Roman senators of oid, awaited the approach of the Gaul. doubtless not unwilling to withdraw. The Pope was rescued, and led out into the street, where the old man addressed a few words to the people: 'Good men and women, ye see how mine enemies have come upon me, and plundered my goods, those of the Church and of the poor. Not a morsel of bread have I eaten, not a drop have I drunk, since my capture. I am almost dead with hunger. If any good woman will give me a piece of bread and a cup of wine, if she has no wine, a little water, I will absolve her, and any one who will give me their alms, from all their sins.' The compassionate rabble burst into a cry, "But the pride and cruelty of Boniface had raised and infixed deep in the hearts of men passions which acknowledged no awe of age, of intrepidity, or religious majesty. In William of Nogaret the blood of his Tolosan ancestors, in Colonna, the wrongs, the degradation, the beggary, the exile of all his house, had extinguished every feeling but revenge. They insulted him with contumelious reproaches; they menaced his life. The Pope answered not a word. They insisted that he should at once abdicate the Papacy. Behold my neck, behold my head,' was the only reply. Long life to the Pope!' They carried But fiercer words passed between the him back to his naked palace. They Pope and William of Nogaret. Nogaret crowded, the women especially, with threatened to drag him before the Coun- provisions, bread, meat, water, and cil of Lyons, where he should be deposed wine. They could not find a single from the Papacy. Shall I suffer my- vessel: they poured a supply of water self to be degraded and deposed by into a chest. The Pope proclaimed a Paterins like thee, whose fathers were general absolution to all, except the righteously burned as Paterins?' Wil- plunderers of his palace. He even deliam turned fiery red, with shameclared that he wished to be at peace with thought the partisans of Boniface, the Colonnas and all his enemies. This more likely with wrath. Sciarra, it was perhaps was to disguise his intention of said, would have slain him outright; retiring, as soon as he could, to Rome. he was prevented by some of his own followers, even by Nogaret. 'Wretched Pope, even at this distance the goodness of my lord the King guards thy life.' "He was placed under close custody, not one of his own attendants permitted to approach him. Worse indignities awaited him. He was set on a vicious horse, with his face to the tail, and so led through the town to his place of imprisonment. The palaces of the Pope and of his nephew were plundered; so vast was the wealth, that the annual revenues of all the kings in the world would not have been equal to the treasures found and carried off by Sciarra's freebooting soldiers. His very private chamber was ransacked; nothing left but bare walls. "At length the people of Anagni could no longer bear the insult and the sufferings heaped upon their illustrious and holy fellow-citizen. They rose in irresistible insurrection, drove out the soldiers by whom they had been overawed, now gorged with plunder, and "The Romans had heard with indig nation the sacrilegious attack on the person of the Supreme Pontiff. Four hundred horse under Matteo and Gaetano Orsini were sent to conduct him to the city. He entered it almost in triumph; the populace welcomed him with every demonstration of joy. But the awe of his greatness was gone; the spell of his dominion over the minds of men was broken. His overweening haughtiness and domination had made him many enemies in the Sacred College, the gold of France had made him more. This general revolt is his severest condemnation. Among his first enemies was the Cardinal Napoleon Orsini. Orsini had followed the triumphal entrance of the Pope. Boniface, to show that he desired to reconcile himself with all, courteously invited him to his table. The Orsini coldly answered, that he must receive the Colonna Cardinals into his favour; he must not now disown what had been wrung from him by compulsion.' 