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

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As Hippolytus was banished from Athens on the false and cruel accusations of Phaedra, his stepmother, Dante shall be from Florence on accusations equally false and cruel. ↩

By instigation of Pope Boniface VIII in Rome, as Dante here declares. In April, 1302, the Bianchi were banished from Florence on account or under pretext of a conspiracy against Charles of Valois, who had been called to Florence by the Guelfs as pacificator of Tuscany. In this conspiracy Dante could have had no part, as he was then absent on an embassy to Rome.

Dino Compagni, Cron. Flor., II, gives a list of many of the exiles. Among them is “Dante Aldighieri, ambassador at Rome”; and at the end of the names given he adds, “and many more, as many as six hundred men, who wandered here and there about the world, suffering much want.” At first, the banishment was for two years only; but a second decree made it for life, with the penalty that, if any one of the exiles returned to Florence, he should be burned to death.

On the exile of Dante, M. Ampère has written an interesting work under the title of Voyage Dantesque, from which frequent extracts have been made in these notes.

“I have followed him, step by step,” he says, “in the cities where he lived, in the mountains where he wandered, in the asylums that welcomed him, always guided by the poem, in which he has recorded, with all the sentiments of his soul and all the speculations of his intelligence, all the recollections of his life; a poem which is no less a confession than a vast encyclopaedia.”

See also the Letter of Frate Ilario, the passage from the Convito. ↩

Boethius, Consolation of Philosophy, I Prosa 4, Ridpath’s Tr.:⁠—

“But my miseries are complete, when I reflect that the majority of mankind attend less to the merit of things, than to their fortuitous event; and believe that no undertakings are crowned with success, but such as are formed with a prudent foresight. Hence it is, that the unprosperous immediately lose the good opinion of mankind. It would give me pain to relate to you the rumors that are flying among the people, and the variety of discordant and inconsistent opinions entertained concerning me.”

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At the beginning of Inferno XXVI. Dante foreshadows the vengeance of God that is to fall on Florence, and exclaims:⁠—

“And if it now were, it were not too soon;
Would that it were, seeing it needs must be,
For ’twill aggrieve me more the more I age.”

For an account of these disasters see Note 377. ↩

Upon this passage Mr. Wright, in the notes to his translation, makes the following extracts from the Bible, Shakespeare, and Spenser:⁠—

Ecclesiasticus 29:24 and 40:28, 29:⁠—

“It is a miserable thing to go from house to house; for where thou art a stranger, thou darest not open thy mouth. Thou shalt entertain, and feast, and have no thanks: moreover, thou shalt hear bitter words.⁠ ⁠… These things are grievous to a man of understanding⁠—the upbraiding of houseroom, and reproaching of the lender.”

“My son, lead not a beg gar’s life, for better it is to die than to beg. The life of him that dependeth on another man’s table is not to be counted for a life.”

Richard II, III 1:⁠—

“Myself
Have stooped my neck under your injuries,
And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,
Eating the bitter bread of banishment.”

Spenser, “Mother Hubberd’s Tale,” 895:⁠—

“Full little knowest thou, that hast not tried,
What Hell it is, in suing long to bide:
To lose good days, that might be better spent;
To waste long nights, in pensive discontent;
To speed to-day, to be put back to-morrow;
To feed on hope, to pine with fear and sorrow;
To have thy Prince’s grace, yet want her Peer’s,
To have thy asking, yet wait many years;
To fret thy soul with crosses and with cares;
To eat thy heart with comfortless despairs;
To fawn, to crouch, to wait, to ride, to run,
To spend, to give, to want, to be undone.”

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Among the fellow-exiles of Dante, as appears by the list of names preserved, was Lapo Salterello, the Florentine lawyer, of whom Dante speaks so contemptuously in Canto XV 128. Benvenuto says he was “a litigious and loquacious man,” and very annoying to Dante during his exile. Altogether the company of his fellow-exiles seems to have been disagreeable to him, and it better suited him to “make a party by himself.” ↩

Shall blush with shame. ↩

Bartolommeo della Scala, Lord of Verona. The arms of the Scaligers were a golden ladder in a red field, surmounted by a black eagle. “For a tyrant,” says Benvenuto, “he was reputed just and prudent.” ↩

Can Grande della Scala, at this time only nine years old, but showing, says Benvenuto, “that he would be a true son of Mars, bold and prompt in battle, and victorious exceedingly.” He was a younger brother of Bartolommeo, and became sole Lord of Verona in 1311. He was the chief captain of the Ghibellines, and his court the refuge of some of the principal of the exiles. Dante was there in 1317 with Guido da Castello and Uguccione della Faggiuola. To Can Grande he dedicated some cantos of the Paradiso, and presented them with that long Latin letter so difficult to associate with the name of Dante.

At this time the court of Verona seems to have displayed a kind of barbaric splendor and magnificence, as if in imitation of the gay court of Frederick II of Sicily. Arrivabene, Comento Storico, III 255, says:⁠—

“Can Grande gathered around him those distinguished personages whom unfortunate reverses had driven from their country; but he also kept in his pay buffoons and musicians, and other merry