[123] Albert in Conv. III. v. 113-115, vii. 26-28; IV. xxiii. 125-6; Aquinas in Conv. II. xv. 125-6; IV. viii. 3-6, xv. 125-130, xxx. 26-30; De Mon. II. iv. 5-8; and see Purg. xx. 69.

[124] V. E., I. xiii. 1-11.

[125] Inf., xxxii. 81, and x. 85, 86.

[126] Purg., iii. 112-129.

[127] “Replied after this fashion.”

[128] Li Louvres dou Trésor, Chabaille, Paris 1863.

[129] Ibid.

[130] “Here beginneth the book of the Composition of the World together with its Causes: written by Ristoro of Arezzo in that most noble city.”

[131] “Here endeth this book, in the year of our Lord one thousand two hundred and eighty-two. Rudolph Emperor at this date. Martin IV. resident Pope.” Amen.

[132] “Alfraganus said in the 8th chapter”; “Alfraganus bears witness in the 22nd chapter of his book.”

[133] “The famous Ptolemy.”

[134] “Who was a very great teacher of astrology.”

[135] “An Arabian philosopher of Baghdad, 1058-1111.”

[136] “The uncovered earth,” i.e. not hidden under the ocean.

[137] Bk. VI. cap. xi.

[138] Conv. I. i. 125, 126. Compare Conv. IV. xxiv. 1-13.

[139] V. N. ii. 9-12, xxx. 13-24.

[140] V. N. ii. 1-12.

[141] V. N. xlii. 47.

[142] V. N. xxx. 1-6.

[143] V. N. xlii. 30.

[144] Conv. II. xiii. 22-26.

[145] Son. xxxvi. 2; Canz. xx. 89.

[146] Canz. xix. 117; Canz. ix. 16, 17.

[147] Canz. xx. 89; Son. xxviii. 11.

[148] Son. xxviii.; Canz. xv. 4, 7.

[149] Canz. xv. 3, 29, 41.

[150] Son. xxviii. 2.

[151] Son. xxviii. Canz. xix. 77, Ball. vi. 11, 12, Canz. xv. 41., Son. xxvi. 14.

[152] Conv. I. i. 111-113 and 125-127.

[153] Conv. I. i. 67-86.

[154] “As the Philosopher says at the beginning of the First Philosophy, ‘All men naturally desire to have knowledge.’ The reason of this may be that everything, being impelled by foresight belonging to its own nature, tends to seek its own perfection. Wherefore inasmuch as knowledge is the final perfection of our soul in which our final happiness consists, all men are naturally subject to the desire for it.” Conv. I. i. 1-11.

[155]
“Oh ye whose intellectual ministry Moves the third heaven.”—Carey.

[156] “The sun sees not, though circling all the world.”

[157] The spherical form of Earth, and the action of gravity at the earth’s surface, were commonplaces with the Greeks, as we have seen in Part I. of this book. Posidonius, Strabo, and other classical writers speak of the tides as following the revolution of the heavens, and having periods similar to those of the moon; Albertus Magnus and Aquinas ascribe them to the influence of the moon, and so does Dante himself in Par. xvi. 83.

[158] See Moore, Studies in Dante, II. “The Genuineness of the Quæstio de Aqua et Terra,” for a complete discussion of the question.

[159] V. N. xliii. 3-7.

[160] Conv. II. xiv. 244-217. “It is noble and lofty because of its noble and lofty subject, which is the movement of the heavens; it is lofty and noble because of its certainty, which is without flaw.”

[161] See p. 156.

[162] “The great wheels,” “eternal wheels,” “starry wheels.”

[163] “Swift, almost as the heaven ye behold.” Par. ii. 21.

[164] “Against the course of the sky.” Par. vi. 2.

[165]
... “That sphere, Which aye in fashion of a child is playing.” Purg. xv. 2, 3. (Longfellow).

[166] “Under a poor sky.” Purg. xvi. 2.

[167]
“And as advances, bright exceedingly, The handmaid of the sun, the heaven is closed, Light after light, to the most beautiful.” Par. xxx. 7-9. (Longfellow).
[168]
“As at evening hour Of twilight, new appearances through heaven Peer with faint glimmer, doubtfully descried.” Par. xiv. 70-72. (Carey).

