[2] Who is blessed throughout all ages. Praise to God.
FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.[1]
[1] Dante called his poem a comedy, he says, for two reasons: because it has a sad beginning and a cheerful ending, and because it is written in a "middle" style, treating alike of lowly and lofty things. Midway in life the poet finds himself lost in the forest of worldly cares, beset by the three beasts, Pride, Avarice, and Worldly Pleasure. Virgil, who is the embodiment of moral philosophy, appears and leads him through the Hell of worldly sin and suffering, through the Purgatory of repentance, to the calm of the earthly Paradise. Mere philosophy can go no further. The poet is here taken under the guidance of Beatrice, the embodiment of divine wisdom, who leads him through Paradise to the throne of God. Such, in the briefest form, is the argument of the Divine Comedy; this statement carries the actual story and the allegory side by side. The first division of the triple vision is the Inferno. Dante's Inferno is an inverted cone, having its mouth in a deep rugged valley, its sides sloping down to the center of the earth. When Lucifer fell from heaven the earth retired before him, making this hollow cone. This is divided into nine circles, in which the lost souls suffer. These souls are grouped into three main classes: the incontinent, the violent, and the fraudulent. The first circle of the Inferno is Limbo, where are the souls of children and the unbaptized; of the heathen philosophers and poets. They are neither in pain nor glory, they do not shriek nor groan but only sigh.
I. The Poets in Limbo.—From the Inferno.
Broke the deep slumber in my brain a crash
Of heavy thunder, that I shook myself,
As one by main force roused. Risen upright,
My rested eyes I moved around, and search'd,
With fixed ken, to know what place it was
Wherein I stood. For certain, on the brink
I found me of the lamentable vale,
The dread abyss, that joins a thundrous sound
Of plaints innumerable. Dark and deep,
And thick with clouds o'erspread, mine eye in vain
Explored its bottom, nor could aught discern.
"Now let us to the blind world there beneath
Descend;" the bard began, all pale of look:
"I go the first, and thou shalt follow next."
Then I his alter'd hue perceiving, thus:
"How may I speed, if thou yieldest to dread,
Who still art wont to comfort me in doubt?"
He then: "The anguish of that race below
With pity stains my cheek, which thou for fear
Mistakest. Let us on. Our length of way
Urges to haste." Onward, this said, he moved;
And entering led me with him, on the bounds
Of the first circle that surrounds the abyss.
. . . . . . . . . .
We were not far
On this side from the summit, when I kenn'd
A flame, that o'er the darken'd hemisphere
Prevailing shined. Yet we a little space
Were distant, not so far but I in part
Discover'd that a tribe in honour high
That place possess'd. "O thou, who every art
And science valuest I who are these that boast
Such honour, separate from all the rest?"
He answer'd: "The renown of their great names,
That echoes through your world above, acquires
Favour in heaven, which holds them thus advanced."
Meantime a voice I heard: "Honour the bard
Sublime![1] his shade returns, that left us late!
No sooner ceased the sound, than I beheld
Four mighty spirits toward us bend their steps,
Of semblance neither sorrowful nor glad.
When thus my master kind began: "Mark him,
Who in his right hand bears that falchion keen,
The other three preceding, as their lord.
This is that Homer, of all bards supreme:
Flaccus the next, in satire's vein excelling;
The third is Naso; Lucan is the last.
Because they all that appellation own,
With which the voice singly accosted me,
Honouring they greet me thus, and well they judge."
So I beheld united the bright school
Of him the monarch of sublimest song,[2]
That o'er the others like an eagle soars.
When they together short discourse had held,
They turned to me, with salutation kind
Beckoning me; at the which my master smiled
Nor was this all; but greater honour still
They gave me, for they made me of their tribe;
And I was sixth amid so learn'd a band.
[1] The bard sublime—Virgil.
[2] The monarch of sublimest song—Homer.
II. Francesca da Rimini.[1]