Opening material · Part 3

He honoured the Latin, but his love was for the Italian. He was its champion, and indignant defender against the depreciation of ignorance and fashion. Confident of its power and jealous of its beauty, he pours forth his fierce scorn on the blind stupidity, the affectation, the vain glory, the envy, and above all, the cowardice of Italians who held lightly their mother tongue. "Many," he says, after enumerating the other offenders, "from this pusillanimity and cowardice disparage their own language, and exalt that of others; and of this sort are those hateful dastards of Italy--_abbominevoli cattivi d'Italia_--who think vilely of that precious language; which, if it is vile in anything, is vile only so far as it sounds in the prostituted mouth of these adulterers."[101] He noted and compared its various dialects; he asserted its capabilities not only in verse, but in expressive, flexible, and majestic prose. And to the deliberate admiration of the critic and the man, were added the homely but dear associations, which no language can share with that of early days. Italian had been the language of his parents--"_Questo mio Volgare fu il congiugnitore delli miei generanti, che con esso parlavano_"--and further, it was this modern language, "_questo mio Volgare_," which opened to him the way of knowledge, which had introduced him to Latin, and the sciences which it contained. It was his benefactor and guide--he personifies it--and his boyish friendship had grown stronger and more intimate by mutual good offices. "There has also been between us the goodwill of intercourse; for from the beginning of my life I have had with it kindness and conversation, and have used it, deliberating, interpreting, and questioning; so that, if friendship grows with use, it is evident how it must have grown in me."[102]

[Footnote 101: _Convito_, i. 11.]

[Footnote 102: _Convito_, i. 13.]

From this language he exacted a hard trial;--a work which should rank with the ancient works. None such had appeared; none had even advanced such a pretension. Not that it was a time dead to literature or literary ambition. Poets and historians had written, and were writing in Italian. The same year of jubilee which fixed itself so deeply in Dante's mind, and became the epoch of his vision--the same scene of Roman greatness in its decay, which afterwards suggested to Gibbon the _Decline and Fall_, prompted, in the father of Italian history, the desire to follow in the steps of Sallust and Livy, and prepare the way for Machiavelli and Guicciardini, Davila, and Fra Paolo.[103] Poetry had been cultivated in the Roman languages of the West--in Aquitaine and Provence, especially--for more than two centuries; and lately, with spirit and success, in Italian. Names had become popular, reputations had risen and waned, verses circulated and were criticised, and even descended from the high and refined circles to the workshop. A story is told of Dante's indignation, when he heard the canzoni which had charmed the Florentine ladies mangled by the rude enthusiasm of a blacksmith at his forge.[104] Literature was a growing fashion; but it was humble in its aspirations and efforts. Men wrote like children, surprised and pleased with their success; yet allowing themselves in mere amusement, because conscious of weakness which they could not cure.

[Footnote 103: G. Villani was at Rome in the year of jubilee 1300, and describes the great concourse and order of the pilgrims, whom he reckons at 200,000, in the course of the year. "And I," he proceeds, "finding myself in that blessed pilgrimage in the holy city of Rome, seeing the great and ancient things of the same, and reading the histories of the great deeds of the Romans, written by Virgil, and by Sallust, and Lucan, and Titus Livius, and Valerius, and Paulus Orosius, and other masters of histories, who wrote as well of the smaller matters as of the greater, concerning the exploits and deeds of the Romans; and further, of the strange things of the whole world, for memory and example's sake to those who should come after--I, too, took their style and fashion, albeit that, as their scholar, I be not worthy to execute such a work. But, considering that our city of Florence, the daughter and creation of Rome, was in its rising, and on the eve of achieving great things, as Rome was in its decline, it seemed to me convenient to bring into this volume and new chronicle all the deeds and beginnings of the city of Florence, so far as I have been able to gather and recover them; and for the future, to follow at large the doings of the Florentines, and the other notable things of the world briefly, as long as it may be God's pleasure; under which hope, rather by his grace than by my poor science, I entered on this enterprise: and so, in the year 1300, being returned from Rome, I began to compile this book, in reverence towards God and St. John, and commendation of our city of Florence."--_G. Vill._ viii. 36.]

[Footnote 104: _Sacchetti_, Nov. 114.]

Dante, by the _Divina Commedia_, was the restorer of seriousness in literature. He was so, by the magnitude and pretensions of his work, and by the earnestness of its spirit. He first broke through the prescription which had confined great works to the Latin, and the faithless prejudices which, in the language of society, could see powers fitted for no higher task than that of expressing, in curiously diversified forms, its most ordinary feelings. But he did much more. Literature was going astray in its tone, while growing in importance; the _Commedia_ checked it. The Provençal and Italian poetry was, with the exception of some pieces of political satire, almost exclusively amatory, in the most fantastic and affected fashion. In expression, it had not even the merit of being natural; in purpose it was trifling; in the spirit which it encouraged, it was something worse. Doubtless it brought a degree of refinement with it, but it was refinement purchased at a high price, by intellectual distortion, and moral insensibility. But this was not all. The brilliant age of Frederick II., for such it was, was deeply mined by religious unbelief.

However strange this charge first sounds against the thirteenth century, no one can look at all closely into its history, at least in Italy, without seeing that the idea of infidelity--not heresy, but infidelity--was quite a familiar one; and that side by side with the theology of Aquinas and Bonaventura, there was working among those who influenced fashion and opinion, among the great men, and the men to whom learning was a profession, a spirit of scepticism and irreligion almost monstrous for its time, which found its countenance in Frederick's refined and enlightened court. The genius of the great doctors might have kept in safety the Latin Schools, but not the free and home thoughts which found utterance in the language of the people, if the solemn beauty of the Italian _Commedia_ had not seized on all minds. It would have been an evil thing for Italian, perhaps for European literature, if the siren tales of the _Decameron_ had been the first to occupy the ear with the charms of a new language.

Dante has had hard measure, and from some who are most beholden to him. No one in his day served the Church more highly, than he whose faith and genius secured on her side the first great burst of imagination and feeling, the first perfect accents of modern speech. The first-fruits of the new literature were consecrated, and offered up. There was no necessity, or even probability in Italy in the fourteenth century that it should be so, as there might perhaps have been earlier. It was the poet's free act--free in one, for whom nature and heathen learning had strong temptations--that religion was the lesson and influence of the great popular work of the time. That which he held up before men's awakened and captivated minds, was the verity of God's moral government. To rouse them to a sense of the mystery of their state; to startle their commonplace notions of sin into an imagination of its variety, its magnitude, and its infinite shapes and degrees; to open their eyes to the beauty of the Christian temper, both as suffering and as consummated; to teach them at once the faithfulness and awful freeness of God's grace; to help the dull and lagging soul to conceive the possibility, in its own case, of rising step by step in joy without an end--of a felicity not unimaginable by man, though of another order from the highest perfection of earth;--this is the poet's end.

Nor was it only vague religious feelings which he wished to excite. He brought within the circle of common thought, and translated into the language of the multitude, what the Schools had done to throw light on the deep questions of human existence, which all are fain to muse upon, though none can solve. He who had opened so much of men's hearts to themselves, opened to them also that secret sympathy which exists between them and the great mysteries of the Christian doctrine.[105] He did the work, in his day, of a great preacher. Yet he has been both claimed and condemned, as a disturber of the Church's faith.

[Footnote 105: _Vide_ Ozanam.]

He certainly did not spare the Church's rulers. He thought they were betraying the most sacred of all trusts; and if history is at all to be relied on, he had some grounds for thinking so. But it is confusing the feelings of the middle ages with our own, to convert every fierce attack on the Popes into an anticipation of Luther. Strong language of this sort was far too commonplace to be so significant. No age is blind to practical abuses, or silent on them; and when the middle ages complained, they did so with a full-voiced and clamorous rhetoric, which greedily seized on every topic of vilification within its reach. It was far less singular, and far less bold, to criticise ecclesiastical authorities, than is often supposed; but it by no means implied unsettled faith, or a revolutionary design. In Dante's case, if words have any meaning--not words of deliberate qualification, but his unpremeditated and incidental expressions--his faith in the Divine mission and spiritual powers of the Popes was as strong as his abhorrence of their degeneracy, and desire to see it corrected by a power which they would respect--that of the temporal sword. It would be to mistake altogether his character, to imagine of him, either as a fault or as an excellence, that he was a doubter. It might as well be supposed of Aquinas.

