Dante: Six Sermons. Philip Henry Wicksteed
the passion of his heart grappled for nineteen years with the task of giving worthy utterance to his vast idea. Line by line, canto by canto, the victory was won. Dante had shown that his mother tongue could rise to loftier themes than Greek or Roman had ever touched, and had wrought out the fitting garb of a poem that stands alone in the literature of the world in the scope and sublimity of its conception.
Barely to realise what it was that Dante attempted, wakes feelings in our hearts akin to awe. When we think of that work and of the man who, knowing what it was, deliberately set himself to do it, an appalling sense of the presence of overwhelming grandeur falls upon us, as when a great wall of rocky precipice rises sheer at our side, a thousand and yet a thousand feet towards heaven. Our heads swim as we gaze up to the sky-line of such a precipice, the ground seems to drop from beneath our feet, all our past and present becomes a dream, and our very hold of life seems to slip away from us. But the next moment a great exultation comes rushing upon our hearts, with quickened pulses and drawing deeper breath we rise to the sublimity of the scene around us, and our whole being is expanded and exalted by it. After holding converse with such grandeur our lives can never be so small again. And so it is when the meaning of Dante's Comedy breaks upon us. When we follow the poet step by step as he beats or pours his thought into language, when we note the firmness of his pace, the mastery with which he handles and commands his infinite theme, the unflinching directness, the godlike self-reliance, with which he lays bare the hearts of his fellow-men and makes himself the mouthpiece of the Eternal, when we gaze upon his finished work and the despair of Hell, the yearning of Purgatory, the peace of Heaven, sweep over our hearts, we are ready to whisper in awe-struck exultation:
What immortal hand or eye
Dared form thy fearful symmetry?
The allegory with which the 'Divine Comedy' opens, shadows forth the meaning and the purpose of the whole poem. In interpreting it we may at first give prominence to its political signification, not because its main intention is certainly or probably political, but because we shall thus be enabled to pass in due order from the outer to the inner circle of the poet's beliefs and purposes.
In the year 1300, then, Dante Alighieri found that he had wandered, he knew not how, from the true path of life, and was plunged into the deadly forest of political, social, and moral disorder which darkened with terrific shade the fair soil of Italy. Deep horror settled upon the recesses of his heart during the awful night, but at last he saw the fair light of the morning sun brightening the shoulders of a hill that stretched above: this was the peaceful land of moral and political order, which seemed to offer an escape from the bitterness of that ghastly forest. Gathering heart at this sweet sight, Dante set himself manfully to work, with the nether foot ever planted firmly on the soil, to scale that glorious height. But full soon his toilsome path would be disputed with him. The dire powers of Guelfism would not allow the restoration of peace and order to Italy. His first foe was the incurable factiousness and lightness of his own fair Florence. Like a lithe and speckled panther it glided before him to oppose his upward progress, and forced him once and again to turn back upon his steps towards that dread forest he had left. But though forced back, Dante could not lose hope. Might he not tame this wild but beauteous beast? Yes; he might have coped with the fickle, lustful, factious, envious but lovely Florence, had not haughty France rushed on him like a lion, at whose voice the air must tremble, had not lean and hungry Rome, laden with insatiable greed, skulked wolf-like in his path. It was the wolf above all that forced him back into the sunless depths of that forest of dismay, and dashed to the ground his hopes of gaining the fair height. When could he, when could his Italy, rise from this chaos and be at peace? Not till some great political Messiah should draw his sword. With no base love of pelf or thirst for land, but fed with wisdom, love, and virtue, he should exalt the humbled Italy and drive away her foes. Like a noble hound, he should chase the insatiable wolf of Roman greed from city to city back to the Hell from which it came.[15]
Dante's hope in this political Messiah rose and fell, but never died in his heart. Now with the gospel of Messianic peace, now with the denunciation of Messianic judgment on his lips, he poured out his lofty enthusiasm in those apostolic and prophetic letters, some few of which survive amidst the wrecks of time as records of his changing moods and his unchanging purposes.
