Dante: His Times and His Work Part 4

The next canto (xxviii.) introduces us to one of Dante's most ghastly conceptions. The ninth pit is peopled by those who have on earth caused strife and divisions among mankind. They are not, as often stated, schismatics in the technical sense of the word. Mahommed and Ali are there, obviously not on religious grounds however, but as having brought about a great breach between divisions of the human race; and though Fra Dolcino, who is introduced as it were by antic.i.p.ation, was a religious schismatic, it was no doubt his social heterodoxy which earned him a commemoration in this place. The punishment of these sinners is appropriate. They are constantly being slashed to pieces by demons; the wounds being closed again before they complete the circuit. Curio, who as Lucan narrates, spoke the words which finally decided Caesar to enter upon civil war, Mosca de' Lamberti, the instigator of the crime which first imported especial bitterness into the strife of factions at Florence, and one Peter of Medicina, who seems to have devoted himself to keeping party-spirit alive in Romagna, are here. Last of all, carrying his own head like a lantern, is Bertrand of Born, the famous troubadour, who is charged with having promoted the quarrel between Henry II. of England and his son. It is worth noting that at this point we get the first definite indication of the dimensions which Dante a.s.sumes for the present division of h.e.l.l. We are told that this ninth pit of Malebolge has a circ.u.mference of twenty-two miles. From the next canto we learn that the last or innermost pit has half this measure; and from this basis it has been found possible to draw an accurate plan of Malebolge, and to conjecture, with an approach to certainty, the conception formed by Dante of h.e.l.l generally.[31]

In the last pit (Cantos xxix. and x.x.x.) are found those who have been guilty of personation with criminal intent, or of bearing false witness, or of debasing the coinage or pretending to trans.m.u.te metals. These suffer from leprosy, dropsy, raving madness, and other diseases. Before leaving the pit, a quarrel between two of the sinners attracts Dante's attention more than Virgil thinks seemly; and a sharp reprimand follows.

Dante's penitence however earns speedy forgiveness.

We are now drawing near the lowest pit; and through the dim air is heard the sound of a great horn (Canto x.x.xi.) Going forward, they find that the final descent, which appears to be a sheer drop of about thirty-five feet, is guarded by a ring of giants. Those of them who are seen are Nimrod, and the cla.s.sical Ephialtes and Antaeus; but we learn that others famous in Greek mythology are there also. Antaeus being addressed by Virgil in courteous words, lifts the poets down the wall and lands them on the lowest floor of h.e.l.l. This (Canto x.x.xii.) is of ice, and must be conceived as a circular plain, perhaps about two miles in diameter. In this are punished all who have been guilty of any treachery towards those to whom they were bound by special ties of kindred, fellow-citizenship, friendship, or grat.i.tude. Each of these various grades of crime has its own division, and these are arranged concentrically, with no very definite boundaries between the different cla.s.ses. At the same time each division has its appropriate name, formed from some famous malefactor who had specially exemplified that cla.s.s of crime. Thus the first ring is Caina; the second, Antenora, from Antenor, who, according to a late version of the Trojan legend, had betrayed Troy to the Greeks; the third, Toommea, from that Ptolemy, son of Abubus, who treacherously slew the Maccabees at a feast; the last, in which Lucifer himself abides, is Giudecca. No distinction appears to exist between the penalties inflicted on the two first cla.s.ses; all are alike plunged up to the shoulders in the ice, the head being free. Dante speaks with more than one, most of them persons who had belonged to the Ghibeline party; though in the case of one, Bocca degli Abati, the treachery had been committed to the detriment of the Guelfs.[32] The mention of Bocca and Dante's behaviour to him, may remind us that the whole question of Dante's demeanour towards the persons whom he meets in the first part of the poem is interesting. For some he is full of pity, towards some he is even respectful; occasionally he is neutral; while in some cases he displays anger and scorn, amounting as here to positive cruelty. The expressions of pity, it will be observed, practically cease from the moment that Malebolge, the "nethermost h.e.l.l," is reached.

