The Divine Comedy Volume Ii Part 3

[1] Sordello, who lived early in the thirteenth century, was of the family of the Visconti of Mantua. He left his native land and gave up his native tongue to live and write as a troubadour in Provence, but his fame belonged to Italy.

Ah, servile Italy, hostel of grief! s.h.i.+p without pilot in great tempest! not lady of provinces, but a brothel! that gentle soul was so ready, only at the sweet sound of his native land, to give glad welcome here unto his fellow-citizen: and now in thee thy living men exist not without war, and of those whom one wall and one moat shut in one doth gnaw the other. Search, wretched one, around the sh.o.r.es, thy seaboard, and then look within thy bosom, if any part in thee enjoyeth peace! What avails it that for thee Justinian should mend the bridle, if the saddle be empty? Without this, the shame would be less. Ah folk,[1] that oughtest to be devout and let Caesar sit in the saddle, if thou rightly understandest what G.o.d notes for thee! Look how fell this wild beast has become, through not being corrected by the spurs, since thou didst put thy hand upon the bridle. O German Albert, who abandonest her who has become untamed and savage, and oughtest to bestride her saddle-bows, may a just judgment from the stars fall upon thy blood, and may it be strange and manifest, so that thy successor may have fear of it! [2] For thou and thy father, retained up there by greed, have suffered the garden of the empire to become desert. Come thou to see Montecchi and Cappelletti, Monaldi and Filippeschi,[3] thou man without care: those already wretched, and these in dread. Come, cruel one, come, and see the distress of thy n.o.bility, and cure their hurts; and thou shalt see Santafiora[4] how safe it is. Come to see thy Rome, that weeps, widowed and alone, and day and night cries, "My Caesar, wherefore dost thou not keep me company?" Come to see the people, how loving it is; and, if no pity for us move thee, come to be shamed by thine own renown! And if it be lawful for me, O Supreme Jove that wast on earth crucified for us, are thy just eyes turned aside elsewhere? Or is it preparation, that in the abyss of thy counsel thou art making for some good utterly cut off from our perception? For the cities of Italy are all full of tyrants, and every churl that comes playing the partisan becomes a Marcellus?[5]

[1] The Church-folk, the clergy, for whom G.o.d has ordained, -- "Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's."

[2] Albert of Hapsburg, son of the Emperor Rudolph, was elected King of the Romans in 1298, but like his father never went to Italy to he crowned. He was murdered by his nephew, John, called the parricide, in 1308, at Konigsfelden. The successor of Albert was Henry VII. of Luxemborg, who came to Italy in 1311, was crowned at Rome in 1312, and died at Buonconvento the next year.

His death ended the hopes of Dante.

[3] Famous families, the first two of Verona, the last two of Orvieto, at enmity with each other in their respective cities,--types of a common condition.

[4]The Counts of Santafiora were once the most powerful Ghibelline n.o.bles in the Sienese territory. Their power had declined since the Hohenstaufen Emperors had been succeeded by the Hapsburgs, and they were now subjected to the Guelphs of Siena.

[5] That is, a hitter opponent of the empire, as the Consul M.

Claudius Marcellus was of Caesar.

My Florence! surely thou mayst be content with this digression, which toucheth thee not, thanks to thy people that for itself takes heed. Many have justice at heart but shoot slowly, in order not to come without counsel to the bow; but thy people has it on the edge of its lips. Many reject the common burden, but thy people, eager, replies without being called on, and cries, "I load myself." Now be thou glad, for thou hast truly wherefore: thou rich, thou in peace, thou wise. If I speak the truth, the result hides it not. Athens and Lacedaemon, that made the ancient laws and were so civilized, made toward living well a little sign, compared with thee that makest such finespun provisions, that to mid November reaches not, what thou in October spinnest.

How often in the time that thou rememberest, law, money, office, and custom, hast thou changed, and renewed thy members! And if thou mind thee well and see the light, thou wilt see thyself resembling a sick woman, who cannot find repose upon the feathers, but with her tossing seeks to relieve her pain.

CANTO VII. Virgil makes himself known to Sordello.--Sordello leads the Poets to the Valley of the Princes who have been negligent of salvation.--He points them out by name.

After the becoming and glad salutations had been repeated three and four times, Sordello drew back and said, "Ye, who are ye?"

"Before the souls worthy to ascend to G.o.d were turned unto this mountain, my bones had been buried by Octavian; I am Virgil, and for no other sin did I lose heaven, but for not having faith,"

thus then replied my Leader.

