DANTE. BY HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. Tuscan, that wanderest through the realms of gloom, Stern thoughts and awful from thy soul arise, Thy sacred song is like the trump of doom; As up the convent-walls, in golden streaks, The ascending sunbeams mark the day's decrease; Thy voice along the cloister whispers, "Peace!" ALFRED TENNYSON. Tennyson probably alludes to Dante in the first two stanzas of his "The Poet: " "The poet in a golden clime was born, With golden stars above; Dower'd with the hate of hate, the scorn of scorn, At the sixth centenary of Dante's birth (1865) Tennyson sent, at the request of the Florentines, the following lines: "King, that hast reign'd six hundred years, and grown In power, and ever growest! Since thine own Fair Florence, honoring thy nativity— Thy Florence, now the crown of Italy, Hath sought the tribute of a verse from me, Cast at thy feet one flower that fades away. 1 Comp. Inf. vi. 79; x. 32 sqq. Farinata degli Uberti was the most valiant leader of the Ghibellines in Florence, and routed the Guelfs at the battle of Monte Aperto in 1260, but denied the immortality of the soul and hence was damned as a heretic. DANTE IN VERONA. BY EMANUEL GEIBEL. Gedichte, Erste Periode. Stuttgart, 1888, 111th ed., p. 291. Geibel wrote also a sonnet on Dante: "Sobald die Nacht mit dunklem Flügelpaar." Neue Gedichte, Dritte Periode (21st ed., 1886, p. 192). Einsam durch Verona's Gassen wandelt' einst der grosse Dante, Da vernahm er, wie ein Mädchen, das ihn sah vorüberschreiten, "Siehe, das ist jener Dante, der zur Höll' hinabgestiegen, Merke nur, wie Zorn und Schwermut auf der düstern Stirn ihm liegen! Denn in jener Stadt der Qualen musst'er solche Dinge schauen, Aber Dante, der es hörte, wandte sich und brach sein Schweigen : "Um das Lächeln zu verlernen, braucht's nicht, dort hinabzusteigen. Allen Schmerz, den ich gesungen, all die Qualen, Greu'l und Wunden Hab'ich schon auf dieser Erden, hab'ich in Florenz gefunden." THE DIVINA COMMEDIA. GENERAL ESTIMATE. Dante's Divina Commedia is one of those rare works of human genius which will command study and admiration to the end of time. There are many poems which interest and charm a much larger number of readers, but there is none which combines so many attractions for the man of letters, the philosopher, the theologian, and the historian. It is a poetic encyclopædia of medieval civilization, learning and religion, a moral universe in song by the loftiest genius of that age. Hence few books have been so often edited, commented upon by scholars, and illustrated by artists; and few books have been like this, made the subject of serious and long continued study in all civilized countries. The Commedia, it is true, can never be popular. It is no easy task to read it through. It requires the closest attention and the aid of a commentary. Lord Macaulay says, the great majority of young gentlemen and ladies who profess to know Italian, "could as soon read a Babylonion brick as a canto of Dante." Of those who make the attempt, few get through the Inferno, or even from this they select only the cantos on Francesca da Rimini and the Count Ugolino.1 The reason lies partly in the severe solemnity, partly in the obscurity of the poem, its allegorical imagery, and its many allusions to contemporary characters and events. It presupposes a considerable knowledge of classical mythology, scholastic philosophy and theology, and medieval history. It can only be understood in connection with the condition of Florence and Italy during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and with the great conflict between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the popes and emperors. But the more the poem is mastered and comprehended in the 1Alfieri affirmed, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that there were then not thirty persons in Italy who had really read the Commedia; but the number of readers, editions and commentaries has since been steadily increasing. light of its age, the more it becomes an object of admiration. "What a fullness of intellectual treasures," says Witte, who himself devoted almost a lifetime to the study of Dante," must that poet have to dispense who excited the same enthusiastic love in the youthful Schelling and the octogenarian Schlosser." 1 The German philosopher, here alluded to, who was gifted with poetic imagination and taste as well as speculative genius, calls Dante the high priest in the Holy of holies where religion and poetry are united. 2 As a work of art, the Commedia is the first and the greatest classic of Italian literature, and has very few rivals in any language. Longfellow calls it "the medieval miracle of song"; Tieck, "the mystic, unfathomable song." King John of Saxony, who, under the name of 'Philalethes,' published one of the best translations and commentaries of the Commedia, aptly compares it to "a Gothic cathedral where the exaggerations of ornament may sometimes offend our more refined taste; while the sublime and austere impression of the whole, and the exquisite finish and variety of details, fill our mind with wonder." And Thomas Carlyle describes it as "a great supernatural world-cathedral piled up there, stern, solemn, awful; Dante's world of souls!" The Commedia is not simply a poem of the highest order, but a philosophy and theology as well; it reflects the social, intellectual, moral and political conditions of the Middle Ages; it embraces the present and future state of mankind; it has even a prophetic character, as a voice of warning and comfort for all time. Dante wrote in the assurance of a prophetic mission similar to that of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel. He felt it his imperative duty, without fear or favor of men, at the risk of exile and poverty, to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, to popes 1" Welche Fülle von geistigen Schätzen muss der Dichter zu bieten haben, in dessen Lied mit gleicher Vorliebe, wie der achtundzwanzigjährige Schelling, so der achtzigjährige Schlosser sich versenkt!”—Witte, Dante-Forschungen (Halle, 1869), I. p. 221. Im 2 In the essay on Dante (1803) quoted in the Literature, p. 332: Allerheiligsten, wo Religion und Poesie verbunden, steht Dante als Hoherpriester und weiht die ganze moderne Kunst für ihre Bestimmung ein; es ist die Durchdringung der Begebenheiten der ganzen Zeit des Dichters mit den Ideen der Religion, Wissenschaft und Poesie in dem überlegensten Geiste jenes Jahrhunderts.” and emperors, to kings and nobles, to the rich and the poor. He rebukes the evil-doers, he cheers the righteous, he paints in the strongest colors the eternal consequences of our conduct in this life of probation and trial, and holds up the prospects of an ideal commonwealth of justice, liberty and peace. He is a prophet of evil to the wicked, and a prophet of glad tidings to the righteous. He kindles from time to time the flame of patriotism among his countrymen, and keeps alive the hope and desire of a regeneration of the State and a reformation of the Church. The attempt to describe the regions of the unseen world and to assume the office of the all-knowing judge of the living and the dead in the distribution of eternal rewards and eternal punishments, could originate only either in the brain of a fool or a madman, or in the bold imagination of a poetic genius, under the influence of a secondary inspiration. Dante has shown by the execution of this design that he was a genius of the highest order, though regarded by many of his countrymen as fit for a lunatic asylum rather than an office of public trust or any ordinary business of life. Milton, who of all poets comes nearest to Dante, ventured on a poetic description of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained, but abstained from peopling it with other than Scriptural characters. Emanuel Swedenborg, the Seer of the North, who claimed the supernatural gift of spiritual vision and intercourse with the departed, reports his conversations with men of different ages and religions in Heaven and Hell, but these conversations, though far superior to the twaddle and gossip of modern Spiritualism, are prosy, monotonous and tedious. Dante, without claiming a revelation, fixed the eternal destiny of eminent men and women of his age and country as well as of past generations, in the name of impartial justice to friend and foe: condemning the impenitent sinner to hopeless misery, comforting the penitent believer with the prospect of ultimate deliverance, and crowning the saints with the reward of celestial bliss. |