Similarly, after reaching the City of Dis, the tone of Virgil towards the guardians of the d.a.m.ned, which up to that point has been peremptory, becomes almost suppliant. The reason for this is indeed somewhat obscure: one does not at once see why the formula "So it is willed there, where will is power," should not be as good for the Furies or for Malacoda as it has proved for Charon and Minos. Perhaps the clue is to be found in the fact that the sins punished _inside_ the walls of the city (sins which, it will be seen, are not represented in Purgatory at all) are to be regarded as the result of a will obstinately set against the will of G.o.d; while the sins arising from the frailty of human nature may be checked by the "right judgement" recalling, before it is too late, what the will of G.o.d is. This, however, is a different question, and we must not here pursue it too far. To revert to that of Dante's various demeanour, it will be seen that, with the limitation indicated above, his sympathy with the sinner does not vary with the comparative heinousness of the sin. Almost his bitterest scorn, indeed, is directed towards some whose chief sin is lack of any positive qualities, good or bad. One infers that he would almost rather wander in a flame with Ulysses, or lie in the ice with Ugolino, than undergo the milder punishment of Celestine and his ign.o.ble companions. For the simply self-indulgent, Francesca or Ciacco, he has pity in abundance; Farinata, Brunetto, and the other famous men who share the fates of these, may probably come into the same category. In such cases as these, while he has not a word to say against the justice of G.o.d, he has no desire to add "the wrath of man" thereto. In the one instance in Malebolge where he shows any sympathy (and is reproved by Virgil for doing so) it is for the soothsayers, whose sin would not necessarily involve the hurt of others. But his conduct is very different to those whose sin has been primarily against their fellow-man, or against kindly human intercourse. His first fierce outbreak is against the swaggering ruffian Filippo Argenti, who seems to have been in Florentine society the most notable example of a cla.s.s now happily extinct in civilised countries, at all events among adults; a kind of bully, or "Mohock,"

fond of rough practical jokes, prompted, not by a misguided sense of humour, but by an irritable man's delight in venting his spite. One can sympathise, even after six hundred years, in Dante's pious satisfaction when he saw the man, of whom he may himself have once gone in bodily fear, become in his turn the object of persecution. It is, however, after Malebolge is reached, and Dante is among the sinners who have by dishonest practices weakened the bond of confidence which should bind human society together, that he lets his wrath and scorn have full play.

His imagery even takes on a grotesque, at times even a foul aspect. He was not one to mince his words, and if he means to sicken his readers, he goes straight to his aim.

It is to be noted, too, that the language and demeanour of the sinners themselves have in many cases changed. Above Malebolge, at all events till the usurers are reached, a certain dignity of speech and action is the rule. Now we find flippant expressions and vulgar gestures. Nothing is omitted which can give a notion, not merely of the sinfulness, but of the sordidness of dishonesty. Curiously enough, the one denizen of this region who is thoroughly dignified and even pathetic, is the pagan Ulysses; and to him Dante does not himself speak, leaving the pagan Virgil to hold all communication with him. Besides Ulysses, Guy of Montfeltro and Ugolino are presented in such a way as to enlist, in some degree, the sympathy of the reader; and it may further be noted that in each case a representative of the family in the next generation is placed in Purgatory; as though Dante, while bound to condemn the elder men, had held the houses in such esteem that he wished to balance the condemnation by a.s.signing a better fate to their successors.

The opening of Canto x.x.xiii. brings us to the famous episode of Count Ugolino, which shares with the earlier one of Francesca da Rimini the widest renown of any pa.s.sage in the whole poem. It is curious, by the way, that the structure of the two shows many marked parallelisms; only the tender pity which characterises Dante's treatment of the former is wholly lacking in the latter. There is no need to dwell on so well-known a story; but it may be noted that Ugolino, though a Guelf leader, and condemned here no doubt for his intrigues with the Ghibeline Archbishop Roger, came of a Ghibeline family, and thus forms only a partial exception to the rule stated above. The only genuine Guelf who is named in this division is Tesauro de' Beccheria, the Abbot of Vallombrosa.

This will perhaps be the best point at which to say a few words on a subject about which much misconception has prevailed. It has often been supposed that Dante was just a Ghibeline partisan, and distributed his characters in the next world according to political sympathies. The truth is, that under no circ.u.mstances, so far as we can see, does he a.s.sign to any one his place on political grounds--that is, merely for having belonged to one or other of the great parties which then divided Italy. He himself, as we know, belonged to neither. His political ideal was a united world submitting to the general direction of the Emperor in temporal matters, of the Pope in spiritual. On the other hand, he would have had national forms of government retained. Brought up as he had been, the citizen and afterwards the official of a Guelf republic, there is no reason to suppose that a republican form of government was in any way distasteful to him, provided that it was honestly administered. It was not until the more powerful faction in the Guelf party called in the aid of an external power, unconnected with Italy, and hostile, or, as he would doubtless hold, rebellious, to the Empire, that he, along with the more "const.i.tutional" branch of the Guelfs, threw in his lot with the long-banished Ghibelines. But neither then nor at any time did he belong to the Ghibeline party. So far from it, that he takes that party (in _Par._, vi. 105) as the example of those who follow the imperial standard in the wrong way, and make it a symbol of iniquity. The greatest and most heroic figure in the whole history of the Ghibelines, the man whose love for the rebellious city was as great as Dante's own, who when he had by his prowess in arms recovered it for the Empire, stood resolutely between it and the destruction which in the opinion of his comrades it had merited, is condemned to share with a Pope and an Emperor the penalty of speculative heterodoxy. On the other hand, we find Charles of Anjou, the foreign intruder, the bitter foe of the Empire and pitiless exterminator of the imperial race, a man in whom later historians, free from personal or patriotic bias, have seen hardly any virtue to redeem the sombre cruelty of his career, placed, not indeed in Paradise, but in Purgatory, and waiting in sure and certain hope of ultimate salvation, as one who in spite of many faults had led a pure and ascetic life in a profligate and self-indulgent age. It would be interesting to know, if Dante had met Charles somewhat later, in which of the Purgatorial circles he would have placed him. He seems to evade the difficulty of cla.s.sifying him by finding him where he does.

