v. 124. Cieldauro.] Boetius was buried at Pavia, in the
monastery of St. Pietro in Ciel d'oro.
v. 126. Isidore.] He was Archbishop of Seville during forty
years, and died in 635. See Mariana, Hist. 1. vi. c. 7.
Mosheim, whose critical opinions in general must be taken with
some allowance, observes that "his grammatical theological, and
historical productions, discover more learning and pedantry, than
judgment and taste."
v. 127. Bede.] Bede, whose virtues obtained him the appellation
of the Venerable, was born in 672 at Wearmouth and Jarrow, in the
bishopric of Durham, and died in 735. Invited to Rome by Pope
Sergius I., he preferred passing almost the whole of his life in
the seclusion of a monastery. A catalogue of his numerous
writings may be seen in Kippis's Biographia Britannica, v. ii.
v. 127. Richard.] Richard of St. Victor, a native either of
Scotland or Ireland, was canon and prior of the monastery of that
name at Paris and died in 1173. "He was at the head of the
Mystics in this century and his treatise, entitled the Mystical
Ark, which contains as it were the marrow of this kind of
theology, was received with the greatest avidity." Maclaine's
Mosheim, v. iii. cent. xii. p. 2. c. 2. 23.
v. 132. Sigebert.] "A monk of the abbey of Gemblours who was in
high repute at the end of the eleventh, and beginning of the
twelfth century." Dict. de Moreri.
v. 131. The straw-litter'd street.] The name of a street in
Paris: the "Rue du Fouarre."
v. 136. The spouse of God.] The church.
CANTO XI
v. 1. O fond anxiety of mortal men.] Lucretius, 1. ii. 14
O miseras hominum mentes ! O pectora caeca
Qualibus in tenebris vitae quantisque periclis
Degitur hoc aevi quodcunque est!
v. 4. Aphorisms,] The study of medicine.
v. 17. 'The lustre.] The spirit of Thomas Aquinas
v. 29. She.] The church.
v. 34. One.] Saint Francis.
v. 36. The other.] Saint Dominic.
v. 40. Tupino.] A rivulet near Assisi, or Ascesi where Francis
was born in 1182.
v. 40. The wave.] Chiascio, a stream that rises in a mountain
near Agobbio, chosen by St. Ubaldo for the place of his
retirement.
v. 42. Heat and cold.] Cold from the snow, and heat from the
reflection of the sun.
v. 45. Yoke.] Vellutello understands this of the vicinity of
the mountain to Nocera and Gualdo; and Venturi (as I have taken
it) of the heavy impositions laid on those places by the
Perugians. For GIOGO, like the Latin JUGUM, will admit of either
sense.
v. 50. The east.]
This is the east, and Juliet is the sun.
Shakespeare.
v. 55. Gainst his father's will.] In opposition to the wishes
of his natural father
v. 58. In his father's sight.] The spiritual father, or bishop,
in whose presence he made a profession of poverty.
v. 60. Her first husband.] Christ.
v. 63. Amyclas.] Lucan makes Caesar exclaim, on witnessing the
secure poverty of the fisherman Amyclas:
--O vite tuta facultas
Pauperis, angustique lares! O munera nondum
Intellecta deum! quibus hoc contingere templis,
Aut potuit muris, nullo trepidare tumultu,
Caesarea pulsante manu?
Lucan Phars. 1. v. 531.
v. 72. Bernard.] One of the first followers of the saint.
v. 76. Egidius.] The third of his disciples, who died in 1262.
His work, entitled Verba Aurea, was published in 1534, at Antwerp
See Lucas Waddingus, Annales Ordinis Minoris, p. 5.
v. 76. Sylvester.] Another of his earliest associates.
v. 83. Pietro Bernardone.] A man in an humble station of life
at Assisi.
v. 86. Innocent.] Pope Innocent III.
v. 90. Honorius.] His successor Honorius III who granted
certain privileges to the Franciscans.
v. 93. On the hard rock.] The mountain Alverna in the Apennine.
v. 100. The last signet.] Alluding to the stigmata, or marks
resembling the wounds of Christ, said to have been found on the
saint's body.
v. 106. His dearest lady.] Poverty.
v. 113. Our Patriarch ] Saint Dominic.
v. 316. His flock ] The Dominicans.
v. 127. The planet from whence they split.] "The rule of their
order, which the Dominicans neglect to observe."
