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

oath pf allegiance. He seized a crucifix; This is my sceptre, he said, and all paid homage to him. This single act of firmness made him respectable, and the rest of his conduct showed him to be worthy of the Empire.”

He would not go to Rome to be crowned, and took so little interest in Italian affairs, that Italy became almost independent of the Empire, which seems greatly to disturb the mind of Dante. He died in 1291. ↩

Ottocar the Second, king of Bohemia, who is said to have refused the imperial crown. He likewise refused to pay homage to Rudolph, whom he used to call his maître d’hôtel, declaring he had paid his wages and owed him nothing. Whereupon Rudolph attacked and subdued him. According to Voltaire, Annales de l’Empire, I 306, “he consented to pay homage to the Emperor as his liege-lord, in the island of Kamberg in the middle of the Danube, under a tent whose curtains should be closed to spare him public mortification. Ottocar presented himself covered with gold and jewels; Rudolph, by way of superior pomp, received him in his simplest dress; and in the middle of the ceremony the curtains of the tent fell, and revealed to the eyes of the people and of the armies, that lined the Danube, the proud Ottocar on his knees, with his hands clasped in the hands of his conqueror, whom he had often called his maître d’hôtel, and whose Grand-Seneschal he now became. This story is accredited, and it is of little importance whether it be true or not.”

But the wife was not quiet under this humiliation, and excited him to revolt against Rudolph. He was again overcome, and killed in battle in 1278. ↩

This Winceslaus, says the Ottimo, was “most beautiful among all men; but was not a man of arms; he was a meek and humble ecclesiastic, and did not live long.” Why Dante accuses him of living in luxury and ease does not appear. ↩

Philip the Third of France, surnamed the Bold (1270⁠–⁠1285). Having invaded Catalonia, in a war with Peter the Third of Aragon, both by land and sea, he was driven back, and died at Perpignan during the retreat. ↩

He with the benign aspect, who rests his cheek upon his hand, is Henry of Navarre, surnamed the Fat, and brother of “Good King Thibault,” Inferno XXII 52. An old French chronicle quoted by Philalcthes says, that, “though it is a general opinion that fat men arc of a gentle and benign nature, nevertheless this one was very harsh.” ↩

Philip the Fourth of France, surnamed the Fair, son of Philip the Third, and son-in-law of Henry of Navarre (1285⁠–⁠1314). ↩

Peter the Third of Aragon (1276⁠–⁠1285), the enemy of Charles of Anjou and competitor with him for the kingdom of Sicily. He is counted among the Troubadours, and when Philip the Bold invaded his kingdom, Peter launched a song against him, complaining that the “flower-de-luce kept him sorrowing in his house,” and calling on the Gascons for aid. ↩

Charles of Anjou, king of Sicily and Naples (1265). Villani, VII 1, thus describes him:⁠—

“This Charles was wise and prudent, and valiant in arms, and rough, and much feared and redoubted by all the kings of the world; magnanimous and of a high spirit; steadfast in carrying on every great enterprise, firm in every adversity, and true to every promise, speaking little and doing much. He laughed but little; was chaste as a monk, catholic, harsh in judgment, and of a fierce countenance; large and muscular in person, with an olive complexion and a large nose, and looked the king more than any other lord. He sat up late at night, and slept little, and was in the habit of saying that a great deal of time was lost in sleeping. He was generous to his knights, but eager to acquire land, lordship, and money wherever he could, to furnish means for his enterprises and wars. In courtiers, minstrels, and players he never took delight.”

Yet this is the monarch whose tyranny in Sicily brought about the bloody revenge of the Sicilian Vespers; which in turn so roused the wrath of Charles, that he swore that, “if he could live a thousand years, he would go on razing the cities, burning the lands, torturing the rebellious slaves. He would leave Sicily a blasted, barren, uninhabited rock, as a warning to the present age, an example to the future.” ↩

Philip the Third of Aragon left four sons, Alfonso, James, Frederick, and Peter. Whether the stripling here spoken of is Alonzo or Peter does not appear. ↩

Chaucer, “Wif of Bathes Tale”:⁠—

“Wel can the wise poet of Florence,
That highte Dant, speken of this sentence:
Lo, in swiche maner rime is Dantes tale.
Ful selde up riseth by his branches smale
Prowesse of man, for God of his goodnesse
Wol that we claime of him our gentillesse:
For of our elders may we nothing claime
But temporel thing, that man may hurt and maime.”

↩

It must be remembered that these two who are singing together in this Valley of Princes were deadly foes on earth; and one had challenged the ather to determine their quarrel by single combat.

“The wager of battle between the kings,” says Milman, History of Latin Christianity, VI 168, “which maintained its solemn dignity up almost to the appointed time, ended in a pitiful comedy, in which Charles of Anjou had the ignominy of practising base and disloyal designs against his adversary; Peter, that of eluding the contest by craft, justifiable only as his mistrust of his adversary was well or ill grounded, but much too cunning for a frank and generous knight. He had embarked with his