It is necessary to insist rather strongly on this point, since even so accomplished a scholar as the late Professor Bartoli, when dealing with Dante's reference to the Emperor Henry VII. (in _Par._, x.x.x. 133, sqq.), forgets that all the saints in Paradise have their allotted seat in the Rose of the highest heaven, and speaks as though Dante had honoured Henry above all but the greatest saints and foretold his "direct flight from the earth to the Empyrean." Of course there is not a word of this.

All that we are ent.i.tled to say is that Dante held Henry to be an Emperor who was doing his duty, and would earn his reward like any other Christian and before Dante himself. It will be observed that he sees no other Emperor in Paradise, save Charlemagne; one, Rudolf of Hapsburg, is in, or rather just outside of, Purgatory; one, the great Frederick II., in h.e.l.l. Of the Popes one only, and he a Pope who in his life lay under grievous suspicion of heterodoxy, and moreover only occupied the Papal See for a few months, is placed in Heaven. This is "Peter of Spain,"

Pope John XXI. Two are in Purgatory; one of them, Martin IV., being a man who, as a Frenchman by birth, and a strong partisan of Charles of Anjou, might be supposed to have been specially obnoxious to Dante. No doubt Popes appear in what may seem an unfair proportion among the guilty souls below; but even for this distribution Dante could probably have pleaded orthodox authority and certainly scriptural support. "To whom much is given, of the same shall much be required." It is true, as Professor Bartoli points out, that Dante's "reverence for the supreme keys" was compatible with a very low estimate of their holders; but is not this exactly what we should expect from a man of high ideals and intolerant of failure in proportion to the dignity of the aim? His treatment of Pope Celestine, the one Pope of his time from whom, _prima facie_, something other than political partisanship might have been hoped, and who having put his hand to the plough had looked back, is sufficient to indicate his att.i.tude in this matter.

Once realise that Dante was, like our own Milton, a man with a keen sense of what ought to be, and an equally keen appreciation of the fact that things in his time were by no means as they ought to be, that he was fallen on evil days and evil tongues--an appreciation which doubtless most great souls, short of the few greatest, have had at most periods of the world's history--and you have the key to much that no ordinary theory of party-spirit will explain. Men of this temper care little for the party cries of everyday politics; and yet they cannot quite sit outside the world of affairs and watch the players, as we may imagine Shakespeare to have done, in calm consciousness that the shaping of our rough-hewn ends was in other hands than ours. No great historian of Shakespeare's time devoted a whole chapter to his memory, as did Villani to that of Dante; yet we can hardly doubt that in the education of the world Shakespeare has borne the more important share, and Dante, with his deep conviction of the higher dignity of the "contemplative life," would be the first to own it.

The third subdivision, known as Tolommea, has, as one of its inmates says, the "privilege" of receiving the souls of sinners while their bodies are yet alive on earth, animated by demons. With this horrible conception we seem to have reached the highest mark of Dante's inventive power. Only two names are mentioned, but one feels that if the owners of them ever came across the poem in which they had earned so sinister a commemoration, their sentiment towards the poet would hardly be one of grat.i.tude.[33] These are the last of his contemporaries whom Dante brands, the last, indeed, whom he recognises. In Giudecca (Canto x.x.xiv.) the sinners are wholly sunk below the ice, and only show through like straws or other small impurities in gla.s.s. An exception is made in the case of the three persons whom Dante regards as having carried the sin of ingrat.i.tude to its highest point. Lucifer, who, as has been said, is fixed at the lowest point, has three faces. In the mouth of the central one he for ever gnaws Judas Iscariot, while in the others are Brutus and Ca.s.sius.

The journey to the upper world is begun by a climb down the s.h.a.ggy sides of the Archfiend himself. On reaching his middle, which is also the centre of the earth, the position is reversed, and the ascent begins.

For a short distance they climb up by Lucifer's legs, then through a chimney in the rock; lastly, it would appear, following the course of a stream which winds spirally down through the earth, they reach the surface, and again come in sight of the stars.

-- 2. PURGATORY.

After the invocation to the Muses, a curious survival of cla.s.sical imagery with which in one form or another each division of the poem begins, Dante relates how, on emerging from the lower world, as Easter Day was dawning the poets found themselves on an island with the first gleam of day just visible on the distant sea. Venus is shining in the eastern heaven; and four stars, "never seen save by the earliest of mankind," are visible to the south. No doubt some tradition or report of the Southern Cross had reached men's ears in Europe; but the symbolical meaning is more important, and there can be no doubt that the stars denote the four "cardinal" or natural or active virtues of fort.i.tude, temperance, justice, and prudence. In the evening, as we shall see later on, their place is taken by three other stars, which symbolise the theological or Christian or contemplative virtues--faith, hope, charity.

