And, dashing 'gainst the stocks of heresy,
Smote fiercest, where resistance was most stout.
Thence many rivulets have since been turn'd,
Over the garden catholic to lead

Their living waters, and have fed its plants.
"If such, one wheel of that two-yoked car,
Wherein the holy church defended her,
And rode triumphant through the civil broil;
Thou canst not doubt its fellow's excellence,
Which Thomas2, ere my coming, hath declared
So courteously unto thee. But the track3,
Which its smooth fellies made, is now deserted:
That, mouldy mother is, where late were lees.
His family, that wont to trace his path,
Turn backward, and invert their steps; erelong
To rue the gathering in of their ill crop,
When the rejected tares4 in vain shall ask
Admittance to the barn. I question not 5
But he, who search'd our volume, leaf by leaf,
Might still find page with this inscription on't,
'I am as I was wont.' Yet such were not
From Acquasparta nor Casale, whence,

Of those who come to meddle with the text,
One stretches and another cramps its rule.
Bonaventura's life in me behold,
From Bagnoregio; one, who, in discharge
Of my great offices, still laid aside
All sinister aim. Illuminato here,
And Agostino join me: two they were,
Among the first of those barefooted meek ones,

1 One wheel.] Dominic; as the other wheel is Francis.
2 Thomas.] Thomas Aquinas.

3 But the track.] "But the rule of St. Francis is already deserted and the lees of the wine are turned into mouldiness."

4 Tares.] He adverts to the parable of the tares and the wheat.

5 I question not.] "Some indeed might be found, who still observe the rule of the order: but such would come neither from Casale nor Acquasparta." At Casale, in Monferrat, the discipline had been enforced by Uberto with unnecessary rigour; and at Acquasparta, in the territory of Todi, it had been equally relaxed by the Cardinal Matteo, general of the order. Lucas Waddingus, as cited by Lombardi, corrects the errors of the commentators who had confounded these two.

6

Illuminato here,

And Agostino.] Two among the earliest followers of St. Francis.

Who sought God's friendship in the cord: with

them

Hugues of Saint Victor'; Pietro Mangiadore2; And he of Spain3 in his twelve volumes shining; Nathan the prophet; Metropolitan

Chrysostom; and Anselmo5; and, who deign'd

1 Hugues of St. Victor.] Landino makes him of Pavia; Venturi calls him a Saxon; and Lombardi, following Alexander Natalis, Hist. Eccl. Sæc. xi. cap. 6. art. 9. says that he was from Ypres. He was of the monastery of Saint Victor at Paris, and died in 1142, at the age of forty-four. His ten books, illustrative of the celestial hierarchy of Dionysius the Areopagite, according to the translation of Joannes Scotus, are inscribed to King Louis, son of Louis le Gros, by whom the monastery had been founded. Opera Hug. de S. Vict. fol. Paris. 1526. tom. i. 329. "A man distinguished by the fecundity of his genius, who treated, in his writings, of all the branches of sacred and profane erudition that were known in his time, and who composed several dissertations that are not destitute of merit." Maclaine's Mosheim. Eccl. Hist. v. iii. cent. xii. p. 2. c. 2. § 23. I have looked into his writings, and found some reason for this high eulogium.

2 Pietro Mangiadore.] "Petrus Comestor, or the Eater, born at Troyes, was canon and dean of that church, and afterwards chancellor of the church of Paris. He relinquished these benefices to become a regular canon of St. Victor at Paris, where he died in 1198." Chaudon et Delandine. Dict. Hist. Ed. Lyon. 1804.

The work, by which he is best known, is his Historia Scolastica, which I shall have occasion to cite in the Notes to Canto xxvi.

3 He of Spain.] "To Pope Adrian V. succeeded John XXI. a native of Lisbon; a man of great genius and extraordinary acquirements, especially in logic and in medicine, as his books written in the name of Peter of Spain, (by which he was known before he became Pope) may testify. His life was not much longer than that of his predecessors, for he was killed at Viterbo, by the falling in of the roof of his chamber, after he had been pontiff only eight months and as many days," A. D. 1277. Mariana. Hist. de Esp. 1. xiv. c. 2. His Thesaurus Pauperum is referred to in Brown's Vulgar Errors. B. vii. ch. 7.

4 Chrysostom.] The eloquent patriarch of Constantinople. 5 Anselmo.] 'Anselm, Archbishop of Canterbury, was born at Aosta, about 1034, and studied under Lanfranc, at the monastery of Bec in Normandy, where he afterwards devoted himself to a religious life, in his twenty-seventh year. In three years he was made prior, and then abbot of that monastery; from whence he was taken, in 1093, to succeed to the archbishopric, vacant by the death of Lanfranc. He enjoyed this dignity till his death, in 1109, though it was disturbed by many dissensions with William II. and Henry I. respecting immunities and investitures. There is much depth and precision in his theological works." Tiraboschi. Stor, della Lett. Ital. tom. iii. lib. iv. cap. 2.

To put his hand to the first art, Donatus1.
Raban2 is here; and at my side there shines
Calabria's abbot, Joachim3, endow'd
With soul prophetic. The bright courtesy
Of friar Thomas and his goodly lore,
Have moved me to the blazon of a peer4

So worthy; and with me have moved this throng."

m

CANTO XIII.

ARGUMENT.

Thomas Aquinas resumes his speech. He solves the other of those doubts which he discerned in the mind of Dante, and warns him earnestly against assenting to any proposition without having duly examined it.

