the precise moment of full moon coincided with the sunrise at the end of the night in question. We have then the following data: the sun is in the equinox, the moon is at the full; and it is the night preceding the anniversary of the crucifixion.

There is no day in the year 1300 which meets all these conditions. We are therefore in the presence of an ideal date, combining all the phenomena which we are accustomed to associate with Easter, but not corresponding to any actual day in the calendar. All discussions as to whether we are to call the day that Dante spent in the attempt to climb the mountain the 25th March or the 8th April (both of which, in the year 1300, were Fridays) are therefore otiose.

The sun is rising, on Friday morning, when Dante begins his attempt to scale the mountain, Inf. i. 37– 40; it is Friday evening when he starts with Virgil on his journey, ii. 1-3; all the stars which were mounting as the poets entered the gate of Hell are descending as they pass from the 4th to the 5th circle, vii. 98, 99; that is to say, it is midnight between Friday and Saturday. As they descend from the 6th to the 7th circle the constellation of Pisces (which at the spring equinox immediately precedes the sun) is on the horizon, xi. 113; that is to say, it is somewhere between 4 and 6 A. M. on the Saturday morning. They are on the centre of the bridge over the 4th bolgia of the 8th circle as the moon sets (Jerusalem time), xx. 124–126. Now according to the rule given by Brunetto Latini, we are to allow fifty-two minutes' retardation for the moon in every twenty-four hours; that is to say, if the moon sets at sunrise one day, she will set fifty-two minutes after sunrise the

From "La materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Alighieri dichiarata in vi tavole. Dal Duca Michelangelo Caetani di Sermoneta."

In

next. If then (see above) we suppose the moon to have been full at the moment of sunrise on Friday morning, we shall have six o'clock on Friday morning and 6.52 on Saturday morning for moonset. This will give us eight minutes to seven as the moment at which the two poets stood on the middle of the bridge over the 4th bolgia. The next eight minutes are crowded; so crowded, indeed, as to constitute a serious difficulty in the system of interpretation here adopted, for the poets are already in conference with the demons on the inner side of bolgia 5 by seven o'clock, xxi. 112– 114 (compared with Conv. iv. 23, 103–107). mitigation of the difficulty, however, it may be noted that the 5th bolgia, like some at least of the others, appears to be very narrow, xxii. 145-150. The moon is under their feet as they stand over the middle of the 9th bolgia, xxix. 10, which, allowing for the further retardation of the moon, will give the time as a little past one o'clock on Saturday afternoon. They have come close to Satan at nightfall, six o'clock on Saturday evening, xxxiv. 68, 69; and they spend an hour and a half first in clambering down Satan's sides, to the dead centre of the universe, then turning round and clambering up again toward the antipodes of Jerusalem.

It is therefore 7.30 in the morning in the hemisphere under which they now are (7.30 in the evening in the hemisphere which they have left), when they begin their ascent of the tunnel that leads from the central regions to the foot of Mount Purgatory, xxxiv. 96. This ascent occupies them till nearly dawn of the next day. The period of this ascent therefore corresponds to the greater part of the night between

Saturday and Sunday and of the day of Easter Sunday by Jerusalem time. By Purgatory time it is day and night, not night and day. It is simplest to regard the period as Easter Sunday and Sunday night;

TABLE I.

Reproduced by kind permission from The Time References in the Divina Commedia, by Rev. Edward Moore, D. D.

but some prefer to regard it as Saturday (over again) and Saturday night.1 It depends on whether we regard the Sunday, or other day, as beginning with sunrise at Purgatory and going all round the world with the sun till he rises in Purgatory again; or as run

1 This is the reckoning reproduced in Table II., p. 258.