Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Volume 1 - Leigh Hunt
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What does the Christian reader think of that?]
[Footnote 46: Latrando.]
[Footnote 47: Bocca degli Abbati, whose soul barks like a dog,
occasioned the defeat of the Guelfs at Montaperto, in the year 1260, by
treacherously cutting off the hand of the standard-bearer.]
[Footnote 48: This is the famous story of Ugolino, who betrayed the
castles of Pisa to the Florentines, and was starved with his children in
the Tower of Famine.]
[Footnote 49: I should be loath to disturb the inimitable pathos of this
story, if there did not seem grounds for believing that the poet was too
hasty in giving credit to parts of it, particularly the ages of some of
his fellow-prisoners, and the guilt of the archbishop. See the Appendix
to this volume.]
[Footnote 50: This is the most tremendous lampoon, as far as I am aware,
in the whole circle of literature.]
[Footnote 51: "Cortesia fu lui esser villano." This is the foulest blot
which Dante has cast on his own character in all his poem (short of the
cruelties he thinks fit to attribute to God). It is argued that he is
cruel and false, out of hatred to cruelty and falsehood. But why then
add to the sum of both? and towards a man, too, supposed to be suffering
eternally? It is idle to discern in such barbarous inconsistencies any
thing but the writer's own contributions to the stock of them. The
utmost credit for right feeling is not to be given on every occasion to
a man who refuses it to every one else.]
[Footnote 52: "La creatura ch'ebbe il bel sembiante."
This is touching; but the reader may as well be prepared for a total
failure in Dante's conception of Satan, especially the English reader,
accustomed to the sublimity of Milton's. Granting that the Roman
Catholic poet intended to honour the fallen angel with no sublimity,
but to render him an object of mere hate and dread, he has overdone and
degraded the picture into caricature. A great stupid being, stuck up in
ice, with three faces, one of which is yellow, and three mouths, each
eating a sinner, one of those sinners being Brutus, is an object
for derision; and the way in which he eats these, his everlasting
_bonnes-bouches,_ divides derision with disgust. The passage must be
given, otherwise the abstract of the poem would be incomplete; but I
cannot help thinking it the worst anti-climax ever fallen into by a
great poet.]
[Footnote 53: This silence is, at all events, a compliment to Brutus,
especially from a man like Dante, and the more because it is extorted.
Dante, no doubt, hated all treachery, particularly treachery to the
leader of his beloved Roman emperors; forgetting three things; first,
that Caesar was guilty of treachery himself to the Roman people; second,
that he, Dante, has put Curio in hell for advising Caesar to cross the
Rubicon, though he has put the crosser among the good Pagans; and third,
that Brutus was educated in the belief that the punishment of such
treachery as Caesar's by assassination was one of the first of duties.
How differently has Shakspeare, himself an aristocratic rather than
democratic poet, and full of just doubt of the motives of assassins in
general, treated the error of the thoughtful, conscientious, Platonic
philosopher!]
[Footnote 54: At the close of this medley of genius, pathos, absurdity,
sublimity, horror, and revoltingness, it is impossible for any
reflecting heart to avoid asking, _Cui bono?_ What is the good of it
to the poor wretches, if we are to suppose it true? and what to the
world--except, indeed, as a poetic study and a warning against degrading
notions of God--if we are to take it simply as a fiction? Theology,
disdaining both questions, has an answer confessedly incomprehensible.
Humanity replies: Assume not premises for which you have worse than no
proofs.]
II.
THE JOURNEY THROUGH PURGATORY.
Argument.
Purgatory, in the system of Dante, is a mountain at the Antipodes, on
the top of which is the Terrestrial Paradise, once the seat of Adam and
Eve. It forms the principal part of an island in a sea, and possesses
a pure air. Its lowest region, with one or two exceptions of redeemed
Pagans, is occupied by Excommunicated Penitents and by Delayers of
Penitence, all of whom are compelled to lose time before their atonement
commences. The other and greater portion of the ascent is divided into
circles or plains, in which are expiated the Seven Deadly Sins. The Poet
ascends from circle to circle with Virgil and Statius, and is met in
a forest on the top by the spirit of Beatrice, who transports him to
Heaven.
THE JOURNEY THROUGH PURGATORY.
