Page:Notes and Queries - Series 9 - Volume 2.djvu/32

 NOTES AND QUERIES.

[9 th S. II. JULY 9, '<

were despoiled of hair. To ^Eneas he was only the " canis triceps " and

ingcns janitor antro Sternum latrans, exsangues terreat umbras,

nor was he much more to Dante. But if the loss of his hair redounds to the credit of Hercules, by forming a valuable addition to his list of legendary deeds, no one begrudges him the honour. The Augean stable will not, however, be cleansed by it. Ovid also per- petuates the fable.

3. Ibid., 101 :

E non fe' motto a noi.

Lombard i has a curious note on this which is worth reproducing :

"Non ci disse parola: non a Virgilio, per esser dannato ; non a Dante, perocche esse pure soggetto odioso all' angelo pe' grevi vizi de' quali supponesi reo, e che per quell' andata, o sia meditazione dell' Inferno, intendeva di purgare. Solo perci6 nel Purgatorio incominciano gli angeli a parlar con Dante."

This hardly accounts for the silence (at least to Virgil), inasmuch as the angel if angel it were did speak to lost souls. The "altra cura" of the next line is to me a clearer explanation of the difficulty, if difficulty there be. Scartazzini rightly thinks so too :

" II messo del cielo non fa che eseguire quanto Dio gli ha ordinato, e cio nel dato caso non e che di aprire le porte di Dite. Onde cgli non ha nulla da dire ne a Virgilio, n6 a Dante. 'Non fecit verbum nobis, quia nobis serviverat opere' (Benv.)."

4. Ibid., 115:

Fanno i sepolcri tuttoi 1 loco varo. Many have been puzzled by the " loco varo " of this line. The " di superficie ineguale per la terra qua e la ammucchiata " of Scartazzini explains it sufficiently. It is simply " varo " for vario (as in ' Purg.,' viii. 95, " avversaro " for avversario), the ^ having been knocked out of it to make it scan with "amaro." More important are the references either suggested by the unequal appearance of the place or requisitioned as prototypes. Aries and Pola were, no doubt, familiar to Dante, and their sepulchres seem to have impressed him. The latter was a city of Istria, near the Gulf of Quarnero on the Adriatic, the Sinus Flanaticus of the Romans. As to the Provencal city, Ario.stowas ('Orlando Furioso,' xxxix. 1-2) similarly struck Avith the fact : Che presso ad Arli piena di sepolture e la campagna. "These sepulchres," says Gary, "are men- tioned in the life of Charlemagne which goes under the name of Archbishop Turpin, cap. xxviii. and xxx., and T>y Fazio degli Uberti, Dittamondo, 1. iv. cap. xxi." And Lombard! adds, " Dicelo (Turpino) benedetto

da setta santi Vescovi." Note, however, that Dante strikes an essential difference between the earthly and infernal graves (rest and torment) by

Salvo che il modo v' era piii amaro, &c.

5. Ibid., 127 :

Qul son gli eresiarche Co' lor seguaci, d' ogiri setta, e, molto Piu che non credi, son le tombe carche. The comments of Lombardi and Bianchi on eresiarche are samples of hypercriticism. Says the former, "eresiarche per eresiarchi, antitesi alcuna volta anticamente praticata" : and the latter, " 1 nostri antichi traevano il plurale in e dai nomi mascolini terminati in a al singolare, imitando la prima declinazione latina." But even if philologically the word might merit a little ink spilt over it, it is the root-thought which is of surpassing interest. The statement is as much the product of contemporary history as of the poet's detesta- tion of heresy. Florence was at the time, somewhat like Ephesus at the period of the Apocalyptic message from Patmos, honey- combed with heresies, chiefly by the sect of the Epicureans, which occasioned frequent contentions amongst its citizens, and Dante gratified alike his historical penchant and abhorrence of theological error by consign- ing the heresiarchs to the warm region of the Sixth Circle. Cf. G. Vill., iv. 30, quoted by Scartazzini.

6. Though not connected with the above notes, it will be of interest to supplement them by the following cutting from the Manchester Evening News of 4 Jan., which I leave to speak for itself :

"Mr. Gladstone on Dante. An Irishman the Inspirer of the 'Divine Comedy.' The Rome cor respondent of the Daily Teleriraph writes : ' Wa Dante a plagiarist? Is he indebted to others for the ideas of his ' Divine Comedy,' and to what extent did he pick the minds of his contemporaries and predecessors ? This is the literary problem of the day in Italy, and Mrs. Mulhall, the wife of the well-known statistician, has undertaken to solve it. That lady is now in Rome, making researches at the Vatican Library, and is, it is said, the first lady who has ever gone there for the purposes of study. The theory under examination is this : Did Dante receive his inspiration from the legend of the Irish St. Fursey, which the Venerable Bede had done into Latin and rendered popular throughout Europe? Bede is certainly the only Englishman mentioned in the ' Divine Comedy,' and Mrs. Mul- hall conjectures that Dante was familiar with his works. This view would seem to receive support from Mr. Gladstone's theory that Dante visited England. The eminent British statesman, in accept- ing a copy of Mrs. Mulhall's essay on the subject, writes as follows: "I feel in debt to you for your article. It is, indeed, of great interest, and the

B ~esumptions you raise appear to be important, ante's being acquainted with a remote local saint,