CHAPTER XX

DANTE--CERVANTES--SPENSER

Dante, an Italian poet, was born in Florence, in 1265, a long time ago, and lived in what we call the Middle Ages. Italy then was divided into factions who fought with each other most of the time, and people had very uneasy, uncomfortable lives. Once, when Dante was a boy, he saw a girl whose name was Beatrice Portinari. We do not know how often he saw her; possibly even, they scarcely spoke to one another. But he never forgot Beatrice. He studied at more than one university, and had also much to do with fighting. While she was still very young, Beatrice died. She remained always to Dante the loveliest and most lovable person he had ever seen. Dante, however, married and had sons and daughters.

When he was little more than thirty years old, Dante was exiled from Florence, and never returned to his home, but led the life of a wanderer. He had written other poems; in his exile he wrote a very great poem called _The Divine Comedy_, or, in Italian, _Divina Commedia_. The idea of the poem is to give a picture in a vision of the life that comes after this life; and in this way to tell us what is truly important in our present life.

Dante divided his poem into three parts. He called the first part Inferno, the second part {134} Purgatorio, and the third part Paradiso, following the conceptions and beliefs of his own time. The scenery he describes is in reality Italian scenery. In the poem, or vision, he has two guides, the Latin poet Virgil, whose _Æneid_ is one of the great poems of the world; and Beatrice, who shows him the glories of Paradise. Dante thinks of Beatrice now as an angel in heaven, who has grown strong and more lovely, and who teaches and helps him in many ways.

Some day, perhaps, you will visit Italy, and if you have not read the _Divine Comedy_ before that time, you likely will read the poem then for it gives a true, wonderful picture of the mountainous country of Italy. One of the best translations of Dante's great poem is by the Rev. H. F. Cary. It is called _The Vision of Dante_. Here is how Beatrice, his guide, first appeared to Dante when he met her in his vision in the Purgatorio:

I have beheld, ere now, at break of day, The eastern clime all roseate, and the sky Oppos'd, one deep and beautiful serene, And the sun's face so shaded, and with mists Attempered at his rising, that the eye Long while endur'd the sight: thus in a cloud Of flowers, that from those hands angelic rose, And down, within and outside of the car Fell showering, in white veil with olive wreath'd, A virgin in my view appear'd, beneath Green mantle, rob'd in hue of living flame: And o'er my spirit, that in former days Within her presence had abode so long, No shudd'ring terror crept. Mine eyes no more Had knowledge of her; yet there mov'd from her A hidden virtue, at whose touch awak'd, The power of ancient love was strong within me.

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It is possible, perhaps even it is certain, that the first time you read these lines you will not care for them very much. After a while, when you have read them several times, you likely will begin to feel that the words express purity, elevation, and an ethereal beauty which belong only to our highest thoughts and feelings. These are qualities which are characteristic of Dante's writings.

There is one other quotation from the _Divine Comedy_ that you may like to read before we leave Dante's poem. Paradiso, the third part, naturally is the most beautiful. Dante imagines in his vision the blessed spirits in Paradise, singing praises in a great choir. This choir he sees arrayed in many circles, one circle surrounding another circle, like the leaves of a rose. The lines quoted are from the beginning of the thirty-first canto:

In fashion, as a snow-white rose, lay then Before my view the saintly multitude, Which in his own blood Christ espous'd. Meanwhile That other host, that soar aloft to gaze And celebrate his glory, whom they love, Hover'd around; and, like a troop of bees, Amid the vernal sweets alighting now, Now, clustering, where their fragrant labour glows, Flew downward to the mighty flow'r, or rose From the redundant petals, streaming back Unto the steadfast dwelling of their joy. Faces had they of flame, and wings of gold; The rest was whiter than the driven snow. And as they flitted down into the flower, From range to range, fanning their plumy loins, Whisper'd the peace and ardour, which they won From that soft winnowing. Shadow none, the vast {136} Interposition of such numerous flight Cast, from above, upon the flower, or view Obstructed aught. For, through the universe, Wherever merited, celestial light Glides freely, and no obstacle prevents.

No, these lines are not easy to read or to understand. But there is a fascination in reading them, nevertheless. We are able to lay hold of an idea, a picture, a scene, very bright and beautiful, full of light and glory. When you read the lines again, perhaps in a few months, you will find that the picture is clearer, and that the lines will not seem so hard to understand. Most of us like to remember, whether we have read the _Divine Comedy_ or not, that Dante was an Italian poet who lived a long time ago, that he had seen and loved Beatrice in his youth, and that later in his life Dante made a great poem in which he tells of Beatrice, and of life on the other side of death.

Some of you, no doubt, have played, when you felt like it, at being knights errant. You have imagined that you were dressed in armour, and that you were mounted on splendid steeds. Then, of course, as knights errant, you had to carry out successfully some hard task or accomplish some brave deed. Once upon a time, almost exactly in the same years during which Shakespeare was living in England, a Spanish writer called Cervantes wrote a book, _The Delightful History of the Most Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of the Mancha_, which tells how a man of fifty resolved that he would be a knight errant.

By this time, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, it had gone out of fashion to wear armour {137} every day; and Don Quixote had a good deal of trouble to find what he wanted. But he owned part of a helmet, and he made out of pasteboard and strips of iron a contrivance to take the place of the part that was missing. He had a target, or shield, and a lance. Then he must have a steed. He had a horse that was little more than skin and bone. He thought this horse would do, and he called it Rozinante. He wanted a lady to love and serve. There was a young woman who lived in a village not far away whom he did not know very well, but he had to have someone to call the lady of his thoughts, so he decided she would do, and he called her Dulcinea, since he thought that would sound as if she were a princess or great lady. Then after a while, he chose as his squire a labourer who had no horse, but he had an ass, and his name was Sancho Panza. Don Quixote promised Sancho that on their adventures, if he captured an island, he would make Sancho the governor of it; and so they set out on their journeys.

