Chapter XVII: Introduction (12)

The mountain is full of daylight when Virgil wakes him, and the newly-risen sun shines behind them as they continue their journey, for they had reached the north point of the circle, and are walking now due west. They mount almost immediately to the Fifth Cornice, where presently they are startled by a violent trembling of the mountain followed by a mighty shout of “Gloria in excelsis” from all the spirits. Statius joins them, and from him they learn that this was no earthquake, for since passing the gate of Purgatory they are in a region too lofty for such disturbances to be felt, or for rain or snow or dew to fall; the mountain trembles, and the shout of praise follows, when a soul rises, purified and ready to ascend to Paradise. With Statius they climb to the Sixth Cornice, and then, looking round, they see that the fifth handmaid of the sun’s chariot is directing its upward course, that is, it is the fifth hour, or between 10 and 11 a.m. As usual, they walk on with the outer edge of the circle on their right. It is here that we are reminded, as once in the Inferno, that only a certain time is allowed, for while Dante is looking eagerly at the first mysterious tree Virgil gently urges him onward:—

“Lo più che padre mi dicea, Figliuole,
Vienne oramai, chè il tempo che c’ è imposto
Più utilmente compartir si vuole.”[478]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[478]
“My more than father said unto me, Son,
Come now, because the time that is ordained us
More usefully should be apportioned out.”
_Purg._ xxiii. 4-6. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is here also that Dante informs his old friend Forese Donati and other spirits, who are all astonished at the sight of his shadow, that he is a living man who was rescued by Virgil some days ago, when the sister of the sun was round (referring of course to the full moon in the forest), and he points to the sun. Now a curious question arises: Dante was in sunshine in the early morning; he is in sunshine now, and has been walking all morning in the same direction in which the sun was moving; how is it then that Statius did not notice his shadow, but had to be told that he was not a spirit?[479] If the Mountain had been a small hill, it would have been quite easy to walk so large a part of a circle round it, in a short time, that the poets would have been in shadow until the sun caught them up again when they lingered talking on the Sixth Cornice; but the Mountain was so large that a whole day’s walking only brought them a quarter of the way round, _i.e._ from the east side to the north, and it was evidently a distance of many miles.[480] It is difficult to believe that Dante has forgotten, because he is so careful throughout to mention the surprise of the spirits except when his shadow could not be seen for one reason or another. It is true that in the latitude of Purgatory (32° south, as that of Jerusalem is 32° north), the sun rises rather steeply, which makes it easier to get into the shade in the early morning while circling a mountain.[481] On the other hand a simpler solution offers itself in the text. Statius approaches Dante and Virgil from behind, and they only stop and turn their faces to him for a few moments while Virgil returns his greeting, then walk on quickly while Statius makes his surprised reply: “What! if you are spirits....” If he has not yet quite overtaken them he cannot see Dante’s shadow, which Dante himself is screening from view as it falls in front of him, the morning sun being still at his back, and Virgil explains at once that his companion is a living man.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [479] _Purg._ xxi. 20-27.

[480] _Purg._ xiii. 22-23.

[481] On an Astronomical Point in Dante’s _Purgatorio_, by P. H. Cowell, F.R.A.S., _The Observatory_, December 1906. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In spite of their haste, the three poets remain about four hours in this sixth Cornice; and when they reach the ascent to the next it was indeed time to climb without any delay, for the sun had left the meridian to the sign which follows Aries, viz. Taurus, and Night, “che opposita a lui cerchia,”[482] had left the meridian of the opposite hemisphere to Scorpio. Aries at the time of the equinox begins to cross the meridian at midday, Taurus at two o’clock, and Gemini at four[483]: therefore it is now between two and four in the afternoon. The three poets hasten therefore (Statius still accompanying Virgil and Dante), like men who pause for nothing on their way, whatever the road be like; and a question Dante is longing to ask with regard to the form of purgation last seen is put and answered as they follow one another up the narrow stair; as soon as they reach the top, they turn to the right, as usual, without hesitation or delay. As Dante walks cautiously between the outer edge of this Cornice and the fire which bursts forth from the inner wall of rock, all the blue of the western sky is already changing into ash-white, and he has come so far round the Mountain that the evening rays strike his right shoulder. With one of the many touches which show Dante’s close observation and his vivid realization of the scene he is describing, he says here that his shadow falling on the flame makes it appear a deeper red, and this is observed by the spirits. When they reach the spot where, on the further side of the flames, the chanting Angel guides them across to the last ascent, the sun is very near to its setting. Its burning noonday beams are shining on the waves of Ganges, its first morning beams quiver over Jerusalem, and Spain lying under Libra is wrapped in midnight gloom; hence it is beginning to set at sea-level in Purgatory. High on the Mountain it still shines, but when the poets have crossed the flames, the voice of the Angel persuades them to hasten their steps before the darkness comes. The stair mounts through the rock on the west side of the Mountain so that the low sun casts Dante’s shadow in front of him as he climbs. And he has only climbed a few steps when they are all aware that the sun has completely set because the shadow disappears. Before the colour has all faded from the west, and the whole vast range of the horizon seen from this height has become one uniform tint, each of the three makes a bed of one step, and between the high and narrow enclosing rocky walls Dante sees the stars come out, much brighter and much larger than he has ever seen them before. No moonlight dims them, for moonrise will be late to-night, long after Dante has fallen asleep.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [482] “That circles opposite to him.” _Purg._ ii. 4.

