Dante as Philosopher, Patriot, and Poet: With an Analysis of the Divina Commedia, Its Plot and EpisodesC. Scribner & Company, 1865 - 413 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
angels answered appears battle of Campaldino beam Beatrice beauty behold beneath Bianchi Cacciaguida cause Charles de Valois Charles of Anjou Christian Church circle Corso Donati cried crown Dante death descend Divina Commedia divine doth E'en e'er earth emperor empire eternal evil exclaimed exile eyes father flame Florence Florentine Ghibelins Giano della Bella Guelphs Guido Guido Cavalcanti hand hast hath hear heart heaven Holy human idea Inferno intellectual Italian Italy lady light living lofty look mayst mind moral moved nature ne'er Neri never o'er papacy papal Paradiso party passed philosophic poem poet pope Purgatorio replied rest Rome says seemed shades shalt side sight smile song soon soul spake speak sphere spirit splendor stars sweet symbolic thee thence thine things thou truth turned Ugo Foscolo unto Virgil virtue Vita Nuova voice whence wings words
Popular passages
Page 157 - Through me you pass into the city of woe: Through me you pass into eternal pain: Through me among the people lost for aye. Justice the founder of my fabric moved: To rear me was the task of Power divine, Supremest Wisdom, and primeval Love. 19 Before me things create were none, save things Eternal, and eternal I endure. All hope abandon, ye who enter here.
Page 149 - IN the midway * of this our mortal life, I found me in a gloomy wood, astray Gone from the path direct ; and e'en to tell, It were no easy task, how savage wild That forest, how robust and rough its growth, Which to remember only, my dismay Renews, in bitterness not far from death.
Page 157 - Here sighs, with lamentations and loud moans, Resounded through the air pierced by no star, That e'en I wept at entering. Various tongues, Horrible languages, outcries of woe, Accents of anger, voices deep and hoarse, With hands together smote that swell'd the sounds, Made up a tumult, that for ever whirls Round through that air with solid darkness stain'd, Like to the sand that in the whirlwind flies.
Page 165 - As doves By fond desire invited, on wide wings And firm, to their sweet nest returning home, Cleave the air, wafted by their will along ; Thus issued, from that troop where Dido ranks, They, through the ill air speeding : with such force My cry prevail'd, by strong affection urged.
Page 359 - Let not the people be too swift to judge ; As one who reckons on the blades in field, Or e'er the crop be ripe. For I have seen The thorn frown rudely all the winter long, And after bear the rose upon its top ; 130 And bark, that all her way across the sea Ran straight and speedy, perish at the last E'en in the haven's mouth.
Page 140 - Mountain shakes with joy, and a psalm of praise rises, when one soul has perfected repentance, and got its sin and misery left behind ! I call all this a noble embodiment of a true noble thought. But indeed the Three compartments mutually support one another, are indispensable to one another. The Paradiso, a kind of inarticulate music to me, is the redeeming side of the Inferno ; the Inferno without it were untrue.
Page 150 - And as a man, with difficult short breath, Forespent with toiling, 'scaped from sea to shore, Turns to the perilous wide waste, and stands At gaze...
Page 411 - Of sovran light Thenceforward, what I saw, Was not for words to speak, nor memory's self To stand against such outrage on her skill. As one, who from a dream awaken'd, straight, All he hath seen forgets ; yet still retains Impression of the feeling in his dream...
Page 158 - Forthwith I understood for certain this the tribe Of those ill spirits both to God displeasing And to his foes. These wretches, who ne'er lived, Went on in nakedness, and sorely stung By wasps and hornets, which bedew'd their cheeks With blood, that, mix'd with tears, dropp'd to their feet, And by disgustful worms was gather'd there.
Page 138 - It is as an emblem of the whole genius of Dante. There is a brevity, an abrupt precision in him: Tacitus is not briefer, more condensed; and then in Dante it seems a natural condensation, spontaneous to the man. One smiting word; and then there is silence, nothing more said. His silence is more eloquent than words. It is strange with what a sharp decisive grace he snatches the true likeness of a matter: cuts into the matter as with a pen of fire. Plutus, the blustering giant, collapses at Virgil's...