[399] “Which always remains between the sun and the winter.” _Purg._ iv. 81. [400] _Studies in Dante_ iii. p. 166. [401] _Purg._ xxi. 46-48; _Purg._ xix. 38. [402] _Purg._ xxviii. 143. [403] “The land where shadows are lost.” _Purg._ xxx. 89. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Did Dante believe that no land exists anywhere in the southern hemisphere? There are some indications that he thought it possible to push the limits of the habitable earth a little beyond the equatorial boundary of Alfraganus. There would be no heresy in lengthening the southward extremities of Africa or Asia, because all that the Church forbade was to plant another land in the south, separated from us by a vast ocean or impassable torrid zone, and to people it with inhabitants, who could not therefore be descendants of Adam or have the Gospel preached to them. Nor would there be any inconsistency with the poet’s own description of our hemisphere as that covered by “la gran secca,”[404] or with the voyage of Ulysses, on which he saw no land but the Mountain of Purgatory; for he sailed south-west, not due south, and the “mondo senza gente”[405] was “diretro al Sol.”[406] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [404] “The great dry land.” _Inf._ xxxiv. 113. [405] “The unpeopled world.” _Inf._ xxvi. 117. [406] “Behind the sun.” _Ibid._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The indications are as follows:— (1) The passage quoted above, where it is said that the equator “divides the uncovered land from the ocean”[407] is ambiguous in the original, and might mean “divides the land uncovered by Ocean.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [407] _Conv._ III. v. 117, 118. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ (2) Shortly before, he has distinctly admitted that there is some land in the southern hemisphere, by saying that the north celestial pole is visible to _nearly all_ the land not covered by sea, and the south is hidden from _nearly all_ of it. The first is true in any case, since though the pole is theoretically visible as far as the equator, it is often hidden by mist or rising land on the northern horizon; but unless the second “nearly” has been added by a (somewhat natural) mistake of a copyist, it can only apply to lands in the southern hemisphere.[408] ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [408] Refraction makes the pole visible a little before one reaches the equator, but such refinements need not be considered in dealing with a popular work like the _Convivio_. ------------------------------------------------------------------------