National Epics Part 39

The entire time occupied in the "Commedia" is eleven days, from March 25 to April 5, 1300.

Dante called the poem a comedy because of its prosperous ending. The prefix "divine" was given it later by its admirers.

The Divine Comedy is sometimes called the epic of mediaevalism, and again, the epic of man. Dante himself said: "The subject of the whole work, then, taken literally, is the state of the soul after death, regarded as a matter of fact; for the action of the whole work deals with this and is about this. But if the work be taken allegorically, its subject is man, in so far as by merit or demerit in the exercise of free will, he is exposed to the rewards or punishment of justice."

For a time the Divine Comedy was neglected, and even in comparatively recent times the Inferno was the only portion read; but of late years there has been a re-awakening of interest in regard to the whole poem.

In no other of the epics has the author put so much of himself as Dante has in the "Commedia." It was he himself who saw this vision; he himself, proud, tortured, who carried the sense of his wrongs with him through h.e.l.l and Purgatory, even into Paradise. We learn the history of his times, all the crimes committed by men in high position, and we also learn the history of the unhappy Florentine, of whose poem it has been said, "none other in the world is so deeply and universally sorrowful."

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE DIVINE COMEDY.

J. Colomb de Batines's Bibliografia Dantesca, 2 vols., 1846;

William Coolidge Lane's The Dante collections in the Harvard College and Boston Public Libraries (Bibliographical contributions of the library of Harvard University, 1885);

William Coolidge Lane's Additions to the Dante collection in the Harvard Library (see the Annual Reports of the Dante Society of Cambridge, Ma.s.s., 1887);

Brother Azarius's Spiritual Sense of the Divina Commedia (in his Phases of Thought and Criticism, 1892, pp. 125-182);

Henry Clark Barlow's Critical Contributions to the Study of the Divine Comedy, 1865;

Herbert Baynes's Dante and his Ideal, 1891;

Vincenzo Botta's Introduction to the Study of Dante, 1887;

Oscar Browning's Dante, his Life and Writing, 1890, pp. 70-104;

A. J. Butler's Dante, his Time and Work, 1895;

Richard William Church's Dante and Other Essays, 1888, pp. 1-191;

J. Farrazzi's Manuale Dantesco, 5 vols., 1865-77;

William Torrey Harris's Spiritual Sense of Dante's Divina Commedia, 1890;

Francis Hettinger's Dante's Divina Commedia, its Scope and Value, Tr. by H. S. Bowden, 1887 (Roman Catholic standpoint);

J. R. Lowell's Essay on Dante (in his Among my Books, 1876);

Lewis E. Mott's Dante and Beatrice, an Essay on Interpretation, 1892;

Giovanni Andrea Scartazzini's A Companion to Dante, from the German, by A.

J. Butler, 1892;

Denton J. Snider's Dante's Inferno: a Commentary, 1892;

Augustus Hopkins Strong's Dante and the Divine Comedy (in his Philosophy and Religion, 1888, pp. 501-524);

John Addington Symonds's An Introduction to the Study of Dante, Ed. 2, 1890;

Paget Toynbee's Dictionary of the Divina Commedia, 2 parts;

William Warren Vernon's Readings on the Purgatorio of Dante, chiefly based on the Commentary of Benvenuto da Imola; Intro. by the Dean of St. Paul's, 2 vols., 1889;

Dr. Edward Moore's Time References in the Divina Commedia, London, 1887;

Dr. E. Moore's Contributions to the Textual Criticism of the Divina Commedia, Cambridge, 1889.

STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE DIVINE COMEDY.

The Divine Comedy, the Inferno, a literal prose translation with the text of the original collated from the best editions, with explanatory notes by J. A. Carlyle, Ed. 6, 1891 (contains valuable chapters on ma.n.u.scripts, translations, etc.);

Divina Commedia, edited with translation and notes by A. J. Butler, 1892;

Vision of h.e.l.l, Purgatory, and Paradise, Tr. by H. F. Cary, 1888;

The Divine Comedy, Tr. by H. W. Longfellow, 1887;

The Divine Comedy, Tr. by C. E. Norton, 1891-92 (rhythmical prose translation);

The Divine Comedy, Tr. of the Commedia and Lanzoniere, notes, essays, and biographical introduction by E. H. Plumptre, 1887;

Divina Commedia, Tr. into English verse with notes and ill.u.s.trations by J.

A. Wilstach, 2 vols., 1888.

THE DIVINE COMEDY.

THE h.e.l.l.

The h.e.l.l conceived by Dante was made by the falling of Lucifer to the centre of the earth. It was directly under Jerusalem. The earth, displaced by Lucifer's fall, made the Mount of Purgatory, which was the antipodes of Jerusalem.

The unbarred entrance gate, over which stands the inscription, "Leave hope behind, all ye who enter here," leads into a Vestibule, or Ante-h.e.l.l, a dark plain separated from h.e.l.l proper by the river Acheron. h.e.l.l proper then falls into three great divisions for the punishment of the sins of Incontinence, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, and Malice, which are punished in nine circles, each circle sub-divided. Circle One is the Limbo of the Unbaptized.

Circles Two, Three, Four, and Five are reserved for the punishment of the sins of Incontinence, Lasciviousness, Gluttony, Avarice with Prodigality, and Anger with Melancholy. In Circle Six is punished the sin of b.e.s.t.i.a.lity, under which fall Infidelity and Heresiarchy, b.e.s.t.i.a.lity having here its Italian meaning of folly. In Circles Seven and Eight is punished Malice, subdivided into Violence and Fraud. There are three divisions of Violence,--the Violent against their neighbors (Tyrants, Murderers, etc.); the Violent against themselves (Suicides); and the violent against G.o.d (Blasphemers, etc.); and ten divisions of Circle Eight,--Fraud, _i.e._, Seducers, Flatterers, Simoniacs, Soothsayers, Barrators, Hypocrites, Thieves, False Counsellors, Schismatics, and Forgers and Falsifiers. Below these ten pits yawns the well of the giants, above which the giants tower so that half their persons is visible. Within this well in Circle Nine is Cocytus, a lake of ice divided into four belts,--Caina, Antenora, Ptolemaea, and Judecca, where are punished, respectively, the Betrayers of their kindred, of their country, of their friends and guests, and of their benefactors. At the bottom of the pit is Lucifer, half above the ice and half below it, the centre of his body being the centre of gravity.