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

city, Messer Donati was banished, and his property forfeited, and the other heads of the sect were proportionally fined and sent into exile. Messer Donati, arriving at Rome, so far prevailed with his Holiness, that he sent an embassy to Charles de Valois, brother to the king of France, declaring his wish that he should be made Emperor, and King of the Romans; under which persuasion Charles passed into Italy, reinstating Messer Donati and the Neri in the city of Florence. From this there only resulted worse evils, inasmuch as all the Bianchi, being the least powerful, were universally oppressed and robbed, and Charles, becoming the enemy of Pope Boniface, conspired his death, because the Pope had not fulfilled his promise of presenting him with an imperial crown. From which events it may be seen that this vile faction was the cause of discord in the cities of Florence and Pistoia, and of the other states of Tuscany; and no Vless to the same source was to be attributed the death of Pope Boniface VIII.”

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Charles de Valois, called Senzaterra, or Lackland, brother of Philip the Fair, king of France. ↩

The names of these two remain unknown. Probably one of them was Dante’s friend Guido Cavalcanti. ↩

Of this Arrigo nothing whatever seems to be known, hardly even his name; for some commentators call him Arrigo dei Fisanti, and others Arrigo dei Fifanti. Of these other men of mark “who set their hearts on doing good,” Farinata is among the Heretics, Canto X; Tegghiaio and Rusticucci among the Sodomites, Canto XVI; and Mosca among the Schismatics, Canto XXVIII. ↩

The philosophy of Aristotle. The same doctrine is taught by St. Augustine:⁠—

“Cum fiet resurrectio carnis, et bonorum gaudia et tormenta mahrum major a crunt.”

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Plutus, the God of Riches, of which Lord Bacon says in his Essays:⁠—

“I cannot call riches better than the baggage of virtue; the Roman word is better, ‘impedimenta’; for as the baggage is to an army, so is riches to virtue; it cannot be spared nor left behind, but it hindcreth the march; yea, and the care of it sometimes loseth or disturbeth the victory; of great riches there is no real use, except it be in the distribution; the rest is but conceit.⁠ ⁠… The personal fruition in any man cannot reach to feel great riches: there is a custody of them; or a power of dole and donative of them; or a fame of them; but no solid use to the owner.”

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In this Canto is described the punishment of the Avaricious and the Prodigal, with Plutus as their jailer. His outcry of alarm is differently interpreted by different commentators, and by none very satisfactorily. The curious student, groping among them for a meaning, is like Gower’s young king, of whom he says, in his Confessio Amantis:⁠—

“Of deepe ymaginations
And straunge interpretations,
Problemes and demaundes eke
His wisedom was to finde and seke,
Whereof he wolde in sondry wise
Opposen hem, that weren wise;
But none of hem it mighte here
Upon his word to give answere.”

But nearly all agree, I believe, in construing the strange words into a cry of alarm or warning to Lucifer, that his realm is invaded by some unusual apparition.

Of all the interpretations given, the most amusing is that of Benvenuto Cellini, in his description of the Court of Justice in Paris, Roscoe’s Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, Chap. XXII:⁠—

“I stooped down several times to observe what passed: the words which I heard the judge utter, upon seeing two gentlemen who wanted to hear the trial, and whom the porter was endeavoring to keep out, were these: ‘Be quiet, be quiet, Satan, get hence, and leave off disturbing us.’ The terms were, Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix. As I had by this time thoroughly learnt the French language, upon hearing these words, I recollected what Dante said, when he with his master, Virgil, entered the gates of hell; for Dante and Giotto the painter were together in France, and visited Paris with particular attention, where the court of justice may be considered as hell. Hence it is that Dante, who was likewise perfect master of the French, made use of that expression; and I have often been surprised, that it was never understood in that sense; so that I cannot help thinking, that the commentators on this author have often made him say things which he never so much as dreamed of.”

Dante himself hardly seems to have understood the meaning of the words, though he suggests that Virgil did. ↩

The overthrow of the Rebel Angels. St. Augustine says:⁠—

“Idolatria et quælibet noxia superstitio fornicatio est.”

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Must dance the Ridda, a round dance of the olden time. It was a Roundelay, or singing and dancing together. Boccaccio’s Monna Belcolore “knew better than any one how to play the tambourine and lead the Ridda.” ↩

As the word honor resounds in Canto IV, and the word love in Canto V, so here the words rolling and turning are the burden of the song, as if to suggest the motion of Fortune’s wheel, so beautifully described a little later. ↩

Clerks, clerics, or clergy. Boccaccio, Comento, remarks upon this passage:⁠—

“Some maintain, that the clergywear the tonsure in remembrance and reverence of St. Peter, on whom, they say, it was made by certain evil-minded men as a mark of madness; because not comprehending and not wishing to comprehend his holy doctrine, and seeing him fervently preaching before princes and people, who held that doctrine in detestation, they thought he acted as one out of his senses. Others maintain that the tonsure is worn as a mark of dignity, as a sign that those who wear it are more worthy than those