National Epics by Kate Milner Rabb

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THE STORY OF THE DIVINE COMEDY.

THE PARADISE.

The ascent to Paradise was accomplished by a fixed gaze into Beatrice's
eyes, by which Dante, like Glaucus, was made divine, and by which he was
lifted, with incredible swiftness, through the heavens. As soon as he had
fixed his eyes on Beatrice's, who in turn looked towards heaven, they
found themselves in the Heaven of the Moon, whose luminous yet pearl-like
light enfolded them. While Beatrice was explaining to him that the spots
on the moon were not caused by the varying degrees of atmospheric density,
as he had supposed, but by the Divine Virtue infused in divine measure
through the angelic dwellers in the first heaven, he met Piccarda, his
sister-in-law, whose brother, Corso Donati, had torn her from her convent
to wed her to Rosselin della Tosa, soon after which she died. Here also
was Costanza, daughter of Roger I. of Sicily, grandmother of that Manfredi
whom he had seen in Purgatory. Here Beatrice instructed Dante as to the
imperfection of those wills that held not to their vows, but allowed
violence to thwart them.

Another look into the smiling eyes, and the two were in the Heaven of
Mercury, where those wills abide in whom love of fame partly extinguished
love of God. One of the thousand splendors that advanced towards them was
the soul of the Emperor Justinian, who reviewed the Empire, the Church,
condemning severely the behavior of the Guelphs and Ghibellines, and told
of the spirits who inhabited the little planet, whose lives were sweetened
by living justice, and whose ears were gladdened by the sweetest
harmonies.

Dante was unaware of his ascent into, Venus, where dwelt those souls who
were lovers on earth, until he perceived Beatrice's added beauty. Amid
revolving lights Charles Martel of Hungary appeared, denounced his brother
Robert of Sicily, and instructed Dante on the subjects of heredity and
degeneracy; that "sweet seed can come bitter" because the influence of the
star under which the child is born can counteract that of the parent, and
because his state is not always adapted to him by his parents and
advisers.

In the sphere of the Sun, consecrated to the great doctors of divinity,
Beatrice became still more beautiful; but so absorbed was the poet in the
love for the Eternal Source of all this splendor that for the first time
he forgot her. Out of the whirling lights, shining like precious jewels,
came Saint Thomas Aquinas, who pointed out to Dante his noted companions,
Gratian, Peter Lombard, Solomon, Dionysius, Boethius, and Baeda. Thomas
then related the story of Saint Francis of Assisi and the founding of his
order of the Franciscans, upon which Saint Bonaventura of the Franciscans,
from the next flame garland, told of Saint Dominic and the Dominican
order. Alas! while both orders were great in the beginning, both narrators
had to censure their present corruption.

The array of brilliant lights, dividing itself, formed into two disks
which, revolving oppositely, sang the praises of the Trinity. The song of
praise finished, Saint Thomas explained that Solomon was elevated to this
sphere for his wisdom and his regal prudence, and warned Dante against the
error of rash judgment.

The splendor of Mars was almost blinding; it was ruddier than the others,
and in it dwelt the souls of the crusaders and martyrs. While Dante's ears
were ravished by exquisite music, his eyes were dazzled by the lights,
which had arranged themselves in the form of a cross. From out the
splendor, one star saluted Dante. It was the soul of his ancestor
Cacciaguida, who had waited long for the coming of his descendant. He
related to Dante the story of his life, commenting on the difference
between the simple life of the Florentines of his day and the corrupt
practices of Dante's time, and broke to the poet what had already been
darkly hinted to him in Hell and Purgatory,--his banishment; how he must
depart from Florence and learn how salt is the bread of charity, how
wearisome the stairs in the abode of the stranger.

As Cacciaguida ceased and pointed out the other well-known dwellers in
Mars, each one on the cross flashed as his name was called,--Joshua, Judas
Maccabeus, Charlemagne and Roland, Godfrey of Bouillon, Robert Guiscard,
and others.

In Jupiter, whose whiteness contrasted with the ruddiness of Mars, dwelt
the souls of great rulers, certain of whom arranged themselves first to
form the golden letters of _Diligite Justitiam qui judicatis terram_
("Love righteousness, ye that be judges of the earth"), and then formed
themselves into the Roman eagle and sang of the justice and mercy that
caused their elevation to this position, and of events about to occur in
history.