[169] In Kenneth Grahame’s delightful book, full of sympathy with Nature, The Wind in the Willows. The moon rose when it was “past ten o’clock,” and “sank earthwards reluctantly and left them” before dawn.

[170] H. G. Wells, The Time Machine.

[171] Inf. xv. 18, 19; Purg. xviii. 76-81; Purg. x. 14, 15, Cf. ix. 44.

[172] Purg. xxix. 53, 54.

[173] Qu. xx. 61-63.

[174] “Now she shines on one side, and now on the other, according to the way the sun looks upon her.” Conv. II. xiv. 77-79.

[175]
“At what times both the children of Latona, Surmounted by the Ram and by the Scales, Together make a zone of the horizon, As long as from the time the zenith holds them In equipoise, till from that girdle both Changing their hemisphere disturb the balance, So long, her face depicted with a smile, Did Beatrice keep silence.” Par. xxix. 1-8.

[176] “Many moons.” Canz. xx. 89.

[177] “And the first heaven is not grudging to her.”—Sonetto xxviii.

[178] Purg. xix. 1, 2.

[179] Inf. xx. 127-129.

[180] Purg. ix. 1-9.

[181] Conv. IV. xvi. 89-93.

[182] Inf. x. 80.

[183] Inf. xx. 126.

[184] Purg. xxix. 78; Ep. vi. 54.

[185] Par. xxiii. 26.

[186] Par. x. 67; xxii. 139; xxix. 1.

[187] Purg. xxiii. 120.

[188] Purg. xx. 132.

[189] Par. ii. 25-36.

[190] De Mon. I. xi. 35-37.

[191] Par. x. 67-69; and Purg. xxix. 78.

[192] Purg. xxix. 53, 54; and Par. xxiii. 26.

[193] “And this moon, because of her inferiority, is rightly called feminine.”

[194] Ecl. ii. 1-4.

[195] Purg. iv. 62, 63; Purg. iv. 59; and xxix. 117, 118; Par. i. 38; Canz. xix. 114; Par. xxii. 116.

[196] “The perfection and beauty of his shape.” Canz. xix. 76.

[197] V. N. xlii. 29; Canz. ix. 2; Conv. II. xiv. 126, 127; Purg. xvii. 52, 53; Par. i. 54; and x. 48, etc.

[198] Inf. i. 17, 18.

[199]
“O pleasant light, my confidence and hope! Conduct us thou,” he cried, “on this new way.” Purg. xiii. 16, 17. (Carey).

[200] Par. xxii. 55, 56; Inf. vii. 122; De Mon. II. i. 37-39; and Par. ii. 106-108; Canz. xi. 37; Conv. III. xii. 59, 60, etc. etc.

[201] Canz. ix. 5.

[202] Inf. i. 41-43.

[203] Purg. xix. 10, 11.

[204] Par. xxiii. 1-9.

[205] Inf. ii. 127-129.

[206] De Mon. II. i. 36-41.; Canz. ix.

[207] Canz. xix. 96-114.

[208] Ep. v. 10; and vii. 19, 20, 25.

[209] “A sun rose upon the world.” Par. xi. 50.

[210] Par. xi. 52-54.

[211] “O sun that healest all imperfect vision,” Inf. xi. 91.

[212] “The sun of my eyes.” Par. xxx. 75 (See also Par. iii. 1-3).

[213] Conv. III. xii. 52-63.

[214] “The Sun of the angels.” Par. x. 53.

[215] “That Sun which enlightens all our company.” Par. xxv. 54.

[216] “The Sun which satisfies it.” Par. ix. 8.

[217] “I have lost the sight of that high Sun whom thou desirest.” Purg. vii. 25, 26. Compare Par. xxx. 126; xv. 76; xviii. 105.

[218] “The path of the sun.” Purg. xii. 74.

[219] “Shining more brightly and with slower steps, the sun had gained the circle of midday.” Purg. xxxiii. 103, 104.

[220] “Nine times already since my birth had the heaven of light returned to the selfsame point almost, as concerns its own revolution.”
V. N. ii. 1-4. (Rossetti).

[221] “I have dwelt with Love since my ninth revolution of the sun.” Son. xxxvi. 1, 2.

[222] See diagram on p. 276.

