[207] _Par._ xxii. 129 _sqq._ Dante evidently follows the corresponding passage in the _Somnium Scipionis_, or the derivative passage in Book ix. of Lucan’s _Pharsalia_. The manner in which the idea appears in Tundale is not analogous. The doctrine--‘to whomsoever God giveth power to behold Himself, to him is power to see all other creatures likewise’--is precisely that of Dante. See _Paradiso_ ix. 61 _sq_. and cp. viii. 90; ix. 73 _sq._; xi. 19 _sq._, etc. [208] For many specimens of these visions, both of earlier and later dates, see Ozanam, _Dante et la Philosophie catholique au treizième Siècle_; Wright, _St. Patrick’s Purgatory_, 1844; Ancona, _op. cit._ The learned author of the last-named work has recorded several curious and little-known examples, and, in his notes, gives references to many works upon special branches of the subject. [209] ‘Andovvi poi lo Vas d’elezione, Per recarne conforto a quella fede,’ etc. (_Inf._ ii. 28-9). [210] For this extreme tenuity, cp. Al Sirât, the Muslim equivalent of the Chinvât Bridge, narrow as a razor’s edge; also the souls’ bridge of the Inoits of Aleutia, which, as in several mediæval visions, is of the thickness of a single thread. [211] Cp. the fate of the violent in canto xii. of the _Inferno_. The traitors also stand more or less completely congealed in the ice, according to the circumstances of their treachery (_Inf._ xxxii.-xxxiv.). [212] It is possible that this circumstance was suggested by similar travel tales told of the serpents of India, and preserved by the Greek naturalists. However, the idea is one which might well occur spontaneously, as one of the usual Otherworld applications of the _lex talionis_. [213] Cp. the fiery sepulchres in _Inf._ canto xi., wherein, likewise, infidels were immured. [214] Northumbria, it will be remembered, was Christianised by Irish monks, who planted monasteries at Lindisfarne and elsewhere, which long maintained the connection between the two countries. [215] Cp. Plutarch, Vision of Thespesios, _ante_, Sec. 1, where the souls ascended contained in bubbles. [216] In the _Fis Adamnáin_ Paradise is placed in the south-east. [217] Cp. _Inferno_ xii. and xxxii.-xxxiv. [218] _Inf._ xxi.-xxii.; and cp. the Centaurs in _Inf._ xii. 56. [219] _Inf._ xxxii.-xxxiv. [220] _Inf._ ix. [221] _Inf._ v. [222] _Inf._ xxiv.-xxv. [223] _Inf._ xxiii. 111 _sqq._ [224] See a paper by M. Henri Gaidoz in _Revue Celtique_, ii. 482. [225] Signor d’Ancona (_op. cit._, pp. 62-3) doubts whether this work was ever known beyond its birthplace in the Abbey of Monte Cassino, until its discovery less than a century ago, where Dante was not likely to have seen it. In the absence of direct evidence on this point, I leave the passage in the text as it stands, for the reader to form his own conclusions.