No one ever acknowledged with greater seriousness, as a fact in his position in the world, the agreement in faith among those with whom he was born. No one ever inclined with more simplicity and reverence before that long communion and consent in feeling and purpose, the "_publicus_ sensus" of the Christian Church. He did feel difficulties; but the excitement of lingering on them was not among his enjoyments. That was the lot of the heathen; Virgil, made wise by death, counsels him not to desire it:

"Matto è chi spera, che nostra ragione Possa trascorrer la 'nfinita via Che tiene una sustanzia in tre Persone. State contenti, umana gente, al _quia_; Chè se potuto aveste veder tutto, Mestier non era partorir Maria: E disiar vedeste senza frutto Tai, che sarebbe lor disio quetato, Ch'eternamente è dato lor per lutto; I' dico d'Aristotile e di Plato, E di molti altri:"--e qui chinò la fronte, E più non disse, e rimase turbato.--_Purg._ c. 3.[106]

[Footnote 106:

"Insensate he, who thinks with mortal ken To pierce Infinitude, which doth enfold Three Persons in one Substance. Seek not then, O mortal race, for reasons--but believe, And be contented; for had all been seen, No need there was for Mary to conceive. Men have ye known, who thus desired in vain; And whose desires, that might at rest have been, Now constitute a source of endless pain; Plato, the Stagirite; and many more, I here allude to;"--then his head he bent, Was silent, and a troubled aspect wore.--WRIGHT.]

The Christian poet felt that it was greater to believe and to act. In the darkness of the world one bright light appeared, and he followed it. Providence had assigned him his portion of truth, his portion of daily bread; if to us it appears blended with human elements, it is perfectly clear that he was in no position to sift them. To choose was no trial of his. To examine and seek, where it was impossible to find, would have been folly. The authority from which he started had not yet been seriously questioned; there were no palpable signs of doubtfulness on the system which was to him the representative of God's will; and he sought for none. It came to him claiming his allegiance by custom, by universality, by its completeness as a whole, and satisfying his intellect and his sympathies in detail. And he gave his allegiance--reasonably, because there was nothing to hope for in doubting--wisely, because he gave it loyally and from his heart.

And he had his reward--the reward of him who throws himself with frankness and earnestness into a system; who is not afraid or suspicious of it; who is not unfaithful to it. He gained not merely power--he gained that freedom and largeness of mind which the suspicious or the unfaithful miss. His loyalty to the Church was no cramping or blinding service; it left to its full play that fresh and original mind, left it to range at will in all history and all nature for the traces of Eternal wisdom, left it to please itself with all beauty, and pay its homage to all excellence. For upon all wisdom, beauty, and excellence, the Church had taught him to see, in various and duly distinguished degrees, the seal of the one Creator. She imparts to the poem, to its form and progressive development, her own solemnity, her awe, her calm, her serenity and joy; it follows her sacred seasons and hours; repeats her appointed words of benediction and praise; moulds itself on her belief, her expectations, and forecastings.[107] Her intimations, more or less distinct, dogma or tradition or vague hint, guide the poet's imagination through the land where all eyes are open.

The journey begins under the Easter moon of the year of jubilee, on the evening of Good Friday; the days of her mourning he spends in the regions of woe, where none dares to pronounce the name of the Redeemer, and he issues forth to "behold again the stars," to learn how to die to sin and rise to righteousness, very early in the morning, as it begins to dawn, on the day of the Resurrection. The whole arrangement of the _Purgatorio_ is drawn from Church usages. It is a picture of men suffering in calm and holy hope the sharp discipline of repentance, amid the prayers, the melodies, the consoling images and thoughts, the orderly ritual, the hours of devotion, the sacraments of the Church militant. When he ascends in his hardiest flight, and imagines the joys of the perfect and the vision of God, his abundant fancy confines itself strictly to the limits sanctioned by her famous teachers--ventures into no new sphere, hazards no anticipations in which they have not preceded it, and is content with adding to the poetry which it elicits from their ideas, a beauty which it is able to conceive apart altogether from bodily form--the beauty, infinite in its variety, of the expression of the human eye and smile--the beauty of light, of sound, of motion.

And when his song mounts to its last strain of triumph, and the poet's thought, imagination, and feeling of beauty, tasked to the utmost, nor failing under the weight of glory which they have to express, breathe themselves forth in words, higher than which no poetry has ever risen, and represent, in images transcending sense, and baffling it, yet missing not one of those deep and transporting sympathies which they were to touch, the sight, eye to eye, of the Creator by the creature--he beholds the gathering together, in the presence of God, of "all that from our earth has to the skies returned," and of the countless orders of their thrones mirrored in His light--

Mira Quanto è 'l convento delle bianche stole--

under a figure already taken into the ceremonial of the Church--the mystic Rose, whose expanding leaves image forth the joy of the heavenly Jerusalem, both triumphant and militant.[108]

[Footnote 107: See an article in the _Brit. Critic_, No. 65, p. 120.]

[Footnote 108: See the form of benediction of the "Rosa d'oro." _Rituum Ecclesiæ Rom. Libri Tres._ fol. xxxv. Venet. 1516. Form of giving: "Accipe rosam de manibus nostris ... per quam designatus gaudium utriusque Hierusalem triumphantis scilicet et militantis ecclesiæ per quam omnibus Christi fidelibus manifestatur flos ipse pretiosissimus qui est gaudium et corona sanctorum omnium." He alludes to it in the _Convito_, iv. 29.

O isplendor di Dio, per cu' io vidi L'alto trionfo del regno verace, Dammi virtù a dir com'io lo vidi. Lume è lassù, che visibile face Lo creatore a quella creatura, Che solo in lui vedere ha la sua pace: E si distende in circular figura In tanto, che la sua circonferenza Sarebbe al Sol troppo larga cintura.

* * * *

E come clivo in acqua di suo imo Si specchia quasi per vedersi adorno, Quanto è nel verde e ne' fioretti opimo; Sì soprastando al lume intorno intorno Vidi specchiarsi in più di mille soglie, Quanto di noi lassù fatto ha ritorno. E se l'infimo grado in sè raccoglie Sì grande lume, quant'è la larghezza Di questa rosa nell'estreme foglie?

* * * *

Nel giallo della rosa sempiterna, Che si dilata, rigrada, e redole Odor di lode al Sol, che sempre verna, Qual'è colui, che tace e dicer vuole, Mi trasse Beatrice, e disse; mira Quanto è 'l convento delle bianche stole! Vedi nostra Città quanto ella gira! Vedi li nostri scanni sì ripieni, Che poca gente omai ci si disira.

* * * *

In forma dunque di candida rosa Mi si mostrava la milizia santa, Che nel suo sangue Cristo fece sposa.--_Parad._ 30, 31.]

But this universal reference to the religious ideas of the Church is so natural, so unaffected, that it leaves him at full liberty in other orders of thought. He can afford not to be conventional--he can afford to be comprehensive and genuine. It has been remarked how, in a poem where there would seem to be a fitting place for them, the ecclesiastical legends of the middle ages are almost entirely absent. The sainted spirits of the _Paradiso_ are not exclusively or chiefly the Saints of popular devotion. After the Saints of the Bible, the holy women, the three great Apostles, the Virgin mother, they are either names personally dear to the poet himself, friends whom he had loved, and teachers to whom he owed wisdom--or great men of masculine energy in thought or action, in their various lines "compensations and antagonists of the world's evils"--Justinian and Constantine, and Charlemagne--the founders of the Orders, Augustine, Benedict, and Bernard, Francis and Dominic--the great doctors of the Schools, Thomas Aquinas, and Bonaventura, whom the Church had not yet canonized. And with them are joined--and that with a full consciousness of the line which theology draws between the dispensations of nature and grace--some rare types of virtue among the heathen. Cato is admitted to the outskirts of Purgatory; Trajan, and the righteous king of Virgil's poem, to the heaven of the just.[109]

[Footnote 109:

Chi crederebbe giù nel mondo errante, Che Rifèo Trojano[A] in questo tondo Fosse la quinta delle luci sante? Ora conosce assai di quel, che 'l mondo Veder non può della divina grazia; Benchè sua vista non discerna il fondo.--_Parad._ c. 20.]

[Footnote A:

Rhipeus justissimus unus Qui fuit in Teucris, et servantissimus æqui.--_Æn._ ii.]

Without confusion or disturbance to the religious character of his train of thought, he is able freely to subordinate to it the lessons and the great recollections of the Gentile times. He contemplates them with the veil drawn off from them; as now known to form but one whole with the history of the Bible and the Church, in the design of Providence. He presents them in their own colours, as drawn by their own writers--he only adds what Christianity seems to show to be their event. Under the conviction, that the light of the Heathen was a real guide from above, calling for vengeance in proportion to unfaithfulness, or outrage done to it--"He that nurtureth the heathen, it is He that teacheth man knowledge--shall not He punish?"--the great criminals of profane history are mingled with sinners against God's revealed will--and that, with equal dramatic power, with equal feeling of the greatness of their loss. The story of the voyage of Ulysses is told with as much vivid power and pathetic interest as the tales of the day.[110] He honours unfeignedly the old heathen's brave disdain of ease; that spirit, even to old age, eager, fresh, adventurous, and inquisitive.

