely fashioned by poetic\nvisions and political theories, peopled in a great measure by those who\nstand in opposition to the poet's theory of government. It is not, as is\nsometimes asserted, a place to which the poet consigns his personal\nenemies. As Dinsmore says: \"Dante had too much greatness in his soul and\ntoo much pride (it may be) to make revenge a personal matter: he had\nnothing but contempt for his own enemies and never except in the case of\nBoniface VIII ... did he place a single one of them in the Inferno, not\neven his judge Cante Gabriella.\"\n\nThough largely colored by his political theories Dante's Hell is also a\ntheological conception based on the teaching of the Catholic Church that\nHell exists as a place or state of punishment for the rebel angels and\nfor man dying impenitent, that is, for man in whom sin has become so\nhumanized that death finds him not simply in the act or habit of sin but\nso transformed that in the striking words of Bossuet, \"he is man made\nsin.\" Dante fully accepted that doctrine which had been the constant\ntradition and faith of the Church and had been reaffirmed in the second\necumenical Council of Lyons held when Dante was a boy, nine years of\nage.\n\nIt is not unlikely with his precocity for knowledge and sentiment at\nthat age that he was deeply impressed with the history of that council\nespecially as its legislation also dealt with the Crusades, the union of\nChurches, the reform of the Church, the appointment of a king of the\nRomans and an emperor--matters of vital importance to him later. He must\nhave recalled that Council also with special interest, for two of his\nideal personages, Thomas Aquinas and Bonaventure met their death, one on\nhis way to the Council, the other while actually attending its sessions.\n\nIn any event Dante firmly believed the doctrine of the Hereafter \"that\nthey that have done good shall go into life everlasting and they that\nhave done evil, into everlasting fire.\" He held that the punishment of\nthe damned is two-fold. The greater punishment, called the pain of loss,\nconsists in the loss of the Beatific Vision, a suffering so great that\nthe genius of St. Augustine can hardly translate it in human language.\n\"To be separated from God,\" he says, \"is a torment as great as the very\ngreatness of God.\" The other pain of the reprobate consists in the\ntorment of fire so frequently mentioned in Holy Writ. \"According to the\ngreater number of theologians the term fire denotes a material and so a\nreal fire ... (but) there have never been wanting theologians who\ninterpret the scriptural term fire metaphorically as denoting an\nincorporeal fire and thus far the Church has not censured their opinion\"\n(Cath. Encyclo., VIII, 211.)\n\nWhile the pain of loss and the pain of sense constitute the very essence\nof the punishment of Hell, theologians teach that there are other\nsufferings called accidental. The reprobate never experience v.g. the\nleast real pleasure nor are they ever free from the hideous presence of\none another. After the Last Judgment the lost souls will also be\ntormented by union with their bodies, a union bringing about a fresh\nincrease of punishment. On this subject, for our information Dante\naddresses Virgil his guide through Hell: \"Master, will these torments\nafter the great sentence increase or diminish?\" Virgil explains that\nthey will become worse because when the soul is united again to the body\nthere will be perfection of being and the resulting sensitiveness will\nbe the more intense.\n\n\"Return unto thy science,\" answers Virgil, \"which wills that as a thing\nmore perfect is the more it feels of pleasure and of pain.\" (Inf., VI,\n40.)\n\nDante also holds that only by way of exception is there any escape from\nHell once a soul is condemned. Following a legend commonly believed in\nthe Middle Ages that in answer to the prayers of Pope Gregory the Great,\nthe soul of the Emperor Trajan was delivered from Hell, Dante assumes\nthat God who could not save Trajan against his will, allowed his soul to\n\"come back to its bones\" and while thus united to use its will for\nsalvation. So regenerated Trajan is placed by Dante, in the Heaven of\nJupiter (Par. XX 40, 7). Referring to this incident the Catholic\nEncyclopedia says: \"In itself it is no rejection of Catholic dogma to\nsuppose that God might at times by way of exception, liberate a soul\nfrom Hell. Thus some argued from a false interpretation of I Peter III,\n19 seq. that Christ freed several damned souls on the occasion of His\ndescent into Hell. Others were led by untrustworthy stories into the\nbelief that the prayers of Gregory the Great rescued the Emperor Trajan\nfrom Hell but now theologians are unanimous in teaching that such\nexceptions never take place and never have taken place\" (VIII, 209.)\n\nAs to the location of Hell it is the poet Dante and not Dante the\ntheologian, as we shall see later, who gives definite place and\nboundaries to Hell. He knows that on this subject the Church has decided\nnothing, holding to the statement of St. Augustine: \"It is my opinion\nthat the nature of hell-fire and the location of Hell are known to no\nman unless the Holy Ghost made it known to him by a special revelation.\"\n\nDante makes his Hell big enough to hold the majority of mankind. He\nthinks that the elect will be comparatively few--just numerous enough to\nfill those places in heaven forfeited by the rebel angels who formed\naccording to his conjecture, about a tenth of the angelical host. That\ntheir places in Heaven are already nearly filled leaving little room for\nfuture generations Dante makes known in the words of Beatrice:\n\n  \"Behold our City's circuit, oh how vast\n  Behold our benches now so full that few\n  Are they who are henceforth lacking here.\"\n          (Par. XXX, 130.)\n\nHis theory of restrictive salvation, it may be noted, is not in accord\nwith the teaching of the Church which holds that to every man God gives\ngrace sufficient for salvation. That is true even as affecting the\nheathen and those living in place or in time far removed from the Cross.\nSt. Thomas Aquinas expresses this doctrine of the Church when he writes:\n\"If anyone who is born in a barbaric nation does what lieth in him, God\nwill reveal what is necessary for salvation, either by internal\ninspiration or by a teacher.\"\n\nThe farcical element is not wanting in the Inferno, a fact proving that\nour poet, in furnishing the episodes, not superior to his age which\ndemanded especially in the religious plays presented in the public\nsquare the sight of the discomfiture of the devil in scenes provoking\nthe audience to laughter. The best example of such farcicality occurs in\nthe eighth circle, fifth bolgia, where officials, traffickers in public\noffices, or unjust stewards are immersed in boiling pitch. From time to\ntime when the fiends are not alert the reprobate here come to the\nsurface for a breathing or cooling spell, like dolphins on the approach\nof a storm darting in the air and diving back again or like frogs with\ntheir muzzles alone exposed and their bodies covered by the water,\nresting on the banks of a stream into which they drop at the first\napproach of danger.\n\nGetting in this way momentary relief from suffering a grafter named\nCiampolo, a former retainer of King Thibaut II of Navarre, lingered too\nlong and was deftly hooked by Graffiacane amid the savage exultations of\nthe other fiends, who proceed to maltreat the unfortunate wretch. The\nhideous confusion of attacks by the demons is stopped long enough for\nthe poet to learn his history, and also what is more interesting to\nDante, the names of two Italians, Friar Gomita and Michel Zanche who are\nlikewise suffering in the boiling pitch. Ciampolo, to save himself from\nfurther maltreatment and to escape from his captors, now has recourse to\nstratagem. He promises that if they consent to withdraw out of sight he\nwill whistle a signal that will be recognized only by his hapless\ncomrades; the two Italians and five others will then come to the surface\nfor cool air. The fiends may then have not one, but seven to rend! The\ncrafty plan succeeds. The demons withdraw behind the crags and then\nCiampolo plunges deeply into the boiling pitch. Two devils, endeavoring\nto swoop down upon him now beyond their reach, fall upon each other in\nbrutal fury, while the rest of the troop hurry to the opposite shore to\nrescue the belimed pair. Here is Dante's description of the farce:\n\n\"As dolphins, when with the arch of the back; they make sign to\nmariners that they may prepare to save their ship: so now and then, to\nease the punishment, some sinner showed his back and hid in less time\nthan it lightens. And as at the edge of the water of a ditch, the frogs\nstand only with their muzzles out, so that they hide their feet and\nother bulk: thus stood on every hand the sinners; but as Barbariccia\napproached, they instantly retired beneath the seething. I saw, and my\nheart still shudders thereat, one linger so, as it will happen that one\nfrog remains while the other spouts away; and Graffiancane, who was\nnearest to him, hooked his pitchy locks and haled him up, so that to me\nhe seemed an otter.\n\n\"I already knew the name of every one, so well I noted them as they were\nchosen, and when they called each other, listened how. 'O Rubicante, see\nthou plant thy clutches on him, and flay him!' shouted together all the\naccursed _crew_. And I: 'Master, learn if thou canst, who is that\npiteous _wight_, fallen into the hands of his adversaries.' My Guide\ndrew close to (his side) and asked him whence he came; and he replied:\n'I was born in the kingdom of Navarre. My mother placed me as servant of\na lord; for she had borne me to a ribald master of himself and of his\nsubstance. Then I was domestic with the good King Thibault; here I set\nmyself to doing barratry, of which I render reckoning in this heat.' And\nCiriatto, from whose mouth on either side came forth a tusk as from a\nhog, made him feel how one of them did rip. Amongst evil cats the mouse\nhad come; but Barbariccia locked him in his arms, and said: 'Stand off\nwhilst I enforke him!' And turning his face to my Master: 'Ask on,' he\nsaid, 'if thou wouldst learn more from him, before some other undo him.'\n\n\"The Guide therefore: 'Now say, of the other sinners knowest thou any\nthat is a Latian, beneath the pitch?' And he: 'I parted just now from\none who was a neighbour of theirs (on the other side); would I still\nwere covered with him, for I should not fear claw nor hook!' And\nLibicocco cried: 'Too much have we endured,' and with the hook seized\nhis arm and mangling carried off a part of brawn. Draghignazzo, he too,\nwished to have a catch at the legs below; whereat their decurion wheeled\naround around with evil aspect. When they were somewhat pacified, my\nGuide, without delay, asked him that still kept gazing on his wound:\n'Who was he, from whom thou sayest that thou madest an ill departure to\ncome ashore?' And he answered: 'It was Friar Gomita, he of Gallura,\nvessel of every fraud, who had his master's enemies in hand, and did so\nto them that they all praise him for it: money took he for himself, and\ndismissed them smoothly, as he says; and in his other offices besides,\nhe was no petty but a sovereign barrator. With him keeps company Don\nMichel Zanche of Logodoros; and in speaking of Sardinia the tongues of\nthem do not feel weary. Oh me! see that other grinning; I would say\nmore; but fear he is preparing to claw my scurf.' And their great\nMarshal, turning to Farfarello, who rolled his eyes to strike, said:\n'Off with thee, villainous bird!' 'If you wish to see or hear Tuscans or\nLombards,' the frightened sinner then resumed, 'I will make them come.\nBut let the (evil claws hold back) a little, that they may not fear\ntheir vengeance; and I, sitting in this same place, for one that I am,\nwill make seven come, on whistling, as is our wont to do, when any of us\ngets out.'\n\n\"O Reader, thou shalt hear new sport! All turned their eyes toward the\nother side, he first who had been most unripe for doing it. The\nNavarrese chose well his time; planted his soles upon the ground, and in\nan instant leapt and from their purpose freed himself. Thereat each was\nstung (with guilt); but he most who had been the cause of the mistake;\nhe therefore started forth, and shouted: 'Thou'rt caught!' But little it\navailed (him); for wings could not outspeed the terror; the _sinner_\nwent under; and he, flying, raised up his breast: not otherwise the duck\nsuddenly dives down, when the falcon approaches, and he returns up angry\nand defeated.\n\n\"Calcabrina, furious at the trick, kept flying after him, desirous that\nthe sinner might escape, to have a quarrel. And, when the barrator had\ndisappeared, he turned his talons on his fellow, and was clutched with\nhim above the ditch. But the other was indeed a sparrowhawk to claw him\nwell; and both dropt down into the middle of the boiling pond. The heat\nat once unclutched them; but rise they could not, their wings were so\nbeglued. Barbariccia with the rest lamenting, made four of them fly over\nto the other coast with all their drags; and most rapidly on this side,\non that, they descended to the stand; they stretched their hooks towards\nthe limed pair, who were already scalded within the crust; and we left\nthem thus embroiled.\" (XXII, 19.)\n\nThe grotesque, also, plays a part in the Inferno appearing not only in\nthe demons taken from classical legend and deformed into caricatures,\nbut also in the punishment of crimes, v.g. simony and malfeasance in\npublic office, regarded by our poet as malicious in themselves and\ngrotesque in their perversity.\n\nReaders who regard the grotesque as a repelling element in the Inferno\nmay be surprised to learn that Ruskin considers this feature of Dante's\nwritings an expression of the highest human genius. The great English\ncritic writes:\n\n\"I believe that there is no test of greatness in nations, periods, nor\nmen more sure than the development, among them or in them of a noble\ngrotesque, and no test of comparative smallness or limitation, of one\nkind or another, more sure than the absence of grotesque invention or\nincapability of understanding it. I think that the central man of all\nthe world, as representing in perfect balance and imaginative, moral and\nintellectual faculties, all at their highest is Dante; and in him the\ngrotesque reaches at once the most distinct and the most noble\ndevelopment to which it was ever brought in the human mind. Of the\ngrotesqueness of our own Shakespeare I need hardly speak, nor of its\nintolerableness to his French critics; nor of that of AEschylus and\nHomer, as opposed to the lower Greek writers; and so I believe it will\nbe found, at all periods, in all minds of the first order.\"\n\nDante's doctrine of punishment presupposes certain primary truths which\nthe Church proclaims today as she did in Dante's day. According to the\nFlorentine's creed, man must answer to God for his moral life because he\nhas free will. He cannot excuse his evil deed on the ground of\nnecessity. Even in the face of planetary influence and of temptation\nfrom within, by his evil inclinations, and from without by solicitation\nof other agents man has still such discernment between good and evil and\nsuch power to make choice freely, that moral judgment with him is free.\n\"Who hath been tried thereby and made perfect,\" says Holy Writ, \"he\nshall have glory everlasting. He that could have transgressed, and hath\nnot transgressed and could do evil things, and hath not done them.\"\n(Eccli., XXXI, 10.)\n\nAgainst this doctrine of free will the sociology, the philosophy and the\nmedical science of the present day contend with a theory which minimizes\nman's accountability for sin if it does not wholly excuse him as the\nvictim of heredity, environment or society. Literature also, as\nreflected not only in the Greek tragedies but in the writings of authors\nfrom Shakespeare to Shaw portray the evil doer as the victim of fate or\ndeterminism.\n\nAgainst all such theories and views Dante appears as the fearless,\nuncompromising champion of the doctrine of the greatness of man in the\nexercise of the divine gift of Free Will. His own life, showing how he\nhad won victory over the forces of poverty and persecution, is symbolic\nof the glorious truth he would teach; viz., that man, endowed with free\nwill and animated with the grace of God, is master of his destiny and\ncannot be defeated even by principalities and powers. So he tells us,\n\"And free will which if it endure fatigue in the first battles with the\nheavens, afterwards if it be well nurtured, conquers everything.\"\n(Purg., XVI, 76.) He makes Beatrice testify to the supremacy of the\nwill: \"The greatest gift which God in His bounty bestowed in creating\nand that which He prizes most, was the freedom of will with which the\ncreatures that have intelligence--they all and they alone--were\nendowed.\" (Cf. Purg., XVIII, 66-73.)\n\nBut such a distinctive endowment may be the the curse of man if he fails\nto use it rightly. Like Job, Dante insists that life is a warfare.\nVictory is possible only by the right exercise of the will enlightened\nby God. Defeat is sure if the will embraces sin. To Dante sin is not a\nmere vulgarity or the violation of a social convention or \"a soft\ninfirmity of the blood.\" \"Very hateful to his fervid heart and sincere\nmind,\" says James Russell Lowell, \"would have been the modern theory\nwhich deals with sin as involuntary error.\" To Dante sin is the greatest\nevil of the world--not only because it is the source of all other evils,\nbut because it is at once the denaturing of man--the damned are\ncharacterized as \"the woeful people who have lost the good of the\nunderstanding\" (Inf., III, 18), and it is also a defiance of God. Sin,\nthen, is Atheism--a rejection of God, with a conviction that pleasure or\nhappiness can be attained outside of God, independent of God and in\nopposition to God. Apart from the inspired writers of Holy Writ it is\ndoubtful whether any other writer ever had such an awful sense of sin\nand such a vivid vision of sin and its consequences as Dante has given\nto the world in a picture which has burned terror into the thought of\nman.\n\nTo show us that life is a warfare against sin, Dante gives us several\nstriking pictures of temptation and heavenly deliverance from evil. At\nthe very beginning of the Divine Comedy, we see his ascent to the\nmountain of the Lord barred by Lust, Pride and Avarice represented by a\nleopard, a lion, and a wolf. He is victorious over those enemies of his\nsalvation because Reason (Virgil) and Beatrice (Revelation) come to his\naid. Temptation is also exhibited in Ante-Purgatorio and that is the\nmore remarkable because both as a theologian and a poet Dante holds that\nthe present life is the end of man's probation and that as a\nconsequence, temptation is not to be encountered in the next life. Why\nit is put forth in Ante-Purgatorio is explained by the theory that our\npoet here nods, that he means, not the actual Purgatory of disembodied\nspirits, but moral Purgatory, _i.e._, the present life wherein man,\nstriving upward, is attacked by temptation to keep him from the end for\nwhich God created him.\n\nShowing temptation in Ante-Purgatorio, the poet gives us a picture of\nsouls protected by two angels against the serpent. Here is the scene:\n\n  \"Now was the hour that wakens fond desire\n  In men at sea, and melts their thoughtful heart\n  Who in the morn have bid sweet friends farewell,\n  And pilgrim newly on his road with love\n  Thrills, if he hear the vesper bell from far,\n  That seems to mourn for the expiring day\":\n  A band of souls approach:\n  \"I saw that gentle band silently next\n  Look up, as if in expectation held,\n  Pale and in lowly guise; and, from on high,\n  I saw, forth issuing descend beneath,\n  Two angels, with two flame-illumined swords,\n  Broken and mutilated of their points.\n  Green as the tender leaves but newly born,\n  Their vesture was, the which, by wings as green\n  Beaten, they drew behind them, fann'd in air.\n  A little over us one took his stand;\n  The other lighted on the opposing hill;\n  So that the troop were in the midst contain'd.\n  But in their visages the dazzled eye\n  Was lost, as faculty that by too much\n  Is overpower'd. 'From Mary's bosom both\n  Are come,' exclaimed Sordello, 'as a guard\n  Over the vale, 'gainst him, who hither tends,\n  The serpent.' Whence, not knowing by which path\n  He came, I turn'd me round; and closely press'd,\n  All frozen, to my leader's trusted side.\"\n\nAfter describing an interview with one of the souls, the poet continues\nhis narrative:\n\n  \"While yet he spoke, Sordello to himself\n  Drew him, and cried: 'Lo there our enemy!'\n  And with his hand pointed that way to look\n  Along the side, where barrier none arose\n  Around the little vale, a serpent lay,\n  Such haply as gave Eve the bitter food.\n  Between the grass and flowers, the evil snake\n  Came on, reverting oft his lifted head;\n  And, as a beast that smooths its polish'd coat.\n  Licking his back. I saw not, nor can tell,\n  How those celestial falcons from their seat\n  Moved, but in motion each one well described.\n  Hearing the air cut by their verdant plumes,\n  The serpent fled; and, to their stations, back\n  The angels up return'd with equal flight.\"\n       (Purg., VIII.)\n\nA third picture of temptation is furnished by the episode of one of the\nSirens who appears first repulsive and then seems to the poet sweet and\nalluring. Only when Virgil discloses her hideous nature does Dante see\nhow easily he might have fallen a victim to her wiles. He tells us that\nin his sleep there appeared to him a woman with stammering utterance,\nsquinting eyes, deformed hands. \"I gazed at her, and as the sun restores\nthe cold limbs made heavy by night, thus my look loosened her tongue,\nthen straightened her all out in a little while and colored her wan face\nas love demands. When her speech was thus unbound she began to sing so\nthat I could hardly have turned my attention from her. 'I am,' she sang,\n'I am sweet Siren who bewitch sailors by mid-sea, so full am I of charm\nto hear. By my song I turned Ulysses from his wandering way. And\nwhosoever abides with me seldom departs, so wholly do I satisfy him.'\nHer lips were not yet closed when a lady, swift and holy, appeared at my\nside to confound the other. 'O Virgil, Virgil, who is this?' she said\nproudly; and he advanced with his eyes fixed only on this modest woman.\"\nVirgil (Reason called by Conscience) comes to the rescue of the\nentranced poet and reveals the Siren in all her foul ugliness. At that\nDante awakes from his dream more than ever convinced of the evil of sin\nand its hideousness. (Purg., XIX, 9.)\n\nOur poet, as we said, is firmly convinced that sin will be punished in\nHell. But where is Hell? Popular tradition attributing an infernal\nconnection with volcanic phenomena and moved by those passages in Holy\nScripture which describe Hell as a place to which the reprobate descend,\nlocates Hell in the interior of the earth. Dante not only follows this\ntradition for his Hell, but he does what no other writer before or after\nhim ever did--he constructs a Hell with such rare architectural skill\nthat the awful structure stands forth in startling reality, visualized\neasily as to form an atmosphere, and with a finish of detail that is\namazing. Covered by a crust of earth it is situated under Jerusalem and\nextends in funnel shape to the very center of the earth.\n\nHow it got this shape is told by the poet. When Lucifer was hurled from\nHeaven by the justice of God, he kept falling until he reached the\ncenter of earth, whence further motion downward was impossible. At the\napproach of Lucifer the earth is represented as recoiling and so making\nthe cavity of Hell. The earth dislodged by the cataclysm was forced\nthrough an opening, a kind of nozzle of the funnel of Hell, to the\nantipodes and it there emerged, forming a mountain, which became the\nsite of the Garden of Eden and Purgatory. The phenomenon made land in\nthe northern and water in the southern hemisphere. Here is the\ndescription:\n\n  \"Upon this side he fell down out of heaven\n  And all the land, that whilom here emerged\n  For fear of him made of the sea a veil\n  And came to our hemisphere; and peradventure\n  To flee from him, what on this side\n  Left the place vacant here and back recoiled.\"\n          (Inf., XXXIV, 121.)\n\nThe material structure of the Inferno is a series of nine concentric\ncircles--darkness brooding over the whole region,--with ledges, chasms,\npits, swamps and rivers. The rivers, though different in name and\naspect, appear to be one and the same stream winding its way through the\nvarious circles. We see it first as the boundary of Hell proper and it\nis known as the Acheron. It comes again to view in the fourth circle and\nis called the Styx. In the seventh circle, second round, it emerges as\nthe red blood stream of Phlegethon. In the very depths of Hell it forms\nthe frozen lake of Cocytus. The circles of Hell, distant from one\nanother, decrease in circumference as descent is made--the top circle\nbeing the widest. Galileo estimates that Dante's Hell is about 4,000\nmiles in depth and as many in breadth at its widest diameter. Its\nopening is near the forest at the Fauces Averni, near Cuma, Italy, where\nVirgil places the site of the entrance of his Inferno.\n\nDante's Hell in its moral aspect is Aristotelian. Sins are divided into\nthree great classes, incontinence, bestiality and malice. Incontinence\nis punished in the five upper circles; bestiality and malice in the City\nof Dis, lower Hell. More particularly stated, Dante's scheme of\npunishment in the underworld, not considering the vestibule of Hell,\nwhere neutrals are confined, is as follows: 1, Limbo; 2, The Circle of\nLust; 3, Gluttony; 4, Avarice and Prodigality; 5, Anger, Rage and Fury;\n6, Unbelief and Heresy; 7, Violence; 8, Fraud; 9, Treason.\n\nIn regard to this plan of punishment three things are to be noted: (a)\nThough generally following the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas, here\nDante, in his conception of Limbo, differs from his master. Our poet's\nLimbo, wherein are the souls of unbaptized children and others who died\nstained with original sin, but without personal grievous guilt, is a\nmuch more severe abode than that of the Angelic Doctor. The latter\nteaches that Limbo is a place or a state, not merely of exemption from\nsuffering and sorrow, but of perfect natural happiness unbroken even by\na knowledge of a higher, a supernatural destiny that has never been\ngiven. Dante's Limbo, on the other hand, represents the souls in sadness\nbrought about by their constant desire and hope never realizable, of\nseeing God. They suffer no pain of sense, but they are baffled in their\nendless yearning for the Beatific Vision. To quote Dante:\n\n  \"There, in so far as I had power to hear,\n  Were lamentations none, but only sighs\n  That tremulous made the everlasting air.