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

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Convito, III 8:⁠—

“And in these two places I say these pleasures appear, saying, In her eyes and in her sweet smile; which two places by a beautiful similitude may be called balconies of the Lady who inhabits the edifice of the body, that is, the Soul; since here, although as if veiled, she often shows herself. She shows herself in the eyes so manifestly, that he who looks carefully can recognize her present passion. Hence, inasmuch as six passions are peculiar to the human soul, of which the Philosopher makes mention in his Rhetoric, that is, grace, zeal, mercy, envy, love, and shame, with none of these can the Soul be impassioned, without its semblance coming to the window of the eyes, unless it be kept within by great effort. Hence one of old plucked out his eyes, so that his inward shame might not appear outwardly, as Statius the poet relates of Theban Oedipus, when he says, that in eternal night he hid his shame accursed. She shows herself in the mouth, as color behind glass. And what is laughter but a coruscation of the delight of the soul, that is, a light appearing outwardly, as it exists within? And therefore it behoveth man to show his soul in moderate joy, to laugh moderately with dignified severity, and with slight motion of the arms; so that the Lady who then shows herself, as has been said, may appear modest, and not dissolute. Hence the Book of the Four Cardinal Virtues commands us, ‘Let thy laughter be without cachinnation, that is to say, without cackling like a hen.’ Ah, wonderful laughter of my Lady, that never was perceived but by the eye!”

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Referring back to Canto VI 92:⁠—

“To do vengeance
Upon the vengeance of the ancient sin.”

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Milton, Paradise Lost, I 1, the story

“Of man’s first disobedience, and the fruit
Of that forbidden tree, whose mortal taste
Brought death into the world, and all our woe,
With loss of Eden, till one greater Man
Restore us, and regain the blissful seat.”

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Sincere in the sense of pure. ↩

Plato, Timaeus, Davis’s Tr., X:⁠—

“Let us declare then on what account the framing Artificer settled the formation of this universe. He was good; and in the good envy is never engendered about anything whatever. Hence, being free from this, he desired that all things should as much as possible resemble himself.”

Also Milton, Paradise Lost, I 259:⁠—

“The Almighty hath not built
Here for his envy.”

And again, VIII 491:⁠—

“Thou hast fulfilled
Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,
Giver of all things fair! but fairest this
Of all thy gifts! nor enviest.”

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Dante here discriminates between the direct or immediate inspirations of God, and those influences that come indirectly through the stars. In the Convito, VII 3, he says:⁠—

“The goodness of God is received in one manner by disembodied substances, that is, by the Angels (who are without material grossness, and as it were diaphanous on account of the purity of their form), and in another manner by the human soul, which, though in one part it is free from matter, in another is impeded by it; (as a man who is wholly in the water, except his head, of whom it cannot be said he is wholly in the water nor wholly out of it;) and in another manner by the animals, whose soul is all absorbed in matter, but somewhat ennobled; and in an other manner by the metals, and in another by the earth; because it is the most material, and therefore the most remote from and the most inappropriate for the first most simple and noble virtue, which is solely intellectual, that is, God.”

And in Canto XXIX 136:⁠—

“The primal light, that all irradiates,
By modes as many is received therein,
As are the splendors wherewith it is mated.”

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Convito, VII 3:⁠—

“Between the angelic nature, which is an intellectual thing, and the human soul there is no step, but they are both almost continuous in the order of gradation.⁠ ⁠… Thus we are to suppose and firmly to believe, that a man may be so noble, and of such lofty condition, that he shall be almost an angel.”

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The Angels, and the Heavens, and the human soul, being immediately inspired by God, are immutable and indestructible. But the elements and the souls of brutes and plants are controlled by the stars, and are mutable and perishable. ↩

See Purgatorio XVI 85:⁠—

“Forth from the hand of Him, who fondles it
Before it is, like to a little girl
Weeping and laughing in her childish sport,
Issues the simple soul, that nothing knows,
Save that, proceeding from a joyous Maker,
Gladly it turns to that which gives it pleasure.”

And also Purgatorio XXV 70:⁠—

“The primal Motor turns to it well pleased
At so great art of nature, and inspires
A spirit new with virtue all replete.”

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The ascent to the Third Heaven, or that of Venus, where are seen the spirits of Lovers. Of this Heaven Dante says, Convito, II 14:⁠—

“The Heaven of Venus may be compared to Rhetoric for two properties; the first is the brightness of its aspect, which is most sweet to look upon, more than any other star; the second is its appearance, now in the morning, now in the evening. And these two properties are in Rhetoric, the sweetest of all the sciences, for that is principally its intention. It appears in the morning when the rhetorician speaks before the face of his audience; it appears in the evening, that is, retrograde, when the letter in part remote speaks for the rhetorician.”

For the influences of Venus, see Note 1384. ↩

In the days of “the false and