"Of deepe ymaginations
And strange interpretations,
Problems and demaundes eke
His wisdom was to finde and seke,
Whereof he wholde in sondry wise
Opposen hem, that weren wise;
But none of hem it mighte bere
Upon his word to give answere."
But nearly all agree, I believe, in construing the strange words into a cry of alarm or warning of Lucifer, that his realm is invaded by some unusual apparition.
Of all the interpretations given, the most amusing is that of Benvenuto Cellini, in his description of the Court of Justice in Paris, Roscoe's Memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, Chap, XXII.: --
"I stooped down several times to observe what passed: the words which I heard the judge utter, upon seeing two gentlemen who wanted to hear the trial, and whom the porter was endeavoring to keep out, were these: `Be quite, be quite, Satan, get hence, and leave off disturbing us.' The terms were, Paix, paix, Satan, allez, paix. As I had by this time thoroughly learnt the French language, upon hearing these words, I recollected what Dante said, when he with his master, Virgil, entered the gates of hell; for Dante and Giotto the painter were together in France, and visited Paris with particular attention, where the court of justice may be considered as hell. Hence it is that Dante, who was likewise perfect master of the French, made use of that expression; and I have often been surprised, that it was never understood in that sense; so that I cannot help thinking, that the commentators on this author have often made him say things which he never so much as dreamed of."
Dante himself hardly seems to have understood the meaning of the words, though he suggests that Virgil did.
"Avarice, after the description of Seint Augustine, is a likerousnesse in herte to have erthly things. Som other folk sayn, that avarice is for to purchase many earthly things, and nothing to yeve to hem that han nede. And understond wel, that avarice standeth not only in land ne catel, but som time in science and in glorie, and in every maner outrageous thing is avarice.....
"But for as moche as som folk ben unmesurable, men oughten for to avoid and eschue fool-large, the whiche men clepen waste. Certes, he that is fool-large, he yeveth not his catel, but he leseth his catel. Sothly, what thing that he yeveth for vaine-glory, as to minstrals, and to folk that bere his renome in the world, he hath do sinne thereof, and non almesse: certes, he leseth foule his good, that ne seketh with the yefte of his good nothing but sinne. He is like to an hors that seketh rather to drink drovy or troubled water, than for to drink water of the clere well. And for as moche as they yeven ther as they shuld nat yeven, to hem apperteineth thilke malison, that Crist shal yeve at the day of dome to hem that shul be dampned."
Cavalcanti's Song of Fortune, as translated by Rossetti, Early Italian Poets, p. 366, runs as follows: --
"Lo! I am she who makes the wheel to turn;
Lo! I am who gives and takes away;
Blamed idly, day by day,
In all mine acts by you, ye humankind.
For whoso smites his visage and doth mourn,v
What time he renders back my gifts to me,
Learns then that I decree
No state which mine own arrows may not find.
Who clomb must fall: -- this bear ye well in mind,
Nor say, because, he fell, I did him wrong.
Yet mine is a vain song:
For truly ye may find out wisdom when
King Arthur's resting-place is found of men.
"Ye make great marvel and astonishment
What time ye see the sluggard lifted up
And the just man to drop,
And ye complain on God and on my sway.
O humankind, ye sin in your complaint:
For He, that Lord who made the world to live,
Lets me not take or give
By mine own act, but as he wills I may.
Yet is the mind of man so castaway,
That it discerns not the supreme behest.
Alas! ye wretchedest,
And chide ye at God also? Shall not He
Judge between good and evil righteously?
"Ah! had ye knowlege how God evermore,
With agonies of soul and grievous heats,
As on an anvil beats
On them that in this earth hold hight estate, --
Ye would choose little rather than more store,
And solitude than spacious palaces;
Such is the sore disease
Of anguish that on all their days doth wait.
Behold if they be not unfortunate,
When oft the father dares not trust the son!
O wealth, with thee is won
A worm to gnaw forever on his soul
Whose abject life is laid in thy control!
"If also ye take note what piteous death
They oftimes make, whose hoards were manifold,
Who cities had and gold
And multitudes of men beneath their hand;
Then he among you that most angereth
Shall bless me saying, `Lo! I worship thee
That I was not as he
Whose death is thus accurst throughout the land.'
But now your living souls are held in band
Of avarice, shutting you from the true light
Which shows how sad and slight
Are this world's treasured riches and array
That still change hands a hundred times a day.
"For me, -- could envy enter in my sphere,
Which of all human taint is clean and quit, --
I well might harbor it
When I behold the peasant at his toil.
Guiding his team, untroubled, free from fear,
He leaves his perfect furrow as he goes,
And gives his field repose
From thorns and tares and weeds that vex the soil:
Thereto he labors, and without turmoil
Entrusts his work to God, content if so
Such guerdon from it grow
That in that year his family shall live:
Nor care nor thought to other things will give.
"But now ye may no more have speech of me,
For this mine office craves continual use:
Ye therefore deeply muse
Upon those things which ye have heard the while:
Yea, and even yet remember heedfully
How this my wheel a motion hath so fleet,
That in an eyelid's beat
Him whom it raised it maketh low and vile.
None was, nor is, nor shall be of such guile,
Who could, or can, or shall, I say, at length
Prevail against my strenght.
But still those men that are my questioners
In bitter torment own their hearts perverse.
"Song, that wast made to carry high intent
Dissembled in the garb of humbleness, --
With fair and open face
To Master Thomas let they course be bent.
Say that a great thing scarcely may be pent
In little room: yet always pray that he
Commend us, thee and me,
To them that are more apt in lofty speech:
For truly one must learn ere he can teach."
The old tradition may be found in Stehelin, Rabbinical Literature, I, 157.
See Purgatorio, XVI. 69.
See also Purg. 17. 085.