Page:Notes and Queries - Series 11 - Volume 5.djvu/489

 11 S. V. MAY 25, 1912.]

NOTES AND QUERIES.

401

LONDON, SATURDAY, MAY S.l t 1013:

CONTENTS. No. 126.

NOTES : Danteiana, 401 A Runic Calendar, 403 Charles Dickens, 404 Regent's Park Centenary, 405 The Coventry Shakespeares Coffee : Chocolate : First Advertisement Old Lincolnshire Ballad The Cornish Language, 406 Essex : Index of Place-NamesCopying Machines- -Photography as an aid to the Wood Engraver, 407.

'QUERIES : Roman Inscription at Hyeres, 407 Nicolaus Mysticus and Cosmas Atticus Standing on Tables in Courts of Law Yedding Lady Mary Grey : Chowt or Chute, 403 Don Carlos, Son of Philip II. St James's Boat Squire Auty Tavarez or Taffare Legends of Flying' The Shotover Papers ' Thumb-Rings The Vernacular of the Seventeenth Century Sir Henry Vane, 409 Bullock's Museum, Piccadilly, 410.

REPLIES : Children burnt at a Passion Play Authors of Quotations Wanted, 410 French Prisoners of War at Nottingham H.E.LC.S. : Chaplains' Certificates Lucius Jean Paul : Novalis : Jakob Bohme, 411 Jane Austen and the Word " Manor " " In pomario quiddam " St. Laluwy James Yorke, the Lincoln Blacksmith, 412 Arms for Identification Place-NamesPigtails, 413 Rothschild and Baxton ' No Thoroughfare ' " Mizpah "

Black Dogs.

Sibbering Whorlow Signs of Old London Authors or Explanations Wanted I' Anson, 416 Edmund Spenser Antrobus : Woolley Survival of " Atte " County Bibliographies, 417.

NOTES ON BOOKS :-' The Cambridge History of English Literature,' Vol. VIII.

Booksellers' Catalogues. Notices to Correspondents.

Jlofcs.

DANTEIAXA.

1. ' Inf.,' xix. 69, 70 :

Sappi ch' io fu vestito del gran manto. E veramcnte fui figliuol dell' orsa.

These lines supply the key to the position and identity of the individual dealt with between the lines 31-87 of this canto, the and the " figliuol dell' orsa " pointing to Nicholas III., as the " avanzar " and " avere " of the two subs quent lines indicate the class of misdemeanours for which this Pope finds himself in the company of the Simonists of the third bolgia. Dante's motive for consigning Nicholas III. to his '* Inferno ' has been variously interpreted as cruel, political, and ethical. The first imputation is both libellous and false ; the second is only half a truth ; the third is full-orbed veracity. Mr. Payling Wright '.' Dante and the " Divina Commedia," :
 * ' gran manto " disclosing the Papal Office,

p. 57) is advocate for the first. He girds at the ' Inferno ' generally, and, as the lesser is contained in the greater, inferentially at Dante's treatment of Nicholas III.

It was neither Dante's " innate ferocity '' nor his " taking pleasure in suffering for its own sake " that led him to draw his harrowing pictures of posthumous human torments, but rather his innate sense of justice and detestation of wrongdoing. It is an ungenerous calumny to fling even a suspicion of inborn savagery against the author of the lines

. . . .che di pietade I' venni men cosl com' io inorisse ; E caddi, come corpo morto cade. ,

'Inf.,' v. 140-42.

More to the point is it to inquire whether the poet's horror of simony in tin's Pope was alloyed with political bias. Lombardi'.s ' Nuovo Editore ' seems to favour this view ; but on the other hand Villani, the Guelph historian, says :

" Mentre fu giovane cherico e poi cardinalo fu onestissimo e di buona vita, e dicesi, ch' era il suo corpo vergine ; ma poi che f u chiamato papa Xiccola terzo, fu magnanimo, e per Io caldo de suoi consort! imprese molte cose per fargli grandi, e fu de' primi, o il primo papa, nella cui corte s' usasse palese simonia per gli suoi parent! " (vii. 54).

If a Guelph historian admits thus candidly the Pontiff's guilt, a Ghibelline poet may be excused for utilizing it "to point a moral and adorn a tale"; and Dante's motive for so doing was, I believe, more ethical than political, though the latter may possibly have lurked within his subconsciousness. Of the serious indictment of the words (1. 98)

Guarda ben la mal tolta moneta, Villani observes :

" Le parole mal tolta moneta meglio si rifev- iscono alia non dubbia appropriazione delle decime ecclesiastiche."

And Dean Plump tre remarks :

" The words refer to the secret transactions that preceded the massacre of the Sicilian Ves- pers."

It is only fair to record here that Nicholas has left behind him some fragrant memories to his credit. Thus Platina, whilst admitting, i in expressions similar to those used by Villani, his simoniacal delinquencies, says that

" he was a most temperate man and a lover and admirer of learned men, especially of those who had learning mingled with prudence and religion."

2. Ibid., fe2-3 :

Ed ei grido : Se' tu gia costl ritto, Se' tu gia cost! ritto, Bonifazio ?