When this sublime and touching poem was composed we have no means of knowing, but it can hardly have been long before the end. When that end came, Dante can barely have completed his great life work, he can barely have written the last lines of the 'Divine Comedy.' He had been on an unsuccessful mission in the service of his last protector, Guido da Polenta of Ravenna. On his return he was seized with a fatal illness, and died at Ravenna in 1321, at the age of fifty-six. Who can grudge him his rest? As we read the four tracts of the 'Convito,' which were to have been the first of fourteen, but must now remain alone, as we are brought to a sudden stand at the abrupt termination of his unfinished work on the dialects and poetry of Italy,[29] as we ponder on the unexhausted treasures that still lay in the soul of him who could write as Dante wrote even to the end, we can hardly suppress a sigh to think that our loss purchased his rest so soon. But his great work was done; he had told his vision, that men might go with him to Hell, to Purgatory, and to Heaven, and be saved from all things base. Then his weary head was laid down in peace, and his exile was at an end. 'That fair fold in which, a lamb, he lay'[30] was never opened to him again, but he went home, and the blessings of the pure in heart and strong in love go with him. * * * * * The thoughts with which we turn from the contemplation of Dante's life and work find utterance in the lines of Michael Angelo. 'The works of Dante were unrecognised, and his high purpose, by the ungrateful folk whose blessing rests on all--except the just. Yet would his fate were mine! For his drear exile, with his virtue linked, glad would I change the fairest state on earth.' FOOTNOTES: [Footnote 14: See Symonds, p. 186.] [Footnote 15: See _Inferno_, i. 1-111.] [Footnote 16: _Inferno_, i. 105.] [Footnote 17: _Purgatorio_, vi. 76-126.] [Footnote 18: See especially Epistolæ v-vii.; _Paradiso_, xxx. 133-138.] [Footnote 19: See Epistola xi.] [Footnote 20: _Paradiso_, xvii. 70-93.] [Footnote 21: _Ibid._ xxv. 52-54.] [Footnote 22: _Inferno_, i. 112-129.] [Footnote 23: _Inferno_, i. 121-123, ii. 52-142; _Purgatorio_, xxx. sqq.; _Paradiso_, passim.] [Footnote 24: _Paradiso_, xvii. 103-142.] [Footnote 25: Epistola x.] [Footnote 26: _Quæstio de Aqua et Terra_, § 1.] [Footnote 27: Canzone xvi., 'Le dolci rime,' st. vii. See _Convito_, trat. iv. Translation slightly altered from Lyell.] [Footnote 28: Canzone xix., 'Tre donne.'] [Footnote 29: _De Vulgari Eloquio._] [Footnote 30: _Paradiso_, xxv. 5.] III HELL The first cantica of the 'Divine Comedy'--the Inferno or Hell--is the best known of all Dante's works in prose or verse, in Latin or Italian; and though students of Dante may sometimes regret this fact, yet no one can be at a moment's loss to understand it.