136. The sins of Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. CANTO XVIII. 1. The punishment of the sin of Sloth. 27. Bound or taken captive by the image of pleasure presented to it. See Canto XVII. 91. 22. Milton, Parad. Lost, V. 100:— "But know that in the soul Are many lesser faculties, that serve 30. The region of Fire. Brunetto Latini, Tresor. Ch. CVIII.: "After the zone of the air is placed the fourth element. This is an orb of fire without any moisture, which extends as far as the moon, and surrounds this atmosphere in which we are. And know that above the fire is first the moon, and the other stars, which are all of the nature of fire." 44. If the soul follows the appetitus naturalis, or goes not with another foot | than that of nature. 49. In the language of the Scholastics, Form was the passing from the potential to the actual. "Whatever is Act," says Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol., Quæst. LXVI. Art. I, "whatever is Act is Form; quod est actus est forma. And again Form was divided into Substantial Form, which caused a thing to be; and Accidental Form, which caused it to be in a certain way, 66 as heat makes its subject not simply to be, but to be hot." "The soul," says the same Angelic Doctor, Quæst. LXXVI. Art. 4, "is the substantial form of man; anima est forma substantialis hominis." It is segregate or distinct from matter, though united with it. 61. "This" refers to the power that counsels, or the faculty of Reason. 66. Accepts, or rejects like chaff. 73. Dante makes Beatrice say, Par. V. 19: 66 The greatest gift that in his largess God Creating made, and unto his own goodness Nearest conformed, and that which he doth prize Most highly, is the freedom of the will, Wherewith the creatures of intelligence Both all and only were and are endowed." 76. Near midnight of the Second Day of Purgatory. 80. The moon was rising in the sign of the Scorpion, being now five days after the full; and when the sun is in this sign, it is seen by the inhabitants of Rome to sit between the islands of Corsica and Sardinia. 83. Virgil, born at Pietola, near Mantua. 84. The burden of Dante's doubts and questions, laid upon Virgil. 91. Rivers of Boeotia, on whose banks the Thebans crowded at night to invoke the aid of Bacchus to give them rain for their vineyards. 94. The word falcare, in French faucher, here translated "curve," is a term of equitation, describing the motion of the outer fore-leg of a horse in going round in a circle. It is the sweep of a mower's scythe. 100. Luke i. 39: "And Mary arose in those days and went into the hillcountry with haste.' ΙΟΙ. Cæsar on his way to subdue Ilerda, now Lerida, in Spain, besieged Marseilles, leaving there part of his army under Brutus to complete the work. 118. Nothing is known of this Abbot, not even his name. Finding him here, the commentators make bold to say that he was "slothful and deficient in good deeds. This is like some of the definitions in the Crusca, which, instead of the interpretation of a Dantesque word, give you back the passage in which it Occurs. 119. This is the famous Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, who, according to the German popular tradition, is still sitting in a cave in the Kipphauser mountains, waiting for something to happen, while his beard has grown through the stone-table before him. In 1162 he burned and devastated Milan, Brescia, Piacenza, and Cremona. He was drowned in the Salef in Armenia, on his crusade in 1190, endeavouring to "Frederick was a prince of intrepid valour, consummate prudence, unmeasured ambition, justice which hardened into severity, the ferocity of a barbarian somewhat tempered with a high chivalrous gallantry; above all, with a strength of character which subjugated alike the great temporal and ecclesiastical princes of Germany; and was prepared to assert the Imperial rights in Italy to the utmost. Of the constitutional rights of the Emperor, of his unlimited supremacy, his absolute independence of, his temporal superiority over, all other powers, even that of the Pope, Frederick proclaimed the loftiest notions. He was to the Empire what Hildebrand and Innocent were to the Popedom. His power was of God alone; to assert that it was bestowed by the successor of St. Peter was a lie, and directly contrary to the doctrine of St. Peter." 121. Alberto della Scala, Lord of Verona. He made his natural son, whose qualifications for the office Dante here enumerates, and the commentators repeat, Abbot of the Monastery of San Zeno. 132. See Inf. VII. Note 115. 135. Numbers xxxii. 11, 12: Surely none of the men that came out of Egypt, from twenty years old and upward, shall see the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob; because they have not wholly followed me: save Caleb the son of Jephunneh the Kenezite, and Joshua the son of Nun; for they have wholly followed the Lord." 137. The Trojans who remained with Acestes in Sicily, instead of following Æneas to Italy. Eneid, V.: "They enroll the matrons for the city, and set on shore as many of the people as were willing,-souls that had no desire of high renown. 