The Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri (13 inch ebook reader .txt) 📕

of souls after death, simply considered. For on this and around this the whole action of the work turns. But if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is man, how by actions of merit or demerit, through freedom of the will, he justly deserves reward or punishment.”

It may not be amiss here to refer to what are sometimes called the sources of the Divine Comedy. Foremost among them must be placed the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey, and the Sixth of the Aeneid; and to the latter Dante seems to point significantly in choosing Virgil for his Guide, his Master, his Author, from whom he took “the beautiful style that did him honor.”

Next to these may be mentioned Cicero’s Vision of Scipio, of which Chaucer says:⁠—

“Chapiters seven it had, of Heven, and Hell,
And Earthe, and soules that therein do dwell.”

Then follow the popular legends which were current in Dante’s age; an age when the end of all things was thought to be near at hand, and the wonders of the invisible world had laid fast hold on the imaginations of men. Prominent among these is the “Vision of Frate Alberico,” who calls himself “the humblest servant of the servants of the Lord”; and who

“Saw in dreame at point-devyse
Heaven, Earthe, Hell, and Paradyse.”

This vision was written in Latin in the latter half of the twelfth century, and contains a description of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, with its Seven Heavens. It is for the most part a tedious tale, and bears evident marks of having been written by a friar of some monastery, when the afternoon sun was shining into his sleepy eyes. He seems, however, to have looked upon his own work with a not unfavorable opinion; for he concludes the Epistle Introductory with the words of St. John:⁠—

“If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from these things, God shall take away his part from the good things written in this book.”

It is not impossible that Dante may have taken a few hints also from the Tesoretto of his teacher, Ser Brunetto Latini, See Note 212.

See upon this subject, Cancellieri, Osservazioni Sopra l’Originalità di Dante;⁠—Wright, St. Patrick’s Purgatory, an Essay on the Legends of Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise, current during the Middle Ages;⁠—Ozanam, Dante et la Philosophie Catholique au Treizième Siècle;⁠—Labitte, La Divine Comédie avant Dante, published as an Introduction to the translation of Brizeux;⁠—and Delepierre, Le Livre des Visions, ou l’Enfer et le Ciel décrits par ceux qui les ont vus. ↩

The action of the poem begins on Good Friday of the year 1300, at which time Dante, who was born in 1265, had reached the middle of the Scriptural threescore years and ten. It ends on the first Sunday after Easter, making in all ten days. ↩

The dark forest of human life, with its passions, vices, and perplexities of all kinds; politically the state of Florence with its factions Guelf and Ghibelline. Dante, Convito, IV 25, says:⁠—

“Thus the adolescent, who enters into the erroneous forest of this life, would not know how to keep the right way if he were not guided by his elders.”

Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, II 75:⁠—

“Pensando a capo chino
Perdei il gran cammino,
E tenni alia traversa
D’ una selva diversa.”

Spenser, Faerie Queene, IV ii 45:⁠—

“Seeking adventures in the salvage wood.”

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Bunyan, in his Pilgrim’s Progress, which is a kind of Divine Comedy in prose, says:⁠—

“I beheld then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty.⁠ ⁠… But the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty.⁠ ⁠… They went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before.”

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Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress:⁠—

“But now in this valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it; for he had gone but a little way before he spied a foul fiend coming over the field to meet him; his name is Apollyon. Then did Christian begin to be afraid, and to cast in his mind whether to go back or stand his ground.⁠ ⁠… Now at the end of this valley was another, called the valley of the Shadow of Death; and Christian must needs go through it, because the way to the Celestial City lay through the midst of it.”

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The sun, with all its symbolical meanings. This is the morning of Good Friday.

In the Ptolemaic system the sun was one of the planets. ↩

The deep mountain tarn of his heart, dark with its own depth, and the shadows hanging over it. ↩

Jeremiah 2:6:⁠—

“That led us through the wilderness, through a land of deserts and of pits, through a land of drought, and of the shadow of death, through a land that no man passed through, and where no man dwelt.”

In his note upon this passage Mr. Wright quotes Spenser’s lines, Faerie Queene, I v 31:⁠—

“there creature never passed
That back returned without heavenly grace.”

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Climbing the hillside slowly, so that he rests longest on the foot that is lowest. ↩

Jeremiah 5:6:⁠—

“Wherefore a lion out of the forest shall slay them, a wolf of the evenings shall spoil them, a leopard shall watch over their cities: every one that goeth out thence shall be torn in pieces.”

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Worldly Pleasure; and politically Florence, with its factions of Bianchi and Neri. ↩

Più volte volto. Dante delights