Dante's Paradiso: Canto XXII
St. Benedict. His Lamentation over the Corruption of Monks. The Eighth Heaven, the Fixed Stars.
Oppressed with stupor, I unto my guide
Turned like a little child who always runs
For refuge there where he confideth most;
And she, even as a mother who straightway
Gives comfort to her pale and breathless boy 5
With voice whose wont it is to reassure him,
Said to me: "Knowest thou not thou art in heaven,
And knowest thou not that heaven is holy all
And what is done here cometh from good zeal?
After what wise the singing would have changed thee 10
And I by smiling, thou canst now imagine,
Since that the cry has startled thee so much,
In which if thou hadst understood its prayers
Already would be known to thee the vengeance
Which thou shalt look upon before thou diest. 15
The sword above here smiteth not in haste
Nor tardily, howe'er it seem to him
Who fearing or desiring waits for it.
But turn thee round towards the others now,
For very illustrious spirits shalt thou see, 20
If thou thy sight directest as I say."
As it seemed good to her mine eyes I turned,
And saw a hundred spherules that together
With mutual rays each other more embellished.
I stood as one who in himself represses 25
The point of his desire, and ventures not
To question, he so feareth the too much.
And now the largest and most luculent
Among those pearls came forward, that it might
Make my desire concerning it content. 30
Within it then I heard: "If thou couldst see
Even as myself the charity that burns
Among us, thy conceits would be expressed;
But, that by waiting thou mayst not come late
To the high end, I will make answer even 35
Unto the thought of which thou art so chary.
That mountain on whose slope Cassino stands
Was frequented of old upon its summit
By a deluded folk and ill-disposed;
And I am he who first up thither bore 40
The name of Him who brought upon the earth
The truth that so much sublimateth us.
And such abundant grace upon me shone
That all the neighbouring towns I drew away
From the impious worship that seduced the world. 45
These other fires, each one of them, were men
Contemplative, enkindled by that heat
Which maketh holy flowers and fruits spring up.
Here is Macarius, here is Romualdus,
Here are my brethren, who within the cloisters 50
Their footsteps stayed and kept a steadfast heart."
And I to him: "The affection which thou showest
Speaking with me, and the good countenance
Which I behold and note in all your ardours,
In me have so my confidence dilated 55
As the sun doth the rose, when it becomes
As far unfolded as it hath the power.
Therefore I pray, and thou assure me, father,
If I may so much grace receive, that I
May thee behold with countenance unveiled." 60
He thereupon: "Brother, thy high desire
In the remotest sphere shall be fulfilled,
Where are fulfilled all others and my own.
There perfect is, and ripened, and complete,
Every desire; within that one alone 65
Is every part where it has always been;
For it is not in space, nor turns on poles,
And unto it our stairway reaches up,
Whence thus from out thy sight it steals away.
Up to that height the Patriarch Jacob saw it 70
Extending its supernal part, what time
So thronged with angels it appeared to him.
But to ascend it now no one uplifts
His feet from off the earth, and now my Rule
Below remaineth for mere waste of paper. 75
The walls that used of old to be an Abbey
Are changed to dens of robbers, and the cowls
Are sacks filled full of miserable flour.
But heavy usury is not taken up
So much against God's pleasure as that fruit 80
Which maketh so insane the heart of monks;
For whatsoever hath the Church in keeping
Is for the folk that ask it in God's name,
Not for one's kindred or for something worse.
The flesh of mortals is so very soft, 85
That good beginnings down below suffice not
From springing of the oak to bearing acorns.
Peter began with neither gold nor silver,
And I with orison and abstinence,
And Francis with humility his convent. 90
And if thou lookest at each one's beginning,
And then regardest whither he has run,
Thou shalt behold the white changed into brown.
In verity the Jordan backward turned,
And the sea's fleeing, when God willed were more 95
A wonder to behold, than succour here."
Thus unto me he said; and then withdrew
To his own band, and the band closed together;
Then like a whirlwind all was upward rapt.