On turning again Dante sees close at hand an old man of venerable countenance, who questions them by what right they had come. Virgil recognises him for Cato of Utica, the Roman Republican patriot. His position here, as warder of the mount of purification, is very curious, and has never been thoroughly explained. Among other things it is probable that Dante was influenced by the Virgilian line in which Cato is introduced as the lawgiver of good men in the after-world. Being satisfied with the explanation given, Cato directs them to the sh.o.r.e, where Virgil is to wash the grime of h.e.l.l from Dante's face, and gird him with a rush, as an emblem of humility. When this has been done and as the sun is rising (Canto ii.) a light is seen approaching over the water. As it draws near, it is seen to be an angel. His wings form the sails to a boat which comes to the sh.o.r.e, freighted with more than a hundred souls on their way to Purgatory. They are chanting the Easter Psalm _In exitu Israel_; at the sign of the cross made by the angel they come ash.o.r.e, and begin by inquiring the way of Virgil. While he is explaining that he is no less strange to the country than they are, some of them perceive that Dante is a living man, and all crowd around him.

Among them he recognises a friend, the musician Casella, who, after some affectionate words have pa.s.sed between them, begins at Dante's request to sing one of the poet's own odes; and the crowd listen intently. But Cato comes up, and bidding them delay no longer, drives them like a flock of frightened pigeons towards the mountain.

Even Virgil is somewhat abashed on account of his partic.i.p.ation in the delay (Canto iii.); but soon recovers his equanimity, and resumes his usual dignified pace. Dante for the first time observes that his companion casts no shadow on the ground, and Virgil explaining that the spiritual form, while capable of feeling pain, has not the property of intercepting light, takes occasion to point out that there are mysteries for which the human reason is unable to account, and that this very inability forms the chief unhappiness of the great thinkers whom they saw among the virtuous heathen on the border of h.e.l.l. With this they reach the foot of the mountain of Purgatory. As is explained elsewhere, this occupies a position exactly opposite to the conical pit of h.e.l.l; being indeed formed of that portion of the earth which fled at the approach of Satan when he fell from Heaven. Some of its features are no doubt borrowed from the legendary accounts which Pliny and others have preserved of a great mountain seen by navigators to the west of the Straits of Gibraltar; these accounts being probably based on imperfect descriptions of Atlas or Teneriffe, or both confused together. Its summit is exactly at the Antipodes of Jerusalem, a point which must be carefully borne in mind if the various astronomical indications of time given in the course of the journey are to be rightly understood.

The mountain-side, which Dante compares to the steepest and most rugged parts of the Genoese Riviera, appears at first, quite inaccessible; but before long they meet a company of spirits, who, after recovering from their first astonishment at seeing from Dante's shadow that he is not one of themselves, indicate to them the point at which the cliff may be attacked. Before they proceed further, one of the shades addressing Dante makes himself known as Manfred, son to the Emperor Frederick II., and gives an account of his end, explaining that excommunication--for he had died under the ban of the Church--is powerless to do more than protract the interval between the soul's admission to Purgatory. After this (Canto iv.) they enter a steep and narrow cleft in the rock, from which they emerge upon a ledge on the mountain face, and a further climb up this lands them about noon on a broader terrace. Hitherto they have been mounting from the eastward, and on looking back in that direction, Dante is surprised to find the sun on his left hand. Virgil explains the topography; and is saying, in order to encourage Dante, that the labour of climbing will diminish as they get higher, when a bantering voice interrupts with the a.s.surance that he will need plenty of sitting yet.

The poet recognises in the speaker a Florentine friend. Another playful sarcasm on his thirst for information makes Dante address the shade and inquire as to his state. He, like Manfred, is debarred from entering Purgatory, but on the ground that he had led an easy life, and taken no thought of serious matters till his end drew near. In the following cantos (v. and vi.) we meet with many spirits who are from various causes in a similar position. First come those who have been cut off in the midst of their sins, but have sought for mercy at the last. The most noteworthy of these is Buonconte of Montefeltro, son of that Count Guy whom we met in the eighth pit of Malebolge. He was slain fighting against the Florentines at the battle of Campaldino (1289), in which Dante himself may possibly have borne arms.[34] Four lines at the end of this canto are among the most famous in the poem. In a few words they commemorate one of the domestic tragedies which were only too familiar in mediaeval Italy. Pa.s.sing through the crowd, they fall in, as evening is drawing on, with a solitary shade, who replies to Virgil's inquiry for the best road by asking whence they come. At the answer, "Mantua,"

the shade springs up, and reveals himself as the famous warrior-poet of that city, Sordello. The affectionate greeting which follows between the fellow-citizens moves Dante to a splendid denunciation of the internecine quarrels then raging throughout Italy, and of the neglect on the part of the divinely ordained monarch, the Roman Emperor, which has allowed matters to come to such a pa.s.s. Lastly he directs his invective especially against his own city, Florence, and in words of bitter sarcasm upbraids her with the perpetual revolutions which hinder all good government.