His faith allowed him to admire all that was beautiful and excellent among the heathen, without forgetting that it fell short of what the new gift of the Gospel can alone impart. He saw in it proof that God had never left His will and law without their witness among men. Virtue was virtue still, though imperfect, and unconsecrated--generosity, largeness of soul, truth, condescension, justice, were never unworthy of the reverence of Christians. Hence he uses without fear or scruple the classic element. The examples which recall to the minds of the penitents, by sounds and sights, in the different terraces of Purgatory, their sin and the grace they have to attain to, come indiscriminately from poetry and Scripture. The sculptured pavement, to which the proud are obliged ever to bow down their eyes, shows at once the humility of S. Mary and of the Psalmist, and the condescension of Trajan; and elsewhere the pride of Nimrod and Sennacherib, of Niobe, and Cyrus. The envious hear the passing voices of courtesy from saints and heroes, and the bursting cry, like crashing thunder, of repentant jealousy from Cain and Aglaurus; the avaricious, to keep up the memory of their fault, celebrate by day the poverty of Fabricius and the liberality of S. Nicolas, and execrate by night the greediness of Pygmalion and Midas, of Achan, Heliodorus, and Crassus.

[Footnote 110: _Inf._ c. 26.]

Dante's all-surveying, all-embracing mind, was worthy to open the grand procession of modern poets. He had chosen his subject in a region remote from popular thought--too awful for it, too abstruse. He had accepted frankly the dogmatic limits of the Church, and thrown himself with even enthusiastic faith into her reasonings, at once so bold and so undoubting--her spirit of certainty, and her deep contemplations on the unseen and infinite. And in literature, he had taken as guides and models, above all criticism and all appeal, the classical writers. Yet with his mind full of the deep and intricate questions of metaphysics and theology, and his poetical taste always owning allegiance to Virgil, Ovid, and Statius--keen and subtle as a Schoolman--as much an idolator of old heathen art and grandeur as the men of the _Renaissance_--his eye is as open to the delicacies of character, to the variety of external nature, to the wonders of the physical world--his interest in them as diversified and fresh, his impressions as sharp and distinct, his rendering of them as free and true and forcible, as little weakened or confused by imitation or by conventional words, his language as elastic, and as completely under his command, his choice of poetic materials as unrestricted and original, as if he had been born in days which claim as their own such freedom, and such keen discriminative sense of what is real, in feeling and image;--as if he had never felt the attractions of a crabbed problem of scholastic logic, or bowed before the mellow grace of the Latins.

It may be said, indeed, that the time was not yet come when the classics could be really understood and appreciated; and this is true, perhaps fortunate. But admiring them with a kind of devotion, and showing not seldom that he had caught their spirit, he never _attempts_ to copy them. His poetry in form and material is all his own. He asserted the poet's claim to borrow from all science, and from every phase of nature, the associations and images which he wants; and he showed that those images and associations did not lose their poetry by being expressed with the most literal reality.

But let no reader of fastidious taste disturb his temper by the study of Dante. Dante certainly opened that path of freedom and poetic conquest, in which the greatest efforts of modern poetry have followed him--opened it with a magnificence and power which have never been surpassed. But the greatest are but pioneers; they must be content to leave to a posterity, which knows more, if it cannot do as much, a keen and even growing sense of their defects. The _Commedia_ is open to all the attacks that can be made on grotesqueness and extravagance. This is partly owing, doubtless, to the time, in itself quaint, quainter to us, by being remote and ill-understood; but even then, weaker and less daring writers than Dante do not equally offend or astonish us. So that an image or an expression will render forcibly a thought, there is no strangeness which checks him. Barbarous words are introduced, to express the cries of the demon or the confusion of Babel--even to represent the incomprehensible song of the blessed;[111] inarticulate syllables, to convey the impression of some natural sound--the cry of sorrowful surprise:

Alto sospir, che duolo strinse in _hui_;--_Purg._ 16.

or the noise of the cracking ice:

Se Tabernicch Vi fosse sù caduto, o Pietra-pana Non avria pur da l'orlo fatto _cricch_;--_Inf._ 32.

even separate letters--to express an image, to spell a name, or as used in some popular proverb.[112] He employs without scruple, and often with marvellous force of description, any recollection that occurs to him, however homely, of everyday life;--the old tailor threading his needle with trouble (_Inf._ 15);--the cook's assistant watching over the boiling broth (_Inf._ 21);--the hurried or impatient horse-groom using his curry-comb (_Inf._ 29);--or the common sights of the street or the chamber--the wet wood sputtering on the hearth:

Come d'un stizzo verde che arso sia Dall'un de' capi, che dall'altro geme E cigola per vento che va via;--_Inf._ 13.[113]

the paper changing colour when about to catch fire:

Come procede innanzi dall'ardore Per lo papiro suso un color bruno Che non è nero ancora, e 'l bianco muore:--_Inf._ 25.[114]

the steaming of the hand when bathed, in winter:

Fuman come man bagnata il verno:--

or the ways and appearances of animals--ants meeting on their path:

Lì veggio d'ogni parte farsi presta Ciascun'ombra, e baciarsi una con una Senza restar, contente a breve festa: Così per entro loro schiera bruna _S'ammusa l'una con l'altra formica_, Forse a spiar lor via e lor fortuna;--_Purg._ 26.[115]

the snail drawing in its horns (_Inf._ 25);--the hog shut out of its sty, and trying to gore with its tusks (_Inf._ 30);--the dogs' misery in summer (_Inf._ 17);--the frogs jumping on to the bank before the water-snake (_Inf._ 9);--or showing their heads above water:

Come al orlo dell'acqua d'un fosso Stan gli ranocchi _pur col muso fuori_, Sì che celano i piedi, e l'altro grosso.--_Inf._ 22.[116]

[Footnote 111: _Parad._ 7, 1-3.]

[Footnote 112: To describe the pinched face of famine;--

Parean l'occhiaje annella senza gemme. Chi nel viso degli uomini legge OMO Ben avria quivi conosciuto l'_emme_ (M).--_Purg._ 23.

Again,

Quella reverenza che s'indonna Di tutto me, pur per B e per ICE.--_Parad._ 7.

Nè O sì tosto mai, nè I si scrisse, Com'ei s'accese ed arse.--_Inf._ 24.]

[Footnote 113:

Like to a sapling, lighted at one end, Which at the other hisses with the wind, And drops of sap doth from the outlet send: So from the broken twig, both words and blood flow'd forth.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 114:

Like burning paper, when there glides before The advancing flame a brown and dingy shade, Which is not black, and yet is white no more.--IBID.]

[Footnote 115:

On either hand I saw them haste their meeting, And kiss each one the other--pausing not-- Contented to enjoy so short a greeting. Thus do the ants among their dingy band, Face one another--each their neighbour's lot Haply to scan, and how their fortunes stand.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 116:

As in a trench, frogs at the water side Sit squatting, with their noses raised on high, The while their feet, and all their bulk they hide-- Thus upon either hand the sinners stood. But Barbariccia now approaching nigh, Quick they withdrew beneath the boiling flood. I saw--and still my heart is thrill'd with fear-- One spirit linger; as beside a ditch, One frog remains, the others disappear.--IBID.]

It must be said, that most of these images, though by no means all, occur in the _Inferno_; and that the poet means to paint sin not merely in the greatness of its ruin and misery, but in characters which all understand, of strangeness, of vileness, of despicableness, blended with diversified and monstrous horror. Even he seems to despair of his power at times:

S'io avessi le rime e aspre, e chiocce, Come si converrebbe al tristo buco, Sovra 'l qual pontan tutte l'altre rocce; Io premerrei di mio concetto il suco Più pienamente; ma perch'io non l'abbo, Non senza tema a dicer mi conduco: Che non è 'mpresa da pigliare a gabbo Descriver fondo a tutto l'universo, Nè da lingua, che chiami mamma, o babbo.--_Inf._ 32.[117]

[Footnote 117:

Had I a rhyme so rugged, rough, and hoarse As would become the sorrowful abyss, O'er which the rocky circles wind their course, Then with a more appropriate form I might Endow my vast conceptions; wanting this, Not without fear I bring myself to write. For no light enterprise it is, I deem, To represent the lowest depth of all; Nor should a childish tongue attempt the theme.--WRIGHT.]

Feeling the difference between sins, in their elements and, as far as we see them, their baseness, he treats them variously. His ridicule is apportioned with a purpose. He passes on from the doom of the sins of incontinence--the storm, the frost and hail, the crushing weights--from the flaming minarets of the city of Dis, of the Furies and Proserpine, "Donna dell'eterno pianto," where the unbelievers lie, each in his burning tomb--from the river of boiling blood--the wood with the Harpies--the waste of barren sand with fiery snow, where the violent are punished--to the Malebolge, the manifold circles of Falsehood. And here scorn and ridicule in various degrees, according to the vileness of the fraud, begin to predominate, till they culminate in that grim comedy, with its _dramatis personæ_ and battle of devils, Draghignazzo, and Graffiacane, and Malacoda, where the peculators and sellers of justice are fished up by the demons from the boiling pitch, but even there overreach and cheat their tormentors, and make them turn their fangs on each other. The diversified forms of falsehood seem to tempt the poet's imagination to cope with its changefulness and inventions, as well as its audacity. The transformations of the wildest dream do not daunt him. His power over language is nowhere more forcibly displayed than in those cantos, which describe the punishments of theft--men passing gradually into serpents, and serpents into men:

Due e nessun l'imagine perversa Parea.--_Inf._ 25.

