Chapter 24
Up the wonderful ladder passed Dante and his lady into the eighth heaven of the Fixed Stars, and looking down saw the little earth and the starry heavens through which they had passed. Then, as Beatrice paused with her face all aflame, and her eyes full of ecstasy, down came the hosts of Christ's triumphal march, and within the living light, which dazzled Dante's eyes until he could not see, also appeared Mary, mother of God, crowned by Gabriel, rising into the Empyrean. Of those who remained behind, Beatrice asked that Dante be sprinkled with the waters of the living Fountain; and while they gave their consent, Saint Peter appeared as a fire whirling ecstatically, and singing a divine song. He examined the trembling poet on faith, and his questions being answered satisfactorily, encircled him thrice with his light. Saint James, who next came forth, was likewise pleased with his response on Hope, and he was then blinded by the effulgence of John, so that for a time he could not see the face of his lady.
Of Love he spoke with John, and then talked with Adam. As he listened to the strains of richest melody, he noticed one of the lights--Saint Peter--change from white to red, and then, as silence fell, speak, enraged at the worldliness of the Holy See. "My cemetery has been made a sewer of blood and stench. When thou returnest to earth, reveal what thou hast heard. Do not thou conceal what I have not concealed."
Commanded by Beatrice, Dante looked back at earth once more, and as he looked, was carried up into the heaven of the Primum Mobile, where dwelt the moral philosophers. Here the angelic spirits circled round the point of intense light, the divine centre. The nearer God was the circle, the greater virtue it possessed. This order was inverse to that of the heavens, but Dante learned from Beatrice that the orbs revolved through narrow paths or wide according to the virtue of their parts, and that a strict agreement of harmony prevailed between the great and the small. The angel and the heavens were created simultaneously, and, as direct emanations from God, know no decay. Of this and many things concerning the Creation, did Beatrice enlighten Dante before the beauty of her smile told him that they were in the Empyrean. "Now shall thou look upon the mighty hosts of Paradise."
The poet's dazzled eyes saw then a river of light from which issued living sparks sunk down into the flowers like rubies set in gold. Instructed by Beatrice he drank of the stream and the river changed into a lake; then he saw the Courts of Heaven made manifest, and the splendor of God. The ample Rose unfolded its leaves before him, breathing praise and perfume, and as he gazed into it Beatrice pointed out the radiant spirits and the thronged seats, one of which was reserved for the Emperor Henry of Luxembourg, from whom Dante expected so much, and who died before aught was accomplished. As Dante gazed, the hosts with wings of gold and faces of living flame, singing anthems, alternately sank into the Rose, like a swarm of bees sinking into summer flowers, and rose again to view the Divine splendor. Turning to question Beatrice again, Dante found in her place Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, an old man full of the tenderest pity, who pointed out to him Beatrice in her own place, the third round of the first rank. As from afar, Dante pleaded with the beautiful lady who had left her place in heaven to go even unto the gates of hell for his sake, to aid him still; she seemed to smile upon him before she again turned her gaze upon the Eternal Fountain of Light. Saint Bernard explained to the poet the divisions of the Rose and the seats of the saints, and then addressed a prayer to the Virgin, asking that Dante be permitted to look upon the Almighty Father. As he prayed, Beatrice and all the blessed ones clasped their hands to her who likes so well prayers of divine fervor. At a gesture from Bernard, the poet looked upward. Then what a radiant vision met his eyes! Three circles he saw of threefold color and one dimension. As he looked, one seemed to take our image, and again was lost in the infinite glory of the Light Divine. As he tried to describe it, imagination failed him, though his will remained, moving on with the even motion of the sun and stars.
SELECTIONS FROM THE DIVINE COMEDY.
COUNT UGOLINO.
In the frozen lake of Cocytus in the ninth circle of the Inferno, where were punished the traitors to kindred, country, friends, or benefactors, the poets beheld Count Ugolino, a Guelph, who, because of his treachery, was taken prisoner by the people with his sons and grandsons and thrust into a tower, where they were left to starve. Ugolino was frozen in the ice, where he forever gnawed the head of the Archbishop Ruggieri, his enemy. At the request of Dante he stopped to tell his story.
