08. He seems at that period to have ndering without a single attendant. He is road to cross the Appennines' (writes when, either through respect to the from some other motive, he entered our -. Neither I, nor any of my brother friars no he was. So, I asked him what he wantreplied not a word, appearing to be wholly n observing the architecture of the buildpoke to him a second time, to learn what ted. He then turned round, and, seeing so iars with me, answered PEACE. This made the more curious to know who it could taking him by the hand I led him aside; en I learned that he was a man with whose leed I was unacquainted, but whom I had nown by reputation. When he perceived I entirely attracted by his manner and afately melted by his accents, he drew forth is bosom a little book, and, with the most y courtesy handing it to me, said: Here is a my Work, which you have probably never give it to you to keep in memory of me. had pressed the little volume to my heart, ear thing, I opened it; and, in his presence, to look over it with fond feelings. And seeing not in Latin, but in the vulgar tongue, I se I betrayed a look of surprise; for he asked y I stopped. I answered that I was astonished 496 COMMENT CANTO VOL. at the language: for it appeared to me a wondrous difficulty to treat so arduous a theme in the dialect of the vulgar; and even scarcely proper that so mighty a production should be attired in the garb of the populace. To this he replied verbatim thus: what you think is very just. Know even, that when the first seeds of this poem (which were, perhaps, infused in my mind by heaven) began to spring up, I did not fail to select the idiom which is best adapted to my theme: nor did I only select it in idea, but actually began to compose my verses in it, thus: Ultima regna canam, etc. (1) But when I considered better the state of the present age, and saw how neglected lie the compositions of the most illustrious Latin poets; and that on this account people of rank, for whom in happier ages such writings were composed, have (and with grief I say it) thrown aside the liberal arts, (1) These are precisely the same that are given by Boccaccio too in his Vita di Dante, as was noticed before (Hell, Comment, Canto 1. p. 11). There is then no doubt but such was the beginning of his version; and not any other. How far Dante went on with this his Latin version, we do not know: only three lines of it are in print. May I avow (with the most profound respect) that these three lines do not make me much desire to see any more? The same reasons, here given to Ilarius for not writing in Latin, are given still more at length in the Convito. John de Virgilio (so named from his supposed resemblance to Virgil) blames Dante much for condescending to write in Italian — nec preme Castalias indignâ veste sorores: and Dante in his reply mildly vindicates his own choice, and probably with the less force, because he did not chuse to displease his friend, John; who seems to have been inflated with pretensions to Latinity. Ecl. 1. Johannis de Virgilio-Id. Dantis. ap. Dionisi, Aneddoti, No. 1v. CANTO VII. and left them to others of plebeian birth; I quickly renounced the little lyre on which I had begun to strike with some confidence, and prepared for myself this other more adapted to the ears of modern gentlemen. For it is in vain to offer solid food to infants that are at the nurse's breast (1). ' Virgil is supposed to allude not to any of the fabulous descents of antiquity, but to that of our Saviour when he came to lead away the original man' and his companions, as before remembered in Canto the fourth. I may add, that the resistance of the demons at the entrance of hell on that occasion, their impotent attempt to stop the Redeemer at the gate whose scroll we read in the vestibule, his breaking of that gate and the 'rifting of its hinges' (senza serrame ) - all recall a homily of S. Austin's: Christus ad inferna descendit; legiones Principis mortis perturbavit; portam inferni et vectos ferreos confregit; et omnes justos absolvit (2). A celebrated Catholic Theologian, with whose works Dante was most familiar, had held ( as I remarked formerly (3)) that our Saviour went no lower in hell, than the first circle; ever since which event, the worst portion of the retreat (1) Ap. Laur. Mehus. Vita Ambr. Camald. p. 321.-Dionisi, Saggio di Critica, ec. p. 23. (2) Op. Lib. 3. cap. 24. (3) Hell, Comment, Canto Iv. p. 243. 498 COMMENT CANTO VIIS. ed fiends are described by Dante as keeping hold in Dis; -a city, I repeat, that makes a kind of great division in Tartarus; for the circles within its wall, although they continue deepening in horrors as they descend to the central pit, are all of them incalculably more horrific than any thing that lies outside. Virgil then says, that the fiends' reckless audacity is not new; for that they displayed it once against Messiah himself at the gate of the Vestibule which still lies broken down the gate over which was seen the deadly scroll. The introduction of Phlegyas, followed closely by this allusion to the Messiah's adorable victory, is among the abundant instances that prove the co-existence of the Christian and the Pagan symbols of belief in Dante's mind, whenever he composed poetry. This union of the imagery of Christianity and Polytheism, forms the one primary hue in which he dipt the whole woof of his creations, whatever other bright colours he intended to disperse here and there over it. His commentator may therefore merit pardon, if, in anxiety to impress this truth, he should fall into repetitions. It is the fine thread which guides through all the varied mazes, and into the most secret recesses, and up to the fountain-head of Dante's poetry; it is the only light in which his pictures can be distinguished completely, exhibiting their multifarious groups in perfect harmony; it is the cup, of which he who has not quaffed will find little in the Divine and a perpetual medley of peperstition. -GXXX. ach of the Angel who is to force the Dis (for such we shall find him) ollection that of Raphael: among those trees, what glorious shape s way moving (1)! age in Dante may be interpreted in ther the Angel is for an instant visikirt of one of the upper circles, as ing, and is lost to sight in the obscuwer ones; or Virgil predicts what he cious of, without seeing it. This latter on interpretation; but the former is cturesque, and, in my mind, the - always recollecting that the celestial after that momentary apparition, beinvisible. In his viewless approaching Aeneid: s obscuro gradientes aëre sæpsit, |