The Guide and I into that hidden road Now entered, to return to the bright world; 135 Some of those beauteous things which Heaven doth bear; Thence we came forth to rebehold the stars. 181 1, he justly deserves re efer to what are sometimes Comedy. Foremost among th Book of the Odyssey, and the latter Dante seems to NOTES for his Guide, his Mashe beautiful style that The Vita Nuo 's Vision of Scipio, tin Dante's ght to be THE DIVINE COMEDY. with these words: "After this sonnet there a wonderful vision, in which I beheld things propose to say no more of this blessed one, unt able to treat of her more worthily. And to attain truly I strive with all my power, as she knoweth. bad laid if it shall be the pleasure of Him, through whom all live, that my life continue somewhat longer, I hope tong of her what never yet was said of any woman. And th may it please Him, who is the Sire of courtesy, that my sou may depart to look upon the glory of its Lady, that is to say, of the blessed Beatrice, who in glory gazes into the face of Him, qui est per omnia sæcula benedictus." the In these lines we have the earliest glimpse of the Divine Comedy, as it rose in the author's mind. Whoever has read the Vita Nuova will remember the stress which Dante lays upon the mystic numbers Nine and Three; his first meeting with Beatrice at the beginning of her ninth year, and the end of his; his nine days' illness, and the thought of her death which came to him on the ninth day; her death on the ninth day of the ninth month, “computing by the Syrian method," and in that year of our Lord "when the perfect number ten was nine times completed in that century" which was the thirteenth. Moreover, he says the number nine was friendly to her, because the nine heavens were in conjunction at her birth; and that she was herself the number nine, "that is, a miracle whose root is the wonderful Trinity." Following out this idea, we find the Divine Comedy written in terza rima, or threefold rhyme, divided into three parts, out if we count the first canto The Guide and I into that hid its structure into three. Some of those hot the Inferno are minutely described nte in Canto XI. They are separated doth bear; Thence we came great spaces in the infernal abyss. The chem are,-I. Incontinence. II. Malice. ENCE : 1. The Wanton. 2. The Gluttonous. Aicious and Prodigal. 4. The Irascible and the ALICE: 1. The Violent against their neighbor, in or property. 2. The Violent against themselves, in on or property. 3. The Violent against God, or against sture, the daughter of God, or against Art, the daughter of Nature. III. BESTIALITY: first subdivision: 1. Seducers. 2. Flatterers. 3. Simoniacs. 4. Soothsayers. 5. Barrators. 6. Hypocrites. 7. Thieves. 8. Evil counsellors. 9. Schismatics. 10. Falsifiers. Second subdivision: 1. Traitors to their kindred. 2. Traitors to their country. 3. Traitors to their friends. 4. Traitors to their lords and benefactors. The Divine Comedy is not strictly an allegorical poem in the sense in which the Faerie Queene is; and yet it is full of allegorical symbols and figurative meanings. In a letter to Can Grande della Scala, Dante writes: "It is to be remarked, that the sense of this work is not simple, but on the contrary one may say manifold. For one sense is that which is derived from the letter, and another is that which is derived from the things signified by the letter. The first is called literal, the second allegorical or moral. . . . The subject, then, of the whole work, taken literally, is the condition of souls after death, simply considered. For on this and around this the whole action of the work turns. But if the work be taken allegorically, the subject is man, how by actions of merit or demerit, through freedom of the will, he justly deserves reward or punishment." It may not be amiss here to refer to what are sometimes called the sources of the Divine Comedy. Foremost among them must be placed the Eleventh Book of the Odyssey, and the Sixth of the Eneid; and to the latter Dante seems to point significantly in choosing Virgil for his Guide, his Master, his Author, from whom he took “the beautiful style that did him honor." Next to these may be mentioned Cicero's Vision of Scipio, of which Chaucer says: Chapiters seven it had, of Heven, and Hell, And Earthe, and soules that therein do dwell. Then follow the popular legends which were current in Dante's age; an age when the end of all things was thought to be near at hand, and the wonders of the invisible world had laid fast hold on the imaginations of men. Prominent among these is the Vision of Frate Alberico who calls himself "the humblest servant of the servants of the Lord"; and who Saw in dreame at point-devyse Heaven, Earthe, Hell, and Paradyse. This vision was written in Latin in the latter half of the twelfth century, and contains a description of Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise, with its Seven Heavens. It is for the most part a tedious tale, and bears evident marks of having been written by a friar of some monastery, when the afternoon sun was shining into his sleepy eyes. He seems, however, to have looked upon his own work with a not unfavorable opinion; for he concludes the Epistle Introductory with the words of St. John: "If any man shall add unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book; and if any man shall take away from these things, God shall take away his part from the good things written in this book." It is not impossible that Dante may have taken a few hints also from the Tesoretto of his teacher, Ser Brunetto Latini. See Canto XV. Note 30. See upon this subject, Cancellieri, Osservazioni Sopra l'Originalità di Dante; Wright, St. Patrick's Purgatory, an - Essay on the Legends of Purgatory, Hell, and Paradise, current during the Middle Ages; Ozanam, Dante et la Philosophie Catholique au Treizième Siècle ; — Labitte, La Divine Comédie avant Dante, published as an Introduction to the translation of Brizeux ;· - and Delepierre, Le Livre des Visions, ou l'’Enfer et le Ciel décrits par ceux qui les ont vus. See also the Illustrations at the end of this volume. CANTO I. 1. The action of the poem begins on Good Friday of the year 1300, at which time Dante, who was born in 1265, had reached the middle of the Scriptural threescore years and ten. It ends on the first Sunday after Easter, making in all ten days. 2. The dark forest of human life, with its passions, vices, and perplexities of all kinds; politically the state of Florence with its factions Guelf and Ghibelline. Dante, Convito, IV. 25, says: "Thus the adolescent, who enters into the erroneous forest of this life, would not know how to keep the right way if he were not guided by his elders." Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, II. 75: : Pensando a capo chino Perdei il gran cammino, E tenni alla traversa D' una selva diversa. Spenser, Faerie Queene, IV. ii. 45 : — Seeking adventures in the salvage wood. 13. Bunyan, in his Pilgrim's Progress, which is a kind of Divine Comedy in prose, says: "I beheld then that they all went on till they came to the foot of the hill Difficulty. ... But the narrow way lay right up the hill, and the name of the going up the side of the hill is called Difficulty. . . . They went then till they came to the Delectable Mountains, which mountains belong to the Lord of that hill of which we have spoken before.” 14. Bunyan, Pilgrim's Progress : "But now in this valley of Humiliation poor Christian was hard put to it; for he |