Sordello is an example of those whom constant occupation in affairs of state had caused to defer any thought for spiritual things, and who are expiating the delay in the region outside the proper entrance to Purgatory. In Canto vii., after explaining that they will not be able to stir a step after sunset ("the night cometh when no man can work"), he leads the poets to a spot where they may pa.s.s the night. This is a flowery dell on the hillside, occupied by the spirits of those who in life had been sovereign princes and rulers. There they see the Emperor Rudolf and his adversary, Ottocar of Bohemia; Charles of Anjou, King of Naples and Sicily, Philip III. of France, Peter III. of Aragon, Henry III. of England, and many other famous men of the last generation.

Sordello, in pointing them out, takes occasion to enlarge on the degeneracy of their sons, making a special exception in favour of Edward, son of Henry.

The sun sets (Canto viii.) and the shades join in the Compline hymn. At its conclusion, two angels clad in green robes descend, and take up their position on either side of the little valley. Dante, with his companions, goes down to join the "mighty shades," and is met by one whom he at once recognises as an old friend, the Pisan n.o.ble Giovanni, or Nino de' Visconti, "judge" or governor of the Sardinian province called Gallura, nephew of Count Ugolino. After some talk Dante notices the three stars spoken of above, and at the same moment Sordello draws Virgil's attention to an "adversary." They see a serpent making its way through the gra.s.s; and immediately the angels start in pursuit, putting it to flight. After this episode another shade announces himself as Conrad Malaspina, of the house with whom Dante was to find shelter during a part of his exile.

The night wears on, and Dante falls asleep (Canto ix.). He dreams that he is being carried by an eagle up to the empyrean heaven. On awaking he finds that the sun has risen some time, and learns from Virgil that at daybreak St. Lucy (who has already come under notice as taking an interest in his welfare) had appeared and borne him to the place where they now are, in front of the gate of Purgatory. This is approached by three steps of variously-coloured stone. The first is white marble, the second a dark and rough rock, the third blood-red porphyry, indicating probably the three stages of the soul's progress to freedom through confession, contrition, and penance. On the topmost step sits an angel, who having marked seven P's (_peccata_ sins) on Dante's forehead, admits them within the gate.

Thus far, except in the pa.s.sage, Canto viii. 19 sqq., to which Dante himself draws the reader's attention, the allegorical interpretation has not afforded any very great difficulty. With this particular pa.s.sage readers will do well to compare _Inf._, ix. 37 sqq., where a very similar indication is given of an underlying allegory, and draw their own conclusions. But on the whole, the main interest of the first nine cantos of the _Purgatory_ is more of a personal nature. Sordello alone may give an excuse for a good deal of historical research. For example, no one has yet explained Dante's reasons for so distinguishing a person who, from all the records that we have, does not seem to have made any great figure in the eyes of his contemporaries.

It will hardly be necessary to follow Dante step by step through the stages of the mountain of purification. We shall probably do best to consider the general plan on which Purgatory is arranged, the nature of the various penances, with their adaptation to the offences which they expiate, and the light thrown in this division of the poem on Dante's opinions about the elements of political and moral science.

We find, then, seven cornices, or ledges, on the mountain, connected with each other by stairways cut in the rock. Each stairway is guarded by an angel, and each, as it would appear, is shorter and less steep than the previous one. Thus the pa.s.sage from the first to the second circle takes a considerable time, enough at all events to allow of some conversation between Dante and Virgil between the moment of their pa.s.sing the angel and that at which they reach the top of the stairway.

On the other hand, when they come to the final ascent, from the seventh circle to the level of the Earthly Paradise which occupies the summit, a few steps are sufficient to bring them to their halting-place, which, as appears afterwards, is practically on the summit level. Each angel, as Dante pa.s.ses, erases from his forehead one of the P's which the warder of the first gate had inscribed there, and utters one of the Scriptural Beat.i.tudes appropriate to the circle which they are quitting. Thus, "Blessed are the peacemakers" accompanies their departure from the circle of the wrathful; "Blessed are they that hunger after righteousness" is heard as they leave that where gluttony is expiated.