"Thy will 'tis I renew A desperate sorrow that doth crush my heart Even before my lips its tale impart. But if my words may be a seed that, sowed, Shall fruit of infamy to this traitor bear, Then, though I weep, speech too shall be my care.
"Who thou may'st be I know not, nor what mode Hath brought thee here below, but then I glean, From words of thine, thou art a Florentine. That I Count Ugolino was, know thou, And this the Archbishop Ruggieri. Why I will thee tell we are such neighbors nigh. Needs not to say that him I did allow A friend's own trusts, but so his treachery wrought; That first my liberty, then my life, it sought.
"But that which thou canst not have hitherto learned That is, how cruel was my death, I thee Will tell; judge thou if he offended me. Within the Mew, a tower which well hath earned From me its name of Famine, and where wrath Yet others waits, a narrow opening hath, Through which of several moons the broken light Had strayed, when unto me in sleep was sent A dream whereby the future's veil was rent.
"This ill dream me this man set forth in might: He wolf and whelps upon those mounts pursued Which Pisa 'twixt and Lucca's domes obtrude. Hounds had he with him, lank and shrewd and keen, And in their front Gualandi's sword had place, Sismondi's lash and sour Lanfranchi's mace. Father and sons' undoing soon was seen; Methought the sharp fangs on them closed, and tore Their flanks, which now the hue of crimson wore.
"Before the dawn I woke and heard my sons, The helpless children with me, in their sleep, Cry out for bread, cries pushed from sobbings deep. Right cruel art thou, if not e'en now runs To tears thy grief at what my heart forbode, If tears of thine at misery's tale e'er flowed. And then they woke, and came the hour around Which had been wont our scanty meal to bring; But from our dreams dumb terrors seemed to spring;
"When from below we heard the dreadful sound Of nails; the horrible tower was closed; all dumb I let my gaze into my sons' eyes come. Weep I did not, like stone my feelings lay. They wept, and spoke my little Anselm: 'Pray Why lookest so? Father, what ails thee, say?' Shed I no tear, nor answered all that day Nor the next night, until another sun His journey through the wide world had begun.
"Then came a small ray into our sad, sad den, And when in their four faces I beheld That carking grief which mine own visage held, Mine hands for grief I bit, and they, who then Deemed that I did it from desire to eat, Stood up each one at once upon his feet, And said: 'Father, 'twill give us much less pain If thou wilt eat of us: of thee was born This hapless flesh, and be it by thee torn.'
"Myself I calmed that they might not so grieve; Mute that day and the next we were; O thou Most cruel earth, that didst not open now! When we the fourth day's agony did receive Stretched at my feet himself my Gaddo threw, And said: 'My father, canst thou nothing do?' There died he, and, as now sees me thy sight, The three I saw fall one by one; first died One on the fifth; deaths two the sixth me tried.
"Then blind, I groped o'er them to left and right, And for three days called on their spirits dead; Then grief before the power of fasting fled." _Wilstach's Translation, Inferno. Canto XXXIII._
BUONCONTE DI MONTEFELTRO.
On the second terrace of the Ante-Purgatory, on the Purgatorial Mount, were the spirits of those whose lives were ended by violence. Among those who here addressed Dante was Buonconte di Montefeltro, who was slain in the battle of Campaldino, and whose body was never found.
Another then: "Ah, be thy cherished aim Attained that to the lofty Mount thee draws, As thou with pity shalt advance my cause. Of Montefeltro I Buonconte am; Giovanna, and she only, for me cares; Hence among those am I whom waiting wears."
"What violence or what chance led thee so wide From Campaldino," I of him inquired, "That's still unknown thy burial-place retired?" "Oh, Casentino's foot," he thus replied, "Archiano's stream o'erflows, which hath its rise Above the Hermitage under Apennine skies. There where its name is lost did I arrive, Pierced through and through the throat, in flight, Upon the plain made with my life-blood bright;
"There sight I lost, and did for speech long strive; At last I uttered Mary's name, and fell A lifeless form, mine empty flesh a shell. Truth will I speak, below do thou it hymn; Took me God's Angel up, and he of Hell Cried out: 'O thou from Heaven, thou doest well To rob from me the eternal part of him For one poor tear, that me of him deprives; In other style I'll deal with other lives!'
