Dante: "The Central Man of All the World": A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920Slattery, John T. (John Theodore)
Philosophy
Dante: "The Central Man of All the World": A Course of Lectures Delivered Before the Student Body of the New York State College for Teachers, Albany, 1919, 1920
"O," asked I him, "art thou not Oderisi,
Agobbio's honor and honor of that art
Which is in Paris called illuminating?
'Brother,' said he, 'more laughing are the leaves
Touched by the brush of Franco Bolognese.
All his the honor now, and mine in part,
In sooth I had not been so courteous
While I was living, for the great desire
Of excellence on which my heart was bent.'"
(XI, 79.)
Dante sees here another spirit, Provenzano Salvani. His rapid advance
from Outer Purgatory to Purgatory was due to the merit of a
self-humiliating act performed in favor of a friend. This friend had
been taken prisoner by King Charles of Anjou and was held for ransom of
a thousand florins of gold, the threat being made that if the amount was
not raised within a month he would be put to death. It speaks well for
the tender friendship of Salvani that he put aside all his pride and
arrogance while he took his place in the market square to beg alms with
which to liberate his friend. Dante relates the incident in the
following words; "When he was living in highest glory, in the market
place of Sienna he stationed himself of his own free will and put away
all shame and there to deliver his friend from the pains he was
suffering in Charles' prison, he brought himself to tremble in every
vein" (XI, 133).
As the poets enter the terrace of Envy aerial voices proclaim examples
of Brotherly Love. First are heard the words of the Blessed
Virgin:--"They have no wine," words in favor of those who were in need
at the marriage feast, which led Christ to perform his first miracle.
Then as an example of exposing one's self to death for the sake of
another, the incident is recalled of the pagan Pylades feigning himself
to be Orestes to save the latter from death. The voice saying, "Love
those from whom ye have had evil," is an exhortation to the heroic act
of charity of returning good for evil. In contrast with those counsels
of charity, other voices call out direct warnings against envy.
On this terrace is neither beauty nor art but envy's own color. A livid
hue is the whole landscape. Of this color also are the garments of the
suffering souls. They are depicted one leaning against the other in
mutual love and for mutual support, like beggars sitting at the entrance
of a church to which crowds go for the gaining of an Indulgence.
Pitiable is the scene, for the envious in expiation for their sin,
which entered their soul through its windows, the eyes, are deprived of
sight, their lids being fastened by a wire suture such as is used for
the taming of a hawk. Dante says of them:
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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