\n  And this arose from sorrow without torment,\n  Which the crowds had, that many were and great,\n  Of infants and of women and of men.\n  To me the Master good: 'Thou dost not ask\n  What spirits these may be, which thou beholdest?\n  Now will I have thee know, ere thou go farther,\n  That they sinned not; and if they merit had,\n  'T is not enough, because they had not baptism,\n  Which is the portal of the Faith thou holdest;\n  And if they were before Christianity,\n  In the right manner they adored not God;\n  And among such as these am I myself.\n  For such defects, and not for other guilt,\n  Lost are we, and are only so far punished,\n  That without hope we live on in desire.'\"\n          (IV, 25.)\n\n(b) Our poet represents a soul as punished but for one sin, though it\nmay be guilt-dyed by its having broken all the commandments. Even so, it\nis placed in one particular circle wherein a certain sin is punished and\nwe are not told that it passes to other circles. In explanation of this\nwe have only to remember that Dante, for our instruction, is showing us\nobject lessons of evil, types of certain sins. Judas, for example, whose\nname is synonymous with traitor, is exhibited as suffering in the ninth\ncircle, the circle of treason, the poet taking no notice of other sins,\nv.g., sacrilege, avarice, suicide, of which the fallen apostle may have\nbeen guilty. Furthermore, Dante as a master psychologist and moralist\nwould teach us the lesson that the evil doer may come to damnation\nthrough one sin if that acquires such an ascendency over his will as to\nbecome a capital sin or predominant passion of his life. Then the\nbesetting passion is the father of an innumerable progeny of evil. This\nis seen (Purg., XX, 103) in the case of Pygmalion, whose predominant\npassion, avarice, made him a traitor, a thief and a parricide.\n\n(c) Let us not be surprised that Dante is so lenient in the punishment\nof carnal sinners. He assigns a lighter punishment to the unchaste than\nto the unjust. Back of his plan is a sound theological doctrine. Guilt\nis to be estimated not simply from the gravity of the matter prohibited\nto conscience and the knowledge that one has of the evil, but more\nespecially from the malice displayed by the will in its voluntary\nchoosing and embracing the evil. Now impurity, it is held, is often a\nsin of impulse. It springs from concupiscence, a common human\ninclination, wrong only when there is inordinateness. Then though a man\nfreely consents to the temptation and thereby commits a grievous sin,\nhis will generally is not overcast with perversion or affected with\nmalice. That being so, Dante in assigning punishment for sins against\nthe virtue of purity is moved by the thought that such sins deserve a\nmilder punishment in Hell, because they may be oftener surprises than\ninfidelities.\n\nTo make known the nature of the particular sin he depicts Dante shows us\nthe evil in various phases. First of all it is personified in repulsive\ndemons, the guardians of the circles of Hell. At the very entrance,\nsits, symbolizing the evil conscience, the sinners' judge \"Minos\nhorrific and grins. The ill-born spirit comes before him, confesses all\nand that sin-discerner (Minos) sees what place in Hell is for it, and\nwith his tail makes as many circles round himself as the degrees he will\nhave it descend.\" (Inf., V, 2.) In the circle of Gluttony, the sin is\nsymbolized by the three-headed monster Cerberus, \"who clutches the\nspirits, flays and piecemeal rends them.\"\n\nPlutus, the ancient god of riches--\"a cursed wolf\"--commands the circle\nof Avarice. Phlegyas, who in fury set fire to Apollo's temple, is head\nof the circle of Anger. Symbolizing remorse, the three Furies, in the\nsemblance of women girt with green water snakes, with snakes for hair,\nand the Gorgon Medusa, representing the heart-hardening effect of\nsensual pleasures, are found on the fire-glowing towers of the City of\nDis, Inner Hell. In the seventh circle presides Minotaur, half-man,\nhalf-bull, the symbol of bloodthirsty violence and brutal lust.\n\nFraud is typified by Geryon, having the face of an honest man and the\nbody of a dragon. Further down giants are seen, emblematic of the\nenormity of crime. At the very lowest point of Hell is Lucifer, \"emperor\nof the Realm of Sorrow.\" A gigantic monster, he is imprisoned in ice\nformed from rivers which freeze by the movements of his bat-like wings\nflapping in vain efforts to raise himself. To him, as to the source of\nall evil, flow back all the streams of guilt. As he sinned against the\nTri-une God, he is represented with three faces, one crimson, another\nbetween white and yellow, and the third black. (XXXIV, 55.)\n\nNot only by such terrible monsters, but by the environment of the\ncondemned sinner, does our poet reveal the hideousness of sin. To\nmention only the three great divisions of Hell, the abodes of\nincontinence, bestiality and malice, we find in murky gloom the\nincontinent whose sin had darkened their understanding. In the City of\nDis, red with fire, are the violent and the bestial, who in this life\nhad burned either with consuming rage or unnatural passion; in the\nfrozen circle of malice are those whose sins had congealed human\nsympathy and love into cold, calculating destruction of trust reposed in\nthem.\n\nBut it is principally by depicting the intellectual, the moral and the\nphysical sufferings of the damned that Dante would teach us the nature\nof sin. To depict physical sufferings the poet was under the necessity\nof creating provisional bodies for his damned. Without such a poetic\ndevice the souls of the reprobate before the resurrection of their\nbodies cannot be conceived to suffer physically, since they lack the\nsenses and organs of pain. So Dante pictures the damned united to forms\nshadowy yet real, palpable and visible. They sometimes lose the human\nsemblance and assume more sinister shapes, grovelling as hideous\nserpents, bleeding and wailing from shrubs and trees, or bubbling in a\nslushing stream.\n\nIn such forms the souls are seen in punishment fitting their sin, on the\nprinciple that \"by what things a man sinneth by the same he is\ntormented.\" (Wisdom XI, 17.) The unchaste because they allowed their\nreason to be subjected to the hot blasts of passion are now driven by \"a\nhellish storm which never rests; whirling and smiting, it vexes them.\"\n(Inf., V, 31.) The gluttonous howl like dogs as hail and rain and snow\nbeat down upon them and Cerberus attacks and rends them. The misers and\nspendthrifts to whom money was king, now are occupied in rolling huge\nstones in opposite directions. The wrathful, all muddy and naked, assail\nand tear one another.\n\nThe sullen are fixed in slime and gurgle a dismal chant. The materialist\nand the heretic, whose existence, Dante holds, was only a living death,\nare confined in blazing tombs. Murderers and tyrants are immersed in\nboiling blood.\n\nWith poetic justice, suicides are represented as stunted trees lacerated\nby the beaks of foul harpies. The violent lie supine on a plain of dry\nand dense sand, upon which descend flakes of fire like \"snow in the\nAlps, without a wind.\" Usurers--should we call them profiteers?--suffer\nalso from a rain of fire and carry about their necks money bags stamped\nwith armorial designs. Thieves, to remind them of their sneaking trade,\nare repeatedly transformed from men into snakes, hissing and creeping.\nHypocrites march in slow procession with faces painted and with leaden\ncloaks all glittering with gold on the outside. With such realism does\nDante declare the nature of sin and its inevitable consequences.\n\nLet us now accompany Dante through the Underworld. The scene opens at\ndawn in a dark and tangled wood. Dante, the type of humanity, is unable\nto ascend the Hill of the Lord, as we said before, because his way is\nbarred successively by a leopard, a lion and a wolf, representing the\npassions of life. Virgil (Reason), sent by Beatrice (Revelation), offers\nto conduct the poet by another road. It is a way which leads through\nHell and Purgatory. Through the heavens Beatrice herself will be the\nguide. Descending through the earth the two poets come to the Vestibule\nof Hell. On the gate appears this inscription:\n\n  \"Through me you pass into the city of woe\n  Through me you pass into eternal pain\n  Through me among the people lost for aye\n  Justice, the founder of my fabric, moved\n  To rear me was the task of Power divine,\n  Supremest wisdom and primeval Love\n  Before me things create were none, save things\n  Eternal, and eternal I endure.\n  All hope abandon, ye who enter here.\"\n\nIt may be said in passing that in these nine lines Dante attains an\neffect for which Milton, with all his heavy description of the gateway\nof Hell, labors in vain. Contrast with the Florentine's the words of the\nauthor of Paradise Lost:\n\n  \"Hell bounds high reaching to the horrid roof\n  And thrice three fold the gates: three folds were brass,\n  Three iron, three of adamantine rock.\n  Impenetrable, impaled with circling fire,\n  Yet unconsumed. Before the gate there sat\n  On either side a formidable shape,\" etc.\n\nNot by gigantic images which only astonish the reader, but by words\nwhich burn into the brain and leave him dismayed, does our poet drive\nhome his thought.\n\nPassing through a crowd of neutrals the poets come to the river Acheron,\nwhere assemble those who die in mortal sin, to be ferried over by the\ndemon Charon. He refuses passage to Dante: \"By other ways, by other\nferries, shalt thou pass over, a lighter boat must carry thee.\" (Inf.,\nIII, 91.) An earthquake occurs, accompanied with wind and lightning, and\nDante falls into a state of insensibility. Upon coming to consciousness\nhe finds himself on the brink of the Abyss, whence the poets enter\nLimbo. Here Christ descended, Virgil says, and \"drew from us the shade\nof our first parent, of Abel, his son; that of Noah, of Moses, the\nlawgiver, the obedient; patriarch Abraham and King David; Israel, with\nhis father, and with his sons and with Rachel, for whom he wrought much,\nand many others and made them blessed.\" (Inf., IV, 55.)\n\nIn the second circle, where carnal sinners are punished, Dante sees,\namong others, Semiramis, Dido, Cleopatra, Helen, Achilles, Paris. The\npoet's attention is suddenly attracted by two spirits, who prove to be\nFrancesca da Rimini and her lover, Paolo, murdered by her husband when\nDante was twenty-four years old. The scandal of their illicit love and\nthe penalty they paid by their lives must have been so generally known\nthat Dante, though attached to her family by the memory of hospitality\nreceived from her nephew, Guido Novello da Polenta, the lord of Ravenna,\nis dominated by the necessity of declaring in Francesca and Paolo the\noperation of the unalterable law which rules the terrible consequences\nof crime unforgiven by Heaven. Was it gratitude for kindness extended to\nhim, an exile, by the Lord of Ravenna, or was it the memory of\nassociation with the brother of Francesca, at the battle of Campaldino,\nthat led our poet to treat the whole episode of the fatal liaison with\nsuch tender sympathy for the unfortunate lady that he hoped to\nrehabilitate her memory? In any event, the poet represents himself as\ngracious and benign when addressing Francesca, and she, moved by his\nfriendly attitude, tells the story of her intrigue, in lines justly\nregarded as the most beautiful ever written in verse. The reader will\nnot fail to observe that the fatal denouement is only hinted, not\ntold--the line, \"that day we read no more,\" making what is admitted to\nbe the finest ellipsis in all the literature of the world.\n\n  \"Then turning, I to them, my speech address'd\n  And thus began: 'Francesca! Your sad fate\n  Even to tears my grief and pity moves.\n  But tell me, in the time of your sweet sighs,\n  By what and how Love granted that ye knew\n  Your yet uncertain wishes.' She replied:\n  'No greater grief than to remember days\n  Of joy, when misery is at hand. Yet so eagerly\n  If thou art bent to know the primal root\n  From whence our love gat being, I will do\n  As one who weeps and tells his tale. One day\n  For our delight, we read of Lancelot,\n  How him love thrall'd. Alone we were, and no\n  Suspicion near us. Oft times by that reading\n  Our eyes were drawn together, and the hue\n  Fled from our alter'd cheek. But at one point\n  Alone we fell. When of that smile, we read,\n  The wish'd smile so rapturously kiss'd\n  By one so deep in love, then he who ne'er\n  From me shall separate, at once my lips\n  All trembling kiss'd. The book and writer both\n  Were love's purveyors. In its leaves that day\n  We read no more.' While thus one spirit spake,\n  The other wail'd so sorely, that heart-struck\n  I through compassion fainting, seem'd not far\n  From death, and like a corse fell to the ground.\"\n\nIn the next circle where, with faces to the ground, the gluttons suffer\nin a ceaseles storm, the shade of Ciacco, the Florentine, sits up as he\nrecognizes a fellow-citizen:\n\n  \"He said to me: 'Thy City which is filled\n  With envy, like a sack that overflows,\n  Once held me in its tranquil life, well skilled\n  In dainties, and a glutton, and by those\n  Who dwelt there Ciacco called, but now the blows\n  Of this fierce rain avenge my wasteful sin.\n  Sad as I am, full many another knows\n  For a like crime like penalty within\n  This circle', and more word he spake not.\" (VI, 49.)\n\nIn the fourth circle the poet sees the souls of the prodigal and\navaricious rolling heavy stones, against each other with mutual\nrecriminations:\n\n  \"Almighty Justice! in what store thou heap'st\n  New pains, new troubles, as I here beheld,\n  Wherefore doth fault of ours bring us to this?\n  E'en as a billow, on Charybdis rising\n  Against encountered billow dashing breaks;\n  Such is the dance this wretched race must lead\n  Whom more than elsewhere numerous here I found.\"\n          (VII, 19.)\n\nThe next is the circle of the wrathful and the sullen. Following is the\ncircle of the materialists and heretics, all covered with burning\nsepulchres:\n\n  \"Soon as I was within, I cast around\n  My eyes and saw extend on either hand\n  A spacious plain, that echoed to the sound\n  Of grief and torment sore; as o'er the land\n  At Aries where Rhone's vast waters stagnant stand\n  Or Pola, near Quarnero Bay, that bounds\n  And bathes the line of Italy, expand\n  Plains rough and heaving with supulchral mounds,\n  'Tis thus the plain, wherein I stood, with tombs abounds,\n  Save that the buried were more grimly treated.\n  For twixt the graves were scattered tongues of fire\n  By which to such a pitch the place was heated\n  That iron could no fiercer flame require\n  For art to mould it: lamentation dire\n  Issued from each unlidded vault, and seemed\n  The voice of those in torment.\"\n\nFrom one of these fiery tombs, the Florentine freethinker, the haughty\nFarinata, rises \"with breast and brow erect, as holding Hell in great\ncontempt,\" and tells Dante that the souls of the lost have no knowledge\nconcerning things that are actually passing on earth, though they know\nthe past and see the future. He foretells the duration of the poet's\nexile and boasts that he himself saved Florence from being razed to the\nground.\n\n  \"When all decreed that Florence should be laid\n  in ruin I alone with fearless face defended her.\"\n          (X, 91.)\n\nIn the seventh circle Virgil leads Dante to the river of blood, \"in\nwhich boils every one who by violence injures others.\" Centaurs, half\nhorses and half men, are there. \"Around the fosse they go by thousands,\npiercing with their arrows whatever spirit wrenches itself out of the\nblood farther than its guilt has allotted for it.\" (XII, 73.) With\ncharacteristic realism the poet describes Chiron, one of the leaders of\nthe Centaurs, pushing back with an arrow his beard as he prepares to\nspeak:\n\n    \"Chiron took an arrow, and with the notch put back his beard upon\n    his jaws. When he had uncovered his great mouth, he said to his\n    companions: 'Have ye perceived that the one behind (Dante) moves\n    what he touches? The feet of the dead are not wont to do so.'\"\n    (XII, 76.)\n\nIn the third round of Circle VII Dante meets his friend Brunetto Latini,\npunished for unnatural offences.\n\n  \"I remembered him and toward his face\n  My hand inclining, answered: Ser Brunetto!\n  And are ye here? He thus to me: 'My son!\n  Oh let it not displease thee, if Brunetto\n  Latini but a little space with thee\n  Turn back, and leave his fellows to proceed.'\n  I thus to him replied: 'Much as I can,\n  I thereto pray thee: and if thou be willing\n  That I here seat me with thee, I consent:\n  His leave with whom I journey, first obtain'd.'\n  'O Son,' said he, 'whoever of this throng\n  One instant stops, lies then a hundred years,\n  No fan to ventilate him, when the fire\n  Smitest sorest. Pass thou therefore on. I close\n  Will at thy garments walk and then rejoin\n  My troup, who go mourning their endless doom.'\"\n\n         *       *       *       *       *\n\n  \"Were all my wish fulfill'd,\" I straight replied,\n  Thou from the confines of man's nature yet\n  Hadst not been driven forth; for in my mind\n  Is fix'd, and now strikes full upon my heart,\n  The dear, benign, paternal image, such\n  As thine was, when so lately thou didst teach me\n  The way for man to win eternity:\n  And how I prized the lesson, it behoves,\n  That, long as life endures, my tongue should speak.\n          (XV, 28.)\n\nThe eighth circle is known as Malebolge, Evil Pouches, of which there\nare ten. Here are punished differently panders, seducers, flatterers,\nsimonists, magicians, cheats, hypocrites, thieves, evil-counsellors,\nforgers.\n\nIn the ninth circle, the abode of traitors, which comprises four\ndivisions, named respectively after Cain (Caina), Antenor of Troy\n(Antenora), Ptolemy of Jericho (Tolomea), and Judas Iscariot (Giudecca),\nDante sees in the second division, Antenora, the shade of the traitor\nUgolino imprisoned in ice with his enemy, Archbishop Ruggieri, by whom\nhe was betrayed. Ugolino, with his two sons and two grandsons, were\nlocked in the Tower of Famine at Pisa, the key of the prison was thrown\ninto the river and the prisoners began their term of starvation ending\nin death. The story of the imprisonment and the death of the five\nprisoners is one of the most tragic recitals in the domain of\nliterature. In the passage I quote, Ugolino is relating his feelings\nwhen he finds himself imprisoned with his sons and grandsons in the\nTower of Famine.\n\n  \"When I awoke before the morn, that day,\n  I heard my little sons, who shared my cell,\n  For bread, even in their slumber, moaning pray;\n  Hard art thou, if unmoved thou hearest me tell\n  The message that my heart had guessed too well!\n  If this thou feel not, what can make thee feel?\n  And when we all were risen, the hour befell\n  At which was brought to us the morning meal,\n  Yet each one doubted sore what might their dreams reveal.\n\n  And as the locking of the gate I heard\n  Beneath that terrible tower, I gazed alone\n  Into my children's faces, without a word.\n  I wept not, for within I turned to stone;\n  But saw that they were weeping every one;\n  'Twas then my darling little Anselm cried:\n  'You look so, father! Say, what have they done?'\n  Still not a tear I shed, nor word replied\n  That day, nor till that night in next day's dawning died.\n\n  And as there shot into this prison drear\n  A little sunbeam, by whose light I caught\n  My look upon four faces mirrored clear;\n  Both of my hands I bit, by grief o'erwrought.\n  Then suddenly they rose as if they thought\n  I did it hungering; 'Less our misery,'\n  They cried, 'Should'st thou on us feed, who are nought\n  But creatures vested in our flesh by thee:\n  Then strip away the weeds that still thine own must be.'\n\n  It calmed me to make them feel less their fate;\n  Two days we spent in silence all forlorn;\n  Earth, Earth, oh wherefore wert thou obdurate,\n  And would'st not open! On the following morn\n  Gaddo, before my face, from life was torn!\n  'Can you not help me, father?' first he cried,\n  And perished; then, I saw the younger born,\n  Three, one by one, fall ere the sixth day sped--\n  Plainly as you see me, and this accursed head.\n\n  'Already blind, I fondly grope my way\n  To them, and for three days their names I call\n  After their death; then famine found its prey\n  And did what sorrow could not.' This was all\n  He said.\"\n          (XXXIII, 35.)\n\nAnd now we come with the poets to the lowest depths of Hell, where we\nsee imprisoned in ice Lucifer, huge and hideous. As we gaze on mankind's\nenemy, an archangel fallen and punished for sin, the words of Isaias\ncome to mind: \"How art thou fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, who did'st\nrise in the morning! How art thou fallen to the earth, that did'st wound\nthe nations. And thou saidst within thy heart, 'I will ascend into\nHeaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God--I will be like\nthe most High. But yet thou shalt be brought down to Hell, into the very\ndepth of the pit.\" (Is., XIV, 12.)\n\nLet us see how Dante puts Lucifer \"into the very depth of the pit.\"\n\n  \"The lamentable kingdom's emperor\n  Issued from out the ice with half his breast;\n  And with a giant more do I compare\n  Than with his arms do giants; therefore see\n  How great must be that whole which corresponds\n  Unto a part so fashioned. If he was\n  As beautiful as he is ugly now,\n  And raised his brows against his Maker, sure\n  All sorrowfulness must proceed from him.\n  Ah! how great marvel unto me it seemed\n  When I beheld three faces to his head!\n  The one before, and that was vermeil-hue;\n  Two were the others which adjoined to this,\n  Over the midst of either shoulder, and\n  They made the joining where the crown is placed.\n  And between white and yellow seemed the right;\n  The left was such an one to be beheld\n  As come from there wherein the Nile is sunk.\n  There issued under each two mighty wings,\n  Such as 'twas fitting for so great a bird:\n  I never saw the sails of shipping such.\n  They had not feathers, but the mode thereof\n  Was like a bat's; and these he fluttered so\n  That from him there was moved a threefold wind:\n  Cocytus all was frozen over hence.\n  With six eyes wept he, and three chins along\n  The weeping trickled, and a bloody foam.\n  At every mouth he shattered with his teeth\n  A sinner, in the manner of a brake,\n  So that he thus made woful three of them.\n  The biting for the foremost one was nought\n  Unto the scratching, for at times the spine\n  Remained of all the skin completely stripped.\n  'That soul above which has most punishment\n  Is,' said my lord, 'Judas Iscariot,\n  Who has his head within, and outside plies\n  His legs. O' the other two, whose head is down,\n  Brutus is he who from the black head hangs;\n  See how he writhes, and does not speak a word:\n  The other's Cassius, who appears, so gaunt,'\"\n          (XXXIV, 28-67)\n\nNow that the lesson is learned that the wages of sin is death, that sin\nwill find a man out and bring him to the judgment of God, the gracious\nguide can release his companion from his awful contemplation.\n\n\"Now it is time for us to go,\" says Virgil, \"for we have seen all.\" By a\nsecret path leading to Purgatory the pilgrims make their way through the\ndarkness, guided by the encouraging murmur of running water. It is a\nstreamlet of discarded sin, flowing constantly from Purgatory, whence\nwickedness is washed down to its original Satanic source.\n\n  \"By that hidden way\n  My guide and I did enter, to return\n  To the fair world; and heedless of repose\n  We climb'd, he first, I following his steps,\n  Till on our view the beautiful lights of Heaven\n  Dawn'd through a circular opening in the cave\n  Thence issuing we again beheld the stars.\"\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S PURGATORIO\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S PURGATORIO\n\n\nPurgatory, as a doctrine, is peculiar to the Catholic Church; Purgatory,\nas a discipline from sin to virtue, is a practice followed by a large\nportion of humanity. The latter fact explains why so many who reject the\ndogma, still love and admire Dante's Purgatorio, which, while it teaches\nthe doctrine of the intermediate state, also serves as an allegory, the\nmost helpful and beautiful allegory, perhaps, in the literature of the\nworld. In the opinion of Dean Stanley, it is the most religious book he\never read. It makes a peculiar appeal to the modern mind because, as\nGrandgent says: \"It's theme is betterment, release from sin and\npreparation for Heaven\" ... (and) \"its atmosphere is rightly one of hope\nand progress.\"\n\nDinsmore declares: \"Purgatory as a place may not exist in our system of\nthought, but life is a cleansing process if we take its hardships in a\nproper spirit.\" In another place he asserts: \"In pondering the way of\nlife by which this high priest of the Middle Ages (Dante) proclaims that\nmen attain perfect liberty, we cannot but remark the stress he lays\nupon a principle which has well-nigh faded from the Protestant mind. It\nis that of expiation--(and) expiation is no musty dogma of the\nschoolmen, but a living truth.... Dante placed more emphasis on the\nhuman side of the problem than we, and for this reason he deserves\nattentive study, having portrayed most powerfully some truths which our\nage, so eager to break from the narrowness of the past, has overlooked.\"\n\nIn agreement with this statement of the learned Congregational divine is\nWilliam T. Harris, former United States Commissioner of Education, who\nobserves in his \"Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia,\" that if\nPurgatory is absent from the Protestant creed, the thought of which\nPurgatory in this life is the symbol, is not uncommon in non-Catholic\nliterature. His exact words are: \"If Protestantism has omitted Purgatory\nfrom its religion, certainly Protestant literature has taken it up and\nabsorbed it entire,\" and for proof he points to the moral, among other\nbooks, of The Scarlet Letter, The Marble Faun, Adam Bede and Romola, all\nshowing\n\n  \"That men may rise on stepping stones\n  Of their dead selves to higher things.\"\n\nDante, the theologian, makes his allegory grow out of the doctrine of\nPurgatory. According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, temporal\npunishment is connected with sin. Even when the guilt of sin is\nforgiven, the justice of God in most cases calls for amends by means of\nthe temporal punishment of the sinner. Holy Writ gives us instances of\nthe operation of this law. Adam, though brought out of his disobedience\n(Wisdom X, 2) was condemned \"to eat bread in the sweat of his face\"\n(Gen. III, 19) to his dying day. Moses and Aaron were forgiven for their\nsin of incredulity, but they were punished by being deprived of the\nglory of entering \"the Land of Promise.