145. The end of the Second Day. CANTO XIX. and which by an effort of imagination can also be formed out of some of the last stars of Aquarius, and some of the first of Pisces. Chaucer, Troil. and Cres., III., 1415: "But whan the cocke, commune astrologer, 6. Because the sun is following close behind. Gower, Conf. Amant., I.:- They ben, that with so swete a steven 51. "That is," says Buti, "they shall have the gift of comforting their souls." Matthew v. 4: "Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be com 1. The ascent to the Fifth Circle, forted." 59. The three remaining sins to be purged away are Avarice, Gluttony, and Lust. 61. See Canto XIV. 148. 73. Psalms cxix. 25: "My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word." 99. Know that I am the successor of Peter. It is Pope Adrian the Fifth who speaks. He was of the family of the Counts of Lavagna, the family taking its title from the river Lavagna, flowing between Siestri and Chiaveri, towns on the Riviera di Genova. He was Pope only thirty-nine days, and died in 1276. When his kindred came to congratulate him on his election, he said, "Would that ye came to a Cardinal in good health, and not to a dying Pope. 134. Revelation xix. 10: "And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not, I am thy fellow-servant.” 137. Matthew xxii. 30: "For in the resurrection they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels in heaven." He reminds Dante that here all earthly distinctions and relations are laid aside. He is no longer "the Spouse of the Church." 141. Penitence; line 92: The 32. This is St. Nicholas, patron saint of children, saflors, and travellers. incident here alluded to is found in the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, the great storehouse of medieval wonders. It may be found also in Mrs. Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art, II. 62, and in her version runs thus: "Now in that city there dwelt a certain nobleman who had three daughters, and, from being rich, he became poor; so poor that there remained no means of obtaining food for his daughters but by sacrificing them to an infamous life; and oftentimes it came into his mind to tell them so, but shame and Meantime the maidens wept continually, not knowing sorrow held him dumb. what to do, and not having bread to eat; and their father became more and more desperate. When Nicholas heard of this, he thought it a shame that such a thing should happen in a Christian land; therefore one night, when the maidens were asleep, and their father alone sat watching and weeping, he took a handful of gold, and, tying it up in a handkerchief, he repaired to the dwelling of He considered how he the poor man. known, and, while he stood irresolute, might bestow it without making himself the moon coming from behind a cloud showed him a window open; so he threw it in, and it fell at the feet of the father, who, when he found it, returned thanks, and with it he portioned his eldest daughter. A second time Nicholas provided a similar sum, and again he threw it in by night; and with it the nobleman married his second daughter. But he greatly desired to know who it was that came to his aid; therefore he determined to watch, and when the good saint came for the third time, and prepared to throw in the third portion, he was discovered, for the nobleman seized him by the skirt of his robe, and flung himself at his feet, saying, 'O Nicholas! servant of God! why seek to hide thyself?' and he kissed his feet and his hands. But Nicholas made him promise that he would tell no man. And many other charitable works did Nicholas perform in his native city." 43. If we knew from what old chronicle, or from what Professor of the Rue du Fouarre, Dante derived his knowledge of French history, we might possibly make plain the rather difficult passage which begins with this line. The spirit that speaks is not that of the King Hugh Capet, but that of his father, Hugh Capet, Duke of France and Count of Paris. He was son of Robert the Strong. Pasquier, Rech. de la France, VI. 1, describes him as both valiant and prudent, and says that, "although he was never king, yet was he a maker and unmaker of kings," and then goes on to draw an elaborate parallel between him and Charles Martel. The "malignant plant" is Philip the Fair, whose character is thus drawn by Milman, Lat. Christ., Book XI. Ch. 8: folly. Never was man or monarch so He was defeated at the battle of Courtray, 1302, known in history as the battle of the Spurs of Gold, from the great number found on the field after the battle. This is the vengeance imprecated upon him by Dante. 50. For two centuries and a half, that is, from 1060 to 1316, there was either a Louis or a Philip on the throne of France. The succession was as follows: Philip I. the Amorous. 