University of Santa Clara - Redwood Yearbook (Santa Clara, CA)

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THE REDWOOD mountain of Purgatory rises in terraced plains to a Terrestrial Paradise on the summit, whence the entrance to Heaven. The poet is first beset by three wild beasts, and retreats in terror, when he is intercepted by the spirit of Virgil, who promises to guide him through the regions of woe. Thus reassured he fol- lows the Roman to the portal of Hell, over which stands the inscription, Through me is the road to the dolor- ous city, Through me is the road to everlasting sorrows, Through me is the road to the lost peo- ple, Justice was the motive of my exalted ruler! They enter the sightless gulf, con- taining the souls of neither the good or bad. Collecting the multitude on the banks of a stream into his boat, the fiery-eyed Charon ' Beats with his oar whoever lags be- hind: As in the autumn time the leaves fall off, First one and then another, till the branch Unto the earth surrenders all its spoils; In similar wise the evil seed of Adam Throw themselves from that margin one by one. ' The limbo of the unbaptised opens, impenetrable through sooty clouds and mist, and noticing even Virgil pale, Dante asks, Master, if thou art afraid what is to become of me! Pity, not fear, replies his guide, causes me to blanch. Thence they come to a sec- ond gulf narrower than the first, at the entrance of which Minos sits as judge. Here driven before an unceasing wind appear the multitudes brought thither by unrestrained passion, and Francesca di Rimini with her silent companion at her side, tells that touching tale of love and woe, w hich Dante concludes, While thus one spoke, the other spirit mourned, With wail so woeful that at his remorse I felt as though I should have died. I turned Stone-still; and to the ground fell like a corpse. Virgil conducts him by Plutus, guar- dian of the avaricious and sullen; Phlegyas, ferryman over the stagnant water of Arragonce; the city of Dis with its iron towers and battlements, glowing dull-red through the gloom; the ceme- tery of the heretics, laid with red hot tombs to be sealed on the day of Judg- ment; Alexander, Attila and other wield- ers of the sword in a river of blood; the sombre forest of the suicides — each tree, black-boughed, leafless, charred, enclos- ing a self-murderer; the desert of burn- ing sand on which ' Were raining down dilated flakes of fire As of snow on Alps without a wind. ' In a hole of ice Count Ugolino, be- trayer of the Pisans, is discovered de- vouring Ruggieri. He tells the horri- ble tale of his imprisonment along with his children in the Tower of Famine where one by one they famished through lack of food.

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THE REDWOOD THE DIVINA COMEDIA The Divine Comedy is not a comedy in the sense in which we now under- stan d the word. This was a term the ancients used to classify productions whereof the denouement was a happy one, and in which the style was neither the studiously elegant nor the common, but couched rather in a middle tone. Hence the fitness of this unique title; for its final scene was one of happiness, and its story was told in the poet ' s native tongue, the Tuscan, which was considered neither as refined nor as ele- gant as the Latin. It was not, how- ever, called Divine by Dante, but was so styled subsequently by transcribers owing to the sacredness of the theme and the seeming inspiration of the author. The poem presents an unequalled unity of construction. It consists of a hundred cantos each containing from 130 to 140 verses, the Vi bole scheme divided into three sections of thirty- three cantos each. The first canto is a kind of an introduction to the three sec- tions devoted respectively to Hell, Pur- gatory and Paradise. The measure of the poem is the ierza rima, consisting of a triple recurrence of the same rhyme alternated by another series of three. The verses, thus interlinked, are com- posed of eleven syllables, divided into five iambics, the last being an overheat; so that all through the lines have an undertone of vibrant sonorousness. All immortal poetry is the chant of the mystery that everywhere surrounds us, an investigation of the primal ques- tions — What are we? Whither do we tend? Are we sailing into the sunset, to vanish, when night has come, in the sea of oblivion, or is the bark of life straining towards the dawn? This is the question that comes to us all, that is solved only in the light of faith, that presents an enigma to the haughty, re- sulting in atheism. Dante, proud and strong-willed, his heart scalded by the injustice of his countrymen, gazed into the west with its sinking sun; but the light afterwards rose again for him unto another day. Drawn to Rome by the jubilee insti- tuted by Boniface VIII, he was thrilled by the intensity of the faith that brought the whole of Christendom on a pilgrim- age to the Vatican, and thus impressed with the sincerity of the faithful, in the splendor and pomp exhibited he saw something of the splendors of heaven. Chastened as he had been by pain and sorrow, he was now inspired to take up his visionary pilgrimage into the life that lies beyond the visible, with its three kingdoms of punishment, puri- fication and happiness. Having in vision entered the path of death, Dante begins his descent into the infernal regions. These according to him are situated directly beneath Jeru- salem, consisting of gradually narrow- ing circles terminating in the centre of the globe. On the antipodes of this the

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THE REDWOOD I saw my three wee childreu, cuie by one, Between the fifth day and the sixth, all die: I became blind; and in my misery Went groping for them, as I kuelt and crawled About the room; and for three days I called Upon their names, as tho ' they could speak too. Till famine did what grief had failed to do. The final scene that Hell presents is the Titan. Lucifer immersed in a lake of ice in the centre of the earth devour- ing the great betrayers, among them be- ing Judas. Here at the centre of gravity of the globe they become in- verted and pass through the earth, emerging on the other side at the foot of the mount of Purgatory. Carried in sleep to its threshold by Lucia, or Divine Grace, Dante beholds the kingdom of purification where the same sins punished forever in Hell, are pardoned after true repentance. The envious dressed in vile sack-cloth have their eyes sewed in by wire; the angry are wrapped in black mists; the gluttons tormented with visions of sweets they are powerless to obtain. Confronted by a path of fire he dare not proceed fur- ther until, encouraged by Virgil with word of Beatrice ' s presence on the other side, he surmounts the horrors of the flames and emerges in the terres- trial Paradise. Here Virgil takes his leave and Dante wanders forth alone into the fragrance of the celestial forest, ringing with the music of warbling birds and the soft winds swelling through the trees. At the bank of a crystal rivulet a beautiful lady appears culling flowers. She explains to him the name and nature of the stream: it is Lethe, the river of forgetfulness. She wanders along its bank until of a sudden she stops and cries, Behold and listen! and a light of exceeding lustre comes streaming through the woods. On closer inspection Dante sees that it is a chariot, brighter than the sun, sur- rounded by angels, and seated within it, garbed in white and crowned with olive, is Beatrice. She speaks to him, but filled with shame for his frailties he turns his gaze to the ground. Com- manded to lift up his eyes he is so over- come by her beauty that he falls sense- less to the earth. After this meeting he is carried through the Lethe and hav- ing been immersed in the waters of the Eunoe is regenerated and prepared for Paradise. Dante ' s idea of the structure of the universe is taken from Ptolemy of Pelusium, the celebrated astronomer , who supposed the earth to be the centre of the universe and the planets to re- volve around it. The seven planets constitute Dante ' s first seven heavens; the eighth heaven is the region of the fixed stars where the host of Christ triumphant march; the ninth is the crystalline heaven from which all the former receive their motion. Through each of these increasing splendors Dante has been carried upward by Beatrice ' s look, and now he is in the Empyrean,