\" (Num., XX, 12.) To King David,\nperfectly contrite, the prophet Nathan announces in the name of God, the\nforgiveness of the guilt of adultery and murder, yet he must suffer for\nhis sin. \"Nathan said to David: 'The Lord also hath taken away thy sin.\nThou shalt not die. Nevertheless, because thou hast given occasion to\nthe enemies of the Lord to blaspheme for this thing, the child shall\ndie,' and it came to pass on the seventh day that the child died\" (II\nKings XII, 13.)\n\nFrom these instances it is evident that when God forgives the guilt of\nsins and the eternal punishment due to such of them as are mortal, He\ndoes not remove the temporal punishment which must be satisfied in this\nlife or in the life to come. That is true, the Church teaches, even of\nunrepented venial sin with its debt of temporal punishment. While\nvenial sin does not destroy the supernatural life of the soul and while,\ntherefore, it is not said to be punishable in Hell, still it is sin in\nthe sight of Him \"whose eyes are too pure to behold evil.\" (Hab., I,\n13.) Now the Church has ever held that into Heaven \"there shall not\nenter anything defiled.\" (Apoc., XXI, 27.) Likewise, she has taught that\nHell is the eternal punishment of souls whose grievous guilt has not\nbeen forgiven. It follows, therefore, according to her teachings, that\nthere must be a middle state for the cleansing of unrepented venial sins\nand for the satisfaction of sins already forgiven but not wholly\nexpiated.\n\nThis state or place is called Purgatory, the belief in the existence of\nwhich is confirmed by the practice of praying for the dead, a practice\nbased on the teachings of the Old and of the New Testament. In the\nsecond book of Maccabees (XII, 43, 46) we read that Judas, the general\nof the Hebrew army, \"sent twelve thousand drachms of silver to Jerusalem\nfor sacrifice to be offered for the sins of the dead, thinking well and\nreligiously concerning the resurrection. (For if he had not hoped that\nthey that were slain should rise again, it would have seemed superfluous\nand vain to pray for the dead.) And because he considered that they who\nhad fallen asleep with godliness had great grace laid up for them. It\nis, therefore, a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead that\nthey may be loosed from sins.\"\n\nThis doctrine presupposes that the dead for whom prayer is profitable\nare neither in Heaven, the abode of the elect, nor in Hell, from which\nrelease is not possible, but in a state of purification, lasting for a\ntime. The New Testament alludes to that state. Christ declares: \"And\nwhosoever shall speak a word against the Son of Man, it shall be\nforgiven him; but he that shall speak against the Holy Ghost, it shall\nnot be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in the world to come.\"\n(Matt., XII, 32.) These words imply that there is a future state in\nwhich some sins are purged away, while there is another state (Hell) in\nwhich the punishment is eternal. The words of St. Paul: \"If any man's\nwork burn, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so\nas by fire\" (1 Cor., III, 15), are interpreted to mean the existence of\na middle state in which unforgiven venial sins and the temporal\npunishment due to sin will be burnt away and the soul thus purified will\nattain eternal life.\n\nTo state the doctrine of the Church briefly, let it be said that the\nChurch has defined that there is a Purgatory and that the souls in\nPurgatory are helped by the suffrages of the faithful.\n\nOut of facts so general, Dante the poet, has created a Purgatory wholly\nunique in the realms of literature, and amazingly definite as to place,\nform, atmosphere, inhabitants and their activities. In the southern\nhemisphere, at the very antipodes of Jerusalem, out of an ocean on which\nthere is no other land (according to Dante's system of cosmography)\nsprings the island of Purgatory, redolent with flowers, lovely with\nmusic, peace keeping pace with penance over all the region. Not a flat,\nunbroken plain is this island, but a mountain whose shores are washed by\nthe ocean, from which the earth forced from the interior by Lucifer's\nfall, rises in a truncated conical structure. While its coast and the\nland below the terraces are within the zone of air, its heights extend\ninto the sphere of fire and its crown is the Garden of Eden. The lowest\npart of the mountain called Ante-Purgatorio is the abode of the\nprocrastinators and the excommunicated who put off their repentance to\nthe end and now must suffer a proportionate delay before they are\npermitted to begin their ascent, their work of purification.\n\nPurification begins only after the soul passes into Purgatory proper. At\nthe entrance is St. Peter's gate, guarded by an angel, who, with his\nsword inscribes on the brow of the penitent seven times the letter P,\nthe first letter of the word Peccatum, signifying sin. These seven P's,\noutward signs of inward evil, represent the seven capital sins, the P's\nof which are removed in succession by an angel as penance is done for\neach sin on its corresponding terrace. The seven terraces which run\naround the mountain, rise in succession with lessening circuit as ascent\nis made, their width being about seventeen or eighteen feet. Connecting\neach terrace and cut out of solid rock is a narrow stairway, guarded by\nan angel. The steps of each successive stairway become less steep as\neach terrace is attained. Crowning the mountain is the Garden of Eden,\nlonely and deserted since Adam and Eve, after six hours of occupancy,\nwere forced from its confines. Its herbage is still luxuriant, its\nflowers endless and fragrant, its trees, melodious with birds, rustle\nwith the balmy wind, its waters serve to irrigate the garden as well as\nto help the soul. These waters, the rivers Lethe and Eunoe, are produced\nfrom heavenly sources and have miraculous powers. The former removes the\nmemory of sin; the latter restores the recollection of virtuous deeds, a\npoetical way of expressing the Catholic dogma, that with the revival of\ngrace in the heart of the converted sinner comes back the merit that had\nbeen acquired by moral acts.\n\nThe problem which Dante sets out to solve in his Purgatory is this:\nAssuming that the sinner has been baptized, how can he break his\nshackles and attain to the liberty of the children of God? The literal\nnarrative of Dante's Purgatory presupposing that the soul at the hour of\ndeath is in the state of grace, now shows us that soul working towards\nperfection by way of expiation for unforgiven venial sin and for the\ntemporal punishment due to sin. It is the only way by which it can again\nattain its pristine dignity. \"And to his dignity he never returns,\" says\nDante, \"unless where sin makes void, he fill up for evil pleasures just\npenalties.\"\n\nThe rule holds good, also, for salvation in this world. The thin veil of\nallegory enables us to penetrate Dante's teaching that this life also is\na Purgatory, and here, too, we may cast off the defilement of sin by\nmeans of repentance and expiation. But first the soul must be girt with\nthe rush of humility, and have perfect contrition represented by its\nbeing washed with the dew, the moisture that descends from Heaven. To\nVirgil (Reason guided by Heaven) says Cato (the symbol of Liberty), \"Go,\nthen, and see that thou gird this man with a smooth rush and that thou\nwash his face (with dew) so that thou efface from it all foulness, for\nit would not be fitting to go into the presence of the first Minister,\nwho is of those of Paradise, with eyes dimmed by any mist.\" (1, 95.)\n\nBut even if the soul, by perfect contrition, is freed from its guilt of\nmortal sin, it must according to the mind of Christ, who instituted the\nsacrament of Penance for the remission of sin, submit to the power of\nthe keys committed to the priesthood and that will be the more necessary\nif its contrition is imperfect. While perfect contrition without the\nsacrament of Penance may remit sin, if the supernatural motive of sorrow\nis not the love of God, but a motive less worthy, _e.g._, fear of\npunishment, forgiveness is to be obtained only by the worthy reception\nof Penance. In other words, the penitent must confess his sin to a duly\nauthorized priest, express his contrition, accept the penance enjoined\nby the confessor for the satisfaction of sin and be absolved by virtue\nof the words of Christ: \"Whose sins you shall forgive they are forgiven\nand whose sins you shall retain, they are retained.\"\n\nAll this is most beautifully expressed by Dante in his description of\nthe Gate of St. Peter and its angelic keeper:\n\n  \"The lowest stair was marble white, so smooth\n  And polish'd that therein my mirror'd form\n  Distinct I saw. The next of hue more dark\n  Than sablest grain, a rough and singed block,\n  Cracked lengthwise and across. The third, that lay\n  Massy above, seemed prophyry, that flam'd\n  Red as the life-blood spouting from a vein.\n  On this God's angel either foot sustain'd,\n  Upon the threshold seated, which appear'd\n  A rock of diamond. Up the trinal steps\n  My leader cheerly drew me. 'Ask,' said he,\n  'With humble heart, that he unbar the bolt.'\n  Piously at his holy feet devolv'd\n  I cast me, praying him for pity's sake\n  That he would open to me: but first fell\n  Thrice on my bosom prostrate. Seven times\n  The letter, that denotes the inward stain,\n  He on my forehead with the blunted point\n  Of the drawn sword inscrib'd. And 'Look,' he cried,\n  'When enter'd, that thou wash these scars away.'\n  Ashes, or earth ta'en dry out of the ground,\n  Were of one colour with the robe he wore.\n  From underneath that vestment forth he drew\n  Two keys of metal twain: the one was gold,\n  Its fellow silver. With the pallid first,\n  And next the burnish'd, he so ply'd the gate,\n  As to content me well. 'Whenever one\n  Faileth of these, that in the keyhole straight\n  It turn not, to this alley then expect\n  Access in vain.' Such were the words he spake,\n  'One is more precious; but the other needs\n  Skill and sagacity, large share of each,\n  Ere its good task to disengage the knot\n  Be worthily perform'd. From Peter these\n  I hold, of him instructed, that I err\n  Rather in opening than in keeping fast,\n  So but the suppliant at my feet implore.'\n  Then of that hallow'd gate he thrust the door,\n  Exclaiming, 'Enter, but this warning hear:\n  He forth again departs who looks behind.'\"\n          (IX, 75.)\n\nThe allegory back of these words is put forth in clear language by Maria\nF. Rossetti. \"We need hardly to be told\" she writes in her Shadow of\nDante (pp. 112-13) \"that the Gate of St. Peter is the Tribunal of\nPenance. The triple stair stands revealed as candid Confession mirroring\nthe whole man, mournful Contrition breaking the hard heart of the gazer\non the Cross, Love all aflame offering up in Satisfaction the lifeblood\nof body, soul, and spirit:--the adamantine threshold-seat as the\npriceless merits of Christ the Door, Christ the Rock, Christ the sure\nFoundation and the precious Corner-Stone. In the Angel of the Gate, as\nin the Gospel Angel of Bethesda, is discerned the Confessor; in the\ndazzling radiance of his countenance, the exceeding glory of the\nministration of righteousness; in the penitential robe, the sympathetic\nmeekness whereby, restoring one overtaken in a fault, he considers\nhimself lest he also be tempted; in the sword, the wholesome severity of\nhis discipline; in the golden key, his divine authority; in the silver,\nthe discernment of spirits whereby he denies absolution to the\nimpenitent, the learning and discretion whereby he directs the\npenitent.\"\n\nDante's plan of Purgatorial punishment makes no distinction between the\npunishment put forth for unforgiven venial sin and that due in\nsatisfaction for the violation of the moral order by one whose guilt has\nbeen remitted. Both partake of the same penalty. Is that because the\npoet thinks that if forgiveness is finally won by sorrow and suffering,\nexpiation for the offence is still to be made? Or does he hold that the\nseven capital sins entailing temporal punishment either operate\neffectively in every soul, or exist at least radically according to the\nprinciple voiced by Hamilton Wright Mabie: \"The man who slowly builds\nHeaven with him, has constantly the terrible knowledge that he has only\nto put his hand forth in another direction in order to build Hell?\"\n\nIn any event Dante, who shows in Hell how men are made sin eternally, in\nPurgatory exhibits the sinful disposition more or less under the control\nof the will, yet of such a nature that only the grace of God held the\nsoul back from the Abyss. It must be purged of all tendency to evil so\nas to be made \"pure and ready to mount to the stars.\" (XXXIII, 140.) The\npurgation is seen in process in a threefold manner according to Dante. A\nmaterial punishment is inflicted to mortify the evil passion and to\nincite the soul to virtue; the soul meditates upon the capital sin and\nits opposite virtue, moved to abhorrence of the evil and to admiration\nof the good by examples drawn from sacred and profane history; vocal\nprayer is addressed to God and it brings forth grace to purify and\nstrengthen the soul. Hard in the beginning is this work of repentance,\nbut it becomes easy as the habit of virtue is formed.\n\n  \"The mountain is such, that ever\n  At the beginning down below, 'tis tiresome\n  And aye the more one climbs, the less it hurts.\"\n          (IV, 90.)\n\nAs purification from each capital sin is effected, the soul experiences\nthe removal of a heavy burden and the consequent enjoyment of new\nliberty, Dante, purified from pride, asks Virgil: \"Master, say what\nheavy thing has been lifted from me, that scarce any toil is perceived\nby me in journeying.\" He answered \"When the P's which have remained\nstill nearly extinguished on thy face, shall like the one be wholly\nrased out, thy feet shall be so vanquished by goodwill, that not only\nwill they feel it no toil, but it shall be a delight to them to be urged\nupward.\" (XII, 118).\n\nMention was made of the material punishment of the souls in Purgatory.\nUnlike the retributive penalties inflicted in Hell, this punishment is\nreformative, confirming the penitent in good habits of thought and deed.\nThe proud here realize the irrevocable sentence \"everyone who exalteth\nhimself shall be humbled.\" They creep round with huge burdens of stone\nbowing them down to the very dust and so abased their hearts are turned\nto humility.\n\nThe envious sing the praises of generosity while their eyes, the seat of\ntheir sins, are tortured by sutures of wire shutting out the light.\n\nThe slothful cannot be restrained in their hurry forward, the leaders,\nshouting with tears, examples of diligence, a pair in the rear crying\nout instances of sloth.\n\nPenitents expiating the sins of avarice and prodigality lie prostrate\nand motionless bound hand and foot, with their faces to the ground,\nmurmuring the words of the psalmist: \"My soul hath cleaved to the\npavement\" (Ps., 118, 25.) During the day they eulogize the liberal;\nduring the night they denounce instances of avarice.\n\nThe gluttonous suffer so much from hunger and thirst that they are\nreduced to a state of pitiable emaciation. All the while hungering for\nrighteousness, they glory in crucifying the old Adam in them.\n\nThe unchaste purify their passion in hot flames while other penitents\nsing the loveliness of chastity and proclaim many examples of that\nvirtue.\n\nThrough this purification by suffering, the spirits not only submit\nwillingly but they exhibit real contentment if not actual love of the\nchastisement imposed upon them. The unchaste not only heedfully keep\nwithin the flames but gladly endure the fire because they are convinced\n\"with such treatment and with such diet must the last wound be healed\"\n(XXV, 136). And most beautiful and enlightening of all, one of the souls\ntells Dante that the same impulse which brought Christ gladly to the\nagony of the Cross throws them upon their sufferings. Forese, speaking\nfor the gluttonous, says that the mood in which they accept the\npenitential pains is one of submission as well as of solace. \"And not\nonly once, while circling this road, is our pain renewed. I say pain and\nought to say solace, for that desire leads us to the tree which led glad\nChrist to say, 'Eli,' when He made us free with his blood.\" (XXIII, 71).\nThe avaricious confess \"so long as it shall be the pleasure of the just\nLord, so long shall we lie here motionless and outstretched\" (XIX, 125).\nAmong the envious, Guida del Duca prays Dante to continue his journey\ninstead of stopping to interrogate him, for he himself \"delights far\nmore to weep than to talk\" (XIV, 125). The slothful in their eagerness\nnot to interrupt their diligence in penance, by their conversing with\nVirgil, entreat him not to ascribe this attitude to discourtesy, \"We\nare so filled with desire to speed on\" they tell the poets \"that stay we\ncannot, therefore forgive if thou hold our penance for rudeness.\"\n(XVIII, 115).\n\nBy such instances and by many others does our poet show the contented\nspirit prevailing in Purgatory. He makes it, indeed, a realm whose very\natmosphere is one of peace, because the will of God is done there even\nin the midst of suffering. The greeting there is \"My brothers, may God\ngive us peace\" (XXI, 13). The penitents pray for a far greater measure\nof peace: \"Voices I heard and every one appeared to supplicate for peace\nand misericord the Lamb of God who takes away our sins\" (XVI, 15). When\nthe wrathful finish their penance an angel says to them, \"Blessed are\nthe peacemakers who are without ill anger\" (XVII, 68).\n\nThe waters of Purgatory are called \"the waters of peace which are the\nsouls diffused from the eternal fountain\" (XVI, 133). Dante addresses\nthe souls as certain of gaining the unending peace of Paradise. \"O\nSouls, sure in the possession whenever it may be of a state of peace\"\n(XXVI, 54). And when the day of release comes on which a soul attains\nperfect peace, the whole mountain of Purgatory literally thrills with\njoy and every voice is raised to join the harmonious concert of the\nangelic hymn first sung at Bethlehem, _Gloria in Excelsis Deo_. In this\nway does the poet teach us the lesson that both Purgatory proper and the\npenitential discipline of life give us a peace wholly in contrast with\nthe uproar of sin whether heard in the halls of conscience or in the\neternal Hereafter. \"How different are those openings from those in\nHell,\" he says, \"for here we enter through songs and down there through\nfierce wailings\" (XII, 112).\n\nAlthough our poet, imbued with the Catholic doctrine, teaches that\nintercessory prayer helps the soul to shorten its term in Purgatory--a\ndoctrine bound up with the doctrine of the Communion of Saints--it must\nnever be forgotten that Dante is a Catholic preacher when he insists\nthat personal effort aided by God's grace, is the thing of supreme\nimportance in the matter of salvation and purification. Neither\nlip-sorrow nor the sacraments themselves unless accompanied by true\nsorrow and repentance, can profit the soul. \"He cannot be absolved who\ndoth not first repent, nor can he repent the sin and will it at the same\ntime, for this were contradiction to which reason cannot assent\" (Inf.,\nXXVII, 118.) Prayer can help the soul struggling in life or in Purgatory\nproper, but the assistance derived from prayer can never do away with\nthe necessity of personal penance. \"Conquer thy panting with the soul\nthat conquers every battle if with its heavy body it sinks not down.\"\n\nLet us now hear how Dante sings \"of that second realm in which the human\nsoul is purified and becomes worthy to ascend to Heaven\" (I, 5). Coming\nout of the blackness of Hell just before dawn on Easter Sunday, Virgil\nand Dante are entranced at the beautiful scene before them. Through a\ncloudless sky of that deep blue for which the sapphire is noted, shines\nVenus, the morning star; in the south appear four wonderful stars of\nstill greater brilliancy, seen before only by our first parents.\n\n  \"Sweet sheen of oriental sapphire hue\n  That, mantling in the aspect calm and bright\n  Of the pure air, to the primal circle grew,\n  Began afresh to give my eyes delight\n  Soon as I issued from the deathful air\n  That had cast sadness o'er my mind and sight,\n  The beauteous planet that for love takes care\n  Was making the East laugh through all its span,\n  Veiling the Fish, that in its escort were\n  Turned to the right, I set my mind to scan\n  The other pole; and four stars met my gaze\n  Ne'er seen before, except by primal man\n  Heaven seemed rejoicing in their flaming rays.\"\n\nThe two poets looking to the north see Cato the Warder of Purgatory, his\nface illuminated by the four stars, typical of the cardinal virtues,\nPrudence, Justice, Fortitude and Temperance. Is Dante's selection of\nCato, the pagan suicide, as the guardian of Christian Purgatory, to be\ntaken as an example of the broadmindedness of the poet who believes \"so\nwide arms hath goodness infinite, that it receives all who turn to it?\"\nOr is it an instance showing how the leaven of the old Roman spirit in\nthe poet--a spirit which justifies suicide, prevails with his profession\nof Christianity which condemns the taking of one's life? Whatever be the\nanswer \"Cato's taking his own life rather than renounce liberty is\nsymbolical of the soul, destroying all selfishness that it may attain\nthe light and freedom of spiritual life.\" In the poem Cato is\nrepresented as challenging the poets as if they were fugitives from\nHell. When he is told that it is by divine decree that the pilgrims are\nmaking the journey, he bids Virgil cleanse Dante with dew and gird him\nwith a rush and he concludes by saying: \"then be not this way your\nreturn, the sun which now is rising, will show you how to take the mount\nat an easier ascent\"--words whose spiritual sense would seem to be that\nonce the soul has turned to virtue, it must never go back to sin and in\nits upward path to perfection it will be guided by the rays of divine\ngrace (the sun) whose enlightenment will make the ascent easier.\n\nWhile lingering on the shore, undecided which way to turn, the poets see\na great marvel. Over the water dancing with sunlight comes a white boat\npropelled by the white wings of an angel called the Divine Bird, red\nwith flame and bringing from the banks of the Tiber, the bosom of the\nChurch, over a hundred souls to begin their term in Purgatory. In\nCharon's bark the reprobate souls fill the air with their imprecations;\nin the angel-steered boat the spirits coming to Purgatory devoutly\nchant: \"When Israel went out of Egypt,\" the psalm so fittingly\ndescriptive of their own liberation from guilt and their coming into\npeace. Here is the description of the scene:\n\n  \"And lo! as when, upon the approach of morning,\n  Through the gross vapours Mars grown fiery red\n  Down in the West upon the ocean floor,\n  Appeared to me--may I again behold it!--\n  A light along the sea so swiftly coming,\n  Its motion by no flight of wing is equalled;\n  From which when I a little had withdrawn\n  Mine eyes, that I might question my Conductor,\n  Again I saw it brighter grown and larger.\n  Then on each side of it appeared to me\n  I knew not what of white, and underneath it\n  Little by little there came forth another.\n  My Master yet had uttered not a word\n  While the first whiteness into wings unfolded;\n  But when he clearly recognized the pilot,\n  He cried: 'Make haste, make haste to bow the knee!\n  Behold the Angel of God! fold thou thy hands!\n  Henceforward shalt thou see such officers!\n  See how he scorneth human arguments,\n  So that nor oar he wants, nor other sail\n  Than his own wings, between so distant shores.\n  See how he holds them pointed up to heaven,\n  Fanning the air with the eternal pinions,\n  That do not mount themselves like mortal hair!'\n  Then as still nearer and more near us came\n  The Bird Divine, more radiant he appeared,\n  So that near by the eye could not endure him,\n  But down I cast it; and he came to shore\n  With a small vessel, very swift and light,\n  So that the water swallowed naught thereof.\n  Upon the stern stood the Celestial Pilot;\n  Beatitude seemed written in his face,\n  And more than a hundred spirits sat within.\"\n          (II, 13.)\n\nAnd now occurs a touching episode which shows how deep and rich is\nfriendship in Dante's heart. One of the shades recognizing him, steps\nforward with a look so full of affection to embrace him that the poet\nis moved to do likewise. Amazement ensues on both sides. The spirit\nfinds Dante alive in the flesh and he in turn on account of the\nimpalpability of the shade clasps only empty air. But there is mutual\nrecognition. Dante asks his newly-found friend Casella, the musician, to\nsing as he used to do when his sweet voice soothed the troubled heart of\nthe poet and banished his cares. \"May it please thee therewith to solace\nawhile my soul that with its mortal form, journeying here, is sore\ndistressed.\" Casella's answer is as loving as it is surprising. He sings\none of Dante's canzoni and the whole party listen with intent delight\nfinally broken by the chiding words of Cato:\n\n  \"What is this ye laggard spirits?\n  What negligence, what standing still is this?\n  Run to the mountain to strip off the slough\n  That lets not God be manifest to you.\"\n          (II, 117.)\n\nAt the foot of the mountain the poets meet a troop of spirits who,\nthough excommunicated, died contrite. For their delay in submitting to\nthe Church for absolution they must wait thirty times as long as the\nperiod of their excommunication. One of them, King Manfred, Chief of the\nGhibellines, son of Emperor Frederick II, tells of his last moment\nconversion and also how the Bishop of Cosenza at the word of Pope\nClement IV, enforcing the penalty of excommunication against the corpse\nof the king, had it removed from the Papal realm and thrown into the\nriver Verde.\n\nIn narrating how a Christian may be saved even if he died under the ban\nof the Church, Dante is only expressing what every Catholic knows as to\nthe effect of excommunication. This ecclesiastical censure incurred by a\ncontumacious member of the Church, a censure entailing forfeiture of all\nrights and privileges common to a Christian, such as the right to the\nsacraments,--a right restored through the confessor, however, whenever\nthere is danger of death--the right to public service and prayers, the\nright to jurisdiction, and to benefices, the right to the canonical\nforum, to social intercourse and to Christian burial, this censure of\nexcommunication does not in the mind of the Church carry with it\nexclusion from Purgatory or Heaven.