Paradiso: Canto VIII

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

1. Stanza 1, line 2 In the days of " the false and lying gods," when the world was in peril of damnation for misbelief. Cypria, or Cyprigna, was a title of Venus, from the place of her birth, Cyprus.
2. Stanza 1, line 3 The third Epicycle, or that of Venus, the third planet, was its supposed motion from west to east, while the whole heavens were swept onward from east to west by the motion of the Primum Mobile.
   
   In the Convito, II. 4, Dante says: " Upon the back of this circle (the Equatorial) in the Heaven of Venus, of which we are now treating, is a little sphere, which revolves of itself in this heaven, and whose orbit the astrologers call Epicycle." And again, II. 7: " All this heaven moves and revolves with its Epicycle from east to west, once every natural day; but whether this movement be by any Intelligence, or by the sweep of the Pri mum Mobile, God knoweth; in me it would be presumptuous to judge."
   
   Milton, Par. Lost, VIII. 72: —
   
   " From man or angel the great Architect Did wisely to conceal, and not divulge His secrets to be scanned by them who ought Rather admire; or, if they list to try Conjecture, he his fabric of the heavens
   
   Hath left to their disputes; perhaps to move His laughter at their quaint opinions wide Hereafter, when they come to model heaven And calculate the stars; how they will wield The mighty frame; how build, unbuild, contrive,
   
   To save appearances; how gird the sphere With centric and eccentric scribbled o'er, Cycle and epicycle, orb in orb."
   
   See also Nichol, Solar System, p. 7: " Nothing in later times ought to obscure the glory of Hipparchus, and, as some think, the still greater Ptolemy. Amid the bewilderment of these planetary motions, what could they say, except that the ' gods never act without design'; and thereon resolve to discern it? The motion of the Earth was concealed from them: nor was aught intelligible or explicable concerning the wanderings of the planets, except the grand revolution of the sky around the Earth. That Earth, small to us, they therefore, on the ground of phenomena, considered the centre of the Universe, — thinking, perhaps, not more confinedly than persons in repute in modern days. Around that centre all motion seemed to pass in order the most regular; and if a few bodies appeared to interrupt the regularity of that order, why not conceive the existence of some arrangement by which they might be reconciled with it? It was a strange, but most ingenious idea. They could not tell how, by any simple system of circular and uniform motion, the ascer tained courses of the planets, as directly observed, were to be accounted for; but they made a most artificial scheme, that still saved the immobility of the
   
   Earth. Suppose a person passing around a room holding a lamp, and all the while turning on his heel. If he turned round uniformly, there would be no actual interruption of the uniform circular motion both of the carrier and the carried; but the light, as seen by an observer in the interior, would make strange gyrations. Unable to account otherwise for the irregularities of the planets, they mounted them in this manner, on small circles, whose centres only revolved regularly around the Earth, but which, during their revolutionary motion, also revolved around their own centres. Styling these cycles and epicycles, the ancient learned men framed that grand system of the Heavens concerning which Ptolemy composed his « Syntax.' "
3. Stanza 3, line 7 Shakespeare, Love's Labor Lost, III. I: - " This wimpled, whining, purblind, wayward
   
   boyj
   
   This senior-junior, giant-dwarf, Dan Cupid; Regent of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms, The anointed sovereign of sighs and groans, Liege of all loiterers and malcontents."
4. Stanza 3, line 9 Cupid in the semblance of Ascanius. Æneid, I. 718, Davidson's Tr,: " She clings to him with her eyes, her whole soul, and sometimes fondles him in her lap, Dido not thinking what a powerful god is settling on her, hapless one. Meanwhile he, mindful of his Acidalian mother, begins insensibly to efface the memory of Sichasus, and with a living flame tries to prepossess her languid affections, and her heart, chilled by long disuse."
   
   Paradiso via.
5. Stanza 4, line 10 Venus, with whose name this canto begins.
6. Stanza 4, line 12 Brunetto Latini, Tresor, I. Ch. 3, says that Venus "always follows the sun, and is beautiful and gentle, and is called the Goddess of Love."
   