[483] The signs follow one another _on the meridian_ at intervals of exactly 2 hrs. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Once again, for the third and last time, he has a prophetic dream in the early dawn; and if we compare these three parallel passages, we find that each begins with the same words “Nell’ ora.”[484] The first time the ideas connected with the time are wholly sorrowful, for it is said to be the hour when the swallow begins to twitter, perchance in memory of her former woes—alluding to the tragic tale of Procne and Philomel. The second is a depressing time, for it is the cold hour when, the day’s heat being all spent, the chilled earth cannot overcome the influence of the cold planets such as the moon or Saturn, but there is a thought of hope in the stars of the Greater Fortune seen rising in the east, in a sky which is now scarcely dark to them. The third is all joy, for it is the hour when Cytherea (the planet Venus), burning ever in the fire of love, shines first upon the mountain. Dante’s sleep flees from him as the shades of darkness flee on all sides, chased by the brightness before sunrise; and when Virgil tells him that to-day he shall reach the goal of his desires, he speeds up the remaining steps of the stair, almost as if on wings.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [484] “At the hour.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The poets arrived on the shores of Purgatory, as we saw, facing east, and now that they have attained the summit of the mountain, coming up the western slope, they again face east, and the just risen sun shines in their faces. Dante walks towards it: a breeze fans his forehead and causes all the trees to bend in the direction of the shadow thrown at sunrise by the Mountain (_i.e._ westwards), and the murmur of this gentle wind in the branches forms a bass to the treble of the singing birds who are greeting the morning hours. For a few steps the stream of Lethe stays his steps in this direction, but he soon reaches a bend, and once more “a levante mi rendei.”[485] The symbolical procession which accompanies Beatrice comes towards him from the east, and after he has crossed the river Lethe and joined the procession beside the Car in which Beatrice is throned, all turn to the sun, which by this time must have travelled some distance towards the north. After the vision of the disasters which befell the holy Car, and after Beatrice has spoken with Dante again, they reach the fountain whence Eunoe flows, and now the sun is on the meridian and it is noon, though (as Dante reminds us) different places have different meridians, so that it is not noon everywhere else. He is bathed in the holy waters, and thus, all having been accomplished for which he has visited these regions, he is “puro e disposto a salire alle stelle.”[486]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [485] “I turned to the east.”

[486] “Pure and ready to rise to the stars.” _Purg._ last line.

Hell was entered at twilight, Purgatory at dawn, the ascent to Paradise is made at noon, “il colmo del dì.”[487] The time spent in Purgatory is three days and the morning of a fourth, which is the seventh from the beginning of the vision.

[487] “The climax of the day.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

4. PARADISE.

That the time of ascent to the spheres was noon is again stated in the opening Canto of the _Paradiso_, where Dante says that the sun had brought morning there (Purgatory) and evening here (the inhabited hemisphere), and that now the whole of that hemisphere was bright while the whole of this was dark.[488] The sun is therefore now due north. While Beatrice stood beside the waters of Eunoe, after walking towards the sun, it had moved to her left, so she now turns in that direction to gaze upon it.[489] She, like Virgil, takes as her guide that sun which Dante has said is the fittest symbol of God, and it is through the power of this heavenly light that he is raised from earth. Compare

[488] It has been suggested to read the line _Par._ i. 44. “Tal foce; e quasi tutto là era bianco,” transferring the “quasi” (almost) so that the meaning should be “almost was wholly white that hemisphere,” and to interpret that it is now morning of the day following the events in the last Canto of the _Purgatorio_. But if so, Dante would have spent a whole night in the Earthly Paradise without mentioning it, or explaining this long delay after he had become “pure and ready to rise to the stars.” (For the meaning of “foce,” the “passage,” see later, p. 400).

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[489] _Par._ i. 46, 47.
“Amor che il ciel governi
... _col tuo lume_ mi levasti.”[490]

[490]
“Love that rules the heavens,
_with thy light_ Thou didst raise me.”
_Par._ i. 74, 75.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

He is not conscious of any effort, or even movement, but is astonished by a great light and strange music, and learns that he is in the sphere of fire and listening to the harmony of the spheres. His soul, freed from all that bound it to earth, is soaring towards its natural goal, as fire mounts up and rivers run down.

The upward gaze to the sun or to the skies, and its power to raise them, is again described in _Par._ i. 142: Beatrice “rivolse inver lo cielo il viso,”[491] and in ii. 22, “Beatrice in suso ed io in lei guardava.”[492] Thus they rise to the First Heaven, of the moon. In answer to an eager question of Dante’s about the markings of the moon, Beatrice is led to discourse on the spheres and their movers. Spirits appear, and Dante learns that although all the redeemed dwell in the Empyrean, those of different degrees of blessedness will manifest themselves to him in each sphere. After explaining this and other things, Beatrice once more

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [491] “Turned her eyes again towards heaven.”

[492] “Beatrice gazed upwards, and I at her.”

