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

cultivate the pure intellect⁠—where, if not the restraints of religion, at least the awful authority of churchmen was examined with freedom, sometimes ridiculed with sportive wit.”

See also Note 145. ↩

Currado (Conrad) da Palazzo of Brescia; Gherardo da Camino of Treviso; and Guido da Castello of Reggio. Of these three the Ottimo thus speaks:⁠—

“Messer Currado was laden with honor during his life, delighted in a fine retinue, and in political life in the government of cities, in which he acquired much praise and fame.

“Messer Guido was assiduous in honoring men of worth, who passed on their way to France, and furnished many with horses and arms, who came hitherward from France. To all who had honorably consumed their property, and returned more poorly furnished than became them, he gave, without hope of return, horses, arms, and money.

“Messer Gherardo da Camino delighted not in one, but in all noble things, keeping constantly at home.”

He farther says, that his fame was so great in France that he was there spoken of as the “simple Lombard,” just as, “when one says the City, and no more, one means Rome.” Benvenuto da Imola says that all Italians were called Lombards by the French. In the Histoire et Cronique du petit Jehan de Saintré, fol. 219, ch. IV, the author remarks:⁠—

“The fifteenth day after Saintré’s return, there came to Paris two young, noble, and brave Italians, whom we call Lombards.”

↩

Deuteronomy 18:2:⁠—

“Therefore shall they have no inheritance among their brethren: the Lord is their inheritance, as he hath said unto them.”

↩

“This Gherardo,” says Buti, “had a daughter, called, on account of her beauty, Gaja; and so modest and virtuous was she, that through all Italy was spread the fame of her beauty and modesty.”

The Ottimo, who preceded Buti in point of time, gives a somewhat different and more equivocal account. He says:⁠—

“Madonna Gaia was the daughter of Messer Gherardo da Camino: she was a lady of such conduct in amorous delectations, that her name was notorious throughout all Italy; and therefore she is thus spoken of here.”

↩

The trance and vision of Dante, and the ascent to the Fourth Circle, where the sin of Sloth is punished. ↩

Iliad, III 10:⁠—

“As the south wind spreads a mist upon the brow of a mountain, by no means agreeable to the shepherd, but to the robber better than night, in which a man sees only as far as he can cast a stone.”

↩

In this vision are represented some of the direful effects of anger, beginning with the murder of Itys by his mother, Procne, and her sister, Philomela. Ovid, VI:⁠—

“Now, at her lap arrived, the flattering boy
Salutes his parent with a smiling joy;
About her neck his little arms are thrown,
And he accosts her in a prattling tone.
⋮
When Procne, on revengeful mischief bent,
Home to his heart a piercing poniard sent.
Itys, with rueful cries, but all too late,
Holds out his hands, and deprecates his fate;
Still at his mother’s neck he fondly aims,
And strives to melt her with endearing names;
Yet still the cruel mother perseveres,
Nor with concern his bitter anguish hears.
This might suffice; but Philomela too
Across his throat a shining cutlass drew.”

Or perhaps the reference is to the Homeric legend of Philomela, Odyssey, XIX 518:⁠—

“As when the daughter of Pandarus, the swarthy nightingale, sings beautifully when the spring newly begins, sitting in the thick branches of trees, and she, frequently changing, pours forth her much-sounding voice, lamenting her dear Itylus, whom once she slew with the brass through ignorance.”

↩

Esther 7:9, 10:⁠—

“And Harbonah, one of the chamberlains, said before the king. Behold also, the gallows, fifty cubits high, which Haman had made for Mordecai, who had spoken good for the king, standeth in the house of Haman. Then the king said. Hang him thereon. So they hanged Haman on the gallows that he had prepared for Mordecai. Then was the king’s wrath pacified.”

↩

Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Queen Amata, betrothed to Turnus. Amata, thinking Turnus dead, hanged herself in anger and despair. Aeneid, XII 875, Dryden’s Tr.:⁠—

“Mad with her anguish, impotent to bear
The mighty grief, she loathes the vital air.
She calls herself the cause of all this ill,
And owns the dire effects of her ungoverned will;
She raves against the gods, she beats her breast,
She tears with both her hands her purple vest;
Then round a beam a running noose she tied,
And, fastened by the neck, obscenely died

“Soon as the fatal news by fame was blown,
And to her dames and to her daughters known,
The sad Lavinia rends her yellow hair
And rosy cheeks; the rest her sorrow share;
With shrieks the palace rings, and madness of despair.”

↩

See Paradiso V 134:⁠—

“Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself
By too much light.”

And Milton, Paradise Lost, III 380:⁠—

“Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear.”

↩

Matthew 5:9:⁠—

“Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.”

↩

Sloth. See Note 111. And Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, XXI 145:⁠—

“In ira nasce e posa
Accidia niquitosa.”

↩

The first, the object; the second, too much or too little vigor. ↩

The sins of Pride, Envy, and Anger. The other is Sloth, or lukewarmness in well-doing, punished in this circle. ↩

The sins of Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. ↩

The punishment of the sin of Sloth. ↩

Milton, Paradise Lost, V 100:⁠—

“But know that in the soul
Are many lesser faculties, that serve
Reason as chief; among these Fancy next
Her office holds; of all external things,
Which the five watchful senses represent,
She forms imaginations, aery shapes,
Which Reason joining or disjoining frames
All what we affirm or