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

Robert died in 1085, on an expedition against Constantinople, undertaken at the venerable age of seventy-five. Such was the career of Robert the Cunning, this being the meaning of the old Norman word guiscard, or guischard. For an instance of his cunning see Note 418. ↩

The miracle is Beatrice, of whom Dante says, in the Vita Nuova:⁠—

“Many, when she had passed, said, ‘This is not a woman, rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.’ Others said, ‘She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord, who can perform such a marvel!’ ”

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The change from the red light of Mars to the white light of Jupiter. “This planet,” says Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I Ch. CXI, “is gentle and piteous, and full of all good things.” Of its symbolism Dante, Convito, II 14, says:⁠—

“The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to Geometry on account of two properties. The first is, that it moves between two heavens repugnant to its good temperateness, as are that of Mars and that of Saturn; whence Ptolemy says, in the book cited, that Jupiter is a star of a temperate complexion, midway between the coldness of Saturn and the heat of Mars. The second is, that among all the stars it shows itself white, almost silvery. And these two things are in Geometry. Geometry moves between two opposites; as between the point and the circle (and I call in general everything round, whether a solid or a surface, a circle); for, as Euclid says, the point is the beginning of Geometry, and, as he says, the circle in its most perfect figure, and may therefore be considered its end; so that between the point and the circle, as between beginning and end, Geometry moves. And these two are opposed to its exactness; for the point, on account of its indivisibility, is immeasurable; and the circle, on account of its arc, it is impossible to square, and therefore it is impossible to measure it exactly. And moreover Geometry is very white, inasmuch as it is without spot of error, and very exact in itself and its handmaiden, which is called Perspective.”

Of the influences of Jupiter, Buti, quoting as usual Albumasar, speaks thus:⁠—

“The planet Jupiter is of a cold, humid, airy, temperate nature, and signifies the natural soul, and life, and animate bodies, children and grandchildren, and beauty, and wise men and doctors of laws, and just judges, and firmness, and knowledge, and intellect, and interpretation of dreams, truth and divine worship, doctrine of law and faith, religion, veneration and fear of God, unity of faith and providence thereof, and regulation of manners and behavior, and will be laudable, and signifies patient observation, and perhaps also to it belong swiftness of mind, improvidence and boldness in dangers, and patience and delay, and it signifies beatitude, and acquisition, and victory,⁠ ⁠… and veneration, and kingdom, and kings, and rich men, nobles and magnates, hope and joy, and cupidity in commodities, also of fortune, in new kinds of grain, and harvests, and wealth, and security in all things, and good habits of mind, and liberality, command and goodness, boasting and bravery of mind, and boldness, true love and delight of supremacy over thecitizens of a city, delight of potentates and magnates,⁠ ⁠… and beauty and ornament of dress, and joy and laughter, and affluence of speech, and glibness of tongue,⁠ ⁠… and hate of evil, and attachments among men, and command of the known, and avoidance of the unknown. These are the significations of the planet Jupiter, and such the in fluences it exerts.”

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Milton, Paradise Lost, VII 425:⁠—

“Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth
Their aery caravan, high over seas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing
Easing their flight;⁠—so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds;⁠—the air
Floats as they pass.”

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The first letters of the word Diligite, completed afterward. ↩

Dante gives this title to the Muse, because from the hoof-beat of Pegasus sprang the fountain of the Muses, Hippocrene. The invocation is here to Calliope, the Muse of epic verse. ↩

Wisdom of Solomon 1:1:⁠—

“Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth.”

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Tennyson, “Morte d’Arthur”:⁠—

“And drove his heel into the smouldered log,
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue.”

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Divination by fire, and other childish fancies about sparks, such as wishes for golden sequins, and nuns going into a chapel.

Cowper, “Names of Little Note in the Biogr. Brit.”:⁠—

“So when a child, as playful children use,
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year’s news,
The flame extinct, he views the roving fire⁠—
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, O illustrious spark!
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the clerk!”

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In this eagle, the symbol of Imperialism, Dante displays his political faith. Among just rulers, this is the shape in which the true government of the world appears to him. In the invective against Pope Boniface VIII, with which the canto closes, he gives still further expression of his intense Imperialism. ↩

The simplest interpretation of this line seems to me preferable to the mystic meaning which some commentators lend it. The Architect who built the heavens teaches the bird how to build its nest after the same model;⁠—

“The Power which built the starry dome on high,
And poised the vaulted rafters of the sky,
Teaches the linnet with unconscious breast
To round the inverted heaven of her nest.”

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The other group of beatified spirits. ↩

As Tertullian says:⁠—

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.”

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The bad example of the head of the Church. ↩