The ascent to the Planet Mars, where are seen the spirits of Martyrs, and Crusaders who died fighting for the Faith.
In this similitude Dante describes the effect of the alternate voices of St. Thomas Aquinas in the circumference of the circle, and of Beatrice in the centre.
Life is here used, as before, in the sense of spirit.
Chaucer Troil. and Cr., the last stanza
"Thou One, and Two, and Thre! eterne on live,
That raignest aie in Thre, and Two, and One,
Uncircumscript, and all maist circumscrive!"
Also Milton, Par. Lost, III. 372:--
"Thee, Father, first they sung, Omnipotent,
Immutable, Immortal, Infinite,
Eternal King; thee, Author of all being,
Fountain of light, thyslef invisible
Amidst the glorious brightness where thou sitts't
Throned inaccessible; but when thou shadest
The full blaze of thy beams, and through a
cloud
Drawn round about thee like a radiant shrine,
Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle heaven; that brightest seraphim
Approach not, but with both wings veil their eyes.
Thee next they sang of all creation first,
Begotten Son, Divine Similitude,
In whose conspicuous countenance, without
cloud
Made visible, the Almighty Father shines,
Whom else no creature can behold: on thee
Impressed the effulgence of his glory abides;
Transfused on thee his ample Spirit rests."
The voice of Solomon.
According to Buti, "Spirits newly arrived;" or Angels, such being the interpretation given by the Schoolmen to the word Subsistences. See Canto XIII. Note 58.
The planet Mars. Of this planet Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. iii. 3, says "Mars is hot and warlike and evil, and is called the God of Battles."
Of its symbolism Dante, Convito, II. 14, says: "The Heaven of Mars may be compared to Music, for two properties. The first is its very beautiful relation [to the others] ; for, enumerating the moveable heavens, from whichsoever you begin, whether from the lowest or the highest, the Heaven of Mars is the fifth; it is the centre of all. . . . . The other is, that Mars dries up and burns things, because its heat is like to that of the fire; and this is the reason why it appears fiery in colour, sometimes more, and sometimes less, according to the density and rarity of the vapours which follow it, which sometimes take fire of themselves, as is declared in the first book of Meteors. (And therefore Albumasar says, that the ignition of these vapours signifies death of kings, and change of empires, being effects of the dominion of Mars. And accordingly Seneca says that at the death of the Emperor Augnstus a ball of fire was seen in the heavens. And in Florence, at the beginning of its downfall, a great quantity of these vapours, which follow Mars, were seen in the air in the form of a cross.) And these two properties are in Music, which is wholly relative, as may be seen in harmonized words, and in songs, in which the more beautiful the relation, the sweeter the harmony, since such is chiefly its intent. Also Music attracts to itself the spirits of men, which are principally as it were vapours of the heart, so that they almost cease from any operation; so entire is the soul when it listens, and the power of all as it were runs to the sensible spirit that hears the sounds."
Of the influences of Mars, Buti, as usual following Albumasar, writes: "Its nature is hot, igneous, dry, choleric, of a bitter savour, and it signifies youth, strength, and acuteness of mind; heats, fires, and burnings, and every sudden event ; powerful kings, consuls, dukes, and knights, and companies of soldiery; desire of praise and memory of one's name; strategies and instruments of battle; robberies and machinations, and scattering of relations by plunderings and highway robberies; boldness and anger ; the unlawful for the lawful torments and imprisonments ; scourges and bonds; anguish, flight, thefts, pilfering of servants, fears, contentions, insults, acuteness of mind, impiety, inconstancy, want of foresight, celerity and anticipation in things, evil eloquence and ferocity of speech, foulness of words, incontinence of tongue, demonstrations of love, gay apparel, insolence and falseness of words, swiftness of reply and sudden penitence therefor, want of religion, unfaithfulness to promises, multitude of lies and whisperings, deceits and perjuries ; machinations and evil deeds; want of means; waste of means; multitude of thoughts about things; instability and change of opinion in things, from one to another; haste to return ; want of shame; multitude of toils and cares; peregrinations, solitary existence, bad company; . . . . .breaking open of tombs, and spoliations of the dead."
87. Buti interprets this, as redder than the Sun, to whose light Dante had become accustomed, and continues "Literally, it is true that the splendour of Mars is more fiery than that of the Sun, because it is red, and the Sun is yellow; but allegorically we are to understand, that a greater ardour of love, that is, more burning, is in those who fight and conquer the three above-mentioned above [the world, the flesh, and the devil], than in those who exerise themselves with the Scriptures."
The silent language of the heart.
In Hebrew, El, Eli, God, from which the Greeks made Helios, the Sun. As in St. Hildebert's hymn Ad Patrem:
"Alpha et Omega, magne Deus,
Heli, Heli, Deus meus."
Dante, Convito, II. 15, says "It niust be known that philosophers have different opinions concerning this Galaxy. For the Pythagoreans said that the Sun once wandered out of his way, and passing through other regions not adapted to his heat, he burned the place through which he passed, and traces of the burning remained. I think they took this from the fable of Phaeton, which Ovid narrates in the beginning of the second book of the Metamorphoses. Others, and among them Anaxagoras and Democritus, that was the light of the Sun reflected in at part. And these opinions they prove by demonstrative reasons. What Aristotle says of this we cannot well know; for 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 one he appears to say, that it was a gathering of vapours under the stars of that region, for they always attract them; and this does not appear to be the true reason. In the old, it says, that the Galaxy is only a multitude of fixed stars in that region, so small that they cannot be distinguished here below; but from them is apparent that whiteness 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 opinion seems to have been entertained by Aristotle, Avicenna, and Ptolemy."
