In this canto Dante is made to drink of the river Eunoe, the memory of things good.
Psalm lxxix., beginning: "0 God, the heathen are come into thine inheritance ; thy holy temple have they defiled." The three Evangelical and four Cardinal Virtues chant this psalm, alternately responding to each other. The Latin words must be chanted, Un order to make the lines rhythmical, with an equal emphasis on each syllable.
When their singing was ended.
Dante, Matilda, and Statius.
As in Canto XXXI. 7 :--
"My faculties were in so great confusion,
That the voice moved, but sooner was extinct,
Than by its organs it was set at large."
Is no longer what it was. Revelation xvii. 8: "The beast that thou sawest was, and is not."
In the olden time in Florence, if an assassin could contrive to eat a sop' of bread and wine at the grave of the murdered man, within nine days after the murder, he was free from the vengeance of the family; and to prevent this they kept watch at the tomb. There is no evading the vengeance of God in this way. Such is the interpretation this passage by all the old commentators.
The Roman Empire shall not always be without an Emperor, as it was then in the eyes of Dante, who counted the "German Albert," Alberto tedesco, as no Emperor, because he never came into Italy. See the appeal to him, Canto VI. 96, and the malediction, because he suffered
"The garden of the empire to be waste."
The Roman numerals making DVX, or Leader. The allusion is Henry of Luxemburgh, in whom Dante placed his hopes of the restoration of the Imperial power. He was the successor of the German Albert of the preceding note, after an interregnum of one year. He died in 1312, shortly after his coronation in Rome. See Canto VI. Note 97.
Villani, though a Guelf, pays this tribute of respect to his memory, Book IX. Ch. I: "He was wise and just and gracious, valiant in arms, dignified, and catholic; and although of low estate in lineage, he was of a magnanimous heart, feared and redoubted, and if he had lived longer, he would have done great things."
When Henry entered Italy in September, 1310, Dante hastened to meet him, full of faith and hope. Whether this interview took place at Susa, Turin, or Milan, is uncertain; nor is there any record of it, except the allusion in the following extract from a letter of Dante, "written in Tuscany, at the sources of the Arno, on the 14th of May, 1311, in the first year of the happy journey of the divine Henry into Italy." Dante was disappointed that his hero should linger so long in the Lombard towns, and wished him to march at once against Florence, the monster "that drinketh neither of the headlong Po, nor of thy Tyber." In this letter, Mr. Greene's Tr. he says :--
"The inheritance of peace, as the immense love of God witnesseth, was left us, that in the marvellous sweetness thereof our hard warfare might be softened, and by the use thereof we might deserve the joys of our triumphant country. But the hatred of the ancient and implacable enemy, who ever and secretly layeth snares for human prosperity, --disinheriting some of those who were willing,--impiously, in the absence of our protector, despoiled us also, who were unwilling. Wherefore we wept long by the rivers of confusion, and incessantly implored the protection of the just king, to scatter the satellites of the cruel tyrant, and restore us to our just rights. And when thou, successor of Caesar and of Augustus, crossing the chain of the Apennines, brought back the venerable Tarpeian ensigns, our long sighings straightway ceased, the fountains of our tears were stayed, and a new hope of a better age, like a sun suddenly risen, shed its beams over Latium. Then many, breaking forth into jubilant vows, sang with Mars the Saturnian reign, and the return of the Virgin.
"But since our sun (whether the fervour of desire suggests it, or the aspect of truth) is already believed to have delayed, or is supposed to be going back in his course, as if a new Joshua or the son of Amos had commanded, we are compelled in our uncertainty to doubt, and to break forth in the words of the Forerunner: 'Art thou he that should come, or look we for another?' And although the fury of long thirst turns into doubt, as is its wont, the things which are certain because they are near, nevertheless we believe and hope in thee, asserting thee to be the minister of God and the son of the Church, and the promoter of the Roman glory. And I, who write as well for myself as for others, when my hands touched thy feet and my lips performed their office, saw thee most benignant, as becometh the Imperial majesty, and heard thee most clement. Then my spirit exulted within me, and I silently said to myself, 'Behold the lamb of God, who taketh away the sins of the world.'"
