Among My Books Volume Ii Part 9

[145] Convito, Tr. II. c. 14, 15.

[146] Convito, Tr. II. c. 4. Compare Paradiso, I. 76, 77.

[147] "Vain babblings and oppositions of science falsely so called."

1 Tim. vi. 20.

[148] That is, no partial truth.

[149] Paradise, IV. 124-132.

[150] "Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."--Judges xiv. 14.

[151] Purgatorio, III. 34-44. The allusions in this pa.s.sage are all to sayings of Saint Paul, of whom Dante was plainly a loving reader.

"Remain contented at the _Quia_," that is, be satisfied with knowing _that_ things are, without inquiring too nicely _how_ or _why_. "Being justified by faith we have peace with G.o.d" (Rom. v. 1).

_Infinita via_: "O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of G.o.d! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out!" (Rom. xi. 93) _Aristotle and Plato_: "For the wrath of G.o.d is revealed from heaven against all unG.o.dliness and unrighteousness of men who hold the truth in unrighteousness.... For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and G.o.dhead, so _that they are without excuse_. Because that when they knew G.o.d, they glorified him not as G.o.d, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened" (Rom. i. 18-21). He refers to the Greeks. The Epistle to the Romans, by the way, would naturally be Dante's favorite. As Saint Paul made the Law, so he would make Science, "our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith" (Gal. iii. 24). He puts Aristotle and Plato in his Inferno, because they did not "adore G.o.d duly" (Inferno, IV. 38), that is, they "held the truth in unrighteousness." Yet he calls Aristotle "the master and guide of human reason" (Convito, Tr. IV. c. 6), and Plato "a most excellent man" (Convito, Tr. II. c 5). Plato and Aristotle, like all Dante's figures, are types. We must disengage our thought from the individual, and fix on the genus.

[152] It is to be remembered that Dante has typified the same thing when he describes how Reason (Virgil) first carries him down by clinging to the fell of Satan, and then in the same way upwards again _a riveder le stelle_. Satan is the symbol of materialism, fixed at the point

"To which things heavy draw from every side";

as G.o.d is Light and Warmth, so is he "cold obstruction"; the very effort which he makes to rise by the motion of his wings begets the chilly blast that freezes him more immovably in his place of doom.

The danger of all science save the highest (theology) was that it led to materialism There appears to have been a great deal of it in Florence in the time of Dante. Its followers called themselves Epicureans, and burn in living tombs (Inferno, X.). Dante held them in special horror. "Of all b.e.s.t.i.a.lities that is the most foolish and vile and hurtful which believes there is no other life after this."

"And I so believe, so affirm, and so am certain that we pa.s.s to another better life after this" (Convito, Tr. II. c. 9). It is a fine divination of Carlyle from the _Non han speranza di morte_ that "one day it had risen sternly benign in the scathed heart of Dante that he, wretched, never resting, worn as he was, would [should] full surely _die_."

[153] Purgatorio, x.x.xI. 103.

[154] Inferno, x.x.xI. 5, 6.

[155] Tr. IV. c. 28.

[156] Inferno, XXV. 64-67.

[157] Purgatorio, x.x.xI. 123-126.

[158] Spenser, who had, like Dante, a Platonizing side, and who was probably the first English poet since Chaucer that had read the Commedia, has imitated the pictorial part of these pa.s.sages in the "Faerie Queene" (B. VI. c. 10). He has turned it into a compliment, and a very beautiful one, to a living mistress. It is instructive to compare the effect of his purely sensuous verses with that of Dante's, which have such a wonderful reach behind them. They are singularly pleasing, but they do not stay by us as those of his model had done by him. Spenser was, as Milton called him, a "sage and serious poet"; he would be the last to take offence if we draw from him a moral not without its use now that Priapus is trying to persuade us that pose and drapery will make him as good as Urania.

Better far the naked nastiness; the more covert the indecency, the more it shocks. Poor old G.o.d of gardens! Innocent as a clownish symbol, he is simply disgusting as an ideal of art. In the last century, they set him up in Beatrice recalls her Germany and in France as befitting an era of enlightenment, the light of which came too manifestly from the wrong quarter to be long endurable.