And when the traitor, who murdered his own kinsman, was still alive, and seemed safe from the infamy which it was the poet's rule to bestow only on the dead, Dante found a way to inflict his vengeance without an anachronism:--Branca D'Oria's body, though on earth, is only animated by a fiend, and his spirit has long since fled to the icy prison.[118]

[Footnote 118:

Ed egli a me: Come 'l mio corpo stea Nel mondo sù, nulla scienzia porto. Cotal vantaggio ha questa Tolommea, Che spesse volte l'anima ci cade Innanzi, ch'Atropòs mossa le dea. E perchè tu più volontier mi rade Le 'nvetriate lagrime dal volto, Sappi, che tosto che l'anima trade, Come fec'io, il corpo suo l'è tolto Da un Dimonio, che poscia il governa, Mentre che 'l tempo suo tutto sia volto. Ella ruina in sì fatta cisterna; E forse pare ancor lo corpo suso Dell'ombra, che di qua dietro mi verna. Tu 'l dei saper, se tu vien pur mo giuso: Egli è ser Branca d'Oria, e son più anni Poscia passati, ch'ei fu sì racchiuso. Io credo, diss'io lui, che tu m'inganni, Che Branca d'Oria non morì unquanche, E mangia, e bee, e dorme, e veste panni. Nel fosso sù, diss'ei, di Malebranche, Là dove bolle la tenace pece, Non era giunto ancora Michel Zanche; Che questi lasciò 'l diavolo in sua vece Nel corpo suo, e d'un suo prossimano, Che 'l tradimento insieme con lui fece.--_Inf._ 33.]

These are strange experiments in poetry; their strangeness is exaggerated as detached passages; but they are strange enough when they meet us in their place in the context, as parts of a scene, where the mind is strung and overawed by the sustained power, with which dreariness, horror, hideous absence of every form of good, is kept before the imagination and feelings, in the fearful picture of human sin. But they belong to the poet's system of direct and forcible representation. What his inward eye sees, what he feels, that he means us to see and feel as he does; to make us see and feel is his art. Afterwards we may reflect and meditate; but first we must see--must see what he saw. Evil and deformity are in the world, as well as good and beauty; the eye cannot escape them, they are about our path, in our heart and memory. He has faced them without shrinking or dissembling, and extorted from them a voice of warning. In all poetry that is written for mere delight, in all poetry which regards but a part or an aspect of nature, they have no place--they disturb and mar; but he had conceived a poetry of the whole, which would be weak or false without them. Yet they stand in his poem as they stand in nature--subordinate and relieved. If the grotesque is allowed to intrude itself--if the horrible and the foul, undisguised and unsoftened, make us shudder and shrink, they are kept in strong check and in due subjection by other poetical influences; and the same power which exhibits them in their naked strength, renders its full grace and glory to beauty; its full force and delicacy to the most evanescent feeling.

Dante's eye was free and open to external nature in a degree new among poets; certainly in a far greater degree than among the Latins, even including Lucretius, whom he probably had never read. We have already spoken of his minute notice of the appearance of living creatures; but his eye was caught by the beautiful as well as by the grotesque.

Take the following beautiful picture of the bird looking out for dawn:

Come l'augello intra l'amate fronde, Posato al nido de' suoi dolci nati, La notte, che le cose ci nasconde, Che per veder gli aspetti desiati, E per trovar lo cibo, onde li pasca, In che i gravi labor gli sono aggrati, Previene 'l tempo in su l'aperta frasca, E con ardente affetto il sole aspetta, Fiso guardando, pur che l'alba nasca.--_Parad._ 23.[119]

[Footnote 119:

E'en as the bird that resting in the nest Of her sweet brood, the shelt'ring boughs among While all things are enwrapt in night's dark vest-- Now eager to behold the looks she loves, And to find food for her impatient young (Whence labour grateful to a mother proves), Forestalls the time, high perch'd upon the spray, And with impassion'd zeal the sun expecting, Anxiously waiteth the first break of day.--WRIGHT.]

Nothing indeed can be more true and original than his images of birds; they are varied and very numerous. We have the water-birds rising in clamorous and changing flocks:

Come augelli surti di riviera _Quasi congratulando a lor pasture_, Fanno di sè or tonda or lunga schiera;--_Parad._ 18.[120]

the rooks, beginning to move about at daybreak:

E come per lo natural costume, Le pole insieme, al cominciar del giorno Si muovono a scaldar le fredde piume, Poi altre vanno via senza ritorno, Altre rivolgon sè onde son mosse Ed altre roteando fan soggiorno;--_Parad._ 21.[121]

the morning sounds of the swallow:

Nell'ora che comincia i tristi lai La rondinella presso alla mattina, Forse a memoria de' suoi primi guai;--_Purg._ 9.[122]

the joy and delight of the nightingale's song (_Purg._ 17); the lark, silent at last, filled with its own sweetness:

Qual lodoletta, che 'n aere si spazia, Prima cantando, e _poi tace contenta Dell'ultima dolcezza che la sazia_;--_Parad._ 20.[123]

the flight of the starlings and storks (_Inf._ 5, _Purg._ 24); the mournful cry and long line of the cranes (_Inf._ 5, _Purg._ 26); the young birds trying to escape from the nest (_Purg._ 25); the eagle hanging in the sky:

Con l'ale aperte, e a calare intesa;--

the dove, standing close to its mate, or wheeling round it:

Sì come quando 'l _colombo si pone Presso al compagno_, l'uno e l'altro pande _Girando e mormorando_ l'affezione;--_Parad._ 25.[124]

or the flock of pigeons, feeding:

Adunati alla pastura, Queti, _senza mostrar l'usato orgoglio_.--_Purg._ 2.

[Footnote 120:

And as birds rising from a stream, whence they Their pastures view, as though their joy confessing, Now form a round, and now a long array.--IBID.]

[Footnote 121:

And as with one accord, at break of day, The rooks bestir themselves, by nature taught To chase the dew-drops from their wings away; Some flying off, to reappear no more-- Others repairing to their nests again-- Some whirling round--then settling as before.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 122:

What time the swallow pours her plaintive strain, Saluting the approach of morning gray, Thus haply mindful of her former pain.--IBID.]

[Footnote 123:

E'en as the lark high soaring pours its throat Awhile, then rests in silence, as though still It dwelt enamour'd of its last sweet note.--IBID.]

[Footnote 124:

As when unto his partner's side, the dove Approaches near--both fondly circling round, And cooing, show the fervour of their love; So these great heirs of immortality Receive each other; while they joyful sound The praises of the food they share on high.--WRIGHT.]

Hawking supplies its images: the falcon coming for its food:

Il falcon che prima a piè si mira, Indi si volge al grido, e si protende, Per lo disio del pasto, che là il tira;--_Purg._ 19.[125]

or just unhooded, pluming itself for its flight:

Quasi falcon, ch'esce del cappello, Muove la testa, e con l'ale s'applaude, _Voglia mostrando, e facendosi bello_;--_Parad._ 19.[126]

or returning without success, sullen and loath:

Come 'l falcon ch'è stato assai su l'ali, Che senza veder logoro, o uccello, Fa dire al falconiere: Oimè tu cali! Discende lasso onde si muove snello Per cento ruote, _e da lungi si pone_ Dal suo maestro, _disdegnoso e fello_.--_Inf._ 17.[127]

[Footnote 125:

And, as a falcon, which first scans its feet, Then turns him to the call, and forward flies, In eagerness to catch the tempting meat.--IBID.]

[Footnote 126:

Lo, as a falcon, from the hood released, Uplifts his head, and joyous flaps his wings, His beauty and his eagerness increased.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 127:

E'en as a falcon, long upheld in air, Not seeing lure or bird upon the wing, So that the falconer utters in despair "Alas, thou stoop'st!" fatigued descends from high; And whirling quickly round in many a ring, Far from his master sits--disdainfully.--IBID.]

It is curious to observe him taking Virgil's similes, and altering them. When Virgil describes the throng of souls, he compares them to falling leaves, or gathering birds in autumn:

Quam multa in silvis auctumni frigore primo Lapsa cadunt folia, aut ad terram gurgite ab alto Quam multæ glomerantur aves, ubi frigidus annus Trans pontum fugat, et terris immittit apricis--

Dante uses the same images, but without copying:

Come d'Autunno si levan le foglie, L'una appresso dell'altra, infin che 'l ramo Rende alla terra tutte le sue spoglie; Similemente il mal seme d'Adamo: Gittansi di quel lito ad una ad una Per cenni, com'augel per suo richiamo. Così sen vanno su per l'onda bruna, Ed avanti che sien di là discese, Anche di qua nuova schiera s'aduna.--_Inf._ 3.[128]

[Footnote 128:

As leaves in autumn, borne before the wind, Drop one by one, until the branch laid bare, Sees all its honours to the earth consign'd: So cast them downward at his summons all The guilty race of Adam from that strand-- Each as a falcon answering to the call.--WRIGHT.]

