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422

COMMENT

CANTO VIL.

H. -XI.

The tiercet literally is: Ah! heavenly Justice, who can put together all the new labours and sufferings which I beheld? Why doth a mortal error produce such ruin?'-The first part refers to the impossibility of describing in a few verses the various horrors that presented themselves. Some make who refer to the Dispenser of those torments: but it could not have been meant to ask who he is, since the exclamation itself begins by telling us heavenly Justice,' giustizia di Dio (1). The second part of the tiercet embraces a far more momentous question the doctrine of future rewards and punishments; a discussion so awful and complex, that it is a consolation to defer, if not entirely escape it. Recollecting Dante's own words, it is the primary, allegorical scope of the entire poem to elucidate it (2). Waving for the present the main subject conceding the exis

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(1) The verse is printed as an interrogation in the Cominians and all the most esteemed editions; as indeed, the particle chi requires. Yet M. Cary translates it like a mere exclamation, adducing Landino as his authority, who makes chi the same is che. Landino's words are very clear. The two contested interpretations are as I have given: chi potrebbe ristringere in pochi versi, ec.? or chi raduna in questo luogo dell' inferno tanti travagli ec? This second is subject to the objection adduced by me- - that of putting a question which the very first words of the tiercet precludes, as well as the context of the entire poem: quasi che Dante, o non sapesse, o negasse essere la divina vindice Giustizia che ivi aduna tutti quei guai. Poggiali, Ed. Livorn. 1807, vol. 3. p. 93.

(2) Hell, Comment, Canto 1. p. 63.

CANTO VII.

tence of the eternal castigations of Tartarus - I descend to a corollary from it. The text being in the singular number 'a mortal error' (nostra colpa) appears to some to be a demand, whether it be possible that a single error can merit such varieties of ever-lasting torment? Infinite woe can only be made for infinite crime. This is certain. After this, it is superfluous to distinguish between singular and plural. Of degrees in infinitude we can have no idea. According to human comprehension, we can scarcely avoid assenting to the position of the Stoics, that all crimes are equal; except by doing, what seems to me much wiser,

confessing we know nothing of the matter. It may be practically useful to pronounce on the extent of any guilt from what we see of it; on such appearances the legislator must act the temporal by the infliction of temporal punishments, the spiritual by the threat of future ones; but theoretically, few things lead to greater confusion in reasoning. It is the invisible mind that makes the sin, not the visible act. But since the act of the mind precedes the visible act, the entire guilt is equally incurred, whether it be indicated by any act visible to us, or not: still more does it follow, that if the entire guilt may exist previous to any visible act, it may previous to several. The eye of Him who is to judge immaterial creatures has no need of material acts. It reads the spirit, and may or may not permit good or evil to be re

424

COMMENT

CANTO VII.

vealed by one or many overt, corporeal actions. In every case the merit or demerit of the spirit (which is truly the only merit or demerit) remains precisely the same. The law, that is the will of an eternal infinite Being must be infinite and eternal. Its prescriptions may vary, but they are only its form. Its substance can know nɔ change. As long as those prescriptions exist, they partake of the infinitude that prescribes them. To contravene them then is infinitely wrong; nor in that infinitude can I have a notion of any gradations. These may, perhaps, exist; but my fi nite powers cannot conceive them. If an infinite Being ordains a statute (whatever it seem in our eyes, great or small) it must be infinite, and any breach of it be infinite too; nor can I have any conception of its deserving more or less than infinite punishment; in which I can recognise no degrees either of alleviation or severity. Such degrees may be; but they are not within the grasp of mortal perception. The only question then is whether an infinite Being has given a law, or not. If he has, it is a line in the 'over-stepping of which (and in it alone) guilt consists; and however you advance after, this advance' (Cicero avers) has nothing to do with your over-stepping of the line. In this consists guilt, in the infraction of the law (without a reference to its apparent importance or unimportance); and when once this infraction takes place, the guilt is completed. Every sin

eason are overturned, I cannot imagine the on of any greater sin (1).' I only speak of what and indeed so does Cicero. But it seems -ne crime should incur infinite punishment, s much as many; and as if the plucking of a of grass, or of an apple were quite as criwhen prohibited by the Creator, as any nity whatever. This is the sublime verity wed forth by the catastrophe of Eve: and a reflection (independent of every other) suffice to secure veneration for the magnisimplicity of the Genius, who put the world and an apple in one and the same baand found them of equal weight in the estiof Omnipotence.

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wild Charibdis, when the wildest masses f breakers combat in its pool renown'd, afes like the innumerous troop that waltzes. misers and the prodigals drawn up face to one party on the interior circumference of rcle (that is, round its central orifice) and her on its exterior circumference (or under

uam longe progrediare, cum semel transieris, ad augendum di culpam nihil pertinet.... In eo est peccatum, quod non um quidquid peccatur, perturbatione peccatur ordinis atque Perturbata autem semel ratione et ordine, nihil potest addi is peccare posse videatur. Par. v.

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arious cries, and, meeting mid-way, strike and rebound back to their former lines; hey prepare for similar encounters to be folsimilar discomfitures. Such, in substance, meaning of the present and following tierring this eternal tilting (giostra) the shades rnally move, or whirl like Charibdis during -lent concussion of its tides called by seamen Oppo (1), or rather waltze, (as I translate tis, perform the ridda round the entire For the riddi of the text is from the verb 'to dance the ridda;' and the ridda was 'a many persons turning round'-- which t the same thing as a waltze (2).

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ing weights by force of breasts' is the overbatim; and it is indeed (as is also my

Cary in trauslating onda not a mass of billows, but “ ninishes much the propriety of the metaphor: and the more • Dante by onda s'intoppa alluded to a characteristic pheof the straits of Messina, which he must have observed when bassador in Sicily. Not always, but frequently when the freshly from either the South or North-east, the currents perilous but transient violence and are then said to intopo warn ships not to approach while the danger lasts, there Past was) a tall signal-tower where pilots are employed to d look out. These being experienced, always can predict o a little before it happens. E in questo modo sicuro è il Daniello, Comento, p. 49.

› di molte persone fatto in giro. (Vocabolario). It seems n a lascivious dance, which was at last left to the peasantry, no onger in use.

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nist's, which, o breasts, spun ro received solution an engraving to the latter; for, spinning like a a nough for one pa lightness are not that of rolling hug of the spirits impl talk of their turn their breasts whe than when strikin permitted to attril ritual creatures, as when they please; f

to give a detailed pi spirits. Thus we find tence, represented as ing vainly to embrace shower of tears like introduction of Chari as a simile, is recog

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