\n\nAccording to a principle of canon law applied to censures, _Ecclesia de\ninternis non judicat_, the Church in the matter of crime does not\nconcern itself with interior dispositions, excommunication far from\nbeing a sentence of damnation in the next world, is a penalty pertaining\nto the external forum of the Church in this life. Even if the penalty\nfollows the corpse so far as to exclude it from Christian burial, even\nhere the purpose of the Church is not to pronounce a verdict of the loss\nof the contumacious soul in the Hereafter, but to stigmatize among the\nliving, the memory of the person and so to inspire in them a hatred of\nthe evil condemned and a respect for law. The story of Manfred now\nfollows:\n\n  \"And one of them began: 'Whoe'er thou art,\n  Thus going turn thine eyes, consider well\n  If e'er thou saw me in the other world'\n  I turned me tow'rds him, and looked at him closely;\n  Blond was he, beautiful, and of noble aspect,\n  But one of his eyebrows had a blow divided.\n  When with humility I had disclaimed\n  E'er having seen him, 'Now behold,' he said.\n  And showed me high upon his breast a wound.\n  Then said he with a smile: 'I am Manfredi,\n  The grandson of the Empress Costanza;\n  Therefore, when thou returnest, I beseech thee\n  Go to my daughter beautiful, the mother\n  Of Sicily's honor and of Aragon's,\n  And the truth tell her, if aught else be told.\n  After I had my body lacerated\n  By these two mortal stabs, I gave myself\n  Weeping to Him, who willingly doth pardon.\n  Horrible my iniquities had been;\n  But Infinite Goodness hath such ample arms,\n  That it receives whatever turns to it,\n  Had but Cosenza's pastor, who in chase\n  Of me was sent by Clement at that time,\n  In God read understandingly this page,\n  The bones of my dead body still would be\n  At the bridge-head, near unto Benevento,\n  Under the safeguard of the heavy cairn.\n  Now the rain bathes and moveth them the wind,\n  Beyond the realm, almost beside the Verde,\n  Where he transported them with tapers quenched.\n  By malison of theirs is not so lost\n  Eternal Love, that it cannot return,\n  So long as hope has anything of green.'\"\n          (III, 105.)\n\nFollowing the directions given by Manfred and his companions our\ntravelers continue their way upward until they reach a broad ledge cut\nout in the side of the mountain. While resting here Dante sees a spirit\nwhom he recognizes as Balaqua, a maker of musical instruments, whose\nlaziness was a byword in Florence. Our poet who knew the man intimately\nhad often upbraided him for his indolence. It is said that to excuse\nhimself in the days of his mortal life, Balaqua quoted a line of\nAristotle: \"By sitting down and resting the soul is rendered wise,\" to\nwhich Dante retorted: \"Certainly if one becomes wise by sitting down\nnone was ever so wise as thou.\" Now in Purgatory there is amused\nindulgence upon Dante's part as he addresses his former fellow citizen\n\"sitting and clasping his knees, holding his face down between them,\nlazier than if sloth were his very sister\" (IV, 10).\n\n  \"His sluggish attitude and his curt words\n  A little unto laughter moved my lips\n  Then I began: 'Balaqua I grieve not\n  For thee henceforth; but tell me wherefore seated\n  In this place art thou? Waitest thou an escort?\n  Or has thy usual habit seized upon thee?'\n  And he: 'O brother, what's the use of climbing?\n  Since to my torment would not let me go\n  The angel of the Lord who sitteth at the gate.\n  First heaven must needs so long revolve me round\n  Outside thereof, as in my life it did,\n  Since the good sighs I to the end postponed,\n  Unless e'er that some prayer may bring me aid\n  Which rises from a heart that lives in grace.\"\n        (IV, 120.)\n\nUnless assisted by the prayer of the sinless faithful upon earth,\nBalaqua and his class must stay in Outer-Purgatory, each for a term\nequal to the period of his natural life. The third and the fourth\nclasses in Outer-Purgatory, viz., those who died of violence, deferring\ntheir repentance to the last hour, and kings and princes who because of\ntemporal concerns of state put off their conversion to the last--all\nthose also must remain in Outer-Purgatory for a period equal to that of\ntheir lives upon earth, unless the time be shortened by intercessory\nprayer. It is to be noted that the souls of the violently slain press so\nclosely and so insistently about Dante in their eagerness to obtain his\ngood offices in favor of prayerful intercession for them by their\nfriends upon earth that he has great difficulty in getting away from\nthese souls. He succeeds by making promises to execute their\ndesires--comparing his difficulty of advancing to the trouble a winner\nat dice experiences when bystanders crowd about him in obstructive\ncongratulations and make his way impracticable until he gives some of\nhis winnings to this one, and some to that one.\n\n  \"When from their game of dice men separate\n  He who hath lost remains in sadness fix'd,\n  Revolving in his mind what luckless throws\n  He cast; but meanwhile all the company\n  Go with the other; one before him runs,\n  And one behind his mantle twitches, one\n  Fast by his side bids him remember him,\n  He stops not, and each one to whom his hand\n  Is stretch'd, well knows he bids him stand aside,\n  And thus he from the crowd defends himself.\n  E'en such was I in that close-crowding throng;\n  And turning so my face around to all,\n  And promising, I 'scaped from it with pains.\"\n         (VI, 1.)\n\nHigher up the mountain occurs a touching instance of love of country.\nVirgil draws near a spirit \"praying that it would show us the best\nascent\"; and that spirit answered not his demand but of our country and\nof our life did ask us. And the sweet Leader (Virgil) began \"Mantua ...\"\nAnd the shade all rapt in self leaped toward him saying, \"O Mantuan, I\nam Sordello of thy city. And one embraced the other\" (VI, 67). This\nepisode gives to Dante the opportunity to contrast on the one hand the\nlove of those two fellow citizens drawn together by no other bond than\naffection for their native place and on the other hand hatred with which\nliving contemporaries rend one another.\n\n\"Ah Italy, thou slave, that gentle spirit was thus quick, merely at the\nsweet name of his city, to give greeting there to his fellow citizen and\nnow in thee thy living abide not without war and one doth rend the other\nof those that one wall and one foss shuts in\" (VI, 79).\n\nAs night approaches Sordello leads the poets to the angelically\nprotected Flowery Valley wherein are found the souls of those rulers who\nwere negligent of the spiritual life. Many of them were once old enemies\nbut now they not only sing together but live in harmony, united also in\npaying tributes to the worth of some reigning monarchs or in expressing\ndenunciation at the degeneracy of others. Here in the Valley of the\nPrinces, while sleeping on the grass and among the flowers, Dante has a\nstrange dream indicative of a near episode in his journey. He sees an\neagle in the sky with wings wide open and intent upon swooping\n\n  \"Then wheeling somewhat more, it seemed to me\n  Terrible as the lightning he descended\n  And snatched me upward even to the (sphere of) fire\n  Therein it seemed that he and I were burning,\n  And the imagined fire did scorch me so\n  That of necessity my sleep was broken.\"\n          (IX, 28.)\n\nHe awakes to find himself actually transported up the perpendicular wall\nto the entrance Gate of Purgatory. Virgil interprets the dream, pointing\nout that the eagle represents Lucia (Illuminating Grace) who has carried\nthe poet to St. Peter's Gate.\n\n  \"Thou hast at length arrived at Purgatory;\n  See there the cliff that closeth it around;\n  See there the entrance, where it seems disjoined.\n  While at dawn, which doth precede the day,\n  When inwardly thy spirit was asleep\n  Upon the flowers that deck the land below,\n  There came a Lady and said: 'I am Lucia;\n  Let me take this one up, who is asleep;\n  So will I make his journey easier for him.'\n  Sordello and the other noble shapes\n  Remained; she took thee, and, as day grew bright,\n  Upward she came, and I upon her footprints.\n  She laid thee here; and first her beauteous eyes\n  That open entrance pointed out to me;\n  Then she and sleep together went away.\"\n          (IX, 49.)\n\nThe poet, as we said before, cannot enter Purgatory until he mounts the\nthree steps of confession, contrition and satisfaction. Moreover, he\nmust receive absolution from the angel-keeper, typical of the priestly\nconfessor, and he must have seven P's branded upon his forehead. When\nthis is done the angel opens the gate and Dante enters to the sound of a\nthunder-peal from the organ of Heaven, and of voices expressing the joy\nof Heaven upon the sinner's doing penance.\n\nDante's description, which now follows, of the lovely art displayed on\nthe terrace of Pride leads to the reflection that he must have been a\nmatchless master of visual instruction or at least the representative of\nhis times, which, before the age of printing, taught the people by means\nof pictures painted upon canvas, burnt in glass or chiseled in stone.\nCertain it is that the people of Dante's day from seeing the productions\nof art knew the Bible and sacred and profane history so well as to amaze\nsubsequent generations taught from the printed page. Be that as it may,\nthe power and beauty of Dante's pictures on the terraces of Purgatory\nshow his consummate knowledge of a principle of psychology very much\noperative in our day, a principle which makes character by educating the\nwill far better than any other pedagogical method. _Verba movent,\nexampla trahunt_, is a principle which Dante illustrates on every\nterrace of Purgatory.\n\nOn the terrace of Pride the penitent sees examples of humility carved of\nwhite marble out of the mountain side like Thorwaldsen's Lion, at\nLucerne, Switzerland. Their reality is so compelling that, \"not only\nPolycletus (the great Greek sculptor) but Nature there would be put to\nshame.\" First to meet the penitent's eyes is the scene of the\nAnnunciation--the angel Gabriel saluting the Blessed Virgin and\nunfolding to her God's plan of making her the Mother of His Son for the\nsalvation of mankind. In humility she gives her consent in the words:\n\"Behold the handmaid of the Lord, be it done to me according to thy\nword.\" That is the attitude in which she is represented in sculpture,\nsays Dante, an attitude \"imprinting those words as expressly as a figure\nis stamped in wax\" (X, 44). Near that work of art David stands forth in\nmarble, dancing before the Ark of the Covenant. Trajan, the Roman\nemperor, is also seen, interrupting affairs of state to grant a poor\nwoman a favor. Not only of humility but also of pride are examples\ngiven. Looking down on the pavement over which they slowly walk with\ntheir heavy burdens, the proud have before their eyes the sculptured\npunishment of pride as committed by Satan, Briareus, the Giants, Nimrod,\nNiobe, Saul and others. Meditating on the loveliness of humility and the\nhatefulness of pride, as suggested by those examples and bearing with\nprayer the heavy weights imposed upon them for their humiliation and\npenance, the proud experience a transformation of disposition wholly\nalien to them in the days of their mortality. Among the souls in this\nfirst terrace is Oderisi, who attained such renown as an illuminator of\nmanuscripts and a painter of miniatures that he boasted that no one\ncould surpass him. Now he not only is conscious of his former blatant\npride, but in proof of his change of heart he gives full credit for\nsuperiority to his former pupil and subsequent rival, Franco Bolognese;\n\n  \"O,\" asked I him, \"art thou not Oderisi,\n  Agobbio's honor and honor of that art\n  Which is in Paris called illuminating?\n  'Brother,' said he, 'more laughing are the leaves\n  Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese.\n  All his the honor now, and mine in part,\n  In sooth I had not been so courteous\n  While I was living, for the great desire\n  Of excellence on which my heart was bent.'\"\n          (XI, 79.)\n\nDante sees here another spirit, Provenzano Salvani. His rapid advance\nfrom Outer Purgatory to Purgatory was due to the merit of a\nself-humiliating act performed in favor of a friend. This friend had\nbeen taken prisoner by King Charles of Anjou and was held for ransom of\na thousand florins of gold, the threat being made that if the amount was\nnot raised within a month he would be put to death. It speaks well for\nthe tender friendship of Salvani that he put aside all his pride and\narrogance while he took his place in the market square to beg alms with\nwhich to liberate his friend. Dante relates the incident in the\nfollowing words; \"When he was living in highest glory, in the market\nplace of Sienna he stationed himself of his own free will and put away\nall shame and there to deliver his friend from the pains he was\nsuffering in Charles' prison, he brought himself to tremble in every\nvein\" (XI, 133).\n\nAs the poets enter the terrace of Envy aerial voices proclaim examples\nof Brotherly Love. First are heard the words of the Blessed\nVirgin:--\"They have no wine,\" words in favor of those who were in need\nat the marriage feast, which led Christ to perform his first miracle.\nThen as an example of exposing one's self to death for the sake of\nanother, the incident is recalled of the pagan Pylades feigning himself\nto be Orestes to save the latter from death. The voice saying, \"Love\nthose from whom ye have had evil,\" is an exhortation to the heroic act\nof charity of returning good for evil. In contrast with those counsels\nof charity, other voices call out direct warnings against envy.\n\nOn this terrace is neither beauty nor art but envy's own color. A livid\nhue is the whole landscape. Of this color also are the garments of the\nsuffering souls. They are depicted one leaning against the other in\nmutual love and for mutual support, like beggars sitting at the entrance\nof a church to which crowds go for the gaining of an Indulgence.\nPitiable is the scene, for the envious in expiation for their sin,\nwhich entered their soul through its windows, the eyes, are deprived of\nsight, their lids being fastened by a wire suture such as is used for\nthe taming of a hawk. Dante says of them:\n\n          \"I saw,\n  Shadows with garments dark as was the rock;\n  And when we pass'd a little forth, I heard\n  A crying, 'Blessed Mary! pray for us,\n  Michael and Peter! all ye saintly host!'\n  I do not think there walks on earth this day\n  Man so remorseless, that he had not yearn'd\n  With pity at the sight that next I saw.\n  Mine eyes a load of sorrow teem'd, when now\n  I stood so near them, that their semblance\n  Came clearly to my view. Of sackcloth vile\n  Their covering seem'd; and, on his shoulder, one\n  Did stay another, leaning; and all lean'd\n  Against the cliff. E'en thus the blind and poor,\n  Near the confessionals, to crave an alms,\n  Stand, each his head upon his fellow's sunk;\n  So most to stir compassion, not by sound\n  Of words alone, but that which moves not less,\n  The sight of misery. And as never beam\n  Of noonday visiteth the eyeless man,\n  E'en so was heaven a niggard unto these\n  Of this fair light: for, through the orbs of all,\n  A thread of wire, impiercing, knits them up,\n  As for the taming of a haggard hawk.\"\n          (Canto, XIII, 42.)\n\nAs the poets continue their way over the second terrace Virgil explains\nan obscure phrase uttered by Guido del Duca, a soul punished for the sin\nof envy. That spirit speaking to Dante reproached mankind for setting\nits heart upon material things; \"The heavens are calling to you and\nwheel around you, displaying unto you their eternal beauties and your\neye gazes only on earth.\" Envy is consequently engendered because as the\nspirit says: \"Mankind sets its heart there where exclusion of\npartnership is necessary.\" (XV, 43). \"What meant the spirit from Romagna\nby mentioning exclusion and partnership?\" asks Dante. Virgil proceeds to\ntell him that companionship in earthly possessions is not possible, for\nthe more of any material thing a person has, the less of it remains for\nothers. Hence envy arises from the very nature of the object which\nexcludes partnership. On the other hand the more of the spiritual life\none has, the more others participate in knowledge, peace and love, and\nthis is especially true of the angels and the elect. The greater their\nnumber, the greater is the sum total of grace bestowed by God and the\nmore each spirit shares his love with others. \"The more spirits there\non high yonder who love, the more there are to love perfectly and the\nmore do they love each other and as a mirror one reflects back to the\nother\" (XV, 75).\n\nThis doctrine is expounded until the poets reach the third terrace,\nwhere wrath is punished. Here Dante represents himself as having a\nvision wherein he beholds examples of meekness and patience. First he\nsees the Finding of the Boy Christ in the temple and hears Mary's gentle\ncomplaint. Then follows the scene of Pisistratus refusing to condemn a\nyouth for insulting his daughter. The third picture is that of the\nstoning of St. Stephen.\n\n  \"Then suddenly I seem'd\n  By an ecstatic vision wrapt away:\n  And in a temple saw, methought, a crowd\n  Of many persons; and at the entrance stood\n  A dame, whose sweet demeanor did express\n  Another's love, who said, 'Child! why hast thou\n  Dealt with us thus? Behold thy sire and I\n  Sorrowing have sought thee;' and so held her peace;\n  And straight the vision fled. A female next\n  Appear'd before me, down whose visage coursed\n  Those waters, that grief forces out from one\n  By deep resentment stung who seem'd to say:\n  'If thou, Pisistratus, be lord indeed\n  Over this city, named with such debate\n  Of adverse gods, and whence each science sparkles,\n  Avenge thee of those arms, whose bold embrace\n  Hath clasp'd our daughter;' and to her, me seem'd,\n  Benigh and meek, with visage undisturb'd,\n  Her sovereign spake: 'How shall we those requite\n  Who wish us evil, if we thus condemn\n  The man that loves us?' After that I saw\n  A multitude, in fury burning, slay\n  With stones a stripling youth, and shout amain\n  'Destroy, destroy'; and him I saw, who bow'd\n  Heavy with death unto the ground, yet made\n  His eyes, unfolded upward, gates to heaven,\n  Praying forgiveness of the Almighty Sire,\n  Amidst that cruel conflict, on his foes,\n  With looks that win compassion to their aim.\"\n          (Canto, XV, 84.)\n\nThe wrathful are punished by being enveloped in a dense pungent smoke,\nemblematic of the stifling caused by angry passions.\n\n  \"Darkness of hell, and of a night deprived\n  Of every planet under a poor sky,\n  As much as may be tenebrous with cloud,\n  Ne'er made unto my sight so thick a veil,\n  As did that smoke which there enveloped us,\n  Nor to the feeling of so rough a texture;\n  For not an eye it suffered to stay open;\n  Whereat mine escort, faithful and sagacious,\n  Drew near to me and offered me his shoulder.\n  E'en as a blind man goes behind his guide,\n  Lest he should wander, or should strike against\n  Aught that may harm or peradventure kill him,\n  So went I through the bitter and foul air,\n  Listening unto my Leader, who said only,\n  'Look that from me thou be not separated.'\n  Voices I heard, and every one appeared\n  To supplicate for peace and misericord\n  The Lamb of God who takes away our sins.\n  Still _Agnus Dei_ their exordium was;\n  One word there was in all, and metre one,\n  So that all harmony appeared among them.\n  'Master,' I said, 'are spirits those I hear?'\n  And he to me: 'Thou apprehendest truly,\n  And they the knot of anger go unloosing.'\"\n          (Canto, XVI, 1.)\n\nSoon after this our poet hears one of the spirits of the wrathful,\ndiscoursing on the degeneracy of human life and sees in a second series\nof visions, historic instances of wrath and its punishment. He is\nawakened from his trance by the shining light and the glad summons of\nthe Angel of meekness, who is at the stair leading to the next terrace.\n\n  \"This is a spirit divine who in the way\n  Of going up directs us without asking\n  And who with his own light himself conceals.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n  Accord we our feet, to such inviting\n  Let us make haste to mount ere it grow dark;\n  For then we could not till the day return.\"\n          (XVII, 55.)\n\nLightened of the third P the poet passes from the circle of the wrathful\nup the fourth stairway. Here he takes the opportunity to engage Virgil\nin conversation regarding love as the seed of the capital sins. These\nsins, it may be remarked in passing, are not always mortal sins, though\nmany Dantian editors make the mistake of so classifying them. It is to\nbe observed that on all the stairways of Purgatory there is a conference\nbetween the two poets on things likely to be of interest to Dante, in\nthe matter of his salvation. At the end of the present conference Dante\nfalls into slumber, from which he is aroused by the racing activity of\nthe souls of the slothful, shouting instances of zeal and energy.\n\nSloth is defined by St. Thomas Aquinas as sadness and torpor in the face\nof some spiritual good which one has to achieve, and a preacher of our\nday modernizes that definition to mean, the \"don't-care-feeling\" in the\npresence of duty. The sin is unlisted in modern treatises on Ethics,\nthe writers of which see in its symptoms only indications of\nmelancholia, neurasthenia or pellagra. But according to the scholastic\nclassification still followed in this matter by the Catholic Church,\nsloth is to be considered as a specific vice opposed to the great\ncommandment to love God with our whole heart.\n\nSo Dante estimates it in his scheme of punishment, representing the\nsouls crying out in their diligence, \"Haste, haste, let no time be lost\nthrough little love.\" These souls are condemned to rush round and round\nat the topmost speed, those in front proclaiming instances of alacrity,\nviz., how the Blessed Virgin hastened to the hill country to visit\nElizabeth and how Julius Caesar hurried to subdue Lerida. Those in the\nrear recall examples of sloth, viz., how the Israelites through\nwandering in the desert lost the Promised Land, and how the Trojans who\ndallied in Sicily gave themselves up to a life inglorious. Dante's\nslothful souls are startlingly swift in their action. One of them, the\nAbbot Zeno giving directions for ascent to Virgil and reprobating the\nsins of his successors in the monastery is out of hearing as soon as he\nspeaks: \"If more be said or if he was silent I know not, so far already\nhad he raced beyond us\" (XVIII, 127).\n\nThe reader will not fail to note that the terrace of the slothful is\nthe only circle of Purgatory where there is no request for intercessory\nprayer and that Dante here never speaks to any of those souls. Is that\nbecause the poet wishes us to understand that his own sentiment is that\nthey do not deserve to be prayed for who neglected through sloth to pray\nfor themselves and that his own silence in their presence is indicative\nof his disregard for souls so stained?\n\nTo foreshow the sins to be treated on the three upper terraces, where\nare punished those who yielded to the sins of the body, Dante represents\nhimself as tempted by a Siren. She is described as ugly and repulsive\nand then becoming, under the gaze of the beholder, fair and alluringly\nattractive--a description, perhaps, unconsciously reproduced by Pope\nwhen he wrote:\n\n  \"Vice is a monster of so frightful mien\n  As to be hated needs but to be seen.\n  Yet seen too oft, familiar with her face\n  We first endure, then pity, then embrace.\"\n\nSaved from the Siren by a noble lady (perhaps Lucia, Illuminating Grace)\nand Virgil, the poet is brooding upon the dream which has brought to his\nsenses the pleasures of the world, when his guide admonishes him how\nsalvation from sin's seduction is to be had--viz., by using worldly\nthings as things to be trodden under foot, while the mind is raised to\nHeaven, God's lure to draw it upward.\n\n  \"Didst thou behold, that old enchantress\n  Who sole above us henceforth is lamented?\n  Didst thou behold how man is free from her?\n  Suffice it thee, and smite earth with thy heels,\n  Thine eyes lift upward to the lure, that whirls\n  The Eternal King with revolutions vast.\"\n          (XIX, 58.)\n\nOn the fifth terrace our poets find the shades of the avaricious and the\nprodigals. They lie face to the ground, bound hand and foot, recalling\nduring the night instances of avarice and during the day proclaiming the\npraise of liberality, as manifested in the Blessed Virgin, the pagan\nFabricius and St. Nicholas. The latter is identified in the United\nStates and some other countries, with the popular Santa Claus. Dante\nsays of St. Nicholas that \"the spirit went on to speak of the bounty\nwhich Nicholas gave to the maidens, to lead their youth to honor\" (XX,\n32). The allusion is to the legend that this Bishop of Myra secretly\nthrew at different times into the windows of the home of three destitute\nmaidens, bags of gold sufficient to provide them with dowries without\nwhich they would have been forced by poverty to a life of shame. In the\nrealm of the avaricious and the prodigals, Dante addresses one of the\nrepentent souls: \"Spirit, who thou wast and why ye have your backs\nturned upward, tell me\" (XX, 94).\n\nThe answer of the shade of Pope Adrian IV, who died thirty-nine days\nafter his election to the supreme pontificate without having been\ncrowned, is one of the fine passages of the poem.\n\n     \"And he to me: 'Why Heaven makes us turn our backs to it, thou\n     shalt learn: but first know that I was the successor of Peter.\n     Between Siestri and Chiaveri there rushes down a fair river and\n     from its name the title of my race takes its proudest distinction.\n     For one month and a little more I experienced how heavily the great\n     mantle weighs on him who keeps it out of the mire, so much so that\n     all the other burdens seem but feathers. My conversion alas! was\n     tardy; but when I had become the Roman pastor then I discovered how\n     false life is. In it I found that the heart had no repose nor was\n     it possible to rise higher in that life; wherefore the desire for\n     this (immortal life) was kindled in me. Up to that time, I was a\n     wretched soul and severed from God, wholly given up to Avarice. Now\n     as thou seest I am punished for it here. What is the effect of\n     Avarice is here made manifest in the purgation of the converted\n     souls, and the mountain has no more bitter penalty, as our eyes\n     fixed on earthly things, were not lifted up on high, even so has\n     justice sunk them to the ground in this place. Even as Avarice\n     quenched our love for every good, wherefore our works were lost, so\n     justice doth hold us fast, bound and seized by feet and hands; and\n     so long as it shall be the pleasure of the just Lord, so long shall\n     we lie here motionless and outstretched.'\" (XIX, 97.)\n\nAt this point occurs one of those delightful surprises full of realism,\nthat Dante uses from time to time to heighten the reader's interest. The\npoet has just learned that the spirit before him is Pope Adrian IV. At\nonce Dante falls on his knees to pay homage to the high office of the\nRoman Pontiff, and he is about to say according to the conjecture of\nBenvenuto \"Holy Father, I entreat your holiness to excuse my natural\nignorance, for I was not aware of your being Pope.\" But the spirit bids\nthe poet arise, telling him that in the spirit world the dignities and\nrelations of this life are abolished.\n\n  \"I on my knees had fallen and wished to speak;\n  But even as I began and he was aware,\n  Only by listening, of my reverence,\n  'What cause,' he said, 'has downward bent thee thus?'\n  And I told him: 'For your dignity,\n  Standing, my conscience stung me with remorse.'\n  'Straighten thy legs, and upward raise thee, brother,'\n  He answered, 'Err not, fellow servant am I\n  With thee and with the others to one power\n  If e'er that holy, evangelic sound\n  Which sayeth _neque nubent_, thou hast heard\n  Well canst thou see why in this wise I speak.'\"\n          (XIX, 127.)\n\nIn this part of Purgatory Dante treats his readers to two other\ninstances of surprise. The first case which also makes use of the\ndramatic quality of suspense, postponing the explanation to the\nfollowing canto in order to prolong the eager expectation of the reader,\nnarrates the occurrence of a wonderful phenomenon, the shaking of the\nmountain of Purgatory, accompanied by a harmonious outburst of joyful\nthanksgiving.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"We were striving to surmount the way so far as was permitted to our power\nwhen I felt the mountain quake like a thing which is falling; whereupon a\nchill gripped me, as is wont to grip him who is given to death. Of a surety\nDelos was not shaken so violently ere Latona made her nest therein to give\nbirth to heaven's two eyes. Then began on all sides a shout, such that the\nMaster drew toward me saying: 'Fear not while I do guide thee.' _Gloria in\nExcelsis Deo_ all were saying, by what I understood from those near by,\nwhose cry could be heard. Motionless we stood and in suspense, like the\nshepherds who first heard that hymn, until the quaking ceased and it was\nended. Then we took up again our holy way, looking at the shades, that lay\non the ground already returned to their wonted plaint. No ignorance, if my\nmemory err not in this, did ever with so great assault give me yearning for\nknowledge, I then seemed to have while pondering: nor by reason of our\nhaste was I bold to ask; nor of myself could I see aught there; thus I went\non timid and pensive.\"\n\nHis curiosity is satisfied in an unexpected way. \"The natural thirst which\nnever is sated, save with the water whereof the poor Samaritan woman asked\nthe grace, was burning within me--and lo, even as Luke writes to us that\nChrist appeared to the two who were on the way, already risen from the\nmouth of the tomb, a shade appeared to us saying: 'My brothers God give you\npeace.' Quickly we turned us and Virgil gave back to him the sign that is\nfitting thereto. Then began, 'May the true court that binds me in eternal\nexile, bring thee peace to the council of the blest.' 'How,' said he, and\nmeantime we met sturdily, 'If ye are shades that God deigns not above, who\nhath escorted you so far by his stairs'? And my Teacher: 'If thou lookest\nat the marks which this man bears and which the angel outlines clearly\nwilt thou see 'tis meet he reign with the good.... Wherefore I was brought\nfrom Hell's wide jaws to guide him and I will guide him onward, so far as\nmy school can lead him. But tell us, if thou knowest, why the mount gave\nbefore such quakings and wherefore all seemed to shout with one voice down\nto its soft base.'\"\n\nIt was the very question Dante had been yearning to utter.\n\n\"Thus, by asking did he thread the very needle of my desire and with the\npope alone my thirst was made less fasting.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThe spirit, Statius by name, who has just obtained his release from\nPurgatorial confinement to ascend to Heaven, states that the earthquake\nwas not due to natural causes, such as strong dry vapors producing wind,\nbut was caused by spiritual elements operative upon a soul's completing\nthe penance and term assigned.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"It quakes here when some soul feeleth herself cleansed, so that she may\nrise up or set forth, to mount on high, and such a shout follows her. Of\nthe cleansing the will alone gives proof, which fills the soul, all free to\nchange her cloister, and avails her to will.... And I who have lain under\nthis torment five hundred years and more, only now felt free will for a\nbetter threshold. Therefore didst thou feel the earthquake and hear the\npious spirits about the mount give praises to the Lord.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThis Statius was a Roman poet who died in the year 96. His term in\nPurgatory therefore has lasted a little more than eleven centuries. The\nnext longest period mentioned by Dante is that of Duke Hugh Capet who\nhas been in Purgatory over 350 years with his purification still\nincomplete. Statius by Dante's poetic invention is represented first as\nsaved through the influence of Virgil's poems and then is shown to be a\nChristian, having been led to embrace Christianity both from the heroic\nexample of the martyrs and from his meditation on Virgil's prophecy of\nthe Cumaean Sibyl interpreted in the Middle Ages to refer to Christ. In\nthe Divina Commedia Statius pays a glowing tribute to the AEneid and its\nauthor, wholly ignorant that he is addressing Virgil himself. \"Of the\nAEneid I speak which was a mother to me and was to me a nurse in poesy\n... and to have lived yonder when Virgil was alive, I would consent to\none sun more than I need perform.\" Dante is all aquiver to surprise\nStatius with the information that Virgil is at hand, \"but Virgil turned\nto me with a look that silently said, 'be silent.'\"\n\n          \"But the power which wills\n  Bears not supreme control: laughter and tears\n  Follow so closely on the passion prompts them,\n  They wait not for the motions of the will\n  In nature most sincere. I did but smile,\n  As one who winks; and thereupon the shade\n  Broke off, and peer'd into mine eyes, where best\n  Our looks interpret. 'So to good event\n  Mayst thou conduct such great emprize,' he cried,\n  'Say, why across thy visage beam'd, but now,\n  The lightning of a smile.' On either part\n  Now am I straiten'd; one conjures me speak,\n  The other to silence binds me; whence a sigh\n  I utter, and the sigh is heard. 'Speak on,'\n  The teacher cried 'and do not fear to speak:\n  But tell him what so earnestly he asks.'\n  Whereon I thus: 'Perchance, O ancient spirit\n  Thou marvel'st at my smiling. There is room\n  For yet more wonder. He, who guides my ken\n  On high, he is that Mantuan, led by whom\n  Thou didst presume of men and gods to sing.\n  If other cause thou deem'dst for which I smiled,\n  Leave it as not the true one: and believe\n  Those words, thou spakest of him, indeed the cause.'\n  Now down he bent to embrace my teacher's feet;\n  But he forbade him: 'Brother! do it not:\n  Thou art a shadow, and behold'st a shade.'\n  He, rising, answer'd thus: 'Now hast thou proved\n  The force and ardor of the love I bear thee,\n  When I forget we are but things of air,\n  And, as a substance, treat an empty shade.'\"\n          (XXI, 106.)\n\nOn the sixth terrace Dante with five P's removed, accompanied by Virgil\nsees the souls of those who sinned by gluttony. They are an emaciated\ncrowd obliged to pass and repass before a fruit-laden tree bedewed with\nclear water from a fountain, without being able to satisfy their hunger\nor quench their thirst. Voices from this tree proclaim examples of\ntemperance; voices from another tree equally tantalizing, declare\nexamples of gluttony.\n\n  \"People I saw beneath it (the tree) lift their hands\n  And cry I know not what towards the leaves,\n  Like little children eager and deluded,\n  Who pray, and he they pray to doth not answer\n  But, to make very keen their appetite\n  Holds their desire aloft and hides it not.\n  Then they departed as if undeceived.\"\n          (XXIV, 106.)\n\nHere Dante recognizes among the gaunt attenuated figures of the\npenitents, Forese Donati, his intimate friend and kinsman of his wife\nGemma. Our poet was surprised to find him so soon after his death on\none of the terraces of Purgatory, the assumption being that because of\nhis delay of conversion to the end of his life Forese would be in\nOuter Purgatory for a term equal in duration to the length of his life\non earth. But the reason he had come so quickly to Purgatory is to be\nfound in the efficacy of the prayers of his widow for the repose of\nhis soul.\n\n\n  \"Then answered he: 'That now I wander reaping\n  The bitter sweat of all this punishment\n  My Nella gained for me, her vigil keeping\n  In prayer devout and infinite lament.\n  Thus, here, beyond that shore of waiting sent,\n  I landed, from the lower circles freed.\n  And that more dear to God omnipotent\n  Lives on my little widow, is the meed\n  Of the lone life she spends in many a saintly deed.'\"\n          (XXXIII, 85.)\n\nBefore ascending to the seventh and last terrace Dante describes how\nthe angel of abstinence removed the sixth P.\n\n  \"And as the harbinger of early dawn,\n  The air of May doth move and breathe out fragrance\n  Impregnate all with herbage and with flowers,\n  So did I feel a breeze strike in the midst\n  My front, and felt the moving of the plumes\n  That breathed around an odor of ambrosia;\n  And heard it said; Blessed are they whom grace\n  So much illumines that the love of taste\n  Excites not in their breasts too great desire,\n  Hungering at all times so far as is just.\"\n          (XXIV, 145.)\n\nAnd now our penitent as he reaches the seventh terrace, where sins\nagainst the virtue of purity are expiated, enters upon the last stage of\nhis purification. Here the spirits pass and repass through the midst of\nintensely hot flames, proclaiming examples of chastity. It is worthy of\nnote that this terrace is the only place in Dante's Purgatory where fire\nis the punitive agent--a conception of our poet all the more remarkable\nbecause it runs counter to the view commonly held by the churchmen in\nthe West, including St. Augustine, St. Gregory the Great, St. Thomas\nAquinas, St. Bonaventure, who teach that fire is the cleansing element\nof all Purgatory. That indeed is only a theological opinion. The Church\nitself, as the Greeks were assured at the Council of Florence, has never\nput forth any dogmatic decree on the subject.\n\nBidden by the angel to enter the fire, Dante draws back paralysed with\nfear. Scenes of burning at the stake come with horror to his mind. He\nprobably recalls also that Florence had condemned him to be burned\nalive. So, for the first time in Purgatory he recoils at the penance he\nmust perform. Impassionately Virgil exhorts him. The stubborn pupil\nyields only at the utterance of Beatrice's name. For love of her he will\nendure the flame.\n\n  \"The Mantuan spake: 'My son,\n  Here torment thou mayst feel, but canst not death.\n  Remember thee, remember thee, if I\n  Safe e'en on Geryon brought thee; now I come\n  More near to God, wilt thou not trust me now?\n  Of this be sure; though in its womb that flame\n  A thousand years contain'd thee, from thy head\n  No hair should perish. If thou doubt my truth,\n  Approach; and with thy hands thy vesture's hem\n  Stretch forth, and for thyself confirm belief.\n  Lay now all fear, oh! lay all fear aside.\n  Turn hither, and come onward undismay'd.'\n  I still, though conscience urged, no step advanced.\n  When still he saw me fix'd and obstinate,\n  Somewhat disturb'd he cried: 'Mark now, my son,\n  From Beatrice thou art by this wall\n  Divided.' As at Thisbe's name the eye\n  Of Pyramus was open'd (when life ebb'd\n  Fast from his veins) and took one parting glance,\n  While vermeil dyed the mulberry; thus I turned\n  To my sage guide, relenting, when I heard\n  The name that springs for ever in my breast.\n  He shook his forehead; and, 'How long,' he said,\n  'Linger we now'? then smiled, as one would smile\n  Upon a child that eyes the fruit and yields.\n  Into the fire before me then he walk'd;\n  And Statius, who erewhile no little space\n  Had parted us, he pray'd to come behind,\n  I would have cast me into molten glass\n  To cool me, when I entered; so intense\n  Raged the conflagrant mass. The sire beloved,\n  To comfort me, as he proceeded, still\n  Of Beatrice talk'd. 'Her eyes,' saith he,\n  'E'en now I seem to view.' From the other side\n  A voice, that sang did guide us; and the voice\n  Following, with heedful ear, we issued forth,\n  There where the path led upward. 'Come,' we heard,\n  'Come blessed of my Father.'\"\n          (Canto, XXVII, 20.)\n\nOn emerging from the fire and on the very threshold of the Garden of\nEden, Dante is addressed by Virgil, no longer competent to guide him\nhigher. The Mantuan in touching words tells his disciple that having\npassed through Purgatory he needs no other guide than his own will,\nupright and sound, until he passes under the tutelage of Beatrice.\n\n  \"The temporal fire and the eternal\n  Son, thou hast seen, and to a place art come\n  Where of myself no farther I discern.\n  By intellect and art I here have brought thee;\n  Take thine own pleasure for thy guide henceforth;\n  Beyond the steep ways and the narrow art thou.\n  Expect no more or word or sign from me;\n  Free and upright and sound is thy free will,\n  And error were it not to do its bidding\n  Thee o'er thyself I therefore crown and mitre.\"\n          (XXVII, 127.)\n\nBrother Azarias gives us the mystical sense of this passage. \"The soul\nhas conquered; therefore Virgil leaves the poet free from the dominion\nof his passions; more than free, a king crowned triumphant over himself;\nmore than a king, a mitred priest, ruling the cloister of his heart, his\nthoughts and his affections and mediator and intercessor before Divine\nMercy for himself and those commending themselves to his prayers.\"\n\nSo crowned and mitred over himself Dante now enters the Garden of Eden.\n\n\"Here did the parents of mankind dwell in innocence; here is there\nperpetual spring and every fruit.\"\n\nIn the forest of Eden is a pure stream with two currents, Lethe and\nEunoe, \"the first has the power of all past sins the memory to erase,\nthe other can restore remembrance of good deeds and pious days.\" On the\nbanks of this stream the poet sees Matilda, who represents the Active\nLife.\n\n\"There appeared to me a lady all alone who went along singing and\nselecting from among the flowers wherewith all her path was enamelled\"\n... suddenly \"the lady turned completely round towards me, saying, 'My\nBrother, look and listen'\" (XXIX, 15). A solemn chant is heard, a\nwonderful light is seen. It is a pageant representing the return of\nmankind to Eden through membership in the Church.\n\nFirst come, shedding heavenly light, the seven mystical candlesticks,\nsymbolic of the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost or the seven sacraments of\nthe Church. Next follow twenty-four ancients representating the books of\nthe Old Testament. Then are seen the four prophetic animals symbolizing\nthe four Evangelists. Christ drawing a chariot representing the Church,\nthe central figure of the pageant, advances under the form of the\nfabulous griffin, half eagle and half lion, typifying the two-fold\nnature of our Lord. On the right side of the chariot, dancing are three\nnymphs, the theological virtues, Faith, Hope and Charity. On the left\nside are four other nymphs--the cardinal virtues, Prudence, Justice,\nFortitude and Temperance. Next come two old men, dignified and grave,\nSt. Paul and St. Luke, who are followed by four others representing\nother books of the New Testament viz., the Epistles of St. James, St.\nPeter, St. John and St. Jude. The rear guard is an aged Solitary\nsymbolic of the Apocalypse.\n\n\"And when the chariot was opposite to me\" writes Dante, \"a clap of\nthunder was heard; and those worthy folk seemed to have their further\nmarch forbidden, and halted there with the first ensign\" (XXIX, 153).\n\nWhat is the meaning of this symbolic procession so common to Dante's\nday, so alien to ours? We have already said that it is a dramatic\nrepresentation of the human race finding happiness, finding its Eden in\nits membership in the Church. But it, also, is a symbolic lesson for the\nindividual. Dante, the type of humanity having done penance for his\nsins, is about to be received through the sacrament of penance into the\nsoul of the Church i.e. into the full communion of grace. It is\nfitting, therefore, that the Church should advance to meet him, the\nrepentant sinner, and should reveal itself to him before receiving him\ninto its bosom.\n\nIf objection be made that Dante already has been absolved from sin and\nin Purgatory has made expiation for his offences, the answer is given by\nOzanam; \"At the term of the expiatory course, as at its beginning, to\nquit it as well as to enter upon it, we must render submission to a\nreligious authority and fulfill the conditions without which God does\nnot treat with us--confession for oblivion, fears for consolation and\nshame for definitive rehabilitation.\" When the pageant comes to a halt\nthe participants group themselves about the Griffin and the Chariot, by\nthat act declaring that the goal and object of their desires are\ncentered in Christ and His Church. Then one of the company by divine\ncommand calls aloud three times to a heavenly being, the spouse of the\nChurch, to appear and the cry is repeated by the whole company. From the\nChariot arise, as will arise the dead from their graves, a hundred\nangels scattering flowers over and around the Chariot and also raising\ntheir voices in the call for the Heavenly Bride. They first sing the\nwords of the Canticle of Palm Sunday. _Benedictus qui venis_ (Blessed\nart thou who comest) and then the beautiful line from the Aeneid:\n_Manibus o date lilia plenis_ (Oh! give lilies with full hands). Then\ncomes from the clouds through the midst of the flowers showering down\nagain within and without the Chariot, arrayed in the colors of the three\ntheological virtues, the object of the invocation.\n\n\"Crowned with olive over a white veil a Lady appeared to me, vestured in\nhue of living flame under a green mantle.\" It is Beatrice, Dante's\nbeloved, now apotheosized in the personification of Revelation. What\nother poet ever dreamed of so glorifying his beloved that for her coming\nthe natural virtues prepare the way, the supernatural virtues, as\nhandmaids accompany her to assist us to the understanding of her\ndoctrine, the angels sing her laudation and she herself in the role both\nof unveiler of the Scriptures of the Prophets and the Apostles and the\nmystical Bride of the Canticles is worthy to be called \"O Light, O Glory\nof the human race?\"\n\nDante before seeing her face, recognizes her by some mysterious instinct\nof love, recognizes her after a lapse according to fiction of ten years,\nbut in reality of twenty-four years since her death.\n\nTo Virgil, Dante turns to tell the joyous news but Virgil has gone and\ntears course down the face of his disciple.\n\n\"Dante,\" says Beatrice, \"weep not that Virgil leaves thee, nay weep thou\nnot yet, for thou wilt have to weep for another wound.\" Awed by her\nappearance, he is taken back by her greeting. The mere thought of her\nloveliness uplifted him in the world. The hope of seeing her carried him\nthrough the horrors of Hell and the penance of Purgatory. Crowned and\nmitred over himself he came to Eden to meet her. And she has only\nreproaches for him. Particularly to the angels does she tell the story\nof his defection from the high ideals which she inspired in him. \"This\nman was such in his new life potentially that every good talent would\nhave made wondrous increase in him--(but) so low sank he that all means\nfor his salvation were already short save showing him the lost people.\nFor this I visited the portal of the dead and to him who has guided him\nup hither, weeping my prayers were borne. God's high decree would be\nbroken if Lethe were passed and such viands were tasted, without some\nsort of penitence that may shed tears.\"\n\nTo her lover she turns for confirmation of the truth of her words: \"Say,\nsay if this is true; to such accusation thy confession must be joined.\"\n\n\"Confusion and fear together mingled, drove forth from my mouth a\n'Yea,'\" a monosyllable of confession which showed the depth of his\nshame.\n\nBut it is the sight of the superhuman beauty of Beatrice which completes\nhis contrition and resuscitates his love so as to fit him to pass\nthrough the waters of the Lethe.\n\n\"My eyes beheld Beatrice, turned toward the animal (the Griffin) that is\nOne Person only (Christ) in twofold nature (i.e. God and man). Under her\nveil and on the far side of the stream she seemed to me to surpass more\nher ancient self, than she surpassed the others here when she was with\nus. So much remorse gnawed at my heart that I fell vanquished and what I\nthen became she knoweth who gave me the cause.\" (XXXI, 82.)\n\nWhen he recovers consciousness he finds his immersion in the Lethe in\nprogress by Matilda. Then he is led to Beatrice by the four nymphs (the\ncardinal virtues) and at the request of the three nymphs who typify the\ntheological virtues she smiles upon him.\n\n\"The fair lady (Matilda) dipped me where I must needs swallow of the\nwater, then drew me forth and led me, bathed, within the dance of the\nfour fair ones, and each did cover me with her arm. 'Here we are nymphs\nand in heaven are stars. Ere Beatrice descended to the world, we were\nordained for her handmaids: we will lead thee to her eyes: but the three\non the other side who deeper gaze will sharpen thine eyes to the joyous\nlight that is within.\"\n\nBeholding the glorified beauty of Beatrice wholly inexpressible, Dante\nis in such rapture that he is oblivious of everything else.\n\n  \"Mine eyes with such an eager coveting\n  Were bent to rid them of their ten years' thirst\n  No other sense was waking; and e'en they\n  Were fenced on either side from heed of aught:\n  So tangled, in its custom'd toils, that smile\n  Of saintly brightness drew it to itself.\"\n\nWhen our poet comes out of his rapture, the Chariot and the mystical\ncompany are moving to a tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil\nwhich according to a beautiful tradition has become the Cross of Christ,\nthe tree of salvation. To that tree is attached the Chariot which Christ\n(the Griffin) now leaves to enter Heaven again with the ancients and the\nangels. Beatrice remains with the seven nymphs to guard the Chariot (the\nChurch). Up to this point the picture of the Church has been one of\npeace and happiness. Now with prophetic eye the poet beholds the\ntribulations which the Church will suffer from without and within. The\ndescription of the vision and the explanation of the symbolism are so\nwell set forth by Ozanam that I quote his words unable to improve upon\nthem, as I also share his view as to the unwarranted severity here of\nDante's censures of the Church.\n\n\"An eagle falls like lightning upon the tree, from which he tears the\nbark, and upon the car, which bends beneath his weight. Then comes a fox\nwhich finds its way within, and then a portion is torn off by a dragon\nthat issues from the gaping earth. Thus far it is easy to recognize the\npersecutions of the Roman emperors which so harried the Church, the\nheresies by which it was desolated, and the schisms by which it was\ntorn. Soon, the eagle reappeared, less menacing but not less dangerous;\nhe shook his plumes above the sacred car, which speedily underwent a\nmonstrous transformation. From divers parts of it arose seven heads\narmed with ten horns; a courtesan was seated in the midst; a giant stood\nat her side, exchanging with her impure caresses which he interrupted to\nscourge her cruelly. Then, cutting loose the metamorphosed car, he bears\nit away, and is lost with it in the depths of the forest.\n\n\"Is not this again the Church, enriched, by the gifts of princes who\nhave become her protectors, sadly marred in appearance, sundry of her\nmembers defiled by the taint of the seven capital sins, and herself\nruled over by unworthy pontiffs? Is not this the court of Rome,\nexchanging criminal flatteries with the temporal power, which flatteries\nare to be followed by cruel injuries, when the Holy See, torn from the\nfoot of the cross of the Vatican, is transferred to a distant land, on\nthe banks of a foreign river? But these ills will not be without end nor\nwithout retribution. The tree that lost and that saved the world cannot\nbe touched with impunity, and if the Church has been made militant here\nbelow, it is with the liability of suffering from passing reverses, but\nalso with the assurance of final victory.\"\n\nDante's own eternal victory is now assured, Beatrice directs Matilda to\nlead him to the Eunoe, whose waters will regenerate him and fit him to\nascend to Paradise. \"Behold, Eunoe which gushes forth yonder, lead him\nthereto and as thou art wont, revive in him again his fainting powers.\"\n\nThe poem closes with an address to the reader:\n\n  \"If, Reader, I possessed a longer space\n  For writing it, I yet would sing in part\n  Of the sweet draught that ne'er would satiate me;\n  But inasmuch as full are all the leaves\n  Made ready for this second canticle,\n  The curb of art no farther lets me go.\n  From the most holy water I returned\n  Regenerate, in the manner of new trees\n  That are renewed with a new foliage,\n  Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.\"\n          (Purg., XXXIII, 136.)\n\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S PARADISO\n\n\n\n\nDANTE'S PARADISO\n\nOf Dante's trilogy the Paradiso is truly his \"medieval miracle of song,\"\nthe supreme achievement of his genius. Here the poetry of the sublime\nreaches its highest point--the summit on which Dante is a lonely and\nunchallenged figure. \"No uninspired hand,\" says Cardinal Manning, \"has\never written thoughts so high in words, so resplendent, as the last\nstanza of the Divina Commedia.\" It was said of St. Thomas: \"_Post Summam\nThomae nihil restat nisi lumen gloriae_.\" It may be said of Dante: \"_Post\nDantis Paradisum nihil restat nisi visio Dei._\" (\"After Dante's Paradiso\nnothing remains but the vision of God.\")\n\nShelley's tribute to the supremacy of Dante's Heaven is no less\nbeautiful: \"Dante's apotheosis of Beatrice and the gradations of his own\nlove and her loveliness by which, as by steps, he feigns himself to have\nascended to the throne of the Supreme Cause, is the most glorious\nimagination of modern poetry.\"\n\nRuskin says: \"Every line of the Paradiso is full of the most exquisite\nand spiritual expressions of Christian truths and the poem is only less\nread than the Inferno because it requires far greater attention and\nperhaps, for its full enjoyment, a holier heart.