Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v1.djvu/273

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1. In this Canto is described the punishment of Heretics.

Brunetto Latini, Tesoretto, XIII.:—

14. Sir Thomas Browne, Urn Burial, Chap. IV., says : "They may sit in the orchestra and noblest seats of heaven who have held up shaking hands in the fire, and humanly contended for glory. Meanwhile Epicurus lies deep in Dante's hell, wherein we meet with tombs enclosing souls, which denied their immortalities. But whether the virtuous heathen, who lived better than he spake, or, erring in the principles of himself, yet lived above philosophers of more specious maxims, lie so deep as he is placed, at least so low as not to rise against Christians, who, believing or knowing that truth, have lastingly denied it in their practice and conversation,—were a query too sad to insist on."

Also Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, Part II. Sec. 2. Mem. 6. Subs. 1, thus vindicates the memory of Epicurus: "A quiet mind is that voluptas, or summum bonum of Epicurus; non dolere, curis vacare, animo tranquillo esse, not to grieve, but to want cares, and have a quiet soul, is the only pleasure of the world, as Seneca truly recites his opinion, not that of eating and drinking, which injurious Aristotle maliciously puts upon him, and for which he is still mistaken, mala audit et vapulat, slandered without a cause, and lashed by all posterity."

32. was the most valiant and renowned leader of the Ghibellines in Florence. Boccaccio, Comento, says: "He was of the opinion of Epicurus, that the soul dies with the body, and consequently maintained that human happiness consisted in temporal pleasures; but he did not follow these in the way that Epicurus did, that is by making long fasts to have afterwards pleasure in eating dry bread; but was fond of good and delicate viands, and ate them without waiting to be hungry; and for this sin he is damned as a Heretic in this place."

Farinata led the Ghibellines at the famous battle of Monte Aperto in 1260, where the Guelfs were routed, and driven out of Florence. He died in 1264.

46. The ancestors of Dante, and Dante himself, were Guelfs. He did not become a Ghibelline till after his banishment. Boccaccio in his Life of Dante makes the following remarks upon his party spirit. I take the passage as given in Mrs. Bunbury's translation of Balbo's Life and Times of Dante, II. 227.

"He was," says Boccaccio, "a most excellent man, and most resolute in adversity. It was only on one subject that he showed himself, I do not know whether I ought to call it impatient, or spirited,—it was regarding anything