THE POET'S VISION OF HELL, PURGATORY, AND PARADISE. HELL. DANTE ALIGHIERI, the great medieval epic poet, and one of the greatest poets of all ages, was born in Florence, Italy, of an ancient family, May 14, 1265, and died at Ravenna, Sept. 14, 1321. Up to the age of twenty-five he lived in his native city engaged in study, associating with men of genius in art and letters His early life was clouded by the loss of Beatrice Portinari, a lady with whom his name will ever be associated. Like Milton, Dante took an earnest interest in the welfare of his country, and was for twelve years involved in the clash of political parties. At the age of thirty-seven he found himself condemned to perpetual exile, his property confiscated, and himself threatened with death at the stake should he enter the city of his birth. The last nineteen years of his life were spent in wanderings. In his "Vita Nuovo," Dante has given an account of his early life and romantic devotion to Beatrice, who is also enshrined in the "Divina Commedia," from which the following extracts are taken. The translation used is that by the REV. HENRY FRANCIS CARY, said by the Edinburgh Review to have been executed "with a fidelity almost without example." Cary was born at Birmingham, England, in 1772. He graduated at Oxford and took orders in the Established Church. From 1826 to 1832 he was assistant librarian of the British Museum. He died in London, Aug. 14, 1844. His translation of Dante appeared from 1805 to 1814. The noteworthy version of the Divina Commedia " by Mr. Longfellow is the only complete translation by an American. OFT have I seen, at some cathedral door, Far off the noises of the world retreat; And leave my burden at this minster gate, Kneeling in prayer, and not ashamed to pray, The tumult of the time disconsolate How strange the sculptures that adorn these towers! This crowd of statues, in whose folded sleeves Birds build their nests; while canopied with leaves Parvis and portal bloom like trellised bow ers, And the vast minster seems a cross of flowers! But fiends and dragons on the gargoyled eaves Watch the dead Christ between the living thieves, And, underneath, the traitor Judas lowers! Ah! from what agonies of heart and brain, What exultations trampling on despair, What tenderness, what tears, what hate of wrong, What passionate outcry of a soul in pain, HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. VIRGIL APPEARS. The poet indicates the era of the poem by the fiction that, having in the thirty-fifth year of his life (A. D. 1300 lost his way in a gloomy forest, and being hindered by certain wild beasts from ascending a mountain, he is met by Virgil, who promises to show him the punishments of Hell, and afterwards of Purgatory; and that he shall then be conducted by Beatrice into Paradise. IN the midway of this our mortal life, Yet, to discourse of what there good befell, When him in that great desert I espied, And born of Lombard parents, Mantuans both Beneath the mild Augustus, in the time towers. But thou, say wherefore to such perils past Return'st thou ? wherefore not this pleasant mount Ascendest, cause and source of all delight?" "And art thou then that Virgil, that well spring, From which such copious floods of eloquence mense Have conned it o'er. My master thou, and guide! Thou he from whom alone I have derived That style, which for its beauty into fame Exalts me. See the beast from who i fled. Oh, save me from her, thou illustrious sage! For every vein and pulse throughout my frame She hath made tremble." He, soon as he saw That I was weeping, answered, "Thou must needs Another way pursue, if thou wouldst 'scape From out that savage wilderness." Canto i. lines 1-9, 58-90. THE PILGRIMAGE PROPOSED. I, FOR thy profit pondering, now devise Spirits of old tormented, who invoke A second death; and those next view, who dwell Content in fire, for that they hope to come, Must lead thee, in whose charge, when I depart, Thou shalt be left: for that Almighty King, Who reigns above, a rebel to his law Adjudges me; and therefore hath decreed That, to his city, none through me should come. He in all parts hath sway; there rules, there holds His citadel and throne. Oh, happy those, I do beseech thee (that this ill and worse THE DIVINERS. The poet having passed through Limbo and other circles of Hell, arrives at the place of torment of such as presumed, while living, to predict future events. They were to have their faces reversed and set the contrary way on their limbs, so that, being deprived of the power to see before them, they are constrained ever to walk backwards. Now, reader! think within thyself, so God Fruit of thy reading give thee! how I long Could keep my visage dry, when I beheld Near me our form distorted in such guise, That on the hinder parts fallen from the face The tears down-streaming rolled. Against a rock I leant and wept, so that my guide exclaimed : "What, and art thou, too, witless as the rest? Here pity most doth show herself alive, When she is dead. What guilt exceedeth his, Who with Heaven's judgment in his passion strives?" LUCIFER DISCOVERED. XX. 18-28. In the fourth and last round of the ninth circle, those who have betrayed their benefactors are wholly covered with ice And in the midst is Lucifer, at the centre of gravity, at whose back Dante and Virgil ascend, till by a secret path they reach the surface of the other hemisphere of the earth, and once more obtain sight of the stars. "THE banners of Hell's Monarch do come forth Toward us; therefore look," so spake my guide, "If thou discern him." As, when breathes a cloud Heavy and dense, or when the shades of night Fall on our hemisphere, seems viewed from far A windmill, which the blast stirs briskly round; Such was the fabric then methought I saw. To shield me from the wind, forthwith I drew Behind my guide: no covert else was there. Now came I (and with fear I bid my strain Record the marvel) where the souls were all Whelmed underneath, transparent, as through glass Pellucid the frail stem. Some prone were laid; Others stood upright, this upon the soles, That on his head, a third with face to feet Arched like a bow. When to the point we came, Whereat my guide was pleased that I should see The creature eminent in beauty once, He from before me stepped and made me pause. “Lo!” he exclaimed, "lo Dis; and lo the place, Where thou hast need to arm thy heart with strength." How frozen and how faint I then became, With such a part. If he were beautiful To look on, such as come from whence old Stoops to the lowlands. Under each shot forth Two mighty wings, enormous as became But were in texture like a bat; and these Were in this guise tormented. But far more Than from that gnawing, was the foremost panged By the fierce rending, whence ofttimes the back Was stript of all its skin. "That upper spirit, Who hath worst punishment," so spake my guide, 'Is Judas, he that hath his head within And plies the feet without. Of the other two, Whose heads are under, from the murky jaw Who hangs, is Brutus: lo! how he doth writhe And speaks not. The other, Cassius, that appears So large of limb. But night now reascends; And it is time for parting. All is seen." xxxiv. 1-64. |