Now one and now another of the Ghibelline leaders may have seemed to Dante from time to time to be the hero, the Messiah, for whom he waited. But again and yet again his hopes were crushed and blighted, and the panther, the lion, and the wolf still cut off the approach to that fair land.
More than once the poet's hopes must have hung upon the fortunes of the mighty warrior Uguccione, whose prodigies of valour rivalled the fabled deeds of the knights of story. To this man Dante was bound by ties of closest friendship; to him he dedicated the Inferno, the first cantica of his Comedy, and he may possibly have been that hero ''twixt the two Feltros born'[16] to whom Dante first looked to slay the wolf of Rome.
Far higher probably, and certainly far better grounded, were the poet's hopes when Henry VII. of Germany descended into Italy to bring order into her troubled states. To Dante, as we have seen, the Emperor was Emperor of Rome and not of Germany. He was Cæsar's successor, the natural representative of Italian unity, the Divinely appointed guardian of civil order. With what passionate yearning Dante looked across the Alps for a deliverer, how large a part of the woes of Italy he laid at the feet of Imperial neglect, may be gathered from many passages in his several works; but nowhere do these thoughts find stronger utterance than in the sixth canto of the Purgatory. The poet sees the shades of Virgil and the troubadour Sordello join in a loving embrace at the bare mention of the name of Mantua, where both of them were born. 'O Italy!' he cries, 'thou slave! thou hostelry of woe! Ship without helmsman, in the tempest rude! No queen of provinces, but house of shame! See how that gentle soul, e'en at the sweet sound of his country's name, was prompt to greet his fellow-citizen. Then see thy living sons, how one with other ever is at war, and whom the self-same wall and moat begird, gnaw at each other's lives. Search, wretched one, along thy sea-bound coasts, then inward turn to thine own breast, and see if any part of thee rejoice in peace. Of what avail Justinian's curb of law, with none to stride the saddle of command, except to shame thee more? Alas! ye priests, who should be at your prayers, leaving to Cæsar the high seat of rule, did ye read well the word of God to you, see ye not how the steed grows wild and fell by long exemption from the chastening spur, since that ye placed your hands upon the rein? O German Albert! who abandonest, wild and untamed, the steed thou should'st bestride, may the just sentence from the stars above fall on thy race in dire and open guise, that he who follows thee may see and fear. For, drawn by lust of conquest otherwhere, thou and thy sire, the garden of the empire have ye left a prey to desolation. Come, thou insensate one, and see the Montagues and Capulets, Monaldi, Philippeschi, for all whom the past has sadness or the future fear. Come, come, thou cruel one, and see oppression trampling on thy faithful ones, and heal their ills. … Come thou, and see thy Rome, who weeps for thee, a lonely widow crying day and night, "My Cæsar, wherefore hast thou left me thus?" Come, see how love here governs every heart! Or if our sorrows move thee not at all, blush for thine own fair fame.—Nay, let me say it: O Thou God Most High, Thou Who wast crucified for us on earth, are Thy just eyes turned otherwhither now? Or in the depth of counsel dost Thou work for some good end, clean cut off from our ken? For all Italia's lands are full of tyrants, and every hind—so he be factious—grows Marcellus-high.'[17]
Such was the cry for deliverance which went up from Dante's heart to the Emperor. Picture his hopes when Henry VII. came with the blessing of the Pope, who had had more than his fill of French influence at last, to bring peace and order into Italy; picture the exultation with which he learnt alike from Henry's deeds and words that he was just, impartial, generous, and came not as a tyrant, not as a party leader, but as a firm and upright ruler to restore prosperity and peace; picture his indignation when the incurable factiousness and jealousies of the Italian cities, and of Florence most of all, thwarted the Emperor at every step; picture the bitterness of his grief when, after struggling nigh three years in vain, Henry fell sick, and died at Buonconvento. In Paradise the poet saw the place assigned to 'Henry's lofty soul—his