“si rivolse tutta disiante
A quelle parte ove il mondo è più vivo,”[493]

[493]
“Turned again with yearning
to that part where the world is most living.”
_Par._ v. 86, 87.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

and swift as an arrow that strikes its mark before the cord has ceased to quiver, they ascend to the Second Heaven, of Mercury. To understand the above lines we must remember that the sun, as Dante told us in the introductory Canto,[494] is at the equinox, or near it, and therefore on the equator; also that the equator of a sphere, where motion is quickest, is its most living part.[495] Beatrice is therefore looking again at the sun. Some understand “quella parte”[496] to refer directly to the sun, “quegli ch’ è padre d’ogni mortal vita,”[497] some to the equinoctial point;[498] others think that the east is meant; others the Empyrean, in which is the true life of all the Universe.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [494] _Inf._ i. 38-40.

[495] _Conv._ II. iv. 52-62.

[496] “That part.”

[497] “He who is father of all mortal life.” _Par._ xxii. 116; see also _De Mon._ I. ix. 6, 7.

[498] See _Par._ x. 7-21. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Equally swiftly and unconsciously, Dante ascends to the successive heavens of Venus, the sun, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn, finding himself always in the planet which occupies each sphere. Mounting the mysterious golden ladder which is set up in Saturn, with a rapidity inconceivable on earth, the poet finds himself in the Heaven of Stars, in the constellation of Gemini. Now that he is so near the final blessedness his eyes are clear and keen, and that his heart may be filled with joy Beatrice bids him look down and see how much of the universe is already beneath his feet. There lie the seven spheres, and there is the little globe of Earth, so small that, like Scipio, he smiles at its paltry appearance; there is the moon, showing him the face turned away from Earth, which has no dark markings: there is the sun, at which for once he is able to gaze; and near it circle Mercury and Venus; the temperate Jupiter moves between his father Saturn and his son Mars; with a new power of vision Dante can grasp all their sizes and distances and the various speeds of their movements; and the poor little disc of the earth, small and round as a threshing floor,[499] about which we quarrel so fiercely, is all visible to him at a glance, its highest hills and its lowest river-valleys running down to the sea. He turns away his eyes to look into the beautiful eyes of his guide. She is standing, erect, intent, watching eagerly for that glorious Procession, whose coming is making a growing brightness in the sky.

[499] Longfellow says:—“Looking down from the terrace of Monte Cassino upon the circular threshing-floor of stone in a farm lying below, I first felt the aptness of Dante’s phrase. This very scene may have suggested it to him.”

“La donna mia si stava eretta
Ed attenta, rivolta inver la plaga
Sotto la quale il sol mostra men fretta.”[500]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[500]
“So my lady stood, erect
and intent, turned towards that place
under which the sun shows least haste.”
_Par._ xxiii. 10-12.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

No other intimation is given as to the direction from which the Procession comes. The sun’s daily motion appears slowest on the meridian, as Dante remarked in _Purg._ xxxiii. 103, 104, because he is scarcely changing his position with regard to the horizon; or in the south (where we in this hemisphere see him when on the meridian); he shows least haste to leave us in the long summer days, near the solstice. If the Procession descends from the heaven of heavens to show itself here symbolically to Dante, as we know that the spirits in other heavens did,[501] then Beatrice was gazing upwards, and the meridian may be meant, particularly that part of it which passes directly overhead. If the Procession came from the east, like the Procession in Eden,[502] the summer solstice in Cancer is meant, which lies east of Gemini. It is difficult to see any special meaning in its coming from the south, for although some commentators say that this suggests the consummate glory of the midday sun, the same idea is conveyed by the meridian. A constellation like Cancer perhaps corresponds better than a circle like the meridian with the expression “plaga,”[503] and the idea of the east makes more perfect the beautiful simile which the poet has just drawn between the little bird on the spray beside its nest waiting for the sun to rise, and Beatrice watching for the advent of Him who is likened to a sun among the starry company of His saints.[504]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [501] See _Par._ iv. 34-39.

[502] _Purg._ xxix. 12 and 34.

[503] “Region.”

[504] _Par._ xxiii. 29, 30.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

When this glorious company has at length vanished, she bids him look down once more, this time that he may realise how he has been revolving with the spheres, the little earth lying immoveable at his feet. He looks down, and notes what parts of Earth are lighted by the sun, and what parts are wrapped in darkness, for now he is able to see what he had often imagined, the shadow of night sweeping westward over the globe. The Atlantic Ocean, where Ulysses sailed beyond Gades, is all in daylight, and so is the Mediterranean, but the sun is setting over Jerusalem, for he says that its position prevents him from seeing beyond the coast whence Europa was carried (_i.e._ Phœnicia or Palestine). It must therefore be midday at Gades, and the sun is on the meridian there; it is “a sign and more,” or something between 30° and 60°, advanced to the west beyond the meridian over which Dante stands.

He does not define his own position more exactly than this, but we may conjecture that he was 45° (a sign and a half) east of the sun, since this would be the meridian of Rome, and there would be a peculiar fitness in such a position at such a moment, when he has just received a message of warning and prophecy from St. Peter to bear to this city.[505]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [505] _Par._ xxvii. 64-66. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Fig. 49 shows these positions of Dante and the sun, and the consequent limits of his vision. Jerusalem is “near,” in comparison with the much more distant sunlit space of ocean in the opposite direction. We place the sun in the middle of Aries, because we shall see presently (when discussing the date) that this is its most probable position, and Dante in the first degree of Gemini because this is 45° east of the sun, and also because the fact that he is above Earth’s “first climate” suggests that he is in the beginning of this sign. For the northern limit of the first climate was 20½°, according to Alfraganus, and the ecliptic in the sign of Gemini rises gradually from 20° north of the equator to 23½° at its end, where it adjoins Cancer.