   Dante says, it plays with or caresses the sun, " now behind, and now in front." When it follows, it is Hesperus, the Evening Star; when it precedes, it is Phosphor, the Morning Star.
7. Stanza 7, line 21 The rapidity of the motion of the spirits, as well as their brightness, is in proportion to their vision of God. Compare Canto XIV. 40: —
   
   " Its brightness is proportioned to the ardor, The ardor to the vision j and the vision Equals what grace it has above its worth."
8. Stanza 8, line 23 Made visible by mist and cloud-rack.
9. Stanza 9, line 27 Their motion originates in the Prlmum Mobile, whose Regents, or Intelligences, are the Seraphim.
10. Stanza 12, line 34 The Regents, or Intelligences, of Venus are the Principalities.
11. Stanza 13, line 37 This is the first line of the first canzone in the Convito, and in his commentary upon it, H. 5, Dante says: " In the first place, then, be it known, that the movers of this heaven are substances separate from matter, that is, Intelligences, which the common people call Angels." And farther on, II. 6: "It is reasonable to believe that the motors of the Heaven of the Moon are of the order of the Angels; and those of Mercury are the Archangels; and those of Venus are the Thrones." It will be observed, however, that in
    
    line 34 he alludes to the Principalities as the Regents of Venus; and in Canto IX. 6 1, speaks of the Thrones as reflecting the justice of God: —
    
    " Above us there are mirrors, Thrones you call
    
    them, From which shines out on us God Judicant ";
    
    thus referring the Thrones to a higher heaven than that of Venus.
12. Stanza 14, line 40 After he had by looks asked and gained assent from Beatrice.
13. Stanza 16, line 46 The spirit shows its increase of joy by increase of brightness. As Picarda in Canto III. 67: —
    
    " First with those other shades she smiled a
    
    little;
    
    Thereafter answered me so joyously, She seemed to burn in the first fire of love."
    
    And Justinian, in Canto V. 133:
    
    " Even as the sun, that doth conceal himself By too much light, when heat has worn
    
    away
    
    The tempering influence of the vapors dense, By greater rapture thus concealed itself In its own radiance the figure saintly."
14. Stanza 17, line 49 The spirit who speaks is Charles Martel of Hungary, the friend and benefactor of Dante. He was the eldest son of Charles the Lame (Charles II. of Naples) and of Mary of Hungary. He was born in 1272, and in 1291 married the "beautiful Clemence," daughter of Rudolph of Hapsburg, Emperor of Germany. He died in 1295, at the age of twenty-three, to which he al ludes in the words,
    
    " The world possessed me Short time below."
15. Stanza 20, line 58 That part of Provence, embracing Avignon, Aix, Aries, and Mar-
    
    settles, of which his father was lord, and which he would have inherited had he lived. This is " the great dowry of Provence," which the daughter of Raymond Berenger brought to Charles of Anjou in marriage, and which is mentioned in Purg. XX. 61, as taking the sense of shame out of the blood of the Capets.
16. Stanza 21, line 61 The kingdom of Apulia in Ausonia, or Lower Italy, embracing Bari on the Adriatic, Gaeta in the Terra di Lavoro on the Mediterranean, and Crotona in Calabria; a region bounded on the north by the Tronto emptying into the Adriatic, and the Verde (or Garigliano) emptying into the Mediterranean.
17. Stanza 22, line 65 The kingdom of Hungary.
18. Stanza 23, line 67 Sicily, called of old Trinacria, from its three promontories Peloro, Pachino, and Lilibeo.
19. Stanza 23, line 68 Pachino is the southeastern promontory of Sicily, and Peloro the north eastern. Between them lies the Gulf of Catania, receiving with open arms the east wind. Horace speaks of Eurus as "riding the Sicilian seas."
20. Stanza 24, line 70 Both Pindar and Ovid speak of the giant Typhceus, as struck by Jove's thunderbolt, and lying buried under ^Etna. Virgil says it is Enceladus, a brother of Typhceus. Charles Martel here gives the philosophical, not the poetical, cause of the murky atmosphere of the bay.
21. Stanza 24, line 72 Through him from his grandfather Charles of Anjou, and his father-in-law the Emperor Rudolph.
22. Stanza 25, line 75 The Sicilian Vespers and revolt
    
    of Palermo, in 1282. ' Milman, Hist. Latin Christ., VI. 155: "It was at a festival on Easter Tuesday that a multitude of the inhabitants of Palermo and the neighborhood had thronged to a church, about half a mile out of the town, dedicated to the Holy Ghost. The religious service was over, the merriment begun; tables were spread, the amusements of all sorts, games, dances under the trees, were going gayly on; when the harmony was suddenly interrupted and the joyousness chilled by the appearance of a body of French soldiery, under the pretext of keeping the peace. The French mingled familiarly with the people, paid court, not in the most respectful manner, to the women; the young men made sullen remonstrances, and told them to go their way. The Frenchmen began to draw together. ' These rebellious Paterins must have arms, or they would not venture on such insolence.' They began to search some of them for arms. The two parties were already glaring at each other in angry hostility. At that moment the beautiful daughter of Roger Mastrangelo, a maiden of exquisite loveliness and modesty, with her bridegroom, approached the church. A Frenchman, named Drouet, either in wantonness or insult, came up to her, and, under the pretence of searching for arms, thrust his hand into her bosom. The girl fainted in her bridegroom's arms. He uttered in his agony the fatal cry, ' Death to the French! ' A youth rushed forward, stabbed Drouet to the
    