As is he who suddenly sees a thing before him whereat he marvels, and doth and doth not believe, saying, "It is, it is not,"--so seemed that shade, and then he bent down his brow, and humbly turned again toward him and embraced him where the inferior takes hold.

"O glory of the Latins," said he, "through whom our language showed what it could do, O honor eternal of the place wherefrom I was, what merit or what grace shows thee to me? If I am worthy to hear thy words, tell me if thou comest from h.e.l.l, and from what cloister." "Through all the circles of the realm of woe," replied he to him, "am I come hither; Power of Heaven moved me, and with it I come. Not by doing, but by not doing have I lost the sight of the high Sun whom thou desirest, and who by me was known late.

A place there is below not sad with torments but with darkness only, where the lamentations sound not as wailings, but are sighs; there stay I with the little innocents bitten by the teeth of death before they were exempt from human sin; there stay I with those who were not vested with the three holy virtues, and without vice knew the others and followed all of them.[1] But if thou knowest and canst, give us some direction whereby we may come more speedily there where Purgatory has its true beginning."

He replied, "A certain place is not set for us; it is permitted me to go upward and around; so far as I can go I join myself to thee as guide. But see how already the day declines, and to go up by night is not possible; therefore it is well to think of some fair sojourn. There are souls here on the right apart; if thou consentest to me I will lead thee to them, and not without delight will they be known to thee." "How is this?" was answered, "he who might wish to ascend by night, would he be hindered by another, or would he not be able to ascend?" And the good Sordello drew his finger on the ground, saying, "See, only this line thou couldst not pa.s.s after set of sun; not because aught else save the nocturnal darkness would give hindrance to going up; that hampers the will with impotence.[2] One could, indeed, in it[3] turn downward and walk the hillside wandering around, while the horizon holds the day shut up." Then my Lord, as if wondering, said, "Lead us, then, there where thou sayest one may have delight while waiting."

[1] The virtuous Heathen did not possess the so-called theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity; but they practiced the four cardinal virtues of Prudence, Temperance, Fort.i.tude and Justice.

[2] The allegory is plain: the soul can mount the steep of purification only when illuminated by the Sun of Divine Grace.

[3] In the darkness.

Little way had we gone from that place, when I perceived that the mountain was hollowed out in like fas.h.i.+on as the valleys hollow them here on earth. "Yonder," said that shade, "will we go, where the hillside makes a lap of itself, and there will we await the new day." Between steep and level was a winding path that led us into a side of the dale, where more than by half the edge dies away. Gold and fine silver, and scarlet and white, Indian wood lucid and clear,[1] fresh emerald at the instant it is split, would each be vanquished in color by the herbage and by the flowers set within that valley, as by its greater the less is vanquished. Nature had not only painted there, but with sweetness of a thousand odors she made there one unknown and blended.

[1] The blue of indigo.

Upon the green and upon the flowers I saw souls who, because of the valley, were not visible from without, seated here singing "Salve regina." [1] "Before the lessening sun sinks to his nest,"

began the Mantuan who had turned us thither, "desire not that among these I guide you. From this bank ye will better become acquainted with the acts and countenances of all of them, than received among them on the level below. He who sits highest and has the semblance of having neglected what he should have done, and who moves not his mouth to the others' songs, was Rudolph the Emperor, who might have healed the wounds that have slain Italy, so that slowly by another she is revived.[2] The next, who in appearance comforts him, ruled the land where the water rises that Moldau bears to Elbe, and Elbe to the sea. Ottocar was his name,[3] and in his swaddling clothes he was better far than bearded Wenceslaus, his son, whom luxury and idleness feed.[4]

And that small-nosed one, who seems close in counsel with him who has so benign an aspect, died in flight and disflowering the lily;[5] look there how he beats his breast. See the next who, sighing, has made a bed for his cheek with his hand.[6] Father and father-in-law are they of the harm of France; they know his vicious and foul life, and thence comes the grief that so pierces them. He who looks so large-limbed,[7] and who accords in singing with him of the masculine nose,[8] wore girt the cord of every worth, and if the youth that is sitting behind him had followed him as king, truly had worth gone from vase to vase, which cannot be said of the other heirs: James and Frederick hold the realms; [9] the better heritage no one possesses. Rarely doth human goodness rise through the branches, and this He wills who gives it, in order that it may be asked from Him. To the large-nosed one also my words apply not less than to the other, Peter, who is singing with him; wherefore Apulia and Provence are grieving now.[10] The plant is as inferior to its seed, as, more than Beatrice and Margaret, Constance still boasts of her husband.[11]

See the King of the simple life sitting there alone, Henry of England; he in his branches hath a better issue.[12] That one who lowest among them sits on the ground, looking upward, is William the marquis,[13] for whom Alessandria and her war make Montferrat and the Canavese mourn."