"Well know'st thou how in air is gathered dim That humid vapor which to water turns Soon as the cold its rising progress learns. The fiend that ill-will joined (which aye seeks ill) To intellectual power, which mist and wind Moved by control which faculties such can find, And afterwards, when the day was spent, did fill The space from Protomagno to where tower The Mounts with fog; and high Heaven's covering power
"The pregnant atmosphere moist to water changed. Down fell the rain, and to the ditches fled, Whate'er of it the soil's thirst had not sped; And, as it with the mingling torrents ranged Towards the royal river, so it flowed That over every obstacle wild it rode. The robust river found my stiffened frame Near to its outlet, and it gave a toss To Arno, loosening from my breast the cross
"I made of me when agony me o'ercame; Along his banks and bottoms he me lapped, Then in his muddy spoils he me enwrapped." _Wilstach's Translation, Purgatorio, Canto V._
BEATRICE DESCENDING FROM HEAVEN.
Dante and Vergil mounted to the Terrestial Paradise, where, while they talked with Matilda, the Car of the Church Triumphant appeared in the greatest splendor. As it stopped before Dante it was enveloped in a shower of roses from the hands of a hundred angels.
I have beheld ere now, when dawn would pale, The eastern hemisphere's tint of roseate sheen, And all the opposite heaven one gem serene, And the uprising sun, beneath such powers Of vapory influence tempered, that the eye For a long space its fiery shield could try:
E'en so, embosomed in a cloud of flowers, Which from those hands angelical upward played, And roseate all the car triumphal made, And showered a snow-white veil with olive bound, Appeared a Lady, green her mantle, name Could not describe her robe unless 't were flame. And mine own spirit, which the past had found Often within her presence, free from awe, And which could never from me trembling draw, And sight no knowledge giving me at this time, Through hidden virtue which from her came forth, Of ancient love felt now the potent worth. As soon as on my vision smote sublime The heavenly influence that, ere boyhood's days Had fled, had thrilled me and awoke my praise, Unto the leftward turned I, with that trust Wherewith a little child his mother seeks, When fear his steps controls, and tear-stained cheeks,
To say to Vergil: "All my blood such gust Of feeling moves as doth man's bravery tame; I feel the traces of the ancient flame." _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
THE EXQUISITE BEAUTY OF BEATRICE.
While Dante and Beatrice rose from the Heaven of Primal Motion to the Empyrean, the poet turned his dazzled eyes from the heavens, whose sight he could no longer bear, to the contemplation of Beatrice.
Wherefore my love, and loss of other view, Me back to Beatrice and her homage drew. If what of her hath been already said Were in one single eulogy grouped, 't would ill Her meed of merit at this moment fill.
The beauty which in her I now beheld B'yond mortals goes; her Maker, I believe, Hath power alone its fulness to receive. Myself I own by obstacles stronger spelled Than in his labored theme was ever bard Whose verses, light or grave, brought problems hard; For, as of eyes quelled by the sun's bright burst, E'en so the exquisite memory of that smile Doth me of words and forming mind beguile.
Not from that day when on this earth I first Her face beheld, up to this moment, song Have I e'er failed to strew her path along, But now I own my limping numbers lame; An artist sometimes finds his powers surpassed, And mine succumbs to beauty's lance at last. And I must leave her to a greater fame Than any that my trumpet gives, which sounds, Now, hastening notes, which mark this labor's bounds. _Wilstach's Translation, Paradiso, Canto XXX._
THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Ludovico Ariosto, author of the Orlando Furioso was born in Reggio, Italy, Sept. 8, 1474. In 1503 he was taken into the service of the Cardinal Hippolito d'Este, and soon after began the composition of the Orlando Furioso, which occupied him for eleven years. It was published in 1516, and brought him immediate fame. Ariosto was so unkindly treated by his patron that he left him and entered the service of the cardinal's brother, Alfonso, Duke of Ferrara. By him he was appointed governor of a province, in which position he repressed the banditti by whom it was infested, and after a successful administration of three years, returned to Ferrara to reside. The latter part of his life was spent in writing comedies and satires, and in revising the Orlando Furioso. He died in Ferrara, June 6, 1533.