Since the time when he looked down before, he sees that he has revolved over an arc equal to half the climate, that is 90°, for the climates only extended over the habitable earth, which was 180° in longitude. His former position, then, must have been 90° further east, halfway between Jerusalem and Ganges; and it was then noon at Jerusalem, while all the ocean east of Ganges lay in the black darkness of night. Fig. 48 shows this position.

In this interpretation of a difficult passage, the meaning given to the first lines seems a little forced; but if we take them in the more natural sense that Dante had moved from above the centre to the end of the climate, that is, from the meridian of Jerusalem to Gades, we are met by a difficulty in the following lines. For to say that he is standing over Gades, and in the same breath that the sun is more than 30° further to the west, means that it is setting more than 30° west of Jerusalem: he cannot therefore possibly see Jerusalem, nor is it “near” him. It does not help us to take “presso” in its alternative meaning, and say that he could see “nearly as far as” Jerusalem, for however little more than 30° “a sign and more” may mean, it brings the “terminator” (as astronomers call the dividing line between light and darkness on a planet) a long way from Jerusalem and much nearer Italy, according to Dante’s reckoning of distances in the Mediterranean. This is shown on fig. 50, where the data are made as favourable as possible, by putting the sun at the very end of Aries.

On the whole, it is easier to accept a round-about expression in the first lines than an inaccurate one later. The former is quite characteristic of Dante, and we have already met some like it in the _Divina Commedia_ in descriptions of the positions of heavenly bodies.[506]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [506] Compare _Purg._ xv. 1-5, where the course the sun still has to run between vespers and sunset is described as equal to the space between the third hour and sunrise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Looking back to the earlier position, as described in Canto xxii., we find no light thrown on the question; for here he does not mention any particular place as visible, nor say where the terminator lay. His words are:—

“L’aiuola che ci fa tanto feroci,
Volgendom’ io con gli eterni Gemelli,
Tutta m’apparve dai colli alle foci.”[507]

------------------------------------------------------------------------
[507]
“The threshing-floor that maketh us so proud,
To me revolving with the eternal Twins,
Was all apparent made from hill to harbour.”
_Par._ xxii. 151-3. (_Longfellow_).
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This seems to express simply a bird’s eye view of Earth, as it lay stretched out like a map below the observer.

It is, however, often taken to mean that the whole habitable earth was visible. This could never be unless the sun, as well as Dante, was over the meridian of Jerusalem, which is obviously impossible while one is in Aries and the other in Gemini; and as he refers back to the first passage from the second he cannot have forgotten this.[508]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [508] Della Valle boldly assumes that they _were_ over the same meridian, by a poetical licence, although at the same time the sun was in a different sign. Dante only mentions the latter fact, he thinks, in order to show that he was a few degrees north of the sun (Gemini being more northerly than Aries); therefore he could see over the edge, as it were, of the sun-lighted hemisphere of Earth. This is desperately subtle. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It is, however, the only way in which the passages can be reconciled with his further assumption, shared by some other commentators, that Dante, in his flight through the spheres, simply ascended without any movement in longitude except that he was carried round by the daily revolution of the spheres. All the planets, therefore, were ranged one above the other, in the sign of Gemini, and it was always noon on the earth below his feet, since that was the hour at which he ascended from the Earthly Paradise, and his movement was the same as the sun’s. (Here Della Valle is inconsistent, however, for he maintains that the ascent was made in the early morning.) But this is a very artificial conceit, and not indicated by Dante. He implies that Beatrice, in leading him to each sphere, chose the part of it which he was to enter (see _Par._ xxvii. 102), and he tells us that Saturn was in Leo, Venus in Pisces, and the sun in Aries.

A book which aims at explaining Dante’s _Paradiso_ to young people[509] suggests an original way of reconciling the two passages, for the author gravely asserts that the sun was at first below Dante’s feet in Gemini, but that by the time he looked down again it had moved a good distance onward, and was then in the sign of Taurus! According to this, a whole month must have elapsed, and time had gone backwards, from May to April!

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [509] _Il Paradiso di Dante dichiarato ai giovani_, by Angelo de Gubernatis. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

A suggestion much more worthy of attention is that of Professor Rizzacasa d’Orsogna, who thinks the key is to be found in the line, “Volgendom’ io con gli eterni Gemelli.” This, he suggests, is in anticipation of the second passage, for although Dante could not see the whole habitable earth at any one time, his change of position, as he revolved with the Twins, enabled him to do so in the course of time which elapsed between his two views. A comparison of figures 48 and 49 will make this clear.

One more suggestion may perhaps be made, though it is rather a hazardous one. “Dai colli alle foci”[510] may mean from the Apennine Hills to the mouths of Ganges. This would be decisive for the correctness of the explanation illustrated by our diagram. (See fig. 48).

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [510] “From the hills to the river-mouths.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

In any case, the points which Dante specially wishes us to understand are clear and simple: at the first glance he was struck by the insignificance of the Earth; at the second, he became conscious that he was moving with the spheres, having passed over 90° of arc, or a quarter of the diurnal revolution, and he saw that it was now sunset at Jerusalem.