CANTO XII
v. 1. The blessed flame.] Thomas Aquinas
v. 12. That voice.] The nymph Echo, transformed into the
repercussion of the voice.
v. 25. One.] Saint Buonaventura, general of the Franciscan
order, in which he effected some reformation, and one of the most
profound divines of his age. "He refused the archbishopric of
York, which was offered him by Clement IV, but afterwards was
prevailed on to accept the bishopric of Albano and a cardinal's
hat. He was born at Bagnoregio or Bagnorea, in Tuscany, A.D.
1221, and died in 1274." Dict. Histor. par Chaudon et Delandine.
Ed. Lyon. 1804.
v. 28. The love.] By an act of mutual courtesy, Buonaventura,
a Franciscan, is made to proclaim the praises of St. Dominic,
as Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican, has celebrated those of St.
Francis.
v. 42. In that clime.] Spain.
v. 48. Callaroga.] Between Osma and Aranda, in Old Castile,
designated by the royal coat of arms.
v. 51. The loving minion of the Christian faith.] Dominic was
born April 5, 1170, and died August 6, 1221. His birthplace,
Callaroga; his father and mother's names, Felix and Joanna, his
mother's dream; his name of Dominic, given him in consequence of
a vision by a noble matron, who stood sponsor to him, are all
told in an anonymous life of the saint, said to be written in the
thirteenth century, and published by Quetif and Echard,
Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum. Par. 1719. fol. t 1. p. 25.
These writers deny his having been an inquisitor, and indeed the
establishment of the inquisition itself before the fourth Lateran
council. Ibid. p. 88.
v. 55. In the mother's womb.] His mother, when pregnant with
him, is said to have dreamt that she should bring forth a white
and black dog, with a lighted torch in its mouth.
v. 59. The dame.] His godmother's dream was, that he had one
star in his forehead, and another in the nape of his neck, from
which he communicated light to the east and the west.
v. 73. Felix.] Felix Gusman.
v. 75. As men interpret it.] Grace or gift of the Lord.
v. 77. Ostiense.] A cardinal, who explained the decretals.
v. 77. Taddeo.] A physician, of Florence.
v. 82. The see.] "The apostolic see, which no longer continues
its wonted liberality towards the indigent and deserving; not
indeed through its own fault, as its doctrines are still the
same, but through the fault of the pontiff, who is seated in it."
v. 85. No dispensation.] Dominic did not ask license to
compound for the use of unjust acq
uisitions, by dedicating a part
of them to pious purposes.
v. 89. In favour of that seed.] "For that seed of the divine
word, from which have sprung up these four-and-twenty plants,
that now environ thee."
v. 101. But the track.] "But the rule of St. Francis is already
deserted and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness."
v. 110. Tares.] He adverts to the parable of the taxes and the
wheat.
v. 111. I question not.] "Some indeed might be found, who still
observe the rule of the order, but such would come neither from
Casale nor Acquasparta:" of the former of which places was
Uberto, one master general, by whom the discipline had been
relaxed; and of the latter, Matteo, another, who had enforced it
with unnecessary rigour.
v. 121. -Illuminato here,
And Agostino.]
Two among the earliest followers of St. Francis.
v. 125. Hugues of St. Victor.] A Saxon of the monastery of
Saint Victor at Paris, who fed ill 1142 at the age of
forty-four. "A man distinguished by the fecundity of his genius,
who treated in his writings of all the branches of sacred and
profane erudition that were known in his time, and who composed
several dissertations that are not destitute of merit."
Maclaine's Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. v. iii . cent. xii. p. 2. 2. 23.
I have looked into his writings, and found some reason for
this high eulogium.
v. 125. Piatro Mangiadore.] "Petrus Comestor, or the Eater,
born at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards
chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these
benefices to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where
he died in 1198. Chaudon et Delandine Dict. Hist. Ed. Lyon.