When the pilgrims emerged from the opening through which they beheld the
stars, they found themselves in a scene which enchanted them with hope
and joy. It was dawn: a sweet pure air came on their faces; and they
beheld a sky of the loveliest oriental sapphire, whose colour seemed
to pervade the whole serene hollow from earth to heaven. The beautiful
planet which encourages loving thoughts made all the orient laugh,
obscuring by its very radiance the stars in its train; and among those
which were still lingering and sparkling in the southern horizon,
Dante saw four in the shape of a cross, never beheld by man since they
gladdened the eyes of our first parents. Heaven seemed to rejoice in
their possession. O widowed northern pole! bereaved art thou, indeed,
since thou canst not gaze upon them![1]
The poet turned to look at the north where he had been accustomed to see
stars that no longer appeared, and beheld, at his side, an old man, who
struck his beholder with a veneration like that of a son for his father.
He had grey hairs, and a long beard which parted in two down his
bosom; and the four southern stars beamed on his face with such lustre,
that his aspect was as radiant as if he had stood in the sun.
"Who are ye?" said the old man, "that have escaped from the dreadful
prison-house? Can the laws of the abyss be violated? Or has Heaven
changed its mind, that thus ye are allowed to come from the regions of
condemnation into mine?"
It was the spirit of Cato of Utica, the warder of the ascent of
purgatory.
The Roman poet explained to his countryman who they were, and how Dante
was under heavenly protection; and then he prayed leave of passage of
him by the love he bore to the chaste eyes of his Marcia, who sent him a
message from the Pagan circle, hoping that he would still own her.
Cato replied, that although he was so fond of Marcia while on earth that
he could deny her nothing, he had ceased, in obedience to new laws, to
have any affection for her, now that she dwelt beyond the evil river;
but as the pilgrim, his companion, was under heavenly protection, he
would of course do what he desired.[2] He then desired him to gird his
companion with one of the simplest and completest rushes he would see by
the water's side, and to wash the stain of the lower world out of his
face, and so take their journey up the mountain before them, by a
path which the rising sun would disclose. And with these words he
disappeared.[3]
The pilgrims passed on, with the eagerness of one who thinks every step
in vain till he finds the path he has lost. The full dawn by this time
had arisen, and they saw the trembling of the sea in the distance.[4]
Virgil then dipped his hands into a spot of dewy grass, where the sun
had least affected it, and with the moisture bathed the face of Dante,
who held it out to him, suffused with tears;[5] and then they went on
till they came to a solitary shore, whence no voyager had ever returned,
and there the loins of the Florentine were girt with the rush.
On this shore they were standing in doubt how to proceed,--moving
onward, as it were, in mind, while yet their feet were staying,--when
they be held a light over the water at a distance, rayless at first as
the planet Mars when he looks redly out of the horizon through a fog,
but speedily growing brighter and brighter with amazing swiftness. Dante
had but turned for an instant to ask his guide what it was, when, on
looking again, it had grown far brighter. Two splendid phenomena, he
knew not what, then developed themselves from it on either side; and, by
degrees, another below it. The two splendours quickly turned out to be
wings; and Virgil, who had hitherto watched its coming in silence, cried
out, "Down, down,--on thy knees! It is God's angel. Clasp thine hands.
Now thou shalt behold operancy indeed. Lo, how he needs neither sail nor
oar, coming all this way with nothing but his wings! Lo, how he holds
them aloft, using the air with them at his will, and knowing they can
never be weary."
The "divine bird" grew brighter and brighter as he came, so that the
eye at last could not sustain the lustre; and Dante turned his to the
ground. A boat then rushed to shore which the angel had brought with
him, so light that it drew not a drop of water. The celestial pilot
stood at the helm, with bliss written in his face; and a hundred spirits
were seen within the boat, who, lifting up their voices, sang the psalm
beginning "When Israel came out of Egypt." At the close of the psalm,
the angel blessed them with the sign of the cross, and they all leaped
to shore; upon which he turned round, and departed as swiftly as he
came.
