Volume Ii Part 10 (1/2)

III. c. 15) There are other pa.s.sages in the ”Wisdom of Solomon”

besides that just cited which we may well believe Dante to have had in his mind when writing the Canzone beginning,--

”Amor che nella mente mi ragiona,”

and the commentary upon it, and some to which his experience of life must have given an intenser meaning. The writer of that book also personifies Wisdom as the mistress of his soul: ”I loved her and sought her out from my youth, I desired to make her my spouse, and I was a lover of her beauty.” He says of Wisdom that she was ”present when thou (G.o.d) madest the world,” and Dante in the same way identifies her with the divine Logos, citing as authority the ”beginning of the Gospel of John.” He tells us, ”I perceived that I could not otherwise obtain her except G.o.d gave her me,” and Dante came at last to the same conclusion. Again, ”For the very true beginning of her is the desire of discipline; and the care of discipline is love. And love is the keeping of her laws; and the giving heed unto her laws is the a.s.surance of incorruption.” But who can doubt that he read with a bitter exultation, and applied to himself pa.s.sages like these which follow? ”When the righteous _fled from his brothers wrath, she guided him in right paths showed him the kingdom of G.o.d, and gave him knowledge of holy things_. She defended him from his enemies and kept him safe from those that lay in wait, ... that he might know that G.o.dliness is stronger than all.... She forsook him not, but delivered him from sin; _she went down with him into the pit_, and left him not in bonds till she brought him the sceptre of the kingdom, ... and gave him perpetual glory.” It was, perhaps, from this book that Dante got the hint of making his punishments and penances typical of the sins that earned them.

”Wherefore, whereas men lived dissolutely and unrighteously, thou hast tormented them with their own abominations.” Dante was intimate with the Scriptures. They do even a scholar no harm. M. Victor Le Clerc, in his ”Histoire Litteraire de la France au quatorzieme siecle” (Tom. II. p. 72), thinks it ”not impossible” that a pa.s.sage in the Lamentations of Jeremiah, paraphrased by Dante, may have been suggested to him by Rutebeuf or Tristan, rather than by the prophet himself! Dante would hardly have found himself so much at home in the company of _jongleurs_ as in that of prophets. Yet he was familiar with French and Provencal poetry. Beside the evidence of the _Vulgari Eloquio_, there are frequent and broad traces in the Commedia of the _Roman de la Rose_, slighter ones of the _Chevalier de la Charette, Guillaume d'Orange,_ and a direct imitation of Bernard de Ventadour.

[167] Convito, Tr. I. c. 12.

[168] Purgatorio, XXII. 115, 116.

[169] That Dante loved fame we need not be told. He several times confesses it, especially in the De Vulgari Eloquio, I. 17. ”How glorious she [the Vulgar Tongue] makes her intimates [_familiares_, those of her household], we ourselves have known, who in the sweetness of this glory put our exile behind our backs.”

[170] Dante several times uses the sitting a horse as an image of rule. See especially Purgatorio, VI. 99, and Convito, Tr. IV. c. 11.

[171] ”O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of G.o.d!” Dante quotes this in speaking of the influence of the stars, which, interpreting it presently ”by the theological way,” he compares to that of the Holy Spirit ”And thy counsel who hath known, except thou give wisdom and send thy Holy Spirit from above?” (Wisdom of Solomon, ix. 17.) The last words of the Convito are, ”her [Philosophy] whose proper dwelling is in the depths of the Divine mind”. The ordinary reading is _ragione_ (reason), but it seems to us an obvious blunder for _magione_ (mansion, dwelling).

[172] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 28.

[173] He refers to a change in his own opinions (Lib II. -- 1), where he says, ”When I knew the nations to have murmured against the preeminence of the Roman people, and saw the people imagining vain things _as I myself was wont_.” He was a Guelph by inheritance, he became a Ghibelline by conviction.

[174] It should seem from Dante's words (”at the time when much people went to see the blessed image,” and ”ye seem to come from a far off people”) that this was some extraordinary occasion, and what so likely as the jubilee of 1300? (Compare Paradiso, x.x.xI. 103-108.) Dante's comparisons are so constantly drawn from actual eye-sight, that his allusion (Inferno, XIII. 28-33) to a device of Boniface VIII. for pa.s.sing the crowds quietly across the bridge of Saint Angelo, renders it not unlikely that he was in Rome at that time, and perhaps conceived his poem there as Giovanni Villani his chronicle.

That Rome would deeply stir his mind and heart is beyond question ”And certes I am of a firm opinion that the stones that stand in her walls are worthy of reverence, and the soil where she sits worthy beyond what is preached and admitted of men.” (Convito, Tr. IV. c.

5.)

[175] _Beatrice, loda di Dio vera_, Inferno, II. 103. ”Surely vain are all men by nature who are ignorant of G.o.d, and could not out of the good things that are seen know him that is, neither by considering the works did they acknowledge the work-master.... For, being conversant in his works, they search diligently and believe their sight, because the things are beautiful that are seen. Howbeit, neither are they to be pardoned.” (Wisdom of Solomon, XIII. 1, 7, 8.) _Non adorar debitamente, Dio_. ”For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and G.o.dhead; so that they are without excuse.” It was these ”invisible things” whereof Dante was beginning to get a glimpse.

[176] Convito, Tr. I. c. 7.

[177] ”And here we would have forgiven Mr. Captain if he had not betrayed him (_traido, traduttore traditore_) to Spain and made him a Castilian, for he took away much of his native worth, and so will all those do who shall undertake to turn a poem into another tongue; for with all the care they take and ability they show, they will never reach the height of its original conception,” says the Curate, speaking of a translation of Ariosto. (Don Quixote, P. I. c. 6.)

[177] In his own comment Dante says, ”I tell whither goes my thought, calling it by the name of one of its effects.”

[178] _Spirito_ means in Italian both breath (_spirto ed acqua fessi_, Purgatorio, x.x.x. 98) and spirit.

[180] By _visione_ Dante means something seen waking by the inner eye. He believed also that dreams were sometimes divinely inspired, and argues from such the immortality of the soul. (Convito, Tr. II.