[111]. “A damsel,” etc. This was Lavinia, daughter of King Latinus and Amata. Lavinia had been secretly promised in marriage by her mother to Turnus, King of the Rutuli. The marriage was displeasing to the gods, and the oracles declared that Lavinia should marry a foreign prince. The foreign prince was Æneas, who, on his arrival in Italy, became the friend and ally of Latinus, and won his favor as suitor to Lavinia. Turnus thereupon declared war against both, and was killed in battle by Æneas. Amata, having been informed prematurely of the death of Turnus, and enraged at being unable to prevent the marriage of Lavinia with Æneas, hanged herself in despair.
[112]. “Never Creator ...” In this passage Virgil explains to Dante the nature of love according to the mediæval philosophy, viz., God is love. “Deus caritas est,” and so are all created things, as derived from him. Love in man is natural or rational—that is, of the mind. Natural love, or the love towards all things necessary to one’s preservation, cannot err. Rational love can err in three ways: first, when directed to a bad aim—that is, to evil; secondly, when directed excessively to earthly pleasures; thirdly, when directed feebly to those things truly worthy of love, the celestial. As long as love turns to the Primal Good, the celestial, or seeks with due check the inferior, or terrestrial, it cannot be the source of wrong, or sin. “But when it swerves to ill,” ... etc.
[113]. “Whence may’st thou ...” Love is the source of good works, as of bad ones; thus, according to St. Augustine, “Boni aut mali mores sunt boni aut mali amores.”
[114]. “Hatred of Him ...” Love cannot turn against its subjects (viz., men cannot hate themselves); and as these subjects cannot exist separate from their First Being, they cannot therefore hate God. (Men may deny or blaspheme, but not hate, God.) It follows, therefore, that, as no bad love can be directed against one’s self or against God, that it can only be against one’s neighbor, and this can be in three forms: viz., by Pride, or the love of good to ourselves and of evil to others; by Envy, or the love of evil to others, without cause of good or evil to us; by Anger, or the love of evil to others on account of real or imaginary evil to us.
[115]. “... Languid love ...” Sloth; indolence to seek the true good, which is God.
[116]. “There is another good ...”—the love of this world and earthly pleasures.
[117]. “Tripartite ...”—three other bad loves: Avarice, Gluttony, Lust.
[118]. See The Catholic World for February, 1878, “Confession in the Church of England,” by the Right Rev. Mgr. Capel, D.D.
[119]. These are not the exact words, but they express the exact sense of St. Thomas in the following passage: Beatitudo est bonum perfectum quod totaliter quietat appetitum.... Objectum autem voluntatis, quæ est appetitus humanus, est universale bonum. Summa Th., 4, ii. q. 2. a. 5.
[120]. Mélanges, French translation, vol. i. Essay on the Maxim, No Salvation out of the Catholic Church.