The Orlando Furioso is a sequel to Boiardo's Orlando Innamorata, Ariosto taking up the story at the end of that poem. Its historical basis is the wars of Charlemagne with the Moors, which were probably confused with those of Charles Martel. As the Orlando of the poem is the same Roland whose fall at Roncesvalles in 778 is celebrated in the Song of Roland, its events must have occurred before that time.
Although the poem is called Orlando Furioso, Orlando's madness occupies a very small part of it, the principal threads of the story being Orlando's love for Angelica and his consequent madness, the wars of Charlemagne, and the loves of Bradamant and Rogero. From this Rogero the family of Este claimed to be derived, and for this reason Ariosto made Rogero the real hero of the poem, and took occasion to lavish the most extravagant praises upon his patron and his family.
With these principal threads are interwoven innumerable episodes which are not out of place in the epic, and lend variety to a story which would otherwise have become tiresome. The lightness of treatment, sometimes approaching ridicule, the rapidity of movement, the grace of style, and the clearness of language, the atmosphere created by the poet which so successfully harmonizes all his tales of magic and his occasional inconsistencies, and the excellent descriptions, have all contributed to the popularity of the poem, which is said to be the most widely read of the epics. These descriptions outweigh its faults,--the taking up the story of Boiardo without an explanation of the situation, the lack of unity, and the failure to depict character; for with the exception of Bradamant and Rogero, Ariosto's heroes and heroines are very much alike, and their conversation is exceedingly tiresome.
The Furioso is written in the octave stanza, and originally consisted of forty cantos, afterwards increased to forty-six.
The poem is the work of a practical poet, one who could govern a province. It is marred by an over-profusion of ornament, and contains no such lofty flights of fancy as are to be found in the Jerusalem Delivered. To this, no doubt, it owes, in part at least, its great popularity, for the poet's poem is never the people's poem.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND CRITICISM, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Dublin University Magazine, 1845, xxvi., 187-201, 581-601, xxvii., 90-104;
Retrospective Review, 1823, viii., 145-170, ix., 263-291;
William T. Dobson's Classic Poets, 1879, pp. 186-238;
Leigh Hunt's Stories from the Italian Poets, n. d. vol. ii., pp. 134-151;
William Hickling Prescott's Italian Narrative Poetry. (See his Biographical and Critical Miscellanies, 1873, pp. 441-454);
M. W. Shelley's Lives of the most eminent Literary and Scientific Men of Italy, Spain, and Portugal, 1835, pp. 239-255. (In Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia, vol. i.);
John Addington Symonds's Italian Literature, 1888, vol. i., pp. 493-522, vol. ii. pp. 1-50.
STANDARD ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS, THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
Orlando Furioso, Tr. from the Italian by Sir James Harrington, 1724;
Orlando Furioso, Tr. by John Hoole, 1819;
Orlando Furioso, Tr. into English verse by W. S. Rose, 2 vols., 1864-5.
THE STORY OF THE ORLANDO FURIOSO.
The Emperor Charlemagne was at war with the Moors and had camped near the Pyrenees with his host, determined to conquer their leaders, Marsilius of Spain and Agramant of Africa. To his camp came Orlando, the great paladin, with the beautiful Angelica, princess of Cathay, in search of whom he had roamed the world over. Orlando's cousin, Rinaldo, another of the great lords of Charlemagne, also loved Angelica, for he had seen her immediately after drinking of the Fountain of Love in the forest of Arden, and Charlemagne, fearing trouble between the cousins on her account, took Angelica from Orlando's tent and placed her in the care of Duke Namus of Bavaria.
Angelica did not like Orlando and she loathed Rinaldo, for he had been the first to meet her after she had tasted the waters of the Fountain of Hate. So when the Christian forces were one day routed in battle and the tents forsaken, she leaped on her palfrey and fled into the forest. Here the first person she met was the hated Rinaldo; and fleeing from him she encountered the fierce Moor Ferrau, who, being also in love with her, drew his sword and attacked the pursuing paladin. But when the two discovered that Angelica had taken advantage of their duel to flee, they made peace and went in search of her.
