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

Page 22 text:

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,

Page 21 text:

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.

Page 23 text:

THE REDWOOD the heaven of heavens, in the region of light — the light of transcendent love. A river of light ' effulgent with flashing splendors ' sparkles before him. Beatrice bids him dip his eyes into the light, and no sooner do his eyelashes touch it, than the stream becomes a vast circle, of greater circumference and brightness than the sun, wherein the combined courts of heaven are revealed. Myriads of blessed souls, white-mantled and golden-winged, are seated in rising tiers, in the form of a great white rose. He sees Beatrice now shining among them; he beholds the Blessed Virgin re- splendent with light; surrounded by thousands of angels; he hears the an- gelic choirs thundering forth the Ave Maria; and lifting his eyes towards the greater vision, he beholds what he neither has power to describe nor the memory to endure. Carlyle declares this poem an ' archi- tectural harmony, ' ' a supernatural world cathedral. ' He says, ' It is, at bot tom, the sincerest of ' all Poems. It came deep out of the author ' s heart of hearts; and it goes deep through long gener- ations, into ours. ' In its idea it is the grandest of all poems; embracing all that is seen by the mind and eye, — to speak with the poet, A sacred poem built with earth and heaven. It is the song of a soul that believes, of a soul that raises itself out of the finite, and which, having cro.ssed the confines of space and time, goes into the eternal splendors of the Deity. He dwelt not on objects, that fall under the percep- tion only of senses, weaving fantastic romances, or lauding the grandeur of the mountain, or the glory of the field. He was too intense to be a mere pas- toral poet, too ethereal to indulge in hero-worship. Being no less a phil- osopher and theologian than poet, he opened to his imagination new fields ex- tending over the broad and deep areas of reason and faith, and caused beauti- ful flowers of poetry never before seen to blossom along his path. Mine eyes did look On beauty such, as I believe in sooth, Not merely to exceed our human; but, That save its maker, none can to the full Enjoy. Dante is a sovereign painter, present- ing whatever he wishes us to see, as real and lifelike, by catching the most luminous point in the scene and bring- ing it out with a few bold strokes. We might say, of his pictures, such is their magnitude and strength, that his canvas is infinite space; his background, the universe; and his strokes, flashes of lightning? Yet so graphic and exact are his descriptions, so particular is he about truth, so conscious of detail as opposed to the deliberately practised obscurity of Milton; that the very measurements of Hell are given, the height of its mountains, and dikes, and the time that elapsed during his pil- grimage; and modern Dantists have computed the measurements of, sur- veyed, and even charted, his visionary universe. Energy and life constitute the singu- lar charm of his style. As he accom- panies his images with concise, robust,