In Terrace I. are punished the proud, crushed beneath enormous weights. On the side of the mountain wall are sculptured wonderful bas-reliefs, representing examples of humility; especially famous is the one which tells the story of Trajan's justice, a story which led Pope Gregory to make a prayer to God, who granted it, for the release of the pagan emperor's soul from hell:

Farther on in the same terrace they see similar sculptures representing examples of punished pride, such as the fall of Lucifer, and the destruction of Niobe. In each of the following terraces these examples of sin and the opposite virtue are given, represented, however, by various means.

Among the proud, Dante sees the miniature painter, Oderisi of Adubbio, who pronounces those words on the vanity of earthly fame, which have been proverbial:

Passing through Terrace II., where the envious sit sadly against the rocky wall, with their eye-lids sewn together, and Terrace III., where the wrathful are shrouded in a black, stifling mist, the poets reach Terrace IV., where the slothful are punished. Here Vergil explains the apparent paradox that love is the root of all evil as well as good. Love, he says, is the desire for something; desire for those things which harm others—i. e., love for evil, produces pride, envy, and wrath. These are punished in the first three terraces. Insufficient desire or love for that which is good—i. e., God—is punished in Terrace IV., that of the "slothful in well-doing"; excessive desire for merely earthly things, which are not evil in themselves, but only in their excess, produces avarice, gluttony, and licentiousness; these are punished in the last three terraces.

Ascending now to Terrace V., Dante sees the souls of Pope Adrian, and Hugh Capet, founder of the long dynasty of the kings of France, who gives a brief but admirable summary of the development of the monarchy in France. As they are walking along this terrace, suddenly a mighty earthquake shakes the whole mountain, and while Dante is still filled with amazement and dread at this strange phenomenon, they are overtaken by the spirit of Statius, who explains the cause of the earthquake, telling how, when a soul has been completely purged of its sins, and the time of its redemption has arrived, it rises spontaneously from its place, and joyfully makes its way toward the heavens above, while the whole mountain rejoices with him, and the souls along the slope above and below cry out: "Glory to God in the highest!"

Statius now accompanies Dante and Vergil and all three mount to Terrace VI., where the gluttons are punished, being worn to skin and bone by hunger and thirst, which are only increased by the sight of waterfalls and trees laden with fruit. The last terrace is swathed in flames of fire, within which move about the licentious. Here Dante sees many famous poets and greets with especial joy Guido Guinicelli of Bologna, who he says:

Through this wall of living flame, Dante, too, must pass before he can reach the summit of purgatory. His spirit, indeed, is willing, but his flesh is weak; he hesitates long before daring to enter the fiery furnace. Vergil urges him on in the tenderest manner:

Above this last terrace stretches out the lovely earthly paradise, but before the poets can reach it night comes on, and Dante sleeps on the steps, guarded by Vergil and Statius, as a flock is watched over by its shepherd. The passage which describes this scene, and Dante's vision, is a beautiful one:

Thus Dante, having been led by reason (represented by Vergil) to purge himself of sin and vice, is now to put himself under the guidance of heavenly wisdom (represented by Beatrice), by whom he is to visit the homes of the blessed. First, however, he lingers in the earthly paradise which forms the summit of purgatory, and sees strange sights before Beatrice reveals herself to him.

The descriptions of the landscape in the earthly paradise are of surpassing beauty and choice of quotation is exceedingly difficult. Only a few passages can be given here:

The poet now beholds a mystical procession of strange and wonderful beasts, venerable old men, beautiful maidens dressed in red, white, green, and purple, all accompanying a chariot drawn by a griffin and representing the Church of Christ. On the chariot itself stands Beatrice.

After Beatrice has rebuked Dante for his wayward conduct in life, and he repents in bitter tears, he is led by Matilda to the streams of Lethe and Eunoe, and bathing therein, is made "pure and apt for mounting to the stars."

