The Seven Stars, or Septentrion of the highest heaven, are the seven lights that lead the procession, the seven gifts of the Holy Ghost, by which all men are guided safely in things spiritual, as the mariner is by the Septentrion, or Seven Stars of the Ursa Minor, two of which are called the "Wardens of the Pole," and one of which is the Cynosure, or Pole Star. These lights precede the triumphal chariot, as in our heaven the Ursa Minor precedes, or is nearer the centre of rest, than the Ursa Major or Charles's Wain.
In the Northern Mythology the God Thor is represented as holding these constellations in his hand. The old Swedish Rhyme Chronicle, describing the statues in the church of Upsala, says :--
"The God Thor was the highest of them;
He sat naked as a child,
Seven stars in his hand and Charles's Wain."
Spenser, Faerie Queene, I. ii. I :--
"By this the northern wagoner had set
His sevenfold teme behind the steadfast starre
That was in ocean waves yet never wet,
But firme is fixt, and sendeth light from farre
To all tbat in the wide deep wandering arre."
"As when the sun new-risen
Shines through the horizontal misty alr
Shorn of his beams."
"Nine times now, since my birth, the heaven of light had turned almost to the same point in its gyration, when first appeared before my eyes the glorious lady of my mind, who was called Beatrice by many who did not know why they thus called her. She had now been in this life so long, that in its course the starry heaven had moved toward the east one of the twelfth parts of a degree; so that about the beginning of her ninth year she appeared to me, and I near the end of my ninth year saw her. She appeared to me clothed in a most noble colour, a becoming and modest crimson, and she was girt and adorned in the style that became her extreme youth. At that instant, I say truly, the spirit of life, which dwells in the most secret chamber of the heart, began to tremble with such violence, that it appeared fearfully in the least pulses, and, trembling, said these words : Ecce deus fortior me, qui veniens dominabitur mihi! 'Behold a god, stronger than I, who, coming, shall rule me !'
"At that instant, the spirit of the soul, which dwells in the high chamber to which all the spirits of the senses bring their perceptions, began to marvel greatly, and, addressing the spirits of the sight, said these words: Apparuit jam beatitudo vestra, --'Now hath appeared your bliss."'At that instant the natural spirit, which dwells in that part where the nourishment is supplied, began to weep, and, weeping, said these words : Heu miser! quia frequenter impeditus ero deinceps, -- 'Woe is me wretched ! because frequently henceforth shall I be hindered.'
"From this time forward I say that Love lorded it over my soul, which had been thus quickly put at his disposal; and he began to exercise over me such control and such lordship, through the power which my imagination gave to him, that it behoved me to perform completely all his pleasure He commanded me many times that I should seek to see this youthful angel, so that I in my boyhood often went seeking her, and saw her of such noble and praiseworthy deportment, that truly of her might be said that saying of the poet Homer 'She does not seem the daughter of mortal man, but of God.' And though her image, which stayed constantly with me, inspired confidence in Love to hold lordship over me, yet it was of such noble virtue, that it never suffered that Love should rule without the faithful counsel of Reason in those matters in which such counsel could be useful."
And IX. 87: "A wood " . . . dark with gloomy firs, and rafters of the maple."
Denistoun, Mem. of Duke of Urbino,1.4, says: "On the summit grew magnificent pines, which gave to the district of Massa the epithet of Trabaria, from the beams which were carried thence for the palaces of Rome, and which are noticed by Dante as
'The living rafters upon the back of Italy.''
"The fanned snow
"0 noble conscience, and without a stain,
"If thou bring back to mind
"I come to thee by daytime constantly,
That's bolted by the northern blast twice o'er."
And Midsummer Night's Dream"
"High Taurus' snow
Fanned with the eastern wind."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 30.113
Which are formed in such lofty regions, that they are beyond human conception.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 30.125
Beatrice died in 1290, at the age of twenty-five.
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 30.136
136. How far these self-accusations of Dante were justified by facts, and how far they may be regarded as expressions a sensitive and excited conscience, we have no means of determining. It is doubtless but simple justice to apply to him the words which he applies to Virgil, Canto III. 8:--
How sharp a sting is trivial fault to thee!"
This should be borne in mind when we read what Dante says of his own shortcomings; as, for instance, in his conversation with his brother-in-law Forese, Canto XXIII. 115:--
What thou with me hast been and I with thee,
The present memory will be grievous still."
But what shall we say of this sonnet addressed to Dante by his intimate friend, Guido Cavalcanti? Rossetti, Early Italian Poet's, p. 358:--
But in thy thoughts too much of baseness find:
Greatly it grieves me for thy gentle mind,
And for thy many virtues gone from thee.
It was thy wont to shun much company,
Unto all sorry concourse ill inclined:
And still thy speech of me, heartfelt and kind,
Had made me treasure up thy poetry.
But now I dare not, for thine abject life,
Make manifest that I approve thy rhymes;
Nor come I in such sort that thou may'st
know.
Ah! prythee read this sonnet many times:
So shall that evil one who bred this strife
Be thrust from thy dishonoured soul, and go."