Had Beatrice smiled as they ascended to Saturn, Dante would have perished
as did Semele, from excess of light. In Saturn dwelt the spirits of the
contemplative, the monks and hermits, and here was Jacob's ladder, up and
down whose bars of gold sparkled the spirits of the saints, silent for the
same reason that Beatrice smiled not. By divine election, Saint Peter
Damian descended and spoke with Dante, accusing the churchmen of the time
of worldliness and luxury. "Cephas and our Lord came on earth barefoot and
poorly clad, but these men are covered with gorgeous raiment and ride upon
sleek palfreys." As he closed, a thunder cry of approval went up from the
other saints.

Up the wonderful ladder passed Dante and his lady into the eighth heaven
of the Fixed Stars, and looking down saw the little earth and the starry
heavens through which they had passed. Then, as Beatrice paused with her
face all aflame, and her eyes full of ecstasy, down came the hosts of
Christ's triumphal march, and within the living light, which dazzled
Dante's eyes until he could not see, also appeared Mary, mother of God,
crowned by Gabriel, rising into the Empyrean. Of those who remained
behind, Beatrice asked that Dante be sprinkled with the waters of the
living Fountain; and while they gave their consent, Saint Peter appeared
as a fire whirling ecstatically, and singing a divine song. He examined
the trembling poet on faith, and his questions being answered
satisfactorily, encircled him thrice with his light. Saint James, who next
came forth, was likewise pleased with his response on Hope, and he was
then blinded by the effulgence of John, so that for a time he could not
see the face of his lady.

Of Love he spoke with John, and then talked with Adam. As he listened to
the strains of richest melody, he noticed one of the lights--Saint
Peter--change from white to red, and then, as silence fell, speak, enraged
at the worldliness of the Holy See. "My cemetery has been made a sewer of
blood and stench. When thou returnest to earth, reveal what thou hast
heard. Do not thou conceal what I have not concealed."

Commanded by Beatrice, Dante looked back at earth once more, and as he
looked, was carried up into the heaven of the Primum Mobile, where dwelt
the moral philosophers. Here the angelic spirits circled round the point
of intense light, the divine centre. The nearer God was the circle, the
greater virtue it possessed. This order was inverse to that of the
heavens, but Dante learned from Beatrice that the orbs revolved through
narrow paths or wide according to the virtue of their parts, and that a
strict agreement of harmony prevailed between the great and the small. The
angel and the heavens were created simultaneously, and, as direct
emanations from God, know no decay. Of this and many things concerning the
Creation, did Beatrice enlighten Dante before the beauty of her smile told
him that they were in the Empyrean. "Now shall thou look upon the mighty
hosts of Paradise."

The poet's dazzled eyes saw then a river of light from which issued living
sparks sunk down into the flowers like rubies set in gold. Instructed by
Beatrice he drank of the stream and the river changed into a lake; then he
saw the Courts of Heaven made manifest, and the splendor of God. The ample
Rose unfolded its leaves before him, breathing praise and perfume, and as
he gazed into it Beatrice pointed out the radiant spirits and the thronged
seats, one of which was reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from
whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished.
As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame,
singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees
sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor.
Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard
of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to
him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. As from
afar, Dante pleaded with the beautiful lady who had left her place in
heaven to go even unto the gates of hell for his sake, to aid him still;
she seemed to smile upon him before she again turned her gaze upon the
Eternal Fountain of Light. Saint Bernard explained to the poet the
divisions of the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a
prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the
Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped
their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a
gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision
met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension.
As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was lost in the
infinite glory of the Light Divine. As he tried to describe it,
imagination failed him, though his will remained, moving on with the even
motion of the sun and stars.

SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.

COUNT UGOLINO.

In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where
were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors,
the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery,
was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust
into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the
ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his
enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.

"Thy will 'tis I renew
A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart
Even before my lips its tale impart.
But if my words may be a seed that, sowed,
Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear,
Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.

"Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode
Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean,
From words of thine, thou art a Florentine.
That I Count Ugolino was, know thou,
And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why
I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh.
Needs not to say that him I did allow
A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought;
That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.

"But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned
That is, how cruel was my death, I thee
Will tell; judge thou if he offended me.
Within the Mew, a tower which well hath earned
From me its name of Famine, and where wrath
Yet others waits, a narrow opening hath,
Through which of several moons the broken light
Had strayed, when unto me in sleep was sent
A dream whereby the future's veil was rent.

