Paradiso: Canto IV

Longfellow, 1867 · <a href="https://archive.org/details/divinecomedydante03dantrich">source</a>

1. Stanza 1, line 1 The Heaven of the Moon continued.
2. Stanza 1, line 2 Montaigne says: " If any one should place us between the bottle and the bacon (entre la bouteille et le jambori], with an equal appetite for food and drink, there would doubtless be no remedy but to die of thirst and hunger."
3. Stanza 2, line 6 Ovid, Met., V., Maynwaring's Tr.: —
   
   " As when a hungry tiger near him hears Two lowing herds, awhile he both forbears; Nor can his hopes of this or that renounce, So strong he lusts to prey on both at once."
4. Stanza 3, line 9 " A similitude," says Venturi, " of great poetic beauty, but of little philosophic soundness."
5. Stanza 5, line 13 When he recalled and interpreted the forgotten dream of Nebuchad nezzar. Daniel, ii. 10: "The Chal deans answered before the king, and said, There is not a man upon the earth that can show the king's matter; therefore there is no king, lord, nor ruler, that asked such things at any magician, or astrologer, or Chaldean. And it is a rare thing that the king requireth: and there is none other that can show it before the king except the gods, whose dwelling is not with flesh."
6. Stanza 8, line 24 Plato, Timteusy Davis's Tr., says: " And after having thus framed the universe, he allotted to it scygfcs equal in number to the stars, inserting
   
   each in each And he declared also,
   
   that after living well for the time ap
   
   pointed to him, each one should once more return to the habitation of his associate star, and spend a blessed and suitable existence."
7. Stanza 9, line 26 The word " thrust," pontano, is here used in its architectural sense, as in Inf. XXXII. 3. There it is literal, here figurative.
8. Stanza 10, line 28 Che piu s India, that most in- God's himself. As in Canto IX. 81, 6" io m intuassi come tu? immii" if I could in-thee myself as thou dost in-me thyself"; and other expressions of a similar kind.
9. Stanza 14, line 42 The dogma of the Peripatetics, that -nothing is in Intellect which was not first in Sense.
10. Stanza 16, line 48 Raphael, " the affable archangel," of whom Milton says, Par. Lost, V. 220: —
    
    " Raphael, the sociable spirit, that deigned To travel with Tobias, and secured His marriage with the seven-times-wedded maid."
    
    See Tobit xii. 14: " And now God hath sent me to heal thee and Sara thy daughter-in-law. I am Raphael, one of the seven holy angels which present the prayers of the saints, and which go in and out before the glory of the Holy One."
    
    It must be remarked, however, that it was Tobit, and not Tobias, who was cured of his blindness.
11. Stanza 17, line 49 Plato's Dialogue, entitled 77- m<zus, the name of the philosopher of Locri.
12. Stanza 17, line 51 Plato means it literally, and the Scriptures figuratively.
13. Stanza 18, line 54 When it was infused into the body, or the body became informed with it.
    
    Thomas Aquinas, Sum. TheoL, I., Quasst. LXXVI. I, says: " Form is that by which a thing is This principle therefore, by which we first think,- whether it be called intellect, or intellectual soul, is the form of the body."
    
    And Spenser, Hymne in Honour of Beautie, says: — " For of the soule the bodie forme doth take,
    
    For soule is forme and doth the bodie make."
14. Stanza 21, line 63 Joachim di Flora, Dante's " Calabrian Abbot Joachim," the mystic of the twelfth century, says in his Exposition of the Apocalypse: " The deceived Gentiles believed that the planets to which they gave the names of Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, Mercury, Mars, the Moon, and the Sun, were gods."
15. Stanza 22, line 64 Stated in line 20: —
    
    " The violence of others, for what reason Doth it decrease the measure of my merit? "
16. Stanza 28, line 83 St. Lawrence. In Mrs. Jame son's Sacred and Legendary Art, II. 156, his martyrdom is thus described: —
    