Again--compared with one of Virgil's most highly-finished and perfect pictures, the flight of the pigeon, disturbed at first, and then becoming swift and smooth:

Qualis spelunca subito commota columba, Cui domus et dulces latebroso in pumice nidi, Fertur in arva volans, plausumque exterrita pennis Dat tecto ingentem, mox aere lapsa quieto Radit iter liquidum, celeres neque commovet alas--

the Italian's simplicity and strength may balance the "ornata parola" of Virgil:

Quali colombe dal disio chiamate, Con _l'ali aperte e ferme_ al dolce nido Volan per l'aer dal voler portate.--_Inf._ 5.[129]

[Footnote 129:

As doves, by strong affection urged, repair With firm expanded wings to their sweet nest, Borne by the impulse of their will through air.--IBID.

It is impossible not to be reminded at every step, in spite of the knowledge and taste which Mr. Cary and Mr. Wright have brought to their most difficult task, of the truth which Dante has expressed with his ordinary positiveness.

He is saying that he does not wish his Canzoni to be explained in Latin to those who could not read them in Italian: "Che sarebbe sposta la loro sentenzia colà dove elle _non la potessono colla loro bellezza portare_. E però sappia ciascuno che nulla cosa per legame musaico (_i.e._ poetico) armonizzata, si può della sua loquela in altra trasmutare senza rompere tutta la sua dolcezza e armonia. E questa è la ragione per che Omero non si mutò mai di Greco in Latino, come l'altre scritture che avemo da loro."--_Convito_, i. c. 8, p. 49.

Dr. Carlyle has given up the idea of attempting to represent Dante's verse by English verse, and has confined himself to assisting Englishmen to read him in his own language. His prose translation is accurate and forcible. And he has added sensible and useful notes.]

Take, again, the _times of the day_, with what is characteristic of them--appearances, lights, feelings--seldom dwelt on at length, but carried at once to the mind, and stamped upon it sometimes by a single word. The sense of _morning_, its inspiring and cheering strength, softens the opening of the _Inferno_; breathes its refreshing calm, in the interval of repose after the last horrors of hell, in the first canto of the _Purgatorio_; and prepares for the entrance into the earthly Paradise at its close. In the waning light of _evening_, and its chilling sense of loneliness, he prepared himself for his dread pilgrimage:

Lo giorno se n'andava, e l'aer bruno Toglieva gli animai che sono 'n terra Dalle fatiche loro; ed io sol uno M'apparechiava a sostener la guerra Sì del cammino, e sì della pietate.--_Inf._ 2.

Indeed there is scarcely an hour of day or night, which has not left its own recollection with him;--of which we cannot find some memorial in his poem. Evening and night have many. Evening, with its softness and melancholy--its exhaustion and languor, after the work, perhaps unfulfilled, of day--its regrets and yearnings--its sounds and doubtful lights--the distant bell, the closing chants of Compline, the _Salve Regina_, the _Te lucis ante terminum_--with its insecurity, and its sense of protection from above--broods over the poet's first resting-place on his heavenly road--that still, solemn, dreamy scene--the Valley of Flowers in the mountain side, where those who have been negligent about their salvation, but not altogether faithless and fruitless, the assembled shades of great kings and of poets, wait, looking upwards, "pale and humble," for the hour when they may begin in earnest their penance. (_Purg._ 7 and 8.) The level, blinding evening beams (_Purg._ 15); the contrast of gathering darkness in the valley or on the shore with the lingering lights on the mountain (_Purg._ 17); the rapid sinking of the sun, and approach of night in the south (_Purg._ 27); the flaming sunset clouds of August; the sheet-lightning of summer (_Purg._ 5); have left pictures in his mind, which an incidental touch reawakens, and a few strong words are sufficient to express. Other appearances he describes with more fulness. The stars coming out one by one, baffling at first the eye:

Ed ecco intorno di chiarezza pari Nascer un lustro sopra quel che v'era, A guisa d'orizzonte, che rischiari. _E sì come al salir di prima sera Comincian per lo Ciel nuove parvenze, Sì che la cosa pare e non par vera_;--_Parad._ 14.[130]

or else, bursting out suddenly over the heavens:

Quando colui che tutto il mondo alluma, De l'emisperio nostro si discende, E 'l giorno d'ogni parte si consuma; Lo ciel che sol di lui prima s'accende, Subitamente si rifà parvente Per molte luci in che una risplende;--_Parad._ 20.[131]

or the effect of shooting-stars:

Quale per li seren tranquilli e puri Discorre ad ora ad or subito fuoco Movendo gli occhi che stavan sicuri, E pare stella che tramuti loco, Se non che dalla parte onde s'accende Nulla sen perde, ed esso dura poco;--_Parad._ 15.[132]

or, again, that characteristic sight of the Italian summer night--the fire-flies:

Quante il villan che al poggio si riposa, Nel tempo che colui che 'l mondo schiara La faccia sua a noi tien men ascosa, Come la mosca cede alla zenzara, Vede lucciole giù per la vallea Forse colà dove vendemmia ed ara.--_Inf._ 26.[133]

[Footnote 130:

And lo, on high, and lurid as the one Now there, encircling it, a light arose, Like heaven when re-illumined by the sun: And as at the first lighting up of eve The sky doth new appearances disclose, That now seem real, now the sight deceive.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 131:

When he, who with his universal ray The world illumines, quits our hemisphere, And, from each quarter, daylight wears away; The heaven, erst kindled by his beam alone, Sudden its lost effulgence doth repair By many lights illumined but by one.--IBID.]

[Footnote 132:

As oft along the pure and tranquil sky A sudden fire by night is seen to dart, Attracting forcibly the heedless eye; And seems to be a star that changes place, Save that no star is lost from out the part It quits, and that it lasts a moment's space.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 133:

As in that season when the sun least veils His face that lightens all, what time the fly Gives place to the shrill gnat, the peasant then, Upon some cliff reclined, beneath him sees Fire-flies innumerous spangling o'er the vale, Vineyard or tilth, where his day-labour lies.--CARY.]

Noon, too, does not want its characteristic touches--the lightning-like glancing of the lizard's rapid motion:

Come il ramarro sotto la gran fersa Ne' dì canicular cangiando siepe Folgore par, se la via attraversa;--_Inf._ 25.[134]

the motes in the sunbeam at noontide (_Par._ 14); its clear, diffused, insupportable brightness, filling all things:

E tutti eran già pieni Dell'alto dì i giron del sacro monte.--_Purg._ 19.

and veiling the sun in his own light:

Io veggio ben sì come _tu t'annidi Nel proprio lume_.

* * * *

Sì come 'l sol che si cela egli stessi Per troppa luce, quando 'l caldo ha rose Le temperanze de' vapori spessi.--_Parad._ 5.

[Footnote 134:

As underneath the dog-star's scorching ray The lizard, darting swift from fence to fence, Appears like lightning, if he cross the way.--WRIGHT.]

But the sights and feelings of morning are what he touches on most frequently; and he does so with the precision of one who had watched them with often-repeated delight: the scented freshness of the breeze that stirs before daybreak:

E quale annunziatrice degli albori Aura di maggio muovesi ed olezza Tutta impregnata dall'erba e da' fiori; Tal mi senti' un vento dar per mezza La fronte;--_Purg._ 24.[135]

the chill of early morning (_Purg._ 19); the dawn stealing on, and the stars, one by one, fading "infino alla più bella" (_Parad._ 30); the brightness of the "trembling morning star"--

Par tremolando mattutina stella;--

the serenity of the dawn, the blue gradually gathering in the east, spreading over the brightening sky (_Parad._ 1); then succeeded by the orange tints--and Mars setting red, through the mist over the sea:

Ed ecco, qual sul presso del mattino Per li grossi vapor Marte rosseggia Giù nel ponente, sopra 'l suol marino, Cotal m'apparve, s'io ancor lo veggia, Un lume per lo mar venir sì ratto Che 'l muover suo nessun volar pareggia;--_Purg._ 2.[136]

the distant sea-beach quivering in the early light:

L'alba vinceva l'ora mattutina Che fuggia innanzi, sì che di lontano Conobbi _il tremolar della marina_;--_Purg._ 1.[137]

the contrast of east and west at the moment of sunrise, and the sun appearing, clothed in mist:

Io vidi già nel cominciar del giorno La parte oriental tutta rosata E l'altro ciel di bel sereno adorno; E la faccia del sol nascere ombrata Sì che per temperanza di vapori L'occhio lo sostenea lunga fiata;--_Purg._ 3.[138]

or breaking through it, and shooting his beams over the sky:

Di tutte parti saettava il giorno Lo sol ch'avea con le saette conte Di mezzo 'l ciel cacciato 'l Capricorno.--_Purg._ 2.[139]

[Footnote 135:

As when, announcing the approach of day, Impregnated with herbs and flowers of Spring, Breathes fresh and redolent the air of May-- Such was the breeze that gently fann'd my head; And I perceived the waving of a wing Which all around ambrosial odours shed.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 136:

When lo! like Mars, in aspect fiery red Seen through the vapour, when the morn is nigh Far in the west above the briny bed, So (might I once more see it) o'er the sea A light approach'd with such rapidity, Flies not the bird that might its equal be.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 137:

Now 'gan the vanquish'd matin hour to flee; And seen from far, as onward came the day, I recognised the trembling of the sea.--IBID.]