As she fled, Angelica met Sacripant, an eastern lover who had followed her to France, and put herself under his protection. But when Sacripant was first defeated by Bradamant and then engaged in battle with the pursuing Rinaldo, she deemed herself safer without him and fled; and presently a page appeared, a shade conjured there by a hermit magician whom Angelica had met, and announced to the warriors that Orlando had appeared and carried the maid to Paris.
Rinaldo immediately hastened to Paris, to find Orlando absent and Charlemagne, defeated by the Moors, entrenching himself in the city and preparing to send to England for aid. Rinaldo must be his ambassador, and that without a day's delay.
Frantic with jealousy, Rinaldo leaped into a ship in the midst of a storm, and hastened on his errand. Driven upon the coast of Scotland, he won the king's gratitude by saving his daughter Ginevra from shame and death, and secured from him a promise of all the horsemen and arms that could be spared. He was equally successful in England, and was soon reviewing the troops preparatory to their embarkation.
The warrior maid, Bradamant, sister of Rinaldo, after overthrowing Sacripant, pursued her way through the forest in search of Rogero the pagan. They had met once in battle and had loved, and since then she had ever roamed through the land in search of him. In the forest she found Pinabel, lamenting because his beloved lady had been snatched from him by a wizard on a winged steed, and carried to an impregnable castle. Thither he had seen many warriors conveyed, among them Rogero and Gradasso, conquered first by the lance and then thrown into profound slumber by the glare of a magic shield carried by the wizard.
Bradamant, anxious to save Rogero, offered to rescue Pinabel's lady if he would guide her to the castle. But when the treacherous knight learned that she was Bradamant, between whose house and his there was a deadly feud, he planned to slay her, and soon, by his treachery, managed to hurl her down a precipice.
Bradamant was only stunned by the fall, however, and soon awoke, to find herself at the entrance of a cave, which was the tomb of Merlin. Melissa, the prophetess maid, welcomed her, assured her that Rogero should be her spouse, and showed her their phantom descendants, brave princes and beautiful princesses of the house of Este. She then told her that Brunello, a knight of King Agramant, was hastening to the castle to release the prisoners by means of a magic ring, formerly the property of Angelica, which when put in the mouth would render one invisible, and, worn on the finger, made one proof against magic spells. Bradamant must overcome Brunello, wrest the ring from him, and herself free Rogero.
Following Melissa's advice, Bradamant overtook Brunello, seized the ring, and hastening to the castle, challenged Atlantes to battle. When he displayed the shield she pretended to become unconscious; but when he ran up to bind her she sprang up and seized him. He declared that he had imprisoned Rogero, his nephew, only to save him from the fate foretold by the stars, death by treachery at the hands of the Christians, and had brought the other knights and ladies there for his entertainment. Then Atlantes broke the spell and disappeared, together with the castle, and the prisoners trooped forth, Rogero among them.
Bradamant was happy, but alas! only for a moment; for as she and Rogero went down the mountain together he thoughtlessly leaped on the hippogrif, which alighted near him, and the winged steed, refusing his control, rose in the air, leaving the tearful Bradamant behind. The hippogrif flew rapidly over land and sea until it was directly above a small island, upon which it descended. Rogero sprang from its back, tied it to a myrtle tree, and, weary from his three thousand mile ride in heavy armor, prepared to drink from a rippling spring. The groves were of cedar, laurel, palm, and myrtle; roses and lilies filled the air with their perfume, and the wild stag and timid hare ran fearlessly through the groves. As he stooped to drink he heard a voice issuing from the myrtle to which he had tied the hippogrif. It was that of Astolpho, the English knight, who told him that the greater part of the island was under the control of Alcina the enchantress, who had left only a small portion to her sister Logistilla, to whom it all rightfully belonged. He himself had been enticed thither by Alcina, who had loved him for a few weeks, and then, serving him as she did all her lovers, had transformed him to a tree.