Dante's rapid inspection of the Usurers seems to be an approach to indifference to suffering; but here again it must be remembered that Reason is the influence that calls him away: "Ed io temendo nol più star cruciasse Lui, che di poco star m' avea ammonito, In striking contrast to his usual tenderness is Dante's treatment of Bocca in Antenora; the fierce hatred with which he repays the savageness of Bocca, completely in his power and defenceless, can at first sight hardly be reconciled with his habit of temper.2 But Bocca, the betrayer of the Florentine standard at Montaperti, was of all traitors the most hideous to a loyal Florentine; and perhaps the excuse often made for the one occasion on which we can detect Dante in wilful deceit,3-that any wickedness towards traitors is justifiable, - can be urged in apology for his harshness. here. So great was his tenderness towards Florence, who had wronged him, that her enemies are still his. His treatment of Filippo Argenti has often been considered one of the strongest indications of the harshness of his nature. Argenti's pathetic words, "Vedi che son un che piango," do not deter the poet from expressions that sound like those of malevolent wrath: "Maestro, molto sarei vago Di tal disio converrà che tu goda." Miss Rossetti, with all her keen interpretation of Dante, says, "We really cannot help asking here, Is it possible to 1 Inferno, xvii. 76. 8 Ib. xxxiii. 117. 2 Ib. xxxii. 76. 4 Ib. viii. sympathize with this delight of the disciple, or this rewarding embrace of the Master? Can that be purely righteous indignation which issues in conduct so much too like that of the offender himself?" But surely, even were this a temporary lapse, we cannot characterize Dante as hard-hearted after the many instances we have already had of his tenderness. Filippo Argenti is one of the wrathful himself, and the fearful cruelties perpetrated by those like him in the Middle Ages made indifference from a gentle heart impossible toward one of the crying sins of the time. Dante's sense of justice was most stern, even where his pity was most intense. Between these qualities he felt no incompatibility, as is indicated by his appeal for the Proud, "purging away the smoke-stains of the world." "Se di là sempre ben per noi si dice, Di qua che dire e far per lor si puote Che portâr quinci, sì che mondi e lievi Tosto, sì che possiate muover l' ala, Mostrate da qual mano in ver la scala In a note to his Essay on Dante, Mr. Lowell defends him from the accusation of partisanship: "It is worth mentioning that the sufferers in his 'Inferno' are in like manner pretty exactly divided between the two parties. This is answer enough to the charge of partiality. He even puts persons there for whom he felt affection (as Brunetto Latini) and respect (as Farinata degli Uberti, and Frederick II.)." Villani's beneficent indulgence is a trifle superfluous perhaps : 1 Maria Francesca Rossetti, A Shadow of Dante, ch. vi. 2 Purgatorio, xi. 31. "He was well pleased in this poem to blame and cry out in the manner of poets, in some places perhaps more than he ought to have done; but it may be that his exile made him do so." 1 His hatred of injustice was deepened and intensified by his own sufferings, and his so-called bitterness 2 towards Florence rested on a keen sense of the injustice of which she had been guilty in his exile. He says to Ciacco, "Tell me to what shall come The citizens of the divided city, If any there be just." 8 and Ciacco replies, "The just are two, and are not understood there." His bitterness is not that of unmingled scorn, but his most scathing utterances breathe wounded tenderness; let Florence treat him with all injustice, the "sweet sound of his own native land" is still dear to him. His sharp reproof begins Fiorenza mia. Florence is "the dearest place," even if she be taken from him," the fair sheepfold where a lamb he slumbered," even if it is "cruelty that bars him out." "Ahi," he cries, "piaciuto fosse al Dispensatore dell' universo, che nè altri contra a me avria fallato, nè io sofferto avrei pena ingiustamente; pena, dico, d' esilio e di povertà. Poichè fu piacere de' cittadini della bellissima e famosissima figlia di Roma, Fiorenza, di gettarmi fuori del suo dolcissimo seno (nel quale nato e nudrito fui fino al colmo della mia vita, e nel quale, con buona pace di quella, desidero con tutto il cuore di riposare l'animo stanco, e terminare il tempo che m'è dato) per le parti quasi tutte, alle quali questa lingua si stende, peregrino, quasi mendicando, sono andato, mo 1 Villani, ix. cap. 136. Tr. in Napier's Florentine History, Book i. 2 Vid. Inferno, xv. 65; Purgatorio, xiv. 50; xxiv. 80. 