The new-comers, after gazing about them for a while, in the manner of
those who are astonished to see new sights, inquired of Virgil and his
companion the best way to the mountain. Virgil explained who they were;
and the spirits, pale with astonishment at beholding in Dante a living
and breathing man, crowded about him, in spite of their anxiety to
shorten the period of their trials. One of them came darting out of the
press to embrace him, in a manner so affectionate as to move the poet to
return his warmth; but his arms again and again found themselves crossed
on his own bosom, having encircled nothing. The shadow, smiling at the
astonishment in the other's face, drew back; and Dante hastened as much
forward to shew his zeal in the greeting, when the spirit in a sweet
voice recommended him to desist. The Florentine then knew who it
was,--Casella, a musician, to whom he had been much attached. After
mutual explanations as to their meeting, Dante requested his friend, if
no ordinance opposed it, to refresh his spirit awhile with one of the
tender airs that used to charm away all his troubles on earth. Casella
immediately began one of his friend's own productions, commencing with
the words,
"Love, that delights to talk unto my soul Of all the wonders of my
lady's nature."
And he sang it so beautifully, that the sweetness rang within the poet's
heart while recording the circumstance. The other spirits listened with
such attention, that they seemed to have forgotten the very purpose
of their coming; when suddenly the voice of Cato was heard, sternly
rebuking their delay; and the whole party speeded in trepidation towards
the mountain.[6]
The two pilgrims, who had at first hastened with the others, in a little
while slackened their steps; and Dante found that his body projected a
shadow, while the form of Virgil had none. When arrived at the foot of
the mountain, they were joined by a second party of spirits, of whom
Virgil inquired the way up it. One of the spirits, of a noble aspect,
but with a gaping wound in his forehead, stepped forth, and asked Dante
if he remembered him. The poet humbly answering in the negative, the
stranger disclosed a second wound, that was in his bosom; and then, with
a smile, announced himself as Manfredi, king of Naples, who was slain in
battle against Charles of Anjou, and died excommunicated. Manfredi gave
Dante a message to his daughter Costanza, queen of Arragon, begging her
to shorten the consequences of the excommunication by her prayers;
since he, like the rest of the party with him, though repenting of his
contumacy against the church, would have to wander on the outskirts of
Purgatory three times as long as the presumption had lasted, unless
relieved by such petitions from the living.[7]
Dante went on, with his thoughts so full of this request, that he did
not perceive he had arrived at the path which Virgil asked for, till the
wandering spirits called out to them to say so. The pilgrims then, with
great difficulty, began to ascend through an extremely narrow passage;
and Virgil, after explaining to Dante how it was that in this antipodal
region his eastward face beheld the sun in the north instead of the
south, was encouraging him to proceed manfully in the hope of finding
the path easier by degrees, and of reposing at the end of it, when they
heard a voice observing, that they would most likely find it expedient
to repose a little sooner. The pilgrims looked about them, and observed
close at hand a crag of a rock, in the shade of which some spirits were
standing, as men stand idly at noon. Another was sitting down, as if
tired out, with his arms about his knees, and his face bent down between
them.[8]
"Dearest master!" exclaimed Dante to his guide, "what thinkest thou of a
croucher like this, for manful journeying? Verily he seems to have been
twin-born with Idleness herself."
The croucher, lifting up his eyes at these words, looked hard at Dante,
and said, "Since thou art so stout, push on."
Dante then saw it was Belacqua, a pleasant acquaintance of his, famous
for his indolence.
"That was a good lesson," said Belacqua, "that was given thee just now
in astronomy."
The poet could not help smiling at the manner in which his acquaintance
uttered these words, it was so like his ways of old. Belacqua pretended,
even in another world, that it was of no use to make haste, since the
angel had prohibited his going higher up the mountain. He and his
companions had to walk round the foot of it as many years as they had
delayed repenting; unless, as in the case of Manfredi, their time was
shortened by the prayers of good people.
A little further on, the pilgrims encountered the spirits of such
Delayers of Penitence as, having died violent deaths, repented at the
last moment. One of them, Buonconte da Montefeltro, who died in battle,
and whose body could not be found, described how the devil, having been
hindered from seizing him by the shedding of a single tear, had raised
in his fury a tremendous tempest, which sent the body down the river
Arno, and buried it in the mud.[9]
Another spirit, a female, said to Dante, "Ah! when thou returnest to
earth, and shalt have rested from thy long journey, remember me,--Pia.
Sienna gave me life; the Marshes took it from me. This he knows, who put
on my finger the wedding-ring."[10]
The majority of this party were so importunate with the Florentine
to procure them the prayers of their friends, that he had as much
difficulty to get away, as a winner at dice has to free himself from the
mercenary congratulations of the by-standers. On resuming their way,
Dante quoted to Virgil a passage in the AEneid, decrying the utility of
prayer, and begged him to explain how it was to be reconciled with what
they had just heard. Virgil advised him to wait for the explanation till
he saw Beatrice, whom, he now said, he should meet at the top of the
mountain. Dante, at this information, expressed a desire to hasten their
progress; and Virgil, seeing a spirit looking towards them as they
advanced, requested him to acquaint them with the shortest road.