He next ascends to the Primum Mobile, though he cannot tell us to which part of it Beatrice chose to lead him, since it is perfectly uniform throughout. Beatrice explains that this most swift and living sphere, although it contains no star by which its motion is made visible, causes the (diurnal) motion of all the lower spheres; and thus it is like a flower-pot in which are hidden the roots of Time, while in the others we see the leaves. Here he sees the nine hierarchies of angels who direct the nine moving spheres; and finally he soars to the Empyrean, where Beatrice returns to her seat among the blessed spirits who form the Celestial Rose, and St. Bernard encourages him to lift his eyes to “L’Amor che move il sole e l’ altre stelle.”[511] This is the end and consummation of the Vision.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [511] “Love which moves the sun and the other stars.” _Par._ last line. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reader will have observed that although there are several indications of direction in Dante’s journey through Paradise, all referring to the heavenly bodies, there are no time references after he has left Earth and entered the regions of eternity, except the passage discussed above, which indicates a period of six hours spent in the eighth heaven, since 90° of the diurnal revolution correspond with six hours of time. But it tells us also that at the close of this period the sun was setting over Jerusalem: consequently another morning was dawning in Purgatory. Eighteen hours have passed, therefore, since Dante left the Earthly Paradise at noon; and he rises to the Primum Mobile and thence to the Empyrean on the eighth day of his Vision.

The whole Vision, therefore, occupied an octave, or eight days.

5. POSITIONS OF SUN, MOON, AND PLANETS AMONG THE STARS DURING DANTE’S VISION.

The allusions to sun, moon, and stars in the _Divine Comedy_, when thus brought together, are seen to follow one another according to a regular scheme, and they form a very good guide by which to time Dante on his journey. There is a little inaccuracy in one passage about the stars, and the moon is ambiguous once, but quite explicable. Taking the allusions in a simple popular sense, as he seems to intend us to do, assuming that the signs and the constellations of the zodiac are identical, and that the moon, which at first is opposite the sun, traverses about 13° in the zodiac daily, and loses about an hour of time more or less, there is very little difficulty in following him. It is quite enough to know that the sun is somewhere in Aries throughout, and that the moon is therefore in Libra at the beginning.

But if we wish to know a little more accurately the positions of sun and moon among the stars, we must carefully compare the passages bearing on this question. Commentators differ so much that while some think the sun’s annual motion is ignored, and it is assumed to be at the equinox all the time, others maintain that it was at the equinox on the first day and moved on through Aries at the rate of about one degree a day (as it should do, since there are 365 days in a year and 360° in the circumference of the sphere);[512] while others again say that it was merely somewhere in Aries from the beginning.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [512] Alfraganus, as we saw, gives the daily movement of the sun eastward in the zodiac as about 59 minutes of arc. (A degree contains 60 minutes). ------------------------------------------------------------------------

What are the actual indications of its position? No one questions that it was in Aries throughout the Vision, for this is often indicated, sometimes directly, as in _Inf._ i. 38-40, sometimes by mentioning Taurus as the sign following the sun,[513] or Pisces as the sign preceding.[514]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [513] _Purg._ xxv. 2, 3.

[514] _Inf._ xi. 113; _Purg._ i. 21, xix. 4-6. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are four detailed descriptions:—

(1) On the first morning, the sun rose among those stars which were with him at the Creation.[515] As we have seen, this may mean merely some point in Aries, or the first point of Aries, at which the sun was thought to have been placed when created.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [515] _Inf._ i. 38-40. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(2) On the seventh day it rose near a point where three crosses are formed by the intersection of four circles.[516] One naturally thinks of the horizon as one of these circles; the equator and ecliptic, whose intersection define the equinox, suggest themselves as two more; the fourth is doubtless the colure which passes through the equinoctial points and the poles, although curiously enough this is not mentioned by Ptolemy or Alfraganus, who only speak of the solstitial colure. Fig. 51 shows how the horizon makes a cross with each of the other three when the equinox is upon it. The sun is at the point of intersection when rising with the equinox, and it was _near_ there when it rose this morning—“quasi.” It was therefore near, but not exactly at the equinox, and we know that it was the vernal, not the autumnal equinox, from the many allusions to Aries.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [516] _Par._ i. 38, 39. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(3) When Dante rises to the sun (on the same day) he directs our attention once more to this point where “the one motion strikes the other,” that is, where the ecliptic—the oblique circle which bears the planets—branches off from the equator, and he reminds us of the supreme importance of this divergence. The sun, he says, was in this place. He does not mean at the exact point of intersection, or this passage would be in flat contradiction to the last: “quella parte”[517] is no more precise than “quelle stelle,”[518] and means only this part of the sky, or the constellation of Aries. The words which follow not only specify that it was the spring equinox, but suggest that the sun had already traversed several of those spirals which bring him to us earlier each morning, _i.e._ it was several days after the equinox.[519]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [517] “That part.”

[518] “Those stars.”

[519] _Par._ x. 7-33. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

(4) On the same day the sun was “one sign and more” removed from some point in Gemini.[520] This is very vague, but at least the sun cannot now have been at the first point of Aries, or it would have been two whole signs from even the first degree of Gemini.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [520] _Par._ xxvii. 86, 87. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems, then, that we cannot possibly agree that the sun was at the equinox throughout the poem. It is clear that it was past the equinox towards the end; but from these four passages we cannot be sure whether it was there on the first morning, or whether it moved through some undefined part of Aries during the Vision.

