------------------------------------------------------------------------ [229] “I have come to that part of the wheel.” _Canz._ xv. [230] Like all mediæval writers, Dante includes the sun and moon among the seven planets. The others do not cast perceptible shadows, except Venus and Jupiter at their brightest. The opening lines of the Ode run thus:— “Io son venuto al punto della rota, Che l’orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca, Ci parturisce il geminato cielo; E la stella d’amor ci sta rimota Per lo raggio lucente, che la ’nforca Sì di traverso, che le si fa velo; E quel pianeta che conforta il gelo Si mostra tutto a noi per lo grand’ arco, Nel qual ciascun de’ sette fa poca ombra.”[231] [231] “I to that point in the great wheel have come, Wherein the horizon, when the sun doth set, Brings forth the twin-starred heaven to our sight; And Love’s fair star away from us doth roam, Through the bright rays obliquely on it met In such wise that they veil its tender light; That planet which makes keen the cold of night Shows himself to us in the circle great, Where each star of the seven casts little shade.” (_Plumptre_). ------------------------------------------------------------------------ It is astonishing that Giuliani should so completely miss the point of the “twinned sky,” that he substitutes “ingemmato” for “geminato,” and reads— “ ... la rota, Ch’ all orizzonte, quando il Sol si corca, Ci parturisce l’ingemmato cielo.”[232] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [232] “The Wheel which, when the sun sets, brings forth for us on the horizon the jewelled sky.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ He understands the hour of evening to be meant, when the Wheel of Day and Night brings a jewelled, _i.e._ starry sky on the horizon as the sun sets. But it is not only on the horizon that stars appear at sunset; and the mention of Gemini to indicate the time of year is thoroughly characteristic of Dante. The Wheel is the revolving year which has carried the sun into Sagittarius. Angelitti remarks that the whole description was literally true for December 1296, since Venus was then in conjunction with the sun, and Saturn in Cancer;[233] and as this poem is a complaint of the hardness of his lady, to whom the poet is nevertheless wholly devoted, it may well have been written in that time when the lady Philosophy refused to smile upon her lover.[234] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [233] _Sulla Data del Viaggio Dantesco_ p. 90, note.