A will benign, in which reveals itself
Ever the love that righteously inspires,
As in the iniquitous, cupidity,
Silence imposed upon that dulcet lyre,
And quieted the consecrated chords, 5
That Heaven's right hand doth tighten and relax.
How unto just entreaties shall be deaf
Those substances, which, to give me desire
Of praying them, with one accord grew silent?
'Tis well that without end he should lament, 10
Who for the love of thing that doth not last
Eternally despoils him of that love!
As through the pure and tranquil evening air
There shoots from time to time a sudden fire,
Moving the eyes that steadfast were before, 15
And seems to be a star that changeth place,
Except that in the part where it is kindled
Nothing is missed, and this endureth little;
So from the horn that to the right extends
Unto that cross's foot there ran a star 20
Out of the constellation shining there;
Nor was the gem dissevered from its ribbon,
But down the radiant fillet ran along,
So that fire seemed it behind alabaster.
Thus piteous did Anchises' shade reach forward, 25
If any faith our greatest Muse deserve,
When in Elysium he his son perceived.
"O sanguis meus, O superinfusa
Gratia Dei, sicut tibi, cui
Bis unquam Coeli janua reclusa?" 30
Thus that effulgence; whence I gave it heed;
Then round unto my Lady turned my sight,
And on this side and that was stupefied;
For in her eyes was burning such a smile
That with mine own methought I touched the bottom 35
Both of my grace and of my Paradise!
Then, pleasant to the hearing and the sight,
The spirit joined to its beginning things
I understood not, so profound it spake;
Nor did it hide itself from me by choice, 40
But by necessity; for its conception
Above the mark of mortals set itself.
And when the bow of burning sympathy
Was so far slackened, that its speech descended
Towards the mark of our intelligence, 45
The first thing that was understood by me
Was "Benedight be Thou, O Trine and One,
Who hast unto my seed so courteous been!"
And it continued: "Hunger long and grateful,
Drawn from the reading of the mighty volume 50
Wherein is never changed the white nor dark,
Thou hast appeased, my son, within this light
In which I speak to thee, by grace of her
Who to this lofty flight with plumage clothed thee.
Thou thinkest that to me thy thought doth pass 55
From Him who is the first, as from the unit,
If that be known, ray out the five and six;
And therefore who I am thou askest not,
And why I seem more joyous unto thee
Than any other of this gladsome crowd. 60
Thou think'st the truth; because the small and great
Of this existence look into the mirror
Wherein, before thou think'st, thy thought thou showest.
But that the sacred love, in which I watch
With sight perpetual, and which makes me thirst 65
With sweet desire, may better be fulfilled,
Now let thy voice secure and frank and glad
Proclaim the wishes, the desire proclaim,
To which my answer is decreed already."
To Beatrice I turned me, and she heard 70
Before I spake, and smiled to me a sign,
That made the wings of my desire increase;
Then in this wise began I: "Love and knowledge,
When on you dawned the first Equality,
Of the same weight for each of you became; 75
For in the Sun, which lighted you and burned
With heat and radiance, they so equal are,
That all similitudes are insufficient.
But among mortals will and argument,
For reason that to you is manifest, 80
Diversely feathered in their pinions are.
Whence I, who mortal am, feel in myself
This inequality; so give not thanks,
Save in my heart, for this paternal welcome.
Truly do I entreat thee, living topaz! 85
Set in this precious jewel as a gem,
That thou wilt satisfy me with thy name."
"O leaf of mine, in whom I pleasure took
E'en while awaiting, I was thine own root!"
Such a beginning he in answer made me. 90
Then said to me: "That one from whom is named
Thy race, and who a hundred years and more
Has circled round the mount on the first cornice,
A son of mine and thy great-grandsire was;
Well it behoves thee that the long fatigue 95
Thou shouldst for him make shorter with thy works.
Florence, within the ancient boundary
From which she taketh still her tierce and nones,
Abode in quiet, temperate and chaste.
No golden chain she had, nor coronal, 100
Nor ladies shod with sandal shoon, nor girdle
That caught the eye more than the person did.