'I will pardon them,' said Boniface, but the mercy of the Pope is not to be from compulsion.' He found himself again a account of the seizure of Pope Boniprisoner. face." "This last mortification crushed the bodily, if not the mental strength of the Pope. Among the Ghibellines terrible stories were bruited abroad of his death. In an access of fury, either from poison or wounded pride, he sat gnawing the top of his staff, and at length either beat out his own brains against the wall, or smothered himself (a strange notion !) with his own pillows. More friendly, probably more trustworthy, accounts describe him as sadly but quietly breathing his last, surrounded by eight Cardinals, having confessed the faith and received the consoling offices of the Church. The Cardinal-Poet anticipates his mild sentence from the Divine Judge. "The religious mind of Christendom was at once perplexed and horrorstricken by this act of sacrilegious violence on the person of the Supreme Pontiff; it shocked some even of the sternest Ghibellines. Dante, who brands the pride, the avarice, the treachery of Boniface in his most terrible words, and has consigned him to the direst doom, (though it is true that his alliance with the French, with Charles of Valois, by whom the poet had been driven into exile, was among the deepest causes of his hatred to Boniface,) nevertheless expresses the almost universal feeling. Christendom shuddered to behold the Fleur-de-lis enter into Anagni, and Christ again captive in his Vicar, the mockery, the gall and vinegar, the crucifixion between living robbers, the insolent and sacrilegious cruelty of the second Pilate. Compare this scene with that of his inauguration as Pope, Inf. XIX. Note 53. 91. This "modern Pilate" is Philip the Fair, and the allusion in the following lines is to the persecution and suppression of the Order of the Knights Templars, in 1307-1312. See Milman, Lat. Christ., Book XII. Ch. 2, and Villani, VIII. 92, who says the act was committed per cupidigia di guadagnare, for love of gain; and says also: "The king of France and his children had afterwards much shame and adversity, both on account of this sin and on 97. What he was saying of the Virgin Mary, line 19. 103. The brother of Dido and murderer of her husband. Æneid, I., 350. He, impious and blinded with the love of gold, having taken Sichæus by surprise, secretly assassinates him before the altar, regardless of his sister's great affection." 106. The Phrygian king, who, for his hospitality to Silenus, was endowed by Bacchus with the fatal power of turning all he touched to gold. The most laughable thing about him was his wearing ass's ears, as a punishment for preferring the music of Pan to that of Apollo. Ovid, XI., Croxall's Tr. : "Pan tuned the pipe, and with his rural song Pleased the low taste of all the vulgar throng; Such songs a vulgar judgment mostly please: Midas was there, and Midas judged with these." See also Hawthorne's story of The Golden Touch in his Wonder-Book. 109. Joshua vii. 21: "When I saw among the spoils a goodly Babylonish garment, and two hundred shekels of silver, and a wedge of gold of fifty shekels weight, then I coveted them, and took them; and behold, they are hid in the earth in the midst of my tent, and the silver under it." 112. Acts v. I, 2: "But a certain man named Ananias, with Sapphira his wife, sold a possession, and kept back part of the price, his wife also being privy to it, and brought a certain part, and laid it at the apostles' feet." 113. The hoof-beats of the miraculous horse in the Temple of Jerusalem, when Heliodorus, the treasurer of King Seleucus, went there to remove the treasure. 2 Maccabees iii. 25: "For there appeared unto them an horse with a terrible rider upon him, and adorned with a very fair covering, and he ran fiercely, and smote at Heliodorus with his forefeet, and it seemed that he that sat upon the horse had complete harness of gold.' 115. Æneid, III. 49, Davidson's Tr.: “This Polydore unhappy Priam had for merly sent in secrecy, with a great weight of gold, to be brought up by the king of 136. Luke ii. 13, 14: "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God, and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.' 