One consideration gives us some help, however. We know from _Inf._ xxi. 112-114 that the first day was either March 25, which was believed in the Middle Ages to be the true anniversary of the Crucifixion, or Good Friday, which was kept by the Church as such. March 25 is four days after the date which the Church still kept as the day of the Equinox (March 21), and 13 days after the true equinox, which at this time fell on March 12. Good Friday also almost inevitably must fall after the equinox, since Easter follows the full moon which follows the equinox. It is true that some of Dante’s readers may still have regarded the old traditional date of March 25 as the true day of the equinox, and possibly it was to suit all shades of knowledge that he left the sun’s position vague; but he himself certainly knew better, and probably had March 12 in his mind. Then those who held to March 25 might consider the sun as exactly at the equinox on the first day of the Vision, but all better-informed readers and Dante himself must have regarded it as somewhat past this point. If we take it that, _e.g._, it was a week past the equinox, the sun was in about 7° of Aries, and this position agrees with the four crucial passages mentioned above. The stress laid on the equinox seems to demand that the sun should be at least as near it as this on the first day; and a week later it would have reached the middle of Aries, which is the position we assigned to it from a discussion of _Par._ xxvii. 86, 87.

This also agrees well with the course of the moon in the zodiac, which must depend upon the sun’s. We have seen that she was opposite the sun on the first morning, that her light paled the first-risen stars of Scorpio while she was yet beneath the eastern horizon three days later, and that she was proceeding south on the following night. If the sun was in the 7th degree of Aries on the first morning, the moon must have been in the 7th degree of Libra; her mean daily motion of 13° would bring her to the 16th degree of Scorpio three days later and to the last degree on the day following; so even if we allow a deviation of a few degrees from the average, she was just where she should have been on each occasion. We have assumed for convenience that she became full and was opposite the sun just as she set on the first morning, but this may have happened at any time during the previous night (in the Forest): Dante has not specified the hour, and it is of no consequence, since the indications of time by the moon must necessarily be vague.

The time of sunrise will still differ little from 6 o’clock, a week after the equinox. In London it is a quarter of an hour earlier, but the difference is less in Italy, and still less in the latitude of Jerusalem.

Besides the sun and moon, two of the planets are mentioned as in a particular place among the stars.

Venus, before sunrise on the fourth morning, is seen among the stars of Pisces;[521] and she is also mentioned as a morning star before sunrise on the seventh day.[522]

Saturn is in Leo. “Il petto del Leone”[523] may mean the western part of the Lion, the part which first rises and contains the head and breast, or it may refer to the star Regulus, which is called by Ptolemy and Alfraganus “Cor Leonis.”[524] “Sotto il petto”[525] may mean the position of the planet as seen projected in the sky or a map, that is, a little south of this part of the constellation; more probably, perhaps, Dante is thinking of the supposed position of Saturn’s sphere _below_ that of the stars.[526]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [521] _Purg._ i. 21.

[522] _Purg._ xxvii. 95.

[523] “The Lion’s breast.” _Par._ xxi. 14.

[524] “The Lion’s Heart.”

[525] “Beneath the breast.”

[526] _Cf. _Purg._ xxxii. 56, 57, where the sun is spoken of as under another star. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Mars is spoken of as having returned to his own Lion a number of times: “al suo Leon ... venne,”[527] but this does not necessarily imply that he was in that constellation at the time.

Mercury and Jupiter are not noted as seen anywhere in the sky, nor does Dante say in what constellation they were when he entered them with Beatrice.

There are a number of pitfalls into which Dante might have stumbled, with this disposition of the skies, and the change to the southern hemisphere; and that he has avoided all is as clear a proof of his familiarity with astronomical phenomena as the positive evidence of his truthful, consistent descriptions. For instance, he might very well have represented the cold planet Saturn as actually aiding the cold moon in driving away the heat of the day during the night, in _Purg._ xix. 1-3, instead of only saying “talor da Saturno;”[528] but if so, this would have been inconsistent with the position of Saturn in Leo, since Leo was below the horizon when dawn was drawing near and Pisces was rising. Again, we have already mentioned that he evidently did not forget that it was autumn in the southern hemisphere. He never suggests that it was spring in Purgatory, and in the passage quoted above, where he describes sunrise at the March equinox, saying that the sun then moves “con miglior corso e con migliore stella,”[529] this happiest effect on the world is restricted to “mortals,” who as he thought all dwelt in the northern hemisphere, “surge ai mortali.”[530] I do not mean that the expression was used for this reason, but it is an example of how instinctively he avoided mistakes into which any other author would almost certainly have fallen.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [527] “To his Lion has come.” _Par._ xvi. 37, 38.

[528] “Sometimes by Saturn.”

[529] “With a better course and better star.” _Par._ i. 40.

[530] “Rises upon mortals.” _Par._ i. 37. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

6. THE ASSUMED DATE OF THE VISION.

Even among Dante enthusiasts there must be many who are astonished at the warmth of the controversy concerning the assumed date of his Vision. To know whether he feigned himself to have entered the Inferno with Virgil in March or in April, in the year 1300 or in 1301, really does not help us to appreciate the music of his verse nor the depth of his thought; yet a wealth of learning and research has been poured out upon this problem, and some commentators seem ready to defend their opinions with their lives, if that would avail to convince their readers!