LET him, who would conceive what now I saw, Imagine, (and retain the image firm

As mountain rock, the whilst he hears me speak) Of stars, fifteen, from midst the ethereal host

Ibid. c. v. "It is an observation made by many modern writers, that the demonstration of the existence of God, taken from the idea of a Supreme Being, of which Des Cartes is thought to be the author, was so many ages back discovered and brought to light by Anselm. Leibnitz himself makes the remark, vol. v. Oper. p. 570. Edit. Genev. 1768." 1 Donatus.] Elius Donatus, the grammarian, in the fourth century, one of the preceptors of St. Jerome.

So Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, lib. ii. cap. 13.

In questo tempo Donato vivea,

Che delle arti in si breve volume

L'uscio n'aperse e la prima scalea.

2 Raban.]" He was made Archbishop of Mentz in 847. His Latino-Theotische Glossary of the Bible is still preserved in the imperial library at Vienna. See Lambesius. Comment. de Bibl. lib. ii. p. 416 and 932." Gray's Works, 4to. Lond. 1814. vol. ii. p. 33.

"Rabanus Maurus, Archbishop of Mentz, is deservedly placed at the head of the Latin writers of this age." Mosheim. v. ii. cent. ix. p. 2. c. 2. § 14.

3 Joachim.] Abbot of Flora in Calabria; "whom the multitude revered as a person divinely inspired, and equal to the most illustrious prophets of ancient times. "Mosheim. v. iii. cent. xiii. p. 2. c. 2. § 33.

4 A peer.] St. Dominic.

5 Let him.] "Whoever would conceive the sight that now presented itself to me, must imagine to himself fifteen of the brightest stars in heaven, together with seven stars of Arcturus Major and two of Arcturus Minor, ranged in two circles, one within the other, each resembling the crown of Ariadne, and moving round in opposite directions."

Selected, that, with lively ray serene,
O'ercome the massiest air: thereto imagine
The wain, that, in the bosom of our sky,
Spins ever on its axle night and day,

With the bright summit of that horn, which swells
Due from the pole, round which the first wheel rolls,
To have ranged themselves in fashion of two signs
In heaven, such as Ariadne made,

When death's chill seized her; and that one of them
Did compass in the other's beam; and both
In such sort whirl around, that each should tend
With opposite motion: and, conceiving thus,
Of that true constellation, and the dance
Twofold, that circled me, he shall attain

As 't were the shadow; for things there as much
Surpass our usage, as the swiftest heaven

Is swifter than the Chiana1. There was sung
No Bacchus, and no Io Pæan, but

Three Persons in the Godhead, and in one
Person that nature and the human join'd.

The song and round were measured: and to us
Those saintly lights attended, happier made
At each new ministering. Then silence brake
Amid the accordant sons of Deity,

That luminary2, in which the wondrous life
Of the meek man of God3 was told to me;
And thus it spake: "One ear4 o'the harvest thresh'd,
And its grain safely stored, sweet charity
Invites me with the other to like toil.

"Thou know'st, that in the bosom 5, whence the rib Was ta'en to fashion that fair cheek, whose taste All the world pays for; and in that, which pierced By the keen lance, both after and before

1 The Chiana.] See Hell, Canto xxix. 45. 2 That luminary.] Thomas Aquinas.

3 The meek man of God.] Saint Francis. See Canto xi. 25. 4 One ear.] Having solved one of thy questions, I proceed to answer the other. Thou thinkest then that Adam and Christ were both endued with all the perfection of which the human nature is capable; and therefore wonderest at what has been said concerning Solomon."

5 In the bosom.] "Thou knowest that in the breast of Adam, whence the rib was taken to make that fair cheek of Eve, which, by tasting the apple, brought death into the world; and also in the breast of Christ, which, being pierced by the lance, made satisfaction for the sins of the whole world; as much wisdom resided, as human nature was capable of: and thou dost therefore wonder that I should have spoken of Solomon as the wisest." See Canto x. 105.

Such satisfaction offer'd as outweighs

Each evil in the scale; whate'er of light
To human nature is allow'd, must all

Have by his virtue been infused, who form'd
Both one and other: and thou thence admirest
In that I told thee, of beatitudes,

A second there is none to him enclosed
In the fifth radiance. Open now thine eyes
To what I answer thee; and thou shalt see
Thy deeming and my saying meet in truth,
As centre in the round. That' which dies not,
And that which can die, are but each the beam
Of that idea, which our Sovereign Sire
Engendereth loving; for that lively light2;
Which passeth from his splendour, not disjoin'd
From him, nor from his love triune with them3,
Doth, through his bounty, congregate itself,
Mirror'd, as 't were, in new existences 1;
Itself unalterable, and ever one.

66

'Descending hence unto the lowest powers", Its energy so sinks, at last it makes

But brief contingencies; for so I name
Things generated, which the heavenly orbs
Moving, with seed or without seed, produce.
Their wax, and that which molds it, differ much:
And thence with lustre, more or less, it shows
The ideal stamp imprest: so that one tree,
According to his kind, hath better fruit,
And worse and, at your birth, ye, mortal men,
Are in your talents various. Were the wax
Molded with nice exactness, and the heaven7
In its disposing influence supreme,

1 Thut.] "Things, corruptible and incorruptible, are only emanations from the archetypal idea residing in the Divine Mind."

2 Light.] The Word: the Son of God.

3 His love triune with them.] The Holy Ghost.

4 New existences.] Angels and human souls. If we read with some editions and many MSS. "nove" instead of 66 nuove, ," it should be rendered "nine existences," and then means "the nine heavens;" and this reading is approved by Lombardi, Biagioli and Monti. In the terms "sussistenze" and "contingenze," "existences and contingencies," Dante follows the language of the scholastic writers, which I have endeavoured to preserve.

5 The lowest powers.] Irrational life and brute matter. 5 Their wax, and that which molds it.] Matter, and the virtue or energy that acts on it.

7 The heaven.] The influence of the planetary bodies.