The Poet shall return, and at the font
Baptismal, shall he take the crown of laurel.”
He tempers the horror of the torments of the damned, by his own feeling for them, which at the end of so much suffering so overwhelms him that he is ready to weep, and Virgil says to him “Wherefore then art thou troubled?”
It has already been remarked that the greater part of the punishments of the Inferno are symbolical of the crimes for which they are inflicted, but many of them are so in a far more general relation. Of this kind is, in particular, the representation of a metamorphosis, in which two natures are mutually interchanged and their substance transmuted. No metamorphosis of Antiquity can compare with this for invention, and if a naturalist or a didactic poet were able to sketch with such power, emblems of the eternal metamorphoses of nature, he might congratulate himself upon it.
As we have already remarked, the Inferno is not only distinguished from the other parts by the external form of its representation, but also by the circumstance that it is peculiarly the realm of forms and consequently the plastic part of the Poem. The Purgatorio must be recognized as the picturesque part. Not only are the penances here imposed upon sinners at times pictorially treated even to brightness of coloring; but the journey up the holy mountain of Purgatory presents in detail a rapid succession of shifting landscapes, scenes and manifold play of light; until upon its outermost boundary, when the Poet has reached the waters of Lethe, the highest pomp of Painting and Color displays itself;—in the picturing of the divine primeval forest of this region, of the celestial clearness of the water, overcast with its eternal shadow, of the maiden whom he meets upon its banks and the descent of Beatrice in a cloud of flowers, beneath a white veil, crowned with olive, wrapped in a green mantle, and “vested in colors of the living flame.”
The Poet has urged his way to light through the very heart of the earth: in the darkness of the lower world forms alone could be distinguished: in Purgatory light is kindled, but still in connection with earthly matter and becomes color. In Paradise there remains nothing but the pure music of the light; reflection ceases, and the Poet rises gradually to behold the colorless pure essence of Deity itself.
The astronomical system which the age of the poet invested with a mythological value; the nature of the stars and of the measure of their motion, are the ground upon which his inventions, in this part of the poem, rest. And if he in this sphere of the unconditioned, still suffers degrees and differences to exist, he again removes them by the glorious word which he puts into the mouth of one of the sister-souls whom he meets in the moon, that “every Where in heaven is Paradise.”
The plan of the Poem renders it natural that on the very ascent through Paradise the loftiest speculations of Theology should be discussed. His deep reverence for this science is symbolized by his love of Beatrice. In proportion as the field of vision enlarges itself into the purely Universal, it is necessary that Poetry should become Music, form vanish, and that, in this point of view, the Inferno should appear the most poetic part of the work. But in this work it is absolutely impossible to take things separately; and the peculiar excellence of each separate part is authenticated and recognized only through its harmony with the whole. If the relation of the three parts to the whole is perceived, we shall necessarily recognize the Paradiso as the purely musical and lyrical portion, even in the design of the poet, who expresses this in the external form, by the frequent use of the Latin words of Church Hymns.
The marvelous grandeur of the Poem, which gleams forth in the mingling of all the elements of poetry and art, reaches in this way a perfect manifestation. This divine work is not plastic, not picturesque, not musical, but all of these at once and in accordant harmony. It is not dramatic, not epic, not lyric, but a peculiar, unique, and unexampled mingling of all these.
I think I have shown, at the same time, that it is prophetic, and typical of all the Modern Poetry. It embraces all its characteristics, and springs out of the intricately mingled materials of the same, as the first growth, stretching itself above the earth and toward the heavens—the first fruit of transfiguration. Those who would become acquainted with the poetry of modern times, not superficially, but at its fountain head, may train themselves by this great and mighty spirit, in order to know by what means the whole of the modern time may be embraced in its entireness, and that it is not held together by a loosely woven band. They who have no vocation for this, can apply to themselves the words at the beginning of the first part: