The Heaven of Mercury, where are seen the spirits of those who for the love of fame achieved great deeds. Of its symbolism Dante says, Convito, II. 14: The Heaven of Mercury may be compared to Dialectics, on account of two properties ; for Mercury is the smallest star of heaven, since the quantity of its diameter is not more than two thousand and thirty-two miles, according to the estimate of Alfergano who declares it to
be one twenty-eighth part of the diameter of the Earth, which is six thousand and fifty-two miles. The other property is, that it is more veiled by the rays of the Sun than any other star. And these two properties are in Dialectics ; for Dialectics are less in body than any Science since in them is perfectly compiled and bounded as much doctrine as is found in ancient and modern Art; and it is more veiled than any Science, inasmuch as it proceeds by more sophistic and probable arguments than any other."
For the influences of Mercury, see Canto VI. Note 114.
Burns, The Vision :--
"I saw thy pulse's maddening play
Wild send thee pleasure's devious way,
Misled by fancy's meteor ray,
By passion driven;
And yet the light that led astray
Was light from heaven."
Milton, Par. Lost V.235:--
"Happiness in his power left free to will,
Left to his own free will, his will though free,
Yet mutable."
33. In illustration of this line, Venturi quotes the following epigram:--
"This hospital a pious person built,
But first he made the poor wherewith to fill't."
And Biagioli this :--
"C'est un homme d'honneur, de piete profonde,
Et qui veut rendre a Dieu ce qu'il a pris au
monde."
That which is sacrificed, or of which an offering is made.
Without the permission of Holy Church, symbolized by the two keys; the silver key of Knowledge, and the golden key of Authority. See Purg. IX. 118:--
One was of gold, and the other was of silver;
More precious one is, but the other needs
More art and intellect ere it unlock,
For it is that which doth the knot unloose."
The thing substituted niust be greater than the thing relinquished.
Judges xi. 30: " And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into my hands then it shall be that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, I will offer it up for a burnt-offering. . . . . And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances; and she was his only child : besides her he had neither son nor daughter."
Agamemnon.
Euripides, Iphigenia in Tauris, I.I, Buckley's Tr. :--
" 0 thou who rulest over this Grecian expedition, Agamemnon, thou wilt not
lead forth thy ships from the ports of this land, before Diana shall receive thy
daughter Iphigenia as a victim; for thou didst vow to sacrifice to the light-bearing Goddess whatsoever the year should bring forth most beautiful. Now your wife Clytaemnestra has brought forth a daughter in your house, referring to me the title of the most beautiful, whom thou must needs sacrifice. And so, by the arts of Ulysses, they drew me from my mother under pretence of being wedded to Achilles. But I wretched coming to Aulis, being seized and raised aloft above the pyre, would have been slain by the sword; but Diana, giving to the Greeks a stag in my stead, stole me away, and, sending me through the clear ether, she settled me in this land of the Tauri, where barbarian Thoas rules the land."
Dante, Convito, I. I I : "These should be called sheep, and not men; for if one sheep should throw itself down a precipice of a thousand feet, all the others would follow, and if one sheep, in passing along the road, leaps from any cause, all the others leap, though seeing no cause for it. And I once saw several leap into a well, on account of one that that had leaped in, thinking perhaps it was leaping over a wall; notwithstanding thatthe shepherd, weeping and wailing, opposed them with arms and breast."
Lucretius, Nature of Things, II 324, Good's Tr. :--
"The fleecy flocks, o'er yonder hill that browse,
From glebe to glebe, where'er, impearled with dew,
The jocund clover call them, and the lambs
That round thern gambol, saturate with rnilk,
Proving their frontlets in the mimic fray."
Towards the Sun, where the heaven is brightest.
The Heaven of Mercury.
Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I., Ch. 3, says, the planet Mercury "is easily moved according to the goodness or malice of the planets to which it is joined." Dante here represents himself as being of a peculiarly mercurial temperament.
The joy of spirits in Paradise is shown by greater brightness.
The spirit of Justinian.
Mercury is the planet nearest the Sun, and being thus "veiled with alien rays," is only visible to the naked eye at the time of its greatest elongation, and then but for a few minutes.
Dante, Convito, II.14, says, that Mercury "is more veiled by the rays of the Sun than any other star." And yet it will be observed that in his planetary system he places Venus between Mercury and the Sun.
Milton, Par. Lost, III. 380 :--
"Dark with excessive bright thy skirts appear,
Yet dazzle heaven."
And again, V. 598:--
"A flaming mount, whose top Brightness had made invisible."