The Heaven of Mars continued; and the ascent to the Heaven of Jupiter, where are seen the spirits of righteous kings and rulers.
Enjoying his own thought in silence. Shakespeare, Sonnet XXX:--
"When to the sessions of sweet silent thought
I summon up remembrance of things past."
Relinquish the hope and attempt of expressing.
11. Wordsworth, Excursion, Book IV.:--
"'Tis by comparison an easy task
Earth to despise; but to converse with heaven,--
That is not easy :--to relinquish all
We have, or hope, of happiness and joy,
And stand in freedom loosened from this world,
I deem not arduous; but must needs confess
That 'tis a thing impossible to frame
Conceptions equal to the soul's desires;
And the most difficult of tasks to keep
Heights which the soul is competent to gain.
--Man is of dust: ethereal hopes are his,
Which, when they should sustain themselves aloft,
Want due consistence; like a pillar of smoke,
That with majestic energy from earth
Rises; but, having reached the thinner air,
Melts, and dissolves, and is no longer seen."
And again in Tintern Abbey:--
"That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened."
Paradise, or the system of the heavens, which lives by the divine influences from above, and whose fruit and foliage are eternal. The fifth resting-place or division of this tree is the planet Mars.
Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after the death of Moses, to whom God said, Joshua i. 5: "As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee : I will not fail thee; nor forsake thee."
The great Maccabee was Judas Maccabaeus, who, as is stated in Biblical history, I Maccabees iii. 3, "gat his people great honour, and put on a breast-plate as a giant, and girt his warlike harness about him, and he made battles, protecting the host with his sword. In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion's whelp roaring for his prey."
Aeneid, VII., Davidson's Tr. "As at times a whip-top whirling under the twisted lash, which boys intent on their sport drive in a large circuit round some empty court, the engine driven about by the scourge is hurried round and round in circling courses; the unpractised throng and beardless band are lost in admiration of the voluble box-wood: they lend their souls to the stroke."
The form in which Charlemagne presented himself to the imagination of the Middle Ages may be seen by the following extract from Turpin's Chronicle, Ch. XX. : "The Emperor was of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair; of a well made, handsome form, but a stern visage. His height was about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a strong, robust make; his legs and thighs very stout, and his sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a palm ; his nose half a palm; his forehead a foot over. His lion-like eyes flashed fire like carbuncles; his eyebrows were half a palm over. When he was angry, it was a terror to look upon him. He required eight spans for his girdle, besides what hung loose. He ate sparingly of bread; but a whole quarter of lamb, two fowls, a goose, or a large portion of pork; a peacock, a crane, or a whole hare. He drank moderately of wine and water. He was so strong, that he could at a single blow cleave asunder an armed soldier on horse-back, from the head to the waist, and the horse likewise. He easily vaulted over four horses harnessed together, and could raise an armed man from the ground to his head, as he stood erect upon his hand."
Orlando, the famous paladin, who died at Roncesvalles ; the hero of Pulci's Morgante Maggiore, Bojardo's Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto's Orlando Furioso. . His sword Durandel is renowned in fiction, and his ivory horn Olivant could be heard eight miles.
"This William," says Buti, being obliged to say something, "was a great prince, who fought and died for the faith of Christ ; I have not been able to find out distinctly who he was. The Ottimo says it is William, Count of Orange in Provence ; who, after fighting for the faith against the Saracens, "took the cowl, and finished his life holily in the service of God ; and he is called Saint William of the Desert."
He is the same hero, then, that figures in the old romances of the Twelve Peers of France, as Guillaume au Court Nez, or William of the Short Nose, so called from having had his nose cut off by a Saracen in battle. In the monorhythmic romance which bears his name, he is thus represented:--
"Great was the court in the hall of Loon,
The tables were full of fowl and venison,
On flesh and fish they feasted every one;
But Guillaume of these viands tasted none,
Brown crusts ate he, and water drank alone.
When had feasted every noble baron,
The cloths were removed by squire and scullion.
Count Giullaume then with the king did thus reason:
What thinketh now,' quoth he, 'the gallant Charlon?
Will he aid me against the prowess of Mahon?'
Quoth Loeis, 'We will take counsel thereon,
Tomorrow in the morning shalt thou come,
If aught by us in this matter can be done.'
Guillaume heard this,--black was he as carbon,
He louted low, and seized a baton,
And said to the king, 'Of your fief will I none,
I will not keep so much as a spur's iron;
Your friend and vassal I cease to be anon;
But come you shall, whether you will or non.'"
He is said to have been taken prisoner and carried to Africa by the Moorish King Tobaldo, whose wife Arabella he first converted to Christianity, and then eloped with.
And who was Renouard? He was a young Moor, who was taken prisoner and up at the court of Saint Louis with the king's daughter Alice, whom, after achieving unheard of wonders in battle and siege, he, being duly baptized, married. Later in life he also became a monk, and frightened the brotherhood by his greediness, and by going to sleep when he should have gone to mass. So say the old romances.
Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and leader of the First Crusade. He was born in 1061, and died, king of Jerusalem, in 1109. Gibbon thus sketches his character, Decline and Fall, Ch. LVII.: "The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of Bouillon ; and happy would it have been for the Crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line. His father was of the noble race of the Counts of Boulogne; Brabant, the lower province of Lorraine, was the inheritance of his mother; and by the Emperor's bounty he was himself invested with that ducal title which has been improperly transferred to his lordship of Bouillon in the Ardennes. In the service of Henry IV, he bore the great standard of the Empire, and pierced with his lance the breast of Rodolph, the rebel king Godfrey was the first who ascended the walls of Rome ; and his sickness, his vow, perhaps his remorse for bearing arms against the Pope, confirmed an early resolution of visiting the holy sepulchre, not as a pilgrim, but a deliverer. His valour was matured by prudence and moderation; his piety, though blind, was sincere; and, in the tumult of a camp, he practised the real and fictitious virtues of a convent. Superior to the private factions of the chiefs, he reserved his enmity for the enemies of Christ; and though he gained a kingdom by the attempt, his pure and disinterested zeal was acknowledged by his rivals. Godfrey of Bouillon was accompanied by his two brothers,--by Eustace, the elder, who had succeeded to the county of Boulogne, and by the younger, Baldwin, a character of more ambiguous virtue. The Duke of Lorraine was alike celebrated on either side of the Rhine; from his birth and education he was equally conversant with the French and Teutonic languages; the barons of France, Germany, and Lorraine assembled their vassals; and the confederate force that marched under his banner was composed of four-score thousand foot and about ten thousand horse."
Robert Guiscard, founder of the kingdom of Naples, was the sixth of the twelve sons of the Baron Tancred de Hauteville of the diocese of Coutance in Lower Normandy, where he was born in the year 1015. In his youth he left his father's castle as a military adventurer, and crossed the Alps to join the Norman army in Apulia, whither three of his brothers had gone before him, and whither at different times six others followed him. Here he gradually won his way by his sword; and having rendered some signal service to Pope Nicholas II., he was made Duke of Apulia and Calabria, and of the lands in Italy and Sicily which he wrested from the Greeks and Saracens. Thus from a needy adventurer he rose to be the founder of a kingdom. "The Italian conquests of Robert," says Gibbon, "correspond with the limits of the present kingdom of Naples; and the countries united by his arms have not been dissevered by the revolutions of seven hundred years."
The same historian, Rise and Fall, Ch. LVI., gives the following character of Guiscard. "Robert was the eldest of the seven sons of the second marriage and even the reluctant praise of his foes has endowed him with the heroic qualities of a soldier and a statesman. His lofty stature surpassed the tallest of his army ; his limbs were cast in the true proportion of strength and gracefulness and to the decline of life, he maintained the patient vigour of health and the commanding dignity of his form. His complexion was ruddy, his shoulders were broad, his hair and beard were long and of a flaxen - colour, his eyes sparkled with fire, and his voice, like that of Achilles, could impress obedience and terror amidst the tumult of battle. In the ruder ages of chivalry, such qualifications are not below the notice of the poet or historian; they may observe that Robert, at once, and with equal dexterity, could wield in the right hand his sword, his lance in the left; that in the battle of Civitella he was thrice unhorsed; and that in the close of that memorable day he was adjudged to have borne away the prize of valour from the warriors of the two armies. His boundless ambition was founded on the consciousness of superior worth; in the pursuit of greatness he was never arrested by the scruples of justice, and seldom moved by the feelings of humanity; though not insensible of fame, the choice of open or clandestine means was determined only by his present advantage. The surname of Guiscard was applied to this master of political wisdom, which is too often confounded with the practice of dissimulation and deceit; and Robert is praised by the Apulian poet for excelling the cunning of Ulysses and the eloquence ot Cicero. Yet these arts were disguised by an appearance of military frankness; in his highest fortune he was accessible and courteous to his fellow-soldiers; and while he indulged the prejudices of his new subjects, he affected in his dress and manners to maintain the ancient fashion of his country. He grasped with a rapacious, that he might distribute with a liberal band; his primitive indigence had taught the habits of frugality; the gain of a merchant was not below his attention; and his prisoners were tortured with slow and unfeeling cruelty to force a discovery of their secret treasure. According to the Greeks, he departed from Normandy with only five followers on horseback and thirty on foot ; yet even this allowance appears too bountiful; the sixth son of Tancred of Hauteville passed the Alps as a pilgrim ; and his first military band was levied among the adventurers of Italy. His brothers and countrymen had divided the fertile lands of Apulia; but they guarded their shares with the jealousy of avarice ; the aspiring youth was driven forwards to the mountains of Calabria, and in his
first exploits against the Greeks and the natives it is not easy to discriminate the hero from the robber. To surprise a castle or a convent, to ensnare a wealthy citizen, to plunder the adjacent villages for necessary food, were the obscure labours which formed and exercised the powers of his mind and body. The volunteers of Normandy adhered to his standard; and, under his command, the peasants of Calabria assumed the name and character of Normans."