3 Inferno, vi. 60; 73. ↑ Purgatorio, vi. 127; (cf. Paradiso, ix 127;) xvii. 109; xxv 5. strando, contro a mia voglia, la piaga della fortuna, che suole ingiustamente al piagato molte volte essere imputata."1 By none but the most honorable means, however, will he return to her. It was no lack of love for Florence, rather it was stern justice, that prompted him to turn his back upon the pardon she proffered him: "Estne ista revocatio gloriosa, qua Dantes Alligherius revocatur ad patriam, per trilustrium fere perpessus exilium? Hocne meruit innocential manifesta quibuslibet? Hoc sudor et labor continuatus in studio? . . . Absit a viro praedicante justitiam, ut, perpessus injuriam inferentibus velut benemerentibus pecuniam suam solvat! . . . Quidni? nonne solis astrorumque specula ubique conspiciam ? Nonne dulcissimas veritates potero speculari ubique sub caelo, ni prius inglorium, immo ignominiosum populo, Florentinaeque civitati me reddam.”2 But while the bittter tempers the sweet in his thoughts, Beatrice soothes him: "Consider that I am Near unto Him who every wrong disburdens." 8 For "in the arbitrament divine" alone can Dante find perfect justice as well as perfect love. This is the union that explains to him the necessity of the "cross and passion, the precious death and burial" of the incarnate Son of God. "L' humana specie inferma giacque S'era allungata, unio a sè in persona "Chè più largo fu Dio a dar sè stesso, 1 Convito, Tr. i. c. iii. 3 Paradiso, xviii. 5. 2 Epis. Amico Florentino. 4 Vid. Inferno xxiv. 119; Paradiso, xiii. 141; xviii. 106 et seq. Alla giustizia, se il Figliuol di Dio Non fosse umiliato ad incarnarsi."1 It was a cardinal point in Dante's faith that sin alone rendered man "unlike the Good Supreme," and even on the "characters diverse" of humanity he saw the stamp of a divine nature. In this way, by his recognition of more or less of the original divine creative idea stamped upon man, tempered though the wax were by the imperfect moulding influences of earth, he held the key to all love and tenderness. From the day when under the influence of Beatrice Portinari's gracious salutation "a flame of charity possessed" Dante, till he gazed in Paradise at the smile of Beatrice, the Divine Will, growing sweeter as her eyes drew him up to Love Supreme, a gentle charity manifested itself continually in his spirit. His address to Guidoguerra and the other Florentines in the Inferno shows him to have been essentially a gentleman in the finest sense of the term. He could not pass by the Envious with their eyelids transfixed with iron wires, without addressing them with gracious words, because "To me it seemed, in passing, to do outrage, Seeing the others without being seen.' It was in the same spirit of charity that he insisted upon sharing with others all his good things. There is a significant passage in the "Convito " that illustrates this point: "Oh beati quei pochi che seggono a quella mensa ove il pane degli Angeli si mangia e miseri quelli che colle pecore hanno comune cibo! Ma perocchè ciascun uomo a ciascun uomo è naturalmente amico, e ciascuno amico si duole del difetto di colui ch' egli ama, coloro che a sì alta mensa sono cibati, non 1 Paradiso, vii. 28-33, 115–120. Miss Rossetti (Shadow of Dante, p. 223) has most ably defended Dante from the charge of irreverence that Paradiso vi. 90 would seem on the surface to imply. Cf. vii. 43. 2 Ib. xiii. 64-81. Cf. Convito, Tr. iii. c. ii. 4 Inferno xvi. 52 et seq. 6 Tr. i. c. i. 8 V. N. xi. |