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

extreme heat and want of water render uninhabitable, there remains but a very small proportion of the terrestrial sphere for the habitation of men. Enclosed then and locked up as you are, in an unperceivable point of a point, do you think of nothing but of blazing far and wide your name and reputation? What can there be great or pompous in a glory circumscribed in so narrow a circuit?”

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The Heaven of the Fixed Stars continued. The Triumph of Christ. ↩

Milton, Paradise Lost, III 38:⁠—

“As the wakeful bird
Sings darkling, and in shadiest covert hid
Tunes her nocturnal note.”

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Towards the meridian, where the sun seems to move slower than when nearer the horizon. ↩

Didron, Christian Iconography, Millington’s Tr., I 308:⁠—

“The triumph of Christ is, of all subjects, that which has excited the most enthusiasm amongst artists; it is seen in numerous monuments, and is represented both in painting and sculpture, but always with such remarkable modifications as impart to it the character of a new work. The eastern portion of the crypt of the cathedral of Auxerre contains, in the vaulting of that part which corresponds with the sanctuary, a fresco painting, executed about the end of the twelfth century, and representing, in the most simple form imaginable, the triumph of Christ. The background of the picture is intersected by a cross, which, if the transverse branches were a little longer, would be a perfect Greek cross. This cross is adorned with imitations of precious stones, round, oval, and lozenge-shaped, disposed in quincunxes. In the centre is a figure of Christ, on a white horse with a saddle; he holds the bridle in his left hand, and in the right, the hand of power and authority, a black staff, the rod of iron by which he governs the nations. He advances thus, having his head adorned with an azure or bluish nimbus, intersected by a cross gules; his face is turned towards the spectator. In the four compartments formed by the square in which the cross is enclosed are four angels who form the escort of Jesus; they are all on horseback, like their master, and with wings outspread; the right hand of each, which is free, is open and raised, in token of adoring admiration. ‘And I saw heaven opened, and be hold a white horse; and he that sat upon him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he doth judge and make war. His eyes were as a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns; and he had a name written that no man knew but he himself. And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood; and his name is called the Word of God. And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen white and clean.’ Such is the language of the Apocalypse, and this the fresco at Auxerre interprets, although with some slight alterations, which it will be well to observe.”

See also Note 1108. ↩

By the beneficent influences of the stars. ↩

The Moon. Trivia is one of the surnames of Diana, given her because she presided over all the places where three roads met.

Purg. XXXI 106:⁠—

“We here are Nymphs, and in the Heaven are stars.”

Iliad, VIII 550, Anon. Tr.:⁠—

“As when in heaven the beauteous stars appear round the bright moon, when the air is breathless, and all the hills and lofty summits and forests are visible, and in the sky the boundless ether opens, and all the stars are seen, and the shepherd is delighted in his soul.”

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Christ. ↩

The old belief that the stars were fed by the light of the sun. Milton, Paradise Lost, VII 364:⁠—

“Hither as to their fountain other stars
Repairing, in their golden urns draw light.”

And Calderon, El Principe Constants, sonnet in Jor. II:⁠—

“Those glimmerings of light, those scintillations,
That by supernal influences draw
Their nutriment in splendors from the sun.”

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Beatrice speaks. ↩

The Muse of harmony. Skelton, “Elegy on the Earl of Northumberland,” 155:⁠—

“If the hole quere of the musis nyne
In me all onely wer sett and comprisyde,
Enbreathed with the blast of influence dyvyne,
And perfightly as could be thought or devysyde;
To me also allthouche it were promysyde
Of laureat Phebus holy the eloquence,
All were to littill for his magnyficence.”

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Beatrice speaks again. ↩

The Virgin Mary, Rosa Mundi, Rosa Mystica. ↩

The Apostles, by following whom the good way was found. Shirley, “Death’s Final Conquest”:⁠—

“Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom in the dust.”

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The struggle between his eyes and the light. ↩

Christ, who had re-ascended, so that Dante’s eyes, too feeble to bear the light of his presence, could now behold the splendor of this “meadow of flowers.” ↩

The Rose, or the Virgin Mary, to whom Beatrice alludes in line 73. Afterwards he hears the hosts of heaven repeat her name, as described in line 110:⁠—

“And all the other lights
Were making to resound the name of Mary.”

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This greater fire is also the Virgin, greatest of the remaining splendors. ↩

Stella Maris, Stella Matutina, are likewise titles of the Virgin, who surpasses in brightness all other souls in heaven, as she did here on earth. ↩

The Angel Gabriel. ↩

The mystic virtues of the sapphire are thus enumerated by Marbodus in his Lapidarium, King’s Antique Gems, p. 395:⁠—

“By nature with superior honors graced,
As gem of gems above all others placed;
Health to preserve and treachery to disarm,
And guard