The Divine Comedy, Dante Alighieri [best thriller novels of all time TXT] 📗

And again in “Tintern Abbey”:⁠—

“That blessed mood,
In which the burden of the mystery,
In which the heavy and the weary weight
Of all this unintelligible world
Is lightened.”

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Paradise, or the system of the heavens, which lives by the divine influences from above, and whose fruit and foliage are eternal. The fifth resting-place or division of this tree is the planet Mars. ↩

Joshua, the leader of the Israelites after the death of Moses, to whom God said, Joshua 1:5:⁠—

“As I was with Moses, so will I be with thee: I will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”

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The great Maccabee was Judas Maccabaeus, who, as is stated in Biblical history, 1 Maccabees 3:3, “gat his people great honor, and put on a breastplate as a giant, and girt his warlike harness about him, and he made battles, protecting the host with his sword. In his acts he was like a lion, and like a lion’s whelp roaring for his prey.” ↩

Aeneid, VII, Davidson’s Tr.:⁠—

“As at times a whip-top whirling under the twisted lash, which boys intent on their sport drive in a large circuit round some empty court, the engine driven about by the scourge is hurried round and round in circling courses; the unpractised throng and beardless band are lost in admiration of the voluble boxwood: they lend their souls to the stroke.”

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The form in which Charlemagne presented himself to the imagination of the Middle Ages may be seen by the following extract from Turpin’s Chronicle, Ch. XX:⁠—

“The Emperor was of a ruddy complexion, with brown hair; of a well made, handsome form, but a stern visage. His height was about eight of his own feet, which were very long. He was of a strong, robust make; his legs and thighs very stout, and his sinews firm. His face was thirteen inches long; his beard a palm; his nose half a palm; his forehead a foot over. His lion-like eyes flashed fire like carbuncles; his eyebrows were half a palm over. When he was angry, it was a terror to look upon him. He required eight spans for his girdle, besides what hung loose. He ate sparingly of bread; but a whole quarter of lamb, two fowls, a goose, or a large portion of pork; a peacock, a crane, or a whole hare. He drank moderately of wine and water. He was so strong, that he could at a single blow cleave asunder an armed soldier on horseback, from the head to the waist, and the horse likewise. He easily vaulted over four horses harnessed together, and could raise an armed man from the ground to his head, as he stood erect upon his hand.”

Orlando, the famous paladin, who died at Roncesvalles; the hero of Pulci’s Morgante Maggiore, Bojardo’s Orlando Innamorato, and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. His sword Durandel is renowned in fiction, and his ivory horn Olivant could be heard eight miles. ↩

“This William,” says Buti, being obliged to say something, “was a great prince, who fought and died for the faith of Christ; I have not been able to find out distinctly who he was.”

The Ottimo says it is William, Count of Orange in Provence; who, after fighting for the faith against the Saracens, “took the cowl, and finished his life holily in the service of God; and he is called Saint William of the Desert.”

He is the same hero, then, that figures in the old romances of the Twelve Peers of France, as Guillaume au Court Nez, or William of the Short Nose, so called from having had his nose cut off by a Saracen in battle. In the monorhythmic romance which bears his name, he is thus represented:⁠—

“Great was the court in the hall of Loön,
The tables were full of fowl and venison,
On flesh and fish they feasted every one;
But Guillaume of these viands tasted none,
Brown crusts ate he, and water drank alone.
When had feasted every noble baron,
The cloths were removed by squire and scullion.
Count Guillaume then with the king did thus reason:
‘What thinketh now,’ quoth he, ‘the gallant Charlon?
Will he aid me against the prowess of Mahon?’
Quoth Loéis, ‘We will take counsel thereon,
To-morrow in the morning shalt thou conne,
If aught by us in this matter can be done.’
Guillaume heard this⁠—black was he as carbon,
He louted low, and seized a baton,
And said to the king, ‘Of your fief will I none,
I will not keep so much as a spur’s iron;
Your friend and vassal I cease to be anon;
But come you shall, whether you will or non.’ ”

He is said to have been taken prisoner and carried to Africa by the Moorish King Tobaldo, whose wife Arabella he first converted to Christianity, and then eloped with.

And who was Renouard? He was a young Moor, who was taken prisoner and brought up at the court of Saint Louis with the king’s daughter Alice, whom, after achieving unheard of wonders in battle and siege, he, being duly baptized, married. Later in life he also became a monk, and frightened the brotherhood by his greediness, and by going to sleep when he should have gone to mass. So say the old romances. ↩

Godfrey of Bouillon, Duke of Lorraine, and leader of the First Crusade. He was born in 1061, and died, king of Jerusalem, in 1109. Gibbon thus sketches his character, Decline and Fall, Ch. LVIII:⁠—

“The first rank both in war and council is justly due to Godfrey of Bouillon; and happy would it have been for the Crusaders, if they had trusted themselves to the sole conduct of that accomplished hero, a worthy representative of Charlemagne, from whom he was descended in the female line. His father was of the noble