[223]
“O glorious stars ... With you was born, and hid himself with you, He who is father of all mortal life, When first I tasted of the Tuscan air.” Par. xxii. 112-117. (Longfellow).

At this date the sun entered the constellation of Gemini on June 1 (Old Style), but was in the sign from May 11 to June 11, and it is always to the signs that Dante refers in the Divine Comedy. The anonymous fourteenth century commentator known as “l’Ottimo” interprets this passage as indicating the time “between the middle of May and the middle of June.”

[224]
“Ere January be unwintered wholly By the centesimal on Earth neglected.” Par. xxvii. 142-143. (Longfellow).
[225]
“In that part of the youthful year wherein The sun his locks beneath Aquarius tempers, And now the nights draw near to half the day.” Inf. xxiv. 1-3. (Longfellow).

[226] “Night that opposite to him revolves.” (Longfellow).

[227]
“The Scales, that from her hands are dropped When she reigns highest.” Purg. ii. 5, 6. (Carey).
[228]
“And he: Now go, for the sun shall not lie Seven times upon the pillow which the Ram With all his four feet covers and bestrides. Before that such a courteous opinion ...” Purg. viii. 133-136. (Longfellow).

[229] “I have come to that part of the wheel.” Canz. xv.

[230] Like all mediæval writers, Dante includes the sun and moon among the seven planets. The others do not cast perceptible shadows, except Venus and Jupiter at their brightest.

[231]
“I to that point in the great wheel have come, Wherein the horizon, when the sun doth set, Brings forth the twin-starred heaven to our sight; And Love’s fair star away from us doth roam, Through the bright rays obliquely on it met In such wise that they veil its tender light; That planet which makes keen the cold of night Shows himself to us in the circle great, Where each star of the seven casts little shade.” (Plumptre).

[232] “The Wheel which, when the sun sets, brings forth for us on the horizon the jewelled sky.”

[233] Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco p. 90, note.

[234] Comparing Conv. II. ii. 12, xiii. 49-52, and IV. i. 60-62, we learn that in August 1293 (vide infra, p. 314), Dante first became acquainted with the Lady Philosophy; that in the early part of 1296 he was completely under her spell; and that some time afterwards she for a while estranged herself from him.

[235]
“Scattered and faded now is all the foliage Which had burst forth, beneath the power of Aries, To beautify the world, the grass is withered.” Canz. xv. 40-42.
[236]
“This everlasting spring Nocturnal Aries never can despoil.” Par. xxviii. 116-117.
[237]
“Thereafterward a light among them brightened So, that if Cancer one such crystal had Winter would have a month of one sole day.” Par. xxv. 100-102. (Longfellow).

[238] Ep. ix. 46-49.

[239] Inf. iii. 23.

[240] Inf. xvi. 82, 83.

[241] “Resounded through the air without a star.” Inf. iii. 23.

[242] “The fair things that heaven holds.” Inf. xxxiv. 137, 138.

[243] Purg. viii. 85.

[244] Purg. xxvii. 89, 90.

[245] “Beautiful stars,” Inf. xvi. 83.

[246] “Thence issuing we beheld again the stars.”

[247] “Pure and disposed to mount unto the stars.”

[248] “The Love that moves the sun and the other stars.”

[249] Purg. ix. 4; Purg. viii. 89; Purg. i. 25; Par. xxiii. 26.

[250] Par. ii. 130, 142-144.

[251] Par. x. 76.

[252] Par. xxi. 28-33.

[253] Inf. ii. 55.

[254] Par. xxv. 70. See also Conv. II. xvi. 4-12, where the writings of Boëthius and Cicero, and all instructive books, are called stars full of light.

[255] Par. xxiv. 147.

[256]
“Even as remaineth splendid and serene The hemisphere of air, when Boreas Is blowing from that cheek where he is mildest, Because is purified and resolved the wrack That erst disturbed it, till the welkin laughs With all the beauties of its pageantry: Thus did I likewise, after that my Lady Had me provided with her clear response, And like a star in heaven the truth was seen.” Par. xxviii. 79-87. (Longfellow).

[257] “The shining star.” Par. xxiii. 92.

[258]
“O Trinal Light, that in a single star Sparkling upon their sight so satisfies them, Look down upon our tempest here below!” Par. xxxi. 28-30. (Longfellow).