\"\n\nThat Dante's Inferno is more popular reading than his Paradiso is due to\nthe fact that evil and its consequences offer to the artist richer\nmaterial for dramatic fascination and to the reader more lively interest\nin characters intensely human, than does the less sensational story of\nthe Elects finding peace and happiness in a realm transcending the\nexperiences of human nature. Dante's Purgatorio also finds a wider\ncircle of readers because his penitents, suffering, struggling and\naspiring, like people upon earth, have more human traits and exhibit\nmore human interest than the saints confirmed in grace against human\nweakness.\n\nAnother reason for lesser interest manifested in this part of the Divina\nCommedia is the difficulty and obscurity of the Paradiso. It is not easy\nreading, because it requires study, repetition, concentration,\nmeditation, qualities absent from the art of reading as it prevails\ntoday. If we ever have time to look at a book, the habit of skimming\nwith inattentive rapidity so urges us onward that we find ourselves\nflitting from page to page, from chapter to chapter, panting and\nuninstructed. And if we belong to the bookless majority who have no time\nto read, we rush to the moving picture theatre to get our mental\npabulum--often a season's best seller--boiled down, served in\nrapid-fire order and bolted in the twinkling of an eye. For all such\nDante's Paradiso is an intellectual as well as a spiritual impossibility\nand the poet begs such not to follow him on his voyage to the eternal\nkingdom.\n\n  \"Oh ye who in some pretty little boat\n  Eager to listen, have been following\n  Behind my ship, that singing sails along,\n  Turn back to look again upon your shores;\n  In losing me, you might yourselves be lost.\n  The sea I sail has never yet been passed.\n  Minerva breathes, and pilots me Apollo,\n  And Muses nine point out to me the Bears.\n  Ye other few, who have the neck uplifted\n  Betimes to th' bread of Angels upon which\n  One liveth here and grows not sated by it,\n  Well may you launch upon the deep salt-sea\n  Your vessel, keeping still my wake before you\n  Upon the water that grows smooth again.\n  Those glorious ones who unto Colchos passed\n  Were not so wonder-struck as you shall be,\n  When Jason they beheld a ploughman made.\"\n          (II, 1.)\n\nThe song which Dante sings in the Paradiso is the eternal happiness of\nman in vision, love and enjoyment united to his Creator. In preparation\nfor this final consummation the poet, as he ascends to the Empyrean,\ngives a most beautiful epitome of the principal mysteries of religion\nand of some of the tenets of scholastic philosophy, treating especially\nthe Fall of Man, Predestination, Free Will, the Redemption, the\nImmortality of the Soul and the theory of Human Knowledge. Allegorically\nconsidered, the poem is a veil, under which we see the ideal life of man\nupon earth, exercising virtue and gaining virtue's rewards.\n\nTo exhibit man's supreme, happiness in the next life, the Christian\npoet, insisting that his purpose is the inculcation of truth, both to\nsave and to adorn the soul, must base his theme upon the doctrines of\nthe Church. The definition of some of those dogmas Dante anticipated.\nAll may be summed up in the following statement:\n\n\"It is of Catholic faith that the souls of the blessed see God directly\nand face to face and this vision is Supernatural; that there are degrees\nof this vision, corresponding to the merits of the elect; that to see\nGod in His Essence, the intellect is supernaturally perfected; that the\nBeatific Vision is not deferred to the Day of Judgment, but is possessed\nat once after death but the Just, in whom there is no stain of sin or\nwho have no temporal punishment to be expiated; and, furthermore, that\nall human beings at the end of the world will arise with their own\nbodies.\"\n\nHow will the poet bring home those incomprehensible truths to his\nreaders? He has to treat a subject wholly transcendent and supernatural.\nThough his vision be celestial, his langauge must be terrestrial. He\nmust visualize states of the soul which are alien to the eyes of the\nbody and translate into terms of the senses things which are wholly\nnon-sensuous. Dante is aware that no poet ever essayed that feat before:\n\"The sea I sail has never yet been passed.\" (1, 8.) He knows, also, that\nshoals and rocks, seemingly impassable and a sea which may engulf his\ngenius, are before him. \"It is no coastwise voyage for a little barque,\nthis sea through which the intrepid prow goes cleaving nor for a pilot\nwho would spare himself.\" (XXIII, 67.)\n\nAnd yet he will attempt the impossible, he will endeavor to sing not of\nthe scenes but of the states of suprasensible spiritual joys--joys which\nBishop Norris says \"are without example, above experience and beyond\nimagination, for which the whole creation wants a comparison, we an\napprehension and even the word of God, a revelation.\" Conscious of all\nthat, Dante confesses the impotency of speech, the inadequacy of memory,\nthe helplessness of imagination for the task to which he sets himself.\nHe tells us that the sublime songs of the elect \"have lapsed and fallen\nout of my memory\"--\"that to represent and transhumanize in words\nimpossible were.\" (I, 71.)\n\n  \"And what was the sun wherein I entered,\n  Apparent, not by color, but by light\n  I, though I call on genius, art and practice\n  Cannot so tell that it could be imagined.\"\n          (X, 41.)\n\nSo by the very nature of the subject visualization can be only\npartial--only \"the shadow of the blessed realm,\" can be shown. But what\nhuman nature can do, even if its feat seems solitary and unique, Dante\nhas accomplished in a failure which constitutes the most wonderful\nachievement in the domain of the sublime in literature, an achievement\nleaving us with a sense of his own ineffable bliss and of the\ninexpressible joys of the Elect--an achievement which came to pass, say\nsome readers, because his poem is an account of a supernatural\nvision--and Dante hints that he thinks he was so favored, or because it\nis a work to which both heaven and earth have set their hand, showing\nhim, as Emerson observes, \"all imagination,\" or, as James Russell Lowell\nsays, \"The highest spiritual nature which has expressed itself in\nrhythmical form.\"\n\nThere are two methods of representing man's supreme happiness, relative\nand absolute: one is to depict nature at her best, untouched by sin, and\nto show man free from every defect and blemish, in the full perfection\nof his being. Naturally the imagery in this case is the imagery born of\nfinite human experiences. The other method describes, as we said, not\nscenes of happiness but transcendent conditions of the soul as it is\nbrought into ultimate communion with Supreme Goodness--the finite\npossessing and enjoying the Infinite. Here the human mind, let us repeat\nit, finds earthly images powerless to translate its thought, for it hath\nnot entered into the heart of man to conceive the glory of the spiritual\nworld. These two methods Dante follows successively.\n\nHis Eden on the summit of Purgatory is literally the earthly Paradise of\nAdam and Eve. It is pictured in moving imagery as man's \"native country\nof delights,\" a \"lofty garden\" of ineffable loveliness, high above all\nthe physical and moral disturbances of earth, its waters, its winds, its\nflowers and its music all coming from supernatural sources, its bliss\nspringing from the perfect harmony of man's animal, intellectual and\nspiritual powers in full and perfect accord with reason. It is Paradise\nRegained by man's climbing the mountain of Purgatory, and its\nsignificance is understood if we remember that Dante would teach us\nthat the present life can be made dual, a life worth while in itself,\nfull of service and godliness as well as a preparation for the unending\nlife of Heaven.\n\nFor Dante there must be, also, the Celestial Paradise where man's\nsupernatural destiny will be realized in joys which the eye has not seen\nand in music which the ear has not heard. His Paradiso has been called\nthe Ten Heavens, but in reality there is in his plan only one Heaven,\nthe Empyrean, the abode of the angels, of the blessed spirits and of\nGod. It is high above the planets and the stars, beyond time and space.\nThe Church has never answered the question: Where is Heaven?\nTheologians, however, have put forth various opinions. \"Some say,\"\nwrites Father Honthein, that \"Heaven is everywhere, as God is\neverywhere, the blessed being free to move freely in every part of the\nuniverse while still remaining with God and seeing Him everywhere.\"\nOthers hold that Heaven is \"a special place with definite limits.\nNaturally this place is held to exist, not within the earth, but in\naccordance with the expressions of Scripture, 'without and beyond its\nlimits.'\" (Cath. Encycl., VII, 170.)\n\nAccording to Dante's conception, Heaven, being non-spatial and\nnon-temporal, is not a place but a state of spiritual life. As an aid in\ndepicting that state he makes use of a unique literary device. He\npoetically creates nine Heavens, the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun,\nMars, Jupiter, Saturn, the Fixed Stars, the Primum Mobile or First\nMovement. These, according to the Ptolemaic system which our poet\nfollows, are concentric with the earth, around which as their center\nthey revolve, while the earth remains fixed and motionless. The motion\nof each of these nine spheres, originally coming from the Primum Mobile,\nis communicated to it by the love of the angelic guardians, a literal\napplication of the common saying that \"love makes the world go around.\"\n\nAs a poetic fiction necessary for him to enter finally the true Heaven\nDante is required to pass through these nine spheres, the fiction being\nused by him as an artist to declare the glories of the heavens and as a\nteacher to inculcate doctrines for the instruction and edification of\nmankind. In each of the nine Heavens groups of the blessed are\nrepresented as coming to meet him \"as he returns to God as to the port\nwhence (he) set out when (he) first entered upon the sea of this life.\"\n\nThis peerless rhetorical figure is explained in the Banquet, where he\nsays: \"As his fellow-citizens come forth to meet him who returns from a\nlong journey even before he enters the gates of his city; so to the\nnoble soul come forth the citizens of the eternal Life.\" This apparition\nof the blessed spirits to greet the mystic traveller as he mounts from\nsphere to sphere has several advantages: \"it peoples with hosts of\nspirits, the immense lonely spaces through which the journey lies\"; it\naffords the poet the opportunity of asking them \"many things which have\ngreat utility and delight\"; it finally gives him a sensible sign of the\ndegree of beatitude which they possess in that realm of many mansions\nwhere each is rewarded according to his merit and capacity, the capacity\nof each spirit being in proportion to its degree of knowledge and love.\nThis is stressed by the poet's representing the apparitions first as\nfaint yet beautiful outlines of human features, then as ascent is made\nto the other Heavens, the spirits make themselves known by increasing\nmanifestations of light so dazzling finally that the splendor would\nblind Dante if his vision were not divinely adapted to its supernatural\nneeds.\n\nThe inequalities of bliss are also symbolized by the sphere in which the\nspirits appear to him; those in the sphere of the moon, e.g., are less\nfavored than those in the Heaven of Mercury. The inequality of merit,\nand therefore of reward, is also declared by the difference in both the\nquickness of the spirits' movement and their clearness of vision into\nthe essence of God. The Empyrean, it is worth while repeating, is the\nonly true Paradise, the nine Heavens being only myths or poetic devices.\nIf spirits are seen there, they have come forth only from the Empyrean\nand will quickly return there after preparing the poet for the eternal\nLight of Light.\n\nThe materials out of which Dante constructs his Paradiso are not, as we\nare already aware, fantastic images such as he employed for the first\ntwo parts of the Divina Commedia, but are things of the spirit, viz.,\nknowledge, beauty, faith, love, joy; and he is aided in making visible\nthose invisible entities of the spiritual life by such intangible things\nas sound, motion and light.\n\nLight, indeed, is one of the leading elements in the Paradiso. The poem\nbegins with a reference to the light of God's glory, and its last line\nspeaks of \"the Love which moves the Sun and the other stars.\" And\nbetween this beginning and this end in thirty-three cantiche light is\nrepresented not only by degrees of increasing intensity and variety of\nunlocked for movements but as surrounding the spirits, living flames,\nand constituting, symbolically, the beatitude of Heaven.\n\nDean Church, in his classic essay on Dante, has a beautiful paragraph\nthat here calls for quotation: \"Light in general is his special and\nchosen source of poetic beauty. No poet that we know has shown such\nsingular sensibility to its varied appearances.... Light everywhere--in\nthe sky and earth and sea--in the stars, the flames, the lamp, the\ngems--broken in the water, reflected from the mirror, transmitted\nthrough the glass, or colored through the edge of the fractured\nemerald--dimmed in the mist. The halo, the deep water--streaming through\nthe rent cloud, glowing in the coal, quivering in the lightning,\nflashing in the topaz and the ruby, veiled behind the pure alabaster,\nmellowed and clouding itself in the pearl-light contrasted with shadow,\nshading off and copying itself in the double rainbow like voice and\necho--light seen within light--light from every source and in all its\nshapes illuminates, irradiates, gives glory to the Commedia.... And when\nhe (Dante) rises beyond the regions of earthly day, light, simple and\nunalloyed, unshadowed and eternal, lifts the creations of his thought\nabove all affinity to time and matter; light never fails him, as the\nexpression of the gradations of bliss; never reappears the same, never\nrefuses the new shapes of his invention, never becomes confused or dim,\nthough it is seldom thrown into distinct figure and still more seldom\ncolored.\"\n\nIn making light such a central feature of Heaven and symbolically in\nidentifying light with God and the angels and the blessed, Dante is only\nexpressing--but expressing beautifully and supremely--the thought which\npagan oracles proclaimed and Holy Writ and the Church made known. From\nthe earliest ages the sun which vivifies and illuminates the world was\nregarded by many nations as the symbol of the Deity--and by still other\nnations it was adored. The psalmist, addressing God, says: \"Thou art\nclothed with light as with a garment.\" (Ps., CIII, 2.) St. Paul declares\nthat the Lord of Lords \"inhabiteth light inaccessible.\" (1 Tim., VI,\n16.) The Seer of Patmos tells us that the heavenly Jerusalem has no need\nof the light of the sun and the moon to shine upon it, \"for the glory of\nGod hath enlightened it and the Lamb is the lamp thereof.\" (Apoc., XX,\n23.) \"I am the light of the world,\" declares Christ, and with that\nrevelation ringing in his ears the Beloved Disciple does not hesitate to\nsay: \"and this is the declaration which we have heard--that God is\nlight.\" (I John, I, 5.) In narrating his vision of Heaven, Ezechial\ncompares the light emanating from and enveloping the Deity, to fire. \"I\nsaw the likeness as of the appearance of fire, as the appearance of\nbrightness.\" (XXIV, 17.) Moses on the mountain saw the Lord in the midst\nof fire, and on another mountain Christ, \"the brightness of his Father's\nglory was transfigured before his apostles and his face did shine as the\nSun and his garments became shining or glittering.\" (Matt., XVII, 2.)\nSmall wonder then that the Nicaean creed declares that Christ is \"God of\nGod, Light of light.\" Not only with God, but with His saints is the idea\nof visible light intimately associated. The prophet Daniel tells us\nthat \"They that are learned shall shine as the brightness of the\nfirmament, and they that instruct many unto justice, as stars to all\neternity.\" (XII, 3.) And it is Christ Himself who says: \"Then shall the\njust shine as the sun, in the kingdom of their Father.\" (Matt., XIII,\n43.)\n\nIn using such a subtle, dazzling element as light so generally and in\nsuch countless varieties throughout his Paradiso, Dante is exposed to\nthe danger of palling his readers with brightness and making them lose\ninterest in things glorious and supernal. But the genius of the man\nsaves the artist. By a conception of matchless beauty he binds the light\nof heaven to the human, making the smile in the eye of his beloved\nguide, Beatrice, express his own personal heaven, in the light that\nenters his mind and the ardor which quickens his heart. As he mounts\nwith her the stairway of the heavens leading to the Eternal Palace and\nhis motion is brought about simply by his gazing into her eyes, she\nmakes known to him by her increasing brightness both his own mounting\nknowledge and his ascent nearer the Empyrean.\n\nAs Dante represents the increase of light and love deepening and\nexpanding in him as he rises empyreanward all by the loved smile of his\nbeloved Beatrice, it is well that we bear in mind the significance of\nthe symbolism as expounded by the poet in his Banquet. (III, 15.)\nBeatrice being Revelation or Wisdom made known to the world, \"in her\nface appear things that tell of the pleasures of Paradise and ... the\nplace wherein this appears is in her eyes and her smile. And here it\nshould be known that the eyes of Wisdom are the two demonstrations by\nwhich is seen the truth most certainly; and her smile is her persuasion\nby which is shown forth the interior light of Wisdom under some veil;\nand in these two things is felt the highest pleasure of beatitude, which\nis the greatest good of Paradise.\"\n\nBeatrice--Revealed Truth--remains the poet's guide until he comes to\nbehold the Beatific Vision. Then, no longer needed, she withdraws in\nfavor of the contemplative St. Bernard as guide, just as Virgil had\nwithdrawn when he was powerless and when Beatrice was needed.\n\nThe question here presents itself: In what does Dante place the\nhappiness of Heaven? Does he paint such a Heaven that it shows\nprincipally the rectifications of the inequalities of this life--a\nHeaven of such happiness, e.g., that the poor will love poverty or be\nresigned to it in the hope of possessing the riches of this Eternity? Is\nDante's Heaven one in which happiness is so alluring that innocence will\ngladly submit to calumny and faith will lovingly welcome the sword or\nstake, in the certain confidence of gaining unending glory or bliss?\nThe Paradiso does reward poverty, crown innocence, glorify martyrdom,\nbut it was never intended to be an account of what takes place in the\nreal Heaven, or to be a description of the particular acts of goodness\nwhich win Heaven for the soul, or a rapturous picture appealing to the\nemotions of the believer and alluring him from earth.\n\nDoes Dante place the happiness of Heaven in the bliss and glorification\nof family reunion?\n\nHe is too good a theologian to place the essential happiness of Heaven\nmerely in the joy of family reunion. He does not ignore that feature of\neternity, but he does not stress it, because temperamentally he is moved\nless by sentiment of family and ties of friendship than by his curiosity\nfor knowledge, by his yearnings to behold Eternal Wisdom. Only once does\nhe mention Heaven as the state of reunion of families and friends, and\nthat is when he comments upon the action of the twenty-three spirits in\nthe Heaven of the Sun, in expressing their agreement with Soloman's\ndiscourse as to the participation which the human body will have, after\nthe Resurrection in the glories of Paradise:\n\n  \"So ready and so cordial an Amen\n  Follow'd from either choir, as plainly spoke\n  Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance\n  Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear,\n  Mothers and sires and those whom best they loved,\n  Ere they were made imperishable flames.\"\n          (XIV, 65.)\n\nFor Dante, Heaven must be the beatitude of the intellect and that\nprimarily by the intellect's having an intuition full of joy in the\nDivine Essence, and secondly by its possessing full light on all those\nvexatious problems and mysteries which baffle us in this life.\n\n  \"Well I perceive that never sated is\n  Our intellect unless Truth illumines it,\n  Beyond which nothing true expands itself.\n  It rests therein, as wild beast in his lair\n  When it attains it and it can attain it.\"\n          (IV, 125.)\n\nIn insisting upon the power of the mind to know the truth and to find\nperfect happiness in the supernatural act of beholding God face to face,\nDante is not in agreement with Pragmatism, Hegelianism and the \"new\nRealist\" theory--all which make truth elusive to the mind; but he is in\nfull accord with the teaching of the Catholic Church, which defends the\nrights of reason holding, e.g., that \"by the natural light of reason\nGod can be known with certainty, by means of created things\" (Vatican\nCouncil), and proclaiming that \"all the saints in Heaven have seen and\ndo see the Divine Essence by direct intuition and face to face in such\nwise that nothing created intervenes as an object of vision; ... that\nthe Divine Essence presents itself to their immediate gaze, unveiled,\nclearly and openly; that in this vision they enjoy the Divine Essence,\nand in virtue of this vision and this enjoyment they are truly blessed\nand possess eternal life and eternal rest.\" (Benedict XII, Cath.\nEncycl., VII, 171.)\n\nIt is interesting to see how Dante's Master, St. Thomas Aquinas,\ndemonstrates the proposition that the beatitude of man consists in the\nvision of the Divine Essence. With his usual lucidity of thought he\nwrites: \"The last and perfect happiness of man cannot be otherwise than\nin the vision of the Divine Essence. In evidence of this statement two\npoints are to be considered: first, that man is not perfectly happy so\nlong as there remains anything for him to desire and seek; secondly,\nthat the perfection of every power is determined by the nature of its\nobject. Now the object of the intellect is the essence of a thing; hence\nthe intellect attains to perfection so far as it knows the Essence of\nwhat is before it. And therefore, when a man knows an effect and knows\nthat it has a cause, there is in him an outstanding natural desire of\nknowing the essence of the cause. If, therefore, a human intellect knows\nthe essence of a created effect without knowing aught of God beyond the\nfact of His existence, the perfection of that intellect does not yet\nadequately reach the First Cause, but the intellect has an outstanding\nnatural desire of searching into the said Cause; hence it is not yet\nperfectly happy. For perfect happiness, therefore, it is necesary that\nthe intellect shall reach as far as the very essence of the First\nCause.\" (Rickaby, Aquinas Ethicus I, 2 q., 3 a, 8.)\n\nThis masterly exposition is after all only the philosophical development\nof what every Catholic child learns from one of the first questions of\nthe little Catechism: \"Why did God make you? God made me to know Him, to\nlove Him, and to serve Him in this life, and to be happy with Him\nforever in the next.\" With the satisfaction of the intellect's boundless\nyearning for knowledge attained by intuition of the Essence of God, a\nconsummation that will somewhat deify us--\"Who shall be made like to\nhim, because we shall see him as he is\" (I John, III, 2.), the happiness\nof man will be primarily intellectual, being as Dante beautifully says:\n\"Light intellectual full of love, love of the true good, full of joy,\njoy that transcendeth all sweetness.\" (XXX, 40.)\n\nHis Heaven, then, is no Nirvana, for each spirit will for eternity have\nits individuality, and its activity will be unremitting in seeing God\nface to face--a vision that will cause the spirit increasing wonder in\nan act that will have no flagging nor satiety. \"What, after all, is\nHeaven,\" says Bulwer Lytton, \"but a transition from dim guesses to the\nfullness of wisdom, from ignorance to knowledge, but knowledge of what\norder?\" To that exclamation of the nineteenth century writer the\nmedieval seer answers with conviction that the _summum bonum_ is to be\nfound only in the intellect's attaining Truth.\n\nLet us now join Dante in his mystic journey to the Heavenly Kingdom. We\nleft him after three days and three nights in Purgatory, standing with\nBeatrice on the summit of the mountain in the Earthly Paradise, where he\nremained six hours. At noon he begins his ascent through space, a feat\naccomplished by Beatrice's looking up to the Heavens and by Dante's\nfixing his eyes upon her. At once his human nature is supposed to take\non agility, the supernatural quality which makes the body independent of\nspace, and he begins to rise with incomprehensible velocity. Though they\nare travelling without conscious movement at the rate of 84,000 miles a\nsecond, there is time for Dante's mind to operate in desire to know how\nhe can ascend counter to gravitation and for Beatrice to discourse upon\nthe law--Dante's invention--of universal (material and spiritual)\ngravitation.\n\n  \"The newness of the sound and the great light\n  Kindled in me a longing for their cause\n  Never before with such acuteness felt.\n  And she began: 'Thou makest thyself so dull\n  With false imagining, that thou sees not\n  What thou wouldst see if thou hadst shaken it off.\n  Thou are not upon earth as thou believest;\n  But lightning, fleeing its appropriate site,\n  Ne'er ran as thou, who thitherward returnest.'\"\n          (I, 88.)\n\nShe explains the order established by Providence by force of which\ncreated beings seek their natural habitat, earthly things being\nattracted downward, spiritual entities being drawn upward irresistibly\nif they do not oppose this innate inclination to good. \"It is as natural\nfor a man purged of all evil to ascend to God,\" she declares, \"as it is\nfor a stream from a mountain height to fall into a valley.\"\n\nVery shortly after this, the first stage of the celestial journey is\nreached. \"Direct thy mind to God in gratitude,\" she said, \"who hath\nunited us with the first star.\" \"Me seemed a cloud enveloped us, shining\ndense, firm and polished like a diamond smitten by the sun. Within\nitself the eternal pearl received us, as water doth receive a ray of\nlight, though still itself uncleft.\" This is the Heaven of the Moon, the\nplanet farthest removed from the Empyrean and therefore the sphere where\nnot only motion but also beatitude are least in the heavenly bodies. The\nsphere of the Moon, indeed with those of Mercury and of Venus, is held\nby Dante's cosmography to be within the shadow cast by the earth.\nConsequently, the spirits in those three lowest Heavens are represented\nas less perfect than those in the higher spheres, because in the moral\nsense the shadow of earth fell upon their lives making them imperfect\nthrough inconstancy, vain glory or unlawful love.