And he—"O brother! what boots it to climb?
God's Angel sitting at the gate denies
Me way to penance until so much time
Be past as living I beheld the skies.
Outside I must remain here for the crime
Of dallying to the last my contrite sighs,
Unless I happily some help derive
From the pure prayer ascending from a heart
That lives in grace: a prayer not thus alive
Heaven doth not hear: what aid can such impart?"
Now before me the Poet up the height
Began to climb, saying, "Come on, for o'er
This hill's meridian hangs the Sun, and Night
Sets foot already on Morocco's shore."
NOTE.
The Rev. Edward Everett Hale, in a most interesting paper intended for presentation to the American Antiquarian Society, in Boston, makes this record:
"When Columbus sailed on his fourth voyage, he wrote to Ferdinand and Isabella a letter which contains the following statement with regard to the South Sea, then undiscovered, known to us as the Pacific Ocean:
"'I believe that if I should pass under the equator, in arriving at this higher region of which I speak, I should find there a milder temperature and a diversity in the stars and in the waters. Not that I believe that the highest point is navigable whence these currents flow, nor that we can mount there, because I am convinced that there is the terrestrial paradise, whence no one can enter but by the will of God.'
"This curious passage, of which the language seems so mystical, represents none the less the impression which Columbus had of the physical cosmogony of the undiscovered half of the world. It is curious to observe that the most elaborate account of this cosmogony, and that by which alone it has been handed down to the memory of modern times, is that presented in Dante's Divina Commedia, where he represents the mountain of Purgatory, at the antipodes of Jerusalem, crowned by the terrestrial paradise. It is this paradise of which Columbus says, 'No one can enter it but by the will of God.'
"Of Dante's cosmogony a very accurate account is given by Miss Rossetti, in her essay on Dante, recently published, to which she gives the name of 'The Shadow of Dante.' Her statement is in these words:
"'Dante divides our globe into two elemental hemispheres—the Eastern, chiefly of land; the Western, almost wholly of water.'"
It is much easier to praise Mr. Hale's valuable comments than to agree with Miss Rossetti. To us it seems that her confused account lets no light in upon Dante's cosmogony, which was simply that of the age he lived in, poetized after his own fashion. According to the interpretation of The Catholic World's translation, Dante divides our globe into two hemispheres—Northern and Southern. In the story of Ulysses (Inferno, Canto xxvi.) he alludes to a Western hemisphere, and, as far as we remember, nowhere else. Mr. Hale says in conclusion of his able paper, "I am not aware that any of the distinguished critics of Dante have called attention to the fact that so late as the year 1503, a navigator so illustrious as Columbus was still conducting his voyages on the supposition that Dante's cosmogony was true in fact."