The gentle Lady urged me on behind them 100
Up o'er that stairway by a single sign,
So did her virtue overcome my nature;
Nor here below, where one goes up and down
By natural law, was motion e'er so swift
That it could be compared unto my wing. 105
Reader, as I may unto that devout
Triumph return, on whose account I often
For my transgressions weep and beat my breast,--
Thou hadst not thrust thy finger in the fire
And drawn it out again, before I saw 110
The sign that follows Taurus, and was in it.
O glorious stars, O light impregnated
With mighty virtue, from which I acknowledge
All of my genius, whatsoe'er it be,
With you was born, and hid himself with you, 115
He who is father of all mortal life,
When first I tasted of the Tuscan air;
And then when grace was freely given to me
To enter the high wheel which turns you round,
Your region was allotted unto me. 120
To you devoutly at this hour my soul
Is sighing, that it virtue may acquire
For the stern pass that draws it to itself.
"Thou art so near unto the last salvation,"
Thus Beatrice began, "thou oughtest now 125
To have thine eves unclouded and acute;
And therefore, ere thou enter farther in,
Look down once more, and see how vast a world
Thou hast already put beneath thy feet;
So that thy heart, as jocund as it may, 130
Present itself to the triumphant throng
That comes rejoicing through this rounded ether."
I with my sight returned through one and all
The sevenfold spheres, and I beheld this globe
Such that I smiled at its ignoble semblance; 135
And that opinion I approve as best
Which doth account it least; and he who thinks
Of something else may truly be called just.
I saw the daughter of Latona shining
Without that shadow, which to me was cause 140
That once I had believed her rare and dense.
The aspect of thy son, Hyperion,
Here I sustained, and saw how move themselves
Around and near him Maia and Dione.
Thence there appeared the temperateness of Jove 145
'Twixt son and father, and to me was clear
The change that of their whereabout they make;
And all the seven made manifest to me
How great they are, and eke how swift they are,
And how they are in distant habitations. 150
The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour!
Then to the beauteous eyes mine eyes I turned.
NOTES
1 - 1
The Heaven of Saturn continued; and the ascent to the Heaven of the Fixed Stars.
31 - 31
It is the spirit of St. Benedict that speaks.
37 - 37
Not far from Aquinum in the Terra di Lavoro, the birthplace of Juvenal and of Thomas Aquinas, rises Monte Cassino, celebrated for its Benedictine monastery. The following description of the spot is from a letter in the London Daily News, February 26, 1866, in which the writer pleads earnestly that this monastery may escape the doom of all the Religious Orders in Italy, lately pronounced by the Italian Parliament.
“The monastery of Monte Cassino stands exactly half-way between Rome and Naples. From the top of the Monte Cairo, which rises immediately above it, can be seen to the north the summit of Monte Cavo, so conspicuous from Rome; and to the south, the hill of the Neapolitan Camaldoli. From the terrace of the monestary the eye ranges over the richest and most beautiful valley of Italy, the
'Rura quae Liris quietâ
Mordet aquâ taciturnus amnis'.
The river can be traced through the lands of Aquinum and Pontecorvo, till it is lost in the haze which covers the plain of Sinuessa and Minturnae; a small strip of sea is visible just beyond the mole of Gaeta.
”In this interesting but little known and uncivilized country, the monastery has been the only centre of religion and intelligence for nearly 1350 years. It was founded by St. Benedict in 529, and is the parent of all the greatest Benedictine monasteries in the world. In 589 the monks, driven out by the Lombards, took refuge in Rome, and remained there for 130 years. In 884 the monastery was burned by the Saracens, but it was soon after restored. With these exceptions it has existed without a break from its foundation till the present day.
“There is scarcely a Pope or Emperor of importance who has not been personally connected with its history. From its mountain crag it has seen Goths, Lombards, Saracens, Normans, Frenchmen, Spaniards, Germans, scour and devastate the land which, through all modern history, as attracted every invader.
”It is hard that, after it has escaped the storms of war and rapine, it should be destroyed by peaceful and enlightened legislation.