[Footnote 138:

Erewhile the eastern regions have I seen At daybreak glow with roseate colours, and The expanse beside all beauteous and serene: And the sun's face so shrouded at its rise, And temper'd by the mists which overhung, That I could gaze on it with stedfast eyes.--WRIGHT.]

[Footnote 139:

On every side the sun shot forth the day, And had already with his arrows bright From the mid-heaven chased Capricorn away.--IBID.]

But _light_ in general is his special and chosen source of poetic beauty. No poet that we know has shown such singular sensibility to its varied appearances--has shown that he felt it in itself the cause of a distinct and peculiar pleasure, delighting the eye apart from form, as music delights the ear apart from words, and capable, like music, of definite character, of endless variety, and infinite meanings. He must have studied and dwelt upon it like music. His mind is charged with its effects and combinations, and they are rendered with a force, a brevity, a precision, a heedlessness and unconsciousness of ornament, an indifference to circumstance and detail; they flash out with a spontaneous readiness, a suitableness and felicity, which show the familiarity and grasp given only by daily observation, daily thought, daily pleasure. Light everywhere--in the sky and earth and sea--in the star, the flame, the lamp, the gem--broken in the water, reflected from the mirror, transmitted pure through the glass, or coloured through the edge of the fractured emerald--dimmed in the mist, the halo, the deep water--streaming through the rent cloud, glowing in the coal, quivering in the lightning, flashing in the topaz and the ruby, veiled behind the pure alabaster, mellowed and clouding itself in the pearl--light contrasted with shadow--shading off and copying itself in the double rainbow, like voice and echo--light seen within light, as voice discerned within voice, "_quando una è ferma, e l'altra va e riede_"--the brighter "nestling" itself in the fainter--the purer set off on the less clear, "_come perla in bianca fronte_"--light in the human eye and face, displaying, figuring, and confounded with its expressions--light blended with joy in the eye:

luce Come letizia in pupilla viva;

and in the smile:

Vincendo me col lume d'un sorriso;

joy lending its expression to light:

Quivi la donna mia vid'io sì lieta-- Che più lucente se ne fè il pianeta. E se la _stella si cambiò, e rise_, Qual mi fec'io;--_Parad._ 5.

light from every source, and in all its shapes, illuminates, irradiates, gives its glory to the _Commedia_. The remembrance of our "serene life" beneath the "fair stars" keeps up continually the gloom of the _Inferno_. Light, such as we see it and recognise it, the light of morning and evening growing and fading, takes off from the unearthliness of the _Purgatorio_; peopled, as it is, by the undying, who, though suffering for sin, can sin no more, it is thus made like our familiar world, made to touch our sympathies as an image of our own purification in the flesh. And when he rises beyond the regions of earthly day, light, simple, unalloyed, unshadowed, eternal, lifts the creations of his thought above all affinity to time and matter; light never fails him, as the expression of the gradations of bliss; never reappears the same, never refuses the new shapes of his invention, never becomes confused or dim, though it is seldom thrown into distinct figure, and still more seldom _coloured_. Only once, that we remember, is the thought of colour forced on us; when the bright joy of heaven suffers change and eclipse, and deepens into red at the sacrilege of men.[140]

[Footnote 140: _Parad._ 27.]

Yet his eye is everywhere, not confined to the beauty or character of the sky and its lights. His range of observation and largeness of interest prevent that line of imagery, which is his peculiar instrument and predilection, from becoming, in spite of its brightness and variety, dreamy and monotonous; prevent it from arming against itself sympathies which it does not touch. He has watched with equal attention, and draws with not less power, the occurrences and sights of Italian country life; the summer whirlwind sweeping over the plain--"_dinanzi polveroso va superbo_" (_Inf._ 9); the rain-storm of the Apennines (_Purg._ 5); the peasant's alternations of feeling in spring:

In quella parte del giovinetto anno Che 'l sole i crin sotto l'Aquario tempra, E già le notti al mezzo dì sen vanno; Quando la brina in su la terra assempra L'imagine di sua sorella bianca, Ma poco dura alla sua penna tempra, Lo villanello a cui la roba manca Si leva e guarda, e vede la campagna Biancheggiar tutta; ond'ei si batte l'anca; Ritorna a casa, e qua e là si lagna Come 'l tapin che non sa che si faccia: Poi riede e la speranza ringavagna Veggendo 'l mondo aver cangiata faccia In poco d'ora, e prende il suo vincastro E fuor le pecorelle a pascer caccia:--_Inf._ 24.[141]

the manner in which sheep come out from the fold:

Come le pecorelle escon del chiuso _A una a due a tre, e l'altre stanno, Timidette atterrando l'occhio e' l muso; E ciò che fa la prima, e l'altre fanno, Addossandosi a lei s'ella s'arresta_ Semplici e quete, e lo 'mperchè non sanno: Sì vid'io muover a venir la testa Di quella mandria fortunata allotta, Pudica in faccia e nell'andare onesta. Come color dinanzi vider rotta La luce.... Ristaro, e trasser sè indietro alquanto, E tutti gli altri che veniano appresso, Non sappiendo il perchè, fero altrettanto.--_Purg._ 3.

[Footnote 141:

In the new year, when Sol his tresses gay Dips in Aquarius, and the tardy night Divides her empire with the lengthening day-- When o'er the earth the hoar-frost pure and bright Assumes the image of her sister white, Then quickly melts before the genial light-- The rustic, now exhausted his supply, Rises betimes--looks out--and sees the land All white around, whereat he strikes his thigh-- Turns back--and grieving--wanders here and there, Like one disconsolate and at a stand; Then issues forth, forgetting his despair, For lo! the face of nature he beholds Changed on a sudden--takes his crook again, And drives his flock to pasture from the folds.--WRIGHT.]

So with the beautiful picture of the goats upon the mountain, chewing the cud in the noontide heat and stillness, and the goatherd, resting on his staff and watching them--a picture which no traveller among the mountains of Italy or Greece can have missed, or have forgotten:

Quali si fanno ruminando manse Le capre, _state rapide e proterve Sopra le cime_ avanti che sien pranse, _Tacite al ombra mentre che 'l sol ferve, Guardate dal pastor_ che 'n su la verga Poggiato s'è, e lor poggiato serve.--_Purg._ 27.[142]

[Footnote 142:

Like goats that having over the crags pursued Their wanton sports, now, quiet pass the time In ruminating--sated with their food, Beneath the shade, while glows the sun on high-- Watched by the goatherd with unceasing care, As on his staff he leans, with watchful eye.--_Ibid._]

So again, with his recollections of cities: the crowd, running together to hear news (_Purg._ 2), or pressing after the winner of the game (_Purg._ 6); the blind men at the church doors, or following their guide through the throng (_Purg._ 13, 16); the friars walking along in silence, one behind another:

Taciti, soli, e senza compagnia N'andavam, _l'un dinanzi, e l'altro dopo Come i frati minor vanno per via_.--_Inf._ 23.

He turns to account in his poem, the pomp and clamour of the host taking the field (_Inf._ 22); the devices of heraldry; the answering chimes of morning bells over the city;[143] the inventions and appliances of art, the wheels within wheels of clocks (_Par._ 24), the many-coloured carpets of the East (_Inf._ 17); music and dancing--the organ and voice in church:

--Voce mista al dolce suono Che or sì or no s'intendon le parole,--_Purg._ 9.

the lute and voice in the chamber (_Par._ 20); the dancers preparing to begin,[144] or waiting to catch a new strain.[145] Or, again, the images of domestic life, the mother's ways to her child, reserved and reproving--"che al figlio par superba"--or cheering him with her voice, or watching him compassionately in the wandering of fever:

Ond'ella, appresso d'un pio sospiro Gli occhi drizzò ver me, con quel sembiante Che madre fa sopra figliuol deliro.--_Parad._ 1.

[Footnote 143:

Indi come orologio che ne chiami Nell'ora che la sposa di Dio surge A mattinar lo sposo perchè l'ami, Che l'una parte e l'altra tira ed urge Tin tin sonando con sì dolce nota Che 'l ben disposto spirto d'amor turge; Così vid'io la gloriosa ruota Muoversi e render voce a voce, in tempra Ed in dolcezza ch'esser non può nota Se non colà dove 'l gioir s'insempra.--_Parad._ 10.]