As we have already seen, the paradise of Dante is composed of nine spheres enclosed by the Empyrean, which itself is boundless, and is the seat of the Godhead, surrounded by the celestial hierarchy of seraphim, cherubim, thrones, dominions, virtues, powers, principalities, archangels, and angels. The blessed are here arranged on seats in the form of a rose, surrounding a lake of liquid light, in which they, gazing, see all the fulness of the glory of God. These souls, however, by a mystical virtue of ubiquity, are likewise seen by Dante in the various heavens through which he, with Beatrice, passes, and manifest themselves to him in various forms of light, flames, flashes, sparkles, or shapes made of fiery particles. The souls of the blessed, which are thus distributed over the nine heavens, have varying degrees of felicity. Thus, in the first heaven—that of the moon—Piccarda, sister of Corso Donati, appears to Dante, faint and dim in that tenuous atmosphere, as a "pearl set on a white forehead," and tells him how, having been forced by her brother to break her vows as a nun, and not having shown tenacity of purpose in opposing his tyranny, she now occupies the lowest sphere of Paradise. Yet this she does with perfect content and happiness, since such is the will of God, for, she says, to quote that one incomparable line, as Matthew Arnold calls it:

Rising from heaven to heaven with Beatrice, Dante passes through Mercury and Venus, in the former of which are the souls of Christians who sought with over-much zeal for earthly glory, and in the latter those who were inclined too much to mere human love, and finally reaches the sun, where he sees the great doctors of theology. Here Saint Thomas Aquinas, a Dominican himself, tells in beautiful language the story of St. Francis of Assisi and the establishment of his order; while the Franciscan, St. Bonaventura, with the same exquisite courtesy, tells the story of St. Dominic.

In Mars, Dante sees the souls of Christian martyrs and warriors, many of whom form themselves before the eyes of the poet into a wonderful cross of roseate light, flashing in countless splendors. Here, as we have already seen, he meets and converses with his ancestor, Cacciaguida. In Saturn the poet beholds a wonderful ladder of light, with spirits mounting and descending upon it, a ladder such as

Here Peter Damian tells of the mystery of predestination, and St. Benedict describes the founding of his order at Montecassino.

In the heaven of the fixed stars Dante beholds the triumph of Christ:

After the passing away of this glorious vision Dante is examined as to his faith by St. Peter, his hope by St. James, and his love by St. John; then being found worthy of being admitted into the presence of God, he rises to the Empyrean, beholds the Blessed Rose, where are seated the saints of all ages, and finally catches an instantaneous glimpse of the glory and mystery of the Trinity. In this supreme vision his desires find full fruition, and his spirit, overcome by the overwhelming glory of the Godhead, fails him, and thus his vision comes to an end,

Such is the Divine Comedy of Dante, which has won the undying admiration of all great minds from the poet's own time down to the present. It would lead us too far to go into a detailed analysis of its greatness here, but with one consent men like Carlyle, Ruskin, Gladstone, Browning, and Tennyson in England; Tholuck, Witte, and Kraus, in Germany; Longfellow and Lowell in America, attribute the title of supreme genius to this poem.

The Divine Comedy is universal in its compass, containing the elements of dramatic, epic, and lyric poetry; full of sublime imaginations, touching and pathetic episodes, and not deficient even in humor, grotesque at times, but often of a strangely sweet and tender nature. The language is astonishingly simple and concise, and invariably represents the thought of the poet with absolute truth and fidelity. We find in this wonderfully condensed poem no mere epithets, no mere arabesques of style such as adorn the lesser thoughts of lesser men. Each word is in its right place. "It is amazing," says Ruskin, "how every word, almost every syllable, reveals new meanings the more we study them." The metaphors of Dante are especially famous, for the most part simple and drawn from everyday life, yet unexcelled in beauty and especially in their perfect and complete adaptation to the point they are meant to illustrate. Such are those of the old tailor threading his needle, the sheep leaving the fold in huddling groups, the fish disappearing from view in the depths of clear water, and the pearl faintly discernible on a white forehead.