Dante, Par. XXX. I33, sees the crown and throne that await the "noble Henry" in the highest heaven:--
"On that great throne on which thine eyes are fixed
For the crown's sake already placed upon it,
Before thou suppest at this wedding feast,
Shalt sit the soul (that is to he Augustus
On earth) of noble Henry, who shall come
To reform Italy ere she be prepared."
Themis, the daughter of Coelus and Terra, whose oracle was famous in Attica, and who puzzled Deucalion and Pyrrha by telling them that, in order to repeople the earth after the deluge, they must throw "their mother's bones behind them."
The Sphinx, the famous monster born of Chimaera, and having the head of a woman, the wings of a bird, the body of a dog, and the paws of a lion ; and whose riddle "What animal walks on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?" so puzzled the Thebans, that King Creon offered his crown and his daughter Jocasta to any one who should solve it, and so free the land of the uncomfortable monster; a feat accomplished by Oedipus apparently without much difficulty.
The Naiades having undertaken to solve the enigmas of oracles, Themis, offended, sent forth a wild beast to ravage the flocks and fields of the Thebans; though why they should have been held accountable for the doings of the Naiades is not yery obvious. The tradition is founded on a passage in Ovid, Met., VII. 757:--
"Carmina Naiades non intellecta priorum
Soivunt.
Heinsius and other critics say that the lines should read,--
"Carmira Laiades non intellecta priorum
Solverat;"
referring to Oedipus, son of Laius. But Rosa Moranda maintains the old reading, and says there is authority in Pausanias for making the Naiades interpreters of oracles.
Coplas de Manrique:--
"Our cradle is the starting place
Life is the running of the race."
First by the Eagle, who rent its bark and leaves; then by the giant, who bore away the chariot which had been bound to it.
The sin of Adam, and the death of Christ.
The Elsa is a river in Tuscany, rising in the mountains near Colle, and flowing northward into the Arno, between Florence and Pisa. Its waters have the power of incrusting or petrifying anything left in them. "This power of incrustation," says Covino, Descriz." Geog. dell' Italia, "is especially manifest a little above Colle, where a great pool rushes impetuously from the ground."
If the vain thoughts thou hast been immersed in had not petrified thee, and the pleasure of them stained thee; if thou hadst not been
"Converted into stone and stained with sin."
Widening at the top, instead of diminishing upward like other trees.
The staff wreathed with palm, the cockle-shell in the hat, and the sandal-shoon were all marks of the pilgrim, showing he had been beyond sea and in the Holy Land. Thus in the old ballad of The Friar of Orders Gray :--
"And how should I your true love know
In the Vita Nuova, Mr. Norton's Tr., p.71, is this passage : "Moreover, it is to be known that the people who travel in the service of the Most High are called by three distinct terms. Those who go beyond the sea, whence often they bring back the palm, are called palmers. Those who go to the house of Galicia are called pilgrirns, because the burial-place of St. James was more distant from his country than that of any other of the Apostles. And those are called romei who go to Rome."
How far Philosophy differs from Religion. Isaiah Iv. 8: "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts."
Noon of the Fourth Day of Purgatory.
Two of the four rivers that watered Paradise. Here they are the same as Lethe and Eunoe, the oblivion of evil, and the memory of good.
Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress:--
"I saw then, that they went on their way to a pleasant. river, which David the king called 'the river of God;' but Jonn, 'the river of the water of life.' Now their way lay just upon the bank of the river : here therefore Christian and his companion walked with great delight: they drank also of the water of the river, which was pleasant, and enlivening to their weary spirits. Besides, on the banks of this river, on either side, were green trees for all manner of fruit and the leaves they ate to prevent surfeits and other diseases that are incident to those that heat their blood by travels. On either side of the river was also a meadow, curiously beautified with lilies; and it was green all the year long. In this meadow they lay down and slept; for here they might lie down safely. When they awoke, they gathered again of the fruits of the trees, and drank again of the water of the river, and then lay down again to sleep."
Sir John Denham says:--
"The sweetest cordial we receive at last
The last word in this division of the poem, as in the other two, is the suggestive word "Stars."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.069
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.066
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.078
From many another one?
And by his cockle-hat and staff,
And by his sandal-shoone."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.085
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.104
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.112
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.127
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.129
Is conscience of our virtuous actions past."
Longfellow (1897), Purg. 33.145