Professor Rossetti maintains that the Convito is the philosophical key of the Vita Nuova, which is itself the hieroglyphical key of the Commedia; and further, that these three canzoni, taken in an inverted order, represent the three canticles of Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso*. Certain it is, that Dante, in commenting on the canzoni, treats of all those great topics which distinguish the Commedia as an historical, religious, and philosophical poem, and have established his fame as a sound moralist, a profound theologian, an indignant, severe, unsparing satirist, a true patriot, and a bold political and religious reformer†. Like the Commedia, the Convito is truly a cyclopædia of the natural, moral and political philosophy of the thirteenth century, and might seem intended for a mere display of the * Lo Spirito Antipapale di Dante, pp. 131-339. There is a short eulogium on Dante's peculiar excellence as a theological poet by Ozanam, in his recent learned work, Dante et La Philosophie Catholique au treizième siècle,' par A. F. Ozanam, Paris, 1839, which is so just and original, that we have pleasure in transcribing it: “On a dit qu'Homère était le théologien de l'antiquité païenne, et l'on a représenté Dante à son tour comme l'Homère des temps chrétiens. Cette comparaison qui honore son génie fait tort à sa religion. L'aveugle de Smyrne fut justement accusé d'avoir fait déscendre les dieux trop près de l'homme, et nu au contraire mieux que le Florentin ne sut relever l'homme, et le faire monter vers la Divinité. C'est par là, c'est par la pureté, l'immatérialité de son symbolisme, comme par la largeur infinie de sa conception, qu'il a laissé bien loin au dessous de lui les poëtes anciens et récens, et particulièrement Milton et Klopstock. Si donc on veut établir une de ces comparaisons qui fixent dans la mémoire deux noms associés, pour se rappeler et se définir l'un l'autre, on peut dire, et ce sera le résumé de ce travail; que la Divine Comédie est la Somme littéraire et philosophique du moyen âge; et Dante, le saint Thomas d'Aquin de la poësie.” rich and varied knowledge of the writer; but he assigns various motives as inducing him to compose it. A desire to convince the Italians, by precept and example, of the great excellence of their vernacular language, and to make them sensible to the shame of continuing to despise and neglect it. A sense of duty, which seemed to call upon him to satisfy, as far as he was able, the thirst for knowledge natural to man; by instructing the willing and humble, who have little opportunity of acquiring knowledge, " coloro che non sedevano a quella mensa ove il pane degli angeli si mangia*,” and by imparting freely to such rightly-disposed disciples the mental stores which he was conscious of possessing. A hope to remove the unfavourable impression which attends a sentence of banishment, however unjust, and to raise himself in the estimation of those who depreciated him, from witnessing his abject condition. Lastly, an anxiety to correct a prevailing error which he considered most injurious to his fame, the ascribing to the mere passion of love the greater part of his poems, which, though written under the colouring of that passion, were intended to inculcate only the purest morality. At the same time, he guards against the supposition of his wishing to express any disapprobation of his earlier work, the Vita Nuova, and says that, on the contrary, he means to confirm it and make it better understood: "E se nella presente opera, la quale è Convito nominata, e vo' che sia, più virilmente si trattasse che nella Vita Nuova, non intendo però a quella in parte alcuna derogare, ma maggiormente giovare per questa quella+." Convito, Trat. 1. c. 1. † Ibid. He concludes his prelude to the Convito as follows:-"The Vita Nuova is naturally and properly ardent and impassioned; the Convito temperate and manly; for it is becoming to speak and act differently at different periods of life; certain manners being fit and praiseworthy at one age, which are unseemly and blamable at another. The former work was composed before my entrance into the season of youth*, the latter after that season had passed away. And since my true meaning, in the canzoni alluded to, has been misunderstood, and differs from what they exhibit externally, it is my intention to give their internal and allegorical sense after explaining the literal; so that the two together may be acceptable to the taste of the guests who come to this banquet; all of whom are entreated, if the entertainment should not prove as splendid as this announcement leads them to expect, that they will ascribe every deficiency to my want of power and not to want of will, which cannot be exceeded in love and liberality." He afterwards unfolds the plan of his proposed comment, and says that his poetry, like the Scriptures, should be considered under four points of view,-a literal and allegorical, a moral and an anagogical. The literal sense, he says, is a mantle under which the allegorical is concealed; the allegorical is a truth concealed under a beautiful fiction, ". una verità ascosa sotto una bella Dante divides the ages of man thus :-Puerizia, Boyhood, 1 to 10; Adoloscenza, Adolescence, 10 to 25; Gioventute, Youth, 25 to 45; Senettute, Old-age, 45 to 70; Senio, Decrepitude, 70 to 80.-(Conv. Tr. iv. c. xxiv. taken in connection with the Vita Nuova and the canzone "Ei m'incresce di me," &c.) menzogna*." He exemplifies the literal and allegorical sense by the fable of Ovid, which relates that Orpheus tamed the beasts with his lyre, and made the trees and stones to follow him; meaning, he says, that the wise man, by the instrument of his voice, can tame and civilize the barbarian, and make those obedient to his will who are ignorant both of science and of art, for rightly may such men be compared to stocks and stones. A third sense, he says, is the moral, which every reader should intently consider for his own benefit and that of those whom he instructs. A fourth is the anagogical sense, in which a writing is spiritually understood, and the things signified by the letter signify also things heavenly and of eternal glory; as in that Psalm† of the Prophet, which says, that by the departure of the people of Israel from Egypt, Judah was made holy and free; which is most clearly true in the literal sense, and is not less so when spiritually understood; meaning, that by departure from sin the soul is made holy and free ‡. He adverts again to the four views under which his poem should be studied, in the dedication of the Paradiso, the canticle of the Commedia which is more peculiarly theological, It is worthy of remark, that Dante sometimes makes the letter include and conceal two distinct allegories. Thus, in the opening scene of the Commedia, the three beasts which stop the advancement of the poet, the Panther, the Lion, and the Wolf, represent in a moral sense, Incontinence, Ambition, and Covetousness; and represent in a political sense, Florence, France, and Rome. It is observable too, that Pietro, the son of Dante, in his comment, and the old commentators generally, have not thought proper to disclose this political allegory, which Dionisi and others have shown to be unquestionable. + Psalm 114. Convito, Trat. 2. cap. 1. and uses the same illustration, taken from the beginning of the hundred and fourteenth Psalm: "In exitu Israel." “When Israel came out of Egypt, and the house of Jacob from a strange land, Judah was his sanctuary and Israel his dominion." He gives the interpretation of the verse thus in detail. "If we look to the letter," he says, 66 we see the departure of the children of Israel from Egypt in the time of Moses signified; if we look to the allegory, we see our redemption through Christ signified; if to the moral sense, we see the return of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to a state of grace; if to the anagogical sense, we see the passage of the sanctified soul from the slavery of mortal corruption to the freedom of eternal glory." We will give a single example of Dante's application of this mode of interpreting the poems of the Convito, by taking the first line of the first canzone, "Voi che, intendendo, il terzo ciel movete ;" "Ye who by intellect the third heaven move.” We shall greatly abridge his comment upon it, but give enough for explanation, and to excite some surprise that flowers so fanciful should be seen "Amid the cypress with which Dante crown'd His visionary brow*." In justice to Dante, it may be proper to apprise the reader that the viands at this banquet are not all of a quality so singular and transcendent. To understand the literal sense of this line, we have to in * Wordsworth's Sonnet. |