In the language of an accurate modern Italian scholar, "Dante lifted the Italian language from its cradle, and laid it on a throne: in spite of the rudeness of the times not yet freed from barbarism, he dared to conceive a poem, in which he embodied whatever there was most abstruse in philosophical and theological doctrines; in his three canticles he massed whatever was known in the scientific world; after the example of Homer and Virgil, he knew how to select a national subject which would interest all Italy, nay, all whose hearts were warmed by the warmth of Catholic faith; in a word, he became the mark either of decay or of prosperity in the Italian literature, which was always enhanced according as his divine poem was studied and appreciated, or laid aside and neglected." [Footnote 105]
[Footnote 105: Cav. G. Maffei, Storia Lit. Ital. I. iii.]
Dante was born in Florence, in March, 1265, and died in Ravenna an exile in 1321, September 14. His father's name was Alighiero degli Alighieri. His education was as perfect as the times could afford in science, belles-lettres, and arts. When only nine years old he became acquainted with Beatrice di Folco Portinari, a young damsel of eight summers, but endowed with great gifts of soul and body, and her praises he sang in prose and verse, and to her he allotted a distinguished place in paradise. Dante served his country faithfully both in the councils of peace and under the panoply of war. When only thirty-five years old, he attained the highest dignity in the gift of his countrymen. On the occupation of Florence by Charles of Valois, whose pretensions he had opposed and so far thwarted, Dante was banished from Florence, (Jan. 27, 1302.) At the time, he was in Rome endeavoring to interest Pope Boniface VIII. in behalf of his dear Florence. Dante never saw his native place again, but after nineteen years of exile and poverty he died highly honored and very tenderly cared for by the Polentas, the masters of Ravenna.
Dante was the author of many excellent works; but to the Divina Commediahe owes that fame by which he stands of all the Italians facile princeps. At first, it was his intention to write his poem in Latin verse; but seeing that that language was not understood by all, and many even among the educated laity could not read it, and just then the great transformation of the new language taking place he wisely conceived the plan of gathering all the words which were then used from the Alps to the sea, and exhibited a uniformity of sound and formation, and thus to write a poem that might be called national, and at the same time be a bond that would unite all the Italian hearts. This may be looked upon as the political or patriotic aim of his work. A moral end had he then in view: thus, laying down as the principle of common destiny that man was created for the double end of enjoying an imperishable happiness hereafter, to be attained by securing a happiness in this world, which should arise from attending to the pursuits of virtue, in Paradise he described the former, which cannot be attained without a soul entirely detached from the affections of this earth, a process of schooling one's self and purification so well represented by what he imagines to have witnessed in Purgatory. But as the soul needs be animated to do works of justice by the promise of reward, as well as by the intimidation of deadly punishment, so he depicts the horrors to which the lost people, those who were dead to even the aspiration of a virtuous nature, will be doomed in Hell.
Naturally, this triple state of the soul, lost, redeeming herself, glorified, gave him a chance of embodying into his work theological expositions of the duties of man, of the working of grace, and of the economy of religion; revelation, natural religion, and science, all in turn lend him a helping hand. And because examples should be adduced to practically prove the truth of his assertions, he freely quotes from the past and from the present; and while he is perfectly alive to the importance of placing in high relief the beautiful deeds of those who gained glory in paradise because of their being faithful to the behests of faith and religion in whatever concerns our relations to God, ourselves, and our neighbors, at the same time, his heart burning with love for his country, he will admit of no mitigation in the Conduct Of such as he considers unfaithful to it or in the least hostile to that Florence he loved so well.
And here we pause. We have not done justice to the subject: we have not said all we could wish about Dante and Mr. Parsons. Yet we hope the few remarks we have made will enkindle in the breast of some of our readers a desire of becoming better acquainted with the father of Italian literature, the idol of the Italian student, the Fiero Ghibellino:
"Onorate l'altissimo Poeta."
Aspirations.
O dread Jehovah! who before the world
Had being dwelt eternal and alone,
Ere yet our planet on its path was hurled
Through space, ere angel or archangel shone,
Ere waves had learned to roll or winds to sweep,
And darkness brooded on the mighty deep!
Thy glance searched through infinity around,
And there was none save thee; thy spirit warm
Moved over chaos, and its vast profound
Heaved up a thousand worlds, dark, without form.
"Let there be light!" And, kindled at thy ray,
Burst radiant morning teeming with the day.
And what am I to thee? A raindrop placed
In an o'erteeming cloud?
A snowflake drifting o'er the northern waste
When winds are loud?
An atom or a nothing where sublime
Worlds, planets piled, thy praise unceasing chime?
Not so; for in thy living image made,
Conscious of will, of immortality,
In thy tremendous attributes arrayed,
Like thee, a Lord, yielding alone to thee—
What awful dignity! what power divine!
A semblance of infinitude is mine.
Yet did thy breath no less
Create me; sprung from thy eternal fires,
I glow; without thee, I am nothingness;
Thy wisdom guides me and thy love inspires.
"Give me thy heart"—O strange benignity!
What is a mortal's heart, O God! to thee?
My bursting heart expands
To meet thee, and thy presence weighs me down:
He who contains the heavens within his hands,
Annihilating systems with his frown,
Comes clad in garments of mortality
To dwell on this dim, shadowy earth with me.
For what shall I exchange thee? For the shine
Of worldly pomp and pageantry and power?
This spark, within eternal and divine,
Spurns the false baubles of a fleeting hour.
Thou art all glory, power, infinity—
Thou art; what can I want, possessing thee?
Thou shalt unchanged behold
The starry host, quenched like a firebrand, die;
The firmament is as a vesture rolled
Around thee—as a vesture 'tis cast by.
A thousand years are nothing in thy sight—
Or as a watch that passes in the night.
And when this earth shall fly
To atoms; when the mountains shall be tossed
As chaff; when like a scroll rolls back the sky,
And Nature and her laws for ever lost;
When thou shalt speak in fire the dread command
And hurl it from the hollow of thy hand—
What hope for me? Thy promises sublime
That o'er the wreck of worlds I shall survey,
With eye unmoved, beyond the touch of Time,
The stars grow dark, the melting heavens decay,
And sit arrayed in immortality
In peace eternal and supreme with thee.
C. E. B.