[1] The beginning of a Church hymn to the Virgin, sung after vespers, of which the first verses are:-- Salve, Regina, mater misericordiae!

Vita, dulcedo et spes nostra, salve!

Ad te clamamus exsules filii Hevae; Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes In hac lacrymarum valle.

[2] The neglect of Italy by the Emperor Rudolph (see the preceding Canto) was not to be repaired by the vain efforts of Henry VII.

[3] Ottocar, King of Bohemia and Duke of Austria, had been slain in battle against Rudolph, on the Marchfeld by the Donau, in 1278; "whereby Austria fell to Rudolph." See Carlyle's Frederick the Great, book ii. ch. 7.

[4] Dante repeats his harsh judgment of Wenceslaus in the nineteenth Canto of Paradise. His first wife was the daughter of Rudolph of Hapsburg. He died in 1305.

[5] This is Philip the Bold of France, 1270-1285. Having invaded Catalonia, in a war with Peter the Third of Aragon, he was driven back, and died on the retreat at Perpignan.

[6] Henry of Navarre, the brother of Thibault, the poet-king (h.e.l.l, Canto XXII.). His daughter Joan married Philip the Fair, "the harm of France," the son of Philip the Bold.

[7] Peter of Aragon (died 1285), the husband of Constance, daughter of Manfred (see Canto III.); the youth who is seated behind him is his son Alphonso, who died in 1291.

[8] Charles of Anjou.

[9] The kingdoms of Aragon and Sicily; both James and Frederick were living when Dante thus wrote of them. The "better heritage"

was the virtue of their father.

[10] Apulia and Provence were grieving under the rule of Charles II., the degenerate son of Charles of Anjou, who died in 1309.

[11] The meaning is doubtful; perhaps it is, that the children of Charles of Anjou and of Peter of Aragon are as inferior to their fathers, as Charles himself, the husband first of Beatrice of Provence and then of Margaret of Nevers, was inferior to Peter, the husband of Constance.

[12] Henry III., father of Edward I.

[13] William Spadalunga was Marquis of Montferrat and Canavese, the Piedmontese highlands and plain north of the Po. He was Imperial vicar, and the bead of the Ghibellines in this region.

In a war with the Guelphs, who had risen in revolt in 1290, he was taken captive at Alessandria, and for two years, till his death, was kept in an iron cage. Dante refers to him in the Convito, iv. 11, as "the good marquis of Montferrat."

CANTO VIII. Valley of the Princes.--Two Guardian Angels.--Kino Visconti.--The Serpent.--Corrado Malaspina.

It was now the hour that turns back desire in those that sail the sea, and softens their hearts, the day when they have said to their sweet friends farewell, and which pierces the new pilgrim with love, if he hears from afar a bell that seems to deplore the dying day,--when I began to render hearing vain, and to look at one of the souls who, uprisen, besought attention with its hand.

It joined and raised both its palms, fixing its eyes toward the orient, as if it said to G.o.d, "For aught else I care not." "Te lucis ante"[1] so devoutly issued from his mouth and with such sweet notes that it made me issue forth from my own mind. And then the others sweetly and devoutly accompanied it through all the hymn to the end, having their eyes upon the supernal wheels.

Here, reader, sharpen well thine eyes for the truth, for the veil is now indeed so thin that surely pa.s.sing through within is easy.[2]

[1] The opening words of a hymn sung at Complines, the last service of the day:

Te locis ante terminum, Rerom Creator poscimus, Ut tus pro clementia Sis presul et custodia:--

"Before the close of light, we pray thee, O Creator, that through thy clemency, thou be our watch and guard."

[2] The allegory seems to be, that the soul which has entered upon the way of repentance and purification, but which is not yet securely advanced therein, is still exposed to temptation, especially when the light of the supernal grace does not s.h.i.+ne directly upon it. But if the soul have steadfast purpose to resist temptation, and seek aid from G.o.d, that aid will not be wanting. The prayer of the Church which is recited after the hymn just cited has these words: "Visit, we pray thee, O Lord, this abode, and drive far from it the snares of the enemy. Let thy holy Angels bide in it, and guard us in peace." Pallid with self distrust, humble with the sense of need, the soul awaits the fulfilment of its prayer. The angels are clad in green, the symbolic color of hope. Their swords are truncated, because needed only for defence.