Page:Divine Comedy (Longfellow 1867) v2.djvu/383



THE HERO AS POET.

From Heroes and Hero Worship, by Thomas Carlyle.

Many volumes have been written by There is in it, as foundation of it, the way of commentary on Dante and his softness, tenderness, gentle affection as Book ; yet, on the whole, with no of a child ; but all this is as if con- great result. His biography is, as it gealed into sharp contradiction, into were, irrecoverably lost for us. An abnegation, isolation, proud, hopeless unimportant, wandering, sorrow-strick- pain. A soft, ethereal soul looking out en man, not much note was taken of so stern, implacable, grim-trenchant, him while he lived ; and the most of as from imprisonment of thick-ribbed that has vanished, in the long space ice ! Withal it is a silent pain too, that now intervenes. It is five centu- a silent, scornful one : the lip is curled ries since he ceased writing and living in a kind of godlike disdain of the here. After all commentaries, the Book thing that is eating out his heart, — as itself is mainly what we know of him. if it were withal a mean, insignificant The Book, — and one might add that thing, as if he whom it had power to Portrait commonly attributed to Giot- torture and strangle were greater than to, which, looking on it, you cannot it. The face of one wholly in protest, help inclining to think genuine, who- and life -long, unsurrendering battle, ever did it. To me it is a most against the world. Affection all con- touching face ; perhaps, of all faces verted into indignation ; an implacable that I know, the most so. Lonely indignation ; slow, equable, silent, like there, painted as on vacancy, with the that of a god ! The eye too, it looks simple laurel wound round it ; the out as in a kind of surprise, a kind ot deathless sorrow and pain, the known inquiry. Why the world was of such victory which is also deathless; — sig- a sort ? This is Dante : so he looks, nificant of the whole history of Dante! this "voice often silent centuries," I think it is the mournfulest face that and sings us "his mystic, unfathomable ever was painted from reality; an al- song." together tragic, heart -affecting face. The little that we know of Dante's