[Footnote 144:

E come surge, e va, ed entra in ballo Vergine lieta, sol per farne onore Alla novizia, e non per alcun fallo.--_Ibid._ 25.]

[Footnote 145:

Donne mi parver, non da ballo sciolte, Ma che s'arrestin tacite ascoltando Fin che le nuove note hanno ricolte.--_Ibid._ 10.]

Nor is he less observant of the more delicate phenomena of mind, in its inward workings, and its connexion with the body. The play of features, the involuntary gestures and attitudes of the passions, the power of eye over eye, of hand upon hand, the charm of voice and expression, of musical sounds even when not understood--feelings, sensations, and states of mind which have a name, and others, equally numerous and equally common, which have none--these, often so fugitive, so shifting, so baffling and intangible, are expressed with a directness, a simplicity, a sense of truth at once broad and refined, which seized at once on the congenial mind of his countrymen, and pointed out to them the road which they have followed in art, unapproached as yet by any competitors.[146]

[Footnote 146: For instance:--_thoughts upon thoughts, ending in sleep and dreams_:

Nuovo pensier dentro de me si mise, Dal qual più altri nacquero e diversi: _E tanto d'uno in altro vaneggiai Che gli occhi per vaghezza ricopersi, E 'l pensamento in sogno trasmutai_.--_Purg._ 18.

_sleep stealing off when broken by light_:

Come si frange il sonno, ove di butto Nuova luce percuote 'l viso chiuso, _Che fratto guizza pria che muoja tutto_.--_Ibid._ 17.

_the shock of sudden awakening_:

Come al lume acuto si disonna,

* * * *

_E lo svegliato ciò che vede abborre,_ Sì nescia è la subita vigilia, Finchè la stimativa nol soccorre.--_Parad._ 26.

_uneasy feelings produced by sight or representation of something unnatural_:

Come per sostentar solajo o tetto Per mensola talvolta una figura Si vede giunger le ginocchia al petto, _La qual fa del non ver vera rancura Nascer a chi la vede_; così fatti Vid'io color.--_Purg._ 10.

_blushing in innocent sympathy for others_:

E come donna onesta che permane Di sè sicura, e _per l'altrui fallanza Pure ascoltando timida si fane_: Così Beatrice trasmutò sembianza.--_Par._ 27.

_asking and answering by looks only_:

Volsi gli occhi agli occhi al signor mio; Ond'elli m'assentì con lieto cenno Ciò che chiedea la vista del disio.--_Purg._ 19.

_watching the effect of words_:

Posto avea fine al suo ragionamento L'alto dottore, ad attento guardava Nella mia vista s'io parea contento. Ed io, cui nuova sete ancor frugava, Di fuor taceva e dentro dicea: forse Lo troppo dimandar ch'io fo, li grava. Ma quel padre verace, che s'accorse Del timido voler che non s'apriva, Parlando, di parlare ardir mi porse.--_Ibid._ 18.

_Dante betraying Virgil's presence to Statius, by his involuntary smile_:

Volser Virgilio a me queste parole Con viso che tacendo dicea: "taci;" Ma non può tutto la virtù che vuole; Che riso e pianto son tanto seguaci Alla passion da che ciascun si spicca, _Che men segnon voler ne' più veraci. Io pur sorrisi, come l'uom ch'ammicca: Perchè l'ombra si tacque, e riguardommi Negli occhi ove 'l sembiante più si ficca._ E se tanto lavoro in bene assommi, Disse, perchè la faccia tua testeso _Un lampeggiar a' un riso_ dimostrommi?--_Purg._ 21.

_smiles and words together_:

Per le _sorrise parolette brevi_.--_Parad._ 1.

_eye meeting eye_:

Gli occhi ritorsi avanti Dritti nel lume della dolce guida Che sorridendo ardea negli occhi santi.--_Ibid._ 3.

Come si vede qui alcuna volta L'affetto nella vista, s'ello è tanto Che da lui sia tutta l'anima tolta: Così nel fiammeggiar del fulgor santo A cui mi volsi, conobbi la voglia In lui di ragionarmi ancora alquanto.--_Ibid._ 18.

_gentleness of voice_:

E cominciommi a dir soave e piana Con angelica voce in sua favella.--_Inf._ 2.

E come agli occhi miei si fe' più bella, Così con voce più dolce e soave, Ma non con questa moderna favella, Dissemi;--_Parad._ 16.

_chanting_:

_Te lucis ante_ sì divotamente Le uscì di bocca e con sì dolce note, Che fece me a me uscir di mente. E l'altre poi dolcemente e divote Seguitar lei per tutto l'inno intero, Avendo gli occhi alle superne ruote.--_Purg._ 8.

_chanting blended with the sound of the organ_:

Io mi rivolsi attento al primo tuono, E _Te Deum laudamus_ mi parea Udire in voce mista al dolce suono. Tale imagine appunto mi rendea Ciò ch'io udiva, qual prender si suole _Quando a cantar con organi si stea; Ch'or sì, or no, s'intendon le parole_.--_Purg._ 9.

_voices in concert_:

E come in voce voce si discerne _Quando una è ferma, e' l altra va e riede_.--_Parad._ 8.

_attitudes and gestures: e.g. Beatrice addressing him_,

Con atto e voce di spedito duce.--_Ibid._ 30.

_Sordello eyeing the travellers_:

Venimmo a lei: o anima Lombarda, Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa, E nel muover degli occhi onesta e tarda. Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa, Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando, A guisa di leon quando si posa.--_Purg._ 6.

_the angel moving "dry-shod" over the Stygian pool_:

_Dal volto rimovea quell'aer grasso Menando la sinistra innanzi spesso_, E sol di quell'angoscia parea lasso. Ben m'accorsi ch'egli era del ciel messo, E volsimi al maestro; e quei fe' segno Ch'io stessi cheto ed inchinassi ed esso. Ahi quanto mi parea pien di disdegno.

* * * *

Poi si rivolse per la strada lorda, E non fe' motto a noi, ma fe' sembiante D'uomo cui altra cura stringa e morda Che quella di colui che gli è davante.--_Inf._ 9.]

And he has anticipated the latest schools of modern poetry, by making not merely nature, but science tributary to a poetry with whose general aim and spirit it has little in common--tributary in its exact forms, even in its technicalities. He speaks of the Mediterranean Sea, not merely as a historian, or an observer of its storms or its smiles, but as a geologist;[147] of light, not merely in its beautiful appearances, but in its natural laws.[148] There is a charm, an imaginative charm to him, not merely in the sensible magnificence of the heavens, "in their silence, and light, and watchfulness," but in the system of Ptolemy and the theories of astrology; and he delights to interweave the poetry of feeling and of the outward sense with the grandeur--so far as he knew it--of order, proportion, measured magnitudes, the relations of abstract forces, displayed on such a scene as the material universe, as if he wished to show that imagination in its boldest flight was not afraid of the company of the clear and subtle intellect.

[Footnote 147: _La maggior valle_, in che l'acqua si spandi.--_Parad._ 9.]

[Footnote 148: _E.g._ _Purg._ 15.]

Indeed the real never daunts him. It is his leading principle of poetic composition, to draw out of things the poetry which is latent in them, either essentially, or as they are portions, images, or reflexes of something greater--not to invest them with a poetical semblance, by means of words which bring with them poetical associations, and have received a general poetical stamp. Dante has few of those indirect charms which flow from the subtle structure and refined graces of language--none of that exquisitely-fitted and self-sustained mechanism of choice words of the Greeks--none of that tempered and majestic amplitude of diction, which clothes, like the folds of a royal robe, the thoughts of the Latins--none of that abundant play of fancy and sentiment, soft or grand, in which the later Italian poets delighted. Words with him are used sparingly, never in play--never because they carry with them poetical recollections--never for their own sake; but because they are instruments which will give the deepest, clearest, sharpest stamp of that image which the poet's mind, piercing to the very heart of his subject, or seizing the characteristic feature which to other men's eyes is confused and lost among others accidental and common, draws forth in severe and living truth.