1060 1108 1137 1180 1223 1226 1270 1285 1314 52. It is doubtful whether this passage is to be taken literally or figuratively. Pasquier, Rech. de la France, Liv. VI. Ch. 1 (thinking it is the King Hugh Capet that speaks), breaks forth in indignant protest as follows: "From this you can perceive the fata"In Philip the Fair the gallantry of lity there was in this family from its the French temperament broke out on rare occasions; his first Flemish cam of the Carlovingians. beginning to its end, to the disadvantage And moreover, paigns were conducted with bravery and how ignorant the Italian poet Dante skill, but Philip ever preferred the subtle negotiation, the slow and wily encroach- was, when in his book entitled Purgatory he says that our Hugh Capet was the ment; till his enemies were, if not in his son of a butcher. Which word, once power, at least at great disadvantage, he written erroneously and carelessly by did not venture on the usurpation or him, has so crept into the heads of some invasion. In the slow systematic pursuit simpletons, that many who never invesof his object he was utterly without tigated the antiquities of our France have scruple, without remorse. He was not fallen into this same heresy. François so much cruel as altogether obtuse to de Villon, more studious of taverns and human suffering, if necessary to the pro-ale-houses than of good books, says in secution of his schemes; not so much some part of his works, rapacious as, finding money indispensable to his aggrandizement, seeking money by means of which he hardly Si feusse les hoirs de Capet seemed to discern the injustice or the And since then Agrippa Alamanni, in his book on the Vanity of Science, chapter Of Nobility, on this first ignorance declares impudently against the genealogy of our Capet. If Dante thought that Hugh the Great, Capet's father, was a butcher, he was not a clever man. But if he used this expression figuratively, as I am willing to believe, those who cling to the shell of the word are greater blockheads still.. "This passage of Dante being read and explained by Luigi Alamanni, an Italian, before Francis the First of that name, he was indignant at the imposture, and commanded it to be stricken out. He was even excited to interdict the reading of the book in his kingdom. But for my part, in order to exculpate this author, I wish to say that under the name of Butcher he meant that Capet was son of a great and valiant warrior. If Dante understood it thus, I forgive him; if otherwise, he was a very ignorant poet. ... 66 Benvenuto says that the name of Capet comes from the fact that Hugh, in playing with his companions in boyhood, was in the habit of pulling off their caps and running away with them." Ducange repeats this story from an old chronicle, and gives also another and more probable origin of the name, as coming from the hood or cowl which Hugh was in the habit of wearing. The belief that the family descended from a butcher was current in Italy in Dante's time. Villani, IV. 3, says: "Most people say that the father was a great and rich burgher of Paris, of a race of butchers or dealers in cattle." 53. When the Carlovingian race were all dead but one. And who was he? The Ottimo says it was Rudolph, who became a monk and afterwards Archbishop of Rheims. Benvenuto gives no name, but says only "a monk in poor, coarse garments." Buti says the same. Daniello thinks it was some Friar of St. Francis, perhaps St. Louis, forgetting that these saints did not see the light till some two centuries after the time here spoken of. Others say Charles of Lorraine; and Biagioli decides that it must be either Charles the Simple, who died a prisoner in the castle of Péronne, in 922; or Louis of Outre-Mer, who was carried to England by Hugh the Great, in 936. The Man in Cloth of Grey remains as great a mystery as the Man in the Iron Mask. 59. Hugh Capet was crowned at Rheims, in 987. The expression which follows shows clearly that it is Hugh the Great who speaks, and not Hugh the founder of the Capetian dynasty. 61. Until the shame of the low origin of the family was removed by the marriage of Charles of Anjou, brother of Saint Louis, to the daughter of Raimond Berenger, who brought him Provence as her dower. 65. Making amends for one crime by committing a greater. The particular transaction here alluded to is the seizing by fraud and holding by force these provinces in the time of Philip the Fair. 67. Charles of Anjou. 68. Curradino, or Conradin, son of the Emperor Conrad IV., a beautiful youth of sixteen, who was beheaded in the square of Naples by order of Charles of Anjou, in 1268. Voltaire, in his rhymed chronology at the end of his Annales de l'Empire, says, "C'est en soixante-huit que la main d'un Dans Conradin son fils éteint un sang si Endeavouring to escape to Sicily after his defeat at Tagliacozzo, he was carried to Naples and imprisoned in the Castel dell' Uovo. "Christendom heard with horror," says Milman, Lat. Christ., Book XI. Ch. 3, "that the royal brother of St. Louis, that the champion of the Church, after a mock trial, by the sentence of one judge, Robert di Lavena,— after an unanswerable pleading by Guido de Suzaria, a famous jurist,-had condemned the last heir of the Swabian house-a rival king who had fought gallantly for his hereditary throne-to be executed as a felon and a rebel on a public scaffold. So little did Conradin dread his fate, that, when his doom was announced, he was playing at chess with Frederick of Austria. 'Slave,' said Conradin to Robert of Bari, who read the fatal sentence, 'do you dare to condemn as a criminal the son and heir of kings? Knows not your master that he is my equal, not my judge?' He added, |