Heroes of Modern Europe

								

He hated to receive patronage, and was thankful to set to work on his
incomplete poem of the Inferno, which was sent to him from Florence.
The weariness of exile was forgotten as he wrote the great lines that
were to ring through the centuries and prove what manner of man his
fellow-citizens had cast forth through petty wish for revenge and
jealous hatred.  He had written beautiful poems in his youth, telling
of love and chivalry and fair women.  Now he took the next world for
his theme and the sufferings of those whose bodies have passed from
earth and whose souls await redemption.  "Where I am sailing none has
tracked the sea" were his words, avowing an intention to forsake the
narrower limits of all poets before him.


"In the midway of this our mortal life,
I found one in a gloomy wood, astray
Gone from the path direct; and e'en to tell
It were no easy task, how savage wild
That forest, how robust and rough its growth,
Which to remember only, my dismay
Renews, in bitterness not far from death."
{27}
So the poet descended in imagination to the underworld, which he
pictured reaching in wide circles from a vortex of sin and misery to a
point of godlike ecstasy.  With Vergil as a guide, he passed through
the dark portals with their solemn warning.


"Through me men pass to city of great woe,
Through me men pass to endless misery,
Through me men pass where all the lost ones go."

In 1305 the Inferno was complete, and Dante left it with the monks of
a certain convent while he wandered into a far-distant country.  The
Frate questioned him eagerly, asking why he had chosen to write the
poem in Italian since the vulgar tongue seemed to clothe such a
wonderful theme unbecomingly.  "When I considered the condition of the
present age," the poet replied, "I saw that the songs of the most
illustrious poets were neglected of all, and for this reason
high-minded men who once wrote on such themes now left (oh! pity) the
liberal arts to the crowd.  For this I laid down the pure lyre with
which I was provided and prepared for myself another more adapted to
the understanding of the moderns.  For it is vain to give sucklings
solid food."
Dante fled Italy and again sat on the student's "bundle of straw,"
choosing Paris as his next refuge.  There he discussed learned
questions with the wise men of France, and endured much privation as
well as the pangs of yearning for Florence, his beloved city, which
seemed to forget him.  Hope rose within his breast when the
newly-elected Emperor, Henry of Luxemburg, resolved to invade Italy and
pacify the rebellious spirit of the proud republics.  Orders were given
that Florence should settle her feuds once for all, {28} but the
Florentines angrily refused to acknowledge the imperial authority over
their affairs and, while recalling a certain number of the exiled,
refused to include the name of Dante.
Dante, in his fierce resentment, urged the Emperor to besiege the city