"This ill dream me this man set forth in might:
He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued
Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude.
Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen,
And in their front Gualandi's sword had place,
Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace.
Father and sons' undoing soon was seen;
Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore
Their flanks, which now the hue of crimson wore.

"Before the dawn I woke and heard my sons,
The helpless children with me, in their sleep,
Cry out for bread, cries pushed from sobbings deep.
Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs
To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode,
If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed.
And then they woke, and came the hour around
Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring;
But from our dreams dumb terrors seemed to spring;

"When from below we heard the dreadful sound
Of nails; the horrible tower was closed; all dumb
I let my gaze into my sons' eyes come.
Weep I did not, like stone my feelings lay.
They wept, and spoke my little Anselm: 'Pray
Why lookest so? Father, what ails thee, say?'
Shed I no tear, nor answered all that day
Nor the next night, until another sun
His journey through the wide world had begun.

"Then came a small ray into our sad, sad den,
And when in their four faces I beheld
That carking grief which mine own visage held,
Mine hands for grief I bit, and they, who then
Deemed that I did it from desire to eat,
Stood up each one at once upon his feet,
And said: 'Father, 'twill give us much less pain
If thou wilt eat of us: of thee was born
This hapless flesh, and be it by thee torn.'

"Myself I calmed that they might not so grieve;
Mute that day and the next we were; O thou
Most cruel earth, that didst not open now!
When we the fourth day's agony did receive
Stretched at my feet himself my Gaddo threw,
And said: 'My father, canst thou nothing do?'
There died he, and, as now sees me thy sight,
The three I saw fall one by one; first died
One on the fifth; deaths two the sixth me tried.

"Then blind, I groped o'er them to left and right,
And for three days called on their spirits dead;
Then grief before the power of fasting fled."
_Wilstach's Translation, Inferno. Canto XXXIII._

BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.

On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount,
were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those
who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in
the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.

Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim
Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws,
As thou with pity shalt advance my cause.
Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am;
Giovanna, and she only, for me cares;
Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."

"What violence or what chance led thee so wide
From Campaldino," I of him inquired,
"That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?"
"Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied,
"Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise
Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies.
There where its name is lost did I arrive,
Pierced through and through the throat, in flight,
Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;

"There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive;
At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell
A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell.
Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn;
Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell
Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well
To rob from me the eternal part of him
For one poor tear, that me of him deprives;
In other style I'll deal with other lives!'

"Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim
That humid vapor which to water turns
Soon as the cold its rising progress learns.
The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill)
To intellectual power, which mist and wind
Moved by control which faculties such can find,
And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill
The space from Protomagno to where tower
The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power

"The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed.
Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled,
Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped;
And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged
Towards the royal river, so it flowed
That over every obstacle wild it rode.
The robust river found my stiffened frame
Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss
To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross

"I made of me when agony me o'ercame;
Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped,
Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped."
_Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V._

BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.

Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they
talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the
greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower
of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.

I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale,
The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen,
And all the opposite heaven one gem serene,
And the uprising sun, beneath such powers
Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye
For a long space its fiery shield could try:

E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers,
Which from those hands angelical upward played,
And roseate all the car triumphal made,
And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound,
Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name
Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame.
And mine own spirit, which the past had found
Often within her presence, free from awe,
And which could never from me trembling draw,
And sight no knowledge giving me at this time,
Through hidden virtue which from her came forth,
Of ancient love felt now the potent worth.
As soon as on my vision smote sublime
The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days
Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise,
Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust
Wherewith a little child his mother seeks,
When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,

To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust
Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame;
I feel the traces of the ancient flame."
_Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._

THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE.

While Dante and Beatrice rose from the Heaven of Primal Motion to the
Empyrean, the poet turned his dazzled eyes from the heavens, whose sight
he could no longer bear, to the contemplation of Beatrice.

Wherefore my love, and loss of other view,
Me back to Beatrice and her homage drew.
If what of her hath been already said
Were in one single eulogy grouped, 't would ill
Her meed of merit at this moment fill.

The beauty which in her I now beheld
B'yond mortals goes; her Maker, I believe,
Hath power alone its fulness to receive.
Myself I own by obstacles stronger spelled
Than in his labored theme was ever bard
Whose verses, light or grave, brought problems hard;
For, as of eyes quelled by the sun's bright burst,
E'en so the exquisite memory of that smile
Doth me of words and forming mind beguile.