The date is indeed intimately connected with the narrative of the _Divine Comedy_, since there are constant allusions to current events. By choosing a year earlier than the time at which he was writing, Dante is able not only to tell the spirits what is passing on the earth they have left, but to endow them with the power of prophesying to him events which are to come.[531] The peculiar interest of the problem for us just now is that astronomy has been called in to solve it. We have seen that the positions and movements of the heavenly bodies are all consistent with one another in his poem, but it is interesting to ask whether they are merely a consistent fiction or whether they correspond with facts. Did Dante arrange his moon and planets according to his feeling for scenery and the convenience of his time references, or did he take the positions as they really were at some particular date? If so, the full moon, Venus a morning star in Pisces, and Saturn in Leo, all together near a spring equinox, ought to help to fix that date.

The year which is almost universally accepted, by the oldest as well as the most modern commentators, is 1300, chiefly on the authority of _Inf._ xxi. 112-114. Here Malacoda says that yesterday (the day of Dante’s entering the Inferno) it was 1266 years since the earthquake which accompanied the Crucifixion (see p. 370). Adding to this the 34 years which Dante has told us he believed to have elapsed between the Nativity and the Crucifixion,[532] we get 1266 + 34 = 1300. And the day is either the Church Festival commemorating the Crucifixion, _i.e._ Good Friday, which in 1300 fell on April 8, or March 25, which was believed to be the actual anniversary.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [531] _Inf._ x. 100-105.

[532] _Conv._ IV. xxiii. 96-98. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

If this is the right interpretation of the passage, we may say at once that Dante’s astronomical data are imaginary, for the moon was not full on the night preceding either of these dates, but on March 5, and April 4: Saturn was indeed in Leo, but Venus was so near the Sun as to be invisible in March, and began to appear as an evening star in Taurus on about the 9th of April.

These positions were all carefully calculated by Prof. Angelitti, who is a professional astronomer as well as a Dante scholar; and he made the thrilling discovery that the positions agree wonderfully well for the year 1301! In this year the moon was full on the early morning of the 25th of March; Venus entered Pisces three days later, and was a morning star, near her greatest elongation west, and very brilliant; Saturn was not only still in Leo but was just three degrees west of Regulus; and Mars was also in Leo.

If the anniversary of the Crucifixion means Good Friday, the day would be March 31 in 1301, and the moon would be wrong, but March 25 has some claims to be considered the more probable date. A fixed calendar date is more appropriate to use for calculating an exact number of years than a changing festival, which might rather be regarded as an “ideal date.”[533] Moreover, March 25 is suggested by the allusion to the Creation in the opening Canto; this day was also the traditional date for the spring equinox,[534] and it was one of the most important days in the year to Florentines, being their New Year’s Day as well as Lady Day.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [533] Moore, _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 146.

[534] See p. 177. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

We know that the idea of writing his great work was in Dante’s mind even when he wrote the last words of the _Vita Nuova_,[535] and we need only suppose that he was thinking of it when he looked at the sky on the evening before Lady Day in 1301, that he saw the full moon, and the two bright planets Mars and Saturn making a striking asterism with Regulus; also that in the early dawn about the same time he rejoiced in the sight of Venus veiling the Fishes in the east.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [535] _V. N._ xliii. 1-11. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

But is this attractive theory admissible? Can we take Dante’s words elsewhere as referring to the year 1301?

Take first the one passage in which he explicitly states the day and year, the words of Malacoda quoted above. This is usually taken to indicate the year 1300, as shown above (p. 410), but it is easy to interpret it another way—thus: 1300 years had been completed since the Nativity on the day Dante entered the Inferno. Now the year 1 is not one year after the Nativity, but the year of the Nativity itself; hence the year 2 is one year after, the year 3 two years after, ... the year 1300 is 1299 years after, and the year 1301 is 1300 years after. The year 1300 was completed on March 25,[536] and the date then changed, according to Florentine usage, to 1301. (It had already been called 1301 for three months, according to Roman usage, so fortunately for us, there is no disagreement between the two calendars from this part of the year).

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [536] Exactly at midday, moreover, according to one system then in vogue, though it seems to have been more usual to begin the day at sunrise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