    " The satellites of the tyrant, hearing that the treasures of the church had been confided to Lawrence, carried him before the tribunal, and he was questioned, but replied not one word; therefore he was put into a dungeon, under the charge of a man named Hippolytus, whom with his whole family he converted to the faith of Christ, and baptized; and when he was called again before the Prefect, and required
    
    to say where the treasures were concealed, he answered that in three days he would show them. The third day being come, St. Lawrence gathered together the sick and the poor, to whom he had dispensed alms, and, placing them before the Prefect, said, « Behold, here are the treasures of Christ's Church.' Upon this the Prefect, thinking he was mocked, fell into a great rage, and ordered St. Lawrence to be tortured till he had made known where the treasures were concealed; but no suffering could subdue the patience and constancy of the holy martyr. Then the Prefect commanded that he should be carried by night to the baths of Olympias, near the villa of Sallust the historian, and that a new kind of torture should be prepared for him, more strange and cruel than had ever entered into the heart of a tyrant to conceive; for he ordered him to be stretched ona sort of bed, formed of iron bars in the manner of a gridiron, and a fire tobe lighted beneath, which should gradually consume his body to ashes: and the executioners did as they were commanded, kindling the fire and adding coals from time to time, so that the victim was in a manner roasted alive; and those who were present looked on with horror, and wondered at the cruelty of the Prefect, who could condemn to such torments a youth of such fair person and courteous and gentle bearing, and all for the lust of gold."
17. Stanza 28, line 84 Plutarch thus relates the story of Mutius Scaevola, Dryden's Tr.: —
    
    " The story of Mutius is variously
    
    Paradiso iv.
    
    given; we, like others, must follow the commonly received statement. He was a man endowed with every virtue, but most eminent in war; and resolving to kill Porsenna, attired himself in the Tuscan habit, and using the Tuscan language, came to the camp, and approaching the seat where the king sat amongst his nobles, but not certainly knowing the king, and fearful to inquire, drew out his sword, and stabbed one who he thought had most the appearance of king. Mutius was taken in the act, and whilst he was under examination, a pan of fire was brought to the king, who intended to sacrifice; Mutius thrust his right hand into the flame, and whilst it burnt stood looking at Porsenna with a steadfast and undaunted countenance; Porsenna at last in admiration dismissed him, and returned his sword, reaching it from his seat; Mutius received it in his left hand, which occasioned the name of Scasvola, left-handed, and said, 'I have overcome the terrors of Porsenna, yet am vanquished by his generosity, and gratitude obliges me to disclose what no punishment could extort '; and assured him then, that three hundred Romans, all of the same resolution, lurked about his camp only waiting for an opportunity; he, by lot appointed to the enterprise, was not sorry that he had mis carried in it, because so brave and good a man deserved rather to be a friend to the Romans than an enemy."
18. Stanza 35, line 103 Alcmaeon, who slew his mother Eriphyle to avenge his father Amphiaraiis the soothsayer. See Purg. XII. Note 50.
    
    Ovid, Met., IX.: —
    
    " The son shall bathe his hands in parent's
    
    blood And in one act be both unjust and good."
    
    1 1 8. Beatrice, beloved of God; " that blessed Beatrice, who lives inheaven with the angels and on earth with my soul."
19. Stanza 44, line 131 Lessing, Tbeol. Scbrift., I. 108: "If God held all Truth shut up in his right hand, and in his left only the ever restless instinct for Truth,... and said to me, Choose! I should humbly fall down at his left, and say, Father, give! Pure Truth is for Thee alone! "
20. Stanza 47, line 139 It must not be forgotten, that Beatrice is the symbol of Divine Wisdom. Dante says, Convito, III. 15: " In her countenance appear things which display some of the pleasures of Paradise"; and notes particularly " the eyes and smile." He then adds: "And here it should be known that the eyes of Wisdom are its demonstrations, by which the truth is most clearly seen; and its smile the persuasions, in which is displayed the interior light of Wisdom under a veil; and in these two things is felt the exceeding pleasure of beatitude, which is the chief good in Paradise. This pleasure cannot exist in anything here below, except in beholding these eyes and this smile."