140. Gower, Conf. Amant., III. 5:— "When Goddes sone also was bore, He sent his aungel down therfore, Whom the shepherdes herden singe: Pees to the men of welwillinge In erthe be amonge us here.' CANTO XXI. 116. Lucinius Crassus, surnamed the Rich. He was Consul with Pompey, and on one occasion displayed his vast wealth by giving an entertainment to the populace, at which the guests were so numerous that they occupied ten thousand tables. He was slain in a battle with the Parthians, and his head was sent to the Parthian king, Hyrodes, who 1. This canto is devoted to the interhad molten gold poured down its throat. view with the poet Statius, whose release Plutarch does not mention this circum- from punishment was announced by the stance in his Life of Crassus, but says:-earthquake and the outcry at the end of "When the head of Crassus was the last canto. brought to the door, the tables were just taken away, and one Jason, a tragic actor of the town of Tralles, was sing ing the scene in the Bacche of Euripides concerning Agave. He was receiving much applause, when Sillaces coming to the room, and having made obeisance to 7. Luke xxiv. 13-15: "And, behold, the king, threw down the head of Cras-two of them went that same day to a sus into the midst of the company. The village called Emmaus, which was from Parthians receiving it with joy and accla- Jerusalem about threescore furlongs. mations, Sillaces, by the king's com- And they talked together of all these mand, was made to sit down, while things which had happened. And it Jason handed over the costume of Pen- came to pass, that, while they comtheus to one of the dancers in the chorus, muned together and reasoned, Jesus and taking up the head of Crassus, and himself drew near, and went with acting the part of a bacchante in her them." frenzy, in a rapturous, impassioned manner, sang the lyric passages, "We've hunted down a mighty chase to-day, And from the mountain bring the noble prey.' 122. This is in answer to Dante's question, line 35: "And why only Thou dost renew these praises well deserved?" 128. The occasion of this quaking of the mountain is given, Canto XXI. 58: "It trembles here, whenever any soul Feels itself pure, so that it soars, or moves To mount aloft, and such a cry attends it." 130. An island in the Ægean Sea, in 3. John iv. 14, 15: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst. The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw." 15. Among the monks of the Middle Ages there were certain salutations, which had their customary replies or countersigns. Thus one would say, "Peace be with thee!" and the answer would be, "And with thy spirit!" Or, "Praised be the Lord!" and the answer, "World without end !" 22. The letters upon Dante's fore head. 25. Lachesis. Of the three Fates, Clotho prepared and held the distaff, Lachesis spun the thread, and Atropos cut it. Fates, Lachesis, Clotho, and Atropos; who, clothed in white robes, with garlands on their heads, chant to the music of the Sirens; Lachesis the events of the Past, Clotho those of the Present, Atropos those of the Future." 33. See Canto XVIII. 46:- "What reason seeth here, Myself can tell thee; beyond that await For Beatrice, since 'tis a work of faith." So also Cowley, in his poem on the Use of Reason in Divine Matters :"Though Reason cannot through Faith's mys teries see, It sees that there and such they be: Leads to heaven's door, and there does humbly keep, And there through chinks and keyholes peep; 40. Nothing unusual ever disturbs the religio loci, the sacredness of the mountain. 44. This happens only when the soul, that came from heaven, is received back into heaven; not from any natural causes affecting earth or air. 48 The gate of Purgatory, which is also the gate of Heaven. 50. Iris, one of the Oceanides, the daughter of Thaumas and Electra; the rainbow. 65. The soul in Purgatory feels as great a desire to be punished for a sin, as it had to commit it. 82. The siege of Jerusalem under Titus, surnamed the "Delight of Mankind," took place in the year 70. Statius, who is here speaking, was born at Naples in the reign of Claudius, and had already become famous "under the name that most endures and honours," that is, as a poet. His works are the Silva, or mis cellaneous poems; the Thebaid, an epic in twelve books; and the Achilleid, left unfinished. He wrote also a tragedy, Agave, which is lost. Juvenal says of him, Satire VII., Dryden's Tr.: "All Rome is pleased when Statius will rehearse, And longing crowds expect the promised verse; His lofty numbers with so great a gust But while the common suffrage crowned his cause, And broke the benches with their loud applause, His Muse had starved, had not a piece unread, And by a player bought, supplied her bread. Dante shows his admiration of him by placing him here. 89. Statius was not born in Toulouse, as Dante supposes, but in Naples, as he himself states in his Silve, which work was not discovered till after Dante's death. The passage occurs in Book III. Eclogue V., To Claudia his Wife, where he describes the beauties of Parthenope, and calls her the mother and nurse of both, amborum genetrix altrixque. Landino thinks that Dante's error may be traced to Placidus Lactantius, a commentator of the Thebaid, who confounded Statius the poet of Naples with Statius the rhetorician of Toulouse. 