Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

CANTO VIII.

addressed with such an effect to Charon, Minos, and Phlegyas an assertion of the will and omni. potence of the Deity; and in now conveying them in a whisper, the poet shows much sublimity of judgment: for by this veil of mystery he is enabled to represent the fiends as rejecting with disdainful hardihood that solemn invocation, and at the same time to preserve all its force and solemnity. These could scarcely have escaped undiminished, had it been openly exposed to rejection (1). Perhaps even the invocation, instead of being enfeebled in our recollection, ( which would have been the necessary consequence of noisy altercation) is invested by this obscurity with additional grandeur. Milton is reported to have studied closely the parliamentary orators of his day, and to have faithfully delineated their peculiarities in the debates of his Pandemonium. That he whom he imitated frequently, Dante, did similarly in his Divine Comedy may be; but it must have only been in those short exclamatory phrases, which occur occasionally at least if we may judge of the speeches of the Florentine leaders, by what remains of them. Cer

(1) This blind fury and recklesness of the damned must remind us of the Miltonic Moloch:

What fear we then? What doubt we to incense

His utmost ire?... We are at worst

On this side nothing...

......

And with perpetual inroads can alarm,
Though inaccessible, his fatal throne:
Which if not victory, is yet revenge.
Parad. Lost, Book 2.

CANTO Vií.

tainly the remnants of their speeches are few; but they suffice to give an idea of their manner, because we know them to be authentic. Dino Compagni (who was one of the chief political men of the day, deeply engaged in the Government of Florence) has himself left us parts of his own orations and of those of his companions. Short yet confused, in the very lowest style of colloquial asseveration, nothing can be more unhappily devoid of any thing approaching to eloquence. Certainly it is beyond calculation immense, the distance between them and the diffusive energy and majesty, which Dante displays so very often in all his prose works, whether Latin or Italian. In his Vita Nuova, his Convito, and his Monarchia we find passages utterly astonishing when compared with Dino Compagni. It was then most justly that Dante's eloquence was rated so high in his time, and that its force enabled him to succeed in the generality of his many embassies. His manner also (without speaking) appears to have possessed something of gentle gravity, which was very attractive; and conciliated his audience, before a word had fallen from a voice said to have been of singular sweetness. The interview between him and Ilarius, as recounted by that monk himself, impresses one with the truth of this remark. After Dante had finished the first Canticle of his poem, or Hell, that is, after he left Malaspina, he passed by the monastery of Corvo, on his way, it would ap

CANTO VIII.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

pear, to Verona; whither, as I have often repeated, he went in 1308. He seems at that period to have been wandering without a single attendant. He was on his road to cross the Appennines' (writes Ilarius) when, either through respect to the place, or from some other motive, he entered our cloisters. Neither I, nor any of my brother friars knew who he was. So, I asked him what he wanted. He replied not a word, appearing to be wholly intent on observing the architecture of the building. I spoke to him a second time, to learn what he wanted. He then turned round, and, seeing so many friars with me, answered PEACE. This made me but the more curious to know who it could be. And taking him by the hand I led him aside; and then I learned that he was a man with whose face indeed I was unacquainted, but whom I had long known by reputation. When he perceived I was so entirely attracted by his manner and affectionately melted by his accents, he drew forth from his bosom a little book, and, with the most friendly courtesy handing it to me, said: Here is a part of my Work, which you have probably never seen. I give it to you to keep in memory of me. After I had pressed the little volume to my heart, as a dear thing, I opened it; and, in his presence, began to look over it with fond feelings. And seeing it was not in Latin, but in the vulgar tongue, I suppose I betrayed a look of surprise; for he asked me why I stopped. I answered that I was astonished

CANTO VIE

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 r. 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 VirgiJio-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). '

[blocks in formation]

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.

« AnteriorContinuar »