The ascent to the Fifth Circle, where Avarice is punished It is the dawn of the Third Day.
Brunetto Latini, Tresor. Ch. CXI. "Saturn, who is sovereign over all, is cruel and malign and of a cold nature."
Geomancy is divination by points in the ground, or pebbles arranged in certain figures, which have peculiar names. Among these is the figure called the Fortuna Major, which is thus drawn :--
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which by an effort of imagination can also be formed out of some of the last stars of Aquarius, and some of the first of Pisces.
Chaucer, Troil. and Cres., III., 1415:--
But whan the cocke, commune astrologer,
Gan on his brest to bete and after crowe,
And Lucifer, the dayes messanger,
Gan for to rise and out his bemes throwe,
And estward rose, to him that could it knowe,
Fortuna Major."
Because the sun is following close behind.
This "stammering woman" of Dante's dream is Sensual Pleasure, which the imagination of the beholder adorns with a thousand charms." The "lady saintly and alert" is Reason, the same that tied Ulysses to the mast, and stopped the ears of his sailors with wax that they might not hear the song of the Sirens.
Gower, Conf Amant., I.:--
"Of such nature
They ben, that with so swete a steven
Like to the melodie of heven
In womannishe vois they singe
With notes of so great likinge,
Of suche mesure, of suche musike,
Whereof the shippes they beswike
That passen by the costes there.
For whan the shipmen lay an ere
Unto the vois, in here airs
They wene it be a paradis,
Which after is to hem an helle."
"That is," says Buti, "they shall have the gift of comforting their souls."
Matthew V. 4: "Blessed are they thatmourn : for they shall be comforted."
The three remaining sins to be purged away are Avarice, Gluttony. and Lust.
See Canto XIV. 148.
Psalms cxix. 25: "My soul cleaveth unto the dust : quicken thou me according to thy word."
Know that I am the successor of Peter. It is Pope Adrian the Fifth who speaks. He was of the family of the Counts of Lavagna, the family taking its title from the river Lavagna, flowing between Siestri and Chiaveri, towns on the Riviera di Genova. He was Pope only thirty-nine days, and died in 1276. When his kindred came to congratulate him on his election, he said, "Would that ye came to a Cardinal in good health, and not to a dying Pope."
Revelation xxii. 10 : "And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not, I am thy fellow-servant."
Matthew xxii. 30: "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven." He reminds Dante that here all earthly distinctions and relations are laid aside. He is no longer "the spouse of the Church."
Penitence; line 92:--
"In whom weeping ripens
That without which to God we cannot turn."
Madonna Alagia was the wife of Marcello Malespini, that friend of Dante with whom, during his wanderings he took refuge in the Lunigiana, in 1307.