The ritual, so to speak, is very precise throughout. Besides the Beat.i.tudes, which are recited by the angel-guards, and in some cases it would seem repeated by a chorus of voices, we find in each circle commemoration variously contrived of notable instances, both of the sins punished and of their "contrary virtues." These are perhaps worth going through in detail. In the circle of Pride, where it is necessary to go in a stooping posture, the pavement is engraved with representations of humility. The first is the Annunciation, (and here it should be noted that in every group an event from the life of the Virgin holds the first place); next comes David dancing before the Ark; and lastly, Trajan yielding to the widow's prayer that he would perform an act of justice before setting out with the pomp of a military expedition. Further on in the same circle are found examples of the punishment of pride, taken alternately from Scripture and from cla.s.sical mythology. The next circle is that of Envy. Here the penalty consists of the sewing up of the eyes, so that pictured representations would be of no use; and, accordingly, the task of calling the examples to mind is discharged by voices flying through the air. Yet another method is adopted in the third circle, where the Angry are punished by means of a dense smoke. Here the pictures are conveyed to Dante's mind by a kind of trance or vision, in which he sees the various scenes. We must suppose that the spirits pa.s.s through some similar experience. In the fourth circle, the examples of activity and warnings against Sloth are delivered by the souls themselves. As it is night while Dante is in this circle, he is himself unable to move; but the discipline being to run at speed, the souls pa.s.s him in their course. The fifth circle, of the Avaricious and Prodigal, follows much the same rule as the fourth, except that here the instances of virtue are recited in the day, those of sin at night, so that Dante does not actually hear the latter. In this case the souls lie prostrate.

The Gluttonous, in the sixth circle, are punished by having to pa.s.s under trees laden with fruit, which they cannot reach; and the examples and warnings are conveyed by voices among the branches of these trees.

The seventh circle follows the fashion of the fourth, except that the souls (who are punished by fire for having in life failed to hold in due restraint the flames of pa.s.sion) seem to address the warning reminiscences to each other as they meet in the circuit. An instance of the system on which the examples are introduced has been given from the first circle. Perhaps that for the sixth is even more typical. On first entering this they come to a tree, among the branches of which a voice is heard recording the conduct of the Virgin at the feast in Cana, when "she thought more of the success of the banquet than of her own mouth;"

the custom of drinking only water prevalent among the Roman women, and the abstemiousness of Daniel and the Baptist. Then, after pa.s.sing through a portion of the circle, and holding converse with its inmates, they reach another tree, from which a second voice comes to them bidding them remember the trouble that came from the drunkenness of the Centaur at the wedding of Pirithous, and the rejection by Gideon of the men who had drunk immoderately. This coupling of a cla.s.sical and Scriptural instance is quite invariable.

To pa.s.s on to the subject of the light thrown upon Dante's speculative views in the _Purgatory_. It is not too much to say that from that point of view it is the most important division of the whole poem. This, perhaps, follows naturally from its subject. The Purgatorial existence bears more affinity to the life of this world than does that of those who have reached their eternal abode; and human affections and human interests still have much of their old power. This, then, would naturally be the division in which questions arising from the conditions of man's life with men would be likely to suggest themselves.

In the _h.e.l.l_ we had indeed a statement of Dante's view of Ethics, so far as was necessary to explain his att.i.tude towards breaches of the moral law and their punishment. In the _Purgatory_ he goes more deeply into the question, and expounds in Cantos xvi., xvii., and xviii., a theory with regard to the origin of morals and knowledge. According to this the soul when created is a _tabula rasa_, but having certain capacities inherent in it in consequence of the nature of its Creator.

The Creator being absolutely veracious, the information imparted by the senses is infallible. Further, the Creator being absolutely happy, the soul naturally seeks happiness, and is said to love that in which it expects to find happiness. So far there is no room for error. Where it can come in is in the inferences which the mind draws from the information which the senses give, and in either its choice of an object to love, or the vigour with which it pursues that object. It must be further noted that the soul is endowed at the outset with a knowledge of good and evil, _i.e._ conscience, and with free-will; though this latter has to struggle with the conditions which the influence of the heavenly bodies imposes on the individual. With due culture, however, it can ultimately prevail over these; but it must also be aided in its struggle by the check of law and the guidance which should be afforded by spiritual pastors. In order that these may have their full effect, it is desirable that the secular and spiritual authorities should be in different hands: and thus we are brought to the same conclusions as in the treatise _De Monarchia_.

To return, however, to the moral question. All action, as has been said, is directed to an end, and (in the words of Aquinas, following Aristotle) the end for each individual is that which he desires and loves. If the end is rightly selected, and the love duly proportioned, the action does not incur blame. But it may happen that the end may be evil; in which case evil becomes the object of the love, or the love is turned to hatred. Now, no created being can hate its Creator, nor can any man hate himself; therefore the sins arising from this cause must be sins against fellow-men. These, so far as Purgatory is concerned, are pride, envy, anger, which, when carried into action, become the sins that are punished within the City of Dis, though in Purgatory they would appear on the whole to be regarded as the less grave offences.

