It is not so important to note that the bears came to the rescue of Elisha in a way quite unprecedented, and never repeated even in myth, as to observe that Dante accepts the story seriously, and that it should be reckoned not only as a part of his art, but as a part of his zoology.1 Whoever wrote the canzone 2 beginning, Cosi nel mio parlar voglio esser aspro,

had seen the bears in a gentler frame of mind, performing, it may be, to win pennies for some juggler. 'I should not be piteous nor courteous,' writes the poet : Anzi farei com' orso quando scherza.

Rather I would act like a frisking bear.

The bear may figure as a demon or as a clown. He is also a creature greedy to advance his cubs for simony, and it is in this capacity that the she-bear is turned into an emphatic verse of the Inferno.1

The Orsini, bearing one of those animal nicknames so often adopted by the great families of medieval Italy (or perhaps thrust upon them), are said by the Anonimo Fiorentino to have habitually signed themselves 'de filiis ursæ.' There is no bear in the Orsini coat-ofarms, and the warlike epithet is therefore precisely

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1 Cf. paragraph on miracles, pp. 16-17, on Serpent of Eden, pp. 330-332; cf. chapters on 'The Ass,' p. 159 ff., and on The Goose,' P. 315.

2 Oxford Dante, Canz. XII, p. 163. As to genuineness, see FRATICELLI, Dante, Opere Minori, vol. I, pp. 137 ff.

8 Cf. STRUTT, Sports and Pastimes, chap. VI, and plates xxii and xxiii; also MURATORI, De Ludis Medii Ævi. Inf. XIX, 70-71.

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5 See arms in LITTA, Famiglie Celebri Italiani, and in J. WOODWARD, Heraldry, British and Foreign, vol. I, pl. xi.

L

similar to Il Mastin Vecchio and Can Grande della Scala.

Dante takes advantage of the mere name to make out of it a characterisation both of a real bear and of Nicholas III, who was so given to simony that he availed himself of his holy office to endow his kinsmen with land, castles, and money. Hence the words of Nicholas to Dante, as the poet stops to gaze at the flaming heels of the whilom pope. The pope says:

Know, if it so concern thy soul to know
That thou hast ventured to explore this den,

I the great mantle wore, and was indeed

A true Orsini, whelp of that she-bear

Whose cubs I strove to advance with such good speed
That I'm bagged here as I bagged money there.1

The figure is bold and ably used, but the bear's nature is humanised too far when he is compared to a simoniacal pope.

1 Inf. XIX, 67-72.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE HORSE

Of the various physical and mental traits of the horse that might please or interest a modern lover of nature Dante has not a word to say. Virgil found, at least, one inspiration in this animal, and splendidly described the steed of Mezentius.1 Dante left out Nero entirely; and since he had no cut-and-dried plan to introduce such and such a fact in nature, the vehemence of his fury against dogs and wolves, his disdain for sheep, and his glorification of the falcon, compared with such slim attention to horses, are not extraordinary.

The wooden horse of Sinon 2 and the equally legendary steeds of Elijah he mentions; in one case to allow the counterfeiter Adam of Brescia to have his revengeful fling, in the other case to describe how he who avenged himself with the bears,

Beheld Elijah's chariot whirled on high,

When up to heaven the soaring steeds ascended.3

- PARSONS.

To illustrate an opinion Dante declares that many times we say a noble horse and a worthless one because in every kind of thing we see the image of nobility or

1 This passage, which excited the admiration of the English Alexander Neckam (Wright's ed., p. 260), occurs in the Georgics (III, 75 ff.). 2 Inf. XXX, 118. 3 Inf. XXVI, 36.

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of worthlessness, which depend not upon ancestry; for, in animals and minerals, conditions have not changed.1 'We say of a man that he is worthy who lives in the active or contemplative life to which he is ordained by nature; we call a horse good (virtuoso)2 that runs swiftly and far, to which end he is designed.' Such a valuation antedates obviously any evolutionary system. Again, the growth of our desires is marked for the poet by the fact that 'we see small children yearn for an apple; then for a little bird; and then, advancing farther, for a fine garment; and then a horse, and then a woman'! Again, the poet speaks of robbers who with their plundered money furnish banquets, give horses, raiment, and arms, and think themselves noble givers. 4

The horse, says Dante, is as necessary to a soldier as our language is to us, and, as those who think best must have the best tongue, so the best horses are fitted to the best soldiers. It is more praiseworthy to know how to control a bad horse than one not bad, and by 'bad' Dante of course means from the point of view of man.

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1 Conv. IV, xiv, 79–95.

2 Conv. I, v, 74-79, 'Onde dicemo uomo virtuoso quello, che vive in vita contemplativa o attiva, alle quali è ordinato naturalmente; dicemo del cavallo virtuoso, che corre forte e molto, alla qual cosa è ordinato.'

3 Conv. IV, xii, 161–165, ‘Onde vedemo li parvoli desiderare massimamente un pomo; e poi più oltre procedendo, desiderare uno uccellino; e poi più oltre, desiderare bello vestimento; e poi il cavallo; e poi una donna,' etc.

4 Conv. IV, xxvii, 117–124.

5 De V. E. II, i, 62–67.

Conv. III, viii, 187-189, '. . . siccome è più laudabile un mal cavallo reggere, che un altro non reo.'

Once he mentions a troop of horsemen actually seen. (Inf. XXII, 11); again, he beholds cavalry crowding about Trajan,—a sculptural fantasy (Purg. X, 79–80). Dante's vaguest allusion to the horse is that strange proverb of lost meaning, Non ante tertiam equitabis (Before the third hour thou shalt not ride).1 Perhaps the phrase is based on a forgotten ordinance of municipal law.

On June 24th, St. John the Baptist's festival day, the Florentines raced Berber horses through Florence from west to east.2 Whoever arrived first at the easternmost ward that of San Piero - won. Where the horse-race ended Cacciaguida was born.

Gli antichi miei ed io nacqui nel loco
Dove si trova pria l'ultimo sesto

Da quel che corre il vostro annual gioco.3

My ancestors and I our birthplace had
Where first is found the last ward of the city
By him who runneth in your annual game.
LONGFELLOW.

St. Peter Damian, in telling Dante how the popes have grown worse and worse, describes with delightful satire a fashion no longer common.

Came Cephas, and the mighty Vessel came

Of the Holy Spirit, meagre and barefooted,

1 De V. E. I, vii, 17-19, 'Quippe satis exstiterat; sed sicut proverbialiter dici solet, non ante tertiam equitabis, misera venire maluisti ad equum.'

2 See BENVENUTO da Imola, Comentum super Dantis Aldigherii comœdiam, vol. V, pp. 161-162. 8 Parad. XVI, 40–42.