The spirit, maintaining a lofty and reserved aspect, was as silent as if
he had not heard the request; intimating by his manner that they might
as well proceed without repeating it, and eyeing them like a lion on the
watch. Virgil, however, went up to him, and gently urged it; but the
only reply was a question as to who they were and of what country. The
Latin poet beginning to answer him, had scarcely mentioned the word
"Mantua," when the stranger went as eagerly up to his interrogator as
the latter had done to him, and said, "Mantua! My own country! My name
is Sordello." And the compatriots embraced.
O degenerate Italy! exclaims Dante; land without affections, without
principle, without faith in any one good thing! here was a man who could
not hear the sweet sound of a fellow-citizen's voice without feeling his
heart gush towards him, and there are no people now in any one of thy
towns that do not hate and torment one another.
Sordello, in another tone, now exclaimed, "But who are ye?"
Virgil disclosed himself, and Sordello fell at his feet.[11]
Sordello now undertook to accompany the great Roman poet and his friend
to a certain distance on their ascent towards the penal quarters of the
mountain; but as evening was drawing nigh, and the ascent could not
be made properly in the dark, he proposed that they should await the
dawning of the next day in a recess that overlooked a flowery hollow.
The hollow was a lovely spot of ground, enamelled with flowers that
surpassed the exquisitest dyes, and green with a grass brighter than
emeralds newly broken.[12] There rose from it also a fragrance of a
thousand different kinds of sweetness, all mingled into one that was new
and indescribable; and with the fragrance there ascended the chant of
the prayer beginning "Hail, Queen of Heaven,"[13] which was sung by a
multitude of souls that appeared sitting on the flowery sward.
Virgil pointed them out. They were penitent delayers of penitence, of
sovereign rank. Among them, however, were spirits who sat mute; one
of whom was the Emperor Rodolph, who ought to have attended better to
Italy, the garden of the empire; and another, Ottocar, king of Bohemia,
his enemy, who now comforted him; and another, with a small nose,[14]
Philip the Third of France, who died a fugitive, shedding the leaves of
the lily; he sat beating his breast; and with him was Henry the Third of
Navarre, sighing with his cheek on his hand. One was the father, and one
the father-in-law of Philip the Handsome, the bane of France; and it was
on account of his unworthiness they grieved.
But among the singers Virgil pointed out the strong-limbed King of
Arragon, Pedro; and Charles, king of Naples, with his masculine nose
(these two were singing together); and Henry the Third of England, the
king of the simple life, sitting by himself;[15] and below these, but
with his eyes in heaven, Guglielmo marquis of Montferrat.
It was now the hour when men at sea think longingly of home, and feel
their hearts melt within them to remember the day on which they bade
adieu to beloved friends; and now, too, was the hour when the pilgrim,
new to his journey, is thrilled with the like tenderness, when he hears
the vesper-bell in the distance, which seems to mourn for the expiring
day.[16] At this hour of the coming darkness, Dante beheld one of the
spirits in the flowery hollow arise, and after giving a signal to the
others to do as he did, stretch forth both hands, palm to palm, towards
the East, and with softest emotion commence the hymn beginning,
"Thee before the closing light."[17]
Upon which all the rest devoutly and softly followed him, keeping their
eyes fixed on the heavens. At the end of it they remained, with pale
countenances, in an attitude of humble expectation; and Dante saw the
angels issue from the quarter to which they looked, and descend towards
them with flaming swords in their hands, broken short of the point.
Their wings were as green as the leaves in spring; and they wore
garments equally green, which the fanning of the wings kept in a state
of streaming fluctuation behind them as they came. One of them took his
stand on a part of the hill just over where the pilgrims stood, and the
other on a hill opposite, so that the party in the valley were between
them. Dante could discern their heads of hair, notwithstanding its
brightness; but their faces were so dazzling as to be undistinguishable.
"They come from Mary's bosom," whispered Sordello, "to protect the
valley from the designs of our enemy yonder,--the Serpent."
Dante looked in trepidation towards the only undefended side of the
valley, and beheld the Serpent of Eve coming softly among the grass and
flowers, occasionally turning its head, and licking its polished back.