    Paradiso vm.
    
    heart with his own sword, was himself struck down. The cry, the shriek, ran through the crowd, ' Death to the French! ' Many Sicilians fell, but, of two hundred on the spot, not one Frenchman escaped. The cry spread to the city: Mastrangelo took the lead; every house was stormed, every hole and corner searched; their dress, their speech, their persons, their manners, denounced the French. The palace was forced; the Justiciary, being luckily wounded in the face, and rolled in the dust, and so undetected, mounted a horse, and fled with two followers. Two thousand French were slain. They denied them decent burial, heaped them together in a great pit. The horrors of the scene were indescribable; the insurgents broke into the convents, the churches. The friars, especial objects of hatred, were mas sacred; they slew the French monks, the French priests. Neither old age, nor sex, nor infancy was spared."
23. Stanza 26, line 76 Robert, Duke of Calabria, third son of Charles II. and younger brother of Charles Martel. He was King of Sicily from 1309 to 1343. He brought with him from Catalonia a band of needy adventurers, whom he put into high offices of state, "and like so many leeches," says Biagioli, " they rilled themselves with the blood of that poor people, not dropping off so long as there remained a drop to suck."
24. Stanza 27, line 80 Sicily already heavily laden with taxes of all kinds.
25. Stanza 28, line 82 Born of generous ancestors, he was himself avaricious.
26. Stanza 28, line 84 Namely, ministers and officials who were not greedy of gain.
27. Stanza 29, line 87 In God, where all things are reflected as in a mirror. Rev. xxi. 6: " I am Alpha and Omega; the beginning and the end." Buti interprets thus: " Because I believe that thou seest my joy in God, even as I see it, I am pleased; and this also is dear tome, that tJiQU seest in God, that I believe \tff^
    
    97/ Convito, III. 14: "The first agenjt, that is, <3od, sends his influence into \some things by means of direct rays, and-4fito others by means of reflected splendor. Hence into the Intelligences the divine light rays out immediately; in others it is reflected from these Intelligences first illuminated. But as mention is here made of light and splendor, in order to a perfect understanding, I will show the difference of these words, according to Avicenna. I say, the custom of the philosophers is to call the Heaven light, in reference to its existence in its fountain-head; to call it ray, in reference to its passing from the fountain-head to the first body, in which it is arrested; to call it splendor, in reference to its reflection upon some other part illuminated."
    
    1 1 6. If men lived isolated from each other, and not in communities.
    
    1 20. Aristotle, whom Dante in the Convito, III. 5, calls " that glorious philosopher to whom Nature most laid open her secrets"; and in Inf. IV. 131, "the master of those who know."
28. Stanza 42, line 124 The Jurist, the Warrior, the
    
    Priest, and the Artisan are here typi fied in Solon, Xerxes, Melchisedec, and Dasdalus.
29. Stanza 43, line 129 Nature, like death, makes no distinction between palace and hovel. Her gentlemen are born alike in each, and so her churls.
30. Stanza 44, line 130 Esau and Jacob, though twin brothers, differed in character, Esau being warlike and Jacob peaceable. Genesis xxv. 27: "And the boys grew: and Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents."
31. Stanza 44, line 131 Romulus, called Quirinus, because he always carried a spear {quiris}, was of such obscure birth, that the Romans, to dignify their origin, pretended he was born of Mars.
32. Stanza 47, line 141 Convito, III. 3: "Animate plants have a very manifest affection for certain places, according to their
    
    character; and therefore we see certain plants rooting themselves by the water-side, and others upon mountainous places, and others on the slopes and at the foot of the mountains, which, if they are transplanted, either wholly perish, or live a kind of melancholy life, as things separated from what is friendly to them."
33. Stanza 49, line 145 Another allusion to King Robert of Sicily. Villani, XII. 9, says of him: " This King Robert was the wisest king that had been known among Christians for five hundred years, both in natural ability and in knowledge, being a very great master in theology, and a consummate philosopher." And the Postillatore of the Monte Cassino Codex: " This King Robert delighted in preaching and studying, and would have made a better monk than king."