When the object is good, but the love is lacking in due vigour, we have the sin of sloth, or, as our forefathers called it, "accidie." This occupies a somewhat anomalous position. Those who have allowed it to grow to moodiness and given way to it past hope of repentance, lie in h.e.l.l at the bottom of the Stygian marsh, and nothing is seen of them but the bubbles which are formed by their sighs; while the wrathful or ill-tempered lie in the same marsh, but appear above the water. Both sins alike render the man full of hatred for his fellows, and make him insensible to the joy of life. In Purgatory, on the other hand, the anger which is punished seems rather to be the fault of hasty temper; while in the case of sloth, the souls who expiate it are represented as running at great speed, and proclaiming instances of conspicuous alertness. For our present purpose, then, it must be regarded as merely slothfulness or indolence.

Finally, we have the cases in which the object is natural, or even laudable. A fair share of this world's goods, our daily food, the love between man and woman, all these are objects to which the desires may lawfully be directed, so long as they are duly restrained. When, however, they become the main aim, they are sinful, and lead to the sins for which the discipline of the three upper cornices is required; the most severe of all that is undergone in Purgatory. Yet these are the sins which in h.e.l.l "incur less blame," as being sins involving rather the animal than the spiritual part of man. But there is not s.p.a.ce here to discuss this aspect of the subject. Readers will find much interest in working it out for themselves.

The physiological sketch given by Statius in the twenty-fifth canto, introduced to account for the spiritual body, is in logical order an introduction to Dante's ethics and psychology; and is remarkable both in its agreement with Aristotle and its divergence from him. The occasion for it is found in a question raised by Dante, and suggested to him by the appearance of the shades in the circle which they have just left: namely, how beings who have no need to go through the ordinary process of nutrition, can feel the desire for food (as Forese has explained that they do) and grow lean through the deprivation of it. In order to solve this difficulty, Statius sketches briefly the stages of the development of the human being, from his first conception until he has an independent existence, showing how the embryo progresses first to vegetative then to animal life, and how finally, when the brain is complete (this being the last stage in the organisation), the "First Mover" breathes the human soul into the frame. The soul, having thus an independent existence, when the frame decays sets itself loose therefrom, taking with it the senses and pa.s.sions, as well as the mental faculties of memory, understanding, and will. The latter are still in full activity, but the former have only a potential existence until such time as the soul has found its place in the other world. Then it takes to itself a bodily shape, formed out of the surrounding air (as a flame is formed by the fire), and equips it with organs of sense; and thenceforward this shape is adapted to express all the natural emotions and desires, including of course those of hunger and thirst. This remarkable exposition is based on Aristotle's theory of the generation of the body, and the introduction into it of the soul; but there is an important difference. The Greek philosopher, though his language is not very explicit, has apparently no idea of any survival of the personal ident.i.ty after death. At all events, so he was interpreted by Averroes and later by Aquinas. With him the source of all movement is the father, from whom only (though here again Aristotle is not quite clear) comes the gift of a soul. Dante, on the contrary, refers these back to the Prime Mover, namely G.o.d, and conceives a special creative act as performed on behalf of every human being that is brought into the world.

As will be easily seen, this conception is the necessary complement to Dante's system of ethics, based on individual free-will, and postulating a newly-created soul, fresh from the Maker's hand; a _tabula rasa_, with no attributes save the natural propension towards that which gives it pleasure.

We may now pa.s.s to the six cantos which conclude this division of the poem, and form a most important stage in the development of the whole plan. Dante has now proceeded as far as human reason, typified by Virgil, is able to guide him. He is on the threshold of Heaven; but before he can be admitted among the blessed, another conductor must be provided, to whom the way to the Divine Presence shall be freely open.

This, of course, can only be knowledge informed by faith, or, as we may say for shortness, theology, not in the sense of a formal science, but in one approaching more nearly to what Aristotle calls _Theoria_, or contemplation. From certain expressions in the earliest cantos of the poem, it is clear that Dante looked upon the woman whom in his youth he had loved, and who had, at the supposed date of these events, been ten years dead, as symbolising this _Theoria_, and as being in some special way entrusted with the task of saving him from spiritual ruin. She accordingly appears, and takes up the duties which Virgil is surrendering. The manner of her appearance must be noticed--showing as it does the almost inextricable web in which Dante combines fact and allegory. That the "Beatrice" who is introduced is primarily none other than an actual woman of flesh and blood, whom hundreds of then living people had known, who had gone about Florence for twenty-four years and married a prominent citizen, and whom Dante had loved with the romantic pa.s.sion of the Middle Ages, only the misplaced ingenuity of paradoxical critics can doubt.[35] Yet at her entry she is escorted by a procession, the members of which represent the books of the Bible, the seven virtues, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit; while the car on which she is borne (which itself denotes the Church) is drawn by a mystical figure, in which we cannot fail to see a symbol of the second Person of the Trinity. If it be objected that the salvation of Dante is a small matter about which to set in motion so stupendous a machinery, we may answer that, in the first place, his own salvation does not seem unimportant to the man himself; and further, which is of more weight, that Dante himself is here no less symbolical than Beatrice, or Virgil, or the mystic Gryphon. He is the typical human soul; his experiences, his struggles, his efforts to shake himself free of the trammels of the world and the flesh, are familiar features in the spiritual history of the great majority of Christians. Thus the wonderful pageant described in this canto must be regarded as being displayed, not to him only, but to all Christendom in his person.