Not yet the daughter at her birth struck fear
Into the father, for the time and dower
Did not o'errun this side or that the measure. 105
No houses had she void of families,
Not yet had thither come Sardanapalus
To show what in a chamber can be done;
Not yet surpassed had Montemalo been
By your Uccellatojo, which surpassed 110
Shall in its downfall be as in its rise.
Bellincion Berti saw I go begirt
With leather and with bone, and from the mirror
His dame depart without a painted face;
And him of Nerli saw, and him of Vecchio, 115
Contented with their simple suits of buff
And with the spindle and the flax their dames.
O fortunate women! and each one was certain
Of her own burial-place, and none as yet
For sake of France was in her bed deserted. 120
One o'er the cradle kept her studious watch,
And in her lullaby the language used
That first delights the fathers and the mothers;
Another, drawing tresses from her distaff,
Told o'er among her family the tales 125
Of Trojans and of Fesole and Rome.
As great a marvel then would have been held
A Lapo Salterello, a Cianghella,
As Cincinnatus or Cornelia now.
To such a quiet, such a beautiful 130
Life of the citizen, to such a safe
Community, and to so sweet an inn,
Did Mary give me, with loud cries invoked,
And in your ancient Baptistery at once
Christian and Cacciaguida I became. 135
Moronto was my brother, and Eliseo;
From Val di Pado came to me my wife,
And from that place thy surname was derived.
I followed afterward the Emperor Conrad,
And he begirt me of his chivalry, 140
So much I pleased him with my noble deeds.
I followed in his train against that law's
Iniquity, whose people doth usurp
Your just possession, through your Pastor's fault.
There by that execrable race was I 145
Released from bonds of the fallacious world,
The love of which defileth many souls,
And came from martyrdom unto this peace."
NOTES
1 - 1
The Heaven of Mars continued.
22 - 22
This star, or spirit, did not, in changing place, pass out of the cross, but along the right arm and down the trunk or body of it.
24 - 24
A light in a vase of alabaster.
25 - 25
AEneid, VI., Davidson's Tr.:
“But father Anchises, deep in a verdant dale, was surveying with
studious care the souls there enclosed, who were to revisit the
light above; and happened to be reviewing the whole number of his
race, his dear descendants, their fates and fortunes, their
manners and achievements. As soon as he beheld AEneas advancing
toward him across the meads, he joyfully stretched out both his
hands, and tears poured down his cheeks, and these words dropped
from his mouth: Are you come at length, and has that piety
experienced by your sire, surmounted the ardous journey?”
28 - 28
Biagioli and Fraticelli think that this ancestor of Dante, Cacciaguida, who is speaking, makes use of the Latin language because it was the language of his day in Italy. It certainly gives to the passage a certain gravity and tinge of antiquity, which is in keeping with this antique spirit and with what he afterwards says. His words may be thus translated: –
“O blood of mine! O grace of God infused
Superlative! To whom as unto thee
Were ever twice the gates of heaven un-closed.”
49 - 49
His longing to see Dante.
50 - 50
The mighty volume of the Divine Mind, in which the dark or written parts are not changed by erasures, nor the white spaces by interlineations.
56 - 56
The Pythagorean doctrine of numbers. Ritter, Hist. Anc. Phil., Morrison's Tr., I. 361, says: –
“In the Pythagorean doctrine, number comprises within two
species, – odd and even; it is therefore the unity of these
two contraries; it is the odd and the even. Now the
Pythagoreans said also that one, or the unit, is the odd and
the even; and thus we arrive as this result, that one, or
the unit, is the essence of number, or number absolutely.
As such, it is also the ground of all numbers, and is
therefore named the first one, of whose origin nothing
further can be said. In this respect the Pythagorean of
numbers is merely an expression for 'all is from the
original one', – from one being, to which they also gave
the name of God; for in the words of Philolaus, 'God
embraces and actuates all, and is but one'.....
”But in the essence of number, or in the first original,
all other numbers, and consequently the elements of numbers, and
the elements of the whole world, and all nature, are contained.
The elements of number are the even and the odd; on this account
the first one is the even-odd, which the Pythagoreans, is their
occasionally strained mode of symbolizing, attempted to prove
thus; that one being added to the even makes odd, and to the odd,
even“.
Cowley, Rural Solitude:, –
”Before the branchy head of Number's tree
Sprang from the trunk of one“.