\n\nIn the Heaven of the Moon a long disquisition is carried on by Beatrice\nin explanation of Dante's question as to why there are spots on the\nmoon. It is very likely that this matter of apparent irrelevance in the\nheavenly realms is introduced here at the very first stage of the ascent\nto give the poet the opportunity of proclaiming that the first thing one\nmust learn in his passage heavenward--even if this is to be understood\nin an allegorical sense--is that the laws of the laboratory are not the\n_rationale_ of the heavenly world and that to employ them to explain the\nsupernal is to violate the very science of these laws, in an\napplication of scope to which in their very nature they protest. This\npoint of seeing natural causes for the unexplainable phenomenon of\nHeaven and especially of relying upon the testimony of the senses is\nsoon brought out by Beatrice reproving Dante for thinking that the\nspirits whom he now sees are only reflections of the human face:\n\n  \"Marvel thou not,\" she said to me, \"because\n  I smile at this thy puerile conceit,\n  Since on the truth it trusts not yet its foot,\n  But turns thee, as 'tis wont, on emptiness.\n  True substances are these which thou beholdest,\n  Here relegate for breaking of some vow.\n  Therefore speak with them, listen and believe.\"\n          (III, 25.)\n\nSo directed, the poet gazes again upon the faint forms appearing like\nreflections seen in a plate of glass or in a dark, shallow pool. These,\nthe first spirits he meets, are apparitions in human form. In the other\nspheres all that he will see of the souls will be the light which\nenvelopes them and which seemingly is identified with them, but here he\nsees beautiful women divinely glorious even in their dim outline, who as\nnuns had violated their vow of perpetual chastity. In the Inferno the\npoet, to lead the reprobate soul to speak to him, promised earthly\nfame; in Purgatorio there was the offer of intercessory prayer, here in\nthe first Heaven there is only an appeal to the charity which inflames\nthe spirit. All eagerness, Dante now addresses the spirit, who appears\nmost desirous to converse with him. This is Piccarda, kinswoman of his\nwife and sister of his friend Forese (Purg. XXIII, 40), a Poor Clare\nnun, who was compelled by her brother, Corse, to leave her convent and\nmarry Rossellino della Tosa in the expectation that the marriage would\npromote a political alliance. So sacrificed, the young virgin sister of\nlofty ideals and delicate spiritual sensibility, experienced\nunhappiness, the intensity of which is revealed by the ellipsis\ncontained in the magic line: \"And God doth know what my life became.\"\nDante addresses Piccarda:\n\n  \"'O well-created spirit, who in the rays\n  Of life eternal dost the sweetness taste\n  Which being untasted ne'er is comprehended,\n  Grateful 'twill be to me, if thou content me\n  Both with thy name and with your destiny.'\n  Whereat, she promptly and with laughing eyes:\n  'Our charity doth never shut the doors\n  Against a just desire, except as she\n  Who wills that all her court be like herself.\n  I was a virgin sister in the world;\n  And if thy mind doth contemplate me well,\n  The being more fair will not conceal me from thee,\n  But thou shalt recognize I am Piccarda,\n  Who, stationed here among these other blessed,\n  Myself am blessed in the lowest sphere.\n  All our affections, that alone inflamed\n  Are in the pleasure of the Holy Ghost,\n  Rejoice at being of his order formed;\n  And this allotment, which appears so low,\n  Therefore is given us, because our vows\n  Have been neglected and in some part void.'\n  Whence I to her: 'In your miraculous aspects\n  There shines I know not what of the divine,\n  Which doth transform you from our first conceptions.\n  Therefore I was not swift in my remembrance;\n  But what thou tellest me now aids me so,\n  That the refiguring is easier to me.'\"\n          (III, 37.)\n\nDante, you recall, had found the souls in Purgatory contented with their\nlot, though they were enduring great suffering; in Heaven he is eager to\nlearn in the very beginning whether the Elect are satisfied with the\ndecree which awards to them happiness in unequal measure. So he asks\nPiccarda whether she and the other spirits in this lowest sphere are not\neager for a higher place. The answer is one of the most touching and\nbeautiful passages in the poem, summing up in language of radiant\ngladness the law of Heaven that in \"God's will is our peace,\" words\nwhich Gladstone says \"appear to have an unexpressible majesty of truth\nabout them, to be almost as if they were spoken from the very mouth of\nGod.\"\n\n  \"'But tell me, ye who in this place are happy,\n  Are you desirous of a higher place,\n  To see more or to make yourselves more friends?'\n  First, with those other shades, she smiled a little;\n  Thereafter answered me so full of gladness,\n  She seemed to burn in the first fire of love:\n  'Brother, our will is quieted by virtue\n  Of charity, that makes us wish alone\n  For what we have, nor gives us thirst for more.\n  If to be more exalted we aspired,\n  Discordant would our aspirations be\n  Unto the will of Him who here secludes us;\n  Which thou-shalt see finds no place in these circles,\n  If being in charity is needful here,\n  And if thou lookest well into its nature;\n  Nay 'tis essential to this blest existence\n  To keep itself within the will divine,\n  Whereby our very wishes are made one;\n  So that, as we are station above station\n  Throughout this realm, to all the realm 'tis pleasing,\n  As to the King, who makes His will our will.\n  And His will is our peace; this is the sea\n  To which is moving onward whatsoever\n  It doth create, and all that nature makes.'\n  Then it was clear to me how everywhere\n  In Heaven is Paradise, although the grace\n  Of good supreme there rain not in one measure.\"\n          (III, 64.)\n\nPiccarda then tells the moving story of her life, how as a girl she\nentered the order of St. Clare, only to be torn from the nunnery and\ngiven into marriage.\n\n  \"A perfect life and merit high in Heaven\n  A lady o'er us,\" said she, \"by whose rule\n  Down in your world they vest and veil themselves,\n  That until death they may both watch and sleep\n  Beside that Spouse who every vow accepts\n  Which charity conformeth to his pleasure.\n  To follow her, in girlhood from the world\n  I fled, and in her habit shut myself,\n  And pledged me to the pathway of her sect.\n  Then men accustomed unto evil more\n  Than unto good, from the sweet cloister tore me;\n  God knows what afterward my life became.\"\n          (III, 97.)\n\nCertain questions interesting to a seeker of truth grow out of\nPiccarda's statement and these Beatrice proceeds to solve for the\nedification of Dante. The first question asks whether in the assignment\nto the lowest sphere of souls who violated their vows, there is divine\nJustice; the second concerns Plato's teaching that souls really come\nfrom the stars and return thither; the third is about the loss of merit\nthrough coercion of the will, as exemplified in the case of Piccarda.\nThe solution of these difficulties need not detain us if only we\nremember Dante's view that \"the theories maintained by him in the Heaven\nof the Moon are intended to manifest,\" as Gardner and Scartazzini point\nout, \"the moral freedom of man and to show that no external thing can\ninterfere with the soul that is bent upon attaining the end for which\nGod has destined it.\"\n\nTo the next Heaven, the sphere of Mercury, Beatrice and Dante soar more\nswiftly than an arrow attains its mark while the bow is still vibrating.\nIncreasing in loveliness as she ascends, Beatrice, in the second realm,\nradiates such splendor that Mercury itself, apart from its own light,\ngains such glory from her that it seems to glitter or smile from very\ngladness.\n\n  \"My lady there so joyful I beheld\n  As unto the brightness of that heaven she entered\n  More luminous thereat the planet grew,\n  And if the star itself was changed and smiled\n  What became I who by my nature am\n  Exceeding mutable in every guise?\" (V, 97.)\n\nGreeting the travellers, more than a thousand spirits joyfully exclaim:\n\"Lo, one who shall increase our loves!\" The Saints in Mercury thus\ntestify to their delight that one (Dante) has come to be the fresh\nobject of their love, just as it is said that \"there shall be joy before\nthe angels of God upon one sinner doing penance.\" (Luke XV, 10.) These\nsplendors in Mercury are the souls of those in whose virtue there was\nthe alloy of ambition and vainglory--a combination, according to Dante,\nwhich makes \"the rays of true love less vividly mount upwards.\" The poet\nis addressed by a spirit who bids him ask any question he will and\nBeatrice confirms the invitation. \"Speak, speak with confidence and\ntrust them even as gods.\" All eagerness for knowledge, Dante inquires of\nthe friendly splendor who he is and why he is in this particular Heaven.\n\nThe story told by the spirit of Emperor Justinian is a brief sketch of\nhis own life, with reference to his conversion from heresy by Pope\nAgapetus, to the victories of his general, Belisarius, and to his own\ngreat work of the codification of the Roman law. He then traces the\nhistory of Rome from the time of AEneas to the thirteenth century, bent\nupon showing that the Roman Empire, as a world-power over governments\nand peoples, is divine in its institution and providentially protected\nin its course. Two facts are adduced in crowning proof of this audacious\nstatement, viz., Christ's choosing to be born and to be registered as a\nsubject of Caesar and His crucifixion under Tiberius, acting through\nPontius Pilate as the divinely constituted instrument of eternal justice\nexercised by the Heavenly Father against His Son, at once the victim of\nsin and its atonement.\n\nDante enlarges on this point in his Monarchia. \"If the Roman Empire did\nnot exist by right, the sin of Adam was not punished in Christ.... If,\ntherefore, Christ had not suffered by the sentence of a regular judge,\nthe penalty would not have been properly punished; and none could be a\nregular judge who had not jurisdiction over all mankind, for all mankind\nwas punished in the flesh of Christ, who 'hath borne our infirmities and\ncarried our sorrows,' as said the prophet Isaias. And if the Roman\nEmpire had not existed by right, Tiberius Caesar, whose vicar was Pontius\nPilate, would not have had jurisdiction over all mankind.\" To us both\nthe argument and its conclusion are wholly indefensible. It seems indeed\na mockery and a blasphemy to attribute to such a monster as Tiberius\nCaesar glory because Christ was crucified in his reign. Dante's words,\nhowever, as spoken by Justinian, leave no room for doubt that the poet\nwas convinced that all the ancient celebrity of Rome was insignificant\nas compared to the glory that would come to it because it would carry\nout the crucifixion of Christ.\n\n  \"But what the standard that has made me speak\n  Achieved before, and after should achieve\n  Throughout the mortal realm that lies beneath,\n  Becometh in appearance mean and dim\n  If in the hand of the third Caesar seen\n  With an eye unclouded and affection pure\n  Because the living Justice that inspires me\n  Granted it, in the hand of him I speak of\n  The glory of doing vengence for its wrath.\"\n          (VI, 82.)\n\nShining among the splendors of Mercury is a spirit who, though he was\nnot a lawmaker like Justinian, attained earthly renown by arranging the\nmarriages of four Kings. Known by the name of Romeo, a word meaning a\npilgrim of Rome, this man came a stranger to the Court of Raymond\nBerenger, Court of Provence, multiplied the income without lessening the\ngrandeur of his master and brought about the marriages to royalty of the\nfour daughters of the household--Margaret to St. Louis of France,\nEleanor to Henry III of England, Sanzia to Richard, Earl of Cornwall\n(brother of Henry III), elected King of the Romans, Beatrice to Charles\nof Anjou, later by Papal investiture, King of Naples. Charged by jealous\nbarons with having wasted his master's goods, Romeo established his\ninnocence and then departed as he came, on a mule and with a pilgrim's\nstaff. From affluence he goes a-begging and this is so much like Dante's\nown case that the poet's sympathy goes out to the calumniated man, and\nhe says with touching simplicity:\n\n  \"If the world could know the heart he had\n  In begging bit by bit his livelihood,\n  Though much it laud him, it would laud him more.\"\n          (VI, 140.)\n\nJustinian's words as to the crucifixion of Christ suggest to Dante this\nquestion: Why was man's redemption effected by the death of Christ upon\nthe Cross rather than by some other mode? Investing the argumentative\npropositions of St. Thomas with poetic beauty, Dante shows that while\nGod might have freely pardoned man without exacting any satisfaction,\non the hypothesis that He had chosen to restore mankind to His favor and\nat the same time to require full satisfaction as a condition of pardon\nand deliverance, there was only one way for the accomplishment of this\nreconciliation and that was by the atonement of One who was both God and\nMan. For sin, inasmuch as it is an act against the Infinite Being,\nrequires a satisfaction of infinite value. Man being finite is incapable\nof adequately making such satisfaction. But the Word was made flesh that\nby His atonement on the Cross Mercy would be declared and Justice would\nbe satisfied.\n\n\"Your nature, when it sinned in its totality in its first seed, from\nthese dignities, even as from Paradise, was parted; nor might they be\nrecovered, if thou look right keenly, by any way save passing one or the\nother of these fords: either that God, of his sole courtesy, should have\nremitted; or that man should of himself have given satisfaction for his\nfolly. Man had not power, within his own boundaries, even to render\nsatisfaction, since he might not go in humbleness by after-obedience so\ndeep down as in disobedience he had framed to exalt himself on high; and\nthis is the cause why from the power to render satisfaction by himself\nman was shut off. Wherefore needs must God with his own ways reinstate\nman in his unmaimed life, I mean with one way or with both the two. But\nbecause the doer's deed is the more gracious the more it doth present\nus of the heart's goodness whence it issued, the divine Goodness which\ndoth stamp the world, deigned to proceed on all his ways to lift you up\nagain; nor between the last night and the first day was, nor shall be,\nso lofty and august a progress made on one or on the other, for more\ngenerous was God in giving of himself to make man able to uplift himself\nagain, than had he only of himself granted remission; and all other\nmodes fell short of justice, except the Son of God had humbled him to\nbecome flesh.\" (VII, 85.)\n\nFrom Mercury to Venus the ascent has been so rapid that Dante is unaware\nthat he has reached the third Heaven until he sees the greater\nloveliness of Beatrice represented by her greater radiance. As ascent is\nmade heavenward it will also be found that the spirits are seen not as\nhuman faces, as was the case in the Heaven of the Moon, but as lights\nincreasing in intensity and manifesting a movement of greater speed to\nthe accompaniment of diverse music. It is necessary to keep in mind this\nplan of the poet lest thinking the lovely lights, and lovely sounds and\nlovely movements are only terms descriptive of physical, though\nimpalpable phenomena, we lose the deep and beautiful symbolism that is\nthe magic secret of the seraphic poesy of the Paradiso. Of the\nbrilliancy and movement of the spirits of the Sphere of Venus--spirits\nwho in this life failed in Christian ideals because of their amours,\nDante says, and his description is that of an expert musician\ndistinguishing between the singing of one who sustains the main-theme\nand that of other voices rising and falling in subordination to the\nprincipal melody:\n\n  \"And as within a flame a spark is seen,\n  And as within a voice discerned,\n  When one is steadfast, and one comes and goes,\n  Within that light beheld I other lamps\n  Move in a circle, speeding more and less,\n  Methinks in a measure of their inward vision.\n  From a cold cloud descended never winds,\n  Or visible or not, so rapidly\n  They would not laggard and impeded seem\n  To any one who had those lights divine\n  Seen come towards us, leaving the gyration\n  Begun at first in the high Seraphim.\n  And behind those that most in front appeared\n  Sounded 'Osanna!' so that never since\n  To hear again was I without desire.\n  Then unto us more nearly one approached,\n  And it alone began: 'We all are ready\n  Unto thy pleasure, that thou joy in us.\n\n  We turn around with the celestial Princes,\n  One gyre and one gyration and one thirst,\n  To whom thou in the world didst say,\n  \"Ye who, intelligent, the third heaven are moving;\"\n  And are so full of love, to pleasure thee\n  A little quiet will not be less sweet.'\"\n          (VIII, 16.)\n\nThe speaker discloses himself to be Charles Martel, once titular King of\nHungary, who on the occasion of a nineteen days' visit to Florence,\nformed an intimate friendship with the poet. For the latter's\nedification the spirit expounds the problem: Why from the same parents,\nchildren grow up different in disposition, talent and career, a problem\njust as interesting to the twentieth as the thirteenth century. We\naccount for the difference according to the principles of variation,\nheredity and environment, but to stellar influence intent upon securing\nthe fulfillment of the law of individuality, was the difference\nattributed by the medieval mind, which regarded the stars and planets\nnot as soulless spheres, but as orbs palpitating with the life of\nangelic intelligences and radiating their influence upon the people of\nthe earth.\n\nHence it was held that the Heavens affected the diversity of the\ncharacters of children who otherwise would be cut out the exact pattern\nof their parents. \"The begotten nature would ever take a course like its\nbegetters, did not divine provision overrule.\" (VIII, 136.) The\nnecessity for diversity in man's life is deduced from the fact that in\nsociety men are providentially destined for different vocations.\n\"Wherefore is one born Solon (a legislator), another Xerxes (a soldier),\nanother Melchisedech (a priest), and the man who soaring through the\nwelkin lost his son.\" (Daedalus, the typical mechanician.) But stellar\ninfluence always controlled by man's free will is often ignored,\nespecially when we put into the sanctuary one who should be on the\nbattle field and when we gave a throne to him whose right place is in\nthe pulpit.\n\n  \"And if the world below would fix its mind\n  On the foundation which is laid by nature,\n  Pursuing that, 't would have the people good.\n  But you into religion wrench aside\n  Him who was born to gird him with the sword,\n  And make a king of him who is for sermons;\n  Therefore your footsteps wander from the road.\"\n          (VIII, 142.)\n\nThe next four spheres being beyond the earth's shadow are for spirits\nwhose virtue was undimmed by human infirmity and whose place in eternal\nlife is consequently one of greater vision and bliss. In the first of\nthese higher spheres, the Sphere of the Sun, the fourth Heaven, Dante\nsees the spirits of great theologians and others who loved wisdom--great\nteachers of men. Around him and Beatrice, as their center, twelve of\nthem appear in one circle and twelve in another, while behind those\ndazzling splendors of spirits are other vivid lights probably\nrepresenting authors whom the poet had not read or comprehended or\nsymbolizing the men of science, the lovers of wisdom, who in the future\nby their discoveries would add to our knowledge of truth. As one of the\nbasic truths of Revelation is the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, here\nin the Heaven of the Doctors the dogma is made prominent by special\nfrequency of reference and symbolism. The Creation, as an act of the\nThree Divine Persons, is mentioned in lines of exquisite grace:\n\n  \"Looking into His Son with all the Love\n  Which each of them eternally breathes forth\n  The primal and unutterable Power\n  Whate'er before the mind or eye revolves\n  With so much order made, there can be none\n  Who thus beholds, without enjoying it.\"\n          (X, 1.)\n\nNot only by thought, but by dancing, is the same truth expressed: \"those\nburning suns round about us whirled themselves three times.\" (X, 76.)\nAgain in song they proclaim the mystery of the Holy Trinity:\n\n  \"The One and Two and Three who ever liveth\n  And reigneth ever in Three and Two and One\n  Not circumscribed and all circumscribing\n  Three several times was chanted by each one\n  Among those spirits, with such melody\n  That for all merit it were just reward.\"\n          (XIV, 27.)\n\nIn this Heaven we hear the eulogy of St. Francis of Assisi pronounced\nby a Dominican and the praises of St. Dominic sung by a\nFranciscan--consummate art that is an indirect invitation to the\ntwo orders of monks upon earth to avoid jealousy and to practice mutual\nrespect. It has been said that these narratives give us the essence of\nwhat constitutes true biography, viz., a picture of the spiritual\nelement in man drawn in such words as ever to command the understanding\nand elicit the respect of the reader of every period. The first speaker\nis St. Thomas Aquinas, and his reference to the mystical marriage of St.\nFrancis and Lady Poverty will be the better understood if we have before\nthe mind's eye Giotto's painting which hangs over the tomb of the\nfounder of the Franciscans. The figures in the pictures are described\nby Gardiner (Ten Heavens, p. 113): Christ, standing upon a rock, unites\nSt. Francis to his chosen bride, who is haggard and careworn, clothed in\nragged and patched garments, barefooted and girded with a cord. Roses\nand lilies spring up behind her and encircle her head; she wears the\naureole and has wings, though weak; but thorns and briars are around her\nfeet. Hope and Love are her bridesmaids; Hope clothed in green with\nuplifted hand and Love with flame-colored flowers and holding a burning\nheart. A dog is barking at the Bride and boys are assaulting her with\nsticks and stones, but all around are bands of angelic witnesses, their\nflowing raiment and mighty wings glowing with rainbow hues. In these\ndays when money seems the ideal of thousands, Poverty, whose mystical\nappeal is so glowingly painted, still speaks to great numbers of men and\nwomen who give up material comforts and ease to embrace as monks and\nnuns the state of voluntary poverty. Let us now hear how St. Thomas\nrecounts the life and work of St. Francis of Assisi:\n\n  \"He was not yet much distant from his rising,\n  When his good influence 'gan to bless the earth.\n  A dame, to whom one openeth pleasure's gate\n  More than to death, was 'gainst his father's will,\n  His stripling choice; and he did make her his,\n  Before the spiritual court, by nuptial bonds,\n  And in his father's sight: from day to day,\n  Then loved her more devoutly. She, bereaved\n  Of her first husband, slighted and obscure,\n  Thousand and hundred years and more, remain'd\n  Without a single suitor, till he came.\n  There concord and glad looks, wonder and love,\n  And sweet regard gave birth to holy thoughts,\n  So much that venerable Bernard first\n  Did bare his feet, and, in pursuit of peace\n  So heavenly, ran, yet deem'd his footing slow.\n  O hidden riches! O prolific good!\n  Egidius bares him next, and next Sylvester,\n  And follow, both, the bridegroom: so the bride\n  Can please them. Thenceforth goes he on his way\n  The father and the master, with his spouse,\n  And with that family, whom now the cord\n  Girt humbly: nor did abjectness of heart\n  Weigh down his eyelids, for that he was son\n  Of Pietro Bernardone, and by men\n  In wondrous sort despised. But royally\n  His hard intention he to Innocent\n  Set forth; and, from him, first received the seal\n  On his religion. Then, when numerous flock'd\n  The tribe of lowly ones, that traced _his_ steps,\n  Whose marvelous life deservedly were sung\n  In heights empyreal; through Honorius' hand\n  A second crown, to deck their Guardian's virtues,\n  Was by the eternal Spirit inwreathed: and when\n  He had, through thirst of martyrdom, stood up\n  In the proud Soldan's presence, and there preach'd\n  Christ and his followers, but found the race\n  Unripen'd for conversion; back once more\n  He hasted (not to intermit his toil),\n  And reap'd Ausonian lands. On the hard rock,\n  'Twixt Arno and the Tiber, he from Christ\n  Took the last signet, which his limbs two years\n  Did carry. Then, the season come that he,\n  Who to such good had destined him, was pleased\n  To advance him to the meed, which he had earn'd\n  By his self-humbling; to his brotherhood,\n  As their just heritage, he gave in charge\n  His dearest lady: and enjoin'd their love\n  And faith to her; and, from her bosom, will'd\n  His goodly spirit should move forth, returning\n  To its appointed kingdom; nor would have\n  His body laid upon another bier.\"\n          (XI, 55.)\n\nAt the conclusion of this discourse the spirits in both circles,\narranged like the concentric circles of a double rainbow, express their\njoy by a gyrating dance and song.\n\nIf St. Francis was \"a sun upon the world,\" St. Dominic is shown by the\nnext speaker, St. Bonaventure, to be \"a splendor of cherubic delight.\"\n\"In happy Callaroga was born the passionate lover of the Christian\nfaith, the holy champion, gentle to his own, and without mercy to his\nenemies. As soon as his soul had been created it was so replete with\nenergy that, within his mother's womb, it made her a prophetess. When\nthe pledges for his baptism had been given at the sacred font, and he\nand Faith had become one, dowering each other with salvation, the lady\nwho had given assent for him, beheld in her sleep the wonderful fruit\nwhich would one day come of him, and of his heirs. He was named Dominic.\nI speak of him as the husbandman whom Christ chose to assist Him with\nHis garden. Of a truth did he seem Christ's messenger and friend, for\nthe very first inclination which he manifested was to follow the first\npercept which Christ gave. Not for the world, love of which at present\nmakes men toil, but for love of the true manna, did he, in short while,\nbecome a mighty teacher, such that he set about pruning the vineyard of\nthe church, which soon runs wild if the vinedresser be negligent.