CANTO VIII.

provide a lamb for a burnt offering. So they went both of them together. "Abraham" ( said the Apostle)" relying on the divine promise, that in Isaac his seed should be called, accounted that God could raise him up even from the dead (1). "So Abraham, having built the altar, and bound his son, stretched out his hand with the knife to slay him, when the Angel interposed: "By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son; I will in blessing bless thee, and multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand on the sea-shore.

If Dante uses here the feebler of these stories (to mark the flagitious nature of that anger which would attempt vain resistance to Omnipotence) we ought to observe, that he could not have introduced Abraham in hell; and that in availing himself of the other, he was incited by that tolerant, classic spirit, which (as I have repeatedly shown) engaged him to employ willingly the theological allegories of Antiquity. Virgil had made Phlegyas terrify by his own tortures: Dante makes him a teacher quite as effectual, by making him bear away the condemned souls to torture. Charon ferries them into hell; Phlegyas seizes on the worst portion, and hurries them down the hell of hells, the depths of Tartarus..

(1) Hebrews, x1, 18—19.

Boccaccio, citing Solomon, to prove that the more excellent and wise a virtuous man is, the more easily he is stirred up to noble indignation, adds that it was with reference to that text Dante used the epithet disdainful here (2). The Imolese says: 'Blest be the womb that bore thee' (Benedetta colei, che 'n te s' incinse) was not a fortuitous exclamation, but a tribute of respect from Dante to his mother; who was truly beatified and had a name expressive of her worth Gemma (3).' Dante's wife we know was called Gemma Donati : but there is legal proof that his mother's name was Bella (4). Either then the Imolese made a slight error, and confused the mother with her daughterin-law; or the former must have borne the two names. If her title was really Madonna Gemma Bella, there was double ground for vaunting. If

(1) Aeneid. Lib. VI. v. 413.

(2) Comento, vol. 2. p. 78.

(3) Heic nota, Lector, quod mater Dantis fuit verè beata. Vocata est enim Gemma, et tanquam gemma pretiosa misit lucem in mundum. Benvenuti Im. ap. Mur. Antiq. Ital Vol. 1. p. 1043.

(4) .... Dominæ Bellæ matris dicti Dantis... et Dominæ Gemma nunc viduæ, sed olim uxoris dicti Dantis, et filiæ D. Manetti de Donatiś, etc. ap. Pelli, Mem. ec. p. 28.

CANTO VIII.

such a tender sentiment as filial piety dictated this verse, that tenderness is rendered still more striking from the severity of all the rest of the passage, and is an instance of those strong contrasts which our poet very often employs with success . That this tribute to the maternal shade is short, and as it were casual, and intended to be concealed from every one's consciousness but his own, accords perfectly with the reserve which the whole poem displays respecting its Author's domestic concerns: for his name is to be found in it but once, and then its insertion is excused with a plea of necessity; and when he introduced into it three of his female friends, we have seen them so enveloped in allegory as to be almost disguised from the public eye, not obtruded on it (1).

This fierce burst of exultation is rendered fiercer from its being a mis-application of the words which religion had consecrated to joy and harmony. They were poured forth by the angelic chorus who announced to the shepherds the birth of our Saviour "Glory be to God, etc. (2)." In more violent contrast still is what follows the shrieking out of the victim's name, and his turning his teeth against himself. It must, in great part, have been such passages, that obtained popularity

(1) Hell, Comment, Canto n. p. 152.

(2) Luke 11. 14.

GANTO VIII.

for poetry, whose learning and condensity of mind seem adapted to but few readers. The meanest of the people knew a quantity of Dante verses by heart, and sung them up and down Italy. No poet's fame ever spread so quickly; for as fast as the Cantos of his poem were published, they appear to have got amongst all classes of the people, the lowest as well as the highest. Thus, we are informed that this discourse took place between two poor women in Verona, as he passed one day under their windows: "See!" (cried one) "See the man who goes down and brings us news from Hell. "Indeed" (replied her companion, with simplicity)" and sore marks he bears of it too; observe how pale he looks, with his hair frizzled, for all the world as if it had been scorched. " Dante overheard them, and is said to have smiled: an infrequent occurrence with him; for his temperament disposed him to melancholy, and, if we cre'dit biographers, he was never seen to laugh out.

'Messer Filippo Argenti degli Adimari' (says the Riccardian M. S.) ' was a man of gigantic stature, dark complexion, and violent passions; and he was named Argenti, because, being very rich and as unbridled in his expenses as in his choler, he he had his horse, a beautiful animal in which he took great pride, shod on one occasion with silver' -it fece ferare d'argento. M. Ginguenè professes

GANTO VIII.

not to comprehend, why an individual so slightly distinguished should have been selected by Dante for condemnation. But the reason was the same which I pointed out when speaking of Ciacco. In this fifth Circle anger is punished, not the nefarious crimes which it too often causes; in the same way as in the third Circle intemperance is so, and not any of those lamentable excesses to which it generally leads. Argenti was chosen, because he was of a dangerous brutal impetuosity; which however had never betrayed him into any iniquity of the deepest colour, but many eccentric breaches of decorum. That ungovernable anger is at every time a wretched foible, and was peculiarly so, in a town so ripe for discord as Florence, requires no elucidation; and Argenti, in giving way to it, was perhaps as interiorly and truly guilty as men who had been led by the same passion into deeds of more apparent ferocity, than any attributed to him. But poets (as well as legislators) are to pronounce on ostensible grounds. Dante was then most hapin his selection of Ciacco and Argenti to exemplify the odiousness of intemperance and choler, even when uncontaminated by those direr atrocities to which they almost invariably lead. Perhaps Florence never since Dante's day, possessed a counterpart for Argenti; a character noted for so much ire, and yet unaccused of any desperate malefaction. The wretch's biting himself is an idea repeated, by Dante in his version of the Psalins

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