“I do not, however, wish to plead its cause on sentimental grounds. The monastery contains a library which, in spite of the pilfering of the Popes, and the wanton burnings of Championnet, is still one of the richest in Italy; while its archives are, I believe, unequalled in the world. Letters of the Lombard kings who reigned at Pavia, of Hildebrand and the Countess Matilda, of Gregory and Charlemange, are here no rarities. Since the days of Paulus Diaconus in the eighth century, it has contained a succession of monks devoted to literature. His mantle has descended in these later days to Abate Tosti, one of the most accomplished of contemporary Italian writers. In the Easter of last year, I found twenty monks in the monastery: they worked harder than any body of Oxford or Cambridge fellows I am acquainted with; they educated two hundered boys, and fifty novices; they kept all the services of their cathederal; the care of the archives included a laborious correspondence with literary men of all nations; they entertained hospitably any visitors who came to them; besides this, they had just completed a fac-simile of their splendid manuscript of Dante, in a large folio volume, which was edited and printed by their own unassisted labor. This was intended as an offering to the kingdom of Italy in its new capital, and rumor says that they have incurred the displeasure of the Pope by their liberal opinions. On every ground of respect for prescription and civilization, it would be a gross injustice to destroy this monastery.
”'If we are saved', one of the monks said to me, 'it will be by the public opinion of Europe'. It is the most enlightened part of that opinion which I am anxious to rouse in their behalf.“
In the palmy days of the monastery the Abbot of Monte Cassino was the First Baron of the realm, and is said to have held all rights and privileges of other barons, and even criminal jurisdiction in the land. This the inhabitants of the town of Cassino found so intolerable, that they tried to buy the right with all the jewels of the women and all the silver of their households. When the law for the suppression of the convents passed, they are said to have celebrated the event with great enthusiasm; but the monks, as well they might, sang an Oremus in their chapel, instead of a Te Deum.
For a description of the library of Monte Cassino in Boccaccio's time, see Note 75 of this canto.
40 - 40
St. Benedict was born at Norcia, in the Duchy of Spoleto, in 480, and died at Monte Cassino in 543. In his early youth he was sent to school in Rome; but being shocked at the wild life of Roman school-boys, he fled from the city at the age of fourteen, and hid himself among the mountains of Subiaco, some forty miles away. A monk from a neighbouring convent gave him a monastic dress, and pointed out to him a cave, in which he lived for three years, the monk supplying him with food, which he let down to him from above by a cord.
In this retreat he was finally discovered by some shepherds, and the fame of his sanctity was spread through the land. The monks of Vicovara chose him for their Abbot, and then tried to poison him in his wine. He left them and returned to Subiaco; and there built twelve monasteries, placing twelve monks with a superior in each.
Of the scenery of Subiaco, Lowell, Fireside Travels, p. 271, gives the following sketch: ”Nothing can be more lovely than the scenery about Subiaco. The town itself is built on a kind of cone rising from the midst of a valley abounding in olives and vines, with a superb mountain horizon around it, and the green Anio cascading at its feet. As you walk to the high-perched convent of San Benedetto, you look across the river on your right just after leaving the town, to a cliff over which the ivy pours in torrents, and in which dwellings have been hollowed out. In the black doorway of every one sits a woman in scarlet bodice and white head-gear, with a distaff, spinning, while overhead countless nightingales sing at once from the fringe of shrubbery. The glorious great white clouds look over the mountain-tops into our enchanted valley, and sometimes a lock of their vapory wool would be torn off, to lie for a while in some inaccessible ravine like a snow-drift; but it seemed as if no shadow could fly over our privacy of sunshine to-day. The approach to the monastery is delicious. You pass out of the hot sun into the green shadows of ancient ilexes, leaning and twisting every way that is graceful, their branches velvety with brilliant moss, in which grow feathery ferns, fringing them with a halo of verdure. Then comes the convent, with its pleasant old monks, who show their sacred vessels (one by Cellini) and their relics, among which is a finger-bone of one of the Innocents. Lower down is a convent of Santa Scolastica, where the first book was printed in Italy.“
In the gardens of the convent of San Benedetto still bloom, in their season, the roses, which the legend says have been propagated from the briers in which the saint rolled himself as a penance. But he had outward foes, as well as inward, to contend with, and they finally drove him from Subiaco to Monte Cassino.