1804. The work by which he is best known, is his Historia
Scolastica, which I shall have occasion to cite in the Notes to
Canto XXVI.
v. 126. He of Spain.] "To Pope Adrian V succeeded John XXI a
native of Lisbon a man of great genius and extraordinary
acquirements, especially in logic and in medicine, as his books,
written in the name of Peter of Spain (by which he was known
before he became Pope), may testify. His life was not much
longer than that of his predecessors, for he was killed at
Viterbo, by the falling in of the roof of his chamber, after he
had been pontiff only eight months and as many days.
A.D. 1277. Mariana, Hist. de Esp. l. xiv. c. 2.
v. 128. Chrysostom.] The eloquent patriarch of Constantinople.
v. 128. Anselmo.] "Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born
at Aosta, about 1034, and studied under Lanfrane at the monastery
of Bec, in Normandy, where he afterwards devoted himself to a
religious life, in his twenty-seventh year. In three years he
was made prior, and then abbot of that monastery! from whence he
was taken, in 1093, to succeed to the archbishopric, vacant by
the death of Lanfrane. He enjoyed this dignity till his death, in
1109, though it was disturbed by many
dissentions with William II and Henry I respecting the immunities
and investitures. There is much depth and precisian in his
theological works." Tiraboschi, Stor. della Lett. Ital. t. iii.
1. iv. c. 2. Ibid. c. v. "It is an observation made by many
modern writers, that the demonstration of the existence of God,
taken from the idea of a Supreme Being, of which Des Cartes is
thought to be the author, was so many ages back discovered and
brought to light by Anselm. Leibnitz himself makes
the remark, vol. v. Oper. p. 570. Edit. Genev. 1768."
v. 129. Donatus.] Aelius Donatus, the grammarian, in the fourth
century, one of the preceptors of St. Jerome.
v. 130. Raban.] "Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, is
deservedly placed at the head of the Latin writers of this age."
Mosheim, v. ii. cent. ix. p. 2 c. 2. 14.
v. 131. Joachim.] Abbot of Flora in Calabria; "whom the
multitude revered as a person divinely inspired and equal to the
most illustrious prophets of ancient times." Ibid. v. iii.
cent. xiii. p. 2. c. 2. 33.
v. 134. A peer.] St. Dominic.
CANTO XIII
v. 1. Let him.] "Whoever would conceive the sight that now
presented itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the
brightest stars in heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus
Major and two of Arcturus Minor, ranged in two circles, one
within the other, each resembling the crown of Ariadne, and
moving round m opposite directions."
v. 21. The Chiava.] See Hell, Canto XXIX. 45.
v. 29. That luminary.] Thomas Aquinas.
v. 31. One ear.] "Having solved one of thy questions, I proceed
to answer the other. Thou thinkest, then, that Adam and Christ
were both endued with all the perfection of which the human
nature is capable and therefore wonderest at what has been said
concerning Solomon"
v. 48. That.] "Things corruptible and incorruptible, are only
emanations from the archetypal idea residing in the Divine mind."
v. 52. His brightness.] The Word: the Son of God.
v. 53. His love triune with them.] The Holy Ghost.
v. 55. New existences.] Angels and human souls.
v. 57. The lowest powers.] Irrational life and brute matter.
v. 62. Their wax and that which moulds it.] Matter, and the
virtue or energy that acts on it.
v. 68. The heav'n.] The influence of the planetary bodies.
v. 77. The clay.] Adam.
v. 88. Who ask'd.] "He did not desire to know the number of the
stars, or to pry into the subtleties of metaphysical and
mathematical science: but asked for that wisdom which might fit
him for his kingly office."
v. 120. --Parmenides Melissus Bryso.]
For the singular opinions entertained by the two former of these
heathen philosophers, see Diogenes Laertius, 1. ix. and Aristot.
de Caelo, 1. iii. c. 1 and Phys. l. i. c. 2. The last is also
twice adduced by 2. Aristotle (Anal Post. 1. i. c. 9. and Rhet.
1. iii. c. 2.) as 3. affording instances of false reasoning.
v. 123. Sabellius, Arius.] Well-known heretics.
v. 124. Scymitars.] A passage in the travels of
Bertradon de la Brocquiere, translated by Mr. Johnes, will
explain this
allusion, which has given some trouble to the commentators. That
traveler, who wrote before Dante, informs us, p. 138, that the
wandering Arabs used their scymitars as mirrors.
v. 126. Let not.] "Let not short-sighted mortals presume to
decide on the future doom of any man, from a consideration of his
present character and actions."