Don Quixote was a very odd man. He often mistook ordinary things for wonderful marvels. He and Sancho had not gone far when they saw thirty or forty windmills in a field. Don Quixote said, Behold, here are thirty or forty monstrous giants. Sancho answered, no, that they were windmills. But Don Quixote set his lance in rest and charged one of the giants or windmills. He struck the windmill. Its arms flew round, and gave Don Quixote and Rozinante a very bad fall.

Another day he said to Sancho that he saw a knight coming to meet them, riding a dapple-grey {138} horse, and wearing a helmet of gold on his head. Sancho thought that he saw a man riding a grey ass with something on his head that shone in the sunlight. The man proved to be the village barber, carrying his barber's basin on his head, and riding a grey ass as Sancho had said. But Don Quixote was certain that he was a knight, and the basin really a magic helmet. So Don Quixote and Rozinante charged at the barber, but he jumped off his ass and ran away.

Many other adventures of this kind befell Don Quixote and Sancho. If they came to an inn, Don Quixote thought it was a castle. Any men they met on the road were knights, or robbers, or under enchantment, and Don Quixote wanted either to fight them or to rescue them. In the beginning of the story, Sancho thought his master was only a very silly person. But as time went by, Sancho saw that he was kind, good, unselfish and brave, although he made so many mistakes, and Sancho came to love his master dearly.

Finally, near the end of the story, Don Quixote thought he saw a lady in distress and meant to rescue her. But the lady was only an image that some men were carrying from one place to another. They laughed at Don Quixote and then they beat him until he was almost dead. Sancho was distracted with grief and made a great lamentation over his master, praising him for all his virtues. Here is part of what Sancho said of Don Quixote:

"O humbler of the proud, and stately to the humbled, undertaker of perils, endurer of affronts, enamoured without cause, imitator of good men, {139} whip of the evil, enemy of the wicked, and, in conclusion, knight-errant than which no greater thing may be said!"

After this, Don Quixote was so bruised and sick that he and Sancho had to go home. And so ended Don Quixote's adventures.

Cervantes' novel was a success as soon as it was published. All the world laughed at Don Quixote, but all the world loved him too. He has never been forgotten, or Sancho either. A very great many people carry about with them in their minds a picture of a tall, lean man, in rusty armour, riding a very thin horse, and carrying a lance. A short, fat man on an ass rides behind him. These are Don Quixote and Sancho. Now we know something of what it means when people say this man or that man has been "tilting at windmills".

An English poet, Edmund Spenser, who lived in Queen Elizabeth's time, wrote a famous poem called _The Faery Queen_ which tells the story of the Red Cross Knight. After a long period of wars and religious troubles, Spenser was the first noted English poet, since the time of Chaucer, to write exquisite verse. He was the forerunner of a greater poet who, as you know, was Shakespeare. We will learn some facts concerning Chaucer's history in another chapter.

People love to read Spenser's _Faery Queen_. The first line of the poem seems to tell how melodious and sweet the whole poem is to be.

"A gentle knight was pricking on the plaine." Spenser was the first to show the music, grace, and inexhaustible riches of the English tongue.

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The Red Cross Knight had been given a hard task. He was to kill a fierce dragon. In the first book of _The Faery Queen_, Canto XI, you will find a description of this dragon. The Red Cross Knight was sworn to defend Una, a beautiful maiden, but he was deceived by enchantments, and Una was left to wander alone in woods and on wastes. Here is Spenser's beautiful description of Una:--

Her angels face, As the great eye of heaven, shyned bright, And made a sunshine in the shadie place;

When Una was wandering alone in a wood, a lion sprang at her out of a thicket. But when the lion saw her, he kissed her feet and licked her hands, and after that he was her defender.

The story ends happily. The dreadful dragon is slain by the Red Cross Knight who finds Una again. But what we love most in _The Faery Queen_ is not so much the story, as the sweet and lovely music of Spenser's wonderful lines, such lines as you will find in Canto IX of the first book, and also in Canto VIII of the second book. The second stanza of Canto VIII, second book, tells of the angels visiting the earth to care for us.

How oft do they their silver bowers leave To come to succour us, that succour want, How oft do they with golden pineons cleave The flitting skyes, like flying pursuivant, Against foule feendes to aide us militant: They for us fight, they watch and dewly ward, And their bright squadrons round about us plant; And all for love, and nothing for reward: O, why should heavenly God to men have such regard?

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You will notice that the spelling of some of the words in the poem is not the same as we use. They are the same words only spelled differently. For Spenser lived nearly four hundred years ago.

Would you like to have the names and dates of some of those who are counted among the greatest writers of the world? Then you may trace for yourselves how the inspiration of genius is found from age to age in different countries.

Homer wrote about nine hundred years before the birth of Christ. Virgil, the Latin poet,--you remember that both Kipling and Macaulay have told us something of the Romans, the great law-givers and road-builders whose language was the Latin language,--lived and wrote from 70 B.C. to 19 B.C. The following names and dates, you will easily understand.

Dante, 1265-1321.

Cervantes, 1547-1616.

Shakespeare, 1564-1616.

Goethe, 1749-1832.

Johann Wolfgang Goethe was a German writer whose most famous works are _Faust_ and _Wilhelm Meister_. He lived at almost the same time as Scott. Several of the writers in the Bible belong to the same rank as those named in this brief list.

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