FOOTNOTES:

Vergine madre, figlia del tuo figlio,

“Virgin Mother, daughter of thy Son.” Setting forth her predestination from eternity to bring the Redeemer into the world, her office of love and hope to Heaven and earth, her infinite excellence and dignity, her power and never-failing love, St. Bernard implores of her grace for Dante to rise to the vision of the Divine Essence now, in ecstatic contemplation, and then for his final perseverance that, on his return to earth, her loving protection may strengthen him against the assaults of passion, until he rejoice once more in the Beatific Vision for all eternity. Human love becomes one with the divine where Beatrice—joined with him now in the union of fruition—is named for the last time in the poem as he draws near to his mystical goal.

In answer to Mary’s intercession, an anticipation is granted to Dante of the vision wherein the last and perfect beatitude of man consists. The supreme experience of the soul, recognised by the great mystics from Plotinus and Augustine to Richard of St. Victor and Bonaventura, is renderedinto unsurpassable poetry with the impassioned conviction that it has been the writer’s own. All ardour of desire dies away. Entering into the Divine light, uniting his intellectual gaze with the Divine Essence, he actualises all potentialities of spiritual vision therein. In the Divine light, he beholds all nature, all Being scattered in leaves throughout the Universe here united by love into one volume; the vision of the First Cause which satisfies the understanding becomes that of the Supreme Goodness which fulfils the will; and this First Cause, this Supreme Goodness, itself remaining unchanged, becomes revealed to the poet’s ever strengthening intuition as the mystery of the Blessed Trinity, in which the Person of the Word took Human Nature.

A l’alta fantasia qui mancò possa;

“Here power failed the lofty phantasy”—the inspired imagination of the prophet; but it left the desire and will assimilated in perfect harmony with the will of God—the Divine will revealed as universal, all-pervading, and all-moving love, “the love that moves the sun and the other stars”:

L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.

FOOTNOTES:[28]“Della insufficienza del titolo è prova ed effetto il pronto e universale accoglimento, che, messo una volta sul frontespizio, trovò l’epitetodivina, che al genericoCommediadiede determinatezza e colore” (P. Rajna,Il titolo del poema dantesco, inStudi danteschi diretti daM. Barbi, vol. iv.).[29]For details of structure and scansion, the reader should consult P. E. Guarnerio,Manuale di versificazione italiana; G. Federzoni,Dei versi e dei metri italiani; F. D’Ovidio,Versificaizone italiana e arte poetica medioevale.[30]Cf.G. Livi,op. cit., pp. 26, 27.[31]Traces of an earlier design have been tentatively found in various places of the first seven cantos, and associated with Boccaccio’s story of Dante having begun the poem before his exile and resumed it after the recovery of his manuscript when the guest of Moroello Malaspina. In Boccaccio’s commentary upon the opening ofInf.viii., Andrea Poggi and Dino Perini are represented as rival claimants for the honor of having recovered the manuscript for Dante.[32]Cf. Conv.ii. 5.[33]Cf. Inf.xxxiii. 79-84 withPhars.viii. 827-830.[34]See Moore’sTime-References.[35]Cf.Sonnets lx. and lxi. ofThe House of Life.[36]See in particular Parodi, “L’Albero dell’Impero,” in hisPoesia e storia nella Divina Commedia.[37]InPurg.xxx. 109-117, Dante thus distinguishes between theovra de le rote magneand thelarghezza di grazie divinein his own case. St. Gregory the Great, speaking of the correspondence of men with the angelic orders, uses the phrase:divinae largitatis munere refecti(Hom. in Evangelia, ii. 34).[38]I venture to retain this reading, although thetesto criticonow gives:E’n la sua volontade.[39]The Vulgate hasvirtutes caelorum, in Matt. xxiv. and Luke xxi., where the English Bible reads “the powers of the heavens.”[40]St. John of Damascus.[41]Note the scansion of the previous line (37):Io che al divino da l’umano. There is no syneresis inïo, no elision of theeinche; thus emphasising Dante’s personal experience, his wonder that it should be vouchsafed to him, and producing the slow movement, the solemn intonation of the line.

[28]“Della insufficienza del titolo è prova ed effetto il pronto e universale accoglimento, che, messo una volta sul frontespizio, trovò l’epitetodivina, che al genericoCommediadiede determinatezza e colore” (P. Rajna,Il titolo del poema dantesco, inStudi danteschi diretti daM. Barbi, vol. iv.).

[29]For details of structure and scansion, the reader should consult P. E. Guarnerio,Manuale di versificazione italiana; G. Federzoni,Dei versi e dei metri italiani; F. D’Ovidio,Versificaizone italiana e arte poetica medioevale.

[30]Cf.G. Livi,op. cit., pp. 26, 27.

[31]Traces of an earlier design have been tentatively found in various places of the first seven cantos, and associated with Boccaccio’s story of Dante having begun the poem before his exile and resumed it after the recovery of his manuscript when the guest of Moroello Malaspina. In Boccaccio’s commentary upon the opening ofInf.viii., Andrea Poggi and Dino Perini are represented as rival claimants for the honor of having recovered the manuscript for Dante.

[32]Cf. Conv.ii. 5.

[33]Cf. Inf.xxxiii. 79-84 withPhars.viii. 827-830.

[34]See Moore’sTime-References.

[35]Cf.Sonnets lx. and lxi. ofThe House of Life.

[36]See in particular Parodi, “L’Albero dell’Impero,” in hisPoesia e storia nella Divina Commedia.

[37]InPurg.xxx. 109-117, Dante thus distinguishes between theovra de le rote magneand thelarghezza di grazie divinein his own case. St. Gregory the Great, speaking of the correspondence of men with the angelic orders, uses the phrase:divinae largitatis munere refecti(Hom. in Evangelia, ii. 34).

[38]I venture to retain this reading, although thetesto criticonow gives:E’n la sua volontade.

[39]The Vulgate hasvirtutes caelorum, in Matt. xxiv. and Luke xxi., where the English Bible reads “the powers of the heavens.”

[40]St. John of Damascus.

[41]Note the scansion of the previous line (37):Io che al divino da l’umano. There is no syneresis inïo, no elision of theeinche; thus emphasising Dante’s personal experience, his wonder that it should be vouchsafed to him, and producing the slow movement, the solemn intonation of the line.

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