Words will not always bend themselves to his demands on them; they make him often uncouth, abrupt, obscure. But he is too much in earnest to heed uncouthness; and his power over language is too great to allow uncertainty as to what he means, to be other than occasional. Nor is he a stranger to the utmost sweetness and melody of language. But it appears, unsought for and unlaboured, the spontaneous and inevitable obedience of the tongue and pen to the impressions of the mind; as grace and beauty, of themselves, "command and guide the eye" of the painter, who thinks not of his hand but of them. All is in character with the absorbed and serious earnestness which pervades the poem; there is no toying, no ornament, that a man in earnest might not throw into his words;--whether in single images, or in pictures, like that of the Meadow of the Heroes (_Inf._ 4), or the angel appearing in hell to guide the poet through the burning city (_Inf._ 9)--or in histories, like those of Count Ugolino, or the life of S. Francis (_Parad._ 11)--or in the dramatic scenes like the meeting of the poets Sordello and Virgil (_Purgat._ 6), or that one, unequalled in beauty, where Dante himself, after years of forgetfulness and sin, sees Beatrice in glory, and hears his name, never but once pronounced during the vision, from her lips.[149]

[Footnote 149:

Io vidi già nel cominciar del giorno La parte oriental tutta rosata, E l'altro ciel di bel sereno adorno, E la faccia del sol nascere ombrata, Sì che per temperanza di vapori L'occhio lo sostenea lunga fiata; Così dentro una nuvola di fiori, Che dalle mani angeliche saliva, E ricadeva giù dentro e di fuori, Sovra candido vel cinta d'oliva Donna m'apparve sotto verde manto Vestita di color di fiamma viva. E lo spirito mio, che già cotanto Tempo era stato che alla sua presenza Non era di stupor, tremando, affranto. Senza degli occhi aver più conoscenza, Per occulta virtù, che da lei mosse, D'antico amor senti' la gran potenza.

* * * *

Volsimi alla sinistra col rispitto, Col quale il fantolin corre alla mamma, Quando ha paura, o quando egli è afflitto, Per dicere a Virgilio: Men che dramma Di sangue m'è rimasa, che non tremi: Conosco i segni dell'antica fiamma. Ma Virgilio n'avea lasciati scemi Di sè, Virgilio dolcissimo padre, Virgilio, a cui per mia salute diemi:

* * * *

Dante, perchè Virgilio se ne vada, Non piangere anche, non piangere ancora Chè pianger ti convien per altra spada.

* * * *

Regalmente nell'atto ancor proterva Continuò, come colui che dice, E il più caldo parlar dietro reserva, Guardami ben: ben son, ben son Beatrice: Come degnasti d'accedere al monte? Non sapei tu, che qui è l'uom felice?--_Purg._ 30.

But extracts can give but an imperfect notion of this grand and touching canto.]

But this, or any other array of scenes and images, might be matched from poets of a far lower order than Dante: and to specimens which might be brought together of his audacity and extravagance, no parallel could be found except among the lowest. We cannot, honestly, plead the barbarism of the time as his excuse. That, doubtless, contributed largely to them; but they were the faults of the man. In another age, their form might have been different; yet we cannot believe so much of time, that it would have tamed Dante. Nor can we wish it. It might have made him less great: and his greatness can well bear its own blemishes, and will not less meet its due honour among men, because they can detect its kindred to themselves.

The greatness of his work is not in its details--to be made or marred by them. It is the greatness of a comprehensive and vast conception, sustaining without failure the trial of its long and hazardous execution, and fulfilling at its close the hope and promise of its beginning; like the greatness--which we watch in its course with anxious suspense, and look back upon when it is secured by death, with deep admiration--of a perfect life. Many a surprise, many a difficulty, many a disappointment, many a strange reverse and alternation of feelings, attend the progress of the most patient and admiring reader of the _Commedia_; as many as attend on one who follows the unfolding of a strong character in life. We are often shocked when we were prepared to admire--repelled, when we came with sympathy; the accustomed key fails at a critical moment--depths are revealed which we cannot sound, mysteries which baffle and confound us. But the check is for a time--the gap and chasm does not dissever. Haste is even an evidence of life--the brief word, the obscure hint, the unexplained, the unfinished, or even the unachieved, are the marks of human feebleness, but are also among those of human truth.

The unity of the whole is unimpaired. The strength which is working it out, though it may have at times disappointed us, shows no hollowness or exhaustion. The surprise of disappointment is balanced--there is the surprise of unimagined excellence. Powers do more than they promised; and that spontaneous and living energy, without which neither man nor poet can be trusted, and which showed its strength even in its failures, shows it more abundantly in the novelties of success--by touching sympathies which have never been touched before, by the unconstrained freshness with which it meets the proverbial and familiar, by the freedom with which it adjusts itself to a new position or an altered task--by the completeness, unstudied and instinctive, with which it holds together dissimilar and uncongenial materials, and forces the most intractable, the most unaccustomed to submission, to receive the colour of the whole--by its orderly and unmistakable onward march, and its progress, as in height, so in what corresponds to height. It was one and the same man, who rose from the despair, the agony, the vivid and vulgar horrors of the _Inferno_, to the sense and imagination of certainty, sinlessness, and joy ineffable--the same man whose power and whose sympathies failed him not, whether discriminating and enumerating, as if he had gone through them all, the various forms of human suffering, from the dull, gnawing sense of the loss of happiness, to the infinite woes of the wrecked and ruined spirit, and the coarser pangs of the material flesh; or dwelling on the changeful lights and shades of earnest repentance, in its hard, but not unaided or ungladdened struggle, and on that restoration to liberty and peace, which can change even this life into paradise, and reverse the doom which made sorrow our condition, and laughter and joy unnatural and dangerous--the penalty of that first fault, which

In pianto ed in affanno Cambiò onesto riso e dolce giuoco:

or rising finally above mortal experience, to imagine the freedom of the saints and the peace of eternity. In this consists the greatness of his power. It is not necessary to read through the _Commedia_ to see it--open it where we please, we see that he is on his way, and whither he is going; episode and digression share in the solemnity of the general order.

And his greatness was more than that of power. That reach and play of sympathy ministered to a noble wisdom, which used it thoughtfully and consciously for a purpose to which great poetry had never yet been applied, except in the mouth of prophets. Dante was a stern man, and more than stern, among his fellows. But he has left to those who never saw his face an inheritance the most precious; he has left them that which, reflecting and interpreting their minds, does so, not to amuse, not to bewilder, not to warp, not to turn them in upon themselves in distress or gloom or selfishness; not merely to hold up a mirror to nature; but to make them true and make them hopeful. Dark as are his words of individuals, his thoughts are not dark or one-sided about mankind; his is no cherished and perverse severity--his faith is too large, too real, for such a fault. He did not write only the _Inferno_. And the _Purgatorio_ and the _Paradiso_ are not an afterthought, a feebler appendix and compensation, conceived when too late, to a finished whole, which has taken up into itself the poet's real mind.

Nowhere else in poetry of equal power is there the same balanced view of what man is, and may be; nowhere so wide a grasp shown of his various capacities, so strong a desire to find a due place and function for all his various dispositions. Where he stands contrasted in his idea of human life with other poets, who have been more powerful exponents of its separate sides, is in his large and truthful comprehensiveness. Fresh from the thought of man's condition as a whole, fresh from the thought of his goodness, his greatness, his power, as well as of his evil, his mind is equally in tune when rejoicing over his restoration, as when contemplating the ruins of his fall. He never lets go the recollection that human life, if it grovels at one end in corruption and sin, and has to pass through the sweat and dust and disfigurement of earthly toil, has throughout, compensations, remedies, functions, spheres innumerable of profitable activity, sources inexhaustible of delight and consolation--and at the other end a perfection which cannot be named.

No one ever measured the greatness of man in all its forms with so true and yet with so admiring an eye, and with such glowing hope, as he who has also portrayed so awfully man's littleness and vileness. And he went farther--no one who could understand and do homage to greatness in man, ever drew the line so strongly between greatness and goodness, and so unhesitatingly placed the hero of this world only--placed him in all his magnificence, honoured with no timid or dissembling reverence--at the distance of worlds, below the place of the lowest saint.

Those who know the _Divina Commedia_ best, will best know how hard it is to be the interpreter of such a mind; but they will sympathise with the wish to call attention to it. They know, and would wish others also to know, not by hearsay, but by experience, the power of that wonderful poem. They know its austere, yet subduing beauty; they know what force there is, in its free and earnest and solemn verse, to strengthen, to tranquillise, to console. It is a small thing that it has the secret of Nature and Man; that a few keen words have opened their eyes to new sights in earth, and sea, and sky; have taught them new mysteries of sound; have made them recognise, in distinct image or thought, fugitive feelings, or their unheeded expression, by look, or gesture, or motion; that it has enriched the public and collective memory of society with new instances, never to be lost, of human feeling and fortune; has charmed ear and mind by the music of its stately march, and the variety and completeness of its plan. But, besides this, they know how often its seriousness has put to shame their trifling, its magnanimity their faintheartedness, its living energy their indolence, its stern and sad grandeur rebuked low thoughts, its thrilling tenderness overcome sullenness and assuaged distress, its strong faith quelled despair and soothed perplexity, its vast grasp imparted the sense of harmony to the view of clashing truths. They know how often they have found, in times of trouble, if not light, at least that deep sense of reality, permanent, though unseen, which is more than light can always give--in the view which it has suggested to them of the judgments and the love of God.[150]

[Footnote 150: It is necessary to state, that these remarks were written before we had seen the chapter on Dante in "Italy, past and present, by L. Mariotti." Had we become acquainted with it earlier, we should have had to refer to it often, in the way of acknowledgment, and as often in the way of strong protest.]

DE MONARCHIA.