61 - 61
All the spirits of Paradise look upon God, and see in him as in a mirror even the thoughts of men.
74 - 74
The first Equality is God, all whose attributes are equal and eternal; and living in Him, the love and knowledge of spirits are also equal.
79 - 79
Will and power. Dante would fain thank the spirit that had addressed him, but knows not how. He has the will, but not the power. Dante uses the word argument in the sense of power, or means, or appliance, Purg. II. 31: –
”See how he scorns all human arguments,
So that nor oar he wants, nor other sail
Than his own wings, between so distant shores“.
85 - 85
Dante calls the spirit of Cacciaguida a living topaz set in the celestial cross, probably from the brillancy and golden light of this precious stone. He may also have had in his mind the many wonderful qualities, as well as the beauty, of the gem. He makes use of the same epithet in Canto XXX. 76.
The Ottimo says, that he who wears the topaz cannot be injured by an enemy; and Mr. King, Antique Gems, p. 427, says: ”If thrown into boiling water, the water cools immediately; hence this gem cools lust, calms madness and attacks of frenzy.“ In the same work he gives a translation of the Lapidarium of Marbodus, or Marboeuf, Bishop of Rennes in 1081. Of the chrysolite, which is supposed to be the same as the topaz, this author says: –
”The golden Chrysolite a fiery blaze
Mixed with the hue of ocean's green displays;
Enchased in gold, its strong protective might
Drives far away the terrors of the night;
Strung on a hair plucked from as ass's tail,
The mightiest demons 'neath its influence quail.“
89 - 89
He had been waiting for the coming of Dante, with the ”hunger long and grateful“ spoken of in line 49.
91 - 91
The first of the family who bore the name of Alighieri, still punished in the circle of Pride in Purgatory, and needing the prayers and good offices of Dante to set him free.
97 - 97
Barlow, Study of Div. Com., p 441, says: –
”The name of Florence has been variously explained. With
the old chroniclers the prevalent opinion was, that it was
derived from Fiorino, the Praetor of Metullus, who during the
long siege of Fiesole by the Romans commanded an intrenched camp
between the River and the Rock, and was here surprised and slain
by the enemy. The meadows abounded in flowers, especially
lilies, and an ancient ensign, a white lily on a red ground,
subsequently reversed (XVI. 154), and similar to the form on the
florin (fiorino), with the name given to the Duomo, St. Maria
del Fiore, tend to show that the name was taken from the flowery
mead, rather than from the name of a Roman praetor. Leonardo
Aretino stares that the name of the city originally was
Fluentia, so called because situated between the Arno and the
Mugnone: and that subsequently, from the flourishing state of the
colony, it was called Florentia. Scipione Ammirato affirms
that its name from the first was Florenzia.
“The form and dimensions of the original city have not been very accurately recorded. In shape, probably, it resembled a Roman camp. Malespini says that it was 'quasi a similitudine di bastie.' The wall was of burnt bricks, with solid round towers at intervals of twenty cubits, and it had four gates, and six posterns. The Campidoglio, where now is the Mercato Vecchio, was an imitation of that of the parent city, Rome, whose fortunes her daughter for many centuries shared.....
”The cerchia antica of Cacciaguida was the first circle of the new city, which arose from the ruins of the Roman one destroyed by Totila; it included the Badia, which the former did not; Dante, therefore, in mentioning this circumstance, shows how accurately he had informed himself of the course of the previous wall. The walls of Dante's time were begun in 1284, but not finished until nine years after his death; they are those of the present day.“
98 - 98
Tierce, or Terza, is the first division of the canonical day, from six to nine; Nones; of Nuna, the third from twelve to three in the afternoon. See Inf. XXXIV. Note 95. The bells of the Abbey within the old walls of Florence still rang these hours in Dante's time, and measured the day of the Florentines, like the bells of morning, noon, and night in our New England towns. In the Convito, IV. 23, Dante says: ”The service of the first part of the day, that is, of Tierce, is said at the end of it; and that of the third and fourth, at the beginning..... And therefore be it known unto all, that properly Nones should always ring at the beginning of the seventh hour of the day“.