[159] This touch of nature recalls another. The Italians claim humor for Dante. We have never been able to find it, unless it be in that pa.s.sage (Inferno, XV. 119) where Brunetto Latini lingers under the burning shower to recommend his Tesoro to his former pupil. There is a comical touch of nature in an author's solicitude for his little work, not, as in Fielding's case, after _its_, but his own d.a.m.nation.

We are not sure, but we fancy we catch the momentary flicker of a smile across those serious eyes of Dante's. There is something like humor in the opening verses of the XVI. Paradiso, where Dante tells us how even in heaven he could not help glorying in being gently born,--he who had devoted a Canzone and a book of the Convito to proving that n.o.bility consisted wholly in virtue. But there is, after all, something touchingly natural in the feeling. Dante, unjustly robbed of his property, and with it of the independence so dear to him, seeing

"Needy nothings trimmed in jollity, And captive Good attending Captain Ill,"

would naturally fall back on a distinction which money could neither buy nor replace. There is a curious pa.s.sage in the Convito which shows how bitterly he resented his undeserved poverty. He tells us that buried treasure commonly revealed itself to the bad rather than the good. "Verily I saw the place on the flanks of a mountain in Tuscany called Falterona, where the basest peasant of the whole countryside digging found there more than a bushel of pieces of the finest silver, which perhaps had awaited him more than a thousand years." (Tr. IV. c. 11.) One can see the grimness of his face as he looked and thought, "how salt a savor hath the bread of others!"

[160] L'Envoi of Canzone XIV. of the Canzoniere, I. of the Convito.

Dante cites the first verse of this Canzone, Paradiso, VIII. 37.

[161] How Dante himself could allegorize even historical personages may be seen in a curious pa.s.sage of the Convito (Tr. IV. c. 28), where, commenting on a pa.s.sage of Lucan, he treats Martia and Cato as mere figures of speech.

[162] II. of the Canzoniere. See Fraticelli's preface.

[163] Don Quixote, P. II. c. VIII.

[164] De vulgari Eloquio, L. II. c. 2. He says the same of Giraud de Borneil, many of whose poems are moral and even devotional. See, particularly, "Al honor Dieu torn en mon chan" (Raynouard, Lex Rom I.

388), "Ben es dregz pos en aital port" (Ib. 393), "Jois sia comensamens" (Ib. 395), and "Be veg e conosc e say" (Ib. 398).

Another of his poems ("Ar ai grant joy," Raynouard, Choix, III. 304) may _possibly_ be a mystical profession of love for the Blessed Virgin, for whom, as Dante tells us, Beatrice had a special devotion.

[165] Convito, Tr. III. c. 14. In the same chapter is perhaps an explanation of the two rather difficult verses which follow that in which the _verace speglio_ is spoken of (Paradise, XXVI. 107, 108).

"Che fa di se pareglie l' altre cose E nulla face lui di se pareglio."

Buti's comment is, "that is, makes of itself a receptacle to other things, that is, to all things that exist, which are all seen in it."

Dante says (_ubi supra_), "The descending of the virtue of one thing into another is a reducing that other into a likeness of itself....

Whence we see that the sun sending his ray down hitherward reduces things to a likeness with his light in so far as they are able by their disposition to receive light from his power. So I say that G.o.d reduces this love to a likeness with himself as much as it is possible for it to be like him." In Provencal _pareilh_ means _like_, and Dante may have formed his word from it. But the four earliest printed texts read:--

"Che fa di se pareglio all' altre cose."

Accordingly we are inclined to think that the next verse should be corrected thus:--

"E nulla face a lui di se pareglio."

We would form _pareglio_ from _parere_ (a something in which things _appear_), as _miraglio_ from _mirare_ (a something in which they are _seen_). G.o.d contains all things in himself, but nothing can wholly contain him. The blessed behold all things in him as if reflected, but not one of the things so reflected is capable of his image in its completeness. This interpretation is confirmed by Paradiso, XIX.

49-51.

"E quinci appar _ch' ogni minor natura e corto recettacolo a quel bene Che non ha fine_, e se con se misura."

[166] "Wisdom of Solomon," VII. 26, quoted by Dante (Convito, Tr.