Montalembert, Monks of the West, Authorized Tr., II, 16, says: –
”However, Benedict had the ordinary fate of great men and saints. The great number of conversions worked by the example and fame of his austerity awakened a homicidal envy against him. A wicked priest of the neighborhood attempted first to decry and then to poison him. Being unsuccessful in both, he endeavored, at least, to injure him in the object of his most tender solicitude, – in the souls of his young diciples. For that purpose he sent, even into the garden of the monastery where Benedict dwelt and where the monks labored, seven wretched women, whose gestures, sport, and shameful nudity were designed to tempt the young monks to certain fall. Who does not recognize in this incident the mixture of barbarian rudeness and frightful corruption which characterize ages of decay and transition? When Benedict, from the threshold of his cell, perceived these shameless creatures, he despaired of his work; he acknowledged that the interest of his beloved children constrained him to disarm so cruel an enmity by retreat. He appointed superiors to the twelve monasteries which he had founded, and, taking with him a small number of disciples, he left forever the wild gorges of Subiaco, where he had lived for thirty-five years.
“Without withdrawing from the mountainous region which extends along the western side of the Apennines, Benedict directed his steps towards the south, along the Abruzzi, and penetrated into that Land of Labor, the name of which seems naturally suited to a soil destined to be the cradle of the most laborious men whom the world has known. He ended his journey in a scene very different from that of Subiaco, but of incomparable grandeur and majesty. There, upon the boundaries of Samnium and Campania, in the centre of a large basin, half surrounded by abrupt and picturesque heights, rises a scarped and isolated hill, the vast and rounded summit of which overlooks the course of the Liris near its fountainhead, and the undulating plain which extends south towards the shores of the Mediterranean, and the narrow valleys which, towards the north, the east, and the west, lost themselves in the lines of the mountainous horizon. This is Monte Cassino. At the foot of this rock, Benedict found an amphitheatre of the time of the Caesars, amidst the ruins of the town of Casinum, which the most learned and pious of Romans, Varro, that pagan Benedictine, whose memory and knowledge the sons of Benedict took pleasure in honoring, had rendered illustrious. From the summit the prospect extended on one side towards Arpinum, where the prince of Roman orators was born, and on the other towards Aquinum, already celebrated as the birthplace of Juvenal, before it was known as the country of the Doctor Angelicus, which latter distinction should make the name of this little town known among all Christians.
”It was amidst these noble recollections, this solemn nature, and upon that predestinated height, that the patriarch of the monks of the West founded the capital of the monastic order. He found paganism still surviving there. Two hundred years after Constantine, in the heart of Christendom, and so near Rome, there still existed a very ancient temple of Apollo and a sacred wood, where a multitude of peasants sacrificed to the gods and demons. Benedict preached the faith of Christ to these forgotten people; he persuaded them to cut down the wood, to overthrow the temple and the idol.“
On the ruins of this temple he built two chapels, and higher up the mountain, in 529, laid the foundation of his famous monastery. Fourteen years afterward he died in the church of this monastery, standing with his arms stretched out in prayer.
”St. Bennet“, says Butler, Lives of the Saints, III, 235, ”calls his Order a school in which men learn how to serve God; and his life was to his disciples a perfect model for their imitation, and a transcript of his rule. Being chosen by God, like another Moses, to conduct faithful souls into the true promised land, the kingdom of heaven, he was enriched with eminent supernatural gifts, even those of miracles and prophecy. He seemed like another Eliseus, endued by God with an extraordinary power, commanding all nature, and, like the ancient prophets, foreseeing future events. He often raised the sinking courage of his monks, and baffled the various artifices of the Devil with the sign of the cross, rendered the heaviest stone light in building his monastery by a short prayer, and, in presence of a multitude of people, raised to life a novice who had been crushed by the fall of a wall at Mount Cassino.“
A story of St. Benedict and his sister Scholastica is thus told by Mrs. Jameson, Legends of Monastic Orders, p. 12: ”Towards the close of his long life Benedict was consoled for many troubles by the arrival of this sister Scholastica, who had already devoted herself to a religious life, and now took up her residence in a retired cell about a league and a half from his convent. Very little is known of Scholastica, except that she emulated her brother's piety and self-denial; and although it is not said that she took any vows, she is generally considered as the first Benedictine nun. When she followed her brother to Monte Cassino, she drew around her there a small community of pious women; but nothing more is recorded of her, except that he used to visit her once a year. On one occasion, when they had been conversing together on spiritual matters till rather late in the evening, Benedict rose to depart; his sister entreated him to remain a little longer, but he refused. Scholastica then, bending her head over her clapsed hands, prayed that Heaven would interfere and render it impossible for her brother to leave her. Immediately there came on such a furious tempest of rain, thunder, and lightning, that Benedict was obliged to delay his departure for some hours. As soon as the storm had subsided, he took leave of his sister, and returned to the monastery: it was a last meeting; St. Scholastica died two days afterwards, and St. Benedict, as he was praying in his cell, beheld the soul of his sister ascending to heaven in the form of a dove. This incident is often found in the pictures painted for the Benedictine nuns.“
For the history of the monastery of Monte Cassino see the Chron. Monast. Casiniensis, in Muratori, Script. Rer. Ital., IV, and Dantier, Monastères Bénédictins d'Italie.
49 - 49
St. Macarius, who established the monastic rule of the East, as St. Benedict did that of the West, was a confectioner of Alexandria, who, carried away by religious enthusiasm, became an anchorite in the Thebaid of Upper Egypt, about 335. In 373 he came to Lower Egypt, and lived in the Desert of the Cells, so called from the great multitude of its hermit-cells. He had also hermitages in the deserts of Scetè and Nitria; and in these several places he passed upwards of sixty years in holy contemplation, saying to his soul, ”Having taken up thine abode in heaven, where thou hast God and his holy angels to converse with, see that thou descend not thence; regard not earthly things.“
Among other anecdotes of St. Macarius, Butler, Lives of the Saints, I, 50, relates the following: ”Our saint happened one day inadvertently to kill a gnat that was biting him in his cell; reflecting that he had lost the opportunity of suffering that mortification, he hastened from his cell for the marshes of Scetè, which abound with great flies, whose stings pierce even wild boars. There he continued six months exposed to those ravaging insects; and to such a degree was his whole disfigured by them with sores and swellings, that when he returned he was only to be known by his voice.“
St. Romualdus, founder of the Order of Camaldoli, or Reformed Benedictines, was born of the noble family of the Onesti, in Ravenna, about 956. Brought up in luxury and ease, he still had glimpses of better things, and, while hunting the wild boar in the pine woods of Ravenna, would sometimes stop to muse, and, uttering a prayer, exclaim: ”How happy were the ancient hermits who had such habitations.“
At the age of twenty he saw his father kill his adversary in a duel; and, smitten with remorse, imagined that he must expiate the crime by doing penance in his own person. He accordingly retired to a Benedictine convent in the neighborhood of Ravenna, and became a monk. At the end of seven years, scandalized with the irregular lives of the brotherhood, and their disregard of the rules of the Order, he undertook the difficult task of bringing them back to the austere life of their founder. After a conflict of many years, during which he encountered and overcame the usual perils that beset the path of a reformer, he succeeded in winning over some hundreds of his brethren, and established his new Order of Reformed Benedictines.
St. Romualdus built many monasteries; but chief among them is that of Camaldoli, thirty miles east of Florence, which was founded in 1009. It takes its name from the former owner of the land, a certain Maldoli, who gave it to St. Romualdus. Campo Maldoli, say the authorities, became Camaldoli. It is more likely to be the Tuscan Ca' Maldoli, for Casa Maldoli.
”In this place“, says Butler, Lives of the Saints, II, 86, ”St. Romuald built a monastery, and, by the several observances he added to St. Benedict's rule, gave birth to that new Order called Camaldoli, in which he united the cenobitic and eremitical life. After seeing in a vision his monks mounting up a ladder to heaven all in white, he changed their habit from black to white. The hermitage is two short miles distant from the monastery. It is a mountain quite overshaded by a dark wood of fir-trees. In it are seven clear springs of water. The very sight of this solitude in the midst of the forest helps to fill the mind with compunction, and a love of heavenly contemplation. On entering it, we meet with a chapel of St. Antony for travellers to pray in before they advance any farther. Next are the cells and lodgings for the porters. Somewhat farther is the church, which is large, well built, and richly adorned. Over the door is a clock, which strikes so loud that it may be heard all over the desert. On the left side of the church is the cell in which St. Romuald lived, when he first established these hermits. Their cells, built of stone, have each a little garden walled round. A constant fire is allowed to be kept in every cell on account of the coldness of the air throughout the year; each cell has also a chapel in which they may say mass.“
See also Purg., V, Note 96. The legend of St. Romualdus says that he lived to the age of one hundred and twenty. It says, also, that in 1466, nearly four hundred years after his death, his body was found still uncorrupted; but that four years later, when it was stolen from its tomb, it crumbled into dust.