Above all, the personality of the author lends a dramatic interest to the poem and exercises a fascination on the reader. As Lowell says, "The man behind the verse is far greater than the verse itself."[18] In the midst of the wonderful landscapes of his own creation, dark and terrible, soft and beautiful, he walks among the men and woman of all ages; he talks to them and hears their stories of half-forgotten crimes and tragedies; he brands them with infamy or sets upon their brows the wreath of praise. It is his love for Beatrice—now become the symbol of spiritual life—which leads him through the realms of sin over the steep rocks of Purgatory to the glory ineffable of God.

Completely a man of his age, Dante incorporates into the Divine Comedy all its science and learning, its theology, philosophy, astronomy, use of classical authors, way of looking at the insignificance of the present life in comparison with the life to come. All these things have still a distinct medieval stamp. Yet Dante is at the same time the most original of poets. It is his mighty individuality which, rising above the conventionality of his age and country, has made him a world-poet, as true to-day as ever in his depiction of the human heart in all its sin and sorrow, virtue, and vice, in its love and hate and its inextinguishable aspiration toward a better and happier existence in the world beyond the grave.

SUMMARY AND QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(See Chapter II.)

CHAPTER IV

It is hard for people to-day to realize the enormous difference between the medieval and modern world. The former was full of superstition and naïve belief; authority reigned supreme; in religion no one dreamed of questioning the decrees of church and pope; in philosophy a question was settled by a quotation from Aristotle or his scholastic representative, St. Thomas Aquinas. This same blind following of authority was exemplified in art—painters imitated slavishly their predecessors, and up to the appearance of Cimabue and Giotto no one dreamed of improving on the stiff conventionalities of the Byzantine artists. In scholarship, criticism—i. e., individual judgment—was unknown; in science, all such old-world fables as the mandragora, dragons, phenix, and unicorn were devoutly received as true zoölogy, while the Ptolemaic system of astronomy was unquestioned. The idea of progress was utterly unknown; the world had been created exactly as it was, and would remain so till the coming of Christ, when a new heaven and a new earth would be formed. So, in the political and social world, the thought that the existing state of things could change would have seemed absurd. It needs no words of mine to demonstrate the vast difference between these conceptions and the present world, with its idea of illimitable progress, its criticism of all things high and low, its denial that authority in church and state is just, simply because it is old; its eager acceptation of all innovations; its cultivation of the individual in all departments of life; to say nothing of the vast field opened up by the discoveries of positive science.

Dante stands at the end of the old order of things, rising like a mighty mountain peak over the dead plain of medieval mediocrity.

Yet he is not an innovator; he does not inaugurate a new period of civilization. When he died he left no school of followers to carry on his work; he closed an epoch rather than opened one. It is true that for a hundred years or more men did imitate his Divine Comedy, but only in the outward form thereof, neglecting the poetical and æsthetical side, for which indeed Dante's contemporaries had little or no appreciation. It is only in the nineteenth century that Dante has become a power in Italy as voicing the universal desire for a united fatherland.

The man who begins the mighty movement of the Renaissance, from which modern civilization takes its rise, is Francesco Petrarch. It is strange to think that he, so utterly different in mental attitude from Dante, was seventeen years old when the latter died. Yet the change which he represents was being slowly prepared by his predecessors. As we have seen, the study of the Latin language and authors had never fully died out in the Middle Ages; especially in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the classic writers—Vergil, Ovid, Statius, Livy—were read more and more, not, however, as examples of literary excellence, or as revealing the culture of antiquity, but as mines of practical wisdom, or as supplying quotations and examples for philosophical and theological discussions. The classic writers were made to fit in with medieval ways of thinking, and thus subordinated to the then existing state of civilization. With Petrarch, however, comes a complete change in all these respects. For him the classic writers were the ne plus ultra of elegant form; he strove to penetrate into their spirit, to appreciate fully the peculiar excellence of each one; and above all to clear antiquity from its barnacle-like covering of medieval traditions and superstitions and to present Roman civilization, its learning, science, and art, as it was. To him the Middle Ages were a period of degradation, which had long hidden from view the past glories of Rome; and he now, for the first time in history, broke away from the present and immediate past, and turned his eyes back to ancient times. In so doing he founded the Renaissance in Italy, and laid down the lines along which all subsequent students of classical antiquity were to follow. In all these respects Petrarch is justly considered, not only the founder of modern classical scholarship, but the founder of modern civilization as well. He has been referred to by more than one historian as the Columbus of a new intellectual world.

