[609] Si is the Italian affirmative particle. In the Inferno Dante refers to Italy as "that lovely country where the si is sounded" (XXX., 80).
[610] That is, prose shows the true beauty of a language more effectively than poetry, in which the attention is distracted by the ornaments of verse.
[611] The author refers to Cicero's philosophical treatise De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum.
[612] For example, Pope Innocent IV. (1243-1254) declared: "Two lights, the sun and the moon, illumine the globe; two powers, the papal and the royal, govern it; but as the moon receives her light from the more brilliant star, so kings reign by the chief of the Church, who comes from God."
[613] The arguments disposed of by the author, in addition to those treated in the passages here presented, are: the precedence of Levi over Judah (Gen., xxix. 34, 35), the election and deposition of Saul by Samuel (1 Sam., x. 1; xv. 23; xv. 28), the oblation of the Magi (Matt., ii. 11), the two swords referred to by Peter (Luke, xxii. 38), the donation of Constantine, the summoning of Charlemagne by Pope Hadrian, and finally the argument from pure reason.
[614] This was the common mediæval designation of Aristotle.
[615] For Dante's conception of the terrestrial and the celestial paradise see the Paradiso in the Divina Commedia.
[616] These were the lay and ecclesiastical princes in whom was vested the right of choosing the Emperor. The electoral college was first clearly defined in the Golden Bull issued by Charles IV. in 1356 [see [p. 409]]. Its composition in Dante's time is uncertain.
[617] Dante's ideal solution was the harmonious rule of the two powers by the acknowledgment of filial relationship between pope and emperor, on the basis of a recognition of the different and essentially irreconcilable character of their functions.
[618] George B. Adams, Mediæval Civilization (New York, 1904), pp. 375-377.