65 - 65
In that sphere alone; that is, in the Empyrean, which is eternal and immutable.
Lucretius, Nature of Things, III, 530, Good's Tr.: –
”But things immortal ne'er can be transposed,
Ne'er take tradition, nor encounter loss;
For what once changes, by the change alone
Subverts immediate its anterior life.“
70 - 70
Genesis, xxviii, 12: ”And he dreamed, and, behold, a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and, behold, the angels of God ascending and descending on it.“
74 - 74
So neglected, that it is mere waste of paper to transcribe it. In commenting upon this line, Benvenuto gives an interesting description of Boccaccio's visit to the library of Monte Cassino, which he had from his own lips. ”To the clearer understanding of this passage“, he says, ”I will repeat what my venerable preceptor Boccaccio of Certaldo pleasantly narrated to me. He said, that when he was in Apulia, being attracted by the fame of the place, he went to the noble monastery of Monte Cassino, of which we are speaking. And being eager to see the library, which he had heard was very noble, he humbly – gentle creature that he was! – besought a monk to do him the favour to open it. Pointing to a lofty staircase, he answered stiffly, 'Go up; it is open'. Joyfully ascending, he found the place of so great a treasure without door or fastening; and having entered, he saw the grass growing upon the windows, and all the books and shelves covered with dust. And, wondering, he began to open and turn over, now this book and now that, and found there many and various volumes of ancient and rare works. From some of them whole sheets had been torn out, in others the margins of the leaves were clipped, and thus they were greatly defaced. At length, full of pity that the labors and studies of so many illustrious minds should have fallen into the hands of such profligate men, grieving and weeping he withdrew. And coming into the cloister, he asked a monk whom he met, why those most precious books were so vilely mutilated. He replied, that some of the monks, wishing to gain a few ducats, cut out a handful of leaves, and made psalters which they sold to boys; and likewise of the margins they made breviaries which they sold to women. Now therefore, O scholar, rack thy brains in the making of books!“
77 - 77
To dens of thieves. ”And the monks' hoods and habits are full“, says Buti, ”of wicked and sinful souls, of evil thoughts and ill-will. And as from bad flour bad bread is made, so from ill-will, which is in the monks, come evil deeds.“
79 - 79
The usurer is not so offensive to God as the monk who squanders the revenues of the Church in his own pleasures and vices.
94 - 94
Psalm, cxiv, 5: ”What ailed thee, O thou sea, that thou fleddest? thou Jordan, that thou was driven back“?
The power that wrought these miracles can also bring help to the corruptions of the Church, great as the impossibility may seem.
107 - 107
Paradise. ”Truly“, says Buti, ”the glory of Paradise may be called a triumph, for the blessed triumph in their victory over the world, the flesh, and the Devil.“
111 - 111
The sign that follows Taurus is the sign of Gemini, under which Dante was born.
