[432] _Purg._ xxviii. 142. Opinions differed as to its exact site, and some placed it in the ocean beyond the eastern limit of the habitable earth. In _V. E._ I. viii. 6-10, Dante says that the root of the human race was planted in eastern lands, but this refers to Adam’s home after the expulsion from Paradise. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ +---------------------------------------------------------+ EARLY <---------------- TIME ----------------------> LATE 12 hours 6hrs. 3hrs. 6hrs. 12 hours ---+----------+-------+----+---------+-----------+-------- Purgatory Gades Italy Jerusalem Ganes Purgatory ---+----------+-------+----+---------+-----------+-------- 180° 90° 45° 0° 90° 180° WEST <--------------- LONGITUDE --------------------> EAST +---------------------------------------------------------+ With this key, Dante’s fondness for describing the time at one place by mentioning one of the others need be no stumbling-block, as it is to many readers. The fact is that though Dante had none of our opportunities for changing time-reckoning by long journeys, nor for communicating with friends at the other side of the world, who wake while we sleep, the marvellous daily revolution of the skies had a fascination for him, and he delighted to picture a glorious sunrise taking place in one country while in another it was high noon, or the middle of the night. Thus, the beautiful description of the stars fading in the growing light of dawn, which we quoted above, is preceded by a picture of the sun glowing on the meridian some 6000 miles away (rather more than a quarter the circumference of the globe), while with us Earth’s shadow has sunk almost to a level plane.[433] Again, Folco of Marseilles, when describing his birthplace, says that the greatest of all the seas (the Mediterranean) except the ocean which encircles all the habitable earth, stretches so far against the sun (i.e. from west to east), that the line of sky which is on its horizon at one end is on its meridian at the other.[434] If the sun were seen just rising on the eastern horizon at Gades, it would be on the meridian at Jerusalem and the time would there be noon. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [433] _Par._ xxx. 1-3. [434] _Par._ ix. 82-87. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Dante’s hours are always reckoned from sunrise, and they are the “temporary” or Church hours. He defines both kinds in the _Convivio_. The same lines of his Ode which provided him with a text whereon to discourse of the sun’s movements, give him occasion to treat of the division of each day into hours, thus:—