99 - 99
Napier, Florent. Hist., I. 572, writes as follows: ”The simplicity of Florentine manners in 1260, described by Villani and Malespini, justifies a similar picture as drawn by their great poet. 'Then', say these writers, 'the Florentines lived soberly on the simplest food at little expense; many of their customs were rough and rude, and both men and women went coarsely clad; many even wearing plain leather garments without fur or lining: they wore boots on their feet and caps on their head: the women used un-ornamented buskins, and even the most distinguished were content with a close gown of scarlet serge or camlet, confined by a leathern waist-belt of the ancient fashion, and a hooded cloak lined with miniver; and the poorer classes wore a coarse green cloth dress of the same form. A hundred lire was the common dowry of a girl, and two and three hundred were then considered splendid fortunes: most young women waited until they were twenty years old and upwards before they married. And such was the dress, and such the manners and simple habits of the Florentines of that day; but loyal in heart, faithful to each other, zealous and honest in the execution of public duties; and with their coarse and homely mode of life they gained more virtue and honor for themselves and their country than they who now live so delicately are able to accomplish.'“
What Florence had become in Dante's time may be seen from the following extract from Frate Francesco Pippino, who wrote in 1313, and whose account is thus given by Napier, II. 542: ”Now indeed, in the present luxurious age, many shameful practices are introduced instead of the former customs; many indeed to the injury of people's minds, because frugality is exchanged for magnificence; the clothing being now remarkable for its exquisite materials, workmanship, and superfluous of silver, gold, and pearls; admirable fabrics; wide-spreading embroidery; silk for vests, painted or variously colored, and lined with divers precious furs from foreign countries. Excitement to gluttony is not wanting; foreign wines are much esteemed, and almost all the people drink in public. The viands are sumptuous; the chief cooks are held in great honor; provocatives of the palate are eagerly sought after; ostentation increases; money-makers exert themselves to supply these tastes; hence usuries, frauds, rapine, extortion, pillage, and contentions in the commonwealth: also unlawful taxes: oppression of the innocent; banishment of citizens, and the combinations of rich men. Our true god is our belly; we adhere to the pomps which were renounced at our baptism, and thus desert to the great enemy of our race. Well indeed does Seneca, the instructor of morals, in his book of orations, curse our times in the following words: 'Daily, things grow worse because the whole contest is for dishonorable matters. Behold! the indolent senses of youth are numbed, nor are they active in the pursuit of any one honest thing. Sleep, languor, and a carefulness for bad things, worse than sleep and languor, have seized upon their minds; the love of singing, dancing, and other unworthy occupations possesses them: they are effeminate: to soften the hair, to lower the tone of their voice to female compliments; to vie with women in effeminacy of person, and adorn themselves with un-becoming delicacy, is the object of our youth.'“
100 - 100
Villani, Cronica, VI. 69, as quoted in Note 99: ”The women used unornamented buskins, and even the most distinguished were content with a close gown of scarlet serge or camlet, confined by a leathern waist-belt of the ancient fashion, and a hooded cloak lined with miniver; and the poorer classes wore a coarse green cloth dress of the same form.“
102 - 102
Dante, Convito, I. 10: ”Like the beauty of a woman, when the ornaments of her apparel cause more admiration than she herself.“
108 - 108
Eastern effeminacy in general; what Boccaccio calls the morbidezze d'Egitto. Paul Orosius, ”the advocate of the Christian centuries“, as quoted by the Ottimo, says: ”The last king of Syria was Sardanapalus, a man more corrupt than a woman, (corrotto più che femmina,) who was seen by his perfect Arabetes, among a herd of courtesans, clad in female attire.“
109 - 109
Montemalo, or Montemario, is the hill from which the traveller coming from Viterbo first catches sight of Rome. The Ucellatojo is the hill from which the traveller coming from Bologna first catches sight of Florence. Here the two hills are used to signify what is seen from them; namely, the two cities; and Dante means to say, that Florence had not yet surpassed Rome in the splendour of its buildings; but as Rome would one day by surpassed by Florence in its rise, so would it be in its downfall.
Speaking of the splendour of Florence in Dante's age, Napier, Florent. Hist., II. 581, says: –
”Florence was at this period well studded with handsome
dwellings; the citizens were continually building,
repairing, altering, and embellishing their houses; adding
every day to their ease and comforts, and introducing
improvements from foreign nations. Sacred architecture of
every kind partook of this taste; and there was no popular
citizen or nobleman but either had built or was building
fine country palaces and villas, far exceeding their city
residence in size and magnificence; so that many were
accounted crazy for their extravagance.