Before he could take off his eyes from the evil thing, the two angels
had come down like falcons, and at the whirring of their pinions the
serpent fled. The angels returned as swiftly to their stations.
Aurora was now looking palely over the eastern cliff on the other side
of the globe, and the stars of midnight shining over the heads of Dante
and his friends, when they seated themselves for rest on the mountain's
side. The Florentine, being still in the flesh, lay down for weariness,
and was overcome with sleep. In his sleep he dreamt that a golden eagle
flashed down like lightning upon him, and bore him up to the region
of fire, where the heat was so intense that it woke him, staring and
looking round about with a pale face. His dream was a shadowing of
the truth. He had actually come to another place,--to the entrance of
Purgatory itself. Sordello had been left behind, Virgil alone remained,
looking him cheerfully in the face. Saint Lucy had come from heaven,
and shortened the fatigue of his journey by carrying him upwards as he
slept, the heathen poet following them. On arriving where they stood,
the fair saint intimated the entrance of Purgatory to Virgil by a glance
thither of her beautiful eyes, and then vanished as Dante woke.[18]
The portal by which Purgatory was entered was embedded in a cliff. It
had three steps, each of a different colour; and on the highest of these
there sat, mute and watching, an angel in ash-coloured garments, holding
a naked sword, which glanced with such intolerable brightness on Dante,
whenever he attempted to look, that he gave up the endeavour. The angel
demanded who they were, and receiving the right answer, gently bade them
advance.
Dante now saw, that the lowest step was of marble, so white and clear
that he beheld his face in it. The colour of the next was a deadly
black, and it was all rough, scorched, and full of cracks. The third was
of flaming porphyry, red as a man's blood when it leaps forth under
the lancet.[19] The angel, whose feet were on the porphyry, sat on a
threshold which appeared to be rock-diamond. Dante, ascending the steps,
with the encouragement of Virgil, fell at the angel's feet, and, after
thrice beating himself on the breast, humbly asked admittance. The
angel, with the point of his sword, inscribed the first letter of the
word _peccatum_ (sin) seven times on the petitioner's forehead; then,
bidding him pray with tears for their erasement, and be cautious how he
looked back, opened the portal with a silver and a golden key.[20]
The hinges roared, as they turned, like thunder; and the pilgrims, on
entering, thought they heard, mingling with the sound, a chorus of
voices singing, "We praise thee, O God!"[21] It was like the chant that
mingles with a cathedral organ, when the words that the choristers utter
are at one moment to be distinguished, and at another fade away.
The companions continued ascending till they reached a plain. It
stretched as far as the eye could see, and was as lonely as roads across
deserts.
This was the first flat, or table-land, of the ascending gradations of
Purgatory, and the place of trial for the souls of the Proud. It was
bordered with a mound, or natural wall, of white marble, sculptured all
over with stories of humility. Dante beheld among them the Annunciation,
represented with so much life, that the sweet action of the angel seemed
to be uttering the very word, "Hail!" and the submissive spirit of the
Virgin to be no less impressed, like very wax, in her demeanour. The
next story was that of David dancing and harping before the ark,--an
action in which he seemed both less and greater than a king. Michal
was looking out upon him from a window, like a lady full of scorn and
sorrow. Next to the story of David was that of the Emperor Trajan, when
he did a thing so glorious, as moved St. Gregory to gain the greatest of
all his conquests--the delivering of the emperor's soul from hell.
A widow, in tears and mourning, was laying hold of his bridle as he rode
amidst his court with a noise of horses and horsemen, while the Roman
eagles floated in gold over his head. The miserable creature spoke out
loudly among them all, crying for vengeance on the murderers of her
sons. The emperor seemed to say, "Wait till I return."
But she, in the hastiness of her misery, said, "Suppose thou returnest
not?"
"Then my successor will attend to thee," replied the emperor.
"And what hast thou to do with the duties of another man," cried she,
"if thou attendest not to thine own?"
"Now, be of good comfort," concluded Trajan, "for verily my duty shall
be done before I go; justice wills it, and pity arrests me."
Dante was proceeding to delight himself further with these sculptures,
when Virgil whispered hint to look round and see what was coming. He did
so, and beheld strange figures advancing, the nature of which he could
not make out at first, for they seemed neither human, nor aught else
which he could call to mind. They were souls of the proud, bent double
under enormous burdens.