Stories from the Italian Poets: with Lives of the Writers Volume I Part 3

[Footnote 19: _Discorso sul Testo_, p. 54.]

[Footnote 20: _Balbo_. Naples edition, p. 132.]

[Footnote 21: "Di se stesso presunse maravigliosamente tanto, che essendo egli glorioso nel colmo del reggimento della republica, e ragionandosi tra maggiori cittadini di mandare, per alcuna gran bisogna, ambasciata a Bonifazio Papa VIII., e che principe della ambasciata fosse Dante, ed egli in ci in presenzia di tutti quegli che ci consigliavano richiesto, avvenne, che soprastando egli alla risposta, alcun disse, che pensi? alle quali parole egli rispose: penso, se io vo, chi rimane; e s'io rimango, chi va: quasi esso solo fosse colui che tra tutti valesse e per cui tutti gli altri valessero." And he goes on to say respecting the stone-throwing--"Appresso, come che il nostro poeta nelle sua avversita paziente o no si fosse, in una fu impazientissimo: ed egli infino al cominciamento del suo esilio stato guelfissimo, non essendogli aperta la via del ritornare in casa sua, si fuor di modo divent ghibellino, che ogni femminella, ogni picciol fanciullo, e quante volte avesse voluto, ragionando di parte, e la guelfa proponendo alla ghibellino, l'avrebbe non solamente fatto turbare, ma a tanta insania commosso, che se taciuto non fosse, a gittar le pietre l'avrebbe condotto." (_Vita di Dante_, prefixed to the Paris edition of the Commedia, 1844, p. XXV.) And then the "buon Boccaccio," with his accustomed sweetness of nature, begs pardon of so great a man, for being obliged to relate such things of him, and doubts whether his spirit may not be looking down on him that moment _disdainfully_ from _heaven_!

Such an a.s.sociation of ideas had Dante produced between the celestial and the scornful!]

[Footnote 22: _Novelle di Franco Sacchetti_, Milan edition, 1804, vol.

ii. p. 148. It forms the setting, or frame-work, of an inferior story, and is not mentioned in the heading.]

[Footnote 23: _The Vision; or, h.e.l.l, Purgatory, and Paradise, of Dante Alighieri, &c._ Smith's edition, 1844, p. 90.]

[Footnote 24: _Discorso sul Testo_, pp. 64, 77-90, 335-338.]

[Footnote 25: _Purgatorio_, canto III. 118, 138; referred to by Foscolo, in the _Discorso sul Testo_, p. 383.]

[Footnote 26: Warton's _History of English Poetry_, edition of 1840, vol. iii. p. 214.]

[Footnote 27: _Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott_, Bart. vol. ii.

p. 122.]

[Footnote 28: _Pentameron and Pentalogia_, pp. 44-50.]

[Footnote 29: _Discorso sul Testo_, p. 226. The whole pa.s.sage (sect.

cx.) is very eloquent, horrible, and _self-betraying_.]

[Footnote 30: _Discorso_, as above, p. 101.]

[Footnote 31: _Discorso_, p. 103.]

[Footnote 32: _Criticisms on the Rolliad, and Probationary Odes for the_ _Laureateship_. Third edit. 17S5, p. 317.]

[Footnote 33: The writer of the article on Dante in the _Foreign Quarterly Review_ (as above) concedes that his hero in this pa.s.sage becomes "_almost_ cruel." Almost! Tormenting a man further, who is up to his chin in everlasting ice, and whose face he has kicked!]

[Footnote 34: "Cortesia fu lui esser villano." _Inferno_, canto x.x.xiii.

150.]

[Footnote 35: Every body sees this who is not wilfully blind.

"Pa.s.sionate," says the editor of the _Opere Minori_, "for the ancient Italian glories, and the greatness of the Roman name, he was of opinion that it was only by means of combined strength, and one common government, that Italy could be finally secured from discord in its own bosom and enemies from without, _and recover its ancient empire over the whole world_." "Amantissimo delle antiche glorie Italiane, e della grandezza del nome romano, ei considerava, che soltanto pel mezzo d'una general forza ed autorita poteva l'Italia dalle interne contese e dalle straniere invasioni restarsi sicura, _e recuperare l'antico imperio sopra tutte le genti_."--Ut sup. vol. iii. p. 8.]

THE ITALIAN PILGRIM'S PROGRESS.

I.

THE JOURNEY THROUGH h.e.l.l.