Robert died in 1085, on an expedition against Constantinople, undertaken at the venerable age of seventy-five. Such was the career of Robert the Cunning, this being the meaning of the old Norman word guiscard, or guischard. For an instance of his cunning see Inf. XXVIII. Note 114.
The miracle is Beatrice, of whom Dante says, in the Vita Nuova: "Many, when she had passed, said, 'This is not a woman, rather is she one of the most beautiful angels of heaven.' Others said, 'She is a miracle. Blessed be the Lord, who can perform such a marvel!'
The change from the red light of Mars to the white light of Jupiter. "This planet," says Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I.
Ch. CXI., "is gentle and piteous,and full of all good things." Of its symbolism Dante, Convito, II. 14, says: "The heaven of Jupiter may be compared to Geometry on account of two properties. The first is, that it moves between two heavens repugnant to its good temperateness, as are that of Mars and that of Saturn; whence Ptolemy says, in the book cited, that Jupiter is a star of a temperate complexion,. midway between the coldness of Saturn and the heat of Mars. The second is, that among all the stars it shows itself white, almost silvery. And these two things are in Geometry. Geometry moves between two opposites; as between the point and the circle (and I call in general everything round, whether a solid or a surface, a circle); for, as Euclid says, the point is the beginning of Geometry, and, as he says, the circle is its most perfect figure, and may therefore be considered its end; so that between the point and the circle, as between beginning and end, Geometry moves. And these two are opposed to its exactness ; for the point, on account of its indivisibility, is immeasurable; and the circle, on account of its arc, it is impossible to square, and therefore it is impossible to measure it exactly. And moreover Geometry is very white, inasmuch as it is without spot of error, and very exact in itself and its handmaiden which is called Perspective."
Of the influences of Jupiter, Buti, quoting as usual Albumasar, speaks thus : "The planet Jupiter is of a cold, humid, airy, temperate nature, and signifies the natural soul, and life, and animate bodies, children and grandchildren, and beauty, and wise men and doctors of laws, and just judges, and firmness, and knowledge, and intellect, and interpretation of dreams, truth and divine worship, doctrine of law and faith, religion, veneration and fear of God, unity of faith and providence thereof, and regulation of manners and behaviour, and will be laudable, and signifies patient observation, and perhaps also to it belong swiftness of mind, improvidence and boldness in dangers, and patience and delay, and it signifies beatitude, and acquisition, and victory, . . . . and veneration, and kingdom, and kings, and rich men, nobles and magnates, hope and joy, and cupidity in commodities, also of fortune, in new kinds of grain, and harvests, and wealth, and security in all things, and good habits of mind, and liberality, command and goodness, boasting and bravery of mind, and boldness, true love and delight of supremacy over the citizens of a city, delight of potentates and magnates, . . . . .and beauty and ornament of dress, and joy and laughter, and affluence of speech, and glibness of tongue, . . . . and hate of evil, and attachments among men, and command of the known, and avoidance of the unknown. These are the significations of the planet Jupiter, and such the influences it exerts."
Milton, Par. Lost VII. 425:--
"Part loosely wing the region, part more wise
In common, ranged in figure, wedge their way,
Intelligent of seasons, and set forth
Their aery caravan, high over seas
Flying, and over lands, with mutual wing
Easing their flight; -- so steers the prudent crane
Her annual voyage, borne on winds; -- the air
Floats as they pass.
The first letters of the word Diligite, completed afterward.
Dante gives this title to the Muse, because from the hoof-beat of Pegasus sprang the fountain of the Muses, Hippocrene. The invocation is here to Calliope, the Muse of epic verse.
Wisdom of Solomon i. I:
"Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth."
100. Tennyson, Morte d'Arthur:--
"And drove his heel into the smouldered log,
That sent a blast of sparkles up the flue."
Divination by fire, and other childish fancies about sparks, such as wishes for golden sequins, and nuns going into a chapel.
Cowper, Names of Little Note in the Biogr. Brit.:--
"So when a child, as playful children use;
Has burnt to tinder a stale last year's news.
The flame extinct he views the roving fire,--
There goes my lady, and there goes the squire,
There goes the parson, 0 illustrious spark
And there, scarce less illustrious, goes the
clerk!"
In this eagle, the symbol of Imperialism, Dante displays his political faith. Among just rulers, this is the shape in which the true government of the world appears to him. In the invective against Pope Boniface VIII., with which the canto closes, he gives still further expression of his intense Imperialism.
The simplest interpretation of this line seems to me preferable to the mystic meaning which some commentators lend it. The Architect who built the heavens teaches the bird how to build its nest after the same model ;--
"The Power which built the starry dome on high,
And poised the vaulted rafters of the sky,
Teaches the linnet with unconscious breast
To round the inverted heaven of her nest."
The other group of beatified spirits.
As Tertullian says: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church."
The bad example of the head of the Church.
By excommunication, which shut out its victims from the table of the Lord.
Pope Boniface VIII., who is here accused of dealing out ecclesiastical censures only to be paid for revoking them.
John the Baptist . But here is meant his image on the golden florin of Florence.