In the last cantos of the "Purgatorio," and throughout the "Paradiso," there is a prodigious putting forth of power to describe ineffable and eternal things; with inexhaustible prodigality of illustration, and transmutation of the same symbols, to constitute different gradations of blessedness and glory. Of these, however, there are scarcely any types except light, colour, sound, and motion, variously combined to represent spiritual beings, their forms, their occupations, and manner of discoursing; but even amongst such inexpressible, nay, unimaginable scenes and passages, the human nature which cleaves to the poet, and shows itself, under every transmigration, allied to flesh and blood, gives an interest which allegorical pictures of invisible realities can never keep up beyond the first brilliant impression. Yet the vitality and strength of the poem reside chiefly in the first and second parts; diminishing just in proportion as the author rises above the regions which exhibit the sins and sufferings of creatures like ourselves, punished with everlasting destruction in hell, or "burnt and purged away," through the penal inflictions of purgatory. It may, however, be said, with regard to the whole, that no ideal beings, ideal scenes, or ideal occurrences, in any poem or romance, have ever more perfectly personified truth and nature than those in this composition, which, though the theatre is figuratively beyond the limits of human action, is nevertheless full of such action in its most common as well as its most extraordinary forms.
There is scarcely a decorous attitude of the human frame, a look expressive of the most concealed sentiment, or a feeling of pain, pleasure, surprise, doubt, fear, agony, hope, delight, which is not described with a minuteness of discrimination alike curious and admirable; the poet himself frequently being the subject of the same, and exciting our sympathy by the lively or poignant remembrance of having ourselves done, looked, felt like him, when we were far from being ingenuous enough to acknowledge the weakness implied. There is scarcely a phenomenon in the visible heavens, the earth, the sea, and the phases of nature, which he has not presented in the most striking manner. In such instances he frequently descends to the nicest particulars, that he may realise the exact view of them which he wishes to be taken; they being necessarily illustrations of invisible and preternatural subjects. This leads to the remark, that the poem abounds with similes of the greatest variety, beauty, and elegance; often, likewise, of the most familiar, touching, or grotesque character. Among these, birds are favourite images, especially the stork and the falcon,—the two last that an English poet of the nineteenth century would think of, but which happily remind us, as often as they are seen here, of the country of the author, while they present pictures of times gone by,—the stork having long ago deserted our shores, and falconry, poetical and captivating as it is to the eye and the fancy, having been abandoned in the fashionable rage for preserves, where game are bred like poultry, and massacred by wholesale on field-days. Next to birds, children are the darlings, in the similes, of this stern, and harsh, and gloomy being, as he is often, though unjustly, represented to have been. Amidst his most dazzling, terrific, or monstrous creations, these little ones, in all their loveliness and hilarity, are introduced, to re-invigorate the tired thoughts, and cool the over-heated imagination with reminiscence of that which, in this world, may be looked upon with the least pain, and which cannot be looked upon with pleasure without our being the better for it; the love of children, and the delight of seeing them happy, being a test of every other species of kindness towards our fellow-creatures.
It is unnecessary to pursue general criticism further. Any analysis of the plot would be preposterous here; for nothing less than a progressive abstract of the whole, with examples from every stage, would be satisfactory, or indeed intelligible, to those who are not acquainted with the original, or the translation into English by the Reverend H. F. Cary, which may be said to fail in nothing except the versification—and that, perhaps, only in consequence of the writer's attention to what constitutes the chief merit of his performance, fidelity to the meaning of the text.
It was the purpose of the writer of the foregoing memoir to have concluded his strictures on the "Divina Commedia" with a series of newly-translated specimens from the same (like the foregoing ones), in the various kinds of style for which the author was distinguished, in order to give the English reader some faint idea of this poet's very peculiar manner of handling his subject, and the general cast of his mind and mode of thinking: but the limits of the present work precluding any further extension of this article, these are reserved, and may be laid before the public at some future opportunity.
[1]The heaven of heavens.
[2]The sun in the sign of the Twins.
"S' io torni mai, Lettore, a quel devoto
Trionfo, per lo quale io piango spesso
Le mie peccata, e 'l petto mi percuoto,
Tu non avresti in tanto tratto e messo
Nel fuoco il dito, in quanto io vidi 'l segno.
Che segue 'l tauro, e fui dentro da esso.
O gloriose stelle! O lume pregno
Di gran virtù, 'dal quale io riconosco
Tutto (qual che si sia) il mio ingegno;
Con voi nasceva, e s'ascendeva vosco
Quegli, ch' è padre d'ogni mortal vita,
Quand' io senti' da prima l'aer Tosco.
E poi quando mi fu grazia largita
D'entrar nell' alta ruota che vi gira,
La vostra región mi fu sortita.
A voi divotamente ora sospira
L' ánima mia, per aquistar virtute
Al passo forte che a se la tira."
[4]In religious processions on saint-days.
[5]This passage is remarkable for having been imitated by Spenser in his personification of Forgetfulness: he, however, makes the feet and face at variance, which Dante does not, reversing the aspect of the one and the motion of the other:—