Argument.

The infernal regions, according to Dante, are situate in the globe we inhabit, directly beneath Jerusalem, and consist of a succession of gulfs or circles, narrowing as they descend, and terminating in the centre; so that the general shape is that of a funnel. Commentators have differed as to their magnitude; but the latest calculation gives 315 miles for the diameter of the mouth or crater, and a quarter of a mile for that of its terminating point. In the middle is the abyss, pervading the whole depth, and 245 miles in diameter at the opening; which reduces the different platforms, or territories that surround it, to a size comparatively small. These territories are more or less varied with land and water, lakes, precipices, &c. A precipice, fourteen miles high, divides the first of them from the second. The pa.s.sages from the upper world to the entrance are various; and the descents from one circle to another are effected by the poet and his guide in different manners-sometimes on foot through by-ways, sometimes by the conveyance of supernatural beings. The crater he finds to be the abode of those who have done neither good nor evil, caring for nothing but themselves.

In the first circle are the whole unbaptised world--heathens and infants--melancholy, though not tormented. Here also is found the Elysium of Virgil, whose Charon and other infernal beings are among the agents of torment. In the second circle the torments commence with the sin of incontinence; and the punishment goes deepening with the crime from circle to circle, through gluttony, avarice, prodigality, wrath, sullenness, or unwillingness to be pleased with the creation, disbelief in G.o.d and the soul (with which the punishment by fire commences), usury, murder, suicide, blasphemy, seduction and other carnal enormities, adulation, simony, soothsaying, astrology, witchcraft, trafficking with the public interest, hypocrisy, highway robbery (on the great Italian scale), sacrilege, evil counsel, disturbance of the Church, heresy, false apostleship, alchemy, forgery, coining (all these, from seduction downwards, in one circle); then, in the frozen or lowest circle of all, treachery; and at the bottom of this is Satan, stuck into the centre of the earth.

With the centre of the globe commences the antipodean attraction of its opposite side, together with a rocky ascent out of it, through a huge ravine. The poet and his guide, on their arrival at this spot, accordingly find their position reversed; and so conclude their _downward_ journey _upwards_, till they issue forth to light on the borders of the sea which contains the island of Purgatory.

THE JOURNEY THROUGH h.e.l.l.

Dante says, that when he was half-way on his pilgrimage through this life, he one day found himself, towards nightfall, in a wood where he could no longer discern the right path. It was a place so gloomy and terrible, every thing in it growing in such a strange and savage manner, that the horror he felt returned on him whenever he thought of it. The pa.s.s of death could hardly be more bitter. Travelling through it all night with a beating heart, he at length came to the foot of a hill, and looking up, as he began to ascend it, he perceived the shoulders of the hill clad in the beams of morning; a sight which gave him some little comfort. He felt like a man who has buffeted his way to land out of a shipwreck, and who, though still anxious to get farther from his peril, cannot help turning round to gaze on the wide waters. So did he stand looking back on the pa.s.s that contained that dreadful wood. After resting a while, he again betook him up the hill; but had not gone far when he beheld a leopard bounding in front of him, and hindering his progress. After the leopard came a lion, with his head aloft, mad with hunger, and seeming to frighten the very air;[1] and after the lion, more eager still, a she-wolf, so lean that she appeared to be sharpened with every wolfish want. The pilgrim fled back in terror to the wood, where he again found himself in a darkness to which the light never penetrated. In that place, he said, the sun never spoke word.[2] But the wolf was still close upon him.[3]

While thus flying, he beheld coming towards him a man, who spoke something, but he knew not what. The voice sounded strange and feeble, as if from disuse. Dante loudly called out to him to save him, whether he was a man or only a spirit. The apparition, at whose sight the wild beasts disappeared, said that he was no longer man, though man he had been in the time of the false G.o.ds, and sung the history of the offspring of Anchises.

"And art thou, then, that Virgil," said Dante, "who has filled the world with such floods of eloquence? O glory and light of all poets, thou art my master, and thou mine _author_; thou alone the book from which I have gathered beauties that have gained me praise. Behold the peril I am in, and help me, for I tremble in every vein and pulse."