CANTO XIV
v. 5. Such was the image.] The voice of Thomas Aquinas
proceeding, from the circle to the centre and that of Beatrice
from the centre to the circle.
v. 26. Him.] Literally translated by Chaucer, Troilus and
Cresseide.
Thou one two, and three eterne on live
That raignest aie in three, two and one
Uncircumscript, and all maist circonscrive,
/>
v. 81. The goodliest light.] Solomon.
v. 78. To more lofty bliss.] To the planet Mars.
v. 94. The venerable sign.] The cross.
v. 125. He.] "He who considers that the eyes of Beatrice became
more radiant the higher we ascended, must not wonder that I do
not except even them as I had not yet beheld them since our
entrance into this planet."
CANTO XV
v. 24. Our greater Muse.] Virgil Aen. 1. vi. 684.
v. 84. I am thy root.] Cacciaguida, father to Alighieri, of
whom our Poet was the great-grandson.
v. 89. The mountain.] Purgatory.
v. 92. Florence.] See G. Villani, l. iii. c. 2.
v. 93. Which calls her still.] The public clock being still
within the circuit of the ancient walls.
v. 98. When.] When the women were not married at too early an
age, and did not expect too large a portion.
v. 101. Void.] Through the civil wars.
v. 102 Sardanapalus.] The luxurious monarch of Assyria Juvenal
is here imitated, who uses his name for an instance of
effeminacy. Sat.
v. 103. Montemalo ] Either an elevated spot between Rome and
Viterbo, or Monte Mario, the site of the villa Mellini,
commanding a view of Rome.
v. 101. Our suburban turret.] Uccellatojo, near Florence, from
whence that city was discovered.
v. 103. Bellincion Berti.] Hell, Canto XVI. 38. nd Notes.
There is a curious description of the simple manner in which the
earlier Florentines dressed themselves in G. Villani, 1 vi. c.
71.
v. 110. Of Nerli and of Vecchio.] Two of the most opulent
families in Florence.
v. 113. Each.] "None fearful either of dying in banishment, or
of being deserted by her husband on a scheme of battle in France.
v. 120. A Salterello and Cianghella.] The latter a shameless
woman of the family of Tosa, married to Lito degli Alidosi of
Imola: the former Lapo Salterello, a lawyer, with whom Dante was
at variance.
v. 125. Mary.] The Virgin was involved in the pains of
child-birth Purgatory, Canto XX. 21.
v. 130 Valdipado.] Cacciaguida's wife, whose family name was
Aldighieri; came from Ferrara, called Val di Pado, from its being
watered by the Po.
v. 131. Conrad.] The Emperor Conrad III who died in 1152.
See G. Villani, 1. iv. 34.
v. 136. Whose people.] The Mahometans, who were left in
possession of the Holy Land, through the supineness of the Pope.
CANTO XVI
v. 10. With greeting.] The Poet, who had addressed the spirit,
not knowing him to be his ancestor, with a plain "Thou," now uses
more ceremony, and calls him "You," according to a custom
introduced among the Romans in the latter times of the empire.
v. 15. Guinever.] Beatrice's smile encouraged him to proceed
just as the cough of Ginevra's female servant gave her mistress
assurance to admit the freedoms of Lancelot. See Hell, Canto V.
124.
v. 23. The fold.] Florence, of which John the Baptist was the
patron saint.
v. 31. From the day.] From the Incarnation to the birth of
Cacciaguida, the planet Mars had returned five hundred and
fifty-three times to the constellation of Leo, with which it is
supposed to have a congenial influence. His birth may,
therefore, be placed about 1106.
v. 38. The last.] The city was divided into four compartments.
The Elisei, the ancestors of Dante, resided near the entrance of
that named from the Porta S. Piero, which was the last reached by
the competitor in the annual race at Florence. See G. Villani,
1. iv. c. 10.
v. 44. From Mars.] "Both in the times of heathenish and of
Christianity." Hell, Canto XIII. 144.
v. 48. Campi and Certaldo and Fighine.] Country places near
Florence.