A few words with regard to this pageant may afford a little help to its comprehension. After the arrival of Beatrice, a scene follows in which she upbraids Dante for his forgetfulness of her, and receives an avowal of his fault. He is then bathed in the stream of Lethe--another curious employment of pagan mythology--and brought back to the presence of Beatrice. Hitherto she has been veiled; but now, at the special entreaty of her attendant nymphs (those nymphs who are also the four stars in heaven, and denote the cardinal virtues), she withdraws the veil, and discloses again the smile for which her "faithful one" had yearned during ten years.

Soon, however, his attention is called away to new and strange sights.

The procession, of which Dante and his remaining companion Statius now form part, moves forward through the wood of the Earthly Paradise; the car is attached to a tree, identified with the "tree of knowledge,"

which since Adam's disobedience has been leafless and fruitless. After this Dante falls into a short sleep, and on waking finds that Beatrice with her attendants is alone left, as a guardian to the car. Then follow a series of strange transformations, the general plan of which is clearly suggested by the Apocalypse; but their interpretation is to be sought in the relations of the Church to the Empire, down to the time of the "Babylonish captivity," or transference of the Papal See to Avignon.

This is symbolised by the departure of the car, drawn this time by a giant (Philip the Fair of France), and occupied no longer by Beatrice, but by a harlot, to denote (again with allusion to the Apocalypse) the corrupt rule under which the Church had fallen.

In the final scene of all, Beatrice, in phrases hardly less obscure than the vision itself, indicates to Dante the lesson which he is to learn from it, and repeats in another form Virgil's prediction of a champion who is to come and set the world to rights. Much has been written about the first of these, the _Veltro_; hardly less about the "five hundred, ten, and five," or DXV. The usual interpretation takes these letters as intended merely to suggest _Dux_, a leader; but this seems a little weak. Elsewhere I have given reasons for thinking that Dante had a special motive for wrapping up his meaning in this numerical form.

Lastly, in a pa.s.sage which, though ostensibly only one of Dante's usual time-indications, seems intended to suggest repose after the labours through which he has brought his readers, and the agitation of the last canto, he tells us that at noon they reached the edge of the forest.

Here he is made to drink of another stream, Eunoe, or "right mind,"

after which he is ready for the upward journey.

It is too much to expect readers to work through the voluminous interpretations which have been offered of the very difficult and perplexing mysticism of these cantos. Some points are perhaps plainer to the student who considers them with a fair knowledge of the Bible and history, than to the commentator who wishes to establish a new and original theory. But they are so important (particularly Cantos x.x.x. and x.x.xi.) to any one who wishes to understand Dante's whole position as man, poet, scholar, and politician, that they should not be pa.s.sed over as mere futile mediaeval fancies. It should be said, too, that they contain some pa.s.sages which will never be out of date until the poetic taste of mankind has altogether changed.

-- 3. PARADISE.

The first point which will strike the reader on entering upon the third division of the poem is the sudden change in the conditions under which the action is carried on. Hitherto Dante has been moving on solid earth, subject to the usual limitations which are enforced by physical laws upon all human action. Henceforth, as he tells us (_Par._, x.x.x. 123), G.o.d operates directly, and physical laws have no longer any place. "It is Beatrice," he elsewhere says, "who leads on so swiftly from one stage of blessedness to a higher;" and we shall notice that the transference from sphere to sphere is effected by Dante's fixing his eyes on hers, while she gazes upwards.

A word as to the various spheres may not be out of place here. According to the Ptolemaic system of astronomy, as adapted to the requirements of mediaeval belief, the earth was at the centre, and concentric with it were ten hollow spheres. In the first eight of these were placed consecutively the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and the fixed stars. In order to explain the irregular movements of the planets, "epicycles" or smaller spheres borne by the princ.i.p.al spheres, and bearing the planets, were devised, but these need not be considered here. Outside of the fixed stars came the _primum mobile_, which gave the diurnal revolution of the heavens, and beyond this the Empyrean, or fixed heaven, in which was the special abode of G.o.d, and in which all the blessed had their places. Between the earth and the innermost sphere, that of the Moon, lie the regions of water, air, and fire. The Mountain of Purgatory, on the summit of which Dante at the conclusion of the second _Cantica_ was standing, lifts its head as far as the third of these. Through this accordingly, Beatrice and Dante have to rise in order to reach the first step in the celestial ascent. It must be noted that there is no reason to suppose that in every case the actual planet is visited. The "heaven" of the planet embraces the whole "sphere" in which it is set, and its characteristics may be conceived as extending to the whole of that sphere.