101. Would be willing to remain another year in Purgatory. 114. Petrarca uses the same expres. sion, the lightning of the angelic smile, il lampeggiar dell' angelico riso. 131. See Canto XIX. 133. CANTO XXII. 1. The ascent to the Sixth Circle, where the sin of Glut ony is punished. 5. Matthew v. 6: "Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness; for they shall be filled." 13. The satirist Juvenal, who flourished at Rome during the last half of the first century of the Christian era, and died at the beginning of the second, aged eighty. He was a contemporary of Statius, and survived him some thirty years. 40. Eneid, III. 56: "O cursed hunger of gold, to what dost thou not drive the hearts of men." 42. The punishment of the Avaricious and Prodigal. Inf. VII. 26: nices, of whom Statius sings in the Thebaid, and to whom Dante alludes by way of illustration, Inf. XXVI. 54. See also the Note. 58. Statius begins the Thebaid with an invocation to Clio, the Muse of History, whose office it was to record the heroic actions of brave men, I. 55 "What first, O Clio, shall adorn thy page, The expiring prophet, or Ætolian's rage? Hippomedon repelled the rushing flood, "Of hevenly poems, O Clyo calde by name In the college of musis goddess hystoriale." 63. Saint Peter. 70. Virgil's Bucolics, Ecl. IV. 5, a passage supposed to foretell the birth of Christ: "The last era of Cumaan song is now arrived; the great series of ages begins anew; now the Virgin returns, returns the Saturnian reign; now a new progeny is sent down from the high heaven." 92. The Fourth Circle of Purgatory, where Sloth is punished. Canto XVII. 85: "The love of good, remiss In what it should have done, is here restored; 97. Some editions read in this line, instead of nostro amico,―nostro antico, our ancient Terence; but the epithet would be more appropriate to Plautus, who was the earlier writer. 97, 98. Plautus, Cæcilius, and Terence, the three principal Latin dramatists; Varro, "the most learned of the Romans," the friend of Cicero, and author of some five hundred volumes, which made St. Augustine wonder how he who wrote so many books could find time to read so many; and how he who read so many could find time to write so many. 100. Persius, the Latin satirist. 101. Homer. Antiphon was a tragic and epic poet of Attica, who was put to death by Dionysius because he would not praise the tyrant's writings. Some editions read Anacreon for Antiphon. 107. Simonides, the poet of Cos, who won a poetic prize at the age of eighty, and is said to be the first poet who wrote for money. Agatho was an Athenian dramatist, of whom nothing remains but the name and a few passages quoted in other writers. 110. Some of the people that Statius introduces into his poems. Antigone, daughter of (Edipus; Deiphile, wife of Tideus; Argia, her sister, wife of Polynices; Ismene, another daughter of Edipus, who is here represented as still lamenting the death of Atys, her betrothed. 112. Hypsipile, who pointed out to Adrastus the fountain of Langia, when his soldiers were perishing with thirst on their march against Thebes. 113. Of the three daughters of Tiresias only Manto is mentioned by Statius in the Thebaid. But Dante places Manto among the Soothsayers, Inf. XX. 55, and not in Limbo. Had he forgotten this? 113, 114. Thetis, the mother of Achilles, and Deidamia, the daughter of Lycomedes. They are among the personages in the Achileid of Statius. 118. Four hours of the day were already passed. 131. Cowley, The Tree of Know ledge: "The sacred tree 'midst the fair orchard grew, That right Porphyrian tree which did true Each leaf did learned notions give The very shade they cast did other lights out- This tree of Temptation, however, is hardly the tree of Knowledge, though 106. Mrs. Browning, Wine of Cy sprung from it, as Dante says of the next, prus: "Our Euripides, the human, With his droppings of warm tears; in Canto XXIV. 117. It is meant only to increase the torment of the starving souls beneath it, by holding its fresh and dewy fruit beyond their reach. |