It must also be noted that in several old MSS., considered authoritative by some of the very early commentators, the passage reads:—“Mille dugent _’uno_ con sessanta sei.”[537] Although it is impossible to believe that Dante wrote such a faulty line, this shows that some early copyist felt a difficulty either in accepting the date 1300 or in understanding how Dante arrived at it by Malacoda’s computations. This passage, therefore, is inconclusive for 1300 or 1301.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [537] “A thousand two hundred _and one_, added to sixty-six.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there is the first line of the _Divina Commedia_ “Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita,”[538] which is usually taken to mean that Dante was in his 35th year, since in _Conv._ IV. xxiv. 30, 31, and xxiii, 88-94, he says that in normal natures the “punto sommo,” the “colmo,”[539] of the Arch of Life is reached at this age. But is it to be taken as indicating a precise year? If so, it points to one which has never been suggested for the Vision, so far as I know, for in another passage of the _Convivio_ he says when speaking of his exile, that he had lived in Florence “fino al colmo della mia vita,”[540] and we know that the year of his exile was 1302. But if we look again at the discussion concerning the arch of human life, we find that the whole period of “gioventute,”[541] which is from the 25th to the 45th year “veramente è colmo della nostra vita”[542] (_Conv._ IV. xxiv. 22, 23). If, nevertheless, it is said that the “mezzo del cammin di nostra vita” means Dante’s 35th year, we must know the date of his birth with certainty before we can deduce the year at which he had reached this age. And this is not quite easy. This very line is used indifferently to show that he was born in 1265 because the date of the Vision was 1300, or that the date was 1300 because he was born in 1265! No registers of births or baptisms were kept in those days. Most of the old biographers give 1265 for the date, but not all, and some of those who do betray ignorance or confusion in the matter: Boccaccio says the year 1265, when Urban the Fourth was Pope, yet Urban we know died in 1264; Lionardo Bruni says “1265, a little after the return to Florence of the Guelfs, who had been in exile by reason of the defeat of Montaperti,” but this return was in September 1266! Dante himself says that his ancestors shared in this exile,[543] and as he also often refers to the fact that he was born in Florence,[544] it is difficult to see how that could have been in 1265.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [538] “Midway in the journey of our life.”

[539] “The highest point,” the “summit.”

[540] “Until the summit of my life.” _Conv._ I. iii. 24, 25.

[541] “Youth.”

[542] “Is in truth the summit of our life.”

[543] Farinata alludes to the two Guelf banishments of 1248 and 1260. _Inf._ x. 42-50.

[544] _Conv._ I. iii. 22-24; _Inf._ xxiii. 94, 95, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

Again, he says that there was a difference of less than 8 months between the age of Beatrice and himself (she was 8 years 4 months old when he was nearly nine),[545] that she died in June 1290,[546] and was then on the threshold of her “second age,”[547] that is in her 24th year, or 23 years old. This gives 1267 for the year of her birth, and he must have been born in the same or the preceeding year. Historical documents show that Dante spoke in the Council of the Hundred in 1295, and Brunetto Latini says no man could hold office in Florence under thirty years of age; but Brunetto wrote in exile in France and died in 1290, and in a translation from his original French into Italian the age has been altered to 25, so it is possible that the age had been lowered before 1295.[548] There remains the story told by Boccaccio, that a Ser Piero di Messer Giardino (a notary whose name occurs in legal documents of the time), heard from Dante himself shortly before his death that he had been 56 years old in the preceding May. The date of his death is unanimously given as 1321, so this story, if we may accept it as authentic, is one clear piece of evidence that Dante was born in 1265.

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [545] _V. N._ ii. 1-15.

[546] _V. N._ xxx. 4-13.

[547] _Purg._ xxx. 124, 125; _Cf. Conv._ IV. xxiv. 11-13.

[548] Imbriani: _Quando nacque Dante?_ and _Che Dante probabilissimamente nacque nei MCCCLXVII_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

On the whole, we must say that it is doubtful whether the “mezzo del cammin” means Dante’s 35th year, and if it does, we are not certain that he reached that age in 1300.

Another passage which is often quoted as clearly indicating the year of the Jubilee, 1300, for the assumed date of the Vision is Casella’s explanation of his late arrival in Purgatory.[549] Dante is surprised to witness this arrival, knowing that it is some time since his friend’s death; and Casella replies that the Angel of the Passage had refused many times to bring him, until three months ago, when every one who wished to come had been graciously received. This is believed to refer to the Bull of Pope Boniface published at Christmas 1299, that is just three months before March 1300. But this Bull gave no indulgence to the dead; it was in favour of those who performed certain spiritual exercises in the churches of Rome during the Jubilee year. On the other hand, there was a Bull published just a year later, which was for the benefit of departed souls: it extended the indulgences to those who had died on their way to Rome, or before the spiritual exercises were completed there. We do not know when Casella died, but if it was some time in 1300, with his purpose of gaining the indulgence unfulfilled, the Angel’s refusal at first, and acceptance afterwards—after December 1300—and his arrival in Purgatory in March 1301, would be explained. The fact that his arrival was still three months after the Bull, and that all without exception were welcomed by the Angel, are difficulties which apply to both interpretations. But perhaps that just given is a little too clever. It is most natural to consider the Indulgence as the famous one of 1300, and to understand that in the Jubilee year the way of salvation was made easier for all souls, living or dead.[550]

------------------------------------------------------------------------ [549] _Purg._ ii. 91-103. ------------------------------------------------------------------------

[550] For this point and a full discussion of the date, especially from the astronomical data, see Angelitti’s _Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco_, and _Sull’ anno della Visione Dantesca_, and Moore’s “The Date assumed by Dante for the Vision of the ‘Divina Commedia,’” _Studies in Dante_ III.

If however these, and many other passages quoted in the controversy, are unconvincing, the same cannot be said of Cunizza’s “Questo centesim’ anno.”[551] Prof. Angelitti’s suggestion that she was reckoning by the Easter year, which was used in some parts of France and Italy, so that the date was still 1300 for her, though for most Italians it was 1301, is too ingenious; and it is hard to believe that she means “this century year” applying it to 1301. Though this might be correct, it is clear that 1300 was regarded as the century year, because the words “centesimo anno” occur in the Bull of Boniface VIII. with reference to the year 1300. This then speaks strongly and clearly against our astronomical theory of 1301.