Virgil comforted Dante. He told him that he must quit the wood by another road, and that he himself would be his guide, leading him first to behold the regions of woe underground, and then the spirits that lived content in fire because it purified them for heaven; and then that he would consign him to other hands worthier than his own, which should raise him to behold heaven itself; for as the Pagans, of whom he was one, had been rebels to the law of him that reigns there, n.o.body could arrive at Paradise by their means.[4]

So saying, Virgil moved on his way, and Dante closely followed. He expressed a fear, however, as they went, lest being "neither aeneas nor St. Paul," his journey could not be worthily undertaken, nor end in wisdom. But Virgil, after sharply rebuking him for his faintheartedness, told him, that the spirit of her whom he loved, Beatrice, had come down from heaven on purpose to commend her lover to his care; upon which the drooping courage of the pilgrim was raised to an undaunted confidence; as flowers that have been closed and bowed down by frosty nights, rise all up on their stems in the morning sun.[5]

"Non vuol che 'n sua citta per me s vegna."

The Pagans could not be rebels to a law they never heard of, any more than Dante could be a rebel to Luther. But this is one of the absurdities with which the impious effrontery or scarcely less impious admissions of Dante's teachers avowedly set reason at defiance,--retaining, meanwhile, their right of contempt for the impieties of Mahometans and Brahmins; "which is odd," as the poet says; for being not less absurd, or, as the others argued, much more so, they had at least an equal claim on the submission of the reason; since the greater the irrationality, the higher the theological triumph.

"Through me is the road to the dolorous city; Through me is the road to the everlasting sorrows; Through me is the road to the lost people.

Justice was the motive of my exalted maker; I was made by divine power, by consummate wisdom, and by primal love; Before me was no created thing, if not eternal; and eternal am I also.

Abandon hope, all ye who enter."

Such were the words which Dante beheld written in dark characters over a portal. "Master," said he to Virgil, "I find their meaning hard."

"A man," answered Virgil, "must conduct himself at this door like one prepared. Hither must he bring no mistrust. Hither can come and live no cowardice. We have arrived at the place I told thee of. Here thou art to behold the dolorous people who have lost all intellectual good." [6]

So saying, Virgil placed his hand on Dante's, looking on him with a cheerful countenance; and the Florentine pa.s.sed with him through the dreadful gate.

They entered upon a sightless gulf, in which was a black air without stars; and immediately heard a hubbub of groans; and wailings, and terrible things said in many languages, words of wretchedness, outcries of rage, voices loud and hoa.r.s.e, and sounds of the smitings of hands one against another. Dante began to weep. The sound was as if the sand in a whirlwind were turned into noises, and filled the blind air with incessant conflict.

Yet these were not the souls of the wicked. They were those only who had lived without praise or blame, thinking of nothing but themselves. These miserable creatures were mixed with the angels who stood neutral in the war with Satan. Heaven would not dull its brightness with those angels, nor would lower h.e.l.l receive them, lest the bad ones should triumph in their company.

"And what is it," said Dante, "which makes them so grievously suffer?"

"Hopelessness of death," said Virgil. "Their blind existence here, and immemorable former life, make them so wretched, that they envy every other lot. Mercy and justice alike disdain them. Let us speak of them no more. Look, and pa.s.s."

The companions went on till they came to a great river with a mult.i.tude waiting on the banks. A h.o.a.ry old man appeared crossing the river towards them in a boat; and as he came, he said, "Woe to the wicked.

Never expect to see heaven. I come to bear you across to the dark regions of everlasting fire and ice." Then looking at Dante, he said, "Get thee away from the dead, thou who standest there, live spirit."

"Torment thyself not, Charon," said Virgil. "He has a pa.s.sport beyond thy power to question."

The s.h.a.ggy cheeks of the boatman of the livid lake, who had wheels of fire about his eyes, fell at these words; and he was silent. But the naked mult.i.tude of souls whom he had spoken to changed colour, and gnashed their teeth, blaspheming G.o.d, and their parents, and the human species, and the place, and the hour, and the seed of the sowing of their birth; and all the while they felt themselves driven onwards, by a fear which became a desire, towards the cruel river-side, which awaits every one dest.i.tute of the fear of G.o.d. The demon Charon, beckoning to them with eyes like brasiers, collected them as they came, giving blows to those that lingered, with his oar. One by one they dropped into the boat like leaves from a bough in autumn, till the bough is left bare; or as birds drop into the decoy at the sound of the bird-call.

There was then an earthquake, so terrible that the recollection of it made the poet burst into a sweat at every pore. A whirlwind issued from the lamenting ground, attended by vermilion flashes; and he lost his senses, and fell like a man stupefied.