\n\n\"From the Papal chair which, in former days, was more generous to the\nrighteous poor, not because it has grown degenerate in itself, but\nbecause of the degeneracy of him who sits upon it, Dominic begged not to\nbe allowed to dispense to the poor only two or three where six was due,\nnor sought the first vacant benefice, the tithes of which belong to\nGod's poor. He begged rather for leave to fight against the erring world\nin behalf of the seed of true faith, four and twenty plants of which\nencircle you. Then, armed with doctrine and firm determination, together\nwith the sanction of the Papacy, he issued forth like a torrent from on\nhigh, and on heretics his onslaught smote with greatest force where was\nmost resistance. Afterward, from him there burst forth various streams\nby which the Catholic garden is watered so that the plants in it are\nbecoming vigorous.\" (XII, 48.)\n\nTransported into the Heaven of Mars Dante is made aware of his ascent\nthither only by the glow of the ruddy planet, so different from the\nwhite sheen of the sun. At once he beholds a spectacle far more\nmarvelous than the circles of dancing lights he has just seen. It fills\nhim with such wonder and bliss that he falls into an ecstasy and only\nafter that does he look into the eyes of Beatrice, now more lovely than\never. What is the new marvel? A starry cross traversing the sphere--a\ncross, the arms and body of which, each like a Milky Way, are made up of\ndazzling lights of the souls of those who laid down their lives for the\nFaith. On the Cross is flashed the blood red image of the Crucified,\nlikewise formed by glowing stars, the souls of Christian warriors. Not\nstationary do the splendors remain, but through the glittering mass they\ndart to and fro like motes in a sunbeam that finds its way through a\nshutter or screen. With eyes amazed the poet now hears such a wondrous\nmelody that he says: \"I was so much enamoured therewith that up to this\npoint there had not been anything which bound me with fetters of such\ndelight.\" (XIV, 128.)\n\nThe names of some of the spirits forming the Stellar Cross are made\nknown to the poet--Joshua and Judas Maccabaeus, the intrepid heroes of\nthe Old Testament, the Christian Knights, Charlemagne and Orlando the\nPaladin, William of Aquitaine and Rainouart, Godfrey de Bouillon,\nconqueror of Jerusalem, Robert Guiscard, military executor of Pope\nHildebrande.\n\nDarting along the arm of the Stellar Cross and coming to its foot is a\nsplendor who greets Dante with warm affection. This is the spirit of his\ngreat-great-grandfather, Cacciaguida, who sings the glory of ancient\nFlorence the better to describe the deterioration of the city in Dante's\nday and to censure its people for their civil feuds, corruption and\nopposition to the Imperial Eagle. Then at Dante's request the crusader\nspirit interprets for his descendant the various predictions made to the\nlatter during his passage through Hell and Purgatory. Evil days will\ncome upon him (it must be remembered that this prophecy by Cacciaguida\nis supposed to occur a year or two before Dante's exile), he will be\nexiled from Florence and will become a homeless wanderer.\n\nLet him, however, write his poem and declare his vision, no matter if\noffense will be taken by the high ones of the earth. He, having a\nprophet's work to do, must speak with all the boldness of a prophet\nwithout fear or dissimulation. The words, while assuring the poet of the\nsweetness of everlasting fame, bring to his mind, also, the bitterness\nof the injustice of his exile and suffering, and apparently he harbors\nthe thought of vengeance upon his enemies. Beatrice, however, checks his\nresentment, assuring him that she, so near to God, will assist him--a\nmost beautiful passage showing the relations between her and the poet,\nwhether the words are taken literally as exhibiting her as his\nintercessor before the throne of the Most High, or allegorically\nconsidered as declaring that Revealed Truth takes from man the desire of\nvengeance and places his case in the hands of Him who has said:\n\"Vengeance is mine, I will repay.\" For Dante's spiritual perfection his\nlovely guide bids him not simply look into her her eyes (allegorically\nmeaning not merely to contemplate theological truth) but follow the\nexample of men sturdy of faith and valiant of deed. The passage here\nfollows:\n\n  \"Now was alone rejoicing in its word\n  That soul beatified, and I was tasting\n  My own, the bitter tempering with the sweet,\n  And the Lady who to God was leading me\n  Said: 'Change thy thought; consider that I am\n  Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens.'\n  Unto the loving accents of my comfort\n  I turned me round, and then what love I saw\n  Within those holy eyes I here relinquish\n  Not only that my language I distrust,\n  But that my mind cannot return so far\n  Above itself, unless another guide it.\n  Thus much upon that point can I repeat.\n  That, her again beholding, my affection\n  From every other longing was released.\n  While the eternal pleasure, which direct\n  Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face\n  Contented me with its reflected aspect,\n  Conquering me with the radiance of a smile\n  She said to me, 'Turn thee about and listen;\n  Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise.\n  Here are blessed spirits that below, ere yet\n  They came to Heaven, were of such great renown\n  That every Muse therewith would affluent be\n  Therefore look thou upon the cross' horns.'\"\n           (XVIII, 4.)\n\nNow rising to Jupiter, where appear the spirits of those who upon earth\nin a signal manner loved and rightly administered justice, Dante is\nagain made aware of his uplifting by the increased beauty of Beatrice,\nby the new light different from that of ruddy Mars, which envelopes him\nand by the perception of his own increase of virtue and power. Here the\npoet has recourse to a most ingenious system of symbols to give variety\nto his descriptions and doctrine, and so to sustain the interest of the\nreader. Many hundreds of the souls of the just appear as golden lights\nand so group themselves as to spell against the glowing white background\nof the light of the planet, the maxim from the Book of Wisdom:\n\"_Diligite justitiam qui judicatis terram_\" (Love justice ye who judge\nthe earth.) Then fade away all the letters except the last one, the M of\nterram, M, symbol of Monarchy, and that M stands out in general outline\nsomewhat like the Florentine lily, the armorial sign of Florence. And\nnow other golden lights come from the Empyrean and transform the M into\nthe figure of an eagle, the bird of Jove, with outstretched wings. But\nthe marvel is only partly revealed, for soon the Eagle speaks and its\nvoice, though made up of a thousand voices of the Just, comes forth a\nsingle sound, like a single heat that comes from many brands or the one\nodor that is exhaled from many flowers.\n\nWhat a startling spectacle it must have been to the mind of the\nthirteenth century, used to candles as the ordinary means of\nillumination, to have visualized before it the blessed spirits in the\nlight of Heaven, dancing, whirling, circling in perfect harmony and\nmaking more formal designs to express their bliss by the rapidity of\ntheir rhythmical movements! Even though exquisitely quaint as the\npicture may appear to us, it has been executed so reverently that\ncriticism has rarely if ever attacked this conception of our poet. With\nlight as his principal material to make known to us the joys of Heaven,\nhe has to paint everything in high light, using no shadows and he solves\nhis artistic problem by the variety of his \"splendors\" and by the deep\nsymbolism of their action. His nine Heavens are not meant to be a\npicture true to reality of what the Souls in Heaven are doing. These\nnine Heavens, as we said before, are only myths to which from the\nEmpyrean come forth the Elect in condescension to Dante's sense-bound\nfaculties, in order to symbolize certain truths. So in this sixth sphere\nthe poet would teach us that the Heaven of Jupiter represents justice on\nearth and on the screen of this sphere he would put forth by means of\nthe Imperial Eagle the arguments he has already advanced in his\nMonarchia that the Roman Empire is divine in its origin--that only from\nsuch an institution can human justice proceed from civil government. He\nrepresents unity coming from the Roman Empire by his showing to us the\nunison with which all the splendors of the Eagle speak in a voice\nblended as one sound--clearly also an allegory for the Guelf forces to\nbecome an integral part of the Universal Monarchy.\n\nJustice is the quality which this Heaven symbolizes and the Eagle reads\nin Dante's mind a doubt against the operation of justice and proceeds to\ndispel it.\n\n  \"For saidst thou: 'Born a man is on the shore\n  Of Indus, and is none who there can speak\n  Of Christ, nor who can read, nor who can write;\n  And all his inclinations and his actions\n  Are good, so far as human reason sees,\n  Without a sin in life or in discourse:\n  He dieth unbaptized and without faith;\n  Where is this justice that condemneth him?\n  Where is his fault, if he do not believe?'\"\n           (XIX, 70.)\n\nThe question is answered both directly and indirectly. The exclusion of\nthe virtuous pagan from Heaven is assumed to be an act of injustice \"but\nwho art thou who wouldst set upon the seat to judge at a thousand miles\naway with the short sight that carries but a span?\" (XIX, 79.) As our\nvery idea of justice comes from God all just and all wise, that thought\nought to assure us that not even the virtuous heathen will be excluded\nfrom Heaven. Faith indeed is required for salvation, but many having\nfaith will be condemned, while many seemingly without it will be\nadmitted into Heaven.\n\n  \"But look thou, many crying are, 'Christ, Christ'!\n  Who at the judgment will be far less near\n  To him than some shall be who knew not Christ.\n  Such Christians shall the Ethiop condemn\n  When the two companies shall be divided,\n  The one forever rich, the other poor.\"\n           (XIX, 106.)\n\nThe indirect answer to Dante's objection as to the exclusion of the\nvirtuous heathen from Heaven is given by the poet speaking through the\nbeak of the Eagle and showing in this Heaven as one of the lights of the\nEagle itself, the soul of Rhipeus mentioned by AEneas \"as above all\nothers the most just among the Trojans and the strictest observer of\nright.\" \"So now,\" says Benvenuto, the fourteenth century lecturer on\nDante, \"our author fitly introduces a pagan infidel in the person of\nRhipeus, of whose salvation there would seem the very slightest chance\nof all; by reason of the time, so many centuries before the advent of\nChrist; by reason of the place, for he was of Troy where exceeding pride\nwas then paramount; by reason of the sect, for he was a pagan and\ngentile, not a Jew. Briefly then our author wishes us to gather from\nthis fiction--this conclusion,--that even such a pagan of whose\nsalvation no one hoped, is capable of salvation.\"\n\nIn the Heaven of Saturn, Beatrice tells the poet that she does not smile\nout of regard for his human vision not powerful enough to sustain her\nexcess of beauty. The lovely symphonies of Paradise are also silent for\nthe same reason. This in effect is a poetical way of saying that the\nbliss and glory in Saturn are greater than any beatitude in the lower\nspheres.\n\nThis seventh Heaven is the Heaven where appear saints distinguished for\ncontemplation, the principle representatives being St. Peter Damian and\nSt. Benedict. The latter wrote a treatise in which he likened the rule\nof his order to a ladder having twelve rungs by means of which the\nmystic might mount to Heaven. The second rung in that ladder is silence.\nIf Dante was familiar with the Benedictine treatise, the significance of\nsilence in Saturn is at once suggested. The figure of a ladder is a very\ncommon one in mystical theology, which borrows the conception from the\nexperience of Jacob (Gen. XXVIII, 12). \"And he saw in his sleep a ladder\nstanding upon the earth and the top thereof touching heaven, the angels\nalso of God ascending and descending.\" To symbolize the truth that\nHeaven is to be reached through the Church by means of the contemplation\nof eternal things Dante now shows us the Golden Ladder, down which gleam\nso many radiant spirits that it seems as if all the stars of Heaven are\napproaching.\n\n  \"Colored like gold, on which the sunshine gleams,\n  A stairway I beheld to such a height\n  Uplifted, that mine eye pursued it not.\n  Likewise beheld I down the steps descending\n  So many splendors, that I thought each light\n  That in the heaven appears was there diffused.\"\n          (XXI, 28.)\n\nIn the Heaven of the Fixed Stars the triumph of Christ gladdens the\nwondering eyes of the poet:\n\n\"Behold the hosts of Christ's triumphal march and all the fruit\nharvested by the rolling of these spheres.\"\n\nAt these words of Beatrice Dante turns and beholds all the saints seen\nin the other spheres and many other spirits gathered round the God-man\nto praise Him for the Redemption and Atonement. Christ here reveals\nHimself in the form of a gorgeous Sun surrounded by those countless\nspirits, appearing as lights or flowers. Apparently the poet gets just\na momentary glimpse of the glorified humanity of the Saviour. The direct\nrays of the divine splendor cannot long be endured, so, in condescension\nto Dante's weakness of vision, a cloudy screen permits the poet to\nsustain the Vision now irradiating its light on the living, spiritual\nflowers.\n\n  \"Saw I, above the myriad of lamps,\n  A sun that one and all of them enkindled,\n  E'en as our own doth the supernal sights,\n  And through the living light transparent shone\n  The lucent substance so intensely clear\n  Into my sight, that I sustained it not.\n  'O Beatrice, thou gentle guide and dear!'\n  To me she said: 'What overmasters thee\n  A virtue is from which naught shields itself.\n  There are the wisdom and the omnipotence\n  That ope the thoroughfares 'twixt heaven and earth\n  For which there erst had been so long a yearning.'\"\n          (XXIII, 28.)\n\nAfter Christ withdraws to the Empyrean the poet finds that he has been\nso much strengthened and enlightened by the Vision that increased power\nof sight is given to him again to behold the smile of his guide. She\nsays to him:\n\n  \"Open thine eyes and look at what I am\n  Thou has beheld such things, that strong enough\n  Hast thou become to tolerate my smile.\"\n           (XXIII, 46.)\n\nHe continues in ecstasy to gaze upon her surpassing beauty until she\nbids him look upon the \"meadow of flowers,\" the angels and saints:\n\n  \"Why doth my face so much enamor thee,\n  That to the garden fair thou turnest not,\n  Which under the rays of Christ is blossoming?\n  There is the Rose in which the Word Divine\n  Became incarnate; there the lilies are\n  By whose perfume the good way was discovered.\"\n          (XXIII, 70.)\n\nThe lilies are the apostles, the Rose the Blessed Virgin Mary. \"Mary,\"\nsays Cardinal Newman, \"is the most beautiful flower that ever was seen\nin the spiritual world. She is the Queen of spiritual flowers and\ntherefore she is called Rose, for the rose is fitly called of all\nflowers that most beautiful.\" Dante says: \"The name of the fair flower\nthat I e'er invoke morning and night utterly enthralled my soul to gaze\nupon the greater fire.\" Now with joy the poet sees the coronation by the\nspirits of Mary, Mystical Rose, and then his eyes follow her as she\nmounts to the Empyrean in the wake of her divine Son while the gleaming\nsaints sing her praises in the _Regina Coeli_.\n\nThe eight Heavens through which the poet has come, have been so many\nstages of preparation for the final vision of Paradise. His eyes have\nbeen gradually gaining strength by gazing upon miracles of light and\nbeauty and by seeing truth embodied in many representative forms to fit\nhim finally to see God in His Essence. Before that consummation,\nhowever, one more preparatory vision is necessary. The poet must first\nsee the symbolic image of God. \"What!\" you may exclaim, \"will Dante be\naudacious enough to attempt to picture the Invisible Himself? Granted\nthat 'he is all wings and pure imagination' can he hope to image the\nIncomprehensible Being 'who only hath immortality and inhabiteth light\ninaccessible, whom no man hath seen nor can see?' (I Tim. VI, 16). Will\nhe not defeat his purpose by employing a symbol circumscribing Him who\nis beyond circumscription?\" But the genius of Dante does not fail him in\nhis daring undertaking, and this is the more remarkable because instead\nof selecting as a symbol something infinitely large, he choses something\natomically small. In the ninth Heaven surrounded by the nine orders of\npure spirits God is represented \"as an indivisible atomic Point\nradiating light and symbolizing the unity of the Divinity as a fitting\nprelude to the more intimate vision of the Blessed Trinity which will be\nvouchsafed in the Empyrean.\" \"A Point I saw that darted light so sharp\nno lid unclosing may bear up against its keenness. On that Point depend\nthe heavens and the whole of nature\" (XXXVIII, 16).\n\nOn the appropriateness of this symbol Ozanam makes this interesting\ncomment: \"God reveals Himself as necessarily indivisible and\nconsequently incapable of having ascribed to Him the abstraction of\nquantity and quality by which we know creatures: indefinable, because\nevery definition is an analysis which decomposes the subject defined;\nincomparable because there are no terms to institute a comparison; so\nthat one may say, giving the words an oblique meaning, that He is\ninfinitely little, that He is nothing. But on the other hand, that which\nis without extension, moves without resistance; that which is not to be\ngrasped, cannot be contained; that which can be enclosed within no\nlimits, either actual or logical is by that very fact limitless. The\ninfinitely little is then also the infinitely great and we may say that\nit is all.\" The indivisible atomic Point of intensest light as a symbol\nof God is indeed a sublime conception of faith and genius that appeals\nequally to the child, the philosopher and the mystic.\n\nThe supreme thing still necessary for the consummation of Dante's\npilgrimage is the Beatific Vision of God. That occurs in the Empyrean\nwhere symbol gives way to reality, where the Elect are seen no longer in\nforms veiled in light but in the glorified semblance of their earthly\nbodies, where contemplation gives direct vision of God in His essence.\nHow will the poet, while still in the flesh, endure this vision of the\nInfinite, Incomprehensible Eternal God? Prepared as he has been by the\nexperiences of the nine Heavens, he has still further need of\nsupernatural assistance. That is now given to him by means of a flash\nwrapping him in a garment of light, which blinds him and then\nilluminates his sight and intellect and enables him to see a more\ncomplete foreshadowing of truth dissolving into Divine Wisdom.\n\nThe spectacle he now beholds, perhaps suggested to the poet by the\npassage from the Apocalypse (XXII, 1). \"And he showed me a river of\nwater of life, clear as crystal proceeding from the throne of God and of\nthe Lamb,\"--the spectacle which now presents itself is that of a river\nof light flowing between two banks of flowers and vivid with darting\nsparks. The river represents illuminating grace, the sparks angels, the\nflowers saints. This river of light wherein are reflected the Elect, as\nverdure and flowers on a hillside are mirrored in a limpid stream at\nits foot, is poetically represented as having the effect of a\nsacrament. It bestows grace and that grace called _lumen gloriae_, light\nof glory, endowing the soul with a faculty beyond its natural needs or\nmerits, so disposes the soul that it becomes deiform and is rendered\ncapable of immediate intuition of the Divine Essence.\n\n  \"There is a light above, which visible\n  Makes the Creator unto every creature\n  Who only in beholding Him, has peace.\"\n          (XXX, 100.)\n\nBeatrice tells Dante that he must drink his fill of the stupendous\nsplendor by gazing intently on the river of pure light, so that he may\nbe able to contemplate the whole unveiled glory and then see God\ndirectly.\n\nAs Dante gazes on the illuminating stream it undergoes a marvelous\ntransformation, taking the form of a Rose the center of which is a sea\nof radiance.\n\n  \"And even as the penthouse of mine eyelids\n  Drank of it, it forthwith appeared to me\n  Out of its length to be transformed to round.\n  Then as a folk who have been under masks\n  Seem other than before, if they divest\n  The semblance not their own they disappeared in,\n  Thus into greater pomp were changed for me\n  The flowerets and the sparks, so that I saw\n  Both of the Courts of Heaven made manifest.\"\n          (XXX, 87.)\n\nThe two courts of Heaven, angels and saints, are made manifest in the\nRose which spreads out like a vast amphitheatre the lowest circle of\nwhich is wider than the circumference of the sun. Above the center of\nthe Rose as the Point of light, is God in all His glory and love, adored\nin blissful raptures by the saints who form the petals of the heavenly\nflower. Angels with faces aflame, in white garments and with golden\nwings fly down to the petals as bees to flowers, bringing God's\nblessings to the saints and fly back to God as bees to their hive,\ncarrying the adoration of the Elect.\n\nBeatrice leads the poet into the center of the Heavenly Rose.\n\n  \"Into the yellow of the Rose Eternal\n  That spreads, and multiplies, and breathes an odor\n  Of praise unto the ever-vernal Sun,\n  As one who silent is and fain would speak,\n  Me Beatrice drew on, and said: 'Behold\n  Of the white stoles how vast the convent is!\n  Behold how vast the circuit of our city!\n  Behold our seats so filled to overflowing,\n  That here henceforward are few people wanting!'\"\n                                 (XXX, 124.)\n\nWhile Dante gazes on the supernatural spectacle Beatrice slips away to\ntake her place the third seat below the throne of the Blessed Virgin. As\nhis guide she has led him to the highest Heaven and has instructed him\nin all that concerns God and His attributes. Her mission as Revelation\nor Divine Science being finished, she withdraws and sends St. Bernard to\nbring the poet into intimate union with the Godhead.\n\n  \"The general form of Paradise already\n  My glance had comprehended as a whole,\n  In no part hitherto remaining fixed,\n  And round I turned me with rekindled wish\n  My lady to interrogate of things\n  Concerning which my mind was in suspense.\n  One thing I meant, another answered me;\n  I thought I should see Beatrice, and saw\n  An Old Man habited like the glorious people.\n  O'er flowing was he in his eyes and cheeks\n  With joy benign, in attitude of pity\n  As to a tender father is becoming.\n  And 'She, where is she?' instantly I said;\n  Whence he: 'To put an end to thy desire,\n  Me Beatrice hath sent from mine own place.\n  And if thou lookest up to the third round\n  Of the first rank, again shalt thou behold her\n  Upon the throne her merits have assigned her.'\n  Without reply I lifted up mine eyes,\n  And saw her, as she made herself a crown\n  Reflecting from herself the eternal rays.\n  Not from that region which the highest thunders\n  Is any mortal eye so far removed,\n  In whatsoever sea it deepest sinks,\n  As there from Beatrice my sight; but this\n  Was nothing unto me; because her image\n  Descended not to me by medium blurred.\"\n          (XXXI, 52.)\n\nSt. Bernard, the mystic, celebrating the Blessed Virgin's praises in a\nmarvelous outburst of song, unsurpassed for lyrical beauty, beseeches\nher intercession that Dante may see God face to face.\n\n  \"Now doth this man, who from the lowest depth\n  Of the universe as far as here has seen\n  One after one the spiritual lives,\n  Supplicate thee through grace for so much power\n  That with his eyes he may uplift himself\n  Higher towards the uttermost salvation.\n  And I, who never burned for my own seeing\n  More than I do for his, all of my prayers\n  Proffer to thee, and pray they come not short,\n  That thou wouldst scatter from him every cloud\n  Of his mortality so with thy prayers,\n  That the Chief Pleasure be to him displayed.\n  Still farther do I pray thee, Queen, who canst\n  Whate'er thou wilt, that sound thou mayst preserve\n  After so great a vision his affections.\n  Let thy protection conquer human movements;\n  See Beatrice and all the blessed ones\n  My prayers to second clasp their hands to thee!\n  The eyes beloved and revered of God,\n  Fastened upon the speaker, showed to us\n  How grateful unto her are prayers devout;\n  Then unto the Eternal Light they turned,\n  On which it is not credible could be\n  By any creature bent an eye so clear.\"\n                           (XXXIII, 22.)\n\nThe prayer is granted. \"My vision becoming undimmed, more and more\nentered the beam of light which in itself is Truth.\" (XXXIII, 52.) The\nveil is removed. He gazes into the limitless depths of the Divinity. He\nenjoys the Beatific Vision.\n\nFirst he sees by immediate intuition the Divine Essence in its creative\npower, the examplar of all substances, modes and accidents united in\nharmony and love; then he beholds the Creator Himself and all the\ndivine perfections and all the eternal plans of God. Clear to the poet\nnow is the truth of the mystery of the Blessed Trinity unveiled in\ncircles of light like rainbows of green, white and red of equal\ncircumference, the Second being as it were the splendor of the First and\nthe Third emanating from the two others. Unravelled also is the mystery\nof the two natures human and divine, in the divine person of Christ seen\nin human form in the second luminous circle. But the Vision is so far\nabove the poet's memory to retain or his speech to express that he\ncannot find words to make intelligible the splendor he beholds or the\nrapture he experiences.\n\n\"Oh grace abounding, wherein I presumed to fix my look on the eternal\nlight so long that I consumed my sight thereon! Within its depths I saw\ningathered, bound by love in one volume, the scattered leaves of all the\nuniverse; substance and accidents and their relations, as though\ntogether fused, after such fashion that what I tell of is one simple\nflame.\n\n\"In the profound and shining being of the deep light appeared to me\nthree circles, of three colours and one magnitude; one by the second as\nIris by Iris seemed reflected, and the third seemed a fire breathed\nequally from one and from the other. Oh, but how scant the utterance,\nand how faint, to my conceit! and it, to what I saw, is such that it\nsufficeth not to call it little. O light eternal who only in thyself\nabidest, only thyself dost understand, and to thyself, self-understood,\nself-understanding, turnest love and smiling! That circling which\nappeared in thee to be conceived as a reflected light, by mine eyes\nscanned some little, in itself, of its own colour, seemed to be painted\nwith our effigy, and thereat my sight was all committed to it.\n\n\"To the high fantasy here power failed; but already my desire and will\nwere rolled--even as a wheel that moveth equally--by the Love that moves\nthe sun and the other stars.\" (XXXIII, 82.)","title":"Dante: \"The Central Man of All the World\": A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":60614}