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

persecutions.” ↩

Buti says:⁠—

“This descent of the eagle upon the chariot, and the smiting it, mean the persecution of the Holy Church and of the Christians by the Emperors, as appears in the chronicles down to the time of Constantine.”

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The fox is Heresy. ↩

The gift of Constantine to the Church. Inferno XIX 125:⁠—

“Ah, Constantine! of how much woe was mother,
Not thy conversion, but that marriagedower
Which the first wealthy Father took from thee!”

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Muhammad. Revelation 12:3:⁠—

“And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and, behold, a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth.”

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These seven heads, say the Ottimo and others, “denote the seven deadly sins.” But Biagioli, following Buti, says:⁠—

“There is no doubt that these heads and the horns represent the same that we have said in Canto XIX of the Inferno; namely, the ten horns, the Ten Commandments of God; and the seven heads, the Seven Sacraments of the Church.”

Never was there a wider difference of interpretation. The context certainly favors the first. ↩

Pope Boniface the Eighth. ↩

Philip the Fourth of France. For his character see Note 908. ↩

This alludes to the maltreatment of Boniface by the troops of Philip at Alagna. See Note 87. ↩

The removal of the Papal See from Rome to Avignon.

The principal points of the allegory of this canto may be summed up as follows. The triumphal chariot, the Church; the seven Nymphs, the Virtues Cardinal and Evangelical; the seven candlesticks, the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit; the tree of knowledge, Rome; the Eagle, the Imperial power; the Fox, heresy; the Dragon, Muhammad; the shameless whore. Pope Boniface the Eighth; and the giant, Philip the Fair of France. ↩

In this canto Dante is made to drink of the river Eunoë, the memory of things good.

Psalm 79, beginning:⁠—

“O God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance; thy holy temple have they defiled.”

The three Evangelical and four Cardinal Virtues chant this psalm, alternately responding to each other. The Latin words must be chanted, in order to make the lines rhythmical, with an equal emphasis on each syllable. ↩

When their singing was ended. ↩

John 16:16:⁠—

“A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me; because I go to the Father.”

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Dante, Matilda, and Statius. ↩

As in Canto XXXI 7:⁠—

“My faculries were in so great confusion,
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct
Than by its organs it was set at large.”

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Is no longer what it was. Revelation 17:8:⁠—

“The beast that thou sawest was, and is not.”

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In the olden time in Florence, if an assassin could contrive to eat a sop of bread and wine at the grave of the murdered man, within nine days after the murder, he was free from the vengeance of the family; and to prevent this they kept watch at the tomb. There is no evading the vengeance of God in this way. Such is the interpretation of this passage by all the old commentators. ↩

The Roman Empire shall not always be without an Emperor, as it was then in the eyes of Dante, who counted the “German Albert,” Alberto tedesco, as no Emperor, because he never came into Italy. See the appeal to him. Canto VI 96, and the malediction, because he suffered

“The garden of the empire to be waste.”

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The Roman numerals making DVX, or Leader. The allusion is to Henry of Luxemburgh, in whom Dante placed his hopes of the restoration of the Imperial power. He was the successor of the German Albert of the preceding note, after an interregnum of one year. He died in 1312, shortly after his coronation in Rome. See Note 618.

Villani, though a Guelf, pays this tribute of respect to his memory. Book IX Ch. 1:⁠—

“He was wise and just and gracious, valiant in arms, dignified, and catholic; and although of low estate in lineage, he was of a magnanimous heart, feared and redoubted, and if he had lived longer, he would have done great things.”

When Henry entered Italy in September, 1310, Dante hastened to meet him, full of faith and hope. Whether this interview took place at Susa, Turin, or Milan, is uncertain; nor is there any record of it, except the allusion in the following extract from a letter of Dante, “written in Tuscany, at the sources of the Arno, on the 14th of May, 1311, in the first year of the happy journey of the divine Henry into Italy.” Dante was disappointed that his hero should linger so long in the Lombard towns, and wished him to march at once against Florence, the monster “that drinketh neither of the headlong Po, nor of thy Tyber.” In this letter, Mr. Greene’s Tr., he says:⁠—

“The inheritance of peace, as the immense love of God witnesseth, was left us, that in the marvellous sweetness thereof our hard warfare might be softened, and by the use thereof we might deserve the joys of our triumphant country. But the hatred of the ancient and implacable enemy, who ever and secretly layeth snares for human prosperity⁠—disinheriting some of those who were willing⁠—impiously, in the absence of our protector, despoiled us also, who were unwilling. Wherefore we wept long by the rivers of confusion, and incessantly implored the protection of the just king, to scatter the satellites of the cruel tyrant, and