112 - 112
Of the influences of Gemini, Buti, quoting Albumasar, says: ”The sign of the Gemini signifies great devotion and genius, such as became our author speaking of such lofty theme. It signifies, also, sterility, and moderation in manners and in religion, beauty, and deportment, and cleanliness, when this sign is in the ascendant, or the lord of the descendant is present, or the Moon; and largeness of mind, and goodness, and liberality in spending.“
115 - 115
Dante was born May 14th, 1265, when the Sun rose and set in Gemini; or as Barlow, Study of Div. Com., p. 505, says, ”the day on which in that year the Sun entered the constellation Gemini.“ He continues: ”Giovanni Villani (Lib. VI, Ch. 92) gives an account of a remarkable comet which preceded the birth of Dante by nine months, and lasted three, from July to October... This marvellous meteor, much more worthy of notice than Donna Bella's dream related by Boccaccio, has not hitherto found its way into the biography of the poet.“
119 - 119
The Heaven of the Fixed Stars. Of the symbolism of this heaven, Dante, Convito, II, 15, says: ”The Starry Heaven may be compared to Physics on account of three properties, and to Metaphysics on account of three others; for it shows us two visible things, such as its many stars, and the Galaxy; that is, the white circle which the vulgar call the Road of St. James; and it shows us one of its poles, and the other it conceals from us; and it shows us only one motion from east to west, and another which it has from west to east, it keeps almost hidden from us. Therefore we must note in order, first its comparison with Physics, and then with Metaphysics. The Starry Heaven, I say, shows us many stars; for, according as the wise men of Egypt have computed, down to the last star that appears in their meridian, there are one thousand and twenty-two clusters of the stars I speak of. And in this it bears a great resemblance to Physics, if these three members, namely, two and twenty and a thousand, are carefully considered; for by the two is understood the local movement, which of necessity is from one point to another; and by the twenty is signified the movement of modification; for, inasmuch as from the ten upwards we proceed only by modifying this ten with the other nine, and with itself, and the most beautiful modification which it receives is that with itself, and the first which it receives is twenty, consequently the movement aforesaid is signified by this number. And by the thousand is signified the movement of increase; for in name this thousand is the greatest number, and cannot increase except by multiplying itself. And Physics show these three movements only, as is proved in the fifth chapter of its first book. And on account of the Galaxy this heaven has great resemblance to Metaphysics. For it must be known that of this Galaxy the philosophers have held diverse opinions. For the Pythagoreans said that the Sun once wandered out of his path; and, passing through other parts not adapted to his heat, he burned the place through which he passed, and the appearance of the burning remained there. I think they were influenced by the fable of Phaeton which Ovid narrates at the beginning of the second book of his Metamorphoses. Others, as Anaxagoras and Democritus, said that it was the light of the Sun reflected in that part. And these opinions they proved by demonstrative reasons. What Aristotle said upon this subject cannot be exactly known, because his opinion is not the same in one translation as in the other. And I think this was an error of the translators; for in the new he seems to say that it is a collection of vapours beneath the stars in that part, which always attract them; and this does not seem to be very reasonable. In the old he says, that the Galaxy is nothing but a multitude of fixed stars in that part, so small that we cannot distinguis them here below, but from them proceeds that brightness which we call the Galaxy. And it may be that the heaven in that part is more dense, and therefore retains and reflects that light; and this seems to be the opinion of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Ptolemy. Hence, inasmuch as the Galaxy is an effect of those stars which we cannot see, but comprehend by their effects, and Metaphysics treats of first substances, which likewise we cannot comprehend except by their effects, it is manifest that the starry heaven has great resemblance to Metaphysics. Still further, by the pole which we see it signifies things obvious to sense, of which, taking them as a whole, Physics treats; and by the pole which we do not see it signifies the things which ar immaterial, which are not obvious to sense, of which Metaphysics treats; and therefore the aforesaid heaven bears a great resemblance to both these sciences. Still further, by its two movements it signifies these two sciences; for, by the movement in which it revolves daily and makes a new circuit from point to point, it signifies the corruptible things in nature, which daily complete their course, and their matter is changed from form to form; and of this Physics treats; and by the almost insensible movement which it makes from west to east of one degree in a hundred years, it signifies the things incorruptible, which had from God the beginning of existence, and shall never have an end; and of these Metaphysics treats.“
135 - 135
Cicero, Vision of Scipio, Edmond's Tr., p. 294:
”Now the place of my father spoke of was a radiant circle of dazzling brightness amid the flaming bodies, which you, as you have learned from the Greeks, term the Milky Way; from which position all other objects seemed to me, as I surveyed them, marvellous and glorious. There were stars which we never saw from this place, and their magnitudes were such as we never imagined; the smallest of which was that which, placed upon the extremity of the heavens, but nearest to the earth, shone with borrowed light. But the globular bodies of the stars greatly exceeded the magnitude of the earth, which now to me appeared so small, that I was grieved to see our empire contracted, as it were, into a very point...
