[191] Convito, Tr. IV. c. 7.
[192] Inferno, XXXIII. 118, et seq.
[193] Inferno, I. 116, 117.
[194] Mr. Longfellow's for, like the Italian per, gives us the same privilege of election. We "freeze for cold," we "hunger for food."
[195] Inferno, V. 67.
[196] Paradiso, XVIII. 46. Renoard is one of the heroes (a rudely humorous one) in "La Bataille d'Alischans," an episode of the measureless "Guillaume d'Orange." It was from the graves of those supposed to have been killed in this battle that Dante draws a comparison, Inferno, IX. Boccaccio's comment on this passage might have been read to advantage by the French editors of "Alischans."
[197] We cite this comment under its received name, though it is uncertain if Pietro was the author of it. Indeed, we strongly doubt it. It is at least one of the earliest, for it appears, by the comment on Paradiso, XXVI., that the greater part of it was written before 1341. It is remarkable for the strictness with which it holds to the spiritual interpretation of the poem, and deserves much more to be called Ottimo, than the comment which goes by that name. Its publication is due to the zeal and liberality of the late Lord Vernon, to whom students of Dante are also indebted for the parallel-text reprint of the four earliest editions of the Commedia.
[198] See Wegele, ubi supra, p. 174, et seq. The best analysis of Dante's opinions we have ever met with is Emil Ruth's "Studien über Dante Alighieri," Tübingen, 1853. Unhappily it wants an index, and accordingly loses a great part of its usefulness for those not already familiar with the subject. Nor are its references sufficiently exact. We always respect Dr. Ruth's opinions, if we do not wholly accept them, for they are all the results of original and assiduous study.
[199] See the second book of the De Vulgari Eloquio. The only other Italian poet who reminds us of Dante in sustained dignity is Guido Guinicelli. Dante esteemed him highly, calls him maximus in the De Vulgari Eloquio, and "the father of me and of my betters," in the XXVI. Purgatorio. See some excellent specimens of him in Mr. D. G. Rossetti's remarkable volume of translations from the early Italian poets. Mr. Rossetti would do a real and lasting service to literature by employing his singular gift in putting Dante's minor poems into English.
[200] The old French poems confound all unbelievers together as pagans and worshippers of idols.