Among My Books Volume Ii Part 4

"Io non piangeva, si dentro impietrai."[259]

His is always the true coin of speech,

"Si lucida e si tonda Che nel suo conio nulla ci s'inforsa,"

and never the highly ornamented promise to pay, token of insolvency.

No doubt it is primarily by his poetic qualities that a poet must be judged, for it is by these, if by anything, that he is to maintain his place in literature. And he must be judged by them absolutely, with reference, that is, to the highest standard, and not relatively to the fashions and opportunities of the age in which he lived. Yet these considerations must fairly enter into our decision of another side of the question, and one that has much to do with the true quality of the man, with his character as distinguished from his talent, and therefore with how much he will influence men as well as delight them. We may reckon up pretty exactly a man's advantages and defects as an artist; these he has in common with others, and they are to be measured by a recognized standard; but there is something in his _genius_ that is incalculable. It would be hard to define the causes of the difference of impression made upon us respectively by two such men as Aeschylus and Euripides, but we feel profoundly that the latter, though in some respects a better dramatist, was an infinitely lighter weight. Aeschylus stirs something in us far deeper than the sources of mere pleasurable excitement. The man behind the verse is far greater than the verse itself, and the impulse he gives to what is deepest and most sacred in us, though we cannot always explain it, is none the less real and lasting. Some men always seem to remain outside their work; others make their individuality felt in every part of it; their very life vibrates in every verse, and we do not wonder that it has "made them lean for many years." The virtue that has gone out of them abides in what they do. The book such a man makes is indeed, as Milton called it, "the precious lifeblood of a master spirit." Theirs is a true immortality, for it is their soul, and not their talent, that survives in their work. Dante's concise forthrightness of phrase, which to that of most other poets is as a stab[260] to a blow with a cudgel, the vigor of his thought, the beauty of his images, the refinement of his conception of spiritual things, are marvellous if we compare him with his age and its best achievement. But it is for his power of inspiring and sustaining, it is because they find in him a spur to n.o.ble aims, a secure refuge in that defeat which the present always seems, that they prize Dante who know and love him best. He is not merely a great poet, but an influence, part of the soul's resources in time of trouble. From him she learns that, "married to the truth, she is a mistress, but otherwise a slave shut out of all liberty."[261]

All great poets have their message to deliver us, from something higher than they. We venture on no unworthy comparison between him who reveals to us the beauty of this world's love and the grandeur of this world's pa.s.sion and him who shows that love of G.o.d is the fruit whereof all other loves are but the beautiful and fleeting blossom, that the pa.s.sions are yet sublimer objects of contemplation, when, subdued by the will, they become patience in suffering and perseverance in the upward path. But we cannot help thinking that if Shakespeare be the most comprehensive intellect, so Dante is the highest spiritual nature that has expressed itself in rhythmical form. Had he merely made us feel how petty the ambitions, sorrows, and vexations of earth appear when looked down on from the heights of our own character and the seclusion of our own genius, or from the region where we commune with G.o.d, he had done much:

"I with my sight returned through one and all The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe Such that I smiled at its ign.o.ble semblance."[262]

But he has done far more; he has shown us the way by which that country far beyond the stars may be reached, may become the habitual dwelling-place and fortress of our nature, instead of being the object of its vague aspiration in moments of indolence. At the Round Table of King Arthur there was left always one seat empty for him who should accomplish the adventure of the Holy Grail. It was called the perilous seat because of the dangers he must encounter who would win it. In the company of the epic poets there was a place left for whoever should embody the Christian idea of a triumphant life, outwardly all defeat, inwardly victorious, who should make us partakers of that cup of sorrow in which all are communicants with Christ. He who should do this would indeed achieve the perilous seat, for he must combine poesy with doctrine in such cunning wise that the one lose not its beauty nor the other its severity,--and Dante has done it. As he takes possession of it we seem to hear the cry he himself heard when Virgil rejoined the company of great singers,

"All honor to the loftiest of poets!"

Footnotes:

[1] The Shadow of Dante, being an Essay towards studying Himself, his World, and his Pilgrimage. By Maria Francesca Rossetti.

"Se Dio te lasci, lettor prender frutto Di tua lezione."

Boston: Roberts Brothers. 1872. 8vo. pp. 296.

[2] The Florentines should seem to have invented or re-invented banks, book-keeping by double entry, and bills of exchange. The last, by endowing Value with the gift of fern seed and enabling it to walk invisible, turned the flank of the baronial tariff-system and made the roads safe for the great liberalizer Commerce. This made Money omnipresent, and prepared the way for its present omnipotence.

Fortunately it cannot usurp the third attribute of Deity,--omniscience. But whatever the consequences, this Florentine invention was at first nothing but admirable, securing to brain its legitimate influence over brawn. The latter has begun its revolt, but whether it will succeed better in its attempt to restore mediaeval methods, than the barons in maintaining them remains to be seen.

[3] Ghiberti's designs have been criticised by a too systematic aestheticism, as confounding the limits of sculpture and painting.

But is not the _riliero_ precisely the bridge by which the one art pa.s.ses over into the territory of the other?

[4] Inferno, IV. 102.

[5] The Nouvelle Biographie Generale gives May 8 as his birthday.

This is a mere a.s.sumption, for Boccaccio only says generally May. The indication which Dante himself gives that he was born when the sun was in Gemini would give a range from about the middle of May to about the middle of June, so that the 8th is certainly too early.

[6] Secolo di Dante, Udine edition of 1828, Vol. III. Part I. p.578.

[7] Arrivabene, however, is wrong. Boccaccio makes precisely the same reckoning in the first note of his Commentary (Bocc. Comento, etc., Firenze, 1844, Vol. I. pp. 32, 33).

[8] Dict. Phil., art. _Dante_.

[9] Paradise, XXII.

[10] Canto XV.

[11] Purgatorio, XVI.

[12] Though he himself preferred French, and wrote his _Tresor_ in that language for two reasons, _"l'una perche noi siamo in Francia, e l'altra perche, la parlatura francesca e piu dilettevolee piu comune che tutti li altri linguaggi_." (_Proemio, sul fine_.)

[13] Inferno, Canto VII.

[14] Paradiso, Canto X.

[15] See especially Inferno, IX. 112 et seq.; XII. 120; XV. 4 et seq.; x.x.xII. 25-30.

[16] Vit. Nuov. p. 61, ed. Pesaro, 1829.

[17] Tratt. III. Cap. XI.

[18] Letter of Dante, now lost, cited by Aretino.

[19] Inferno, XXI. 94.

[20] Balbo, Vita di Dante, Firenze, 1853, p. 117.

[21] Life and Times of Dante, London, 1858, p. 80.

[22] Notes to Spenser's "Shepherd's Calendar."

[23] See the story at length in Balbo, Vita di Dante, Cap. X.