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

ascent, the departure; the striking of the shaft, the flight, the discharge from the bowstring. Here again we are reminded of the arrow of Pandarus, Iliad, IV 120. ↩

Cain with his bush of thorns. See Note 300. ↩

The spots in the Moon, which Dante thought were caused by rarity or density of the substance of the planet. Convito, II 14:⁠—

“The shadow in it, which is nothing but the rarity of its body, in which the rays of the sun cannot terminate and be reflected, as in the other parts.”

Milton, Paradise Lost, V 419:⁠—

“Whence in her visage round those spots unpurged,
Vapors not yet into her substance turned.”

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The Heaven of the Fixed Stars. ↩

Either the diaphanous parts must run through the body of the Moon, or the rarity and density must be in layers one above the other. ↩

As in a mirror, which Dante elsewhere, Inferno XXIII 25, calls impiombato vetro, leaded glass. ↩

The subject of the snow is what lies under it; “the mountain that remains naked,” says Buti. Others give a scholastic interpretation to the word, defining it “the cause of accident,” the cause of color and cold. ↩

Shall tremble like a star.

“When a man looks at the stars,” says Buti, “he sees their effulgence tremble, and this is because their splendor scintillates as fire does, and moves to and fro like the flame of the fire.”

The brighter they burn, the more they tremble. ↩

The Primum Mobile, revolving in the Empyrean, and giving motion to all the heavens beneath it. ↩

The Heaven of the Fixed Stars. “Greek Epigrams,” III 62:⁠—

“If I were heaven,
With all the eyes of heaven would I look down on thee.”

Also Catullus, “Carm.,” V:⁠—

“How many stars, when night is silent,
Look on the furtive loves of men.”

And Milton, Paradise Lost, V 44:⁠—

“Heaven wakes with all his eyes
Whom to behold but thee, nature’s desire?”

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The Intelligences, ruling and guiding the several heavens, (receiving power from above and distributing it downward, taking their impression from God and stamping it like a seal upon the spheres below,) according to Dionysius the Areopagite are as follows:⁠—

The Seraphim, Primum Mobile. The Cherubim, The Fixed Stars. The Thrones, Saturn. The Dominions, Jupiter. The Virtues, Mars. The Powers, The Sun. The Principalities, Venus. The Archangels, Mercury. The Angels, The Moon.

See Note 1986. ↩

The principle which gives being to all created things. ↩

The Heaven of the Moon continued. Of the influence of this planet, Buti, quoting the astrologer Albumasar, says:⁠—

“The Moon is cold, moist, and phlegmatic, sometimes warm, and gives lightness, aptitude in all things, desire of joy, of beauty, and of praise, beginning of all works, knowledge of the rich and noble, prosperity in life, acquisition of things desired, devotion in faith, superior sciences, multitude of thoughts, necromancy, acuteness of mind in things, geometry, knowledge of lands and waters and of their measure and number, weakness of the sentiments, noble women, marriages, pregnancies, nursings, embassies, falsehoods, accusations; the being lord among lords, servant among servants, and conformity with every man of like nature, oblivion thereof, timid, of simple heart, flattering, honorable towards men, useful to them, not betraying secrets, a multitude of infirmities and the care of healing bodies, cutting hair, liberality of food, chastity. These are the significations (influences) of the Moon upon the things it finds, the blame and honor of which, according to the astrologers, belong to the planet; but the wise man follows the good influences, and leaves the bad; though all are good and necessary to the life of the universe.”

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Narcissus mistook his shadow for a substance; Dante, falling into the opposite error, mistakes these substances for shadows. ↩

Your destiny; that is, of yourself and the others with you. ↩

Piccarda was a sister of Forese and Corso Donati, and of Gemma, Dante’s wife. In Purgatorio XXIV 13, Forese says of her:⁠—

“My sister, who, twixt beautiful and good,
I know not which was more, triumphs rejoicing
Already in her crown on high Olympus.”

She was a nun of Santa Clara, and was dragged by violence from the cloister by her brother Corso Donati, who married her to Rosselin della Tosa. As she herself says:⁠—

“God knows what afterward my life became.”

It was such that she did not live long. For this crime the “excellent Baron,” according to the Ottimo, had to do penance in his shirt. ↩

Milton, Paradise Lost, XII 583:⁠—

“Add Love,
By name to come called Charity, the soul
Of all the rest.”

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Constance, daughter of Roger of Sicily. She was a nun at Palermo, but was taken from the convent and married to the Emperor Henry V, son of Barbarossa and father of Frederic II. Of these “winds of Suabia,” or Emperors of the house of Suabia, Barbarossa was the first, Henry V the second, and Frederic II the third, and, as Dante calls him in the Convito, IV 3, “the last of the Roman Emperors,” meaning the last of the Suabian line. ↩

The Heaven of the Moon continued. ↩

Montaigne says:⁠—

“If any one should place us between the bottle and the bacon (entre la bouteille et le jambon), with an equal appetite for food and drink, there would doubtless be no remedy but to die of thirst and hunger.”

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Ovid, Metamorphoses, V, Maynwaring’s Tr.:⁠—

“As when a hungry tiger near him hears
Two lowing herds, awhile he both forbears;
Nor can his hopes of this or that renounce,
So strong he lusts to prey on both at once.”

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“A similitude,” says Venturi,