another work, he tells us that the Earthly Paradise foreshadows the happiness of this life; the Heavenly Paradise, the bliss of life eternal; that, to reach the former, we require the Emperor; to reach the latter, the Pope (De Monarchia, II, 15, cf. above, p. 252). Now, in The Divine Comedy, we have both paradises, the earthly and the heavenly; we have two guides, one leading man to the Earthly Paradise, the other leading him to the Heavenly. Hence, we must, in all reason, apply Dante's thought-system to The Comedy, and make Dante his own interpreter. If we do this, we shall find that, in The Comedy, Dante shows how, under the direction of the imperial authority, which guides him by the teachings of philosophy, man arrives at happiness in this life, a happiness which consists in the exercise of native virtue; and, further, how, under the direction of the ecclesiastical authority, which guides him according to revelation, he attains to the bliss of life eternal, which consists in the enjoyment of the Vision of God. Hence, both interpretations - on the one hand, the moral and religious, on the other, the political-are true; but each contains only half the truth. The whole truth lies in the union of the two views. After all that we have said in the course of this little work, it hardly seems necessary to spend more words on the personal and individual element in The Comedy. On the Conception of the Poem, see Bernardelli, Franc.: Il Concetto della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri. A Demonstration. Naples, 1859, 12mo. Barelli, Vinc.: L' Allegoria della Divina Commedia. Florence, 1854, 12mo. Delff, H. K. Hugo: Die Idee der Göttlichen Komödie. Leipzig, 1871, 8vo. [Also, Dante Alighieri und die Göttliche Komödie. Leipzig, 1869.] Graziani, G. Interpretazione della Allegoria della Divina Commedia. Bologna, 1871, 8vo. Commento sopra la Labruzzi di Nexima, Franc.: Nuovo principale Allegoria del Poema di Dante. Bernardelli, Franc.: Il Dominio temporale dei Papi nel Concetto politico di Dante Alighieri. Con un' Appendice sul vero Senso della Divina Commedia. Modena, 1881, 16mo. (This recent work of the reverend Father is very important, in spite of its title.) [Blow, Susan E.: A Study of Dante. With an Introduction by W. T. Harris. New York and London, 1886. Fiorentino, Fr.: Dell' Armonia del Concetto di Dante, come Filosofo, come Storico, come Statista, in Scritti Varii di Letteratura, Filosofia e Critica. Naples, 1876.] § 4. SYMBOLISM. - Being an allegorical poem, The Comedy is necessarily full of symbols and symbolic actions. Not all, but a large number of the persons who appear upon the scene, and, among them, the principal ones, have a double meaning, the one, historical, the other, symbolic. But even the very large number of personages who stand in no immediate relation to the principal action of the poem, and who appear to have been introduced merely for the sake of poetic ornament, have a symbolic meaning, in that they represent whole classes of sinners, penitents, or saints. So, likewise, the per sonages whom we may call fantastic are symbolic, the demons in Hell, the angels in Purgatory and Paradise, the animals which the Poet sees on his mystic journey. And, as the principal action of the poem is symbolic, so many, perhaps even all, of the subordinate actions are symbolic. 1 The sources from which Dante drew his symbolism are, (1) the Bible; (2) the Church Fathers; (3) the Schoolmen and, above all, the Mystics, of the Middle Age; (4) Classical Mythology. In part, however, this symbolism is the original, spontaneous creation of the Poet's fancy. The key to the right understanding of The Comedy is the fundamental allegory contained in the first two cantos of the first Canticle. The dark forest, the direct way, the Poet's sleep, the valley, the hill and the Delectable Mountain, the sun which illuminates that hill, the desert track, the three wild beasts, Virgil, the other path which the Poet must follow, the Greyhound (Veltro), the three ladies in heaven, are symbols which here appear upon the scene and must be understood by any one who wishes to arrive at an understanding of the poem. Other important symbols appearing in the course of the poem are the following:- in the Hell, Minos, the other infernal demons, the three Furies, the heavenly messenger, the Harpies, the Old Man of Crete, the infernal rivers, the cord with which Dante was girt, the giants, the three sinners in the jaws of Satan; in the Purgatory, the four stars, Cato, the Pleasant Valley, the serpent, the eagle, Lucia, Statius, the trees of the sixth circle, Matelda, etc. The symbolism reaches its height in the vision of the Earthly Paradise, which occupies the concluding cantos of the second Canticle: here all is symbolical and allegorical, — the place, no less than the personages and the actions. Next to the allegory which stands at the head of The Comedy, the allegory in the last cantos of the Purgatory is of capital importance for the understanding of the poem. In the Paradise, the symbols are fewer, perhaps because all is symbol. Among the principal may be reckoned the eagle formed by the blessed spirits, the cross in Mars, the river of light, and the celestial rose. To the symbolism is due the chief obscurity of the poem. Although some of the symbols are easy of interpretation, and others are explained by Dante himself, e.g., Virgil and Beatrice, a considerable number are so obscure and so hard to interpret correctly, that no interpreter of sense could flatter himself that he had in all cases hit the truth. And the difficulty is now all the greater, because several symbols have been drowned in a sea of different and contradictory interpretations, each pretending to be the only true one. An interpretation of the symbols of The Divine Comedy would be a long task, especially as we should, of necessity, be obliged to examine all the interpretations hitherto proposed. And how many interpretations, for example, are there of the "firm foot" (Hell, I, 30), the three wild beasts, the Greyhound! The student may refer to the various commentaries; he may, likewise, consult the following works : 1. On Beatrice. Puccianti, Gius.: Allegoria di Beatrice, in Dante e il suo Secolo, pp. 159+79. Frigeri, Inn. Significato della Beatrice di Dante in Relazione ad altri Simboli del sacro Poema, in the Albo Dantesco Mantovano. Mantua, 1865, PP. 59-77. Perez, Fr.: La Beatrice svelata. Preparazione all' Intelligenza di tutte le Opere di Dante. Palermo, 1865. Tancredi, Gius.: La Beatrice dell' Alighieri nel Tipo religioso ed artistico. Rome, 1875. Galanti, Carm.: Beatrice è il Simbolo della Rivelazione. Ripatransone, 1875, 2d edit., 1881. De Guidobaldi, Dom.: La Beatrice di Dante è la Rivelazione ovvero la Teologia. Naples, 1876. Galanti, Carm. Lettere IX su Dante. Ripatransone, 1876. [2. On the Firm Foot. Tommasèo, Nicolò: Nuovi Studi su Dante. Turin, 1865, pp. 291-315, 317-18.] 3. On Virgil. Comparetti, D.: Virgilio nel Medio Evo. Leghorn, 1872, 2 vols. Jacob, Joh.: Die Bedeutung der Führer Dante's in der Divina Commedia. Leipzig, 1874. [Villari, P.: Dante e la Letteratura in Italia, in Saggi di Storia, di Critica e di Politica. Florence, 1868, 8vo, pp. 145-56.] 4. The Three Wild Beasts. Bongiovanni, Dom.: La Lonza, il Leone e la Lupa, in the work, Prolegomeni al Nuovo Commento della Divina Commedia. Forli, 1858, pp. 275-324. Picchioni, L.: La Lupa nella Divina Commedia Basle, 1869. Calvori, I.: La Selva, le Belve e le tre Donne della Divina Commedia. Idea di un nuovo Commento esposti in due Discorsi. Torino, 1873. 5. The Greyhound. Scartazzini, G. A.: Il Cinquecento Dieci e nt pie. : h Commentary to the Comedy, Vol. II, pp. 801-1 lese, in his (Contains a list of the very numerous works on the too famallee Greyhound.) |