Not from that day when on this earth I first
Her face beheld, up to this moment, song
Have I e'er failed to strew her path along,
But now I own my limping numbers lame;
An artist sometimes finds his powers surpassed,
And mine succumbs to beauty's lance at last.
And I must leave her to a greater fame
Than any that my trumpet gives, which sounds,
Now, hastening notes, which mark this labor's bounds.
_Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._

THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.

Ludovico Ariosto, author of the Orlando Furioso was born in Reggio, Italy,
Sept. 8, 1474. In 1503 he was taken into the service of the Cardinal
Hippolito d'Este, and soon after began the composition of the Orlando
Furioso, which occupied him for eleven years. It was published in 1516,
and brought him immediate fame. Ariosto was so unkindly treated by his
patron that he left him and entered the service of the cardinal's brother,
Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. By him he was appointed governor of a province,
in which position he repressed the banditti by whom it was infested, and
after a successful administration of three years, returned to Ferrara to
reside. The latter part of his life was spent in writing comedies and
satires, and in revising the Orlando Furioso. He died in Ferrara, June 6,
1533.

The Orlando Furioso is a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorata, Ariosto
taking up the story at the end of that poem. Its historical basis is the
wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, which were probably confused with
those of Charles Martel. As the Orlando of the poem is the same Roland
whose fall at Roncesvalles in 778 is celebrated in the Song of Roland, its
events must have occurred before that time.

Although the poem is called Orlando Furioso, Orlando's madness occupies a
very small part of it, the principal threads of the story being Orlando's
love for Angelica and his consequent madness, the wars of Charlemagne, and
the loves of Bradamant and Rogero. From this Rogero the family of Este
claimed to be derived, and for this reason Ariosto made Rogero the real
hero of the poem, and took occasion to lavish the most extravagant praises
upon his patron and his family.

With these principal threads are interwoven innumerable episodes which are
not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would
otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes
approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and
the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so
successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional
inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, have all contributed to
the popularity of the poem, which is said to be the most widely read of
the epics. These descriptions outweigh its faults,--the taking up the
story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of
unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of
Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike,
and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.

The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of
forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.

The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province.
It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty
flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this,
no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's
poem is never the people's poem.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.

Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;

Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;

William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;

Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;

William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his
Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);

M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of
Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp. 239-255. (In Lardner's Cabinet
Cyclopedia, vol. i.);

John Addington Symonds's Italian Literature, 1888, vol. i., pp. 493-522,
vol. ii. pp. 1-50.

STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.

Orlando Furioso, Tr. from the Italian by Sir James Harrington, 1724;

Orlando Furioso, Tr. by John Hoole, 1819;

Orlando Furioso, Tr. into English verse by W. S. Rose, 2 vols., 1864-5.

THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.

The Emperor Charlemagne was at war with the Moors and had camped near the
Pyrenees with his host, determined to conquer their leaders, Marsilius of
Spain and Agramant of Africa. To his camp came Orlando, the great paladin,
with the beautiful Angelica, princess of Cathay, in search of whom he had
roamed the world over. Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, another of the great
lords of Charlemagne, also loved Angelica, for he had seen her immediately
after drinking of the Fountain of Love in the forest of Arden, and
Charlemagne, fearing trouble between the cousins on her account, took
Angelica from Orlando's tent and placed her in the care of Duke Namus of
Bavaria.

Angelica did not like Orlando and she loathed Rinaldo, for he had been the
first to meet her after she had tasted the waters of the Fountain of Hate.
So when the Christian forces were one day routed in battle and the tents
forsaken, she leaped on her palfrey and fled into the forest. Here the
first person she met was the hated Rinaldo; and fleeing from him she
encountered the fierce Moor Ferrau, who, being also in love with her, drew
his sword and attacked the pursuing paladin. But when the two discovered
that Angelica had taken advantage of their duel to flee, they made peace
and went in search of her.

As she fled, Angelica met Sacripant, an eastern lover who had followed her
to France, and put herself under his protection. But when Sacripant was
first defeated by Bradamant and then engaged in battle with the pursuing
Rinaldo, she deemed herself safer without him and fled; and presently a
page appeared, a shade conjured there by a hermit magician whom Angelica
had met, and announced to the warriors that Orlando had appeared and
carried the maid to Paris.

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