Milton, Par. Lost, VII. 577 :--
"A broad and ampic road, whose dust is gold,
And pavement stars, as stars to thee appear,
Seen in the Galaxy, that Milky Way,
Which nightly, as a circling zone, thou seest
Powdered with stars."
The sign of the cross, drawn upon the planet Mars, as upon the breast of a crusader. The following Legend of the Cross, and its significance, is from Didron, Christian Iconography, Millington's Tr., 1.367 :--
"The cross is more than a mere figure of Christ; it is in Iconography either Christ himself or his symbol. A legend has, consequently, been invented, giving the history of the cross, as if it had been a living being. It has been made the theme and hero of an epic poem, the germ of which may be discovered in books of apocryphal tradition. This story is given at length in the Golden Legend, Legenda Aurea, and is detailed and completed in works of painting and sculpture from the fourteenth century down to the sixteenth. . . . . After the death of Adam, Seth planted on the tomb of his father a shoot from the Tree of Life, which grew in the terrestrial Paradise. From it sprang three little trees, united by one single trunk. Moses thence gathered the rod with which he by his miracles astonished the people of Egypt, and the inhabitants of the desert. Solomon desired to convert that same tree, which had become gigantic in size, into a column for his palace; being either too short or too long, it was rejected, and served as a bridge over a torrent. The Queen of Sheba refused to pass over on that tree, declaring that it would one day occasion the destruction of the Jews. Solomon commanded that the predestined beam should be thrown into the probationary pool (Pool of Bethesda), and its virtues were immediately communicated to the waters. When Christ had been condemned to suffer the death of a malefactor, his cross was made of the wood of that very tree. It was buried on Golgotha, and afterwards discovered by St. Helena. It was carried into captivity by Chosroes, king of Persia, delivered, and brought back in triumph to Jerusalem, by the Emperor Heraclius. Being afterwards dispersed in a multitude of fragments throughout the Christian universe, countless miracles were performed by it; it restored the dead to life, and gave sight to the blind, cured the paralytic, cleansed lepers, put demons to flight, and dispelled various maladies with which whole nations were afflicted, extinguished conflagrations, and calmned the fury of the raging waves.
"The wood of the cross was born with the world, in the terrestial paradise; it will reappear in heaven at the end of time, borne in the arms of Christ or of his angels, when the Lord descends to judge the world at the last day.
"After reading this history, some conception may be formed of the important place held by the cross in Christian Iconography. The cross, as has been said, is not merely the instrument of the punishment of Jesus Christ, but is also the figure and symbol of the Saviour. Jesus, to an Iconologist, is present in the cross as well as in the lamb, or in the lion. Chosroes flattered himself that, in possessing the cross, he possessed the Son of God, and he had it enthroned on his right hand, just as the Son is enthroned by God the Father. So also the earliest Christian artists, when making a representation of the Trinity, placed a cross beside the Father and the Holy Spirit ; a cross only, without our crucified Lord. The cross did not only recall Christ to mind, but actually showed him. In Christian Iconography, Christ is actually present under the form and semblance of the cross.
"The cross is our crucified Lord in person. Where the cross is, there is the martyr, says St. Paulinus. Consequently it works miracles, as does Jesus himself: and the list of wonders operated by its power is in truth immense. . . .
"The world is in the form of the cross ; for the east shines above our heads, the north is on the right, the south at the left, and the west stretches out beneath our feet. Birds, that they may rise in air, extend their wings in the form of a cross : men, when praying, or when beating aside the water while swimming, assume the form of a cross. Man differs from the inferior animals, in his power of standing erect, and extending his arms.
"A vessel, to fly upon the seas, displays her yard arms in the form of a cross and cannot cut the waves unless her mast stands cross-like, erect in air; finally, the ground cannot be tilled without the sacred sign, and the tau, the cruciform letter, is the letter of salvation.
"The cross, it is thus seen, has been the object of a worship and adoration resembling, if not equal to, that offered to Christ. That sacred tree is adored almost as if it were equal with God himself; a number of churches have been dedicated to it under the name of the Holy Cross. In addition to this, most of our churches, the greatest as well as the smallest, cathedrals as well as chapels, present in their ground plan lie form of a cross."
Chaucer, Lament of Marie Magdaleine, 204 :--
I, loking up unto that rufull rode,
Saw first the visage pale of that figure;
But so pitous a sight spotted with blode
Sawe never, yet, no living creature;
So it exceded the boundes of mesure,
That mannes minde with al his wittes five
Is nothing able that paine to discrive."
From arm to arm of the cross, and from top to bottom.
Mr. Cary here quotes Chaucer, Wif of Bath's Tale, 6540 :--
"As thikke as motes n the sonnebeme."
And Milton, Penseroso, 8 :--
"As thick and numberless
As the gay motes that people the sunbeam."
To these Mr. Wright adds the following from Lucretius, 11.113, which in Good's Tr. runs as follows :--
"Not unresembling, if aright I deem,
Those motes minute, that, when the obtrusive
sun
Peeps through some crevice in the shuttered
shade
The day-dark hall illuming, float amain
In his bright beam, and wage eternal war."
Words from a hymn in praise of Christ, say the commentators, but they do not say from what hymn.
The living seals are the celestial spheres, which impress themselves on all beneath them, and increase in power as they are higher.
That is, to the eyes of Beatrice, whose beauty he may seem to postpone, or regard as inferior to the splendours that surround him. He excuses himself by saying that he does not speak of them, well knowing that they have grown more beautiful in ascending. He describes them in line 33 of the next canto:--
"For in her eyes was burning such a smile
That with mine own methought I touched the bottom
Both of my grace and of my Paradise!"
Sincere in the sense of pure; as in Dryden's line,--
"A joy which never was sincere till now."