Page:Readings in European History Vol 1.djvu/558

 522 Readings in European History soft voices. Thus we drew apart, on one side, into a place open, luminous, and high, so that they all could be seen. There opposite upon the green enamel were shown to me the great spirits, whom to have seen I inwardly exalt myself. I saw Electra with many companions, among whom I knew Hector and ^Eneas, Caesar in armor, with his ger- falcon eyes; I saw Camilla and Penthesilea on the other side, and I saw the King Latinus, who was seated with Lavinia, his daughter. I saw that Brutus who drove out Tarquin ; Lucretia, Julia, Marcia, and Cornelia; and alone, apart, I saw the Saladin. When I raised my brow a little more, I saw the Master of those who know, seated amid the philosophic family; all regard him, all do him honor. Here I saw both Socrates and Plato, who before the others stand nearest to him; Democritus, who ascribes the world to chance; Diogenes, Anaxagoras, and Thales, Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Zeno; and I saw the good collector of the qualities, Dioscorides, I mean; and I saw Orpheus, Tully, and Linus, and moral Seneca, Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy, Hippocrates, Avicenna, Galen, and Averroes, who made the great comment. I cannot report of all in full, because the long theme so drives me that many times speech comes short of fact 219. Dante's Dante, however, was a sturdy defender of Italian against Italian 60 those who despised their mother tongue and gave pref- (Fromthe erence to other languages. In explaining why he employed Italian in writing his Banquet (Convito) he bursts forth : To the perpetual shame and abasement of the evil men of Italy who commend the mother tongue of other nations . and depreciate their own, I say that their action proceeds from five abominable causes : the first is blindness of dis- cretion ; the second, mischievous self-justification ; the third, greed of vainglory; the fourth, an invention of envy; the fifth and last, littleness of soul, that is, cowardice. And