120 COMMENT CANTO II. empire a title once courted by our own Edward III. when he undertook his expedition against France (1). We know from the Vita nuova that Beatrice had a brother (2), that Dante was his intimate associate and indeed called him his second friend, (Guido Cavalcanti, of whom we already spoke, being invariably named his first) that they wept together for her loss, and that the poet composed verses for them both on that melancholy occasion, some expressive of his own and some of fraternal love and sorrow. But, if he indulged his af fections in his works by arraying her there in the pristine, female shape which he had admired on earth, he consulted a loftier scope by considering her spiritual part as the perfection of celestial wisdom, or in his own words supreme Philosophy; of which the loftiest speculations without doubt are those that treat of the soul and its creator. Hence Beatrice is represented by commentators as theology, (although indeed theology be not an expression much employed by Dante) and, if it be taken in its original acceptation of the study of God, they are right; and it may well be used as the synonyme of universal, all-comprehending knowledge, or what Dante terms supreme philosophy: because if it were possible to rise in this life to a just conception of the Almighty, it is likely we should have an intuitive acquaintance with all his works; (1) Hume. Hist. Vol. 3. p. 215. (2) p. 39. CANTO II. and, vice versa, there is perhaps no better way to elevate our minds towards that celestial source than gradually by an industrious and modest investigation of the numberless natural wonders that do flow thence. But the commentators are wrong, if they give theology the degraded signification of the schools, logical divinity, the wordy war of doctors, who disclaim connection with any other art or science: for we shall find Beatrice discussing almost all arts and sciences, and a vast variety of matter both ethical and physical in this poem as well as in the Convito. There she is emphatically styled supreme philosophy la somma filosofia; a title comprehending the entire range of sciences, of which theology, in the scholastic sense, is only one; but, in another, more extensive and perhaps more accurate sense, theology comprises them all, and is therefore synonymous with Dante's supreme philosophy. This truth is repeated by Peter Alighieri in his comment on the present passage, who, however obscure and mystical he is too often, expresses himself here intelligibly and reasonably enough philosophiæ pars altior est, quæ idem est quod theologia....et hæc est Beatrix (1). And it is in this extensive acceptation that even Landino here receives theology; 'for', he says, 'each particular science has its particular merits, but theology embraces them all' l'ab (1) Bib. Laurenziana. Plut. XL Cod. 38. personification of theology, and indeed in Italian ought to continue to be so; because it is a foolish affectation of singularity to change long-received names, where the things they represent are not changed: but in English, where no established custom interferes, it is widely different, and I think myself at liberty to take either of those equivalent expressions, and prefer supreme philosophy for two reasons because it is the one used by Dante himself in the Convito, that succedaneum for a comment on the Divine Comedy, in order to let us know what allegorical acceptation we should put, both in those his Canzoni and in this his great poem, on the sainted heroine of his Vita nuova ; and because it seems to convey, with smaller risk of ambiguity, the intent of the Author, which evidently was to make his deceased Beatrice personify on every occasion the sum of all virtue and learning, and not any individual art or science, spiritual or material. Under whatever name she pass, of theology or of supreme philosophy, this is manifest, that he ever meant her as a personification, not of any exclusive branch of erudition, but of the universality of wisdom, the complex of every intellectual attainment human and divine. M. Ginguené then has a right to affirm, that no other fe (1) Comento. p. 14. ence then regarded as the first' — alors regardée comme la première (1) there is no absolving him entirely; because if he means theology in the restricted sense of scholars, he errs, by giving Beatrice a signification different from that intended, as I have shown, by Dante; and if he correctly understands it, as synonymous with supreme philosophy, his words imply a less trivial error, by describing as only then regarded as the first a science that must always be regarded as such, since it includes every other. Astronomers, metaphysicians, lawyers etc. may cultivate separate branches of erudition, but in supreme philosophy (by whatever name known) they all meet; for, in the words of Dante, 'this science is the truth to which every other truth tends, other sciences are but as handmaids, queens and concubines to this immaculate Solomean dove, this soul-reposing haven, where all doubts and sophistical arguments vanish, and our studies are ennobled by the sublime certainty of the subject to which they are directed and which is indeed the perfection of all that is true and certain, God himself (2):' so Beatrice not only embraces every minor truth of human science, but, even after that, has her principal, supernatural flight still to attempt, for which the rest indeed (1) Hist. Litt. d' Italie. vol. 2. p. 33. (2) Convito. p. 102. dissection of material phenomena to what is more congenial with our nobler immaterial essence, an enquiry into our own internal properties, our hopes and duties here and our destinies hereafter; and, too justly ambitious to be content with se condary causes, she leads us up to a consideration of the great First Cause himself to an unshackling of the spirit, an intellectual ecstacy, which, while it betters even our earthly lot by at least a temporary abstraction from bodily infirmities, teaches us to aspire to unfading virtue and peace, consoles us in our present afflictions and renders us less unworthy of future happiness, by convincing us that all does not end with this frail vesture of clay, for, in Dante's own phrase, Are we not worms shall yet be riven And breed the glorious butterfly Whose wings were made to soar to heaven (1)? -a holy freedom of thought irresistibly attractive to the finer particles within the bosoms of men, without reference to any particular creeds or countries; and which occupied the Pagan as fully as the Christian sages, Confucius and Socrates, as well as Fenelon and Hooker. Such are the sublime sentiments now linked for ever and ever with the name and form of a young Tuscan girl, (1) Purg. Canto x. |