“'And so magnificent was the sight', says Villani, 'that strangers unused to Florence, on coming from abroad, when they beheld the vast assemblage of rich buildings and beautiful palaces with which the country was so thickly studded for three miles round the ramparts, believed that all was city like that within the Roman walls, and this was independent of the rich palaces, towers, courts, and walled gardens at a greater distance, which in other countries would be denominated castles. In short', he continues, 'it is estimated that within a circuit of six miles round the town there are rich and noble dwellings enough to make two cities like Florence.' And Ariosto seems to have caught the same idea when he exclaims, –
While gazing on thy villa-studded hills
'T would seem as though the earth grew palaces
As she is wont by nature to bring forth
Young shoots, and leafy plants, and flowery shrubs:
And if within one wall and single name
Could be collected all thy scattered halls,
Two Romes would scarcely form thy parallel.'”
110 - 110
The “which” in this line refers to Montemalo of the preceding.
112 - 112
Bellincion Berti, whom Dante selects as a type of the good citizen of Florence in the olden time, and whom Villani calls “the best and most honored gentleman of Florence”, was of the noble family of the Ravignani. He was the father of the “good Gualdrada, whose story shines out so pleasantly in Boccaccio's commentary. See Inf. XVI. Note 37.
115 - 115
”Two ancient houses of the city“, says the Ottimo; ”and he saw the chiefs of these houses were content with leathern jerkins without any drapery; he who should dress so now-a-days would be laughed at: and he saw their dames spinning, as who should say, 'Now-a-days not even the maid will spin, much less the lady.'“ And Buti upon the same text: ”They wore leathern dresses without any cloth over them; they did not make to themselves long robes, nor cloaks of scarlet lined with vaire, as they do now.“
120 - 120
They were not abandoned by their husbands, who, content with little, did not go to traffic in France.
128 - 128
Monna Cianghella della Tosa was a gay widow of Florence, who led such a life of pleasure that her name has passed into a proverb, or a common name for a dissolute woman.
Lapo Salterello was a Florentine lawyer, and a man of dissipated habits; and Crescimbeni, whose mill grinds everything that comes to it, count him among the poets, Volgar Poesia, III. 82, and calls him a Rimatore de non poco grido, a rhymer of no little renown. Unluckily he quotes one of his sonnets.
129 - 129
Quinctius, surnamed Cincinnatus from his neglected locks, taken from his plough and made Dictator by the Roman Senate, and, after he had defeated the Volscians and saved the city, returning to his plough again.
Cornelia, daughter of Scipio Africanus, and mother of the Gracchi, who preferred for her husband a Roman citizen to a king, and boasted that her childred were her only jewels.
Shakespeare, Tit. Andron., IV. 1: –
”Ah, boy, Cornelia never with more care
Read to her sons, than she hath read to thee
Sweet poetry, and Tully's Orator.“
133 - 133
The Virgin Mary, invoked in the pains of child-birth, as mentioned Purg. XX. 19: –
”And I by peradventure heard 'Sweet Mary!'
Uttered in front of us amid the weeping.
Even as a woman does who is in child-birth“.
134 - 134
The Baptistery of the church of St. John in Florence; il mio bel San Giovanni, my beautiful St. John, as Dante calls it, Inf. XIX. 17.
135 - 135
Of this ancestor of Dante Cacciaguida, nothing is known but what the poet here tells us, and so clearly that it is not necessary to repeat it in prose.
137 - 137
Cacciaguida's wife came from Ferrara in the Val di Pado, or Val di Po, the Valley of the Po. She was of the Aldigheiri or Alighieri family, and from her Dante derived his surname.
139 - 139
The Emperor Conrad III. of Swabia, uncle of Frederic Barbarossa. In 1143, he joined Louis VII. of France in the Second Crusade, of which St. Bernard was the great preacher. He died in 1152, after his return from this crusade.
140 - 140
Cacciaguida was knighted by the Emperor Conrad.
143 - 143
The law or religion of Mahomet.