The life of Petrarch is intensely interesting, and, contrary to the case of Dante, the difficulty in giving an outline of it consists not in the absence of well-ascertained facts, but in an embarrassment of riches. For we know more of the details of Petrarch's life than we do of any other ancient writer.

Francesco Petrarch was born in 1304 at Arezzo, whither his father, a prominent lawyer of Florence, had gone on being exiled in 1302, at the same time as Dante. After moving about some time in Italy, the family finally settled at Avignon, in southern France, then famous as the seat of the Roman papacy during the so-called Babylonian captivity. From 1315 to 1319 Francesco was sent to school at the neighboring town of Charpentras; in 1319 he went to the University of Montpellier to study law, and in 1323 went to the University of Bologna. At the university, however, he neglected law for the classic writers, and he tells us how one day his father appeared and burnt all his Latin books, with the exception of Vergil and Cicero's Rhetoric, which by means of tears and entreaties he succeeded in saving from the flames.

After the death of his parents, in 1326, Petrarch settled down in Avignon and devoted himself to his favorite studies. As he was without means he entered the clergy and henceforth was relieved of all anxiety in regard to money. From this time on his life was spent in study, in the collection of a library, in writing books, in travel, and visits to his friends. Petrarch was very fond of traveling and his letters abound with interesting descriptions of the places he had seen. Yet, in spite of this passion for travel, he loved also the quiet and tranquil existence of country life. Here he could indulge to his heart's content his love for nature, the beauty of which he was practically the first to describe in sympathetic language. It was to satisfy this love for nature and the "quiet life," that Petrarch bought a small property in Vaucluse, near Avignon, and here he never failed to return from time to time during all his later life, when tired of travel, weighed down by care, or depressed by the loss of friends and the "creeping steps of age."

Petrarch seemed to have had a peculiar faculty for making friends; he was loved and admired by high and low. Among these countless friends are worthy of especial mention the powerful Colonna family, father and two sons, who played so important a part in the history of Italy; King Robert of Naples; the Emperor Charles IV., who wished to have Petrarch accompany him to Germany; King John of France, who wished to retain him in Paris; Pope Urban IV., who offered him the position of papal secretary. There were scores of others of humbler rank, among them Boccaccio, his faithful admirer and lifelong friend. Not only kings and princes lavished honors on Petrarch, but cities as well: Florence offered to restore his father's property and make him professor at the university if he would live there; Venice gave him a palace in return for his library; and in 1340 the cities of Paris and Rome, at the same time, invited him to receive the laurel crown of poet.

After due deliberation Petrarch accepted the invitation of Rome, and on Easter Sunday, 1340, in the presence of an immense company of people, he was crowned at the capitol, amid the blare of trumpets and the acclamations of the assembled multitudes. This scene may be considered as the climax of Petrarch's victorious career.

No man outwardly ever had a happier life than he. He was well-to-do; was handsome and amiable; surrounded by friends; admired and flattered by all Europe; looked on as a great poet and a prodigy of learning. Surely, if any man could be content, Petrarch was that man. And yet he was not happy—owing to his peculiar character, his sensitiveness, his streak of melancholy, his immense vanity which could never be fully satisfied, and especially owing to the constant struggle that went on in his soul between the medieval ascetic view of life (which he could never wholly shake off) and the more worldly modern view, which he himself inaugurated. Owing to all these things, I say, there is a tinge of sadness in all his writings. Perhaps no man ever lived who illustrated so well the beautiful words of the old Latin poet: