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

interesting differences. The Florentine poet formed his cortege of figures taken from the Apocalypse and Christian symbolism. At Brou, with the exception of the attributes of the Evangelists, everything is historical. In the sixteenth century, in fact, history began to predominate over symbolism, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had reigned supreme. Dante, who was a politic poet, drew the triumph, not of Christ, but of the Church; the triumph of Catholicism rather than of Christianity. The chariot by which he represents the Church is widowed of Christ, whose figure is so important on the window of Brou; the chariot ia empty, and Dante neither discovered this deficiency, nor was concerned to rectify it; for he was less anxious to celebrate Christ and his doctrine, for their own sake, than as connected with the organization and administration of the Church. He described the car as drawn by a griffin, thereby representing the Pope, for the griffin unites in itself the characteristics of both eagle and lion. Now the Pope is also twofold in character; as priest he is the eagle floating in the air; as king, he is a lion, walking upon the earth. The Ultramontane poet regarded the Church, that is the Papacy, in the light of an absolute monarchy; not a limited monarchy as with us, and still less a republic, as amongst the schismatics of Greece and of the East. Consequently, while, at Brou, the Cardinal, the Archbishop, and Bishop assist the Pope in guiding the car of the Church, in the ‘Divina Commedia,’ the Pope is alone, and accepts of no assistance from the other great ecclesiastical dignitaries. At Brou the car is guided by the Evangelists, or by their attributes; ecclesiastical power is content merely to lend its aid. According to the Italian poet, the Evangelists, although present at the Triumph, do not conduct it; the Pope is himself -the sole guide of the Church, and permits neither the Evangelists to direct nor ecclesiastics to assist him. The Pope seems to require no assistance; his eye and arm alone are sufficient for him.”

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In this canto Beatrice appears.

The Seven Stars, or Septentrion of the highest heaven, are the seven lights that lead the procession, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which all men are guided safely in things spiritual, as the mariner is by the Septentrion, or Seven Stars of the Ursa Minor, two of which are called the “Wardens of the Pole,” and one of which is the Cynosure, or Pole Star. These lights precede the triumphal chariot, as in our heaven the Ursa Minor precedes, or is nearer the centre of rest, than the Ursa Major or Charles’s Wain.

In the Northern Mythology the God Thor is represented as holding these constellations in his hand. The old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle, describing the statues in the church of Upsala, says:⁠—

“The God Thor was the highest of them;
He sat naked as a child,
Seven stars in his hand and Charles’s Wain.

Spenser, Faerie Queene, I ii 1:⁠—

“By this the northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all that in the wide deep wandering arre.”

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Song of Solomon 4:8:⁠—

“Come with me from Lebanon, my spouse, with me from Lebanon.”

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At the voice of so venerable an old man. ↩

The cry of the multitude at Christ’s entry into Jerusalem. Matthew 21:9:⁠—

“Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

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Aeneid, VI 833:⁠—

“Give me lilies in handfuls; let me scatter purple flowers.”

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Milton, Paradise Lost, I 194:⁠—

“As when the sun new-risen
Shines through the horizontal misty air
Shorn of his beams.”

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It will be observed that Dante makes Beatrice appear clothed in the colors of the three Theological Virtues described in Canto XXIX 121. The white veil is the symbol of Faith; the green mantle, of Hope; the red tunic, of Charity. The crown of olive denotes wisdom. This attire somewhat resembles that given by artists to the Virgin. “The proper dress of the Virgin,” says Mrs. Jameson, Legends of the Madonna, Introd., LIII, “is a close, red tunic, with long sleeves, and over this a blue robe or mantle.⁠ ⁠… Her head ought to be veiled.” ↩

Beatrice had been dead ten years at the date of the poem, 1300. ↩

Fully to understand and feel what is expressed in this line, the reader must call to mind all that Dante says in the Vita Nuova of his meetings with Beatrice, and particularly the first, which is thus rendered by Mr. Norton in his New Life of Dante, p. 20:⁠—

“Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice by many who did not know why they thus called her. She had now been in this life so long, that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the east one of the twelve parts of a degree; so that about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble color, a becoming and modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that became her extreme youth. At that instant, I say truly, the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence, that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words: Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! ‘Behold a god, stronger than I, who,