“Which as I was gazing at in amazement, I said, as I recovered myself, from whence proceed these sounds so strong, and yet so sweet, that fill my ears? 'The melody', replies he, which you hear, and which, though composed in unequal time, is nevertheless divided into regular harmony, is effected by the impulse and motion of the spheres themselves, which, by a happy temper of sharp and grave notes, regularly produces various harmonic effects. Now it is impossible that such prodigious movements should pass in silence; and nature teaches that the sounds which the spheeres at one extremity utter must be sharp, and those on the other extremity must be grave; on which account that highest revolution of the star-studded heaven, whose motion is more rapid, is carried on with a sharp and quick sound; whereas this of the moon, which is situated the lowest, and at the other extremity, moves with the gravest sound. For the earth, the ninth sphere, remaining motionless, abides invariably in the innermost position, occupying the central spot in the universe.
”'Now these eight directions two of which have the same powers, effect seven sounds, differing in their modulations, which number is the connecting principle of almost all things. Some learned men, by imitating this harmony with strings and vocal melodies, have opened a way for their return to this place; as all others have done, who, endued with pre-eminent qualities, have cultivated in their mortal life the pursuits of heaven.
“The ears of mankind, filled with these sounds, have become deaf, for of all your senses it is the most blunted. Thus the people who live near the place where the Nile rushes down from very high mountains to the parts which are called Catadupa, are destitude of the sense of hearing, by reason fo the greatness of the noise. Now this sound, which is effected by the rapid rotation of the whole system of nature, is so powerful, that human hearing cannot comprehend it, just as you cannot look directly upon the sun, because your sight and sense are overcome by his beams'.”
Also Milton, Par. Lost, II, 1051: –
“And fast by, hanging in a golden chain,
This pendent world, in bigness as a star
Of smallest magnitude close by the moon.”
139 - 139
The Moon, called in heaven Diana, on earth Luna, and in the infernal regions Proserpina; as in the curious Latin distich: –
“Terret, lustrat, agit, Proserpina, Luna, Diana,
Ima, suprema, feras, sceptro, fulgore, sagittâ.”
141 - 141
See Canto II, 59: –
“And I: 'What seems to us up here diverse,
Is caused, I think, by bodies rare and dense'.”
142 - 142
The Sun.
144 - 144
Mercury, son of Maia, and Venus, daughter of Dione.
145 - 145
The temperate planet Jupiter, between Mars and Saturn. In Canto XVIII, 68, Dante calls it “the temperate star”; and in the Convito, II, 14, quoting the opinion of Ptolemy: “Jupiter is a star of a temperate complexion, midway between the coldness of Saturn and the heat of Mars.”
149 - 149
Bryant, Song of the Stars: –
“Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, star after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly
pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance, and the young
woods lean.
”And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of
hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their
dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming
ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!“
151 - 151
The threshing-floor, or little area of our earth. The word ajuola would also bear the rendering of garden-plot; but to Dante this world was rather a threshing-floor than a flowerbed. The word occurs again in Canto XXVII, 86, and in its latin form in the Monarchia, III: Ut scilicet in areola mortalium libere cum pace vivatur. Perhaps Dante uses it to signify in general any small enclosure.
Boethius, Cons. Phil., II, Prosa 7, Ridpath's Tr.: ”You have learned from astronomy that this globe of earth is but as a point in respect to the vast extent of the heavens; that is, the immensity of the celestial sphere is such that ours, when compared with it, is as nothing, and vanishes. You know likewise, from the proofs that Ptolemy adduces, there is only one fourth part of this earth, which is of itself so small a portion of the universe, inhabited by creatures known to us. If from this fourth you deduct the space occupied by the seas and lakes, and the vast sandy regions which extreme heat and want of water render uninhabitable, there remains but a very small proportion of the terrestrial sphere for the habitation of men. Enclosed then and locked up as you are, in an unpercievable point of a point, do you think of nothing but of blazing far and wide your name and reputation? What can there be great or pompous in a glory circumscribed in so narrow a circuit?“