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

the Thrones to a higher heaven than that of Venus. ↩

After he had by looks asked and gained assent from Beatrice. ↩

The spirit shows its increase of joy by increase of brightness. As Picarda in Canto III 67:⁠—

“First with those other shades she smiled a little;
Thereafter answered me so joyously,
She seemed to burn in the first fire of love.”

And Justinian, in Canto V 133:⁠—

“Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself
By too much light, when heat has worn away
The tempering influence of the vapors dense,
By greater rapture thus concealed itself
In its own radiance the figure saintly.”

↩

The spirit who speaks is Charles Martel of Hungary, the friend and benefactor of Dante. He was the eldest son of Charles the Lame (Charles II of Naples) and of Mary of Hungary. He was born in 1272, and in 1291 married the “beautiful Clemence,” daughter of Rudolph of Hapsburg, Emperor of Germany. He died in 1295, at the age of twenty-three, to which he alludes in the words,

“The world possessed me
Short time below.”

↩

That part of Provence, embracing Avignon, Aix, Aries, and Marseilles, of which his father was lord, and which he would have inherited had he lived. This is “the great dowry of Provence,” which the daughter of Raymond Berenger brought to Charles of Anjou in marriage, and which is mentioned in Purgatorio XX 61, as taking the sense of shame out of the blood of the Capets. ↩

The kingdom of Apulia in Ausonia, or Lower Italy, embracing Bari on the Adriatic, Gaeta in the Terra di Lavoro on the Mediterranean, and Crotona in Calabria; a region bounded on the north by the Tronto emptying into the Adriatic, and the Verde (or Garigliano) emptying into the Mediterranean. ↩

The kingdom of Hungary. ↩

Sicily, called of old Trinacria, from its three promontories Peloro, Pachino, and Lilibeo. ↩

Pachino is the southeastern promontory of Sicily, and Peloro the northeastern. Between them lies the Gulf of Catania, receiving with open arms the east wind. Horace speaks of Eurus as “riding the Sicilian seas.” ↩

Both Pindar and Ovid speak of the giant Typhoeus, as struck by Jove’s thunderbolt, and lying buried under Aetna. Virgil says it is Enceladus, a brother of Typhoeus. Charles Martel here gives the philosophical, not the poetical, cause of the murky atmosphere of the bay. ↩

Through him from his grandfather Charles of Anjou, and his father-in-law the Emperor Rudolph. ↩

The Sicilian Vespers and revolt of Palermo, in 1282. Milman, History of Latin Christianity, VI 155:⁠—

“It was at a festival on Easter Tuesday that a multitude of the inhabitants of Palermo and the neighborhood had thronged to a church, about half a mile out of the town, dedicated to the Holy Ghost. The religious service was over, the merriment begun; tables were spread, the amusements of all sorts, games, dances under the trees, were going gayly on; when the harmony was suddenly interrupted and the joyousness chilled by the appearance of a body of French soldiery, under the pretext of keeping the peace. The French mingled familiarly with the people, paid court, not in the most respectful manner, to the women; the young men made sullen remonstrances, and told them to go their way. The Frenchmen began to draw together. ‘These rebellious Paterins must have arms, or they would not venture on such insolence.’ They began to search some of them for arms. The two parties were already glaring at each other in angry hostility. At that moment the beautiful daughter of Roger Mastrangelo, a maiden of exquisite loveliness and modesty, with her bridegroom, approached the church. A Frenchman, named Drouet, either in wantonness or insult, came up to her, and, under the pretence of searching for arms, thrust his hand into her bosom. The girl fainted in her bridegroom’s arms. He uttered in his agony the fatal cry, ‘Death to the French!’ A youth rushed forward, stabbed Drouet to the heart with his own sword, was himself struck down. The cry, the shriek, ran through the crowd, ‘Death to the French!’ Many Sicilians fell, but, of two hundred on the spot, not one Frenchman escaped. The cry spread to the city: Mastrangelo took the lead; every house was stormed, every hole and corner searched; their dress, their speech, their persons, their manners, denounced the French. The palace was forced; the Justiciary, being luckily wounded in the face, and rolled in the dust, and so undetected, mounted a horse, and fled with two followers. Two thousand French were slain. They denied them decent burial, heaped them together in a great pit. The horrors of the scene were indescribable; the insurgents broke into the convents, the churches. The friars, especial objects of hatred, were massacred; they slew the French monks, the French priests. Neither old age, nor sex, nor infancy was spared.”

↩

Robert, Duke of Calabria, third son of Charles II and younger brother of Charles Martel. He was King of Sicily from 1309 to 1343. He brought with him from Catalonia a band of needy adventurers, whom he put into high offices of state, “and like so many leeches,” says Biagioli, “they rilled themselves with the blood of that poor people, not dropping off so long as there remained a drop to suck.” ↩

Sicily already heavily laden with taxes of all kinds. ↩

Born of generous ancestors, he was himself avaricious. ↩

Namely, ministers and officials who were not greedy of gain. ↩

In God, where all things are reflected as in a mirror. Rev. 21:6:⁠—

“I am Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end.”

Buti interprets thus:⁠—

“Because I